Zec 2:4 And he said to him, Run, speak to this young man, saying, Jerusalem shall be inhabited, as towns without walls for the multitude of men and cattle in her midst.
Zec 2:5 And I, says Jehovah, will be to her a wall of fire all around, and will be the glory in her midst.


At the particular time that this was written, Jerusalem was a city without a wall. She was naked and vulnerable, and open to attack. In those days, a city without a wall would be like an army without guns. Now , with broken down walls, God Himself would be a wall of fire to them. In these last days, the remnant people of God will be a people without walls. The conventional wisdom of the past will no longer apply. So, how does one attain a wall of fire around them? Not unlike the City of Jerusalem of that day, God’s remnant people will be a broken people, a vulnerable people, and a people without the traditional protection of the Church. They will seem lonely and isolated. Yet, when God brings this group of people together, He will be their wall. It will not be a wall that is built by human hands. Consider why Jerusalem was in such a position when the above Scripture was written. Their wall, built by human hands, had been breached, undermined, overcome, tore down and ultimately destroyed.

If we are God’s remnant people, we will be a people that has been breached, undermined, our brokenness will be apparent, we will seek God will all of our heart. In our brokenness, in our hunger and because of our driving thirst for the things of God and for His presence, we will seek Him with all of our hearts and we will become fully dependent upon Him. When we seek Him in this way, He will be found by us. He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

So, we will be a people without walls around our hearts. Walls are designed to contain, to keep out, to mark boundaries, to hide behind. We will not be a people who will be able to contain the things of God. As He pours out His latter rain upon us and it enlarges our capacity to receive, then we will freely give what has been given to us. We will love more and we will forgive more and we will do good to those who miss-treat us. And as we do all that, the world will hate us more and more. It’s ironic that the more love that will be poured out onto a dying and ever darkening world, the more that world will not receive us and in fact will hate us.

Luk 6:22 Blessed are you when men shall hate you, and when they shall cut you off, and when they shall reproach you and shall cast out your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man.

We will also be a people that will be approachable. And the reason that we will be approachable is because we will be filled with the love of God. So, those who would be saved will be drawn to us and we would keep no one out of the Kingdom, we would that all men be saved. Despite what is happening to them, God’s remnant people will love the world because this is the heart of the Father and the Love of God burns in the hearts of His people. God’s remnant people will be a people without boundaries. There will be no “big names,” amongst the remnant people, only those who seek to glorify and lift up one name, the name of Jesus. So no one will be marking out their territory, they will be marking out His territory; they will be building His Kingdom for His purposes and His glory. And God’s people will not be hiding. They will be unashamed of the name of Jesus. In a world that is becoming more and more hostile to that name, they will lift it up all the higher.

When a man builds a Kingdom for himself he marks out his territory. When a man of God works for the Kingdom of God, he works without walls for he belongs to a kingdom yet to come. His kingdom is the kingdom of Jesus that exists within his heart and there must be no barriers between the Jesus that dwells in his heart and the people that he seeks to reach. Now, in ancient times, to be a city without a wall was to be a city that would easily be taken or destroyed. It would be almost impossible to defend such a city from attacks. Like these ancient cities, so like our hearts. People have walls around their hearts in order to protect themselves. Yet, the Christian must walk open-hearted and transparent to the world if the world is to see Jesus in them. Will that leave you vulnerable? Yes. Will you get hurt? Yes. Is there any other way? No.
Yet, you will not be destroyed for you have the promises of God that He would go before us, that Justice belongs to Him.

In Zechariah 2…..The Lord says “I the Lord will be a wall of fire all around her and I will be the glory in her midst.” You see, when we allow the Lord to be our defender then it is He who gets the Glory. He is glorified in our situations when we are dependent upon Him, when we seek not to defend ourselves but let Justice be His. He is a just God and He is able to defend His children.

The remnant Church will be called to be a church without walls, only then can we be salt and light to the nations. The established church has become an institution that lives almost entirely behind walls. While there may be much activity and noise going on, they are a people that is hidden and contained. Their walls denote their boundaries and of course they ever seek to enlarge their boundaries, increasing the length and height of their walls. The irony is that as these men’s kingdoms increase in size, they have an ever decreasing Spiritual impact on a dying world. There is no dual citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven. You are either seeking to increase His Kingdom, or you are seeking to increase yours, either corporately or personally, but you cannot do both. You cannot have your own walls and the wall of fire. The wall of fire is promised to those without walls.

Our God is a consuming fire. He seeks to set men ablaze with His love. He seeks to burn the chaff off men’s lives. He seeks to purify and refine and He does this through fire. This can only be achieved in men who have had their walls broken down. All of their own ambitions and hopes and dreams demolished by an all consuming God who shares His glory with no one. While men still rely on their own walls to promote or protect or to establish, they cannot have God’s fire in their life. To go to the world and truly represent God, one must walk through the fire that surrounds them, to come into that place of refuge, again we pass through the fires. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit to go to the world, the fire of the brazen alter to come back into His presence. What surrounds your heart, your church? Is it walls built by men or is it the fire of God?

AMEN! BROTHER, AMEN!

So much God-inspired truth here!

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Michael Strickland

I love that hymn brother, I have never heard it before, it quickens my spirit. Surely God is calling His Son's right now to come forth, a mighty army that marches on its knees and all of hell quakes. Let the walls fall down and let His people arise for He is at the door...........Frank

Psalm 97:3



Here are some tunes for the words of that hymn.

[url=http://www.hymntime.com/tch/mid/e/l/l/ellacombe.mid]Ellacombe[/url]

[url=http://www.hymntime.com/tch/mid/c/l/e/cleansing_fountain.mid]Cleansing Fountain[/url]

[url=http://www.hymntime.com/tch/mid/b/e/t/bethlehem.mid]Bethlehem[/url]

[url=http://www.hymntime.com/tch/mid/f/a/i/fair_haven.mid]Fair Haven[/url] ~ Brother Frank, you'll definitely know this one ;-)

Dear Alive,

I just received an email from Brother Michael regarding this thread inquiring the melody by which we used to sing this precious old song, and I had to research some of my old music files. I had made this into an arrangement that included the song "Will You Be a Volunteer" and "The Fight is On"... but the tune to which we sung "The Son of God Goes Forth to War" is [url=http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/s/o/sonofgod.htm]this[/url].

May God indeed give us grace "to follow in their train".

And Brother Frank, I appreciated both these threads that you have started. We have finally resolved to start a blog (in my signature) and finding that it is more of a daunting task than I thought.

God bless you all!

Clint

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Clint Thornton

Hello broclint,

You are, of course absolutely correct, about the tune you are used to singing. Please convey to brother Michael my apology for any confusion.

I reckoned that if brother Frank were to sing it in the US where he lives, he would be introduced to that tune, which is unfamiliar to me.

I'm sure in the UK I've sung it to Ellacombe. I put in the next two tunes because they may be more familiar, particularly Cleansing Fountain.

But then Fair Haven I could not resist, because we sing it in Scotland regularly - maybe even often - to some very famous old words - 'Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind... ' - and I [i]know[/i] Frank knows that tune!