Nehemiah 12:31 - 43; Isaiah 26:1 - 4; John 12:49, 50; 1 John 2:3 - 6;

Revelation 21:10 - 14, 18 - 21.

I wish to say a word about the wall of the city. We know that it bears on the question of fellowship but an outstanding thing connected with it is comfort. We have spoken of peace, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee", and in that setting it says, "In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city. Salvation doth he appoint for walls and bulwarks". This speaks of security and comfort. We have spoken of the service of the Holy Spirit, He is the Comforter. What should we do without His service? We should have no comfort at all, the flesh would get the better of us every day, we should be miserable slaves to the law of sin which is in our members. But the Lord Jesus came to set the captive free. It would not be like God to forgive us our sins and yet leave us here as captives of sin. So He has given us the Holy Spirit that we might be here in daily victory and thus deliverance is preached to the captives. "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death". In Romans 7 you have a miserable captive "O wretched man that I am". He was conscious of complete captivity to the law of sin, and could not rescue himself. God does not leave us like that. As to condemnation, there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus; our place above is secure, and, through the Holy Spirit, there is victory down here.

The mind of the Spirit is life and peace. Thus our minds are stayed on God. Think of the great presentation of God in Isaiah 26. "In Jah, Jehovah, is the Rock of Ages", verse 4. How wonderfully the

Spirit of God brings those two names together, Jah and Jehovah. How blessed to have our minds stayed on the Rock of Ages; What a glorious view of God! Jah, I suppose, is the Name which suggests more than any other His absolute existence, and Jehovah, which suggests the way He has come into time to carry out His purpose and to meet us in our need and set us free.

Now I want to speak of comfort, because the word Nehemiah means "comfort of Jehovah", and the one who brought the comfort of Jehovah to the people, was the man who rebuilt the wall. There is no sense of comfort or security while the wall is in ruins and, if we tend to have a sense of insecurity at the present time and a certain amount of disintegration, you can depend upon it, it is because the wall is not there as it should be. If you want to get comfort instead of distraction and fear, see to the wall. While the wall was down, and everything of the city laid bare to the attacks of the enemy, how could there be any comfort? But when the wall was rebuilt, there was such a state of comfort that the joy of Jerusalem was heard afar off. In Acts 2 there was the greatest expression of joy there has ever been in Jerusalem. But there was also a great expression of joy in Nehemiah 12 and, because of the comfort, God's praise was unhindered. The singers sang loud. It is good when people's hearts are so at peace, and so comforted, that they sing loud. The priests were there with their trumpets in the house of God. There was no fear of attack for the wall was up, and the gates were functioning. They had peace and unity. The two choirs in unity; administration and privilege in perfect accord, for the first choir, as we know suggests the line of privilege, and the second choir the line of administration and responsibility. There was, typically a great administration of grace, because, by the second choir, the ground covered was the fish

gate, the sheep gate, the tower of Hananeel which means 'God is gracious', and the tower of Meah which speaks of a hundred-fold. And, although they stopped in the prison gate, even that is grace because, in this dispensation, if prison has to be resorted to, it is always in view of recovery.

So it represents the great administration of grace, beginning with the tower of the furnaces which we are very glad of. All that we learn to detest as partakers of the divine nature, has been burnt up, in that sense, when Christ vicariously took our place and bore the all-consuming judgment of God; and we are glad to begin our administration on that basis, namely that we are in accord with God's judgment. It is the tower of furnaces; we make a tower of them, that is, it is to be an outstanding thing never to be forgotten, that we begin all administration on the basis of God's unsparing judgment of the flesh which we learn experimentally in Romans 7 and 8. We learn it in ourselves and bring it to bear on all administrative matters. That makes way for the flow of grace. So you see how the people were at peace, how the people were comforted; God had His portion and there was a testimony to men. Now we need comfort, we need peace.

"Peace, perfect peace in this dark world of sin" -- says a well-known hymn. Is it possible? It is possible. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee", and "we have a strong city; salvation doth he appoint for walls and bulwarks". On the day of the dedication of the wall they offered great sacrifices and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy. There were great sacrifices for God, there was great joy for the people, and the joy of Jerusalem was heard afar off. The women and the children rejoiced.

