Joshua’s Dirty Clothes
Bible Study Time (12-3-06)
Church links:
Bible Study Time (12-3-06)
In keeping with Jeremiah’s prophesy, the children of Israel were allowed to return to Jerusalem after 70 years of captivity in Babylon. Zechariah was born in Babylon, and he must have been just a young boy when he left for Jerusalem with his family of priests.
As Zechariah grew older, he served as a priest under Joshua, the High Priest, and it appears that Zechariah was still very young when the word of the Lord first came to him and singled him out as a prophet of the Lord.
In Zechariah’s book of prophecies, we find the first six chapters dedicated to several visions, which were all given to Zechariah in a single night. These visions relate to Jerusalem, and they declare that God will faithfully fulfill all of His promises concerning Jerusalem and the coming kingdom. What an encouragement his prophecies must have been to the Jews of his time and really to all believers since that time.
However, Zechariah’s vision in chapter 3 sort of stands out as you read through these visions. In this vision, Zechariah sees Joshua, the High Priest, standing before the Lord wearing filthy garments. But Satan is standing right there beside Joshua ready to bring an accusation against him.
Satan is an expert when it comes to spotting filth because when he sees filth, he sees an opportunity to at least stir things up and maybe destroy a few lives in the process. But Satan never really gets a chance in this vision to make his case against Joshua because before he can say a word, the Lord says:
Zechariah 3:2 (NKJ)
2 . . . “The LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?”
First, we see that the Lord does not allow Satan to gain any power as a result of his presence. Sometimes believers sense the presence of the devil, and they get all worried and worked up in a frenzy. But the Lord didn’t give that kind of power to the devil. He simply said, “The Lord rebuke you!”
I’m sometimes amazed at the power that the Christian community gives to the devil and the unsaved world. The unsaved world really gets all upset, and the media goes into a feeding frenzy anytime a public figure gets caught up in a scandalous situation. Well, it’s not too hard to see that this is the work of the devil. The devil loves to stir up these accusations, and we often give Him the power to magnify the result of his evil doing.
We need the power of God to deal with scandal and corruption the way God dealt with it here in Zechariah’s vision. When the devil tried to stir things up, the Lord simply said, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan!”
This kept the devil quiet so that the Lord could offer His true assessment of Joshua. He said, “Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?”
Well, we all know that those things that go through the fire, if they’re not destroyed, then they, at least, get pretty dirty. But we also know that they have a tendency to be purified and strengthened when they go through the fire. Therefore, the Lord said that Joshua was like a brand plucked from the fire. His garments were filthy, but He had been plucked from the fire before the fire could destroy him, and the process of going through the fire had made him stronger and even more pure.
Satan wanted to disqualify Joshua from serving the Lord, but God had other plans. Joshua’s sins were no problem for God to deal with. God simply gave the order for Joshua’s filthy garments to be removed, and then He gave Joshua the costly, festal robe that is required of the High Priest.
When the Lord gave Joshua this robe, He commanded His ministers to take away the filthy garments, and then He said to Joshua, “I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes." There was nothing that Joshua could have done to rid himself of those dirty garments, but all the Lord had to do was speak the word, and Joshua was cleansed and robed in his priestly attire.
As we look at this vision from our perspective today, we sense that there is something missing. We know that dealing with sin is not an easy thing, even for God. God is holy, and He can have no fellowship with sin. His justice requires that every sin be accounted for and punished with the appropriate punishment.
Romans 6:23 says that the appropriate punishment for any given sin is death. It doesn’t matter which sin; they’re all the same to God. God says that the wages of sin is death because if you’re guilty of breaking one law then you’re guilty of breaking them all. And the wages of sin is death.
However, praise the Lord, Romans 6:23 doesn’t end there. It says that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Jesus Christ took our sins upon Himself while He was hanging on the cross. He offered His blood as the payment for sin. Only a righteous man could do that. As God, Jesus Christ was righteous. As a man, Jesus Christ could die. And this is the gospel that God has delivered unto us:
1 Corinthians 15:3-4 (NKJ)
3 . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,
However, the death of Christ for sin was still a mystery back in the Zechariah’s day. As far as we know, Zechariah didn’t know the details concerning Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. If Zechariah knew about it, he certainly wasn’t allowed to say anything about it.
I should also mention the fact that the twelve apostles didn’t understand the full ramifications of Christ’s death or the full significance of His shed blood. That was a mystery, which God reserved for the Apostle Paul to reveal. In I Corinthians 2, Paul said:
1 Corinthians 2:7-8 (NKJ)
7 . . . we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory,
8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
If it had been common knowledge among the Jews that the Messiah was going to be rejected by the Jews and killed for the sins of the world, they would have been much more careful about turning people over to the Romans for execution.
