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“Laying Up Treasures“

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Laying Up Treasures

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

June 3, 1956

The sixth chapter of Matthew, verses 19 to 21. 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.

Now we hear a voice here speaking to us who are His professed followers. There are many sounds, many sounds abroad, not only the sound of the motors of cars but of planes overhead and the squeal of the jet plane leaving its vapor trail through the skies, barking of dogs and the laughter of children, and the noise of traffic and the bellowing of the radio. These are all sounds.

But the alert mind, the alert man and woman whose mind is keen, will be conscious that they are trying to get through to us, that there are many voices trying to get through to us. They want to communicate with us. They want to reach us and control our thinking and change our habits and bend our wills and capture our loyalties and shape our tastes and fix our values.

But there is a fraud behind all this, and your love and charity must not make you blind to the fact that there is a fraud back of it. That after these whose clamorous voices are being heard everywhere in print and on the air, after they have attracted us and used us and exploited us for all the market will bear and gotten rich off of us or gotten elected by us or gotten the offering from us or advanced by means of us, then they have no further use for us.

This week I have been hearing another kind of voice altogether, and I want to talk to you about it a little. I have part of it here in the text. For you see, this clamorous effort to make us listen, these people don’t care what happens to you at last. When you no longer can advance them, you are in a position where you can’t do them any good. When you can’t buy from them, nor support them, nor vote from them, nor sponsor them, then they will leave you and nature and death and the worms. They have no interest in you beyond what they can get out of you.

But here, my brethren, in the text this morning, is the voice of our great unselfish Friend. He doesn’t want to get rich off of us because it’s written that He was rich and for our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich. He doesn’t want to advance by means of us, for who can advance Him who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, and humbled Himself, and was made in the form of a servant and the likeness of man, and being found in fashion as man, He humbled Himself still further and became obedient unto death, even the ignominious death of the cross.

How can you advance anybody that has taken a low place from the world and the heavens’ highest place? And He doesn’t want to sell us anything. The Lord Jesus Christ has nothing for sale, He only wants our love, and He doesn’t need our support. The politician kisses our baby and probably disinfects himself afterwards because he doesn’t love the baby, he loves the vote of the father and the mother.

But our Lord Jesus doesn’t need our support. All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth, and He is the head over all things to the church. And in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was with God, and all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that is made. And He upholdeth all things with the word of His power, and in Him all things consist.

Now you ask how He needs our support. He doesn’t, so let’s imagine for a moment it’s an unhealthy frame of mind to conceive of Jesus standing by the highwayside with His arms stretched up like a begging friar of the Middle Ages, wanting something from you and me. My brethren, you don’t have anything He wants. Only as He might want to separate you from that which is hurting you, He doesn’t want anything you have except your heart. My son, give me thine heart is the only cry that God has ever made to mankind that of anything that He wants.

He wants our love, but that’s all He wants. And so, what He says is all for our good. His was the loss, and ours is the gain. His was the pain, and ours is the peace, and His was the dying, and ours is the life eternal. So, I want you to listen to that voice today, not to mine, because I can be mistaken, I can be prejudiced, and no doubt I am. I can be partial, and no doubt I am, though I strive very earnestly not to be as you do. But we can be mistaken, we can be partial, we can be prejudiced, but here is One who speaks only for our good, and the man who will die for me can talk to me.

The man who wants to exploit me, I’ll resist. The man who wants me to buy his goods, I’ll dismiss. And the man who wants to use me, I’ll dismiss. But the Man who will die for me has my confidence, and that is the Voice I am hearing today, that long Eternal Voice which began before the world was and continues vibrating through all the universe.

And the wise are hearing it, and those whose ears are opened, and those who have been touched by the Holy Spirit, they hear. And that Man has my confidence, and He has my loyalty without asking for it. If He will die for me, He can have my loyalty.

I never was much for demanding loyalty. I never was much for getting up and saying, now you owe it to your denomination to do so-and-so. It’s a pretty low-grade love that has to be demanded, and it’s a pretty low-grade worship that we have to demand.

My brethren, the only loyalty I want is the loyalty I may have without asking for it, and the only loyalty He wants is the loyalty He may have without asking for it. Can you be loyal to a politician? I can’t. I have every reason to believe that he has sold out a part of his manhood to get his present job. Can you be loyal to any one political party? I couldn’t.

I have a predilection and a bent toward one of the major parties, but I couldn’t be loyal to it if it went wrong. I couldn’t even subscribe to that famous or infamous statement, that my country may she always be right, but right her wrong, my country. It is not a proof of great patriotism to say, right her wrong, my country, for to support your country when she’s wrong is to aid and abet her evil. It is the business of a patriot to love his country and try to make her right, so my loyalty is with right, and not with this or that political party, and not even to a flag when the flag goes wrong.

It was the necessity for Martin Niemöller and many others to rise and say, God is my Fuehrer, in the day when they were demanding loyalty. And if our leaders only knew it, they would make patriots out of us by making our country such a country that we could be proud of it and loyal to it without being demanded that we should.

