Gospel—Mike Campbell
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I.
They invented something about smells so dye will still be fast and the painful light beside.
Being in time, we're getting in the sun, you're getting the sun.
While the voice of Jesus all you've been in time.
And I've been sitting here on your way. You're going to find no hope to get it.
And deprived himself to play. Did you find him?
Flowers to be connected into the university class subway or you have the long distance.
Begins time.
While the Spirit is supervised, there is a longer role.
Let her see you in your home. Let's do.
Give me a time.
And you're crying. You've got to see the idea.
I'm employed by the rudge involved, going on through the arms of Jesus flow.
Oh, I pray to count the cause there's a failure by because.
And your Christ when soul be long.
Everybody to check my eyeballs and get it and you're crying. He's just too late.
Living in time.
You may find so often get anything and your pride is just to let him all right. If you have your Bible, could you turn to the book of Luke, please? Luke chapter 12 and we're going to read verses 16 through 21. We're going to look at three mistakes the rich fool made.
Luke chapter 12, starting at verse 16.
And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do? Because I have no room where to bestow my fruits. And he said, This will I do. I will pull down my barns and build great air, and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul.
Thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Take thine ease, eat and drink.
And be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee, And then who should thou? Who shall those things be which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God.
00:05:14
Have word of prayer before.
Man, I don't know if you ever made typos or not. I'm a work in education, so I prepare sometimes my own materials and during that time typing things up. Sometimes I make a lot of mistakes and I wanna tell you about the most expensive typo of all time. Or perhaps it is. I don't. I've never heard of one that was better or bigger than this. Seven back in 1978, nineteen 78, the Prudential Company, which was one of the largest insurance companies, if not the largest.
Company at the time made a expensive loan to a company called US Lines or United States Lines. They recall them, and they loaned them $160 million, which they could well afford to do. And as part of the deal, the Prudential Company got a lien on eight of their vessels, which they figured that if, you know, things ever got bad and they went into bankruptcy, they could sell those.
Vessels and get most of their money back. Or so they thought.
But eight years later, 1986, the US Lines did have to file for bankruptcy and and file the proceedings. And so Prudential thought, well, we're still OK, we're gonna lose a little bit, but we still have about $93,000,000 that this company and liens that this company owes us. So they get together with the lawyers of US Lines and their parent company, which was called McLean Industries.
And they go over the documents, they bring the original lien agreement out.
But when they went over the lean agreement, the people at McLean Industries were smiling because unfortunately whoever typed up the agreement and it was signed by both parties at the time they let out, they left off 3 zeros off of the number. So instead of Prudential getting 93 or almost $93 million.
Back from the lien. According to the document, they were only getting $93,000.
Back from the lean, of course, I don't know who committed that era, but I'm probably sure that they didn't have a job after that. But nonetheless, it was a pretty tragic error for them. They lost millions of dollars, but they finally managed to settle out of court. And McLean Industry said we're going to sell these vessels. We'll give you most of it, but because your company made a mistake, we're going to keep $11 million. And so that's what they did. They, they did give them the rest of the money for the sale of the vessels. You know, that's a big error.
That's a big mistake for our company to make, to lose millions of dollars. But dear friend, tonight there are some of you, perhaps even here, that are making even a worse mistake than losing millions and millions of dollars. It's a mistake that Jesus talked about in Mark chapter 8 when he said, what shall profit a man if he gained the whole world and lose his soul?
For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? There are many people tonight that the only concern in their life.
Is to get another dollar bill to have a larger income to be able to go out and buy whatever they want to buy.
And they spend their lives in that kind of pursuit, just as someone asked JD Rockefeller one time, how much is enough? And he said just $1.00 more. And that's the way many people look at their lives. They're trying to amass and pursue it. And there's nothing wrong with having things that God blesses you with money and, and, and that there's nothing wrong with that if you use it for him. But we're looking at a man in this passage.
That had no thought of God at all. It was all about him and what he was going to do with his money.
And how it was going to be beneficial to him. He didn't think at all about the Lord. And I want to look at 3 errors that I see in this passage. Three big mistakes bigger than the mistake whoever typed up that Prudential lien document. And these are mistakes because they're mistakes that count for eternity. And they're mistakes that people perhaps even in this audience.
