A Sermon
DELIVERED ON SUNDAY EVENING,
DEC. 22, 1850
BY THE REV. PROFESSOR FINNEY
(OF OBERLIN COLLEGE, U. S.)
“For what will it profit a
man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36)
I
heard that this text was once presented to a great man who was a very good
accountant, but who was neglecting his soul.
A friend of his stepped into his counting-house with this important question
for him to solve, as a question of loss or gain. “Isn’t this a question that you yourself are vitally concerned
about”, asked the accountant? “If it
weren’t,” said the friend, “I would not have presented it to you.” It was said to be instrumental in the
conversion of that important person’s soul. In further discussing this subject
I propose,
I. TO NOTICE THE
WORTH OF THE SOUL.
II. THAT NOTHING
CAN BE TRULY GOOD TO A MAN WHO LOSES HIS SOUL.
III. THAT WHATEVER
HE MAY GAIN, IF HE LOSES HIS SOUL, EVERYTHING ELSE WILL BE A CURSE TO HIM.
Instead of gaining
anything if he loses his soul, even if he gains the whole world, it will be
worthless to him. In fact, it will be a
great curse. But how will I speak about
the worth of the soul? Talking about
this passage makes me feel so inadequate; and that’s not because there is
nothing to say, but because there is so much to say. It is not because the subject lacks interest, but because this passage
has so much depth, that I always approach it with the fear of belittling it,
rather than presenting an adequate idea of it.
Indeed, the text I have read tonight is one that I always feel that I
dare not preach on. I never used to
preach on it because, as I have said, it always seemed to me that all I could
say would only belittle the subject, because the value of the soul far
surpasses all human conception. There
are nevertheless certain things, which, if a man will take the trouble to
meditate on, will enable him to form a much clearer idea of the subject than he
would have had otherwise.
To begin with, all
men admit that happiness is a good in itself; that happiness is something
desirable for its own sake. All moral
agents everywhere regard happiness as a thing desirable for its own sake. Everybody assumes this primary truth, and,
as a result, we’re always seeking happiness in one way or another. Enjoyment is what everyone seeks. The desire for happiness, and considering it
as an ultimate good, is the main spring of human activity.
All
men regard misery as an ultimate evil, something to be avoided for its own
sake. These two things stand in direct
contrast in men’s minds by a natural law.
There cannot be any argument about these things. Everybody assumes that
they are true, and therefore everybody seeks to secure happiness and avoid
misery.
Next, everyone
knows that both these affect the human soul.
The soul is capable of both happiness and misery. Most men admit that the soul is
immortal. It seems that all men know
this naturally. They never doubt it
unless they begin to question the truth that they know by their own
nature. When they do this, they call
into question truths that were given to us when we were created, and the immortality
of the human soul seems to be one of these things. This is so strongly assumed, that very few cases are recorded
where men on their deathbeds have seriously believed that they were about to
pass into a state of annihilation; there have however, been a few cases of
this; but, listen, this is not the simple language of nature itself. Those who have not adulterated themselves by
doing violence to their own intelligence believe that the soul is
immortal. This belief is natural. Visit the native child in the forest! He believes that after death he will go into
a region of boundless hunting grounds surrounding him, every element needed to
produce a state of happiness. Thus, he
has an idea of his own immortality and of the immortality of the souls of all
men. More than this, the Bible
abundantly and clearly teaches it, but I don’t have the time to go look at this
aspect in depth. As a Christian congregation,
I shall assume that you believe it, and therefore, I will be satisfied with
discussing a few points to help you contemplate, as well as possible during
this short period of time, the infinite and incomprehensible value of the human
soul.
Our soul’s
capacity for enjoying happiness, or enduring misery, must be an ever-increasing
one. Thus, our soul is able to enjoy or
suffer more as it progresses in existence; this also, is a thing which we very
well understand and know to be true.
Now there is no doubt that we are more capable of enjoying or suffering
than animals, and that adults are more capable of enjoying or suffering than
children. We know from our own
consciousness and observation that it is a law of our intelligent mind that our
capacity for happiness or misery continually increases. The infant has very limited sources of
enjoyment; everything seems physical.
