The Pulpit Commentary — Zechariah — Section 150

patent to every man's observation and consciousness. 2. The remo11al of sin i.~ the w01·ld's great necessity. Its existence is the ea.use of a.II the miseries of the world, physical, social, political, religious. 3. Provisions for its removal abound. "A fountain opened." Sin and uncleanness are not a.a essential part of human nature. Men have Jived without sin, and men in the other world do now. It is a. mere stain on human nature, separable from it, and the means of separation a.re provided-pro- vided in the gospel. In the mediatory life, teaching, works, death, resurrection, a.ad ascension of the Son of God. In all this he has opened to the world a. fountain of influence by which sin is to be cleansed. It is a fonnta.in. This implies: (1) .Abun- dance. It is not a rill, a brook, a lake, but a fountain. Wha.t is the fountain? Infinite love. (2) Freeness. Flowing, ever open to all. (3) Perpetuity. The hottest sun does not dry up the fountain. It ha.a an under-connection with the boundless deep. II. IT IS A "DAY" IN WIDOH IDOLATRY SHALL BE UTTERLY ABOLISHED. The spirit of idolatry is giving to any object that love which belongs only to the Supreme; and this sin is perhaps as rife in regions where monotheism is professed as in those lands where polytheism holds its empire. The cutting off the "na,mes of the idols II means their utter destruction (see Hos. ii.17). But you may destroy all the million idols, involving those which are the workmanship of men and those which are the creation of God, before which men have bowed, and yet leave idolatry as rampant as ever. Nothing_ but the destruction of the spirit will be the destruction of Idolatry. Hence we have here suggested a. time when men shall give their affection to the Supreme Being, and to him alone, when they shall worship the one true and living God. This is the idolatry the gospel comes to destroy; it is to turn men from idols to the living God. What a blessed age will tha.t be, when a.ll men on the face of the earth shall ha.ve their souls centred in love a.nd devotion on the one great and common Father of us all! "In that da.y a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles a.ad to the bats 11 (Isa. ii. 20). III. IT IS A "DAY" IN WHICH ALL FALSE RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS SHALL CEASE. "And I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land," etc. The words here in relation to false prophets suggest the following thoughts. 1. False religi()'IJ,8 teachers are great curses to a community. Thls is implied in the promise here of their destruction. False teachers in any branch of knowledge, be it historic, scientific, philosophic, literary, or artistic, are for many reasons great evils; but in religion the evils they inflict are inconceivably great. They deceive souls on the most vita.I of all points. False religious teachers are not merely teachers of pantheism, idolatry, or Mohammedanism, but even those who are nominally teachers of the gospel The man who gives a wrong interpretation of the gospel is a false teacher, and such men are found even in the pulpits of our England. What blasphemous ideas of God and degrading notions of his blessed Son have we in some of the popular sermons of the age! Whosoever teaches the conventional Christ is false to the Obrist of the gospel. 2. False religiQ'IJ,S teachers may become objects of indignation even to their nearest relations. "And it sba.11 come to pass, that when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live; for thou speakest lies in the name of the Lord: and his father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he prophesietb." It will be, indeed, a blessed time when the people of a country will have a greater love for truth tha.n for their dearest relations, even their very children; when the appearance of a false teacher will awaken such a public indignation as will expose his very life to danger; when men's moral ears will be so attuned to truth, that the very sound of falsehood will become intolerable. Thank God, there is an age of moral reality coming, an age when men will recoil from shams as from "demons vile." 3. False religious teachers will on this "day" be ashamed to exercise their mission. "The prophets shall be ashamed," If any false prophets should continue to exercise their function, they will have to do it: (1) With secrecy. "Neither shall they wear a rouah garment to deceive." It is said, when Domitian banished philosophers from Rom:, many persons shaved off their beards and flung away their cloaks, that they might not be included in the ban. So now the false prophet will be ashamed of his badge, bis rough garment, made perhaps of untanned sheepskin, or a Bedouin blanket made of camel's hair, like that of John the Baptist. (2) Disdaiming their profession. "He shall say, I am no prophet, I am an husbandman." If they carry on their work,  THE BOOK OF ZECHARIAB. [orr. xm. 1-9.