LET US GO INTO THE HOUSE OF THE LORD

The psalmist’s desire narrowed from the outside of the city Jerusalem, to being within her gates and walls, and then to be in Jerusalem’s centre, the house of the Lord. The house came first, and then the city, vv. 1, 2; the house came first, leading to the good of the city, v. 9.

It was essential to go into the house of the Lord, to the place “whither the tribes go up … to give thanks”, v. 4. Even before the tabernacle had been built, the command was given, “Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord God”, Exod. 23. 14-17. Forty years later this was defined as “his habitation”, and “the place which the Lord your God shall choose”, Deut. 12. 5. In David’s time, this was to the tent containing the ark on mount Zion; in Solomon’s time, this was to mount Moriah on which the temple was built; when the Lord was here, Herod’s temple (arkless and disowned by God) was the place of gathering at the usual feasts of the Passover and Pentecost.

In this day of grace, it is not to temples made with hands that believers are glad to enter. The house of God is now the church of the living God, 1 Tim. 3. 15, and believers should be glad to gather in the Lord’s Name to serve Him. Thus they were “assembled together” for prayer, Acts 4. 31; they “assembled themselves together with the church” for teaching, 11. 26; they “gathered the church together” for a missionary meeting, 14. 27; the apostles and elders “came together” to discuss and decide an important issue, 15. 6; they “gathered the multitude together” for a Bible Study meeting, 15. 30; and they “came together to break bread”, namely to partake of the Lord’s Supper, 20. 7. Are we glad to assemble together?

Yet in the O.T. there was weakness. Many in the northern kingdom refused the invitation to come to Jerusalem for the passover; they mocked the messengers with the invitation, 2 Chron. 30. 10. Later, the house of God was forsaken by the Levites, Neh. 13. 11. No wonder there is the exhortation in Hebrews 10. 25, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is”.

“They continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayers”, Acts 2. 42.