Men in this world are very conversant with the matter of profit and loss as they relate to business. Men are ever anxious to make a profit and avoid a loss. In order to ensure this men will work long hours and endure sleepless nights to avoid incurring a financial loss. The failure of their business may affect others besides themselves therefore it is proper that a due regard be given by men to their business concerns.
While there is this anxiety over material wealth and prosperity, how few are anxiously concerned for their spiritual prosperity and obtaining the true riches and righteousness. How many thousands, who cannot be charged with neglecting their business, can be charged with the neglect of their souls needs. How solemn it is that men, who are accustomed to do business daily in relation to their temporal good, are totally unaccustomed to do business relating to the profit or loss of their never-dying souls. Though soul business is the main business, and ought never to be neglected by anyone, yet it is, sad to say, the most neglected business of all. Men who would never fail to make up their books year by year to see how their business fares, yet fail, year by year, to make up their books that they might know how things stand between their soul and God. What a solemn account such will have to give in the Great Day of Account when business of a most solemn nature will be transacted. In that Day God shall open His books and bring men to account. There will be no possibility of falsifying the accounts in that Day. “What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” The truth of this text of Scripture will be demonstrated before an assembled universe in the Day of Judgment. It will be seen in that Day that even the gaining of the whole world could not compensate for the loss of the soul.
What does the loss of the soul mean? The soul is destined to exist throughout the endless ages of eternity. We, as conscious beings, are never to cease having an existence and we are never to cease having a conscious existence. In this world we may for a time be wholly unconscious of our surroundings. This may be merely through the wandering of our mind, or through an accident or illness which renders us unconscious, or it may be just through sleep. This only applies to our present existence. It is not true of our existence in the world to come. There the soul is ever conscious of his own or her own being and of his or her own surroundings but above all the soul is conscious of the being of God. In the light of this, what will the loss of the soul mean for the sinner that goes down to a lost eternity? It will mean for that soul the ever-present reality of the God of Heaven as a consuming fire against sin and against the impenitent sinner. It will mean for that soul the enduring of the wrath of God from which there will be no escape, even momentarily to give some relief. It will mean for the lost soul the anticipation of the wrath of God as the wrath which is to come. The soul will not only be suffering that wrath but be anticipating more wrath. Could anything greater be contemplated than to be shut out from the favourable presence of God for ever? What an awful loss the loss of the soul is! What shall it profit a man if this is to be his end, no matter though he gained the whole world?
But it is not to give men over to destruction that these things are written in God’s Word but to warn sinners of the wrath to come so that they may never come to that place of torment. Sinners are called to flee from the wrath to come. Men might well despair if there was no escape from the wrath to come. But this is not so, for the Bible tells us of a way of escape. When Lot exposed his life to great danger in Sodom, the Angel of the Lord brought him out, saying: “Escape for thy life: stay not in all the plain; escape to the mountain lest thou be consumed.” He was directed to the place of safety appointed of God — and so are we in the gospel of God’s grace. The exhortation to the children of men is Flee to Christ, He is a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest. Hide in Him, even in a cleft of that Rock, which is Christ. But why, the soul may ask, is there safety for my soul in Him. It is because Christ is the smitten Rock, the smitten Lamb of God, the sin-bearer, who in His death made an end of sin for all those who come to trust in Him. He endured the wrath of God in the law place of the guilty and brought in an everlasting righteousness. Let the poor needy sinner who is exposed to the wrath of God flee to this refuge. He will find that many have fled there already and have found refuge under the shelter of His blood and many more will yet find refuge in Him. For such it will not be loss but gain — eternal gain — the favour and fellowship of God throughout the endless ages of eternity. It is the Holy Spirit that begets faith in the soul and faith lays hold of Christ for time and for eternity.