Elimination of Sinners and Sin

Zechariah 5:1-11

Elimination of Sinners and Sin.

Zechariah 5:1-11, Then I turned and raised my eyes, and saw there a flying scroll. 2 And he said to me, “What do you see?” So I answered, “I see a flying scroll. Its length is twenty cubits and its width ten cubits.” 3 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.” ⁴ “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 timber and stones.” Vision of the Woman in a Basket 5 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.” 6 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: ⁷ Here is a lead disc lifted up, and this is a woman sitting inside the basket”; ⁸ then he said, “This is Wickedness!” And he thrust her down into the basket, and threw the lead cover over its mouth. ⁹ 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 earth and heaven. ¹⁰ So I said to the angel who talked with me, “Where are they carrying the basket?” ¹¹ 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.”

The first vision: Presented the outward promise of the kingdom. Second vision: Enemies will be judged. Third vision: The restoration of the city and the temple. ➢ The people will be restored. ➢ The enemies will be judged.

➢ The city will be built. After the outward restoration, the visions moved to the inward. Fourth vision: Saving of Israel and the figure of the cleansing of Joshua the high priest. Fifth Vision: the usefulness of Israel, in the outward kingdom.

When the inward cleansing has taken place then God is going to restore them to a place of wonderful usefulness. That was always the way God planned it. At this point, there have been five of the eight visions.

These visions were for to comfort Israel. The natural question that would be asked at this point by any

godly Jew would be this

God, great to hear about this comfort to know that, ➢ You are going to rebuild and restoring the city and the temple. ➢ Bringing the Messiah. ➢ Cleansing the people of Israel. ➢ Israel will be the witness to the people.

What about the sinners and the ungodly? What is going to be their part in the kingdom? Their thinking would be there are many Jews who are outwardly Hebrew but inwardly they are not. There are many sinners that have prospered in their sin, and they have caused suffering for the nation.

Before Zechariah was written, they had just come back from seventy years of captivity. The seventy years were the price that they all paid for the sinners in their midst. Because there were so many sinners the whole nation had to pay.

They are simply saying that there are so many sinners who have seemed to prosper, and their sin has caused so much pain for everybody else.

What about their future? Zechariah’s contemporaries might wonder about why is it that so many godless Jews today seem to prosper? The answer comes in chapter 5. The answer is God will deal with them in His own time. When you question God’s time, you are toying, not only with His sovereignty, but with His grace.

2 Peter 3:9, The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward [c]us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

This question was not just in the mind of the people in Zechariah time but always!

Psalm 99:9, Exalt the Lord our God, And worship at His holy hill; For the Lord our God is holy.

Psalm 5:4, For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, Nor shall evil dwell with You.

Psalm 11:4-5, The Lord is in His holy temple,

The Lord’s throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men. ⁵ The Lord tests the righteous, But the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates.

Psalm 34:15-16, The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, And His ears are open to their cry. ¹⁶ The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, To cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.

The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open upon their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

Habakkuk 1:12-13, Are You not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, You have appointed them for judgment; O Rock, You have marked them for correction. ¹³ You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, And cannot look on wickedness. Why do You look on those who deal treacherously, And hold Your tongue when the wicked devours A person more righteous than he?

God cannot tolerate sin.

1 Peter 1:15-16, but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.”

God is a holy God. God is not a God who looks with favour on unrighteousness. God is a God who punishes sin. Habakkuk says that my theology tells me that God You can’t look on sin. You hate sin, but the experience I am going through makes me ask the question why do the sinners seem to get along so well?

Why do the unrighteous seem to prosper? Why do you look with favor on those who deal treacherously? Why are you silent when the wicked swallow up those that are the righteous? I know your character is that You hate sin, but in practice it seems as though you are often tolerant of it.

This question seems fair, and it has been asked many times, even today by Christians who seem to have trouble and struggle in their own life. They look at them and they see that the ungodly who seem to be so very prosperous.

It was the question in the heart of the Psalmist.

Psalm 10:1-2, Why do You stand afar off, O Lord? Why do You hide in times of trouble? 2 The wicked in his pride persecutes the poor; Let them be caught in the plots which they have devised.

