Beginning in verse 19 where the Bible reads,
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.
What I want to preach about tonight is the fact that where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
If you want to turn to Revelation chapter 2,
I'm going to apply this in a little bit different way than I've usually applied it in the past,
but truly where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
And what the Bible is saying there is that when you invest in something,
when you invest your treasure or your money into something,
or when you invest time and energy into something,
or when you put work into something,
your heart is going to be in whatever you invest your time, energy, or money in.
Your heart is going to be there.
Now look at Revelation chapter 2 verse 1.
This is the message to the church at Ephesus.
The Bible reads,
I'm of the angel of the church of Ephesus, right.
These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand,
who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.
I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience,
and how thou canst not bear them which are evil.
And thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not,
and hast found them liars, and hast borne, and hast patience,
and for my name's sake hast labored, and hast not fainted.
Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee,
because thou hast left thy first love.
Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen,
and repent and do the first works,
or else I will come unto thee quickly,
and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
But this thou hast, that thou eatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans,
which I also hate.
Eat it at the near, and let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
To him that overcometh will I give to eat at the tree of life,
which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
Now this was a great church,
and God is telling them all the great things that they have going for them,
but he says, nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee,
because thou hast left thy first love.
So the one thing that was wrong with this church, according to Jesus Christ,
is that they had left their first love.
Now the first love is something that takes place in the heart, is it not?
We love the Lord our God with all our heart, the Bible says,
and our heart is where our feelings of love would be found.
And the Bible says that this church had left their first love,
and in order to correct the problem that was a heart problem,
of having left the first love, what's the remedy?
He says, remember, verse 5,
therefore from whence thou art fallen and repent and do what?
The first works.
Now in order to get the first love back, what did they have to do?
They had to do the first works.
That's what brings forth the first love.
They've lost the love.
In order to get their love back, he says, do the first works.
That will solve the problem.
Now why would doing the first works bring back the first love?
Because when you work at something, when you invest in something,
when you spend your time and energy on something,
that's where your heart's going to be.
That's where your love is going to be.
Now, the first love or the first works, what is he talking about?
Well, I strongly believe that when he talks about doing the first works,
he's talking about winning souls to Jesus Christ.
He's talking about preaching the gospel to every creature.
And the reason I say that is because, obviously,
that is the primary mission of the local church.
When the disciples were on the mount with the Lord Jesus Christ
before he ascended up to heaven,
his last parting command to them was to go into all the world
and preach the gospel to every creature.
His last thing that he told them was to teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
The last thing he said was, as the Father has sent me, so send I you.
And you see, what motivates us to go out and preach the gospel to the lost is love.
It's love for the Lord Jesus Christ, and it's love for the lost.
It's love for those that are not saved.
I mean, if someone's not saved, the most loving thing we can do
is to give them the gospel, to preach them the gospel.
And so he said, look, you've lost your first love.
You don't care about other people.
You don't believe in winning souls.
But whether you agree with that or not,
whether you agree that that's the first love or not,
the thing that's very clear is that whatever the first love was,
it was to be corrected.
The loss of it was to be corrected by doing the first works
because when you work at something, you're going to love it.
You're going to have love, and your heart is going to be in it
because where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
When you go to church and basically all you do is just show up
and just sit and listen and you take it in
and everyone serves you and everyone preaches to you
and everyone ministers to you and feeds you
and everyone does things for you, but you're not giving anything back.
You're not contributing anything.
You're not putting in any work.
You're not going to love this church as much as the person
who's invested more in this church.
I mean, the person who has their treasure,
and I'm not talking about money because honestly,
our church doesn't need money.
Our church has always had enough money and we're going to find financially.
It's not about money.
I believe in tithing.
I don't believe that we have to raise a bunch of extra money.
I don't think it's this.
I don't think we need a bunch of money.
But what I'm saying is when you invest in faith or in Baptist church,
and I'm not talking about just financial.
I'm saying with your labor, with your work,
when you help make this church a success,
you're going to love this church more than the person
who contributes nothing to this church.
Now, it's the opposite of what you would think
because you would assume that when people do things for you,
you're going to love them because they did so much for you.
But how many times have you done a lot for somebody
and they don't love you for it?
They don't thank you for it.
In fact, sometimes they even resent you for it.
Sometimes the people that you help the most and give the most to
and do the most for are the people who love you the least.
They don't care about you.
They reject it.
I mean, I've done nice things for people.
I have those people turn around and stab me in the back.
Why?
Because giving things to people and doing things for people
and investing in people doesn't make them love you.
But let me tell you something.
Doing something for someone else, giving something to someone else
and investing in someone else makes you love them.
It's the opposite.
People that you help, you'll love those people more
because you've invested in them, because your treasure is there.
That's where your heart is also.
When you help somebody and let's say you help them get a job,
you take great pride in their success.
You're probably going to pray for them.
You're going to love them
and you're going to be happy to see them succeed
because you helped them.
You did something for them.
You see, doing things for other people makes you love them more.
But people doing things for you
doesn't necessarily make you love them more.
For example, this church might do a lot for you,
but if you never put anything back into this church,
you're not going to love this church like you should
because you didn't invest it.
You have put nothing on the table.
You haven't invested anything.
You haven't done the first works.
You're not going to have the first love.
I love this church because from the beginning,
I've invested my life into this church.
This church is my life's work to start this church,
to pastor this church.
I've sacrificed for this church.
I love this church.
And those of you that have been here and you work hard,
you go out soul winning, you know what?
You love this church.
You love the soul winning because you've worked at it.
You've invested it.
Someone else who hasn't gone out and done the work of soul winning,
they're not going to have as much of an appreciation for it.
They're not going to walk in and feel the same way
when they look at that map as you and I feel
when we walk in and look at that map.
