Zechariah 5

Zechariah 5:1-11

THE FLYING ROLL AND THE WINGED WOMEN Zechariah 5:1-11. THIS fifth chapter of Zechariah contains the sixth and seventh visions of the Prophet. While, in character, these visions are more dark and discouraging than those which have preceded, they are yet vitally linked with them. We know from a former study that the Lord was indeed to become “A wall of fire round about” Jerusalem, a “glory in the midst of it”.But whenever God comes to dwell with His people, sin must depart. If His glorious presence means sure preservation, it also necessitates, always, the purging out of transgression; aye, even of the transgressor. And, as we give ourselves to the study of this chapter, we will find that fact marvelously symbolized by what Zechariah saw when again he had lifted up his eyes.The first vision wasTHE FLYING ROLL In answer to the Angel, who asked “What seest thou”? the Prophet answers,“I see a flying roll; the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits. “Then said He unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth” (Zechariah 5:2-3). God’s curse against sin is spoken. Go back to the Book of Deuteronomy, the 27th chapter, and read Deuteronomy 27:15-26, and you will have before your eyes a part of what was written upon this scroll:—“Cursed be the man that maketh any graven image * *. “Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother * *. “Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark * *. “Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way * *. “Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow * *. “Cursed be he that lieth with his father’s wife”; etc. The twenty-eighth chapter of the same Book also, verses 15-68, catalogues another series of curses against transgressions of God’s holy Law. The doctrine that “there is no sin” had not then been born into the world. False prophets, fadists and flippant talkers had not learned to dub sin “a dream,” “a delusion,” “an illusion,” “an error” “secretions of human nature,” etc. The language of God was yet in the lips of men, and Satan had not taught that insidious philosophy by which, as Mr. Gladstone put it, “They appear to have a very low estimate both of the quantity and quality of sin, of its amount, spread like a deluge over the world, and of the subtlety, intensity, and virulence of its nature.” Think of a sentence like this falling from the lips of one of God’s ancient Prophets, or even escaping the mouth of the Son of Man,—“Evil is naught, is null, is silence implying sound,” and yet it was penned by a prominent preacher!Since God believed in sins He had His Laws against them, and His curses for those who, in willfulness, would commit them. And He says with reference to this flying roll, “This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth”. If there is one thing in the world that is more certain than the shining of the sun, it is that God will not let men commit sin without also requiring of them that they endure the curse thereof.In the further study of this figure, a second great thought is suggested:—God is faithful in the execution of judgment.“For every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it”. Whether one sinned against God, or against his fellows, this flying roll had its law printed on the one side, or on the other, speaking against the act. He adds,“I will bring it forth, saith the Lord of Hosts, and it shall enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth falsely by My Name: and it shall remain in the midst of his house, and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the stones thereof” (Zechariah 5:4). It is a serious thing indeed when a house falls into judgment and the whole house experiences utter destruction. When Jeroboam made unto himself molten images and cast God behind his back, the Lord affirmed, “I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam [every man child]; and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone” (1 Kings 14:10).It is not an unusual thing for men to make money by immoral methods and build a palace of tarnished stone, create for themselves a fair reputation by hiding away their foul bargains,—bringing up a family in luxury and ease,—to see all collapse in some awful hour, the fortune gone, the reputation perished, the children turned prodigal, everyone, until, before the crash, the conviction came, which, under the Levitical system was expressed in these words,—“There is * * a plague spread in the house, it is a fretting leprosy * *: it is unclean”. I saw the crash of such a house in Indianapolis not long since, because God, who had long delayed, eventually executed judgment against a delinquent.When I was in Fort Worth, Texas, some years ago, the papers of that city published the pathetic story of James Stevens. Thirty odd years before, Stevens was a prosperous business man near Memphis, Tenn., with a fortune estimated at ninety-thousand. But the temptress came, and he deserted his little family, took with him the entire fortune, and fled to Europe. After some years, roving in foreign countries, he came back to this country again. His Delilah had deserted him; the last penny of his fortune was gone, and he drifted into Fort Worth, a wreck. While I was in that city he lost his mind and was sent to the poor house.

