Matthew 6 and verse 19. The Lord says, Lay not up for
yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt,
where thieves break through and steal. Now what are earthly treasures? We might categorize earthly treasures
into two things. And the reason I'm going to do
this is because this verse comes right after. It's sort of a change
in subject from what our Lord's been speaking about in Matthew
chapter 5 and in Matthew 6 up to here. So first of all, you
might say earthly treasures are religious treasures. Religious
treasures. Any religious treasure stored
up in earth is stored up in this flesh and it's fading. It's going
to be eaten one day and gone to the dust. It won't last. And the second category is temporal
treasures. Those treasures we set our affection
on in this life. There's a transition going here
from these religious treasures to these temporal treasures that
our Lord is speaking of. And I'm going to make the connection
here in a moment, but I want you to stay with me on that.
Verse 20. But lay up for yourselves treasures
in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where
thieves do not break through nor steal. Now what are heavenly
treasures? Well, heavenly treasures are
the treasures we have in Christ Jesus our Lord, Christ Himself. The fullness of the triune God
bodily and all that is His is the believers. He and all that
is His belongs to the believers. It is the kingdom of God and
His righteousness. That's the treasures in heaven. Now, throughout the fifth chapter,
the Lord's been teaching His children that the difference
between religious treasures, and that earthly men value, and
heavenly treasures, spiritual treasures of the believer. The
natural man's treasures are his so-called obedience to God. What he thinks has been obedience
to God, and the Lord dealt with that all through the middle part
of Matthew 5. The spiritual man's treasures
is Christ Jesus, who is our righteousness that exceeds the righteousness
of the religious man. His righteousness is the righteousness
we must have to enter into heaven's glory. We must have Christ. That's
our treasure. He said in chapter 6, he showed
that the natural man treasures religious exercises, almsgiving,
prayer, fasting, to be seen of men. Now, if you missed those
messages, I'd encourage you to listen to them. Go back and read
the bulletins on those and listen to what we looked at in all of
those. But the religious man treasures those things. His treasure
in doing those things to be seen of men is for two reasons. It's
to appear holy before men, and it is to attract and constrain
other sinners to imitate him and do what he does. We saw that
in Isaiah 58. The Lord said, in the day of
your fast, ye exact all your labors. And the word there is
riches. You fast for strife and debate,
He said. In other words, they strove with
one another and they debated in their gospel to one another
of how to properly go about these religious devotions. That's what
their attention was on. And he said, and you smite with
the fist of wickedness. You constrain others to conform
to your way, and if they don't conform and practice outwardly
the way you tell them it should be done, you cast them out. You
smite with the fist of wickedness. And He said, and ye make your
voices to be heard on high. Everything they were doing, they
were marketing, advertising themselves and their church and their religious
body to men to try to attract men to them and to their church
and to what they were doing. That's the same thing that religion's
done in every generation. And in our day, it's rampant.
Religious organizations market and advertise everything that
their organization does and is doing, all the various ministries,
for the purpose of attracting folks to the church, to join
the church, to unite with us. It's the same vanity for an assembly
to do it as the Lord said it is for one man to do it. to let
his alms be seen, to draw attention to himself and to attract others
to do what he does. To let a man to pray to be seen
of men so he appears holy and attracts others to him. To fast. The Lord said, and this thing
that you've called a fast is a feast. It's not a fast. You're gorging yourself on falsehood,
the Lord said. And it's vanity. And it's not
a fast. And then we saw last time how
the true fast was how that Christ has freed us from the yoke of
that oppression and the burden of that oppression and in the
true fast we separate from that polluted bread to Christ our
bread and we don't want to have anything else to do with it.
