Fire and Glory

Zechariah’s visions are recorded in a short book bearing his name toward the end of the Old Testament portion of your Bible. I want to focus on one mighty, mighty promise found in chapter 2:

Then I looked up, and there before me was a man with a measuring line in his hand. I asked, “Where are you going?”

He answered me, “To measure Jerusalem, to find out how wide and how long it is.”

While the angel who was speaking to me was leaving, another angel came to meet him and said to him: “Run, tell that young man, ‘Jerusalem will be a city without walls because of the great number of people and animals in it. And I myself will be a wall of fire around it,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will be its glory within.’” (Zechariah 2:1–5)

God promises to be a wall of fire around his people, and within that shield, his Glory. Talk about refuge! Who could possibly assault us through the Fire and Glory of the Almighty?

I do think we should be careful as we claim promises from the Scriptures that are extrapolated from vague references, especially Old Testament references. Isaiah 45:2–3 would be a good example:

I will go before you
and will level the mountains;
I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron.
I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the LORD,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name.

A wonderful promise, and one any son or daughter of the Most High would want to lay hold of!

But verse 1 makes it very clear that this promise was given to a specific individual at a specific moment in history: Cyrus, the last king of Anshan and founder of the Persian Empire.

This is what the LORD says to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him
and to strip kings of their armor,
to open doors before him
so that gates will not be shut:
I will go before you.

Does this mean we are barred from laying hold of this promise in Isaiah 45:2–3? By no means! Despite the specific person and historical context in this passage, it reveals the kinds of things our God does. If we walk with humility, we, too, can ask God to do those kinds of things for us. The mystic reads and understands passages like this with a childlike heart and says, This is my God! This is the kind of thing he does! I’m going to ask him to do it for me! Our family and team have prayed Isaiah 45:2–3 into many circumstances needing breakthrough, with wonderful results. Humbly, with childlike faith.

Why would our loving God, who promises to be our refuge and shield, limit this beautiful promise from Zechariah 2:5 to a single moment in time? He’s not like that, for the simple reason that his Fire and Glory are essential to his nature, his very being. So when we take refuge in him, Fire and Glory will of course surround us because he surrounds us!

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