So, I can’t be loyal to people, loyal to a denomination, loyal to the Alliance. There are those who say, if they want to dismiss a man, really want to get rid of him, they say, why, he’s not Alliance, as much as to say he’s never seen the face of God. Well, there are a lot of good people that are not Alliance, and there are a lot of Alliance people that are not good. I’m working with a society, get along all right with it, but it’s a long, long way in my heart from saying, why, whatever the Alliance teaches, that is it.

My brethren, if we teach the Bible, that is it. But if we vary from the Bible, I have no loyalty to error, regardless of where it emanates from. The man who will die for me doesn’t have to ask me for my loyalty, he can have it without asking. The man who will die for me has a right to counsel me. Now, there are counselors abroad. In fact, we’re developing a whole army of counselors. People are going to school now to learn how to be counselors, and they sit and counsel you.

Well, all right, but brethren, the only one who has a right to counsel you now, if you want to buy a camera, well, then you go to a man who knows cameras, and you say, I’d like to have a little word with you. I want to buy a camera, and I’d like to know what’s a good buy today. If you want to paint your house, you have a right to go to a painter and say, would you give me a bid on my house, I’d like to have it painted. If you are sick and you want to go to a doctor, you want to go to a good one and he’ll counsel you on diet and all the rest. That kind of counsel is one thing.

But I’m thinking about moral counsel and spiritual counsel. Counsel that has to do with my moral life, my spiritual life, and my life with my family, and my life with my country, and my life with my people. Nobody has a right to counsel me unless he is ready to give his all for me. And this Man was, this Jesus.

And so here’s what He said. Now, I want you to hear that, Voice. Remember that there’s no reason for you to resist nor brace yourself and say, I won’t hear that because it isn’t coming from me. And it isn’t coming from somebody that wants to sell you anything. The smooth, soft, velvet voice of the man who wants to sell you toothpaste.

No, don’t resist yourself now. Don’t resist this nor brace yourself because this is Jesus, our unselfish friend who was rich and became poor, who was in the form of God and became in the form of a corpse for our sakes and ours only. His was the pain and our is the joy. So, He says, lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth.

Now, what is a treasure? Well, a treasure is this. It’s whatever has your attention when you’re free to give attention to whatever you will. Now, you say my job gets my attention, but it’s not my treasure. Well, you see, it gets your attention because you have to give it to it. But your treasure is that to which you give attention when you’re not forced to.

The mother and her baby, for instance, she’s away on vacation, say, and she doesn’t have to. Her baby’s been left in the hand of a babysitter in good, good hands, and he or she’s safe. But before she sleeps at night and early in the morning and all during the day, her mind goes back to her treasure, her little treasure. It’s that that gets your attention when you’re free to give your attention to what you will. And it is that which gives you pleasure and satisfaction. That’s your treasure. And it is that by which you live. And it is what you think about when you’re alone.

Now, if you will just check on yourself sometime when you’re not being influenced by somebody, a radio on or something, and you’re alone, and for a little time it’s still, and then check on your thoughts. Whatever you’re thinking about is likely to be your treasure, unless you’re scared, and you’re thinking, or fear has hold of you, or jealousy. But if your mind’s running free, then whatever it gravitates to with pleasure, that’s your treasure too. Pleasure and treasure rhyme, and they are together because the one gives the other.

And your treasure is what you fear most to lose. What is it you fear most to lose? That’s your treasure. It’s whatever masters you, and it’s whatever gives you a feeling of confidence and well-being. Now, it may not do all of these things, but it does some of these things, and probably most of these things. So that is your treasure.

It may be money and property, or it may be any source of confidence and assurance. It may be anything that your heart gravitates to. It may be anything that gives you trust and delight. It may not be money only, but it may be whatever is precious to you and whatever you love the most. That is your treasure.

Now, where is your treasure? That’s the next question. Well, Jesus said, where your treasure is, there your heart will be. Find out where your heart is, and you’ll know where your treasure is, for your heart is always with your treasure.

Now, somebody says, but Mr. Tozer, I am a mother, and my treasure is my child. I am a young man, and my treasure is my wife, is my fiancé. I am a young woman, and my treasure is my husband. Well, you’re going to say that I can’t have any pleasure in my baby or in my wife or in my husband or in any nice thing I have. No, I’m not saying it, because, you see, treasures are relative, and there are treasures in degree.

For instance, I have a knife here that I’ve carried for a great many years. It is pure Swedish steel, and it has the Swedish coat of arms on one side. It was given to one of my boys by a Swedish politician, and he gave it to me, and I’ve carried it, chiefly because it’s quite a nice little thing, very beautiful to look at, but also because I need it occasionally, and I carry it.

Now, that’s quite a treasure, and I often show it to people and say, do you ever see one like that? That’s a treasure, but then that’s a long way from what I think about when I’m free to think about anything I will. That doesn’t give me a source of great delight or joy. I’m glad I have it. My son Wendell gave it to me, and I appreciate it, but I could lose it, and I probably wouldn’t weep, and I have no great source of pleasure here, no great confidence. I have some other treasures, too.

I have some books that I treasure. I have relatives and close people that I love and cherish, and you are perfectly free to have that kind of secondary and relative treasures, because God has said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, soul, strength, mind, and thy neighbor as thyself. There is your secondary treasure. God allows that, but he’s talking here about your primary treasure.

