Travelling to Zion (Psalm 84:5-7)

The background of the psalm is that one of the sons of Korah was unable to be Jerusalem and fulfil his role as one of the doorkeepers at the temple there. He was a Levite, and his heart was in his work there as well as in what took place there in connection with the worship of God by his fellow Israelites. So what did he do? In his isolation, we can see that in verses 1-4 he thought about the worship taking place in the temple; in verses 5-7 he thought about those travelling to the temple (which would be taking place daily) in order to worship their God; in verses 8-10 he prayed for God’s blessing on the work of the priest (God’s anointed) as he led the worship in the temple; and in verses 11 and 12 he comforted himself by thinking how the faithful God helps his people.

This regular travelling to Jerusalem for those feasts by worshippers is often used in the Bible as a picture of believers travelling to the heavenly Zion, and that is how I want to think about verses 5-7 today. As with every journey, there must be a start, and a continuation and an arrival, and these are the three headings that we can consider briefly. The fact is that we all need to make this journey in order to arrive at the right destiny.

The commencement

Every person who is travelling to the heavenly Zion started their journey when they first believed in Jesus through becoming aware of the gospel in some way. Each did not come to believe in Jesus in the same way as others did because often believing in Jesus is connected to a person’s background and the circumstances in which he is in.  Some have been brought up in a Christian home, others may not have heard about Jesus until they were adults. Many are converted when young whereas others discover the way of salvation after a lifetime of sinning. Some may believe after hearing the gospel for the first time and others come to faith after hearing the gospel many times. There are numerous ways of encountering the gospel, yet there are also several experiences that mark them all.

So, in a sense, their different backgrounds and circumstances do not matter that much in the end because whenever a sinner believes in Jesus, he does so because God was at work in his heart, convincing him of his sinnership by the work of the Holy Spirit, and leading him to repent of his sins and to ask God for mercy. The moment of faith may be easily identifiable for some, and it may not be so for others. What matters is that the believer trusts in Jesus, depends upon him alone for salvation, that whatever conviction of sin he went through led him to the Saviour who gladly embraced him and gave him salvation. It is a wonderful commencement. I once heard it likened to the engine thrusts of a plane taking off – the powerful thrusts enable it to fly at great heights.

The continuation

Conversion is when the journey starts, and we can see that those on the journey in the psalm have several prominent features that mark them as different from all other people. One feature is that they have strength from God for each step of the way on their new journey. In what way do they have this divine strength? They have it because the Holy Spirit now indwells them. He is the evidence as well as the consequence of them having come to Jesus.

Several things happened to each of them when they were converted. Some things happened outside of them, such as them being justified by faith before God and accepted by him as righteous through the merits of Jesus, or that they became children of God and were adopted into his family with a right to all the privileges of the sons of God. Other things happened within them, and the major aspect of that internal work is that the Holy Spirit indwells them as their sanctifier. In order to be sanctified, which basically means becoming like Jesus, they need divine power to renew them continually, to enable them to resist sin, to overcome temptations, and to enjoy the good things of the Christian life (such as when Paul prays for the Ephesians to be strengthened in order to know the love of Christ).

A second detail that they have is new heart priorities. In the imagery of the psalm, they are concerned about what will enable them to get to Zion (‘in whose heart are the highways to Zion’). In a literal sense, there would have been more than way for a worshipper to make the journey to Jerusalem. Some would come from the north, from the south, from the east and from the west. And in the Christian life there are various routes that believers should go along as they travel to heaven, because each of the routes is a foretaste of heaven encouraging them to continue on the journey. We call those routes the means of grace. No doubt we are familiar with them. What are they? There is Bible reading, there is prayer, there is fellowship, there are church services, there is the Lord’s Supper, there is meditation. As a believer uses them, he discovers that he gets closer to heaven in his heart. He can even use many of them simultaneously.

The psalmist mentions one of the routes in particular, the route through the Valley of Baca. Maybe there was a literal valley with that name and perhaps it was called that because it was a difficult stretch on the journey, causing travellers to shed tears. Some scholars suggest it was a valley through a desert area, which would not be surprising in the Middle East. Whether there was a literal valley of weeping is unknown, but it is the case that on the journey to heaven there will be desert valleys in which great sadness is found for those travelling to heaven. We may wonder at this, but then we can think of Paul’s summary of his life as sorrowful yet always rejoicing.

