Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: One of the great things is the Bible says of itself that the word of God is Jesus. And Jesus is the word. That's John chapter 1, verse 1, of course. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Haven't you found this to be true? The word of God is, in fact, living and powerful. It's not just some literature book that we're going through or book of old stories. There's a dynamic nature to God's word that's living.

Kurt: Pastor Brett Meador reflecting on the power that is God's word. Pastor Brett Meador opens today's word, turning to the Old Testament book of Zechariah. It's in chapter 5 that we come to yet another vision of the prophet. And when we study this chapter verse by verse, describing the scroll presented to Zechariah in the context of the entire Bible, we soon decipher much about what it tells us about Jesus, salvation, and the end times.

Brett Meador: We are in the middle of all of these dreams of Zechariah or visions as they're called, dreams or visions and visions. Some of these have gotten a little out there, and you're tempted to think maybe he just had a little too much spicy food the night before.

But actually, when you start comparing it to the rest of the Bible, you realize there's all kinds of correlations. Zechariah says some kind of wild things, and you think he's a little on the crazy side, except for this: His prophecies match up with so many of the other prophecies of the Bible, and you start to see them make more sense. I love that about Zechariah.

If we just had the book of Zechariah and that's all we had, I'd be lost. I wouldn't know what to do with half of this stuff and say, "Man, I don't know what he's talking about." We're going to see these stork-like angels that are going to fly with a basket and go to Shinar. What does that mean? Well, actually, we know what it means because the best commentary on the Bible is the Bible.

That helps us understand the scripture. So we'll see that, but I love this book, a lot to learn from these visions, both on a historical level but also on a prophetic level. And we've seen that thus far. We've seen him talk about the tribulation period, the millennial kingdom, and he's going to get into more and more of that stuff the deeper we get into the book.

So here in Zechariah 5, just to review a little bit of the visions that we've covered, if you remember, we saw vision number one, the rider and the myrtle trees. We saw the four horns with the craftsmen or the demolition men, remember those guys? And the four horns are these authorities and powers that have been over Israel. God's going to send the hammer to come and crush these nations.

We saw the measuring line vision. We saw God's courtroom with Joshua the high priest standing before the throne of God, the courtroom of heaven. We saw vision number five, the olive trees and the candlestick. And I kind of left us off with the strange vision of the olive trees and the candlesticks, but we figured out who those two olive trees are.

I want to kind of pick up where we left off. We showed last time that the olive trees represented three possible options. Maybe all of them are true, but for sure one of them is true. That's kind of where we left it. If you remember, the first thing we saw was symbolically Jesus and the Holy Spirit as the first one we talked about. That's more of a personal application that the Holy Spirit is always kind of typed or pictured by the oil.

The olive trees remember the oil was continually flowing from the olive trees through the pipes into the candles, which we're supposed to be like Jesus, the light of the world. So the oil fills the light of the world, if you would, and we talked about how personally, symbolically, it's Jesus and the Holy Spirit, these two trees.

Another one we floated is the two historical figures of this story: Joshua and Zerubbabel. Joshua the high priest, Zerubbabel would be the one building the temple. They needed a fresh filling of the spirit, and we talked about how historically these two trees could mean that those two guys are going to be filled with the spirit to do the job of rebuilding and restoring worship in Jerusalem. We talked about that.

Those are the ones that are possible, but the one that's for sure, this is the one that seems most unlikely. Remember I said I think it's the two witnesses of the book of Revelation. Now you say, Brett, what's the big deal with that? The reason I kind of left us hanging saying what's the significance of that is actually this is one of the proof positives that Zechariah is to be taken prophetically in futuristic terms.

The reason that's important is there are so many people out there, Christian churches, and again, this is one of those in-house debates and it shouldn't be contentious. It tends to be more and more contentious, I've noticed, as the years have gone by. But there are so many people that say all prophecy has been fulfilled. You Bible prophecy people doing prophecy updates, like there's a real sort of a shunning of that practice today, which is interesting.

