-J. Wilbur

Scene 1

God's Sure Foundation

The old wall is gone. That which divided Israel from the nations, the law of Moses, is gone. In Christ Jesus there is no longer a division between Jew and Gentile, “for there is no difference: For all have sinned… .”

The trouble with walls, though (especially old walls), is that once people get used to them, they can’t bear to be without them.

In the days before its destruction, the old wall had become very precious to Israel. In fact, it became more valuable to some than the God who built it.

Even today that old wall, that God had built and utterly broken down through Christ, still stands firm in the minds of His ancient people. That wall is now nothing but a monument to men; a relic of a time long past; a ruin, for it was weak through the flesh.

They wail at their wall today, calling for the Messiah to come who already came. He tabernacled among them,

... and they would not.

"He came unto His own and His own received Him not."

That great wall that God had built was meant to keep the nations out. But now, it has become a dungeon only keeping the Jews in. That wall, old and decayed, now serves only to veil the glory of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, from those chained within (2 Cor 3).

They won’t look to the law in which they glory, for if they did, they would see that it identifies Jesus of Nazareth, and no other. “Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me.”

He alone fulfilled the prophesies of the law and He alone upheld the standard of the law. And now, it is He who in accordance with that law has broken it down to build a better wall.

“Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?” Israel still, inside their wall, maintains a monument to the Name of God - but there is no glory. They have a name, and are dead.

But the crucified Christ has a Name, and is alive. He rose from the dead and sits at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

“He has a name which is above every name.” At His Name “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess … that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”

His glorious Name is Lord!

And this Lord of glory is the sure foundation of God’s eternal plan. The Savior of sinners is the rock on which God’s better wall rests. He is the protection for His New Testament sons. And “other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

This foundation is not made of man’s obedience to law, but a man’s obedience to death: Jesus Christ the righteous. Its strength is not in earthly priests who die, but in a heavenly Priest who lives forever to give mercy.

 

Scene 2

God's Enduring Mercy

“And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. … the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language…”
(Acts 2:5-6).

No longer confusion as at Babel. There, man was prevented from reaching up to heaven. And as his language was confounded, man was divided into every nation under heaven.

But Jesus Christ is Lord.

He, a man, has reached all the way to heaven.

After the ascension of the man, Jesus, into heaven, men gathered from every nation under heaven to the city God had built, Jerusalem. There, they heard the wonderful works of God proclaimed in their own languages. Confusion no longer!

But, what of this message they heard? These were the very men guilty of Christ’s crucifixion just fifty days earlier. In a mob frenzy they had called out in an ignorant rage against their almighty Creator. “Crucify Him. Crucify Him. We have no king but Caesar,” they said.

Peter explained to them in clear language on this Pentecost, “Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God … Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:”

What fear was struck in the hearts of those men! They had rejected their God! What hope could there be? The prophet Joel was clear. The signs witnessed by them would be followed by that “great and notable day of the Lord.”

Judgment. Quick and severe judgment. Such judgment to which the world had never before been subjected. Blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke. The sun darkened. The moon turned to blood. What terror! They had rejected their only Savior!

With intense desperation they cried out as they were pricked in their heart, “men and brethren, what shall we do?”

The answer: “whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

That day, three thousand souls did just that. They repented and were baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. Three-thousand souls were saved from the “untoward [corrupt] generation.”

Three thousand Jewish souls found amazing grace as they trusted and identified with the crucified-risen Lord Jesus Christ. Who could deserve God’s wrath more than those guilty of His Son’s murder? Yet they found only His ever-enduring mercy.

“Mercy there was great and grace was free; pardon there was multiplied to me; There my burdened soul found liberty, At Calvary.”

 

Scene 3

God's Infinite Strength

The flesh was the essential flaw in the old wall (the law). Natural man is not able to meet God’s standard. He simply has no power to obey. “If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.” The law is good but man is not.

No. If remaining in Christ depends on the strength of the flesh, men have no chance. The law of Moses had proven that. All that the Lord hath said, men cannot nor will do. What hope then is there for man?

Joshua said, “Ye cannot serve the Lord: for he is an holy God … .”

Israel in confidence responded without hesitation, “Nay; but we will serve the Lord. … The Lord our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey.”

Centuries later, Babylon had risen to execute God’s judgment against His disobedient people, Israel. Failure after failure in Israel’s later history of self-confidence ended with their national sovereignty removed.

Gentile Babylon had risen, had risen!

What guarantee had those three thousand souls saved at Pentecost that they would not be removed from Christ if they failed?

It was a cold, dark night indeed when Peter, an apostle of the Lord Himself, was confronted by a young girl. Before her, he denied the Lord outright, even swearing that he never knew Him!

