Our scripture reading this morning contains the text of the parable of the rich fool, which we will be looking at in more detail. But let's read together or follow along as I read this 12th chapter of the gospel of Luke down through verse 21. In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light. And whatever you've whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops. I tell you, my friends, Do not fear those who kill the body and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear. Fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Not one of them's forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not. You are of more value than many sparrows. And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge before the angels of God. But the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say. For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say. Someone in the crowd said to him, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. But he said to him, man, Who made me a judge or arbitrator over you? And he said to them, take care and be on your guard against all covetousness. For one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. And he told them a parable saying, the land of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, what shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my crops. And he said, I will do this. 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 ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, fool, this night your soul is required of you. And the things you've prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. There are the words of Christ. He tells us that his words are life, and we must give serious and sober heed to them. Well, let's ask the Lord's blessing then as we come to his word. Father, we ask just that, that you would give us, by your Spirit, eyes to see and ears to hear and minds to understand your word. Teach us, Father, to examine ourselves, In the light of your word that we're about to hear, we pray, Father, that you would deliver us from a love for this perishing world, but that we would love Christ and set our eyes upon things above where our life is hidden with Christ even now. And we pray this all in Christ's name. Amen. Well, we've just read the context of this parable in which the rich fool appears. By the way, I put a new quote in the heading there on that first page of your handout there. And those of you that are following us online, you can get that handout and print it out or view it right there if you go to sermonaudio.com slash CRC, right? And hopefully you're familiar with that. But you can find all of the printed printout, as well as the video and audio versions of the sermons. But it's a great testimony that Lloyd-Jones gave when he was being interviewed by Ian Murray. Here is this setting then. The Lord Jesus is addressing his disciples. And these huge crowds were coming. I'm not sure exactly what to make of this little detail here, is that not only were the crowds huge, But they're stumbling over one another to come and hear the Lord Jesus. It's interesting. But he begins then, as we've seen, by confronting the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. It's trouble. Don't be a hypocrite. Don't be all white and shiny on the outside, but full of dead men's bones on the inside. Here's an observation about that hypocrisy by J.C. Ryle. The first thing that demands our attention in these verses is Christ's warning against hypocrisy. This is a warning of which the importance can never be overrated. It was delivered by our Lord more than once during his earthly ministry. It was intended to be a standing caution to his whole church in every age and in every part of the world. It was meant to remind us that the principles of the Pharisees are deeply ingrained in human nature and that Christians should always be on their guard against them. Hypocrisy is a subtle leaven which the heart is always ready to receive. It is a leaven which, once received into the heart, infects the whole character of a man's Christianity. Of this leaven, says our Lord, in words that should often ring in our ears, beware. Let us ever nail this caution in our memories and bind it on our hearts. The plague is around us on every side. The danger is at all times. What is the essence of Romanism and formalism and ceremonialism? What is it all but the leaven of the Pharisees under one shape or another? The Pharisees are not extinct. Pharisaism still lives. If we would not become Pharisees, then let us cultivate a heart religion. Let us realize daily that the God with whom we have to do looks far below the outward surface of our profession and that he measures us by the state of our hearts. Let us be real and true in our Christianity. Let us abhor all part acting and affectation and semblance of devotion put on for public occasions. but not really felt within. Our hypocrisy may deceive man and get us the reputation of being very religious, but it cannot deceive God. There's nothing covered up that will not be revealed and hidden that will not be known. Whatever we are in religion, let us never wear a cloak or a mask of religion. Great observations on the danger of hypocrisy. Well, the Lord Jesus continued then with still another subject, which concerned the soul. That's what he's talking about here. I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body. And after that, have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear. Fear him who, after he's killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him, and of course that's God. Some people initially would read that, oh, the devil. No, no, it's God who casts into hell. And then he went on. In verse 8, I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God. But the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. And then he speaks to that oft-debated, discussed subject of the unpardonable sin, speaking against the Holy Spirit. and goes on to encourage his disciples then and us that, you know, don't fret about what you're going to say in that day if you're brought before the rulers and the authorities and so forth and charged with being a Christian. I heard, I think it was R.C. Sproul or somebody I heard once say that. That's