?
....
Guest
We tend to think of rock and stone as some pretty permanent material; we build houses of it, countertops, gems, jewelry, you name it. My wife even collects agates, which themselves are incredibly beautiful (and geologists aren't entirely sure how they are made!). And to be frank, under most circumstances, it is permanent. Even the Lord describes Himself as "the Rock of my salvation" (1 Samuel 22:47, Psalm 89:26), so the permanence of rock is generally accepted (even given that volcanoes melt rock and stone on a regular basis!).
But two of the saddest stories in Scripture involve the one sure way that stone could be destroyed: by breaking.
Let's take a look at the first account, involving Moses:
"Now the LORD said to Moses, “Come up to Me on the mountain and remain there, and I will give you the stone tablets with the law and the commandment which I have written for their instruction. So Moses arose with Joshua his servant, and Moses went up to the mountain of God. But to the elders he said, “Wait here for us until we return to you. And behold, Aaron and Hur are with you; whoever has a legal matter, let him approach them.” Then Moses went up to the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the LORD rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; and on the seventh day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud. And to the eyes of the sons of Israel the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a consuming fire on the mountain top. Moses entered the midst of the cloud as he went up to the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights." (Exodus 24:12-18, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
"When He had finished speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, He gave Moses the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written by the finger of God." (Exodus 31:18, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
The Lord had called Moses to Himself, to give him the Law engraved by the Lord's own hand onto a pair of stone tablets, that Moses was to bring back down to Israel, who was waiting at the foot of the mountain. But there was a slight problem:
"Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Aaron said to them, “Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” Now when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.” So the next day they rose early and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play." (Exodus 32:1-6, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
Forgetting that the Lord had just delivered them out of Egypt not so long ago with plagues that shattered Pharaoh and his nation, the Israelites took the opportunity to make an idol and throw a wild party. And the Lord God was not impressed in the least with their antics:
"Then the LORD spoke to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.“They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and have sacrificed to it and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!’" The LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people. Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation.” (Exodus 32:7-10, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
This was a direct slap to the face of the Lord, and Moses knew it. God was ready to utterly annihilate them for this, and Moses had to get down there quickly, but first, he asked the Lord:
"Then Moses entreated the LORD his God, and said, “O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, ‘With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people." (Exodus 32:11-14, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
The Lord already knew what He was going to do concerning Israel, but He was indeed angry with them, so why did He tell Moses He was going to destroy them? I believe the answer is that He was testing Moses, to see how he would react. Moses was angry at them as well, but he didn't want to see Israel utterly annihilated.
So, after asking the Lord for mercy, Moses went back down to the people, and this happened:
"It came about, as soon as Moses came near the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing; and Moses’ anger burned, and he threw the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf which they had made and burned it with fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it over the surface of the water and made the sons of Israel drink it."(Exodus 32:19-28, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
When Moses had seen what the people had done, He flung the tablets against the rock of the mountain, smashing them. Since Scripture doesn't record the Lord punishing Moses for this, it's apparent here that the Lord allowed this as a symbol of the Laws having been broken by Israel even before they were received. Being that this was done at the foot of the mountain, the people most likely saw Moses do this; they were astonished to see him alive, and terrified to see his anger demonstrated. We do read a bit later in Scripture that Moses had to carve the second set of tablets for the Lord to write on; I feel the Lord did this to keep Moses' anger from making him smash them a second time. He most likely thought:
"I really don't want to have to go up Mt. Sinai again and have to carve another set!"
It was sad that Israel had rebelled and brought judgment on themselves (and near destruction) in this situation;.
