20 June 2020 — Hedonismo sin sentido
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 39 viewsNotes
Transcript
Most Americans today are richer than most people in the history of the world. Yet in spite of our material prosperity—or maybe because of it—we still suffer from poverty of soul. The taste of pleasure has grown our appetite for this world beyond satisfaction. Meanwhile, we are still searching desperately for meaning in life. significado de la vida
Peggy Lee talked about this problem in the song “Is That All There Is?” ¿Eso es todo lo que hay? In the second stanza she describes the childhood experience of going to the circus:
When I was 12 years old, my father took me to a circus, the greatest show on earth. There were clowns and elephants and dancing bears, and a beautiful lady in pink tights flew high above our heads. And so I sat there watching the marvelous spectacle. I had the feeling that something was missing. I didn’t know what, but when it was over, I said to myself, “Is that all there is to a circus?” Cuando tenía 12 años, mi padre me llevó a un circo, el mejor espectáculo del mundo. Había payasos, elefantes y osos danzantes, y una bella dama con medias rosas volaba muy por encima de nuestras cabezas. Y así me senté allí mirando el maravilloso espectáculo. Tenía la sensación de que faltaba algo. No sabía qué, pero cuando terminó, me dije: "¿Eso es todo lo que hay en un circo?"
Then Peggy Lee croons her famous refrain refrán: “Is that all there is? Is that all there is? If that’s all there is, my friends, then let’s keep dancing. Let’s break out the booze and have a ball, if that’s all there is.” ¿Eso es todo lo que hay? ¿Eso es todo lo que hay? Si eso es todo, amigos, sigamos bailando. Vamos a romper el alcohol y tener una pelota, si eso es todo lo que hay.
The Pleasure Test
The Solomon of Ecclesiastes had the same question as Peggy Lee: Is this all there is to life, or is there something more? First he tried to think his way to an answer, using his mind to figure out the mysteries of human existence. But his quest for knowledge ended in vexation and sorrow. ¿Es esto todo lo que hay en la vida, o hay algo más? Primero trató de pensar en una respuesta, usando su mente para descubrir los misterios de la existencia humana. Pero su búsqueda del conocimiento terminó en disgusto y tristeza.
At this point it must have been tempting to give up, or else sink into depression. Yet the Preacher decided to take another approach. He started talking to himself—not about something life-changing like the beauty of God or the good news of his grace—but about doing something new to get more out of life. So he said to his soul,
Dije yo en mi corazón: Ven ahora, te probaré con alegría, y gozarás de bienes. Mas he aquí esto también era vanidad.
[End with …gozarás de bienes…]
Every term in this short statement is important. The word “test” indicates that what follows is an experiment, a deliberate attempt to learn something from personal experience. The word “pleasure” alegría shows what he wants to experience—the pleasures of life. placeres de la vida He is like “The Wanderer” El vagabundo in the song based on Ecclesiastes that U2 wrote, featuring Johnny Cash on lead vocals: “I went out there / In search of experience / To taste and to touch and to feel as much / As a man can before he repents.” Salí / En busca de experiencia / Para probar y tocar y sentir tanto / Como un hombre puede antes de arrepentirse.
The other important word, which gets repeated in every single verse in this passage, is the word “I.” yo Admittedly, the writer is speaking autobiographically, so there are times when he needs to refer to himself. But does he need to do it quite so often? There is so much “me, myself, and I” yo y yo y yo in these verses that we get a strong sense of self-indulgence in the pursuit of self-centered pleasure. tenemos una fuerte sensación de autocomplacencia en la búsqueda del placer egocéntrico.
So Qoheleth cojélet becomes an experimental hedonist un hedonista experimental / El hedonismo es la teoria que establece el placer como fin y fundamento de la vida.. In other words, he chooses to make his own personal happiness his chief meta end in life. This is the way that many people live today, and it is a temptation for all of us—to live for ourselves rather than for God.vivir para nosotros mismos y no para Dios.
