Zechariah chapter three. The
title of the lesson this morning is getting some new clothes.
Everybody likes to get some new clothes. I hate and despise to
go shopping for them. Janet often will go shopping
for me and bring home stuff for me to try and take back what
is not right. But I hate to go shopping for clothes, but I do
like to get some. And recently, I had to go shopping
to get a new suit for Holly's wedding. Janet and I went down
to Belk's Men's Store. Suits were on sale there, and
I also wanted to go there. Mitchell Patterson works there.
So here we were. There's three of us. Mitchell,
he was showing me the stuff that was available. There's Janet
telling me what looks good on me, and then there's me trying
on all these different variety of suits. I knew I wanted a black
suit. There are a lot of different
kinds of black suits. Every manufacturer has a different one. So I had
to make a choice, you know, try different ones on. And after
I tried several, I finally found one. I said, this is good. Janet
agreed. Mitchell agreed. And then Mitchell
went over to the register. He started fiddling around, putting
coupons, doing all this stuff. And he told me the price. I was
like, wow, that's so good. If you can get that price, I'm
going to get two. So I went through the whole procedure again to
get another one. And that went and paid the total price, and
everybody went home happy. Now remember that illustration,
because we're going to come back to it here at the end of the
lesson. In our text this morning, there's
a man named Joshua, who's a picture of every believer. And Joshua's
going to get some new clothes. But his experience in getting
new clothes, a new robe, is very different than my experience
at Bells. Man's religion makes getting a new robe of righteousness
just like my experience at Belk's. You got to go try a variety of
them on. You try a variety of different religions, a variety
of different ways to become and make yourself righteous. You
find a suit, a way to obtain that righteousness that fits
your personality. And over the course of your religious
life, you'll probably have to get several different ones. You
know, you ruin the first one you got. You may have to get
a different one. You have to turn over a new leaf. You got
to go find a new way to get it, get a different robe of righteousness.
And the common denominator in all of them is you got to make
the payment. You got to pay something. And when you get it, you got
to keep it clean. But that's not how God's word describes
God making his people righteous. Now, remember this. Scripture
calls this a robe of righteousness, but don't make the mistake to
think we're just simply putting on a robe that hides our sin
and corruption. The robe of Christ's righteousness
makes his people righteous on the outside and on the inside.
It's a heart work. And that's what Zachariah wrote
of in his prophecy. Now, Zachariah lived at the same
time that Haggai and Ezra. We looked at those two prophecies
earlier in our study. And Zechariah wrote to encourage
these men to devote themselves to the work that God had given
them. You remember God had given them the work to go back to Jerusalem
and rebuild the temple. And Haggai and Ezra needed some
encouragement. They needed a brother to encourage
them because they met with a lot of opposition, a lot of difficulty
in the work that God had given them. And Zechariah encouraged
his brethren the same way we're to encourage our brethren today.
You know, God's preachers, are not to encourage God's people
to serve the Lord by threatening them. We're not to threaten God's
people with fear that the Lord will punish you. We're not to
use the law to motivate people. You better do this or God will
punish you. You gotta keep the law. Tell you how Zechariah encouraged
his brethren. His name is a combination of
two words that means remembrance and the Lord. That's how Zechariah
encouraged his brethren. by causing them to remember the
Lord. He preached Christ to them. He
caused them to remember Christ by preaching Christ to them.
And you who believe know that's the only way to encourage a believer.
What inspires your heart to serve the Lord and to worship the Lord
more than hearing of Christ's love for his people? How he gave
himself as a sacrifice for the sins of his people? How he rules
and reigns over his people? And that's what Zechariah does.
He reminds his brethren of that. He plainly prophesies of Christ
in his book. In just 14 chapters, Zechariah
gives us more prophecies of the Messiah than any of the Old Testament
prophets with the exception of Isaiah. So let's look at these
first five verses of chapter three. See maybe if the Lord
won't inspire us to worship him and to serve him by seeing this
picture of Christ making his people righteous. Verse one of
Zechariah three. And he showed me Joshua, the
high priest standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan at
his right hand to resist him. Now here are three people involved
in this transaction. First, there's Joshua. Joshua
is a picture of all believers. He will see this in a moment.
