Prophecy
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The Idol Shepherd
To later include the content of the book on Zec 11:15-17, I instead begin with the preceding verses in light of the study of Revelation and the least of Christ's flock.
-- Click To Expand/Collapse Bible Verses -- Zec ch11v4-14
Zec 11:4 Thus saith the LORD my God; Feed the flock of the slaughter;
Zec 11:5 Whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not guilty: and they that sell them say, Blessed be the LORD; for I am rich: and their own shepherds pity them not.
Zec 11:6 For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith the LORD: but, lo, I will deliver the men every one into his neighbour’s hand, and into the hand of his king: and they shall smite the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them.
Zec 11:7 And I will feed the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock. And I took unto me two staves; the one I called Beauty, and the other I called Bands; and I fed the flock.
Zec 11:8 Three shepherds also I cut off in one month; and my soul lothed them, and their soul also abhorred me.
Zec 11:9 Then said I, I will not feed you: that that dieth, let it die; and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another.
Zec 11:10 And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people.
Zec 11:11 And it was broken in that day: and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was the word of the LORD.
Zec 11:12 And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.
Zec 11:13 And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD.
Zec 11:14 Then I cut asunder mine other staff, even Bands, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
(KJV)
Verse 4 immediately sets the scene that the flock (old covenant Israel) is ready to die and to be slaughtered. They lack to attain the promise of eternal life given with the covenant made of Israel with God and His Christ. His flock is held captive by those killing/destroying that life (His covenant) who are without conviction in the Spirit or by the letter of His commandments. (They do not hold themselves guilty.) There is a direct analogue to the end of the Church found in the scarlet beast system.
Their keepers (not their shepherds but their rulers or representatives - I don't call them priests for the sake of the new testament analogue) that sell them into captivity and then to a "covenant with Death" outside of life in Christ consider themselves rich and approved before men. These keepers identify with the "serpents" of the sixth trumpet, whilst those that slay them correspond to the devices of "Death" (The fourth seal device, as constructing the beast system) rather than wormwood. The "keepers" as serpents fulfil the device of wormwood instead.
Verse 6 shows that those that inhabit the land (but are not as yet translated to the elect - God's house of spiritual Israel), are effectively "tares" - upon who God will not show pity (call as chosen and thereby heal, as to elect).
God instead states that He will no longer feed the flock of tares, He will no longer permit them to live side by side as equal to His elect; but in a new covenant (yet to be introduced) He instead will predestinate such tares in His Israel to the "lake of fire"; He hands them over to the scarlet beast system under the image formed by the ten kings. Their "neighbours" will vote on and leaven their doctrine to ensnare those that "have pleasure in unrighteousness". Those that lead them (their "kings"), not the collective but instead the position of the seventh king within the governance of the image system (that signs them over to the scarlet beast system) are those same that will give them the mark of the beast. Their ten king's reign which will destroy the house of Israel "for lack of knowledge" does so because they "will not endure sound doctrine".
God, will not redeem this fallen Church system. (He will not deliver them.) God is saying that there will always be tares and unbelievers in His covenants, Yet He will not accept them.
Instead, God will feed as one last time, the flock of all those "dwelling in the land" as above, from the greatest to the least (the poor). (Verse 7.) He does this with His ministry, as the awaited Christ Jesus.
The two staves represent the static subgroup in the octal and its coset. With Christ God feeds the flock with His grace and instruments completely intact.
God states "three shepherds will I cut off in one month.". A single power of an element in a seven cycle in Revelation is "one month". For each choice of unity (Rest, with which Christ fed His flock) there are three elements in the static bow that are excluded His grace. These three further choices for the unity under separate multiplications are together employed by "antichrist" for their devices and God hates their paradigm, and persons, and they Him likewise. (verse 8)
God instead, abandons those "shepherds" and will not feed them, He will not answer their prayers.
Rev 8:3 And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.
Rev 8:4 And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand.
Rev 8:5 And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.
(KJV)
So, God will not heal the tares in His flock, He cuts them off in judgement with a "sharp sword with two edges". God leaves those alone that would kill as if they were equivalently dead, and also those that would lead into captivity and cut off, as indeed cut off. The third part is left to practice the dialectic devices in their own carnality. I expect this third part not to be "brought through the fire" but to practice their "hearts will" in dialectic synthesis. (Since tares are the focus of this passage instead of the elect.)
The Lord then draws a final line in the sand. He breaks the devices of His own salvation provided in the law of Moses, the NT flock is never to be left to others, but those in the OT land lost their salvation instead. (Verse 10.)
The first staff, "Beauty", corresponds to Jesus Christ enthroned in heaven choosing and showing judgement during both the old covenant and the election of grace, as until the final vials of wrath are poured out
In cutting off the flock of OT Israel from all intercession in heaven, the Lord would have broken His covenant in the law. It instead is truly broken, now as upon the cross; for God has thereby "fed the flock". There is a new testament analogue in that the covenant will be justified as intact even later on, given the end of the age arriving. It is the flock of OT Israel itself that broke the Moses-mediated covenant on the very same day as Christ died. The law was used against God's purpose for it, which was to identify the Christ that fulfilled it: For in Christ, the one that does those things written in the law will surely live by them.
