Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of Matthew 6:19-24, urging believers to express their love for Jesus through their financial stewardship. He highlights that prosperity is a blessing from God, while covetousness poses spiritual dangers for both the rich and the poor. Bickle points out that Jesus taught extensively on finances, focusing on the importance of generous giving and the eternal rewards associated with it. He encourages believers to act in faith rather than fear and to prioritize heavenly treasures over earthly possessions, as our financial choices reflect our loyalty to God. Ultimately, Bickle calls for a deeper understanding of how our money can be used to glorify God and impact our eternal destiny.

Well, Matthew 6 verse 19 to 24 is one of the most significant passages in the Bible related to your destiny. But it's an often overlooked passage. I mean, many believers kind of go over it really quick. It's easy to overlook. It's very exciting if you look at it with any kind of depth at all. And in this passage, we see how we can express the supremacy of Jesus in the realm of our finances. Very, very important. Let's look at paragraph A. In one of the earlier sessions, I talked about, I'm just repeating from that, that the Bible says clearly that prosperity is a blessing of God. Poverty in the Scripture is a curse. There's no virtue in poverty. But what Jesus taught on was giving with generosity and faith. That's what he focused on. Now my definition of prosperity is having enough money to meet our own needs and then enough to help others and to extend the kingdom. Paragraph B. Jesus taught on finance more than almost any other subject. Surprising. You could look at the stats here that I have in paragraph B, but about half of the parables are on finance or possession. And about one-tenth of every verse in the four Gospels is about money or possession. It's remarkable what we conclude. The issue of money is very important to God's heart. Now the Bible has many principles related to finance. How to make it, multiply it, invest it, invest it, manage it, how to steward it. Many different principles. But it's important to see that Jesus emphasized two principles above all the others. He did not minimize the value of the other principles, but he focused on two of them through the four Gospels. The first one, that God desires to supernaturally multiply finances related to giving with generosity. Jesus focused on that a number of times. I'll say it again. God wants to supernaturally multiply finances related to giving with generosity. Now that multiplication is in this age, but it's also in the age to come. Not that it will be gold coins that you buy and sell with, but there will be treasure that is connected to giving money in this age. The second point that Jesus emphasized, and he actually emphasized this the most. The spiritual dangers of covetousness. Now when he addressed covetousness, he was not only talking to the rich, but he was talking to the poor. Because the poor love money just as much as the rich do. They just don't have any, but they still love it. The lure of materialism is very, very strong, but it's very subtle. And Jesus, the premier teacher, he addresses this subject and lets us see beneath the surface how insidious this issue of covetousness is. Now the reason I mention these two points that Jesus emphasized, the multiplying of finances related to generous giving and the dangers of covetousness, because we love Jesus and we want to imitate his teaching. Whatever he emphasized, we want to emphasize. And so we have a mandate just by his example to proclaim these two truths even more than the other biblical truths related to finance that are in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Paragraph D. Now the two main emotions or two main desires or temptations related to money in the Bible is fear, is temptation number one, and covetousness is temptation number two. Related to the subject of money. So Jesus, he calls us to act in the opposite spirit of fear and covetousness. He says instead of fear, act in faith, and instead of covetousness, act in generosity. And as we do that, we actually determine some of the measure of how much God will intervene in our life in the realm of finances. We actually determine some of the measure of it. There he says in Luke chapter six, verse 38, he said, give, and he's talking about finances right here. It will be given back to you in this age and in the age to come that he points out a number of times. Again, it's not that we get money in the age to come, but we get treasures that are associated with giving money in this age. Then he describes how much God will give back in four different ways. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over. Someone says, what do those four things mean exactly? I'm not sure, but they all sound good to me. But notice this. Now Jesus gives us a tremendous opportunity here for treasure in this age and the age to come. He says, with the measure that you use, it will be measured back to you. God will see to it. It's not the measure that you think about using, but the measure that you actually use. The measure of giving and generosity to his kingdom, it will return back to you. And we give to his kingdom in many different ways in terms of time and money. Now some people don't like the idea of God promising to intervene, to increase according to our obedience, to increase our finances or whatever. But I want to say this clearly. Love for God, love for people is not minimized at all because we believe in God's promises to return blessing back. Let's look at Roman numeral two. Let's just give a quick snapshot of the passage that we're going to give more detail as we lay out the seven principles. Here in Matthew chapter six, just a snapshot of it. He gives two commandments. One's positive and one's negative. He starts off with a negative commandment. Don't lay up for yourself treasures on earth. Verse 20, now he gives the positive command. But lay up, I command you, lay up treasure in heaven. And then he, in verse 22, tells us that the way that we walk this out actually will have an impact on our spiritual life. He says if your eye is good, if your spiritual eye is good, meaning if you employ verse 20, you lay up heavenly treasures instead of verse 19, laying up earthly treasures, that there will be an increase of light in your spiritual experience. And we'll talk more about that in a few moments, but here's the point. That our spiritual capacity is affected by how we walk out these two commandments. Then he goes on in verse 24 and he says, make no mistake about it, you can't be loyal to God and money. You can have chief loyalty to one or the other. One of them will have to yield to your loyalty to the other. And loyalty to God or serving God as our master is synonymous in this passage with laying up heavenly treasure. And loyalty to mammon or money is synonymous with laying up earthly treasure. Now all five of these verses, they go together. And the reason I say that is that some people look at the passage about having a good eye and being filled with light, they take it out of its context of related to treasure and money and possessions. It's in context to actually what we do with our treasure, making earthly treasures number one or making heavenly treasures number one. Now let's look at principle, well let's read A just to kind of summarize it again. This is one of the most significant passages, by the way, in the whole Bible on money. And it's Jesus' most explicit passage where he lays out principles on money. And again, this is really personal to us. It affects our destiny in a very dynamic and direct way. But this passage is very easy to overlook. I mean people can go for decades and never lock into this passage. What he does in this passage, he urges us to use our money in a way to gain heavenly treasure. In other words, Jesus wants our heart anchored in the age to come. That's not theoretical or poetic, this is real. He really means this. The apostles really lived this way. They really had a mindset where they were living for treasure in the age to come, not for the treasure in their own lifetime. The second point I want to highlight here in this passage is that what we do with our money expresses our love to God. And in that declares the supremacy of Jesus in our life. What we do with our money will either strengthen our spiritual life or hurt it. And he warns us to avoid covetousness in this passage. So that's kind of a summary of where we're going. Let's look at principle number one. Jesus urges us to use money to express our loyalty, our love to God. In verse 24 he said that if you serve God as your primary master, you will be loyal to God and you will show love to God. But you won't be able to be loyal and show love to mammon. Jesus personifies mammon and says you can't be loyal to mammon if you're loyal to God. But the point I want to highlight here is that in verse 24 Jesus identifies love to him in terms of money. What we do with money. Now it's very common for us to identify our love for God for our energy or engagement in a worship service. Or maybe the kind of commitment we have to an outreach or to serving somebody or to evangelism. But some believers don't ever connect what they do with their money as related to how much they love Jesus. But Jesus connected it very strongly. He goes your loyalty and love to me is expressed by what you do with money. In other words, money was a relational subject to Jesus. It was something that he took very personal. It was personal to him. And what we do with money he remembers forever. I mean we can give money in this age and a million years from now he will still remember it. Because the scripture, and so will you. Because the scripture, we'll look at it in a few moments, that our eternal inheritance it never fades, it never diminishes. The reward never ever lessens as the millions of years pass. It never diminishes our rewards. That's a remarkable reality. Well here in Luke 21, Jesus makes it clear it's not the size of our giving, but it's the size of our sacrifice in giving. In other words, the widow gave two mites or two pennies, but it was a greater percentage of her resource. It was a greater sacrifice. So what Jesus was pointing out in essence, her love was greater than the