A FOUNTAIN OPENED FOR CLEANSING
From a casual reading of the prophets of the Old Testament it’s easy to get the impression that they had a gloomy message of doom for the nation of Israel and the surrounding countries. They are certainly strident in their condemnation of sinful practices which offended a righteous God whose wrath was richly deserved. But the prophetic books also contain a vibrant hope of restoration through God’s intervention in the establishment of His Kingdom. God was working to a plan. The time for its unveiling hadn’t yet come but precious and wonderful glimpses were revealed by these men of God although they themselves may not have completely understood the significance of what they were saying.
The prophet Zechariah, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, was both a prophet and a priest. He was probably born in Babylon during the exile following the nation’s humiliation by Nebuchadnezzar and returned to Palestine in 536 B.C. at the same time as Haggai. The two prophets worked hand in glove, complementing each other’s message. Zechariah began ministering among the Jews who had returned from captivity in Babylon together with Haggai who was the practical man. His work was to stir up the people in the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem but he too was given a wonderful insight in the coming of the Messiah when he predicted, ‘The desire of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory’ (2:7).
Zechariah’s special emphasis was on the need of national and personal repentance and renewal and how it would be achieved in the coming of Jesus, still some 500 years in the future. Interspersed with stern words of denouncing sin, Zechariah’s prophecy contains brilliant shafts of light on the person and work of the Messiah. They’re words which are quoted in the Gospels as a clear foretelling of what actually happened. There’s what we now recognize as the Palm Sunday event: ‘Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey’(9:9).
But Zechariah foretold that the scene of superficial rejoicing wouldn’t last long. The prophet had to follow up with increasingly sombre messages. The king’s shepherd is rejected: ‘Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is close to me! … Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered’ (13:7). But there’s worse to come: ‘They will look on me, the one they have pierced’ (12:10). The prophecies clearly point to the fulfilment of the earlier prophecy of Isaiah when he foretold to the letter that the Servant of the Lord would suffer for the sin of the world (Isa. 53), and so vividly portrayed in the gospel stories of the Passion of the Lord Jesus Christ (Matt. 26 and 27.
In recording what Zechariah saw in his prophetic eye, he repeated a phrase: ‘on that day’ (12:3,4,6,8,9; 13:1,2,4). Zechariah is referring to ‘the day of the Lord’, a phrase used by many of the prophets and also found in the New Testament. It’s a period of time or a special ‘day’ when God is working out His plan of salvation, looking forward to the time when Christ will be seen to reign over the universe in the new heaven and earth (Phil. 2:6-11).
The final fulfilment of ‘the day of the Lord’ will come at the end of history when with wonderful power God will deal with evil and restore His rule. The problem of sin is the central problem in the Old Testament. It began in the Garden of Eden and won’t be eradicated until the final ‘day of the Lord’. But how is it to happen? Zechariah supplies the key: ‘On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity’ (13:1). Here we have:
THE FOUNTAIN ANTICIPATED
Zechariah’s prophecy tells us of the climax of God’s revelation of His plan of salvation; it’s the crux of the gospel. But it was no afterthought to deal with sinful mankind. It had been conceived in the Eternal Council of Almighty God even before the foundation of the world to bring redemption to His lost creation. It’s what the writer to the Hebrews described as ‘so great salvation’ (2:1). But before we discover its sheer wonder and splendour we must ask the question:
‘WHY IS THE FOUNTAIN NECESSARY?’
Zechariah specifically states that this special fountain was ‘to cleanse … from sin and impurity.’ The Bible’s description of ‘Sin’ is that which ‘misses the mark’; it ‘falls short of the glory of God’ (Rom. 3:23). And ‘impurity’ is a word which sums up all those things which are dishonouring to God; those things which defile mankind. This had been the problem ever since the Fall of mankind in Eden. There has never been a man or woman in the world who has been able to stand up to Satan, the arch-enemy of God. Generation after generation came and went proving that mankind was in bondage to sin and incapable of dealing with inbred sin, even though increasingly blessed with the resources of mind and matter. I remember seeing a carton showing a scholarly man sitting on top of a great pile of books, looking at himself in a mirror, and above his head a question mark. He has mastered every subject of learning, but couldn’t answer the problem of himself! The infection of sin has warped human nature so that it erupts in selfishness and greed. A current example of this is what has been described as the ‘financial tsunami’ sweeping the world, bringing loss and hardship to millions. It could well be the judgement of God to a sinful world.
