Classic Sermon Outlines
Matthew Tlenry
SERMON SEVEN
THE PLEASANTNESS OF THE GODLY LIFE
Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.
—PROVERBSIS:h7,
TRUE religion and godliness is often in Scripture, and particularly in the book of Proverbs, represented and recommended to us under the name and character of wisdom. The text reveals that true piety has true pleasure in it.
I. THE CHARACTER OF THE PLEASANTNESS OF THE GODLY LIFE.
A. It Is Real and Not Counterfeit.
1. The counterfeit pleasures. Carnal worldlings pretend a great satisfaction in the enjoyments of the world and the gratification of sense; but "the end of that mirth is heaviness" and in that "laughter the heart is sorrowful"
2. The genuine pleasures. The pleasures of the godly life are solid, substantial pleasures and not painted; gold and not gilded over; these sons of pleasure "inherit substance." They have, like their Master, "meat to eat which the world knows not of."
B. It Is Rational and Not Brutish.
1. The pleasures of the soul. The pleasures of godliness are not those of the mere animal life which arise from the gratifications of the senses of the