people who gave much more, but they gave out of their abundance. It didn't even affect them. Let's look at top of page two. Principle number two. He gives the negative commandment. Don't lay up treasure for yourself on earth. It's a command to avoid something. Don't do that. Now it's very natural to do that. Our natural inclination is to lay up on earth things that we treasure. Now the key is how we interpret the word treasure. The word treasure is an all-inclusive term. It includes what a person thinks of as their wealth. It includes their possessions. But more than money, though it's primarily about money, but not limited to money. Our treasure is anything that we treasure. That's in a primary way in our life. It can be position. It can be reputation. It involves anything that money can buy, or anything that money can affect, which is our influence, our position, our reputation, and other things as well. Another way to define our treasure is what we desire most to invest our time and money into. What is it that you desire most to give your time and money to? If you had more time and more money, unlimited, what would you want to give it to? That will help you identify what it is that you consider a treasure in your life. The real issue is what is the primary dream of your heart? It's okay to have many dreams, but what is the main dream of your heart? Is it to get more possessions? Many believers, that is their main dream. I mean, they love Jesus in that general sense, but really what they're captivated by is getting more comfort, getting more possessions, getting more money, getting more influence. And all of those things have their place, but when they become the primary dream of our heart, the thing we think most about, talk most about, and dream most about, I mean not a dream at night, but I mean daydream about, that is the treasure that Jesus is wanting to identify there. Now there's others in the body of Christ, in the right sense, their primary treasure is their relationship with God, and helping others to grow in their relationship with God, and just being a blessing and a source of supply for others. Now number one, lest we think treasure is only about money, though it is mostly about money, but not only. Some people are far more tempted by status and position than they are money. There's a kind of person in the body of Christ, they daydream about their influence and prominence far more than their money. Thus, without even knowing it, they're laying up treasures for themselves on earth, and they've never connected that with this verse. Number two, now let's be clear what Jesus is not saying. When He says don't lay up treasures, He's saying again, the things that you treasure most, don't make them earthly things. Jesus is not telling us to refuse to have any possessions, because some people apply this verse, they said don't, here's how they read it, don't have any possessions or personal property. That's not what Jesus is saying. He's not against having savings. Matter of fact, the Bible teaches on planning, investing, saving, those are biblical principles. He's not against an insurance policy, that's not what He's talking about, or an inheritance for your children. What He's talking about, number three, is actually warning us to avoid covetousness. That's what really He's after. This inordinate treasuring of our possessions or our position, in a way that hinders our obedience to God, it hinders our devotion to God, it hinders our spiritual life. Now the problem is, this is so subtle, that many people, their primary treasures are earthly, but they've never identified it, they just don't really think it through in a specific way. Now, I think that most people assume they don't have a problem with covetousness. They think the other guy across the room does, but they don't really think they do. I've rarely met anybody that thinks they have a problem with this. I think it's wiser to take the total opposite position. I think that we should assume we do have a problem with it, but we don't see it. Because Jesus focused on this more than any other principle related to finances, because He loves us so much. So I want to encourage you, ask the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, tell me, do I have pockets of covetousness in my heart? Well, one way that you know is when somebody blocks or threatens or delays your finances, those real negative emotions, fear, anxiety, revenge, manipulation, alert, alert, there's roots of covetousness there. Oh, I didn't know that's what covetousness looked like. So the Holy Spirit has much to say about this if we would ask Him, but even our own negative emotions related to our possessions is the alarm system of where roots of covetousness are in our own heart. Luke chapter 12, verse 15, He says, Beware of covetousness, this inordinate treasuring of possessions or position. It's really possessions more than position, but don't throw the position out when we talk about the subject of what we really treasure. Matter of fact, in verse 20, He calls the man in the parable a fool who spends all of his time and money trying to just increase earthly treasures. He says, You're going to die in a minute. You haven't laid up any heavenly treasure. You're absolutely foolish, no matter how many barns you have multiplied. Paragraph 5, Mark 4, verse 19, Jesus tells us that covetousness or the deceitfulness of riches, it's the same thing, chokes our spiritual life. It diminishes our spiritual capacity to enjoy God. And the way it chokes us isn't just the proactive focus on getting more, it's the negative emotions when what we have is threatened or delayed. That anxiety, fear, anger, bitterness, that diminishes and defiles our spiritual life. Mark 7, verse 22, He talks about covetousness defiling or dulling our spiritual life. Now a lot of people complain, and I understand the complaint, that their spiritual life is dull. But many never link their spiritual dullness to the things that Jesus describes here in Mark 7. Our spiritual dullness is not just the devil attacking us. There are things we're doing with our inner man that result in a dull spirit. 1 Timothy 6, verses 9 and 10, is the most searching, terrifying expose on covetousness in the Bible. I mean, this is terrifying, this passage. Just reading it really touches you if you open your heart to it. Look at what Paul says, verse 9. To those, 1 Timothy 6, verse 9, who desire to be rich. Now again, poor people desire to be rich as much as rich people desire to be rich. He's talking to the whole body of Christ. He says they fall into temptations. They fall into a snare. Now a snare is a trap out in the wild to catch an animal that an animal doesn't step into unaware. No animal walks into a snare on purpose. And that's the way covetousness is. It traps our heart with fear, anxiety, revenge, bitterness, dread. It captures our heart like a snare. And it thrusts us into foolish and harmful lusts. It drowns men in destruction. Wow, these emotions. Now most people that are drowning in the destruction of covetousness, they don't actually put this kind of language to it, but this is what the Bible says. Verse 10, the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Now we know that money is not the root of evil. The love of money is. But the love of money is far more pervasive and far more subtle than we understand at a casual glance. It has all kinds of roots systems. It makes us manipulative, controlling, fearful, revengeful, envious, jealous. It has all these negative roots that capture the heart. He said when covetousness begins to work, he's talking to believers. He goes, they stray from the faith. He goes, men of God have strayed from the faith because of this. I know over the years, I know many in their early 20s and they're walking with the Lord in their early years and they have this high vision of being radical for God and these ideals that in the realm of their money and their time, everything was for God. And they, then it was very sincere, but they made the commitments before they ever had money. Now they're in their 30s and 40s and 50s and opportunities have come in ministry or the marketplace. And I've seen many of them little by little, step by step, stray. It's a process they don't even watch happen. They stray from their original commitment to the faith by greediness. And again, I've never met hardly anyone that's ever identified greediness as a part of their emotional makeup. And they're pierced through with many a pang. I mean, oh my goodness, what a, many sorrows. What a piercing and searching description of covetousness. Maybe you're one of those and it's years later in your early days, you made these commitments. Go back and review your commitments from when you first met the Lord related to money. Are you still walking them out? Or are you one of those that have been little by little over the decades, straying from that which you originally set your heart to? Top of page three. Well, let's go from the negative to the positive. Principle three is this most exciting opportunity to lay up treasure in heaven. Treasure that never ever diminishes, ever. Millions of years from now the treasure is still fully intact. And that treasure has many different expressions. I remember once some years ago, I talked about seven different expressions of eternal rewards. I'm not gonna go through those now, but I have that on the internet. There's many different expressions of heavenly treasure. I mean, they're glorious. But here's the point. That we can exchange our money in this age for not money in the age to come, but treasure in one of those seven ways, or maybe there's more ways than seven that I identified in that teaching a couple years ago. I'm sure there's more than seven. I just like seven. The exchange rate is really high right now, by the way. And that's cute, but it's real. You could take $10, $100, or a million dollars and turn it into something that lasts forever. Now here's the way it works. By sowing it into the kingdom. And there's many ways to sow it into the kingdom. Only the money that you give away, that's the only money that you can keep forever. It's a paradox. The only money you can keep forever is the money you give away. If you use the money on yourself now, which is biblical to use money on ourselves, but the money stops. It doesn't have an