The Cleansing of Israel
Zechariah 13:1-9
There is a great debate that has raged down through the years regarding God and Israel. Is God through with the nation or not? Well we have been learning by our study of Zechariah that the answer is “not”. In fact, far from being finished, earthly history actually concludes with Israel being victorious over the whole earth in the battle of Armageddon. In fact, if we learn nothing else from Zechariah, we learn a great lesson about God’s forgiveness.
God has in mind a wonderful day coming for Israel. Zechariah calls it the cleansing of Israel.
Notice chapter 13:1
Zechariah predicts a day when Israel is going to be cleansed of sin and uncleanness. This is God's plan for His people Israel. And that is the message of Zechariah chapter 13. God is a God of forgiveness.
Now remember the setting. In chapter 12 we learned that in the future time in a period called "that day" which is the day of the Lord, the time of the great Tribulation, the nation Israel, the remnant that remains after all of the slaughter of the Tribulation is going to repent and turn to Christ.
12:10
Here you have them seeing Christ, repenting of their sin, weeping in sorrow and that's the foundation upon which the cleansing of chapter 13 occurs.
And through the remainder of chapter 12, you find this mourning and weeping and repentance occurring when they see Jesus Christ and it is this that is the foundation for the cleansing that comes in 13.
And that's a simple point. There is no forgiveness until there is repentance. There is no salvation until there is sorrow for sin. There is no cleansing until there is an awareness that cleansing is needed. And as they mourn and as they see Christ, they are doing what is required by God for cleansing.
So, we saw in the first nine verses of chapter 12 the tremendous holocaust of Armageddon. And born out of that slaughter of Armageddon is going to be the vision of the returning Christ as He comes in His glory. And the remnant that is left at the end of the slaughter is going to see Jesus Christ and they're going to mourn and they're going to weep and they're going to repent and then you come into 13 and immediately it says "For them will be opened a fountain to cleanse them." Because cleansing always follows true repentance, true sorrow for sin. And so that's what happens in 13.
And then in chapter 14, you get to the millennial Kingdom. So that's the connection between these chapters.
Now as we come to the thirteenth chapter, Zechariah by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit outlines for us this cleansing, and there are six elements that are included.
First of all, Israel will be cleansed from
1. The Defilement of Sin
Verse 1
"In that day" means the day of the Lord and more directly, it indicates the day when Israel repents. "There will be a fountain opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem."
Now those two terms are used to show the totality of this cleansing. The house of David speaks of the royalty and the inhabitants of Jerusalem speak of the laity, as it were, so common person and royal person alike will enter into this cleansing. And this fountain will be opened to them for sin and for uncleanness; literally cleansing from the defilement of sin.
Frankly, this is the supreme need of the Jew and I would add it is the supreme need of the Gentile...to be cleansed from defilement. The Bible says that every man is a sinner..that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That no one escapes, there is none righteous, no, not one, said the Apostle Paul.
We are sinners and cleansing and regeneration is needed. In particular, what was it that defiled Israel?
Two thing of which they are guilty, and therefore not saved:
-Disobedience to the law of God
-Rejection of Jesus Christ as the Messiah.
Step into the day of Jesus, as we did when we studied through the Sermon on the Mount, and you will find the religious leaders of the day developed their own standard of righteousness, and they rejected Jesus as Messiah.
Much like today, we decide our own standard of acceptance, and therefore, we don’t need Jesus.
And therefore, all of humanity stands in the same place of need: We are sinners guilty of disobedience to the law of God and rejection of Jesus as Messiah.
But what happens in that day is wonderful. Look at it. In that day a “fountain”; it comes from a root verb which means to dig out. It could be a well, or a spring or a fountain. And that's just what it means, a gushing fountain.
It speaks of something just gushing out of a source as a means of cleansing and purification. If you remember, we saw in chapter 3 one of Zechariah's visions was of this priest by the name of Joshua and it says, "Joshua was clothed with filthy garments," and then this angel came and said, "Take away the filthy garments." Why? He said to him, "Because I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee."
And that was a picture of Israel. And that's the same thing you have here. God is going to cleanse Israel of all its filthiness.
Now notice the word "opened" there. The word opened in the Hebrew has with it the idea of continuance...continuous, permanent opening. This thing, once it's opened, will be continual. And it will be available as a source of constant purification. Listen: whenever God opens a fountain of cleansing, it stays open.
