Remembering Stone

Remembering Stone

12/20/19

What type of atmosphere would present such a person to remember stone?  How many of us in this world can relate to such an environment growing up, sadly, probably more than we care to imagine?  That type of growth pattern was not the intention of what God had in mind when He placed us in the Garden of Eden, but as sin continued to infiltrate our choired living standards this type of upbringing was inevitable.  Even though our lives were opened to a multitude of discourses, God did not have just a single plan that was destroyed because He already had figured out what our lives could have turned out to be.  We do not have to remember a stone heart growing up nor do we have to pass that stone on to our children either.  God has given us the perfect opportunity to change our surroundings according to His Ways, not as the popular worldly view wishes to command us from.  God loves to turn our stones of heart into beating and living organs again the question is this, will you allow Him to do so?

Some of you may know that I was adopted when I was a baby and the story that my parents received from my birth mother sounded good at the time but after decades passed, I found out that what was told to them was a lie.  Mom and dad always told me about my roots and how I was adopted and that somewhere out there I had brothers and sisters.  Details were not really revealed until about ten years ago when my biological family contacted me.  Not much time to go into specifics but my older brother was never told about me until that time of contact which really had a confusing tone to this new knowledge of his.  At the same time it, my appearance answered some questions he had since he was a young boy but mainly, threw open a gated community of unanswered questions that still had not been witnessed yet.

Now, knowing this information about my biological family, I was still kind of numb when the news broke about their contact, but I had an idea about them so the shock of everything was not a devastating blow.  Not so for my brother, he was hurt and angry and still is in some ways about this arrival if you please.  His family and mine have a wonderful relationship today and it grows as each day arises but it has brought up many hurts from his childhood once again and he struggles with them at times, completely understandable.  The relationship with our biological mother is no longer present and through many instances that occurred before I came onto the scene of their lives,  and probably shall never be redeemed.  I look at my brother and hear his voice ring out with deep and inner questions about his younger life, with no real concrete evidence to support truthful answers.  In turn, this knowledge hurts me as well even though I was not directly a part of his growing up years but I cannot help but think about what my heart would be like if I was not placed into the loving arms of my parents so long ago.

Jeremiah 17:1-2

“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart and upon the horns of your altars; Whilst their children remember their altars and their groves by the green trees upon the high hills.”

Hebrew

“The sin of Judah is written with an iron stylus, engraved with a diamond point on the tablet of their hearts and on the horns of their altars.  Even their children remember their altars and Asherah poles, by the green trees, on the high hills.”

How many stories of similar worries could be told of people today?  Of course, more gruesome tales could be extrapolated upon by either reading about or hearing from those whose childhoods were not of structured purity.  We cannot ignore such conduct for it is a common item that our eyes and ears would hear if we took the time to listen to simple conversations around us or to take a few moments to look into someone’s eyes to see what their heart bears to the public.  It breaks my heart to think that people my age or even older and younger than I did not have wonderful parents or great childhood memories growing up; yet, at the same time I cannot help but think to myself about those people whose hearts were broken and hardened when they were younger.  Now, they pass on the same type of separated and fractured love toward their children for it is all they know how to give, or they cannot love in depth or in truth because their inner heart is rock hard and cannot change if they wanted to, a dilemma that even many medical professionals either ignore or do not know how to deal with properly and adequately.

In addition, we have some parents who have made deep and worthy vows to not raise their children as they had been treated but always end up following in their parents’ footsteps many of which falling deeper into the stone cold-hearted atmospheric raising that has added implications against their children.  This lack of understanding about what really has been allowed to infiltrate their lives only further deepens the eternal lies that sin has been allowed to grasp a hold of.  It is no secret that kids look like the parents that created and bore them but so often we forget to deal with the inner (spiritual) doors that we pass along to our children without even knowing what has occurred?  The Textbook of Psychiatry has even taken the chapter of true forgiveness from its pages and basically forgets to teach patients that forgiveness is the key to any mental or inner healing, but gives these hurting people session after session of feeling techniques and prescribed drugs as their therapy closings.  This teaches people to be dependent on a human profession that is just as messed up as they are for control of what lies within; Satan’s dream of masking a lie with another lie and it is the perfect setting to allow such devastating youth days fester and grow within untreated until it is time to pass those traits on to the next generation.

