And then, if we be asked, How can we be certain of being around God's centre? we reply, Simply by the Word of God. How could Israel of old be sure as to God's chosen place for their assembly? By His express commandment. Were they at any loss for guidance? Surely not. His word was as clear and as distinct as to their place of worship as it was in reference to every thing else. It left not the slightest ground for uncertainty. It was so plainly set before them that for any one to raise a question could only be regarded as willful ignorance or positive disobedience.
Now, the question is, Are Christians worse off than Israel in reference to the great subject of their place of worship, the centre and ground of their assembly? Are they left in doubt and uncertainty? Is it an open question? Is it a matter as to which every man is left to do what is right in his own eyes? Has God given us no positive, definite instruction on a question so intensely interesting and so vitally important? Could we imagine for a moment that the One who graciously condescended to instruct His people of old in matters which we, in our fancied wisdom, would deem unworthy of notice, would leave His Church now without any definite guidance as to the ground, centre, and characteristic features of our worship? Utterly impossible! Every spiritual mind must reject, with decision and energy, any such idea.
No, beloved Christian reader; you know it would not be like our gracious God to deal thus with His heavenly people. True, there is no such thing now as a particular place to which all Christians are to betake themselves periodically for worship. There _was_ such a place for God's earthly people, and there _will be_ such a place for restored Israel and for all nations by and by. "It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and _all nations_ shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for _out of Zion_ shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." (Is. ii.) And again, "It shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. And it shall be that whoso will not come up of _all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem_ to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, even upon them shall be no rain." (Zech. xiv. 16, 17.)
Here are two passages culled, one from the first, and the other from the last but one of the divinely inspired prophets, both pointing forward to the glorious time when Jerusalem shall be God's centre for Israel and for all nations. And we may assert, with all possible confidence, that the reader will find all the prophets, with one consent, in full harmony with Isaiah and Zechariah on this profoundly interesting subject. To apply such passages to the Church, or to heaven, is to do violence to the clearest and grandest utterances that ever fell on human ears; it is to confound things heavenly and earthly, and to give a flat contradiction to the divinely harmonious voices of prophets and apostles.
It is needless to multiply quotations. All Scripture goes to prove that Jerusalem was, and will yet be, God's earthly centre for His people, and for all nations; but _just now_--that is to say, from the day of Pentecost, when God the Holy Ghost came down to form the Church of God, the body of Christ, until the moment when our Lord Jesus Christ shall come to take His people away out of this world--there is no place, no city, no sacred locality, no earthly centre, for the Lord's people. To talk to Christians about holy places, or consecrated ground, is as thoroughly foreign to them (at least, it ought to be) as it would have been to talk to a Jew about having his place of worship in heaven. The idea is wholly out of place, wholly out of character.
If the reader will turn for a moment to the fourth chapter of John, he will find, in our Lord's marvelous discourse with the woman of Sychar, the most blessed teaching on this subject. "The woman saith unto Him, 'Sir, I perceive that Thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.' Jesus saith unto her, 'Woman, believe Me; the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father _seeketh_ such to worship Him. God is a spirit, and they that worship Him _must_ worship Him in spirit and in truth.'" (Ver. 19-24.)