Some members of his family remained, but, though he was employed in the same city with them, he never knew it and his house was to him a lost one.“The Modern Hero” is a story of rapid rise from bastard poverty to sordid wealth, but its sinful, selfish subject finally faced the gallows.Oh men,—tempted by iniquity, ready perhaps to transgress the Law of God,—let this flying roll speak to you of the faithfulness with which judgment will be executed if you trample righteousness under your feet, and yield yourselves to “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life”!F. B.

Meyer says that such an one is “condemned to hear, like another Job, the voices of successive messengers, announcing that they only are left to tell the story of irremediable disaster. Timber and stones, however, carved and chiseled, crumble to ash and dust!” The house of a Satan-server is doomed.Again,—Divine judgment begins at the house of God. There is a difference of opinion as to the symbolism of the length and breadth of this flying roll. Some students of the Word say this is the exact size of the holy place; while others remind us, and I think with greater reason, that this thirty feet in length and fifteen in breadth, refers to the dimensions of the Temple porch (1 Kings 6:3) where the Law was wont to be read, as the people assembled to hear what God had to say. But whether you take the one interpretation, or the other, the lesson is the same,—“Judgment begins at the house of God.” When Peter penned his first Epistle he said,— “The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God”?When Jesus Christ was in the world He went into His Father’s Temple, and finding the moneychangers there, overthrew their tables, and, with a whip of small cord, purged them from the sacred place, and charged them with not only having converted His Father’s House into a place of merchandise, but also into a den of thieves.When Jesus Christ was in the world He plainly told the Pharisee that his prayer in the Temple, “God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men”, etc. was a pure mockery.When Jesus Christ was in the world His first and fiercest exhortations fell upon Israel, the favored folk. And even now, beloved, the men to whom the Law of God has come in the Gospel of His Son Jesus Christ, who know the truth and do it not, are the ones beaten with the most stripes. If their chastisement does not result in their correction, yea, in their change of character, the time must come when Christ will seal their doom in a single sentence,—“Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels”.Pretentions are in vain if the heart be foul. The fall of the hypocritical professor is more sure and his fate, if possible, more wretched, than that of the man who never heard of God.Louis Albert Banks has spoken some words which visitors to Oregon find to be true. Out in the great forest on the Pacific coast he often sees a large fungus growth start from the side of a tree. One who is not acquainted with such things would not suspect that there was anything suggested by it as to the condition of the tree, but an experienced lumberman would at once know that that fungus would, in some mysterious manner, sap the life of the tree in that spot.