not something that most professing Christians have to worry about, being pronounced guilty of being a Christian. You see, even the world can sort that out. But anyway, he said, don't fret about that. In that day, the Holy Spirit will teach you what you ought to say. Well, that's the context then, the subjects which the Lord Jesus has been talking about to that point. and brings us then to the occasion of the parable of the rich fool. Now, here's what was going on then. If you've ever been in a lecture setting or a class of some kind and the teacher was speaking on a particular subject, right? And all of a sudden, someone raises their hand or they just blurt out, you know, be it in high school or college or wherever, sometimes in a class in church. Seems like more often than not, there's always one of these characters there, right? You know, they tend to bring up their issue one minute before the class is supposed to be dismissed. Oh, here we go. But in this case, but someone in the audience, they blurt out a question, and it's inappropriate. It doesn't fit the setting, you see. It might be something that could have been handled privately one-on-one, but no, here they are. Well, that's what's happening here. Jesus has been addressing. Matters of eternity, crucial matters then of the soul, our relationship to God. Matters of heaven or hell and eternal destiny and so on. And right in that setting, in that context, here comes this character and he says, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. No connection to what Jesus was teaching on at all. Here he comes, and he blurts this out, and he reveals his wrong motive then for even being there. There are many people like this in churches all around. They profess to be Christian, but to them, religion is no more than a means to an end. There are people who look at the church Really, they look at God, but they look this way. They look at the church. They look at pastors. They're connected there as a means to get what they want, then, for themselves in terms of, oftentimes, earthly issues. They are there to address the surface and superficial matters, then, of life. You know, I have a problem. I have an issue. I am involved in a squabble with my brother over the inheritance. So I expect the church, I expect the pastor, other members of the church to fix my difficulties. Go talk to my brother. Tell him. Tell him. Take time away from all these crowds, Lord, and teacher, go Tell my brother to divide the inheritance. And here's the danger for us. First of all, we don't want to be that kind of a person. But here's the danger for true Christians, for a true church. And that is the danger of getting sucked into fixing those difficulties. Oh, I'm going to take time off what I'm supposed to be doing. Got to go settle this squabble over here for this. for this fellow, you see. But Jesus is going to respond in a way that puts this guy in his place, rebukes him very strongly and publicly. He asked the question publicly. He made the request publicly. So he's going to get this kind of a response, though it's not one that certainly that he wanted. And so Jesus is going to tell this parable, we'll look at that in a moment, of the rich fool. And basically what he's telling this guy is, thou art the fool, right? You are the man. But after this, after he deals with that man and tells the parable of the rich fool, he returns to his subject. At verse 22, he said to his disciples, therefore I tell you, Do not be anxious about your life. This is just the opposite, by the way, of what this man was fretting over. Don't be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens, they neither sow nor reap. They have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. of how much more value are you than the birds? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you're not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you? Oh, you of little faith. And do not seek what you're to eat and what you're to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you. And so he brings the subject back to these eternal values. And right in the middle of that is where he deals with this man and tells the parable of the rich fool. I've told you before that I grew up in a family that claimed to be Christians. My parents claimed to be Christians. And we went through some of the motions, going to church and so on, Sunday school. I didn't know the Lord. I can look back and I can realize now that the Lord always had his hand on me. He always did. And I grew up in an environment where I heard sermons and I heard the gospel. I knew about Christ and his death on the cross for sin. And so I grew up then in that environment. However, however, at the same time, What do you call this when there's an environment or there's people who are saying one thing but they're living another? You know, if we do that as parents or grandparents or anybody, if we do that kind of a thing, we're going to cause tremendous confusion to children and young people. But that's the environment I grew up in. So here is this professing Christian family. But when it came down to doing what they said they believed, the doing wasn't there. And what I mean by that is Jesus is saying, Jesus is specifically telling us here, Don't focus upon what you're gonna eat, what you're gonna drink, what you're gonna be... Don't worry about this kind of stuff and the stuff. Don't focus on getting that stuff and establishing your own security. Here's what you need to seek after. If you wanna worry about something and be anxious about something, be anxious about this. Seek God's kingdom, and I'll take care of the rest. But you, first and foremost, seek my kingdom and my righteousness." Well, what I mean by the contradiction that I grew up in is I would hear something like that on Sunday at church, and my parents would profess to be Christians and so forth. But the emphasis, the emphasis and instruction that I would receive on occasion from my dad, for example, was, was what? Just the opposite of this. Now, Jeff, you got to be concerned about a career. What, you know, this is what you need to do and you got, you know, you're going to have to, you want to be able to get a house and you want to be able to do, and that was