Now, let's look at the second instance:
"Then the sons of Israel, the whole congregation, came to the wilderness of Zin in the first month; and the people stayed at Kadesh. Now Miriam died there and was buried there. There was no water for the congregation, and they assembled themselves against Moses and Aaron. The people thus contended with Moses and spoke, saying, “If only we had perished when our brothers perished before the LORD! Why then have you brought the LORD’S assembly into this wilderness, for us and our beasts to die here? Why have you made us come up from Egypt, to bring us in to this wretched place? It is not a place of grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, nor is there water to drink. Then Moses and Aaron came in from the presence of the assembly to the doorway of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces. Then the glory of the LORD appeared to them; and the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Take the rod; and you and your brother Aaron assemble the congregation and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it may yield its water. You shall thus bring forth water for them out of the rock and let the congregation and their beasts drink.” So Moses took the rod from before the LORD, just as He had commanded him; and Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock. And he said to them, “Listen now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?” Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation and their beasts drank. But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you have not believed Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.” Those were the waters of Meribah, because the sons of Israel contended with the LORD, and He proved Himself holy among them." ((Numbers 20:1-12, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
The situation was that the people had no water and were getting very upset, so Moses and Aaron asked the Lord on their behalf for mercy. In response, the Lord instructed them to speak to the rock and it would produce water for them to drink and thus provide for them. But Moses' temper flared again, and Aaron also failed to act to rein in Moses' anger. The result of this would be that neither Aaron nor Moses would enter the Holy Land; both would die in the wilderness and be "gathered up to their people".
What made these two situations so different? Why was Moses not punished in the first one, but punished in the second?
In the incident at Mt. Sinai, The Lord had told Moses what was happening in the camp of his people. When Moses saw it with his own eyes, I believe the Lord moved within him, and physically demonstrated what they had done to the Lord directly in front of them. The Lord used Moses to confront the people with their offense, and to then punish them for it. Moses would then go back up the mountain and try to make atonement for them, which the Lord accepted. It was then that the Lord had Moses carve the replacement set of tablets, giving Moses a hand in this new writing of the Law and ensuring he would not be so eager to smash this set of tablets.
The difference in the second incident (Meribah) is that The Lord has explicitly told Moses and Aaron what to do, and this time they were the ones who disobeyed. Moses allowed his temper to flare again even though he knew these people could (and would) provoke him. By now, he had spent four decades with this lot and was all too familiar with how they could try to "push his buttons". In a likewise manner, Aaron should have known better by this point as well; he had personal experience with them, and knew Moses' temper all too well, yet he did nothing to stop Moses from flaring up and acting rashly. After 40 years, Moses and Aaron both still had these tendencies, and if they were to lead Israel into the Promised Land, those weaknesses could prove disastrous for the nation as a whole.
The generation that came out of Egypt had died off (save for Caleb and Joshua), and a new generation that was not tainted with the desire for the ways and comforts of Egypt was ready to take the land their fathers had been promised (and did not receive). The Lord didn't want anything of that or of Moses' and Aaron's shortcomings affecting their entry into Canaan. So, with this last instance, the Lord placed a new high priest (Eleazar) and a new leader (Joshua) at the head of Israel to lead them in the taking of the Land.
So, what are we to draw from these two instances? What is it we can learn from them and apply to our walk with the Lord?
1) Let the Lord move us as He will, and not in our own strength.
Too often, we feel the need to "run ahead" and try to do things according to our own understanding instead of the Lord's. We see something we want, or something ahead, and we often try to rush to it to handle it in our own strength. But the Lord sees things we do not, and He has things that need to be done His way so that they happen exactly as they need to. When Moses acted within the will of the Lord, Israel was spared (albeit strictly disciplined for their behavior) and moved forward. When Moses disobeyed, the Lord had to act.
2) Not obeying the Lord can have consequences for us (and others around us).
