Thanks, everybody. So I picked out a lot of those songs not only for this morning, but for tonight and wanted to try to sing some hymns that we do not sing very often or have not sung before. So this summer, particularly, try to do that and learn some new hymns. It's a good thing to do. If you take your Bibles, turn to the book of Zechariah. We'll try to get right into our study tonight. We've been out of this book for several weeks now. So we need to try to remember what's going on here. I think to do that, we'll take a few minutes to go ahead and start from the beginning and read up to chapter five. These are short chapters, just a couple of pages actually in my Bible. I have small print in my Bible, but it's just a couple of pages. And I think we can read this through pretty quickly and have a little refresher on what Zachariah has taught us thus far. And we, if you remember, there are eight night visions that Zachariah receives, and we will be on the sixth one tonight in chapter five, verses one through four. So the first five are prior to that, and we'll just go ahead and take some time to read over that. So if you would join me in Zachariah chapter one, verse one, I'll try to read and announce what verses I am on occasionally so that you can keep up with it. And that's a good thing to do when you're a scripture reader, and particularly because we have different translations of the Bible, it is good as you're reading larger portions to every few verses announce what verse that you are on, and that helps folks focus in and stay engaged as you're reading. So, Zachariah, and I'll try to do that for you tonight. Zachariah 1, beginning at verse 1. Have you located that this evening? If you have, would you say amen? All right. Chapter one, verse one in the eighth year. This is the word of the Lord, by the way, in the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zachariah, the son of Barakaya, the son of Idu, the prophet saying, the Lord has been very angry with your fathers. Therefore, say to them, thus says the Lord of hosts return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. Do not be like your fathers to whom The former prophets preached, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, Turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds. But they did not hear nor heed me, says the Lord. Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? Yet surely my words and my statutes, which I command my servants, the prophets, Did they not overtake your fathers? So they returned and said, just as the Lord of hosts determined to do to us according to our ways and according to our deeds, so he has dealt with us. Verse seven. On the 24th day of the 11th month, which is the month of Shabbat in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah. the son of Berkaya, the son of Idu, the prophet. I saw by night and behold a man riding on a red horse, and it stood among the myrtle trees in the hollow, and behind him were horses, red, sorrel, and white. Then I said, My Lord, what are these? So the angel who talked with me said to me, I will show you what they are. the man who stood among the myrtle trees answered and said these are the ones whom the lord has sent to walk to and fro throughout the earth so they answered the angel of the lord who stood among the myrtle trees and said we have walked to and fro throughout the earth and behold all the earth is resting quietly verse 12 then the angel of the lord answered and said oh lord of hosts how long will you not have mercy on jerusalem and on the cities of judah against which you were angry these 70 years and the lord answered the angel who talked to me with good and comforting words so the angel who spoke with me said to me proclaim saying Thus says the Lord of hosts, I am zealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with great zeal. I am exceedingly angry with the nations at ease for I was a little angry and they helped but with evil intent. Therefore, thus says the Lord, I am returning to Jerusalem with mercy. My house shall be built in it, says the Lord of host and a surveyors line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem. Again, proclaim saying thus says the Lord of host. My cities shall again spread out through prosperity. The Lord will again comfort Zion and will again choose Jerusalem. Verse 18. Then I raised my eyes and looked, and there were four horns. And I said to the angel who talked with me, what are these? So he answered me, these are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. Then the Lord showed me four craftsmen. And I said, what are these coming to do? So he said, These are the horns that scattered Judah so that no one could lift up his head. But the craftsmen are coming to terrify them and cast out the horns of the nations that lifted up their horn against the land of Judah to scatter it. That is chapter one. Now let's go to chapter two, verse one. Then I raised my eyes. And look and behold a man with a measuring line in his hand. So I said, where are you going? And he said to me to measure Jerusalem to see what is its width and what is its length. And there was the angel who talked with me going out. And another angel was coming out to meet him. Who said to him run? Speak to this young man saying Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls because of the multitude of men and livestock in it. For I says the Lord will be a wall of fire around all around her and I will be the glory in her midst. Verse six up up. Flee from the land of the North says the Lord for I have spread you abroad like the four winds of heaven. says the Lord up Zion escape you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon for thus says the Lord of hosts he sent me after glory to the nations which plunder you for he who touches you touches the apple of his eye for surely I will shake my hand against them and they shall become spoil for their servants Then you will know that the Lord of Hosts has sent me. Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I am coming and I will dwell in your midst, says the Lord. Many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day and they shall become my people and I will dwell in your midst. Then you will know that the Lord of Hosts has sent me to you. Verse 12, and the Lord will take possession of Judah as his inheritance in the holy land and will again choose Jerusalem. Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for he is aroused from his holy habitation. Chapter 3, verse 1. Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord. and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. And the Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you, Satan. The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is this not a brand plucked from the fire? Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and was standing before the angel. Then he answered and spoke to those who stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And to him he said, See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes. And I said, Let them put a clean turban on his head. So they put a clean turban on his head, and they put the clothes on him. And the angel of the Lord stood by. Verse six. Then the angel of the Lord admonished Joshua saying. Thus says the Lord of hosts, if you will walk in my ways and if you will keep my command, then you shall also judge my house and likewise have charge of my courts. I will give you places to walk among these who stand here. Here, oh Joshua, the high priest, you and your companions who sit before you. For they are a wondrous sign. For behold, I am bringing forth my servant the branch. For behold, the stone that I have laid before Joshua, upon the stone are seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave its inscription, says the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. In that day, says the Lord of hosts, Everyone will invite his neighbor under his vine and under his fig tree. Chapter four, verse one. Now the angel who talked with me came back and wakened me as a man is wakened out of his sleep. And he said to me, what do you see? So I said, I'm looking and there's a lamp stand of solid gold with a bowl on top of it. And on the stand, seven lamps with seven pipes to the seven lamps. Two olive trees are by it, one at the right of the bowl and the other at its left. So I answered and spoke to the angel who talked with me saying, what are these, my Lord? Then the angel who talked with me answered and said to me, do you not know what these are? And I said, no, my Lord. So he answered and said to me, this is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts, who are you? Oh, great mountain before Zerubbabel, you shall become a plane and he shall bring forth the capstone with shouts of grace, grace to it. Verse eight. Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me saying the hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple. His hands shall also finish it. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. For who has despised the day of small things? For these seven rejoice to see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel. They are the eyes of the Lord, which scan to and fro throughout the whole earth. Then in verse 11, I answered and said to him, what are these two olive trees at the right of the lampstand and in its left? And I further answered and said to him, what are these two olive branches that drip into the receptacles of the two gold pipes from which the golden oil drains? Then he answered and said to me, do you not know what these are? And I said, no, my Lord. So he said, these are the two anointed ones who stand beside the Lord of the whole earth. That brings us to chapter five, and we'll read verses one through four. This is our passage for tonight. Chapter 5 verse 1 says, Then I turned and raised my eyes, and saw there a flying scroll. And he said to me, What do you see? So I answered, I see a flying scroll. Its length is twenty cubits, and its width ten cubits. Then he said to me, This is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole earth. Every thief shall be expelled according to this side of the scroll and every perjurer shall be expelled according to that side of it. I will send out the curse, says the Lord of hosts. It shall enter the house of the thief and the house of the one who swears falsely by my name. It shall remain in the midst of his house. and consume it with its timber and stones. Father, I thank you for your word that we've been able to hear read tonight from Zachariah. Lord, we, I think we might all just admit that things that we read here, very difficult to understand. Even having a talk through and preach through this passage, Lord, we, I confess there's many questions I still have. But I thank you God that we have the opportunity to open up your word and get more familiar with the scriptures. And Lord, we know, I believe with all my heart that the passage even here that we're studying tonight and that which I've just read will not return void. But we are learning and growing from your scripture. And we'll see the benefits of it in our Christian life. And I'm grateful for that. Thank you so much for letting us be able to hear and understand your word and then gain wisdom from it. I pray that you please bless me as I seek to teach through this passage tonight to make some sense out of it. And I pray, God, that the truth of your word would go forth this evening. And I thank you for our Lord Jesus Christ for the redemption that we have through him. through Christ who died for our sins and rose again. In his name, I pray. Amen. All right. Well, I want to share with you a message tonight from this passage entitled Judgment is Coming. The Vision of the Flying Scroll. So we'll get started here. And the first thing I want to point out to you from this passage is the reach of the judgment, the reach of the judgment. And this is found in verses one through three as here he is. You know, this is kind of the process that we're seeing. He'll talk to the angel who is talking to him. He'll ask the angel a question or the angel will ask him a question or both all in the same in the same conversation. So we in verse one, he says, I turn and raise my eyes and saw the vision of a flying scroll. Now, that's not something you think of every day. a scroll. It's like a book in that day. It would have been equivalent to their book. And so he saw this flying in the heavens, I guess, or in the sky. And then in verse 2, and he said to