"THE INHABITANTS OF JERUSALEM"
“THE INHABITANTS OF JERUSALEM”
Hebrews 10: 25; Nehemiah 7: 1 - 4; Nehemiah 11: 1 - 3 Zechariah 12: 8
I read this passage in Hebrews hoping to amplify it and make it applicable at the present time in a forceful way from the passages in Nehemiah and Zechariah. The fact that the writer to the Hebrews is obliged to enjoin that the saints should not forsake the assembling of themselves together reminds us of the tendency to do so. The date of the epistle was comparatively near the brightest period of the church’s history. The Jewish christians had the greatest ministry — that of those who had been the immediate companions of the Lord, who were “eye-witnesses of and attendants on the Word”, the Holy Spirit as having just come actuating them. They were the immediate handiwork of the Lord, having been with Him before His death and after He rose, especially the period of His sojourn of forty days down here in which they had most marvellous experiences; and then the incoming of the Spirit from heaven — all occasioned a ministry of peculiar excellence and freshness. The christians addressed in the epistle to the Hebrews were the product of that ministry; so that they are enjoined to remember their leaders that spoke the word of the Lord. Others were still alive amongst them, whom they were to obey; yet they had to be enjoined not to forsake the assembling of themselves together.
Now, I have this in mind because of the prevalence of absenteeism from our gatherings. The Lord would convey to us that He has given us to each other. He has selected us for Himself. The assembly is for Christ and for God, but we are also for each other; and that should be a powerful incentive to our assembling ourselves together. The Lord assembles us, too, for the assembly is His. But there is the assembling of ourselves together; the Lord has given the saints to each other and we are [p. 289] to be respected mutually. The saints are worthy of respect. Were heaven to call attention to us, it would say something distinctive about each of us, and that would be an incentive for mutual respect and affection among us. There is great variety resulting from the work of God, and this is calculated to draw us together. It will be a feature in heaven. Some of you may recall that when Abraham was shown the land of promise, there were no saints named. He saw it from the level — north, south, east, and west; but Moses was shown it from mount Pisgah, and what he was shown was the territory of the saints — where the saints should be, the positions of certain of the tribes being mentioned. Heaven with God, heaven with Christ, heaven with the angels, heaven with the Holy Spirit, of course, but heaven with the saints. So that the gathering of the saints implies that we love each other and hence there is enjoyment; enjoyment not to be found elsewhere.
Now I want to show from Nehemiah how this worked out in a remnant period, corresponding to the one we are in. We are in remnant times, and this book is intended to instruct us, both by direct teaching and by example, how to avail ourselves of what is available, however small and despicable outwardly; to avail ourselves of it and make the most of it. And so that the thought should be stressed, Nehemiah makes much in his opening words of Jerusalem. It caused him tears. I speak of Jerusalem as representing the assembly. That is how it should be regarded. The gospel of Matthew treats of the assembly transitionally. It shows how the testimony and all the interests of God merged from Jerusalem into the assembly. In that gospel Jerusalem is called the city of the great King — the Holy City, but it is the gospel that presents the assembly; the only gospel in which the assembly is directly mentioned, and the first mention of it is the well-known passage from the Lord’s mouth, “on this rock I will build my assembly”. My assembly. Now every lover of Christ must think of that — what the Lord stressed in that way — My assembly. And as I learn what it means in any little way, then I see that I am of it, for every true christian, every one who has the Spirit of God is a member of it. How then am I found? How do I regard it? If it has passed out of view in its original pristine glory here, how am I to regard it today? Does it exist concretely at all? Is it reachable? These are the questions that normally arise in every heart that loves Christ.
Now, as I said, Jerusalem in this book answers to the assembly. I may say, prefigures it, and Nehemiah may be taken as representative of every heart that is loyal to God and to Christ as regards His assembly. In Nehemiah’s day Jerusalem was in ruins, causing him the profoundest sorrow. So he visits Jerusalem, “the city”, he says, “of my father’s sepulchres”. We are not occupied with sepulchres now, but with what is living. The assembly represents what is living; it is “the assembly of the living God”.
