“On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness. And on that day, declares the Lord of hosts, I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, so that they shall be remembered no more. And also I will remove from the land the prophets and the spirit of uncleanness.”
– Zechariah 13:1–2
Oh, what a great picture and what imagery! Zechariah 13:1, a fountain opened for the house of David, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the people of God, all those who trust in God, a fountain to cleanse you from sin and uncleanness.
Zechariah 13:1–2 Reminds Us of God’s Lavish Desire to Forgive His Own
Yes! Oh, be encouraged today. When you think about your sin and your uncleanness, know that God, the holy God of the universe holds a fountain for you to cleanse you from it all, that you do not have to live with the stain and shame of sin and uncleanness. His fountain is for you. And let that fountain of forgiveness and cleansing flow in a fresh way over you today. To the extent in which you need to, spend time in confession of sin and let this fountain flow. And when the accuser, Satan, reminds you of sin in the past, let the fountain of God’s grace flow in a fresh way as God says, “You are forgiven and you are cleansed.”
Then verse two, “On that day, declares the Lord of hosts, I’ll cut off the names of the idols from the land, so they’ll be remembered no more. And I will remove from the land the prophets and the spirit of uncleanness.” Oh, what a picture! Not only does He cleanse us from sin and uncleanness, but He removes uncleanness from us, idols from the land. Isn’t that what we want? We don’t want any more idols in our lives. We don’t want any idolatry in our lives, our families, in our churches, in the world around us.
So God, we praise You. We praise You for the fountain of forgiveness and cleansing that’s found in You. Jesus, we praise You for making this possible, for Your blood that makes a way for a fountain to flow over our hearts and remove the stain and shame of sin and to replace it with the honor and righteousness of Jesus Himself.
Zechariah 13:1–2 Encourages Us to Seek God’s Forgiveness
Oh God, we pray You’d help us to drink deeply from this fountain; when we sin, to be quick to confess. Let the fountain of Your grace flow over us. And when we are reminded of sin from the past, God, that the fountain of Your grace and forgiveness would flow in a fresh way across our hearts, that the adversary’s accusations would not take root in us.
And God, we pray, remove idolatry from among us. God, please remove sin and uncleanness and idolatry from our hearts. We want to be pure and holy. We want to live in the righteousness we’ve been clothed in, in Christ. God, we pray for the fall of idols in our lives. We pray for the fall of idols in our families. We pray for the fall of idols in our land and we look forward to the day when they will be remembered no more. No more idols, no more false gods. No more false promises of satisfaction in this or that in this world. God, help us to see them now for what they are. Help us to realize that the things this world lures us with, that the adversary lures us with, will not last. They will not be remembered.
God, help us to see that now as we anticipate the day when You remove them completely from the land and there’s no more uncleanness.
We long for heaven. We long for the day when there will be no more sin, no more uncleanness and no more idolatry, everything pure, all our thoughts, all our desires, all our words, all our actions. And not just ours, but everybody around us. Come, Lord Jesus, bring it about, we pray.
Praying for the Ramdasia People
And God, we pray this over the nations. We pray this over the Ramdasia people of India. God, we unite our hearts right now to pray on behalf of this people group of half a million Sikh tradition people.
God, we pray that the fountain of forgiveness in Jesus would flow among the Ramdasia people. They don’t know, God, they don’t know the gospel. They’ve not heard about Jesus. Please, God, change that. Cause laborers to go to them. Please give success to laborers among them. Bless our brothers and sisters in India. Raise up people from the nations to go to the Ramdasia, that Your fountain might flow among them, that idols, that all kinds of false gods that are being worshiped right now would be remembered no more. God, bring it about. We pray all of this according to Your word in Zechariah 13:1–2. We love Your word and we pray according to it in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
