Well 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. 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.
Welcome to Grace to You with the Bible teaching of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. A great preacher once said, There is as much joy in the heart of God when He forgives, as there is in the heart of the sinner when He is forgiven.
Now, is that how you see God? Do you see God as a Father who is willing, even eager, to forgive his children? Or do you assume God is a stern judge who might forgive, but only reluctantly? Consider that today as John MacArthur shows you a picture of God's character from an Old Testament prophecy about the future of Israel. Today's lesson is part of John's current study titled The Return and Reign of Jesus Christ.
But before the lesson, I have a letter here from a listener who wanted to let us know how God is using grace to you in her life. Here's what Wendy told us. She writes, I grew up in a Christian family and I always thought I was a Christian, but I didn't understand the Bible and I created my own version of God that I felt comfortable with. At the age of twenty one I read a book that convinced me that the Bible is actually God's Word and not influenced by men. For the first time I realized I had it all wrong and I started to read the Bible.
but who could help me understand what I was reading? About a year later I stumbled upon John MacArthur's sermons on YouTube and I was hooked. John taught me how to study the Bible and how to apply it to my daily life. I still read my MacArthur Study Bible daily. Little did I know that God was preparing me for a much more difficult time in my life.
Due to several chronic illnesses, I currently live in pain every day and I'm almost homebound at the age of 26. But I'm also really thankful that I have faith that gives me hope no matter my circumstances. And my faith is based on unshakable truth. thanks to John MacArthur's teachings. She signs it Wendy.
Well, Wendy, we're grateful for how God has worked through grace to you to strengthen you in these very difficult circumstances. Thank you for sharing your story. And friend, this kind of life-transforming ministry is made possible because of the support of listeners like you. To help put sound biblical teaching in the hands of people like Wendy around the world? Consider partnering with us.
I'll give you more details on how to do that before we end today. But right now, let's get to the lesson. To continue his study called The Return and Reign of Jesus Christ, here is John MacArthur. God has in mind a wonderful day coming for Israel. Zachariah 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.
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 are 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 wine press 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.
Yeah. 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 hosts 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. 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, hear another parable. There was a certain householder Certain owner. who planted a vineyard. and hedged it round about. And dug a wine press in it and built a tower.
And so far, it sounds exactly like Isaiah 5, and here it varies a little: leased 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 said to 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 Stone us the prophets, and kill us them that are sent unto you. This was 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 sun, 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? Hmm. 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 leash 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 has 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. 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 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.
Well, 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.
No wonder. The prophet Micah. In the seventh chapter in the 18th 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 wilt 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 gotta 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. Though 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, and I say it doesn't matter, I don't mean that in a total sense, I mean it doesn't affect 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 Zachariah chapter 13. God is a God of forgiveness. And that forgiveness is promised in the 13th chapter.
That cleansing is promised to Israel.
Now as we come to the 13th chapter, Zachariah, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, outlines for us the elements of this cleansing. There are six. But Israel is going to be cleansed, and there are six elements to this cleansing. There are six elements and we'll see them as we go. Let's just begin with the first one.
First of all, Israel will be cleansed from the defilement of sin. From the defilement of sin. Verse 1. In that day, In that day means the day of the Lord, and it also means the day when Israel repents. There will be a fountain opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Now those two terms are used to show the totality of this cleansing. The house of David speaks of the royally and the inhabitants of Jerusalem speak of the laity as it were.
So common person and royal person alike will enter into this cleansing. And this fountain will be opened to them for sin and for uncleanness. In other words, this cleansing will be a cleansing from the defilement of sin. Frankly, this is the supreme need of the Jew. And I would add it is the supreme need of the Gentile.
to be cleansed from defilement. The Bible says that every man is a sinner. that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That no one escapes. There is none righteous, no, not one, said the Apostle Paul.
We are sinners and cleansing and regeneration is needed. Particularly in relation to Israel. Zachariah is speaking here. Israel has been defiled for many reasons. Number one, because of historic disobedience to the law of God.
Number two, because of an outright wholesale rejection of Jesus Christ as the Messiah. These things have brought about the defilement of the people of Israel. And they are guilty. And they are kept from salvation by these rejections and by continual hardness of heart and continual unbelief. In Romans 10:3, the Apostle Paul says, For they, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, go about to establish their own righteousness.
They are self-righteous. They are trying to establish their own righteousness, Paul says, and have not submitted to the righteousness of God. They have Authored a system of works rather than the system of faith and grace that God authored. And in this state of rejection, unbelief, hardness of heart, Israel is guilty before God of sin. And of course the greatest sin of all is to reject Christ and they have done that.
And now today you see The nation of Israel, the religious Jew, if you will, divided into three categories. You have the Orthodox who are very few in number, very few. Who still adhere in any sense to the Old Testament text but violently are opposed to Jesus Christ? They stand in a place. Of unbelief and sin.
Then you have the next group, which are known as conservative. And they are the moderately liberal Jews who don't accept the literalness of the Old Testament but believe it has some spiritualized significance. They too reject Jesus Christ and in fact they reject the commands of God, spiritualizing them away. And then you have the most liberal of all called the Reformed who don't really believe that the Bible is anything more than sort of a human document. in any sense.
