If you would like to turn this morning to the prophecies of Isaiah, and chapter 62—the sixty-second chapter of Isaiah.
I am reading from the American Standard Version of 1901.
For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace,
and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
until her righteousness go forth as brightness,
and her salvation as a lamp that burneth.And the nations shall see thy righteousness,
and all kings thy glory;
and thou shalt be called by a new name,
which the mouth of the Lord shall name.Thou shalt also be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord,
and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God.Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken;
neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate:
but thou shalt be called Hephzibah,
and thy land Beulah;
for the Lord delighteth in thee,
and thy land shall be married.For as a young man marrieth a virgin,
so shall thy sons marry thee;
and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride,
so shall thy God rejoice over thee.I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem;
they shall never hold their peace day nor night:
ye that are the Lord’s remembrancers, take ye no rest,
and give Him no rest,
till He establish,
and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.The Lord hath sworn by His right hand,
and by the arm of His strength,
Surely I will no more give thy grain to be food for thine enemies;
and foreigners shall not drink thy new wine,
for which thou hast laboured:
but they that have garnered it shall eat it, and praise the Lord;
and they that have gathered it shall drink it
in the courts of My sanctuary.Go through, go through the gates;
prepare ye the way of the people;
cast up, cast up the highway;
gather out the stones;
lift up an ensign for the peoples.Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the earth,
Say ye to the daughter of Zion,
Behold, thy salvation cometh;
behold, His reward is with Him,
and His recompense before Him.And they shall call them the holy people,
The redeemed of the Lord:
and thou shalt be called Sought out,
A city not forsaken.
Shall we bow in prayer?
O Father, we do want to thank Thee that we are gathered here together into the name of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus. O Father, we thank Thee that it is Thy desire to meet with us, and Thy desire that something of all Thy so-great salvation and provision in our Lord Jesus—Thy great purpose for Him, and through Him—may be revealed to us this day.
O Lord, Thou knowest our weakness and our inability, whether speaking or hearing. We thank Thee that Thou hast also made a provision of anointing, and into that anointing we stand by faith this morning. Let the Person of the Holy Spirit make real to us the things of our Lord Jesus.
Father, wilt Thou grant that our hearts, Lord, may be enlightened; that that spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him shall be granted to us; and that, Lord, as we hear these words, revelation shall be given to us, vision shall be granted to us. Lord, may any covering over the eyes of our hearts be removed through the finished work of the Lamb.
O, we all need to see Him more clearly and understand His significance more fully. Dear Lord, do it, we pray, even this morning. We give ourselves to Thee, that this morning may be a meeting with Thee and a receiving from Thee. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
We have been considering, at least in the times that have been my responsibility, this whole matter of Zion. We have thought about the battle over Zion, and last night we considered the building of Zion. Really, one could almost spend all the rest of the time just expanding what we said last night about the building of Zion.
I want this morning to speak about the travail for Zion—the travail for Zion. Of course, it will draw very much on what we have said about the battle over Zion and the building of Zion. Really, the battle over Zion is to start the building of Zion, and the travail for Zion is that the building of Zion may be completed.
Listen to the word here in Isaiah 62:1:
For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace,
and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
until her righteousness go forth as brightness,
and her salvation as a lamp that burneth.
Now, who is speaking? Is it the prophet Isaiah who is speaking, or is it the Messiah Himself? If you look at Isaiah 61:1, it is the Messiah who is speaking:
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me;
because the Lord hath anointed Me
to preach good tidings unto the meek;
He hath sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all that mourn;
to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion,
to give unto them a garland for ashes,
the oil of joy for mourning,
the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
that they may be called trees of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.
How we need that, do we not? The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
Now, that is the Messiah speaking. When we turn to Luke 4, our Lord Jesus actually said in the synagogue, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” It was in a synagogue somewhere in Galilee—whether Nazareth or Capernaum, I cannot quite remember—but our Lord said, “This day these words are fulfilled in your ears.”
Is it then the Messiah who goes on to say, “For Zion’s sake will I not hold My peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest”? Or is it the prophet who is speaking? For in Isaiah 61:10 we have:
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
my soul shall be joyful in my God;
for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation,
He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decketh himself with a garland,
and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.
Of course, I hardly need to tell you that the prophecies of Isaiah were not written in chapters and verses. Some Christians have the idea that the Spirit of the Lord said, “Now this is chapter 61, verse 1,” and then dictated it; and then came verse 2 and verse 3, and then a new chapter division—chapter 62.
