[0:00] Well, our reading tonight is from Zechariah, Zechariah chapter 5.! We'll be reading the whole chapter.
[0:10] ! Zechariah chapter 5. I looked again, and there before me was a flying scroll. He asked me, what do you see?
[0:23] I answered, I see a flying scroll 30 feet long and 15 feet wide. And he said to me, this is the curse that is going out over the whole land.
[0:35] And 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.
[0:48] The Lord Almighty declares, I will send it out, and it will enter into the house of the thief, into the house of him who swears falsely by my name. And it will remain in this house and destroy it, both its timbers and its stones.
[1:04] Then the angel who was speaking to me came forward and said to me, look up and see what this is that is appearing. And I asked, what is it?
[1:16] And he replied, it is a measuring basket. And he added, this is the iniquity of the people throughout the land. Then the cover of lead was raised, and there in the basket sat a woman.
[1:31] And he said, this is wickedness. And he pushed her back into the basket and pushed the lead cover down over its mouth. Then I looked up, and there before me were two women with a wind in their wings.
[1:47] And they had wings like those of a stork. And they lifted up the basket between heaven and earth. Where are they taking the basket? I asked the angel who was speaking to me.
[1:59] And he replied, to the country of Babylonia, to build a house for it. And when it is ready, the basket will be set there in its place.
[2:10] In my town in Plymouth, there's an ice cream shop called Mooney's. And it's an old-fashioned, hand-dipped ice cream shop.
[2:22] And they have over 50 different flavors. And they're good. Aren't they Sam and Natalie? They've been there. It's delicious. And I've noticed something.
[2:34] When our kids go there, our children, they lean towards one side of the menu of all these different flavors. And Mom and Dad lean toward a totally different side of the menu.
[2:46] They pick flavors like Rooty, Tootie, Fruity, and Superman, and Cotton Candy. And they're all, it seems like they're all more artificial colors than ice cream.
[3:01] But there they are. They like those. And Mom and Dad, we like coffee-flavored and things like that. Apparently, as you age, your taste buds change, don't they?
[3:17] I don't think I would want to put Rooty, Tootie, Fruity in my mouth. And the kids don't like the coffee side of things. When you're converted, you get new taste buds.
[3:31] Did you know that? Once you had a taste for sin. Maybe not all sins. I'm not saying that. But you did have a taste for sin in general. And so when you licked the particular sin that you liked, you liked it.
[3:46] It was good. But when you are born again, you actually get new taste buds. You desire.
[3:56] You want to try something else. You enjoy other flavors. And sin is not one of the flavors that you enjoy anymore. Now, there's particular sins that you might go back to.
[4:09] We all know what that is. We all struggle with certain sins. But our fundamental attitude toward every sin and all sin has changed. We've repented.
[4:19] We've turned away from liking all those sins. And now we have a new, Jonathan Edwards called it a new divine relish. We want, we want God-flavored things in our lives.
[4:34] Now, what happens when you are born again then is suddenly you find yourself in a world that you no longer belong to.
[4:47] You no longer enjoy with the relish that you once enjoyed it. You find yourself, instead of loving this world, you find yourself that this world is polluted.
[4:58] When I was in third or fourth grade, we went to the Indiana Dunes. And the beach was closed because of a riptide.
[5:09] But right there, there was like this stream. And my cousin and I were swimming in that stream. There was a sign that said, no swimming in it. But we ignored it. And then the lifeguard came along and said, all the sewer for the whole park runs through that river.
[5:28] So we were enjoying it. And then suddenly we weren't enjoying it anymore. That's how the Christian finds himself in this world.
[5:40] Once enjoying it, now, this is not where I want to be. So Zachariah is talking to people who are stuck. And one way that we can be stuck is, we can feel like we're never going to be able to get out of this world.
[5:57] That it's sin and it's ways. It's always going to be attached to us. We're always going to be in it. It's always going to be us and them.
[6:09] And that can be very discouraging and disheartening. To think that I am always going to have to deal with sin. Which is not true. But to start to think that, it can be very discouraging and disheartening.
[6:21] And to have to live with people who are fundamentally different than you are. Because when the old is gone, the new comes.
[6:33] And we are no longer what we used to be. We are a new creation. And so Zachariah is helping us to see that when God is dealing with sin, he's not only going to deal with the penalty of sin and give us forgiveness and justification.
[6:46] He is going to deal with the power of sin by giving us the Holy Spirit, God himself, to live within us. And then he's also going to save us from the very presence of sin.
