Filthy Clothes
By Pastor Jim May
We are going to have a very special guest in our service next Sunday. I hope all of you will put on your best suit of clothes. This guest is very well-liked by many, and hated by some. He is extremely wealthy and is considering making a huge donation to our church, so let’s treat him well. Be cordial and make sure that he feels welcomed into our midst. I have learned that he has heard of our story and would like to come by and see what our church is doing. So when he arrives, put on a smile and be your best.
No, it isn’t the President, nor is it a senator or representative and he is not a prominent local business man. .
Now if we knew for a fact that the President and his entourage were going to be here next week, you can bet that the church would be bursting at the seams with people who wanted to come and see what he had to say. Cars would be lined up from our parking lot, filling our into the parking lot across the street, and lined up down both sides of the highway for a half mile in every direction. If you didn’t get here hours before service started you probably wouldn’t be able to get in at all. And if you came late, you’d be very disappointed because you couldn’t even get into your own church for all the visitors.
If the president was coming, we’d do a lot of cleaning and fixing up, even more than we have already, so that we could make a good impression. If the President was coming, every radio and TV news channel would be here to record his speech. If the President was coming, there would be very few emergencies that would outweigh the opportunity to meet him in person and shake his hand.
But the President isn’t coming, so don’t get excited. But the one who is coming should excite you even more because he is the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and He is here for every service, to see what His church is doing.
Many churches and ministers have begun to treat the church as though it was a social club instead of the House of God. Most don’t bother to put on their best clothes anymore. There are many people that have developed the idea that it’s not necessary to dress up to go to church. It’s all about comfort
No, I don’t believe it’s necessary to wear a suit every time the church doors are opened, but I do believe that we should present ourselves the best we can in honor of the God that we serve. I would no more go to church and stand before the people dressed casual than I would do go to the White House for a State Dinner with the Queen of England. It never ceases to amaze me that we have more reverence, more respect and more manners around men of high rank, than we do in the presence of Almighty God in his own house.
But I’m not really here to talk about what you wear to church. I’m not going to try to tell you how to dress, what to wear and not to wear. I will let the convicting power of the Holy Spirit deal with your heart. That way you can’t get upset with me for laying down a dress code.
I want to show you something in the Word of God that talks about what we have on. But it isn’t really talking about the clothes you are wearing. It is talking about the spiritual clothes that you have on everywhere you go, all the time.
Did you know that, if you are Born Again and saved, that you occupy the office of the priesthood?
1 Peter 2:9, "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light:"
Not only are you a priest, but you are more than that. If you consider what you are capable of doing as a priest, then you would know that you are a “High Priest” right now. Your aren’t the Great High Priest, but you have an access to God that only the High Priest of Israel had in the Tabernacle of the Old Testament. Since you are a High Priest, it will be good for us to know just exactly how we measure up to God’s standards.
Hebrews 4:14-16, "Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."
That’s where this morning’s message comes in. The Book of Zechariah gives us a vivid picture of our condition before God. It is a story about a vision that God gave to Zechariah and in that vision Joshua is standing before the Throne of God. He is representing you and I, the church, the Royal Priesthood, as in the realm of the Spirit, we appear before God every day.
You may not have thought of it in this fashion before but I want you to know that your name comes up before God in Heaven on a continual basis. Not a single day goes by without your life coming up before God so that the deeds you do in the flesh can be examined. Your faithfulness, service, attitudes, thought processes – in other words, everything about you is under constant critique by the courts of Heaven.
Now let’s read Zechariah 3:1, "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."
There is Joshua, the high priest, representing you and I, and the church as a whole, as we appear before God continually in the spirit for examination. He’s dressed in his priestly garments, made according to God’s direction by the hands of men as directed by Moses in the beginning.
But I want you to notice something here. Even though God ordered and gave the plans for the garments of the priest, and even though Moses and the people had made them exactly as God had said, they were still filthy garments in the sight of God.
Why is this so? Let’s look at ourselves for a minute and you will see why.
