Let us just bow together in prayer.
Lord Jesus, with all our hearts we pray
that that testimony in song may find an
echo in hearts of boys and girls, men
and women, in Houston Hall tonight.
I'd rather have Jesus than anything this world
affords today.
To that end, Lord, speak through each waiting
heart the word of the gospel of life
in Christ Jesus.
Eclipse thy servant in the glory of thine
own outshining.
May no voice be heard but thy voice.
No power be felt but thy power.
No blessing be experienced but thy blessing.
We ask it for thy dear name's sake.
Amen.
I'm going to ask you to turn again
to the passage we read together in Mark,
in chapter 8, and particularly focusing our attention
on verse 36.
What shall it profit a man if he
gain the whole world and lose his own
soul?
We're living in an age of devaluation.
Things of former worth have now lost their
relevance, their meaning, in an age that has
changed in its objects and its values and
its ideals.
One can understand this when some of our
leading scientists today, and philosophers today, and alas,
some of our theologians, are telling us that
the prerequisite for the acquisition of spiritual values
is that of seeking material values.
One of our leading scientists today made a
statement to that effect, and what he said
at the academic level seems to seep down
into the language and life of men and
women like you and me, and our boys
and girls too.
And the things that are of real worth
and value seem to be set aside today.
The text with which we open this conference
seems to have no message to a modern
world.
Jesus Christ said, "'See ye first the kingdom
of God and his righteousness,' and all these
things shall be added unto you."
When our Lord Jesus Christ, in the days
of his flesh, confronted people just like you
and me on this great issue of what
constitutes the most valuable thing in all the
world, he mixed no terms whatsoever.
He looked people straight in the face, and
he said, "'What shall it profit a man
if he gain the whole world and lose
his own soul?' In other words, man's priceless
treasure is the soul.
Now, I can hear somebody asking me, "'What
do you mean by the soul?' Very simply,
in non-technical language, the soul is the
real you.
The soul is that real man, that real
woman inside of that temple body that talks
about my hands, my eyes, my brain.
The soul is that rational, invisible part of
you which distinguishes you from a brute creation.
The soul is that part of you which
thinks and disposes and acts and makes decisions.
The soul is that part of you that
lives on forever and ever, if in the
devil's keeping, in hell, if in God's keeping,
in heaven.
The soul, dear boy, dear girl, young person,
older one here tonight, your soul is the
most priceless treasure you possess.
Jesus said, "'What shall it profit a man
if he gain the whole world and lose
his soul?' And so, for a few moments
tonight, I want us to think, first of
all, about what I'm calling the preciousness of
the human soul.
First of all, then, the preciousness of the
human soul.
What shall it profit a man if he
gain the whole world and lose his own
soul?
I cannot allow you to look at this
subject.
You come back right to the words of
our Savior concerning the preciousness of the human
soul.
Think, first of all, of humanity's estimate of
the human soul, humanity's estimate.
It's an interesting fact that anthropology and many
other studies have proved that men, however barbarous
they've been down through the centuries, have always
set a high value upon the human soul,
that the human soul outlives and therefore is
more valuable than the material world.
Four hundred years before Christ, Socrates said, facing
his judges on the very eve of his
death, "'We're about to part,' he said, "'We're
about to part.' Which of us goes the
better way is known to God alone?' Stern,
that brilliant intellect and humorist of the eighteenth
century, said, "'I am positive that I have
a soul, nor the books that the materialists
have written against such a concept mean absolutely
nothing to me.'" Humanity's estimate of the soul,
the priceless worth.
Return to hell's estimate of the human soul.
What has hell got to say about it?
The devil knows the value of your soul
to such an extent, my friend, and the
souls of people in Asheville and New York
and London tonight, the devil knows the value
of the soul to such an extent that
he puts forth every effort he possibly can
to blind people's eyes to the value of
their soul.
The God of this world has blinded the
eyes of them that believe not the gospel,
lest the light of that glorious gospel of
Christ, which is the image of God, should
shine in unto the world.
If I walk down the streets of your
city tonight and challenge men and women concerning
eternity and the claims of Christ upon them,
and they shrug their shoulders and say, "'I
couldn't care less!
I know that they've been blinded by Satan.'"
