Pleasure

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Satan Promises the Best But Pays With the Worst

“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Romans 6:23) 

“Satan promises the best, but pays with the worst! He promises honor and pays with disgrace. He promises pleasure and pays with pain. He promises profit and pays with loss. He promises life and pays with death. But God pays as He promises all His payments are made in pure gold!”

“You have made known to me the path of life! You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand!” (Psalm 16:11)

– Thomas Brooks

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Live Near to God

“Prayer is the link that connects earth with Heaven! Live near to God, and all things will appear little to you in comparison with eternal realities!

When you gaze upon the sun–it makes everything else dark. When you taste honey–it makes everything else tasteless. Likewise, when your soul feeds on Jesus–it takes away the sweetness of all earthly things–pride, pleasure, fleshly lusts, all lose their sweetness.

‘Let us fix our eyes on Jesus!’ (Hebrews 12:2). Keep a continued gaze! So will the world be crucified to you–and you unto the world!”

– Robert Murray M’Cheyne

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He That Has Him Wants Nothing

“True grace will enable the soul to sit down satisfied with the naked enjoyments of Christ. The enjoyment of Christ without honor will satisfy the soul; the enjoyment of Christ without riches, the enjoyment of Christ without pleasures, and without smiles of creatures, will content and satisfy the soul. ‘It is enough; Joseph is alive’ (Gen. 45:28). So saith a gracious soul, though honor is not, and riches are not, and health is not, and friends are not, it is enough that Christ is, that he reigns, conquers, and triumphs. Christ is the pot of manna, the cruse of oil, a bottomless ocean of all comfort, content, and satisfaction. He that hath him wants nothing; he that wants him enjoys nothing.”

– Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, p.161

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Your Life Preaches All The Week

“Study universal holiness of life. Your whole usefulness depends on this, for your sermons last but an hour or two–but your life preaches all the week!

If Satan can only make a covetous minister a lover of praise, of pleasure, of good eating–he has ruined your ministry.

In great measure, according to the purity and graces of the instrument, will be success. It is not great talents God blesses, so much as great likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an powerful weapon in the hand of God!”

– Robert Murray M’Cheyne

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See the Evil Effects of Sin

“See the evil effects of sin!

Sin has degraded us of our honor. God made us in His own image–but sin has debased us. Sin has plucked off our coat of innocence, and now it has debased us, and turned our glory into shame.

Sin disquiets the peace of the soul. ‘But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked.’ (Isaiah 57:20-21). Whatever defiles, disturbs. As poison corrupts the blood–so sin corrupts the soul. Sin breeds a trembling at the heart; it creates fears, and there is “torment in fear.” Sin makes sad convulsions in the conscience. Judas was so terrified with guilt and horror, that he hanged himself to quiet his conscience. In order to ease his conscience–he threw himself into Hell.

Sin produces all temporal evil. It is the Trojan Horse, which has sword, and famine and pestilence, in its belly. Sin is a coal, which not only blackens–but burns! Sin creates all our troubles; it puts gravel into our bread, and wormwood in our cup. Sin rots the name, consumes the estate, and buries loved ones.

Sin unrepented of, brings final damnation. The canker which breeds in the rose is the cause of its perishing; just so–the corruptions which breed in men’s souls are the cause of their damning. Sin’s pleasure will turn to sorrow at last; like the book the prophet ate–sin is sweet in the mouth, but bitter in the belly. Sin brings the wrath of God–and what tears can quench that fire?”

– Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity

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One Second of Glory Will Outweigh a Lifetime of Suffering

“Finally, the apostle here weighed the ‘sufferings’ of this present time over against the ‘glory’ which shall be revealed in us, and as he did so he declared that the one is ‘not worthy to be compared’ with the other. The one is transient, the other eternal. As, then, there is no proportion between the finite and the infinite, so there is no comparison between the sufferings of earth and the glory of heaven.

One second of glory will outweigh a lifetime of suffering. What were the years of toil, of sickness, of battling with poverty, of sorrow in any or every form, when compared with the glory of Immanuel’s land! One draught of the river of pleasure at God’s right hand, one breath of Paradise, one hour amid the blood-washed around the throne, shall more than compensate for all the tears and groans of earth. ‘For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us’ [Romans 8:18]. May the Holy Spirit enable both writer and reader to lay hold of this with appropriating faith and live in the present possession and enjoyment of it to the praise of the glory of Divine grace.”

– Arthur W. Pink, Comfort for Christians, p.18-19

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Change is About Discovering the Delight of Knowing and Serving God

“…change is about discovering the delight of knowing and serving God. Our job is to stop wallowing around in the dirt and instead to enjoy knowing God, to give up our cheap imitations and enjoy the real thing. All too often we think of holiness as giving up the pleasures of sin for some worthy but drab life. But holiness means recognizing that the pleasures of sin are empty and temporary, while God is inviting us to magnificent, true, full, and rich pleasures that last forever.”

– Tim Chester, You Can Change, p.36

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The Inexpressible Comfort of the Throne of Grace

‘Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need!’ (Hebrews 4:16)

“Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of the throne of grace! It is the only verdant, refreshing spot, in this earth’s wide wilderness.

To have the sensible presence of God, the heart of a loving Father to confide in, who is able to do all and more than we require; to have Him always near, His hand ever stretched out to us–oh, the comfort!

This is my sweetest spot and chief comfort in this polluted world, where I carry all my cares and troubles, and am ever sure to receive a welcome in the face of a reconciled Father.

Oh, the loving heart of Christ! Although He knows our ten thousand infirmities, He does not turn a deaf ear to our poor supplications–but with His own blood, blots out all their imperfections!”

– Mary Winslow

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Three Marks of Right Prayer

“I know if the grace of God be in you, it will be as natural to you to groan out your condition, as it is for a suckling child to cry for the breast. Prayer is one of the first things that discovers a man to be a Christian (Acts 9:12). But yet if it be right, it is such prayer as follows. (1) To desire God in Christ, for himself, for his holiness, love, wisdom, and glory. For right prayer, as it run only to God through Christ, so it centres in him, and in him alone. ‘Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire,’ long for, or seek after, ‘beside thee’ (Psalm 73:25). (2) That the soul might enjoy continually communion with him, both here and hereafter. ‘I shall be satisfied, when I awake with’ thine image, or in ‘thy likeness’ (Psalm 17:15). ‘For in this we groan earnestly’ (2 Corinthians 5:2). (3) Right prayer is accompanied with a continual labour after that which is prayed for. ‘My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning’ (Psalm 130:6). ‘I will rise now, I will seek him whom my soul loveth’ (Song of Soloman 3:2). For mark, I beseech you, there are two things that provoke to prayer. The one is a detestation of sin and the things of this life; the other is a longing desire after communion with God in a holy and undefiled state and inheritance.”

– John Bunyan, Prayer, p.47