In this Resurrection Sunday sermon, Pastor Babij preaches from Zechariah 3:1-7 on the need to be properly clothed for eternal life. Pastor explains that are three types of garments:
1) Garments of Filth
2) Garments of Righteousness
3) Garments of Access
Pastor shows from Scripture that all people need to replace their garments of filth with those of Christ’s righteousness and of His access to God the Father. Pastor Babij calls upon all hearers to determine what sort of clothes they’re wearing before they face God’s final judgement.
Full Transcript:
Okay Calvary, let’s take our Bibles this morning on this beautiful resurrection morning. We’re looking at several passages of Scripture today. We’re going to look at Zechariah 3:1-7 specifically, but as I go along, there will be a few passages I may like you to look up. Today, we are supposed to be celebrating the Resurrection day. This is the day that the Lord Jesus Christ, after He was dead and buried, got up by His own power and defeated our greatest enemy. That greatest enemy is death and Satan. This is what Jesus said as recorded in the gospel of John. He said:
For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.
Let’s pray. Father, this morning I ask you as I come before You that we would see the prophets’ prediction of the coming of the Messiah and what the result would be after the resurrection. So I pray, Lord, as we look at these things in our Bibles, that You would weld them to our mind, that we not forget them, that we would hold on to the truth like we hold onto nothing else. And I pray, Lord, we not let go of it and we always discipline ourselves to learn more and more of what You teach in the Word of God so we’d become stronger in the faith. So we can live no matter what time it is in the world, no matter what’s going on in the world, viruses, wars, earthquakes. Whatever happens, Lord, we know that You are in control of all things. Even though things may look out of control, they are not. At that time, the Christian should be the strongest. They should be thinking the clearest. And they should be established on the truth so they don’t falter and they don’t doubt. I pray, Lord, help us to stand that firm. And I pray in Christ’s name. Amen.
So it has been my experience that people are more interested in clothes that they are wearing for the Easter holiday than what the holiday actually really represents. I know today is not a day that you got up and got dressed up. Some of us have. But because you’re probably sitting on your couch this year, or in your office, or around a table. Wherever you’re at, it’s a different kind of Sunday. But usually people are getting dressed up and they’re going out and they’re going usually, for believers, to church to worship the Lord in the gathered assembly. We don’t have that privilege today, but that is what we’re looking forward to again.
So on a similar note, the Word of God is extremely concerned about what kind of clothes we are wearing. In fact, what clothes you are wearing will determine your eternal destiny. Let me go one step further. What you are wearing will determine whether you will be part of the resurrection unto life or the resurrection unto damnation. Jesus spoke of resurrection with two different destinations. He said in John chapter 5 there will be a resurrection of life and there will be a resurrection of judgment. So there will be a resurrection for every single person, whether they believed or not.
So here’s a question that you should ask yourself this Lord’s day. Are you going to be wearing the right clothing that will place you in the company of those who will be part of the resurrection unto life? If not, you will be wearing garments, garments which have been fashioned by your own doing. And you’ll be turned away at the gateway of the eternal city of God. You will be excluded because of inappropriate attire.
Now, let me show you what I mean and what I’m talking about. If you take your Bibles and turn to the book of beginnings. The book of beginnings is the book of Genesis. Genesis actually means beginnings. So find your place in the Bible in chapter 3 of Genesis, and I want to read you something Adam and Eve came to realize which they did not realize before this event. And what was that? Look at Genesis 3:1. It says:
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?'” The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.'” The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil,” When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.
They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself. And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”
So what did Adam and Eve realize that they did not realize before? That disobedience would bring them to a place where they understood and saw evil and sin. Because disobedience was sin to God, now they realize that they were naked. You see something happened that made Adam and Eve realize that they had no clothes on. They sensed immediately that they could no longer stand in the presence of God. They tried to remedy the situation to cover their nakedness with a plan to establish their own righteousness, where it says in verse 7:
they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.
Well that is clothing. They weren’t clothed before but now they had to have clothing because their eyes were opened and they realized they have sinned against the Lord. So you see, Adam and Eve were no longer innocent because of their sin of disobedience. Their nakedness before God was a symbol of their innocence. Now the fig leaves became their their own inadequate attempt to cover their sins and to cover their disobedience. So what happened? They felt afraid of God, no longer able to approach God. They felt guilty because of their sin. They didn’t feel that feel that before. They were ashamed before God. So in the rags of their own self-righteousness, they ran and hid and covered their naked bodies.
Now every time you put on clothes, it should remind you of your sin before a holy God. Your sin has made you unrighteous and unfit for the presence of God. That’s everyone. Now, it has been estimated that if an average person lives to the age of 70, he or she will spend five years dressing. That’s a long time to be reminded of your sin. Now not necessarily does clothes remind us of sin, but according to the Bible, it should.
At that point, I want you to turn to the book of Zechariah, the old testament prophet Zechariah. The last book of the Old Testament is Malachi. Right before Malachi, you’ll find Zachariah. So if you are not familiar with that particular Old Testament prophet, that’s where to find it. So as you turn there, notice with me two sets of garments in which we find in this narrative, showing how a person clothed in sinful garments can actually be clothed once again in rich garments, garments of actual spiritual purity. Now, the first garment that is mentioned in Zechariah 3:1-3 is the garments of filth.
But before I look at that specifically, in Zechariah we are presented really with the principles of salvation. This is a passage of Scripture that is talking about the future Messiah and what He will do when He comes. It’s also talking later on about the second coming in Zechariah. So here is an excellent section of Scripture which gives us a good picture of our present standing before a holy and a just God. In the Old Testament of this prophet Zechariah, you have Joshua, the high priest, who is going into the most holy place before the ark of the covenant. That means he’s going before the presence of the Lord. The high priest was able to do that. That was his job. And the priest was to go into the presence of God in holiness. That means he was covered with certain priestly garbs that pointed to who he was and what his job was before God. But here, Joshua, who is the high priest, stands with filthy clothes. look at Zechariah chapter 3:3:
Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and standing before the angel.
Now, we know the angel of the Lord as Jesus Christ. We know that’s who this is – a pre-incarnate view of Christ. So God’s priest is standing before God with filthy clothing. That doesn’t seem like what a priest should be standing with before God. It also tells us that the priest was sinful. But if the priest was sinful, that means the people also were sinful, meaning that something drastically went wrong in the nation of Israel. See God’s people and priest, having come out of the Babylonian captivity, have gotten themselves so dirty with sin against God that the priest was unfit to go into the presence of God. Remember, the priest was the mediator between God and man. So they needed, at that point, the human priest to go before God so the sacrifices could be made, so the sin could be forgiven. But the priest is not able to go before God because he has filthy clothing on.
Now, there’s only one thing to save Joshua now. That means he needs some brand new clean clothes. But the best Joshua could do is to provide himself with filthy garments. So he stood before God helpless. He stood before God condemned before the angel of the Lord. He needs someone else to step up and provide him with new clean clothing so he can come into the presence of God.
Now, did you notice in verse 3, it says Joshua was clothed in filthy garments? Well that represented not only the sin of Joshua, but the sin of the people. It represents also our sin because Zechariah is looking to the future of what the Messiah would do. So we’re included in this. But the Hebrew term for the word filthy is actually literally the word excrement. Dung. That’s how he looked before God. Remember what Isaiah the prophet said in chapter 64 verse 6:
For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are as like a filthy garment;
So it looks like Joshua the high priest is not the only one in this position before God. It’s us too. It’s all people who are in that position. That is all any of us have to offer God. All we have to offer God is filthy clothing, soiled with our own sin, the sin that came from Adam and his disobedience and also our own personal sin. So the priest and the people have soiled their garments beyond repair. The picture in our text takes place in the courtroom of God. I didn’t read the whole text yet, but I’m getting there.
So I just want to ask you something: have you ever wondered, because of all the shameful things and sinful things of thoughts and words and deeds that you have done, that you have been forever soiled by the indelible marks that are on your record that maybe no one else knows about but God does. See marks which haunt you with guilt, and it haunts you in the privacy of your own heart. In the privacy of you or your own heart you wonder – can I ever be clean before God? You ask yourself – is there still hope for me? And that’s a good question to ask. I believe at one time in my life I asked that question. Being religious doesn’t mean you’re clean. Going through the motions, religious motions, doesn’t mean that God finds favor with you. You still have dirty garments on and there’s nothing you can do to remove your garments. Joshua the high priest could not remove his garments.
So here’s a great picture of the great grace of God in salvation. A person standing in filthy garments – that means he could not dress himself with clean clothes. That’s us also. Then Satan, the Bible says, is standing accusing Joshua of all his unrighteousness and all his guilt before God. Look at Zechariah 3:1:
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 that’s what Satan does. He accuses us of everything and so we remain guilty and under his power continually. That’s what his desire is for all people. He wants to keep them in the darkness. He wants to keep them guilty. And he wants to keep them from the truth on how they can get rid of these dirty clothing. Of course also Joshua deserves to die. That is a position where he deserves to die. That means not only can Joshua not dress himself, he cannot defend himself before God in His courtroom. And thirdly – he cannot deliver himself. There’s nothing he can do. There’s no way to cover his sin. So what Joshua and the people and what we can’t do, God can do. Someone else has to remove the dirty garments.
So these dirty filthy garments are now replaced with garments of purity. Look at verses four and five. Before I look at the verses four and five, I just want to let you know that not only God is able to do it, but God is willing to do it. He’s willing to save people, to forgive them. Really, that’s because of the results of what Christ did on the cross and where the resurrection brings us. The resurrection brings us somewhere. It brings us to a place where we have access to God again because our clothes has been changed by God. So in this text, we see first of all, that the Lord comes to Joshua’s defense. What a comfort it is to see that the Lord Jesus Christ is represented here in the angel of the Lord, and that Christ comes to his defense. Matter of fact, He doesn’t even let Satan go on with the accusations. He rebukes Satan. Notice what it says in verse two:
The Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! Indeed, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you!
That’s what the Lord does here. That means the Lord comes to the sinner’s defense, which is Joshua, because he had no defense of his own.
Secondly, we see that the Lord delivers from condemnation and saves him. In verse two where it says at the end:
Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?
Now specifically, it is talking about Israel here. What happens is that they come through the Babylonian captivity and they’re just about done before God. And what is God do? God saves us as burning stick snatched from the fire before it’s consumed. That’s the picture here. God steps in and He saved at the last moment.
Then the Lord also gives pure unmerited favor to Joshua. In verse four, notice what it says:
He spoke and said to those who were standing before him, saying, “Remove the filthy garments from him.”
So the angel of the Lord provides to Joshua unmerited favor. In other words, the sinner receives by the grace of God clean clothing as a gift. He didn’t do anything for it. He couldn’t do anything for it. He couldn’t dress himself. He couldn’t defend himself. He couldn’t deliver himself. That’s the picture of us, standing before God. God steps in and He says: remove the dirty clothes because of their sin. Remove them, and then He says to Joshua that God can take away the sin. And it says in verse four:
Again he said to him, “See, I have taken away your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes.”
Rich robes. Robes of purity. That’s what he is saying here. God steps in and what does He do? He removes the filthy garments. That filthy garment is representative of our iniquities, our sins, our transgressions against God. God steps in. He does that. And then what does He do? He provides to Joshua and to us clean clothes. See, the angel takes away Joshua’s filthy clothing. What is being taken away is Joshua’s sin. And in verse four, he strips away Joshua’s own unrighteousness, and then gives him the rich garments of spiritual purity. The garments are taken away and replace with pure clean ones. In verse four, it’s translated in the NAS as festal robes. In the ESV, it’s called pure vestments. In other words, he goes from filthy garments to rich robes. And who does that? God does that. So this is the picture of sins removed and God now covering that person with a new righteousness.
It says in 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 whither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
He is able now, Joshua, to stand without being condemned in the presence of God. Again, another passage of Scripture in Isaiah 43, it says this:
I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins.
So God takes away the sin for His own sake, for His own glory, for His own honor. And then He says: I won’t remember those sin anymore.
