Zechariah Chapter 5

Zechariah chapter five - a scroll flying through the air that also consumes houses...and a tiny lady in a basket with a lead cover that is carried off by two other women who have wings like a stork....what could it all mean? 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, good morning, and uh welcome to the AX242 podcast. Today we're up to Zechariah chapter 5, and um chapter 5 and chapter 6 close out. These are the final three visions of the eight visions that Zechariah had. And I'm gonna just kind of go back and summarize very quickly the first five visions that we've already had, because I know I forget them from between week to week, and so uh it's just helpful for me to kind of catch us up to where we are in this story. And as we remember, the 70 years are now up, and the Lord is calling upon his people, he is saying, return. And with these eight visions that um are all had in the 70th year, you know, when the 70 years are up, Zechariah has these eight visions, so they're all apparently, at least it seems like they're all on one night, and it's this call of the Lord to return. And the first vision is uh of those horsemen that were in the valley, different color horsemen. They're in this valley of myrtle trees, and they're kind of this um force that has gone out from the Lord to patrol, it says, the earth. And they report and they say, you know, everything's just sitting, it's just silent and still. And then the angel cries out, you know, how long is it going to be before you have mercy upon your people? And it's a message, kind of an introductory message to the people, telling them the Lord is aware of what's going on. He knows of your sorrow, he knows of your pain, and he cares about it. And any time that you're going to deliver a message to people like this, I suppose that one of the most important things is to make sure that that people understands that you care for them. And so the Lord takes time there uh right away to say, I not only do I care, but the angels care. And I have forces out there that are watching over you, and it's time to come back. Well, after that, you be he begins to address um, I guess you could say, maybe objections that people would immediately have. Um, also, it could just be um, you know, promises that the Lord wanted to deliver them regarding the blessing. And so the first one is he he talks very briefly about the four horns that have scattered Israel and the four craftsmen that are going to rebuild Israel. And it's a promise to the people that there is going to be protection offered to them, that they are going to be blessed by the kings of the land, in spite of the fact that the past ones had destroyed them. And indeed, that's how it turned out, that there were four kings that were that the Lord raised up in Persia that were really builders. And each of them issued a different decree to say, you know, that the house of the Lord, or eventually even the city of Jerusalem, was to be built. They were indeed four craftsmen. And then after that, he goes on, and the Lord kind of jumps forward and he says, Look, look, I've got my surveyor, you know, out there, and these are the plans, these are the building plans that I have for you. It's going to be a wonderful city, and there's going to not even be walls because I'm going to be the wall around it. And that was the third vision. And then the fourth, you have Joshua being cleansed. And Joshua, all of his iniquity is washed away, if you will, and the Lord says, this is a symbol of the people of Israel, and this person, Messiah, is introduced. Joshua's a stand-in for the person of Messiah. And then in the next vision, and that's a promise, that vision's a promise to the people that their iniquity is going to be removed. The Lord will not remember their iniquities anymore, and he will, you know, bless them. All of this is about their blessing that's coming to them. He's saying, Come back. I have all these blessings for you. And then the next one, uh, which we talked about last week, is the lamp with the seven uh lamps, the lampstand, I should say, with the seven lamps on it, each of the lamps on the lampstand having seven spouts to it, it seems. And he says, Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord. And so you would just think, well, how are all of these things going to come to pass? And by what power is this Messiah going to come in? By what power is the temple going to be rebuilt? Was the big question they had in their minds at that time. And the Lord said, Well, Zerubbabel's hands are going to finish it. Zerubbabel also is a figure of the Lord there. Um, so you first have Joshua in the previous vision, the high priest, a figure of the Lord, then you have Zerubbabel, the figure of the Lord, and he says, His hands are going to finish it. And it's by the power of the Holy Spirit. And now we come to chapter 5, uh, which is the chapter for this week. And uh it's so I find this chapter to be uh one of the more difficult, I suppose. Uh the next chapter, chapter six, would probably be the most difficult. Um, but that's partly because even the writers disagree on chapter six, and so if the writers all disagree, then you know, where where are you gonna fall? Um but in chapter five here, it is difficult, but I I think the reason that it's difficult is because we struggle, and I struggle, to be able to visualize and understand what kind of world these people of Israel would have lived in. Uh we're so used to the modern world, we're so used to essentially, let me just describe a few elements of it. We're so used to getting in a car and saying, I'm gonna go to California. And we just drive. And we have, I mean, our greatest fear is that the car might break down or that we might get in an accident. We have no fear, or at least very little fear, that we're gonna be driving down the highway and all of a sudden some band of brigands is gonna come and smash her into our car and drag us out