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From Heaven With Love
How to Be Built-up by Being Broken
To those who believe, Christ is the sure foundation. They fall
on the Rock and are “broken.” To fall on the Rock and be broken is
to give up our self-righteousness, to go to Christ with the humility
of a child, repenting of our transgressions, and believing in His
forgiving love. So also by faith and obedience we build on Christ as
our foundation.
Upon this living stone, Jews and Gentiles alike may build. It is
broad enough for all, and strong enough to sustain the weight and
burden of the whole world. By connection with Christ all who build
on this foundation become living stones. See
1 Peter 2:5
.
“To them which stumble at the word, being disobedient,” Christ
is a Rock of offense. Like the rejected stone, Christ had borne
neglect and abuse. He was “despised and rejected of men; a man
of sorrows, and acquainted with grief... . He was despised, and we
esteemed Him not.”
Isaiah 53:3
. But by the resurrection from the
dead He would be declared the “Son of God with power.”
Romans
1:4
. At His second coming He would be revealed as Lord of heaven
and earth. Before the universe the rejected stone would become the
head of the corner.
And on “whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.”
The people who rejected Christ were soon to see their city and nation
destroyed, their glory scattered as the dust before the wind. And
what was it that destroyed the Jews? The rock which, had they
built on it, would have been their security. It was the goodness of
God despised, mercy slighted. Men set themselves in opposition to
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God, and all that would have been their salvation was turned to their
destruction.
In the Jews’ crucifixion of Christ was involved the destruction
of Jerusalem. The blood shed on Calvary was the weight that sank
them to ruin.
So in the great final day, when judgment shall fall on the rejecters
of God’s grace. Christ, their rock of offense, will then appear as
an avenging mountain. The glory of His countenance, which to the
righteous is life, will be to the wicked a consuming fire. Because
of love rejected, grace despised, the sinner will be destroyed. The
desecrated temple, the disobedient son, the false husbandmen, the