Now, if you do take your Bibles, Colossians chapter 2 has a very interesting verse which I’m heading to. It says in Colossians 2:13:
When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
That same kind of picture as we have in Zechariah – God taking away the sin, doing something with that sin, paying the price for that sin himself, and then nailing it to the cross. So God takes the filthy garments of sin, soiled garments of ssin, dirty garments of sin, and He nailed it to the cross. Then what does he do? He puts on the clean clothing of God’s righteousness. So see, God is able to cover him and us in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Now if you’re still there in Zechariah, I am not going to continue this passage in explaining it. I’ll have to do that when I get to teaching Zechariah. But it says in verse 5 of Zechariah chapter 3 that God does something to the high priest. It says there in verse 5:
Then I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments, while the angel of the Lord was standing by.
If you remember what it said about the priest’s turban in the word of God, the turban was marked with a phrase: holy to the Lord. In other words, here is a picture of God’s justifying grace to a sinner, in which He takes away his sin and put on him the picture of the turban of God’s righteousness. He makes that person holy.
Now, this new set of clothing actually leads to a result. And I’m calling this last set of clothing the garment of access, that this new standing before God gives us access to something. Now. Look what it says in Zachariah chapter 3:6-7. Speaking to Joshua the high priest, one is we have access to obeying God now which we didn’t before. And second, we have access to something else. Notice what it says in verse six:
and the angel of the Lord admonished Joshua, saying, “thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘If you will walk in My ways and if you will perform My service, then you will also govern My house and also have charge of My courts, and then I will grant you free access among these who are standing here.
So in this passage, there’s two rewards that are associated with obedience to the conditions in this passage. First, Joshua will remain in the position of authority, which implies that he will be part of the rebuilt temple in the future, and he will rule in that temple. Of course, Joshua ultimately is going to represent Jesus Christ in the future as we go into the book of Zechariah. Secondly, he would have access to the heavenly courts of God. See, before he did not have access to God. He was barred from God because of sin. Now, the Bible says you’re going to have access to the people who are standing here. Who’s standing there? The Lord of hosts is standing there. The angel of the Lord representing Jesus Christ is standing there. It’s representing the presence of God. He is saying to Joshua: you are going to have access, because of what God has done, to the heavenly courts of God, uninhibited access to God Himself. Now that is the result of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It gives us access to God.
Now if I were to go on and show you the rest of the passage in Zechariah 3:8-10, which I will not, I will just mention it is talking about the Messiah coming. And the Messiah is going to come as a servant. He’s going to come as the branch or the kingly part of the promise of God, the Davidic part. Then he is going to come as a stone, the priestly part, in which God establishes the presence of God amongst men. Then of course, He will be the remover of iniquity as we go on in that. But that’s not what I’m going to look at it right now.
What I’m going to say now is that this is the basic message of the gospel, that God sent Jesus to die outside the gates of Jerusalem to take away sin, to cover us up with His perfect righteousness, to give us a new clean clothes, to give us new resurrection of life, for what reason? So we have access to God. So He brings us into the presence of God. So nothing can hinder us from coming into the presence of God based on what Christ has done for us. This Jesus provided the righteousness we needed and took upon Himself the wrath we deserved. Now, I don’t know about you, but that’s good news. That is the best news that we can ever have. Paul brings up and Romans chapter 5. He says Christ did that when we were helpless, when we were ungodly, when we were sinners, when we were enemies of God. He did all that when we were in that condition, just like Joshua was, clothed in filthy garments. Now God gives us new pure garments washed with the blood of Christ and the righteousness of Christ that is over us. Paul says:
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
Now that’s good news. It was Doug Wilson who gave a risky analogy on the difference between God’s advice and good news. This is what he said: a teacher was saying to a student – study hard, learned your paradigms, get good rest before your final exam and you should do pretty well and pass the course. Then the final exam comes and the teacher sees the young man brooding over a blank piece of paper and she gives some more good advice and tells him – listen, relax. Take your time and what you studied will come to you. You see, that that’s all good advice. But if the teacher says why don’t you scoot over and I will take the exam in your place. Now that’s good news. That’s not good advice. This is what Christ does for us. He scoots us over and he takes everything for us. We can’t take the exam. We don’t even have to take the exam. There’s nothing we could do to pass the exam. Christ does it for us.
