Psalm 87
1864 40 There is one truth that specially gives solid footing; there is no other thing, perhaps, that confers such stability upon creatures, weak, vacillating, impressed, easily moved, and carried away as we are: it is the consciousness of God's sovereign favour and choice of His will; of the place and portion that grace has conferred upon us. I do not believe that the bare fact of knowing our privileges will keep any soul. For the heart is so deceitful and desperately wicked, that any privilege which is merely our own, we can carry with us in self will; and so vile is the flesh that the very privilege itself may be used as a reason for dealing lightly with our sins, our follies, our love of ease, our self-seeking in any form or measure. But it is impossible so to act and feel when we have God before us: for at once we have to do with One who is holy and above all. Whatever may be His love, still authority is there, which none can dispute, and which can put us in our place of entire subjection. Hence, the principle of godliness depends upon this, that we see and have to do with God in each thing we have to seek or avoid. Now we can bless the Lord that this is not new to us, for most of us have known God in our salvation, though we know that it is not a question merely of us or of mercy shown to us, but that there is a blessed and glorious scheme in which God has been winning glory to His own name, so that we have just, as it were, submitted to it; and indeed, it is expressly said in the New Testament, we have "submitted ourselves to the righteousness of God." We have found that this salvation, though most surely it is on our behalf, yet it is not merely our salvation, but God's; we too can say that our eyes have "seen the salvation of God;" and each can look up, so far as this is concerned, and say, "Lord, let now thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." Thus it is that the Lord weans us by the very truth which He first reveals to our souls in Christ. He gives us such simple rest in His love to us; He vouchsafes the assurance that this salvation, inasmuch as He is, in every way, concerned in it, must be worthy of Himself. For it is not merely a salvation adapted to our need, but suited to His own name, to His own love, to His own grace, to His own glory This, and this alone, has delivered us from doubts and anxieties. For when we have rested upon Jesus, and taken in this blessed truth, it is impossible for a soul to have further hesitation as to the character, the completeness, and the perfection of God's salvation. If we simply take it as a part of ourselves, that is as our salvation only, it is evident that there is a door opened to doubt and change; for we are creatures apt to fluctuate. Only bring in God in Christ, which is really the truth, and let the heart receive it with simplicity, then vanish all fears and questions and for ever. And it is impossible for a soul who lays and keeps hold of this blessed truth, through the Holy Ghost, any more to be a prey to anxiety. Of course people might, through unwatchfulness, slip, and turn aside, and then the enemy knows how to enter in with his fiery darts, and torment the soul; but that is a different case. To return, the strength of God's will and choice is not merely true of salvation; but we may thank the Lord that it is true of everything. And I venture to say that God claims the right and title to put every single thing that concerns us under His own authority. When the heart rests in His love, we cannot bear only, but delight in His authority; it is painful otherwise, always contrary to nature. But if there is any one that you really are subject to, and in whose love you have perfect confidence, is the authority of such an one a burden to you? Quite the contrary. Therefore, the Lord Jesus, speaking to the weary and heavy laden says, "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Why is this? A burden easy! a yoke light! What makes them so? It is My yoke, My burden. The same principle attaches to all that in which He has put His name.
Take this instance. What a change it makes to our souls, if it is merely an assembly of saints that we come to, or if it is God's assembly! Of course it is an assembly of saints, if it is God's assembly; but there might be a thousand assemblies of saints that are not God's assemblies at all. They might bring in their own thoughts and will, and this not merely in individual conduct — we are all liable to that. But I am speaking now of what brings and keeps them together. They might be all true saints, but they would not be God's assembly unless God were acknowledged among them as the One whom we welcome according to Scripture, and for whom we leave the door open by the Holy Ghost, i.e., unless the Lord Jesus' care and authority over us were owned. Not that I would dare to assign limits to the grace of God or His outreaching blessing, spite of all circumstances. We are now enquiring into the strength and blessedness of doing His will. And assuredly that alone is His assembly where the Holy Ghost is allowed full liberty, according to the word, and by whom He will, to act among the saints. Where this is not the principle, it may be an assembly of saints, but the assembly of God it is not. Our business is to do His will and not merely to be in an assembly of His children. The mere fact of its consisting of saints does not of itself settle the heart. But the moment that I own it as God's, all is changed. There is the One that we have to do with. And it is not merely to one another that we have links of affection — nay, bonds of eternal life, and above all, the link of the Holy Ghost that dwells in all the saints of God; but what we have to seek, what we have to stand for and to be governed by in heart and conscience is this — it is God's assembly. The Holy Ghost dwells where Christ, the Christ of God alone, is owned as the centre and Lord. May we be stedfast and true!