In both these scenarios, the tragedy is that disobedience and choosing one's own way instead of the Lord's resulted in loss to those involved. While we are not under the penalty of the Law today (the Lord Himself, Jesus Christ, paid that penalty for us and fulfilled the Law), this does not mean that we are free from the Lord's discipline:
"You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD, NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM; FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES.” It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness." (Hebrews 12: 4-11, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
In this passage, the word used for "discipline" in the Greek is the word paideia (Strong's 3809), meaning " discipline; training and education of children, hence: instruction; chastisement, correction." In other words: it's not punishment in the line of judicial/ retributive, but corrective; i.e. akin to the way parents would instruct a child or the way a trainer might train an athlete as two examples. God doesn't beat His children bloody, but He does expect us to pay attention and when we don't, He may have to send things our way to bring us back onto the road He wants us on. And since we do not live in a vacuum, our sin ripples like a stone thrown into a pond; even though others may not behave as we have (and vice versa), those "ripples" affect all around us.
3) Like a rock or a stone, our walk can stand as a testimony to obedience, or disobedience.
Whether we want to admit it or not, what we say and do will stay with people longer than we can even guess. Kindness and mercy given to someone in need can imprint a memory upon them that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. Conversely, anger, hatred, rage and strife can engrave themselves deeply into the psyche of those even simply standing by, and remind them daily of the instance they witnesses it in. Moses' actions at the rock surely had an imprint on those who were demanding that God provide water, and probably stayed with them for a long, long time.
4) There are some rocks/ stones that are WORTH BREAKING.
Of all the "stone" in the world, the hardest of all isn't the diamond or tungsten; rather, it's the human heart. Our hearts can petrify and turn into a rock harder than any other in the universe, impervious to fire, iron or just about any other weapon or tool. And even though we are saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, we need to safeguard against this by paying close attention to the leading of the Holy Spirit, the instruction of Scripture, and the lessons the Lord teaches us as we walk with Him. To let Him shape us by His Spirit and not own own efforts or understanding, and to allow Him to define us and not this world.
This is the meaning of sanctification; becoming more like the Lord, less like the world, and freeing us from the cairn of stone that encases the human heart within a hard, lifeless shell.
In the end, the only stone in this universe that cannot be broken, melted or otherwise destroyed is the One that the Father in heaven chose to be the Cornerstone; it is the Rock of our salvation that all whom fall upon are broken, and upon whom it falls, crushes them to powder. That Rock is surer than the very ground under our feet, and is the stone upon which our faith is based.
And of all stones, is the one that cannot be shattered.
I bid you all peace.
YBIC,
-Sojo414
But two of the saddest stories in Scripture involve the one sure way that stone could be destroyed: by breaking.
Let's take a look at the first account, involving Moses:
"Now the LORD said to Moses, “Come up to Me on the mountain and remain there, and I will give you the stone tablets with the law and the commandment which I have written for their instruction. So Moses arose with Joshua his servant, and Moses went up to the mountain of God. But to the elders he said, “Wait here for us until we return to you. And behold, Aaron and Hur are with you; whoever has a legal matter, let him approach them.” Then Moses went up to the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the LORD rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; and on the seventh day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud. And to the eyes of the sons of Israel the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a consuming fire on the mountain top. Moses entered the midst of the cloud as he went up to the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights." (Exodus 24:12-18, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
"When He had finished speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, He gave Moses the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written by the finger of God." (Exodus 31:18, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
The Lord had called Moses to Himself, to give him the Law engraved by the Lord's own hand onto a pair of stone tablets, that Moses was to bring back down to Israel, who was waiting at the foot of the mountain. But there was a slight problem:
"Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Aaron said to them, “Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” Now when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.” So the next day they rose early and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play." (Exodus 32:1-6, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
Forgetting that the Lord had just delivered them out of Egypt not so long ago with plagues that shattered Pharaoh and his nation, the Israelites took the opportunity to make an idol and throw a wild party. And the Lord God was not impressed in the least with their antics:
"Then the LORD spoke to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.“They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and have sacrificed to it and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!’" The LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people. Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation.” (Exodus 32:7-10, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
This was a direct slap to the face of the Lord, and Moses knew it. God was ready to utterly annihilate them for this, and Moses had to get down there quickly, but first, he asked the Lord:
"Then Moses entreated the LORD his God, and said, “O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, ‘With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people." (Exodus 32:11-14, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
The Lord already knew what He was going to do concerning Israel, but He was indeed angry with them, so why did He tell Moses He was going to destroy them? I believe the answer is that He was testing Moses, to see how he would react. Moses was angry at them as well, but he didn't want to see Israel utterly annihilated.
