The Parable of the rich fool
Luke 12 : 13 -21
Don't Be A Fool
The parable our Lord gave in Luke 12 is a parable that serves as a warning to each and every one of us.
The warning is this:. Don’t come to the end of your life only to find out that you have wasted it on things that count for nothing in eternity.
Many who hear this parable may wonder: Why is the rich farmer called a fool?
One could easily argue that the rich man is a wise and responsible person. He has a thriving farming business. His land has produced so abundantly that he does not have enough storage space in his barns. So he plans to pull down his barns and build bigger ones to store all his grain and goods. Then he will have ample savings set aside for the future and will be all set to enjoy his golden years.
Isn’t this what we are encouraged to strive for? Isn’t it wise and responsible to save for the future? The rich farmer would probably be a good financial advisor. He seems to have things figured out. He has worked hard and saved wisely. Now he can sit back, relax, and enjoy the fruits of his labor, right?
Not exactly. There is one very important thing the rich man has not planned for -- his reckoning with God. For God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:20)
The rich farmer is a fool not because he is wealthy or because he saves for the future, but because he appears to live only for himself, and because he believes that he can secure his life with his abundant possessions.
When the rich man talks in this parable, he talks only to himself, and the only person he refers to is himself: “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” “I will do this: I will pull 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’” (12:17-19).
The rich man’s land has produced abundantly, yet he expresses no sense of gratitude to God or to the workers who have helped him plant and harvest this bumper crop. He has more grain and goods in storage than he could ever hope to use, yet seems to have no thought of sharing it with others, and no thought of what God might require of him. The rich man learns the hard way what the writer of Ecclesiastes realized -- quite simply, that you can’t take it with you. All that we work so hard for in life will end up in someone else’s hands, and as Ecclesiastes puts it, “Who knows whether they will be wise or foolish? Yet they will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity” (2:19).
Vanity. Emptiness. A preacher would do well to name this feeling that washes over all of us who are enticed by materialism. Our reality is that no matter how much we have, we are always aware of things we don’t have. We are bombarded by marketing wizards whose job it is to convince us of all the products we need to complete our lives. And so we never quite feel that we have enough.
The rich man made at least four mistakes:
1. The rich man made the mistake of thinking he was the owner of his stuff when he was just a steward. We are just stewards of our stuff.
2. He was worried about the present and forgot about eternity.
3. He was concerned only for the physical and forgot about spiritual things.
4. He treasured stuff more than people. He lived an isolated life
This parable tells us how to define life. Most people define life in terms of material possessions or physical fitness.. Have you been defining life in your career, your house, your stock portfolio, in terms of what you can do physically, or the assumption that you will live much longer? What is going to happen when you lose one or more of those things? What happens when you get laid off? What happens when the stock market crashes? What happens when you get some disease which takes away your physical ability. What happens when you find out you only have six months to live? If you define life in materialistic terms you will be devastated.
Having possessions is not wrong, it is putting your security in them that is wrong. The rich man is not condemned for being rich. He is condemned for being self-centered, for not using his surplus to help others, for leaving God out of his life.
In fact, if you look at the world of false religion today, you will see the purveyors and the architects of those false religions inevitably become fat cats, inordinately wealthy, as all false teachers do what they do for money. That’s what’s behind this discussion because it’s a warning. And that’s why Jesus gives this double warning of bewares. Let’s turn to the text, verse 13; and the story flows fairly quickly.
“Someone in the crowd said to Him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’” Now I confess that I am a transition person when it comes to studying the Bible. That question just jumps off the page, and you ask yourself, what’s the context for this passage? Thousands of people were trying to get close to Jesus to hear what He’s saying, and so they’re stepping on each other, verse 1 says this this verse also states that Jesus is teaching.
And what has He been teaching?
In chapter 11 Jesus is condemning the religious leaders for their hypocrisy (vs. 42-43) and for rejecting and killing God’s messengers (47) . In 12:4 Jesus teaches his disciples not to be afraid of those who kill the body, which is a physical and temporal issue. Instead, they should be afraid of God who has power over their souls and can send them to hell (12:5). That is a spiritual issue. It is an eternal issue. Then he reminds them that there will be a final accounting in the after-life (12:8-9).
He also tells them not to be anxious for their life when these prophet killers drag them before the courts because the Holy Spirit will guide them.