Analogous to this is that which the Holy Ghost will make to be felt in its measure by Israel in the day that is coming. This will be their exceeding joy, when they are broken down and individually made to take their true place before God, when all self-righteousness will be crushed, not only in general, but under the dealings of God, and in the very depths of their souls. Out of all this will come the blessed result, that they will no longer be thinking of themselves, but of God. Our first word expresses this: "His foundation is in the holy mountains." Who was He? What were these mountains, and why were they holy? Is this the cry of long-banished, far-wandering Israel? "His foundation is in the holy mountains." It is not in anywise that our privileges are less known and valued when God thus fills the heart. Our mercies and joys themselves are filled, as it were, with the presence of the glory of God. Our privileges take their colour and their shape, the length, breadth, depth, and height, from Him who gave us this blessedness. His foundation, then, is in the holy mountains. And who is this before me? Is it David or Solomon? Is it the king's foundation? Nay, "the Lord, Jehovah, loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob." Now this is a truth that we are not always prepared for. It is not only that God has His choice in separating from the world, but God chooses too among His people, among those that He loves. He loves, no doubt, all the dwellings of Jacob; but He loves the gates of Zion more than any other. He is pleased to act from His own heart; and who shall dispute His will? He works specially in individuals. He does not deal with us all alike. And even looking at His saints at large, while there is a sense in which He feels toward them all with exactly the same love, it would be false to suppose that there is not another sense in which the same principle applies to them as to the dwellings of Jacob. Here, also, He arranges all according to His own will. Take the Gospels, take the Epistles, take the facts of our lives and hearts, we see this principle all through — God will be God. And God, if He is God, must be a sovereign God. It is not that He merely chooses out from the world, but He deals according to His own will among those that He has thus chosen. This sovereign action is painful to the flesh, because it is natural for us all to set up to be as gods. It was the first thing man did, and it is this which disputes, denies, and gainsays the supreme title of God. There is always restlessness in our hearts where such is the case. We know what it was when we had no sight of God; but even when we have seen Him in Christ, there will still be the need of entering more deeply and fully into the wonderful workings of His holy will.
He now explains. "Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God. Selah. I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know me. Behold Philistia and Tyre with Ethiopia. This man was born there." Rahab and Babylon were the two rival powers for the mastery of the old world. Rahab or Egypt was the first in early strength; but Egypt decayed and fell before the growing ambition and resources of Babylon. Babylon became, under God, the mistress of the ancient world, the head of gold that we read of in Daniel. The Spirit selects these, both of them linking themselves with the Jews, the one with the beginning, the other with the end of the history of Israel. He may be said to challenge them. Choose, O world, your very best, Rahab and Babylon; nor these merely, but Philistia, that most active territory which sent out through its energy to every part of the world, and Tyre, too, its maritime competitor. Add Ethiopia also, that distant land of wonders! In all these boasted quarters of the old world, single out the gravest and best, the men that you have most gloried in, the geniuses that led others, and that achieved such fame as man can earn, and give, and boast of; but what is it? Deathless fame, alas! potsherds of the earth! One bit of crockery raising itself up against another! But what are we brought to now? To God? Yes, we have come to Him: God has made Himself known to us. God has chosen, called, and loved us. God has set us apart for Himself; and not only grace, but glorious things are spoken of.
