A Fountain Opened For Sin and Uncleanness

Zechariah 13 and the Promise of a Cleansing Fountain

Please remain standing for the reading of the word from the book of Zechariah, in chapter 13. We only have two chapters left, and it's been quite a journey through the book of Zechariah. This is God's holy and infallible word, Zechariah 13.

In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness. It shall be in that day, says the Lord of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, and they shall no longer be remembered.

I will also cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to depart from the land. It shall come to pass that if anyone still prophesies, then his father and mother who begot him will say to him, you shall not live because you have spoken lies in the name of the Lord.

And his father and mother who begot him shall thrust him through when he prophesies. And it shall be in that day that every prophet will be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies. They will not wear a robe of coarse hair to deceive, but he will say, I am no prophet.

I am a farmer, for a man taught me to keep cattle from my youth. And one will say to him, what are these wounds between your arms? Then he will answer, those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.

Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is my companion, says the Lord of hosts. Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. Then I will turn my hand against the little ones, and it shall come to pass in all the land, says the Lord, that two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die, but one-third shall be left in it.

I will bring the one-third through the fire, will refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on my name, and I will answer them. I will say, this is my people, and each one will say, the Lord is my God.

Amen.

May the Lord be pleased with our consideration of his most holy word. Please pray with me. O Lord, we rejoice that we have your inscripturated word, that you've given us yourself, you've given us your spirit.

You have united us to the Father. O Lord, I pray today that we will bask in the glow of your glory, that we will revel to be under the cleansing fount of your salvation, that we will drive out idols in the land and in our own hearts.

That we might come to our senses, and O Lord, we rejoice that these prophecies in Zechariah have in large measure come to pass, and we enjoy the blessings and fruits of them. We ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.

The Fountain Opened for Sin and Uncleanness

Please be seated. The ideal way to preach Zechariah 13, I imagine, would be preaching the whole chapter, verses one through nine. I've opted to break it into two sections. So today, in some ways, would be an introduction to next week.

We will only consider verses one through six today. And the title of the message is A Fountain Opened for Sin and Uncleanness. A Fountain Opened for Sin and Uncleanness. If you were to have a thesis written in your notes for the message, I'm going to focus primarily on the cleansing flood of Christ's atoning blood.

The cleansing flood of Christ's atoning blood. For those of you who have benefit of an outline, need an outline, the first point is the fountain for sin and uncleanness. The fountain for sin and uncleanness.

Second is idolatry purged, false prophets reproved. Idolatry purged and false prophets reproved. And finally, a little bit of a sub point, but I'll make it point three. The people come to their senses.

The people come to their senses. The fountain for sin and uncleanness, number one. Idolatry purged and false prophets reproved. And three, the people come to their senses. And I'm hoping today to embed the application within the section and not treat it separately.

Let's look again at chapter 13, verse 1. In that day, a day in the future for Zechariah's audience, but a day in which you and I live, the gospel day, the full realization and revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

A fountain has been opened for sin and uncleanness. The cleansing flood of Christ's blood has spilled out over all the earth. And everyone whom it touches, like the Passover, our spiritual forefathers, everyone on whom this blood is applied has salvation and the forgiveness of sins.

Zechariah longs for the day. What a privilege it is for us to live in this glorious gospel day. A day in which salvation and forgiveness and the washing and the cleansing that is so necessary for our communion with God and fellowship with one another would be actuated and put into place.

A fountain shall be opened. The revelation of Jesus Christ, the one who's, as the hymn writer said, whose riven side flowed, shall be of sin, the double cure, saving us from its guilt and power. And you'll remember last week, I considered they will look upon the me whom they have pierced, I said the significance of the spear in Jesus' side and the outflowing of water and blood was not merely happenstance, but it was very prominent and significant.

We are not only washed, but we have a blood washing for the remission of sins, and it all comes from Christ and his sacrifice. In this instance, this language, a fountain, look again at verse one. It's not a mere reservoir or a cistern.

It is a continuing bubbling source of life. I grew up, and my wife and I did, because we grew up in some ways in old Florida. And near where I live now, my parents' house lives, they're only a few blocks away from us where I grew up.

There was a lake, and the lake was clear, and I may have told you about this before, it's not clear anymore. I want you to imagine the springs where the Zeno girls were baptized. There was a lake by my house, the middle of which was about 25 to 30 feet deep only, not a super deep lake.

On a sunny day in the middle of the lake, you could see the white sandy bottom. The water was clear. And I remember being Jonathan, my son's age, nine or ten years old, and there was a little beach where all the neighborhood kids would swim.