and beat us to death and steal all our money. We just don't have that fear. And a lot of us, I mean, some of us live in bad sections, if you will, of I don't know, of the country in bad cities or whatever, and I guess we're not far from the murder capital of the US. But um, it just seems to me that in most cases we go to bed and and we lock our doors and we try to do, you know, wise things, but we go to bed without really being that terrified that somebody's going to break in and you know steal all our stuff and burn our house down and kill us. Like we just we tend to have a kind of general trust. And that's because it just doesn't happen, I guess, super often to people that we know. But in this day, um, like you think of Ezra when he is on his way back, he um he came back, you know, much later than Zerubbabel and Joshua, and he has his people with him, and he's on his way back, and he describes this in the book of Ezra. He says, Essentially, what it was is it was a very dangerous journey. He's in this caravan of people, he's got a bunch of gold from the um temple that he's taking back to the to the people of Israel that has been you know committed to him. And he he's uh loath because he's told the king that he, you know, the Lord is on his side, shall we say. And but the journey is very, very dangerous. And so he says, We afflicted ourselves and we prayed that the Lord would bring us home. And it's an amazing thing to consider that that was a real fear for the people at that time. In other words, the point I'm trying to make, and maybe I'm laboring this too much, is that times were very different then, and life was very uncertain, and justice was very perverted. We're gonna find in um two chapters from now, in chapter seven, the Lord talking about, he says, You you know, that the thing that I really wanted from you was true justice, that you wouldn't oppress the widow and the orphan. That's what I that's what I wanted from you. And not this, you know, religious fast that you're just happy to do for a minute and then be done with. The point is that this was a time of incredible fear on the part of people that they were going to be robbed or killed any day. Uh there was a lot of miscarriage of justice where rich people got away with oppressing poor people and widows and whatever else. It was hard times, shall we say, to live in. And so, with that as kind of a backdrop, and that's a very hasty picture of a backdrop. But we come here and you can see hopefully a little bit better how this would be a blessing to the people. We might think of it as, oh no, this is a really harsh thing. But it actually would be a tremendous blessing, at least to those who were righteous. So we begin in chapter 5, verse 1. He says, Then I lifted up my eyes again. So here it is. He's in the same night. Here he lifts up his eyes again and looked, and behold, there was a flying scroll. I don't know if you've ever seen the old ancient movies or whatever else, or if you just look up a scroll, it's basically two rolling pins with uh paper, shall we say, it's not exactly paper as we would know it, but let's just call it paper wrapped around them. And then when you want to read them, you take it and you kind of roll the rolling pins away from each other, and it unrolls a section of this paper, and you can kind of roll one and roll the other, if you will, to kind of move that paper from left to right. That's the scroll. Well, in this case, it's a flying scroll. This is a scroll that's sailing through the air. And so the angel, in this case, I don't know if because normally Zechariah immediately says, What's that? And in this case, he he doesn't. And the angel actually has to turn to him and say, What do you see? I don't know. Maybe this was something so surprising to Zachariah that he was just kind of dumbfounded. But in any case, when the angel turns to him and says, What do you see? He says, Then I answered, I see a flying scroll. Its length is 20 cubits and its width 10 cubits. 20 cubits by 10 cubits, I kind of, you know, think about this is sort of like the footprint of a one-car garage, something like that. Just to kind of help visualize it. So imagine a piece of paper that's the size of your one-car garage now flying through the air. You know, that's kind of surprising. And uh, and then he said to me, This is the angel now, he said to me, This is the curse that is going forth over the face of the whole land. Surely everyone who steals will be purged away according to the writing on one side, and everyone who swears will be purged away according to the writing on the other side. I will make it go forth, declares the Lord of hosts, and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of the one who swears falsely by my name, it will spend the night within that house, and consume it with its timber and stones. What could this be? Well, it's it's pretty clear. I mean, the angel tells us exactly what it is. It's just maybe hard for us to actually believe it or consider that that would actually be. But the way I think of this is I don't know if you've ever been to the beach. Say, like the Jersey Beach or something like that, and there's other beaches too. But if you've ever been to the beach and you spend some time there, you know that every now and again there's planes that fly by over the beach, over the water. And this, excuse me, these planes are flying by. And of course, they make this noise, and you're kind of interested in planes, at least generally, they're kind of something other than the waves and the sun, I suppose. And so you turn and you look at the plane, and it's flying very slowly by. It's not a jet, it's just like a prop plane. And behind it, trailing out behind it, is this big sign. And it will say, you know, get life insurance today. Call, and then it gives a number or something like that. And it flies by. And these go on every day. I mean, as far as I know, every day, at least whenever I'm there, it