Pathway to Victory

Speaker 1

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Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast.

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Now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 2

Hi, this is Robert Jeffress and I'm.

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Glad to study God's Word with you every day.

Speaker 2

This Bible teaching program on today's edition of Pathway to Victory.

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The key word is to be balanced. We need to remember God made us not only spirit, we are made body, soul and spirit. And that means we have certain natural drives toward pleasure that are God given desires.

Speaker 1

Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress.

Have you ever sat down to watch an hour's worth of television and ended up staying there the whole night? Or maybe scooped yourself a bowl of ice cream only to eat the entire carton?

Well, today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Jeffress warns that pleasure can become addictive. But first, let's take a minute to hear some important ministry updates.

Speaker 2

Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. I'm thrilled you decided to join us as we continue the practical series called Coming Home to the Father who Loves You.

What if I told you that the very gifts God designed for your enjoyment could become the chains that bind you? Well, on today's program, we're exploring a sobering truth. Satan doesn't tempt us with obviously evil things. Instead, he twists the good gifts from God and makes them toxic. And then, after we've engaged in these so-called harmless indulgences, the pleasure reveals a dark side that few Christians recognize until it's too late.

In this study, I want to show you the biblical balance between enjoying God's blessings and falling into spiritual slavery. The line between blessing and bondage is thinner than you think.

As a complement to this study, I've written a book for you and your family. It's called Coming Home to the Father who Loves You. Perhaps you have a prodigal in your life, a child, grandchild, or another loved one who has wandered from their Christian faith. This book can create an open door to invite them back home.

My book is yours today when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. It'll arrive at your home with a special prayer card conveniently printed to display at home or tuck into the pages of your Bible. It contains a prayer for your prodigal. More details on these resources will come later in today's program.

But right now, let's open our Bibles to 1 Corinthians, chapter 9. I titled today's message Addicted to Pleasure.

Speaker 3

In 549 B.C., the Persian king Cyrus had one goal: to capture the strongly fortified city of Sardis in Asia Minor. There was only one thing that stood between Cyrus and achieving his goal: the fact that the city of Sardis was located on a 1500-foot plateau, surrounded on every side by steep cliffs, with no way of access to the city. That's why the residents of Sardis did not lie awake at night worrying about a foreign invasion. They were safe, or so they thought. But Cyrus was resolved to capture the city. He offered a prize to any soldier who could figure out how to penetrate the city of Sardis. A soldier named Hyrodes accepted the challenge.

Day after day, Hyrodes would stand at the base of that plateau, looking up at the city and observing the soldiers marching around. In his search for a way to penetrate the fortress, one day he saw a soldier in the Sardinian garrison accidentally drop his helmet over the cliff. The soldier went down a passageway on one of the cliffs, retrieved his helmet, and then climbed back up into the city. That night, Hyrodes led his soldiers up that same passageway into the city, and Sardis fell. The Sardians lost that city for two reasons: they overestimated their immunity from enemy attack and underestimated the resolve of their enemy to destroy them.

The same thing is true for Christians who fall into spiritual defeat. I believe one reason so many Christians fall is that they overestimate their own immunity from Satan's attacks. They think that because they've had a miraculous conversion experience, received miraculous answers to prayer in the past, or been successful in saying no to temptation, they are somehow permanently immune from Satan's attacks. Remember the words we discussed in 1 Corinthians 10:12? Paul said, "Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall." Don't ever overestimate your immunity from Satan's attack.

An equally fatal mistake is to underestimate our enemy's resolve to destroy us. We saw several weeks ago that we all have an enemy, an adversary, the Devil. He has a method, a scheme, a blueprint—with your name at the top of it. It is a detailed plan to bring you down. In his plan is included a strategy to destroy your marriage, your children, your witness for Christ, and your relationship with God. On Sunday nights, we're using the story of the prodigal son as an analogy for how we wander away from our heavenly Father and find ourselves in the far country. What caused the son to leave the security of his father's home? It's the same thing that Satan uses to lure us away from God: preoccupation with money, a thirst for pleasure, and a drive for success. Money, pleasure, success—Satan doesn't need any more original ideas; the old ones work just fine.

