I please the Lord to bless us
together as we meditate in his word this morning. Let us turn
to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 8, and we'll read the last five
verses. That's from verse 34. So the
Gospel of Mark, chapter 8, I'm reading from verse 34. And when he had called the people
unto him, with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever
will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross
and follow me. For whosoever will save his life
shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake
and the gospel's, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit
a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul,
or what should a man give in exchange for his soul? Whosoever
therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous
and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be
ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the
holy angels. The Lord Jesus Christ was so
clear when he was on the earth speaking the great and important
truths concerning our never-dying souls. He went about doing good,
as we know, and he performed some wonderful miracles, which
was a terrific confirmation that he was indeed the Son of God.
But then we see that he comes and points to the great need
there is, that men and women, boys and girls, might come to
know their right and true condition and put a right value on the
things of God and on the things of time. We might really view
it like this, it's a profit and loss account. It's those things
which will profit us, and those things which will just be a loss
to us. And the central verse in these
five verses is verse 36, and I think really it is central
really to the statement, because what it says is, for what should
it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his
own soul? Now, the truth is that we live
in a world a fallen world, a sinful world. A world which since that
tragic day in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve succumbs to
the temptation of Satan and partook of that fruit and sin entered
into the world and ever since that time the world has been
in what we term a fallen state, a sinful state. And we know that Adam and Eve
were tempted by the devil, Satan, and he is still so active today. And his actions really are to
try and turn us into just the things of time, the world, the
whole world. The devil will endeavour to occupy
our minds, occupy our actions, our words, with just the things
of this world. He does not want us to ever think
upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. He does not want us to
ever consider what will happen to us when we leave this world. He wants us to be totally engrossed
with the things of this world. And you know he's very successful,
isn't he? If you and I analyse in our minds the amount of time
we spend on the things of God and the amount of time we spend
on the things of the world, it may be quite a big wake-up call
as we realise how much time sometimes we fritter away. Now, don't mistake
me, we have to earn our living of course. We have to do those
things which are necessary for our natural life. But we are
not occupied, are we? 24 hours a day on just having
to do things for our natural life. There are many, many hours
really in our life, in our daily life, that we are not so occupied
with the necessary things of time. And as a result, we have
so much We might term free time, and the important thing is, in
that free time, what do we do with that free time? And also,
in the time when we are occupied in daily calling, do we always
just think of the things that we're occupied with? Well, we
should do, but if there are other times when we don't have to concentrate
quite so hard on our work, Are we able then to think, perhaps,
upon the things of God? Well, this should be a consideration
that should always be before our minds. And the Lord Jesus
speaks so clearly, doesn't he, about the necessity of such things. And perhaps we've read about
them and heard about them, but we don't seem to take them to
heart, do we? And the problem is then, we're
not very healthy in our soul. We might be healthy in the things
of time. We might have a wonderful knowledge of everything that's
going on in the world. We might be able to tell people what's
happening in different countries and all that kind of situation.
Well, that's all right in its place, but does it really, is
it benefiting our souls? And is it that which will be
a treasure for us in heaven? Or are we just concentrating
on the treasures on this world? Well, what should it profit a
man then, if he should gain the whole world and lose his own
soul? The answer is that it will only
profit us while we're living. That's the things of the world.
They will only benefit us while we're living. But we must all
realise, and I'm sure, I hope we do realise, that none of us
will live on this earth for very long. In actual fact, we shall
live on this earth for a relatively short time. I know people are
living longer today and many people attain the age of 100
or so, but relatively that's a very small span of time. A very small span of time. I often speak of eternity, and
it is a very important consideration. We should never lose sight of
the fact that eternity does not have time. And therefore we cannot, as it
were, sit down and work out how long eternity is, because it
never ends. And that's difficult, isn't it?