Now many theologians say that that is why when Christ was crucified, He was stripped of all his clothes and then nailed to a criminal’s cross, because He had to take the shame that went with sin. Just like we saw the shame of Adam in the garden, Jesus takes the shame on the cross. The book of Hebrews even brings this out, where it says in Hebrews chapter 12:2:
fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Jesus did this so He can take upon himself the guilt of our sin. Then to exchange the filthy rags of our self-righteousness with the pure righteousness of His blessed obedience to the Father, something Adam could not do. He was the second Adam, as Romans tells us Jesus was. This is what it means to be justified – to have your sins covered by the righteousness of Christ.
Now, here’s an invitation of grace. Clean clothes are available for anyone who comes to Jesus Christ for the asking. If you don’t know Christ, say to Him – You can make me clean. You can cover me with Your righteousness because of what You have finished on the cross of calvary. I don’t have to stand before God in all my sin in filthy garments. Once we do that, we appear before God’s throne in perfect attire. God no longer sees filthy garments. He sees the clean clothes of Jesus Christ. We are then dressed in His righteousness and His righteousness alone. As Martin Luther says: we are dressed in an alien righteousness, one that does not come from us but from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
So as I started out saying in the beginning of this message, what you end up wearing will determine your eternal destiny. Are you going to be wearing the right clothes that will place you in the company of those who will be part of the first resurrection? Will you be in the company of those who have been blessed by God in Christ Jesus? if not, you will be wearing garments, filthy unwashed garments which have been fashioned by your own doing, by your own sin, and yes by your own righteousness. But you will be turned away at the doorway of heaven. You will be excluded because of inappropriate attire.
Now I do want you to look at a passage in Revelation. Turn your Bible all the way to the end, Revelation. I want you to turn to Revelation chapter 7. And then I want you to turn the Revelation chapter 22 once I get done with that. Now lay your eyeballs upon this next passage because it gives us a peek at the clothing God’s children are wearing in heaven. You’ll probably want to turn there to see if you’re wearing the right clothing, the only kind of clothing in which you may enter heaven. Look at Revelation 7:9:
After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne before and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud voice, saying “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
See, the book of revelation gives us at least three characteristic of the blessed redeemed, and it also gives us three characteristics of the ones who are not blessed. In other words, it gives us three characteristics of the ones who are dressed in white robes and three characteristics of those who are not dressed in white robes. Now if you haven’t turned to any passage of Scripture so far, you will definitely want to put your eyes upon Revelation 22:14 because I want you to notice what it says here. It says:
Blessed…
That is an incredible word.
Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city.
You know what that is – that’s access. Clean clothing gives you access to the kingdom of God, to the gates of the holy city. Those who are the objects of God’s love are a group of people who are happy and who are clean, people who are blessed. Blessed actually means fundamentally to be approved of. It means to be a privileged recipient of divine favor. There’s no higher privilege one can have as a human being then to have the good will of God, for God to look at us favorably, for God to look at us with merciful eyes. We are approved because of Jesus’ work, not because of something we have done. There’s nothing we could have done.
And there’s two groups of people. You have the insider group. That means they’re inside and have access to the kingdom. And you have the outsider of group. They can’t get in. They can’t get in. Look at Revelation 22:14. It says:
Blessed are those who wash their robes,
So the first characteristic of the blessed here, they have washed robes. A second characteristic in verse 14 is they have access to the tree of life. They have the right to the tree of life. Remembering the garden, man lost the right to the tree of life because of sin of disobedience. It is only regained again in the eternal city by those who are Christ’s. In the garden, there was one tree of life. In the eternal city, there are whole avenues of the trees of life. in chapter 2 verse 7, it says:
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.
A third characteristic of those who are blessed and have washed clothes is they have entryway into the holy city. Verse 14 of Revelation chapter 22:
and may enter by the gate into the city.
That means those who enter the city have free unencumbered access to God. The gates will never be closed, it says in Scripture. The city will always be illumined and open to all believers with their white clean robes. Those who enter into the city of God are those who have trusted in Christ alone by faith alone and trusted the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Scripture has always taught two destinations. There are those who have entryway into the city of God and those who are barred from the city of God and cannot under any circumstances enter the city.
