Where Your Treasure Is

Excerpts from the Sermon by Lester Roloff

Father, we thank You for the joyful and spiritual singing here tonight. Help us to be joyful Christians, and may Jesus be our song. We thank You for Your Spirit’s preparation. Grant that every vacuum in every heart may be filled with gospel fruit tonight. Bless this service. Give us assurance. Give us minds that are open to Your truth. Grant that we may be divorced from the world with all of its gadgets and all of its play toys. Help us, Lord, to take a look through time into eternity tonight as this message is brought in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Whatever the Lord says to do, usually man does not do. For instance, Jesus said to lay up treasures in Heaven, where thieves can’t get to them and where moth and rust can’t corrupt them (Matthew 6:19-21). “Put them in the big Bank—put them in the Bank that won’t bust.” And yet, man hasn’t done it!

I begin the message tonight by telling you about a people who were Canaan-bound—a type of the people of God. They had experienced a growth from 70 people to over 3 million, but they had wound up slaves in Egypt. That is where you find most people today—enslaved by tradition, religion, sin, and pleasure.

After 430 years, a deliverer—an ex-convict—showed up. He was a graduate of Burning Bush Seminary who was gripped by the hand of I AM. He marched into the office of Pharaoh and said, “You can let them go now.” No doubt there were armed bodyguards all around. And had it not been for the presence of I AM, Moses never would have walked out of Pharaoh’s office alive!

Moses “refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter” (Hebrews 11:24). He gave up his lucrative future and political ambitions. He gave up his opportunity to become a great world leader to become the leader of three million slaves. Tonight we will examine earthly leadership from Heaven’s point of view and earthly success from where God sits.

And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous. –Exodus 23:8

Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. –Exodus 23:20

What a sweet and blessed promise! The Lord—and I say this reverently before Him because I know He’s surely listening and recording this message—He not only tells me what to do and where to go, but He has sweetly obligated Himself to escort me till I get there. God told Moses, “I’m not taking any chances on you getting there. I’ve got a place in mind for you, and I will be your guide.” Now friends, this is holy ground. When get saved, we are offered safe convoy to the place where the Lord wants to use us! And God doesn’t take chances with His children.

And in verse 22, God says that when we obey His voice, He takes care of the rest. Isn’t that good? The way is rarely comfortable or safe, but God promises to be with us. We will have adversaries, but that isn’t a problem for the Lord. “They’re not just your enemies; they’re Mine too. And I’ll get around to taking care of them one of these days.” And He will. We just need to obey His voice.

Now then, when the children of Israel got into the wilderness, their daily diet was murmuring—they lived in the city of criticism. Their favorite pastime was frowning at God and Moses. “There’s no supermarket out here,” they told Moses. “We are going to starve to death!”

And when the manna came down from Heaven, Moses warned them, “You can’t hoard it. We don’t have a deep freeze to put it in—we have no refrigeration.” But the people, because of a lack of faith, wanted to start a savings department. When Moses came walking by, he said, “Hmm, there’s a strange smell around your quarters.” They said, “Well, we put up a little extra manna and it stinks.” There was a smell in their savings department (Exodus 16:20).

Many folks today are married to their manna, and it’s going to begin to stink one of these days. We have forgotten our Savior’s warning, that “life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:15). Oh, the many lessons that God wants to teach us! The great General Hogg—when his men were pitching their army tents in the evening—he came by and said, “Don’t drive those stakes too deep. We’re pulling out of here in the morning!”

Don’t you get it? The average man is driving all the stakes he’s got right here, and he is

driving them deep. Folks, don’t forget that we’re pulling out of here in the morning! We’re not here to stay. Abraham wasn’t seeking a city here; he was seeking a city to come (Hebrews 11:10).

Back to Exodus 23:8—God’s leaders don’t take bribes, and they even know when to not take an offering. Elisha knew when to refuse a gift. Old Naaman came up to Elisha and said, “I’m ready to pay my bill.” And the Bible says that Elisha refused (II Kings 5:17). But that’s not the end of the story. You see, Elisha’s servant Gehazi had a savings department—oh, the Gehazi’s! I believe he did some rationalizing: “Elisha is a great man, but he’s so foolish. My convictions are just not like his.” So Gehazi decided to start a lay-away program. He put himself in the same kind of compromising situation where old Ananias and Sapphira put themselves (Acts 5).

So later on when Elisha asked where he had been, Gehazi said, “Thy servant went no whither” (II Kings 5:25). “Brother, you are fixing to wither,” thought Elisha. “How long is it going to take you to learn that I’ve got a radar screen? I saw you take off after that carriage and after Naaman, and I saw exactly what you got and where you put it. Now then, your savings department is stinking, and you’re going to get not only what Naaman had in money and clothes—you’re going to get his leprosy!” And Gehazi lived and died a leper. You know why? His savings department went bad on him.

Let me give you yet another man. His name was Joseph. The Bible says that Joseph “refused” the sinful offer of Potiphar’s wife (Genesis 39:8). She grabbed his coat, and he ran with his character. He refused! God has never obligated Himself to use people who don’t have enough character to refuse the lust of this world.

I’ll give you one last man. He was a successful farmer with a tremendous crop. And talk about increase—he looked at his old barns and got out his drawing pencil.

And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? –Luke 12:17

And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. –Luke 12:18-19

Notice that this farmer uses “I” or “my” eleven times! He desperately needed an optometrist to take care of his “I” trouble. He had a plan for everything, but he didn’t remember the widow, or orphan, or anybody but himself. And in two words, God ruined every plan he had: “Thou fool.”

His drawing board fell to the floor. His savings department had begun to smell in the nostrils of a holy God. God told him, “You’ve been drawing barn plans when you should have been drawing up a will, because tonight you’re done for. Your savings department will be separated from you forever tonight.”

So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. –Luke 12:21

Folks, the time is short, and the need is great. Nothing down here is going with us when our race is won. A man that is right with God has his treasure waiting for him in Heaven! Oh, that the Lord would unite each heart tonight. We had better watch our saving department and make sure that it isn’t stinking. We need to have the sweet smell of generosity and sacrifice and character.

Every one of us must know when to refuse an offer. Nothing this world has to offer can compare to Heaven’s riches. Today is the day of salvation, and the time is now. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. –Matthew 6:21