These chapters and verses were added at a much later date. We must thank God for them, because just consider where we would have been if there had not been chapters and verses for quickly finding scriptures. If I had quoted something and said, “Now, where is it? Somewhere in the middle of Isaiah,” and there were no chapters or verses, we would have had to go all the way through Isaiah to find exactly where it was.
These chapters and verses are of tremendous help, both for memorisation of Scripture and for quickly turning to particular statements or promises of God’s Word. But sometimes they do not help us in our understanding of a passage, because they tend to break the flow of the passage. Somehow or other, we confine ourselves within a chapter, not realising that often the next chapter was all part of the same prophecy.
It is my conviction that these words in Isaiah 62:1 are the words of the Messiah. If they are the words of the Messiah, then it seems to me quite clear that we have a tremendously important revelation of the burden that is upon His heart.
Why do I say that? Because of Isaiah 62:6:
I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem;
they shall never hold their peace day nor night.
I cannot imagine that the prophet Isaiah could take those words upon himself. It seems to me that this is the Messiah who is speaking. Therefore, the earlier statement—“For Zion’s sake will I not hold My peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest”—is also the word of the Messiah.
We have here a revelation of the Messiah’s heart. We have, as it were, a window into that burden, that travail of His Spirit.
Now, we know that the Lord Jesus died for Zion. When we turn to Ephesians, I can only refer very swiftly to what we said yesterday. For anyone who was not with us, we were talking about Zion, and I said that Zion is the heart of the whole matter.
We read in Psalm 132:13–14:
For the Lord hath chosen Zion;
He hath desired it for His habitation.
This is My resting-place for ever:
here will I dwell;
for I have desired it.
So we understand, right from the very beginning, that God has had in His heart this whole matter of Zion. It has been a longing for a resting place, an eternal resting place, a dwelling place, a home in which He can be absolutely Himself. It is His base, if you like—His headquarters. From that He moves out to do all the other things He wants to do; but this is His resting place.
Of course, the Lord is using Sunday-school language. He is expressing a tremendous and vital truth, but in order that we might understand it, He is using terms that we understand. He speaks of it being a home, a dwelling place, a resting place.
The Lord does not need to rest. He neither slumbers nor sleeps. He does not need to have a resting place in that sense. But He has taken this thought of a resting place as something in which He finds delight—somewhere He can be absolutely Himself; somewhere He can reveal the intimacies of His heart; somewhere He can unveil the secrets of His heart and mind. That is a resting place. It is a home.
The Bible has all different ways of talking about this thing, but this is the heart of the whole matter. This was God’s idea in creating mankind. Why was man created in the first place? Because God does not live in the sky, or in the mountains, or in the seas, or in the forests. All these things express Him—His glory, His power, even His wisdom—but He does not live in them.
God does not live in places that we call churches—I mean buildings that we have made ourselves, however beautiful or however simple. Some people seem to think that if you have a building which is tremendously simple, God loves it and comes to live in it; and if you have something baroque, rococo, ornate, and gilt, then God cannot bear it.
As if all God has ever done is simple! I only have to look at the creation. A daisy is a very simple flower, but a chrysanthemum is quite an ornate flower, and an orchid is incredibly ornate. God is through it all.
God does not say, “Well, now there is a nice, simple Puritanical building. I like that. I will come into that and be at home.” Then, concerning some ornate building, “No, I do not like that at all. I am going to give them the bypass.” No, God is not interested in houses, homes, or buildings that we call churches and places of worship. That is not God’s resting place.
God’s resting place is men and women redeemed through the blood of the Lamb—living stones, built together. Some of us are more ornate, and some of us are more simple, but God loves us all. He weaves us all together into the most marvellous unity.
Some people get so upset about those whom they feel are too volatile, too excitable, too much all over the place. But, you know, God loves some of His volatile people. He loves people who shout a hallelujah now and again and get excited about things.
I live among people who are very, very level-headed. We talk about the most tremendous spiritual truths as if we were talking over the garden fence. We must be level, must we not? Must not get excited. It is vulgar to get excited—crude and vulgar.
It reminds me of a lovely incident a few months ago in Jerusalem, in the Garden Tomb. A party came in, half white and half black, from the West Indies—from Jamaica. They went all round the Garden Tomb, saw Golgotha and Gordon’s Calvary, went through the open tomb, and then sat down.