Its evil is bodily pain, and at first it knows nothing whatever of pain
connected with thought; of remorse on the one hand, or pleasure on the other,
those things that are produced when we remember things. An infant is like a little animal; the
gratification of its appetites produces pleasure, while physical pain, of
course, produces misery. But as its
mind develops, sources of pain and pleasure multiply continually. As soon as it is old enough to possess
thoughts, from its very nature these thoughts become the cause of pain or
pleasure. As the mind develops itself
in all its departments; sources of happiness open up; the capacity for
enjoyment increases on one hand and the capacity for misery increases on the
other. As time goes by, the little one
comes to know his parents and those around him, and the smile of his mother is
the source of happiness, while her frowns produce misery. Everything that the baby is exposed to opens
up new sources of pleasure or misery, joy or sorrow; and as its knowledge
progresses, these sources are multiplied.
If virtuous, his increase of knowledge increases his happiness. The very laws of his own mind, which God has
inscribed within him, increase his enjoyments; and the more he avails himself
of these means the more his capacity for enjoyment becomes greater and
greater. Perhaps he is converted while
he is still a child, and grows up knowing more and more about God and His
government as he matures, until in time, he launches into the eternal
world. Onward and upward he goes,
learning more and more of everything that can increase his enjoyment, as he
increases his capacity for enjoyment forever and forever.
But listen; the
Bible tells us that men’s happiness or misery shall be unmixed in the future
world; that is, if people are happy at all in the future world, they will be
perfectly happy. It will not be a mixed
condition as it is here; there happiness will be unmixed, complete, ever
growing, and the same will be true with the misery of those who reject God
here. Their misery will be unmixed and
eternally increasing. To one, there
remains no more misery. To the other,
there will be no more enjoyment.
This
enjoyment or misery must, from the nature of the case, always be increasing in
all respects. First, it increases in
quantity by the fact that it continues.
Suppose that the degree of happiness or misery remains stationary; the
amount of joy or sorrow would be constantly increasing from the very fact that
it continues and accumulates by the law of mind that I referred to earlier, and
from the nature of the case. Secondly,
the degree of either happiness or misery becomes the means of producing more
happiness on one hand, and more misery on the other. Constantly accumulating knowledge will constantly increase
happiness. Happiness or misery must
constantly increase since the capacity to enjoy or suffer is always
increasing. This is the inevitable
result of a natural law. The mind is
always thinking new thoughts. It’s
knowledge of holiness and the nature of sin keeps increasing, as well as the
reasons that promote one and forbid the other, and, as a result, misery will
increase with an increasing awareness of guilt.
Think about this for a while, and try to form some kind of idea of how long an endless duration is. Look right at it for a moment, and try to get some idea of the infinite value of the immortal soul. It is to live throughout all eternity; it is to increase in happiness or misery forever and forever. There will be no end to this increase. This must be true by a law of nature. It is therefore easy to see, that the time must come, when everyone in God’s universe will have either suffered or enjoyed more than the entire universe has done from its creation up until tonight! Suppose tonight we could compute how much happiness has been enjoyed by all of God’s creatures from the first moment of their existence until now. The amount of course, would be very great, completely beyond our comprehension. It is beyond our comprehension and we cannot conceive of a limit to it; but yet, since the happiness of each soul is, as we have seen, increasing endlessly, therefore, the time must naturally arrive when the total enjoyment of one soul will be equal to all the enjoyment that has been enjoyed in God’s whole universe up until now.
But
this is only the beginning. There is more.
The time will also arrive when each individual shall have enjoyed a
hundred, then a thousand, then a hundred thousand times more than the whole
universe has enjoyed up until now.
Going forward from here; the time must come when every individual who is
happy, will have experienced more enjoyment than can be mathematically
calculated; for, observe, it is always increasing, and even if it increases
very slowly, so what?
Suppose a being is
employed in removing the entire earth of its matter by a single grain of sand
at a time. Let him take only a single
grain of sand every thousand years, spend another thousand in his journey,
another thousand at his destination, another thousand in the journey back, and
after the end of a fifth thousand, he takes off with another grain of sand,
until he has thus removed the entire earth on which we live. Let him take a million instead of a thousand
years, and add to this globe, the planets, the stars, and the whole material
universe. Still an immortal being could
do it, there is plenty of time to do it.
