Part I: What about Treasures? Matthew 6.19-24.
The first topic addressed by Jesus in this passage is treasure. This is the first stage of the lifestyle pattern. What is lifestyle without treasure? Is it not often by treasure that men make themselves known? Is it not often through treasure that men labor to feel worthy? Is it not based on treasure that many of us settle on a mate? Why does a man leave home but to find his fortune? If a man lays up for himself treasures on earth to quench his lust, is it not correct to say that he lives for the world that yields him these treasures? If the devil is the evil influence over the world’s kingdoms, is it not right to say that he who lays up treasures on earth is living for the devil? When Satan offered Jesus the kingdoms of this world, the Lord did not deny that it was in Satan’s power to offer them in some sense (Luke 4.) Jesus knew precisely what the devil had in his power to give, whatever it was, though he knew that the devil always exaggerates his claims. The devil’s promise to Eve that she would not die was followed by her death, Adam’s death, and the death of their offspring and descendents. And this death was both physical and spiritual. So the devil is a liar, which is one of the earliest truths to be learned since the Fall of Man. Nevertheless, he is not called ‘the god of this world’ for nothing (2 Corinthians 4.4.) He is the god of this world in a comprehensive, malignant sense. There are ‘rulers of the darkness of this world…spiritual wickedness in high places’ (Ephesians 6.12.) There is ‘the course of this world’ through which ‘the prince of the power of the air’ works in ‘children of disobedience’ (Ephesians 2.2.) The devil may tempt disciples of the Lord. But he does not work in disciples like he does through his own children—the children of the devil (John 8.44.) Disciples have the ‘kingdom of God within,’ which implies the resident Spirit of God, to resist the promptings of their lusts, all the powers of the world, and the master of the world’s evil forces, the devil. They can resist the temptation to lay up treasures on earth.
The text concerning treasures reads like so: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6.19-24.) This text may be paraphrased like so: “Do not accumulate treasures here where they will not last. But lay up treasures where they will last, up in heaven. Your heart will be where your treasures are. Your eye is a window through which light comes in. So look at what is heavenly and wholesome, and your whole body will light up. But look at what you lust after, and you will grow dark with envy. If your light is darkness itself, how dark are you! No man can serve money and God together. If he tries, he will vacillate. He will go back and forth between God and money; and the danger is that he will end up hating God. You cannot serve both God and money.”
This radical message is extremely challenging. The teachings of Jesus confront the lies of Satan; and they challenge Christians to live consecrated lives. The message contained in this passage is about as far as one can get from the ‘prosperity gospel.’ Those who preach that God promises material wealth point out that Jesus spoke much about money. What they do not tell us is that Jesus used the subject of money to teach spiritual lessons that are a world away from financial promises. His kingdom is not of this world. So often, neither are his blessings. The text singles out for us a life of simplicity. If we are not weighed down with the kingdoms of this world, how easy it is and how buoyant do we feel! The more we plan to carry, the greater our care; the more we acquire, the heavier we feel; the more we are persecuted, the greater our loss. A man with nothing to lose is not afraid of losing all; a man with much to lose is so afraid to lose that he can’t relax. The man that Daniel Defoe based Robinson Crusoe on was Alexander Selkirk. After more than four years alone on a deserted island, “the man frequently bewailed his return to the world, which could not, he said, with all its enjoyments, restore to him the tranquillity of his solitude” (John Howell, quoting Sir Richard Steele, who met Mr. Selkirk and talked with him, The Life and Adventures of Alexander Selkirk, p. 126.) Confessing still further, Mr. Selkirk said, “I am now worth eight hundred pounds; but shall never be so happy as when I was not worth a farthing” (Ibid., p. 127.) Eight hundred pounds was a lot of money in those days, especially considering, if it’s true, that the British pound has lost over 99% of its value since 1750, thirty years or so after Selkirk died.
