I'd like to read a few verses in the sixth chapter of Matthew's Gospel. Matthew six and verse nineteen. Lay not up for yourselves precious upon earth. where moth and rusteth corrupt, and that thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rusteth corrupt, and that thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, where will your heart be also. Before we say anything on the subject, or get into the message, I'd like to say that great many people he had asked me how our oldest son was getting along, alias, who some weeks ago was a deaf boy. There was a very vital and serious cancer operation. And I'd just like to express my appreciation of your thought of us and him at that time and of your prayer. You know, we're almost glad that This affliction came because in a marvelous way it showed us the sympathy and interest of the Lord's people. Simply hundreds of people rose and perhaps thousands prayed for him. Numbers of a son, he told us. They prayed for him. Week after week. And we are so thankful for all this. So if God suffered to spare him to us, he might have taken him, if he was a mature... We've been submissive to his will, but I know it would have been a very hard thing for us to take. So we're thankful. We believe God heard the prayers of his people. We're thankful because the Lord is greatly using him in his service, that he's restored to the service of God. My wife and I were talking a couple of weeks ago, and he just throws our hearts to to think if we're able to say to each other, we've checked carefully over the fast and need to see my eye where I'm aware that we've had five minutes concerned about him from the day of his birth. It doesn't often happen that way, and he says with humble thankfulness, always, all in his life, he's been remarkably submissive and obedient and kind and considerate and especially since his conversion when he was nine years old. His life has been completely devoted to the Lord. We are thankful for it. We assure the Lord heard your prayers and ours. I'd like to say this in public for what counts out each individual. Yes, we thank you. Now for our message. Those of you who were here early this week will know that the first morning of the series we spoke on Philippians chapter three, on three perils of the Christian life. And I just thought at the close I'd like to speak on another thread with it. In the verse of Bivari, you need a free feast. And perhaps you could carry this thread on with you as you leave the concept that there's in a world where there's a lot of wagons and feasts and highwaymen around. There are three of them in this verse. Moss and lust and feast. And the whole three of them, of course, as you vary around there, and as you shall see as he consider it, steal. They mean for rather, who the thieves are, that's indefinitely safe. That means that there isn't only two-legged thieves. There are probably inanimate thieves, and animate thieves, and two-legged thieves, and four-legged thieves, and all kinds of other thieves. We're in the world that simply joined the thieves. One of them that we often hear mentioned is this, a man down south who has been reading the dictionary too much, I guess, and when he was on the bus he told the conductor, he said, will you please procrastinate me at the next corner? He's read in the dictionary, procrastinate needs to put out. One, of course, thief that you often hear mentioned is procrastination. The familiar proverb is that procrastination is the thief that's come. And that's one thief that's around us all the time. Now, it isn't so bad that it's bad enough to have, to be around with you at times. But the sad thing is that procrastination can be the thief of eternity. You know, you can put off the salvation of your soul so that you wind up in hell. in an eternal health and realize how fearful a thief procrastination is. You can be quite sure that an eternal salvation, every soul that ever gets us, will wish a burden times over. They turn to Christ when they have the opportunity. But they turn it off because it was too late. You're not going to face the gospel tonight, but I'd like you to think of this. If you have never come to Christ, beware of putting it off. You can put it off till it is too late. But millions of people have died. That's one of the thieves to be afraid of. And there are many more. Of course, all around us don't have necessarily to be two-legged thieves. Because there are two-legged thieves too. But you can love yourself of eternal blessing. And the Lord Jesus says that, Lay love for yourselves pleasures in heaven. So if you lay them up down here, they have to be stolen from you. You have to waste them. You have to lose them. The Proverbs says, riches take to themselves wings and fly away. And you don't have them in the final analysis. And then, of course, why the actual thieves that they came to steal. I remember a number of years ago, we lived in Grand Rapids. My wife jammed me in the lips one night and woke me up with a start. And she said, are they? I believe there were burglars in the house. And they said, give. They said, they hope to find something that's shared. Because I can't find anything in this place. See, if you don't have any money, you don't have to be afraid of thieves. Or if you just bring you something. And when you lay up money here, you always have to be afraid of thieves. The Lord Jesus says, spend your money. You like to think for a moment about that. Spend what you have. You know, between the three things mentioned in this verse, you have the three features of life. The mouth takes away what you are, or it takes your garment, and the garment of others, a picture of the life we live. So there is a piece of branches of life of what we