Okay, Zechariah chapter five,
or at least the first four verses of Zechariah chapter five. Let
me just briefly, as briefly as I can, recap the situation. We're talking about two and a
half thousand years ago and the people coming back from the Babylonian
captivity to rebuild the temple and Jerusalem. God had put it
in the heart of Cyrus the emperor, send them back, give them the
means to go and re-establish the ruined temple and the ruins
of Jerusalem and make it a city again. Why? Because Messiah is
coming to accomplish the redemption of his people. You see, we need
to set it all in context and I've written an article and put
it in the bulletin this week, and it takes up most of the space
in there. But just to summarize briefly,
rather in the way that, like Stephen the martyr in the Acts
of the Apostles, when he was brought before them, he recounts
the history of Israel. And you say, why is he talking
about all of that? Because it's absolutely crucial. It's the
reason for everything. In Genesis 1 and 2, as you read
in that article, The creation was the kingdom of God. It was
the paradise of God. It was sinless. But then the
fall came in, Genesis chapter three. And Satan was striving
then, and has strived ever since, to destroy God's kingdom. Wickedness
abounded. God brought in the flood in Noah's
day. And even after that, amongst
the eight souls, Noah and seven with him, that were saved, In
not very long, sin was rampant again and Babel and Nimrod and
they were setting up the Tower of Babel to try to destroy any
thought of the kingdom of God and to establish the kingdom
of Satan, a kingdom which seeks a utopia without the justice
of God being satisfied. And where there's sin, that cannot
be the case. So God calls Abraham out of the
peoples of the world, out of a situation of idolatry, and
separates him and his descendants from the rest of the world. He
gives them his word, he gives them his truth and light. And
all sorts of things happen down through the sons of of Abraham,
Joseph, they go down into Egypt, they go down into Egypt for 400
years there, and then they're brought out of that. Picturing
the people of God being brought out of this fallen world of Satan. And they're given the law, they're
given the commandments of God, and they're given the instructions
as to how God would be worshipped in picture and in type, pointing
to Christ with a tabernacle, and a temple, and a priesthood,
and the animal blood sacrifices, which all showed how people would
be put right with God, all picturing the kingdom of God restored.
It reached its pinnacle in Solomon's day, the son of David, the king.
when the magnificent temple was built there in Jerusalem, and
the kingdom was at its absolute peak, a glorious, glorious temple. God was with his people. And
all the while, world empires were trying to destroy the people
of God, were trying to destroy the picture of the kingdom of
God on earth. They were trying to, not so much
crush it and kill it, but subsume it, subsume it into conformance
with the Assyrian Empire and the Egyptians. And yet God preserved
the line from Abraham. There was success of that, in
that God had his true people there, who by faith looked to
the truth of what he was doing. Yet sin and idolatry, and the
people committed spiritual adultery from God, and because of it,
as God had warned, they were taken into Babylonian exile.
And then Cyrus, about 2,500 years ago, give or take a few years, God put it in that man's heart,
a heathen emperor, to send his people back and restore the temple
in Jerusalem and the city of Jerusalem. Why? Because the temple
and the city were a picture on earth of the kingdom of God. of the true, eternal kingdom
of God. And it's the place where the
Messiah of God, the Christ of God, the Son of God, God himself,
the God-man, must come to earth to redeem, to pay the redemption
price for the recovery of his kingdom, to justify the multitude
that were loved by God before the beginning of time. Jerusalem
and the temple pictured the triumphant kingdom of God. And so Ezra came
back from Babylon. Nehemiah came back from Babylon.
Joshua, the high priest at the time, came back from Babylon
to Jerusalem. Zerubbabel, the rightful prince,
the rightful heir to the throne of Judah, one of the descendants
of King David, he was the rightful prince. They came back and the
work flagged and failed and faltered and stopped. And so God raised
up prophets. to motivate and encourage them
with messages from heaven. He raised up Haggai, the prophet
before Zechariah. He raised up Zechariah and gave
him visions from God in the night. He gave him visions, messages
from God in heaven. from his throne in glory to this
man on earth, the prophet. And how did he motivate him?
