"Remove Not the Ancient Landmark" (Proverbs 22:28)

"Remove Not the Ancient Landmark" from Proverbs 22:28 was preached by Dr. Mark McElreath at the City Baptist Church of Atlanta on April 26, 2026. 

Find out more about the City Baptist Church of Atlanta at www.citybaptistchurch.com.

Transcript

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Welcome to the City Pulpit. Bible messages from the pulpit ministry of the City Baptist Church in Atlanta. Well, please take your Bibles with me. Let's go to Proverbs chapter 22. Proverbs chapter 22. And I'm going to preach a message this morning that's going to be very different than what I normally preach. And some of you are saying, What in the world, Pastor? What are you going to do? Well, as many of you know, this past week we were away on a trip. We traveled up to the Northeast. We're in Boston, and we're up in Concord, New Hampshire, and we were in Providence, Rhode Island. And just kind of a late spring break, early summer trip with our family, my wife and I and our children, and saw a number of historic sites. We wanted to do an America 250, 250th birthday trip, and so Boston worked out for us. Man, we had a great time. But honestly, being there, I did not plan to preach this this morning, but being there and seeing the Northeast, and we understand there's a rich religious heritage that we have in the Northeast United States. There's of course a rich heritage of our history of our nation. I'm going to speak on more of that when we start getting a little close to July 4th. I'm going to speak again on it. But I'm just going to show you some of the sights we saw. Now, maybe this is just my excuse to show you some pictures from vacation. No, it's not that. But I want to show you some of the sites we saw, and I want to connect them to the Word of God because it's a warning to us. We think, we see what's going on today, and we think nothing like that could ever happen to us. We have the City Baptist Church here, and this will always go on like this, right? No. We are one generation away from all of this ending. In our nation, in our church, in our families, if we do not stand for the truth. I will open with one, I'll open with one verse, and then I'm going to show you. I realize the screen is not big enough for maybe all of you to see everything that well, but I want to show you some things. And for those of you that are visiting, I don't normally do this. I don't normally even have anything up on the screen. But I'm so touched. Honestly, my eye affecteth mine heart. And what we've seen these past few days, being up in Boston in the Northeast, and I just want to encourage us to keep moving forward for the Lord. Look at Proverbs chapter 22, verse number 28. The Bible says, Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set. Verse 28, remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set. Now, what it's talking about here is speaking of these ancient landmarks, ancient meaning this come before us, generations before us. There were landmarks. There were places that were put down, and this specifically is speaking about when there was an allotment of the land in the promised land. Each of the tribes were given a specific plot of land. And then each family within that tribe was given a certain land, and there were landmarks that were put down, and they said, This is yours, and I want you to stay right here in this place that the Lord has marked out for you. And the Lord has given us religiously, He's given us spiritually, He's given us landmarks. He's given us really what those landmarks are, they're boundaries. And the Lord says, Look, you stay within these boundaries and you walk in my word and you follow my ways and you do things the way I've told you to. Keep those old landmarks. I'm going to bless it, and I'm going to prosper you and I'm going to keep you going. But if we get outside of those ancient landmarks, or if we forget those ancient landmarks, you know what's going to happen? We're going to start trying to do things our own way. We're going to start trying to go our own direction, and we're going to forget God. Remove not the ancient landmark, and then the second part of the verse it says, which thy fathers have set. I'm thankful there are people that have gone before us, and we can all point to people. If we know the Lord is our Savior, we can all point to people that went before us, and they cleared a path, and they were an example for us, and they made a way, and we follow them. Now we may say, some people say, Now, look, Pastor, we don't worship people. You're exactly right. We should not worship any man or any woman. But the Lord has given us examples. Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter, or 1 Timothy chapter 4, verse 12, he said, Be thou an example of the believers. And so we should be an example. And there are examples that we should follow, I believe. So I want to show you some of these things. Let's talk first of all. We went to Boston. I had to get a picture of the sign. You know, Boston started in 1630. You're talking 10 years after the pilgrim's land at Plymouth, the city of Boston starts. Incredible history coming up on 400 years. And so let's talk first about the ancient people we have forgotten. If you're taking notes, just write that down. The ancient people that we have forgotten. I think about ancient people, I think about Acts chapter 2 and verse number 42. You can turn there if you like, but Acts chapter 2, we find early in the New Testament church, the Bible says, and they continued. I hope we continue. It says, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, in fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers. The first part of that, they continued in what? The apostles' doctrine. What does that mean? The Lord Jesus Christ had teaching that he passed on to the apostles, and then the apostles passed it on to the New Testament church. And here we are, 20 centuries later. What