What’s It Worth to You?

Genesis 25:29-34
Gregory Broderick | Sunday, September 11, 2022
Copyright © 2022, Gregory Broderick

Our choices in this life show what we value.  At least in this fallen world, all of life is a series of trade-offs.  I can have a nice but moderate home in West Davis, or I can have a 5,000 square-foot estate out in the middle of nowhere.  Either one of those is fine, but whichever one I choose shows what I value because I am required to choose between them.  I can have a huge bank account by working 24/7 and never spending a dime, or I can be broke and live the high life, or I can choose the reasonable center.  Whichever one of those I choose shows what I value.  If I value fun the most, I am going to spend every dime in pursuit of it.  If I value security the most, I won’t spend any of my money, but I will hoard it all, and so on.

In our modern, fast-paced world, perhaps our time is the greatest example of this.  How I spend my time shows what is important to me.  We have a saying at my house:  “I am too busy” just means “I have something else I would rather do.”  That is true.  It may be a legitimate something else you would rather do, or it may be an illegitimate something else you would rather do.  But how you spend your limited time shows what is most important to you.

In Genesis 25, we see Esau demonstrate what he values.  He trades his birthright for a bowl of stew, some bread, and some lentils.  And so we will examine the matter in some detail this morning, but the main takeaway is clear: Esau made this trade because his birthright was of little value in his sight.  He did not care about it, so why not trade it to satisfy his momentary lust, even if only for a few hours.  You see, because it was worth little to him, he traded it for little.  So we must ask ourselves this morning:  1) What is my birthright? and 2) What would I trade it for?

1. Esau’s Birthright

Now, Esau’s birthright is not the right to be the head of the family when his father died.  That was never Esau’s to begin with.  Genesis 25:23 says, “The older will serve the younger.”  This is a prophecy made before either one of them had done anything.  So by God’s  divine decree, Esau was never destined to be the head of the family.  He was never destined to be over his younger brother.

Esau’s birthright is not salvation or eternal life.  Salvation cannot be inherited from your parents.  I have heard it said, “God has many children but no grandchildren.”  You can grow up in the church.  You can live in the best neighborhood.  You can go to the best schools.  You can even be the best behaved kid, trained up in the way that you should go.  That is all good and that is all beneficial.  But without God’s electing grace, without regeneration wrought by the power of the Holy Spirit, you will not be saved.  The best you can be without God’s election is the Rich Young Ruler—self-justified but damned, thinking that you earned your salvation and yet going away sad.

We know this from doctrine.  Romans 1 and Romans 3 especially explain to us that all are born sinners and under God’s judgment.  Ezekiel 18 teaches us that we can neither inherit our parents’ punishment nor our parents’ salvation.  Ezekiel 18 says you will not die for the sins of your father nor will you live by your father’s righteousness, but each one must stand before God on his own and must answer for what he has done.  Did you reject Jesus Christ’s free offer of salvation?  Then you must pay eternally for your sin, even if your father was the godly King David.  Or did you trust in Christ alone?  Then you will go to glory, even if your father was extremely wicked.

So we know this from general doctrine, but we also know it with particular certainty in Esau’s case.  Although his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac were two of the greatest men of faith who ever lived, Esau was not elect.  He was not chosen for salvation by God’s electing grace in eternity past.  This is dealt with explicitly in the book of Romans.  In Romans 9:13, God says, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”  This is election.  This was based not on Jacob’s righteousness or on Esau’s bad behavior.  In fact, Jacob’s righteousness was sorely lacking, as we are about to get into in this series.  Jacob was a fraud and a deceiver most of his life.  But it was not based on Esau’s misbehavior either.  Romans 9 makes it clear that God’s love for Jacob and His hatred for Esau existed “before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad,” and then it gives the purpose, “in order that God’s purpose in election might stand” (Rom. 9:11).  There was no behavioral distinction, nor was there any natural distinction between Jacob and Esau.  As Romans 9:10 reminds us, Jacob and Esau had the same father, the same mother, and were born at the same time.  Romans 9 also reminds us that this is all, of course, very, very fair.  It may seem unfair to us, but it was very fair, for God owes us nothing; God can freely bestow His mercy and His compassion on undeserving sinners, or He can freely withhold it from them in His perfect justice and His perfect goodness.

