"Let mount Zion
be glad, let the daughters of Judah rejoice, because of
thy judgments. Walk about Zion, and go round about her;
number the towers thereof; mark ye well her bulwarks;
consider her palaces: that ye may tell it to the
generation following. For this God is our God for ever
and ever: he will be our guide even unto death."
(Psa. 48:11-14).
"Beautiful in
elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on
the sides of the north, the city of the great King."
(Psa. 48:2).
"They go from
strength to strength; every one of them appeareth before
God in Zion." (Psa. 84:7).
"I was glad
when they said unto me, Let us go unto the house of the
Lord. Our feet are standing within thy gates, O
Jerusalem; Jerusalem, that art builded as a city that is
compact together; whither the tribes go up, even the
tribes of the Lord, for an ordinance for Israel, to give
thanks unto the name of the Lord. For there are set
thrones for judgment, the thrones of the house of
David." (Psa. 122:1-5).
"Whither the
tribes go up, even the tribes of the Lord, for an
ordinance for Israel," or, "for a testimony
unto Israel." We have often pointed out that, in the
Old Testament representation of Divine thoughts, Zion is
that which fully expresses God's mind for His people. It
is in Zion that are found all those features and
characteristics of a people wholly according to the mind
of the Lord. Zion is a representative word. Just as a
little technical matter, we might point out that in some
places in the Scriptures it is stated that the house of
the Lord was there, but actually the temple was not on
Zion at all, it was on Moriah. But what is indicated by
that fact is this, that Zion really does stand for all
the Lord's mind about His house. Moriah is in Jerusalem
proper and greater; the house is there; the Church is
there, if you like. But in Zion, the Church is what the
Lord means it to be in thought. I wonder if you catch the
significance of that? Viewed as a whole, the Church is
not always in itself what the Lord intended it to be.
Who, looking at the Church today as a whole, would say
that it closely approximates to the revelation of it in
the Word of God? Anyone who would say that does not know
much about God's revelation of the Church. But God still
cleaves to His full thought about the Church. He has not
accommodated Himself to the situation which actually
exists, and accepted it. He still holds to all that ever
He thought and intended, and in His Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ, He has that full thought. And then He is at work
by His Spirit to gather to His Son a people, not distinct
from the Church as a whole, not a separate body in
reality, but a representative company, who really do
satisfy Him at least more fully as to His full thought
about the Church; and this is what is meant by Zion. That is
the point we reached at the end of our previous
meditation, and we have now come to the very heart of our
subject.
That is what God is
after - a 'Zion.' It is Jerusalem, but as the Lord would
have it to be and not as it actually is. Oh, we could
take up a whole mass of Scripture to bear that out; but
you have only to look at that section of the Scriptures
dealing with the return of a remnant from captivity, and
you will see it there. It is a coming back, not to
Jerusalem but to Zion, every time. "The ransomed of
the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto
Zion" (Isa. 35:10); and the Lord says, "I am
returned unto Zion" (Zech. 8:3). Yes, "I am
returned to Jerusalem" (Zech. 1:16), but, "I am
returned unto Zion," for Zion is what Jerusalem
should be in His mind. "I am jealous for Zion with
great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great
wrath" (Zech.8:2). Zion is God's whole thought as to
what His people should be, and it is the focal point of
Divine interest. In the New Testament there is a
spiritual interpretation of this, a spiritual counterpart
to the historical. "Ye are come unto mount Zion, and
unto the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem" (Heb. 12:22). "Ye are come;"
not 'ye are coming, ye are on the way, to Zion,' whatever
you may mean when you sing 'We're marching to Zion'! We are
come to Zion. That is the thought of the letter to
the Hebrews - that we are come to something which in
heaven is absolute, full, final. We have left the
partial, we have left the figures, the types, the
pictures of the Old Testament, none of which reached
fullness and finality; they only led us so far and left
us there, but now we have come to the end of it all.
"God... hath at the end of these days spoken unto us
in his Son" (Heb. 1:2), and we are come to Zion. In
His Son we are come to Zion - God's full thought in
Christ. In New Testament interpretation, therefore, it is
this - Christ, the embodiment of God's full thought
concerning the Church, and a gathering into Him of those
who satisfy that full thought, a gathering of a people to
be a 'Zion' people. Now that is the basis of everything.
