Hebrews 11:24-25 says, “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;”
The ESV refers to the pleasures Moses rejected as the “fleeting pleasures of sin.” Sin’s ultimate consequences are lasting, but its pleasure is not.
Consider the description of strong drink given in Proverbs 23:31-32: Don’t look at the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly. In the end, it bites like a snake, and poisons like a viper.
This is the nature of sin. It may look enticing, promising fun, pleasure, and satisfaction. Yet its end is destructive.
Even in a temporal sense, sin often produces hardships, as Proverbs 23 alludes to. More significantly though, sin leads to eternal destruction for those who choose this path. The temporary pleasure sin yields is not at all worth spending eternity in hell.
Living for sin’s fleeting pleasures is foolish. We must, like Moses, see through Satan’s deception and realize that sin “bites like a snake, and poisons like a viper” in the end. May we realize this and choose to turn from sin and toward God.
– Michael Hickox