We want to free sinners from that oppression and from the
yoke. The Lord said they have their reward, the earthly religious
treasure. These are those many wonderful
works and the casting out of devils that the Lord is going
to end this sermon with when we get to the end. Now, contrary
to that, the spiritual man treasures Christ, our almsgiver. came to us poor and desperate
sinners and fed us and clothed us and He's made us givers of
alms to our poor brethren to provide for them by His love
toward us. We cherish Christ our intercessor
who has made intercession on our behalf and makes us one with
God that we might have access to the throne of God's grace
and we intercede now for sinners and for those who are out of
the way. Christ our bread from heaven is the one who's caused
us to fast from the poison bread of what we once fed on to our
treasure in heaven. And therefore we heed our Lord's
word. Believers do not advertise, they
do not market ourselves and our practices or our ministries. Now, every church that I know
of, that I've had fellowship with has many ministries. There's much going on as far
as teaching different age groups and missionary work. There's a lot of things going
on, but you won't find one of them telling folks about those
things. We keep secret, not to be seen
of men, the outward ministries which are the result of the secret
ministry of our secret God wrought in the secret place of the heart.
Go back at your leisure and read. the first 18 verses of Matthew
6 and see how often the Lord talks about our God who is secret,
who works in secret, who sees in secret. And at what He's done,
it's going to be seen of men. Men will see it, but we don't
advertise it because then we would attract men to us and not
to Christ. But instead, as our Lord has
commanded us and as all the saints have done in every age, we hold
forth the Word of Life. Christ Jesus and Him crucified. That men's faith might stand
in the power of God and not in us. That they be attracted to
Christ and not us. That they be called into the
fold of Christ and not our fold. You'll get a lot more following
the other way. But God said that's their treasure.
That is the riches that you'll have. All the riches you'll have
if you attract men any other way than the preaching of Christ
and Him crucified. You got your reward. Our reward and our treasure is
the open heart that God has given us to behold Christ and in the
day of His return when we'll appear with Him in glory. That's
our open reward. That's our treasure. That's where
our treasure is. Heavenly places. This is that
light. When our Lord said, let your
light so shine before men that they may see your good works
and glorify God in heaven. This is the light He's talking
about. Let it shine. And men will see
this light and they'll glorify God. How are they going to see
this light if we're not trying to make them see it? How are
they going to see that this is a good work if we're not trying
to make them see all our good works like religion does? 1 Peter
2.12 says, in the day of visitation, when God the Holy Spirit breaks
a sinner's heart and gives him life in Christ and faith to behold
Christ Jesus, he's going to glorify God for your subjection to him,
for using you to preach Christ to him instead of prostituting
the gospel to him and to try and attract him into a religious
organization. He'll thank you for it. And secondly,
in the day that the Lord returns and He brings all His saints
home to be with Him, it's going to be manifest openly to all
those in religion that their works were evil and that your
works were good. It's going to be openly manifest.
And they're going to glorify God for it. They're going to
say, yes, Lord, and bow their knee and then go to hell. That's
going to be the case. Our Lord proceeds from this point
to this second category, which is earthly riches. Temporal things
that we set our affection on. And I want you to make this connection
because the Lord... I'm going to show you something
here that how vitally connected these things are. The earthly,
temporal things we need, the Lord gets it narrowed down to
two things. We need food and drink and we
need clothing. Anything beyond that is us going
after more than really what we need. And the Lord said, I'll
provide your food and your clothing, and I'll provide it for my people. The spiritual man seeks the treasure
of the kingdom of God, Christ Jesus, and His righteousness.
Now, lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, temporal
or religious, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.