Around that are gathered numerous things; if you want to
know how numerous, sit down with a concordance and look
up the word 'Zion.' That will give you a long task. Zion
is a very comprehensive thought of God, with numerous
aspects.
Zion
A Testimony unto Israel
We come to one of the
main things connected with this desire of God. It is here
in this Psalm 122. "Whither the tribes go up...
for a testimony unto Israel." A people in
Zion for a testimony, not to the unsaved in this case,
but to Israel. It will go beyond Israel to the unsaved,
but this is God's method - from the centre to the
circumference and beyond; Zion, Israel, the nations. But
here for the moment we are confined to the first reach of
the testimony, from Zion unto Israel. Now, that that is
true in principle is proved by remembering that it was an
ordinance established by God. We are back at the
beginning when Israel was constituted a nation. You have
only to look at one fragment in the book of Deuteronomy -
"Three times in a year shall all thy males appear
before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall
choose: in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the
feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles,
and they shall not appear before the Lord empty"
(Deut. 17:16). Now you would be wrong, of course, if
you read into this passage in Psalm 122 that all Israel
went up to Jerusalem three times a year, or even once a
year. They could not all get into Jerusalem, to start
with; they could get nowhere near to Jerusalem; but they
went up representatively. All the males went up three
times a year; Israel went up in representation, and when
they came to Zion, well, there a number of things
happened.
They came, of course,
into a wonderful renewal of the realisation of the love
of God. How? The High Priest was there with the names
of the tribes on his breast in the breastplate. They were
before the Lord in the high priestly love - the love of
God in Christ bearing them all on his heart. On his
shoulders, again, their names were borne - the strength
of God in Christ sustaining them through their lives.
They came into a renewed apprehension of the love and the
strength of God on their behalf in the high priest.
Well, I dare not stay
to say all the things that happened when they went up. We
have a little taste of that when from the distances of
the earth, the hard places, and the spiritually cold and
lonely places, we come together like this and touch the
love and the strength of God, and feel anew the oneness
of the Lord's people. When we have been apart and have
felt we were the only Christians on the earth - sometimes
you do feel like Elijah, "I, even I only, am
left" (1 Kings 19:14) - we come together, and all
things go that are not true, and the real truths are
strengthened, and it is all good. They came up three
times in a year in representation, and they took back to
all Israel the good of Zion - a testimony for Israel.
My point now is just
this - they were a representative company in Zion; Zion
was representative in the matter of a testimony. Can I
put that more explicitly? A company came to what Zion
represented, and that company had a testimony for all the
rest of the Lord's people. When you grasp that, you can
see one of God's sovereign ways. I wonder if you have
thought about the course of things in the New Testament.
You start with the day of Pentecost, and the following
period, however long or short it was, when things were
really in fullness, very satisfying and gratifying to the
Lord; He was having His thought very largely expressed in
those first days, months, or, it may have been, even a
few years. But then things began to change. You find a
lowering of the temperature, the standard is being
dropped, mixture is coming in; it is found necessary to
correct a lot that is wrong in the Church; things are not
the same. And it would appear that that process went on
and developed. But what did the Lord do about it? Did He
say, 'It was very grand while it lasted, but they cannot
stand up to this, they cannot meet this standard, it is
quite evident that they will not be able to maintain the
original level, so I must accommodate Myself to the
situation and accept this lower level and try to be
satisfied with it'? Did the Lord do that? He never did.
The impressive and remarkable thing is this, that the
Lord began giving ever fuller and enlarging revelation -
yes, to a Church which was no longer what it was at one
time. You come to these closing letters of the Apostle
Paul's life. Who can stand up to their contents? Look at
the condition, the weaknesses, the defects, the
limitations of the Lord's people, and yet He goes on like
this, simply piling it on. He is not accommodating
Himself to smallness, He is not accepting the situation,
He is answering back with more and more and more. And
what is the point? If they will not or cannot all have
it, some will, and through that nucleus, that
representative company, He will keep the lamp of full
testimony alight. Even when shadows creep into and over
the Church, He will maintain a full testimony, even if it
be only in a few.
And that is where you
are in the first chapters of the book of the Revelation.
The Church as a whole is far from what it was at the
beginning and far from what God intended and had revealed
as His mind, but He does not excuse and accommodate and
accept. He comes right back with the full revelation and
calls for the nucleus from all the churches. That is how
God reacts. Why? For a testimony unto Israel, a
representation for all Israel. Oh, do grasp that. Even if
you do not understand fully what the Lord is after, it is
for you to decide whether you are going to be with the
general, nominal, ordinary, or whether you are going to
be of Zion. That is a point we shall have to emphasize
more perhaps before we have finished. But after all, this
remains - what God is after is this which is meant by
Zion, that is, a representative company who have a fuller
testimony for all Israel, and who are in the good of it
on behalf of others. That is the way in which the Lord
seeks to meet the great need, by having amongst them some
who are a satisfaction to Him and know Him in this fuller
way.
A
Testimony to the Absolute Sovereignty of the Lord
"Whither the
tribes go up for a testimony unto Israel." What
testimony? What is the testimony? Well, the answer is
Zion. That is the testimony itself. But what is Zion?
Well, look at the history of Zion and you have the
explanation of what the testimony is. In the first place,
the testimony is to and of the absolute sovereignty of
the Lord, and, in our own present meaning, the Lord
Jesus. That is where the testimony begins. It is out from
that that all testimony flows - the absolute sovereignty
of the Lord Jesus. Zion is "the city of the great
King" (Psa. 48:2). Solomon lived in Zion, David
lived in Zion. Look at the history of it very briefly.
Probably you recall that the first mention of Jerusalem
in Gen. 14:18 was in connection with Melchizedek, who was
king of Salem - that is the first name of Jerusalem.
Melchizedek was priest of the Most High God, but he was king
of Salem. The very first mention of Zion or Jerusalem is
in connection with kingship in relation to priesthood.
Then we move on, and we
find that Zion was the citadel or the stronghold of
Jerusalem in the hands of the Jebusites. It was called
first Jebus, the stronghold of the Jebusites, and it was
in the hands of the Jebusites through the whole period of
the Judges and the reign of Saul and the reign of David
in Hebron. But when all Israel came to Hebron to make
David king and he was doubly established in his kingship,
then he went up to Jebus. He threw out his challenge to
his mighty men, "Whosoever smiteth the Jebusites
first shall be chief and captain" (1 Chron. 11:6),
and Joab broke through; but it was such a stronghold as
to be considered absolutely impregnable by the Jebusites,
for they said, 'Why, the blind and the lame are
sufficient to defend this!' Now that is not just a story,
there is something wrapped up in that of tremendous
significance where you and I are concerned. Believe me,
the establishment of the Lord Jesus in absolute
sovereignty is no child's play. Take it in His own case.
What a tremendous thing it was to gain that absolute
ascendency over all the forces of evil! What a grip the
powers of evil had upon the citadel of man's soul, upon
this world - such a grip as to make the enemy feel that
his position was impregnable; and we know that there is
something in that. Have you never been defeated by an
enemy stronghold in a life? We have all come up against
situations in individual lives in which Satan had such a
purchase that it required something infinitely greater
than the strength or the ingenuity of man to solve the
problem. The problem of the deliverance of that soul, the
establishment of Christ's lordship in that life or in
that place, was no small thing.
But listen. Let us come
away from the objective to ourselves; and this is the
point for the present. We can sing our hymns, 'Crown Him,
crown Him,' we can proclaim with strength and vehemence
that Jesus is Lord, but it is just on that very point
that all our own battles rage. Have you never been locked
up in a controversy with the Lord, in a situation in your
own life where the one issue was this - Is He going to be
Lord in this? Have you never come into situations and
circumstances where it looked for all the world as though
the devil were in the mastery and had gained the ground
and were holding it - as though he were lord and master?
Are we not constantly up against things like that where
it looks as though the devil and not Jesus is lord? It
comes right home to our own spiritual lives as a
tremendous test of faith. I am thinking of those
experiences into which the 'Zion' people are brought
which are not the ordinary experiences of Christian life,
not the ordinary temptations and persecutions and
difficulties of being a Christian, but situations which
are much more deeply spiritual and involved, and
sometimes their faith is tested right on this question -
Is Jesus Lord after all? Look at the situation, look at
the conditions, look at the forces which seem to be in
control! Is Jesus Lord? I hope I am not scandalising
anyone. You may not have had that experience. Well, all
right, do not be scandalised and do not worry about it.
But there are some who know what I am talking about, who
have been there in the vortex of such spiritual trials
and testings as to raise the issue as to whether the Lord
is really Lord after all. Down in our hearts as a matter
of our faith we believe it and we cling to it, but we are
thrown about a good deal on this matter. We do not get
through this easily. It is like that with Zion. The
lordship of Christ is only established at great cost. It
is only by terrific conflict and trial and testing that
you get through to that place where in your own heart He
is Lord; but when you are through, oh, something
tremendous has happened and you are in a position where
you know the Lord in no usual and ordinary way, and you
have a testimony for people who are to go through similar
trial, and you can help them because you have fought
through terrific conflicts on faith as to the lordship of
Christ. May that not explain why some of you are having
such extraordinary experiences? You look at other
Christians and you see them go through comparatively
easily; they get what they want or what they think they
ought to have, but with you everything is a matter of
conflict, nothing comes easily at all. That experience
may be explained by this, that the Lord has put His hand
on you, with a view to putting into your life something
of His lordship, and putting you into that lordship, in a
way that will make you a peculiarly useful vessel and
servant for Him. Some of you have been through it and
know it is true; some of you may be going through it now.
Isaiah, the great
prophet of recovery, the great prophet of Zion as the
ultimate issue, went through some terrific testings, and
his family came into his experience, and he gave his
children names expressive of his deep experience.
"Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given
me are for signs and for wonders" (for testimonies)
(Isa. 8:18). His very family was engulfed in the deep and
terrible experiences through which he went, because he
was a prophet, not to the nations alone, but specifically
to Zion. You see the place of Zion in the second part of
his prophecies. This is very true, that Zion - that is,
the company who come to be of greatest value to the Lord
in representing His mind - will have to come to the place
where the sovereignty of the Lord is something
established on very solid ground. It is not doctrine,
teaching, theory, historic fact, that Jesus ascended to
the right hand of God: not something that we study from a
book: but something that has been wrought into our very
being by the bitterest way and the deepest experiences,
so that our knowledge of Him is no ordinary knowledge,
but is for a special purpose. Oh, the temptations while
we are going through! What ground there is for the enemy
to play upon when the Lord is putting us through those
fires! But you see, Zion is something wrought in the
fires. First of all it is the testimony unto Israel as to
the absolute sovereignty of the Lord Jesus.
Let me conclude that
for the moment by saying again that there is a very great
need today for the Church to be recovered into the place
of the absolute lordship of Christ. Its impact upon this
world has very largely been lost, and the reason is that
the Lord Jesus has not His place as absolute Sovereign.
All sorts of things have come into the place of the
absolute sovereignty of Jesus Christ - that is, of the
complete government of the Holy Spirit. Councils and
committees and boards and anything you like but the
exclusive government of the Holy Spirit. But the Zion way
is a costly way, it is not an easy way at all; that is
why it has been surrendered and easier things have been
put into its place. It is not easy to wait for the Lord,
to have your government entirely by the Holy Spirit. It
is a difficult way, and it tests you out as to whether
you are going to put your hand on things - whether like
Saul, the man of flesh, you are not going to tarry for
the Lord, but to take things into your own hands. It is
along those lines and in those ways that the whole
question is raised - Is He Lord? The Church has not been
prepared to pay that price, and it has lost its
testimony. The Lord recover that testimony for the Church
in the midst of the Church!
The
Testimony of a Life Which has Conquered Death
Now the next thing
about this testimony. "And he will destroy in
this mountain the face of the covering that covereth all
peoples, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He
hath swallowed up death for ever" (Isa. 25:7-8).
