turning your Bibles, if you will,
to the book of Luke chapter 12. The book of Luke chapter 12. I want to read beginning with verse
15 and read down through verse 21. And he said unto them, that is
the Lord Jesus, said unto them, take heed and beware of covetousness. For a man's life consisteth not
in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. And he spake
a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich
man brought forth plentifully. And he thought within himself,
saying, what shall I do? Because I have no room where
to bestow my fruits. And he said, this will I do.
I will pull down my barns and build greater. And there will
I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul,
soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Take thine
ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool,
this night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then whose
shall all those things be which thou hast provided? So is he
that layeth up treasure for himself. and is not rich toward God. This is a powerful text of scripture,
one that truly does have a message in it for us in our time. May the Lord be pleased to open
our hearts and may we hear today from God in this message. It is so important, as we talked
about a few weeks ago, that when you hear the word that you receive
it as it is the word of God and not the word of the preacher.
And we long for the day and the hour when somebody will say,
we heard from God in that message. God spoke to our hearts. Beloved, unless you hear from
God, you'll never live. You can only be saved when you're
called out by the voice of God out of the Word. You must have
faith. Now I know that all of you have
faith and you all believe in Jesus. I know you do. All of
you. Not anyone here that don't believe.
If we were to ask you, do you believe in Jesus, you'd all say
yes. But you see that kind of faith,
an intellectual understanding that there was a man named Jesus,
That kind of faith will not save the soul. The kind of faith that
saves the soul is the kind of faith that comes through the
hearing of the voice of God in the word. Faith cometh by hearing,
hearing by a word from God. And it's whenever God enables
you to believe, when God puts faith in your heart, and you're
able to embrace the Son of God and believe on Him. The very
essence of salvation is a living union with the Lord Jesus Christ,
which comes through a God-given faith in the heart. Every true
child of God is married to the Lord Jesus Christ. They have
said in their hearts, I will take this man to be my lawful
wedded husband, and I will serve him, be faithful unto him, and
honor him with all my life. Every waking hour of my life,
I'll be conscious of his claims on my life. It's not this little
thing that people are talking about today, this little thing
called salvation. Very little of it's real, folks.
Very little of it is real. The kind of faith that saves
is a gift of God, and you must be called of God in order to
possess that faith. Now I know you, I know I don't
know who's saved here and who's not. I think that we sometimes
try to judge who is saved and who's not, but that's not our
prerogative. I think that God knows who's saved here. I believe
that. That's firm conviction in my
heart. And I do believe that those of
you who are saved know who you are and know that you are saved. You know that God has done something
in you that didn't leave you the same as you were. That God
intervened. You know that a miracle happened
in your life. You know that God did a great
work in your soul, and you know this thing of salvation, that
it involves more than just a little simple head nod to a few facts
that somebody gives you, maybe a personal witness or a preacher
would give you, that salvation is really, really a miracle. It's a miracle of God's grace. Well, I just threw that in this
morning. in order that you might be prepared in your heart to
hear what God says. It's so important that you hear
the Word. You've got to hear the Word. Now I want to begin this, and
I'll try to be brief, because we do want to have the Lord's
Supper. at the end of our service this
morning, so I'll attempt to be very, very brief. First of all,
I want to say that man is by nature like this man in our text. Man in his fallen state is just
like this man. He's a fool. Now, it's not right
for me to call anybody a fool, but when God calls a man a fool,
he's a fool. And if God says he is, he is.
And God said that this man was a fool. He spoke to him in verse
20. God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be
required of thee. Then shall those things be which
thou hast provided. Man by nature is a fool because
he doesn't see God. He's covetous. He wants the things
of this world. Now to be covetous is to want
and desire and labor for more than what the providence of God
would be pleased to give us. And for our hearts to be set
upon those things to the point where we forget God, where we
forget our fellow man, where we forget our own soul, where
we forget those around us who are in need of the Lord. Now, we understand that this
man was not a seeker after God. He was not a seeker after God,
and if you're living in God's world, and you're not seeking
Him, then my friend, you're foolish. You're foolish. Now this was
a Jewish farmer. His harvest was overflowing,
and he was greatly blessed. God had blessed this man, and
he was greatly blessed. Now, as I look out here this
morning, I'm sure that there's not any face in which I could
look where it would not be apt to say that God has been good
to you, even as He was to this Jewish farmer. Now you may not
be as prosperous as this Jewish farmer, but God's been good to
you. Every one of you here this morning,
God's been good to you. If He saved you, oh how good
He's been to you. And if you're here this morning
and you're lost, You're still out of hell and that speaks well
of the goodness of God and don't you forget it. It speaks well
of God's goodness. When a sinner is allowed to live
in God's world and go from day to day never being mindful of
his need to seek the Lord and to seek the face of God and to
seek the salvation of God. Well, how many times Have you
heard with your outer ears the gospel? It's the goodness of
God that gives us the message of the gospel. And if you've
heard it even with your outer ears, what a blessing it's been
that you've been able to hear, that you've been in a place where
that you've been able to hear the saving gospel of redeeming
grace. The fact that the Lord Jesus
Christ hung on Calvary's cross and died in our room and stayed
in place, and that any sinner who hears that message and believes
that message with a God-given faith can be rescued from the
pit and from eternal burnings. And so how many times has God
in His mercy allowed you to have the strength to come into His
house on this holy day as today, and to hear the message of the
grace of God, to hear the message of the Gospel? How many times
have you heard the thunder of Sinai, the law of God, as it
was preached, as it was proclaimed in your hearing? Over and over again, you've been
told what God expects of a man, and the fact that all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. None have measured up to
God's holy law. God's law is holy. And we remember
when our Redeemer was in the hands and in the clutches of
God's holy law, how that God dotted his I's and crossed his
T's by bruising his son. in the room instead of his people.