Numerous commentators say that Esau’s birthright was his right to inherit a double portion as the firstborn son, as was common in Near-Eastern culture at the time.  Others suggest that Esau’s birthright was the special blessing, which Jacob later procured by fraud in Genesis 27.  These are possible or even plausible interpretations.  But I do not think they are the best interpretations.  Esau’s birthright, in my view, is the gospel.  It is first promised to God’s people in Genesis 3.  It was confirmed to Esau’s ancestor Shem in Genesis 11.  This is eleven generations prior to Esau and Jacob’s birth.  So if you want to put the “greats” in front of it, it is nine “greats” before “grandfather.”  It was promised a long time before.

It was confirmed again to Esau’s grandfather Abraham in Genesis 12 and to his father Isaac in Genesis 26.  The idea is this:  “I will be your God and you will be my people, my special people.  So trust in me alone and I will save you.”  Remember the crowning verse of Genesis 15:6:  “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”  So the idea is, “Trust in me and I will save you.  Demonstrate your faith by walking obedience to my command.”

In our time, we have a fuller revelation of the gospel than Esau or Jacob or Abraham or any of these Old Testament people.  We have the gospel fully revealed in the Messiah, the God-man, Jesus Christ.  But they had enough gospel at this time.  And moreover, Esau was not just someone.  He was not some guy.  He was the son of the godly man Isaac, the grandson of the godly man Abraham.

Godly parents and grandparents may not be enough to guarantee your salvation, but that does not mean it is nothing to have a godly heritage.  On the contrary, there is a great, great advantage in a godly heritage.  For beginners, you hear about God and you hear of God from an early age.  Children of believers are not raised in the confusion of false religion nor in the logical and moral vacuum of atheism, as is common in our time.  No, you can learn to think correctly, in the Genesis 1:1 way, from an early age.  You are not saddled with having to unlearn a bunch of things you were taught or picked up as a child.  Children of true believers also have an advantage in that they can live in moral uprightness from an early age, due to correct teaching, training, rebuke, and correction, which we could call the Proverbs 22:6 life.  Children of believers are spared a life of gross immorality and grief over their sins—the sins of their “misspent” youth, as is common in the world.  Nor are their consciences seared as with a hot iron by a life of immorality and debauchery (1 Tim. 4:2).  Now, God can and does save even such people, even people raised outside of the normal Christian life, and praise the Lord for that.  But it is far, far better to be raised with a godly heritage.  It is far, far better not to be crippled or haunted by your past sin, even though it is all forgiven in Christ.

In addition, God shows special love and bestows special blessing on the children of His children.  We see it in Genesis 26.  God promises Isaac:  “I will bless you.”  And He gives the reason in verse 5:  “Because your father Abraham obeyed Me and kept My requirements, My commands, My decrees, and My laws.”  Isaac received a blessing because his father obeyed God.  Elsewhere, God said He shows love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and obey His commands (Exod. 20, Deut. 5, and Deut. 7).

So this is a great blessing for us who love the Lord, but it is also a great blessing for our children as well.  A godly heritage is greatly to be valued.  It is faith-forming, it is faith-building, and it is faith-inspiring.  We hear from Pastor Mathew and Gladys all the time about things God did in their early days, in revival days, in India, and it is an inspiration.  If God did it in that time, He can do it in our time as well.  God did it for them, and the idea is that He will do it for me too.

So there was great benefit and special promise for the line of Shem and the line of Abraham, and Esau was a part of that.  But Esau despised his birthright.

2. Esau Despised His Birthright

Although Esau’s godly heritage was of great value in objective terms, it was worth virtually nothing to him.  He basically gave it away for nothing.  He was not going to die, as he exclaims in verse 32.  Now, he was certainly hungry.  He had just come in from hunting, probably, and he probably caught nothing on the hunt.  He may have been gone all day, or he may have been gone for several days, stalking and chasing down whatever wild game he was after.  But there is nothing in the text that indicates that he was really about to die.  He even gets up and leaves after he eats his little bowl of bread and stew.  Now, if you were really on death’s doorstep, you might lay there for a while.  But he gets up and goes.  So this exclamation, “I am about to die!” appears to be exaggeration, as we hear sometimes from our children: “I am starving to death!”  No, you are not.  Esau was famished, as he says in verse 30, but he was not on death’s doorstep.  He traded his birthright and godly heritage for stew because he wanted the stew.  That’s all.

So we see from this, first, that Esau is a lust-driven man.  It is clear in his talk:  “I’m famished.”  Perhaps he shared his father’s love for wild game (v. 28).  But we get the sense from this chapter that Esau basically went around doing whatever he pleased in the open country, what we would call “following your heart.”  We are not told that Esau watched the flocks or did any of the normal duties at home.  Perhaps he did those things as well.  But he seems to have given free rein to his desire to go and see the open country; for his wanderlust, his desire to get out and experience and enjoy the things the world has to offer.  This is apparent also in Genesis 26 later, when he marries two Hittite women instead of people from the kingdom of God, as God commanded, and as his father Isaac had done, and as his brother Jacob would do.

Esau shows this again in Genesis 28 when he marries Ishmael’s descendant to indulge his spite against his parents.  It says in that chapter that he specifically married a descendant of Ishmael because he found out that it gave his parents great grief.  Such a man is ruled by lust.  He is a slave to his flesh.  He is always only ever thinking about the short term:  soup today, and let tomorrow bring what it brings.

So Esau satisfies his short-term lust, his lust of the flesh, at the expense of his long-term best interest: his birthright, or his double portion, or his special blessing or whatever you think that was.  He indulges his lust for food.  In our time we indulge our lust for food, and what does it do for us long-term?  We become fat.  We become unhealthy.  We suffer from diabetes or heart problems.  It is all the same lust.  The lust-man spends every last dime as quickly as he gets it, never exercising self-control and self-denial, never saving for the future.  “Now!  Now!  Now!  I have to have it now!  Next-day delivery.”  Buying on credit with money I don’t have.  I must have the latest gadget, the newest car, or the big OLED TV.  The iPhone 13 must go because the new iPhone 14 is coming out.  It costs $1,000, and from what I can tell, it doesn’t do anything different from what the iPhone 13 does.  But it is a thousand bucks down the drain, because you’ve got to have the latest thing, the biggest thing, the “best” thing.  Family finances and security for the long-term be damned; I must have it today!

Like these people, Esau overvalued his lust and gave in to his lust.  But that is only half the problem for Esau: that he overvalued his lust.  Second, this birthright was of little or no worth to him, so he traded it for nothing.  So he overvalued his lust, but he also undervalued his birthright.  It was worth little or nothing in his sight, and so he traded it for little or nothing.  What’s a bowl of soup?  It is not worth much.

An object that you value would never be treated this way.  There are some things that we would never trade for anything.  Your wife: only Christ has a higher place in your life than your wife or your husband.  Your children: only Christ and your wife or your husband have a higher place than them.  You wouldn’t trade them for anything.  Some days you might think that you would give them away for nothing, but the truth is, you wouldn’t trade them for anything.  Someone could come and offer you 10 million dollars for your daughter or your son, and you wouldn’t even consider it for a moment.  Or there are things like precious family heirlooms or keepsakes.  They may not have much material value, but they have tremendous sentimental value to us.  So we wouldn’t sell them no matter what.

On the other hand, there are some objects you cannot get rid of fast enough.  Think about that furniture that no longer fits in your home.  Your great desire is for someone else to take it away.  It is actually a plus for you to get rid of certain things.  Addition by subtraction.

The reality is that most things fall somewhere in the middle.  I have a car.  I really like my car.  But if you offered me double what I paid for my car, you can be the owner of a new car.  I really like my house.  It is in a great location.  But I am sure that there is some premium you could pay, and I would probably sell it.

All this speaks to priority.  All this speaks to value.  You see, it is valued by what I am willing to trade for it.  Here, Esau treats his birthright like that old furniture: something to be gotten rid of.  He is happy to get anything in exchange for it because it is not really worth anything to him.  In fact, he hates it.  It is worth virtually nothing, so trading it for a bowl of soup is actually a good deal—trading something that is worth nothing for something that is worth very little.  You get the sense of it in verse 32.  He says, “What good is the birthright to me?”  That shows he despises it.  Verse 34 says he despised his birthright, and that is exactly right.  It is not that he despised it because he sold it; he sold it because he despised it.  Despising means get rid of it.

We must be very careful ourselves not to start down this dangerous path.  God has given us each a great birthright.  He offers His gospel free to all.  It is His free offer of salvation to everyone.  He offers it to all, and yet most despise it, most sneer at it, like the so-called intellectuals of Acts 17.  They think the most valuable thing in the world, the gospel, is actually worthless, and so they trade it for whatever they can:  a life full of short-term and ultimately unsatisfying pleasures of sin for a season.  Or they trade it for false gods.  Romans 1:23 says they exchanged the glory of God for idols.  They reject the glory of God, and so some little idol is worth more.

