Filthy Garments3/28/2024 ![]() Zechariah 3:3 ~ "Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments." My dear friends, how ragged are our garments, stained with sin and death, when standing before the LORD? How desperate we are to be clean before Him, the Almighty Judge of mankind, and yet we stand before the LORD with such stains of sin that we cannot help but despise ourselves in His presence. Our text today is looking upon Joshua, the High Priest. And if the high priest is clothed in filthy garments, what hope do we have of standing before the LORD? There are many have that same disposition within their minds, dreading the reality that they have no means of purifying themselves. The stains of sin run all the way to the heart, and no amount of self-effort can remove our guilt before the LORD. It's as if you found a blemish of rot upon the surface of an apple and tried to dig it out--only to find that it goes all the way to the core. So it is with our sins. We find this in Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" And yet... let us turn our thoughts to the full story of Joshua the High Priest in Zechariah 3. For the story is not about the filthy garments, but about the cleansing of the LORD. And, beloved, we must see this to be true of all who have come to the LORD Jesus by faith and trusted in His provision for sin. Jesus Christ will cleanse us from sin and remove from us the filthy garments of our forgiven past. Zechariah 3:4 states, "And the angel said to those who were standing before him, 'Remove the filthy garments from him.' And to him he said, 'Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.'" My dear, dear friends, remember the words of the prophet in Isaiah 64:6, "We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment." The efforts that we make to try and purify ourselves before God are mere futility. It is God who must remove our filthy garments from us and that is done when we come by faith to Jesus Christ. Consider what our LORD promised to the church of Laodicea, "I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see" (Revelation 3:18). But how are we to "buy" what Jesus is offering? How can we afford such mercy and grace. We cannot. So God graciously covers the cost. He paid the price for our iniquity (see 2 Corinthians 5:21) and He offers freely to those who come to Him by faith the promised cleansing from sin. Consider what it says in Isaiah 55:1, "Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." If you sense the burden of sin still heavy upon you, come to the fountain of the mercy of Christ and listen to His promise to cleanse you. Take the encounter of the leper as an example of the work of Christ over sin. In Luke 5:12-13, "While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy. And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, 'Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.' And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, 'I will; be clean.' And immediately the leprosy left him." Seek the LORD, come to Him by faith and call out to Him. Expose your sin to Him, don't hide a single thing. You cannot cover up your sins before God anyhow, why try? He is more willing to cleanse you of sin and remove the filthy garments of this world than many are willing to come to Him by faith and seek His mercy. But if you come, the promise is clear. He has made atonement for sin--let Him be the atonement for you. In His Grace, Pastor Michael
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