Pleasure: Life On Empty Part 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Christians are awash in a sea of pleasures, having time for everything but God. Many waste their time in a myriad of ways, and the options only keep increasing.

On this broadcast, a challenge to all of us to get our priorities straight. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, you're teaching about pleasure, life on empty. But you're not against all pleasure, just the kind that keeps us from God. Yeah, Dave, that's one way to put it, but I need to say that there are plenty of pleasures out there that keep us from God. And even the point that I'm making is that so-called innocent pleasures can keep us from God. The question that we have to ask ourselves is whether or not we find pleasure in God.

And the Bible tells us we can do that. You know, I've written a book entitled Seven Snares of the Enemy, Breaking Free from the Devil's Grip. It deals with gambling, alcoholism, greed, sexual sin, et cetera. I have in my hands a letter from someone who says your book Seven Snares of the Enemy was eye-opening and heart-softening and awakening to one's reflection. This book is a must-read for anyone serious about breaking free from sexual sin. While we're making this book available to you, it's entitled Seven Snares of the Enemy, Breaking Free from the Devil's Grip.

For a gift of any amount, it can be yours. Here's what you do. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com.

Or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now let us open our Bibles as we listen to the pleasures of the world versus the pleasures of God. I want all of you to listen as if you've never heard me speak for the first time, because this is so, so critical. I don't believe that the devil minds, whether it is sports, whether it is even something terrible like the addictions that we've talked about, he isn't that concerned as to what it is. He doesn't care what it is. As long as these things absorb our attention and take the place of God, and even the good pleasures in life do that remarkably well, they squeeze out God.

They do. And that's the problem with pleasure, the pleasures we're talking about, is that they seek to become a substitute for God. And if you still have not found a substitute for God, what you'll do is you will crowd your life with this busyness. Somebody gave me the book this week on putting first things first. We will crowd our lives with so much busyness, and the devil doesn't mind that either. It can be busy doing good things as long as God is not the one who is primarily loved and adored and who does not meet the deep desires of our heart.

It doesn't matter what it is that's in his place. You know, when my wife and I were in Eastern Europe one time, we were told that – when some Christians were told that in America you have your refrigerators that actually work. You know, you can plug them in and they'll work and you can depend on them. In some of those countries you don't have refrigerators that work and the electricity goes off so often that there isn't. And in America you don't have to stand in line for two or three hours to get a loaf of bread as you do, at least when we were in Eastern Europe, in some of the countries.

That's what you did. Everybody, we were told, stood in line for up to two to three hours a day to get basic necessities. You don't have to do that in the United States. We get upset when there are three people ahead of us in a line of jewel. Some of us almost have a fit when we miss a turn of a revolving door. And as they began to explain all of the conveniences of America, these Christians said, that is so wonderful. That must mean that American Christians have so much time to study the Bible, to pray and to evangelize.

That's wonderful. So that's what's happening in America. No, the more conveniences we have, the more places we can go, the more money we can spend on ourselves, the more options we have out there, and we cram our lives with everything except God.

And that's the deceptive, you see, that's the snare. It isn't just the bad things out there that we instantly recognize as sinful. They're out there and they're terrible, but it's the good things that have taken God and not made him the center of our existence and our joys.

That's the problem. You say, well, can we enjoy nature? Of course. God has given us all things richly to enjoy. We can enjoy the beauty of nature.

We can enjoy the beauty that he made of music, the beauty of it. But as believers, you see, we enjoy it in relation to God. All of those things help us to worship, to remind ourselves that this just didn't happen.

This is God's gift, you see. But if God isn't a part of it, the devil does not care what we do as long as our joy is not in God. Number one, we learned that there are two loves, and one of the reasons why we should not love the world is because of what it is.

It's antagonistic to God. Secondly, there are two promises we've been talking about, the promise of the world and the promise of God. And because of what the world does, we should not love it.

Thirdly, because of where the world is leading, because of where it's going. And now we're in verse 17. You'll notice that the text says very clearly here that the world is passing away and all of its desires, all of its lusts, but he that does the will of God abides. He lives forever. This was D. L. Moody's favorite verse, by the way, that the one who does the will of God abides forever. The world and its lusts is passing.

Now listen to those of you who have never received Christ as Savior, and I'm also speaking to those of you who think you have but haven't. Listen carefully. If you are really absorbed by the world, I encourage you to enjoy it with all the enthusiasm you can, no matter how empty it eventually becomes. Go for it, because this is the best you're ever going to get.

This is it. Everything after here is terrible. Everything after death is disaster and separation and condemnation. So if this is the only world for which you are living, you might just as well live it up, though actually you are dying it down.

But go for it. As believers, my friend, this is the worst that it'll ever get. It's not going to get any worse than this. Oh, I know we may die of all kinds of strange diseases whose names we cannot yet pronounce. We may go through all kinds of problems that we don't even know about yet, but we know that the suffering of this present time is not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.

It is going to get better, a lot of better. The devil gives all of his trinkets up front. Serve me and I'll give you this pleasure.

