Evening Sermon - 1st November 2026 - Grace, Satan's Accusations, and Christ the Branch

Now shall we turn in our Bibles if we could to Zechariah chapter three please?

Zechariah chapter three and we're going to take time to read the whole chapter.

It's a short chapter.

So Zechariah chapter three and this is the vision of Joshua the high priest.

As you know Zechariah has various visions and this is one of the visions that he has in this particular time in his life.

So Zechariah chapter three Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.

And the Lord said to Satan, The Lord rebuke you Satan.

The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you.

Is not this a bran plucked from the fire?

Now Joshua was standing before the angel clothed with filthy garments.

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.

They said, 'Let them put a clean turban on his head.' So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments, and the angel of the Lord was standing by.

And the angel of the Lord solemnly assured Joshua, Thus says the Lord of hosts, 'If you will walk in my ways and keep my charge, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here.

Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you for they are men who are assigned.

Behold, I will bring my servant the branch.

For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave his inscription,' declares the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day.

In that day declares the Lord of hosts, every one of you will invite his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree.

Amen.

Now as you know on Sunday evenings we're looking at the book of Zechariah and the book of Zechariah is God's inspired word to encourage his people and it was written especially for those who God brought back from exile in Babylon.

And God was bringing them to back from Babylon.

He was bringing them to the position whereby had the opportunity of coming to them.

And as he came to them he was seeking at all times to restore them to the position that he was seeking that they would be restored to where they would rebuild the city of Jerusalem.

And it was a great task and they needed strong encouragement in this task so in Zechariah's prophecy much is given in visions as I've already intimated God makes many promises to his people and He speaks to those who have returned from exile to carry out this great task of rebuilding.

However the application of this book doesn't stop there.

It doesn't stop at the people who had come back to rebuild Jerusalem.

It doesn't only stop at the exiles but this is God's Word for every age.

This is God's Word for you and me in our day and generation.

And there are promises here for all who belong to the Messiah.

For all who belong to the Lord Jesus Christ.

There are promises here for God's Word and God's people.

And then a question arises, how can these promises of blessing be spoken to people who are deeply stained by sin.

How can God promise great things to people who don't deserve His blessing?

These people were unworthy.

They deserve judgment.

They don't deserve blessing.

How is it possible for God to bless the sinful people?

And when we look at our own hearts and lives we know that there is a great gulf fixed between us and a holy God.

And there is a gulf between the reality of our lives and the holiness of God.

How can that gulf be bridged and how can God bless a sinful people like you and me?

How can God bless a people like those exiles who came back from Babylon to Jerusalem?

And this evening I want us to think about Zechariah chapter three and here God gives the prophet a new vision.

And we've seen God give Zechariah a series of visions in a fairly short space of time.

And we need to remember that he is having these visions and that they are visions and that what we're reading here is the language of vision and we mustn't take what he says in wooden literal ways.

We're asking what these pictures and symbols actually signify to us and what they mean for us today and what they meant for the people in Zachariah's time.

So we're looking at Zachariah chapter three this evening under the theme, The Deliverer God Provides.

The Deliverer that God Provides.

And as we think of this short chapter there are two things that we're going to look at.

We're going to divide the chapter up into two.

First of all, in the first five verses we have got the power of grace.

And then in the remaining verses from verse six to the end of the chapter we have got the promise of the Savior.

So those are the two things that we're looking at, the power of grace and the promise of the Savior.

So let's look first of all at the power of grace the first five verses and grace always lifts the heart of God's people.

We thought a little bit about this this morning.

We love to think of the grace of God because without God's grace well what are we?

What are we without God's grace?

And in this vision we see what we are unless the grace of God touches us unless the grace of God changes us.

And the vision begins with Joshua the high priest.

Now he's a real historical figure.

He was a high priest in those days.

His grandfather we know had been a high priest when Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in five eighty six BC.

Joshua came back with the first wave of exiles along with Zerubbabel and others.

Ezra also gives a list that there was a man who came back called Joshua.

It's the same man.

Joshua is another form of Joshua.

We must remember this that the Joshua of the vision is not simply flesh and blood Joshua standing in the temple courts.

This is Joshua as God showed Himself to Zechariah.

He is a representative figure.

He stands for something.

He represents not only himself, not only the priests of Israel.

He represents the whole community of God's people.

He stands in the vision as the representative of those who have come back to Jerusalem to rebuild the city.

So what happens in Zechariah chapter three happens in the spiritual realm.

These are not earthly actions.

