The poison of pleasure
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The document discusses how both what we fear and what we love can ruin us. It then provides several quotes and passages around the topics of pleasure, vanity, and finding fulfillment without being mastered or ruined by temporary things. Specifically, it suggests pleasure should not distract from our goals, jeopardize others' rights, or become unbalanced and distort our perspective.
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The poison of pleasure
- 2. • What we fear or hate can ruin us. • What we love can ruin us.
- 3. 9 So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. 10 Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, For my heart rejoiced in all my labour; And this was my reward from all my labour. 11 Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done And on the labour in which I had toiled; And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun.
- 4. “And I am a weapon of massive consumption And its not my fault it's how I'm programmed to function I'll look at the sun and I'll look in the mirror I'm on the right track, yeah we're on to a winner I don't know what's right and what's real anymore And I don't know how I'm meant to feel anymore And when do you think it will all become clear? 'Cuz I'm being taken over by the Fear” LILY ALLEN - THE FEAR LYRICS
- 5. NKJV You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
- 6. 1Co 6:12 NASB All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. #1 Refreshment that does not distract, diminishes, or destroys our final goal. #2 Pleasure that does not jeopardize the sacred right of another #3 Any pleasure not in balance will distort reality and destroy appetite
Editor's Notes
- Often people wrestle with the problem of pain, they ask questions like if God is good and powerful, why is there so much suffering?” Though that is a very valid and real question worthy of much thought another equally important problem is what some refer to as the problem of pleasure. Many lose their faith or are kept from faith by suffering but in our day many are also kept from faith because of pleasure.
- Solomon wrestled with the problem of pleasure and discovered that the pursuit of pleasure diminishes meaning. 21st Century man with all his entertainment, travel and illicit forms (drugs, pornography) of pleasure struggles with meaning more than probably any other in history. Addiction is a real problem and mostly people are addicted to some form of pleasure: “Addiction“an ever-increasing craving for an ever-diminishing pleasure.”
- These are lyrics from Lilly Allen’s song the fear that provides a modern take on the struggle with pleasure.
- Pleasure is God’s invention.“Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy’s [God's] ground. I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is [God's] invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden. Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable. An ever-increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula…. To get the man’s soul and give NOTHING in return–that is what really gladdens [Satan's] heart.” From the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
- Here are some suggested boundaries to pleasure, they come from Ravi Zacharias from his Podcasts and writings on the Problem of Pleasure.