Pilot might have had the courage to stand fast and say, no, to the execution of this Jesus of Nazareth if he had received a message from his wife, which specifically stated that the promised Messiah of the Jews was predicted to die to save those who believe from the clutches of hell. Paul said that if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
So Zechariah didn’t say anything specifically about the Messiah’s death, but God did allow Zechariah to give a hint concerning the work of Christ in his vision of Joshua’s filthy garments.
Joshua was like a brand plucked out of the fire, according to the Lord, but who was it that plucked Joshua out of the fire. Only the Lord Jesus could have done that. As Peter said:
Acts 4:12 (NKJ)
12 "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."
As we apply this vision to our own situation, we see that it was Jesus Christ who was willing to reach into our fiery condemnation to take us by the hand and lead us to life everlasting. Only Jesus Christ had the power to raise us up into the heavenlies to bless us with all spiritual blessings.
If we reach for something in a fire, we know that we can expect two things to happen. First, we can expect to get dirty, and second, we can expect to get burned. And this is exactly what we see in Zechariah’s vision.
When Christ reached down into the fire to pluck us out, He took the filth of our iniquities upon Himself, and He was burned by the fires of hell so that He could save us from the judgment that we deserved. Christ suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.
We’ve been looking at Joshua in this vision as a picture of all believers who have been saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, but I need to mention that as a matter of interpretation, Joshua is actually a picture of the nation of Israel.
Israel was sent away into captivity because of her sin, and the people suffered immensely during that time. Psalms 137 says that while the children of Israel were in captivity, the harps were hung upon the willows for there was no room in their hearts for a song. They experienced nothing but heartache and despair.
After their return to Jerusalem, God called Zechariah to encourage the people to continue their work of rebuilding the temple and the city of Jerusalem. This was the Lord’s work, and God was going to provide for their every need as they did this work.
Zechariah’s vision of Joshua’s filthy garments was given to show the fact that, yes, they were guilty of many transgressions against the Lord, but now God was ready to forgive their transgressions. It was God who had reached down and plucked them out of their captivity, and it was God who was now preparing them to receive all of the promises of God.
God wanted them to know that He still loved them, just like He loved them when He called them up out of Egypt. In Deuteronomy 7, the Lord said:
Deuteronomy 7:6-9 (NKJ)
6 " . . . you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth.
7 "The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples;
8 "but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
9 "Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments;
God still loved Israel in this same way. He couldn’t tell them everything about the work of the Lord Jesus, which He was planning, but He did tell them that He was planning to take away their iniquity and that He was planning to give them the robes that belong to the priests of God.
At Mt. Sinai, God had promised them that they would become a nation of priests. He said:
Exodus 19:5-6 (NKJ)
5 'Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.
6 'And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' . . .
God’s promise to Israel was that someday they would be the priests of God, serving the Gentile nations of the world, and revealing to them the righteousness of God.
In Zechariah’s vision, after the Lord gives Joshua his priestly robe, the Angel of the Lord says to Joshua:
Zechariah 3:8 (NKJ)
8 'Hear, O Joshua, the high priest, you and your companions who sit before you, for they are a wondrous sign; for behold, I am bringing forth My Servant the BRANCH.
This word BRANCH is expressed in all capital letters, and it refers to Israel’s Messiah. The angel said to Joshua that God was going to bring forth this BRANCH, and one of the best signs that God was actually going to do this was the fact that God had brought Israel back to Jerusalem from Babylonian captivity.
The angel said, in effect, if God is powerful enough to bring you and all of your people back to Jerusalem from Babylon, then He’s powerful enough to send the promised Messiah and fulfill all of His promises to Israel.
All of the promises of God were dependent upon God sending forth His Servant, the Branch of David, even Jesus Christ, the cornerstone of God’s plan and purpose for Israel.
When Christ shed His blood on the cross of Calvary, it was the blood of the New Covenant, which provided all that was necessary to redeem believers and the creation from the curse of sin. Therefore, after the death of Christ, everything was ready for the kingdom. The problem was that after the cross, Israel still refused to accept Christ as her Messiah. She refused to recognize Jesus as the promised Branch of David.
As a result, God set Israel’s kingdom program aside, and He started calling out a new body of believers who operate under a totally different program. Believers today belong to this body of believers known as the Church which is the Body of Christ. We have no expectation of entering into Israel’s earthly kingdom.
Someday, we will be caught up to be with the Lord in heaven, and then during the tribulation period God will once again offer the kingdom to Israel. Israel will at that time believe in Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ will return to the earth, defeat the antichrist and then rule and reign over the earth for a thousand years in a kingdom of righteousness and peace.
When I think of all these things, I have to say with the Apostle Paul:
Romans 11:33-36 (NKJ)
33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
34 "For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?"
