Now we're continuing in Zechariah
chapter 11 with the subject, The Tragic End of Rejecting Christ. The Tragic End of Rejecting Christ. As I said last time, the theme
of this prophecy, this burden, this is the conclusion of the
first burden, the word, the revelation of God. to the people of Judah
through the prophet Zechariah. And then chapter 12 starts another
burden, another revelation, proclamation of a profound message. But the theme of this prophecy,
of this section of the prophecy, as we saw in chapter 9, the calling
of the Gentiles, the redeemed of the Lord, And in chapter 10,
the calling of the elect of God, the redeemed of the Lord among
the Jews, and now here in chapter 11, the rejection of the nation,
Israel, of Jesus Christ when he would come into the world.
The theme of that is simply this, that there is absolutely nothing,
nothing worse than to be found before God at judgment without
Christ. That's the tragic end of rejecting
Christ. Going through this world, this
life, without Christ. There's no hope for any sinner
without him. We're sinners and we need our
sins forgiven. Well, the Bible says that God
is faithful and just to forgive us our sins through the blood
of Christ. And that's the only way that
sins can be forgiven. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no forgiveness. And it's his blood, the blood
of the God man, That's what he accomplished on the cross of
Calvary. That's why he came into the world. To die on that cross. To put away the sins of his people. Our sins. And then there's no
hope of being justified before God. Brother Stain, you read
about it in Galatians chapter 3. Tonight in the study. No flesh
can be justified, declared righteous, not guilty before God. By works
of the law. The law cannot save you. Or me. The law cannot redeem us. The law cannot make us righteous. Only God's grace in Christ. And that's why we need him. The
prophet Zechariah knew this well. And he set this prophecy in line
according to inspiration of the Holy Spirit to show them the
reality of it. The first three verses of chapter
11. very telling, speaks of the ruin of the land when God's judgment
against that nation is unleashed. And everything that is said here
can be applied to the complete destruction of Jerusalem, the
temple of Israel itself or Judah in AD 66 through 70 when the
Roman government came in and just obliterated the whole nation. The pride, look at verse three,
there's a voice of the howling of the shepherds, that's the
false shepherds. The false leaders of the people who led them in
opposition to Christ. We read there in Matthew 27 about
it. How Pilate, and Pilate did this
unknowingly, he just looked at Jesus of Nazareth as a simple
man. He didn't believe that Jesus
of Nazareth is God. is the Messiah, but he didn't
see any crime against him, and that was providential. He said,
I see no fault in this man, and truer words were never spoken.
He's talking about the sinless Savior there. The leaders, the howling shepherds
here, these false shepherds, the Pharisees, the Sadducees,
the Herodians, the civil leaders, they wouldn't have it. They plotted,
remember we read there in Matthew 27, how they plotted to have
Jesus put to death. What it says there, in verse
1, they took counsel, the elders, it says the chief priest They
were Sadducees now. You know, the priesthood during
the time of our Lord's earthly reign was run by the Sadducees
and it had really become a political office that could be bought.
And the chief priests and then the elders, the Sanhedrin, they
counseled. They took counsel. I mean, this
was no afterthought. This was planned. This was murder
in the first degree from their point of view. And I know, as
Peter said it in Pentecost when he preached that gospel message
in Acts chapter 2, he said, you did no more than what God predetermined
that you would do, he says, but you did it with wicked hands
and evil hearts. What a precedent that is set
forth in the Bible all the way through. But it says here, these
howling shepherds, For their glory is spoiled, a voice of
the roaring young lion. Some say that refers to the civil
leaders. The pride of Jordan is spoiled. What is their glory
and their pride? It was in their heritage, it
was in their circumcision, it was in their works. And Jesus
of Nazareth, a carpenter from Nazareth, came along and he told
them, he said, that's no good, that's evil, that's wicked, that's
dead works. The only way you can be saved
as a sinner is by the grace of God in Christ. by a righteousness
that you have no part in producing. And being a child of Abraham
and being circumcised and trying to keep the law of Moses will
not do it. That's a false refuge. That's a lie. That's a religious
lie. And it makes you a hypocrite
who appears righteous on the outside but inwardly you're like
full of dead men's bones. That's what he told them. And
he told them the truth. And I want to tell you something.
