I hope that we can see from our experience and the light in the Bible that the work of God’s salvation is not only to work God into us but also to work heaven into us. We who are saved are not only a mingling of man with God but also a mingling of man and God with heaven. When we are fellowshipping with the Lord, contacting the Lord, living before the Lord, and walking according to the spirit, do we feel that we are people on the earth or people in heaven? Do we feel that we are inwardly full of heaven or full of the earth? I believe we all have to say that when we are loving the Lord and contacting the Lord, heaven is truly within us, and inwardly we have the taste of heaven and the feeling of heaven.
However, one day we may be tempted, we may fall into the stratagems of Satan, and we may be brought to the slaughter as a lamb. Perhaps one day we go to the movies. At that time we may feel that we, who were in the heavenlies, have fallen into a pit. We may be very uncomfortable inside, the taste of heaven may be gone, and we may have only the taste of earth. Not only going to the movies can make us feel this way, but even the way we adorn and dress ourselves in our daily lives can make us feel this way. When we wear worldly clothes, we often feel like we are dragging a pile of earth onto ourselves and are full of the taste of the earth. This kind of condition is altogether different from the condition we are in when we are contacting the Lord and praying to the Lord. What does this prove? This proves that the work of God in every generation is to work Himself and also heaven into those who have believed into Him. The issue of this work will be the New Jerusalem, which is a union of three entities—God, man, and heaven. This is the place into which we who are saved will ultimately enter.
Again, do not be wrongly influenced by traditional Christianity, thinking that all saved people will “go to heaven.” God desires to have the New Jerusalem worked and built into us. We all are parts of the New Jerusalem. You are a part, and I also am a part. All the saved ones throughout the generations are stones in the New Jerusalem.
We who are saved were not originally stones. We were not “Peters” but “Simons.” We were originally clay. We were made of clay in order to be burned into bricks. We used to be clay, but because the life of God has entered into us and is changing us inwardly, we are being transformed from clay into stones. What are these stones for? Consider what David did in the Old Testament. After he realized what God’s desire was, he wanted to build a holy temple for God. He first sent people to hew stones out of the mountains. Then they shaped each stone into a certain size and polished the stones until they were shiny. One day King Solomon came and transported these stones to Jerusalem, and by arranging them and laying them one by one, he built the holy temple. The Bible says that while Solomon was building the temple, neither the sound of a hammer nor of an ax nor of any iron tool was heard (1 Kings 6:7). Those sounds had been heard in the mountains when the people had been hewing out the stones during the time of King David. King Solomon then took the stones that David had prepared and arranged and laid them to build up the holy temple.
Our Lord is today’s David. He is preparing us, stones who have been taken from the mountains of this world. Today the sounds of hammers, axes, and other iron tools striking stone can be heard among us. Perhaps our husbands or wives are our hammers, those coordinating with us in the church are our axes, and our children are the other iron tools. The difficulties in all of our environments strike us to deal with us and to prepare us as stones. Never treat the matter of building in the Bible as something simple. We all know that stones cannot be piled up randomly to construct a building. To be built, stones first need to be dealt with—all the protruding corners and sharp edges must be removed, and the places that are not smooth enough must be ground smooth. This is the building work that God is doing on us. Do not view the matter of building only as something that is very sweet and simple. When God comes to work on us, I fear that very few among us are able to bear it.
Today it seems as if everyone among us is on the same plane. When we do things, we are very polite, nobody touches anyone in the wrong way, and we get along with one another peacefully. Therefore, there is no building or construction. The stones are here, but they are all lying flat in the same plane or dimension. There is no three-dimensional building. If you and I were willing to give ourselves to God and let Him do the work of building, I am afraid that we would all have many corners and sharp edges that would need to be hacked off, pounded with hammers, and beaten with iron tools. God has to work on us so that we can be built together.