In the OT as with the NT, God merely ensures there to be "time no longer", He shows His ways are equal.
The poor of the flock (The "least" as His servants - exercising virtue as waiting upon Him) knew that His Christ is of God: in the NT, when the "night comes when no man may work", those servants must "watch and keep their garments".
So, the least of the flock realises that the very moment Christ's enemies are made His footstool (when Christ died and overcame Satan as the victor or in the NT analogue vacates His throne before the second coming/judgement), then this whole flock of tares is to be sent to the slaughter, as in both the OT and the NT, it will go into perdition/desolation. The NT "poor" are not deceived, they are the "sealed" of the NT timeline. Those "lost sheep of Israel" in the OT instead "heard His voice" and followed Him.
At that very moment, with the breaking of God's covenant by the "flock of slaughter" themselves killing Christ, God's exchange for the life of His person with His enemy Satan (possessing Judas Iscariott) was made for a mere thirty pieces of silver, that price grudgingly accepted with God's disgust. The potter may then form a new vessel of His Israel - the workman as worth His hire,.. in that the House of the Lord is reformed with it!
In the NT, God's covenant is not broken even by the tares forming the scarlet beast system (by those that were never His flock), if God chose to break again those instruments, that would be an act of a "foolish shepherd".
The second staff "Bands", then broken between Israel and Judah is the breaking of the apparent heirs with the complete fellowship of God's chosen, the elect. In the heavenlies under the different multiplications in the octal, we see this as the 144 choices for unity floating in the octal group. (As equivalently the twelve tribes of Israel sealed.)
Removing fellowship between Israel and Judah excludes those of the old covenant qualifying fully for the new. Being a jew no longer merits salvation in Jesus Christ. (Though I merely paraphrase Paul, in that by Christ they "benefit much every way".) In the NT, Israel is preserved by becoming a reformed vessel, Israel in the OT is now broken apart as excluded from both God and the inhertitance He has kept for His elect (eternal life) rather than leave it to those other men in His land.
-- Click To Expand/Collapse Bible Verses -- Zec ch11v15-17
Zec 11:15 And the LORD said unto me, Take unto thee yet the instruments of a foolish shepherd.
Zec 11:16 For, lo, I will raise up a shepherd in the land, which shall not visit those that be cut off, neither shall seek the young one, nor heal that that is broken, nor feed that that standeth still: but he shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws in pieces.
Zec 11:17 Woe to the idol shepherd that leaveth the flock! the sword shall be upon his arm, and upon his right eye: his arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened.
(KJV)
Then with these seven broken elements, as if "shards" of the octal separated (the horns of the Lamb), Christ instead gives the flock salvation through justifying the least of them. As placed together, Christ's mediation is proven sure and sound even at the end of the age. Those seven broken shards are as effective when used together as is the whole saving power of Christ.
The "new shepherd" is one that doesn't work for God as to tending His flock: Instead he "eats the flesh of the fat" and sustains himself on the Lord's flock as a "professionally qualified servant" (as with the doctrine of Nicolaitanism) and also leads the Lord's flock to error (stony ground with no good pasture).
This would immediately convict the least in the kingdom of heaven to leave; for God will (and already has) warned us of a "great falling away". When sound doctrine fails, all such works do become meaningless to salvation. Yet such shepherds do not minister unto the least - the "poor of the flock" as mentioned above. (Which are all mentioned as if separated from the remnant or not heard and excluded by, not healed/saved or not learning as the others. The shepherd is a respector of persons.) The least will certainly exit having some small discernment.
This "Idol Shepherd" is, then, only he that will pay no attention to the least but instead will seek growth, coveting the role of leadership in Christ's place. In leading a whole fellowship away from Christ and into the scarlet beast system; once it is desolated with the exit of its least; that same false prophet spirit that makes one mind of ten kings with the imaginations of the heart is all that remains.
Any minister operating in the false prophet is severed from God's right hand and His approval, his discernment becomes "cut off" also - God will not provide the flock of slaughter with pity and grant discernment; the minister's right arm becomes contorted from the Holy Spirit's group C7 to Satan's city of S5 as if clean dried up in the outpouring of God's wrath, and lastly his eye will remain without any discernment, utterly darkened, without discerning virtue. (For he will likewise not visit, seek, heal, feed etc.)
Those "new shepherds" that are desolate of the poor of the flock now exeunt the "Church" are without the discernment to once again lead back to Christ. The "idol shepherd" can not gain a blessing by leaving Himself, or by leading back into the fold. Woe! Woe, to him for that - for repenting of the scarlet beast system is to exit it; and who or what, will be left behind?
There is then a body of tares no longer fed by God and tended only by idol shepherds, themselves having led into captivity and now taken captive. God has stated that the broken instruments are valid and hold firm in the salvation of the least of the flock (the poor). There are no tares polluting His covenant in Christ Jesus for the strength of the gospel to ever fail. Christ, in seeking after the lest of the flock is the good shepherd, and has more joy over them than over the ninety nine.
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