MOUNT ZION AND JERUSALEM
[p. 236] MOUNT ZION AND JERUSALEM
2 Samuel 5: 7 - 10; Psalm 122: 1 - 9; Isaiah 62: 6, 7
My words have to do with mount Zion and Jerusalem. I set out by the Lord’s help to show what they mean respectively and that whilst they have a future bearing they have also a present one; indeed, it is formally stated in the New Testament, dear brethren, that we “have come to mount Zion”, Hebrews 12:22. That is one thought, and the next one in that passage is “and to the city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem”. So that my suggestion will be seen as fitting in with our present circumstances, that we have come to them severally and also in relation to other great things.
They are items, great items of a great system of things that we are said to have come to: mount Zion first, and then “the city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem”, and “to myriads of angels, the universal gathering; and to the assembly of the firstborn who are registered in heaven” and other things. We are said to have come to them, and as having come to them it is surely within our range to understand, to know what they signify, and the more we do understand all these great things, the more we are to see that they are not merely objective things, that they are things in which we ourselves have actual part; that is a very great thought! The truth is indeed usually presented to us as before us objectively; the truth of the Deity and other great thoughts connected with divine Persons are and always will be objective, for we have no part in the Deity. But then there are great things, as I said, that are presented objectively first so that our minds might receive the impression of them, and then we are led further on as we are with God and seek that the Lord should give us understanding in all things; we are led on to see that they [p. 237] are not at a distance but that in truth we are part of them. And this particularly refers to mount Zion and Jerusalem, the city of the living God, as it is called, the heavenly Jerusalem. That is, it is christianity that is in mind; it is the epistle to the Hebrews, the epistle intended to take the believer in the Jewish setting out of it and place him in the other, his final setting, and hence we have the significant word added “heavenly Jerusalem”.
Now I wish to make Zion plain especially for our younger brothers and sisters here and indeed for all the children, for the more one looks into Scripture the more one sees that the children, however young, are intended to have part in the greatest things along with the elders. They learn to appreciate the great things as they are represented by the older ones and as it is seen how they are valued. We learn in school best; I may say a classroom is the best place of instruction, learning together. Also as regards eating and drinking, it is much better to eat and drink with others than by ourselves, not that it is not necessary at times to eat and drink by ourselves, but the Lord intimates clearly enough that what He means in christianity is eating and drinking collectively. That is what the Lord’s supper means. No one could take part of it by himself-it is a collective thought and we eat and drink constitutionally, as also in the way of enjoyment. I always, I may say simply, partake of a meal with much more relish and profit in the company of the brethren whether at my own table or at others’. And so, as I said, the little ones are to share the greatest things of God with the older ones. So that the Scriptures say constantly, referring to the greatest things in the Scriptures, that your children will ask you about these things. They will ask you about them. The segregation of children in instruction is very questionable; the instruction that is best for them is in relation to the older ones. The children of Israel “all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank of a spiritual rock which followed them”. How great it is for a child here to get that into his mind, that Christ is the drink; He is following us. Think of the service He renders in all these meetings preparing this, that and the other one to help us. How great a thought it is ! The rock followed them, it is not the general idea of a rock that it follows; a rock is a stationary thought generally, but the rock is Christ, as the scripture says. It is Christ following us in His service, as He follows us with water for our feet, He follows us with drinking water. It is for the children as well as the older ones; they did all drink of the same spiritual drink. They drank of that rock that followed them. They knew where to go. The rock followed them from Exodus 17 right on. The idea is that the rock followed them; that is, it was always there in that lowly guise, as I might say, like a water-carrier to an army, furnishing what was needed for satisfaction. If they had all drunk rightly of it, they would not have been complaining so much. They murmured for other food.
So, as I said, I would enlist the sympathy of the children. As I was saying to someone lately, when the Lord Jesus came back into Jerusalem for the last time He was in the temple and He was opening people’s eyes, even in Jerusalem. We have here the blind hated of David’s soul, but the Lord Jesus was opening their eyes in the temple and as He was doing that the little children were saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David”. That is what they were saying. It is not just ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’. They were saying something much greater than that. I would not belittle that-’Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’, but “Hosanna to the Son of David” is a great thought, a thought that belongs to the most developed amongst us, for in that setting it means His divinity, His deity. He was Son of David, and He was David’s [p. 239] Lord, as the Old Testament proved. The chief priests and the scribes said, ‘Do You hear that?’. They were thinking about these eyes being opened; that is what they did not like, the mighty power that was in Jesus. They saw that, and the children singing to the Lord, praising the Lord in the temple, and they say to the Lord, ‘Do You hear that?’. And He says, ‘Of course I hear that’. Of course He hears the singing of the children and what they were singing, not ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’, not ‘Jesus loves me’; that is not what He had in His mind. These little children’s hymns do not signify perfected praise and that is what He spoke of. He says, ‘Do you never read Psalm 8? Did you never read the Scriptures?’. It says, “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise”. What more perfected thing could you get at that time”Hosanna to the Son of David”? How the Lord would enlist anyone here into the great thoughts relative to Christ and who He is. It is for you to know. And you get to know it, I may say to the young people, more easily and quickly as you see the older ones in it, as they take it in.
