When Jesus rules over this earth, His reign will be universal. The entire earth will be under His authority. Many Bible scholar refer to this reign as the millennium reign, the thousand-year reign of Jesus on this earth. Here is the curious question: will Israel’s rejection of their King last forever?
If you claim to be fasting and praying and you are very good in being bitter towards your fellow human beings, perverting justice, keeping malice, planning on how to harm one another, engaging in all forms of immorality, oppressing the widows, orphans and even foreigners living among you, then your fasting and prayer are mere exercises and are definitely in vain.
He was instructed to make an elaborate crown and set it on the head of Joshua, the high priest.
This sounds odd as it is odd to crown a priest as king and vice versa.
As a matter of fact, the king that tried to function as a priest in the bible was stricken with leprosy according to 2 Chronicles 26. This happened because fundamentally speaking, there was a clear dichotomy between the responsibilities of a king (political) and a priest (spiritual) in the land of Israel.
In fact, it would have made more sense humanly speaking if it were to be Zerubbabel (the governor) who was nominated to be crowned the king instead of Joshua the high priest.
However, looking at that statement figuratively…
Again, this represents the purging of the land from possible contamination they got while in captivity. It’s like pressing a reset button to format the people back to their original identity before their exile experience.
“You will succeed, not by military might or by your own strength, but by my spirit. 7Obstacles as great as mountains will disappear before you. You will rebuild the Temple, and as you put the last stone in place, the people will shout, ‘Beautiful, beautiful!’”
Around 538 B.C. it was Cyrus, the King of Persia that issued a decree which allowed the exiled Jews to return to Jerusalem after 70 years in captivity (Remember Isaiah already prophesied about this more than 100 years before Cyrus was born) Read Isaiah 44:28 and 45:1-end. Two years later (536 BC), they began the rebuilding of the temple, which was led by Zerubbabel. Two years into the construction work (around 534 BC), the work stopped and was neglected for about fourteen years.
Again, it is a time of the year where it is impossible to forget the very popular festive season called Christmas. We have been seeing a lot of ads on the TVs, in the shops, on the radio and we read about it in magazines and newspapers, but the question is: what is Christmas all about?
Yes, our God is a merciful God, generous and caring, but then, whenever He warns us of evil, we must not ignore His warnings so as not to face terrible consequences. To register these warnings in the heart of the people, that was why the prophet repeatedly mentioned the Day of the Lord and all the things that would happen on that day.
Temitope Owokole:Greetings to you all greatly beloved of God and welcome to another episode of our study of the Scriptures. We bless the name of the Lord God for His many blessings over us. Praise be to God! In our today’s episode 618, we shall be concluding Chapter 4 of the book of Jonah titled: Ministry 101: … [Read more…]
Greetings to you all greatly beloved of God and welcome to another episode of our study of the Scriptures. We bless the name of the Lord God for His many blessings over us. Praise be to God! Happy Sunday to you all. In our today’s episode 616, we shall be examining the theme for our … [Read more…]