How often do we turn our attention
away from the treasures that last for eternity, and we look
to our treasures right here in front of us? Some of us have
many earthly treasures, and some of us have less. I remember a
story about a woman who lived in a van, a little yellow van
somewhere in England. And she would move her van from
here to there. And it became kind of a nuisance
to the neighborhood. It was a pretty nice neighborhood
in England. And all of a sudden, there's
this yellow van parked in front of your house for three or four
days. And she was a little bit off in the mind, you might say.
But she knew how to survive. She knew how to go around and
collect the things that she needed. She had her home right there
in her van. I can remember her little treasures she had lined
up on the wall inside the van, little things that you and I
may just toss off. But they were treasures to her.
And she kept them all of her life. Some of them she had had
for years. I don't remember what it was,
but it was a little trinket thing, like a little rubber thing of
some kind that she had. And it was just something simple,
but it was very, very precious to her. It was her treasure. It was her treasure that she
had right there. We all have these precious things that we
hold on to on this path that we call life. But as it was with
this woman, in the end, it was just stuff. It's just things. It becomes somebody else's. thing. Sometimes they throw it
away, sometimes they hang on to it, but it's just stuff. What treasures are closest to
your heart? Turn over to the Psalms if you
would and I'd like you to look at Psalms 135. Turn to 135 and
will allow me to introduce the message this morning. As we who
have been called by God to know His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
have come to see, we see that all that is in this world will
at one day be burned up at the second coming of our Lord. When
sin entered the world by the fall of Adam, God cursed the
very ground that he walked on, and it's still cursed to this
day. There's no change. The nature of men today are the
same as the nature of men then. And if it wasn't for the grace
of God, we would all be just as wicked as wicked could be. By his restraining hand in the
world, we don't become chaos. God cursed the very ground that
we walk on. Everything will be destroyed
in the second coming of our Savior. All that can be seen or not seen
will come to nothing. Scripture tells us that there
will be a new heaven and a new earth. All things must be made
anew. God cannot even be where iniquity
is. Sin and death must be put away. In heaven, there will be at least
two things that are considered treasure. And this book, this
book that God has given us to study, speaks of both of them
from cover to cover. But the most valuable of all
that we see in this book, the most valuable treasure of all,
is the Lord Jesus Christ, creator of all things. The God-man. Bill and I have had this conversation
before and some of you may have, I may have shared this with you
at times. You know, it's always kind of fun to sit back and say,
oh, I wonder what heaven's like. Can you fly? You know, or is
everything in color? There's no black and white? Everything
be warm? No air conditioning, maybe? It's kind of, you know, just
something Use your mind to toy around with the times. What is
heaven like? And of course, Bill and I, we've always kind of wondered,
do the Harleys in heaven leak oil like they do here? You have to be a biker to understand
that one, I think. If you're not, I'm sorry. We always came around, though,
in finishing that playful conversation with this one declaration. Wherever
heaven is, or whatever heaven is like, Christ must be in the
midst of it. Without Christ, there is no heaven. I can't even imagine. And it
wouldn't matter what it is like around it. Whatever that may
be around Him, Just being in his presence has got to be the
most, it's got to be something we can't even imagine. Perfection. Perfection. Not in the sense of human sense,
but in the sense of God sense. Perfect. Not a flaw. How could any one of us even
glimpse that? Not a single flaw. Christ is
our all in all or there is no Christ at all. He is that precious
treasure that we must cling to. We are drawn to this treasure
by pure love, a love that supersedes everything, everything else that
there is. A love that is backed with all
the power in heaven and earth. A love that has been there since
before the world was ever made. Could you not say that it was
a love that the worlds were made for? A love that has brought Him, brought
the Lord Jesus down to earth. Heaven came down and glory filled
my soul. He was born of a virgin. Born
with a perfect nature, a holy nature. A nature of His Father,
sinless in every way. And He walked perfect. Tempted,
yes. Tempted as even we are, yet without
sin was He. He who knew no sin was made to
be sin for us. That's scriptural. That's what
the Bible says. He who knew no sin became our
substitute. He who knew no sin took all the
sins of his people upon himself and he carried them away to the
grave and he left them there. How many times have you sinned
today? Every sin that has come into
your mind in the last five minutes, God remembers no more. Already. Every sin that we've ever committed,
God remembers no more. Already. Every sin that we will
commit until the day He takes us out of this world, He remembers
no more. He looks at the blood of his
son and he says, that's what I see when I see John Reeves.
