PROFIT AND LOSS
‘For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’
Christ does not ask men how they will answer at God’s bar for their lives, only how they will answer for their conduct to themselves, and how the gain and loss will stand at the final settlement.
I. The supposed gain.
(a) A limited use only of the world can be made. True, Christ speaks of ‘the whole world,’ and thus gives the worldling the benefit of the supposition that he can gain it entirely. But the gain of the whole world is an utter impossibility to any man; and were it a possibility, very little use could be made of it by him. Others must necessarily share in it.
(b) The gain of a world cannot satisfy a man. An outward thing, however great and grand it may be, cannot possibly fill the inward soul.
(c) The holding, moreover, is not for ever. Supposing a man could gain the whole world, his tenure of it is short indeed; and then, when a man seems to need the world most, it gallops away from him, and leaves him to his fate. When this happens, all former profit, real or supposed, is at an absolute end.
II. The actual loss.
(a) That of a man’s soul. But what is a soul? It is a man’s conscious being. God is the maker of the soul; and He made it in the likeness of the Triune, filling it with life and immortality. It is, therefore, the gem of creation—the wonder of the universe!
(b) The standard of its value. The worth of a thing is tested by the price any one thoroughly understanding it will give for it, or will require as an equivalent for it. But man cannot appraise the value of his own soul (Micah 6:6-7). God has done this for him in a wonderfully gracious and perfect manner (John 3:16).
(c) The loss of it is beyond all calculation. As the worth of the soul immeasurably transcends all that material wealth and carnal grandeur of which the wildest ambition can form a notion, its loss, then, must rank next to the loss of its God!
Illustration
‘Thus sublimely but mournfully Robert Hall describes the final solemnities of a lost soul: “What—if it be lawful to indulge such a thought—would be its funeral obsequies? Where shall we find the tears fit to be wept at such a spectacle? or, could we realise the calamity in all its extent, what tokens of commiseration and concern would be deemed equal to the occasion? Would it suffice for the sun to veil his light, and the moon her brightness? to cover the ocean with mourning and the heavens with sackcloth? Or, were the whole fabric of nature to become animated and vocal, would it be possible for her to utter a groan too deep, or a cry too piercing, to express the magnitude and extent of such a catastrophe?’
(SECOND OUTLINE)
THE IMPORTANCE OF LIFE
This familiar passage is somewhat obscured in the Authorised Version.
I. There is a contrast to life and soul which the original does not contain. ‘Life,’ in Mark 8:35, and ‘soul,’ in Mark 8:36-37, are the same word, and ought to be translated by the same word throughout. The Authorised Version does not represent the distinction between the two words rendered ‘lose.’ In Mark 8:35 a man may lose his life in his master’s service; but he cannot ‘forfeit’ it (Mark 8:36) except by his own default. The text teaches—
II. The paramount importance of life in its fullest and highest sense. Anything a man has may perish, but he remains; or, he may perish and his possessions survive.
III. The practical application.
(a) Have we the principle of real life in us?
(b) Nothing can compensate for loss of this true life.
(c) Life in Christ, the gift of God, by the merits of Christ.
Rev. Barton R. V. Mills.
Illustrations
(1) ‘When Lysimachus was engaged in a war with the Getæ, he was so tormented by thirst that he offered his kingdom to his enemies for permission to quench it. His exclamation, when he had drunk the water with which they furnished him, is striking. “Ah, wretched me, who, for such a momentary gratification, have lost so great a kingdom!” How applicable is this to the case of those who for the momentary pleasures of sin, part with the Kingdom of Heaven!’
(2) ‘There is such a thing as a man holding his soul in his own custody; and there is such a thing—and it is no matter of fiction, but it is a thing which is happening every day—there is such a thing as a man selling his soul to the devil! It is a fearful thing—that there should be going on, every day, a traffic in the world like this! a traffic, not of material commodities, but a traffic of souls! A little pleasure, a little money taken, and the prize actually given—a soul! an undying soul! a soul, with all its capacities of joy and anguish, for ever and ever!’