And I had a mask on, and I was swimming out toward the end of the weeds. And I saw on the bottom of the sand, I saw the sand moving. And I had a mask on, and I dove down maybe eight or nine or ten feet down, and I saw spring water bubbling up, and I always heard that the lake was spring fed.

But the water there, it's already a little bit cooler, but the water coming out of the sand was like the springs, like 70 degrees on a hot summer day, it was very noticeable. And what it teaches me about this section is we cannot turn off that spring in that lake, how much more could we not turn off the overflowing, effusive salvation that comes from Christ our Lord?

It continually flows, not only to capture us away from our sin and our death and to make us alive, but to keep us alive. Not only for our salvation, but for the salvation of the nations. This is an inexhaustible supply, this fountain of grace and mercy in the person and work of Christ.

In that day, in the day in which we live, shall be open for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and uncleanness. I wanna focus a little bit on those last two phrases for sin and for uncleanness.

What do we save from? Well, sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. That's the first part of sin. We are really redeemed and saved from our sin. This blood, this fountain that covers us, really cleanses us from our sin.

And this is common to us, this is common knowledge to us, this is very familiar to us. But those of you who have ever struggled under the weight of your sin, you need to be comforted in this fact. You have the forgiveness of sins which we declared in the assurance of pardon.

You really possess that now in Christ. You have woefully kept the commandments that we just prayed for, woefully. Your heart has not been for God. He has not held the preeminent place in your heart every moment of every day as he ought, but his conquering love has come.

And so even in our failure and our weakness, we can take heart because we have a Savior who is Christ the Lord. But what about uncleanness? That language, of course, comes from very vividly from the language of the ceremonial uncleanness of the Torah and the Pentateuch.

This is the uncleanness that is the defilement that results from our sin. We are told to be clothed in fine linen, but we have soiled our garments. Imagine today, my wife's wearing a white dress. Imagine if she fell into the mud on the wet grass today right before church.

Every woman can imagine being horrified by such a thing. Sin, we have to understand, sin has defiled us. We have defiled ourselves in our sin. We have made ourselves ceremonially unclean, really unfit to enter into the worship of God from a real structural legal context.

If you look at our demerits and you look at Christ in his holiness, we have no standing unless he acts on our behalf. He strips us of our filthy garments and enclothes us in his righteousness. So not only does this fountain save us from the legal penalties, it also delivers us from the soiling and the corruption, the perversion of our nature.

This is how great the salvation of Christ is when he comes. And can you imagine with the saints in Zechariah's time, and I was thinking about this. I often think it would be great to live, to spend time with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to learn more about that, to see King David, to see Solomon, his glory, to see the temple open.

It's wonderful, brethren, to live in the new covenant. They're hoping that they can sacrifice animals in a revived temple. That they're longing for the day where the temple service will be completely reinvigorated and back to a full functioning.

And we have Christ, a finished work, a finished sacrifice. In the interest of time, I'm not gonna turn there, but this is basically Hebrews 9 and chapter 10, both teach on this great subject. I'm gonna refer to one verse to you from Hebrews 10, 19.

Brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus. That's what this is talking about. The temple service, only the priests go in, only the high priest goes into that inner place. But now we have boldness to enter the holiness, the holiest place by the blood of Jesus because a fountain has been opened in.

Christ.

We pass through the veil that is his flesh. His sacrifice, it's not only spilled on the cross and on the grounds outside the camp in Jerusalem. Somehow, in some mystery, it's sprinkled on the altar of heaven, where the real priesthood functions.

We have boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus. By a new and living way, which he consecrated for us through the veil that is his flesh. And we have a high priest over the house of God. Therefore, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith.

And here's the language, children, I want you to see if you can pick up any cleansing and washing language from these phrases. Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

Can we just for a moment worship and adore and praise and hallow the name of Christ who has accomplished this great work. The fountain is promised. The fountain of living water that never runs out, the woman at the well.

The sacrifice for the remission of sins, the perfect blood spilt, applied to you and me, sinners. And not only us, the sins of the world, to all who will come to Christ. The fountain's been opened. The tidal wave of God's grace has come like a tsunami over the nations.

Truly, the prophecy has become reality. Our sin, what of our sin? It's taken away in Christ. What about the defilement, the uncleanness, the consequences of sin that's been purified by Christ? People of God, rejoice today.

Christ's blood has covered all of your sins. 1 John 1, 7 says, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin.

The blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. And I think one of the great applications of 1 John is that we should not go on sinning. Since this great fountain has been opened up, and we have been washed, and we've been cleansed, our sin and our uncleanness has been dealt with.

It follows in Paul in Romans 6, we should be walking in newness of life. So today, I cry out to you, I admonish you, I exhort you. Stay under the cleansing flood. Remember what Christ has done, and live and order your lives accordingly.