Psalms 37:23, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way."
Ephesians 2:10, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."
In reading these scriptures we see that we are being led by the Lord, directed by the Holy Spirit and presented before the Father in Heaven as his own dear children. But like Joshua, even though we stand in the very robes that God designed, we are still filthy in his sight.
Isaiah 64:6, "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away."
Now matter how hard we try, or what we do, we can never cleanse the sin that clings to our garments. Though we are considered as priests, yet our lives are tainted by sin, and no matter how much we try, we always stand before God in filthy rags. That’s the best we can do on our own. But thank God, it doesn’t end there.
The thing that you need to see here is that no matter what you do, you will always stand accused by Satan before God. He is ever searching for that one thing that he can accuse you of doing so that he can try to enforce his claim upon your soul. Sin separates you from God. Sin condemns you to be the slave of the devil, and the devil doesn’t like to give up his slaves without a fight. No matter how long you live for God, you will be constantly faced with the Accuser of the Brethren, Satan himself, who is always pointing out every fault and failure to God.
1 Peter 5:8, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:"
Satan walks this world constantly, and he has his fallen angels with him, watching every move you make and reporting them back to Satan. He is constantly building a case against you, and sad to say, we always give him a lot of material to work with. There is rarely a day that goes by when we don’t so something or say something that he can use against us. Many things that we don’t even think of are recorded in his book. We might forget it, but he doesn’t. He knows that all it takes is one sin that is allowed to stand, and we are his again, for only one sin is enough to condemn us for eternity.
Zechariah 3:2, "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?"
Here’s a picture of Our Lord Jesus Christ, stepping forth as our Advocate, lawyer for the defense, before the courts of Heaven. You have the best defense lawyer in the universe. He has never lost a case and he won’t lose yours either. With one word, he silences Satan’s accusations and reminds him that you are bought with a price.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20, "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s."
1 John 2:1, "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:"
Zechariah 3:3-5, "Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel. 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. 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."
Once Satan’s accusations have been silenced, then we see what Jesus has done for us by His blood on the cross. Joshua’s filthy garments, his priestly robes made by flesh, are replaced and he is given a whole new garment to wear, one that is pure, white and holy.
These garments are something that Joshua earned, but they are a free gift from the Lord. He takes away our sin and filth by the cleansing power of his blood, and then we are clothed in righteousness by His grace and mercy. Our sin is removed forever and forgotten.
When you take your dirty laundry and throw it in the washing machine to clean it, you don’t sit outside when the machine drains the dirt away and try to find every piece of dirt again. You simply wash it away and forget it was there. That’s the way that your sins are washed away too.
Hebrews 8:12, "For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more."
Then the Lord gives another command. He says to put a fair mitre upon Joshua’s head. What is that fair mitre?
In the Old Testament the High Priest was given a mitre to wear upon his head. It was a symbol of pure and right thinking. It was a symbol of having the Mind of Christ and the ability to think and meditate upon Holy Things and not to be caught up with the mindset of the world.
It was a turban or sorts, made of pure white fine linen. The Hebrew word for the mitre was “diadem” but it was translated later to say “mitre”. On the front of the mitre was a golden plate with the inscription “Holiness to the Lord”. This mitre separated the office of the High Priest from the regular priesthood in the tabernacle.
Can I tell you that it takes a whole different mindset from the rest of the church world today if we are going to be a true High Priest unto God? While the rest of the church is caught up in thinking about wealth, prosperity, compromise, satisfying the desires and needs of the flesh, and wondering whether there is really a Heaven, or if hell is a real place, or if we really do need to live a sanctified, holy lifestyle, we, as High Priests must be thinking of only what the Word of God teaches and what the Holy Spirit is saying to the church.
With the mitre upon our heads, spiritually speaking, then we must have our thoughts on Heavenly and eternal things and not on the things of the world. We must fulfill the scriptures that we find in Philippians 4:8, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."