I'll summarize them very quickly. Firstly, in the earlier chapters,
he gave these visions. Firstly, God is with you, he
said to them. If God is with them, if God is
for them, as it says in Romans 8, who can be against them? You're
facing all sorts of obstacles. God is for you. Who can be against
you? It's his purpose that this should
be accomplished. Secondly, world powers, all the
power of the godless satanic empires will try to destroy God's
kingdom, will try to prevent it from happening. But God says,
don't be concerned about that. I will raise up preachers of
my word and they will fray those worldly forces. They will defeat
them. The word of God, it is not his
word like a fire and like a hammer that breaketh a rock into pieces.
God's word will fray them. Thirdly, God is sovereign and
omnipotent. It means he's all-powerful. No
earthly or satanic power can resist him. God is sovereign
and omnipotent, and he has a purpose for his kingdom to triumph. His
kingdom will triumph. Nothing can stop it. Jesus said,
I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. Fourthly, how are individual
sinners going to be made right for God's kingdom. He shows in
that vision of Joshua in his filthy garments. Take these filthy
garments off him and clothe him. Satan's there accusing Joshua
of being unfit for heaven. Take these filthy garments off
him. in the one whose name is the branch, who is Christ the
Lord, the Redeemer of his people. And so God's people are fitted
eternally for citizenship of the kingdom of God. And then
fifthly, the one that we were looking at the last couple of
weeks, the light of God will shine and his kingdom shall be
completed. The candlestick, the light of
God will shine in this darkened world. and his kingdom shall
be completed. And then we come to chapter five,
and there are two more visions given here. And in verse three,
we see what they are. Verse three, this is the curse
that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth. And then
verse eight, this is wickedness, and he cast it into the midst
of the... The curse and wickedness. Two visions of the curse and
of wickedness. How can these possibly encourage
the building, the completion of this temple and of Jerusalem?
How can the curse and wickedness possibly encourage them to complete
it? And so that leads to this question.
Why must God's kingdom come? What was it? The disciples asked
Jesus, teach us to pray. And so he said, in this manner,
pray. Our father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy kingdom come. Why must God's
kingdom come? Answer, these people were restoring
a ruined picture of God's kingdom. It was never more than a picture,
but it was a perfect picture of God's kingdom. The temple
and the walls of Jerusalem was a picture in the purposes of
God of his eternal kingdom. It was a picture that confirms
the certainty of the triumph of God's kingdom. over that of
Satan and of this world, because it was a kingdom that proclaims
God's gospel. It's the gospel of God. What
is gospel? It's good news. What good news? News of salvation from sin. News that although we're condemned
justly by the law and justice of God, there's salvation from
that condemnation. There's salvation. There's righteousness. Righteousness not ours, but made
ours in the doing and dying of the Son of God. There's rescue
from the condemnation. There's rescue from the pit of
destruction of his beloved multitude, the multitude that God chose
in Christ before the foundation of the world. He rescues them
out of this fallen world. It isn't reform or improvement
of this world that the gospel is about. The gospel is not about
reform or improvement of this world. How many times do I have
to say it? I say it over and over and over again. And so many
people in religion try to think that their purpose as so-called
Christians in this world is to improve the world. It isn't.
It isn't. That's not the message of this
book. God has nothing for this world other than just judgment
and destruction. If that were not the case, don't
you think Jesus, the man, would have prayed for the world? But
in John 17, he said this, I pray not for the world, Father, but
I pray for those that you've given me out of the world. I
pray not for the world. Zechariah chapter five, these
two visions show us clearly the condemnation, the just condemnation
and judgment of God that hovers over this whole world under God's
strict justice. There are some commentators who
see nothing of Christ in Zechariah chapter five, and you might have
read it and you might agree with them. But you know, what was
the purpose of God's law? What was the purpose of God's
justice and of his judgment? Is to drive his people to Christ. What is the law of God? What
is the commandments given on tables of stone at Sinai and
all the rest of it that God revealed to Moses? What is the purpose
of it? Is it to show us what we must do in order to live?
