Precious stones -- deeper experiences of Christ

[ZNPaaneah]

"The fifth item is the precious stones (v. 27). These are offered by the leaders, the principal ones among the Lord's children, who have the authority. These precious stones are something related to those who have authority. This means that if you are going to be one with authority among the Lord's children, you have to have something to offer to the Lord as precious stones. If you do not have this kind of wealth, you cannot take the lead among the Lord's children. To have something of the precious stones means that in your life, in your spiritual experience, you have suffered the burning and the pressure. Thus, with you there is something very solid, very strong, and very precious, like precious stones. These experiences are much deeper than the experiences of the articles of gold. the precious stones typify the deeper and further experiences of Christ. If we have something precious of Christ as the precious stones, we have the authority. Then we will be ones who can take the lead among the Lord's children." (Witness Lee, Spiritual Applications of the Tabernacle, Chapter 4, Section 3)

Rev 19:19 The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all kinds of precious stones: the first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, 20 the fifth sardonyx, the sixth sardius, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst.

[ZNPaaneah]

My favorite stone is sardonyx. It stands right next to emerald which is considered the most precious of precious stones. A high quality emerald can sell for more than any other stone.

Sardonyx looks like a sandwich of a black and white layer. The white is creamy white and the black looks like ebony. But there can be a variation, often the instead of black it is more brown.

When I first saw this stone I thought it was a joke, how could this stone stand next to an emerald? Of course, the irony was not lost on me. I came into the church in Houston the same year that a brother who was a grad student at the Medical school, he had played on the National Bowl winning Notre Dame football team the year before.

So I took an interest, how does this ridiculous stone stand next to an emerald, in the same builded church? Well the answer is that the Lord can make it stand. A craftsman, an artist comes in and will carve through the top layer of onyx, making just a nice border, like a frame. Then in the middle white or lighter layer they will carve their scene, their characters, the whole picture. They will carve beneath this layer into the bottom layer of onyx where you can see the more sinister characters hiding in the shadows. When the Artist is done it is called an intaglio (a cameo is similar). I saw one and it was a masterpiece. Depending on the artist this can become a priceless masterpiece.

[ZNPaaneah]

Most of the precious stones do not undergo heat and pressure anywhere near what a diamond does, the process they go through is not similar to a diamond which for some reason is typically used to illustrate transformation (you should use Jasper and petrified wood, much better illustration) even though Diamonds are not in the New Jerusalem.

That said, Chrysolite is the one stone that does experience heat and pressure similar to diamond. It is an olive green, transparent stone, that always forms in a black rock. The interesting thing about this rock is that in the presence of water the transformation process is 1,000 times faster, even though water is not part of the chemical process. The water only acts to facilitate the process.

During my year and half serving in Irving on the LSM construction site I was in charge of the planters. We built concrete planters in the parking lot. We needed to identify our forms so I marked them with a brown circle of paint and a little green circle inside. This signified Chrysolite and point was simple, if we don't experience grace then the heat and pressure we are going through will hardly have any effect, but if we do then the transformation will be a lot greater. It was like a constant reminder, I would see the green dot in the brown circle, and it was saying make sure you enjoy grace in this experience.

If you were not involved in this service you do not understand what was so trying about it. At one point the newspaper interviewed BP about the property and the church. In the article BP described the Local Church as being 'just another Bible based Christian group'. Many saints were outraged at this description. I spoke up at the Lord's table and repudiated it. Now we lived in corporate living with the saints as we worked on the hall. They immediately moved me into another saints home where the situation became unlivable. Everyone in that home mocked and ridiculed me continuously. If not for the Lord's grace I would have walked out of there one morning at 2am, got to the highway and hitched a ride out of Texas never to return. But by the Lord's sovereignty that didn't happen and instead I was moved to another home where they were not trying to make my life hell.

But for 18 months there was intense pressure on you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

[ZNPaaneah]

The New Testament picture of transformation is Jasper and petrified wood. Instead of using Diamonds, which are not in the New Jerusalem, we should use this picture to illustrate the process of being transformed.

1. You have a tree, typifying man composed of the corruptible flesh.

2. This tree dies -- signifying it is no longer I that live but Christ that lives in me, the testimony you made at your baptism.

3. It falls into a pool of water that is saturated with Jasper element -- typified by out being baptized into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

then, molecule by molecule the carbon of the tree is replaced with the Jasper. Once it is transformed it will still look identical to the tree, but now it is a precious stone. A small branch that you could easily kick aside as you walk down a trail will now break your toe if you try to kick it. You have been transformed.

You, like Simon Peter, have become "petrified" -- transformed into a stone.

[ZNPaaneah]

In my first full year as a Geology major in college we went on a field trip where we were told we would be hunting for fossils. I dreaded this trip. I had tried to find fossils before and had been unable. I could visualize the other students all finding fossils and I would be the only one who couldn't, I'd be exposed as not having the right skill set, and I'd be looking for a new major.

When we arrived it was a river bank with a kind of rocky beach. The instructor let us go and told us to look for fossils. I decided to look busy, I looked at my shoes, bent down, picked up a rock, and then to my surprise saw that it was a fossil. In fact every single rock on that beach was a fossil. That was when I learned that the skill set of a geologist is not in finding fossils, but in knowing where to look.

The precious stones are the same. Each one has an environment in which they are formed. If you know the environment you know where to look. This is why some people can despair that there is not a single righteous person and that they alone are left (Elijah speaking to God). This is not true, the problem is they just don't know where to look.

[ZNPaaneah]

One of our assignments was to identify a long list of minerals including gold. Unfortunately when I got to the lab room someone had switched the gold with this very common, ordinary rock. I complained to a classmate and they said that they had just been there and the gold was there, so I went back, yet the ordinary rock was still there. So I asked again and was told you need to look in the cracks and sure enough, with a small lense you could see beautiful gold filling these tiny cracks. As it turns out this is the most common way in which gold is found. No press releases, no ad campaigns, no promotions.