God Has The Final Word Series

We’ve come to the last of the 8 visions that Zechariah saw in one night.

• God gave him these visions while he was ministering to the people, encouraging them at the early stage of the rebuilding of God’s house.

• The last 3 visions shared the same theme - God’s judgement on sin.

Last week Lester covered the 6th and 7th vision - the flying scroll and the woman in the basket. Let’s read the 8th and last vision - the vision of the four chariots: Zech 6:1-8 (ESV).

The last 3 visions talked about God’s judgment. Let’s recap quickly.

• In the 6th vision we saw this flying scroll (a big placard 10m x 5m) listing the curse of God (judgement of God) against those who steal and those who swear falsely, basically representing those who transgressed God’s commands.

One commentator illustrates it in this interesting way. When God gave the commandments to Moses, they were writing on two tablets.

Most likely we would see the 3rd commandment –“You shall not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain”, swearing falsely – in the middle of one.

And on the other tablet, right in the middle would be probably the 8th commandment – “You shall not steal.”

The liars and thieves represented those who broke the commandments of God.

The violators of God’s Law would banished and completely destroyed, the curse enters their houses and “destroy it, both its timbers and its stones.” (5:4)

• We see the severity of God’s judgement against sinners and the totality of God’s judgement against sin.

• That’s how God sees sin. That’s how God judges sin. That’s the seriousness of sinning against God, we heard that last week.

And then Zechariah saw the 7th vision of a measuring basket, representing the iniquity of the people and containing “wickedness”, personified by a woman.

• This wickedness was removed and taken away to the land of Shinar/Babylon, and parked in a house set for it, a picture of the idolatry and rebellion against God.

• The vision ends here. Wee know from the book of Revelation that this place of evil would face the wrath of God and be judged in the end times (Rev 17-18).

Let me extract from the vision John saw - Rev 18:1-3.

1 After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was made bright with his glory. 2 And he called out with a mighty voice,

“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons,

a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast. 3 For all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.”

God would punish sin, severely and completely. And God would ultimately remove sin from this land. It will be taken away and be destroyed.

Now in this final vision we have four chariots led by the horses roaming the earth.

• They were led by red, black, white and dappled (different shades) horses.

• It’s difficult to read with certainty the colours because the text builds nothing on them.

• Here we have red, black, white and dappled colours. In the first vision, horses in red, brown and white. In Rev 6 John saw horses in white, red, black and pale, with riders given specific tasks.

• Suffice to say that they are angelic beings sent out to execute God’s commands.

Here, these powerful horses were harnessed to chariots and they were straining to go.

• Similar to what prophet Elisha saw when he was surrounded by the Arameans in Dothan (2 Kings 6:11-23).

• Chariots would indicate warfare, unlike the first vision where the riders were sent forth on horses to survey the earth. These chariots were sent out to execute God’s judgment.

The angel explained. Zech 6:5-7

5And the angel answered and said to me, “These are going out to the four winds of heaven, after presenting themselves before the Lord of all the earth. 6The chariot with the black horses goes toward the north country, the white ones go after them (NIV going west, less accurate, added a consonant in Hebrew to mean ‘after the sea’.), and the dappled ones go toward the south country.” 7When the strong horses came out, they were impatient to go and patrol the earth. And he said, “Go, patrol the earth.” So they patrolled the earth.

• In describing the directions they took, North and South were mentioned, likely being the ancient sites of Israel’s enemies.

• No mention of the other directions and no mention of the red horses.