The Mountain Made a Plain 2
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4. A HARD heart. And O, what a burden a hard heart is to one whose conscience has been made tender in God's fear! A hard, rocky, unfeeling heart—what a great mountain is this between God and the soul! When we cannot produce one feeling of contrition, when we cannot raise up one pang of godly sorrow, when not a sigh will come out of our steely bosom, not a single tear fall from our iron eye, O, at what a distance does this hard heart keep us from the Lord! What a burden, what a plague, what a source of guilt and trouble is a hard heart to all who fear his name! O this great mountain that thrusts up its lofty peak into the sky, so that heaven is not seen, nor the countenance of God beheld, nor the loving-kindness of Jesus' heart is realized; but nothing seen except this dark and impenetrable barrier between God and our souls! We cannot move it. All the preaching in the world cannot stir it, all the praying in the world cannot move it, and all the exertions of the creature cannot alter it. You might as well try to remove London from its place as try to move away the rocky barrier of a hard, unfeeling, impenetrable heart.
But, before Zerubbabel, the spiritual Zerubbabel, the mountain becomes a plain. In one moment, the hard, unfeeling heart that seems shut up in chains of adamantine ice, in one moment, can he make it flow down and dissolve. Did not the church feel this, when she cried, "O, that you would rend the heavens, that you would come down, that the mountains might flow down at your presence?" (Isa. 64:1.) This is the way whereby Zerubbabel removes the mountain of a hard heart. He does not remove the mountain (if I may use the expression) physically, but he makes it dissolve, flow down, and melt into a plain. He softens the heart, (as Job says, "God makes my heart soft," 23:16) and makes it tender and contrite before him.
5. But a thousand DIFFICULTIES, a thousand PERPLEXITIES stand in the way of a soul that fears God. Men devoid of the grace of God, in a fleshly profession of religion, have no difficulties; the constant burden of their song is "What a pleasant thing religion is!" "It never was designed," they quote, "to make our pleasure less." "Cheerful piety, how delightful it is!" is the great song of the day. But if such 'silken holiday professors' knew anything of the difficulties, exercises, temptations, and sorrows that lie in the path of every real Christian, we would not hear so much about cheerful piety, which is often but another name for delusion and hypocrisy.
Look at the rebuilding of the temple by the remnant that returned from Babylon; view the obstacles thrown in the way of its completion; see how the enemies start up at every stop; how the great king sends his commands not to go on with it; how the builders are compelled for many years to desist from putting a single stone upon the walls; what despondency seized the breasts of those that loved Zion to see the place of God's abode desolate; and how indeed they found that prophecy fulfilled that "the wall should be built in troublous times!" (Dan. 9:25.) Had they much "cheerful piety," as they surveyed the unfinished pile?
But does not this DELAY of the work set forth one of the great mountains that the children of God find in their path? The work of grace seems often at a standstill in them. And what a trying path it is to God's people, that, perhaps for thirteen or fourteen years, they cannot trace the hands of the spiritual Zerubbabel to have laid a single stone in their heart, or raised up one clear and striking Ebenezer! This apparently complete suspension of the work makes them often say, "Surely if I were the Lord's, I would feel more than I do! I would have more going on in my soul; I would certainly experience more sorrow, or more joy; more castings down, or more liftings up; more darkness or more light; more striking dealings of the Lord in providence; more manifest testimonies in grace; surely if the Lord were at work on my conscience, I would not be at this standstill for so many years."
But look at the temple. Several years elapsed without a single stone being put upon the walls. The foundation had been laid, and the walls raised to a certain height; but for a long time there was a complete suspension of work. This entire cessation from building, producing hopelessness and despondency in the minds of the people as to its completion, was chiefly "the great mountain" that the Lord declared should be removed. The hands of Zerubbabel would complete what his hands had begun. And we know that this great mountain became a plain—that King Darius issued orders that the temple should be completed, and that he who opposed the work would be hanged, and his house made a ash-hill. (Ezra 6:11.) Thus Zerubbabel literally and actually brought forth the head-stone with the shoutings of those exulting in this manifestations of the Lord's grace and favor who had once sunk into distress and despondency.
But what a mountain is this in the way of God's people! To feel so little faith in exercise, so little love, so little joy, their affections so cold, and so little life and power in their hearts, is indeed at times to a tender conscience a great mountain. "O," says such an one, "that I could feel more! How many sermons do I hear, and not a single word comes with power to my heart! How many chapters I read, and not a verse is applied with sweetness to my soul! How I go on sighing and groaning, and yet seem not to advance one step forward in the heavenly road!"
