Proverbs 15:16 ESV
Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble with it.
[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=proverbs+15%3A16&version=ESV]
Humans have an innately skewed ability to prioritize. We value the here-and-now, the physical, the fun over the eternal, the spiritual, and the virtuous. We see this world, and we forget the next. Christ gave us a command here: “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Matt. 6:20). This world is a passing time, a mere blip in comparison to eternity, and yet our eyes are fixed to near exclusion upon it. We are fascinated by the ephemeral, caught by the momentary, enthralled by the instant (and a hundred years, perhaps, is still an instant compared to infinity). We sin, we amass wealth (or not), and we die; then life begins.
Treasure means trouble- in the getting, the having, or the excelling. Treasure can be trouble in the getting. How do we acquire ‘great treasure’? We could work, work, work, the trouble and turmoil of self-centered industry. The treasure is gained, more than we could ever need, and then we die, to find that like the rich man of Luke 16, our treasure does not follow us into eternity. This is trouble in getting, and it is only the start.
Treasure can be trouble in the having. Do rich people have more peace than the righteous? The rich man has, perhaps, temporal security, but he has not eternal assurance. He can only seek to maintain his treasure, keep his estate intact, and watch his own death loom. Solomon, the man who made silver as common as stone, testifies to us of the value of riches: vanity, all vanity (1 Kings 10:27; Eccl. 1:3, 2:1-8).
Treasure can be trouble in the excelling. If I have more, and my neighbors have less, I am envied; if I have less and my neighbors more, I envy. Covetousness lurks in every man’s heart, mine and yours included (Ex. 20:17). More, even without envy and covetousness, we must realize that he who has great reassure will have much business in it, keeping and building it, being importuned for his power, bound to the affairs of the world by his treasure’s weight, by his own love for that treasure.
Nor must this treasure be in money, land, or physical goods. Family is a sort of treasure, and a beauty, but if family is one’s greatest good, it sours, unable to bear the weight. To idolize one’s wife is to break a marriage; to find family your center forgets that in eternity, he who has not set the Lord as his greatest desire will be a hatred to all others, even himself (Is. 66:24). Note that the treasure-which-brings-turmoil must not in itself be a bad thing. Gold is good in its place; family is good in its place; treasure, to be worthy of that word, will generally be good in its place. Against eternity, however, none of these can outweigh the trouble brought by making them preeminent.
Great treasure brings pleasure in the here-and-now, and we love it for that, whether our treasure is gold or friends or family or all the ducks in China. We see the now, we see the here, and we carefully blind ourselves to all sight of eternity. In eternity, though, all these things are broken reeds, nothingness. They cannot bear us up forever; their place is smaller than that. They cannot be our goal, our center. Even in this life, though the time has not yet come, they will bend and break and burn us if we rely upon them, will bring us into turmoil both in-this-world and of the soul.
The fear of the Lord, however, is an eternal good. The fear of the Lord does not end with life’s ending. He who has been baptized in spirit, who has been joined to Christ in death and joined to Christ in resurrection (Rom. 6:1-5), this man has an eternal anchor with “our Father in heaven, where for us all stability stands”.1 In this world, it is a treasure without compare; in the world to come it is a treasure beyond compare. The Lord, unlike all their world’s pleasures and joys and beauties, is worthy to be the center and focus of all man’s heart, mind, soul, and strength (Mark 12:30).
To have a little and to have the Lord is to be awash in a treasure so great no earthly gift can compare. Yet we so fail to desire it. I sin. You sin. We all stand at the threshold of eternity, and we do not fear Him as we ought, do not love Him as we ought. We are short-sighted, loving this world and its pleasures, loving ourselves to our own destruction. ‘Now’ looms large; ‘forever’ fades into the background. ‘Forever’, after all, engenders duties upon us, duties of right-doing and of loving Him above ourselves. Yet would we not be more joyous with our eyes open to eternity, with our hearts fixed upon Him? Assuredly we would be: “Blessed are those whose way is blameless,” and “I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoils” (Ps. 119:1,162).
Let us turn our eyes, then, towards Him. Let us set our hearts to love Him and our steps to fear Him, to give Him the reverence we ought. We will stumble. We will turn aside, value our own wills and our earthly desires above Him. God is a merciful God, though, and He keeps those who are His, the lost sheep, disciplining and healing them as they err (Luke 15:1-7; Heb. 12:5-11; Is. 57:18). Then in Him we shall have the treasure which lasts to eternity, the sure and steady Rock of His promise (1 Sam 2:2).
God bless.
1 – The Wanderer. Translated by R. Liuzza. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/159113/the-wanderer-636eba2a8c60b.
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