Let the Good Times Roll
Immediately the Preacher tells us that this quest failed as spectacularly as the first one. Pleasure did not satisfy his soul any more than wisdom did. he says, demanding our attention,
Dije yo en mi corazón: Ven ahora, te probaré con alegría, y gozarás de bienes. Mas he aquí esto también era vanidad.
[Start with …Mas he aquí…]
In other words, it was vapor and smoke humo y vapor. Pleasure seemed to hold out the promise of purpose in life, but it didn’t last. In the end it turned out to be empty, elusive, and ephemeral vacío, evasivo y efímero. By the time his pleasures floated away, the Preacher was left with absolutely nothing. His hedonism proved to be meaningless. Su hedonismo demostró no tener sentido
In announcing the result of his quest right at the beginning, Qoheleth cojélet was not prejudging things. On the contrary, this was a comprehensive experiment, as he proceeds to explain. In verses 2–8 he lists all of the pleasures he tried, followed in verses 9–11 by a personal reflection on what he learned from his experience.
First he experimented with comedy comedia, an entertainment that many people use to make it through life. When they feel insecure, they make a joke about something. When they get down on themselves, they make fun of other people. When they are bored, they look for something to give them a giggle, like one of the sitcoms on television or a funny video clip on YouTube—anything to get a laugh.
The Preacher tried this sort of thing too; yet it failed to bring him any lasting fulfillment. Listen to his conclusion:
A la risa dije: Enloqueces; y al placer: ¿De qué sirve esto?
Here “mad” does not refer to being out of one’s mind estar loco, the way we might use the word today, but to something sinful. According to Derek Kidner, it indicates “moral perversity rather than mental oddity.” perversidad moral en lugar de rareza mental A lot of laughter is like that: it is morally perverse. Not all of it, of course, because there is a kind of joyful laughter that brings glory to God (see, e.g., Proverbs 31:25). But a lot of joking is frivolous and superficial, or else cynical, sarcastic, and even cruel Pero muchas bromas son frívolas y superficiales, o bien cínicas, sarcásticas e incluso crueles. (see Proverbs 10:23; 26:19; 29:9). To honor God, we need to ask whether our laughter is rejoicing in the goodness of God or is coming at someone else’s expense. debemos preguntarnos si nuestra risa se regocija en la bondad de Dios o si viene a expensas de otra persona.
Qoheleth cojélet discovered that when it comes to understanding the meaning of our existence, laughter turns out to be a useless pleasure. Here is how T. M. Moore paraphrases verse 2: “I concluded that laughter and merriment for their own sakes were madness. What did they accomplish to help me find lasting meaning and purpose in life?” “Llegué a la conclusión de que la risa y la alegría por su propio bien eran locura. ¿Qué lograron para ayudarme a encontrar un significado y un propósito duraderos en la vida? Life is no laughing matter. Some people laugh all their way to the grave, but there is nothing funny about the deathbed of someone who dies without Christ.
The next pleasure the man tried was alcohol, and this too is a popular way to find enjoyment in life, or else to escape from its troubles. The Preacher-King found a lubricant for his laughter un lubricante para su risa:
Propuse en mi corazón agasajar mi carne con vino, y que anduviese mi corazón en sabiduría, con retención de la necedad, hasta ver cuál fuese el bien de los hijos de los hombres, en el cual se ocuparan debajo del cielo todos los días de su vida.
This verse turns out to be surprisingly difficult to interpret. To “cheer [one’s] body with wine” agasajar mi carne con vino strikes a decidedly negative note. The Preacher seems to be abusing alcohol the way so many people abuse drugs and alcohol today. Rather than receiving wine as a gift and drinking it with thanksgiving to God, he took it for himself as a selfish pleasure. If that is what he did, then what he said next is totally untrue—namely, that “his heart [was] still guiding [him] with wisdom.” que anduviese mi corazón en sabiduría As we know from one of Solomon’s other proverbs,
El vino es escarnecedor, la sidra alborotadora,
Y cualquiera que por ellos yerra no es sabio.