God, I don’t understand how you can let this happen. How can You sit by while it goes on?

Psalm 10:15, Break the arm of the wicked and the evil man; Seek out his wickedness until You find none. God, do something to bring this kind of evil to a halt.

Psalms 73:3-9, For I was envious of the boastful, When I saw the prosperity of the wicked. ⁴ For there are no pangs in their death, But their strength is firm. ⁵ They are not in trouble as other men, Nor are they plagued like other men. ⁶ Therefore pride serves as their necklace; Violence covers them like a garment. ⁷ Their eyes bulge with abundance; They have more than heart could wish. ⁸ They scoff and speak wickedly concerning oppression; They speak loftily. 9 They set their mouth against the heavens, And their tongue walks through the earth. Why is it that the wicked people seem to be so happy and having all the fun and making all the money and having the success?

Jeremiah 12:1, Righteous are You, O Lord, when I plead with You; Yet let me talk with You about Your judgments. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?

Habakkuk, God, I know you are righteous, and I know you are just, but can I talk to you a little bit about some practical things?

Revelation 6:9-10, When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. ¹⁰ And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” John sees the martyrs who died in the tribulation, and they cried with a loud voice saying, ‘How long, Oh Lord, holy and true.’” Like Habakkuk, Jeremiah, Psalmist, and John they restate the character of God holy and true.

When are You going to make the thing right?

Will God ever make things right?

Will God end sin someday and sinners? There is an answer in the Bible to the cries that we have heard, and the answer is God will act.

Psalm 50:3, Our God shall come, and shall not keep silent; A fire shall devour before Him, And it shall be very tempestuous all around Him.

The Psalmist says God will do something.

Psalm 50:21-23, These things you have done, and I kept silent; You thought that I was altogether like you; But I will rebuke you, And set them in order before your eyes. ²² “Now consider this, you who forget God, Lest I tear you in pieces, And there be none to deliver: ²³ Whoever offers praise glorifies Me; And to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God.”

God says I will come, I will not keep silence. God will judge sin. God will judge sinners in His own time.

Psalm 97:1-6, The Lord reigns; Let the earth rejoice; Let the multitude of isles be glad! ² Clouds and darkness surround Him; Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. ³ A fire goes before Him, And burns up His enemies round about. ⁴ His lightnings light the world; The earth sees and trembles. ⁵ The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord, At the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. ⁶ The heavens declare His righteousness, And all the peoples see His glory. Judgment is going to come.

God is going to come in great judgment. Fire is going to go before Him, lightning is going to light the world, the hills will melt like wax, and He will bring judgment. That sounds almost like a paraphrase of 2nd Peter chapter 3.

Isaiah 42:13-15, The Lord shall go forth like a mighty man; He shall stir up His zeal like a man of war. He shall cry out, yes, shout aloud; He shall prevail against His enemies. ¹⁴ “I have held My peace a long time, I have been still and restrained Myself.

Now I will cry like a woman in labour, I will pant and gasp at once. ¹⁵ I will lay waste the mountains and hills, And dry up all their vegetation; I will make the rivers coastlands, And I will dry up the pools. God says that I have been silent for a long time, but that’s going to change.

Isaiah 65:2-6, I have stretched out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, Who walk in a way that is not good, According to their own thoughts; ³ A people who provoke Me to anger continually to My face; Who sacrifice in gardens, And burn incense on altars of brick; ⁴ Who sit among the graves, And spend the night in the tombs; Who eat swine’s flesh, And the broth of abominable things is in their vessels; ⁵ Who say, ‘Keep to yourself, Do not come near me, For I am holier than you!’

These are smoke in My nostrils, A fire that burns all the day. ⁶ “Behold, it is written before Me: I will not keep silence, but will repay— Even repay into their bosom— God says I am going to bring it right back on you. God is very stern when He talks about sin and judgment and just as serious as when He talks about grace.

When is this going to happen? Going to be in the time of the kingdom. God is going to begin to judge when Jesus comes to set up His kingdom. With this in mind we will study Zechariah. The first five visions have been of comfort. Historically and prophetically, it’s been of comfort.

