Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Well, you can take out your copy of God's Word and turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 3. And I acknowledge there is a sense in which the message of Ecclesiastes overall is obvious. In fact, last week we covered chapter 3 verses 1 through 8, that poem, the establishment of a sovereign God worldview. I was talking with Mr. Saar at the open house they had last Sunday night. He kind of commented that this is Christianity 101. You learn about God being sovereign, being in control of everything, as one of the very basics of the foundations of Christianity. God is blatantly and obviously obviously in control. That's the message not only of the entire book of Ecclesiastes.

In fact, that's the message of all the Bible. And certainly that was the message that Solomon established in this poem, verses 1 through 8, chapter 3. However, as obvious and as basic as God being in control is, as obvious as that truth is, we are often in a battle to learn the obvious, or at least to remember the obvious, or to apply the obvious. For all of Solomon's wisdom, here's the most wise guy that God says was ever living up to that point and would ever live, the most God-given wisdom person, and he apparently had forgotten that God was in control of all things for at least a certain season of his life. The beginning of chapter 2 describes how he was trying to be God and be the the joy provider in his own life. All of the things he went out and did and tried to accomplish and tried to accumulate for himself, thinking that that is what would give him joy. Even though Solomon had all that wisdom, Solomon apparently forgot or ignored the truth of God's sovereignty, again, at least for a certain season in his life.

Of course, none of us do that, though. We know that God is sovereign, and we live with that perspective constantly, moment by moment, each and every day. We never act like we're in control of our lives. We never get exasperated or frustrated that one of our plans didn't work.

never think that we're interrupted or that you know something is not going our way because we're always thinking about God being in control moment by moment or we're not. Samuel Johnson, an English poet and literary critic said the following, he said quote, people need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed unquote. And probably they need both. We do need instruction, undoubtedly we need to learn new things and how to accomplish different goals that we have. Yeah, but oftentimes it is an issue of just being reminded of the things we already know. Peter talked about always being ready to remind them of some of the crucial things in one of his letters to his readers. People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed and so even though there is some truth in the observation that this is rather basic, obvious stuff. I want to suggest to you that it may not be as obvious and as basic as it should be based on how many of us are so miserable because we're not applying it. If it was so obvious, if it was such foundational truth

that God is sovereign and in control of everything and we are not, then why are we so miserable? If it really was that basic, why are we so miserable? It's because we either don't know it or we're not meditating on it and living our lives based upon it. So in his poem here at the beginning of chapter three, Solomon establishes that the times of our lives, these are the days of our lives. Solomon establishes that the times and the seasons of our lives are out of our control. O-O-O-C. Not just out of control, out of our control, and they are in whose control? Thanks, Tony. They are in whose control? Gods. He is utterly sovereign over everything. We do not have the authority or the power to manage or direct our own life and for that matter our own death. An example, King Ahab thought that he could thwart the prophecy of God going out into battle by just taking off the king's garb. Do you remember that story from first Kings? He thought that if he just got out of the the king's clothes, then he

would be able to escape the prophecy that he was going to die. And you remember what happens to Ahab? A random arrow just coming out of the sky hit him by chance right in the the gap in his armor, and he died. It wasn't his plan. In fact, he was doing everything he could to escape that, And yet a random arrow by chance hit him in just the wrong spot and took his life. Every arrow, every bullet follows the path that God has ordained for it. Every flat tire has lost the amount of air God has decided. I mean we could go on and on and on. When it comes to business or other plans in life, every plan you ought to make should include the little phrase, what?

If the Lord wills, we will do this or that. Because ultimately, whatever you will may or may not happen. It's whether the Lord wills it that makes the difference, because He alone is in charge. chapter 4 verses 13 through 17. Some people make a lot of money, others lose a lot of money. Doug Wilson says prosperity is his gift and so our stock market crashes. It's all up to God. You can't control it. Everything is covered under the banner of God's control. There are no exceptions. And And this morning we move into the next paragraph verses 9 through 15 and here we move from the establishment of a sovereign God worldview to the explanation of the sovereign God worldview that all of us are to have.

The explanation. The poem has ended and the preacher now explains the implications of the truth of God being at the center of everything in our lives. The explanation, the implications. The main point of the poem is that God has established the times and the periods and the seasons of our lives. And so now we get to the question, okay, so what do we do? How do we respond to that? What are our lives and our choices and our understanding of our own human life and human life in general, how is that to be changed and impacted based on having this sovereign God worldview? What is the relevance of, beyond the obvious I think, what is the relevance of God's control for our daily lives?

I mean you can meditate on that one all day long and twice on Tuesday and not run out of things to consider, how God's control over everything is relevant to all those red lights, to your sickness, to the good and the bad times in your life. Well here's the bottom line of this paragraph 9 through 15 and really I think of the entire book of Ecclesiastes.

is the point of the paragraph. Maybe the point of, like I say, Ecclesiastes overall. Man is offered a life that is joyful, but not self-sufficient. Man is offered the chance, the possibility, the prospect happiness. The possibility that you could enjoy life is out there, but not autonomously. That is not independently. That is not on your own, under your own control, making your own rules. God offers to all of us a life of joy, but not independent of Him. If you try to govern yourself, if you try to determine your own life, you will not come away with joy. You will come away with Habel, Hebelim, Hakol, Hebel, vanity of vanities. All is vanity if you're trying to do it on your own. But if you submit and depend on God, there can be joy. Well, let's get in the paragraph. Four points that go back and forth a little bit between man and God than man and God. The first is Solomon's question about man's toil in verse 9. What gain has the worker from his toil? Now I have to admit to you that as I was studying this paragraph for the last couple weeks, I

have had trouble, or at least had trouble at the beginning, trying to catch the connection even between the various sentences in the paragraph itself, let alone seeing how it was related to the paragraph that comes before it in verses 1 through 8, let alone how it fits with chapter 2, 24 through 26. I struggled, I prayed for illumination, I was beating on it with all of the tools I could get to see if it would give its meaning. That was one of things I think either Luther or Calvin said. In fact, Luther, when he was teaching through Ecclesiastes, made some comment about how the preacher was reluctant to give up his message, but that he would eventually yield. And I am feeling some of that pressure or that at least lack of understanding as we go through, but I think, I come to you this morning with great confidence that these are all intricately connected. That in fact there is a purposeful flow here. We've just gone through this poem that establishes that God is in control of the times and seasons, and so what can man

profit from all his toil? This is the first response to God being in control. If in fact God is in control, then what does it matter what I do? I can't change anything. I can't get profit out of what I'm wanting to get profit out of. Since there is a season for everything and a time for every matter under heaven that is out of our control, what is the point of our work? This is the exact same complaint that he raised over in chapter 1 verse 3. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? And the point of that opening poem was that life is vanity, all is vanity, vanity of vanities. Here he repeats basically the same question. Now that he has established even more so that God is in control, what is the the prophet from my work? From all our labor and toil. And this is a truism. This is one to grow on. Write it down, stick it in a book, put it in a safe deposit box. Under your mattress, I don't care. From all your work and your toil, you are guaranteed jack squat. It doesn't matter how hard you work, how smart you work. You are

not guaranteed nothing. Oftentimes, God has a plan that those who work hard receive the benefit from it. Sometimes he has a plan that that doesn't happen. Most of the time when you're lazy and you don't do anything, you read the consequences from that. Occasionally the lazy person, you know, gets some benefit. Ultimately that's because God is in control. All we do is conditioned by the change of times and circumstances and relationships that are beyond our control. Oh, but we try to control it. We try as hard as we can to control what takes place in our lives, and you are going to, if that is your perspective, if that is your goal, is to control your life, at some point in time you're going to get to ask this question yourself. Man, what did I gain out of all that?

What have I profited from all that work that I just did? Note that there is something very different about this question than how we've been talking about enjoying the process. There's something very different here than finding joy in toil. Look at the change in the preposition.

What gain has the worker, what, from his toil? Verse 9 looks to the produce, the results, the fruit of our work. And if you are looking to the results, if you are looking to the profit, to the gain, to your work product, that's a fancy word, you know, that you sometimes here on TV or whatever, you know, typically on lawyer shows, you know, your work product can't be used against you you know it's whatever. If you're looking to your work product to bring you satisfaction, man you're in trouble because you can't be in control of what profit you get from it. There is no warranty that you can get from any job that promises you success. That's what we'd like to have. You know we'd like to get a warranty from our math teacher that says not only will you use this later in life but it will help you make more money and therefore have a happier life. And if we could just get that warranty, the math teacher to sign it, then we'll be happy to do our part. You know, investments. If we could just get somebody to guarantee that you give me a dollar, I'll give you back two in

five years, you know, or whatever it is. If we could just get somebody to guarantee those things for us, you know, we'd do a lot more things. And yet the fact is, there are no guarantees. There are no guarantees, except for death and taxes, which are due in less than a week. No matter how hard, how smart you work, God is in control of whether you accumulate or you lose, of whether you get rich or forfeit at all. If you are looking to your work product or to the proceeds and to the pay dirt from what you're trying to accomplish, you will forever be looking and you will forever be frustrated because it is out of your control. And I tell you what, from an under-the-sun perspective, this This question is miserable.

If you're stuck looking at life unto the sun and that's it, then this question is producing dismality. What profit is there? Well, there is none from your toil. You can't guarantee anything because God is in control. Solomon's question about man's toil, verse 9. Secondly, Solomon's observations on God's work. We've got man in verse 9 as the subject. Verses 10 and 11 get God back as the subject. Then we'll see man as the subject and then God as the subject as we keep going through these verses. Solomon's observations on God's work. 1 verse 10, God gives men an unhappy task to do. Right there in verse 10, I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. Look back over at chapter 1 verse 13. I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.

Verse 10 is kind of developing the thought of verse 9 a little bit that God is in control and he has made us, he has given us the responsibility of working And if you're hoping that from that work you're going to get profit and gain and satisfaction, you're in big trouble. And it is a very unhappy business that he has given you to frustrate your work and to keep you from getting satisfaction out of it. An unhappy business. This is a, again, from the under the sun perspective, a very depressing observation. I have seen, kind of indicates that this was an examination that he made. This was an investigation and his analysis is that this is an unpleasant kind of work if you're trying to secure your own results. This is again a fairly negative statement. God has appointed men to work. God has appointed the ground to be cursed that men work all the way back in Genesis. God has made it so that we have to work and he's made it so that our work will be cursed and we have to sweat and ultimately God

has made it so that we're going to be tired and that's an unhappy business if then you don't get any guarantee that you're gonna get something out of it. I mean I hope that that weighs on you, that should. And too many of us are right there with that perspective that what we are going to do is going to make a difference that will accomplish what we want and that will make us happy. And we're trying to do that to things that are out of our control. God's work is to give us a task to do. But secondly, not only is God giving us a task to do, but God makes everything beautiful in its time. This is a lovely little phrase here. There are some songs that include this in it. There's, I think it's a Ray. Man, I can't think of his name. My parents used to listen to it all the time. Ray, no, not Ray Bolts.

Ray Stevens. Everything is beautiful in its own way. And it's really kind of a self-esteem kind of song is really what it that that one is meant to do. But we have one that goes in his time. In his time. He makes all things beautiful. In his time. And it's kind of a little sing song. You know you just kind of want to way back and forth kind of song. The phrase is very nice, but how does it fit here? How does it work in this paragraph? God is in control of life and death, of gaining and losing, and you are out of control of those things. If your perspective is stuck under the sun, you're going to ask what prophet is there in all this work that I'm doing. And this is a really unpleasant work that God has given us to do with no guarantees of fruit or success. And then he gets to, he has made everything beautiful in its time. This is a transition in perspective. If your perspective is stuck underneath the sun, you can't make this statement. In fact, you would say that God makes everything miserable

in its time if you're not submitting to him. This kind of statement could only be made by a person who is submitting to and being dependent on the God who is in control that has the sovereign God at the center of their worldview. Otherwise, everything is miserable and frustrating in its time, not beautiful. Now, I know that the NAS translates it, he has made everything appropriate. and I say boo boo to that translation. The word beautiful is used many times in the Old Testament and this is the only place where the NAS makes it to be appropriate. Every other time the NAS does some form of beauty or beautiful. The NRSV has suitable and I say baloney the word is beautiful.

Yaphe is the Hebrew word for everybody who wants to go look it up later this afternoon.

Yaphe. Abraham called Sarai his wife beautiful and that's why he was afraid that the Egyptians would want her and so that's why he asked her to say that he was her brother. You know, she's appropriate. My wife is very suitable. That is why all the Egyptians, you know, are going to want her for their wife. No. Beautiful. Jacob saw Rachel and she was quote, beautiful in form and appearance. Yeah, she was, she was appropriate. No, I mean it's the picture of, wow, ridiculously good-looking. The Proverbs say that, and I didn't really need to include this one in here because it's really already covered by the other ones I mentioned but I like the verse, like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman without discretion. Fourteen times in Song of Solomon he cries out to his love, you are beautiful, you are beautiful my love, you are beautiful. Later on the Lord compared Israel to an olive tree beautiful with good fruit. In another verse, singing is described as beautiful. It is way beyond just appropriate or fitting or suitable and like you

can walk away from it not really caring. You can walk away neutral. You can see that's appropriate. You know, like that clock right there. You look back at the clock, that's appropriate. Maybe we're in a classroom, you know, you can see it from anywhere in the classroom, it's keeping accurate time. It's appropriate for a classroom, it's suitable. You know, it doesn't stand out. I don't really have any impression about it. It doesn't make me want to, you know, I don't love it so much. I want to steal it and take it home. I don't hate it so much. I want to throw rocks at it. It's just, it's fine.

But to call something beautiful is not to be able to walk away being unaffected by it. God has made everything not just appropriate in its time, but beautiful in its time. Now, he's the one who's deciding the right time. And I tell you what, most of us think a lot of things are pretty ugly. And you know why? It's because we're not looking at it in God's time. It's really ugly for our time, but it's beautiful in God's time. If we got our perspective in line with his, we will be able to say that everything is beautiful in its time. And if you are trying to be in control of your life, nothing, or at least very rarely are you going to get to a time where you'll be able to say it's beautiful. You know Pastor Z's illustration of your ship comes in. When your ship comes in then then my life will be beautiful. Man, well it's going to be ugly for a long time then until your ship comes in, which it may never come in. Or it may come in and go right through your your house in its season, in its time.

And it's not like we're unaware of this when we sing songs like, whatever God ordains is right. Like we just sang. Is your sickness right? Is it beautiful in its time in its own way under God's control?

is what Solomon at least says that's the case. When your life is in chaos and nothing is where it's supposed to be and you work all day only to end up in the same place or maybe a step further back. Is that beautiful in its time? Solomon says that it is and it will be for you if God is at the center of your world view. If God is not at the center, even if He's on your radar but on the periphery, it's not going to be the same. Everything is beautiful in its time. You cannot and will not be able to make this claim if He's not at the center. The sovereign God not at the center. Well not only as we continue to observe God's work, does He give men a task to do? Does He make everything beautiful in it's time, but third, God puts eternity in each heart. Continuing on in verse 11, also he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. Why do... why does everybody other than junior high boys want to figure out the meaning of life? There's like a

season in life where guys at least, you know, just give us our coke or our Mountain Dew and our video game and say la vie, whatever. But up to that point and after that point in a man's life, ladies lives, why do people want to figure out the meaning of life? Do you know it's because God has put that in their heart, God has made us to be in relation to Him. And since He is beyond the Son, all of us instinctively know that there is something beyond the Son. Whether we try to ignore it or suppress it, we know that there is something bigger than us. God has not only assigned us to a time in history He has also put in our hearts and in our minds that there is something more than where we are in history.

There is an impulse that leads us beyond what is temporal toward the eternal. Now that is absolutely profound. I mean that is, that is worldview kind of stuff. That's evangelism kind of stuff. To know that God has put that in somebody else's heart. They may not acknowledge it. In fact, most of them are probably scared to death by it, because they have this sense that something else is out there, that something bigger than them and beyond them is there, and they don't know what it is, and it scares them. In some cases, it may make them angry, because they're trying to figure it out so that they can arrange their lives and everything in its order and step so that they can get what they want. The innermost part of man is not satisfied with what is here under the sun.

We may try to be, but ultimately we're not. It is our instinct that there is something beyond this world. All of us have an inherent hunch that something is bigger than us that's going on.

We are made with that capacity for things beyond us. This is why we have a concern for the future, because we know it's out of our control. We naturally want to understand the beginning to the end, the meaning of life. Augustine says, maybe you've heard this before, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find peace in you. And And that's because God has done that. You can read Romans chapter 1 18 through 23 about the fact that not only do men know that there's something of Eternity beyond them. They actually know that there's a God and they know his eternal power and Divine nature they they see God even though again the point in Romans 1 is that they suppress that truth But here's the real kicker Even though we have this dissatisfaction with life under the sun that's built in, God has kept us from understanding it.

God has kept us from totally comprehending eternity and the beginning to the end. God has given us then a desire for something beyond our reach, or at least beyond the control of our reach. We are bewildered, perplexed, confused, bamboozled, hoodwinked, whatever word you want to use to describe it there. We don't get it. We know that something is there to get, but God has actually arranged it in such a way that we're more frustrated by it than actually benefited by it. This impulse towards the eternal is not fake. It's not an illusion. It is something real, and it is something that God has put in us. One commentator said, God has put in each person a deep-seated desire, a compulsive drive, to know the character, composition, and meaning of the world, and to discern its purpose and destiny.

There is something there, something that burns inside everybody to know more, to understand what is going on.

And Solomon says, yet even though God has put that desire, that understanding to some degree or another of eternity into man's heart, yet God did it in such a way that man cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. Why? Because we think that if we could find that then we could replace God. That really was the first temptation. Well, as you know, just do this and then you'll have some more knowledge and then you will be like God. Then you can control your life. And God has actually made it so that you will never understand anything that gets you into an autonomous position. You can never be independent of him and have happiness. He has made it that way. You can then either believe and trust God, or you can keep trying on your own to figure it out and you never will and you'll always be frustrated. This is part of the reason why science and philosophy and any study and accumulation of human knowledge comes short in being able to provide real joy because it can't answer the things that only God can answer and the things that we have to

take by faith. But we still would prefer not to live by faith. We'd prefer to live under our own control. So we're frustrated. Well, that brings us to the third major point, Solomon's conclusion on man's toil. Back to man, and then he'll give us his conclusion on God's work as the last point. Solomon's conclusion on man's toil, verses 12 and 13. I perceived that there is nothing better for them that is for men than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live also, that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil. This is God's gift to man. Here we have the superlative prospect of joy and toil and the sovereign giver of joy and toil.

Exactly like we found in chapter 2 verses 24 through 26 repeats the same kind of message. Nothing better than to get joy in toil. And that joy in the process only comes from God. And we will have to look more at that next week Solomon's conclusion on man's toil, Solomon's conclusion on God's work. We will try to to finish this next week and I'm gonna talk next week in combination with finishing up this paragraph. Comparing and contrasting GTD and ETP, and I came up with one more because next Sunday is Easter, CRS, GTD versus ETP and CRS. That'll be the title for next Sunday's message. Getting things done versus enjoying the process on or or through celebrating Resurrection Sunday.

The CRS, that's, that'll only do good one time a year. However, the GTD and the ETP enjoying the process, that'll be important for all of our years, I think. So we'll try to compare and contrast those, finish this up next Sunday morning. I guess as a I conclude though this morning before you go off to your small groups, there is a very fine line between you being absolutely miserable and you having another worldly kind of joy.

It's a very fine line. In fact, I think that Solomon is going back and forth across that line, even in this paragraph in this book. A fine line between being absolutely miserable and having another worldly kind of joy. And the difference is whether God is at the center of your life or not.

Whether he is in the middle of your worldview. Whether then you are submitting to him moment by moment or whether you are trying to be autonomous, be independent and do it on your own. The difference between happiness and dismality is whether you are God in your life or God is God in your life. And what is scary, and it's scary for me, as I assume it's potentially scary for you, what is scary is how many times I'm over on the dismality side. Because you know what, the only reason I'm over on the dismality side, the miserable side, is because whether I have intended to do it or not, I have kind of nudged God out of the center and tried to move my bad self in and it doesn't even work and yet I keep trying. Not only does it not work, it's an infinite offense. It's infinitely wicked to replace the worthy sovereign God at the center and try to inch my way into his position. It doesn't work. It's wrong. And yet, that is a battle. And that's obvious. And yet, it's a battle to live that way every day. Hopefully this book, this paragraph, this preacher, Solomon,

and God's Spirit will help us to get it into apply. And Father, help us to do that moment by moment. moment through your spirit cause us to be submitting to you, to be dependent on you, and to perceive that you are clearly on your throne, that you are in control of the good and the bad. How dare we take the good and not the adversity when in fact the claim here is everything is beautiful in its time and it's beautiful because it is working out glory for you and we are just missing opportunities to give you glory from our own hearts when we miss how beautiful what you're doing is. It's going to require a lot more teachability on our parts and a lot more flexibility that most of us have in our pride.

So break our hearts. You are more than capable of doing that. Break our hearts cause us to be dependent. Not only for the sake of our joy, but ultimately for the sake of your glory. We pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Well, you can take out your copy of God's word and turn to Ecclesiastes chapter three on Unbelievable on one hand that we finally got here unbelievable. I suppose on the other hand that It's been my fault. It's taken so long to get here in some ways You know, it was just last Sunday that we finished up chapter 2 in some ways. I feel like it's been so long since we've covered the end of chapter 2. It's almost like I feel like I've been out of the country. Wait a second. I have been out of the country. So what seemed maybe like a normal week to you seemed like a really long period of time to me. I did have the opportunity to talk, give the 128th ministry report. That's one of the things that we regularly do at the elders retreat, and it was so much my joy to be able to tell them how much growth we see in all of our lives, lives of the leaders, lives of junior hires, lives of high schoolers, excited about the signs of grace in so many lives. So that was fun. It's great to be back even though for most of you

probably didn't even miss me in the sense of not really realizing that I was gone and that's okay.

But regularly I'm asked by other people, you know, how far into Ecclesiastes are you? And then I tell them, well, like I answered the question this week, well, we're gonna start chapter three. And then they say, now when did you start Ecclesiastes? Then I say something like a long time ago. And then I realize it's good to keep going. So we move into chapter three this morning, in particular chapter three verses one through eight. And before we get to that, I was having a conversation with Jim Martin this morning at Elders Prayer. And we were kind of talking about the fact that it seems like the book of Ecclesiastes is almost wasted on youth. It's almost wasted on those of you in junior high and high school because a lot of you don't have the kind of life experience to be able to kind of resonate with the frustration here. In many ways, I at least can think of ways that you guys as students and and as children and families, and many of you do have jobs as well, I at least feel like I can think

of ways that you can, you know, kind of experience this level of frustration that Solomon is describing, and yet I mentioned even in my introduction to the book of Ecclesiastes that in a lot of ways this seems best addressed to old people who have spent their life banging their head into the wall over and over and over again who have spent their life searching for emptiness or at least searching for satisfaction but only finding emptiness.

And so again Mr. Martin and I were talking about that this morning and about how in many ways it seems like the message here oftentimes could be wasted on youth and yet who is this book primarily addressed to. Deut's. De young people's. De peeps. This is addressed to, I mean, everybody as it's God's Word. It has application for everybody what whatever stage of life they're in. But let me remind you before we move into chapter three of a couple verses near the end the book. Look at chapter 11 verse 9. Rejoice, O young man, in the days of your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. Look at chapter 12 verse 1. Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth. I mean, this is wisdom that the preacher is sharing with us for the young people's. And even today as we move into chapter three, this is a worldview kind of passage. If you haven't been getting in

in the first two chapters, some changes to the way you think about life, life under the sun, then you're missing the point of what the preacher is trying to give us. And especially as we move into this new paragraph this morning, I think we find here some critical worldview kind of issues. This is a paragraph that must get into your perspective on life. must be the at least part of the lens through which you look out at everything that happens in your life and in the life of others. Now this is a paragraph that sticks out. In fact, let's read chapter 3 verses 1 through 8, and I'll make a couple comments on the paragraph.

For everything, there is a season. Turn, turn, turn. And you know what? It's not the Beatles. I thought that for many years and it's the birds. B-Y-R-D-S, the birds sing this as a paragraph. How many of you know that song by me saying turn, turn, turn? I don't think the turn, turn, turn is here, but there is a season, turn, turn, turn. So anyway, for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to seek and a time to lose. A time to keep and a time to cast away. A time to tear and a time to sew. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate.

A time for war and a time for peace. Now this is very clearly its own paragraph, but in noticing that it's its own paragraph it really sticks out like a sore thumb. At the end of chapter two, I mean all of chapter two has pretty much been prose, right? It's been, you know, more like a letter almost or like a message and this clearly sticks out as being poetry. I mean he started off with some poetry back at the beginning of chapter one, but then Again it's been prose. It's a completely different kind of writing here. Clearly this is not prose in chapter 3 verses 1-8. You've got the parallelism, you've got kind of the cadence going on.

In Hebrew there is some alliteration at times. There's also assonance which is where the words end the same or sound the same at the ending. sound the same at the beginning, sound the same at the end. You see that more clearly in Hebrew. The constructions are very similar. So this is poetry. As such, it sticks out from the paragraph that comes before and the paragraph that comes after it. But not only just in its kind of writing that its poetry doesn't stick out, it also sticks out, at least, on an initial reading based on its content. In fact, go back and look at the paragraph We looked at the last couple weeks 24 through 26 in chapter 2.

There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also I saw is from the hand of God for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment for to the one who pleases him, God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner, he has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give to the one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. Now pick up at chapter 3 verse 9 and see how well it would have just flowed.

What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in his time. He has also put eternity into man's heart yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceive that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live, also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil. This is God's gift to man." What an amazing similarity and connection then between chapter 3 verses 9 through 13 and probably even 14 and 15, back with the end of chapter 2. And really, as I was studying and reading over this and trying to figure out how everything goes together, in a lot of ways, not only because it's poetry, but even from its content, chapter 3 verses 1 through 8 sticks out. I mean how in the world is chapter 3 verses 1 through 8 related to the paragraph that comes right before it? And how in the world then is it related to the paragraph

that comes right after it? In fact, the book ends there, the paragraph before and the paragraph after would have been better if they'd been smushed together and then this poem would have put someplace else. At least initially that's what we might conclude. So what we've got to find out is what in the world is this paragraph doing here? If Solomon had all this wisdom that God says he has, if Solomon arranged all those proverbs, not necessarily every one of the proverbs in the book of Proverbs, but he was responsible either for writing or for collecting and gathering and organizing so many of them. If Solomon could do that, then don't you think by this old part of his life he'd have figured out, you know, to keep his thoughts together?

Is this poem just stuck in here because, you know, he thought, well, I don't have anything to do today. Maybe just write a poem and then I'll stick that poem in right here. I don't think that that's the case. I don't think that's the case at all. I think that it very clearly is connected to what comes before it and what comes after it. And in fact, I really think it establishes something that verses 9 through 15 are going to explain further. In fact, I would say that verses 24 through 26 of chapter 2 kind of introduce us to a subject, that then this poem establishes, and then next week we'll see hopefully verses 9 through 15 that Solomon explains. And let me give it to you. I think that chapter 3 verses 1 through 8, Solomon establishes a sovereign God worldview. That's the point here of this poem. Solomon establishes a sovereign God worldview. And then next week we'll see that Solomon will explain the sovereign God worldview.

You cannot escape, I already mentioned it, the idea of worldview, but you also cannot escape. In the paragraph we studied last week about joy being a gift from God coming from the hand of God, You cannot escape who is in control at that point. And by the way, it's not you or me.

God is the one. We work. We hope to find enjoyment in the process. But ultimately, we're not the ones who can guarantee that we get joy. We're not the ones who can guarantee success of our work. God is the one who is in control of all that. He picks up on that theme again, starting in chapter 3 verse 9. It's God who is the one who gives this gift of joy. It is God who has been doing these certain things in man's heart, giving him this idea of eternity and yet keeping men from understanding all of his plans and design and detail. God is very much sovereign and in this poem we're kind of, you know, we're able to take a step back and kind of enjoy the different writing and the beauty even that is the poem. But what it does more than anything else is establishes a sovereign God worldview. Two words in that phrase right there stick out to me. The first one is sovereign. This is all kind of introduction to the paragraph. Sovereign, and that is exactly what we don't like. That is exactly the kind of dust that gets into our nostrils that

makes us sneeze. That's exactly the kind of Ipecac that we drink that makes us puke. I won't keep trying to think of more illustrations for that, but it is this not being in control that causes us so much frustration and disappointment and bitterness. And this paragraph, this poem, establishes God's sovereignty. We talked about his sovereignty the last couple weeks. And I'm telling you, I know for sure that at least one person in here has had trouble grasping the fact that God is in control even in the toil. That was me. So I know for sure that even though I'm the one who studied the passage, preached the passage, I still had trouble thinking that it applied to me.

I'm anticipating that maybe some of you are in a similar situation. That you read the paragraph, you know, it's from the hand of God, apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment. How How many of you tried to eat or drink or find enjoyment apart from the hand of God just in the last week? Some of you are humbly raising your hands. You don't have to do that. The fact of the matter is, even though we know it, somehow we think it doesn't apply to us. We can read it. We can think about it. We can marinate on it for a while. And yet when it's done marinating, it's time to get back to work and get our own enjoyment from what we're doing.

And the fact of the matter is, we need to have the fact that God is sovereign in everything established more for us, and that's exactly what the preacher is doing. We try to, seriously, there's nothing better for a person, that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also is from the hand of God. Maybe I can also get it from someplace else. For apart from him, who could eat or who could have enjoyment? Well, is that really true? For to the one who pleases him, God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner He has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give to the one who pleases God.

Are you sure? Is there really no escape clause here? No getting out of jail, collecting your $200 or however that goes? Everything in chapter 3, at least verses 1-15, is meant to establish and explain that God is in control and sovereign over absolutely everything. Look at verse 1, for everything there is a season and for every matter and a time for every matter under heaven. Who is the one who is determining that? For everything there is a season. Says who? And a time for every matter under heaven. Who is the one who is apportioning those times? Who is determining the seasons? Who is that? It's not me, and it's not any of us. Verse 2, a time to be born and a time to die. How much control do you have over either one of those things? That's right, that would be none. Good answer.

Absolutely no control do you have over times and seasons, over your own beginning of life and end of life. Look at verse 10. I know it's not in our paragraph, but I have seen the business that God has given. Verse 11, He has made everything beautiful in its time. That everything looks back to verse 1 and the everything there. Now it's just telling us the actual subject. It's not suggesting us, suggesting who the subject is. In verse 11 it's explicitly telling us, also, he has put eternity into man's heart. Look down at verse 14, not only is God in control of everything, he's in control of everything forever. I perceive that whatever God does endures forever, nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it so that people fear before him. It is all about a sovereign God worldview. It is about having a perspective on life that cannot escape from this God who is in control of every element at every time forever right in the center. And I tell you what, if you don't have that kind of

God, a God who knows what's going to happen because he's planned it and has the strength then to carry it out. If that kind of God is not at the center of your life outlook, your perspective, your worldview, then there is going to be no other possible conclusion for you but vanity and striving after wind. Frustration, disappointment, irritation. We are under somebody else's control. We are not sovereign. This paragraph, this poem establishes that. So again, one word, you know, as I'm giving you the point of the paragraph, Solomon establishes a sovereign God worldview.

One of the words that sticks out to me is sovereign, the other one is worldview. It's important for me to clarify that this is not a prescriptive passage. This is a descriptive passage. In other words, this passage is not giving us a bunch of imperatives for us to figure out what we are to do and the right time to do it. This is a paragraph that describes what God is doing. I think I can prove that to you. Do you need to try to figure out the right time to be born and then be born at that time? No. Do you need to figure out the right time to die? And you're like then morally obligated to die at that appropriate time? No. This is descriptive of things out of our control, not prescriptive of what we need to try to you get in control of. For example, do you need to try to figure out the right time to lose? A time to seek and a time to lose down in verse 6. Is there a time where you are morally obligated, it's the right thing for you to do to lose, you know, your sheep or your banana clip for your

hair or you know whatever it is that you lose. Is that right for you to try to figure out how to fit into when it's time to lose and then to lose? No. Again, some of the other ones we might see as you know rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep, yes. There's another passage that talks about the appropriateness of our actions, but this is not giving us a command or an imperative, this is giving us perspective. This poem is not looking at life from our vantage point to try to figure out what we should do. This is a paragraph that's giving us a perspective on what God has planned for our lives at his right time. He is the one who is in control here and maybe you've heard the the abbreviation OOC. What's that mean?

Out of control. I'm gonna add another one. O O O C. Out of our control. Life. Ready for this? your life is not in your control. Even as I say that, somewhere deep down inside something goes, no! Something says that's wrong. That's not what we're told by commercials. That's not what we're told by most of the books that we read. We are told that life is, our life is in our control, and we can be who we want to be. In fact, we can be all that we can be. And the idea is you just make the right choice, you make the right decision at the right time, and you will control your destiny, your life, what happens to you. And the fact is you nor I are in control of anything. Now, we act like we are. And I mean, in a certain sense, God has given us, you know, responsibilities.

But bottom line is, I can't make anything happen. I can't guarantee that anything will come as a result of what I do or what I don't do. Can't guarantee it. I am not in my own control and and neither are you. God is in control. And because of that, this is a perspective that we need. We must establish or have established in our own minds and in our own worldview that we are not in control that God is. And I tell you the biggest reason why that's so important. This is not just an element of theology. It is. It is, it's huge theology.

God understanding of God studying God himself proper his you know power and strength and plan and all that more than just an issue of theology this is an issue of joy if you do not have established in your worldview that God is sovereign you will not have joy not lasting joy not meaningful joy your life will be joyless and full of dismality. If your worldview doesn't have a sovereign God right at the center. If you do not have a sovereign God at the center of your worldview then your life will be filled with frustration because who will be at the center of your worldview? It will be your sovereignty and your control. And if your worldview includes what you can do to control your life, day day after day, you're going to get to the end of day and go, wow, if I'm in control, I really stink.

I really do a pretty bad job of being in control if I am in control, like, I'm not doing a good job. I'll try better tomorrow. And then at the end of tomorrow, it's no better. And after a few years go by, you will have nothing but frustration at your total inability to control your life. And if you look at life, your perspective on life, your worldview has you at the center and you at the decision making, you know the control panel of life. You're going to be ending with frustration, with disappointment, with anger, with bitterness. And you are going to do everything you can to buck the system, trying to establish yourself as the determiner.

The fact is, as this poem explains and establishes, you're not in control.

On the other hand, if you do have a worldview with a sovereign God, the sovereign God at the center, then you have a perspective of submission to the sovereign God. And if you have that kind of submission and trust in the sovereign God, then your joy is actually untouchable, regardless of whether you accomplish what you think you wanted to accomplish. In fact, whether you live or die. Your joy is untouchable if, like I say, the sovereign God is at the center of it. I tell you what, if you are at the center of your worldview, your perspective, your outlook on life, if you are at the center, then when your friend gets cancer, you can't say or sing, for you are good to me. You can't at least sing that and mean it. You can sing it as a hypocrite, I suppose. For you are good, for you are good, for you are good to me. I mean, that's basic lyrics. Nothing complex about that. And yet you will be angry and you will not be able to say, for you are good to me, if you're at the control panel, control central in your life. You can't

saying, blessed be your name, you give and take away. If you're at the center, when then something is taken away that you couldn't hold on to, you know, and we try, we try to grasp on tight.

But when it ultimately is taken away from you, if you don't trust and submit to sovereign God, the sovereign God, you can have no joy. Well, let's look at the poem itself. For everything, there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. This is the introduction to the poem. This is the umbrella under which the rest of the poem falls. Everything from verses 2 through them falls underneath this every thing or this every matter. Note the repetition everything there is a season any time for every matter under heaven. And not only then do we have this you know universal principle, you know what does every mean? Well every. It means there isn't something that is outside of the every. And not only does he then repeat the idea of every twice in verse 1, but then in 2 through 8, he uses 14 different opposites, 14 different polars, different sides, opposites. And that's actually a common way, even in our own language, but certainly in Hebrew writing, that's a common way to say that everything is included from one end of the spectrum to the other and everything

in between. Nothing escapes God's control and God's sovereignty. Every season, everything that happens is precisely and exactly under the control of one sovereign God. Starts in verse two with the life cycle. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted. This is not a human life and then moving into the farmer's job. This is all about life cycle. One is from the human perspective, one is from the plants perspective. Plants have a life cycle too. Plants grow and then plants are uprooted. They die. Plants have a birth date and they have a funeral just like humans do. This verse too, I mean out of all of the other verses, sets the tone of O-O-O-C, out of our control. From the very beginning here, it is not your choice. It's not up to you. It's not under your control. It is completely out of our control. When you're born and when you die. I mean we think that you know none of us have really ever tried to argue that being born is under our control but a lot of us

you know have this idea that when we die is somehow under our control and so we eat our vegetables and we drink our water and we you know run on our treadmills and we do all those kinds of things and yeah I mean God has us as stewards and he tells us there are wise things to do but ultimately I'm not in control. I mean I could be running on my treadmill. I could you know not be paying attention, hit the side, smash my head right on my iPod, poke it through my eye and die. Here I am trying to exercise so that I can live long and prosper and boom the very thing that I'm thinking is going to be under my control, my health, to keep me alive for a lot longer. That very thing could kill me. You know what? The LA marathon was a couple weeks ago. I've run a couple marathons hoping to run some more maybe. A couple people were in the LA marathon.

Well I mean probably 20,000 people were in the LA marathon. You know these are people that you would think are like in shape and healthy. And two people actually had heart attacks in the middle of the LA marathon. This healthy thing that they're doing, two Two people had heart attacks and they died during the race. I mean, and this happens to me a lot when I'm eating a vegetable, I choke on it. Not the kind of choking most of the time that requires the heimlich, but right? I mean, it really is not up to us. It is completely up to God. And in the plants life cycle, this is an inanimate object. This doesn't have a will or a consciousness to itself.

A plant does not have feelings, ladies, okay? They don't feel when you prune them, oh. So it's out of the plant's control. It establishes that somebody else is the one making the decisions, and it's God.

Additionally, verse three, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down time to build up. You have positives and negatives. You have things that are desirable and things that are not as desirable. I mean obviously it's more desirable to heal and to build up than it is to kill and break down. And this is not telling us why the killing is taking place, whether it's a war, just war or not. It's not telling us if it's capital punishment. This is not telling us giving us license to go out and murder people. It's just saying that there are times in life, you know, we're so sensitive that, you know, we can't imagine this happening, but there, as God has determined, throughout history there have been times of killing and there have been times where there hasn't been killing. There have been times where there's lots of building and there has been time where buildings are destroyed. Whether this is, you know, literally referring to you know a house or a business building or whether it's

referring more figuratively to just your projects in life whatever it is all of us have seasons when we're constructing all of us have seasons when we're not constructing in fact when we're tearing things down you know what we'd like to think that all that is up to us and under our control well God is the one who is in control of those seasons and those times. A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. I mean, here are our emotions. Do you know that your emotions in response to certain situations are also under God's control? The first part of verse four is maybe more private. the second half of verse four is maybe more public. Weeping, sadness, laughter or happiness, and then as it's expressed in maybe public mourning or even dancing, we're so excited.

And like I mentioned before, I mean, Romans tells us where to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. We do have obligation to be identifying those times and be sensitive, but there are other times in life where, you know, we get news that we're not in control of that's maybe happened to somebody else or that relates to ourselves, relates to people in our families, whatever it might be. And there are times when God gives us, you know, the response of laughing and happiness and having fun. There are other times that are more sober and serious and sad. But both are there and both are under God's control. Verse 5, a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together. Time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. Both of these are connected in that one seems to be kind of getting away and the other is bringing too. So the gathering of the stones or the embracing is a similar idea or the refraining from embracing or the casting away stones is similar.

It seems like best I could tell the casting away stones and the gathering stones, you would gather stones together when you were trying to prepare a field so that you could plant in it. And there would be times when then you would be gathering all the stones in a field together so that you could prepare it and like I say plant things and grow things. You also find, I think it's in, I think it's in 2nd Kings. I'll have to get it for next week. There's an example of throwing stones out into an enemy's field to make it so he couldn't use it.

Or at least it would be more difficult. So for yourself and for your own planting, you would gather them up out of the field and for an enemy, you might throw them out into his field so that he couldn't use it. Obviously then, as it relates to our relationships, embracing and a time to refrain from embracing. This could be between a married couple embracing and refrain from embracing. It could refer to just more general. You know, there are times when giving a hug is not the right thing to do. God is in control of those situations. A time to seek and a time to lose. This is another example of something, you know, that we put on our calendar, on our task list.

Okay, lose something. Figure out the appropriate time to lose something. That's not the point. There are times when we lose things. There are times when we're trying to find things. In fact, it's really frustrating sometimes when you do lose something to figure out when to stop looking. A time to keep and a time to cast away. This seems probably more like possessions and money when it refers to saving or being generous. There are times for both.

A time to tear and a time to sow, a time to keep silence and a time to speak. A lot of commentators suggest that that relates to mourning and death. Even as Pastor Z mentioned this morning, tear like as in tearing your garments. So when the time of mourning was done to sew them back together. Obviously that seems to go with the keep silence and the time to speak, even as Job's comforters came and initially tore their clothes and were silent for seven days. And then it was time to speak after that. I don't know if that's exactly what it's referring to, the morning or just more general. But then verse eight, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

Look, as much as we might like to think we're in control of some of those things, it's out of our control. Some of these are on a national kind of level. I mean, war and peace is probably more of a national kind of issue and nobody's asking me. That's out of my hands, but it's not out of God's hands. So think about this. In this poem, we have emotions, relationships, work, money, war, all of those things are under God's control. In this poem we have public things, private things, social things, national things, all of them are out of our control. We have things being started, things being finished. We have investing, saving, and we have generosity giving. We have friends and enemies. We have fighting and fellowship. We have times for serious and fun. Well, when it comes down to it, for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven and the one who determines and apportions those is God. There is a time to be frustrated driving to work when traffic doesn't go the way that we want. There is a time when the lights

are all green. You know what? It doesn't matter whether you were a minute late getting out of the house or you were 10 minutes early, you're ultimately not the one in control of whether you hit all reds or all greens or half and half. This afternoon you'll go home, you'll get a call. You are not in control of whether that call brings you good news or bad news. Tomorrow you will go to work or you'll enjoy your day off and how much you get accomplished and how much you don't get accomplished, you'll think is up to you.

Well really it's just part of God's sovereign plan. And the point is that we must have the sovereign God at the center of our worldview or there will be no joy. If God is not at the center of your worldview, then getting the call with the bad news cannot bring you any kind of joy on any level. It will destroy you depending on what the depth of the bad news is. Getting all red lights will irritate you and you'll have road rage if God is not at the center. You'll be frustrated and unable to sleep with how much you didn't get done if you're at the center. And as I close this morning, I do want to say that knowing that God is sovereign does not stop us from being sensitive. It doesn't stop us from being sad and being glad. It doesn't stop us from times of rejoicing and from times of weeping.

Knowing that God is sovereign does not stop us from being sensitive, but it should stop us from being so surprised. It should be able to stop us from freaking out about everything. It doesn't go our way. There's no reason to be surprised. It's not that I don't weep when I find out bad news, but I'm not surprised by it. It doesn't touch my joy in God. If I'm surprised by it, I'm upset by it, I'm overturned by it. My joy, my life is depending on my control of the situation. I'm always in trouble. If it depends on God, then I can always rest on Him and in Him and look to Him. That's exactly where our perspective needs to be.

Joy only comes from and in the hand of God. We receive it from him and we hold onto it by being in his hands ourselves. And where are you? Are you trying to hold your life in your own hand or are you trying to submit to the hand of God? God is in control in fact. Last thing I'll say, whether you like it or not, whether you live this way or not, actually is at the center of the world. A sovereign God is the one who is established to be in control of everything, not you. And if you try to buck the system and get out of that and be in control of your own life, welcome to Vanity of Vanities. All is vanity. That will be your motto for your life.

Unless you again submit to the sovereign God. Father, help us to do that. Give us this worldview, perspective, and outlook that we need. A beautiful poem, but so much more than just its beauty strikes us, strikes us in its comprehensiveness, strikes us in its explanation and establishment.

Reminders of things that we really already should know, that we have already experienced to one degree or another that we're ultimately not the ones in control you are. Help us submit to you every minute, moment, hour, day, year. Give us the joy from your hand as we live in your hands. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Well, you can take out your copy of God's Word this morning and turn back to Ecclesiastes chapter 2. There is nothing better, nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. There is nothing better than that. If you read my blogging on this, I think maybe this, the most recent one on Friday was something about, Martha Stewart doesn't even begin to comprehend this good thing. Because that's how, you know, that's her motto or whatever. It's a good thing. Well, she doesn't get, this is the best thing.

There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil, this also I saw is from the hand of God. For apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him, God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and striving after wind. I was reading a blog, somebody else's blog that I normally check this particular, this past week. This is a blog by a guy who does web design. He's undoubtedly a pagan, not a Christian, not claiming any kind of religious affiliation whatsoever.

I don't read it because I think it's going to satisfy or encourage my soul. I read it because I have a very scratch of the surface kind of interest in web design and blog design, all that different kind of stuff. Anyway, so I was reading this blog and I was noticing the title for one of his posts this week called Fulfilling Your Wishes. And right as soon as I started reading it, I really thought I was gonna get, you know, some good material for my message this morning. And I did get good material, but not in the way I thought. Not in the way that I imagined. He said this, last night while I was driving, I saw a billboard saying that tomorrow's Florida lottery was for an estimated 15 million.

And like most people, I'm sure thought how nice it would be to have that much money. Right there, I read that first sentence and I thought what I was going to get in the rest of the post was and about how useless that is. I mean, I thought I was going to get from this pagan and understanding that, you know what? It really is more than about 15 mil. I really thought that's what I was going to get. So I was kind of encouraged. I was like, man, this is going to be good. Even this pagan has a little bit of perspective that life is not all about money and success and all that different kind of stuff. Well, he goes on.

But then I thought if it was nice to win that much money wouldn't it be better to work towards that goal and why stop at 50 million? What number of dollars would satisfy me? And was I even attempting to work towards that goal? He says this, I know not everyone is infatuated with money. Again, I'm thinking, OK, here's his shot to change the perspective. I know not everyone is infatuated with money, but I am pretty sure most of you out there have a magic money number in your head that you think about occasionally. The number where you tell yourself, quote, all I need is blank number of dollars, whatever that magic money number is in your head.

all I need is blank and I would be set for the rest of my life, everything would be so much easier. He says, everybody out there has some kind of number in your head that you know if you had that much money, then your life would be great. You'd be set and life would be so much easier. Then his conclusion is, but how many of us are really working to get there and how come everyone isn't doing so? I was stunned. I don't know why I really expected that he would have a different perspective, but I really thought he was going to kind of, to use the introduction from last week, get his head up out of the water for a moment and realize life is more than just about your money or your success.

In fact, this guy, who probably is not everybody's opinion, who's a pagan, but he assumes that he is everybody's opinion. He himself figures that that's what everybody is concerned with. His conclusion was not that money would make him happy, but that enough money would make him happy.

conclusion was that 15 million winning in the lottery was not actually enough. I'm assuming that he would be happy with that if he were to win it. But he thought, you know, why stop at 15 million? And why isn't everybody? Everybody's got that number in their head. And I would suggest that even among us, we might be a little bit better off than saying it's a magic money number, but it's some fill-in-the-blank kind of thing that we're looking to that we think as soon as we get that, we'll be set. As soon as we have this thing, as soon as this event in our life takes place, or as soon as we have this kind of schedule, or or as soon as we have this job or this spouse or any spouse, you know, your standards start to go down as the age starts to go up, maybe.

You know, any spouse or whatever it might be, whatever that blank is for you. If I just had X, if I just had this, then I could have joy. I think almost all of us have one, if not a comma-separated long list of things that go in that blank. If I just had this, I could have happiness. If I just had, you know, whatever it is, then I could enjoy my life. I do think that that is the case for even most of us who are sitting in this room. not just for this pagan guy who makes websites and thinks he needs more than 15 million. That may not be us, but what is the blank for you? What is it that you're looking to provide that joy?

Last week, we began by considering the superlative prospect of joy in toil. And I don't really wanna go back through everything that we mentioned about that. But we got that right from the very first part of verse 24. There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. And you see there what he is describing, the kind of life and lifestyle he's describing where joy is possible. And this is a superlative prospect. There is nothing better. It doesn't get higher. Your blank can't be better than what he's describing to you right here. Eating, drinking, being content with what you have, and finding enjoyment in your toil, in what you do each and every day regardless of what that is.

And I spent a long period of time kind of fleshing out some of the things that I thought stood out by not being in there. For example, I'll just give you that list real quick. Joy comes in toil. It comes in work. Not in avoiding work, not in a vacation from work, not in the weekend. Joy comes in toil. Second, joy in your toil doesn't depend on what kind of toil it is. It doesn't depend in this passage on what you do. In fact, it says for a person to find enjoyment in his toil. The implication is whatever your job is, whatever you do, in His toil, a person, there's nothing better than to get enjoyment out of that.

And I actually gave you a rundown of maybe some of the kinds of people who would have originally been hearing this message from the preacher. And the kind of lifestyle and the kind of work and the kind of exhaustion, the kind of chaos that they would have been facing in their own lives and their own responsibilities and said, look, none of us today have it any tougher than any of them did. We may have some unique challenges, but I tell you what, so did they. And I mentioned things like no running water, no electricity, inability to communicate with one another in a, you know, pretty much instantaneous fashion, almost anywhere in the world.

I mean, we're going to go to Canada this week. We're going to the outer edges of the earth. And we'll still be able to call back and talk to Maggie any time we want. We're going to have wireless internet access in our little room. Woo. You know? Can you imagine? You're a shepherd. And you're out, you know, miles away from home. And you know, you just pull your laptop out of your bag and maybe get your little webcam going and you know, talk with your family at home. Yeah, real tough day. Three or four wolves came, attacked the flock, but you know, they taste real good that we're having them for dinner. Tell the kids, love them, good night.

You know, they didn't have that option and all that related to it. Doesn't matter what kind of work you do, what kind of difficulties are involved in that work. The point is to find enjoyment in whatever your toil is. I mentioned thirdly, that joy doesn't depend on whether your work is successful or whether you finish it, at least in this passage. Look, there is no doubt that when you finish a project, there is a sense of relief. There is a sense of joy that it is done. But I tell you what, that is not lasting joy. It's not a substantial kind of life-motivating joy to finish projects because life is way more about doing the projects than it is about finishing them.

Because as soon as you finish one, then somebody's got something else for you to do. Or you yourself assign yourself another task. Now I mentioned this when we started Ecclesiastes. I love at about 12.05 on Sunday afternoon. That's a good time for me. Because I have just released the burden onto all of you. You know, I work and study and pray and think and type and write and blah blah blah all during the week. And then for 45 minutes to an hour, I share what I've learned. And I'm cranky leading up to that because I'm working so hard, I want to make it good, I want to make it right, I want to be accurate, I want God to get the glory out of it.

at 12.05, things are good. Somewhere, that generally lasts somewhere between 15 minutes, that joy, between 15 minutes, sometimes it doesn't even get that long as I'm walking up to my office and somebody else catches me on the way and tells me the things that they need me to do for them. But it doesn't take too long before I start thinking about, well, now there's Wednesday night sermon. There's next Sunday sermon. And there's a lot more of Ecclesiastes after next Sunday sermon. You know, it's an ongoing kind of thing. And if I was depending on finishing, if I was depending on success in a project, any joy that I would have would probably be pretty short-lived.

Not really sustaining kind of joy, which is, I think, the kind of joy that Solomon is saying is a prospect here. Doesn't come from finishing it or being successful in it. Nothing in this passage forth, I said, depends on the paycheck for your work. There's nothing here about renumeration, about just get a raise and then it will be better. Nothing about that. Nothing about recognition for your work. You know, some of us would say things like, well, you know, I don't really need the money, but it sure would be nice if they'd just, you know, sink me. All they gotta do is just say thanks. I don't need a raise, I don't need more money.

Just some appreciation. And you know what? If your joy... can I give you one to grow on? If your joy depends on other people's pat on your back, then you might as well die right now because you're not going to get that kind of joy in a sustaining kind of way. Ladies, as godly as your husband will hope to be, he will fail to properly express appreciation and value for all that you do for him all of the time. And if you are depending on his approval and recognition for your lasting joy, you're not going to get it. I mean, yes, that's no excuse for us guys or those who are already husbands to not be expressing thanks and appreciation.

I'm just saying, if that's what you depend on for your joy, you're going to be sad. And vice versa. Guys, if you're just waiting for your wife to tell you what a stud you are and how much, you know, you're a world beater, you know, and nothing going to stop you now, I mean, if you're depending on that or you're depending on your boss, your employer, or you're depending on the people who work for you to reciprocate that back. I mean, life is not about getting thanks. I mean we should be giving thanks to other people, yes, but life is not about us receiving thanks. That is not where the prospect of joy is found. If I could just get somebody to be telling me how great I was and how awesome what I do is every day, man I'm kind of weak, so I'll probably need it about every 10 minutes.

If I could just set somebody's alarm reminder to go off on their Palm Pilot every 10 minutes to come and tell me how good of a job I'm doing, then I could be happy. I mean, that's ridiculous. And Solomon here is not including that in how the prospect of joy is available anyway. Because that's not where it's found. It's found in our work. It's found in enjoying the process. Whether we get paid, whether we're recognized, and no matter what it is. Whether you are a junior hire who's doing schoolwork and chores, or whether you're the provider of income for your household, or whether you're the one who's managing the household, joy is found in the process, the superlative prospect of joy and toil.

I do want to point out, as we move on into point number two, that while there is nothing better than joy in our work, that joy is only a prospect, not a guarantee. You are not guaranteed to get joy out of your toil. It's only a possibility, it's a potential, it's a hope.

And that brings us to point number two, which is the sovereign source of joy in toil. the sovereign source of joy in toil. This also I saw is from the hand of God. For apart from Him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment? And here's the thing, joy is not a guarantee, it is a gift. Being able to enjoy the process is not a guarantee, it is a gift and God God is the provider. The preacher, Solomon, explains that enjoyment of your work, enjoyment of the process, comes from the hand of God. We don't typically use that kind of terminology anymore, but occasionally somebody might say they had their hand in something. If I say I had my hand in a meeting and I had my hand in the decision, that means that I was a part of it in some way.

The idea of getting our hands into it or getting our hands dirty is the idea of personal involvement in whatever the task is. Solomon says here that joy in the process is from the hand of God. It is a personal activity, a direct work of God to bring joy to us in the midst of the process. In the case of joy, God's hand is also the only hand that matters. Enjoying the process, enjoyment of toil is from the hand of God and from the hand of God alone. He then is in control of who gets joy. I don't know if I like that on one level, speaking as in the flesh. I don't know if I like that it's up to God whether or not I have joy, because that means it's out of my hands.

It's out of my control and my decision. It's up to God. And that's why I say that this is the sovereign source. God is absolutely sovereign. He is dependent on no one else and on nothing else. He is completely sovereign in this bestowing or giving of joy. And He is the only source of this joy. If you don't like that God is the sovereign giver of it, it's not like you can go to some other source. This is the only place it comes from and he is absolutely and utterly the one who is in charge. That means that the fruit of your labor is not always enjoyment. That means you can work and you can work and you can work and you can do some more work, and there is no guarantee that you're going to have joy.

That sounds like vanity. sounds like meaningless repetition. I can work and work and work and there's no guarantee of anything? That's exactly right. God is the one who gives it. Enjoyment is a gift of God that he gives to one and not to another. A guy named Doug Wilson. If you're familiar with Doug Wilson at all, you know he has some colorful ways of speaking. This is a great comment. He says this, God is the one who gives things, and God is the one who gives the power to enjoy things. These are distinct gifts, just as a can of peaches and a can opener are distinct gifts. that one sink in for just a moment. Now let's just talk about me giving you a can of peaches.

Let's say you're starving and I give you a can of peaches. That's a gift from me to you. Talk about a vain and empty gift if I don't also give you the can opener to get into the can of peaches. That's a beautiful illustration of just a plain old everyday God is the one who gives things and God is the one who gives enjoyment of things. Distinct gifts just as the difference between a can of peaches and a can opener are distinct gifts. Only the first is given to the unbeliever. The believer is given both which is simply another way of saying that God has given us the capacity for enjoyment. Verse 25 makes it even clearer, moving on into a rhetorical question in this sovereign source of Julian Toil.

For, apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment? And this rhetorical question reminds us of what we instinctively know. We know the answer to this question, that's why he doesn't need to then say, no one. He doesn't need to spell that out. We get it. Apart from Him, no one can have enjoyment. God is in control and therefore joy depends on Him. Apart from Him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment? And that means that better personal time management is not the guarantee of gladness. It's not. It may be part of what God uses, but in and of itself, an unbeliever can be the most precise, on time, getting every task done kind of person and get no joy, no meaningful lasting joy out of that if God doesn't also give the gift of enjoyment.

Working harder is not a guarantee to make you happier. Being smarter is not the promised source of joy. God is. I was thinking about it last week and this week. I get joy, and I keep confirming this with other people, I get joy out of something that most people don't. And that's probably true in a couple different areas of life, but the one that has particularly been on my mind is running on a treadmill. I enjoy running on a treadmill. My wife got me a treadmill a couple years ago, almost two years ago now, and maybe I am on that thing, and I love running on the treadmill. I would rather run on a treadmill than outside on the most gorgeous Seattle Pacific Northwest day you could imagine, which for me would be cloudy and rainy and windy anyway.

I would rather 10 times out of 10. There is not even a 9 times out of 10 for me. 10 times out of 10, I would rather be running on my treadmill. I like the exercise. I like being in the same place. I can think more than rather thinking about whether a dog is going to come bite me. It provides some cushion rather than the concrete or it's flat rather than if I was running through the grass or whatever it might be. I love running on my treadmill and I'm honest about this. That is a gift of God to me. Most people that I know detest a treadmill. And if somebody even likes running at all, they like running outside. It's a gift to love, to exercise.

It only profits a little. It doesn't change your eternal destiny. past week I ran 42 miles on my treadmill. My longest day, my longest for any one day was 12 miles. I ran those 12 miles on the treadmill on Wednesday morning. So I figured that out. I probably was on the treadmill this week somewhere around a total of 7 hours. a long time. And you know what? I'm happy to do it again this week, even though it's in Canada. And that is a gift of God. It's enjoyable to me. It's not constant drudgery. That's why a treadmill is so often used as an illustration of monotony. Doing a bunch of work and going nowhere with no change of scenery, you know, nothing to stimulate your mind and make it interesting.

And not only do I get joy out of, you know, running, you know, it's not like I'm running away from a lion that's chasing me, you know, like it's necessary. It's just good exercise. Maybe it's keeping me healthier. I tell you what though, if I die tomorrow from a heart attack, I will still have enjoyed all the time I spent on the treadmill. It's not about for me making sure that I live really long. I don't need to live really long. I don't really need to live a lot longer at all. Like going to heaven is going to be better. I'm pretty sure about that. So, the doctor tells me tomorrow, you know, I walk in, I go to the doctor, and he says, you're a big fatty.

You're going to die because your heart is not right. I'm like, dude, I just ran. I'm going to tread them up for like seven hours last week. And he says, well, that's not what you need. You need to do this other thing. Chew gum or whatever. The point is it's boring on one hand, I guess. It's repetitious. And you know what? I get joy out of it. I consider that a gift of God. And I think that that's an illustration of the kind of joy that is available, that is God-given for any task and toil that we have to do. I'm convinced that that is exactly what he's saying here. It doesn't matter what it is. You can get joy out of the most simple, basic, exhausting, wearisome work that you do, God is actually more powerful than whatever that job is to infuse joy into your heart.

Only Christians, and I realize that there weren't Christians per se at the time that Solomon wrote this, but only Christians at this point are unable to have that kind of perspective. God gives that to his people. We'll see that in just a moment. One more thing about the sovereign source of joy. And this is again from Doug Wilson. He says, quote, this is meaningless. Work in particular is meaningless prior to the gift of God which makes it enjoyable. The gift of God does not make this meaninglessness go away. The gift of God makes this vanity enjoyable. He is not infusing success into your widget making. He is giving you the power to enjoy doing the work of making widgets or digging ditches or writing a research paper or whatever it might be.

This gift of God does not change the chaos and the craziness and the late nights and early mornings and the exhaustion and the running on the treadmill. God's gift does not change that. He changes our perspective and our ability to enjoy the chaos and the vanity. That leads to the third and final point, the simple qualification of joy and toil. Joy is not given to everyone. There are two types of people then. Those who get the joy and those who don't. And in verse 26, we see the difference between these two types of people. For to the one who pleases him, God has given wisdom and knowledge and what? Joy to the one who pleases him.

But to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give to the one who pleases God." This also is vanity and striving after wind. This is one of the key words, the simha, the joy. God gives wisdom and knowledge, but so far wisdom and knowledge haven't guaranteed anything in the book of Ecclesiastes. So it's nice that he gives wisdom and knowledge to those who please him, but Solomon has already said wisdom has relative value, but not ultimate lasting meaningful value. This is the word that's different about the paragraph from the rest of the book is the word joy, gladness of heart, festivity of heart, pleasure.

It comes at the end of the list here because it's the turning point. But what we've got to answer is, who are these ones who please God? If these are the ones who get the joy, who are they? And maybe then more specifically, how does a person please God? How do we get into this category of joy receivers? Because it's great to know that joy is the superlative prospect. It's the best thing that's out there. It's good to know that God is the giver, the source of it, but okay, that's all good. How do I get it? Is there something that I can do to enable me to at least be in a position to receive it from the sovereign giver of it?

How does a person please God? And at this point, we could probably run all through the Old and New Testament and look at verses that describe the kind of people who please God, right? You know, without faith, it is impossible to please God. I mean, there it is right there in Hebrews. We could run all over and start cross-referencing here and there to figure out what kind of people pleased God. But Hebrews was not written when Solomon explained this. Solomon figured that whatever he meant by it, people would be able to figure out from what he gave him right here. So our task is to see if we can figure out who are the kind of people who please God from this paragraph or from this book, from this message.

Well, I think that the answer is here. Who are the kind of people who please Him, who please God? I can't come up with anything other than outlook. Your outlook on life. perspective on life. And included then in that outlook and that perspective are priorities and goals, dependence, trust, all those kinds of things. Those who please God are those who submit their lives to God and who do their work for God. It's a change of outlook. There's nothing here about praying a prayer, about believing in Jesus, though obviously we know that that's part of what it's going to describe in the New Testament that is included, but to Solomon's readers, or the ones who are getting his message here, I think he's saying that the ones who please God are the ones who are living for God.

It's the ones who are submitting to God's sovereignty, not the ones who are trying to be sovereign themselves. It's the ones who are looking to God and depending on Him for the joy and the strength to do the toil. Those are the kind of people, that's the kind of relationship then, living in dependence on God. Those are the kind of people who please God. All of their calendar appointments, all of their to-do list, all of their roles, all of their goals are under God. Now conveniently, there is a program by Arch Enemy Microsoft called Outlook. Right? And Outlook, how many of you are familiar with Outlook? seen it or you use it, something like that. Outlook is a great name. I love the name from the beginning. Outlook is a program that you put all of your personal data information into. And so it's a one-stop shop for what appointments, what meetings, you put your calendar in there, and then you also have a place for your task list and all the different things, you can categorize them and prioritize them and put them all in there.

And then you got another spot where you can put just notes that you need to keep and depending on what time management system you use, you know, always encourage you to think about your roles, the different hats that you wear and all the different priorities that you need to put in place because of your roles and how that impacts your calendar and your task list and the priority of all those things. If it gives you a place to put your goals, what you're trying to accomplish with your life, it is then your outlook, your life perspective. And I tell you what, those who please God are those who in their outlook, everything underneath it is looking to God.

There is no task to the God-pleased. There is no task that is outside of that umbrella of God. There is no contact, no address book, no person that you know, no relationship you can have horizontally that is not impacted by God. There is no calendar appointment, no visitation, no event that you can participate in that ought to be then out of underneath God. Those are the ones who live their lives managing everything in their life under him. Those are the kind of people who please him. It's a perspective. It's an outlook. And this is exactly what Solomon was stopping doing. This is exactly what he had failed to do in his description of however many years it took for him to pursue the wisdom and think life was in wisdom.

For him to pursue pleasure. what makes this paragraph different, not only that there's joy, but that God is back at the center. The one who pleases God is the one who has God at the center of their life. And it touches everything that they do. And this is otherworldly kind of living. This is having loves that are beyond the sun. This is storing up treasure in heaven. This is making much of him. That was the last song we sang. I want to make much of you. And the biggest reason why we probably don't have joy is because we're busy trying to do something that is ultimately futile. And what is that? Making much of us.

