The promise is preceded by a condition:  ’If thou wilt walk in My ways, and if thou wilt keep My charge, then ...  I will give thee access among those that stand by.’  That is to say, you cannot keep the consciousness of God’s presence, nor have any blessedness of communion with Him, if you are living in disobedience of His commandments or in neglect of manifest duty.  A thin film of vapour in our sky tonight will hide the moon.  Though the vapour itself may be invisible, it will be efficacious as a veil.  And any sin, great or small, fleecy and thin, will suffice to shut me out from God.  If we are keeping His commandments, then, and only then, shall we have access with free hearts into His presence.

But to lay down that condition seems the same thing as slamming the door in every man’s face.  But let us remember what went before my text, the experience of the priest to whom it was spoken in the vision.  His filthy garments were stripped off him, and the pure white robes worn on the great Day of Atonement, the sacerdotal dress, were put upon him.  It is the cleansed man that has access among ‘those that stand by.’  And if you ask how the cleansing is to be effected, take the great words of the Epistle to the Hebrews as an all-sufficient answer, coinciding with, but transcending, what this vision taught Zechariah:  ’Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest of all, by the blood of Jesus, ... and having a High Priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.’  Cleansed by Christ, and with Him for our Forerunner, we have boldness and ’access with confidence by the faith of Him,’ who proclaims to the whole world, ’No man cometh to the Father but by Me.’

THE SOURCE OF POWER

’And the Angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep, 2.  And said unto me, What seest thou?  And I said, I have looked, and behold, a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps which are upon the top thereof:  3.  And two olive-trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof. 4.  So I answered and spake to the Angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my Lord? 5.  Then the Angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest thou not what these be?  And I said, No, my Lord. 6.  Then He answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts. 7.  Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain:  and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it. 8.  Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, 9.  The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the