are. And then, of course, rush affects the tools and the weapons we use with which we do things. So rush robs us of what we do and thieves rob us of what we have. And therefore, make up life that you are, what you do and what you have makes up life. And the Christian eat to be beware of everybody else, of course, that we're speaking to Christians tonight, of their free faith. You know, you and I have the great privilege, as the Lord Jesus says there, here, and it sounds rather selfish, but that's the way he puts it. Lay that for yourself. He says that when you send your money to heaven, you're going to harvest that. Lay that for yourself, treasure in heaven. And he told the young man in the Gospel of Mark, he said, Go and sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven. and come and follow me. You don't use it so much anymore now that when I was a young fellow, our common strong phrase was, in the United States, let George do it. Many times Jews on the occasion, and many Christians are content to let George do it, especially in the financial realm. Look at the dollar bill in your pocket. It's got George on it. And Washington. and many people at the dollar do their work for them. Now money is very important, and it's nice to let George do it, to put the dollar in the place. But I'd like to ask you, do you still put in the dollar? I know Christians that put in a dollar thirty years ago and still put in a dollar than an offering is taken. Now a dollar for them is only thirty cents compared to thirty years ago. If you put in a dollar there, you've got to put in three dollars now. And for myself I felt as the little child of George doing it all the time. Now I'm not finding faith for myself, but praise God I don't need any money. For all I want, as I don't give another day, don't you? But I'm concerned about the people of God laying up treasure in heaven. Take a five dollar bill, are you talking? You'll see Abe on it. Abe lengthens it. Let Abe do it for a while. Instead of joy. And as you preach a brother, there's under ten dollar bread, you'll see Alec Hamilton on it. Let Alec do it for a while. And if you want to spread to the Ohio, take our oath from you. It's got Andrew Jackson on it. Let Andy do it for a while. You know if it's got three names, you can easily remember them. There are three C's in this text, there are three A's in the money. A's, Alec and Andy, instead of joy. Remember the three P's when you leave and remember the three A's. Don't let George do it all, the dollar there, but give letters a chance for us to know why. You'll never regret it. But however you give to the service of love, you'll thank God for us throughout eternity. You'll be laying out treasure for yourself. Not money, of course. We don't need money up there. But you'll lay out treasure for literally reward you for the service of Christ's gift. I know I've told the story before, but it doesn't matter what people mean. You can't always tell new stories. And the story I've heard Mr. Reed from the Pacific Coast tell a long time. He was a Scotchman himself, so he could tell us, you know, easily. He said that the Scotchman came from work in England and Scotland with his wages in his pocket. He got it in two gold pieces, two guinea pieces. He had as a dystopian or about three or four handkerchiefs on top of it to keep it safe. And that night when he went to the missionary meetings, the missionary spoke so gloomily about the work in the foreign field that this Scotchman finally with a trembling heart led the rest of those two gold pieces and put one of them in the plate. Half of his weak wages. And after he did his conscious smote him and he said, now I know what my life can become. She's not a Christian. She really let me have one. And so she did. His anticipation wasn't half as real and hence the realization. She would have gave her peace of her mind, and that only one or four months afterwards, again and again, when some trouble goes, she'd say again, why are fools to give half this week's wages? You can't afford it. But about a year later, it happened that this man's uncle died in New Zealand and left him a legacy of a hundred pounds, one hundred pounds as much as he put in the plate. And he took to check and he waved and he said to his wife, you see, God says, if you give to him, you get to a hundredfold death. And you know how that cantankerous old woman said to him? She says, yes, but you didn't believe that when you put it in the plate, or you put it over. And yet that's what God will teach you. When you allow thieves to rob, you have your money by keeping them here. You're losing it forever. Doesn't mean you have to give all your money to the Lord. I know you have to live. But it means that the Lord must have the first place in your life, not the life. You know, I have been the Lord's wife now for forty-five years straight. And one of my experiences has been in life that a great deal of a certain amount left for the reason of financial means. And I don't think it's getting any better. You and I need to be concerned about it and not let thieves rob us of the present joy of giving and of the eternal reward that comes here after. You know, it was already free steel silently. When a man comes to steel in your house, he doesn't make a lot of racket. and a mark that is what absolutely stands and so that's rough, you're unaware of it. You'll even know it happens. And so when you're Christianized, you can be robbed and be totally unaware of it. It says of Ephraim in the book of Hosea that there are here and there are gray hairs upon him and he knows it not. He's getting old and senile and doesn't even know where it is. It says of sense in the book of Judges, he said, I'll shape myself as at other