Now put yourself in the place of the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees
and hearing that message. Doesn't sound too loving, does
it? And yet it's the most loving message that any preacher can
tell a sinner because it's telling that sinner what's wrong in order
to show him the way of Christ, the way of truth, the way of
salvation. So they're glorious for it. And
then the bulk of this chapter beginning at verse 4 and going
all the way down to verse 14 is a prophetic parable that shows
the nation's rejection of the Good Shepherd now the Good Shepherd
is the Lord Jesus Christ and in rejecting the Good Shepherd
there are consequences we saw the fulfillment of this prophecy
in John 1 that I read he came unto his own and his own received
him not now we're going to see here that there is in verse 4
there look at it he says thus saith the Lord my God feed the
flock of the slaughter there is a remnant And I believe this
flock of the slaughter, as shown in verse 7 and verse 11, is a
way of describing the people of God, the sheep for whom the
good shepherd laid down his life. The sheep who are known by the
shepherd and who know him. The sheep whom he goes out and
he brings into the fold. and they know him, and he knows
them, and no man shall pluck them out of his hand. That's
the sheep of the slaughter, the flock of the slaughter. We are
accounted as sheep for the slaughter all day long, Paul wrote in Romans
chapter 8. And so there is a remnant, so
it says in John 1 11, he came unto his own, his own received
him not, but as many as received him. There's the flock of the
slaughter. To them gave he the title, the right, to be called
the sons of God. Even to them that are born, not
of the flesh, nor the will of man, nor the will of men, but
of God, the redeemed of the Lord. Christ said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh me I will in
no wise cast out. And this is the Father's will
that hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should
lose nothing, but raise it up again at the last day. But now
the nation Israel went the way of the natural man. The nation
Israel as a whole. They went the way of all flesh
by nature. They said, we will not have this
man to rule over us. They said, we have no king but
Caesar. They said, give us Barabbas. Pilate said, what am I to do
with Jesus? They said, crucify him. Pilate
said, but I find no fault in him. They said, let him be crucified. Pilate said, well, I'm going
to wash my hands of this whole situation. They said, let his
blood be on our hands and our children. Now you think about
that statement. I wouldn't want to say that about
the lowest scum on earth. Let his blood be on my hands.
But you see, that's our, I'm not just saying the Jews here,
that's our natural hatred for this man, the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm gonna tell you something,
I believe this from the bottom of my heart, that if we don't
hate him tonight, just the same way, it's only by the grace of
God. And I'm not talking about people's
ideas of Jesus and the moralities and the things that they think
of. I'm talking about this person who has this message of salvation
that cuts asunder all the glory and pride of man by nature, that
shows us That without Him, we're nothing but sin. Without Christ,
we are nothing but sin, even at our best. Man, at his best
states altogether vanity. Lord, if thou, Lord, shouldest
mark iniquities, who would stand? The flock of the Lord, the true
people of God. As we go down through here, he
talks about the flock of the slaughter in verse 7. Oh, poor
the flock, and I took unto me two staves, the one I call beauty.
That's favor. God's favor. Now, we who are
in Christ are the recipients of God's eternal, unchangeable
favor. Not because we deserve it, and
not because we've earned it, but because of Christ. Am I right?
God's mercy. He said, I'm the Lord, I change
not, therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. It's of the
Lord's mercies that we're not consumed. Listen, some of you
all been believers for over 50 years, some even longer than
that. Right now as you sit in your pew, it's still of the Lord's
mercies that you're not consumed. That's right, isn't it? So that
beauty there is favor. Now, this favor though that he's
talking about is gonna be taken away. Now any favor that we have
by the grace of God in Christ according to the everlasting
covenant of grace can never be taken away. So he's talking about
something else here. He's talking about his temporal
ceremonial favor upon the nation Israel during a time period. It wasn't eternal favor. It wasn't
even spiritual favor. He says that. That covenant was
not a spiritual covenant. It was a fleshly covenant. It's
called the ministry of death, the ministry of condemnation
in 2 Corinthians chapter 3. But it was for a limited period
of time God did set that nation apart and he favored them in
certain ways. He kept them together. He also
punished them, chastised them in certain ways. But that was
for a specific period of time. It lasted about 1500 years from
Sinai to the cross. That's what that time period
is. And so he says, the one I call beauty, favorite, the other I
call bands, the word bands there means unity, togetherness, binders
you might have in your concordance. In other words, he kept them
together for a certain period of time. Now the people of God
in Christ will always be together. Maybe not geographically now,
see, but in union with Christ. We're one in Christ. We're his
bride, you see, his church, and we're one in him. And then remember
he says in verse 8, he says, three shepherds also I cut off
in one month. That's talking about the office
of prophet, priest, and king that had been corrupted under
that old covenant. Who were the prophets there?
