There is no sterner moralist than pleasure.
Lord Byron
Pleasure for pleasure's sake will indeed teach you something.
She will teach you restraint or she will destroy you.
Ask the glutton.
Inquire of the adulterer and the adulteress.
and the drug addict too.
My heart panted, fearfulness affrighted me:
the night of my pleasure hath he turned into fear unto me.
Isaiah 21.4
They will tell you the dangers of that mistress.
For she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city,
To call passengers who go right on their ways:
Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither:
and as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him,
Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.
But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell.
from Proverbs
She is the siren whose melody is ever so sweet
to lure the unsuspecting to their death.
Earthly pleasures like a fire well contained
can warm the whole house
but unchecked can destroy all.
Yes, know that pleasure is big!
It is huge!
The very idea of it influences much of human behaviour.
She motivates the mass of mankind towards good and evil.
She influences the godly man and he enjoys
the rivers of pleasures from God as the fruit of righteousness.
...in thy presence is fulness of joy;
at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
Psalm 16.11
But the foolish man pursues pleasure above all else.
His is the 'plight of the pleasure neurotic'.
...lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God...
2 Timothy 3.4
