The gathering of the nations to Jehovah's throne.
I. THE NEW CHARACTER IN WHICH JERUSALEM APPEARS. It is no longer to be considered simply as the center of Israelite affection and devotion, the city where was the palace of a human king, and the temple of Jehovah as the peculiar deity of Israel. It is no longer to be the place of a peculiar worship. Its character henceforth is to be far more glorious, one in which Israel shall lose nothing, yea, rather gain, in remembering what it has been able to contribute in attaining such an end. Jerusalem, that had been associated with all sorts of idolatrous abominations, is first of all to be desolated and humbled, whatever human pride and glory there was in it extinguished; and then the true glory will come. The city shall be Jehovah's throne, the throne of him who is God above all gods and King above all kings. And when men would recognize the authority of a king, his throne is the place they must come to. Hence to Jehovah, seated on his throne, all the nations are to be gathered; forsaking national idols and national ideals, all that is local and narrow and self-originated will vanish. The ark of the covenant passes away, and the tables of stone become unnecessary, for from his throne Jehovah will take means whereby he may write on the fleshy tables of every human heart the two great principles, "Love God and love thy fellow-man."
II. How THE GATHERING IS TO BE BROUGHT ABOUT. How clear it is that, the Ark of the Covenant passing away, mere local, terrestrial Jerusalem must also cease to have any peculiar value! The taking away of the Ark of the Covenant is really the taking away of all in the way of dependence that is merely visible and material. It is plain that the gathering together to Jerusalem cannot mean an actual travelling there from all parts of the earth's surface. Not that the mere local Jerusalem can become as a common spot of earth. After these northern desolators, of whom Jeremiah so often spoke, had done with it, it was rebuilt, and in due time became the scene of great spiritual redeeming acts profoundly affecting every child of man. The thought of the local scenes where-Christ-died, rose again, and ascended into glory, may well help every sinner in his believing approaches to his Savior. Those who gather at Jerusalem gather there by virtue of the power which there is in every believing heart. Innumerable pilgrims, on piety intent, have gone on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, doing laborious penances by the way, only to discover in the end that they have been walking after the imaginations of their evil hearts. There may be great value in a journey to the Holy Land, if only those who go there have first of all had their minds opened to apprehend the work which he who died at Jerusalem did for them; otherwise their travels, whatever the human joy and interest of them, may only add to their subsequent condemnation. To go to Jerusalem spiritually is the great thing. The Jerusalem of our journey is situated in the pages of the New Testament rather than in Palestine. It is as we read the Gospels that we feel how Jerusalem is indeed the throne of Jehovah in this sense, that there, through his Son Jesus, he manifested righteousness, power, and love, all the glorious attributes of his eternal reign. The transactions at Jerusalem are incomparable. No transactions in any one nation, however much they may affect the career of that nation, can rival the transactions at Jerusalem. The Englishman as an Englishman may feel his deep concern in Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights. The American as an American thinks of Philadelphia and the Declaration of Independence. The Negro as a Negro remembers Lincoln and the proclamation, which gave freedom to the slaves. But underneath the natural, the peculiar, the merely terrestrial, there is another man, the man who has to think of sin within him, and death and eternity before him. Such a man, if he thinks rightly, will feel that it is towards Jerusalem that his most earnest considerations should gather. All who truly ponder the great questions of life must gather there, and thence in faith their thoughts will ascend to the true, the heavenly, the everlasting Jerusalem.—Y.