When the fungus falls off in the autumn it leaves scarce a sign, but the whole character of the tree has been changed by this growth, and is now soft to the touch. And he affirms it a fact of observation that the first storm of autumn will send this tree crashing down to ruin.Ah men, have you gone to the looking-glass to see whether sin had yet begun to tell upon your life? Have you studied your hair to say, “It is not growing much gray as yet,” and did you run your finger over your face to say, “There is an unnatural flush, but men will not regard it bloat;” Have you studied your steps to determine whether they are as firm as formerly, and does Satan come with his lying whisper, “It is all right; this secret sin is very slowly sapping your life, if it is sapping it at all. You can go on yet many a year before you will be in danger of detection, or your absolute downfall is accomplished”?Let me remind you that there is an eye upon every spot that is festering; that there is One who knows that, as a glass of clear water is permeated in its every part by a single drop of ink, so sin has acted as a chemical upon your character in changing it! And that same One, out of His great love is pleading by the still small voice of His Spirit, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts” ere the time come when judgment shall discover both, and there be an irremediable end.When Phecas attempted to create for himself security by building a strong wall about his palace, he heard, in the night time, a voice calling to him, “O Emperor; though thou build thy wall as high as the clouds, yet if sin be therein it will overthrow all.” These are some of the suggestions of the flying roll.THE MOVING EPHAH “Then the Angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth. “And I said, What is it? And He said, This is an ephah that goeth forth. He said moreover, This is their resemblance through all the earth. “And, behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead: and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah. “And He said, This is wickedness. Ana He cast it into the midst of the ephah; and He cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof” (Zechariah 5:5-8). It is not difficult for one who is familiar with the character of the Jew to divine the meaning of this moving ephah. This was the measure commonly employed in their commerce, just as the bushel is made use of in America: and the significance of the moving ephah is found in the study of their marts.Commerce was corrupted by them. In their Levitical Law God had said,“Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in mete-yard, in weight, or in measure. “Just balances, just weights, a just ephah; and a just hin, shall ye have: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:35-36). But Amos tells us what had happened to the Jew in his greed, “Making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit” (Amos 8:5).It is doubtful whether this sin, which has ever characterized the Jewish people, and does today, is not also the most flagrant and far-reaching sin of the Gentile world. One cannot study the methods of money making, now in common vogue, without believing that “all is getting ready for Laodicea” when men shall say, “[We] are rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing”; when error and loose morals are indeed spreading in every direction; when colossal corporations oppose men without pity, in order to increase their pile; and endow institutions, in the Name of Christ, to teach infidelity that undermines His cause, for the purpose of simulating passable character. It is certainly a state of affairs to be deplored when industrious, intelligent, frugal men affirm that you cannot make a living in the modern mart and be absolutely honest!But that is not the worst phase of commercial sin. When one remembers that our saloons were operated only because men were so greedy of gain that they were, and still are, willing, for a price, to poison their fellows, body, soul and spirit; that our gambling dens exist because men are so greedy of gain that they are ready to fleece the inexperienced of the last penny, and never feel a throb of pity; that our houses of ill-fame exist because women are willing to part with virtue for silver and gold; aye, even that the churchman could, and once did, sell indulgences to sin in the “Name of Christ and the Holy Church,” affirming even, if Bunsen the historian may be relied upon, “that whatever crime may have been committed, let the subject but pay well and he will receive pardon;” then one sees the awful lengths to which this greed may go, and understands the Apostle’s language, “Love of money is the root of all evil”.Beloved, unless we want the judgment to break, and that speedily; unless we are willing to part company with those who are now getting gain godlessly, never to see them again in eternity, it is high time that we preach honesty to men and call for a just ephah and a just hin; and call, and call again, until men hear and heed!Charles Spurgeon tells of a woman who, when she was asked what she remembered of the sermon, said, “I don’t recollect anything of it. It was about short weight and bad measure, and I don’t remember anything except that I must go home and burn our bushel.”That was a successful sermon. And if, by what I say now, I lead any man to go back to business tomorrow to deal with his fellows as he would if Jesus stood by his side and saw every transaction, I should praise God for what He taught me by the symbol of the moving ephah.The spirit of such a mart was symbolized by the strange woman.“This is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah”. When I speak of “a strange woman” I do not mean “a wondrous woman,” I mean “a wicked woman.” Her position is that of the wicked woman. Tamar sat by the wayside when she watched for Judah to sin with him. Great Babylon is spoken of in the Revelation under the figure of a wicked woman, “the mother of harlots”, and she sat upon a scarlet colored beast. When lustful men hunt, they walk; when women hunt, they wait.And when the “strange woman” is seated in the ephah, it is a marvelous symbol of her association with wicked commerce. What does she care about the way men make their money if only they spend it upon her, that she may sit down in luxury? What a pitiful illustration of this fact is that young woman, now in the tombs in New York, on trial for forgery, and who flippantly says, “I had lived with my husband for some years and supposed that he made his money by gambling.” Wives of others may be cold and hungry, and their little children neglected and destitute, but what matters it if I can be “the woman * * arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls” (Revelation 17:4)?When one reaches the point where she can sit down calmly in her sins, she is not far removed from being dead to their character and unconcerned regarding the awfulness of their commission.