Remember that every one of you will live long enough to do this again
and again, and yet be no nearer the end of your existence. You will even then not have one moment less
to live! All this time you will be
either perfectly happy or perfectly miserable.
It is easy to see,
moreover, that the time must arrive, when each one of God’s creatures now
existing shall know more, and have more experience than the whole universe of
creatures have had so far. Every moral
agent in the universe, at some moment of his existence, will be capable of more
enjoyment, or more suffering, than the whole universe of creatures are now
capable of enjoying or suffering. Think
of that! Just think of a mind whose
capacity for enjoyment knows no bounds, and the law which calls for everlasting
development! Look at such a soul as
that! What? A soul fixed under an unalterable law of everlasting development,
running on and on as long as the Almighty Creator exists! Just think of the infinite and utterly
incomprehensible value of a soul so constituted; capable of an amount of joy or
sorrow utterly outstripping all finite conception!
Suppose we take
any child that is here to night. When
that child has gone forward so far in existence, that he has completely enjoyed
or suffered more than all that God’s creation has experienced up until now; he
doesn’t have one bit less to enjoy or suffer than when he began; he is not the
slightest bit closer to the end of it than he was at the beginning. Suppose he is happy. The time will come when he will know more
about God, and have more experience of God’s government than the entire created
universe now has. The day will come
when he can look around and say, “my age is now greater than the total age of
all of God’s creatures before I was born.
I am older, have more experience, have enjoyed more than everyone had
before I entered heaven.” What
then? Why he will live on and on, and
on and on until he has enjoyed myriads and myriads of times more and more and
more until all finite conception is overwhelmed and swallowed up. But has he any less to live or enjoy after
all of this? Oh, no! Why he has only begun, and he is no closer to
the end of his existence than at the very first moment, for it has no end; he
rolls onward and onward and onward on the tops of the waves of eternal life.
But reverse the
picture. Shall we dare to look on
it? The period will arrive when, if
unhappy, you will be able to say, “I have known more sorrow, more remorse, more
bitterness and agony than all the creatures in God's universe had when I was
born.” What then? Let him go on and multiply this as much as
he wants to until he can say, “Why no creature, that existed when I began to
suffer, could have conceived of the amount of misery that I am now suffering,
and yet I am no closer to the end than when I first came here!” Indeed the mind is totally swallowed up in
the thought of so incomprehensible a subject.
Who can understand or conceive anything about eternal existence? Who can imagine what it is like to roll on
and on, through an endless cycle of years, in happiness or misery, with a mind
capable of the keenest enjoyment or capable of the most intense anguish forever
and forever. Individual abilities in
this world are extremely diversified. Take
for example that little child. It
cries, but while the tears stand on its little cheeks, its mother smiles, wipes
them away, and it quietly falls asleep.
As time goes on, it grows up and becomes a philosopher. It has read, studied, thought, and violated
the law of God. Now remorse begins, but
he wanders on in error and selfishness, and ascends the heights of science, as
Byron did, looking down from those heights with a kind of disdain on the
ignorant multitudes beneath him. But
the more he knows and the more he abuses his knowledge, the greater is his
capacity for misery, until, although he sits on a high elevation of knowledge,
he is racked with the keenest agony; an agony that an ignorant mind knows
nothing about. There has opened in his
bosom springs of the most intense misery, with which in his earliest years he
was perfectly unacquainted. Every step
on the scale of his intellectual development only increases the floodgates of
wretchedness in his soul. See him grow
pale and wretched, until he finally curses the hour that brought him into
existence. But if he could only escape
from his own recollection; if he could only escape from the gaze of his wasted
hours, or his neglected opportunities; what a blessing it would be to him! But listen, all those things stare at him;
those sins, those wasted talents and those things he acquired march around him
to torment him forever and forever.
To someone who
loses his own soul, everything is worthless.
