Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

Jerusalem has been trodden down by the Gentiles for long centuries and has been of little account in world-politics since the Dispersion, but it is now emerging from its obscurity and unimportance. Other cities have arisen and grown rich and haughty, rivalling one another for world supremacy in power, commerce, and pleasure, but their days are numbered; they must soon yield the palm in all that is truly great to Jerusalem, for Jerusalem is the city. And as surely as she fell because of her iniquity so surely shall she arise in the mercy and the glory of the Lord, for He will fulfil His word to her, “This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her” (Ezekiel 5:5). “Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion … the city of the great King” (Psalm 48:2).

It matters little how audacious and arrogant the ambition of would-be world-rulers may be, or how vast their preparations for world-conquest, or extraordinary their apparent success in the struggle towards their goal, all lies finally in God’s hand, and “when He divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel: for the Lord’s portion is His people: Jacob is the lot of His inheritance” (Deuteronomy 32:8-9). This word still stands good and shall be established speedily when God-resumes His special dealings with His people, after the church has been caught up to heaven.

The spirit of the Jews themselves and the energy with which they are seizing the opportunity and pushing the enterprise is amazing. Already large sums of money are being subscribed towards it by Jews in American cities. The English members of the Zionist Commission are already at work in Jerusalem, the chairman of the Commission having been received by His Majesty the King prior to leaving these shores, showing the great importance that the British Government attach to this work. The following is an excerpt from Palestine: —

“The Commission, in its final form, will include, in addition to representatives from English Jewry, representatives of Russian, American and French Jewry. It goes out armed with the highest and the warmest recommendations to the British authorities in Palestine, it is assured in advance of the sympathy and assistance of the Imperial authorities. It has the advantage in possessing as liaison officer between the Commission and the British authorities Major Ormsby Gore, whose devotion to the cause is as admirable as his recognition of its greatness is unqualified … The task of the Palestine Commission is to lay the foundations and to commence the superstructure of a Jewish Palestine as far as this may be achieved during the war. Those who walk about in Jewry note an exaltation, the consciousness of a miracle manifest and mighty, the joy of being caught up in one of the great tides of divine purpose. ‘Happy the man who saw it’ is the refrain of a beautiful Hebrew hymn describing the glories of the Temple and the Jewish national life. Happy the man who has lived to see these days and to share in these mighty labours … The same wave of feeling and expectation is flooding with particular force through the Jewish life of Palestine, which already is seeking to adjust itself and to adapt itself to its new liberties, its greater responsibilities, and its loftier future … Jews have suffered too many bitter misfortunes and disappointments not to fortify their hopes and their desires by all the power of their will and their talent. They believe that their hour has struck after twenty centuries of waiting, and they are determined that it shall not mock them because of any failure in response on their part. They look to the Allies to play their part, and they look with confidence.”

That the work will go forward cannot be questioned. The Jews themselves may be only thinking of securing their ancient land as their natural home, and the Allied nations may only have in view the safeguarding of their interests in the future, or the righting the wrongs of a downtrodden and defenceless people, but God is behind it, His hand is surely moving events towards that glorious moment when He shall declare to all rulers and peoples, “I HAVE SET MY KING UPON MY HOLY HILL OF ZION” (Psalm 2).

While the Christian rejoices in this, yet the thought of the way it must be brought to pass causes him sorrow of heart. Like the little book that the seer had to eat, which was sweet as honey in his mouth but was bitter in his belly (Revelation 10:9-10), so is the thought of the end of God’s ways sweet to the taste and glorious to contemplate, but the consideration of the wilfulness and blindness of men, and of Israel in particular, that make judgment a necessity before God’s end can be reached, gives sorrow to the heart. We look ahead, and it is “with joy and sorrow mingled,” and so we enter somewhat into the spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ (Luke 10:17, 24; 19:41, 44).

We must now consider two great events which are to take place, not on earth but in heaven, but which have earth directly in view, and especially the destiny of Israel as the centre of it. The first is in Revelation 5, where the Lion of the Tribe of Juda, the Root of David, takes the Book of God’s intentions in regard to the earth and Israel and Jerusalem, to open the seals of it, that all written therein might come to pass. And the second is in Revelation 12, where Satan is cast out of heaven and determines in his wrath to exterminate the Jews and so frustrate the fulfilment of God’s promises to their fathers.

From Revelation 4 onward the church of God is in heaven, and so it will be above all that is to happen in the way of judgment on the earth. The intelligent reader of Scripture will recognize a very definite change in the dispensation in the way in which God is presented to us in this chapter. He is not here spoken of as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which precious name He is known to the church, the saints with the heavenly calling, but He is addressed as Lord, God, Almighty, names in which He revealed Himself of old to people on the earth with an earthly calling and which declare His faithfulness to them. This plainly indicates that His dealings with the earth are about to recommence — the calling out of it of His heavenly saints being completed. Again the ascription of worship at the end of the chapter is, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.” The earth belongs to God, for He made it, but men since the Fall have refused the claims of God both in regard to it and themselves, and the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus was the casting out of the Heir that all might be theirs. But God is about to take up His rights and make the earth such as He can have pleasure in. How this is to be done and who will do it comes out in chapter 5.