August 22

Aug 22 - Today from Proverbs 22 we look at verse 28
"Do not move an ancient boundary stone set up by your forefathers."

Property is extremely personal. It provides for personal needs and it requires personal responsibility. It often becomes part of a person's identity. I don't know what things are like on the campus today, but when I was in high school in the sixties there was hardly a day went by without hearing a conversation along this line:
"Hey, did you hear what happened to Jerry Berry?"
"I'm not sure I know who he is. What does he drive?"
"He's got that red and white '55 Chevy with the baby moon hub caps."
"Oh yeah . . . so, what happened to him?"
Our car was our first real piece of property in those days. It provided for our personal needs (our biggest being independence!); it required personal responsibility (some one always had their head under a hood, and we would actually look for change in the couch in order to put enough gas in it for the weekend); and it provided a clear source of identity (even if it wasn't a 'cherry', everyone tried to make theirs unique). Yep, property is extremely personal.
When you encroach upon other people's property, you are committing a personal violation. To take Jerry Berry's baby moon hub caps would be ‘to steal a part of his soul’ (sic). But we seldom think of encroachment as stealing. Encroachment is more gradual and requires the art of stealth. The perpetrator takes little pieces that are almost indiscernible. It's moving the boundaries in small increments over a long period. When Israel's promised land was divided amongst the tribes and families, they placed huge stones to mark the boundaries. God forbade any to move the boundary stones (Deut. 19:14). The family's land was vital to their well being and became a source of their identity. To move a stone even a little, even if it were undetected, even if the family weren't to miss it, it was stealing.
Boundaries are the place to stop. The other side of the boundary is out of our area of liberty to satisfy our needs. Not all boundaries are physical. There are moral boundaries. We can become experts at moving the moral boundary stones ever so slightly so as to give ourselves a little more room to serve self. We move them in very small increments over long periods and eventually find ourselves suffering the same consequences as if we had taken a giant leap into a morally corrupted cesspool - and we often wonder why. The answer is, because stealthy encroachment is just as deadly as blatant stealing.
Our forefathers set very clear moral boundary stones, based on the Judeo-Christian ethic, when they founded our nation. Our post-modern culture has been slowly and meticulously moving those stones over a period of decades now. We gradually creep with them until we find ourselves in areas we wouldn't have dreamed of being in only a generation ago. We tend to joke about the rigidity of our parents and grandparents, and how much more enlightened we are today. But are we really? Or is it that we have simply been deceived into following the subtle boundary movements caused by unscrupulous men who have taken the initiative to move the invisible boundary stones?
Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3 that in the last days it will be very difficult to be a true follower of Christ. Difficult, but not impossible. In the last days the church will not be the epitome of prosperity and wealth, making the world jealous and longing to know the God who made us that way. Paul says in verses 12 and 13, "In fact, everyone who wants to live a Godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived." This is not a voice of doom and gloom. It is a warning - a wake up call - not to be lured to cross the now less discernable boundaries set by our forefathers. The 'new' boundaries are a lie, set by evil men and impostors. There is no better place to be living than within the boundaries of the grace of God - and His grace is sufficient for all things. His grace provides for our personal needs. His grace requires our personal responsibility. His grace becomes a crucial part of our identity. His grace is in Christ Jesus.