In 12:1 Jesus warns the disciples of the leaven of the Pharisees. He defines it as hypocrisy. They placed all their emphasis on externals - on the physical - on the temporal. He condemns them elsewhere for being white-washed tombs (Mat 23:27) because their insides are rotten, but they have covered up the rottenness with nice looking rituals and rules. But, 12:2 says there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed.
He’s been teaching about false religion. He’s been teaching about the deadly danger of hypocrisy, And He has been warning hypocrites that whatever they’re hiding will be revealed, whatever they’re covering will be uncovered, verses 2 and 3, whatever they have said in the dark is going to be heard in the light, whatever they’ve whispered in their private place is going to be proclaimed from the housetop.
And He’s warned them not to worry about what men say when the worst they can do is kill your body, but you better fear what God, the one who can send your soul to hell. He’s calling them to some very serious consideration. He’s asking them to think deeply about their hypocritical hearts, to think deeply about the wretchedness inside.
He’s asking them to give honor to God who has the authority to cast their souls into hell. And this God who knows every sparrow and who knows every hair of every head, this is no information passes by Him without His knowing. God who knows everything, God who will reveal everything, He’s the one you’d better honor instead of doing your hypocritical religion before men, that you may receive accolades from them.
He’s been talking about honoring the Son of God, verse 8 and 9, “Confessing Me, the Son of Man, before men, and then being confessed by the Son of Man before the angels of God, rather than denying Him and being denied before the angels of God.” Get a heavenly perspective, realize God is Judge and Christ is Savior.”
And then He goes to talk about the Holy Spirit and how important it is not to blaspheme the revelation which comes from the Holy Spirit about Christ, because if you don’t accept the Holy Spirit revelation, you can’t know Christ. If you don’t know Christ, you can’t know God. Very serious issues. And He talks about how the Holy Spirit is the teacher of truth, who is behind the truth of Christ, and will be there to bring the truth to your mind, even in the most dire persecution.
He’s talking about the loftiest of all things, the most elevated truths of the Trinity, and then out of nowhere some guy in the crowd blurts this out: “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” What a materialist. This guy’s not hard to figure out. And he can’t wait for the Lord to stop talking about heaven, salvation, God, forgiveness, revelation, and get to the really good stuff.
This is the materialist. No interest in the spiritual at all, he doesn’t care about the Son of Man and 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 into earth. And it’s not a question, it’s a command: “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”
The man is greedy, he’s covetous, and 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. In verse 14, Jesus answers
‘Man, who appointed Me a judge or arbiter over you?’” That is an unsympathetic response. He also said to them, – ‘Beware,’ – He says to the whole crowd – “be on your guard against every form of greed.’ And this is the admonition that exposes the real issue.
To define life as an acquisition of material possessions is to commit the deadly sin of serving the creature rather than the Creator - Romans 1:25. “Beware of this,” – Jesus says and here’s why – “for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.” Verse 15. Not even when you have – and the word “abundance” means “more than enough,” “more than sufficient.” It could be “excess.” It could be “surplus.” That’s the way it’s used three other times in Luke: Luke 9:17, Luke 15:17, Luke 21:4.
Even if you have more than enough, it still doesn’t provide real life. And he says, “Even when you have surplus and you have excess, that doesn’t make really living, that doesn’t take care of giving you real life.” In fact, the life He’s referring to here is eternal life, because that’s the only kind of life that is fulfilling, satisfying, meaningful, purposeful, producing peace and joy and hope and blessing. You’re never going to get that real life from the material world even if you have more than enough.
He then told them a parable to illustrate what He was saying.
He said the land of a certain rich man was very productive. . By the way, I love that verb where it says “very productive.” No dishonesty, no ill-gotten gain, no extortion, no evil, no immorality, no illegality; he came to honest wealth. That’s fine. If ever you should thank God, you should thank God for a good crop, since providentially He controls all the elements in the factors. But not so with this rich farmer. On the other hand verse 17 says , “This man began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’” No thanks to God . All he said was “ I did it my way.”
He faces a dilemma about what to do with this massive harvest. Oh, he could build more storage; but if you build more storage, you’d use more land, and that would take up the land that he grows the crop on. “Maybe that’s not the good way to go, because this is good productive land. What am I going to do? Where am I going to put all this?”
Now that begins to give you a little bit of a giveaway. I could think of a lot of options at that point, but the one that he came up with is in verse 18, “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.’”
