Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? – Mark 8:37

What shall it profit a man, if he lose this present world, and the next too? What shall it profit a man, if he gain but a small portion of this world-and this is the most that we may expect-and yet loses his soul? I have sometimes thought, with regard to the rich man, “Well, such a man has a portion in this life; but with regard to the poor man, I cannot see what there is to make him happy if he has not something better to look to when he dies.” I have seen the weary horny-handed sons of toil, often oppressed and down trodden as they are by their masters, and I have thought, “Oh! poor souls, if you cannot look to another world, you are of all men most miserable; for you do not get either world; you go fagging along, just like a pack-horse, without the hope of a secure place in which you may rest at last.” The rich man, at least, makes as much as can be made of this world, little as that is, apart from grace; but the poor man makes the least of this world, and then he goes from poverty to damnation, from his squalor to perdition, and from his poorhouse and his rags to the flames of hell. What a horrid state to have such an existence; to live in this world a life of misery, and to find a starving existence to be only the preface and the prelude of a more doleful and fearful life hereafter. Oh, what shall it profit you, if you gain a little of this world, and lose your own soul?

If Christ hath saved us, we shall be saved; but if we are out of Christ, great and mighty may we be, but the sentence shall be as impartial to the rich as to the poor.~ C.H. Spurgeon

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Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. -Ecclesiastes 2:11

There was no profit under the sun.Solomon’s treasures were not so much those of wealth or power, (though he had both,) as the treasures of wisdom and the pleasures of the body. Solomon had all things that could delight the mind, please the eye, and charm the body; he had but to speak, and music chanted the sweetest air that Israel’s psalmody could give; he had but to lift his finger, and noble armies followed him, and treasures were spread beneath his feet. The wines of every vintage were quaffed from his bowl, and maidens gathered from every clime awaited his command; he was master over men-he was lord…he was a wise man: he knew where to search for earth’s happiness, and he found it. Solomon, what didst thou find? O! thou preacher, open thy lips, and tell us. “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity;” thus saith the preacher. Oh! my friends, if we could have all the pleasures of the flesh we desire, I question whether they would be, in themselves, a profit; but of this I am certain, that compared with the loss of our soul, it would, indeed, be a dreadful loss. I think that if many of us could indulge all the pleasure of the body we desire, we should destroy our bodies, and actually waste our happiness. Many a man has hunted his pleasures too fast to win them; many a racer has lost the prize by overstraining in the contest; and many a man might have had more pleasure, even to the body, if he had been more moderate in seeking it. He is a fool who grills a pound of butter; the rake does that; he grills himself away by too fast pleasures, and wastes his life till it is gone, and there is nothing left of it. Ah! if ye could have all the world of sensual delights, and if ye had all the wisdom of men, apart from the grace of God to restrain your pleasures, I believe you would find it then to be a dead loss…”It would not profit you if you had the whole world, and should lose your own soul.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0092.cfm

And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the fruit of my labor for which I have labored by acting wisely under the sun. This too is vanity. -Ecclesiastes 2:19

There is another way of gaining the whole world, not so much by power, but by something next door to it, namely-riches. Croesus shall be my specimen here. He amassed a world of riches, for his wealth was beyond estimation. As for his gold and his silver, he kept little account of them, and his precious stones were without number. He was rich, immensely rich; he could buy an empire, and after that, could spend another empire’s worth. Perhaps you think that to be immensely rich is a great gain; but I believe that to be enormously rich is in itself far from desirable. Ask Croesus. Dying, he exclaimed, “O! Solon, Solon.” And when they asked him what he meant, he replied, that Solon had once told him that no man could be pronounced happy until death; and, therefore, he cried “O! Solon, Solon,” for the misery of his death had swept away the joys of his life. Such is the slavery of great riches; such are its anxieties; and such, too often, is that miserly avarice which wealth doth beget, that the rich man is often a loser by his wealth, even apart from the loss of his soul. Many a man would be happier if he had walked the pavement in rags, than if he rode through the streets in his chariot. “Many a heavy heart rides in a carriage,” is an old saying, but a marvelously true one. Well said the poet,

“If thou art rich, thou art poor;
For like an ass, whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear’st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee.”

Agur was right, when he said, “Give me neither poverty nor riches.” Great wealth is certainly no great gain.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0092.cfm

Put to death, therefore, the components of your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry. -Colossians 3:5

A man who has power over extensive empires may be supposed, in some measure, to have gained the whole world. Take, for instance, Alexander; I cannot bring you a fairer specimen of a man having possession of the whole world than he. He could say of his dominions, that although they had their limits, he did not know the nations who were able to bound his territories…Alexander, I summon thee! What thinkest thou: is it worth much to gain the world? Is its sceptre the wand of happiness? Is its crown the security of joy? See Alexander’s tears! he weeps! Yes, he weeps for another world to conquer! Ambition is insatiable! the gain of the whole world is not enough. Surely to become a universal monarch, is to make one’s self universally miserable.

I do not think any man who has any power over his fellow-creatures will deny that it is gratifying to his fallen nature; or else, why is it that the politician seeks for it so continually, and toils for it days without number, and wastes the sap of his life in midnight debate? There is a pleasure in it. But mark you, that pleasure is counter-balanced by its anxiety. Popularity has its head in the clouds, but its feet are in the sands; and while the man’s head is among the stars he trembles for his feet. There is an anxiety to increase his power, or else to maintain it; and that anxiety takes away much of the enjoyment of it…I say, that to gain the whole world is but little, and especially when we are sinners against God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0092.cfm

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and by craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. – 1 Timothy 6:10

I have often admired some of my friends, when I have heard them talking about gold as sordid dust; for I wonder why they did not give it to the dustman the next time he came round. If they were to do that, I would not mind going round myself for once with the bell, particularly as it might be rather convenient to us, seeing that we want some of that sordid dust to erect a tabernacle for the Most High. Many who affect to despise wealth are the greatest hoarders of it. I suppose they are afraid it might injure other people’s hearts, and, therefore, they put it away very carefully, so that others may not touch the dangerous thing. That may be all very kind of them; but we do not exactly appreciate their benevolent intention, and should think it fully as kind if they were every now and then to distribute some of it. You hear them saying, very often, that “money is the root of all evil.” Now, I should like to find that text. But it is not to be found anywhere, from Genesis to Revelation. I found a text once, which said, “The love of money is the root of all evil;” but as for the money itself, I can see very little evil in it. If a man will but rightly use it, I conceive that it is a talent sent from heaven, bestowed by God for holy purposes, and I am quite sure God’s talents are not bad ones.

My brethren, it is all cant for a man to say that he does not really care for these things, because every one does in some degree; every one wishes to have some profit of it in this world; and there really is, in possessing a competency in this world, something considerable with regard to profit; and I am not going to deceive you, by striking off all the profits, and saying you are losers on every point. No, I will go the whole length which any of you like to go, with regard to the profit of this world; if it be considerable. I will admit its greatness; if you think it possible to make a fine thing of this world, I will grant it, if you like; and after having admitted that, I will ask you. “Will it answer your purpose to gain the whole world, in the largest sense of that word, and yet lose your own soul?”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0092.cfm