Jul 20
11
JEHOVAH’S JEWELS
Octavius Winslow
“They shall be Mine, says the Lord, in that day when I make up my jewels.”–Mal. 3:17
That which the merchant regards as most costly, and the bride as most ornamental, Jehovah condescends to employ to illustrate the character and relation of His saints–“My Jewels.” My soul, if, through sovereign grace, you have been quarried from your dead and sinful nature, and have been made a living and polished stone in the house of your God, sit down a while and meditate upon the precious, soul-quickening truths taught you by this beautiful and expressive similitude.
It speaks, first, touchingly of the love the Lord has for you, as one of His jewels. How much His saints have to learn of the greatness of His marvelous love! And, although it has depths we cannot sound, heights we cannot reach, dimensions we cannot measure, yet, as a little child may dip its tiny shell into the ocean rolling in its immensity at its feet, so may we be able to comprehend in some measure the love of Christ, which passes knowledge. And apart from a personal and spiritual experience of Christ’s love, what avails it to us?
It speaks, also, of the rarity of the Lord’s people. Jewels are not common, every-day things. How rare are real Christians, true believers in Christ! How many can talk about religion, and about churches, and about ministers, and about societies, and about sacraments, who have not been converted, are not born again, who know nothing experimentally and spiritually of the Lord Jesus Christ–nothing of the blessedness of a broken heart for sin, nothing of the healing application of atoning blood! Oh how few among those who crowd the sanctuary and encircle the communion-table, are safe for eternity! Lord, are Your jewels so rare? Oh may I make full proof of being one of them!
Jewels are precious. Who can fully estimate the preciousness to Jesus of His saints? Their persons are precious, their faith is precious, their love is precious, their sacrifices are precious, their petitions in prayer and ascriptions of praise are unutterably precious, to the heart of Christ, upon whose breast-plate they are set as stones of light and glory. They must be precious for whom a precious Christ poured out His most precious blood!
Jewels are polished stones. Taken from the quarry of nature, they need the chiseling of the Jeweler, and the purifying of the Refiner, before they prove their genuineness, and emit their luster. “The Lord tries the righteous.” And oh, the untold blessings that spring from the discipline of His hand! “Not joyous, but grievous now, yet afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are exercised thereby.”
How beautiful, also, are these precious jewels! Washed in the blood of the Lamb, clothed with the righteousness of God, adorned with the graces of the Spirit, complete in Christ, and lovely through His loveliness put upon them, no marvel that He should thus commend their beauty and completeness–“You are all fair, my love; I see no spot upon you.”
Jewels are guarded with vigilance and care. Is there a being in the universe more vigilantly watched, incessantly upheld, or divinely kept, than the believer in Jesus? Destined to deck His brow when the Savior comes in His glory, wearing His many crowns, none of these shall perish; but all shall constitute a “crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of our God.”
Dear Savior, set me as a seal upon Your heart, as a seal upon Your arm, and when You come in Your kingdom, may I be found among those redeemed and precious ones of whom thus it is written, “They shall be Mine, says the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels.”