What are you looking for?

Ecclesiastes 1:12–18 ESV

12 I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 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. 14 I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. 15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted. 16 I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind. 18 For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

The Vanity of Wisdom

Opening Up Ecclesiastes (Chapter 2: ‘’Tis Folly to Be Wise’ (1:12–18 and 2:12–16))

The Preacher takes us into his specific areas of investigation. His first step is into an area that separates man most from the animal kingdom—wisdom. This will be both the instrument with which he studies his subject, and also a field of investigation in itself.

Now the preacher turns to assess his problem in verses 1-11. The preacher was pondering in the first section the mundane pursuits in daily life that ultimately come up empty and wanting. The conclusion in verse 11 is that there is nothing whatsoever to be gained under the sun.

The Preacher’s Credentials

The Preacher gives his qualifications and background. If anyone has the credentials to write such a book, then Solomon is our man!

The Apparent Contradiction

How can a book so despairing of the worlds pursuits be attributed to him? This question can only come to a resolution when we explore his relationship with God. His greatest work was the building of the temple in Jerusalem that was so dear to his father David’s heart. His prayer of dedication shows us that here was a man of great spirituality who knew and loved God (1 Kings 8:22-53).

Yet He broke the covenant with God when he attempted to sencretize all the religions he had brought into his household through intermarriage.

The bigger picture was for the sake of political expediency and power he wilfully disobeyed God’s commands not to intermarry (1 Kings 11:2). Ultimately this lead to Solomon’s heart being turned from the Lord to their gods ( 1 Kings 11:4).

vs. 13 “he applied his heart to seek and to search out wisdom.”

In the OT the heart was at the very center of the human person and his experience . The preacher is not engaged in his search on a merely cerebral intellectual level he is all in which involves the whole person.

The Unhappy Business of Pursuing Wisdom

Why is pursuing wisdom an unhappy business?

*Pursuing Wisdom apart from God is frustrating and Pointless.

How better to begin his pursuit than to point out how wise and filled with the knowledge he really is. As a man most gifted with wisdom and a collector of wise sayings, he has the means by which he can thoroughly investigate the meaning and purpose of life. Or so one might think!

What he will discover the deeper he goes in the subject, that the instrument of his investigation will ultimately be used to mock him and bring him to the point of absolute despair.

Richard Dawkins “Search for Meaning.”

The search for meaning in life is a familiar challenge to many of us. Some materialist scientists and philosophers consider it a futile search. Prominent atheist Richard Dawkins, for example, claims that human beings are just “throwaway survival machines” whose only purpose is to survive and replicate genes.

Dawkins goes on to answer the meaning of life by suggesting that life has no meaning other than what you give it. It is entirely subjective. Dawkins admits that when people first become atheist, they can often go through times of great, almost suicidal despair. If there is nothing beyond what we can see and touch in this world, and death is the end of us, then what is the point of it all?

We can illustrate his method in the following way. If we were to make a study of a particular drug, in the way that the Preacher studies the meaning of life, we would have to do two things. Firstly, we would need to make a theoretical appraisal.

Tests would have to be undertaken. We would gather information from patients’ records to discover possible side effects. A long-term strategy of research would have to be implemented and satisfactory conclusions would have to be reached before the drug were made available to the public. Secondly, we would take the drug and experience its effects for ourselves!

*Futility can Lead to Faith.

The preacher at this point in his search is running on the treadmill of hopelessness, made by God, on which man is wearing himself out. Is there anything positive that we can say at this point in his search?

Futility is the place where hopelessness and faith meet. This is where our futility is replaced by a faith that leads to Salvation. Consider the parable of the two sons told by Jesus in scripture

The Two Son’s

(Luke 15:11-32)

The lost son explores life and finds himself helplessly ensnared by the world. It is here that he comes to his senses, realizes what he has lost, and sets his sights once more on his father’s house. This, for so many, is a God-ordained place of repentance and faith.

It never gets old when you see the expression on someones face when they finally surrender their futile search over to the Lord and have their eyes opened to what they had previously seen as a futile existence.

THE PREACHERS CONFESSION

vs. 14-18

Now the preacher reintroduces the saying, under the sun and vanity. He also enters a third phrase, “grasping for the wind.” These words not sum up what he is trying say about the futility of life apart from God.

