Let's turn in our Bibles back
to Zechariah. And I trust that when we come
to what we were looking at earlier in terms of seeing the Lord Jesus
Christ, you would be led of the Lord to see him in all of the
Old Testament scriptures. He makes a very simple statement.
He says, Moses wrote of me. The prophets wrote of me. The
Bible is a book of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the beginning, God,
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it was He who spoke, and
this creation came into existence. So the Old Testament is full
of glorious pictures, and I want us to see this one in Zechariah
chapter three, but let's start reading beforehand in chapter
two, verse 10. He says, Sing and rejoice, O
daughter of Zion, for lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst
of thee, says the Lord Jesus Christ. You can add there. And
many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and
shall be my people, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and
thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts has sent me unto thee. And the Lord shall inherit Judah
his portion in the holy land, and shall choose Jerusalem again. Be silent, O all flesh, before
the Lord, for he is raised up out of his holy habitation. It's a good thing to be silent
in the presence of God and wait for Him to speak. Then I want
to read these amazing verses. This is one of the passages of
scripture I've probably used out of the Old Testament as much
as anything in my days of teaching in India, and I wonder how many
of my students ever remember it, but I just love this picture
of salvation. Listen to what God says about
this. And He showed me, this is the
same Lord who is calling his people to sing and rejoice and
all those will be joined to him and this is the Lord dwelling
in the midst of them. And this is what he does personally with
his people. And he showed me Joshua, that's the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ. I mean it's God's salvation,
God is salvation, God saves. Joshua the high priest standing
before the angel of the Lord. The angel of the Lord is the
Lord Jesus Christ, to be clear about that. He's the messenger. That's what the word angel means.
He is the message of God. He is the messenger of the message
of God. Satan standing with his right
hand to resist him, and the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke
thee, O Satan, even the Lord that has chosen Jerusalem rebuke
thee. Is this not a brand? That's a
stick that you use to sort of stir the fire, so it's burnt
and damaged by the fire, but it's plucked out of the fire. Now Joshua was clothed in filthy
garments and stood before the angel. And he answered and spake
unto those that stood before him, saying, take away his filthy
garments. Isn't that a glorious word from
our God? Take away his filthy garments. This is a high priest.
Take away his filthy garments. From him. Unto him he said, behold,
I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will
clothe thee with the change of raiment. And I said, let them
set a fair mitre on his head, and they set a fair mitre on
his head and clothed him with garments, and the angel of the
Lord stood by. And the angel of the Lord protested
with Hunter Joshua, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, If thou
wilt walk in my ways, if thou wilt keep my charge, thou shalt
also be the judge of my house, and shalt keep my courts, and
I will give thee places to walk among them, these that stand
by. But I just wanted to look at
those first verses there. This is the fourth vision in
the book of Zechariah out of nine visions, and they're all
visions of the Lord Jesus Christ. They're all visions of the Lord
Jesus Christ in Him crucified. They're all visions of Him coming
as a man, and Zechariah is the Old Testament Gospel account
of the Lord Jesus, which has more pictures and descriptions
of the Lord Jesus than any other book other than the Gospel of
Isaiah. So this is a call to a people
who are tired and discouraged. This is Zechariah sent to these
people who are discouraged and they're disheartened. And he's
calling on them to return to the Lord by reminding them of
who the Lord Jesus Christ is, and what he's done, and what
he is doing amongst his people. This is God. You might know the
story that God moved the hearts of the kings, Cyrus and Darius,
the greatest kings of the greatest superpowers of the world now.
And he said, You people of Israel, you go back and you take every
single piece of gold and silver that came out of that temple,
you go back there and you rebuild that temple and you rebuild the
walls of that temple and you put the whole lot on my account.
What a great God we have. And it's a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ and his church and that temple was a place where
people met with God and that's the temple now is the Lord Jesus
Christ and people meet with him and he gathers his people with
the same omnipotent power. He moves all the forces of all
the kings and all the people of this world and all the people
who think they're kings and he moves them all to gather his
people to himself. But he wants them, not wants,
God doesn't want, God does. He brings them back to himself
and now he moves the hearts of these people to come and return
and to put their hand to the plough as it were and to restore
the place of his worship and glory. And it's all to be done
in such a way that God gets all the glory and it is clearly seen
by the enemies. that God has done it all in the
gathering of his people. But we are like the people in
Zechariah's day and Haggai's day where it was so easy in the
midst of all the trials to find ourselves flagging in faith and
in zeal for God. And Zechariah and the book of
Haggai are books of encouragement. Our God, our God will come and
our God will come with healing in his wings and our God will
restore. And the way he restores his people is to remind them
of who the Lord Jesus Christ is and what he's done and what
he's doing in this world. But sin, sin weighs us down,
doesn't it? And the cares of this world weigh
us down. But thanks be to God that where
grace, where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. And our
God will have his way. And so here in this picture we
have just three people viewed before us, haven't we? We have
a chosen sinner, Joshua, the high priest. God has made all
of his people kings and priests under God. That's what we are,
aren't we? We are kings and priests to serve him. And then we have
the revelation of the mighty accuser of the brethren, and
he's too big But we have an interceding saviour. We have an advocate
with the Father. And he showed me Joshua, the
high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord. And when
God's people are made to stand before the angel of the Lord,
Satan will always be there as an accuser. He's always raised
up as accuser. You think of the activities of
Satan. Whenever the gospel is preached, whenever God is at
work in the hearts of his people, Satan is his most active. He
doesn't need to be active where there is no gospel. He keeps
all those people in peace. But where the gospel comes, where
the Lord comes to Satan's palace and he breaks down the bars and
he goes into that palace and he says, they're mine, this one's
mine, and he takes them all out. Then Satan is enraged. And that's
what it says, isn't it? Satan in the Old Testament had
access to heaven, but now Satan is enraged. And who's he enraged
against? He's enraged against God's children. He's not accusing the world. There's millions of people in
the world in the days of Joshua. He's standing there accusing
Joshua before the Lord. Sometimes Satan is a great and
deceiving and wicked enterer and sometimes the power of the
Lord over him should cause us much comfort. And we rejoice,
the heavens are rejoicing that Satan and you that dwell in them
rejoice because he's been cast down. Woe to the inhabitants
of the earth. And of the sea, for the devil
is come down to you having great wrath, because he knows he has
but a short time. And how did they overcome him?
How did the children of God? Revelation chapter 12, verse
10, 11 and 12. They overcame him by the blood
of the lamb. And that's what we see pictured
here. They overcame him by the blood of the lamb and the word
of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto death. Joshua standing before the Lord,
before the angel of the Lord, and Joshua's clothes in filthy
garments. If you ever made to stand before
the presence of the Lord, you will be made to All of the best righteousnesses
you ever had are nothing but filthy rags. You can read in
Isaiah 64. They're just nothing but filthy
rags. If you're standing before him, you will be exposed. A sinner. You're a sinner. That's what
it is, isn't it? Filthy rags. Just a sinner. What
are you? A sinner. Who did Christ come
to save? Sinners. Sinners. They are a very, very, very rare
breed in this world. Sad to say. They're a very rare
breed in this world. People might say, well, everyone's
a sinner. Not very many people that I've ever met are sinners
according to the scriptural account of what a sinner is. A sinner
is what you are. If sin is just what you do, then
you can fix it by not doing it. If sin is what you are, then
the only possible solution is a new creation, and the only
possible solution is the Lord Jesus Christ. Real sinners need
a saviour. They need him every hour, we're
just saying it. See, sin is a noun. If you turn
with me to 1 John 1, we'll see that It says in 1 John 1 verse 8,
if we say we have no sin, and I've heard experienced theologians
stand before me and tell me that they have times in their life
when they have no sin, and when they've been challenged about
it, they'll still say, there are times in my life when I have
no sin. If you have a time in your life when you have no sin,
you don't need a saviour. It says, if we say we have no
sin, sin there is a noun. It's a being word, isn't it? If we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our
sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned,
sin there is a verb, it's a doing thing. So why do you sin? Because
you're a sinner. Martin Luther was so right, wasn't
he? Sin is my Christian name and sin is my surname. Sin is my name. If we say we
have not sinned, it's a verb, we make him to be telling lies. And, but
the troubling thing is, and his word is not in us. I want his word in me. Christ
in you, the hope of glory, he must be in me. And while you're there in 1 John,
let's read on, because this is the picture of Zechariah, and
the Joshua, the high priest. My little children, 1 John 2,
verse 1, these things write I unto you, that you sin not, There
is absolutely nothing in the Gospel and nothing about Christian
life that encourages sin in any way at all. It's not excusable.
