Category: the Bible this week

Week 41 : The Security of a Retirement Plan

 

“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is demanded of you; and as for all that you have prepared, who will own it now?’” Luke 12:20 NASB

Thank God for parables. Particularly those hard-hitting ones such as this. They are intended to steer us away from the path of peril. Let us see how this one unfolds. Luke 12:16

16 And He told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man was very productive.”

How did this happen? Sure the workers laboured hard; but it rained at the right time didn’t it? Check James 5:7 The early rain fell in the fall of the year to germinate the seed. The latter rain fell in the spring to ripen the harvest. The context makes it abundantly clear that it is the work of the Lord. Yes, it is “He (God, who)  will crown the year with a bountiful harvest” Psalm 65: 11.

Any acknowledgment of this fact? Any thanksgiving Prayer Meeting? Any thoughts about tithing? Sadly, none whatsoever on the part of this rich man.

Quite a few of us can identify with this man. A promotion at work, children doing well at school, wife wins the cooking competition……….everything going hunky dory. But do we think God’s good hand is behind any of this? We go into a self-congratulatory mode, pat ourselves on the back and give room to rather conceited thinking, like this unworthy example.

17 And he began thinking to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and I will store all my grain and my goods there. 19 And I will say to [l]myself, “You have many goods stored up for many years to come; relax, eat, drink, and enjoy yourself!”’
Thinking of the future, making retirement plans and dreaming of comfortable senior living – is any of these wrong?  No. The problem is there is no thought of God; He is not in the scheme of things at all despite what it says in Psalm 100:3 “Know that the LORD Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.”
If this is the state in which we find ourselves, if we make no room for God in the equation of our life, we have another think coming:

20 But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is demanded of you; and as for all that you have prepared, who will own it now?’

21 Such is the one who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich in relation to God.”
One of our neighbours died about 10 days ago. His mother had died some 25 years ago, wife 7 years ago and the only sister 2 years ago. No children. He was lonely, very very lonely. Plenty of property and no one to leave it to. From time to time he would bemoan the fact that there is no one in the family to whom he could bequeath anything. Then he suddenly passed away, probably intestate. This is not quite a parallel to the parable we are considering, but there is – as you can see – there is a great deal of similarity. Oh, he was no fool – he was pretty regular in his “surya namakarams“.
The intimation of his demise came from his lawyers. I went next door to pay my homage and I was powerfully reminded of Psalm 103:

15 As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.16 For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.

His own house. The body was lain in the drawing room. The house did not know that he was gone and he  – most certainly – did not know that he was in his own house.

Oh, the brevity of life! The fleeting breath!

 14 For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust” Psalm 103. And way back in Genesis 3:19: “for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

“Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth” Eccl.12:1