The High Cost of Cheap Thrills Text: Proverbs 21:17
Introduction: The Hedonist's Hangover
We live in an age that has made a god of its appetites. Our entire culture, from the advertising industry to the university classroom, is a sustained evangelistic campaign for the gospel of self-indulgence. The central message is that you are the center of your own universe, and your happiness, defined as the immediate gratification of your desires, is the highest possible good. You deserve it. You owe it to yourself. Treat yourself. This is the catechism of our times. The world preaches a hedonism that promises a perpetual party, but it never shows you the bill. It never shows you the spiritual, moral, and, as our text makes plain, financial hangover that inevitably follows.
The book of Proverbs is a bucket of cold, bracing water thrown in the face of this drunken stupor. It does not condemn pleasure as such; far from it. At God's right hand are pleasures forevermore (Ps. 16:11). God gives us richly all things to enjoy (1 Tim. 6:17). The issue is not pleasure, but the love of pleasure. The issue is one of mastery. Who is in charge? Are you the master of your appetites, or are they the master of you? The man who is mastered by his craving for pleasure is a slave, and the name of his master is Poverty. He is not on the road to the good life; he is on a fast track to the poorhouse.
This proverb sets before us a stark choice, a spiritual fork in the road. One path is the way of discipline, self-control, and deferred gratification, and it leads to wealth, fruitfulness, and dominion. The other is the way of luxury, self-indulgence, and immediate gratification, and it leads to ruin. This is not complicated. It is a commonplace in the book of Proverbs, which means it is a fundamental law of God's universe, as fixed and reliable as the law of gravity. To ignore it is to build your house on the sand, right before the hurricane of your own appetites makes landfall.
The Text
He who loves pleasure will become a poor man;
He who loves wine and oil will not become rich.
(Proverbs 21:17 LSB)
The Love Affair with Pleasure (v. 17a)
The first clause lays down the foundational principle.
"He who loves pleasure will become a poor man..." (Proverbs 21:17a)
A great deal hinges on what Solomon means by "loves pleasure." This is not a condemnation of joy or happiness. The disciplined man is not required to make a sour face when he drinks good wine, or to act as though a fine meal is a burden to be endured. God is not a cosmic killjoy. He is the author of every good thing, including the pleasure we take in His creation. The problem is not enjoyment, but disordered love. It is a matter of priority and worship.
The man who loves pleasure is the man who makes it his ultimate goal. He pursues it, demands it, and organizes his life around obtaining it. His decisions are not governed by duty, or wisdom, or long-term vision, but by the immediate prospect of a good time. He is driven by his appetites. He eats his seed corn. He spends the rent money on a fleeting experience. He cannot delay gratification because the god of "Now" is screaming in his ear.
And the result is poverty. Why? Because fruitfulness requires work, and work requires discipline. Building anything of value, whether it is a business, a family, or a godly character, requires saying "no" to a thousand lesser things in order to say "yes" to the greater thing. It requires investment, sacrifice, and foresight. The lover of pleasure is incapable of this. He lives for the harvest, but despises the plowing. He wants the victory, but scoffs at the training. He consumes, but he does not produce. Therefore, he will inevitably run out of things to consume. His life is a constant liquidation sale of his future for the sake of his present. This is the fast lane to destitution, both financially and spiritually.
The High Price of Luxury (v. 17b)
The second clause gives us specific examples of this ruinous love.
"...He who loves wine and oil will not become rich." (Proverbs 21:17b LSB)
Wine and oil in the ancient world were symbols of feasting, celebration, and the good life. They were staples of blessing. Wine makes glad the heart of man, and oil makes his face shine (Ps. 104:15). Again, the Bible is not condemning the things themselves. Jesus' first miracle was turning water into wine, and it was good wine. Oil was used for anointing, for cooking, for gladness. These are gifts from God.
But the man described here loves them. He is a connoisseur of consumption. He has an expensive palate. His life is oriented around luxury and comfort. He is not content with simple provision; he must have the best, and he must have it now, whether he can afford it or not. This is the man who leases a car he cannot afford, who lives on credit card debt to fund a lifestyle of entertainment, who is more concerned with the appearance of wealth than with the substance of it.
Notice the subtle shift in the second phrase: he "will not become rich." The first man becomes poor, suggesting a slide from a better position into ruin. This second man simply will never get off the ground. His love of luxury prevents him from ever accumulating the capital necessary to build real wealth. Every dollar that comes in immediately goes out to service his appetites. He is like a man trying to fill a bucket that is riddled with holes. Diligence and thrift are the engine of wealth creation, but the love of luxury is the emergency brake, permanently engaged. He cannot get ahead because he is constantly consuming the resources that could have been his foundation for the future.
The Gospel of True Pleasure
This proverb is a diagnosis of a fallen human condition. At root, the love of pleasure is idolatry. It is seeking ultimate satisfaction in the creature rather than the Creator. It is an attempt to find in wine, or oil, or entertainment, or fleeting thrills what can only be found in God. And like all idolatry, it is a cruel master. It promises freedom and delivers bondage. It promises life and deals out death.
Our culture tells us that the path to happiness is to throw off all restraint and follow our hearts. The Bible tells us that our hearts are deceitful and desperately sick (Jer. 17:9) and that to follow them is to follow a fool off a cliff. The man who has no rule over his own spirit is like a city without walls, vulnerable to every passing whim and every marauding temptation (Prov. 25:28). This is not freedom; it is chaos and slavery.
True freedom and true pleasure are found not in self-indulgence, but in self-control, which is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:23). And this self-control is not a grim, white-knuckled affair. It is the joyful discipline of an athlete who foregoes the junk food for the sake of the prize. It is the glad sacrifice of a man who invests his resources in his family's future rather than squandering them on himself.
The ultimate example of this is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. "For the joy that was set before him [He] endured the cross" (Heb. 12:2). Christ is the ultimate practitioner of delayed gratification. He forsook the ultimate pleasure of heaven, taking on the form of a servant. He endured the ultimate pain of the cross. Why? For the joy that was set before Him, the joy of redeeming a people for Himself and bringing many sons to glory. He did not love pleasure; He loved God and He loved us. And in so doing, He secured for us pleasures forevermore at God's right hand.
The gospel does not call us to a life devoid of pleasure. It calls us to die to the love of cheap, fleeting, idolatrous pleasures so that we can be raised to new life and inherit true pleasure. It is a call to exchange a bowl of pottage for an eternal birthright. It is a call to turn from the broken cisterns of this world, which can hold no water, and to drink freely from the fountain of living waters, which is Christ Himself. He is the one who gives the wine of the new covenant. He is the one who anoints us with the oil of gladness. And in Him, and only in Him, will we find that the path of discipline is the only true path to lasting joy and eternal riches.