Minor No.16 Zech 5

And let's have our Bibles open at Zechariah in the fifth chapter. And if you've got good recall, seeing as it's a couple of weeks since last we came together and looked into this prophecy, you might have at the forefront of your mind that the name Zechariah itself means one whom God remembers, one whom God remembers. That being the case, then in one sense, I guess spiritually we'd all like the word Zechariah as being our own name, wouldn't we? And in truth, in the New Testament, we get justification for thinking of ourselves in terms of a Zechariah, because we know that our Lord Jesus doesn't forget us, he's with us always.

And the writer to the Hebrews quotes the Old Promise, which says of the Lord God, I will never leave you nor forsake you. One of the many distinguishing points between God and ourselves is this, you forget, whereas he does not forget his own. Let's reverse that.

One of the other lovely distinguishing points about God is he can intentionally forget and you can't. He can intentionally forget our sins. I find that very difficult, to forget my own sins, times in my life when I let the Lord down and I feel ashamed.

I know they're forgotten, and I don't just mull over them and get anxious, because I know the blood of the Lord Jesus cleanses me from those sins. But as far as God's concerned, he's forgotten them, but he remembers me. I'm one of God's Zechariahs, and the same applies to yourself.

If I was to say the number 1066, what would you think of? Oh, you're great historians, the Battle of Hastings. And if I was to say 1914 or 1939, you would think the beginning of the First and the Second World War. If you had said to Zechariah 598, do you know what would have instinctively come into his mind? If you had said it to any of the Hebrews in that day, in Old Testament times, 598, and they would have had as an immediate reaction the picture of the armies of the Gentiles surrounding Jerusalem and Jerusalem being flattened and the Hebrews carted off into exile.

A terrible thing. Jerusalem fell in 598, conquered by Nebuchadnezzar. More happily, if you had said the year 536, then they would have realized that history reversed the situation of the Jews.

A man by the name of Cyrus crippled the Babylonian Empire, and he made an edict which involved some one quarter of a million people or so it's estimated, and the Jews who were in exile were brought back to Jerusalem and its environments, the whole of that area of South and Middle Palestine reoccupied by the Jews. All this was a fulfillment of prophecy. Jeremiah had said many years before the ministry of Zechariah that if people continued to sin, Jerusalem would fall.

And it fell. And he also said 60, 70 years hence, God would restore his people to Jerusalem. And that's exactly what happened.

Tremendous precision in Old Testament fulfillment of prophecy. God remembered Israel. God remembered his people.

And the very name of this prophet whose story we're looking at reminds us that God does not forget. But let me say one thing else. Those Jews who were out in exile all those centuries ago as they were in Babylon and refusing to sing the songs of Zion because they felt so upset.

You remember one of the Psalms that makes reference to that? How can we sing in this country the songs of Zion when here we are away from our beloved Jerusalem? If they prayed, of course, they prayed that they might return. But have you ever thought this, my dear brother and sister, that prayer becomes a problem when it's answered? Prayer is never a problem when it's unanswered. It becomes a problem when it's answered.

You say, why? I've never thought of it like that before. Well, you remember how Hannah got her prayer answered when Samuel came along? This barren woman conceives and Samuel is born and she deliberately calls the child Samuel because it means gift of God. Now that's when the problem started.

Not when she was barren, but when the child came. What do you do with the answer to your prayer when it's granted? That's the problem. And one of the reasons why God doesn't grant many of our prayers is because he knows in his pre-knowledge that if he did, we would exploit or misuse the very response that he made to our prayers.

General Montgomery went down as saying this in regard to the Second World War, we won the war, but we lost the peace. We won the war, or rather God enabled the allied forces to win the war. But what have we done with the peace? Well, look at our country today.

