'I don’t care what happens to me after I die'

What do you say to someone who says, “I don’t care what happens to me after I die”?

Many years ago I had a bird aviary. One day I purchased a pair of Java Sparrows. Usually when you buy birds from a bird store they put them in a brown paper bag, turn the top, then put staples in the top and cut a little nick out of the paper bag so the birds can breathe. I took the bag to my office and put it on my desk. When someone came into the office, we had the same scenario every time.

They would see the bag moving by itself and say, “What is that?” I would say, “It is some new birds that I have bought.” They would pick up the bag and have a look, and as they were looking in they would say, “Wow! What sort of birds are those?” and I would take great delight in saying, “Mexican Eye-peckers!”

That’s when they would pull the bag away like greased lightning. We instinctively value and protect our eyes. Imagine if I was an eye doctor, and I was offering one million dollars for an eye. I want to do eye transplants, and I’m prepared to pay you one million dollars for one of your eyes. I would painlessly replace it with a glass eye that would look as good as your other eye — but it wouldn’t look as good, if you see what I mean. You would be blind in one eye.  Would you sell an eye for one million? You might say, “Perhaps.”

Here is the crunch: We want a matching pair (they must be fresh), and we are prepared to pay 50 million for both of your eyes. Would you sell both for 50 million? You may say, “50 million dollars! Now I can see the world!” Well, not quite. You wouldn’t get to see a thing — you would live your life in total darkness.

I’m sure that nobody in their right mind would sell both of their eyes for 50 million, not even a hundred million dollars. Your eyes are so valuable to you they are without price. And yet Jesus said that you are to despise the value of those precious eyes compared to the value of your soul.

Jesus put it this way: “If your eye offends you, pluck it out, and cast it from you: it is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire” (Matthew 18:9). In other words, of all the things you should prioritize in this life, it is not your health, it is not your eyes — it is the eternal salvation of your soul. Jesus also said: “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36).

Think about it...