Serve me and I'll do this for you. But he doesn't tell you how it's going to end. The world passes away in all of its lusts. But he who does the will of God abides forever. There's an interesting passage in the book of Hebrews chapter 11 where it says this of Moses. I want you to just listen.

Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God. Everybody awake here. Rather to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. What a fool he was.

Humanly speaking, a fool. I mean, you talk about the lust of the flesh, all the women that you would want, the lust of the eyes, all of the wealth. And we didn't know how wealthy Egypt was until we uncovered Tut's tomb. All the wealth of Egypt, all of the power of Egypt.

Josephus tells us that he was next in line apparently to be Pharaoh and he kisses it all goodbye. Crazy. Why? Notice it says rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin. I love the translation that says the fleeting pleasures of sin. Boom.

They're here and they're gone. Wow. And does it mean that Moses did not choose pleasure? He was really a man who didn't like pleasure.

No, no, no. Of course he chose pleasure, but he chose the better pleasure. The next verse, if I had read it, said he looked forward to the recompense of the reward. He knew that there was another world coming and that that world, if he served God, would be a pleasurable world. That's where he would find his pleasure and his hope in God. And think of what he got on this life, an opportunity to see the glory of God as recorded in the book of Exodus. And despite all the problems in life, God was with him and he could say, show me thy glory.

And God showed it to him. Is there anything in Egypt that compares to that? You answer that. Is there anything in Egypt?

No, my friend. You have to understand that you go for the pleasure, but is there anything that can compare to God? Anything that can compare to a clear conscience? Anything that can compare to walking with God and its joys are pure and there's no aftertaste and there's no guilt and there's no second-guessing and there's no regret. You simply delight in God. No wonder the psalmist said, I delight in God and he gives me greater joy, he says, in one of the psalms than he, than all of the new moons and all of the wines that there are. My delight is in God. As for pleasures, Robert Burns was right, but pleasures are like poppies spread, you seize the flower, its bloom is shed, or like a snow falls in the river, a moment white then melts forever.

Let me give you some important, important guidelines. Wise people, wise people go for pleasure. They go for pleasure, but they go for God's pleasures. And if it is true, as Henry Seagal wrote, that the excellency, I should not take this quickly, folks, because this is heavy stuff, the excellency of a soul is dependent upon the object that the soul loves. The excellency of a soul is dependent upon the object that the soul loves. What could make a soul more excellent to be a lover of God?

And instead of loving pleasure to love God more than anything else and you get all the pleasures thrown in. Could there be anything wiser than that? I don't think so.

I don't think so. So wise people go for pleasure. Secondly, wise people go for the long-range point of view. Look at Moses. I spoke about him a moment ago. Now, 35 centuries have taken place since Moses was on earth.

Well, not that many if you count the Mount of Transfiguration, but we'll skip that for a moment. 35 centuries since he made his decision. What do you think he thinks now that he's in heaven? Does he say to himself, oh, man, I should have really chosen Egypt? Of course not. 3500 years with God and he still doesn't have enough of him.

Wonderful. You see, I want to tell you, you businessmen especially, I'm speaking to you, but a lot of others too. When you make a decision tomorrow and the next day, a business decision regarding your values and your temptations, whatever it is, ask yourself this question, how am I going to feel about this decision in 3500 years? Just ask yourself that question. I'll tell you, it'll keep you from a lot of grief, a lot of grief.

Because in 3500 years, you'll be able to have an eternal perspective that will look so differently than all the fleeting pleasures of sin and money and all the other things. Now all of us know that because of the Columbine massacre, there was a young lady by the name of Cassie Bernal, I hope I'm pronouncing her name correctly, who when asked by a gunman, do you believe in God, said yes. And it is widely believed that because she said yes, she was shot.

In the Tribune, or if it wasn't the Tribune and it wasn't the Tribune, it was the Sun Times, there was an article, an opinion piece written by one of the writers on this topic. Of course, nobody knows whether or not if she had said no, her life would have been spared, but let's suppose for a moment it might have been. This is what the author writes, and it's worth hearing him out. He says, what if Cassie had said no, would that have made her less of a person? I don't think so, and much more to the point, I'd like to believe that God wouldn't think so. If a girl just beginning her adult life had a chance to survive by lying to a twisted psycho pointing a gun at her, if she could not only win her own future, but spare those who love her the anguish of losing her, maybe she should take that chance. Call me blasphemous for saying so, and quote scripture to me until you are blue in the face, but I ask you, if it were your son or daughter on the wrong end of that gun, and a simple no would have made a difference, what would you hope your child would say? Well, what do you hope, fathers, what do you hope your child would say if a simple denial of Christ would spare the life of your child? Friends, I don't minimize the grief and the hurt that comes to those who lose children so tragically, and no one can stand in their shoes, really, unless they've gone through it, but my dear friend, I hope that with you, you agree with me and that we're together on this, and we love our children very, very dearly, the three precious daughters God has given to us. If you really believe in another world, if you believe that there's an eternity coming, if you believe and you look at this from the standpoint of not today, but 3500 years, which is a pretty good vantage point, would you not want your child to say, yes, I believe in God and love him? Isn't that worth dying for? Have we come to the place in America where absolutely nothing is worth dying for anymore? Of course. If you look at it only narrowly and say, I want my life, I only go around once in life, I want all the pleasures that I can out of life, then go ahead and lie, and you'll do it not only because you have the barrel of a gun pointed in your face, but you'll do it in all your other relationships too, and by that I don't mean to say I would be judging this young lady if she would lie under those circumstances, but I'm simply saying that's the way life is.