Well, think about the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They were
false prophets. They were false preachers. They
had a deadly message. It was a message of salvation
by works. They rejected Christ and his
righteousness. In fact, Paul, in another passage
of scripture that shows the fulfillment of Zechariah 11 he says for I
my heart's desire and prayer for Israel's that they might
be saved for I bear them record they have a zeal of God but not
according to knowledge for they being ignorant of God's righteousness
and going about to establish their own righteousness have
not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God verse
4 of Romans 10 for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believes And these howling false shepherds
wouldn't do it. So their prophecy was a lie.
Their prophecy was the way of Cain, the way of work salvation,
which is deadly to the souls of sinners. They didn't lead
people or point people to Christ and his blood and righteousness
alone as that which saves us and keeps us and brings us to
glory. The priesthood was corrupt. It was a political office that
could be bought for money. Caiaphas was the high priest
when the Lord walk this earth. His father-in-law, Annas, was
the high priest, and he gave it to his son. I don't know if
any money exchanged hands, but he wanted to keep it in the family.
There's nothing even said about what tribe they're from. The
tribe of Levi was the one that would fulfill that priesthood.
Nothing even said about that. I don't even think it mattered
to them. But they were false priests. They were in it. They
made merchandise of men's souls, the scripture tells. And then
the king, there was no king from Judah sitting up on the throne
during that time. Herod was king, he was a corrupt
king, he was really a foreign king if you get technical about
it. But he says here in verse 8,
in a short period of time he's going to cut all those offices
off. But now let me tell you something, not only does he cut
those offices off, there are no more. Those old covenant offices
of prophet, priest, and king in the nation But the office
of prophet, priest, and king goes on and on and on forever
according to the everlasting covenant of grace because Christ
is the fulfillment of each office. He is our prophet. He's the first and the last word
of God. Isn't that right? He's the alpha
and the omega. That's what that means. First
letter and the last letter of that alphabet. He is the embodiment
of the word of God. He is the subject of the written
Word of God and the preached Word of God. He is the Word of
God. And then Christ is our Great
High Priest, one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
He's a priesthood not after the order of Aaron or Levi, but after
the order of Melchizedek. And then He is our King. So those
offices were fulfilled in him now it says that things would
get so bad in israel that they would even be reduced to cannibalism
that's verse nine that's where we left off then said i will
not feed you that that that diet let it die in other words this
that god's deliverance of the nation is over that's what he's
saying here as a nation now again that doesn't mean that every
individual jew is lost because when christ came upon the scene
the very men that he saved and followed him were Jews. Peter
was a Jew, James, John, and later on Paul, and you could go on
and on. And that's why the Bible talks about how the gospel came
to the Jew first, and then to the Gentile. So, but it's talking
about dealing with them as an economy, as a nation, as a government. That's over. And he says, we're
gonna let it die. He says, and that, that is to
be cut off. That means alienated, let it be cut off. That's separation. And he says, and let the rest
eat every one of the flesh of another. And there's some historical
documents that lead you to believe that there was a literal fulfillment
of that during that destruction of Jerusalem. And, well, what
an awful thing. I mean, that's just, it's just
undescribable how evil and wicked we can be if God allows us to
go the full length of our depravity, isn't it? Well, look at verse
10. He says in verse 10, And I took my staff, even beauty,
that's favor, and cut it asunder, that I may break my covenant
which I had made with all the people. Did you see that? Now
remember I told you last time, this language indicates the old
covenant is abolished. He's talking about a time when
it's going to be over. What does he say? He says, I'm going to
break my covenant. I got a little note on the internet
from a person in Israel. I was telling the men about it
earlier. It was from a message that I preached. I preached it
in Albany. I preached it on TV, and I'm
going to be preaching it here, behind this pulpit right here.
And it's called Armageddon. And of course, you know, anytime
you get a topic like that and you put it up there, that's the
title, people just flock to it. I told a man, I said, I think
I'm gonna preach a message, I'm gonna title it The Mark of the
Beast. And boy, you'll get them all in, you know, and people
will listen. And that's okay, that's okay, just tell the truth.
