A Problem We Cannot Solve

Next Sunday I'm going to begin a whole new sermon series.

That will go on for a while, but today I want to look at a standalone passage I wanted to speak about for quite some time.

It's a passage in the book of Zechariah, toward the end of the Old Testament.

If you want to find your way there and if you would like a sermon outline or borrow a Bible, just raise your hand, or usher is really happy to help you out.

Have you ever run into a problem you just couldn't solve?

I read about a man who went to see his doctor and he was very concerned about how tall he was.

And the doctor looked at him and said are you so concerned about that?

He said well, according to my weight, I should be 7 foot 8 inches tall.

That's a problem.

The prophet Zechariah talks about another problem that none of us can solve.

Now, I don't know how tall he was, but let's consider first who Zechariah was, the prophet Zechariah, old Testament prophet who prophesied around 520 BC, just after the people started to return to Jerusalem from their 70 year captivity in Babylon.

Zechariah was actually part of the second group who came back to Jerusalem from Babylon, and they came back to rebuild the temple which was torn down when Babylonians overran the city.

You remember the first group to come back under Nehemiah.

They came back to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem so they could have a secure place.

And, according to the prophet Haggai, zechariah came back with Zerubbabel, the new governor of Jerusalem, and Joshua, the high priest, for the express purpose to rebuild the temple.

When they arrived, god began to give Zechariah visions to help the people get started again, doing things fresh and right the way God wanted them to.

God explains his concerns to Zechariah in the first few verses of chapter 1 of Zechariah.

Let me read that Zechariah 1 says in the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, the prophet, the son of Irochaiah, the son of Ido, saying the Lord was very angry with your fathers.

Therefore, say to them Thus says the Lord of hosts Return to me.

Declares the Lord of hosts, that I may return to you.

Says the Lord of hosts, do not be like your fathers to whom the former prophets proclaimed.

Saying Thus says the Lord of hosts Return now from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.

But they did not listen or give heed to me, declares the Lord, one reason they went into captivity is that they stopped listening to the Lord, to his word, to the prophets God was sending them.

When the people returning heard Zechariah speak these words, they repented and agreed to begin to listen.

Zechariah 1 says they repented and said as the Lord of hosts purposed to do to us, in accordance with our ways and deeds, so be it.

So he has dealt with us In response to their repentance.

God then gives Zechariah eight visions to give the people, to help them get reestablished, and each of those visions has a specific theme.

If you read through the book, you'll pick this up and just give it.

We're not going to look at all of it, but today we're going to look at just the fourth vision.

Zechariah received the fourth vision from God and it had to do with the problem that people continued to struggle with all of their days and all of our days.

It's a problem we all have.

That's why I want to look at it.

Zechariah's fourth vision is found in Zechariah 3.

Here he sees Joshua the High Priest, who was a real person, not Joshua who led the people through the land of Canaan.

This is another Joshua, who was a high priest, who came back to rebuild the temple.

In his vision, zechariah is transported.

Keep in mind, this is a vision he's seen.

He's transported to the center of the temple.

This is the first thing Zechariah sees.

Chapter 3, verse 1,.

He showed me Joshua, the High Priest, standing before the angel of the Lord.

No, he's from the Temple of John.

From that statement we can discern that this can only be happening in one place, in the temple, in only one day of the year, on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.

That's when the high priest would be standing before the Lord in the Holy of Holies.

If you remember, the temple had three basic parts to it the outer court, the inner court and the Holy of Holies.

The Holy of Holies was completely surrounded by a veil.

Inside the Holy of Holies was the Ark of the Covenant.

Now, I made a little model of it so you could get a visual.

Now, please don't look inside this.

I'm going to use this for another sermon down the road.

That's why I put this together to give you a visual of what's going on.

On the top part of the Ark of the Covenant was the mercy seat, where the high priest would pour the blood for the sins of the people.

Let me read you what it says in Leviticus about the high priest and what he's doing Leviticus 16.1-2.

