Where Is Your Treasure?

Now, my friends, ask yourselves the question, “Where is your treasure?” Or, in other words, “Where is your heart?” When you find out that, then you will find out where your treasure is. In the 10th chapter of Hebrews, 13th verse, are these words: “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded to them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.” Then in the 10th verse of that same chapter, speaking of Abraham, it says: “For he looked for a city which hath foundations; whose builder and maker is God.” The moment Abraham caught sight of that city, he proclaimed himself a pilgrim and a stranger. The well-watered plains of Sodom had no temptation for him. He declared plainly that he saw another country—a better country. He had turned his heart from this fleeting world, and Sodom with all its temptations didn’t tempt him. He had got something better. He had his eye fixed upon a city that should endure when Sodom should have been swept away, and he had got his eye fixed upon that city to lay up treasure there.

How poor a man is, no matter how much he has got laid up in this world, if he has not got his treasure laid up in heaven! A couple of friends of mine in the war called upon one of our great Illinois farmers to get him to give some money for the soldiers, and during their stay there he took them upon the cupola of his house, and told them to look over yonder, just as far as their eye could reach, over that beautiful rolling prairie, and they said, “That is very nice;” and it was all his. Then he took them up another cupola and said: “Look at that farm, and that, and that;” and these were farms all stocked, and improved, and fenced; and they said, “That is very nice,” and then he showed them horses, cattle, and sheep-yards, and told them, “That is all mine.” He showed them the town where he lived, which had been named for him, a great hall and building lots, and those were all his; and, said he, “I came out West a poor boy, without a farthing, and I am worth all this.” But when he got through my friend said: “How much have you got up yonder?” and the old man’s countenance fell, for he knew very well what that meant. “What have you got there in the other world?” “Well,” he says, “I have not got anything there.” “Why,” says my friend, “what a mistake! A man of your intelligence and forethought and judgment, to amass all this wealth; and now, drawing to your grave, you will have to leave it all. You cannot take a farthing with you; but you must die beggared and a pauper;” and the tears rolled down his cheeks as he said, “It does look foolish.” But a few months after he died, as he had lived, and his property passed to others. And we see people here in New York, accumulating money as if it is all there is to live for, and leave it, many of them to their children, to make the way down to hell easy for those children. One generation accumulates wealth for the next to squander it, and to ruin soul and body.

A great many people are wondering why they don’t grow in grace; why they don’t have more spiritual power. The question is very easily answered. You have got your treasure down here. It is not necessary for a man to have money to have his treasure down here. He may have his heart on pleasure; he may make an idol of his children; and that is the reason that they don’t grow in grace. If we would only just be wise and do as God tells us, we would mount up, as it were, on wings, and would get nearer to heaven every day. We would get heavenly-minded in our conversation, and have less trouble than now. And so, my friends, let us just ask ourselves today, Where is our treasure? Is it on earth, or in heaven? What are we doing? What is the aim of our lives? Are we just living to accumulate money, or to get a position in the world for our children? Or, are we trying to secure those treasures which we can safely lay up in heaven, becoming rich toward God?

~ This is from Mr. Moody’s sermon “Heavenly Treasures” in The Gospel Awakening