Wallbuilding 101: the Basics

On Becoming a 21st Century Wallbuilder

Every plan has a beginning.

When Nehemiah heard that the walls of Jerusalem were broken down and its gates were burned with fire, the foundation for rebuilding those walls and the gates had already been laid. In Christian Bibles, Ezra and Nehemiah are separate books but in the Hebrew Bible they are one book called Ezra. This one book covers phases of rebuilding the city and what we call Nehemiah is simply the second part of Ezra.

As we take up the task of rebuilding our cultural walls in America (walls separate, they cause distinction between inside and outside) and rehanging our gates and bars (gates allow interaction but they open and close from inside the cultural walls so they can be secured) we too need a foundation. Ezra gave us that foundation.

Ezra came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, during the seventh year of the king. He began the journey from Babylon on the first day of the first month and arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month since the gracious hand of his God was on him. Now Ezra had determined in his heart to study the law of the LORD, obey it, and teach its statutes and ordinances in Israel. Ezra 7:8 – 10 CSB

He determined in his heart to study the law of the LORD. also known as torah, and to obey and teach it.

Jesus is another Ezra as a teacher for he said:

Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:19 CSB

Keeping those commands is not the basis of entry into the Kingdom, that is through faith in Yeshua Jesus. The difference is in breaking and teaching others to break and they being called “least in the Kingdom” but those, like Ezra, who do them and teach them being called “great in the kingdom of heaven.” Do you want to be called great in the Kingdom? Then be like Ezra the Scribe, and Nehemiah and Jesus. Study this part of Scripture, the Law of God, do it and teach it.

There is confusion in our day over what part of Scripture this is. More on this in other areas of our website, but for now here is a distinction.

The Ten Commandments were never called the Law of Moses but rather are the Law of God. There were civil statutes and judgments that Moses relayed to the people found in Exodus 21 – 23 and later additions regulating the work of the Levites in the Tabernacle. The Law of God predates Moses, and can be found throughout Genesis. The first sin in the garden was a breaking of the First Commandment, Joseph refused to break the Seventh Commandment when he said to Potiphar’s wife “how then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” in Genesis 39:9 250 years before Moses! And even some of the Levitical laws were known beforehand, for Noah made distinctions between clean and unclean animals. The Law of God is the spiritual equivalent of the laws of physics – same Creator different realms.

Our Starting Point: Psalm 19

This psalm begins by speaking about the created order: The heavens declare the glory of God. The expanse shows his handiwork. Day after day they pour forth speech, and night after night they display knowledge. vs. 1-2

The physical order of the universe is evident in these first two verses. The repetition of order – day after day ( yom l’yom ) and night after night (lailah l’lailah) demonstrates the regularity of that order. Day after day pours forth speech (אמר amar) and night to night reveals knowledge (דעת da’at). That speech (amar) is the word of God – beginning with “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:4) – then appearing in a physical form. He speaks to us through His creation as Psalm 19 continues:

There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their voice has gone out through all the earth, their words to the end of the world. ca. 3-4

You can travel anywhere you wish on the face of planet Earth, and the voice (קול kol) of creation is heard everywhere you go. The voices of the day-by-day and night-by-night revelation of God speak loudly and no one has an excuse for not hearing what they are saying. (see Romans 1:18 and following)

Though these witnesses are silent yet they speak so loudly that you cannot get away from their voice. Think of these words the next time you view a night sky and ask what the physical order in the universe is telling you. The Apostle Paul (Shaul) points to the same principle as found in Psalm 19, in Romans 1 as noted.

For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse. Rom 1:20

The physical order of the universe is so clear to mankind that we are all left without an excuse for not recognizing the Creator. Psalm 19 begins by describing how God has placed this witness, starting in verse 1: “The heavens declare the glory of God.”

Declare is מספרים m’sopherim from the verb saphar. While the verb saphar means to count or tell, derived from the same root is sepher, a scroll or a book, along the same thought, a sopher is a scribe. Here in Psalm 19, the m’sopherim is the telling. The heavens are in a sense the scroll of God who wrote His glory in a physical way by speaking His Word into His creation.

This is like the sopherim, the scribes of Israel who wrote His voice in another physical way using his verbal words.