Historically the comfort came in the knowledge that they would rebuild their temple in Zerubbabel’s time. They would rebuild their wall, and they would have a sense of security again. From the time that they rebuilt their temple, after the captivity, they have never been idolatrous since. The Babylonian captivity purged Israel of idolatry.

They have never tolerated any false Gods’ there. They worship money and things like that, but none of the gods of the nations. There was a restoration to worship, and the prophecy historically said that they would be safe from their enemies.

But there was much more to the prophecy than the historical and that was the prophetic one.

Zechariah was looking way beyond Zerubbabel and way beyond Nehemiah, and way beyond Haggai, the contemporary prophet. Zechariah was saying someday there will be a glorious new city built with unlimited boundaries. No walls and a glorious temple and there will be an internal cleansing of the nation.

As they are brought into salvation, and we saw that in chapter 3 as Joshua, the high priest, symbolizes the people and he is cleansed. They will be restored to their original call to be God’s witnesses to the world. In chapter 5, God says but before that can all happen God has to deal with sin. God must deal with righteousness against sinners.

There are two visions here. These two visions have three parts. God will judge sinners. Sin must be purged away. Iniquity must be stamped out in the city of God. When the sinner is so wedded to his sin that he is no longer separable from it, he becomes the object of God’s curse and must be ‘cleansed away’ from the earth.

It is noticeable as we go on with the series of visions, there is less and less given in the way of interpretation. It is as though

the Lord would give enough about the earlier visions to lay a solid foundation for the understanding of the later ones. We are interpreting them as we go, built upon what we have already known because there isn’t much interpretation given.

Now let’s look at three features in this chapter connected with two visions but having three parts. Number one, 1. God’s judgment on the sinner. 2. God’s judgment on sin. 3. God’s judgment on the system. God’s judgment on the sinner in verses 1 to 4.

God move against sinners as He purges the earth for the setting up of the kingdom. It is the darkness before the kingdom dawn.

6th Vision.

Three elements of God’s judgement.

• a) Conditions.
• b) Completeness
• c) Certainty.
• a) Conditions for God’s judgement.

V 1, Then I turned and raised my eyes, and saw there a flying scroll.

What is a scroll? Two sticks, and on those two sticks is wound a long piece of papyrus or hide. Begins at one point and you just roll. Of course, in Hebrew you go backwards. A scroll could be papyrus, it could be leather, as early as 2600 B.C. Animal skin was used and cut and sewn into great sheets.

So, it might have been a leather one. It might have been papyrus, which was made from reed. V 2, And he said to me, “What do you see?” So I answered, “I see a flying scroll. Its length is twenty cubits and its width ten cubits.”

This must have been a large scroll.

• Length was 20 cubits,
• Breadth was 10 cubits.
• Length 30 feet.
• Breath 15 feet.

There is an Egyptian papyrus that was found. It was 133 feet long and 17 inches wide. The Egyptian book of the dead was 123 feet by 19 inches, all one solid sheet of papyrus in those cases. This huge 30 by 15 sheet of writing, on both sides.

It is a flying scroll, which means it is unwound. It is flying and it is in motion. A wide-unrolled scroll flying through the air. 30 by 15 is exactly the size of the Holy Place in the tabernacle. The Holy Place in the tabernacle was 30 by 15.

The Holy of Holies was 15 by 15 by 15, perfect symmetry.

This flying scroll is exactly the size of the Holy Place. God has made that thing to conform to divine dimensions. The scroll contains the curse of God’s judgment against the sinner. The condition for God’s judgment will be the divine standards.

God made that scroll to conform to the Holy Place in the tabernacle in the temple because that was the form of divine measurement. The flying scroll is simply the curse that is based on God’s divine measures. The Word of God that is alive and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. It is the Word of God that is the criterion.

V 3, Then he said to me, “This is the curse that goes out over the

face of the whole earth

This side and that side. You want to hear something interesting. That is the same phrase that is used to speak of the Mosaic Law when it was given on tables of stone. Aligning it with a divine standard. It is like the temple and the tabernacle Holy Place. It is like the Mosaic Law. What it is saying is that it is a divine standard by which God is going to judge. God sets the conditions for judging sin.

Romans 2:1-2, Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. ² But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.

God will judge you not based on works, or good deeds, but truth.

