Purified or Petrified
By Pastor Jim May
(I was given a large piece of petrified wood on a recent visit to New Mexico. I used this petrified wood as my sermon basis.)
We are in the very last days of 2007. In just a few days the New Year will ring in at midnight with all of the blessings and troubles that it will bring.
The Spirit impressed upon me to think about just how close we are to the coming of the Lord. We are closer now, than we have ever been, and just as I believe that Jesus could still come in 2007, I believe that we may never see the coming of 2009 except we see it on the portals of Glory.
This world is in darkness like it has never seen before. Surely Matthew 24 is coming to pass before our very eyes.
Matthew 24:5-8, "For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows."
Though Jesus was speaking prophetically to the disciples about the events of the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans and the eventual martyrdom of the disciples, he was also speaking of a distant time to come, when history would repeat itself. We are in that distant time. There are wars on every hand – not only nation against nation, but ethnic divisions are at war, race wars rage in attempt to annihilate one another, the kingdoms of the world are warring as well, the oil kingdoms, drug kingdoms, financial kingdoms and others are constantly fighting for power and control. Famines plague much of the African Continent, pestilences of diseases run rampant, earthquakes are occurring with greater frequency and magnitude all the time. And yet Jesus says that these are but the beginning of sorrows. The world is headed for a time when the troubles we see today will be miniscule by comparison.
The period called the Tribulation lies straight ahead and there is no turning back. The time of Jacob’s Trouble looms just over the horizon and we are approaching that horizon very quickly.
I think that it is appropriate that we enter into each New Year at the stroke of midnight, for the world itself is in utter spiritual darkness. As each day of the year passes, mankind goes deeper into that darkness, and at the last second of this year, the world will be at its lowest spiritual point and darkest hour of the year. Mankind welcomes the New Year with a renewed hope and resolutions to make changes to better himself. But he is powerless to change. Sin has this world wrapped in unbreakable chains, locked away in the prison of darkness, and sealed to an eternal doom. Though the New Year enters with a bang, a celebration and a hope of a better tomorrow, all of those hopes, dreams and celebrations are soon shattered when we realize that something is changing, but never for the better. With every tick of the clock, sin abounds more and more. With every tick of the clock, we march one step closer to judgment.
Just as surely as the world is headed for judgment, so is the church; the people of God. Let us not forget what lies ahead either. Though we may truly look ahead to the coming New Year with a greater reason to hope than the world, we must ever be on guard to make sure that our hearts are right with the Lord. It’s so easy to slip into a state of lethargy, a place of comfort, and there to sit so long that we begin to lose our edge and allow the things of the world to creep into our lives.
Hebrews 2:1-3, "Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him;"
We have been studying the Book of James in the past few months and one of the passages that we studied says this:
James 4:8, "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded."
James the disciple was speaking to the church when he said those words, so perhaps we had better heed them. As we draw to the close of this year and look forward to the coming to the New Year, the most important task that we have is to take stock of our lives, examine our hearts and pray as David did in Psalms 139:23-24, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
I have before me here something that I want all of you to see. (Show the Petrified Wood). What do you see here? It appears to be a chunk of wood from a tree, but looks are deceiving, for it is not soft, but petrified.
Years ago, when I was in grade school, we were taught that this was really a piece of wood that had simply hardened over a long period of time and eventually became more rock than wood. Being young and naïve, I accepted what I was taught at face value and that’s what I have believed all of my life. Now I have discovered that this isn’t entirely true. Though this may have every appearance of being a piece of wood, there is not one piece of wood fiber left in it. Everything that was wood is gone. It has been replaced by minerals that used the wood only as a mold to form a rock.
The process of becoming petrified really amazed me when I finally had enough curiosity to find out what happens. That process reminds me so much of what can happen in the life of a child of God. Let’s look at that process for a moment.
This piece of rock actually did start out as a piece of wood. One day, it became disconnected from its source of life. Perhaps it was broken by a storm, or became diseased and eventually died. However it happens, this piece of wood feel from the tree and no longer lived. It was deprived of the presence of oxygen that would have caused it to decay and became preserved in perfect form as a dead piece of wood.