O, how Peter failed. Earlier that night, in his self-confidence, he loudly exclaimed how he would even die for the Lord. Then in the garden, he drew the sword, and in his tired emotional state swung wildly, lopping off the ear of a man. And here, at the question of a maiden, he denied his God! As Israel of old, his spirit was willing, but his flesh was weak.

What hope then is there for the people of God still weak in their flesh?

Jesus said to Peter before any of it happened, “behold, Satan hath desired to have you, … But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not…”

It is the intercessory strength alone of the living Lord that can be relied upon. He is the Great High Priest, the Son of God, the Rock upon which the Church rests.

“And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. … And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.”

Peter was restored and maintained by the strength of the Lord. Never must one in Christ be concerned about principalities or powers (like Babylon) ever removing him from “the love of God, which is in Christ.”

He is protected as long as the Lord Jesus is at the right hand of the Father. For, “…He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.”

O how we fail our Lord continually.

“O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

“I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

 

Scene 4

God's New Wall

The middle wall of partition is gone; that which is decayed and has waxed old has vanished away. But, there is another wall erected, a monumental wall. A wall big enough to encompass those out of every tribe, nation, and tongue, whosoever will believe; a living wall inside of which God Himself dwells.

This new wall began with one called out from behind the old wall. One day, outside the city of Jerusalem, an Israelite passionately proud of the old wall heard a voice from heaven. “Saul, why do you persecute me?”

At that point, Saul was yet under bondage with his people, Israel. He was chained tightly to that fallen wall. His present task, in fact, was to find Israelites who had been freed from those chains through faith in Christ and to bring them back to Jerusalem – bound.

The voice came from amidst a blindingly glorious light. Saul, left without strength, fell to the ground. From there he answered in fear,

“Who art thou, Lord?”

"I am JESUS whom thou persecutest."

said the voice out of that light from heaven.

The God of glory had appeared unto Abraham so many years before to call him out from among the nations to form Israel.

Now, the Glory of God appeared to Saul to call him out from among the nation of Israel to go to all nations with the message of freedom and reconciliation to God.

It was Saul (Paul) that God chose to build the new wall on the foundation of Christ. This time, a wall that will never fall, for it does not rest upon flesh.

Now men from out of every nation of the earth are brought into the unity of the faith – to stand “a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”

They are “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”

This wall is not made with tablets of stone: law. This wall is alive, made of all who rest in the saving protection of its foundation, the Lord Jesus Christ: grace. This wall is built on God’s gospel in Christ Jesus and is the dividing line between saint and sinner – in His church now and for all eternity. Let every believer now build upon this holy foundation gold, silver, and precious stones – for this wall has an eternal destiny with glory.

“Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God.” ...

 

Scene 5

God's Eternal Monument

“and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon Him my new Name.”

Behold!

The fulfillment of the ages:

God's eternal monument!

“And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them … .'”

Behold that great city, the Holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.

And look, it has a wall!

The wall of the city had twelve gates, and the names written thereon were the names of the twelve tribes of the children Israel. It had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

“And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones.”

Babel had its city and tower to reach to heaven. Jericho had its great walls. Israel had its law. They became monuments of:

confusion, arrogance and failure!

Now, the end will come when all things will be shaken, “but you have come ... unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem… a kingdom which cannot be moved ... .” Inside this city there shall never be division. The walls of it shall never fall. And the inhabitants of it shall never fail their God.

In this city, within its walls, there will be “no need of the sun, neither the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the lamb is the light thereof."

And “the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it.” This is the Light of Glory that fulfills God’s ancient promise to Abraham for the nations!

Christ’s beloved bride will be eternally protected within the walls of His city forever. Outside, beyond the wall, will be all that would harm God’s new creation - all that rejected Him. “There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

O so very many will forever remain on the dark, outer side of this eternal wall. So many even of Israel, who cling to the rot of the old wall, their monument, will wail behind its darkness forever. “All day long I have streched forth my hands” – but they would not.

The new Jerusalem in all its shimmering, jeweled, living beauty is the Lamb’s bride. She is God’s eternal monument of those who over the ages would!

This monument will forever radiate that God is love, for the giving of His Son has produced a holy race; that He cares, for there is no more pain or death; that He is just, for evil is punished. Indeed, He has done it all to eternally exhibit the deep riches of His wisdom and knowledge in the rejected Lamb, Jesus the Lord.

The eternal purpose of God is fulfilled. All opposition is put down. The Lamb will not be wed to a whore.

“Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen!”

The Lord Jesus Christ with His bride is risen, is risen! He loved her. He saved her. She is like Him. She is one flesh in Him. And she is with Him–for she is His.

“It is done!”

“Even so, come Lord Jesus!”