What is truth?

John 17:17, Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. Judgment will be based on the Word of God. So, the conditions for God’s judgment on the sinner is God’s Word. Jesus reiterates this in the fifth chapter of John in a rather lengthy passage, not all of which we’ll read. But in

John 5:24, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Judgment is predicated on whether you do hear or do not hear His word. It is the word that judges.

The condition for God’s judgment is the word of God.

Men will be put up against this word and if they have violated this word and have rejected the only sacrifice for sin, Jesus Christ, they will be judged.

• b) The completeness of judgment.

V 3, Then he said to me, “This is the curse that goes out over the

face of the whole earth

The finality and totality of judgment seem to be overwhelming in making it apply not only to the Jew, but to the Gentile who also will be brought to divine judgment. The word curse, Arar in Hebrew, means the punishment or the retribution, which falls on those who deny God’s word or deny His infinite holiness by defying His law.

The scroll then is judgment.

Ezekiel 2:8-10, where we have a similar scroll with a similar meaning.

Revelation 5:1-9, and Revelation 10:1-11, scroll signifies judgment. In Revelation 5, when Jesus comes to the throne, He takes the scroll out of the hand of the Father and He begins to unroll the scroll and comes Judgment.

The judgment of the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and the seven bowls, the terrible judgments that make up the tribulation. The scroll is a judgment scroll. It is a scroll full of curses against sin and it goes over the whole earth.

V 3, ‘Every thief shall be expelled,’ according to this side of the scroll; and, ‘Every perjurer shall be expelled,’ according to that side of it.” This is another reason we believe it’s broader than just Israel. God is going to judge everyone!

The judgment that occurs at the beginning of the kingdom, during the kingdom, and the great white throne at the end. In all that judgment is total. Messiah will never tolerate wickedness when He comes. If there is any wickedness, He will crush it instantaneously.

If men violate His law during His kingdom they will feel His rod immediately. There will be no longer God’s silence, or God’s long suffering, or patience, and there will be instantaneous judgment.

Two of the commands are mentioned. Stealing/Thief and Swearing falsely.

Why these two are mentioned? The Ten Commandments had two sides. God wrote His law on one side of this table of stone and on the flip side He wrote the rest of it. There were five laws on one side and five laws on the other side.

On the front side, the command about stealing is the third command, the middle of the five. On the other side, swearing falsely is the third of the five, the middle of the five.

By referring to the middle one on both sides of God’s law, He is encompassing the whole law. ➢ The first half of the commandments define a man’s sin against God. ➢ The second half a man’s sin against his brother. By taking one command from each side of the Mosaic Law, the middle command, He is representing the whole Law.

If a man defiles God’s law on one side or God’s law on another side, he will be cut off.

Who would fall into that condemnation? We all fall into that. Some of us have been saved by God’s grace through the blood of Jesus Christ because we received Him by faith, and His blood is applied to our sin, and we are no longer condemned.

But if a person doesn’t have the salvation of Jesus Christ, he must stand condemned by those acts of violating God’s law. He will be cut off. He will be wiped out. He will be destroyed. The totality and the completeness of judgment.

The condition is the word of God. Completeness means everyone who sins will be totally wiped out of any possible blessing.

• c) The certainty of judgment.

V 4, “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 timber and stones.”

God says that I the Lord of the celestial armies, I will cause this judgment to go forth with certainty like a flying scroll swift and complete. When that judgment begins to break out people will cry out.

Revelation 6:15-17, And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, ¹⁶ and said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! ¹⁷ For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” Complete and certain judgment.

Now there is grace as God waits and suffers long with the sins of men while the gospel is preached. God is silent to the blasphemes and the crimes of sinners. But in the millennial dawn, in the day when Jesus comes, the unrelenting curse of God will flush out every sinner in the world and destroy him before the kingdom.

When sinners are born in that kingdom, and they sin against God the rod will drop on them and exterminate. thorough judgment. Any chastening that happens to overtake a sinner in this life is only a token of the terrible things that yet are to come.

Jude 1:14-15, Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, ¹⁵ to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”

The sixth vision deals with the judgment of God on the sinner.

7th Vision.

