The Pearl Necklace

by Kirby Williams

Text: Proverbs 1:10
Date: 02/23/2010.
Series: "Proverbs" Part 10

Jim stared at the pearl necklace on the dresser in one of the most decisive moments of his young life. It was 2 o'clock in the morning, and the unfamiliar room was pitch dark, except for a single shaft of brilliant moonlight shining through a partially curtained window next to the dresser. The pearls shimmered as if they were filled with neon, beckoning him to come closer.

"How did it come to this," he wondered. "How on earth did I get here?"

As he continued to stare at the pearls, his mind played back over the events that had landed him in this predicament. Just a few moments ago, he was safely with his friends on the ground below, not in this house, not in this bedroom, and not with those pearls right in front of him.

It had all started with a dare. A dare that Jim should have never taken. Just a group of boys who had snuck out of their respective houses late at night to roam through their neighborhood--looking for nothing more than "harmless" mischief. Jim couldn't really remember who had dropped the gauntlet, but when they ended up in his friend, Tom's back yard, he heard someone say, "Bet you wouldn't crawl into Tom's house and steal something from his mother's room." All eyes had turned to Jim.

"Bet I would!" Jim had replied indignantly.
"Bet you wouldn't!" his friends retorted.
"I'd do it in a second!"
"Aw, you're too chicken."
"Am not!"
"Bawk! Bawk! Are too!"

With that, and before Jim realized what he was doing, he scampered up the pecan tree outside his friend, Tom's window. As his peers egged him on from below, he made his way stealthily through the leaves and branches. His wiry, athletic body was silhouetted against an almost full autumn moon as he made his way up to a perch near the window. A window that he knew would be open. For it was this window that Tom would use to climb out of his house, and down this very tree to join Jim and the boys on their midnight jaunts through the neighborhood.

But tonight was different. Tom wasn't at home. In fact, no one was at home. The entire family was out of town for the weekend, and even though Jim had climbed this tree since he was a kid-- he was in unfamiliar territory. He knew in his heart he should turn right around and crawl back down the way he had come. But he was unwilling to live through the shame of admitting his fear to his peers. So with an almost imperceptible hesitation, he reached over and slid the window open and climbed into the house. It was at that moment that Jim-- barely 13, became a criminal.


The soft swaying of the trees outside the window caused a momentary flicker in the otherwise persistent beam of moonlight on the pearls, and brought Jim's mind back to the problem at hand. Right next to the pearls on Tom's mother's dresser was a monogrammed handkerchief. It was all he needed to complete the bet and scoot out of the house with his honor triumphantly intact. The way he figured it, he could show the handkerchief to his friends, and then drop it near the back porch. Tom's mother would be none the wiser. But for some reason, Jim couldn't get his eyes off those pearls. He had never experienced a sensation like that before. He was gripped with the overwhelming desire to possess them. He simply had to have them! Somewhere, deep in the corners of his mind the words, "Thou shalt not steal" materialized out of the darkness, but disappeared almost as quickly. For what seemed like an eternity, it was just him and the pearls.

And then... he just took them. What had seemed so hard, and had taken him so long, turned out to be so easy. He just reached down and took them and thrust them into his pocket. As he did he could feel his heart leap and what felt like a jolt of electricity shoot through his body. He slipped back out the open window, "shinnied" down the tree, and proudly showed off the handkerchief to his friends below. As his friends slapped him on the back and congratulated him for his audacity--he could feel the necklace in his pocket, hot against his thigh. He never mentioned his prize to the rest of his friends and didn't take it out of his pocket until he was safely home in his own room.

And thus began Jim's short but lucrative career as a "second story man". He soon found that unsuspecting people all across the neighborhood went out to dinner, went to church on Sunday night, or went out of town leaving their bedroom windows unlocked. It was so easy. He threw an afternoon paper route and people actually told him when they would be out of town-- when to stop the paper and when to start it back up again. He was amazed at how trusting they were. Jim soon was stuffing more money than he had ever imagined under his mattress. "No one will ever suspect me," he thought.

And no one did-- until Tom's mother went into a jewelry store to look for a pearl necklace to replace the one she thought she had lost. And there, underneath the glass case, she recognized her own necklace! The police were called and the unscrupulous jeweler who had been buying Jim's loot without questions told them the whole story. Jim was caught "red-handed" crawling out of a bedroom window with a golden chain and diamond ring in his pocket.

Prov. 1:10 My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.

Jim had fallen prey to one of Satan's most effective traps: peer pressure. It really doesn't take much. Just the right situation, the right dare, and then the right temptation. Our fallen nature does the rest. Prior to this, Jim would have never dreamed he would set out to steal anything, much less become a celebrated "second story man". How much better it would have been for him if he had taken the advice of Proverbs. Sinners will entice you. Sinners will lead you astray. Sinners are most satisfied when they coerce you to join them in their sinfulness.

Rom. 1:32 Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Christians of all ages should be especially wary of the pressure our peers exert on us to comply to the ways of the world. The solution for resisting the kind of temptation that destroyed Jim's young life is to avoid being in that situation in the first place! Jim should have never been in the back yard of his friend's house in the middle of the night. It is hard for Satan to tempt you with stealing a pearl necklace if you aren't in that situation to begin with. It is not without reason that Paul warns his young charge, Timothy, that when temptation rears it's ugly head-- run!


The story above is a true story. The names have been changed to protect, in this case, the guilty. And no, I am not Jim, although he was once very close to me. His description as "wiry" and "athletic" should have given that away-- I have never been described in those terms.

The consequences to Jim were severe. He was taken to the police station, made the newspapers, caught the fancy of people all across town because of his age and his "cat-burglar" style, expelled from school, lost his newspaper route, sentenced to years of probation, and humiliated before all his friends. He barely averted being sent "up the river" to a reform school. He was literally saved by his father, who begged the judge for mercy and promised him that Jim was a good boy at heart and had merely been led astray by peer pressure.

"What will you say to your son to prevent this from happening again," he was asked in the courtroom.

Jim's father thought for awhile and told the judge through tear-filled eyes, "This is what I would say to him." And turning to Jim, who was himself in tears, he said...

"Hear, my son, your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching; Indeed, they are a graceful wreath to your head and ornaments about your neck. My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent."

Seeing that Jim was in good hands, the judge let him go home with his family. He has not climbed another tree to this day.