You go around and you just get through and you grab for everything, like a kid in a candy store who's been told that for the next five minutes you can carry everything out of the store you can get in the next five minutes, and he's grabbing for everything during the five-minute period. We believe in another world, another world. You know, this is a difficult message to preach because I know that there are some of you who are absolutely unconvinced. For me to try to convince you to give up the pleasures of this world, I would rather try to convince a tiger to become a vegetarian. Really. And I would give him a lecture on all the niceties of vegetarianism.

How far do you think I'd get? The reason is this. A tiger is going to be a tiger or there's going to be a tiger until he gets a new heart, until he gets a new heart. And some of you, I speak to you because if you have been converted by God, one of the earliest and surest marks of a child of God is this, that he loves God and he hates to grieve God. He may grieve him, but he loves God so much that he says to himself, God, I want you to be all that I could possibly imagine and all that I could possibly be. I may not live up to it, but that is my desire. If you don't have that desire today and you're a Christian, I'd say this humbly, but you really do need to repent because you've got some serious, serious problems. And if you're not a believer, you have to come to Christ and ask him to change you, to transform you by the Holy Spirit. And he will implant within you a desire to love God. We're faced with two loves, two promises, two destinies, two destinies. He that does the will of God abide forever. The world passes away in all of its lusts. How many of us can say, Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts, thou fount of life, thou light of men. From the best that earth imparts, we turn unfilled and we turn to thee again and again and again and again.

And the raging thirst is quenched. Let us pray. Our Father, help us as a people with all of our worldliness, with all of our pleasures, with all of our self-seeking, our unwillingness to sacrifice for you. Help us, Father, and reveal to us all those areas in which we have compromised, in which we have followed the world, and therefore grieved you. We pray that this passage in all of its starkness and in all of its candor might grip us. And then, Father, bring us to the point where we find our delight in you. Do that, Lord, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. What a challenge for all of us to make sure that we spend time seeking God and finding in him pleasure, the pleasures of God at his right hand.

It's available to all of us, but it takes time, it takes discipline, and we need to make some tough decisions. Are you blessed as a result of the ministry of running to win? If you are, it's because other people have invested in this ministry. As I frequently say, this is not a ministry of one man or a church or an organization. It is your ministry.

Thanks in advance for standing with us. Would you consider becoming an endurance partner? Endurance partners are those who stand with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts.

Here's what you do. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com and click on the endurance partner button for information. Or if you prefer, you can call us at 1-888-218-9337.

I like to think of our endurance partners as those who actually join the running to win family. They hold our hands, they pray for us, and together we are making a difference, 1-888-218-9337. It's time again for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. I'm not sure where today's question is going, Dr. Lutzer, but Horst has emailed asking this, how can I understand the Quran without reading it from cover to cover? Well, Horst, you can try to read the Quran from cover to cover, and I even encourage you to do that because it will give you an understanding of the Muslim religion. But I need to say that it is very difficult. I've tried to do that. The Quran is not systematically organized, so you go from topic to topic, and then of course there are other topics, and they do not follow a coherent pattern.

But nonetheless, all is not lost. There are some excellent books on Islam that will give you the essence of the Quran. I've decided to not list any of these books because the moment I do that, there are so many others out there.

Let me encourage you, Horst. Go into a bookstore and spend some time browsing around. I mean, you know, I'm sure that there are five or six or a dozen different books, either of which would be of great help to you to understand the Muslim faith and the Quran. And in doing this, you'll have a better handle on the beliefs of the Muslims. I might say that my own book, Slandering Jesus, deals with just a sliver of the Quran, just the part that denies that Jesus died on the cross. To me, I think that this is pivotal because the death of Jesus Christ is central to Christianity.

But nonetheless, become acquainted with the Muslim faith, do all that you possibly can, and there are plenty of helps out there that can be of great benefit. Thank you, Dr. Lutzer. Thank you, Horst, for that question. If you'd like to hear your question answered, go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer. Or call us at 1-888-218-9337. That's 1-888-218-9337.

You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Our culture is into the grip of occult phenomena like never before. We see it in books, on the Internet, on TV, and of course, in movies and music. The occult is now underscoring more and more of our culture's values.

So what should a Christian do? Next time on Running to Win, the breadth and scope of occult phenomena. Don't miss a message on occultism, not superstitions, but deceptions. Thanks for listening. For Dr. Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.