One summer many years ago we were sitting on a beach in the Gulf Coast of Florida. It was the busy Memorial Day weekend was coming and I looked up and I see there's this airplane flying overhead with a banner and then pretty soon there's another airplane flying overhead with a banner behind. I don't remember the messages exactly, but one said something like, Sally, would you marry me? And the second one said, eat at Joe's Crab Shack. And I'm pretty sure those two were unrelated to each other. Our text this morning, the prophet Zechariah is going to have a vision where he is going to look into the sky and he is going to see signs. Now to remind you, before we read the text, The prophet Zechariah was sent by God along with the prophet Haggai to encourage the people to get to work on rebuilding the temple and reestablishing worship. The message through Haggai came in the form of very direct commands. But since Hebrews 1 says God spoke in many times and many ways to the fathers by the prophets, He also speaks in a different kind of way when he sends Zachariah with a different sort of encouragement. Zachariah starts having visions. There is a series of eight night visions that Zachariah has, and we've already looked at the first five. He saw a rider on a red horse down in a ravine underneath the evergreen trees, sending out other riders to oversee all the events of the earth. He saw four horns and four craftsmen that God had designed to destroy them. young man, a surveyor with a measuring line going to measure around the city of Jerusalem. In chapter three, Zachariah saw the high priest Joshua saved from God's wrath and cleansed from sin and empowered to serve. And then last week, We saw his vision of this huge, unique, gold lamp stand connected to two olive trees as a never-ending source of fuel. So those were the first five. This morning, we're going to look at the sixth and seventh night visions of Zachariah. Both are here in chapter five. 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 20 cubits and its width 10 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 timbers and stones. Then the angel who talked with me came out and said to me, Lift your eyes now and see what this is that goes forth. So I asked, what is it? And he said, it is a basket that is going forth. He also said, this is their resemblance throughout the earth. Here is a lead disc lifted up and this is a woman sitting inside the basket. Then he said, this is wickedness. And he thrust her down into the basket and threw the lead cover over its mouth. Then I raised my eyes and looked, and there were two women coming with wind in their wings, for they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the basket between earth and heaven. So I said to the angel who talked with me, where are they carrying the basket? And he said to me, to build a house for it in the land of Shinar. When it is ready, the basket will be set there on its base. President Calvin Coolidge's wife, Grace, had a consistent complaint about her husband. It was hard to get him to engage in conversation. Coolidge was not exactly a chatty Cathy. So the story is told that one Sunday morning, Coolidge attended worship service while Grace was sick at home, and when he got back from church, Grace asked, What was the preacher's sermon about this morning? And gruffly, Coolidge responded, sin. She was frustrated with sort of this non-loquacious answer, and so she tried to press him for details. All right, but what did the preacher have to say about sin? Calvin thoughtfully considered his answer and said, he was against it. I would argue the preacher that morning. as long as he conveyed that God was against sin, had done his job. And in fact, he could have used Zechariah chapter five as his text. The two prophetic visions of Zechariah five reveal clearly how God sees sin and what plan he has for it. God will not tolerate sin or leave it among his people. Now, before we dig into the details of these visions, I want you to take a moment to think about the original audience to whom Zachariah was speaking. I'm gonna describe some details of their life to you, and then I'm gonna ask you a question about them. So here's some details about them. The original audience are Jewish folks who have embraced Yahweh as the one true God. These folks had fairly recently returned from captivity in Babylon. They had upset their lives in order to return to the promised land. They had started the temple project and they had laid its foundation and though they had set it aside for a time, thanks to the encouragement of Haggai and Zechariah, they had already restarted the temple building project. So they were the people of God in the place God put them, doing the work God gave them to do. Those are the facts. Now here's the question. Do you think that they figured that was good enough? Do you suppose that any criticism of sin in their personal life, any pointing out of wickedness and dishonesty, was just easily dismissed in their minds by muttering this mantra that, well, we're the people of God, we're in God's place, we're doing God's work, so God's good with us. Yeah, I know I'm stealing from my neighbor, but that's just a small part of my life. Overall, I've built up the spiritual credit that I know I've got for all the good that I've done. Okay, I'm lying to people, I know I'm deceitful, but what's a few little white lies in comparison to all the hard work I'm putting in on rebuilding this temple? I'm certain that they did think that way. Because we think that way. Things have not changed. Pastors fall into sin when they start thinking that years of faithful service is gonna earn them a free pass for deceit or infidelity. Church members fall into sin when they start thinking that their tithes and offering and years of church