But what I was talking about was how God's dealings with the
nation Israel as a nation was over. And this person got offended
at that. and said, oh, well, God doesn't keep his promise
then. No, God does keep his promise. But you see, God promised, God's
promises to that nation were always temporal, ceremonial and
temporary. God never, never promised to
gather that nation together and keep them together as a physical
nation forever and ever and ever. Whenever it talks about the Old
Covenant being perpetual in the book of Jeremiah, for example,
that means continual. What does that mean? It's going
to continue as long as God lets it continue. That's it. That's what it means. Well, right
here he tells you. He says in verse 10, And I took
my staff, even favor... Now, he's talking about his favor
to the nation Israel for that limited period of time, and cut
it asunder that favor is going to be cut asunder that I may
break my covenant which I had made with all the people with
that nation then it's going to be over now when's he talking
about when Christ would come and fulfill all conditions of
the salvation of his people that covenant I'll tell you what God
promised the nation Israel that it would all last in that nation
until Messiah comes over in the book of Hebrews chapter 9. It's
called the time of reformation, the time of change. And what
does he say in Hebrews chapter 10? Read the book of Hebrews.
It's the best commentary on it you can buy. Listen, you don't
have to go out and get a book by some prophecy spokesman. Read
the book of Hebrews. Listen to what he says in the
book of Hebrews in verse 9. Well, let's read in verse 7.
of Hebrews chapter 10 listen to this he says then said I lo
I come now who's coming that's Christ and he says I come in
the volume of the book it is written of me what book the book
of God's predestinating purpose That's what he's talking about,
God's sovereign will. And he says, to do thy will,
O God, above when he says sacrifice and offering and burn offerings
and offering for sin, thou wouldest not. You see, God never promised
eternal salvation based upon the sacrifices and offerings
of animals. Those things were always set
forth as a type and a picture and a prophecy to be temporary.
And he says, Neither hath pleasure therein which are offered by
the law. Verse 9, Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O
God. He taketh away the first. That's first in time, that's
the old covenant. As he promised to do. That's
what he always said. And that's what made him so mad
at the prophets. That's why they become so angry
at the prophets. You see, if your hope is in an earthly covenant,
When that hope is taken away, what are you going to do? You're
going to get angry. If your hope is in your circumcision, or in
your physical heritage, or in your works, when that's taken
away from you, what are you going to do? Unless God, the Holy Spirit,
brings you to repentance, brings you to Christ, you're going to
get angry. So he taketh away the first, that he may establish
the second. He took it away, that he may
establish the second. That which is abolished, the
scripture says. So go back to Zechariah 11. That's
what he's talking about. Look at verse 11. He says, and
it was broken in that day, and so the poor of the flock that
waited upon me, that waited upon the Lord. What is it waiting
upon? It's faith in Christ. In other words, he's talking
about a remnant here whose hope was not in that earthly covenant.
It wasn't in their physical heritage with Abraham. It wasn't in their
circumcision. It wasn't in their law-keeping.
They looked beyond it to the promise of Christ and him crucified
and risen again. They looked to Christ. And he
says, in that day, so the poor of the flock that waited upon
me knew that it was the word of the Lord. This was the promise
of God to end that old covenant. and to establish a new and better
covenant. To end that covenant that could
not save sinners. Which covenant they break? Jeremiah
31. And to bring them under a covenant
conditioned on one person called the seed in Galatians chapter
3. Remember he said they're not to seeds as of many. In other
words, it wasn't conditioned on you or me or a bunch of us.
Conditioned on one seed. That's Christ. And he fulfilled
those conditions. And he says, they knew it was,
that's the word of the Lord. That's what God promised. Look
at verse 12. You see, the afflicted of the
flock, they recognized that this is the word of the Lord. It's
a remnant of grace. And he said, it's verse 12, he
said, and I said unto them, if you think good, give me my price,
and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price
30 pieces of silver. Now he's talking about the nation
here. that rejected him, verse 13,
and the Lord said unto me, cast it unto the potter, and a goodly
price that I was prized out of them, and I took the 30 pieces
of silver and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord. Now that describes the nation
Israel's rejection of the shepherd. You remember over in Matthew
chapter 27 that we read, that's what that's talking about. Their
estimate of Jesus Christ. And the reason this is put in
the form of a parable, because it shows, it's showing forth
the low esteem that man by nature has exemplified in the nation
Israel, the low esteem that man by nature has of Jesus Christ. I think about several scriptures
when I think about that. What he does here, he says, well,
If you think good, give me my price. What price would you put
on Jesus Christ? What value would you put upon
the salvation that God freely gives in him? He asked for his
wages, signifying the termination of his role as a shepherd. And
they weigh out for him 30 pieces of silver. Why do you think it
was 30 pieces of silver? Somebody might say, well that
sounds pretty good to me. It's not. Let me give you a reference. I'm not going to turn there tonight.
