A Hidden Treasure Worth Seeking

Good to see you. About a year, a little more than a year and a half ago, in my reading adventures, I read a novel that I had wanted to read for some time and finally got up the courage to read. It was a book that was quite long. It was about 1,500 pages. The title of the book was The Count of Monte Cristo. I don't know if anyone here has ever read that book. Anyone here ever read The Count of Monte Cristo? Ah, two or three, four. All right, good. How many of you have seen the movie, or movies, of The Count of Monte Cristo? More of us have seen the movie than the book. It's easier to see the movie than to read 1,500 pages, and it's a very good story. It's been made into a movie about three, at least three times. The most recent one, I will say, is not completely accurate to the book. If you want a movie that's more accurate, watch the one that had Richard Chamberlain done play the lead role, which was made back in the 1970s. At least, it's more accurate, and all the movies are condensed into the movie because there are many more characters and stories within the book that could be put onto the silver screen. But let me give you just a synopsis of it.

The book was written in 1844 by Alexander Dumas, and it is set in France during the period of Napoleon Bonaparte at the turn of the 19th century. It is a story of a man, a ship's young, first-time ship's captain named Edmund Dantes, who is wrongly accused of being a Bonapartist and winds up being thrown into a prison. He is accused, falsely, by three of his best friends, and he is about to marry his sweetheart. And one of those friends takes the sweetheart while he languishes for over 13 years in this massive island of prison called the Chateau Dif. And he is there, innocent, but judged guilty because of being framed. And he spends 13-14 years in the Chateau Dif. His hair grows out. He goes almost mad, regains his sanity, but then begins to plot and escape. But while he's doing that, one day, literally up in his cell, somebody pops. It's a neighbor down the cell block, the abbey Ferrer, who himself has been tunneling to try to get out of the Chateau Dif. And they meet. And the abbey Ferrer is very ill, and he's not going to get out. And he realizes that, but he makes the acquaintance of Edmund Dontay's. And he gives him a story, or actually he gives him the knowledge of a hidden treasure. And he says, if you ever get out, you will find this treasure at this location, and it will be a treasure that will make you fabulously wealthy beyond your wildest imaginations. Well, long story short, Edmund Dontay's gets out.

He finds this treasure. It's hidden on an island called Monte Cristo in a cave. And he, through the story, he buys his title. He buys the island. He buys the title of the Count of Monte Cristo. And he then begins to plot an elaborate revenge on the three friends who wound up ruining his life, as he puts it. And that's the story of the Count of Monte Cristo. He eventually plots their downfall and arranges it through an intricate series of stories, and that is what makes the novel during that time. It's completely fiction. However, there's some speculation that Alexander Dumas actually put his frame of the story around an actual event of someone framed innocently and put into prison during that particular period. That can't be proved, but the story of the Count of Monte Cristo is actually fiction. The story is primarily concerned with big themes of hope, of justice, of vengeance, of mercy, forgiveness, and death. And it's told in an adventure story. And those are the themes that make some of the best stories that make movies and books and novels that we've all read and been enthralled by. But the key really to the story of the Count of Monte Cristo is the treasure that he's able to find. This vast treasure that was hidden by, in another age, by somebody else, forgotten. And the Abby Ferrer knew about it and was convinced and knew that it would be there. And he then gave that over to Edmund Dantes. Without that treasure, he could have done none of the exploits that are recounted in the story. So this is what makes the story of the Count of Monte Cristo. Now, it's a story, really, of hidden treasure, as I said, of death, forgiveness, mercy, vengeance. But the story, in a sense, inspires dreams of finding treasure by anyone who wants to become wealthy and rich. And, you know, you read the story and you begin to dream yourself. You begin to think, boy, wouldn't it be great to find a wealth of buried treasure that would make me rich beyond my dreams and give me the ability to do whatever I wanted to do? It's the dream that, quite frankly, we all have to one degree or the other. It's why people buy lottery tickets, right? It's why people are duped by the Bernard Madoffs of this world as well, because they want to strike it rich. They want to find that pot of gold. They want to find that hidden, buried, sunken treasure that has been long forgotten, never found by anyone. But you know what? It's not likely to happen. It's not likely to happen. We're not going to find that pot of gold or that treasure that's buried in a cave. You can buy all the lottery tickets you want, especially when it gets up to like $40 million and the big payoff, as it sometimes does. And you know, somebody's going to win it, but the chances of you and I winning it, or anybody, are astronomical. But I guess people take that chance. You can spend your life searching for something that is a hidden treasure. You may or may not find it. Chances are, most of the stories, most of the treasures, they haven't been found if they're real at all. You can do a whole study on that.

