Surveying The Boundary Lines Of Salvation

"Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark."  Deuteronomy 19:14

Removing Property Stakes a Curse

MOSES SOUNDS A WARNING IN THIS VERSE THAT ANY MAN who would remove or change his neighbor's land marker would be cursed of God.  A landmark could be an iron rod driven into the ground.  It could be a large rock or a pile of rocks.  It could possibly be a marked tree, a mound of earth, a stream or river.  No matter how the property line was marked, the Lord most certainly would curse the one that moved it no matter what the intention was.

Today men go to court over property line disputes.  At times men have killed one another over such controversies, each one thinking he was right and the other wrong.  Sooner or later in court it may be established that both parties were wrong or one was right.  They cannot both be right.

I read a story about two brothers in southern Arkansas that had a dispute over a property line.  Both were so sure that he was right that they were ready to kill each other.  The younger brother put boats down on a little bayou that ran into a lake on the older brother's property and rented them out to fishermen for extra income.  The older brother immediately put a fence up across the bayou and notified his brother that his property did not come over to the creek but was a least a hundred yards back up the hill.

The younger brother then cut down the fence and the older one in turn sank his boats.  By the time the word got to a friend and he could make it to their place, one had shot the other's horse and the other had shot his coon dog in return.  Now down in that country you don't just shoot a man's coon dog unless you are ready to die.  Sure enough, by the time the friend got there each one was threatening to kill the other.  He talked to both men as seriously as he knew how and got them together on this basis:  "Men, why argue any further; let's go and get the county surveyor, whose word would be the deciding issue in court, and let him survey the boundaries and settle this once and for all." 

Both brothers said that would be fair but each acknowledged they had never given that a thought.  As they stood near the bayou and were discussing the surveyor, each thought he was right and was willing to die for it.  One said to the other, "Don't you remember the time we had the big family reunion and fish fry here years ago and how Grandpa and Uncle Ben said the line was way over on the side of the hill?"  Then the other replied, "Yes. I remember that but I also remember Dad saying it came down to the bayou."

The county surveyor went to the Court House and obtained a plat and description of each one's property.  He then went over to the county line, which was about two miles across the woods, and started surveying.  The surveyor would look way down across a hollow through his instrument and motion to his helper who carried a striped pole.  He would motion a little to the left or maybe a little to the right and then yell, "Hold it right there."

Sure enough, when he arrived at the spot where his helper was holding the pole, he would scratch around in the vines and leaves and there he would find driven into the ground a old rusty pipe or piece or iron.  After surveying straight across the woods and fields for two miles, they came right down to the bayou.  After moving an old log, they found the landmark, an old iron pipe driven into the ground years before.  As a result of this finding, the older brother, who had put the fence across the bayou, lost part of his barn and a strawberry patch.

God's Boundary Lines

This brings up a serious thought as to what the Lord will do to a man at the Judgment who thought he was right and took it upon himself to move the landmarks of the boundaries of the Plan of Salvation. 

God was concerned about his boundaries of holiness in the Holiest of Holies.  He was concerned and backed up his prophets when they set up a marker of judgment or prophecies.  He was concerned about His boundaries and law in presenting a sacrifice.  It most certainly had to comply with the Levitical plat that was on record in God's Court House of the Universe.  He was  certainly concerned about the boundaries of his righteous ways by this sober warning:  "There is a way that seemeth right unto man but the way is the way of death."  Again we read: "Every man's way seemeth right in his own eyes," but yet not right according to God's plat.  When a man becomes self-righteous, he moves God's righteous boundaries anywhere he pleases and will argue that he is right in doing so.

The old law plainly established the boundaries within which a sacrifice could be offered in that only a sanctified priest could officiate.  Several kings in past history tried removing these boundaries and offering sacrifices themselves only to be smitten by a curse of leprosy or some other plague.  I shudder to think of what would have happened to Noah and the Ark if Noah had taken it upon himself to change some of the plans.  There are boundaries of judgment you must not cross.  Also there are boundaries of mercy you must stay within.

God's Boundary of Mercy

Jonah 2:8 reads: "They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy."  When anyone forsakes their own mercy, they are rushing in where angels fear to tread.  "He that regardeth not the works of the Lord nor the operation of his hand shall be destroyed and not built up." 

David took it upon himself to remove God's landmark by numbering the people of Israel.  This he could not do without the curse of the Lord falling upon him and Israel.  To remove the curse placed on them, he repented and offered a sacrifice to God after paying the cost of Araunah's threshing floor and building an altar thereon.  He conformed to the Lord's landmark and fell upon the mercy of God.

You can go only so far with the Lord and you had better not go any further.  Belshazzar was doing all right with his wild party and no doubt would have continued as King of Babylon a long time afterward.  He treaded the boundary line of God's mercy too close and stepped over it by ordering out the holy vessels he had taken from God's house years before.

Samson was allowed to pull the roof down on the Philistines when they carried their conduct out of the bounds of mercy by making sport of God's anointed.  There are many other cases.  Look at Herod, who was allowed to take the head of John the Baptist, but who carried things too far when he tried to make a speech as though he was anointed from on high.  This was too much for God to take.  The curse of God fell on him and worms ate his flesh until he died.

Surveying the Messiah

For centuries now the age-old argument of who was the Messiah and did he come or is he still to come has raged.  To the Jewish nation this most certainly is a heated argument for they are still looking for their messiah.  Why argue and fuss over this boundary line as it can be surveyed by backing way back to Abraham, who in this case would correspond to the county line.

