The Purpose Of The Broad Wall

God could have said, “...the wall,” but He intentionally use an adjective to described the wall as being a BROAD WALL.

WHY DID GOD INTENTIONALLY TELL US THE WALL WAS A BROAD WALL?

He did this for a special reason.

Illus: If you were to go to the library and do some research on what qualifies a city to be classified as a GREAT CITY, you would discover that a great city in America must have so many:

• Libraries,

• Public parks,

• Schools,

• Universities,

• Hospitals,

• Zoo,

• Churches

• Jails

• Court houses.

That is, this is the standard by which modern cities are measured by in order to obtain recognition as being a great city.

However, it was different in Bible times. In order to reach the status of greatness in those days they had to have a wall around them.

The BIGGER THE WALL the GREATER WAS THE CITY! For example-

Illus: Babylon was the capital city of the Babylonian empire.

The city of Babylon became known world-wide as a great city.

Why? Because they built a wall around the city that was:

• 344 feet high

• 86 feet wide.

• The city had 100 bronze gates -- twenty-five on each side.

Again, any city that had a BROAD WALL around it was considered to be a GREAT CITY. Such is the case in our text.

Jerusalem was classified as a GREAT CITY because IT HAD A GREAT WALL around it.

What the wall meant to the city of Jerusalem is symbolic of the spiritual wall that should be around God’s Church today.

For example...

I. THE WALL MEANT SEPARATION.

We Christians are IN THE WORLD, but we are NOT OF THE WORLD.

The Lord was concern about His church would be infiltrated by the lost world.

We can see the concern for His church in His prayer in John 17, Jesus prays for His followers that as they remain on earth they will be KEPT FROM THE EVIL OF THIS WORLD!

Look at the Lord’s prayer in John 17:12 while He was here. We read, “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.”

Jesus, about to return to heaven, says in verse 15, “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, BUT THAT THOU SHOULDEST KEEP THEM FROM THE EVIL.”

One way God’s people can be kept from evil is the moment we become a child of God is for God to take us to heaven immediately.

But when we are saved He does not take us out of this evil world.

WHY? He has a mission He wants us to accomplish while we are here on planet earth.

Can you imagine the condition this world would be in if God took people to heaven the moment they got saved!

God leaves us here to be a light, a godly influence, to DRIVE BACK THE FORCES OF DARKNESS AND SIN.

Illus: Our public schools have deteriorated largely by parents have taken the Christian young people out of the public schools and put them in PRIVATE and CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. That leaves the public schools lacking in the strong Christian witness that was there years ago.

Every time there is a withdrawal of Christians there is deterioration in morality.

Even in the organized church this is true.

• If you take all the dedicated Christians out of a church you will see the church begin to deteriorate immediately.

• If a strong Bible preacher is removed from the pulpit and replaced with a liberal preacher you will see a deteriation in the church immediaterly.

God wants every church to build a SPIRITUAL BROAD WALL to keep the evil world from infiltrating his church.

But it is obvious today that many churches have not built a spiritual BROAD WALL to keep the lost world from infiltrating God’s church.

Illus: George Gallup, known for the famous Gallup polls, addressed a national seminar of Southern Baptist leaders and reported his findings of one of his polls horrifying.

He said, “We find there is very little difference in ethical behavior of churchgoers and those who are not active religiously... The levels of lying, cheating, and stealing are remarkably similar in both groups.”

In fact, many who claim the name of Christ have become so worldly that when you go to church to some Sunday school classes you do not hear folks talking about God. Instead they are talking about the same thing sinners talk about. They discuss sports, movies, clothes styles, television programs, politics, and business, etc.

Illus: A woman was giving her testimony on Youtube why she left the Mormon church. She said she went to the Mormon church to hear about Jesus and for months and months the name of Jesus was not even mention.