Are making tonight. I trust that's not so uh, the first mistake is I call this he mistook his.
Bankbook as being more important than the Bible. Look at if you will again the verses 17 and 18 it says.
And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do?
Because I have no room where to bestow my fruits. And he said this will I do. I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods now.
00:10:02
Actually, there is a fourth mistake this man makes because notice how he begins his process. He thought within himself. He doesn't go to get any counsel from anybody. He figures he has all the answers and that's mistake number one. And but I don't have time to go into it because I'll take most of my time to go through the 3 1/2. But I just point that out in passing because the scripture says where the multitude of counselors are, there is safety. But this man said well.
I don't need anybody else. I can figure this out. But nonetheless, when I use the term banquet here, he didn't really have a bank book in the sense that modern day sense, but he may have had a Ledger. He may have had some way in which he recorded all the wealth and all the materials that he owned and possessed. Of course, they didn't have banks back in his day, but he had some way to record all his wealth and to know how much stuff he had. And he knew he had a lot of stuff because he had so much.
Couldn't contain it, so he's gonna have to build something bigger to hold all those things.
And I want to kind of look at his thought process in relation to how he sees things. And then I want to compare that thought process to what the scripture says in regards to things and material possession and wealth.
First of all, we see for this rich man, this man that God calls a fool, we see that he has a consideration. He's thinking, at least he's thinking about it. And he says in verse 17, what shall I do?
He knows he needs to do something, but he's not sure what it is. So he's trying to come to that determination. He's trying to think about what he should do.
You know, there was a man that once came to visit a man named Robert Hall, who was a noted English preacher, and he wanted to argue over something that Hall preached about when he was preaching the gospel. And Hall saw that this man was kind of like the rich man in our text. He had this thing for money and possessions and all the rest. And so Hall got out the Bible and he pointed to the verse and he said, can you see the word God in this verse?
The man said, well, yeah, of course I'm not blind. Obviously I see the word God there.
And then Hall took out of his pocket a coin over in Britain that was called 1/2 sovereign. He took it, plunked it down in the word God. And he said, can you see it now? And the man found a very valuable lesson to him, because the love of money blinds us to the Lord because we're so concerned about I need another dollar, I need another item. I need this to make me happy.
When it really doesn't, and it didn't for this rich form.
So he thought about it. He thought about what should I do?
Problem is, he thought about in the lens of look at all these things that I have. He never considered it all his eternal soul.
And that's his most deadly deed that he does to himself. He never once considers eternity. I often think of that him. Where will you spend eternity? This question comes to you and me. Tell me, what will your answer be? Where will you spend eternity? And sadly, this man was more consumed with stuff than with his eternal soul. Well, the next thing we see about this man of verse 18, not only is he.
About what do I do?
But he's decide he's going to go into construction work in the sense he's going to tear down his barns as it says in verse 18. He says this will I do? I will pull down my barns and build greater. He's going to make more room for all that stuff he has for all these material possessions that he owns. He figures that is the solution to his problem. Notice.
Nowhere in his thought process is there any concern about his soul. It's all about, hey, I got all this stuff and I got to do something with it.
Dear friend.
If you're thinking about all the things that you own and that's all you're concerned about, what does God say about this guy here, thou fool? Because one day you are going to have to meet God. The Scripture says prepare to meet thy God one day. You're going to stand before him, as we saw in Sunday school, and you're going to be this great white throne and he's going to look in this book. And if your name's not there.
You're cast into the Lake of Fire.
For all eternity.
May not may that not be said of anybody in here, but because of this man's carelessness, he doesn't think about that. I came across an interesting description. It goes like this. I've never been guilty of wrong actions, but on my account, lives have been lost, trains have been wrecked, ships have been sunk, cities have been burned, governments have failed, battles have been lost, and churches have closed their doors. I've never struck a blow or spoken in unkind word.
00:15:19
But because of me, homes have been broken, friends have grown cold, the laughter of children has ceased, wives have shed bitter tears, brothers and sisters have been forgotten, and parents have gone broken hearted to their grave. I've intended no evil, but because of me, talents have come to nought, courtesy and kindness have failed, and the promise of success as well as happiness.
As yields sorrow and disaster, I have no sound, just silence, no cause for being in myself. I have no offering to make except grief and sorrow.
