Zechariah 3:4-5 And he answered and spoke to those that stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And to him he said, Behold… This book was written in the midst of a process of reconstruction. The people, or at least a handful of the people of Israel, had come back from Babylon to a ruined city, but by the guidance and leadership of Zerubbabel and Joshua, and those prophets of God, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the little handful or remnant of the people commenced to reconstruct their state, their city, and temple. It was of little use to build the temple while the priesthood was so degraded as Malachi tells us it was. The priests offered upon the altar of God contemptible sacrifices — they were content to bring to it the halt, the lame, the blind, such as they would not bring to their governor. They looked upon the whole service they rendered as hardly worth their care and energy, so ill were they repaid. You will notice at the end of the chapter we read that Joshua and his fellows were men for a sign, that is, they were types of the spiritual priesthood of the present time. We may not exercise our priestly office any more than we exercise our royal prerogative; yet in God's sight we have a spiritual faculty of standing between God and man, speaking to God for man and to man for God. Is it not a fact that there are men and women here who are priests, but they need to be reconstructed, who are called to exercise this spiritual prerogative, but they have not a fair mitre upon their head? "Let them set a fair mitre upon his head." I. We consider THE PERSONS THUS ADORNED, lest any here might suppose that they could not claim the fair mitre. You will see it is Joshua who receives the fair mitre, the person who at first stands before us clothed with filthy garments. Filthy garments always indicate some slur upon the character, some stain on the white robe of the dress of the soul. It may be that you are sensible that your robe is soiled, and as you come to the searching light of God's angel — the angel of God's presence — you are more than ever conscious of the wrinkles in your white robe. When you first came to the Cross of Christ you washed your robes and made them white in His blood, but you have failed to keep them so. The father sits down at the family altar, takes the old Bible and turns over its leaves, but all the time that he essays to act as priest of the family he is conscious that during the past twenty-four hours he has soiled his garments by impure thoughts or wrong imaginations. It may be that some young man here, who, indeed, is a true child of God, has allowed the sin of foul impurity, of unclean desire, to stain his robes; some housewife here has yielded to that today which soils her garments. But even you, in your filthy garment, may yet by the grace of God receive the fillet, the mitre. You will notice not only was Joshua clothed with these filthy garments, but he was the object of Satan's accusation; Satan stood beside and indicated his disgrace. Do you not suppose the great accuser still does this? When just now you bowed in prayer, and your thoughts, were wandering to your pleasure or business, Satan saw it and said, "Christ, do You notice there is not one in all those people truly in prayer?" And when your minister speaks and his motives are vanity or pride, again the evil spirit stands to accuse us; he says to Christ, "Here is Thy chosen servant, but it would be better for me to cast him out of Thy hand and find another to do Thy work better." And so there is never a negligence, a sin, or a fault but what Satan catches it and casts it upon Christ, because he can wound Christ best by showing up our filth and sin. You will notice also that Joshua was like a charred brand: you know how a piece of wood put in the fire will soon blacken and be consumed; a precious letter, a banknote, or cheque, by mistake has been taken by your servant to your wastepaper basket and put into the furnace, and when taken out it is so blackened, yellow, or charred, as to be almost undecipherable; and I suppose I am speaking to plenty of men here who have the marks of fire upon them. But though charred as you are, He will pluck you from the burning, and is prepared this very night to adorn your brow with this fillet, this mitre of His Holy Spirit which will equip you to exercise your power as a priest of God. II. I ought to mark THE PREPRATORY PROCESS, because one has often found, in talking to people about the blessed Holy Spirit, that there has not been any deep preparatory previous work, and it is quite impossible for you to receive the appointing of the Holy Ghost unless you have submitted yourself to the previous work of that same Spirit. Whilst the Holy Spirit of Pentecost is more especially the Spirit of power, He is also the Spirit of cleansing, purification, and sanctification. There is a previous process, but with God that process need not take long. This process is indicated in the vision thus: "He said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment." And we are told at the close of the chapter that God can put away the iniquity of man in a single day. Imagine all the sin rising over England, Scotland, and Wales today; this little island surrounded by our four seas; imagine and remember God says He can put away the sin of a land in one day, and that day was when Jesus died. If the Lord during His three hours' crucifixion was able to expiate and put away the sin of the world, how long will it take for Him to expiate the sin which is already expiated? Will you allow Him now, the great High Priest, to put away your filthy garments, to cause your guilt to leave you, and to give you instead the sense of God's forgiveness? That is not all. The there must come a moment in a man's life when he stands before the angel of God, when certain habits which he once permitted are shown to be altogether unworthy of his Christian character, and he puts off the works of the flesh. You see things in a different light. I feel that the man who does not drop habit after habit, indulgence after indulgence, is not growing; just as a tree may tell us its age by the rings of wood, so we can mark the growth of a man by what he has