Big headlines proclaimed: "HEIR TO FOUR MILLION DOLLARS IN PAUPER'S GRAVE." A newspaper reporter, writing about it, said: "Every heir to four million, or four hundred million, lies in a pauper's grave. Every corpse is a pauper. 'There are no pockets in shrouds,' no bank accounts in the place to which we go from here."
That is only partly true. So far as taking material possessions along when we pass out of this world, it has been expressed this way:
Out of this life I never shall take
Things of silver and gold that I make,
All that I cherish and hoard away,
After I leave, on the earth must stay.
All that I gather and all that I keep,
I must leave behind when I fall asleep.
And I wonder often what I shall own
In that other life, where I go alone.
But to say that there are "no bank accounts in the place to which we go from here" is the very opposite of the Scripture that commands us to "lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal." Matt. 6:20. On the other hand, we are told in the previous verse: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal."
Everything in this life is uncertain and perishable. The stock market rises, making "instant millionaires," and then falls and leaves them impoverished. Banks and savings institutions fail. Great corporations become bankrupt. Uncertainties, all.
But in heaven, everything is certain and sure. No banks fail, no thief or rust or moth threatens. Is your treasure there?