And you see what I mean when I say that prayer becomes a problem when it's answered. What do you do with the new opportunity that you've got? What would the Jews do with the new opportunity that they got as they returned with enthusiasm in their hearts in 536 to Jerusalem, to Palestine? Would they really remain true to the Lord? Well, this was the burden of Zechariah, preceded by Haggai, that they might stimulate the people into not repeating the mistakes of their forefathers. But alas, and alike the people did they forgot God.

So let me remind you about the ministry of Zechariah, the man, just by way of revision for a while, as he comes into Palestine to Jerusalem as a relatively young fellow. And as he begins to preach, he's a contemporary, I say, of Haggai. He started to preach when Haggai had finished declaiming the message of the Lord.

A young man, as I sought to show you on a couple of studies ago, and he's a man who had a pair of binoculars, and obviously I don't mean that literally, but he saw not only the immediate future, but the long-term future. And although he predicted that the Israelites might indeed let the Lord down, he declared that God would still have a purpose for spiritual people, Jew and Gentile, before the final conclusion of the human story. Zechariah is frequently quoted in the New Testament.

I've got at the back of my mind, but I won't put my hand over my heart, that he's the most frequently quoted minor prophet. I'm pretty sure that that is right. Well, that was the man whose story we read of in these chapters.

And as for his message, well, there are 14 chapters, so we don't get all of his preaching, just a little synopsis, just certain extracts, and they break down conveniently into three main sections. Chapters 1 to 5 deal with, actually it's chapters 1 to 6, deal with the eight visions that he received all in one night. Must have been the most amazing night that any man ever had to go through all the visions, all the dreams that Zechariah experienced, and each vision has a lot to tell him about God's plan for his children.

Chapters 7 and 8, well, sermons on fasting and festivals. Two weeks time, if you're having problems with weight, then come along and hear what Zechariah might tell you about the power of positive shrinking. And then from the 9th chapter through to the 14th, he predicts particularly the coming of the Messiah, though there are comments about the coming of our Lord Jesus in the earlier chapters, but particularly then he speaks about the Lord coming as the shepherd king who's rejected and ultimately his coming in great and glorious triumph.

Well, all this you already know, and you could have told me that as clearly as I've tried to tell it to you, because we've been looking at that particular, those particular opening chapters, and I've already given you a synopsis of Zechariah. But now let me revise with you the opening six chapters when you get these visions, these eight visions, and in the notes that we've published earlier on as you've been working through them, then you will have found at least a limited commentary, a somewhat naive commentary, about what these eight visions contained and meant during this one night when God, in a remarkable way, draws near to the young man Zechariah. Let's summarize.

In the first vision found in the first chapter from the 7th verse right down to the 17th, God indicates to Zechariah that he's got his eye on the world. Aren't you glad about that? God has his eye on the world. As the emperors had their horsemen traversing the empire sending back reports, as Cyrus did out there in the capital of the empire, so God has his emissaries, his ambassadors, sending him reports as to what's going on in the world.

Not only does God survey the world, but we gather from the 18th verse to the end of the first chapter that he superintends what is happening. Occasionally it seems as though evil triumphs over good, but God tells Zechariah that ultimately good will triumph over evil, and that's the composition, that's the content of the second vision. The third vision, which you read in the second chapter, speaks of a man going off to measure Jerusalem with a measuring line, and as you read the whole of the second chapter through, you come to the conclusion that God will protect his own people.

He will secure Jerusalem, and if you understand this as a prediction, as I do, of spiritual Jerusalem, the Zion that is yet to be in Zechariah's time, the people of God, the ones who trust Jesus Christ as Savior, God secures the church. What is more, in the third chapter you come across the high priest, Joshua, referred to in the third verse of the third chapter, and he's a sinner. He may represent the people and be a priest, but he's still a man who needs his sins forgiven, and so do the people.