Some scholars interpret this verse a different way. When Qoheleth cojélet says that his heart was still guiding him with wisdom que anduviese mi corazón en sabiduría, he means that his wine-tasting was a controlled experiment. He was not giving himself over to drunken debauchery but was drinking in moderation and then soberly and thoughtfully assessing his experience. The man was not an alcoholic but a connoisseur making careful use of wine “so that appetite is sharpened, enjoyment enhanced, and the finest bouquets sampled and enjoyed.” para que se agudice el apetito, se mejore el disfrute y se prueben y disfruten los mejores ramos de flores.REDO TRANSLATION
Either way—whether his wine-drinking was characterized by sophistication or inebriation sofisticación o embriaguez—the man was looking for pleasure while he still had the time. The end of verse 3 introduces a theme that will become increasingly prominent throughout the rest of the book, namely, the brevity of life. One of the main reasons people pursue pleasure is because life is so short. As the advertiser said in one of the popular beer commercials I remember from my childhood, “You only go around once in life, so you have to grab for all the gusto you can get!” "Solo andas una vez en la vida, ¡así que tienes que aprovechar todo el gusto que puedas tener!"
The Solomon of Ecclesiastes grabbed for all of that gusto, but he still came up empty. To quote again from T. M. Moore’s translation, “I resolved to cheer my body with wine, still seeking after wisdom, mind you, and to lay hold on revelry in order to see whether this might yield the good I was seeking. Perhaps, since life is so short, folly and revelry might be the meaning of it all? But no.” Decidí alegrar mi cuerpo con vino, todavía buscando sabiduría, oye, y aferrarme a la diversión para ver si esto podría producir el bien que estaba buscando. ¿Quizás, dado que la vida es tan corta, la locura y la diversión podrían ser el significado de todo? Pero no."
The Finer Things in Life
In addition to wine and laughter, there are many other pleasures in life, and the Preacher-King was rich enough to try almost all of them. He lived the lifestyle of the rich and famous, building a beautiful home and planting many magnificent gardens:
Engrandecí mis obras, edifiqué para mí casas, planté para mí viñas;me hice huertos y jardines, y planté en ellos árboles de todo fruto.Me hice estanques de aguas, para regar de ellos el bosque donde crecían los árboles.
Exercising almost God-like creativity and control, the Preacher made better homes and gardens. The man was an architect, a builder, and a developer. He designed and built mansions of pleasure. Once again this reminds us of King Solomon, who spent more than a decade building his royal palace, and at great expense (1 Kings 7:1–12). He was equally skilled in viniculture vinicultura, the production of wine. He planted many vineyards (see Song 8:11), which presumably were necessary to supply all the grapes to produce the wine for his royal banqueting hall. He was equally involved in horticulture and silviculture horticultura y silvicultura, planting flowers and fruit trees. The lush vegetation he planted was irrigated by reservoirs large enough to water a small forest.
These projects were so large that only a great man could even attempt them. The scope of Solomon’s grand achievement is indicated by the fact that everything occurs in the plural—houses and vineyards, gardens and parks, trees and pools estanques. It sounds like a second Garden of Eden, especially with all the fruit trees (see Genesis 1:29; 2:9). In the words of Derek Kidner, “He creates a little world within a world: multiform, harmonious, exquisite: a secular Garden of Eden, full of civilized and agreeably uncivilized delights, with no forbidden fruits.” Él crea un pequeño mundo dentro de un mundo: multiforme, armonioso, exquisito: un Jardín del Edén secular, lleno de delicias civilizadas y agradablemente incivilizadas, sin frutos prohibidos ". The palace of the Preacher-King was paradise regained.
Best of all, it was all for him. The Bible describes Qoheleth’s building and landscaping projects as “great works” grandes obras (Ecclesiastes 2:4), but they were not public works. They were part of the man’s private residence. He was living large in the garden of his own pleasure. But that is not all. Beyond his building projects, the Preacher was pleasurably and enjoyably wealthy, as we can see from his many possessions:
Compré siervos y siervas, y tuve siervos nacidos en casa; también tuve posesión grande de vacas y de ovejas, más que todos los que fueron antes de mí en Jerusalén.