[7:02] The very presence of sin. And that's what we see in chapter 5. Now, Zachariah is a revival book. And because it's speaking of people who are being revived.
[7:12] You remember, Zachariah was one of those few prophets that had success. That the people heard it and were encouraged and did what the Lord wanted them to do. And so this book is about God reviving his people.
[7:24] And you notice when God revives his people, a few things get emphasized. One, justification by faith alone gets emphasized. The Reformation was a big change in the church.
[7:38] But at its heart, at its core, it was a revival of the biblical doctrine of, how am I right with God? It's not by my works.
[7:48] It's instead by faith alone. It's what God is going to give me through Jesus Christ. So there's this renewed emphasis on justification. We saw that with old garments taken off and new garments put on.
[8:02] There's a renewed emphasis on the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We're not going to go through the motions anymore. No, we are going to pray. We're going to seek him. Seek the Holy Spirit. And so with John Calvin, we're going to pray, come Holy Spirit, come.
[8:14] We can't do this without you. We don't want to go through the motions. We want this to be real. We want it to be powerful. We want it to be vital. Now in chapter 5, we see then that in revival, God says or reminds us, encourages us to realize that this world is not our home and that we are not going to forever live with sin.
[8:40] He is going to remove sin. And so really, where does revival come from? Well, in its totality, it's a renewed emphasis and appreciation for the gospel.
[8:54] It's going back to justification and the work of the Holy Spirit and thoughts of heaven and holiness. Those things get preached and those things get believed and that God's people are revived.
[9:08] And that's what happened in Zechariah's day. And so now we've come to chapter 5. And here we're seeing God removing sin. And so I have three points this evening.
[9:20] First is sin discovered. Second is sin judged. And third is sin removed. So first, sin discovered.
[9:31] Now as chapter 5 begins, Zechariah sees a flying scroll, a big one. 20, not 20, it's 20 qubits by 10 qubits. It's 30 feet by 15 feet.
[9:43] It's this big scroll that no one can miss. And it's flying through the land. And as soon as Zechariah saw a scroll like this, his heart must have skipped a beat.
[9:55] Because when a prophet sees a scroll in the Old Testament, judgment is coming. So remember, or maybe you don't remember, the Lord had Jeremiah write out a scroll and give it to King Jehoiakim, the king of Judah.
[10:13] And in that scroll, it was warning him of all the disaster that was going to come because of sin. Scroll was attached to judgment. Ezekiel, when he was commissioned, he saw a scroll.
[10:25] And just like the scroll in Zechariah, it was written on both sides. And this is what it says. Both sides were words of lament and mourning and woe.
[10:39] Ezekiel says judgment is coming. Now, Zechariah's scroll is no different. It's an announcement against sin. Now, there are some clues that, in some ways, it is representing the law of God, the Ten Commandments.
[10:58] It has two sides. Just like the Ten Commandments, there were two tablets. And one side is the Eighth Commandment. It's a curse against those who steal.
[11:09] So every thief will be banished. And then on the other side is a curse against anyone who breaks the Third Commandment of swearing falsely, misusing the name of the Lord.
[11:22] So everyone who swears falsely will be banished. And so here is, it's a picture of the law and it's cursing and it's sin-discovering ministry and it's sin-discovering rule and it's flying throughout the whole land and everywhere it goes and everyone can see it, so no one can say, I didn't know, but everyone can see it and everywhere it goes, it's bringing the holiness of God to bear against sinners.
[11:51] So wherever it goes, it discovers sin. And wherever it discovers sin, it brings down the curse of God.
[12:04] And so they can hide in their houses, they can hide behind the curtains, they can hide in the dark, and the law is going to find them out.
[12:14] It's flying everywhere in order to do this. And so they might be hiding it with a smile and a shrug. No big deal.
[12:28] But God is going to deal with sin. I don't need to say this, but few people actually think God is going to confront sin.
[12:42] Few people take that to heart. If there's a God, then He's just going to be just like me. And His sin tolerance is going to be the same as my sin tolerance.
[12:56] What I think is really bad, He's going to think is really bad. And what I don't think is bad, He's not going to think is bad. Our sin tolerances are going to be the same. Of course it is, because my sin tolerance is just right.
[13:07] Not too much, not too little, just right. And so if there is a God, He's just like us. And God wouldn't, and God couldn't, and He wouldn't dare to touch, step on my toes, crowd me out, do something, say something, have a problem with something that I don't have a problem with, or have the audacity to think differently than me.
[13:32] And that's how we think in our flesh. Instead of God making us in our own image, we make God in our own images. And even as Christians, we can easily think this way.
[13:47] So the Bible is always having to push and pull us, isn't it? To think, to think God's thoughts after Him. Push us and pull us to get our minds out of the small view of God that it's naturally, that it's, that it naturally is and has.
[14:06] And that pushing and that pulling can be very uncomfortable. You know, if you're not a very flexible person, stretching and yoga and things like that, very uncomfortable.
[14:17] But it's good for you. You need to be stretched out. And in the same way, the Bible stretching of us is good for us. Because naturally, we are small and withered, and our sin tolerance is far too small.
[14:32] And the Bible has to pull us up out of ourselves and pull us up to the level of where God is at. We have sin tolerant hearts. We laugh at little sins. And now, and the problem is, none of that, none of our natural heart prepares us for what we see in this passage.
[14:50] And that is God saying, I am going to find every sin out and curse it. None of our sin tolerant hearts prepares us for that.
[15:01] So you know, heat-seeking missiles, when they find a heat source, when they're shot out of the airplane, they find the heat source, they don't stop until they get to it and blow it up.
[15:15] And that's a picture of God's law. When it finds a sin, it's not going to stop. It's not going to get sidetracked until it blows that sin out of the sky.
[15:29] And there's no way to hide. Listen to Arthur Pink. How solemn is the fact nothing can be concealed from God.
[15:41] We can conceal a lot of things from each other. Nothing can be concealed from God. Though he be invisible to us, we are not so to him. So children, there's the catechism question.
[15:55] Can you see God? And the answer is, no, but he always sees me. Neither the darkness of night, the closest curtains, the deepest dungeon, can hide any sinner from the eyes of omniscience.
[16:16] The trees of the garden were not able to conceal our first parents. No human eye beheld Cain murder his brother, but his maker witnesses his crime. Sarah might laugh in the seclusion of her tent, yet it was heard by Jehovah.
[16:31] Achan stole a wedge of gold and carefully hid it in his tent, but God brought it to light. David took great pains to cover up his wickedness, but before long, the all-seeing God sent one of his servants to say, you are the man.
[16:46] And so who decides what is sin and what is not? God does. And who is going to discover every sin and bring it to light?
[17:02] God is. And so here's the law and its sin-discovering rule. It's not the only rule that the law has, but it is one of its most important rules to find every sin and to curse it.
[17:19] And that's what we see next. Sin judged. That's verse 4. The Lord Almighty declares, I will send it out. The scroll is the curse.
[17:30] The law's curse against sin. 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.
[17:45] So here's a curse and it's on this house and it's eating away at the house of the sinner. The stones, the timbers, inside the stones is what is pictured.
[17:58] And so what happens when God's law discovers sin? Well, God's curse is sent forth. Every time.
[18:11] curse. And that's a word that is harder for us to define than what you would think about. There's something supernatural. It's above nature.
[18:21] A curse is. And so if someone puts a curse on you, it's like you're carrying this lurking hostility waiting to destroy everything you do.
[18:31] Now as much as people want to put curses on other people, it's not something we can do. It's not something people can do. Only God can curse and bless.
[18:43] We can't ride over or reach over someone's whole life, their whole life, their whole existence, everything they do, and bring destruction to it.
[18:56] Only God can. And that's what we see here. God curses the sinner. The curse finds him out. It enters his house and then it begins to systematically destroy his life.
[19:11] And that's what we're up against when we face God in our sin. We are facing the curse of God. The systematic destruction of our lives.
[19:25] So in Deuteronomy, God set forth his curse. Remember there's cursing and blessing and the curse against sin. And it wasn't just in their religious life.
[19:38] It was everything. It was systematic. It included everything. So cursed in the city. This is what it says. Cursed in the city. So city dwellers cursed.
[19:50] Cursed in the country. Cursed. Let's say you go from the country to the city. You're cursed in both places. Your basket, your needing trough, your children, your crops, your herds, you will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.
[20:08] So coming home will be bad for you. And going to work will be bad for you. Going to the store will be bad for you.
[20:19] Coming home with your groceries will be bad for you. The Lord will send on you curses, confusion, and rebuke in everything you put your hand to until you are destroyed and you come to sudden ruin.
[20:33] what is it to be under the curse of God? Your work is bad for you. God works it against you. Your hobbies are bad for you. He works those against you.
[20:45] Everything you put your hand to, your garden, it will end up bad for you. Now to be blessed is the exact opposite. It's to have everything in your life work for your good.
[20:58] Romans 8, 28, right? To have God working good in everything. And so if you are blessed, all your coming and you're going, those are all good for you.
[21:09] But even your bad things are good for you. When you're cursed, your best things will be turned against you. But when you're blessed, even your worst things will be for your good.
[21:21] To be blessed is to even have your sins work for your good. That's how great God's blessing is. He takes our sins and makes them good for us. Richard Sibbes, the Puritan, said, a Christian conquers even when he's conquered.
[21:37] When he is conquered by some sins, he gets victory over others more dangerous, such as spiritual pride and security. That's what it is to be under the blessing of God.
[21:48] Even your falls, even your being conquered, God uses for your good. But when God's curse is on you, your best things are for your destruction.
[22:03] So you get a promotion at your job. Why? So that it will be bad for you eventually. You're made rich to harden your heart.
[22:16] You're promoted to be proud. You fall down to be destroyed. destroyed. That's what God's curse is against sin. Where every part of your life, God is against.
[22:32] And he'll turn the best things against you. One commentator wrote this, and this is another long quote, but I thought it was so good. We have so sentimentalized God that we do not believe he would curse anyone or any lifestyle.
[22:49] Israel. Isn't that true? But the prophets know better. God demands obedience to his commandments and he will settle for nothing less. Presented with less, he does indeed eat away at the structures of a disobedient life like leprous mold or an unseen moth or penetrating dry rot.
[23:10] And our illnesses and our anxieties, our distorted relationships and our broken homes, our servitude and murderous societies, are symptomatic of his unseen but judging presence.
[23:28] Now, that is a warning, but it is also good news. Because it tells you, especially if you're feeling like I'm stuck in this world of sin, that God is not going to tolerate it forever.
[23:43] He is planning, he doesn't ignore sin, it seems like the world is going on and on, but everywhere the earth is full of his love. And at the same time, everywhere, God is confronting sin, bringing down nations.
[24:03] And so he hasn't left us, this is the thing, he hasn't left us in this world of sin just to sit here. No, he finds it, and he confronts it, he curses it, and he destroys.
[24:17] He was doing it in Israel, he's doing it to this very day. He doesn't stand by and do nothing. But there is another aspect to this whole vision.
[24:31] When he talks about the thief and the person who swears falsely being banished, that word means cleaned out, to be cleansed, to take away something unclean.
[24:47] And the curse goes into the house and it destroys its timbers and its stones. That's a subtle reference to an unclean house and then being destroyed and made clean and being made holy to the Lord.
[25:04] So in Leviticus it talks about what do you do if you find mildew in your house? And you go and get a priest and the priest looks at it and if it's penetrated the plaster and now it's somehow in the wood and on the stones, then what you do is everything gets taken out of the house, you shut the house up for seven days, and then you come back and after seven days of the house being shut up, if the mildew is not gone, then what has to happen is the plaster has to get scraped off the house and thrown out of town into an unclean place.
[25:41] But then the interesting case happens, well what about if the mildew reappears in this house? So there you are, you did all this and you moved back in and all of a sudden the mildew is back in your house, what do you do?
[25:51] Now your whole family is unclean, you're unclean again, what do you do? Leviticus says the house must be torn down, its stones and its timbers and its plaster all taken out of the town to an unclean place.
[26:09] And so what we see here in Zechariah is God doing that, going and he's going to destroy the timbers and the stones of every house. He's going to take what is unclean and put it out into an unclean place.
[26:27] So what we see here in Zechariah is God purifying his people and purifying the land. And so Israel was like a house that had mildew and it kept coming back and God judged them and it came back and so what is he going to do?
[26:40] He's saying I'm going to take the stones and the timbers and remove them and take them out of here. Completely cleaning them out and so now what is left is a people and a land who is holy to the Lord, sanctified.
[26:56] And so not only are the wicked cursed, the land is cleansed and the people are purified. And so God's opposition against sin and against sinners is for the good of his people.
[27:08] It sanctifies them. And one day it will sanctify us completely. It gets them ready to live with him. sin. And it just means that we won't have to live with sin and sinners anymore.
[27:30] One day he will completely cleanse the land and there will be no more sin. And that's what is hinted at. But what is only hinted at in this first part is shown in full color in the next part of the vision or the next vision.
[27:48] And so we come to in our third place to sin removed. Now Zachariah looks up and he sees a big measuring basket like a big bushel basket. And the angel says this is the iniquity of the people throughout the land.
[28:04] And the angel lifts up the heavy lead lid. It's there so it can't, the wickedness inside can't escape. Not just a regular, you know, a wicker lid.
[28:16] It's a heavy lead lid. And he lifts it up so Zachariah can see inside of it. And there inside of it was a woman.
[28:28] He said, this is wickedness. Men, what a powerful verse to misuse in your next argument with your wife. But why, but all joking aside, why is it a woman?
[28:44] Well, it's just for a couple of reasons. One, the Hebrew word for wickedness is feminine. And so if you're going to personify wickedness, it would make sense that it would be a woman rather than a man.
[28:58] So you know in Spanish, they have masculine nouns and feminine nouns. It works the same way in Hebrew. Wickedness is a feminine noun. And so if it's going to be personified, it would make sense for it to be a woman.
[29:10] But why is it a woman? Why is it being personified at all? Just to say this, that wickedness is personal.
[29:23] It's not just a thing. It's not just some sort of dark, nasty fog that lives inside of us. It doesn't have some life of its own and we're just helpless victims to its plotting.
[29:39] we do sin. Sin is personal. It's the attitude and the shape of my heart toward the Lord and toward other people.
[29:51] It has no existence outside of me doing it, me feeling it, me thinking it, me planning it. It's personal. It's the shape and the attitudes and the actions of people.
[30:04] And so what did that woman look like? It looked like me. It looked like you. I mean, it very well could have said, then the cover of the lead, the cover of lead was raised and there in the basket sat someone who looked like me.
[30:29] The woman shows us something that a lot of people don't want to hear about today, that sin is connected to sinners. sin speaks of a person and what people do.
[30:46] That you can't divorce sin and sinners from each other. And so some people say that God hates sin but loves the sinner. But things are not so simply divided.
[31:00] Yes, God loves sinners. sinners. God showed his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
[31:12] Right? We can escape judgment through the death of Jesus Christ because God loves sinners and he showed his love by sacrificing his son for them.
[31:24] Not when they were righteous, but when they were opposed to God. God. And so Christ died so that every sinner could be invited to salvation.
[31:35] That there's no exclusions to who is invited to receive Jesus Christ. Every sinner can believe and be saved in Jesus Christ.
[31:46] Christ. And so did Jesus die to win God's love for sinners? No. No. Out of the fullness of God's love, he sent Jesus Christ.
[32:01] He is the fountain. Jesus Christ is the water that quenches the deepest thirst of sinners. But on the other hand, the truth is more than that.
[32:15] It's not so simple as God hates sin but loves the sinner. Because God doesn't just oppose sin. He opposes sinners.
[32:28] God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. It does not say God opposes pride but gives grace to the proud.
[32:40] God opposes the proud. He confronts them. It's the curse. He's confronting them. He's fighting them. So sin is not abstract.
[32:52] It's personal. Hell is not filled with sin. It is filled with sinners. And here sin is not taken away in the abstract. It is taken away in the personal. So Zechariah looks up and there's two women with large wings, wings like a stork.
[33:07] Those are sort of like the biggest birds that there were in Israel. And they come and they pick up the basket and they take it away. And Zechariah naturally asks, where are they taking it to? And the angel said, to Babylonia, to Shinar.
[33:21] And it's a reference to the Tower of Babel, the place where men rebelled against God, a place of sin. And he says, when it is ready, when the house that it belongs to, when they build a house for it, when it is ready, the basket will be set there in its place.
[33:41] Verse 11. When it is ready, the basket will be set there in its place. That is a happy word for God's people.
[33:55] See, sin and wickedness have their place. And it's not with us. It's not here. The righteous have their place, the wicked their place.
[34:08] Heaven is the home of righteousness. Heaven is the home of the righteous. And hell is where the wicked go.
[34:19] Two times in Revelation it tells us the kind of people that won't be in heaven. It says the cowardly. They won't stand with Jesus.
[34:33] They're cowards. The sexually immoral. Those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars, their place, again, do you hear that? Their place will be in the lake of fire.
[34:48] And then again, outside, outside the city, are the dogs. Back in that day, you don't keep dogs inside the city. They're wild animals. Outside are the dogs.
[35:01] That's where they belong, out there, ravaging and fighting and scrapping and killing. Outside are the dogs. Those who practice magic arts, murderers, and everyone else who loves and practices falsehood.
[35:12] So they are in their place. They belong out there. So you want to be away from God. You want the darkness.
[35:23] God's people aren't your people. God says, then you'll go to your place. you won't be with them. But God is saying to stuck Judah, I'm going to deal with sin.
[35:36] I'm going to deal with sinners. They're not going to be forever. It's not going to be the wheat and the tares growing together forever. It won't go on that way.
[35:47] I'm going to take sin and I'm going to take it away and put it where it belongs. And it doesn't belong here. It's not going to belong anymore with you.
[35:58] Your days of sinning are over. Your days of living and being frustrated with the sin and the pollution of this world, it's going to be over. So God is going to remove sin.
[36:14] Now, how shall we then live? God's curse is on sin.
[36:33] God's systematic opposition and intent to destroy is on sin. And so then let your curse be on sin. If God is systematically opposed to it, then you ought to be systematically opposed to it as well.
[36:50] So, oppose sin however you can. We haven't been in a total war since World War II where the whole economy, the whole society, is now turned away from civilian pursuits and now is turned to fight the war.
[37:11] Everything is turned toward winning. Everything is turned towards crushing the enemies. And so the soldiers fight in the field, but the women and the wives and so many other people, they fight in the factory and the children fought by collecting cans and the old fought by making a garden and buying war bonds.
[37:31] But everyone was in on that war effort. The whole economy was changed to systematically oppose the enemy. Now God is totally against sin.
[37:43] He is systematically against it. And then let us then be totally against sin. In the use of our time, in the use of our money, in our attitudes, our words, our mouths, our thoughts, every part of us, every part of us, every member of our body, we are called to recruit to the cause of righteousness.
[38:05] Because we are no longer under the dominion of sin, but we are under the dominion of righteousness. And so recruit. What parts of your life do you need to recruit to the cause?
[38:18] To begin turning against sin. And we do this because knowing that one day, he's going to take it away completely. The fight isn't going to go on forever and ever.
[38:30] The fight is only going to last so long and it's going to end in victory. victory. Now the other question I have is this.
[38:44] Who are your people? Who are your people? Jesus said, I have come not to bring peace but a sword. Lord. And I think these are some of the most painful words that Jesus says.
[39:02] He says, I'm going to divide mother and daughter, father and son, mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, one going one way, one going the other way.
[39:16] Some going to their place and others going to their place. And so the question I have is which side are you taking?
[39:28] Which way are you going? So the righteous have their place and the unrighteous have their place. Where are you going? what are you doing?
[39:43] Are you still under the curse? Are you still under the curse? And if you are, let me invite you to Jesus. Turning from yourself and turning to him.
[39:55] And the reason I invite you to Jesus Christ is because he bore the curse. See, the only way that you can escape it is to go where it's already hit, already filled up and exploded and came to full power.
[40:10] And so on the cross, listen to me, on the cross, God worked everything against him. The curse was on him. And he did it in order that we could be saved.
[40:24] And so there's only one place, there's only one place in the whole universe to be saved from the curse of God. And it's where that curse has already fell. It's that burnout, dead piece of land, it's Christ.
[40:38] Christ on the cross. And so hell already came there. The curse already came there in full power. And so that's where you need to get to.
[40:49] That's where you need to get to. That's where you need to hold on to and stay because it's Jesus Christ. He's salvation. He is salvation from God's curse.
[40:59] grace. And so you have to ask, where are you going? Which way are you headed? What side are you on?
[41:10] Who are your people? Because Zechariah is saying, sinners and sin are going to one place and they have their place. And God and his people are going to inherit the earth.
[41:22] So which one is it for you? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that we would take these words seriously because they are your words.
[41:40] And will you please grow us and change us and bend us out of our small way of thinking and our small hearts and our sin tolerance that is way too high.
[41:53] For some they have the relish and the love of sin still. Please give them new taste buds. They would hate sin not just in one or two flavors but in every flavor it comes in because it's against you.
[42:09] And may they love the things that you love. Lord, do that in their hearts. Grow them up and change us. Grow us up and change us so that we are more and more like you.
[42:22] Holy in what we say and do. holy in how we use our bodies and holy how we use our mouths and our tongues and our eyes and our minds and our hearts.
[42:35] That we would give ourselves wholly to you. Thank you for this word, this promise that one day you will remove sin. Thank you that you are already beginning to do it.
[42:48] And I pray that you would do it fully and completely. quickly. And so we say come Lord Jesus, come quickly. We ask this in his name. Amen.
[43:00] Well, we're going to sing from the overhead. Let's stand as we sing. We're going to sing come thou fount. And especially we're going to sing the fourth verse which is not in our hymnal but in this verse we sing on that day freed from sinning.
[43:18] And that's one day how it's going to be.