Nehemiah arrives at Jerusalem and he tells us what God had put into his heart to do there. A person into whose heart God has put things is most interesting. He puts His love in our hearts by the Spirit, and this leads normally to the assembly. Nehemiah speaks of what God had put in his heart, to do for Jerusalem. What am I doing for Jerusalem? If you read the book you will find that Jerusalem is the great thought. What is there in my heart to do for it? Men who challenge themselves thus, God will take up and make useful. See what Nehemiah did. In the first passage he says, “the wall was built”; that is, there is a man that undertakes to do something and finishes it. And it was done under great pressure; the enemy attacked the workers, so that they had to hold the sword in one hand and the trowel in the other. But the passage read in chapter 7 says the wall was built. It says, “when the wall was built, and I had [p. 291] set up the doors, that the doorkeepers and the singers and the Levites were appointed”. I speak thus of Nehemiah because he is a model for us in our time — a man who takes things up of himself. You say, I have no gift, but there is not a word about Nehemiah having a gift, nor is he said to be sent. He came to Jerusalem — his heart being pressed because of its condition; and the walls were built. It is a question of what each of us is doing. Am I feeling the state of the assembly? And when I undertake to do something, do I finish it? Here the wall was built.
Then the next thing is that the doorkeepers and the singers and the Levites were appointed. Now we have an order of things involving security. We have men that will watch so that no false brother will get in unawares to spy out our liberty. Those are the porters. And we have the singers — those who praise God in song and will also entertain us; men that will make the place attractive, men and women that will sing the songs of Zion in Zion — not in a foreign land. And then we have the Levites — burden bearers, men who are there to serve us. That is their business — united to the priest to serve with him. Is all this going to be attractive? Or is it an order of things that is so little in my eyes that because it rains I will sit in my house rather than walk half a mile to have part in it? That is how this book tests us.
Nehemiah goes on: “I gave my brother Hanani, and Hananiah the ruler of the palace, charge over Jerusalem; for he was a faithful man, and feared God above many”. Now, these are men that you can count upon. Would you not like to meet these two men, Hanani (he is Nehemiah’s brother) and Hananiah? Where you get the brother of a man that typifies Christ in any way you have the idea of brethren presented in an attractive way. Aaron was Moses’ brother; he was glad in his heart when he saw his brother. He is one of the brethren. Thus the brethren would be represented in these two men,
[p. 292] especially in Hanani, the brother of Nehemiah. He is a man that feared God above many; he is the ruler of the citadel; and he is now in charge of Jerusalem. Jerusalem thus is under the hand of the brethren; brotherly love is there. Hanani is not an Edomite. He will do a brother’s part. It is imperative that believers should get acquainted with such men as these two. Paul went up to Jerusalem “to make acquaintance with Peter”. He had heard of Peter, and saw the immense importance of becoming acquainted with him. And there are brothers today whom young saints should seek out and become acquainted with — not Peters, of course, but such as are faithful and care for the welfare of the Lord’s people. By such the assembly is made attractive, as recovered in the small way in which it is known now. It is made secure, protected by the porters. And as we have seen, it has also singers and Levites. We shall lack nothing if we come. A brother of Nehemiah, the ruler of the citadel, is over the city, as we have seen. How different from the man-made system of things where some unconverted person may be ruler!
Nehemiah further says: “I said unto them, Let not the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun be hot; and while they stand by, let them shut the doors, and bar them, and appoint watches of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, every one in his watch, and every one to be over against his house”. Surely with all this care and provision generally. Jerusalem is going to be full of people! The apostle Paul for instance was the great servant of Christ, yet he stresses the fact that one man came to Rome and sought him out diligently and found him, 2 Timothy 1: 16 - 18. You would think every saint who had opportunity would go to see him, but his warm appreciation of the visit of Onesiphorus indicates that very few did it. And so Nehemiah has to say here mournfully, “Now the city was large and great: but the people were few therein, and the houses were not builded”. Is that not a heart searcher? I think it is. Those that value these things are few. Why is it that such an attractive place, spiritually, is not full of people? It is because the people of God are largely governed by earthly principles, fleshly motives, etc., and this spiritual order of things so wonderfully protected and furnished spiritually is not attractive.
Is there any one here who has not any heart for Jerusalem? It is the city of the great King, as I was saying. The Scriptures are full of it. The great culmination of what I am saying is in that one glorious city spoken of in Revelation 21. There is no thought of lack of inhabitants there. It is, as it says in Zechariah, “In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David”. God will reach His end. Even Jerusalem on earth “shall be inhabited as towns without walls for the multitude of men”. And of the city that comes down from God from heaven, it cannot be said that there are few people in it. There are no vacant spaces; the city is complete as it comes down from God. If you are to be there, the logical thing is to be an inhabitant of Jerusalem in a practical sense now. Those who wash their robes have a right to enter by the gates, Revelation 22: 14. Christians must take up this right and as in it not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. In the future, I shall be ashamed if I had not been in it characteristically while I was here, Jerusalem was a small city from the human point of view. The physical site of it would show that it was not large (like the world city Nineveh), even in Solomon’s time. God did not intend things in the time of testimony to be large at all. God says that it was not because Israel were more in number than all the peoples that He chose them, “for ye are the fewest of all the peoples”, Deuteronomy 7: 7. It was never in His mind to make a big display in the time of testimony. Outward smallness in great moral quality [p. 294] and consequent power in service and testimony has ever been in His mind. But the heavenly city is large and withal perfect in every way. These two thoughts — smallness and reproach now and largeness and glory in the future — are intended to govern us while here below.