When you and I walk through the door,
we look through that map and we've invested in that map.
That map represents hundreds, yay, thousands of hours out
preaching the gospel to the lost.
And we look at that and it means something to us.
Our heart is in it.
Why?
Because our treasure is in it.
Because our work has gone into it.
That's why we believe in it.
Same thing with this church.
Same thing with anything else in life.
You know, you spend time with your children.
You take the time to teach your children things
and explain things to your children.
You're going to love your children more.
The more you invest in your children,
the more you're going to love your children.
And it's that simple.
Go to Acts chapter 22.
You see, people, let me explain it to you this way.
Things that come for free, people don't appreciate them
as much as things that they had to pay for them.
Why?
Because where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
When you don't have any treasure invested in something,
you don't appreciate it as much as when you put money into it
or put a time investment or work investment into it.
It just doesn't mean as much to you.
You've seen people get things for free and they abuse it.
They don't take care of it.
They don't respect it.
It doesn't matter to them.
For example, I've seen people, they go to a job
and they're provided with a company vehicle
and they abuse it because they didn't pay for it
and they don't really understand the value of it.
What about the rich people who grow up
and they're actually just born with a silver spoon in their mouth
and they never had to work a day in their life?
They don't have the same appreciation
for the things that they enjoy as someone who, say,
worked their whole life to get there and earned it
and did it by the sweat of their brow.
Look at Acts chapter 22,
and I'll show you another example of this in the Bible,
that where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Look at Acts 22, verse 24.
The Bible says this is when Paul is in trouble
and he's been preaching the Word of God
and the Jews are persecuting him
and they've gotten arrested and so forth.
And it says in verse 24,
the chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle
and bade that he should be examined by scourging.
That doesn't sound like a very just process,
to basically examine him by scourging.
They don't even know what he did wrong yet.
All they know is that the Jews were yelling at him.
So the Roman guard says,
okay, well, let's beat him and see what he did wrong.
Tell us what you did while he's being beaten.
That's not fair. That's not right.
But these people didn't have a lot of rights
because they were enslaved under a lot of foreign tyranny here
of the Roman Empire.
But watch what happens.
He bade that he should be examined by scourging
that he might know wherefore they had cried so against him.
And as they bound him with thongs,
Paul said unto the centurion that stood by,
is it lawful for you to scourge a man
that is a Roman and uncondemned?
Now, it was okay if he were just a Jew
to basically beat him and make him tell him what he did
because he didn't have rights that a Roman citizen had.
But here he says, wait a minute, I'm a Roman citizen.
Do you have the right to beat me uncondemned?
And it says in verse 26,
when the centurion heard that,
he went and told the chief captain saying,
keep what thou doest, for this man is a Roman.
Then the chief captain came and said unto him,
tell me, art thou a Roman?
He said, yea.
And the chief captain answered,
with a great sum obtained I this freedom.
And Paul said, but I was free born.
Then straightway they departed from him,
which should have examined him,
and the chief captain also was afraid
after he knew that he was a Roman and because he had bound him.
Now, this Roman centurion, or the chief captain rather,
he had great respect for the privileges
that came with being a Roman citizen.
Now, I don't agree with this system.
I don't believe that certain people should have privileges
because they're a citizen and other people shouldn't.
I don't believe in that.
I don't agree with that.
It's not a biblical concept.
I believe that everyone should be treated humanely
and that everyone should have rights.
Because according to our founding document,
I'm not saying it's the Bible,
but the Declaration of Independence says
that we're endowed by our creator
with certain inalienable rights.
So that shouldn't come from a government.
That comes from God.
God gave us freedom.
God is the author of liberty, as the song says.
That is a biblical concept,
where the spirit of the Lord is there.
I don't agree with this system,
but this is the system that God's telling us about
with the Roman Empire.
And with that system, being a Roman citizen
gave you special rights and privileges
above someone who was not a Roman citizen,
a Jew or any other nationality.
Notice how much respect the chief captain had
for being a Roman citizen.
I mean, he immediately stops what he was doing,
and he actually goes to him and talks to him and says,
hey, are you really a Roman citizen?
Because that means a lot to me because he said,
I had to pay a lot of money to become a Roman citizen.
And when he found that out, he said, you know what?
I feel bad that I even bound him,
even though we didn't even beat him,
just for having thought about doing it.
Now, this guy respected the Roman citizenship
because he paid a lot of money to be a Roman citizen.
Paul said, I was free-born.
Now, we in America today, we were free-born.
I mean, we were born in a free country.
We're born with the freedom to live where we want to live,
to do the job that we want to do,
to marry who we want to marry,
to live the life pretty much that we want to live.
We still have some semblance of freedom.
And we were born free, and therefore,
a lot of people in our country,
they don't appreciate their freedom
because they didn't pay for it.
Now, I'm not saying they should have to pay for it.
You ought to be born free.
But people who had to fight for it,
people who had to pay for it,
I'm sure that anyone would agree that they love it more
because their treasure was in it.
That's why their heart was in it.
I mean, think about it.
Don't you think that the people who fought
in the Revolutionary War in 1775
and all the way through to 1783,
wouldn't you say that those people
who fought in the Revolutionary War
had great respect for their freedoms
that they fought for?
And wouldn't you say that those people
would not probably just be ready to give up their freedoms
at the drop of a hat?
Oh, there's terrorists?
Let's give up all our freedoms.
Let's go through naked body scanners and checkpoints
and show our papers everywhere, like the Soviet Union.
That's okay if I have to show my documents everywhere I go
because it's all for our safety.
Do you think that somebody who paid for their freedom
in blood would say that?