They too have sinned, as you and I have sinned, and in the third chapter we discover in a prophetic way, with Joshua, with the binoculars on, as he trains his eyes on what is yet to be done by the Lord Jesus Christ, the Jesus, the Joshua, the Yeshua of the New Testament, and indicates that God will save his people. The fourth chapter, from the first verse through to the tenth verse, we discover that when people are saved, they need empowering. When they've had their sins forgiven, they need the fullness of the Holy Spirit so that they can continue to live a life that pleases the Lord, and any success that we achieve today in the kingdom of God is as a result of the Holy Spirit empowering our lives.

If you were present on the occasion when we dealt with chapter four, then you'll know the content of that vision, and now coming to the two visions we're going to be looking at today, we'll discover in the fifth chapter, from the first to the fourth verse, that God schools people. He continues to teach us. He teaches us about the enormity of sin, its folly, and how it's hideous, and what is more, he shows us how sin is expelled from the community of those who love him, from the fifth verse through to the eleventh verse, and then the final vision takes you right back to the first vision, almost a rehash of it, not exactly the same, but nearly the same.

You're confronted with these horsemen going around the world, and that's chapter six verses one to eight. Maybe I'll touch on that next week. Well, there you are.

There's a synopsis of the first four, the first five chapters. We're still looking at these visions that God gave to Zechariah, and let's remember, if there was ever a time when we needed to be convinced that the Lord of hosts, which is a term that occurs many, many times in this prophecy, is in control of affairs, it's today. Now, I've taken you through a little bit of a historical trip, and taken you right back to Zechariah's time, but that's not really the importance of Bible study.

It's not an ancient history lecture. I take you back into yesteryear, so that you can see how when God spoke centuries ago, and his word was accurately, precisely fulfilled, it bolsters your faith for the 1980s. I get really alarmed of what is happening today.

I don't wish to single out particular men for criticism, but some of our national leaders here in this country, in Europe, some of our trade union leaders, some of the most important politicians as far as influence is concerned, as they exerted in our world today, they frighten me. Not because I think that they have evil cunning, but simply because they seem to be so utterly naive and incapable of dealing with the situation as it exists today. They control so much power, so many hideous weapons seem to be under their influence in as far as their control of the armaments are concerned, and you wonder just where is it all going to go? What is going to happen? My heart was broken yesterday when I heard that a couple of mining villages where I was brought up, almost when I was brought up as a lad, almost anarchy on the streets in those villages, quite pleasant mining communities, and the only way that one can find peace in one's own mind and a sense of confidence as you stare into the future is to realize what Zechariah realized, that the Lord of hosts is in control.

God is working his purposes out as year succeeds to year. It may not seem like that. There's evidence to the contrary.

As there was evidence to the contrary when Nebuchadnezzar encircled Jerusalem, how would the Jews ever see the fulfillment of the promises of God? They're now carted off into Babylon, but sooner or later, time being on God's side, he vindicates his words. I'll call my people and they'll come back, and they did come back, and the promises of God to his Zion today, to the people of God today, again, they remain intact. Arthur Scogill does not control trade union affairs in this country, although at times it may seem as though he's got some of the union leaders on a piece of string so that when he pulls, they jump, and neither does President Reagan, even if he's returned to the White House for a new presidential four years, neither does he control the destinies of America.

The destiny of mankind is in the hands of the Lord of hosts, and principles. You'll discover in these sixth and seventh visions that God granted to his servant Zechariah remain intact today, that as relevant today as they were in the days of the prophet who was remembered by God. Well then, let's have a look for a moment or two at this sixth vision.

Chapter five, I looked again, and the men that he'd seen before, Zerubbabel, Joshua, the high priest, the governor, they've now been wiped off. It's just as though he's switched over to another channel on the television screen, if I may use such a modern illustration, and when he looks again, the scenery is utterly different, and the men who were present in the previous vision are nowhere to be found. I looked again, and there was before me a flying scroll, and the interpreting angel who we've come across on occasions before in the series of visions puts up the question, what do you see? And he responds in the second part of the second verse, I see a flying scroll, 30 feet long and 15 feet wide.

