Read 2 Chronicles 21 and Zechariah 5.
This devotional is about Zechariah 5:1-3 (NIV): “I looked again, and there before me was a flying scroll. 2 He asked me, ‘What do you see?’ I answered, ‘I see a flying scroll, twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide.’ 3 And he said to me, ‘This is the curse that is going out over the whole land; for according to what it says on one side, every thief will be banished, and according to what it says on the other, everyone who swears falsely will be banished.'”
In these verses, the prophet saw a large scroll flying through the air. The scroll measured 30 feet long by 15 feet wide (v. 2) which indicates that it was unrolled. There was writing on both sides of the scroll and, in both cases, what was written was a curse. One curse was against “every thief” and the other was against “anyone who swears falsely” in God’s name (v. 3). The curse itself was that the person who either stole or lied “will be banished.” That meant the person would be removed from the community. The thief or liar would no longer be recognized as one of God’s people but instead be treated like an unbelieving Gentile.
Verse 4 said that the scroll would “will enter the house…” of the thief or robber and “remain in that house and destroy it completely, both its timbers and its stones.” This is a visual way of describing the deterioration of the building, the physical structure where the liar or thief lived. God’s curse would cause a person’s house to rot. This is not saying that his literal house would literally rot. Instead, the consequences are described graphically to create fear in the heart of the thief and the liar.
Like many sins, people think theft won’t hurt them unless it is detected. Likewise, people think that dishonesty in what they say will only harm them if they’re actually caught lying. But God sees our sins and knows our dishonesty. This chapter indicates that the consequences to our sins–even when undetected–are like termites silently but consistently eating away at the structure of our lives. God himself pronounces a curse on our sins and, when our sins are unconfessed and unforsaken, those curses “will remain in that house and destroy it completely” (v. 4c-d).
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” according to Galatians 3:13. In Christ, then, God’s curses for our sins have been borne by him. As believers, though, we still need ongoing cleansing of sin and for the Holy Spirit to expose and remove the rot that sin brings about in our lives.
Is your life rotting away because of unconfessed sin? It could be theft or dishonesty or any number of hidden sins. Problems in your life that you’ve never connected to any particular sin might be the result of sins you’ve committed and covered up rather than confessed and forsaken. December gives us a good opportunity to inventory our lives. Find some time to think about your life and take care of any unconfessed sin, even if it happened a long time ago.