The Cleansing of Israel
Zechariah 13:1‑9
We find ourselves in the thirteenth chapter of Zechariah tonight in our Bible study. We're going to be going through this brief chapter, it's only nine verses, and seeing just exactly what God has to say about the cleansing of Israel...the cleansing of Israel.
God has in mind a wonderful day coming for Israel. Zechariah calls it the cleansing of Israel. In chapter 13 and verse 1 he says, "In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness." Zechariah predicts a day when Israel is going to be cleansed of sin and uncleanness. This is God's plan for His people Israel.
Now I want to back up from that future day to the past a little bit and I'd like to have you look with me to the fifth chapter of Isaiah...Isaiah chapter 5, the great prophecy of the man of God, Isaiah. And in chapter 5 verse 1 we see a very interesting prophecy that will relate, as we shall see, to what we want to say tonight...Zechariah (should be Isaiah) chapter 5 verse 1. Now here the Lord is referring to the people Israel under the terminology of a vineyard. Verse 1, "Now will I sing to my well beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard." My well beloved‑‑who is God‑‑has a vineyard‑‑who is Israel‑‑in a very fertile hill which obviously‑‑or fruitful hill‑‑which obviously would have reference to Canaan. God is the well beloved who has a vineyard in a very fruitful hill.
"And He dug it and He gathered out the stones and He planted it with the choicest vine and He built a tower in the midst of it and also made a winepress in it and He looked for it to bring forth grapes and it brought forth wild grapes." God had a design for His people. He made the place for them. He cleaned it out. He prepared it. He planted them...the object of His love. And He waited for them to produce the grapes that He desired. And instead they were wild grapes, foreign to His plan, foreign‑‑as it were‑‑to the seeds He planted.
Verse 3 says, "And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between Me and My vineyard." When the vineyard brought forth wild grapes, the vineyard became the object of judgment. And God is about to move on His own vineyard. "What could have been done more to My vineyard that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked for it to bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes. And now I will tell you what I will do to My vineyard, I will take away its hedge‑‑that is its protection‑‑it shall be eaten up. I'll break down its wall and it shall be trampled down and I will lay it waste, it shall not be pruned nor digged but there shall come up briars and thorns, I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it for the vineyard of the Lord of host is the house of Israel and the men of Judah His pleasant plant and He looked for justice but behold oppression, He looked for righteousness but behold a cry."
Now God says I made a vineyard and I planted it and I expected it to respond to that in a way that it was reasonable to respond and instead it rebelled and it brought forth wild grapes and thus I will judge it. I will tear down its hedge and its wall and its protection is gone. I will lay it waste. It will neither be pruned nor digged, it won't be cared for...briars and thorns will come up. The clouds will no longer rain rain upon it. God is here speaking of judgment upon Israel. And the reason God is judging Israel is because of Israel's unbelief and Israel's rebellion.
Now the same sad story is reiterated in different terms in Matthew chapter 21...Matthew chapter 21 and verse 33. You may remember this story, Matthew 21:33. Jesus said, here another parable, "There was a certain householder, certain owner, who planted a vineyard and hedged it round about and dug a winepress in it and built a tower," and so far it sounds exactly like Isaiah 5. And here it varies a little, "Lease it to tenant farmers and went into a far country. And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the farmers that they might receive the fruits of it." He lent it out to farmers.
Now watch. The one who owns the vineyard, the householder, is God. The vineyard, in effect, is His law, His standards, His principles, His truth, His way of life, His commandments. They were given to farmers while God went away. The farmers, the nation Israel, most particularly the chief priests and the leaders. And then when the time of the fruit drew near, He sent His servants to the farmers. The servants are the prophets...that they might receive the fruits. And the farmers took His servants and beat one and killed another and stoned another. Israel killed the prophets. Jesus even said about Jerusalem, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that stoneth the prophets and killest them that are sent unto you." This is what they did.
And He sent other servants, verse 36, more than the first and they did the same to them. But last of all He sent them His Son, saying, "They will reverence My Son." You see the picture now? Finally God said I'll send My Son. They certainly will respond differently to Him than they did to the prophets. But when the farmers, the chief priests, the leaders of Israel saw the Son, they said among themselves, "This is the heir, come let us kill Him and let us seize on His inheritance. They caught Him and cast Him out of the vineyard and slew Him. When the Lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will He do unto those farmers?" Hmph, what do you think the people responded who were listening to the parable? "Why they said unto Him, He'll miserably destroy those wicked men." What a terrible story You've just told us, Jesus. "And He'll lease His vineyard to other farmers who will render Him the fruits in their seasons."
