Repent

A Return to the Genuine Christian Faith

I have the great pleasure of regularly visiting my predecessor at St. Helen's, Dick Lucas, who is now 100 years old and 10 months. A few months ago, the son of one of those who was here with Dick in the city back in the early 60s was clearing out his father's study following his father's death, and he came across all the church and city news sheets from the 1960s.

Here is the very first news sheet, autumn 1962 — just a year and a bit after Dick's installation in 1961. Reflecting on a report from the Commissioner of Police disclosing a rise in crime, a correspondent in the Daily Telegraph wrote:

"It should be noted that this does not arise at a time of depression, widespread unemployment, poverty, or destitution. It arises at a time of full employment in a welfare state. The record amount of crime appears to coincide with the record amount of public money spent on social services."

Dick then commented:

"Not very long ago, it was widely believed by many people that better educational opportunities, full employment, and an improved, secure environment were the most likely cures for man's delinquency and dishonesty. But the time for optimistic forecast is passed. We have tried everything and failed. Everything, that is, except a return to the genuine Christian faith. Perhaps after all the real trouble is the near spiritual bankruptcy of church and nation."

I read this to Dick just a few weeks ago, and it's so contemporary that he thought I must have written it. He said, "Oh, it's really rather good, isn't it, William?" And I said, "Yes, Dick — that's because you wrote it in 1962."

Our subject over these weeks is a return to the genuine Christian faith. We're studying the Old Testament prophet Zechariah, and this week we come to the final three of the eight graphic visions with which his book begins. Whether it's 519 BC when these words were first spoken, 33 AD, 1962, or 2026, these visions would do more to bring about a genuine return to the living God than any amount of public welfare money.

Immorality Will Be Purged from the Land

(Zechariah 5:1–4)

Zechariah lifts his eyes and suddenly sees approaching him a flying scroll. A scroll is a parchment document on which letters were written. Scrolls are not rare in the Bible — Ezekiel is given a scroll that is the judgment of God; Jeremiah writes his words on a scroll of judgment; in Revelation a sealed scroll, when opened, unleashes the judgment of God.

What's unusual about this scroll is its size. "Its length is 20 cubits, its width 10 cubits" — that's around 10 metres by 5 metres. It's bigger than the distance between these two pillars. It's a vast scroll, and it's flying. It's a kind of drone scroll, going out across the whole land, written on both sides.

What Zechariah dwells on is not so much the scroll itself, but what's written on it:

"This is the curse that goes out across the face of the whole land. Everyone who steals shall be cleaned out according to what's on one side, and everyone who swears falsely shall be cleaned out according to what's on the other side."

Quite why theft and false testimony are singled out is not entirely clear. It could be a summary of the whole law of God. It could be that, with the exiles returning into a land whose previous occupants had been removed, theft and false testimony about whose land belonged to whom were major issues.

Notice that the curse — God's judgment from the book of Deuteronomy — falls on everybody implicated by these two sins, and they will be "cleaned out." That word is used in the first five books of the Bible to speak of not clearing the guilty, not declaring the guilty innocent. This is a search-and-destroy mission. This flying judgment will target all moral failure, and once found it will be judged rightly, justly, found guilty, and punished.

"I will send it out, declares the Lord of Hosts, and it shall enter the house of the thief, and the house of him who swears falsely by my name, and it shall remain in his house, and consume it, both timber and stone."

Wherever there's been dishonesty, injustice, or theft, wherever previously unwitnessed wrong has gone unnoticed, this flying scroll — representing the judgment of the God who sees everything — will lay it bare, bring it out, judge it, punish and destroy it. To consume both timber and stones is to destroy the entire house. There will be:

• No excuse
• No escape
• No avoiding it
• No delaying it
• No denying it, no dodging it
• No cover-up, no court of appeal

That secret sin nobody knows of. That undisclosed abuse you dread anybody discovering. That private habit, that long-forgotten and covered-over matter that has never actually been dealt with.

Notice those first two words of verse 4 — "I will." This is the Lord of Hosts, the God of all the armies of heaven. Just as the angel of judgment went out over the land of the Egyptians in Exodus, so now God will send out his judgment.