attendance and teaching Sunday school qualify them for an indulgence for disobedience and apathy. And when challenged on this point, good, sovereign, grace Baptist will pick up the old refrain, well, we're God's people, we're in God's place, we're doing God's work, he understands, he's just fine with us. For anyone who thinks that way, then or now, Zechariah appeals for you to see the message that's flying through the sky over the city of Jerusalem. It is not, eat at Joe's Crab Shack. It is every thief and every liar will be expelled. They will be purged away. They'll be banished from God's presence because God will not tolerate sin nor leave it among his people. There are two visions in this chapter. The first, the flying scroll, shows God will not tolerate sin among his people. Look at verses one and two again. Then I turned and raised my eyes, and I saw there a flying scroll, and he said to me, what do you see? So I answered, I see a scroll flying. Its length is 20 cubits, and its width 10 cubits. is Zachariah sees this scroll flying through the sky over the city of Jerusalem. It is evident that the scroll is not a rolled up scroll. It is unfurled like a banner or a billboard in the sky. He estimates its size at 20 cubits by 10 cubits. Or in other words, it's approximately 30 feet long and 15 feet wide. This is no ordinary scroll. Now I wish I could see Zachariah's vision to know how it's flying. There's just some times where I want little details that aren't available to us. However it goes, Zachariah ultimately can see both sides of the scroll. So it's either flying horizontally like a flying carpet, but occasionally twists and moves so you can see both the top and the bottom, or it's flying vertically like a, a banner behind an airplane, but it moves back and forth so he can see both sides. Verse 3, the angel that he said to me, that's the angel 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 timbers and stones. Part of the symbolism of the flying scroll seems obvious. God is going to judge all people through the written word of his law. This flying scroll symbolizes the word of God, the law of God is reinforced by a couple of facts. First, on each side of this scroll is a written reference to the 10 commandments that were revealed at Mount Sinai. One side says every thief shall be expelled. The other side says every perjurer, that is someone who bears false witness, every perjurer shall be expelled. So on the surface, this is a reference to the eighth, and ninth commandments. The eighth commandment of the law is you shall not steal. The ninth is you shall not bear false witness or perjury against your neighbor. The reality is those two sides of the scroll deal with even more of the Ten Commandments than that. And we should expect this to be the case because James chapter two verse 10 teaches that anyone who obeys most of the law and yet breaks a single command is in reality guilty of breaking all the law. This is what James says in James 2.10, whoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. This is a difficult truth, but it is incredibly helpful to keep in mind. There are many commands, but there is one law. There are many commands, but there is one law. If you break one of the 10 commandments, even if you could have kept the other nine, you are still a lawbreaker. You have broken a command, but you have broken the law. Yet the reality is even if you could keep the other nine is really just a impossible hypothetical exercise. You can't break one command without breaking others. And we should know this to be the case. Just as we said, the eighth commandment is you shall not steal. The 10th commandment is you shall not covet. Stealing is taking something that doesn't belong to you. Coveting is wanting something that doesn't belong to you. You're not gonna take something without wanting it first. So you're gonna break more than one law at a time. In this way, the laws of God, the commands of God are interdependent on each other. We actually see this in Zachariah's vision as well. The scroll has references to the eighth and ninth commandments. You shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, right, commit perjury. The scroll says every thief and every perjurer will be expelled or banished. but just like if you steal, you've already coveted, if you bear false witness, you've also already broken other commands of the law. Specifically, the third command, which says, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Look at verse four for a second. God says, I will send out a curse, says the Lord of hosts, and it shall enter the house of the thief, and then it doesn't just say the perjurer, it says, and the house of the one who swears falsely by my name, and it shall be in the midst of his house and consume it with its timber and stones. Now this does not mean that it is okay for you to lie as long as you haven't done it in God's name. That's not what this is saying. This is a reminder that everything the people of God do, you are doing in God's name. To take God's name in vain does not simply mean to use it as a curse, although that would qualify as taking his name in vain. Remember, vain simply means empty or meaningless. In fact, Randy's been talking in Ecclesiastes where the writer says that all the wasted effort we spend on chasing ungodly things are vanity, they are empty, they are meaningless. And so when you take the name of the Lord in vain, it is speaking of him in empty and meaningless ways. But there's more than that going on. The name of God is his reputation. Think of it this way. If someone goes out and starts telling lies about you, or even worse, telling the truth about you, You might say, well, they're trying to ruin my good name. You know when you say that it has nothing to do with your