The dear brother responsible for leading them round, a very level-headed young man, began to tell them a little about the story of the garden. They were all very quiet—no amens, no hallelujahs—very nice, decent, good sort of people, like Episcopalians, very nice.
Then all of a sudden he noticed one dear lady, with a face as black as coal, looking down into the open tomb. A tear ran down her cheek. Then, all of a sudden, she flung her hands high in the air and cried, “Hallelujah!”
Then she did a cartwheel down the tomb. She was sixty years of age. She did a cartwheel and ended up with her legs waving in the air. Her handbag had some glass in it, and when it came down, it smashed.
You know, I witnessed it. I thought the Lord must have loved her. I thought, “Now, if we British did that, the Lord would say, ‘What are you doing?’” But it was her one moment. She looked at that open tomb, God revealed something to her, and the only way she could express it was that way.
Some people say that is all soul, but I do not know. I think sometimes the Lord loves that. It is an expression of worship. I am not asking you all to do cartwheels, but what I am saying is that we classify one another and condemn one another because we think everybody should be the same.
I wonder what heaven will be like. I wonder now and again whether we will sing a song like that African song we sang a little earlier, because there are going to be an awful lot of Africans there. Do you think we are all going to sing stately German tunes or lovely British hymns? No, I do not think so.
There are going to be marvellous new melodies that will somehow encompass every kind of human being whom God has created. This is the wonder of Zion.
It does not matter whether you were naturally born in the United States, in Europe, in Britain, Denmark, Finland, Japan, India, or wherever it is. If you are born again in Zion, you belong to Zion. You do not lose your characteristics, your temperament, or your cultural background; but you are Zion’s. You have been brought to God’s Zion.
When you look at Ephesians, it is amazing how God describes this thing. In Ephesians 3, Paul speaks of the mystery of Christ:
That the Gentiles are fellow-heirs,
and fellow-members of the body,
and fellow-partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
Is that not wonderful? We have been made one.
Then turn back to Ephesians 2:15–16:
Having abolished in His flesh the enmity,
even the law of commandments contained in ordinances;
that He might create in Himself of the two one new man,
so making peace.
Not only are we fellow-heirs, fellow-members, and fellow-partakers; we are one new man.
Then Ephesians 1:22–23 says:
And He put all things in subjection under His feet,
and gave Him to be head over all things to the church,
which is His body,
the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.
Here is the Head, and we are the body. We are the fulness of Him who filleth everything in everyone.
Then look at Ephesians 2:20–22:
Being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Christ Jesus Himself being the chief corner stone;
in whom each several building, fitly framed together,
groweth into a holy temple in the Lord;
in whom ye also are builded together
for a habitation of God in the Spirit.
Now we are a temple. We are not only Head and body; we are not only one new man; we are not only fellow-heirs and fellow-partakers. We are also one temple in the Lord, a habitation of God in the Spirit.
Do you understand how the Holy Spirit takes this term, and that term, and another term, describing something so profound, so eternal, so significant, that He must take all these different terms to describe this basic unity between God and the redeemed?
Then in Ephesians 5:25–27 we have the picture of bridegroom and bride:
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church,
and gave Himself up for it;
that He might sanctify it,
having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word,
that He might present the church to Himself a glorious church,
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing;
but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Is this not amazing? This is Zion. This is the Zion of God.
They shall call thee The city of the Lord,
The Zion of the Holy One of Israel.
Dear people of God, all this has somehow got to be translated down here. It has got to become flesh and blood. It has something to do with my relationship to my Lord, my relationship to you, and your relationship to me. It has something to do with the localities in which we live. Our relationship to the Lord is put to the acid test in our relationships with one another in the locality.
All this has tremendous importance when we come back to this matter of travail for Zion. We find here this wonderful revelation of the determination of the Lord. What is His determination?
He has not only laid down His life for this Zion. He has not only purchased Zion with His blood. He has not only produced it through His finished work, created it as it were out of Himself—out of His own life, out of the bone and flesh, the blood and water that came out of His pierced side.
But His great intercessory burden, this very moment at the right hand of the Majesty on high, is that her righteousness shall go forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burneth.
Our Lord has a tremendous burden. If you do not love the stones that are lying in ruin, if the dust of Zion means nothing to you, then you do not understand what Zion means to our Lord. It is a perennial burden. It is the basis for the travail of His soul and Spirit—His intercessory ministry at the right hand of God the Father.
