Walls

"Men today are used to death. It is accepted. God, who hasn’t changed, will never do so. Nor in what is labeled “sovereignty” by some, allow the walls to die just because He’s God."

WE ARE A defective, decaying wall which begs for restoration. We desire it yet set our wish aside to seek the betterment of the walls around us. This is the gospel plan. We build their walls while surrendering ours, and so they shine, though we are unremarkable.

Jesus was King, yet He rode upon a donkey. Those far beneath Him, as dead and decaying, held chariots in their grasp. He had no place to lay His head, a largely figurative statement, but they dined in palaces along paved streets. Rome was known for its highways and incredible engineering. Still today, men marvel at their accomplishments. Similarly, Israel had had the most elaborate temple, a true wonder of the world, in King Solomon’s lifetime. Egypt had wonders of gold carved and pressed to adorn the dead. They worshiped shapes formed with their hands when He who’d created their hands would surrender His to be torn.

He became the defective, decaying wall in order to build a palace worth more than all this earth’s buildings combined. God set the pattern in the tabernacle described to Moses, and looking further back, Noah built the ark as described by God. The ark of the covenant with the mercy seat was God’s, as well, and the temple built according to God’s design. Is it ironic then that when Jesus was born, His father was a carpenter?

God had laid out the dispersion of Cannan to each one of the tribes. He’d inspired Cyrus a foreign king to fund the rebuilding of Jerusalem, which ironically for this included the walls. But they built them with one hand and held a sword in the other, so embattled was the task they’d come home to take on. And their Messiah, some many years later, learned to craft things from stone, the more true meaning of carpenter in Nazareth of Judea. He built walls with His father, then built walls for His Father. Only these last ones were living, walls that grew upward on the wind of the Spirit, the power of God which had created all things.

In the beginning, far back before-Before, He’d designed trees with their fruits to replenish themselves. Except unless a seed dies it remains alone, and there was no death (John 12:24). The seed lived, and in Jesus, the Seed died because death had come to us all. God who couldn’t die made Himself able to die and in dying gave life.

Men today are used to death. It is accepted. God, who hasn’t changed, will never do so. Nor in what is labeled “sovereignty” by some, allow the walls to die just because He’s God and thus undo what He’s done to make us alive to Him. Life and death are in the power of the tongue. God spoke life so that we might live, and His Words have never died, but they go forth and accomplish, still today, all that He’s sent them to do. From nothing He made the trees. From a tree, He made a stone. From the stone, He made walls. He made us, a temple whose only veil is the one torn from top to bottom the moment life came and death lost.

“And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20)

• Foxes, a fox, that is, (figuratively) a cunning person.
• Holes, a burrow or lurking place: - hole.
• Birds, see Mark 4:4, where the fowls of the air stole the seed of the Word
• Nests, from a word meaning “to camp down” and “to haunt.”
• Lay, to slant or slope, that is, incline or recline (literally or figuratively).

The fox is the devil, who lurked to crucify Him. The birds are the Pharisees who haunted the temple, not seeing the presence of God that had been in it now anointed Jesus, their Messiah. Remember also Jesus’ words to them about their mistreatment of those they were meant to serve. Lastly, Jesus did not come to lay down His head but to place it on the altar.

Image by Daniel Nebreda from Pixabay


----------
Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com