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| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) Liturgy - morning
Votum and Salutation Hymn 46 Ten Words of the Covenant Psalm 65:1,2
Prayer for the Opening of God's Word Thankoffering Psalm 87:1,3,4 Read Zechariah 1 & 2 Text Zechariah 2:1-5 Theme and Points of Sermon
THE FUTURE JERUSALEM, THE CITY OF THE GREAT KING
Response to sermon Psalm 48:1,3 Pastoral Prayer Psalm 87:2,5 Benediction
Points to Ponder
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Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The third night vision of Zechariah speaks to people in the building and planning trades. Surveyors, measuring tapes, and walls feature in this vision. That should speak to those in the trades.
In order to find our bearings, we read the first chapter as well. These visions come after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian exile. During the rebuilding of the temple and of the city of Jerusalem the LORD gives Zechariah these night visions. In the first chapter we read how the LORD zealously works for Jerusalem and against the nations who punished them. Those nations lived at ease. God speaks favorably to Judah and Jerusalem,
I am returning to Jerusalem with mercy;
My house shall be built in it, says the LORD of hosts,
And a surveyor’s line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem.
My cities shall again spread out through prosperity;
The LORD will again comfort Zion,
And will again choose Jerusalem (1:16-17).
Few who heard this prophecy understood its enormous meaning.
The third night vision throws light on this wonderful future for Jerusalem. An expanding city unfolds before our eyes. In verses 6-13 the Lord explains this third night vision further. We keep those verses in mind but restrict ourselves to the first five verses.
While you listen to this vision, please remember that you are the people of God. You belong to the city of the great King, to the Jerusalem which is above. As the Letter to the Hebrews teaches you, you have not come to Mt Sinai where God spoke to Israel:
But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels(12:27).
All of this vision thus speaks to you. This is a vision about your future.
I preach to you the Word of God under this THEME:
THE FUTURE JERUSALEM,
THE CITY OF THE GREAT KING
- The size of this Jerusalem
- The safety of this Jerusalem
- The splendour of this Jerusalem.
1. The size of this Jerusalem
Let’s set the stage and introduce our cast.
- We meet Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet who receives a vision.
- There is a man, a young man with much enthusiasm, with a measuring line in his hand.
- In verse three we meet the interpreting angel.
- Another angel comes out to meet this interpreting angel.
Four members on the scene. The angel has a message for the angel who talked with Zechariah. That angel who explained things to Zechariah receives the command to run and catch up with the young tradesman who has the measuring line in his hand.
The prophet asks, quo vadis? Where are you going? In reply, the young surveyor zealously explains he makes haste to measure the width and length of the city.
One angel commands the other angel who talks to the prophet, to go and run after that young man! Why? His ambition to survey the city is impossible, because the city will have no walls. The growing multitude upon multitudes makes erecting walls senseless.
It is rather a simple vision thus far. Simple but simply wonderful.
Take that young man carrying the tools of a surveyor, a measuring line! Well, one would need a mighty long tape-measure for that! If it includes some kilometers, then one needs to keep a straight line as well. A simple task for a modern surveyor, with all their sophisticated equipment. But for a young tradesman with a simple measuring line, it is quite a task.
Now remember again the time-period we are in with this passage. The prophet saw this vision in 519 B.C. At that time the walls of Jerusalem are lying in heaps, strewn and in ruins. Not till 444 B.C. did Nehemiah, with much cooperation, manage to have the wall erected, joined together, standing solid in defense, as we can sing with Psalm 48 after the sermon.
My point is this: how can you measure a city when the walls lie strewn in ruins? In those days you measure the boundaries of a city by its walls. But in this case at that time the city has no walls. We do know that the Lord promises restoration and prosperity. In faith the young surveyor thus marches out to see its width and length.
But…the city will be without walls!
If Jerusalem expands in population so immensely that you cannot build walls around it, it can mean only one thing. The LORD adds to the population in a manner unheard of previously.
How is that possible.
The first vision the LORD pledges restoration for the cities of Judah and Israel. They return from exile. God’s favour enriches them, making them prosperous. At the same time their enemies feel God’s punishing hand. All this means that the city of God could gradually expect a return to its former numbers and glory. A surveyor could indeed measure the width and length of its walls. In chapter one the Lord pledges, the measuring line will again be stretched out over Jerusalem. So, this young surveyor has every right to ply his trade.
