Sermon Archives (May 9, 2001):

The Lost Treasure of God

Have you looked for lost treasure?  When you were a child or even as an adult, did you ever dream of finding buried treasure.  What little boy has not dreamed of finding a buried treasurer somewhere?   Maybe as a child, you dug for it in your back yard or a vacant lot.  Maybe you fantasize about finding somewhere a treasure chest, a trove of treasure.  Jesus Christ spoke of just a lost treasure when he spoke of the Kingdom of God: In Matthew 13, he told his disciples that these were “the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven.”   As to the lost treasure, Jesus spoke of it in a short parable: (Matthew 13:44)  "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”  

Jesus taught in parables.  What was the focus of Christ’s ministry?   For 3 and ½ years, what were the centerpieces of his doctrine?  Two things, and two things only: Salvation and the Kingdom of Heaven.  To whom was this directed?   And he said (Matthew 15:24),  “I come to the lost sheep of Israel.”   This was the Jewish people, God’s people.  Jesus called his own people, the Jewish people, “lost sheep.”   In so doing, he revealed the treasure.

What does this parable tell us?  A man enters a field.  In the field, he finds a treasure.   He uncovers the treasure, and he sees this treasure.   He knows that the treasure is not his, because the field is not his.  So he covers the treasure.  He hides the treasure, hoping no one else will discover it.   Then he goes and buys the field.  Now in buying the field, he now owns the treasurer because it is part of the field.

These parables have been misunderstood.  What is the meaning of all this?  What is the meaning of this parable?  A parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning, and Jesus Christ who came as Messiah spoke in parables, as our Jewish scriptures foretold, (Psalm 78:2)  “I will open my mouth in parables.  I will say what has been hidden since the creation of the universe.”  Note, the parables were to reveal a hidden mystery, a treasure hidden since the creation of the world.  What is therefore the interpretation of this very earthly story?  What does it tell us?   The usual interpretation is the wrong interpretation.   You may have received bad teaching on this parable and that bad teaching may have confused you.   Theologians have said that the treasure is the new covenant Gospel with the gentiles.   The field, they claimed, was the Bible where the Gospel was hidden.  The man was a sinner, who studying the Bible, finds the Gospel, this treasurer.   Consequently, the sinful man gives up everything, sells all that he has, in order to be a new covenant Christian.  This is not the proper interpretation of this parable.

The scriptures, whether old or new covenant, define properly their own interpretation: Within Christ’s recorded parables, you will find the field is not the scriptures.  Rather, the field represents “the world”.  The definition is in Matthew 15:38 where it is defined that “The field is the world.”   The man is not a lost sinner seeking heaven, because the man in all these parables is the son of man, a title of scripturarlly defined as the Messiah, here understood to be Jesus Christ.   Look again in verse 36-37:  “His disciples came to Him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field." He answered and said to them: "He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.”   What then is the treasure?   It couldn’t be a sinful man; for scripture defines that the Messiah would never sin.   It couldn’t be the new covenant Gospel (the “Good News” of Gods plan of salvation for all mankind), because Christ or the Gospel was not hid in this world.   This world is not a hiding place for the Messiah, Jesus Christ.   Who would be able to hide Messiah once he found him? And why if he found the Messiah, would he hide mankind’s Messiah?  

The man goes and buys the field.  Doesn’t the false interpretation therefore suggest, that a man could buy the Messiah?  The Messiah, God’s son, the good news of salvation, which he preached, was not for sale.  As it is sung, “In my hand, no price I bring.”   No man can buy the field, which is the world, or therefore the treasurer in the field.  Salvation to be acquired has to be a free gift from God.   And if any of us could buy salvation, what would bankrupt sinner such as us have to buy it with.  It is obvious, that this – the normal interpretation - is not the right interpretation.  God’s Gospel and His salvation for mankind are not for sale.

The key to all of this is that Jesus Christ is speaking to his disciples, and he said to them (Matthew 13:12) "Because it has been given to you (Whom?  Christ’s disciples) to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them (to the world, to those not of Christ) it has not been given.”  This was promised by the prophets, (Isaiah 6:9-10)  “You will keep on hearing but never understand, and keep on seeing but never perceive, because the heart of My people has become dull – with their ears they barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, so as not to see with their eyes, hear with their ears, or understand with their heart, least they repent and be healed.”

