# A taste for worldly amusements



## Blueridge Believer (May 21, 2008)

http://www.gracegems.org/05/07/pleasure.html

This pleasure-loving, pleasure-seeking, 
and pleasure-inventing age

(John Angell James, "HINDRANCES to Christian Progress")

A taste for worldly amusements will inevitably prove, 
wherever it is indulged--a powerful obstacle to growth 
in grace. 

Man is unquestionably made for enjoyment. He has a 
capacity for bliss--an instinctive appetite for gratification; 
and for this, God has made ample provision of a healthful 
and lawful kind. But "a taste for worldly pleasure" means 
that this God-given capacity is directed to wrong sources, 
or carried to an excess. 

Now there are some amusements which in their very
nature are so utterly incompatible with true godliness, 
that a liking for them, and a hankering after them, and 
especially an indulgence in them--cannot exist with real, 
earnest, and serious piety. 

The dissolute parties of the glutton and the drunkard; 
the fervency for the gambling-table; the pleasures of 
the race-course; the performances of the theater--are
all of this kind. A taste for them is utterly uncongenial 
with a spirit of godliness! So is a love for the gay and 
fashionable entertainments of the ball-room, and the 
wanton parties of the upper classes. These are all 
unfriendly to true religion, and are usually renounced 
by people intent upon the momentous concerns of 
eternity.

We would not doom to perdition, all who are at any 
time found in this round of worldly pleasure--but we 
unhesitatingly say, that a taste for them is entirely 
opposed to the whole spirit of Christianity! They are 
all included in that "world" which is overcome by faith 
and the new birth. 

True religion is, though a happy, a very serious 
thing--and can no more live and flourish in the 
uncongenial atmosphere of those parties, than 
could a young tender plant survive, if brought 
into a frigid zone!

But in this pleasure-loving, pleasure-seeking, and 
pleasure-inventing age, there is a great variety of 
amusements perpetually rising up, which it would be 
impossible to say are sinful, and therefore unlawful. 
Yet the 'supposition of their lawfulness' viewed in 
connection with their abundance, variety, and constant 
repetition, is the very thing that makes them dangerous 
to the spirit of true religion.

A taste for even lawful worldly amusements, which 
leads its possessor to be fond of them, seeking them, 
and longing for them--shows a mind that is in a very 
doubtful state as to vital piety. 

A Christian is not to partake of the pleasures of the 
world, merely to prove that his religion does not debar 
him from enjoyment. But he is to let it be seen by his 
"peace which passes understanding," and his "joy 
unspeakable and full of glory," that his godliness 
gives far more enjoyment than it takes away--that, 
in fact, it gives him the truest happiness!

The way to win a worldly person to true religion is not 
to go and partake of his amusements; but to prove to 
him, that we are happier with our pleasures--than he 
is with his; that we bask in full sunshine--while he has 
only a smoking candle; that we have found the "river 
of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the 
throne of God and the Lamb"--while he is drinking of 
the muddy streams which issue from the earth!

"Many are asking, 'Who can show us any good?'
Let the light of your face shine upon us, O Lord. 
You have filled my heart with greater joy than 
when their grain and new wine abound!" Ps. 4:6-7

After all, it is freely admitted--
1. That true religion is not hostile to anything 
which is not hostile to it.
2. That many things which are not strictly pious, 
though not opposed to piety--may be lawfully 
enjoyed by the Christian.
3. That what he has to do in this matter is not to 
practice total abstinence--but "moderation".
4. Yet the Christian should remember how elastic 
a term "moderation" is, and to be vigilant lest his 
moderation should continually increase its latitude, 
until it has swelled into the imperial tyranny of an 
appetite which acknowledges no authority--and 
submits to no restraint!


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