"Who are you, O great mountain?" the Lord still says by his prophet. "Who are you?" What! Is this mountain too great to be removed? Are these peaks too lofty to flow down at the Lord's presence? "Who are you?" "Before Zerubbabel,"—let him but speak, let him but appear, let him but smile, let him but drop one soft word into the conscience, "before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain."
6. But whatever good thing we try to do—whatever spiritual thing we are engaged in, we are sure to find some mountain or other in the way. When busy in the world, when engaged in business, when occupied with the things of time and sense, there are no difficulties then. You can use your head and hands, and employ your thoughts without interruption; but no sooner does the soul become engaged in spiritual things than a thousand vain thoughts intrude, a thousand worldly things fill the mind; and it seems scarcely possible to be spiritual and heavenly-minded for a single half hour. This apparent (for in the case of the spiritual building of the temple of mercy there is no real) suspension of the Lord's dealings with the soul is indeed a great mountain.
"O," says the poor groaning soul, "if I could but be spiritual, if I were but heavenly minded, if I had more sweet communion with Jesus, if I could see him agonizing under my sins, if I could but have a solemn sight of the Son of God suffering and dying for me! But whenever I try to take up spiritual things, a host of vain and worldly thoughts rush into my mind, and my gadding, roving, roaming, adulterous, idolatrous heart is running everywhere. I cannot read the word; I cannot fix my attention; I cannot understand nor feel what the Bible says; I cannot lift up my heart to God for five minutes, nor is my soul melted by his love. O, what a mountain, what a barrier, what an obstacle there is in the way between God and my soul!"
"Who are you, O great mountain?" How the Lord challenges the mountain to stand forth in all its stature! How he takes a survey of it in every part; he gauges the depth, and measures the height, and looks at it in all its towering bulk, and all its huge dimensions! "Who are you?" What! too great to be removed? too hard and rocky to knocked down! "Before Zerubbabel!" one touch of his finger, one glance from his eye, one word from his lips; let it be the highest mountain, although it be a second Andes, it shall at once "become a plain."
Do not you find it sometimes to be so? Your hard thoughts of God are removed; your doubts and fears take wing and fly away; your carnality and earthliness are for a time dispersed; heavenly affections, spiritual desires, holy breathings, and ardent longings come into your heart; and you feel some embracement of Jesus in the arms of faith, because "before Zerubbabel" this mountain has become a plain.
But some may ask, "Why has the Lord appointed that these mountains should stand up between himself and our hearts?" I will answer this question by another. Why did the Lord permit the temple to be so interrupted by the adversaries of Judah? Was it not his sovereign pleasure that the temple should be rebuilt? Did he not declare that the glory of the latter house should exceed the glory of the former? Did he not mean it to come to pass? Why did he then allow these adversaries to rise up on every hand to stop its completion? To show them these two things, which man cannot learn in any other way:
1. The utter helplessness, complete weakness, and thorough impotency of the creature to everything good.
2. the almighty power of the Lord displayed in removing every obstacle in the way of his will.
People talk of "Almighty God;" "the Almighty" is on everybody's lips; but how few know that he is the Almighty! And the people of God too, though persuaded that he is almighty, and that the spiritual Zerubbabel has "all power in heaven and earth," yet when they come into the slightest difficulty, their faith staggers and gives way, and they cannot believe that he has power or will to deliver. Have you not been in temptations, out of which you believed the Lord himself could not deliver you; at least, if the words did not come from your lips, the thought passed in your heart. Have you not been in trials, out of which you have been confident no good could come? And have you not been in straits and difficulties when it seemed utterly impossible for the Lord to appear? What was all this? Were you not doubting the very omnipotency of God, which is the foremost article of your creed, and secretly saying, "he is not almighty?"
Now, the Lord, to show that he is almighty, causes or permits these mountains to rise up in our paths, that he may have the glory of taking them out of the way; that he may convince us that we have not the least power to remove them ourselves; and when he removes them, that he may get glory to himself; for he is a jealous God, and will not give his glory to another.