We make excuses for it all the time
and we treat it so lightly. The only possible way your sin
can be dealt with is that God the Father must put it on His
Son and punish His Son infinitely and eternally for it. There's
no such thing as little sins. I write so that you sin not.
And, and that word can be just as easily translated, when. When. When any man sin, what do we have? Do we lose our
advocacy in heaven? Do we lose our representative
in heaven? No way in the world. If any man sin, or when any man
sin, we have, we have an advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ
the Righteousness, and He is the propitiation, He is the sin-bearing,
sin-absorbing, sin-removing, propitiation for our sins, and
not only for ours, but for the sins of the whole world. There
is no other Saviour for sinners in all of this world. No other
Saviour. We have an advocate. Sin is what
we are and therefore the sins that are done come out of what
we are and the only possible solution is a saviour like the
Lord Jesus Christ. She loved much that lady who
came to the Lord Jesus Christ. And she, like Joshua, was clothed
in filthy garments, and she was very obviously a very loose woman
and a despicable woman in the eyes of the Pharisees. And she
came in and she wept at his feet, at the feet of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And he said, her sins, which are many, are forgiven
her. And then he said, that's a simple equation, isn't it?
She's forgiven much because she loved much. She's loved much
because she's forgiven much. That's the equation of our God,
isn't it? Are your garments filthy? This
man's a high priest. And he's filthy. He's one of
a remnant of just a few. A great nation was planted in
the land of milk and honey and then they were reduced after
450 years down to just this remnant group of people. And he was one
of those chosen remnant ones that was to come back when he
was garments of filthy. He's a high priest that stands
before the angel of the Lord. What a special place it is to
be a priest. A special honour, isn't it? The
priest. why God declares that all of
his people are kings and priests unto God. We go into the presence
of God Almighty and what do we bring? We bring his son into
the presence of God Almighty. We come into the holy of holies
of God, into the very presence of God. That's what it is. The
remarkable description of us, we are kings and priests unto
God. He had access to God and he had
access by blood. We are a royal priesthood, a
holy nation, offering up sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. But there is an accuser of the
brethren and he stands at the right hand side of Joshua in
the presence of God to accuse. Satan never has to lie to accuse
you. He never has to lie to accuse
us. but he has to lie about our Saviour
to bring a charge against us. He has to lie about the Lord
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Satan, when he has his goods
captive, he tells people that they're too good and they're
too righteous Why on earth would you bother
about going to church? Look at all the fun we can have
in this world. You're not as bad as Hitler. God judges on
the curve. And when he comes to a believer,
he says to them, that you're too vile. You're too vile to
have hope. You're too vile to hope for mercy. You've sinned that sin again. All of your repentance and all
of your wishful thinking about changing is just a sham, isn't
it? He stands by. And it's interesting,
isn't it, that when Joshua is most vulnerable in the presence
of the Lord and in his filthy garments, Satan comes to accuse. And his accusations are based
on the law of Moses. He can say, well, here's what
God says and here's He doesn't have to lie. And what's Joshua's response? What's Joshua expected to do,
brothers and sisters, with this accusation, this accuser, and
him in the presence of God, and him with his filthy rags on? because he has someone who speaks
on his behalf. I just love the gospel accounts,
whenever the children of God... were accused, whether it was
Mary being accused by Judas, or whenever they had an accusation,
the Lord Jesus Christ does as he does all through the rest
of his life in ministry and with his people, he stands between
them. They're not asked to defend themselves.
We don't have to defend ourselves. We defend the glory of our Saviour. There he was in a hopeless state.
There he was accused. Were the accusations legitimate?
