It was a hot day! We had been hiking beside a mountain stream, and now we were hot and sweaty. We took off our shoes and socks and dangled our feet in the cold, rushing water. It felt so good on our hot, tired feet.
As we sat enjoying the rushing water while we rested, we began to look closely at the stones under our feet in the bottom of the mountain stream. Most of them had been worn round and smooth from tumbling under the constant flow of water. But then we noticed a few thin stones with sharp edges; some of them seemed as sharp as a good paring knife—maybe even sharper. These stones couldn’t be worn down by the rushing water and tumbling stones that tumbled against them. These stones were flint.
The North American Indians knew about these hard, sharp stones of flint. They used them as arrowheads and as blades in their tomahawks. Maybe some of you children have found arrowheads when you’ve hiked the trails in what used to be Indian country or even on the stony shores of lakes. People who have found arrowheads can see that they have not changed in maybe four hundred years. They are still whole and just as sharp! Flint does not change.
It is said of the Lord Jesus, when it came time for Him to go to the cross, that, like a flint, He never changed. He knew what was ahead—the shame, the spitting, and the cruelty of being beaten and then nailed to the cross. But there was more, much more: He would bear in His body God’s terrible punishment for the sins of everyone who would believe in Him.
Knowing all He would have to suffer, the Lord Jesus did not change His mind. He firmly set His face to go to Jerusalem where He would be crucified. God His Father had asked Him to do this for you and me. He said, “The Lord God will help Me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set My face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed” (Isaiah 50:77For the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. (Isaiah 50:7)). Nothing, absolutely nothing could change His mind! He loved God His Father and wanted to do His will, and He loved you and me too deeply to change His mind about going to the cross so we could be set free from our sins.
For those of us who have accepted Him as our Lord and Saviour, we will live in heaven with Him forever, because our sins are gone. Will you be included?
ML-11/25/2012