Now, what is that which you live for? If a man’s business keeps him from church, then he’s put his business first and his church second. He may treasure his church, but he treasures his business most. If his relatives come to visit him and he skips a prayer meeting to stay home with them, then he may treasure his church, but his relatives are above his church. If a man skips his job and ducks out of responsibility in the house of God to do something that gives him pleasure somewhere, then the house of God is second and the other thing first. Lay not up for yourselves treasures.

If you have few diamonds as I have here in your pocket, they are treasures. But Jesus didn’t mean that, because my mind doesn’t run to those diamonds I have in my pocket. There are secondary treasures, relative, down the scale. They don’t mean anything. But the treasure, the final supreme treasure, what is it? I say that it is whatever gets your major attention, gives you the most pleasure and satisfaction, gives you a sense of well-being and assurance, and draws your mind to it.

And finally, it masters you. That’s your treasure, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. You can know, then, where your treasure is.

Now, it’s vitally important that I know where my treasure is, because where my treasure is, as I’ve said, the heart will be also. Did you ever stop to think that to the man whose treasure is on earth, dying will be a kind of hell, because he will be violently torn away from his treasure. To the actor who loves the footlights and the applause, when he dies, he’s torn violently away from that which he lived for and gave him his highest enjoyment.

To the musician who lives for music and nothing else, the dying musician who dies out of Christ will be and suffer a kind of permanent bereavement, a kind of perpetual misery, because that which he enjoyed the most he is being torn away from. Never to hear a harmony where he’s going, never to hear the sound of singing, for there’s no singing in hell. There was singing when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy, and God laid the foundations in the deep.

But there’s no singing in hell. There’s singing yonder when the Saints come marching home and when the beasts and elders and all the ransomed gather and join their voices in saying, Worthy is the Lamb. But the only picture of hell we have shows it without a song.

There cannot but be melody in heaven because God has made this a musical universe. He has built it upon mathematics and music is built upon mathematics, and out of it flows and comes the music of the spheres.

And so, the harmonious musical God, the composer of the universe, heaven is bound to be a place of music because it’s a place of harmony. And there can be no music in hell because it’s eternal dissonance, it’s eternal disharmony, it’s eternal discord, and there can be no music there. So the musician who has loved and lived for his music, it’ll be bereavement without end when he dies and leaves it.

The man who’s lived for his money will not take it with him, and so at the last moment he’ll die surrounded by evidences of his wealth, but he’ll be ripped away from it, torn from it like a ligament’s torn loose, and he’ll leave it. And so I say perpetual misery and permanent bereavement, if a man’s heart is one place and he’s forced to go another. But to the man whose treasure is in heaven, dying will be a joyous fulfillment, for it will be going where his treasure is. It will be perpetual delight because where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

I have often quoted the old preacher, or the preacher now old, whom I heard testify some years ago, and he said briefly this. He said, there was a day when I had so much on earth that I loved it, but he said, now I have so much over there and so little down here that my biggest stake is over there, and so it’s easy for me to keep my face set that way.

And the man who has his treasures piled up above is going to go where his treasures are. Now please don’t let’s ruin this wondrous golden truth by thinking about stacks of money or a high pile of gold yonder. Who wants gold in heaven when he’s walking around on streets of gold? Who wants strings of pearl when the gates are made of pearls? Who wants jasper when the walls are jasper? Who wants silver pendants when silver and gold and all the diamonds and all the precious stones make up the four square city? Don’t think of that kind of treasure, please, for the treasure we lay up above is another thing altogether.

And so you must see to it, I must see to it, that my treasure is laid up in heaven. Lay up in heaven treasures for yourself. The only place where it won’t be torn away from us or we torn away from it. The man who is going to heaven but has sent his treasure ahead will rejoin his treasures there, and what will they be?

I see the Roses down in the congregation. They’re working up in that hard, hard field. I think they’ve said there’s not been a convert there, but there will be one of these times. The groundwork is being laid, and one of these days they’ll learn how to say Jesus died for sinners in the language of those aborigines. And somebody, somebody will have a flash of light from God, and it’ll be said in the New Book of Acts, the Lord opened her heart, and she’ll believe; that’ll be a treasure.

And that man who lies on the hillside out yonder, never even have been able to take his body down, broken remnant of what was a fine, happy man once. He’s lying out there with his machine on the hillside, but because he lived and flew his plane, there are people in New Guinea that believed in Christ, and there will be those who will. And my brethren, those are treasures, the people that helped.

I don’t like to talk about it, for I certainly don’t want to know my right hand to know what my left hand does, but I’m thinking about a little girl over in Germany. Irene Trattner is her name, and I took her when she was a wee little doll of a thing. Now she’s big enough to stand up and have her picture took to send back to the man in America, that’s keeping her. I never saw little Irene, I don’t know her parents, but I only heard of her, and so every once in a while, I send her the amount that keeps her.

