Let us turn in the word of God to the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 2. In our evening service, we are thinking together about idols, false gods which are worshipped in the 20th century. And this evening, we're going to be thinking about the god of pleasure, the pursuit of pleasure as the chief end in life. And we're going to read from Ecclesiastes 2 verses 1 to 11, as the writer of this book tells us of the time in his own life and experience where he pursued pleasure. Ecclesiastes chapter 2 verse 1. I thought in my heart, come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good. But that also proved to be meaningless. Laughter, I said, is foolish. And what does pleasure 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 before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself and 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. In all 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 and this was the reward for all my labour. Yet, when I had 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. So reads the Word of God. To the letter to the Hebrews chapter 12 Hebrews chapter 12 Reading verses 1 to 13. We'll be thinking this evening about pleasure and how people not only want pleasure, but they want pleasure immediately. And we'll see, I hope, that one of the interesting things about the highest and best pleasures is that usually they don't come immediately. Hebrews chapter 12, Verse 1. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders, and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood, and you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons. My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves. and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son. Endure hardship as discipline. God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined and everyone undergoes discipline, then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live? Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best. but God disciplines us for our good that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level paths for your feet so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. Amen. May God Bless this word as we've read it, as we hear it preached, and perhaps as we reflect upon it in the days to come. We've begun a summer series in our evening service on 20th century idols. And we're describing them. And the idol or the ism tonight is hedonism. Hedonism. There's a story told once of a lawyer up before a Lord Chief Justice. And the Lord Chief Justice used some very, very difficult legal phrase. And he said, I hope, Mr. So-and-so, that your clients understand that phrase. And the lawyer said, my lord, in Cullybackie, they talk of hardly anything else. So I expect that you talk of hardly anything else than hedonism. It's the Greek word for pleasure and it simply is, the dictionary tells us, the doctrine that pleasure is the chief good or the proper aim. The doctrine that pleasure is the chief good or proper aim or behavior based on this. What is pleasure? The dictionary tells us it is a feeling of satisfaction or joy. A feeling of satisfaction or joy. So hedonism, H-E-D-O-N-I-S-M. Hedonism is the doctrine that the main thing in life is to pursue feelings of satisfaction or joy. That is the chief good. That is the proper aim of man's life. It's a very old ism. The Greek philosopher Epicurus, many centuries before Christ, taught this doctrine of pleasure, although not quite so crudely as people sometimes think. Later on in Europe in the 18th century, for example, there was a philosopher called Jeremy Bentham. who was a hedonist who taught this doctrine. And it's the practical religion of millions of our fellow men today. We're surrounded by hedonists. We're surrounded by people who idolize and worship pleasure. So we want to look tonight at the God of pleasure. Our first heading then is the idolizing of pleasure. the idolizing of pleasure, taking pleasure, feelings of satisfaction or joy and making that into an idol. The first thing we need to say is that it is quite natural for human beings to want pleasure and it is quite right for us to want pleasure. Pain is unpleasant and there is something wrong with people who prefer pain to pleasure. It's right for us to want to be happy, to feel satisfied and joyful. But what people are doing today is far more than regarding pleasure as desirable. Man is worshipping pleasure. He is putting pleasure first, above everything else, above duty, above morality, above his responsibilities, above love, above everything. Man is thinking about pleasure constantly. People are making everything else subordinate to pleasure, they are living for pleasure. Man is making all his judgments in the light of the decrees of pleasure. Will this bring me pleasure or will it bring me pain? And by any standards, this makes pleasure a god. something we live for, something we worship, something we sacrifice for, something we're guided by, something that rules us and gives meaning to our lives. That's a God. Pleasure's a God for many people. And what makes the situation worse, people have always been like this, but what makes the situation worse is that in the West, at least, Our old century offers unparalleled opportunities for obtaining pleasure. In most of human history, people had to