'It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a gigantic flying scroll of Scripture!'

“The last three visions Zechariah sees seem to be extremely confusing to commentators,” says Jordan. “You take Florida Baptist teacher Dr. Peter Ruckman. When he wrote a commentary on the Book of Zechariah he kept saying, ‘I didn’t want to write this because there is stuff in Zechariah I don’t know anything about.’

“When he gets to chapter 5, he says, ‘This chapter, nobody knows anything about it.’ Consequently, you can always tell somebody who’s teaching Zechariah how much contact they’ve had with Ruckman, because they’ll say, ‘Well, you can’t figure this out. You don’t know it.’ The mentality is, ‘If doc didn’t know it, nobody can know it.’ The thing about that is you don’t grow beyond what he didn’t know.

“Zechariah 5 is an interesting chapter in that all of a sudden Zechariah doesn’t give you a lot of extraneous information to help you interpret what’s going on but that isn’t because he’s trying to hide it.

"The reason for it, it seems to me, is at this point, where we have the sixth through eighth vision, Zechariah expects his readers to have enough information to be able to understand these things for themselves.

*****

“If you look at Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, there’s a point where the Lord Jesus Christ began to speak in parables. Prior to Matthew 13, for example, He spake very plainly, but now there’s this rejection of Him that’s taken place. The first stated plot to kill Him is in Matthew 12. That’s when He says, the greater prophet, the greater priest, the greater king is here and you’ve rejected Him.

“In Matthew 13 He goes outside of the house, a picture of leaving the nation Israel, and sits by the seaside and begins to give what He calls the ‘mystery parables of the kingdom.’

“Preachers tell you Jesus told parables in order to make it easy for people to understand what he said. Jesus said it was the opposite. He said, ‘It’s for you to understand and for them not to so I’m putting it in veiled language only believers can understand.’

“He gave seven parables in Matthew 13 and interpreted the first two. In Mark 4 when he did it, He explained, ‘I’m going to interpret these for you so you will have a template by which you can interpret all the rest of them.’ He taught them how to interpret the parables so they could go on with the rest and that’s sort of what’s happening in Zechariah.

*****

“Chapter 5 begins, 'Then I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a flying roll.' In a little while there’s the 'flying ephah.' Ruckman doesn’t know what these are so therefore they’re unidentified flying objects and he says the chapter’s full of UFOs.

“In this sixth vision about a flying roll you’re going to see here the fact God’s going to judge; He’s going to curse sin. They’ve broken the covenant and it’s not going to go undealt with. The seventh vision of the ephah is a real strange one.

“Zechariah’s first five visions were full of hope, the kingdom, the restoration and then these last four visions focus on vengeance and wrath.

The next two verses reveal, [2] And he said unto me, What seest thou? And I answered, I see a flying roll; the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits.
[3] Then said he unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth: for every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it.

“When he says it’s a roll, that’s talking about a scroll that's an official document. Ezra 6 begins, [1] Then Darius the king made a decree, and search was made in the house of the rolls, where the treasures were laid up in Babylon.
[2] And there was found at Achmetha, in the palace that is in the province of the Medes, a roll, and therein was a record thus written.

“So the roll is a book that’s been rolled up into a scroll. We’re talking about a book that’s an official document.

*****

"Zechariah 5:4 says, [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.

“What is it that brings a curse? It’s the broken law. You remember the curses of Leviticus 26? God says, ‘You keep the law, keep my covenant, and I’ll bless you. You don’t, I’ll curse you.’

“Deuteronomy 27:26 says, [26] Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen.

“That curse comes from breaking the law, so the flying roll contains the curse. The roll is going to be the Word of God; it’s going to be God’s message to them. That’s how God’s Word was available to them.

“Jeremiah 36 begins, [1] And it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, that this word came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
[2] Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day.

"Verse 4 says, [4] Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah: and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the LORD, which he had spoken unto him, upon a roll of a book.

“What Zechariah is seeing is the Word of God and in it is the law. ‘This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth.’

*****

“By the way, the idea of it being a FLYING roll. It says ‘the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits.’ A cubit is the measurement between the end of your finger to your elbow. It’s generally considered to be 18 inches, so this thing, if it’s 20 cubits, it’s going to be a little over 30 feet. If it’s 10 cubits wide, it’s going to be 18 feet wide.

"So you’ve got this gigantic roll that’s flying and where’s it flying? Over the land of Palestine. Now why would you have a big copy of the Scripture flying in the air?

“The last time we were at Navy Pier there was an airplane flying by pulling a banner. It was down by Soldier Field but it turned around and came back, flying right over Navy Pier, and all of a sudden you could read the sign.

“You know how you’re watching for it and you can’t see it and you’re just waiting for it to get there? This roll thing is flying in the air for them to read. It’s big and gigantic so it will be easy for them to read!

“Habbakuk 2:2 says, [2] And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.

“The idea is put it in big billboard fashion so people can see plainly, because when they get the message then they can run with it. The flying roll is not designed to be some spook show or Star Wars thing where there’s a flying saucer or flying banana out there. It’s not to be a UFO. This is a picture, a vision of how God’s Word is going to be placarded before His people and they’re going to be accountable to it.

“Of course, when he talks about the curse going over ‘the face of the whole earth,’ he’s talking about the land of Palestine. All of the land of the Middle East is going to here this message.

*****

“We know the roll was written on both sides because Zechariah 5:3 says ‘for every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it.’

“When God gave the commandments to Moses, Exodus 32:15 says, [15] And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written.

“They were written with the finger of God, so when He gave the law, He wrote it on both sides. You remember the law is really in two sections.