And if you're sitting in that seat tonight,
and you couldn't care less about the value
of your soul and its final destiny, God
have mercy upon you.
Humanity's estimate, hell's estimate.
What is heaven's estimate of the soul?
What shall it profit a man if he
gained the whole world and lose his own
soul?
When we think of the Father God, our
hearts are lost in wonder, love, and praise.
God looked down upon a rotten, sinful humanity,
but He loved their souls.
And when He thought of redemption's price, redemption's
price, He didn't look upon the billions of
worlds that He had scattered in their orbits
across His universe.
He didn't look upon the glory of the
heavenly host when He evaluated your soul, my
friend, when He estimated the price of your
soul.
He looked upon His precious Son, and He
said, "'My Son is the value of the
human soul, for God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but
have everlasting life.' We turn from the Father
God to the Savior God.
Even our Lord Jesus Christ, in perfect agreement
with His Father, He came from heaven's glory.
He laid by His majesty, and He was
born of a woman, lived a little boy,
youth, into glorious manhood.
He went to a cross, and there upon
that cross He shed His precious blood for
the redemption of your soul.
And Peter, astounded by this fact, said, "'For
you're not redeemed with corruptible things, with silver
and gold, but with the precious blood of
Christ.'" My friend, if you would close your
eyes for a moment and come with me
two thousand years back into history, you hear
the cries in the midday midnight, when God's
drawn His straw shroud over that scene.
You hear that cry of dereliction, "'My God,
my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?
Why hast Thou forsaken me?' There's only one
answer.
There's only one answer.
In that moment in time and eternity was
compressed when He who knew no sin was
made sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him, the Christ of
your soul."
God the Holy Spirit, in supreme agreement with
the Father God, and God the Son, has
one supreme function in the world today.
It is to convict the world of sin,
and of righteousness, and of judgment.
Why of sin?
Because that's the curse of the human soul.
Why of righteousness?
Because that's the cure of the human soul.
Why of judgment?
Because that's the cost of the human soul.
When we turn from the triune God to
the mighty movement of the triune God in
the church down through the centuries, it's the
same story.
Why is Brother Fenton here?
Why is Brother Frank here?
Why are these men away from high positions
of office that they could hold in any
great company in any academic world?
Why are they spilling out their lives here
this week if it's not to share with
you a burden they've caught for a lost
world?
Why have Mishris down through the centuries been
shot, and hounded, and persecuted?
Why?
Because they know the value of the human
soul.
I learned this in a poignant way a
number of years ago.
I'd invited a missionary from the Congo to
come and speak to my young people's group
in Newport, South Wales.
His message so impressed me that I felt
I would like to have a word with
him afterwards, and I took him out to
supper.
He had come from the infested Congo basin,
infested with everything—stakes, disease, bugs, mosquitoes.
He'd been working amongst the little pygmy people,
and I felt so impressed and awed by
his devotion and sincerity and compassion of heart.
I wanted to get near him, and I
began to ask him questions.
And he opened out and began to tell
me there at the table things he never
told those young people, the sheer modesty of
the man.
He said, you know, my wife and I
went out as young people.
We loved each other.
We saw a lovely home in our dreams,
the bringing up of a family, the following
through of a normal career.
But God caught us up between his redemptive
purpose and showed us the need of the
pygmy land of Angola and then of Congo.
He said out we went, and oh, we've
had a tremendous time.
He said we started the work of trying
to welcome these little people who only watched
us with their blowpipes and their bows and
arrows behind trees.
But little by little they began to see
that we really loved them.
One by one they began to come to
us, and we began to unravel the language
and speak to them.
We write in the thick of mischievous work.
Then God gladdened our lives by giving us
a little fun.
This precious little boy chatted to us and
made the home glad when things were very
lonely.
Then he said tragedy struck, humanly speaking.
Our little boy caught a horrible disease.
We nursed him, but to no avail.
One night he opened his eyes once more
and then closed them and he was away.
He said we wept, and yet we rejoiced.
We laid the little one aside, took courage
and pressed on.
He said not very, very long after that
God compensated for that and gave us a
precious little girl.
She was the delight of our hearts, but
she wasn't more than just a few months
old when that dread disease laid hold of
my dear wife.