So, after asking the Lord for mercy, Moses went back down to the people, and this happened:
"It came about, as soon as Moses came near the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing; and Moses’ anger burned, and he threw the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf which they had made and burned it with fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it over the surface of the water and made the sons of Israel drink it."(Exodus 32:19-28, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
When Moses had seen what the people had done, He flung the tablets against the rock of the mountain, smashing them. Since Scripture doesn't record the Lord punishing Moses for this, it's apparent here that the Lord allowed this as a symbol of the Laws having been broken by Israel even before they were received. Being that this was done at the foot of the mountain, the people most likely saw Moses do this; they were astonished to see him alive, and terrified to see his anger demonstrated. We do read a bit later in Scripture that Moses had to carve the second set of tablets for the Lord to write on; I feel the Lord did this to keep Moses' anger from making him smash them a second time. He most likely thought:
"I really don't want to have to go up Mt. Sinai again and have to carve another set!"
It was sad that Israel had rebelled and brought judgment on themselves (and near destruction) in this situation;.
Now, let's look at the second instance:
"Then the sons of Israel, the whole congregation, came to the wilderness of Zin in the first month; and the people stayed at Kadesh. Now Miriam died there and was buried there. There was no water for the congregation, and they assembled themselves against Moses and Aaron. The people thus contended with Moses and spoke, saying, “If only we had perished when our brothers perished before the LORD! Why then have you brought the LORD’S assembly into this wilderness, for us and our beasts to die here? Why have you made us come up from Egypt, to bring us in to this wretched place? It is not a place of grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, nor is there water to drink. Then Moses and Aaron came in from the presence of the assembly to the doorway of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces. Then the glory of the LORD appeared to them; and the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Take the rod; and you and your brother Aaron assemble the congregation and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it may yield its water. You shall thus bring forth water for them out of the rock and let the congregation and their beasts drink.” So Moses took the rod from before the LORD, just as He had commanded him; and Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock. And he said to them, “Listen now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?” Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation and their beasts drank. But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you have not believed Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.” Those were the waters of Meribah, because the sons of Israel contended with the LORD, and He proved Himself holy among them." ((Numbers 20:1-12, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
The situation was that the people had no water and were getting very upset, so Moses and Aaron asked the Lord on their behalf for mercy. In response, the Lord instructed them to speak to the rock and it would produce water for them to drink and thus provide for them. But Moses' temper flared again, and Aaron also failed to act to rein in Moses' anger. The result of this would be that neither Aaron nor Moses would enter the Holy Land; both would die in the wilderness and be "gathered up to their people".
What made these two situations so different? Why was Moses not punished in the first one, but punished in the second?
In the incident at Mt. Sinai, The Lord had told Moses what was happening in the camp of his people. When Moses saw it with his own eyes, I believe the Lord moved within him, and physically demonstrated what they had done to the Lord directly in front of them. The Lord used Moses to confront the people with their offense, and to then punish them for it. Moses would then go back up the mountain and try to make atonement for them, which the Lord accepted. It was then that the Lord had Moses carve the replacement set of tablets, giving Moses a hand in this new writing of the Law and ensuring he would not be so eager to smash this set of tablets.
The difference in the second incident (Meribah) is that The Lord has explicitly told Moses and Aaron what to do, and this time they were the ones who disobeyed. Moses allowed his temper to flare again even though he knew these people could (and would) provoke him. By now, he had spent four decades with this lot and was all too familiar with how they could try to "push his buttons". In a likewise manner, Aaron should have known better by this point as well; he had personal experience with them, and knew Moses' temper all too well, yet he did nothing to stop Moses from flaring up and acting rashly. After 40 years, Moses and Aaron both still had these tendencies, and if they were to lead Israel into the Promised Land, those weaknesses could prove disastrous for the nation as a whole.