Do you think that somebody who'd gone out
and fought and risked everything,
maybe even lost a brother or lost a child
or lost a parent fighting to give them freedom,
do you think they would just sell it out that fast?
But people who are just born with freedom,
it means nothing to them
because they've never been to a country
where there is no freedom.
They've never even been to a country
where soul winning is illegal.
They've never even been to a country
where preaching the Bible is not legal.
They've never been to a country
like Communist China today
where women are forced to have an abortion
if they get pregnant with a second child
because it's a one child policy.
And so all of this talk about liberty and freedom,
it means nothing to them
because they just want to get paid
and sit their fat rear end in front of the TV
and they don't care about freedom.
It means nothing to them
because they didn't pay for it at all.
It's just given to them.
Now it ought to be given to them,
it ought to be free,
but Java appreciate it anyway,
but people have a tendency
to only appreciate the things that they pay for.
Many times at that point it's too late.
You know when you pay for something, you appreciate it.
When you buy something yourself, you appreciate it.
When you save up the money and buy a car yourself,
you appreciate it more than it's just given to you.
Now I've given things to people
and you know sometimes people do appreciate it.
They ought to appreciate it.
Our church gives out a lot of things for free
because we just don't believe in selling something.
We give out everything for free
and that's the way it should be
and I don't think it should be different than that,
but you know a lot of people,
when they're giving things for free,
they don't have respect for it,
whereas if they pay for it, they respect it more.
You say, what is the point of this sermon?
Why are you explaining this?
I don't think anybody can deny the truth
of what I'm saying right now.
First of all, the Bible says
that where your treasure is,
there will your heart be also.
Second of all, it's obvious that the person
who puts work into faith for a Baptist church,
the people who, for example,
knock the doors, go out soul winning,
the people who clean the building,
the people who set up the chairs,
the people who play the piano,
the people who lead singing,
the people who helped with remodeling,
that helped us knock out the walls
and fix the carpet and fix the ceiling
and paint the walls,
the people who have invested work
and labor and time and energy
into faith for a Baptist church
are going to love it more
because they put their treasure into it,
whether it's their money, their work,
their time, their energy, their effort,
whatever it is.
And it's the same thing with freedom.
We see it right here.
A guy who paid for it, he respected it.
He understood it.
It meant something to him.
And so the point of the sermon
and why I'm preaching this
is to explain to you
that you need to invest in the right things
in order to get your heart in the right place.
In order to have your heart in the right place,
you need to have your treasure in the right place.
Here's another great example.
This wasn't in my notes.
Go to Luke 12.
We were talking about this at soul winning
in Luke 12.
Just coincidentally,
we were chatting about this today
when we were at soul winning.
Brother Miller and I
were talking about this verse
in Luke 12, 33.
He says pretty much the same thing.
He says,
Sell that ye have,
Luke 12, 33,
and give alms.
Alms is when you basically
give money to the poor,
like people who need help
and they're down on their life.
He says,
Sell that ye have and give alms.
Provide yourselves bags
which wax not oak,
a treasure in the heavens,
that faileth not,
where no thief approacheth,
neither moth corrupteth.
For where your treasure is,
there will your heart be also.
So the Bible says here
that if you help the poor,
you'll love the poor.
If you give alms to the poor,
you'll love the poor.
If you lay up treasures on earth,
your heart's gonna be on this earth
and minding earthly things.
But the Bible says
our conversation is in heaven
from whence also we look for the Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Bible says,
Set your affections on things above,
not on the things of this earth.
Now, how is it that you're gonna
have your affections on the things
that are above and not on this earth?
Well, it's easy.
Where's your treasure?
What are you putting effort into?
What are you working toward?
Are you working toward a big new mansion
and a boat and an RV and a car?
That's where your heart's gonna be.
That's what you're gonna be focused on.
That's what you're gonna love the most.
You're gonna love your RV.
You're gonna love your house.
You're gonna love your stuff.
But if you're investigating
it in your family,
you're gonna love your family.
If you're investing time in your church,
you're gonna love your church.
And if you're investing your time
and energy into serving God,
in the kingdom of God,
and if all your treasure is in heaven,
that's where your heart's gonna be
and your affections are gonna be
on the things above.
I mean, you go out soloing
and win people to Christ,
you get a paycheck for that.
You get nothing.
But when you get to heaven,
what a great day of rejoicing
it's gonna be when you get to meet up
with all the people that you want
to be with the Lord on this earth.
All the people that have been saved.
All the people that you want to Christ.
And it's gonna be a great reunion
when you get there in heaven.
Those that have sowed
and those that have watered,
the Bible says,
will rejoice together
over the souls that were saved.
People that you gave the gospel to
and they didn't even get saved.
And you said,
oh, that was a waste of time
in that area of Scottsdale, you know,
where nobody wanted to get saved.
But you know what?
What you didn't know
is that three years later
somebody else talked to them
and because you had planted that seed,
they got saved.
And when you get to heaven,
that rejoicing is gonna come.
You're not gonna get it on this earth.
You're not gonna get
any gratification on this earth.
That's why if you're a person
who invests in soul winning,
your treasure is in soul winning,
your treasure is in heaven,
and that means that your heart's
on the things that are above,
not the things on this earth.
Because there's nothing to show
for it on this earth.
It's all in heaven.
So that's why your heart
is in heavenly places
where it ought to be.
Brother Richard Miller
has a great testimony
about a guy who came to him
on a college campus,
went through the whole plan
of salvation with him.
He didn't get saved,
but he got saved later.
How much later did you get saved?
About a year later,
he got saved
after he heard the gospel.
And he doesn't know who that guy is.
He's never been able
to tell that guy
or thank that guy.
But that guy probably thought
that he didn't accomplish
much that day.
But you know what?
He got Brother Miller saved
and how many people
has he got saved?
