Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

⁷ Therefore, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth;” whether you have found by experience how what is laid up in the earth is lost, or whether you have not so experienced it, yet do ye too fear lest ye should do so. Let experience reform him whom words will not reform. One cannot rise up now, one cannot go out, but all together with one voice are crying, “Woe to us, the world is falling.” If it be falling, why do you not remove? If an architect were to tell you, that your house would soon fall, would you not remove before you indulged in your vain lamentations?

The Builder of the world tells you the world will soon fall, and will you not believe it? Hear the voice of Him who foretells it, hear the counsel of Him who gives you warning. The voice of prediction is, “Heaven and earth shall pass away.” The voice of warning is, “Lay not up for yourselves treasure on earth.” If then you believe God in His prediction; if you despise not His warning, let what He says be done. He who has given you such counsel does not deceive you. You shall not lose what you have given away, but shall follow what you have only sent before you.

Therefore my counsel is, “Give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven.” You shall not remain without treasure; but what you have on earth with anxiety, you shall possess in heaven free from care. Transport your goods then. I am giving you counsel for keeping, not for losing. “You shall have,” says He, “treasure in heaven, and come, follow Me,” that I may bring you to your treasure. This is not a wasting, but a saving. Why do men keep silence? Let them hear, and having at last by experience found what to fear, let them do that which will give them no cause of fear, let them transport their goods to heaven.

You put wheat in the low ground; and your friend comes, who knows the nature of the grain and the land, and instructs your unskilfulness, and says to you, “What have you done?” You have put the grain in the flat soil, in the lower land; the soil is moist; it will all rot, and you will lose your labour. You answer, What then must I do? Remove it, he says, into the higher ground. Do you then give ear to a friend who gives you counsel about your grain, and do you despise God who gives you counsel about your heart?

Thou fearest to put your grain in the low earth, and will you lose your heart in the earth? Behold the Lord your God when He gives you counsel touching your heart, says, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Lift up, says He, your heart to heaven, that it rot not in the earth. It is His counsel, who wishes to preserve your heart, not to destroy it.