Ancient Boundaries For Our Lives Today

Ancient Boundaries For Our Lives Today

Proverbs 22:28

Do not remove the ancient landmark

Which your fathers have set.

(NKJV)

1. Introduction

• “Bloody Angle - A Virginia Civil War Battle Field

• May 12, 1864 the fighting was so fierce that an oak tree 22 inches in diameter was cut down just by musket fire

• A 12 by 15 foot section held 150 dead

• “Rank after rank was riddled by shot and shell and bayonet thrusts, and finally sank, a mass of torn and mutilated corpses”

• On this bloody breastworks was erected a stone pillar now weather worn to remember this horrid scene.

2. Ancient Biblical Landmarks

a. Jacob - Gen. 31:52

b. Joshua - Joshua 4:20-24

• Marked the boundary of countries, the ethnic tribes of Israel and personal property.

• If a person removed these boundary markers it was equivalent of stealing

• It was within the owners boundaries that he was able to make a living .

• Removal of that landmark was like removing from the owner his ability to make a living.

3. Boundary Markers Today

• Sea, lakes and rivers are bounded by the shore or bank

• Animal world marks it’s territory with it’s scent.

• When approaching the nests of our feathered friends we are soon let known that we are intruding from their hissing and flapping of their wings,

• Fences divide our property lines,

• Offices have their cubicles,

• Highways have their speed limits

• Bills have a due date.

• Time limits are set for work and classroom.

- More or less, we honour all of these set boundaries.

- Our personal relationship with our creator that we want to ignore the ancient landmarks.

- Israel through the Old Testament, ignored and removed the ancient landmarks of Jehovah’s limits and directions

- 2 Chron. 7:14-20

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

15 Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer [that is made] in this place.

16 For now have I chosen and sanctified this house, that my name may be there for ever: and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.

17 And as for thee, if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, and do according to all that I have commanded thee, and shalt observe my statutes and my judgments;

18 Then will I stablish the throne of thy kingdom, according as I have covenanted with David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man [to be] ruler in Israel.

19 But if ye turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them;

20 Then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for my name, will I cast out of my sight, and will make it [to be] a proverb and a byword among all nations.

(KJV)

2 Kings 17:13-23

Yet the LORD testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, [and by] all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments [and] my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.

14 Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in the LORD their God.

15 And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that [were] round about them, [concerning] whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them.

16 And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, [even] two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal.

17 And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.

18 Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only.

19 Also Judah kept not the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made.

20 And the LORD rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight.