STRENGHTENED OUT OF ZION

IN THE DAYS OF HIS POWER SERIES

TOPIC: STRENGTHENED OUT OF ZION

SERMON BY-:
Rev. Innocent Chukwudi Peace-Udochukwu President Living Fountain Ministries Int’l LIFOM

“The Lord answer thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob set thee up on high; send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion”
(Psalm. 20:1-2).

Strength can be defined as the quality or state of being strong; bodily or muscular power; moral power; mental power; firmness, or courage, etc.

Help can be defined as “to give or provide what is necessary to accomplish a task or satisfy a need. To contribute means towards; to render assistance to; to cooperate effectively with; to aid or assist; to save or rescue; etc.

Zion is as a resource of strength.

All humans at one time in their lifetime or throughout their lifetime will require help or strength of some sort. As a matter of fact, no one can boast that on their own they’ve got all the help and strength they need in life.
“Strengthen thee out of Zion”. Zion then is a place out from which strength comes; Zion is that where our strength is from which we draw our strength. What is Zion? Well for us now on New Testament ground Zion is the Lord Jesus glorified, in the place of absolute power, ascendancy, sovereignty and glory in virtue of something that God has done because of His suffering and death.

“Strengthen thee out of Zion”. Taking this as a Messianic Psalm, which indeed it is because the next, Psalm 21, is the answer to the cry of Psalm 20: *”The king shall joy in thy strength O Lord… thou hast given him his heart’s desire”. That is the answer, *”…and hast not witholden the request of his lips…”, etc..*
This is the Lord Jesus who is in view. The crown of everlasting life has been set upon His head in view of His sufferings and His death.

It is the Lord Jesus being brought, by the help from the sanctuary, the strength out of Zion, to the place of absolute triumph, absolute glory, absolute victory, the name of the Lord proving its power in delivering Him from death. Now, that is what is personal to the Lord Jesus, but then there is that which is spiritual which applies to us, and this has a spiritual application to the saints and to our own hearts.

Now, “strengthen thee out of Zion”: minister Life to you out of death, glory in the hour of suffering, minister to you what Christ is, while you are here. The Father is there, the Son is here, the Son is going through all this; He makes His appeal out of Zion that the Father ministers His own life, strengthens Him, ministers Himself to the Son, for He came through in the power, life, strength, grace, and love of God. Christ is in that position. He is Zion. We are going through, not what He went through, but a shadow of it. Our prayer is to Him and out of Zion He ministers to us Himself.

“Those who trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but remains for ever.”
[Psalm 125:1]

This is the first verse of one of the Songs of Assents. These Songs were probably sung by the pilgrims as they went up to Jerusalem, when they halted at the various rest places or passed certain places of interest. It is very possible that this psalm burst forth from joyful lips at the moment when Zion first came into sight, and the worshippers gazed upon the city of their solemnities. Happy pilgrims! They had left behind them many a dreary glen and dangerous forest, and now they saw in their full view their journey’s end and therefore they sang with all the gathered joy of days gone by. They could not have exalted so if they had not previously sorrowed.

David would not have sung the one hundred and twenty-fifth psalm if he had not first learned to sing the one hundred and twenty-fourth: if he had not been where men threatened to swallow him up alive, and found in such a case that the Lord was on his side, he could not have been quite so sure that “those who trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved.” Our experiences are our instructors even concerning themselves: they shed light upon each other, and we learn enough from one trial to begin to unfold the mysteries of another. The one hundred and twenty-fourth psalm must first to some extent be passed through, so that we see that all our help lies in the Lord, or we shall never reach to the grand positiveness of this one hundred and twenty-fifth, and sing, “Those who trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion.”

“When the LORD shall build up Zion, He shall appear in His Glory.”
Psalm 102:16.

THE Lord Himself must “build up Zion,” or it will never be built up. He first planned it. He is the Architect of His own Church. He dug the foundations, i.e., has supplied the great Cornerstone. He, by His own power, creates each living stone, polishes it and fits it into its place. He cements the whole structure and as He first sketched the plan, so will He complete it in every iota to the praise and the glory of His wisdom, His Grace and His love. It shall be said of Zion, when all her walls are built and all her palaces completed—and when all her happy inhabitants have their mouths filled with song as they walk in white
—”The Lord has built it, from the foundation even to the topstone.”

We wish to be very useful in the world—and, blessed be God, we can never rest unless we are useful. But there are times of weariness when the best blessing for us—the blessing which shall most help to fit us for future service—is perfect peace, that peace of which our Savior said to His disciples, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you.”

THE GENERAL CONVOCATION AROUND MOUNT ZION.

“But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.”
—Hebrews 12: 22—24.

Paul is displaying the superiority of the new covenant to the old. He tells us what Israel after the flesh came to at their best in the morning hours of the law, and what the firstborn after the Spirit have come to under the gospel. He pictures the great assembly of the chosen people round about Mount Sinai, and then his inspired mind describes an infinitely larger and happier gathering, to which all believers have come, around Mount Zion. Not only the Hebrews to whom he was writing, but all the people of God are gathered together in one general assembly, of which the blessed God is the centre. He shows us the joyful difference between the two gathering, and the feelings and pursuits of those who compose them.

Psalm 20:2 is a prayer of David to receive help from God’s sanctuary and strength from Zion. The question is “Can God dispatch help from His sanctuary and strength from Zion?” The answer is Yes.

David actually received such help and strength.
That same strength will work for you in Jesus name.

Prayers

Father, send help to me from your presence.

Father, strengthen me by your Spirit. -AMEN!

SHALOM!

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