Passing on to chapter 11, what you see is that there was a great reluctance on the part of the people to live in the city. In the light of the facts presented I cannot understand a godly man living in the country. A spiritual man would want to be at Jerusalem. That is where the divine interests are. And a spiritual man today lives, as it were, in the assembly. He is an ‘inhabitant’ of it. If through forgetfulness he sits at his fireside on a cold night, reading it may be a good book, while the saints are gathered in the light of the assembly in the meeting-room in his locality, he would feel unhappy as the fact came to his mind; he would say, I should be there; I should be with the saints. The elements of Jerusalem are not here at my fireside, they are where the saints are met; Hanani is there and Hananiah is there; Nehemiah is there; the doorkeepers are there; the Levites are there; the singers are there; and, more than all, God is there. Thus no christian can afford to be absent as the saints are assembled together. The brother I have spoken of puts away his book and puts on his boots, and wends his way like one of the flock to the place where his brethren are assembled; and God would watch every footstep he made. They are all precious. The Lord has pleasure in “the footsteps of the flock”.
Now chapter 11 says, “the princes of the people dwelt in Jerusalem”. That is to their credit. And “the rest of the people cast lots, to bring one of ten to dwell in Jerusalem”; to bring them: there was reluctance. You get one out of ten, I may picture a large family of today: the meeting time is arriving and one says, I was present at the last meeting, that is enough for this week. Another thinks the same way, and another satisfies himself with a [p. 295] different excuse, and so they influence each other, and but few go. What does heaven think of that? Our chapter says, “And the people blessed all the men that willingly offered themselves to dwell in Jerusalem”. That is to say, the assembly is everything to them. The assembly is the great object of interest to God. We all should be there characteristically. The men that willingly offer themselves to dwell in Jerusalem are blessed. These men were thoroughly in fellowship, as we say. They were not occasional visitors. Then we read: “these are the chiefs of the province that dwelt in Jerusalem”, verse 3, and we have a list of them in this chapter. I would like to know them all. Heaven lists those who are characteristically of the assembly today. You do not want to be left out of that list. Many, alas! are nominally in fellowship who are not on that list. The Lord would stir us all up as to this solemn matter.
Now I go on to Zechariah. Zechariah, Haggai, and Malachi are prophets who served after the return from Babylon; they are peculiarly remnant prophets, and especially Zechariah. I want to show briefly what “the inhabitants of Jerusalem” come in for, (I wish you to note that expression: “the inhabitants of Jerusalem”.) This verse says, “In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the Lord before them”, verse 8. Now I want you to think of what I have said and to bring yourselves in amongst the inhabitants of Jerusalem. See what is said of them here. God will defend them. Those who recognise and support the assembly shall have protection; I speak more of spiritual protection; but God looks after us as regards material things also, for the angels are sent out as ministers in this respect on account of those who are the heirs of salvation. There is also His Spirit, the Comforter, who remains with us and in us, and Scripture says, “Greater [p. 296] is he that is in you than he that is in the world”, 1 John 4: 4. Thus we hold our heads erect and give a clear, firm answer when inquiry is made as to our associations and customs. Why do you attend that little meeting? I may be asked. I do not merely say it is a meeting of brethren. There is not any light in that. I must make the principles that are in it clear; and to do this I must become conversant with them. Our chapter says, “he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David”. Think of that! Think of the youngest of us, the most tottering of us, like mighty David! It is true of every Christian characteristically, that he has greater power than David exercised. He had the Spirit in a certain way, but the peculiar way in which the saints who form the assembly have the Holy Spirit, David did not know. He did not have an indwelling Spirit, whereas we have — the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven by Christ as having accomplished redemption. The Lord says the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John the Baptist. So one of the assembly is “as David”. But then David must not be minimised, because the passage further says, “and the house of David shall be as God”. I suppose we can apply that to those who are related to Christ now. The house of David here refers to the royalty of the future, and we may apply this to the assembly now. The assembly is characteristically representative of God. God said to Moses that he should be God to Pharaoh in the sense of representation; here it is said, “the house of David shall be as God”. Think of a company of saints as God! It embraces all the saints in that sense. We are kings and priests; a holy priesthood and a royal priesthood.
I speak of these great things to encourage us to assemble ourselves together; that none of us should be found neglecting to assemble together with the brethren.