"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" MARK 8:36-37
Think about this, gaining the whole world at the loss of your soul. A man told me once, "Never gamble more than you can afford to lose." That is good advice. There are many people in this world today, who will take great chances to get ahead who end up losing all they have, always with that hope of winning the big one, but in the process, losing all they have. THAT IS GAMBLING MORE THAN YOU CAN AFFORD TO LOSE.
The Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to us about, "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" That is, laying it all out, playing everything we have to gain this world, but in the process of gaining this world, we lose our soul. There is nothing more dangerous than playing games like this with our soul.
If we were to take care of our business like we care for our soul, we would all be bankrupt. We play games with our soul that we would never think about doing in business. There is a trade that goes on almost every day called FUTURES TRADING which is a betting on future events, and staking all you have now on the outcome of things to come. Now when it comes to our soul, we are not just talking about tomorrow or 6 months from now, but we are trading on eternity. This is a much more serious gamble. When we start gambling away the welfare of our soul for the gain of this world, we are trading eternity for a little time. We are trading our standing before the Holy God, for a little pleasure in time.
What would we gain if we gained the whole world, happiness? NO! You can read in the paper almost every day of people who have gained this world and have not found happiness.
What we are saying is that we really do not believe what is being said about Heaven and Hell. We are saying that we really do not believe we are sinners. We are really saying that we have no need of a Saviour.
If our soul is lost, no matter how much of this world we gain, we have profited nothing.