You Can Experience Pleasures Forevermore! Series

I’m going to start this message stating the obvious, in a very emphatic manner, and I’m doing it this way because I believe that in essence I’m engaging in spiritual warfare this morning. I’m taking out the sword of the spirit as it were, to combat what our the enemy is promoting in people’s live. And then I will follow it up with a statement with an argument that is intended to state perhaps what is not so obvious to us:

Here it is:

The devil is a liar!

Jesus said of him that…

John 8:44b When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. -NIV

Ok, now that I’ve done that, let me present to you an argument that is not so obvious to us, though it should be.

His #1 lie – God is a killjoy!

Let me express a few variations of that..

a) Christianity is a drag!

b) To be a Christian means you are to live a deprived life!

c) God’s will is to withhold from you a good life!

d) If you live for God it will be a pleasureless life!

e) If you follow his rules, you will miss out on true enjoyment in life!

f) Therefore don’t commit your life to God, if you want to be happy!

g) Make a deathbed confession, but don’t commit your life to Him now!

h) For is you give your life to Him right here and now, you will miss out on all THE FUN!!

You know what I say to that?

LIE!!

You may be thinking, where did you get this idea? Is that in the bible? It is! Essentially it is the oldest lie in the book, because it is the original lie, that when believed it threw all of God’s creation out of kilter, if I could put it that way! I’ll give you the abbreviated version. Many of you now the story:

Genesis 3:1 The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: “Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?”

2-3 The Woman said to the serpent, “Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It’s only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘Don’t eat from it; don’t even touch it or you’ll die.’”

4-5 The serpent told the Woman, “You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.” – The Message

Genesis 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it -NIV

Genesis 3:7 Immediately the two of them did “see what’s really going on”—saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves. 8 When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from God– The Message

Point: And the fruit wasn’t very pleasant at that point was it?

Point that I am making is a point that Jesus makes in one statement very clearly for us to see:

John 10:10 The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it in abundance [to the full, till it overflows].-AMPC

And because unfortunately the majority of people do not believe this. What the devil leads people to do is too lead people to indulge in…

Hebrews 11:25b the pleasures of sin for a season -KJV

Hebrews 11:25b the fleeting pleasures of sin. -NLT

I’ll use a graphic illustration and move to a more familiar applicable one. He will lead them use illegal drugs like crack cocaine, and they will take a hit off that crack pipe for a fleeting moment of pleasure, only to experience the need to take another one in a few minutes in order to experience that fleeting pleasure again and again and again until they become addicted, and place themselves and their lives, their loved ones in a place of financial ruin.

Or to go out to the local watering hole in order to get drunk, to “tie one on.” Downing drink after drink after drink, until the become inebriated, only to wake up the next morning with a terrible hangover, seeing that the usage of alcohol is not so pleasurable anymore.