What did the travellers have to do as they went through the valley of Baca? They had to dig wells in the barren valley with the hope of finding water. In a real sense, we can see that their sadness made them dig. Yet as they dug, something extraordinary happened. Rain came and filled their holes and turned them into pools. We could say that there was a combination of their digging and divine sending of rain in the provision of water.

I suppose many a traveller wanted to sit down in the Valley of Baca and give up the journey because it was too difficult. Yet the author knew that sitting down and giving up would not take them an inch closer to Zion. They needed to find the water what they needed, and the only way to find water in the valley was for them to dig. We can find ourselves frequently in the equivalents of the Valley of Baca. We can be there for lots of reasons: our own sins, the sins of others, the smallness of the church, the few who respond to the gospel. When that happens, we need to dig. The question is, where do we dig?

Here are some suggestions. We should dig into the attributes of our great God. Who is our God? He is the God of mercy, the God of love, the God of grace, the God who can provide richly. We should dig into the Word of God and there we will find that other people have had their troubles in their spiritual travels. We will even discover that some of them realised that God was the source of their trouble – he gave them tears of sorrow instead of bread to eat despite them trying to serve him. We should dig into the promises of the Bible and when we do we will find that often they were originally given to sorrowful people, such as the discouraged disciples in the Upper Room  to whom Jesus said that in his Father’s House were many rooms. We can even dig into the character of Christ because when he was here he was the Man of Sorrows, and we will wonder whether he would share our sorrow if he were on earth today. No doubt there are many more suitable sites to dig.

An extraordinary thing then happens as illustrated by the rain in the verse. Those diggings we have made into the attributes of God, into the Word of God, into the promises of God, and into the character of Jesus may be filled with rain from heaven as the Holy Spirit provides us with heavenly consolation that is fresh and stimulating in a spiritual manner. Such divine consolation comes with great power because the Psalmist indicates that strength was given to the travellers to continue on the journey. Indeed, he indicates that much strength was given to them.

There have been many diggers in the history of the church who knew where to go when they found themselves in the valley of Baca. Take Rutherford’s Letters written by a man exiled to Aberdeen for his faith in Christ. Or Spurgeon’s sermons preached by a man who struggled with depression on numerous days. Or Boston’s books written by a man whose wife also suffered from depression throughout their married life. There are many from the past who can show us how to dig in the right places, and they reached Zion. In fact, the valley of Baca is a common experience as far as the people of God are concerned.

In any case, sorrow should not be surprising. The world we live in is a vale of tears. Paul, as we noted, said that he was sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Jesus said many wonderful words to his disciples in the Upper Room. Among them are these: ‘But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart’ (John 16:6). What is wonderful about that statement is that Jesus knew how much sorrow they had, and even his suggestion that they shared it (your heart, singular). And what he knew about them he also knows about us – everything. But he knows it not merely as bare awareness.

The Completion

At the end of the journey is God. Heaven is the place of rest and joy where troubles are over forever for its residents. There, in the Father’s House, we will have our personal place in the room that Jesus has provided for us. In heaven, God will reveal what he has done with our tears that he has collected in his bottle (and none of them have evaporated, and they will not until he wipes away the tears from our eyes). There will be eternal bliss in the land that is fairer than day. There they will be with all of God’s people in the new creation and we will see the King in his beauty in the land of endless dimensions. Eternal consolation from the triune God is the endless portion of God’s people.

The Challenge

We have reached the last day of the year. Obviously, it is a time for reflection, to look back and to look ahead, although we should look up as we look back or ahead. Perhaps some of us began it unconverted and are ending it in the same way. It would be wise for such to seek the Lord, to begin the journey to heaven, and that can even happen before the new year comes tomorrow. Obviously, as a congregation you have found yourselves in a sad and difficult situation this year. You are in a valley, but in the valley given to you, you need to dig in the right places in order to find heavenly strength and consolation. At the same time, it is important for you to ensure that you are walking in the highways to Zion.