Now the first passage I read is the first passage in which we find the word ‘Zion’, as far as I know. And we have the right thought of it, the divine thought as to Zion. Now I want you all to get this thought, young and old, especially young, that applied to ourselves it means our hearts. It means that we are taken up severally by God. It means that if God had not moved towards us we should have been in the dark, in the blindness, of the world; that is where we should have been; that God has looked upon us; before the world was He had us in His mind, and He says, in fact, ‘That is where I will dwell’. But you say, God dwells in eternity. He does; He inhabits eternity. The heaven of heavens cannot contain Him, Solomon tells us: unapproachable light is His [p. 240] dwelling, as we think of Him. But He dwells there, He “whom no man has seen, nor is able to see”, but He says, ‘This is the place, here will I dwell, for I have desired it’. We must allow God latitude, liberty of choice. We may not understand it fully; why did He not choose angels to dwell in? He says, “Here will I dwell, for I have desired it”. The allusion, of course, is to a hill, but God had more than that in His mind. You can see the hill if you go to Palestine, but God had more than the mere geographical position in mind, He had something more than that when He spoke of Zion, when He said, “Here will I dwell, for I have desired it”. That was what David had in mind; that was the first movement after he was anointed by all Israel, that is, all the saints generally accord Christ His place, then He has got great scope.
Now, He says, I can work out the great eternal thoughts of God. How wonderful to have one mind in the Lord, one mind in the Spirit. The more of that there is, the more scope there is for the opening up of the divine mind, and so David and his men come to Zion. They come to Jerusalem, but they come to Zion. David sees whatever there is there, and there was opposition, bitter opposition, and every one of us here can witness to the opposition there is in our hearts to God coming in. Every natural inclination is against that, against God coming into our hearts, against Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith, but He comes in nevertheless. That is a great word, “Nevertheless David took the strong hold of Zion: the same is the city of David”. That is what is in His mind.
It is the city of David. What a thought it is, that in our hearts and minds, all that there is in the moral sense belongs to Christ. It is His city and collectively the saints are His city. What will He do with the city of David? What will He make of it? That is the next thing to consider. First it is his city, and then it says, “So David dwelt in the stronghold”. As [p. 241] he takes it, the city of David, as he dwells in it, he calls it the city of David. It has a name. Many give names to their houses. It is a common thing in England to have names on the houses. Properly, if there is any force in the name of a house, it should convey the dweller, it should convey something of the occupant. And that is the idea. He called it the “city of David”. It was worthy of that name. Why was it worthy of a name? Why is the name of Jesus put upon us? Why that glorious name by which He was called? Nothing, beloved friends, but the fact that Jesus has a footing in your hearts. You are worthy of it. He called it that. If the Lord calls a thing by name the name conveys what it is. He called it the city of David. It was his, it represented his prowess, it represented his dwelling place, it represented war, the name that he gave to it. It is the city of David.
And now the next thing is how is He going to keep it? For the power of the devil is constantly against that place in the hearts of His people. He has come in sovereignly; He has taken possession and He has given it a name. How is He going to keep it? Well, it says David built inward. Most of you here will know that Joab’s name does not come in this record at all; it comes in in 1 Chronicles. There, but not here, it says that Joab took Zion. The Lord may use a valued brother like Paul to take Ephesus, but that is not what is in mind here. If you were to ask Paul who took Corinth, he would say Jesus took Corinth, Jesus Christ. He says, “I have much people in this city”; He knew they were there. Paul was there, Timotheus was there, Silvanus was there, but who took the city, and who took Zion, who took the people of Corinth? Jesus took them, and dwelt in them, but His dwelling was soon disputed and that is the sorrowful side. And so the need of inward building. It does not appear that there was any inward building [p. 242] in Corinth. There was much at Ephesus. And so here David built inward because if he does not get inside into the crevices and into the inward parts, the opposition will overcome. The spirit of man is said to be the candle of Jehovah. He searches the inner parts by the candle. It is that He may occupy every crevice, every compartment in the persons. That is His aim in all these meetings; it is what He is doing, as the apostle says, If you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, it is that Jesus Christ is in you, in you my converts, unless you are reprobates. But they were converted. Who converted them and took hold of them?-Jesus Christ. That was the idea.