He's been chosen of the Lord and he's the high priest. That's
a picture of believers. We've all been made kings and
priests and our God. And Joshua has been recently
delivered from bondage in Babylon. He was born in bondage to Babylon,
and then he was one of those ones who was set free from Babylon,
sent back to Jerusalem. And you remember Babylon's a
picture of false religion. God has set his people free from
the bondage of false religion. And he's the high priest, and
every believer, like I said, has been made a king and a priest
to God. I tell you what that means. It's the priest who is
the one who could come into the presence of God with a sacrifice,
couldn't it? Well, every believer at all times
can come into the presence of our God. There's Joshua, the
picture of the believer. Second, there's the angel of
the Lord. This angel is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the judge
of all the earth. He's the one who sits as the
judge in this transaction. And this is Christ. Almost always
in the Old Testament, when you read of an angel, you're reading
of Christ. It's not a, usually it's not
a created being. Almost always it's Christ. An
angel is a messenger. Well, that's Christ. He's the
messenger of the covenant. He's the messenger of God's grace
to his people. He's the message of salvation
and forgiveness of sins in him. And we'll see in a moment that
this angel is the one who's giving commandments to Satan, and he's
the one who's giving commandments to clothe Joshua. Well, that
can only be Christ, our King, the one who's giving the commandments.
And third, we read of Satan. Satan's there. He's called, if
you see in your center margin there, the adversary. Satan is
the adversary of God's people. Adversaries are always, you know
what, the only goal of an adversary is this, to defeat my enemy. An adversary is against someone,
he's always trying to defeat his enemy. That's Satan. Satan is the adversary of God.
He tried to take God off his throne. He's God's adversary. And Satan is the adversary of
men. Satan's the one that came to Eve to deceive her, to bring
sin into, caused man to sin, he deceived
her. And every time we read, seems like of Satan, with Job,
with Peter, and here with Joshua, he's there to accuse God's people
of sin. And he knows he'll win the whole
war if he can just bring an accusation that'll stick against just one
of God's people. If he can make an accusation
stick against one, cause one to be cast out, he'll win the
whole war. And it would appear Satan's got
a good case here. He has found someone, he can
be an adversary against an accused. Joshua, look here at verse three.
This is how Joshua is described. Joshua was clothed with filthy
garments and he stood before the angel. Joshua was there in
filthy garments. He's guilty. He's defiled with
sin. That's who Satan is there accusing. But here's where forgiveness
of sin, salvation begins. It begins with electing love.
Look at verse two. And the Lord said unto Satan,
the Lord rebuketh thee, O Satan, even the Lord that hath chosen
Jerusalem rebuketh thee. Is not this a bran plucked out
of the fire? At first, Christ our Savior tells
Satan, the Lord rebuketh thee. The whole Godhead rebuketh thee.
And only God has the power to do that. Only God can rebuke
Satan. You know, it's just laughable
when mere men say, I rebuke Satan. You know, Satan was tempting
me to sin and I rebuke Satan. No, you didn't. No, you did not. You and I have no defense against
Satan. How many times does that have
to be proven to us? Eve had no defense against Satan. She just
fell like a house of cards, didn't she? Job had no defense against
him. Peter had no defense against
him. Judas had no defense against him. And we won't either if Satan
sets his sights upon us. But what an encouragement to
know our God does rebuke him. He rebukes Satan. And Satan is there being the
adversary. He's accusing Joshua. But you'll
notice Joshua is silent in this whole thing. He never says a
word. Satan is there accusing Joshua.
Joshua never one time defends himself. Never once did he say,
I didn't do it. Because he did. Never one time
did he say, that's not so. Because the accusation was true.
Never one time did he say, well, that's true, but I promise to
do better next time. Because he won't. He won't do
better next time. All he's capable of is sinning.
He just stands there completely silent. If you look in Romans
chapter 3, that's exactly why God gave the law. True repentance
and an understanding of our guilt will always leave us silent before
the Lord. And that's why God gave the law.
