But it is a joy to be here. May
the Lord give me and Chris this morning liberty and help us as
we try to say something for His glory. I want to look in Zechariah
chapter 13 and verse 1. In that day there shall be a
fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants
of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. And it shall come
to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will cut
off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no
more be remembered. And also I will cause the prophets
and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land. And it shall
come to pass that when any shall yet prophesy, then his father
and his mother that beget him shall say unto him, Thou shalt
not live, for thou speakest lies in the name of the Lord. And
his father and his mother that beget him shall thrust him through
when he prophesied. And it shall come to pass in
that day that the prophet shall be ashamed, every one of his
vision, when he hath prophesied, neither shall they wear a rough
garment to deceive. But he shall say, I am no prophet. I am a farmer, a husbandman. For man taught me to keep cattle
from my youth. And one shall say unto him, what
are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, those with
which I was wounded in the house of my friends. Awake, O sword,
against my shepherd, against the man that is my fellow, saith
the Lord of hosts. Smite the shepherd, and the sheep
shall be scattered, and I will turn my hand upon the little
ones. This shall come to pass. that
in all the land saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut
off and die, but the third part shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part
through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and
will try them as gold is tried. And they shall call on my name,
and I will hear them, and I will say, IT IS MY PEOPLE, AND THEY
SHALL SAY THE LORD IS MY GOD. IN THAT DAY THERE SHALL BE A
FOUNTAIN OPENED." And you know that fountain meets
the need of God and it meets the needs of our guilty conscience. Brother Scott Richardson used
to say that before God can do anything for us, He has to do
something for Himself. And what He has to do for Himself
is to satisfy His demands. He cannot look upon sin with
any favor. If He marks one iniquity, then
its woe will be to us. No man can stand in His presence
in sin. So the Lord Jesus satisfied the
court of heaven on God's behalf. He entered God's presence and
through the blood, through His precious blood, He purged away
sin. He satisfied God. And then He
has to do something for us. He has to satisfy our conscience. We cannot serve God. We cannot
enjoy God in our guilt. We cannot come to God in fellowship
with Him with all this apprehension of His wrath upon us. We must
have the assurance that our guilt has been washed away, that God
is our Father, that He has accepted us. And this fountain that's
opened meets God's need and it meets our need. You and I are
ever indebted, we're indebted so much to the book of Hebrews
because it goes into detail about these things and tells us these
things that we need to know. And it tells us about the Son
of God satisfying God first and foremost. There in chapter 1
of Hebrews, a wonderful 3 verses, how that starts that Jesus Christ
being in the very image of God, the likeness of God, He was God
in our humanity. Upholding all things by the word
of His power. The Bible says when He had by
Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of God.
When did He do that? When were our sins purged? 2,000
years ago, outside the city of Jerusalem. Jesus Christ purged
the sins of all his people. And you know where he purged
them from? The court of heaven. The court of heaven. He did that
for God. But the book of Hebrews never
stops there, does it? It goes in and says, if the blood
of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sanctified to the
purifying of the flesh, and that's what the blood of those bulls
and goats did. It separated the flesh. God came
down upon Mount Sinai and he told the children of Israel to
sanctify yourselves, wash your clothes, don't come near your
wives, be holy in your flesh. But that's all that could do.
Separate flesh, purge the flesh. And then he said, how much more
shall the blood of Christ purge your conscience from dead works
to serve the living God? We cannot serve God. We cannot
fellowship with Him until He now does something for us. Our
conscience must be purged. And that's what this fountain
is about, isn't it? It's about the purging of our
sins from the court of heaven and the court of our conscience.