And they are basically a social club. But all these categories of Israelites stand in the place of sin. Because the sin is. Rejecting Jesus Christ and the law. and the principles of God's truth.
But what happens in that day is wonderful. Look at it. In that day, a fountain. Makor in Hebrew. It means Well it comes from a root verb which means to dig out.
It could be a well or a spring or a fountain. And that's just what it means. A gushing fountain. Jeremiah 2.13 and Jeremiah 17.13 use the very same Hebrew word and they talk about the fountain of living waters. Gushing out, that's the idea.
Psalm 36:9 uses it and says, For with thee is the fountain of life. And that speaks of something just gushing out of a source.
Now, here it is not used as the source of life or the source of refreshment as in those other texts. but as a means of cleansing and purification.
Now notice the word opened there. The word opened in the Hebrew has with it the idea of continuance, continuous, permanent opening. This thing, once it's opened, will be perennial. And it will be available as a source of perennial purification. Beloved, whenever God opens the fountain of cleansing, it's perennial.
Now, frankly, the fountain of cleansing was opened at Calvary, is that right? On the cross of Calvary, the fountain was opened. And it's been purifying souls ever since. And yet, Israel has never been able to enter the purification because of their unbelief and hardness of heart. But the fountain has been opened for a long time to the whole world, but it won't be opened, as he says here, to Israel with a perennial cleansing until Israel comes in repentance.
But I want to speak to you on this idea of the opening being a perennial thing. Once the fountain was opened at Calvary, John says this. And the blood, 1 John 1, and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, keeps On What? Cleansing it. It's perennial.
The fountain was opened at Calvary, and the flow is perennial. As long as there is sin, there is cleansing for the one who believes. And someday that perennial fountain will be opened for Israel, for the house of David. and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And when they come in repentance and that fountain opens on a national basis to them, notice the end of verse 1, it'll be for sin and uncleanness.
The word sin is significant, it means in the Hebrew to miss the mark, Hatath. To miss the mark, to go in the wrong way. It was used in reference to sin against men and sin against God, a very common Old Testament word. But its root idea is you went wrong. You went the wrong way down the wrong path, the path of disobedience, the path of indifference, the path of rebellion.
It has to do then with what a person does. Going away from God. Behaving in a manner inconsistent with God's pattern. The second word, uncleanness, is a word that means Something that is to be shunned, or something you are to flee from. A word is used, for example, with any kind of ceremonial impurity.
In the book of Leviticus, and it has to do with those things that would ceremonially defile somebody like a dead body.
So it has to do with defilement, something to be shunned, something that would bring defilement. And so the point is: this: Israel will be cleansed of its own moral defilement and of its tendency to behave and go in the wrong direction.
So this is twofold. Israel's cleansing will have to do with what it is and what it does, you see. Because that's how sin manifests itself. It is a matter of what we are, and consequently, it is a matter of what we do. And so, this will come as a cleansing from the defilement of sin.
And this is the thing that everybody needs. I thank God that there are some who are. Who have already entered into the fountain that was opened at Calvary, some Jews. Jewish Christians, you're part of the remnant of this day. And you've entered into the fountain.
That yet has to be open for the nation when the nation repents, when Jesus returns. But all of us need this cleansing. Because all of us are defiled. We all have that moral defilement in our nature, and we all walk in a way. That is wrong.
Away from God.
Solomon said. when he dedicated the temple. He stood up and he said in 1 Kings 8:46, There is no man. that doesn't sin. And that's true.
And if it's true, then there is no man who doesn't need cleansing. David, the psalm singer of Israel, said in Psalm 14: The Lord looked down from heaven on the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy, there is not that doeth good, no good. Not. One.
And Paul reiterated that text in Romans 3. Say, well, how do you get into the cleansing? By faith, By looking at the one who was pierced, just like 12:10 says, by looking at one who was pierced for you on the cross and one who came out the other side of the grave and did it for you, bore your sin. and believing in him and receiving him as savior. And His cleansing is applied to you.
In that future day, Israel is going to experience that as a nation. They're going to come back into the place of covenant relationship with God. Only the blood of Christ can cleanse in that way. It's the only fountain that can do it. In Hebrews 9, 13 it says, If the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
The blood of Christ can purge. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the clarity with which the Spirit of God penetrates our hearts. We know where history's going. We know that you'll bring all things to pass as you have planned.
We know that Not one word that goes forth from your lips. Ever fails. We look forward to the day when you are king, when you reign, when the kingdom is here. In the meantime, Father, our hearts are so burdened, so broken. over the many, the multitudes, the millions, in our world.
who have never come to the fountain that's already opened for them. Father, help us to bring them, Jew and Gentile. Out of unbelief. out of hardness, out of rebellion. to the cleansing fountain that is flowing at Calvary.
This we desire. Because this we know you desire. Because you're not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. For Christ's sake, we ask these things. Amen.
You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. John's current study is titled The Return and Reign of Jesus Christ.
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Now, for the entire Grace to U staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace to U television this Sunday on DirecTV Channel 378. And be back tomorrow for a message that will encourage you to remain faithful in evangelism. Even if you don't see much fruit from your efforts, we're continuing John MacArthur's study called The Return and Reign of Jesus Christ. Don't miss the next 30 minutes of Unleashing God's Truth one verse at a time on Grace to You.