In this mountain, Zion, the testimony is to the complete
triumph of the Lord over death, the testimony of a life
which conquered death. It comes out of His absolute
lordship, it is a part of it, but it works out in this
way - where the Lord gets a 'Zion' people, there you have
an unusual testimony to life. The thing we must ever keep
before us (I state it simply as a fact without any
exposition now) is that if you get a people who are what
Zion means - coming into God's fuller thought as in His
Son - the thing that is found when you meet them is life.
Oh, I tell you that I cherish this aspect of the
testimony very, very dearly and very greatly. To me it
means almost everything, that we shall be maintained in
life - not merely a people who have a specific teaching,
a lot of light and a lot of truth but as dead as anything
can be. (And it can be like that: you can have a
marvellous amount of truth and be quite dead.) But
whether the teaching is understood or not by the people
who come, we want that the first thing they shall meet
and register shall be - What life there is here! Not,
what teaching there is here, but what life! In such an
atmosphere you get a tremendous lift-up, you find
yourself re-vitalised. Yes, death has been swallowed up.
That is the testimony; that is part of the testimony unto
Israel, and who will say that the Church as a whole does
not need to know in some new and mightier way the power
of His risen life? Is that not just what is needed? That
is really what many are after. They are trying to get it
in great organized movements; they feel the need of life
as a mighty reaction against the death that has come in.
It is not for us to judge or criticise, but we can say
this, that this life can never be manufactured. It can
never come by great efforts. It is the uprising of the
risen Lord where He has room and capacity; and room and
capacity are only made by travail. You have to suffer
unto this life. You cannot get it cheaply, you cannot
work it up and produce it by any means of man. It can
only come as out from death by resurrection. It costs.
The
Testimony of Abundant Provision
Then in verse 6 of
Isaiah 25 we have this - "In this mountain will
the Lord of hosts make unto all peoples a feast of fat
things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full
of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined."
"In this mountain;" "for a
testimony unto Israel." Here is rich provision. If
the Lord gets a people really into His full thought, they
will not be a people who are merely existing on
starvation diet, hardly able to make ends meet, just
managing to keep going spiritually; and as for having
anything to give away...! Oh, yes, conditions are like
that in many places. You would not credit the number of
letters that come to me from all over the world in terms
like this - 'I cannot find any spiritual food anywhere,
there is nothing to be found in this whole district; we
are starving.' I am not exaggerating when I say that in
the course of a year I could fill volumes with that sort
of thing - the cry for food from the Lord's people. Here
is the picture and it is not an imaginary one, it is
tragically true. But, thank God, the other side is
equally true; there is a feast of fat things when you are
in the way of the Lord's full thought and are prepared to
pay the price - the price of being for Him an instrument;
not a price for salvation, but, a price for vocation to
serve Him. Then you can have a table well-filled, a feast
of fat things, with abundance for yourself and plenty to
give to others. Oh yes, it is true, there is no want, no
lack; there is abundance, an overflow, in Zion, "in
this mountain."
A
Testimony of Revelation and Enlightenment
Then finally,
"He will destroy in this mountain the face of the
covering that covereth all peoples." That
simply means that the testimony going out is one of
revelation and enlightenment, where people who sit in
darkness are made to see. The word to Zion here in Isaiah
is, "Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and
the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee" (Isa.
60:1). That is to Zion. But what is the
counterpart in the New Testament? I think it is in those
final letters of Paul for the Church. Look at
"Ephesians" with the word 'glory' in your eye,
it is notable what a large place the word 'glory' has in
those prison epistles. "The glory of the Lord is
risen upon thee." Arise, shine! In this mountain, in
Zion, in a people wholly abandoned to God's highest and
fullest interests, there is given a ministry of
enlightenment and revelation, the taking away of the
veil. This is the testimony unto Israel, God's spiritual
Israel. "Whither the tribes go up for a
testimony." All that we have to do is to ask the
Lord to give us the energy of heart, the diligence and
purpose, to go up to Zion - all that means spiritually -
to have the highways to Zion in our hearts. "In
whose heart are the highways to Zion" (Psa. 84:5).
This way which leads to Zion is a heart matter.