What Is Zion and How Important Is Zion to Us?

Well, good afternoon again. Certainly wonderful to see you. It's wonderful to be able to get together and be able to share time and fellowship on the Sabbath and be able to enjoy studying the Bible. As I mentioned, some of us will be going down and seeing a film tomorrow that's entitled Jerusalem. And I thought it might be helpful to discuss a related topic.

The topic of Zion, the term Zion, Z-I-O-N, is used over 150 times in the Bible. Most of those are in the Old Testament, and yet you do have a handful, eight or ten, references to Zion in the New Testament. And I think it's important for us to have an understanding whenever we study the Bible. If we read a verse that has the word Zion in it, we need to understand what it means. What does that term mean to you? It can be a little bit confusing. It can sound biblical.

It may not have a lot of additional information. And I think I also want to point out to you as I cover this material, this is exciting to me. It's exciting to be able to think about how it is that God is choosing to work with us because it involves us. It involves, the term Zion involves, each of us who are coming to identify with the Creator God, who are coming to comprehend His Word and how it is that He's put the whole thing together, not only the New, but also the Old Testament. They need to be able to come together and we need to understand how it is that there is great unity in God's mind when He caused the Bible to be written and that He wants us to grow in that same mind, to grow in that understanding, as Mr.

Alexander was covering. We are to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He inspired the entirety of the writing of the Bible. He's the one who gives us the blessing of being able to study or to read the Bible. So, in connection with that, I think we should not only think about what the term Zion means, but also how important is Zion to us personally. Now, in answer to the question, what does the term Zion mean? You could say, does it refer or imply a geographic location? Is that one of the answers in understanding the term Zion?

Does it imply a geographic location and if so, where? Well, we will as we go through the Scriptures here today. We will see how that Jerusalem is connected with the stronghold of Zion. And clearly during the days of David, that's 3,000 years ago, during that time, we'll see some activity that David took. That was incredibly connected to the city of Zion that was there in Jerusalem. Another thing we might think, is Zion simply a city or is it several cities?

Because whenever you read verses about Zion, it talks about Zion being the city of David. It talks about Zion being the city of our God. It talks about Zion being a city that God has chosen. And so there are several different applications, not only a geographic location, but also several cities. And then finally, can Zion refer to the church? Does it refer to people who are a part of the church of God today?

Part of the group that Jesus started working with after his resurrection. People who received the gift of the Holy Spirit and who were used by God to do the work of God that would ultimately lead to the day we live in today on the verge of the return of Jesus to this earth. We can read the prophecies, we can see what they say, we can see many of them coming to pass. And yet we also need to understand how the Zion, as I've mentioned, can refer to different things at different times.

But I think even though what I've mentioned, all of these are correct in certain settings, the most descriptive use of Zion seems to be Zion, God's dwelling place. Zion, God's dwelling place, is what I want to talk about today. See, now we all understand that the great God who created everything resides in the heavens.

He resides in the third heaven, resides, as Paul said, in paradise. And yet, his throne is described in a glorious description there in Revelation and in other parts of the Bible. You see descriptions of God at his throne, but you also understand that God is almighty, he's all-powerful, he's all-knowing, he's always present. If you read Psalm 139, you'll find you cannot get away from God. You cannot go anywhere on earth or under the earth or above the earth.

God is omnipresent. He is able to be anywhere. And yet, as he has chosen to deal with human beings, as he began to deal with Adam and Eve, as he placed them here on the earth and gave them a physical form like we have, that form, that likeness, that image, was in the image of God.

He created us to look and be kind of like him. And yet, he wants more than that. He doesn't want us simply to look like God. He wants us to take on His nature. God truly desires to dwell with men. Now, as we see in the history of the Old Testament and the New Testament, God hasn't chosen to dwell with everybody yet.