Through soul winning.
And when that guy
gets to heaven,
he's gonna be pleasantly surprised.
Richard Miller's gonna be able
to greet him and say,
you know what?
Not only did I get saved,
even though I didn't get saved
right on the spot,
not only did I get saved,
but here's all the people
I got saved.
I never would have
got these people saved.
You never got me saved.
Hey, that's exciting,
but you know what?
Only if you've invested in it.
Because if you're one
that's not a soul winner,
that's not exciting to you.
Because you're thinking about it
and you're like,
hmm, is anybody gonna be up there?
Do you know that I brought?
But you know,
those who've invested in it,
that's where their heart is
and that's what they
really care about.
And the people who put work
into church,
put work into soul winning,
put work into serving God,
they love those things.
You know, when you give money
to the poor,
when you help the poor,
you love the poor.
It makes you love people.
Like I said,
and you may not believe it,
it's true.
It's biblical and I've seen it.
When you help other people,
it makes you love them more.
It doesn't always
make them love you more.
I mean, sometimes
it makes them mad.
Sometimes when you do things
that are nice for people,
it makes them hate you for it.
They resent you for it.
Because it makes them feel
like they owe you something.
I don't know,
I don't really understand why.
But when you do things for people,
sometimes they don't appreciate it.
You know, there have been
so many people
who you've done stuff for
and then it's like,
they act like
you owe them a living or something.
And it's just,
it doesn't make any sense.
I'm not trying to explain it
I'm just telling you it's true.
When you help people,
you'll love them more.
And it won't necessarily
make them love you more.
Now, let's get the opposite of this.
Let's get the flip side of this.
Go to 2 Chronicles 25.
Because we're talking about
investing in the right things
with your life,
with your energy,
with your treasure.
And look,
I know money is treasure,
but honestly,
time is valuable also.
Sometimes time is more valuable than money.
That's why people pay
other people to do things for them.
Because they'd rather have the time.
They need that extra time
that it takes to do that task.
And so sometimes time
can be just as valuable as money.
They're both valuable.
They're both something
that we should treasure.
You know,
sometimes we go out of work
and spend a bunch of time
and then we don't have enough time
with our family.
Or don't have enough time to go solely.
Or don't have enough time to go to church.
And you know,
time needs to be allotted
to the things that matter
the most.
And we need to put
God and church as a priority.
Give it number one priority.
And make time for that,
first and foremost.
We need to make time
for our families.
That's important.
That's critical.
And we need to make time
to go to work and pay the bills.
You know,
these are the key things
that need to come
before we go out and play
and fool around
and do everything else.
And so we need to invest
our treasure,
our time,
our energy,
our money,
our effort into things
that we want to care about
and want to love.
If you want to just spend
your life loving a vehicle,
then just put all your money
into that vehicle.
But if you want to spend
your life loving people,
if you want to love the poor,
if you want to love church,
if you want to love so many,
that's where you're going
to have to invest your time.
If you want to love your wife,
you say,
well, Pastor Anderson,
I'm married and I just don't know
if I love my...
You know, you run into people
that are married,
and they're like,
I'm just not sure
I love them anymore.
Have you ever heard that before?
I'm just not sure
I love them anymore.
Or he'll say,
I'm not sure
I love her anymore.
You know what?
That just tells me
that your treasure's not there.
Because if your treasure
was there,
your heart would be there also.
You know, if you spent time
with your wife,
you will grow
in love toward your wife.
If you do nice things
for your wife,
if you buy a gift
for your wife,
if you would give of your time,
give of your love,
give of your affection,
and put effort into it
and work into it,
that's going to make you
love your wife more.
It might not necessarily
make her love you more,
but it's dead sure
going to make you
love her more.
Because where your treasure is,
there where your heart
will be also.
And you know,
if you're a person
who your marriage
is not your priority,
and you spend time
on everything else,
but marriage is something
that's on the back burner
for you,
you know what?
I'm not surprised
that you're saying
I don't know
if I love her anymore.
Because you haven't
put an investment into it.
Okay?
And it could go
the other way
if you're a wife.
If you love anyone.
You know,
that can change.
You need to fix that.
That's your problem.
Because God commanded,
He said husbands
love your wives.
And God commanded wives
in Titus chapter 2.
He said He commanded them
to love their husbands
and to love their children.
Titus chapter 2.
That's a command of God.
I've heard churches preach,
well no where in the Bible
does the Bible
command the wife
to love her husband.
Well,
Titus chapter 2
is something that you skip
when you're reading.
Because the Bible commands
wives to love their husbands
and husbands
and wives not commanding
you to do something
that's just some
automatic feeling.
You know,
today we think that
you just fall in love
and it's just this
magical feeling.
You know what?
You love the people
that you do nice things for.
That you love
through your actions.
God so loved the world
that He gave
His only begotten son.
You know,
I guarantee you
that He loves me
more than I'll ever love Him.
You know why?
Because He did more for me
than I'll ever do for Him.
Why does God love me more?
The Bible says,
you know,
He first,
we love Him
because He first loved us.
He loved me more
than I'll ever love Him.
Greater love hath no man
than this than that
a man lay down his life
for his friends.
And I'll tell you something,
I will never love God
as much as He loves me
because He sacrificed
everything for me.
He died on the cross.
He shed His blood.
He gave everything.
I can never give back to Him
as much as He gave to me.
Therefore,
I'll never love Him as much.
And so,
if you're married
and you say,
Well, I'm just not sure
if I married the right person.
Well, you know what?
Just don't even think about it.
That's such a dumb thing
to even think about.
Why would you think about
whether or not
you married the right person
after you're already married?
Think about that
before you get married.
Before you get married,
you can pull
bloom soft flowers all day.
