What is the value of a soul? In short, it depends on who you ask. To our beloved Heavenly Father it is of immeasurable price. What father would sacrifice the life of his only cherished son for something of little worth? What son would forsake a paradisaical bliss to be clothed in flesh and pierced by iron stakes? What is the value of a soul? To the heart of a loving mother it is impossible to quantify and to the heart of a zealous betrothed it is everything.
Even to the prince of darkness there is great value, though not intrinsically.
In the unseen cosmic warfare of the heavens, a soul is his weapon of choice. With calculated patience the cunning one hones his most potent, diabolical strategy of attack against his nemesis. As the cheated drug lord delights in the murderous revenge of a man’s most precious treasure, his wife, children and family so this lord of darkness relishes the slow torture and swift demise of the fathers beloved ones. Those made in his very image. Like the skewed eye of an unforgiving wife who is chaffed by the ex-husband’s look alike child, Lucifer daily detests the reminder we bring him. The fact that the earth, his current geographical domain is promised as an inheritance to God’s children further fuels his fire for he knows the scripture better than any church going saint.
I listened intently as a man shared his life altering unexpected encounter in heaven. Having had such an experience myself, his words resonated within me as indisputable truth. Upon entering paradise, he watched a never ending line of souls leaving this world to an even greater darkness. He looked in horror and great distress as tormenting fear overcame them and they realized all they had heard of heaven and our Lord Jesus Christ was true. They had rejected him during their lives on earth, some by careless words, some not by their words but by their behavior. Simply put; they were not made ready to meet Him. Overwhelming distress and astonishment overtook them as they came to understand the glory, peace and bliss of heaven would not be theirs.
The minister wept knowing their true torment had not yet begun. Stunned by the symbolism they bore as they went, the Lord God showed him lives spent in the worship of the god of money (wrapped in dollar bills) engulfed in bottles of alcohol and vials of drugs (or as the Hebrew text calls pharmaka, what the bible defines as sorcery) and souls wrapped in the dirty filth of lust. He understood the demon gods they served on earth would be the merciless gods they would now serve for eternity.
As I listened to his words I was taken back to my own encounter and its impact. I also wept. I marveled at the cunning of this great deceiver, who the bible calls by many names. The serpent, the dragon, the god of this world, the prince of darkness and the angel of light. Lucifer. The enemy of God and the enemy of our souls. Quietly I sat and contemplated the heart-wrenching vision he described and I thought again; what is the value of a soul? Clearly to our Lord Jesus a soul is worth the price of the cruelest cross and to the lord of darkness it is no more and no less than a means to an end. Revenge.