Passage: Zechariah 6:1-8
The Big Idea
God is love, and God is just. Zechariah’s final vision shows four chariots going out in judgment, and God’s Spirit coming to rest once sin is judged. For unbelievers, judgment is coming. For believers, it already came, at the cross. That’s why His Spirit is at rest about your sin.
The Uncomfortable Topic
“If judging others is a sin, is God going to hell?” Dumb question, but people ask it.
Judgment isn’t a popular topic. Most people are comfortable with a gentle, hippie Jesus. The Jesus of Revelation, with eyes like fire, feet like bronze and a sword coming from His mouth (Revelation 1:14-16), is less attractive to them.
Polls have found that a large majority of people agree we’ll all stand before God on judgment day to answer for our sins. True? For unbelievers, yes. For believers, no.
Near the end of his life, the comedian W.C. Fields was found reading a Bible in his hospital room. When a friend asked why, he said, “I’m looking for loopholes.”
Many people don’t understand what judgment is, or that God has the right to judge, or that He will.
Bible teacher H.A. Ironside told of a young woman raised in a Christian home who repeatedly refused to turn to Christ and chose a reckless life instead. When she became gravely ill, she still refused. One night she woke suddenly, frightened, and asked her mother what Ezekiel 7:8-9 said. She’d dreamed a Presence told her to read it. Her mother opened the Bible and, with a sinking heart, read aloud God’s words of coming judgment on those who refuse Him. Moments later the young woman died. Ironside’s conclusion: grace rejected brings judgment at last.
Read: Zechariah 6:1-8
Zechariah sees four chariots coming out from between two mountains of bronze, pulled by red, black, white and dappled horses. The angel says these are four spirits of heaven going out from standing before the Lord of all the earth. They go north and south and patrol the earth. Then the Lord says that the ones who went to the north country have given His Spirit rest there (Zechariah 6:1-8).
Bronze mountains
In Scripture, bronze is associated with judgment: the bronze altar where sacrifices for sin were burned, the bronze serpent (Numbers 21), the bronze feet of the risen Christ. Two bronze mountains may remind us of the two tablets of the Old Covenant law that pronounced judgment.
The horses
These four horses line up with the four horsemen of Revelation 6.
- Red: war. Conflict between people. The world asks, “Who can make war with the beast?” (Revelation 13:4). But One on a white horse is coming who judges and makes war in righteousness (Revelation 19:11).
- Black: famine. Scarcity and dryness. Babylon’s plagues come in one day: death, mourning and famine (Revelation 18:8).
- White: false peace. In the last times some will follow deceiving spirits, their consciences seared (1 Timothy 4:1-2). Many antichrists have already come (1 John 2:18).
- Dappled: death.
Judgment comes with all these elements. The nations around Israel would be judged as God determined.
God’s Patience
God can judge any way He wants, any time He wants. And yet He is patient and merciful.
Why did God judge the nations of Canaan when Israel entered the land? He had given them four hundred years to turn from their idolatry, murder and hatred (Genesis 15:16). They wouldn’t. He would have been justified to judge them after ten years, or one year, or one day, or the moment they first conceived sin in their hearts. Instead He waited centuries.
Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions never fail. They are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23).
God Must Judge
God can judge. God is the Judge. And God must judge.
Sin doesn’t get excused away. No one gets away with anything. Every sin and every injustice must be made right. A big part of restoration is judging the sin that wrecked things and hurt God’s precious children.
God hates injustice. We feel that too, when a bank cheats us, when a boss mistreats us, when we hear of abuse or atrocities around the world. If we sinners feel righteous anger at sin, how much more does a perfect God?
Even small things matter to Him. Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight (Proverbs 11:1).
Judgment is holiness in action. You can’t blame God for punishing the wicked; the wicked are responsible for their own wickedness.
- Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever doesn’t believe will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him (John 3:36).
- The wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness (Romans 1:18).
- The law brings wrath (Romans 4:15).
- One day people will call on the mountains to fall on them and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb (Revelation 6:16-17).
But God doesn’t enjoy it. He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He pleads with them to turn and live (Ezekiel 18:23, 32).
His Spirit at Rest
They have given rest to My Spirit in the north. God’s Spirit is at rest when sin is judged.
So what about us? Aren’t our sins just as bad as everyone else’s? Yes! But ours were already judged at the cross.
- Having been justified by His blood, we will be saved from wrath through Him (Romans 5:9).
- God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:9).
- If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us (1 John 1:9). Just, because the price has already been paid.
When terrible things happen in the world, people sometimes ask, “Was that God’s judgment on us?” We should be very careful about claiming to know that. And for those in Christ, God’s judgment on their sin has already fallen, on Jesus.
Have you ever been afraid of God’s judgment? Have you ever thought He could rightly send an angel to strike you down? For the believer, it’s impossible. When it comes to the judgment of your sins, His Spirit is at rest.
Grace Takeaway
God is just, and every sin will be judged. That’s exactly why the cross is such good news. Your sins were judged there, completely. There’s no loophole to find, because Jesus didn’t leave one. His Spirit is at rest about you, and yours can be too.
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