Well, yes, but we can't. We can't, we never can. It's
the schoolmaster, as Galatians 3.24 says. It's the schoolmaster
to drive us to Christ. Our schoolmaster unto Christ
is what it actually says. So the law of God, the justice
of God, the condemnation of sin is that which is its purpose
is to drive us, his people, to trust in Christ and to rest in
him. So what does it say to us? Well,
as I said, I just want to look at the first four verses this
week, and then we'll look at the second vision, God willing,
next time. The curse of sin. This is the
curse that goeth forth over the face of the world. What is? Well,
look at verses one and two. I turned and lifted up mine eyes
and looked, and behold, a flying roll. And he said to me, what
do you see? And I said, I see a flying roll.
The length thereof is 20 cubits, and the breadth thereof is 10
cubits. It's a flying roll, or a scroll. You know, as a book was a scroll,
it was a rolled up piece of parchment with writing on it, on both sides.
But this is a big one. This is, if you want it in feet,
30 feet by 15 feet. If you want it in meters, 9 meters
by 4 and a half meters. It's a big thing, like a great
big carpet. It's a flying scroll, a flying
roll, and it's written on both sides. Look. Over the face of
all the earth, verse three, everyone that stealeth shall be cut off
as on this side. It's written on that one side,
and then you turn it over, and everyone that sweareth, it means
swearing falsely in God's name, shall be cut off as on that side
of it. It's written on both sides, just like the tables of the Ten
Commandments given to Moses on Sinai were written on both sides. And the book, when you look in
Revelation chapter 5, and in the vision, he sees there on
the throne a book on the hand of God. A book on the hand of
God. It's written on all sides. There's
no white space. There's no room for anything
else to be fitted there. It's the word of God, which cannot
be added to or taken away from. What is it about the size of
this flying roll, this great big scroll, that's flying over
the face of all the earth? It's the same size as the porch
of the temple was in Jerusalem. It's the same size as the holy
place within it. And the porch was the way into
the temple, and the holy place was where God said he would reside
with his people, only on the day of atonement by the high
priest going in with the acceptable sacrifice. But nevertheless,
it symbolized access to God's presence. on earth. If you would
meet with God, if you would have fellowship with God, you must
go there. That's why the Queen of Sheba
went there. She went there because that was
the place on earth. The Samaritan woman said to Jesus,
you Jews say that in Jerusalem's the right place, and we say in
this mountain that was the sin of Jeroboam. And Jesus said,
the time's coming when neither here nor there, but in spirit
and in truth. But the fact is that the temple
in Jerusalem was symbolical of the only place where we can worship
God. What's the only place where we
can worship God? You and me today, what's the
only place? I'll tell you, it's not a physical
place. It's the Lord Jesus Christ and faith in him, that he shows
himself to us by faith, that he reveals himself to us by faith. That's where we meet with God.
That's where we have access to the presence of God. But this
role symbolised that, and it's a role which is a strict law. It goes forth over the face of
all the earth. No one escapes it. All mankind
is born subject to its inescapable demands. If you, a sinner, would
have access to God, you must perfectly meet the requirements
written on this flying scroll. It's the law of God. It's you
and me too, all of us. Where can you and I read the
contents of this flying roll today? I'll tell you. It's here.
It's in the pages of this book. It's the Bible. It's the Bible.
That's where. It's a two-edged sword. It's
a two-edged sword because it contains the strict demands of
God's righteousness on all. And it says the curse for disobedience
of that. And secondly, it shows us the
blessings of gospel grace. in the just rescue from just
condemnation that is for his people. You can't dodge it. You
can't escape it. The world tries to ignore it.
The world tries to distract itself from it and to delude itself
that it's irrelevant to them. It's what the scripture calls
in Isaiah 28 and verse 15, the world has gone after, the religious
world especially, has gone after a refuge of lies. This fallen
world, in its false religion and its denial of the one true
gospel, is seeking out a refuge of lies. trying to outrun it,
trying to get away from it. But, Psalm 147 verse 15, he sendeth
forth his commandment upon the earth. That's this flying scroll.
