Honey in the Rock

A message of hope!

Today, I would like to talk about rocks! In the Bible, there are many scriptures about rocks, and there are many themes that include the image of rocks. Today, I would like to talk about two of them.

1. That Jesus is the rock of our salvation.

2. Ministering in the rocky ground around us.

The Bible says that it is Jesus who is the Rock of our salvation. Matthew 7:24 says that if we act on Jesus’ words and not ignore them, then we build the house of our life on the Rock. The 

Jesus is that immovable Rock on which we build. Psalm 127:1 says that unless the Lord builds the house, they labour in vain who build it! 

When we build our house, whether it be the house we live in or the house of our life, the first thing we do is lay the foundation on which to build.

Jesus says we need a foundation of the Rock; all other foundations are shifting sand.

As the old Hymn writer says,

On Christ, the solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand!

In 2 Samuel chapter 2, David makes the comment that,

“There is no one holy like the LORD,

Indeed, there is no one besides You,

Nor is there any rock like our God. 2 Sam 2:2

When we build on the foundation of the Rock, our building is secure, and we are safe. Oh yes, there will be storms, and all kinds of spiritual attacks, but we are safe, and our faith and hope will endure, because nothing can shake us off the foundation of Jesus.

Miry Clay

The Bible paints our position as dire in Psalm 40:2. David writes, 

He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay,

And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.

Psalm 40:2

Here King David is telling us about the power of God’s forgiveness. Of how God lifted him out of the pit and the miry clay of sin and set his feet upon a rock.

This is a picture for us. A deep pit full of sloppy, thick, slimy, muddy clay. We can’t climb out; it’s too deep and slippery, and we can’t stand because the ground is too slippery. We are stuck in the pit (of sin), destined to drown, but God rescues us. He lifts us out of the pit and puts our feet on solid ground upon the Rock of Jesus. 

When you give your life to Christ, God does exactly that. He lifts you out of the pit of sin and sets your feet on the firm foundation of Jesus, the Rock on whom you can build your life. Your life now has a firm foundation. Your foot will not slip; your feet are now firmly planted on the rock. You are safely attached to a flat, solid surface that is above the waterline. You can walk on the firm foundation, and from that foundation, you can see better and more clearly than you ever could before.

But there is more… 

But there is more to the Rock of Jesus than just being a safe foundation. Let me put it to you this way. Jesus did not die JUST to pay the price for all your sins. He did more than that. 

He died so that you can have forgiveness AND eternal life with Him. The cross is MORE than just forgiveness it’s about the RESTORATION of an everlasting relationship.

The cross is not about forgiveness ONLY; forgiveness is the doorway to eternal life with God. 

In Psalm 86:16 we read this.

“But I would feed you with the finest of the wheat,

And with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.” Ps 81:16

This verse tells us that the rock of salvation is more than forgiveness, and although the rock is firm and hard and safe … there is also honey in the rock for you!

Honey is sweet, but it is not necessary for our survival. If you had never eaten a drop of honey in your life, you would still be alive. 

Honey is a sweet blessing. 

Milk and honey

When God spoke to Moses about going to the promised land, He did not say, “I will lead you to a place that is large, and if you work hard there, you will have a nice life.” 

That message on its own would have been a welcome message for the children of Israel. They had been slaves and were homeless. But God did not say that to them; what he actually said was this.

So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, … Exodus 3:8

God had a place for them, and it was full of sweet blessings. Milk and honey!

Honey is a sweet blessing, and … there is sweet blessing in the rock on which we stand.

Our sins are not only forgiven, but we will be raised to life on the last day, forgiven and ready to live with Him forever. The Bible says that we will rule and reign with Him. We will be judging angels 

(Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? 1 Cor 6:3)

If we endure, we will also reign with Him;

If we deny Him, He also will deny us; 2 Tim 2:12

The cross of Jesus is so much more than paying the price for sin; it gives us a future and a hope and tells us how we will be living with God beyond the final judgement.

The Honey in the Rock of Jesus is all that lies beyond the forgiveness of our sins.

Remember, it is not about forgiveness ONLY; forgiveness is the doorway to eternal life with God. 

The second thing

The second rocky thing that we need to look at is ministering in places where there is rocky ground. 

Sometimes, things get tough, and we will say to those who love us, “Please pray for me. I am experiencing much difficulty in my life; I am in a rocky place.”

Now, rocky ground is different from the foundation of the rock. The foundation of the rock raises us up on a flat surface above the ground below. Rocky ground is hard, uneven ground that is hard to walk on, hard to dig and hard to get a harvest from. 

Now in the parable of the Sower, Jesus said that the rocky ground was a hard place to get a harvest. 

Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. Matt 13:5

Sometimes the rocky ground is there because of our sins. Other times it is there because of other people’s sin, and sometimes it is just there!

We look at others who are sowing and reaping in fertile fields, their barns are full, and we wish we could have a harvest like that! Their fields are plentiful, ours are full of scraggly-looking plants among the rocks.

What is more, living amongst the stones and rocks is hard work. We can try to remove the stones to increase the harvest, but the problem of the rocks is always present.

Many are aware of my long association with the people of Burma. In my view, Burma is such a place at this time in history. There is a lot of rocky ground in that nation! There are many stones and rocks, and difficulties. Day-to-day living is difficult, life is hard, and the spiritual battles are long and tedious … in the face of such adversity, Burma is not an easy place to be a Christian.

But I want to say to you that even in the hard, rocky nation of Burma, there is honey in the rock.

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2-4

God will NOT allow you to be tested beyond what you can endure. (1Cor. 10:13) so our circumstances are never beyond our ability to cope with them. We need to keep in mind that God may have created you for “such a time as this”. 

We find the words “such a time as this” in the Book of Esther. Esther had become the Queen of Persia by marrying King Ahasuerus. A wicked man called Haman hatched a plan to kill all the Jews in Persia in a single day.

Mordecai the Jew asked Queen Esther to go to the King and save her people ... and in doing so he said;

Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not imagine that you in the king’s palace can escape any more than all the Jews. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?”

Esther 4:13-14

“Such a time as this” means – at this time in history, I have been put here as part of God’s purposes. 

In the fullness of God’s plan for Burma, your destiny may be found in the rocky ground, and there is no other rescue team because you and Jesus are the rescue team. 

And amid the rocky place, where you find yourself, as you minister there with Jesus, there is honey in the rock for you. Remember what we said earlier? Honey is a sweet blessing!

So, what does the honey (the sweet blessing) in the rock look like for someone living in stony ground? 

Rose’s story

I once knew a refugee woman named Rose. I met Rose in Mae-La camp in about 1993. She died in 2001. 

Rose was a teacher, and her husband was a doctor, and they used to live in a rich area in Yangon in a house with servants. They were both Christians, and one day God spoke to them about making secret trips to Mae-La camp to help the refugees. So, they did this on several occasions. Rose trained teachers in the camp, and her husband trained medics and ran clinics there.

When the junta found out what they were doing, they immediately seized all of their property and issued warrants for their arrest. Rose and her children, and husband were now stuck in Mae-La camp.. They had no money and nowhere to go. 

In those early days, the Burma Army used to cross the border and come into the refugee camp on raids and shoot the refugees. Sometimes they would shoot grenades into the camp. It was not a safe place.

Rose made a secret trip back to Yangon to see her mother and father, and on the way back to the camp, she was arrested at a military checkpoint and was jailed and tortured for 6 months before eventually being let go. She made her way back to Mae-L, and when she arrived, she found out that her husband had died a few days before in a tragic accident. 

Rose was now a widow in an unsafe refugee camp and had nothing. This was her rocky ground.

Rose cried out to God and said, “God, what do you want from me? I have nothing more than I can give you.” God replied to her in a dream and said, “Rose, I want you to care for the children in this camp, that is what I am calling you to do”. 

So, Rose started a preschool, which still runs today. Because of her preschool and the training that she gave to other teachers in the camp, thousands of children have received a quality early childhood education and come to know Jesus. 

The kids in the camp were highly traumatised by their situations and their families’ journey. I remember one time I was in Roses Preschool, and I asked a 4-year-old boy what he wanted to do when he grew up. Expecting to hear a fireman or a truck driver. The boy surprised my interpreter when he said, “I want to learn to shoot a gun so I can kill the man who murdered my grandfather.”

The Burma army had forced him to watch the murderous execution of his grandfather, and it was deeply ingrained in his heart. About a year later, I saw the same kid in the preschool and asked Rose if he still wanted to avenge his grandfather’s death. She said, “No, he knows Jesus now, and he has other priorities.

Rose saw that God had called her to raise the next generation of Karen leaders.

She also started an orphanage for children with no family in the camp and no one to care for. IDPs in Burma would send their children to her because they trusted her, and she looked after every one of them.

I knew Rose well, and one day I was talking to her and asked her if she was ever angry about her journey. This is what she said to me.

It does not matter what you think, or what happens to you in life, God is still God and He is good.

Rose never applied for a humanitarian visa to go to another country; she had kids to care for, her hands were full, and she knew that God had put her in Mae-La camp for such a time as this. She was happy and fulfilled.

My friend Rose had found the honey in the rock in the rocky ground of Mae La camp.

In 2001, Rose died from a heart attack. Many in the camp grieved her passing. The camp had lost a true hero of the faith that day.

Rose’s story is what Honey in the Rock in a hard place looks like.

Rose heard and understood God’s call and was willing to trust Him all the way. She knew that she had been made for such a time as this!

Today there are people in the camp and in places outside of the camp who are influencing the future of Myanmar during this time of hardship, and they were taught in a Christian Preschool by a lady called Rose, who loved them and in them through her relationship with Jesus, had helped them to find their honey in the rock.

So here is my challenge to you today, as you look around your hard place, at the stony ground and scrawny harvest, where is the honey in the rock for you, both as a person and as a church? 

It is there, and God wants you to have it!

God wants to lead you to the Honey in the Rock. The place of sweet blessing! 

God wants to remind us of these two things,

• Honey is a sweet blessing greater than what is necessary and …

• No matter where we find ourselves, there is honey in the rock for you and for me.