But God had been working towards a solution. For hundreds of years there was already a means for covering over sin and uncleanness. Moses had instituted the system of sacrifices but the problem was that they had to be offered continually. They were only a temporary solution to the problem of sin and even then they didn’t meet the need when the person making the offering didn’t come with a repentant heart. In fact the earlier prophet Amos told his listeners, ‘I hate, I despise your religious feasts; … Even though you bring me burnt offerings … I will not accept them’ (5:21,22). It wasn’t until God provided the Messiah, the Christ, as the perfect and sinless Lamb of God that the problem of sin could be dealt with once and for all. This is beautifully summarized in the verse of a hymn: ‘Oh loving wisdom of our God! When all was sin and shame, a second Adam to the fight and to the rescue came’ (J H Newman). So there’s a second question to ask:
‘WHY WASN’T THE FOUNTAIN OPENED EARLIER?’
Certainly the need was great. Right back at the Fall, God had promised a rescue mission to mankind: He told Satan, ‘I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel’ (Gen. 3:15), a clear anticipation of One who would defeat the devil, albeit at great cost to Himself. His promise was repeated to Abraham: ‘Through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed’ (Gen. 22:18). Moses, too, received a firm promise of the coming deliverance by One greater than he: ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must listen to him’ (Deut. 18:15). And so on to the prophets to whom more details of the Messiah were given. But the Messiah was still awaited. Why? Men and women always wanted to claim that they could save themselves so God gave them time to see that this was an impossibility. The Greek philosophers offered their wisdom but to no avail. The Romans gave mankind their legal system but that too failed to bring salvation.
The last event in God’s salvation timetable was the appearance on the Palestinian scene of John the Baptist and his great announcement when he saw Jesus coming towards him at the river Jordan to be baptised: ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’ (John 1:29). It was then that God’s moment arrived, as the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Galatia: ‘But when the time was fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman …’ (4:4). Zechariah’s prophetic word of The Fountain Anticipated is transformed into:
THE FOUNTAIN EXPERIENCED
Zechariah states that ‘a fountain will be opened’. The anticipations of the Messiah clearly show that the ‘fountain’ was already in existence but waiting to be unveiled. The apostle Peter tells his Christian readers that Jesus, ‘a lamb without blemish or defect … was chosen before the creation of the world’ and what’s more, their redemption was only made possible ‘with the precious blood of Christ’ (1 Peter 1:19,20). A fountain conveys the image of something which is always flowing, providing a constant, abundant supply of a life-giving stream. This thought is beautifully captured in the verse of a hymn: ‘There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains’ (William Cowper).
A born-again Christian rejoices in this brutal picture of ‘the blood of Christ’ because it is the only means of atonement for sin but those who haven’t trusted in the saving work of Jesus on the cross of Calvary recoil from it with deep revulsion at its horror. The message of the Cross to the world of Paul’s day was inescapably offensive. To the Jews it was ‘a stumbling block’. It was a symbol of weakness, humiliation and defeat. The Greeks also had a problem with the Cross. It offended their sense of reason; to them it was ‘foolishness’ (1 Cor. 1:23). No sane person would believe that kind of tale! A cartoon has been found on a wall in the ruins of ancient Rome showing how crazy the Christian message seemed to the people of that time. It’s a caricature of Jesus’ crucifixion, showing a man’s body hanging on a cross - but the body has the head of a donkey! There’s also a figure of a young man with hand raised as if in worship. Underneath is the inscription, "He worships his God!"
A crucified god? It just didn’t make sense. The non-Christian says that God would never involve himself in the world like that! Do we believe that? To be a Christian believer in the understanding of the apostle Paul, we have to be able to say with him, ‘May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Gal. 6:14). Before He came to Planet Earth, Jesus was God the Son, co-eternal God with the Father, but in order to accomplish our redemption He was born a man, made flesh, yet without sin, ‘taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness … he humbled himself and became obedient unto death - even death on a cross!’ (Phil. 2:7,8). Isaiah foretold that the Suffering Servant of the Lord would bear away the sin of others: ‘The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all’ (53:6). The figure of Zechariah’s ‘fountain’ pictures abundant cleansing, as the apostle John writes: ‘The blood of Jesus … cleanses us from all sin’ (1 John 1:7).
The prophet tells us that ‘a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem’. It’s not just for the leaders of the people of God. It’s open for all the inhabitants of the city, however insignificant, recalling Isaiah’s words: "Come, all you who are thirsty, and you, who have no money, come buy and eat!" (55:1). It’s a universal invitation. Isaiah’s words are those which would have been used in the market place. You can imagine the street traders calling out to the passers-by to try their produce - "Come..." Zechariah is acting as the town crier at a carnival, ringing his bell and calling the crowds’ attention to this unrepeatable gift of God, ‘to cleanse them from sin and impurity.’ As the apostle John states, Jesus alone ‘is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world’ (2:2). What can we say to this but ‘Halleluiah, what a Saviour!’ This indeed is The Fountain Experienced but Zechariah knew he couldn’t stop at that. He must tell the people what it meant to have:
THE FOUNTAIN APPLIED
It’s one thing to know of God’s plan of redemption but unless applied, it remains ineffective. We must come to God in repentance of sin and faith in Christ’s atonement for us on the cross. Doing this has implications for the rest of our life. Someone made the perceptive statement that ‘Salvation isn’t a cafeteria where you take what you want and leave the rest. You can’t take Christ as Saviour and refuse Him as Lord and be saved’ (Vance Havner). It requires diligence and determination to be a follower of Christ’s way. It’s a costly business to be a Christian. The entrance fee into the kingdom of God is absolutely nothing, but the annual subscription is all that we have and are.