I battled for her life.
I prayed, I battled, but God saw best
to take her away.
Before she died in my arms, she whispered,
darling don't give up, don't give up, and
I buried her alone without another soul to
share a tear.
He said I'm home now for a short
furlough, and my little girl is 18 months.
And as he said that, a pain seemed
to course through his whole frame.
I could see it in his face and
I said can I do anything?
This has cost you a lot to save
it.
He said it's all right, it'll be over
in a moment.
He said I suffer with malaria and salaria.
My body's riddled with it, and the doctors
don't seem to have an answer.
Then I said brother you told us in
the young people's meeting that you were going
back again.
You can't go back and leave a little
child of 18 months in Wales.
You can't go back.
And a pained look came across his eyes,
and he looked at me, and then tears
spurted out of his eyes.
He said, Alfred, Alfred, do you know as
far as I'm concerned there isn't another mystery
in the whole of pygmy land?
We don't know of another mystery.
Don't you care for the souls of little
pygmies?
I want to tell you friends, I never
slept for nights after that.
I'm an evangelist.
God has called me to evangelism, and I
long to see men and women saved.
I thought I loved them, but I didn't
know how to really love people until I
heard that man talk.
The value of a human soul, what should
it profit a man if he gained the
whole world and lose his own soul?
I want to ask you Christians, have you
compassion for the lost?
Since when did you last talk to your
neighbors about Jesus Christ?
When did you last leave the soul to
Jesus Christ?
When have you shed tears on your knees
because of a lost world?
Let's be away with praying church.
Let's come to the heart of the matter.
The only reason God has left us down
here since our salvation is to release the
life of Christ in all his compassion for
a lost world and Jesus wept for souls,
and so did the apostle Paul.
The preciousness of the human soul, and yet
I can hardly say it and I can
hardly believe it, there is taught in the
word of God clearly and definitely such a
thing as the perdition of the earth.
But it can be lost, and your soul
can be lost.
Your soul can be lost.
Listen, 25, 25 delegates to the conference at
Greengrass Hotel that Bobby Richardson spoke about just
now never got there.
They died in Asheville.
Your soul can be lost if it's out
of Christ tonight.
You say, how can it be lost?
What should it profit a man if he
gained the whole world and lose his own
soul?
How can it be lost?
Your soul can be lost, my friend, by
defiling it with the world, by staining it
with the world, abstain from fleshly lusts that
war against your soul, says the word of
God.
And there is such a thing as the
lust of the eyes and the lust of
the flesh and the pride of life, all
that is in the world.
And there's such a thing as that soul
of yours being stained and defiled and scarred.
It can be lost by staining with the
world.
It can be lost, my friend, by selling
it to the world.
Yes, selling it to the world.
What should it profit a man if he
gained the whole world and lose his own
soul?
And just as Esau sold his birthright for
a meal just to make a pottage, you
can sell your soul.
And in case you look through the scriptures
and find how many people did that, think
of the rich young ruler, think of the
rich young ruler, that handsome young man who
came running to the Savior and dropped on
his knee in his purple gown and looked
up and said, good master, what shall I
do that I may inherit eternal life?
What shall I do?
And Jesus said, go sell all that thou
art, give to the poor, dethrone gold and
enthrone God, follow me, and you'll have life.
And he waited up, he waited up, gold,
God, gold, God, gold, and he turned away
into the darkness of a never-ending night
so far as we know.
Greed, he sold his soul for possession.
I wonder how many businessmen in this place
tonight are selling their soul for the dollars.
And your heart can stop tonight, your heart
can stop tonight, and your executive desk be
completely destitute tomorrow, and your soul be damned,
and all your dollars left behind.
I want you to think of Herod, the
man who sold his soul for popularity.
He loved to array himself in great garments,
he loved to make great orations to the
people, and he did that on one occasion,
and the people shouted and said, this is
the voice of a God, and he took
the glory to himself, and he grasped at
popularity, and the angel of the Lord smote
him, and he was eaten up of worms,
and he gave up the ghost.
He sold his soul for popularity.
Think of Pilate, Pontius Pilate, who sold his
soul for power.