We saw in the last two weeks how God can use a preoccupation with money to sever our relationship with Him. Tonight, we're going to talk about pleasure. Let's first discuss what the Bible says about pleasure. Let me enter this discussion by asking you a question: Is it wrong to ever choose watching a television program over reading your Bible? Is it wrong to spend time flipping through your favorite catalog instead of flipping through the Scriptures or praying? Is it wrong to dream about your next vacation instead of dreaming about the wonders of heaven? Is pleasure wrong?

The fact is, a lot of Christians go to one of two extremes when it comes to this whole idea of pleasure. Some people, tired of their own slothfulness, laziness, and lack of spiritual discipline, decide to go on a hyper-intensive plan to become disciplined in their lives. They say, "From this moment on, no more sweets, no more watching TV, no more reading anything except Christian books, no more talking to people on the telephone, and praying." Instead, they are going to become disciplined. This hyper-intensive prayer of discipline lasts a couple of weeks, a couple of days, or maybe even a couple of hours, and then people give up. They realize they can't do that, so they go to the other extreme. They say, "Well, if I can't discipline myself, what's the use of even trying?" and they give themselves to a life completely focused on pleasure.

The key word is balance. We need to remember that God made us not only spirit; we are made of body, soul, and spirit. This means we have certain natural drives toward pleasure that are God-given desires. Let's look at what the Bible says about this whole issue of pleasure in Ecclesiastes 9. Solomon spends the first opening verses talking about the inevitability of death. He said, "We're like the animals in one way: we're all going to die. Nobody gets out of this world alive." He talks about the inevitability of death, and therefore, what does he say we ought to do, given that we're all going to die? This blows some people away. Solomon says, "Go then, eat your bread in happiness and drink your wine with a cheerful heart, for God has already approved your works." If you know you're going to die, you know what the Bible says you ought to do: you better enjoy the life God has given you right now.

Now, again, there is a need for balance. Yes, you better make sure your relationship with God is right. Yes, you better make sure you've invested in eternity. But you also need to enjoy this life because it's the only one you get. You only get one life on this planet anyway. As wonderful as heaven is going to be, there are some things you won't be able to do in heaven that you're able to do right now. The Bible says we are to do more than just endure the life we have here on earth; God wants us to enjoy it.

You might say, "Aren't we supposed to work as well?" Yes, Solomon talks about work, but in Ecclesiastes 2:22, he says, "For what does a man get in all of his labor and his striving with which he labors under the sun? Because all of his days his task is painful and grievous. This too is vanity. There is nothing better for a man than to eat and to drink and to tell himself that his labor is good. This also I have seen, that it is from the hand of God." See, God wired us in such a way that we're not to work 14 hours a day, seven days a week, just grinding it out. God wants us to enjoy the life He's given us here on earth.

But the Bible also sounds some warnings about pleasure, especially about becoming a lover of pleasure. In Proverbs 21:17, jot it down, it says, "He who loves pleasure will become a poor man." Or in Luke 8:14, "And the seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard; they go their way, and they are choked with worries and riches and the pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity." Or in 2 Timothy 3:2, "For men in the last days will become lovers of self, of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers." And in verse 4, "Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God." Again, pleasure is like money; it is neither good nor evil in and of itself. But the Bible says we need to be careful about pleasure.

In fact, tonight we're going to see from Scripture that pleasure, as good as it can be at times, is wrong in three specific cases in our lives. First of all, pleasure is wrong when it is in excess. A few years ago, when I was pastoring in Wichita Falls, we were going through a particularly busy and stressful time. We were gearing up for a building campaign, and I decided we were going to do something fun as a family one weekend. I said, "You know, we need to get out of Dodge." So we loaded up the car and came to Dallas, checking into a very nice hotel. That Friday afternoon, after we unpacked, we went to one of our favorite malls, forgot our diets, and had a great Mexican meal of sour cream enchiladas. Then we went to a late movie that night, slept in the next morning, walked to the store, bought a few things we didn't need but just wanted, went to another movie, and came home Saturday night exhausted and ready for Sunday.

Was there anything wrong with that? No, except for this: when the next weekend rolled around, guess what I wanted to do? The only problem is neither my wallet nor my schedule would allow me to do that. Pleasure can be addictive, and that's the problem with pleasure. There is nothing wrong with pleasure, but it has to be in balance. Here is the balance that God gives us between work and pleasure, found in Exodus 29:10. God said, "Six days you shall labor and do all of your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord our God. In it, you shall not do any work." Of course, Jesus said, "Man was not made for the Sabbath; the Sabbath was made for man." The Sabbath is a gift from God to remind us of the schedule we need to work: work, work, work, work, work, rest. Six days on, one day off. That is God's plan for how we are to do our business.

Notice, by the way, it doesn't say we are to work, rest, rest, rest, work, work, rest, rest, rest, rest, work. Work doesn't work that way. God says, "Six days you shall work; the seventh shall be a Sabbath." There is supposed to be a balance in what we do. Let me say a word about retirement. This whole idea that you work for 30 years of your life or so, so that you can spend the final 20 or 30 years doing nothing except entertaining yourself is dangerous. God's plan to keep you spiritually strong is to keep you productive and involved in your local church. I don't care whether you're retired or not; if you are gone from the church more often than you're here, you're putting your spiritual life in danger. Whatever your schedule is, God says we are not to forsake the assembling together of ourselves. That verse doesn't just apply to people who are not retired or under the age of 55.

Pleasure is wrong in our lives, first of all, when it is in excess. Secondly, pleasure is wrong when it becomes our life focus. I remember a period in my life when I was going through a dry spot spiritually. I started memorizing Colossians Chapter 3, which begins with, "Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on the earth." During that time, as I was studying and memorizing Colossians 3, I read a writer who said, "If you want to know what the focus of your life really is, ask yourself these three questions: What do you talk about most often? What do you think about most often? And if somebody were to give you a check for $20,000, how would you spend it?" Your answers to those questions—what do I talk about most often? What do I think about most often? How would I spend $20,000?—will tell you what the real focus of your life is.

Peter said it this way in 2 Peter 2:19: "For by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved." If there is something in your life, it may be a TV program or a hobby, that is at the focus of your life, it has become an idol to you. Your pleasure is out of balance whenever it becomes your life focus.

And number three, and most obviously, pleasure is wrong when it violates the teaching of God's Word. Up to this point, as we've talked about pleasure, we haven't discussed sexual immorality. But I want you to see for the next few moments that there is a relationship between becoming a lover of pleasure and pleasure in excess. Whether it's sporting events on TV or sour cream enchiladas, there is a relationship between having pleasure out of balance in your life and eventually falling into sexual immorality.

Remember Luke chapter 15? It tells us that the prodigal son spent all of his money. He got his share of the estate, and it says he went out and spent his money on loose living. Whenever we hear the phrase "loose living" in our language, we think of immorality. A person is loose morally, but that's not what the word means. In Greek, the word means simply wasteful and extravagant living. In fact, it's the same word that James uses in James 5:5 when he says, "You have lived luxuriously on earth and led a life of wanton or wasteful pleasure."

Now, there's no hint at that point when he went into the far country that he did anything immoral. He just had loose, luxurious, wasteful, extravagant living. But here's what's interesting: in verse 30, after the son has come home, listen to what the older brother said about this younger brother. He said to his dad, "But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with harlots, you fattened the calf for him." In other words, we get more insight into what he did out in the far country. Not only did he live a luxurious life, but that life, with a lack of discipline, eventually led him to sexual immorality.

What I'm saying to you is there is a relationship between pleasure and excess. Even if it's nothing that's bad or wrong, not being able to control your pleasure can eventually lead to immorality. There is a relationship between a lack of discipline, a focus on pleasure, and sexual immorality. By the way, you see that in the life of King David as well. When we think about David, the one episode that comes to mind is, of course, the episode with Bathsheba. But I want you to see from Scripture what led to David's fall into sexual immorality: it was his lack of personal discipline.

