UNBLOCKING THE WELL OF THE LIVING WORD

DAY 18 MORNING  Read Matthew 21:1-17

ZECHARIAH: CHRIST WILL COME AS A MAN HUMBLY SITTING ON A DONKEY AND HE WILL BE KING OVER ALL THE EARTH

Zechariah[1] “foretold Jesus Christ more than any other prophet except Isaiah. Christ ‘the branch’ Zechariah 3:8 Christ ‘my servant’ Zechariah 3:8. ‘Christ enters Jerusalem on a colt’ Zechariah 9:9 ‘Christ the Good shepherd’ Zechariah 9:16, 11:11 ‘Christ the stricken shepherd’ Zechariah 13:7 ‘Christ betrayed for 30 pieces of silver’ Zechariah 11:12-13.  ‘Christ’s hands pierced’ Zechariah 12:10 ‘Christ’s people saved’ Zechariah 12:10, 13:1 ‘Christ wounded at the house of his friends’ Zechariah 13:6 ‘Christ coming on the Mount of Olives’ Zechariah 14:3-8 ‘Christ the king.’ Zechariah 14:9 the coming of Christ, the messiah and  his rule and reign declared that it will be from Jerusalem. God said to Zechariah ² “I am zealous for Zion with great zeal …³I will return to Zion, and dwell in the midst.. (Zechariah  8:2-3).” A significant focus  of the book of Zechariah is  the city which God had picked, from which he has chosen that he will  rule and reign. He has determined where his throne would be and  put the nations around it. In Matthew 19:28 Jesus says “Truly I say to you in the new world, when the Son of man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Whether the “throne of glory” is in physical Jerusalem or a spiritual Jerusalem is not clear. Through eight colourful visions Zechariah received God reveals that He is compassionate for Jerusalem and would give them a hope for a future messiah and to give them hope for a messiah. The messiah will come in peace on the donkey (9:9). The Lord will appear like lightning and he will be a protector of His people. The Lord will pour out compassion on the house of David and they will look at the one who they have pierced and mourn for him as a firstborn son. A time will then come when all nations will gather against Jerusalem. Finally the messiah will be king over all the earth. Some of Zechariah’s prophesies were fulfilled in Jesus’ coming as a man humbly on a donkey, but others have not yet been fulfilled and will be, in his second coming. The book of Zechariah inspires a longing for Jesus to come to rule and reign on earth as it is heaven …and that day will come.

MISSIONARY MONKS: BONIFACE 680-754[2]

Boniface became a monk and was trained in Benedictine monasteries. In 716 he left from England on a missionary expedition to Frisia, (The Netherlands) and for a year he helped Willibrord. He was later set apart, after a visit to Rome, by Pope Gregory II, as a missionary envoy to the Frisians and then to the whole of Germany. In 724, near Geismar, Boniface cut down an oak tree that had been dedicated to the god Jupiter. When he made an initial cut, the whole oak was shaken by a sudden great wind, and crashed to the ground. On another occasion, the felling of Thor’s Oak in Fritzlar many see as the start of the Christianization of Germany[3]. This was one of his ministry strategies, but he was less confrontational as he continued. He started Benedictine monasteries travelled, taught, organized and founded monasteries. Thousands were baptized, temples destroyed and churches erected. He was clearly gifted administratively, and Pope Gregory III instructed him to have authority over all the churches in Bavaria. However in his 70s, he left the administration and set out to parts of Frisia where there were still unbaptized pagans. While he was teaching, preaching and baptizing. Boniface and his fellow labourers were killed by an angry mob and martyred. 

CLICK ON BOLD and you will be directed to Joshua Project website with more information for prayer.

PRAY for “the Turk in Germany the second largest unreached people group in Europe, whose language is Turkish and whose primary religion is Islam. There are 2,802,000 and they are 0% Christian and 0% evangelical.” [4] Thousands arrived in Germany in the 1950s and more came in the early 1960s, a time when Germany had a shortage of cheap labor. Today Turks are the largest minority ethnic group in Germany. Lord, give your church the courage that you gave Boniface centuries ago when he evangelized Germany. We pray for many Turks in Germany to bow the knee to King Jesus, the coming king, who will be king of all the earth.  

DAY 18 EVENING Psalm 86-90; Re-read Psalm 87

PSALM 87: ZION IS THE CITY OF GOD, THE PLACE CHOSEN AS JESUS CHRIST’S DWELLING PLACE WITH MAN.

