THE COMING CITY
THE COMING CITY
One has been impressed, recently, by the way the Spirit of God speaks of the world and of the darkness. It says, “the world passeth away and the lust thereof” (1 John 2: 17), and the Apostle intimates that the darkness is passing, meaning, as I believe, that these moral powers and influences are gradually seen to be disappearing; “passing” being a gradual thought, not that it has passed, and not that it will pass only, but that it is passing in the view of God’s people. Any moment may be the last phase, any moment the final act of the disappearance may take place; and so indeed with the power that is coming in this world. John says, “I saw a beast rising out of the sea” (Revelation 13: 1). “And I saw another beast rising out of the earth” (Revelation 13: 11) in the same way, implying the gradual unfoldings of the satanic mind.
Now, I believe we are in one of the most solemn moments of the history of time, and God is helping His people to accept it. We are witnessing the disappearing of the world system; the very foundations are giving way. The things that were regarded in the world system as impregnable are falling to pieces, and mighty forces of darkness, which will dominate the world, are rising. The full power is not here yet; thank God the assembly will not be here when the full power of the Antichrist is felt. Now the Apostle says, “We have not here an abiding city, but we seek the coming one” (Hebrews 13: 14). There is a city coming, not that it will come exactly, or that it has come, but it is coming. It is getting nearer every day. I believe if we make more room for the Spirit of God, that city would become very great to us. In one sense we have come to this city, as in Hebrews 12: 22, “Ye have come to mount Zion and to the city of the living God”, meaning that it is here by the work of God, by the Spirit’s work, in the hearts of the saints; the holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem is here. It is here, but then it is also coming, coming into display, and one desires to say a few words about this coming city.
There are cities that are going. It says of Cain that he “went out from the presence of Jehovah... and he built a city” (Genesis 4: 16-17). There he settled instead of accepting the judgment of God as being “a wanderer and a fugitive on the earth” (Genesis 4: 14).
He was content to live without God in his own city, but that city has gone. Then after the flood, they say “Come on, let us build ourselves a city and a tower, the top of which may reach to the heavens” (Genesis 11: 4). That city has disappeared with all its pride and intellect and glory; it has gone. Then we read of the cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah. What cities they were! Concentrated corruption — which the world’s cities are, and God has turned those cities into ashes and “condemned them with an overthrow, setting them as an example to those that should afterwards live an ungodly life” (2 Peter 2: 6). They “lie there”, it says, “as an example, undergoing the judgment of eternal fire” (Jude 7). They lie there as a witness to God’s eternal displeasure at what Sodom and Gomorrah represent. Then there is Babylon that Nebuchadnezzar built: “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built?” (Daniel 4: 30). That city has gone — God has touched it. And then Nineveh, that exceeding great city of human pride and glory, can hardly be found.
They are the cities, amongst others, that have gone. Then there are the cities that are going. London is one of them, it is a going city — the metropolis of the world. And Rome, too, in its pride; it is called the Eternal City; but it is a doomed city; it is a city that is going to disappear in the judgment of God. New York is the same. They are all going. We all naturally love to glory in our cities, but they are the going cities — every one of them. Then there is that great city Babylon, spiritually. It is not a literal city, as we speak, but a vast religious system in which man exalts himself and usurps the place of Christ and ultimately, of God. That will eventually disappear. It is well for us to take that into account, lest we touch it. God says, “Come out of her, my people, that ye have not fellowship in her sins, and that ye do not receive of her plagues” (Revelation 18: 4). It is disloyal to Christ and unfaithful to His blessed Name, and God appeals to us. Is there a believer here who is linked with that system? It is “called spiritually Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified” (Revelation 11: 8). God would say to you, Come out of her, my people. Tyre is another city that is falling. Tyre is the great commercial system of the world and Tyre is being overthrown. It is coupled with the fall of Babylon. They all weep because the whole system is falling to pieces, and it is not difficult to see that they are the going cities today.
