Read:   Luke 12:13-21

            Matthew 6:19-21

 

Back in the late 70’s I went to visit my cousin in Southern California.  We took a tour of the Universal Studios backlot.

 

We saw the fishing village and the shark from “Jaws”, the house the Munsters lived in, the street used in the filming of the movie “The Sting” (you have to be pretty old to remember that one) and a town square that had been used in lots of TV shows and movies and would soon become even more famous in the “Back to the Future” movies.

 

I had so much fun that I still remember it today.  But the main thing I remember from that tour was this:  It was all fake!  I could be the Incredible Hulk in Hollywood.  Those huge boulders were styrofoam!  I could have wrestled the “Jaws” shark and won.  He was a rather cheap looking, overgrown mechanical fish!  When our tram made a turn, there was nothing behind all those storefronts on that backlot street.  Nothing was real!  There was no substance to anything there.  It was a facade, all smoke and mirrors.

 

In the passage of scripture mentioned above, the Rich Fool was very wealthy.  He was also greedy.  He had so much he needed more storage for his wealth.  Funny how there’s no thought that he might share from his abundance with those who were in need.  In his heart, he had no thought of God or his fellow man.  In verse 14 Jesus says, “Watch out and be on guard against all greed, because one’s life is not in the abundance of his possessions.”  His prosperity had choked out the Word of God in his life, it had created a snare and temptation to him, and most of all, given him a false sense of security.

 

He had put his trust in his possessions.  In verse 19 he says, “Then I’ll say to myself, ‘you have many goods stored up for many years.  Take it easy; eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.'”  It’s so easy to allow ourselves to be fooled into putting our trust in a job, bank account, relationships, those tangible things we can see.  These things aren’t bad.  In fact, they are good, even necessary for our earthly existence.  But what happens when we have placed our trust in things of this earth and paid little heed to eternity?  The Rich Fool placed his trust in his financial success and the things he had accumulated. Then in verse 20 we read, “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?”

 

How sad.  Since the book of Luke was penned, this man who thought he had it all has been known as a Rich Fool.  What about you?  Where are the treasures you have stored?  Will you be labeled like this man was?  A fool?  Verse 21:  “That’s how it is with the one who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”  The tragedy of this is that this man left great wealth behind where it could do him no good, and faced an eternity without God.

 

Take inventory of your heart today.  Are you storing up treasure in heaven “where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal”?  Is your life built on a facade (an outward appearance that is maintained to conceal a less pleasant or creditable reality.)  Or are you rich toward God, cultivating eternal treasures?