An Open Fountain - Zechariah 12:10-13:1

Introduction

We live in a world of counterfeits, don’t we? Every time you have to jump through 75 different hoops to login to your Gmail account, you’re reminded that there are a lot of people pretending to be someone they’re not. And, what’s especially difficult about counterfeits is how good and true many of them look. Bernie Madoff was, at one time, the president of Nasdaq. The SEC, whose literal job is to be able to identify counterfeits and swindlers, opened multiple investigations into Madoff and signed off on him as a reputable trader. Of course, Madoff died in prison after it was discovered that his returns were imaginary and that he had defrauded his clients of $65B.

Unfortunately, the Church is not immune to such counterfeits. In 2 Timothy 3:5, Paul says that in the last days, which I interpret to be the current church age, there will be people who appear as “having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.” That is, there will be some outward evidences of a movement of God or a work of God or a person of God that aren’t actually works of God. There will be churches and people and teachers and movements that look impressive but are actually counterfeits. And, in that warning, there’s a tension, isn’t there? On one hand, we must be vigilant. We must be discerning. But, on the other hand, we must not become so cynical that we can’t enjoy the good gifts of God, the great movements of God when they come.

God’s Word

So, this morning, I want us to ask: How can we tell a true work of God from a counterfeit? (Headline) How can we tell an imitation from the real thing? I think Zechariah can help us. Zechariah closes with two prophetic sermons (9-11 and 12-14) that set the expectation for how God’s Kingdom will look when the Messiah (“that day”) comes. Chapter 12 starts with what I believe is a description of the Church, a nation of God’s people that are invincible and secure. And, then beginning in verse 10, God explains how He will move in our current age to bring about this invincible nation. It’s there that I believe we get a description of what an authentic work of God looks like, what real revival would look like. I want to start with a definition from our text, and then spend the rest of our time unpacking it from the text.

True revival is a “work in” us to see an “evil by” us in discovery of a “hope for” us.

A “work in” us.

It might surprise you to hear that I surrendered to Christ through a song, not a sermon. For three years, my youth pastor had preached sermons, and for three years, he’d shared the gospel with me. But, my pride wouldn’t let me surrender. But, on a cold night in Gatlinburg, TN, someone sang accapella: “Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.” It didn’t take the whole song for me to cry out to Jesus for his grace. So, it was glimpsing the wonder of God’s grace that drew me to salvation. Yet, what becomes evident when you look around the world of professing Christians is that grace can have as many definitions as we have churches, and grace can be used in such a way that it justifies with the apparent approval of God any lifestyle and any definition of morality.

That is, there is a counterfeit grace that is the invention of men to sanitize the evil of men with words from the Bible, and there is an authentic grace that saves sinners from their evil and provides them bedrock upon which to build their lives. How do we know the difference? Two defining characteristics of an experience of true grace:

Grace “effects” change.

Zechariah 12:10 ““And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.”

God says that the means by which He is going to this invincible nation, this invincible Church is that He’s going to “pour out…a spirit of grace” upon them. When it is paired with “pour out,” “spirit” virtually always means “Holy Spirit.” So, Spirit should really be capitalized in your Bibles, and what we’re seeing is a pouring out of the Holy Spirit that will come in the church age.

An earlier prophet, Ezekiel helps us to understand what Zechariah would’ve understood about the work of the Spirit. The problem with the Law of God was never the Law of God, you understand. It was always a problem with the people. They couldn’t keep it. The Law was holy, but the people weren’t. We’re such sinners that you can tell us exactly what we can do to be right with God, and we still won’t do it. That’s what the Law demonstrates. But, Ezekiel said that a New Covenant was going to displace the Old Covenant, and the difference would be that God’s would place his Spirit within his people. He would take away their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh, and the presence of the Spirit would “cause (us) to walk” in God’s statutes. So, by his grace, God was going to wash them clean, but then He was going to change them so that they would be faithful to him out of the desire of their new heart.

That’s what God’s grace does. God’s grace doesn’t make him okay with your sin. God’s grace makes you love his holiness. It produces a radical reorientation of the desires and priorities of your life. Grace is not a passive approval of your lifestyle. Grace is an active transformation of your nature. So, one of the ways you can identify a counterfeit, emotional, intellectual counterfeit in your life from a genuine experience of grace is to evaluate if this type of transformation has taken place.

Notice the other defining characteristic of grace.

Grace “expresses” faith.

Zechariah 12:10 ““And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.”