In spite of the many times that the Lord mentioned money during his ministry, we find that the exhortation to abstain from treasures is consistent throughout his teachings. ‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth’ is an unrelenting theme that easily disproves the opinion that Jesus recommended or promised material wealth. For instance, on the surface, The Labourers in the Vineyard (in Matthew 20) teaches us to be content with the wages that we have agreed to work for, regardless of what others are being paid. On the deeper level, the parable is about reward for service for those who are effectually called and a lesson on the sovereign right of God to distribute goods and grace as he sees fit. On no level at all are treasures on earth promised here. The Parable of the Talents (in Matthew 25) is about future accountability for how we use our opportunities, resources, and means of grace. Again, no earthly treasures are promised. The Two Debtors (in Luke 7) is about gratitude to God as the mark of having been pardoned. But no treasures are promised. By The Parable of the Unjust Steward Jesus teaches the ‘children of light’ to make friends with the ‘mammon of unrighteousness.’ Even here we find no license to lay up treasures on earth. We know that there is no such license because of the reaction that these words elicited among Pharisees: “And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him” (Luke 16.14.) The parable is about being as wise in the welfare of our soul as a shrewd man might be in worldly affairs. The parable right after this, if we may call it a parable, is the example of the consequences of serving mammon in the place of God. The ‘rich man’ selfishly ate his fill while Lazarus suffered hungry at his gate, for which manner of life the rich man was condemned to a miserable end in a ‘place of torment.’ The abundant life that Jesus came to give by dying is eternal life, not prosperity on earth (John 10.10.) The truth is that ‘a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven’ (Matthew 19.23.) There is a pronouncement of woe for those who live for treasures: “But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation” (Luke 6.24.) When Zacchaeus told Jesus that he was giving half his goods to the poor and making restitution at a heavy price, Jesus replied, “This day is salvation come to this house” (Luke 19.9.) About John the Baptist, Jesus said, “But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses” (Matthew 11.8.) The ‘certain rich man’ of Luke 12 planned to build bigger barns to store his treasures in, and his soul was required of God, and not for good. Such are some of the chief instances of our Lord’s teaching on money. When Jesus spoke about money, he was not teaching about money. He spoke of what men esteem in order to teach the way of grace. He spoke of unrighteous mammon in order to lead men to his own righteousness, which may be appropriated without price, by faith alone. Right after pronouncing salvation to Zacchaeus, Jesus pointed to himself as the agent of salvation: “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19.10.) When Jesus was asked to arbitrate an inheritance, he warned of covetousness (Luke 12.13-15.) We do not go to Jesus for things of the world, but to obtain a passage to another world. The prosperity gospel is ‘another gospel.’ The appropriate action to be taken against those who preach it is this one: “If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1.9.) Prosperity preachers may, and should, be shunned and abandoned just like that. If any of them come back repenting, we rejoice over lost sheep being found, and we help to turn them to the Lord for sure this time for a saving reception.
It is more blessed to give than to receive; and it is better to have nothing to give than to be all out for gain. There is a kind of person who gives, moreover, but not from a gracious heart. There is such a thing as giving all that you have and yet not being any further ahead with God: ‘it profiteth me nothing’ (1 Corinthians 13.3.) Counterfeit philanthropy is not limited to misguided monks of the Middle Ages. How many among us give to charities, thinking to help pave our way to heaven by doing so? How many of us who give even check to see if we are giving to honest, prudent charities? I even heard on Radio Canada (where truth seldom gets to voice its opinion) that ‘institutionalized charities’ are corrupt. Giving is often nothing but a handmaid to stealing. Giving, in any case, is not a sure sign that grace from God has been received, that saving faith is in possession, and that the giver is on his way to heaven. Providing is the best form of giving. If a man, presumably an able-bodied man, does not provide for his household, he is not to be reckoned a man of faith, but ‘worse than an infidel’ (1 Timothy 5.8.) So while giving will not save, refusing to provide is a mark of unbelief. The more difficult it is for a man to provide bread, the less time he has for treasures on earth, which have a tendency to occupy the mind so much as to imperil the soul. If people are overtaxed, however, they may become depressed and even desperately melancholic, which is another snare leading to its own sins and fatal end. The poor man is just as lustful to get and spend as the rich man is lustful to accumulate. Poor people typically spend more on lottery tickets than do the better off. And many of these people are not lazy, but of that segment called the working poor. In a country whose government takes 30-50% of a citizen’s earnings off the top, then 5-10% of what’s left in sales tax, more thousands each year in property tax and gas tax, more still to cover sham pensions, and still more in other ways like the carbon tax, it is safely said that even a business owner may have a hard time getting by and that few people should feel obliged to give. It is a blessed thing that philanthropy is not a way to heaven since overmuch is taken by the government already. And it is a blessing that the inability to amass treasures or to pay the bills may lead to a search for God’s pearl of great price instead: the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 13.46.) Once a man understands that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a pearl to possess, not a fable to dismiss, his frame of mind should be such that he will sacrifice everything in view of seeing, by faith, the sacrifice of Christ for his sins; of having the righteousness of Christ laid to his account; and of finding himself on the sure and safe passage to heaven. The kingdom of heaven must be owned before it can be entered.