He loves me,
loves me not,
and decide whether you really
want to marry that person.
Once you're married,
you should never even
think about that again.
Amen.
Did I marry the right person?
What kind of a dumb question is it?
You know,
this is my pet peeve,
by the way.
When people,
they do something
and it's too late to change
and then they sit there,
I don't know if we're,
you know,
if we should have done this.
We're doing it.
I don't know if we went
the right way.
I don't know.
We're going this way.
It's too late.
Don't sit there and go back.
You know what?
Honestly,
if you're married,
you're married
to the right person.
Okay?
I don't care.
Just shut up.
You're married to the right person.
Okay?
Love that person.
And don't sit there
and think about what it
would have been like
or maybe something else
was better.
No.
You made that choice.
That is the right person for you.
Love them with all your heart.
You say,
well, I don't.
Then you know what?
You're just not doing enough.
You're selfish is what you are.
You need to do more
and give more
and sacrifice more.
And that goes for a husband
or wife.
Then you'll love more.
The more you love,
the sacrifice,
the more you give,
the more you'll love.
It's true.
It's a fact.
But here's the flip side.
Here's the negative side.
Go to 2 Chronicles 25.
Here's a guy
who put an investment
in the wrong thing.
He laid down a big fat stack
of cash on the wrong thing.
And you know,
there are a lot of people
who have done a similar thing
where they lay down money
on the wrong thing.
I'll give you some examples
in a moment.
Let me turn there myself, though.
2 Chronicles 25.
Now this is a story
about warfare
and the children of Judah.
If you remember
in the Old Testament,
the children of Israel
formed their nation.
And then remember
they got split up
into the northern kingdom
and the southern kingdom.
And the northern kingdom
was called Israel or Ephraim.
And the southern kingdom
was called Judah.
Usually the southern kingdom
was more righteous
than the northern kingdom.
The northern kingdom
was the more wicked
of the kingdoms.
Well, in this story,
King Amaziah,
he's going out to battle
against the children of Seir
and he wants some reinforcements
so he decides to hire
or pay the children of Israel,
the northern kingdom,
to come be his mercenaries.
Now today they're called contractors.
That sounds a lot nicer.
But they're mercenaries.
People are paid to fight.
They're not fighting
because they're a sworn soldier
that has an oath
to defend the country.
They're basically someone
who's hired to fight.
They're paid to fight.
And throughout history
it's been going on.
There's nothing new under the sun.
Today it's called contractors.
Today it's called mercenaries.
Would you agree
with that characterization?
I think that's the way it works.
I'm not an expert on the military,
but I think contractors
are basically mercenaries.
They're paid.
They're hired to fight
or to guard
or to whatever they do.
But they do bear arms
for pay,
not as a soldier
of the military proper.
They have a sworn oath
or whatever.
I don't know
how that works exactly,
but that's what's going on here.
That's what's going on here.
He's trying to hire people
from Israel.
Now here's the thing.
He paid up front.
He paid them in advance
to fight this battle.
Let's read together.
Verse 5.
Moreover, Amaziah
gathered Judah together
and made them captains
over thousands
and captains over hundreds
according to the house
of their fathers.
Threw out all Judah
and Benjamin
and he numbered them
from twenty years old
and up above
and found them
three hundred thousand
choice men
able to go to court the war
that could handle
the spear issue.
He hired also,
see he hired them,
mercenaries,
a hundred thousand contractors.
No, I'm just kidding.
A hundred thousand mighty men
of valor
out of Israel
for a hundred talents
of silver.
So he lays down
this big fat stack of silver.
A hundred talents of silver
in order to hire
a hundred thousand
or a hundred talents of silver
to hire a hundred thousand
mighty men of valor
out of Israel.
Watch what happens
in verse 7.
But there came
a man of God to him
saying, O king,
let not the army of Israel
go with thee,
for the Lord is not with Israel
to wit with all the children
and be for him.
But if thou wilt go,
do it,
be strong for the battle.
God shall make thee,
but if thou wilt go,
do it,
be strong for the battle.
God shall make thee
fall before the enemy
for God hath power
to help and to cast down.
And Amaziah said
to the man of God,
but what shall we do
for the hundred talents
which I have given
to the army of Israel?
And the man of God answered,
the Lord is able
to give thee
much more than this.
Then Amaziah separated them
to wit the army
that was come to him
out of Ephraim
to go home again,
wherefore their anger
was greatly kindled
against Judah
and they were turned
over in great anger.
So he made a really
big investment
of money
to bring in these
foreign troops,
but these troops,
God didn't want them.
And this prophet,
this man of God
preached to them
and said, look,
you'd rather go to battle
with three hundred thousand
troops and God's with you
and God's blessing you
than to have
four hundred thousand troops.
God can make you fall
because God has power
to lift you up
and God has power
to cast you down.
It's better to obey
and be blessed by God.
And then Amaziah says,
but what about
the hundred thousand bucks
that I spent?
You know,
our hundred thousand talents
of silver is a lot more than,
I'm sorry,
a hundred talents of silver.
I don't know these measurements,
you know,
we're not talking
of dollars, so, you know,
whatever that,
that amount of silver is,
it's a lot of silver, okay?
It's a lot of money.
It's millions of dollars.
And he's saying,
what are we going to do?
We spent all the money.
It's too late
to change our money.
We already paid.
And Amaziah said,
you know,
or I'm sorry,
the man of God told Amaziah,
you know what?
God can give you
so much more than that.
Don't even worry about
that money.
I mean,
that money that you spent,
just call it good.
Just chalk it up as a loss.
God can give you
more than that.
Just obey God.
Just do what God says
and so thank God,
Amaziah obeys
and he does
what God told him to do
and he makes these troops
really mad.