It is no wonder that we don't have joy in our toil because we anticipate that at the end of our toil, we will be made much of. And we will be able to quantify that by looking at our bank statement, or by looking at our mantle of trophies, or by the clamoring crowds who can't wait to get our advice and be our friends, give us stuff. And we think that in our work, we'll make much of us. And you want to talk about an empty endeavor. That's it right there. Trying to make something that is not worth anything in and of itself. No wonder we are frustrated. We are set about to an ultimately frustrating task, an impossible task, if our goal is to make much of ourselves. But here's the thing, no matter what you do, whether you're writing a research paper, no matter whether you spend hours writing your research paper, no matter what your grade on that paper is, no matter how many hours you spend shoveling gravel from one pile to another, no matter how many miles you are on the treadmill, no matter the result, no matter the paycheck, if your goal in doing

that is to make much of him, you can be successful. You can actually make much of him in any in any task you do. You can make much of him scraping gum off of the floor. You can make much of him doing the dishes. You can make much of him whatever your toil and work is. You can be successful in that and those are the kind of people who have joy. Those are the kind of people that God gives joy to who have him at the center of their life and who are living for him. This is not really Saying that we're looking for something other than success, it's just a different standard of success. I still want to have a successful life, but I'm defining success as being able to make much of him, not much of me.

You can make money and you cannot make money and still be successful if you're making much of him. You can make minimum wage or you can make a six-figure-a-year salary. Either way, you can make much of Him. If that is your standard and your understanding of success, there is great possibility of your joy. Think about this. God values, if God is the sovereign giver of joy, and we're interested in those who please Him, because those are the kinds of people He gives joy to, these are the people who then have God at the center of their lives. These are the people who prioritize what God prioritizes. Just a brainstorm list.

God values faithfulness, not success. Nobody gets into heaven and is pleasing Him because they won 8 million people to Christ, compared to Jeremiah, who won nobody. It's not based on numbers and success. It's based on faithfulness to keep obeying. God values obedience, not results. God values our trust. This is, I think this is a good one. God values our trust in Him, not our abilities. God doesn't value our independence. It pleases Him when we are dependent on Him. In fact, if God valued our abilities, it would really be His job to try to make much out of us too. But the fact is, we don't have anything that we haven't been given.

He doesn't value our abilities and our wisdom and our strength. He values our trust in Him. God values our pure hearts more than our clean desks. God values our love of Him, not our love of ourselves. So living life from Him and through Him and to Him is what pleases Him and there is no greater joy possible than when He is at the center of your life, whatever it is that you're doing. But to the sinner, He has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give to one who pleases God. Now that's a miserable lot. I mean to the sinner, to the one who doesn't have God at the center of life, who isn't Living for God is not concerned with God.

To that person, God has given them something too. Do you see that God is still the sovereign source? It's not like to one God has given joy and to the other He just lets them alone. To one God gives joy, to the other God gives it to them and it's worse. This is a giving of judgment. It is judgment. It is punishment that God gives to those who don't have Him at the center of their lives, that they work and toil and labor, and then they die. That is not just empty and vanity. That is painful punishment. God has given the business of gathering and collecting. The result of all the sinner's work here is not joy or success, but vanity.

The word business. God has given the business. He's given the task. He's given the job. And the idea is that this is a frustrating, wearisome, burdensome work. The business He has given them is gathering and collecting. And this is, you know, I can't think of a better way to kind of heap up the idea of just monotonous, tedious, boring stuff gathering and collecting. Whether you're gathering money, whether you're gathering kernels of corn, whether you're gathering whatever it is, accumulating it up. You know? That's the race, trying to get what we can, grab all that we can. God has given you 60 seconds in the grocery store.

You run around and you put everything in your cart that you can and then you don't get to keep any of it. And then you do it again. You don't get to keep any of it. It doesn't bring you happiness, it doesn't bring you joy, and that is a punishment, that is a judgment on those who don't have God at the core. He is not part of their outlook. So, unenjoyed work is God's judgment. God's hand is just as much involved in this part of the process as God's hand is a part of giving joy to those who please Him. The sinner keeps on gathering and collecting week after week with no end in sight and no meaningful enjoyment of it.

Not only that, unenjoyed work is God's judgment, but God uses his enemies for his own sake. There is actually a result for the sinner is that all their stuff goes to the ones who please God. Solomon doesn't say when that happens or exactly how that happens, but he does summarize that that's the bottom line. God is storing up more and more good stuff for the ones who please Him and taking it away from those who don't. Well, that's not fair. Well, we are not God. And it is exactly by saying it's not fair that shows God is not at the center of our lives. And we would rather be in control and make the decisions and have it depend on us rather than for us to humbly depend on Him. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

I don't think that this is a summary on the whole paragraph. I think it's a summary on verse 26 that in particular the last part there right before this is vanity. It's a summary on the sinner's frustration. That is a painful kind of emptiness. Well, as I Lack of joy is not a vocational problem. It's a theological one. Lack of joy is not an issue of paycheck, but of perspective. Your lack of joy is not dependent on you. It's probably because you're not depending on God. And so, what is that blank for you today? What is it that you're looking for, you're hoping on, that you yourself are providing or you're just hoping that you're going to win the lottery and that's going to do it. Right here we see how our heads can be up above the water, how we can breathe, how we can have joy, and it is by having God doing everything under God, having Him at the center of our lives, depending on Him to give us that joy regardless of what task He has us doing at the moment.

And Father, this is Your gift, and the most we can do is ask. So we do. We ask for Your help to have this kind of outlook and perspective to prioritize each and everything in our lives for Your sake to make much of You. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Well take your copy of God's Word this morning in turn 2 Ecclesiastes chapter 2. There is something very different about this paragraph. In fact, there's a word used in this paragraph that has not yet been used in the book of Ecclesiastes. It's a It's a word. Just one little word is going to kind of buoy us back to the surface and let us get our heads out of the water for at least long enough to kind of fill our lungs with air before we go back under. But this is the kind of passage, in fact just this one little word inside this paragraph is going to get us out from the, I guess, fairly depressing, discouraging, life is hard and then you die. Vanity of vanity, all is vanity, striving after wind. This is a passage, an array of light breaks in. This is a paragraph I've been looking forward to since we started Stink. When did we start Ecclesiastes? I don't even have any idea.

idea. It's the word shimcha. That's the word shimcha. And you really got to get the gutter all in there because it's a hate is the letter there.

Shimcha. It is the word in verse 26, joy. Shimcha. Joy to the one who pleases him God has given joy. This is the first real hint in in the whole book of any kind of meaningful gladness, happiness, joy. You know by this point we might have started to wonder if there really was any good ever going to be any kind of good news at all in this book. I mean based on everything that the preacher has said so far in the previous sections, I mean we pretty much have nothing but dismality, discouragement, depression, you know, we kind of week after week have been feeling this heavy weighty burden of life on our shoulders pushing us down, you know, it's kind of like the concrete weights chained to our ankles sucking us down underneath the water. And here for the first time we have the prospect of joy, God-given joy. It is no coincidence that there is something else different about this paragraph as well. Not only do we have the word shimcha, joy, we see in verse 24 the idea of finding enjoyment. Verse 25 who can

have enjoyment connected with the shim-ha, even though it's a different word, but they're similar in idea. There's something else different about this paragraph, and it's no coincidence.

I think that this is the first paragraph that really starts to include somebody else in the story, and that's God. Strangely absent in the book of Ecclesiastes so far has been God. Have you realized that? The only other time God was mentioned was back in chapter 1 verse 13, and I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. The only other time God has been mentioned explicitly is describing, yeah, he's the one who has made life so miserable. He's the one who's made it so tough and given us this work, this unhappy business to be a part of, and it is no surprise or no coincidence to find that when the subject gets back to God and seeing life from the outlook or the perspective of submission to God that there can be joy. In everything else that he has pursued so far, he has found at best a temporary kind of joy, at best temporary relative kind of joy and wisdom he said yeah wisdom is better

than folly but I mean then you die anyway he's worked he sought pleasure I mean we went through that whole list that chronicle of different ways he sought to find pleasure and ultimately his conclusion on everything else in life was not joy but vanity have now have a lean vanity of vanities all his It's empty, it's meaningless, joyless, and here we get to the possibility of joy. And I tell you what, this is a paragraph that we've got to get in the sense of we have got to make this a paragraph of priority in our own lives. This is one that we have got to get if we're going to get the message of the book of Ecclesiastes.

This is a message that we've got to get from the preacher here, not me the preacher, Solomon the preacher, this is a message we need to understand and master, especially if we long to have any kind of meaningful joy onto the Son. He will repeat this idea in a number of other paragraphs that follow, but this is definitely the first time. It's one of the few explicit notes of positivity in the book. And when we find these, these These are like gems, these are like the needle in the haystack kind of passages, because the majority of it is about how it's tough, it's hard, miserable. But there are these few gems in here that again get us back up in our heads above the water for at least a little bit and give us some positive things to learn.

It's one of the things I'm trying to learn and apply in my own life. I think I probably have the dismality part down. I think I got that. I think I understand how to do that, how to live that part, and how to see life from that perspective. It's this kind of paragraph here where I am wanting to grow in. Hopefully you will want to grow in it as well. The not so secret truth about enjoying life. It's not a secret, because he's telling us right here, it's not so secret issue on how to enjoy life. Look at the paragraph with me. Chapter 2 verse 24. There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.

This also I saw is from the hand of God for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment. For to the one who pleases him, God has given wisdom and knowledge and Shem-ha. Joy. God given joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give to the one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. I'm not going to finish this paragraph this morning I have purposefully decided not to try to get the whole way through this paragraph and then we'll finish it up next Sunday morning before we head into our small groups to give you at least a week or a little bit more than a week to to dwell and think about some of these things. So pretty much I figure out we'll get through my first point of three in the passage. Here it is point number one the superlative prospect of joy in toil. The superlative prospect of joy in toil.

And I get that from the beginning part of verse 24. There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This is Solomon, Martha Stewart the preacher telling us the good things. This is a good thing. That's one of her mottos, if you ever watch her. It's a good thing. Here Solomon is telling us, in fact, more than that, more than just a good thing, this is in fact the best thing. There is nothing better. Now of course this is not necessarily a completely unqualified statement. statement. I don't think that he's intending to tell us here that there is nothing better than getting enjoyment in your toil, like not even being in heaven with God is better. That's not his point. His point is that under the Sun, I mean that's where he has been, that's where we live, is right now under the Sun.

He's not giving us any look to heaven and saying that it's actually better to find enjoyment in your work right now, then it will be to enjoy eternity in heaven seeing God face-to-face. He's not making that as the statement, but He is under the sun saying there is nothing better. That makes it a superlative. A comparative is you've got good and better, but the superlative is the best. If there is nothing better then that means there can't be something else best or that there isn't another category higher than what he's about ready to describe guys this is it are you grasping that right here Solomon is going to tell us how to get life he's good he's explained to us the not necessarily the meaning of life but how to have meaning in life or where meaning in life comes from, where satisfaction in your heart comes from, where joy comes from. Nothing better under the Sun than what he's about ready to describe. It's superlative. This is the highest it's going to get for us.

This is the best. Nothing better. There is nothing better for a person and I want to just point out how general that is before we get into some specifics here.

For a person. This is now a general axiomatic kind of principle. That is it's universal. It applies to everybody regardless of their position, regardless of their class in society. He's not saying there's nothing better for a king than to what he'll describe. And this is beyond just his own experience as king. This is beyond just what he sees coming for the successor that he would have who follows him in his position as king. This is not just for nobility. It's not just for the land owners or the rich people. This is not just on the other hand for the poor people or those who don't have a lot. This is not for men only who have jobs and not for women who either have a job or who are working at home. This is for a person. It's not just for old people, this is for young people. This is, again, cross gender, cross chronology, cross geography, cross ages. And here it is for a person. That is, in being so general, something that's important for us to recognize because that means that applies to us. It applies not just to Solomon who was the king, it

applies to us. It applies to you as a junior high girl. It applies to you as a high school guy. Hopefully high school guys and junior high girls don't have anything more in common necessarily than me just including you in the same sentence. Nevertheless, whether you are old and you have raised your kids and they're gone or you are still hoping to get married and have kids. Whether you work outside of the house or you work inside of the house, this is where joy is found.

Enjoyment comes and he's going to tell us about it. There is nothing better for a person, that's any person, than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. There you go, that's the secret. Well, the not so secret. Nothing better than contentment and joy where you're at. Nothing better than the simple things like eating and drinking. I don't know about you, but eating and drinking is one of the most basic, you know, mundane, everyday kind of things that you can do. Eating and drinking is just a picture of what happens on an everyday kind of level? Eating and drinking and then work. Things you do every day. There is nothing better than that you find enjoyment in the things you do every day. The simple things. I mean eating and drinking and working that's pretty simple. That's not really very complex. But for the rest of our time, I'd really like to just focus on the fine enjoyment in his toil clause in that phrase. Because as I was meditating, marinating, whatever you want

to call it on this passage throughout the week, a number of things came to mind, probably even more so about what Solomon doesn't say than what he does say. It's striking to me that here he's talking about enjoyment and joy as a gift of God from the hand of God all the things that he doesn't include in how to have meaning in life. All things he doesn't say that we would look to you as answers for how to have that kind of joy. So I got a number of these things that stood out to me so these are kind of sub points underneath the superlative prospect of joy and toil. First, the joy or the enjoyment comes in toil, right?

Some of it comes from eating and drinking and I don't think that he's trying to encourage us there at that point that we should eat a Daniel's broiler for every meal. You know like that it's actually the food itself it's the process of eating and drinking right? It's not what you're eating and drinking it's that you are getting to eat and drink. And then specifically the toil. In other words joy comes in the process of life or in the processes of of life. Hence why the title for the message is, Enjoy the Process, or Enjoying the Process.

Joy comes in toil in the normal day-to-day things we do, not in stepping out of those normal processes of life. To eat and drink and work, as I said, are the basic things of life, these are the simple things. I mean this is a piece and contentment with what you have and what you're doing and it is so interesting to me that in the remainder of the book every time I think he talks about joy or enjoyment he includes it or connects it with work, with toil, with labor, not with vacation, Not with taking a break. Not with getting out of work. Whether that be by vacation or a break or the weekend. I mean, out of all the people who had experienced pleasure, who had access to not working, and making other people do the work for him, I mean, that would have been Solomon.

As we saw already at the beginning of Chapter 2, I mean, here was a guy who didn't really have to do anything. And still enjoy all of the pleasures and all of the luxuries, right? I mean, the fun things, the pleasurable things. Starting here at the end of chapter 2 and through the rest of the book, he never says that it is in the luxuries of life that we have joy. He never says that it's in the vacation seasons of life that we have joy. He never says it's in the retirement stage of life that we have joy. He says, joy and enjoyment comes in toil, in the middle of our work, the additions to life, the little things we try to make our lives more comfortable with, the luxuries that all of us have, Solomon the preacher never says joy is found in those things, he says joy is found in toil.

I'll talk more about that as we go along. Not only then do we see that joy comes in toil, second, based on this paragraph, joy does not seem to depend on what kind of toil it is. He makes no qualifications here about what kind of work you do as being the source of joy. There's no description of here's the kind of job that you do where you can have enjoyment and all these other kinds, you can't have enjoyment in. No qualifications, no restrictions whatsoever.

Instead, a person is to see the good. Is that how the NAS translates? How does the NAS translate that last part of verse 24? You have find enjoyment in his toil, the NAS has what? Tell himself that his labor is good. I'm having a little conversation with myself. The verb there is see. See the good of his labor. Probably is a better translation. Find enjoyment is okay because find has the idea of looking I suppose. But really to see the good of his work. To find the pleasure in his work. So that's the nothing better than that. Telling yourself that your work is good, I mean that could give you the idea that you know you take a test and you get it back and you got enough on it but you just tell yourself hey it was good anyway.

I mean that's not the idea.

It's beyond just kind of trying to mentally trick yourself that you know everything is okay when it's really not. It's to look for the good, see what is positive, what are the blessings of your work, of your toil, of your labor, whatever your toil or labor may be. Wow that's amazing to me because I've had some jobs that didn't really enjoy a whole lot. In fact, I've had a lot of jobs that I pretty much hated, despised, disdained, looked down upon, held contempt for. And yes, Alma says that there is nothing better than looking for the good than finding enjoyment in whatever you're doing, whatever your work is. Is it possible, for example to find joy to see the good in scraping gum off of a gym floor for around three hours. The answer is yes. As I collected as I was scraping gum on my hands and knees yesterday afternoon at the gym gym that seems to have become the traditional thing for me to participate in when I come to the gym gym is to get a little scraper and scrape gum you know spray some little cleaning solution on it and let it sit there and do its work and then pick at

it. All across the gym floor I think it was around three hours that I went around and did that yesterday and this is a lot of what I collected. Is it possible? I thought you guys would appreciate that, that's what I was saying. There's some good things in there beyond just gum. I mean if you guys want to look at that more later you're more than welcome to come up but how appropriate is I thought even to just have it in here. A little smiley face garbage can. So we'll kind of let the happy face look at us as we go on with our message this morning. Is it possible to find joy shoveling gravel from one pile to another one, Mr. Palmer?

I used to actually use that as an example when people asked me how my day was going or various things like that. I used to say things like, well yeah, it's better than shoveling gravel from one pile to another all day long. Well, Mr. Palmer actually had the opportunity. How many tons of gravel was it? About ten tons. Okay, so 10 tons of gravel that you had to hand shovel, right, out of your truck into a pile, I assume. So that you could get your truck in a position where you could move it into the shop so that you could fix the engine, right? Is that accurate? Yeah. So approximately how long did that take? The shoveling gravel element there.

Three to four hours. Three to four hours. Is it possible to find joy in that kind of labor and toil? And you know what the answer is? Yes. Well, that might be part of it. You know, I kind of came up with a list of the kind of jobs that people might have during Solomon's time who lived in Israel, And the kind of things they might have to do in some of those jobs, you know, probably the people who would have read this kind of passage first, you know, to kind of wrap our minds to kind of, you know, put on our togas and wrap our, you know, gird up our loins and go back three or four thousand years and see what kind of work they could have done to see, you know, if Solomon says there's nothing better than to find enjoyment in eating and drinking and finding enjoyment seeing the good in your labor, what kind of people do you think he was expecting this truth to apply to? Well, how about shepherds? Again, I just came up with a list and some more thoughts on these as we go on. How about shepherds?

I mean I'm wondering how much joy there actually was in and of itself in being a shepherd. I mean you are with stinky animals, always responsible, always responsible. I mean being a shepherd is a 24 hour job. You are always responsible to be looking for their next meal. You are always responsible to be finding the next water spot, to be a shepherd at times of the season at least, at times during the year, could actually require being away from your home for maybe months in a row. Away from your, you know, nice things, away from your wife's home cooked meals, out literally in the wilderness, because that's where grass grows, is out in the wilderness. And so, you know, if you didn't have a lot of your own land, you would have to, you know, drive your cattle or drive your sheep to other places to, again, find that grass or find that water.

Being out in the cold, being out during the night. I mean, always needing to be on guard, watching for wolves or predators or robbers. I mean think about that level of responsibility. Think about that kind of consuming job. You know we act like we have tough jobs because you know we you know take it home with us. Well a shepherd was really taking it home with him and even at nighttime had responsibility. I mean maybe there were shifts if he had enough you know sheep let's say maybe he had a partner or a hireling who could help him out but still I don't necessarily know that being a shepherd would provide in and of itself a lot of joy because then you kill what you have just been sacrificing your life for then you kill it you know or maybe if it's sheep you shear it you know and keep going for a while but then it dies I mean it's not like you're having good conversation out there in the middle of the waters with the sheep you know good fellowship taking place how about being a farmer I mean or running a vineyard

that's another kind of job that a person might have yeah that's real good play in the dirt I just consider the lack of conveniences that farmers vineyard keepers would have had two, three thousand years ago compared to all of the you know big cool farm tractors you know we have today in the combines and all those different you know tools like an engine. It's not all things an engine accomplishes that they wouldn't have had two, three thousand years ago You know, you take your rocks and out to the field, you know, strap it on some plow, you know, and as you're plowing through the field, yeah, that sounds like a good way.

I signed up for that job. You know, and you run into a rock cave. And then, you know, you can't be in control of the weather. The frost comes, destroys the crop, you gotta do it all over again. I mean, not like you got lights out on the front of your tractor. I mean, that's getting up at the break of dawn and working as much as possible until the sun goes down. And of course, then when you come home, you're not tired at that point. After having worked all day as long as the sun is out.

trying to again protect your fields from the various animals or predators that could destroy it. Let me think about the face that being a farmer requires. I'm going to take this really little thing and I'm going to bury it underneath the ground and then I'll wait. Okay, put some water on it, take the weeds away from it and then expected to grow and that's going to provide my family's income for you know the few months over the winter when crops can't grow or can't grow as well or you grow different crops I mean I don't know that being a farmer is that great of a job how about construction workers I mean again if we're trying to think about jobs people might have had during the time of Solomon I mean we read all those different building projects that Solomon had taking place. I would anticipate that Solomon was probably an exacting, probably a relatively critical kind of boss. I mean this was a guy with some pretty high expectations and when it takes you 13 years to build your house, you know, it probably was not taking 13 years because Solomon was working on it

in his spare time. I mean he undoubtedly had you know hundreds if not thousands of people working on it like all day long. He's wrong, that's ugly, that's not square, do it again.

I mean you can just imagine that kind of thing taking place. I don't know that being a construction worker in Solomon's day would have been that great of a job. It's not the job in and of itself. Kind of going back even before that you know I'm thinking about because if this is a universal truth, if this is a principle that applies to everybody at any time, then it also applies before Solomon. I think about the Israelites who are in Egypt, and after Smart Alach Moses goes in and says, let my people go, Pharaoh says, you guys must be so bored, now you can collect your own straw from which to make the bricks. And we're not going to decrease the daily amount of bricks that you need to make. So whereas before we were providing you the straw and apparently the amount of bricks that they needed to make was still pretty high at that point. I mean barrel was not probably just giving them three hours of work a day. Now they got to go get their own straw and come back. I wonder how much enjoyment you think you could

find in going out to find straw coming back and making bricks all day every day. I mean, especially during that season of life, how much do you think the guy was home? How much do you think the guy was at home spending time with his family when he now had to go get the straw and make the bricks? Is it possible for that guy and for that family to find enjoyment in their work? I think that it is. Back in Solomon's time, we could talk about the palace servants, you know, those who were cooking and cleaning, we talked about, you know, in previous messages, you know, that it could have fed a thousand people the kind of daily food preparation.

I mean, that's annoying, right? You know, wake up and do the same thing again and again. The meaningless repetition of, you know, we ate just three hours ago and now I got to go through the whole process again and then I got to wash the dishes and then three hours from now we're going to do it again being a paliservant how about if you were in the army that's another occupation that people at that point could have had you know not only an occupation where you on a daily basis or under threat of losing your life that's part of what it is to be in the army, but I mean we're talking that the Israeli army oftentimes would have been away from home for months if not years at a time. That's the case even today for people who are in the military. You know they're going on three months tours or six months or a couple different years, a couple numerous years on top of each other away from their family. That's predominantly men. Probably the biggest job that most of the women had was housewives. Well let's think about that.

Let's think about the lack of convenience that is 3,000 years ago that every housewife has today like I don't know running water. Instead of you putting the bucket on your head, bucket head kid. Instead of putting the bucket on your head or on your shoulders and going down to the well and drawing the water and carrying it all the way back to your house every time you needed some, you turn on a faucet and you actually have the choice whether you want it to be hot or cold. You don't got to, you know, pour it into a different bucket and then light a fire and then put that bucket of water on the fire so that that can get hot so you can do whatever you need to do.

I mean you go to a faucet and turn it on or off as you want, as much as you want, pretty much any time you want. I mean, let alone the electrical stuff like light. I mean, they had candles, yes, but torches. But we have this crazy, fandangled, magical light coming out of the ceiling.

Washing things, cleaning things. I mean, preparing every meal from scratch. not going down to the store and picking up something that then you add your own meat to. For a lot of people today, that's the top of what cooking from scratch means. You open up the separate bag of pasta and the separate bag of seasoning and you add your own meat and that's called cooking from scratch. You know hamburger helper stroganoff or whatever you're eating. About if you made your own pasta and had to grow your own spices and then kill and prepare your own meat and do that every meal, every meal, not meat, day after day. Is it possible for those people to find enjoyment?

I think so. How about the lack of medicine? How about the lack of communication from your husband? And by that I don't mean when he got home. I meant all the time he wasn't home. I have talked with my wife about this so I think it's okay for me to say it even I know she's not here. Because I think we're on the same page with this. I think that she would actually say it louder than I would. Do you realize, ladies, that part of the idea of you working at home, like part of what makes that significant, is that the guy doesn't. Now think about that. If we make such a big emphasis about the woman being a worker at home, that means that she's not a worker outside the home, yes.

That means who is a worker outside the home? How much do you think the guy was home when he was in the Army? How much do you think the guy was home when he was out gathering the straw and then making the bricks to still fulfill the responsibility of the day of the requirement? I mean, the guy was not home because he was working where he was supposed to be working. Is there still possibility to have joy? And the answer is yes. It does not matter what kind of job you have, what kind of coil you do. There are no qualifications. Solomon gives us no qualifications, whether you're a husband or a wife, young person or person, whether you have a great job that you love in and of itself, or whether you have a worker bee job that is as boring as snot.

It does not matter. There is nothing better than to find enjoyment where you are at and what you are doing. Can I add that most of those families were probably living in one room houses. So I think my phrase for that would be no escape. I mean, there's no escaping from one another.

I mean, you're always on call at that point, whether you're a parent or you're a sibling. I mean, there's no place when the guy comes home from gathering his straw and making his bricks and he's tired and he knows that tomorrow, he's gonna actually have to walk further away to find the straw because he used the straw that was closer. He's gotta walk further away to get the same amount of straw and still come back and then make the bricks and be home and he's gotta be home, honey, probably be home a little bit later tonight. And he gets home and his kids wanna see him and his wife wants to talk to him And you know, there's no place for him to go and his lazy boy.

You know, watch the TV. No escape, always right there with each other. Hearing everything that would be going on in the middle of the night. Everybody's snoring, everybody's talking in their sleep. Everybody's rustling around in whatever they were sleeping on. Don't forget that these guys had family responsibilities, just like we do. The command in Deuteronomy chapter 6. I mean, we'll turn there. Or I'll turn there. Deuteronomy chapter 6. Hero Israel, verse 4. The Lord our God. The Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. And you shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.

Just because they had a lot of work to do in preparing the meals, or cleaning the house, or gathering the straw, or building the palace, didn't change their family responsibilities, and the fathers in particular responsibility to shepherd his household as much as he could when he could be there.

and was not out doing his other job. They had family responsibilities. Don't forget that they had ministry or temple obligations as well. Some of them are rather inconvenient. I mean they had to make sacrifices, parentheses literally, in order to serve God in the midst of the work that they were doing. I tell you there's no way that it was convenience for the mama to get her kids cleaned up and fed and then off to the temple for worship. Nothing convenient about that at all. Didn't change the responsibility to do it. By the way can I add that they worked six days a week, not seven, or not five, like we most of us. In fact that was the pattern they had received from the very beginning that it was at that point working Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then they got one day off, not a weekend. And what were they expected to do on that one day?

Oh, sleep in, because man, that straw was getting really heavy this week. It was to be a day set aside for the Lord to worship Him. All of that, uh, one more thing, by the way the men had to attend three conferences a year, that's my own word, they had to travel to Jerusalem three times a year for certain feasts to celebrate. Further away you live from Jerusalem the longer you'd be away from home, the longer you would not be talking with your wife. You know we got these cell phone buhahs. We are pretty much in constant communication with one another or at least have access to constant communication with one another. How did those women get by without hearing from their husband for a few days or a few weeks at a time? How did they get by? Well, I tell you what, their joy was not in hearing from their husband because that is, I mean, when my wife hears from me as much joy as I'd like to think that that brings her. The meaning here, the enjoyment in toil is not from having things exactly like we wish they could be.

It's finding enjoyment in what we're doing when we're doing it. The people Solomon is thinking about here for a person, the people who would have read this for the last 3,000 years are people who know what it's like to work and be tired and have lots of responsibilities. Maybe we would say they had the advantage that their life was more simple. I guess maybe we would say that, but they would probably think we were idiots for saying that. If they could see all of the conveniences that we have, I mean, there is no way that they would say, yeah, you guys have it all for that. They understood, these original readers would have understood.

They knew what it was like to have responsibilities and disappointments and struggles. It doesn't change that we can, the prospect is available of finding joy in the toil. Whatever that toil is, he does not tell us that it's one kind and not another. Here's a third thing that I thought of. Joy does not seem to depend on whether your work is successful or finished. There is nothing in the passage about finding enjoyment when your project is completed. There is nothing about the joy or the enjoyment that you can find when your project is successful. It is not at this point about the grave. At this point, not about entirely your desk being all clean.

I mean, I like my desk being cleaned off. I like my stuff being organized. That is, I don't have to wait for joy until I get to that point where everything is in its file in the right spot. I mean, I'm getting lots of opportunity to work on that in my house. Because our house is not done yet. I tell you what, I'm gonna have three, four, five pretty miserable years if joy doesn't come until that's done. I tell you what, in my job as a pastor, you know when my job is done? Either when I die, or the Lord comes back, or you are complete in Christ. Every one of you. Then my job is done. I gotta tell you what, if I'm gonna wait until every one of you are complete in Christ before I can have any joy, I'm not going to have any joy, not because you all are that significant of punks, just because none of us are going to be complete in Christ until we get to heaven.

So that job is never ending. There is always more to do. There is always more to do in my own life, trying to be like Christ alone in the sheep's lives. He makes no mention that you find enjoyment when your toil is done, or you find enjoyment when your toil is successful. In fact, out of all of his projects that he completed, his conclusion after finishing those projects was vanity, emptiness, meaninglessness, palace, temple, huge pools of water and you know irrigating however much square acres of Israel. The project being done was not what was satisfying to him. He's saying the joy can be found in the toil. Fourth, it doesn't seem to depend on the paycheck for your work, on how much money you get from your work.

Solomon, there's no one of us who are going to have an income like Solomon. The argument from the greater to the lesser then is if the greater income couldn't find satisfaction in the paycheck, then why would you think that you're going to find it in just the next step up from where you are? You know if I could just if I could just get that raise then I think I could have some joy in this job. If I could just have the kind of money that that person makes in their job then I could probably I think then you know I'd be able to find some enjoyment in it. Money itself is meaningless, vanity, empty. It's not in the paycheck. Fifth, joy doesn't seem to depend on recognition for your work, on other people bowing down to your great performance, pumping up your self-esteem. Oh, such a great job. You're so amazing. I feel like you.

Again, who could have had greater recognition for their massive projects than solid? It is not finding enjoyment when people say you've done a good job. In fact, you kind you kind of get the idea that it's in spite of whether anybody recognizes what you do or not. Whether you get a thank you or not. Whether somebody values your contribution or not. It is enjoyment in the work, in the labor, in the toil. I mean we do, I'm almost done. We do an awful lot of complaining and rationalizing about our lack of joy because we're too busy or we're not getting to do what we want or what we think we would rather be doing. And you know what, most of the time that comes because we act like our toil shouldn't be toil. We could just figure out a way to keep the work from seeming like work. This just is. There's a reason they call it work and not a game.

Or playtime. Or recess. I mean, work is the idea. I mean, they called the thing that because, I mean, you work. You toil. You labor. We believe we could really enjoy our toil if it just wasn't as much work and that that misses the point. It is not that we find enjoyment by getting out of toil, it's that we find enjoyment, we find the good in our toil. Because you know what? You are going to toil every day of your life in one way or another for the rest of your life and then you will die. God has given this business of working and toiling to all of us and I tell you what? It's worse. Thanks to our old father Adam who sinned, God decided to curse the ground so that our work would be frustrated. We work every day except for hopefully a day that we're setting aside each week to the Lord and that work is cursed. Not only do you have to work, your work is cursed. God made it that way.

God made it that way. And just because we're not digging down in the ground, you know, like God cursed the ground and said he'd have to work it by the toil, by his toil and sweat of his brow, just because we're sitting at a desk typing on a computer doesn't mean God doesn't have the ability to make that blue screen of death just like the toil and the sweat of trying to get something to come up out of the ground. God is probably not mystified at our lack of agricultural work and wondering how to curse our work and make it frustrating. It is not about finding different work. It is not about getting out of work. It is not about finding work that is easier. It is about working and finding enjoyment in whatever that is. Amal is the Hebrew word for toil, finding enjoyment in his toil. You know what's interesting about this word Amal?