God promises to rebuild the city of God, including its wall. It would overflow with prosperity. While others in Judah and Jerusalem do not care less about the church and the kingdom of God, this young man displays faith and zeal. Joyously, he announces to the prophet:
(Me, I am going) to measure Jerusalem, to see what is its width and what is its length (v.2). God promised a new Jerusalem to us in the vision. I cannot wait to see it, its length and width; it sounds so fantastic. It must be much greater than the Jerusalem of old, as famous as it was under King David.
He believes the Word of God to Zechariah. Some of his peers sit, complaining, doing nothing. This zealot is on fire with faith. He belongs to the city of the great King, the great city which Psalm 48 sings about! Brothers and sisters, boys and girls, this young person represents all who gladly receive the good news about Jerusalem, the city of God and the church of the living Lord.
When a church is instituted, we need that enthusiasm, that joy for helping in building the kingdom of our Lord. We need faith, hope and zeal. For new churches usually are smaller in numbers. They need the cooperation of all the members. No passengers are allowed. There is much work to be done to become one, holy, catholic church, the communion of saints; to become a real spiritual house with living stones, and to be the priestly house of God. It requires zeal.
Oh, you may think of the property that needs to be bought for a church building, as well as the expenses for a manse. There are many expenses to pay. You need everyone’s input for that. Yet what drives people cheerfully to pay for these things? What motivates you is a clear vision about the church as the city of God!
If you strongly believe what God says in his Word about the church, about the redeemed, about the new Jerusalem, then you too will become excited as that young man. You too will sacrifice and serve the coming of God’s kingdom.
But in order to do so you need a clear vision. For this young person indeed rejoices at the vision of a new Jerusalem, one rivalling David’s city of old. But is this young man seeing things correctly? Is his vision clear?
No, it is not!
Recall how the angel who explained things to Zechariah received the command to chase after this surveyor. As soon as he catches up with him, the angel who explained things proclaims this astonishing news:
Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls, because of the multitude of men and livestock in it (vs. 4).
What a gospel!
The young man in his excitement about God’s promises hastily runs out with his measuring line. But he receives this unbelievably wonderful news. Jerusalem will have no walls. No walls! In other words, throw that measuring line away. It is useless here. You cannot measure the new Jerusalem. It is too big for that. Every time you try to build a wall around it, the city proves too small for the growing population. Herds of livestock multiply as well. As the walls come down, the city keeps spreading out in all directions. You cannot measure it!
We see something of this here on earth when God allows one church after another to be instituted with the three offices. New churches appear like mushrooms after a winter rain.
Multiply such growth on a global scale. Then you see how one cannot build church walls wide and long enough to contain the growing population! Young persons marry. The Lord blesses them with children. The meal-table needs to be extended. Families grow up with children going to tertiary education, to careers. Classrooms at school start to swell. All this testifies to God’s grace, to the work of the Holy Spirit in applying the finished redemption by our Lord Jesus. God fulfills his prophecy made to Zechariah, to Judah and Jerusalem. As walls come down, the multitudes keep growing.
So, spare yourself the trouble, young man! You will never finish the job. The new Jerusalem is like the open country, without boundaries, without limits.
As an aside, does this mean that the church today may not have borderlines? We do use borderlines. They are often points of dispute. Some want them enforced strictly; others see very little use for them. The latter feel that the ties with people, the relations God has forged much more important than borderlines. Yet in the end borders have prevented churches from becoming modality churches. What I mean is that, if you are free to join wherever you wish, then everyone joins where he feels most at home. Every church has its own identity, its own modality. That can divide, can be very unhealthy. So, what to choose? It reminds me of the poem by Robert Frost called Mending Wall.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
In springtime the two neighbours walk along their common stone wall, inspecting and repairing the wall. One on one side, the other on the other side. The one neighbour is quiet, a man of few words.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
The other neighbour is not convinced. He says,
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it the cows?
But in the end the other neighbour just reiterates the refrain,
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Is it the same for our borders between churches?
However, one should realize that God shows a vision of the future holy city.
Nehemiah toiled hard to mend the stone walls, to join them up, while at the same defending the city against attacks. Trowel and sword! Then the surveyor could measure the new walls with pride, though the enemy taunted them that even a fox on that wall would break it down. But, the wall stood firm. The people rejoiced. A spirit of zeal unified them.
However, our vision speaks of multitudes, innumerable as the sand on the seashore, as many as the twinkling stars on a clear, dark night. What occurred in Nehemiah’s days seems just a child’s small step toward this dream. How will the vision come true?