times, and he wished that his strength must be part of one. One had gray hair, and the other had lost his hair that had been cut off. And hair and devourer speaks of dependence upon God, of weakness, of woman having long hair. And that you lose your sense of dependence on God, you lose your spiritual power. And so, There was so silence. And you notice, of course, that they are negative. They take away the whole thing, take it from you. Now this morning we were hearing, and I wrote it down, I took a note of it. We were hearing that in the Tower of Babel, these people of that day had ambition, among other things. They had drive, they built, and they had ambition to build a tower to heaven. And so there are many people who have a tremendous ambition, but it's in the wrong direction. And then there are people who don't have any ambition. That's what you have in these books, or these very little. So what you see, it's when you don't use your clothes that the moths go after. It's when you don't use tools that they get rusty. It's when you don't use your money when people steal it. These three are all negatives. and Christians are afflicted sometimes not by an over amount of ambition, but by not any ambition at all, by not doing anything. You know, in Matthew chapter twenty-five you have three stories told, and each one of the stories tells you that the final loss was there not because they did something, but because they didn't do something. It says the foolish vegans were lost because they did not take a while. The man with the talent was cast up because he did not use the psalm. And the goats were rejected because they did not visit the Lord. In each case it's what they did not do. The great sin, the great failure of Christians need to be aware of it. Not sins of carnation, but sins of omission. That's what you have in these verses. These thieves steal because things are not being used. First of all, they're not. takes the garment. And the garment that's set on the Bible is a familiar figure used of the life. Now on Mars, that is where you steal a garment when you're wearing it. It's only when you're not wearing it. When you're having it in the closet. Perhaps you wear the suit only on Sunday. Many people, the religious people especially, they go to church on Sunday. Now the rest of it, the clothes, the shoes and the trousers, and that's when the Mars go after it. That's when they steal it. When you don't use You know, my friend, A.P. Gibbs, called some Christians smoke. You've heard this especially. It may be Sunday mornings only. And you can go to church Sunday morning only and have your suit hanging in the closet all the rest of the week. Religiously, many people make a religious profession. They're very devout and religious on Sunday. You'll never know it through the week. Maybe we sometimes are just the best, too. Maybe in a minor degree. But we can be very happy and blessed when we are a fellow Christian and sing him. But when we go out in the world, we don't hear anything from us. And there are no outstanding testimony for the Lord. We have in our suit hanging in the closet and the moth is evening. It's taking it away from us. You know, a moth is a peculiar creature. It's out of tooth. Somebody has said that a moth is the odd creature that wears, that goes after a bathing suit in the winter and the fair goes in the summer. The love eats the garment. It's complete out of tune with your brother. Wearing a bathing suit when people are wearing fur coats and vice versa. And perhaps you are out of tune with things too. In fact, the person is out of tune with their spiritual life when he is not living for the glory of God. He's not being you in God's service. The Lord Jesus says in the Gospel of Luke, Christine thing, he says, Sell your garment, if you haven't got a sword, sell your garment and buy one. But the Lord Jesus doesn't mean it when you're going to sell the only suit you've got, you've got to wear one. And so when he says, sell your garment, he's talking about a second suit. The Lord Jesus is saying that all you need is one suit. So remember, the Lord Jesus is talking spiritual language, and the suit speaks of the life you live. and you're supposed to live just one life, not two, so you need one, two. But now Jesus says, sell the other one. If you have it hanging in the closet, the mouth will take it, if you're not using it. But the life that you have, live it, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Don't have it hanging in the closet. Wear it all with that. He said, if you haven't got a sword, sell that extra suit and get a sword. He says what's more important is to fight the Lord's battles and have a sword and just go one suit. You know when you're fighting battles like in the army you already got one suit. When you're at home and so you go home the weekend maybe with your soup and during the week you maybe wear your fatigues and so forth. I was in the Dutch army just for ten days and then it threw me out. Ten days and I was in the cavalry. And you should see the uniform we had as with all flash and FOS and buttons. I think there was something like seventy or eighty buttons, three rows down the front. There's gold blades all around, nevertheless from the shoulders, and a great big long sword that dangled on the ground. Well, I was so proud to be no silent sonar in the army. When I went home, I just dazzled the girls the way I looked. But we didn't wear that uniform all week long in the bath. We walked on feet. when they're actually doing something, that's pretty stupid, they're hanging in the closet. And Christian life is not a parade. It's not displaying yourself. It's doing something for the Lord, and so that you don't need any extra soup. You only need