Oh brother, I’ll never meet little Irene. She’s probably four now, and a fine-looking, high-cheeked, bone-slavic type, but a pretty little girl. I’ll never see Irene on this earth, likely. But don’t you suppose that the little it takes, it doesn’t take much. Ten dollars a month, you know that? You can keep a little one somewhere all over the earth, and almost anywhere for eight to ten dollars a month. They can live and have their clothing and grow up, and she even had a rag doll on her arm.

Well, brethren, those are treasures, and those are things you send ahead. Everybody that ever got down on his knees and said, thank God for Sister Smith, thank God for Brother Jones, thank God Father that you ever sent Mr. So-and-so or Miss So-and-so to me. That’s your treasures, brethren. That’s your treasures.

Those with the strange names and funny eyes and strange complexions all over the earth that you’ve helped, and those who are saved because you lived and were a medium through which God could work, those are treasures. Lay up your treasure above, and it may be money, it may be time, it may be your abilities, it may be your power in prayer, it may just be your affection. I don’t know what it may be with you, but whatever it is, see that God gets it. Above all things, see that God is your treasure. Jesus Christ is your treasure.

I read this text years ago in Isaiah 33.6, the fear of the Lord is his treasure. For days, and I think as I recall, weeks, that kept coming back to me as a wonderful illumination. To fear God is your treasure, to fear God. My brethren, the fear of God, the love of God, the worship of God, the desire to help humanity, that’s the treasure we lay up above. And though we may die poor as a church mouse, we’ll take our treasure with us above.

Could I tell you this story? It will take me two minutes, and then we’ll be through for the morning. I’ve told this in a sermon maybe five or ten years ago, but I want to repeat it this morning to close this little word. There lived in a town, a small town somewhere in the United States years ago, maybe a generation or more ago, a very rich man, and he owned the town, as George Jost just about owned not only the town, but everything around it, in the little town where I came from, La Jose, in Pennsylvania.

Well, he owned about everything, and one night he had a dream that he was going to die at midnight. But there was another man in that town, too, and he was known as Brother John, and he lived in a tar paper shack by the railroad track. And he did odd jobs and gave out tracts and talked to people about God and sang as he went along and patted babies on the head and cheered people as they were dying and helped the widow in her distress and then went back to his little shack, slept overnight and spent another day doing the same thing. Everybody knew Brother John and liked him.

But everybody, of course, knew and respected, if they didn’t like, this great tycoon who won’t have the town. But one night this irreligious man in love with his money had a dream. At midnight he said, I’m going to die, and was it so vivid. But the angel had said to him this, the richest man in town will die at midnight. And he said, that’s me.

So, he went down and said to his wife, I’ve had a terrible dream. He couldn’t eat breakfast. It’s a horrible, disconcerting dream. The richest man in this town, it can be nobody but me, to die at midnight, and I’m not ready.

Well, she tried to wave it off and laugh it off, but no laughing at all. And the day went by, and as the sun set, he grew more terrified. He tried his best, nobody could help him apparently, and his wife didn’t know how. And as he grew nearer to the midnight hour, his face was gray and his hands were tense, and he clutched the arms of the chair until his knuckles were white. And it was the angel’s voice had been so real, and he knew, though practical man that he was, this was too real to doubt. The town’s richest man would die at midnight.

And finally, bong, bong, went the old-fashioned clock, and he jumped like a man in the electric chair, but his heart still beat on, and he was still breathing. He looked around and waited a little until it struck itself out and gone on around past twelve. Then he began to breathe for the first time quietly, and said to his wife, I guess I was a fool, I guess I was a fool.

Well, he went back to bed and slept. Oh, how he slept for the first time since that awful night when the rich man was to die at midnight. The next morning the sun was shining brightly on his great big front porch, and he was standing out snapping his suspenders back in the old groove again. The world was his oyster. He owned it all.

Somebody went by and waited and said, good morning. He said, did you hear the news? He said, No. He said, Poor old brother John has left us. The old man said, when did he die? He said, just as the clock struck twelve last night brother John smiled and went away. The old rich man bowed his head and went slowly back into his house.

The angel hadn’t failed him. The richest man in town had died at midnight, but he lived in a tar paper shack beside the railroad. But the man who had the biggest bank account had the heaviest heart. And if he lived on, unsaved, once he was ripped away from all that and went where his reputation didn’t amount to a hill of beans. While he lived in his town, he was the big man. When he went out into eternity, he was one more speck of dust in the universe.

Brethren, hear the voice of the kind, selfless Jesus. Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Amen.

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“Gifts“

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Gifts

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

December 22, 1957

There are three texts which I would ask you to note. The one is the familiar, John 3:16. Suppose that we just repeat it together. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. The next is a less familiar, Matthew 20:28. As many as know it, repeat it with me. Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many. Then, Acts 20:35: We ought to remember the words of the Lord Jesus when He said, it is more blessed to give than to receive.

Now in these three texts, there of course, is hidden or lying, a world of diversified truths. But there are four truths which I would ask you to note. One is that the Father, out of His love gave His Son. And the second is that the Son in humility gave His life. And the third, that the Father and the Son, in their kindness, gave, but gave to supply an existing need. They gave not promiscuously, carelessly, lightly, but the Father gave His Son in order that men might not perish. The Son gave His life in order that we might be ransomed. And the fourth thing is, that it is more blessed to give than it is to receive.

Now, from our Lord Jesus Christ we have received much. The older I get and the more I know the Lord and the more I appreciate what He is doing and has done and is promising to do, the more I see that words won’t express what we’re trying to say. God has to add something to words or else they fall down. Can you imagine this statement? From our Lord we have received much, much, unmodified and yet, what could you say? How can I express what we have received from Him? But I want to think this morning about what we can offer Him and show you from the New Testament, specially gathered round the birth scene, what they gave Him and then ask, what can we give Him?

Well, we’ll begin where the New Testament begins with those wise men. We don’t know how many they were, probably three. Traditions says that they were representatives of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. That sounds too neat to be true, although, it could be true. But they came from afar; they were the Magi. Milton called them the star-led wizards and said they came with odor sweet. But they brought to Him three things symbolic of about all that anybody can bring Him. They brought Him gold; obviously, they had gold to bring.

They were of the upper class. They were learned and they may even have been kings. We sing, We Three Kings of Orient Are and we’re speaking for these three men. That’s tradition, but it could also be true. They brought Him gold, and gold of course stood for a lasting treasure. There is one thing about gold and that is this, you can’t destroy it. I do not think or do not believe that there’s any way known that gold can be destroyed. You can burn it. You can melt it down. You can mix it with other metals, but the gold always remains the gold because it is one of the basic elements in nature. And this is a lasting treasure, this gold and they brought it to Jesus.

Then they also brought frankincense, and this frankincense stood for worship. It always has in Old Testament times, and where it is used in the New, it stands for worship. It stands for the sweet fragrance of prayer that goes up from the heart that is offering something, however little, to the Lord Jesus Christ. But then also, they must have had some kind of Biblical teaching. They must have gotten some light other than we believe the heathen then had because they brought also myrrh. And myrrh was an ingredient of the Old Testament sacrifices. When they came with their incense, part of it was myrrh. And myrrh always stood for the bitter element. It stood for the suffering. And thus, they brought the gold, the lasting treasure and the frankincense of worship with a little remembrance that they were in a world of darkness and sin, and that there must be myrrh there also.

Then there was Mary. Now what can I say about the one they call the blessed Virgin Mary? Too much is said by some people and not enough is said by others, and I would try to be in the middle, where I could say enough without saying too much. But it would take ten sermons, a series of at least ten to say what ought to be said about Mary and to unsay what has been said too much about her, that Mary didn’t have any gold. And I think she also didn’t have any frankincense.

Mary came from the plain people. And we know little about her except we know her lineage and that it went back to David by way of Nathan not through Solomon, but by way of Nathan. If she had been a descendant of Solomon, she could not have been the mother of our Lord, because God said to a descendant of Solomon who was a king, Coniah, cursed be this man, He said. Not one of his descendants shall ever sit upon the throne of David. And yet the lineage that we trace right on back through to David and on back to Abraham goes through the line of Solomon, but not Mary. Mary goes through Nathan, another son of David, so that the curse does not apply to Mary. And Christ could be king, because the curse did not prohibit it. If she had been a descendant, I repeat, of any of Coniah who was a descendant of Solomon, she could not have been the mother of the King.

Well, she had no gold, and she had no frankincense. So, she gave Him all that she had or could give that He wanted. She gave her mortal body to be the cradle where in the mystery of gestation, Jesus Christ was made flesh to dwelt among us. All this is so holy and so chastely wonderful, that I think it had not never to be made the subject of theological controversy. I would never raise my voice to debate with any man about the virgin birth of Jesus.

This, if it’s true, and my heart knows it’s true, this is as richly beautiful as the stones of fire over which once the seraph stretched his golden wings. This is too beautiful to be debated before the public. Mary knew not the man. Mary was the virgin mother and Jesus Christ was born of the Father who is God and of the mother who is Mary, that He might be to us God and man. That He might be human and divine joined in one, indivisible, an everlastingly permanent and fixed union, Christ, was born into the world in time. And Christ, never born, never created, but begotten of the Father before all ages, joined forever in one Man. This is our Christ. And Mary, Mary gave him all she had. She gave Him her mortal body.

Then Mary was married and had this Joseph as her husband. Now Joseph had no gold. He was a carpenter, and he was a peasant, we would say, he belonged to the working class. In that time, they did not drive big automobiles and have country homes as they do now. But he belonged to this simple people. And he had no gold and no frankincense, which was very expensive. But you know, Joseph gave something. It took a man like Joseph to give. Joseph gave faith.

And he gave faith where it was needed. When he was talking to his espoused wife, she had to admit her condition. And Joseph got up quietly and walked away, hoping that he could somehow release himself from her, and yet save her from disgrace. And then an angel spoke to him in a dream and said, don’t be afraid to take to yourself the woman Mary, for that which is begotten is of the Holy Ghost. And Joseph believed it. And Joseph went right back and said, I’m sorry, Mary, I’m sorry, God has revealed the truth.

And so, Joseph gave faith at a time when faith wasn’t a very proper thing and when there was no precedent for it. There was nobody else whom had ever had this situation happened to them. He couldn’t open the Book and say, well, saint so and so had a situation like this, or the apostle had it or some reformer or evangelist had a situation like this, some missionary. Nobody ever had had a situation like this. Joseph had to have faith in God and in his betrothed wife when nobody else in the world would have believed that story. And he did. And he is today called by the world St. Joseph.

