When Satan Accuses You

Text: Zechariah 3:1-10

Title: When Satan Accuses You Type: Expository

Purpose: Encourage hearer to be confident in their forgiveness and future.

Main Idea: God has given us clean clothes; He has forgiven all our sins.

Opening: Now He Has Something He Can Use Against Me. True story: there was a man in our congregation in Ohio who was very active in the church at large (the larger church in our area). He contributed spiritually to several local churches. Sometimes he had to contribute negatively to these local churches; he had to oppose error, had to stand against false doctrines or practices these churches had fallen into. Because of that, he had enemies in some of these churches; there were people who didn’t like him because he had opposed error in their churches in this way (particularly the proponents of those errors). At some point during my ministry with that congregation, this man’s wife left him. She left him in a real Sleeping With The Enemy sort of way (if you remember that Julia Roberts movie from 1991 or so). She had been secretly planning on leaving him for some time and one day she just implemented her plan; she put a couple things in motion and she was gone, surprising us all. This man, of course, was greatly distraught by her leaving. He was distraught about several things: distraught about her (because he loved her), distraught about what this would do to their kids, distraught about the financial ramifications. He was also distraught about what his enemies would say about this. That is the one I remember best. I remember this man talking about one of his enemies in particular (a former minister) and saying this: “Now he has something he can use against me.” Prior to this moment, this man had an exemplary Christian life; I think he said something like he checked off all the boxes or had all his ducks in a row; he had nothing anyone could pick at, in other words, no moral failure/sin anyone could fault him for. Now he did. Now one of his boxes was unchecked, one of his ducks was out of the row. Now he had a failure (moral failure, sin) that this enemy and other enemies could fault him for, could use against him, could exploit to silence or dismiss or shame him, could take as a reason to shut him up and shut him down. Right or wrong (and it is probably wrong), that was the reality. He saw it was the reality, and he expressed it was the reality. “Now he has something he can use against me.” Now he has something he can pick at. Now he has something he can exploit. Now he has something he can accuse me of.

All of us today are like that man. Whether we know it or not, we have enemies; we have at least an enemy, one particular enemy, a spiritual enemy, an enemy not of flesh and blood but of spirit, an enemy operating not on earth but in the spiritual realms; we call him “the devil”, Satan, Lucifer. And, again whether we know it or not, this enemy has something he can use against us/pick at/fault us for/exploit to silence/dismiss/shame us/shut us up and shut us down. He has something he can accuse us of. I know that very well; I have several such somethings; my failures/sins are numerous and obvious. Yours might not be; they might be very well hidden from all human eyes, even your own. But you have them. This man did (had more than what he thought, actually), and so do you, and this enemy knows and uses them. This enemy uses them not just on earth (though he might do that as well) but in heaven. He uses them in the heavenly temple. He accuses you of these things in the very presence of God with the intent of breaking your relationship with God.

Now that’s a terrible thing, as I’m sure you immediately understand. Fortunately, this enemy is not successful in the making of these accusations. He is not successful in the breaking of this relationship. We see this as God continues His revelations to Zechariah.

Read Zechariah 3:1-10

When Satan Accuses You. That’s what Zechariah is talking about here in Zechariah 3:1-10. That’s what God is telling Zechariah about here and what He is telling us through Zechariah here (Zechariah seems to understand this one better; he doesn’t seem to be as confused here as he was in the previous sections, but this is still what God is telling him here and what He is telling us through him here). When Satan accuses you. What to do/what to feel/what to think/how to understand and respond when Satan accuses you.