Look at these words: “For Zion’s sake will I not hold My peace.” This is Hebrew poetry. It is written in parallelism. First, “For Zion’s sake, I will not hold My peace”; then, “For Jerusalem’s sake, I will not rest.” Jerusalem corresponds to Zion, and “I will not rest” corresponds to “I will not hold My peace.”
But in Hebrew there is a lovely little difference between these words. The first word means to be silent, inactive, still. The Lord says, “For Zion’s sake, I will not be still. I will not be inactive.”
The second word means to be quiet or undisturbed. In modern Hebrew it is a very common word. You hear it in a Jewish city, town, kibbutz, or moshav: a father or mother saying to a child, “Sheket! Sheket! Sheket!” Be quiet. Still. Silence.
The Lord says, “For Zion’s sake, I will not be inactive. I will not be still. For Jerusalem’s sake, I will not be undisturbed. I will not be quiet.”
Then look at this lovely word, brightness: “Until her righteousness go forth as brightness.” The word is a very beautiful word. It is connected with the Hebrew name Noga, often used for ladies and girls.
We have it beautifully expressed in 2 Samuel 23:4, in the last words of King David:
He shall be as the light of the morning,
when the sun riseth,
a morning without clouds;
when the tender grass springeth out of the earth,
through clear shining after rain.
This beautiful word, brightness, is that clarity which comes after tempest—the wonderful clarity that comes when there has been rainfall. Storms there will be. Battle there will be. Conflict there will be. There will be terrible spiritual thunderstorms.
But, thank God, the burden of the Lord Jesus is that through it all, at the end of it all, ultimately, this Zion will be clear shining after rain. What a wonderful thought: righteousness as brightness.
Everyone will see the righteousness of God in her. They will see the justifying work of God through the Lord Jesus in His Zion. O, that the church were like that! If America could only see the justifying work of the Lord Jesus in the saints—if it could see it in their community, their life together, their work and ministry.
Not their righteousness in the sense that they are doing lots of good things—though that is part of it—but basically His justifying work. That is why Isaiah had said in the previous chapter:
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
my soul shall be joyful in my God;
for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation,
He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decketh himself with a garland,
and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.
The Lord says that He will not be inactive, nor quiet, nor undisturbed, until her righteousness goes forth as clear shining after tempest, storm, and rain. But her salvation will be as a lamp that burneth.
The word here for lamp is not menorah, the seven-branched lampstand. It would be rather wonderful for us Bible teachers if it were! But in fact it is the torch—the great flaming torch.
Here is a lovely thing: salvation. When my dear Jewish people say to us, “Where is Jesus in our Scriptures?”—here He is. Here is salvation. In Hebrew, it is Yeshua. The name of Jesus in Hebrew is Yeshua. He is here.
Until her salvation—as a lamp that burneth—that Jesus may be seen to the ends of the earth; that His glory, His beauty, and His work may be seen through His Zion, through His Jerusalem, to the ends of the earth.
O, the travail and the burden of the Lord this very morning, even for us here. Do we not have to mourn before the Lord? Do we not have to weep before the Lord when we think of our companies, our fellowship together—the poverty of it, the powerlessness of it, the weakness of it?
Where is righteousness going forth in our communities, in the unsaved communities in which we are found, as brightness? Where is salvation—Jesus Himself—in His love, grace, and truth, burning as a lamp to the ends of the earth?
Then it goes on: “The nations shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory.” We know that this will never be finally realised and fulfilled until Jesus comes back. When He comes back, then and only then will Zion’s brightness finally be seen. Her righteousness will go forth as brightness to the ends of the earth. All nations will see her righteousness, and all kings her glory.
But, O dear friends, it is not just for the future. This burden of the Lord is not just for the future. The work has got to be done now. Anyone who tells me that the Lord cannot get the church on earth into a position where her righteousness is seen by nations as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burneth—if you tell me that cannot be done, I can only say that it will never be done.
The work has got to be done now in us, and in our relationships with one another in the areas where we live. If the communities in which we are found, as companies of God’s children, are not feeling at least some impact of His presence, then somewhere something is wrong.
This is the burden of the Lord. You cannot have living stones built together on the right foundation unless somehow or other something of the glory of the Lord begins to seep through and touch unsaved men and women, and touch even the community all around us in darkness.