They were angry
and they still got paid
but even though
they were paid,
you know,
they wanted to get
the spools of war.
They wanted to get more
by fighting
and stripping the slain
and getting more
and they're just
offended by it.
You know,
sorry,
you guys aren't good enough
to fight with us.
Go home.
So they're angry.
So he made people mad
and he lost
100 talents of silver
and he blessed him.
He did right
and you see,
God gives us
instructions sometimes
that are contrary
to our investments.
For example,
I remember one time
there was a guy
in our church
and I preached a sermon.
I was preaching about
how bad the stuff
on TV is
and I was preaching
about how wicked TV is
and all the movies
and everything
and I was just ripping on it.
I was giving examples
of all the shows
and how bad they are
and I'll tell you right now,
I haven't watched TV
in about a decade now, okay?
I don't own a TV.
I haven't watched TV
in about a decade
and you know,
when I quit watching it,
I quit watching it
because it was bad,
because it was sin,
it was promoting sodomy,
it was a bunch of nudity,
it was a bunch of filth,
it was blasphemy
and so I got rid of my TV
about 10 years ago.
I quit watching TV.
Now, somebody help me out.
Has it gotten better since then?
Have they cleaned it up?
I didn't think so
and I look around society.
Our society has gotten
way worse in the last 10 years.
Way worse.
So I'm assuming that TV
has probably done the same thing.
It's probably gone down
the same toilet bowl
as the rest of our culture has
in the last 10 years
and so I'm preaching against TV
and I'm ripping on it
and saying how bad it is
and all these wicked shows
and you know,
this guy walked up to me
and said, you know,
he said, man,
he said, you know what?
That sermon has me thinking about it,
you know, getting rid of the TV
but he said, you know what though?
I just laid down X amount of $1,000
on a flat screen.
He said, I just bought it last week
and then he preached this sermon.
I mean, I just spent $1,000.
Now, I was shocked
because I thought TVs were like 100 bucks
or 200 bucks.
I mean, that's how much they were
when I was a teenager
and I thought technology
gets cheaper and cheaper,
usually, right?
I mean, the first CD burner
that I saw for sale
was like $500 for a CD burner.
You know, now you get a CD burner
for under 100 bucks
and it does more, it's better,
it's faster
and so I didn't even know
that you can even buy a TV
for thousands of dollars
but apparently you can't
and since then,
I've talked to other people
and they said, oh yeah,
you know, $5,000 TVs
and $3,000.
Now, that's bizarre to me
to spend $5,000 on a TV.
It's weird.
Oh, but it's HD, high definition.
It's like, how much detail
do you need to save?
I mean, do you just need to see
every freckle on every person's face
and you know, they say,
oh yeah, it's really high definition,
you can really see every detail.
You know what,
if you really want that much detail,
I've got a tip for you.
It's called real life
because like if you look at people
in real life,
you see every,
I mean, it's HD all the time.
I mean, when I'm looking at Matt,
I mean, I see every error on his head.
It's 3D.
It's 3D, HD, everything.
And yeah,
but people spend $5,000
so this stuff on TV can look real.
It's not real, folks.
It's fake
and you swear it's real
because it's HD.
It looks real.
It's 3D, HD, color TV,
you know, IMAX, whatever.
Look,
if you're making that big of an investment,
in TV,
that tells me where your heart is.
Your tent is pitched toward Sodom.
Your heart is in the world.
Your heart is in sin
because if you're spending that much money on TV,
where your treasure is,
then where your heart feels it.
And this guy was saying,
man, I would listen to this sermon.
I would get rid of it.
I'm not gonna get rid of it
when I just bought a new one for $3,000.
His treasure was in the wrong place.
You know what that meant?
His heart was in the wrong place.
Now I'll bet you it's a lot easier
for somebody to go home
and take their old messed up TV
with lines going across the screen
where you have to get up and twist the dial.
When I was a kid, I had a TV
and you had to twist the dial.
And one of the dials said UHF
and one of them said VHF.
Whoever knows what a dial is.
And you get up there and crank the dial.
And we had that TV
and then we had another black and white TV
and you'd crank the dial.
It was a black and white TV.
It was like this big.
And you'd crank the dial
and it got six channels.
That's all. Six.
You know, and I still remember this day.
3, 10, 13, 31, 40, and 58.
I mean, that's what it got.
Three on the VHF dial
and three on the UHF dial.
And you know what?
If that's the TV you're still using today in 2012,
it's probably a lot easier
if the pastor says,
you need to cut the cord in that TV.
Get rid of it.
It's garbage.
You know, and you're like,
that's it.
I'm going to take my $5 TV
and throw it in the garbage can.
Because then if you backslide,
you know you can buy another one, you know.
I mean, you only wasted five bucks.
But when you got that plasma,
HD, high def, stereo surround,
subwoofer, 5 plus 1 system, whatever.
You know what?
Then all of a sudden it's like,
oh, yeah.
Because why?
That's where your treasure is.
That's where your heart is.
And you know what?
You're going to feel like you have to watch it.
I mean, if I spend $5,000 on a TV,
I'd be like,
honey, we need to watch this.
If we spend $5,000,
we're going to sit down and watch this.
We're going to lie to each other and watch this.
Because you got treasure in the thing.
We need to get some use out of this thing.
Sit down.
Put the homework away, kids.
Sit down and watch this thing.
If you use it,
put those books away.
Watch TV.
Why?
Because you have treasure.
Because you've invested.
You feel like you're wasting it.
But you know what?
That's why it's so dangerous to put treasure
into the wrong things.
Because that's where your heart is.
Where your treasure is.
That's where your heart is also.
You know, you go out.
Here's the thing.
You know, you hear the pastor start ripping on
your rock music collection.
