Results of Pursuing Pleasure
Results of Pursuing Pleasure | Apr. 18, 2021 am | Ecclesiastes 2:9–11 | Living for More series
Outline:
The results of pursuing pleasure:
Popularity achieved (9)
Pleasure acquired (10)
But it was still empty (11)
The only pleasure that can truly satisfy is pleasure in God.
Discussion Questions:
Why do you think people are so tempted to find meaning in pleasure? Have you ever tried this or been close to someone who has? What eventually causes someone to move beyond this method?
What are the most common pathways that people in our society travel to become happy?
Think of those people that you know who are truly happy - in their marriages, in their work, in their relationships, etc. What are the key elements that seem to bring such contentment?
Most commercials promise you a level of happiness if you buy the product and most products come with a warranty against defects. Why don't most products come with a guarantee that you'll be a happier person once you buy it?
In C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters—which are written as letters from an older demon to a younger demon on how to steal human souls—the older demon gives this advice:
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 His 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 the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden … An ever-increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula.
What happens when Christians forget that God made pleasure and made us for pleasure—and that Satan tries to just distort God’s gifts to us?