“I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem” (Ecclesiastes 2:7).
Given the scope of his building projects and the size of his property, the Preacher-King needed a huge workforce to run his daily operation. So he purchased many slaves, and the slaves he owned bore many children, who also belonged to their master’s house. To feed them all, he had to keep flocks of cattle and herds of sheep and goats all over his royal ranch.
We observe all of this in the life of King Solomon, who had countless servants waiting on him hand and foot (see 1 Kings 10:4–8). He also had so many animals that every day the chefs in his royal kitchen would prepare
diez bueyes gordos, veinte bueyes de pasto y cien ovejas; sin los ciervos, gacelas, corzos y aves gordas.
Needless to say, the Preacher-King also had a lot of money. Some of his treasure came from taxes on his own people and some from the tribute of foreign powers, but all of it came from someone else:
Me amontoné también plata y oro, y tesoros preciados de reyes y de provincias; me hice de cantores y cantoras, de los deleites de los hijos de los hombres, y de toda clase de instrumentos de música.
[end with …de provincias…]
Then he used some of this money to make beautiful music, both literally and figuratively:
Me amontoné también plata y oro, y tesoros preciados de reyes y de provincias; me hice de cantores y cantoras, de los deleites de los hijos de los hombres, y de toda clase de instrumentos de música.
[Start with …me hice de…]
Music was a rare pleasure in those days, but the man who wrote Ecclesiastes could afford to bring it into his own home, engaging entire choirs to sing for his pleasure.
Sex is a more common pleasure, but few people have ever experienced it on quite the scale as King Solomon. Here he speaks of many concubines, (algunas versiones) but 1 Kings 11:3 gives us the raw statistics—seven hundred wives and princesses, with three hundred concubines—more sexual partners than anyone could imagine. The erotic luxury of this vast harem was the royal icing on his cake of pleasure.
Foolish Pleasure
Wine, women, and song—the Solomon of Ecclesiastes had it all. Today his face would be on the cover of Fortune magazine, in the annual issue on the wealthiest men in the world. His home would be featured in a photo spread with Architectural Digest—the interior and the exterior, from the wine cellar to the lavish gardens. Pop stars would sing at his birthday party; supermodels would dangle from his arms.
Don’t you find it hard not to envy the man evidiar? Wouldn’t you like to live like a king? All other things being equal, wouldn’t you rather have a bigger, nicer house with better, more beautiful views? Don’t you wish that you had someone to do all your work for you, or at least all the work that you don’t enjoy doing? Think of all the money that Solomon had, with all of the choirs and concubines. Honestly, if you could get away with it, wouldn’t you be tempted to grab some of his gusto for yourself?
Here is how the Preacher-King summarized his experiment with pleasure:
Y fui engrandecido y aumentado más que todos los que fueron antes de mí en Jerusalén; a más de esto, conservé conmigo mi sabiduría. No negué a mis ojos ninguna cosa que desearan, ni aparté mi corazón de placer alguno, porque mi corazón gozó de todo mi trabajo; y esta fue mi parte de toda mi faena.
The Bible warns against
Porque todo lo que hay en el mundo, los deseos de la carne, los deseos de los ojos, y la vanagloria de la vida, no proviene del Padre, sino del mundo.
The psalmist was heeding this warning when he prayed,
Aparta mis ojos, que no vean la vanidad;
Avívame en tu camino.
But Solomon disregarded God’s warning completely. Whenever he spied something he wanted, he took it. Whenever he was tempted to indulge complacer in a fleshly pleasure, he did so. There was nothing he denied himself—nothing “visibly entertaining or inwardly satisfying.” He did this because he thought he had it coming to him. “I deserve it,” he would tell himself, “as the reward for all my hard work.”