Christ taught in negatives:  In Matthew 13, Jesus taught seven parables concerning the Kingdom of Heaven.  These parables can be a bit discouraging.   In summary, the first is a story of the stony and the stubborn soil.  That’s a negative. Then there is the parable of the bad seed:  Weeds that are sown among Gods good seeds, the hypocrites within the society.  Again a negative.  Then in the next parable, there is the story of the monstrous mustard seed.   Malevolent birds from the heavens come to steel away the seed, which are of course false profits.  Again a negative.   Christ was teaching in negatives, not positives.   Then the next parable is of the lethal leaven, where the women hid leaven in that loaf of bread. Then the leaven permeated the whole loaf.   Leaven was the symbol of sin, and it speaks of Satin’s world, as he tries to infiltrate the God’s people with the leaven of sin.   Given as a whole, these parables could be considered somewhat discouraging because Jesus Christ did not hesitate to teach in negatives.   But now, Jesus was giving his disciples something encouraging, which is to encourage to us as well.

Accept this lesson in theology:  This leads to a short lesson in history and in prophecy.   You are about to discover that the treasure that Jesus Christ was describing is actually the nation of Israel, and thus the Jewish people.  The treasurer hid in the fields is the nation of Israel.   Our first point is that Israel is a treasure, sovereignly chosen.  Mark this in your minds: Israel and the Jewish people is a treasurer, sovereignly chosen.   There is of course scripture to back that up.  (Exodus 19:5) “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.”  Here we see God declaring Israel and the Jewish people as his “peculiar treasure.”  Then in (Deuteronomy 14:2)  “For you are a holy people to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a peculiar treasure above all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”   Israel is God’s chosen, and they are his chosen treasure.  (Psalm 135:4)  “For the LORD has chosen Jacob for Himself, Israel for His peculiar treasure.”  God is saying that Israel, the Jewish people, is chosen, and a peculiar people. 

Some would argue Replacement theology; that God’s word is in some respects a hidden lie; that God’s scripture does not mean what is written, but rather that the scriptures mean something that was not written.  Understand this, nowhere in the entire Bible is the Church, therefore converted gentiles, called a treasurer.  Nowhere!  Likewise, nowhere in the entire Bible can one find where Israel is called a pearl.   But in the next two parables, following this parable of the “hidden treasure” as the nation of Israel, there is a description of the gentile church in the last days.

Israel is by scriptural definition “the treasurer”.  Whereas, Christianity, the gentile church is by new covenant definition the pearl.  Christ’s next parable is this:  (Matthew 13:45-46)  "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”   The pearl could not be the Jewish people, because to the Jew the pearl came from oysters, a creature defined by God as “an abomination”.   (Leviticus 11:10-11) “But all in the seas or in the rivers that do not have fins and scales, all that move in the water or any living thing which is in the water, they are an abomination to you. They shall be an abomination to you; you shall not eat their flesh, but you shall regard their carcasses as an abomination.”   To the Jew then, the gentile church is an abomination because its people appear unclean.   Yet God treasures the gentile and the pearl.  We find this description of the gates of New Jerusalem fitly crafted in heavenly places as the Messiah returns bringing it to earth,  (Revelation 21:21) “The twelve gates were twelve pearls:  each individual gate was of one pearl.”   God values the pearl as he values the gentile.

Israel is God’s chosen nation, and Israel is a treasure under all mighty God.  As Israel goes, so goes the world.   For those who do not understand either old or new covenant scripture, it is difficult to find much about United States.   But over and over again, God deals with God’s peculiar treasurer, Israel.   The first point then, is that Israel is a peculiar treasurer, sovereignly chosen.

Israel is a treasurer sadly covered:  Israel was God’s treasure but it was covered in the field, in this world.   When the Messiah first came into this world, this field, as a man Israel was lost as to her original plan and purpose.  The Kingdom that God had promised to his people, the kingdom of heaven here on earth, was languishing.   Israel was under the iron boot of Rome.  For 400 years, Israel had gone as a little obscure insignificant nation subjected to Rome.  The temple itself had become over run with moneychangers.  Matter of fact, Jesus called them “the lost sheep of Israel.”  (Matthew 15:4)  “But He answered and said, "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."    He called Israel, the Jewish people of that day “lost sheep.”   The reason the Messiah came was for the Jewish people. But in this parable, he calls Israel a treasure covered.   Israel is also a treasurer sovereignly claimed.

Understand this:  Israel was chosen, covered, and then claimed.  Now, the Messiah came to this earth, and what did he do?  That treasure that was hidden in the field, and the field is Satan’s world – not God’s world. The Messiah uncovered that treasure.   In Jesus’ ministry, for 3 and ½ years, he displayed – much to the consternation of Rome – the kingdom of heaven.   And he said, “I have come to the lost sheep of Israel.”  He revealed the treasure.  He then covered it back up again, and then went upon his crucifixion to redeem that treasure.

Jesus bought the field with his own blood, to claim the treasurer, which is Israel.  It is Jesus who paid the price to buy the field, which is the world.  (I Peter 1:18-19)  “knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by inheritance from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”  Jesus purchased the field, with His own blood.   (John 3:16)  “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,”   And He is the one, the Messiah, who chose that treasure, covered that treasure.   He is the one, the Messiah, who is coming to reveal that treasurer, to redeem the treasurer, and to reclaim the treasure.