It is a long way from that perturbed state of mind which characterizes the young woman who has committed her first folly, to that ecstatic frame in which the hardened bargain-driver finds herself when she has fleeced the unsophisticated. And yet, some quickly cover the distance!It is a long way from that state of the soul where a lustful thought grieves one and sends him to God in prayer, to that experience of planning the downfall of a too-confiding sister and to sleep soundly after it is accomplished, while she sobs through the night.Melvill says, “There are no tears in heaven, but when angels come down to earth it may be they can fall into companionship with humanity, and even learn to weep. And where is a spectacle which should wring tears from eyes which they were never meant to shed, if it be not the sight of that careless trifling with a thing so inestimably precious as the soul? Old men, buried with your gold,—ungodly gain,—angels weep over you! Young men, frittering away your days in vanities and pleasures, angels weep over you! Women, sitting in wait for victims, angels weep over you!”This sin encloses and oppresses its subjects.“And he cast it into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof”. The weight of lead referred to was about one hundred and twenty-five pounds; the ephah referred to held seven and a half gallons, or a little less than a bushel. The woman is, therefore, diminutive in size, as seen here, and this lead, or weight, such as to securely shut her in. She could never lift it to escape therefrom even if she desired. What a marvelous putting of the truth that when once one consents to sit down in sin he should also expect to be shut up in that association, and to feel burdens, too heavy to be borne, pressing upon him. David learned this awful lesson, and said, “Mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me” (Psalms 38:4).Some of you have read John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” and you cannot forget the picture of Christian with the load upon his back; a load crushing, intolerable; a load from the weight of which he sought in vain to be free.Ah men, some of you know the meaning of Bunyan’s allegory! Ah women, some of you under stand what a crushing weight sin is, and under the intolerable burden cry with Charles Wesley:—“Depth of mercy! can there be Mercy still reserved for me? Can my God His wrath forbear, And the chief of sinners spare? “I have long withstood His grace; Long provoked Him to His face; Would not hear His gracious calls; Grieved Him by a thousand falls. “Jesus answer from above: Is not all Thy nature love? Wilt Thou not the wrong forget? Lo, I fall before Thy feet. “Now incline me to repent; Let me now my fall lament; Deeply my revolt deplore; Weep, believe, and sin no more.” Thank God this cry is met byTHE VISION OF THE WINGED WOMEN “Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came out two women, and the wind was m their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork: and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heaven. “Then said I to the Angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear the ephah? “And He said unto me, To build it cm house in the land of Shinar: and it shall be established, and set there upon her own base”. God removes iniquity from His own people.Whether these winged women with wings like the wings of a stork,—an unclean bird,—are to be regarded as Satan’s servants to bring additional wickedness to his seat at Babylon, or whether as servants of the Most High God, they are sent to remove the sins of His people, the result is the same,—the sins are taken away.You recall that under the Levitical system, when the plague came the second time into a house, the priest should come in and look, “and, behold, if the plague [should] spread in the house, it [was] a fretting leprosy, * * unclean”, and the priest was ordered to break down the house, the stones of it, and all the timbers thereof and mortar of the house, and carry them out of the city into an unclean place.Such is God’s unwillingness to leave the leprosy of sin in the midst of His people; He promised to remove their iniquities as far from them as the east was from the west; and there is no more blessed thought than that He is willing to make good His Word to every man who sincerely desires it!I do believe with Barnes-Lawrence that “The Christian longs to be rid of sin. From the day when the Holy Spirit shone into his heart, he has seen sin in a new aspect, as personal and hateful. Like Job he cries, “7 have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes”.Thus the vision of God is always the vision of sin. Sin hinders the Christian’s intercourse with God, checks his pursuit of holiness, and above all, wounds the heart of God. Deliverance from sin becomes therefore his most pressing need.

Aye, also his deepest desire! How sweet the sentences of Scripture, “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins” (Isaiah 44:22).

The condition of receiving this blessing is made evident in the language of Peter, as in Solomon’s porch, after Pentecost, he said to the multitude, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out”.Again,God removes iniquity by irresistible power. These winged women “lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heaven”. They took it then beyond the reach of men, and they bore it with the swift wings of the stork. So our sins are removed by superhuman powers. That besetting sin of yours, against which you have no ability, can yet be taken away. It may have defeated you ten thousand times, and you may have lost heart in the conflict, and felt that it would be useless to ever hope for freedom.