Yes, there was a moment, I believe, in
that great drama when he tried to save
Jesus Christ from being crucified, I believe, quite
sincerely, but suddenly his power was challenged, and
the crowd shouted, if you, if you save
this man, you are not Jesus' friend.
You'll lose your power, you'll lose your power,
and he handed him over to be crucified,
and he sold his soul for power.
Think of Felix, the governor, who sold his
soul for pleasure.
That man who's living, yes, in sin and
immorality, even as that zealous preacher Paul reasoned
with him of righteousness, and of temperance, and
of judgment, to come with such incisive wisdom
and authority, that Felix's knees smote one against
the other, as he trembled under the power
of God.
But listen, in spite of that, in spite
of that, he kept Paul bound.
Why?
Because it pleased the Jews, and he loved
his sin, and he sold his soul for
pleasure.
Young man, don't you sell your soul for
pleasure.
Don't you sell your soul for a night
of wickedness and sin.
What shall it profit a man if he
gained the whole world and lose his own
soul?
Yes, there are those who stain their souls,
there are those who sell their souls, there
are those who starve their souls, starve their
souls.
How shall we escape if we neglect so
great salvation?
Charles Darwin, in the evening of his day,
had to confess that he had starved his
soul, just as he'd lost all sense of
music and even of beauty.
He had left off and lost all sense
of God.
Somehow his soul atrophied, and he was damned,
so far as we know.
There's such a thing as the loss, the
perdition, of the human soul.
And I want to say in the fear
of God, and I want to say it
with deep compassion in my heart, if your
soul is lost, my friend, as from now
onwards, if your soul is ever lost.
Do you know this?
I'll have to witness against you at that
great day, because you heard a message tonight
about the possibility of a lost soul.
But I thank God the message doesn't conclude
there.
I'm glad that this passage goes deeper.
Yes, there is such a thing as the
preciousness of the human soul, the perdition of
the human soul.
But look again and notice there is something
here.
There is the salvation of the human soul.
Yes, the salvation of the human soul.
If you prefer the preservation of the human
soul, what shall it profit a man if
he gained the whole world and lose his
own soul, said Jesus?
But what had he said before that?
He said, whosoever will save his life shall
lose it.
Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake
and the gospels the same shall save it.
Said the Lord Jesus Christ, if you want
your soul to be saved, if you want
that life of yours to be saved, lose
it in Christ, lose it in me.
Or said somebody, if I do that, I'll
lose my individuality.
That's a lie.
That's a lie, my friend.
You don't lose your individuality by being lost
in Christ.
You find it.
For we are complete in Him, and until
a man is lost in Christ, he's not
all there.
I cannot where you come from, Harvard, Yale,
Oxford, or Cambridge.
You're lost in terms of your humanity until
you find it totally in Jesus Christ.
You say, well, then what does it mean
to lose my life in Christ?
How can my soul be orientated?
How can I enter into the realization of
the apostle's prayer when he says, I pray
God, yes, the God of peace, let your
whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved, blameless,
unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ?
How can my soul be preserved?
Here is the answer.
Jesus called the people unto him with his
disciples also, and he said, whosoever will come
after me, let him deny himself, and take
up his cross, and follow me.
And in the simplest language, I want to
put that to you as the gospel, the
gospel that saves the soul from eternal perdition.
What does it mean?
Three simple steps, and I want you to
follow me.
Here is the first one.
You've got to deny for Christ.
Whosoever will come after me, let him deny
himself.
Let him deny himself.
My friend, that's where you've got to stop.
That's repentance.
That's the renunciation of anything calculated to keep
you back from Christ.
I don't know what that may be.
It may be fear.
Fear of the very person you've come with
tonight, and the fear of man bringeth us
there.
That person shall laugh you into hell, but
never out of it.
It may be pride, intellectual pride.
It may be pride just because there are
other people here, and you don't want to
humble yourself at the foot of the cross.
It may be prejudice.
It may be anything.
I want to tell you tonight, if you're
going to mean business, if you're going to
be a real man, a real woman, then
deny yourself.
Renunciate anything calculated to hold you back from
Jesus Christ.
I love that beautiful story in Mark's gospel,
a few chapters on a blind Bartimaeus who
sat by the wayside begging, his sightless eyes
rolling wistfully, and he hears a crowd.