Not only does grace make a change in you, but then it pours out of you. Remember it’s purpose is to “cause (you) to walk” in God’s ways. So, grace produces an inner faith within you that is then demonstrated through an outer faithfulness from you. That’s why God frames up verse 10 in what may seem like a strange way. He starts by saying that He will pour out upon them a “spirit of grace.” And, that makes sense. Grace is God’s to give. But then, He continues by adding that He will also pour out upon the “pleas for mercy.” Your Bible may even say “supplications.” That is, God says He will pour out upon them their cries and their prayers to him. And, that’s the result of Him pouring out his grace. That’s not how many of us have come to understand grace.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about the difference between cheap grace and costly grace. Cheap grace is when we preach forgiveness without preaching repentance. It’s when our understanding of God’s forgiveness emboldens us in our sinfulness. It’s when we say, “It’s not that big of a deal if I forsake the church or live in sexual immorality or cheat on my tests because God will forgive me any way.” Costly grace, on the other hand, is when we recognize that sin leads us to the cross. That is, it’s an experience of grace that leads us to “pleas for mercy.” It’s grace that so enraptures us with the glory of God that we will follow after Christ at all costs. We’ll pluck out an eye if we need to. We’ll abandon our wealth if we need to. We’ll live for Jesus no matter what the costs because He has already paid the high price of grace.

Does the grace in you pour out of you? Is it leading to “pleas of mercy?” Don’t you see that the “pleas” are just as much a gift as the “spirit of grace?”

An “evil by” us.

Zechariah 12:10 ““And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.”

I love when the Bible says “so that.” “So that” tells me exactly what God is seeking to accomplish. So, we’re seeing the reason God is pouring out his “grace” upon them. He wants them to see clearly, and what He wants them to see is earth-shattering. God speaking in the first person says: I want them to see me, “whom they have pierced.” YHWH was going to satisfy the demands of justice, and YHWH was going to secure his covenant with his people forever — even though they’d broken it over and over again. How? He was going to let them “pierce him.” It’s stunning. In fact, as Jesus hung on the cross, an executioner came to him and in order to expedite his death, thrust a spear into his side so that blood and water poured out. And, John says this fulfilled these very words spoken by YHWH through Zechariah: John 19:37 “And again another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.””

But, it’s not just that God himself will be pierced for them that He wants them to see. He wants to open their eyes so that they can see that they were the ones who pierced him (“whom THEY pierced”). He wants them to recognized that wasn’t someone else’s sins and evils and wickedness that crucified Jesus. It was his own people. True salvation, a true experience of grace starts, with this realization: The cross was an evil done by us, by me, by you. Our sin isn’t cheap and minimal. Our sin is costly. So, a true movement of God is one that starts with mourning over our sins and Jesus’ death.

True “conviction” is “intensive.”

Zechariah 12:10 ““And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.”

We often, as we should, pray for the Holy Spirit to be poured out upon us. But, we see here that we should be sure to recognize and see what we’re praying for. Zechariah shows us that the normative experience of the Spirit being poured out is not ecstatic experience or unintelligible words or shouts and laughter. The normative experience of the Spirit poured out is intense grief and sorrow over your sins. It’s the deep and abiding recognition that you were the one who drove the nails through Jesus’ wrists and feet. You were the one who pierced his side. Perhaps, you weren’t there to swing the hammer. But, your lies and selfishness and greed and bitterness were there to compel him. “It was my sin that held him there until it was accomplished” the song goes.

And, you’ll recognize the work of the Spirit, who John says in chapter 16 “will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment,” because you will experience intense personal grief over your role in Jesus’ death. He says they will “mourn…as one mourns for an only child” and “weep bitterly…as one weeps over a firstborn.” I know of no grief on earth more intense than the a parent who stands at the casket of their child. It’s unnatural. A parent recognizes their children should bury them. And, this is a glimpse into the type of grief we experience when we recognize we’re the ones who have buried God’s “only child, his firstborn Son.”

And, we grieve recognizing that we’re the ones who should’ve died instead. My most distinct memory from that night 22 years ago is me telling my youth pastor: “I’m the one who killed Jesus.” It was the first time it had ever sank in. I was “blind but now I see.” Have you ever seen? Have you ever experienced the intensity of true conviction of your sins?

But, for it to be true revival this intense grief over sin has to be widespread.

True “revival” is “extensive.”

Zechariah 12:11-14 “On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. The land shall mourn, each family by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by itself, and their wives by themselves; and all the families that are left, each by itself, and their wives by themselves.”