do 12 or 15 hours hard physical labor every day in order to gather enough food to stay alive. They hadn't much time for pleasure. That was for rich people. The struggle for existence. I meant that the temptation to seek pleasure was less, but our society in which we live is so affluent and our technology in the 20th century is so advanced and so readily available that people have open to them today an incredible range and variety of pleasures. more than ever before in human history. It is nearly possible for most of us to have or to do anything we want. That has never been the case before in human history for the mass of the population. It would be possible for any of us really to go to any country in the world We want it. If we saved long enough and want it, you can have whatever you want to eat. You can get food from any continent, any country, no matter how exotic, no matter how unusual, our technology, our society, our economic structure will bring it for you. You can pursue almost any pastime. Pastimes that in previous centuries were only open to the rich or to a few people, to a minority. Do whatever you want. No matter what hobby it is, no matter what pastime it is, you can have it. There's barely a limit. Of course, there are limits and constraints on us, but you understand the point I'm making. In a sense, there's barely a limit. If we want something, if we set our hearts on something, there's a very good chance that we can have it and that we can get it. Previous centuries, people might want things but they knew that never in their wildest dreams were they going to have them. A surf in England in the Middle Ages was never going to lie on the beach in Africa. Poor people were never going to travel, they were never going to have a holiday. All that has changed. The opportunities for pleasure are practically unlimited. And the God is gathering millions of people to his worship. And we could multiply illustrations all evening. When I was a boy at school, there were two sports shops in Belfast. If you wanted rugby boots or spiked running shoes, there were only two places in Belfast you could get them. How many sports shops are there in Belfast now? And you go into sports shops now, they're not just even selling sports equipment, they're selling leisure clothing. I was talking to the owner of a sports shop the other day, that's how he makes his money. Selling holiday relaxation clothing, a huge industry. How many travel agents are there? Go to any wee row of shops, practically. The amount of money that people are spending and going on holiday is colossal. Go into the supermarket. My family won't laugh at this illustration, but I'm never in a supermarket. But I'm sure if you did go into a supermarket and look at the cold storage cabinet, you would see an array of foods that is absolutely bewildering. You could have anything under the shining sun to take home and to eat. Or take the modern mindset. Pleasure is the chief good. Pleasure. And the chief evil is pain or boredom. These are to be avoided at all costs. We don't want to be bored. We don't want to be tired. People don't want anything that demands effort, or patience, or labour, or suffering. Absolutely not. Convenience foods. Instant foods. You go into the shop, you buy it, you pop it in the microwave, and you bring out this beautiful haute cuisine meal. There it is, ready. Now you unfreeze it. and there's a beautiful cake or something ready for you to eat. We're being told now that in schools children aren't going to be asked to read Dickens or Shakespeare because that's too difficult for them, it requires effort, so they're going to be given something simplified that they can immediately enjoy. Here's another abomination. Highlights. from your favourite composers. You know you like a particular aria in an opera. Now you don't want to have to listen to the whole opera to wait till your aria comes along so you get the best of Mozart. Pick out all the good bits and then you can listen to all the good bits together in an hour. You don't have to listen to all the boring bits in between. People don't want to do that. It has to be instant gratification and pleasure. And it's all in the interest of obtaining pleasure, as much pleasure as you can get and as quickly and painlessly and easily as possible. Or take human relationships. Remember, pleasure's the goal, pleasure's the God. And that means that human relationships exist to provide me with pleasure. That's what people think. So that if a relationship is not providing me with pleasure at this moment, I'm entitled to dump it. Or if I think I could get more pleasure from another relationship, My God tells me, you see, that I break this relationship and go to the other relationship because it will give me more pleasure. The God of pleasure says, ignore your vows, ignore your promises, ignore your responsibilities, break your partner's heart, don't worry about the cost to other people, the God must reign. You'll get more pleasure out of this. And you know that's happening. It has even infiltrated the church of Jesus Christ. What people want is immediate pleasure. Are the services bright and interesting? Are the activities of the church exciting? Will people walk in through the door and say, oh, this is really good? The church has to be user-friendly. We don't want