Although it fulfills prophecy in and of itself, in an hour when you think not, that's when the Lord's coming. And also those who mock and say, "Where is the promise of His coming? It's always been the same." Well, that's another promise that we're in the last days. But I love this little thing about the olive trees because of our text in Revelation 11. It says those two olive trees are the two witnesses of the tribulation period.

That's in the future. That's yet to happen, these two witnesses. I believe it's possible it's Moses and Elijah, by the way. There's a possibility it could be Moses and Enoch, but people wonder about that. But it's going to be two prophets from the Old Testament that are going to be there in the tribulation period. Remember the fire comes out of their mouth and all this stuff? It's going to be an amazing part of the tribulation period.

But that gives us license to look at the book of Zechariah and not just say, "Oh, it's all been." There are people that say all these Bible prophecies have been fulfilled in AD 70. The preterists and the amillennialists out there. All the Catholic Church is kind of amillennial, if you didn't know that. They don't really believe in a literal kingdom. They don't believe in any prophecies of the Bible.

That's why they don't look at Israel. They think God's done with Israel and they don't look at it as anything special. In fact, if anything, the Vatican is sort of anti-Israel and you'll see that. It's very clear. They're always talking about dividing Jerusalem and there's all kinds of sentiment to divide Jerusalem and give it to the Palestinians and stuff. This is totally not biblical, but it has to do with their replacement theology and the preterism or the amillennial view.

We are premillennial and we believe in a pre-trib rapture, that there's a very clear biblical order of events and we take the Bible very literally. That's one thing we do. The preterist kind of says everything is figurative.

But all that to say, that's kind of some stuff on that. So we have license to see in the book of Zechariah future events in prophecy because of this very clear line with the two olive trees being the two witnesses. So that's important as we proceed. It gives us a hint that we should not look at the book of Zechariah simply historically, but prophetically. And by the way, that places his words right there in the tribulation period, the seven-year period that's coming. And Zechariah's talking about that period thousands of years ago. He's talking about that period that's still yet to come. So that's interesting.

Well, all that to say, let's take a look here in Zechariah chapter 5. It says in verse 1, "Then I turned and lifted up mine eyes and looked, and behold a flying roll." You say, Brett, what in the world is a flying roll? The idea is not a roll, but a scroll, okay? A flying scroll. Now this is already weird enough, wouldn't you say? A flying scroll. That's an image that you don't see every day.

But that's this next vision, vision number six, the flying scroll. It's basically Zechariah 5, verses 1 through 4. So what's this whole thing about this flying scroll? Scrolls are something that we don't handle anymore, so a lot of us, especially here in America, we don't really talk about scrolls. But in Israel, they still handle scrolls. It's still a thing.

And they, if you go to the Western Wall, the Wailing Wall, you'll see these scrolls. In fact, this is kind of an interesting thing. They always carry the big roll of scrolls of the Torah, and they bring them in these big rolls. And you'll see them often in these canisters. And when you go into some of these lower areas below the temple mount where the rabbis study, you still see these canisters, these fancy, ornate canisters. They crack them open and you'll see the scrolls still in there. And they kind of have these little spindle kind of things where you just kind of roll them, and you can read them. Read them and roll them, roll them and read them.

So all this to say, we've got this vision of this flying scroll. The King James says roll, but it really is a scroll. That's the idea. Now there's another word here when it says, "Behold." "Then I lifted up my eyes and look, and behold a fly." Whenever you see that in the Bible, don't just kind of blow by behold. It's called a demonstrative interjection. And it's basically a word that's expressing passion or sudden emotion used to point something out.

Like we would say, "Wow, look! Look!" That's a way we would do it. In the Bible times, if you wanted somebody to see something impressive, "Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy." Or whatever. So don't just blow by that word behold when you read it in the Bible. It actually is a word that really is an expressive, emotional, energetic word that's making, "Don't just go, 'Huh, scroll in the Bible. Wow, okay.'" No, we've got to pep up, step up, and look at the scroll as something that's important.

And it is interesting in that it's a flying scroll. That's kind of an interesting thing. When you come to this idea of flying, the idea is active, present energy. The Hebrew word there, flying, but also active and energetic and living even. Something that's inanimate sort of becomes living or moving, the scroll. How thankful I am for books now. Books are so much easier to handle, by the way, and thankful for that.

