GOING UP TO THE HOUSE OF JEHOVAH

Norman Meek

1 Kings 10: 4,5; Luke 2: 41-46; Psalms 122: 1-9

One was specially thinking, dear brethren, of this expression as to the ascent - "his ascent by which he went up to the house of Jehovah", referring to Solomon, but also referring to One of whom it could be said that He was greater than Solomon. I just want to convey a simple impression as to the uniqueness of the walk and movements of the Lord Jesus. He was here, as we often say, a Man amongst men, but He was unique amongst men. He remains so, He remains unique. His humanity was of a different kind but it was real, and His walk, His ascent, was distinctive. We must always allow for that when we think of Him. It seems to me right that we address Him in a peculiar manner, and all divine Persons, as 'Thee' and 'Thou' rather than 'You', although I understand that in some languages the latter is the only way it can be done. But I do cherish the distinctive address to divine Persons; we speak to Them in a manner that we use to no other. It may be, you say, traditional - well, whatever it is, one would like to keep the distinctiveness of Christ in one's soul and cherish it there.

There are many wonderful things about the house that Solomon built, about his servants, even about their apparel. The queen of Sheba noticed it, like women do, but what affected her in a peculiar way was his ascent. It is the last thing that is said, his ascent, his personal ascent by which he went up to the house of Jehovah. It is so, beloved brethren, that while we have the privilege of going up to the house, the Lord has His own peculiar route and His own peculiar approach, like the prince in Ezekiel 46 who had his own gate and comes in one way and goes out by his own particular route. No one else can entrench on that route. So it is that the Lord Jesus had His own approach, you might reverently say, even when here, of going up to the house of Jehovah. I suppose it was so in the passage in Luke where we read. The family went up to Jerusalem; and He went too, as Mr Darby said, "A child in growth and stature, yet full of wisdom rare". I would like to occupy you with Jesus, beloved, not only with His work, wonderful and unique as that is, but with His Person. There is something about Him that stands out and will always stand out as unique and distinct for there is no one like Him. He had His own ascent, and even here as a boy of twelve, as He went with His parents, there must have been something unique to heaven's eye. He was going up to the temple, yet in another sense He was the temple. But those buildings were going to be honoured by His presence; they were going to witness a Person coming in who was no less than God Himself.

Now you and I have the privilege of coming up to the temple, the gathering of the saints, gathering to the name of the Lord Jesus - going up to the temple. There should be something distinctive in our approach too. We would not entrench on the uniqueness of Christ, but we are not doing anything ordinary, dear brethren, as we approach God. We come into His presence, we go to the meeting to put it simply - a simple expression that, going to the meeting. What meeting? Who is going to meet us? Whom are we going to meet? We are coming up for the reading, or for the service, or the meeting for prayer, but into whose presence are we going to come? What ascending! We are going up, going up to the meeting, going into God's presence. Heaven must have watched these steps as they wended their way up to Jerusalem. I suppose most of Israel would have been doing the same, converging in their walk up to the temple, and yet among them One who was unique in His approach, who had His own ascent. Let no one entrench on that, His own right to go there and His own walk, and one may say His own gait, reverently speaking, as He approached God. His parents went and others went, and it is a happy privilege and custom that we have to go up to the temple, in principle go up to God's house and to serve Him there.

What is your view, dear brethren - I address you all, I know that you will forgive me - but what is your view of going to the meeting? Do we say we sing a few hymns there and brothers stand up and give thanks and break bread, and when it is all over we come home? I wonder if we give time to think about the profundity of what it is, to appear before God, to appear before Him, it says, in Zion (see Ps 84: 7). We come into God's presence by the Spirit. That would rebuke casualness; we are going into His presence, we are going up to God. Remember Jacob of old; he was instructed to go up to Bethel, God's house, and without God saying anything to him he said, We cannot take the idols there. He said to his family, We will have to put them away, we cannot take them up there. We might take our thoughts up, you know, we might take up our thoughts of Monday and perhaps the stores are going to have a sale; you might take those thoughts up with you, but they do not fit, you will have to leave them at the temple door. Your walk, your entry, your ascent will be somewhat marred if you carry those things up. One would like to carry up right thoughts of Christ; one would like to carry up some impressions of His greatness; one would like to carry up something that one may be able to express and bring pleasure to God's holy ear concerning His beloved Son. We will receive impressions there, and no doubt, as this One who is so distinct comes into God's house, we become aware of the presence of Christ taking us on, taking us up in the service. And allowing for His unique place and distinction, one would like to be able to contribute something to that holy occasion, that occasion which is so delightful to God Himself. How do we come? How do we go? These things are very real because we tend to carry up all sorts of extraneous thoughts. Then the dear brethren who have young families arrive and they may be harassed; it has been difficult getting the children together that must be a tax and I would be very sympathetic. We were in a meeting in the north of England some time ago and a sister came in and she no sooner had sat down when the children started to cry. She had got them ready, she got them all dressed nicely, got up early to get to the meeting, and then she had to take them out before the meeting started. Do you not feel sympathetic with such persons? Do you not feel joined to them and wish you could in some way help in that kind of situation? I said to her later in the day, Well, you were not able to be there but the Lord has given you a mark, He has marked you down as present; because in spirit she was present. I thought that she evidenced something of an overcomer, and yet understandably not wishing to have the meeting marred by the cries of the children. But she brought something, she left it there; there was something of the spirit of sacrifice left there something, in a certain sense, that was to God's glory in His temple. These things are very real. And one would like to think that, as we come up to the precious occasion tomorrow, we come up in a way that is suitable to God, that honours Him and honours His temple, honours His place. And as we come up in that sense we can come up with dignity, we can come up with something worthwhile, something that God has wrought in us. Because if we have any feelings at all after Him, if we have any longings, if there is any praise, if there is any song in your heart, God put it there anyway. It is to be released to His honour and to His praise.

And it is not only the Lord's day that one refers to, although I suppose the expression which has been used, 'the great occasion', is not a bad one - it is the great occasion. But then any occasion where the Lord is present must be great. You find a few saints on Monday night and they are gathered together to express themselves to God in relation to His interests, they are going to carry their petitions into God's presence. In a certain sense it is the temple, maybe the house of prayer is a better description. Will you be there? The parents of Jesus came home after three days; I expect they had to, you cannot spend all the time at the meetings, although when we are in heaven I suppose most of the time will be spent in God's praise. We will not be praying then, will we? We will not have any need to pray in heaven. I suppose it will mostly be spent in God's praise; not that much is said about it, but that is some little inquiry you might like to pursue as to what will take place. You get a certain amount of help from Mr Darby's hymns as to what is going to happen in heaven.

The parents went back to find Him. They were a little remiss, because where do you think you would have found Him - in all the buildings in Jerusalem and the squares and the parks or the Roman headquarters, and so on? Where do you think you would have found the Lord Jesus? Do you not think it should have been the temple? They certainly would not have found Him at a picture show or the circus. "The boy Jesus" - a genuine boy and yet unique even in His boyhood. Now on Monday night where will the brethren find you? Evening classes? Well, maybe you have to do some evening classes. You need enough money to meet righteousness. But you can overdo these things. You can become a professional student, as they say. I doubt if too much study is good. Yet the brethren will bear long with you and the Lord will too. But it would be a pity if you always missed the prayer meeting, would it not, year after year? It would be a loss to you and it would be a sorrow to God. Business calls, I know, are a real thing; I feel very sympathetic for persons in business these days. The business world seems to me to become increasingly competitive and increasingly demanding. It wants more and more of your time. Pharaoh is a hard taskmaster, he will want you to make bricks without straw; you have to get by some way, you have to push and press, it is competitive, life is hard. Although so affluent, in one sense of the word, yet persons sell their very souls and their lives to him. What a shame to sell it to the building up of Egypt and Babylon! If you are going to raise a family, I suppose you will want a house; if you are going to have some food you want to fill up the larder. All these things you will need money for, but get by with as little as you can. I think that would be the advice of older men.