Romans 3 verse 19. Now we know that what things
soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law.
that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become
guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. For by
the law is the knowledge of sin. All the law can do us is give
us a knowledge of our sin. So we stop our mouths. Every
mouth is stopped and we're silent before the Lord. So here we have
Satan standing to accuse Joshua. Joshua's standing there silent. unable to defend himself. But
you'll notice that Christ the judge, he doesn't even entertain
any charges against Joshua. He doesn't even entertain them.
There's no reason for God to entertain any charge against
any of his people. He says, now this, it's obvious.
He tells Satan, this is one of my elect. I chose him unto salvation. And because I chose him unto
salvation, I plucked him out of the fire. I picked him and
plucked him out of the fire. I've washed him in the blood
of my son. Christ was made sin for him.
Yes, he's guilty, but Christ was made sin for him. And Christ
took his sin away and put it away, blotted it out forever
under the blood of his sacrifice. So it's utterly foolish to bring
any charge against any of God's elect. And that's comforting
too, isn't it? Look at Romans chapter eight. The Lord would not even entertain
any charge against one of his elect. Romans 8 verse 1 tells
us why. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the spirit. For the law of the spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death. No charge of the law can ever
be brought against any of God's elect, because Christ satisfied
the law for them. and they're dead to the law.
The law has no relationship with them, so the law can't charge
them. Look over verse 33 of Romans 8. Who shall lay anything to
the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifieth. Who
is he that condemneth? It's Christ that died, yea, rather
that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who
also maketh intercession for us. God's elect cannot be charged
with sin, because Christ justified them. Christ has made them without
sin. There's no sin to charge them
with. And it's Christ himself who intercedes with them, with
the Father. Well, no charge can ever stick
against them because our intercessor always pleads his blood. He never
says they didn't do it. He pleads his blood to atone
for that sin, to atone for that charge. He pleads his blood that
washed his people white as snow. But now God's elect weren't always
that way. No, they weren't born into the
world that way. They were born in sin. Look back
in our text in verse 2. At the end of verse 2, this is
how Joshua is described. Is not this a brand plucked out
of the fire? Now Joshua was clothed with filthy
garments and stood before the angel. Joshua is a brand plucked
out of the fire. Remember, he represents all of
God's elect. All of God's elect are sinners
who deserve to be cast into hell for their sin. But God reached
down and he plucked them out. Now that sovereign, distinguishing
grace, there's a brand in the fire. God reached down and singled
it out and plucked it out. Left the rest there, but that
one that he chose, he plucked out of the fire. God has chosen
to deliver his people from their sin and he's plucked them out
of it. But he's a brand plucked from the fire. Have you ever
smelled wood that's been in a fire? Maybe a house has been on fire.
Even the house is still standing. The frame is still there. That
place smells like smoke, doesn't it? And it's almost impossible
to get the smell of smoke out of it. Long after the fire has
been put out, the smell of the smoke is still there. You just
almost can't get rid of it. That's a believer. The brain
plucked from the fire. We've been saved from sin, but
we're still in the flesh, aren't we? We've been saved from sin,
but we sure smell a whole lot like it. We got the smell of
smoke on us. And the only way that smell of
sin, the only way the contamination of sin can be removed is if we're
washed in the blood of Christ. And that's what Christ the Savior
pleads for every one of his elect when he intercedes for them.
He pleads his precious blood that cleansed them from all sin. Right now, we got the smell of
smoke on us. But one day we won't. One day
Christ is going to return. He's going to gather his people
and he's going to take them to glory. Well, they'll be perfect.
And we won't have to deal with that smell of the smoke on us
anymore. Now that's what Joshua's filthy
garments are all about. His filthy garments are his sin,
his righteousness, his works of righteousness, which are nothing
but sin. Now that's us. We're born in
sin. We're clothed in our sin. Our sin has covered us. And if
God's going to accept us, it's got to be removed. It's got to
be taken away. But unless God moves in power
and grace, we're going to trust in that righteousness and our
works of righteousness, our works in the law to try to cover us.