Now, how do I lay up a treasure for myself in heaven? How do
I do that? Now, I pointed out to you those
religious treasures. as we're moving here to these
temporal treasures, because our Lord connects these two right
here. The Lord goes right from speaking
of almsgiving into instruction about us not to lay up treasures
for ourselves on this earth, but in heaven. Now in Luke's
gospel, the Lord said, sell that you have, your temporal possessions,
sell that you have and give alms. and provide bags which wax not
old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief
approacheth, neither moth corrupteth." Now, our Lord's not saying that
by giving alms you're going to earn treasures in heaven for
yourself. But almsgiving A heart that wants to give and provide
for the brethren in love that is constrained by Christ manifests
that the believer's treasure already is in heaven. He's willing
to part with what the carnal man values as earthly treasures,
because that's not his treasure. That's not his treasure. His
treasure is in heaven. And he knows his Lord provided
that temporal thing. And if he gives it to a poor
brother, he knows the Lord gave it to him for that purpose. And
the Lord will provide him with whatever he needs. His treasure
is in heaven. Now, Matthew 26, 21 right here,
the Lord says, four, where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also. If our treasure is upon earth,
our hearts will be set on these earthly treasures. If our treasure
is in heaven, our heart will be set on those heavenly treasures. You know, Paul told the Galatians,
he said, those that try to constrain you, they do not do the things
they're trying to constrain you to do. They don't do them themselves. But the believers, as we read
about believers in the early church, they were givers. They gave bountifully. And Paul
never, never tried to constrain them to give anything. You know
what the difference was? Those men that were constraining
others to do things, religious things, that was their treasure.
And their treasure was on earth, and they wouldn't dare let go
of their own things. They wouldn't dare do the things
they commanded others to do themselves. But the believer's treasure is
in heaven, and he commits himself to God. He's in the care of his
Lord. Our eye determines what fills
our body. Look at verse 22. 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. Now faith is the eye that sees
Christ. Sees is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. And if we have faith,
our eye is single for Christ Jesus. So Strong says that's
a compound word, that word single is a compound word which basically
has this meaning, woven in oneness with Christ. Woven in oneness
with Christ. Lit by Christ the light, having
no part dark, and our whole body will be full of light. Now, if
our eye is evil, if we're spiritually blind, if we are without faith,
our eye is going to be set on this earth and our whole body
is going to be full of evil, full of darkness. Now that doesn't
mean, that does not mean that we won't be religious and it
doesn't mean that we won't give abundantly. Paul said, though
I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my
body to be burned and have not charity, love, it profiteth me
nothing. Only the love of Christ imparted
in the new nature will make a man set his affection on things above. That's the only way. If therefore the light, verse
23, that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness. When a person treasures religious
or temporal treasures, and yet calls darkness light, and calls
bitter sweet. He's in great darkness. And only
God's grace can save him. Now, I want you to turn with
me to Luke 18. Luke 18. And I want to look at
the rich young ruler as an example here. And bear in mind, we're staying
with these two categories. Religious treasure and temporal
treasure. Now watch this. The rich young
ruler came asking what he must do to enter into heaven. His earthly riches were, I've
kept the law from my youth up. That was his religious treasure. I've kept the law from my youth
up. And he was rich in many temporal possessions. Now how did our
Lord reveal that his heart and his eye were set on earthly treasures,
that he was blind, that he was calling darkness light? How did
the Lord reveal that? Luke 18 verse 22. Now when Jesus heard these things,
he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing, sell all that
thou hast, and distribute unto the poor. and thou shalt have
treasure in heaven. And come, follow me. And when
he heard this, he was very sorrowful, for he was very rich. His eye wasn't single for Christ. His heart wasn't set on Christ. And by telling him to part with
his temporal riches, the Lord manifest that his religious riches
was his own obedience. Christ wasn't. The obedience
of Christ and his righteousness wasn't his riches. His own religious
obedience and his temporal possessions were his riches. He was treasuring
things on heaven. Verse 24. And when Jesus saw that he was
very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches
enter into the kingdom of God. And I'm convinced right here,
our Lord is speaking of both kinds of riches that this man
had. He had religious riches and he had temporal riches. A
man that's rich in things of this earth, how hardly can that
man pass. Especially a man that has those
things and thinks they're light when they're darkness. Now, he
says, it's easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye
than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. And
they that heard it said, who then can be saved? And he said,
the things which are impossible with men are possible with God. God is the only one. The Lord
Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, is the only one who can
make us forsake all earthly riches. He does it by giving us something
exceedingly better than any earthly riches. And it's Christ Jesus
the Lord. We have life in Him. He's our life. We have wisdom. He's our wisdom. We have acceptance
with God. He's all our acceptance with
God. We have a protector. He's our
shield and our defender. He is the truth. He is the resurrection. He is everything all to the believer. And then Peter, look here in
verse 28, Peter said, Lo, we've left all and followed thee. You
know what made them leave everything and follow Him? Those nets and
their fishing gear and all the things they had, that was valuable,
valuable possessions for a fisherman. You know what made them walk
away from their occupation and follow Christ and leave families,
everything, and follow Him? A word. He said, follow me. I love the account of Matthew
sitting at the receipt of customs, Levi. It says, one of the gospels
says that he left all and then he rose up and he followed Christ. He left everything before he
ever moved a muscle. That's what God does in the heart
when he calls a sinner. Peter said, we've left all and
followed thee, and look what the Lord said. And he said unto
them, verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left
house or parents or brethren or wife or children for the kingdom
of God's sake who shall not receive manifold more in this present
time and in the world to come, life everlasting. What's the
manifold more that we receive right now in this life? It's
life everlasting. It's Christ Jesus, our life.