But He will. He will. During the millennium, during the time beyond that, He's going to choose to dwell with people. And so His purpose involves growing a divine family. And coming to relate to God is the most important thing in any of our lives. As I said, Adam and Eve interacted with God directly. He talked to them. He talked to them in the garden. Of course, they had made a mistake. They were deceived. They fell for the deception that Satan passed on immediately to the two beings that God had created to reproduce and then populate the earth.

You see later, and we've read through information about the patriarchs, we've read about Moses, we've read about Joshua this past time, we've gone through a good amount of the history of the beginning of the Old Testament. And yet we find as Moses was given not only the Ten Commandments, he was given a great deal of instructions about a tabernacle. A tabernacle, a tent, that the Israelites were to carry around with them as they wandered through the wilderness. See, that tabernacle was in some ways impressive and in other ways not so impressive. It was a tent. It wasn't a house. It wasn't a brick building like this building. It was a pretty temporary dwelling. It was made to be able to be carried wherever God directed the Israelites to go. And so, you know, God used actually a cloud by day and a fire by night as the Israelites were wandering. He was connected to them. He was dwelling with them through this tabernacle.

And we find that the tabernacle of meeting as they went into the Promised Land, as they went into the Land of Canaan, the land that God was promised to Abraham and to Isaac and Jacob, as they went into that land, you see that the tabernacle was brought to Shiloh. It was brought to Shiloh, which was a city 15 miles or so from Jerusalem.

It was brought there in place there initially. And we find that God made, when we get to the time of David, the king of Israel, God made a tremendous covenant with David. Because David wanted to build, he thought about it. He says, look, I've got this great house. I've got a great building to live in. I've got a house of cedar, he said. And here the Ark of God is in a tent. This doesn't make sense. I want to build a temple or a house for God. And so you see several different ways in which the tabernacle and later the temple would represent the place where God's presence was among the people.

And that was, in essence, what was signified. And we'll go through these things as I go through the remainder of the sermon today. But to keep in mind, it has a great deal to do with the tabernacle and later the temple and then the temple today. We need to be able to, I think, focus on these. So let's begin here in 2 Samuel. And this will answer some of the questions that we might have about the term Zion and how it's used in the Old Testament and how it's used in the New Testament and how important is it for us to relate to God in a very close and a very loving way.

Here in 2 Samuel, chapter 5, and I'm going to be jumping around a little bit and I'm not trying to be as sequential as sometimes I try to be. I want to try to make the different sections of the Bible make sense if we can. And yet, this particular section, you're going to have to jump around a little bit. But here you see Zion mentioned the first time in the Bible, 2 Samuel, chapter 5, beginning in verse 6.

This is when David had been anointed. He was going to come into Jerusalem. He didn't start in Jerusalem, but he was going to come in Jerusalem. In verse 6, the king and his men marched to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who said to David, You will not come in here.

Even the blind and lame will turn you back, thinking that David couldn't overtake them. They thought they were well-fortified. They thought they could repel almost anyone who would come. But in verse 7, it says, Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, which is now the city of David. So here we start getting some definition immediately. David would acquire this stronghold that was in Jerusalem and on the Temple Mount, or close to the Temple Mount. And it says, down in verse 9, David occupied the stronghold of Zion, and he named it the city of David.

David built the city all around from the Milo inward, and David became greater and greater, for the Lord of Host was with him. Again, that's simply a reference to how it is that Zion is used and described as where David lived, where his, in a sense, his palace was, and where it was that he ruled as a king in Israel. But I want to back up, if we will, to Exodus 40, because there's something very impressive.

When we think about the fact that God wants to tabernacle, he wants to dwell with his people. Here in Exodus 40, this is at the very end of this book, and of course you see the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. You see a number of other instructions given to Moses about how it was he was to put together the tabernacle, what all of the accoutrements were to be, the altars, the tables, the lampstands, everything that he was to have, how it was the priests were to be attired, how it was that they were to work.

And it says, beginning in chapter 16 of chapter 40, Moses did everything just as the Lord had commanded him. The first month of the second year on the first day of the month, the tabernacle was set up. And so this was clearly after they had left Egypt, after God had given the instructions to Moses.

Moses was following those instructions. He was putting together the tabernacle as God had direct him to do because it was to be a place where God's presence would be. And if we drop down to verse 20, it says, he took the covenant or the testimony and he put it into the ark, and he put the poles on the ark, and he set the mercy-seek above the ark, and he brought the ark into the tabernacle.

And so this was again a part of what God had told and directed Moses, that you would put together here in the tabernacle, and you would have this place where my presence is among the people.

If we drop on down to verse 33, it says, Moses finished the work. And so after he had set up the tabernacle, after he had put everything together, after he had put everything inside the tabernacle, again inside this tinted area, Moses completed that job. And it says in verse 34, a cloud, the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled that tabernacle.

Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. There's great significance to that, brethren. It's amazing to even consider how deeply involved God wanted to be with what turned out to be a truly rebellious and disobedient group of people. But see, God was thinking way beyond that. God's purpose is to dwell with men. And yet he was using this as an example. The glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And whenever the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, the Israelites would set out on another stage of their journey. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out until the day that it was taken up. And so in a sense, God was going to guide. He was going to direct. If they were to move, He would show them they were going to move. If they were not to move, they were to stay there. Pretty simple. For in verse 38, the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, before the eyes of all the house of Israel at every stage of their journey. And so it's significant for us to think about how it was that even though these people were going to be complaining and moaning about, we don't have any water, we don't have any food, why did you take us out of where we were comfortable in Egypt? You know, God was working out something far more glorious. And He did this in connection with the tabernacle, the place where God would dwell.

As I mentioned, once the 40 years had passed and they had wandered in the wilderness, when they started to go into the Promised Land, and Joshua, of course, was going to overtake many of the cities and many of the kings of the land, here in Joshua, Chapter 18, I want to just point this out to you, Joshua Chapter 18.

We see a mention of the tabernacle, and in a sense, you know, this was being transferred, Joshua Chapter 18. It says in verse 1, I mentioned this to you earlier, This was during the process of securing the land. This was long before the time of David, and long before, but this was again how it was that God set up. He didn't directly put it in Jerusalem at that time, but He set it in Shiloh, and He had a plan that He was going to carry out.

And if we look in Psalm 78, Psalm Chapter 78, you see a lengthy psalm that in many ways is a history, a history of Israel, a history of how God brought them out of Egypt, but how they disobeyed, how they ignored God. And what I want to point out here in this long psalm is Psalm 78, starting in verse 56. Recalling Israel's history, and I won't read all of this for the sake of time, yet it says in verse 56, they tested.

They tested the Most High God. They rebelled against Him. They didn't observe His decrees. But they turned away, and they were faithless like their ancestors had been. They twisted like a treacherous bow. They provoked God to anger with their high places, and they moved Him to jealousy with their idols. And when God heard, He was full of wrath.

And He utterly rejected Israel. In a sense, this is somewhat of a summary of how it was that God would deal with Israel. Since they disobeyed, He would ultimately resist them. And it says in verse 60, He abandoned His dwelling in Shiloh, the tent where He dwelled among mortals. And He delivered His power to captivity in His glory to the land of the foe.

See, He gave His people, in a sense, in a defeat. He allowed them, even though they were entering a promised land, they also would later enter up into complete defeat. And yet I point this out in verse 60 because it's significant whenever we read a little later in the chapter, He would move. Again, God was the one who was directing Israel.

He did that through the cloud and fire in the tabernacle. Then He would later do that, not only through Joshua as they were entering the land, but here He gives some directive. And this, of course, takes it further as far as the time when this was written. But it says in verse 67, He rejected the tent of Joseph.

