How Do You Value Your Soul — Peter Orasuk

Esau and the Cost of Trading Away the Birthright

Chapter 12, the Hebrews, verse 16. Blessed there be any fornicator or profaned person, as he saw, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright, if ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, for he sought it carefully with tears.

Now, that is all I'm going to read, and we trust that God will add his blessing not only to what I have read, but the portions we've already heard preached from earlier this evening. I'd like to really use that verse in Mark 8, verse 36, as a springboard for my message tonight.

It is simply the expression, and I know the context of it, and I'm not going to worry you with trying to give you the context, as I esteem it to be, but just simply use it in a form of an application like this.

What will a man in exchange for his soul? In Prince Edward Island, sometimes when there's something that people are interested in, for example, if a man has a particular cow that another farmer wants, or a possession that another individual wants, they'll come up to you and they'll simply say, what do you take for it?

What do you take for it? And that's what I want to use. What would you take for your soul? Maybe I shouldn't assume anything this evening, and I certainly don't want to assume that everybody in this meeting knows what a soul is.

There are some individuals that believe it's a small portion of life, a karma, or a tie that's invested in the individual, and that basically it's a source of good in every person. The Bible doesn't teach that.

Some have even given that substance and said that when an individual dies, that the body is lighter because the soul has weight, and that's absolutely ridiculous. The best way for me to explain to you what a soul is, is simply to say this.

You are a soul, and you live in a body. You are a soul, and you live in a body. And so the soul is the person. It is the you. It is the individual that sees through the opening of the eyes, that hears through the edifice of the ears, that speaks through the orifice of the mouth.

It is the person that feels, that is sensitive. It is you. And so when we look at this passage, it's not talking about some remote thing that is in an individual. It is talking about you, the person, you.

And it's simply saying this. What value do you put upon yourself? The real you. Not just the bodily form, but the you that will continue when the body goes to dust. It continues. The you, the person that you are.

Four Examples of What People Trade for Their Souls

I just looked at four passages, and I want to look at them like this. I want to look at the value that people put on the soul. By application, the first one is really the truth of a man that is called Esau.

And we'll find when it comes to Esau, it is a passing pleasure. It is something just to gratify for the moment. When it comes to the man, Judas Iscariot, it is the thought really of a possession. Something he had to have that was more value than the deliverance of his person forever.

When it comes to the man called Pontius Pilate, it's people. It's popularity. It's a man that esteems a populace from the popularity of the people more than the benevolence or the deliverance of his own soul.

And I want to look at the truth when it comes to the work of God and the value that God puts upon you. The value that God puts upon you. You know, when it comes, first of all, to this man, Esau, here, if I could just give you the scenario, here's a man and he's come back from hunting and he's tired and he's rather dreary.

And he comes in and he says to his brother, Jacob turns around and he's made a bowl of lentil soup, a bowl of soup, mind you. And he offers it to him and he says, show me this day. Really the thought is this day, that this day thy birthright for a bowl of this soup.

You know, he's a thought that Esau would have stopped and done a little mathematics in his mind and thought like this. That birthright is going to give me the blessing of my father. The greatest blessing from a Jewish family that I could experience on this earth.

It's a parallel, at least in figure, to salvation itself. And he thinks to himself, he could have thought to himself, well that will last as long as I live. I'm going to incur the pleasure of it and the privileges and the responsibilities of it.

But all of a sudden his thinking gets muddled and he starts to think like this, but that's way off. That's after dad dies. I need something right now that's going to satisfy me right now. Some pleasure right now that's going to give me a moment's gratification.

I'm not thinking about there and then, I'm thinking about here and now. And so the deal is done, the deal is done. And for a bowl of soup, a bowl of pottage, he sells his birthright. He possibly never intended for the deal to go through, but God did.

Once that man did it, God saw that that deal was transacted. Then you turn around and you say, well, where does that fit us today? I remember one time there's a man in Prince Edward Island, Canada that I have a very good friend of mine.

He's an elder in a meeting that I belong to, Doug McLeod. And if Doug ever asked you to go shop with him or down to pick up a few groceries, sometimes when you're displacing his wife will send him down to the store and he'll go down to the mall and the first thing he does is he pulls out a pile of tracts out of his pocket and he says, here Pete, you go one way, I'll go the other.

Let's do this place. And we go on, we start giving out tracts. I remember one time I'd gone around through different areas and I came and I heard an argument down the corner, it was quite a ways off, but it was getting loud.

As I came down, I'm not sure who had who cornered, but there was Doug McLeod trying to talk to this lady. As I got nearer to her, as I got closer, I remember saying this. She said, I have a sister who is, whatever that means, born again.

And she said she can't do this and she can't do that. And she said, I play bingo on Sundays and nobody had told her she couldn't play bingo on Sundays. And she said, I play bingo on Sundays and it's the only pleasure I get out of my miserable life.

And there's a big pot, it's only playful on the Sunday and I've never won it yet, but I'm going to go and I'm not going, if I go to your meetings and I listen to your being born again and I ever got with my sister, God, I wouldn't be playing bingo on Sundays.

Good for you. Turn around, she said this, but I'm not interested. At that point, a younger man, myself, rather brash, stepped in and I said, ma 'am, hold it a minute. Do you mean to tell me you're willing to forego the opportunity to hear the gospel preached, to hear the truth of the work of Christ, whereby you can be reached and saved and set it for God's presence to be blessed forever?

And you're willing to forego all that for a game of bingo? You know what she said? Who's he? Who's he? And the conversation was over. You know, when you look at it like that, it seems ridiculous. Here's a person that simply said that the bingo game is more important than my soul.

But in this meeting tonight, I wonder, I wonder there are people here that are not saved. And the reason you're not saved, there is something you prize, some pleasure that you hold dear, but it's never really brought you joy, never satisfied you, and it never will.

And yet at the same time in your mind comes this, if I trusted Christ, I wouldn't be able to pursue that anymore. Or. What would you take for your soul? What would you take for your soul? You know, one thing about this man, two things, in fact, number one was that when he came to his father and said to his father, Father, bless me, give me this blessing.

And he saw it carefully, some say tactfully, with tears, he was in dead earnest, he realized then the value of this blessing. And he said, give me this blessing. And his father couldn't revert and what he had done, he couldn't turn it around and it's already been given to Jacob.

There's always an afterwards for every person that hears the gospel for individuals that don't achieve the salvation of God, the most beneficial thing, the most important thing in the world, in their lives.

Sir, if you're ever going to be saved, it won't be just the top priority. It will be the only thing. But for those individuals that put something else before it, you know what it is, there is always an afterwards and this man comes and he realizes too late how important the blessing was and he says, bless me.

But it can't be reversed. The other thing about this man is that he never told his father what he took for him. Could you imagine him telling his father, Father, the birthright that you received, that you were to pass to me, I took a bowl of soup for it, a bowl of soup.

What do you take for your soul? In this meeting tonight, what would you take for your soul? Some passing pleasure, a night out with the boys, a time with the friends in a club that never brought any joy and it never will.

Pilate and the Price of Popularity

What will you take for your soul? When it comes to Pontius Pilate, what a tragedy. Here's a man that's conscious of this. I know that what I am doing is wrong and he tries to find a way to do the right thing in a popular way.

If you're waiting for persons to get put in this way, for salvation to become popular before you trust Christ, then you quit waiting because it's never going to happen. I'm going to tell you, there's a world out there that doesn't want Christ.

More than that, it doesn't want you to have Christ. There will be individuals if you trust Christ and I possibly won't have any more to do with you. It'll be bringing you into a family, God's family. It will be a blessing.

You will have those that are dear to you that will have never been dear to you before. But there's no doubt there'll be relationships that are shattered because of salvation. And this man stands there and he says, I know what I'm doing is wrong.

I know I shouldn't listen to them. But when it comes to the truth of Pilate, Pilate recognizes that he's told in one gospel, if I'll let this man go to heart, not Caesar's friend and for fear of the people.

You want to write? Tell us. It reminds me of an individual is a very close friend of mine. His name is Brody. He's still alive. And after God saved me, I had only been saved for about four months. And I thought to myself one afternoon, in fact, it was a Friday afternoon, about five o 'clock.