And we'll receive life everlasting hereafter. That's the open reward. It just gets better and better
and better and better. Of the increase of His government
and peace there shall be no end. Upon the throne of David and
upon His kingdom to order and establish it with judgment and
justice from henceforth even forever. It just gets better
and better with Him. Now, back to our text and we'll
close here. And I want you to see here the
last thing now. There is no middle ground. No middle ground. Verse 24. 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. You cannot serve God and mammon,
God and earthly treasure. Now, right there where you sit
right now, this morning, your heart is either set on the treasure
of heaven, Christ Jesus and all spiritual blessings in him, or
your heart is set on the treasure of this earth. There's no middle
ground. Your eye is either single for
Christ the light and your whole body is full of light or your
eye is evil and your body is full of darkness. You either
love God and hate mammon or you love mammon and hate God. You
are either the servant of God or you're the slave of unrighteousness,
of mammon. You cannot serve God and mammon. Know ye not that to whom ye yield
yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye
obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness?
There's no middle ground. Of whom a man is overcome, of
the same is he brought into bondage. You're either the willing slave
of Satan and unrighteousness and sin and death, or you're
the willing bond slave of Christ Jesus the Lord, our righteousness.
Now, I want you to meditate on that, and I want you to look
with me one more time. Let's read through this, what
our Lord says here. I just want to read three verses.
Verse 19. Lay not up for yourselves treasure
upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves
break through and steal. For where your treasure is, there
will your heart be also. Look down at verse 22, the second
half of it. If therefore thine eye be single,
thy whole body shall be full of light. Look down at verse
24, the last sentence. You cannot serve God and mammon. The Lord's Word here is what
the Apostle Paul told the Colossians. If ye then be risen with Christ,
seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right
hand of God. Set your affection on things
above, not on things on the earth, for ye are dead. Do you see dead men treasuring
this earth? If you're dead, your life is
hid with Christ in God. When Christ to us our life shall
appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. Seek Christ the Lord. set your affection on the Lord
Jesus Christ. That means take this book and
learn everything you can about Christ Jesus. This book is about
Him from beginning to end. Every word is about Him. Every
line in this book is to point us to Him. Every one of them. This book is His book. This is his father's word concerning
his son and how he saves ill-deserving sinners and makes them righteous
and accepted of God. Find out who this is. Find out
who this one is. And if you think you know who
he is, take this book and do everything I just said and don't
stop doing it. Don't stop doing it. Continue
to call on Him. Continue to seek Him. Continue
to learn more of Him. Continue to ask God to give you
the grace to know who Christ is. I implore you, I beseech you
to do it. And turn away from everything
else. Turn away from all other things
and seek Him. We're going to come to it next
week, but the last thing He's going to say to you is, the Lord
will provide those other things. He'll provide those other things. You can't even do it. And I can't
even do that. I can't provide those things.
But seek Him. All right, let's be dismissed
in prayer.