WATCHMEN ON THE WALLS

Upon your walls, 0 Jerusalem,
I have set watchmen;

all the day and all the night
they shall never be silent.
You who put the Lord in remembrance,
take no rest,

and give him no rest

until he establishes Jerusalem

and makes it a praise in the earth.
The Lord has sworn by his right hand
and by his mighty arm:

"I will not again give your grain
to be food for your enemies,

and foreigners shall not drink your wine
                 for which you have labored;

but those who garner it shall eat it
and praise the Lord,

and those who gather it shall drink it
in the courts of my sanctuary."
Isaiah 62:6-9

The last seven chapters of Isaiah comprise a vision of
a restored Jerusalem ... a vision given to the people at
a time when the city was not much more than weed
covered, rat infested ruins. This wasted city is going
to be a place of unspeakable glory, a crown of beauty
in the hand of the Lord ... no more overrun by foreign
armies, but a place of worship and joy and praise, like
no city on earth.

So here we have the vision, and here we have the brutal,
ugly reality. What will bring this vision down into
the ruins and raise them from the dead? .... hard work?

A nice thought, but all the hard work on earth will not
bring this vision to pass. We're talking about a
resurrection so wonderful that it's beyond the power of
human flesh.

This vision will come to pass .    The Lord has sworn

by his right hand and by his mighty arm ... it will be.
This vision will only come to pass in response to
another miracle of God. Before this city rises out
of its ashes we will first see, standing on these
ruined walls, every few hundred feet, these strange
watchmen.

....all the day and all the night
they shall never be silent....

When these watchmen are in place things will start to
happen. But what are they doing up there on the ruined
walls of this ruined city? Are they keeping a lookout
for some more invading armies? Are they checking the
weather? No, they are standing up there between earth
and heaven praying, putting the Lord in remembrance,
reminding him of the vision.   They are taking no rest,
and giving God no rest until they see the vision....
until they see an Ezra marching from the east and a
Nehemiah with his caravan coming to rebuild these
walls ... watchmen ... these watchmen are the beginning

of a New Jerusalem.

Today, at a time when the Body of Christ worldwide
doesn't appear to be in any better shape than Jerusalem
in the days of the exile, a time when the Body of Christ
is torn, confused, intimidated by the world around
it.... yes, when its impact on the world seems to be
diminishing on every front, here comes this amazing
vision again. It's coming to saints all over the earth:

Arise, shine; for your light has come,

and the glory of the Lord has risen

upon you.   Isaiah 60:1

The ancient ruins are going to be built up.   Zion is
going to be glorious as never before. And to this
congregation the vision comes..."Your days of obscurity

are over. The time has come for you to rise up and

manifest the Kingdom of God. To preach good news

to the poor, freedom to the captives,

   sight to the blind,

   deliverance to the oppressed,

   proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

The time has come for this congregation to draw people
by the hundreds, perhaps by the thousands, into the
Kingdom of God. And who's going to bring this vision
to pass?   The watchmen .... the watchmen on the walls.

Upon your walls, 0 Jerusalem,
I have set watchmen;

all the day and all the night
they shall never be silent.
You who put the Lord in remembrance,
take no rest,

and give him no rest

until he establishes Jerusalem

and makes it a praise in the earth.

God is going to do it...it will be. He has sworn by
his right hand and his mighty arm that this vision will
become reality. But it will become reality through a
people who are being called by the Spirit of God in
this place and many other places to take their station
on the walls. You can refuse the call to be a watchman,
but once you've heard it, you will never be able to say
you didn't know. Before long, if you don't take your
place up on the walls, somebody else will be raised up
to do it.

Who are these watchmen?

1. These watchmen are men and women who are

    willing to take their stand in the middle of the ruins.

They don't sit on the mountainside and criticize this
humiliated Jerusalem and belittle the church which is
staggering under judgment. They come and stand on the
ruined walls. They don't identify with the problem,

- they touch it,

- they join themselves to it,

- they share its pain and anguish.

Elijah stretched himself out over the dead body of
the son of the widow of Zarephath, hand-to-hand,
eyeball-to-eyeball.

He absorbed the death and cold into his body. He
wasn't afraid or ashamed to touch death.

Our Lord got baptized ... why should he get baptized?
He had done no sin. He joined himself to our sin,

 to our weakness,
 to our anguish,

and became sin for us.

Why did he take on our flesh? Why did he become sin
for us? Why did he die on that cross? He was standing
on our ruined walls calling us to lay aside our fancy
robes and get down and wash feet ... serve each other.

Are we willing to give up our aloofness and come and
stand on the ruined walls of Zion? Are we willing to
identify with the problem, join ourselves to the
problem, touch it, feel it, heal it?

2.    These watchmen are men and women who have

       the audacity to trust this vision in spite of the ruin
which surrounds them.

They see the ruin as righteous judgment on a self
righteous church. But now as these watchmen repent for
the sins of Zion and cry out for forgiveness, they see
the vision coming near.

The Lord has sworn by his right hand   '
and by his mighty arm:

"I will not again give your grain
to be food for your enemies,

and foreigners shall not drink your wine
for which you have labored;

but those who garner it shall eat it
and praise the Lord,

and those who gather it shall drink it
in the courts of my sanctuary."
Isaiah 62:8-9

The eyes of the watchmen are not on the devastation,
they are on the vision..."Thy kingdom come!"...they
pray, they expect it now!

The widow of Nain looked at the dead body of her son
and wept.   All she saw was a corpse.   Jesus saw the
kingdom visiting this corpse with power to move it
from the dead.   "Weep not," he said.   "Young man, get
up."   And he sat up and began to speak ... because the
Messiah took hold of the vision even as he took hold
of the corpse, and brought them together and transfigured

death into life. If we stand here and keep looking at the

ruined walls we'll always be depressed. We've got to

keep looking at the vision.

3. These watchmen are men and women who are

    aggressive toward God .

They've made up their minds they're going to take no
rest and give God no rest until he establishes Jerusalem

and makes it a praise in the earth. We're not talking about

being aggressive and pushy toward- people around us

... always worried that we might be cheated or that someone

might get a better seat in the bleachers, or shoving our way

into the elevator, or taking cuts in the cafeteria line. We're not

talking about making sure we get the best seat on the plane.

We're talking about being aggressive toward God.... to fulfill the
vision of a restored Zion.

Upon your walls, 0 Jerusalem,
                      I have set watchmen;

  all the day and all the night
they shall never be silent.
You who put the Lord in remembrance, 
take no rest,

and give him no rest

  until he establishes Jerusalem

  and makes it a praise in the earth.

Jesus was aggressive toward his Father on behalf of
others.

"Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to have
you all that he might sift you like
wheat, but I have prayed for you, Simon,
that your faith will not fail."

How does he pray for Peter ... thirty seconds of
silence? No, you can be sure that Jesus the Son of
God, now the Son of Man in human flesh, cries out

to heaven with a long, relentless, aggressive cry to
the Father,

"Don't let this man drift away. Put angels
around him. Don't let him be lost. Hold
on to him."

And that's the kind of prayer that the Spirit of God
is bringing about among us.   If we won't do it, he'll
bring the stones up to do it ... if we don't do it,
somebody else will ...but there will be, and are now,
people who pray like that. They carry around in their
hearts a yearning to see life. And they will cry
night and day until it comes to pass.

4.  These watchmen are men and women whose

     lives are consumed in worship.

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, (worship)
my soul shall exult in my God;   (worship)
for he has clothed me with the garments

of salvation, (worship)

he has covered me with the robe of
righteousness, (worship)

as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,
and as a bride adorns herself with jewels.
Isaiah 61:10

The watchmen on the walls are offering their own bodies
as living sacrifices to God ... consumed in worship.

For the earth brings forth its shoots,

and as a garden causes what is sown in it to

spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness

and praise to spring forth before all the nations.
Isaiah 61:11

And this righteousness and praise springing forth
before all the nations begins with the watchmen on the
walls worshiping the God, who through them, is raising
Zion from the dead.

- They're standing on the ruined walls

   without shame.

- They trust the vision of restoration even

   while darkness covers the earth.

- They are aggressive toward God.

- They are consumed in worship.

     ....They are watchmen....

 
The hour has come for the watchmen to take their
stations. They are the ones through whom the living
God will raise Zion from her ruins into a glory such
as this earth has never seen.