A Rich Fool's Testimony

Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for this great and glorious day. What a beautiful opportunity, Lord, you have given us to celebrate you. And we ask that as we study your word today, you would introduce us more to your great character. Show us, Lord, your desire for us that we might follow in the footsteps of disciples. That truly, Lord, we would be what you want us to be. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our coming King. Amen. The story is told of a young man, a young Russian, who had inherited his father's small farm.

The youth starts dreaming right away of how he can expand his property. Then one morning, an impressive looking stranger visits him and makes a tantalizing offer. The youth can have free of charge all the property he can walk around in one day, but he must return to the same spot from which he started by sundown or the deal is canceled. Motioning to the grave of the young man's father, the stranger says, this is the point to which you must return. The youth longingly eyes the rich fields in the distance without packing provisions or saying goodbye to his family.

He throws aside his coat and immediately starts off. He figures he can cover six square miles in a day, but when he reaches the first turn, he decides to make it nine, then 12, then 15 square miles.

Now he must walk 60 miles before sundown. By noon, he reaches the halfway point, taking no time for food or water. On and on he goes, his legs aching and his stomach clawing him with hunger. Still several miles from home, he is already fatigued to the point of exhaustion, yet his obsession to own the land drives him forward. A few hundred yards from the finish, he sees the sun setting on the horizon. Only minutes remain until sundown. Gathering his strength, he staggers on. Just before the sun sets, he, the new master of 15 square miles of land, stumbles across the line and collapses on the ground dead.

The stranger smiles cynically. I offered him all the land he could cover. Now you see what that is, six feet long and two feet wide. And I thought he would like to have the land close to his father's grave, rather than to have it anywhere else. Having said that, the stranger, whose name is Death, vanishes saying, I have kept my pledge. The story is about a young fool, a young greedy fool, wanting more and more and more, only to realize that once he obtains it, he faces death. Our story in Luke chapter 12 is about another fool.

Another fool who faces the exact same stranger that Leo Tolstoy told us about in his story of a young Russian fool. And the fool in Luke 12 faces the exact same end as Leo Tolstoy's fool. And so we begin to see that we have a story in Luke 12 that teaches us about the danger of materialism, the danger of greed, the deceitfulness of riches, the danger of desiring more and more and more, only to realize that the more we obtain, the more we obtain, the more we realize it does not give us what we so desperately need.

Let me read to you what Jesus says in Luke chapter 12, beginning with verse number 13. And someone in the crowd said to him, teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me. They said to him, man, who appointed me a judge or arbitrator over you? And he said to them, beware and be on your guard against every form of greed for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions. And he told them a parable saying the land of a certain rich man was very productive.

And he began reasoning to himself saying, what shall I do since I have no place to store my crops? And he said, this is what I will do. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come, take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him, you fool, this very night, your soul is required of you. And now who will own what you have prepared? So is the man who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

Our Lord, when he arrived on this planet, he came to share the good news of salvation. He came to preach the forgiveness of sins. He came to help man see that his condition left him no hope. The only hope he had was that a savior who is Jesus Christ, our Lord. And so when our Lord came and he began to preach the message of truth, he invariably would confront the error of the religious establishment of his day. And as he confronted the error of the religion of Judaism, more and more people became irritated with all that he said.

So much so that they would begin to tribute his works to Satan because they could not deny the supernatural aspect of his works. So they had to take his works and convince the people that the way he did the miracles was by the power of Satan. And so the religious establishment would soon confront the people and not just confront them, but convince them that this so-called Messiah was truly of Satan. And yet the crowds began to grow. They still were growing when we come to Luke chapter 12. So much so that there were tens of thousands of people, as the text says, stepping on one another to hear what this self-proclaimed Messiah, in their mind, had to say.

And so he would begin to address them. He would speak to his disciples, the text says. In that massive crowd, there were certain followers of the Lord Jesus. Some that were casual, some that were curious. They had not made a decision about the identity of the Messiah. They had not been convinced that they should follow him. And so he would preach specifically to those disciples, those curious ones, those fascinated with what he had to say, that he might demonstrate to them the truth of the word of the Lord.

