The Cleansing of Israel

Zechariah 13:1‑9

     We find ourselves in the thirteenth chapter of Zechariah tonight in our Bible study.  We're going to be going through this brief chapter, it's only nine verses, and seeing just exactly what God has to say about the cleansing of Israel...the cleansing of Israel.

     God has in mind a wonderful day coming for Israel.  Zechariah calls it the cleansing of Israel.  In chapter 13 and verse 1 he says, "In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness."  Zechariah predicts a day when Israel is going to be cleansed of sin and uncleanness.  This is God's plan for His people Israel.

     Now I want to back up from that future day to the past a little bit and I'd like to have you look with me to the fifth chapter of Isaiah...Isaiah chapter 5, the great prophecy of the man of God, Isaiah.  And in chapter 5 verse 1 we see a very interesting prophecy that will relate, as we shall see, to what we want to say tonight...Zechariah (should be Isaiah) chapter 5 verse 1.  Now here the Lord is referring to the people Israel under the terminology of a vineyard.  Verse 1, "Now will I sing to my well beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard."  My well beloved‑‑who is God‑‑has a vineyard‑‑who is Israel‑‑in a very fertile hill which obviously‑‑or fruitful hill‑‑which obviously would have reference to Canaan.  God is the well beloved who has a vineyard in a very fruitful hill. 

     "And He dug it and He gathered out the stones and He planted it with the choicest vine and He built a tower in the midst of it and also made a winepress in it and He looked for it to bring forth grapes and it brought forth wild grapes."  God had a design for His people.  He made the place for them.  He cleaned it out.  He prepared it.  He planted them...the object of His love.  And He waited for them to produce the grapes that He desired.  And instead they were wild grapes, foreign to His plan, foreign‑‑as it were‑‑to the seeds He planted.

     Verse 3 says, "And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between Me and My vineyard."  When the vineyard brought forth wild grapes, the vineyard became the object of judgment.  And God is about to move on His own vineyard.  "What could have been done more to My vineyard that I have not done in it?  Why, when I looked for it to bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes.  And now I will tell you what I will do to My vineyard, I will take away its hedge‑‑that is its protection‑‑it shall be eaten up.  I'll break down its wall and it shall be trampled down and I will lay it waste, it shall not be pruned nor digged but there shall come up briars and thorns, I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it for the vineyard of the Lord of host is the house of Israel and the men of Judah His pleasant plant and He looked for justice but behold oppression, He looked for righteousness but behold a cry."

     Now God says I made a vineyard and I planted it and I expected it to respond to that in a way that it was reasonable to respond and instead it rebelled and it brought forth wild grapes and thus I will judge it.  I will tear down its hedge and its wall and its protection is gone.  I will lay it waste.  It will neither be pruned nor digged, it won't be cared for...briars and thorns will come up.  The clouds will no longer rain rain upon it.  God is here speaking of judgment upon Israel.  And the reason God is judging Israel is because of Israel's unbelief and Israel's rebellion.

     Now the same sad story is reiterated in different terms in Matthew chapter 21...Matthew chapter 21 and verse 33.  You may remember this story, Matthew 21:33.  Jesus said, here another parable, "There was a certain householder, certain owner, who planted a vineyard and hedged it round about and dug a winepress in it and built a tower," and so far it sounds exactly like Isaiah 5.  And here it varies a little, "Lease it to tenant farmers and went into a far country.  And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the farmers that they might receive the fruits of it."  He lent it out to farmers. 

     Now watch.  The one who owns the vineyard, the householder, is God.  The vineyard, in effect, is His law, His standards, His principles, His truth, His way of life, His commandments.  They were given to farmers while God went away.  The farmers, the nation Israel, most particularly the chief priests and the leaders.  And then when the time of the fruit drew near, He sent His servants to the farmers.  The servants are the prophets...that they might receive the fruits.  And the farmers took His servants and beat one and killed another and stoned another.  Israel killed the prophets.  Jesus even said about Jerusalem, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that stoneth the prophets and killest them that are sent unto you."  This is what they did. 