"Glorious things are spoken of thee." Thou city of whom — of Israel? Nay; but "Thou city of God." What a joy to know that our very meeting is a witness of this truth! And God forbid that I should ever be at one that was not a witness for the truth, not only that there are Christians in the world, but that God is acting in the world; that God has a choice and that God binds me to it. God is not sparing our flesh, nor calling us for the purpose of giving a loose rein to the flesh; but expressly in order to deny the flesh, and crush it by the deepening knowledge of His beloved Son. But if there be not, along with this knowledge of Christ, the putting the mark of the cross upon the flesh, we shall never retain the truth of God. This is not like human science, that can be acquired and kept independently of our state of soul. It may appear to be received, but it will leak away: it will be surely lost and corrupted. It is impossible for the flesh to keep and to hold the truth of God. It is of all-importance to learn this lesson, to learn it even if late, and over and over again, too; not as some, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, but always learning and coming to a deeper knowledge of the truth. This is our blessed position through His grace. But it needs the cross of Christ practically, glorying that we are nothing, glorying in our infirmities; certainly not in anything wrong, that the flesh calls "infirmity," because it does not like to call sin, "sin." But Scripture never calls sin infirmity. Infirmity is what makes us despised, and which our own nature likes neither in ourselves nor others. This is the condition of making progress in Christ, and of the power of Christ resting upon us.
But while thus brought to feel that we are nothing, it is important, on the other hand, to know that glorious things are spoken of the chosen of God. It is not the part of true humility to obscure, ignore, or deny our full blessedness. There may be weakness in every way. Instead of many, there may be only two or three meeting together; but if those two or three are met around that blessed name, and that name only, they ought not, would not, talk proudly of being God's assembly. But still it is of that very nature; and if it were not God's, I do not know a divine reason for coming together. It is all self-will unless it is God that brings us together. But if it is God, then it is not a question of saints. How all-important that our souls should hold to this!
And what is our boast? The great glory for Zion is this: when other nations were boasting of their geniuses, Zion had a better glory — "Of Zion it shall be said, This and that man was born in her, and the Highest himself shall establish her." Others might speak of their poets, captains, statesmen, kings. But of whom does Zion speak? "The Lord shall count, when he writeth up the people, that this man was born there." How gracious of God! If you look at Zion or Jerusalem, it was not, of course, literally the fact, for Christ was born at Bethlehem. Of Jerusalem, the terrible truth is, that Christ was crucified there. But how blessed is the reckoning of grace! "The Lord shall count, when He writeth up the people, that THIS MAN was born there." The Lord connects His beloved One with Zion; and therefore in the day when the Lord shall look upon the dust of Jerusalem and favour the stones thereof — in the day when He will lift up His might to raise up the fallen ones and to gather the outcasts, this will be the song that He will put in Zion's mouth. They will not contend for or glory in any other; but the kernel of their joy will be, that "this man" was born there.
No wonder, then, that there were players and singers on instruments (v. 7) after such a word as this. No wonder that God Himself should say, "All my springs are in thee." All these blessed ways of comfort and strengthening God causes to flow and find their centre there; because Christ, as far as concerning the earth, finds His place there.
The New Jerusalem has still more glorious things. Our place is not the earth. It is not in Zion, or the holy mountains; it is in the heavens. But it is the same Christ, only Christ known in a still more blessed way; not as One that was born there, but as the Only-begotten before all worlds. For heaven, we may say, was rather born of Him, than that He was born of it. It is there that we are brought into association with Him; and this founded on His death and resurrection. When He was here upon earth, heaven opened upon Him; and now that He is there, heaven is opened for us; and we look up through the opened heavens and behold Him at God's right hand. For if Stephen miraculously, as a fact, saw Him there, it is also the revealed and proper expression of our birth-place and home; we see it as a matter of the calling of God. For God means that we should realize by faith that the heavens are no longer shut for us, and that above them is that blessed One, at the right hand of the majesty on high, and ourselves seated in heavenly places in Him there. Therefore let us not fear, though it be not for us to glory in aught, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; but we ought to glory in that cross, and to know what a stable foundation God has given us in Him. For us it is not so much in the holy mountains, as in Him who made them and all things. He is our Rock in the midst of the surges of this world, as truly as He is and will be our theme of praise to all eternity.