In so doing, as he spoke, everybody who was there would hear the words of Jesus Christ, our Lord. And there are two things, he says, they need to avoid. Two things they need to be aware of. Number one, the deceitfulness of religion.

And number two, the deceitfulness of riches. Two pervasive, two damning forces, this side of eternity. Two that go hand in hand. One in the material, one in the immaterial. One in the natural, one in the supernatural. Natural. But both of them, if you follow their deception, will send your soul to hell. And Christ would begin to warn his disciples about the deceitfulness of riches and the deceitfulness of religion. Both are designed by Satan to damn the soul of man. Both of them are used by Satan to cause man to believe in something that is not true.

But yet, because they are so deceptive, they follow. And hell welcomes both, who are deceived by religion and deceived by riches. It's interesting to note that false teachers, religious hypocrites, are in that religion for money. Luke chapter 16 tells us in verse number 14, now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and they were scoffing at him. The Pharisees were lovers of money. And so it's no accident that as Jesus is preaching, this man will interrupt him with something that pertains to the religious establishment of the day.

They loved money. They wanted their money. And they would use their false religion to obtain their wealth. And that's the way false religion always is. In fact, over in Peter's epistle, in 2 Peter chapter 2, verse number 3, speaking of false teachers, it says in verse number 2, many will follow their sensuality. Because of them, the way of the truth will be maligned. And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words. In their greed. That's the way the Pharisees were. They operated out of their greed.

No one buys into a false system unless it does something for them on the temporal level. And that's what the false system of Judaism provided for the Pharisees, the scribes, the lawyers, the Sadducees. And so Jesus would address that issue once this man began to interrupt him. Thinking about this, I was reminded of our society here in America. We are a society of people who love to accumulate things. We have so many possessions, don't we? I want you to think about your house and your garage and all the things that are there.

Some of us have so many possessions that we can't even park our car in our garage. Now, if that's you, believe me, I don't have you in mind because I haven't seen your garage. But is it not true that people have so many things, they accumulate so many possessions, that their garage is filled to overflowing that they can't even put their cars in there anymore? And on top of that, in America, we have gone to a thing called storage systems. Have you noticed how well off the people who own those storage bins live?

Because we, because we're collectors, because we love possessions, because our garage is filled, we now have to go and rent a storage unit to put the excess of our possessions someplace else because we no longer have any room in our house. And you will note that a lot of people who have stuff in those storage units are still paying them off on their credit cards, even though they never use those things in those storage units. They can't even get to those things anymore because the storage units are so filled with their possessions.

That's the way we are in America. We love to accumulate all kinds of things. And yet, having possessions really is not a problem. It's your attitude towards the possessions that's the problem, right? Just because you have lots of things doesn't mean that you are greedy or that you are covetous or that you're a lover of money. Abraham was a very wealthy man. Job was a very wealthy man. They had lots of possessions. Just because they had them didn't mean that they were greedy or filled with sin. Joseph of Arimathea was an extremely wealthy man.

In fact, some 2,000 years ago, Joseph of Arimathea would go home and talk to his wife, Mrs. Arimathea. And he said to her, honey, I want to let you know that I gave our tomb away. And she said, you did what? He said, I gave our tomb away. She goes, you can't do that. That tomb was designed for you and for me, our children, our family. That was designed specifically for our family. And Joseph said to his dear wife, it's okay, dear. The man who needed it truly could use it. She said, who did you give it to?

He said, I gave it to a man named Jesus. She said, who? I gave it to a man named Jesus, Jesus. But it's okay. He's only going to use it for the weekend. At least you're awake this morning. Joseph of Arimathea was a very wealthy man. Having possessions is really not a problem. Your attitude toward them is the real problem. That's why Paul said in 1 Timothy 6, these words, but to those who want to get rich, they want to fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunged men into ruin and destruction.

For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil. And some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many, many a pain. Riches are deceitful. So much so that Jesus would refer to them in one of his parables, the parable of the sower and the soil about a man who would jump on the Jesus bandwagon and follow Jesus for a while. But because of the deceitfulness of riches and because of the desires of this world, this individual would fall by the wayside. He would not bear fruit.