Our Lord goes on and says:
Thou shalt be called by a new name,
which the mouth of the Lord shall name.
Thou shalt also be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord,
and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God.
This is wonderful. I will not go into all the words, but these are not the kind of crowns that we on our side of the Atlantic are used to. We are used to magnificent crowns of gold and incredible gems. I remember when I went to the Tower of London and first saw the crown jewels. My, I just gaped at them.
Then I thought, “How did the Queen get all that on her head?” I would have thought it would have broken her neck. I remember the coronation: that great big thing with all those diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, and all the gold, with a great cross on top. Oh, my goodness!
But this crown of beauty is really a wreath—the Oriental wreath of beauty or glory. The diadem is actually a turban. I hope that does not upset any of you, but literally it means a turban: a royal turban.
What is a royal turban? What is a crown of beauty? The wreath is something which speaks of a reward, of a position to which one has come. A royal diadem is the insignia of divine authority.
So you have three wonderful things here:
These are the three things that should mark God’s Zion. It is altogether something of God. It is holy ground, set-apart ground. It has to find all its fresh springs in Him, its power in Him, its wisdom in Him—everything in Him. It is a new creation, a new man, a new life.
Secondly, it is to be the beauty of the Lord. O dear friends, how sad it is when all we have is so much twittering about doctrine—about this, that, and the other—and there is a pathetic ugliness about the saints.
You understand what I mean. There is nothing attractive at all. Any young person coming in would run a thousand miles from us. We are so unattractive—so boorish, somehow or other stale and dull.
O, for a crown of beauty—the beauty of the Lord our God upon us in such a way that, when people sense it, they would say, “We would see Jesus.” They see Jesus in us. They see something perennially renewed, something fresh, something vital, something that attracts young and old; something that attracts the sinner and the publican; something that attracts those who have empty, aimless, unhappy, twisted, broken lives.
They see in us a beauty which in their hearts they long for. So often, however, what they see is a lot of old-fashioned, square people, dressed in dark, sombre colours, using old-fashioned phraseology, tied up with all kinds of little details—whether we are going through the tribulation or before the tribulation—fighting it out with one another: collisions, dislikes, bitternesses, jealousies, rivalries.
O God, what a burden that is upon the heart of the Lord Jesus. The desire should be not only a new name, but a crown of beauty and a royal diadem.
Our brother has been speaking about prayer. O friends, it is not just, as he has taken great pains to point out, a mouthing of petitions. You can get saints together to mouth a few petitions: “Lord, do this; Lord, do that; Lord, bless so-and-so; Lord, bless this.” We can all do that.
But what we need is authority in prayer. We need to be forged together into such a Zion of the Holy One of Israel that He rules in the midst of our enemies and the rod of His strength goes out of Zion.
Somehow or other, we can come to the place in prayer where we can decree a thing because it is the will of God—and it is done.
O, that God would make us a royal diadem. Of course, there is going to come a day when this new creation is going to be totally revealed, when all the old things have passed away and those words will finally come true in fullness: “Behold, I make all things new.”
There will be that day when Zion will come down out of heaven, having the glory of God. It will be a crown of beauty. The nations will walk in its light because the glory of God will lighten it, and the Lamb is the lamp. The city is the lampstand, and all the nations will walk in its light.
It will be a royal diadem. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be therein. His servants will see His face, will serve Him, and shall reign for ever and ever.
Dear friend, if this Zion is merely a fairy story—some lovely, legendary, mythical paradise up there, which none of us can ever touch and which has no practical consequence for our life down here on earth—I can understand nothing happening.
But if that Zion is a reality, and if our Lord has a burden for it and intercession for it, then surely there must be something of its glory found down here now. Surely there should be something of its newness, something of its new nature, something of the new man revealed down here.
Surely there should be something of the beauty and glory of the Lord manifestly upon us. Surely there should be some divine authority wielded and exercised in the name of our Lord Jesus, the King whom God has set in Zion.
You see these wonderful words:
Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken;
neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate:
but thou shalt be called Hephzibah,
and thy land Beulah.
Hephzibah means, “My delight is in her.” Beulah means, “Married.”
It may surprise you that the Hebrew word for husband is related to baal, meaning master or owner. That was part of the terrible nature of Baal worship—the fertility god supposedly married to a goddess. But in Hebrew, a woman could refer to her husband as her master or owner. I am afraid women’s liberation has very little to do with the Hebrew language.
