XVIII. God's Plan for Jerusalem
"And, behold, the angel that talked with me went forth, and another angel went out to meet him, and said unto him, Run, speak to this young man, saying, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls, by reason of the multitude of men and cattle therein. For I, saith Jehovah, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and I will be the glory in the midst of her." Zech. 2: 3-5. We know that just as long as Jerusalem stood obedient to God she was impregnable. Her walls of stone and mortar were practically no protection at all at any time. As a guard, they stood as a type of the wall of God's presence which held the enemy from devastating. When once the Lord departed from Jerusalem, when, as tradition records, in the temple courts was heard a voice saying, "Let us depart," and the rustling of the wings as the angel watchers left that house desolate, then in a few hours the soldiers of Titus were wreaking the ruin that will never be forgotten while the records of history stand; a million people slain within her walls as recorded by one of her own sons, the temple stones running red with blood, the fire doing its last great work and making the ruin complete of the place which once God had graced with His presence. God ceased to be a wall of defense round about her. He was no longer a glory in the midst of her, and outside the walls even to this day that rejected people, that forsaken nation, "wail and cry for the calamities that have come upon us;" calamities resulting directly from that awful climax of their crimes when they said as they delivered up the Holy One to be crucified, "His blood be on us, and on our children." And even in the time of Zechariah the seeds of apostasy were lying ready to fructify and grow into their baleful harvest. It had been almost twenty years since the first call of God out of Babylon had been given. There were still many of God's people who had not returned to the favored land, and so the Lord gives a second call: "Ho, ho, flee from the land of the north, saith Jehovah; for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heavens, saith Jehovah. Ho Zion, escape, thou that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon. For thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: After glory hath He sent Me unto the nations which plundered you; for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye. For, behold, I will shake My hand over them, and they shall be a spoil to those that served them; and ye shall know that Jehovah of Hosts hath sent Me." Zech. 2: 6-9. This was God's second call out of Babylon. "Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon." As now, so then, and as then, so now, God gives two calls out of Babylon. In Rev. 14: 8 we read the first call, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon;" and again in Rev. 18: 2 it comes the second time with a still mightier cry, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon," and this second time with the urgent invitation, "Come forth, My people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." So in this vision of Zechariah the second call comes, "Ho, ho, come forth, and flee from the land of the north." "Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon." Babylon was soon to feel the judgments of God, and so the voice of the messenger sounds forth to God's people: "Go ye forth from Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans; with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth: say ye, Jehovah hath redeemed His servant Jacob. And they thirsted not when He led them through the deserts; He caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them; He clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out. There is no peace, saith Jehovah, to the wicked." Isa. 48: 20-22. "Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be as the he goats before the flocks." Jer. 50: 8. "After the glory hath He sent Me unto the nations which spoiled you." God's People the Glory of Earth
God's people were to be a glory in the earth; a light to shed its genial rays everywhere; a city set on a hill that could not be hid. This was one of the great considerations of His mercy when He allowed them to be taken captive,—the fact that wherever they went they would carry the healing grace of His truth. Daniel stood as high as any foreigner possibly could stand all the days of his life in the city of Babylon both under the Chaldean and the Medo-Persian rule. He published the name and the glory of God by his exemplary life and by the great trying circumstances that came to him in his loyalty to his heavenly King. Israel went down into Egypt that they might be a means of salvation to countless thousands that knew not the truth. This was the purpose of God in settling them in Jerusalem, in the midst of the nations; and when they allowed themselves to be carried away by the trappings of earthly grandeur He afflicted them by putting them more directly under the control and power of the nations; but His great purpose underlying their existence is the great cause still to be carried out, the great eternal purpose of making them saviours of men, the salt of the earth, the healing for the afflictions of the Gentiles; and yet while He subjected them to the chastisement of these nations for the good of His people and for the salvation of those very nations, He gives the blessed assurance that "he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye." The most tender, delicate spot in all the human organism is taken as a picture and a type of how tender is the child of God in the infinite love of God. In His appointed time all those who afflict God's people become spoil, and all know that the Lord of Hosts hath been at work. "Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion; for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith Jehovah. And many nations shall join themselves to Jehovah in that day, and shall be My people; and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that Jehovah of Hosts hath sent Me unto thee. And Jehovah shall inherit Judah as His portion in the holy land, and shall yet choose Jerusalem. Be silent, all flesh, before Jehovah; for He is waked up out of His holy habitation." Zech. 2: 10-13. These scriptures present the great final results of that ideal condition which God's people might have realized in this world had they kept pace with the purposes of God. The Lord would have associated Himself so closely with them as to have been their salvation. Jerusalem would have stood forever a praise in the earth and Israel would have remained God's church till the close of time. Altho they failed, the purpose of God shall not fail. In the new earth state Jerusalem shall be inhabited. Towns without walls for the multitude of men shall be her prosperity, and God there will be a wall of fire round about and will be a glory in the midst of her. He will come and dwell in her midst, and many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day and shall be His people, and then the Lord shall inherit Judah His portion in the holy land and shall choose Jerusalem again. He chose it once, but it failed; but there is a new Jerusalem which He has chosen. Indeed He chose the old merely because it was to be brought up and become the new Jerusalem, but since it failed there is a way out. The prophecy was not given in vain. There is "a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." The glory of God will lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. The nations shall bring their glory and their honor into it, and the nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light of God's presence forevermore.