Oh, he got on the Jesus bandwagon. And there were a lot of people who were among the tens of thousands in Luke 12, who were a part of the Jesus bandwagon. They were the curious disciples. They were the casual observers thinking that if following Jesus brought them something, they would continue to follow Jesus. And yet because of the deceitfulness of riches, they're deceitful because they never produce what they promise. They just don't. People would fall by the wayside. And so Jesus is concerned about people being seduced spiritually and being seduced materially.

And so when you come to our story in Luke chapter 12, verse number 13, Jesus then begins to give a warning. A warning. There are certain things I want you to see about this story in Luke 12. Number one is the request.

Number two is the rebuke. Number three is the response. Number four, the revelation. Number five, the request. And number six, some reflections that we need to look at as we examine our life in light of the parable of the rich fool.

In verse 13, and someone in the crowd said to him, teacher, tell my brother to defy the family inheritance. What prompted this? Here is Jesus with all these people saying, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. Beware of the hypocrisy of the religious establishment that you yourselves are following. Be careful because all of you will be accountable to God one day and he will expose the secrets of men's hearts. He will expose your motives. You're held accountable to God. So make sure you fear God only and not fear man.

Make sure you live in fear and trepidation of the God of the universe all the time. Why? Because you need to make a public confession of the Christ. You confess him before men because if you don't confess him before men, he will not confess you before the angels who are in heaven. And you need to make sure that what is being revealed to you through the words that I'm speaking to the spirit of God, who's using these words in your heart, that you don't blaspheme the spirit of God because that is the only sin that cannot be forgiven.

Because once you have heard the truth and that truth has been revealed to you and you blaspheme the spirit of God who is the revealer of that truth, it's impossible to renew you to a place of repentance. So Christ is talking about these spiritual truths and yet there's somebody in the crowd who can't wait for Jesus to get off the spiritual things to get on to the to the material things. There's somebody in the crowd who just can't hold back any longer. He wants to know the answers to his specific problem.

He wanted the Lord to solve his problem. He did not want the Lord to sanctify his person. Folks, that's the evangelical church today. We go to church because we want Jesus to solve our problem. We're not interested in Jesus sanctifying our person, setting us apart as holy. We come with a problem. We got this financial problem. We got this relational problem. We got this social problem. We got this marital issue. We got all kinds of problems and we want Jesus to solve our problem. So we read our bible expecting Jesus to solve our problem.

We go to prayer expecting Jesus to solve our problem. We go to church saying okay I got a problem, tell me what Jesus is going to do about my problem. Not realizing that sometimes Jesus puts you in those problems because that's the way he's going to sanctify your person. He wants you to be holy. If he wanted you to be happy he'd have given you the happy spirit. But he wants you to be holy so he gave you the holy spirit. Right? We got that all confused in today's economy. Solve my problem. Jesus solve my problem.

Teacher, rabbi, I got a problem. Can you solve it for me? That has nothing to do on the outset as to what Jesus is talking about. But in reality God is sovereign. He rules over all and the man's interruption fits right into the discussion of what Jesus wants to deal with the people about. Because he knows that the deceitfulness of religion will damn the soul of a man just as much as the deceitfulness of riches will damn that soul. And one in the spiritual, one of the material are the two avenues Satan uses the most to take people off track and lead them into his dark abyss.

And so we need to understand those things right? So in the outset it looks like the two don't go together but they do. They go together perfectly. And so Jesus will address this man. He comes, he blurts out, teacher, you know, I don't know how you can interrupt Jesus but he does. He does. He just blurts out, teacher tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me. He can't wait for Jesus to get off his topic and to get on to what he needs to have happen in his life. He's focused on the physical and doesn't care about the spiritual.

Not knowing that the reason he is the way he is in the physical realm is because of the way he is in the spiritual realm. We come to church and we have an issue and we want God to deal with it. Not knowing that it really is a spiritual issue. And when you come to church you come to hear what Jesus has to say about the condition of your heart. Your heart. Because once he deals with the heart of a man everything else will fall into place. The problem is our hearts are not right with the Lord God. So this man he comes and he shouts out teacher, rabbi.

