MIDWEEK
ADVENT 3
December
13, 2023
Pastor
Timothy J. Spaude
Text:
Zechariah 13:1-6 (EHV)
“CHRIST’S ADVENT:
AN END TO FALSE TEACHING!”
We are in the time of the year that we
are looking forward to and waiting for something big, Christmas! What is it you
are most looking forward to? There can be many different answers. Some will say
things that have to do with worship: the music, the message that we have a
Savior and God keeps His promises, the children’s service, the star. Some will
say the cookies and treats and food. Students will say a vacation from
school…maybe a few others might say that too. Then there is seeing family and
the giving and getting of gifts. None of those answers are wrong. There are
many things that Christmas brings for us to look forward to. Christ’s Advent is
the same way. You can look forward to Christ’s coming at the end of the world
for a number of reasons. In our midweek Advent services Zechariah has been
helping us as he revealed what he was looking for. We’ve already heard how he
was looking forward to the Lord living with us. Last week we heard how he was
looking forward to being part of a holy kingdom. We related to that. No more
having to complain and chafe about what’s wrong with your country when you are
part of a holy nation with the perfect Lord Jesus as your leader. But wait,
there’s more that Zechariah was looking forward to and we can too.
Zechariah
13:1-6 (EHV) “On that day a fountain will be opened
for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for
uncleanness. 2 In that day, declares
the Lord of Armies, I will cut off the names of the idols from the
land, and they will no longer be remembered. I will also remove the prophets
and the impure spirit from the land. 3 If anyone
still prophesies, his father and his mother who gave birth to him will tell
him, “You shall not live, because you have spoken lies in the name of
the Lord!” Then his father and his mother who gave birth to him will stab
him when he prophesies. 4 In that day each of those
prophets will be ashamed of his vision. When he prophesies, he will not put on
a prophet’s garment made of hair in order to deceive. 5 Instead
he will say, “I am not a prophet. I have been a tiller of the soil since my
youth, when a man bought me.” 6 Someone will ask
him, “What are these wounds on your body?” He will reply, “I received
these wounds in the house of my friends.”
What was Zechariah looking forward to?
An end to false teaching. That’s what this prophecy is about, an end to
idolatry and false teaching, they go hand in hand. Idolatry blatantly puts
something in the place of God and false teaching does it secretly. “This is
what God says,” the false teaching prophet said, but God did not say it. Every
false prophet and false teacher is a false God putting themselves in the place
of God. In Zechariah’s time the false prophets tried to discourage God’s people
who had come back to Israel from continuing their faithful service to God. Following
his time the false prophets perverted the Old Testament ceremonial worship that
was to point to Christ and made it into the work righteous religions proclaimed
by the chief priests and Pharisees of Jesus’ time. Zechariah looked forward to
the time when Christ would come because the false teachers would be exposed for
what they were so that their parents would turn on them. They would lie about
themselves because they would be ashamed of their false teaching.
To a certain extent that happened when
Christ came the first time. How often don’t the Gospel writers record that the
people were amazed at Jesus’ teaching because He taught as one with
authority—not like the chief priests and teachers of the law? How often didn’t
it happen that the Pharisees tried to trap or trick Jesus using Scripture and
Jesus made them look like fools? For that time when Jesus walked the earth
physically He dealt with false teaching.
But He did not put an end to it. That
waits until Christ’s second Advent. If you want, read the epistles in their
historical order and see how quickly they switch from mainly teaching to
correcting false teaching. Lovers of church history will have no shortage of
false teaching fodder as you see the Nicene Creed developed to straighten out
false teaching. Same with the Athanasian Creed. And the Lutheran Reformation
would not have had to happen if the visible church kept its teachings straight.
But it didn’t. False teaching was prevalent before, during, after and now. I’ve
watched Joel Osteen to try to figure out what the draw is. He’s not the most
charismatic speaker I’ve seen. But his lies in God’s name are shameful. I
wonder how many people have been led to believe God does not love them because
they are not getting their best life now. Jesus told us that our best life
comes in heaven with Him and because of Him. Jesus told us that if we follow
Him faithfully we can expect to take up crosses not get whatever we want. Jehovah’s
Witnesses and the Mormons are zealous to get their false messages with no Jesus
as Savior into as many homes as they can, preying on lonely people and leading
to spiritual depression when people realize they can’t keep all the rules. I’ve
not seen it myself, but enough people have asked me that it must be out there.
Some commercial tooting the so called Rapture and what to do if Jesus’ leaves
you behind for a second chance. That’s false teaching. Scripture is clear that
Jesus will return only once. That will be the end of the world. It will be
followed by the public Judgement Day with no second chances and the only
rapture Scripture speaks about is our great joy when all believers are caught
up with the Lord in our eternal existence we call heaven which is why the
Apostles’ Creed so clearly confesses, “…he ascended into heaven. He is seated
at the right hand of God the Father almighty from there he will come to judge
the living and the dead.” Period. Stop. No rapture.
Now all these false teachings are and
can be confusing for many people but what really bothers me is the people cost.
The worst is when people are led to believe that their relationship with God
depends on their good works as though Jesus was not good enough. Some of the
people caught in those false teaching churches still hold on to Jesus for mercy
but live their lives in fear and with guilt instead of the peace and joy they
could have if their false teaching pastors would give them the truth. False
teaching harms so many personal relationships. It splits and divides families.
Can plague marriages. And there is a reason people are warned against bringing
up religion and politics at the family reunion or in a bar conversation. False
teaching divides.
But not when Christ comes again. He
will put an end to false teaching and all the divisions that it causes. He will
make His church whole again and there will be one flock and one shepherd. No
wonder Zechariah looked forward to Christ’s coming. No wonder we do too. Come
Lord Jesus. Amen!
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