These are not ordinary events.

This is vision.

This is symbolism and God opens Zechariah's mind to see these things and two things stand out in this vision of Joshua the high priest.

And the first thing that stands out in this vision of Joshua the high priest is Satan's accusing is rebuked.

Satan's accusations are rebuked.

Joshua is standing before the angel of the Lord and don't forget who the angel of the Lord is.

We have already mentioned this in the first chapter.

The angel of the Lord in the Old Testament sense is not a created angel.

He is God himself.

He speaks as God, and who is this?

It's none other than the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity at work before his incarnation in Bethlehem.

It's the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's God who stands here.

It's the Son of God.

It's the Angel of the Lord.

And Joshua stands before him and he's engaged in his priestly duties.

He appears before God on behalf of Israel offering sacrifices and incense and then we find something very significant.

Satan is standing at the right hand to accuse him.

And this is the picture of the vision.

Here's Joshua the high priest.

Here's the angel of the Lord the Son of God and at Joshua's right hand stands Satan and he's accusing Joshua.

Now that shouldn't really surprise us.

That is the work Satan always undertakes because he is known as the accuser.

We see this at the beginning of the book of Job.

Satan comes and says yes there's Job but he worships you, he's speaking to God, he fears you because of what he gets out of you.

He's only using you And he accuses Job of hypocrisy and wherever Satan appears he accuses the people of God.

He rakes up their sins.

He tries to demoralize them and discourage them.

In Revelation twelve ten he's called the accuser of our brothers and that's the work Satan is always engaged in.

He's engaged in the work of accusation and accusing.

And the very name Satan means accuser.

He's always at work accusing, raking up sin and here he's doing exactly that.

He's accusing Joshua.

Now what accusation could he make here?

Well it's not hard to see.

Look at the description of Joshua.

Here's the high priest and he's not clothed in his splendid robes of office.

He's not wearing the rich garments of the high priest.

He's clothed in filthy garments.

And of course it's not only his outward clothing that's filthy.

The clothing is symbolic of his inward sin.

Here is the high priest even as he stands before God.

This man is a sinner.

He's clothed in filthy garments and that's his spiritual condition.

And no doubt Satan's pointing that out.

He's asking the question, how can a man like that minister as a priest before God?

What right has somebody like that to fulfill such a role?

He wears filthy clothes and yet he presumes to stand before God and minister.

What right has Joshua to stand there?

That no doubt is the accusation that Satan was bringing.

Here's a sinner.

What right is he to stand before God?

He ought to be hiding himself away in humiliation.

Of course we remember that it's Satan who stirs up our sinfulness.

It's Satan who tempts us and draws us into sin.

And there's the hypocrisy of the devil.

But if we think of Joshua as a representative of God's people, we're being reminded of our natural condition here.

It's not only Joshua who is spiritually unclean.

It's not only Joshua who is dressed in filthy garments.

By nature, that is what we are like.

And the Bible tells us something that we might prefer not to hear.

We are sinners.

And we're sinners by nature and we're sinners by practice.

And if we saw ourselves as we are by nature we would see that we're clothed in filthy garments.

So when Satan accuses as he does he accuses the Jews who had come back from Babylon and he says who are these people to presume to build the temple?

They're sinners.

They have no right to be doing the things that they're doing.

And he comes in the same way and he says to us, well what right have you to presume to serve God?

What right have you to talk about being a Christian, a child of God?

Look at the sinfulness of your own heart.

Look at the filthiness of your clothing.

What right of you to stand before God?

What presumption on your behalf?

And those are the accusations that Satan brings.

And you see in the end the accusation is not really against us, the accusation is against God.

The real charge is this, What kind of God are you if you let people like that in their filthy clothes come and worship you and serve you?

What kind of God are you?

And Satan's accusation in the end is not against us.

It's against God.

What kind of God has anything to do with sinners like that?

Not much of a God Satan would say.

Not very holy if he has any connection with sinners and their filthy clothing.

And the Lord's response here is overwhelming because it says in verse two, The Lord rebuke you, O Satan.

The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you.

Not for one moment does the Lord entertain Satan's accusations.

The Lord rebuke you, O Satan.

The Lord who has chosen Israel rebuke you.

Do you notice that?

It's significant.

It reminds us that God in His grace and God in His mercy has chosen sinners.

He's chosen people like Joshua.

He's chosen people like you and me to be His people and it's His gracious choice.

Israel was reminded of this if you remember constantly throughout the Old Testament.

God didn't choose them because they were a great nation.

He didn't choose them because they were a holy nation.

God loved them and God was gracious to them despite their sin and despite the fact that they deserved His judgment.

And that's the wonder of grace, isn't it?

Grace is for people who don't deserve it.

And if we deserve it, it's not grace.

If we earned it, it's merit.

It's something else completely but it's not grace.

And if God chooses imperfect sinful people like Joshua, like these returned exiles, like us to be His people, it's all of grace.

It's utterly undeserved.

And here in Jerusalem, in Zachariah's day are people who have been chastened by their exile in Babylon.

They have reaped the consequences of the nation's sins, but God was gracious.

He was bringing them back.

And look what he says here about Joshua verse two.

Is not this the brand or the stick plucked from the fire?

And that's what Joshua is.

That's what every sinner is when grace lays hold of him, snatched from the burning of judgment.

And that's what God's grace does.

It snatches us from judgment.

It delivers us from what we deserve for our sins and that is grace and that's an encouragement for Joshua.

That's an encouragement for the exiles who have come home.

Here is an encouragement for us.

God is gracious.

God is more gracious than we would ever think He is.

And you know when Satan says, How dare you presume to serve God?

How dare you to claim to be one of His people.

The only answer that we have is God's grace.

Our answer is never, well, we deserve it.

We're doing our best.

We're a moral people.

We're trying very hard.

That's not enough.

Only God's grace is the answer to Satan's accusations.

God rebukes Satan.

But that's not all.

We might think that God is simply ignoring sin.

Sometimes that accusation is leveled at the message of the gospel as if God treats us as though we had not sinned.

What kind of God would that really be?

And that leads us to the second thing that we see here in this vision concerning Joshua the high priest.

Not only is God rebuking the accusations of Satan but we see that Joshua's sin is cleansed.

Joshua's sin is cleansed and that too is the wonder of God's grace.

That's the wonder of the power of grace.

Yes, Joshua stands in filthy clothes.

But God doesn't leave him like that.

God and His grace is at work to transform this man.

It's a glorious transformation.

The filthy clothing is taken off.

And Joshua, he couldn't take the clothing off.

Just as Joshua couldn't rebuke Satan, so Joshua couldn't cleanse himself.

Satan's charge was just in this sense.

This man is a sinner.

The man is wearing filthy clothes.

He's unclean before a holy God.

And Joshua had no answer of his own.

But God works.

This guilty sinner has the filthy clothing removed and God is able to deal with our sin in the same way.

That's what grace does.

In grace God chooses us.

In grace God cleanses us.

In God's grace we're transformed.

He takes off the filthy sinful clothing and He puts on beautiful clean clothing and that is the work of grace.

And that's essential if we are the children of God.

And God says to Joshua, See I have taken away your sin.

And that's the good news of the gospel.

And there's the gospel set out for us very clearly here in Zechariah chapter three.

Here is a God who cleanses sin.

He replaces our filthy clothing, our filthy lives with new clean clothing and with new lives that honor Him.

God says, See I've taken your sin away.

And of course Joshua is not only an individual here.

He represents as I've already said the returned exiles.

He represents all the people of God and here's a declaration of the grace of God.

God takes us and God transforms us.

He accepts us as we are.

Yes, He does.

He does accept us and then He changes us and He doesn't leave us as we are.

The old clothing is taken off.

The new clothing is put on.

And these people have come back from exile.

They have returned geographically from Babylon to Jerusalem.

But by God's grace they had returned in a more important way.

They had returned spiritually from the place of sin and lostness to the place of grace and salvation.

And that's a far greater return than a return from exile in Babylon.

And that's the return which the grace of God affects in every sinner.

It is a transformation.

And you know it's interesting how the Bible uses the language of clothing to describe salvation.

We can understand it easily.

It's not difficult.

I will clothe you with pure vestments.

That's what the Lord says here to Joshua.

Here are the blessings of salvation not only forgiveness of sin but all the richness that God offers His own people.

Listen to what we're told in Isaiah chapter 61 and verse 10.

For He has clothed me with garments of salvation.

He has covered me with the robe of righteousness.

And that's what grace does in the life of the sinner.

Sin is forgiven.

Rich robes of righteousness are put upon us.

And here in particular, the clean turban is given to the high priest.

Now for those of us who were at the talks on the high priest garments, you'll remember there was a plate on the high priest's turban and the gold plate, what was written on it, what was inscribed upon it in Hebrew, holy to the Lord.

And that describes what Joshua became by God's grace, holy to the Lord.