"Jesus said to them, Did you ever read in the Scripture, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner. This is the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore say I unto you, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits of it." Guess who those farmers are, folks? It's you. And the kingdom will be taken from you and given to others. And that's the Gentiles and that's the church. And in verse 45, well verse 44 is the judgment, "And whosoever shall fall on the stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. And when the chief priests and Pharisees heard this parable, they perceived that He spoke of them, but when they sought to lay hands on Him, they feared the multitude because they regarded Him as a prophet." They would have even fulfilled the parable by killing Him right there. But they feared the crowd.
God planted a vineyard. God sent to that vineyard servants to gain the fruit of the vineyard. The farmers killed the servants, ultimately they killed the Son. And so, God took away from them His Kingdom and gave it to those who would bring forth its fruit. And that's the church.
You say, "Well, in Isaiah chapter 5, God really was upset with His vineyard and He just said that's it. And He laid it waste." That's right. And in a completely different parable approaching the situation from a different angle, though it deals also with a vineyard, God was very upset with Israel in Jesus time too and He said I'm going to take away your rights and I'm going to grant them to another people.
Doesn't this indicate to us that God is really finished? That God as far as Israel is concerned as a vineyard is done with them? Look at Romans chapter 11. In Romans chapter 11, he is saying the church is like a grafted‑in branch in a wild olive tree...from a wild olive tree. But in verse 24 he says to the Gentile church, "For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature and grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree," in other words, the church was literally grafted in to the place of blessing, the covenant place, place of salvation, "how much more shall these who are the natural branches," and who would that be? Israel..."Be grafted into their own olive tree?"
The time is coming when God's going to put that natural branch right back in. God's going to replant that vineyard. God's going to restore that vineyard. And verse 26 says, "So all Israel shall be saved."
So God isn't through with His vineyard, if you will. God isn't through with His olive grove. God is not through with Israel. God is a God of forgiveness. And that's what I want you to get. Even though Isaiah was so firm about God's attitude and even though Jesus was so firm about it, God is a God of forgiveness and God is going to forgive Israel and God is going to cleanse Israel and God is going to restore Israel to the place of blessing.
One of the great preachers in American history was a man by the name of Henry Ward Beecher. Henry Ward Beecher characterized God's forgiveness with these words, let me read them to you: "Let me go and saw off a branch from one of the trees that is now budding in my garden and all summer long there will be an ugly scar where the gash has been made. But by next Autumn it will be perfectly covered over by the growth. And by the following Autumn it will be hidden out of sight. And in four or five years, there will be but a slight scar to show where it has been. And in ten or twenty years, you would never suspect that there had been an amputation at all. Now trees know how to overgrow their injuries and hide them. And love does not wait so long as trees do. It knows how to throw out all divine and beneficient juices as it were and hide from sight the wrongs done. And God says He forgives in the same way. He will never again make mention as He declares in Ezekiel to His people of their sins, He will never taunt them with them," end quote.
God in the wonderful love and grace that He sheds on Israel will overgrow the scars. And when God restores Israel, it will be as if God never ever broke the branch off, as if God never laid waste to the vineyard.
No wonder the prophet Micah in the seventh chapter and the eighteenth verse said this, "Who is a God like unto Thee who pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage. He retaineth not His anger forever because He delighteth in mercy. He will turn again. He will have compassion on us. He will subdue our iniquities and Thou will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." No wonder Micah said "Who is a pardoning God like unto Thee?" All that Israel did in the past to the prophets as Isaiah stated it, all that they did to God's laws and commandments, all that they did in the life of Jesus Christ, to the very Son, is going to be forgiven because God is a God of forgiveness, a God who wipes out scars. That's the nature of God's grace.
You know, the whole Old Testament talks about God's forgiveness again and again...the whole sacrificial system is predicated on a forgiving God. In Psalm, I think it's 103:12, I could be wrong, let me see...yes, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us...I love this...as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him, for He knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust." And you can't expect a whole lot out of dust. You've got to give a little. So God is a God of forgiveness.
In Jeremiah, the wonderful chapter of the new covenant is 31, and in Jeremiah 31:34 it says, "And know the Lord, for they shall all know Me from the least of them to the greatest, saith the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity...then this great statement...and I will remember their sin no more." God forgets, He removes it as far as the east is from the west.
In Acts chapter 3 verse 19, Peter says, "Repent therefore...and I love this...and be converted that your sins may be...what?...blotted out." Blotted out...totally removed. So God is a God of forgiveness. God forgets. He blots out. He throws in the depth of the sea, He removes as far as the east is from the west.
And it doesn't really matter what Israel has done in the past. It doesn't really matter even what they did in the time of Jesus Christ ultimately...I say it doesn't matter, I don't mean that in a total sense, I mean it doesn't effect His nature. It lays nothing to bear on His nature that would change Him. And no matter what they have done, He is still a God of forgiveness and He will come to them in forgiveness. And that is the message of Zechariah chapter 13.&nb