January 4, 2009
January 4, 2008
A thought came to me as we sang our first hymn, “We’ll praise thee, glorious Lord, who died to set us free.” He died to set us free. Think how we were in bondage to sin, with Satan as a taskmaster. And then think of what salvation did for us. Think of how, as it tells us in Revelation 1, we’ve been loved, loosed, and lifted. The other side of this is in Exodus 21, where we have the Hebrew slave; who could have gone free. VV.5-6 “And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever.” Isn’t that what our Lord has done in love for us? Instead of going free, he lets us go free. Even in Eternity he will come, girded, and serve us. In setting us free, He became a love-slave to us, forever.
Hymn 246 – O for the robe of whiteness
Prayer
Revelation 21:9-27
What is this Holy Jerusalem? It is the Bride. It’s interesting to think of the Bride as a city. Let’s look at a few points about this city.
She is not only the vessel of God’s glory, but is the reflector of it to the world. The bride as a glorious canopy of light and unfading beauty and brightness over the millennial scene will be the grandest sight ever beheld, and will continue for a thousand years to be the admiration of the world.
In the glory of God the city shines, that glory is her light. The bride stands out in the glory of God. In herself she is destitute of beauty. She shines in the glory of another. Her shining, or light, is compared to a crystal-like jasper stone.
The wall is a solid, massive, and brilliant structure. It is made of Jasper. It cannot, be broken down, nor can it be scaled – its height is 144 cubits or 216 feet.
The administrative number 12 enters into this description. Thus there are 12 gates, 12 angels, 12 names of Israel, 12 names of the apostles, 12 foundations and 12 pearls. 12 symbolizes the perfection in government towards the earth.
The 12 gates were 12 pearls. The pearl denotes unity, purity, beauty, and preciousness. The gates of pearl remind us of the Lord’s thoughts of love and beauty towards the church.
Each one of these stones is of vast size, of marvelous solidity, and of surpassing splendour. On the gates are the names of the tribes, while on the foundations are the names of the apostles.
The millennial Jerusalem on earth with its temple, courts etc. is measured with a line of flax (Ezek 40:3). The city of gold is fittingly measured with a golden reed. The gold signifies divine righteousness, while the jasper signifies divine glory. The measurement of the city is “twelve thousand furlongs” or 1500 miles in length, breadth, and height. It is a cube, and thus square in every direction. It is unity, perfection, and divine symmetry.
From its center to its circumference it is pure gold, transparent too, like pure glass. The street (not streets) of the city of pure gold, signifies that in all our walk holiness and righteousness characterize it, ennoble it, beautify it. As transparent glass means that the righteous walk and ways of the church will reflect the glory of what she is.
A temple necessarily confines the presence of God. “No temple” signifies that full and free access to God is equally granted to all. Immediate access to God without the intervention of priest or mediator is open to every one.
No independent yet created light as the sun, nor borrowed light as the moon, is required in the heavenly city. God is the source of her light, and the Lamb Who died for us is the lamp of the divine glory.
It is the Lamb Who scatters the rays of light and reveals the glory of God in the midst of and to the glorified Church, but the Church is the medium of light to the world outside. By its light the nations walk.
The city itself shall be one great body of light and glory, without and within, a light which shall never wane, and a glory which shall never fade.
Sin in every phase and form is excluded from the holy city. The least spot or taint of evil could not stand the glare of the divine glory.
Just think, believers are going to be the Bride. On earth, Jesus will reign in Jerusalem. We hall reign over the earth as the Holy Jerusalem.
We’ve been looking at the successes and failures of the Jews as they build the temple. There’s an interesting contrast to this in Genesis 11. We know it was not right for these people to build the tower of Babel. Notice that they were coming from the east, with their backs to the sun-rising: they didn’t have God’s blessing. In v. 3, we find that they were going to build using bricks instead of stone and slime instead of mortar. Also, they were going to build this building for themselves: it was all for their own glory. We talked about how Solomon got the stones for his temple from the caverns under Jerusalem: each one was carved and dovetailed perfectly before it was brought to the service, each one a work of art. Here they have a production line, churning out bricks and slapping them together with slime. Christianity at large today does this, turning out trained people who are all the same, none completely following the leading of the Holy Spirit. This is what God judges. God wants those with skill: not just bricklayers, but stonemasons.
So, why did the building stop for 15 years? It may look as if it was because of their enemies, but if we would read Haggai, we’d find that they should not have stopped. We talked last time about how they should not have stopped their work at all. It seems that they were glad to stop and work on their own properties for a while. Because of this, God sent prophets to revitalize them, which shows us how low they really were. God had not been blessing their efforts to get ahead.
The building of the temple started again. And of course, the enemy starts again too; yet Haggai reminds them that the Lord would help them through this persecution: they needed more faith. They had hardly begun building when the enemy came and asked them who gave them permission to build the temple. This time, the enemy did not scare them out of working. So, they decided to write a letter to King Darius. It seems to begin as a letter of commendation, explaining that the Jews were working hard. Then they record the Jews answer to their questions. The Jews had confidently answered that they were the servants of the God of heaven and earth. This time, the story sent to the King was more accurate, since it was straight from the Jews: they explained how their fathers had displeased the Lord, how they had been taken captive, and how Cyrus had decreed the temple to be built. Then they requested that the King look into the records to confirm what they had said.
So, what can we learn from this chapter? It was the Word of God that started the renewed efforts to rebuild the temple. We should be occupied with the Word so that we won’ t get sidetracked in the first place. It is the Word that strengthens the house of God.
Hymn 380 – Standing by a purpose true
Prayer