anything dull. We don't want anything demanding. No, no. It all has to be relevant and exciting. It has to provide people with great instant pleasure. Otherwise, what value is it? And my friends, much of the church is running around like a chicken with its head cut off to serve this idol of giving people pleasure. And as I thought about it, the scripture reminded me that even our most spiritual exercises can be infected by the false god. I go on my knees and I pray that God will give me good health And why am I praying that prayer? Is it so that I may serve Him with all my strength and work for His Kingdom? Or so that I may enjoy the pleasure of good health and sport and activity my life? James 4.3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives. that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. There's a Christian praying. They're asking God for things. And what they're asking for is whatever they get, they're going to use it for pleasure. I wonder how many of our prayers are disqualified by that verse. You're asking with wrong motives. the idolizing of pleasure. Our Western world is drunk with the pursuit of pleasure. Let's come secondly to the destruction of pleasure. The dreadful irony of course is that when we idolize pleasure, that is the surest way to destroy it. To look for pleasure is to lose it. For example, I want the pleasure of physical Gratification. So whenever I am hungry, I eat. That's what the whole snack industry, that's a new industry in human history. We're just, we're so used to it, we don't realize that. This idea of eating something in between your breakfast or your lunch, or between your lunch and your tea. Millions of pounds. Feel a little bit hungry, oh, I'm hungry. Go and eat a chocolate biscuit. I gratify my body. So when I'm 50 years of age, I'm three stone overweight, I've got chronic indigestion, and I'm struggling against ill health for the rest of my life. I have sought pleasure for my body, and in doing that, I've destroyed pleasure for my body. By chasing after it, I've lost it. I insist, for example, on pleasurable relationships, and I end up with no relationships. I've broken them all and thrown them away. I delight in the pleasures of this world and I find at the end to my agony that I've got to leave them all. I make a bargain with the God of pleasure and I sell myself to the God of pleasure and I find that he doesn't keep his bargain. Proverbs 21 17, he who loves pleasure will become poor. You remember those verses in Ecclesiastes 2? I thought in my heart, come, I will test you with pleasure. I denied myself nothing. I refused my heart no pleasure. Everything was meaningless. You see, this is probably the most important thought in the sermon. Pleasure is a by-product. Try and remember that. Pleasure was never meant to be an end in itself. Pleasure is not to be pursued. Pleasure is not to be sought. Pleasure is not to be looked for, for its own sake. Pleasure is an addition. It's a bonus. It creeps up on us, unasked and unsought. The Christian writer C.S. Lewis called his spiritual autobiography surprised by joy or by pleasure. And he tells us in that book that for years he looked for pleasure and he couldn't find it. It was only when he forgot about pleasure and found God or God found him that he suddenly realized. that he had pleasure. He was surprised by it. It crept up on him. Pleasure is too frail to be a god. It will collapse, it will break, it will destroy us. And you can see it if we time this evening, we could show how it works. How people lose interest, first of all, in natural, simple pleasures. Go to some of the modern yuppies living in our general area. If we were to tell them that my wife and I, one of our great pleasures, one of our greatest pleasures is going out for a walk. And they would look at you as if you were a man. You don't have to spend money, you don't have to travel, you don't have to go far away just to go out for a walk. or sitting with a cup of tea with a friend, or a nice piece of brown bed with honey on it. Pleasures, simple pleasures, God-given pleasures, natural pleasures, but when people start seeking pleasure, that's no good. It has to be more spicy, more exotic, more technological, more complicated, more out of the way, more unnatural. And ordinary pleasures become tame and bland, and people want the lust of the forgiven. And then the pleasure gets an unbreakable grip on the addict. Titus 3.3, Paul says, at one time, we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. And at last they turn to dust and ashes, and the days of trouble come, and the years approach when we say, I find no pleasure in them. We sometimes wonder, how much real, real pleasure is there in our pleasure-mad world? if you were to go to some of these parties where the jetset are enjoying themselves, if you were to go to some of these monster events that the young people are at and say, look, get a young person aside and cut through all the nonsense and the waffle and say, look, tell me honestly, are you really enjoying yourself? They don't look as if they are. Everybody wants pleasure. So few people seem to have it. That brings us lastly to the obtaining of pleasure. Pleasure isn't wrong. It's a gift from God. He wants his children to have it. Our God does not want us to suffer. He wants us to know joy