Now, this tent of Joseph was the tent that I mentioned that was in Shiloh. Joseph, representative of Ephraim and Manasseh, those two sons of Joseph. It says in verse 67, He rejected the tent of Joseph. He did not choose the tribe of Ephraim, even though He had given Ephraim a great deal of blessing, a great deal of encouragement. It says He did not maintain that location there in Shiloh, but He says in verse 68, He chose the tribe of Judah.

He chose in the tribe of Judah Mount Zion, which He loves. And He built His sanctuary like the high heavens, like the earth, which He has founded forever. So here it's talking about how that even though the tabernacle was brought to Shiloh, ultimately, the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant that made up a part of that tabernacle would be taken by David to be close to Jerusalem, but would ultimately be transferred to the place of the temple. And so He said He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loves.

And He built the sanctuary like the high heavens. In verse 70, He chose His servant David and took him from the sheepfold, from tending the nursing hues. He brought him to the shepherd of His people Jacob, to be the shepherd of His people Jacob, and of Israel, His heritage. With an upright heart, He tended them and guided them, and skillfully with a skilled hand. David was used by God in some extraordinary ways. We're all familiar with his flaws.

We're familiar with his repentance and the way that he related to God in an extraordinary way. And yet here, through David, a covenant would be made. And so I want to drop back to 2 Samuel, 2 Samuel, chapter 7. 2 Samuel, chapter 7 is discussing the covenant that God made with David. Because as a good king, perhaps the best king, I would think we could say he was the best king in Israel, Saul turned out to be defective, Solomon would later carry through on some of the things he was directed to do, but he had his own problems.

But David, here in verse 1, when the king was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest over all his enemies around him, the king said to the prophet, David said to Nathan, I'm living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God is staying in a tent. And Nathan said to the king, Go and do all that you have in mind, for the Lord is with you.

Nathan was a prophet. He was a man that God used to guide David at times, to give him information. He, of course, told him when he was wrong, told him when he needed to repent. In this case, David bemoans the fact that we ought to do better than this. God deserves better than this tabernacle, this tent, and he wanted to build him a house. In verse 5, the word of the Lord came to Nathan and said, Go and tell my servant David, thus says, Lord, are you the one to build me a house to live in?

Verse 6, I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I've been moving about in a tent, in a tabernacle.

God told David what it was that he had used to signify his presence, the tabernacle, with the people of Israel as they wandered. Wherefore, in verse 7, I have moved about among all the people of Israel. Did I ever speak a word with all the tribal leaders whom I commanded to shepherd my people, saying, Why have you not built me a house of cedar?

God was, in a sense, telling through Nathan, Look, do you think I really need? I can function in a tent if I need to. But David desired a house for God. Now therefore, in verse 8, Thus you shall say to my servant David, Thus says the Lord of Hosts, I took you from the pasture. I took you from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel, and I have been with you wherever you went, and I have cut off your enemies, and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. In verse 10, He says, I will appoint a place, for my people Israel, and I will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more, and evildoers will afflict them no more.

Moreover, in verse 11, The Lord declared to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled, and so He was telling David, As you die, you're not going to be the one who will build my temple. When you die, when your days are fulfilled, in verse 12, and you lie with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you. And so here God is actually going to give a prediction. He's going to talk about a son of David, which will turn out to be Solomon. But He's talking about far more. He's talking about an offspring of David, who will assume David's throne, and that offspring was going to be Jesus Christ. And so He says in verse 12, When your days are fulfilled, and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, and you shall come forth from your body. I will establish His kingdom, and He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of His kingdom forever.

Now, in talking about Solomon, because this was what was going to happen, Solomon had all of the collected materials that David had given him. God told him, I don't want you to build a house, I want your offspring to build a house. And yet here in verse 13, He's talking about a man building a house or a temple for the name of God.

And He says, I will establish the throne of His kingdom forever. And He talks in verse 14, which seems to be about Solomon. But it's also a reference to Jesus. It's a reference to the fact that the Son of God would come, and again, a thousand years from the time of David, and He would be the one who would truly assume the throne of David, and He would be the one. We can read this in Luke 1, but God would give Jesus that throne, and He would actually build the true temple. He would build a temple that wasn't simply a physical building, but was a temple that was made without hands.

A temple that He would raise up. It's important for us to keep these in mind as we go into the New Testament, because it's very clear what He is doing, where He wants to dwell, where He wants to live. And so this was going in verse 16, "'Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever, before Me and your throne shall be established forever.'" Clearly Solomon was going to live, he was going to die.

And yet Jesus, in His fulfillment of this same prophecy of a building of a house or a building of a temple where God can reside, that was going to be up to Jesus Christ. If we turn over to Psalm 132, you see this described in a little different way. Psalm 132, and again the Psalms are a glorious collection of songs, of poems, of most of which were set to music, and a part of the singing, even as many of our hymns are made up of Psalms, that we sing in excitement.

But here in Psalm 132 it talks about David's desire to build a house for the Lord. God wouldn't let him do it. But in verse 11 it says, "'The Lord swore to David, a sure oath from which he would not turn back.' It says, "'One of the sons of your body I will sit on your throne.' And he said, "'If your sons keep my covenant and my decrees I will teach them, Your sons also forever shall sit on your throne.'" And in verse 13 it says, "'The Lord has chosen Zion, for he desires it for his habitation.'" Again, this is a different use of the term Zion, not so much as a physical location, not as a city, but as a temple, that God would choose as his habitation, that he would choose to dwell in.

"'The Lord has chosen Zion, he has desired it for his habitation. This is my resting place forever. Here I will reside, for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless his provision. I will satisfy his poor with bread.' In verse 16, it says, "'I will clothe with salvation, and its faithful will shout for joy. I will cause a horn to sprout up for David,' referring to Jesus Christ, and I have prepared a lamp for this anointed one and his enemies. I will clothe with disgrace, but on him a crown will gleam.'" See, this was in connection with the fact that Solomon would be directed to build a physical house.

He would be directed to build a physical temple. But Jesus would later build the spiritual temple. He would build his church. So if we go back to 2 Chronicles, and again, 1 and 2 Samuel's and 1 and 2 Kings, those are all sequential, those four books. And then 1 and 2 Chronicles are kind of a repeat of what you see in those four books before them.

They're a little different information that is recorded at different times. But here in 2 Chronicles chapter 5, I want to go to the time of Solomon and to how it was that he had been commissioned to put together the temple to build it.

2 Chronicles chapter 5. You see again an amazing section here. Because after David died and after Solomon had secured the kingdom, he was missioned to raise up a house, a house that God said he would dwell in. In verse 1, all the work that Solomon did for the house of the Lord was finished. Solomon brought in the things that his father David had dedicated, and he stored the silver and gold and all the vessels in the treasury of the house of God. In verse 2 Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the ancestral houses of the people of Israel. He assembled them in Jerusalem to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord out of the city of David, which is Zion. To hear David had brought the Ark, he had brought it to the city of David, he had brought it to the city of Zion. And yet here Solomon is going to bring the Ark up and put it into the temple. And in verse 3 the Israelites assembled before the king at the festival that was in the seventh month. And so it was during the Feast of Tabernacles when this was occurring. And in verse 7 it says, The priests brought the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from its place in the inner sanctuary of the house into the most holy place underneath the wings of the caravans. These had been imaged to Moses by God. He had told him how it was, I want you to build a tabernacle. He also told David, I want you to build the temple in a similar way. It is to have some very close similarities, and there is to be a mercy seat. And above the mercy seat the carabim, and below the mercy seat the Ark of the Covenant that contained the Ten Commandments. But here in 2 Chronicles chapter 5, you see Solomon carrying out this work. In verse 10 he says, There was nothing in the Ark except the two tablets that Moses had put in there at Orib. This was, you know, they had originally some earlier things, the manna and Aaron's rod, there were other things that were made up, this place that signified God's presence. But here, only the Ark and only the tablets that Moses had received from God were now a part of this setting. And it says in connection with this temple, Solomon's Temple, which was prepared by David with all of the accoutrements of all the silver, of all the gold, of all of the articles that they were to have made and prepare and put in the temple that would be in Jerusalem and on Zion. It says, In verse 11, when the priests came out to the holy place, where all the priests who were present had sanctified themselves, without regard to their divisions. And it says in verse 13, there were singers. Verse 13, it was the duty of the trumpeters and the singers to make themselves heard in unison and praise and thanksgiving to the Lord. And when the song was raised with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments, in praise to the Lord, saying, He is good. His steadfast love, His mercy endures forever.

