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.