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth.” This is the beginning of the passage in question. No matter how little or how much we own, that little or much might mean more to us than God. Possessions may alter into treasures; and subsequently, transform into idols. I have often read or heard this passage on treasures reduced to something like this: “Own what you like, just do not allow your possessions to push God from the center.” A statement like this allows the disciple to be ambitious to a fault, and to ignore his conviction that to pursue wealth is to walk away from the Lord’s kingdom. It seems like a clever way of allowing treasures on earth to be laid up, after all. There are treasures that vie with God for dominion over one’s life. The preacher may avoid reference to what exactly a disciple should and should not own. But still he is duty-bound to say that a sinner must give up whatever stands between him and God, whether in between as an obstacle to faith, or whether in between as an obstacle to growth. The question might not merely be, “What can a person do to prevent his possessions from becoming treasures?” It might be this more radical one, “What should a person give away to eradicate the temptation that possessions pose?” The convicted sinner knows what he must give up. Maybe God will be so merciful as to use a thief to help him do it. Today I heard about an old man who was swindled out of his retirement savings. He was planning to buy a condo in Palm Springs with his $800,000.00; but he lost all this money to a crook. It must be a painful blow to be cheated out of all that hard-earned money. What a heavy burden to be made so light! But what if this money was the man’s obstacle to faith? What good would it do for a man to go from Palm Springs on his way to hell—from a balmy climate to a place on fire?
What were the treasures of the average disciple to whom Jesus spoke? Did the disciple have two cloaks instead of one? Did the fisherman own a boat? What treasure does the Lord convict us of laying up? What do we need besides a roof to live under, a mode of transportation to get to work, access to the acquisition of knowledge, some food, and clothes to wear? One day while sitting in the kitchen, I was startled by a loud thud out in the yard. Then I heard a man hollering and cursing as if the world were coming to an end. Because loud cursing in the French language sounds like an emergency requiring an ambulance to be called, I thought that the man had at least run over a kid. So I ran outside as fast as I could to see what the matter was. To my shock, the disturbed man had merely backed his car into his truck. I was awed at how upset he could be about two hunks of used metal. Were this man’s vehicles not his treasures? I know this other man whose brand new truck was rear-ended while sitting at the lights in front of a mall. When next I saw him, he showed me the bumper that had to be replaced on account of the collision. Standing not more than two feet behind the truck, I told him that I could not see the dent. I bent down, and still I could see nothing. It just looked like a new bumper on a new truck. The man then used his finger to point to a depression in the bumper that a deerfly could not have filled. Canadian deerflies are notoriously large. But compared to a bumper they are nevertheless tiny. This truck was this man’s treasure. Before it had a chance to rust, he replaced it with a new one, and then that became his treasure. I know a third man whose car was backed into by another car while he was sitting at an intersection. What did this man do? To the relief of the offending driver, he simply gave her a nod, and both drivers went on their way as if no accident had occurred. The man did not even step outside to check for damage. His car was not his treasure. It was posing no problem to his soul.
How many sinners, among them professing Christians, pursue lives of sport to obtain treasures on earth? What more befits an object that ‘rust doth corrupt’ than the medal that is received on the podium? This is a medal, by the way, that is so worthless that a thief would get almost nothing for it if it were melted down. Would Daniel and his three friends bow down to the Olympic gods to receive a medal? Would Paul run a race to obtain a corruptible crown? Would the son of Zadok run for sport? ‘Intoxicating’ is the adjective used by a young Olympian to describe what it feels like to compete in the Olympics. The corruptible prize, as worthless as it is, is intoxicating to win. This is reason enough not to pursue it. A man seeking God’s pearl of great price will be intoxicated by drafts of the Holy Ghost. “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5.18.)
Not long ago—just a few decades—men were paid thousands of dollars a year to play sports. Now they play for millions, and even tens of millions. The evil of hedonism is contributed to each time we watch these millionaires and cheer them on. How many similarities could be drawn between the Roman Coliseum of the first century and our hockey and baseball stadiums? We may be easily struck by how unspiritual the life of sport is by imagining the apostles Peter and John going to enjoy an evening at the Coliseum. How absurd is the picture? Time spent watching sports are moments that we treasure in our mind. These memories are our treasures. That is why we get so excited when we talk about them. Treasures are things that we cling to that we have no need of. A man polishes his memories just as much as another man polishes his car. We go over the games that we saw in order to keep our treasured memories from fading. This preoccupation is not in line with praying ‘thy kingdom come.’ Looking forward to a hockey game is like hoping the kingdom will wait awhile.