You imagine a great poster board, you know, like we've got just down the road here in Chapel Road. Well, it was just like that, and yet there were two things that were different about the poster board that he sees, as opposed to the one that you and I see on our roads today. It was written on both sides.

There was a message on one side, and there was a message on the other side, and what's more, the placard was moving. A flying scroll, 30 feet long and 15 feet wide, and he's told what it represents. It's the curse that is going out over the whole land, for according to what it says on one side, every thief will be banished, and according to what it says on the other, everyone who swears falsely will be banished.

Everyone who enters into an oath, a religious oath, everyone who blasphemes, that's the intent of the meaning of those latter words in verse three, will be banished. What does this scroll really mean? What does it stand for? Well, isn't it interesting that the third commandment speaks about the name of God, and honoring the name of God, and if you blaspheme God's name, if you enter into an oath violently, heedlessly, if you swear, then you are breaking the commandment. The first five commandments had to do with man's responsibility to God.

The second five commandments have to do with man's responsibility to man. Now, what's the middle of the second group of commandments? You shall not steal. So, put both those comments on this flying scroll alongside each other, and what have you got? In effect, a summary statement of the law of God.

What does Jesus say is the heart of the law? Well, in Luke's gospel, in the reference I give you in your notes, which you no need to look up now, he says, you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, and so forth, and your neighbor as yourself. The essence of the law is controlling our relationship to God, and controlling our relationship to one another. Now, what happens if I break God's law? If I fall down on either point, or all the ten, well, then I come under condemnation.

The soul that sins, it dies. Now, death in the Old and New Testament, when it's spoken of spiritually, does not refer to the cessation of life. It refers to a change in location.

When Adam died in the Garden of Eden, by breaking the law of God, he wasn't annihilated. He didn't cease to be. He's still Adam, but spiritually, he's changed his location.

He's banished from the presence of God. He goes east of Eden, and here in this flying scroll, parable, vision that Zechariah gains, he begins to understand that the soul who sins against God, and the soul who sins against his brother man, will be banished twice. That word banish is referred to in the third verse, and the fourth.

No, just in the third verse, it occurs on two occasions, and verse four gathers together the impact of the vision. The Lord Almighty declares, I will send it out, and it will enter the house of the thief, and the house of him who swears falsely by my name. It will remain in his house, and destroy it, both its timbers and its stones.

Now, did you get the impact of the words there? They're very strong. He's talking about the law, and he's talking about the law as though it's personal. As though the law achieves certain things.

I will send it out, and it will enter the house of the thief. It will do this, it will do the other. You see, in a very real way, the law of God is a living thing.

It's not just a dead letter. It has certain effects upon a person. You remember how Paul makes this very plain.

Let's go to what he has to say, so that I get him accurately, because it's more important you hear the word of scripture than you hear my interpretive comment. Sometimes commentators can make scripture sound more difficult to understand. So, let's go back to the simplicity of the word.

Here is Paul in Romans 7, and he's talking about the law, Romans 7 and chapter 7. And he says, is the law sin? He has to say, no, it's not sin. There's nothing sinful about the Ten Commandments, nothing sinful about the law of God. And yet, the law exposes sin.

Indeed, I would not have known what sin was, except through the law. You wouldn't know that it was wrong to walk on my front garden, which has got a lovely covering of choice green grass, the envy of my neighbor, I'm glad to say. You wouldn't know that I didn't appreciate you walking on it, as I told you.

So, I'm telling you now, keep off it. The commandment makes something very clear. I would not have known what it was to covet, if the law had not said, do not covet.

Now look, the law almost taking on a personal aspect, a living thing that achieves something in the experience of the sinner, something to his detriment. But sin, verse 8, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetousness. Verse 11, for sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment, put me to death, banished me.

Almost the same idea as in Zechariah, it banished me. So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good. There's nothing the matter with the law, but the law tells me that I'm a sinner.