And I tell you when that happens, then we can enjoy God. Then we
can serve Him. Then we can be jealous over our
conscience. That's what these next few verses
are about, about practical things. What happens when the conscience
is purged? What happens when the Holy Spirit
brings an application of this blood of Christ and purges a
man's conscience? What happens? How does that man
feel about his sins? About the life that he used to
live? Oh, he's ashamed of it. He hates it. When this blood
purges the conscience, you'll be so jealous over your conscience,
you'll never want to defile it again. I was coming down Thursday
and I have this this green shirt My wife bought me a green shirt
And and I was I think at the dentist a month or so ago and
this one receptionist there She told me said boy that shirt just
your color you look great in that shirt, and I've been wearing
it ever since I But I was coming down here Thursday and I was
eating a candy bar and I didn't know it but I dropped a big piece
of chocolate and it got between my seatbelt and that shirt. And
I guess it got warm and it just rubbed that chocolate all up
through there. And I got out and went in the
restroom and I was sitting there looking and I thought, oh my
soul, look at my shirt. I've defiled my shirt. And I
got down to Hannah's, and I told her, I said, you know, I've messed
my shirt up. And she said, well, let me have it. I'll see if I
can get it out. And I don't know what she sprayed
on it. I don't know what she washed it in. But she said, I
think I got rid of that stain. And I looked at that thing, and
I'm telling you what, it was as clean as it was when I bought
it new. I wore it again yesterday when
we were over to Flex. I looked good in it, didn't I? But you know something? You know
something? I tell you this much, I'm not going to eat candy bar
and that shirt on it. If I do, I'm going to be careful. You know why? That shirt just
suits me. I look good in that shirt. And
since Hannah, if you hadn't got the stain out of that, I wouldn't
have wore it. I wouldn't be out in public with a big stain on
my shirt like that. And here's what I'm saying, brothers
and sisters. When this blood touches our conscience,
when it purges our conscience from dead works and sin and guilt,
aren't we jealous? I don't want my conscience defiled
anymore, do you? And when it is, I want that stain
removed. So what do we do? Go right back
to that fountain. And we wash again, don't we?
And then we're so comfortable when we enter God's presence.
washed from all our sins and our stain. And that's what these
verses here are about, beginning here in verse 2. This is what
he's talking about. Look here what he says again.
This is the effect. And it shall come to pass in
that day, saith the Lord of hosts, I will cut off the names of the
idol out of the land, and they shall no more remember I will
cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land."
How does he do that? How does he kill a man to his
idols? He washes his conscience. That'll
do it every time. We can make laws. We have laws
and we have to have laws. We have to have laws against
murder. We have to have laws against Rape, we have to have
laws against defrauding people. But you know, we can't make laws
against idolatry, can we? We can't make laws against a
man being a false prophet and going around lying to the souls
of men. Who's going to enforce those
laws? If the state tried to pass laws against idolatry, they'd
come here and be arresting us, wouldn't they? You fellows are
idols. You're worshiping idols. You're
telling lies. You're cults. We don't want the
state to pass laws against idolatry and against false preachers and
false prophets. They can't stop that, but you
know God can. God can put a stop to our idol
worship. He can put a stop to our preaching
lies and believing lies. And you know how He does it?
He washes us in this fountain. He gets right at the root of
the problem. He said there in Ezekiel 36 or
Ezekiel 37, I'm going to gather you out of all country and I'm
going to sprinkle clean water upon you. Now let's be honest,
that's not water like we know it is. Water won't even bring
this stain out of my shirt, let alone reach my conscience. So
I'm going to pour blood upon you. I'm going to purge you with
the blood of my son. From what? All your idols. And from all your uncleanness,
will I wash you. That will take care of a man's
idol worship. It gets right down to the root,
doesn't it? There are some things the state
can stop and should stop. But boy, the Lord doesn't deal
with symptoms. He's got something that goes
right down to the conscience, the heart. And once you make
the heart right, everything else will come right. That's why we've
got to give this pulpit to the gospel. We can't get off on other
issues. Brother Jack Shanks, I heard
him saying one time, he said he was talking about abortion.