Now the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they approached the presence of the Lord and died.

The Lord said to Moses Tell your brother Aaron that he shall not enter at any time in the Holy Place, meaning the Holy of Holies, inside the veil before the mercy seat which is on the Ark, or he will die, for I will appear in a cloud over the mercy seat.

Now Zechariah sees Joshua, his high priest, in this vision.

He sees Joshua inside the Holy of Holies.

The Book of Leviticus tells us that the Holy of Holies was a very dangerous place to be, as the offering for sin was made by placing blood on the mercy seat and the glory of the presence of God would appear in a cloud over it.

God gave specific instructions about how all this was to be done by the high priest.

God told them to follow these instructions because he didn't want them to die.

Here's one place where he talks about that Leviticus 16.1-13.

Then Aaron shall offer the bull of the sin offering.

He shall take a fire pan full of coals of the fire upon the altar before the Lord.

He shall put the incense of fire before the Lord.

That the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that's on the Ark of the testimony, otherwise he will die.

No one could be in the unmediated presence of God ever risk of their own life.

Only one person in Israel one day of the year was allowed to go into the Holy of Holies and stand before the Lord.

It was the high priest in Israel and he could only do it on the day of atonement, yom Kippur.

Zechariah sees Joshua, the high priest, in the Holy of Holies standing before the Lord on the day of atonement.

It's incredible.

First of all, before I go further, what was involved in the high priest's preparation for Yom Kippur that day?

Old Testament scholar Ray Dillard described some of the elaborate preparations the high priest made before he was able to come into the presence to offer the sin offering.

The high priest began his preparation the week before Yom Kippur.

By the way, that comes up this year, on September 24, the day we're going to burn the mortgage For that week, the high priest would be taken from his family and home and kept in seclusion in a place totally alone.

Why did he do that?

So he wouldn't accidentally touch someone or something that would make him unclean.

He goes in there unclean, he's going to die.

So he went in seclusion for the week before.

Then.

He would go through several purifying ritual washings each day during the week.

Then he would spend very long hours in prayer to prepare his heart to be in God's presence.

The night before the day of atonement he did not sleep.

He stayed up all night praying, reading the scripture to purify his soul.

Very elaborate preparation.

Now, on the day of Yom Kippur, the high priest got up early in the morning and bathed himself head to toe.

Then he put on not ordinary clothes but special linen garments that were absolutely clean and pure white, set aside for just this instant.

Then the high priest went into the Holy of Holies with the blood sacrifice poured over the mercy seat for his own sins.

Then he came out of the Holy of Holies, bathed himself again head to toe and put on brand new, clean linen, pure white garments, again Went back into the Holy of Holies, this time taking the blood to offer for the sins of the priests.

He comes out of the Holy of Holies again, washes himself, again head to toe, and puts on a clean new linen, pure white garment, goes back into the Holy of Holies, offers blood sacrifice for the sins of the people.

Three times elaborate preparations, making sure he goes in there as clean as a whistle as he could ever be.

All this was done in public.

They couldn't go in the Holy of Holies.

He would come back out.

They prayed he would come back out.

There were thousands of people who would arrive on the day of atonement and they were there to encourage him, to pray for him, because they wanted God to accept his sacrifice for their sins If he didn't come out.

That was not good.

They watched, they waited, they prayed that God would accept the sacrifice of the high priests on their behalf.

When the high priest got in front of God, there was not a speck on him.

He had prepared his heart, his mind, his soul for a week.

He didn't touch anything unclean, didn't eat anything, didn't do anything unclean.

He had to go in perfectly clean or he would die.

If you understand that from the Old Testament, if you now look at Zechariah 3.3, it is extremely shocking.

In his vision, zechariah looks up at Joshua, the High Priest, on the day of atonement, in the presence of God in the Holy of Holies, and Joshua's dressed in garments that were filthy.

