Things can change on a dime, er, period

While Zechariah 9:9 references Jesus Christ “riding upon a colt the foal of an ass” in His meek and lowly first coming, Zechariah 9:10 gives an exact opposite kind of a view.

“Here He comes and He cuts off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow,” explains Preacher Richard Jordan. “Now He’s not a meek and lowly guy; now He’s the boss. Now He’s going to be the one who has dominion ‘from sea even to sea, and from river even to the ends of the earth.’ He’s going to be the King.

“Obviously, you have two diametrically opposite comings between those two verses. Now, in the Prophets, they don’t understand that. This confused Israel.

“At the end of Zechariah 9:9 is Jesus riding upon an ass, then there’s a period and the next sentence begins, ‘I will cut off.’ At that period you have a space of at least 2,000 years. Do you see there’s no indication in the text that there’s any break? It just goes right on through.

“Over and over in prophecy, you’ll have at a punctuation mark (and sometimes not even that) and there will be a gap of a tremendous amount of time. First coming, Second Coming. Captivity, Second Coming.

“All through prophecy the two are put together in one passage, and if you don’t know how to rightly divide them, you wind up being confused.

“What happens in 97 percent of Christendom is they think verse 9 and 10 all took place at the same time. That’s why you hear all these people say, ‘For Christ and His kingdom,’ and talk about how His kingdom is coming in. They’re always talking about the Lord ruling and reigning and you say, ‘What?!’ I mean, there’s a whole passel of theology, schools of theology—Calvinism, Covenant Theology, Preterism—all that stuff about how we’re in the kingdom NOW.

“Verse 10 says ‘his dominion shall be from sea even to sea’ . . . Whoever’s running things now can’t be the God of the Bible! He’s the wrong guy because verse 9 says ‘he is just, and having salvation,’ and we all know there’s no justice on this planet today.

“One of the greatest reasons to understand and believe in life after death is you know there’s no justice in this life. If there’s not a Creator to bring justice to every person, then there is NO justice because there isn’t any in this world.

“Asaph, back in Psalm 73, he gets all bent out of shape, confused and concerned. Why? He sees the wicked prosper and the righteous forsaken. He says, ‘I don’t understand it. Why is it that way? Why do the wicked seem to get ahead and DO get ahead?’

“Zechariah 9:9 says Jesus Christ is just and He’s got salvation, and that’s what He brings at the first coming. He provides the basis of justice and salvation at that period between verse 9 and 10. If you’re going to understand the prophetic Scripture, you’re going to have to see these gaps in the verses and you can only do that by rightly dividing your Bible.

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“Like I said, these things confused Zechariah and the other prophets. I Peter 1:9-10 says, [9] Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.
[10] Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you.

“You know immediately that’s not talking about you and me as members of the Body of Christ because the grace you and I have today, in the dispensation of grace, was a mystery kept secret from these people and not revealed to them. We have the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the ‘revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began and not made known in other ages.’

“For Israel, they looked to the future. They have the salvation coming in the future and it’s prophesied about. It’s coming and they’re searching about it.

“I Peter 1:10 tells us it’s not just that the people who heard the prophets tried to search it out, but it’s the guys who gave the prophecy themselves: Zechariah, Haggai, Zephaniah, Habbakuk, Hosea, Amos, Daniel. They say, ‘We’ve got this prophecy; what does it mean?’

“Verse 11 says, [11] Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.

“If you look back at Zechariah 9, that’s exactly what you’ve got. In verse 9 you’ve got the sufferings of Christ and in verse 10 you’ve got the glory that should follow. So those two things are put together, but the prophets . . . ‘What does ‘the suffering’ mean? What does ‘the glory’ mean? They’re searching and inquiring, ‘What are we talking about?! How do you have the suffering and then the glory? What does it entail and how do you put them together?’

“You go through these passages and you’ll have the suffering, the glory, the glory, the glory, the suffering, the glory, the suffering. How do you put a timeline on that?

“I Peter 1:12 says, [12] Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.

“Zechariah’s trying to figure out what it is and he has it revealed to him, ‘This isn’t about YOU, Zechariah, this is about some people in the future.’

“So when you have people reading the prophets and saying it’s all completely fulfilled in the prophets’ day, Pete says, ‘No, no, no.’ They understood they were writing prophecy about the future and Pete says, ‘It’s about us, the little flock, and about where WE’RE going.’

“So there’s the sufferings of Christ; there’s the glory that’s going to be His and what you’re reading Zechariah tell is, ‘Your King is coming but He’s going to first have this meek and lowly coming before He has dominion over everything. Before He’s exalted in that position as being King over it all He’s first going to suffer on the behalf of His people and bring justice and salvation through that suffering.’ ”