The Messiah is returning to claim God’s treasurer:  Jesus Christ, our Messiah is coming back to this earth. He has bought this field with his own blood.  He’s coming back to this earth to redeem the treasure.  He bought the field in order to reclaim the treasure.  Here is the point that you must get into your heart and mind, because things are beginning to boil in the Middle East.  Israel is surrounded again, and there is in this a foreshadowing even now of Armageddon.   Get this point; God is not finished with the nation of Israel.  Here are the scriptures to back that up conclusion.   Jesus was weeping great salty copious tears, and he said these words (Matthew 23:37-39)  "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!  See! Your house is left to you desolate (Which means the treasure is coming.  But watch this); for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!' "   One day, and it is pledged here, the scales will fall from Israel and from the eyes of the Jewish people as they fell from the Apostle Paul, and when they see him they will say, “, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!' "   We know that time is close for more Jews have come to know Christ Jesus as the Messiah in the last 20 years then in the last 2000.   The Apostle Paul said the same thing (Romans 11:25-29)  “For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery (Paul is talking about a strange mystery here.), lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel (that is the treasure is covered) until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:  "The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.”   And the same promise is found in our old covenant scriptures as well, (Zechariah 12:9-10) “When that day comes, I will seek to destroy all nations attacking Jerusalem.  I will pour out on the house of David and on those living in Jerusalem a spirit of grace and prayer.   They will look to me, whom they pierced.   They will mourn for him as one mourns for an only son.”   Look honestly at these scriptures.  Who else but Jesus Christ could these Jewish scriptures be describing?  The promise then is to Israel, and the Jewish people.  

God used the Jewish rejection of the Messiah for good:  Some say, when God is talking about “Jacob” it is spiritual Israel, the gentile church.  Let us be precise. God does not once in either old or new covenant scriptures call the Christian Church “Jacob”.  When God uses the word Jacob, it is meant to represent us, fleshly Jews, the Jewish people, Israel.  We continue with Paul’s epistle:  “ For this is My covenant with them.   Who is “them”?  Not the gentiles!  Paul is referring to Israel at this point.  The scripture continues. “When I take away their sins.   Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake.  Have you ever notices how angry unconverted Jews become when one mentions then name of Jesus Christ.  They shake their fist and defiantly cry, “Jesus is not the Messiah.  He is not God’s son.  He is a bastard.”  The Apostle Paul tells us that the Jew is the enemy of the Gospel.  But then Paul writes, “for your sake.”   Who was Paul referring to as to “your sake”?  Paul was writing to the Church in Rome, a gentile church, not a Jewish audience.  How is it for them; for the sake of the gentiles?  Because the Jewish people rejected Jesus Christ, because they essentially rejected the message of the Messiah, the only market Jewish believers had to present the gospel of salvation was to the gentiles.  Because of the rejection by the Jewish people, the gentiles were saved.

Paul continues, “But concerning the election they (the Jewish people) are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”   You know what that means?   God never changes his mind.  Israel was His first-born among the peoples of this earth, and a Father’s love never rejects his children.  The “gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”   God does not change his mind.  When God makes a solemn promise, even if we do change our minds, God says that he is coming back for His treasure.   God is coming back for Israel!

God’s promise to the Jewish people is irrevocable:  Here is another verse concerning God’s solemn promise to Israel, (Psalm 89: 27-37) where God is speaking of David, and God says of King David, who epitomizes the highest most noble king that Israel ever knew,  “Also I will make him My firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.   My mercy I will keep for him forever, and My covenant shall stand firm with him.  His seed (Not a single seed, but rather David’s lineage, the Jewish people) also I will make to endure forever, and his throne (a single seed which is Christ.  There are two promises here.) as the days of heaven.  If his children (us, who are Jews) forsake My law (and we have) and do not walk in My judgments (and we have not), if they break My statutes (and we have).  And do not keep My commandments (and we have broken God’s commandments), then I will punish their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes (and God has done that.  Look at the Holocaust.).  Nevertheless (Underscore and understand God is making a promise to the Jew) loving kindness I will not utterly take from him (Who?  The Jew!), nor allow My faithfulness to fail. (God promises faithfulness to the Jew.)  My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips.   Once I have sworn by My holiness; I will not lie to David:  His seed (Plural, therefore the Jewish people)  shall endure forever, and His throne (the single seed now which is Christ the Messiah) as the sun before Me; It shall be established forever like the moon, even like the faithful witness in the sky.”   For God so loves his Son, that he decreed, (Psalms 110:1) "Sit at My right hand (in heaven) till I make your enemies your footstool."  And God ends this promise to both the Jew and His with the word, “Selah” which means, think about that.