The Bible says, “You shall no more be called Forsaken or Desolate. You shall be called Beulah.” You are possessed. You are married. Is that not wonderful? I find it wonderful.
Then listen to this:
For as a young man marrieth a virgin,
so shall thy sons marry thee.
Are there any fathers and mothers here this morning? Listen to this word. Are there those in the church who are really concerned about the new generation? Listen to this wonderful word.
It does not say, “As a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy Lord marry thee.” It says, “As a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee.” The new generation shall be married to you. You will not lose the new generation. They will be made one with the older generation.
O, what a promise for fathers and mothers. The greatest burden we often have with children is that they turn against the things of God as they grow up. They find our meetings so fusty and dusty, old-fashioned and square. We do not blame them. They often see more clearly the failings, faults, and weaknesses of the people of God than anybody else in the church.
I have had to stop myself from asking children questions, because when I go round, it is the children that let the cat out of the bag. They say things about certain people in the company, and it is absolutely true. They have picked up their eccentricities, their oddities, and their little hypocrisies. When they grow up, they can turn against it all.
O, if we could only understand that the Lord’s burden for us is that those children, sanctified by believing parents—or even by one believing parent—should be wedded to the Zion of God. Rather than divorced from Zion, rather than alienated from Zion, they should be married.
For as a young man marrieth a virgin,
so shall thy sons marry thee.
Would it not be wonderful if, in these last days, every child of a Christian parent here—all the young people connected with any company here—were married to what God has done in us? That is not just involved; it is married, made one.
There is no age barrier. There is no young and old. Somehow or other, they have been fused into what God is doing. What a wonderful thing it is for those of us who are getting older. We cannot help it; it is part of the natural process.
I know the Scripture says our youth will be renewed as the eagle’s, and thank God I know a sister at home, ninety-seven years of age. She trots along to every meeting, comes quite a few miles, and often walks. It is quite amazing.
This old lady, at ninety-seven, looks after six or seven whom she calls her old ladies. She is up at five o’clock every morning looking after them, doing their breakfasts, sitting by them when they die. She says they are her old ladies, and they are all twenty years younger than she is.
If ever there was a Dorcas, it is this dear sister. Now she is beginning to fail at ninety-seven. Well, I am not surprised.
As we begin to get older, somehow or other truths can become set. We need younger people, do we not? They come bowling into the gathering with all their questions. Some dear older people try to sit on them, squash them, and push them down. “We do not want this kind of thing in the meeting.”
But what a wonderful thing it is when a few young people start to ask questions: “Why do you sisters wear something on your head?” It makes us think, does it not? Well, it should. “Why do you pray like this, and this, and this?” It makes us think.
All of a sudden, as we are getting older, we become young again, because we have to rethink, meditate, reflect, and pray. The young people bring new life into us, and we give them something that we have. It all becomes renewed. Praise God.
Now, I think we had better leave that and go on to this other thing: the fellowship of the Lord. If we have the determination of the Lord revealed, we also have the fellowship of the Lord here.
Verse 6 says:
I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem;
they shall never hold their peace day nor night:
ye that are the Lord’s remembrancers, take ye no rest,
and give Him no rest,
till He establish,
and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.
Here is the fellowship of the watchmen on the walls. What is the job of a watchman? The job of a watchman is to guard. The actual Hebrew word means just that: a watcher or a guard. In modern Hebrew, the word shomer is used of police—watchmen.
They watch both inside the city and outside the city. They watch to see whether there is any danger lurking in the surrounding areas outside the walls. They watch inside the city to see that there is no fire, no insurrection, no rebellion that might destroy the city from within.
They have a twofold ministry: inside and outside. They are watching on the walls and by the walls, because the walls are high points. You can see a long way from the walls—both outside and inside.
If you have ever been on old city walls, you know what I mean. I do not think you have many walls like that in the United States, though perhaps someone will take me to some. On our side, in the Middle East, and certainly in China, there are tremendous city walls—huge, massive things. From those walls, you get a vantage point over the whole city and out to all the country around.
Watchmen: their job is to watch and guard. Notice this: these watchmen are not only in Zion; they are on the walls. My word, they are not just involved. They are one hundred per cent committed.
The Lord longs for a fellowship with His own that is not merely that you are inside the city gate. You are inside Zion, but you are actually on the walls of Zion. You have to be pretty conscientious to be a watchman. You have to be pretty committed. Everything depends upon you. If you were to sleep, a whole city could fall.