Now we Christians have a strong city, we belong to it, it is our city; but it is not in actual manifestation

yet. That is why we need to go to Revelation 21 to see what our strong city is. We walk in the light of the former and the latter glory. We look back to Pentecost but we cannot get back to Pentecost, there cannot be recovery to that. But we look on to the future, we are already fellow citizens, as belonging to the heavenly Jerusalem, it is ours, and it is a strong city too. So we govern ourselves by the light of the former glory -- Pentecost, and the latter glory of Revelation 21. As we walk in that light we get the support of the Spirit, and we shall find divine principles will work in our day; and we shall not lack peace and comfort.

Before I come to that I want to refer for a moment to the Lord Jesus, because His words as to commandment in John 10 and John 12 are most striking, and lest there should be a fear of even taking such a word on our lips. We may even get the idea that commandment only applies in the Old Testament, but that now we are freelances, not under command at all, because we are not under law, but under grace. When we speak of commandments, do not think of legality. John's writings are full of the idea of commandment and there was never a man less legal than John, I would say. The one who knew love so well, spoke most about commandment. The great feature of Christian commandment is that "His commandments are not grievous". The moment something is brought to bear which falls grievously on simple and godly people, you can be sure it is not from God. God's commandments are of such a kind that the divine nature in a Christian immediately responds, so that you say, 'That is excellent, that is just what I would like to be, just what I would like to do'. So the Lord Jesus is the great example of the One who kept commands. "If ye shall keep My commandments ye shall abide in My love, as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love".

"Lo, I come", He says, "to do Thy will, O God". The Lord was under command from the very outset, all through His life and until He laid His life down, which proves there is no question of legality about it. The commandments of God are a necessity from God's point of view because they are love's necessity, and God is love. If they are needful for God, then they are needful for me in two ways. First, because they are needful for me in themselves, and secondly, I could not contemplate the idea of displeasing God. I want to do everything that would give Him joy and pleasure. So at the close of His public service the Lord Jesus shows how completely He kept His Father's commandments. "I have not spoken from Myself but the Father Who sent Me has Himself given Me commandment what I should say and what I should speak". Think of the Lord's life here, He did not speak from Himself. Think of the days of His flesh, day after day, speaking the word of God from morning till night, and never speaking from Himself. As the Father gave Him command, so He spoke. Now, if our very words were under command, it is certain our acts and our footsteps would be.

We read, "Hereby we know that we know Him if we keep His commandments", 1 John 2:3. Do not let us try to avoid these statements, and think it is legality to be under command, it is not so at all. The way you know that you know Jesus, is that you keep His commandments, the Bible says so. You cannot evade Scripture. Let each of us prove that we know Jesus. The proof is that we keep His commandments. Then it goes on to say, "He that says I know Him and does not keep His commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in him" -- a very grave statement. Perhaps we have never given it attention, we have passed it unnoticed. Let us take it in now. You may say to me, 'What does it mean, keeping His commandments?' Well, we are not left in any doubt. It

goes on to say, "Hereby we know that we are in Him. He that says he abides in Him ought, even as He walked, himself also so to walk". That is the command that should govern our feet, to walk as Jesus walked. There is no other standard but Christ in Christianity. The law of Moses is not the standard, it is something greater -- Christ. The commandments of men are an abomination. The Lord spoke of the doctors of the law who tied on others burdens hard and grievous to be borne, and did not lift them with the little finger. That is the religious man, that is what he would do. He takes godly souls with tender consciences towards God, and he deceives them into thinking that man's commandments are the commandments of God. How can you discern them? They are hard and grievous to be borne; and they make void the commandments of God. But Christ is the Model, the Standard, and we should have no less objective before us. No real Christian who is moving in the power of the divine nature would ever think of having a lower standard. However much we fail, we can never think of a lower standard than Christ.