But all that to say, there's different kinds of scrolls throughout history, and this one here is very unique for several reasons. And let's take a look in verse 2, what those things are. "And he said to me, 'What seest thou?' And I answered, 'I see a flying scroll. The length thereof is 20 cubits and the breadth thereof is 10 cubits.'"

So right there for you Bible students, you're like, "Wait a minute, this is interesting. This is a massive scroll. Huge." But how huge is it? Well, these dimensions should be somewhat familiar. It's about 30 feet long and 15 feet wide. A cubit was a unit of measure in Bible times, it's from your tip of your fingers to your elbow. It's about an 18-inch average length and that's one of the biblical measurements.

So you've got this 18 inches, but really it's about 30 feet by 15 feet in size. So it's a huge, honking scroll. Those dimensions, if you're a Bible student, that's kind of an interesting dimension. Did you know that's the same dimension of the holy place in the tabernacle? Kind of interesting. Now, what's the holy place?

Now the holy of holies, we know is that place where the ark of the covenant was and that was a little smaller space in the tabernacle or in the temple. But in what was the holy place all about? Well, it's a little bit where Jesus meets humanity. You've got to remember this: The tabernacle itself is a picture of Christ.

And we've got that notion throughout the Bible. But what's interesting is what is this scroll and why has it got the same dimensions as the holy place? Do you remember there are three main things in the holy place? One side as you walked into the right side, you'd see the table of showbread. And that's where the bread was stored.

The Bible talks about provision. Jesus said, "Give us this day our daily bread," but also Jesus said, "I am the bread of life." He is the provision that we need. The little altar on the inside was called the altar of incense, and that's where the incense would ascend up into heaven. Incense was a type of prayer. And as it turns out, Jesus is the one who ever lives to make intercession for you and me.

So we've got the bread of life, Jesus. We've got intercession, Jesus. But then you've got the lampstand that we talked about. Jesus said, "I am the light of the world." Remember the center post of the lampstand, Jesus? And then, "I am the vine, you are the branches," and we get to be as Jesus said, "I am the light of the world," and then he said, "You will be lights in this world."

So everything about this holy place points to Jesus just like the whole tabernacle if you do a whole study of the tabernacle. But the holy place does an interesting thing. It connects Jesus with humanity. Jesus, everything he is, you see it: the light of the world, the one who intercedes on behalf of us, the bread of life, our provision. And that's this holy place.

So it's kind of cool, it's the same dimensions as that. You say, "Well, how are you connecting a scroll with the holy place?" The only connection so far that we have is that the scroll is the same dimensions of the holy place. That's an interesting freebie for you. By the way, it's also the exact dimensions of Solomon's porch, 1 Kings chapter 6, verse 3, but I'll leave all of you Bible scholars to toss that one around. That's kind of an interesting implication in and of itself.

But the tabernacle speaks of Christ, but Christ also is linked not only to being pictured by the tabernacle but also the word of God. This is such an important thing for us to see. And it's a little bit mysterious, especially if you're new to Christianity, you'll think, "What are you talking about?"

But the Bible's full of mystery. And one of the great things is the Bible says of itself that the word of God is Jesus. And Jesus is the word. That's John chapter 1, verse 1, of course. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. What's that saying? The Word was before even the world existed. That's God. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And then later on in John chapter 1, verse 14, it says, "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." Now if you think about that, the word dwelt is an interesting word. The Greek word used there in John 1:14 is literally tabernacled. You could almost say, "And the Word was made flesh and tabernacled among us." Dwelt.

A tabernacle was a dwelling place. That's why the word dwelt was put there, but tabernacled among us. Kind of interesting. And so, we've got this thing about the word of God being Jesus. The Word was made flesh. See, in John 1:1, you have kind of the concept of God, God the Father being the Word. But then you say, "Wait, the Word was then made flesh."