one. You know, Alexander said, Mark is a peculiar creature. It's a humble insect. He has no objection to taking a bad seat. And we should take a lesson from that too. You know, some of us Christians are too humble for our good. Some people are almost automatically a superiority complex and then some others are just as much closer than inferiority complex. The one is just about as bad as the other. The martyrs are humble in such. Takes a backseat. But don't always take a backseat. Either lift all these feet and don't sit in the back of the hall where you go to meetings. Don't take a backseat better. And don't take a backseat always spiritually speaking. Metaphorically speaking. Remember this, that you may not amount to much, but you have a place to fill in God's economy, as he said yesterday. And don't always take a backseat. Remember that God can use you and wants to use you to His praise and to His glory. Don't be just imperious all the time. Every one of us should be willing to serve the Lord in some place or other. We should be deacon. You know, that Greek word deacon is an interesting word. Dr. A.T. Aradis and Saga literally means raising the dust by being in a hurry. And it's the word ordinary translator servant. But the Lord Jesus, he came not to minister, but to the benefit of the minister, he uses the word that's translated as deacon. A deacon is just a servant. He's a lover. He's a lover that does anything that comes to him. And does it revelry and rarely. You know, in the East that we didn't have paved highways, mostly just roads with a servant for some time on the island. And if he really started out right away, he was a little cloud of dust. And that's the basic meaning to this word, deacon. Every one of us should be deacon without being official deacon, that is ready to do the service reward and whatever capacity God fits with. Or let's remember this. Some Christians, because they can't do great, they won't do anything. And because they can't give a lot of money, they don't give the money they can give. Let's do what you can do as a Christian. Don't be alarmed by the march. and let your life become a world. You know, we're not all Billy Graham. Sometimes people almost say to us that we are not doing any of this. We don't get crowds like Billy Graham. We're not all Billy Graham. There's only one Billy Graham. There's only one you and one me. You have your place to fill, and so do I. And then we war against Russia. The moth and the rust, that's corrupt. And the word corrupt literally means the cause to disappear. That's what moth says. It makes the cloth disappear. And the rust makes the matter disappear. It eats it. It corrupts it. In another place, the word corrupt means literally to eat, to consume. Now, lust affects what we do, just like moth affects what we are. Because the garment of the Bible is a picture of the life. And the rust, of course, affects either the tools or the weapons that we work with. Usually they're made of iron. Iron, rust, easier, and other things. And, of course, every one of the rocks supposed to have some iron in our system. A mother told a boy one time that she used to eat spinach. That was the idea together. It seems a little different now. But if you didn't eat spinach, why, you never grow up. They said there's a lot of iron in this thing. One mother said that to a boy. He said, you need to eat a lot of iron. He said, oh, that's what it was. I thought it was a stone, he said. But she said, it was iron. And he said, I won't eat it. I don't like it. I won't eat it. At one particular reason, they had a visitor. Finally, the visitor said, don't keep telling him to do it. He said, plenty of iron in his sister the way he thought. He said, I won't. He didn't need any more spinach. All of us have got iron in our system, but if you're not using it, it starts to get rusty. We have a will that God wants us to exercise, and the will that needs to be used to be kept dirty in the service of God. Oftentimes, of course, you have the will in the wrong direction, and the will that's a man who has tried to get a mule to go on. And he couldn't move it at all. And finally somebody passing by said, if you want to make him real good, you've got to use willpower. The other man said, well, it's not my willpower, it's his wretched willpower. And so we have iron in our system. We are meant to have. I remember H.B. Barker saying once years ago, where you found a gifted speaker from England. Because he was riding on the train in England. And you know, there you face each other in those compartments. And across the street there were two gentlemen sitting. And one of them is telling the other about his son, a boy about fifteen years old. He says, that boy has got a tremendous will, always resist whatever I do. He said, but I want to break that boy's will, and it's the last thing I do. And Mr. Farback, and I've known the man at all, sitting across with him, spoke up, and he says, I hope you break your neck before that happens. This man says, well, I want to break that boy's will, and it's the last thing you do. You know, if you break your neck before you break his will. What good is a person with a broken will? What good is a knife for that? Why hasn't got any tamper in him? It's no use whatever. It's the tamper in the mouth that makes it useful and serviceable. And it's the will in the human being that makes that will useful. It's not a will that's to be broken, it's a will that's to be subjected to God's will that must remain whole. And you and I have to learn in life that God has given us a word. Often by saying, well, I can't. Don't say it. Because you can't. All you need to do is to submit your word to God so. I've heard Christians say when they have some