You may not in an instant call me by name, but surely you are personally acquainted with me. My name Neglect. This man knew that neglect very well, did he not? Because all of a sudden God comes to him. He says, This night thy soul shall be required of thee. And then who will these things be which thou hast provided?
He met with neglect.
And then we see not only is he decided, OK, I'm thinking about what do I do?
And he's thinking about, OK, I'm going to build. But we also, I think here there's an issue of security here because he has so much stuff he is concerned about. Well, I wanted to be safe and I want to invite you to break it and steal it. So in the building, I'm sure he's concerned about where am I going to bestow all my fruits and goods? He wants to build a place that is most likely secure and most likely will be safe for all his things.
But of course, once again, what is the problem with this man?
It's all about stuff. It's all about the earth, it's all about material possessions. And never, ever once thought about heaven. One thought about there is an eternity coming. One thought about the fact that he is going to spend somewhere forever. No, he didn't think about that at all. It's all about the here and now. He's worried that his goods, he's worried that they're going to be safe. He's worried that he's going to have the the room needed.
To have all this stuff.
But he forgot there is an eternity for.
For every human heart is an eternity in heaven, or an eternity in hell that determines whether or not you make preparations for your soul.
You know, it's interesting. During the initial construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, umm, they were having a problem because a lot of the men were so concerned about not falling off and into their death that many of them, 23 men fell off to their death because they were trying to work and trying to maintain their stability and balance and working in these heights and of course the rocks and the, the dangerous waters below, the 23 men fell over.
And were.
Of course, found later on dredged up on the shore somewhere.
And so the men who were doing the construction, they had a problem. How are we going to make this safe for the men? And So what they did was they had had a giant net made and they placed this giant net over the areas where the men were working and then they would move the net to the next area once an area was completed. And so it was so large that if the men fell off, they would not hit the shore, but they would hit the neck.
So they they thought, well this will say the problem. In fact, not only did it solve the problem for them.
But they actually got the work done 25% faster because they were no longer worried about falling off. They knew if they fell off, the net would catch them and all would be well and people would help them out and they would be back to work again.
You know, this rich man was concerned about the security of his goods, but he didn't have a safety net. He didn't have a real safety net. He's like those initial workers who are so concerned about keeping their balance and doing what they need to do, plus be safe, that they fall and go to their doom.
You see, the only safety net for a human soul is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only one that can make you save.
For eternity and he alone. He was the one who died on the cross and bore your sins there.
That's the only salvation, that's the only work that God accepts that will make your soul sane. And as the Scripture says in Proverbs 2925, at the end of the verse it says, but whosoever puts his trust in the Lord shall be saved.
00:20:05
So if you wanna have that safety net for all eternity, you need to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. But this man, as we have noticed.
Did none of that. It was all about.
Myself. Well, let's take these three things now and consider them from Scripture. First of all, he said, thinks, what shall I do?
But he's of course, thinking about his money and about his things. But what does the Bible say concerning are what shall I do? Well, turn, if you will, to the book of Matthew, chapter 27.
Matthew chapter 27, verse 22.
Matthew 27, verse 22.
Pilot is speaking to the crowd.
And it says, pilots saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called Christ? Notice their response. And they all said to him, let him be crucified. You see, the scriptural What shall I do is what shall I do then with Jesus, who is called Christ? And this is an important question because.
All this question hinges your eternal destiny.
There's four things that I came to my mind as I thought about this question. First of all, it's a present question. It's something that you need to consider now because the Bible does not couch the offer of salvation in the future tense or the past tense. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Why not the past? Because Proverbs tells us 27 one, boast not thyself of tomorrow, or I should say the future. Boast not thyself tomorrow, for thou knowest not what.
To bring forth as far as the past, the past is gone. We can't do anything about it anyway. And we, we certainly can affect the future. So the only time think about that you have to be saved is now. If you say, well, I'll be saved tomorrow, when you wake up the next morning, it's today. Today is the day when God wants you to decide about your eternal soul and what will you do? It's the present question. It's always framed that way.
If you think, well, I'll wait a little while or put it off.
You're actually saying no to God's salvation.
Not only is it, is it a present question, what should I then do with Jesus, who's called Christ, but it's a personal question you're seeing. You have to decide for yourself. Your friends can't decide for you. Your parents can't make that choice for you. Nobody can make this choice of what shall I then do with Jesus, who is called Christ? But you, you have to choose. You have to decide.
