“Just Say No” Doesn’t Work
Part 2
In a sense,
those of us in wealthy societies are especially familiar with the futility of
worldly pursuits. Boredom is more prevalent in a first world country, where
amusements are in abundance, than it is in a third world country, where
entertainment is scarce. In the climate of our modern Western culture, the very
multitude of our enjoyments has extinguished our power of enjoyment. Due to the
sheer number and variety of distractions available, we reach a point of fatigue,
unable to find any lasting satisfaction. With amusements and technology always
at our fingertips, we eventually grow to see our colorful surroundings in black
and white. Like King Solomon in Ecclesiastes, we discover that all our
pleasures leave an aftertaste of futility and frustration.
It isn’t
necessary for a man to experience pain in order to be miserable. All he needs
is to look on everything with indifference. His unhappiness comes from his
numbness: He is dead to all around him, and alive to nothing within him but the
weight of his own useless existence.
Even when we acknowledge that worldly
pleasures don’t satisfy, we still often pursue them. Why? Because desire is a
universal and unchangeable human condition. Under the impulse of desire, we
pursue an object to receive gratification.
Our habits of choice may be something
openly sinful, such as sexual immorality. They may be focused on alcohol, video
games, movies, or the approval of others. They may even be related to
inherently good things, like work or leisure.
Whatever it is, our chosen interests are
so captivating to us that we aren’t easily distracted from them. We develop
strong habits in pursuing them. They may fail to satisfy us at times, but we
refuse to give them up—even if the pleasure they provide is accompanied by
negative consequences (nagging guilt, sexually transmitted diseases, poverty,
loss of friendships, or even the coming vengeance of God).
If a pursuit
brings only fleeting pleasure, such as pornography or illicit sex, your heart
will still not let go of it any easier than it would submit to torture. Such is the grasping tendency of the
human heart: it must have something to lay hold of. And if that object is
stripped away without being replaced, the heart will experience a void as
painful as starvation feels to the stomach.
Therefore, it
isn’t enough to acknowledge how empty your pursuit is. You must direct your
mind’s eye to another object—something powerful enough to free you from the grip
of the first. In other words, a present desire cannot be gotten rid of simply
by being destroyed. It must be replaced.
Human
experience demonstrates this truth. Think, for example, of the last time you
indulged a sinful desire that you had grieved over just the day before. Why
wasn’t your sorrow enough to keep you from falling back into the same sin
again? Because your sinful addiction wasn’t replaced by a superior desire.
Until you experience the satisfaction of a greater pleasure, your sin patterns
will take you in a never-ending cycle of desire, sin, and regret (James
1:14-15).
A Sunday
morning sermon may help you see the emptiness of earthly pleasures. As you are
reminded of how short life is and how death swallows all the joys and interests
of the world, you may find yourself emotionally affected. You may even feel
that a life-changing experience has taken place and that you will finally be
free from your sinful cravings.
But then Monday
morning comes along, accompanied by all the distractions of the world. And the
machinery of the heart demands that you fill the void left by the vacant
worldly pleasures. Before you know it, you are once again pursuing the sin you
thought you had learned to hate. When you have no new affections to replace
your old ones, the church can easily become a playground for fleeting emotions
instead of a school for obedience.
It is said that
nature abhors a vacuum. Well, so does the human heart: the room inside it may
change one occupant for another, but it cannot be left empty without
experiencing intolerable suffering.
Imagine telling
a person to set fire to his own property. He might obey, painfully and
reluctantly, if he saw that his life depended on it. But he would gladly burn
his property to the ground if he saw that a new property worth ten times as
much would instantly spring up from the ashes. In a situation like this,
something more is going on than just displacing an affection; one treasure is
being traded in for another.