Watchmen do not merely travail with the King of Zion that others might be in the will of God. They make sure that they themselves are at the centre of the will of God.
I am amazed sometimes by how people pray for others. “O Lord, help someone to be one hundred per cent for You. Help them to go to Timbuktu.” Yet we would not even go across the street to speak to our neighbour of the Lord. What kind of intercession is that?
If God cannot bring reality into our own heart, how can I pray that you might be delivered from strife and bitterness if there is strife and bitterness in my own heart? How can I pray that you might be prepared to go to the ends of the earth for the Lord and sacrifice your life if I am not sacrificing my life?
Intercession is much more than prayer. Intercession is not just a question of petition, nor just a question of giving a little bit of time. God requires your body. He requires you. He will put you through things that He will not put others through because He wants to make true in you what you are travailing for.
If you are praying for Zion, that her righteousness may go forth as brightness, He wants you to know His righteousness going forth as brightness in your own life. If you pray that Jerusalem’s salvation will be as a lamp that burneth, He wants it to be a lamp burning in your life.
He wants you to know something of this newness of life, something of this crown of beauty, something of this royal diadem. He wants to work it in you.
His watchmen are not just praying that others might be blessed by Zion. They come as Zion. They are totally committed themselves to Zion. They have had their own experience of the battles of Zion, the sacrifice of Zion, and the battle of being fitly framed together in Zion—of being built as a city compact together. They have their own experience of this.
People pray for the restoration of the church and the recovery of the church, and take a very superior attitude to others, yet are not even built with other believers themselves. They do not know what it is to humble themselves before their brothers and sisters. They do not know what it is to open themselves up before their brothers and sisters. They cannot even bring their problems to the church.
Yet they say, “Such a shame, all these Christians. They are so ignorant. They do not see what we see.”
But, my dear friend, if you and I are going to be watchmen on the walls of Zion—in fellowship with the King of Zion in this whole matter of intercessory ministry—then we have got to have our own experience of what it is to lose our lives for His sake and for Zion’s sake.
We have got to know what it is to be totally at the disposal of the Lord. We have got to know what it is to be subject one to another, to open up to one another, to share with one another, to be related to one another. These things are vital. You cannot be watchmen on the walls if you are not prepared for that.
I cannot imagine that this kind of watchman is interviewed and all they want to know is whether he has two eyes, a tongue, and two legs. “Oh, that will do. Shove him up on the walls.” No.
I imagine that the king and his government, when they interview people for the post of watchman, want to know: What experience have you got of Zion? Do you know what goes on in Zion? Do you know the layout of Zion? Do you know the quarters of Zion? Do you know the times of Zion, the purpose of Zion, the government of Zion, the destiny of Zion? Do you know these things? Then you can be a watchman.
May God help us in this matter. The command of the Lord is, “Take ye no rest, and give Him no rest.” What an amazing word that is.
This brings up the whole question someone asked during the question time yesterday: why do we need to pray? I do not know all the answers. I only know one thing, and that is that we are not forcing the Lord to do something He does not want to do.
Prayer is not cornering the Lord and somehow forcing Him to save people when He does not really want to save them, or forcing Him to bless us when He does not want to bless us.
No, I think it is much more a matter of this: we have a tremendous array of forces against us. Our Lord could pulverise the whole thing with one single flick of His fingers, but He will not. Why? Because He is training us. That is why.
He says, “No, I will let them overrun you. I will let them compromise you. I will let them almost extinguish the light, unless you learn to rise up in the name of My Son and stand against this kind of thing.” You have got to learn to exercise authority in the name of the Lord. You have got to learn to plumb, as it were, and exploit the resources which are yours in the Lord.
“You that are the Lord’s remembrancers.” Do you really think the Lord forgets? No, of course I do not think He forgets. But this is a whole matter of fellowship. It is as if the Lord is saying, “Listen, I know your laziness—especially you folks over here.”
“I know that if you can have instant coffee, you will have instant coffee. If you can have instant cream, you will have instant cream. Everything is instant. I know you are good at shortcuts—the quickest way to get anything done.”
The Lord is saying, “I do not want this kind of shortcut. There is no instant salvation, instant church building, instant new life. You have got to come into fellowship with Me. I want your fellowship.”
Is that not wonderful? Did you hear that? The King wants your fellowship. He actually wants you.