And the pastor starts preaching against rock music
and the worldly music.
And you know, you've got old messed up tapes
that you pirated off somebody else's tapes.
You've dumped them onto blank tapes
instead of buying the real album.
It's probably a lot easier for you to junk that
than somebody who's got all the CDs
and they're all pristine and in the cases.
And they've got the tower of CDs
and the tower of records.
You know what?
Because they have so much treasure into that music.
It's hard.
It's hard to move on from that.
Because their heart is in it because their treasure's in it.
It's the danger of putting your treasure in the wrong things.
And you know what?
I honestly, I used to be really into
a lot of the wrong kinds of music.
I mean, I had all kinds of wrong CDs and so forth.
And I listened to all kinds of bands
that I shouldn't have been listening to.
But you know what?
The longer it's been since I trashed all this,
and it was hard.
Because I mean, I worked hard to get that collection.
And a lot of it I really liked.
And you know, trashing it was hard.
Because I had treasure into it.
I mean, I had spent, I mean, I would spend a lot,
I would spend a good portion of my money that I made.
You know, I didn't make much as a teenager, obviously.
But I spent a good portion of it on CDs and music.
And you know, it was hard to get rid of that.
It's like I put so much treasure into it.
But you know what?
I thank God I did because now my heart's not into it
as much as other things that I've invested in now.
Because where my treasure is, that's where my heart's gonna be.
And you know what?
You can defend it all day long.
But when you defend it, it's probably just because
you have a lot of treasure involved in it.
That's why you defend it.
And I remember I listened to a lot of bands.
And you know what?
At the time, I would justify it and think it was okay.
And I remember one band that I listened to was The Doors.
Who's ever heard of The Doors?
Yeah, it's a really famous band.
But you know what?
That's a really bad band.
I mean, that guy is satanic.
Jim Morrison, the lead singer of The Doors.
And I used to listen to The Doors.
I'll admit it.
I had the tapes.
I had all the albums.
And you know what?
There were so many things on there that were back.
And I remember one time, I'd gotten a concert video.
I went down to the video rental store where you can rent videos.
And I had rented a Doors concert on video.
And I brought that video home.
And I put in that video.
And I was watching The Doors sing a song.
And it was one of these songs where it was a really, really long song.
And basically in the concert, it would deviate from the lyrics of the song
and just kind of just go off and just sing all this crazy stuff
and just make it up as he went.
And I mean, the stuff that he was saying, he must have been demon-possessed.
Literally.
It was so bad.
And I remember that was one of the things that kind of woke me up.
Like, I shouldn't be listening to The Doors based on this.
And I remember one of the things that really led me to that.
I remember I was learning and I memorized Proverbs chapter 30.
And I still have Proverbs 30 memorized to this day.
But I memorized Proverbs 30 as a teenager.
It's one of the first chapters that I learned.
And there's a key verse in Proverbs 30 that says,
The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother,
the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.
And I remember memorizing that scripture as a 16, 17-year-old boy.
And you know what? It made me obey my parents.
And I remember thinking, you know what? I need to obey my parents.
I need to respect my parents.
And when you're 16 or 17, obeying and respecting your parents doesn't necessarily come naturally, does it?
At that age.
And I remember memorizing that scripture and saying, you know what?
I'm going to be very sure to obey my parents.
Because the Bible said, The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother,
the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.
So I memorized that scripture while I brought home this video from The Doors concert,
and I'm watching it, and he starts, when he's on his improv,
where he's just singing all kinds of crazy stuff.
First of all, he starts singing stuff against his father and mother.
He starts saying stuff hateful and cursing toward his father and mother.
And by the way, the Bible says, Who so curses father and mother? Let him die to death.
That's a biblical quote from Exodus and also from the book of Matthew.
But anyway, he's cursing his father and mother in the song.
And then he said this, he said, I don't want to die in an automobile.
I want to die in an open field.
And he said, I want the ravens to pick out my eyes.
He sung that lyric.
And probably most people, and you know, he made it rhyme with some other stuff,
and he's just singing along.
Most people probably didn't know what that meant, but you know what?
I instantly heard that, and you know what?
It made me think of that proverb.
Where he said that if you mock your father and despise to obey your mother,
the ravens of the valley are going to pick.
And he said, the ravens of the valley shall pluck it out and the young eagles shall eat it.
And that's exactly what he talked about in that song.
I mean, isn't that just satanic?
I mean, it's bad. And there was other bad stuff in that same video.
And I mean, I saw that and I said, man, you know, I like the music because the flesh is sinful.
The heart's deceitful above all things.
But I said, you know, I've got to get rid of these tapes. I've got to get rid of the doors.
And then I kind of thought, well, I'll just get rid of the ones that are bad.
But you know what? It's all bad. I just got rid of all of it.
Because obviously, that guy's mind is influenced by Satan.
I shouldn't be listening to any of his songs,
if that's the kind of satanic stuff that's coming out of his mouth.
And so, you know, it's hard sometimes when you've invested treasure in the wrong things.
And I'll close with this. Go to Philippians 3.
Go to Philippians 3. And while you're trying to Philippians 3, I'll go to Galatians 1.
Galatians chapter 1.
You know, you can say the same thing. You know, I kind of mentioned, you know, TV.
I mentioned some bad music that I invested in.
But you know, you can say the same thing about what I preached this morning.
You know, I preached this morning about clothing and how our clothing should honor God.
And you know what? Honestly, probably somebody who's invested in a really skimpy
summer wardrobe, that might stop them from obeying that sermon.
Because they might say, you know what? I can't obey that sermon. I spent all this money.
But you know what? I would say to them, it's the same thing that man of God told them as I.
You know what? God can give you more than that. God can bless you or God can curse you.