The house. This house of the Lord was filled with a cloud. So the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God. See, again, very similar to what we read about in regard to the tabernacle, in regard to it being set up and being instituted as a place that would represent God's presence, that would represent God's dwelling with the people.

And here, we see that this was done in Solomon's day as well. And the glory of the Lord not only was in the tabernacle, but later the glory of the Lord was in the temple. Of course, as we know and as we read in the Psalms, Israel disobeyed and God eventually rejected them, and they would ultimately go into captivity.

And unfortunately, Solomon's temple would be destroyed. It would be ransacked. It would be all the stuff, all of the things that they were to make at God's direction. They were to make the lampstands, the tables, the mercy seat, the menorahs.

Everything that was there was hauled away by Nebuchadnezzar because Judah was falling to Babylon. And later, 70 years later, some of the Jews would be sent back. And they would be, this is where we read into Ezra and Nehemiah, and more specifically perhaps in Haggai and Zechariah. Those two books are books of the prophets that were directly about Ezra and Nehemiah and about going back and rebuilding the temple. What they could only say about the temple was that it was a pretty shabby reconstruction.

It was somewhat of a shoddy temple that Ezra and Nehemiah were able to resurrect. And we find even later that Herod had a great deal to do with building it back up, mostly to grandize himself instead of the great God. And you don't see anywhere that the glory of the Lord filled that reconstructed temple. We need to be aware of some of these things that God allowed to happen. Because He said, and let's go to Haggai 2, one of the minor prophets, a small book that's in the latter part of the Old Testament. But in Haggai 2, this was again written during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. As a prophet from God, Haggai would talk about having gone back and having rebuilt a temple, but it was a pretty shoddy looking temple.

If we take a look in verse 3, God asked, who has left among you that saw this house in its former glory, talking about Solomon's temple and how glorious it was, and how the glory of the Lord had filled that temple. Says, who's left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not? And your sight is nothing? Yet He says, take courage. Take courage. O's of rubble, take courage, O Joshua, the high priest, take courage in the people of the land.

You need to work, for I am with you, says the Lord, according to the promise that I made you, when you came out of Egypt, my spirit abides among you. Do not fear. For thus says the Lord of hosts, once again, in a little while, I'm going to shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all the nations, so that the desire of all nations shall come, talking of Jesus Christ.

And I will fill the house that Jesus will build, the house that He will establish with splendor, with glory, says the Lord. The gold is mine, the silver is mine, the latter, splendor of the house, and verse 9, will be greater than the former. Now Solomon's temple clearly had been much greater, much more glorified than any reconstructed temple could ever be. Let's see, when Jesus builds the tabernacle, when He builds the temple that can be referred to as Zion, as we'll see, see, Jesus is the one who's the head of the church.

He's the one who causes us to be a part of the church of God. He's the one who forgives us of our sins. He's the one who sent the Holy Spirit to reside in us. In Matthew 16, Matthew 16, we read how it is. Of course, Jesus was asking the disciples, well, who do people say I am? And in verse 16, Peter said, well, you're the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus said, blessed are you, Simon, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father has shown you that. But I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock, not talking about Peter, but upon himself, the rock, the true rock and the true foundation. I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

See, being a part of the Church of God is a glorious blessing. It's a part of a privilege to be a part of a plan from God from the very beginning for God and His presence to dwell with us. In Hebrews 12, there are other verses that we could go to that would connect with this, but I want to go to Hebrews 12, because very clearly, Paul is encouraging the Jewish Christians, because that's what the book of Hebrews is written to.