Now I would ask those here who know the Lord, have not you ever found the highest mercy to be shown forth in the deepest misery; your clearest deliverances to come out of your sorest temptations; and the greatest power of God to appear in the greatest weakness of the creature? And why is this? In order to convince you, not as a cut and dried article of a Calvinistic creed, but to show you in your very heart of hearts, in the very depths of your conscience, what a poor helpless creature you are in the things of God; and thus to make it plain that the hand of the Lord has done it all.
If there were no mountains of difficulties, perplexities, and obstacles for the soul to be harassed and exercised with, we would not need a Zerubbabel, an almighty Jesus to appear; we would not need the power of God to be put forth in our hearts. We would be satisfied with a sound Calvinistic creed, with a dead formal profession, with a name to live, and merely seeing the truth in the letter. But having these mountains of difficulties, obstacles, perplexities, and exercises, we are brought to feel our need of the almighty power of God experimentally put forth to remove them. And when the Lord does remove them, the soul can give him all the praise and glory. Then "before Zerubbabel" every mountain "becomes a plain."
And if you are a child of God, let these two things be written on your conscience, (God himself in mercy write them there!) you will have a mountain in your way well near every step that you take in the divine life. If you ever were to visit a mountainous country, you would see that it was a continued chain of eminences, so that one is only the introduction to another; that mountain rises after mountain, and peak after peak; so that the whole journey is a succession of mountains. So, spiritually, there will be a succession of mountains in the path of every one who fears God. And you will also find this, that "before Zerubbabel," before the almighty power of Jesus, these mountains will become "a plain." And thus we learn to sink into the depths of self-abasement, and put the crown upon the head of him to whom it alone rightly belongs.
II. "And he shall bring forth the head-stone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it." What is literally meant by these words? Zerubbabel had laid the foundation of the temple; but it had been at a standstill for several years. The Lord, therefore, promises, by his prophet Zechariah, that the hands of Zerubbabel which had laid the foundation should also put on "the head-stone," or the last stone in the roof; and that the temple should stand forth complete, towering in all its beautiful proportions and all its sublime grandeur. This is the historical meaning of the prophecy. But we have a spiritual and experimental meaning couched under it. The spiritual Zerubbabel, Jesus, the Lord of life and glory, whose hands have laid the foundation-stone of grace in the heart, will accomplish the work, and bring forth the head-stone thereof, with shoutings of "Grace, grace unto it."
1. There are two senses in which the spiritual Zerubbabel brings forth the head-stone—one, when Jesus reveals himself with divine power to the soul, and thus completes the spiritual building, making the heart a temple for God to dwell in; for, until Christ is manifested in the conscience, and his love, blood, and grace are sealed with a divine witness upon the heart, the head-stone is not brought forth, nor are there shoutings of "Grace, grace unto it." The building is begun, but not finished; the walls are raised up, but the roof is needed to keep out the wind and weather. The temple is not completed for the Lord of the temple to come in and dwell there until the top-stone is fitted in.
How many of God's dear children are in that state! Zerubbabel has laid the foundation in their conscience; there is a work of grace begun in their heart; there are testimonies, signs, tokens, promises, evidences; yet the head-stone is not brought forth, with shoutings of "Grace, grace unto it." The last stone is not yet laid on; the arch lacks the key-stone; so that they cannot say, "My Lord and my God." And because the headstone is not brought forth with shoutings, they are troubled, distressed, exercised, tossed up and down with fears that they are not "the Lord's building;" for they think that if the work were of the Lord it would have been finished long ago.
But look at the temple! Consider the long time it took to finish. Look at what an interval took place between laying the first stone and putting on the roof. What exercises the spiritual Israel must have had in those days, and how often must the souls of those who loved Zion have sunk within them when they looked at the unfinished walls! Many doubtless were the sighs, cries, and groans that went up from the people of Israel, that the Lord would complete the temple; and many anxious enquiries among themselves, "Shall we ever see the head-stone brought forth? Shall we ever behold the Lord's house completed?"
So spiritually. How many of God's dear people are troubled in their minds, and go on questioning, doubting, and fearing perhaps for years, because they have no clear testimony in their conscience that their sins are pardoned, are unable to cry, "Abba Father!" or say, "the Lord is their God!" But he that has laid the foundation of the temple will also complete it. Shall the heavenly Architect commence and not complete! Shall his enemies ever mock him, and say, "He began to build, and was not able to finish?" (Luke 14:29, 30.) Shall not grace finish what grace began? The promise is express. "Being confident of this very thing, that he which has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." (Phil. 1:6.) The mountain of doubt, fear, unbelief, questionings, perplexities, shall "before Zerubbabel," in his own time and way, "become a plain;" and he will bring forth the head-stone thereof with such sweet revelations of his blood and love that the soul will shout "Grace, grace unto it."
But why is the REPETITION? O there is a sweetness in it. Grace begins the work, and grace completes it. Grace applied the Law, and grace reveals the Gospel; grace killed, and grace makes alive; grace wounded, and grace heals. Grace laid the foundation, and grace brings forth the top-stone. Thus grace reigns first, and grace reigns last; yes, every stone in the temple is laid by the hands of almighty grace. One "grace"— that would not express half the feeling of the soul—"grace, grace" must be redoubled, as though the soul were under the necessity of repeating it—"grace, grace!" for nothing but grace could ever have laid the foundation, and nothing short of grace could ever have brought forth the head-stone.
2. But there is another meaning of the word. For the temple shadowed forth not merely the work of grace upon the heart whereby the bodies of God's people become the temple of the Holy Spirit, but also the whole church of God, who are living stones in that temple, which will one day shine forth in all its beauty and glory, and of which Solomon's temple was but a feeble and imperfect type. Zerubbabel has laid the foundation below, and in each successive soul that he takes to glory there is another living stone laid in the glorious temple above. But the head-stone is not yet brought forth. There are many of the stones yet buried in the quarry; others are being hewed out of the rock, and dug from the hole of the pit; others are being chipped and hacked, to bring them into some fitting shape; and others, already squared and fashioned to occupy their destined place above, are lying for a short time amid the parings, chippings, and rubbish. The head-stone is not yet brought forth with shoutings.
But when the last vessel of mercy shall be safely gathered in, and the great, the glorious, the living temple shall stand forth in all its beautiful proportions and sublime grandeur; when Zerubbabel, the heavenly Architect, who laid the first and each successive stone, brings forth the head-stone, the key-stone of the arch, which binds in the roof and completely fastens the building, the arches of heaven will ring with shoutings; and there will be one universal burst of joy and exultation from the redeemed throng of "Grace, grace unto it."
The sound of good works will not be heard there; creature righteousness will not be extolled there; there will be no discordant clink of man's axe and hammer; there will not be a semi-chorus half round the throne above singing the praises of human piety and creature exertions; but there will be one universal song of harmony, extolling sovereign, superabounding grace.
And if the Lord does not teach us the first note of the song of the Lamb here below, depend upon it, we shall never sing it hereafter. But O, what harmony will come in a full body from the heavenly choir, when there will not be one discordant note, nor one jarring sound, but all will be in sweet melody, and "grace, grace," will still be the song throughout the countless ages of eternity!
But what a deal of exercise and work upon the conscience it takes to make a man feelingly join in that note! What depths of man's depravity must be known as well as heights of redeeming mercy! What an acquaintance is needed with the workings of a fallen nature! What troubles, exercises, perplexities, and temptations has the soul to wade through, and what testimonies and deliverances to experience before it is fit to join in that triumphant song.
Now, if the literal temple had been built up without any trouble whatever; if all had gone on smooth and easy, there would not have been any shouting of "grace, grace," when it was finished. But when they saw how the Lord had brought a few feeble exiles from Babylon; how he had supported them amid, and carried them through all their troubles; and how he who laid the foundation had brought forth the head-stone, all that stood by could say, "Grace, grace unto it." It was these very perplexities and trials that made them join so cheerily in the shout, and made the heart and soul to leap with the lips when they burst forth with "Grace, grace unto it."
And who will shout the loudest hereafter? He who has known and felt the most of the aboundings of sin to sink his soul down into grief and sorrow; and most of the super-aboundings of grace over sin to make him triumph and rejoice. Who will have most reason to sing, "Grace, grace?" The lost and ruined wretch, who has feared that he should go to hell a thousand times over, and yet has been delivered thence by sovereign grace, and brought to the glory and joy of heaven. No other person is fit to join in that song; and I am sure no other will join in it but he who has painfully and experimentally known the bitterness of sin, and the evil of a depraved heart; and yet has seen and felt that grace has triumphed over all, in spite of the devil, in spite of the world, and in spite of himself, and brought him to that blessed place where many times he was afraid he should never come!
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