The Son of God never laid up treasures on earth. When he went back to heaven, no one had to go to his house to sort out his treasures and to distribute them. He never owned a treasure and he had no house to store them in. Jesus demonstrated that the kingdom to live for is the one that is not of this world. His only treasure was to do his Father’s will. His heart was where his treasure was: with his Father in heaven.
Jesus warns, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” How can the heart be with God while the person is surrounded by treasures on earth? Treasures on earth draw and maintain our attention. They encourage us to live for the world and not for God. Treasures are laid up to be enjoyed later. But so often the soul is required of God before the treasures can be enjoyed. When treasures are laid up in the yard, are we not gratifying ourselves in the prestige of ownership? Do we not take pleasure in being envied for our treasures? Treasures must be laid up in heaven, where disciples are certain to go—where disciples will be given an eternity to enjoy what is laid up. I know of a woman who, while knowing her death was imminent, was anxious to have her son trade his rusting vehicle in for a newer one. She had a profession of faith. But is that faith genuine which concerns itself with appearances and corrupting treasures at the point of death?
It is hard to distinguish children of the kingdom from children of the devil these days. Professing Christians often complain that there is no way to stand out and be noticed for the sake of the gospel. Should our lack of treasures not be a distinguishing mark? What message do children receive from Christian parents who are laying up treasures on earth? It is right to doubt the worth of religion that is without distinction, without moderation, without abstinence, and without sacrifice. There is such a thing as to have religion choked by the ‘deceitfulness of riches’ (Matthew 13.22.) A man whose religion is choked bears no fruit. Is that sinner who bears no fruit regenerated by God? Is God such a husbandman whose boughs are fruitless? “Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away” (John 15.2.) One time an ailing doctor came to visit me. His household of three was seriously ill and worsening. Indeed, two members of that household died of their diseases a couple of years after he came to see me. During his visit he told me the sad story of how he had tithed to his church for decades, only to have his church give him the cold shoulder when he came to it for help. He called that church ‘a mile wide and an inch deep.’ What does a church fitting this description have but rootless members? That which has no root yields no fruit. That which bears no fruit is not fit for the Lord. The Psalmist calls it ‘chaff’ (Psalm 1.)
Jesus identifies treasures as objects that deteriorate or that can be stolen. But he does not identify the treasures that we are to lay up in heaven except to say: ‘lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.’ Treasures are laid up in heaven by obedience to whatever Jesus commands, for example, in Matthew 25.35-39: feeding the hungry and giving the thirsty drink; clothing the poor; visiting the sick and imprisoned. It is that religion which we find commended in the practical book of James. This is mistaken today for feeding lazy thieves; giving money, needles, and even drugs to drug addicts; voting for politicians who let impenitent criminals out of prison before their terms are served; and voting, through these politicians, for judges who let criminals off the hook even for the most heinous crimes. Works like these are not treasures laid up, but trespasses that we need pardon for. Instead of identifying treasures in heaven, Jesus commands obedience to his teachings. The question is not, “What are these treasures that I am to lay up in heaven?” Nor is it so much, “How exactly do I lay them up?” The question is, “What lifestyle is required from the disciple who is commanded to lay them up?” Or, “What principles can I employ that will enable me to lay up heavenly treasures?”
If the lifestyle commanded by Jesus is lived out, the disciple will be laying up treasures in heaven. Godly lifestyle must align with the works that we do for God. Our lifestyle affects our work. It reflects our work. One time I phoned a Christian man’s house in order to find out how his ailing son was getting on. The woman who picked up the phone shrieked at me about how they were too busy to answer my question. In truth, she could have used fewer words to answer my question than she used to rail at me. Do as many things for God as we will, our works will not become treasures in heaven if lifestyle is askew. A person will never be secure in the knowledge that he is doing the work that God has for him to do if the way he lives is different from the pattern laid down by Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus has a certain lifestyle for the disciple to live because works are not good if wrought in a miserable temper. From God’s perspective there is to be little distinction between our Sabbath habits and our week away from church (assuming that Sabbath habits are what they should be.) Spiritual life is daily life in fellowship with God. A pattern for living is needed for the whole week. The pattern is needed to keep the disciple from living a divided, inconsistent life. “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
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