In other places it's translated trouble. When it's used of describing a person, it can be translated either as laborer or sufferer, meaning that at least with the use of this word, the nuance is there's a connection between work and trouble, between labor and difficulty, between toiling and discouragement. In the middle of our toil, we can find joy. I think we are so depressed and discouraged and burned out because we're looking for joy in the wrong place. We're looking for it in the next. We're looking for it in the next race, in the next vacation, in the next time we get out of work, in the next job that we'll have that is a little bit more advanced than we have.

We just have a little bit more money in the bank. Or perhaps this may be your satisfied with you, John, if I just could have gotten a little bit more done today. I just could have paid, you know, all of the bills instead of, you know, the ones that I was able to get paid. If I just could spend a little bit more time at home, if my husband could just spend a little bit more time at home, just waiting for something to happen or change, then you know what? It may not happen or change. And if you're waiting on that thing to happen or change in order to have your joy, your joy is elusive, and it is for you like striving after the wound.

You're not going to get it. Stop living in hope of a better lot in life and find enjoyment in your lot in life now. Stop looking for the good in what someone else is doing and what you wish your life could be like and find enjoyment in what you are doing. Joy in work, in your toil, in your labor does not come from having the right job, the right employer, making a lot of money, having an exact schedule that you want or from taking lots of vacation, etc. Joy comes from the hand of God and we receive it moment by moment as we submit to him in whatever he has us doing. We'll see that next week. This also I saw is from the hand of God.

For apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment or joy. Apart from him you can't. That means with him you can have it in whatever. If other how much we need to probably repent of enjoyment of our lack of joy or joylessness Because it's not just that you have put trials into our life and have for a season of time caused us to have heavy hearts or grieve over something it's So much for our joylessness is because we have put ourself in your position and we're just mad and frustrated that we don't get what we want. That kind of joylessness is wrong. It comes from a wrong perspective, it comes from a wrong hope, a wrong trust, and a failure to submit to you who are the Solomon. Thank you for Solomon, from his wisdom.

Continue by your spirits to convict where necessary and teach us and draw us to look to you and to see the good from your hand every day.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Turn to Ecclesiastes chapter two. We'll try to get in this next paragraph before sending you off to your small groups for this morning. I'm sure that over the next coming few weeks and perhaps even months, you all will get some of the feedback and perhaps some of the responses from those guys who went to the Shepherds Conference. That was, as it always is, an enjoyable time of fellowship.

Just being able to hang out with, at least that was something that many of us mentioned, just being able to hang out with some of the other staff guys. I think we had around 15 total people from Grace Bible Church Go. So that was quite a number and we had four of us guys from the 128 staff and then met up with Micah, who was down there and Chris Martin went to the conference as well, but great time, learned a lot, was encouraged, enjoyed the fellowship. Like I say, either if you're in one of those guys' small groups, undoubtedly you'll probably hear something about what they learned or what they were encouraged by if you haven't already.

And undoubtedly you'll probably hear some things from me later on that might seep out from some of the things we covered there too. But for this morning we turn our attention back Ecclesiastes chapter 2 and specifically the paragraph in verses 18 through 23. Read that along with me. I hated all my toil in which I toil unto the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool. Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom unto the sun. This also is vanity. So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it.

This also is vanity and a great evil. What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun, for all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest, this also is vanity. And we come again to another paragraph of Solomon's description of trying to find life in something underneath the sun. And in this particular paragraph, he looks forward to the end of his life, and to his successor, to his posterity, to his follower, whether it would be a family member or to other people coming after him.

We don't even bother thinking about who's coming after us. We're so stuck on ourselves right now, our life getting for us. But in the Jewish culture, and if you think back about your Old Testament knowledge at all, you know that it was a big deal what you passed on to your son, to your first born or to your family. It was a pretty big deal. what inheritance you left them. And so the righteous were those who left a good inheritance to their kids and the fools or the unrighteous were those who use it all for themselves and didn't worry about what their family was gonna get when they were gone. All throughout the Old Testament, you see that being a pretty big deal.

When the father was getting ready to die, his kids would come in and he'd lay his hands on them and it was a big difference whether he got the right hand the left hand put on him. Sometimes even when the father would switch it over like that and you know somebody in the room would go, no! You know, switch your bag. No, I'm doing this for a reason or whatever. You know, somebody who was blind was still new how to switch their hands all in God's providence, all that kind of thing. Anyway, the inheritance was a big deal. What you were to pass down to to your kids was a significant thing.

And some people probably looked for that to be providing meaning in their life. And I think that's where Solomon comes to. He's been trying to find life under the sun for himself. He looked in wisdom, wasn't there. He looked in pleasure, wasn't there. He looked again back to his labor and trying to figure out whether it would be better to be wise or whether it'd be better just to be a silly fool and just try to have fun. Concluded that wisdom is better, but it's relative, it's temporary. And so now maybe he comes to another thing that could provide meaning and satisfaction in life. Maybe I could leave a legacy. Maybe I could leave, you know, stuff for my family that would make me look good, that would provide me meaning or satisfaction in life.

Again, he's trying to find it in the here and now. Can't find it. he's looking to the future of what he could leave. And you know what? Three times he repeats, it's vanity, it's empty, it's meaningless. Look at the end of verse 19, this also is vanity. The end of verse 21, this also is vanity and a great evil. The end of verse 23, this also is vanity. Trying to find meaning and satisfaction in life and what you think you can collect and can a mass for your children. I mean, because you want your children to have better than you. Realize a lot of you in here don't have children. I'm saying, you know, that's the thing.

Parents want their kids to have better than they did. They want them to have, you know, it easier. They want them to have, you know, more happiness or joy or a better marriage or a better job or whatever else it is. You know, if you can get them started on the right foot or you can leave them a good inheritance, maybe that will help them out. But here Solomon says that doesn't even provide meaning for me. Looking forward to how I can take care of my posterity, my future, vanity, meaninglessness, empty. There are really three reasons, I think. And I have titled this paragraph Out of Control. And I think you'll see why I say that here in just a moment.

But I want to give three reasons from the passage why Solomon is so bitter about it. And even though, like I said, hardly any of us in here are thinking about what we can leave for our kids, who's going to follow us in our position. Hardly any of us are thinking about that because we're just so consumed with ourselves right now. We're not even thinking about anybody else, let alone even our own kids who would follow after us or the people who would follow us are successors. We're not even to that point of thinking about it, but I do think that the root of our frustrations and our bitterness about life are the same as Solomon describes.

So let me give you three reasons why he's bitter about life. Number one, because life is uncertain. It's uncertain. Verses 18 and 19. I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun. seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool. Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and use my wisdom unto the sun." That's kind of irritating. You have worked hard, and you have specifically worked to get wisdom and skill. I mean, we talked about all the things that Solomon built, all of his agricultural, all of his architectural, all of his wealth, all that he labored and produced and did.

And he said, I worked hard, I labored hard. And you know what? I used my wisdom to do it. And somebody's gonna get it. And they might be a fool. They might not even work hard.

That'll be, I think, more his emphasis the second reason for bitterness. But there's absolutely no guarantee of who is gonna follow me and so that's kind of annoying. I hated my toil seeing that I must leave it to somebody else and who knows whether that person is gonna be a wise or fool. Whether they're gonna be you know using their wisdom trying to get wisdom, live skillfully, or whether they're just going to be an idiot. I might have gotten all this stuff, I've worked hard all my life, and I might have to leave it to some idiot who's coming after me, who doesn't even care, doesn't even know anything. He's going to benefit from all the work that I did. That just doesn't seem right. That doesn't seem fair. And you know what? As he admits here. He has no knowledge. In fact, this phrase, who knows, is actually a phrase he uses multiple times throughout the book of Ecclesiastes. And it's kind of a cynical phrase. Who knows?

Who's going to come after me? Who knows? Nobody knows. You know why? Because I'm not in control. And I'll come back and mention that as kind of some application at the end. But Are you in control of who comes after you? Probably not any more than you're in control of what happens to you in the next couple hours. We all act like, you know, we're in control and we're the captains of our own ship and we're the masters of our own destinies. We act like we're in control and we base our expectations on being in control. And here he kind of throws his hands up in the air and he says, who knows, I'm not in control of who's coming after me.

That provides a substantial amount of frustration and discouragement, so much so that he repeats this idea of hating life. That's where he left off with our last paragraph, verse 17. So I hated life. Because what is done under the sun was grievous to me for all his vanity and striving after a win picks up with the hating life again.

Because life is uncertain. He wasn't in control and he couldn't do anything about it. And as he looked to the end of his life and who would follow him, He saw, you know what, that person might just be a complete fool and they're going to benefit from all my wisdom.

You know, some of you have group projects in school like this. You know, you know who you are and there's two kinds of you. There's the kinds of you that do all of the work in the group project for the group. And there's the kind of you that lets everybody else in the group do all of the work in the group project except for you. In fact, I just started a group project in my freshman Bible class on Friday. And afterwards, somebody came up to me and said, hey, can I do this group project all by myself? I thought that was kind of a weird statement. And then the person explained why, because I was the only one who did anything the whole class.

Everybody else was talking about something else. And said, well, you know, part of the point of the group project is that you work together and that there's the interpersonal dynamic. That's one of the things about life is that sometimes you work with slackers and sometimes you work with people who are really smart and they can help you out a lot, but the point is to be able to work together.

And those people who do a lot of work generally are kind of irritated that they have done all that work and provided all of the brain power and then other people just ride their coattails and ride along, right? We think that that's unfair. That's not right. And you're right. And here as Solomon looks forward to, I've gotten all this wisdom, I've done all these things, and somebody's coming after me in this group project, they're going to ride my coattails, and who knows whether they're going to deserve it or not. That's kind of frustrating. Life is uncertain. He was not in control of who was going to come after him.

Number two, a second reason for his bitterness is life is unfair, and I've already mentioned it, but I think more specifically in verses 20 and 21 that's his point. So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. And at the end instead of just saying this is vanity, right, I mentioned earlier He says this is vanity at the end of verse 19. He says this is also vanity at the end of verse 23. Here he says at the end of verse 21, not only this is also vanity, but he has, this is a great evil.

This is unfair. This is unjust, not right. I have provided all of the work and all of the labor and collected all of this stuff, and somebody's gonna come after me who hasn't worked for it. That's not right. This is an anecdote that kind of illustrates the point of it being unfair. He doesn't really say, you know, because sometimes or because I know that the person who's going to follow me is not going to have worked for it. But it kind of makes it a little bit more general statement. And yet it applies to him in his life. He's uncertain of who's going to follow him. The person who follows him might not only be a fool, they might not be willing to work and have work then to get what they deserve.

And he says this is a great evil. And this is kind of his bitter complaint that sometimes people get stuff that they don't work for. Well, that doesn't seem right. So I have spent all of my days trying to be wise in my choices, getting up early, going to bed late so that I can work and provide and collect this stuff and somebody might come after me who's just a lazy idiot. And that's the two kinds of people here, a fool and somebody who hasn't worked and they're going to get the benefit off of me. I think that would make you bitter as well.

And that leads us quickly then to the third reason why he's so bitter in verses 22 and 23 because life is unbearable. Not only is it uncertain and unfair, but it's unbearable. Verse 22, what has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? I mean, here he's adding in the internal struggles and work, not just the external, not just the lack of sleep or the use of his physical muscles, but his heart. I mean, the inside of him is a part of this labor and work as well. Verse 23, for all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. I mean, it's burdensome. It's grievous. It's heavy. It's depressing. It's sad. It makes you tired. Even in the night, his heart does not rest. The actual Hebrew phrase there is, even at night, his heart doesn't lay down in bed. You know, I can't imagine the little kids saying, I'm sitting down on the outside, but I'm standing up on the out on the inside.

Here you have the person who's laying down in their bed, but it's like their heart is standing up. Actively busy trying to figure out what's the next thing. I mean, all of us have had some night like that. Some of you probably have more nights like that than others, but you know, your body is physically laying there, but your heart and your mind is somewhere else planning, scheming, trying to organize, thinking of all the things you have to do on your task list. And of course, you know, the more that you get, the more that you have to work. And that was certainly the case for Solomon, right? The more stuff you get, the more stuff you have to take care of.

The more stuff you have to keep clean and keep in working condition. The more stuff you got to find a place to store. The more stuff you got to find out how to display so other people can see it. The more stuff you got to figure out how to keep safe so that other people don't steal it. I mean the more money you get, the more you got to figure out how to invest it and what to do with it. You know the more cars you have, you have to change the oil that much more often or have somebody else do it or spend the money to get somebody else to do it and keep them clean. You know, on and on and on. The more you get, and Solomon had more than any of us can even imagine, your heart can't even take a breather, can't even relax.

And if your heart's not taking a breather, that's a bad thing. But if you're, even at night when you're supposed to be resting and relaxing, you know, rejuvenating, your heart is up about running around, panicked, trying to figure out what to do. not very fun. And so he says that's why all his days, I mean that's a pretty comprehensive term here for work and toil. Week in, week out, day after day, all of his days are full of work and toil and wearisomeness and being tired. And even at night when he's supposed to be resting his heart is up. Can't even sleep. Maybe the best word to summarize what Solomon is referring to here is restlessness.

Right? Not just a restlessness of your body, but a restlessness of your mind and of your heart. And you'd probably be pretty bitter about life too if that's how you thought about it as it's being uncertain and it's unfair and really then it's unbearable. I want to give you three more things that I think are behind the scene here that caused Solomon to see life in this way.

To see life as being uncertain, to see life as being unfair, and to see life as being unbearable, three reasons or motivations of Solomon's heart that I think are here, like I say, behind the scenes under the surface that caused him to respond this way. Number one, his presumptions. Part of the reason why Solomon sees life as uncertain and unfair and unbearable is because of his presumptions. Probably the word we would use more than any other is the word expectations. Solomon's expectations for what he could get out of this life under the sun were wrong and that is why he saw life as so unfair and unbearable. I mean, what's going on there when he says, You know, a man works hard and has all this wisdom and skill, and then somebody else comes who hasn't worked and who doesn't have the wisdom and they get to enjoy it.

What's going on there? It's the expectation that the person who works hard should get to enjoy it. It's the presumption that the person who has wisdom will be rewarded for that wisdom. And that's just not always the case. if it depends on the person rather than depending on God. Yes, God blesses those people who work hard. Oftentimes, sometimes he frustrates their efforts. Yes, God often blesses people who are wise and make skillful choices. And sometimes he causes even the most wise choices as far as we can figure out to fail.

Solomon's presumption was that if he worked hard, He would get to enjoy what he worked hard to get. If he just got enough wisdom, he could get enough stuff or make himself happy in some way. And you know what? That's because he was stuck looking at life underneath the sun. His expectations were wrong. His expectations were to find life here. And then he starts thinking about death and he's like, oh, man, all those expectations, those presumptions that I had, they were wrong. No good. Closely connected to his presumptions was his powerlessness. I mean, I think as well what we see here is that he was frustrated and bitter as he realized he wasn't the one in control.

Now just going with those two so far, his expectations and his powerlessness, I mean, We never struggle with those kinds of things, right? Yeah, I mean, we never expect to get something that we don't get. We never get frustrated because of not being in control. In fact, we love not being in control. We love it. We embrace it. We write it to Disneyland being out of control. He was frustrated and bitter and upset about life because his expectations were wrong, his presumptions were wrong, and his own opinion of himself was wrong.

Like anybody anywhere at any time told him he was in control. I mean, did he just figure this out? Wow, guess I'm not in control. And that leads to the third thing, which is his pride. That's really probably the basis of the rest of them. It was not just his presumptions and his powerlessness, it was his pride. I mean, this is an ugly focus on himself. All of chapter two really has been an ugly focus on himself, this is no different. I mean, he's irritated about himself or about how his own glory is not going to be continued on. That's what he's frustrated about here. It's like I worked hard. I deserve to have somebody who worked hard enjoy what I worked hard for.

I had all this wisdom and skill. I made all these great decisions and did all this great stuff. And somebody coming after me, some idiot, some fool, some lazy person might get to enjoy it. That is ultimately pride on his part. I mean, yeah, there is something wrong. There is something unfair on one level, on a temporal level at least, about working hard and then somebody enjoying that who didn't work hard for you. Yeah, I mean, there's an element of that being true and being unrighteous to do that.

But ultimately it's pride that leads into wrong expectations, that leads into that feeling of powerlessness when we want to be the boss, and we want all of our glory to be shown off now and when we're dead. This is just, like I say, an ugly focus on himself. And so even though we may not be bitter when we think about our successors, the people who are coming after us, it's the same exact root issue When we get upset at things that don't go our way now, when we get upset at what seems to be unjust and unfair to us now, at the things that are uncertain in our life. You know, when you get frustrated about something that you're not sure about, why is that?

Well, more than that, you're not sure of it, it's that you want to be in control of it. And something that you don't know is something that you can't be in control of. And why are you afraid that you can't be in control of it? Because if you're not in control of it, how are you going to guarantee that it's going to serve you and make you happy? That's all focus on self.

When we get upset about things that are unfair, why? It's generally because our rights have been trampled on. As Pastor Zimmer talked about this morning, you know, generally we get very quickly upset when somebody does something that's not right to us, but we're not really upset when somebody does something that's not right in God's eyes. It's because we're focused on ourselves. We want to be in control. We want to know what's happening so that we can be in control of it, so that we can make sure that we like it. And so if we don't know what's coming, we can't be in control of it, and therefore we might not like it. And whoa, So, red flags, let's take a step back here until I can be in control.

And it's ultimately to get pleasure for ourselves, happiness for ourselves, or glory for ourselves, and that is pride. Same root issue here.

A selfish pride caused Solomon to be irritated and to see life as uncertain and unfair and unbearable. And I tell you what, if you are focused on yourself, life is going to, for you, not give you any greater certainty. Solomon had all the wisdom that, you know, more wisdom than anybody else in the history of the world other than Jesus had. And he says it was uncertain to him. Life is unfair. I mean, as the king, don't you think he could have done things to set him place who was going to come after him. You can actually read in 1 Kings chapters 12 through 14 about who came after Solomon and who did by the way. Rehoboam and if you know anything about Rehoboam you know that he was a bastion of wisdom and good choices. I mean come on if Solomon can't get it figured out. You think we're gonna get it figured out? He was stuck on himself and guys that that led down a road to nothing but frustration and bitterness and disappointment and so we need to get the focus off of ourselves as well. One more passage just couldn't avoid having you look at it in 1st Peter

chapter 1. I think I actually introduced the last paragraph in Ecclesiastes with a verse from 1st Peter chapter 1, in particular verse 1, which talked about us as being elect exiles or sojourners or strangers. And I had to translate some more of 1st Peter chapter 1 for my Greek class yesterday and came across this verse down in verse 18. In fact, start back in verse 17. And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves in fear or with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spot." And I couldn't resist bringing us to this verse number one because in the ESV as it translates verse 18, feudal ways... oh how does the NAS translate that? Feudal ways. You know another definition for that word is vanity.

knowing that you were ransomed from the vanity, or the pursuit of vanity, or the meaninglessness and empty ways. I mean, hello, if that doesn't connect with the...connect with Ecclesiastes, I don't know what does. And then inherited from your forefathers. You know what we have passed down to us? What our forefathers have passed down to us, pursuit of vanity. You know what Solomon ultimately gives us as our inheritance? Pursuit of vanity. That is what we generally learn from those who have gone before us is pursuit of futile ways, meaninglessness, emptiness, and vanity. But Peter says as Christians you are actually redeemed out of that. You were ransomed out of that. You don't have to live that kind of life anymore. Now you are in exile. You're a sojourner on your way to something better. You have been given the opportunity for a much better and bigger life beyond the Son in Jesus Christ. Admittedly, reading through the book of Ecclesiastes is pretty depressing. Next week's passage that we look at

at the end of chapter two, he'll put his head back up above the water and get a breath for at least a little bit. I mean, it'll have some encouraging things in it. But for the most part, as he chronicles looking for life under the sun, it's just sad, depressing, you know, producing dismality. And it's because it's empty. And we learn how to pursue the empty from those who have gone before us. We learn how to pursue the wind, how to chase after the wind from our parents, our grandparents, you know, people in our communities who are lifted up as the leaders. I mean, commercials show us, intend, or try to convince us what real life is about.

You know what? we don't have to live like that. We don't have to live stuck under the sun. We're redeemed out of that to a bigger and better life, to a bigger and better cause. And that's the cause of Christ. We have been ransomed. We have been bought. We have been purchased out of that at the cost of Jesus's pure and spotless life. You realize Jesus died on the cross to redeem us from pursuing vanity? Not just to cover our sins, yes, but to cover the sin of looking for life outside of him. Jesus died on the cross. He paid the penalty for us and then secured the power for us through His Spirit, through His Word, to enable us to live a bigger, better life.

Another kind of bigger, better life, like the preachers on television tell you about where you get more money. Know where your life is found, your joy and treasure is found beyond the sun. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Solomon is describing for us how he pursued treasure under the sun. It didn't bring him any joy. And how are you? How is your toil? What are you toiling for? How are your expectations? I mean what do you expect out of life this week, five years from now? Is it expectations of how you'll be able to serve God more and give him more glory or expectations about how God is going to serve you and give you glory.

Examine your heart, your motives, your expectations, your pride. And again, I think that that picture of being sojourners on a on a journey to another place is a great mindset that we too often forget and make this home. And if this is home, if this is it, that's sad for you. Father, I ask that by your word and by your spirit, that you would be transposing our desires to something higher, to an entirely different key, to a whole new place. That you would be lifting our faces, our chins, and our focus to something bigger and beyond just what we see and that we would be growing and abounding in love for treasure that is not here.

Give us that sojourning mindset looking forward to our home with you, being with you. Give us taste of that even now we pray in Christ's name. Amen.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Well, you guys can scout your copy of God's Word this morning and turn to 1 Peter 1. No joke. 1 Peter 1. I mentioned Wednesday night that I was studying from 1 Peter. I was wondering what to talk about during the wrap-up message for the O6SR. I had just come to 1 Peter and I was talking with Mr. Sarr the next day. He was like, yeah, my wife and I were talking about how you just came across studying 1 Peter. Like, that's not at the beginning of the New Testament. That's not like on any reading plan that's out there to study from 1 Peter. So how did that happen? Well, the reason that I had started studying from 1 Peter was because one of the Greek classes that I teach on Saturday mornings, we were translating from 1 Peter.

We moved from Philippians to 1 Peter in our workbook. So therefore, I had just started translating through 1 Peter chapter 1 again for that class. And honestly, last Monday morning, as I was, again, pulled out 1 Peter chapter 1, thought I'd just start going through that a little bit in my own personal devotional time, I did not get past verse 1. And it was not because I didn't know the vocabulary, I didn't know the words, and I couldn't translate. I just got stuck on one word. and basically sat there for 15 or 20 minutes just thinking about that one word. And in fact, I wrote out about two pages worth of my thoughts, because we had just talked about journaling last Sunday morning, so I was like, hey, let's write out some thoughts on this.

So I did that, maybe that'll turn into a blog someday, maybe not, but first read our chapter one, look at verse one, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to those who are elect, exiles of the dispersion, and then he lists off some of the various regions that he was writing to where the people, the people who he was writing to were living. Perhaps some of your translations have another word other than exiles. What do you have? Aliens, pilgrims, strangers, anybody else? Exiles, aliens, pilgrims, strangers, sojourners. It's a word to describe people who aren't home. It's a word that describes people who are in a place where ultimately they don't belong.

They don't fit there. And you think about your traveling. If you've done some international traveling, you know, you'd go someplace and, you know, you stick out. You don't fit in. Your language is not the same. Perhaps your clothing is not the same. Obviously, if you go somewhere to live in a foreign country for an extended period of time, your customs, just how you normally go about doing things, the food that you eat, those things stand out. They don't fit in. They're different. A sojourner in particular is one who is on a journey, who is on their way to a particular destination to an end goal, but they have not yet arrived at their end goal.

They're on this journey. That's the word pilgrim as well. So we have pilgrims progress. And here Peter is writing to these elect exiles, these elect foreigners, these elect strangers, these elect sojourners. And you know what? He's not talking about the fact that they're not home in Israel, they're not in Jerusalem. He's talking about the fact that they're not home in heaven yet. He identifies them as elect exiles. He wouldn't say that you are elect. God chose you just to not live in Jerusalem for a period of time. Now that would not be the case.

Probably the majority of his readers were Jews, hence part of this dispersion or diaspora in these various areas, meaning they weren't at home in Jerusalem or Israel either, but that's not why he calls them exiles. You wouldn't be elected to be on this journey outside of Israel. No, they are elected to be exiles, to be sojourners in a spiritual sense. And just think about that. Peter identifies these Christian readers that he's writing to as not belonging where they are. They don't fit. This is not home. Part of the reason he even addresses them like this is because he's about ready to describe the persecution that they were getting, a lot of the trouble and difficulties that they were enduring. He's writing to tell them, guys, that's nothing to be surprised at. There's nothing surprising about the fact that it's going to be difficult for you here, you know why? Because this isn't home.

This is not it. This is not where we belong. We live here, yes, right now. Paul talks about having dual citizenship. We are citizens both of an earthly nation or city, but we are more than just citizens on this planet. We are citizens of heaven as believers. And Peter says, we don't belong here. This is not the end for us. This is not it. You know what? So many of our problems come from a mindset that says, this is it. This is life. This is home. You know, we've been remodeling our house, working on that since we moved in a little over two years ago. As Curtis and Andy mentioned, Mo and I moved into the first part of the house that we really have worked inside, at least, on remodeling.

Obviously, they put the roof on. But our new master bedroom with our walk-in closet. I got a little cubbyhole office kind of study place, which is really cool. And a new bathroom and fixtures and all that kind of stuff. And most of it is done. We've been hoping to get in there. We've been working on it for quite some time. And it's exciting to be now in our home, like in our bedroom. You know, we belong. We have our own stuff and places to put things and so forth. But I tell you what, as comfortable as it is, as much as we like our mattress, our Tempur-Pedic mattress, as much as we like our fixtures, as much as we like my little office, as much as all of our clothes fit nicely into our walk-in closet, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff, as nice as that is, you know what, that is not home.

Ultimately, and it's, you know, fine to have a place that you like going to and, you know, fix up your house and do those kinds of things. We have jobs or you have responsibilities at school, those kinds of things. I mean, we don't get to blow those off just because this is not our ultimate home. But I tell you what, in the midst of those responsibilities, in the midst of doing things on this planet, if your mindset says this is all that there is, I'm going to coin a new word here this morning, you are going to have nothing but dismality. There you go. Dismality. That is the state of being dismal, discouraged, depressed, upset, bothered, frustrated, exasperated, whatever word you want to fit into the blank there, dismality.

If you think this is it, if you think this is what life is about on this planet, you are missing it and are in for dismality. And you know who missed it? You know who was in a state of dismality? Solomon. You can turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 2, the state of dismality. I keep saying that because it's kind of fun. And it almost goes along with malady, like sickness or disease. So you've got dismality. Oh, glory. This is exactly where Solomon is. For all of the wisdom that he had, for all of the privileges and blessings that God had given him, he was stuck living under the sun. He was not considering and living like there was more to life than what his eyes could see, what his senses could experience, what his bank account could hold.

And his word for it is not dismality. His word for it is what? Vanity. Habel, Hebelim, Hakol, Habel. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. I think that's the kind of motto for the person in the nation of dismality. Vanity of vanities, it's all empty. It's all meaningless. It's all worthless if all you have is stuck right here underneath the sun. And while it's been a good portion of time, in fact, must be sometime near the end of December was the last time that we had a message from Ecclesiastes. So let me just quickly remind you of the points of the paragraphs leading up to where we are. Not going to re-preach and give a huge review.

But just the points of the paragraphs. Chapter 1, verses 1 through 11 is all his introduction to the book. It's an introduction to vanity. That's where we get the motto. That's where he tells us who's writing. That's where he gives us the motto of the book. He gives us the poem on, you know, nothing is new under the sun. There is no prophet. All the toil that we do is worthless. His introduction to vanity. Then we looked at chapter 1, verses 12 through 18, where he got more specific. And he talked about the vanity of wisdom. The vanity of wisdom, verses 12 through 18 of chapter 1. Ultimately, at the end, he says, in fact, wisdom is not just empty, but wisdom actually increases our problems.

In fact, the more wisdom you have, the more dismality you might have. Why? Because in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. The more you know, the more you realize how bad it is. And perhaps then, what we need is to forget wisdom and just do whatever it takes to make ourselves happy. If there's such a negativity that goes along with seeing how bad it is, then maybe we can just ignore how bad it is by trying to please ourselves and make ourselves happy. And of course, that moves us into chapter two, which is the vanity of pleasure. Chapter two, verses 1 through 11 is all about the vanity of pleasure.

I mean, we spent weeks. I don't know how many, ultimately, we ended up covering, but we talked about the vanity of pleasure in general. We talked about the vanity of buzz with drugs or alcohol. We talked about the vanity of women. Man, that was great. Was that not with the Barnes sisters at the talent show? Threw in, don't you know about the vanity of women? If you haven't seen that, you should get a DVD, borrow some buddies and watch that. That was pretty funny. I mean, the smile on my face was like the Joker smile. It was pretty good. A vanity of women, vanity of entertainment, The vanity of labor, the vanity of material possessions.

I mean, all of that really is trying to please yourself. Really, the vanity of pleasure is the umbrella under which all those things came. I mean, entertainment is to please yourself. The women part was to please yourself. The work and the material possessions part was to get pleasure for yourself. Obviously, a buzz was for yourself. So chapter one ended with the vanity of wisdom. Then chapter two has begun with the vanity of pleasure. And that leads us to where we are for today, chapter two, verses 12 through 17. I believe even though he doesn't use the word pleasure and instead uses the words madness and folly there in chapter two, verse 12.

So I turn to consider wisdom and madness and folly. I think what he's doing now is he's giving us yet another reflection, but he's stopping to consider Which is better of the two he's just described? We've got wisdom, and we've got pleasure, or just having fun and hanging out, playing some b-ball outside of the school, just having fun and avoiding all the seriousness and the wisdom part. He already said that wisdom was vanity, yes. And he already said that seeking pleasure for yourself was vanity, but maybe between the two, one is a better option. You know, maybe, OK, both are bad, but maybe one is less bad than the other, less worser, one is a higher state of dismality than the other one.

Maybe that's the case. And so I think what we have here is wisdom versus folly. And under folly, I would include the pursuit of pleasure, anything outside of wisdom. Now Solomon did say that he kept his wisdom during much of his pursuit of pleasure. But yet, I really think that is the point of this paragraph, is he's comparing the two things, the two themes he's just talked about, comparing them. And that's actually point number one, the comparison of verse 12. So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly, for what can the man do who comes after the king, only what has already been done? He said some pretty negative things about both themes, both subjects so far.

As I already said, he concluded that wisdom actually makes it worse. The more wisdom, the more misery. So I mean, could that be good? And with pleasure, he says it's empty. It didn't satisfy me. I needed more. Matt didn't satisfy me. So he said some pretty negative things about both of them so far, but perhaps one is better than the other. I turn to consider, to think about. You imagine him sitting in his chair by himself, stroking his goatee. At least that's how I imagine him, Maybe looking at himself in the reflection in his crown. I don't know. Hmm. Which is better? I don't know that this happened at one point in time.

Probably it happened over a period of time. This is near the end of his life, probably, near the end of him being king. So he sits down to think about and to consider and compare one with the other. Now, this last part of verse 12 is a little bit confusing. Maybe your translations have something completely different than what I just read from the ESV. For what can the man do who comes after the king, only what has already been done? Why does he even include that? Well, I think what he's trying to say there is, look, I am the one with wisdom. I am the one who, as king, has all these opportunities available to me.

Nobody who's coming after me is gonna be able to tell you anything different than I'm telling you right now. He's kinda given us this perpetual affirmation. He's saying, the conclusions that I have for you on which is better, wisdom or folly, wisdom or pleasure seeking, I'm about ready to tell you nobody in the future is going to have anything new to add. This is the final word. And it's the final word for us today. I mean, so far we've had to agree with him. We've had to agree with him on the vanity of wisdom. had to agree with him on the vanity of pleasure. So pretty certain we'll be able to agree with him now as he tells us which is better in this comparison. The final word. Well, it gets immediately to the second point, the conclusion in verse 13 and the first part of verse 14. Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness.

The wise person has eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. Says what his comparison is going to be, pretty quickly comes to the conclusion. There's not a lot in between telling us what the case study is going to be and what the case results are. The test results are in and it is clear. And you know what, in fact, there is no comparison between wisdom and folly. Wisdom has its problems, yes, but in comparison to folly, it's ridiculously better. Makes this statement there at the beginning of verse 13, I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly. I mean, he just simply comes out and tells us, more gain, there's more profit, there's more advantage.

