LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Mount Zion
Zion is the testimony of God on earth.
Rodrigo Abarca
Reading: Revelation 14:1-5, Isaiah 34:8.
The Christ of God
The book of Revelation was written in a time of much conflict for the church, around the year 90 or 95 AD, because, among other things, the Roman Empire began a series of persecutions that would last two hundred years, with the aim of destroying the church.
At that time, the emperor Domitian decreed that the official religion of the empire was the worship of the Emperor himself. All subjects had to present themselves once a year before the image of the emperor and burn incense in his honor, declaring with their lips: 'Caesar is Kyrios', the Lord, a title which Scripture reserves only for the Lord Jesus Christ. For that reason, the believers could not go before the idol of the emperor and declare that Caesar was the Kyrios, because they already had a God and Kyrios: Jesus Christ.
Therefore, there came upon the church a time of immense suffering. Two hundred years of persecution. Thousands of brothers gave up their lives for the sake of their testimony.
The testimony that Jesus Christ is the Lord is of fundamental importance in the history of the church. When we read Revelation 14 it tells us: "And I looked, and behold, a Lamb stood on Mount Zion." The apostle John constantly refers to Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God.
There is also the heavenly scene of Revelation five when the Lord Jesus Christ is presented as the Lamb that was slain, who proceeds to take the book that is in the hands of the Father and receive from him all power, authority and dominion, and be declared King of kings and Lord of lords. There, on the right hand of the Father, there was a book written on the inside and the outside and sealed with seven seals. This book represents the will of God. In it are contained the eternal purposes of God concerning man and the universe.
Chapter 4 of Revelation says that everything that exists was created by God's will. But everything has been put on hold, because something has happened in the course of history and the development of God's plan, which has so far hindered the fulfillment of the eternal will of God. Therefore, the book is sealed.
No one can open the book. Satan rebelled, and a third of the angels followed him in his rebellion, and that rebellion came down to earth. Mankind was caught up in it. Humankind joined Satan's side, and from then on the earth became a territory that was hostile to God. That's why the prayer that Jesus taught says, "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. " In heaven, the kingdom of God is not a problem. There is a throne that governs everything. But does that throne govern on earth? Nations, kings and men of the earth, do they obey the King of Heaven?
The place where the battle is fought and the eternal destiny of the ages is decided, is not in heaven, but on earth. And this is where the rebellion has established itself; Satan has built his empire of darkness and the rebellion has grown. But God cannot be overcome and His eternal purpose cannot be impeded forever. Therefore, in chapter 5 of Revelation we see the Lamb stand before God, and take the book from the Father's hands, to open it and break its seals. From that moment on, He takes history into His own hands, to carry it forward until the end of all things. Now, nothing else can prevent God's eternal purpose from being fulfilled because the Lamb of God has opened the book! And that's why, later on, he is standing on Mount Zion.
A King according to God
Mount Zion is a very important issue in Scripture. It represents the heart and center of the thoughts of God concerning man and the earth. If we want to understand the Scriptures on this matter, we need to find the first mention of Mount Zion and the last mention of it. Then we'll have the whole picture.
We already read the last mention of it in Revelation 14. We will now read the first mention of Mount Zion: "And all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, and King David made a covenant with them in Hebron before the LORD; and they anointed David king over Israel. David was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned forty years. In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty-three years over all Israel and Judah "(2 Sam. 5: 3-5).
What we have here is the beginning of the reign of David. You know that Scripture tells us that David was a king after God's heart. He was not the first king of Israel; Saul was the first king. But Saul was not a king after God's own heart; but rather according to the heart of the people. The big difference between David and Saul is that the latter reigned immediately after being anointed by the prophet Samuel. Unlike Saul, David went through a very long period of testing before he became king. Twelve years of trial and suffering; twelve years of persecution, living as an outlaw, chased here and there by the very same king Saul.
David went through a very long period of training to be king. And that path which he followed to be king, is the way of the cross. However, because he went through the way of the cross, he could then be a king after God's heart. Not because David was better than Saul. At the beginning, if we had placed Saul and David together to run the race, the two would have set off under identical conditions, because no man is better than another. We have all fallen; our heart is perverse.