Because we live in time, we measure things by time, and we can't
really therefore measure eternity because there is no time. But
we just need to appreciate that it is forever. And perhaps just
to try and get some perspective with regards to time, which we
can appreciate, And then think that when we measure it against
eternity, it's so small we can't notice it. We all know what a
year is, don't we? We all know what perhaps a hundred
years are. None of us here have lived a
hundred years, have we? And the many years that we have
lived have just gone by very fast, haven't they? But we can
visualize the length of our natural lives, can't we? But you then
think of a hundred years, and you put a few noughts on the
end, and you think, well, a thousand years. You go back in history
a thousand years, it's before William the Conqueror came onto
our country. And again, it's just in the misty
past, isn't it? We just know it's a truth, but
we don't really have any true understanding what it was like
in those days. And that's just a thousand years. And if you
add a few more noughts on, you can very quickly come to a million
years, can't you? A million years. And add a few
more noughts and you come to a trillion years. Well, that's
getting beyond what we can really think about, isn't it? As I said,
such a length of time When you compare it with eternity, you
can't even see it, it's so small. And so, how important it is then
that you and I have a right value on the things of time and the
things of eternity. It is so important that we, you
know, when you and I come to stand before that judgment seat
of God, which we all will, We might be able to say, well of
course I never knew anything about this, I never was told
anything about it, I never actually read about it, because we have
the Bible to read, which explains to us very clearly there is an
eternity which all of us will be found in. And you know, that
eternity will either be spent in a place of wonderful peace
and harmony and joy and thanksgiving and praise, or it'll be spent
in a terrible place of darkness and where fire burns and there's
no peace and there's continual regrets and recognizing that
we turn our back upon God and we have gone our own way and
spent our time on earth on the things of time and have ignored
the things of God. There's the two positions, the
two situations and all of us today will be found in one or
the other place. Now, that's really why we have
such gracious warnings given to us in the Word of God, to
alert us to the need to be found on the right side, to be amongst
those who do worship the true God, amongst those who do believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose hope is in what Christ has done. Well, these words begin this
34th verse, when we're told, and when he had called the people
unto him with his disciples, he said unto them. Now, there
were a big multitude of people. When they all came together,
he called them so that they might hear what he was going to tell
them. He didn't want them to just be
spread about and not listening. He wanted them to come and he
wanted them to hear what he was going to say. And so he called
the people unto him with the disciples. We can imagine, can't
we, that Lord Jesus there with this vast congregation, all these
people there, and he speaks to them and he tells them some very
simple statements. And he says, whosoever will come
after me. He's really there speaking about
people that would desire to follow, to follow him. They had followed
him. We read, didn't we, at the beginning
of this chapter that they'd been with him for three days, without
any food. That was good, and that was right.
But you see, it's not just a question of being a follower. Because
the Lord tells us here, whosoever will come after me, then the
Lord sets before us something which is true concerning true
Christians. There are many Christians so-called
today who are false Christians. You can go about, and especially,
I remember when I was in Pakistan, there were people who were born
Christians. What do I mean by that? Well,
they were born and they're either Christian or they're Muslim.
Well, they were a Christian and therefore they said they were
Christians. But in actual fact, that didn't necessarily mean
that they were a true Christian. They didn't really possess the
life of God in their souls. They were just an outward Christian.
But you see, true Christians are not only an outward Christian,
they're an inward Christian. And by that I mean that our inward
Christianity will really mean something to us and will dictate
to our hearts how we walk in this world. And Jesus here tells
us what that means. He says, let him deny himself. That means we're not to go around
just saying, well I want to do this and I want to do that and
I'm going to do it and I'm going to do it. That's the way of the
world, isn't it? People go about, they just want
to please themselves. They don't want to deny themselves. No, they want to do that which
is pleasant for them. Now, those who are true followers
of the Lord Jesus Christ, they want to please the Lord, and
they want to do his bidding, and therefore they are prepared
to deny themselves. Because this is a description.