There is value to having wisdom for all the difficulties that it brings with it. This is one of the things I tried to warn us about when we went through the vanity of wisdom, was thinking, oh, well then, let's just blow wisdom off. And that's not the answer. A recognition that something has problems is not equivalent to saying, then, don't do anything with it. Or it has no value at all just because it has problems. You know, think of a quick illustration of that right off the top of my head. I mean, would you rather have a car that has some difficulties to it or no car at all? You know, if you just got your license and you had two choices, you know, a car that, you know, you knew you were going to have to fix a lot, you knew that took a lot of gas, that was your choice, or having no car was your choice, most of you would probably choose dealing with the difficulties to have the benefit of being able to get around, right?

So I mean, just because something has problems doesn't mean it has no value whatsoever. And in this comparison, wisdom has way more gain, advantage, or profit over folly. And it gives two illustrations or two analogies, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. Now, I don't know about you, but well, I actually like darkness. But that's not the point here. OK? As much as I like darkness, I have difficulty doing almost anything in it other than sleeping, which is barely counted as doing anything. I used to try to take showers in the dark. In fact, I would even shave in the dark by trying to sense where I was, because no light in some of the apartments that Mo and I used to live in.

So there is an element of me that likes darkness. The problem with the darkness is I can't do anything in it. It doesn't actually help me out. Darkness helps me out in almost no way, other than, again, like I say, sleeping. Light, on the other hand, enables me to do pretty much everything that I need. I need light to, you know, check out how good looking I am. I need light to read. I need light to drive. Even if it's dark outside, I need the lights on the front of the car, the temporary lights. Light is something that we need. And the difference between light and darkness, there couldn't be any more difference. I mean, it's either light or dark.

Now, we have these cool things today called dimmer switches. But I tell you what, even at the most dim setting, at the most dim setting, there is still a huge difference between light and dark. Yes, the brightest light makes the biggest difference between the darkness, but a little bit of light, a little bit of light impacts what it's doing. And so as the difference between light and darkness, so the difference between wisdom and folly. That's a great comparison. and he takes it a little bit further at the beginning of verse 14. The wise person has eyes in his head. Well, I mean, is that as opposed to eyes in his arms?

I think that's just an idiom. That was a way to say that the person could see. The wise person can see with clarity has eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. Just take it again. What can you do in the darkness? Well, you're going to run into things, right? You're going to run into things, potentially even to the point of getting hurt. You're not going to be able to accomplish very much. If you can't see where you're going, you can't see the obstacles in front of you, so on and so forth. You can't see to know what you're doing. The wise person, the wise person can see, can see with clarity, can see what's coming, can see what to avoid, what avenues to pursue, can see how to go about their work and to avoid the problems.

The person who is in folly, the person who has avoided wisdom thinking that that will make it easier for them, in fact, doesn't make it easier for them at all. I mean, some of us, I'll say us, some of us, try to live as happy go lucky as possible avoiding serious thinking, serious thought, avoiding wisdom. And while that might, for a period of time, give you a temporary reprieve from being sad about all the bad things, it will not enable you to avoid the bad things. The rest of Ecclesiastes is actually going to tell us about the fact that God is sovereign, and all kinds of things happen that you're not in control of, And then you die.

And I tell you what, pursuing just pleasure for yourself and folly and madness and playfulness and just being foolish, that is not a help to you. Again, in the temporary period of time, it might enable you to sleep through some hours of difficulty where you're not aware of it. But ultimately, when you get up in the morning and have to go do stuff, you're going to run into the obstacles if you don't have wisdom. You can't see where to go. So wisdom and folly, the comparison and the conclusion, very simply wisdom has all of the gain in comparison. Well, that leads to point number three, which is the catch. Not the catch like a verb, like you're receiving the football.

The ball is your friend kind of catch. The catch like the hiccup, the snag, the problem with wisdom being the best. Start at verse 14, the wise person has eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet, in my Bible, I wish this huge pause sign, or this huge slash mark showing that there is an abrupt change here. And yet, I perceived that the same event what happens to all of them. Then I said in my heart, what happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise? And I said in my heart that this also is vanity, for of the wise as of the fool, there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten the wise dies just like the fool. Ouch. Wisdom is great. And then you die. Wisdom is awesome.

And even if you haven't, nobody will remember you. That's a pretty significant catch. That's a snag to the point that wisdom exceeds folly. And the point is, and if you're taking notes hopefully this phrase will help you here. The point is, wisdom has value that is relative and temporary. Wisdom has exceedingly great value over folly. It's just that in and of itself, if wisdom is by itself under the sun, wisdom will help you compared to folly, its relative value and its temporal value. That is, it will help you great while you're living, but then you will die. Both die, the wise and the fool. This is not a new revelation for Solomon.

I really don't anticipate that he was sitting in his chair, stroking his goatee, checking out his thing in the crown, his reflection in the crown. And all of a sudden one day it was like, Whoa! Wait a second! We die? That's wrong. I don't think it was a new revelation to Solomon at that point. Oh my goodness, I've been pursuing this wisdom thing all my life. I asked for wisdom from God and I'm still going to die? I really don't think that that was his reaction. I don't think that's the point. This was a new thought to him that he'd never had before. I think what it is, it's a personal realization. It's an evaluation.

It's a personal application to thinking about the truth. Wisdom is great. It enables us to do so many things like light enables us to do so many things. It far exceeds the value of folly and just silliness, madness, playing around, far exceeds it. But, you know what? Wisdom by itself doesn't do anything about when I die. And that is why the conclusion is still the same as it was in chapter 1, verses 12 through 18, that ultimately wisdom is itself vanity so far as life beyond the sun. Onto the sun, wisdom is great. And you know what? That's why Solomon's life on this planet was so successful. I mean, we looked at all the money and the gold and the silver and all the buildings and all the accomplishments that Solomon had.

People are still judged by Solomon. Jesus uses Solomon as an example of his clothing and how lavish it was and how much stuff he had. Solomon to us is still somebody who is at the pinnacle of what this life has to offer. He got that way because of wisdom, because of God's sovereignty, but God's sovereignty in giving Solomon wisdom to accomplish all that. It was wisdom that enabled him to build those buildings and to accumulate all that stuff and to be so famous in the eyes of other people for his wisdom. It was wisdom that enabled that, but he got stuck thinking that that's all life was about. And when that is all life is about is life under the sun, dismality.

Dismality of dismalities. Life unto the Son has nothing for us. The same end happens to both of them. I perceive the same event that is death. Without saying the word death, he says at the end of verse 17, or I'm sorry, at the end of verse 16, how the wise dies just like the fool has, kind of like bookends on this little application section. The same event, what is that event? Death. Same event happens to everybody. No matter how much wisdom you have, you are going to die. No matter how much wisdom you don't have, you're going to die. And he also repeats the idea, not only are you going to die, but nobody's going to remember you. Verse 16, for of the wise as of the fool, there is no enduring remembrance. He already gave us that back in chapter 1. Verse 11, there is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.

Not only with your physical life can you not live forever under the sun, then your accomplishments will not live forever. Your reputation, those kinds of things are not a way that you can live on in infamy. They will ultimately at some point in time be forgotten. Well that leads him to verse 17 which is the climax, or the climax of this comparison. I hated life. That's an ouch. That probably qualifies under the dismality complex. I hated life because what is done under the sun was grievous to me. For all is vanity and a striving after wind. Adds a couple new things but But it's basically a repetition of the motto.

It's vanity, it's empty. Now he gets a little bit more personal and says, I hate it. It grieves me. It weighs heavy upon me. It's disappointing. It's discouraging. It makes me dismal that no matter how much wisdom I have, I'm going to die just like the fool. Nobody's going to remember. Nobody's gonna care.

His verdict is not only his response of being grieved and hating it, but that the principle is it's vanity and striving after wind. I mean, it's that refrain that keeps being repeated over and over and over again. The guy's a preacher. He's gotta repeat things.

He's gotta repeat things. See how that works right like that? I mean, you know, just to think about that picture again of trying to catch it. Trying to race and catch and hold on to the wind. Just not possible. Now what do we do with this? I mean, this is a Bible verse, right? It says, "...by the wisest guy who ever lived, and he says he hated life, life and was grieved by the truth that no matter how wise you are, you're still going to die and it's going to be empty and vain. What do we do with it? Well, I think there are at least three conclusions to start with and then I want to say why he is talking like Number one, three conclusions, he's worth listening to.

Number one, you won't avoid death. No matter how wise you are, you won't avoid death. You might not think about it a lot. You might not want to think about it a lot. I'm not saying all of us need to go around with, you know, a death watch on our wrist, you know. We could even have one. have one. We knew when we were going to die. Of course, if we did know that, we probably all would wear that to just remind ourselves. You're not going to avoid death, no matter how wise you are. Number two, you won't be remembered. And probably could add on no matter how wise you are. These are just true things. Number three, you won't find meaning then under the sun. You can be wise, you ought to be wise. Get that wisdom, you can accomplish a lot. And you will have relative value. You can get good grades and get into a good college to get a good job to make a lot of money to get your toys and play. You can do that.

That will have a relative value to it, no doubt. No doubt. Solomon talks about the reward that he got for his toil. There was an element of satisfaction, but not an element of satisfaction that completed his heart longing. He still realized even for the little bit that he could fill up his heart with those temporal pleasures that that was not it, that was not enough. And you and I, we're not going to find meaning in life under the sun in our responsibilities, in our grades, in our money, in our friendships, in our relationships. Not going to find meaning if all that we have is this life. I don't care how successful you are.

You can have the greatest amount of wisdom. It's not going to keep you from death. It's not going to make you more memorable, necessarily. I mean, actually, we remember some fools as much as we remember some wise people if their foolishness is at an extreme level. And it's going to be empty. Now, why does Solomon tell us this? I mean, this is the conclusion, the climax to his case study here on which is better. Well, here's the answer. Why such dismality from Solomon? Because Solomon was feeding his heart with things under the sun. He's just told us all about it. In the midst of his comparison and in the midst of his descriptions before that, he says, so I sought wisdom.

And for pleasure, he said, these are all my pursuits. You know what? Solomon's mindset, I think, as he's writing this to us in chapter 2, verses 12-17, and especially this conclusion that it's all vanity, his mindset is one that's coming out of a heart filled with junk. There's no way that he can make a different conclusion That's what was in his heart. However many years this trial and error process went on, this case study went on, as he makes this reflection, he has had at least some years, not just days or weeks, but years of filling up his heart with this life, what this world has to offer. And you know what?

That made him miserable. I'm thankful for his misery in one sense that then he can tell us about his experience of what it was like to have all of it, to be at the height of power and fame and fortune and it's still to be empty. I mean in one sense, I'm thankful now that it's done that he can give us that experience. But dude was miserable. There was not joy in his life for all that he had because he was stuck underneath the sun. For all of his wisdom that he had, that wisdom had a relative value. And that's because wisdom by itself at best has relative temporal value. But let me add one more thing and then we're done this morning.

Wisdom with salvation has eternal value. Wisdom by itself, you can get your cars, your stuff, and your temporal happiness. But wisdom with salvation has eternal value. You know what? The person who is not stuck underneath the sun is not so dismal. The person who is not stuck with their perspective on things of this life does not conclude, I hate life. It may be grievous and there may be difficulties, but we know that this isn't it. See Solomon had basically put all of his eggs in one basket and he had put his basket in the wrong place. You can put all of your eggs in one basket, but if you put them in the right place, that is beyond the Son and heaven in God.

No dismality. back at 1 Peter 1. We started and we'll end with just a couple things from 1 Peter 1. I mean, those of us who have wisdom and salvation are pilgrims. We're sojourners. We're exiles. This isn't it. This is not the end of the game. This is not the end of the road. Our final destination. We have another place we're going to. And so our perspective, even in and difficulties is different. Look down at chapter 1, verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope. To a hope of something more. But this isn't it.

In fact, keep going to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you who by God's power being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. We're not done yet. This isn't it. It's not over with this life. We have an inheritance that we can't even fully describe coming to us. It's so amazing. You've probably heard me talk about before, you know, we read those three adjectives there. It's imperishable, undefiled and unfading. And people always ask me then, okay, so what's it like? Well, Well, it's imperishable. It's undefiled and undefading. Yeah.

Great. So what's it like? Well, I don't know. I know what it's not. It's so amazing there aren't even words that we have to completely comprehend it or describe it. That's how great the inheritance is. And we have a living hope to look forward to that. We have a living hope to look forward to that final and complete salvation. Even at the end of verse 9, after we've gone through the trials and the difficulties, if our faith is proven and purified, we're loving God, we're having joy in God, then we will receive at the end the outcome of our faith, the salvation of our souls. And that is good news. And that is what so many of your friends need to hear.

Perhaps that's what you need to reckon with even here this morning that you have been stuck like we've been talking about with the perspective that this is what we have, this is it, get as much as I can here. The problem is that, number one, Solomon has explained everything that is offered here is at best relative.

And secondly, it's temporal because you're gonna die. You will. You can't avoid it. You will die. Sinners in the hands of an angry God. I mean, Edwards talked about that over and over and over again. God has so many unimaginable ways to take us out of the earth, out of existence. God can take you out at any moment, any way He wants to, and He has so many ways He does, and He has to do a miracle to make it happen. Well, if we threw miracles into the pool of things, ways God has to kill people, You're going to die. Sooner or later, you're going to die. And where are you putting all of your eggs? And by that, I mean your hopes, your dreams, your priorities, your values, your pleasures, your loves, your affections.

If they are stuck here under the sun, you've got vanity and dismality. There is a hope of so much more, a living hope in Jesus, in God Himself, in that coming inheritance, in that future salvation. But that means you've got to love Jesus, and you've got to trust in Him for that salvation. That has to dominate you more than just on Sunday mornings or small groups. That has to be your life. Wisdom and salvation leads to eternal life. Wisdom just by itself, as much better as it is than folly, still can't accomplish what you really need it to. Father, I ask that you would help by Your word, by Your spirits, by our time that we've just spent together to continue to wean us off of loves of things in this world.

Help us to appropriately seek wisdom, to live as in light, to have that clarity of sight and vision, help us to realize that that by itself is not enough. Give us all more of that pilgriming, that sojourning mindset, and cause us to consider more and more that we are not home. Instead of getting too comfortable and settling in, make us vigorous and passionate for pursuing our true and final and eternal home with you. We pray all this in Christ's name, Amen.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

sometime in the afternoon yesterday, and was spending the evening doing some other things, namely reading some from Ian Murray's biography of Jonathan Edwards. And while I was doing that for the last couple hours, leading up until the clock struck midnight for the celebratory party that I was having all by myself in the living room while I was reading, I began to hear these various things outside that were irritating my cat. I was sort of afraid we were going to wake up either of my children and many of you I heard talking about these things as well, keeping you up, those of you, or waking you up, maybe those who had already gone to bed, or maybe some of you were even in here lighting them off yourself.

Shame on you. And that's fireworks. Anybody light off fireworks? I'm not really mad at you. Okay, a couple people lit off fireworks. Can you even buy fireworks in December or do you have to save them from like July 4th? You can. Great. Okay. Okay. Well, I was actually really trying to read. In fact, I had set a goal for myself, a certain number of chapters that I was trying to finish before being able to go to bed. And I was actually kind of irritated and annoyed with the fireworks because I don't do very well when I'm interrupted. Like once I get going, you know, with my thinking, I need to keep going. And that makes me really cranky.

I know when other people are, you know, come and knock on my office door and I've been like studying for a while, like that's really the last thing I want to do is get up and go open the door and talk to somebody. Not because I don't like the person, but because, you know, I'm trying to get work done. Spurgeon called those cold buckets of water poured all over our hearts. You know, those not incessant knocks at our doors are like cold buckets of water poured on our hearts. And I kind of feel like that. So anyway, the fireworks were annoying me a little bit because, you know, it's not like they're consistent. That's part of the point is that they're, they're random.

They're all over the place and, you know, coming from different parts of the neighborhood and all that kind of stuff. And it was like 11 o'clock, 10 30, 11 o'clock when I heard the first ones, I was like, stink, this is going to go on obviously until after midnight. So I'm stuck with these fireworks going off. And so I was trying to get a happy heart about it and embracing that frowning providence. That was something I heard in another message recently. Fireworks is not really a frowning providence. That really is not a temptation or a trial for me or suffering. But it was kind of irritating. So I thought, why not embrace them?

embrace the fireworks. And it was about a minute after that that I came up with this just killer introduction to my sermon this morning. And I'm not going to try to get too cheesy about it.

But since most of you heard the fireworks last night and you've at least experienced fireworks before even if you through it. I thought maybe and I kind of came up with some bullet points along the way and they just kept flowing you know I was in the zone and so so maybe you'll see maybe this will even be beneficial for you as we come this morning to Solomon's summary on his pursuit of pleasure and I want to submit to you that fireworks actually provide a great analogy or illustration for the pleasures that can be found under the Sun and you think how might that be well let me tell you fireworks or perhaps even let me start out this way pleasure the pleasure that we get under the Sun is very much like fireworks. Fireworks provide temporary light, but they don't actually provide any lasting light at all, do they? And that's part of the point, is that they're there for just a little bit and then they're gone. Not only that, you can burn yourself with fireworks, but they don't actually provide any lasting beneficial

heat whatsoever. In fact they fizzle out. They're ridiculously hot for a short period of time. Like I said you can burn yourself playing with them getting too close to them or playing with them in the wrong way. But that heat is short lived. It doesn't actually last very long or provide any kind of benefit for you. You never see you know people out on the reservation hovering over the fireworks trying to get warm on New Year's Eve. That's not helpful, not useful. They are loud, and most of the time they're quick. And the commotion that fireworks provide gives the appearance that maybe something significant is happening.

I mean, you look at fireworks and you think, wow. And in reality, I mean, what is fire? What are fireworks? What is that? That's not actually accomplishing anything. But it has the appearance of accomplishing a whole lot, whether it's because of the volume or the brightness or whatever it is. They undoubtedly are a diversion with pretty colors and cool shapes. They have the greatest impact when a bunch of them are put all together. Their greatest diversioning power, I don't know if that's really a word, their greatest force or impact is when a whole bunch of them come all together. You get what you pay for. some of you on your multi-million dollar budget, buy some of those ones that you throw down and pop, or maybe the bottle rockets.

Obviously, you know, the more expensive fireworks displays are more impressive. And really, you know what fireworks do, and I mentioned this one first, they do briefly light up the dark. I mean, in fact, fireworks, the light that a lot of them provide actually do enable you to see, but just for a little bit of time, eventually the show ends and the last sparkler fizzles out. And you know what I think in fact, in a lot of ways, pleasure or at least the pleasures that are found under the sun are very much like that. There are real pleasures, real ways to entertain yourself under the sun. There are real ways to get yourself happy, to give yourself some joy.

There are real ways to do that under the sun. You don't need God to make yourself happy, at least temporarily. You can go to a party. You can buy the biggest or coolest toy. You can do all kinds of things. You can have that relationship. You can search for different kinds of physical pleasure or stimulation or whatever it is. But I'll tell you what, while those things might provide very truly some happiness, that happiness is at best going to be temporary. is at best not going to be really beneficial for your heart, for your soul, for your life. I mean, the world has spent itself the last couple weeks, has it not?

Trying to pleasure itself. The world spent itself last night with fireworks and alcohol non-alcoholic beverages, you know, the good apple martinellis for Christians so we can at least, you know, have something fizzy in a bottle, you know, so that we can act like, you know, something special. We just don't have, you know, the wine or champagne or whatever it is. And some people are continuing that throughout today, you know, and will continue that as long as they possibly can. But a couple things about it. Number one, it is gonna be January 2nd really soon. And all the parties are gonna be over and people are gonna have to go back to school and go back to work and go back to their normal lives.

And not only that, all the partying that you did the last couple of weeks, has that actually really prepared you for meeting God? I thought about that last night. Has all the partying that you've gone to and you've participated in the last couple weeks, has that prepared you to meet God? Probably not. I mean, most of the time that's not what our parties are for, is preparing us to deal with suffering or difficulties.

Has your fun and your pleasing of yourself, did anything you got for Christmas outside of a Bible, did anything you get for Christmas prepare you to deal with your parents dying this week? I mean that could happen. And the answer is probably nothing. No gift, no toy, no party, no fun.

None of that is actually of any real, eternal benefit and really I think if you were honest you would say even in your own heart the happiness was very short lived. Well, that was the case for me. I mean, I went to parties when I was in junior high and high school and after high school and still go to, you know, occasional parties and things like that today. And you know what? I was always disappointed. Isn't that why so many people kill themselves during the holidays? Because they hoped that they would find some kind of satisfaction, some kind of meaning in all of this commotion and when they don't find it, their hope is gone.

Nothing left to live for. This was the biggest party week of the year. If that didn't do it, then I mean, what is the hope for the other 51 weeks? Some people take their lives. Anyway, just thinking about those fireworks. It's a lot like Pleasures Under the Sun. They definitely can burn you if you play with them wrongly or play with the wrong ones. They do provide a temporary bit of reprieve or entertainment or diversion, but ultimately, they're not providing you light to see in the darkness. They're not providing you warmth in the cold. They're not really helping you. They just make you think something significant is happening when in fact it isn't.

And so much of our life, especially now in 2006 as, you know, people living in the United States of America, our life is spent pursuing pleasure and thinking that we're going to get meaning and satisfaction out of whatever the next new big thing is, you know, a vehicle or, you know, a boat or an iPod or a party or a boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever it is. And you know what, guys? My burden is that so many of you, and again, it's all around us, don't get it. And you're still stuck under the sun. Solomon was looking for life under the sun. In chapter 2, verses 1 through 8, which we spent more than, and hopefully enough time covering.

We looked at the various places he went. This is not necessarily an exhaustive list, but it should help us enough. He recounted his experience or his pursuit of pleasure. He searched for happiness in a bottle. He worked to find meaning from his work. He tried to get joy by getting more stuff. He chased pleasure in women. ultimately his conclusion for each one of those things. And as we come to verses nine through 11 this morning, his summary of it all, pleasure, the pleasures provided under the sun are vanity, they are empty, they are striving after wind. They're like grasping oil. Doesn't use that phrase in verse 11, but that's another kind of phrase that we would use to describe something. I mean, trying to catch and hold on to the wind, grasping oil and holding it in your hand.

It's vain, it's empty, it's meaningless. It's not satisfying. Well, as I mentioned, this is Solomon's summary on striving after pleasure, chapter two, verses nine through 11. Let's read those, give you the outline. He says, so I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me and whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure. My heart found pleasure in all my toil and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it and behold, all was vanity and striving after wind and there was nothing to be gained.

There was no profit under the sun. Three things, one for each verse. Solomon's renown, Solomon's pleasure, and Solomon's summary. His renown, we sang, let's see if I can remember it. It's rising up all around the anthem of the Lord's renown from holy is the Lord. What is renown? That's fame. It's preeminence. It's standing. In our kind of terms today, we talk about this person being famous. We talk about most of the people we think of as famous are celebrities. And you probably heard somebody give the definition for celebrity. Celebrity is somebody who's famous for being famous. Celebrity is not generally somebody who's famous for accomplishing something.

But there are famous people, preeminent people, who have maybe achieved something or done something. status, their position, got them renowned. That is, people talked about them, people knew about them, and in verse 9 we see Solomon's renown. In fact, King Solomon stands out from any other person in various ways. I mean, Jesus obviously has renown, God has renown, but as just a human, and especially in Solomon's pursuit of pleasure, Solomon has great renown. Jesus himself acknowledges Solomon's splendor, Solomon's majesty and glory, how much stuff he had in Matthew 6, remember, when he said, I tell you not even Solomon in all of his splendor was clothed as one of these, and he's using that as a motivator or an encouragement for us to believe and trust in God that he can provide for us. He provides even for the lilies of the field and not even Solomon and all his splendor and all of what he had is as beautiful as the lilies that God takes care of.

So anyway, even Jesus uses Solomon's renown in Matthew chapter 6. Two things here, he was prominent in his position and prominent in his wisdom. Prominent in position the first half of the verse, prominent in wisdom.

second half. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. He was better than anyone. He had more than anyone. He is unlike anyone at least who went before him in Jerusalem. And I've tried to make this point throughout the series so far. You cannot, you will not ever attain to the level of getting and the level of power and the level of being able to please yourself like Solomon. None of us in here will ever get close to having that position and that kind of power and those kind of resources to be able to do the pursuit of pleasure like we can imagine. And this should be an argument from the greater to the lesser. If the greater couldn't get meaning and satisfaction in his pursuit of pleasure, then the lesser, lesser pursuits, lesser resources, lesser abilities to get pleasure, I mean, we're not gonna find it either. Solomon was known for his greatness, became great, surpassed all who were before him in Jerusalem. In chapter one, He uses the same kind of phrase, verse 16,

but he limits it to wisdom. He says, I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me. Here, he doesn't limit it to just wisdom. He says, it's unlimited in his position, in his prominence. He just had more. He was more well known. He was renowned for his greatness. The two verbs there at the beginning, I became great and surpassed all, those kind of function as a superlative, that is, it's the highest degree. There's nobody better. In fact, the NIV translates it, I became greater by far. There was just nobody higher than him, nobody who had more than he did. In fact, his high statuses confirmed for us in the historical books, you don't need to turn there, I'll read it for you, but 1 Chronicles 29 verse 25, and the Lord made Solomon very great in the sight of all Israel and bestowed on him such royal majesty as had not been on any king before him in Israel.

I mean, here in Ecclesiastes chapter two, Solomon talks about this being his pursuit. In 2 Chronicles though, who's responsible for giving him all this majesty? I mean, the Lord. I mean, you wanna talk about somebody, you know, working in the background to get you some status. Nobody's gonna give you a higher status or more renowned than the Lord could.

The Lord is the one who gave it to him, confirms that he was prominent in position. And then secondly, prominent in wisdom. Also, my wisdom remained with me. This tells us two things. Number one, that even in all this pursuit of pleasure, he was never out of control. This was not an out of body experience for him. He was very aware of what was happening and he was planning it. This was like a scientific experiment. You know, make a hypothesis, make an experiment, and come to some conclusions. His wisdom was with him the whole time. More than that, it tells us that he was prominent in that wisdom. First Kings chapter 10 verse 23, "'Thus King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom.

And again, the Lord promised him that no one would ever be as wise as him, no one before or no one after. We remember that from the introduction stuff to Ecclesiastes when the Lord came to him and said, what do you want? And Solomon said, I want wisdom. The Lord said, because you ask for wisdom, I'm not only gonna give you more of that than anybody will ever have, but I'm gonna give you everything else. He was prominent. The queen of Sheba came to visit him in 1 Kings chapter 10, and she said, Solomon, everything that I see here actually not only confirms the reports that I've heard, but you have even more than the reports that are out there about you.

So far as his riches and so far as his wisdom. She asked him questions and he was able to answer her. guy had renowned. He was higher in position, had more wisdom. That brings us then to verse 10, Solomon's pleasure. Gratification in indulgence in the first part of the verse, and even gratification in his toil, the second part of the verse. Gratification in indulging himself for self-gratification. Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them, I kept my heart from no pleasure. I mean can you really imagine that? Some of you, you know maybe over the last week because we've all been at home with our families right? We've been at home with our families for the last couple weeks. Some of us are ready to go back to school or whatever you know to get a break from those that we love the most. And some of you perhaps think that what would be pleasing to you is maybe Maybe just if, you know, your sister wouldn't bug you anymore.

And what you desire more than anything else is, you know, maybe for your sister to be quiet and go to her room and, you know, shut up. Stop bugging you. I mean, maybe that's one of your desires. Maybe that's one of the things you think would bring you pleasure. I don't know what it is. I mean, everybody is built different, but we all kind of have that built-in thing that we want to be pleased. There are very few people who prefer displeasure over pleasure. And probably we would say that those people who prefer displeasure, that's how they're actually being pleased. You can write your own blog on that one later on.

We had this built-in desire to be pleased and Solomon said, I didn't hold myself back from any of it. That's virtually impossible for us to imagine. I mean, he was absolutely spoiled. He spoiled himself. Not only was he in a position to get himself anything he wanted, he actually went ahead and did it. I mean, that's an amazing testimony there to say, not only could I have gotten everything that I wanted, I did. There was nothing that I thought about that I wanted that I didn't get for myself. Again, none of us will even get close to that. no self-restraint, no self-denial in the pursuit of his pleasure. He tells us about some of that in verses one through eight.

Wine, women, music, entertainment, stuff, money. You know what's interesting though, is that this kind of lifestyle is explicitly prohibited for God's people. Look over at Numbers, chapter 15. Numbers chapter 15. This is not just a command to the king, this is a command to all of God's people. Some of the same words are used here that I wanna show you the connection.

Numbers chapter 15, look in verse 37, the Lord said to Moses, speak to the people of Israel and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations. Do people in Israel still have tassels on the ends of the garments? There you go, from a guy who was there and saw it.

Through all their generations and to put a court of blue on the tassel of each corner. You know, some of the ladies were like, but that's so ugly. Anyway, it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord to do them. Here it is, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes. That's exactly what Solomon said he did. Whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them and I kept my heart from no pleasure. The heart and the eyes.

Desires that we have on the inside and then things that we see that, you know, advertising, whether it's actually commercial or not, the heart and the eyes. Solomon said, whatever my heart wanted, whatever my eyes saw, I went and got. Moses commanded the people of God that they were specifically not to follow after their own heart and their own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. That is a pretty significant condemnation right there to say that when you go after your eyes what they want, or be careful of lies what you see, and go after the desires of your heart, you are actually committing the worst kind of unfaithfulness to God.

So you shall remember and do all my commandments and be holy to your God. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord your God. Did you get that? Who is the Lord their God? Not to be themselves. And not to be pleasure. It is to be God himself. I mean, I just kinda made a quick note. This is an issue of faithfulness. This is an issue of idolatry. This is an issue of remembrance or lack of it. This is an issue of obedience or lack of it. An issue of holiness, an issue of worship, an issue of love.

When you run away with the desires for pleasure, things that your eyes see or your heart wants, that is lack of faithfulness, lack of obedience, that is lack of love, lack of worship, that's wrong. Solomon says that's exactly what I went after. Not only that did he get gratification in indulgence, but gratification in his toil. For my heart, end of verse 10, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. He got some benefit out of the work that he did. I mean, I was just reading some more of 1st Kings. It took 20 years to finished building the temple and his house. Yeah, I mean, there's some satisfaction in that, some reward.

I mean, there's gonna be some reward like when our house gets finished. We've got like 95% of our closet, our walk-in closet finished. That's like the only thing just for Mona's bedroom, our closet, and we put all the cabinets in there and now we even got our stuff in there. And there's like great satisfaction. You can't really look at the rest of all the uncompleted stuff around the house, But there are some, you know, it's nice having all of your clothes in one place and, you know, being able to get your socks and your shoes, you know, within arm's length, not going to multiple different places throughout the house to make that happen and to put together your ensemble.

There is a certain level of pleasure that you get from finishing a project, from doing your work. That's appropriate. There is some reward from Toil. He got some gratification in his Toil. got some profit. End of verse 10 again, reward for all his toil. But you know what? That was like the reward of fireworks. There was some enjoyment, but it didn't last. There was some amount of satisfaction, but it really wasn't filling up the greatest longings of his heart. That leads us to verse 11, Solomon's summary. He gives us a reflection on pleasure and his final conclusion on pleasure. His reflection verse 11, then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it. This is kind of like the morning after. There's a lot of people right that like that around our earth right now. The morning after. And in this case it was just, you know, many years after, but it's like, man, what did I do? He's facing the facts. He is He's turning his attention to consider all of that pursuit.

What his hands had done. I mean his personal involvement. Now it gives us his conclusion. Behold. I mean, I've been doing this more recently because Maggie loves to look other places when you're getting serious. And so you know I kind of take her face and kind of make her look right into my eyes. He says, behold, pay attention to what I'm going to tell you right now. Behold, all is vanity and striving after wind. And there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

He didn't, doesn't give any reasons why that is. He just makes the conclusion. You know what? I don't even think he needs to give us too many reasons because we all have experienced it in our less ways, our lesser abilities and lesser resources we have all sought to get meaning and satisfaction in life from a party or a toy or whatever it is. And we know that in the end it's really empty. Solomon lived better and celebrated life harder than anybody else. And he says it's empty. You know what? There is nothing you can be under the sun to be satisfied.

No amount of fame, no amount of renown, no amount of splendor, nothing you can be under the sun to be satisfied. There is nothing you can do under the sun to be satisfied. There is nothing you can get. to be satisfied. Be, do, or get. None of them under the sun can really make you genuinely happy.