Will I accept him or crucify him? Will I be like the crowd who called crucified crucify Him or will I trust?
And the blessed work of Calvary. It's a personal question. What are you gonna do with Jesus tonight, Princess? What shall I then do with Jesus? Just call Christ? Not only that's a pertinent question, because as we said, your eternal soul hangs in the balance tonight. Your eternal soul.
Hinges on how you answer that question. If you refuse Christ.
Your destiny is from one of despair for a place that the bottle eventually calls the Lake Apartments. That's where you'll end up if you choose to reject him. But if you choose Christ, heaven is yours. Eternal life is yours. The wonder of being with Christ is yours.
So it's pertinent your soul hangs in the balance on the answer of that question. What shall I then do with Jesus, which is called Christ? What are you going to do?
And it's a pressing question because you have to decide. If you say no, I'll wait till later, that's the same as saying no, no, no, I don't want it.
The Bible offers now, not for you decide I'll do it later. Think about it or put it off. It's now it's pressing. You must decide now. God has grace may give you more time.
But that's not the way the Scripture places the mandate upon us. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.
So when we consider what shall I do, it's not what shall I do with my stuff? What should I do with my things? But what should I do then with Jesus, who is called Christ? What are you going to do with that blessed Savior? What are you going to do with that One who loves you enough to come and dine across for you and to bear your sins there? He who had not, but he took your sins there upon himself.
00:25:02
How wonderful, as the Scripture says, the document His love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. What are you going to do then with Jesus, who's called Christ? That's the consideration that you need to make.
And then we saw that rich man wanted to construct something. He wanted to pull down his barns and build greater.
But you know, when it comes to your eternal soul, there's no building for you to do, there's no work for you to accomplish. It's not by works which we have done, as Titus says, but according to his mercy, he saved us. You'll never be able to do anything to get your soul in heaven, because the work has already been done by that blessed man who came and died on the cross for you.
Stop trying to think will I just do something or join a church or do something religious.
God does not offer you religion, He offers you his Son. Jesus said that if you believe in me, you'll have everlasting life. Not believe in the church or do these things, or, you know, follow these religious regulations.
For God to love the world that whosoever believeth.
And his son?
That's what God wants you to do. You don't have to do anything. There's no labor, there's no construction for you to build.
The work is finished.
All you need to do is trust in it. You know one of the great ambitions if you're a violinist is to play a instrument called a Stradivarius.
These.
Instruments were handcrafted by a man named Antonio Stradivara. And they're very old, they're very expensive.
And but they have a beautiful sound that sound unmatched by any other modern day violins. In 1981, one of the most acclaimed violence of the day was a man named Peter Cropper, and he was excited because the London's Royal Academy of Music offered him a chance to play a series of concerts on a 258 year old Stradivarius violin.
And of course that for a a man who would love violin music like he did, that was amazing. He couldn't believe it.
That he was gonna have a chance to be able to play an instrument of that magnitude.
But then the unthinkable happened. Cropper was entering the stage, holding the Stradivarius in a trip and fell and broke the neck of the Stradivarius. Of course he was inconsolable. He didn't know what to do. But he had heard there was a master Craftsman who could fix it. And sure enough, he took it to the master Craftsman and so well done.
Was the repair that you couldn't even tell it had broken in the first place?
And the sound was not diminished, in fact, the economy was so grateful to have it fixed and copper paid for that they allowed him to continue to use this throughout various in this concerts. You know, our lives, dear friends, are ruined by sin for all sin that come short of the glory of God. We're marred, we're broken by sin and the master Craftsman, Jesus.
Wants to give you new life. He wants to take those ruined.
Broken tatters of sin.
That has destroyed and deployed this world in our lives and make something new out of them. He wants to give you a new line. He wants to make you into a new creature. Same man being Christ, He's a new creature. All things have passed away. Behold, all things become new. That's what Christ wants to do for you tonight.
He wants to not have you do something, but he said it before and he just wants you to trust in what he's done.
And then of course, the last thing we mentioned about this man. And as you can see, I'm spending most of my time with my first point. Don't worry, we'll get done. Umm, it's containment or the security. He wanted to build these things to make all his goods be safe and to have a place for them.