     And He sent other servants, verse 36, more than the first and they did the same to them. But last of all He sent them His Son, saying, "They will reverence My Son."  You see the picture now?  Finally God said I'll send My Son.  They certainly will respond differently to Him than they did to the prophets.  But when the farmers, the chief priests, the leaders of Israel saw the Son, they said among themselves, "This is the heir, come let us kill Him and let us seize on His inheritance.  They caught Him and cast Him out of the vineyard and slew Him.  When the Lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will He do unto those farmers?"  Hmph, what do you think the people responded who were listening to the parable?  "Why they said unto Him, He'll miserably destroy those wicked men."  What a terrible story You've just told us, Jesus.  "And He'll lease His vineyard to other farmers who will render Him the fruits in their seasons." 

     "Jesus said to them, Did you ever read in the Scripture, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner.  This is the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.  Therefore say I unto you, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits of it."  Guess who those farmers are, folks?  It's you.  And the kingdom will be taken from you and given to others.  And that's the Gentiles and that's the church.  And in verse 45, well verse 44 is the judgment, "And whosoever shall fall on the stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.  And when the chief priests and Pharisees heard this parable, they perceived that He spoke of them, but when they sought to lay hands on Him, they feared the multitude because they regarded Him as a prophet."  They would have even fulfilled the parable by killing Him right there.  But they feared the crowd. 

     God planted a vineyard.  God sent to that vineyard servants to gain the fruit of the vineyard.  The farmers killed the servants, ultimately they killed the Son. And so, God took away from them His Kingdom and gave it to those who would bring forth its fruit.  And that's the church.

     You say, "Well, in Isaiah chapter 5, God really was upset with His vineyard and He just said that's it.  And He laid it waste."  That's right.  And in a completely different parable approaching the situation from a different angle, though it deals also with a vineyard, God was very upset with Israel in Jesus time too and He said I'm going to take away your rights and I'm going to grant them to another people. 

     Doesn't this indicate to us that God is really finished?  That God as far as Israel is concerned as a vineyard is done with them?  Look at Romans chapter 11.  In Romans chapter 11, he is saying the church is like a grafted‑in branch in a wild olive tree...from a wild olive tree.  But in verse 24 he says to the Gentile church, "For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature and grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree," in other words, the church was literally grafted in to the place of blessing, the covenant place, place of salvation, "how much more shall these who are the natural branches," and who would that be?  Israel..."Be grafted into their own olive tree?"

     The time is coming when God's going to put that natural branch right back in.  God's going to replant that vineyard.  God's going to restore that vineyard.  And verse 26 says, "So all Israel shall be saved."

     So God isn't through with His vineyard, if you will.  God isn't through with His olive grove.  God is not through with Israel.  God is a God of forgiveness.  And that's what I want you to get.  Even though Isaiah was so firm about God's attitude and even though Jesus was so firm about it, God is a God of forgiveness and God is going to forgive Israel and God is going to cleanse Israel and God is going to restore Israel to the place of blessing.

     One of the great preachers in American history was a man by the name of Henry Ward Beecher.  Henry Ward Beecher characterized God's forgiveness with these words, let me read them to you: "Let me go and saw off a branch from one of the trees that is now budding in my garden and all summer long there will be an ugly scar where the gash has been made.  But by next Autumn it will be perfectly covered over by the growth.  And by the following Autumn it will be hidden out of sight.  And in four or five years, there will be but a slight scar to show where it has been.  And in ten or twenty years, you would never suspect that there had been an amputation at all.  Now trees know how to overgrow their injuries and hide them.  And love does not wait so long as trees do.  It knows how to throw out all divine and beneficient juices as it were and hide from sight the wrongs done.  And God says He forgives in the same way.  He will never again make mention as He declares in Ezekiel to His people of their sins, He will never taunt them with them," end quote.

     God in the wonderful love and grace that He sheds on Israel will overgrow the scars.  And when God restores Israel, it will be as if God never ever broke the branch off, as if God never laid waste to the vineyard.

     No wonder the prophet Micah in the seventh chapter and the eighteenth verse said this, "Who is a God like unto Thee who pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage.  He retaineth not His anger forever because He delighteth in mercy.  He will turn again.  He will have compassion on us.  He will subdue our iniquities and Thou will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea."  No wonder Micah said "Who is a pardoning God like unto Thee?"  All that Israel did in the past to the prophets as Isaiah stated it, all that they did to God's laws and commandments, all that they did in the life of Jesus Christ, to the very Son, is going to be forgiven because God is a God of forgiveness, a God who wipes out scars.  That's the nature of God's grace.

     You know, the whole Old Testament talks about God's forgiveness again and again...the whole sacrificial system is predicated on a forgiving God.  In Psalm, I think it's 103:12, I could be wrong, let me see...yes, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us...I love this...as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him, for He knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust."  And you can't expect a whole lot out of dust.  You've got to give a little.  So God is a God of forgiveness.

