Sermons on Biblical Characters

by Clovis Gillham Chappell

But this man had not made his money after that fashion. He had never run a saloon nor a gambling house nor a sweatshop. There is no hint that he had failed to pay an adequate wage to his laborers. James calls upon the rich men of his day to weep and howl because they were guilty in this respect. But no such charge as this is laid against this man. Nor had he robbed the widow or the fatherless. "An orphan's curse will drag to hell a spirit from on high," but no such curse was on this man.

How had he made his money? He had made it in a way that is considered the most honest and upright that is possible. He had made his money farming. Listen: "The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully." The ground. It smacks of cleanliness, honesty, uprightness.

"The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully." And when I read that I am back on the old farm again. As I read it there comes before me a vision of my boyhood's home. I see the old white house under the hill. I see the sturdy apple trees in front of it and the forest of beech, oak and chestnut stretching away in the distance back of it. I can hear the lowing of the cattle and the neighing of the horses and the crowing of the cock in the barnyard. I can hear the call of the bob white to his mate, and the song of the catbird in the thicket at the end of the row. I can feel the caress of the fresh upturned sod upon my bare feet. I can catch the fragrance of the new mown hay. I can see myself coming home in the gloaming "as the day fades into golden and then into gray and then into deep blue of the night sky with its myriad of stars that blossom at twilight's early hour like lilies on the tomb of day." And when I come home I come to a night of restful sleep because I have come from a clean day's work. No, this man was not a fool because he had gotten his money dishonestly. He had made it honestly, every dollar of it.

Nor was he a fool because he set about thoughtfully to save what he had made. The Bible sets no premium upon wastefulness. God lets us know that to waste anything of value is not only foolish but wicked. What was the sin of the Prodigal Son? It was this, that he "wasted his substance with riotous living." He spent his treasure without getting any adequate return.

That is the tragedy of a great number of us. I do not charge you with outrageous and disgraceful wickedness. But it is true that you are not investing your life in the highest possible way. You are squandering yourself on things of secondary value. And to you God is speaking as he spoke centuries ago: "Wherefore do you spend your money for that which is not meat and your labor for that which satisfieth not?" You have no right to waste yourself and you have just as little right to waste your money which represents a part of yourself.

No, the foolishness of this man was not in the fact that he sought to save what he had made. That is right. That is sensible. To do otherwise is at once wicked and little. Big things do not waste. This is a big world on which we live but it has never lost one single drop of water nor one single grain of sand since God flung it into space. And even Jesus Christ himself, the Lord of the universe, commanded His disciples after He had fed the multitude, to gather up the fragments that nothing be lost.

Why then, I repeat, does Christ call this man a fool? His foolishness lay fundamentally in the fact that he was a practical atheist. He had absolutely no sense of God. He lived as if the fact of God were an absolute lie. I do not think for a moment that he claimed to be an atheist. I have no doubt that he was altogether orthodox. I have no doubt that he went to the synagogue or to the temple every Sabbath day. But practically he was an utter atheist. And what is true of him is equally true of many another man who stands up every Sunday in Church to recite his creed.

How do we know that he is an atheist? We know it by hearing him think. Listen: "He thought within himself." Now then we are going to get to see this man as he really is. You can't always tell what a man is by the way he looks. He may look like the flower, but be the serpent under it. He may smile and smile, as Hamlet tells us, and be a villain. You can't always tell what he is by what he says. He may speak high sentiments to which his heart is a stranger. Nor can you tell him by what he does. He may "do his alms" simply to be seen of men. But if you can get in behind the scenes and see him think, then you will know him. Tell me, man, what you think within yourself and I will tell you what you are. For, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."

Now, what did this man think? "He thought within himself, saying, What shall I do for I have no room where to bestow My goods and 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 goods and My fruits." Now we see him. When he thought, he had not one single thought of God. God was as completely ignored as if He had no existence at all. This was the very fountain source of his foolishness. He reckoned without God, and the man who reckons without God is a fool.

Look now how this fatal foolishness casts its blight over his entire character. Reckoning without God, of course, he has no sense of Divine ownership. Quite naturally, therefore, he thinks because he possesses a farm, he owns a farm. Possession and ownership mean exactly the same thing to a man who begins by ignoring God. When you hear this man talk you find that the only pronouns he has in his vocabulary are "I," "My" and "Mine." He knows only the grammar of atheism. He is acquainted only with the vocabulary of the fool. "His" and "Ours" and "Yours" are not found in the fool's vocabulary.