Since he was living the lifestyle of the rich and foolish, it sounds strange to hear him say that his wisdom remained with him. Obviously he could not possibly be talking about the kind of wisdom that begins with the fear of God. Maybe he was referring to his raw intelligence—he was still as smart as ever. More likely, he meant that he was still serious about conducting his experiment, about testing his heart to see whether pleasure would show him the meaning of life. In the words of Derek Kidner, “Part of him stands back from it all to see what frivolity does to a man.” "Parte de él se aleja de todo para ver lo que la frivolidad le hace a un hombre".
So what was the result? What happens to people who pursue any and every pleasure as their main passion in life?
The answer Ecclesiastes gives is one that we ought to know already, based on what happens to us when we pursue our own pleasures. Like Solomon, we have ample opportunity to indulge complacer many sinful and selfish desires. In fact, maybe Solomon would envy us. Generally speaking, we live in better homes than he did, with better furniture and climate control. We dine at a larger buffet; when we go to the grocery store, we can buy almost anything we want, from anywhere in the world. We listen to a much wider variety of music. And as far as sex is concerned, the Internet offers an endless supply of virtual partners, providing a vast harem for the imagination.
By every indication, then, we are living in the godless times that Paul described for Timothy, when people would be “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:4).
traidores, impetuosos, infatuados, amadores de los deleites más que de Dios,
Everything is offered to us. Nothing is unavailable.
So are we satisfied, or do we still want more? Gregg Easterbrook gives us the answer in his book The Progress Paradox, which is subtitled How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse. Easterbrook proves that we have more of almost everything today … except happiness. In fact, the more we have, the unhappier we are, because we know we will never be able to get all the new things that we want.
At the end of his quest, the Preacher-King reached the same conclusion. Even after experiencing all the pleasure that he could afford, he still had not gained anything out of life. On “the morning after,” while he was still suffering the effects of his pleasure trip, he said,
Miré yo luego todas las obras que habían hecho mis manos, y el trabajo que tomé para hacerlas; y he aquí, todo era vanidad y aflicción de espíritu, y sin provecho debajo del sol.
The verb “consider” miré (Hebrew pana paná) literally means “to face, enfrentar” to look someone or something right in the eye (cf. Job 6:28). So Solomon is facing up to his situation, seeing his life as it really is, and he wants us to know that it isn’t pretty. The word “behold he aquí” is emphatic. Life is vanity; there is nothing to it. Life is striving after wind; you can never catch it. Squeeze out all the pleasure you can, and there is still nothing to be gained from living under the sun.
Pleasure, pursued for its own sake, does not and cannot satisfy the soul. Learn this lesson from Ecclesiastes, or else learn it from sad experience, like the woman whom Rabbi Harold Kushner writes about in When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough. She married a successful corporate executive and bought her dream house in the suburbs. But now she “cannot understand why she goes around every morning saying to herself, ‘Is this all there is to life?’ ”
Longing for God
Is this all there is? ¿Eso es todo lo que hay? And if it is all there is, what should we do about it? What do you do when you have everything you thought you ever wanted and it still isn’t enough?
Football star Tom Brady was asked this question on 60 Minutes. Brady had just quarterbacked the New England Patriots to their third Super Bowl. He said, “Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still think there’s something greater out there for me? I mean, maybe a lot of people would say, ‘Hey man, this is what is.’ I reached my goal, my dream, my life. Me, I think, ‘… It’s got to be more than this.’ I mean this isn’t, this can’t be what it’s all cracked up to be.” When the interviewer asked, “What’s the answer?” Brady could only say, “I wish I knew. I wish I knew.” "¿Por qué tengo tres anillos de Super Bowl y sigo pensando que hay algo mejor para mí? Quiero decir, tal vez mucha gente diría: "Hola hombre, esto es lo que es". Alcancé mi objetivo, mi sueño, mi vida. Yo, creo, "... tiene que ser más que esto". Quiero decir que esto no es, esto no puede ser lo que todo parece ser ". Cuando el entrevistador preguntó: "¿Cuál es la respuesta?" Brady solo pudo decir: “Ojalá lo supiera. Ojalá supiera."
