Becoming Precious Stones

Never fails. When Dr. Viljoen is song-leading and I’m up for a message, I always have to lower it a little bit more.

Well, good afternoon, everyone. Today, I want to start with something we do not mention very often, the high priest’s holy garments.

Now, I’m not going to talk about every piece of the high priest’s holy garments, but I do want to focus on one particular element of his garment because it’s going to help set up the message, drive home, or at least lay a foundation for the points that I’m going to make today. Now, God gave Moses a lot of elaborate instructions about these garments. He gave him specific instructions on what materials needed to be used, very specific, for the high priest’s garment.

And He also gave elaborate instructions on how they should be made, and we find those instructions in Exodus twenty-eight. So, let’s begin in Exodus twenty-eight. Again, I’m not going to cover all of the garments. I want to focus on one in particular, and we’re going to read verse one as you’re turning there because that’s when God begins to command Moses to have these garments made for Aaron, who was selected by God to be the high priest, to come into Him, into the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies.

So let’s pick it up in verse one and just read a couple of verses here. It says, “And take unto you Aaron, your brother, and his sons with him from among the children of Israel, that he may minister to Me in the priest’s office.” So there we see God commanding that Aaron be serving or serve in the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies once a year. And then He goes on to mention the sons of Aaron as well, from the tribe of Levi, Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.

And verse two, “And you shall make holy garments for Aaron, your brother...” And it says. “...for glory and for beauty.” In other words, what you’re about to make for Me, I want it to be glorious. I want it to be beautiful, words that probably resonated in Moses’s mind as God pronounced them. I want what he’s going to wear when he comes before Me to be absolutely glorious, beautiful.

And in verse five, God begins with the ephod, which holds, as you can read here, the breastplate of judgment, and that is the piece, the breastplate of judgment, that I want to focus on I’d like us to focus our attention towards. Again, God gives Moses very elaborate instructions on what materials he needs to use to create this breastplate of judgment for the high priest and He also includes elaborate instructions on how it should be made.

So verse fifteen, let’s go there. “And you shall make the breastplate of judgment with cunning work.” Now, that phrase there, “cunning work,” means with great skill and care. Not only did God want the garments to be beautiful and glorious, but He wanted it to be done with great skill and great care. “After the work of the ephod…” in other words, using the same materials that you used for the ephod, “…you shall make it of gold, blue, purple, scarlet, and fine twined linen. Four-square it shall be, being doubled…” that means square.

“A span is the length and a span is the breadth…” essentially, He wants it square. “And you shall set in it stones or settings of stones four rows. The first row shall be a sardius.” Now, other translations translate that as ruby. So ruby, “…a topaz, and a carbuncle, this shall be the first row. And the second row shall be an emerald, and a sapphire, and then a diamond. And this shall be the first row. And the second row, it says, shall be an emerald, a sapphire, a diamond, and the third row, a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst.” And then verse twenty, in the fourth row, “...a beryl, an onyx, and a jasper. They all need to be set in gold, God commands.” Now, we’re going to read in a moment that Aaron had to wear the breastplate with all of the other garments every time he went in, and he had to wear this one, this particular part of the garment on top of his heart. Verse twenty-one, “...and the stone shall be with the names of the children of Israel.” Curious.

“...twelve according to their names...” Like the engravings of a signet. “...everyone with his name shall they be according to the twelve tribes.” Every time the high priest stepped into the holy place, or each time every year that he went into the Holy of Holies, he had to wear this breastplate before God. Now imagine, twelve of the most precious stones on planet Earth are arrayed across this fairly large gold plate, across Aaron’s chest. And each stone had its particular brilliance to it. Each one shined a little bit differently than the other. Each one glimmered a little bit differently as the light struck it in the holy place, or the Holy of Holies.

And what did they symbolize, this elaborate array of precious stones? It symbolized, or represented the children of Jacob, or the tribes of Israel. So as I was reading this, and I was studying this, and meditating on it, and maybe you’re wondering too, why would God place the name of each tribe with a particular stone? That’s a question that sometimes you wonder if you have a chance to ask God one day. Why that particular stone for that particular tribe, or that particular individual? And be fascinated by it. And I think as we go through the message, it’s going to be plain why that is so wonderful, why God would pick those in particular.

Verse twenty-nine. “...and Aaron shall bear the names of the children of Israel.” Repeating what I just said. “...in the breastplate of judgment upon his heart when he goes into the holy place for a memorial before the Lord continually.” Now, brethren, God didn’t leave us very long wondering why He wanted that to be established or created in that way, with the particular stones. That was going to be that particular part of the garment was going to serve as a reminder to God. But why would God, the God of the universe, need to be reminded about anything? Why would He choose this particular way to do it?

Here’s what I’d like us to consider. As again, we’re setting up the imagine. Imagine the continuous contradiction, year after year, God saw as He contemplated that breastplate with its precious stones. Each one of those stones I guarantee you, because it says, “...with cunning work, great skill, and care, God commanded them to be done.” God said, “For glory and beauty.” I would guarantee you that those precious stones, when they were set in their settings, and the settings of gold, they were flawless. But each represented a flawed person.

Each one of those precious stones represented men who were tremendously flawed, tribes who were flawed in many ways. You take, for example, the firstborn Reuben. He committed a very terrible sin when he slept with his father’s concubine, Bilhah. And Jacob pronounced, when he was giving the blessings out, that he would not excel. That was Reuben, in the latter days. Simeon and Levi, we know their story. They were the ones who avenged their sister, who was raped by men of Shechem. And they utterly massacred all the men of Shechem.

And Jacob, when he was pronouncing his blessings, said, “These were self-willed.” That’s a term we hear often. He also said that there were instruments of cruelty. And what about Judah? Judah was represented on the breastplate of the high priest. If you recall, he was the one who suggested they sell Joseph into slavery. And his failures didn’t stop there. Judah, he failed miserably when it dealt with his daughter-in-law, Tamar.

Judah had promised Tamar that his oldest of three sons, Er, was going to marry her, but God killed him because of his wickedness. Well, number two, step up. Judah was going to fulfill the promise and he failed miserably again because the second one, Onan, failed just like his older brother and God took him out as well. That left the third son, Onan, and I think Judah reneged on that promise because he said, well, if the first one died and the second one died, if I hook this one up, he may die as well.

So he reneged on that promise. And so Tamar took things into her own hand when Judah sent her back to her father and she dressed up as a prostitute and she tricked Judah. Of course, she tricked him, but he knew that he was dealing with a prostitute, and he slept with her and she became pregnant and had twins. That’s just a small sampling of the men and the tribes who were represented as a memorial to God on the breastplate of the high priest. Think about the contradiction. Each time that the high priest walked in, I can mention Joseph, Manasseh, and Ephraim.

Think about Ephraim, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, and Zebulun. Every single one of them had their faults and failings and all the tribes that followed and continued over the years strayed repeatedly from God’s laws, His commandments, His statutes, and judgments. But brethren, despite all of these failures, God not only selected these precious stones to represent them, if you go to Revelation, it says, He’ll place the names on the walls of holy Jerusalem forever, despite all of those failures. Now this sets up a powerful point regarding us and it helps us set up the rest of the message.

Let’s turn to First Peter chapter two. First Peter chapter two and verse two. Here are the instructions from the apostle Peter. As newborn babes, we can think back to our conversion. Some of you have many, many years in the Church. Some of you have many fewer years in the Church. But he says, “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word.” I underline that because that’s going to be an ongoing part of the message today that you may grow thereby. If so be, in other words, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord Jesus Christ is gracious to whom coming as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious.

So the Apostle Peter is revealing to the Church that Christ is as a living precious stone. And he says it in a specific order, he ends with precious, which leads us right into verse five. And he says, you also, you also are precious, and not only precious, but like Christ, lively stones. Now that word lively is the exact same word in verse four, it means living. You also as precious living stones are built up a spiritual house of holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Brethren, here’s the powerful point, I think it is, God has not assigned a stone to represent us.

We are precious stones. And this allows us that truth, allows us to draw some powerful parallels and learn some lessons today. So today I want to draw some several parallels between precious stones and us. Just draw some parallels. I hope it’ll be a little bit informative, a little bit instructive, a little bit inspirational, but drawing parallels will oftentimes allow us to see aspects of our walk, our Christianity more clearly. It’ll allow us to see it in a different light, in an expanded way. Parallels that we can draw from the scriptures that God uses, symbolism, allows us to appreciate and accept and prepare us for what God is doing in our life.

And I hope that’s the case today, that through these parallels that we’re drawing between precious stones in ourselves, as living precious stones, we’re going to see our lives a little bit differently, some of the elements that we must face as Christians a little bit differently.

Let’s turn to Revelation chapter four. Regardless of how long we’ve been in the Church, brethren, when God called you, when you were baptized at conversion, we became living precious stones like Christ. And we regularly thank God, do we not, for the knowledge and understanding of the truths we learn. And we even asked God for wisdom. I remember recently Mr. Pack saying that knowledge is knowing what’s right, understanding is grasping why it’s right, and wisdom is doing what’s right. We thank God for that. And we ask Him for the wisdom to put into practice what we learn. And we also ask Him that we can do these things so that we can become more like Him.

Even during closing prayers in services, we’ll sometimes ask in prayer, “God, help us to put in practice what we’ve learned today so that we can become more like you to reflect your righteous character.” I’m sure you pray that privately as well, that we’re all striving to be like God. Do we not? Remember, at the beginning, we read that God chose precious stones to represent Israel. We just read that we ourselves are living precious stones, like Christ is a living precious stone.

What about the Father, God the Father? Well, we just came off of two chapters, chapters two and three in Revelation of the letters, the content of the letters, to each one of the Church eras, and now the scene dramatically changes. Revelation four verse one. Again, what about the Father? “After this I looked, and behold, a door opened in heaven, and the first voice which I heard was as a trumpet talking with me, which said, ‘Come up here and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.’ And immediately I was in the spirit, and behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.”

Imagine that vision that John is experiencing. “And he that sat was like looking upon like a jasper and a sardine stone, and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like an emerald.”

Brethren, precious stones are even used to describe the Father who is Spirit. We know that the rainbow around his throne, spirit as well, but like an emerald. There’s nothing wrong with asking God to help us to continue transforming as we strive to become the precious living stones, ultimately the finished product that God wants us to be when we ultimately stand before Him. That is a part of our calling, to be like the Father. As it’s described in the scriptures, inspired by He Himself to record.

First Corinthians chapter thirteen. Let’s fast forward to that moment. Because we can talk about ourselves in the context of, or from the perspective of us being precious stones. It’s hard for me to imagine myself as a topaz or an emerald or a diamond or a ruby, but here in verse nine, “For we know in part, and prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect comes, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child.”

We’re talking about transformation here. Maturing, growing, changing. “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now, we see through a glass darkly, but then at that moment, face to face, now I know in part, but then shall I know, even as also I am known.” God only knows how glorious and beautiful one day we will be. I can only imagine it a little bit, but it takes cunning, careful skilled workmanship for me to become that jewel, that precious stone that God wants me to be, wants all of us to be.

So again, there’s nothing wrong with asking God to help us continue transforming into the precious living stones that will ultimately stand before Him one day face to face. Now, if you ask that, be ready to get what you ask for because that’s where it gets a little bit tough at times. How do we go from where we are now to that moment? Again, whatever we look like, we will be beautiful and glorious, if we go through the process that we’ll talk about.

How many of you know of the Sunrise Ruby? Anyone heard of the Sunrise Ruby? One person, good. It’s not the same person who likes snakes earlier in the message. How many have heard of the star of India? That’s a sapphire.

Okay, more hands there. Now, I’m sure a lot more hands are going to go up. How many of you are familiar with the Hope Diamond? I’ve seen that many a times when I lived in Washington, DC. Well, I’d like to give you a little bit of information about each and every one of those as we transition. The Sunrise Ruby. Now, this is a spectacular twenty-five-and-a-half carat Burmese Ruby, and it’s renowned for its vivid red U and its purity. Some say it’s mesmerizing to look at, and it was discovered in Mogok Valley in Burma, and I think that’s modern-day Myanmar. And it was named after a poem by a thirteenth-century poet Rumi.

It holds the record for the highest price ever paid for a ruby at auction, thirty-point-four two million dollars. Now, there’s a little bit of intrigue and mystery behind the Sunrise Ruby, because the buyer’s identity was never disclosed. And even to this day, as far as I can tell, the location of this Ruby, you can’t find it. No one knows where it’s at, no one knows who bought it. Then there’s the star of India, that’s the sapphire. This sapphire is one of the largest of its kind. It’s roughly five hundred and sixty-three carats. That sounds pretty big, doesn’t it? Any lady would like to carry that on their hand, right? It has a gray, blue color. It’s a little bit... it’s distinct from the Sunrise Ruby.

It was discovered in Sri Lanka. And part of its history includes the fact that this one was stolen and then it was recovered in a high-profile heist in nineteen sixty-four. The star of India is currently housed in the American Museum of History in New York City. It’s estimated to be worth about one hundred million dollars. The Hope Diamond, oh, did I have my hopes up when I went to see it. I thought it was going to be this massive jewel, seeing in this large case with guards all around it. Oh, no. It’s about that big. Now, many of you know that the Hope Diamond is famous for its striking deep blue color. But what you may not know are some of the facts that I found out about it.

I was looking it up, and it has a long, fascinating history of ownership by the French and English monarchs. It originated from the Kollur Mine in India and its history... the Hope Diamond’s history began when a French merchant and traveler, ‎Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, I think I got that right, first laid hold of it in the seventeenth century, around sixteen fifty-five, around that date. He eventually sold that diamond that was called at the time, of course, the Tavernier Le Bleu to King Louis the XIV of France, who renamed it, The French Blue.

Now, The French Blue, it was in French royalty’s hands until the French Revolution of seventeen eighty-nine. And then The French Blue disappeared for about twenty-some odd years, twenty-four years, until it reappeared or resurfaced in London, England, in eighteen twelve. Now, the diamond changed hands several more times between European royalty and private, wealthy collectors, and it was eventually acquired by Henry Philip Hope, which is how it got its current name.

And then it passed through various other owners until a gentleman by the name of Harry Winston eventually donated the Hope Diamond, of course, to the Smithsonian in nineteen fifty-eight, where it remains on display in Washington, DC. Like I said, I’ve seen it many a times. It is a remarkable forty-five-point-five-two carats when it comes to the size of diamonds. And you know what it weighs? Anyone familiar with carats? It weighs a whopping third of an ounce, one-third of an ounce, kind of like a feather.

And despite that weight, it has an estimated value of two hundred and fifty million dollars. Now these three precious stones I briefly covered are unimaginable in terms of it’s worth or their worth. I can’t fathom that much money, doesn’t compute in my mind. But then I consider that every single one of them are made up of ordinary elements. The whole diamond, as all diamonds, are formed from carbon atoms. That’s about it. Carbon atoms.

You know, you can get carbon on the market at roughly thirty-two cents per pound. Star of India sapphire. Sapphires are made of corundum. That’s a mineral of aluminum oxide. Aluminum oxide sells on the market for about twenty-five cents per pound, about seven cents less than carbon. Sunrise Ruby is essentially aluminum and oxygen atoms, aluminum oxide as well. So let’s throw in oxygen. Industrialized oxygen goes for about four cents a pound.

Now, if I base these calculations strictly on the elemental contents of those three precious stones, you know what they are worth combined? Seven cents. That’s it. You take the weight of every single one of the elements that made up those precious gems, seven cents. Now, if somebody goes off and does another calculation and comes back, “Mr. Houk, it was actually seven dollars,” and I moved the decimal point, well, write to CAD and complain to them.

But after God engineered how these precious stones are formed, which is extraordinary, after men mined them, and with great care and skill formed them, those same three that have an elemental value of seven cents are worth nearly a half a billion dollars. I could hold all of them in my hands essentially, a half a billion dollars. That’s what happens when God is involved, and God allows man to mine and process what He has made.

He can change invaluable things into incalculable worth. Let’s turn to First Corinthians chapter one, because I said, looking at parallels can help us see with more clarity our walk, our Christian lives, put things in the proper perspective, to help us advance. First Corinthians, chapter one. How we see our calling, brethren, can be impacted if we understand some of the parallels that God draws for us.

First Corinthians chapter one and verse twenty-six. “For you see your calling.” Now, the world may see your calling in a very different way. They may think that your calling is worth about seven cents. But I know better. I know that my calling, your calling, our calling, if we continue on this path, is incalculable in terms of its worth, its value.

“For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. And God has chosen…” there’s that word again, the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty and base things of the world and things which are despised had God chosen…” yes, many are called, few are chosen. “And things which are not to bring to naught, things that are,” in other words, things that are apparently of wealth to the world will be deemed useless. And the things that are now currently deemed as useless will have great value, “…that no flesh should glory in His presence.” In other words, even if we reach our destiny and we stand before God completely transformed, precious in His eyes, we can’t glory about it. I think back when I came into the Church when I was called by God, and I was essentially mined by men.

You know, yes, ministers are fishers of men, but you could consider us miners too. We’re out ready to collect and find the precious stones that God is bringing into His Church. God’s collecting a precious treasure, and I saw myself of very little worth. Think about the parallel that we can draw from precious stones in that regard when they are first mined. Have you ever seen a diamond when it’s first mined out of the ground? Or how about a ruby or a sapphire? Have you ever seen them? They look like colored rocks.

If I were walking along and I picked up a diamond in the rough, that’s the term that they used, I go, “Oh, that’s kind of nice.” And I toss it into the brook, and it’s probably worth about sixty million dollars. My wife would go, “Wait a second, that’s pretty.” And then she’d never know it. And same with rubies, same with sapphires. In their original state, they look like nothing. Think about what they underwent. That’s why they look the way they do when they were pulled from the earth.

Think about what they underwent. How they formed after prolonged periods of heat and pressure because that’s how they’re formed. Rubies, for example, take twenty to thirty million years, many scientists agree, and about one thousand two hundred- and thirty-eight-degrees Fahrenheit to just form. Twenty to thirty million years. Well, that’s little in comparison to sapphires. Sapphires can take up to a hundred and fifty to two hundred million years at one thousand six hundred and fifty-two degrees of Fahrenheit.

Wait, there’s more. Emeralds form after five hundred million years, scientists seem to agree on, and it takes about five hundred and seventy-two or one thousand four hundred- and seventy-two-degrees Fahrenheit for emeralds to form. But if that’s not all, I sound like a commercial, it takes between one to three point five billion years and about two thousand seven hundred- and thirty-two-degrees Fahrenheit of intense heat to form a diamond. One diamond.

Now, many of you can appreciate the parallel, maybe identify with this. Many of us came into the Church under less-than-ideal circumstances. Many of you came back to the Church after being away because of less-than-ideal situations going on in your life. Periods of intense pressure and heat. I can attest to that in my personal life. You know, much of it for a long period of time over the course of my life, I’m not denying, much of my life choices had to do with the pressure and heat that was brought upon my own life.

I’m not arguing that point, but I will tell you, during that period of time when God started to call me, I knew that things that didn’t seem logical to me started falling apart in my life and started to feel pressures in that. And I was almost down a ravine where I had nowhere to escape. And I understood that, yes, as God was calling me, I was reading the materials, these are circumstances that made me realize that I had to make a critical decision in my life. So when the time was right, God caused certain events to occur that thrust me out of the world and into His Church.

You know, it takes volcanic activity to bring all of these precious jewels that we’ve been talking about, to bring them to the surface of the earth. And then in a relatively quick period of time, they cool off and become the stones or the precious stones that we can see that many people cherish. And I can tell you that’s exactly what happens to a lot of us prior to coming into the Church. Which leads me to a particularly inspiring parallel regarding precious stones.

Let’s go look in Ephesians one for that. Brethren, we all, many of us come from backgrounds, we all have experiences that we can relate to relative to the situations that brought us ultimately, if you will, to our knees, to ask God to take over in our lives, to make us precious stones. But it doesn’t stop there.

But let’s look at Ephesians one and verse one. “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God to the saints in Ephesus and faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace to you and peace from God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ. According as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.” Now, that’s extraordinary knowledge and understanding, brethren, if you recall that we’ve gained from the prophecy series.

We were selected and chosen by God while He was in eternity. He remains in eternity, obviously, but before the creation of the earth, He had us, He chose us from the foundation before the foundation of the world. That’s amazing. But true Christianity, not like the false feel-good versions of Christianity, true Christianity has catches. And this is where the message takes a turn. We call them conditions, we in God’s Church.

Let’s continue reading in verse four, “That we should be...” Conditional statement. “...holy. That we should be without blame before Him in love.” See, much of mainstream Christianity, they either ignore these conditional statements or they’re just plain ignorant of all the conditional statements that exist in the scriptures. We have an example here, should be. You know, one of the ones that most brutally butchered is John three sixteen, people butcher it all the time. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son...” Nobody’s going to argue that. It says, “...that whosoever believes in him should not perish...” Now they skip that part, and they go on. “...but have everlasting life.”

So God gave Christ so that the world could be saved or have everlasting life, but they forget there is a conditional statement, should not perish. And it goes on, “For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn it, but that the world through Him might be saved.” Another conditional statement, should not perished, might be saved.

That implies a process, a requirement on our part that needs to be fulfilled if we want the other part of the statement to be true. What does that mean for us as it relates to parallels and diamonds and rubies and sapphires? Well, brethren, there is a process that we must go through to complete our transformation as living precious stones before God. We just read that we should be holy and without blame, what does that mean? Flawless. We’re working towards becoming flawless in the eyes of God. That’s conditional and that implies a process.

Genesis twenty-eight. Let’s go back one more time, one final time to Genesis twenty-eight because I skipped a verse on purpose. Genesis twenty-eight. I’m sorry, Exodus twenty-eight. You remember we read verse two. “And you shall make holy garments for Aaron, your brother, for glory and for beauty.” Here’s the verse that I skipped. “And you shall speak unto all that are wise hearted, whom I have filled with the Spirit of wisdom that they may make Aaron’s garments.”

Brethren, another parallel. The process of transforming natural stones into brilliant and magnificent ones requires the hands of skilled professionals. God told Moses, have wise men whom I have filled with the Spirit of wisdom so that precious stones could be prepared and be beautiful enough, glorious enough, crafted well enough that when the high priest stands before me, I will see lawlessness.

Now, the term for a person who is skilled at shaping stone or minerals or gemstones, they’re referred to as lapidaries. Lapidary, L-A-P-I-D-A-R-Y. It’s from the Latin, lapidarius, and the root word is Lapis, which means stone. And then sometime I think in the fourteenth century, the old French word lapidary came to mean one skilled in working with precious stone. So the question is, who is the skilled professional in our lives? In your life? Who is the master lapidary capable of transforming us from natural stones to finished ones?

Ephesians chapter two. Ephesians chapter two and verse ten. Plain and simple. I oftentimes read the second part of this verse. It says here, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God before ordained that we should…” should, another conditional statement, “…walk in them.” We don’t have to. God’s not going to force us to walk into the works that He prepared for us. God’s not going to force us to submit ourselves to the process that we’re going to go through here momentarily. It’s our choice. I often say if I have lack of clarity on what I should be doing in my life, I go to this verse and I pray to God to reveal to me the works that He made beforehand that I would walk in them, but I don’t often go to that first part of the verse.

Consider how it ties into me being a precious stone. I am God’s workmanship. You are God’s workmanship. We are God’s workmanship. Be not mistaken, God is the master lapidary. Only He is capable of transforming us from natural stones to finished ones. We are the product of His efforts. Paul tells the Ephesians, you, and he includes himself, you are workmanship of God. Now we’re ready to see, I told you, if we draw parallels, we can see things in a broader, more powerful way. Now we’re ready to see an all-important aspect of God’s Church in a way that you may have never seen before.

Ephesians chapter four, just to get pages over. We who serve in God’s ministry, who serve you, we are merely the instruments that God uses to transform your lives. Verse eleven. God is the master lapidary. He does the transformative work. He uses life and situations, ministry, God’s government primarily, each other so that that work can be done. The process can be completed.

Verse eleven. “And He gave some…” He placed in the Church “…apostles, and prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers for the perfecting…” the cutting and the polishing “…of the saints…” the precious stones that is the work of the ministry, “…for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God a perfect man…” A perfect singular precious living stone “…unto the measure the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro...” Again, talking about transformation. “...and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the slight of men, cunning craftiness…” trying to convince us that there are not conditions that need to be met to stand before God, whereby they lie and wait to deceive, “…but speaking the truth in love...” There it is again, the word of God, the milk of the word, truth. “...that we may grow up into Him in all things which is ahead, even Christ.

Brethren, the process of completing our transformation into a final precious stone ready to be set before God eternally requires submitting to the work of God through His government. That is God’s main tool. He is the master lapidary. I’ll say it again. But He uses His government, the ministry, as a tool to help you through the process. Of course, we submit to God’s government, but you can’t prove that you’re submitted to God’s government unless you’re submitted to the work that God’s trying to do in your life through the ministry. Through what you learn.

So you can only prove that you are submitted to God’s government when you submit yourself to the work that God is doing in your life to make you the precious jewel or the precious stone that He wants you to become. And God chose skilled men selected by Him, honored to serve Him in that way, filled with the spirit of wisdom to help you through the process. That’s our job. To see you fulfill your awesome potential. And for this reason, and again, we’re looking at familiar scriptures, but we want to see them from a perspective of a parallel of precious stones, we can go to Hebrews thirteen and understand this from that perspective.

We read it very often. Verse seventeen. “Obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves, for they watch for your lives, as they that must give account that they may do it with joy and not with grief, for that is unprofitable for you.” God’s government, the ministers in God’s government are the instrument that God uses to work every stone that’s willing to undergo the process of transformation and preparation. And if you lose sight of this, if you lose sight of it, you will let the flaws in men interfere or get in the way of allowing the work of God through them to transform your lives, and that’s why we read in verse seven what we read.

“Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the Word of God.” There it is again. If you look back to First Peter. Desire the sincere milk of the word in the context of being precious jewels. Precious stones. We see speaking the truth. We see again here who have spoken the word unto you, the word of God, whose faith you must follow, considering the end of their conversation or conduct. Ministers see this in the context of becoming precious stones. We too have to submit ourselves to one another, to the pastor general.

There’s no exceptions for us in terms of striving to become precious stones. We have to submit ourselves to the very same refining process that I’m asking you or revealing to you that you need to submit in yourselves, but we are examples, that’s what it says, hopefully we are, of what God’s work can produce in a human being’s life. Hopefully, you can look at our lives and Mr. Pack’s life and say, “That is a precious stone who has submitted himself, ourselves to the process just like we are, and look what it produces.” We look at you and we’re inspired when we see the process of God transforming your lives, we learn from your example only if we submit to His Word, only if we submit to the work that He’s performing.

Which brings me to the final verse here in Hebrews thirteen, verse twenty-two. “And therefore, I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of exhortation. For I have written a letter to you in few words.” Now, coming from Paul, that’s rich. You know, I had enough time that I looked up how many words are actually in the Book of Hebrews. Almost seven thousand words, depending on the translation. So if that’s a few, ooh, imagine what a lot would be coming from the Apostle Paul.

We’ve read desire the sincere milk of the word, First Peter two, truth and love, Ephesians four, in verse seven, here in Hebrew’s, Word of God. Now we read word of exhortation. You know, back in two thousand two, as I was preparing for this message, I saw that Mr. Pack gave a two-part sermon titled, Taking Direction, Instruction, Correction and Exhortation. I remember in the sermon he says you can remember by remembering DICE. D-I-C-E, direction, instruction, correction, and exhortation.

You know what he said? You know, I was just inspired by, because this message isn’t about going into specific, you know, deeply into the elements of the process that we submit ourselves. But I would encourage you to go read this because it ties right into the message. He says, “People are okay with direction. People in God’s Church are okay with instruction. They’re fine with correction. They’re okay with exhortation. They have no problem with it.” And then he says, “Only when it applies to other people, not to oneself.”

He says, as soon as you apply a little direction or instruction or correction or exhortation in a member’s life directly, that’s when they buck up and say, “Wait a second, that’s not for me.” What they’re essentially saying is, “I’m already perfect. I’m already polished. God, don’t waste your time with me. Go over there. That person needs a little polishing.” And I would add these people who do that, if we do that, brethren, we’re failing to see ourselves as still rough in certain areas that need God as our lapidary. We’re not allowing God in that area of our life.

I remember Mr. Pack quoting Jeremiah, “Oh Lord, I know that the way a man is not in himself, it is not in man that walks to direct his steps.” Brethren, this verse is absolutely clear. Human beings, we are incapable of determining the right path on our own. We need God’s direction. And when we get off, we need His instruction and we need His correction, and we need His exhortation. And again, don’t be surprised when I tell you that the instruments by which God does His work is the ministry. God’s government. We’re here to help because we know what’s at stake. We must rely on God in all ways.

So let’s talk about the process, the process that every lapidary uses when He is finishing off a precious stone, when He takes that mine chunk of stone that I would’ve thrown away and He takes it and He does a certain process. And let’s look at the parallels to our lives.

The first one is planning. Every lapidary worth his weight or her weight always plans. Now, remember, everything I’m going to tell you, you have to take it into the context that God is the lapidary. He’s the master. He’s the master gem cutter, if you will, Jeremiah twenty-nine. A plan must be considered before the first cut is made. If you want to become that precious stone, you have to understand these parallels. We’ll wait for a second here. Jeremiah twenty-nine and verse eleven. When rough stones are mined, they must be assessed. A specific plan must be carefully thought out for each and every stone. No two stones are alike. None of us are alike. There are some overarching things that God applies. We’ll wait.

Picking up where I left off here. None of us are exactly alike. God has a plan for you. God has a plan for me. What I ultimately become is based on the work he does through in my life. What you ultimately become is determined by what God thinks you need in your life. And here’s verse eleven, kind of an overarching one statement about His plans. “For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, Says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” And that end we’re going to revisit here shortly.

But God begins with a plan for each one of you. He’s mapping out, or he’s mapped out each step to bring out the best in each and every one of you. Each and every one of us. The ministry understands that. We understand that God is processing you. Our job is to simply ensure that that plan moves forward, keeps moving forward. We try and discern and perceive what God’s doing in your life at a particular time.

We understand the plan that He has for you, and we try and support you as you go through the process so that you don’t go through it alone. The planning process, when it comes to lapidaries, they actually consider every single cut they’re going to make before they make the first one. That’s the time that God puts into each and every one of our lives. That’s how precious we are.

He’s thought it through because the cuts will determine the value of the finished product. That is the first step, planning. Very simple to comprehend. Cleaving is the second one. The planning is kind of, you know, the high level, but cleaving is the next. Cleaving, C-L-E-A-V-I-N-G. This step, at least the first part, is usually the easiest in our lives, in our Christian lives, particularly when we’re new to the faith.

First John chapter five. We know God has a plan for us. Now, this is what the plan, or the process that you’re going through. Cleaving. It sounds pretty brutal, doesn’t it? It’s the term they use. First John chapter five. The first part of cleaving, I think it’s easy when I think back to when I was called. Now, cleaving is after deciding how the diamond will look in the end, the stone is reduced through the cleaving process to a manageable size. That’s cleaving.

So taking that big rock, or that fairly big rock, cutting it down so that it can be now manageable. And to cleave a stone down, the cutter places it into a mold, very important part of his tools. It must be in a mold. And he finds the stone’s weakest planes. And with it in that mold, the cutter carves a groove, and then he strikes it with a steel blade, and he cleaves the unwanted parts of the stone away. So what remains is a smaller, more manageable stone. Well, brethren, that mold is the Church. God will not work with any stone unless it’s in the mold, it’s in the Church in terms of precious stones.

God will not work with any precious stones if you could say outside of the Church. That is another reason why we are reminded not to forsake the assembling with each other. God has us in His mold. This is where He can do the work. And once God places someone in His Church, His mold, they must stay there or they risk everything falling apart. Not finishing. First John chapter five verse two. “By this, we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world.”

As I said, I think this part of the cleaving step is easier. God’s commandments. Do not kill, check. Do not steal, check. Do not lie. Keep God’s Sabbaths. Keep His Holy Days. When I learned those truths, unclean meats, no problem. I was excited. I was in love, easy, big blocks of unwanted slivers falling off. God knocked me down to a manageable level. Now, let’s see what happens. And even the Pharisees kept some of those. These are the bigger cuts that make us manageable, but this first part of the cleaving process, it’s not enough as we prepare to be set before God, and here’s how God cleaves with greater precision as we approach the final step.

Hebrews chapter four. I said that’s the easy part. Knocking away those things that are very simple to obey. God’s commandments. Hebrews chapter four and verse eleven. “Let us labor, therefore, to enter into that rest...” You could see it from the perspective toward that final step, the final product. A brilliant, precious stone. “...lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief...” In other words, don’t abandon the process, particularly at this point. We’re almost there. Verse twelve. “...for the Word of God...” There it is again. “...is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

Brethren, we must live up to not just the commandments, do not kill, do not steal, do not lie, unclean meats, I said that first part is easy, but do we hate? Do we covet? Do we bend the truth? Do we not keep the Sabbath and holy days as we should at times? The Word of God is there to discern that, to help us discern that. When we’re not meeting the standard. These are the deeper cuts that get us down to the point where we’re becoming the final product. The Hope Diamond, if you will. The Star of India.

These are the deeper cuts that reveal in us whether or not we’re keeping the spirit of the law, and it will reveal our true quality. And you know what gets in the way of this? Pride. When we get into these deeper ones, well, I keep the Sabbath, or I keep the Holy Days, but how do you keep it? Well, why do you care? Those are the deeper elements of our Christianity that God is focusing on because the process is not finished until we get to that point, or it can’t continue until we get to that point. Now before we go to the final step, I’d like to just look at this context here in verse fourteen. We have to allow the Word of God help us discern where we’re falling short. Verse fourteen, “Seeing then...” Full circle, brethren. “...that we have a great high priest that has passed into the heavens.” I don’t think it’s any coincidence that that’s the context.

“Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession, let’s stick to the process. For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like us as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain of mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” The parallel is inspiring if you remember just for a moment, brethren, that we are truly different than the sons of Jacob or the tribes of Israel.

They were only represented in the Holy Place by precious stones, on the chest of Aaron, only when he stood before God. In great contrast, we are living stones, it says here, that can boldly come before God’s throne of grace to obtain mercy and help from God now. In other words, the process is complete, but God still allows us to come before Him, not because of anything I did, but because of Christ, our high priest. Through Him, we can have access to the Father directly, even though we haven’t reached perfection yet.

Paul says that be confident in this very thing, that he which has begun the good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. This is a lifelong process that we’re talking about, brethren. We don’t change and become perfect overnight, nor over two nights, nor over decades. This will be an ongoing process until the day of Jesus Christ, as it reads here.

And I’m okay with that because now I know what it is. I’m understanding what it entails.

God will faithfully complete whatever work He needs to do in you by the time Christ returns. That to me is inspiring. I’ve just got to let God do the work and use the instruments that He’s put in place to get it done. That’s cleaving. Number three, brooding, polishing. Brooding. Cleaving and then brooding. Sounds brutal, doesn’t it? Brooding simply means polishing and perfecting. This step in the lapidaries process is even more difficult because you can do all the work that’s been done, and you can still find that the gem is ruined.

This is the crucial step that people often resist the most but is the one that will distinguish the hundred and forty-four thousand from everyone else. This is critical. If you can get through the cleaving, if you can do the simple things about Christianity, if you can do the spirit of what God wants us to do in His law, now we find we separate the men from the boys or the women from the girls.

But polishing and perfecting, brethren, it does not involve some nice little soft buffer machine that you kind... it vibrates, or it doesn’t mean a cloth. That’s not what this brooding means by any stretch of the imagination. At this point, this is when the cutter, he places a stone on a rotating wheel that’s coated with abrasive diamond powder, and he applies pressure, and it just grinds and grinds and grinds. Only then does the sunrise ruby, only then does the star of India, only then does the hope diamond take on their final shapes, did they take on their final shapes with brilliance, with a shine. And by the way, brilliance and shine are not the same.

Let’s go to First Peter one. First Peter one. How does God polish and perfect us? What does it mean to go through the brooding process as Christians? We’re going through the cleaving, going through the brooding. What does it look like when we are getting to the finish? Well, brilliance, like I said, is different than shine. Here’s what brilliance means. I thought this was fascinating. Brilliance is not the same thing as shine. Brilliance refers to the amount of light that is reflected from the inside of the precious jewel, of the diamond, or the gem.

It’s the light that’s reflected from the inside back out to the observer. It is a measure of how much light the gem returns to the one viewing it. It’s creating the light, the bright sparkling effect. If you’ve ever seen the sparkling inside a diamond, that’s the brilliance. That is what letting our light really mean, shine. How much our lives, brethren... Brilliance is how much our lives reflect the truth that we say we believe in.

That’s what brilliance is. It’s different than shine. We’ll get to that in a second. But your brilliance is determined by the amount of truth that you let others see reflected in your actions and your words every day, day in and day out. First Peter one, verse six, it says, “When you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith, the trials of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor in glory...” Remember those words? Glorious, beautiful. “...at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”

You know, this made me think of Daniel’s companion, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. When the furnace, the fiery furnace, was heated up, threw more coals on the fire, if you will, and Nebuchadnezzar wanted to kill them. And here’s what they said, “But let it be known, if we need to die, we’re going to die, but we will not serve your gods and we will not bow down to your golden idol.”

See, that’s when brilliance has appeared, when we’re tested, and the very faith that we profess that we say we believe in. It’s those moments when the brilliance of God’s work can shine forth. We will show others, those observing, that we will hold to God’s promises despite the abrasive effects multiple trials have on us. Throw them at me. I don’t want them, but if they do come, that’s my chance to let brilliance shine.

And if we remember that no fire... This is important, that no fire... That’s why He is the master. No fire or trial or temptation will ever, ever be greater than God knows that we are able to withstand. That gives me hope and I see some of the trials that some of you go through, and it’s inspiring because your brilliance is shining through. That’s what we serve to one another, examples.

God knows the exact level of pressure we need that needs to be applied in our lives so that we become that precious stone that He ultimately wants us to become. That’s different than shine. Here’s shine. Shine typically refers to the general luster surface reflection of the diamond or the gem. It’s the gleam or the glow that you see on the surface. It’s not from the inside out, it’s the surface.

I like to think of this when I was reading it. It was kind of inspiring. Take it for what you will. I think that is the joy, the cheerful endurance we display, despite the trials that we face.

Certainly, it comes from the inside, but I think that the joy that we show when we’re afflicted or we’re going through a trial, whether it’s health or family or whatever the case may be, our ability to show joy in those moments, despite those, of course, we could be sad. To me, that’s shining. That’s a shining example of what Christianity is about. Despite the contradiction of us being persecuted, we can still smile. Why? Because we know what this is leading us to.

James One. We don’t have to go far. James one. Again, familiar verses, but from the perspective of becoming precious stones. Verse two, “My brethren, count it all joy when we fall into diver temptation.” Wow. We need to be living examples of that. “Knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience, but let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”

In other words, finishing the process, and you go through this process, the brooding process, you can do it with joy, even though that abrasive, you know, level of pressure that’s in our lives as Christians continues and it will continue to the very end. It won’t stop. Brethren, God wants our lives to show off a brilliance coming from our commitment to God’s ways, no matter the cost or the trial, no matter what’s at stake, God wants us to reflect His joy when our faith is tested. That’s how we shine in this world.

And if we’re willing to see ourselves as living stones, precious to God, then we can also see Romans eight from another perspective, a much broader one. Romans eight. Very familiar scriptures. Because in this last part, it can lead to doubt. Why is this happening to me? Well, now we know why. We know why the trials hit us. We know why we’re hit with temptation. God allows this level of abrasive application or buffering to occur because that’s when the brilliance and the shining actually comes out.

If I keep the Sabbath and I don’t eat unclean meats, and, you know, I go to the Holy Days, that’s great. That’s a venue for brilliance and shining to occur. But that in and of itself isn’t shining or brilliance. It’s what we do while we’re there, how we act and interact with one another.

Verse twenty-eight. And so when we’re facing all of these things, we understand it in the light of us being made into precious gems and jewels and stones. Verse twenty-eight, it says, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the are the called according to His purpose.” And what’s His purpose? That we stand before Him eternally as precious living stones, eternal stones, members of the God family.

One final verse that we can see in the light of today’s message, kind of a full circle, First Corinthians chapter three. Brethren, if we allow ourselves to be subjected to the work of God, to execute His plan in our individual lives, to allow the cleaving, to allow the brooding, which is the polishing and perfecting of us, if we allow all of that, look what we look forward to, and it kind of sums up everything we talked about from going all the way back to the high priest breastplate to where we are right now.

Verse nine. First Corinthians chapter three and verse nine. Let’s see if I have the right... for if the administration of the condemnation be glory... Is that the right one? No. Second Corinthians. Let’s see if it’s Second Corinthians. Yes, Second Corinthians. My apologies. Chapter three verse nine. “For if the ministration of condemnation be glory...” We’re talking about Moses and the old tabernacle and much of what we started with at the beginning of the message. “...much more does the administration of righteousness succeed in glory. For even that which was made glorious and had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excels.”

In other words, by the glory that we’re living right now. “For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remains is glorious. Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech and not as Moses, which put a veil over his face that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished, but their minds were blinded for until this day remains the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil has done away in Christ, but even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.”

Everyone will have an opportunity one day, brethren, to submit themselves to the very process that we are right now. “Now the Lord is that spirit...” Verse seventeen. “...and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all with open face beholding as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of Lord.”

Brethren, that’s our hope. We are the living precious stones of God. We have a process, that if we submit ourselves to it, it has a glorious and beautiful ending to it. We heard recently a message about what we value. Won’t we value this process? Because it will change us into something that, I did some calculations about a two-hundred-pound man, if you took all those elements like I did with the diamonds, you know what a two-hundred-pound man’s worth, about sixty-nine dollars and fifty-nine cents.

Those of you are a little less than two hundred pounds, a little less. Those of you a little more than two hundred pounds, a little more. But that’s not the value that God is building in any one of us. Unfathomable. If we submit to the process, to God’s plan, to the cleaving of our lives, to the brooding, the final polishing. God knew that it would take preparing precious stones to be placed under breastplate of judgment was important. He knew that it was important because the judgments that He made was with that in mind. I’m creating jewels, so my judgments are going in accord with my end plan. And He expected Aaron and Moses to understand that too.

God made judgments with that end in mind. God wanted Aaron and Moses to make judgments with the same in mind with the ministry. We have that in mind. His judgments were mindful of the plan that he had to produce precious, flawless, priceless stones, ones that would stand before Him forever, not just Aaron, Israel’s high priest then, and not just Christ alone, our new high priest now, but a hundred and forty-four thousand precious living stones, brethren. And think, if we go through this, the countless more we will help through the same process so that they too can qualify as it says in that day when the Lord of Hosts makes up more of His jewels.