From the Revelation of what has been made to the Revelation of what has been written

Part 2 of this Psalm begins with Ezra’s commitment to studying the Law of the Lord (known in Hebrew as torah which means teaching/instruction):

The LORD’s Torah is perfect, restoring the soul. The LORD’s testimony is sure, making wise the simple. The LORD’s precepts are right, rejoicing the heart. The LORD’s commandment is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever. The LORD’s ordinances are true, and righteous altogether. vs. 7-9

The physical creation is a pointer directing us first to the Creator God, recognized in His revelation to the whole world, and then directing us to the Torah of God which points to the parallel but invisible order. In Psalm 19, we find both together as the sum of the declaration of God in His creation: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1 CSB The heavens (unseen, torah, Law of God) and the seen (the other heavens and earth).

Where other organizations point to the message of God in His physical order, Answers in Exodus points to the message of God in His immaterial ethical and moral order and finds overwhelming evidence that points to our Creator and to our responsibility before Him. We find the moral order of this universe to be a powerful witness to the One that created it.

One difference between the physical order and moral order is that violations of the physical order come much quicker and are easier to see. The unseen immaterial moral order seems to take more time, but the violations of that order do eventually come as it declares in Number 32:23 “be sure your sin will find you out.”

How some believers ever got to the place where following the Torah, God’s instruction for the unseen moral order of our universe, the moral order of creation, is taught by some as a violation of following the God who created it, is another story for another place on this website. We find ourselves now in a cultural moral cesspool because we have abandoned God’s Holy Law, his structure of the unseen realm. Ezekiel 22:26 -30 is very clear on this.

“Her priests have violated My Law (torah) and have profaned My holy things. They have not divided between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and clean they have not taught. And they have hidden their eyes from the sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. Her rulers in her midst are like wolves tearing prey, to pour out blood, to destroy souls, in order to gain unjust gain. And her prophets have daubed themselves with lime, a seer of empty visions, and divining lies to them, saying, So says the Lord Jehovah, when Jehovah has not spoken. The people of the land have used oppression and practiced robbery. And they troubled the poor and the needy, and they have oppressed the stranger without justice. And I sought among them a man to wall up a wall and stand in the breach before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none.” LITV

Answers in Exodus, the teaching ministry for Bound2TRUTH, has a goal to return the disciples of Yeshua aka Jesus, to the Torah – the teaching about how to truly be alive and show that life, the life that he followed (see 1 John 2:6). By coming back into the whole of Scripture, we are making 21st Century disciples with the love and power of a 1st Century faith. The combination of the Truth of Law and the Power of Gospel, united again.

One point of collision with our culture through that Torah is TRUTH worldview, is to bring about the end of child sacrifice, a.k.a abortion, in our nation wherever we are able. The second point of applying that moral order as created by God, is to bring about the end of the transgender sacrifice of our children. And to do that we must understand how a Torah-centered worldview will affect our practices in life and affect how we interact with and battle the amoral culture that loves destruction and loves death.

Am I “uniquely set apart to obey him,” or another way of saying the same thing, “am I holy?” That is the starting point for being a Wallbuilder in our impure and unholy, not set apart, life denying culture today. Can you identify with Ezra who “had determined in his heart to study the law of the LORD, obey it, and teach its statutes and ordinances in Israel.” Do you have a desire to be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven?

Do you want to be a Wallbuilder? It starts with being set apart, as God said, “You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” Lev 11:44. To be like him, and he did not say we shall be as holy as he is, but that we should be set apart because he is set apart.

Being a Wallbuilder starts with being able to transmit God’s set-apartness, his holiness to others in actions and words. Being a Wallbuilder is being “Silent No More!” Being a Wallbuilder is about restoring the protective boundaries of the Law of God (the walls) and offering the Gospel of God (the gates).

Come and join the True WOKE community – Wallbuilders Opposing Known Evil. Get woke to the WHOLLY BIBLE, the whole Word of God.

RESOURCES TO HELP YOU ON YOUR JOURNEY

A wonderful exposition of the meaning of holy from the Bible Project. This ministry is doing wonders with getting the “Word” out! Worth every second of your time.

From Corner Fringe Ministries in Coon Rapids Minnesota why the battle for your mind is critical and understanding that warfare is essential to being a Wallbuilder.