Lesson 3
Seeking Meaning & Happiness from Pleasure
I. Man’s Search for Meaning and Happiness
A. Men today are searching for meaning and for happiness
and those searches are related.
1. Both are related to man’s unhappiness.
a) We search for meaning to make our unhappiness
worthwhile. If we can find meaning to our lives, then we
have a reason for continuing despite our unhappiness.
(1) It is said that he who has a “why” to live can bear
almost any “how.” (Nietzsche)
b) We search for lasting happiness, of course, to relieve
our unhappiness.
c) In our search for meaning, we are looking for a reason
to continue despite our disease. In our search for
happiness we are looking for a cure for our disease.
2. It is unhappiness that makes men start looking for
something beyond themselves. Many times that search leads
men away from God – but it can also lead men toward God.
B. We are all on a road. The only question is what is
guiding us on that road.
1. Our thoughts have been described as the rudder of our
life. Where we are on the road to happiness and meaning is
a result of the sum total of our past thoughts and
decisions.
2. So the question is – what is the basis for our
decisions?
a) Power?
b) Money?
c) Pleasure?
d) God?
3. Pleasure has been a fundamental motivation for men since
creation. Many men today are totally driven by their
pleasures.
II. Solomon’s Experiment with Pleasure
A. Solomon’s Question: What can I do that will make me
happy all of my life? What can I do that will give my life
meaning?
B. His Experiment: He gave himself completely to the
pursuit of pleasure.
1. Ecclesiastes 2:1-3
a) 1I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with
mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure”; but surely, this also was
vanity. 2I said of laughter—“Madness!”; and of mirth, “What
does it accomplish?” 3I searched in my heart how to gratify
my flesh with wine, while guiding my heart with wisdom, and
how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good
for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of
their lives.
2. Ecclesiastes 2:10-11
a) Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did
not withhold my heart from any pleasure, For my heart
rejoiced in all my labor; And this was my reward from all
my labor. 11 Then I looked on all the works that my hands
had done And on the labor in which I had toiled; And indeed
all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no
profit under the sun.
3. Ecclesiastes 2:24-25
a) Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and
drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor.
This also, I saw, was from the hand of God. 25For who can
eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I?
4. Ecclesiastes 8:15
a) 15So I commended enjoyment, because a man has nothing
better under the sun than to eat, drink, and be merry; for
this will remain with him in his labor all the days of his
life which God gives him under the sun.
5. First Kings 11:3
a) “And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three
hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart.”
6. First Kings 4:22-23
a) “Now Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty kors of
fine flour, sixty kors of meal, 23ten fatted oxen, twenty
oxen from the pastures, and one hundred sheep, besides
deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fatted fowl.”
b) These provisions for one day would have been enough to
feed 10,000 people!
C. What is pleasure?
1. Our definition may be the same that courts have used to
pornography – they can’t define it, but they know it when
they see it!
2. Pleasure has a subjective element.
a) What is pleasurable to one person, may be excruciating
to someone else.
3. Pleasure has a voluntary element.
a) What we do for pleasure, we do not under compulsion. We
do pleasurable things simply because we want to – not
because we have to.
b) Of course, this element can be changed when pleasure
leads to addiction.
4. Pleasure has a pleasurable element (naturally!).
a) It is what you do when you do what you like.
b) It includes both sensual pleasures and intellectual
pleasures – and both can be equally dangerous.
(1) Ephesians 2:3 speaks of “the desires of the flesh and
of the mind.”
5. Pleasure is consumptive.
a) It consumes our resources without adding anything new.
b) What we do for pleasure, we generally do for no material
reward.
c) It consumes our time, our energy, and our money.
(1) Thoreau: “That man is richest whose pleasures are the
cheapest.”
d) Pleasure consumes our resources and produces no lasting
benefit. Clearly pleasure is something we must watch very
carefully and keep in check.