It was the Lord Jesus Christ suffering the penalty of this
broken, holy law of God. He had not broken it, but we
had. You've heard the message of Sinai's
mount, that the soul that sinneth, it must die. The soul that sinneth,
it must die. That God will in no wise acquit
those who are guilty of law-breaking. And so you've heard that over
and over. That's the goodness of God, my friend, that you've
been warned to flee from the wrath to come. You've been warned
to stand and to look away to Jesus Christ, and to look away
from the wrath that's coming, and to hide yourself in the wounds
of the Lord Jesus Christ. How many times have you heard
the old hymns of Zion sung? How many times have you heard
amazing grace? How sweet the sound that saved
a wretch like me! How many times have you heard
there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins,
and sinners plunge beneath that blood lose all their guilty stains. How many times have you heard
these old hymns of the faith? And surely there's a message
in them. Those that are true hymns are
certainly blessed of God to the hearts of men and women to turn
them away from their foolishness and covetousness and their sins. And how many times have you heard
this congregation pray for sinners? that their ears would be unstopped,
that their hearts would be opened, that their eyes would be healed
and opened up to the gospel. How many times have you heard
us pray for you and ask that the Lord would intervene on your
behalf? I'm telling you that there's
not a one of us in this building of which it cannot be said that
God has been good to us. Because God has been good to
every one of us. And if you're here today, unbeliever
as you might be, still God has been good to you, even as He
was to this Jewish farmer. Now the second thing I see here
is that prosperity does not give satisfaction. It does not give
satisfaction. We see that the ground of this
rich man he had brought forth plentifully, and he thought within
himself saying, what shall I do? What shall I do? A wise man would
have already known what to do. He would have known that he should
have given it away. He should have blessed others
with his prosperity. But no, not this man. He said,
what shall I do because I have no room where to bestow my fruits. I want to keep it all for myself.
I want it for myself, don't you see? And he said, this I will
do. I will pull down my barns and
build greater, and there I will bestow all my fruits and my goods.
I'll just make me bigger barns. I want to keep all this for myself. I want it all hoarded up so that
I will have it, and I'll feel the security of it. Well, covetousness
is unbelief, and don't forget it. It's unbelief. When a man
says, I want more, I want more, I want more. And when a man thinks
that prosperity will give him satisfaction, no way. The Bible
says hell and destruction are never full, and the eyes of man
are never satisfied. Man is never satisfied. He wants
more, and he wants more. There's only one place on this
earth to find satisfaction, and that is in God's Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Not in wealth. not in health,
not in fame, and if you're seeking satisfaction in anything else
except the Lord Jesus Christ, let me tell you, satisfaction
will always be one step ahead of you. You cannot find satisfaction
in the things of this world, in the things of time and sense.
You will not find satisfaction. And so, my friend, this morning,
if you say, well, if I could just get ahead, If I could just
get ahead, my friend, if you trust Christ, if you believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, if you'd seek first Him and His
righteousness, then all things would be added unto you. God
would bless you with enough. And you would be satisfied because
in the depth of your soul you cannot be satisfied because God
made you to be satisfied with Himself. And only as you acquaint
yourself with Him will you be at peace and will you have blessing
inwardly. Do you have any contentment?
