The Vision of the Tabernacle |
The Outer Court of the Tabernacle |
The books of Ezra and Nehemiah record the events of one of the most important moments in the kingdom of Judah: the recovery of the temple and the city of Jerusalem after the seventy years of captivity in Babylon. The historical facts that are recorded there represent the most important thing God is doing today on the earth: recovering His church, especially concerning what it says regarding the boundary.
There is no record of any action of Satan against the Jews who were captives in Babylon. Apparently the Jews were living in a very peaceful and prosperous way in spite of being in an idolatrous country, which in the Bible represents the worst spiritual and physical opposition to God (cf. Rev. 17-18). Nevertheless, from the time that a group of Jews decided to return to recover the holy city and its temple, God’s enemy began to raise up every kind of difficulty and opposition. Today’s situation is exactly the same: the main battle between God and Satan is related to the matter of the oneness of the church. More and more, Christians are divided and are mutually excluding one another, while God is trying to bring all His children back to the ground of oneness: one city, one church.
The book of Ezra records the return of some Jews from the captivity in Babylon who were stirred up to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem (1:1-5). When the foundations of the temple were laid, “many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, the old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice…and many shouted aloud for joy. So that the people could not discern the sound of the shout of joy from the sound of the weeping of the people; for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the sound was heard far away” (3:12-13).
God’s enemy, being dissatisfied with this, raised up adversaries: “Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah and troubled them in building” (4:4). At that point the work was paralyzed for nearly eighteen years! In order for the rebuilding to continue, God raised up the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to encourage the people and begin the work again.
The temple was finally restored and the Jews returned to worship God in it. However, there was still a problem: their enemies could enter freely into the city and the temple because the walls of the city were still broken down.
In 445 B.C., about thirteen years after Ezra returned to Jerusalem from Babylon, Nehemiah, who was the cupbearer of king Artaxerxes, was in Babylon. When he heard that the walls of Jerusalem were still broken down, Nehemiah was exceedingly grieved and had the desire to be sent to rebuild Jerusalem (Neh. 1:3-4; 2:5). He made his desire known to the king who was pleased to send him, and Nehemiah left for the holy city (2:1-6).
The walls of a city not only indicate the boundary, but also the government. The absence of the walls indicates that there was no government or authority; it was a “no man’s land” where anyone could come in to influence the people. For this reason, the work of rebuilding the walls, which was headed up by Nehemiah, was very much attacked by various people who were stirred up by Satan. In order to rebuild the walls and at the same time defend themselves against attacks, half of Nehemiah’s servants did the work, while the other half took up arms: “those who built the wall and those who carried burdens took the loads with one hand doing the work and with the other holding a weapon,” and, “the builders, each had his sword strapped to his side, and so they built” (4:16-18). This shows that to build the church of God is, in reality, to be involved in a fight against Satan.
The church has a similar experience in many cities. When some brothers who have received a revelation of the church from God decide to meet to bear the testimony of the oneness of God’s people simply as the church in their city, with no special name and no hierarchy, they are immediately attacked and criticized. If they would decide to start a free group, a new “church,” there would be no problem. But because they declare that they are meeting only as the church in their city, all kinds of attacks come upon them. However, because they are built on the ground of oneness, the enemy will not be able to triumph over them. God’s building, the church, has a boundary, which is the city where it is, and if we stand firmly on this ground, Satan will not be able to enter to damage the building.
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