A true believer is one who denies himself. And not only that, one who takes
up his cross. Takes up his cross. The Lord
Jesus Christ, he was crucified upon that cross, wasn't he? Yes,
he was willing to give his wonderful life, give it up, so that his
people might be saved. Now perhaps we're not called
upon to give up our life. There are those people today
in this world who do sacrifice their life for their faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ. In other countries especially,
there are many today who are willing to do that. They are
denying themselves and they're taking up their cross and they're
following the Lord Jesus Christ in his great and glorious example. We're not left, are we, to think,
well, I'm not sure what I should do or how I should act. because the Word of God is very
clear and very full of those things that we should do and
desire to do. And it is to walk in accordance
with God's Word, and as we read in Isaiah, those precious words,
ye are my witnesses. You and I, my friends, if we're
the children of God, we are a witness to the life of God in our souls,
and a witness to that which the Lord Jesus Christ has done. True Christians are those who
are blessed with this walk, to be a true witness and to take
up our cross. And in another part of the Bible,
I think it's in Luke's account, we are told to take up our cross,
not just perhaps when we feel like it, when we perhaps feel
a little bit braver, Perhaps we are willing to suffer a little
bit? No. We're told daily. Every day. Every day we should be willing
to face opposition. Because really, taking up our
cross is to be aligned with the Lord Jesus Christ. And to realise
that this great Saviour gave his life. And what a debt you
and I owe. And we should therefore be concerned
and very thankful day by day to be able to take up our cross
and to follow him. And then the Lord points us to
this position, whosoever will save his life shall lose it. You know, there are those people
perhaps who have been professing Christians And faced with death,
they've gone against what they profess to believe. And it may be, you know, in our
little lives, people may sometimes come and ask us a question, mightn't
they? Well, they might say, well, are
you a Christian? Do you believe in the things
of God? And a temptation might be to
deny, mightn't it? Yes, well here we have, and what
we're trying to do is to save our skin, aren't we? We don't
want people to think too badly of us. So we therefore, we might
deny the position. Well, I've told you sometimes,
I know a little account of an American evangelist who I heard
speak once. He was in America and he was
telling us about his life and how terrible he'd been, a most
wicked person he'd been. And he said he'd committed all
the sins in the book, everything he'd gone against, and there
was no hope. And he had no hope and he had
no desire after the things of God. But, you know, by the grace
of God, He did come to know the Lord and it's just interesting
just to remember how that occurred. He went to live in Michigan.
He tells us it was a cold place and the house he bought was not
a very good house and there were plenty of cracks in it and it
was a pretty cold place and anyway he lived it the best he could
with his wife and he decided one day to do some painting.
So he got up on the ladder and was doing the painting and the
next door neighbour came and he said, oh, can I give you a
hand? And he said, oh, sure, you can give me a hand. So he
gave him the paint and he sat down in the corner, got his bottle
of whisky out and thought, this is okay. And then the man said,
well, he said, it's good to be here. Good to meet you. You know,
I'm a preacher. And he said, you're a what? You're
a preacher? You better get out of this place pretty quickly.
He says, I've got no time for preachers. Anyway, the man, he
said, well, he said, I won't forget you and I'll pray for
you. Well, regularly, this man, he met him and he asked him to
come with him to church. And he refused. He refused again
and again. And one day he decided that he
would disappear on the service nights. The man would never ask
him. He went off with his wife. found a hamburger bar and went
there and spent the time there until he thought, well, that
man will now have gone. Well, anyway, he went and he
came back and he said, oh man, it's good to see you. Will you
come to church with me? And this man said, man, you never
give up. And he said, well, no, I won't
give up. And eventually, the man agreed
to go. And he said, now he said, I'm going
to make a few rules. I'm going to sit in the back
seat. I don't want anyone to ask me any questions. Is that
understood? Yes, it's understood. The man
went to church and it was a different preacher. This man wasn't preaching.
It was another preacher. And he preached on those wonderful
words in the beginning of Isaiah, the first chapter in Isaiah,
where We read those words, though your sins be as scarlet. Let me just find exactly where
it is. Come now, he said. Come now,
let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be
as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, and though they
be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. And apparently the
preacher kept on saying, come now, come now. And well, the
service finished and the man got outside and he said, hey,
you told that man all about me. He said, no, I never said a thing.
Well, he said he got really hooked up on that word, didn't he? Come
now. He said, well, he described my
case. Anyway, the result was the man went home and realized
then his real condition before God. And he fell down on his
knees and prayed for mercy. And the Lord came to him and
blessed him and gave him that good hope in his mercy, and his
wife as well, so that they were changed people. I'm telling you
this really because of what happened the next day. The next day he
went to work. And because God had worked in
his heart, he took back to the work some things he'd stolen.