Absolutely. If you read the story in Ezra
chapter 10, you'll find that he had allowed his sons to marry
foreign wives. Here he was, the high priest,
defiling his own family. There he was in a hopeless situation. Who did the Lord Jesus Christ
come to save? He came to save sinners. There are three wonderful things
here that are revealed in God saving someone like this Joshua. And we're all, in a sense, as
children of God, in the shoes of Joshua, because Joshua is
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we're in him. But listen
to the three things. He says how God speaks, doesn't
he? He just needs to speak. We have
an advocate with the Father. He just speaks. He really does
speak on our behalf. And he says in verse two, the
Lord rebuke thee, Satan. Even the Lord that has chosen
Jerusalem rebuke thee. Is this not a brand plucked out
of the fire? The Lord has chosen, who has
chosen Jerusalem. Jerusalem's a picture of his
church, the Israel of God. It's all, we're all birthed by
the Jerusalem which is above. The Lord speaks. We have an advocate and God speaks
on our behalf. Our advocate speaks before us
and he holds his hands with those wounds and he sighed with those
wounds and he says, their sin is gone. You can bring any accusation
you like against the children of God and the advocate stands. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? Who shall lay anything to the
charge, Romans 8.33? It is God that justifies. To
be justified is to be declared by God to have no sin. To have
never sinned is what justified is. Who shall lay? There is now, Romans 8.1, there
is now no condemnation. The Lord has chosen Jerusalem
and he will rebuke you. The Lord will rebuke thee. There
is in this world a remnant, like these people were a remnant,
rescued out of Babylon. There's a remnant rescued out
of Babylon in this world. A remnant according to Romans
11.5, according to the election of grace. God's love language
is the language of love, of language of election and predestination. I love what it says in Ephesians
chapter 1. Isn't it wonderful that God chose
us before the foundation of the world? Did he know everything
that was going to happen to you? Do you know the sin? He did. He has chosen us in him before
the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good
pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace,
wherein he has made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have
redemption, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem. He rebuked,
there's no condemnation, there is a remnant. And he says, is
this not a brand plucked from the fire? I've plucked him out
of the fire. the fire of God's wrath that's
going to fall upon this world. I plucked him out of the fire.
He was one of the brands with all the other brands, but I plucked
him out. I plucked him out. And he says, verse four, he answered
and spoke unto those that stood before him, saying, take away
the filthy garments from him. And he said unto him, behold,
I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee. Where did the iniquities pass? They passed from Him to the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the glory of substitution
and satisfaction. It's the glory of redemption,
that all of the sins of God's people have passed from them
and they're passed onto the Lord Jesus Christ. And not only that,
not only are our sins taken away, He says, and I will clothe thee
with the change of raiment. But not only have our sins taken
away, brothers and sisters in Christ, we are robed now in the
very righteousness of God. And that is our robe, isn't it?
That's the robe in which we stand before the angel of God. And
in that robe, Satan can make all the accusations he likes,
and our Advocate stands there and says, they're in me, they're
mine. Don't you dare touch mine. You
touch them, you touch the apple of my eye, And we, as priests under God,
have access to the very holy of holies of God with his blood. Are we accepted there? Always
accepted. We flee to the fountain. Zechariah goes on in chapter
12 to speak of a fountain opened. a fountain opened for sin and
uncleanness. He says in verse 10, and I will
pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
the spirit of grace and supplication. The spirit of grace is a spirit
that causes us to plead. That's what supplication is.
We just cry out to him. And they shall look upon me whom
they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth
for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him as one
that is in bitterness for his forespawn. In that day there
shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of
Hadaradrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. And the land shall
mourn, and every family apart, and the family of the house of
David apart, and their wives apart, and the family of the
house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart, and the family of
the house of Levi apart, and the family of Shimei, and their
wives apart. In that day, Chapter 13 verse
1, there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David
and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and uncleanness. For sin and uncleanness there
will be a fountain opened. That's exactly what John says
happened on the cross. There's a fountain opened, water
and blood. your sins, the robe of righteousness
placed on all of God's children. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we thank you We thank you that we can be gathered by you out
of all the nations of this world, Heavenly Father, and we thank
you that we can be gathered to hear of your dear and precious
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to hear of his intercession, to
hear, Heavenly Father, that right now we have an advocate. We have an advocate who bears
the wounds of all of our sins being put away in his own body. Heavenly Father, this same Jesus
is coming back to gather his people to himself. And this same
Jesus will be the glory of all eternity. And we will cry, Heavenly
Father, all of your people will cry that he has washed us in
his blood, and he's gathered us to himself out of every tribe
and nation he's redeemed us. Oh, our Father, we pray that
you would glorify your name in glorifying your son in our midst,
that we would go from here into this world, knowing and having
seen our savior yet again, and having heard his word, Heavenly
Father, that comforts the hearts of your people. Bless your word
to our hearts, Heavenly Father, cause us to see your Son, to
see him high and lifted up, and for us to see ourselves in him.