heaven, I can't give it up. And when they say that they're lying, well, it isn't so. There is nothing that can't be done if you submit your word to God so. The Lord Jesus told us that. He can subject our wealth to God's will and be used of him. Well, we have iron in our system, but iron grows rusty when you're not using it. Now, first of all, let's think of tools being made of iron, and lust grows rather than the use of them. Now, you know, when you study God's will, and you sit down to study, we call that grinding. An expression has used, you grind at your lessons, and when the tool gets rusty, you have to grind it. The way to keep right is to spend time in the study and meditation of God's Word. It keeps the tool from getting rusty. And then a scripture has been quoted several times in personal conversations, as I have been here, found in the book of Proverbs also, as as iron, sharper than iron, so are the man's countenance, the countenance of his friends. that is contact with other people, sharpens. Iron rubbing against iron sharpens it. If you take a knife and run it against another knife or you sharpen that knife, the friction does it. And so it's contact with other Christians that sharpens Christians. In other words, if you want to keep from getting rusty, be sure you keep in contact with other Christians. Iron sharpeners iron. And if you're in contact with even in fiction, even the university, if you're in contact with other Christians, it will brighten the metal. It will keep you from getting rushed. For rushed can rob you of the usefulness of God. And one of the greatest things that God has given, to me perhaps degrade it, that God has given for the development of a Christian is Christian fellowship. I don't think you'll ever find a Christian that avoids his father herself of the fellowship of other Christians that will ever be arrested, that will ever drift away from God to any extent. God has given us that in order to keep us bright and happy for him. And then, of course, blessings are made of iron or steel, too. The picture or alphabet of scripture speaks of it. The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, the more we use it, the brighter it will be. Look sometimes at the railroad tracks, railroad tracks, the main tracks, and look at the switch tracks next to it. The main tracks are bright and shiny. Switch tracks look rusty. The main track is being used all the time, and the phrase going over, frictioning it. Keep those tracks bright. And so as you keep in touch with the Word of God and with the people of God and expose yourself to the truth of God, it will keep you from... being hindered by the lasting influence of the world, which is all around us. And I say again, let's remind ourselves that these thieves work silently. You're not even aware of it. You can drift away from God without in the least big being conscious that you're doing. Now, the Lord warns against those three thieves. I don't know who the third thieves are meant to be, perhaps human beings, who actually steal or whatever. that they're all thieves, that they'll take away. And I'd like you to think of one thief that the Bible mentioned. It is none other but the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Several thousands of scriptures. He likened himself to a thief. He says it's in plain bold words in Revelation chapter sixteen and verse fifteen. He says, behold, I've come as a thief. The Lord Jesus Christ is going to come to steal. In John chapter ten it says that the thief comes but to steal and to kill and to destroy. And those are the very three things the Lord Jesus Christ is going to do when he comes. He's going to steal, kill and destroy. Regularly speaking he likened himself to a thief. First of all when the Lord Jesus Christ comes to go he's going to steal us the way, his thief. We are going to steal away the glory. The Lord Jesus is going to love this world of the presence of God's people. And about today when people think about it, say, well, goodbye, glad to see you go. They'll think differently when it happens. This world without the presence of Christians will become a world of terror and war and righteousness and an inexpressible and unbelievable horror. You can read of it in the book of Revelation. What makes this world a good place to live is the fact that Christians are in it. And when they go, the moment they are gone, the judgments of God are the natural consequence of the being away as Christians, will break up in this world in fury. Men will realize how much they owe to the presence of the people of God. The Lord, like their feet, is going to catch us away. You know, when it says they're going to be caught up, that word is snatched up, like their feet grabs their finger and runs. When we speak about the rapture, it doesn't mean what we think of the rapture. It doesn't mean ecstasy. The word rapture is used for the coming of the Lord. It comes from the Latin word which means to seize thy soul. And that's the word that I will do. When he says, we have called up to meet the Lord, the word means to seize thy soul. Like a thief grabs the thing and goes. And Christ comes and grabs his people and steals them away. From we will perhaps at the very moment when this world is about ready for deluge, Christ. and to do away with it. As the rule that the people of Israel asked of us are seeking, he's going to steal us all. And when he comes, he'll steal your opportunity to be blessed. If Christ should come tonight, he'll steal from you. He'll be a thief as far as you are concerned. Your last opportunity to be saved. If the Lord should come tonight, you are going to go to hell if you're not saved. Don't make any mistake about that. There is no salvation for you when the