     In Jeremiah, the wonderful chapter of the new covenant is 31, and in Jeremiah 31:34 it says, "And know the Lord, for they shall all know Me from the least of them to the greatest, saith the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity...then this great statement...and I will remember their sin no more."  God forgets, He removes it as far as the east is from the west.

     In Acts chapter 3 verse 19, Peter says, "Repent therefore...and I love this...and be converted that your sins may be...what?...blotted out."  Blotted out...totally removed.  So God is a God of forgiveness.  God forgets.  He blots out.  He throws in the depth of the sea, He removes as far as the east is from the west.

     And it doesn't really matter what Israel has done in the past.  It doesn't really matter even what they did in the time of Jesus Christ ultimately...I say it doesn't matter, I don't mean that in a total sense, I mean it doesn't effect His nature.  It lays nothing to bear on His nature that would change Him.  And no matter what they have done, He is still a God of forgiveness and He will come to them in forgiveness.  And that is the message of Zechariah chapter 13.  God is a God of forgiveness.  And that forgiveness is promised in the thirteenth chapter, that cleansing is promised to Israel.

     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 and we told you that's the time of the great Tribulation, that during 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.  Verse 10 of chapter 12, it says, "And they shall...in the middle of the verse...they shall look on Me whom they have pierced and mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son."  Now 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.  You see the sorrow, don't you, in verse 11, a great mourning, verse 12, a great mourning, verse 13, mourning, verse 14 mourning, all this weeping and mourning and repentance 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, folks, you ought to make sure you understand.  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 you say, "What happens in chapter 14?"  Well, that's when you get to the Kingdom because the repentant and cleansed people are ready to occupy the Kingdom...the millennial Kingdom.  So that's the connection between these chapters.  There's coming then as we look at chapter 13, a future cleansing for Israel.

     Now Zechariah is not the only prophet to speak of this.  Ezekiel does in chapter 36 and I would just remind you of the words, listen as I read them to you, Ezekiel 36:25 says, "Then will I sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you."  Now here's the same time period, in the future, in that day, the day of repentance, the day when the remnant really turns to Christ. There's coming a cleansing.  Verse 26, he follows by saying, "A new heart also will I give you, a new Spirit will I put within you, I will take away the stoney heart out of your flesh and I'll give you an heart of flesh, I'll put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and you shall keep My ordinances and do them."  Verse 29, "I will save you from all your uncleanness."  So basically Ezekiel is saying the very same thing.  There's coming a tremendous cleansing when God purges His people in response to their repentance.

     Now as we come to the thirteenth chapter, Zechariah by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit outlines for us the elements of this cleansing. There are six.  But Israel is going to be cleansed and there are six elements to this cleansing.  There are six elements.  And we'll see them as we go.  Let's just begin with the first one.  First of all, Israel will be cleansed from the defilement of sin...from the defilement of sin.  Verse 1, "In that day..."  "In that day" means the day of the Lord and it also means 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.

     In other words, this cleansing will be a 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.  Particularly in relation to Israel, Zechariah is speaking here.  Israel has been defiled for many reasons.  Number one, because of historic disobedience to the law of God.  Number two, because of an outright wholesale rejection of Jesus Christ as the Messiah.  These things have brought about the defilement of the people of Israel.  And they are guilty and they are kept from salvation by these rejections and by continual hardness of heart and continual unbelief.

     In Romans 10:3 the Apostle Paul says, "For they being ignorant of the righteousness of God go about to establish their own righteousness."  They are self‑righteous, they are trying to establish their own righteousness, Paul says, and have not submitted to the righteousness of God.  They have authored a system of works rather than the system of faith and grace that God authored.  And in this state of rejection, unbelief, hardness of heart, Israel is guilty before God of sin.  And, of course, the greatest sin of all is to reject Christ, and they have done that.  And now today you see the nation of Israel, the religious Jew, if you will, divided into three categories.  You have the orthodox who are very few in number, very few, who still adhere in any sense to the Old Testament text but violently are opposed to Jesus Christ. They stand in a place of unbelief and sin. 

     Then you have the next group which are known as conservative.  They are the moderately liberal Jews who don't accept the literalness of the Old Testament but believe it has some spiritualized significance.  They, too, reject Jesus Christ and, in fact, they reject the commands of God, spiritualizing them away. 

