For Zion's Sake

by WATCHMAN | Category: For Zion's Sake | Jun 1962

On pages 55 and 69 we traced the history of divine movement till God reached that objective which He had in view-His coming to Zion in the bringing up of the Ark, and with David enthroned there as His firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth (Psalm 89.27). This final event of reaching Zion was a picture of what is yet to be when the Lord Himself, who is Zion's King, will yet be enthroned there, for the throne of David is the throne of the LORD, as it says in 1 Chronicles 29.28;

"Then Solomon sat on the throne of the LORD as king instead of David his father, and prospered; and all Israel obeyed him."

But the covenant which God made with David concerning the establishing of his throne was not made steadfast in Solomon (far less in the people of Israel):

"My mercy will I keep for Him for evermore, And My covenant shall stand fast with Him. His Seed also will I make to endure for ever, And His throne as the days of heaven" (Psalm 89.28, 29).

"Seed " in the above verse issingular, which agrees with the Spirit's comment through Paul relative to God's promises, "Now to Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his Seed. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy Seed, which is Christ" (Galatians 3.16).

In the meantime the fulfilment of God's covenant with David is in abeyance and the Lord is enthroned on the throne of God in the mount Zion above, and an opportunity is given for all kings and judges of the earth to kiss the Son, that is, to be ruled by, or do homage to, Him. The Hebrew word Nashak rendered "kiss "in Psalm 2.12, is rendered "be ruled" in Genesis 41.40, in Pharaoh's words to Joseph; "Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled (Nashak): only in the throne will I be greater than thou." The words of Jehovah the Father are,

"Yet I have set My King

Upon My holy hill of Zion."

And the words of Jehovah the Son are,

I will tell of the decree (or statute)

The Loan said unto Me, Them art My Son;

This day have I begotten Thee" (Psalm 2.6, 7).

In this dispensation of grace God's people are not centred on the earthly Zion, as in the past and as they will be in the future, when the Lord returns again to earth, but upon the Zion and Jerusalem which are above.

It wrn be remembered that which we alluded to in an earlier article was the place from which Moses was sent, mount Horeb, where he stood before the burning bush, was the place to which Israel under Moses were to come and where they were to commence the service of Jehovah their God. The words of God were,

Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be the token unto thee, that I have sent thee: when thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain" (Exodus 3.12).

The salvation of God had for its objective the service of God. This was the case then and it is the case now, according to the mind of God. But more is implied in God's words above, for, be it noted, it was upon the mountain from which Moses the deliverer was sent that they were to serve God. It is similar to this now. Whence came the Lord the Deliverer? The answer is, from the mount Zion above where He now sits. His object in suffering was to bring us to God (1 Peter 3.18). He has gone back to where He was before. Further, all saved persons are born from above. The Lord said to Nicodemus, "Except a man be born anew (from above, R.V.M. anothen), he cannot see the kingdom of God." "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born anew" (anothen) (John 3.8, 7).

In Paul's allegory in Galatians 4.21-81, in which he deals with the two Covenants, the Old and the New, and the children of such, he shows that mount Sinai in Arabia answers to the Jerusalem that now is (i.e., Jerusalem in Palestine), which did and does adhere to the old covenant and is in bondage with her children, but the Jerusalem above, the heavenly Jerusalem, is free, which is our mother. This is another angle from which we view the same new birth of which the Lord said, "Ye must be born from above." The new birth not only means that there is a fundamental change in the individual, that he is a new creature in Christ, but that he has a new centre; he is not of this world as Christ is not of this world (John 17.14, 16). The things above, where Christ is seated on the right hand of God, are now to be his interest and aspiration (Colossians 3.1-4). What a drag it is on spiritual progress when anyone happens to be linked with saints who are like Lot's wife. Bunyan speaks of a certain By-ends whom Christian met with, among whose ancestors was a Mr. Facingboth-ways, and his "great-grandfather was but a waterman, looking one way and rowing another." It is a great hindrance to be associated with such believers as are going heavenward, yet casting back a covetous eye on earth.

Many seem quite satisfied to have known the grace of God in a birth from above. "All one in Christ " is their motto, and the service of God involving coming to the mountain, the mount Zion above, from which the divine Deliverer came, does not seem to have any appeal for them. We would seek to direct the attention of such, as well as to encourage those who already have had a vision of God's holy mountain, to the words of Hebrews 12.18-29. In this passage we are told where those who formed the house of God had not come to. They bad not come to a mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and so forth, that is to mount Sinai (verses l8-21).

"But ye are come unto (1) mount Zion, (2) and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, (3) and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the general (or festal) assembly, (4) and church of the firstborn (ones) who are enrolled in heaven, (5) and to God the Judge of all, (6) and to the spirits of just men made perfect, (7) and to Jesus the Mediator of a new covenant, (8) and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than that of Abel".

What had those who came to Sinai to learn to do? (1) To be subject and obedient to God in the terms of the covenant, and (2) to learn the manner of divine service. When Pharaoh said "Go ye, serve the LORD; only let your flocks and your herds be stayed." Moses replied, "Thou must also give into our hand sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice unto the LORD our God. Our cattle also shall go with us; there shall not an hoof be left behind; for thereof must we take to serve the LORD our God, ... and we know not with what we must serve the LORD, until we come thither" (Exodus 10.24-26). They knew where they were going, to mount Sinai in the wilderness, but they did not learn the manner of their service till they came to that mount, and not till they confessed their obedience to the terms of the covenant did God reveal to them His will in connexion with the Tabernacle and the divine service connected therewith. Please read Exodus chapters 19-25, and it will be clearly seen that obedience to God's will came before divine service.

Those who have come to mount Zion and to the heavenly Jerusalem have come collectively to obey God and to serve Him, for thus we read,

"See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh. For if they escaped not, when they refused Him that warned them on earth, much more shall not we escape, who turn away from Him that warneth from heaven: whose voice then shook the earth: but now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven" (Hebrews 12.25, 26).

It will be seen how close the parallel is between Israel's coming to mount Sinai in the past, and God's people today coming, collectively, to mount Zion. The one people was an earthly people which came to a visible mountain to hear Moses read to them the terms of the covenant, and to hear God speak the same words from the top of blazing mount Sinai, but the experience of coming to Zion is one of faith, not of sight, and God speaks through His word as it is applied to the hearts of His own by the Holy Spirit. Though God speaks with" a still small voice "today, the Speaker and the speaking are none the less real, and the demand for obedience as imperative as at mount Sinai. "See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh." How shall God's people escape if they turn away from Him who warns from heaven'?

In summing up this matter of obedience, which implies the truth of the kingdom of God, and that of service, which implies a people in the house of God, the apostle says,

"Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire " (Hebrews 12.28, 29).

God is not less than a consuming fire under grace than He was under law in the past. Though saints are protected from divine fire by the blood of Christ, their works are not so protected, and divine fire shall try each man's work of what sort it is. What is not according to God's word, but is of self, that is, of the flesh, or, worse still, of the devil, will meet the fury of divine fire. The saint will suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved ; yet so as through fire, all gone except himself! (1 Corinthians 3. 10-l5). Let us see that we work and build according to the pattern.

WATCHMAN | Jun 1962
For Zion's Sake