“What is Crooked cannot be made Straight again.”

If we try to discover the meaning of life and, in the process, leave God out of the equation, our conclusion will be distorted and illusionary. To do so means that we are left with a distorted conclusion that cannot be straightened until God is put back into the equation. As a consequence, our conclusion has no substance.

2 Conclusions

The crooked cannot be made straight.

Knowledge in itself can never make you happy. (there are lots of brilliant people in the world who are never happy or satisfied.)

Knowledge only seems to increase our heightened awareness of our ignorance. Knowledge also heightens our awareness of sin. Jesus said, ‘if I had not come and spoken to them, they would have not sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. (John 15:22).

The Vanity of the Self-Indulgent

Ecclesiastes 2:1–11 ESV

1 I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity. 2 I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” 3 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. 4 I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. 5 I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. 6 I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. 7 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. 8 I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man. 9 So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. 10 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. 11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

The word for pleasure can also be translated as delight or joy and does not have to have a hedonistic or negative connotation.

Most of us make our decisions based on what will maximize our pleasure and happiness. We look for what comedian Jerry Seinfeld calls, “little islands of relief in what’s often a painful existence”.

Solomon’s goal now is to determine if pleasure provides a solid basis for our life’s meaning. Should it be the driving force behind our life’s motivations?

The Test of Pleasure

Now for such a famous thinker the search must naturally begin with wisdom, the quality most highly praised in his circle of influence. However, he says nothing of its first principle, with is the fear of the Lord, and we can assume that the wisdom he speaks of is (as he demands the best way of thinking.

So, the great thinker plunges headlong into hedonism, and did not keep from himself anything that his eyes saw to desire. However, the thinker still stands back from it all “My mind still guiding me with wisdom - to see what all this kind of lifestyle could bring to a man. He does note that once the paradox of hedonism, that the more you hunt for more pleasure the less of it you truly find.

Whatever the case he is look for something beyond the simple indulgence of pleasure. It is a deliberate act and escape from rational thinking, to get at some secret of life to which reason may be blocking the way.

THE TEST (flight from rational thinking)

1st the mask of laughter: how often do we hide and mask our lives behind laughter. (don’t get me wrong laughter is good medicine for the soul and can be pleasing to God. However, when laughter is used to keep one from seeking God and his righteousness it can lead to a false sense of our identity in Christ).

The mask of Humor

Alistair Begg points out that comedy is fleeting and does not deal with the weighty matters of life (“Search for Satisfaction”). No one ever walked out of Billy Madison (1995) stunned into silence and contemplating life, but they might do that when they walk out of American Sniper (2014). Laughter can momentarily distract us from real pain, but it cannot overcome it. So Solomon does not conclude that laughter is evil unless you try to turn it into the solution for life’s problems

Next Solomon leaves the Comedy Club and heads to the bar.....

2nd the mask of wine: this is not an indictment against drinking wine. However, if someone has to have a drink to enjoy the life that God has given them is it something that can hinder us from truly experiencing the life we have been given by God? Have you heard people say that at the end of the day, they need a drink to unwind? What are they saying? In essence, they are admitting that they need the drink to cheer them up and make them feel better. (we rationalize lots of things that become idols in our lives.) This is also, to be taken as an excess use of something.

No doubt beverage alcohol is a controversial topic for many, but let us be honest about what the Bible says.

According to the Bible as a whole, and Ecclesiastes in particular, wine can be a joyous thing when used as God intended.

Ecclesiastes 9:7 commands, “Drink your wine with a cheerful heart, for God has already accepted your works,” and 10:19 states, “A feast is prepared for laughter, and wine makes life happy.”

On the other hand, the Bible is clear that wine can be bad and evil when used and abused against God’s design. The Bible condemns drunkenness as evil, and our experience shows alcohol can be a killer. There is no end to the commercials that show the “joy” alcohol can bring you, but you never see the commercial on Super Bowl Sunday with the party girl hugging the toilet at 3:00 a.m. or the dad pulling off his belt in a drunken rage (Eswine, Recovering Eden, 69). The Bible says positive and negative things about alcohol—wine can be used in appropriate or inappropriate ways.

