Note: Today's message turned out a bit longer than normal, but determining what parts to chop out was a challenge.

Message summary: The roads before us: Pleasures for a season or pleasures for all eternity.

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"You make known to me the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore" (Psalm 16:11). "Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season" (Hebrews 11:25).

Wherever you live you will see interesting names for roads. There is a busy road near Atlantic City N.J. named Delilah Road. Men, you don't want to go down that road!!!  In southern Lancaster County there is a country road that sounds profane but is apparently named after someone before the word took on a different meaning.

I was driving on a road named Pleasure Road the other day and can't say there was anything distinctly pleasurable about it! But it would be interesting to know how it got it's name.

Consider with us the two pleasure roads we all can travel. One offers pleasure for a season, the other pleasures forevermore.

This is based on two verses that have two sharply contrasting Pleasure Roads. One reminds us of short-term, "pleasures for a season" (Hebrews 11:25), the other long-term "pleasures forevermore" (Psalm 16:11). One is a path of life, the other ends in destruction.

Pleasure Road 1 - "Pleasures for a season". Sin can certainly be pleasurable. After all, the writer of Hebrews forthrightly refers to "the pleasures of sin". I have an ex-con friend who is an overcoming addict and I asked him to explain to me why partaking of an utterly destructive substance is so appealing. He told me to consider something I considered pleasurable (he was actually quite explicit) and then to imagine an intensity of pleasure ten times that. Now that would be tempting! In fact his explanation is probably the most helpful I've ever heard.

However, I know it would only be for a season, in the case of some drugs only moments of pleasure followed by horrific heartache and destruction. Temptation begins when we are "carried away and enticed by our own lust" (James 1:14), and it feeds our sinful nature which will grow and master us. Temptation to sin would be meaningless if there was not an aspect of pleasure in the act. Life, from our youth to old age, is filled with daunting questions and choices we must make. In making those choices we ponder the consequences that will result from two contrasting decisions; obeying God or succumbing to our flesh.

Moses had a critical decision to make as mentioned in our daily text: suffer mistreatment along with God's people or enjoy pleasurable sin for a season. I wonder how long he weighed that decision. Did it keep him awake at night as play by play he envisioned the consequences of his decision? We know from Scripture that he questioned God repeatedly at the burning bush; What if? Who am I to go to Pharoah? What shall I tell them? What if they don't believe me? What if the people don't listen to me? In his mind Moses thought he had very valid reasons for denying the voice of God.

Raised in the palaces of Egypt, the dominant world empire at that time, Moses was destined for its throne. He had the very best that Egypt offered to his generation which included "the pleasures of sin" spoken of in the daily text. These pleasures may not have been evil deeds but were sinful in the sense that, in fulfilling them, Moses would have missed God's greater plan for his life. Again, we come back to the decision he had to make: temporal suffering to gain eternal pleasure or temporal pleasure resulting in eternal loss.

An old definition of sin from the Westminster catechism states, "Sin is any want of conformity to and transgression of the holy law of God." We often think of sin primarily in the sense of transgression, that is, doing something that is forbidden. This is typically stated as "sins of commission". But there are also sins of omission (non-conformity to the holy law of God), that is, failing to do that which we are commanded to do. The apostle James wrote, "Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins" (James 4:17).

As followers of Christ we can so readily be seduced by the world's ways and as individual believers we must ever be on our guard against this seduction. I consider these candid words to the old hymn, "I Must Tell Jesus". "O how the world to evil allures me, O how my heart is tempted to sin..." * At 71 years of age the allurement and temptation of sin is still there in various ways so I must daily determine, "I will serve the Lord".

One of the allurements to sin is that there is often a pleasurable dimension to it, at least initially. This is the same trap that Satan has used from the beginning because it is so effective. He appeared to Eve by making the forbidden fruit more appealing than any other fruit from any other tree. It was the same lure that attracted David when he saw a beautiful woman bathing.

The daily text speaks of enjoying these "pleasures of sin". But these pleasures only last for a short, unspecified time and are inevitably followed by destruction. There is a sense of pleasure that comes with "forbidden fruit" whatever form that may take, but it fades. Some will repent and forsake the sin, but others will repeat the sin trying to bring back the "pleasure" first experienced. That's why this passage describes it as "for a season". The pleasure once derived from that sin doesn't last so they go back for more.

Tragically, a few moments of sinful pleasure is often exchanged for a lifetime of sorrow and regret. Dabbling in sin can lead us where we never intended to go, hold us much longer than we ever planned and hurt more people than we would ever have thought.

Pleasure Road 2 - "Pleasures forevermore". Finally today, let us consider the wonderful joy and lasting pleasures in living for Christ. Can you proclaim with the Psalmist, "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).

Which Pleasure Road are you on in life? Let us resist the passing "pleasures of sin" and fully embrace the "eternal pleasures" extended to us by our loving Father!

Be encouraged today, Hebrews 3:13.

Stephen & Brooksyne Weber