This passage of Scripture brings up a couple of points concerning just how hard we have become toward our lives and also how far we have fallen away from God our Creator yet it also describes what our actions shall lead to when we do not understand that God is the ONLY way to our physical and eternal peace and rescue.  In verse 1 of this passage, we find that it is being said that the hearts of Judah have become like stone or metal and that in order for anything to be said from such a heart it must be done so with a sharp and strong enough instrument that will forever engrain its markings.  The general term used for “a pen or iron” means that it would be a chisel or some type of instrument with a diamond pointed tip so that its markings would penetrate deep into the surface.  This verse also refers to the idols of the land and how much they mean to the hearts of the people, thus forming a single stone cry as a sign of their allegiance to what their hearts desire.

It is bad enough that the hearts of the people in Judah have hardened as much but it is verse 2 of this passage that deals with the more serious issue and that is the growth of such idolatry and selfish servitude that we see that the future of Judah is now adorned with precious little ones that shall remember the activities of their parents which will detail deeper and further into sin and sinful indulgences as a norm of life.  Many people will say that their actions do not influence anyone nor do their actions deeply affect them personally either, until trouble comes along of course.  It is the doorways to sin that mean so much in this passage and it is of dire importance that we understand that if we accept the world into our lives and use it as a routine function of our existence that is what our children shall see and then at some point begin to use and rely upon as their truth.  Satan is the only influence that reverts back to your past or to things in the past and then continues to use these issues against you in as many ways possible in order to get you to stay on his side.  He does not tell you that as long as you allow this door to remain open, he and his buddies have direct access to you and to your family through your willingness to comply with this spiritual law.  Oh, and it really does not matter if you believe in this spiritual law or not because it is there and it is functioning through your doubt too.

The word that is of great importance here is the verb “remember” and how it is used through the Hebrew definition of it.  The Hebrew word used here is “kizkor” and every meaning it refers to always returns to the active process of remembering something of importance or big enough in experience worth remembering.  In this instance and usage, it cannot be termed as a word or process that is easily or quickly forgotten but a process of routine growth of importance within the heart of the person, or as already noticed in this verse the heart of Judah.  Also, this type of memory would be one that would bring back some type of stability to the heart whether or not it would be pleasant would depend upon the remembered activity.  Most of the time when one deals with the world it shall seem like a good thing at the beginning but become a burden by the time another young setting comes along; now, you have two to deal with and grow.  This verse also speaks about the altars and groves that Judah placed along the green hills, the word groves in Hebrew is “Asherah poles” which served for one purpose only and that was idol worship.  Grotesquely, this verse continues its specificity concerning the children for it will be the children that remember such proceedings which means those practices are now a firm part of their lives and ready to be passed along to their children.  These poles and altars were established for a reason and it was over time that these poles and altars were demanded upon their existence as a right of life and to live according to such rituals.

This process may not seem too bad for some folks reading this article, but in order to appreciate the dire necessity for understanding here, we must be reminded or remember what took place at these groves and altars that Jeremiah refers to here.  It is the children that are of some older age that this verse is talking about, for it is their hearts and minds that recall exactly what their parents did at some past point in their lives.  The altars were not an altar to God but an altar to a god who demanded real sacrifices as gifts for healing, fertility, wealth, status and any other worldly state a person or family would wish to obtain.  But the one major item that would stick into their mind is that one day in their past they had a younger brother or sister and then at another day in their past they did not.  Parents teach their children through actions and through conversations that come from the heart which means that those practices are accepted and normal within not only that particular family but in others' presences as well.  If continued, this process of sacrificing would become a normal setting and one to be expected at least once during their young adult lives and that right there is the prime example of a heart that had been molded over time and hardened through the confines of the world’s rules.

