A Brand Plucked from the Fire

Thank you, brother, for that prayer. If you have your Bible with you, I'd invite you to turn with me to Zechariah chapter 3. Prophet Zechariah chapter 3.

Give an extra minute on the page turns here. It's kind of hard to find Zechariah. Zechariah chapter 3 towards the end of the Old Testament. Like to just begin by reading this full chapter, all 10 verses of it.

Prophet here writes in Zechariah chapter 3 beginning in verse one. And he showed me Joshua, the high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan, standing at his right hand to resist him. And the Lord said unto Satan, "The Lord rebuke thee, oh Satan, even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee. Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?" 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 raignment. And I said, let them set a fair miter upon his head. So they set a fair miter upon his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the Lord stood by. 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. 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, sayeth the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. In that day, sayeth the Lord of hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbor under the vine and under the fig tree. It's an interesting picture here that's painted before us that this prophet was given the blessing to to see. The character that's mentioned in here is Joshua, the high priest. Unless we get confused, this is not Joshua, the son of Nun, that you're probably more familiar with. This is Joshua, the son of Joedc. Um Joshua the son of none was the one we singled Moses man. Moses man led them to the promised land and Joshua led them into Canaan's land. That's Joshua the son of Nun. Um he was the one who him and Caleb first went into Canaan's land and saw all the giants and and brought back the report that they would be it'd be fine. The Lord is with us. We can take them. Um and the other uh spies came back with a different report. And for that reason the people of Israel had to endure the wilderness for 40 years. and that generation was not suffered to enter in. That's Joshua the son of Nun. This is Joshua the son of Joedc. It's a different time period in Israel's history. If you remember after the days of King Solomon, the nation of Israel actually split. Jeroboam and Rayobam split. The kingdom the 10 northern tribes of of Israel and the two southern tribes of Judah um were separate. They were not a a cohesive nation anymore. And at some point around 700 uh BC, the Assyrians came and took the northern tribes into captivity. And Judah was um allowed to to endure a little bit longer. But around the time of um 586 BC, the nation of Babylon, the Lord actually allowed the nation of Babylon to carry his people away captive. They had fallen into sin. Um, and so the Lord had allowed and and let the Babylonians kind of rise up, this wicked nation to come and judge his people there in Israel in Judah, the two southern tribes. And so they were taken captive for about 70 years. Um, and it was actually uh Josec, this Joshua's father that was taken into captivity. He was part of that generation. So they were living in Judah. The Babylonians were rose up, came and conquered the land. Joedc was was taken away captive as a prisoner in the land of Babylon. That's kind of where the story of Daniel also takes place. He was one of the ones that was taken captive as well, if you remember that story. And so, it's very likely, we don't know for sure, but it's very likely that um this Joshua, his son, was actually born in that captivity. He was probably born in the land of Babylon um because his father was taken away and there's no record that he had been born before that time. So, um and then following that 70 years, the people of Judah were actually allowed to return back. Remember there was an old prophecy that Cyrus, the the Persian king, um after he came through and and conquered Babylon, the people of God were allowed to it was by the Lord's uh providence and by his hand that he allowed them to come back to rebuild the temple. And it's this generation that we come to. That's that's the generation of uh Zerubabel, if you remember him. There's Zerubabel who was of the line of David. He was kind of the uh government uh that that helped set up the government when they came back. But this Joshua son of Joedc was the high priest in that day as they tried to uh find the law of God again. They tried to set up the temple. They tried to build altars and they tried to uh reinstitute the worship of God after they came back from the captivity of Babylon. So that's where we find ourselves here. It's that Joshua that is in this picture. And this first verse paints the scene. Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. Now it will reveal in this passage the angel of the Lord is none other than Jesus Christ himself. He is the one who is pictured here. And you'll me you'll see here that um we believe in a triune God. There are three in one. And so um you'll kind of see the the the prepositions here get a little interesting. Um, but basically we see that Joshua is standing before Jesus and Satan is standing at the right hand to resist him. It's kind of a court case. It's a courtroom scene. You have Satan there who is the adversary of the brethren. He is the great enemy. He is the one who loves to accuse and prosecute the people of God. He will bring our sins against us and he loves to say guilty. He stands there at the right hand to resist him. But Joshua stands before the angel of the Lord. The Lord here says unto Satan, "The Lord rebuke thee." Well, that's the Lord saying, "The Lord rebuke thee. Rebuke thee." That's only really possible in a triune Godhead. Um, I think there it's Christ saying, "The Father rebuke thee." Is really what's going on there. Christ is saying, "God the Father rebuke thee, oh Satan. Even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee. So notice here there's a choice. Christ says God will rebuke you. God will stop your mouth Satan because the one you're speaking of is chosen. Hath not the Lord chosen Jerusalem? Listen to this phrase. He says at the end of verse two, "Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? That is a picture of the election of God. All of the all of mankind's race deserves the flames of everlasting torment in hell for the sins that we've committed. But he says here, Satan, did you not forget? You can't speak against this one. This one is as a stick that's burning in the flame that would be completely consumed. And it's as if someone just pulled it out of the flame that rescued it, that delivered it. That's a picture of saying the Lord's chosen this one, Satan. He's not in your grasp. You can't take him. Um, how dare you speak against him, and the Lord's going to stop you from from accusing him.

