A Lesson From A Short Story

Text, Matthew 16:26, KJV: For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Thoughts: In my last year or so of high school, I took a couple of literature classes. For one thing, I liked the teacher, and for another, I thought these classes would be easy A’s. Well, I didn’t get A’s in all of them but that’s okay. I really did learn some things!

There is one short story that has stayed, in part, with me ever since those days. Now, I don’t remember the author, the title of the story, the date it was published, or anything like that, but I do remember some of the plot—and a couple of the last paragraphs. The gist of the plot is that there was a bottle of some kind which had an “imp” or devil trapped inside of it. Anyone who had that bottle could have just about anything he or she wanted, as I recall, but there were two catches (aren’t there always?) concerning that bottle.

The first catch is that if you died with that bottle in your possession, you went to Hell. For those of us who are believers in Jesus, we know that’s the fate of every person who dies without Christ Jesus as Savior. So, no surprise there.

The second catch is that if you decided to sell the bottle (I don’t think an owner could give it away), you had to sell it at a lower price than what you paid for it. If I owned the bottle, and had paid $50.00 USD, then “sold” it to someone else for more than that, guess what? The bottle would bounce right back to me, and in fact one of the subjects of that story had that happen! He tried to sell it for more than he paid for it and sure enough, it was back at his possession before he realized what he had done.

Somehow, and I don’t remember how, the bottle wound up with a sailor, who kept the bottle with him. The original owner told him, “You have to get rid of that bottle! The one, who has it, when he dies, goes to Hell!”

And now comes one of the most chilling sentences in all literature. The sailor said, “I’m going there whether I have that bottle or not (paraphrased)!” He may have said some more but I was too stunned to capture it in my memory.

To think of it, that sailor had to have been born as a baby boy, would have grown up as an infant, toddler, preschooler, teen, and then be old enough to join the navy. He was also old enough to reject God and His love, choosing to keep that bottle, enjoying whatever it could give him, in exchange for his soul. Now, of course, the author didn’t mention any of that, but it’s a fact that every sinner was once born as a baby boy or girl and made choices as they aged.

The sailor gained who knows what—but lost his soul in the process. The devil tempts you and me in many ways. He promises much, but delivers nothing except destruction when one’s life is over. Jesus said it so well: what will you or I give up in exchange for our soul?

Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV).