Thoughts on Pleasure
What is it that as a Christian, we should know about pleasure? Is it right? Is it wrong? Should Christians never have any pleasures? Let’s take a moment to find out, based on a sermon by Ravi Zacherias, the Christian apologist.
According to the author G. K. Chesterton, “Meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain, meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure”. The noted author Jack Higgins was once asked what he knew now that he wished he had known as a younger man. His reply was, “When you get to the top, there is nothing there”. George Orwell, in his book titled “1984” was afraid that what we feared would destroy us. Aldous Huxley on the other hand, in his book titled “Brave New World” was afraid that what we loved would destroy us. Boris Becker, the tennis great, was asked after he won the Wimbledon championship, “What is your greatest challenge?” His reply was “to keep from committing suicide”.
The incitements of the world bombard you in every direction. You had better have a worldview with which to respond, otherwise it will waylay you in the end. So, how do you deal with the problem of pleasure? How do you cope with the seduction of power, of lust, of greed of pride?
Solomon was a great king from ancient times and this is what he had to say about pleasure. “I thought in my heart, come now, I will test you with pleasure to see what is good. But that also proved to be meaningless, laughter I said is foolish and what does pleasure really accomplish? I tried cheering myself with wine and embracing folly, my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives. I undertook great projects. I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem did before me. I amassed more silver and gold for myself than the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women singers and a harem as well, the delights of the heart of man. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me, yet in all of this my wisdom stayed with me. I denied myself nothing my eyes desired. I refused my heart no pleasure, my heart took delight in all my work, yet this was the reward for all my labor. When I surveyed all that my hands had done, and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Nothing was gained under the sun.” (Means outside of God in the Hebrew).
When you have exhausted that last dream, it leaves you barren and empty.
Has God given us something concrete in his word to help us navigate through this minefield? He could not possibly be against pleasure. He called everything good when he made it. The scriptures sustain that at His right hand are pleasures for evermore. God is on the side of pleasure, which is good and perpetuates itself.
1. Anything that refreshes you without distracting you from, diminishing, or destroying your final goal, is a legitimate pleasure.
In Judges 7 – Gideon raised a great army for the coming battle against the Midionites. God said to Gideon that the army is too big. It is 30,000 strong, but Gideon pares it down to 10,000 by himself. God says to Gideon that it is still too big and to give the men an opportunity to drink at a river. In the way they drink, God will separate the ones who will continue. How they enjoyed the pleasure of a drink of water ultimately decided who would continue on and who would be left behind. Did they enjoy the water with God’s goal in mind, or for simple selfish pleasure? That was the deciding factor.
John Wesley the noted theologian was one of 19 children. He traveled 250,000 miles, mostly by horseback. He preached over 40,000 sermons in his lifetime. He wrote massive amounts of literature and worked in many languages. At the age of 83 he was angry with his doctors because he was not allowed to preach more than 14 times a week! At the age of 86 he wrote, “laziness is slowly creeping in. There is an increasing tendency to sleep in past 5:30 in the morning”.
What shaped a man like this? When Wesley was a child he asked his mother the question, “Can you give me a definition for sin?” The answer this wise woman gave him was “Whatever weakens your reasoning, impairs the tenderness of you conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes away your relish for spiritual things.” In short, “If anything increases the authority and the power of the flesh over the spirit, that to you becomes sin however good it is in itself.”
The underlying idea is this. Anything that refreshes you without distracting you from, diminishing or destroying the final goal is a legitimate pleasure. Which means of course that you must first enunciate what your final goal is! You can never understand what a distraction is, until you understand what the final goal is, what the purpose is for your life. It is imperative that somehow, before God, you and I take that time on a blank piece of paper, and understand who we are before God. Why it is we actually exist, why he has fashioned us so uniquely, with the uniqueness of the mind and the ability, the imagination, whatever it is that he has given to you. He has a purpose for your particular existence. How wonderful it would be to clearly write out what is it that purpose of your life is really about, and in the light of that you can find out what it is that will refresh you, what it is that will rejuvenate you as you pursue that purpose.
There are some places that you and I ought not to go. There are some things we ought not to entertain with our eyes. There are some experiences we ought not to reach out and touch because there are choices we may make which may seem innocuous in the beginning which can be devastating in the long run, till you yourself will be asking yourself the question, what am I doing here?
2. Any pleasure that jeopardizes the sacred right of another, may well be an illicit pleasure.
In 2 Samuel 23 – David is waiting for the battle with the Philistines and makes the comment of how he would like a sip of water from his well in Bethlehem. Three of his guards formed a team, went behind the lines and got some water from the well, came back through the lines and gave it to David. David, instead of drinking it, poured it out on the ground, because his simple pleasures, was a distraction, which could have hurt others. If only he had thought of that when he lusted after Bathsheba. Think of all of the Old Testament history that might have been changed had David not infringed on the sacred right of Bath-sheba’s husband Uriah. David would not have sinned. Uriah would not have been killed, along with many others in battle. David and Bath-sheba’s first child would not have died. The whole of Isrealite history would have gone in a different direction.
- Any pleasure, however good, if not kept in balance will distort reality or destroy appetite.
Proverbs 25:16 – If you find honey eat just enough of it. Too much of it and you will vomit.
Keep your life in balance. The best of pleasures have a shelf live and you walk away from them. God alone is the perpetual novelty.
Pleasure for pleasure sake will ultimately leave you empty.
There is a place for legitimate pleasure.
Noted author C.S. Lewis in his book the Screwtape Letters writes about a Senior Devil instructing a Junior Devil to “Keep your person away from the enemy (God)”. The Junior Devil tries to distract the person, but soon reports that the man has gone over to the enemies (God’s) camp. When asked by the Senior Devil how it happened, the Junior Devil replied that the man walked in the solitude of nature in the mornings, and enjoyed the pleasure of good books by the fire in the evenings. The Senior Devil replied, “This is where you made your mistake.” “You should have put into his mind that the walk in the morning was a form of exercise and it would have become a drudgery to him.” “You should also have got him to read the book so that he could quote it to somebody else, and it would have become equally uninspiring.” “You allowed him to enjoy such pure pleasure, that the enemies (God’s) voice became more audible within those experiences”.
Pure pleasure brings you within reach of God’s voice. When you not only see that pleasure is honored by God and speaks to you, the ultimate pleasure that you and I seek is the pleasure of intimacy where God alone is enjoyed in worship. It is worship that brings complete pleasure, and if you and I learn to worship individually the day becomes a pleasurable one because there’s cohesiveness from the grid of which every other pleasure is interpreted.
In other words, if you get your priorities (pleasures) in their proper place and order, they will not only last a lifetime, but also will be the yardstick by which all other pleasures are measured.