Paul had contentment. He said, I've learned in whatever
state I'm in therewith to be content. Therefore, with food
and rain, let us be content. Because we brought nothing into
this world, certain we can take nothing out. Therefore, trust
the Lord. Away with this covetousness. Now notice in verse 20, God's
eye was upon this man. And he might have thought that
because he had been ignoring God, God was ignoring him. The Bible says in the book of
Hebrews that all things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him
with whom we have to do. God looks into a darkened soul. He sees everything that's going
on. He sees your lost condition. He sees that you're interested
more in the creature than you are the creator. He knows all
about you. He knows what you're about. He
knows in what direction you're headed. He knows all about your
likes and your dislikes and your loves and your hates. He knows
all about it. God looks into your soul. He
sees your rebellion. He knows all about it. I am not
rebellious, you say, I'm not in mutiny against God, but my
friend, if you're outside the Lord Jesus Christ, in every generation
men live, those who live lost, God has hung His Son on a cross
in His mind, and in every generation men are faced with the claims
of King Jesus. And they all rebel against Him
in their hearts, saying, we will not have this man rule over us.
We will not have this man. We will not be married to this
man. We will not be obligated to the
Lord Jesus Christ. My friend, you are in mutiny
against the King, against the Lord Jesus. You're in rebellion
against Him. And if you've not come under
the reign or the sceptre of the Son of God, you're in rebellion,
and God sees it this morning, just like He did this man. God
said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required
of thee. Then who shall those things be
which thou hast provided? He that is not with me, saith
the Lord Jesus, is against me. Now, you may say, well, I'm neutral
in this thing, preacher. I'm neutral, just like Pilate. I will get a basin of water and
someday I'll wash my hands of this whole thing. No, you won't. You cannot get off that easy.
You see, you came into this world at God's time. You came into
this world and you have an obligation toward God. You've lived on God's
bounty all of your life. You've lived on His provisions.
and you'll answer to God for your sin. There shall be no sin
left unpunished. It'll either be punished in the
sinner or punished in the substitute. Sin will be punished and you
must give an account to Him as a responsible soul. And you're
in God's world. Don't forget that. Notice the
character of this man and how the world thought different of
this man than what God did. Now, I know that the world would
look on this rich young farmer, this Jewish farmer, and see how
prosperous he was, and they would say, boy, I'd sure like to be
like that fella. I'd like to have all those goods.
I'd like to have all those fruits. I sure would like to be able
to tear down these old barns of mine and to build some larger
barns. Oh, my. I'd like to be like this
man. Oh, I sure would love to be prosperous. I sure would like to have a million
dollars. Well, my friend, if you had a
million dollars, you'd probably die and go to hell just like
this man did. If God were to so bless you as
this man. But the world, they don't see
the fact. that the wrath of God was on
this man, and that he was an unbeliever, and that he was covetous,
and that he was an idolater, and he was worshiping at the
footstool of material things. The world didn't see that. But
my friend, as we said earlier, if God calls a man a fool, then
he is one, and God says you're a fool. And you can laugh at
other people when they call you a fool, but you cannot laugh
at God. You'd better not laugh at God
when he calls you a fool. Now then, there's several places
in the Bible that where God calls people a fool. But let me say
this before I leave the last point, and that is that God wrote
this man's name on his barn door, as it were, calling him a fool. Thou fool. It was his epitaph. Here lies a fool. God said, I'm
going to require your soul tonight. What an element of surprise.
Surprise this fella going along real well. I mean everything
hunky-dory as the expression is thou fool This night thy soul
should be required of thee this night. You know We were talking
yesterday about the young lady who passed away with cancer up
in power And we were talking about how there are no guarantees
in life No guarantees in life person is born into this world,
and they assume that they're going to live to be 70 or 80
years old, and that they just automatically assume that they're
going to have a long life. Well, that don't always work
out that way, does it? And I'll tell you this, another
thing that we see here is the fact that Men's lives are in
God's hands. They're in God's hands, and He
can take them when He will. Thou fool, this night I'm going
to require your soul. And then who's going to spend
all this money you've hoarded up? Who's going to spend it?
Whose is it going to be? What's going to happen to it?
