It's a picture here of demonic spirits arrayed against you and I, arrayed against God's purpose and plan, scorning and belittling and saying is it possible for God to raise up people whose lives have been burnt? Their lives are just like: they're a mess, in a rubbish heap, their marriages broken, their lives have failed, they're addicted, they're in a mess. Is it possible for lives like that to be built? Is it possible for God to do something? I don't think so, and they mocked and laughed. Is it possible for people to be discipled and the cities changed, the atmosphere changed, the very nature changed? My, the devil despises you even thinking about it! One of the things that we find, is the devil constantly pressures our mind, to doubt that God can raise someone up that you are praying for, that can raise someone up that may be addicted, they may be in bondage right now. They may be living in sin, they may be in defeat, they may be a hardened person; and you look at them and you think: man oh man, that's hard to get that person saved. It's like you've taken up the mocking of Sanballat in your mind, saying it'll be too difficult for such a person to be saved. It's NOT too hard for the Lord to save! Not too hard for the Lord to save!
It's not too hard for the Lord to save, and revive burnt stones, that were once great stones, part of a mighty city, part of a purpose and a destiny; but now burnt and reduced to ruins, smouldering, charred ruins. God can take a life like that, and make something out of it. That's the God we serve. You've got to believe this. You've got to believe Him, so God uses a picture from the Old Testament, and this picture's a vivid picture, and it's to put into our hearts a hope: that what God could do in the lives of people you know, what God could do in your life. Notice: rubbish, the rubble of a city that was once great; dreams that were once there, hopes that were once there, now all there is is rubble. You can hardly believe or comprehend the scale of the rubble, when a city's been reduced. If you saw pictures of Berlin after the Second World War, burnt out buildings, great magnificent buildings, reduced to rubble; just rubble, rubble, rubble. You could hardly make your way through it, and so it was with this city here.
So when we're talking about Burnt Stones, what do we mean? In the Bible, the walls and the buildings were made not of wood, they were made of stone. The stone that was used to build the city of Jerusalem had to be quarried. It had to be cut out, it had to be shaped, and then it had to be fitted. They were great stones, the Bible tells us; so when they built the wall, they had to cut out limestone, they had to pull it and drag it together, and they had to piece each part, every part fitted perfectly. So when limestone is burnt by fire, it begins to become crumbly and powdered. Then it's very easy to break down the walls, and break down the buildings. You wonder how great buildings can be broken down; very simply they just burn them, and then the stone starts to crumble, and then they can smash them down - just use great poles, and they push and lever, and smash them down. So when Jerusalem was overtaken by its enemies from Babylon, what they did was they burnt the city. They just burnt the city from one end to the other, burnt the house of God, killed people. There was blood from one end of the city to the other. They set it on fire, and then they set about destroying the city, so it could never become great, ever again.
What a picture for us, of how the devil desires to destroy the church of Jesus Christ, to burn out everything you and I try and build that's good and right and holy, or would leave a legacy; and to raze it to the ground, so all that you see is rubble. And so that was what it was like, and the burnt stones were easily removed from their positions. Once a stone was burnt and crumbled, it was easy to pull it out of position, easy to remove it from the wall of destiny. If you have ever been burnt by the fires of pain, disappointment, offence, it's very easy for you to be removed out of the wall of destiny, out of where God has positioned you to grow, to be planted, and to become successful in your walk as a Christian. So stones are always a picture of people.