“The Passing Pleasures of Sin”

“By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin; considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward” (Heb. 11:24-26).

If, like me, you’ve grown up in the Church, you’ve probably been read that verse (and chapter) dozens of times. You may have even heard sermons built on this passage (particularly back in youth group days) exhorting you to “flee youthful lusts” and live a life of high moral character. To that I’d say, “great message; wrong passage.” Sure, there were bounless temptations appealing to all the senses in the royal palace that Moses would’ve done well to shun. However, the context says a lot about the choice Moses made to seek and do the will of God, and nothing about the licentiousness of pagan Egypt.

This reading probably comes from our American tendency to think of righteousness only in terms of “not doing bad things,” rather than in terms of life-long obedience to God’s will that His glory be proclaimed. When we sequester sin to the realm of activities “they” (”we” would never do that, right?) participate in, we wall off God as some sort of moral barometer instead of the Creator of the universe. The problem with this viewpoint is that morality is not about us. God desires that we be holy and blameless so that He can use us how He sees fit–so that we will be true witnesses of His character to a watching world.

This gives new meaning to the “passing pleasures of sin.” Perhaps they are those things–more often than not, things that, in and of themselves, are not only not sinful but useful and good–that distract us from our purpose of glorifying God by obedience to His will. Moses grew up into a sense of God’s purpose for his life as a deliverer (see Acts 7:25), and he knew that a life of luxury in the palace would keep him from that role.

In that light, everything we enjoy temporarily at the expense of participation in God’s purpose is a fleeting pleasure, and our obsession with comfort becomes a greivous sin. When was the last time you thought of your movies, music, television, or hobbies as “pleasures of sin”? How about your fridge or pantry well-stocked with an incredible variety of food, your manicured yard, or your car? Obviously, anything can be used as a tool for accomplishing God’s call to proclaim His name, but we have quite an ability to justify all manner of luxuries as ends in themselves. The theme of the Scriptures is that we are blessed to bless others (Gen. 12:2-3, et. al.), and that’s a teaching I fear we’ve lost sensitivity to. May the Lord convict us (myself chief of all) of thinking that the self-serving accumulation of wealth that distracts from obedience to His call is somehow not a sin.

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