Now rabbis, listen, to be fair rabbis dealt with these kind of things on a regular basis. What this man asked was in tune with the cultural expectations of rabbis. And so he called him rabbi. He called him teacher. Tell my brother. And maybe his brother is in the audience. Maybe he's not. And maybe he's saying tell my brother. He's pointing at his brother. Tell him to divide the family's inheritance. He doesn't say Lord could you listen to the to both sides of the issue here and then help us come together to to have some semblance of of togetherness in our family and how it all can be solved.

He almost commands Jesus. Tell him. Tell him now to divide the inheritance. A lot of people like that today. They like to tell Jesus what to do as if he's going to respond to the commands of man. But this is this individual. Rabbi, tell my brother. He has got to divide the family inheritance. Now just as a note, over the last 32 years of pastoral ministry, I've kind of realized that family inheritance become huge issues in people's lives, huge issues. And the true condition of one's heart is seen when the inheritance is put out on the table and you got to make a decision.

Right. This is where this guy was. He wanted his portion. He wanted what was coming to him. He wanted Jesus to handle that. So the man gives the request. Notice number two, the rebuke.

Jesus says, man, who appointed me a judge or arbitrator over you? You can use the word man translated mister. It's a word designating distance. In other words, Jesus doesn't know the man. The man is no Jesus. It's a term you would use with a stranger. Jesus said over and over again, my kingdom is not of this world. We know that in John five, Jesus is the judge and he will judge every man according to his deeds. That's what he will do. But when it comes to the social, when it comes to the civil, Jesus says, I'm not here for that.

I'm here for one thing. And one thing only the salvation of men's souls. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. That's what Jesus came to do. But he will quickly change the man's physical question to address his spiritual condition. He will turn it around on the man to help him see the condition of his heart. Because that's what Jesus does better than anyone else. So Jesus rebukes him and says, mister, that's not what I'm here for. But let me tell you what I am here for.

Here's his response. Beware and be on your guard against every form of greed. For not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions. Beware. So he's already said, beware of the deceitfulness of religion. And now he's going to say, beware of the deceitfulness of riches. Be on your guard, be vigilant. You got to be vigilant. You got to be on your guard. You got to be protective. Why? Against every form of greed, pleonexius. Every form of greed. Everything that causes you to scheme, to grasp for.

Everything that makes you thirsty for things this side of heaven. Greed can be translated covetousness. It really is idolatry, according to Colossians 3 verse number 5 and Ephesians 5 verse number 3. All covetousness is idolatry. This man live in a perpetual transgression of the 10th commandment. Thou shalt not covet. But Jesus says, be on your guard against every form of greed.

He will deal with the particulars of possessions, but there's all kinds of greed. All kinds of things that we covet. It might be the coveting of money. It could be the coveting of my neighbor's wife. Right? It could be the coveting of my neighbor's car. It could be anything that I thirst after. Anything that I long for that takes me away from worshiping my God. Beware of every form of greed because it comes in all different shapes, all different forms, but it turns your heart away from the Lord God.

It turns your heart toward the things of the material and takes you away from the things of the spiritual. Satan uses the deceitfulness of riches to get us to think they're going to give us life, but he says this, man's life does not consist in the abundance, the over excess of things that he possesses. The word life is zoe, not bios. Bios deals with our existence, but zoe deals with the abundance of living. It deals with the quality of life. Man's quality of life, man's existence, does not consist of the things in which he possesses.

In other words, if you want joy and if you want abundance in me, it does not wrap itself around the things of this world. And that's what riches do. They deceive us into thinking that the more I have, the better I'm going to feel, the more secure I will be. That's why over in the book of Ecclesiastes, the fifth chapter, the 10th verse, it says, he who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity. He who loves money, Solomon says, will never be satisfied with money.