me, what do you see? So I answered, I see a flying scroll. Its length is 20 cubits and its width 10 cubits. So if you add that up, does anybody know how long a cubit is? Zayden? Yes, about 18 inches, and it's typically measured from, I think, from a man's elbow to maybe the end of his hand. That's how they would measure a cubit. All right, so he looks at this and he sees this thing, how big it is, and so that would equal out, if you did the math, to be 30 feet by 15 feet. I believe is what it was. So it is 20 cubits And its length is 20 cubits and its width is 10 cubits. So this is a very large scroll that he is seeing flying. And then in verse three, he says, then he said to me, this is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole earth. Every thief shall be expelled. Let's stop there. This is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole earth. That's the reach of the judgment. the reach of the judgment is that this curse goes out over the face of the whole earth. It is flying. Therefore, it is not restricted in its ability to go forth. Now, I didn't say anything about it this morning, but you all are probably aware of the events that are taking place over in the Middle East. And Israel has been bombing, attacking Iran, for several days, over a week now. And one of the things that they claimed is that they have complete control over the airspace. So in other words, they can fly freely over Iran without the fear of being attacked by them. They control the airspace. And then, of course, last night, the United States bombed Iran and some nuclear facilities. I didn't speak anything about that this morning because I had enough on my plate with talking about tongues. But I've also taught about Israel in recent months. So I did not feel like it was necessary for me to address that this morning. And I have specifically in two or three messages over the last several months talked about Israel, how we should view them and what the history, what the future holds for them. So I didn't feel, again, like it was necessary to address that. Well, I bring that up. They controlled the airspace. They could fly where they wanted to. Here you have this flying scroll and it is not restricted. It can go wherever it wants to. And what God is saying here in this vision is the curse is going over the face of the whole earth. It is not restricted to one particular area. All right. So that's the reach of the judgment. Let's see the reason for the judgment. In verse three, the reason for the judgment. So picking up there in middle, I guess after the face of the whole earth, it says every thief shall be expelled according to this side of the scroll and every perjurer shall be expelled according to that side of it. So we learn about the scroll from this. Passage that it's two sided. It's printed on both sides. And it is there. There's two particular things that are pointed out here. One is that of thievery, stealing, and the other is perjury. Now, the way this is interpreted, as we'll see it in verse four, is that the perjury is referred to as swearing falsely or using the Lord's name in vain. There are two commandments that this specifically deals with. Does anybody remember which commandment says you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain? Which commandment is that out of the ten? Third commandment, right? Is that what you were going to say, Zayden? And then what about you shall not steal? Which commandment is that? Does anybody remember? Let's take a look at it. Exodus chapter 20. Exist 20 is where we find the first list of the Ten Commandments and the first one is found in verse 3. You shall have no other gods before me. The second one is found in verse 4. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, and I'm not going to read everything that goes with that, but it is longer. It goes into two more verses. But basically you shall not make for yourself a carved image. The third is found in verse seven. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. And that's the one that we just mentioned there of perjury or swearing falsely by his name is what verse four is the way verse four describes it. So that would be the breaking of the third commandment. And then you go to verse eight. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. How many is that? Four. And then we go to verse 12. Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you. That's 5. Verse 13, you shall not murder. It's verse 6. Verse 14, you shall not commit adultery. Verse 15, you shall not steal. Verse 16, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. And then verse 17, you shall not covet your neighbor's house or you shall not covet. We'll summarize it with that. So you shall not steal. That was the eighth commandment, wasn't it? You could also say the perjury perhaps would fall under the ninth commandment. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Let's go back to Zachariah. So what is the reason for the judgment? We can learn from this that the reason for the judgment is the breaking of the law of God. The law of God that is holy and the law of God that is good. It is not just those who were in Israel that were guilty of breaking the law of God, but the curse goes out over the face of the whole what? whole earth and there are people over the face of the whole earth that have broken the law of God. So that's the reason for the judgment. Let's go now and look at the reliability of the judgment in verses three and four. As we look at verse four. Having just read verse three and verse four, he says, I will send out the curse, says the Lord of hosts. It shall enter the house of the thief and the house of the one who swears falsely by my name. And that's where we get that would apply it to the third commandment. And the house of the one who swears falsely by my name, it shall remain in the midst of his house. and consume it with its timber and stones. The reliability of it. This curse is going out over the face of the whole earth. It will go into every house. Everyone is guilty. And it will perform that which it is supposed to perform. The judgment for those who have broken the law of God will be upon them. That's why the gospel is so important. You see, the law of God, Jesus even said that he did