And I thought, I'm going down to Brody and actually, excuse me, it was later than about seven thirty. In fact, I'm going down to see him and tell him how I got saved. Because, look, Brody was a good friend of mine.

He was my best friend. Many of the time him and his wife would pick me up, the two of them carry me physically off their front lawn and bring me into their house and put me into their bed. There are times when they came down and bailed me out of prison.

The times when I was sick, they went and got something just to keep me going and they were good to me. And I thought to myself, here I am saved and I'm on my way to heaven. And I have never clearly told these people.

And I felt ashamed of myself. And I went down and I, I was sure God wanted me to visit them, so I went down that evening and I started to talk to them. And mind you, I did start to preach as soon as I got in the door.

You know what was, I was just saved and they were the days were full of zeal and had no wisdom. Now we got all this wisdom. We ain't got any zeal. And I remember going to that door and talking to them for a short time.

This was a Friday evening. And that's where I preached to them for a little while. Marlene, his wife, had only been married a short time. She turns around, she says this, Brody and I think it's time for us to go to bed.

Eight o 'clock Friday night. It didn't take me too long to realize this. They don't want me to stay. But I was sure God had something for them from me. She went into the kitchen by herself to rattle some pans and he sat on the couch, a little embarrassed, trying to successfully encourage me to leave.

And I said, Brody, can I just read you something from the Bible, please? He says, go ahead, but make it short. I read him Isaiah chapter fifty three, you come next Thursday night, you realize why. And I read it to him, it's amazing what I couldn't do by preaching.

What I couldn't do by trying to encourage him, the word of God that the word of God that I read those verses, he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him.

And with his stripes, we are healed. This man who knew nothing about the Bible turned around. Here's what he said. You can't hear something like that, but realizing you've got to do something about it, you've got to do something about it.

He said a person's either got to turn their back on it and walk away or else turn around and give it thought and respond to it. But you've got to do something. He said, just just tell me a little more.

Tell me a little more. I told him how God saved me. The two of us, I actually got he asked me to pray for him. He asked me to pray for him and I get down on my knees beside him and ask God to save him.

None of this nonsense, put your name here or repeat after me. A minor bird could do that. And it's not in its way to heaven. I simply just pray that God would save him. And he sat there with that Bible, looking at it.

But I said this, Brody, I'm going to leave you with the word of God. And trust the gobble a week and you'll save you. He said, Peter, pray for me, pray for me tonight or never, tonight or never, when I get home, I told my wife, first of all, I said, we're expecting an incoming phone call.

We didn't have one of those little ones you carry around with you. We just had the phone by the bed. I think that's where everybody's chatting anyway, every time there's a call come, my wife's sister would call.

I said, Fern, sorry, we're expecting an important phone call. She'll talk to you tomorrow. Bye bye. I'm kind of like that on the phone, you know, I'm not what you call a big phone person. And anyway, and then someone else would call.

I'd say, look, excuse me, but we're expecting something real important tonight. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Bye bye. Phone up. We sat there, twelve o 'clock, one o 'clock. Two o 'clock, finally Maxine said, he's not going to call Peter.

I said, no, that's Brody for you. You know what happened? He probably got saved, but he doesn't want to wake us up. He's going to tell us first thing in the morning. If you get saved tonight, don't wait till tomorrow morning.

You tell me tonight. I never got that phone call. I waited till twelve o 'clock the next afternoon and my wife finally said, Peter, the call is not coming. The call is not coming. So I went down to a store to do a little bit of shopping with my wife, a big store called Kmart.

Gone now, gobbled up by Wal-Mart. Well, I was down there, I had to see Brody going by one of the long rows. He was the guy that would normally come up to you and have a chat with you. And you've got to get rid of when you're doing your shopping.

But he saw me and he just took off. Well, hey, Mrs. Horvath, little boy can do that. So I just headed down one of those rows, cut around and just tore down the other one. And finally, I came to the end of the room, met him face to face.

And all I said to him was this, Brody, what happened? What happened? He didn't say a word, but the answer was very clear. A wife of two years came up, poked her arm through here. And here's what she said.

