This illustration is found at Luke 12:16-21. The rich man in it was not satisfied with his adequate material things. He continued to concentrate on his business so as to increase his wealth. Jesus concluded: “But God said to [the rich man], ‘Unreasonable one, this night they are demanding your soul from you. Who, then, is to have the things you stored up?’ So it goes with the man that lays up treasure for himself but is not rich toward God.”

We do well, though, not to allow grammatical technicalities to obscure Jesus’ clear admonition about materialism. He was not specifying how the rich man would die. The point was that by some means the man was going to lose his soul, or life, that night. But how did he stand with God? Any of us could become absorbed in improving our material situation and similarly miss out on being rich toward God. The business world fosters a spirit of ‘ever more.’ Even people whose companies make substantial profits from sales in the millions of dollars, pounds, marks, and so forth, may be tempted to seek more​—more employees, more sales, more profits, more luxuries, more in the bank. Jesus’ question is as valid today as when he first posed it: “Who, then, is to have the things you stored up?”​—Luke 12:20.