Landmarks

Landmarks

The importance of the landmark in Bible times can be traced back to that time when God set the boundaries for the children of Israel as they entered into the promised land. Landmarks existed before this time to serve as both reminders of special events and as physical reminders of the boundary lines of properties. They took on special meaning to those inheritors of God’s promise in this new land. Removal of a landmark was a crime punishable by death, since it not only sought to defraud man, but also to undermine the authority of God. As time passed, these landmarks took on a secondary meaning as well. In Proverbs 22:28 it reads: “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.”

These landmarks became associated with the spiritual boundaries that God had proscribed for His people. Just as God had set both spiritual and physical boundaries for His people then, He has set them for us today. “Don’t touch those landmarks!” is the cry that must go up today. In a time when Satan has gazed intently upon our landmarks and has sought to remove as many as possible, it is time that Christians wake up and realize the importance associated with these landmarks.

ILL. When my brother-in-law was landscaping the home in which my parents now live (they have since purchased it from him), he decided to plant some fast-growing, tall trees to help break the wind. He was very meticulous (as always) and planted the trees along the boundary line of the neighbor’s property. When the trees were planted, nourished, and well on their way to becoming healthy, the neighbor informed him that some of those trees were on his property, and since they were on his property he considered them to be his trees. Years later when a dispute arose regarding a pond that lay on both properties, this same neighbor hired a fencing contractor to put up fence directly through the pond. This man knew his boundaries quite well. He knew exactly where his property ended and where his neighbor’s began. While his responses might be unorthodox, his determination to keep his landmarks established is worthy of note. He did not want to lose anything to another by allowing the landmarks to be obscured or moved.

ILL. Some of our landmarks have already been moved. Take for instance the landmark that has been moved in our own time in the protection of the unborn. In 1970 (the year I graduated from high school) the two most hotly debated subjects were euthanasia (the killing of the elderly) and abortion. Little would I have dreamed that just three short years from that time, it would be lawful in our country to commit infanticide. Now the totals of this slaughter reach high into the millions with no seeming end in sight. We watched in disbelief at Nazi Germany as the internment death camps were uncovered by the Allied troops as the war ended. We wondered how the good people of Germany could have closed their eyes to this holocaust, yet we have done the same today with our own American Holocaust. This nation will not stand before God innocent someday, but shall stand shoulder to shoulder with all the barbaric murderers of history. Our landmark was moved and we realized it only too late. Now we live with the horror of our inaction. Because our landmark has been moved, we are forced to live with a boundary that has been moved. That movement has left a society searching for the right answers, for without the landmark to guide them, the world can only grope.

It is time for Christians to stand up and recognize that our landmarks are in danger of being moved, and it is high time that we take action to prevent that from occurring. What are those landmarks?

Scriptures—FOREVER SETTLED.

Psalm 119:89 teaches us that God’s Word is forever settled in Heaven. I do not know what language that He has chosen to preserve His Word in, but I do know that it is preserved. I do not know if it is in Hebrew or Greek or Aramaic or whatever, but I do know that it is settled—forever. There are to be no doubts about it or foolish questions regarding it. It is God’s Word and it is settled. He has settle it without the help of man or his scholarship. It was complete before the foundation of the world and will be complete when those foundations crumble. The Scriptures are one landmark which must never be allowed to be moved, yet it is the one area where Satan would have his greatest victory among Christians if we would let him. Throughout time (from Eve in the garden to Jesus’ temptation to this present day) Satan has sought to misquote and misrepresent God’s Word. By it we are established in our faith and grounded in our doctrine. Is it any wonder that Satan wishes to attack this important landmark? How is he doing this today—by attacking the veracity of the Scriptures by demeaning its importance in our lives. What better way to get man to question God’s Word than to confuse men with God’s Word. He has done this by attacking the Scriptures through man’s intellect. He has given us improved versions of the Word of God when we have only needed to improve our knowledge of the one we have already. When the Scriptures were translated into English, God took his settled Word and preserved it for us so that He might begin the revivals of our forefathers. Since the early 17th century we have had the Word of God in our own language and revival has broken out in such a way as to help fulfill the command of Christ in going forth into the whole world to preach the Gospel. I must choose the King James Version of the Holy Scriptures for three reasons: 1)Because of its Origin—the Received Texts, the Textus Receptus. I will leave for its critics the responsibility of higher criticism and scholasticism, but I would urge those who seek to be enlightened to consider that learning apart from God’s revealed Word has been at enmity with God since time immemorial. 2) Because of its History. The King James Version of God’s Holy Word has been the greatest tool for revival since Pentecost. D. L. Moody preached to his congregation from the King James Version and he straddled two continents with the revival fires that followed. C. H. Spurgeon preached to those great London crowds in that mighty Tabernacle from the King James Version, and an entire continent was affected by this non-Anglican, non-conformist Baptist preacher. The revivals of Sunday, Rice, and Norris all found the King James Version having the central focus of their meetings. Every great revival has started and ended with the King James Version of Scripture. It has a heritage like no other book. It has a place like no other writings. Though man pen his novels, and count his literary creations as masterpieces, there is no handiwork like God’s Word direct from the Master’s Hand. 3) Because of its association. There is no measuring stick like that of association. When I see those who align themselves with the King James Version of the Bible, I notice a pattern of common beliefs. I see separatists and soul-winners, holders of truth and bastions of faith. I see a mighty army that believes in right and wrong, black and white, goodness and sin—with never any admixture of these polar opposites. I do not find in its detractors these same attributes. I find scholarship to be a god, and knowledge to be worshipped. I see higher criticism as an attribute and faith as a detriment. I do not, nor will I, align myself with those who see fit to spread disunity among the brethren by removing our common denominator—the Holy Scriptures in one translation. Nor do I find John 3:16 to hold the same beauty in another version as it does in the King James Version. The verses that I learned as a child, that I was taught by my grandmother, my mother, my Sunday School teachers, and by my Pastors are not the same in any other version of the Scriptures. I prefer the King James. I promote the King James, and I hold to it as an unmoveable landmark—one to be guarded at all costs. Its removal would be far too devastating to imagine and far too harmful to Christ’s cause.