Be Strong and Courageous! God is not Done Yet.

The Minor Prophets Speak to Today 

A Call Among The Ruins

Zechariah 1:1 NLT

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A few people today, many of them young, are struggling to rebuild the Church within the ruins of Christianity and their old churches. 

In America, some of God's children have awakened to the apostasy and ruin that have come upon the so-called American Church, American Christianity. 

Some in Europe wonder if awakening to reality, as God sees it, can yet happen in their countries, on their continent. 

Even in Russia the felt need for a Living Church has begun to occur among the general population.

Zechariah was a young man called to minister to the struggling Jewish remnant trying to rebuild the Temple in the ruined city of Jerusalem. (Warren Wiersbe)

What a poignant picture of the struggle in the Western and Eastern Churches today. And how wonderful that God held such a dedicated interest for the church among the ruins, as he does again today.

Nor was this the struggle of the youth against the aged. Already God had spoken two messages through Haggai. Messages designed to call the people to begin the work of rebuilding. These two prophets ministered together for a short time. But Zechariah's message became a call to finish the work. To move beyond good words and dreams into the new reality.

Then, and now, God is working out his plan. Not our plan based on our best thinking, but the eternal plan comprhensible only to the mind of God.

Then, as now, the world around them vested their words and actions in the failure of God's struggling people, the demise of their religion and the God who spoke through the prophets.

But God looked down the ages and had his words and this story recorded as a warning and an encouragement to the true remnant. The remnant among the remnant who still trust in him.

Over the next weeks and months, we will once more explore how this minor prophet speaks to today. May God speak to and through each of us to bring forth his word and will today.

Make a straight highway through the wasteland
    for our God!
 Fill in the valleys,
    and level the mountains and hills.
Straighten the curves,
    and smooth out the rough places.
 Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
    and all people will see it together.
    The Lord has spoken!

Isaiah 40:3-5

May It Be So!

Photo Credits:

Worcester Cathedral - Ruined Wall by IBBoard some rights reserved @flickr.com