The Reality for Every One of Us

Remember to whom this vision was first disclosed: the returning exiles, in 519 BC. God had said to them, "Return." He promised he is returning to the land. He urged them to build, promised to establish a high priest — and now, in these final visions, all immorality and wickedness are brought into the open and utterly destroyed under the curse of God.

Here is the reality: you and I are moral beings. Each of us knows the difference between right and wrong. We condemn the wrong in others. When we do good, we show that we know the difference, because we feel good about it. And yet we still choose to do the things we know are wrong.

And here is the reality: God sees, God knows, God will act, God judges, and God will remove and destroy all evil and wickedness — which is quite a relief and utterly terrifying, isn't it?

Idolatry Will Be Removed

(Zechariah 5:5–11)

No sooner has the drone scroll departed than another image fills Zechariah's vision. To worship is to give absolute worth, affection, and value to a thing. Idolatry is the worship of any object, philosophy, ideal, ideology, or ambition that is not God — the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the creator of the universe, the God who gives us all that we have.

This new airborne image is of a basket. "Lift your eyes... This is the basket that is going out." The footnote tells us this basket holds about 22 litres — around five gallons. That's nothing like big enough to hold a woman. And yet:

"This is their iniquity in all the land. And behold, the lead cover was lifted, and there was a woman sitting in the basket. And he said, 'This is wickedness.' And he thrust her back into the basket and thrust down the lead weight on its opening."

Somehow the lid of the basket is forced open, out pops the image of a woman who is wickedness, and the angel forces her back down and clamps the lead weight back on to hold her in.

More Than It First Appears

On a first reading you might think this is incredibly misogynistic. On one hand, the Hebrew word for wickedness is simply feminine. But there's much more to it. I've been greatly helped by a book by Michael Steed, a real expert on Zechariah (who happened to be sitting in the congregation a couple of weeks ago — most of what I'm saying has been stolen from him!).

He suggests the key lies in verses 9 to 11:

"I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, two women coming forward. The wind was in their wings. They had wings like the wings of a stork. They lifted up the basket between earth and heaven... 'Where are they taking the basket?'... 'To the land of Shinar' — which is Babylon — 'to build a house for it. And when this is prepared, they will set the basket down there on its base.'"

The basket, with the woman clamped inside, is lifted and removed by two women with the wings of storks — storks being unclean animals. It's taken to Shinar (Babylon), where a house — a temple, the same word — is built for it, and it's placed on a plinth.

To grasp this, remember Ezekiel. In Ezekiel 9–11 there's an extraordinary image of the glory of God being lifted up, borne airborne by the cherubim with their wings, and departing the temple — God departing with his presence. In visions 1, 2, and 3, God is returning. The suggestion is that this is now idolatry departing — because idolatry is why God departed his temple.

As Michael Steed puts it:

"It's a vision of an anti-ark, borne by anti-cherubs, being taken to an anti-temple in an anti-Jerusalem. This is Ezekiel 10–11 in reverse. Instead of the ark, there's a container for wickedness. Instead of the winged cherubs, there are two women with the wings of a stork. Instead of the Lord's departure from Jerusalem, this is the deportation and departure of all idolatry."

I happened to be doing my morning readings in Jeremiah this week. In Jeremiah 44, what caused such offense to God in Israel? The worship of the queen of heaven — the Asherah. And Harishah, the Hebrew word, is something of an anagram of Asherah. That explains the size of the basket: it couldn't possibly contain a woman, but it could contain one of those carved statues of the feminine goddess you'll see in the British Museum — the goddess that caused such offense to God, which is why he departed the temple in judgment.

What Idolatry Does to Us

Again, to whom is this written? The returning exiles, encouraged to engage in rebuilding the temple. A new king, fine. A new priest, yes. A new temple, yes. But how will it be any different? Well — immorality will be sought out and destroyed, and idolatry will be removed.

Remember, idolatry is the worship of any philosophy, ideology, god, goddess, or ambition from within this creation — Islam, Hinduism, secularism, capitalism, progressivism. To worship is to make it the defining feature of your life.

If you worship something within this creation rather than the creator God — whether it's money, your career, sex, or any philosophy or ideology — you will always be subhuman. If I'm made to live and breathe and worship and adore the creator God, and instead I worship something small and tiny, I become small, turned in on myself, subhuman, and deeply offensive to God. And there can be no return unless that is removed.

