If you live the way that this world teaches you,
and I hope every young person's listening this morning,
if you go out and live the life that seems right
and everybody's doing it and it's a partying lifestyle,
it's drinking, it's fornicating,
it's the pleasures of sin for a season,
your life will end up a miserable wreck and a failure.
You'll end up life as a loser.
Or if you trust in the Lord and follow God's rules
and God's commandments and let the wisdom
of the book of Proverbs guide you,
you will end up your life as a success
and you will find real joy unspeakable and full of glory
that you'll never find out in the world
living the party lifestyle.
He says in verse 13, even in laughter,
the heart is sorrowful and the end of that mirth is heaviness.
That way that seems right unto a man,
but the end thereof are the ways of death.
That way where you young teenager and young single adult,
you look out at the unsaved and you see the laughing
and the partying and the fun.
Maybe you're driving down Mill Avenue in Tempe
and you see all the partying going on,
or maybe you're driving through downtown Phoenix
on a Friday night and you see the partying and the fun
and you look at that and you say, man, that seems right.
I mean, that seems like a better life than what I'm living.
But what you don't understand that even in laughter,
the heart is sorrowful.
The unsaved that are out there living that life,
it's not all what it's cracked up to be.
They're not enjoying it as much as you think they are.
You know where the true happiness is?
It's in serving the Lord.
It's in going to church.
It's in having a family and having people that you love
and that you're faithful to.
It's in going to church and serving God
and singing praises to God.
The world's pleasures of sin are hollow and empty and vain.
Look, Solomon tried to enjoy all that stuff.
And he said, it's all vanity.
He even got to the point when he had all the money
and all the women and all the fun and all the music,
he said, I hated life.
I mean, imagine that.
The guy who's got everything, he says, I hated life.
Look at the Hollywood stars.
Look at the rock stars.
How many of them hate life and are constantly
having to go into rehab for this drug
and rehab for being an alcoholic?
Why?
Because their life is so distasteful to them
that they have to drown their sorrows
and they have to just waste their brain on drugs just
to forget how miserable and worthless their existence is.
It's depressing.
You won't show me these Hollywood actors
that have it all being happy and being
faithful to their spouse.
No, you see them constantly on the third, fourth, fifth spouse.
You see them constantly getting arrested for shoplifting and DUIs
and just fooling you.
It's like, why would you do-- if you have millions of dollars,
why are you shoplifting and getting a DUI?
Because you're an idiot, that's why.
And we would be the same way.
Without Christ, without the word of God,
without the wisdom of God, the only thing
that will allow you to succeed and live
a life that's worth living is the word of God.
The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.
And the wisdom of this world is going
to take you down a dark path and ruin your life.
Don't you ever, young people, be tempted
when you see all the gleam and the lights and the partying
and the laughing and the fun.
Because you don't see that person when they go home
and throw up the next morning and are miserable
and say, what am I doing with my life?
I don't even know if it's even worth it to live another day.
That's the thought that comes into their mind.
Even in laughter, the heart is sorrowful,
and the end of that mirth is heaviness.
See, even if you are partying and having fun
and woo, you're enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season,
the end of it is heaviness.
You end up in heaviness.
When you're young, you see people,
and if you would flip over to Proverbs 3,
when you're young you see people
who seem to have the world by the tail, don't they?
You see that guy that's a good looking guy,
and he's physically fit, and he's athletic,
and he wears all the coolest clothes,
and he's making good money, and he gets all the girls,
and he's partying, and he's drinking,
and he doesn't care about the Bible,
doesn't want to hear about church,
doesn't believe on Jesus Christ,
but fast forward 20 years later that guy that was so cool,
and you look at him and he's a loser who's wasted his life.
Other people are actually doing something with their life.
Other people actually have a family
or are living a godly life, they're involved in church,
they have meaning in their life,
and you see him just a burned out drunk,
burned out drug addict, or filled with STDs or whatever,
and you don't envy that life anymore.
The end of that mirth is heaviness.
You see him when he's been divorced three times,
you don't want to be him, you don't want to be that guy.
And look, I'm not down on you if you're that guy.
Because if you've wised up and are now living for the Lord,
praise God if you're that guy, if that's how you live.
But you know what?
If you're that guy who has wised up
and now you're living for the Lord and now you're in church,
then you shouldn't mind this kind of preaching.
Because you, if your heart is right,
would God should want to warn young people,
hey, don't make the mistakes that I made.
Look, I'm not down on you if you have a rough past,
because I just said at the beginning of the sermon
that I would have done the same thing.
Were it not for the word of God guiding me,
I would have done the same thing.
I'm not down on you this morning.
But let me say this, though.
I'm preaching to those who have not yet made these mistakes,
because they need to hear this,
because all that glitters is not gold.
But people easily are sucked in
to what the world shows them
as a lifestyle that seems right.
And I'm here to preach to you this morning
and tell you that the end thereof are the ways of death,
And that the world has nothing to offer you today.