You know what strikes me about that, two verses: eight “I’s” and four “my’s”: And here you get the insight into the materialist. What’s wrong with this picture? No, he’s a smart guy. He is crafty. You say, “Well, he could just sell it all and make some money.” You flood the market with too much stuff and the price goes down. So what do you do? You restrict what? The supply. So he wants to build bigger barns on the same foundation, higher ones so you don’t take up any more of your fields, and you store it all, and then you let it out at whatever pace you want..
By the way, he didn’t just store his grain there, he also stored his goods there, “and my goods.” What’s that? This is the only biblical storage unit I know of. This guy’s got other stuff he’s storing up. And look at verse 19: “And I will say to my soul.” You want to know how much of a materialist this guy was? He lived alone, and when he had a conversation it was with himself. it would have been a little window into something good about this guy if he would have said, “I said to my wife,” or, “I said to my family.”.
“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.”
“Soul” is in the singular. The man lived in the singular, thought in the singular, had a conversation only with himself. He has it all. “Take your ease,” means “retire.” “Eat, drink, and be merry And Jesus telling this story
And then comes the surprise which is so common to Jesus’ stories, verse 20: “But God said to him, ‘You fool ! You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?”
This is the materialist’s worst nightmare; somebody else gets it all when he dies. “This night your soul is required of you,” How foolish to make all your grandiose plans – forget God, forget others, forget your own mortality. James says, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we’ll go such and such a city and spend a year there, engage in business, make a profit.’ James 4:13. You don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. As I said, it’s the materialist’s worst nightmare. And that was Solomon saying, “I’ve got all this wealth. And you know what’s going to happen? I’m going to leave it to some fool.” You better take into account your mortality.
And the application of the story, the final point in verse 21: “So is the man who lays up treasure for himself.” He’s a fool, he’s mindless, because he hasn’t given consideration to God; and he’s going to face God, and he hasn’t done anything to help others. And he could have purchased souls for eternity, as chapter 16 will point out, and spent all eternity enjoying the fruit of that generosity. And he has no thought for his mortality, and here he’s dead. Before he could ever realize any of his greedy plans, he was gone.
If you give it to God, it’ll be there to welcome you. If you’ve invested in His kingdom, Jesus said, “Lay not up treasure for yourselves on earth, but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where moth and rust do not corrupt, and where thieves don’t break through and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” You can reverse that. “If your heart’s there, that’s where your treasure will go, It’ll go.”
How foolish to be a materialist – to be greedy, covetous, self-indulgent, to horde what you have and leave it all behind. So is the man who lays up treasure for himself.
Like the rich farmer in this parable we are tempted to think that having large amounts of money and possessions stored up will make us secure. Sooner or later, however, we learn that no amount of wealth or property can secure our lives. No amount of wealth can protect us from a genetically inherited disease, for instance, or from a tragic accident. No amount of wealth can keep our relationships healthy and our families from falling apart. In fact, wealth and property can easily drive a wedge between family members, as in the case of the brothers fighting over their inheritance at the beginning of this text.
Most importantly, no amount of wealth can secure our lives with God. In fact, Jesus repeatedly warns that wealth can get in the way of our relationship with God. “Take care!” he says. “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions” (12:15).
God’s words, along with those of our Lord, were probably shocking to those who heard them, and so they should be for us as well. The rich fool is a man who would likely be praised by our culture, and perhaps in some of our churches. He was a wealthy man. That seems to speak well of him, especially in a time (then and now) when men equate success with spirituality . Here was a man who had been able to curb his appetite, or so it seemed. Here was a man who is not described as spending his money on himself, but who had the discipline to save it, “for a rainy day,” we might say. Here was a man who thought of the future and who prepared himself for it.
It is not that God doesn’t want us to save for retirement or future needs. It is not that God doesn’t want us to “eat, drink, and be merry” and enjoy what God has given us. We know from the Gospels that Jesus spent time eating and drinking with people and enjoying life. But he was also clear about where his true security lay.
It is all about priorities. It is about who is truly God in our lives. It is about how we invest our lives and the gifts that God has given us. It is about how our lives are fundamentally aligned: toward ourselves and our passing desires, or toward God and our neighbor, toward God’s mission to bless and redeem the world.
Our lives and possessions are not our own. They belong to God. We are merely stewards of them for the time God has given us on this earth. We rebel against this truth because we want to be in charge of our lives and our stuff.
Yet this truth is actually good news. Because all that we are and all that we have belongs to God, our future is secure beyond all measure. So Jesus tells us, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (12:32).