Psalm 87:1,2, 7. “He has founded his city on the holy mountain. The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the other dwellings of Jacob…as they make music they will sing, “All my fountains are in you.”

How could anything good come from cities, I wondered as I studied the Industrial Revolution at school. There was appalling suffering for those living and working in cities in the midlands of England. I had this unanswered the question for many years, “Why does the bible end with a city?” How can that possibly be a good thing? We are now confronted by the frequency of the psalmist’s reference to Zion, which is a focus of Psalm 87.  Zion is an image of the kingdom of God on earth, as a city and it is abundantly clear that God is guiding the universe, towards a specific end. Zion, the city of God Zion appears 33 times [5]in the psalms  in the NKJV. The psalmist declares, that God loves Zion and chose her as his dwelling place and he even dwells in her for ever. Tom Marshall, author of “Right Relationships”[6] said the reason that the bible ends with a city, is that although ‘man’ lived in a simple garden at the very beginning, it will be necessary in the course of time, for man to reflect and ‘image out’ the complexity of the Trinity in the form of a garden city, in order for man to  reflect the complexity of the Godhead.

Dr Atef Meshreky says  [7]“Zion in the Old Testament was the city which God chose as a city of his reign where he desired to dwell among his people as the invisible king of Israel. Likewise, in all generations, the Lord seeks such dwelling places to reign in and among his believers. When a group of believers live as a spiritual people whose place is heavenly, and according to his Commandments, the Lord dwells among them and his reign is manifested. He is then able to impact those surrounding them, attracting them to himself and causing the earth also to submit to his kingship.” In the Scriptures there is a strong underlying presupposition of  Divine providence. God is working his purposes out, and Zion provides a focus and vision for ministry and the culmination of God’s purposes in the bible. Early church exegesis is grounded in divine providence, the understanding that all that occurs in God’s universe happens under his guidance and control. This is very different from the view of Deists who believe that God created the universe but natural laws are being played out. But it is this deistic world view, which was the starting point of Enlightenment thinkers which has so influenced the modern day university and theological and bible training at universities and colleges in the West. 

The vision of the “City of God” that occurs frequently in the psalms, inspired St Augustine Bishop of Hippo.[8] In ‘City of God’ he examined the ancient pagan religions of Rome, the arguments of the Greek philosophers and the revelations of the Bible. Pointing the way forward to a citizenship that transcends worldly politics and will last for eternity, ‘City God’ is one of the most influential documents in the development of Christianity. As tradition is retrieved and evangelicalism is renewed and early church exegesis is restored, [9] a greater  acknowledgement of divine providence, a theistic worldview and not a deistic world view  should begin to take place. Dr Atef Meshreky says [10]the time will come when the Holy Spirit gathers ..what he calls  “kingdom units” the spiritual Zion, not necessary physically but spiritually. Through them, He will fulfil God’s final purposes: the final harvest and the preparing (of) the scene on earth for the return of Christ the King. The Lord God of the universe has chosen Zion, the city of God, as Jesus Christ’s dwelling place with man.

PRAYER Lord you have chosen Zion as your dwelling place. May my life line up with your kingdom purposes, as your kingdom comes on earth, as it is in heaven I pray. All my fountains are in you Lord Jesus.

To receive daily by email go to  https://unblockthewell.blog/2024/09/01/unleashing-the-wild-horses-to-the-ends-of-the-earth/ scroll down, and subscribe.

---

[1] Mears, H.C What the bible is all about, Tyndale House Publishers, 2015391, 392.

[2] Smither, E.L.  Missionary monks, Cascade books, 2016, 98-106 (summary).

[3] Taylor, A Mission heroes, (reference Tinnion, C Wonder-worker of England St Cuthbert), YWAM England, 2010.

[4] Data provided by Joshua Project https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/18274/GM

[5] Dr Atef Meshreky, Zion, a scriptural study and a vision for ministry, 35 ., Shine International 2023.

[6] Marshall, T. Right relationships, Sovereign World, 2014.

[7] Dr Atef Meshreky, Zion, a scriptural study and the vision of ministry, Shine International 2023.

[8] Augustine, Saint. City of God, Penguin, 2003, back cover.

[9] Williams, D.H. Retrieving tradition and renewing evangelicalism, William B. Eerdmans, 1999.

[10] Dr Atef Meshreky, The Bride and the end times, Shine International 2023.