The 7th vision deals with God’s judgment on sin. Not the sinner so much as sin, although the sinner is inextricably connected. This is again clearly millennial in its ultimate interpretation. It has a present condition in Zechariah’s time.

The Jews had recently returned from Babylon. Outwardly, they had put away pagan idolatry. They never had any idolatry. But inwardly in their hearts they had become materialistic. They had hung around Babylon just long enough to get sucked into materialism.

The foreign commercial emporium of Babylon had granted them a kind of new greed that they never knew before. The spirit of self-centered materialism that had been so foreign to Israel when they were shepherd people, had overtaken them since the spell of Babylon had been cast on them.

Nehemiah chapter 5 written to rebuke the spirit of selfish materialism in the post-Babylonian captivity Israelites. Malachi chapter 3, saying that they have robbed God in their greed.

The greed, commerce, and the economics of materialism that formulated the final world empire of Babylon. V 5-6, 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.”

⁶ 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

What is an ephah?

The ephah was the largest measure for measuring grain. It would be like a barrel today. An ephah equals 1.05 bushels, 8 gallons. It is like a big barrel. It was used to measure grain. To carry flour or to carry barley. It was even large enough for a small person to fit in it.

What he looks here and sees is, he sees an ephah filled up. Zechariah is seeing that the iniquity of Israel is full. Israel’s sins are heaped up. The largest possible measure in the Jewish society was an ephah. Zechariah is saying that you are not sinning by the quart anymore, you are sinning by the ephah, fully heaped up.

The sin of materialism is exactly what it will be in the end time. God will look down at the society of mankind just before Jesus comes and He will see nothing but materialism all over the globe. Religion will be dead because the false church will be gone. All that will be left will be a worldwide economic, materialistic society.

When God sees materialism piled high, the fatness of sin heaped up like grain in a big barrel, then He is going to act.

Even the idea of the ephah containing the grain is symbolic of commerce and trade and economics. V 7-8, Here is a lead disc lifted up, and this is a woman sitting inside the basket”; ⁸ then he said, “This is Wickedness!” And he thrust her down into the basket, and threw the lead cover over its mouth.

A round disk of lead. It had a lid on the barrel, and it was lifted up. God keeps the lid on evil. None gets out because when God comes to wipe out sin He’s going to do a job on it and there isn’t going to be one grain outside.

V 6, “This is their resemblance throughout the earth: This is their wickedness. This is their iniquity.

What is the ephah? This is their iniquity and their evil filled up. He sees the godless, materialistic, self-centered riches of the last days.

James 5:1-6, Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! ² Your riches are corrupted,

and your garments are moth-eaten. ³ Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. ⁴ Indeed the wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. ⁵ You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. ⁶ You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.

There is coming a day when God is going to act in judgment on rich, materialistic sinners who operate in the age known as the last days. Tremendous prophecy. The idea of the ephah and the grain being symbolic of wickedness carries the economic wickedness.

Grains in a basket with a commodity of exchange. What the prophet is saying is in the future the final form of wickedness? God will open the lid and judge will be an economic materialistic wickedness that is literally heaped up through all the earth.

V 6, a world-wide system of materialism. Incredible materialism!

John the apostle sees the same system that Zechariah sees in the vision.

Revelation 18:1-2, After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. ² And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird!

The final form of evil and the final form of the world’s system of economics and materialism is called Babylon. It was Babylon was so materialistic at the time of Zechariah. God has always identified that same anti-God materialistic idolatrous self-worship as Babylon.

Now we see this system. In Revelation 18, Jesus is coming, and the system is about to be smashed.

Revelation 18:3, For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.” A picture of the economics of the last times.