How is this thing going to play out in the end, thou fool? How
is it going to work out? Well, my friend, we need to recognize
the fact that there is no guarantee. No guarantee that you'll be alive
tomorrow. No guarantee that any of us will
be alive tomorrow. And certainly, we need to be
recognizing that our times are in God's hands. in God's hands. And you can be afflicted and
die within hours. You can be afflicted and lie
for years and years before you're taken out of this world. But
there's no guarantees. God has the key to hell and He
has the key to death. He has the key for that. And
you need to recognize, as this man did not, that his life was
in God's hands. Now in the Bible there are those
who are called fools and the Bible says in Proverbs 28 26
that a man's a fool's way is right in his own eyes He said
I'm going to have a religion that I think is right And I'm
going to worship outside, and I'm going to worship these fields
of grain I'm going to worship my farm produce, I'm going to
worship at the footstool of material things. I can't help what the
Bible says. I'll handle this thing like I
want to. Well, that's a fool. that says that. My friend, this
Bible, the Word of God, I stake my life on the Word of God. What the Bible says is right. This generation has thumbed their
nose at the Word of God, but this Bible is true. And we need to wake up to the
realization the fool has said in his heart, no God for me,
no God for me. I'll not have any God in my life
telling me what to do. Your soul will be required of
you at an earlier or later date according to the good pleasure
of our God. You remember the man who built
on the sinking sand in the gospel of Matthew? The man who builds
on anything else but Jesus Christ is building on sinking sand.
And he's a fool. The way of a fool in Proverbs
12, 15 is right in their eyes. And so we need to remember that
whenever we begin to look at God's words and say, I got no
use for that. Got no use for hearing what God's
got to say. That it's a fool that says that. And says, my way is right. My
way is right. Yeah, your way is right. Right
here and now. But you're going to hell when
you die. You're going to leave this world and the wrath of God
will be on you for all eternity. And then let me say that this
man was a fool because his policy was disastrous. He utterly ignored
God. My barn, you remember that? My
fields? Never once. How can I glorify
God with what God has blessed me with? How can I use what God
has blessed me with to glorify Him? No, no, no. No, he said,
no, it's all mine, mine, mine. And so that was his policy, and
it was disastrous. And then he was a fool because
of the narrowness of his life's aims and purposes. I will build
my barns. He took upon himself the prerogative
that belongs to God. It is God's prerogative to tell
a man how long he's going to live. That's God's prerogative. And how long he's going to live?
Your life, as we said, is in God's hands. And Job 14.5 talks
about how we cannot pass the bounds that God has set for us. He had the wrong estimate of
his soul. The wrong estimate of his soul. What is a soul worth? What is
it worth? You know the Bible says, what
shall it prosper a man if he gain the whole world and lose
his own soul? Sounds to me like a man's soul
is worth more than the whole world. Does that sound right
to you? Does that sound like what the
Word of God is saying? But no, no. My friend, there
are four things that we cannot overlook in this life. One is
God. We dare not overlook God. You say, I've got my goals, preacher. You dare not overlook the God
of the Bible. You better listen to what I'm
telling you. You cannot overlook God and those
around you. and their needs. God would have
us to have an open eye toward the needs of those around us,
both spiritual needs and material, physical needs. God would have
us to remember them. And then our poor soul. May God
help us to be merciful and pitiful toward our own souls. and to
wean ourselves away from this world and the destructive forces
that are at hand in this world, that which can carry us away
into endless suffering and death, and we cannot overlook death.
We cannot overlook it. And I remind you of that. You
cannot overlook death. It's coming. It's bound to come. Every living thing will die. And you will die. Your forebearers
have already gone, and you can go to their graves. You, your
day is coming. Death is real. It is permanent. And don't overlook death. Those of you who are young, what
are you going to do? You say, well, I want to get
my education. And, you know, I want to build
a little nest egg and I want to get married. And then I want
to raise a family. I want to get ahead a little
bit in this world. I want to lay up, you know, something
for retirement. And then what? What then? Die. Yes, and then what then? What then? I'll tell you what
I'm aiming at here this morning. I'm aiming at telling you to
look to the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm aiming at telling you to
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm aiming here to tell you this
morning that you must look to Christ, else you die and are
lost forever. You'll go to hell, my friend,
because of your own sin and because of your unbelief. He that believeth
is not condemned. He that believeth not is condemned
already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only
begotten Son of God. You'll go to hell. Somebody said,
I don't want to go to hell for Adam's sin. You're not going
to hell for Adam's sin. You're going to hell for your
own. You'll go to hell because you're an unbeliever. You must
believe on Jesus Christ or else you'll perish forever. Do not
die without knowing Christ. Now then, There are people in
the Bible, we mentioned some of them that were mentioned,
but there are some others that I'd like to mention quickly.
The first man that ever lived in this world was a fool, Adam.
You say, well, I wouldn't have done what Adam did. You're foolish,
you're blind. You'd have done exactly what
he did. Adam was foolish to have plunged the whole human race
into sin. and to give you the nature you
got. That's where you got it. You
got it from your daddy Adam. It was passed down and that's
why you're in the mess you're in. That's why you got the problems
and the hang-ups you got. It's because of your old daddy
Adam. Well, and then the second, old
Cain, you remember? He was a fool. He said, I'm going
to give God what I want to give him. That's what I'm going to
do. And there's a whole lot of people like that in this world.
