Sometimes the Word chips away at people for many years before they are actually set free.
Almost across from Gordon’s Calvary, about 500 ft east of the Damascus Gate, there is an opening under the northern wall of the city of Jerusalem. It leads into Solomon’s Quarries, a series of man-carved caverns covering five acres under Mount Moriah. “Solomon had…eighty thousand who quarried stone” (1 Ki 5:15). It is estimated that 12,600,000 ft³ (350,000 m³) of stone were quarried there. Called meleke limestone, its name is derived from the Hebrew for “kingly.” It is relatively easy to carve underground, but hardens when exposed to sunlight. The quarry entrance was hidden by Suleiman in the 1500s and not rediscovered until 1854 when Dr. J.T. Barclay, an American medical missionary, found the entrance and announced it to the world in his book, The City of the Great King. I had opportunity to visit the quarries. It is breathtaking to see the large piles of stone chips and the indentations where stones had been removed. But what sobered me was seeing huge, nearly finished building blocks still attached to the bedrock. Imagine the scene. The stonecutters had entered the quarry that day and set to work. But then at some point, echoing through the cavern, came the words, “The temple’s finished. Come on home.” They picked up their tools and lamp, leaving those stones shaped by the hammer, looking like the stones in the temple, but abandoned in the darkness, still attached to the bedrock. Is it possible that someone reading this looks and sounds like a believer, having been shaped by the Word of God, but is still attached to this world? Turn today to “our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age” (Gal 1:3-4). He can set you free!