The generation that came out of Egypt had died off (save for Caleb and Joshua), and a new generation that was not tainted with the desire for the ways and comforts of Egypt was ready to take the land their fathers had been promised (and did not receive). The Lord didn't want anything of that or of Moses' and Aaron's shortcomings affecting their entry into Canaan. So, with this last instance, the Lord placed a new high priest (Eleazar) and a new leader (Joshua) at the head of Israel to lead them in the taking of the Land.
So, what are we to draw from these two instances? What is it we can learn from them and apply to our walk with the Lord?
1) Let the Lord move us as He will, and not in our own strength.
Too often, we feel the need to "run ahead" and try to do things according to our own understanding instead of the Lord's. We see something we want, or something ahead, and we often try to rush to it to handle it in our own strength. But the Lord sees things we do not, and He has things that need to be done His way so that they happen exactly as they need to. When Moses acted within the will of the Lord, Israel was spared (albeit strictly disciplined for their behavior) and moved forward. When Moses disobeyed, the Lord had to act.
2) Not obeying the Lord can have consequences for us (and others around us).
In both these scenarios, the tragedy is that disobedience and choosing one's own way instead of the Lord's resulted in loss to those involved. While we are not under the penalty of the Law today (the Lord Himself, Jesus Christ, paid that penalty for us and fulfilled the Law), this does not mean that we are free from the Lord's discipline:
"You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD, NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM; FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES.” It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness." (Hebrews 12: 4-11, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
In this passage, the word used for "discipline" in the Greek is the word paideia (Strong's 3809), meaning " discipline; training and education of children, hence: instruction; chastisement, correction." In other words: it's not punishment in the line of judicial/ retributive, but corrective; i.e. akin to the way parents would instruct a child or the way a trainer might train an athlete as two examples. God doesn't beat His children bloody, but He does expect us to pay attention and when we don't, He may have to send things our way to bring us back onto the road He wants us on. And since we do not live in a vacuum, our sin ripples like a stone thrown into a pond; even though others may not behave as we have (and vice versa), those "ripples" affect all around us.
3) Like a rock or a stone, our walk can stand as a testimony to obedience, or disobedience.
Whether we want to admit it or not, what we say and do will stay with people longer than we can even guess. Kindness and mercy given to someone in need can imprint a memory upon them that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. Conversely, anger, hatred, rage and strife can engrave themselves deeply into the psyche of those even simply standing by, and remind them daily of the instance they witnesses it in. Moses' actions at the rock surely had an imprint on those who were demanding that God provide water, and probably stayed with them for a long, long time.
4) There are some rocks/ stones that are WORTH BREAKING.
Of all the "stone" in the world, the hardest of all isn't the diamond or tungsten; rather, it's the human heart. Our hearts can petrify and turn into a rock harder than any other in the universe, impervious to fire, iron or just about any other weapon or tool. And even though we are saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, we need to safeguard against this by paying close attention to the leading of the Holy Spirit, the instruction of Scripture, and the lessons the Lord teaches us as we walk with Him. To let Him shape us by His Spirit and not own own efforts or understanding, and to allow Him to define us and not this world.
This is the meaning of sanctification; becoming more like the Lord, less like the world, and freeing us from the cairn of stone that encases the human heart within a hard, lifeless shell.
In the end, the only stone in this universe that cannot be broken, melted or otherwise destroyed is the One that the Father in heaven chose to be the Cornerstone; it is the Rock of our salvation that all whom fall upon are broken, and upon whom it falls, crushes them to powder. That Rock is surer than the very ground under our feet, and is the stone upon which our faith is based.
And of all stones, is the one that cannot be shattered.
I bid you all peace.
YBIC,
-Sojo414