Just give God what I want to give him. I don't want to give
him my life. I don't want to bow to him every
day. I don't want to serve the Lord. I don't want to waste my
life and use it in ways that are not acceptable to my own
nature, my friend. Cain said that to the Lord, I'll
just give him what I want to give him. Well, and then Esau,
you remember he sold his birthright for a meal. And I just wondered
what you were getting out of yours. My friend, you're alive
and you've got ears to hear. And the gospel is being preached
to you. My friend, believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Oh, look to Christ. Never be
satisfied until you know Him and until He tells you, My peace
I give unto you, My peace I leave with you. Oh, until you hear
Him say that, I won't do no good for mama to tell you that, or
for the preacher to tell you that, but he's got to tell you. He'll tell you, I am your salvation. Look to him and don't be satisfied
until you hear that from the Lord. I am your salvation. Alright, Pharaoh went right on
bucking God, you remember, and finally God drowned him in the
Red Sea. He's a fool. Went right on. God over and over
manifested Himself to old Pharaoh. And old Pharaoh said, well, who
is the Lord that I should obey Him? Just kept right on bucking
God. Finally, you remember what happened?
He got in the Red Sea. He said, I'm going across just
like the children of Israel did. And he thought he was. But then
the waters came over. And he was grounded in the Red
Sea. He was a fool. Yes, he was. Then
there was old Judas. He sold the Lord for thirty pieces
of silver. And then went out and hanged
himself and went to his own place. The question is, are you a fool?
A wise man, I say to you, a wise man would seek the Lord. A wise
man would call on the Lord. And then we take note here in
the last place in verse 21, So is he that layeth up treasure.
The Lord said, Everybody that lays up treasure on earth for
themselves and is not rich toward God is just like this fool, like
this Jewish farmer. that was worshipping everything
material and was covetous. He said, so is he that layeth
up treasure for himself. It's not rich toward God. How
do you get rich toward God? By knowing Him who was rich,
but became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich. You get rich by believing on
the Lord Jesus Christ, spiritually speaking. You get rich by knowing
Him. You get rich by fellowshipping
Him. You get rich by believing His
message and His grace. Oh my friend, this is so important
that we see this. The Bible says in the book of
James that a poor man is rich in faith, rich in faith. A man who believes God is rich
because he has that God-given faith. He has that faith of Abraham. He has a treasure in the earthen
vessel, and that is faith, God-given faith. And so, my friend, how
important this is that we see this. You remember that our Lord
Jesus Christ how that he suffered and died in our place. And you
know, if I go to hell, I'm going to hell seeking the Lord. I know
that a man will never go to hell seeking the Lord, but I'm going
to seek the Lord. I think that's the wisest thing
to do, is seek Him. I heard a story about an old
fellow down in Georgia years ago, and this fellow was very
wealthy. He also was a farmer. Very wealthy,
but he had an awful habit of not paying his debts. Didn't want to pay his debts.
He was well off, had plenty of money, but he just wouldn't pay
his debts when they were due. He just let strong people out
and made them wait and wait and wait. And he had a little granddaughter
that was nine years old. And this granddaughter was staying
with her grandpa for a while. And so at the breakfast table
one morning, she said to her grandpa, said, I had a dream
about you last night, grandpa. And he said, oh, you did? Well,
what was the dream about? And she said, well, I dreamed
that you died. And I dreamed that the angels
came down from heaven to get you. and they picked you up and
they took you up a little piece into the air and then they stopped
and they just flew around a little bit and then they brought you
back down and laid you on the earth and said I heard the leader
of the angel band say that you're too heavy we couldn't take you
up because of all the debts that you owe, if you pay up your debts,
then you'll be light enough and we'll come back and get you."
Well, that old man was greatly moved by that granddaughter's
story, greatly moved, and he went in and left the breakfast
table immediately, and went in and began to pray and weep and
cry to God about his situation, and went out It is said the story
closes by saying that he went out and paid off all of his debts. Every one of them. Full measure. Paid them off. And from that
time on had a reputation of paying his debts on time. He wanted
to be light enough to be taken up when the angels of God come. And my friend, if you're covetous
and you say, well I can't afford to honor God with anything I've
got. I can't afford to obey the Lord. I can't afford to worship God
and serve Him. I can't afford. My friend, reckoning
day is coming. Those who are not rich toward
God are going to be just like this fool. One of these days
there will be a word come. Oh, the angel band has come.
It's come and you are not ready to go. You're not right with
God, ready to go. You've lived for the things of
this world, the things of time and sense. May God bless these
hurried remarks this morning, and may it be of use to your
heart and soul.