FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: Is that the old ship of Zion? (part 2)

In our last visit, we introduced the idea of Zion’s being a beautiful name of “Zion” that is splashed throughout the deep writings of the Old Testament prophets.

The psalmist says, “Let us walk about Zion,” he says once as he reminisces about the glory of the city where he lived and the Lord made His dwelling in the temple.

Solomon’s magnificent temple once rested on Zion’s western slope, the highest hill in Jerusalem, and God’s glory appears there in the temple’s Most Holy Place once a year before the high priest and before the people.

From Zion’ s fixed position high above the hills, Zion serves as a fortress of protection and a beacon of light to the land of Judah all through those years.

As glorious as that Zion is, we have come to a better Zion, writes the great apostle. We have come to the Mount Zion which is the church of our Lord, the “heavenly Jerusalem.”

It is to that Zion we have come today to reflect and examine.

We are always glad to walk about her and consider her brilliant history – a history that is portrayed long before she would come, and a history that has taken us right up to this very point in time.

True, all of those for two-thousand years who have followed that initial command of Peter of Acts 2:38 to “repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins” have begun their own history in the church of our Lord.

But, as we’ve noted, the visions of the New Testament church go far back into the deep and rich prophesies of the inspired writers of the Old Testament.

We remember fondly Isaiah’s great sermon, in the second chapter of Isaiah:

“And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, ‘Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem’” (verses 2-3).

What a timely prophecy of the future coming of the Lord’s church.

What rich and powerful history.

Think on it: Aren’t you glad that somewhere, sometime someone said to you, “Come, let us go up to the house of God…” Oh, not in those exact words, but somebody led you to the church of the Lord – and if not, you have an opportunity even in our front-porch talks to learn what it is you need to know to come to Zion, to climb up with all your being to the “mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob”!

You can hear Zion’s call, can you not?

The songwriter could hear it:

“Come we that love the Lord, and let our joys be known. We’re marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion. We are marching to her, and we ever will – we must! – until that old ship of Zion reaches that distant shore.”