are we continuing in? The Apostles' Doctrine. There was something we saw. We went down to Rhode Island, went down to Providence, Rhode Island, and that's Max and I. We're in front of a statue of a man named Roger Williams. Roger Williams is an incredible person that you need to know about. If you're part of the City Baptist Church, you need to know about Roger Williams because Roger Williams, he came to the New World. He's born in 1604, and he comes, leaves England, comes to Boston in 1631, and he comes for religious liberty. He comes, actually, when he comes, he's not a Baptist, but he begins meeting Baptist people and is convinced of Baptist teaching. So much so that he found the congregational churches of the Northeast and their strictness and their non-religious liberty. He found it binding. And he, for 26 years, asked Charles II for a land charter to start another colony where they could have religious freedom. Can you imagine believing in something so much that you fight with the crown for 26 years? Finally, Charles II granted him land and he went to what we now know as Rhode Island and he said, I'm going to start a colony where people can believe whatever they want. Now that's an amazing thing. You see, the the crown, the British monarchy said, No, we want you to believe one thing. We're going to tell you what to believe. But if we believe what God says in his word and we believe how God made people, that we have an individual soul liberty. In fact, if you look at this statue, I zoomed in on Roger Williams, and if you can look closely at the book he's holding, it says soul liberty. You know what that means? I can't force you to believe anything, and you can't force me to believe anything. I believe that's how God made people. The only weapon we have is influence. And here we find a man fights for 26 years and he's granted a land colony, and he starts Rhode Island, and he is so convinced that God has worked this out. Do you know what he calls the capital of Rhode Island? Providence. Speaking of the hand of God at work to bring this colony about where people may freely worship as they see fit. We find today, if you go to Rhode Island, my wife and I were talking about it, especially in Providence, it's almost oppressive. We spoke to people about spiritual things and about churches, and they had no idea. In fact, when we were at this statue, there were people that were just pulled up in their cars, parked around it, just sleeping, almost like they had no idea who this was. This is the man that started this state. This is the man that started this city, that fought for it. But we have forgotten the ancient landmarks, and we've forgotten the ancient people. We went to another site, this was in the city of Boston. This is outside the old state house. This is the Massachusetts State House. It was first started. And right outside the old statehouse, it's amazing when you go to Boston, they have these 400-year-old buildings right in the middle of the skyscrapers. It's really something. But right inside, the old for the Boston Massacre. The Boston Massacre on March the 5th, 1775 colonials were fired on by British troops, and they were killed, and we actually went to the place where they were buried. Well, 120 years before this happened, there was another event that happened right about where that marker was, and it was the whipping of a man named Obadiah Holmes. Obadiah Holmes was a Baptist preacher, and he had left Massachusetts because the congregationalists didn't want him preaching Baptist teaching, and he went down to Rhode Island because he heard there's a man down there. He started a place and they have religious liberty. He came back to Massachusetts to hold a Baptist meeting in an elderly man's house in 1651. Men came in, or the local police came in, arrested him, John Clark, and John Crandall for having a Baptist meeting. They held them in prison for five weeks. They put a bail on them. And Obadai Holmes said, I will not have anyone pay my bail. They said, Fine, instead of paying the 30 pounds, British pounds, then you'll face 30 lashes. They took him to this spot in 1651, outside the old Massachusetts State House. And they hung him up and they whipped him 30 times. In fact, when they finished, he said, It is as if you struck me with roses. He was taking a stand for religious liberty. He said, We should be able to believe what we want to believe. We should be able to worship God as we see fit. Now, here's, you know, the same time this is happening, you know what's happening in England? There's a man by the name of John Bunyan. You ever heard the name John Bunyan? He wrote Pilgrim's Progress. He's standing before a judge named Judge Wingate, and he's saying, people should have the opportunity to worship as they see fit or not worship as they see fit. That was a radical idea 400 years ago. But I'm thankful for the ancient people that stood for religious liberty. These are the seeds of liberty that are being planted by Obadiah Holmes and Roger Williams. We went from there, we went out to Harvard. If you go just west of Boston, you go to Cambridge, Massachusetts, you have Harvard University. Started nearly 400 years ago at this point. And do you know why Harvard was started? To train ministers. They wanted a literate, educated clergy. Now they've come a long way from there, I'll tell you that. In fact, I was just reading recently about Harvard, and we find, well, I'm going to talk about Harvard in a moment. I'll get there. But this is a grave. This is the grave of a man named Henry Dunster. Henry Dunster was the first president of Harvard. And Henry Dunster, serving at Harvard, he was a congregationalist, he heard of the whipping of Obadiah Holmes. He heard that this Baptist man had stood for religious liberty and had been whipped for it. Henry Dunster decided he would not baptize his infant son. He was then forced in 1654 to resign his post as the president of Harvard. Because he said people