Because once you get what you think you need, you want more. And then once you get that, you want more. It doesn't satisfy. It doesn't feel the deepest needs of a man's spiritual existence, his soul. Because the soul is eternal. Money is temporal. You can't feel an eternal longing with a temporal provision and be satisfied. You just can't. Oh, you think you can. And that's the deceitfulness of riches. It gets us to believe that, you know what, if I just have this, or if I can just accumulate this, I'll rest at ease.

I'll be happy. Really? Solomon said, same chapter of Ecclesiastes, fifth chapter, 12th verse, the sleep of the working man is pleasant, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich man does not allow him to sleep. The rich man never sleeps well. Can't. Because there's always something missing. Always something else he needs, something else he wants. He's got to have it. He's got to figure out a way to get it. And even though he's got a full stomach, he lays awake at night thinking, how can I get this?

And how can I obtain that? Because I need to have this to be satisfied. And never satisfies the soul. It can't. Man's life does not consist in the abundance of things in which he possesses. It just doesn't. The problem is we think it does. We think that if we have all these things, we're going to be happy. If we think that we can provide for our children, we'll be happy. No, it doesn't work that way. Be on your guard against every form of greed. And it might not just be the accumulation of possessions.

It might be the accumulation of degrees. You ever known people that live a perpetual existence in school? Once they get this degree, they get the next degree. Once they get that degree, they get the next degree. Because they're never satisfied with the next doctorate, they got to have another doctorate. Beware of every form of greed. Because it seems to be deceitful. Not seems, it is deceitful. It gets you to think that what you obtain is going to bring you satisfaction, joy, happiness, peace, tranquility, rest.

But it doesn't. Jesus said in John 10, 10, I came to give them life and to give it to them abundantly. The life that Christ gives is an abundant life, a joyous life, a peaceful life, a blessed life. That's what Jesus came to give. That's the zoe he speaks of. That's the abundance of the life that he gives. So Jesus gives his response. You're on the wrong road. You think that this is going to make you happy. It's not. I can tell him to divide the inheritance. But next week, you're going to be just as frustrated as you are today.

You're on the wrong road. The life that fulfills is the life of God in the soul. His soul was empty. Jesus knew that. So you move from the request to the rebuke to the response to the revelation. God, the son is going to reveal to this man the condition of his soul. He gets a parable. A parable is a story placed alongside a principle to illustrate the principle. Christ spoke in many parables. In fact, we have a whole series called the parables of the Lord, searchlights for the soul, because they shed light on the condition of man's heart, his soul.

And so Jesus says, the land of a certain rich man was very productive. He began reasoning to himself, saying, what shall I do since I have no place to store my crops? He said, this is what I will do. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones. And there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry. Christ gives a parable. This man was a rich man before he became very productive.

It's a story of a certain rich man. He is already wealthy. And now he becomes super wealthy. He becomes super productive. The word for productive is the word euphorios, where we get our word euphoria. The word euphoria is an agricultural term, meaning extremely productive. And this man was productive. He was filled with joy. He was elated. He was over the top when it came to happiness. He was fulfilled. The crop was huge. His harvest was wealth. Not because he schemed to get it, not because he was abusive to his employees, not because he cheated, not because he did anything illegal.

It was all legal. It was all right. It was all above board. He didn't do anything under the table. He was a rich man. He became very productive. Now, how did he get that way? The Lord. The Lord allowed him to be that way. Every good gift and every perfect gift coming down from the Father of Lights. We learned about this on Wednesday night. The Lord is good. He's good to all, right? And the Lord allowed the sun to shine on the just and the unjust. He allows the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

And it was the Lord God who causes the sun to shine, the rain to fall, fall particularly on this man's crops, so that he would have a wealth of harvest. And a rich man became all the more richer because of God. The Lord did it. The Lord was involved in his life like he's involved in everybody's life. He's merciful to all. He's good to all. He's kind to all. He's generous to all because that's the way God is. If you were here on Wednesday night, you understand the goodness of God toward man. And God was allowed or God allowed him to be profitable.

