From the Doctor’s Diary-29- A Rich Man

In March 1994, a man came to visit me. He was very rich, had a big bungalow and several acres of land in Trivandrum, Kerala (South India). He and his wife lived a high society life, went regularly to parties and gave parties often. He was eager to listen to the gospel message but always had a habit of postponing in taking a decision to accept Jesus as His Saviour because of his rich life style. As he entered my room he saw a beautiful picture of a house on the calendar hanging on the wall. He was fascinated by the picture and immediately asked me to give him that picture.

I asked him, “Why do you want this picture?”
“I want to build a house like that, he said”
“But you have a bungalow in Trivandrum, a big house here, then why do you want to build another house? I asked him.”
“It’s so beautiful”, he said, “I will build a house just like this. Kindly give me this picture.”
I told him, “This page of the calendar is of the month of March. You can come on April 1st and I will tear this page and give it to you as soon as March ends.
When I talked about God and Eternal Salvation he, said,
“I don’t have time now, We can talk of that some other time.”
While going his eyes were still on the picture on the wall.
I forgot this matter totally because of my hectic work. On April 1st when I glanced through the paper, I was shocked to see his photo in the column for the deceased.
He had died of a heart attack on March 31st. I remembered his words, his worldly desires and his habit of postponing in making a decision for accepting Jesus. What a pity!

In the gospel of Luke Chapter 12, verses 16-20, we read of a parable told by Jesus.

“And he told them this parable: The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy, eat, drink and be merry.”
“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?”

How very true the words of Jesus in this man’s case.