_——
Francis Schaeffer noted:
let us think of the sex relationship. What is man’s attitude towards the girl? It is possible, and common in the modern setting, to have a “playboy” attitude, or rather a “plaything” attitude, where the “play- mate” becomes the “plaything.” Here, the girl is no more than a sex object.
But what is the Christian view? Somebody may offer at this point the rather romantic no- tion, “You shouldn’t look for any pleasure for yourself; you should just look for the other per- son’s pleasure.” But that is not what the Bible says. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves. We have a right to pleasure, too. But what we do not have a right to do is to forget that the girl is a person and not an animal, or a plant, or a machine. We have the right to have our plea- sure in a sexual relationship, but we have no right whatsoever to exploit a partner as a sex object.
There should be a conscious limitation upon our pleasure. We impose a limit—a self-imposed limit—in order to treat the wife fairly as a per- son. So although a husband could do more, he does not do everything he could do, because he must treat her also as a person and not just as a thing with no value. And if he does so treat her, eventually he loses, because love is gone, and all that is left is just a mechanical, chemical sexuality; humanity is lost as he treats her as less than human. Eventually not only her humanity is diminished, but his as well. In con- trast, if he does less than he could do, even- tually he has more, for he has a human rela- tionship; he has love and not just a physical act. It is like the principle of the boomerang—it can come full circle and destroy the destroyer.
———
—-
Over and over I have read that Hugh Hefner was a modern day King Solomon and Hefner’s search for satisfaction was attempted by adding to the number of his sexual experiences.
Chris Thurman wrote:
If anyone had it all, the great King Solomon did. Our man Solomon was the John D. Rockefeller, Albert Einstein, and Hugh Hefner of his day all rolled into one
Many of the sermons that I heard or read that inspired me to write Hugh Hefner were from this list of gentlemen: Daniel Akin, Brandon Barnard, Alistair Begg, Matt Chandler, George Critchley, Darryl Dash, Steve DeWitt, Steve Gaines, Norman L. Geisler, Greg Gillbert, Billy Graham, Mark Henry, Dan Jarrell, Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., R. G. Lee, C.S. Lewis Chris Lewis, Kerry Livgren, Robert Lewis, Bill Parkinson, Ben Parkinson,Vance Pitman, Nelson Price, Ethan Renoe, Adrian Rogers, Philip Graham Ryken, Francis Schaeffer, Lee Strobel, Bill Wellons, Kirk Wetsell, Ken Whitten, Ed Young , Ravi Zacharias, Tom Zobrist, and Richard Zowie.
In this post today and several posts that follow this will be based on a sermon series I heard at FELLOWSHIP BIBLE CHURCH in Little Rock in 1996 on the Book of Ecclesiastes. The pastors back then were Robert Lewis, Bill Wellons, Bill Parkinson and Dan Jarrell. Below is the letter I wrote based both on Robert Lewis and Bill Parkinson sermons from the same series.
Dan Jarrell pictured below:
________
__
Robert Lewis pictured below:
Bill Wellons pictured below:
Bill Parkinson pictured below
_
April 9, 2016
Hugh Hefner
Playboy Mansion
10236 Charing Cross Road
Los Angeles, CA 90024-1815
Dear Mr. Hefner,
HAPPY 90th BIRTHDAY TODAY HUGH!!!!! I feel like I know you very well since I have studied I think every interview you have ever given and I have written you every week since October last year. Today again I am going to take a quote from you and make an observation and today’s observation is concerning your long life.
When I examine your life I have concluded that you are the exception and not the rule. Most people who take the path of womanizing end up with consequences such as financial ruin and a shortened life.
Recently I read the article, “I’m a very lucky cat: Hefner,” TONIGHT / 11 April 2011 at 12:23 pm and it said:
Hugh Hefner, the Playboy founder – who celebrated his 85th birthday on April 9 with a joint party in Las Vegas with his son Marston, who turned 21 on the same day – wasn’t worried about reaching the milestone age because he is looking forward to his forthcoming wedding to 24-year-old Crystal Harris on June 18.
