When Nehemiah heard about the desolate state of the ruined city of Jerusalem, he was greatly humbled, and he cried out to the Lord in true confession of sin. “We have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou commandedst thy servant Moses.” (Neh. 1:7). This was the man who was to rebuild that city, and so he began by clearing the spiritual ground—he began with confession of sin.
Just as every attempt at true godliness in our day-to-day lives should begin with confession, and just as every worship service begins with confession of sin, so also any project as large as building a city, or a temple, or a Christian sanctuary should begin with confession of sin. If God were to mark iniquities, no one could stand, and so there is always something to confess. We can confess the reasons it has not be completed by now, we can confess the reasons why the church at large is languishing so much that we don’t have the ability to build sufficient buildings despite our wealth, and so on.
Now all great building projects are built on blood, on a foundational murder, and it is no different here. Where there is not true faith, the foundational murder is like Cain’s slaying of Abel before he built his city, or it could be like Hiel the Bethelite rebuilding Jericho (1 Kings 16:34). But for believers there is only one way to deal with sin, and only one way to build anything. For us the foundational murder is not hidden away, or put behind a dark veil. We are able to build because our hands and hearts are clean, and they are clean because they have been washed in blood.
We are building a sanctuary that will be dedicated to the worship of God, but it will not contain blood sacrifices. It will not be built with any blood sacrifices. This is because all the builders have been cleansed by the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ, who is the cornerstone for every faithful work—including this work.
So let the stones cry out.