seems like they're out. And I guess maybe if it's too windy, they don't go out. But anyway, the point is that these are huge signs. They're probably the size of your garage, and they're just sailing through the air. And the point is that everybody on the beach can see them. It's a very good way to advertise. And so I think of this scroll in that way. I think that it's sailing through the air, and it is a figure. I don't know if this is going to be literal during the millennium, but whether it is or isn't, the point is that everybody's going to be aware of the system of justice that exists during the millennium. And it has writing on it, and we don't, we aren't told what the writing is, but we're told that anyone who's to say steals is going to be purged away. It's going to be removed, killed, thrown into the lake of fire, as far as we can tell. Or maybe they're just put to death and they're judged at the great white throne. I don't know. But in any case, they're judged, purged, according to the writing on one side. And many of the writers see this as let me see, I think I have a quote from Kelly. Yeah, here's a quote from Kelly on page 456 of his lectures on the minor prophets. He says, quote, these are taken as a sample, not as the whole, one from the second table of the law, which deals with man, the other from the first, which deals with direct offenses against God, and that'd be the swearing. So the point of this is that, end quote, so the point of this is that you've got this sign, if you will, sailing through the air, and everybody can look up and read. And what they're reading is, uh, if Kelly's right anyway, the table of the law, or at least portions of the table of the law saying, Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal. And, you know, on the other side, worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Make no idols, don't bow yourself down, you know, all of those sort of things. Don't take the name of God in vain, which is the specific one that is referenced. Now, as far as this, it's called a curse. And the law itself was a curse. The Mosaic law says, if you don't, you know, cursed is I can't remember the quote, but basically, if you don't follow the law, then there was, I think, Mount Ebel and Mount Gerizim. Mount Ebel was this curse, and it was cursed shall you be if you in the field and cursed shall you be. It's this whole like page of curses. Well, this is kind of a reinstitution of something like at least the Mosaic Law, if not the Mosaic Law itself. And we know that several of the feasts, like the Feast of Tabernacles, is going to be reintroduced, which will even include the Gentiles, which we find later. And so, in any case, the law is reintroduced and it's enforced every night. Because it says when somebody sins, this curse is going to enter into their house. And it says, let's see, it will spend the night within that house and consume it with its timber and stones. Now, doesn't this bring to mind when the uh, now I'm gonna forget his name, but when the man uh stood up, Korah, stood up against Moses. And Moses said, There's gonna be a new thing in the earth. Everybody get away from Korah, and all the people that were faithful basically get got away, and then the earth opened up its mouth and swallowed Korah and all his people. It was rebellion against God's order. Well, anybody who sins in this day, when Messiah is on the throne, is also going to be rebellious against God's order. And it says the earth is going to open up, well, it doesn't say that, but it says that it will consume it. And either we'll just make these stones and timbers just vaporize, maybe through intense heat, or I guess I get more the impression that the earth is just going to swallow it up, it's just going to consume it, eat it up, and it will be gone. Now, I don't think that this, I guess personally, I don't think that this role is literally going to go into this person's house and do this in a literal sort of a sense, but I do believe that it will go go in in a figurative sense. In other words, this law will reach into everybody's houses and will destroy them. So that might not seem to us like a blessing, but to the people of the land at this time, that would have been such a blessing. Because they we complain about lack of justice, and we're talking about very minor things or things that are not related to us personally at all. But for this people at this time, the miscarriage of justice was so severe that the thought of a king that actually would rule in justice and would judge every morning, not like months later, years later, but every morning, and his justice would be final and swift, that would have been such a blessing. So let's move on now. It says, um, then the angel who was speaking with me went out and said, Lift up now your eyes and see what is going forth. Okay, so he says, Look, look, what's what's happening out there? And I said, What is it? So in this case, he doesn't even tell us what he sees. He just looks and he sees something apparently. And he says, What is it? And uh and he said, This is the epha going forth. And epha was this um, it was a measure of like you'd you'd have an epha a grain, it'd be sort of like a gallon or a bushel uh today. It's it's just a unit of measure. He said, This is an epha going forth. And I did some numbers on this. It'd be something like a basket, say, about 18 inches in diameter and about 12 inches high. So just imagine something like that, just roughly. And uh and he said to me, This is their appearance in all the land, or this is their iniquity in all the land. It could read also. And behold, a lead cover was lifted up. So now it kind of zooms forward and he's able to actually look close up at this basket. And he said, A lead cover was lifted up, and this is a woman sitting inside the epha. So it's a very small woman, but there's this little woman that's sitting inside of this basket, and there's this lead cover, and you think