But there is no recognition of God in his life, is there? There's no saying, thank you, Lord. Thank you for the rain, the sun. Thank you for the wealth that I have been able to accumulate because it all comes from you. Thank you, Lord. There was no thought of gratefulness. Instead, there came a question. What shall I do? There's a dilemma, right? What am I going to do now? I'm already rich. And now I am beyond rich. I got everything. What am I going to do with all that I have? There's no thought of the orphan, the widow, the temple, the synagogue.

How can I help people out who are in need? There's got to be somebody here that doesn't have what I have. How can I somehow be a part of their life to help them understand what God has done in my life? That's not a part of his thinking because God's not a part of his life. He doesn't even give God any credit. There's something terribly wrong with the picture of this man's heart. What am I going to do? Notice, I will store all my grain and my goods.

So not only does he have grain, he has goods. The goods made him a rich man. The grain made him even a richer man. I have so much grain. I have so much good. And what will I do? This is his dilemma. And yet, and yet, he says through 11 personal pronouns, I, I, I, I, my, my, my, my. It's all about him. You will notice that rich people only think about themselves.

Greedy people only think about themselves. That's why they're greedy. That's all about them. It's all about me. It's about what I can accumulate. It's about what I can do. And so their conversation is always I, I, I, me, me, me. Look what I have done. Look what I have accomplished. Look what my house looks like. Look at my barns.

It's all about me. And these 11 personal pronouns in the story help us to understand he's consumed with himself. There's no family involved. It's all about him because the word soul is in the singular. And so there's nothing about his wife, his kids, because they don't exist. He's single. He's all by himself. He has more than what he needs to last him this life and 10 hundred other people's lives. He's got it all. What am I going to do? I tell you what I'll do. Just build bigger barns. That's all I'll do.

I'll just make myself bigger barns. Make them bigger than they already are. Just keep accumulating all the wealth and storing it up. I'm not going to give it away because if I give it away, then that just brings down the demand and then lowers the price. I'm going to keep it all. Just give a little bit out of time if I even do that. It's all mine. And so he never even thought about God. He never thought about his fellow man. But worse, he never gave one issue of thought to his mortality. Did he? Not at all.

For many years I'll be at ease. I'll be able to eat, drink and be merry. I'll be able to retire and have fun. Wow. What a life. This is great. Jesus says, but God said to him, you moron.

You fool. You fool. This very night, your soul is required of you. And now who will own what you have prepared? That's the materialist's worst nightmare. Now who will own what you have prepared? Remember Solomon's words back in Ecclesiastes chapter 2, verse number 18 and 19. Solomon said these words, Thus I hated all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun. For I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool. Yet he will have control over all the fruit of my labor for which I have labored by acting wisely under the sun.

This too is empty. This too is vanity. He had given his life for his possessions. And yet he's gonna give it to somebody after him. Who? You can't take it with you when you die. You can't take all the stuff with you to heaven. It stays. It's of no value in eternity. This man's attitude, his actions show that he is a mindless individual. Oh was he smart economically? By the world standards, sure he was. Was, would he be a great CEO of some large company? Probably so. But he was mindless in God's estimation.

He was a fool because he took not one thought for his mortality. What will you do when you die? If you're not ready to die, you are not ready to live. He wasn't ready to die. He didn't even think he was going to die. The result, so is the man who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. Here's the application. So is everyone who is consumed with greed. So is everyone who is a covetous person, who is an idolater. They're rich toward themselves, but they are not rich toward God. And God says, you fool.

You fool, you mindless moron. Look where you're at today. Tonight, your very soul is required of you. And look at what it says, literal translation.

Now who will own what you have prepared? It says this very night, your soul is required of you. Literal translation. They are demanding your soul from you. Who's they? God, the father, God, the son, and God, the Holy spirit. The three aspects of the triune nature of God spoken about earlier in the first 12 chapters.

You got to fear God, fear only him. You've got to confess the son and you can't blaspheme the spirit of God. Those three individuals making up one person, the Lord God, the universe, they will demand your soul. Isn't that interesting how God ties it all together in one simple parable, because you were deceived, not religiously, but you were received by riches. Your soul will spend a Christless eternity in the fires of hell. How sad, how sad. Story ends, story ends. Let me give you some reflections.