But it's Exodus chapter 21 verse 32. Write that down. Exodus 21
verse 32. That's under the law. You know what the law says there?
Let's say a man has a servant. And that servant gets gored to
death by a bull. And we'll say it this way, accidentally,
that's the way we talk. So he gets gored to death by
somebody else's bull and so the master of that servant or the
owner of that servant comes and says, well now you've got to
give me the price for that dead servant. You know what it was?
Thirty pieces of silver. The price of a worthless dead
servant. Very low. Not much value there. And I believe that's what it's
going back to in the analogy here to show, as Isaiah 53 says,
we esteemed him not. That's right. Like in the book
of Lamentations, when that great picture of Christ on the cross
and people passing by, is it nothing to you that passed by? Well, by nature, man by nature,
it's really nothing to us. Man thinks very little of Christ
and what he accomplished on Calvary. In fact, there are multitudes
today who will say without blushing that he died for multitudes who
end up in hell because they didn't do their part. My friend, you
know that's a low estimation of the blood and the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. This shows how cheaply they valued
him. You're about as useful as a dead
gourd slave. And Matthew 27 describes the
fulfillment of that prophecy. Now, as I mentioned when I read
that over in Matthew 27, if you want to look there just quickly, When Matthew records this by
inspiration of the Spirit, he speaks in verse 9 and he talks
about the Judas. You know, Judas fulfilled this,
30 pieces of silver. And Judas, he became in a way
a legal sorrow and cast the 30 pieces of silver down. They couldn't
even put it in their temple treasury because it was blood money. Even
they recognized that. And so what they do, they went
out and paid for a potter's field, a place where you bury poverty
stricken people. In other words, people that aren't
worth much. People that nobody, you might
not even know their name. That's what the potter's field
is about there. In other words, it's a worthless
place to send worthless people to be buried. And that again shows man's low
esteem of the Lord Jesus Christ. Think about that. What think
ye of Christ? Isn't that the question of questions?
What think ye of Christ? Well, here's what we by nature
think of Christ. 30 pieces of silver and by a
potter's field. And that's what he said. So when
Matthew's inspired by the Holy Spirit to write this, he attributes
the quotation to Jeremiah and not Zechariah. And of course,
you know how a lot of people go with that. They'll talk about,
well, there's contradictions in the scripture and all that.
Well, first of all, the whole passage There's several reasons
that this could be so, but the whole passage of Matthew 27 is
a combination of prophecies from both Jeremiah and Zechariah. Secondly, I am sure, and we have
biblical statements that will back this up, We don't have everything
that these prophets said and recorded in the Bible. We talk
about in the book of Acts, Paul stated something that he quoted
from our Lord, talking about it's better to give than to receive.
You won't find that quotation in any of the four gospels, but
he said it. And John himself said that the
whole world couldn't contain the words of our Lord. In other
words, there are things left out here, but this is a combination.
But sometimes in the Bible, when there are combined prophecies
and being quoted, the one who's inspired to write them down will
only mention one prophet, maybe what he considered to be the
main prophet. In fact, if you go back into the original Hebrew
Bible, it's really only divided into three sections and the prophet
starts with Jeremiah, so a lot of times they call it the Jeremiah
tradition. But I'll give you another example
of it, Luke chapter 24. when the Lord sent down his disciples
and he taught them out of Moses. Now there's not a book of Moses,
but there are five books that Moses wrote, the law. And then
it said he taught them out of the Psalms and out of the prophets. the things concerning himself.
Now the psalm that he's talking about refers to all the poetry
and all the wisdom books. In other words, he's talking
not just about these psalms, he's talking about Ecclesiastes,
he's talking about Job, he's talking about the psalm of Solomon,
all of those lamentations, all of those books. you see, that
are considered wisdom and poetry books. So there's no contradiction
here. It's a truth of the scripture
that was prophesied of by both Jeremiah and Zechariah. So don't
let those things trip you up and get caught up in that stuff. Matthew's quotation would fit
both prophecies and they're combined there. But now go back to Zechariah
11. Now he says, He says in verse
14, he says, then I cut asunder my other staff, even bands, binders,
union, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and
Israel. God broke the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. Now,
Israel, the northern kingdom, had already been obliterated,
but what he's talking about here is the covenant. Now, what's
the difference between this covenant, the old covenant, and the new
covenant? instead of breaking and asunder, they're gonna be
brought together. Is that right? Israel and Judah, gonna be brought
together, spiritual Israel, that's what it's talking about. And
in fact, the point in fact is, that includes also the Gentiles.