Think about that: the fountain of cleansing was opened at Calvary. On the cross of Calvary the fountain was opened. And it's been purifying souls ever since. And yet Israel has never been able to enter the purification because of their unbelief and hardness of heart. But once they come to this place of repentance, and respond to God’s grace, they get in on the cleansing also.
Now when they come in repentance and that fountain opens on a national basis to them, notice the end of verse 1, it will be for sin and uncleanness.
The word "sin" is significant, it means in the Hebrew to miss the mark or to go in the wrong way. It was used in reference to sin against men and sin against God, a very common Old Testament word. But its root idea is you went wrong, you went the wrong way down the wrong path, the path of disobedience, the path of indifference, the path of rebellion. It has to do then with what a person does, going away from God, behaving in a manner inconsistent with God's pattern.
The second word, "uncleanness," is a word that means something that is to be shunned, or something you are to flee from. The word is used, for example, with any kind of ceremonial impurity in the book of Leviticus. In fact, Leviticus is the only other place in the Old Testament where the word is used. And it has to do with those things that would ceremonial defile somebody like a dead body. So it has to do with defilement, something to be shunned, something that would bring defilement.
And so, the point is this, Israel will be cleansed of its own moral defilement and of its tendency to behave and go in the wrong direction. So this is twofold. Israel's cleansing will have to do with what it is and what it does.
Is that not how sin manifests itself? It is a matter of what we are and consequently it is a matter of what we do. And so this will come as a cleansing from the defilement of sin.
Secondly, Israel will be cleansed from
2. The Deception of Sham Prophets
Verses 2-6
If you think historically about Israel, you will realize very quickly that the two besetting sins of Israel have always been idolatry and false prophecy.
In fact, the two are always connected: wherever idolatry existed, it exists as a result of false prophets propagating it. The two besetting sins, idolatry and false prophets or false prophecy and false prophecy was really behind the scenes causing the idolatry, phony prophets with speaking lies. And believe me, Israel was populated by the boat load with false prophets.
Do you remember, for example, that in the apostate age of King Ahab, Ahab was the husband of Jezebel in the apostate age of King Ahab and the time of Jehoshaphat, there were 450 false prophets and only one true prophet.
In fact, the false prophets in the history of Israel have been the thing that dragged Israel down. They slew the true prophets and they listened to the false.
Why did they do that? Because true prophets call for right behavior and they didn't want to do that. They loved the orgies of the false prophets. They wanted a religion like the false prophets had because you could do anything you wanted. It was built on the sensual. You could go up to the temple and have a sex orgy with the priestesses.
So the false prophets drew the people into idolatry and God has always remembered this and God knows, too, that in the end time Israel is going to fall again to false prophets, the number one false prophet is Antichrist. The number two is his coworker, the false prophet that you read about in Revelation 13. And they're going to be a whole lot of other phonies they're going to fall for in the end time.
But when Christ returns and He cleanses Israel from the defilement of sin, He is also going to cleanse them from the deception of all these sham prophets.
And I want you to see what has to be one of the most fascinating looks of all that we have to this future time.
Notice verse 2
Now note something there. What is behind false prophecy? Did you see it there? Some kind of an unclean spirit.
All the gods of the nations are demons, says the Old Testament. And behind every false prophet is an unclean spirit.
Now notice the contrast. In 12:10, when salvation comes, God brings the Spirit of grace and salvation. But when false prophets come, it is the spirit of uncleanness. And the spirit of uncleanness is a reference to the agency of demons and Satan himself who are behind it.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 10:20, the Apostle Paul said, "When you go to the idol temple and do your thing, you're worshiping demons." He said, "I say the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God and I don't want you to have fellowship with demons."
In other words, when you go to a pagan religion you are fellowshipping with demons because they are behind it. And any other religion but the true one is an act of worshiping a demon. All false teachers and all false prophets and all false systems all over the globe are all the handiwork of demon spirits, the agency of uncleanness that is spawned by Satan himself.
In 1 Timothy chapter 4 verse 1 it says, "In the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits...now watch...and the doctrines of demons." They're the ones who invent false religions. And so he says in that day I will cut off the idols, I will cause the prophets, the sham prophets, and the unclean or the spirit of uncleanness behind them to pass out of the land. In other words, God is going to clean up the whole place. All the false prophets are going to get it.