The crowd comes nearer and nearer, and he
learns from a standbyer that it's Jesus of
Nazareth, the son of David, the healer, the
savior, and he cuts his hands, and he
says, Jesus, our son of David, have mercy
on me, have mercy on me, and we
read that Jesus stood still and commanded that
he should be brought.
One of the most dramatic little touches of
Mark makes through the story at that point.
We read this, and he, casting aside his
garments, wrote and paid to Jesus.
Ladies and gentlemen, there was nothing wrong with
that garment, that old ragged garment that kept
him warm on cold evenings, the only thing
probably he possessed apart from a lying cloth.
There was nothing intrinsically wrong with that garment,
nothing at all.
But lest that garment should trip him up
or impede him or hold him back from
coming to Jesus quickly, this date with destiny,
his date with destiny, we read he cast
it aside and paid to Jesus.
I wonder what garment's holding you back.
Is it self-righteousness, R.E.P.? Is
it pride?
Is it prejudice?
Is it anything?
My friend cast it aside tonight and come
to Jesus.
Come to Jesus.
Denied for Christ.
Then central to the whole message of the
gospel is this next point, decide for Christ.
Decide for Christ.
Take up thy cross.
Take up your cross.
The cross speaks of shame, let me tell
you that.
The cross speaks of suffering, let me tell
you that.
The cross speaks of sacrifice, let me tell
you that.
But ultimately the cross speaks of salvation in
Christ.
Salvation in Christ.
And my cross is the personal application of
that message of salvation to my life.
Taking up the cross is identifying myself with
the Christ of the cross.
In all the shame he bore for me,
in all the suffering, in all the sacrifice,
redemptive sacrifice, when he shed his blood.
But it's more than that, it's identifying myself
with Christ in the cross of salvation.
Yes, salvation, salvation.
Fighting for Christ.
Will you take up the cross tonight?
My friend, you may be a Baptist, you've
been a Baptist all your life.
A Presbyterian, an Episcopalian, a Methodist, a Pentecostalist,
I care not what you are.
Forget your labels, they'll mean nothing in heaven.
Nothing in heaven.
The word Baptist is unknown in heaven.
Or Presbyterian, unknown in heaven.
What matters tonight is this, have you come
to Christ?
Have you taken that cross?
Has it come deep down into your heart?
Have you reckoned with the cross for sin,
for self, and for Satan?
Have you made that cross your answer?
Your answer, I repeat, before a holy God?
Can you stand in all the wonder and
good of that cross and say, by that
cross I am justified?
Yes, I'm justified, I'm made in you.
Why?
Because he was delivered for our offenses, but
raised again for our justification.
And you can't ever divorce the cross from
the resurrection.
As you made the cross your own, if
you haven't, will you say tonight, I take,
O cross, thy shadow for my abiding faith.
I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine
of thy faith.
Content to let the world go by, to
know no gain nor loss.
My sinful self, my only shame, my glory,
all the cross.
Will you accept the sentence of that cross
upon your sin life, your self life?
Will you die to sin and self, and
know what it is to rise to resurrection
life in Christ, righteousness, and God?
Will you decide for Christ tonight?
That's the last step, and it completes the
message.
Deny for Christ, decide for Christ, and Jesus
said, then follow me, dare for Christ.
Do you know what that word means, follow
me?
It means join Jesus in the way, it
means go through with Christ through thick and
thin, life or death, go through with Christ.
I wonder how many young people here tonight
are saying, God helping me as I take
the cross, as my salvation in Christ, I'm
going to dare for Christ, and I'm going
to follow him, and I'm going through with
him, right to the very end, and I
care not who tries to hold me back,
I care not, I'm going through with Jesus,
right to the end.
If it costs what it will, I'm going
through with Jesus, following Jesus right through to
the end.
What shall it cost a man to begin
the whole world and do his own soul,
the preciousness of the human soul?
The possible loss of the human soul, the
glorious promise of the salvation and preservation of
the human soul.
How?
By denying for Christ, by deciding for Christ,
by daring for Christ, and following him to
the end.
Will you deny for Christ, and let it
have full sway?
Will you decide for Christ, and follow him
all the way?
Then give your answer here and now, as
low before his cross you bow.