p. 176 | Lovers of Pleasures

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 24, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 11.

Lovers of Pleasures

IN the third chapter of his second letter to Timothy, the apostle Paul recounts certain conditions that he said would prevail in the last days. One thing he mentions is that the people will have a form of godliness, but deny the power; and furthermore, he said they would be "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God."

A pastor of a popular church has recently said the following, which should be studied in connection with the foregoing statement from the apostle Paul:

"I think in all my experience in —— there was not a week when we did not have a social gathering in the church of some kind or other. It was a pink tea, or a tamale dinner, or a cafeteria supper, or something. I tried to go to most of them at first, but at last had to give up in sheer dyspeptic despair.

"The average church, these days, rivals the Gold of Ophir rose-bush in the number of its budding societies, clubs, leagues, gilds, brigades, et cetera, and the pastor who feels it his duty to put a finger in all these pies is going to come to grief. His work is not commercial, but spiritual. Let him stick to his last. . . .

"An evangelist is invited. A sort of side-show is introduced to accompany the exhibition of the cross—something exciting to tickle the people. It may be an assault upon Unitarianism, or Romanism, or the pretensions of the holiness life. Or perhaps some operatic professor is the drawing card, some ex-fan, or ex-pugilist. They shout, sing, organize, make vows, get hundreds to sign cards, and report a glorious awakening."

The power that enabled the Lord Jesus Christ to draw people to Him was the power of righteousness. The power that enabled the apostles to lead people, in the face of every difficulty, to embrace the gospel, was the power of righteousness. The gospel sounds a note of reform. It requires people to break away from their sins and to find their pleasures in righteousness; and the minister who feels that it is his duty to provide fun and pleasure for his congregation, rather than to preach the gospel in its saving power to them, will find eventually that he has been helping to fulfil the scriptures which show that the last days will be made perilous because people insist upon being lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God. Those who truly love God find true pleasure, but the pleasures that are making these times perilous are the pleasures of folly and sin.