the entire, the entire focus, which is exactly the opposite, then, you see. And that's the only kind of instruction. I never received any biblical instruction, then, from my father. And so it causes a great turmoil in growing up in really a terrible conflict, then. Well, let's listen then to this parable that Jesus tells, beginning in verse 13. Someone in the crowd said to him, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. But he said to him, man, who made me a judge or an arbitrator over you? And he said to them, take care. And be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possession. And here's this man. He's there. Mouth is shut probably already. You know, take care. Be on your guard against the covetousness that you see in this man right here. He's pointing him out to the crowd. He told him this parable, saying, the land of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, what shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops? And he said, I will do this. I'll tear down my barns, build larger ones, and there I'll store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, fool, this night your soul is required of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God." The important instruction that we should give to young people and to one another is, be rich toward God. Are you storing up treasure in heaven or just treasure here in this life for yourself? So this man had completely wrong priorities. He was anxious about things that in the end don't really matter. Right now, millennia later, That man, if he didn't repent, he's in hell. One way or another, he knows what a fool he was that day for getting all wrapped up in this inheritance squabble and so forth, and ignoring the eternal destiny then of his soul. And Jesus rebukes him, rebukes him for being covetous. He was coveting. possessions, his entire attitude toward Christ was wrong. And so many people are like that today. Many people who claim to be Christians are in it, you might say, simply to get what they want, temporal things. You know, the audacity of having an attitude of, well, I use people and I use God to get to get the things that I want then, you see. What are some things people want? Well, they want money. They want prestige. They want, like this guy, money and getting disputes settled in their favor. They want their problems fixed. They want God's approval, even though they go on living without any repentance. And so they get, you know, people wonder, have you ever wondered why people who are hypocrites, They're not really Christians. They claim to be Christians. Why do they even bother with the church? Why do they bother with religion at all? Well, one of the reasons is just like this guy. Why was he even there in the crowd? How come? Well, he wanted something. He wanted something from the Lord. He wanted the Lord to intervene and order his brother to share the inheritance then, you see. And so there's lots of people that expect they're in the church and so on for those kinds of reasons. They expect to get from the church. But the Lord Jesus tells this man, and listen, we need to tell people like that. We need to tell people like that the same thing Jesus said, man, Who made me a judge or arbitrator over you in this particular earthly realm, you see? The courts are in session. The civil court, go to them. Don't bring these kinds of things to me. As Christ's people, as Christ's church, we are primarily called by God to speak to matters of the soul, sin, eternity, God's wrath, God's forgiveness in Christ, his holiness, justification by faith, the narrow way and the danger then of Broadway, you see. How many times do we actually have people who profess to be Christians come to us? I mean, I can think of Hardly any as a pastor in these 40 years. People who come and say, you know, I need to be put right with God because my sin's weighing heavily upon me. What must I do to be saved? When's the last time you heard that question? So often, the reason people come, and they'll talk to the pastor or they come to church or whatever, is, well, I've got this problem, and the church, I think you guys, in fact, they'll have even sometimes, you are obligated, you are obligated to fix my problems for me. See, that's, and so, and so they come. This happens with some regularity, you know, in respect to people who will, they'll call the church, or they'll, you know, sometimes they'll keep watch on a Sunday when our service is over, they won't come in But they'll wait, and they want help. But what they want is money. And they not only ask, but they have an attitude of, well, you're a church. You guys are Christians. You owe me this. You're obligated, you see. Well, there's people who are actually become members of a church, or they come into the church and so forth, because that's what they expect. The church is there to give me what I want, that kind of a thing. And far too often, we get drawn in to those kinds of things. We are not the judges and arbitrators over inheritance squabbles. That's not what the Lord has called us then to do. Responds he said to the crowd take care and be on your You know, you're one that you can fix my problems. He's like Bob Wiley. You can help me, right? And so you can do that. And so he's flattering and our tendency can be to get drawn into those and then off you go and fix them. But you can't fix them. The proper response is, look, why are you coming to me in this regard, right? Who made me a judge or an arbitrator over you? And then Jesus goes deeper. One's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. And that's the danger of covetousness. Covetousness reveals that a person believes that their life, the meaning of life is having an abundance of possessions, getting stuff. Well, obviously, we wouldn't have to go far to find examples of that around us then today. It's really quite stupid when you think about it, isn't it? The idea that stuff can give life. God's the only one that gives life. Christ is our life. True life is eternal life, being born again, you see. But stuff doesn't give life. So it's like Jesus is telling the man, you're covetous. You think that an abundance of possessions is what will give meaning and purpose and joy and happiness in your