     And then you have the most liberal of all called the "reformed" who don't really believe that the Bible is anything more than sort of a human document in any sense.  And they are basically a social club. And all these categories of Israelites stand in the place of sin because the sin is rejecting Jesus Christ and the law and the principles of God's truth.

     But what happens in that day is wonderful.  Look at it.  In that day a fountain, maqowr in Hebrew.  It means, 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. 

     Jeremiah 2:13 and Jeremiah 17:13 use the very same Hebrew word and they talk about the fountain of living waters gushing out, that's the idea.  Psalm 36:9 uses it and says, "For with Thee is the fountain of life."  It speaks of something just gushing out of a source.  Now here it is not used as the source of life or the source of refreshment as in those other texts, but as a means of cleansing and purification.  If you remember chapter 3, we saw in chapter 3 one of Zechariah's visions was of this priest by the name of Joshua and in verse 4...well, verse 3 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 here was a picture of the priestly nation Israel sort of this priest Joshua was kind of like a symbol of the priestly nation Israel and Zechariah saw in this vision that night when he had all those eight visions, he saw Zechariah...he saw rather Joshua with filthy garments and the angel came and said, "Take away those filthy garments because I'm going to cleanse you." 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 perennial.  And it will be available as a source of perennial purification.  Beloved, whenever God opens the fountain of cleansing, it's perennial.  Now frankly, the fountain of cleansing was opened at Calvary, is that right?  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 the fountain has been opened for a long time to the whole world, but it won't be opened, as he says here, to Israel with a perennial cleansing until Israel comes in repentance.

     But I want to speak to you on this idea of the opening being a perennial thing.  Once the fountain was opened at Calvary, John says this, "And the blood...1 John 1:9...and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, keeps on...what?...cleansing us."  It's perennial. 

     I was talking to the Rams football team the other night and I talked to them about the concept of forgiveness in the Bible.  And I said the Christian cannot stack up one sin in a row that is unforgiven because the blood of Jesus Christ keeps on cleansing us.  The fountain was opened at Calvary and the flow is perennial.  As long as there is sin, there's cleansing for the one who believes.  And someday that perennial fountain will be open for Israel for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.  And 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, chattath to miss the mark, 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, you see.  Because that's 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.

     And this is the thing that everybody needs.  I thank God that there are some who have already entered into the fountain that was opened at Calvary, some Jews, probably some of you here tonight...I'm sure...are Jewish Christians.  You're part of the remnant of this day and you've entered into the fountain that yet has to be opened for the nation when the nation repents, when Jesus returns.  But all of us need this cleansing because all of us are defiled.  We all have that moral defilement in our nature and we all walk in a way that is wrong...away from God.

     Solomon said when he dedicated the temple, he stood up and he said in 1 Kings 8:46, "There is no man that doesn't sin."  And that's true.  And if it's true, then there is no man who doesn't need cleansing.  David the Psalm singer of Israel said in Psalm 14, "The Lord looked down from heaven on the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God, they are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy, there is not that doeth good, no not one."  And Paul reiterated that text in Romans 3.  And so the cleansing is needed by everyone and I would be remiss if I didn't announce to you tonight something you probably already know, it's available...it's available.

     You say, "Well, how do you get into the cleansing?"  By faith, by looking at the one who was pierced, just like 12:10 says, by looking at one who was pierced for you on the cross and one who came out the other side of the grave and did it for you, bore your sin and believing in Him and receiving Him as Savior.  And His cleansing is applied to you.

     In that future day, Israel is going to experience that as a nation.  They're going to come back into the place of covenant relationship with God.  Only the blood of Christ can cleanse in that way.  It's the only fountain that can do it.  And Hebrews 9:13 it says, "If the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"  The blood of Christ can purge.  And so, the cleansing of Israel will be from the defilement of sin.

     Secondly, and we'll go a little quicker with the rest.  From the defilement of sin, secondly, from the deception of sham prophets...from the deception of sham prophets...p‑r‑o‑p‑h‑e‑t‑s, sham or phony prophets.  This is most fascinating.  Verses 2 through 6, we're going to go by it pretty quick so hang on.  Let me just introduce it.  The two...now watch this one, this is a good historical note for you to remember...the two besetting sins of Israel have always been idolatry and false prophecy.  The two besetting sins of Israel, idolatry and false prophecy.  And I would point out wherever idolatry exi