Parable of The Rich Fool - Part 2

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Greetings and good morning, and welcome to this episode of the Signature Word Podcast. This is for the week of Monday, July the 13th, 2026. Today's episode is part two of our series entitled The Parable of the Rich Fool. The text is taken from the book of Saint Luke, chapter 12, verses 13 through 21. And again, I encourage you to follow along by referring back to this scripture text. This parable by Jesus was in response to someone asking him to settle a dispute between two brothers regarding an inheritance. But Jesus used this incident to warn his hearers against one of the most insidious evils in the human heart, namely covetousness. The insatiable lust for material possessions is one of the strongest drives in all of life, and yet it completely misses the purpose of human existence. As mentioned in part one last Monday, this parable highlighted that there were five ways in which the main character proved proved by his focus solely on the material gains of this life and not God, that he was indeed a fool. To recap the five ways, he was a godless fool. He was a rich fool, a self centered fool, an ambitious fool, and finally a doomed fool. First he was a godless fool. In Psalm fourteen and verse one, David portrayed a fool as a man who says in his heart there is no God. This is the person who says it is not possible that a God could exist beyond the boundaries of my knowledge. This position ignores the wonders of God in creation, the immensity of the universe, the amazing precise movement of the planets, the marvelous suitability of the earth to sustain life, the intricate design of the human body, and the fantastic complexity of the human brain, just to name a few. This person does not want there to be a God, therefore he denies the existence of God. The person described in this parable may not have been a morally bad man. There is no evidence that he had added wealth by any fraudulent practices. He appears to have been a diligent, thoughtful, and wise man. His great folly was that he was ignorant of the divine hand supplying his multiplied prosperity. He forgot, like many of us, that in the back of the fruits, corn and all his possessions was God, the giver of every good and every perfect gift. He failed to see himself as God's steward of all with which he had enriched him. There was no grateful recognition of God as the giver of the rain and the fruitful seasons, or any grateful return to him from whom all blessings flow. And because of this he was a godless fool. Secondly, he was a rich fool. As his riches increased, he set his heart upon them rather than upon the one who gave him the ability to accumulate wealth. How often do we hear individuals from all walks of life step to the mic, especially at award ceremonies and say I take absolutely no credit for my accomplishments. Nothing I have done would have been possible without God. Most of what we hear is about what the person has done in their own strength and abilities, and perhaps a footnote here and there mention of God somewhere in their speech. But sadly, it becomes so easy to leave God out of our life, notwithstanding the fact that without him we would have no life. Jesus spoke of this most successful farmer as a rich man, but actually he was a poor rich man. In his passion to produce and hoard up things, the rich man had no thought of their divine source and the use of them for divine purposes. Jesus exposed the sin of the rich fool. He failed to be rich toward God. This was not a tirade against riches as such, but a warning against the desire for their acquisition to dominate life and destroy all thought and desire for God. And because of this he was a rich fool. Join in next Monday for part three of this series where we next expose this farmer as a self-centered and ambitious fool. And our weekly signature thought the door that closes on you isn't the end. Sometimes it's the only way the right door opens. May God bless you.