There won't be any of them in the Kingdom or in eternity. The unclean spirits are going to be cast aside and if you read further on in Revelation 20 you'll find that the most unclean spirit, Satan himself, is going to be bound with chains for the period of time of the duration of the Kingdom and then cast into the lake of fire.
So, when Christ returns and redeems Israel and sets up His Kingdom, they'll be no demons in action in the Kingdom. That's great to know, isn't it? You say, "Will there be any sin?" Sure because all sin isn't spawned by demons, some of it will come from human nature of people still alive when the Kingdom begins even though they're godly people. They'll commit sin because they're still in the human bodies and they'll have children, some of whom will not believe and will constitute even a rebellion at the end of the thousand-year Kingdom.
So, the spirit of uncleanness then is a collective name for the wicked spirits that energize false prophets.
verse 3
In other words, if you say you're a prophet of God and you're a liar, you’ll be killed.
The word simply means they'll stab him to death. A mother and a father will do that to their child because they'll have such a hatred of false prophecy so that the hatred of false prophecy will overrule normal human feelings. They'll be the first to condemn the apostate to death.
Verse 4
Now when this all happens and God begins to destroy this whole thing, anybody who is a prophet is going to become so ashamed that he doesn't want to be known as a prophet. And so he will no longer wear a rough garment.
You say, "What does that mean?" The rough garment was the sign of a prophet. That basically came from the days of Elijah. Elijah wore a rough garment, a mantle, you remember? The literal Hebrew says "a hairy garment."
This could mean that it was a goatskin kind of a leather thing with the hair on it, but it probably means that it was woven out of camel's hair, which was what they did. We still have camel's hair clothes today. That would be woven from camel's hair. And this particular mantle became the clerical garb of the prophet in that day.
If you wore that, you were signifying that you're a prophet. And he's saying here that prophets themselves won't even want to be identified as such because they'll be so fearful, because they see what's going to happen. They'll deny that they're even prophets. They'll disclaim any association whatsoever with prophecy because they see what's happening.
Then notice a little interesting note at the end of verse 4, they'll...they do not wear a rough garment to deceive. Oh boy. You know why they wear that prophetic garment? To make people think they're real prophets.
Can't help but say a word about that. I think there are people today who wear clerical garb to make people think they're really from God. But they're not. They deceive with it. They're not from God. We have them today. People with all kinds of religious regalia all over them, but they're not from God. And so they use the garb of the prophet to deceive but they're going to junk that garb in that day when God starts raining on the false prophets.
verse 5
This is what they're going to say: "They shall say, I'm no prophet, I'm a farmer." Worked on a farm all my life. All I ever knew was the cattle...just an old farmer. So they're going to denounce it. You must have me confused with somebody else.
Verse 6
What is this? I'll tell you what it is. Let me show you some Scriptures. Deuteronomy, just listen, don't try to follow me, I'll go racing along here, I want you to know something about the pagans. God says in Deuteronomy 14:1, "Now you're the children of the Lord your God, you Israelites, so you shall not cut yourselves." Huh? I mean, it's a sin to get your paring knife caught on your finger? No, no, no. "You are the children of the Lord your God, you shall not cut yourselves." Do you know one things the pagans did? Guess. They cut themselves.
Remember the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, what did they do? They cut themselves. This was part of pagan ecstasy.
So what do we have here? It was a custom among the pagans to cut themselves. And so while this guy is saying, "I'm no prophet, I've just been a farmer. I'm not into any of that pagan stuff, I'm just a farmer." Somebody's going to say to him, "Well, why are you all cut up then?" And literally the Hebrew says this, "What are these wounds between thy hands?"
And most people have determined that what that means is between the hands is here...and so it's in the torso. Some have stated anywhere on the arms or across the torso would be where these pagans would cut or it could mean actually in the hand. But pagans cut themselves in their religion. So the question is, if you're not a false prophet, why are you all cut up?
And he's caught and he says, "Well, these are the wounds with which I was wounded in the house of my friends, in Hebrew, lovers literally.
You say, "What are the lovers? The lovers are the idols that he loved. These are the wounds of my idolatry. You see, he can't escape it, he has to admit it. I was wounded in the house of my lovers. I was wounded in idolatry. There's no alibi, there's no way out when God begins to deal with the sham prophets in the day of Israel's cleansing. So Israel will be cleansed from the defilement of sin and the deception of sham prophets.