Let the prophets of old be the surveyors and let us see what Isaiah has to say as he looks across the fields of time and stakes off God's landmarks of the Messiah.  In Isaiah 9:6 you find these words recorded in the plat found in God's Court House of the Universe seven hundred and thirty-five years before the appearance of the Messiah in a manger:

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulders; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

To many today this Messiah is called the Mighty God and the Everlasting Father.

History tells us of this strange act close to two thousand years ago when even the stars in the heavens paid homage to Him.  History also tells us that King Herod sought for him to no avail, for it had been surveyed out by the prophets that he was born to be a king.  This was God incarnate in flesh.  The invisible God, who in the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night led the children Israel for forty years, made visible.  When Jesus asked the Pharisees "For what good words do you stone me?", they replied, "Not for thy works but because you, being a man, claim you are God."  No one could forgive sin then or now, but Jesus did then as he does today, making him God.

Again let us see Isaiah the surveyor as he surveys on the next landmark on the boundary lines of the Messiah:

"Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold,   your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense;  he will come and save you. 
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf  shall be unstopped.
Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb  sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the  desert."                  Isaiah 36: 4-6

I can see Isaiah as he looked through his surveyor's scope across the hollow of time, yelling to the Disciple Matthew to see if there were any signs of a landmark like this among the vines and leaves of this day in the land of Israel.

To this the eleventh chapter of Matthew, the second to fifth verses, replies:

"Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ,  he sent two of his disciples,
And said unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?"
Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John  again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them."

When John the Baptist, who was in jail, received this message from Jesus he knew at once who Jesus was, for he knew the prophecies of Isaiah and that when God would come to this earth these things would happen.

Surveying the Plan of Salvation

I often hear people explain the reason they believe in a certain religion is because that is what Grandpa and Uncle Ben believe st, who was the one crying in the wilderness, to prepare the way of the Lord and make his paths straight.

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob longed to see this Day of Grace and the Lord's salvation.

"And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he was the Christ or not:
John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose; he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.
To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing; yet they would not hear."  Isaiah 28:10-12

Jesus said: "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest."  He did this very thing on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Ghost was poured out, just as John the Baptist said he would.  On that day the Apostle Peter who had the keys to the Kingdom of God, and who most certainly was a legal surveyor, arose to establish a Land Mark in line with the prophets by these words.--but this was that which was spoken by the prophet Joel:  Then Peter said unto them, repent, and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall recieve the gift of the Holy Ghost; For this promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.  ACTS 2:16, 38-39. 

No matter what boundaries you establish, they are false unless verified by the Scriptures.  Repentance, faith, doctrine, mode of baptism or holiness, each can be surveyed out as to legal status, for unless you run the boundaries lawfully, you run them in vain.

The plan of salvation was given to the Jews first but they rejected it and behold, the Lord turned to the Gentiles.  If you, being a Gentile, should survey your beliefs back to the original starting point, you most certainly would have to line up with that plan of salvation as experienced by the household of Cornelius.  To them was the door of salvation first opened to the Gentiles and their experience only confirmed that which was poured out to the Jews on the Day of Pentecost.  To Cornelius and no further back in the pages of time can you trace a claim to salvation.  The abstract of God reveals that prior to his time all religious affiliations by nations of people were to the Jews only.  Occasionally God's mercy was shown to an individual or to a certain city but in the tenth chapter of Acts, that door of salvation swung wide open to the Gentiles and will remain so till He closes it.

In reading God's abstract and surveying time, we run across this marker on the way: "Take heed, for if God spared not the natural branches, how much more will he spare not thee."  Many Grandpas and Uncle Bens have removed some landmarks of the scriptures by pulling up the markers of certain boundaries.  I also note in checking the abstract and plats inserted into it that many landmarks of promise and ordinances that are ordered to be observed here for some reason willingly been set aside.

Some one moved some corner posts in the mode and plan of baptism in the third century, long after the experiences and original practices of the First Church were known to be the truths of God.  In A.D. 325 at the Council of Nicea, held in Constantinople and sponsored by Constantine who was a converted pagan, a group of surveyors attempted to remove the lankmark of the mode of baptism.  This is a fraud attempted upon the original plat.  Nevertheless, the original landmark on this still stands clearly visible to all who sincerely want to know the right boundary line.  The changers in that day had no legal right to take it upon themselves to move a legal line already established by the Apostle Peter.  This legality was also confirmed by the Apostle Paul in the nineteenth chapter of Acts.  All the apostles and early churches pointed to this truth as a corner post in having your sins remitted legally.  All those who have been foolish enough to remove it shall answer to God at the Judgment.  A great man named Arius objected at the Council of Nicea to removing this old landmark but he was overruled by many who believed in pagan ceremonies and icons, beliefs which can be traced back to pagan Babylonia of olden days.  This great man Urius, who stood up with others against this conspiracy, was mysteriously killed as usually happened to those that opposed pagans.

The Nicean Creed. which attempts to remove the name of Jesus Christ from the mode of baptism and substitute titles which will certainly be declaired a heretical teaching in the Apostles' Court and in God's Supreme Court on the Day of Judgment.  Enemies of truth have always tried to push the name of Jesus Christ into oblivion.  This was a practice of the Pharisees.  There is no salvation in any other, for there was no other name under heaven given amony men whereby we must be saved.

There was a song of truth made famous in our day by a nationally known quartet known at the Statesmen entitled "Let's All Go Back to the Old Landmarks."  Whether we go back or not, the boundary lines of salvation are forever established on earth and recorded in heaven.  To tamper with them, much less remove them, is folly  indeed.