Read: 2
Thessalonians 2:13-17
Remove not
the old landmark… Proverbs
23:10
It is a
fact that most people live within fifty miles of where they grew up. That is
not the case for me. I live over eight hundred miles from my home town.
Naturally, I don’t get to go back home as often as I would like to, and things
change a lot between visits. The home that I lived in for the first six years
of my life is torn down; the little store I used to walk to to buy “penny
candy” has been moved; and even the little grocery and hardware stores are no
longer there. Some things have stayed the same, though. The gazebo in the center
of town is still standing; the park by the river is still there; the church is
still there; the library still exists, and many other things that remind me of
my childhood are still in place. There are certain landmarks that I look for
each time I go home to visit. When they are no longer there, it feels like a
little piece of my childhood has gone with it. If my say mattered to those on
the town council, I would beg them not to change a thing. I want things to be
just the way I left them when I moved away.
That is exactly the same idea that God is
trying to get across in Proverbs 23. When Jesus left this earth after He rose
from the dead, He left faithful apostles and followers who would do the work of
spreading the message of the gospel. Through the inspiration of the Holy Ghost,
they wrote the Word of God as the standard for us to follow. Throughout every successive
century, faithful men of God have followed and upheld that standard. Times of persecution have come and gone;
apostasy has been lifted up from time to time; yet, there have always been men
willing to stand against the crowd and uphold the standard. Those men made a
deliberate decision to stand. They wanted the Lord to be pleased with what He
saw when He came back. Many of those men are gone now, and there remains a void
of those willing to stand for Christ. If you don’t make the decision to stand
for what is right, then who will? The truth is only one generation away from
perishing because if the second generation does not carry its torch, the light
will be extinguished.
If it were possible for the old-time
preachers to come back to this world, would they be disappointed by how many
things you have allowed to be changed? Don’t try to change the truth. Don’t try
to change the Word of God. Don’t try to lower the standards. Don’t let the
devil get a foothold. Don’t change the spiritual landmarks, or our kids will
have nothing to use as a marker for godliness.
Quote of the day: “Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a
stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.” – Billy Graham
No comments:
Post a Comment