Zechariah 3-4
We continue to enter Zechariah’s dreams, his “night visions.”
The fourth vision is of the high priest, Joshua, whose name is, coincidently, the Hebrew form of the name, Jesus, which means, “The Lord saves!” Satan was out to get Joshua, but the Lord rebuked the enemy and reclaimed Joshua, saying, “Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?”
For all you John Wesley buffs. This is the very passage that came to his mother Susannah’s mind the night the parishioners burned down the Epworth parsonage. John was trapped up stairs and only just escaped the flames and death. As he was being saved, she quoted Zechariah 3:2 with regard to her son, and said, “He is a brand plucked from the flames!” God saved John for the work he had in mind for him.
In Zechariah, Joshua was saved from the enemy to serve as high priest. In Zechariah’s vision, this brand plucked from the flames is cleansed and clothed in clean garments, so that he, in turn, might help cleanse the people from theirs!
The fifth vision is of a gold lampstand and two olive trees. “What are these?” Zechariah asks, yet again. The gold lampstand is the word of the Lord: “’Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.” The two olive trees are the two anointed to serve the Lord, and, perhaps, proclaim this word. Many have connected these two “olive trees” to the two witnesses of Revelation 11.
Tomorrow, we read the last three of Zechariah’s night visions!
Your fellow pilgrim through the prophets,
Pastor Gary
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