I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them. I hope that the Spirit is moving in others through these posts as the Spirit has definitely been convicting me.

     Zechariah prophesies that the day will come when the nations of the world will come against Jerusalem and God will watch over the city and defeat those who come against it. He says that the clans of Judah will overwhelm the surrounding nations. God will pour out His Spirit on the people of Jerusalem. This will cause them to look to Christ (the one whom they have pierced) and mourn what they have done. When that happens God will cleanse the people of all sin and impurity. God will remove all idol worship and false prophets from the land. God will bring His people through fire to refine them like silver and gold.
     I believe that this passage has two meanings. The first is a reference to acts that God is going to carry out (has carried out?) among the Jewish people, although I am not quite sure how or when. The second however applies to all of those who are called by His name. We will pass through troubles and persecutions so that God may purify us in the same way that silver and gold are heated to remove impurities. We should embrace our trials as they represent God’s love for us and attempts to remove things from our lives that make us less than perfect servants to Him. I am not very good at embracing these purifying moments.

     After the vision of the woman whose name is Babylon and the scarlet beast, the writer hears a great crowd in heaven praising God for His judgments and for punishing the “great prostitute” which was the woman whose name is Babylon. Then again he hears a great crowd (or what sounds like a great crowd) cry out praise to God, who reigns over all. The crowd proclaims that the time has come for the wedding feast of the Lamb and his bride, who has prepared herself with the good deeds of God’s holy people. Elsewhere in scripture the bride is identified as the Church.
     Continuing on the writer sees heaven open to reveal a rider on a white horse. The rider is named Faithful and True. He judges fairly and wages a righteous war. The armies of heaven dressed in pure white linen and mounted on white horses followed Him. The rider is the Word of God. He has a sword coming out of His mouth with which He will strike the nations. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of all Lords. The scarlet beast gathered the kings of the world and their armies to do battle against the Rider and His army. The beast and his prophet were captured by the Rider and thrown into the lake of sulphur. The beast’s entire army was killed by the sharp sword that came out of the Rider’s mouth.
     There are many metaphors and symbols in this passage and I am sure that there is more meaning than I am capable of extracting. The first thing I see is that the Rider is clearly Jesus on His second coming to judge the earth. I see the sharp sword coming out of His mouth to be a symbol for how His words will strike down those who stand against Him. It is a symbol for how God’s power is different than what we as humans understand as power and yet we are unable to stand against it. All of the mightiest armies of the earth will be slain by this power. The other symbol which speaks to me today is the army that follows the Rider. The army is dressed in pure white linen. In the segment just before this where the crowd proclaimed the wedding feast of the Lamb, pure white linen was referenced as being the good deeds of God’s people. Our good deeds do not save us, rather they provide adornment. But not adornment for us, they provide adornment for the bride of the Lamb and for the army of the Rider. We are to do good deeds, not to make ourselves look good, but to make the bride of Christ look good. Our goal in making the Church look good is because that reflects well on Christ, not so that people look at the Church. There is one final piece to this for me today. The army of the Rider does not assist Him in defeating the armies of the beast. They are merely witnesses to it.

     I will sing praise to the Lord. The psalmist tells us that He heals the brokenhearted and numbers the stars. He is great and mighty in power, yet He cares for those who are hurting. His power is absolute and He supports the humble. God does not take pleasure in our strength and might. The psalmist tells us that God is delighted by those who fear Him and put their trust in Him. It is all too easy to look at only one side of this equation.
      On the one side, God is delighted by those who fear Him. We see fear as a negative emotion and it may be, but fear serves a positive purpose. I occasionally talk about a time when I started to overcome my fear of heights. I decided that I wanted to be able to show myself as fearless. Shortly after that I was in a situation where I was doing some work at a great height. As I worked I reached out to do something and almost slipped and fell. I realized that in my efforts to overcome my fear, I had lost some of my caution. Fear can serve a useful purpose. I stopped attempting to further overcome my fear of heights because my fear of heights is a legitimate fear that causes me to take precautions against falling. Fear of God will cause us to be cautious and look to see if we are doing something to bring God’s anger against us.
     However, fear can also cause us to freeze when we should act, which brings us to the other side of the equation for pleasing God. God is delighted not in those who fear Him alone, but in those who both fear Him and trust Him. If we trust God, we know that He will catch us when we fall. We will know that we do not have to rely on our own strength, which our fear will tell us is totally insufficient to the task of doing God’s will. So, here we have the equation, we fear God, knowing that we have not the strength to do what pleases Him, but we trust God knowing that if we rely on Him, He will provide the strength to do what pleases Him, if we only try.

     Those in positions of power should not get drunk because it may cause them to show unjust favoritism. I will strive to not let my judgment be clouded, so that I may make wise, fair decisions for those who rely on me.