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Marching
to Zion |
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A Pocket Paper Robert J.
Morgan For many years I’ve been an advocate for children’s Bible
memory, and I’m very thankful for the ministries along that line we
have here—especially our Wednesday night M & M program. If we can hide God’s Word in the
hearts of our children when they are young, it will help establish them for
life, morally and spiritually.
One of the reasons I’m feel so strongly about this is because of
my own personal experience. The
verses I memorized in childhood have had—and continue to have—a
great effect on me. A good
example is Psalm 122:1, the first verse that I ever recall having memorized. It was in Sunday School, and I still
remember the Sunday our class memorized this verse. I credit it to a great extent with
shaping the way that I feel about church to this day: I
was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. Well,
tonight, in our series of messages from the Pilgrim Psalms (Psalms 120-134),
we’re coming to Psalm 122, and as wonderful as verse 1 is, it’s
even better when we see it in its fuller context. Let’s read this passage
together. I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go into
the house of the Lord.” Our feet have been standing within your gates, O
Jerusalem! Jerusalem is built as a city that is compact together,
where the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, to the Testimony of Israel,
to give thanks to the name of the Lord.
For throne are set there for judgment, the thrones of the
house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love
you. Peace be within your walls,
prosperity within your palaces.”
For the sake of my brethren and companions, I will now say,
“Peace be within you.”
Because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek your
good. There
are three ways to look at this Psalm, and all of them are insightful and
helpful. First, we need to look
at it plainly so that we can determine what the Psalmist was literally
saying. Plainly –
The Joy of Being in the Earthly In
these chapters, our pilgrim has left home in Psalm 120, enduring the taunts
and insults of those who derided him.
He traveled through dangerous mountains in Psalm 121, and now in Psalm
122 he has arrived in Jerusalem.
As he expresses his feelings in this Psalm, we see three different
attitudes or emotions. The
first is cheerfulness (vss. 1-2). “I
was glad when they said unto me, ‘Let us go into the house of the
Lord.’ Our feet have been
standing within your gates, O Jerusalem!” The
word “glad” is the Hebrew word samach (saw-makh’), meaning: “to be elated, to have a feeling or attitude of joy and
happiness.” This pilgrim
is exuberant to be there. Devout
Jews who visit Jerusalem for the first time can never fully describe their
experience. One of them said that
he felt he had arrived at the very center of the world. I
remember the first time I visited Jerusalem. As we rounded the hill and I saw the
golden walls of that ancient city, tears came to my eyes and to those of
everyone in our group. Later in
the day, as I was walked along the cobblestone street of the old city I
stopped in tracks, looked down at my feet, and thought of this verse: Our feet are standing without your
gates, O Jerusalem.” There
is something extraordinarily special about being in Jerusalem. Why
is that? In
Deuteronomy 12:5, Moses said, “But you shall seek the place where the
Lord your God chooses out of all your tribes, to put His name for His
dwelling place, and there you shall go.” Later,
when Joshua led the Children of Israel into the Promised Land, the city of
Jerusalem was populated by a wicked Canaanite civilization and its king, Adoni-zedek,
who led a confederacy of Southern Canaanite armies against the
Israelites. The confederacy was
defeated, and King Adoni-zedek was killed. But the city of Jerusalem itself was
not taken. The
city was taken by the Israelites later, during the days of the Judges, but it
was recaptured by the Jebusites.
And it remained in Jebusite hands until it was conquered by the armies
of King David himself in about the year 1000 B.C. David
moved quickly to establish Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel, building
there administrative offices as well as a royal palace. His most significant action was moving
the Ark of the Covenant, making Jerusalem the spiritual center as well as the
political center of Israel.
Indeed, it represented the fact that Jerusalem was now the city of God
Himself, the city He had chosen to put His name for His dwelling place. For
3000 years, this has been the political and spiritual home for the Jewish
people. In the years of their
suffering and exile, they would always end their Passover meal, wherever they
were in the world, with the words:
“Next year in Jerusalem!” The
Jewish attitude toward Jerusalem is best expressed in Psalm 48: “Great is the Lord, and greatly
to be praised in the city of our God, in His holy mountain. Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the
whole earth, is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great
King.” There
was a very interesting article on this subject last week in an Israeli
newspaper entitled Israel Insider. It was by a man named Gerald
Honigman, and I’d like to quote a little of it for you. It has to do with the fact that the
Palestinians and the Muslims are claiming rights to Jerusalem. Honignman wrote: While it keeps
getting shoved onto the back burner for fear of the intense heat that it will
generate, there’s no doubt that Jerusalem will be one of the most
difficult issues to resolve in any so-called “peace
process.” It’s time
to take a look at some blunt facts regarding this issue, despite the risk of
ruffling even some friendly feathers.
Such yearning
persisted throughout subsequent millennia in the Diaspora as well. "Next
Year in Jerusalem" sustained the Jew throughout countless
degradations and humiliations culminating in the Holocaust. There is no
Muslim parallel to these claims, regardless of efforts to portray Palestinian
Arabs… as the "new Jews.” Jews, from a hundred different
lands, didn't have twenty-two other states to potentially choose from and
suffered dearly for this statelessness…
That
article helps explain why for 3000 years the Jewish people have been
passionate about Jerusalem, and why it is going to be the powder-keg issue
for the world in the years to come.