Being influenced by Worldly values

The present challenge to the church is falling into western worldly values at an increasing speed. The challenge is this: if consumption is not a sure way to happiness, what are the alternatives that the Christian faith can offer believers in order to live happy and fulfilled lives. (remember what Jesus said in John 10:10).

Some contend that the text that says - my heart still guiding me with wisdom - would indicate that Solomon did not get drunk therefore, he was self-controlled in his drinking of wine. Others have contended the next phrase to lay hold of folly might indicate he became a sloppy drunk in the process.

I would contend that he tried wisdom and folly, every angle looking for satisfaction and meaning.

3rd the mask of possessions: The phrase, “I made great my works,” can be understood in two ways: (1) I enlarged my works; (2) I increased my possession. It would appear that both should be the case in that every item listed is an expression of myself.

Architecture and Landscape: Solomon’s garden’s were known worldwide. He constructed an entire irrigation system to water these gardens and parks. One can still find these pools of Solomon in Israel today. Literally Solomon tried to create a new garden of eden. The phrase every kind of fruit tree in Ecclesiastes 2:5 is used three times in the creation account. He tried to get back to the paradise of Eden.

Livestock and Humans: He had tons of servants who waited on him hand and foot. I know many of you are thinking right now, man it would be nice to have a maid to clean my house, a chef to cook all my meals, a landscaper to mow my grass, and a stylist to put on my makeup and choose my clothes each day. Solomon had all of that an more. He had more herds and flocks than any kingdom before him.

Silver and Gold: He had so much money that silver was as common as stones.

Cultural Achievements: He loved the arts, and he had enough money to buy his own choir. He did not have mp3 player or apple play because he could buy the band. Some of you would love to be able to buy your favorite band to perform at your beckoned call.

Sexual Pleasure: Finally Solomon indulged in sexual pleasure. In addition to 700 wives, he had 300 concubines. A Concubine was a woman given to a man simply for the purpose of sexual pleasure. Concubines were objects. Solomon could out locker room boast basketball all star Wilt Chamberlain (who once boasted to have been with 20,000 women!) and infamous playboy Hugh Hefner. So many people are on an endless search for sexual pleasure. They may not have 1,000 women literally, but they have that many and more in their porn internet history or romance novels. They constantly look for new illicit experiences to be satisfied, but like Solomon they come away empty inside.

Storing up Heavenly treasures

We read all through scripture about where our treasures are stored. Jesus said in Matthew 6:19-21 not to lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal, but store up treasures in heaven..... where you heart is there your treasure will be also. We read further in Matthew 13:44 that the kingdom of God is like a man who found a treasure hidden in a field. The man covered it up and went to sell all he had to buy the field.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:6-7 that God has shown His light out of darkness into our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

Isaiah 33:6 tells us that he will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is Zions treasure.

Ecclesiastes 2:12–17 ESV

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. 13 Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. 14 The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them. 15 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. 16 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. How the wise dies just like the fool! 17 So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.

The Vanity of Living Wisely

Now for the first time in the text but by no means the last, the fact of death brings the search to a sudden stop. “If one fate comes to all, and that fate is extinction, it robs every man of his dignity and every project of its point. We see this pointed out in verses 14-17 and 18-23.

This is what Dawkins in essence was saying when he described humanity as basically throw away machines whose only purpose is to replicate more throw away machines to populate the earth.

Solomon contends that wisdom is better than foolishness but only in relative terms

*Death Levels wise men and fools.

Good men, and bad men, and sadists, and every other pair of opposites that you can think of under the sun tramples on every value judgement we could make about living this life.

Everything in our DNA would tell us that wisdom is not on the same level with foolishness, or goodness on the same level with evil but no matter what death is at the end of all these roads.

So, I hated life, if there is a lie at the center of our existence, and nonsense at the end of it, who has the heart to make anything have purpose of meaning. Every card we have in our hand is trumped, does it really matter how we play the game? Why treat a king with more respect than a knave?

Solomon looks at how death and the curse render all of our efforts meaningless and empty. And yet there is one more place to look for hope. If we do not live on and our memory does not live on, at least one thing does outlast us. Can we not leave our accumulated wealth as a legacy and an inheritance to our children.

Very Few People know the Time of their Death

What is you knew the year, month, day and hour of your death?

