It was a Christmas present that never quite made it under the tree. A client owed me several thousand dollars. His bill was getting pretty old and it did not look like he had much inclination to square away his account.
One day, his office manager dropped by and casually put a dark blue felt cloth on my desk. He opened it and revealed 30 or 40 shimmering dark blue sapphires. Visions of sugar plums began dancing in my head as I thought of my bill finally being paid. At the same time, I peered out the window to make sure the police were not about ready to sweep into my office to break up a jewelry theft ring. I could just see my children reading the paper and asking mom why daddy was being led away in handcuffs from his office.
The office manager said that they had no cash to pay my bill but they wanted to trade some goods for services. After thinking about it for two seconds, I said that it sounded like a good idea to me. They owned a building supply business as well, so in addition to getting several thousand dollars of materials for a local church building project, I acquired two dark blue shimmering sapphires worth $1,000 each. It was my intention to put them in matching rings for my wife and me. Or, to have them set in two matching earrings for my wife. I thought these would make a really nice gift for my wife and she would really be impressed with her husband.
Being in no hurry, I put the two sapphires in a hollowed out book made for hiding such valuables. I put it among the 1,000 books of my library knowing that no thief would ever bother opening a book entitled "Building Better Fences." As the years passed by, I would take the book out occasionally to make sure the sapphires were still there. I would unroll the tissue, hold them up to the sunlight to admire their beauty for a few minutes, and then carefully wrap them back up and put the book back on the shelf. I never told anyone that I had these sapphires at home, in a hollowed out book, on the fifth row of the third bookshelf in the living room.
Soon however, my young children started reading a lot of books. I noticed that they were even starting to read books on my bookshelves. By this time several years had gone by and I thought that sooner or later one of my children would get around to wanting to read "Building Better Fences." It was time to hide the sapphires in a more secure location. The perfect place seemed to be one of many plastic containers in my oak desk in which I stored 35 millimeter rolls of film negatives. They were in the back of the second right hand drawer of my old oak desk. No one would ever look in that drawer for anything.
So, I once again opened the tissue, admired the sapphires, carefully put them into a plastic container, and put them among the 10 or 12 other plastic containers in which I stored rolls of old film negatives. Several years later the old oak desk was relocated into another room, but I still used it as a working desk and the rolls of film negatives stayed in the back of the second drawer on the right hand side awaiting the day when I would have the two beautiful sapphires put into rings for my wife and me, or into a set of matching earrings for my wife.
Well, you have probably guessed by now that one day I decided to open the drawer and look at the two dark blue beautiful sapphires and start the process of making some very special jewelry for my wife. I opened the drawer, I took out the plastic container that I thought contained the two beautiful sapphires, then I took out another plastic container that I thought contained the sapphires. Then I opened every single one of the 12 plastic containers and all I discovered were rolls and rolls of 35 millimeter film negatives, but no sapphires. There were just no deep blue sparkling sapphires. Not wanting to accuse anyone in the house of theft, I began to look at every hiding place that I had ever used around the house for any reason. There was nothing.
Finally, I casually asked my six children if any of them had been in the desk for any reason and used a plastic container. Well, it appears that my wife did get her sapphires, but because they were wrapped in what looked like wadded up tissue, she did not know what she was holding. She needed a plastic container for some other purpose, probably for a bug collection for one of the kids. It appears that the old tissue was "disposed" of and now resides in a land fill somewhere in the Los Angeles County basin.
One day, his office manager dropped by and casually put a dark blue felt cloth on my desk. He opened it and revealed 30 or 40 shimmering dark blue sapphires. Visions of sugar plums began dancing in my head as I thought of my bill finally being paid. At the same time, I peered out the window to make sure the police were not about ready to sweep into my office to break up a jewelry theft ring. I could just see my children reading the paper and asking mom why daddy was being led away in handcuffs from his office.
The office manager said that they had no cash to pay my bill but they wanted to trade some goods for services. After thinking about it for two seconds, I said that it sounded like a good idea to me. They owned a building supply business as well, so in addition to getting several thousand dollars of materials for a local church building project, I acquired two dark blue shimmering sapphires worth $1,000 each. It was my intention to put them in matching rings for my wife and me. Or, to have them set in two matching earrings for my wife. I thought these would make a really nice gift for my wife and she would really be impressed with her husband.
Being in no hurry, I put the two sapphires in a hollowed out book made for hiding such valuables. I put it among the 1,000 books of my library knowing that no thief would ever bother opening a book entitled "Building Better Fences." As the years passed by, I would take the book out occasionally to make sure the sapphires were still there. I would unroll the tissue, hold them up to the sunlight to admire their beauty for a few minutes, and then carefully wrap them back up and put the book back on the shelf. I never told anyone that I had these sapphires at home, in a hollowed out book, on the fifth row of the third bookshelf in the living room.
Soon however, my young children started reading a lot of books. I noticed that they were even starting to read books on my bookshelves. By this time several years had gone by and I thought that sooner or later one of my children would get around to wanting to read "Building Better Fences." It was time to hide the sapphires in a more secure location. The perfect place seemed to be one of many plastic containers in my oak desk in which I stored 35 millimeter rolls of film negatives. They were in the back of the second right hand drawer of my old oak desk. No one would ever look in that drawer for anything.
So, I once again opened the tissue, admired the sapphires, carefully put them into a plastic container, and put them among the 10 or 12 other plastic containers in which I stored rolls of old film negatives. Several years later the old oak desk was relocated into another room, but I still used it as a working desk and the rolls of film negatives stayed in the back of the second drawer on the right hand side awaiting the day when I would have the two beautiful sapphires put into rings for my wife and me, or into a set of matching earrings for my wife.
Well, you have probably guessed by now that one day I decided to open the drawer and look at the two dark blue beautiful sapphires and start the process of making some very special jewelry for my wife. I opened the drawer, I took out the plastic container that I thought contained the two beautiful sapphires, then I took out another plastic container that I thought contained the sapphires. Then I opened every single one of the 12 plastic containers and all I discovered were rolls and rolls of 35 millimeter film negatives, but no sapphires. There were just no deep blue sparkling sapphires. Not wanting to accuse anyone in the house of theft, I began to look at every hiding place that I had ever used around the house for any reason. There was nothing.
Finally, I casually asked my six children if any of them had been in the desk for any reason and used a plastic container. Well, it appears that my wife did get her sapphires, but because they were wrapped in what looked like wadded up tissue, she did not know what she was holding. She needed a plastic container for some other purpose, probably for a bug collection for one of the kids. It appears that the old tissue was "disposed" of and now resides in a land fill somewhere in the Los Angeles County basin.
That hurt. It was my fault for not taking care of business. But I found you can survive pain. It helped to know that my wife actually got to handle and touch the sapphires, even though she did not know that they were in the tissue that went into the trash. It really brought home to me the concept that "it is the thought that counts" because that was all I had to give her now. Perhaps someone digging through a land fill some day will stumble across them and be amazed that sapphires pop up out of the ground already perfectly cut and polished.
I want to talk to you about precious stones today. Rubies, sapphires, diamonds, opals and so on. I am not really too upset or concerned about my lost sapphires because I know that everyone who knows Christ as their personal Savior will soon inherit a universe full of precious stones courtesy of the God who created them. To worry about a few pitiful throwaways here on earth, when Heaven will be so special is rather short sighted.
Granted, Heaven is described in the Bible in terms that cannot be easily or completely comprehended. It is like an ant trying to describe the intricacies of the space shuttle to another ant. It just doesn't compute very well. But, Heaven is described and defined throughout the Bible, and in particular, in the New Testament by Jesus, Paul, and John. Jesus is quoted as saying in John's gospel, (John 14:1-6) Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions (or dwelling places): if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
Paul states in his letter to the young church in the city of Corinth (1 Cor. 2:9-11) "But as it is written, 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him.' But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God.
Finally, John the apostle in the Book of Revelation does the best he can with the limited vocabulary available to him to describe what he has been shown of the final destiny of mankind, including the indescribable beauties of Heaven. I have set forth the entirety of chapters 21 and 22 of the Book of Revelation at the end of this article which is certainly worth your review.
But I want to describe something which I believe will be breathtaking, dazzling, and spectacular. It is why I have no concern at all about my lost sapphires. In the last two chapters of the Book of the Revelation, John is shown something descending from the heavens which he calls "The City of God." Here is what is special about that event. First: John describes a city that is approximately 1500 miles square, actually it is a cube, and it is called the City of God. Those dimensions roughly put one side of the city on the Canadian border, the opposite side on the Mexican border, another side on the Mississippi River, and the last side on the Pacific Ocean, give or take a few feet one way or the other and it is 1500 miles tall. It's a big place! Second: This City of God is built out of all kinds of translucent materials that are similar to all of the precious jewels known to man. Third: There is a brilliant, blinding light that penetrates and permeates throughout the City of God replacing the need of a sun by day or a moon by night.
Folks, you have never seen anything like this place. If you ever go to a museum's gemstone exhibit and see extremely strong light shown through the facets of a few dozen gemstones and jewels, the effect is dazzling and the crowd will "oooh" and "aaah" as the light is played over and through the rubies, diamonds, sapphires, and other precious stones.
But, my dear friends. I am talking about a 1500 mile cube filled and built with millions and millions and millions of something like all of the precious stones you can imagine and then being illuminated by something akin to sunlight itself. This will be a city that radiates with all the dynamic colors of the universe in a never ending display of brilliance that we would not be able to endure unless God himself changes our mortal body into that of immortality (cf. 1 Cor 15). There is just no comparison to anything we are familiar with.
If you know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you can say with John at the end of his writing, "Even so come, Lord Jesus." Heaven is a special place for special people. Those who have bent their knees and bowed their heads and asked God to forgive them for rejecting Him and accepting the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus, for their sins. Television's paltry parody of the hereafter is an insult. The realty of God's habitation is unimaginable and can only be hinted at by the writers of scripture.
If you do not yet know Jesus as your personal Savior, I want to remind you of my lost sapphires. They are irretrievably gone. I wasted 10 years looking at them and never doing anything with them. I can never get them back. Don't let your life end up like my sapphires, cast out with the trash. Make your peace with God now while you still have the chance. Make Heaven your eternal home too.
Granted, Heaven is described in the Bible in terms that cannot be easily or completely comprehended. It is like an ant trying to describe the intricacies of the space shuttle to another ant. It just doesn't compute very well. But, Heaven is described and defined throughout the Bible, and in particular, in the New Testament by Jesus, Paul, and John. Jesus is quoted as saying in John's gospel, (John 14:1-6) Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions (or dwelling places): if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
Paul states in his letter to the young church in the city of Corinth (1 Cor. 2:9-11) "But as it is written, 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him.' But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God.
Finally, John the apostle in the Book of Revelation does the best he can with the limited vocabulary available to him to describe what he has been shown of the final destiny of mankind, including the indescribable beauties of Heaven. I have set forth the entirety of chapters 21 and 22 of the Book of Revelation at the end of this article which is certainly worth your review.
But I want to describe something which I believe will be breathtaking, dazzling, and spectacular. It is why I have no concern at all about my lost sapphires. In the last two chapters of the Book of the Revelation, John is shown something descending from the heavens which he calls "The City of God." Here is what is special about that event. First: John describes a city that is approximately 1500 miles square, actually it is a cube, and it is called the City of God. Those dimensions roughly put one side of the city on the Canadian border, the opposite side on the Mexican border, another side on the Mississippi River, and the last side on the Pacific Ocean, give or take a few feet one way or the other and it is 1500 miles tall. It's a big place! Second: This City of God is built out of all kinds of translucent materials that are similar to all of the precious jewels known to man. Third: There is a brilliant, blinding light that penetrates and permeates throughout the City of God replacing the need of a sun by day or a moon by night.
Folks, you have never seen anything like this place. If you ever go to a museum's gemstone exhibit and see extremely strong light shown through the facets of a few dozen gemstones and jewels, the effect is dazzling and the crowd will "oooh" and "aaah" as the light is played over and through the rubies, diamonds, sapphires, and other precious stones.
But, my dear friends. I am talking about a 1500 mile cube filled and built with millions and millions and millions of something like all of the precious stones you can imagine and then being illuminated by something akin to sunlight itself. This will be a city that radiates with all the dynamic colors of the universe in a never ending display of brilliance that we would not be able to endure unless God himself changes our mortal body into that of immortality (cf. 1 Cor 15). There is just no comparison to anything we are familiar with.
If you know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you can say with John at the end of his writing, "Even so come, Lord Jesus." Heaven is a special place for special people. Those who have bent their knees and bowed their heads and asked God to forgive them for rejecting Him and accepting the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus, for their sins. Television's paltry parody of the hereafter is an insult. The realty of God's habitation is unimaginable and can only be hinted at by the writers of scripture.
If you do not yet know Jesus as your personal Savior, I want to remind you of my lost sapphires. They are irretrievably gone. I wasted 10 years looking at them and never doing anything with them. I can never get them back. Don't let your life end up like my sapphires, cast out with the trash. Make your peace with God now while you still have the chance. Make Heaven your eternal home too.
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