Thirdly, and this changes the whole complexion here. Israel will be saved not from something but through something, point three, Israel will be cleansed through
3. The Death of the Shepherd
Verse 7
Now from the false shepherds wounded in their idol worship, the Spirit of God turns to the true Shepherd. He's just as much a part of Israel's cleansing as anything. He is the absolute necessity. They can't be cleansed from the defilement of sin. They can't be cleansed from the deception of sham prophets unless they are cleansed through the death of the Shepherd.
And so God speaks in verse 7. The Lord Jehovah is the speaker and Jesus Christ is the one spoken of. And God says, "Awake, O sword," God is going to move in judgment. God is unsheathing His sword. And He's going to smite the Shepherd.
I just want you to know something. The death of Jesus Christ was the plan of God. Did you see that there? Who calls to the sword? God does. "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, against the man who is My Companion, says the Lord of hosts, Strike the Shepherd." Listen, who called for the death of Jesus Christ then? Who did? God did. God did.
You know, Jewish people, and I understand what they feel in their hearts, have for years wanted to make sure nobody blamed them for the death of Christ. I don't know why. God even takes the responsibility Himself right here. The envy, the hatred of Satan, the blind fury of the chief priests, the contempt of Herod, the guilty cowardice of Pilate, all of these things put together only accomplished what God had designed to do from the start.
So God did it.
And then there's a fantastic statement in verse 7 that I really want you to get.
"Against the Man Who is My Companion" The word "man" here is an uncommon word for man in the Hebrew. It doesn't just mean man, it means a strong man or a mighty man. So we're not just talking about an ordinary man. He says, "Take the sword against the strong man, the mighty man," and then the phrase, "My Companion" is literally of My union. Take the sword against the strong, mighty man of My union.
What does that mean? It could be translated this way, the man, the mighty man who is co-equal with Me. The man, the mighty man who is My equal. The man, the mighty man associated with Me in equal status. That's what the Hebrew really means. What a fantastic statement about the deity of Jesus Christ. Take the sword against My Shepherd, the mighty man, My equal...that's what He's saying. My equal.
This is a prophecy of the wonderful statement that Jesus fulfilled when He said, "I and the Father are one." The mighty man, My equal. Listen, Jesus is God. How else can you have Him be Micah's baby born in Bethlehem and Isaiah's the Father of eternity? Unless He is God. As Paul said in Philippians, He didn’t have to strive for or desire to be equal with God because He was.
Why is that so important? Because Israel, in order to be cleansed, must have a sacrifice for sin; the Shepherd must be smitten. So, Zechariah shows first of all Israel's cleansing from the defilement of sin, from the deception of sham prophets and through the death of the Shepherd.
And now, fourth, from
4. The Dispersion of the Sheep.
You know, Israel's been scattered all over, but they're going to be saved even from that. Look at verse 7 again, "And the sheep shall be...what?...scattered and I'll turn My hand on the little ones."
Israel's going to have to be brought back because they were scattered. After Jesus died, this immediately was quoted by Jesus...I should say the night in which He was betrayed, before He died, Jesus said in Matthew 26:31, "Smite the Shepherd and the sheep will be scattered," He quoted Zechariah 13:7. And it was true.
We saw it that when Jesus died. Who were the first that were scattered? The disciples. Then a few years later in 70 A.D. when Titus came in and conquered Israel, the whole nation of Israel was scattered. They were leaderless. They were confounded. They were confused. They had spurned the Messiah. They had no direction and they were scattered all over the world. And so, when God cleanses Israel, it's going to be a cleansing from the dispersion of the sheep. They're going to be all brought back.
You know, it just so happens that we live in a time when we can begin to see this happen. We see them coming back even now. The verb "to scatter" here means to break in pieces, literally disintegrate them all over the world. And it happened in 70 A.D. and they've just come back and reconstituted their nation.
And they're beginning to come to their land in preparation for the final re-gathering. They will be cleansed from dispersion.
And then he adds an interesting note at the end of verse 7, "I will turn My hand against the little ones."
Who are the little ones? Well, it's hard to be positive about this, but I think the best answer is this: the little ones are the believing remnant of this age and of the church age. These are Jews who have come to salvation in Christ.
And we are told that God will turn His hand against them. What does that mean?
That phrase "turn His hand against” is uniformly, without exception, used in the Old Testament to refer to chastening and judgment. Now you tell me. What happened to the early church? What was the first thing that happened to them once they got grounded?
Chapter 8 verse 1, "Against the church Paul breathed out threatening and...what?...slaughter."
