UNTOUCHED STONES
Deuteronomy 27:5 And there shalt
thou build an altar unto the Lord thy God, an altar of stones: thou shalt not
lift up any iron tool upon them. 6 Thou shalt build the altar of the Lord thy
God of whole stones: and thou shalt offer burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord
thy God: 7 And thou shalt offer peace offerings, and shalt eat there, and
rejoice before the Lord thy God. 8 And thou shalt write upon the stones all the
words of this law very plainly.
You cannot make God perfect, He is
perfect already. When God killed animals
to make Adam and Eve’s clothing to wear He was making the most important point
mankind could ever understand and know (Genesis 3:21). First, the wages of sin are death. Romans 6:23 said it best and explained the
part of Jesus in it all, but the point was well made in Genesis 3:21. You can’t cover yourself with vegetables or
fig leaves for that matter. You can’t
offer vegetables to God as a sin offering (Genesis 4:1-5) as Cain did. It had to be a living animal just like Abel
offered and whom Cain killed because God wouldn’t accept his sacrifice.
Because God is perfect He needs a
perfect sacrifice. The animals used had
to be without noticeable flaws. If they
were flawed, they were rejected. Sadly,
due to the greed of many priests it came to be that almost every animal brought
to the temple was considered flawed and the people had to purchase “acceptable”
animals from the priests. They made
extra income by selling animals to the people at a profit. Jesus discussed this problem with them in
John 2:13-16.
The altar itself had to be
holy. It couldn’t have been built by the
pride of man so the stones had to be in a natural state. The law had to be written upon the stones
used so it would not be forgotten. This
altar is another type of the Christ. Not
only is He our sacrifice, but He is also the altar. He is made without human hands, He IS the
Word of God and like the altar upon which the sacrifice is burned, surely He
hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted (Isaiah 53:4) just like the other
sacrifices. Jesus is both altar and
sacrifice. We used to lay our prayers at
the altar, and now we pray in Jesus name.
FALSE STONES
Deuteronomy 29:16 (For ye know how
we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the nations which
ye passed by; 17 And ye have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and
stone, silver and gold, which were among them:) 18 Lest there should be among
you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from
the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should
be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood; 19 And it come to pass,
when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart,
saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to
add drunkenness to thirst: 20 The Lord will not spare him, but then the anger
of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses
that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out
his name from under heaven.
What is the great ‘stone’ in YOUR
life? For some it’s the love of money
and for others giving and sacrifice. It
can be lust or prayer but there has to be some thing in our life that we
believe in and pray to. My stone is
Christ Jesus. I cast my prayers at HIS
feet and not to some non-existent made up god.
If I had other stones in my life I would cast them at His feet as
well. Why? Because all those false stones will burn up
at the power and truth of God. An
example of this is found in 1 Kings 18:36-39 which says,
1 Kings 18:36 And it came to pass at the time of the
offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said,
Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou
art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these
things at thy word. 37 Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that
thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. 38
Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood,
and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.
39 And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The
Lord, he is the God; the Lord, he is the God.
I’ll just bet they did!
Notice verse 20 above. It says that those who worship idols (of any
sort) will reap all the curses written for those who curse Israel and his name
shall be blotted out of God’s book. What
are those curses? It tells of them in
Deuteronomy 28:16-68 (and you REALLY need to read them). The blessings are from verses 3-14 but the
curses go from verse 16-68, that is fifty two verses of curses.
You know what? I’ll go ahead and add them here. I’d hate for you to miss God’s opinion of
those who worship idols of stone (and other objects and materials).
Beginning in Deuteronomy
28:16 God says: Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country. Cursed shall
be your basket and your kneading bowl. Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land,
the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when
you go out. The Lord will send on
you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until
you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of
your doings in which you have forsaken Me. The Lord will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed
you from the land which you are going to possess. The Lord will strike you with consumption, with fever, with
inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and
with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish. And your heavens which are over your head shall be bronze,
and the earth which is under you shall
be iron. The Lord will
change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from the heaven it shall come
down on you until you are destroyed. The Lord
will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way
against them and flee seven ways before them; and you shall become troublesome
to all the kingdoms of the earth. Your carcasses shall be food for all the
birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away. The Lord will strike you with the boils of
Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be
healed. The Lord will strike you
with madness and blindness and confusion of heart. And you shall grope at
noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness; you shall not prosper in your ways;
you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one shall save you. You shall betroth a wife, but
another man shall lie with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not
dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes. Your
ox shall be slaughtered before
your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be violently taken away from before you, and shall not be
restored to you; your sheep shall be given
to your enemies, and you shall have no one to rescue them. Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and
fail with longing for them all
day long; and there shall be no
strength in your hand. A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of
your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and
crushed continually. So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your
eyes see. The Lord will strike
you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and
from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. The Lord will bring you and the king whom you set over you to a
nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve
other gods; wood and stone. And you shall become an astonishment, a proverb,
and a byword among all nations where the Lord
will drive you. You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little
in, for the locust shall consume it. You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them.