And although the law cannot save me, it can warn me. And this is what is being made clear by God to Zechariah. He's saying that the law schools the prophet, the law schools the people.

The Old Testament Hebrews had less excuse for their sinfulness than the surrounding Gentile nations. Why? Because they had the law of God. The law of God is a very powerful thing.

It educates, it exposes, and it makes our needs known. So if we were to summarize all that Zechariah is teaching, or rather all that he's being taught by the lesson of the flying scroll, it's this. The flying scroll stands for the law of God, and the law of God is universal in its application.

It's a big scroll for everyone to be able to see. It has the same dimensions as the area of the temple from where the law used to be read. That's interesting, isn't it? The same dimensions.

It's universal in its application, and it's timeless. All men and women will be judged by the moral law of God, and the law itself exposes sin. And it's as a result of man falling foul of the law that he is ultimately destroyed as far as being in the presence of God is concerned.

He is banished. So then that, in brief fashion, is the lesson behind the flying scroll, the sixth vision. But the Lord isn't through with the prophet that evening.

There's going to be another vision, and each vision, incidentally, is logically linked into the previous one. After all, the fifth vision has presented us with, or rather the sixth vision, has presented us with a dilemma. The law is helpful like a lighthouse is helpful.

It can warn of danger, but it cannot save. And what we want to know, and indeed the fourth vision or the fifth vision anticipated the seventh, is how God deals with the sinful condition of men and women. So let's move to the fifth verse of chapter five.

I trust you're with me. We're now into the seventh vision, the seven of the octet of visions, the seventh. Then the angel who was speaking to me came forward and said to me, look up and see what this is that is appearing.

In other words, the screen is now clean again, and something else comes on the horizon. And true to form, the prophet is not too sure what it's all about. Thus the interrogative, the question, verse eight, I asked, what is it? And the angel describes the picture that's beginning to emerge.

Called in the authorized version an ifa, in the NIV it's translated as a measuring basket, a basket in which they used to measure grain. And this basket is exceedingly interesting because of what it doesn't contain and what it does contain, verse seven. It doesn't contain any grain at all.

It contains a woman. The woman is squeezed into this basket and there's a lead cover. What an amazing dream this was.

Incredible what Zechariah went through that night, I tell you. There's a lead basket and here's the lady and she's, or the woman, perhaps not a lady, she's lifting this basket up. You can just about see her eyes and her nose, but that's a bit of Sargent coming into this exposition, which is too fanciful.

There's this lady and she's pushing up this lead lid and when the angel sees what she's doing, he pushes her back into the basket and push the lead cover down over the mouth of the cover, verse eight. Have you got the picture? Well, if that was incredible, wait for the next bit. You haven't heard anything yet.

Verse nine, then I looked up and there before me were two women. Do you think the women were being badly used in this illustration? It's all right, ladies, because these two women do a very good job. These women have wings like those of a stork, a very powerful wing indeed, very powerful wings and they've got the wind in their wings and they swoop down and they lift up the basket between heaven and earth and they take it away.

Zechariah asks the question, as well he might do, where are they taking the basket? I asked the angel who was speaking to me, verse 10. Verse 11, he gets the answer. To the country of Babylonia, to build a house for it.

When it is ready, the basket will be set there in its place. Well, isn't that fascinating? Let's now go over it again and see what it's all about. Or let's not go over it again for a moment, let's ask ourselves about the 20th century.

What really is wrong with our country? Is it that the Tory policy is all wrong? Is it that we'd have been better off if we'd have had a socialist policy? What's the matter with Europe? Why is it, did you see the television yesterday, that they've got an abundant supply of grain and butter in the European butter and grain mountains and in Ethiopia they're starving? Did you not feel a sense of utter despair when you saw the contrast with those pictures? You knew it was wrong, you knew it was obscene, there's no other word to describe it, absolutely obscene. And you knew full well that if a starving man lived next door to you and your pantry was full, you'd say come along and share, that's the obvious thing to do. What is wrong? Going back some 20 odd years, 30 years, I've quoted this before, forgive me, but you can't remember everything I quote, neither can I, that's why I quote some things two or three times.

