Life's Inanities and Ironies

Zechariah 4 The fifth vision is among the most familiar and most needed in the entire book. Zechariah sees a golden candlestick (lampstand) with a bowl on top and seven lamps, and beside it two olive trees pouring oil into the bowl (4:2–3). When the prophet asks the meaning, the angel answers with the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts” (4:6). The great mountain of opposition before Zerubbabel will become a plain. He will bring forth the headstone of the temple with shoutings of “Grace, grace unto it” (4:7). The hands of Zerubbabel that laid the foundation will also finish it (4:9). The two olive trees are “the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth” (4:14)—almost certainly representing the dual offices of king (Zerubbabel) and priest (Joshua), both ultimately fulfilled in the one Person of Jesus Christ, who is both King and Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. This vision is pure gold f...

In these challenging days, when faithful conservative Christians often feel “troubled on every side,” the inspired words of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:8-18 shine like a beacon of hope. Cultural opposition to biblical truth, moral confusion, personal trials, and spiritual warfare can press hard against us. Yet Paul, who endured beatings, imprisonments, and constant danger for the gospel, declares that we are afflicted but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed. Here is the full passage in the King James Version: > 2 Corinthians 4:8-18 (KJV)    > We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;   > Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;   > Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.   > For we which live are alway delivered ...