His word runneth very swiftly. You can't outrun it. You can't
escape it. Everyone, without exception,
is subject to its demands. Everyone, without exception,
it is appointed. unto man to die once. What? Who? You? Me? All of us? It is appointed to
man to die once, and then what? Then the judgment. The judgment
about what? How you've lived under this flying
scroll. then the judgment. Your life
and mine from God is only truly fulfilled in intimate fellowship
with our maker and our judge. But we're all under the curse
of sin. We're all under the curse of
sin. Sin against God and sin against
our fellow men. Like the tables of law from the
commandments given on Sinai. You know, one was the table of
the the commandments given regarding our relationship with God and
then our relationship with others. So verses three and four, look
at them. This is what he says. This is
the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth.
For everyone that stealeth shall be cut off, as on this side.
That's one table. And everyone that sweareth, and
the second verse, verse four, tells us, sweareth falsely by
my name, shall be cut off as on that side. The two tables
of the law, stealing and swearing falsely by God's name. Those
two things encompass all sin. Sin against what? Sin against
the being of God. Sin against the nature of God,
for God is holy. The sinless angels hide their
faces from the holiness of God. This is sin against the nature
and the character of our holy God. You say, explain that. Stealing,
why does that cover everything? Stealing talks about self-driven,
selfishly driven acts against others. What do you mean? I mean
coveting what they have and I don't have. Stealing itself, taking
their property. Taking their property? Yeah,
taking their spouse. Relationships, you know how much
adultery and infidelity there is in this world. Coveting and
taking property, taking the spouse, taking the life. Murder, murder,
thou shalt not kill. Murder, the spouse, the life. Dishonoring others. Honor your
father and mother. Honor them. Do unto others as
you would have them do unto you. As people made in God's image. Stealing what others have as
people made in God's image. And in so doing, were sinning
against God, who gave others all of these things. Plus, swearing
falsely in God's name. Denying God's right to be worshipped,
that amounts to idolatry. It's worshipping a false God
rather than the one true God. God's right to rule over all,
denying it, denying it, disbelieving it, rejecting it, saying I'm
not having anything to do with that. He has a right to exercise
total sovereignty in all matters of life and religion, and to
swear falsely is to rebel against that. Basically, swearing falsely
is peddling false religion. We'll see more on that next time
in the second half of Zechariah chapter five. But just think
on these things. I am sure for some of you listening,
maybe, Satan is already whispering in your ear and telling you that
you have no need of God. He's telling you, evolution made
you. Do you know what a subtle trick
that is? That's confounded generations. Evolution made you, you don't
need God, evolution made you. Right and wrong? Who's to say
what's right and wrong? Right and wrong is what you choose
to do. So eat, drink, be merry, for
tomorrow we die. God has a name for you. Can I
just turn you to it? It's in Psalm 14. In Psalm 14,
just look there. God has a name for you. If that's
what Satan's whispering in your ear and you're inclined to hear,
it says this to you, the word of God. The fool has said in
his heart, there is no God or no God for me, or I'm not having
this God to rule over me. They're corrupt. They've done
abominable works. There is none that doeth good.
The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see
if there were any that did understand and seek God. They're all gone
aside. None of them have obeyed the
requirements of the flying roll over all the earth. They're all
together become filthy. There is none that doeth good.
No, not one. Don't they understand? And so
he goes on. The fool. God has a name for
you if you're listening to Satan whispering in your ear that you
have no need for God. He says the fool has said in
his heart, there is no God. There is no God for me. This
world's godless philosophy is Satan's grand delusion. Don't settle and rest in it as
your godless philosophy, for I'll tell you where it'll end.