But as I was saying the inward building may not proceed and that is the danger with us. There is nothing about Joab here at all. There is a hiatus, if you notice, in the New Translation, that is, if you want to speak about him, put that name there, but it is David’s work all the same. Whether it was Paul or Silvanus or Timotheus, it was the work of Christ, and He found the place in our hearts.
Well, now I go on from this to the psalm. The passage in the psalm is of David’s city. It is what he did, and how those that love Christ love to dwell on what Christ does. As I said before, Paul would love to say, ‘It was Christ who did it. It was the power of Christ that did it. Whatever I did, it is Christ speaking in me’. So that is 2 Samuel 5. But when we come to the psalms we look for experience. We always look for experience in the psalms; it is the same people, you know, but what are they thinking about? Ah, says one, “I rejoiced when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of Jehovah”. That is, it was no unpleasant thing for him to go to the meetings. That is how it works out. He says, “I rejoiced when they said unto me”. I see all this, I see the connection with this in what God is seeking to do, to enlist our intelligences and sympathies and [p. 243] affections that we might get into the great thought He has for us. So one says, “I rejoiced when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of Jehovah”. It is not ‘let you go’, but ‘let us go’. It is always collective, the house of the Lord. The Lord Himself in Spirit spoke of it, how He kept with the company. They were glad when they went to the house of the Lord. I am not speaking of the house, but rather Jerusalem. The thought of Jerusalem is subservient to the house. The psalm begins with the house, and ends with the house, and what comes in between is what Jerusalem was. It says again, “Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem”. He is a definite man; our feet will stand there. That means that if I get in there I am not going to see the sights; I am not going to enjoy myself simply. No! As soon as he gets inside the gates, what is he thinking about? He is thinking about the whole system within the gates. And what does he say? “Jerusalem ...”. As soon as he gets inside the gates he is able to tell you about it. When you go out and talk to an unbeliever you say, Come in here, come inside these gates. You will never understand it unless you come inside. Oh, I say to you, young people, do not stay outside. Do not stay outside a moment longer. Come inside the gates. “Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem”. And he goes on to say what it is. It is a city compact together. The boundaries are determined; the streets are determined; there is only one street in the new Jerusalem, but it is compact together. Things are cared for there; there is no straggling thought attached to it, as there is to the ordinary city of modern days. Every town, city and village is straggling now. But this is compact together. The allusion is to persons, that persons are related to one another in a compact way. And he says, “Whither the tribes go up”. You will see the tribes go up. They will go up in testimony. You should see them,
[p. 244] see how beautiful are their feet, the footsteps of the flock as they go up! Love and order is implied in the tribes. Elsewhere, indeed, it is a multitude; that is quite intelligible, but the tribes suggest something different from that. They go up for a testimony. All this is to induce the dear people, the young people, to get inside. See the tribes going up. You will say, I would like to be amongst them. Well, it is for the tribes to show that they are getting the thought of God, going up to Jerusalem. Inside, as I said before, you will see the thing, you see the divine thought in it. How they are cared for! Some of our sisters do not like the long brothers’ meetings. They forget that they have long meetings often, and they do much damage with their long meetings. There is no one to check up what they are saying, but the brothers have to give an account of what they are saying. But when you get inside the gates you say, I will never say a word about the care meetings again. They keep the meetings together, compact. There are endless things in the city; if a man does not care for his house, says Paul, he cannot care for the assembly, and if it is cared for then it is compact together, the saints are compact together. That is the thought.
Well, now he says, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem”. Oh, it needs your prayers! “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem”. Some of the dear saints make much of the nice brother; of course, a nice brother is a nice brother, but they make more of the brother than of what he says, his doctrine and his principles. You want to get the principles first. Get the principles before you make up your mind about a brother. Find out his principles and how he applies them. That is the order of God. If you look at the book of Numbers, chapter 4, you see that the Levites are in three families, and the sons of Kohath have a service in connection with the most sacred things. The second is Gershon and he has to do with the principles; he has to look [p. 245] after these things. He comes in before the sons of Merari, who are porters and builders. This is the only place where it says the instruments to be carried were dealt out by name (verse 32); that is, they are persons. These are under the hand of Merari. But Gershon’s work comes before this. Get the principles first! Insist on the principles before you make much of the persons. Make much of the persons, of course; they will be in heaven, the saints will be, but the principles should come first as down here. That is the reason why I am stressing the idea of care as so important and that all should be brought into it and all should understand that he has to do his part in looking after things.