God prophesized that we who are Jews would be disobedient, that we would be dispersed, discredited, but not destroyed.  Even to this very day, there are mad men like Saddam Hussein who would destroy Israel.   Anwar Sadat, the King of Egypt, could not do it.  The Red Sea could not drown us. Jonas whale could not digest us.  The firry furnace could not devour us.  And the nations of the world – Satan’s world – have not been able to assimilate us.  The dictators cannot annihilate us.  Israel is God’s chosen people.   God promised in the last days that he would bring Israel back.   May 15, 1948, Israel became a nation; a nation born in a single day.  After 18 centuries, Israel is back in its land, speaking the same Hebrew that Amos preached with. 

The Jew cannot be assimilated:  Other nations get assimilated.   They get dispersed.  They can’t be found.   When was the last time you had a conversation with Malachite, or a Hittite?   Israel is like the Gulf Stream, a river that flows in the ocean, which is the world.   You may wonder how can a river flow in an ocean.   But if you get in a boat, and go out into the Atlantic off Florida, first the water is green.  But then when one gets out a little ways, one comes upon the Gulf Stream, and the water becomes blue, like a blue indigo ink.  And it is right there, a river flowing in an ocean, a river than cannot be assimilated.  Why doesn’t this river get dispersed?   Israel is like the Gulf Stream, flowing in the ocean of humanity, and yet she maintains her identity.  God has maintained these people as his peculiar treasure.   Yes, she has been buried in the field. And Israel has suffered unspeakable atrocities and persecution under Pharaoh, under Nebuchadnezzar, under Alexander the Great, under Nero, under the Turks, and under Hitler, and by those who have called themselves Christians – may God have mercy on those people - and under Russia, and today under the Arab nations.   But the word of God tells us that Israel is God’s treasure.

First of all, God chose the treasure.  The Messiah, his son Jesus, came and found the treasure.  Than the treasure was purchased by our Messiah.  Our Messiah is going to come back and redeem his treasure.   The world can no more destroy the Jews than remove God from his throne.  Let me give you another verse, (Jeremiah 31:35-37)  “Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for a light by day, the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, who disturbs the sea, and its waves roar (The LORD of hosts is His name): ‘If those ordinances (What ordinances is God talking about?  The sun, the moon, the stars, the mighty oceans, and the tides) depart from before Me, says the LORD, then the seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before Me forever.’ Thus says the LORD: ‘If heaven above can be measured (If you can tell me how high is up), and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath (If you can find something this earth is resting on), I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says the LORD.’”  In other words, God says, “If you want me to caste off Israel, I’ll do it when you can pull down the sun, moon, and stars, and tell me how high is up and show me something the earth is resting on.”  This will not happen.   God will keep his word.

Israel is God’s treasure.  Israel, for all its rebellion, is a testimony as to the faithfulness of God.   God is going to come back through His son, the Messiah, for his peculiar treasure.  The Messiah first came with the treasure already chosen.   A treasure covered.  And a treasure purchased, hidden, but He is coming back for His treasure.  One day, there is coming a day when God’s beloved treasure Israel will recognize their king.  (Zechariah 13:1)  "In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness.”   There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emanuel’s veins.  (Zechariah 13:9)  “I will bring the one-third through the fire, will refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. (My friends yell “Never again! Never again!”  Yet here it is in our own Jewish scriptures, that two-thirds of us are yet to die in yet another Holocaust yet to come.)  They will call on My name, and I will answer them.  I will say, 'This is My people'; and each one will say, 'The LORD is my God.’"   Hear me Israel, the Messiah is coming for his treasure.  Let us prepare for the way of the Lord.

What does this mean for us?  Number one, it means everything is on schedule.  Number two, it means as sure as God kept his word to Abraham, that same God will keep his word to us.  Amen.  Given that God has sovereignly kept his word to Israel, we know that he will keep his word to us to those of us not living in Israel.  Number the signs of the times are telling us that the Messiah Jesus Christ is about ready to step out of the glory and uncover the treasure, which is Israel, that he has bought.

Accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior:  If you have not yet accepted Jesus Christ, one of us, God’s Messiah, as your Lord and Savior, it’s time that you did.  As you read this prayer, say these words: “Lord Jesus, I need You in my life.   I believe you are the Son of God, and that You died on the cross for me.   I repent of all the works of the Devil.   Please forgive me for my sins, cover me with your blood, and create by God’s Holy Spirit a clean heart in me.   Renew my spirit so that I can hear Your voice, and be used by you to bring many to the cross.   I accept you as my Savior!   You are my Lord!   Amen.”