He's encouraging them to realize that they're really a part of something extremely huge, extremely big. It has tremendous meaning. Maybe we should back up before we read this to chapter 8, because the whole book of Hebrews can be described here in Hebrews 8, verse 1, where it says, the main point of what we're saying is this. We have a great high priest, again speaking of Jesus, on who is sitting at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens.

He is a minister of the sanctuary and the true tent or tabernacle that the Lord, and not any mortal, has set up. He's talking about a spiritual house, a spiritual temple. Here in Hebrews 12, he encourages them because they needed to fully understand their commitment and devotion to Jesus Christ. They needed to understand Him to be the foundation on which they were to be built.

And he says in verse 18, you have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, or darkness, or gloom, or tempest, or the sound of a trumpet, or a voice whose words make the hearers beg.

He says you've not come to something like we read in the book of Exodus, how it was that the Israelites, as they approached God, they didn't want to hear it. They were scared to death. He says you've not come to something that can be touched, something that is physical.

But he says in verse 22, you have come to Mount Zion. You have come to Mount Zion. You have come to the city of the living God. You have come to the heavenly Jerusalem and to innumerable angels in festival gathering. You have come to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to God the judge of all, and to Jesus the new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word, that the blood of Abel. And he said in encouragement to them, again the reference here in verse 22, is Mount Zion being the spiritual body, the spiritual church that God is involved in empowering. with the Holy Spirit.

And he says in verse 25, as Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant, see that you do not refuse the one who is speaking. See that we want to continually draw closer and closer to Jesus Christ. And even if we back up here to 1 Corinthians chapter 3, you see that Paul wrote this in Hebrews, and yet here in chapter 3 of 1 Corinthians, he described it a little more directly, because clearly the people here in the church at Corinth, they were not grasping the significance of having come to Mount Zion, of having come to a place where God has caused them to be a part of the church of God, and God is to dwell in them.

God is to inspire them and lead them and direct them. And of course we know that the church there in Corinth was quite divided. It was in many ways troubled. You see this written about in verse 3. Verse 3, Are you not still carnal, as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you? Are you not carnal and of the flesh and behaving yourself according to human standards? This is what he was telling them to correct.

He was telling them that that's wrong. We need to be, again as our sermonette pointed out, we need to be in unison. We need to be united. We need to be pulling in the same direction. We need to be in connection with the head of the church. He says in verse 11, No one of you can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid, and that foundation is Jesus Christ. So he causes us to be a part of the church. And to drop on down to verse 16, he asks the very pointed question, Do you not know that you are God's temple?

And that God's Spirit dwells in you. That's why the church is called Mount Zion. Because Zion is a description of where God dwells. He says, Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys that temple, God will destroy that person. For God's temple is holy. And you are that temple. It's incredible, brethren, to realize not just what's happening today, not just what's happening in our limited life, our limited time span, whether it's for a few of you, 10 or 20 years, for many of us, 60 or 70 or 80 or 90 years. See, God is way beyond just a little time span that we function in.

But He is causing His temple to grow. He wants to dwell in His temple. And He does that through the empowering of the Holy Spirit. Here in John Chapter 14, Jesus told His disciples that He was about to die. He was about to die, and He was going to be taken away. And we're going to see Him anymore. They couldn't understand this at all. They wondered what He was talking about. But He said, I'm going to go away, and I'm going to send the Holy Spirit. I'm going to send the Helper, the Comforter, the Advocate. Those are different words that are used in describing the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of God. And He says, in verse 15, He says, if you love Me, Chapter 14 of John, verse 15, if you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. And yet you know Him, because He abides with you, and He will be in you. He was telling them something they couldn't comprehend. They couldn't understand that He was going to die, that He was going to be resurrected from the dead, that the coming of the Holy Spirit was going to come in power, in fire, and as the sound of a rushing wind, and that the Church of God, that God builds, and where He resides, and that is called Zion, as we read in Hebrews 12, that is God dwelling with us.