If you do, you're on the broad way that leads to destruction,
eternal destruction. So then, This is the curse on
all the earth, and it's the ministration of death. We read that in 2 Corinthians
chapter 3 at the start, the ministration of death. The ministration in
itself is the word from God, but it's one that speaks death
to sinners, disobedience to. Denial of the demands of this
flying role of all the law of God ends in eternal, timeless,
enduring death. That's what it is, the ministration
of death. Separated from God and from anything
good, we call it hell. The scriptures call it hell.
Jesus spoke of it often, very often. separated from God for
eternity. The law of God, God's law, is
good. Look at Romans chapter 7 with
me, just for a moment. Romans chapter 7 and verse 9.
this flying roll with the law of God on it. I was alive without
the law when I was unaware of it once, but when the commandment
came, when I was woken up to the demands of this flying roll
over all the earth, I knew that I was a sinner, sin revived,
and it killed me, I died. And the commandment, which was
ordained to life, why was it ordained to life? Because if
you do it, you will live. If you do it and perfectly keep
God's commandments, you will live. But I found it to be unto
death, because I couldn't keep it. For why? Sin, verse 11, taking
occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it, it slew
me. It killed me. Look over the page
at Romans chapter 8 and verse 3. Romans chapter 8 and verse
3. This is why. What the law could
not do. Do this and live. But you can't. Why not? Why couldn't it do it?
It was weak through the flesh. It was weak through the flesh.
Our flesh is too weak to obey it. Because we're sinners, because
that's in our nature, we can do nothing about it. We're sinners,
condemned under that law of God. But what the law couldn't do
in making us righteous for heaven, God sending his own son in the
likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the
flesh. God did that which we couldn't
do for ourselves. It couldn't confirm me, the law
obeying it couldn't confirm me as fit for God's presence because
of weak sinful flesh. It demands strict obedience,
strict, perfect righteousness in thought, in motive, in action
towards others and towards God. We could look up, if we had time,
Deuteronomy 27, and it says, do all of these things, do all
of these things, do all of these things. And in Luke 10, 28, Jesus
said to somebody who was asking him, what should he do to live?
Obey the law, obey the law perfectly. This do, obey the law perfectly,
and thou shalt live. God's law is right and good and
just, as it says in that chapter seven of Romans, but it can never
grant life. It can only expose sin. It can
only condemn. It can only demand punishment,
retribution. It's the ministration of death.
Let's read it again. 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and verse
7. If the ministration of death,
written and engraven in stones, that's on the tablets of stone
given to Moses, if that was glorious, which it was, The presence of
God there was terrifying to the children of Israel. The children
of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for
the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away.
How shall not the ministration of the Spirit, this is the ministration
of the gospel in Christ, be more glorious than that ministration
of death written on stones in the law? For if the ministration
of condemnation be glory, Much more doth the ministration of
righteousness exceeding the law. The gospel is better. The gospel
is infinitely better than the law. The gospel is better. The
law justly pronounces the state of us all. In Galatians 3 and
verse 10, it tells us this, and it's quoting Deuteronomy chapter
7. For as many as are of the works of the law, those that
are trying to be right with God by obeying the law, that flying
scroll over us all, they're under the curse, for it is written,
cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. There's one of the old
writers a couple of hundred years ago, John Warburton, lovely poor
weaver, and he became a minister of the gospel of grace. He listened
to the preaching of William Gadsby, whose hymns we sing often, and
he became a minister of a church and then moved to Trowbridge
in Somerset, and he was there for many, many years, and his
chapel's still there to this day. But he said, when he was
coming under conviction, this verse kept echoing in his soul. He was trying to be right with
God by the things he did, by turning over a new leaf, by determining
not to do this and not to do that. And he kept reading because
the Holy Spirit kept shouting it in his soul. Cursed is everyone
that continueth not in all things that are written in the book
of the law to do them. And he knew he couldn't do them,
and he knew that he didn't do them. Do you realize that you're
alive because God has given you life, but you're justly cursed
and condemned and banished to outer darkness and your appointment,