You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not
anoint yourself with the oil;
for your olives shall drop off. You shall beget sons and daughters, but they
shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity. Locusts shall consume all
your trees and the produce of your land. The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you
shall come down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend
to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail. Moreover all these
curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are
destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes
which He commanded you. And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and
on your descendants forever. Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of
heart, for the abundance of everything, therefore you shall serve your enemies,
whom the Lord will send against
you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will
put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you. The Lord will bring a nation against you
from afar, from the end of the earth, as
swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not
understand, a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly
nor show favor to the young. And they shall eat the increase of your livestock
and the produce of your land, until you are destroyed; they shall not leave you
grain or new wine or oil, or the
increase of your cattle or the offspring of your flocks, until they have
destroyed you. They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and
fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and
they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the Lord your God has given you. You shall
eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom
the Lord your God has given you,
in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you. The
sensitive and very refined man among you will be hostile toward his brother,
toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he
leaves behind, so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children
whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate
straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates. The tender
and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot
on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity, will refuse to the
husband of her bosom, and to her son and her daughter, her placenta which comes
out from between her feet and her children whom she bears; for she will eat
them secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in
which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates. If you do not carefully
observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may
fear this glorious and awesome name, The
Lord Your God, then the Lord
will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues; great and
prolonged plagues; and serious and prolonged sicknesses. Moreover He will bring
back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall
cling to you. Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the
Law, will the Lord bring upon you
until you are destroyed. You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as
the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. And it shall be, that just as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good
and multiply you, so the Lord
will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be
plucked from off the land which you go to possess. Then the Lord will scatter you among all peoples,
from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods,
which neither you nor your fathers have known; wood and stone. And among those
nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting
place; but there the Lord will
give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. Your life shall
hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance
of life. In the morning you shall say, “Oh, that it were evening!” And at
evening you shall say, “Oh, that it were morning!” because of the fear which
terrifies your heart, and because of the sight which your eyes see. And the Lord will take you back to Egypt in
ships, by the way of which I said to you, “You shall never see it again.” And there
you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no
one will buy you.
There is only ONE way given for man
to be saved and that way, that door is JESUS the Son of the Living God. This is written to His beloved upon their faithlessness. How much worse will it be for those who do
not know God. Worship God
faithfully. Do not allow any other thing
to come between you and your God. Sadly
I can see portions that mark this and other nations even today. We must pray beloved.
REMEMBRANCE STONES
Joshua 4:2 Take you twelve men
out of the people, out of every tribe a man, 3 And command ye them, saying,
Take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests
'feet stood firm, twelve stones, and ye shall carry them over with you, and
leave them in the lodging place, where ye shall lodge this night.
Has God ever done something for you
that was incredible, amazing and miraculous?
What did you do to make sure you remembered it? You might think, I’ll never forget what He
did or what I saw, but time causes all
things to fade. In Israel’s case, Joshua
prayed and God piled the Jordan up in heaps until they all made it across. It must have been incredible to see the
bottom of a river that had been hidden for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. The priests stood on dry ground holding the
Ark of the Covenant above their shoulders.
In the midst of this glorious
miracle Joshua had the twelve greatest princes of the people build a heap of
stones right where they stood. They then
took another twelve stones, as great as they could carry, and brought them to
their camp. Not one adult or child would
ever forget the pile of stones now hidden as the waters reclaimed their
channel. They would look upon the placid
waters of the river and know the honored altar below awaited a time when God
might stop the river again to prove His Word.
When they arrived in camp they
built another pillar of stones and those stones would serve as a visible
reminder of God’s miraculous passage.
God performs many miracles in our lives and He expects us to remember
them and rejoice in them during the times of dryness and doubt. There are pillars of stone in my life. I’m a terrible journal keeper but I try from
time to time to do so. At one dark time
in my life I discovered one dusty journal in my night stand. As I read the pages that told of God’s
miraculous love I was encouraged and able to press on with even greater faith.
I hope you will keep these markers
in your life, whether journals or history quilts or heaps of stone in the
yard. It honors both God and our faith
when we keep these treasures of the glorious and can help you make it across
the desert times of your life.
STONE OF OFFENSE
Joshua 7:24 And Joshua, and all
Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment,
and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his
asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they brought them
unto the valley of Achor. 25 And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? the
Lord shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and
burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones. 26 And they
raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day. So the Lord turned from
the fierceness of his anger. Wherefore the name of that place was called, The
valley of Achor, unto this day.
If you don’t know the event well,
you should read Joshua 7:1-26. Saints in
many churches sing a song about Joshua who fought the battle of Jericho but
that song is not fully correct. Israel
obeyed God and destroyed the evil of the people within Jericho, but GOD
destroyed the city wall itself by pressing it flat into the earth so the people
could walk right in. I often hear the
ignorant complain of Israel’s evil in destroying every man, woman and child
within the city walls. These people
worshipped many false god’s and idols, and as we learned in FALSE STONES, God’s
curses are not to be laughed at. He was
not willing to leave any poisonous pagan influences behind to act like leaven
in His people.
Because God fought the battle,
everything within the town was devoted to Him.