Now let us study the footsteps of Jesus. Did He ever compromise anything in connection with the rights of God? Not once; it would be a blasphemous thought. When He went into Levi's house and sat down at table with publicans and sinners He was carrying out the commandments of God. He had come into the world to save sinners. He had come into the world to show the kindness and love of our Saviour God to men. He was representing God. Wherever Paul went he represented God. He said, "I am an ambassador for Christ". But while the Lord was sitting at the table eating with publicans and sinners He was still holy, harmless, undefiled, and separated from sinners. You say, 'how was He separated from sinners?' He

was sitting amongst them, talking to them about God, and eating with them. Scripture says He was undefiled in doing it. He was separated from sinners even when He was sitting amongst them, for He was entirely different from them; separated in heart to God. All His outgoings were to God and what He was doing was to the glory of God. Mere physical separation is not true separation at all. The Pharisees' notion of separation proceeds from the mind of the flesh, and is an abomination to God. There, though sitting and eating with them, He was separated from sinners. He that says he abides in Him ought to walk even as He walked. It is our responsibility to represent God rightly to men in kindness and love, and yet to be undefiled, and separated in heart from the very sinners we are showing kindness and love to. But, on the other hand, the Lord never compromised with evil.

Even in the case of Peter saying something wrong, He did not compromise, "Get thee behind Me, Satan". He put God first all the time. He loved God and kept His commandments. Thus He sat at the Pharisees' table and ate with them (three instances are recorded by Luke), and said very faithful things to them, things that it would need much grace to say. In one of the cases in Luke He said, "Ye Pharisees, ye cleanse the outside of the dish and cup but inside ye are full of plunder and wickedness", Luke 11:39. Just think of saying that sitting at the man's table. The Lord said it in perfection, not in railing. Grace and truth were there in Him. He said the truth and none could withstand it, and His path of faithfulness led only to the cross, where by His supreme sacrifice, He upheld all that was due to God, so that God's glory is now radiant in His face. He became obedient, He was under command, even unto death and that the death of the cross. Are you and I going to compromise

relative to God and what is pleasing to Him, when Jesus went into death itself to uphold His glory and to bring about an order of things where everything would be according to Him? You can see the two sides, approach to men in grace, but, on the other hand, the maintenance of the holiness of the house of God. No unrepentant Pharisees could enter there, nor any unrepentant tax gatherer, yet, He would go to them in grace if by any means they might be saved.

The first epistle to Timothy gives us both sides very clearly. He came into the world to save sinners and has introduced the gospel of the glory of the blessed God as depicted in Luke 15. We are to be in accord with that. On the other hand when it comes to behaviour in the house of God, the command is, "Lay hands quickly on no men, nor partake in others' sins", 1 Timothy 5:22. We need to see the two sides. It is God's command that all men should repent, it is by command of our Saviour God that Paul went forth with the gospel, 1 Timothy 1:1. It is His will that we should show forth His character to men -- the kindness and love to man of our Saviour God. We should look on our fellow men with eyes of love and kindness, desiring nothing but their blessings. But when it comes to approaching God in His house, then lay hands quickly on no man. The Lord was not laying His hands on the tax gatherers and sinners when He went and had a meal at Levi's house. Laying on of hands is fellowship. Lay hands quickly on no man, nor have fellowship (is the actual word) with others' sins. So the elect lady in John's 2nd epistle was not to greet the false teacher, otherwise she would have fellowship with his wicked works. And it is in that epistle that he says "This is love, that we keep His commandments". You might have thought love was different from that, but it is

not so, because the first thing is to love God. If we act as though the first commandment is to love our neighbour and the second commandment to love God, we have gone astray, we have lost the idea of divine love. The first commandment is, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy soul, all thy strength, all thy mind, and then thy neighbour as thyself. Only Christianity goes beyond thy neighbour as thyself, for it says, "He laid down His life for us, and we ought for the brethren to lay down our lives". We are put on our mettle as children of God as to whether we are in accord with the God who has begotten us. We are exhorted to move and act in the divine nature of which we are partakers. It is a matter of what we ought to do. Well, you say, 'I would love to do it, but I am very weak, and I think if I were tested I would fail, but I would love to do it'. So you see, Christian commandments are not grievous. They are things you would aspire after. "Hereby we know that we love the children of God". How do we know that we love the children of God? "When we love God and keep His commandments". When God, and what is due to God, is the great consuming matter, God known in Christ filling the vision of the soul, you want all His children to be pleasing to Him, and the best way to help is to set them an example by loving God and keeping His commandments yourself. That is how you can know that you love the children of God. You love them on that level, as children of God. You want all the children of God on earth, captivated by all kinds of systems of men, set free to be in accord with the One Who begot them. Why? Because you love God. Your motive in loving the children of God is that you love God. Love to God must be first; God is our first love in that sense.

