After words of encouragement and assurance to open the book of Zechariah, we read that God gave the prophet 8 visions on a single night that emphasized and underscored that message of assurance. “Return to me,” God said, “and I will return to you” (1:3). Through the prophet Zechariah, God not only gave HOPE that called the people who had returned from exile to finish the 2nd temple. He was also revealing A FUTURE HOPE that pointed to His determination to fulfill all the promises made to Israel’s fathers. Promises not explained by Israel, but by God’s sovereign choice. These 8 visions assured them that God has a plan for Israel, that He will keep the promises made to their fathers, and that He is willing to be gracious to them for the sake of His name. BUT HOW? How can God return to a people who had so shamefully disregarded Him? How can God have plans for a people who have failed Him at every turn? AND WHY? Why would God ever do that? What motivates God to do that? This 4th vision addresses those questions. The Lord encourages believing Israel through a vision that involves their representative, their high priest, a man by the name of Joshua. ESV Haggai 1:1 In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest: ESV Zechariah 6:11 Take from them silver and gold, and make a crown, and set it on the head of Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest. So, Joshua is the high priest who returned with the exiles and is now serving on behalf of the people, as a mediator for the people of God, in Jerusalem. BUT WHAT THE LORD REVEALS BY MAKING USE OF JOSHUA REACHES FAR BEYOND JOSHUA, AND FAR BEYOND THOSE OF ZECHARIAH’S DAY. WHAT THE LORD REVEALS SPEAKS TO THE HOPE OF EVERY REDEEMED PERSON THROUGHOUT THE AGES. What every child God has benefitted from throughout the ages is a DEFENSE, a PROTECTION, an INTERCESSION that is explained by the Son of God, and FORGIVENESS that is FULL and FREE and explained by God’s grace in His Son. Now, prominent in this scene is the Angel of Yahweh. We have already explained in a previous sermon that this is a pre-incarnate appearance of the eternal Son of God. That is made even clearer in this text, because the Angel of the Lord is called Yahweh. James Montgomery Boice made this very point. We see the deity of the “angel of the Lord” clearer here even than in the previous chapter. It is he who speaks to Satan, saying, “The Lord rebuke you!” but he is himself called the Lord: “The Lord said to Satan, ‘The Lord rebuke you!” And when we recognize that, then we see the Lord Jesus Christ interceding for His people, and proclaiming the forgiveness of His people, before He came to ACCOMPLISH for His people what makes such intercession and forgiveness JUST. God is both just and the justifier of ungodly people. He is just because Christ paid for their sins. ESV Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. I. A SCENE OF ACCUSATION (vs.1) This is something that Satan has done throughout the ages and continues to do to our very day. ESV Revelation 12:10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. We will see in verse 3 that in this vision Joshua is clothed with filthy garments. (vs.3) Those garments speak of sin. NAS Isaiah 64:6 For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.