this fell out in California. I've heard him preach the gospel
on a little CD someone gave me and I thought I'm going to watch
this guy because boy I heard him preach the gospel. I watched
him three or four times and every sermon he preached was against
abortion. Every sermon he preached was
against abortion. And I was talking to Brother
Shanks, Jack Shanks, and he said one of the most repulsive things
in this world to me is for a woman to let a doctor go up in her
womb and cut her baby to pieces and suck him out. Can you imagine
how repulsive that is? I notice a lot of you couples
have your little babies. Wouldn't it be something if you
had your little infant in a nursery and you went out and got some
murderous man to come in and go there in that nursery, the
safe place that you've made for your little infant, and tell
him to go in there and murder your little infant and put him
in a bag and carry him out. Isn't that repulsive? And for
a doctor to go up into a mother's womb and cut her child to pieces
and suck him out and sell his parts is repulsive. And you know
something? That's a sin this country's guilty
of and God's not going to forgive it. He's going to judge this
country for that. But you know something? We don't
come to our pulpits and make abortion the issue. We don't
make anything else the issue. Here's the issue. There's a fountain
that's open for sin and uncleanness. And tell a woman about that.
And when her conscience is purged in the blood of the Savior, she'll
never kill another one of her children. The Lord Jesus gets
at the root of our problem, doesn't he? The problem is not what we're
doing, it's what we are. We're filthy, we're vile in our
hearts, our understanding, our affection, we're warped, we're
bad, we're sinful. And he takes this fountain that's
open for that and he washes us and he puts a stop to our love
of sin. That's the first thing we see
there. And then the second thing, look in verse three. Not only
does he put a stop to it, But here in verse 3, he tells us
something about why. Why does he, why do we, why is
sin so repulsive now? Why is, why don't we want to
defile our conscience? Why is this conscience, why do we want to keep it right
before our God in heaven? Well, we love the truth. It comes
down to this, the love of the truth, and that's what we see
in verse 3. A man that has his conscience
purged, you think he don't love the truth? Listen to what he
says here. It shall come to pass that when any shall yet prophesy,
then his father and his mother that beget him, they're going
to lay hold upon him and say, you're not going to live. We're
going to kill you, son. You read sometime, I think it
may be the 13th chapter of Deuteronomy. And the Lord told Moses, he said,
if there's a man in this assembly that has a brother or sister
or father or mother or child or a wife of his bosom that tries
to lead him away from God and his truth to worship idols, you
bring him to the elders of the city and you stone him to death. We don't do that today. Thank
God we don't do that. But you know what that shows
us? that there are people who love the truth, and they love
it in the depths of their soul, and they would kill their daddy,
they would kill their child before they'll let go of that truth.
That's what this is teaching us, isn't it? When the Lord first saved me,
my dad was a free will Baptist preacher. And when the Lord saved
me, I seen right there, Dad, you're wrong. And men him locked
horns, We did it in respect. I took this sword and stuck it
right in his heart and I killed him. Not literally, but in my
heart. I said, you're my earthly father,
but you're preaching lies. You're preaching lies in the
name of the Lord. And boy, I run the sword right
through his heart. Do you know what I'm talking
about? When the Lord reveals the truth
to a man, he loves that truth so greatly that no man is his
master anymore. Christ is his master. This here
is your pastor. You love him, you support him,
you pray for him, and you listen to him, you respect him, but
he's not your master. You have one master. that sets
upon your conscience, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ who rules
there in His Word. And boy, if He's washed your
conscience, you don't want anything there but the truth, do you? Truth. We're told about the God
of truth. Christ said, I am the truth.
When the spirit of truth has come, he will lead you, he'll
guide you into all truth. We love the truth. That's what
this fountain will do for you. Truth, truth. Not about us being
different. Not about our system is better
than your system. It's not about we're smarter
than you are. It's about truth. It's about truth. We've been
washed and we love the truth. Look now in the next verse. Look
in verse four. And this shall come to pass.
