JERUSALEM

P. Picq

Isaiah 62: 6, 7; Luke 2: 25–32, 36–38

I, too, have been impressed with the thought we had on Lord’s day relative to Jerusalem, and I should just like to add a word by reading these scriptures where we have the thought of Jerusalem. Our brother has said, and rightly, that we could not do great things in the conditions in which we are, firstly because we are not capable of much and then because the conditions are so limited. But I thought of these verses in Isaiah because I suppose there is in them something we can do—“I have set watchmen upon thy walls, Jerusalem; all the day and all the night they shall never hold their peace”. I think that means prayer.

“Ye that put Jehovah in remembrance, keep not silence, and give him no rest”, is something like the parable of the widow and the unjust judge of whom the Lord speaks; she annoyed the judge (Luke 18: 1–8). Well, I wish to speak with reverence, but we have this word in Isaiah, “Give him no rest”. I think that this is something we could all do—myself especially, because I have much time at my disposal; certainly we could all thus use our time, to put Jehovah in remembrance and give Him no rest “till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth”. It is clear that we have here the earthly Jerusalem, as I understand it; but we are waiting for the time of which we read in Revelation 21, when the heavenly Jerusalem will descend out of heaven from God. Well, until that day comes there will be persons whom God has set on the walls of Jerusalem. But they do not keep silence; they are not like sightseers, they are people who pray, who give God no rest by their prayers; not that God has forgotten Jerusalem, but these persons have feelings for God and for Jerusalem and they are praying to God for Jerusalem.

I thought that we had examples of these persons in Simeon and Anna. We have often spoken of them; they are persons we know well; I suppose we shall have no difficulty in recognising them in heaven. Indeed, I suppose we shall have no difficulty in recognising anyone, but it speaks of those who will shine in the day to come and I think Simeon and Anna will shine; others as well, certainly. But these two were in Jerusalem, that is specified, in very obscure conditions. “And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem”, an old man, “whose name was Simeon”. I do not want to speak about the details, but simply to stress that this man was in Jerusalem and that Anna was in Jerusalem, because she did not leave the temple night or day.

I suppose she was one of the watchmen of whom Isaiah speaks prophetically. She “did not depart from the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers; and she coming up the same hour gave praise to the Lord, and spoke of him to all those who waited for redemption in Jerusalem”. We would cherish this thought of Jerusalem.

Since Lord’s day I have thought that the Lord speaks of it as “the city of the great King” (Matthew 5: 35), and I suppose that in the thought of God it has never ceased to be the city of the great King. Clearly today ‘Where is the assembly?’ might well be asked. And in one sense one could say, ‘What has become of Jerusalem?’ But it remains for God, and for the Lord, “the city of the great King”. I think it should remain that, also, for us and we should simply take up our position on its walls in a spirit of prayer “till he establish ... Jerusalem”, and we should be persons like Simeon and Anna were in a day of very small things, in a day very like ours. How these persons must have felt it, but they were in Jerusalem—“And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon”.

This man had been spoken to by the Holy Spirit, and he moved by the Spirit. Our brother has just spoken of acting by the Spirit, and that is the point. Simeon had been told something by the Spirit, and he came in the Spirit into the temple, and by the Spirit he said something, he prophesied about the Lord Jesus, whom he took into his arms. Then at that hour Anna came in and it is said of her that she served God, and she departed not from the temple. One could have said to her, ‘But, Anna, it is the temple that Herod built; it is no longer

Solomon’s temple’. But God still recognised the temple and the Lord Jesus was brought into the temple. The temple had not yet been set aside; it was destroyed seventy years later, and until then the presence of God was waiting, and Simeon and Anna were waiting. They had waited a long time; they were old persons, but there they were, the two of them, in Jerusalem, awaiting the consolation of Israel. It had been divinely communicated to Simeon “by the Holy Spirit, that he should not see death before he should see the Lord’s Christ”. So he waited.

Well, we are not waiting for death, although we know well that it might come for us; but we wait for the return of the Lord Jesus and we would simply be like persons who wait; and whilst we wait for Him let us cherish this thought of Jerusalem, in other words, cherish the thought of the assembly, knowing that Jerusalem remains something unique for God, which He has established, and that there are persons who can put God in remembrance about it and give Him no rest. May we be like these people in Isaiah, and like the examples we have in the much—loved Simeon and Anna.

Word in meeting for ministry, Valence, France
19 October 1982

(The first word on this occasion was printed in the June 1984 issue).