I'd like you to take one look at one place in 1 Corinthians chapter 6. You probably know where I'm going with this, 1 Corinthians 6. Our lives should be different. The fountain has been opened. The wellspring, which is Christ, has been poured out, 1 Corinthians 6.

Dare any of you having a matter against another go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints? If you have a dispute with your neighbor and you can't sort it out, please bring it to the church.

Let us help. Don't go suing your brother in the court, taking your cause before unrighteous men. Don't do that. Settle it before you get there. Verse two, what an astounding statement. Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?

The dear saints of God, they're going to sit in judgment of angels, higher created order than us, we're going to sit in judgment of.

Why?

Christ's blood, the fountain, has been poured on us. And if the world will be judged by you, are you not, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life?

If then you have judgments concerning things pertaining to this life, do you appoint those who are least esteemed by the church to judge? I say this to your shame. Is it so that there's not a wise man among you, not even one, who will be able to judge between his brethren?

But brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers. Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not accept rather wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated?

No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

I hope you haven't committed multiple ones of those, but you have committed some of those. You are at the very least an idolater, disqualified. You're not gonna inherit the kingdom of God. We need to preach to these sodomites because they can be washed in the fount.

It's not loving to approve them in their idolatry, the sexual immorality. That's not the right loving thing to do. That's what the culture tells us. You gotta love them, accept them. Now we need to warn them and call them to repentance.

What about the fornicators who are among us? The adulterers, the homosexuals, the thieves, the covetous, you've been guilty of that one, nor drunkards, you've been drunk, many of you, you've been revilers, extortioners.

These will not inherit the kingdom of God. You should be struck with terror because you have been guilty of these sins. These people, these kinds of people, will not inherit the kingdom of God. There's no ambiguity here, is there?

But look at verse 11, and this is very much at the heart of what Zechariah is prophesying about. And such were some of you. Children, what does it say next? But you were washed. That fornication, that idolatry, that covetousness, all of those wicked things for the believer have been washed away.

And you are now, ceremonially, using that language of uncleanness, you're clean because of the cleansing flood of Christ. Now, I wanna pause here because this made me think of something this morning. And one of the things that I've thought about in relation to this and related to this message is this.

The mystery of the Gentiles being included for the Jews has to at least encompass a couple of these elements. First, they are entirely of ignoble birth. They can't trace their genealogy to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And secondly, their lives and their ancestors' lives have been characterized by all of these things. The oracles of God were not esteemed in Mesopotamia. They didn't have any conscious understanding, really.

We know no man is with excuse. And part of the mystery that's so incredible of the Gentiles being included is these wretched sinners who are fornicators and idolaters and adulterers and homosexuals and sodomites and thieves do inherit the kingdom of God because a fountain has been opened.

I think we think some people out there are too far gone. I think we say we're not gonna cast our pearls before swine. This fountain, this grace, this tsunami of God's love can conquer any heart. You were guilty of these things, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God.

Idolatry Purged and False Prophets Reproved

Well, please turn back to Zechariah 13. There's another element here that I would like us to consider in our text. It really covers most of the rest of our section. Look at verse two. Another promise.

It shall be in that day, says the Lord of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols from the land. And they shall no longer be remembered. Mark pointed this out to me. It was a good observation some months ago in Zechariah where it does seem as though idolatry in that primitive form, bowing down before images and objects and carved things.

That seems to be gone in Israel. There's going to be a time. It's not yet. So you can see there's this telescopic view of the end and where we are today. There are many blessings, but there are idols in the land.

But there's going to be a day when there will be no idols in the land. In verse two, the second part is very powerful here. I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to depart from the land. Idolatry is going to be purged.

False prophets are going to be reproved. We know that in Paul's day, in the formulation of the New Testament, there were still false prophets and false teachers. We have false prophets and false teachers in our own day, and sometimes they're on TV and they fly around in private jets.

There's going to be a day when those prophets so called are going to be silenced. There's a progression in history where the triumph of Christ and his church is going to be further and further seen. The Old Testament has long anticipated this, and certainly Zechariah has.

Look at verse three, evoking the punishments of Old Testament law for false prophecy. It shall come to pass if anyone still prophesies, then his father and mother who begot him will say to him, you shall not live because you have spoken lies in the name of the Lord.

Do you know that if the prophet came to Israel and says, God has spoken to me, thus saith the Lord, and the prophecy is wrong, he was worthy of death. Today, the prophet can say, the Lord told me, and he can be wrong.

The plan changed. Got to have some open theism, really, to have that work. No one's killing any of those prophets, but if they say they speak in the name of the Lord, and they speak falsehood, the maximum punishment, of course, is death.

