Stones of Stenness

Submitted by Alan Marsden on Sun, 05/05/2024 - 00:00

The Orcadian Standing Stones of Stenness it was my privilege to visit back in February. It is one of those iconic ancient sites about which no one writes with any degree of confidence. Mist and low cloud characterised the day, which added to the stones' air of mystery. These tall, erect objects were positioned before the pyramids were constructed around 3000BC. I have already speculated that they were built by Japheth’s descendants after their dispersal from Babel. Alternatively, they might have been a temple to some pagan god, which those early builders were pleased to invent as a means by which the Living One and his high moral expectations could be ignored and rejected. A square platform in the circle’s centre is where cremated bone, charcoal and pottery has been found, so it may have been an altar for religious sacrifice. On the other hand, could it just have been a place where good parties and social gatherings were hosted?

Either way, they who ignore God because they are too busy feasting and dining are little better than those who offer worship to dark spirits. Whoever these ancient builders were, and under whatever motives they lived and worked, they shall be held to account by the God of Noah of whom they most certainly knew. Such folk’s existence may now be outside our collective memory, but the God of heaven remembers each one, their actions and responses to His offer of salvation. One day, you too shall be forgotten, and your deeds and words unremembered, but not by the great God who even now rises to approach His Great White Throne to hear and determine sentence.

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. -Revelation 20:11-12

Thank God, the Lord Jesus bore our sin; whatever we have built in this life, good or ill, our salvation is based upon His work, not ours; upon His cross, not our constructions.