should be able to believe like they want to believe. We went to his grave. He's buried right there, outside, right there on the Harvard grounds. You say, Pastor, do y'all see this many graves on a vacation? Yeah, we visit a lot of cemeteries on vacations. Nonetheless, Henry Dunstras took a stand, took a stand. We went from there. You can't read this because the weather has beaten it so bad, but there's another man that took a stand. His name's Paul Revere. This is the grave of Paul Revere, midnight ride of Paul Revere. You may know the poem. We went out to an area where they have the Paul Revere statue. And in that area, that mall there, they call it the Paul Revere Mall, all along the wall, they had people that they were recognizing from that part of town, the North End is what they call it. And they were talking about the stand which they had taken for liberty. It says to those men of the North End who defended with their lives the hopes of their country. It goes down to say it lists a number of men there. But right at the bottom, it says this, and to all the other North Enders who stood with them in the cause of America. You know why we have America today? Because people believed it was something worth fighting for. It was something worth giving their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. But do you know why we have a church today? Do you know why we have the word of God today? Do you know why in this city we can meet publicly, we can open the Bible, and we can preach the Word of God because there were people that went before us, that took a stand, that fought the fight, some giving their lives because it was something worth living and dying for. I'm thankful for that. We cannot forget that. There's ancient people that we have forgotten. Would you make note of a second thing? There's ancient places we have lost. Ancient places we've lost. Now, there is no place that we go to and we worship a place. I realize that. We don't worship the land. But I'll tell you this, I'm thankful for 425 10th Street Northwest. I'm thankful God's given us a place. And there are places historically that God has worked and God has moved and God has done things that now they have forgotten their heritage and they've forgotten their history. We went down to a place to Harvard. This is there on the campus of Harvard. It's a little bit of a blurry picture. We were moving and I said, babe, look at that. And I snapped a picture. You may not be able to read it because a little weathering, but I snapped a picture of one of the gates. I think this may be the 18, oh, it has a name, maybe the 1870 gate, if I remember correctly, or the 18, yeah, the 1875 gate. It is inscribed with Isaiah 26.2. Open ye the gates that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in. There's another gate, the 1881 gate, is the entrance to the Phillips Brooks house. Phillips Brooks wrote, O little town of Bethlehem. And it is inscribed with John 8.32, ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. When Harvard was founded in 1636, do you know what their original motto was? In Christi Glorium. For the glory of Christ. They wanted to train preachers. They changed it in 1836 to Veritas Christo et Ecclesia, truth for Christ and the church. That's amazing, isn't it? They would later change it to just Veritas. Veritas is truth. And you say, Oh, can you believe they do that? Well, here's the thing. Where are you going to get truth from? You have to have a standard if you're going to truly have the truth, right? But here we find they began, right? These are places where God had worked and where they had set aside, they said, this will be a place where we will train preachers and we will prepare people for the ministry to see the saving of souls. In fact, in their rules and precepts for Harvard that were adopted in 1646, it says this Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his life, and studies to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning. They go on to say in their rules of precepts of 1646, every one shall so exercise himself in the reading of Scriptures twice a day, that he shall be ready to give such an account of his proficiency therein, and language and logic, and in practical and spiritual truths as his tutor shall require. Today we find they still have a baccalaureate service just before the commencement. That's a religious service. It's been going on since 1642. But today they have it in the memorial church, and it includes readings from Hindu scriptures, the Quran, the New Testament, the Analects of Confucius, and the Hebrew Bible. They forgot where they came from, they forgot their heritage. They neglected their history. There were ancient places where God was working that were lost. I went down. I actually, I actually have a picture. This is the first Baptist church in America. Roger Williams began meeting there in 1638. That building was built in 1775. You would find nearly nothing that this church teaches today, though it says it's a Baptist church, it lines up with Baptist teaching. I don't even have a picture. We went down to Brown University, just a little, just maybe a mile from here, is Brown University. Brown University was started in 1746 as a Baptist university. They wouldn't allow Baptists into other places like Yale and Princeton and Harvard, so Baptists said we'll start our own place. They started Brown University. I don't even have a picture of it. I got so frustrated. We went down to Brown University, and I said, Surely they have something here about our Baptist history, the first Baptist university in America. I've got to see this. And went down to one of their libraries and I walked in and I was just walking around, found a big, big library help desk, big reading room, ginormous reading room, much larger than this room, big tall ceilings, big displays. And I said, I just wanted to stop. I'm from out of town. I just wanted to find out what you had on display about the