that one I said right at the start, Hebrews 9, 27, appointment
to die once and then the judgment, that appointment to confirm your
just condemnation draws ever closer. Would you not cry out? and echo Job's words, you know
the words of Job in Job 9 verse 2, how should a man be just with
God? I need to be just with God. Will
you not hear the cry of the Philippian jailer in Philippi when Paul
and Silas were in prison falsely for preaching the gospel and
the earthquake comes and the man suddenly, this hard, rough,
hard man suddenly becomes terrified and realizes the perilous state
of his mortal soul and he cries out to Paul and Silas, sirs,
What must I do to be saved? And the answer is this, you need
a credible ransom price to be paid to divine justice so that
you can be justly released from it. And Job finds it, he says
in 33 and verse 24, deliver him, says God, from going down to
the pit, the pit of hell. Why? I have found a ransom. What's
the ransom that God has found? The death of his son, the blood
of his son, the blood that pays for the sins of his people. What
will pay your sin debt to the justice of God and accept him,
get him to accept you as fit for his kingdom? The answer is
we need an end to this flying scroll. We need an end. to the
curse that goes forth over all the earth. There is a just end
to this condemning, flying roll over all the earth. There is
a just end to it, and the scripture states it clearly. Again, it's
Romans, chapter 10, verse 4, for Christ is the end of the
law for being righteous with God. To everyone that believes,
Christ is the end of the law. Christ is the end of the law.
Religion, that which calls itself Christian religion, doesn't believe
this because they believe and they state to people over and
over again that you can only be right with God by your obedience
to the law, but by the works of the law, says Galatians 2
verse 16, by the works of the law you will never be justified
by it. No flesh shall be justified.
So then what do we do? Christ, we're all condemned. He who doesn't continue in all
things written in the book of the law to do them is condemned.
But in Galatians 3.13, three verses on from that verse we
read earlier, Christ has redeemed us, his people, from the curse
of the law. How has he bought us, redeemed
us, from the curse of the law? By being made the curse for us. By being the substitute of his
people. so that it says in 2 Corinthians
5.21, God made him, his son, God in flesh, to be sin for us,
to bear it all under the justice of God. Why? That paying its
price, we, those whom he represented as their substitute, that we
might be made the righteousness of God in him. And so I'm going
to come back to Romans 7. And the last verse of it, it
says in verse 25, I thank God, sorry, verse 24. Oh wretched
man that I am as a sinner under the curse of God. Who shall deliver
me from the body of this death? I thank God. Through Jesus Christ
our Lord. So then with the mind I myself
serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. There
is therefore now no condemnation. Is that not a wonderful, wonderful
thing to read in the Word of God? There is therefore now no
condemnation, no curse abiding over those who are in Christ
Jesus, trusting in him, who walk not after the Spirit, after the
flesh but after the spirit. And go on, read it all. What
the law could not do, well, we're ready before. This chapter, Zechariah
chapter five, as all scripture, speaks of Christ. There are those
who say there's nothing of Christ in it. I think there's everything
of Christ in it because of this. It drives us to Christ. It drives
us to Christ. It drives us to Christ to rescue
us from the wrath to come. It drives us to Christ for the
removal of my sin, for the cleansing of my sin. You say, I don't understand
how it works. You don't have to understand
how it works. You just have to believe what God has said, to
be forgiven that sin, to be made righteous and fit for God. What
is the work that we must do? You know, I quote it often, John
6, 29, they asked Jesus, what is the work that we must do to
please God? And Jesus said this, this is
the work of God that you believe on him whom he sent. Believe,
trust him. Was there ever better news in
this fallen world? Was there ever? I think not.
People gather in religious huddles to pray for world peace. They
do, in our day. People gather in religious huddles
to pray for world peace, because the world is in a mess. But you
know, it will never happen. The Word of God says it will
never happen. There will always be war. The red horse of war
always goes forth, because it's the kingdom of Satan. No, there
will never be peace until this world is justly destroyed under
judgment. It's not world peace that you
need, it's peace with God that you need. It's peace through
the blood of the cross that you need. What must I do to be saved? Cried the Philippian jailer.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved, you and
anybody else.