There's some correspondence in the Times and the discussion was what is wrong with Britain? What is wrong with Britain? There were some very lengthy letters, but the prize went to the shortest letter of all by a man, a great man called GK Chesterton, and he wrote to the editor of the Times and he said, dear sir, I am, yours faithfully. Dear sir, I am. What is wrong with our world? What is wrong with our country? It's that sin that's in our own hearts, that's what is wrong.

Plato was not a Christian, of course not, he lived before the Lord Jesus, but he had some marvellous insights and Plato said that the state, can you work out what he means by this? Let me take it slowly. He said the state is the individual written in capital letters. In other words, you imagine yourself blown up on a screen as far as your life is concerned and all the inadequacies, all the imperfections, and let's say that we see them, they stand up stark naked and the whole of the world is controlled and conditioned by how you react in certain circumstances, and that's what Plato meant when he said that the state is the individual in capital letters and the only way to deal with the state, the only way to deal with society is to deal with what is wrong in the heart of the individual, what is wrong with the sin, and it's the problem of sin, the question of sin that is being brought before Zechariah in such a graphic fashion here in this vision.

But before I go to the vision again, let me take one more little excursion from this passage. Do you know what the the first alternative religion was to the true religion? Believe it or not, some of you will because I gave some historical evidence for this some a year or so ago when I spoke on astrology. The first alternative religion to the revealed religion of God was that of worshipping the stars, the sun and the moon.

There's no doubt about it, the first primitive religion was the religion of astrology. Where do you trace astrology back to? Remember Genesis 11 and the building of that ziggurat, that tower? Why was the tower being built? Well, so that man could get as high as God, but so also that he could ascend into the area, into the heavenly realms where God is, where the sun is, the moon is, the planets are and so forth. And you remember God came down and he moved the dialect of man from one into many dialects, so there was utter confusion and absolute babble.

That's the word for confusion, isn't it? And what city takes its name from the word babble? Babylon, Babylon. And in the Old Testament, a great deal of evil as it permeates the ancient world can be traced back to Babylon. Now, and you'll see the reason for the excursion, where had the Hebrews just emerged from? They came back, you remember I gave you the date 536, they came back into Palestine.

From where did they come? Well, they came from Babylon. And some of the problems that the new returning exiles were going to exhibit in Palestine were as a result of the influences that they had picked up in Babylon itself. There was promiscuity, there was a false worship of gods that did not exist, there was exploitation.

If you read Amos, you'll discover that some of the mal-sharp practices of the Jews were what they had originally picked up in Babylon. And for the Jews, Babylon became, and historically it's arguable, it was indeed in the world at the beginning of time, the headquarters of all that is evil. Now, the Jews came back what? To establish a holy country under God.

The Lord Jesus has called you and me to a life of holiness. What is incompatible in my life? Sin. Anything that dishonors the name of the Lord Jesus, I should endeavor to exterminate it, to kick it out from my personality by the power of the Spirit.

And here you see is what is happening, at least typically in Israel. Here comes this basket, and in the basket there's a woman. What does she personify? Well, the answer is supplied in the eighth verse.

This is the iniquity of the people throughout the land. And the iniquity has got to be gotten out of the land, to use that verb in the way the Americans use it. And so wickedness is pushed back into the basket, and then two women come along with these gigantic wings, and with the wind in their wings, they lift up the iniquity, and they take it out of Zion.

They take it from the precincts of Jerusalem, and they set it on a pedestal in Babylon, where a temple to the honor of false gods is to be built. Babylon, still in New Testament theology, standing for the headquarters of evil. And you know that in the New Testament, there is a very, very developed doctrine of evil.