So, he had faith in understanding, and he gave them, and he gave them. I said on the radio yesterday that I think he was not a brilliant man, but he had a certain, salty understanding and he did give that, and he gave protection. Now think of it my friends. Joseph gave protection, for remember, that the Son of the world once lay in the manger. Not in the stable as they say, but in a manger, which is something altogether different. The sweet, fragrant hay was in that manger? The cattle were not tramping there. They were eating out of that. It was up at head level, and it was clean and smelled pure and sweet. I’ve put hay into mangers, and I know how beautifully fragrant it smells.

And that Jesus was laid in that manger. And there lay all the hope of the world in that manger. Can you imagine it? Man doesn’t put all his hopes in one tiny, tiny place like that. We protect ourselves. We have our SAC, Strategic Air Command all over the world. Did I read that we had 65? Is that the right number. Is that an understatement? We have at least that many great bases from which we can go if they destroy one to 10, 20, 30, we still have more. And rich men put their money not in one bank or not in one place, but they distributed it around. They buy stock here and stock there and stock at the other place, so if the bottom drops out in one place, they’ll still have plenty.

But God put all in one manger. And when He lay there, He, a tiny baby, you could have taken your thumb and pressed real hard on the top of His head and He would have been gone. You could have neglected him for a day or two, and the infection would have come, and He would have been gone. He needed protection. And Joseph gave it. Of course, Mary gave the loving, motherly care, but Joseph gave the protection. He was a rough carpenter, and his hands were rough. But he would look in with a smile and fatherly protection. And he gave patience, and he gave care, and he gave all this and he gave hard work.

We’ll have Joseph to thank for this, my friends, give him the world to come. We can hunt people out and say, I want to thank you. If we can, we’ll have Joseph to hunt up before we’ve done our duty and done what our hearts require. And we’ll say Joseph, thank you for taking care of Mary, and thank you for believing in her when nobody else would have accepted her story. Thank you for the patience and protection and care you gave to her and gave to the little boy. Thank you, Joseph. We’ll say that. Joseph gave that.

Then there were the shepherds. Now the shepherds couldn’t give what the others had given. They couldn’t give gold or frankincense or myrrh. They weren’t in a position where they could give care nor protection. And only one was in a position where she could give her mortal body.

But the shepherds were the first to come in fear and wonder and praise. They were the first ones to come. Scripture says that they came in fear, but it wasn’t the fear that men felt when the satellite was thrown into its orbit; it wasn’t the fear of impending destruction. It wasn’t the fear that the superstitious people feel for black cats on Friday. It was the godly fear, the fear that heals your heart. It was a wholesome, healing, reverential fear, and wonder. And these shepherds when they came, set the mood for all that will come and see, all the world, all the years. They came in wonder.

And the Christ at whose feet I could not kneel, and wonder is a Christ I would not worship; I could not worship Him. I might pay some dutiful tribute to Him, in keeping with the way the church does, but I could not worship if I could not wonder.

But the shepherds wondered. They said, this is beyond us. We’ve been out under these stars until we’ve counted every visible star. We know the constellations. We know all of these various forms that are etched against the blue green sky of the night sky. We know all that. And we’ve heard all the strange stories and tales that are told; we know it. The long, long night watches as we kept our sheep and talked together. We’ve heard many wonders, many strange things, but nothing like this we have ever heard before. We’ve never heard angels. We’ve never heard a multitude of the heavenly host saying, glory to God in the highest. They wondered and they brought Jesus what is more precious to Him than any talent you might bring.

The man can sing, or a woman, we say, oh, she ought to give her voice, he ought to give his voice to the Lord. If the man has ability to stand up and talk, we say oh, that man ought to give his oratorical ability to the Lord. The man is making great money, we pray, convert Mr. So and so. He has $2 million. Think of what he could do for missions. Let me say to you, that more precious to God than all the money in the world, more precious than all our gifts and talents and abilities is wonder. Bring wonder to Him. And in your wonder, you come to Him and say, O my God, my Lord, my Lord, I know not. I only know, here I am Lord and there Thou art. O Lord, receive me. He’ll receive it with greater joy than if you could bring $1 million and lay it at his feet.

Well, then there was Lazarus later on and his sisters Mary and Martha. They gave Him something too. They gave him this; they gave Him a welcome. There were a lot of places Jesus wasn’t welcome in those days because they were afraid of Him. Lots of Pharisees would never have taken Him into their homes. They said, well, this man’s a fanatic, and we can’t take Him in. We’ve got to keep our doctrine clean and clear. And we don’t dare compromise the synagogue. They wouldn’t have taken Him in.

But Jesus had a welcome at the home of Lazarus and his two sisters, and He had what they now say, a home away from home. And wherever Jesus was, and he got around anywhere near to Bethany, why, He always knew the latch string was out. He didn’t have to write ahead and say, I will be coming, would there be a place for Me? They saw to it that that one place never was taken by anybody else. That was His place. They didn’t quite know why. And you know, sometimes I think that some of our religious acts that are performed for reasons that we can’t quite fathom are more valid and more precious than the ones we can figure out.

