Sermon Tone Analysis

- The Parable of the Rich Fool

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 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.”

16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’

18 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.

19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”

’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool!

This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’

21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

He came to bring the good news of salvation.

And Jesus, of course, attracted people in huge crowds with His message and His miracles

The crowds are still huge.

Verse 1 says there were many thousands.

But inside this crowd, inside these tens of thousands, inside this mass of curious rejecters there are still some who haven't made up their minds and they are described in verse 1 as disciples.

Everybody heard but they were the target of His message.

And if they are to know the truth and believe the truth and receive the gospel and salvation and eternal life, there are two things at the very outset that they have to avoid...two things that characterize their culture.

They are noted in the two uses of the word "beware."

· Go back to verse 1, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy."

Beware of false religion.

Beware of hypocritical religion.

Remember Sunday we focused on this.

· Second beware you heard me read a moment ago, down in verse 15, "He said to them, 'Beware and be on your guard against every form of greed.'"

If you or anyone else wants to receive salvation, forgiveness, eternal life in heaven, there are two pervasive damning forces that must be avoided...Beware of hypocrisy and beware of greed.

Now you might look at those and say, "Well, those are two sort of randomly selected sins out of a long catalog of sins that perhaps Jesus is only using as illustrative of the greater all-encompassing list that He might have given.”

Rather, these are the two essential realms which exist.

There are only two realms which exist...

· One is the material realm and the other is the immaterial.

· One is the spiritual, the other is the physical.

· One is the natural, the other is the supernatural.

There are only those two realms.

Hypocrisy relates to the spiritual realm and greed relates to the material world...both the material and the immaterial world threaten to damn eternal souls.

· You get into the wrong spiritual teaching and the wrong spiritual influence and your soul will be damned.

· If you get into the wrong physical influence, the wrong material influence, and your soul will be damned.

And Satan, is just as satisfied to seduce souls into hell by either religious deception or natural deception.

Hell would gladly welcome souls coming to them out of the religious world or out of the secular world.

You realize that we enjoy staggering material prosperity...staggering.

Our lives are filled to overflowing with material things.

· We have so many possessions that they possess us.

· We are consumers being consumed by our consumption.

· We have stockpiles of possessions and the indebtedness incurred to acquire them...which some people will spend their lifetime attempting to pay off.

Just watch, the development of storage places by the almost infinite thousands.

And I always wonder...what is in there that you don't need and can't get at easily?

And how many people are still paying off the credit cards that bought the stuff that's in there?

The issue is not possessions; the issue is attitude toward them.

What you have in this life is only in this life.

If it is material, it belongs only to this life, therefore, folks, it has no real value.

It has no enduring value.

In 1 Timothy chapter 6 Paul said something that I thought was interesting from this perspective.

He says in verse 9, "Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge 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 a pang."

You want money, you want riches?

You will lead yourself into temptation, traps, foolish, harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.

It produces all kinds of evil.

It causes people to wander away from the faith

V. 13 "Someone in the crowd said to Him, 'Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.'"

He's talking about the greatest of all things, the most elevated truths of the Trinity.

And some guy in the crowd blurts this out, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me."

This guy's not hard to figure out.

He can't wait for the Lord to stop talking about heaven, salvation, God, forgiveness, revelation and get to the really good stuff.

This guy wants to turn it into a financial seminar.

This is the materialist.

No interest in the spiritual at all.

He just can't wait for Jesus to get on his subject.

He doesn't care about the Son of Man confessing him before the angels of God.

He doesn't care about what he can't see.

He doesn't care about heaven.

He's in to earth and he's not even embarrassed.

And it's not a question, it's a command.

"Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me."

Spiritual vs. Physical

You say, "Well whatever prompted this?"

He identifies Jesus as a rabbi and rabbis did this as a routine in their villages and their regions.

Rabbis were approached by people to bring the law to civil issues.

He probably pointed to his brother who had to be there.

He feels like he's not getting what he deserves.

The man is a materialist.

He's greedy.

He's covetous.

He wants Jesus to tell his brother with some kind of authority because it was obvious Jesus had great power and authority to give him his money.

Verse 14, "He said to him, 'Man, who appointed Me a judge or arbitrator over you?'"

That is an unsympathetic response.

"Man," that is not an endearing expression.

That is like saying, "Mister."

That's a term of distance.

That's a title used for a stranger.

I don't know you, I don't know anything about you, and I have no relationship to you.

Who appointed Me a judge or arbitrator over you?

The admonition... "He said to them...He nailed it, 'Beware,'" says to the whole crowd, "'Be on your guard against every form of greed.'"

He didn't have to point to the man and say, "Like that guy."

It was obvious.

"Beware.”

And this is the caution that exposes the real issue, and the word (greed) basically means a desire for riches, grasping, extorting, scheming is included in this kind of thing.

This is as damning as false religion.

This is the thirst for more, it's like drinking salt water, the more you drink, the thirstier you get.

, "He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income."

People who worship money and who love money and who love abundance and love possessions are never satisfied when they get it.

· The sin is not in having more; the sin is being discontent.

· The sin is not in having wealth; the sin is in what you do with it.

· It's not the amount; it's the attitude.

And that's what the Scripture warns about.

It warns about greed and covetousness and the lust for more so as to consume it on your own desires.

To define life as an acquisition of material possession is to commit the deadly sin of serving the creature rather than the Creator,