Zechariah 9: [13] When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty man.
[14] And the LORD shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning: and the LORD GOD shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south."He's talking about the Gentiles, but notice he calls it Greece," explains Richard Jordan. "It's important to understand that the Greek empire was not there at the time of Zechariah's writing. It wasn't there at the time Joel was writing.
Joel 3: [1] For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,
[2] I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land."Notice who he pleads with in verse 6: [6] The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border.
"Why would he talk about the Grecians in connection with the Second Coming of Christ?
"Zechariah is a bridge between Daniel and Revelation. Daniel prophesies through the end of the Babylonian captivity and the beginning of the Persian empire. Zechariah is at the beginning of the Media-Persia empire.
"When you're trying to understand Zechariah, you want to go back to Daniel and in Daniel 8 you discover the Babylonian empire is going to be succeeded by the Media-Persia empire, which is going to be succeeded by the Greek empire, which is going to be divided into four sections and out of one of those sections is going to come the Antichrist.
"Two of those kingdoms that come out of Greece are going to have dominion in the earth until the Antichrist shows up. That's why the verse says, 'Against thy sons, O Greece.' All four of the divisions are involved there.
"When the Lord wants to talk about the source of the Antichrist kingdom, He points to Greece. That's why when you come to the Apostle Paul, Paul will say in Romans 1: [16] For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
"Now you know he's not talking about just Greeks because he's writing to Romans, who are Italians. He does that over and over. I Corinthians 1: [24] But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
"Well, why would Paul say Greeks when he meant Gentiles? The reason is Daniel 9, because when God looks at the Gentile world system, He looks at it as a system under the control of the people who are going to wind up being the kingdom of the Antichrist, and it's that control system.
"I John says the world lies in the wicked one. Satan controls the world system; he's the god of this world, the prince of this world, and the principality, the government system that the Adversary operates comes from that Greek empire. That's where you're going to be at the end over there. The mystery of iniquity that works today in the dispensation of grace is working in that system.
"So, when you read these passages you're better off to take them literally in the context of what the Scripture teaches about them.
"Understanding a passage like this will help you understand what Paul's talking about. I watch people go through all kind of mental gymnastics and scriptural hoodleedoo to try to identify the Greeks and Romans as somebody other than Gentiles.
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Zechariah 9:14: [14] And the LORD shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning: and the LORD GOD shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south.
"Once again, that's the Second Coming. Revelation 1 says every eye shall see Him. Revelation 6 says, [15] And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
[16] And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
"There's an appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ and they see Him.
"Now, when the Lord blows the trumpet that's like the signal of Jehovah coming to rescue and deliver His people. It's sort of the cavalry charge kind of a signal where you know He's coming and He's warning His people, 'I'm on the way to deliver you.'
Jeremiah 4:19: [19] My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
" 'Here comes the judge,' as Flip Wilson would have said. You look at Joel 2: [1] Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand;
[2] A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.[3] A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
[4] The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run.
Job 37: [4] After it a voice roareth: he thundereth with the voice of his excellency; and he will not stay them when his voice is heard. [5] God thundereth marvellously with his voice; great things doeth he, which we cannot comprehend.
"When the arrows of His lightning goes forth then there's the thundering of His voice. In other words, 'He's coming!' and there's a calamity afoot."
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