Was Satan wrong to accuse Joshua. Was he wrong in the things he was saying? You see here in verse three, Joshua there is the picture we have of what he looked like. He is clothed with filthy garments. He stands before the angel of the Lord and he's in rags. He's dirty. He is unclean. And of course, we know you cannot stand before a thrice holy God and be unclean or be unrighteous or be filthy. It's that you can't that's not compatible with his holiness, with his perfectly righteous nature and his character and his attributes. But here Joshua is pictured standing in filthy garments. I don't need the history to tell you this, but I'll give you a little bit of the history. There's seems to be that Joshua probably wasn't the best high priest um that Judah had ever had. Um likely, and to give him a little bit of of room here for excuse, he I mean, if he was born in Babylon, he didn't have the original temple ministry to kind of under he wasn't brought up under the the temple service. And so, if he's the high priest here, he's really trying to he's kind of figuring it out on the fly, if you will. He's trying to read the law of God, figure out how to build the altar. They're kind of rebuilding the whole temple. So, he's not sure exactly what he's doing. But, um, the truth is that he probably messed up here and there. He made some mistakes. There's actually, uh, in scripture, it references that his sons, he might not have been the best example because all of his sons went off after strange wives. So, maybe he wasn't the best, um, father figure, maybe not the best example here. Um, I don't have to convince you that Joshua was a sinner. We are all sinners. All of the the human race has inherited the sin nature. We are all uh in the same sense if we stood before the judgment of God, we're all in filthy garments of our own merit, of our own righteousness. Um Isaiah chapter 64, it says we are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousness is as filthy rags. So our righteousness cannot stand before this God. If Satan were to accuse us and without any intervention by the Lord Jesus Christ, he would say guilty and we would then be condemned. There would be no room for grace. There's no word for us to to speak up and try to make our case. Um we have no word to say before God. We are guilty. And so when we are accused of Satan, if it were left to ourselves, we would be condemned. We would be called guilty. Joshua is clothed in filthy garments. But remember what the Lord told God the Father. He said, "The Lord rebuke thee. Even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee." Is not this, a brand plucked out of the fire. That's going to make all the difference here. And it makes all the difference for you and me as well. We are a chosen people. We're people that have been delivered. I don't have to It's common sense to say that if there is a stick burning in the fire, unless acted upon by some other force, that stick's going to continue burning. It can't jump out of the fire on its own. There's no um works that we can perform to save us from the flames of hell, from the the true uh condemnation that we deserve. There's nothing we can do to avoid it. It's simply because we were chosen. We're If God has plucked us out of that flame, if God has picked us out of that condemnation, that's our only hope. And that happened before the world began. Listen here in verse four. 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 raignment. So he tells those that are around, he says, take off those filthy garments. We're going to remove those and in place we're going to clothe you in better clothes and clean clothes and a picture of holiness, a picture of righteousness. We're going to clothe you in clothes that are um superior, far superior than what you had before. We're going to take away the the iniquity and and instead clean you clean you up um and and clothe you in in this change of raignment. He says, "I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee." Believe it's in Psalm 103. Um, you might ask the question, how far did he cause this iniquity to pass? Is it just far enough that he just delayed it for a time from coming back to him? No, it it he put it away. I've caused an iniquity to pass. It's gone. You don't have to ever worry about the sins that you've committed coming back to get you or if you don't do something right, they're going to ensnare you and and somehow pull you down. There's there's no fear of that because Psalm 103 says, "Lord has caused our sins to be taken as far as the east is from the west." I know you've probably heard this before, but I love mentioning it. Um, there's no accidents in the perfect word of God. It's every word in this book is perfect. It's preserved by God. Uh, he says, "As far as the east is from the west." Well, what if Justin said, "What?" I mean, it doesn't really make make much difference, does it? If he just said north from the south, but if you go north long enough, you're going to go over the north pole and eventually you're going to start going south again. The north and the south meet, right? But if you're traveling east, you can travel infinitely east and you'll never be going west. You can travel infinitely west and you'll never be going east. Those two never meet. So that's as far as our sins are from us. It's it's a gulf that can never be spanned again. They are gone. They are put away. The Lord has caused them to pass from us. And we have been clothed with a change of raignment as Joshua has here. But he's not done there. It's not just the change of raignment. And I said, "Let them set a fair miter upon his head." So they set a fair miter upon his head and clothed him with garments, and the angel of the Lord stood by. Now, this miter, um, I had to look it up