Because as I wrote to the lady who wrote me from Israel, I said,
listen, she made this statement, she said, I have no vested interest
in this because I'm a Gentile. And I wrote her back and I said,
now listen, I said, first of all, the Bible tells us that
in Christ Jesus, listen to this, in Christ Jesus, there is no
Jew or Gentile, but all are one in Christ. And secondly, being
a Gentile doesn't mean you don't have a vested interest in this,
because how does a Gentile come into the kingdom of God under
the headship of Christ, just like a Jew who is saved? so that we're brought together
under the headship of Christ. So here is the abolishment of
the old covenant when Christ comes. Now look at the last few
verses. These last few verses predict
the nation's subjection to the foolish and worthless shepherd
who's going to exploit them and then come under judgment himself.
Now if you read any commentaries on this, you're going to hear
this statement quite a bit. Most believe that between verses
14 and 15, the whole gospel age happens. I have absolutely no
idea where anybody come up with that. It's certainly not in scripture. But in other words, what they're
saying is these last few verses are in the future, even our future,
and project onto the Antichrist. Now listen to me. What verses
15, 16, and 17 describe is an Antichrist spirit. But my friend,
that's been around for a long time. John said it was present
in his day. Paul said it was present in his
day. So I don't see this as the embodiment of one shepherd, but
one shepherd used as a symbol of the antichrist spirit that
even existed in Jerusalem in the day of our Lord. But you
listen to it. He says in verse 15, and the
Lord said unto me, take unto thee yet the instruments of a
foolish shepherd. What are the instruments of a
foolish shepherd? Deception, false gospels, lies
in the name of religion, in the name of Christ even. The Apostle
Paul described them in 2 Corinthians 11 when he talked about marvel
not that the ministers of Satan can disguise themselves as angels
of light and be preachers of righteousness. They can say right
things, but they can't stay with it. He warned us of wolves in
sheep's clothing in Matthew chapter seven. Those who bring sinners
along the broad road that lead to destruction. What are the
instruments of a foolish shepherd? I'll tell you what, the instruments
of their father the devil. He was a liar from the beginning.
What does he use? Deception, lies, deceit, accusation. That's the instruments of a foolish
shepherd. He says in verse 16, listen to
this. He says, for lo, I will raise up a shepherd in the land
which shall not visit those that be cut off. Now he's not talking
about visiting people in their homes. He's talking about the
visitation of grace. That's what he's talking about.
God talks about, you know, he says I'm gonna visit you. It's
either gonna be your salvation or it's gonna be his wrath upon
you. Those in Christ, it's salvation. Those without Christ, it's wrath.
And what he's saying, these foolish shepherds will not preach grace. They'll preach other things.
They won't point sinners to Christ and his blood and righteousness
alone. He says, he says that shall not visit those that be
cut off. In other words, they're not going to help those who are
alienated from God. Neither shall seek the young
one, nor heal that that is broken. Those, those young, young ones
who can't do for themselves, you say. And he says, nor feed
that that standeth still. They have no spiritual food for
them. But he shall eat the flesh of
the fat and tear their claws in pieces. In other words, he's
just out for what he can get for himself. Making merchandise
of men so, verse 17. Woe to the idle shepherd that
leaveth the flock. Doesn't care for the flock. The
sword shall be upon his arm and upon his right eye. His arm meaning
his power, his right eye meaning his watchfulness. Remember the
prophets were often referred to as watchmen, watch out, be
on guard. His arm being his arm of help,
his arm of power, which involves preaching the word of God, preaching
the gospel. Well that's going to be dried
up and his right eye is going to be put out. His arm shall
be cleaned right up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened."
Utterly darkened. That is, he'll have no judgment. He'll have no discernment. It's
just religion. Well, there's a lot of different
ideas about who this evil shepherd is. I believe it's referring
to all false prophets, all false preachers in the last days. Some
say it's Rome. Well, that's part of it. Some
say it was Israel's leaders in that day. Well, that's part of
it, too. They're all. Some say it's some future Antichrist. Well, whatever it is, that's
the same spirit. That's the same spirit, you see.
I'll tell you exactly what it is. It's any preacher, prophet,
teacher who stands in opposition to Christ and His glory and the
power of His finished work, in opposition to the Good Shepherd,
the Lord Jesus Christ. All right.