So the Lord's parents eventually found Him; they had searched for three days. I think they would have said, We should have looked there before. They were a commendable couple, Joseph and Mary, but you do wonder why it took them three days to find Him when the obvious place to look was the temple. I say these things affectionately, dear brethren, but attendance at the meetings, whilst it is not everything, is a good index of our committal. It is not everything and far be it from me to make everything of it, but both you and the saints and the Lord are losers if you are consistently away. May the Lord encourage you to commit yourself to God's house and the maintenance of it, and you may see each day, week by week, something of the distinction of Christ. Every prayer that goes up will be offered in His name. Is that not for His glorification, to ask for things in His name?

In Psalm 122 David rejoiced in those persons who encouraged him to go into the house of Jehovah. Perhaps you feel a little resentful at my speaking to you like this. Well, I will have to bear the fact that I am not very skilful in making an appeal. David says here, "I rejoiced when they said", or as the alternative reading is, "I rejoice in them that say;” I rejoiced when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of Jehovah". It might read, 'I rejoice in them that say'. They are both good renderings, are they not? "I rejoiced when they said unto me": what better thing could he do than to go up into God's presence? Now, dear brother and dear sister, let us face it together, what better thing could we do than to go into God's presence? Someone said, "thy countenance is fulness of joy", Ps 16: 11. You say, I just hear a few prayers, they pray for the sick, and pray for the gospel, pray for men. Those persons are serving before God's throne, dear friend; those persons are approaching God at the golden altar. Ask the Lord to give you another view of it. You see a few saints and you hear their prayers, you hear their requests: do you find it boring? You would not be the first one who has found it boring. Just hang on, just persist and ask God to give you His view of it. He looks down and sees a few saints uttering their simple prayers; does He look down and despise them? No, dear brother, dear sister, He values it immensely. It means something to Him. It means more to Him perhaps than it does to themselves. He values everything. For one thing He always likes to hear the name of Jesus reverently mentioned, whether it is within the four walls of a room or on a bus or in the supermarket, He always loves to hear the name of Jesus mentioned. That name is yet going to be noised abroad, it is going to be known over the face of the whole earth. You anticipate that. Perhaps we do not mention it enough in public with the respect and the reverence that it deserves. "Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem, which art built as a city that is compact together" - the saints together joined in love, knit together. One would yearn to get God's appraisal of a simple gathering. One would yearn to have His view, heaven's view of the economy of local assemblies. Yes, there is one here and there is one there, heaven takes account of it. Heaven sees the skyscrapers, sees the United Nations building, sees the big silos in which these fearful weapons are stored, but heaven's greatest interest centres in God's house down here. I would like to encourage us. If we go up, beloved, let us go up suitably; let us go up and take an ascent that is suitable. We had something about this earlier today, touching on our clothing and our demeanour; that would be only an outward index of what is within; the greater thing is what is within. It is good if the outward thing corresponds and in some way reflects what is within. "Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem ... Whither the tribes go up, the tribes of Jah". Do you ever think of that - brethren wending their way to a meeting, the tribes going up? You put a name on them: there is Benjamin, you say, little Benjamin; he is guiltless, he will have his distinction. Here is Judah, he has his distinction too. Then there is Joseph, he is select. You put your name in, dear friend, dear brother, dear sister, and you are select. Do you know that? Every one is select, every one is unique. There are no duals in Christianity. Every one has a name, a name that is registered and is never repeated. You might even be a twin, you might be what they call an identical twin, but you have your own distinctive name. One is conscious that one does not speak too eloquently of these things, but I would like to encourage the brethren to continue in gathering, continue in going up, and your own distinction will sooner or later become apparent and will eventually reflect its own peculiar ray of the glory of Christ. Something of Christ is put into a believer that is unique: did you know that? We often say, You have an impression of Christ that is unique. No one else has anything quite the same. It is yours, it is distinct, that is your personality. And you have a distinct walk.

May the Lord help us in these things. Outwardly, dear brethren, the position is small and there is much weakness one way and another; nevertheless the Lord loves His people and it means something to Him to see them gather. One day He is going to show it to a universe; He is going to display it; He is going to be admired in all those that believe. Will you be there or will you be ashamed at His coming? Well, let us keep going. I sometimes think it may be that the Lord will come when we are gathered - I do not know but I sometimes think it might be. One thing I am quite sure about is that He loves to see His people gather. May the Lord help us to commit ourselves to it, for His Name's sake.

NEW YORK

3 September 1988