Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

The stone the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
    and it is marvelous in our eyes.
The Lord has done it this very day;
    let us rejoice today and be glad.

• Psalm 118:22-24

He will be a holy place;
    for both Israel and Judah he will be
a stone that causes people to stumble
    and a rock that makes them fall.
And for the people of Jerusalem he will be
    a trap and a snare.
Many of them will stumble;
    they will fall and be broken,
    they will be snared and captured.”

• Isaiah 8:14

So this is what the Sovereign Lord says:
“See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone,
    a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation;
the one who relies on it
    will never be stricken with panic.

• Isaiah 28:16

Haven’t you read this passage of Scripture:
“‘The stone the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
    and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

• Mark 12:10-11

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him — you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.  For in Scripture it says:
“See, I lay a stone in Zion,
    a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
    will never be put to shame.”
Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,
“The stone the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone,”
and,
“A stone that causes people to stumble
    and a rock that makes them fall.”

• 1 Peter 2:6-8

I used several Scriptures to show how Peter tied them all together.

I first read the term “ABC” (in this context) in a book by Os Guinness, but I have seen it in multiple articles since.  “ABC” means, in this context, “Anything But Christianity.”  The “C” might be Christ or Christians.  I suppose that context, in the use of ABC, matters.

And it is strange how we get 20:20 hindsight to see how this has been Satan’s end game that has been in the works for a long time.  I see the stones that have been laid in the USA, but the same is probably true throughout the world.

Most people do not bother to research the Scopes Trial, aka the Monkey Trial.  Few realize that John T. Scopes, in 1925, was convicted for having taught evolution, fined $100, but then had the fine dropped due to a technicality.  Some know that the prosecution hired William Jennings Bryan and the defense hired Clarence Darrow.  With such big names going against each other in the trial, the trial was aired on the radio.

But not many know that the ACLU manipulated events to ensure the trial by encouraging John Scopes to voluntarily confess that he had taught evolution in direct violation of the Butler act of Tennessee, which forbid teaching the evolution theory.  This was just to create public outcry to have the various Butler acts in several states reversed.  Scopes even coached students from his class to give testimony against him at the grand jury to ensure that the trial would move forward.  He was begging to be placed on trial.

In other words, the entire thing was set up to create a platform that would eventually lead to eliminating no view other than evolution in public schools.  This in turn led to various other changes to completely eliminate any mention of God in public schools.

If you remove the cornerstone, the entire building will crumble.

The schools were first.  The US government is nearly there, and what little reference that is given to God in Congress is probably met with more derision than reverence.  It is just hard to break habits of opening every session with prayer, started by Benjamin Franklin, regardless of how little true prayer is in the prayer.

But the ABC concept has invaded the homes of the entire world.  Praise God, that it has not invaded every home.

In Stephen McAlpine’s book, Being the Good Bad Guys, he talks about how the movement toward the LGBTQ+ inclusivity agenda has seemed to have advanced so rapidly, but it has been in the works for decades.

Again, pulling the cornerstone out leads to the crumbling of the structure.  Removing the cornerstone took decades.  And from anyone who has built a building on a poor foundation can tell you, once the foundation crumbles, the building falls apart quite rapidly.  We are just now seeing the results of Satan’s work over all these decades, from long before the Scopes trial that was nearly 100 years ago.

And when this post is a book report or analysis of what is on the news, it seems to be an old person lamenting that times have changed.  Many might ask, “But what is the harm?”

The harm comes when the next generations are taught theories of evolution that modern science has proven can never happen.  They are taught that our moral code is what we dreamed up in our minds and that there was no divine interference to place the ideas into our minds.  They are taught to not ever believe in God for any reason.

So, then when loving, God-fearing parents say good-bye to their children who are now grown, the parents think they taught them well regarding Jesus, just to find the children wandering away.  What public school taught them contradicted what the church and their parents taught.  They think that their parents are just old fools.

And when members of the ABC crowd are people that you know and love, you heart becomes broken.

And it seems that building one’s house on quicksand is such a popular idea these days.

But, when the storms of life come, and they will, what foundation do these new generations have?  Will they cry out to God for help?  Or will they cry out to God, the God they never believed in, with anger?  The book of Revelation says that the latter will occur.

The only solid rock is Jesus.  But even Jesus said that He was the cornerstone that was rejected.  But do not lose hope, for God will use that cornerstone to build His church.  These attempts at rejecting the cornerstone are the fool’s errand of Satan who already knows that He is defeated.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.