We have decided that if Brody got what you've got, Peter, our marriage wouldn't work. We like to party, don't we, dear? And we're just not interested. And I saw him leaving that store. I saw him look back.

I can still see him. You say, no, Brody, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Do you want to hear the end of the story? There's over the rest of the story. Do you want to hear the afterwards? Six months later, he was in a motorcycle accident.

I don't know now if he has the mental capability of even considering the truth of his need. Four months after that, his wife left him and ran off with another man. What would you take for your soul? Listen, there is no person in this world worth going to hell for.

And the person that you do go to hell for, you will not be in hell with. What would you take for your soul? You don't have one pilot. When he left Judea. Well, they say he committed suicide, but in all likelihood he was murdered and he left off an area called Pilot's Leap.

Because Caesar was jealous of him, the man he tried to impress. And as far as the people, they burnt effigies of pilots. They burnt them and they danced while they burned. These were the people he tried to please.

This was the individual he sold his soul for. Listen to this meeting tonight. Pleasure, popularity. What do you take for your soul, sir? What would you take? Judas Iscariot. Judas Iscariot is a tragic case.

Judas Iscariot and the Price of Possession

Thirty pieces of silver. You know what? Thirty pieces of silver was worth in Canadian currency. And it's about half the value of British currency back in the year 1974. Fourteen dollars and seventy six cents.

Fourteen dollars. And seventy six cents. And he never spent a penny of it. He just threw it down. What is more important to you tonight than God's salvation? What would you take for your soul? What would you take for your soul?

The Son of God as the Highest Bidder

Let me just close with this. In Galatians 2 and 20 it says this. The son of God. Who loved me. And he gave himself for me. Isn't the story of Roland Held and the Three Bitters? And I'm going to have to paraphrase it because I am not good at poetry or prose.

But in that story, if he stood preaching outside of the King's Highway, wherever that goes into, and a young princess in her carriage with an escort of dragoons. Coming to the city, tried to make their way through that crowd, and they said, make way for this queen, make way for royalty, clear the road.

And that little man stood there and said, I claim this road this day in the name of him that is Lord of Lords and King of Kings. And he preached on. And the princess simply said to the men who were driving her carriage, let's see what the idle tongue will say.

And she just leaned at the window of the carriage and she listened. And that day he preached the message that has gone down on the annals of gospel preaching. He preached the message of the Three Bitters.

He likened the souls of individuals on the auction block of eternity. And he said that. The first bidder draws near and it says that I will give you popularity. I will give you fame. I'll give you a name to live, but you'll be dead.

And in the end, I'll take all you have and I will leave you empty on the world, drew back and said, all this I give for your soul. And then with a cruel, evil intent, another voice said, I will give you the pleasures of sin for a season.

I will give you all the things of darkness that your soul will delight itself in. And then Satan drew back and he said, all that I get for your soul. And finally, with a voice, the smoking flash, but it's not quite a sweet voice that I will give you the father's love.

I will give you a home in heaven. I will give you joys that are eternal. I give my life. I give my all for you. I give my precious blood and the son of God said. All this, I give. For your soul. And I carry your open.

The young princess came out, but never grew to be a queen. She fell down at that quaint little preacher's feet. And here's what she said. Lord Jesus. Thou art the highest bidder. I am nine. Lord Jesus, thou art the highest bidder.

I am nine. Though I used to preach one time, I used to preach that we were just worthless, wretched, lost, hell deserving sinners, wretched. We are hell deserving. We are lost. We are by nature. But I was wrong when I said that we are not worthless.

The Value God Places on the Soul

God simply says this. What is the value that God puts upon you tonight? What value does heaven put upon you in this meeting? God so loved the world. God so loved you that he gave his only begotten son.

But whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have after everlasting life. What value does the son of God who loved you and gave himself for you put upon your soul? The son of God that loved me, says Paul, and gave himself for me.

And every individual in this meeting could take that sublime language and say it with absolute assurance. And so in this meeting tonight, pleasures, popularity, what would the boys say if you got saved tonight?

What would your friends say?