actual name. You're talking about they're trying to ruin my reputation. The same thing is meant by taking the name of the Lord in vain. You are doing empty, meaningless things that besmirch the reputation of God. And so think this through. You've got this land full of people in Judah around Jerusalem who are claiming to be the Lord's people, and in many ways, his reputation in this wicked world is staked on the behavior of the people who claim to be his representatives. But they're thieves, and they're liars, and no amount of defending that kind of evil behavior with, well, but I'm doing such good work for the Lord too. Right, we're God's people in God's place doing God's work. No amount of that defense will ever satisfy God when you spend the rest of your life tarnishing and slandering his reputation in the eyes of the world. This flying scroll is one clever aeronautic parchment here. It interconnects in Zachariah's vision in ways that make it clear that this scroll is symbolic of the written word of God, first because of the way it uses the 10 commandments, but second, we see it symbolizes God's word in the way it promises a curse for disobedience. Again, look at verse four. And actually in verse three, the angel says to him, this is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole earth. And then in verse four, I will send out the curse, says the Lord of hosts, and 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. The law of God is a curse. The law does not make a person righteous. It was not intended to make a person righteous. It exposes our unrighteousness. That does not make the law of God bad. It is verifiably good because it proves to us that we're bad. And that's a good thing. Here's how Paul says it in Romans 7 verse 7. He says, what shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not. On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law, for I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, you shall not covet. Right, there is a blessing through the law for obedience, a blessing, by the way, which no one has ever fully experienced. And there is a curse for disobedience, and that curse is what is emphasized here. The word of God, it tries our hearts. It enters into private places, like in verse four, the home of the thief and the home of the liar, and it brings the consequences of sin. The imagery at the end of verse four is that there is no shelter to hide from the word of God when it promises God's wrath on sin, it will consume your hiding place with fire. Furthermore, this scroll is open, and it flies over the land in Zachariah's vision, and nobody gets to plead ignorance, right? This, in verse three, this is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole earth, right? It's to be seen, as obvious as a flying billboard could be. No one gets to escape this judgment, even if you claim, but look at all the good work I'm doing. if you steal things from your work, if you defraud your employer by wasting time, if you cheat on a test in school, if you lie to your neighbors or your family or your friends, when you break your marriage vows, when you commit any sort of sin that you think is excusable and you think is not evident because all people ever see is, well, I'm one of God's people, I come to God's place, I do God's work. Don't fool yourself. Our little respectable sins are an offense to God and he considers it an affront to his own reputation. He rightly demands holiness and commitment throughout our lives. Now, I want you just to remember something. Zachariah here, his prophetic ministry comes at the same time, in the same place, to the same people as Haggai's prophetic ministry. Haggai was sort of his co-prophet. And so, just look back at Haggai chapter two for a moment, and I wanna remind you how Haggai dealt with this exact same idea. Haggai chapter two, starting at verse 11. Thus says the Lord of hosts, now ask the priest concerning the law, saying, if one carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and with the edge he touches bread or stew, wine or oil or any food, will it become holy? Then the priest answered and said, no. And Haggai said, if one who is unclean because of a dead body touches any of these, will it be unclean? So the priest answered and said, it shall be unclean. Then Haggai answered and said, so is this people and so is this nation before me, says the Lord. And so is every work of their hands and what they offer there is unclean. I think y'all remember this, if you touch a dirty dish with clean food, does the dirty dish become clean? No, obviously it doesn't. If you have dead body germs on you and you touch clean stuff, does the clean stuff become dirty? Absolutely it does. If you recall, when we talked about this, I used that illustration that y'all enjoyed so much about allowable defects like rodent poo and our hot cocoa. But Haggai's point was this, it is unreasonable to expect God's full blessings on partially dedicated people. You can't say I'm doing this good so that makes my whole life good because in reality, it's the sin in your life that is pervasive and contagious and affects everything else. Zachariah's vision in our text is teaching the same truth. And he promises that God will judge sin. So we should ask ourselves, what sins are we indulging in secret and fooling ourselves into thinking that God won't expose? God will not tolerate sin among his people. That's the first vision. The second vision in chapter five is the woman in the basket, which teaches God will not leave sin among his people. This is a longer vision. It'll be a shorter explanation, I think. Starting at verse five. Then the angel who talked with me came out and said to me, lift your eyes now and see what this is that goes forth. So I asked, what is it? And he said, it is a