Two Sorts of Gold
by Richard Hemery
Gold has always been treasured by men. The price of gold seems immune to financial crashes. It’s at its highest level ever. (£27 a gram as I write this, if you are interested – and a gram is not much!) If you bury it you can dig it up thousands of years later and it still has the same shine it has when it was buried. Nothing seems to touch it. Yet that is not what the Bible says, for 1 Peter 1:18 talks about ‘perishable things such as silver or gold’.
There is coming a time when even gold and silver will be no insurance policy. ‘But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire’ (2 Peter 3:10).
When the Lord returns even the elements will melt in the heat. Everything created will be shaken, and only the eternal will survive that process. What can we trust in? What can we invest in that cannot be shaken? Thankfully God lists four things that are more precious and longer lasting than gold.
Psalm 19:9–10: The decrees of the LORD are firm, and all of them are righteous.
They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold.
Proverbs 8:10: Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold.
1 Peter 1:18: For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
1 Peter 1:7: These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.
The decrees of the Lord, his instruction, the precious blood of Christ, and our faith, these are better than gold!
Where can we get this ‘gold’? Jesus says in Revelation 3:18 ‘I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich’.
Let’s invest in the gold that lasts. We will have something to take with us into eternity – because we can’t take any earthly riches with us.
Prayer: Lord, please don’t let us put our trust in earthly things, but help us buy the gold of Jesus that cannot be shaken. Amen
Richard Hemery was born in Surrey, United Kingdom and studied archaeology and ancient history at University. He has been a Christian for 20 years and has been part of the Ellel Ministries team at Pierrepont since 2001 working as the bookshop manager.
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