The Colors Of Heaven Series

Mr. Jones was having her living room painted, and she was explaining to

the unsympathetic painter just what she wanted. "I want a light green blue,

which will be sort of a cross between a darker blue and a light bluey blue",

she said. The painter replied, "Lady, there ain't no such color. What you

are describing is nothing but a pigment of your imagination." Colors may

exist in our minds that do no exist in reality. But God is an artist who

invites us to use our imagination to try and conceive of the beautiful

colors of heaven.

You can go into most any jewelry store and see many of the gems that

are seen here in the walls of the Holy City. The colors are very bright and

beautiful. I bought Lavonne a pink ice ring recently, and when the sun hits

it just right, it startles me with it's beauty. In the shade it is just a

dull piece of matter, but in the sunlight it is a sparkling piece of beauty.

This is the picture we get of heaven, and the New Jerusalem. It is

transparent like glass, and there is brilliant light bouncing off millions

of jewels. The beauty of this scene is beyond our grasp. Man would need all

the jewels of the world just to copy a fraction of the jeweled wall

described here. Dr. Criswell, who was for many years the pastor of the First

Baptist Church of Dallas, tries to describe the color of heaven, in these

words-

What a proliferation of color! What

incomparable, brilliant iridescence it

possesses! It looks like frozen light

in diamonds, sapphire, ruby, emerald

and pearl. It looks as if God were

mingling together the azure blue of

the sky, the surf of the sea, the

rainbow of autumnal glory, and

the fire of an august sunset.

There is no eloquence adequate to describe the color of heaven.

Probably, the best we can do is to compare the experience of the 18 year old

boy who was born blind, but who by surgery was made to see for the first

time at age 18. One year later, reporters asked him what the most wonderful

thing about seeing was, and he replied, "Color." He said he never dreamed

that color was so beautiful. He had always thought of it as being like our

conception of black and white with contrasts and highlights. He said the

beauties of the various colored flowers fascinated him beyond all human

imagination. He said everything in this world was more beautiful than he

ever dreamed.

So it will be for us in heaven. It will be like the blind seeing for

the first time. The colors will be brighter and more beautiful than the

brightest rainbow we have ever seen in time. We will say, as did the Queen

of Sheba, when she saw the glory of Solomon's empire, the half was not told

me. We will say, more than likely, the hundredth or the thousandth, was not

told me. But, since God has revealed some of the glory of the colors of

heaven, we should do our best to try and see it as He wants us to see it.

The first thing we want to observe is the color of the people. Heaven

is the ultimate in the melting pot of colors. This is implied in the gates

of the New Jerusalem that face in every direction. People from every

direction are welcome to enter these ever open gates, and this implies

universality. But we do not need to depend upon symbolism. In Rev.7:9 we

read, "After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no

one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing

before the throne and in front of the Lamb." It is not a matter of

speculation or inference, it is a Biblical fact, stated clearly, that every

color of skin will be a part of the eternal kingdom of God. Colors are not

just temporary and incidental accidents of time, they are part of the color

scheme of God's eternal city. The song, red and yellow, black and white, they are

precious in His sight, is right, and not a poetic fiction. Any

color that you try to imagine is not in heaven, is a pigment of your

imagination.

A church hired an artist to paint them a picture of Jesus with little

children. When he finished it, he felt it was his best work ever. He could

almost hear them singing, "Glory! glory! glory be to God on high." He was so

pleased that he called the committee from the church to come and see it the

next day. That night he had a dream, and saw himself walking into his studio