God Does Not Merely Relocate the Problem

(Zechariah 6:1–8)

But hold on — that looks like God is simply relocating the problem, sending it off to a different country. That's no good. Chapter 6:1–8 answers that issue. Here, in the eighth vision, we find an almost mirror image of the first vision back in chapter 1.

"I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, four chariots came out from between two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of bronze."

Two great mountains of bronze — power, might, stability, security. Imagine what they must have looked like blazing in the sun, or imposing at night. From the middle of them come four chariots drawn by four teams of horses in different colours: red, black, white, and dappled.

This reminds us of vision number one, where four horses went out across the whole land. But in chapter 1, the horses went out on a reconnaissance patrol and found the nations at peace, but no rest in Israel. This time it's not a reconnaissance patrol. What is a chariot if not a tank, a war machine, an Apache attack helicopter? The four winds represent the four corners of the earth.

But it's the chariot going to the north that gets particular attention — and remember, that is where idolatry has been taken, to the temple in Babylon.

"Those who go towards the north country have set my spirit at rest."

There was no rest, and now there is rest. These chariots — these tanks, these Apache helicopters — go to Babylon and bring utter destruction to all idolatry.

The Summons to Return

For the people of Zechariah's day, his call is for the people to turn back to God. It is a moral summons — turn away from your wickedness. It's a spiritual summons — leave your man-made ideologies. It's a summons to wholehearted return and serious engagement. His aim is that the people of God come back to God:

• That they cleanse their lives of cheating, lying, sexual impurity, greed, and self-indulgence
• That they give themselves, like a newlywed bride, in wholehearted devotion to their God

What greater incentive could there be than to know that God is dead set against your immorality — it's going to be uncovered and destroyed — and that God is wholly opposed to your idolatry — it will be utterly removed? Both immorality and idolatry will be destroyed once and for all.

Looking Forward Through Jesus

Zechariah's prophecy was written down and compiled long after the temple had been built in 515 BC. It is the most quoted of all prophecies in the writing about Jesus's death. Those who compiled this book grasped that these promises had a reach beyond the immediate horizon. They were looking forward to the day when God would bundle up and deal with idolatry and sin and wickedness, and cleanse and purge his people and his land once and for all.

When you reflect on the death of Jesus, you discover that the clean-up operation has begun. Christ died for sin once for all time, the just for the unjust. He's washed his people clean. We've talked a lot about hidden sin, undisclosed horrors, and the judgment of God. Isn't it glorious to know that by the offering of himself, by a single sacrifice, Jesus Christ has perfected forever and completely cleansed those who are being made holy?

So if you trust in Jesus, you don't need to be terrified of that day. But if you don't yet trust in Jesus, you need to be unutterably terrified of it — because you will be found out, and you will be judged by the living God. If you trust in Jesus, however, his death has cleansed you absolutely.

But there is a day ahead when the clean-up operation will be brought to completion. At his return, through Jesus, God will purge this entire universe. The horses will go out, the trumpet will sound from between those great mountains of the presence of God, and there will come God's final judgment, God's rescue, and then the new heavens and the new earth — described in the New Testament as the home of purity, the home of righteousness, where all idolatry will be banished.

Do Not Look Back

What an incentive not to look back, if we belong to Jesus — not to look back to immorality and idolatry, not to be like Lot's wife who looked back to something she longed for in the city of Sodom, some precious thing she wanted to cling to. Instead, we look forward to the home of righteousness, and by God's strength we cleanse ourselves, turn to God, and return to God.

We've tried everything and failed — everything, that is, except a return to the genuine Christian faith. Perhaps after all the real trouble is the near spiritual bankruptcy of church and nation. We need to search for a new spiritual wealth with the same concentration with which we work for material prosperity.

2026? 1962? It could have been written in 519 BC. That's what Zechariah is calling us to do.

Let's Pray

The Apostle Peter writes:

"Since all these things are thus to be destroyed, what sort of people ought you to be? You ought to live lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for the new heavens and the earth in which righteousness dwells."

Our Father in heaven, we do pray that the convicting power of your Spirit would descend upon each one of us. That you would show us personally the immoralities and aspects of idolatry that we need to turn from. That you would strengthen us by the gospel, knowing that sin has been dealt with and forgiven. That we might turn to you, the Father of all mercy and grace, for forgiveness and for strength and help to live for your praise and glory. And we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.