In 2000, there were two documented attempts of soul selling.
A Salon.com article titled ?eFaust eFoiled? reported that 18-year-old Sterling Jones ?put his soul up for auction on eBay. Within a few days eBay removed Jones? offer and alerted him that eBay did not allow the auctioning of human souls.

?According to eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove, there's no proof Jones can make good to the winning bidder. 'this gentleman would have to make a pretty strong case to us that he could deliver his soul.??

Wired magazine reported that a 29-year-old university communications instructor was successful in his attempt to sell his immortal soul. After a 10 day bidding war, a New York real estate agent purchased it for $1,325. The seller said, ?In America, you can metaphorically and literally sell your soul and be rewarded for it. That's what makes this country great.?1.

It seems to me that $1,325. is a tad undervalued. In fact we know a human soul is priceless. Priceless means that it is impossible to establish a price for it because it cannot be bought or sold. Ebay is right: Mr. Jones could not deliver his soul even if he wanted to, and a purchaser could not take possession.

On another level, people do mortgage their souls, though usually . . .

I have seen a grievous evil under the sun: wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner,
or wealth lost through some misfortune, so that when he has a son there is nothing left for him.
Naked a man comes from his mother's womb, and as he comes, so he departs.
He takes nothing from his labor that he can carry in his hand. Eccl. 5:13-15

But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy,
and where thieves do not break in and steal. Matthew 6:20

In 2000, there were two documented attempts of soul selling.

A Salon.com article titled ?eFaust eFoiled? reported that 18-year-old Sterling Jones ?put his soul up for auction on eBay. Within a few days eBay removed Jones? offer and alerted him that eBay did not allow the auctioning of human souls.

?According to eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove, there's no proof Jones can make good to the winning bidder. 'this gentleman would have to make a pretty strong case to us that he could deliver his soul.'?

Wired magazine reported that a 29-year-old university communications instructor was successful in his attempt to sell his immortal soul. After a 10 day bidding war, a New York real estate agent purchased it for $1,325. The seller said, ?In America, you can metaphorically and literally sell your soul and be rewarded for it. That's what makes this country great.?^1.

It seems to me that $1,325. is a tad undervalued. In fact we know a human soul is priceless. Priceless means that it is impossible to establish a price for it because it cannot be bought or sold. Ebay is right: Mr. Jones could not deliver his soul even if he wanted to, and a purchaser could not take possession.

On another level, people do mortgage their souls, though usually not intentionally. They do it gradually when they give themselves over to some pursuit that claims them whether it is drugs, money or pursuit of excitement.
A graphic example of this is the south Pacific island of Nauru:

An episode of the Public Radio program "This American Life" tells the story of Nauru, a tiny, isolated Pacific island east of New Guinea and 1,200 miles from any sizable landmass. Around the year 1900, two scientists from the Pacific Islands Company began to study what they believed to be a piece of petrified wood picked up on Nauru. But instead of a fossilized rock, they uncovered the richest phosphate ore ever identified to that time?a discovery so valuable it plunged Nauru violently into the industrial era.

During the years that followed, the country was colonized by a succession of European and Asian nations in pursuit of financial gain, who turned the island into a strip mine. Nauru achieved independence in 1968, but rather than taking responsibility for the land, the Nauruan government continued the mining practices that had, by then, brutalized the island.

By the early 1980s, Nauru boasted the world's highest per capita income, but its prosperity didn't last long. Midway through the 1990s, Nauru's wealth was gone: embezzled by corrupt financial managers, gambled away on risky investments, and squandered on extravagant luxuries. With the money gone, the Nauruans can now see the effects of their short-sighted decisions. More than 70 percent of the island is a mined out ruin, unable to offer the infrastructure or natural resources needed to support a nation state. Nauru must now look for a new piece of land on which to re-locate its population.

"When you're on Nauru," says reporter Jack Hitt, "there's a palpable sense of shame at what they've done ... The Nauruans literally sold off their homeland for a pot of wealth which is now lost."²

The writer of Ecclesiastes says in 5:13:
And in an earlier verse (10),

Jesus expresses it differently. He says,

Store up for yourselves, treasure in heaven? I thought you can't take it with you. Well, it appears that in one sense you can take it with you. In fact not only can you, but...

Your should send your treasure on ahead.
Suppose  you're visiting Saudi Arabia for three months, living in a hotel. You're told that you cannot bring anything back to Canada on your flight home. But you can earn money and mail deposits to your bank at home. Would you fill your hotel room with expensive furniture and wall hangings? Of course not. You'd send your money where your home is. You would spend only what you needed on the temporary residence and do some sightseeing, sending your treasures ahead so they'd be waiting for you when you got home.

Jesus tells us to do the exact same thing. Send your treasure on ahead where it will be waiting for you in eternity, and for eternity. And apparently when you do that, though it is out of sight, it collects interest under God's management.
Sometimes we can even see how God makes deposits into the same account you open in heaven.


So why store up for yourself treasures in heaven? Because you must?
No, because...

God has opened an account for you in heaven.

Send your treasure on ahead not because you must, but because you can.
And you find that as you begin making deposits, God does too, both then and there, but frequently here and now.
In Luke 12:33, Jesus said,
God entrusts money to us, and we give to the needy, which provides eternal, inexhaustible wealth in heaven.

In Philippians 4:17, Paul, the missionary, says to his financial supporters,

We all have the gift of eternity by God's gift of salvation alone, through Jesus. There is no other way of entering God's kingdom of heaven. But God has opened a credit account for each one of us and we can begin making deposits anytime up to our death.

We can accumulate and consume or just save up our material possessions here and now.
Then when we are gone, they are gone too.
Or we can begin sending some of it on ahead, remembering that our time in eternity will be much longer than our time here and now.

It is God who gives us the means to accumulate in the first place, and all we have comes from God, as a trust.

But it's also in our best interest to make deposits in the treasury in heaven.
It's enjoyable too.

Jesus says that where we put our treasure, our heart follows.

Put your treasure in others and in God's kingdom and your heart follows it.
When your heart is invested in God's kingdom, He gives you the gift of peace and joy.
When your heart is invested in others, you are never alone.
The result: you find your world expanding and with it your sense of joy and freedom.

There is a truism about making a purchase: But the best quality you can afford.
Why? Because it will last, and bring you more satisfaction than something cheap.
Investing in God's kingdom is getting the best there is. It will last forever and bring you satisfaction far beyond what you bargained for.

How?
Begin by asking God what He wants you to do with what you have.
And He has already given us clear instructions.
Be a generous giver to others and to His work.
Your gifts will make a difference, not just to others, but to yourself.
Not just for now, but for eternity.

Preached  October 16, 2995
Dr. Harold McNabb
West Shore Presbyterian Church
Victoria, British Columbia

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Notes
^1.  Salon.com archives Feb. 25, 2000; Wired magazine (April 2005) p.26
^2. "This American Life: The Middle of Nowhere," Public Radio International (12-5-03), episode 253.                                         quoted in Preaching Today.com
^3.  An illustration from the website Generous Giving