eternal impact. If you keep it, then you don't have it past the grave. If you give it, you keep it past the grave forever and forever. It's quite a strange paradox. Now this is a bit of a blank check. Jesus said, you want treasure in heaven? You can have it. He said in Luke 6.38, we looked at it earlier, it goes to the measure that you give, that you use, that's the measure I will measure back to you, in this age and the age to come. I want to encourage you to ask the Holy Spirit to give you insight on how to maximize your investment of time and money to result in the greatest amount of heavenly treasure. I'm going to say that again. Maybe some of you have never thought about this. The Holy Spirit is so smart and He loves you so much. He knows your personality. He knows your weaknesses. He knows your financial situation. Ask Him. Holy Spirit, I have X amount of time, X amount of money. I want to maximize my time and money to the full degree to eternal or to heavenly treasures. I don't know how to do it. My friend said I should do this and that. The pastor said this and that. But I don't know. The Holy Spirit would say I was only waiting for you to ask me. He can give you significant wisdom how to maximize and fully optimize your investment of time and money in this age to result in treasure. He loves that subject, by the way. I encourage you to ask Him. He's the great teacher. Now, eternal rewards is a subject that some people don't like. Some people have a pious resentment against eternal rewards. They go, I don't want eternal rewards. Well, Jesus taught on eternal rewards more than anybody. I have never actually added up the verses, but it's close to true, if not true. I think Jesus taught on eternal rewards more than everybody else combined together. I've never put the list. But He taught on eternal rewards so much more than anybody else did. Possibly more than all the others put together. So you want to lay your pious resentment down as though Jesus didn't really understand that you love God just for God and you don't need that other motivation. And Jesus, let's stick with the Bible and just be purely motivated. Well, I have good news. Jesus stuck with the Bible. And He taught on eternal rewards. Eternal rewards are actually an expression of how God feels about the way we loved Him in this age. He's really rich. He's really generous. Doesn't cost Him anything. And He's so delighted to openly express the way He feels about the way you loved Him. That's what eternal rewards are. They're not about you strutting in front of people. But about the Father revealing the way He felt about the way you loved Him. And it's remarkable that Jesus pays so well for doing so little. I mean, we could give somebody a cup of cold water. I mean, a cup of cold water in the ancient world took a little more effort than now. But it wasn't that big a deal. And Jesus said, it will be remembered forever. You're going to be rewarded forever. Beloved, a million years from now you'll be talking about that cup of cold water. He'll never forget it. It's not all you'll talk about, but I mean it will never be forgotten. That is how much dignity and value He puts on our small acts of obedience and giving. It's remarkable. Paragraph one. We will soon enter the realm, born again believers, that we will enter the realm of endless glory. So we should invest as much of our time and money in the kingdom as we can. I mean, we can't invest all of our time and money in a direct way in issues of building the kingdom outside of our own lives, but we can certainly invest a portion of our time and money. But so many believers, because they just kind of overlooked this incredibly glorious invitation, they take their time and money, the primary amount of it, and they just put it into their own stuff. I remember the movie Schindler's List. At the very end of the movie, Schindler was talking to the Jewish people that he had saved, and they were thanking him. And he was weeping. And he said, If only I would have given this watch or this car or this, if only one more, I could have saved, if I sold one more thing, I could have saved one more person. I mean, it was so graphic. It's like, oh my goodness, I mean, where does this end? That's where you need the Holy Spirit to be your teacher. So you're not motivated by guilt, but neither are you cut short by just Western pragmatism that will dull your spirit and talk you out of this. Live in that tension of that, if only I gave a little more. If only I invested more of my strength into the kingdom. Anyway, I've had that image of that scene in that movie go through my mind many times. Standing before the Lord one day, I want to be able to say, Lord, I gave the greatest of my strength to you. My time, my money, my energy. I didn't give you the overflow. I gave the greatest strength I knew to give you. And I asked you for help along the way. Through the years, to help me do it better. That's the testimony I want to have on that day. Number two, now notice how many times Jesus talks about treasures in heaven. Now here in Luke 12, 33, He says, provide for yourself. Provide for yourself. I mean, right here in the Sermon on the Mount. In chapter 6, verse 20, He says, lay up for yourself treasure in heaven. For yourself? Jesus, let's keep this thing biblical. You can't say for yourself. What about God? I don't want to do something for myself. Well, Jesus presented, this is my terminology, but the principle is true, a sanctified self-interest that actually glorifies God. Because it responds to His love, His wisdom, and His generosity. It actually magnifies His love and generosity when we engage in this. Jesus, you said treasure for yourself in heaven and here you said it again in Luke 12, provide for yourself treasure in heaven. Surely you have to stick with the Bible, Jesus. This can't be true. Again, this approach, because it is a response to His glorious wisdom and His generosity, it actually magnifies Him and glorifies Him. I think most believers, it's a guess, I don't know most believers, I think that they kind of just overlook this promise. It just kind of fades in the background. It's very easy to do. I know in my own life it's easy to do. Number three, 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 4, the inheritance will never fade away. Never. Our inheritance first is Jesus Himself. Our inheritance is the new Jerusalem. Wow. Resurrected body. Wow. But beloved, our inheritance includes our eternal rewards as well. It was J. Hudson Taylor, the famous missionary, English missionary to China in the 1850s about. He had the famous statement, only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. I've seen it on posters over the years. Only one life will soon be passed. It's a medical doctor that left a life of ease in England and went to the slum areas of China. And they said, why? You gave up such a career. He said, only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. What a remarkable reality. Now I've heard people talk about somebody who's so heavenly minded they're no earthly good. You've heard that phrase over the years. I've never met somebody so heavenly minded they're no earthly good. That person is, they don't exist. Because when people are heavenly minded, they're far more earthly good. The reason is they have this holy detachment from their possessions. They hold their possessions, but their possessions don't hold their heart. They hold their possessions lightly. It could be a million dollars, it could be ten dollars. They have a holy detachment from their position and their possessions. They hold them lightly and their possessions don't hold the person. Beloved, they are far more earthly good in that mindset. What people mostly mean when they say someone's so heavenly minded, they mostly mean that guy's an airhead, he's disorganized, he's distracted, he's unfocused, he's undisciplined, he's bumping into walls. That is not what heavenly minded is, that's other things. Principle number four, Jesus tells us that our emotions will follow what we invest in as our primary treasure. If we choose heavenly treasure, our emotions will actually increase and intensify around the subject of heavenly treasure. If we choose the more normal, earthly treasure, our emotions will intensify and increase around earthly treasures. Jesus is saying there's an emotional correspondence. I mean, you could have an initial desire for something but if you invest in it, your desire increases far more. Over a decade or two, it greatly increases. You might start by saying, I'm gonna make heavenly treasure what I'm going for and you might not feel the power of it but let a few years go by, you will feel the power of that more and more. Principle number five, it's not just that emotions intensify and increase but our spiritual capacity to experience God, to understand truth, to feel His presence, it increases too. Principle number five, this is in context to money what he says, that your spiritual eye, if it's good, it will result in light touching you. He's talking about our spiritual capacity to experience the love of God. Now, God loves us fully whether we experience it or not in this age in fullness, God loves us so much more than we experience. But this subject of light, I mean, what a glorious creation light is. I mean, just the fact of light is such a glorious reality. I mean, we don't often stop and thank God for light. I mean, light's really awesome. Most amazing gift. But what Jesus is saying here is if your spiritual eye is good, you will have an increased capacity to feel the love of God, to return the love of God, to love others, to love the Word, to love holiness, you will engage at a far deeper level because your capacity will increase. Spiritually. Now, to have a good spiritual eye in verse 22 is in context of verse 19 and 20, the two verses before. Jesus is not changing the subject here. He's talking about treasure. And the, in this context, the main definition of a good spiritual eye is the person who makes treasure in heaven their primary pursuit. He goes, you live with that kind of mindset, your spiritual capacity will increase. Just like covetousness defiles, and just like covetousness chokes. Like it says in Mark 7 and Mark 4, it chokes and defiles our spiritual capacity. Generosity and living for heavenly treasure actually enhances our spiritual