How does this apply to you and me today? How do we deal with this? Let me give you three principles. Okay. Number one is this.

Whenever you are blessed with much, give generously. Whenever you are blessed with much, give generously. Let's know what first Timothy 1, 6, 17 says.

Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed. That's Paul's instruction to those who are rich. If some way God has blessed you with possessions, with finances, give generously.

Even the fictitious character Scrooge knew that there was more joy in being generous than there ever was in the collection of more and more and more. In the giving generously, you experience and begin to lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, right? Where thieves can't break in and steal, where moths don't come in and destroy, you can't because there are eternal treasures and glory. And when God decides to bless you with possessions, with things, with finances, you need to give generously. Having things is not a problem.

It's not. Your attitude toward them reveals everything about your heart. Your attitude reveals the condition of your spiritual temperature and where it is. And so if God has blessed you with much, give generously. Number two, when you plan for the future, think terminally.

When you plan for the future, think terminally, terminally. You can't take any of it to heaven. And so when you think terminally, that is you're going to die. Life is but a vapor. James would say, chapter four, verse number 13, come now you say today or tomorrow, we should go to such and such a study and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit. For those of you who have planned your year in advance, we're planners in America. We love to plan the future. We love to plan for our retirement.

We love to plan to make sure we got our ducks in a row. For those of you who say, come now, let us go and make a profit. Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Your life is like a breath. Here's your life. You ready? There it is. That's it. Just it's all you got, but a vapor here today. It's a breath. Joe would refer to it as, as the grass of the field here today, gone tomorrow. We think we're going to live forever.

You're not think terminally. You're going to die. What legacy are you going to leave? What is the legacy you're going to leave behind? And you've got to think of a godly legacy. You've got to think of how you're going to store up treasures in heaven. How many people are going to give their lives to the Lord because of your testimony. You know, we want to, this is a practical set. We want to plan for the future, but we can't go to Russia for 10 days. Really? We want to plan for the future, but, but, but we can't go.

We can't go to Uganda for, for 14 days. Just can't do it. Done the money. Done the money. You always have enough money to do what you want to do. That's for everybody in this room. Don't say that you don't have enough money to do what you want to do. You do. You do. And yet we can't think terminally. We want to think permanently. I'm going to live forever. Got to put my money aside because I got to have that nest egg so that when I retire, I, I can live in that condo in Laguna Beach. That's nice.

It's nice, but you're not thinking terminally. You got to realize that there's something you need to leave behind that once left behind really has already gone ahead of you in the future into heaven because you have laid up treasures in heaven. You've talked to people about the Lord. You've taught your children about the Lord, making sure that they follow the Lord and serve the Lord and honor Him. So when God has blessed you with much, give generously. When, when you plan for the future, think terminally.

And whether you have much or whether you have little, grip it gingerly. Whether you have much or whether you have little, grip it gingerly. Don't hold onto it too tight. Proverbs chapter 23, verse number four, number five, say this. Do not wear yourself to gain wealth. Cease from your consideration of it. When you set your eyes on it, it is gone. For wealth certainly makes itself wings like an eagle that flies toward the heavens. Until today, it's gone tomorrow. Then Solomon would write these words in Proverbs 28.

A faithful man will abound with blessings, but he who makes haste to be rich will not go unpunished. A man with an evil eye hastens after wealth and does not know that want will come after him. Those with an evil eye who want to make wealth, they forget that want still follows them. They just want more and more. They're never, ever satisfied. If you want to hold on to something tightly, hold on to the Lord. Seek Him, His kingdom. Get a hold of Him, fasten on, stay latched. Whether you have much or whether you have little, grip it gingerly because it'll all go away one day.

Let me pray with you. Father, thank you for today, the truth of your word. So much to cover, so little time to cover it in, and yet we trust that the words spoken today would have touched the hearts of those who are here and that we would remember your warning. Beware of the deceitfulness of religion and beware of the deceitfulness of riches. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our coming King. Amen.