It has been presented to us a few times over these past three years that this nation has formally elected the spirit of Jezebel, and while her spirit continues to expose herself every day we must be reminded that she will not command a presence or an audience at first but eventually demand your attention.  There are many issues that the world deems precious and should be fought over and it is through this passage of Scripture that we see the results of such programming by the world shine through children and their children and their children.  It is a generational practice that becomes enough of a part of people that they are lost without its practices and through these practices, the person’s “truth” is magnified and adored.  How is this known or how can this be said?  The last portion of verse 2 gives us the authority to say it, these groves and altars were located on the green high hills.  This means that they were strategically placed so that when it was time to incorporate the practices everyone would be able to watch it take place.  They were proud of their accomplishments and performances and had no reservations about their activities.  To put it into today’s terms they shouted their sacrifices from the rooftops.  Once again, we are called to remember that Jezebel does not wish to be exposed until she exposes herself in her own timing which is why it is vital that we allow God to chisel away at our hearts of stone.

Some might say that this type of activity never occurred or that if it did it was not on a major scale that could have involved the entire nation of Judah.  I would like to inform you that God cannot help but see some type of sin within the heart of our lives, for He understands that our physical lives shall cease one day, which is an abomination to Him, but it is the voluntary sinful acts that make up these categories that do the eternal damage.  These wonderful people were the direct descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob God’s chosen seed for the separation example from the world but it was they who chose to be separated from God.  It was their choice to leave the confines of a Law governed by God for one that is flawed and dead in context.  Their hearts were persuaded by the events and interactions with the world that became their influential statements of change.  The evidence from the world became greater than the evidence from God, at least to some of them and then more of them until most of them agreed with the world.  Their spiritual vision was turned into physical lust and desire which then illuminated into spiritual vulgarity and vanity enhanced by their demands to leave God.  How many do you know or have heard people say “I tried God once” or “God left me”?  It is the exact same influence here today that was present in Israel’s heart way back when.

It is obvious that the day-to-day activities that Israel began to perform became the centerpiece of their lives.  This is a common factor that all of us deal with and one that should be the grounding place of God and His Word in our lives first.  It is indisputable that Israel had been born and grown through God and His Ways but at the same time it is also undeniable that the world had its influences on their hearts as well and eventually, the world’s ways became deeply appealing more to the hearts of Israel than God did.  God expects us to work and to keep our dominions intact for that was the command to Adam and that command has not changed for today either; however, when we lose track of God and His position in our lives it becomes easy for our enemy to gain access to our hearts, infiltrate them and then claim resident status legally.  It is this allowed resident status that begins the process of stone building and if we do not proclaim the truth against this stone formation, it will consume our lives in such a manner that will overpower us after a calculated amount of time.

Church, this is a problem that we need to understand because if Satan can fool the children of Israel enough to convince them to leave God and seek out a life in the world, we will be easy targets for this activity.  Since God is addressing this issue, we can safely estimate that we are either in dire condition of this occurring or most likely it has already taken over in our hearts.  This means it is built up enough that God recognizes it as a problem and is showing us that we need to have it removed.  We should have no problem with God doing this for it is the purpose of our lives to show everyone else what is going on so that they can remove things as well.  Through this message from God, we should have the initiative to stop and to get on our knees and ask God to show us where our hearts are at in the stone building program of Satan.  If we do this, God promises us that He will heal our land; this includes our hearts for it is our hearts that represent our land.  If we do not complete this task then our hearts shall continue on its stone building project and at some time in our future, our hearts shall no longer beat and thus be claimed for the kingdom of the world.

This type of trickery from Satan has not changed one bit over the millennia yet we have not learned from our history because we still fall into identical issues today.  This passage of Scripture informs us just how things become if we do not continually seek God and allow Him to search our hearts on a daily basis.  Not only are we hardening our hearts against God and the desires He has for our lives but we are actually shaping our children’s hearts with this pen of iron and diamond tip.  Think about this folks, we are shaping our children’s hearts by living for the world and its ruler.  If we shape their hearts starting at a young age how hard will their hearts be by the time they reach their teen years or their young adult years?  What are the chances of them seeking God and living for Him at these ages?  What will become of our nations if we do not spread the Truth about what Satan does to and with our hearts?  Church, let us change our hearts now so that we can teach our children properly about the auricles of God so that they may live in holy eternity with God.  It is well written that God does not wish for any one of His children to die in their sins and spend eternity in a place marked for the devil and his angels, so why do we begin making that death process possible ourselves?  Our command is not stonework but tell those stone hearts about God so that they may beat once again.  Remembering a rock is nothing special, but eternal life is beyond our imaginations.

DLB