not come to destroy the law and the prophets, but to what? Fulfill it. You see the curse of the law. Yes, it is upon us. The Bible tells us in John chapter 3 in verse 36 that. He who believes in the sun has everlasting life, but he who does not believe or he who does not obey the sun shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides upon him. Why would the wrath of God abide upon a person? unless the person has broken the holy law of God and the curse of the law is upon them. They're guilty. And when you're out evangelizing or maybe preaching in the streets, you know, this is a good way to approach things. We did this often in Peru. Because I began to remind the people, and you may have heard this from Ray Comfort in the way of the master, but he'll take the commandments and he will ask people if they have broken those, if they've ever stolen anything, even the smallest thing, if they have ever told a lie, if they have ever coveted, wanted something that someone else had, if they have ever lusted after someone in their heart because Jesus says to do so is to commit adultery. And he'll go through the commandments and he'll ask them, have you done those? They'll say, yes, I've done that. He'll say, well, that means that you're a lying, thieving, covetous adulterer. You've confessed that with your own mouth. So if you stand before God one day, will you be innocent or guilty before him? And most people who are clear thinking will say, I'm guilty. I am guilty of breaking the law of God. And then he'll ask them the question, well, what then hope? He might ask, I'll say, I asked this question, what hope do you have? Is there any hope for you? When we were in Peru and I was preaching and I would evangelize in this way, and I would ask them that question, they had no answer. And most of the time, when you do that here, the people that you're asking that to, they will have no answer. They do not know what hope they have. And that's where you very clearly and strategically bring that around to the gospel. See, this is why Christ died. The reason Jesus Christ died on the cross is what it says in 1 Corinthians 15. He died for our what? He died for our sins. So when we think about our guilt before God because we've broken His law, then We have no hope unless there is one who is a substitute who is not like us. Not someone who is also a lawbreaker, but yet then they just die in our place. That does us no good, for they too are guilty. But the Bible tells us about Jesus, that he was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. And he was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. So when Christ died on that cross, It was the God man who died in our place. The just for the unjust that he might bring us to God. Galatians tells us chapter three that he became a curse for us. Because it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Galatians 3 when Christ hung on that cross, he took the curse of the law on himself. and He became a curse for us. Through Him becoming that curse, the wrath of God is satisfied. What's the biblical word for that? The wrath of God is satisfied. Propitiation. The wrath of God is propitiated through the death of Christ, the Son of God, in our place. The reliability of the judgment. Now let's look at the ruin of the judgment. In the last part of verse four. He says the word of God says it shall remain in the midst of his house and consume it. With its timber and its stones. You see, the ruin of the judgment is great. There is no place. To hide from it. There is no material for which you can build your shelter that will allow you to escape this judgment. It is thorough. It is exacting. I meant to look it up, and I was going to before the water started coming in the basement. But in Pilgrim's Progress, Pilgrim comes to the mountain. Does anybody remember what it was called? I don't, but it was the idea of the law. And it was exacting. You had to get everything right. And if you stand before God one day. And you are judged according to the holy standard of God, and you're the one who has to stand there in your righteousness. It will be exacting and it will be complete ruin. But that is why Christ came through Christ. The perfect son of God. Everlasting life. Is granted. To those who believe. You see, the Bible tells us that we have peace with God. Through faith in Jesus Christ, he is just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Christ. Do you have faith in Jesus Christ tonight to save you from your sins? Have you examined your life? Do you know that when you stand before God one day, you're not going to stand there and say, Lord, we've prophesied in your name. I cast out demons in your name. I did many wonderful things in your name. Lord, I went to church in your name. Lord, I read the Bible in your name. Lord, I helped people in your name. Or will you stand there? Knowing that. Nothing in your hand you bring. But it's simply to the cross you cling. It is to Christ and his grace and love that saves us from our sins. I pray you trust in him tonight. Let's pray together. Lord, thank you for the reminder of the gospel that we have in this passage. God, through him we can. We can escape the curse of the law, not because you turn a blind eye to our sin. But Lord, because Christ paid our debt. He is our Savior. He is the one who brings us to God. The Gospel is good news. We rejoice in it tonight. And Lord, perhaps this week as we go forth, you'll give us opportunity to tell others about this good news. I pray, Lord, if you do, if there are doors that are before us, I pray they'll be opened and swung wide open. And then when they are. Lord, I ask you. Give us grace. That we may make known the mystery of the gospel. To those that we encounter. And father, I want to also pray that when we became become. Down trodden because of our sin and we know how sinful we can be. That we will remember the Gospel. That we will not run from it. But embrace Christ and trust Christ just that much more because we know that our only hope is in him. And then may we be strengthened from that. Lord, not to continue in sin that grace may abound, but no to live. A life that is. Dead to the old man and alive to the new through Christ Jesus our Lord. These things I pray in his name, Amen.