In Zechariah 2:1-13 the prophet sees a man going to measure the length and breadth of Jerusalem. This vision symbolizes man determining the strength of a church by the number of its members. But the Body of Christ has only one membership list - the Book of Life. And the Lord teaches us here how to really measure the church.

Another angel comes and tells Zechariah, "Jerusalem will someday be so full of people that it won't have any room for everyone. Many will live outside the city walls. Yet they will be safe." This was a small group of people and they were thinking, "Who will come and join this despised group of ours? The other Jews are all living so comfortably in Babylon. But here we are, a small, despised group trying to build God's temple. Who is interested in what we are doing?"

The angel came to encourage them and said, "Don't worry. People from here and there will hear about you and will come and join you one day. Today you may be small. All of God's work starts very small. But if God can find leaders who will stay true and not compromise His principles, then even if they are small, one day from north, south, east and west those who have a hunger for godliness and reality, will gradually hear of your group, and come and join you because they will recognize that God is in your midst and that you have life.

The Lord then told them, "I myself will be a wall of fire round about Jerusalem (the church)" (Zechariah 2:5). The church does not have any earthly, denominational walls. You can't come inside it by signing a doctrinal statement. Everyone has to come through that wall of fire if he is to become a part of the true church. That fire will burn up all his earthly ambitions and his desire to live for himself. Only then can he become a part of the Body of Christ.

Picture a city surrounded by a wall of fire. How can you enter that city? Only by going through the wall of fire. Everything that can be burnt will be burnt up by God as you enter through that wall. Only what cannot be burnt will go through the fire. "Our God is a consuming fire" (Heb.12:29). "Who can dwell with the consuming fire?" (Isa.33:14).

Preachers through the years have thrown water on that fire and quenched it so that nowadays anyone can walk in and join the church, while still retaining all their worldly ideas, their worldly ambitions and their love of the world. You can be certain that God is not in such a church, because wherever He dwells, He will be a wall of fire around that church.

And then God goes on to say, "I will be the glory in the midst of it." If you want the glory of God to be in your church, then you must allow Him be a wall of fire around your church. The two go together. If you say that God's standards are too high and you throw water on the fire, then God's glory will not be in your church either. When the wall of fire goes away, the glory goes away too. Doctrine is important. But no doctrine can be a wall of fire. God Himself has to be the wall of fire. The most important thing in a church is not right doctrine but the glory of God. If that is there, right doctrine will follow. If that is not there, mere rightness of doctrine is useless.