dropped. I am not here to tell you what to give up, it is not my purpose to add commandments to the decalogue, but to say that a man's growth is determined by what he is prepared to renounce. He does not think it hard to renounce them, because he is receiving so much more; he drops the less to take the better. Just as when we come to the moment of death I do not suppose we shall think about dying, because the radiant light of that world beyond will attract us, and reaching out our two hands towards it, before we know we have died, we shall have passed into heaven. So now we are attracted always by the heavenly vision. O Christ, cause these habits, associations, indulgences, which have been rotting our heart and holding us back, cause these things to pass. Then there is a change of raiment: you must put on the Lord Jesus; make no provision for the flesh, but put on the perfect character of Jesus Christ. This is the deep truth that we do not all remember, I think; we are more anxious for the negative than the positive; more taken up with what we give up than with what we take on. You see here is Joshua: when I began to speak, he stood there clothed with soiled garments, and Satan stands beside him; but the scene is altered now, the filthy garments have been dropped. He has been bathed in water, and he is clothed with fair and beautiful robes, the emblem of some soul here. Satan has vanished, there is no further record of his accusing Joshua, because Christ had rebuked him; and when Christ throws the aegis of His protection round a soul, then Satan sneaks away. Christ has said, "I have chosen this man, plucked him as a brand from the fire, and am not likely to cast him back. Avaunt." And ashamed and disappointed he sneaks away. And so the soul that stood ashamed and downcast, knowing every sneer of the devil was true, now looks into the face of the blessed Angel — Christ — and says, "O Advocate, Priest of God, O most blessed lover of my soul, what can I render to Thee for Thine advocacy and intercession, by virtue of which the very tempter is vanquished?" III. Still, though Satan is gone, Joshua wants the crown of the priesthood, the insignia, THE MITRE OF THE PRIESTHOOD. The mitre, you know, as worn by the bishop, is golden. It is an emblem of the ancient idea of the cloven tongues of fire, but is a faint rendering of the Greek, for on the day of Pentecost the fire came as a glow of light or fire into the room, and then there was distributed a flame upon each meekly bowed head. But still the mitre is the emblem of the ancient thought. The mitre, fillet, or turban, if you compare this with Leviticus and Numbers, and these again with the epistles, stands without doubt for the anointing of the Holy Spirit, not for the bishop alone, but for every one of us. You cannot do priestly work until you have got it; you cannot plead with God as intercessor, and cannot speak to men with power until you have got your fair mitre. You may have your clean robe, but if you have no mitre, you are unable to act as priest. The Lord Jesus for thirty years had a stainless robe of purity and beauty, and as He walked on the hills round Nazareth in intercourse with His Father, there was in Him neither spot nor blemish; yet I think I shall be within the confines of preaching the Word of God when I say that in a sense our Lord had not the fair mitre upon His head until He went down into the Jordan and was baptized, thus identifying Himself with man; then having fulfilled all righteousness, as He came up out of the water, beneath that blue sky, the Spirit of God, in the fitting emblem of a dove's wing, came upon Him, and the fair mitre abode upon His head. He went forth into Galilee and said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me." So when He left the Church of God He blessed them and said in effect, Peter, John, and the rest of you, tarry in Jerusalem until you get your fair mitre; and though they have been cleansed with fellowship with Him, and by His most precious blood, they waited together in the upper room, until that mystic sign to which I have alluded — the fair mitre — was put upon the head of one hundred and twenty, and upon many since then. Many a soul I have had to do with has spent long years with white robes, but without the fair mitre. You must have the anointing power of the Holy Spirit of Pentecost if you are to do the Church's work in the world. It is noticeable that Zechariah said, "Let them set a fair mitre upon his head." Zechariah, you have no right to say that — an angel should do it; you are a prophet, and Joshua is a priest, and there used to be antagonism between the prophets and the priesthood; but Zechariah said, "Let them put a fair mitre upon his head," and they did. The prophet and priest are united by the Holy Ghost. How can you have it? Not by agonising, not by wrestling and struggling, but by first receiving, because Jesus Christ, the angel of Jehovah, waits to give it. There is nothing He wants more to give you than this. You ask me how you know when you have got it? I will tell you. You receive it by faith; you received forgiveness without emotion; you must not gauge your reception by emotion, or you will be disappointed: emotion must not be trusted. You receive it by faith; you may receive it now, at any moment. The indication you have got it is not emotion: it is two things. First, a new sense of the sweetness of the presence of Jesus; for the Holy Spirit never reveals Himself, but always reveals Christ. Secondly, a quiet power over other men. These are "men for a sign." and I close with one most precious promise: Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, if thou wilt walk in My ways, and if thou wilt keep My charge — I give this as a parting message, — "then thou shalt also judge My house, and shalt also keep My courts, and I wall give thee places of access among these that stand by." This is not got by wrestling, but by trusting; so will you be brought within the tuner circle of Christ's presence. Let them set a fair mitre upon his head." (F. B. Meyer, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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 raiment. |
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