At this point Peggy Lee comes in to sing her song about breaking out the booze and having a ball, but that isn’t the answer either. Isn’t there anything else that we can try?
The answer is that our dissatisfaction with life should point us back to God—not away from him but toward him. If all the pleasures under the sun cannot satisfy our souls, then we need to look beyond this world to God in Heaven. C. S. Lewis writes:
Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that what they do want, and want acutely, is something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy.… There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. La mayoría de las personas, si realmente hubieran aprendido a mirar dentro de sus propios corazones, sabrían que lo que quieren y desean de manera aguda es algo que no se puede tener en este mundo. Hay todo tipo de cosas en este mundo que ofrecen dárselo, pero nunca cumplen su promesa. Los anhelos que surgen en nosotros cuando nos enamoramos por primera vez, o cuando pensamos por primera vez en un país extranjero, o cuando tomamos por primera vez un tema que nos emociona, son anhelos que ningún matrimonio, ningún viaje, ningún aprendizaje, pueden realmente satisfacer ... Hubo algo que captamos, en ese primer momento de anhelo, que se desvanece en la realidad.
Our unsatisfied longings give us a spiritual clue that we were made for the pleasure of God. The pleasures of this world—especially all of the pleasures we experience today—leave us with what social critic Andrew Delbanco has described as an “unslaked craving for transcendence.” anhelo sin trascendencia por la trascendencia. This is exactly the way that God has designed us. If we were able to find lasting satisfaction in earthly pleasure, then we would never recognize our need for God. But satisfaction does not come in the pleasures themselves; it comes separately. Satisfaction only comes in God himself, so that our dissatisfaction may teach us to turn to him.
This is one of the main reasons why Ecclesiastes is in the Bible. It is here to convince us not to love the world or live for its pleasures. This message is not intended to discourage us or to make us any more depressed than we already are, but to drive us back to God. This is not all there is. There is also a God in Heaven, who has sent his Son to be our Savior. That Son resisted the pleasures of this life to fulfill the purposes of God for our salvation. As Mark Driscoll has said, “Everything Solomon pursued, Jesus was tempted by, but resisted.” This is the man that Johnny Cash was looking for in “The Wanderer” el vagabundo and that every dissatisfied sinner needs: “Lookin’ for one good man / A spirit who would not bend or break / Who could sit at his father’s right hand.” "Buscando un buen hombre / Un espíritu que no se doblegue ni se rompa / Que pueda sentarse a la mano derecha de su padre".
Now the crucified and risen Christ offers himself to us as the source of all satisfaction. By faith we respond to him the way Christina Rossetti responded in a poem that is really a confession of faith: “Lord, I have all things if I have but Thee.”
Meaningful Hedonism
When we turn back to God, asking him to save us in the name of Jesus Christ, something very surprising happens: the very pleasures that once failed to satisfy us now help us find even greater joy in the goodness of God. This is not true of foolish and sinful pleasures, of course, which we are still warned against (e.g., Romans 13:13–14). Like Moses, we are called to suffer for the cause of Christ rather than to “enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin” deleites temporales del pecado (Hebrews 11:25). But there is such a thing as holy and legitimate pleasure. For the people of God there is meaningful hedonism hedonismo con sentido—pleasure that comes in the enjoyment of God.
This will never happen when we pursue pleasure for its own sake or take pleasure for ourselves or make it our main passion in life. But it will happen when we receive every pleasure as a gift from God. He is the God of pleasure; thus, whatever legitimate pleasure we experience is a gift of his goodness. So it was that Solomon’s father rejoiced in the pleasures of his God. King David said,
Me mostrarás la senda de la vida;
En tu presencia hay plenitud de gozo;
Delicias a tu diestra para siempre.
This is mainly a promise about Heaven, where the pleasures of God endure forever. But we can begin to taste that pleasure right now.