And you see in the word of God, we're not trusting in a bank or some security firm to keep our our soul safe, because we have a Savior who saves as well as keeps, as it says in Philippians 16. Being confident this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you shall perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. I love that an old hymn is not in our hymn book, but it says my faith has found a resting place not in.
I trust the ever living one His wounds for me shall plead. I need no other argument. I need no other plead. It is enough that Jesus died and that He died for me. Dear friend, it's enough for everyone in this room to just trust in that One who will keep your soul in time and in eternity. Well now it's time for me to move off to point #2.
00:30:19
The second mistake this man made?
Let's look at verse 19 again in our text.
Luke chapter 12 verse 19, it says, and I will say to my soul, soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry. His second error is mistaking his body as being more important than his soul. Now you say, wait a minute, He just said, I'm saying to my soul. He says, I say to my soul, soul.
And then he goes on to talk about it. But The thing is, this man was confused because what he was calling his soul was actually his body.
Notice what he says. First of all, he says thou hast much goods. Once again, this man is all about the stuff. I got all these things. J for me got all these things. Has nothing to do with the soul. It's all about his physical well-being and his material possessions.
He says not only that, but he says you can take your ease. It's about rest and relaxing, not having to work.
Once again, nothing about the real soul has a lot to do about the body, he says. You can eat and drink. Once again, nothing to do with the soul, but the human body needs to eat and drink them in order to function.
And then he says be merry. Well, you might say, well, that must have something to do with the soul. But I think in this case, since everything else pointed to the soul, I believe in this case he's also talking about his his body because Proverbs 1722 Says that Mary hard doeth good like a medicine with a broken spirit drawing the bone. So I think if we look at the context, this man when he says soul is confused.
Because he's talking about his body.
Because everything in this man's life revolves around stuff. Look at what I got. Hey people, look at me. I've got all these things.
And it's all about what he has.
If he was really addressing his soul, the conversation would be quite different. If he was really addressing his soul, he would be concerned about dying and what would happen after that. But he's not. It's all about now and what I have.
You know, there was a young boy that sat in his father's knee and he said, Papa, he said, is your soul insured? His father said, well, what do you mean by that, son? My sole insured. He said, well, I heard Uncle George say that you have the house insured and you have the car insured and you have the property insured. But he said he didn't think you had your sole insurer. Papa, will you get your sole insured?
And the man realized that his son was right. He had spent all this time accumulating things and never thought about his soul. Dear friend, are you spending your life in the accumulation of worldly goods, but you've never taken one moment to think about eternity. That is sad, because what happens to this man? God says to him, Thou fool this night.
Thy soul shall be a part of thee, and then who shall these things be which thou hast provided?
Then we all try to plan out our lives like they as a Christian man, talk to a a man, a young man that was going to college. And he said to him, what do you plan on doing your life? And he said, well, I'm going to graduate from college and hopefully get a good job. And Christian man said, well, what then? And he said, well, I hope to, you know, eventually get married and have a family. And he said, what the Christian man what then? And he said, well, hopefully after, you know, be able to buy a property and.
Nice home for my family. And the Christian man said what then? And he said, well eventually after we get married to raise our family, we'll retire and enjoy life. And then the Christian man said what then?
You didn't have any other answers because he'd never thought about his soul. He never thought about what happens after that last. What then? It was all about what I am going to do.
You know, sadly, there are many people, maybe even someone in this room tonight that you've spent a lot of time thinking about what you're gonna do as far as your earthly life, and you've never once thought about your soul. Never once.
You know, and The Associated Press told of a young lady in, uh, 2012 who actually put her soul up, forbid, on eBay. She was asking a beginning price of $2000.00. But at the time of the reporting of this, uh, story by The Associated Press, no one had been on her soul. And so local TV station from Albuquerque, NM wanted to find out.
00:35:19
You know why did you put your song bid on eBay?
When they found this woman, her name was Lori. They didn't get the last name.
And she said she put her soul up because she was tired of living. She said she had and suffered through a series of unfortunate happenings. She had been in a car accident, left her in a coma for three weeks. Umm, she also had a stroke that resulted in parallelization of parts of her body. She and then as a result of the car accident, she had a broken hip and a broken pelvis and another of other internal injuries. And she was just tired.