So we see lastly three characteristics of the condemned or the outsiders or the ones who still have filthy garments on. Notice what it says in verse 15:
Outside are the dogs…
That’s how they’re represented – as dogs. So this group of people are called dogs. They represent everything that is unclean, unwashed, dirty, savage. A dog was a dirty scavenger type of animal. Today the little dogs we have today are wimps compared to the them. These dogs are ruthless. They’ll eat anything. They live off garbage and dead animals. They were considered unwashed and unclean. These people do not have blood-washed robes. They have not been washed by Christ’s blood. They remain unclean, still stubborn in their pride. In fact Proverbs 30:12 says this:
There is a kind who is pure in his own eyes, yet is not washed from his filthiness.
That’s how a man looks. They think they have the right way. They don’t believe in God. They come up with their own philosophy and their own religious systems. That’s why there’s millions of religious systems in the world. And yet there’s only one way, and that’s Christ. But these people, outsiders with unclean unwashed robes, have no entryway. Verse 15 it says also:
and the sorcerers and immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters,
So outside show no evidence of spiritual life, but remain contaminated through long contact with base vices that permeate a pagan and idolatrous society where God is cast out and not welcomed. You see, they would not like heaven at all. In fact, they would hate heaven. And so because they hate heaven, they will not go there. Also outsiders have no free entry to the holy city. It says:
and everyone who loves and practices lying.
They will have no entryway to the city. So Satan is their father because he hates the truth. He is the father of lying. So their eternal home must be a place where people love falsehood and practice lying. You see they would hate heaven, where the God of truth reigns and the people who love the God of truth reign.
To be outside the holy city means a final destination. It will be the lake of fire. They will end up in a place of eternal punishment and their denial of fellowship with God will mean outer darkness. The gates of the holy city will never be open to them. They are eternally shut to all those who do not believe in Christ, do not believe in the Messiah and His work on their behalf. They remain condemned in their own sin.
So this morning, what kind of clothes are you wearing today? Are you wearing white robes washed clean by the sacrificial blood of Jesus? If not, you are still dressed with the filthy garments of your own sin.
My friends, the coronavirus is God’s merciful thunderclap for you to be awakened and to stop relying upon yourself and turn to God. It’s a time to repent, genuinely turn, to repent of your sin, and trust in Christ for eternal salvation. Repentance is a change of heart and mind that treasures Christ more than life itself. The coronavirus is the merciful wake up call to be ready for the second coming of Christ, to be ready for your own death, and to be assured that you are not depending on anything you’ve done, your good works, your righteousness before God. No, you’re depending fully on Christ and His righteousness to save you. So it first starts with coming to believe in Jesus Christ. That’s where it starts. That’s where repentance starts. So today how about coming to Jesus Christ and receive a change of clothes? Yes, brand new clean clothes which will give you access to the presence of God. This is what the resurrection of Christ accomplishes for those who come to Him and receive him as Lord and Savior. That I can be assured that I will be with the Lord Jesus Christ for all eternity.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.
Let’s pray. Lord, thank You so much for this beautiful incredible awesome day. And Lord, even in this unusual venue that we’re in and time that we’re in, thank you Lord that You are still making available opportunities for the gospel, the Word of God to be taught and preached. Thank you, Lord, today, for those who already have come to know you as Lord and Savior and delight and rejoice in worshipping You, loving Your Word, loving the fellowship of believers, people who are anticipating being with you in eternity. But I pray, Lord, You be with those. Bless them, Lord, and be near to them. Be with those who don’t know you. Be with those young people out there, sitting on the couch, that have not trust Christ yet as Lord and Savior. I pray you would convict them of their sin. Show them that they have dirty garments on that they cannot remove themselves. And Lord, I pray by Your Spirit, they’d run to Christ who can and is able and willing to take off that garment of sin and put on clean clothing and wash them clean by Your blood and forgive them and make them right with You by the righteousness of Christ and give them eternal life and give them the joy of knowing that someday they will have access to, Lord not only now but literally by sight someday, in the kingdom of God. Oh Lord, bless us today, and use all these things today that we do for the glory and honor of Your awesome and great name. Amen.