But God tells us about our works. that the very best we can do. I mean, you think about the best
work you've ever done. You know what God calls that? God calls it a filthy rag. He
calls it a rag defiled with sin, which is no covering at all.
So what's to be done with our sin? What's to be done with our
rags of righteousness? Well, verse four, our Savior
tells us. He answered and spake unto those that stood before
him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him
he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee,
and I will clothe thee with change of raiment. Now here's a picture
of how sin's forgiven. Now this is real sin of a real
sinner. And this is how Christ takes
that sin away and makes his people righteous. The Savior says to
those that stand by, you take those filthy garments from him.
Take them off of him. Now, he said you're going to
have to take them from him. Joshua didn't start taking them
off. They had to take them from him.
Joshua was clutching to those garments for all he's worth.
They're polluted with sin, but they're all he's got to cover
his nakedness. And he's clutching them for all
he's worth. But Christ says, you take them
away. Now, whoever took them away had
to put some effort into it. How much effort somebody had
to put to take your clothes off you? They put some effort into
it. And that's the stripping of a
sinner. It's not an easy process. It's not a painless process.
It's the stripping of a sinner. But before God saves anybody,
that's what He's going to do to them. He's going to strip
them. He's going to strip them of everything they trust in so
that they're naked before Him. So He reveals to us and He reveals
to everybody else what we are by nature. Wednesday night, we
looked at Isaiah chapter 52. Remember, the Lord told His people
as they were leaving Babylon, touch not the unclean thing. We're the unclean thing. So what's
He telling us? Our deeds are the unclean thing. God says, don't touch them. Don't
depend on them to make you acceptable with God. Our deeds are the unclean
thing. Don't touch them. Don't depend
on them to cover your nakedness because God cannot accept you.
God cannot even look on you in your rags of your own self-righteousness
because they're offensive to God. All they are is sin. So Christ the Savior says, Take
them away from him. Strip them off of him. Now those
garments, they're what Joshua produced and all they are is
sin. But Christ says, Joshua, I've
taken your sin away from you. Then what he says, I've caused
thine iniquity to pass from me. How can he say that? How can
he say, Joshua, I've taken your sins from you. I've caused them
to pass from you. They're Joshua's sins. They belong to him. He did them and he deserves the
punishment and condemnation for them. How can the Savior say,
I've taken your sins from you? Because that's what he did. He
took the sins of his people away from them at Calvary. The sin
of God's elect was charged to Christ our substitute. And his
own father put him to death for those sins that were charged
to him. And those sins were forever put away through the sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the good news of the gospel. How encouraging is that to the
heart of a believer? Christ has taken your sin away.
He's caused it to pass away from you by taking it into himself
and his body on the tree. But until we're born again, we
will still insist to trust in our own righteousness. to trust
in those filthy rags to cover our nakedness. And in the new
birth, that sinner is stripped. He's stripped of everything he
hopes God might be pleased with. He's stripped naked before God.
He's humiliated because he's revealed for what he really is.
But then God says, through the gospel, behold, I've caused your
iniquity to pass from you. I've taken your sin away at the
cross. I'm not going to leave you naked. I'm going to clothe
you in the righteousness of my son. Our filthy garments are
what we produced. The righteousness of Christ is
what he produced, what he produced as a man for his people. Now,
remember, I told you that the robe of Christ's righteousness,
it's not a covering for our sin, what Scott Richardson called
a pasted on righteousness, just covering our corruption. The
robe of Christ's righteousness is the complete removal of our
sin and making the believer righteous both inside and out. That's what
verse five tells us. And I said, let them set a fair
mitre upon his head. So they set a fair mitre upon
his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the
Lord stood by. I'll tell you what this fair
mitre is. It's the hat, the mitre or the
turban that the high priest wore on the day of atonement. And
what this is telling us is these righteous garments that God's
elect are clothed in, they're the righteousness of Christ,
our high priest. Being clothed in the righteousness
of Christ makes us as righteous as God's own son. That's what
that hat's a picture of. Remember in our study of the
tabernacle, what was the gold written on that gold band on
the high priest's mitre? Holiness to the Lord. God crowns
His people. He covers His people with holiness. With the holiness of Christ and
makes them righteous in Christ. Now here's Joshua. He's covered. He's given a new set of clothes.