life. You're fooled. It's a delusion. You should be listening to what I am saying to you right now. He's telling this man, get your focus off of the stuff and get your focus on the words that I'm telling you right here, you see. Peter, at the close of John chapter 6, acknowledges this. Jesus asks him, will you go away too? Because the crowds had bailed out. This parable is written for us as well, by way of warning. We talked about, in the first hour, we talked about the unsearchable riches for Christ. And we can be just like Esau. Esau traded off the unsearchable riches of Christ for a bowl of oatmeal. That's what he did. And people do that all the time today. And we as Christians, we can be drawn into that. We can say, well, you know, when you read your Bible and you're genuinely trying to study your Bible, or when you're listening to a sermon, or when we read, as we read on the Sermon on the Mount in the first hour this morning, what do we have to do? We have to battle in our minds against things that are always trying to draw our minds off. Always trying to draw our minds off. But what that sin is drawing our minds away from is the words that are spirit and life, you see. And so we have to do battle. When we come to God's word, we have to have this confidence. We must have, this is a quote by the weapons of our warfare from Lloyd-Jones and Banner of Truth, we must have confidence and assurance in what? in the Bible as the Word of God. Just as this man that Jesus is rebuking is coming to him, he's hearing the Word of God, the Word of God standing right in front of him. He needs to have confidence that in those words is life. It is God's Word, and it's God's Word because it's God's revelation. It's not the theories and ideas of men with respect to truth, because it's not what men have discovered and arrived at as the result of their great study and scholarship and meditation. It's what the living God has revealed to men when he's shown them and has commanded them to preach. This is God's word, this is God's truth. This is infallible because it is God's. This is the first weapon of our warfare, and it's something to be proclaimed. So this is what we need to do, all right? When you come here, for example, there's other ways of hearing God's word, but when you come here, we gather together as a church to hear God's word, okay? You've got to tell yourself, listen, I am not coming here to hear the pastor preach and teach. I'm coming here to hear the Word of God. This is the Word of God. And I need to sit up, and I need to give it attention, then, you see. So here this man, here he was. He had life right in front of him, the living Word of God, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus preaching, and yet, He blows it off. He's there. Look at it. Look at it. I deserve this inheritance here. And you, Jesus, you, teacher, you need to go straighten this out for me. That was his motive for being there. And in so doing, he blows off the words that are real life. And so Jesus tells the parable. He told them a parable saying, I highlighted that in your handout. Notice how many times this guy is speaking in the first person, me, I. That's intentional for us to see. He told them a parable saying, the land of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, what shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my crops. Throw my in there as well. And he said, I will do this. 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 ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, and be merry. God said to him, fool. This night your souls require of you and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. So here's this man living for himself. His words there tell us what? He really regards himself as God. That's what he's doing. I will do this. These things are mine. This is what I'm going to do. In fact, I'm even going to declare that I have a long lifespan ahead of me. See, he's acting. Sin does this. I will be like the Most High. I will be God, then, you see. So Jesus says, look at this guy is a fool, a fool. That doesn't just mean doing something stupid, but by his very character, the essence of who he was. He was a fool. The world would regard him as successful. This guy's rich. He owns all of these lands. Boy, this guy has treasure. He's got land. It's fertile land. Choice land produces abundant crops. And boy, he can't even fit all of the produce, you might say, into his bank account, right? It won't fit. I've got to open up some offshore accounts. I've got to open up some more bank accounts in order to fit all of this money in then, you see. It's very telling. It is very telling about a person. Let me put it this way. How they handle the excess that they have is very telling about who they are. This man in no way could use all that he had. He couldn't. He couldn't even begin to use it. But what does he do? He keeps it. He stores it. He stores it. He piles it up. He regards it as life. This gives him life then, you see. And so he was thinking that his life, the value of his being, his security, was provided him by his bank balance. It was his God. He looked at his possessions as if they had some kind of divine energy to impart life to him. And that's why Paul calls, in Colossians 3, that's why he calls covetousness idolatry. He's worshiping a false god. He sets himself up as God, which idolaters always do. And he looks to this idol, this pile of grain. in these barns that he allegedly was going to build. So covetousness makes a thing into a god. What is he going to do with the excess? We could think, you know, we might suggest some things that you could do with the excess. There's a whole lot of people around you that are poor, hungry. They don't have enough. You could do a lot of good with this stuff here. You could sell some of this and give the funds over here. Lots of things that you could do with it. But what does the world say? The world says, you don't give your money away. You get a bigger yacht. I saw one of the billionaires, I don't remember which one, but anyway, It's a ship, basically, not just a yacht. Costs something like $250 million a year just to maintain that thing, just to maintain it. But that's what he had. That's what you do, right? I wonder