And that's what God does in the heart of every sinner.

He makes us holy to the Lord.

We belong to Him.

We are a changed people.

The old is gone, the new has come.

The old filthy clothing is stripped off and the new beautiful robes are given to us.

There is forgiveness of sins.

There are the blessings of salvation in all their richness and in all their glory.

And that's the work of grace.

That's the power of grace.

It comes to people in their sin and then their lostness and it comes to people in filthy clothes and it changes them and that's what the gospel is all about.

The gospel is about change not change that we must somehow produce in our own lives as if the gospel says do your best, try harder be a better person.

That is utter futility.

Such a Gospel is no use to sinners.

The true Gospel talks about God, it talks about His grace, It talks about how God changes people who could never deserve such a change.

He makes us new.

He transforms us.

He removes the filthy clothing.

He clothes us in the robe of righteousness and that is the power of grace.

And that's what sinners need.

And if you're a Christian tonight, you've experienced the power of grace.

Have you not?

Is that not the picture of your salvation?

You know what it is for the grace of God to take you, to change you, to keep on changing you until you are in heaven with the Lord.

And the power of grace is wonderful when we're burdened by an awareness of our sin.

And the devil comes accusing us and says, and you say you're a Christian.

But what about the things you say?

What about the things you do?

How dare you call yourself a child of God?

Our answer is not in what we do.

Our answer is in what God has done for us in His grace.

And by His grace, He has transformed us.

It is His glorious work, the power of grace.

That's the first thing we see here in the first five verses of this chapter.

But then the second thing that I want you to see here is the promise of the Savior and the remaining verses of this chapter verses six through 10.

The promise of the Savior.

How can this happen?

How can a holy God forgive sin?

How can I?

He can't simply forget about sin.

He can't sweep it under the carpet as if we had never committed it.

A God who did that wouldn't be a God at all.

We mentioned this this morning.

A God who simply ignored our sin wouldn't be worth a moment's attention.

There must be a way in which that sin is dealt with.

So here we have got the promise of the Savior.

We are sinners by nature.

And the source of salvation is not in ourselves.

God must deal with our sin.

And from verse six onwards the vision opens out.

It's not only about Joshua.

It's not even about the exiles who have come back to Jerusalem.

The whole picture begins to open up to us and we find ourselves in that picture as well.

How is forgiveness possible?

Well first in verses six and seven we have a promise.

A promise.

Those who belong to the Lord, if they're faithful, will serve Him.

Verse seven says, I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here.

And Joshua cleansed and clothed in splendid garments is able to serve the Lord.

And he has a place among God's servants.

He is one of the great...

Here in many ways is one of the great blessings of salvation access to God to serve Him to worship Him.

And that's what we see in this vision.

Joshua has access to God to serve Him as a priest And all who belong to Christ have access to God to serve Him as priests.

We don't have a separate order of priests any longer.

I'm not a priest in an Old Testament sense.

Ministers of the gospel are not priests in that sense but all of God's people are priests.

Why?

Because we have access to the presence of God to worship Him and to serve Him.

And so here in the vision those who belong to the Lord those who walk faithfully with God have that blessing.

They have access to the courts of God to worship Him, to serve Him, to glorify Him.

And what a wonderful blessing that is.

A high priest in the Old Testament was able to go into God's presence just once a year.

On the Day of Atonement, he took the blood of the sacrifice into the Most Holy Place, but once a year.

And for the rest of the year, he didn't dare go into it because his life would be taken if he did.

But here's the promise, the people of God constantly have access to the Lord.

We don't stand outside waiting for a once a year opportunity to come in and worship and serve Him.

We have free access to the presence of God by His grace.

But how is this possible?

Yes, we have a promise but verse it, we have a deliverer.

And verse it begins, God says there, I will bring my servant the branch.

And that might sound a little strange.

What does it mean, my servant the branch?

Well, these are very important Old Testament words.

These are words that speak of Christ, of the Messiah, my servant the branch.

These are titles applied to Messiah Jesus in the prophetic books.

And my servant often particularly in Isaiah is something that's designated often to Christ.

The Messiah is called God's servant.

A servant who would suffer, a servant who would be rejected.

That's why we have got Isaiah chapter 53.

God's reminding us that well Jesus is a suffering servant.

He was wounded for our transgressions.

He was bruised for our iniquities.

Then you move into the New Testament to John chapter 13.

And there you have the servant Savior, the one who humbled Himself to wash His disciples' feet.

And then He went to the cross, my Savior.

And the Messiah is a servant.

He came not only to be served but to serve as Jesus told us and to give His life a ransom for many.

And in the prophets there's a growing vision of the salvation the Messiah would provide not only for the Jews but for Gentiles like you and me.

That's why we read in Isaiah chapter 49 and verse six, I will make you as a light for the nations, thus the Gentiles, that My salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

My servant Messiah Jesus brings salvation.

That's what God says to the ends of the earth.

My servant the branch.

Well why is He called the branch?

Well again we need to see how that title is applied to Jesus and the prophets.

Jeremiah chapter 23 and verse five tells us that from the house of David God would provide a king, a savior.

A branch would sprout from the stump of the house of David, a royal deliverer in whom God's promises of grace and mercy to sinners would be fulfilled.

Well, who's the branch?

Of course, it's the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's the greater Son of David.

It's the one who fulfills all the messianic hopes of Israel and all the prophecies of salvation.

Messiah Jesus, my servant, the branch.

And there's the answer to our sin.

The sin of Joshua, the sin of the Israelites in Jerusalem and our sin.

This is how God can forgive and still be a holy God.

Not because sin is ignored but because sin is actually dealt with.

It's dealt with by the Savior He provides, My servant, the branch.

But He also says something else here.

Look what He says in verse nine, The stone.

Behold the stone I have set.

That's what God says and again in the language of vision, who is the stone?

It's Jesus.

It's Jesus.

Think of Psalm 118 and verse 22, The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

And you know the New Testament tells us that this stone is Jesus and He's the stone rejected by Israel's leader and He's become the cornerstone of the church.

In him there's salvation.

In Messiah Jesus the foundation of the church is laid, salvation is provided, the burden of sin is dealt with.

And God says in verse nine again, I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day.

In a single day?

How could God remove the iniquity of the land in a single day?

In the day of Calvary.

In the day of Calvary.

In the day when the Messiah Jesus was nailed to the cross.

In the day when He carried our sins and died with the words of triumph on His lips, 'It is finished.' One day was all that He needed for the grace and the power of God to deal with sin in the Saviour and my servant the branch and the stone rejected by man in Christ the ultimate high priest.

It's not Joshua who provides salvation.

It's not any merely human priest.

It's the Lord Jesus Christ, our great high priest.

He's the one who not only offered the sacrifice, but who is the sacrifice.

He took our sin, He took our guilt and so He's provided a glorious salvation.

We mentioned this morning about the book of Hebrews and the significance of that.

And Hebrews nine, that book or that chapter within the book speaks much about priests and sacrifices.

In Hebrews nine twelve it says, He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing the eternal redemption.

Is that not wonderful?

Once and for all, high priests like Joshua went in year after year.

The same sacrifices still had to be offered.

There was no end to the sacrifices.

Jesus died once and for all.

It's finished.

It's complete.

It's perfect.

Everything we need for salvation has been provided.

And for all who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ there is forgiveness.

There is cleansing.

The old clothes are removed.

The beautiful garments of salvation are put upon us.

The promise of the Savior.

So the deliverer God provides.

We have seen in this chapter the power of grace and the promise of the Savior And what a vision there is at the end of the chapter, a vision of joy and peace.

Look what it says in verse 10, In that day declares the Lord of hosts, every one of you will invite his neighbors to come under his vine and under his fig tree.

And that was a symbol of peace.

It was a symbol of rest.

And when we have this good news, do we not want to invite others to come and enjoy this salvation?

To sit with us and enjoy God's grace and enjoy God's blessing.

And essentially this is an evangelistic text.

Call the neighbors, call others, come and enjoy what God has provided in Jesus Christ.

He's our priest.

He's the one who has done all we need.

And if we trust in Christ, we're forgiven, we're cleansed, the old clothing is removed, the new robes of salvation are put upon us.

We receive a wonderful, a full and perfect salvation.

And it is the servant Jesus, the servant Saviour who has done all the work for us.

And this chapter is a chapter full of Christ and of Christ's glorious work.

And here is our hope.

If you see yourself like Joshua still in filthy clothes, still in your sin, there is an answer.

And the answer is Christ, God who forgives, God who cleanses us.

And the wonderful thing is it's all because of Christ.

Christ who forgives, Christ who cleanses, Christ who gives us new life, Christ who changes us more and more into His likeness and that's the good news.

And that's the good news that we can go and tell other people.

May God indeed write this word upon our hearts.

We ask this in Christ's name.

Amen.