Well, then the psalmist-this is what I wanted to point out-is inside and noticing the tribes, that they are a testimony; that they are going to give thanks to the name of Jehovah. For there are set thrones of judgment in the house of David. This is all fitting with what I have been saying, that is judgment, but notice, it is “thrones” of the house of David. One could say much about that and others here could say much about that. Judgment here has a millennial bearing, when things are set in order authoritatively, because there are thrones of the house of David, not simply one throne. There was only one throne in David’s day. David sat on it, and it is called the throne of Jehovah; but here we have thrones of the house of David. What a great thought that is, dear brethren, as we see it in the elders by-and-by; the twenty-four elders have thrones; that is, each is a dignified individual, and there they are on independent thrones. The point here is the new Jerusalem. That is where you get them. They are not outside. There is no judgment according to God outside. And then he says, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem”, and he goes on to say, “They shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy bulwarks, prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions’ sakes I will say, Peace be within thee!”. The companions and the brothers and Jehovah-all these come into the desire on the part of the psalmist. He is thinking of all these, Jehovah, the brothers and the companions. The more I love them, the more I will desire the peace of Jerusalem; their enjoyment is bound up with the peace of Jerusalem. So it ends, as I said before, “Because of the house of Jehovah our God I will seek thy good”. That is the end, for the house is the place of affection.
Well now, I just finish with a few remarks on Isaiah 62. It says, “I have set watchmen upon thy walls, Jerusalem; all the day and all the night they shall never hold their peace”. Now, you may say, This brother is too active; he is too interfering. Well, that may be. A brother may be that, and do much damage, but there is the brother set on the walls here, a watchman “upon thy walls, Jerusalem”; all the day and night he shall never hold his peace. He shall never hold his peace. Well, you say, Why should he always be saying something? Well, I will tell you.
There is always something to speak about. If any of us were to meet another of us, we would know that there is not a day that something fresh does not come up, some sister says this or that; some brother says this or that. They are not right. Well, they have to be looked into and the watchman on the walls did not hold his peace. They say, That is not right; that must be given up. It may be irksome to hear him talking all the time about these things, but what is he there for? What is a watchdog for? To bark when the burglars come. The Lord says, They are like dumb dogs, they do not bark. Things happen and it is nothing to them, but it is a great deal to the watchmen. Why should I not be in accord with heaven? If things are wrong in my eyes, and even if I have to speak day and night about it, I will do it, even if I [p. 247] have to suffer for it. You are apt to be slain if the dogs do not bark; that is in the speaking (Paul gives the word) correcting, exhorting, rebuking; “reprove ... with all longsuffering and doctrine”. That is what keeps the matter right, and Jehovah gets praise. How can we have these things in our meetings, save as the watchmen do their work? They do it here. There is just one other thought in this passage in the end of verse 6 it says, “Ye that put Jehovah in remembrance, keep not silence”. Ye who do that; who are the ye? “Ye that put Jehovah in remembrance”, as much as to say He has forgotten; God graciously comes down to our way of thinking, “Ye that put Jehovah in remembrance”. What do we do at our prayer meetings? That is what we do. We put Jehovah in remembrance, among other things. We call the attention of His mind to this, that and the other thing, that we see that only He can enter into. “Ye that put Jehovah in remembrance, keep not silence, and give him no rest”. It is very wonderful to me that the Spirit of the Lord allows such statements as this, to bring God down to us; “Give him no rest”, it says. Do not let Him rest. You are speaking about a man-like God; He allows himself to be spoken about in that way, to come down to our poor tiny understandings. “Give him no rest”, it says, and what for? “till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth”. Do not give Him any rest. Keep on, pray without ceasing, day and night, and in the prayer meetings. Do not give Him any rest until He establish. He only can establish and He is establishing. He is doing great things for us. We should be encouraged to keep on and ask Him to do these things. Do not give Him any rest until He establish and until He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. Make it a praise; that is the saints, dear brethren, ourselves; it is collectively something for God. That is what is in mind. That [p. 248] is what all these meetings are for, to encourage us to go on with our labour in the Lord, and God will establish if we give Him no rest. He will do it; however long, keep on. Give Him no rest, it says, until He establish. And then it adds, “And till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. Jehovah hath sworn by his right hand and by the arm of his strength”. You have every encouragement to give Him no rest. Keep on praying, till He establish, until things are perfected; that there is something you can say is finished. May God bless the word for His name’s sake!