I see the blood of my son and it's perfect in every way. This is my treasure. This is
my treasure in heaven, on earth, and wherever the Lord may put
me. Christ the Lord. When we see ourselves and what
we are before a God who is holy, when God has revealed what mankind
really is and what we deserve, every one of us, not just the
sons of Esau, but even the sons of Jacob. You know, Jacob was
the worst of the two sons. Remember all the stuff that he
did? Didn't he go to his father and pretend he was his brother
to get the blessings? Jacob was not a good guy either.
He deserved the wrath of God just as much as Esau did, yet
God loved Jacob and hated Esau. For you who couldn't be here
for our devotional this morning, I'm telling you something. We've
recorded it for you, a poem. Mike Loveless brought another
one of his poems as our devotional this morning, and I highly, I
just highly recommend you get that and listen to it. What a
beautiful poem pointing us to the love of God for his people. This is My treasure in heaven,
Christ the Lord. Whatever else there may be, it
will pale compared to Him. When we read in His Word and
see the different types and the pictures of God's love for His
people, we see jewels. We see slivers of silver here
and there throughout the Word of God. We see nuggets of gold,
diamonds that shine so bright, strewn throughout all of the
Holy Words of God. And what a joy it is to come
across a nugget like Ruth and Boaz. And we see the love of
God for His people through the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. In
Ephesians 2.4 it says, but God who is rich in mercy, this is the peace that is in
my heart. when I read these words, but God, who is rich in mercy
for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us, made us alive, made us alive
together with Christ. By grace we are saved, and hath
raised us up together and made us to sit together in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. Not in ourselves, not in what
we have done, but in what He has done for us. Oh, what wonderful news to see
and hear the mercy and the grace of God for His people. That in the ages to come He might
show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward
us through Christ Jesus. Or what peace is in my heart
when I hear these words from Romans 8, 35, Who shall separate
us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or peril,
or the sword? As it is written, for thy sake
we are killed all the day long, we are accounted as sheep for
the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through Him that loved us. Or how about right here, right
here in Romans, I mean in Psalms 135. Verse 1, Praise ye the Lord,
praise ye the name of the Lord, praise Him, O servants of the
Lord. Ye that stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of
the house of our God, praise the Lord, for the Lord is good. Sing praises unto his name, for
it is pleasant. For the Lord hath chosen Jacob
unto himself, and Israel for his peculiar treasure. You're a treasure to God. I know, it's hard to believe,
huh? If I look in the mirror, I don't see that. You're a treasure
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Creator treasures His people. Imagine that. We, the spiritual
Israel, are chosen, are a chosen, peculiar treasure to God. Wow. He looks upon his people
as a treasure. God, the creator of everything,
looks upon the sons of Jacob as his treasure. Throughout these
holy words from God, we see a chosen people who by His grace are saved
through faith. A gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. Saved by His grace. Those who
He has loved before the foundation of the world. A people that are
sanctified. You've heard that word. Sanctified. You know, it means two different
things. It means separated. And it means made holy. And in
this case, it means both. We were separated from the world
in the Lord Jesus Christ when He went to the cross and shed
His blood for His people. That separated them from the
rest of the world right there. It paid their sin debt in full.
As He said from the cross, it is finished. There's nothing
left to do. My people are mine. All that
the Father giveth me shall come to me. It also speaks of a people
that are redeemed. Like I just said, when He went
to the cross and shed His blood, it covered everything. It is
finished. There's no work for us to do.
You're not going to earn anything. Go out and do good works, yes.
But that's not going to get you saved. Christ is the one who
gets us saved. Being in Christ is what makes
us saved. His love for His people is what
makes us saved. The idea that we are jewels in
His eyes is why we are saved. Or how about a people that are
justified? This is good news for me. Just a minute ago, I
look in the mirror and I see a sinful man. Look away. In God's eyes, His
people are justified. I like the way Pastor Gene always
said that. It's just as if I'd never sinned. It's just as if I'll never sin
again. He's paid it all. All to Him
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
but Christ washed it white as snow. We have been made a treasure
unto Him by the sacrifice of His Son. Because of our Savior,
because He laid down His life and He shed His own blood, we
are made perfect in Him. I know that's hard to see. I know it's very hard to see. I see my flesh and I know, as
Paul wrote, O wicked man that I am, because I don't do the
things I should, and I do the things that I shouldn't. And if you don't, If you think
you don't, and you think you do all the stuff that you're
supposed to do, then you're lying to yourself, and you're lying
before God. When we stop looking to the flesh,
when we stop looking to self, and we look to Christ, we can
see perfection. We can see the white remnant,
which is His, and it's given unto us to wear. Turn over to
the Song of Solomon, just a few pages over to the right. Chapter 4, if you would. In my Bible, it's page 1024. The Song of Solomon, in chapter
4, if you're with me, here we have a description of the Bride
of Christ, the Church of God, the people that He has cherished
from before all else, Look at verse 1 if you would with me.
