Build The Walls

"My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. Do good by your favor, to Zion, build up the walls... then will you delight in sacrifices of righteousness,"1

Those who wish to offer pleasing sacrifices to God, must at first be sanctified, in the inward parts. This inward change leads to outward change or transformation, this is the divine service of each believer, "to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and well pleasing to God, which is your divinely reasonable service."2 This divinely reasonable service is that which is well pleasing to God, what is logical to God, it is first and foremost. What good are other sacrifices, tithing, giving, good works if I do not offer this sacrifice of reasonable service? 

"Create in me a clean heart, O God,and renew a right spirit within me."3

David knew what God desired, "Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,"5 Jesus said he had guarded the disciples, phulassó, properly, preserve by "having an eye on." He prayed for the Father not to remove them from this world but that He would sanctify them. "Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth."6 This was the cry of David, purge me and I shall be clean, wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 

"that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,"7

Paul writes Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her so that he might sanctify her, by the washing of His word.11 Jesus is the Word, that created all things in the beginning, he is the author of faith whereby it is possible to please God, thus through the washing, cleansing, of the Word we are being sanctified, made white as snow. David knew what God desired, "For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering." Sanctify me and "Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you."8

“Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.”9

John was carried away "to a mountain great and high," and was shown "the holy city of Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. Shining with the glory of God." John then describes a city, as if the city is the bride. Now, the Church is called the bride of Christ and as Paul writes we are living stones in a spiritual temple rising up to God. "I saw no temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple." Christ is the Light. This city has a foundational wall built upon the apostles, like the Church being founded upon the apostles.

"The wall of the city had twelve foundations bearing the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb."10 
 
This city also has twelve gates of pearls. Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant who finds a very precious pearl and gives away all to posses it. To enter the pearly gates of the kingdom of heaven one must forsake the treasures of this earth. Not all will enter the kingdom of heaven, which is like a dragnet that caught all kinds, the good and the bad, the good will be separated from the bad. "And into the city will be brought the glory and honor of the nations, nothing unclean will ever enter it." The glory and honor of all nations, speaks of the Church. All nations are blessed in Christ, the blessed from these will enter the city, those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.12

"Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God."14

The walls of the city are adorned with twelve jewels, like the breast piece worn by the high priest in the earthly temple. The twelve gates bear the name of the sons of the twelve tribes of Israel but the walls are founded upon, the twelve apostles. There is no sun in this city as the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its lamp. "By its light the nations will walk, and into it the kings of the earth will bring their glory." Paul writes, the Church has Christ the foundation stone and is founded upon the twelve apostles and prophets.

"For the LORD has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his dwelling place:"15

The new is not as the old, the old being a shadow of things to come. Those of old worshiped God in the flesh, "to a mountain that can not be touched and that is burning with fire..." Those of the new worship Christ, the Lion of Judah, on the throne of David. In the new "You have come to myriads of angels in joyful assembly, to the congregation of the firstborn, enrolled in heaven. You have come to God the judge of all men, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel."

"Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls..."16 

Build the walls, build the body. The Church is founded on the apostles, as is the walls of the city, founded upon the twelve apostles. Paul writes, each person is a living stone in the Church thus in the wall. In each person dwells the Spirit of God, thus each is a living stone being "placed" in the wall. The whole being built up into a dwelling place of God. Built up, by "placing" living stones in this temple. This is not a numerical thing, God desires a bride worthy of the groom, the presenting of the body, sanctified, cleansed, holy, a bride worthy. It is a sanctified Church that will teach sinners your ways so they will return to you. So Lord we pray, your Church, wash and cleanse, "sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth."17