Zechariah 14:9-11 - The Lord will be king over all the earth

14:9

“And the Lord shall be king over all the world”. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done! The Lord’s plan and purpose is for His will to be done upon the earth. This should fill us with immense confidence, along with reverence for the Lord. Nor should we fear when it seems that men are succeeding in their ways, for their kingdoms will not last for long, only the kingdom of God increases without end.

14:10,11

This imagery speaks of Jerusalem being raised up above all the surrounding territory, which shall be a flat plain. Jerusalem would be dominant. There are three consequences of this. Jerusalem shall be inhabited, remember it was desolate after the Babylonian invasion, and would be again after AD70. There would no longer be a decree of destruction against it. Remember that destruction cale upon Jerusalem because of the Lord’s judgement upon it. Finally, the people would dwell in safety.

Galatians 5:7,8 - Who hindered you from obeying the truth?

5:7

The Galatians had started well, but, as all of the Bible makes clear, perseverance is essential. The Old Testament is full of examples of people who started well but finished badly. This is particularly the case in 1 and 2 Kings. There were a lot of bad kings, but several who did well for a time, then they failed at the end, eg Hezekiah, Azariah. In the New Testament we are encouraged to persevere, and in Christ and through the Spirit this is possible. However, the Galatians were now in danger of falling away. A false teaching had arrived and this was keeping them from the truth.

False teachings do not just tell us wrong things, they blind us to the truth as well.

5:8

There is such a tendency today to count all views as having some merit to them, or even having equal merit. They do not. Some views are utterly destructive, that is the clear Biblical teaching. A key question is where does the teaching come from. Teaching that blinds us to the truth, or teaching that contradicts the Bible does not come from God and we need to recognise this.

Zechariah 14:5-8 - You shall flee to the valley

14:5

The valley would provide an escape route. No one knows where Azal is. Amos 1.1 refers to an earthquake in the days of Uzziah. So things will look very bad, but at that point the Lord “and all the holy ones with Him” will come to the rescue. The “holy ones” could either be angels, or God’s people.

14:6,7

These verses talk of a unique day. There are various allusions to the very end of times. For instance “a day known only to the Lord” reminds us of Jesus’ words in Matt 24:36. The cosmic signs do so as well. The light will come only from the Lord. In truth it is the Lord who provides the light now. The only reason the Sun shines is because God makes it so.

14:8

“Living waters” refers to flowing water, remember that Ezekiel 47 had a vision of water flowing from the temple. God’s plan has always been that living water flows from His temple to the world. The western and eastern seas are the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. There would be a constant flow. As the church we need to recognise that the water of life is meant to flow out from us to the world. Remember also Jesus’ words in John 7:37-39. In order to be the conduit for living waters we need to drink from Jesus. We cannot be a source of living water if we follow the world’s ways.

Galatians 5:5,6 - Faith working through love

5:5

Righteousness can be viewed in two ways. One is our legal standing before God, and we are justified now. It can also be looked at in terms of our moral standing. Now none of us meets God’s standards in our own right, though hopefully we are making progress! If we truly belong to Christ we will long to be righteous, we will long for every aspect of our being to be in tune with God. Now the Galatians were, like all Christians, no doubt keenly aware of their imperfections, that there was still sin in their lives. This is one of the reasons why the arguments of the Judaisers would seem attractive, for it offered a way of supposedly being “more righteous” now. Paul has spent a couple chapters explaining why this is a forlorn hope. So what are we to do instead? “Through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith”. This is not a passive waiting, but a waiting that is relying on the Holy Spirit, and is by faith.

5:6

We get more of the “active waiting” at the end of this verse. Paul has been telling them that circumcision will not help them, indeed it renders Christ of no value to them. He now makes clear that uncircumcision is of no value either. Ie in terms of being pleasing to God it is totally irrelevant whether or not a man is circumcised. This is why it was fine for Jews to be circumcised, and why in Acts 16:3 we read that Paul had Timothy circumcised. The problem only arose if someone started relying on circumcision in order to be acceptable to God. What does matter in our lives now is “faith expressing itself through love”. When Paul talks about faith and waiting he is not talking about being passive. Faith is not a mere intellectual assent to a doctrine, but a living and active thing that expresses itself through love. And we will see in the following verses that theology matters, what we believe will affect how we live.

One hell of a rant!

In the Mark 9:42-28 Jesus speaks about hell, quoting from Isaiah 66:24. Now I am going to go on a bit of rant, because there is a debate that really annoys me for its utter stupidity and pointlessness. That debate is about the nature of hell and whether there is eternal conscious torment, or conditional immortality (or annihilationism). What an absolute waste of time! Let’s look at some facts. First neither you nor I have any idea what the actual precise nature of hell will be, so when someone opines to talk about the nature of hell we can be absolutely sure that they have no idea at all what they are talking about. So let’s look at Jesus’ approach to hell, or the Bible’s approach to hell. First, Jesus’ prime aim in His teaching about hell was to give the very clear message that we should do everything possible to avoid going there! Secondly, hell is absolutely the worst possible thing that can happen to a person. So if imagining being burned alive for eternity helps someone appreciate the nature of hell, that is a far more accurate, and useful, impression of what hell will be like than any talk of “conditional immortality” or “annihilationism”. Those who do talk about annihilationism so often seem to be saying “hell, not as half as bad as you think it is”. What rubbish! Moreover, have you any idea what it will be like to be annihilated? No, none whatsoever.

Finally, one point about hell that is so often missed in all the silly debates. The Biblical emphasis is on God’s judgement on our sin. Our time would be far better spent being concerned about our sin and sinfulness, and so running to the cross, than wasting time on these pointless debates. The worst thing of all is that we may be misleading sinners about hell, and causing more people to end up there! And then we had better look at Mark 9:42.

Zechariah 14:1-4 - I will gather all the nations

14:1,2

In some senses it seems a pity that the chapter division is here. It was probably put there because of the opening phrase “Behold, the day of the Lord is coming”, which is the sort of phrase that often denotes a new “chapter”. However, this chapter is a continuation of the theme of the previous one. Nations will be gathered against Israel, and it will not be pleasant. The city will be taken, and all that goes with that. But the remnant would remain.

14:3,4

After the apparent defeat, the Lord would go into battle against the nations. So why do things have to happen this way? Why the initial onslaught? The Lord would stand on the Mount of Olives. This is the only mention of the Mount of Olives in the Old Testament. I really don’t know what the significance of the mountain moving north and south means, and I have to say the commentaries I have looked at are not particularly helpful either. Acts 1:11,12 may be referring to this promise.

Galatians 5:3,4 - You are severed from Christ

5:3

Circumcision is only one aspect of the Law, one commandment of the Law, but if someone relied on circumcision for even the tiniest bit of righteousness they were obliged to obey all the Law. We either rely completely on Christ or not at all, there is no halfway house. Paul says “let himself be circumcised” because he is addressing Gentiles. A Jew would already be circumcised, and it was OK for a Jew to be circumcised for cultural reasons. But a Gentile would be getting circumcised in order to obey the Law, in order to be more acceptable to God.

5:4

Trying to be justified by the Law means alienation from Christ. See how starkly Paul portrays the divide, it is not a matter of a small difference of opinion. Notice also how "severed from Christ" relates to circumcision! This shows how vital it is that we rely purely on Christ, how terrible to be separated from Christ. Then Paul repeats the point, we will have fallen from grace. We tend to think of “fall from grace” as meaning to have committed some terrible sin, but here it is referring to people who were trying to please God! They were just going about it in the wrong way. To be in grace means to be depending completely upon Christ for our righteousness.