You can’t fix yourself to think right. It has to be done for you by the Great High Priest. Of course, even after your thinking has been made right, you can still choose to ignore God and think any way that you want. But you won’t enter Heaven unless you allow your mind to become one with Christ and do His will.
The scriptures say that while all of this happening the Angel of the Lord stood by. That’s telling us that Jesus is always nearby, watching over us and taking care of everything we need.
David said in Psalms 34:15, "The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry."
Zechariah 3:6-7, "And the angel of the LORD protested unto Joshua, saying, 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."
The Angel of the Lord, the Spirit of Christ, the Lord himself speaks up and makes an oath, or a promise that cannot fail to Joshua. We have that same unfailing promise today. As always the promises of God are conditional upon our obedience to his commandments.
“If you will walk in my ways”; not your own ways, or the ways of a preacher, or the ways of your friends, but in the Lord’s ways of faith, truth, righteousness is the first prerequisite to obtaining the promise.
Secondly, we must “keep his charge”. WE must obey his commands without question as given in His Word.
If we fulfill our part then God will allow us the blessings. In Joshua’s day, the priesthood had become corrupt. Priests could be bought for a small price to make judgments in favor of the one paying the bribe. Injustice and immorality filled the ranks of the priesthood. Now God is saying that he will restore righteousness and authority to the priesthood.
That’s what needs to happen in the church today. The Bible says that judgment must begin at the House of God. Judgment against un-repented sin in the church must come before the church can be purified. Nothing hurts the cause of Christ more than to hear of immoral, crooked and impure ministers.
Large ministries have been destroyed because of immorality in the leadership. Churches have been shut down because ministers were involved in sexual immorality and crooked financial dealings. Souls are being lost because of priests in the House of God who won’t live holy before God.
Not only that, but hireling ministers are selling out to the world for the sake of their own pocketbooks. All they are concerned about is getting huge numbers for the sake of large offerings and a big name. Where is the real concern for lost souls? They can claim that many are being saved but where are the fruits of righteousness? Where are the works that follow true faith? Where is the spiritual growth and maturity that will surely come if we are truly born again? Why is that most people can get saved and still remain in their old lifestyle? The answer is that they can’t. If you are going to truly serve the Lord then you have to begin a whole different lifestyle.
Zechariah 3:8-10, "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. 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. In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbour under the vine and under the fig tree."
This to me is a reminder that Jesus is coming soon. In Joshua’s day, they were looking for the coming of the Messiah, and yet when Jesus came, Israel didn’t know him and wasn’t ready. They were rejected as a people for many years.
Now we are still waiting for His coming. Will we be ready? Will we know him when he comes, or will we miss it like Israel did? We can’t afford to miss the Second Coming of Christ.
He is the cornerstone upon which everything is built. But we are also stones. We are called “lively” or living stones. Our names are recorded in Heaven and we’ve been given a new name in Glory.
It won’t be long until God will destroy sin once and for all. A new age of peace and rest will come upon this world. In one day of judgment, it will all come to pass. Then we who are God’s royal priesthood will enjoy Heaven together.
But where does that leave the sinner? As you can see, the church is only going to make it into Heaven because of the Blood of Jesus and his “gift of righteousness”. That gift is only received by accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
What about those who don’t accept Christ? If you don’t know Jesus this morning as your Savior and King, then you won’t be in that number when the saints go marching in.
1 Peter 4:18, "And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?"
If you are Born Again by the Holy Spirit and cleansed by the Blood of Jesus then you won’t be saved. There is no other way.
Hell is a very real place. It is called Gehenna, Hades and other names as well. It is a place of eternal fire and punishment. It is likened to the refuse dump of Jerusalem that was in the valley of Gehenna. The fires from the refuse burned day and night, never going out. All of the garbage of the city was thrown there.
The refuse of mankind who reject Christ will be cast into the fire, not to be consumed or purified, but to be forever burning in judgment and separated from God.
So, what it boils down to is this. You can either serve God faithfully as a High Priest, and receive a robe of righteousness and a holy city, or you can be cast away forever as though you were garbage. Which will it be?