Evil is a very real thing. The New Testament talks about or uses language that seems to suggest that evil has its headquarters. Paul in Romans, in Ephesians 6 particularly, makes us aware of the wiles of the devil.

And later on, when you get into the prophecy of John on the Isle of Patmos, the final book of the Bible, the revelation, there is a comment that says Babylon is fallen. And without taking up the temptation of moving into that passage and trying to expound it, it's obvious that at the end of time, the headquarters of evil, the tyranny of Satan will be blown to pieces by Almighty God, and evil will be out of the redeemed community forever. And so here, ideally speaking, is the picture of evil being taken away from the land of God's people, from the community of the redeemed, and placed where it belongs, in Babylon.

So, if you were to summarize that seventh vision, the banishment of the woman, you are driven to the conclusions, sustained in both testaments, that sin is a very real force, a very real force indeed. But thank God, when you consider the power of evil in this passage, and the power of evil in the world today, although we might recognize, as I quip in the notes that I published a little while ago, although evil is potent, it is not omnipotent. Isn't that a point that is revealed through the book of Job? Have you considered my servant Job? And the devil comes back and attacks Job, and he comes back to God again, and he's given further permission to attack Job.

But there are certain limitations that are placed on the power of the devil. The devil is not omnipotent, and evil in your life, my friend, may be potent, but it is not omnipotent. There is an even greater power, the power of God, and as far as our sanctification is concerned, the power of the Holy Spirit to enable us to overcome the reality of sin in our lives.

Sin is a real force, but evil is not all powerful, and sin should never be lightly treated, never lightly treated. It's a very great sermon preached by Charles Spurgeon, some, oh, the beginning of his ministry. I've got all these sermons upstairs in my office, and at least I say all, nearly all.

One of the first things I'm going to have to do when I get to heaven is to try and explain how he prophesied many of the sermons that I would preach in the 1970s. But in the early ministry of Spurgeon, when he was in Park Street, a chapel in London before he went to the Metropolitan Tabernacle, he preached about Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah, and I can still remember, though it must be several years since I read that, if not 15 years since I read this sermon, I still remember one very powerful expression. He said that all of hell is encapsuled in one sin.

All of hell is encapsuled in one sin. If you had only sinned once in your life, and if it seemed to be ever so trivial, Spurgeon is saying, don't devalue the crime of that piece of iniquity. Never trivialise sin.

The great sins and the small sins, what we call the black lies and the white lies, they're all sin in the eye of God, and they need to be dealt with, they need to be banished. Well, I'm virtually through. Here is our good friend Zechariah, and on that most remarkable night, he has an architect of visions, and we've got right to the seventh, and I'm not going to spend much time on the eighth next week, because as I say, it takes us back to the beginning of those visions and God being represented as one who's in touch with the world.

But how wonderful to realise that these visions disclosed to Zechariah so long ago have within them the essence of the Gospel. You see, I interpret Zechariah very much through the ministry of our Lord Jesus. I know that for some people I don't please in terms of prophetic fulfilment of the Second Advent.

I don't quite see things as they see things, and I'm humble, I hope, about this, because I haven't got the doctrine of the Second Advent as clear in my mind as the doctrine of the First Advent, because obviously I can check up what happened in the First Advent, and I have to have certain qualifications when I'm speaking about the soon return of our Lord Jesus Christ. But there's one thing that seems to me to be very dominant in Zechariah, and that is what Martin Luther called the quintessence of the Gospel. Zechariah saw a great deal about what God was going to do through the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, and how God was going to make it possible for the church that the Lord Jesus brought into being to be secure and empowered as he endeavoured to offer those benefits to his Old Testament people, but very often they rejected what God offered them in his mercy and in his grace.

Well, let us not be so foolish. Let us be God's Zechariahs indeed. These people, the people whom God has remembered, and let us remember God and the graciousness of the Gospel provisions that he has made available to each one of us.

Amen.