soul. Take wealth. Was ever any man satisfied with wealth? Did any amount of money ever
VIII. A SOLEMN QUESTION FOR THOSE WHO ARE REJECTING CHRIST THAT THEY
MAY…
VIII. A SOLEMN QUESTION FOR THOSE WHO ARE REJECTING
CHRIST THAT THEY MAY OBTAIN THE WORLD.
"What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the world, and lose his own soul?"—Mark viii. 36.
That question ought to set thinking every man and woman here tonight, who, because of love of the world is refusing Jesus Christ.
I. Will you please notice in the first place the two things that are contrasted in the verse? The two things contrasted are not the present and the future. The question is not what shall it profit a man if he gain the present and lose the future. That would be an important question. If a man were to gain the fleeting present and thereby lose the eternal future, it would be a very foolish bargain; but that is not the question of the text. The man who loses his soul does not gain the present. It is true he loses the future, the eternal future; but he does not gain the present. The man living in sin, the man living away from Christ, does not get the most out of the life that now is. He gets the least out of it. On the other hand, the man that saves his soul does not lose the present. It is true that be gains the future, the eternal future; but he does not lose the present. The man whose soul is saved gets the most out of the life that now is. The two things put in contrast are these, the world and the soul, or lifethe world, that is, the tangible world and all it contains, wealth, honour, power, pleasure, everything that appeals to the senses, the lust of the flesh and lust of the eye and the vainglory of life (cf. 1 John ii. 16). That is the world. That which is put into contrast with it is the soul or life, the inner, real man. To gain the world is to get all the wealth there is, and all the honor there is, and all the social position there is, and all the power there is, and all the worldly pleasure there is. To lose the soul is to lose your real manhood, to fall short of that for which God created you, to miss the divine image, to have the divine image blotted out and the image of the devil stamped in its place.
To lose the soul is to come short of the knowledge of God, to lose communion with God and likeness to God, to "fall short of the glory of God." Now the question is this, What shall it profit you to gain all that this world has, all its wealth, all its honor, all its pleasures, all its power and lose your true selves, lose that for which God created you, lose communion with God and likeness to God, and the glory of God?
II. For any man to gain the whole world at the cost of forfeiting his soul would be a bad bargain. If one could get the whole world by forfeiting his soul, it would be an idiotic exchange. Why?
1. First of all, because the world does not satisfy. The world never satisfied a human soul. Take wealth. Was ever any man satisfied with wealth? Did any amount of money ever bring satisfaction and lasting joy to any man or woman on earth? You had a man here in England a few years ago who was very successful in making money. He made millions of