We are all like Saul, and David was too. But God brought him through the way of the cross, in those twelve years of suffering, when it seemed that God's word would never be fulfilled in his life. The natural life of David was broken and his natural strength was undone. Thus came the end of his own resources, and then at that point, he became a king after God's heart.
Do you remember what Saul was like? Angry, aggressive and violent. But David became a meek and humble man, and so became king of Israel. In this way, David is a type of Jesus Christ. Of course, David was not a perfect man. He committed sins. But in his heart for God, he is a type of Jesus Christ; a meek and humble king. Have you ever heard of a greater contradiction between being king in this world, and being meek and humble at the same time? They are two things that seem to be the polar opposite of each other. Being king according to this world means being strong, violent, secure, firm, and exercising your authority with power.
Do you think that when people vote for a particular man to be president of his nation, they vote for the most gentle and humble man? Absolutely not! But, beloved brothers, the man God chose to be king was the most gentle and humble in Israel. What a contradiction! But that was the king after God's heart, because he was a type of Jesus Christ. And what did the Lord Jesus say about Himself? "Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart."
Looking towards the throne of the universe, under which all thrones, dominions, principalities and powers and kings who have been and are to come are subject, there is a Lamb. Therefore "..like a lamb led to the slaughter; and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he didn’t open his mouth." He was not just a lamb in a sacrificial sense; He also had the character of a meek and humble lamb.
The prophecy of Zechariah 9: 9 says, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, your king is coming to you, righteous and bringing salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt the foal of an ass. " Have you seen a more paradoxical scene? That is the King according to the heart of God. Such is the Lord Jesus Christ, and David was a type of him as King. All His years of suffering formed the character of Christ in David, and Christ is the true King according to God.
However, while he was learning to be a godly king he did not know that he was in the school of Christ. In those years, when he lived in permanent suffering, always being pursued and persecuted, how many times he must have wondered if it was true that God would someday make him a king; if that was truly the way a king had to be prepared!
But, at that time, he learned to come to know the heart of the true King. He learned to share in the sufferings of Christ, and wrote that wonderful Psalm: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? My God, I cry by day, and you do not respond ... ". The same words were in the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ on the day that he died on the cross. But it was David who wrote this Psalm during the time when he went through the way of the cross.
The conflict in Zion
Now when David became king with the meekness and humility of the Lamb of God, what was the first deed of his reign?
"Now the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, and they said to David, “You shall not come in here, but the blind and lame will turn you away”; thinking, “David cannot enter here.” Nevertheless, David captured the stronghold of Zion, that is the city of David. "(2 Sam. 5: 6-7).
This is the first mention of Mount Zion in Scripture and it is mentioned in connection with the first deed of King David, when he went up against the stronghold of Zion. Why then? When Israel entered the Promised Land, four hundred and fifty years earlier, in the time of Joshua, and defeated all the Canaanites who inhabited the land, only one city could not be taken: Jerusalem, where the stronghold of Zion was. It's a strange little detail, isn’t it? They proceeded with Joshua at the head and they wanted to take the city, but they could not take it because that was where the stronghold of Zion was. After this, four hundred years passed during which Jerusalem continued to be in the hands of the Jebusites.
What does all this represent? Why was the first accomplishment of David’s reign, to go and take the stronghold of Zion? From a strategic point of view it was not very important. There were other larger and more important cities that were already in the hands of the Israelites. The city of Hebron, where he was crowned king, was much larger than Zion.
It had to be Zion however, because David was a prophet. When he sang and composed psalms, he also acted as a prophet. He therefore understood God's thoughts concerning the king and the kingdom. And this was the inauguration of the kingdom of God in the old covenant with Israel. It is the first time that the kingdom of God appears on earth. So let's see what King David says in Psalm Two:
"Why do the heathen rage, and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord scoffs at them "(Ps. 2: 1-4).
Now, what did the Lord say? "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden light." Is he like the kings of the earth, who impose a heavy yoke, and bind heavy ropes on their subjects? No. "My yoke is easy, my burden light. Take my yoke ... ".
