#DailyDevotion The Jews’ Rejection of Their Lord is Salvation to You
February 1st
Read Zech 11:4–17
Zec 11:10-16 And I took my staff Favor, and I broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples. (11) So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep traders, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the LORD. (12) Then I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver. (13) Then the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter”–the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD, to the potter. (14) Then I broke my second staff Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. (15) Then the LORD said to me, “Take once more the equipment of a foolish shepherd. (16) For behold, I am raising up in the land a shepherd who does not care for those being destroyed, or seek the young or heal the maimed or nourish the healthy, but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs.
Israel’s and Judah’s leaders rejected the Lord and they rejected his Christ. They were divided in the past and by their rejection they had lost the favor of the Lord. Particularly when the Lord had revealed his Christ through the Baptist and Jesus through his Word and his Works, the leaders of Judah rejected the One whom God had sent. Their rejection of him culminated in their arranging Jesus’ false arrest through the subterfuge of his disciple Judas.
Mat 26:15-16 and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. (16) And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him. Mat 27:3-7 Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, (4) saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” (5) And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. (6) But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money.” (7) So they took counsel and bought with them the potter’s field as a burial place for strangers.
Judah’s shepherds through their actions annulled the covenant of God. Not the covenant made with Moses. They had broken that covenant long ago. It is the new covenant that is made with Israel in Jesus. It isn’t their murdering Jesus that annuls it. It is their non-acceptance of it when it was revealed through the apostles. They did not repent. They did not believe. They persecuted those who proclaimed Jesus and in doing so led their people to destruction and death. Twice after the ascension of Jesus there would be those who would lead the people in rebellion against the Romans. They would be decimated. Their rebellion was not against Rome but against the Lord God and the Lord Jesus Christ. But the Jews’ rebellion against the Lord is life to you and even can be life to them. It was their rejection which brought about the sacrifice which atoned for sin of the world. Their rejection sent the message of the free gift of salvation for all people to the ends of the earth and into your ears. God is reconciled to you on account of Christ Jesus’ death.
Lord God Heavenly Father, grant us faith in your Son Jesus Christ that we may not be like those unbelieving Jews who did not repent at the message of His resurrection and ascension to your right hand and brought themselves and their children to destruction. In Jesus’ name. Amen.