We see something else. that in that day that the prophet
shall be ashamed every one of his vision when he hath prophesied
neither shall they wear a rough garment to deceive." Here we
have something else. When you are washed in this fountain
you are ashamed of your past life. You don't even want to talk about
it. You are not going to joke about it. You're ashamed of it. What fruit had you then in those
things were of, you're now ashamed. You're ashamed. There's two things
that I'm ashamed of in my life, exceedingly ashamed. One was
my open and profane sins. I'm ashamed of how I used to
live. But you know one of the things
I'm ashamed of more than that? My religious life. I have thought
things about God and about Christ. I have said self-righteous, legalistic
things to people that burns my conscience and burdens my heart
to this day, and I'm ashamed of it. I'm ashamed of it. And you've seen the Lord save
some of these preachers. They've pastored for years, maybe,
and when the Lord saves them, what do they do? They quit preaching. They quit preaching what they
used to preach, and they're ashamed. I had a friend of mine that preached
for years, and the Lord saved him. And he said, one of the
things that I doubt more than anything, would the Lord forgive me for
bringing shame on his name? for lying on him." Oh, that is
the awful sin, isn't it? That is a shame, a shame. And he makes a statement here,
they shall not wear these rough garments to deceive. And what
this is about, the prophets of the Lord were poor men. Man,
they had to depend on widows to feed them, ravens fed them.
They didn't have jobs, they didn't have money, they wore what they
had. They wore these camel's hair
and so on. And what these false prophets
were doing, they were mocking, they were imitating them. They'd go get them a robe made
out of camel's hair and they'd look very humble and self-denying
to deceive people. And the Lord said, when I wash
you, you're going to quit doing that. You are going to quit doing
that. You are going to stop putting
on a front and a show just to be seen of men. How do you feel
when the Lord comes to you and says, Every man walketh in a
vain show? Don't that make you disgusted
with yourself? When the Lord Jesus washes our
conscience, we hate ourselves. We are ashamed of ourselves.
That is one of the ways you know He has He said, I'm going to
give you a new heart. I'm going to give you a new spirit.
And when I do, you're going to abhor yourself in your own sight
for all your sins and your abomination. Ashamed. And he said, here, this
is what you fellows are going to say. I ain't a prophet. Don't
call me a prophet anymore. Don't call me a preacher. I'm
just a farmer. And I should have stayed on the
farm. I shouldn't have never left the farm when I knew what
I was saying and knew what I was doing and went to preaching and
professing to be a prophet. I'm nothing. I tell you, there
are some good preachers that sometimes think I should have
stayed on the farm. I think I should have quit. Did
you ever think that? I was driving a truck for 10
years before I started to pastor. Sometimes I think I should quit
pastoring and go back to driving a truck. Brother Don Fortner was telling
me about a man and he had a habit just going into the restaurants
so people could see him pray. He'd go in there and sit down
and he'd pray a long prayer. And Don asked him about it. He
said, Well, I want people to see. That's the problem right
there. I want people to see that I'm
thankful. That's the problem. That's the
problem. I want people to see. Nothing
wrong with giving thanks. Nothing wrong with being thankful.
But if a man is praying or doing anything just to be seen, then
he should be ashamed of If you want to honor the Lord,
walk by faith. Live by faith. That's the way
to honor him. When I wash you, you're going
to be ashamed of yourself. I'm not a prophet. I'm not a
preacher. I'm nothing. I know nothing. I can do nothing.
Then, boy, when the Lord really calls you, you'll stay in that
attitude. I ain't anything. I ain't anything. Then he goes on to verse 6. It
seems like the Old Testament is like the New Testament. You can't go any time at all
unless you go right back to the cross, right back to Christ.
That's the way it is in the Old Testament. You'll be going through
some of these things, and before you know it, right there it is
again. Here's the Savior hanging on His cross, and here's what
He said in verse 6, And one shall say unto him, What are these
wounds in your hands? I received them, he said, in
the house of my friends. Boy, the house of Israel was
a large house, and the Lord Jesus had a lot of enemies there, but
he had some friends, too, didn't he? Had some friends, but he
said, I got these in the house of my friends, these wounds.