Happiness is the ultimate good, as everybody knows and admits, and all
things are valuable to us only as they contribute to our happiness. If we are deprived of happiness, nothing can
be of any good to us. Anything that
can’t contribute to our happiness is worthless to us. Those things that men now view as good, they will ultimately see,
from their present abuse, they have become a curse; for the misery of a state
of future punishment must be unmixed; their existence will therefore be an
unmingled curse.
This leads me to
say that everything we may gain, if we lose our souls, must be a curse. Our very existence will be a curse; our
knowledge will be a curse. The less
knowledge the better; even if we should be deprived of our consciousness
altogether, it would be an infinitely less evil than having it. Every gift we abuse will be an ultimate
evil. When we remember our comforts in
the midst of our misery, will it not simply increase our unhappiness? Every enjoyment we have had will be an
ultimate source of increasing anguish.
Sinners, for example, who abuse the gifts of God’s Providence, will have
to suffer for it in this sense: God will call them into account for every one
of them. God ought to do this. If they have had earthly enjoyments here,
the very recollection of them will be a source of additional suffering
there. It is therefore insane to
neglect the soul for anything else. If
the soul is saved, it does not matter what else is lost; for, after all, the
soul and its enjoyments are the only thing of real value. If the soul is saved, does it matter what is
lost in securing it?
Let me speak to
the poorest man in this assembly.
Perhaps you look on the riches and luxury of those above you in
society. Perhaps you envy their
pleasures; but do you have any reason to do this? Look at this; suppose that your soul is saved, what will it
matter to you a thousand years from now, whether, in the few days you lived
here, you were rich or poor? You can
look back, perhaps saying, “When I lived in London I was very poor, and had to
work very hard, and sometimes did not know how to provide for the needs of my
family”. But would you then consider
those sufferings as an evil? No,
indeed! You would see they had all been
for your benefit; your soul was saved, which secured you all conceivable, and
all possible good: but if, on the contrary, your soul had been lost, what would
it matter if you had literally gained the entire world? If your soul is lost, of what use can anything
else be to you? Banished from the
presence of the Almighty and the glory of His power, how can you enjoy
anything? The moment you die, you have received all your good. If you have lost your soul, all the rest is
unmitigated and unmingled evil.
The salvation of
the soul is the great business of a man’s life; man’s great errand in this
world is to secure his own salvation and the salvation of as many as he
can. Why, who doesn’t know this! Just as eternity is infinitely longer than
time, the soul is infinitely more valuable than everything that relates to this
world. In short, nothing is valuable
except as it contributes to the salvation of the soul; and everything should be
made subordinate to this. What is perverted
is a great deal worse to us than if we never possessed it. To seek present enjoyment, then, even if it
were perfect, at the expense of our soul, is infinitely crazy. Perfect enjoyment in this life is a complete
impossibility. Oh! Sinner!
Suppose you live two hundred years; and suppose that your enjoyment is
actually perfect. If you lose your
soul, what an infinite loss it would be; because this enjoyment, if abused in
sin, must be more than compensated for by a proportionate addition to your
future misery. The very breath you
breathe, if you breathe in opposition to God and die in your sins; your sins
will be charged against you on God’s account.
If you are abusing the blessings you possess, you would be far better
off without them.
Suppose you should
submit to the greatest possible earthly trials, so that you deny yourself the
basic necessities and comforts of life for 200 years, what then? Suppose you spent the whole time in complete
and universal self-denial. Suppose you
had hung on a cross in all the agonies of crucifixion. Suppose you should remain there until the
end of time, what then? How much more
than compensated would you be by knowing that you will live forever in a state
of everlasting joy? For the joy that is
set before you, can’t you afford to endure the cross and despise the shame? When quite a young convert I remember being
very much struck by a resolution of President Edwards, which was to the effect,
that all his conduct should take into consideration his whole existence, and
that he would decide the propriety of any course by regarding it in view of his
endless being. It struck me at the time
that it was a resolution worthy of a child of God. How shall I regard my conduct ten thousand years from now, when I
have grown so old that the universe has passed away with a great noise rolling
up like a scroll, when the sun has gone out and the material universe is
scarcely remembered? How will I regard
it then? Suppose that the virtuous were
completely miserable, and that the sinful were completely happy in this world;
and that this life were to continue not only while it will, but to be extended
for as many myriads of ages as it is possible to conceive of, still men would
be infinitely mad to choose present happiness and future misery. But the virtuous aren’t miserable. The wicked are not happy. The man who fears God enjoys indefinitely
more, even here on earth, than the sinner; for “the way of the unfaithful is
hard”. (Proverbs 13:15) There is so much to embitter the sinner’s
life every day and hour of his existence.
