14. Looking toward Zion
14
Looking toward Zion1
They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward.
—Jeremiah 50:5
All the tears in the world without [repentance] are like Esau’s tears, for he resolved in the days of mourning to kill his brother; they are also like Judas’ tears of desperation. But these are better tears that are spoken of in Acts 20:19, where the apostle [Paul] was leaving the Ephesians to serve the Lord, with many tears and temptations. It is nothing to weep for sin for a time, but to have their faces toward Zion and asking the way to it and to weep—that is more. That is an excellent stance their face has. While they are serving the Lord and do not know where to find Him, they still have their faces toward Him. There is nothing that more easily describes the seekers of Zion and of the Lord than their right look. They do not know the way to Zion, and yet they have their face turned toward it, and so ask the way thereto.
There are three excellent looks spoken of in the Word of God: “Mine eyes fail while I wait for my God,” and David’s comparison: “My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning” (Pss. 69:3; 130:6). And then to wait upon God in the day of trouble is an honest look also, and it is spoken of in Isaiah 17:7: “At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel.” What day is spoken of there? That day when the Lord shall visit Zion and the kirk2 shall be left desolate, and there shall be only, as it were, gleaning grapes in it—even that which is spoken of in Isaiah 8:17: “I will wait upon the LORD, that hideth his face…, and I will look for Him.”
To look to the Lord when the wind blows motes3 and sand in your eyes is an honest look, and also to look to the kingdom of heaven and farther than time into eternity, as in Hebrews 11:9, where Abraham was content to dwell in tents and to seek no abiding city here, because he looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. And we should have Moses’ look in the twenty-sixth verse of that chapter. He esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt because he had respect to the recompense of reward. Moses looked higher than all the courtiers in Pharaoh’s court did—beyond time to eternity.
And a third good look is to look to slain Christ. When the Lord shall refine the house of David and pour the spirit of supplications upon them, then they shall mourn when they look upon Him whom they have pierced. This condemns all the distorted looks that sinners in the world have, whatever they are. There is a look in Proverbs 21:4, a haughty look; the Lord cannot endure it. And in Proverbs 23 [vv. 26–33], the eyes behold strange women. Also, in Isaiah 56:11: “They all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter.” And that look described in Ezekiel 18:15, where the house of Israel has its eyes toward the mountains and the hills. They do not look to the Lord, but to their own gods. The Lord condemns all those who do not look to Him. And it is sure that every man who in faith looks to God and Christ and heaven will follow his look. Oh that we had hearts and eyes to seek Him, and to look after Him, and to Him who is able to do this for us—to draw our hearts and eyes toward Himself, to that Lord, only wise, eternal, immortal, invisible.
1. Quaint Sermons, 175–77.
2. kirk: church
3. motes: specks of dust