That is true of the whole world, it is true of unbelievers, but it is sadly also true of believers sometimes.   We have been given everything.  Though we were sinners destined for eternal hell, owing an infinite debt for our sin against an infinite God, God graciously saved us in love.  He sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, very God, to become a man and to live a sinless life and to die an atoning death as a sacrificial substitute for us.  (GTB)  We hear about this all the time, but we have to stop and think about what God has given us.  It is unbelievable.  It is of inestimable value.

We could not pay the infinite price that we owed because we are finite beings.  But this Christ, this God-man, could do so because He Himself was infinite God.  So He did that.  He paid the highest price possible, literally an infinite price, and yet He offers it free to all by faith in Christ.  He sets us free from the power of sin, from slavery to sin.  I am talking about people who have put their faith in Christ, who have trusted in Him.  He frees us to live a holy life for His glory and for our best.  And it is the best life that there is: the holy life, the normal Christian life, the God-glorifying life of maximum happiness.  We have received all of this.  We don’t have to sin anymore.  It has no compulsive power over us.

And yet we sin.  Sin is still in us, and we occasionally sin, trading the God-glorifying holy life for the temporary pleasures of sin which always leads us to misery.  We know this in our own lives, and we know it from the Scriptures as well.  The great David traded his holy life, his blessed life, for adultery and then a murder to cover it up, feeding his pride.  Abraham and Isaac gave way to fear before Abimelech.  Peter traded truth for temporary security, denying Jesus Christ:  “I don’t know the man.”  He chose his short life on this earth, he chose his fear over his personal security, and traded it for Christ.  Of course, this kind of trade always leads to a bad outcome.  So let us be careful—very, very careful—not to overvalue our pleasure, our pride, our reputation, our short-term ease, our autonomy.  Let us be careful not to overvalue those things and let us be careful not to undervalue our great salvation, our great position, our great privilege as children of the King.

This kind of thing is especially a risk for the children of true believers, like Esau: those born and raised in a true Christian family or a true Christian church.  The problem for such people is that you don’t know what you don’t know.  Those of us who have lived outside of Christ know, and we know that there is nothing good apart from God.  But the devil will come and tempt you in your blissful ignorance.  He will say, “Those people are holding you back from the good stuff.  God Himself is holding you back from the good stuff.”  He will say, “You don’t have to live a holy life.  God doesn’t really require that kind of thing.  You can go out and sin and have a good time.”  He sets up false churches which preach a false gospel about a false god who never demands repentance, who is not holy, and who turns a blind eye to your ongoing sin.  So he sets up such synagogues of Satan, and then he says, “Other churches don’t do like you do.  Why do we have to be so holy when others are not?” And you begin to think about it.  You begin to feel like God is holding you back.  And the temptation comes:  It is the tasty looking soup of sin.  Maybe I can trade some of this life for that.  It is pleasing to the eye and desirable for gaining wisdom.  You will not surely die.  These are all variations on the same lie.

It is a life of autonomy.  It is a life of freedom.  You never stop to ask yourself, “Freedom to what?”  We already have freedom—glorious freedom in Jesus Christ, glorious freedom to live for God, glorious freedom to live the best life, the God-glorifying life, the life with God and the life with His people.  And you are offering me freedom to do something else?  What is that something else?  The devil comes and says, “You can go far,” but we never ask, “Go far to where?” So like Esau you begin to think this birthright—this growing up in the church, this growing up in a Christian family, this gospel from an early age, this godly heritage, this holy life, this thing that the Bible says is of great value, of great worth—you begin to think, “Maybe it is not worth so much.  Maybe it is worthless.  Maybe it is even a detriment.”  And so you trade it for a bowl of soup, for something, for anything.  Get rid of it!  Unburden yourself!  Or as it says in Psalm 2, break the fetters!

It was bad for Adam and Eve; it was bad for Cain; it was bad for Esau; and it will be bad for us too.  Don’t despise your birthright.  I am especially speaking to children born and raised in churches.  Don’t despise your birthright.  Those of us who grew up without it would trade places with you in a moment.

So we saw Esau’s birthright.  We saw that he despised his birthright.  How did it go?  Pastor Mathew would ask people all the time, “How is your life?” So let us examine that for Esau.

3. Esau’s Regret

Was Esau happy with his decision?  No.  He was miserable.  Verse 34 says that Esau “ate and drank, and then got up and left.  So Esau despised his birthright.”  And in Genesis 27:41 we read, “Esau held a grudge against Jacob.”  There is more to that story, but it has its origin here.  He also said in verse 41, “I will kill my brother Jacob.”  How is it going?  Genesis 28:8–9:  He married Canaanite women to spite his parents.  In Genesis 36, Esau becomes an ancestor of the Edomites, outside of God’s kingdom and without blessing, worshiping false gods.  Those people no longer exist, and they are all but forgotten.  He lives under God’s curse, and so do they (Isa. 34:5; Ezek. 25:13).   They live a life of apartness, a life of hostility, a life of regret.

This is true of anyone and everyone who rejects God’s free offer of salvation in Jesus Christ; everyone who despises the birthright.  It may take a day to regret it; it may take a year; it may have to wait until you die and go to the fires of hell.  But trust me:  You will regret it.  You will say to yourself, “I made a bad deal.  It was worth more than soup.  It was worth more than my sin.  It was worth more than all the riches of Solomon.”  You will surely regret it in eternity.  If we reject the free offer of salvation in Jesus Christ, there is no other way to be saved.  If His precious blood has not paid for your sin by faith, then your debt remains outstanding, and you will have to pay it yourself.  Oh, you will not be blinked out of existence.  You will not simply cease to be.  You see, some—those who have trusted in Christ—will go to eternal life and that is a great joy.  But those who reject Jesus Christ will go to eternal punishment.  It is not zero and eternal life.  It is one pole and the other, eternal life and eternal death, eternal life and eternal punishment, eternal joy and eternal suffering.  You will go to everlasting shame and contempt, as it says in Daniel 12:2.  It is a fate that is too awful for our limited vocabulary.  Luke 16:23 describes it as constant torment.  Luke 16:24 describes it as agony, in fire, and a great chasm is fixed.  There is no way out, there is no end, and there is no escape.

Like the rich man of Luke 16, you will regret this choice.  You will regret it all the time, every moment, and forever, with no end in sight, and with no end to the agony and the torment.  You will regret it in eternity, but you will also regret it in this life like Esau.  In your conscience, you will know that you have made a bad trade.  You will know that God is real, and God is holy, and that what I am saying is true (Rom. 1:19).  You will know that you exchanged the truth for a lie, worshiping and serving created things instead of the Creator (Rom. 1:20).  You may regret it in the moment, as Esau seems to have done, or you may regret it years later, as Esau also seems to have done.  You may regret it when you are discovered, as Achan did.  You may regret it when the consequences come, as Saul did.  You may regret it secretly in your conscience, as you try to suppress the truth by your wickedness (Rom. 1:18).  Or your offspring may regret it for millennia.  Regret is going to come.

But I have good news for you.  This regret is a good thing.  It is actually God’s great grace to you.  It means that God has not abandoned you.  God has not fully given you over to your sins.  It means, if you are experiencing this regret in this life, that the great chasm is not yet fixed, that it is not too late.  You can still cross over from eternal death to eternal life by faith in Jesus Christ.  You can still say, I made a bad trade.  I should not have despised the offer of free grace, the offer of salvation in Jesus Christ.  I should not have rejected the gospel, the only way to be saved.  I should not have exchanged the truth for a lie.  I should not have cast off God’s mercy for a bowl of soup or for the pleasure of sin for a season.

God is very gracious, unlike the conniving Jacob.  And God has a very liberal exchange policy.  Free returns are available for your lifetime.  You made a bad deal?  You can return it today.  It is at least available to you right now as you sit here.  Did you make a bad trade?  Are you regretting your choice?  Are you regretting your choice to reject the gospel of Jesus Christ?  Well, you still have time.  Exchange it today.  Make a different choice today.  Your choice is not fixed, at least until you die.

You say you have nothing to exchange.  You already ate the soup.  You already experienced the pleasures of sin?  You have nothing to trade?  No problem.  It is a free trade, by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  Isaiah 55 puts it this way:  “You who have no money, come, buy and eat!  Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. . . . I will make an everlasting covenant with you. . . . Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near.  Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts.  Let him turn to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him, and to our God, for He will freely pardon” (Isa. 55:1–7).  In other words, you can exchange what is making you miserable for what will make you happy, truly happy.  It doesn’t matter what you did before.  It doesn’t matter.  You can exchange today by faith in Christ.  Trade what does not satisfy for the only thing that can satisfy:  Jesus Christ and vital connection to Him by faith.  As Augustine put it, “Our hearts are restless until they find rest in God.”  If your heart is restless, there is a rest that is available to you in God by faith.