6. Pleasure is necessary.
a) The monks and the Puritans who created cults based on
discomfort and the denial of all worldly pleasures.
b) God created this world to be inhabited, and he created
the pleasures that are in this world. He created man to
have senses so that man could enjoy the pleasures that God
created.
c) Pleasure is part of God’s plan for man – both earthly
pleasure and eternal pleasure.
d) But pleasures must be enjoyed as God intended for them
to be enjoyed.
e) The blessing of pleasure becomes a curse when we idolize
pleasure.
f) Man’s problem is that he tries to make pleasure deliver
something it was never intended to provide. He tries to
make pleasure take the place of God.
D. What does the Bible have to say about the perversion of
pleasure?
1. The love of pleasure consumes our resources.
a) (Proverbs 21:17) “He who loves pleasure will be a poor
man; He who loves wine and oil will not be rich.”
2. Those given to pleasure have false security.
a) (Isaiah 47:8-9) “Therefore hear this now, you who are
given to pleasures, Who dwell securely, Who say in your
heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me; I shall
not sit as a widow, Nor shall I know the loss of children’;
But these two things shall come to you in a moment, in one
day: The loss of children, and widowhood.”
3. The pleasure of life can choke the word.
a) (Luke 8:14) “Now the ones that fell among thorns are
those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with
cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to
maturity.”
4. Those living in pleasure are dead while they live.
a) (1 Timothy 5:6) “But she who lives in pleasure is dead
while she lives.”
5. One cannot serve two masters.
a) (2 Timothy 3:4) “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers
of God”
6. Pleasure is something than man can serve.
a) (Titus 3:3) “For we ourselves were also once foolish,
disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures,
living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.”
7. What we count as pleasure will effect us eternally.
a) (2 Peter 2:12-13) “But these, like natural brute beasts
made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things
they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their
own corruption, 13and will receive the wages of
unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure to carouse
in the daytime.”
8. Wars come from our desires for pleasure.
a) (James 4:1) “Where do wars and fights come from among
you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that
war in your members?”
E. How is happiness related to pleasure?
1. Men do not pursue happiness for meaning as much as they
pursue pleasure for happiness.
2. Happiness, like pleasure, is hard to define.
a) The Roman philosopher Varro came up with 288 different
definitions of happiness.
3. We pursue pleasure because we are unhappy.
a) We often refer to our pleasures as diversions or
escapes, and those terms are very telling. From what are we
seeking a diversion? From what are we trying to escape?
(1) If we were truly happy, then why would we seek a
diversion? We seek diversions because we are not happy.
(2) Thus, the person with the most diversions and
amusements is not the happiest person – but the unhappiest.
And this is exactly what Solomon discovered.
(a) Isn’t is interesting that those with riches and power
seek more diversions than those without.
(3) Pascal – “The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that
he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.”
b) Why do so many pursue pleasure rather than other things
to relieve their unhappiness?
(1) Pleasure is the simplest and most obvious answer to the
problem of unhappiness.
(2) Solomon also tried wisdom, but pursuing wisdom is
difficult. Pleasure is the easy road, and hence the most
traveled.
4. What makes men unhappy?
a) Men become unhappy when they stop and thinks about their
lives – and particularly their deaths.
(1) Death is a major theme in the book of Ecclesiastes and
a major source of the vanity that Solomon discovered.
(2) Whatever happiness man may find on this earth is
temporary – there is no lasting happiness on this earth
because everyone on this earth will die and this earth
itself will be destroyed.
(3) Our insistence on permanence is the source of our
unhappiness. We desire permanence and cannot obtain it.
(a) Even when we find some temporary happiness we are
filled with anxiety because we know it will not last.
(b) We want every pleasure to last and we work to prolong
it. We horde them and ration them and fret over them.
b) This unhappiness is a good thing!
(1) Men without faith in God should be unhappy!
(2) Men without God should be anxious about death!
(3) Those in the MOST danger are those who are without God
yet who are happy and do not fear death. They are like a
small child playing with a loaded handgun.
c) What can we say about those who serve their own
pleasures and live without any thought of God?
(1) One thing we can say is that they are logical!
(a) First Corinthians 15:32 – “If the dead do not rise,
‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!’”
(b) If there is no God (as they believe) then why not serve
pleasure? Go for the gusto and then go to the grave.
(2) And God’s view of such people? They are fools!
(a) Remember the rich fool in Luke 12:19-20 – “And I will
say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many
years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.” ’ 20“But
God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be
required of you; then whose will those things be which you
have provided?’”
(b) Isn’t that exactly what Solomon concluded! The pursuit
of pleasure is vanity – it is empty and meaningless. Thus,
those who pursue it are fools.
5. Why is pleasure so dangerous?
a) Pleasure is a sedative!
(1) Pleasure deadens our spiritual nerves and muffles our
spiritual alarm system.
(2) Those who live in pleasure long enough eventually
become completely deadened. They cannot be reached with the
one thing they need.
(3) Nothing is more difficult than to grow spiritually when
comfortable.
b) Pleasure is boring!
(1) More precisely, pleasure becomes boring.
(2) We soon need more and more pleasure, and this
escalation leads to addiction.
(3) We become the slave of our pleasures, rather than the
slave of Christ.
(4) First Corinthians 6:12
(a) “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not
helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be
brought under the power of any.”
(5) Ecclesiastes 6:7
(a) “All the labor of man is for his mouth, yet the
appetite is not filled.”
c) Pleasure is easy!
(1) Pleasure is dangerous and pleasure is easy – which is a
very bad combination. If the path to God is the narrowest
way, the path of pleasure must be the widest – and many
there be that find it!
(2) Pleasure is Satan’s favorite bait. He catches more
people with it than with any other.
d) Pleasure is self centered.
(1) John Wesley: “But worse than all my foes I find the
enemy within.”
(2) Even when pleasures are enjoyed in accordance with
God’s will, they are still focused on the self – and even
more so when we pursue pleasure apart from God. That focus
away from God (even momentarily) makes pleasure very
dangerous.
F. Can man find happiness?
1. God created man to enjoy earthly pleasures, but earthly
pleasure is a poor substitute compared with the joy
available in Christ!
a) Augustine: “Man cannot live without joy. Therefore, when
he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that
he become addicted to carnal pleasures.”
2. God has promised us eternal happiness, and to obtain
that eternal happiness we must not be guided by our
pleasures while on this earth.
a) Psalm 16:11
(1) You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is
fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures
forevermore.
b) C. S. Lewis: “Our heavenly father has provided many
delightful inns for us along our journey, but he takes
great care to see that we do not mistake any of them for
home.”
3. Yet God also wants us to be happy while on that journey
– and he knows how we can obtain that earthly happiness.
a) Happiness and holiness are linked.
(1) The Beatitudes have been called the code for Christian
happiness.
(2) The gospel is good news – and good news should make us
happy.
b) The truly happy man is the man who can answer the
question, “Is it well with your soul?”
c) Happiness does not come from pursuit of pleasure, but
from pursuit of God.
(1) Chesterton: “The man who finds most pleasure for
himself is often the man who least hunts for it.”
d) This is not the shallow superficial happiness that comes
from the pursuit of pleasure, but a lasting happiness that
remains through all aspects of our lives.
4. God’s prescription for happiness is paradoxical – and
exactly the opposite of what Solomon tried!
a) Recall Ecclesiastes 2:10.
(1) Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I
did not withhold my heart from any pleasure.
b) Matthew 16:24-26.
(1) If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25“For
whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever
loses his life for My sake will find it. 26“For what profit
is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his
own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
c) Jesus’ prescription for happiness is self-denial!
(1) By contrast, Solomon denied himself nothing!
(2) All men are filled with desires, and one of things they
desire is pleasure. But men have also been given the truth,
and so all men are faced with a choice – they either must
conform their desire to the truth, or they must conform the
truth to their desires.
(a) Paul talks in 2 Thessalonians 2 about those who “did
not receive the love of the truth, that they might be
saved.”
(b) He says in verses 11-12: “And for this reason God will
send them strong delusion, that they should believe the
lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the
truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
(3) True happiness is based on being set free from the very
things that we think we need the most.
(a) Mark 10:21-22 – “Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him,
and said to him, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell
whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have
treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow
Me.” 22But he was sad at this word, and went away
sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”
(b) Why did he leave unhappy? He still had all of his money
– he hadn’t lost a penny! He left unhappy because he had
turned his back on what he needed most of all – Jesus
Christ.