and satisfaction and deep pleasure. So how do we obtain pleasure? true pleasure. The cardinal rule is this, we obtain it by forgetting about it, by forgetting about it. He who loses his life will save it. And that principle applies to the obtaining of pleasure. When I began to play the piano, I had a choice between instant and long-term pleasure. I had a good ear and I could actually pick out a tune with my own fingers without bothering about music and that was very pleasurable because within a few minutes I was playing something on the piano while my sister was practicing scales. Now who wants to practice scales? That's boring, that's tedious, that's pain, that's not pleasure. So I opted for the instant pleasure. And I played away while she was playing the scales. And I'm still playing away the same little tunes that I began to play away when I was seven or eight years of age, and I haven't advanced. And my pleasure in playing the piano is very, very, very limited. While those who practice and work and forget about pleasure and devote themselves to the instrument and the drudgery of working at it and learning it and turn their backs on pleasure, they now have pleasure. And it's true for sport. If you want to be any good at anything, You have to forget at the beginning about enjoying it, you have to work, you have to train, you have to practice, you have to do, I don't care what your sport is, you have to do it over and over and over and over again. What I'm saying is we must be interested in something for its own sake. No matter whether there is pleasure in it or not. then the pleasure will come. It's the same with relationships, you see. We're to love people not for the pleasure they bring us. We're to love them for themselves. We're to be interested in the person. We're to love the person and give ourselves to the person. And then if that person grows old, and plain. If that person suffers a disabling disease, if that person is crippled or laid aside, if that person has a disagreeable day, at that moment they do not provide us with pleasure. That doesn't matter. That doesn't matter. That's not the basis of our relationship. It's deeper. It's truer. And my friends, that is how true pleasure comes. By forgetting about it. By forgetting about it. We're to teach our children that in all of life there is no gain without pain. That pleasure deferred is pleasure doubled. That at school They can't expect to be excited and interested all the time. They have to knuckle down and do some hard work. And if they apply themselves, there will be satisfaction and there will be pleasure. And we're to teach them that also about Christianity and about the Church. The Church of Christ does not exist to interest us. It does not exist to excite us or to please us. It exists to teach us about God. So I would say to parents, if your young people come to you and say, the church is boring. Don't crumple up. Don't panic. Oh dear, they're finding the church boring. We must make the church interesting. Don't do that, don't do that. That's worshiping the God of pleasure. Tell them to give themselves to God and to the study of God's Word and to apply themselves to that. And to give the effort to that that they do to their hobbies, their sport, their pastime. And if they'll do that, then they will find a pleasure that they could only have imagined. We must try to resist in ourselves and in our young people this babyish immature urge for instant pleasure. And ultimately it brings us back, inevitably, to the Christian gospel. Jesus turned his back on pleasure. He came and suffered and died on the cross, and by his suffering he came to pleasure. For the joy that was sent before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame. And the Gospel calls us to repent, to die, to turn away from self and from the pursuit of pleasure. And the Gospel calls us to give ourselves to God, serving Him, living for Him, suffering for Him, holding nothing back, making God our chief desire and our chief goal. Our main problem with the God of pleasure is that He can't give it. He can't give enough. Yet we're told that with the true God, There are pleasures forevermore. And I say to all of you this evening, pleasure is found only in God and from God. And if perhaps tonight some of you are looking for pleasure somewhere else, I would simply say that all history is against you, and all human experience is against you, and the Word of God is against you, and you know in your own heart that it's foolish. Your own heart is against you. This is a A delicate thing. It's a gossamer thing. It's a will-o'-the-wisp. And if you chase it, you'll lose it. We've got to seek God and let Him give it to us. Amen. Let us pray. Forgive us, O Lord, for our short-sighted, unbelieving love of ease, our unwillingness to take a long view, our childish desire for instant gratification. The baby wants his comforter. Lord, often we are like that baby. We want something that will immediately stop our discomfort. Heavenly Father, how we praise you that with you is true, clean, lasting, liberating pleasure. But oh God, help us to see that you are greater than all your gifts. Help us to love you for your sake, because of who you are, and to serve you. And so we pray that we may know your pleasure. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.