Our text compels us to look forward to the Priest-King foreshadowed in this prophecy. Only in Jesus, the Messiah, can you find its fulfillment. For the OT city of Jerusalem never regained its former glory, let alone the glory pictured in these night-visions of Zechariah. The only wall of separation in Israel today is the one in the Golan Heights and Gaza that divides Jews from the residents of Gaza. No, one must study what Jesus has done to appreciate how the population of the holy city expands exponentially.
Through his atoning death at Golgotha Jesus opens the fountain of forgiveness as prophesied in this book. At the Feast of Pentecost God, the Spirit, sends the good news of Jesus, crucified but risen from the grave to all the nations. This is what our vision promised:
And many nations shall join themselves to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you (1:11).
In the Book of Acts we read of 3,000 and then 4,000 people filling the gospel nets to bursting.
Today Jesus still works toward the goal of an ever-increasing city. Today Jesus may still use borderlines, nationalities, languages, etc. But when Jesus brings the holy city, then these are not needed.
See how this surveyor needed to adjust his excitement, so that his outlook fits the dimensions of this amazing vision. The young idealist turns out to be a pessimist, by God’s standards.
What city can this be, brothers and sisters, boys and girls? Every city on earth has limits, city limits. Even the largest of cities like New York, London, Tokyo or Hong Kong or Paris have boundaries. Which city is this then?
God had destroyed the old Jerusalem so that He could build the new Jerusalem, the Jerusalem which is above. No narrow-minded view is possible. The designs of God extend far and wide. His city grows in leaps and bounds. In Zechariah 10:8,10 we read how God’s people come from far and wide, back to Jerusalem, back to Judah. From Assyria, from Egypt, from the furthest isles they return in heart and soul to God and to the city of God. As Isaiah was allowed to prophesy, the land of Judah and Jerusalem will be too small for the inhabitants…the place is too small for you (49:18-20). But this still speaks of Jews, dispersed Jews all coming back to Jerusalem.
Brothers and sisters, boys and girls, do you see how the NT reality of the world-wide church lies hidden in seed form in this OT vision. The promise to Abraham to make him a father of many nations will come true. People will join the Lord and become his people. Jesus gathers men and women from every nation by means of his cross. The cross teaches us sinners our sins, teaches us the grace and love of God, and teaches us devotion to the Lord’s will. By preaching and teaching and through baptism people become followers of our Lord. The Book of Acts records how the numbers just kept increasing. No walls can hold all these people inside one city.
If you wish to see a clear picture of this huge metropolis, turn to Revelation 21 & 22. There you will find another vision about this city of God, the bride of Jesus Christ. There you do find measurements of its width and length and height – 12000 stadia or 2200 kilometers. Can you imagine a city that long. For us in Australia it means a city from Perth to Broome!? Its width is the same as its length! Again, think of the distance from Perth all the way to Adelaide or more! What an enormously sprawling metropolis. Moreover, the height is also 2200 kilometers!!? Obviously, these measurements are symbolic, since we do not measure a city by its height. Here the city is endlessly long, wide and high. It is a cube, like the holy of holies in the OT. This city becomes a holy of holies, because God dwells there. God dwells with his people.
Also, the width of the walls in Revelation proves to be symbolic. Walls 144 cubits wide or 65 meters thick are unheard of. We have buildings in Australia, made of bluestone, that are a metre or more wide. Thick and strong! Walls of one or two meters maybe, but 65 meters…! In other words, these walls are immensely strong, impregnable. That is the purpose of that vision in Revelation 21. In our vision in Zechariah the lack of walls accents the huge size of the city’s population.
It means that you may not have a narrow view of the church and the kingdom. Put away the tape-measures. This new church belongs to Christ, is catholic; world-wide. People of all tribes, languages and colors are welcome here. It is true faith in the triune God that unifies it. You will one day populate the city of God, the city which is above. Please remember that. By being members of a faithful, local church, you also become members of the one, holy, apostolic and world-wide church of our Lord. You are members here on earth for a time, a short time really. Your end goal comes in that new Jerusalem that lasts for eternity.
This is one reason you also support mission work. You want the gospel preached world-wide, so that the city without walls can be fully populated. People of all colors, of all languages and tribes inhabit it. They will be your fellow-citizens. God’s plans do come true.
2. The safety of this Jerusalem
Walls served not only as city-limits, but also as protection. When an enemy appeared all the folk poured into the city, through the strong gates. Behind those walls they enjoyed safety. Strong walls could keep out a large, mighty army.
