Reading from Sunday, December 26

Yes sir. Strep is kicking my little white booty.

Reading for December 26
Zechariah 9:1-17
Chapter 9 starts with a "this will happen to this country" and "that will happen to that country" thing, but then right in the middle, is a clear vision of Jesus, the humble kind, king.

  ⁹ Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
   Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
   righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
   on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
¹⁰ [...]He will proclaim peace to the nations.
   His rule will extend from sea to sea
   and from the River^[b] to the ends of the earth.

If I remember correctly, this specific prophecy of him riding on a donkey is one that Jesus uses to prove his divinity amongst the Jews. I'd also like to point out verse 10 - he will proclaim peace to the nations. That's nationS with an S. All are welcome, all are able to partake of the peace Jesus offers. 

Revelation 17:1-18
This has already been mentioned in Revelation, but I haven't touched on it yet - the book of life.

The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because it once was, now is not, and yet will come.

I'll get to that beast in a minute, but I want to talk about this idea of the book of life. According to this, there is a book in which is written the names of every person who will ever get into heaven. And apparently this book was written at the outset of the universe. From the very beginning, God knew who would and who would not come to him. Logically this creates some errors that I could spend hours on, but this takes me all the way back to when I started this thing and I wondered about God's all-knowing nature. Why the disappointment when people fail, then? Why these seven plagues if you know that these people will not convert? Why kill every first born child of Egypt? Why the death of Christ?! Why any of it? Doesn't this book of life render all of it meaningless? It's like multiplying the entire Bible by zero.

How very Ecclesiastical of me.

Now. This beast. The phrase "once was, now is not and yet will come" is repeated several times in regards to this beast. What could this beast be? My best guess is death. Not physical death, but the death that Adam and Eve experienced, the death that was defeated by Jesus and the death which will come again after this ridiculous catastrophic apocalypse.

And who is riding this beast? A prostitute. To me this symbolizes temptation and lust for power, sex, money, land, Porshes, guns, video games, food, flat screen tvs, pornography, drugs, and anything else you want to fill in. The lust for things and sex and satisfaction will ultimately destroy us. We're already seeing it, and we've been seeing it for thousands of years. Wars for no actual reason, poverty because of others' greed, hunger in a land of plenty - this will be our destroyer. Make no mistake.

I hate to be all scary and death zone but this is what its saying, I'm trying to provide my honest interpretation as I always have tried to do.

Psalm 145:1-21
Again, nice to read coming from Armageddon town.

 ⁸ The LORD is gracious and compassionate,
   slow to anger and rich in love.
 ⁹ The LORD is good to all;
   he has compassion on all he has made.

Proverbs 30:32
 ³² “If you play the fool and exalt yourself,
   or if you plan evil,
   clap your hand over your mouth! 

Yah. Shut up ya jerk.