What are these wounds? I wrote these things down, just
four or five things. Listen to this. What are these
wounds? This is the effects of my father's
cup, which I drank. That's what these wounds are. This is the marks to prove that
sin has been punished. That's what these ones are. This
is the marks that prove my success. I have obtained redemption. Behold
my hands and my feet. This is the mark that shows I
have reconciled you to God. Peace has been made. He showed
them his hands and said peace be unto you. These are monuments
of my Father's love. You want to know if God loves
you and never doubt it again? Behold His hands. They are tokens
of the monument of the Father's love to you, to you. These are signs of my obedience
unto death. Behold my hands. Verse 7, I wake,
O sword, against my shepherd and against the man that is my
fellow, saith the Lord. Smite the shepherd, and the sheep
shall be scattered. The Lord Jesus quotes this verse
in Matthew chapter 26 and verse 31, but it's an amazing thing
that he does. It's funny how sometimes the New Testament interprets
the Old Testament. You ever notice that, how that
does that? If you want to know what this verse means, go to
the New Testament. And sometimes you think they've
changed it, but they don't really change the meaning. They just
interpret the meaning. And it says, you smite the shepherd. And we wonder, who smote the
shepherd? The wicked men smote him, didn't they? They did. They
took him to the house of Caiaphas and they smacked his face and
said, you know, prophesy who smote you. They took him to Pilate
and took him to Herod. His soldiers smote him, ripped
his back open until the whites of the bones appeared. They smote
him. But you know what? When the Lord Jesus quoted this
in Matthew chapter 26, you know what he said? Do you know how
he interpreted this? It is written, I will smite the Who's that? That's God, isn't it? God smoked
the shepherd. That's so important. It goes
right back to this, brothers and sisters, that God has to
be satisfied for sin. Somebody's going to be punished
for sin. We need to mark that down to
this generation, don't we? This generation has just a God
of love. He's a good God, but He's not
a just God. He's not a holy God. And people
talk to Him about God is good. God loves you. So they go home
and they sleep well thinking, well, God don't have anything
against me then. I don't have to worry about my
sins. And they rest and they die in this false assumption
that because God is love and God is good, they don't have
to be concerned about their sin. But listen, God is just. God is holy. If I told you this
morning, and you was concerned about your sins and I told you
to go home, that God is so good and God is so merciful, He would
just pass over your sins. And you'd go home in that confidence,
but what are you going to do when you wake up tonight and
your conscience is screaming at you? And your conscience is saying,
what about justice then? Where's justice? That's what
this is about. Mercy can't come to us. LOVE
CANNOT BE SHED ABROAD IN OUR HEART UNTIL JUSTICE IS SATISFIED. AND THAT'S WHAT THIS IS ABOUT.
I WILL SMITE THE SHEPHERD. I'M GOING TO TRANSFER MY SINS
OF MY PEOPLE TO HIM. I'M GOING TO SEE THEM IN HIM.
I'M GOING TO PUNISH HIM FOR YOUR SINS. AND THAT'S THE WAY I'M GOING
TO PURGE YOUR SINS AWAY. And boy, that's a ground of confidence
that Satan and your weakness of faith cannot shake. When you've got a confidence
that your sins have been purged and it's built upon justice as
well as mercy, then you can rest confidently in that. The shepherd
has been smitten. You know what's going on in hell?
God's smiting people. God is pouring out His wrath
upon people, and He will for all eternity because suffering
in hell cannot satisfy for one sin. But Jesus Christ, the dear
Son of God, upon Calvary's tree in three hours of His suffering
and His death and His blood shedding upon that tree, did what hell
could never do. It satisfied for sin. And that's why he says here,
I will turn my hand upon the little ones. If you read Isaiah
sometime, 125, you'll see what that means. It means I'm going
to bless you. I'm going to bless you. I'm going
to turn my hand up, and I'm going to pour out these blessings on
you. Because I've smitten him, now I'm going to bless you. Oh, God is love, isn't it? He
is love. But you know it's all in Christ.