history of Brown University, maybe some of our Baptist history. The lady kind of looked at me, she said, No, we don't have any of that on display. I said, Well, I see a very large display. It was a large display, probably 10, 12 feet high, the length of a wall, probably 100 feet long. I said, Well, I see a large display out there. Is there anything out there I could see that tells about the history of the university? She said, Well, no, that's about a magma layer that's found here in Providence, Rhode Island. And that magma layer in our Earth's crust is also found in Sweden. And it's a whole display about how one of my colleagues went and studied it. They made ink from it and they made some drawings. You could see those too. And I think I did well. I don't think I started twitching at that point. I said, I just, you know, Brown University was the first Baptist university in the United States and started in a place where Roger Williams fought for 26 years. I gave this woman the whole history lesson. And her head tilted a little bit, and she said, Well, that's not a part of the seven strategic directions that our curators have decided the university is going to emphasize. That's when I started twitching. And I just said, All right, thank you for your time. And I thought, this could happen anywhere. If we forget the people that have come before us, I'm talking about the great cloud of witnesses that have gone before, and those who have blazed the trails and the places that people put a tent stake down and they said, This is where we're going to see the Lord work, and this is what we're going to do if we forget that. Then the direction of your strategic curation may go another direction, right? We went to another place. If you ever go to Boston, you've got to go to the USS Constitution. Is the only one of our original six warships that were built in 1797 that's still afloat? It's the oldest warship afloat today. It's pretty amazing. I won't go into all the things. I could geek out a little bit on it, but the USS Constitution is undefeated in battle. 33 different skirmishes. On one day in the World of 1812, it sank two different British warships. It's pretty amazing. Early 1900s, she was over 100 years old. They were going to scuttle her, and the children of the United States started sending their pennies in to pay for the restoration of the USS Constitution. You say, What does that have to do with anything? Couldn't we build a school or couldn't we? Then there's something else we could do. I think this is this is not one of my points, but this is not an ancient place, but this is kind of an ancient possession. This is a symbol of longevity and resistance and endurance. The USS Constitution sits here, and you know what God has given us? He has given us things we can look back to and say, this is a part of our history that should be cherished and held on to. What is it? It's an ancient landmark. And you know what we have as Christians? We have ancient landmarks that moor us and settle us and anchor us in an ever-changing world. Let me give you one more thing. Not only are there ancient people that we have forgotten, there are ancient places we have lost. There's an ancient power we've neglected. You know what all this leads to? And all these things, when we forget our history and we forget our foundation, you know what happens? We start saying, let me figure out how to do this. If we're not careful, the City Baptist Church. We'll say, well, we need a new church for a new day. We need new teaching for a new day. I think about the places. You can go down on Lucky Street. We picked up people not far from it this morning on the Bible bus, and you can see a place called Tabernacle. It's a rock concert hall today, but it wasn't always a rock concert hall. You know what the tabernacle used to be? It used to be the Baptist Tabernacle. And the Baptist Tabernacle for decades shone as a light for the gospel right in the heart of our city. And today the building is still there. But you can go here, any of the big concerts, anything going on, they're playing down there. Some of the, I watched a documentary on it. Some of those that play their rock, that got their rock concert, the start of their career, they said, there's a spirit here, there's a power here. That will happen here if we forget from whence we've come. And if we neglect the power that God has given us. If we forget, go with me. I'll wrap it here, but go with me to 2 Timothy chapter 3, as Paul is writing a final letter and he's writing here to his son in the faith, Timothy, he says, in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 1, this know also that in the last days perilous times shall come, for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy. Verse 3, without natural affection, true spakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures, more than lovers of God. Look at verse 5. Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof from such turn away. If we leave the ancient landmarks and we leave the Word of God, we may have a form of godliness. It may look like we're having some kind of spiritual meeting. There may be, we may carry a Bible, or we may dress up and look nice, or we may say all the right words, but it's just a form of godliness. It's lost any power to change lives. That's where we'll wind up if we forget the ancient landmark. I'm thankful for people that have gone before us. I'm thankful for places where God has worked. But look, this power, this is not just ancient power that was left for those that went before us. This is power you and I can know today. We can walk in today. We can have available to you and I to be the Christians we're to be, to have the families we ought to be, and for the City Baptist Church to be the church it ought to be. That's what God has for us. Thank you for listening to the City Pulpit. For more information about the City Baptist Church of Atlanta, please visit www.mycitybaptist.com.