He came to clock in and he brought these things. And the man, what
are those? And he said, well, he said, I'm a Christian. And
he said, Christianity makes you honest. I brought these things
back, which aren't mine. And he got to his workbench.
He told his work people what had happened. And one of the
people said, oh, I'm a Christian. And he said, you're a what? He
said, oh, I'm a Christian. And he said, well, I've been
working alongside you all this long time. You never told me
anything. I've never understood you were a Christian. And he
said, God's worked in my heart, and I have to tell people what
he's done. Well, we see the example, don't
we? And here we have the account here. Let him deny himself and
take up his cross and follow me. He's taken up his cross,
hasn't he? Yes, he confessed whose he was
and who he was, a true follower. Well, then we come down for whoso
will save his life shall lose it. Yes, he wasn't concerned
about losing it, was he? But whosoever shall lose his
life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." Well
what a blessing it is if we have the evidence of God's work of
grace in our hearts to be able to declare indeed what he's done
for us. For what shall it profit a man
if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Well, what is it really to be
a true follower. Surely it is to be joined to
the Lord Jesus Christ. Surely it is to be yoked together
with him. And we read about that in the
Gospel of Matthew, when the Lord Jesus speaks and he addresses
the people and he speaks in this way. Again he says, come unto
me, just like it was in the Gospel in the prophecy of Isaiah, come
unto me, and the same position, come unto me all ye that labour,
and are heavy laden, labouring under a load of sin, a load of
conviction, a load of all the wrong we've done, realising there's
no hope naturally. And the Lord says, and I will
give you rest. See we live in a world of turmoil. But you know our soul is in turmoil
when the Lord begins that work. What a blessing it is to know
that we have a Saviour who can come and give us rest. When the
Lord says, here, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. For I am meek and lowly in heart
and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and
my burden is light. is to think that if we confess
the Lord Jesus Christ, if we do come to Him, that then it
will be a most awkward and most difficult and hard life. Well,
it will be, but what a blessing to be yoked to the Saviour. What
a comfort that is, because we shall then have fellowship with
the Lord Jesus Christ. We shall have union with Him.
And my friends, if there's no fellowship and no union with
Christ on this earth, However can we expect to have fellowship
and union with Christ in eternity? The life of God in the souls
begins on this earth. And so here we have this important
statement then. Whoso will save his life shall
lose it. But whosoever shall lose his
life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." Well, surely
our great concern should be that our souls are saved, our souls
are eternally safe. Not just for this little life
in which we live, but to be concerned that we are amongst those who
are a true follower of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And
so we come to these words, for what should it profit a man if
he shall gain the whole world? And how many people there are
today, aren't there, struggling after riches? Yes, they spend
their time, hours and hours working away, trying to make a bigger
bank balance. Sometimes people pass away, they've
never spent a penny. All they've done is building
up the bank balance. For what? For nothing. And so it's important
to recognise these gracious words of the Saviour. What does it
profit us if we spend all our life just hoarding up things,
hoarding up treasures, making more and more things for this
life? Because it all has been left behind. What would it profit
if we gain the whole world? And because of the way we've
spent our life, because of the things we've concentrated on,
because of the things that God has really ignored, then we lose
our own soul, which it means our soul will be eternally lost.
What a terrible, terrible situation. Can we not thank God today? that
we have such a word in the Word of God to warn us and to direct
us to the right way, not the wrong way. The Word of God doesn't
tell us, well now go and make as much money as you can. What
it tells us is to lay out for ourselves treasures in heaven. That's what it tells us. And he goes on, what shall a
man give in exchange for his soul? We have, all of us, a never-dying
soul. What can we give in exchange
for it? Our soul is so, so valuable because
it is eternal. That's why it's so valuable.
It's eternal. My friends, therefore, how needful
it is that you and I have the wonderful evidence that we possess
the great and glorious gift of eternal life. And that life is to be found
through the believing in the Lord Jesus Christ as our all-sufficient
Saviour. There's no other way. Remember
that jailer in that prison, Philippi? He said to Peter, what must I do to be saved? What must I do to be saved? Sorry, Paul. I said Peter, Paul.