Of living.
And she thought maybe if she sold her soul, maybe she could do some good for a family. You know, that's sad. that Lady clearly is depressed. that Lady clearly had some problems.
And it would be wonderful if someone had shared the gospel with her, but I don't know how it went after that. But I do know that there are a lot of people in this world that are selling their souls for far less than the $2000. They're selling their souls for pleasure and wanting to go to be the life of the party like the, the, you know, the prodigal son. I'm going to enjoy life. Give me my money now.
There's people that are selling their souls for some kind of chemical high.
There's people that are selling their souls for prominence in the community.
And they want people to look up at them, clap and tell how wonderful they are.
There's people that are selling their souls for government positions and.
You know our positions in their company.
Dear friend, what are you selling yourself for?
You know, maybe you think that Lady Lori was a little crazy for selling her $2000.00. But your friend, if you're selling yourself for some earthly thing like position or pleasure, you're not making any better bargain. You're not making any kind of better bargain than what this lady was for trying to get $2000.00 for a soul. Not at all. Because as we said, Jesus said, what shall a man give in exchange for assault?
Your soul is priceless. Your life is priceless.
And God has given you life and time to make a decision what to do with it. But the sad reality is we're so busy with life sometimes that we forget there is a life to come.
You know, I found this interesting article that was written in 2013. Man named Walter Hickey was writing for a Internet magazine called Business Insider. I think they also have a print copy. But he was trying to figure out in this article what a soul was actually worth. So he writes this. He said an award-winning short story from the 1930s called The Devil and Daniel Webster offers another estimate of the worth of a human soul.
In the story, a man named Jabez Sohn sells his soul to the devil for 10 years of prosperity.
Business Insider notes that had the story taken place today, that would have made his soul worth approximately $1,745,926 now to me.
That's not a very good bargain, but he thought it was. He goes on. Did you know that the United States government actually has an estimate on what a human soul is like? In the Environmental Protection Agency, they use this statistic called the VSL, which stands for the Value of a Statistical life.
In 2016, they determined, and I don't know how they determined this, that the value of a statistical life was $7.4 million.
2013 went up a little bit. They figured the value of the VSL was $8.6 million.
I don't know where it currently.
Stand that, but none of those figures are active. The Bible is clear. Your soul is of the national value.
And it's worth far more than a few paltry million. For what shall it profit a man if he gave the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for a soul? Dear friend, God wants you to give your soul and your life to Him. He has sent his Son Jesus to die for you so that you can go to heaven.
00:40:00
He has paid the price so that you.
Can no eternal life and the sad thing is so many people.
Are wasting their lives.
Consumed about stuff just like this Richmond and I'm almost out of time. So I'll give you my last point. Try to shorten it up.
The last mistake he makes. So not only does he mistake his bank book as being more important than what the scripture says, and not only does he mistake, uh, his body for his soul, but the last thing I want us to notice is he mistakes time as being more important than eternity. Let's go back to our passage again. 1 reverses 19 and verse 20 again.
And there's two phrases that I wanted to point out to us that we we need to understand in these two verses. The first phrase is found in verse 19. And I will say to my soul, soul, thou hast much goods laid up for notice this two word phrase many years.
Take thy knees, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, verse 20 Now thou fool, this is the next phrase. I want you to think about this.
Night, thy soul shall be required of thee, and then who shall those things be which thou hast provided?
So he mistakes time as being more important than an eternity. Notice what he says. I have many years.
Many years is the statement of pride. It's a statement. Well, I know what I have and we've already mentioned the Scriptures that Proverbs 27. One says boast not thyself, but tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. We don't know what will happen tomorrow even an hour from now.
It could be this night, someone in this room, your soul will be required of you by God.
Are you prepared for that?
But this man thought I had plenty of life. I had plenty of time.
Statement of prime Ah, I've got lots of time. Think about it later, worry about it later. But he didn't. It's a statement of procrastination. Someone said that people who expect to get saved in the 11Th hour usually die at 10:30, and sadly, that is often true. We think we have time, we think we can postpone, we think we can delay.
God says now as we sung being time, being time, while the voice of Jesus calls you be in time.
If in sin you longer wait, you might find no open gates and you cry. Be just too late. Be in time.