And what does Psalm 2 say here? "... The kings of the earth, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed." Now, who were called the "Anointed of the Lord" in the Old Testament? The Kings. Because the word ‘anointed’ in Hebrew is Messiah. So when you read in the Old Testament: "Behold the Lord's anointed" in Hebrew it is: "Behold the Lord's Messiah."
Then in the year 200 AD, the Old Testament was translated into Greek, a version called the Septuagint. When you read that passage in the Septuagint, the Greek says, "Behold the Lord's Christ." So, in the Hebrew it says, "against the Lord and against his Messiah", and in Greek: "... against the Lord and against his Christ." And that’s how it’s quoted in the Acts of the Apostles. The Christ is, then, the one whom God has anointed to be king.
Men and nations have their kings. But, as it says Psalm 2: God has His own King! And he has given all dominion, authority and power to His King. Do you now understand the nature of the conflict that is taking place in Psalm 2? On one side are the kings of the earth, each one ruling according to their human heart. But God has His King to rule according to His heart.
Therefore, what happens? What do the kings say? "Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us." 'We do not want him to reign; We do not want Him to rule '. Here is the central point of the conflict: "I have set my king upon Zion, my holy mountain" (Ps. 2: 6). Zion is the place that God chose to place His King. "Beautiful in its elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, in the far north, the city of the great King" (Ps. 48: 2).
"For the Lord has chosen Zion; He desired it for his habitation "(Psalm 132: 3.). Zion represents the heart of the divine thought and purpose for this earth. Therefore, while Zion is in the hands of His enemies, He cannot have a king representing His authority, His purposes and His will on earth. Therefore it was necessary that as soon as David became king, he should go up and take the stronghold of Zion.
The testimony of God on earth is in Zion. This has a spiritual meaning. In the Old Testament, it was something literal. David went up against Zion, captured the fortress and then began to reign. Psalm 2: "I have set my king upon Zion, my holy mountain." When David took the stronghold and drove out the Jebusites, he established the city of David there, and from that place, from the top of Mount Zion down, he began to build the city of Jerusalem. That was the beginning of Jerusalem in Israel's history.
The capture of the stronghold of Zion speaks spiritually of the moment in which the Lord Jesus Christ ascended far above all the heavens, and all the kingdoms of this world were put under His feet. Until finally, he sat down on the throne of the universe, and from there, as head of all things, began to build His church on earth.
So the church is the expression of this fact. That is the testimony of the church; this is what the church on the earth represents: that Christ is on the throne. If He had not died, if He had not risen, and hadn’t ascended, there would be no church on earth. Man would still be under the power of Satan. But He rose above all the heavens, and therefore man has been redeemed for God, and Christ has a church that represents Him on earth.
Remember that at the beginning we read that passage in Isaiah 34: 8 where we are told about the controversy of Zion. Since God has a King, and because the King sits on the throne of God, and has been given all authority, from that moment on, the controversy of Zion begins. In the Old Testament, while Mount Zion was in the hands of the Jebusites, Jerusalem had no importance in the events of ancient history. But when David sat down to reign and the ark of God was brought to Mount Zion, then began what the Old Testament in Isaiah called the controversy of Zion.
When you continue reading, you will find that from that moment on, in successive and constant waves, one empire after another rises up in the history of the world, and comes against Jerusalem and Zion, to try to destroy it. It's weird, right? The Assyrians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Greeks, Romans; one after the other, all against Jerusalem, trying to snatch Zion from the hands of the God of Israel and the people of Israel. Because, dear brothers, the controversy of Zion is the conflict for the government and dominion of the earth.
You know that Satan entered into the world, and usurped the kingdom of God; He has seized the kingdom of God from the hands of mankind. Therefore, in Revelation chapter 12, a red dragon appears. At first, he was only a snake, but over the centuries he has become a dragon, because he has grown. To the extent that man has grown and built civilizations, empires and nations, he has grown together with mankind on earth. So, he appears as a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and he has dominion over all the kings of this world.
It is this same dragon who feels his dominion over the world threatened, when he sees a king appear on Mount Zion. Then he knows that his dominion over the world is in mortal danger. For if God has a king on Zion, it is God who governs over the earth. The question here is who rules: Satan or God. If God has a King on Zion, that is to say, a king who expresses His testimony, and people subject to the king, then the dominion of Satan in this world comes to an end soon. If the kingdom of God comes to earth, Satan has to leave the land. His time on this earth is ended.