When I studied the life of Jesus, the Savior, and the people that were all around Him, I saw them doing things and heard them saying things that they didn’t quite know what they were saying or doing. But they did it out of a not to clearly defined impulse of the heart. And God made human hearts, my brethren. And He loves the human heart more than He loves the human intellect, though the human intellect, when it becomes fused with the human heart, and we think with our heart, as the old Greek fathers used to say. When we think with our heart, then the human intellect can rise to be that of a Luther or an Augustine.

But when the intellect is separated from the heart, God hasn’t much good to say about it. But He lives for our hearts. Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and He didn’t say what door, but the whole church has believed that it’s the door of the heart. So, the home away from home was the heart of Lazarus and his sisters and the home there. They entered Him into their hearts; they gave him their hearts. And this is more desirable than anything else.

And then there were the women, and we don’t quite know who they were either, these women. They gave one thing to Jesus; they gave him a robe. And it was an unusual robe, in that robes have seams, even the garment you’re wearing now and that I’m wearing, you could take it apart at this at the seams and lay it out again, as it once was cut to a pattern. But this seamless robe had no pattern. And they must have, these women, looked at Jesus with a very critical and appraising eye. And they must have met and whispered and put their heads together and said, now, he’s about, I think, five foot 10, wouldn’t you say, 10, maybe 11? And what would you say, He takes middle size or larger, we just went with you. They figured it all out. And then when they had gotten him down so that they had His size and they knew that he would be able to wear it, why, they wove Him a seamless robe, a robe without seam. And they gave that to Jesus.

And that seamless robe was considered to be of such value that the soldiers cast dice to see who would get it when they nailed Him on the cross. And don’t forget, that just as when Jesus came into the world, Mary and Joseph had a layette ready for Him. Don’t forget that when He went out of the world, the women had a seamless robe that they took from Him when He died. He had his friends.

And we’ll have to hunt up Joseph to and Mary and those shepherds, and there’ll be identified no doubt. And we’ll find Lazarus because Lazarus had an experience nobody else had to have much, not many at least. He had died and been raised from the dead and had eaten with Jesus after his resurrection and had died again and he’s still sleeping, waiting for another resurrection. And of course, everybody will gather around Lazarus and say, tell us about that Lazarus. I only got raised once and you got raised twice. And Lazarus will say, don’t feel bad about that because my first resurrection that I got was only temporary. And this last one that I got along with you, it’s permanent–immortality. But he didn’t get immortality when Lazarus came forth, but he got raised from the dead simply for a time.

And these women, if we ever find who they are, I don’t know whether we’ll ever know who they are or not. A great preacher one time preached a sermon on the unknown saints, who they were, I think it was T. Dewitt Talmage, the great Brooklyn orator of a past generation. He said that Paul was let down in a basket with a rope fastened to the basket and was let down over the wall. And he said, now who made that basket? And he said, If the fellow that made that basket had been a shoddy workman, the apostle might easily have been killed. And he said, who made that rope? Nobody knows who made that rope. But whoever made that rope made a good rope. And if he had been careless and left a weak place in it, the apostle weight might easily have broken that and dashed him on to the rocks below and killed him. But somebody had done good work.

And again, I say, though this I suppose is Thanksgiving material, really, but I don’t know why we should wait till November to be thankful. I think we just owe so much to everybody. And I think we owe a lot to these women.

And then there was that other Joseph Arimathea. And I might also add, before I leave those women, that the church owes an awful lot to the women today. There are some people who don’t like the idea of women having any part in religion. A man they believe there, can save their souls, you know. They think they’re at least above the animals. You can save their soul, believe in Christ and be saved and then keep their mouths shut. And one time a man came to this church and a woman testified and he stalked out and said, they’re blaspheming God in this church, letting a woman talk.

Well, I was reading the gospels the other day. And I heard of some women that went to the tomb and saw that Jesus wasn’t there. And the angel said to the women, He’s not here, He’s risen. And they raced away to tell everybody. Did you know that the first persons who told of the resurrection of Christ were women? Did you know it? We owe the women a lot. I think it’s entirely possible to get all sentimental and dewy-eyed about this. But I also so think that it’s possible to get wrong about it.

I’m not dewy-eyed about the women. I know that usually, they give their husband’s money and spend it. I realize that. But we owe the women an awful lot, an awful lot. We ought to thank God for the women, the Christian women, the simple women, the plain women, the women who serve God, and who manage somehow out of their household budget to lay enough aside, they can make a missionary pledge. And they can give where needs are, as well as to say nothing about persuading the old gentleman, that he can afford to give that extra $100 this year to the Lord’s work. Well, that’s assuming that the old gentleman isn’t very zealous. I know that some of you men are equally zealous with your wives. But I thought I wanted to say that about the women because it’s true and this is the opportunity.

And then there was Joseph, that other Joseph, Joseph of Arimathea.  I don’t know much to say about Joseph, only that he went and claimed the body of Jesus. That body wasn’t dirty to him. There was nothing repulsive about that to him. That was a dead body and it was the body of an executed criminal. Don’t forget it, we might as well face up to it and call it by its right name. This was the body of a man who had been executed by the Roman state.

