Here this evening, if you have your Bibles, turn with me to Zechariah chapter 3, as we continue our study through the book of Zechariah. Zechariah had eight visions, and we’re looking this evening at a vision he had where the Lord revealed to him the priest Joshua. And before we begin, let’s just bow in prayer.
Lord, I pray that you just speak to us through your word this evening. Help us to understand the vision that Zechariah had concerning the high priest Joshua. And Lord, help us to see the significance of what he saw in his vision and how it even applies to us today. Lord, now speak to us through your word. May your Spirit guide and direct us, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Joshua was the priest that was at the time of Ezra, when Ezra was coming back and rebuilding the temple. And as you look at Joshua, who was the high priest in this vision, it’s interesting as you were looking at this, and let’s begin by reading this chapter. It is only ten verses long.
Let’s just read it and then we’re going to look at these verses.
Zechariah 3:1-10
And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him.
2 And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?
3 Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel.
4 And 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.
5 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.
6 And the angel of the Lord protested unto Joshua, saying,
7 Thus saith the Lord of hosts; If thou wilt walk in my ways, and if thou wilt keep my charge, then thou shalt also judge my house, and shalt also keep my courts, and I will give thee places to walk among these that stand by.
8 Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou, and thy fellows that sit before thee: for they are men wondered at: for, behold, I will bring forth my servant the Branch.
9 For behold the stone that I have laid before Joshua; upon one stone shall be seven eyes: behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.
10 In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbour under the vine and under the fig tree.
As we look at this particular portion of scripture, the first thing opens up and it’s given us a picture of where the real issue is, not only in the life of Joshua the high priest in the nation of Israel, but in our lives as well.
The picture is really of one where Joshua is standing, and one side is the Lord and the other side is Satan. And they are attempting to… Joshua is placed in a position where he is to choose who he will serve. Who is he going to listen to? Who is he going to follow? And Satan is there to try and destroy and undermine Joshua and his testimony, his ability to lead and cause him to fall into sin.
And we see this as it begins in verse 1. And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. Now we see the same attitude of Satan in the book of Job, where Satan is constantly there attempting to resist and tempt Job to sin and rebel against God. And the Lord allows Satan to do this and in the beginning of the book of Job it is revealed to us why.
It says that the sons of God were passing before the Lord and Satan came into the Lord’s presence and the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job? Now why did God do that? Why did the Lord put Job before Satan and say, Have you considered my servant Job? Well, it’s interesting because Job, as you read the book of Job, you begin to understand Job had an amazing attitude toward God. And he even makes the statement that no matter what happened to him, whether he should live or die, that wasn’t the issue. The issue was that he would always serve the Lord and look to the Lord.
It wasn’t the circumstances that he found himself in, but rather it was his eyes were put on the Lord and Jesus. Oftentimes Job was really challenged by his friends and also by his own wife to just curse God and die. That’s what his wife told him.
Why don’t you just curse God and die? And Job would not do that. Well, as we see, it’s a spiritual battle and it’s a battle where Satan wants to influence men to rebel against God and instead God sees those that are faithful and true to Him and calls them to follow Him and believe in Him and not even their circumstances. Now if you look at what’s happening to the nation of Israel when Zachariah has this particular vision, you remember that Israel was in ruins from the Babylonian invasions and they were just moving back into the land.
As we studied the last time we met last Wednesday night, we saw that there’s only 50,000 people that had come back at this particular time and that they had been discouraged when they began to rebuild the temple. They only had the foundation laid. They had nothing else up.
Israel was sent, commissioned really by God to go back and encourage them. Zachariah comes and tells them and he’s an encouragement to them. But then he shows them where the real battle is.
This is much more than just the nation of Babylon coming and attacking and destroying the temple, the city of Jerusalem and taking people into captivity. This is really a spiritual battle and at the heart of it is the souls of men and who are they going to believe. Joshua is in a situation where Satan is there and he’s attempting to get him to resist God and not believe in what God says.
Now I want you to know what is Joshua’s position. He is the spiritual leader of the nation of Israel at this time. Being the high priest, he is the one that is to be the leader of the nation of Israel, direct their spiritual direction for them and also he is to be the one that is to show them the way to this coming Messiah where they can be redeemed from their sins.
Satan will often go and attempt to get the spiritual leadership to turn their back on God and to fail because if he gets the leadership then the rest of the flock is easy. It’s like if you can destroy the shepherd, it’s easy to get the flock. And that’s really why Satan is coming and he’s resisting Joshua the high priest and he comes and stands at his right hand attempting to get him to rebel against God and to resist the Lord.
Verse 2, And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan, even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem, rebuke thee. Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? Now, a couple of interesting things that God says there. First of all, who does even the Lord say that we are to call on to resist Satan? The Lord.
Now, if God is giving this as a vision to Joshua on how he is to be able to overcome the spiritual issues that he is struggling with in his ministry in leading Israel, the discouragement of the people, the fact that God has commissioned him and called him back into the land to rebuild and they’re not doing it and he’s there to lead them and to show them the way of the Lord, what Satan wants to do is to have him be discouraged and he stops. And what happens is the Lord shows him, how do you resist Satan? Well, Joshua can’t do it in his own strength. You and I can’t do it in our own strength.