35 "Or who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to him?"
36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.
Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time this morning. I’ll look forward to being with you again next week at this same time.
Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com
As Zechariah grew older, he served as a priest under Joshua, the High Priest, and it appears that Zechariah was still very young when the word of the Lord first came to him and singled him out as a prophet of the Lord.
In Zechariah’s book of prophecies, we find the first six chapters dedicated to several visions, which were all given to Zechariah in a single night. These visions relate to Jerusalem, and they declare that God will faithfully fulfill all of His promises concerning Jerusalem and the coming kingdom. What an encouragement his prophecies must have been to the Jews of his time and really to all believers since that time.
However, Zechariah’s vision in chapter 3 sort of stands out as you read through these visions. In this vision, Zechariah sees Joshua, the High Priest, standing before the Lord wearing filthy garments. But Satan is standing right there beside Joshua ready to bring an accusation against him.
Satan is an expert when it comes to spotting filth because when he sees filth, he sees an opportunity to at least stir things up and maybe destroy a few lives in the process. But Satan never really gets a chance in this vision to make his case against Joshua because before he can say a word, the Lord says:
Zechariah 3:2 (NKJ)
2 . . . “The LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?”
First, we see that the Lord does not allow Satan to gain any power as a result of his presence. Sometimes believers sense the presence of the devil, and they get all worried and worked up in a frenzy. But the Lord didn’t give that kind of power to the devil. He simply said, “The Lord rebuke you!”
I’m sometimes amazed at the power that the Christian community gives to the devil and the unsaved world. The unsaved world really gets all upset, and the media goes into a feeding frenzy anytime a public figure gets caught up in a scandalous situation. Well, it’s not too hard to see that this is the work of the devil. The devil loves to stir up these accusations, and we often give Him the power to magnify the result of his evil doing.
We need the power of God to deal with scandal and corruption the way God dealt with it here in Zechariah’s vision. When the devil tried to stir things up, the Lord simply said, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan!”
This kept the devil quiet so that the Lord could offer His true assessment of Joshua. He said, “Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?”
Well, we all know that those things that go through the fire, if they’re not destroyed, then they, at least, get pretty dirty. But we also know that they have a tendency to be purified and strengthened when they go through the fire. Therefore, the Lord said that Joshua was like a brand plucked from the fire. His garments were filthy, but He had been plucked from the fire before the fire could destroy him, and the process of going through the fire had made him stronger and even more pure.
Satan wanted to disqualify Joshua from serving the Lord, but God had other plans. Joshua’s sins were no problem for God to deal with. God simply gave the order for Joshua’s filthy garments to be removed, and then He gave Joshua the costly, festal robe that is required of the High Priest.
When the Lord gave Joshua this robe, He commanded His ministers to take away the filthy garments, and then He said to Joshua, “I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes." There was nothing that Joshua could have done to rid himself of those dirty garments, but all the Lord had to do was speak the word, and Joshua was cleansed and robed in his priestly attire.
As we look at this vision from our perspective today, we sense that there is something missing. We know that dealing with sin is not an easy thing, even for God. God is holy, and He can have no fellowship with sin. His justice requires that every sin be accounted for and punished with the appropriate punishment.
Romans 6:23 says that the appropriate punishment for any given sin is death. It doesn’t matter which sin; they’re all the same to God. God says that the wages of sin is death because if you’re guilty of breaking one law then you’re guilty of breaking them all. And the wages of sin is death.
However, praise the Lord, Romans 6:23 doesn’t end there. It says that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Jesus Christ took our sins upon Himself while He was hanging on the cross. He offered His blood as the payment for sin. Only a righteous man could do that. As God, Jesus Christ was righteous. As a man, Jesus Christ could die. And this is the gospel that God has delivered unto us:
1 Corinthians 15:3-4 (NKJ)
3 . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,
However, the death of Christ for sin was still a mystery back in the Zechariah’s day. As far as we know, Zechariah didn’t know the details concerning Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. If Zechariah knew about it, he certainly wasn’t allowed to say anything about it.
I should also mention the fact that the twelve apostles didn’t understand the full ramifications of Christ’s death or the full significance of His shed blood. That was a mystery, which God reserved for the Apostle Paul to reveal. In I Corinthians 2, Paul said:
1 Corinthians 2:7-8 (NKJ)
7 . . . we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory,
8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
If it had been common knowledge among the Jews that the Messiah was going to be rejected by the Jews and killed for the sins of the world, they would have been much more careful about turning people over to the Romans for execution.