But we have found, and God has given to us, a treasure of a different kind, a treasure that is far beyond the treasure of the counts. And that is a possession that is already in our midst, but it is so vast, it is so great, quite frankly, the treasure that God has given to us could not be exhausted in seven lifetimes if we were to work diligently at it. It's the treasure of His word. It is the treasure of the kingdom of God. It is the treasure that we can read about here in Proverbs, chapter 2. I'd like for you to turn back there. I'm going to read to you a verse that we made the theme of our recently completed camp you can do, our pre-teen day camp that we held down in Indianapolis that was attended by several of our young kids here from Fort Wayne.

This year we chose a verse from the Proverbs, put it on the back of their t-shirts, built our Bible class around it. In fact, this sermon is an elaboration of my 20-minute presentation for the Bible class. So we'll go a little bit more than 20 minutes here this morning for the sermon.

But it's in Proverbs, chapter 2. Let's begin reading in verse 1. It says, My son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands within you so that you incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding, yes, if you cry out for discernment and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. Verses 4 and 5 were what we chose to be the theme for this year's pre-teen camp. If you search for her as silver and search for her as hidden treasures, you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

Now, I'm going to read a few other scriptures to elaborate on this here in the short time I have with you, but I think we all can appreciate and have a rough understanding that this is talking about the knowledge of God's Word, the truth, the kingdom of heaven, as we will read. But I want you to note in verse 4 that what we would eventually obtain, whatever treasure is obtained, has to be sought for if you seek her as for silver and search for her as for a hidden treasure.

Seeking and searching require effort, require work, time, and dedication. Read any story that you want about someone's search for buried treasure, and you will find that they must be dedicated to it. They will spend vast sums of money and their entire lives, in some cases, searching for a lost treasure, a sunken ship with gold doubloons. Seeking for whatever it is that they want to, they feel is there and they want, they will seek and search and spend their wealth for, and their lives. And sometimes they'll find it, and sometimes they won't.

You realize how many years people searched to find the spot where the Titanic went down.

You remember when they announced that they had found the Titanic, the great ocean liner that sunk in 1914 on its maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York. I remember hearing it and thinking, man, this is great because I'd read about it and heard the stories about the Titanic, and had read a book about it several years back, even given a sermon based on it to illustrate a point.

And I remember watching the first pictures when they finally found it, and it was eerie. It was startling. It was amazing. There was no treasure in it. The ship was the treasure itself. The search for it, and to solve that particular puzzle and to see it, that was the search, and that was the treasure once it was found.

And of course, there have been documentaries made about it, and movies and everything else, and they've explored every inch of what is down there. And that's it. But there was no treasure, stories of a treasure, but I don't think there really was anything that could be there. But the point is that it took a great deal of effort, even to find that. And you have to be diligent. You have to be able to stay with something. That's the way treasure is. This is the way the spiritual knowledge of God and of the words of God and the understanding, the wisdom that God has has to be sought, because it is a treasure, and by the very nature of it, as we will see, it is something that is hidden.

You know, the stories of hidden treasure, whether it's the fictional one of the Count of Monte Cristals or the real or imagined ones of our history and of legend, they're hidden. That's what makes them so interesting, whether it's the Lost Dutchman Mine out west, or some ship that sunk in the Atlantic with gold from the new world headed back for Spain. And they're hidden, or they're put away by somebody for safekeeping and forgotten. And people never return for them, in some cases. When we were in Israel this last time a couple years ago, and we went to the site of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls in the late 40s.

You remember the story? The Dead Sea Scrolls were found by accident by a little Bedouin boy who was out actually searching for a lost goat. And he stumbled into a cave, and he found these clay jars that had these scrolls from the Old Testament. And it became a, it was a treasure for archaeologists as well as Bible scholars. And they've been studying that trove of scrolls ever since. You can go there and you can see that Qumran was a community of ascetic Jews who lived out in the desert, about 50-60 miles from Jerusalem down by the Dead Sea.