God's commandments are set out in perfection

in Jesus Himself. I am not going to point you to texts of scripture, but to Jesus Himself. He is the One Who commands our lives. Just as the Father commanded His life, we have the Pattern set before us to walk as He walked, so that we might not make a mistake, because if we had not got the Model we might deceive ourselves. John talks so much about the deceiver; beware, because you may easily be deceived. It is as easy as possible to be deceived unless you keep Jesus before you and the way He walked. Paul enlarges on the commandment in 1 Corinthians and everything is beautiful, it is not grievous. Chapter 1, the word of the cross, who would not value that? Chapter 2, the presence of the Spirit, He revealing things to us. Chapter 3, we recognise that we are the temple of God, and thus holy, that is part of God's commandment; that is why we should lay hands quickly on no man. Then in chapters 3 and 4 we are exhorted not to boast in men; what about that? Before we know it we find ourselves boasting in men, which means partisanship. In chapter 5, we are each to purge out the old leaven and the leaven of malice and wickedness, and to keep the feast of unleavened bread in sincerity and truth. In chapter 6 we are to recognise our bodies as members of Christ and temple of the Holy Spirit, and not use them for wrong purposes. In chapter 7 we abide with God in the calling in which we were called. In chapter 8, we make sure we do not stumble our brother, who may have a tender conscience. Chapter 9, we remember that those who preach the gospel should live of the gospel. Chapter 10, we are in fellowship with the altar. Chapter 11 is the Lord's Supper. Chapter 12, the truth of the body; it is a command of the Lord that we should recognise the truth of the body and act on it. Chapter 13, the new commandment, without which all others fall to the ground, love, the

more excellent way, "love one another as I have loved you". Chapter 14, we use our spiritual intelligence in the meeting and everything is done comelily and with order, as subject to one another. In that chapter he asserts that all he has been saying is the Lord's commandment. All those individual items are necessary to make up John's one item -- "walk as He walked".

Now, I go on to Revelation because we have a strong city. Abraham looked for this city, but we have it and belong to it and are fellow citizens. It is not in manifestation yet, but we can look back to Pentecost and get light to govern us, and we can also look on to the holy city Jerusalem and get light. It is said of the city that the building of its wall was jasper. And note the importance attaching to the wall according to Revelation. It does not speak of the building of the city, we know it has to be built. Men built Babel with bricks and asphalt. God is building His house of living stones, and all the cementing power of the divine nature; not asphalt (self-interest), but love. But the only reference to building in Revelation 21 is the building of the wall, as though to stress the importance of it. The building of its wall was jasper; and it was great and high. You may say, 'That seems strange, it was only 144 cubits high, yet the city itself is 1200 stadia'. I mean, if you take the actual measurements, the wall appears to be very small. Yet in spite of the measurements, it says "having a great and high wall". But you see it is to stress the moral importance of the wall; and that it is an adequate protection for the city.