He said: “You’re as young as the girl you feel, I’m a very lucky cat and I know it, age is just a number if you’re healthy.
Today I want to tell you to please accept the wisdom of King Solomon and tell your sons MARSTON and COOPER to likewise consider the wisdom Solomon gave us in the Bible. In the Book of Song of Solomon he talked about the wife of his youth. In his 40’s he gave us wisdom in his advice as to his son in the Book of Proverbs, and in the Book of Ecclesiastes as an old man he looked back upon his life and concluded that life UNDER THE SUN is meaningless without God in the picture.
King Solomon is a person that should interest you HUGH. He had a lot in common with you.
Ecclesiastes 2:8-10 The Message (MSG)
I piled up silver and gold,
loot from kings and kingdoms.
I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song,
and—most exquisite of all pleasures—
voluptuous maidens for my bed.
9-10 Oh, how I prospered! I left all my predecessors in Jerusalem far behind, left them behind in the dust. What’s more, I kept a clear head through it all. Everything I wanted I took—I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task—my reward to myself for a hard day’s work!
1 Kings 11:1-3 English Standard Version (ESV)
11 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. 3 He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart.
(Francis Schaeffer pictured below)
Francis Schaeffer observed concerning Solomon, “You can not know woman by knowing 1000 women.”
Bill Parkinson on 5-5-96 as a teaching pastor at FELLOWSHIP BIBLE CHURCH in Little Rock delivered a sermon entitled AND NOW SOME NOT-SO-COMMON SENSE which was based on Ecclesiastes chapter 7. Here is a portion of that sermon below that applies to your life Hugh since you are celebrating your 90th birthday today:
(Bill Parkinson pictured below)
When you live life from God’s perspective, when you begin doing that first then he provides you with spiritual discernment about life. Ecclesiastes 7:15 “In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing.” You know what someone who did not have wisdom would conclude from that? They would take the exceptions and make it the rule. Solomon said that in his life he had seen these things. The righteous sometimes do die young and sometime the wicked people do live to be old. Some people conclude that it doesn’t make any difference how you live. Maybe you can live an evil life and live to 99!!!!! Solomon says wisdom doesn’t take life and rule it by the exception. It takes life and rules it by what is true.
Solomon also wrote in Proverbs 10:27, “The fear of the Lord prolongs days, but the years of the wicked will be shortened.” It is not true you can do anything you want to do. It does matter how you live.
In the History Channel TV Special “HOW PLAYBOY CHANGED THE WORLD” at the 49 min mark the narrator says “The so-called WAGES OF SIN were now paying off.” This was referring to the growth in profits at your magazine PLAYBOY. The narrator turned Romans 6:23 totally around when it really says, “FOR THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Adrian Rogers below discusses the verse Galatians 6:7, “Be not deceived, for God is not mocked. Whatsoever man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
The narrator acts like financial wealth is the only measure of success. Shouldn’t Godliness and Integrity be some of the qualities you want to pass down to your children HUGH? At the min 1:13 mark when you speak of your marriage in the 1990’s and you say the truth is that it was one of the most lonely and unhappy times of your life. Is your only criteria the amount of sex you had?
(Adrian Rogers pictured below)
Let me explore this phrase “WAGES OF SIN” more by quoting from Adrian Rogers’ message THE PLAYBOY’S PAYDAY and keep in mind King Solomon wrote this as wise advice handed down to his son:
Proverbs 5 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
5 My son, give attention to my wisdom,
Incline your ear to my understanding;
2 That you may observe discretion
And your lips may reserve knowledge.
3 For the lips of an adulteress drip honey
And smoother than oil is her speech;
4 But in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
Sharp as a two-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death,
Her steps take hold of Sheol.
6 She does not ponder the path of life;
Her ways are unstable, she does not know it.
7 Now then, my sons, listen to me
And do not depart from the words of my mouth.