Death Row Last Meal: The Futility of Pleasure Viktor Frankl was an Austrian Holocaust survivor, neurologist, psychiatrist, and author. His writings on man’s search for meaning in the face of horrors like the Holocaust made him a highly regarded source for thoughts on the subject.

Let us imagine a man who has been sentenced to death and, a few hours before his execution, has been told he is free to decide on the menu for his last meal. The guard comes into his cell and asks him what he wants to eat, offers him all kinds of delicacies; but the man rejects all his suggestions. He thinks to himself that it is quite irrelevant whether he stuffs good food into the stomach of his organism or not, as in a few hours it will be a corpse. And even the feelings of pleasure that could still be felt in the organism’s cerebral ganglia seem pointless in view of the fact that in two hours they will be destroyed forever.

But the whole of life stands in the face of death, and if this man had been right, then our whole lives would also be meaningless, were we only to strive for pleasure and nothing else—preferably the most pleasure and the highest degree of pleasure possible. Pleasure in itself cannot give our existence meaning; thus, the lack of pleasure cannot take away meaning from life, which now seems obvious to us.

The essential point is that when suffering is crushing and life holds no luster, our lack of enjoyment of life’s pleasures should not doom us to meaninglessness and despair.

The Vanity of Work

Ecclesiastes 2:18–23 ESV

18 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, 19 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 under the sun. This also is vanity. 20 So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, 21 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. 22 What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? 23 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.

“The confessions of a workaholic!”

Solomon quickly finds the idea of work vain. Work is meaningless: we exert all of this effort to amass possessions we never really get to enjoy because we were working all the time, and then we leave them to someone else, and he may be a fool who squanders all we worked to earn! What is the point in working so hard to accumulate so much that we cannot take with us? The cliché is well worn, but you never see a hearse pulling a U-Haul (see 1 Tim 6). We know that, but that truth does not stop us from being workaholics who try to get more, more, more.

The Parable of the Rich Young Fool

Jesus continually reminds us of the danger of the love of money in light of death taking all we have. A rich man amassed all of these crops and wealth, and he determined to build bigger barns to store them so he could be secure for many years. God says, “you fool! this very night your life is demanded of you. And the things you have prepared - whose will they be?” (Luke 12:20). It is foolish to live your life to accumulate possessions because you do not get to take them with you.

Statistics tell us that in 60% of the cases, inherited wealth is completely gone by the end of the second generation. The greatest fear of billionaires who are self-made ment is that their spoiled kids who never knew hunger will not have the wisdom and resolve to handle so much money. For King Solomon within one generation all of his accumulated wealth was gone.

Solomon will no longer live by the myth that well-earned wealth will validate his life.

Ecclesiastes 2:24–26 ESV

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, 25 for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? 26 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 a striving after wind.

*Contentment in God and His gifts brings Meaning to this Life

CONCLUSION

Solomon concludes that there is nothing better than to eat, drink, and find enjoyment in toil. These are known as the carpe diem passages, and Solomon says this over and over again: enjoy life, enjoy your wife, eat, drink, work, and be happy (3:12–14; 3:22; 5:18–20; 9:7–10). This is God’s gift to man—both the blessings and the ability to enjoy them. Solomon calls the reader to be content and satisfied with God and the gifts from His hand.

Look at what Paul had learned.

Philippians 4:10–13 ESV

10 I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. 11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

We must continually fight against finding our satisfaction in created things instead of God alone.

This is the heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Satisfied in Christ and His love, we now can enjoy life, marriage, children, work, laughter, gardening, building, and so many other pursuits as God intended. As C. S. Lewis reminds us, our problem is not that we desire too much; it is that we desire too little.

When we pursue created tings at all cost, we settle for far less than God intended. We live in a Genesis 3:19 world where dust returns to dust, and we long for Genesis 3:15 to come true.

David died, and decayed, Solomon was a backslidden king who decayed into dust. But one Son of David did not dissolve into the dust. He walked away from the tomb, ascended into heaven, and bodily took his seat at the right hand of God where Psalm 16 says are pleasures that last forever.

Do you want pleasure that lasts forever?

In Christ we are already raised from the dead and seated in the heavenly places. So enjoy life now and forever.