We taste God’s pleasure when we receive laughter as a gift from him—not mocking other people or joking in a vulgar way, but laughing at ourselves and our limitations, knowing that one day we will enter our Master’s joy (see Matthew 25:21).
We taste true pleasure when we receive wine as a gift from God. y nos damos cuenta que el vino que no da Dios es el vino no fermentadoLater Ecclesiastes will teach us how to drink wine “with a merry heart” (Ecclesiastes 9:7), for as the psalmist also says, the gift of wine “gladden[s] the heart of man” (Psalm 104:15).
We taste God’s pleasure when we design good homes and other buildings, provided that we build them for the good of other people and the glory of God (e.g., Nehemiah 12:27–30), not just for our own grandeur.
We taste God’s pleasure when we go for a walk in the park or plant a beautiful garden. I have had the joy of visiting famous botanical gardens in many cities that I have visited. In every park and garden, as my eyes have feasted on the colors of creation, I have seen the beauty of God.
There is pleasure in all of the other things that Solomon mentions as well. There is pleasure in rewarding work that is done for the glory of God (Colossians 3:23). There is pleasure in feasting at a banquet table and then returning our thanks to God (1 Timothy 4:3–4). There is pleasure in silver and gold that is given for the kingdom of God, with the guarantee of an eternal return on our investment (see Matthew 6:19–21). There is pleasure in music that delights the ear and moves our emotions to the worship of God.
There is pleasure in sexual relations when they are shared as the Designer intended. By contrast, when sex is given to someone else, rather than taken for ourselves, and when it is shared exclusively between one man and one woman who are bound by a love covenant for life, then sexual intercourse finds its highest pleasure. No one has explained this principle better than Martin Luther, who said, “If the Lord has given one a wife, one should now hold on to her and enjoy her. If you want to exceed these limits and add to this gift which you have in the present, you will get grief and sorrow instead of pleasure.”18 “Si el Señor le ha dado una esposa, uno debería aferrarse a ella y disfrutarla. Si desea exceder estos límites y agregar a este regalo que tiene en el presente, obtendrá dolor y tristeza en lugar de placer ”. 18
God is not a spoilsport. He is not trying to take pleasure away from us but to give it to us. Once we learn how to find our satisfaction in God himself, then all of his other gifts become the best and truest pleasures. Happily, we do not have to be as rich as Solomon to experience meaningful hedonism hedonismo con sentido. We simply have to see what is in the world around us and know that it comes to us as a gift from God.
A marvelous example of knowing the pleasure of God comes from the testimony of a poor Christian woman. Her name is so long forgotten that now it is known only to God, but sometime in the eighteenth century she wrote these contented words:
I do not know when I have had happier times in my soul than when I have been sitting at work, with nothing before me but a candle and a white cloth, and hearing no sound but that of my own breath, with God in my soul and heaven in my eye. I rejoice in being exactly what I am—a creature capable of loving God, and who, as long as God lives, must be happy. I get up and look a while out the window. I gaze at the moon and stars, the work of an Almighty Hand. I think of the grandeur of the universe and then sit down and think myself one of the happiest beings in it. No sé cuándo he tenido momentos más felices en mi alma que cuando he estado sentado en el trabajo, sin nada más que una vela y una tela blanca, y no escucho ningún sonido que el de mi propio aliento, con Dios en mi alma. y el cielo en mis ojos Me alegro de ser exactamente lo que soy: una criatura capaz de amar a Dios y que, mientras Dios viva, debe ser feliz. Me levanto y miro un rato por la ventana. Miro la luna y las estrellas, obra de una mano todopoderosa. Pienso en la grandeza del universo y luego me siento y me considero uno de los seres más felices que hay en él.
Have you experienced this kind of satisfaction? Like that godly woman, you were made with the capacity to be one of the happiest beings in the universe. But you will never find it by living for your own pleasure. You will only find it when you learn to glorify God and enjoy him forever.