Zechariah 5:1-11
I looked up again and saw a scroll flying through the air.
2 “What do you see?” the angel asked.
“I see a flying scroll,” I replied. “It appears to be about 30 feet long and 15 feet wide.[a]”
3 Then he said to me, “This scroll contains the curse that is going out over the entire land. One side of the scroll says that those who steal will be banished from the land; the other side says that those who swear falsely will be banished from the land. 4 And this is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: I am sending this curse into the house of every thief and into the house of everyone who swears falsely using my name. And my curse will remain in that house and completely destroy it—even its timbers and stones.”
A Woman in a Basket
5 Then the angel who was talking with me came forward and said, “Look up and see what’s coming.”
6 “What is it?” I asked.
He replied, “It is a basket for measuring grain,[b] and it’s filled with the sins[c] of everyone throughout the land.”
7 Then the heavy lead cover was lifted off the basket, and there was a woman sitting inside it. 8 The angel said, “The woman’s name is Wickedness,” and he pushed her back into the basket and closed the heavy lid again.
9 Then I looked up and saw two women flying toward us, gliding on the wind. They had wings like a stork, and they picked up the basket and flew into the sky.
10 “Where are they taking the basket?” I asked the angel.
11 He replied, “To the land of Babylonia,[d] where they will build a temple for the basket. And when the temple is ready, they will set the basket there on its pedestal.”
What an intense vision. There’s no doubt Zechariah received some extremely unique prophetic acts of the Spirit. In my opinion Zechariah, John the Apostle, and Ezekial had the wildest encounters with God Almighty and his angels ever recorded in human history. I can't imagine falling asleep at night would be easy after having visions like that!
This particular vision is especially incredible. As I read it this week, it jumped out of the pages at me. I felt the Holy Spirit quicken my spirit to pay attention. I believe this is also a sign of what the Lord is doing with the church in our nation, this very day.
Before I dive into that, I believe it’s important to give context to this chapter of Scripture. Israel's rebellion to the Lord God has caused them to enter into a season of captivity and exile in the Kingdom of Babylon. Around the time Zechariah received these visions, the first of the Israeli exiles came back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and restore Jerusalem to its former glory. They are met by many challenges and roadblocks so the Lord commissions Zechariah to prophesy encouragement to the nation of Israel and those called to rebuild the temple. Zechariah’s visions are spiritual blueprints of how God intends to overthrow the enemy and restore the land of His people.
6 Then he said to me, “This is what the Lord says to Zerubbabel: It is not by force nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. - Zechariah 4 : 6
I believe that the Church of Jesus Christ in the west has been in a similar rebuilding process for the last four and a half years. Since covid the western church has been shaken and sifted in ways that haven't happened since the 1960’s in the Jesus People Movement. During this period in the 60’s Jesus revitalized His Church which had then become dry, institutionalized, religious and godless. He poured out His Holy Spirit on an outcast disillusioned segment of society called hippies. A group of people who had been left high and dry by the free-love and drug culture were set on fire with holy hunger for Jesus. They infiltrated the church with zeal and confronted religious dead patterns of worship. Through that God shook off the dead religion of His Church and brought new life to His Bride.
Here we are roughly 60 years later and the church is once again dry, institutionalized, religious, and godless. This time instead of singing hymns, preaching in suits and playing pipe organs we have hypnotized ourselves with fog machines, 60 minute in-n-out services, and motivational speakers masquerading as preachers. It is religion, just in a different disguise. Unfortunately, when religion is strangling the church, moral depravity overcomes culture. When there is no conviction coming from the pulpit, corruption in culture becomes permissible. When we are not feeding our spirits in worship, we give influence over our nation's spirit to media conglomerates and we become creatures of comfort. When we lack a deep desire to reach and connect with lost souls we leave a vacuum in our nation and community that is filled with worldly false forms of “spiritual” fellowship.
Every ailment in modern western society is a symptom of a dry, religious, and comfortable church which lacks an authentic desire to be the body of Jesus Christ in a fallen world. When we pray for change in our nation, the Lord says yes, but let me first change you, my church, so that you are no longer conformed to the very things in the world you are praying to change. As terrible as covid was, which it was, it was also an opportunity for spiritual shaking. Four years later, we can't allow ourselves to go back to business as usual. If we want to see true reformation and deliverance from the moral rot that has become almost normal in our nation, we must become diligent to expel it from our lives individually.
The church sets the standard for morality in culture, not the education system, not the government, not the constitution. If we allow corruption in the church then we can expect it in the culture.
The keys to cultural reformation and deliverance from woke ideologies in our nation begins with us, the church, becoming uncompromising in our pursuit for holiness and unity with one another.
If we want to see deliverance in our nation from the abortion industry, LGBTQ propaganda, socialism, and other anti-human agendas… then we need to be serious in the church about Holy Spirit delivering us from all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. These forms of self-worship that Peter in his epistles speaks against are the very vices that take away our authority in culture to speak against things we ask Jesus to heal our land from. If our desire is to manipulate and be divided against one another in the church, this will weaken our testimony that would otherwise transform the world around us.
Going back to the shaking experience brought on by covid. As it was during the exile in Babylon, so it was during covid. Our ability to be in control of the outcome was stripped away. We were forced to learn to lean into and submit to Jesus’s strength and leadership. We learned again that we need and desire to be in authentic fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Jesus. We relied not on our own wisdom but on encountering the presence of God, feeding our spirits in worship, and expecting conviction from the pulpit. Even in the midst of crisis and loss and pain, we rediscovered the treasure of a simple, yet powerful gathering of the saints - church.
Here we are four and a half years later, and we have almost forgotten what Jesus did in that season. We have started falling back to our regular pattern of a shallow and divided church. Yelling at the world to change and do better, while forgetting that we have been given all authority to bind and lose things in heaven and on earth.
We can’t stop the rebuilding process God started in 2020 because of the many crises in the world. In fact, the best remedy for all the corruption in the earth is the Church of Jesus Christ shining brightly with the glory of our Bridegroom, the Savior of heaven and earth.
As Ezekial prophesied we must rebuild the church by examining ourselves and allowing the spirit to deliver us of all deceits, corruption, forms of manipulation and self worship.
As it was then when Ezekial saw the scroll over His people, it will be now. Those who lie, steal, manipulate and are corrupt in the church or not will have a curse upon them. They will be torn down from their place of authority so that those who are pure of heart with authentic desire to worship Jesus can be built up.
As it was then, the spirit Jezebel, the woman who’s name is wickedness, who leads people in immorality, hypocrisy, comfort in religion will be cast off by the woman of righteousness, the Bride, the church. Those who rely on Jezebel's power will be outcast with her from God’s glory. Obviously, because of the election the next two months are a month of decision and separation. But not just because of an election and the decision of power in our government, but also spiritually in the church. A decision and separation between Jesus’s real, meek church of authority and the weak apostate church of self worship. The weak apostate church of self worship is headed to destruction because of self love and dependence on corruption. The meek church of authority is headed towards the greatest season of renewal in God’s glory that the earth has ever seen. The time to decide about Jesus' leadership over our lives is now.
Love,
Pastor John
Comments