Life was so short. Hope and love so futile! Home and family…should be treasured and lived for with all the power of blood and mind. Friends should be precious. It was realization that a man needed.”
–Zane Grey (Wanderer of the Wasteland)
“For wherever your treasure is, you may be certain that your heart will be there too!”
–Luke 12:34 (Phillips)
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12.20 — “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is demanded of you. And the things you have prepared–whose will they be?’
.21 — That’s how it is with the one who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” (HCSB)
There are several things to learn from these couple of verses in Luke. Right from the start, God declares the man to be a fool. That term is not used lightly, as Walter L. Liefeld states a fool is “one who rejects the knowledge and precepts of God as a basis for life.” This rich man did not understand the value and purpose of his possessions. The big “I” stood in the way. He ignores God and makes a choice as if God does not exist. A man then not to be envied, but a fool to be pitied.
This rich man does not realize that he is a servant, no more than that, he is a slave. A slave first of all to himself. A slave to his passions and greed. He does not realize that he has no power over his life; his possessions and passions control him. Second, his possessions owned him. More, more…his craving was intense, and he seemed to want more. But all of a sudden…WHAM! God says that “This night…” Life will be over, what then? Several versions have used the term “demanded.” This night your life is demanded… No hope now, no spending of wealth, no attempt at a new beginning–it’s over. Jim Elliot said, “You are immortal until your work is finished.” That gives hope to the Christian, but uncertainty and even anxiety to the unbeliever. Most of the time it is not even thought about. But there is a day of reckoning coming. Richard Dresselhaus states, “You can trust God to determine the day of your death. It has already been ordained…”.
Was this man rich? Oh, maybe in the eyes of the world. They might mourn at his funeral and say he died much too young and didn’t get the chance to enjoy his riches. At death it no longer matters. “He has invested in the passing, not in the permanent.” (Inrig) See, death strips a man bare. What this man owned was no longer of value to him after death. We could say that he went from “riches to rags.” He had a false control and a false hope, not looking at the eternal. Elliot spoke correctly, “He is no fool who give what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” This rich man in the reality of eternity was actually a pauper. Possessions took control of him. Self-conceit became his master. Edward Starks spoke the truth when he said, “The riches of this world engross the thoughts and steal the heart away from better things of a better world.”
There is one more thing this man did not consider and it comes in two parts. First, we see no gratitude at all for those who helped him gain his wealth. Workers and others are not thanked, they are just part of the machinery to help him prosper. Second, there is the issue now that he is going to die, who will control his wealth? How will they use it? Will they be frivolous with it or benevolent? He built his wealth, but the future management of his possession may be wasted by incompetence. We see again that he did not heed the words of Solomon, “Then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity.” (Ecclesiastes 2:18-19, NKJV)
The fool is then, “he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:21, NKJV) This does not mean giving everything away, but it does mean being a proper steward, having God’s kingdom at heart, and living with purpose toward God.