Even in some farmlands farmers removed stones from fields and made them into stone walls. They acted as borders and helped to keep out unwanted vermin as well as helping to keep their own herds contained and protected.
But the new Jerusalem in our text has no walls! No protection!? Can enemies just pour in unawares? That would mean we are defenceless.
Sometimes the church felt it was a mob of sheep led to the slaughter. Think of church history, for example, of the slaughter of the French reformed people, the Hugenots. Think of the Calvinists in the Lowlands or those in the reformed kirk in Scotland. Persecuted, till it seemed they had no future. But you recall how the Lord blessed the persecuted church, till it spread throughout all Europe. No walls! No protection?
Of course, the church enjoyed God’s protection! Listen,
For I, says the LORD, will be a wall of fire all around her.
This is the best, strongest, surest form of security we can have. Israel enjoyed God’s protection as they left Egypt, through the Red Sea. The pillar of cloud stood between Israel and the picked army of Egypt. In the wilderness the pillar of cloud or the pillar of fire led them and protected them. The Commander of the armies led them.
Well, we are not poorer, but richer. God is a wall of fire around us. The gates of hell cannot prevail against us. Our LORD protects us. Not with a meter thick wall like around the old Fremantle Jail, with barbed wire or rolls of razor wire on top of them; with guards, towers, search-lights and guard dogs. Even thick walls could be breached. In 70 AD Titus led 48,000 Roman troops to surround Jerusalem. Many fled into the city. Those outer and inner walls would protect them. But in the end the siege-engines of Rome prevailed. It took 6 months or more but finally Rome breached the outer and then the inner walls.
Our protection comes from the almighty Triune God. Nothing can compare to that. Remember how on one occasion fire came down to consume the enemy of Elijah. When his successor, Elisha, was surrounded by Syrian troops at Dothan, the prophet Elisha asked God to open the eyes of his servant. God did open the servant’s eyes. What did he see? Behold, the mountain was full of the horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha (2 Kings 6:17}. God is a wall of fire around us.
God is our refuge; He will shield us and to our foes He will not yield us.
He is our strength, in troubles nigh; our help is He, the LORD most High.
The LORD is near; our fears He stills.
3. The splendour of this Jerusalem.
Besides serving as borders and as protection, the walls of a city stood as its pride and splendour. Visit some of the old cities in Europe. I remember the walls and beautiful old gates around the city of Kampen, The Netherlands. Such old walls still serve as tourist attractions. They are majestic sights. So was Jerusalem. Think of Psalm 48 again.
Walk round Zion’s citadels,
Count her towers and crenelles
See her walls, her strong foundations.
Well, the new Jerusalem does not lag behind. Listen to the LORD,
I will be the glory in her midst.
Little by little we start to realise that this is no ordinary, earthly city. God dwells in its midst, just as God did in the wilderness.
To understand this vision let the text make you look ahead to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jesus is our splendor, our glory. If you wish to see the glory of God turn to the Gospel of John. He writes that we saw his glory, the glory of the Son of God. Who else can exercise the glorious power of God to command the dead to rise? His friend Lazarus stood up to life, though Lazarus had been dead for four days. Amazing! This is the glory of God! By that same glory Jesus stood back up to life, out of the grave, a grave covered with a large tombstone and protected with the seal of mighty Rome. Jesus showed his glory by rising from the dead. Jesus’ preaching and teaching, his many wonders and miracles, his death and resurrection all displayed the glory of God. God was with us, with his splendor, his power and glory.
Today God lives in our midst, in our lives, by God, the Holy Spirit. What marvels of grace the Spirit produces in the lives of sinners. Stony hearts turn to the living God, confess their sins and allow a complete renewal.
And the best is still to come.
And the city (of God) has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illumines it and its lamp is the Lamb (Rev 21:23).
Too many Israelites saw no future. Materialistic and self-interested, they had no foresight, no vision. Even the enthusiastic young surveyor proved to be narrow-minded. Throw that measuring line away! So should every Christian. The church must not be limited by human measurements or standards. Remember this vision. For it comes true. Today! In our days!
Today a dream becomes reality more and more. The reborn people to populate that holy city grow. The vision unfolds. Mind you, we still walk by faith. We have not come to the time that the full 144,000 stand beside the sea of crystal. We must still walk by faith.
You are destined for the city whose size is immeasurable, whose safety is God. As a wall of fire, God protects us. The splendor of God beautifies it. Amen.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Rev Wietse Huizinga, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
(c) Copyright 2003, Rev Wietse Huizinga
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