The Pleasure Principle – And Why It Always Fails You | Jonathan Cahn Sermon

There is a principle that guides much of human action, even yours. But if you can channel it for the Lord, it can revolutionize your life.

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You get a new car. It gives you a little thrill just to think about it.
I have a new car. But after a while, the thrill wears off.
There’s a bumper sticker reads I went from wine, women, and song to beer, the old lady, and television.
So tonight, we’re gonna open up one of the most important and powerful dynamics that determine why people do what they do, why you may be doing what you’re doing, and why you may not be doing what you’re not doing or why you’re doing what you know you shouldn’t be doing and you’re not doing what you know you should.
And how to use this principle to turn the whole thing around, that you’ll actually be doing what you know you’re to do in god not doing, stop doing what you’ve been trying it, you wanna stop doing, change your actions, change your life.
Psalm 137, may you’ll have to find the verse here.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth If I do not remember you, if I do not lift up Jerusalem, above my chief joy.
Or now this may seem to have nothing to do with anything that I just said. But it does.
I want you to remember that verse because there’s something very striking about it.
If I do not make Jerusalem my chief joy or greater than my chief joy, What is strange about that?
When you think about things that are your joy, you usually don’t think about a city.
You don’t say I’m gonna make paramice my chief joy. I’m gonna make Hoboken my chief joy.
Of course, it’s Jerusalem, but still you don’t That’s the very thing that’s gonna show you a secret, uh, key, the very concept of making my chief joy that you’ll see as we open this up.
Tonight, we’re gonna talk about joy, pleasure, but also more importantly, what we do with our lives.
The declaration of independence starts out that or doesn’t it says, you know, the most famous words, the lord in doubt god endowed us with life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
And yet, is the pursuit of happiness the way to live your life?
Proverbs 21 17 says, he who loves pleasure or in Hebrewsimha or joy shall be a poor man.
Whoever loves wine and oil will never be rich. Okay.
What it’s saying is If you live your life seeking after pleasure, that is not the way to live in the end.
It won’t bring you what you’re seeking for. It’ll actually leave you empty.
The more you seek for pleasure, the more empty and lack of pleasure you’re gonna have at the end of your life.
It’s like trying to catch a snowflake.
It it it disappears when you get it, or you go to, let’s say, you and and you go to an amusement park and you get a muse.
Some thrills, you know, But if you stay there every day, the thrill will be gone.
You’ll wanna get out of there. You get a new car.
It gives you a little thrill just to think about it. I have a new car.
But after a while, the thrill wears off. There’s a bumper sticker reads.
I went from wine, women, and song to beer the old lady and television.
I was just looking at the story of a celebrity, you know, in love.
I’m looking at these pic pictures announcing their marriage. You know, the two people, they look like they’re in love.
It was the 3rd marriage for the for the actor. But when I then then I saw another article.
I didn’t know when and and it was it it said it was more recent.
It said after 1 year of marriage, they’re suing for divorce.
People seek for pleasure in things or joy and fulfillment things that can’t give it to them.
There are people who seek it in money, they become rich, gives them a thrill at the beginning, but the world is filled with miserable rich people.
You know, people win a lottery. Yeah. They have a thrill for certain period of time, and then it’s gone.
In the book of well, actually, Vladimir Putin, uh, probably, he most likely, not most likely.
He’s got billions of personal money. Does he look happy? No.
The book of Ecclesiastes says I sought fulfillment I’m paraphrasing.
And all these things, like, in this, this, this, this, but in the end, it was all vanity, empty.
We seek happiness in things I remember when I was a a a boy when Super Bowls first came out and that they were called Wunderbol.
It was a think of there. And I just I did my heart was on it. I wished for it.
I dreamed of it. Uh happiness was a Super Bowl.
I told all my just waiting for my father to get it for me.
Finally, I got it, and it was good. But that was about it.
You know, lasted a week and, you know, had its ups and downs, and that was it.
I remember I got a new refrigerator once, and the old one broke. Got a new refrigerator.
I’m realizing I’m happy because of the refrigerator. I’m thinking about the refrigerator.
My eyes are it’s saying, wait a minute. I’m having a relationship with a refrigerator.
And after a while, well, there there was a chill in the relationship. That that was it.
People seek happiness in substances, alcohol, drugs. They go right from substance to pleasure.
You know, Oh, it’s like because that’s like the direct way. You’re getting pleasure. It’s it’s going to your brain.
It’s going right, but in the over time, you become miserable. Actually burns out your brain for pleasure.
So people look for, obviously, for sexual pleasure as an end in itself as opposed to marriage and love and all that.
It doesn’t leave you with any fulfillment at the end.
That’s why I see people become addicted because they’re trying they’re going by pleasure.
And the other side of the coin is this.
The people who seek to live to avoid any pain, any conflicts, and they become addicted to pain killers.
The ancient hedonists or hedonists, they would indulge themselves with an all kinds of stimulation.
They’d end up they’d eat. They’d make us throw up so they get more they were miserable.
Why did the gospel spread so quickly through the Roman empire because it was so empty, so bankrupt that so that when they had the gospel, it was so much like light because it was.
Much of modern culture is based on this principle.
Modern American culture about instant gratification to indulge right away.
You know, uh, advertisements are based on that because they know how to push your buttons fast food.
I want it fast food, and I want it now because I’m hungry. I can’t wait.
So now we have to have drive throughs because the fast food is not fast enough why don’t you wanna get out of my car?
Instant, instant, gratification. The economy runs on that.
Commercials to say, Hey, indulge this, indulge that, indulge that, but it doesn’t give you joy.
Believers who are affected by it, too. We have this this this principle in modern Christianity.
Churches do studies to see what’s gonna give people pleasure. What part did they not like?
What part this rather than what’s the truth? What should I preach about?
I shouldn’t preach about this because it doesn’t give pleasure. So instead of truth, you get pleasure.
You get pleasure that doesn’t give you anything and you end up being miserable because you have no gospel in that.
Because the gospel is truth. So we have this this culture in Christianity based on feeling.
How does it make you feel? Sometimes this gets mixed up as as god doing something.
You know, it’s it’s god. It’s charismatic. It’s god.
A faith that’s based on emotion, you know, you know, something that I want, but I say it’s god doing this, or I felt the leading, but it’s me too.
It may god can bleed. But so much, when you go and buy feeling, it’s hard to know what god is.
We have the word emotion. Emotion has the word motion in it.
Because, you know, reality, you’re you’re you’re you’re well-being cannot be based on something that changes.
It’s gonna be based on what doesn’t change. God.
When you’re when you mistake, you know, god is leading me to marry this person, probably it’s you.
It could be god. Chances are it most of the time when people say it’s you and you put god on the front of your desire.
Believers go from, like, you know, they can go from 1 up and down.
It’s it’s a spiritual. It’s a on the clouds and down. That’s not the way we’re supposed to live.
The Bible doesn’t say we go from emotion to emotion. Says we go from glory to glory.
That’s very different. The Bible doesn’t say you will feel the truth. It says you will know the truth.
That’s different. It means sometimes you may feel it. Sometimes you don’t, but I know it.
That’s what’s gonna set you free. Hi.
I’m Jonathan Khan, and I hope you were blessed with the video.
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