The Bible Binge: Not Enough (Ecclesiastes 2:1-11)

Wisdom for a Hermit

In his book “Three Philosophies of Life”, Peter Kreeft tells the story of a hermit in Maine who had been living in some woods, off the grid of civilization for more than 40 years. A hermit is someone who lives life with almost no contact with civilization. Maine reportedly has dozens of hermits living off of the grid. A friend of Kreeft happened upon one such individual. And most interesting about this particular hermit is that he always carried in his back pocket a very worn out copy of Ecclesiastes. This man living away from civilization for 40 years believed that the book of Ecclesiastes is the wisest book ever written. While we might wonder about the wisdom of not having contact with people.. the idea that Ecclesiastes belongs with the greatest wisdom books ever written is a bit startling, especially when it is the only book owned by a hermit of 40 years in Maine.

It does have that reputation. One of the most fascinating books published on Ecclesiastes is book entitled “A Time to be born — A Time to die” by Robert Short, published in 1973. It is a book of photographs. Short snapped pictures of every single verse in Ecclesiastes, suggesting that each verse is a photograph of the world through the lens of the writer of Ecclesiastes.

We just finished Ecclesiastes this week in our Bible Binge and I thought it would be good for us to put our reading of this book in perspective. If ever there was a book in the Bible that gets absolutely real about life it is Ecclesiastes. The book of Ecclesiastes was written by King Solomon, the son of David. If you remember from your reading of the book of Kings, Solomon asked God for wisdom, and God made Solomon the wisest person to ever live. Solomon ended up writing or putting together 3 of the books in our Bibles.. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. The book of Ecclesiastes is a mirror image of Proverbs… Proverbs is "this is what wise living looks like… living in faith of God’s promises"… Ecclesiastes is "this is what it looks like to go the other direction… living whatever looks like. Proverbs is generally positive. Ecclesiastes is generally negative. Or pointless.

Ecclesiastes: Absolute Futility

The running theme of Ecclesiastes is that when it’s all said and done, life is a bunch of absolute futility. Job came to the same conclusion. Only Job is suffering and has nothing. Solomon has everything. Yet both take a look at life and arrive at the similar idea that life is full of futility. Throughout Job’s experience, Job continued to hold onto God’s promises. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon doesn’t. We read it moments ago:

Ecclesiastes 2:11 “When I considered all that I had accomplished and what I had labored to achieve, I found everything to be futile and a pursuit of the wind. There was nothing to be gained under the sun.”

Solomon says it’s all futile and nothing to be gained. This passage we read is absolutely fascinating. Solomon put together Proverbs. And the theme of Proverbs is “the fear of the Lord… or complete faith and trust in Jesus.. being loved by Jesus.. is the beginning of wisdom.” Ecclesiastes… it’s the opposite. Basically we have Solomon saying, what if holding on to the promises of God is not the beginning of wisdom. What if… life’s meaning can be found without God in the picture?

Listen again to what Solomon says:

Ecclesiastes 2:4–10 “I increased my achievements. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made gardens and parks for myself and planted every kind of fruit tree in them. I constructed reservoirs for myself from which to irrigate a grove of flourishing trees.”

What does that sound like? Yes… the garden of Eden. He continues..

Ecclesiastes 2:8–10 “I also amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I gathered male and female singers for myself, and many concubines, the delights of men. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem; my wisdom also remained with me. All that my eyes desired, I did not deny them. I did not refuse myself any pleasure, for I took pleasure in all my struggles.

If you are reading this as Joe-Sixpack-Israelite at the time of Solomon, you’ve seen something similar in the temple. The temple was patterned after the garden of Eden. Now Solomon is saying that he is building his own temple and his own garden of Eden and doing so outside of the fear of the Lord. This is what Adam and Eve attempted to do. This is what life looks like pursuing the tree of knowledge of good and evil full throttle. Ignoring God’s Promises, let’s build a life without God, without His word, doing our own thing, relying on our own wisdom, and creating our own meaning.

Solomon’s failed garden

The greatest wise guy of all time pursues the knowledge of good and evil and concludes that life lived under THAT tree is vanity… it is meaningless. What is absolutely sobering about what Solomon writes here is that this represents the best that man can come up with on his own.  Solomon has attempted to recreate the garden as a second Adam and has failed.  Rather than being able to answer life’s hard & complex questions, Solomon’s wisdom, because it is the greatest of all wisdom, merely exacerbates the problem by sharpening humanity’s problems into clearer and more acute focus. When Solomon is done searching for meaning under the sun without faith in God’s promises he didn’t find meaning.  He found out the depth and the breadth and the depravity of meaningless and futility like none other before or since.