because we're not we don't wear miters today. It was part of actually the adornment of the priest. You can go back and read in Exodus chapter 28, it was this kind of honestly looks like kind of those chef hats that they wear, those kind of white poofy things. Um, not to make light of it, but um, and then on the front of it, this was I found very interesting. I think it's relevant here because this is a picture of holiness and a picture of righteousness. The Lord instructed them in Exodus chapter 28. I won't just read it for sake of time, but um, on the front of this miter, there were some blue laces attached to a gold plate. And on this gold plate was written the words holiness to the Lord. That was what was written on the priest's holy miter that was placed upon his head. And seeing as Joshua here is the high priest and they're placing this miter. I think um everyone who who read this would have understood that picture. He's been clothed in righteousness. He is being um clothed in holiness. He is now in a state that he is he is in a position where he can stand before the Lord and notice that it wasn't him who uh changed his raignment. The Lord changed his raignment. Um this is all uh this such a grace is just so full and so um beautiful in this passage. Nothing here um was ever commanded of Joshua to do. He was in the filthy rags. That's the only thing he did was show up and be in filthy rags. God took care of all the rest. He said, "You're chosen unto me. I'll pluck you out of the fire. You're already a chosen vessel unto me. And then I will change your I will take away your rags and give you clean clothes and a holy miter upon your head because I'm I'm clothing you in righteousness and in holiness.

And the angel of the Lord protested unto Joshua, saying, Thus saith, this is verse 7, "Thus sayaeth 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." I find this pattern in scripture so often. And I always try to make mention of it because um I don't like the accusation that permanaptists get that we're antinomeian or that we don't believe that it matters what we do in this life. I don't like that. That's not true. I don't like when people say things that aren't true about us. Um and that's not in scripture. People will say, "Well, you guys believe in grace, right? So, I can go live any old way I want to and it doesn't matter because I'm already saved for heaven. If it doesn't matter what I do, if I don't have to live a good life, if my ticket to heaven is not based on what I do, why wouldn't I just go out and live in sin? I I submit to you that's motivated from a a very bad position. Uh we shouldn't be motivated. We shouldn't have this desire to just if it weren't for this whole heaven and hell thing, I wish I could just go live in sin. That's that's not the position of the Christian. That's not what we're called to walk. What we're told is that the Lord chose a people, the Lord plucked a people from the flame. And because he's done this, and because he's told us that he's done this, we ought to live for him. He's given us new life so that we can serve him, that we can know him, that we can have the fruits of the spirit, love, joy, faith, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance. We have these fruits of the spirit. There's something in this life that is there's a there's an abundance that we can live in this life if we are walking with the Lord. Yes, children of God can turn away from him. There can be apostasy and no, they will not be lost if that happens. But there will be something lost and I I submit they'll lose a lot of joy in this life and they will essentially tread underfoot the cross of Christ. If you hear the good news of the salvation of the of the cross of Calvary and you say, "Well, great. It sounds like everything's taken care of. I can forget all that." You've missed the point. We're told to take up our cross and follow him. That's what we're told to do. And so here the Lord so often there's a pattern in scripture that this beautiful statement of grace is made that God has saved his people. And there's this following conditional statement, not in relation to eternal life, but a conditional statement. He says, "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." I take that to mean that we enjoy the benefits of living in the kingdom of God. We are given positions where we have families. Perhaps we're the head of a household and we're judging the people of God. We're judging in the kingdom of God. We have courts that we can keep. When we come together, we're coming into the court of the palace of God. We sang the song this morning. Stands like a palace built for God. When we come into this holy place and we each have our service, we're each a part of the body. Whether it's the foot, the arm, the eye, we each have a a part that we play in this beautiful thing of of the institution of the church, which is the government of God, the pillar and ground of the truth in this world. We have a role to play here. And that's what is on the line. The Lord has delivered us for heaven. But I want a taste of that now. This is the closest we can get to a foretaste of heaven is this place where we come and sing hymns. You know what we'll do for all of eternity? We're going to be singing. singing worship to God. I'm so thankful for every opportunity we have to gather here with the same group of people we're going to be doing it with for eternity and do that week in and week out and hopefully more than just here. Hopefully in our homes, too. And it's just a special privilege when we get to come together and do it as a as a as a church. So, that's what's um there's this conditional statement there. If thou wilt walk in my ways, I will give thee places to walk among these that stand by. I take that