"The first four commandments talk about the relationship with God: Have no other gods before me, no graven images, don’t take the name of the Lord in vain and so forth. The last six commandments had to do with the relationship with one another. Don’t commit adultery, don’t lie, don’t steal, etc.

“So what does Zechariah do? He’s taking the side of the law that says, ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ and then he says, ‘Thou shalt not swear,’ meaning don’t blaspheme, swear falsely in God's name. One is the fourth commandment and the other is the eighth commandment. So he’s got the balance and that’s why the two sides.

“Those two specific sins are identified, not just because they represent the two parts of the law, but because they focus on the Antichrist, the satanic policy in the ‘last days’ against the Believing Remnant in Israel.

“When he says everyone that stealeth shall be cut off, Jesus said in John 10, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.’

“Who is it that was trying to climb up the other way? The Pharisees; the vain religious system in Israel. They were trying to get the blessings without coming God’s way. And Jesus said, ‘You’re a thief and a robber.’ He said, ‘When they sware falsely in my name, they blasphemed.’

“Revelation 13 says about the Antichrist that his mouth was full of blasphemies against God. These are the special sins that are going to be used in the seduction policy against the nation Israel to try to destroy the Little Flock in Israel and the nation itself. So those specific sins, the reason they’re listed here is because these sins are specific sins that the Antichrist and his followers with their tactics are going to use against the Little Flock.

“I’m saying these particular things because by the time you get here in Zechariah 5, these are the kind of things that ought to be rolling around in your mind when you read these verses.”

*****

“Malachi 4:5-6 is the last thing you read in the Old Testament. It says, [5] Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:
[6] And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

“Before the Second Advent Elijah’s going to come. Who did we just read about in Zechariah 4? You remember those two olive branches, those two witnesses from Revelation 11? We know one is Moses and one is Elijah.

“Right there in Zechariah 5 you just read a couple of verses before about Elijah coming. So Malachi says, ‘Elijah’s coming.’ Verse 6: [6] And I said, What is it? And he said, This is an ephah that goeth forth. He said moreover, This is their resemblance through all the earth.

“If you don’t listen to those two witnesses in Zechariah 4, what’s going to happen? He’s going to smite the whole earth with a curse. You see the connections in that? This stuff is not just free standing. It’s not just, ‘Huh, what is that? Must be a UFO.’ There’s plenty of information here to figure out what’s going on.

*****

“By the way, when he says in verse 2 that ‘the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits,’ come back to I Kings 6.

“When you’re familiar enough with these things in your thinking you would ask yourself, ‘Why in the world would he tell me how big the thing is?’ He could have said it was big. Why did he give me the measurements and when he did, why did he give me THOSE measurements?

“Well, if you weren’t really familiar with the history of Israel, you could get a concordance and look it up. It would be better to be familiar with it.

“What you do is you try to get the things in your mind. In fact, I have people email me or Facebook me and ask, ‘What are your reading habits?’ Someone asked, ‘When you read do you study?’ No, just read. Just reading gets it into your mind and then when you study, you’ve got all that stuff floating around in there.

“Here’s a cross reference that you could have found easily. When Solomon built the temple, I Kings 6:2-3 says, [2] And the house which king Solomon built for the LORD, the length thereof was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits.
[3] And the porch before the temple of the house, twenty cubits was the length thereof, according to the breadth of the house; and ten cubits was the breadth thereof before the house.

“So the porch on the temple is exactly the same size. You know what you do with a porch? My wife always wanted to have a house with a porch. We stayed at a B&B in Maine that had this beautiful porch looking out over a blueberry field and a big woods full of fall leaves in beautiful color. You know what we did on the porch. We’d get up in the morning and go out and sit on the porch. It was beautiful.

“The porch is where you go watch stuff, where you go see stuff, where you put the handbills. This scroll is there and it’s going to remind them, if they’re thinking, about the temple. Well, there’s something very special going on in Israel in connection with the ‘last days,’ in connection with the satanic policy of thieving; stealing God’s Word from the people and speaking blasphemy against Him that’s going to cause the curse to go out through the whole land that has to do with the temple.

“My point is that the flying scroll, even in its dimensions, points them to the temple. II Chronicles 4:1, talking again about Solomon, says, [1] Moreover he made an altar of brass, twenty cubits the length thereof, and twenty cubits the breadth thereof, and ten cubits the height thereof.

“I just point out again, here’s the altar. Where? In the temple. What is it that the Antichrist is going to assault? Where’s he going to declare himself to be God? Where’s he going to speak the great swelling words of blasphemy? It’s all going to be related to the temple.

*****

“So here comes God’s Word and when you violate the law, that covenant, there’s a curse coming and it’s going to consume the whole land. This thing’s going to cover the whole of the Middle East.

“Zechariah 5:4-5 says, [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.
[5] Then the angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth.

“They think they’ve been doing it and getting away with it, but he says, ‘I’m going to send this curse and it’s going to pursue them, not just down the street, but it’s going to go home with them and consume them.

“It’s literally going to consume them, their homes and the building material the houses are made of. Now, that’s quite a curse. He’s literally going to take the whole of them out completely.

“The only thing in the Bible that I know of like that is, can you think of it? You remember when God put the tenth plague on Pharaoh? The death angels are going to come in to all the houses that don’t have the blood on the post.

"If you’re not under the blood, William Tyndale coined a term in the 1500s to describe that event. He called it the Passover. It comes out of Exodus 12:13 when God says, ‘When I see the blood I will pass over them.’ But what He was doing was there was this death angel that pursued Pharoah, that Assyrian usurper seeking to destroy Israel . . .

(to be continued tomorrow)