God is eternally good, and He reveals His goodness to us. It's
always through the cross, never anywhere else, Chris, in the
cross. Mercy comes to us, but it comes
at a great cost, didn't it? Verse 8, verse 8. And it shall come to pass in
that day, it shall come to pass that in all the land, saith the
Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die, but the third
shall be left therein. What in the world we have here?
Ain't this election? People wonder all the time, why
do you guys talk about the effectual death of Christ? Why do you talk
about election? Why do you talk about effectual
calling? Well, we read it everywhere we
go. We saw it in verse 1 when we compared it to chapter 12.
Verse 10, I'm going to open my fountain for who? The house of
David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Then you go right
back a few verses before that and say, I'm going to pour out
my spirit on who? The ones for whom I died. And
they're going to look. Isn't that particular redemption
effect your calling? And what do we have here? Two
parts dying in their sins. Cut off. But the third part,
he said, I'm going to save them. I'm going to save them. Who determines
who's cut off and who's left? Aren't you glad that determination
wasn't left up to you? Aren't you glad that the Lord
didn't come down as it were before He opened your heart to the truth
and let you determine, leave it up to you to determine whether
you were going to be elected or pass by? Aren't you glad? And let you decide the terms
of it? No, God decides. God has already
decided. Before the world was, God decided. Who the two-thirds was going
to be who got cut off because of their sins. God never predestinated
men to go to hell, did he? He don't tempt men so they'll
sin so he can be sure and put them in hell. All he has to do
to let men go to hell, just leave them alone. Let them have their
wills. Let them live like they want
to. And when he does that, he'll wind up cutting them off and
killing them. But you know something? He's
not going to cut everybody off. He's got one-third, here he says,
that he's going to save them. Here's what Lloyd-Jones said
about this. He says, here's what the one-third
should think about the two-thirds. Here is what the elect should
think about those that God has passed by. Here is what you and
I have been washed should think of those who are yet in their
sins. We must contemplate men in sin until we are horrified,
until we are alarmed Until we are desperate about them, until
we pray for them, until having realized the marvel of our own
deliverance from that terrible state, we are lost in a sense
of wonder and love and praise. Why was I left? Why was I chosen? Even so, Father, it seemed good
in Thy sight. And what do we do? or bless you, bless you, worship
him that chose us and redeemed us. That's all we can do, is
it not? And then he says here lastly,
he says this, I will bring the third part through the fire and
will refine them as silver is refined and try them as gold
is tried. Well, we talk about the impossibility
of a man saving himself. What about the impossibility
of living the Christian life? It's just as impossible to live
the Christian life as it is to make yourself a Christian. The
same one who made you a Christian, he guides the way. And no man
is going to walk this Christian way by himself. You going to
go jump in the fire? You ain't going to do it, are
you? You ain't going to put yourself in the furnace. That would be
silly. I'm not going to pray, Lord, bring me through the furnace.
Lord, put me in the fire. Try me. I ain't going to pray
that way because I don't like the fire. But that's where the
Lord brings His elect to. He washes them, He reveals the
truth to them, and then He puts them in the fire. and molds them
and makes them and burns away everything that's contrary to
the image of his son, the Lord Jesus. I'll read Mr. Spurgeon and then I'll quit.
He said, grace transmutes us, it changes us into precious metal
and then the fire and the furnace follows as a necessary consequence. Would we be sooner accounted
worthless that we might enjoy repose like the stones of the
field? No, Lord, we will gladly be cast
into the furnace rather than be cast from your presence. The
fire only refines, it does not destroy. We are to be brought
through the fire and not left in it. The Lord values his people
as silver. and therefore he is in pains
to purge away their draws. If we are wise, we will welcome
the refining process. Oh Lord, you test us indeed. We are ready to melt under the
fierceness of the flame. Still, this is your way, and
your way is best. sustain us under the trial and
complete the process of purifying us that we may be yours forever. Lord, wash us. Lord, give us
grace and then do with us what you will. God bless you. Thank you, Pastor.