He's made perfect and righteous in Christ. And he still hasn't
said a word, has he? Joshua is completely passive
in this whole transaction. He never says anything and he
never does anything to deserve any of God's mercies. He's just
standing there silent. God gives it and Joshua received
it. God put it on and Joshua wore
it. My friend, if God ever saves
you, you'll be completely passive in the whole transaction. You
won't do anything to deserve it, God's gonna give it to you.
You won't do anything to earn it, God's just gonna give it
to you. You won't put it on, God'll put
it on and you'll wear it. You'll cry for mercy, but God's
gonna open your mouth and make you cry for mercy. We'll see
that in the message in just a little bit. He'll pour upon you the
spirit of supplication. You'll cry for mercy, but because
he put it in your heart to cry, Now, do you see how that's encouraging
to a sinner? I don't have to do anything.
Christ has already done it all. And if Christ undertakes to save
me, I'm going to be saved. If Christ intercedes for me,
I will be accepted. I'll be accepted in His person,
through His blood. And salvation that is accomplished
this way is so much better than any salvation, any so-called
salvation that we've got to earn or that we've even got to contribute
to in some way. This is so much better. Full,
free salvation. Perfect righteousness in Christ
our Savior. Now, you remember that suit I
bought from Mitchell? This robe of righteousness is
so much better than trying to earn a robe of righteousness
that way. I had to try several suits on
before I found one that fit. The righteousness of Christ is
a perfect fit for every sinner, every time. There's just one.
There's not a variety, there's just one. One size truly does
fit all, if you're a sinner. I bought a suit that I thought
would be good for a wedding. The righteousness of Christ is
the perfect covering for every day. I don't care where you are.
I don't care what you're doing. I don't care where you're going.
You trust in Christ your righteousness every day. He's the perfect fit
for every situation. Now, I bought a new suit. And
I don't know, I don't know how many suits I bought over the
course of my life, but I bought enough to know this. That suit
I bought is going to be replaced someday. You know why I had to
buy a new suit? I've outgrown all my old ones.
I can't button them anymore. I had to get a new one. I'll
probably outgrow this one too. And if I don't, it's going to
get old and threadbare. It's going to be replaced. The robe of Christ's righteousness.
Christ your righteousness is all you'll ever need. It'll never
grow old. It'll never wax old and you'll
never outgrow it. It's the perfect fit. That suit
I bought from Mitchell. Mitchell got me a good price.
But I still had to pay for it. I had to pay the full price.
Whatever he rang up there on the register, that's what I had
to pay. If I didn't, I wouldn't get in my suit. The righteousness
of Christ is free. Now, any sinner can afford that.
Any sinner can afford free. But now listen, it's free. You can't make a down payment
on it. You can't help make a payment. As long as you've got nothing
to pay, as long as you've got nothing that you think will recommend
you to God, you have righteousness in Christ freely. This is another
thing I learned about suits. They've got to be clean. That
suit I bought for Mitchell is going to have to be taken to
the dry cleaners, probably after I wear it one time. That wedding,
I'm probably going to get cake on it or punch or whatever, it's
going to be taken to the dry cleaners. The righteousness of
Christ will stay perfectly white and perfectly clean forever.
We're sanctified in Him and cannot lose it. Now that's the gift
of God's grace to His people. Does that encourage you to worship
Him? Does that out of a thankful heart encourage you to worship
the Lord and serve the Lord? I pray it will. I tell you it
will. That message of grace, that message
of free, full salvation in Christ will encourage your heart if
God's given you a new one. If that doesn't encourage your
heart to worship Him and to serve Him, there's a heart problem. Pray that God give you a new
heart. Because this message of grace, this robe of perfect righteousness
in Christ, will encourage God's people to worship Him and serve
Him. God help us to do that out of
a pure motive, out of a heart that desires His glory and the
good of His people. Alright, I hope the Lord will
bless that too.