And for years, you know, they didn't know it existed, but they've excavated their little settlement there, the little community. And the the Torah guy this past time solved a piece of the puzzle for me because you wonder, why did these scrolls wind up in clay jars in a cave just up the hill from where these ascetic Jews lived?

Why up there? And what happened to them? Well, he explained it. He said what happened was in 70 AD after the Romans had sacked Jerusalem, a band of Jewish zealots had escaped to the desert and they were holed up in Masada. You all know the story of the mountain fortress of Masada where the Jews held out against the Romans. Well, the Roman 10th Legion to get from Jerusalem to Masada had to kind of go down the hill, turn right at the Dead Sea, and go south. And they went they took them right by Qumran.

And as the Torah guy was explaining, the Jewish ascetics knew that this, you know, here come the Roman legions. So what do you do? What's your treasure? What do you do? But their treasure were these scrolls. They took them, put them in clay jars, and hiked up on the hillside, buried them in a cave they knew about up there. And then went back down thinking they'd go back and get them later after the Romans passed by. And the Romans weren't in a good mood that day. And they just basically rolled over the Jews there, wiped them out.

The community ceased to exist. Everybody, nobody knew what was up there. Centuries go by, it's forgotten, and the treasure is then found by a Bedouin boy. It's an interesting story. It's the nature of how so much treasure that is hidden becomes a treasure. And then it's found generations, centuries later, in some cases, by people. And they're fascinating stories, whether it's the search for the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant, the treasure on Treasure Island, the pirate treasure. Robert Lewis Stevenson made a whole movie or book around called Treasure Island, Hidden Pirate Treasure. Those are the interesting stories that make for fascinating searches that people will go long into and will always be. As long as there's life on earth, people will be looking and searching for treasure of some sort. That's why you see, at times, when you go to the park or you go to the beach, you see people walking down the beach, going like this. You know what they're doing? They've got a metal detector in their hand, and they're looking on the beach for treasure. Maybe a quarter, maybe an old coin, and it's interesting to watch. I've never been interested enough to buy a metal detector, but if you want to do that, that's fine, and it's fine for others to do that. It's also why people buy lottery tickets. As I said earlier, ever get behind someone who's buying lottery tickets?

It's one of my pet peeves. I don't often go into convenience stores. Bad things happen in convenience stores. So if I do, I'm going in and out real quick, and usually I've got a bottle of water, a package of gum, and I want to get in and get out of a convenience store. What really irritates me is in the convenience store when I get behind somebody who's buying lottery tickets, and I get stuck there beyond what I want to be stuck. I'm back there, and it's somebody in their cutoff shorts, in their flip-flops, tank top, cigarette hanging out of their mouth, and they bought a package of smokes, 24-ounce Pepsi, not a diet Pepsi, and a package of chips. And then they want to buy $20 worth of lottery tickets. And so the clerk has to go through all of this, and I'm sitting there, anger level, working its way up to the top, because it's taking my time while they are spending their very, very little money that they have trying to get rich. And, you know, studies have already shown that the majority of lottery tickets are bought by people who really would be better off if they banked that money. Not with people like Bernie Madoff, but, you know, just a simple banking account. They'll be further ahead than by trying to strike it rich there. But it's part of the story. It's part of human nature, and it's something that you and I should think about and recognize, because the biggest treasure is right before our eyes in the Bible, in the Word of God, the understanding, the wisdom that is here, and the knowledge and the understanding of eternal life. It's right here, but it takes a lifetime to search it out. And as I said, if we had seven lifetimes, we would not seek and search it all out. You and I only have one. And yet, how much time, how valuable is it, how much seeking do we really put into what is in this book to bring out its depth of understanding and wisdom for us? In Matthew chapter 13, Jesus spoke several parables regarding the kingdom of heaven. And there are two here that I used in speaking, teaching this to the kids, but they're instructive for us here. Matthew 13, beginning in verse 44, it says, Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid, and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Well-known parable to us, very short, succinct story of a point.

Then verse 45, it says, Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who when he found one pearl of great price went and sold all that he had and bought it. Fits with the hidden treasure, takes a little bit different approach.

The treasure that's hidden in the field in verse 44 represents the kingdom of heaven.

It says, It's like a treasure hid in the field, which a man found.

So here it was something, kind of like the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was hidden, they were hidden, and the Bedouin found them. So someone had placed this treasure in a field, according to Christ's story, and it was found. So it wasn't readily available, and maybe people didn't even know it was there to even be looking for it. He just stumbled across it, and he found it, and then it says he hid. So it's hidden a second time.

