We can use these verses to draw a contrast between the state of the unbeliever and the state of the believer at the end of life. How foolish it is for man to count as his permanent possession what he has stolen from God! Does he think God is going to let him get away with it, and not take back what is his? All our pleasures in this life as unbelievers are on loan from the goodness of God, and yet we refuse to acknowledge his gift, and regard it as ours by right. He warns us about our error so that we may come to him for that permanent gift which will not be taken from us: the gift which comes through Christ alone. ‘I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand’ (John 10:28). That is what we need to focus on, and not those things which are only given on loan. Those things are given to us as a testimony of the goodness of God, and to teach us that he is a willing Giver, and we should go to him and ask for the riches of his grace.
Christ says, ‘For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’ (Mark 8:36). It will profit him nothing because, even if he gains the whole world, he will not be allowed to keep any of it; the whole world will be taken from him. That is a loss which the human heart cannot bear. For too long it has counted on the pleasure that the things of this world will give, and it has depended on the world for a source of uplift when in sorrow. So when it sees that it is about to lose all, and to lose it suddenly and as if with violence, the heart of man collapses, having no other support.