of lead, you immediately think of a heavy weight, you know, something very secure, if you will. There's this leg cover on this basket. It's lifted up, and you see this woman sitting inside. And he said, the angel says, This is wickedness. So this woman sitting inside the basket is a is a picture of wickedness. And there's some debate as far as, well, what wickedness is this? And F.B. Hole suggests, well, it's an epha. An epha was a common unit like we might today talk. I don't know if we talk about this or not, but at least in the old days we talk about, you know, I got a hundred bushels of wheat that I'll sell you, you know, for X number of dollars. Well, in this day it was an ifa that they would use. And so the fact that this woman is sitting inside of an epha would seem to indicate that there is some level of commerce that is to some degree associated with her. But what is she herself a representative of? And I think it's very clear, um, Kelly argues this, and basically all the writers agree that at least at some degree, this woman is a picture of idolatry. Idolatry was the single, uh, I don't know if you can say the greatest. I guess I take it as maybe the greatest or at least the most prevailing and the most referenced sin by the Lord throughout the land of Israel. And it's clear that it's idolatry because in verse 11 he says that they are going to build a temple for her in the land of Shinar. And when it is prepared, she'll be set there on her own pedestal. So this is, I believe, a figure of idolatry. Either the ephah is a prison, or the epha is the commerce and the money, shall we say, that idolatry runs off of to some degree. And we're, and I am not very familiar with how idolatry works, but I understand that there is an element of commerce, an element of money that is associated with idolatry. The two seem to go hand in hand to some degree, and also power and things like that. But in any case, She is being sent out of the land. It says it's going forth. And the lead weight is cast down on top of her. And I assume that that is a reference to her being contained and held within this ephah. And they all together are carried off by these two women coming out with the wind in their wings, and they had wings of a stork. They'd be very long, sort of wings. And they says they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heavens. And now finally Zechariah turns and he says, Well, where are they taking her? And he says to me, To build a temple for her in the land of Shinar, which is where Babylon is. And when it is prepared, she will be set there on her own pedestal. Well, I said that this was one of the more uh challenging chapters for me. Uh the next one, next chapter, chapter six, being maybe the only chapter that's more challenging. And uh this is probably uh why is is kind of this this vision. But I can't explain what the storks are. I'm not sure what the stork wings represent. I'm not sure about the lead cover. I I have thoughts about them. There's things that puzzle me about this, but I think one thing is clear, and it's consistent with across the writers. One thing is clear, and that is that idolatry is being taken out of the land of Israel, but not permanently. It's there's going to be a future installment of idolatry. Now, this happened in the land of Israel at this time. Um, there was, when the people returned from the land of Israel, they never again fell into overt idolatry. You don't find during the days of the Lord Jesus people offering sacrifices to Moloch or to Baal or to any of these gods. That was gone. It had been removed from the land. And yet we know, and the Lord speaks of this in Matthew chapter 12, he talks about how there's a house and there's a bad spirit in it, and the spirit goes out of the house, and then it says, after a while, he comes back to the house, finds it empty, swept, and garnished, and he goes and gets seven other spirits worse than himself. And it says the last state of that man or that house is worse than the beginning. Well, that's the way it is going to be for Israel. And it may be that this is what is is referenced here. And the thing that I find so difficult is when is this timeline? Is it talking about when the people return? It would break the pattern if it was. It seems to me that this is talking about the millennium, because that's what the previous visions have been talking about. It seems to me that this is building up to the final, the end of the millennium, when the Messiah abolishes idolatry, shall we say, puts it out of the land, carries all that wickedness away, says it's done for. And yet at the end of the millennium, at the end of that thousand-year reign of the Lord Jesus, we know that Gog and Magog rise again. It says the devil goes out, he deceives the nations. I presume that they fall into open devil worship. In some way, though, they fall back into idolatry. Figuratively, they're Babylon, and they come and attack, and that's the end of all things. So, what we have in this vision, as far as I can tell, is we certainly have the removal of idolatry from the land. That happened when the people returned. They never again fell into that idolatry. But they will in a future day, and I think that that's only a partial fulfillment of this. I believe that what this is talking about, just to be finally clear, I know I've been talking around this a little bit, I'm sorry. But to be clear, I believe that what this is referencing is how the Messiah will remove idolatry from the land, and yet it will not be permanently removed from the earth, because it will eventually have a temple in Babylon. And it will be set up again on its base, and there will be this rebellion against the Lord Jesus who sits on the throne at that time. So we have only uh one more vision to go, and then an addendum in chapter 8, and then these eight visions that Zechariah has in one night on his bed will be completed. And um, but that's it for Zechariah chapter 5.