And of course, the last thing that we noticed about that phrase many years is how does it end? It ends in peril for him. Why? Because God says thou fool this night, thy soul shall be required of thee. So it ends in peril for him. Not goodly dense in peril. And then we have the phrase, the two words this night. I just want to quickly draw your attention to it. First of all, notice what this night is for this man. This night is a night of the soul, because what does?
Say he says, This night thy soul shall be required of thee.
Tonight, as a soul. The actual soul. Not that thing that he thought was the soul, which was everything related to his body and his physical comforts, but it was his actual soul.
You know, there was an unsafe man who went to play and he was convicted about his soul and the play. The the last action that takes place is there's a man who's being brought before the gallows.
And the last thing he says before they put him on, the gals would play. He says here's to the prosperity of the British nation and to the salvation of my immortal soul. And then the curtain drops.
Well, that man that was under conviction could not escape those last words. Not the prosperity of the British nation, but the salvation of my immortal soul. Dear friend, you have an immortal soul, you're gonna end up somewhere forever.
What the question is, what have you done with Jesus, who is called Christ?
Not only was it a night of the salt was a night of seizing. It's interesting the Greek word there required means to demand that the scripture is clear and I don't have time to read them.
But our lives are in God's hands.
He is the one who decides the bounds of their inhabitation, as it says in the book of Acts.
God's doing. And so when God says this is the night, I want your soul back.
The man has to.
Obey.
00:45:01
You know, many people are trying to figure ways to extend their lives, but our lives are in God's hands. And if he calls for your soul, there's no scientist, there's no scientific thing that can be done to save him because God determines the bounds of your habitation.
It's interesting, Sir Walter Scott, the last words he wrote, he was famous for his Diaries. He also wrote the book Ivanhoe, which is probably his most famous work. He was writing in his diary one night and he wrote Tomorrow We shall, and he dropped dead.
And so know what? It's a big literary mystery. They wondered, what was he gonna write after tomorrow, we shall.
No one knows, because that night his soul was required of him, and God asked for it back. And then lastly we noticed that the night of sorrow, because the Lord says to him, then who shall these things be which thou hast provided? Why sorrow? Because this man's life was spent all about his stuff.
And so certainly now that he's being ripped away from all his stuff, it is sorrowful for him. It reminds me of another man who was rich, had the same problem as the pool here because he's called the rich young ruler. And then Matthew 1922, it says this. But when the young man heard that saying, Jesus knew that this rich ruler was all about the stuff and all about the money. So he told him to give it all away and follow him. And that's the thing they're talking about. It goes on to say this in Matthew 1922, he went.
Away sorrowful because he had many possessions.
So what's the night of sorrow?
This man who was all about his riches and his possessions and his things, found sorrow at the end of it. Dear friend, if you're spending your life all about yourself, as I said earlier, you're making a fool's bargain.
The Bible is clear. Salvation exists only in God's Son. That's it. It's a finished work for you to receive tonight. But the question is, will you receive? What shall I then do with Jesus, who is called Christ? What are you going to do? This rich man? He wanted to do something and he decided to make it all about the earth. God asked you to make it all about His Son.
I'm way over, but I wanna read you a little poem and then I'll pray and then the meeting will close.
This is a man written by a man named Perry Boorman. He wrote this many go down life's path with lofty plans to amass a great fortune of houses and lands and to live a life of pleasure and ease, thinking happiness can be found in these others pursue power and worldwide fame to be known by all and to win their acclaim. But those without God who attained those goals.
Soon find emptiness remains in their souls.
They couldn't find the happiness they saw, for it comes from him and cannot be bought.
If only they realize these things won't last since life is fleeting and will soon be passed.
Well, worldly pleasure, flame, our fame and power will all be gone in death stark hour and beyond the grave. When eternity begins, those unsaved will be judged for their sins. If only they would believe in God's Son and repent of the simple deeds they've done, then they could go down life's path not needing to worry.
About God's wrath.
They would have the joy they longed for, inner peace, contentment and much more for when their lives inertial end heavenly lifts what it once began. Dear friend, as we close, I asked you once again, what will you do with Jesus? That's the question. And also where will you spend eternity? This question comes to you and me. Tell me, what will your interview? Where will you spend eternity? Let's pray and then the meeting will be over.