The Lord who defends

8 March 2022

By Rev Kenneth Mtata

Today’s readings

Psalm 17; 

Zechariah 3:1-10; 

2 Peter 2:4-21

Verse of the day

The Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?” (Zechariah 3:2).

When we are still alive here on earth, as God’s people we are in ongoing struggle against evil desires of the flesh, the sinful systems of the world and the Satan, the personification and embodiment of all that is opposed to God. One label given to this Satan is that of being the Accuser. In Job 2:1-6 the Satan is said to have presented himself before God to accuse Job. In Revelation 12:10 we read: “Then 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 brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night.” Zechariah has a vision in which a priest is being accused by Satan before God.

What does Satan use to accuse God’s people? Satan can use all our weakness, our past failures, and our fears. He can even use our wealth and good life as he did against Job. He said, Job would not put his faith in God if he lost everything he had. Everything can be used by Satan to disqualify God's people from serving God. In Zechariah 3, Satan said that the Priest Joshua was too unclean to offer sacrifices to God. 

How does God respond to such accusations? In all cases we see that God defends his people from these accusations, even if they are based on the truth. Indeed “Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel” (Zechariah 3:3), but God did not condemn him because God was still in the process of cleansing him. About Job, God allowed Satan to try him and God proved that Job was a faithful man. In Revelation 12, the accuser is “hurled down.” Those accused “triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death” (v.11). In Zechariah 3 God defends the Priest Joshua. He rebuked Satan: “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?”

In defending his people at the accusation of Satan, God is not necessarily indifferent about sin or all the things that they are accused of. God defends them because of the salvation work he has started in them, which he is currently doing and which he will accomplish on the day of the Lord. God’s covenant people, the people purchased by his son’s blood were saved, are being saved and will be saved at the end of times. The accusations of the evil may be based on the past or the present, but God whose saving work goes to the past, present and the future fully delivers his people. For this reason, God removes their guilty. If they are declared innocent before God, they should free themselves from the feelings of self-accusation and guilty. They must go before God and minister with confidence and joy in the knowledge that their salvation is being perfected on that day when all will be fully reconciled and “will invite their neighbor to sit under their vine and fig tree,’ declares the Lord Almighty” (Zechariah 3:10).

Prayer

Thank you, God, that during this time of Lent, we remember you who took away our guilty and rejected our accuser. You have freed us to minister before you and serve your people with confidence and joy. Help us not to accuse ourselves or to champion the accusation of those who have believed in your salvation. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen