Suggested reading: Nehemiah chapter 3 verses 1-32

Last week, three of our meditations focused on four of the GATES in the wall of the city of Jerusalem. We noted that they join with eight other Gates to ‘tell us the story’ of God’s Plan of Salvation.

Our anti-clockwise journey recommences this week at the southern end of the city, with the DUNG GATE, which was absolutely essential for the health and welfare of the citizens. It opened on to the Valley of Hinnom, where the city’s refuse was deposited. It reminds us of the ‘rubbish’ that accumulates in our lives and prevents us embracing and enjoying God’s salvation. Isaiah sounds out the uncomfortable truth: ‘But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags’, Isaiah chapter 64 verse 6. Jesus Christ died on the cross and shed His blood to cleanse us from our sins and thus make us fit for heaven.

We now reach the eastern side of the city and discover the GATE OF THE FOUNTAIN. A ‘fountain’ in the Bible is a picture of the Holy Spirit, who indwells and longs to fill every person who trusts the Lord Jesus as their Saviour. It is significant that this Gate follows on from the Dung Gate. It is the ‘rubbish’ that we allow to accumulate in our lives that prevents the Holy Spirit from ‘filling’ us and leading us into the paths of all truth.

Jesus said to a Samaritan woman, ‘But whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life’, John chapter 4 verse 14.