Chapter 4, verse 1 of the Song of Solomon. Behold, thou art
fair. Thou art fair, my love. Behold, thou art fair. Thou hast
dove's eyes within thy locks. Thy hair is as a flock of goats
that appear from Mount Gilead. Thy teeth are like a flock of
sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing. Wherefore,
everyone bear twins, and none is barren among them. Thy lips
are like the thread of a scarlet, and thy speech is comely. Thy
temples are like a piece of pomegranate within thy locks. Thy neck is
like the Tower of David, builded with an armory wherein there
hang a thousand bucklers and shields of mighty men. Thy two
breasts are like two young rose that are twins which feed among
the lilies. Until the daybreak and the shadows
flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh and to the
hill of frankincense. Thou art all fair, my love, there
is no spot in thee. That's what Christ says to each
one of his people. You are fair. There is no spot in you. You're a treasure to the Almighty. Do you see the love that God
has for His people? Do you see your worth to Him?
Again, in the 8th chapter of Romans, verse 29, whom He did
foreknow, speaking of His people, speaking of the ones that He
calls without spot, He also did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of His Son. that he might be the firstborn
among many brethren. We are brethren with Christ.
We are co-inheritors of everything that is. You and I have so much trouble
here in this world, in this country that we live in, because we don't
really know. Some of you may have. Maybe some
of you have gone through being completely broke at one time
or another. I never have. gone and had to go to a garbage
can for my dinner? There are people all over the
world who are so broke that that's what they have to do. We have
so much, but yet even what we have is nothing compared to what
God is going to give us, to the treasures that are in heaven.
To be in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, What shall we say then to these
things, if God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared
not his own son, but delivered him up for us, how shall he not
with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who
is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea,
rather it is risen again, who is even at the right hand of
God, who will also make intercession for us. God has loved his treasure
with an eternal love, folks, We may not see ourselves as much
of a treasure, but He does. We are the gleam in His eye.
How shall He not give us everything? This is why we must turn away
from those who claim that God loves everybody. Because He doesn't. If that were true, and some still
go to hell, then the blood of Christ did nothing to save anyone.
It was powerless. It was your decision. It was
the factor of your decision that saved you. Your decision, your will, you,
you, you. Well, Scripture tells us differently.
It tells us that we're the treasure of God. And He gave His only
begotten Son for us. And he did it perfectly. And
God cannot fail. He cannot fail, or he's not God. And he says in his word, Romans
9, 16, So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that
runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. Salvation is of the Lord,
and of the Lord alone. Turn over to Corinthians. 2nd
Corinthians, if you would, the 4th chapter. 2nd Corinthians chapter 4, if
you're with me, beginning at verse 5. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus, the Lord, and ourselves, your servants, for
Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of the darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in
earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and
not of us. There is our treasure in heaven,
the God of all power, the Lord Jesus Christ, who loved us with
an everlasting love as far as the east is from the west. And
there's going to come a day, as I began this message, there's
going to come a day when the Lord's going to return. You ever thought about what that
means? You know, it can mean a couple
things. To be absent from the body is
to be in the presence of the Lord, is it not? You know what
scripture says? If God were to take me today, through whatever
means, would I not be in the presence of the Lord? Today could
be my second coming of Christ. Or it could be for all of us
at the same time. Oh, what a day that's gonna be.
All these things that we think so highly of right here in this
world, all the things that glitter and shine and grab our attention,
all those things are going to burn up and go away. And God's
people are going to look to Christ. And we're going to see the best
treasure of all, God Almighty, in the face of His Son, Christ
Jesus, my Lord. Would you stand with me, please?
And let's turn. You know.