And so perhaps our understanding of Zion should be expanded to know it's not simply about something in the past, it's not simply the tabernacle or the temple or the location, the city of David, but the city of the living God, where God chooses to dwell.

And I think it's incredible to see, because in the end of the Bible, in Revelation 21, you find a time beyond God dealing with physical people. And it says in verse 1 of chapter 21, I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth has passed away, and the sea was no more, and I saw a holy city. I saw a new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

Now, this is not talking about a physical city, this is talking about a relationship with God. This is talking about the expansion of the God family, where God chooses to dwell and tabernacle with men, because it says in verse 3, I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, See, the tabernacle of God is among mortals, and He will dwell with them as their God, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them, and He will wipe every tear from their eye, because death will be no more. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the former things have passed away.

See, that's another description, talking about a heavenly Jerusalem, but talking about a relationship, a spiritual relationship with God and Jesus Christ, that's made possible by the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in us. It's a tremendous privilege, as we study about the topic of Zion, to realize that Zion is extremely precious to God.

You are extremely precious to God. Each of us have a capacity to be able to be nurtured by God and empowered by His Spirit. We pray for that, I'm sure. We ask for God's help. We ask for His power to overcome. Yet we need to realize how much God is for us, how much He is interested in dwelling with us. Certainly, as we read about Jerusalem in the future, it's going to play a prominent role in the Millennial Rule of Christ.

Isaiah 2.4 is a verse that we often quote about the Millennium. It's talking about the law going forth from Zion, going forth from Jerusalem. Now, that would appear to be a physical direction or a physical description there, but the spiritual dimension of that is that the priests are relating to God in a completely different way. Truly, when there is a song, Psalm 87 is the last verse we'll turn to here today. Psalm 87 is a verse that we have a song that we often sing, or we do sing because we sing about Mount Zion's stands most beautiful. But I wonder if we truly realize how significant it is that Zion is not simply a physical location, even though it is pointed out to be connected to Jerusalem, but it is a city that is where God dwells.

It is a people in whom God dwells, and it is going to be glorified, just like we saw glory entering the tabernacle later entering the temple, we ultimately will be glorified with Jesus Christ. Those are all connected together. I just wanted to read this one verse, or this section of this one chapter here of Psalm 87. It says, On the holy mount stands this city that he founded. The foundation is the city of God, and the Lord loves the gates of Zion, more than all the dwellings of Jacob. See, physical Israel was a type. Physical Israelites today are blessed from God, but spiritual Israel is who God is referring to here as Zion.

The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God. And he goes on and mentions it again in verse 5. How wonderful it is to be born, to be born as a part of Zion.

Again, that's a spiritual concept. That's a concept where God is working in our lives to transform us to be his divine family. And so, as I mentioned, to begin with, God created Adam and Eve with a purpose and intent. And we've gone from Genesis to a revelation now. And yet, we want to keep in mind that Zion is very precious to God. Jerusalem is a prominent place, and we'll be in the millennium and beyond. And then God's family will be continuing to grow.

And we want to be sure that we remain faithful and dedicated and service-oriented, that we are truly understanding that God's presence needs to be in us, and that we make up, in a sense, what God would call spiritual Zion, because God is dwelling in us. That's what he tells us with his Holy Spirit being given to us.

And so, perhaps as you study about Zion, or we've gone over some of the verses, not near as many as are throughout, we haven't even gotten into Isaiah or many of the other places where Zion is mentioned many, many, many times. But I want us to be mindful of how it is that God is mercifully chosen to give us forgiveness, but also that he is chosen to live in us.