Once I went through Sing Sing prison, and I sat in the chair in Sing Sing, and had a young man strap me in the way they strap in the criminals. He didn’t put the electrical thing on my head, but it was there. And I sat there in the chair. And I said to him, a handsome young, blonde, good looking blue eyed fellow. And I said to him, are you one of the, are you, and I couldn’t get it out. And he said, yes, I’m one of these legalized killers. Well, I said, what do you do? What’s your job? He said, my job is to wheel them away and put them in the ice box. He said, this is the ice box out here, and we went out and saw a whole list of places where they were put, just big enough for a human body. They were put in there and kept on ice until they were either claimed by their relatives or buried in a potter’s field.

And don’t forget that that’s exactly what Joseph of Arimathea did. Jesus had died as men die in Sing Sing. They die because they’ve committed crimes against the world. He died, because we had committed crimes against the world and against God, and He had never committed any. He became sin for us, but the world didn’t know that. And Peter said, if the world had known it they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of Glory. They thought they were lugging out a criminal. They thought when they took Him down, one more criminal is dead. They put thousands of them to death over the years. But Joseph didn’t feel that way. He knew. He knew. He knew that sacred body, that sacred body was not going to decay. He knew Mother Earth could never claim it.

So, Joseph said, would you mind if I claimed it? They said, you’re not next of kin. Well, he said, would you just miss a point there and jump a point and let me have Him anyhow. They said, oh, sure, take him. You’re saving us burying him. So, Joseph took His body reverently away, and laid it in his own, new grave that he himself had had just as people now buy cemetery lots. Joseph had bought himself a place where he might be buried. Well, I don’t know too much about Joseph. But I wonder where they buried him, finally? In that same grave where Jesus had lain? I’d hate to think that. And I don’t suppose that our Christian sentiment would allow us to think that. But anyway, Joseph gave what he had. It was rather grim. But it was what Jesus needed just at that time.

Well, that’s what they gave Him. That’s what they gave Him. And we ransomed sinners, should we let anybody else outdo us in giving? Is there anything anybody gave that we shouldn’t try to give if we can. If we have gold, we can give it. If we have not frankincense, we can give worship. And we can as Mary, give our mortal bodies unto the Lord. And we can as Joseph, give patient, tender care and faith and understanding to His church, if not to the Savior, then to the ones the Savior came to save.

We can with the shepherds stand in fear and wonder and awe and sing praises on the plains at night to the Lord. We can with Lazarus and the sisters, give a welcome to the people of God and particularly, open our hearts. We can with the women provide Him with what He needs. I can’t give a garment to Jesus, but I can give a garment to some poor orphans somewhere. And Joseph of Arimathea, ah, there is one, there is one gift we can’t match. There’s a gift nobody else ever matched. There’s a gift He doesn’t need anymore. Nobody can give Jesus a grave, for death hath no more dominion over Him.

So we won’t offer him a grave, but we’ll just offer Him the equivalent of it, whatever it might be, we ransom sinners. I say, we should let nobody outdo us in our giving. And yet, when we’ve gone over our poor treasures, when we’ve counted them and weighed them and placed what value we can upon them, what can we give Him? What can we give Him who owns every star? What can we give Him who owns the pearls of all the oceans and the diamonds of all the mines? What can we give Him who holds all the treasures of a vast universe in His right hand? What can we give Him?

Well, we can’t give Him anything really, but we can do what they did. Could the wise men give Him anything, this baby? No, He owned the wise man and all their gold and frankincense, but he lay still and quiet and didn’t let on. Could Joseph give him anything? No. Joseph really couldn’t because He created the very stuff out of which Joseph’s body was made. He was the Word and by him all all things were made, and nothing was made except by Him. Could the shepherds bring Him anything or Lazarus or the women or Joseph of Arimathea? Really, no, because He owned it already.

It’s like a three-year-old boy giving his father a present which he first had to, he bought by first getting the money from his father. So actually, there isn’t much that we can give Him. And yet we can only satisfy our hearts by giving Him all. So, we bring Him our little human toys such as they may be. We think they’re so weighty and so valuable, but actually, they’re not much and we got them from Him, or we wouldn’t have had them. And then when we do come and bring Him everything, we go away laden with His gifts for He won’t be outdone. Bring Him what you will, and He’ll send a bigger, bigger basket away with you.

Come with this great a treasure as you have, and you will take a greater treasure away. Come with your heart and you go away with forgiveness. Come with your faith and you go away with eternal life. Come with your trembling fears and you go away with reinstatement in God’s grace. Come with your timidity and you go away with assurance and safety. Come with your dying and your sickness and your weariness and you go away with peace in death and immortality and heaven at last.

Say, wrote the Poet, say, shall we yield him, in costly devotion, Odors of Edom and offerings divine? Gems from the mountain and pearls from the ocean, myrrh from the forest or gold from the mine?  No, vainly we offer earth’s richest oblation, vainly with gold would his favor secure, Richer by far is the heart’s adoration, Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor. And this, we can give Him.