And he spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria, and said, What do these feeble Jews? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned?
I'm imagining the scene in Jerusalem at the time of this text. Nebuchadnezzar had laid siege to the city and eventually defeated it, tearing the walls down stone by stone and then setting them on fire. Though there were stragglers who remained in the land, and squatters from other lands had moved in and laid claim to it, the city's walls and stones had lain there in disrepair, "gathering dust," if you will, for more than seventy years.
- There was decay.
- There was soot.
- There was dirt.
- There was rubbish and trash.
Years of waste had piled upon these stones.
And now, chided the enemies of the Jews, will they somehow make good out of all this trash?
I'm reminded that the church of the living God is also called a building, that people are the members—the lively stones—from which this building is built, and that every one of those members has a history that is inglorious. It's not impossible to think of us as:
- Torn down
- Burned up
- Dirty
- Wasted
Seriously? Will God revive these stones out of the "heaps of rubbish which are burned?" Will He make something glorious out of such trash?
There's not a one of us who doesn't have some sort of history. Some of us have been rescued from lives of drunkenness or drugs.
Some of us come from pasts that were against Christ and His church.
Some of us were involved in much riotous and revelrous living.
And all of us were, at the very least, born with a corrupt, sinful nature.
Psalms 113:7 (KJV)
He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill;
But He does so much more than lift us from the dunghill.
Ephesians 2:6 (KJV)
And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
It is the intention of God to build His house from what the world, the flesh, and the devil would call the rubbish of the world.
Let the enemies of the Lord mock. God sends those whom He calls into the heaps of rubbish of this world to revive the stones and, from them, build the work of God for the glory of God.
#ReviveTheStones #GodBuildsFromRubble #Nehemiah4v2 #GraceRestores #BuiltForHisGlory
What God Does with Broken People: What Everyone Rejected Became God's Masterpiece
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