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Zechariah 3 Zec 3:1 And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. 2 And the LORD said unto Satan, The LORD rebuke thee, O Satan; even the LORD that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? Here is a picture of the work of Satan. He wants to hinder any work of God. For some reason Satan did not want the nation of Israel restored and did not want Jerusalem to prosper and be rebuilt. The Messiah was to come through Israel and Satan tries to stop it. He tries to hinder any genuine work of the Lord. We can see as we study history that something always has hated Israel and the Jews. They have been a scattered-hated nation and a people heavily persecuted. Someday this will end. They will rule the world under Jesus Christ. Zec 3:3 Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel. 4 And he answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment. This Joshua existed in the days of the restoration of Jerusalem. His garments were not fit to be a priest so the garments were changed. Perhaps the old filthy clothing represent the old nature and sin. This Joshua was the spiritual leader in that day over Judah. His garment was changed and his iniquity taken away. This seems to be similar to what takes place when one receives salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. The whole iniquity of Judah will one day be taken away through faith in Jesus Christ. According to some bible scholars, the Jews will repent for three days and mourn and their iniquity shall be cleansed at the Second coming of Christ. Zec 3:5 And I said, Let them set a fair mitre upon his head. So they set a fair mitre upon his head, and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the LORD stood by. 6 And the angel of the LORD protested unto Joshua, saying, 7 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; If thou wilt walk in my ways, and if thou wilt keep my charge, then thou shalt also judge my house, and shalt also keep my courts, and I will give thee places to walk among these that stand by. Israel could have had everything long before this present time if only they had served the Lord from the beginning instead of rejecting the Messiah and rebelling against God by forsaking the Him many times. Satan would not have been allowed to persecute them and scatter them all over the world if they had been obedient to God in the first place. Through their disobedience though the gospel of salvation was preached to the Gentiles. Some, not all, of our own troubles are caused by our disobedience too. If we would spend more time seeking God and seeking God's will in our lives, we would get into less trouble. If we walk in His ways and seek His paths, we will judge the world along with Him. A good comparison is the way we eat. If we eat fatty junk food all the time with very little exercise, our body will suffer. It is not that God wants us to be unhealthy and fat and is punishing us for some reason, it is because we do not eat right and exercise all that fat off. We get sick in this case because we did not watch our diet. We are what We eat. This happens in the spiritual realm too. If we sow to righteousness we will reap the same. If we sow discord, discontent, murmuring and complaining, we will reap those kind of things. If we neglect to pray and seek God and daily consume the Word of God, we will be very weak spiritually. We are what We eat in the spiritual realm too. Some trials come through no fault of our own though and will pass as we seek the Lord in faith and patience but some things do come as a result of our own disobedience and spiritual laziness. Zec 3:8 Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou, and thy fellows that sit before thee: for they are men wondered at: for, behold, I will bring forth my servant the BRANCH. 9 For behold the stone that I have laid before Joshua; upon one stone shall be seven eyes: behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. 10 In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbour under the vine and under the fig tree. Here we see a reference to Jesus Christ as the BRANCH. This branch was to take away sin and restore the nation of Israel. The first coming of Jesus Christ was to make a sacrifice and offering for sin. He had to do this in order to bring salvation to a lost and dying world. At His Second Coming the evil in the world will be destroyed and Christ will rule in Jerusalem. The complete restoration of Israel will take place in full then and only then. Israel is partly in their own land after 1948 but there is constant war and fighting. The United States and the United Nations continually pressure Israel to give up more of their land. God will eventually judge the nations that are doing this and restore all to Israel that was promised to Abraham. The completion of the work of Christ will be at the Second Coming. Israel of course are not innocent in all their ways. I don't defend Israel when they do wrong or when they continue to reject Jesus Christ. However, that does not give us the right to take away anything God has promised to them. If one fully studies the scriptures, they will see that Israel will discover the true Messiah and will repent of sin. The church has never replaced Israel and the church is not the Israel spoken of in the Old Testament. The promises to Israel are to Israel. The church inherits the kingdom of God and the promises of Abraham if we come through Jesus Christ and obey the word of God. We never replace Israel but inherit their blessings only through faith in Christ. We must never boast and assume that we replace Israel. This has been the biggest mistake the church throughout the ages has done. Because Israel ceased to exist as a nation, the church assumed that God was finished with them and where God mentions Israel, the church assumed that the new Israel was the church. After 1948 there is no excuse for any church to assume anything other than what the bible says. Take the bible literally except where it is clear that a symbolic meaning is meant.
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