What we have in Zechariah 12 is the most extensive description of repentance given in the entire OT. He’s going to great lengths to show you that this is not just a single person grieving and everyone kind of following suit because they feel like they’re supposed to. This intense sorrow over sin permeating every household within the kingdom. The royal household of David, the prophetic household of Nathan, the priestly household of Levi, and “ALL THE FAMILIES THAT ARE LEFT” are mourning over their “piercing” of God. And, He emphasizes that it’s “each by itself”. This repentance is not them seeing one person going to the altar to pray and then feeling they should too. This isn’t them hearing that David is repenting and recognizing that it’s now the social protocol. In the privacy of their homes, in the intimacy of their families were there is not decorum or protocol, they are grieving together as a family over their sins.

This is what revival is. Revival is not a week on the calendar. It’s not tents and sawdust. It’s not moving music and emotional sermons. It’s not packed churches without an empty chair. It may use any of those things or none of those things, but true revival is when the intensive conviction of sin becomes extensive across the land. That’s what we’re praying for. That’s what we’re longing for. That’s the fruit of the Spirit changing lives.

A “hope for” us.

Zechariah 13:1 ““On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.”

But, the Good News is that a true work of God’s Spirit doesn’t stop at the intense conviction of your sins. The Gospel never leaves us in despair. That’s one of its truest marks. True revival is a work in us to see an evil by us in discovery of a hope for us. And, that’s where God lands this part of his sermon at the end of Zechariah. God is changing them and convicting them that He might ultimately liberate them.

Imagine what it would’ve been like. Every household is so grief-stricken by their “piercing” of God, by their sin against him that the wailing echoed down the streets. The rich and the poor wailed. The young and the old wailed. The prominent and the peasant wailed. But then, God’s Spirit lifts their eyes to see something that will at once turn tears of anguish into tears of joy. Though “pierced,” God would not remain dead. Instead, “a fountain opened” that would finally, ultimately, and forever wash them clean of all their “sin and uncleanness.” “There is a fountain filled with blood; Drawn from Immanuel’s veins; And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains”

Think of the implications of the picture of a fountain:

God’s grace “overwhelms” your sin.

The reality of our sin that is that it’s infinite. When God is a holy and righteous and infinite God, to rebel against him and deny him and take your own advice instead is an infinite offense. And, this is the recognition that leads to such grief when you look at the cross. Rams and bulls and birds couldn’t be used to pay for your sin because your sin was too great a debt. An infinite debt had to be paid by an even more infinite God. So, the cross shows you just how big your sin really is. It was so big that the God himself had to be “pierced” as a payment. But, the good news of the gospel is what Paul says in Romans 5:20 “Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” Oh, your sin is big. Don’t minimize it for a second. Your sin required that God himself be “pierced.” But as big as your sin is, God’s grace is even bigger. “Where sin increased, God’s grace increased all the more.”

That’s the picture of an endless fountain. God’s grace floods your sin, and the floodwaters of his grace will only rise from here. When Christ perfectly fulfilled the Law of God and the curtain in the Temple was torn from top to bottom, the levies of God’s grace were breached by the cross forever. And so, it doesn’t matter how much you’ve sinned, and it doesn’t matter how big you’ve sinned, and it doesn’t matter how infamously you’ve sinned, through the blood of Jesus the floodwaters of his grace will wash you clean. Where sin increased, God’s grace increased all the more.

God’s grace “outlasts” your sin.

The other concern we may have is that God’s grace toward us might eventually become fed up. There may even be some of you here living in total defeat, pulling back from your service of Christ and his church, ignoring your prayer life, because you believe God is fed up with you. You believe that your propensity to sin has outlasted God’s willingness to forgive. But, that’s the glory of “a fountain opened.” God didn’t give you a reservoir of his grace that could be used up. He offers you a fountain that will always bubble up with his grace.

This is why we believe in the perseverance of the saints, in eternal security. This why we believe that if you truly know Christ as Savior that you will know him forever as King. It’s not because you’re going to reach a point in which you stop sinning. It’s not because you’re always going to repent immediately after every sin you do commit. It’s because his grace is never going to run out. You won’t remain saved because you’ll always remain faithful. If you could lose your salvation, you absolutely would. You will remain saved because Christ will remain gracious. God’s grace will last longer than your ability to sin will.

So, this morning, my prayer has been that you would feel how big your sin is, but my prayer has also been that you will see how much bigger God’s grace is so you can sing those words that this text inspired in William Cowper all those years ago:

“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”