Remember the Word was God in chapter 1, verse 1 of John, but now the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us. Who is that? Well, that's Jesus. And he's the one who tabernacled among us. So suddenly we've got this interesting connection that we're already seeing with these dimensions. We've got a scroll which is the word, we've got a tabernacle dimension, and then John tells us that in the beginning was the word, word was with God, the word was God, and the word tabernacled and dwelt among us.

Now you say, "But it's a living scroll." Oh, isn't that interesting? Hebrews 4:12, "For the word of God is quick or living," some of your translations say living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart.

I love this scripture. Haven't you found this to be true? The word of God is in fact living and powerful. It's not just some literature book that we're going through or book of old stories. There's a dynamic nature to God's word that's living. And it's exacting and it's a two-edged sword, it's quick and powerful. Keep the sword imagery in your mind because later on that's going to come in handy.

But back to the vision of the flying scroll. What does the flying scroll do? The same thing the Bible does for us today. The Bible is sort of a self-proclamation. Remember how the Bible says of itself it's like a mirror? And the person who looks in the Bible and then goes away and still does his old sinful stuff, he's like the guy looking into a mirror and sees stuff on his face and then he walks away and forgets that he has mustard on his mustache. And he walks away with forgetting. That's the person who doesn't see the mirror of the word.

And so we see ourselves as sinful people. One of the things the word does, the sword, is it reveals our sinfulness. It's the mirror that shows us how flawed we really are. So what is this scroll going to do? Let's read on in verse 3.

"Then said he unto me, 'This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth. For everyone that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it. And everyone that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it.'" Verse 4: "'I will bring it forth,' saith the Lord of hosts, 'and it shall enter into the house of the thief and into the house of him that sweareth falsely by my name, and it shall remain in the midst of his house and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the stones thereof.'"

Now this is one of those things if you're new to the Bible, I gotta admit you're going to be like, "Wow, this is wacko. What's this scroll doing and why are we burning stones? And what's going on here?" And I understand. But this is where connecting the dots is kind of fun. By the way, notice the angel keeps asking, "Do you understand what this is?" Does that remind you of another book of the Bible where there's always the asking of questions to someone who doesn't know the answers?

The book of Revelation does the same thing. "Who are these arrayed in fine white linen?" John's like, "I don't know, you know." Remember the whole thing? I love this, by the way, this is a technique that you and I should use because sometimes people don't even know the right questions to ask. But you can offer them. I love how the angels of the Bible tend to do that with humanity.

"So what's this roll that you see?" "Man, I don't know." Well, he explains, in verse 3, "This is the curse that goes forth over the face of the earth." That's something you and I can do. Example: Have you ever been at work with someone and they're talking about the Middle East conflict and you could say something, "Hey, why do the Iranians hate the Jews so much?" "I don't know, man."

"Well, let me tell you, the Bible actually tells us this. The Bible talks about how Iran, which is ancient Persia, will turn against the Jews. That's something God predicted that would happen in the last days." And so when there's no explanation really and you can't understand why do these people hate the Jews so much or why does the world hate the Jews? Bible said that was going to happen and that's just fulfilling what the Bible says in prophecy.

But all that to say, you're able to teach people by asking questions. "What's going on with this flying scroll?" And Zechariah's like, "I don't have any idea." Well, let me tell you. And so he tells us, "See this scroll, it's a huge scroll." He says, "This is the curse, the curse that goeth forth over the face of the earth."

Now you're saying, "Brett, if the scroll is the word, how is the word a curse?" Well, the word curse there in the Bible is one that can be kind of confusing for some of us. But as it turns out, the curse is the curse of sin. And that's what the Bible reveals to us. When you read the Bible, one of the things the Bible does, the sword, is it sort of pins you down. Pins you down with sin.

And this is what's kind of being talked about and here's a little bit of a strange language that the Jews would have recognized. The Jews have different ways of thinking about things and they have a different kind of reasoning, logic, and stuff and it's really quite powerful when you realize historically why are some of the Jews so inventive and so smart? It has to do with the way they think through stuff.