Zechariah went on to speak of the consequences of cleansing. Changes have to be made when people are cleansed from their ‘sin and impurity’. God’s Word teaches that once you have been made righteous, you start the lifelong process of being made holy. God’s people are required to live holy lives in obedience to His commands. It’s a matter of turning our backs upon the old life and to start anew. God’s people in Zechariah’s day were told to ‘banish the names of the idols’ to be ‘remembered no more’ and to stop receiving guidance from the false ‘prophets and the spirit of impurity’ (13:2). And this applies just as much in the 21st century.
As C H Spurgeon said, ‘Christ promises to save His people from their sins, not in their sins.’ We should do well to practice this life of faith, not because we need it to get to heaven – we don’t, as it’s by grace we’re saved – but because we want our lives to count for something, to ensure that the quality of our service for God will survive His scrutiny and trial by fire as “gold, silver, costly stones” rather than be burned up as “wood, hay or straw” (1 Cor. 3:12).
Of course all Christians are unworthy. I read of a candidate for ordination into the ministry. He was having an interview with the bishop on the day before the ordination service. Feeling his unworthiness he said, ‘Bishop, if you knew how unworthy I am to be ordained by you, you would never lay hands on me.’ The dear bishop replied, ‘If you knew how unworthy I am, you wouldn’t let me do it!’ We’ve got to recognise that in the sight of God we’re but sinners saved by grace. We need to come again and again to the Cross of our Saviour, that ‘Fountain Opened For Cleansing’, believing the truth of Scripture that ‘if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus … purifies us from all sin’ (1 John 1:7).
With the eye of faith Zechariah looks forward to ‘the day of the Lord’ when the godly remnant will ‘call on the name of the Lord and I will answer them.’ God will say, ‘They are my people’ (13:9). I quoted a verse from the hymn, ‘There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins’. It’s final two verses are inscribed on Spurgeon’s grave, as his testimony: ‘E’er since by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply, redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die. Then in a nobler, sweeter song I’ll sing Thy power to save, when this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.’ These are the authentic words of a true believer in Christ. May we be found among that number!
(Synopsis for overhead projection)
ZECHARIAH: HIGHLIGHTS OF HIS MINISTRY
- He had returned from captivity in Babylon with
Haggai to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem
- The coming of the Messiah: ‘The Day of the Lord’
- With rejoicing:
‘The desire of all nations will come’
‘Your king comes … gentle and riding on a donkey’
- With sorrow:
‘They will look on me, the one they have pierced’
¬_ With salvation:
‘On that day a fountain will be opened to …
cleanse them from sin and impurity’
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
THE FOUNTAIN ANTICIPATED
QUESTION: ‘WHY IS THE FOUNTAIN NECESSARY?’
‘to cleanse … from sin and impurity’
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
THE FOUNTAIN ANTICIPATED
QUESTION: ‘WHY WASN’T THE FOUNTAIN OPENED EARLIER?’
AWAITING THE FULFILLMENT OF GOD’S PROMISES TO:
- Adam
- Abraham
- Moses
- John the Baptist
AWAITING THE FULNESS OF GOD’S TIMETABLE
- ‘God sent his Son, born of a woman’
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
THE FOUNTAIN EXPERIENCED
REDEMPTION WAS ONLY MADE POSSIBLE
By Jesus: ‘A lamb without blemish or defect … was
chosen before the creation of the world’
‘The precious blood of Christ’ (1 Peter
1:19,20)
To the unbeliever:‘a stumbling … foolishness’ (1 Cor.
1:23)
INVITATION TO SINNERS
"Come, all you who are thirsty, and you, who have no money, come buy and eat!" (Isaiah 55:1)
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
THE FOUNTAIN APPLIED
REPENTANCE OF SIN AND FAITH IN CHRIST’S ATONEMENT
IMPLICATIONS OF BELIEVING
- ‘You can’t take Christ as Saviour and refuse Him as
Lord and be saved’
- ‘Banish the names of the idols … and the spirit of
impurity’
- ‘If we walk in the light … have fellowship with one
another … the blood of Jesus … purifies us from
all sin’ (1 John 1:7)
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
THE FOUNTAIN APPLIED
THE GODLY REMNANT
- ‘Call on the name of the Lord’
GOD WILL SAY
- ‘They are my people’
