GRAB THEIR ATTENTION
The Pyramids of Giza, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, Pharo’s Lighthouse at Alexandria, and the Colossus of Rhodes. The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. They’ve captured the imagination of school children and archeologists for centuries. But the list is incomplete. In fact, the most glorious of ancient cities, the most beautiful of ancient temples has been overlooked, and that is the ancient city of Jerusalem and within her walls, the ancient temple of King Solomon. What must that city have been like and the glory of that temple: the courtyards and porticos, the bronze pillars and walls adorned with angelic beings, palms, flowers, and all overlaid with 61,000 lb. of gold. I’ve never been to Jerusalem. I’d love to go one day (not today). I’ve never seen the ancient city. I’ve never walked her streets or seen the remnants of her temple. But I have seen something greater than Jerusalem. I have seen a wonder beyond her temple. I’ve seen the church of Jesus Christ; the temple of the Living God. You, church, are the substance of which ancient Jerusalem, in all her beauty, was only a shadow.
RAISE THE NEED, SIGNPOSTS, STATE THE DESTINATION
As we approach Psalm 48 this morning, we have before us a Psalm about Jerusalem and her glory, her security, and the greatness of her God. And if you will understand this Psalm, you must understand that when the Psalms speak of Jerusalem, or Zion, they are in one way or another pointing away from the actual ancient city and mountain of God to the eternal and heavenly Jerusalem, which is the church. And we know this because the New Testament author of Hebrews had this to say to Christians in Hebrews 12:22-24:
22 But you (Christian) have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant
In other words, the Jerusalem and Zion of the Mosaic Covenant was only a shadow and a type of the church in the New Covenant. As we contemplate the glory or the Jerusalem below in Psalm 48, we already see the outlines of the Jerusalem above, whose great walls and foundations will stand forever and ever. So, hear now the reading of God’s holy, inspired, and life-giving Word in Psalm 48:
THE TEXT:
1 Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised
in the city of our God! His holy mountain…
As we contemplate the city of God in Psalm 48 we see that God’s city, the church, is a city of glory, safety, love, and hope.
- A CITY OF GLORY (48:1-3)
First, the city of God is a city of glory. Why is it glorious? Why is it beautiful? Why is it full of joy? Jerusalem’s glory was not to be found in her architecture, nor in her décor. Her glory was not in her public works projects or even in the glory of the Temple itself. In the end, the Temple was nothing. From what did Jerusalem derive her glory: from the God who made her his special dwelling place. It was God’s holy mountain, meaning that it was a place solely dedicated to God’s presence and his worship. That’s what the word holy means. Though the Living God is God over all the land, skies, and seas of the entire world, under the Mosaic Covenant, God had established Jerusalem as his special dwelling place; the one geographic locality where the nations could pilgrimage, they could come and hear the Law of the Lord, they could meet with him at the Temple. Ancient Jerusalem constantly summoned worshippers to come and praise the greatness of her God. This is why she was the joy of the earth: because she was the only place where the nations could turn from deaf and dumb idols and turn to the true and Living God. In 1 Kings 10, the Queen of Sheba having come to Jerusalem during the reign of Solomon, at the height of Israel’s power, was breathless at the city’s glory and told Solomon than though she had heard of his wisdom, and the beauty of the city, and the greatness of her God, she had not been told the half of it’s glory.
But friends, the Mosaic Covenant is now obsolete. It has been abrogated by something greater: the New Covenant which was ratified in the blood of Christ on the cross. And there is a new Jerusalem, a new Zion; one whose glory outshines the old Jerusalem as the Sun outshines a nightlight. The church of Jesus Christ is the Jerusalem from above. She is the glorious city of God in which God has taken up his presence. Where today can you go hear the Law of God; to meet with God? To the church. Where does God teach us his ways? In the church. Where are the nations which war against one another learning to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks? In the church. Where is his temple today? It is the church, his saints across the globe. You no longer need to pilgrimage to Jerusalem to find God; you need only to go to church. And the glory of the church is not in her physical architecture. We love this building, but what makes it sacred is not the colored glass in the windows, but rather the people of God indwelt by his Spirit who meet here. In a sense, this building becomes sacred once a week, when the saints gather on the Lord’s Day. And let’s be clear, God does not the church because the church is glorious. No, the church, the Jerusalem above, is glorious because God dwells within her.
- A CITY OF SAFETY (48:4-8)
Verse 4-8 tell of Jerusalem being surrounded. The kings of the earth assemble their armies, they muster their troops to wage war against God’s people. But as soon as they see God’s city, they began shaking as a woman in labor pains. These verses likely describe the events of 2 Chronicles 20, when the nations of Ammon and Moab allied themselves against Judah when Jehoshaphat was king of Jerusalem. (2 Chronicles 20) Ships came from beyond the seas carrying soldiers and spears, ready to break the walls of Jerusalem into pieces.
5 And Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court, 6 and said, “O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you. 7 Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? 8 And they have lived in it and have built for you in it a sanctuary for your name, saying, 9 ‘If disaster comes upon us, the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before you—for your name is in this house—and cry out to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save.’ 10 And now behold, the men of Ammon and Moab [come] to drive us out of your possession, which you have given us to inherit. 12 O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” (2 Chronicles 20:5-12)
And the Lord answered Jehoshaphat:
Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God’s… You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf (2 Chronicles 20:15b, 17a)
And the very next day the Lord God confounded the enemies plans so that they all destroyed one another and Jerusalem was saved. No sooner than Jerusalem’s enemies gathered, they were scattered. They came one way and fled twenty ways. Spurgeon says, “They came like foam on the angry sea, and like foam they melted away.”
But friends, eventually, Jerusalem was destroyed. Not once, but many times over. She was pillaged by the Babylonians, the Seleucids, and the Romans. Thankfully, there is another Jerusalem which cannot be destroyed. There are many who would love to see her walls torn down, her people scattered, and her hopes dashed. But her walls are not made of stone, nor her foundations of bedrock. No, the rock she is built upon is Christ and her twelve foundations are the apostles of the Lamb.
As the Apostle Peter says:
4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house…6 For it stands in Scripture:
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
Oh, the haters of the church will have their day: the secularists who mock us for praying, the politicians who want our fidelity, the elites who wish they could control us, the skeptics who deny the miraculous. They will persecute the church and hound her from all sides. They will do it right up until the moment of her victory.
In 1950, Col. Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller, during the Korean War’s Battle of Chosin Reservoir, was surrounded by enemy forces, vastly outnumbered in freezing conditions, to which he said, “We’re surrounded? That simplifies our problem. We can kill them in any direction.” The church of Jesus Christ, the Jerusalem from above is not only safe, even when she is surrounded, she now assaults the very gates of hell with the proclamation of Christ and his gospel. Our weapons are not swords and spears, nor guns and missiles. Rather, we proclaim the living and active Word of God which is sharper than any two-edged sword. Church, there is no weapon on the planet as strong as “thus saith the Lord.”
Verse 8 says that God will establish his city forever. Look around at the great cities of the world: New York, Tokyo, Sydney, Moscow, Lagos, São Paulo. Eventually they will be as buried beneath the sands of time as the Pyramids of Giza. But the true church, the redeemed in every age, can never be destroyed or forgotten. She will endure to all eternity.
The New Jerusalem is a city of glory, a city of safety…
- A CITY OF LOVE (48:9-11)
Verse 9 says:
9 We have thought on your steadfast love, O God,
in the midst of your temple.
Jerusalem is where the steadfast love of the Lord was constantly on display to his people. How? It was in Jerusalem that sinful Israelites could bring their sacrifices year after year, and instead of being condemned from their sins, God would accept a substitute in their place. The blood of bulls and goats would be spilled to atone for human sin while guilty sinners were allowed to go free. But understand that the New Jerusalem will contain no perpetual sacrifices of lambs, for in the New Jerusalem, there is one Lamb, and that is Christ. There is one sacrifice and that has already been made. And the sacrifice of the Lamb of God is of greater worth than all the lambs of the Mosaic Covenant.
Christ’s sacrifice is better because Christ was a truly sinless person. The lambs of the Old Covenant were searched by hand to find one scar or blemish, one spot of off-color hair or disfigured skin. But Jesus Christ is spotless in every way. His life was morally pure, completely upright, giving to God the perfect and perpetual obedience we had owed.
Christ’s sacrifice is better because Jesus Christ is truly man. The best sheep offered by Levitical priests were still bleating animals. They were accepted by God for a time as his appointed sacrifice, but it was impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. But Jesus Christ was true man; in every way like us sin only excepting. You and I as true men had sinned, and Jesus Christ as true man receives the penalty we were due.
Christ’s sacrifice is better because Jesus Christ is true God. Under the Mosaic Covenant, every house needed its own lamb. But in the New Covenant there is one Lamb of God offered up for the sins of all his people.
13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. (Colossians 2:13-14)
This is the Lamb we proclaim, who was slain for sinners from the foundation of the world. This is where you hear the steadfast love of the Lord, preached from the pulpits of the church. This is where you see the steadfast love of the Lord, in the bread broken and the wine poured out. Oh! The church, the New Jerusalem, Mount Zion, the heavenly and spiritual city of our loving Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
As your name, O God,
so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth.
Your right hand is filled with righteousness.
Let Mount Zion be glad!
Let the daughters of Judah rejoice
because of your judgments!
Here is the God who confounds the wise, who breaks the strong, who heals the sick and raises the dead. Here is the steadfast love of God which justifies sinners in his only Son.
The Jerusalem above is a city of glory, of safety, of love, and finally…
- A CITY OF HOPE (48:12-14)
12 Walk about Zion, go around her,
number her towers,
13 consider well her ramparts,
go through her citadels,
As worshippers came into Jerusalem, they were encouraged to walk around the city and take note of her beauty. Just as there are armies who surround her for destruction, so should Israel encircle her for praise. The word “consider” can also be translated, “set you heart on.” Think on, meditate on, set you heart on the glory, the safety, the love that can be found here. Why?
that you may tell the next generation
that this is God,
our God forever and ever.
Jerusalem was to be a city of hope to the next generation. As Israel gathered in that city to worship, they would tell their children the history of the city:
- How she first appeared as Salem when Melchizedek the Priest of the Most High God blessed their father, Abraham. (Genesis 14:19)
- How the mountain upon which Abraham offered Isaac to God has now become the location of the Temple. (Genesis 22)
- How Joshua later captured the site from the Jebusites in the conquest of Canaan. (Judges 1:8) and King David later made it Israel’s capital (2 Samuel 5:6-10)
- How David later brought the Ark into the city and made it the capital city of God’s presence (2 Samuel 6:17)
- And how Solomon, David’s son, built the temple. (2 Chronicles 3-7)
And in this way, a new generation of Israelites would be brought up and into the faith of their ancestors. Having received a glorious heritage from the Lord, Israel would pass it on to the next generation.
It should be no less for us who live in the Jerusalem from above, the church. We are to take a walking tour, not of a physical city, but of the doctrines of the faith which have stood the barrage of the enemy. What are those doctrines? Church, we recite them every week:
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hades.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy universal church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
Why did we add that every week to our liturgy? Not because we have to. It’s because parents were coming to me saying, “How do I teach theology to my kids?” Well, bring them to the church and we’ll walk them around the towers and citadels of the church every week. We’ll recite ancient creeds and confessions. We’ll read the Scriptures together in our worship. They will hear sermons. They’ll come to Sunday School. Parents: prioritize worship on the Lord’s Day. Get your children here. That’s not a suggestion; rather it’s a holy obligation set upon you by your heavenly Father, and it ought to be a joy. Work through the creed, line by line, in your home with an open Bible. Ask them questions and let them ask some of you.
Say to the next generation:
This is God,
Our God forever and ever.
He will guide us forever.
The Lord has been faithful to the church. The Lord will be ever faithful to the church. His glory fills her. His arm protects her. His love covers her sins, and his promises endure to every generation.
Glorious things of thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God.
He whose Word cannot be broken
formed thee for His own abode.
On the Rock of Ages founded,
what can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation’s walls surrounded,
thou may’st smile at all thy foes.