Oh! The wicked man has so little
real enjoyment, even in this life! Poor
creature! And is this the best he will
ever have? Oh yes! This is the best, poor as it is, and it is
so mingled with bitterness! What
infinite madness! There is no profit at
all; it is only an appearance of enjoyment for a few moments; a feverish excitement
that will come back and make his misery even greater.
A few remarks must
conclude what I have to say, and my first remark is this: how little men think
of the infinite value of the human soul and what eternal life and death is
like! How little this is realized, even
by those who profess to believe the Bible!
Now is it not surprising that men so generally admit that this life is
short, and that it can end at any moment.
They don’t know when. And yet,
with this admission on their lips, if they die in their sins they must lose
their souls, and they could die in their sins at any moment. They must live throughout eternity! Yet, here is something infinitely
strange! Where can any such thing be
found in the universe? Nothing is so
infinitely remarkable and unbelievable, as the little thought men give to the
value of their souls! There have been
times when I had to turn my mind away from a thought so horrible, or it might
have completely thrown my mind off balance.
I have set my children down before me, and reflected on their destiny,
until I have said to myself, that if I should see one of them die in their
sins, I should die myself immediately.
What! The thought of one of my children
losing his soul! It seemed to swallow
up everything else, and nothing seemed to have any importance in comparison
with it. If their souls are saved, what
else do they need? I have often thought
of how little consequence it was to save up money for them. I have always let my children understand
that, from the nature of my occupation, I have no money to leave them. I have told them that I have no desire to do
so. I have given them as good an
education as I could, and all I desire for them, is, that they may save their
own souls, and the souls of others. It
always seemed to me to be extremely crazy to give them worldly goods unless it
was for the purpose of extending their spiritual usefulness,.
In looking at the
anxiety of Christian parents seeking to store up money for their children, we
see how much influence their conduct has in making their children
worldly-minded. They come to place a
lot of importance on wealth, on their social standing, and on the things of
time, and almost completely ignore the things of eternity. When I have thought about that, I have asked
myself thousands of times, “Can these parents believe that their children are
immortal”? Is it possible that if they
do believe that their children are immortal, that they really love them? Is it possible they believe what Scripture
says, and yet they pay so much attention to their physical welfare, and so
little attention to their spiritual welfare?
For example: the
Bible represents this world’s good as a most ensnaring thing and that it is an
extremely difficult matter for a rich man to be saved. Throughout Scripture, it warns men against
efforts to enrich themselves and their offspring; but I have stated that most
people act as if the exact opposite of this is declared in the Bible. It is as if the Bible says that prosperity
in this world is essential to eternal life.
Although the good things of this world are not to be despised, it is
infinitely insane to allow them to stand in the way of securing the salvation
of the soul.
Let me now address
myself to those of you who have this type of parental relationship. My dear friends, how have you thought about
this subject in relation to your own children?
How important it is that you should properly estimate the value of your
children’s souls; that you should appreciate the dangers of their position, and
your duty. If these things were
properly considered, they would set your hearts on fire with zeal to secure
their salvation.
Let
me say, how infinitely different God’s judgment is from ours. We call those people happy who are smart
enough to accumulate money, and who are successful in acquiring it; and you
envy those who rise in rank and social standing. Ah! Such understanding is
not very deep. How infinitely different
will you think of it a few years from now, when the curtain drops and you
depart, less than a single hour’s experience in eternity will convince you what
would have been the best for you.