The heavenly Jerusalem is the coming city. “We seek the coming one” (Hebrews 13: 14). One desires to encourage every heart to seek that city, to be characterised, by the Lord’s help, by the features of that city. Now what are these features? The Psalmist makes it clear: “Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God” (Psalm 87: 3). What can be said about that city? Glorious things! The Psalmist says, “Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God. Selah”. What fills one’s heart with thankfulness today is the kind of things that are said from the hearts of the saints. Speaking of divine things in a merely mental way is worthless. “Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother” (Galatians 4: 26). You would not do otherwise than speak with affection and interest of that, and that is how the Lord wants us to speak of “Jerusalem above, which is our mother”. It says “we seek the coming one”, so that with deep exercise of heart we refuse every other feature, and we seek through the Lord’s grace to have these features now.
Now as to the heavenly Jerusalem, the coming city, John hears the word, “Come here, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife. And he carried me away in the Spirit and set me on a great and high mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, having the glory of God” (Revelation 21: 9-11). Now I believe that is the first thing. What glorious things can be said about it! This heavenly city,
is the bride, the Lamb’s wife! It is a company that prefers Christ to everything. That is what the Spirit of God is engaged in at this time, to bring that blessed One, the Bridegroom, into evidence. “He that hath the bride is the bridegroom” (John 3: 29). What marks the bridegroom is that he has the bride. That means he has her heart, not one affection diverted from him. That is a glorious thing, is it not? That displaces every unsuitable feature. It is no good trying to force the love of money and so on out of our hearts, it is making room for the blessed Person of Christ, that secures as a result that the Bridegroom has the bride. Then it says “the Lamb’s wife”. What a glorious thing that is to speak of as to the heavenly city! Who is the Lamb? In this book He is the One that has been slain, it is “a lamb standing as slain” (Revelation 5: 6). One who sacrificed everything, His life, His all, One who never asserted His right to anything. This wonderful city is the compensation He gets for His sufferings. Let us have the features of the bride that prefers Christ to everything and to provide for Him a compensation for His own heart for all His suffering.
Then the city is referred to as “having the glory of God”. That is what I want to speak of now. This coming city has the glory of God. Think of God entrusting His glory to anything created. Here is a city, to which God can entrust His glory. Let us seek to be so trustworthy that God can give us a ray of His glory. That He can commit to us the outshining of what He is. It may work out in many ways, for one can never compass His glory. Here is a city that displays what God is. God can trust this city with His glory! How unfaithful we often are! The Lord has given us something, and we have used it to display ourselves; but God’s work in our hearts is that He may have a city which He can trust with His glory. One would commend it to each one of us that we might seek with all our hearts to be trustworthy, to receive rays of the divine glory and express it.
I would like to say a word about the gates, in one connection only. You will remember there were twelve gates, three of them on each side and they were never shut. “And its gates shall not be shut at all by day, for night shall not be there” (Revelation 21: 25). I want, with the Lord’s help, to suggest that we seek that feature. That we are always accessible. The wall effectually keeps out all the unholy elements. Let defilement, pride, will, or human glory come along and the wall will safely exclude it, but let a movement that is right, however feeble, appear, the gates are always open and there is no night there. It means they are always open. The more we are in touch with God the more accessible we are. God is supremely accessible. God, “the God of Jacob is our high fortress. Selah” (Psalm 46: 7). He says in the prophet, “Come now, let us reason together, saith Jehovah” (Isaiah 1: 18). Come, and speak with Me! That is God! Was there anyone accessible like Jesus? Nobody had any difficulty to approach Jesus — the Babe in the manger; anyone could go there if they could humble themselves to go! At every point, to every right movement towards God, He was accessible. Zacchaeus may be up a tree with a desire to see Jesus who He was — “Make haste and come down for today I must abide at thy house” (Luke 19: 5) says this blessed accessible One.
