Sacred Stones

My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out. Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces. Worship the LORD your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span.  Exodus 23: 23 – 26.

Here is what the Sovereign Lord God tells His children, as He leads them to the land He has promised them. But be not deceived or think that this is not relevant to you or that it does not pertain to you. It is true that you are not an Israelite in the Old Testament days, but God is your God, the same God as in the Old Testament days. As God, He never changes His mind on what He thinks about idols and the worshipping of idols. It is very easy for His children and people to forget Him and turn to idols, since His own beloved children are prone to wander and stray, and since His children are always ready to follow the ways of the world, those around them who are not of God, then this order of command is for you and for me also.

It is from this command, that we are shown the warning, wisdom and will of God, regarding sacred stones. Here is obviously simple, yet profoundly sound reasoning. Wisdom tells us that if the Lord is warning about something, it must be taken seriously for many reasons. You see, if He is warning us against something, it means therefore, that something does exist and is a living threat to our relationship with God.

The Lord’s Warning – Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices.

In His warning, the Lord is telling us that regardless of how the sacred stones may be presented to us, regardless of how innocent and harmless they may appear to us, and regardless of how we think that they are helpful, don’t follow their practices. Sacred stones are the idol stones of your neighbours, those among whom you dwell, but you are warned before time, not to take on or embrace such idolatry. 

The Lord’s Wisdom – Worship the LORD your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water.

The Lord God knows the nature of His children. He knows that His human sons and daughters can be easily persuaded to turn from Him. He is also astutely aware of how attracted we can be to the ways of the world. It is in this wisdom that He warns His children and us included, with sound advice, so that we know exactly what to expect before getting to the place of promise. The sound advice is to worship Him and Him alone. We, His people, are not allowed to have any other gods except the One True God. The wisdom of God never fails and God never fails to give all that He has promised to those who are idol-free.

The Lord’s Will – You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces.

When the Lord warns His children against worshipping the sacred stones, He tells them exactly what He wants them to do with the stones. You are not to worship them, but you are to do something with them. You are to ensure that they are no longer sacred stones for anyone. God’s will is that we demolish every sacred idol we come upon and crush every single stone that was used to build that idol, regardless of the quantity and quality of the stones.

During a period when I resided in one of the islands of the Caribbean, I was fascinated with how the villagers from rural areas would be by the river, breaking stones. Both males and females did this work. They would squat on a large stone, and they would hammer away at the stone or stones before them. With a little sledgehammer, they would be hammering away and when the pieces were broken off, those broken off pieces were hammered down also. To me, it was amazing to see how they brought some huge stones, to little pieces of stone, just by persistently, constantly, perseveringly and resolutely hammering away at them. Is this what the Lord is saying that we are to do to the sacred stones that we are sure to meet in our pilgrimage journey?  We are not called to turn a blind eye to these stones. We have not been commanded to take them and hide them away, somewhere out of sight. We are not ordered to turn away from them and ensure that we never touch them and that we have absolutely nothing to do with them. No! Absolutely and definitively, no! You and I have been commanded to crush them to pieces.

The Lord’s Word – His blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span.

The Lord has given His Word in the matter of the sacred stones, the stones of idolatry. Crush them, demolish them and keep Me only as Your God and My Word of promise to you is this.

I will bless your food and water.

I will take away sickness from among you.

I will ensure that there are no miscarriages, or barren in your place.

I will give you a full life span.

Is our God a man that He should lie to His children? Is He a God of much words, but little action? God forbid that any of our lives testify to a God who is unable to keep His promises to His children. 

Let’s ponder these questions deeply, with Spirit-convicting honesty. Are you in the place where the Lord has led you, the place teeming with sacred stones? Is there a sacred stone or sacred stones before you? Then ensure that they are no more. Crush them all to pieces.

Remember! No sacred stone is to remain a stone in your presence, it is to become rubble. We are to make them so crushed that they are of no use to us or anyone else, as sacred stones of worship.