We find in a neglected, dusty cemetery in Cairo a sun-scorched tombstone which reads: “William Borden, 1887-1913.” Borden, a Yale graduate and heir to his family’s great wealth, rejected a life of business success in order to bring the gospel to Muslims. Refusing to even buy himself a car, Borden gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to missions, and finally went himself to Egypt.  After only four months of zealous ministry, he contracted spinal meningitis and died at the age of 25. Near the bottom of the epitaph we read: “Apart from faith in Christ, there is no explanation for such a life.”

Let’s go now to the Egyptian National Museum, specifically, the King Tut exhibit. This man was buried with solid gold chariots and thousands of gold artifacts. His gold coffin was encased in multiple golden tombs. This burial site was filled with tons of gold. Why? The Egyptians believed in an afterlife—one where they could take and use earthly treasures. But all those treasures stayed right there until Howard Carter discovered the burial chamber in 1922, untouched for 3,000 years.

What a contrast between those two graves! Borden’s was obscure, dusty, hidden off a back alley of a street littered with garbage. Tutankhamen’s glittered with unimaginable wealth.

 In Matthew 6:19-21, Jesus cautioned, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth.” Why not? Are earthly treasures bad? No, but they won’t last.

Proverbs 23:5 observes, “Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle.” What an image! There goes my new car, my digital camera, my 401K—sprouting wings and flying away.
Sooner or later, it will indeed disappear.  Jesus is not saying that wealth might be lost; wealth will always be lost.  Either it leaves us while we live, or we leave it when we die.  There are no exceptions.

When I was a child, a plaque hung in my parents’ bedroom with these words from missionary C.T. Studd:  “Only one life ‘twill soon be past; Only what’s done for Christ will last.”

Thank you for your investment in eternity.

Yours . . . and His,
Ed Wright, D.Min.
President, Georgia-Cumberland Conference