He finds something that is of great value, he recognizes the value of it, and because of, let's say, the laws of the time even, and what would really even apply today, you buy a piece of property, a piece of real estate. In most cases, you own everything that is on it or in it, except in places like Kentucky or West Virginia, where they have coal, or Texas or Louisiana, and there's oil or natural gas under the ground. You may buy 40 acres, but you'd be better read the fine print because you only own what's on top. And if coal is underneath or oil is underneath, chances are in most places somebody's already bought the rights to that coal or oil, big company, and it's not yours. But for most intents and purposes, we go out here, we buy 40 acres, it's ours, and if we find something on it two or three years later, a box of gold, it's ours, or just that gold deposit or something. This person here in this parable nearly found something. He put it back, he hit it again, kept put it back in hiding so that he could then buy the whole field. And it says, for joy he goes and he sells all that he has and buys that field.

So he had a certain level of wealth. He had maybe a house or some other possessions, and he sold that it all that he had, says all that he had, to scrape together the money to go and buy that field. That's the field he wanted because that's where the treasure was. And he recognized that he had to give up what he already treasured to get what was he recognized as a bigger treasure.

Think it through. You have a house, you put your life into it, you find a field or a plot or a location that you want. You've got to have it. Ocean view, lakeside development, or you know that 20 years from now there's going to be an interstate rolling down right through your land. And you can get this at rock bottom prices. You buy it now, but you have to sell everything that you've got to be able to get the money to do that. This is what he did, but you've got to be willing to give up even what is valuable to you. The merchant seeking the beautiful pearls, he was actually looking for something of great value, beautiful pearls. But he found one pearl that was the most beautiful, most valuable, most exquisite that he'd ever seen. This man was an expert merchant at buying gems. And he found the one that he knew that he would search the rest of his life and not find a pearl of any greater value and beauty than this one. So he goes and he sold all that he had to buy that one pearl. What is common with these two parables is the man that bought the field, the merchant, both hold something that they value. But they find something of greater value and they go and sell what they have and are willing to do that to buy that which is of greater value, perhaps a bit greater risk, and requires moving from their comfort level, moving from their neighbors, moving from their family, moving from what they had put their life into, and taking somewhat of a risk to buy something else. And Christ uses both to describe the kingdom of heaven, a spiritual reality, a spiritual concept, but all that that means, the way to eternal life, the knowledge of God, wisdom, and understanding. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure, and we have to be able to sell all that we have to buy that valuable possession. You notice I was going through this with the kids in the camp. I asked the kids if they had a treasure. And I pretty well figured kids have a treasure, and they did. It was interesting to get the view of what their treasure was. For some it was a pet. For some it was a special blanket. For others it was a toy, stuffed dinosaur in one case. For another, it was their family. Was there a special treasure? Often it was something that a parent had given to them, but every kid in the three different age levels that we had, every kid had a treasure. That was something that was very special to them back in their room, in their home. And I don't know if you have any... what are your treasures? When you were a kid, did you have a treasure? Did you have something that you got found that you treasured above all else? You put it in your bedroom, you slept with it, or you put it in the drawer, you put it up there on your on the windowsill, on the dresser, wherever, and you kept it. And it was something that was valuable to you. Something someone had given, something that you had found, and you kept it. Any of you ever have anything like that? That was a treasure for you when you were a child? Do you still have it? What's happened to your treasures? I told... I showed the kids something that was special to me, and I'll show it to you. I pulled the kid, pulled this out, and showed it to kids. Those of you that can look at it here, you can see it.