to be the saints of God, the fellowship of our brothers and sisters in the church of God and in the kingdom of God here on earth. So now in verse eight here now, oh Joshua the high priest, thou and thy fellows that sit before thee, for they are men wondered at pause there. Um, I don't know. The best I can make of that statement of these that are wondered at is simply that every chosen child of God, every brand plugged from the flame is worth wondering at. It's worth um interest. Do you know that when we're sitting here preaching uh looking at the word of God, when we're singing hymns, do you know that even the angels come and will attend this very service? Because they cannot in their perfect holy minds, they're not fallen. They can't possibly understand how the son of righteousness, the son of glory, would come to this low ground and give his life for you and me. They wonder at it. They're trying to to seek to understand that. And we ought to still be marveled that the Lord would choose you and me, that he would die for you and me, that he would spill his precious blood for us. I think that's what it means here. For they are men wondered at the saints of God or are a group worth wondering at because it God is so good. Not because of anything that we deserve. It's just simply why would God choose them? If you remember, he chose Israel because they were the smallest people. So don't we don't need to get a big head about it. Um it's because God has done a wonderful work. That's why we are worth wondering about. He says, "For behold, I will bring forth my servant, the branch." In my Bible, that is all caps, the branch. This is a title of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's telling him something. He's showing him something. I'm going to send forth my servant, the branch. Um, to go really quickly to Isaiah chapter 11. There's another time this title is used.

Flip over there with me. Isaiah chapter 11. Like to read first four verses. Just a beautiful depiction of our Lord. And it uses the same term. It's used multiple times throughout the scripture, but I just want to give you one example. Isaiah 11:es 1-4. And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch, capital B, shall grow out of his roots. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord, and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. And he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears, but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth. and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. So the description here it makes a lot of sense when you look at the life of Jesus Christ. Remember he was 12 years old teaching the doctrines of the law. It says he shall uh make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. This is a depiction of the branch the Lord Jesus Christ. And it says I think that word branch it's used here. The reason I went with this one is because it says he will grow out of the stem of Jesse. Well, Jesse was the father of David. And so all that that's a messianic term here is to say that he's the son of David. He will grow um just like a we talk about family trees. The branch is going to sprout out of the line of David. That's where this term comes from. So we can go back to Zechariah now. I will bring forth my servant the branch. And if anyone tries to ever tell you that Christ did not exist before he was born, you can't bring forth something that's already there. What this means is that this is his um earthly um bringing forth. He already existed from time past. He will always exist. Uh who whose goings have been from of old, from everlasting. The Lord Jesus Christ was not created when he was born. It was the word of God, the everlasting word of God, the voice that spoke this universe into creation, who tabernacled amongst us, who is clothed, a partaker of the same flesh and blood as you and me, so that he could save you and me. So he brought forth his servant, the branch, says, "For behold, the stone that I have laid before Joshua, upon one stone shall be seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, sayeth the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. A lot in this. So, he calls him the branch. He says, "Behold the stone." He's still speaking about Christ here that I have laid before Joshua. Christ is the cornerstone of the church. Um, yesterday, Brother Joss was helping me put in a a bathtub. And I found out really quickly, it matters when things are level and when you have a firm foundation for something. You don't want your bathtub wobbling like this. You want a firm foundation. The Lord Jesus Christ is described here as a stone. How does the hymn go? Um Um, every time I do this, I forget the words right when I do it. Um, on Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. Is sinking sand. The stone is uh the cornerstone of Jesus Christ. Listen here. He has seven eyes. Have you ever seen a stone with eyeballs on it? I haven't. Um, I think what that's speaking of is this cornerstone who is the foundation of the institution of the church. He is the cornerstone in old buildings. when they would actually lay the foundation for a building, the cornerstone is the first one they'd put down. If that cornerstone was level, if all the sides were level and it was level, you'd base everything off of that. If your cornerstone was off, everything else is off. If Christ was off, this church would fall. The institution of the church would have no basis. You can't have um anything built upon an an unsound foundation. And what we have in this word recorded is the firmst foundation there is the Lord Jesus Christ. The stone here that's laid before Joshua. And he has seven eyes. That's because this stone sees everything. Seven eyes is a seven is a number of