The question comes back: if the wisest and richest man who ever lived pursues the meaning of life and comes away empty-handed, what hope is there for the rest of us?  That is precisely the question Solomon wants us to ask.  He has been our guinea pig.  Maybe we can give Adam and Eve a break since they were at the beginning… they certainly weren’t prepared for life under the sun to look like this.  But Solomon?  Few, if any, have been more qualified to be our post-fall representative for seeing and tasting of the forbidden fruit and then analyzing it than Solomon.  Solomon’s conclusion is that the tree of knowledge of good and evil leads to a meaningless existence.

Solomon here, isn’t just writing about himself. This journey to find meaning is also Israel’s journey. This is what they have been doing in the Promised Land. Israel, time and again, abandons God to pursue her own meaning using her own wisdom. And Solomon is saying… what does that get you? It is absolute futility. It’s never enough. In fact, Solomon’s quest to see how far his own wisdom would take him outside of faith in God’s promises ends up being a futile exercise. Solomon concludes his own wisdom is not enough to make sense of life. And he’s telling Israel, this is where you’re headed: absolute futility.

The answer for Absolute Futility

This end is unsatisfactory.  This represents the zenith of Israel’s history.  Israel’s greatest king with the greatest empire has the greatest wisdom ever given to man and it fails him.  It comes up short. But Solomon doesn’t leave it there. As you make your way through the chapters of Ecclesiastes, there’s a dim light that begins to grow.. and you begin to see where Solomon’s quest is taking him.

You get to chapter 5 and here’s what Solomon says:

Ecclesiastes 5:1 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God… God is in heaven, you’re on earth, so let your words be few. Fear God.

All that is left is to congregate in the house of God in drawing near to him and to retreat back to faith in the promises of God. It sounds so simple, and yet it is so profound. Be content with God’s presence. Don’t try to speak what you cannot know. Just believe the promises. Solomon is admitting that even his wisdom, the greatest wisdom of all, can only get him so far and it cannot give him the meaning he is looking for. That has to come from God himself.

This wisdom of Solomon can only take humanity so far. Solomon, in casting himself as another Adam in creating his own garden, has pursued the tree of knowledge of good and evil and has, like Eve, fallen short. Solomon’s wisdom ends up pointing him, pointing Israel, pointing his readers to something else in the beyond. There must be something else, something more to the meaning of life.

Jesus the New Solomon

Almost a thousand years later, there was a wise rabbi who showed up… and this rabbi says of himself: one greater than Solomon has come. Jesus is the Wisdom come from God. And in one of the conversations we have from his biographers, we read it earlier.. Jesus talks about this futility of trying to live life without himself. Jesus tells the story of the rich man, the super rich farmer, who can only think about building bigger barns.. Jesus calls him a fool. Jesus asks an unbelievably profound question:

Luke 12:20 God said to this rich baron ‘You fool! This very night your life is demanded of you. And the things you have prepared—whose will they be?

The things you have prepared. Whose will they be? That’s absolute futility. Using your own wisdom, your own ingenuity, your own willpower, and in the end, you die? And it’s all for what? Absolute futility. Then Jesus points out the problem:

Luke 12:21 That’s how it is with the one who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

The problem is that he is pursuing life trying to make his own meaning, trying to be self-made, trying to live life outside of the promises of God. And when Jesus says “he is not rich toward God”, what He’s saying is that guy who is trying to be self-made doesn’t have Me. Jesus is God’s riches. Jesus is what matters. Jesus is the answer for all of the futility we find in Ecclesiastes.

How often is that your life and my life. You think once you get that car then you will be satisfied, or that house, or that spouse, or those kids, or that amount in the saving, and retirement, in the portfolio? It’s never enough. Those British philosophers told us a long time ago: I can’t get no satisfaction! Because at the end of the day it is all absolute futility.

The answer for absolute futility is found in the Word made flesh who dwelt among us. It is found in Jesus. When the futility of this world overwhelms you and makes no sense, don’t waste your time trying to figure it out searching for a meaning that may never come. Instead look to Jesus. Jesus only Jesus. We need the Christ who is wisdom.  Further, life may look meaningless on the outside, but we need to stop looking at life through our eyes.  We must view life through the Gospel… who Jesus is and what he has done for us, and the meaning His death gives us. It is Christ who gives meaning to life. This life is not all there is… it will never be enough. there is a life in Christ that is life more abundant. Jesus is always more than enough.

Let’s pray

The Table

This Table is where Jesus ends all of the absolute futility. This is where Jesus is enough. This is where life makes sense. It’s all meaningless until you come to this Table. We can’t take anything with us. But this Table… we get Jesus himself.

Benediction