2 Samuel chapter 11 opens with these words: "Then it happened in the spring, at a time when the kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the sons of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But here's the key: David stayed at Jerusalem." As king, David should have been out with his men, fighting side by side with them. But I imagine David said to himself, "You know, I've already paid my dues. I've spent time out with those men. I am tired of lugging around this heavy armor in the hot Palestinian sun. I'm going to let somebody else do it now. After all, I'm king, and it's good to be the king. I think I'll just stay at home and let somebody else do the work."

Because he neglected his responsibility, he was home when he shouldn't have been. And of course, it was that evening, as we see in verse 4, that David looked across the way and saw Bathsheba, the wife of one of his men, bathing on the roof next door. 2 Samuel 11:4 says, "And David sent messengers and took her, and when she came to him, he lay with her. And when she had purified herself from her uncleanness, she returned to her house." It was David's focus on pleasure, not working too hard, and a lack of discipline that eventually led to his fall into sexual immorality.

Once you say yes to even harmless things, once you say yes to them in excess, you are training yourself to become indulgent, and you're setting yourself up for sexual immorality. I mentioned a few weeks ago Oscar Wilde, the famous playwright and dramatist whose life ended in disgrace. I want you to listen to his own personal testimony about how his desire for pleasure became his downfall. Oscar Wilde wrote, "The gods have given me almost everything, but I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in search of new sensations. What paradox was to me in the sphere of thought perversity became to me in the sphere of fashion. I grew careless of the lives of other people. I took pleasure where it pleased me and passed on. I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber, one has someday to cry aloud from the housetop. I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain of my soul, and I did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me, and I ended in horrible disgrace."

How can we keep a preoccupation with pleasure from severing our relationship with God and causing our lives to end in horrible disgrace? Grace. Well, next week, we're going to look at some very practical ways to develop discipline in a message I'm calling "Lessons from the Pentathlon."

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Someone is listening to Pathway to Victory at this very moment, and God's spirit is prompting you to make some dramatic life-changing decisions. Could it be you? You've been addicted to pleasure, and you know it's causing damage to your soul. It's wrecking your relationships, and worst of all, it's put a barrier between you and God. Isn't it time to come home to the Father who loves you? He's ready and waiting to forgive you and to restore your relationship with Him. Let me urge you to take your first step today.

I've written a book called *Coming Home to the Father Who Loves You*. Whether you're the prodigal running from God or someone you love is far from home, the biblical principles in this book will guide you. This isn't a pamphlet. My book is more than 200 pages in length, with a study guide at the end that includes thought-provoking questions for group study. A copy is yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. It will arrive at your home with a prayer card I've written for you.

It's conveniently printed to fit into your pocket or purse, and it's called *A Prayer for Your Prodigal*. Thank you for giving generously to Pathway to Victory. It might surprise you to learn how many people benefit from these daily programs, but conversely, how few actually support this nonprofit effort with their contributions. Our times make this urgent, so thanks for stepping forward today with your much-needed gift. God will deploy your generosity to pierce the darkness with the light of His Word.

Here's David with all the details.

Speaker 1

A copy of the book *Coming Home to the Father Who Loves You* by Dr. Robert Jeffress is yours today. When you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, request your copy by calling 867-or-give-online@ptv.org now. We regularly hear from listeners who say that the teaching on Pathway to Victory has really become a trusted source of biblical wisdom and encouragement in their spiritual journey.

And with your generous gift today, you'll also receive a prayer for your prodigal. It's a meaningful reminder to stay committed in prayer for the one in your life whose drift to again. Call 866-999-2965 or go online to ptv.org. You could also write to P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. That's P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, TX 75222.

I'm David J. Mullins. Listen again Thursday when Dr. Jeffress shares a message called *Lessons from the Pentathlon*, right here on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Experience the breathtaking majesty of America's last frontier on the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska.

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