This is a divinely established principle. That is why the devil cannot bear to have a king in Zion. Again and again in the past he raised up powerful empires and hurled them against the tiny nation of Israel in order to –if it were possible- destroy the testimony of God, erase Zion from the earth. This is where you discover what Scripture calls the controversy of Zion; the fight, the battle for the kingdom, the dominion, and the government of this earth.
A kingdom established in the heart
But it is not just the government of the earth; It is the government of man himself. Who will govern, who will win the human heart for himself? That is the central question. Who will you give your heart to? To whom will man finally give his heart? This is the conflict of Zion.
David was a king after God's heart. A heart that was sensitive to God, a heart that bowed down before God. Have you seen a stranger scene than when King David is confronted by a prophet? Nathan says to him, "You are the man who has sinned". Do you know how any king of this world would have responded to a threat like that? He would have ordered the prophet to be killed, and would have erased the record of his evil deeds from the annals of history, as did all the kings of old. But it was not so with David, because he had a heart that had been broken by God. And although he sinned, when the prophet came, he acknowledged, "Yes, I have sinned against God." And he humbled himself wholeheartedly.
And moreover, when his kingdom was threatened and his son Absalom rose up against him, as he was leaving Jerusalem a man of Saul's family met him, who began to accuse him of being an evil and bloodthirsty man. David had not touched even a hair of the head of Saul, but this man was accusing him of having killed Saul and Jonathan. And Abishai came and said, "Doesn’t the Lord, my King, want me to go and kill this dead dog, because who is he to raise his voice against the Lord's anointed?". However, David said, "Leave him, maybe the Lord Himself has told him to curse me. The Lord put me as king over Israel, and today I am leaving. If the Lord is willing, I will return; but if He is not willing, I will not. " So then, he was a king according to the heart of God.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the true descendant of David. But He is also the root of David. All that David was before God, truly came from the Lord Jesus Christ, because he is the root of David. The character of David was merely the expression of the character of Christ.
Thus John tells us: "And I looked, and behold, a Lamb stood on Mount Zion." The Lord Jesus Christ is the King according to God. He is the Lamb of God, who is seated on the throne. And now he's standing on Mount Zion. But, notice: He isn’t alone. Not only does he have to go up the way of the cross, not only does he have to ascend in order to reign; but with him there are 144 thousand. Without going into details, we’re going to take this for now as a symbolic number representing the church of Jesus Christ.
The desire of God's heart is that the whole church should sit on the throne of the Lord Jesus Christ, just as he has overcome and has sat down on the throne of his father. That is the purpose of God, that the church should represent and express the kingdom and authority of Jesus Christ. But the kingdom and authority are inseparable from the character of Jesus Christ. So it is the Lamb who is standing on Mount Zion. His character is what should govern everything. It is not simply authority; It is authority with a specific character: the character of the Lamb.
That which is to rule the universe forever and ever is the humble and meek character of the Lamb of God. In addition, the church is also called to rule with him, and for that it has to be conformed from the heart to the character of the Lamb. What was the way of the Lord Jesus Christ to the kingdom? The way of the cross. What is the way for the church to rule with Christ? It is the same way. We cannot come to reign with Him unless we walk by the way of the cross to the end. This means to truly follow Christ.
So beloved brothers and sisters, the Lamb of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, ascended to sit on the throne of the universe and reign forever. Now, the Church is also called to follow the way of the Lamb wherever he goes. Where is the Lamb going? What is the way of the Lamb? It is the way of the cross and from there, to glory. That’s why it speaks of the overcomers as being those who "follow the Lamb wherever he goes." Because they, as they follow Christ from the cross to glory, allow the kingdom of heaven to come down to earth through them.
God is waiting for these men and women. To this end, we must seek first the heart of the King; only then will we be able to express the authority of the King and His kingdom will be able to come to this earth. This is the deeper meaning of Zion and its testimony on the earth.
Synthesis of a message given in Temuco, in October 2006.