You ought to just chalk that line. You know, hopefully the tag's still on it.
Otherwise, you need to just chalk it up as a loss and God can give you more.
God can bless you more than that if you'll do what's right in his eyes.
And not let your bad investment tame your heart. But it does tame your heart, that's the problem.
Go to Philippians 3. While you're turning to Philippians 3, I'm going to read for you from Galatians 1.
This is what Paul said.
For you've heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion,
how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God and wasted it,
and profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in my own nation,
be more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.
And so, Paul is saying that before he was saved, he really invested a lot into the Jews' religion.
I mean, he spent a ton of time excelling in property in the Jews' religion.
That's a big investment. He had his heart in it.
I think of, well, look at Philippians 3 and all that's found on it.
Philippians 3 says this.
Verse 4. Though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he ought to,
whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more.
Circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin,
an Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee,
concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteous which is in the law of Lamest.
But watch this. But what things were gain to me, those I counted lost for Christ.
Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but lost, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord,
for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and you count them but dumb that I may win Christ.
He looked at his previous investment and that which was wrong.
And it was hard for him to break off that investment.
But he said, you know what, I just counted this dumb.
And you know, when you look at that investment that you made and what's wrong,
maybe the examples that I gave earlier, you know, sinful things that you paid for or purchased,
you have to look at that and say, you know what, this is a bunch of dumb.
It needs to go in the trash. When it comes to the treasures in heaven,
when it comes to serving Christ and knowing Christ, it's dumb. It's nothing.
Get your investment in the thing that really matters, the kingdom of God.
Treasures in heaven, not treasures on this earth.
I think of Brother Garrett. You know, Brother Garrett memorized a lot of scripture.
And he has many chapters memorized. I think 20, 30 chapters memorized. Something like that in the Bible.
And Brother Garrett, in time past, before he got saved, he was in a wrong denomination, Lutheran.
And he basically memorized a lot of stuff in the NIV. I mean, he memorized...
How many chapters would you say he memorized in the NIV?
He memorized like 30 chapters in the NIV. What do you consider that now? A profitable use of your time?
He counts it down. Because why? Because it's false. It's a tainted, it's a false Bible version.
It's a corruption of God's work. Now, Brother Garrett could have said,
well, I've already learned 30 chapters in the non-inspired version, so I'm just going to stick with it.
I'm just going to stick with the NIV because I've already invested so much into it.
But you know what he's saying? I count it loss. Get out the King James and memorize 30 more of the King James.
And count it loss. And you know what? I've literally run into people.
And look, it seems like clockwork that this is happening.
I'll show somebody that the King James Bible is the Word of God.
And I'll show them all the bad stuff in the NIV or New American Standard.
I'll show them all the missing verses. I'll show them all the false doctrine and heresy.
And literally, it seems like next week somebody will buy them like a $100 false version.
I'm serious. I mean, my wife can testify. She can tell you this happened.
And I mean, they'll get a brand new, nice, false version.
And then it's the choice. What do I do?
You know, they've got all this treasure wrapped up in some fancy leather-bound, you know, fancy schmancy,
gold-lined page, $100 Bible. And you're giving them a $5 gift and award Bible saying,
Hey, this is the Word of God. That is a piece of junk.
But they've got all this treasure wrapped up in the end. I've seen people, some people just,
Oh, but it's so nice. It's so pretty. I'm going to stick with the lies because this looks better.
Because the investment is there. Their heart's there.
So many people that I've run into. And literally, my wife was telling me just yesterday,
she had preached unto this other woman that she knew how bad the NIV was.
And she showed her in the King James. And honestly, she saw it. She agreed.
She's like, Wow, you're right. Wow, this thing has all kinds of problems in it. Man, this is bad.
And then she said, Well, wait a minute. What about all the scriptures that my children have been memorizing in the NIV
for the last 10 years?
And she stuck with the NIV.
Why? Too much invested in the NIV?
Whereas somebody who just, you know, they don't have any skin in the game, they don't have any investment,
you show them it's the King James. Okay.
Okay, great. Let's do King James. You know? Yeah, you're right. That was wrong.
And sometimes people let a bad investment stop them from seeing the truth about whatever the issue.
Some of the sins I mentioned earlier, Bible issues, whatever the issue.
Because they've got so much of this. Or maybe they're just really, you know, really into the Catholic Church.
And they've been singing in the choir there for 20 years. It's like, you know what? You need to get out of that garbage.
And get into the Bible Believing Church.
It doesn't matter whether your grandpa is buried behind the church and your great grandpa.
You need to get a shovel. You need to dig him up and put him behind our church.
I wish we could bury him behind our church, but there's no cemetery back there.
It's probably against zoning laws anyway. But honestly, you can't let an investment in something bad stop you.
Count it but dumb. Count it lost. Move forward.
And start making the right investments. From here on out. Maybe you made a lot of bad investments.
And I'm not talking about your portfolio tonight. Not that anybody in our church probably even has one. Myself included.
But you know what? The only portfolio I have is something that goes in a trapper keeper. You know what I mean?
But anyway, you need to make an investment in the right things.
And if you have heart problems tonight. If your love is not in the right place.
And if you love the world instead of loving God. And if you love everything that's sinful instead of loving church.
It's time for you to start investing more time and energy into your walk with God.
And your work into this church. And your life that has to do with the things above.
That will change your heart. That will change your love.
Because where your treasure is and where your works are.
Where the first works are, that's where the first love is.
And where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Let's pray. Let's have a word of prayer.
Father, please help us to take this sermon to heart. Dear God, just please help us to get our treasure in the right place.
Help us not to seek to have wealth and riches on this earth.
Help us rather to lay up treasures in heaven.
And we thank you for everything you do for us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.