In the mixed conditions which will still obtain on earth in the millennium the heavenly and holy city must have the wall. In the eternal state it will not be needed, but in mixed conditions now and in the millennium the wall is essential. So it says the wall is great and high, meaning that it is impossible to surmount it;

you have got to go in by the gate, otherwise you stay outside. You say, it must be a forbidding thing to be faced with a wall like that. It is not a forbidding thing at all. It says that the building of its wall was jasper, a beautiful thing, and in the foundations of the wall there was every precious stone. You come up to the wall and you are transported at the sight of it. A wall of jasper, and every precious stone in the foundation! You might well say, 'What a marvellous sight! If this is the wall of the city, whatever must the city itself be like? I will go in by the gate and see'. That is how it should affect us; there is not anything forbidding. It is true you cannot get past it, but it would attract anybody with right sensibilities who saw it. Of course if they go in by the gate, they will see that the whole city is shining as a crystal-like jasper stone, although the actual material is pure gold. A city of pure gold! You can understand you need a wall to protect that. Who is going to allow anything dark and defiling into a city of pure gold, shining as a crystal-like jasper stone? "If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not practise the truth". But we want to enjoy our citizenship now, to have crystal-like jasper conditions now, in order

"Like Him, to know that glory beam
Unhindered, face to face". (Hymn 72)

It reminds me of another old hymn:

"Eternal Light, eternal Light,
How pure the soul must be
When placed within thy searching sight,
It shrinks not, but, with calm delight,
Can live, and look on Thee".

That is what communion with God means. If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. So we do not want what is dark to get past the wall. The building of its wall was jasper.

'Well, you say, where is the wall? how is it built?' Some have said that the wall is divine principles. That is not the whole truth. It would be a poor sort of wall if it were only abstract principles. Jasper stone is used to represent God in this book. The One sitting on the throne in chapter 4 was like a jasper stone and a sardius. I believe the wall to be the saints themselves as in the good of salvation and deliverance; the saints themselves walking as Jesus walked. When Jesus walked here, not only was the city administration there in Him in perfection, but the wall was there. No evil could penetrate the holy walk of Jesus. There was no darkness there! I believe the wall today means the saints walking together true to what they are as partakers of the divine nature; so that they act like God in every circumstance. They also react like God to everything and everyone they meet, and in purity of walk as jasper, they repel unholiness and sin, yet express the kindness and love of our Saviour God to men. There is nothing in the wall to repel the sinner who is convicted, who is repentant. A repentant man, seeing the wall would say, 'I have never seen a sight so beautiful, a wall of jasper, and gates of pearl!' So he goes in readily. He is quite prepared to wash his robes and go in by the gate into the city.

Years ago I saw a gate of pearl. I went into a farm worker's cottage and there were a few Christians sitting there, farmers and farm workers together, who loved one another and were talking over the Scriptures. I saw the features of the pearl there, though I could not have told you at the time. I saw the mystery operating. They had no clergymen, but were relying on the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and love pervaded the company -- love, and mutual respect for one another. Masters were willing to learn from servants and vice versa. I had never seen such a sight. I had been brought up in system, as

we speak, and I had never seen a sight like that. My resolve was 'this is the place for me; no more cathedrals, chapels, churches and officials; this is real Christianity'. There the pearl was in expression, because a pearl, as we know, has a soft lustre, referring to the saints as merged together in one body. "By this shall all men know that ye are disciples of mine if ye have love among yourselves", and there it was. And when we have love among ourselves we prove the gain of the mystery as Colossians shows, "being united together in love, unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the full knowledge of the mystery of God, in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge". The gate of pearl is in evidence in such conditions and an exercised stranger coming in, will say in principle 'This is the gate for me. I want to be in the gain of this myself'. So the Christians themselves -- if they are walking true to the divine nature, walking as Christ walked -- will constitute morally the wall of jasper, and will manifest the gates of pearl.

I think this is grand! This is the public testimony. The public testimony in itself is the wall, in that sense. It is a true representation of God -- jasper. And you will find, if that is maintained in power by the Spirit, then wherever there is a work of God in men, they will be attracted. Men are not attracted to looseness if there is a real work of God. Men are attracted to what is right according to God, a true representation of God where love reigns. God is love. The pearl suggests holy love operating amongst men in mutual conditions, and that is what we need to know.

May the Lord help us as to these thoughts of the wall, because it is what we need if we are to get comfort. We need to be able to sing the song "We have a strong city; salvation doth he appoint for walls and bulwarks". Let us be in the power of salvation ourselves through the grace of the Holy

Spirit and be set together to represent God in truth in this world, for His Name's sake!

Cirencester, 10th March, 1962, Divine System Volume 1