Chalkstones

Isaiah 27:9 KJV

By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin; when he maketh all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are beaten in sunder, the groves and images shall not stand up.

The setting of this chapter is the Babylonian captivity which was still, in Isaiah's time, in prophetical form but nevertheless a reality. The stones of the altar being like chalkstones speaks of how they would be torn down by Nebuchadnezzar.  The Bible says that by that captivity God would purge Jacob's (or Israel's) iniquity.

It is not that through afflictions our sins are paid but that afflictions serve make us conscious of our sins and to make those whose interest is bent toward God to seek Him in affliction. [1]

The Psalmist said "Before I was afflicted I went astray but now have I kept thy Word." [2] Affliction tends to weed out of professing Christendom those who are false and to draw out of worldliness those who have a genuine interest in the things of the Lord.

Who doesn't hate affliction? We would all love to be safe from trouble. But trouble is a fact of life on earth. Let us accept it with gladness for its purifying work and let us lean on Christ for strength as we endure it.

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[1] John Gill, " not that afflictions are atonements for sin, or give satisfaction to divine justice for it; but they are the means of bringing the Lord's people to a sense of their sins, and to repentance and humiliation for them, and confession of them, and of leading them to the blood and sacrifice of Christ, by which they are expiated and atoned…"

[2] Psalm 119:67