31: The Promises to Israel - Mount Sinai and Mount Zion

The Present Truth : December 3, 1896

“Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the Great King. God is known in her palaces for a refuge.” Psalm 48.1-3

These words are sung in praise of the dwelling-place of God in heaven; for “the Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven” (Psalm 11.4), and of Christ “who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,” (Hebrews 8.1) the Lord says, “Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion,” or, “upon Zion, the hill of My holiness.” Psalm 2.6

Jesus Christ, the anointed King in Zion, is High Priest as well, a “priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek.” The Lord has said of “the Man whose name is The BRANCH,” that “He shall build the temple of the Lord; and He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon His throne; and He shall be a priest upon His throne; and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.” Zechariah 6.12, 13. So as He sits upon His Father’s throne in the heavens, he is “a Minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man.” Hebrews 8.2

It was to this place—to Mount Zion, the hill of God’s holiness, and to the Sanctuary upon it, His dwelling place—that God was leading His people Israel when He delivered them from Egypt. When they had safely passed through the Red Sea, Moses sang these inspired words: “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established.” Exodus 15.17

But they did not get to Mount Zion, because they did not “hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” “So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.” Yet God did not forsake them, for even “if we believe not, yet He abideth faithful; He cannot deny Himself.” So He instructed Moses to tell the people to bring offerings of gold and silver and precious stones, together with other material, and said, “Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it.” Exodus 25.8, 9