“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul. For what can a man give in return for his soul?” Mark 8:36-37
Gaining the world and forfeiting your soul. This sounds like the kind of trade that Satan tries to make with us. The riches of the world now, for your soul later. The theme of pursuing undisputed acceptance in the world, riches or power in exchange for your soul has been used countless times in movies and stories. It makes for a good plot to see what lengths people will go for power or control, even to the point of turning to evil.
Classic adventure movies like Star Wars, Aladdin, and Lion King all involve characters who are all consumed with a quest for power. Watching these movies, we see clearly that the quest for power is not worth it- an action that destroys the soul. However, you do not need to be a super villain in order to fall into the trap of trading your soul for worldly pursuits.
In reality it is not the whole world that Satan needs to offer, a tiny slice of the world is often enough to tempt us to depart from following God’s Word. After all, the smaller the sin, the less significant it sounds.
Satan tempts us to believe that what we can seize for ourselves at the right opportunity is greater than what God can provide for us. Satan tempts us to believe that God is holding back good and desirable things from us. Satan wants us to think that following Jesus does not provide enough for us- that we need to provide for ourselves.
This is the same approach Satan used to tempt Eve: ‘isn’t there more for you for the taking?’ “Did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree of the garden?” You will not surely die – ‘you will not forfeit your soul’ Satan argued.
Satan offered to Eve the promise that eating the fruit would open her eyes to be like God, knowing good and evil. This knowledge Satan offered would put Adam and Eve at the same level as God- as a law unto themselves.
And it worked all to well- we experience for ourselves on a daily basis that we want to be a law unto ourselves, we want to decide what is good and what is evil and we wish we no longer had to face reality of our limitations each day. We wish we could be like God so that we would not need to deal with suffering and loss.
Jesus has come to deliver us from this short sighted reach for worldly power. After Peter’s attempt to rebuke Jesus from the way of the cross, Jesus spoke about what it means to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow Him. The temptations of the world mean very little when our chief desire is to take up our cross and follow Jesus.
Peter saw a reward in knowing Jesus as the Christ, but he was not ready for the reality of why the Christ was there on earth with him- to die on the cross. He rebuked Jesus about all this talk about suffering and rejection and dying and rising. Peter had a better plan for how their lives together could go. Perhaps it had something to do with avoiding all those who opposed them and only spending time in an insulated community of believers.
Jesus answered Peter as He addressed the disciples: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
Often a central focus of our lives is to find safety and security, and freedom from danger. Following Jesus promises no such safety. If you worry above all else about protecting your own life, saving yourself- you need not bother following Jesus.
As we see more signs of persecution and outrage against God’s Word in our world today, we could try and play it safe by keeping a low profile. Perhaps if we stay away from the controversial topics or scrub a few things from our doctrine, perhaps then we can avoid all of the persecution.
But if we care more about getting along in the world and not offending anyone than we care about the words of Jesus, if we are ashamed of the gospel- then we are forfeiting our soul for the sake of possessing favor in the world.
Jesus describes the contrast of the choice we face- whether to be ashamed of the adulterous and sinful generation we live in or to be ashamed of His words. When He comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels- of what worth is favor from the adulterous and sinful generation we find in our word today?
Our Hymn of the day Lord, Thee I love with All My Heart, captures this faithfulness Jesus calls us to in picking up our cross and following Him:
“Earth has no pleasure I would share. Yea heaven itself were void and bare if Thou, Lord, wert not near me.” We realize as followers of Jesus that all the good gifts we have in life are from Him, and these good things would mean nothing to us if we were to forsake Him to have more earthly treasures.
Although Satan may tempt us to have more things apart from Him, we trust the promises of God’s Word. The first stanza closes with the passionate prayer- “Forsake me not, I trust Thy Word.”
When we start to feel ungrateful and covet what we do not have, God’s Word reminds us of the riches that we have received. Stanza 2 begins: “Yea Lord ‘twas Thy rich bounty gave, My body soul and all I have in this poor life of labor.” Instead of coveting what we do not have faith moves us to gratefulness, and to a life of praise: “Lord grant that I in every place May glorify Thy lavish grace And help and serve my neighbor.”
Foundational to resisting the attacks of Satan is that we are not led astray by false teaching “The have your cake and eat it too” approach to interpreting God’s Word that comes from Satan. False doctrine always provides shortcuts to the teaching of God’s Word where people have more choice and power to save themselves, where the teaching of who is Christ is changed to make the gospel sound more appealing or easy to swallow to this adulterous and sinful generation. Accordingly the hymn continues:
“Let no false doctrine me beguile, Let Satan not my soul defile, give strength and patience unto me to bear my cross and follow thee.”
All three of the stanzas of the hymn close with a passionate ‘I trust in thee above all else’ plea to our Lord Jesus. Stanza 2 closes with a trust in Jesus unto death “Lord Jesus Christ, my God and Lord, my God and Lord, In death Thy comfort still afford.”
Stanza 3 celebrates the hope we have in Christ as we approach death: Lord, let at last Thine angels come, to Abraham’s bosom bear me home, that I may die unfearing.” This stanza reminds us of reward and blessing that God has established with us, going back to the promise to Abraham that a multitude should have this blessing of salvation.
At the hour of death the riches of the world mean nothing and we rest in faith in Jesus that we have not forfeited our soul but have trusted in Him. “And in its narrow chamber keep my body safe in peaceful sleep until Thy reappearing.”
This is the teaching that after death our bodies await the resurrection on the last day and the judgement of the living and the dead. Modern Christian praise songs have some value in our world today, but you won’t find a praise song on the radio that reminds us of death and a coffin, the narrow chamber that keeps our body safe until Jesus returns.
If there was ever a time to have a large choir at hand for a hymn to blow the roof off so to speak, it would be for this final part of stanza 3 “And then from death awaken me, that these mine eyes with joy may see, O Son of God, Thy glorious face, My Savior and my fount of grace. Lord Jesus Christ, my prayer attend, my prayer attend, And I will praise Thee without end.”
We are included in the promise made to Abraham: Ephesians chapter 1 celebrates, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.”
Just like Abraham did not earn this great honor to be the father of all nations, we did not earn the title of holy and blameless before God. This has been a gift given to us by our gracious and gift giving God. This gift is what we remember in times of temptation, this gift is our hope in the hour of death. Amen.