completion. This picture of the eyes is this is an all knowing God. Christ sees all. He doesn't have to as in that Isaiah text we read, he doesn't have to see with his eyes or hear with his ears. Um, we're told that the word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. It says he is a a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. David time and time again in the Psalms will say, "He searched my reigns within me." The Lord knows every thought we think, every meditation of our heart. He knows the climate of our spirit, whether we're we're lifted up and and and rejoicing or if we're downcast, he knows everything. He is. And and don't you want that kind of God to be the stone that our faith is built upon? Says, I will engrave the graving thereof. I believe and we're told in scriptures and in the book of Revelation that every single name of every single child of grace is written upon the hands of our savior. Even in the Old Testament, the high priest actually bore on his shoulders plates that had the name of every tribe of Israel. Time and time again, we're told that he has our names engraved upon him. That's a permanent thing. When we go to heaven, he will still bear the names of his people upon him. Upon this stone will be engraved, the graving thereof. The names of his people are upon this stone. The Lord of hosts says,"I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day." What a prophecy. The salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ, the plan, the purpose that was set forth before the foundation of the world and the mind of God and the eternal counsel and the wisdom of God was that the sins, the iniquities of the people of God in one day would be put away in a single day. It wasn't a process. It's not a Christ wasn't throughout his whole life working on it. He lived his whole life to get to the point where he would be hung on a cross and he would bear the wrath of God until the very last scent, if you will, of the debt of his people was paid for by his blood. Not a little bit extra, not just uh not anything insufficient. The perfect payment was made in one day. the entire iniquity of the land of the people of God, in one day had their sins removed. And in that day, sayeth the Lord of Hosts, shall you call every man his neighbor under the vine and under the fig tree. In that day, I believe that's referencing the age we're living in, the gospel age, if you will, after Christ has purchased his people. Now that that's been done and the news has spread, this gospel story that we have, this is the l this is the day we're living in. So, we ought to be calling every man our neighbor under the vine and under the fig tree. Remember that old lawyer that went to the Lord Jesus Christ and tried to trip him up and he said, 'Well, who is my neighbor? The story Christ told was of the good Samaritan where the priests passed by, the Levites passed by. That good Samaritan saw one who would be his enemy in natural circumstances and he cared for him. I I encourage you to go read that story again. He cared for him so um thoroughly and so lovingly. He said, "Anything that you need, if you need to buy him more medicine, whenever I come back around, I'll I'll cover it. Don't worry about it." He's so loving to take care of the one who would probably despise him if they met under different circumstances. The Samaritans and the Jews did not get on not get along well. So, in this day, we are to call every man our neighbor. We are to love uh the Lord our God above all else and love our neighbor as oursel. each person that we come in contact with. Um, we're to assume that they're of the Lord's people. We shouldn't ever look at someone and on a snapshot say uh we're not we're not out here uh filtering through mankind to say this is the Lord's child. This one's not. Um the Lord specifically gave a parable saying we're not supposed to separate the wheat and the tears. That's not our job. That he'll take care of that. He knows his people. He won't lose a single one. Our job is to just love people, to call every man our neighbor and to try to serve them. Um he says under the vine, the Lord Jesus Christ said, 'I am the vine and you are the branches. We're to do this under the banner of Christ and under the fig tree, under the shade of his grace. That's our motivation for loving the people around us. Um and all in all, I believe this whole chapter, it's it's painted the picture. The courtroom scene was set. There was a proper and and sound I believe the devil was probably clever in his accusations and prosecution against him. He said he wasn't a good high priest. He messed up. He made all these mistakes. You can go ahead and fill yourself in the blank and I will as well. But he has plenty that he can throw against us. But just remember, the Lord says, "This is one I've chosen. I've plucked him. I've plucked this brand from the fire. He's taken off our filthy garments. He's given us new change of raignment." That transaction has taken place. Christ bore our iniquity. in place we've been imputed the righteousness of God such that we can stand before him. I think it's a it's kind of a picture of Ephesians chapter 1 according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. That's the picture we see here. were chosen before the foundation of the world and he's made us and conformed us to the eventually when when he comes back will conform us fully to the glorious image of his son Jesus Christ and we will be uh ever with him in that glorious land. Pray the Lord will bless each and every one of you. Um, if you would like to walk with us here at Camp Creek at this time, the doors of the church are open for the reception of members as we stand and sing some song.

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