Malachi 3:16-17

Melachi chapter 3 verses 16 and 17 now last week we finished the latter part of this chapter and completed it but there’s a thought I want to emphasize tonight which is found in verse 17 but let me begin reading with verse 16 then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another and the Lord hearkened heard it and the book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord and that thought a upon his name. They shall be mine, said the Lord of host. In that day when I make up my jewels, I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. May God bless to us, His sacred and holy world this evening. As you go through scripture, you find that it’s full of object lessons. And here we have an object lesson with regard to the people of God. Now in scripture, the people of God are sometimes called sheep. Sometimes they’re called lilies among the thorns. Doves, stars, myrtle trees, and so forth. But here they’re called jewels. And it would richly repay us, I think, to just ponder a moment what God is saying here about his people. If you know the Lord Jesus Christ, if you would richly repay us, I think, to just ponder a moment what God is saying here about his people. are a believer in Christ, and it would not be foolish for you to say, I’m a jewel. God says that his people, and here he clearly defines who he means by his people, those who fear him and who think upon his name, as verse 16 indicates to us, are indeed gems. They are treasured possessions. God’s faithful are the unique treasure of kings. kings. They are emeralds. They are rubies, diamonds and pearls. The crown jewels, if you would, of Jesus Christ, the king. Why does God use this symbolism? Why does he make this comparison? So I’d like to talk a few minutes about Jehovah’s jewels tonight. Let me begin by saying this. You, as one of God’s people, have the qualities of a jewel. Now, God’s people are precious. He calls them God’s own sons here. Those who serve him. All God’s servants are considered to be his sons, precious to him. Thus, it fits in with the idea of being a jewel. From ancient times, we know that jewels have been highly prized among men. The world has known some large and famous gems. each worth over hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe some in millions of dollars. A quarter-sized gem is about 90 carrots. The great mogul diamond from India is 188 carrots. It gives you an idea how large that diamond is. The Arabian Pearl, huge, over 1008 carrots. The Coenor, 106 carrots. It’s in the British crown jewels. It’s a diamond. And the Orloff diamond. 194 carrots. It’s in the Russian crown jewels. And before modern equipment, people would have to mine by hand. They might have 500 men mining for a whole year getting what you could put in one handful, one hand. I would have come to jewels that have been found. While you may not be esteemed much by men, we see that God esteems you highly and puts you in this category. And he’s, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ is the great jeweler. He counts you precious in his sight. Christ, you recall, lay down his life for you. He sacrificed himself. Thus he values you highly. Even the very least, most unworthy of believers is a jewel of the Lord. You may not be the greatest Christian in the world. You may not possess all the, maybe the best spiritual gifts possible, but still you’re precious in the sight of the Lord. You’re precious. God’s people also are durable. Now, I notice he says here, They are spared. I will spare them, he says. This actual word has to do with being pity and have compassion upon. But the idea, I think, is that God will carefully preserve his people, just like you would. Jules, you put them somewhere, you keep them safe. Many jewels will cut a glass, but by themselves, they cannot even be cut cut. by the sharpest tools or harmed by the most potent acids. The city of Pompeii, you recall, was destroyed totally by a volcanic eruption. And the lava, you know, covered the city in ash. And when they dug through with a lot of the artifacts and so forth were all destroyed. You know, statutes and various implements of iron and so forth, and so forth, But one thing that was in excellent preservation were gems. They found gems in all this excavation, and they survived. Now, you as a Christian are like that. You have within you a spiritual principle that the Bible indicates to us is an incorruptible seed that liveth and abideth forever. In 1. Peter 1.23. The world is often tempted to throw you out, cast you aside, destroy you, to treat you as worthless, but we find that their evil fury will never succeed. Haman, who was the chief official under King, has aware of the Persian Empire, attempted to utterly destroy the people of God. He persuaded the king to have a law written that could not be altered, permitting the wholesale slaughter of all the people of God in the entire. kingdom of the Medo-Persian Empire and the confiscation of all their properties and possessions. And he even had a gallo built 75 feet high on which he was going to hang Mordecai, which he considered one of the leaders or instigators here. And so he was going to make a public spectacle out of him. We see how God and his providence turned the tables on Haman and his plurban. to exterminate the people of God. God made Esther the new queen of King of Hazerius, and she interceded for her people. And ironically, it’s the wicked hayman that gets hung on the giant gallows. It’s their enemies that get destroyed before the unchanging law that was passed gets to affect the Jews. God put fear in the hearts of all those around the people God so that they would not harm them. And so we see God protected his people. All the evidence ever indication of the hatred against the people of God has really only been the means by causing them to display their brilliance in the world. Now the false Christian, the paste gem, if you would, he does not endure the trials, the persecutions and so forth. he collapses under them because he’s not genuine. But the genuine Christian, the true gem, survives the fires of this life. Christ said about his people, they shall never perish. Diamonds outlast dynast dynasties. And so, you know, gems are not compared, the people of God are not compared to dewdrops. But to gems, dew drops, but to gems, do drops, fade with the, heat of the sun. And they’re gone quickly, but God’s people are those who are going to endure. God spares them under the heat of persecution and trial and so forth. God’s people are durable. God’s people possess spiritual brilliance and beauty. 1. Peter 2.9 says, This people, I have formed for myself, they shall show forth my praise. and when you look at a diamond and other jewels, they reflect the sunlight. They sparkle. There’s a brilliance about them. The true believer catches the sunlight or the beams of the Son of righteousness, the Lord Jesus Christ, and reflects him. Not without refraction. There’s some distortion. You know if you took a glass of water and you put a pencil in it. It looks like the sunlighting. pencils bent. It’s not perfectly reflected in that water. And so we don’t perfectly reflect Christ, but we’re still able to reflect because of the presence of the Holy Spirit and the grace is working within us by the Spirit. Christ and shine forth in this life. You know, the Bible speaks about the beauty of holiness. And that’s what the Christian is to have in his life. There is an attraction, a seductiveness about the godly life, that even the ungodly take notice of as we go through this world. You know, in Hebrews 11, the great faith chapter, remember the men and women that are mentioned, Abraham and Moses and Joshua and Noah, Sarah, the widows in the widows in the widows in, Elijah’s Day and Elish’s Day and so forth. They stand out among others. They’re like stars in the darkness of the sky. The Bible says the world was not worthy of them in Hebrews 1138. The world didn’t deserve to have such godly men and women in their midst reflecting the brilliance of the glory of God. So God’s people possess spiritual brilliance and beauty. God’s people were also rare. Think about jewels. You look around you, there’s common stones that litter the ground everywhere. You find common stones everywhere, but you don’t find too many jewels, too many gemstones. After all the searching through all the ages, there are not now more than a hundred great diamonds. Very small number, and compare to the effort put forth, the fine number. diamonds. Only six or so, very large diamonds, what they’re called paragon, over 100 carats each. God’s jewels are few in compared, in comparison to the unregenerate masses that populate this earth. When you read the scriptures, it’s not many wise, not many great, not many noble that are called. The weight of heaven is narrow and few there be that find it. Many people believe that almost everyone is a Christian and everybody’s going to go to heaven, but that’s a lie. It certainly is betrayed by the picture here in our text. We’re not living in a world where gemstones are a dime a dozen. They’re not used to pave roads and are not used to make brick for our houses. There are a lot of churchgoers, but there’s also what we might call a lot of paste gems. They may be a… seem genuine, but closer inspection, they are phony. The true believer is a precious gemstone. And in comparison to the endless masses of the human race, they are few in number. So God’s people are rare. So here’s one of you as one of God’s people have the qualities of jewel. You’re precious, durable, brilliant, and beautiful, and rare. Secondly, you find God’s people making. up his jewels for the last day. He says, he says, he’s going to make up his jewels. In the day that I make up my jewels, he says. Some of God’s jewels right now are hidden. We might even say they’re undiscovered. There’s no doubt that many precious gems are yet to be discovered. Diamond hunters are searching all the time to find diamonds. There’s diamond mines in South Africa and other places. And they’re constantly, constantly looking in the caverns of the earth for diamonds and so forth. And like manner, many of the chosen people of God are not covered yet. They’re still hidden among the masses of humanity to be found. You’ll recall that Paul was told to stay, continue preaching in the city of Corinth, because God had much people in that city, that were going to be converted. They’re not converted yet, but they’re going to be converted. Your daily business, business in a sense is a jewel hunter. You’re out, giving out the gospel of Christ and jewels are discovered in that manner when they’re brought to salvation in Christ. We’re laboring to mine them, if you would. It’s because of the absence of so many of the Lord’s gems that the making up of the jewels by the Lord here is not taking place yet. We’re still waiting for the gathering in of all the gems. We’re like Paul. I endure all things for the elects sake that they may obtain the salvation, which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. I’m going through this because there are people out there who need to be saved. That’s why he went through all these missionary journeys and labored so diligently on the field. Now, notice, some of God’s people are discovered, but they have to be cut and polished. When a diamond is first discovered, it doesn’t glitter that much. It has, has to be worked on. We talk about people being a diamond in the rough. Well, that’s the way we are when we were first converted. We’re diamonds in the rough. And the workmen who cuts and polishes and engraves precious stones has to work hard on the wheel to polish up the stone. Some people spend, you know, they will spend hundreds, even thousands of dollars working on a gemstone. because depending on the size and so forth in order to bring out the fullest excellence and brilliance of the stone when diamonds are first discovered they usually are covered with a dark rusty coating to them and so they have to be that has to be removed every particle will be removed this is a sometimes a long expensive process the coenor diamond was brought from the east and presented to Queen Victoria in 1850. It was an Indian cut stone, and therefore it wasn’t cut well. Its form and cut were far from perfect. So in order to improve it, it was recut in England in 1852 by a diamond cutter named Boersanger. The work of recutting the stone took 38 days. The diamond was subjected to repolishing with the help of a steam engine for 23 days at 12 hours a day. That’s how much work would end up polishing the diamond. And so it is in a way with Abraham and Joseph and Jacob and Peter and Thomas and really all the people of God. we’ve been chosen to make up God’s crown jewels. But salvation involves not only justification, but we see it also involves sanctification. There is a sense in which the rough edges have to be taken off. We have to be polished. We have to be changed. In order that we might truly show forth lustre and brilliance of God’s handiwork. So God’s taking off the rough edges, if you would. Perfecting the lines of you and I in preparing us to be set. He’s doing away with all the foolishness that’s still cherished in our hearts. He’s cutting and polishing us. There’s unbelief that has to be cut away. There’s corruption that has to be removed. There’s worldliness that has to be ground off until you were our, finished product. So then God will make a sparkle and glitter by his grace. So some of God’s people are discovered in being cut and polished. All of God’s people one day be finished gemstones and display the wonderful grace of God. If you’ve ever visited the rock and mineral exhibit in Carnegie Museum down in Pittsburgh, it’s a wonderful display. of gemstones and and beautiful stones of all sorts of all different colors. the lighting is such that they all are glistering beautifully. special lighting makes it very attractive. So the stones glitter and all their majestic glory. There’s coming a day when God makes up his jewels here for an eternal display for the universe. you as a believer will provide an unrivaled illustration of the glory of divine grace. I read in Ephesians 2 verses 4 to 7 but God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherein he loved us even when we were dead in sins have quickened us together with Christ by grace are you saved and hath raised us up together and made us sit together and made us sit together and heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come he might show forth the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us through Jesus Christ. We are trophies of his grace. We are the treasures that he brings out for display. Now it shouldn’t be difficult for us to see the people of God as jewels. You remember the Old Testament that the high priest had on his ephed, the shoulders, he had two stones on one on each side. Each had six names and on the breastplate he had an individual diamond or a stone, a gemstone of some sort, for each tribe. So that he was representing those tribes. When you get to the book of Revelation in chapter 21 and you read about the new Jerusalem, the new Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem, it comes down from heaven to the new earth, and new heaven. We see that the city is symbolic. It’s not a heavenly hotel, so to speak, but it is portrayed sometimes in this manner. That sort of misses the point, because he tells us that the city here is the Lord’s wife. It’s It’s the bride. It’s the church of Jesus Christ. And you remember there are 12 gates which are all one pearl. And he tells us that represents the 12 tribes of Israel. He says the city has 12 foundations which each foundation is a different gemstone, and that’s representative of the 12 apostles. And I think between the two there, we have the all the believer, of the New and the Old Testament sort of symbolically set forth here in the city that we have set there in that passage. So the jewels here, representative of you as a child of God. So it’s not unusual to have this type of message. We are the city that’s set on a hill that cannot be hit. And at the end, we shine forward. Let me close tonight as we’ve looked at this passage and taken a few minutes upon it and asked you this, let me ask you this, are you a genuine jewel? They shall be mine, he says here in this passage. This doesn’t include everybody, but those who fear the Lord, those who think upon his name, they are the jewels. We ought to be thankful that we as the people God are listed in this category. It remains an easy thing, however, to imitate a jewel. Some of the various things that we can use today can counterfeit a genuine gem, and you need someone that’s quite skilled sometimes to evaluate whether it’s truly a gem or not. And so we have to be, we have to evaluate ourselves. Are we, truly one of the gems that’s spoken of in this text. I read a story by an English woman who possessed a deep blue sapphire. It was worth in the neighborhood of something like 10,000 pounds over $25,000. Without informing her relatives, she at one point sold the sapphire. And then she had made up a paste gem, a glass gem, if you would, that resembled the sapphire that she once possessed. When she died, her relatives took happy possession of the stone and paid the tax on the full amount of the gemstone. But when they had it evaluated, they found out, oh, this is paste. This is not the genuine article. They inherited a piece of glass. So don’t be deceived. You know, people can deceive the minister. They can deceive the elders. They can deceive. deceive the other members of the church. But make sure that you are a genuine stone here of the Lord. That you do the Christian duties and you come to church and so forth out of love to God and to Christ. That you pray the prayer of David, search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. I mean know where I stand with you. imitations surely will be detected on the day of judgment and exposed. But, my friends, if we would take the time to make our calling an election sure, we could rejoice in the fact that we are one of those stones and gems that God is setting apart for his own display in the world to come. Well, let us close with the word of prayer tonight.