God offers a favorable deal.  It is as favorable a deal as can be.  Isaiah 61:3 describes it in poetic terms:  beauty for ashes; the oil of gladness instead of mourning; a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair; trash or treasure; death or life; eternal punishment, eternal torment, and eternal agony exchanged for joy unspeakable and full of glory.  Eternal pleasures at His right hand.

So don’t be like Esau.  Don’t live your entire life in regret.  Don’t be like the rich man of Luke 16 and go to an eternity of torment and agony and regret.  Don’t be like Achan.  Don’t be like Saul.  Repent and get rid of your regret.  Get rid of your bitterness.  Get rid of your slavery to sin.  Get rid of God’s judgment that is now upon you.  Trust in Christ fully.  Trust in Christ alone for salvation.  You can be saved today, and you will never regret that choice.  You will never regret that deal.  You will never regret that exchange.

The truth is, we all sin and we all regret.  So there is no difference there.  Romans 3:23 says there is no difference.  Everyone sins.  Everyone regrets.  The difference is what we do with that regret.  Do we let it fester into a toxic stew of bitterness and enmity towards God and towards everyone else?  Or does it cause us to turn to Christ and to cry out, “Have mercy  on me, a sinner!”—a cry that is always answered (Rom. 10:9).

Are you an unbeliever in a mess of regret and facing eternal hell?  Then turn to Christ and be saved today.  Are you a believer in a mess of sin, regretting what you did and what it has wrought?  Then repent, confess, renounce your sins, and find mercy (Prov. 28:13).  God offers life.  God offers joy.  God offers peace.  The devil offers only regret; only isolation; only fear; only misery; only gloom and unhappiness.  Would you rather have that, or joy unspeakable and full of glory?  Would you rather have that, or righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.  Joy in victory in Christ.  Joy in sorrows.  Joy in sufferings also.  Joy, joy, joy in Jesus Christ?

If you are in misery today, I say don’t stop there.  Don’t stay there.  Come out of your misery.  Come out of the valley of the shadow of death and come into the warm light of Christ by repentance and faith.

Application and Conclusion

Ask yourself today:  What have I done with God’s offer of free grace to me?  Esau despised his birthright.  Esau died; his choice is made.  What have I done with what God has offered me?  Have I despised my birthright?  Have I traded God’s offer of eternal life in Christ for my bowl of soup?  And ask yourself:  What is it worth to me?  What have I traded Christ for?  Or what would I trade Christ for?  Perhaps it is tons of money, like Solomon.  Perhaps it is for a wife or a husband that I long for, or a baby that I long for, or a grandchild that I long for.  We heard about Sarah.  She wanted the baby, and she did wrong to get the baby.  Is it my reputation or my pride, like Ananias and Sapphira?  Is it my desire for autonomy?  Is it my desire for autonomy, like Adam and Eve?  Is it for all authority and splendor of all the kingdoms of the world (Luke 4:6)?  Or is it the whole world (Mark 8:36)?

Whatever you trade it for, it will be a bad trade, and you will regret it.  So I say, don’t do it.  Don’t trade the infinite for the finite.  Don’t choose eternal death over eternal life.  Maybe you think a bowl of soup is really a stupid thing to trade for, but what I am trying to tell you is that it is all the same trade.  In proportionate terms, it is all the same trade.  You trade the most valuable thing for what amounts to nothing.  Let’s say you live the greatest life of the greatest pleasure for a hundred years.  It is not going to happen, but let’s say you live the greatest life of the greatest pleasure, with all the money and everything you ever wanted, for 100 years.  You are going to spend a lot more than 100 years in eternity.  A million years, a billion years—we cannot fix a number on eternity.  But whatever our period of maximum pleasure in this life is, it is not even a rounding error compared to eternity.  It is all the same trade—a bowl of soup for something that is worth nothing.  Don’t make the trade.

The truth is this:  If you will trade Christ for any thing, then you will trade Christ for anything.  Don’t do it.  Choose life and choose Christ.  His salvation is precious.  Remember that and hold tightly to it.  Then you will not have regret, but you will rejoice instead.  You will rejoice in this life, and you will rejoice forever in glory with Christ.  Amen.