V 7, In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, V 9, The kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her V 11-19, “And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her. merchandise of gold and silver, precious stones and pearls, fine linen and purple, silk and scarlet, every kind of citron wood, every kind of object of ivory, every kind of object of most precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble; ¹³ and cinnamon and incense, fragrant oil and frankincense, wine and oil, fine flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and bodies and souls of men. ¹⁴ The fruit that your soul longed for has gone from you, and all the things which are rich and splendid have gone from you, and you shall find them no more at all. ¹⁵ The merchants of these things, who became rich by her, will stand at a distance for fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, ¹⁶ and saying, ‘Alas, alas, that great city that was clothed in fine linen, purple, and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls! ¹⁷ For in one hour such great riches came to nothing.’ Every shipmaster, all who travel by ship, sailors, and as many as trade on the sea, stood at a distance ¹⁸ and cried out when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What is like this great city?’ 19 “They threw dust on their heads and cried out, weeping and wailing, and saying, ‘Alas, alas, that great city, in which all who had ships on

the sea became rich by her wealth! For in one hour she is made desolate.’ Zechariah sees the same thing. He sees a basket and that speaks of materialism and trade and commerce. It is heaped with grain that symbolizes sin.

God open the lid on the basket and not one thing escapes, and God comes in sweeping judgment.

What is the woman doing in there? This is a woman that sits in the midst of the ephah. This is wickedness and he threw that in with the rest of it. The grain in the barrel symbolizes the system, the economy, the materialism.

The woman symbolizes the evil of it. Woman is used symbolically in Scripture for religious evil. Don’t panic, the church is also called the bride of Christ. Whenever there is a false church, she is a prostitute and religious prostitution is pictured as a woman.

We see that in the Revelation 17th chapter, where the false religious system is called Babylon, the mother of harlots. She is wickedness and symbol of sin.

The whole economic system of Babylon, the whole false church, the whole false materialistic economy is going to be thrown in the same basket. God’s lead lid is going to be slammed on the top and God is going to move out in judgment.

So, God will deal in judgment on the sinner and God will deal in judgment on sin and He will heap the whole thing in one basket. At the end of the kingdom, God will have done with sin. We will enter the new heaven and the new earth and there will never be any more sin at all.

It will all be in the basket and the basket will get God’s destruction. No sin. What is most amazing about it is that I will be allowed to be there because I will be purified, and we won’t contaminate it. 3. God’s judgment on the system.

God’s judgment on sin’s system is shown to us. V 9, 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 earth and heaven. Suddenly, in his vision this ephah with all the wickedness in it, these two women come, they lift is up, they start flying away with it. V 10-11, So I said to the angel who talked with me, “Where are they carrying the basket?” ¹¹ 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.”

Shinar is another name for Babylon. Zechariah, way back saw that the final form, the end of the world would be Babylon, set up all over again, exactly what Revelation 17 and 18 says. These two women can fly fast. “The wind is in their wings. They have wings like a stork.”

Who are these women?

Are they good angels or bad angels? Good angels are never seen as women. Women are often symbols of religious evil. So, my own conviction is that they are demons.

Because for one thing they are associated with the other woman in the basket who is wickedness. For another, they are protective of that basket. They set it up at its base and they are responsible for the organizing, apparently, of the Babylon system.

According to Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14, storks are unclean birds. God would use an unclean bird to symbolize a holy angel. Evil spirits will set up the final kingdom of evil. We have got a couple of demons. They grab the basket. They fly off to Babylon.

Where did worldwide evil begin? Babylon!

Where is it going to end? Babylon. Some people think the literal city of Babylon will be rebuilt. Maybe, could be. we don’t know. A literal city will be rebuilt as the point is that there will be a restructure of a worldwide anti-God Babylon mentality. With a false religious materialistic self-centered kind of mentality.

God-defying Babylon will be rebuilt again. It will be judged. It shall be established and set on its base, but God is going to come in judgment. His curse that is mentioned in the vision before is going to sweep over that system as well.

Conclusion

God is going to judge sin as a totality and wipe it out. God is going to judge sinners as individuals and wipe them out. God is going to judge the evil sin system of the world in its final great form during the tribulation and wipe it out.

Then God is going to rule with a rod of iron.

When is all this going to happen? When Jesus comes.

When is Jesus going to come?

Matthew 24:27, For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

Matthew 24:44, Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Jesus is coming back, inevitable day.

God will not be silent always. God will not let the wicked prosper always. God will come in judgment like fire.

Only two possibilities

You either serve God or you don’t. If you serve God, it is because you love Jesus Christ and accepted His salvation. If you haven’t received Christ, then you don’t serve God. If you don’t serve God, you fall into the category of God’s eternal judgment.