Lord Jesus comes. He's going to come like a thief. When the gunner says, if he comes unannounced, the thief doesn't send you a postcard and say, I'll be there at three-thirty in the morning. He comes unexpected. And when the Lord Jesus Christ comes, he doesn't tell you before him. He comes unexpected. Suddenly, if people will go home to heaven and have space to be ready for that hour, we Christians are beginning to feel more and more that that hour is drawn close to us. You can't help us feel that way. The Lord Jesus might come even before the meeting closes. He'll come like a thief. Of course, to us a very welcome thief to take us home. And then of course when he comes, he arrives as Christians. Because he arrives as the last opportunity to lay our treasure in heaven. We have to do it before he comes. When he comes, our opportunity to serve him and to live for him is over. follows the testimony in the world that rejected the Christian. I take it that we fix our eternal status the moment we die, the moment the Lord Jesus comes. And so he's going to steal, then he's going to kill him to destroy. The book of Revelation tells you, he comes, millions of people will be destroyed. Three mighty armies will be gathered together. the Lord Jesus Christ will destroy them with the breath of his mouth and the glory of his coming. He'll come to kill them to destroy. That's what the thief comes to do. He is the pronoun the most outstanding thief of Scripture, and I say it forever. But it's nonetheless true. You'll feel that he will never be able to recover again. And so the Lord Jesus says, Lay up for yourself treasure in heaven. For neither law nor lust is corrupt, and the thieves do not break through and steal. And then he gives a very lovely suggestion in the last verse, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also, where your treasure is. You notice, he says in verse ninety, lay up for yourself pleasures, which are the cruel in heaven. But in the twenty-third, he puts it in the singular. where your treasure is and I don't think I'm mistaken in thinking that the treasures in verse nineteen are the blessings that we lay up in heaven by our living for Christ here by our serving him here by spending our time you and I in your capacity and I in my little capacity for him while the treasure in verse twenty one refers to none other but the Christ himself he is our treasure Where our treasure is, because we are called as treasure, but it can't refer to us. It refers to him. He is our treasure. He is worth more than all the world besides. And where your treasure is, there shall your heart be opened. The Savior says, You see, you may have treasures in heaven if your heart is concerned and interested in the Lord Jesus. He is your treasure. That's where he is in heaven. Set your mind on things about where Christ is. And where your pleasure is, there will your heart be altered. You see, that's all that's needed, all that's lacking for a life of devotion to Christ. It's the heart. We used to have the statements say, have a heart of the people when they're out of cold or distant. And God says to you and me, have a heart. Where your pleasure is, there your heart shall be altered. It's easy enough to say we must live a Christian life. It's easy enough for me to preach it to you. easy not to read it in the Bible, but to practice it is something else. For what we need a powerful motive, a motive that is resistance. And the motive, of course, the Bible gives us this, our heart, for the Lord Jesus. Where your praises, is Christ your praises? Are you interested in him? Is he the one that fills your soul? Then you're going to lay your praises in heaven. Your heart will be there. Again and again in the thousand ways the scriptures, both old and new, tell the story that a life of devotion to God is found only by the motive of the love of God having a real place in your heart and mind. The love of Christ constrains us henceforth, not the will to ourself and to him who died for us and rose again. Just like in any human relationship, if you leave a lover person, it's not hard to serve them. In fact, if it's a life that you do it, I never heard my wife or my mother either ever complain that they had to do things for their children. They love to do it. They love to sacrifice, to give. Father, I'm quite good that way, but mother. I know when we were first married, I used to do quite a bit of baking in our house and I bake a pie. My wife and I could eat each half of it. After we got full of children, we sacrificed the most, we only got a six of them. And I'm even, my wife often didn't get any of us, because if I were to kill them out of another, we should give them earthies. I'd have it as a cheater. I've never heard of Fred about it or complained about it or thought it was a hardship. My mother killed us now, precious. She laid down her life for us children. She died too young. The one she lived that long, the twelve rats she had. But she never complained about anything. Never thought it hard to serve her family, who she loved them. And so the author says, well, your virtues bear your heart. If Christ is real, then your interests are his end. You don't want to live for yourself, but for him who dies here and goes there, and he's doing so. You're laying up for yourself a eternal joy. eternal blessing, an eternal reward, a deepening, a deepening appreciation of all that Christ is. Heaven will be two heavens for you. If you live for Christ, God bless you. May God bless you. Be fast to it. Start that speed. First of all, feel your soul so it will be long forever. And then don't let it steal your life. So you spend it trivially on things that don't mean anything. Spend it in a way that you'll find it back again.