But it makes us kind of go, "What are they talking about when we read the Bible?" For example: Why are the two sins of the scroll here basically swearing and being a thief? What's the deal with those two things? Well, as it turns out with the Ten Commandments, the two tables of stone, it's like what's being said here is on the one table it ends with one thing, the cursing and the swearing, and then the next thing, thieving.

And then everything after that. So it's almost like we would say everything between New York and San Francisco. We'd say, "Well, that's kind of the whole country." In the same way they're saying cursing and swearing. It's not that cursing and swearing and thievery are the two unpardonable sins. They're basically saying everything else included because they're saying whatever's on the two tables of stone of the Ten Commandments.

Jesus told us a little differently, by the way. Remember when they say, "What's the most important commandment?" And Jesus would say love, love God and love people. That was the answer and he said of all the law and prophet hang on these two, he said.

But the Jews sort of had idiom back in Zechariah's time, basically that's this language about the one who, "Everyone that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it." And look at the first part of verse 3: "For everyone that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it." In other words, according to what was written in the scroll, the indictments against humanity of all sin, it's almost like swearing and thievery and everything in between and everything on the other side.

All the sins. Are you guys with me on that? So it's basically the indictment of sin on all of humanity, which is the curse. The sin is the curse and we're all cursed with sin. When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, we were born sinners into that curse. That's the idea of this word curse.

By the way, when Jesus comes back there at the end of the tribulation, beginning of the millennial kingdom, the second coming of Christ, does anybody remember what's coming out of his mouth as he's coming in the imagery? A double-edged sword. It's the word of God that's going to indict the world that's there that remains of their sins, and that's going to be the wrath of God on them.

Kurt: Pastor Brett Meador has been drawing important truths from this, the sixth vision of Zechariah, and a revealing look into God's word that searches hearts as it calls His people to holiness. And I hope you'll stay right there as Pastor Brett is going to share some hope in just a moment. If you'd like more information about today's word or Pastor Brett Meador, just go to TodaysWordRadio.com. If you missed any portion of this study, you'll find all of his messages online at TodaysWordRadio.com.

Well, Pastor Brett has joined me now. You know, I'm sure there is somebody listening who may have tuned in and they might be feeling a sense of hopelessness today, possibly because of something that just happened to them, or they could be feeling lonely or even depressed in life. Brett, can you share some hope for that person today?

Brett Meador: Boy, Kurt, I know there's a lot of people out there that do feel that. And if someone's out there that feels hopeless, I just would say, just remember you're not alone. More importantly, God sees you, He knows you. Sometimes it's the darkest seasons of our life, that's the very place where God does His deepest work.

So try to remind yourself that maybe it's the Lord who's going to do a great work because I'm going through this season. I've known people that were convinced their story was over, "This is the end of the road," but the Lord often has a whole another chapter and purpose for you.

One guy in our church comes to mind. I was ministering to this guy because he was feeling suicidal. He felt like his life was over, he even had thought of taking his own life and had to plan for that. But while being kind of trapped in that despair, it seemed like he said everything's against me. Everything's against me.

And I shared with him the story of Genesis 42:36, where if you remember Jacob, he said, "Oh, everything's against me, all these things are against me," because he thought his son Joseph was dead, Simeon was dead, Benjamin was dead. That's what he thought. But none of that was actually true.

And I found that when we get in despair, we can often have a perspective that everything's really bad. But if you know the story, the way God works is actually everything was for him. Even though Jacob was saying all these things are against me, if you know the story, everything was actually for him.

And that's what the Lord promises if you're a follower of Christ, a believer in Jesus, all things are working together for good and you have to remind yourself. So that's the truth. Your feelings are real, but they're not final. God's got the final word on what's going to happen to you and so you just have to put your trust in Him, and that's where you really find true hope.

Kurt: It really is worth repeating that no matter what troubles we're going through, if we put our faith in God and trust Him, He does indeed have the final word and He wants the best for us. Thank you, Pastor Brett. A good reminder.

And one more time, if you've missed any portion of this study, you'll find this message from Pastor Brett and more at TodaysWordRadio.com. Well, next time, Pastor Brett points us to Jesus fulfilling the law, bearing the curse for sinners, and offering cleansing for us all where judgment once stood.

Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.