So here in Psalm 122 we have a pilgrim who is just exuberant because
he is headed toward the house of the Lord, his feet are finally standing
inside the walls of old Jerusalem. His
second attitude is thankfulness (vv. 3-5). He says that Jerusalem is a beautiful
city to which he has come to give thanks, especially because it represents
the political and spiritual axis of his life: Jerusalem is built as a city that is compact together,
where the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, to the Testimony of Israel,
to give thanks to the name of the Lord.
For throne are set there for judgment, the thrones of the
house of David. The
phrase, Jerusalem is built as a city
that is compact together, is a little difficult to translate. ·
The New Living
Translation says: Jerusalem is a
well-built city. ·
The New Revised
version says, “It is built as a city that is bound firmly
together.” ·
The New Century
Version says: Jerusalem is built
as a city with its building close together. The Psalmist seems to be saying something like this: “I’m so thankful for this
city—compact and close and well-built, and well-established.” And he is also thankful that it is
both the political and spiritual center of his life. In verse 4 he describes its spiritual
significance: Where the tribes go up, the tribes of the
Lord, to the Testimony of Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord.” The phrase, “the Testimony
of Israel” is a reference to the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy of
Holies, representing God’s presence in the midst of the city. The following verse extols the fact
that Jerusalem is also the political center of Judaism, and potentially of
the world: For thrones are set there for judgment, the thrones of the house of
David. So his attitude is marked by cheerfulness, by
thankfulness, and, third, by prayerfulness. He is concerned for the well-being of this
city, and he wants you and me to pray for the peace of Jerusalem: Pray
for the peace of Jerusalem:
“May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your
palaces.” For the sake of
my brethren and companions, I will now say, “Peace be within
you.” Because of the house
of the Lord our God, I will seek your good. I think the Lord still intends for us to pray for the
peace of Jerusalem. In our
prayer meetings, we often take prayer requests, and we pray for the things on
one another’s hearts. But
have we ever thought of asking God for His prayer requests? What does He want us to pray
about? Well, here is one of
them—pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Poetically—the
Joy of the Church So our primary interpretation of this passage is literal
and practical—it is a pilgrim’s aspiration towards
Jerusalem. He is cheerful,
thankful, and prayerful. But
having said that, there is another application for our hearts, another way of
looking at this. We can look at
it not only practically, but poetically.
Not only literally, but symbolically. For we have here a picture of the love
we should have for the church of the Lord Jesus—the spiritual Zion. I was glad when they said unto me, “Let us go into the house of the Lord.” When I memorized this verse as a child, I didn’t have any awareness of the Jewish realities behind this Psalm. What it said to me was simply: “It’s a great thing to go to church. I should be glad to go to church.” The church of Jesus Christ is compact—that is, it is well-designed, well-built, and unified. It’s a place for thanksgiving and for judgment. We should pray for the church and be concerned about it. The way that the Jewish pilgrim feels about Jerusalem is the way we should feel about the church. Now, the
church has gotten a lot of bad press recently, what with the tele-evangelist
scandals of the 80s and 90s, the sex abuse scandals of the Roman Catholics,
the controversial positions of the religious right, and the occasional
bizarre events that are reported, such as the man who put arsenic poison in
the coffee pot in the church in Maine. Well,
the church has never been perfect, and a lot is happening in the name of the
church that isn’t really being done by genuine Christians. And the church exists in a world that
isn’t friendly. Our world
doesn’t want the restraints and truth of righteousness. But Jesus promised, “I will
build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it.” And I can still
say—now more than ever—I was glad when they said unto me,
“Let us go into the house of the Lord.” Prophetically There is a third way of looking at this psalm, and that
is prophetically. The Bible says
that the early Jerusalem is only a symbol and type for a far greater city to
come—the city foursquare, the Heavenly Jerusalem. As time fades into history and eternity dawns,
we’re told that God is going to recreate the heavens and the earth, and
establish on this new earth a great city—the New Jerusalem—that
will be His home and headquarters forever. And I saw a new heaven and a new
earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. And there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New
Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned
for her husband. And I heard a
loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with
me, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people. God Himself shall be with them and be
their God. Those verses in Revelation 21 introduces a two-chapter
travelogue of the coming city of New Jerusalem and it closes the Bible with
that note of anticipation. This
Psalm 122 expresses our desire for the Celestial City toward which we are
marching on pilgrimage. When Katrina and I were in California recently on vacation,
we were amazed at the diverse beauty of what we saw—the rugged
coastline of the Pacific, the steep hillsides of San Francisco, the towering
waterfalls of Yosemite, the gorges of King’s Canyon, the giant Sequoia
trees, some of them dating back 2500 years. There was a title of an old Gospel
song that kept coming to my mind:
“How Beautiful Heaven Must Be.” The loveliest spots on this fallen planet fade into
ugliness when compared with how beautiful heaven must be. And we’re on our way
there—we’re marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion. We’re marching upward to Zion,
the beautiful city of God.
That’s our Jerusalem. So whether we take this practically, poetically, or
prophetically—let this be a theme verse in your life: “I was glad when they said unto
me, ‘Let us go into the house of the Lord.’” Copyright StatementWe grant permission for any edition of The Pocket Paper to be photocopied for use in a local congregation or classroom, provided no more than 1,000 copies are made, the material is distributed free, and the copies include the notice: "Copyright (year) The Donelson Fellowship."For any other use, advance permission must be obtained from The Donelson Fellowship church office. |
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