There is a danger, because we may have light, of putting a fence round ourselves, but the more we are in touch with God and with Christ the more accessible to every right movement we shall be. That is one of the glorious things that are spoken of in the city of God, that the gates are never shut. You can come at any time. Now, dear brethren, let us seek this “coming” city. Thus you bring the city nearer and nearer until it is actually here. Well then there is another feature of profound importance. There is one street in that city, just one! Everybody that comes into it walks in it. The apostle Paul says “many walk, of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly and their glory in their shame, who mind earthly things” (Philippians 3: 18-19). They are not in that city. Then he speaks of others who “walk in darkness”. I would appeal to every one of us to judge the first movement of a desire to hide anything from one another. Is there one matter we seek to hide from our brethren? If we walk along that street of transparent glass, we have nothing to hide. Everything is transparent. That helps us to walk together because we are all in that street. Peter and John went up to the temple together. Peter was different to John. His service was different, the work of God in him was different. Peter had nothing to hide from John and John had nothing to hide from Peter. They wanted that Name honoured, each of them; the Name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, so they walk together! And the word is “Look on us” (Acts 3: 4). In every locality, in every city, one would long to hear that — “Look on us”. Two men walking together is a sight for anyone to see, for heaven to see, for a poor cripple to see!
Then, in that city there is “a river of water of life, bright as crystal, going out of the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Revelation 22: 1). What a river! Two things mark the world’s rivers. One is that they have been discovered to be blood; the river of Egypt has been discovered to be that. It is not a secret now, it brings death. None of us go there, I trust. The other thing is that the day is near when a star called Wormwood will fall “upon the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters; ...and the third part of the waters became wormwood: and many of the men died because they were made bitter” (Revelation 8: 10-11). You ask business men what they think about the water they drink. They say. Oh! it is so bitter. All the pleasures of this world that men seek to gratify their hearts with are getting bitter, and God intends to make them more bitter. That is the government of God. But there is another river, the water of life, pure and spotless, blessed stream! “The river of God is full of water” (Psalm 65: 9). It will flow into every one of our hearts. “The streams thereof make glad the city of God” (Psalm 46: 4) . Where does it come from? How can we get it? It only comes from one source. The throne of God and of the Lamb. You say, what does that mean? It means “subjection”.
We are to have that through eternity; it is a theme that is never to die. Subjection to God and subjection to the Lamb. The giving up of my will, that is what it means. From the moment that Satan lifted up his hand against the throne of God, every conflict that has happened in the world, in local assemblies, in families, in individual hearts, has centred round this. If we would bow to the will of God and give up our own wills, what would happen? Immediate access to this blessed river — it would satisfy us for ever! I would appeal to the young as to the surrender of our own wills. As subject to the will of God we will have immediate access to this river.
Now there is one other thing. “The city has no need of the sun nor of the moon that they should shine for it, for the glory of God has enlightened it and the lamp thereof is the Lamb” (Revelation 21: 23). God is the light thereof. He shall shine upon it and the Lamb is the lamp thereof. I believe that is intensely important to us today, to seek it with all our hearts, to seek the city that does not need any lamp. God is the source of light and in that city God shines upon everything. The blessed Person by whom God distributes that light is the One that suffered for us, our Redeemer and Saviour. It means the exclusion of human light, however much it may be regarded, particularly in the religious world. The Lord wants us to keep these influences outside and would urge upon the young particularly to have nothing to do with them. They may appear attractive, but they do not come from God.
Well, one just desires to leave these few thoughts with us. There is much more that could be said about this wonderful city. “His servants shall serve him and they shall see his face and his name is on their foreheads” (Revelation 22: 3-4). What could be said about that? But I only wanted to indicate that this city is coming, and one believes that it is getting nearer. The Lord is working in many hearts to bring these features into existence — the exclusion of evil, to welcome what is of God, to secure the affections of our hearts for Christ alone, to make us accessible to one another, to set up His supreme throne, that no other will is allowed in our hearts and thus the crystal stream of living water flows and is available to our hearts as we are subject. May the Lord help us to seek these features with all our heart.