And that ought to depress you. That ought to be like, man, wow. I know what you're saying. I still was kind of hoping that maybe there was another door out there that I hadn't gone through where I really find it. A secret door out there that a few people know about. It's not out there. but this distaste for life under the Sun is meant to get us beyond the Sun to God himself. That's why we're spending such a long time going through this. Number one, because I think a lot of people today are pursuing life in pleasure, whatever way it might be. And I'm just trying to show you from Solomon's own testimony that you're not going to find it there and get you beyond the Sun and get you to God. That's why, or one of the reasons why I even included that quote from Edwards in your bulletin. This isn't a Bible verse, but I mean that's great. The happiness of the creature consists, I mean fill in the blank there for all the different things that we try to get happiness in.

The happiness of the creature consists in whatever you got for Christmas. consistent having the right friends, consistent looking good, consistent whatever it might be.

No, the happiness of the creature consistent rejoicing in God by which also God is magnified and exalted. You realize when you get your happiness from God, that is the ultimate way that you're worshipping Him because you're saying God is best. God is the best pleasure and therefore He then gets the renown. When your iPod is what gives you the pleasure then you turn your attention and talk about and give your praise to and your adoration and love to your iPod or your Game Boy or your new fur coat or you know whatever else it is but when your happiness your satisfaction your pleasure comes in God that shows him off to be the best and so you get eternal and truly satisfying pleasure and at the same time God gets to the glory we're gonna be talking about that a good amount at the snow retreat. The point is there's nothing you can be, nothing that you can get, nothing that you can do to have that lasting happiness. There is, however, someone you can know. And really it's entirely feasible or reasonable to suspect that

some of you are really still looking for life under the sun and all this kind of stuff because you don't know God. You just you don't know Him. And so you don't know that He's better. You don't know that He is an infinitely satisfying fountain to drink from. You don't know that He is the infinitely brilliant light that can get rid of the darkness in your life. You You don't know that He is the eternal flame that can provide the warmth and heat that you need for life. He is the opposite of fireworks. There's nothing short or temporary about God, the exact opposite. Well, I have four resolutions and they really, at least in my own mind, and lots of things are better in my own mind than when they come out.

But I kind of have four commitments or four things that I've been thinking about that I need to work on, I think, not just in this next coming year, but just in my Christian life. And for the most part, I think they even relate to some of the stuff we've been studying in Ecclesiastes. So I'm gonna share them with you. Hopefully you find some benefit in them. Number one, I still need, and I've talked about this before, I still need to learn to enjoy the process better. I need to learn to enjoy the process better.

There is some legitimate joy that God gives us in the work that we do. He mentioned that in verse 10, my heart found pleasure in all my toil and this was my reward for all my toil. I mean, we're supposed to get benefit or pleasure from the work that we do. Just recognizing that that's not gonna be the eternally satisfying reward. Look over at Ecclesiastes chapter 11. Here he actually commands us to enjoy the process, to enjoy life. Rejoice, oh young man, chapter 11, verse nine. Rejoice, oh young man, in your youth and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes.

Enjoy what you're doing. Just be careful because know that for all these things, God will bring you into judgment. So you better choose the right things, the right process, the right work. but there is a reasonable amount of joy and satisfaction that God gives to us who work for him. In fact, this is gonna be a theme about work and labor and toil throughout the rest of Ecclesiastes, even at the end of chapter two. It's a gift of God. It's the gift of God to men to enable them to enjoy what they do. I need to learn to enjoy life better. I need to embrace the chaos a little better. A little better, I need to try to stop avoiding or being irritated by all of the interruptions and problems.

I want to see all of those things as a way to work and be satisfied. You know what, I have realized over the last couple years that we don't actually ever get to the point on this earth where there aren't any more issues to deal with or things to make better or problems to fix.

You know, I for a while thought that like even in my job, I could do enough, we could get to a certain point where nobody would have any more problems. And then I realized, well, that doesn't even happen in my own sanctification, let alone then, like an entire ministry worth of things to do. I need to learn, I think, to enjoy God's gifts a little bit better, not replacing him, but enjoying them as being from him. Number two, I think I need to learn, holy cow, I need to learn to be less self-centered and more servant-oriented. And I'm hoping that for some of you, you will get some benefit from hearing that, because most people don't criticize me for being selfish.

Maybe some people think about that. Hopefully that's not a dominant thing that you see in my life. But what I'm kind of hoping, even in saying that, is to maybe spark some of you to think maybe that's something you need to work on some as well. I myself know that I need to be less selfish and more servant oriented. Maybe that doesn't even change how I spend a lot of my time, but I think it should change some of my attitude. You know what? I kind of got sick reading verses 9 through 11 in chapter 2. I became great. I surpassed all who were before me. My wisdom remained with me. Whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them.

I kept my heart from no pleasure. My heart found pleasure in all my toil. This was reward for all my toil and so on and so forth. I mean, this is nauseatingly selfish on his part. And the standard is not that I am, for me, for application's sake, the standard is not that I am then less selfish than you. The standard is that I am not selfish like Christ. And that's like an infinite chasm and gap between my selflessness and his selfless serving and sacrifice. That's like, that's ridiculous how far away I am from that. That's kind of discouraging to me. I need to do better with that. Number two, I'm sorry, number three.

I really want to be less banal. I'll come back to that word in a second. Less banal in my thoughts, my conversations, and my pursuits. My ever increasing friend, Jonathan Edwards, has been kind of challenging me with this. Banal is a word that means common, ordinary, overused, so much to the point of being boring, trite, silly, superficial. And that just drives me crazy because we live, our society is a banal society. Piper talks about it in Don't Waste Your Life, specifically as it refers to TV. He says, the greater problem is banality, a mind fed daily on TV diminishes. Your mind was made to know and love God.

This facility for this great calling is ruined by excessive TV. The content is so trivial and so shallow, and the capacity of the mind to think worthy thoughts withers, and the capacity of the heart to feel deep emotions shrivels. That is when we are so satisfied with junk food, we have no pleasure or appreciation for the good food. And I just want in my own conversations with you, I want for my own thinking, my own pursuits to be less empty, less superficial, less banal. Regarding the Great Awakening, the first Great Awakening in 1735, this just sounds so great to me. Jonathan Edwards was kind of giving a description about what happened in the town.

He said this, a great and earnest concern about the great things of religion and the eternal world became universal in all parts of the town and among persons of all degrees and ages. All other talk but about spiritual and eternal things was soon thrown by. All the conversation in all companies and upon all occasions was upon these things only unless so much as was necessary for people carrying on their ordinary secular business. The minds of people were wonderfully taken off from the world. It was treated amongst us as a thing of very little consequence. Just want to be so less satisfied with life under the sun.

Final one, number four. I really want to be more disciplined to feed my soul with otherworldly beauty. And this really is the opposite of the last one. To be less satisfied with under the sun stuff, I need to know more and feed myself more on otherworldly beauty, and namely that's going to be God Himself. Psalm 16.8, I have set the Lord always before me. Therefore, my heart is glad and my whole being rejoices. My flesh also dwells secure. You make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. I want to know those pleasures. I want to know that otherworldly beauty.

For me I think that means I'm going to have to get up a little bit earlier every day. I think I need to sleep less than I do. My commitment is to watch a little less TV, spend a lot less time on the internet. I have some Bible study or Bible intake plans that I'm hoping to put into practice even today because I am tired of life under the sun. For me, I am. And going through Ecclesiastes has definitely continued to show how unsatisfying it is. studying some of the stuff from Edwards and the religious affections and just scripture and God, the end for which God created the world. I mean, we are meant for so much more than we find on this planet.

And if some of those things are helpful to you, maybe to spark you to think about what you need to do, not just for 2006, but what you need to do in following God, being faithful to him, Abounding in love. I mean, now is a great time as any to turn away from that junk and start feasting on God himself. And Father Solomon is doing his best shot to show us how distasteful and nauseating the food under the sun is. And I do ask that as you have promised to send your word out, that it would not return to you void work in our lives even as we understand Solomon's testimony, his summary on his striving after pleasure.

And as it is the beginning of this new year, challenge us, all of us, The families that are represented here, our ministry, our church, our schools, that we would just stop being so banal and commonplace and trivial and our lives so shallow, our hearts so small, our minds so weak, satisfy us, give us that happiness and rejoicing in you. And that is what's going to show you off and magnify and exalt you as well. We pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

God's word again this morning and turn to Ecclesiastes chapter two. As you are turning there, we started singing a song a little bit earlier and I was so excited. It's the song that starts out. Uh, but as for me, I watch and hope for the Lord. I wait for God, my savior, my God will hear me. And I was like, I just read that. That's from a verse. I was like, I was getting ready to like go look it up in my Bible because I underlined it and it was just like in the last week or so. I was like where was that? And as I was getting ready to turn in my Bible to find it then I remember that the name of the song is Micah 7-7. That's the name of the song. I was like oh yeah yeah. But I still had read it just in the last week or so whenever that was in that plan that some of us have been doing.

So anyway, that was just something I thought of doesn't have anything to do with the message. Neither does this. Wednesday night we're meeting obviously, going to continue on in the Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted series. In fact, Wednesday night we're going to be talking about epithumology, which is the study of lust.

And I was paying attention this morning, Pastor Z's message on lust and I know he talked some about lust last week too but I'm gonna try to talk about some other things than he did than just re-preaching his entire sermon so I will try to do that and what does overlap again we'll trust will will be beneficial reminders to you but anyway what I really wanted to tell you is that Wednesday night I'm bringing out the Rudolph Santa Christmas Tree game, which we've played in the past, and I've already got the prize ready for the ultimate winner, and it is not Mexican. So I've given away my last can of Mexican anyway. The last can of Mexican went out at the corn kick this year. So this is a good prize, kind of Christmasy and fattening all at the same time. So you'll enjoy that.

We hear not only for the message, but again, if you enjoy the Rudolph Santa Christmas Tree game. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you have not quite lived through Christmas time yet, truly. And you'll have to wait to find out. All right. Well, two weeks ago, we began our study on the vanity of women. And it was around 1201 that I looked up at the clock and said, oh my, how did that happen? I really had anticipated being finished with that entire message, being that it's only like one part of a verse. I really had anticipated getting through the entirety of that message and then today doing Ecclesiastes 2, 9 through 11 and kind of finishing up that and then maybe on New years giving us some resolutions for not looking for life in all the wrong places, but as it is I'm going to end up needing to finish the vanity of women today.

The vanity of women is a large topic. There is a lot to say about it, as well as the vanity of men. You get the point there. So on January 1st, I'll see if I can't do the summation, the conclusion of Solomon in verses 9 through 11 to this entire section and give maybe a few resolutions.

And then the month of January I'm not teaching at all and that'll be on Sundays or Wednesday nights. I will not be teaching in the month of January so far as so that I can actually have time to prepare for the snow or tree and so that you don't just get absolutely sick and tired of hearing me those of you who are in high school who are going on the snow or tree kind of builds that anticipation like oh he's not teaching maybe he'll have something actually significant to say if he doesn't teach for a while maybe he can come up with some material that will you know be interesting so I try to do that for your sake as well as for mine in preparation for the snow retreat and so you got me today Wednesday night and then January 1st and then that'll be it until January 30th night oh the oh six SR well today the vanity of women we continue and And we're in this section on Solomon's looking for life in all the wrong places.

Starting back in chapter 1 verse 18, up and through chapter 2 verse 8. We've talked about the vanity of looking for life in education, the vanity of looking for life in pleasure in general, the vanity of looking for life in a buzz, that is an alcohol. I mean, Andy made that proclamation this morning that he knows a lot of people like to drink. You know guys go back get that download that message okay that's really your problem but vanity of life and alcohol the vanity of life in work the vanity of life in stuff money materials possessions the vanity of life and music slash entertainment And we have come then to the very end of chapter 2 verse 8 where he got himself many concubines, the delight of the children of man. I don't remember exactly how far I got. I think I got through point number one or through most of point number one, his pursuit. And it is right there, again, I just read it. I got many concubines. It's the end of that sentence there. It's the same verb that goes along with getting many singers. And so that's all one sentence. I'll

make a comment about that a little bit later on this morning, but you could read it if you just take out that first thing that he got for himself. You could read it. I got many concubines. That was his pursuit. We talked about the fact that he was well known for his women, for his ladies. He perhaps was the original ladies man with some 700 wives and 300 concubines. That's a lot of ladies.

Yeah, we read that in 1 Kings 11 verses 1 through 3. We talked about at least a couple of the ways that he got some of the women, one of them was through marrying foreign King's daughters as signing a deal or a treaty. That was a common thing to do for a king to give the greater king in the contract deal one of his daughters and of course part of the reason for that was you know you figure then as the lesser king if you give the the big tougher king the cool king the I don't though. If you give the the you know the more powerful king one of your daughters maybe he don't won't then come take all your other stuff. Maybe he won't you know kill you and your people and take your land and plunder your cities and so forth you know so you know that's seeing your own daughter is pretty valuable at that point and that was a common thing to do and undoubtedly we know that that happened in some of the cases for Solomon that kind of sealed the relationship.

However, that was undoubtedly, you don't just come up with 700 wives by making 700 contracts with foreign dignitaries with other kings. There was undoubtedly some wife pursuing here that had to do with just his own desires, his own pursuit of pleasure. And we kind of looked at the story back and Esther and I suggested that perhaps Esther chapter 2 verses 2 and 3 and 12 through 14 I suggested that perhaps that was similar to maybe some of the things that Solomon did in maybe even sending out some delegates to find the pretty people and the pleasing ladies in the the country and send them back to the king and send them you know to their cosmetic school but it wasn't to learn how to give cosmetics to other people, it was their own school of beautification.

For six months, the treatment of oil, what was it? And six months of treatment of something else, you know, learning how to put your pretty face on and how to take it off at night and cleanse the pores and all those kinds of things. You got a whole year of that kind of school.

And then you got, at least in the case of an Esther's situation, you know, you got one shot. You got basically one night, one day to try to please the king to make him happy. In that case, for then him to make you his wife and maybe he would call you back. And in Solomon's case, he apparently called 700 of them back and made them his wife and then also called some others back and didn't make them his wife, didn't make them, you know, officially related to him as one of his 700 wives, you know, why not just make the 300? Why not just include them in his wives? I mean, when you got 700, is it really that tough to make 300 more your wives instead of them being your concovines? I don't know. But nevertheless, he got for himself lots of ladies. We talked about the fact last time as well that there are no express commands, no explicit commands in the Old Testament against polygamy, against having more than one wife, though that's obviously the paradigm that God sets up in Genesis chapter 2, one man and one woman. He

didn't make Adam and then Eve and Eve's sister and so on and so forth. I mean it was one man and one woman. We obviously know by the New Testament it becomes very explicit, but Solomon still doesn't get out of that because there are explicit commands to kings, not to have more than one wife. So even though there are no explicit commands that Solomon could have, you know, Solomon could have argued like a teenager, well, there's no verse for that. Well, there is in fact a verse for kings, that they were not allowed to have more than one. Deuteronomy chapter 17 verse 17, he had already done some of these other things, so it's not really a surprise that he includes, you know, breaking this part of the commandment.

In Deuteronomy 17 verse 16 says that the king must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses. Also at the end of verse 17, he shall not acquire for himself excessive silver and gold. We've already seen that he pursued those things and so then right there at the beginning of verse 17, he shall not acquire many wives for himself lest his heart turn away. It even includes the reason why, the warning there. And so he was in complete disobedience in looking for life in these women. Now that was kind of the Old Testament context. I then came and talked a little bit about Solomon's situation and especially if it was anything like in Esther chapter 2, I mean Solomon had the cream of the crop here. And I mentioned three things about Solomon's situation. He had the cream of the crop. They would have all been trying to impress him and fighting over him and with that number he could have never gotten bored. And I mentioned those three things because not that I think

any of you necessarily are running out trying to find the most pretty person, not that I think most of you will then ever find a person who then is only interested in serving you and trying to impress you and make you happy, nor do I I think most of you will try to play the field at the same time and have, you know, 10 different girlfriends or boyfriends, let alone more than one spouse. But the reason that I mention those things is because I do believe that in your heart you sometimes wish that you could have it like that. And you blame your lack of happiness. You're testing it out to see if you can get happiness in another person.

And you find that it's not really providing you happiness. Let's say you get that boyfriend or girlfriend. Let's say you have five boyfriends or girlfriends, whatever it is. You have five and they're relatively pretty. I still think you would argue, well, maybe if I just found somebody prettier, I would be happy.

Or maybe if I just could have more than one, I would be happy. Or maybe if, you know, I could just find the prettiest person and more than one of them who their whole life is about serving me and trying to impress me, then I would be happy. Again, I think we deceive ourselves into thinking that what we have, if we just had something a little bit better or a little bit more, or they were a little bit different in serving us, not expecting us to serve them, you know, I mean, come on. If we could just find something a little bit more that we don't have, then we'd be happy. And I'm telling you what, I gave those three things about Solomon.

He had the prettiest people. He had a thousand of them. I suppose maybe not all thousand of them were the prettiest because there could have been some ugly king's daughters that he got in the deals that he signed. So is this possible? But in the number of them, they all would have been serving him. For goodness sake, he was the king. Literally, he was the king, not just acting like the king, like some guys try to do. He was the king.

And you know, they were going out of their way to try to impress him, to get invited back and just spend time with him. And he says, that is ultimately empty. His experience then here is substantially more than any of you will ever get close to. And in your deceiving yourself and thinking, Well, maybe if I just had, or maybe if I just was able to be with, or maybe I wouldn't be so bored if I could have a couple, any of those kinds of things, you can't get close to experiencing what Solomon had. And he said what he had was empty. He said what he had was vanity, not ultimately satisfying. And yet, and yet junior hires and high schoolers and collegians and single people all over, I guess, even married people, I suppose, can have some of these kinds of issues, believe that life is found in finding the right person, that life is found in that relationship, that life is found in that physical pleasure of the relationship anywhere in between, and it is empty.

It is not satisfying. So wish that you could get that now rather than later. Well to finish up his pursuit, just to give you some actual exegesis I get, I guess, when he says I got many concubines. The word concubines is an interesting word. And I suppose it's possible that some of you don't know what that word means. And if you had asked me this question personally, I would have said, well, go ask your mom and your dad.

Because basically a concubine was somebody that was really there for one reason. And that was for sex and physical pleasure. There was not really any other reason for a concubine as far as I can tell, other than, you know, showing off to other kings how many you had, but their primary reason why you had them was for yourself. So in this verse, he actually only mentions them. He doesn't even mention all his wives. He doesn't mention the 700 wives he had to choose from. He actually talks about getting for himself many concubines. I mean this was as low and as base and as trying to fulfill his fleshly lust as he possibly could. Now some people are not exactly sure that concubines is the best way to translate this phrase. Shadda v'Shaddot is the Hebrew phrase here.

This is the only time it occurs in all of the Old Testament. Shadda v'Shaddot. That sounds kind of cool I guess. Abel, Hebelim, Hakol, Abel. There you go, that's all the Hebrew I know. But nevertheless, this is the only time it occurs in the Old Testament that's part of the reason then why people aren't sure exactly what it means. Some people have suggested this is just kind of interesting because I think it means concubines and hopefully that'll be apparent. But nevertheless, some people suggest that this word comes from an Aramaic word meaning to pour out. And so they suggest that what Solomon says he got for himself here are male and female cup bearers.

That is like wine tasters. Some people suggest that it's warm and cold baths. He got for himself many baths. So you got wine tasters and warm and cold baths. Some suggest that it means male and female captives, like he defeated other countries. The problem is there's no battle that Solomon was a part of during his reign. Some people suggest cooks and confectioners. So cooks making really good meals and confectioners more your candy type sweets. Some suggest special musical compositions, even though he's already. And the best, that's kind of close, I suppose, because he just talks about getting for himself male and female singers.

So now he's getting, you know, the great songwriters. I don't know, but some people suggest that. Some people suggest that it means chests or sedan chairs like, you know, good furniture. I'm serious, these are like real suggestions in the different commentaries that I read. People suggested it. And I'll tell you the biggest reason why I don't think it's wine tasters or baths or captives or cooks and confectioners or musical compositions because nobody has ever called a wine taster a delight of the children of man. Somebody tasting your wine for you is not somebody who like everybody wishes they could have one. You know, on their Christmas list, oh, I could just have a wine taster this Christmas.

You know, that kind of, that doesn't really go along. Good furniture, I mean, I suppose everybody likes their good, you know, like, you know, good chair. Their good, lazy boy chair. If you're the king, you should have a good chair, a kingly chair. You should have multiple good kingly chairs for different kinds of things. for judging and ruling and for taking a nap and for listening to your music and counting your money and all those kinds of things. You have chairs for all those things, yes. You probably wouldn't call them the delights of the children of man. Good meal, yeah. Somebody who can make you sweets and candy, okay.

Not the delights of the children of man. Probably wouldn't go that far in any of those description. I think context really forces us to recognize that cup bearers are not the highest human pleasure, and it comes back to then concubines, and those were ladies there for the one reason. His motive, okay, we finally get through point one. That only took me somewhere around 70 minutes between two sermons to get through point number one. That's good. Point number two, his motive. The next three are, I should be able to do them quicker than 70 minutes a piece. His motive is the same as it has been all along himself. It just kind of follows the pattern that we've seen.

His motive is self. Remember I said that as this is the same sentence, I got singers, both men and women, and many concubites, the delight of the children of man. I'm disappointed in the ESV here because the Hebrew does have for myself. So same sentence, same little phrase is included there in the Hebrew verse, verse 8, I got for myself. His motive was self. And you know what? You don't get concubines for any other reason than self. with the music you could argue for, you know, the nation's art and for expression of, you know, culture and those kinds of things. But not concubines. There's nothing about culture or society or the arts in concubines.

It was purely for himself. myself this was all about gratification of his flesh and trying to make himself happy. Point number three. How quick was that? Point number three, his delusion. This is added in. The other ones have primarily had his pursuit, his motive, and his conclusion. This one gets added in. His delusion is in that last phrase, the delight of the children of man. The term delight, in fact, could be translated the word pleasure. Solomon uses the same exact word in Song of Solomon, chapter 7 verse 6, how beautiful and pleasant you are, O loved one, with all your delights, with all your pleasurableness. You are pleasant. You are delightful. Now at least in Song of Solomon he is talking about one, as opposed to concubines, but nevertheless he uses the same words, and he calls them the delight of the children of man. And honestly I think that's just a tad bit sarcastic.

He's describing for us his pursuit. He's describing for us where he was looking for life, And I think this final phrase is thrown in there to just say, you know what, I got it. I've been there and done that and I had the delights of the children of man. And what he's describing is that he believed the myth. He believed the advertisements, not necessarily in commercials, but believed the human myth that life and meaning and satisfaction can come in another person, can come in sex. He apparently had believed that. He listened to that marketing campaign that that's delightful, that's pleasurable. Everybody loves that. It's the delight of the children of men. And yet, he was deluded. I'll tell you why because these delights were at best temporary and incomplete.

At best the delights of the children of man are temporary. They do not last. It's not ongoing and they are incomplete. It's shallow not deep deluded. And finally then his conclusion, his conclusion is the same as it has been for the entire section that it's empty, vanity, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. This is just as much included in that all is vanity as all of the other things. Vanity, emptiness. A couple weeks from now when we look specifically at verses 9 through 11 we'll see he did not keep himself from anything his eyes desired, women or otherwise. Everything he saw he wanted that he thought could make him happy, he got for himself.

And he says it was all empty. Not satisfying. Not providing meaning. It was vanity. Now of course for Solomon it was worse. Worse than just finding that all of these women were empty and and it was vanity to pursue it. Look at 1 Kings chapter 11. We read the beginning part of 1 Kings 11 verse 1. You know this story but I just wanted to show it to you specifically. It was worse in Solomon's case than just finding out that this was fruitless. This was idolatrous. 1 Kings chapter 11 verse 3, he had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines, and his wives turned away his heart.

For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God. Let's saw some of them in verse 5, look down in verse 6, so Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord as David his father had done. Then he actually goes and makes offering places for some of the gods. Verse 8, and so he did for all his foreign wives who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods. And the Lord was angry with Solomon. The Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing that he should not go after other gods, but he did not keep what the Lord commanded. And the result was idolatry, and the result of the idolatry was the Lord actually taking away from Solomon the kingdom. There were consequences to his actions and to his pursuits, not only just in finding that they were empty, but there were actually some other pretty

significant and serious consequences that followed for him as well. I probably might say that Solomon's pursuit of women was idolatrous. Not only did it lead him into other idolatry in actually serving other gods with other names, Solomon's pursuit of women was idolatry in and of itself, and putting women and his wives and his concubines and his pleasure in place of God. Not only did it turn him to idolatry, again perhaps it was idolatrous in and of itself. Let me say another thing about the verse and I want to try to be careful here, but do you notice a connection between music and women in verse 8? Well you should if you don't because it's the same sentence.

And I think that's interesting that he includes at the same time I got for myself one verb, two objects. I got male and female singers and many concubines. Same sentence there is a connection, at least grammatically, is there a connection beyond that? Is there a connection between music and women beyond just being in the same sentence here? And I'm going to say yes. I'm going to say yes. There obviously can be an explicit connection between music and women, and it takes about five seconds of any modern video to put that together. Takes about five seconds of any, you turn on MTV or VH1, takes about five seconds of most videos to see that there is a pretty obvious connection between the sensuality of music and the sensuality of women and putting them together.

is definitely an explicit connection many times between music and relationships. But more than that, I don't think that that's why he includes it here. I don't think that Solomon had in mind music videos, right? Though it might have been live, at least the the female singers might have been doing some dancing while they were singing and whereas the boy band singers might not have you know been as much the temptation for him they might have still laid down some choreography that's possible but again it is possible that there was some explicit connection in his mind between the ladies who were singing and dancing and so on and so forth but I think the reason that he includes them together here is more of an implicit connection and that is self serving self. There is a pattern in seeking entertainment which is what we talked about music as being mentioned here that that's what it's for its entertainment. There's a pattern in entertainment of focusing on self and feeding your flesh right. We talked about that substantially in that

message. Entertainment is never for somebody else. You seek entertainment for yourself. The gratification of yourself, your flesh, your laziness, your amusement, whatever it might be.

And you know what? Don't think that you can be out of control in seeking entertainment for your flesh and think that that won't spill over onto maybe other ways you can seek entertainment for your flesh. The implicit connection then is self. Your lack of self-control will eventually spill over into everything and here it is. If you cannot control your entertainment choices, if pleasure and fun is your life, if pleasure and fun is what it's all about when it comes to your music and movies and media, it will not be long before those don't entertain you anymore and you'll seek to find entertainment in something else maybe in a person. The implicit connection is serving self and if your life is about serving yourself in any one area of your life you might not be able to contain it just in that area. And if you make your habits and your choices consistently, if your habit is doing what makes you happy, then why would you not do what makes you happy in a relationship? Obviously you would. If you can't control your sleep,

then you may not be able to control your hands. If you can't control your need for fun and amusement, then why do you think you're going to be able to control your lust for somebody else? I got for myself male and female singers and many concubines. It was just a spillover of his pursuit of me. As I said, Solomon's pursuits were more extensive than any of us will ever attempt and yet we live in in a world where sex and relationships is normal and more than normal, it's available. And more than available, it's not restricted other than by parents and by conscience, most people don't have, or at least not a very strong set of parents or a very strong conscience.

Now for most of you, I anticipate that the issue is not sex yet. For some of you it may be, maybe not yet. For some of you, a relationship is more about the relationship than the physical. I'll do my part to talk about that on Wednesday night. But, Ian's getting ready to write. He knows that this is the good, this is the juice coming right here. The juice is good. You can still be an idolater without being a fornicator or adulterer. Do you realize that? You can still be an idolater without being a fornicator or an adulterer. You don't need to be physically impure with someone to be impure. In fact, you don't need to have thoughts about being impure with someone to still be impure in the sense of not loving the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

If you have divided loves, you are impure. Whether or not you have lust for physical consummation in any way, or then seek to have that satisfied. You can be just as impure in having divided loves, let alone going further again in the fleshly lusts. We are taught from the beginning of life, that real life, that meaningful life is found when you find the right person.

I mentioned that a couple of Wednesdays ago. That is the moral of the story in Cinderella. It is. And Snow White and blah, blah, blah. And ah, the moral of the story is you will be really happy when you find, you know, Mr. Perfect. Or Miss, you know, Miss Pretty. I was trying to think of a good name for the woman there. And I'll tell you what, I will go so far as to make the claim this morning that you are not going to give up looking for life in love. Uh, let's see. It took me a little while to realize that. But it wasn't too long into being a youth pastor until I basically resigned myself to realize you are not going, none of you in here, none of you in here are going to give up looking for life in love.

You won't. You will do it and you won't give it up. I know. Period. I know. I know that. I know. I know the junior high high school environment. I know the junior high high school conversations. I know the junior high high school note writing while on doodling.

I know the junior high high school instant messaging and emailing. I know the MySpace interests and pursuits. I know the TV shows and the movies and the music and the magazines that you read and fill your minds with. I know loneliness. I know that. I know what it is to be lonely and to think that somebody else might make that better. In fact, I know the God-given desire that He gives to most people, as Pastor Z mentioned, a good desire. He's the one who said it's not good for a man to be alone. That's why He created the woman. I know the God-given desire. I know the deceitfulness of the heart that keeps trying to find life in something under the sun here rather than in God.

But you will never give up looking for life in love unless you make your life about loving God. There's the answer. Falling on deaf ears all throughout the room. You will never give up looking for life in love unless you make your life about loving God. Hmm, abounding love, perhaps. It is no surprise when you look for life in another person, because most of you, that's all you think about. And so, duh, if you're thinking about that all the time, that is what you are going to naturally pursue. When you fill your mind with categories of beauty, like if your definition, your categories of beauty are things like hair and figure and toenails, etc., etc., that's what you're going to look for, right?

If you are constantly evaluating others by your standard of beauty and your standard of beauty is what I just described. You're going to spend your time evaluating and trying to discern the desirable. And again, I know that most of you spend your time trying to discern who is most desirable and who you think if you could be with you'd have meaning and satisfaction in your life. And I tell you what, if that is as far as your standards of desirability goes, if that's as far as your categories of beauty go, you are deluded. And you know what? I beg you to stop putting yourself in the path of those allurements. Stop putting yourself and your mind and your thoughts in the path of those kind of beautiful things and start putting yourself in the path of the allurements of God. Let God be the mind-blowing standard of beauty. Nobody's hair, okay, nobody that you ever date will have such nice hair you don't need anything else. Nobody's lack of acne for yourself or in your date will ever provide you with a satisfied heart. It's not gonna happen.

Let God be the mind-blowing standard of beauty and we sing things like, you are beautiful beyond description and for most of us we're like okay cool and then we don't worry about trying to describe it. Too marvelous for words. Guess I shouldn't try. I tell you what, give it a shot. Instead of making all of your standards about beauty and desirability in the standards of what other people look like, learn about God and how beautiful and how desirable He is and try to describe it and try to come up with words for it and let that dominate your mind and you know what you will realize that loving somebody else just doesn't compare with loving God because no matter how pretty they are they are not as beautiful as this God who is beyond description in his beauty you will not give up looking for life in love until you realize that God is the love that ought to consume you put yourself in the way of his allurements, which is one of the reasons why we talk about your Bible reading. Huh?

I am not gonna be able to put that on the mp3 because that's where we find out about the beauty of God. Not only in his word, just take a walk and look around. If you sow God in your life, you will reap his joy. If you sow the desires of your flesh you're gonna reap the consequences of that. I still have another page of notes okay so here we go. In a conclusion this morning let me just remind you of two things. One, there is a proper place for love and sex. It is a gift. It is a marriage gift and a marriage gift alone. That is the only place where love and sex is actually pleasant and a gift in a more than temporary kind of way. You can read Ecclesiastes 9-9 which says, I mean it's Solomon himself saying, enjoy life with the wife whom you love. Solomon says that enjoy her all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the son. I mean at least in this vain life, enjoy your wife and there's a place for that. Proverbs 5 18 also which Solomon wrote said let your fountain be blessed

and rejoice in the wife of your youth a lovely deer a graceful doe. I can't imagine any culture we're calling a woman a deer is acceptable but apparently it was. And he says let her breasts fill you at all times with delight be intoxicated always in her love. There is a place for that and it is with your wife.

By the way, he does put limitations on the pleasure in those passages, namely that it's with one other person and that that other person is your wife. In both Ecclesiastes 9 and Proverbs 5 8, it's one wife. We handle this without it being too cheesy. True love is terrific. Finally, though, The problem with women, and I'm only gonna talk about one, so I'll be soon, done soon. The problem with women is when you're looking for love to fill the void in your heart, and that's just not gonna happen. Your eventual spouse, even once you get married, your spouse is not going to be able to fill the God-shaped hole in your heart. Even your spouse is not gonna do that. Some of you think, well I'm single, if I just get my spouse that'll do it. Then when you get your spouse you're like, oh. I mean it's the same way with pastor Z's principle on adding a person with a lust problem to marriage is then a marriage with a person with a lust problem.

