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- Really nice weather we're having today and for the weekend, forecasted for the weekend. I hope you'll be able to get outdoors and get some things done, maybe some projects outside or maybe just some time to get some recreation, some refreshment, take advantage of the beautiful weekend we have in store for us this week.
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- Well, the plot thickens. The last couple days I shared with you the story of Forrest Fenn, that 89 -year -old art dealer and author from Santa Fe, New Mexico, a guy who hid a treasure, supposedly worth over a million dollars in gold and jewelry and so forth, hid that treasure somewhere in the
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- Rocky Mountains. You know, it's that 3 ,000 -mile mountain range, so that's pretty nebulous, but nevertheless, he also left a series of clues and a poem in a book he wrote entitled
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- The Thrill of the Chase. Well, that was over 10 years ago, and over the last decade, thousands and thousands of people, somewhere around 350 ,000 people got involved in searching for that treasure, and at least five people died in the process of looking for it.
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- Well, over the weekend, as I mentioned a couple days ago, over the weekend, Fenn announced that somebody discovered his treasure, a treasure hunter from out east, he said, discovered the treasure.
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- Well, since that announcement, the whole story swirls in some controversy. The woman, account or whatever, and stole the clues and the place where the thing was looted, and actually to give the chest to her.
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- Well, then there's another guy from Colorado who also filed suit, and he claims that Fenn quote, deprived him of the treasure through fraudulent statements and misleading clues, end quote.
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- I haven't read the suit, so I don't know what in the world he's talking about there, but I don't know if he had personal correspondence with the guy or what, but anyway.
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- And then there are many, many other people who insist that that treasure was never really placed out in the wilderness in the first place.
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- It's all an elaborate hoax, and Fenn has since refused to disclose where he had hidden the treasure, even though it's supposedly been found.
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- He will not say where it was hidden, and that kind of supports the theory that, well, maybe that really didn't exist in the first place, and you were just misleading us all along.
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- So he won't tell who found the treasure, and he won't tell where the treasure was hidden.
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- Well, the other day, Forrest declared, I'm done talking about it.
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- I'm not going to say anything more about this treasure. It was hidden for 10 years.
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- I gave the clues. Someone found it. End of story. Well, now this whole hidden treasure story and the lengths that thousands of people went to to try to find the treasure, as I mentioned the last couple of days, it reminds us of what we read in Proverbs 2, 1 to 5, where Solomon speaking to his son, he says,
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- My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding, yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hid treasure, then you will understand the fear of the
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- Lord and find the knowledge of God. Well, pardon the phone ringing in the background.
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- If you are able to hear that, I'm not going to interrupt this broadcast for an important announcement from whomever.
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- It's probably just a sales call anyway. Well, anyway, I've suggested the last couple of days a couple of different motives that people might have that drove them in that quest for the treasure.
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- One of them is they want the wealth. That's an obvious one. The second one is they just love the chase, as Fenn's book says, the thrill of the chase.
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- They love the searching, the digging, the figuring out the clues and running them down and just trying to find it.
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- They get just as much pleasure out of the chase as they would if they actually found the treasure itself.
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- Now, I applied this to our Proverbs 2 passage. In the first place,
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- God has given us a great treasure in his self -revelation. There we come to understand the fear of the
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- Lord and discover the knowledge of God, a priceless treasure. And then secondly, we should develop an appetite for the search itself, finding enjoyment and spending time with God in his word, both personally on an individual basis as well as corporately.
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- But as the Fenn treasure story becomes mired in controversy, I find some significant contrasts between his treasure and the treasure mined from God's word.
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- For example, Fenn's integrity is greatly being called into question these days.
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- Did he even really hide a treasure in the first place? Is everything he's telling us really true?
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- But God's integrity is wholly intact. Untold numbers of treasure hunters seeking after God's treasure over a few thousand years have testified to the treasure they've unearthed from the pages of Scripture.
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- And his truth, the truth, is confirmed over and over and over again.
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- God has not been found out to be a liar by any stretch of the imagination. Then secondly,
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- Fenn's treasure is very limited and restricted. One fortunate discoverer gets it.
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- If he's able to follow the clues and get to where the treasure is, he gets that treasure.
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- And supposedly this discoverer doesn't want to be identified. By the way, if that is true,
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- I can understand the hesitation given the proclivity of moochers to try to take advantage of someone who gained some great windfall.
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- Think about lottery winners and what they have to go through when they win some great amount of money.
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- But here's the contrast. God's treasure isn't limited to one person.
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- It's not restricted to one person who finds it. God's treasure is available to everybody who will seek it, and it's not diminished in the least by the finder.
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- In other words, just as much is available for the next treasure hunter as was available for the one who found treasure.
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- It's not diminished in the least by the finder. And furthermore, unlike with Fenn's treasure,
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- God wants the treasure shared. For example, he's given the gift to the church of pastor -teachers.
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- And so good shepherds of the sheep, of the flock, will dig and search, and they will unearth nuggets of truth from God's word.
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- And then they get up and they share that truth freely and abundantly with all who are willing to hear.
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- Now, along that same line of Fenn's treasure being limited and restricted,
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- Fenn's treasure is exhausted. And what I mean by that is, you know, now that it's found, supposedly, that's it.
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- That's it. There's no sense anyone else spending another minute looking for it. If they follow the clues and they follow them correctly and they get to the place where the treasure was, guess what?
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- It's not there. It's not there. They won't find anything worthwhile at all.
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- The only thing that would be worthwhile for them is if they were one of those who just loved the thrill of the chase and could care less about actually finding the treasure.
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- But that's not true with God's treasure. The wealth of his revelation is inexhaustible.
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- And what you find, it will be there for anyone else to find as well.
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- So for example, there have been many, many times I'll be studying a passage and I see something in that passage that I've never saw before.
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- I write it down and I'm pretty excited about it. And then as I continue on in my study and I pull down the commentaries,
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- I start reading in the commentaries, I find out that, you know, a couple of the commentaries say the very same thing that I discovered on my own.
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- So when those commentators discovered it maybe dozens or hundreds of years ago, they didn't exhaust the treasure.
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- It was there for me to find it as well. Well, finally, with Fenn, the treasure hider is done talking.
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- He won't say another word about his treasure. Ah, but God isn't.
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- He's not done talking. Here we are 3 ,000 years after Solomon challenged his son to search for the treasure of God's revelation and God is still speaking to us the same word of encouragement.
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- Oh, let me encourage you. Be one who seeks after the treasure of God's word.
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- You will find wisdom and understanding and insight that results in the gaining of the fear of the
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- Lord and the knowledge of God. And that is a priceless treasure.
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- Let's pray and ask God to help us search out that treasure that is so readily available to us in his word.
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- Let's pray. And so our Father and our God, we thank you for the gift of your word, the treasure that is available to us if we will but search and we will find.
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- So encourage us to that and we pray. And I pray for each one listening today that they will have a day of great blessing as they walk with you and accomplish that which you've given them to do, you've given us to do.
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- This we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Alright, well have a good rest of your
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- Thursday. I trust God will bless you richly in it and look forward to seeing you on the last day of the work week tomorrow if you're able to make it at noon.
