One nice characteristic of modernity, from Devil’s standpoint, is the sheer rejection of the soul. We reside in a world stupefied by the fabric. Ask ten folks on the road about their souls — in the event that they don’t marvel aloud, “What does this babbler want to say?” (Acts 17:18), they are going to inform you that in the event that they do have a soul, they haven’t thought a lot about it. Even historic pagan philosophers wrote dense treatises on the soul, however the mass of males in the present day reside as if they’re soulless. And but these similar folks examine the silliest issues below the solar. If something is value thought, is it not your soul? “Claiming to be sensible, they grew to become fools” (Romans 1:22).
But maybe this treacherous thoughtlessness shouldn’t be so novel. John Bunyan (1628–1688) may plaster this over our age in addition to his:
[The soul] is uncared for to amazement, and that by essentially the most of males; yea, who’s there of the various 1000’s that sit day by day below the sound of the gospel which can be involved, heartily involved, concerning the salvation of their souls? — that’s, involved, I say, as the character of the factor requireth. If ever a lamentation was match to be taken up on this age about, for, or regarding something, it’s about, for, and regarding the horrid neglect that all over the place places forth itself on the subject of salvation. (The Greatness of the Soul, 105)
Hell is being crammed not a lot with a shaking fist as with a shrug. How little thought, how little consideration, how little time or effort is paid to eternity. Many a sinner in the present day thinks ideas of his eternal soul as deep as his stomach button. His neglect offends each God and his personal well-being — he suicides the immortal a part of him by his thoughtlessness. If Jesus’s query was wanted then, it’s wanted all of the extra now. Dip it in hearth, carve it in granite, engrave it upon the conscience: “What does it revenue a person to realize the entire world and forfeit his soul? For what can a person give in return for his soul?” (Mark 8:36–37).
Three Classes on the Soul
Don’t go on from his query. Reply it. What does it revenue you to amass all this world has to give you — if the genie emerged to grant your deepest needs — if within the receiving you let slip your soul? Too many reside for the world and whisper, “Soul, you have got ample items laid up for a few years; loosen up, eat, drink, be merry.” However God will say to him on that darkish day of judgment, “Idiot! This night time your soul is required of you” (Luke 12:19–20). In case your soul be misplaced, all is misplaced, for you are misplaced.
Adrift in a naturalistic and atheistic West, you could need assistance contemplating the immaterial and immortal self. Devil the destroyer blinds man to the glory of Christ, but additionally to the glory of souls. Many have no idea Jesus and don’t need to know Jesus as a result of they have no idea what a soul is and what it means for it to be misplaced. Expensive reader, have you learnt what it’s to own a soul? Have you learnt what it’s to lose it? Contemplate then your individual soul’s significance by three comparisons.
1. Your soul is bigger than security.
We have to examine this earlier than we’re examined on it: your soul is value any struggling to maintain. Jesus introduces his query about soul-losing within the context of cross-bearing. He refuses to cover the price of discipleship. “If anybody would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and observe me” (Mark 8:34). Look forward of you; there it’s, a horrid sight to the flesh: a cross. However not simply any cross, an empty cross. You get nearer; what sick joke is that this? Your title is etched upon it.
“Hell is being crammed not a lot with a shaking fist as with a shrug.”
You, die that loss of life? Inconceivable. On no account. Completely not. And but that is the instrument Christ places earlier than his disciples. Nails. Nakedness. Disgrace. Torture. All chosen — day by day (Luke 9:23). What argument may even a divine thoughts produce to prod trembling sheep to such a slaughter? One phrase: life. “For whoever would save his life will lose it, however whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will reserve it” (Mark 8:35).
Jesus’s query — What does it revenue a person to realize the entire world and forfeit his soul? — assassinates all options. What does it acquire us to refuse our cross, refuse his manner, sidestep his struggling, to maintain our transient life on this world and lose our life with him within the subsequent? Should you reside for something, reside for that which is able to bless your soul; in case you die for something, die pursuing the nice of your soul and the souls of others.
2. Your soul is bigger than your physique.
Native gyms, hospitals, make-up departments, medicines, and vogue all show man cares about his bodily self. A person can’t endure a hangnail with out it turning into a preoccupation. How a lot cash should he spend to make the sickness go away? How a lot to drink from the fountain of youth? We’ll pay it. How anxious he’s to swell that bicep however a couple of centimeters or trim that midsection a couple of inches — what number of hours, how a lot ache, what inconvenience he’ll endure for the physique.
In all of this, we spend our give attention to the wrapping paper of God’s far larger present. The mass of humanity cares extra for wholesome and exquisite our bodies than they do for wholesome and exquisite souls. The one they will see within the mirror; the opposite is immaterial and, thus, to them unreal. What a tragedy. Not solely is your soul that which may commune with God and that which is able to reside eternally, however it’s that which is able to decide your resurrected physique’s destiny. A soul in heaven shall not have a physique in hell, and the soul in hell won’t have a physique in heaven. The 2 will be part of: the place the soul is, there the physique can be additionally.
3. Your soul is bigger than all of the world.
Oh, how man excavates the bottom for gold. How he crosses oceans, sails from shore to shore, sifts dust for diamonds — in these he thinks he finds treasure. In these he thinks he finds what issues.
How otherwise does Jesus train man to compute. Discover the buried treasure, seize the pot of gold, unearth Atlantis, fill your barns, attain that movie star, wealth, and standing, and you’ll acquire nothing value contemplating, nothing even value evaluating to what you lose in case you lose your soul. What does it revenue a person to realize the entire world and forfeit his soul? It earnings him nothing. If the entire world may slot in your proper pocket, however your soul ought to slip by a gap in your left, you’ve misplaced every part value holding.
In different phrases, you’ll by no means receive something on this world extra helpful than what you lose by forfeiting your soul. But, like a madman who has escaped from the asylum, we scour the center of the freeway searching for misplaced pennies. What are these in contrast with our very lives? What are a couple of gold cash in comparison with our souls? The world and all its needs are mud, rotten trash, a loathsome illness in comparison with riches you already possess by advantage of being a creature with a soul.
Lose Not Your Soul
Contemplate, actually take into account, Jesus’s second warning shot: What can a person give in return for his soul? “Return for his soul” — does Jesus not converse from the vantage level of hell? The person has misplaced his soul and needs to purchase it again. What can he give for its return? What would he not give for its return? But he doesn’t have the funds. He offered himself cheaply and can’t purchase himself again. He has hated himself. The bowl of crimson stew is empty; solely tears stay; how foolishly does Esau barter his birthright!
What can a person give in return for his soul? Let a misplaced soul reply. What coin or feast or pleasure would that wealthy man within the torment spare to ferry his soul over that uncrossable chasm to the place Lazarus sat? How useless the world now seems to him — lower than a single drop of water upon his tongue to cut back his anguish. What can a person give in return for his soul? “Nothing now!” he groans by sobs.
Reader, you’ll be able to lose your soul — most do. To lose your soul by thoughtlessness is a straightforward street and pure. To maintain one’s soul in following Jesus to our crosses and past — that is supernatural. Don’t lose your soul!