8 Keep your way far from her
And do not go near the door of her house,
9 Or you will give your vigor to others
And your years to the cruel one;
10 And strangers will be filled with your strength
And your hard-earned goods will go to the house of an alien;
11 And you groan at your final end,
When your flesh and your body are consumed;
12 And you say, “How I have hated instruction!
And my heart spurned reproof!
13 “I have not listened to the voice of my teachers,
Nor inclined my ear to my instructors!
14 “I was almost in utter ruin
In the midst of the assembly and congregation.”
15 Drink water from your own cistern
And fresh water from your own well.
16 Should your springs be dispersed abroad,
Streams of water in the streets?
17 Let them be yours alone
And not for strangers with you.
18 Let your fountain be blessed,
And rejoice in the wife of your youth.
19 As a loving hind and a graceful doe,
Let her breasts satisfy you at all times;
Be exhilarated always with her love.
20 For why should you, my son, be exhilarated with an adulteress
And embrace the bosom of a foreigner?
21 For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the Lord,
And He watches all his paths.
22 His own iniquities will capture the wicked,
And he will be held with the cords of his sin.
23 He will die for lack of instruction,
And in the greatness of his folly he will go astray.
___
Look if you will in verse 23. “He shall die without instruction: and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.” To die without instruction, to die without knowledge, is to die in a sin. It is to die and go to Hell! The Bible says, “Be not deceived, for God is not mocked. Whatsoever man soweth, that shall he also reap.” And the Bible says, “Be not deceived, for neither idolaters nor fornicators nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind shall inherit the kingdom of Heaven.” If you’re living this kind of a lifestyle, the Bible says you’re lost. You’re going to Hell.
You say, Well, Pastor, does that mean if I’ve done any of these things, I can’t be saved? No. For Paul goes on to say in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, And such were some of you, but you’re washed, you’re justified, you’re sanctified. Hallelujah! Amen. Oh, listen ,there’s no sin that He can’t forgive – not a blot, not a blemish, not a blur, not a stain. The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, makes the vilest sinner clean. And ‘if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Death! Death! Death! That’s the Playboy’s Payday. And this is a message that needs to be heard across America today. I mean, across America! Young people today are getting information from everyplace except the Word of God. I must close this message, but finally, the design that we should follow. Look if you will in verse 15: “Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee.” What’s he talking about? He’s saying get a wife, marry that wife, be faithful to her, have a lasting marriage, have a monogamous marriage. God’s plan is one woman for one man until death do them part.
But not only is it a lasting marriage, there’s a loving mate. Look in verse 18: “Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.” What’s he saying? He’s saying God wants you to be fulfilled. God wants you to have sexual fulfillment. God wants you to have real joy.
When God says, “Thou shalt not,” He’s saying, “Don’t hurt yourself.” When God says, “Thou shalt,” He’s saying, “Help yourself to happiness.” God here is talking about satisfaction. God here is talking about joy! I wouldn’t trade my Christian home for anything in this world! The joy that the Lord Jesus has given us – I thank God that I came to the marriage altar pure! I thank God I married a pure girl. I thank God for the joy and the happiness. And you’ll forgive me for this, but kids, you eat your cake now, you’ll have a crummy tomorrow. This is God’s plan.
(Robert Lewis pictured below)
You see HUGH your life is really the exception and not the rule as Bill Parkinson pointed out above. Now I wanted to ask you a simple question: HAVE YOU KNOWN PEOPLE WHO HAD THEIR LIVES DESTROYED BECAUSE THEY LEFT THEIR FAMILY LIFE TO EMBRACE HEDONISM?
Robert Lewis on 4-14-96 as a teaching pastor at FELLOWSHIP BIBLE CHURCH in Little Rock delivered a sermon entitled LIFE UNDER THE SUN which was based on Ecclesiastes chapters 1 and 2. Here is a portion of that sermon below:
Solomon wanted to know the meaning of life beyond God in this world. So he tried to live life at the edge or the extreme so to report not like a philosopher in a ivory tower, but he wanted to do that by putting himself personally into these pursuits to see IS THERE ANY OTHER MEANING IN LIFE BESIDES GOD. This is really what he tries to do. Ecclesiastes 1:13, “And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven.” The word SEEK means to do rigorous research and that is what he has done.