I mean, you know what this is. It's a cigar box. At least it was a cigar box. Now it's my treasure box. Actually, this was a cigar box that my dad sold all the cigars out of it. That is gas station when I was a kid. It was always a treat whenever I got an empty cigar box, because it had so many different uses beyond what once it had held all the cigars. I still have two of them, and this was one I found when we were cleaning out the house after my mother died. I remembered it. I had forgotten it over the years. I had my name written across it. Lynn McNeely, which is Lynn, is my middle name, and even wrote across here, Money Box. This was my box that at one time held my money in it. So I brought this back, and today it sets in my desk in the bottom drawer. I had pulled a few other things that I had had in some parts of the house back home, and I put them in here. This is my treasure box, full of various artifacts from my life. I'll show you a few if you'd like to see a few of my treasures from my childhood, and a few even from adulthood that are in here. I won't show everything to you, but there are some things in here that are interesting. First of all, I'll pull this out. This is a real treasure. You'll see that this is a gold piece. It is an Indian head, solid gold, and a two and a half dollar Indian head gold piece. I remember this from my childhood. My dad got it in exchange for work one time. Somebody paid him for some mechanic work with a two and a half dollar gold piece. Well, he didn't put this in the cash drawer. This went into his pocket and came home, and I remember seeing it around when I was a kid, and my brother and sister decided that they'd give it to me or let me take it from the house after my mom's death. It was made in 1925. It's got a little bit of wear on it. It's not in perfect shape. The gold is worth more than the actual numismetic value of the coin, but I have some plans for this. I think I'd like to turn that into a piece of jewelry at some point, but obviously it's a treasure. It's a gold piece, but to me, there's even more attached to it because it was something that my dad had, and I remember the story. I'm just seeing it in the house when I was a kid. Here's something else that's gold. Let's say this looks like gold. This is an old watch. You can see that it's an old gold watch, but it's really not gold. It just looks like gold, and if you look at it closer, you'll see that it's tarnished and worn to silver on some of the edges because it's not really gold. Real gold doesn't decay, doesn't tarnish. That's why gold is the highest-valued mineral element. This is a watch my wife gave me when we got married 36 years ago, next month. Now, it long since stopped working, and I've had other watches since then, but she gave it to me as a wedding gift, so I've kept this watch. There are some things you keep. You learn how to keep.

But you know, it's fake gold. This is real gold. Some treasures are more sentimental in value, while some treasures actually have certain value to them. And when it comes to the spiritual treasures of life, it's important to recognize that that's where the real value is. And the things that look like gold look valuable to us in time, break, wear out, or are exposed as not being the real thing. It's a lesson to learn and to understand. Now, I've got other things in here.

I've got a couple of pocket knives. This is a Cub Scout knife that I remember when I bought this, when I was in Cub Scouts. I just had to have this knife. I remember my mom taking me down to the store where it had all the official Cub Scout gear, and I bought this knife. And I had long since, again, stopped using it. It's rusted. Still, I guess it could be cleaned up and sharpened even, but I haven't done it. But it was my Cub Scout knife. I've got another knife in here. This was a less value. This is one of these knives. This is a Toughnut knife. Now, have any of you ever heard of Toughnut jeans when you were kids? Toughnut blue jeans? Did they have those in Indiana? Didn't have those in Kokomo, Gary, when you were growing up? I don't know. They don't make them anymore, but in my hometown, you wore Toughnut jeans. It was a brand of jeans. Bought one a year, usually in September. Get ready to go back to school. At least in my family, you only had one pair of jeans. In September, the local retail store would give you a knife with your Toughnut jeans. Bought a pair of jeans. If you waited until October, you didn't get the knife. So I had to wait. I wanted to buy them in September so I could get a knife. And, you know, it's one of those things that you had to have. And I'd forgotten long about this. I guess my dad had kept it around and used it. I do remember something about one of these. I don't know if it was this knife, this particular Toughnut knife, but I opened it to this point. How many of you ever played Mumblepeg? Mumblepeg with a knife? Mumblepeg was a game that you throw the knife up in the air and depending on how it lands, you score certain points. You know, it's one of these Daredevil-type games. You're sitting around in a circle with kids and you throw a knife up in the air and you hope it lands anywhere but with you. Well, one day when I was a kid, we were playing Mumblepeg. I remember with a Toughnut knife throwing it up in the air and just kind of watching it come right down and land in me.

Landed in my knee. And I looked at it and said, oh, ouch, you know, it hurt. I pulled it out. And I still have a scar from where it was. I don't know if it was this knife that did it, but I do have a vivid memory of sticking myself with a knife playing Mumblepeg one day. I'm glad, you know, some of you are thinking maybe it should have landed someplace else, but it landed in my knee and I've got the scar to this day. Here's another treasure.