What must I do to be saved? And the apostle said, Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, that wasn't the first words
the apostle had spoken. If you read the account, you'll
see that he had preached the gospel to him, so he knew then
what it was when he was asked that, did he believe? And he
said, yes, he did. By the grace of God, and all
of us today need to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for our
salvation. as our only hope. Now you and
I have only come there when the Spirit of God shows to us our
total condition before a holy God that we are without hope. Because of our sin, we've separated
ourselves from God and we need to be brought back. We need to
be brought to God. We need to have communion with
God. We need to have union with God. What shall a man give in
exchange for his soul? How lightly we value our soul,
don't we? What value do you put on your
soul? And you compare it with the things
of this world. What value do you put on it?
Is it very precious? Well, it is. Is it very valuable? Well, it is. And how needful
it is then that we find ourselves amongst those for whom Christ
has died and by his grace have been able to take his yoke upon
us. And then the last verse in this
chapter says, Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of
my words. Well perhaps we've had to confess
we have been ashamed of the Lord Jesus. Perhaps we have been ashamed
of the Lord Jesus and his words. And the Apostle Paul, when he
wrote to Timothy, he says to him, be not thou therefore ashamed. Don't be ashamed of the testimony
of our Lord. That's the Gospel. nor of me
as prisoner, but be thou a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel
according to the power of God." How important that is. How tempting
it is to turn away from the things of God. And the reason is that
we're really ashamed of the Lord Jesus. The hymn writer says,
doesn't he, ashamed of Jesus, that dear friend on whom my hopes
of heaven depend. Well, what hope are we of going
to heaven? Where's our hope? There's only
one place, and that must be in what the Lord Jesus Christ has
done for us. It's the only way of salvation.
What Christ has done for us. And can we then say, my hope
is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. It's what Christ has done. Are we therefore ashamed of this
great and glorious Saviour? Well, here we have This then,
whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words,
the words of the Lord Jesus. We read some of them today, haven't
we? There's many, many words the Lord spoke. And of my words
in this adulterous and sinful generation. If we are ashamed,
what's the result? The Lord tells us. of him also shall the Son of
Man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with
the holy angels." So, do we want the Saviour to be ashamed of
us? Do we? When we come to die, when
we come before that judgment seat, do we want the Saviour
to be ashamed of us and cast us away? Do we want that? Well, are we ashamed of Jesus
today? Do we hear those glorious and
gracious words? To those who are labouring, heavy
laden, come unto me and I will give you rest. Yes, we are to
be a true follower, we are to take up our cross daily and indeed
to follow Him. You know the Apostle had a wonderful
view, didn't he, of the value of these things and when he wrote
to the Philippians he said, what things were gained to me, those
I counted loss for Christ. He had a good understanding What
a blessing it is if you and I have a good understanding of spiritual
things, to realize that what things were gained to me, well,
he counted them lost for Christ, because he wanted to know more
of Christ. He wanted to know his salvation was sure. He wanted to know that it was
well with his soul. He wanted to enjoy communion
with Christ in his life here below. And then indeed, to be
taken to glory at last. Earlier in this same epistle
to the Philippians, in the first chapter, he tells us, for to
me, to live, is it the world? Some people say, don't they?
I want to live my life to the full. They're living for time. For me to live is Christ. That was the Apostle's testimony.
To die is gain, of course it is, because eternally with Christ,
no separation. What a wonderful favour and what
a wonderful blessing it is. Well, may we know the Son of
Man, the Son of God, will not be ashamed of us when he cometh
in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. He will, won't
he? We're told about it. The Lord will return. He will
come into this earth once again. Every eye shall see Him. You
will see Him, I will see Him. We'll all be there. Every one
of us, from Adam to the very last person born on the earth,
we'll all be there. None can avoid that great day.
It will come and we shall not avoid it. What a blessing then
to know the Lord has come and blessed us, shown us where we
are, lost and ruined, directed us to the Saviour, to call upon
His name and to come to Him and to rejoice in the great truths
of the Gospel and by His grace, as we now walk on the earth,
to take up our cross, to follow Him, that great and glorious
man, who so willingly died so that we might be blessed with
life. And he said, if the Son therefore shall make you free,
ye shall be free indeed. Amen.