They were not allowed to save the young virgins for brides or keep any
of the gold, silver or other items of any value. Those objects were to be placed into the
tabernacle treasury for the maintenance of the priests. God was their lot and He cared for their
needs. What was given to God and devoted
to God was considered holy and unpolluted.
If any idols were made of gold or silver they would have been smashed
and melted down.
Achan was one of the warriors who
fought valiantly that day. God will
often allow us to come across our temptations to strengthen us though He
Himself does not tempt us (James 1:13).
Upon entering one of the businesses or homes Achan discovered a
beautiful garment that was probably made of silks and encrusted with gems. There was a wedge of gold and other items as
well.
Rather than placing these items in
the church treasury he coveted them longingly and hid them in his tent. His wife and children had to have known. Women in Israel usually remained in or near
their tents and she must have been anxious to see her husband return from the
battle. On that day she might have
become one of the women of faith in Israel had she spoken to Joshua or one of
the tribal princes, or even tried to talk her husband out of the theft, but she
did not. Her husband’s covetous greed
had infected her as well. The curses of
God would poison their household as well as the skill and courage of the
nation.
When they moved on to their next
town of Ai, it seemed to be a simple thing to destroy it. They picked out only a few thousand men to
destroy this small village and after the battle 36 men of Israel lay dead. This was a shocking thing for a people who
had not endured a single death destroying the great Jericho. They immediately did what they should have
done before the battle. Joshua had the
priests speak to God and discovered there was sin in the camp. Someone had trespassed against God.
As it says in Malachi 3:8 Will a
man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In
tithes and offerings. 9 Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even
this WHOLE NATION. 10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there
may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts,
if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that
there shall not be room enough to receive it.
The very curse God warned them of
in Deuteronomy had settled over the WHOLE NATION because of one man’s sin. I’m sure many were saying, “If Achan realized
his error, why wasn’t he allowed to repent and get right with God?” His actions were directly responsible for
thirty six of his fellow men dying on the battlefield. His wife and children bore his sin as it said
in Deuteronomy 5:9. Ezekiel 18:2 speaks
of a proverb that says the father’s have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s
teeth are set on edge. This was changed
when Christ came and spoken of in Jeremiah 31:29-30. After this mankind was responsible for his
sins alone, but here God was trying to teach his people that they were
responsible for one another.
We are to fall upon Christ and be
broken, contrite and obedient. If we
refuse the stone will fall upon us and crush us to powder. Achan refused to control his own lust for
wealth and the stone fell upon him and his family. God’s mercy is not unlimited. We would do well to bear that in mind when we
choose to sin against Him by our actions or our heart.
WITNESS STONE
Joshua 24:26 And Joshua wrote
these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it
up there under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. 27 And Joshua
said unto all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it
hath heard all the words of the Lord which he spake unto us: it shall be
therefore a witness unto you, lest ye deny your God. 28 So Joshua let the
people depart, every man unto his inheritance. 29 And it came to pass after
these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being
an hundred and ten years old.
In Luke 19:40 Jesus Himself stated
that if the people refused to shout Hosanna the stones themselves would cry
out. When Cain slew Abel his blood cried
out. When someone’s ear was held against
the doorpost of the house, the door and doorpost bore silent witness on behalf
of the house that someone had permanently sold themselves into service of the
house. In this case Joshua (a type of
Christ), had just finished writing down the blessings, miracles and glory of
God toward the children of Israel and he took a great stone to be a marker and
a witness between God and Israel.
Did you know that according to
Hebrew tradition, the oak tree that Joshua attached the stone beneath was the
same oak tree that Jacob buried all his household’s false gods in Genesis
35:1-4 when he promised to follow and obey all God’s commandments. Joshua has chosen to build upon that
testimony and link his scriptural account of God’s power and providence toward
Israel to the very tree that Jacob, one of the three great patriarchs, had
chosen to bury his past. One day someone
may find that specific tree and locate the wealth buried beneath it.
Joshua stated that not only did the
stone bear witness of their vow to continue serving God and obeying His Words,
but that God Himself would hold them responsible for their obedience to keep
that word. I can imagine it was a
bittersweet moment in the life of Joshua.
He knew he was too old to continue and that God had not prepared a
replacement. It was time to release
those who wished to return home, especially those from the other side of the
Jordan river. I imagine there was more
than a bit of sadness on his part that he had done all he could but the rest
was up to them. With that in mind Joshua
died, at the age of one hundred and ten.
After Joshua had been buried and
everyone went to their own cities, the great stone pillar remained behind to
bear mute witness to the vows made on that final day. It is equally true that God would hold the
people responsible for their vows and that the Lord can probably read and hear
their every word through His own experience having been there as well as
recorded within the structure of the stone.
Their very words were captured, recorded as if upon a magnetic tape,
within the great stone. Perhaps only God
could read those words, but God alone is the one who will hold us responsible for
our every word and in His grace and mercy will also remind us of them and stir
us to action on His behalf.
Jesus is the chief corner
stone. He is the stone that the builders’
rejected. Throughout Israel’s history,
the stone has been an implement of truth, lies, judgment and honor.
Are you a stone of honor beloved?
Bishop J
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