Look at how committed the people of God are. They've come to their senses, how they love God and they love his law. Even his father and mother who begot him will say to him, you shall not live because you have spoken lies in the name of the Lord.

Of course, this is going against all of our sensibilities, and we love our children. But we should so love God and so hate perversion of his truth that we would want to silence even our children if they prophesied falsely in his name.

His father and his mother who begot him shall thrust him through when he prophesies. What a terrible thought that is. But you see what's happened here, the cleansing flood has been unleashed. The dam has burst.

And the people now, under the cleansing of Christ, they're now living and acting as Christians. That they so love God and his salvation and his word, they cannot tolerate this falsehood. In Israel, in her history, and certainly the church, has been guilty of tolerating false teachers and false prophets in her midst.

And that's why we should be ready to excommunicate and expel all the false teachers in the church. Look at verse four, and even in that day, every prophet will be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies.

When he cooks up some idea in his mind that he thinks is from the Lord, he's not going to spew it because he's ashamed of his unrighteous vision. He's not gonna wear a robe of coarse hair to deceive. You remember the attire of John the Baptist?

It's what he wore, camel hair, and eat locusts and honey in the wilderness preaching repentance to the people of God. They're not going to put on the clerical robe of the prophets, because they're gonna know that they're illegitimate.

And someone's gonna say to him, aren't you a prophet? And he's gonna say, because of this work of God among the people, he's gonna say, I am not a prophet, but I am a farmer. For a man taught me to keep cattle from my youth.

They're going to return to their lawful occupations and callings instead of calling themselves the prophets of God. And finally, in verse six, and one will say to him, what are these wounds between your arms?

Then he will answer, those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends. Now, there are two most legitimate interpretations of this. I favor the second one. I'm gonna tell you this, cuz you may come across this and you're studying this more intently.

One of the ideas is that in this area of the world that self-flagellation was part of what the false prophets would do. They would scar and wound themselves. And this is like a deceptive way of saying, I didn't do that, my friends hurt me, that's how I got these scars.

But I actually think the people of God in this glorious day love the truth so much that they punished and beat the false prophets who were their friends. That they may not be killed. They wounded their friends.

And isn't it true that a wound of a friend is better? The people so cherish the truth that they're willing to beat their friends to spare him from the shame of death, maybe to pluck him out of the fire, that he might not be destroyed.

I will say to him, what are these wounds between your arms? He says, those which I was wounded in the house of my friends. Brethren, we live in a glorious time. We have been saved from sin's guilt and power.

We are among those who were formerly idolaters, but we've been washed. We're also called to purge sin in our midst. We need to be a more courageous people in calling out our brethren who fall into egregious sin.

I'm not talking about minor errors. I'm talking about soul damning heresies. We need to intervene. So today, I have a final question for you. I can, in my heart, kind of have a rah-rah moment of the idols being crushed.

In the land.

I love that kind of stuff. I love the idea of the false prophet being silenced. A tougher question is the idol of my own heart. Brethren, today, I urge you to examine yourself and you will find a lingering idol factory.

You don't carve statues. You don't bow before paintings or stained glass. But you have made yourself to be God. And in light of the commandments that we have read, prayed through today, the penalty for idolatry is not inheriting the kingdom of God.

I urge you to repent and again run under the cleansing flood because you have esteemed yourself as God. You've put yourself first. Every one of us has done it. And today, I believe we have a great example before us that there's salvation, there's forgiveness for us, but there's a warning for us.

The idols are going to be cut off from the land. The false prophets are going to be silenced. I better mortify and put to death my tendency to worship of myself. I urge you to examine your heart. Have you erected another God before the one true God?

Say, I would never do it. Look at your heart. It may be yourself. But like the hymn writer says, foul I to the fount. I fly, wash me, Savior, lest I die. There's forgiveness for you, an idolater, under the fountain of God's blessing and love, the cleansing flood of Christ's atoning blood.

It's great to be washed, isn't it? Let's pray together now. Lord, we ask for your mercy as we prayed. I pray that we would highly esteem the sacrifice of Christ. And we rejoice, O God, that you have opened up a fountain, not only for the legal requirements of sin, but also the accompanying defilement that comes with it.

Lord, you have now fitted us for service. We can enter into your temple, into your presence. We can be your ambassadors and emissaries in the world. We can be the light that shines the gospel and proclaims Christ to sinful men and calls them to be cleansed under the fount.

O Lord, I pray that you would energize our service in this regard. And O Lord, I ask that you would purge every sin from us, as you promised to do in the land, that it would happen for us individually, as a family, as a church, and would spread to the nations.

And we ask all these things in Jesus' name, amen.