And when we are tempted by Satan and he comes and tries to destroy our trust and faith in Jesus, who are we to call on? Not our great ability, we’re not even to call on the other Christians, but rather we’re to go to the Lord and call on the Lord to rebuke Satan in our lives and to rebuke his control and his temptation and help us to stand firm as the Apostle Paul tells us in the book of Ephesians. We are to understand the wiles and the schemes of Satan. Satan’s schemes haven’t changed since the time of Job or the time of Joshua, the high priest of Israel, or even the time of David.
How did Satan come? He comes and he tries to deceive, he tries to discourage, he tries to, as God allows, like in the case of Job, God allowed him to touch Job, that Job’s faith and trust in God would be revealed and that Job could even grow stronger in his faith and trust in the Lord. So when the next time you have a problem or an issue that comes or there’s a sin you’re struggling with, who do you call on? You call on the Lord. And you call on the Lord to rebuke Satan.
It’s interesting, when Jesus was going with his disciples and he sent the 70 out and after they had been with him he said to go out and they were to go out and minister in the nation of Israel in the Galilee region and they went out and they came back and they were all excited because the demons, that they had cast out demons in the name of the Lord and the demons had responded and Jesus reminded them it wasn’t what you did but it was what God did through you. And the thing is, it’s the same thing with us. We need to understand it’s not what we do but it’s what God does through us and for us and it’s in His power that we can stand against Satan.
We live in very perilous times in the world today as we see that Satan has deceived really the majority of the people and you see that a lot of the people in the world today are deceived and they’re following in the ways of evil and Satan and they’re really promoting the things of Satan. And sometimes we as Christians can be discouraged and we think, well, what can we possibly do? Well, you and I have a power that is not our power but it’s the Lord working through us. And God says that we are to be salt and light in the midst of darkness and who gives us the ability to be salt and light? It is not us but it’s Jesus in working through us.
And so He comes to Joshua and He reveals the same thing unto him. And verse 2, The Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuked thee, O Satan, and even the Lord hath chosen Jerusalem. Rebuke thee is not this a brand plucked out of the fire.
Now, what does He mean by a brand plucked out of the fire? Jerusalem had rebelled against God, the people of Jerusalem. And yet God hadn’t given up on Jerusalem. He chastised Jerusalem.
Jerusalem had been overrun, the temple destroyed, but God was not through with Israel. And He’s telling in this vision to the people through Zechariah that God is not through with Israel and even though it appears that Satan has won, He hasn’t won. The Lord had picked Jerusalem out of the fire and it was to be that which had appeared to be destroyed yet God lifted it up and would once again cause it to be His city upon His mountain with His temple that one day He would rule from.
Verse 3, Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and stood before the angel. Now, why was Joshua clothed with filthy garments? Because he had been overcome by really sin and doubt and overwhelmed by what Satan placed before him and he was not walking in the power of God and he hadn’t experienced God’s transforming power in his life to the extent that he needed. And so it says he was walking in filthy garments.
Jesus gave the example of the people that were called that there was the wedding feast that was going to be and so the father of the groom sent out invitations for everybody to come to the wedding and none of the people that should have come, came. And so this feast was going to go on. The wedding wasn’t going to stop because these people that he invited wouldn’t come.
So what did he do? He sent out, he told his servants to go out into the highways and the byways and gather the people and bring in whosoever will come. And so all these people came and as they’re gathered for the wedding feast and these were not the ones that were initially invited but they were the ones that had come as they were by the invitation and they believed the invitation would come. There was one man who stood there and he came in filthy rags and dirty clothes and the person who was in charge who had done the invitation the father went and said why are you wearing these clothes? Why are you here dressed like this? This is a wedding.
And that man was actually cast out. Now why? What was the symbol of this? What was Jesus teaching in this parable? He was saying first of all the invitation had gone out to some that should have been able to hear it and come and they chose not to. And really in one sense that would have been the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the leadership of Israel and the Jewish people that rejected Jesus and wanted nothing to do with him.
They should have known. They had the invitation first but they chose not to come. He went out and he said go out and get all the rest that are in the highways and byways and bring them in.
That would be the time of the Gentiles where he went out and took the gospel to the Gentiles and he took to all who would hear and relieve the invitation and come. What was the problem with the one man? He had come but he really didn’t believe the reason why he was coming. He came unfit for the wedding.
And the thing is he was cast out because he came in filthy rags. As we see here Joshua is covered with filthy rags. That’s really a symbol of the sin in his life the sin in the nation of Israel the fact that Israel had rebelled against God.
Well what’s God going to do about this? What did God do with the filthy rags that we were wearing when we were given the invitation and what enabled us to come and be part of the wedding feast of the Lord one day but what enabled us to come and be part of that feast? Well the Lord is going to tell us as he reveals what happened to Joshua. And 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 a change of raiment. Now what did he say? What was the cause of the filthy garments? It was his sin it was his iniquity.
What was the cause of our filthy garments in our life? It’s our sin and that’s our iniquity. We can’t come into the presence of the Lord and seek to be used by God if we’re walking in our sinfulness and our iniquity and our filthy garments where we’ve really been influenced by the world. Joshua had been influenced by Satan and he hadn’t been listening to the Lord and all of a sudden the Lord comes and he says man’s covered in filthy garments take the filthy garments away and clothe him with that which will enable him to be able to come into my presence.
And who was the one that gave the change of garments? Who is the one that gives the change of garments in our life? Who transforms our lives? It’s the Lord. Now Joshua had to allow those that the Lord told him come to take off his filthy garments to take them off and to throw them away and to give him a new set of clothes he had to accept that. They weren’t doing it by force they had to accept that it would be done.