capacity. Now, there's a relative promise of that in this age. Our spiritual capacity increases. There's the absolute promise of the age to come when we're full of light in the full sense of the word. Top of page 4. Now, having a bad eye is the opposite of a good eye. Again, it's in context to heavenly treasures versus earthly treasures. You must read it in that context to understand what Jesus is saying here. A bad eye. Darkness sets in. We lose objectivity. Things that are so real, more real than the sun itself, are Jesus' promises of eternal treasures. Those are so real, but a person with a foggy eye, spiritual eye, those truths don't seem real at all, and they're more real than the sun that shines in the sky. But they seem so distant and shadowy and remote. And we all know we're going to die, and we know we're going to leave everything, but somehow we get so foggy in our thinking, that doesn't seem strange to live for possessions, knowing we will leave all of them. It's the bizarrest thing. We all know we're all going to die. The funeral of a wealthy man. A man came up to the preacher, and he said, how much did he leave? The preacher said, all of it. We all know we're going to leave all of it, but why do we give ourselves to it so focused? Does it make any sense? That's called a bad eye. It means the things that are shadow, I mean the things that are true seem like a shadow. And the same things that pass away seem permanent. It's completely mixed up. Let's look at paragraph G, principle 6. Jesus said, I want to tell you, if your eye is bad, your whole body, now the body means your whole personhood. It doesn't mean just your physical body will be full of darkness. Now that darkness, like the light, it's relative, it's in degrees. Some people experience a little bit of this, believers I'm talking about, and there's others that experience the extremes. And Jesus is describing the extremes. Full of light and great darkness. He goes to the two extremes of the light and the darkness, but there's levels and measures all along the way in this age and the age to come. Now be clear, he's talking to believers here. He's talking to born-again believers. Not talking to unbelievers. He said, if the light that is in you turns into darkness, he's talking to a man of God who has spiritual light and understanding, but he leaves his earlier commitments to obey the Lord and pursue Him with all of his heart, and that light begins to diminish, and all of a sudden he loses his grip and the clarity of understanding, and things get foggy, and they get kind of murky, and he doesn't have the same intensity that he had. He said, oh, what great darkness. Now again, that darkness could be the extreme of somebody who completely rejects the Lord in the full sense of the word. But that darkness has levels that are before that. I can't imagine the terrifying emotion that we would have, any of us, on the last day to stand before the Lord, and we have a relationship with Him by grace. It's a free gift. We have our entrance into the new Jerusalem. It's a free gift. We have a resurrected body. It's a free gift. But then when it comes to our rewards that we're offering to Jesus, the response of our love to Him from the earth, we have nothing, nothing that He esteems. There's no rewards. Nothing that we've done from this life does He esteem to remember it and to reward it. I can't think of anything more tragic to a born-again believer than that testimony. You can add the verse, 1 Corinthians 3.15, Paul talked about the born-again believer on the last day. He's saved, 1 Corinthians 3.15, but he suffers loss of everything. I can't think of anything I fear more than regret on that day. I fear that more than anything, that I would stand before Him on the most important day of my life and regret the way I lived. That is part of the darkness. But part of the darkness is even as a born- again believer in this age, being lost in the fog and not having understanding that I used to have back in my earlier days of walking with the Lord. And what I mean by understanding, I'm talking about zeal and that understanding having intensity in affecting me. Principle 7. We'll end with this. Jesus talks about the impossibility of being loyal to Jesus and His Word and being loyal to mammon or money as the primary dream of our heart. He goes, you can't be loyal to both. He goes, you'll end up despising me. He says, you'll despise God. And the way that we despise God, we wouldn't despise Him overtly and say, we despise you, Jesus. What we would do is, we despise His teaching. Like, for instance, this very passage. If earthly treasure is our primary orientation, even as a born-again believer, this teaching bothers us. We're trying to figure out ways right now to get around it. Trying to figure out ways where the grace of God cancels this out. That's called despising His Word. Jesus said, don't let that continue. Shift your loyalty. And being loyal to God and pursuing heavenly treasure in these five verses are synonymous. Then in Roman number 3, just the paragraph B, I just give a summary. I just highlight. You can read it on your own. A summary of the whole thing. Amen. Let's end with that.