“Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days.”
and will eat your flesh
This evidence of the corrosion of hoarding materialism-lust in the soul will consume the person captured by it.
like fire.
These words go with the next sentence – “Like fire, you have heaped up treasure in the last days.” The idea is that their burning passion was materialism-lust. That burning passion heaps treasure in the last days, “You are a walking fire of self-destruction.” As fire destroys everything in its path, so materialism-lust destroys everything in its path.
You have heaped up treasure [hoard] in the last days
The word “treasure” means to lay up, store up a treasury. The idea is to keep valuables safe or something of great worth. This treasure in the last days is a pile of greed we present to the Lord at the Judgment Seat of Christ. What a gift to the Lord Jesus!
Mt 6:19-20, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.”
The words “heaped up” means the accumulation of material things. This accumulation of materialism-lust produces a reaction in the soul; it produces its own destruction. We undermine our own souls by believing that if we accumulate or hoard things, we will be happy.
The “last days” here may be the last days of retirement. They own a pile of greed for their old age. However, this may refer to both the last days of retirement and the Judgment Seat of Christ.
PRINCIPLE:
There is a great danger in thinking of God simply as a God of love and mercy; He is also a God of justice.
APPLICATION:
God owns everything. God wants us to be stewards of our possessions, not owners. He is the Owner of everything and everyone in the universe.
Hoarding is foolish – why feed moths for a living!? Everything we do on earth has eternal significance. God will reward us at the Judgment Seat of Christ if we use everything that we are and have to His glory.
1 Tm 6:18-19, “Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, 19 storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.”
What would be the state of your soul if you lost all your material wealth?
