Zechariah 13:7-9
"the shepherd struck, the sheep scattered"
This passage takes a few read-throughs to get all the info correctly. God starts off by calling punishment and death on His shepherd, scattering the sheep and then targeting the "little ones". The part of this statement that is odd is the calling of death by God to God's shepherd. previously he has been proclaiming judgment on the false shepherds and setting up His true shepherd - Jesus. Now he is calling for Jesus to be killed and for his followers to be scattered and persecuted. Matthew Henry argues that this scattering and punishment served to sift out the hypocritical and false believers.
this punishment and persecution follows into the next statement as God says he will destroy 2/3 of [the people of] the land, leaving one third to be used for another purpose. why 2/3? why not 43/44 or 67/99? well, 3 was one of the holy, complete nos and if 2/3 of something was destroyed, then it was an almost complete (3/3) destruction. But why would God destroy a majority of the people in his land? my guess that the 2/3 are an unfaithful group of believers whom God is winnowing out from the true believers. it is a refining of sorts for the followers. How the 2/3 are destroyed, whether physically, mentally, spiritually or some other -ally, I do not know, but i do k now that God will institute a time of sifting of his people (probably in the end times, which we could be in)
The last part of this passage speaks of the 1/3 that's left. He will put them through the fire and refine them like silver and test them like gold. This 1/3 will call on the name of the Lord and God will call them his people and they will call him their God. ah, a nice, fuzzy picture, fight? wrong. God will refine his people through fire. something about fire, for those who've never experienced it - IT HURTS! have you ever burnt yourself? now imagine a fire hot enough to melt gold and silver. imagine being put through that fire. well, that's what the testing and refining of the spirit is like... God speaks of refining his people like silver. when refining silver, the silver is pure when the smith can see his reflection in the silver. and with gold testing, acid does not etch gold, gold is also malleable and very soft and the process of assaying gold removes all impurities from the gold.
all that work for a mere handful that are faithful to and reliant on God. doesn't seem like it's worth much, but to God, every individual that comes to an intimate relationship with Him is worth the cost. He sacrificed His own son that we could be in a right standing with Him. God truly loves us and cares for us and he is willing to put in ridiculous amounts of effort to bring us to a right standing with him...
(also, on a side note, this idea of being refined could be said to argue for calvinism but i'm not necessarily aligning with that doctrine)
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