This is a pencil. It's an ever-sharp pencil that you put lead into. Still has the original eraser head on the top. This was a pencil that my dad used. Actually used to buy these by the box fold. It says on there, McNeely's Texaco service, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and Lloyd McNeely, and the little Texaco emblem here, the star. You know, you remember, you can trust your car to the man who wears the star. And then my dad's name right there. This was a promotional item. He'd buy them by a box. He'd give them to customers. And we always used one in our gas station when we would be writing out orders. To my knowledge, it's the only one in the whole world that still exists. Now, it has little value, if any, to anybody except for me. And it's in my treasure box because it reminds me of things. That's what treasures are. I've got all kinds of treasures in here. I've got another coin. I've got actually a little trinket that lady who taught me Hebrew in Israel one summer gave all of us this class, gave us remnants of a key chain. Has Hebrew writing on it. It's a prayer to be said when going on a journey or voyage. And it's got the Hebrew symbols on it and Israeli symbols. So this is my treasure box. I got all kinds of stuff in here and some even more recent. I won't go into all of that and bore you with that. But that's my treasure box.

And it resides in my office, in my desk. Sometimes I pull it out. I don't pull it out that often.

But as I was bringing out to you, there are some treasures in there that are actual of value while there are others that are more of sentimental value because of what I associate them with. And that's the way treasures are. And that's how they are valuable to us.

God's kingdom is the most valuable thing we could find. And it's worth whatever we would have to pay.

You see, the parables only tell part of the story because in reality, the sum total of what you and I own is not going to buy that field and the treasure.

You can't buy your way into the kingdom. You can't buy eternal life.

But we have to be willing to give up something that we treasure to find, to buy the treasures, the spiritual treasures of the kingdom of God. And God wants to know if we are willing to sell all we have. For what He knows is the most valuable treasure of all His kingdom. That's really what He wants to know. These parables show us the kingdom, the knowledge of the kingdom, the wisdom of God's way of life, is something that is hidden. It's hidden from the world. It takes search, seeking, hard work to find something when we are actually looking for it. Or when we find it, we have to come to the point where we are willing to give something up and remove ourselves or remove from ourselves what we value in order to get what is the most value. When we acquire what we want, we consider it valuable and we can recognize it. You look at these parables. The man who found the treasure hidden in a field, he knew what he was looking for. Or he actually didn't know. He found it and then he went and sold all he had. The pearl, the merchant seeking beautiful pearls, was actually looking for something of value. And he knew what he found when he found it. And he snapped it up. I don't know if you've ever looked at how people go to garage sales. You know, we put stuff out that we're willing to get rid of and make a few dollars from at a garage sale. That's usually how it works. Sometimes people go to garage sales and they're professional garage sailors. I remember over the years when we've had these massive church-wide garage sales and everybody in the church would donate stuff to it. We'd go down to a parking lot. I remember going over here on Coldwater Road one time when we lived up here and having a garage sale in front of one of the car dealerships. We used to do it down in Tennessee. And one of the things I would notice when you would set up on a Sunday morning for a garage sale like that, a big one, and if you'd advertise it in advance, you might get there early by 6, 30, or 7 and start setting up and you were going to open at 8. But by about 715, 730, people would start pulling into it. And they'd start going through the tables and looking at what you had. And they'd start buying glassware dishes. These were the professionals who knew what they were looking for. And if you only had a $1 price tag on it, they knew and still know that that's probably worth $20, $30, or whatever. And they can get a whole lot more for it. And they're going to be glad to pay our $1 for it. We don't know what it is. And we're selling it thinking we just want to move it out. Somebody's donated it. But professionals go through those all the time looking for things of value. And they can spot it when they get to it and they know the value. It's like that merchant looking for the pearl. They know he knew that he had found something of great value. We have to translate that to the kingdom, to the knowledge of God's truth, and to know we have found something of great value. Turn to Luke chapter 18. Luke chapter 18.

The beginning of verse 18, it says, a certain ruler asked him, saying, good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Christ said, why do you call me good? There's no one good but God. Then he listed the commandments. And the ruler said to him in verse 21, all these things I've kept from my youth. So when Jesus heard these things, he said, well, you lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. And come, follow me. Jesus recognized that there was one thing that he treasured most of all, and that's his possessions. But if he went to sell it and was able and willing to remove himself from it, he would have treasure in heaven. Well, he said that he couldn't do this. He became very sorrowful because he was very rich. And when Jesus saw that he became very sorrowful, he said, how hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God. How hard for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God. Quite a statement. Quite a statement. And then what's interesting, Peter said to him in verse 28, Lord, we've left all, sold all, and followed you.