Right? It's the same way here. If you are looking for life anywhere other than God, if you're looking for life in love before being married, get married and look for life in love in that marriage, you're still not going to have it any more than you could have beforehand. Even the best marriage is still a relationship that takes place under the sun. The best one is still under the sun. It all comes back to your heart. Where you are looking for life, even God ordained temporal things can bring pleasure, but only if you're actually seeking life in God, not in his gifts.

Go ahead and bow your heads. And as I get ready to pray and finish this morning, can I remind you, we've kind of focused the last two messages and even the Trespasser series somewhat, we've kind of focused this on you. And that's appropriate. It's you that I'm talking to, but you realize this is actually a bigger issue than you. This is ultimately a reflection on God. And you're looking for life, the object that you seek, the object you think will give you your life, is really, truly what you're glorifying. Whatever it is that you're pursuing that you think is gonna give you satisfaction and provide meaning in your life, That is what you're worshiping.

And you know what? God does not take people worshiping other things, other gods lightly. If your life is a constant pursuit of a relationship, thinking that that is where you're truly gonna find happiness, not only is that empty, that's sin, that's dishonoring God. Even without the lust, without premarital sex or physical things and impurities, without any of those you can still be just as sinful if what you are seeking for joy and meaning in life is not God himself. This is an area of your life that reflects what you think about God, whether you think he is great or whether you think he's not as great as some girl.

Maybe some of you don't actually know God. Maybe the reason you're stuck serving a relationship or the idea of a relationship is because you don't actually know God and you haven't seen his beauty. It's available for you today to know him if you repent from your sin and trust in him and look to him to provide that meaning. And Father, that is what I pray for each one of these students and even for our staff, who aren't married and for the staff who are married that we would never be so deceived by the constant marketing campaign of this world and even the the deceitfulness in our own hearts that says we can find better happiness in a person, better pleasure from another and we can find in you.

And we're not gonna give up those other loves until we see your beauty and greatness, see and know it and delight in it. So Father, cause our love to abound in an otherworldly way for you. We'll pray this in Christ's name, amen. You know, that's why Pastor Z mentioned Psalm 119, nine through 11.

That's why I mentioned Romans 12 too. Feeding your mind with the beauty and greatness of God and his commands for us, or feeding your mind with junk. Garbage in, garbage in. That actually, not only is garbage out, but you put garbage in. You know what? You've got garbage in. You put the world standards of beauty-ness and desirability into your head over and over and over again, that is going to be what you think about beauty and desirability. And it is no wonder that most of us get stuck seeking that instead of seeing the beauty and desirability of God. Well, I already preached that message, so I won't do it any longer.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

out your copy of God's Word this morning and turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 2 where ideally if the rapture doesn't happen in the next 47 minutes and I don't die we'll finish looking at this last place that Solomon is looking for life the last wrong place that he's trying to find meaning and satisfaction for himself. Really this couldn't come at a better time to have arrived at this verse. Of course I planned it just like that. To arrive at the last part of chapter 2 verse 8 right in the midst of pastor Z's Sunday morning messages talking about lust and the heart and as Jesus is dealing with that in the Sermon on the Mount as well as the fact that we're going through the trespassers will be prosecuted series on Wednesday nights. So as we come this morning to talk about the vanity of women, about relationships and even the physical pleasures that are associated with that, again I think it's a very profitable time. I do anticipate that some of you here this morning probably need to get a little bit fired up about this subject.

In fact, just two songs ago that we sang, Purify My Heart, some of you need to be more than just singing that song. You need to be praying that prayer and asking God to actually be doing that in your heart, even this morning. We talked to the staff a little bit yesterday morning about the message from last Sunday on the vanity of music and it certainly seemed like some of you realized that that had some application to you, others of you acted like maybe that must be for somebody else who from all external appearances probably should have been realizing that I was stepping on your toes and not somebody else's first.

And even as we talk about the vanity of women this morning and the application that will have to the vanity of men. I just don't like saying that phrase out loud. Again, there is some toe stepping that needs to be done and it's your toes that should be feeling the pain, not you looking out for other people around you and thinking, oh, their toes should be hurting right now. The first place to look is at yourself. And some of you need actually that refiner's fire to come and purify your heart.

And as we get started, I kind of thought it would be great to bring out some Edwards as we start. As a matter of fact, I actually posted this on my blog, February 19th of this year. By that point in time, I had pretty much concluded that we would be studying Edwards at the next snow retreat. So that was again back in February that I had pretty much decided that. And so I was trying to throw some teasers out there without anybody really knowing it. Of course I could have gone another way and just said that I was quoting Edwards for another reason. But anyway, I actually put this up on my blog and the title for that particular post was called Heat Over Heat.

And relating to how sometimes, you know, The pastures get a little bit fired up and how some people don't like that. And they get heat over heat. And here's some thoughts Edward gives on that. If any of you that are heads of families saw one of your children in a house that was all on fire over its head, that's just kind of a long way to say that they were in a house on fire.

one of your children in a house that was all on fire over its head and an imminent danger of being soon consumed in the flames that seemed to be very insensible of its danger and neglected to escape after you had often spagged to it and called to it would you go on to speak to it only in a cold and indifferent manner. You got the picture? Your kid is in the house that's on fire and you see the beam about ready to break and fall and crush them and burn them and you've been calling to them to you know pay attention and wake up and get out of the house and they just act like you know nothing is wrong. He says would you continue to speak to them in a cold and you know in different manner? Excuse me Hey, son, maybe come on out.

Would you not cry aloud and call earnestly to it and represent the danger it was in and its own folly of delaying in the most lively manner you were capable of? Would not nature itself teach this and oblige you to it? If you should continue to speak to it only in a cold manner as you are want to do ordinary conversation about indifferent matters, would you not, I'm sorry, would not those about you begin to think you were bereft of reason yourself? That is, as other people are outside your house with you, watching you call to your kid who's in the house that's about ready to fall and destroy them, would they not start to think you were the problem if you just kept talking to them in an indifferent and cold manner? Come on, come on out. Okay, don't.

I mean, other people around you would begin thinking that you were having a problem. If then, we who have the care of souls knew what hell was, had seen the state of the damned, or by any other means become sensible how dreadful their case was, and saw our hearers in eminent danger, and that they were not sensible of their danger, it would be morally impossible for us to avoid abundantly and most earnestly setting before them the dreadfulness of that misery they were in danger of and warning them to fly from it and even to cry aloud to them."

And you know when you read passages like Proverbs 5, and we've kind of looked at that in the past and I mentioned that a couple Wednesday nights ago I think as well, when you look at Proverbs 5, you look at really any passage in Scripture that talks about any kind of sin that, you know, makes your life miserable and has the possibility of making your eternal life even more miserable. I mean, any of those, it would be morally wrong for a friend or for like me to to just kind of act like that's okay for you to just keep walking down that path. That would be wrong. And so again, it is important for us to treat important things like they are important.

And sometimes it is the right thing to get fired up. And may God bless the means of our hot and passionate appeals to overcome deadness and hostility and unbelieving hearts. I mean no matter how exercised and excited I am in preaching a message, there's no guarantee that that does anything. But if God would so choose as we study His word and as we then recognize the significance and the importance of the loves of our hearts, may He use the means necessary to make the right changes. I tell you what, you will much rather have me give you heat in a message than have heat in hell. I mean, and I haven't been there. So I'm not speaking from experience, I'm speaking just from what I can only imagine that we read about those descriptions from Scripture.

It's my desire, I think it is Solomon's desire as well, that we get the point and then get away from the loves in our heart that, you know, push God away, trying to get our own pleasure, we come to another one of those this morning. And this kind of heat from Solomon, this kind of heat from me, I mean, I'm not telling you right now that I'm planning on yelling and screaming this morning, but I am pretty passionate about it. And as I desire for some toes to be stepped on, I don't even know all the toes that need to be stepped on, the Holy Spirit does, and hopefully, you know, His foot is a lot bigger than mine.

And I hope that it hurts if that's what the Spirit needs to do in your heart. We are in this series on looking for life in all the wrong places that began back in chapter 1, verse 18. Solomon was testing and now is describing for us, testing out everything under the sun to see if there was something he could find that would bring him satisfaction, bring him meaning, bring him some happiness and joy and pleasure to his life. Solomon had basically created a world. He had created the environment around him where no fruit was forbidden. He was trying everything. He tried it all. Now he's giving us the results of that test.

Now please understand that most of these things, in fact I'm going to try to describe how all of them at least used rightly, can be okay. I mean for example when we talked about the vanity of education and wisdom, does that mean that there is no value in education and wisdom at all? Is that what it means? know. Obviously there is value in education and living wisely. There is value in that. It's just that you can't get life from education and wisdom. How about pleasure? You know what?

Pleasure is something that God gives. Pleasure is a gift from God. If used rightly, it's something that enables us to enjoy God. We're able to thank God for the various pleasures that he gave us. I mean, he is the one who created us with that capacity for pleasure to begin with. That's part of the reason for the quote in your bulletin. Can I see this for just a second? The quote in your bulletin, the godly are designed for unknown and inconceivable happiness. God is, thank God is the one who made that hole in our heart and the longing for desire, the longing for pleasure.

And you know what? He hasn't created that for no reason. He's created that to have it be satisfied. The issue is where we get that satisfaction from. So pleasure in and of itself is not necessarily wrong. It's just where we're getting the pleasure from. And in fact, God has designed the absolute greatest eternal and infinite pleasures for us to enjoy things that are inconceivable to our finite minds. He has planned pleasure for us beyond what you can conceive with him in eternity. You can't imagine how much he's going to satisfy the desire for happiness and joy that you have, how much God will be able to do that.

He's the one who created the desire. He's the one who will be able to satisfy it. So wisdom and education in and of itself is not wrong, but when you look for that for life, you're not gonna get it. And when you look for pleasure itself as a satisfaction in life, not gonna find it.

Alcohol, I know most of you are thinking, well, how's he gonna say this one is good? Well, at least in the Old Testament, drinking wine was actually associated with God's blessing. It was something that they received and something they enjoyed that helped them celebrate God. Even in Ecclesiastes later on, we'll see how he talked about that. So at least in Solomon's day, alcohol was something that could be used, could be used to celebrate God's goodness. Now if you're looking for life in beer or the buzz or whatever else, it's not there. It is not really the high life, but again, at least for Solomon, it wasn't inherently wrong.

How about work? I mean, the vanity of work. Is work wrong? No. We looked at Ecclesiastes 9 that says work with all of your effort. And in fact, in Ecclesiastes 2, 24 through 26, working and being able to enjoy that is a gift of God. God has made us to work. He has made us to express our creativity as we are made in His image. He has made us to enjoy producing and working hard and being tired from that and then resting. That's His plan. In and of itself, work is not vanity, but when you look for life in it, it's not going to be there. What's the next one? Money or riches. Again, inherently money is not wrong. whether you depend on that to bring you meaning in life and what you spend it on and those kinds of things. Money actually can help you serve God. Money is a gift from God. He is the one who brings riches and provides that as a blessing. It says in the book of Proverbs, how about music? I mean music used rightly in proportion is an amazing gift.

I mean, come on, you got those flats and the minor key from What Child Is This? If that doesn't kind of just, you know, stop you and think about the words, What Child Is This? You know? And the music itself just kind of stops you and is kind of different enough to make you think that, oh, this is actually different that God became man.

I mean, that's good stuff. Music can help us to worship God better, but as with all these other things, music can actually replace God in your life. And it's the same way with this last one, at least there is a proper way to see relationships, specifically a relationship. There is a proper place for the physical pleasure of a relationship and that is in marriage, committed marriage. There is a proper place and that is as well a gift from God. It's just a wedding gift. And yet, I mean, do I really need to talk a lot about how this is right where our world is today? I mean, does it really take too much evidence?

You know, I don't need to give you any stats on, you know, what's on TV or what's in movies or what's in music or what's on billboards or the amount people talk about sex and talk about girls and talk about boys and all those kinds of things. I mean our world is a wash in thinking that life is found in a girl or in a boy. And Solomon is going to tell us that's not where life is. There is a proper place. There is a proper way following God's designs to get pleasure from the marriage relationship, but when you go outside of that, when it's out of proportion, then you're not going to find meaning and satisfaction in life. The problem was not necessarily for Solomon that these things in and of themselves were sinful as much as he was looking to them to provide meaning and definition for his life. Well, we come to this last one this morning found in verse 8. I'll read the whole thing. I also gathered for myself silver and gold in the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women. And here's our section for today, and many

concubines, the delight of the children of man. The preacher rounds off his list of central pleasures with the vanity of women. And obviously, ladies, this has application for you as relates to the vanity of men. Solomon was a man, he was looking for life in women. Ladies, it applies to to youth, looking for life, the stupidity of men. I mean the vanity of men. OK? So nobody gets out of it because the title is Vanity of Women. Well, number one, his pursuit. His pursuit. I got. And then you could skip over, right? Because this is one sentence here. And we talked about the first part of the sentence last week. But it's the same sentence.

there's only one verb. So when he got for himself, verse eight, I got singers, both men and women. That was the first thing, but now he's just describing another thing that he got. So for today, we could just skip over the singer's part. I got many concubines. That's his pursuit. Now Solomon is well known for his women.

for his women. He was the original ladies man it seems like as well as he was known for the downfall that came because of the women. Look at 1st Kings chapter 1. I was thinking about it earlier I'm sorry chapter 11 1st Kings 11 I was thinking about earlier this week how great it is preaching through this series that there is so much on Solomon and that we can go back to the historical stories, the context, and actually then see this worked out. I mean, as we have looked at his riches, some of the other parts of his kingdom, his buildings, and all those kinds of things, that's great to have that historical context for us right in Scripture. It's great to see some of his other conclusions not only in the rest of Ecclesiastes but even in many of the proverbs that he wrote. So I really have appreciated and enjoyed being able to come to other parts of scripture to fill in some of these details. Look at 1 Kings chapter 11 starting in verse 1.

Now King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sedonian, and Hittite women from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, you shall not enter into marriages with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods. Solomon, look at this, clung to these in love. This This was a passion. This was a major pursuit for Solomon. He clung to these in love. Well, and how many was he clinging to? Well, verse 3, he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. That makes me tired. 700 wives and 300 concubines, I am wondering just how many children this guy had.

Well, women were such a large part of Solomon's life that it would have been very surprising to us if he would not have included that at all here in his list of looking for life. I mean, in fact, to have gotten a description of all the places he was looking for satisfaction in his life and to have not included the women, again, that would probably, that might be a huge argument for this not being Solomon who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes if that had been the case. Because obviously, I mean, and I'll work through this a little bit more later on, but that many women in your life, I mean, there's no way that that just doesn't dominate, you know, how you spend your days.

You don't just wake up one morning with 700 wives and 300 concubines. That doesn't happen. Now, one of the reasons, at least for the wives, is history reveals that Solomon was very aggressive in his foreign policy. In sealing treaties in ancient days, it was customary for a lesser king to give one of his daughters in marriage to the greater king, again, as the sealing or the ratification of that treatise or that deal. And so every time a new treaty was sealed, Solomon ended up with yet another wife. Or at least that probably happened multiple times. These wives were considered tokens of friendship and sealed the deal, sealed the relationship between the two kings.

And I mean, you see the practical part of that, if you have married the daughter of, You know, this other ruler, then the anticipation or the expectation there is, is that the daughter would be like a guarantee of the fact that you then wouldn't go kill her dad and take his stuff. The idea is he gave you this very important thing of his as kind of a guarantee that you don't need to come take anything else, okay? You have her and we'll get along and leave me alone and my stuff. So you can see that very practical part of this deal at least. But there is no way that he came up with 700 wives just by making treaties with foreign countries.

And certainly the 300 concubines were not given in treaties. And the reason why he's mentioning them here in Ecclesiastes chapter 2 is very simply not to show how wise of a ruler he was, it was to show his desire for physical pleasure, for gratification of the flesh. That was his pursuit in the wives and in the concubines, at least what he's mentioning here is looking for life in that physical again pleasure. Now I do want to give you just a little bit of Old Testament context as it relates to polygamy. I am pretty sure that none of you woke up this morning and thought that you were going to be hearing that word and we were going to talk about it in a message.

But I thought this was very interesting and you know primarily when I'm studying for preaching messages I'm studying to learn it myself and then whatever gets me you know fired up I'd bring to you because I think you know maybe that will get you fired up as well. So anyway I needed to do a little bit of research on this and of course that was one of our biggest questions about Solomon at the beginning of Ecclesiastes anyway is how could we learn from this guy? How could we get wisdom from this guy who had 700 wives and 300 concubines? In fact, I was going to mention this later. Let's see if I can find it. Jim in Huckleberry Finn.

If you remember that at all, this was at least one of the reasons that Jim in Huckleberry Finn gave for why he couldn't believe the Bible. Not just who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes. This is the reason that Jim gave for why he wouldn't believe the Bible.

Because how could the Bible call Solomon the wisest man in the world and have 700 wives? And Jim could never see how those two things went together. Anyway, polygamy is marriage to multiple wives. That's what the word means. Polygamy, if you haven't heard that before. Pastor Z actually used that word in his message this morning and he talked about other countries and then some other states located around us. I don't know why he didn't mention Montana in his list. I'm just kidding. Utah primarily though, some in Idaho, some maybe in every state. I don't know but polygamy is marriage to multiple wives. Now in scripture we have multiple instances of polygamy, however we never find polyandry and polyandry is marriage to multiple men. You actually don't ever find that in scripture. There's a good number of cases of polygamy, marriage to multiple wives, and we'll look at a few of those, but you never find polyandry. That's the word for marriage to multiple husbands. Now even though Genesis chapter 2, I think makes

it really pretty clear that marriage is to be between one man and one woman. In In the Old Testament, there are actually a lot of examples of polygamy. In fact, Abraham with Sarah and his concubines or her servants. We see that in Genesis chapter 16. We see Jacob who married Leah and Rachel in Genesis 29. Esau had three wives in Genesis 26. You see it there. Gideon in Judges 8 had many wives. David, King David had seven named wives. He perhaps had more than that, but in 1st Samuel 18, there are at least seven that are named. And then Solomon here with his royal harem. 1st Kings 3 talks about that. 1st Kings 11 obviously talks about that as well.

Do you realize that there is actually a law given to men with multiple wives. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 21. Again, I, until this week, hadn't ever gone through and studied anything about polygamy. I mean, we definitely live in a culture I was definitely raised in a church and just society where one man, one woman, that was it. That's all you could talk about as, you know, marriage. But look at, like I said, Deuteronomy chapter 21, start in verse 15. If a man has two wives, here is a law that assumes that there's the possibility of more than one. That's kind of interesting. If a man has two wives, it doesn't say get rid of one.

It doesn't say he is in adultery. It doesn't say he is in the wrong. Though, honestly, that's kind of more what I would expect to come after a phrase like that. If a man has two wives, he's wrong. But this says if a man has two wives, the one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have borne him children. And if the first-born son belongs to the unloved, Then on the day when he assigns his possessions as an inheritance to his sons, he may not treat the son of the loved as the firstborn in preference to the son of the unloved, who is the firstborn, but he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that he has."

There is then at least a law that describes what could happen if a man had two wives. Also I want you to look at Deuteronomy 17. The paragraph starting back in verse 14 helps us to know that this is a paragraph talking to kings, what kings were allowed to do and what kings were not allowed to do. And look down at verse 17, and he shall not acquire many wives for himself. The reason lest his heart turn away. You know what's interesting about that, however, is that there is no explicit prohibition for others who are not the king not to have multiple wives. I can't find one. There is not an explicit prohibition to those who are not the king that they were not allowed to have multiple wives.

though Genesis 2 I think makes it pretty clear what it's supposed to be and I'll have a few more things about that. Basically all the passages in the Bible where the practice of polygamy is mentioned, though they don't immediately jump in and say and it was wrong, they do jump in and say and here are all the problems that came from it. You will never find a passage that it tells you of the benefits of it. Only the problems. Not one passage that talks about the blessings of polygamy. There are dozens of passage where polygamy is reported and you always then get things like trouble and jealousy and strife and unhappiness.

And if we're sensitive to those stories at all, the impact of those stories really starts to make it clear that God's design is not one man and multiple women but one man and one woman. I mean in some of the instances that I mentioned before the whole thing with Sarah and Hagar did not work out really well. In fact the offspring the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac still fight today and there was some pretty significant bitterness that took place. I mean Rachel and Leia did not get along with one another. There was not a piece in that house with a barren woman and a fertile woman and Jacob loved the unfertile woman, the barren woman, and you know all kinds of difficulties took place there. I mean the problems in David's house that that came from multiple wives and then siblings and all that.

And certainly then Solomon's forfeit of his entire kingdom because of it all lead us to realize that the results of polygamy are pretty disastrous. The best I can determine is this. And here's kind of my conclusion for the moment, at least, without doing further study. it seems like polygamy was legal, but sinful.

However that goes together, it seems like it was legal, but sinful and certainly not ideal. Now where do we find, again, explicitly stated that polygamy equaled adultery, nor do we specifically find that concubines equaled adultery so far as explicitly goes, but from what we know, I definitely think those things are sinful, though in the society and even in the Jewish society for certain status, certain level of guys, it was legal. You know, we have things like that today that are sinful, but not legal, right? It is not, I'll just think of one example, it is not illegal to be drunk at your house. It's illegal to be drunk, you know, out in public or then the damage that you caused from that.

But it's not illegal to be drunk. It is, however, a sin to be drunk. And so as best as I can see, it must have been legal. I mean, they didn't try to, you know, overthrow the king because of it. And yet it was certainly sinful. Both marriage to multiple women and even there was some kind of legal bond even between the king and his concubines. Different than marriage, but yet not like he was just taking anybody that he wanted and then leaving them. There was at least some kind of legal bond where he had to then take care of them. But Solomon can't get out of it that easy. Even in saying the Old Testament context, polygamy maybe was legal, but sinful, Solomon can't get out of it for a verse we already read back in Deuteronomy 17 verse 17.

To kings he shall not acquire many wives. Even at best if we could say that it was legal for some people it was not legal or lawful at all for kings. That means that David was in direct disobedience to Deuteronomy 17. That means Solomon was in direct disobedience to this command to kings.

We've seen that already back in verse 16. He must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt. The end of verse 17, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold. Solomon was in direct disobedience. For all of the blessings we can say that God gives in making people rich with silver or gold, for all of the security that God can bring people with temporal means like the horses and the chariots. For all of that, Solomon at least was in specific purposeful, willful disobedience to very again very clear commands, prohibitions for the king. It was not lawful or legal, it certainly was then sinful for Solomon period. Now before moving on from this idea of polygamy, understand that the New Testament makes it really clear that it's to be one man and one woman in a couple different places. There is no doubt in Jesus' time and the Apostle's time in defining marriage as one man and one woman.

Might I also add that even in the Old Testament where we don't ever say marry multiple wives, there's no positive command to do it, even though there's no specific prohibition against it. Every story where polygamy is involved shows of the problems as well as the fact that the picture that God intends for marriage is to show His relationship to His people, and how His people should be devoted to one. That is Him. So again, I'm trying to be honest with the fact that there's no specific prohibition, but in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, there is, as well the fact that it only brings problems with it in the Old Testament.

All of that though is just historical background to the fact that Solomon was disobedient to a very specific command to kings anyway. He was wrong. Now I do want us to think a little bit about Solomon's situation. This is all under his pursuit. I was trying to give you the Old Testament context, but think about Solomon's situation. And this is important for us to grasp because he had more than we will ever have in this area really in all of the areas we've talked about, but certainly in this area. And so his evaluation is worth listening to. Three things about Solomon's situation. You do understand that Solomon had the cream of the crop. The 700 wives and 300 concubines were not the ugly girls, right? I mean this is the cream of the crop. These are not the, you know, ape-looking boys if we were applying it to the to the women. You know, these are not the the Cro-Magnon man.

You know, I think a good a good idea of what would have happened here is found in Esther. Look back at Esther. Not back at Esther, wherever she's sitting if she's in here. So she's in the front anyway. Not that Esther, the book of Esther.

And chapter two, you remember perhaps this story that Queen Vashti blows it and irritates the king and so he needs a new one. And so some of the young men suggest to him what he should do, the young men. Hmm, great place to get wisdom from, I'm sure. Esther chapter 2 verse 2, then the king's young men who attended him said, let beautiful young virgins be sought out for the king, and let the king appoint officers in all of the provinces of his kingdom to gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem and sues of the capital under the custody of Haggai, the king's eunuch who is in charge of the women. Let their cosmetics be given to them and yet the let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti this you know the king wanted nothing to do with this this sounded just like a horrible idea to him to you know appoint people to bring him all the beautiful girls he thought that just sounded awful no that's demeaning to women and I can't be a part of that. I want to find love the old-fashioned way,

you know, or go online or whatnot. No, he didn't have any of those. This pleased the king and he did so. Look down at verse 12 now, and so that happens, right? And you got the eunuch Who's in charge? Now to me, that's like you know some of the shows that are out there where you know guys who don't like girls are helping them look good. That's kind of I mean that's what I think he's saying by mentioning who he put in charge. The UNIC is somebody who apparently didn't have lots of interest in girls and so could really help them out and not then need to have one for himself. So he could be detached and help the process.

So again, like this is a nationwide deal. This is not just American Idol, you know, going to six major cities. This is like, you know, the production crew and rulers in all of the places finding the pretty girls.

gathering them together. And verse 12, now when the turn came for each young woman to go into the king after being 12 months under the regulations for the women. And what were those regulations since this was the regular period of their beautifying. Six months with oil of myrrh and six months with spices and ointments for women. This is like, this is not a day spa, this is a year spa, and you get six months of one kind of treatment and six months of another kind of treatment for beautifying. When the young woman, verse 13, went into the king in this way, she was given whatever she desired to take with her from the harem to the king's palace. In the evening she would go in and in the morning she would return to the second harem in custody of Shayagaz, the King's eunuch, who was in charge of the concubines.

He would not go into the... She would not go into the king again unless the king delighted in her and she was summoned by name. And I realize this is a different king, a different story, but I wonder if that's not a lot of how the story for Solomon went. So in giving Solomon situation, holy cow, it's almost noon already, let me at least finish this. He would have had the cream of the crop, number one. Number two, if there were a thousand of you, right, and you it's not like you then had another husband on the side for all the days that the king wasn't, you know, interested in you, this would have been your life. You were one of a thousand. You would have done absolutely everything you could to impress the king when it was your shot.

You would have done everything you possibly could have, not only because he was powerful, but because you just wanted to be in his presence. I mean, when you're married, the idea is to spend time together, right? There's companionship and friendship there, and if there's 700 wives and another 300 concubines on top of that, like you're fighting just to have his attention. So the king, probably busy, right, with other things like running a country and getting gold and building buildings, you know, thinking about a lot of other stuff. I mean, these girls were going out of their way to serve and make him happy just so that That may be, you know, because I did this, a thousand into 365 or 365 into a thousand means that it would have taken him almost three years, almost an entire three years if he just spent one day with each one of them.

Almost three years, just one day. Like you would hope to impress him enough that maybe you could get two days out of those three years or maybe, you know, a week or whatever. And the reason that I say that is because, you know, he didn't have to do any work to get that attention. And some of us think, you know, we want the cream of the crop and we don't want to have to do anything. Solomon had that. And third, well, and this is really the end of the point. It would have taken just a little under three years to make it around to all the women if he had just given them one day, he would not have gotten tired of any one of them.

I mean, you get tired and you move on. And the reason I mention all those things is because at least our world thinks that, you know, happiness is going to come in the pretty one. And happiness is going to come in the pretty one who does everything for you. And that there's a bunch of pretty ones waiting to do everything for you so that you don't have to do any of the work. and there's another one when this one is boring or tiring to you. Now I realize that's kind of an extreme, but that is, I mean, if most people were honest, that's exactly what they would say would be their ideal. That would bring them a lot of happiness and satisfaction.

If they had people fighting for them who were the cream of the crop, they didn't have to do any work to try to impress them at all and just be constantly served by the other people. And you can move on and find a new one if you didn't like that one. You know, it's probably safe to say that Solomon can give us a fair evaluation as to whether there is meaning and satisfaction in life from sex and girls.

If we needed to ask anybody, he probably can give us an evaluation on whether there's actually real life there. His assessment is I've had more than anybody. And you know what? What do you think his conclusion is on this one? Yeah, vanity. I mean, I'm not going to be able to give you any more for now.

But just let me finish for this morning and say, I know, I know, I know it that some of you are expecting and anticipating life and happiness in a person. Whether it is just the relationship or it's the physical pleasures that come from it, making out or whatever it is, I know that some Some of you think that that's where life is based on just what's obvious on the outside. Let alone what is actually going on in your heart on the inside. Everything on the outside says it. And you're probably not, you're probably wise enough to know not to show everything in your heart on the outside, at least if you can help it.

And yet I know from my own experience of being in junior high and high school, from my own experience of being alive, what a temptation there is there to think that that's where life can be found in a person or in, you know, playing the field or all of the things associated with that. And if anybody has experienced more than we can ever imagine anyway, it would be Solomon and he says, you know what, not going to find it. It is striving after the It is empty. It is vanity. Now again, there is a right place.

Marriage. There is a right place. God says that that's great. Solomon will tell us that that's great. We'll look at next time we're together. But guys, most of you aren't ready for that yet anyway. And yet you live your days in expectation and anticipation that finding the right girl, the right guy is going to make your life all better and it won't. It just won't. Solomon is the one who knew. He tells us so. Father, use this and even the Trespasser's series on Wednesday nights to challenge everything that assaults us outside of your word really. I mean, even when we come to church, there's struggles with relationships and love and lust and all those kinds of things.

Even at church, the world assaults us constantly, trying to communicate to us where we can find life. And certainly, this is at the top of the list. This is the number one answer for where most people at least think that life can be found. And though we understand that Solomon was in sin, there's no condoning his pursuits here. We are at least thankful that you had him tell us about it afterwards and the vanity that's there. Help us to not need to learn this lesson the hard way, but to learn it from your word. We pray all this in the name of your son, amen. you

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Well good, take out your copy of God's Word and turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 2. You have obviously seen the title for this morning's message already, both on the front of the bulletin as well as at the beginning of the spot where you can take some notes. I've mentioned this message to a couple people this week because I'm very excited about it. In fact, I've thought about teaching on music many times before here in 128. because I have never been around so many stinking music lovers in my life. I admit that when I was growing up, music was not a huge thing for me. I was more into the sports. If I was going to have an idol in my life, it would have been something that had to do with a ball.

You know, if it had a ball involved in it, you know, baseball, football, basketball, You notice that soccer doesn't have the word ball in it. So I don't count that even though for me. I know for many of you but for me I don't count that. It's not in the same genre. That means I didn't count NASCAR. I didn't count golf or cheerleading for that matter. I definitely didn't count cheerleading as a sport. Anyway, all that to say, sports were much more the issue for me and my friends. Obviously, we listened to music. We knew that there was this thing out there called music. But it was not quite as much of a passion, at least for me, as music is a passion for so many of you.

I suppose that actually makes me kind of out of step as a youth pastor. I don't play the guitar. Right there, I mean, youth pastor resume, If you don't have guitar on there somewhere, most of the time they don't let you be one. Youth pastors are supposed to play the guitar. I have held that electric guitar in my hand for a couple snow retreats ago. I held that in my hand and I strung some chords, but that's not really playing guitar. So I don't play an instrument really. It was in high school I played the tuba. They don't count that as like youth pastor material either. I don't wear a bunch of Christian band t-shirts.

You know, that's another kind of youth pastry, youth group thing. I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm just saying I don't wear those. In fact, I don't have one. I don't own a Christian band t-shirt. That's not really a cry for a Christmas gift either, right, because I'm not sure that I would really wear them depending on what they were. Music to this day is still not really my thing. I have things and music is not necessarily the one. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my iPod. In fact, I agree that the iPod is one of the most crucial inventions probably of the last 400 or 500 years. The iPod for me, so far as my possessions go, it's my Mexican leather bound Greek and Hebrew Bible that my wife got me, then my Apple computer, and then my iPod. That's the ranking of my possessions.

That's how much I appreciate it. I do listen to some music occasionally. It is true that I still have more sermons on my iPod than I actually do music, but that's okay. Still think iPods are okay. I always hated those questionnaires that make you answer the question, you know, who's your favorite group? You know, you get these questionnaires all the time. Students in particular seem to love them. My wife loved the questionnaires when she was in high school and you know they always want to know who's your favorite group and what's your favorite song and you know what's your favorite drum beat and all those different kinds of things and honestly most of the time I couldn't care less. I mean there's some things I know that I don't want to listen to but for the most part you know whatever you're playing okay.