how often he's even on that yacht, how often. I mean, how much stuff can you possibly use anyway, you see? doesn't have life in it, the living and true God is the only one with the power of life and death, you see. And yet, here's this guy in the parable. He's looking to his piles of grain as life, when in fact, here's the life giver, the Lord Jesus right in front of him, the one who gives life. And what about this? Is there any note of thankfulness in this parable on this guy's part. Any note at all of thankfulness, then, to God? I assume this man was a Jew, right? And as such, he would have been familiar with the Old Testament. The Old Testament, I won't take time to read it, but passages like Deuteronomy 7 talk about how It's God who blesses the abundance of your crops and your fields and so forth. And so he knew, if he has an abundance of crops here, he knew full well that it's God. This is God that's doing this and that he owes him thanksgiving. But he refuses to do then even that because he regards himself then as God then. I will do this. I'm the captain of my fate, of my life. This is what I am going to do. He ignores other passages. Psalm 90, so teach us to number our days. Teach us to number our days. What's that mean? I don't know exactly how many days I'm going to live, but number them. Recognize that they're limited. My lifespan is a span that has an end. Then you see, and it's the Lord that determines, oh Lord, Psalm 39, oh Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days. A person like this fool in the parable that just blows that up, oh, I have many days laid up ahead of me, is just showing himself even more to be a fool. What's his philosophy of life then? Relax, eat, drink, and be merry. There it is. That's my philosophy. There you go. You've got many days. Relax, eat, drink, and be merry. I wonder how many people in the world today are living by that philosophy, and that this day will be their last day on Earth. It's probably quite a few. Probably quite a few. You look around us. You come here on the Lord's Day, and you look around, and you don't want to be We're not doing it to be boastful or self-righteous, but the observation is that. This is the Lord's day, but you're seeing people all around that give it no thought whatsoever. They just see it as a day to go fishing or pursue whatever else pursuits there might be. Relax, eat, drink, and be merry there. That's the purpose of life then, you see. But he's a fool. Here he is spending his whole life laying up treasure for himself that's perishable. He doesn't have a penny in his heavenly bank account. This is probably, this parable, and the man in the parable is probably a real person that Jesus is speaking about. And what I also find interesting is that is that that very night Jesus said, God said to this man, you fool, this night your soul is required of you. God said to that man. We're not told how that was communicated to him. But first of all, Jesus knew that God had said this. That speaks of his divinity. But it also shows us, was it that this man was struck down that evening on his deathbed? And he's laying there, and he realizes that he's going to die. And it's being communicated to him, you fool. You fool. Whose will all this be now? Not going to be yours. As they say, you can't take it with you. I heard somebody say one time, the suits of a dead man have no pockets. And apparently that's why. Why put pockets in the pants of a dead man? He can't put anything in it. But civilizations. Human civilizations in their rebellion against God do all they can, and all through history, to try to deny this. So think of the Egyptians. When they buried a pharaoh, what did they do? They put all kinds of gold and jewels and so on. I've read somewhere, I think, that sometimes they even killed their slaves and put them in the tomb, too, so that they could serve the pharaoh in the afterlife then. And so on. Well, they had a rude awakening when they stood then before the Lord. But in our day, it's not that much different. I've seen news reports of people who, you know, it's been somewhat of a fad. This is like creepy, creepy to me, but it's getting to be more of a fad, that they have the funeral home actually prepare the guy, gal or woman, Have them all dressed and sitting up in a chair, the body, and there they are. And you go there and they're in their favorite setting that they enjoyed. And what's that all about? Well, it's all about denying death, right? It's living in denial of death. And one guy, he loved to ride his Harley-Davidson motorcycle. So they buried him seated on his Harley-Davidson Motorcycle, which is a terrible waste of a good motorcycle, nothing else. But also, you see, very typically, there's really only one reason I look at the local newspaper. There's not much in it, but I look at the obituaries, see if there's anybody that I knew that died, whatever. But what I'm seeing is, increasingly, at the end of those, there will be a celebration of life. Now, that's stupid. It's just another way of people denying the reality of their own death. That's what they're doing. We're going to celebrate the guy's dead, all right? It's one thing to speak of a funeral service or a memorial service, but many of those are even rare. A lot of people, they're not even having any kind of a service then at all. And you even find that nonsense happening in churches and pastors. going along with it, when in fact a funeral is probably one of the greatest opportunities that we have to preach the gospel to people. But that's regular than being ignored. Well, lots of things here then for us in this parable to be thinking about. The person who has Christ has everything. The person who has the world, even if he had the whole world, has nothing, nothing then at all. We need to make certain that we're laying up our treasure in heaven and that we have true treasure, which is Christ, and a treasure that will last for all eternity. Father, we thank you for this parable, which encourages us and warns us. We thank you, Father, that you recorded these words of your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that we might read them and hear them and give sober and serious heed to them. And we pray this all in Christ's name, amen.