As I look at the church, I see a lot of people who start out as true Christians, sold out and committed to serving the Lord with all of their heart. But then the storms of life come against them and many times those storms seem to hard to bear, so people break under the pressure and decide to go back into their old life and become dead in sin once again, cut off from the life that comes only through Jesus Christ.
Others allow the sin of this world to slowly consume them like a disease. It all starts out with such an innocent little thing. Just one little drink here, one little puff there, one party at a time, one pill at a time, until they are trapped in sin and can’t break free. That sin, unless it is covered by the blood of Jesus, will cut them off from the life that only comes in the Spirit.
As they live in that place, separated from God, they are preserved by the power of sin, and still preserved by the love of God that continually deals with them to turn back to God, but many do not because they believe the lies of Satan who tells them that they have gone too far, and that God won’t love them anymore. They are deceived into believing that they can’t go back now, that they can’t live for God and that God has no more use for them. It’s all lies – but they don’t know that. They have lost the ability to believe, separated from God, and there they sit.
In this piece of petrified wood, as it lay there for many years, covered in water, and all sorts of minerals, something began to happen. Little by little the action of water and minerals began to replace each cell of this piece of wood. One by one, over time, each cell of wood became a cell of rock. In time every cell of wood was replaced by a cell of rock. Even today, if you were to put a piece of this wood under a microscope, you could identify the type of tree that it once was by the cell structure within the rock because it has been duplicated so exactly.
I am convinced that this is the same thing that happens in the heart of a Child of God when he begins to backslide.
First there comes a point when he disconnects from God and begins to get his eyes on the things of the world. Instead of purifying his heart, and turning from his double-minded ways, he continues to go deeper and deeper into sin.
Then, as time goes on, he loses those things that were once a part of his Christian life, and they are replaced with things of the world. He stops studying or reading the Bible and replaces it with novels, movies and other interests. He stops going to church, and allows anything else to become an excuse to not attend. Sports, the job and work that need to be done around the house begin to take a priority over the things of God. Little by little, cell by cell, every part of his life in Christ is replaced by something of the world that makes his heart a little harder.
On the outside, his mold still looks the same. He has every appearance of being a Child of God, just as this wood still looks like wood, but in reality it’s only a mold. What has become of that heart that was once soft and pliable in the hands of God? It has become as a stone, hard and untouchable.
This isn’t a process that happens suddenly. Very few people wake up one morning and just decide not to serve the Lord. They don’t have an epiphany one day and suddenly develop a hatred for God, for the Bible, or for the church. In fact, nearly every backslidden Christian that you talk to will still claim to love God, and they often can’t explain why they backslid in the first place. It was such a slow process that they didn’t know it was happening until it was too late.
If they had only taken the time to purify their hearts, each day of their walk with the Lord, then they would never have become petrified Christians with such a stony heart.
There is hope yet for the backslidden Christian who has allowed his heart to become like stone. God made this promise to His people in Ezekiel 36:26, "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh."
As we come to the close of this message, and the close of this year, looking forward to the coming of the New Year, let us examine our hearts to see if we are pure before God.
Have the cares of life began to wash away a little of your love for God and the things of God? Do you love Jesus more today than you did yesterday – last month – last New Years? Has your heart remained purified before the Lord?
Perhaps we have allowed a little of the world to gain a foothold in our lives and we are just beginning to be petrified, hardened against sin and against God’s love.
At any point during the process of allowing our hearts to become hard, we can turn back to God and allow him to purify us instead. Sadly though, most people will become completely petrified before they will turn around.
Let us examine ourselves today and allow God’s Word to search our hearts for the stony parts that may be there. Let us allow the Spirit of the Lord to speak to us and show us the way home. Let us purify our hearts, asking God to cleanse us from all sin, and make us what we ought to be in Him. Don’t become petrified. Purify your hearts today!
Perhaps you are here this morning, wondering why you came today? Maybe you have been caught in the trap of sin and you are already fighting the process of becoming petrified. Maybe your heart is hardened already?
Are you ready for that stony heart to be healed? Are you ready to allow the Lord to create within you a clean heart? He can and will make you whole again if you will come to him. Come to Jesus today and let Him remove that heart of stone. He will purify you if you will surrender to him.