Now Joshua's cloth and filthy garments is standing before the angel.

Actually, I've got to tell you, the translators were being a little soft with the Hebrew word Zo'im filthy.

The Hebrew word Zo'im refers to human excrement.

Joshua, the High Priest, his linen, pure white garments are covered in human excrement.

That's what Zechariah sees.

It's shocking.

It's like what Zechariah can't believe his eyes.

He looks, there's the high priest on the day of atonement, representing the people before God.

His pure white linen clothes are covered with feces and bowel movement.

It's shocking.

Joshua is not fit to stand before God.

He's absolutely defiled.

The question is, I'm sure, running through Zechariah's mind Lord, how can this be happening?

For a solid week, everything Joshua has done was a heroic attempt to be clean.

The high priest would have never, never allowed himself to go into the presence of God like that.

How could this be?

Well, keep in mind Zechariah is a prophet.

He's been given a vision, a prophecy, and what God is helping him see just for a moment is long Zechariah to see us the way God sees us?

In spite of all the efforts Joshua went through to make himself clean, he was still filthy before God.

The message from God is.

In spite of all we do To make ourselves clean and pure and good for God, it doesn't work.

Before God we're still unfit to be in His presence.

Why?

Because God sees our heart.

He sees beyond the stuff we're externally part of our lives.

He sees the heart.

Jeremiah 99 says the heart is more deceitful than all else, is desperately sick.

Who can understand it?

You know, a corrupt heart, which we all are infected with, according to the Scripture, refers to anything in our life, any desire we have to get something that gives us meaning and fulfillment, so that we end up feeling good about ourselves or we make a name for ourselves apart from God.

It's also called idolatry.

But this is what a corrupt heart is all about.

What do we look to?

We look to the approval of people.

We look to our achievement and successes.

We look to money and possessions.

We look to sex and food and other pleasures.

We look to being good and religious.

Even God sees those heart motives and really the reason we are good or bad is basically the same Self-promotion and self-centeredness.

We want the best for ourselves.

All our good works just won't get to our heart.

Zechariah suddenly realizes this vision of Joshua that he's been given.

No matter what we do, just like Joshua, we are unfit to enter the presence of God.

But just as Zechariah was about to despair, he is absolutely shocked by what he hears next.

Zechariah 3, 4, and 5,.

The angel said to those who were standing before him saying remove the filthy garments from him.

And again he said see, I've taken your iniquity.

Notice, filthy garments, iniquity, they're the same.

See, I've taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festival robes.

Then I said let them put a clean turban on his head.

So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed them with garments while the angel of the Lord was standing by.

Then, if that wasn't incredible enough, further down, zechariah 3, 8, to 10, the angel of the Lord admonished Joshua, the high priest, and said now listen, you and your friends who are sitting in front of you.

Indeed, they are men who are a symbol.

For behold, I am going to bring my servant the branch.

For behold the stone I've set before Joshua.

On one stone are seven eyes.

Behold, I will engrave an inscription on it, declares the Lord of hosts, I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.

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

And that brings us to the last point.

Today, the Lord's servant, the branch.

I don't know about you, but this is just blowing my mind.

What we see here, what God is showing us here.

We cannot be clean, no matter what we do.

Somehow the branch has to come and he's going to take away iniquity in one day.

Now Zechariah can't believe his ears.

He couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Now he can't believe his ears.

Instead of striking the high priest down dead because he's covered in excrement, he takes off his filthy garments, puts a clean vessel of robe on him and a clean turban.

Then God says I'm going to take your sin off in a single day.

Keep in mind this is prophecy.

Zechariah is giving us a vision of the current state and future state of the people of God.

Zechariah, literally, is astonished.

Israel, the people of Israel, have been following the clean laws for years and years and years Ritual washings, don't touch that, don't touch this, so they could worship in a worthy manner.

But what he's seeing here is you can't take the sin off of you.

We remain unclean.