basket that is going forth. And he also said, this is their resemblance throughout the earth. Here is a lead disc lifted up and this is a woman sitting inside the basket. Then he said, this is wickedness. And he thrust her down into the basket and threw the lead cover over its mouth. Then I raised my eyes and looked, and there were two women coming with the wind in their wings, for they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the basket between heaven and earth. So I said to the angel who talked with me, where are they carrying the basket? And he said to me, to build a house for it in the land of Shinar. When it is ready, the basket will be set there on its base. This narrating angel shows Zachariah a vision of a basket. The Hebrew word is the word ephah, and that's usually somewhere between five gallon to 10 gallon size, but obviously just like the scroll, this is no ordinary basket, this is much larger. larger because it seems like the angel reaches down and verse 7 he lifts a heavy lead lid off the top of the basket and Zachariah sees a woman inside and about the same time Zachariah realizes what he's looking at the angel in verse 8 shouts this is wickedness and shoves the woman back down into the basket and puts the heavy lead lid back on top sealing her in. But the vision isn't over. Zechariah sees two other women flying in because they have, he says, wings like a stork. And just as a side note, storks were unclean animals to the Jews. The original readers would have immediately thought, oh, this is not anything good. And these stork-winged women aren't bringing a precious little newborn bundle, they're actually coming to pick up the basket and fly off with it with the wicked woman inside. Zechariah asks in verse 10 where they're taking it, and the angel who talks with him says, to build a house for it in the land of Shinar. When it is ready, the basket will be set there on its base. Now, a couple of things to point out with that. The word house, how is Zachariah and Haggai been using that word house in both of their books? That's a reference to the temple, right? You need to build this house. You need to build the house of the Lord. They're talking about a temple. Well, this picture is that the wicked woman in the basket is shoved down there and carried off to Shinar where they are going to build a house for her there. further, Shinar might not mean a lot to us, but it is the ancient name for the land of Babylon. So I promise you, the original readers who had just left Babylon and returned from captivity would have made that connection. In one way, the vision's message is very simply, Y'all, wickedness does not belong here. It has a home back there in Babylon where I brought you out from. If we sort of zoom in on Zachariah's day in the context of his original audience, I think that's how they would have read it. Wickedness should be so far from you, it's like it is trapped in a basket halfway around the world. But if we zoom out, which we get to do because we're not the original audience, so we can sort of zoom out for a second and look at the totality of scripture, there's another interesting aspect to this because Babylon, this place the basket's being flown to, has always been associated with opposition and rebellion against God. In Genesis 11, it was the people who were assembled on the plain of Shinar who start building a tower to reach into heaven, a tower called Babel. If that sounds like Babylon, it's not a coincidence. and God confounds their languages. It's the Babylonian false idols and the Babylonian army, which were constant threats to the people of God. They went to be captive there for 70 years before the Lord gave them another exodus and freedom. Wicked woman in this basket is being taken to Babylon, but she's not being destroyed there She actually has in verse 11 a house Prepared for her and a base a prepared place where she is going to be set and apparently thrive there and Then we know later in Revelation that When the Lord returns in judgment, justice and wrath is gonna be poured out on Babylon the Great, who is pictured as a wicked prostitute from Babylon. And her destruction is the culmination of God's plan for wickedness and rebellion on earth. In fact, Revelation 18 verses nine and 10 says, the kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her will weep and lament for her when they see the smoke of her burning, standing at a distance for fear of her torment saying, alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city, for in one hour your judgment has come. So I think when we zoom out, we also see Zachariah's vision teaches God has a plan for sin. And it is good to remind ourselves in the big picture, this is all headed someplace. Jesus is going to return in victory over all wickedness and all rebellion. But in the near term, the emphasis for Zechariah's sixth and seventh vision here in chapter five is simply this, that it's good that the people of Judah have embraced this temple rebuilding project, but they must know that they can't serve God with some small portion of their life and still harbor sin in another portion of their life. God will not tolerate nor leave sin among his people. He's gonna remove it far from them. He will separate us from sin. He will judge that sin Thieves and liars will find judgment. We can claim to be his people. We can come to His place, we can do His work and pride ourselves in that, but there is still this constant need that we have to purify our lives of sin. God claims His own reputation on the willingness of His people to live completely holy lives, not just, I'm gonna serve Him with this portion of my life, And that earns me spiritual credit that I can harbor sin over here in this area. God's not going to tolerate or leave sin among his people.