Many of us suffer from an inferiority complex. Deep down, we will never bring it up, but we feel, “I do not think the Lord really notices me. I believe the Lord has His eye on that brother, and I believe He has His eye on that other brother—but me, I am not at all sure that the Lord has His eye on me. I do not think He would answer me.”
Many, many of us suffer from that inferiority complex. We do not expect the Lord to speak to us. We say, “He would not speak to me. Oh no, but I am praying because the Bible says we should pray, so I must pray.”
So we have a little psychological safety valve. We tell Him about this, then that, then something else, and another thing. We do not expect the Lord to get inside. “Well, He would not. He is far too busy. He would not think of me.”
But the Lord has called you by your name. You are known to the Lord. Before you were formed, He knew you. When you were in your mother’s womb, He already had His hand on you.
You are very precious to the Lord because you are one of the inhabitants of Zion. Because of the foreknowledge of God and the election of God, He knew you before times eternal. Your very name was in the Lamb’s book of life before the world began.
It is all there. And you are telling me He does not know you? You say, “Well, of course, I imagine the Lord has rather a human mind. How can He possibly know all the millions and millions?” Listen: we have been capable of creating electronic computers and brains that can spew out all kinds of information which our little minds cannot process so quickly.
Do you mean that the God who has given us the ability to create a computer does not have a mind far greater than any electronic brain? He knows every one of His own. He knows you intimately. He knows your background. He knows all the things that make you what you are.
You are an inhabitant of Zion. He loves you. The thing He loves to hear is your voice. Somehow He can distinguish your voice from all the other voices.
If you would only understand: “Ye that are the Lord’s remembrancers.” It is not that He has to be reminded as if He forgets. He wants your fellowship.
We have now to finish. This is our great problem, is it not? In 2 Corinthians 1:20, it says a most wonderful thing:
For how many soever be the promises of God,
in Him is the yea:
wherefore also through Him is the Amen,
unto the glory of God through us.
The “yes” is in Christ to the promises of God, and through Him is the “Amen.” I imagine that many of us, when we are interceding, do not have a problem about the “yes” to the promise in Christ. But it is through Him that comes the “Amen.”
Why does the Lord not say, “In Him is the yea, and in Him is the Amen”? No, He says, “In Him is the yea, and through Him is the Amen.” In other words, the Amen is a process.
That is why Hebrews 6:12 says:
Be ye imitators of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
The yes is in Christ. Through faith and patience, through Him, comes the Amen.
When they went over the Jordan, they only put their feet down upon the riverbed, and instantly the waters piled up higher up the river, some miles away, at a place called Adam—what we now call the Damia Bridge.
Yes and Amen. Yes, in Christ, to the promise of God: “Whatsoever the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you.” The Amen came instantly.
When they came to Jericho, the yes was straight away, but it was seven days later that the Amen came. Do you get it? They had to go round and round and round.
Jerusalem took four hundred years—four hundred years before they took it. I am not saying that sometimes we have to wait four hundred years, though there are promises of the Lord that have waited much longer than that for their fulfilment.
But the fact of the matter is this: you and I need to be the Lord’s remembrancers, and know that it is a matter of fellowship with Him—standing with Him, allowing something of the fellowship of His sufferings to come into us, filling up in our body that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ for His body’s sake, the church.
We need to know something of this travail—this travail which is in the Spirit of God and which only the Spirit of God can bring into our hearts and lives.
On another occasion, we will talk about the last part of those verses:
Go through, go through the gates.
Commit yourselves. Do not gather on the periphery. Get through the gate. Go through.
But all I want to say is this: much of our Christian work comes into the category of foreigners taking what we have worked for—others coming in at the last moment and taking what we have laboured for.
The promise of the Lord is this: if we are watchmen on the walls of Zion, in fellowship with the King of Zion, the Messiah, then there will come a day when we shall drink the new wine for which we have laboured in the courts of the sanctuary.
We shall ourselves eat the corn and grain that we have garnered, and we shall praise the Lord. We shall feel the completion of our labours. We shall not only see a harvest; we shall enjoy it.
I cannot help feeling that this is a reference to the peace offering, where they came into the courts of the sanctuary of the Lord’s house and sat down and ate together with those who were there.
May God help us in this matter of the travail position. There is no other way for this purpose of God to be fulfilled.
Can there be those who are watchmen on the walls of Zion, who take no rest and give Him no rest, who never hold their peace day nor night? The Lord make it so.