Suppose the
spirits of those who have gone before you could appear to you in the flesh and
communicate with you, what amazing things tale they would say! But the veil between time and eternity has
been drawn down tightly. All that we
absolutely need to know has been revealed to us; and if we don’t receive Moses
and the prophets, we won’t receive one who has risen from the dead; for if you
reject God’s testimony, it will be a lot easier for you to reject the testimony
of one from the dead. Sinner! How long do you plan to neglect your
soul? You don’t always plan to neglect
it. Ah! There is the problem. I
greatly fear for you. Suppose we should
go tonight to one of the wretched inhabitants of hell, and ask, “How did you
get here?” “Procrastination was my
ruin. I intended to repent; I never
planned to die in my sins; but ah!
While I was procrastinating I was cut off!” Oh sinner, will you not attend to your soul now? Are you saying that you can’t do it tonight?
But you can do it
tonight. God would not command you to
do it now if it was not in your power to obey Him. You really don’t, in your heart, believe your own objection. Suppose an individual, right now, just had a
direct revelation that he was about to die, and suppose that he stood up and
appealed to me as to what he should do.
Suppose also that I replied, “Oh!
It is too late now; you don’t have enough time”, would not all of you
stand up, and exclaim, “He can! He
can! He can”! And will you tempt God by making an excuse that you don’t even
believe? Suppose somebody tries to hire
you on condition that you won’t attend to your soul until after the job was
done? Would you accept the job if the
pay was decent? If a man came and proposed
such a thing to you, you’d think that he was the devil himself.
I remember a situation where a sinner did hire another this way. The sum was three weeks wages, and the man was asked not to attend to his soul for a given period. He took the money. The donor of it was a stranger, and the man started thinking, after the stranger had left, that it must have been the Devil in human form. “Have I not sold my soul”? After a while he cried out; and he threw the money away in bitter agony. Well, he should have cried. You would have cried too, if any one were to make you such an offer. But Satan will not do this to you; he will let you slide on and on sinking deeper and deeper, while the unseen hand of death is preparing to silently strike you down! Perhaps Satan is watching to see whether he can persuade you to neglect your soul yet another day. He is eagerly looking to see if you will go home tonight neglecting your soul, and what else you will attend to first. What is there that is so important that you have to say, “Oh God, I must do this first”? Sinner! Have you gone this far along the path of life and neglected your soul until now? And shall this warning also pass unheeded?
But let me
conclude by addressing a few practical remarks to the unconverted. Now, sinner, aren’t you afraid to go home in
your sins? If you put it off tonight,
tomorrow night you will not be at the prayer meeting, but somewhere else; and
next Sunday, perhaps, you will not go to a place of worship at all. A father once, in writing to his son about a
certain habit he had been indulging in, after reasoning with him for quite some
time, suddenly stopped. “But enough,
enough”, he wrote, “I know I will not ask you in vain; and I will therefore say
no more, lest my doing so should appear as a lack of confidence in your love”. And shall God appeal to you in vain? Where is your sense of right? Of honor?
Or of duty?
Oh, sinner! I am ashamed that I had to present so many
things for you to think about! Am I surrounded
by reasonable beings who know they have a relationship with God? Have I been standing here for an hour and a
half in vain, trying to persuade you, by an array of motives that would sweep
away everything but a rock, to lead you to repentance? Might I not blush that I am a man, if I have
to plead with you like this, or, in fact, suggest any other reason for your
repentance beyond the fact that your not doing so is an infinite wrong to the Almighty?
Come to Christ,
and say, “Oh, Jesus! You have bought
me. I will be Yours. You have died for me, and purchased my life;
and shall the life which You have redeemed be given to Satan? No!
No! As I am a man. No!
As I have an immortal soul.
No! As I belong to the
government of God. No! As I hope for salvation. No!
I dread to displease God, and desire to please my Savior. Heaven bears witness that I renounce my
sins; and let God write it in heaven."
Are you ready? Why not? Make up your minds now and forever, right here
on the spot, in the house of God where the angels wait to tell the story, where
the Holy Spirit breathes on the people.
What do you say, sinner. Are you
willing to come over from Satan to God?
You must decide now, one way or the other; and if we could see what infinite consequences are turning on that decision, I believe that all of you would cry out in agony if you could see what destinies are balancing on this momentous point! See that needle, trembling on its pivot! It must, when it settles, point either one way or the other; to heaven or to hell. Sinner! Such is your destiny. What do you say?