We're going to really fight you on it to listen to something that I want to. Yet I know that music is around us everywhere. I would anticipate that none of us in the year 2005, almost 2006, none of us could go a day without hearing or singing a song. Somewhere in some ride to some place in the car or some store that you're in, let alone the show that you're watching on TV or the iPod that you're listening to. None of us probably go a single day without hearing music. Music is all around us.

Of course, the music industry is huge. I mean, millions, maybe billions of dollars. I'm not gonna bring to you guys lots of statistics on music and teenagers and money and all that kind of stuff today. But music is all around us. Music is huge. Our lives are filled with the sound of music. And the hills are alive probably with the sound of music as well. And I'm going to do a whole sermon on music. Now, okay, little parentheses. I understand that what I'm about ready to do is preach an entire message on the least amount of verses in this whole section. At least all of my previous messages in this series have had like an entire verse to go with them, or maybe even two verses.

I'm choosing just one part of one sentence and one verse for an entire message, I understand that. And we're gonna call that letting it marinate, okay? I was talking with Mr. Sarr about this a couple weeks ago because the fact of the matter is, I very well could have preached this message, this section, Ecclesiastes chapter two verse one, probably through verse 11 in one message. That is like that, that would have been feasible. It all goes together. It's all one part, it has a lot of different elements in it. But I could have done it all in one message and yet I've chosen to kind of break it up and talk about these things individually.

And today's, you know, has the least amount of actual verses to go with it. It basically just comes from right there in the middle of verse eight, I got singers, both men and women. There's the passage. That's the text. But I wanted to kind of stop on it, like we've been stopping on all of the things he's pursued so far, and kind of let him marinate. You know, you can have a steak, and you don't have to do anything to that steak. You just flip it right on the grill, let it cook, and eat it, and it'll be good. As long as it's well done, then it'll be a good steak. OK? But if you really want the flavor, If you really want the taste, the satisfaction, the savor to come out, you got to let it marinate.

You got to, you know, do some work to make your marinade and then you, thank you Martha Stewart. And then what you do is, you know, you, you maybe kind of rub it in a little bit, you know, and then you maybe put it in the plastic baggy overnight. If you're really good, you know, you're working on your marinade the day before. You're giving it a good 24 hours, at least minimum to let it sit in the bag and soak up the juices, you know. And so then when you cook it and you, you know, slice into it and you let it sit there on your tongue, then, you know, there's just something about it that explodes in your mouth so far as the taste goes.

And that's basically, I told that to Mr. Star, came up with that, I told him that would be a good illustration for a sermon sometime to let it marinate. And so that's kind of what we're doing here in taking an entire message and devoting it just to these few little words. Now, at the same time as we're doing some marinating today, or if we're really cool, marinating, while we're doing some marinating, I'm also, honestly, it is my goal, my purpose, to step on some of your toes. I hope to do that, and I hope it's painful. I really do. Because I really honestly believe that while most of you in here are probably not looking for life in alcohol and abuzz in drugs, most of you, it's perhaps possible that some of you are and we don't know about it or that some of you will think about that in the future.

I don't know, but that's less probably of an issue. Most of you, most of you that I know at least right now have an aversion to work. You're not thinking about finding satisfaction in your labor and your toil. You're thinking about working to get out of work. So again, maybe sometime in the future that will be the case for you. Most of you are probably not struggling a lot with your riches and your wealth.

Because again, most of you don't have that even though in your mind you may be thinking that that will be life for you in the future and you'll work to get that. But I can tell you that this one, I see it in your lives, in many of your lives right now, this moment as of Sunday morning. And it is something that dominates your life. And again, I'm hoping that we'll do a little bit of toe-stepping as we let it marinate in our minds this morning the vanity of music. Now, music is old. Music goes all the way back to Genesis 4, verse 21, where one of Lamech's sons, Jubal, was the father of those who played the liar and the harp.

and the harp. So all the way back within the first couple generations of human activity and life on this planet there was music. So there are various reasons perhaps for that but music is a very old thing. It's not a recent development. Music has been around for literally thousands of years. Music is something that we find oftentimes in Scripture. We find people whistling while they work in scripture. I'm sorry that was something else. We do actually find them though singing songs while they work. Music had a central part in the celebrations of life, whether that was in marriages. They even sang songs when people left like on a farewell and they sang songs and had parties when people came back for homecoming kind of things. You can find all of that in scripture and certainly than in worship. Music through song and through instruments was a huge part of celebrating God and music will in the future be a huge part of that as well.

There's no doubt that in and of itself music is something that is a gift to us from God and it's something that God enables us to to use to communicate especially even to him. Our love and our joy and sometimes even our sadness and our grief. Music enables us to do all those things. Of course, a spirit-filled, scripture-filled Christian is also going to be interested in music and song. In fact, when you are filled with the Spirit or you are richly indwelled by God's Word, you will be singing to one another, admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. So, in fact, music and the hymns and the Psalms and and those kind of spiritual songs are to be a part of our life, our vocabulary, our minds, and even then our interaction with one another.

I like singing. I like dancing. Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse 4 says there is a time to dance. And most of the time you have music in the background while there's dancing. Otherwise, people think that you're a little bit crazy. Tengo gusta by Larry Contar. Yeah. How was that? Okay. So music in and of itself, in and of itself isn't wrong. Like I said, music is one of the things that helps us communicate and express love to one another. There are whole genres of songs that are love songs, you know, that help us communicate that. Obviously we have worship songs, all those different kinds of things. However, and this is the bottom line of everything that Solomon has given us in this section, no music, no song, no style of music will ever bring you true and lasting happiness and joy.

Music is not going to provide meaning for you in your life. You might try to find it there, and you're not going to. No matter how much music you listen to, you can listen to music all day long every day. And that is not going to make your life happy. I mean, you can listen to Don't Worry, Be Happy all day long. And it is probably going to stress you out more by the end of the day than actually increase the joy. Some of us are trying to escape the emptiness of life by filling the void up with noise. And it's actually just filling the void with more void.

It's empty. This is where we find Solomon in Ecclesiastes chapter two, verse eight. Go back to chapter two, verse one with me. We'll get ourselves into this whole section. "'I said in my heart, "'Come now, I will test you with pleasure. "'Enjoy yourself.' "'But behold, this also was vanity. "'I said of laughter, it is mad and of pleasure. What use is it? I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine, my heart still guiding me with wisdom, and how to lay hold on folly till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself.

I made myself gardens and parks and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold in the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the children of man. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. So my wisdom remained with me, and whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them.

I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. And I considered all that my hands had done in the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. So far Solomon has tried hedonism, just a general pursuit of pleasure, making himself happy through whatever means he could find. Then he tried alcohol, getting a buzz, stimulating his body with drugs, some kind of external help to make his life better, didn't find anything there. Then he tried work, labor, toil, became a workaholic, showed off his creativity and is ingenuity and all of his abilities.

Didn't find meaning there. Then he gathered for himself all the riches, all of the stuff you can possibly imagine richer than you can dream of. And he said in all those things, there was not life to be found. Now he turns to music. And perhaps another word we could use is entertainment. And I'll mention that again here in just a moment. This particular test in trying to find meaning and satisfaction in life would be summarized by that shirt that says music is life.

And, you know, again, I'm not saying that I'm great because I wouldn't wear that shirt. I would wear one that said baseball is life. So I understand there's no more meaning in baseball than there is in music. Nevertheless, this is his pursuit. trying to find meaning, trying to fill the void with music, with being entertained. Now nothing is wrong with liking, enjoying, or playing music, right? Can we agree on that? Nothing is inherently wrong with liking music, with enjoying music, with paying money to hear a good concert, buying CDs, having an iPod, nothing is wrong inherently with music and enjoying that. This is not a sermon on the worldliness of so much music. I mean that's an entirely different message, an entirely different idea on how much music is so worldly and filled with immoral kind of stuff. This is not a message on that. As always, it comes down to the heart. It It comes down to the loves of your heart and what you pursue, what you seek to find meaning and satisfaction.

Some people use music as a medication or they use it to escape. Some use music because it's just too hard to think. They'd rather flip on the radio or turn in the turn in, flip on whatever with the CD. I don't use CDs anymore, you know, because I got the digital MP3s. So CDs are so late 90s. Many people turn to music to fill up the void in their life. And you know what? This has application to any kind of diversion.

And I wanted to leave the title, The Vanity of Music, because that's what Solomon talks about. But this has application to a much broader sphere of things, namely the sphere of entertainment. anything that you use to amuse yourself. Whether that's television, or movies, or video games, or your DSL, or your dial-up, I realize that's not quite as amusing as the high speed. Whatever it is that you use to try to fill up the void in your life as a diversion, as some entertainment, or some amusement, this is a message that has application. application for you, even though he specifically says he talks about music. And three things again today, his pursuit, his motive and his conclusion, very similar to the previous pursuits.

And obviously the motive is gonna be the same. His conclusion is gonna be the same, but let's work through these together. His pursuit. I, verse eight, I got singers, both men and women. and other translations say I got for myself male singers and female singers.

Now obviously singing and instruments and music would have been part of Solomon's life from a very early age. Solomon's father was who? King David and King David in fact is known for his musical talents and abilities. One of the first times we see David is actually entertaining the king with his harp playing. We know as well that King David wrote many Psalms, that is songs to be set to music and sung for the nation. Whether they were sung by individuals or not, they were, he was writing worship songs for the entire nation. And so there is no doubt that Solomon grew up in a house where music was around and alive.

if his own father had musical abilities and interests, undoubtedly then King David had gathered for himself some musical entertainment as well, being the king. Not only that, Solomon himself would have been a huge part of some of the musical decisions that took place at the temple. He would have been part of gathering and organizing and making sure that the singers and the instrument players were organized and ready to lead the nation worship at the temple, okay? As a connoisseur then of music, he gathered the finest soloists undoubtedly and choirs that could be had. This is probably, I like to think of the first case of making the band.

Here is King P. Diddy Solomon, gathering for himself, you know? Gathering the singers and the dancers. Now, I'm assuming that they knew better than to call it Israeli Idol. because at least Israel understood that having idols was bad. They probably wouldn't have at least named the competition that, like we have named an American idol. But there is no doubt, do not miss in your head, there's no doubt, I don't know exactly what it looked like, but I am convinced that there were contests and competitions and like, you know, regional contests and things like that. To get in, you know, you would have to play for so many people before you got the chance to play for the king.

They were not just looking for any Joe playing his banjo and harmonica with a monkey on the street and then, you know, hey, come right in and play before the king. Undoubtedly, you had to go through, you know, your audition and maybe a callback and maybe a couple callbacks. There were probably choirs, there were probably soloists, There were probably bands, all those different kinds of things. This was a big deal. I can't imagine. How many people were actually part of this process? How many people were part of getting the best and the finest musicians and singers together, and then they're practicing and doing all this kind of stuff, and then getting in to play for the king himself?

Solomon's pursuit was music. getting for himself singers, both men and women. And as I said, this certainly has application to the much broader subject of entertainment. There was no, you know, Comcast in Solomon's day. He didn't have, you know, Blockbuster down the street, ready to, you know, go pick out a movie or send, he wouldn't have gone himself. He'd have sent a servant. Maybe he'd have done Netflix, I don't know. The point is music was the primary form of entertainment at that point, but for us, it has application for any kind of diversion. That's a key word, diversion.

Music would have been the most basic form of entertainment in Solomon's day. It was his amusement. It was his diversions enabling him to take his mind off of the more serious things, the difficulties of running a kingdom. Think about these words just for a second. Entertainment.

Entertainment means being provided with amusement or enjoyment. The word amusement means to occupy in an agreeable, pleasing, or entertaining way. To be amused is to, you know, sit back and be able to relax and be entertained, to have something be funny or to enjoy it, to take your mind off of the cares of this world. It's the idea of getting pleasure as a way of passing time.

It goes all the way back to the idea of not thinking, ah, muse, to not have to think hard without worrying and all those cares. So this amusing, this diversions is to divert you from the serious business. It is kind of a way to escape. When you are amused, your attention is engaged in light, frivolous kind of things. So synonyms for being amused are things like being lighthearted or being pleased or being diverted.

I was actually reading in my Bible reading plan this week in the book of Daniel, turn over to Daniel chapter six for just a moment. What happens in Daniel chapter 6? Come on, as you know your chapters, the significant things that happen in the chapters. The lion's den, right. And you know that the bad guys tricked the king into making this edict because they knew that Daniel was going to keep praying. Daniel gets thrown into the lion's den. And this actually was really discouraging and really caused the king to be distraught. The king actually really liked Daniel and when the bad guys caught him in his own edict that said, hey, once the king makes a law, you can't change the law even if you are the king.

And he was really saddened because he liked Daniel that he was going to need to throw Daniel into the lion's den. So check out in chapter 6 verse 16. Then the king commanded and Daniel was brought and cast into the den of lions. The king declared to Daniel, may your God whom you serve continually deliver you. And the stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den and the king sealed it with his own signet and with the signet of his Lord that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel. Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting. No diversions were brought to him and sleep fled from him. him. And if you were to read it in the NIV, any of you have the NIV out there? I think most of some of you have some. What is the word that the NIV translates there? Know what was brought to him. Entertainment. Now we don't know exactly the Hebrew word is dahawan. No one knows exactly what the actual diversions were.

Whether it was, you know, the Joker, you know, bringing his, you know, balls to juggle in on his unicycle or, you know, whether it was singers. Undoubtedly, one of the major diversions could have been singers. Perhaps it could have been women. We'll actually look at the vanity of women next coming Sunday morning. I know that you enjoy that title already. Nevertheless, when the king was upset, when his mind was occupied with something distressing and saddening to him. One of the things that obviously was a regular regular process was that diversions would be brought. Entertainment would be done for the king in order to take his mind off of the the difficult things.

Music and entertainment itself are meant to get our minds off of the problem help us fade away and relax just to enjoy ourselves. But you do realize that this pursuit of music and amusement got Solomon stuck on the things of this world. That's ultimately the problem in in each of his tests here in chapter 2. It got him stuck on this world. And while undoubtedly the music and the the bands and the choirs and the singers and entertained him for periods of time.

They could not bring him lasting joy and peace. He could not find meaning to his life and being entertained. It just wasn't there. I tell you what, this is the danger for us as well. Is it not that we love the things of this world? However good they are. Again, not talking about the things that actually conform us to this world, the kind of music with the content or style and the lyrics, whatever, that conforms you with the values and priorities of this world, even your Christian music.

Your CCM kind of stuff can tend to get your mind stuck under the sun and you look to your music rather than to God to give you meaning, joy, peace, happiness in your life. in a don't waste your life. Not really talking about music and entertainment per se, but Piper says this, I am wired by nature to love the same toys that the world loves. I start to fit in, I start to love what others love, I start to call earth home. Before you know it, I'm calling luxuries needs and using my money just the way unbelievers do. I begin to forget about the war. I don't think much about people perishing, missions and unreached peoples drop out of my mind.

I stop dreaming about the triumphs of grace. I sink into a secular mindset that looks first to what man can do, not what God can do. And there is no doubt that even if it's not on the same scale where you're actually having producers and executive producers and assistant producers to the executive producers going out and trying to find good music to come into your bedroom and entertain you at night, Most of you, or many of you at least, get stuck loving the same kind of things that everybody else in the world does. And you pursue for yourself this amusement and this entertainment, whether it's by music or whatever means, and you get stuck under the sun.

You're not gonna find meaning satisfaction there. Well secondly, that was his pursuit. Look at his motive back in Ecclesiastes chapter two, verse 8. The ESV says this, I got singers, both men and women. The problem is that in Hebrew the phrase for myself is actually there. In fact those of you who have the New American Standard it says I provided for myself male and female singers that for myself is there in Hebrew. I assume that the ESV guys didn't translate it included in this verse for sake of just making it a little bit smoother. Otherwise, we're just repeating for myself, for myself, for myself, for myself over and over and over again.

He does that in verse 4, verse 5, verse 6. We see that in verse 8 already. I gathered for myself silver and gold in the treasure of kings and provinces. I assume that they just didn't include it to make it a little bit smoother to read, but it's there. And even if it weren't there, that obviously is the theme of the entire section. and it was for himself. These singers are not the ones who were part of the temple services.

The biggest reason we know that these aren't temple singers is because no women were a part of the temple worship singing at that point in Israel. And so to say that he gathered both male and female singers was something different than what was happening at the temple. His pursuit of singers here doesn't really have anything to do with the arts. You know, the arts of the nation trying to invest in music, you know, save the music. Wasn't that a movie?

Help me. With Mariah and Gloria Estefan and all those people, you know, save the music, blah, blah, blah. You know, make sure that our schools have money so that we can have band, you know, all those kinds of things, and choirs and so forth. And again, I'm not criticizing those. I'm just saying that that was not Solomon's reason here.

It was not to help the culture and the Israeli society to, you know, pass on traditions and, you know, meaningful communication from generation to generation through music. That was not it. It was for himself. It was to be entertained for his own personal pleasure.

And again, this is not even talking about style of music. This is not talking about the content of music. It's talking about your heart and why you are pursuing music or entertainment. Here's a question. I think this is a good question. Have you ever sought some form of entertainment for somebody other than you?

Have you ever sought some form of entertainment for anybody other than you? The whole goal of entertainment is to amuse yourself, to be amused yourself. I mean, you don't go buy CDs for other people so that they can enjoy the music. I mean, maybe you do that as a gift, but your love of music, your love of being entertained by whatever is for you.

I mean, I don't know people who go to the iTunes music store and spend hours there, you know, listening to the 30-second snippets and then purchase, you know, all this music and put it on their iPod, and then plan on letting somebody else be entertained by it.

It's for ourselves. Entertainment is something that is selfish to the core. I mean, it's for us. In fact, the entertainment industry depends and thrives on our self-love in this area. Just a few more questions. How much money have you spent on music? Most of you don't make enough money to go buy really big things yet. And so you buy what you can. You know, when you're five, it's bubblegum and candy. And when you're eight, it's baseball cards. But you get in junior high and high school, you got money, what do you get? You go buy a CD. Or you buy a DVD of some movie. How much money, out of all the money that you have ever got in your life, how much of that have you spent on entertaining yourself?

How much is a CD today? Fifteen, twenty bucks? I know on iTunes Music Store it's ten bucks for most albums to buy the entire album. Ninety-nine cents a song. For you, is ninety-nine cents worth it for you to be happy? Well, of course, it's under a dollar. How much is a movie ticket in Marysville these days? 750? How much is it down in California, you guys know? Nine? I mean, that's crazy. Most people don't make that much an hour. I mean, you're flipping burgers at McDonald's. You're not making that much an hour to buy one movie ticket. And yet, that's normal for us. That's normal for us to spend our money to entertain ourselves and make us happy.

I mean, we have these entire places devoted to amusing ourselves. They're called amusement parks. I mean, Disneyland is absolutely ridiculous. They call it the happiest place on earth. I understand that. But it really is tough to be happy after paying 55, 60 bucks for your ticket just to get in. That doesn't get you any food. that doesn't get you a stuffed animal, that doesn't get you anything, but through the door, to then wait in line for three or four hours to ride a 30-second ride. And yet, you know, most people, like, plan their year around a trip to Disneyland. You know, we plan entire vacations around making ourselves happy through anything that we can be entertained by or amused by.

I mean, back to the movies. Pay for your movie ticket and then you can't have a movie without popcorn and soda to entertain your palate while it is that your eyes are enjoying what's on the screen. How much does it cost to rent a movie these days? Two, three bucks? Four sixty-five? How much a month is cable TV? Twenty to fifty bucks probably. Here's another question. That's your wallet. How about your watch? How much time are you spending with these entertainment choices? I mean, it takes an hour and a half to three hours to watch a movie watching something that never happened with fake people most of the time hurting one another.

But we don't think twice about that. Oh, it's a movie time? Great. Let's watch a couple. How about watching TV? I mean, I saw some pretty ridiculous statistics about the average number of hours the television is on in an American home. It's like plus seven hours a day is what they say the television is on in the average American home. I don't know if that's true. I'm not in all the American homes, so I don't know.

I mean, at my house, we have like, we have four TVs. And all of them have a VCR so we can tape things that we're not watching so that we can watch them later. You know? How much time has been doing that? Some of you guys playing video games, I mean your thumbs are basically useless. You haven't had feeling in your thumbs for four or five years from pounding down on the little joystick controllers. How much time in your life have you added up, have you spent just wandering around Blockbuster trying to find a movie that then you could watch? I mean the point is we are spending all kinds of our resources and our energy to be amused and entertained thinking that somehow that's going to bring us happiness or joy.

It's just not the case and it's all for ourselves just as with Solomon. His conclusion then, his pursuit, his motive, his conclusion. If you had to guess what his conclusion is to music in one word, what would it be? Vanity. Habel Habalim, Hakol Habel, Vanity of Vanities, all is vanity. This is included in the all. Pleasure in general, vanity. Getting a buzz, vanity. Being super cool, Joe Boss, you know, and producing all kinds of amazing Projects, vanity, being richer than you can possibly imagine, vanity, being entertained, vanity. It cannot bring you meaning and satisfaction in life, it just won't happen. Part of the reason I chose the picture there on the front of your bulletin, you know, it's like, at least this is what it made me think of, it's kind of like, you know, we got our headphones on And we've got the end of the jack, you know, right in our hand.

And we're wandering around trying to plug into something that we think is going to make us happy. How about this hole? Well, nothing there. How about this one? No. Don't like that one. How about this? And we just are wandering around all day long, week after week, trying to find something that's going to make us happy.

We're not going to find it in music or entertainment. The amount of time spent listening to music, I'm going to focus in a little bit on music itself and obviously then hopefully you'll see the application for some of the other things. The amount of time spent listening to music. Some of you maybe spend more time listening to music than you do sleeping. Some of that's because some of you sleep with music on. So then it's just adding up exponentially. The amount of time spent talking about music. I mean, again, I know that I'm a music hater, some of you think, but like it makes me tired just to listen to some of you guys talk about music endlessly.

The amount of money spent purchasing music or purchasing things on which to play your music. The amount of time spent watching videos of people playing music. By the way, they're not really playing the music when you're watching the video. That's the magic of the television age. The amount of time and money spent getting the clothing and the right hairstyle of those people who play music that you like. I mean, we look up to people who play the music that we like, our favorite entertainers, and we want to be like them because, you know, they can put their fingers in the right place on a board of wood that has strings on it.

or they can, you know, beat something with wood sticks. Again, understand that, you know, I've tried to increase my musical repertoire over the past year or so, I'm trying not to be straight hating always on music, but the amount of energy and devotion some of you are giving to entertaining yourselves and specifically through music is unbelievable. You realize that you and your music and your other entertainment choices will either build your character or they will weaken it. Your music will either help you redeem your time or waste it. Your music will either reinforce your convictions or help you to compromise them.

Your entertainment choices will either preserve your reputation or they will ruin it. Your music and pursuit of it will either glorify God or it won't. You know, I just don't see Jonathan Edwards wasting his life away on music and entertainment. Even as a young person, you remember his resolutions written 18, 19, 20 years old. So I mean he's late teenager at this point. He would have been if he was alive today the, you know, MTV crowd so far as his age goes. And he said things like this, resolve never to lose one moment of time but to improve it the most profitable way I can. It's your quote for the week from him.

Number six resolution, resolve to live with all my might while I do live. Number 17, resolved that I will live so as I shall wish I had done when I come to die." And it is extremely possible that some of you are going to look back on your life five years from now, let alone 45 years from now, and you are going to look back and see all of the wasted time you have given to music and entertaining yourself.

Now that's part of the point of Piper's book Don't Waste Your Life. That's one of the ways he says you can waste it. Pursuing nothing of significance, not obviously then increasing your love for God, just being entertained. How do you know when music or any other diversion is out of proportion? I mean, because this is a proportion question, right? This is not an all or nothing.

We're not saying you can't listen to any music at all in order to be spiritual or godly or a god lover. Not saying that. So how do you know when it's out of proportion? I'm not really the one who can tell you exactly but I just came up with a couple things that maybe you could think through. When music keeps you from ever being still, it's out of proportion. If there is no quiet in your life ever? Your music, your entertainment, your television watching, your movie pursuits, that's out of proportion. That's out of order. If music keeps you from ever being still out of proportion, when you can't stand being quiet for even a minute. So like when you actually get to a point where it's quiet and you like think something's wrong, you start shaking in your chair, you know, you're You're jiggling around and you think you're going to go crazy because there's not music in the background or the television's not on.

If you can't stand sitting still being quiet for even a minute, that's probably a sign that things are out of proportion. That's why it's so weird when we have a time of praying and maybe I'm quiet for 30 seconds. It happens to me too. You're sitting there, your eyes are closed, your head is bowed. those seconds seem like thousands of eons and you're convinced that like I've had a heart attack something is wrong that no noise is being made. You know I realized this a few years ago it happened to me while I was watching a commercial and now I realize that it happens to me watching a commercial and certainly even watching movies. I admit I am kind of bored with movies that don't have music in the background.

If you're just watching a movie and all it is is like people talking, that can be boring. So I realize I need entertainment during my entertainment so that I can enjoy it and be engaged with it. If you can't stand watching a 30-second commercial where there isn't, you know, MIDI music in the background, that might be a sign that things are out of proportion. How about this? When you spend most of your money on music or entertainment. I mean, I have been watching the guys go by when they collect the offering on Sunday mornings and some of you hopefully are giving in big church. That's great. I'm not watching those and to see what you do.

I'm not looking at individuals, what you're putting in or not on our Sunday morning offerings. And yet, I know per capita number of iPods here in 128. And I'm assuming then that you guys have stuff that you're actually putting on those, or your scab eye rivers or whatever else it might be, all those kind of things. I assume that you guys are then spending money to get things to put on to those, and your portable DVD players and all your other entertainment kind of things. And the amount of money you spend even now on entertaining yourself compared to, you know, how much you think you should offer to God. I'm saying you have to give everything to God.

I'm just saying if all or the majority of your money is spent on entertaining yourself, there's probably some heart issues to consider. And like it when you spend most of your time listening to music. I mean, I could probably pick out some names here and could call you by name and say, I dare you to not listen to any music the rest of the day. Just the day. Not the week or the rest of the year, the day, and it would drive you bonkers. You would go turn on the TV, which misses the entire point of the dare, the amount of time you spend. How about this, if music isolates you from family and friends, if it separates you, you know, that is one of the benefits and one of the drawbacks to headphones.

It's a self-realized enjoyment. You know, most of you don't carry around a splitter in your pocket so that somebody else can plug in their headphones with them. You know, it's for you. And the really good ones, you know, the Princess Leia kind of headphones that cover up the whole side of your ear, you know, you know, that drown out the sound. Those are the like $600 Bose, you know, headphones that, you know, business people are supposed to buy, so the one that are on the plane, they can't hear anything else but their stuff. If it isolates you regularly from friends and family, like hinders those relationships, it's probably out of balance, out of proportion.

When music hinders you from ever being serious. Some of you haven't had a serious thought about God in a long time, and it's because you have been filling your time and your mind with little, flitty kind of empty thoughts. Your mind and your heart are crowded out. How about this? Even in 128 or Big Church, when we're like singing together, music is out of proportion for you. if you get more out of the song than you do out of God who the song is about. It's out of proportion. I mean, a lot of you listen to Christian contemporary music, and most of you get more out of the music than you do about the God that they're supposed to be singing about in the song.

You can tell me more about the beat. You can tell me more about the cool vocals coming in. you can tell me more about the instruments being played. You can tell me more about the, you know, the recent project coming out than you can about the God that they're singing about.

That actually kind of misses the point. Those are just some suggestion ways. We have got to go beyond the question of is this music bad for me? That's what most of us are, that's as far as we get, is this bad or is it wrong? And as long as we can't get somebody to point out a Bible verse to us that says you can't listen to that because it's wrong unless somebody can point us to that verse hey we're good we need to start asking questions more positively like how will this music and listening to this music right now help me show off how excellent God is how will this display the the greatness of Jesus with my time with my money and with my energy rather than just is this wrong or not. You know what, this is a test of your discernment. Young people are not generally known for their discernment.

This is not, let's not turn this into a legalistic issue of, you know, checking on a box how many hours a day. This is a test of your discernment and this is why abounding love is so important. Look at your bulletin. Instead of turning to Philippians chapter 1, just look right there at the bulletin, that your love would abound still more and more, in knowledge and all, discernment, all wisdom, so that you may discern what is best.

What is best with your money? What is best with your time? Where to find life? It's not in being entertained. It's not in music. This is a test of your love. This is a way to evaluate and to identify what you love. Entertaining yourself, being amused, your music, or something beyond the sun.

I'm close with a, it's kind of lengthy I guess, but it's an article called a kingdom of noise, a screw tape letter for the media age. You've heard me mention the screw tape letters before written by C.S. Lewis. And basically in the Screwtape letters, it's an older demon, an experienced demon writing to a younger demon and giving him like wisdom and counsel. He's discipling, mentoring him, teaching this younger demon how to best do his work of distracting people and getting people away from God. And this other guy, Eric Loksemo, or however you say say his name. He wrote basically another chapter, a more recent chapter, a Kingdom of Noise, a Screwtape Letter for the Media Age. And here's just a little bit of it, okay? Good news. The latest commendations have arrived from the Council of the Pit. You impressed the lower downs, my zealous wormwood, rather than the higher ups. Did you get that? They They have heard of your schemes on the NPC, Noise Proliferation Committee.

Indeed, places of solitude and moments of silence grow ever more scarce in the enemy's vast and vulgar dominion. The enemy is God in this. O what euphoria to see his insufferable creatures rush to fill the dead air with a cacophony of cell phones and muzak, leaf blowers and manipulated car exhaust pipes, 24-hour news and iPods, those nauseating humans cannot escape their self-made dungeon of din. It is down-wrong delicious that you are able to entice your assignments into believing that quiet and solitude are a waste of time even harmful to their pursuits. We must be the demon in the whirlwind invading their private space, cluttering their innermost being with commotion.

Make them feel empty without a blackberry on their hip or television blaring in the background. Tune their alarm clock to a raucous station with bombastic DJs. Call their cell phone on the way to work or during a meal. Put TV screens in banks and hotel lobbies, gas stations and airplanes anywhere where humans might have time to reflect. deals to Walt Disney World and casinos and make a weekend to the Catskills appear unexciting or at least unaffordable. Over time the humans will grow unaware of the high pitched ringing in their ears. But oh how dreadful it is if they do notice and worse yet, begin to reject the delightful opiates we offer.

An hour's walk or an evening alone can be hazardous. Even a drive with a broken radio carries risk. Peace and quietude, after all, are the enemy's handiwork. He waits patiently for them in the stillness, whispering for them to rest or ponder or dare I say that repulsive word, meditate. I trust you understand what is at stake. If allowed to contemplate the empty pursuits and hollow activity that often fill their days, there's no telling what horrific changes they may make in their lives. As long as the volume is high and the lights are flashing, there's little danger of this, but when allowed to face things as they really are, stripped of the comfort provided by our dizzying distractions, our subjects often choose against our ways.

If necessary, you may even need to bring forward some of the enemy's tools to achieve our ends. music, grading as it is to our ears, chases the silence away same as any other sound. Given the stakes, you must do whatever it takes to keep quietude at bay." Now that's not scripture, but I really wonder if that's not a purposeful plan of our enemy as Christians to keep us so busy, so distracted, and the noise so loud around us that we I think it's useless to stop, be still, meditate, think, and think on God. I tell you what, I like being quiet and I like being alone. I like it, I love it, and I find it hard to get to that point.

Turn the radio off. Just be still. Think, meditate, read some of God's word. Pray, go on a walk, look up at the stars. Let the cold hit your face and think about God. That is living beyond the sun and that is the only place you will find meaning and satisfaction in your life. And Father help us to do that. We are so easily distracted. The world sells us so much stuff and we buy it. We fill our lives with it. And we wonder then why on Sundays we're bored with the hymns and the preacher's messages are never really that interesting and make us more tired than anything else. because we're full. We're full of junk. Help us learn from Solomon who got for himself these singers. Entertain himself how empty he really is. We pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.

Turn the radio off. Just be still. Think, meditate, read some of God's word. Pray, go on a walk, look up at the stars. Let the cold hit your face and think about God. That is living beyond the sun and that is the only place you will find meaning and satisfaction in your life. And Father help us to do that. We are so easily distracted. The world sells us so much stuff and we buy it. We fill our lives with it. And we wonder then why on Sundays we're bored with the hymns and the preacher's messages are never really that interesting and make us more tired than anything else. because we're full. We're full of junk. Help us learn from Solomon who got for himself these singers.