2 Timothy 3:2-5 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,… 1. That sensual pleasures are the very poison and bane of all grace in the soul; they war against the peace and purity of it (1 Peter 2:11); they blind the eye, that it cannot attain to saving knowledge (chap. 2 Timothy 3:6, 7); the love of pleasures eats out the love of God and goodness out of the soul. 2. It is these sensual pleasures which stop the ears against God's call, so that no reason nor religion can work on men. These choke the good seed of the Word, that it cannot grow (Luke 8:14). That is the best pleasure which springs from the knowledge and love of God. We call not upon you to forsake, but to change your pleasures. Change your sordid, sinful, sensual delights, into sublime, spiritual, and noble delights. 3. The better to wean your hearts from carnal pleasures, consider the vanity and shortness of them. They are like a fire of straw — a blast, and gone. Do not, then, for a mite of pleasure, purchase a mountain of misery; for momentary joys, endure eternal sorrows. 4. They do emasculate and weaken the mind. Whoever was made more learned, wise, courageous, or religious by them? They rob man of his reason, and besot him (Hosea 4:11); they take away the man, and leave a swine or beast in his room. 5. This world is a place of weeping, conflicting, labouring, to all the godly, and not of carnal mirth and rejoicing; carnal mirth must be turned into mourning (James 4:9, 10); the way to heaven lies through many afflictions. 6. Consider. those sensual pleasures end in sorrow. The end of such mirth (what ever the beginning is) is sorrow. Men call them by the name of pleasures, pastimes, delights; but in God's dictionary their name is Madness (Ecclesiastes 1:17; Ecclesiastes 2:2), Sorrow (Proverbs 14:13), and is attended with poverty. (T. Hall, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, |
    |