Pilot might have had the courage to stand fast and say, no, to the execution of this Jesus of Nazareth if he had received a message from his wife, which specifically stated that the promised Messiah of the Jews was predicted to die to save those who believe from the clutches of hell. Paul said that if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
So Zechariah didn’t say anything specifically about the Messiah’s death, but God did allow Zechariah to give a hint concerning the work of Christ in his vision of Joshua’s filthy garments.
Joshua was like a brand plucked out of the fire, according to the Lord, but who was it that plucked Joshua out of the fire. Only the Lord Jesus could have done that. As Peter said:
Acts 4:12 (NKJ)
12 "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."
As we apply this vision to our own situation, we see that it was Jesus Christ who was willing to reach into our fiery condemnation to take us by the hand and lead us to life everlasting. Only Jesus Christ had the power to raise us up into the heavenlies to bless us with all spiritual blessings.
If we reach for something in a fire, we know that we can expect two things to happen. First, we can expect to get dirty, and second, we can expect to get burned. And this is exactly what we see in Zechariah’s vision.
When Christ reached down into the fire to pluck us out, He took the filth of our iniquities upon Himself, and He was burned by the fires of hell so that He could save us from the judgment that we deserved. Christ suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.
We’ve been looking at Joshua in this vision as a picture of all believers who have been saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, but I need to mention that as a matter of interpretation, Joshua is actually a picture of the nation of Israel.
Israel was sent away into captivity because of her sin, and the people suffered immensely during that time. Psalms 137 says that while the children of Israel were in captivity, the harps were hung upon the willows for there was no room in their hearts for a song. They experienced nothing but heartache and despair.
After their return to Jerusalem, God called Zechariah to encourage the people to continue their work of rebuilding the temple and the city of Jerusalem. This was the Lord’s work, and God was going to provide for their every need as they did this work.
Zechariah’s vision of Joshua’s filthy garments was given to show the fact that, yes, they were guilty of many transgressions against the Lord, but now God was ready to forgive their transgressions. It was God who had reached down and plucked them out of their captivity, and it was God who was now preparing them to receive all of the promises of God.
God wanted them to know that He still loved them, just like He loved them when He called them up out of Egypt. In Deuteronomy 7, the Lord said:
Deuteronomy 7:6-9 (NKJ)
6 " . . . you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth.
7 "The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples;
8 "but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
9 "Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments;
God still loved Israel in this same way. He couldn’t tell them everything about the work of the Lord Jesus, which He was planning, but He did tell them that He was planning to take away their iniquity and that He was planning to give them the robes that belong to the priests of God.
At Mt. Sinai, God had promised them that they would become a nation of priests. He said:
Exodus 19:5-6 (NKJ)
5 'Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.
6 'And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' . . .
God’s promise to Israel was that someday they would be the priests of God, serving the Gentile nations of the world, and revealing to them the righteousness of God.
In Zechariah’s vision, after the Lord gives Joshua his priestly robe, the Angel of the Lord says to Joshua:
Zechariah 3:8 (NKJ)
8 'Hear, O Joshua, the high priest, you and your companions who sit before you, for they are a wondrous sign; for behold, I am bringing forth My Servant the BRANCH.
This word BRANCH is expressed in all capital letters, and it refers to Israel’s Messiah. The angel said to Joshua that God was going to bring forth this BRANCH, and one of the best signs that God was actually going to do this was the fact that God had brought Israel back to Jerusalem from Babylonian captivity.
The angel said, in effect, if God is powerful enough to bring you and all of your people back to Jerusalem from Babylon, then He’s powerful enough to send the promised Messiah and fulfill all of His promises to Israel.
All of the promises of God were dependent upon God sending forth His Servant, the Branch of David, even Jesus Christ, the cornerstone of God’s plan and purpose for Israel.
When Christ shed His blood on the cross of Calvary, it was the blood of the New Covenant, which provided all that was necessary to redeem believers and the creation from the curse of sin. Therefore, after the death of Christ, everything was ready for the kingdom. The problem was that after the cross, Israel still refused to accept Christ as her Messiah. She refused to recognize Jesus as the promised Branch of David.
As a result, God set Israel’s kingdom program aside, and He started calling out a new body of believers who operate under a totally different program. Believers today belong to this body of believers known as the Church which is the Body of Christ. We have no expectation of entering into Israel’s earthly kingdom.
Someday, we will be caught up to be with the Lord in heaven, and then during the tribulation period God will once again offer the kingdom to Israel. Israel will at that time believe in Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ will return to the earth, defeat the antichrist and then rule and reign over the earth for a thousand years in a kingdom of righteousness and peace.
When I think of all these things, I have to say with the Apostle Paul:
Romans 11:33-36 (NKJ)
33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
34 "For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?"
35 "Or who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to him?"
36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.
Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time this morning. I’ll look forward to being with you again next week at this same time.
Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com
Church links:
