Friday, Aug. 31

Friday

This week we have spent a good deal of time talking about sin and repentance.  This is not always the most pleasant or comfortable topic.  Today we come to the reason for all the depressing talk about sin, we come to God’s amazing and wonderful remedy for it.

On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.   - Zechariah 13:1

This verse is (in my opinion) the most important prophecy/promise in the entire book.  The reason why this is the most important promise, is because if it is not true, then all of the other promises really don’t matter that much.  If God does not provide a way for us to be cleansed from our sin, then we are stuck in our sinful condition and doomed to spend eternity apart from God.  Ah, but Zechariah tells us that God has made a way for us to be cleansed of our sin - he has opened a fountain!  

This is a picture of God’s inexhaustible fountain for sin and for impurity. It flows and flows and flows. God has grace greater than all of our sins!  You may be thinking, “But you don’t know how terrible some of my past sins were!” True, but God does know, and He opened this fountain for sin and for impurity.  What is this fountain?  The question is not what, but who?  Who is this fountain?  The answer is Jesus Christ!

The fountain in 13:1 is the culmination of what Zechariah is prophesying about in 12:10, And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.  This is a clear prophecy about Jesus the Messiah!

This fountain won’t do you any good if you look at it and think, “I wish my husband or wife would get into that fountain”, or I wish my kids would get under that water!”  It won’t do you any good to stand there and think, “It probably would be refreshing to plunge in.” To receive the cleansing grace of God’s fountain, you must look to Jesus and recognize that your sins put Him on the cross.  As God’s Spirit opens your eyes to your true guilt before Him, you will mourn.  But don’t stop there! Let that mourning motivate you to jump into God’s fountain.  You’ve got to apply it individually to your heart.  The instant that you do, you will know the joy of God’s forgiveness.

If we are to be forgiven and cleansed, it can only come through God’s undeserved favor, His grace.  Augustus Toplady puts this beautifully in his hymn, Rock of Ages;  “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling; Naked, come to Thee for dress, helpless look to Thee for grace; Foul, I to the fountain fly, wash me Savior or I die!”  

This is the same fountain that cleansed the sins of murder and adultery in the life of King David.

This is the same fountain that cleansed the heart of a man named Saul, who rejected Christ and persecuted his church, but was transformed in the Apostle Paul.

This is the same fountain that cleansed the sins of a notorious charouser and womanizer named Augustine.

This is the same fountain that cleansed the heart of the slave trader John Newton, who once cleansed penned the words to the great hymn, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”

This is the same fountain that cleansed the proud heart of the atheist and scoffer, Clive Staples Lewis!

This is the same fountain that cleansed the sins of my wicked heart, and it can cleanse your heart too!

To enter a relationship with Almighty God, we must come to Christ (His fountain) to cleanse us from our sins.  And, we should take frequent showers to wash off the defilement of the sins that we commit after salvation! As 1 John 1:9 promises, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  Oh let us come often to God’s fountain!

Jeff Frazier