Protect the Boundary Stones

 

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Landmarks are a very important thing.  When I worked in the Sulphur/Carlyss area, the area was decimated by Hurricane Laura.  My dispatcher lost his home.  He told me that he couldn’t find his way down the backroads anymore as all the landmarks were gone.  In the past, you’d tell someone to turn left on the gravel road right by the old red barn and then make a right at the big water oak tree.  Well, now the old red barn and the big water oak tree was gone.  With the landmarks gone as points of reference, it was easy to get lost.

This past week I opened up Proverbs 23 and read the following: 

Proverbs 23:10-11 King James Version

10 Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless:

11 For their redeemer is mighty; he shall plead their cause with thee.

Then one day later, we were reading in Job 24 and read about boundary stones again! 

I asked myself, what are these landmarks the Bible is talking about?  I had never really paid much attention to them, so I began to study.  The Bible actually says a whole lot about them.  Like this:

Deuteronomy 19:14  King James Version

¹⁴ Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it.

Boundary stones were informal stone monuments regularly used to mark the corners of family fields.  Today, people will call a surveyor to set (or recover) the property corners and produce a detailed plat or map.  Surveying is an old profession.  In fact George Washington began his career as a young man in 1749 as a surveyor.  Between jobs about 15 years ago, I’d help a local surveyor part time in surveying.  We’d go out to a piece of land with instruments and find the corners.  We would use a metal detector, instruments, and shovel to find or set the corners and they were marked with metal rods. 

When we purchased our land and wanted to erect a fence for livestock, I found the corners and built the fence on the line.  I didn’t want to encroach on the neighbor’s property.

If you look at Proverbs 23:10-11, even back then, these informal stone markers were called “ancient” or old.  The property lines had been in place for a long time.  They marked the property lines of family land.  Land was used for growing grain or grazing livestock and was crucial to financial stability.  Moving the boundary stone to make your field larger, resulted in your neighbor’s field being smaller.  It was taking something that wasn’t yours.  It’s theft.  The Bible says God is watching.  The Redeemer is strong and He’ll hold it against you, especially if you stole from orphans and denied their inheritance.

Let’s look at the sinister ways in which boundaries were moved.  Let's suppose there is a rock that will represent the boundary stone, the landmark.  Clever neighbors who wanted to expand their land wouldn’t move the stone all at once.  The neighbor would notice.  The place where the stone was would be easy to see as there wouldn’t be grass there.  No, you would move it a LITTLE at a time and would kick grass and dirt around the stone so that the movement wouldn’t be visible.  Over years, this stone could be moved gradually and considerable land could be taken, without notice.

God established boundaries and they are important to Him.  In addition to marking property ownership, He set boundaries to keep us safe, healthy, on the right path and to provide blessing.  We can ignore these boundaries, but we do so at our own peril.  When the children of Israel moved into the Promised Land, the 12 tribes were given land with boundaries.

In the past, boundaries were marked with stone like the one we talked about, but boundaries also came from stone tablets, right?  From God’s Word.  God also established boundaries in the created world.  They help us as we navigate through life.  Boundaries like this: Night and day.  The four seasons.  Male and Female.  Truth and Lies, Wisdom and Folly.  Life and Death.  Right and Wrong.  Trees you can eat from.  Tree you can’t.  The Serpent had Adam and Eve question the boundaries: “Hath God not said?”  "Will you really die if you eat the fruit of this tree?"

In the Old Testament, God sent prophets to warn people.  Judah had seized Israel’s territory, moving the physical boundary that separated them.  But their leaders also moved the moral boundaries as well:

Their deeds do not permit them to return to their God. A spirit of prostitution is in their heart; they do not acknowledge the Lord. Israel’s arrogance testifies against them; the Israelites, even Ephraim, stumble in their sin; Judah also stumbles with them.. Judah’s leaders are like those who move boundary stones. I will pour out my wrath on them like a flood of water.  (Hosea 5:4-5, 10) 

But we aren’t talking about Old Testament times only, are we?  After all this time, God’s timeless, ancient boundaries are still in place.  His moral boundaries are too.  See the human heart is desperately wicked, the Bible tells us.  People tire of objective truth and boundaries and want to move them or ignore them altogether.  People find clever ways to “move the boundary stone” a little bit at a time.

Examples (the moment life begins, definition of marriage, the necessity of a two parent home with fathers leading the family, fluid gender, sexual acts, language and innuendo in movies and TV.  In 1939, in the movie, "Gone with the Wind," Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) tearfully asked, “Where will I go?  What shall I do?” Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) turned and said, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a &#$%.”  Look at how we’ve fallen once that boundary stone was moved.  The Slippery Slope exists and we are in a free fall on that slope, it seems.  

Proverbs 22:28  Do not move the ancient boundary which your fathers have set.

Truth be told, God gives us freedom to make our own decisions, but moving these boundary stones come at a high price.

 Job 24:1-4 King James Version

1 Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know him not see his days?
2 Some remove the landmarks; they violently take away flocks, and feed thereof.
3 They drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widow's ox for a pledge.
4 They turn the needy out of the way: the poor of the earth hide themselves together.

Look at the suffering that occurs when we ignore God.  God gives us boundaries for our own good.  If we heed them, we avoid needless pain and suffering and enjoy blessing.  God loves us and desires the best for us.

This is what the Lord says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. (Jeremiah 6:16)

Conversely, when our society encroaches the boundaries that God has set, God judges.  History is packed with examples of crumbled nations that were once strong and morally grounded.  Be on guard against society encroaching upon Biblical values and boundaries set by God’s word, backed up by parents and church and nations built upon Judeo-Christian principles.  Stand for Truth and God’s boundaries.  Guard them.

So how do we get back (if that is possible)?  If it’s possible, the only way is to restore the ancient boundaries.  We see where we’ve missed the mark as described in Scripture and we come back to those standards in our lives, our churches, and our nations.  Even non-believers benefit by believers heeding God’s boundaries.  Christians must guard themselves, and be diligent in our witness and in our prayers if this culture is to have a chance of returning to God’s original boundaries.

In closing, there is one more boundary we need to discuss – the boundary between Salvation and Condemnation, between spiritual life and death.  As with the other boundaries, the Bible clearly delineates the two.  And He provided a way to move from death to life through God’s Son, Jesus Christ.  Jesus Himself said the following:

John 11:25-26  King James Version

25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:  26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

And that is the big question, isn't it?  There is a boundary between heaven and hell.  Between life and death.  And it hinges on how you answer that question.  Do you believe?