This is a prophecy and what's happening is he hears someday the clean laws and all the sacrifices will be done away with.

God's gonna take the sin away in a day.

How is he gonna do that?

The Lord, serve at the branch?

I don't have time to.

We know the branch is referring to the Messiah.

I don't have time to really go into all of that because there's a number of references to that in the Old Testament the branch and how that ends up in the New Testament.

But let me go from that to this.

Centuries later, another Joshua shows up in Israel.

His name is Jesus.

See that Jesus is the English translation of the Hebrew word Joshua, or Yeshua Joshua.

And one week before his death, jesus began his preparation to serve as our high priest.

The night before he makes his sacrifice, he didn't sleep.

He prayed all night.

Instead of ritual washings, though, he received human spit.

Instead of the crowds gathering to pray, encourage and sport him, they instead mocked him.

His friends betrayed and deserted him.

Instead of being clothed in wonderful, pure and holy and wonderful pure white garments, he was stripped naked, beaten and killed.

Why?

Well, paul tells us in San Corinthians 521 that he made Jesus, him who knew no sin, to become sin on our behalf, take ours, so that we might become the righteousness of God and him.

What that means is God clothed Jesus in our sin.

He took the filthy garments, our iniquities on himself so he could take our judgment.

He was our great high priest and the true Lamb of God offered on our behalf for our sins.

And when we believe in God's servant, the branch who is Jesus Christ, like Joshua, god removes our sin and filth the garments in our iniquity, and he could do it in a single day.

When you believe in Jesus, that's it.

You will have the gift of eternal life because of what Jesus did for you.

And when we get to the last book of the Bible, I love the fact that there's no mention of our filthy garments.

In fact, here's what it says Revelation 19, 11 to 14, about Jesus and us together.

John says I saw heaven open and behold a white horse.

He used that on it.

It's called faithful and true.

And in righteousness he judges and waits for the truth.

And in righteousness he judges and wages war.

His eyes are a flame of fire and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written on him which no one knows except himself he's clothed with a robe dipped in blood and his name is called the Word of God, and the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following him on white horses.

Don't miss the message of Zechariah 3.

Sin is a problem we cannot solve on our own.

That's why God said his son, jesus, the branch.

We may look good on the outside, but God's looking at the heart, which Jesus told the religious leaders, the religious leaders of the day, that their hearts were full of wickedness.

And they may be doing all the right religious things, but here's what he said in Mark 7, 20 and 23.

He said to them that which proceeds out of the man, that's what defiles the man.

For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of covening and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness.

He probably could have went on and on.

It's all in here.

That's where it starts, that's the core.

That's what God sees.

All these things, he says, proceed from within and defile the man.

And as hard as Joshua tried to make himself clean, clean enough to stand before God, washed himself, washed everything, put on really clean clothes, followed the instructions of the Word of God to the letter, prayed like crazy, stood in God's presence covered with excrement.

That's how God saw him.

Only God, it was God who gave him new garments.

He didn't get new garments on his own.

It was God who took away his sin and our sin one day when Jesus died on the cross.

Only God, through Jesus, can make us clean enough to stand before him.

Fellowship with him.

Be with him forever.

So I invite you once again to believe in Jesus.

If you never have, give your life to him, who gave his life for you, and I'll say, for everyone who has placed their faith in Jesus as their Savior.

You are invited in a few minutes, this year, in communion with us.

I hope you'll trust him and believe in him.

Let's pray.

I thank you for Jesus that he did for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Try as hard as we can to make ourselves pure and holy and do good and live a good life.

We still are sinners, but thanks be to you who gave your son to be the once and for all sacrifice for our son because we believed in him.

Help us now to stand before you, not in our righteousness or seeking our own righteousness, but in Jesus' righteousness, help us to walk with you with a spirit of joy and peace and freedom, knowing what you've done for us to live our lives in grateful service to you, who made us clean.

I pray in Jesus' name, amen.