And Jesus said, true, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who shall not receive many times more in this present life, in this present time, and in the age to come, eternal life.

The willingness to give up what we have, our treasure, and sell it, and count it as less value, is what God is looking for. Now, this doesn't mean that we have to become poverty-stricken. We have to literally give up everything. That's not the point. It is the intent and the heart. Christ knew that this ruler wasn't going to, he didn't have the inner commitment.

If you have the inner commitment, you'll know how to use the wealth, whatever wealth you have, to enhance your spiritual life and that of others, and it will not deter you from the kingdom of God.

God knows our hearts. He reads that better than we do, and He knows when we are holding on and we're holding back. He is looking for the attitude. He is looking for the feeling, the attitude that knows the riches of the kingdom of God, the knowledge of eternal life, the truths of Scripture are the ultimate value, the relationships, the part in the work and in the church, and that knowledge of eternal life is most important. And when God knows that that is our heart and it is tuned to that, that's all He wants. That's all He wants. But He will, He will work with us in our life until we come to the point that that indeed is at the core of our existence and our being in terms of worshiping God first in our life. It's the example that Jesus Himself had demonstrated back in Matthew chapter 4 when He was tempted by Satan.

When Jesus was led into the Spirit by the into the world by the Spirit into the wilderness, and He was tempted by by Satan after fasting for 40 days, He went, Satan put Him through three tests. But let's jump down to the last one here in Matthew chapter 4 and look at what happened in verse 8 where it says, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. All their wealth, all the power of the world. And He said, all these I will give you if you will fall down and worship Me. Satan had that authority and that ability to do so. And it was all put before Him. The treasures beyond wildest imagination. But Jesus said to Him, away with you, Satan, for it is written, you will worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve. The devil then left Him, behold angels came and ministered to Him.

Christ was offered the world, but He knew that He already had the real treasure of the universe at His disposal because He goes from there and He begins to teach the principles of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, 6, and 7. And those are the real treasures if you want to really get down to the individual trinkets and nuggets and gems and jewels of the treasures of the Kingdom of Heaven. In one sense you don't need to go any further than Matthew 5, 6, and 7 and the principles and the teachings and the way of life that are brought out here in the Sermon on the Mount.

That's what He goes to begin to teach. The Constitution, if you will. The treasures of the Kingdom of God. He lays it all out there. Jesus knew, and we should, but we spent a lifetime learning to live by these principles. These are the teachings that create the Kingdom of God in a life, in a family, among a group of people, within a congregation, and would for the community of God were that completely possible today, but it will form the basis of the Kingdom for all eternity. These are the treasures right here. Living by these teachings is the way to create all that the fictional count of Monte Cristo sought with all of his riches. Remember I said that what that story was about was hope, justice, mercy, love, forgiveness. That's what that story is all about. Those are great themes that are universal themes for everyone, for all cultures and all peoples. Living by the principles of the Sermon on the Mount are the way to achieve those. No money, no amount of money can buy that. The principles, if you will, of the Sermon on the Mount are the true treasures of life. Just to use this as a illustration of the treasures that Jesus was not willing to trade all of the glory of the world's kingdoms for at the moment of his supreme temptation. Back in Matthew 13. Matthew 13.

And beginning down in verse 51, after we come down through these parables, Jesus said to them in verse 51, have you understood all these things? And he has spent a number of time going through a lot of different parables. And he asked his disciples, have you understood these things? And they said to him, yes. They understood them to a degree, not fully at this point in their lives. They came to that later on more deeply. Then he said to them, therefore, every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old. To be instructed in the kingdom of God is like one who brings out of his treasure things old and new. What do we take away from this? Number one, your search has ended.

You have found the treasure for the kingdom of heaven.

Number two, recognize the true treasure before you and seek it and search for it and mine it and develop it. Number three, keep selling what you have in the sense that we put off and we walk away from and we put in a better perspective year by year our life, this world, what we have, what we're striving for, as compared with the true riches of the kingdom of God. Keep selling what you have to realize, to understand, and to live by the full wealth that is before us. That's how we recognize and fulfill this parable. That's how we seek and find those true treasures that are hidden, hidden from the world but have been revealed to us. Seek and search. Dig and mine. These are the true treasures before us.

This is worth a lifetime in search to find and to come to a complete understanding of God's kingdom.