But not so! When God wills it those sins will go, borne on swift wings indeed, and so far from you that you will never see them again, or feel their leprous sting.

There are men here tonight who can testify to this truth: men who drank, and the iniquity would not down at their bidding, but oppressed them at every turn. But it is gone now, borne so far from them that they are beginning to recover even the fear of a fresh onslaught from this satanic habit! There are men here who once were dominated, yea, almost destroyed by their iniquities, but now they are free from their power, not because they conquered them, but because God spake, and the iniquities were carried away; and they stood up to learn that their old enemy had been removed from them by an irresistible force, for “the Blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin”.And by powers of His own appointment men are not only freed from former captivity but kept in safety.Charles Spurgeon says of the sins of those who trust God, “They are as clean removed as ever were the gates of Gaza removed, posts, towers, and all.” That is to say, every sin is gone, every sin of God’s people is forgiven.“There is pardon for transgression past; It matters not how black they are cast And oh, my soul, with wonder view For sins to come, there is pardon too!” One of the favorite hymns of our Sunday night service expresses for us this blessed thought:— “My sins which were many in thought and deed, O Jesus has taken them all; And now from their bondage my soul is freed, For Jesus has taken them all.

“My sins which were many are washed away, For Jesus has taken them all; The Blood of my Savior atones today, And Jesus has taken them all.

“My sins which were many no more are mine, For Jesus has taken them all; And I have accepted His grace Divine, So Jesus has taken them all. Chorus:— “Taken them all, taken them all, All beyond recall; Never again shall my sins enthrall; Jesus has taken them all.” Finally,God removes iniquity to its own place.“Whither do these bear the ephah? “And He said unto me, To build it an house in the land of Shinar: and it shall be established, and set there upon her own base?” (Zechariah 5:10-11). This land of Shinar is the place where sin was first attempted upon the most colossal scale. The Tower of Babel was the expression of a well-defined purpose to put God out of the earth and climb into Heaven without His help. The Plains of Shinar, or Babylon, was the place where Satan was worshiped. Fit spot, therefore, for the reception of all iniquity. In the plains of Shinar the antichrist will have his capitol—Satan will find his city indeed. If, as we believe, the Revelation contains the plan of the ages, (see Revelation 21) here is implied a principle of justice which all men must admit; a justice in perfect accord also with the infinite love of God.

Who has ever objected that Judas went to his own place? Who has ever resented Christ’s conduct in driving evil spirits from human flesh into the flesh of swine?

Who thinks to remonstrate when it is prophesied of Satan for the last day that he shall be “cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are”?Ah, beloved, while we read the twenty-fifth chapter of the Book of Matthew to grieve in seeing unbelievers turned into eternal punishment, while the righteous enter into eternal life, yet let it be remembered that the choice of each was consulted, and their way determined by their own deliberate wills. And it is within the power of your own pleasure to determine the place where you will spend eternity, whether with your own loved ones, who have received the Lord Jesus, or apart from them, for eventually every person must “go to his own place”. Jerusalem and Babylon are but types of Heaven and hell.A Godly father once dreamed that the day of judgment had come. The Judge Himself was on the Great White Throne with all nations gathered before Him. The father looked and his wife was at his side, but not a one of his children could he see. He turned his eye to the left, and lo, there they were wringing their hands in the utmost despair.

When they saw him they cried, “Oh, Father, save us; let us not be separated in eternity!” He answered, “My dear children, I will do my utmost to save you.” So he went over to them and led them into the presence of the Judge. The Judge only said, “What do thy children with thee now?

They would not take thy warning when the day of thy salvation was on, and now they cannot share with thee the crown in Heaven. Depart from Me for I never knew you.” And the cry—wrung from his children—as they turned back to the awful fate which they had chosen for themselves, awoke the father out of his sleep, and when morning came he called his children about him and told them the dream, and God used it to break their hard hearts, and they cried, “Father, we will not be separated from thee in eternity, but here and now yield ourselves to thy Saviour!”