What was characteristic of the early church? Persecution. And God says even the little ones are going to be persecuted. The idea of placing His hand on them, as I said, is uniformly used.
Check it in Amos 1:8; Psalm 81:15; Isaiah 1:25 and Ezekiel 38:12, in those places uniformly it's used to speak of chastening. So God then is going to scatter the whole flock of Israel, and even the little ones. Even the poor of the flock, the believing remnant, they're going to hit the persecution.
You remember in John 15? Just after Jesus had made such wonderful promises to His flock and told them that He would do so many wonderful things for them, He would cause them to bear fruit, He would give them His Spirit, He would give them His peace, and all this, then He says this to them, "If the world hates you, know that it hated Me before you."
And then He says, "If they persecute you, remember they persecuted Me." And then He says in verse 2 of chapter 16, "They shall put you out of the synagogues, the time comes that whosoever kills you will think that he does God service." You're going to get it, he says, just like I did. The little ones were persecuted.
So, the message is simple. The Shepherd's going to die. And when the Shepherd dies for the sins of His people, they'll be scattered because of their rejection. And even the little ones, the Lord will allow to go through suffering and persecution that the church at its birth might be pure. And then in the day of cleansing, God's going to gather all that scattered group right back. And so we see that they'll be cleansed from the defilement, from the deception, from the dispersion all through the death of the Savior.
Fifthly, they're going to be cleansed from what I call
5. The Devastation of Slaughter
verse 8
Now you know in the battle of Armageddon we studied in chapter 12, there's going to be a terrible slaughter.
And here the prophet Zechariah says that that slaughter is going to take the lives of two out of every three in Israel. Now some do not take that literally. And it may not be an exact two thirds. There is a text in Isaiah that talks about a tenth being spared. That may have different connotation, but this is a general thought. The majority of those people in the Armageddon battle are going to die.
And just a portion, seen here as a third, are going to remain. This is the indestructible third, the holy seed. You can't destroy Israel. They have a holy seed. The Old Testament says that. And so they're indestructible. And there's an attempt by the Antichrist and the armies of the world to wipe the whole nation out. But they are only able to wipe out some of them, two thirds will die and one third is left and they will be purified and refined like silver and like gold.
You say, "Who is this third?" Well, I can tell you exactly who it is. It is identical with those in 12:10 who look on Christ at His return. Two thirds of the people are killed. They're not even there when Christ comes back. Christ returns, the one third or however many it is, those remaining, that remnant remaining are going to see Christ, they're going to repent, they're going to mourn, they're going to weep, they're going to look on Him who was pierced. They're going to be saved. They make up that third.
I'm sure some of them might be the 144,000. They are the survivors. They are the pure, the people whose hearts were prepared. People who believe, the remnant. And they are the third who enter the Kingdom in their physical bodies to populate the earthly Kingdom.
They'll be refined. I mean, they're going to go through a refining process you can't believe. When it says they're going to be tested by fire, that's what it means.
There is going to be such trial in the time of the Tribulation, there is nothing in history that can even come close to it. In fact, in Matthew, and I'm just about to close but I want to draw this to your attention. In Matthew 24 it says that when this thing happens there shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved. Such incredible fire and persecution and slaughter. And so they're going to be smelted, as it were, and refined and purified, leaving only the precious silver, only the precious gold, all the other rebels purged out. And that little final third is going to be the remnant of Israel that inherits the Kingdom.
So, cleansing from defilement, cleansing from deception, cleansing from dispersion, cleansing from devastation, all through the death of the Shepherd. One last point, I call it they'll be cleansed through
6. The Decision of the Souls.
Look at the end of verse 9
Now understand: None of this will ever happen as a sovereign act of God until there's a decision of the souls of the hearts of Israel. It will never happen until they shall call on My name. You see it? It will never happen. God does not sovereignly redeem apart from faith. It is the decision of the soul that consummates it.
God is a God of forgiveness. God will forgive His people Israel even though they were a part of those that killed His Son. God will forgive you because that's His nature. Who is a pardoning God like that? Do you know any other? Do you know any other God on the face of this earth who pardons and forgives those who kill Him? No other God, so pardoning. And because we are the sinners we are, we cannot tolerate a God less than that because only He can take away our sin.
The fountain is open for you. No need to wait. Some people of Israel may wait too long. They may be in the slaughter of Armageddon and never get to the fountain that's opened at the end. Don't you wait.
Let's pray.
