Acts 1:12,13

THE UPPER CHAMBER

12, 13. The walled city of Jerusalem is a quadrangle about twice as long from east to west as wide from north to south. The population is now estimated at fifty thousand, the city without the wall containing the same, though occupying a much larger territory and growing rapidly, as the space within the wall is all densely filled up, crammed and crowded. The walled city stands on a great mountainous table-land, the four prominences of which are Mount Zion, in the southwest; Mount Moriah, in the southeast; Mount Bazetha, in the northeast, and Mount Akra, in the northwest. Jerusalem is by nature the most impregnably fortified city on the globe, the Almighty with His own hand having prepared the site, high up on those great mountains, environed by the deep mountain gorges, designated the valleys of Gihon, Hinnom, Jehoshaphat, and Kidron, completely encompassing the city (really constituting one continuous abyss on all sides except the north). Hence invading armies in all ages have been utterly unable to approach the city except from the north. As it is the city of the Heavenly King, all the kings of the earth in all ages, conscious of the rivalry between this fallen world and heaven, have always held a grudge against Jerusalem and done their utmost to destroy it. Therefore Jerusalem has stood seventeen sieges and been destroyed seven times. After the Romans destroyed it, A. D. 73, the emperors, who were loyal worshipers of Jupiter, Apollo, Venus, Minerva, Diana and other Roman gods, and implacable enemies both to the Jewish and Christian religion, did their utmost to exterminate not only the existence but even the memory of Jerusalem from the annals of the world. Hence the Emperor Adrian in the second century dropped the very name “Jerusalem,” founded a Roman colony on the site, and named it Elia Capitolina, thus obliterating the very memory of God's holy city. Two hundred years rolled away with no city on the earth called Jerusalem. When the Emperor Constantine, A. D. 325, was converted to Christianity, he and his queenly mother Helena went to Jerusalem and undertook its restoration, restoring the name and doing their utmost to identify the hallowed spots so dear and sacred to every Christian heart. Mount Olivet, east of Jerusalem, across the valleys of Jehoshaphat and Kidron, is the highest in all that region, being two hundred feet higher than Zion, Moriah, Bazenta and Akra on which Jerusalem stands. The city is so densely built as to disqualify the explorer from seeing much of it while within the walls. From the summit of Mount Olivet we enjoy a most capacious and satisfactory view of the whole city. When our Savior ascended into heaven from the summit of this mountain, pursuant to His emphatic mandate, positively prohibiting the disciples from their long cherished privilege of the world's evangelization till they received the Pentecostal enduement of the Holy Ghost and fire, they returned to Jerusalem, “a Sabbath day's journey”; i. e., three quarters of a mile.

Entering through the east wall, they travel on through the whole length of the city to that favorite upper chamber on Mt. Zion, in the southwest corner of the city, which memories had already hallowed, because Jesus had there so frequently edified them in His wonderful Bible-school. In this upper chamber not only the twelve apostles, but one hundred and eight disciples, male and female, assembled. Among them, the mother of Jesus and His brothers.