The word EXPLORE means to examine all sides of things and he didn’t do that just as Lab Technician, but Solomon did it the old fashion way. He got personally involved. He researched every category as far as it could go in order to know everything about life. So he didn’t talk about materialism but he became the ultimate materialist...He became the ultimate hedonist. You want to know about sex? Solomon can tell you everything about it….UNDER THE SUN there is no real meaning in any of it. The best life can do is keep delivering to you the empty promise that if you have something else then you will be happy, but the curse is when you get it. Ecclesiastes 2:17, “So I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was grievous to me; because everything is futility and striving after wind.”
I befriended a man several years ago who was a kind of real Little Rock PLAYBOY. In fact, his lifestyle and sexual escapades were legendary around the city. He was rich, single, hansom and very sophisticated. He told me, “A woman any night and anything your mind can imagine.” Where did it lead him? Ultimately it led him to a hotel in Little Rock where he put a gun in his mouth because to have it all is to find out it is empty.
Ecclesiastes was written to those who wanted to examine life UNDER THE SUN without God in the picture and that is what Robert Lewis said in his sermon LIFE UNDER THE SUN. But the story doesn’t end there. Solomon’s conclusion in the final chapter was found in Ecclesiastes 12 when he looked at life ABOVE THE SUN and tells us to bring God back into the picture and make our relationship with God the main purpose of our life:
13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
Let’s go back to Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death; but the GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD.” The meaning of this verse was distorted in the film about your life. Did you know that Romans 6:23 is part of what we call the Roman Road to Christ. Here is how it goes:
-
Because of our sin, we are separated from God.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23) -
The Penalty for our sin is death.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23) -
The penalty for our sin was paid by Jesus Christ!
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8) -
If we repent of our sin, then confess and trust Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we will be saved from our sins!
For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 10:13)
…if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9,10)
The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.
Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221
PS: I have written you every week since October of 2015, and again I have taken an aspect of your life and responded with what the Bible has to say on that subject. HUGH your quote is, “You know, from my point of view, I’m the luckiest cat on the planet.” I can think of a couple of ways that is partially true. First, you are still alive at age 90 after sleeping with over 1000 women. Second, you still have an opportunity today to follow the Roman Road to Christ and Jesus will forgive your sins if you will repent. Thank you for taking time to read this letter on your 90th birthday.
Florian Maier-Aichen
Florian Maier-Aichen was born in 1973 in Stuttgart, Germany. He studied at Högskolan för Fotografi och Film, Göteborg, Sweden; the University of Essen, Germany; and earned an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Alternately romantic, cerebral, and unearthly, Florian Maier-Aichen’s digitally altered photographs are closer to the realm of drawing and fiction than documentation.
He embraces difficult techniques, chooses equipment that produces accidents such as light leaks and double exposures, and uses computer enhancements to introduce imperfections and illogical elements into images that paradoxically “feel” visually right, though they are factually wrong. Often employing an elevated viewpoint (the objective but haunting “God’s-eye view” of aerial photography and satellite imaging), Maier-Aichen creates idealized, painterly landscapes that function like old postcards.
Interested in places where landscape and cityscape meet, he chooses locations and subjects from the American West and Europe—from his own neighborhoods to vistas of the natural world. Looking backwards for his influences, Maier-Aichen often reenacts or pays homage to the work of the pioneer photographers of the nineteenth century, sometimes even remaking their subject matter from their original standpoints. Always experimenting, he marries digital technologies with traditional processes and films (black-and-white, color, infrared, and tricolor), restoring and reinvigorating the artistry and alchemy of early photography.
Maier-Aichen’s work has appeared in recent major exhibitions at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain (2008); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2007); and the Whitney Biennial (2006). Florian Maier-Aichen lives and works in Cologne, Germany, and Los Angeles.
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