Excerpt From Newsletter
Thus says the Lord my God, “Pasture the flock {doomed} to slaughter. Those who buy them slay them and go unpunished, and {each of} those who sell them says, ‘Blessed be the Lord, for I have become rich!’ And their own shepherds have no pity on them. For I shall no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the land,” declares the Lord; “but behold, I shall cause the men to fall, each into another’s power and into the power of his king; and they will strike the land, and I shall not deliver {them} from their power.” So I pastured the flock {doomed} to slaughter, hence the afflicted of the flock. And I took for myself two staffs: the one I called Favor, and the other I called Union; so I pastured the flock. Then I annihilated the three shepherds in one month, for my soul was impatient with them, and their soul also was weary of me. Then I said, “I will not pasture you. What is to die, let it die, and what is to be annihilated, let it be annihilated; and let those who are left eat one another’s flesh.” And I took my staff, Favor, and cut it in pieces, to break my covenant which I had made with all the peoples. So it was broken on that day, and thus the afflicted of the flock who were watching me realized that it was the word of the Lord. And I said to them, “If it is good in your sight, give {me} my wages; but if not, never mind!” So they weighed out thirty {shekels} of silver as my wages. Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter, {that} magnificent price at which I was valued by them.” So I took the thirty {shekels} of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the Lord. Then I cut my second staff, Union, in pieces, to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
(Zechariah 11:4–14)
Without telling you what Zechariah has said in that passage or explaining why he said it, I will tell you he is talking about “The Way” God views what happened when the betrayal of Jesus Christ by Judas resulted in His Crucifixion. God’s “Favor” and “Union” with “The House” of Israel—Jesus Christ—were broken. That’s when the fate of Christ was sealed. But to fully understand what those two staffs signify, you need to know a whole lot more about the parabolic imagery related to the message of “The House” than I have explained to this point. For now, there is only one thing you need to note about the passage above: At the command of the Lord, Zechariah conducted a parabolic pantomime of events that occurred some five hundred years after his day.
“They Got God at a Fire Sale Price (and a Whole Lot More Than They Bargained For)—Part I,” The Voice of Elijah®, April 1999, pp. 2–3
Newsletter Details
Contribution of | $6.00 |
---|---|
Pages | 20 |
Author | Larry Dee Harper |
Language | English |
The Truth is Available
Check Out the Online Library
Browse through our library of booklets and newsletters—absolutely free!
Start Reading Now