Sermon Tone Analysis

Ecclesiastes 5:13-17

As we Come, so we Leave

 

There is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owner to his hurt, and those riches were lost in a bad venture.

And he is father of a son, but he has nothing in his hand.

As he came from his mother’s womb he shall go again, naked as he came, and shall take nothing for his toil that he may carry away in his hand.

This also is a grievous evil: just as he came, so shall he go, and what gain is there to him who toils for the wind?

Moreover, all his days he eats in darkness in much vexation and sickness and anger.[1]

"You can’t take it with you.”

Undoubtedly, you have heard this folksy caution against becoming enamoured of wealth.

Perhaps you have even said those words.

Chuck Swindoll comments in a devotional commentary on Ecclesiastes, “Those who grabbed and rose to the top will ultimately release and drop to the bottom.”[2]

Statements such as these serve as reminders of the impermanence of wealth to thoughtful individuals.

If we permit ourselves to actually think about life, we realise that we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can take nothing from this world [see *1 Timothy 6:7*].

Some years ago, I was approached to conduct a funeral service for a woman who had lost all her wealth as result of an investment scandal.

Her son and daughter seethed at the unfairness of life, especially the way their mother had been treated.

That woman had hoarded all her wealth—putting it all into one place; and because of bad judgement, she lost everything; and now her children felt cheated, losing both their mother and their inheritance.

I have observed others who struggled, scratched and clawed their way to the top, investing in a niche market, only to see the bottom drop out of that market.

How often have we read of, or even personally known, someone who engaged in a maddening pursuit of their financial goal, only to drop dead of a massive coronary.

In each of these scenarios, the individuals “toiled for the wind.”

There is woefully neglected wisdom in Solomon’s dark musings on life.

It would undoubtedly be advantageous for us to think carefully and solemnly about what the wise man has said.

Solomon was certainly qualified to speak of wealth.

He lived in luxury unimagined by the most of his fellow countrymen, and it is fair to say that none of us can even begin to comprehend his was luxurious life.

Yet, he said that when a man departed this life, he would leave as he came—naked.

Two Men Destroyed By Wealth — There is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owner to his hurt, and those riches were lost in a bad venture.

It is easy for us to forget how we arrived where we are.

I live so much better than my father ever lived; I dare say that most of us are unacquainted with true destitution such as that experienced by those who survived the “dirty thirties.”

Our problem is quite different.

Compared to those who went before us, we have incredible wealth; and credit permits us to gain more things through mortgaging our future.

Our problem is a glut of “things.”

When I first ventured beyond the hallowed walls of academia in an effort to gain a steady income, I was invited to invest my life in moulding the lives of young men and women by joining the faculty of a black college in Dallas.

During an interview with the Academic Dean of the school, he confessed that the institution was not wealthy; consequently, they would not be able to offer me a salary commensurate to my academic standing.

He concluded his interview with a confession that included a piece of wisdom that I have never forgotten.

“If you don’t never got it, you don’t never miss it.”

I found great wisdom in his cautionary words.

Paul asked the Corinthian Christians to reflect on their own situation.

They were enriched in Christ in all speech and in all knowledge.

They did not lack any spiritual gift.

I suppose that other churches would have been justified in admiring them, if not envying them, for the rich gifts they had received.

Their blessings only divided them, however.

Paul was compelled to ask them, what do you have that you did not receive?

If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it [*1 Corinthians 4:7*]?

The blessings they enjoyed individually and collectively, the gifts that were operating among them and the stature they enjoyed were all given by the Father.

They had nothing of which to boast.

What was true for the Corinthians in the realm of the spiritual holds equally true for each of us in the realm of the physical and in the realm of the fiscal.

Ultimately, we have nothing that we did not receive.

If we hold possessions, it is in no small measure because God has permitted us to live in a land of peace and plenty.

If we are able to use our minds to gain financial increase, God is the One who has given us the ability to think, to plan and to reason.

If the strength of our hands has provided what we hold, it is God who gave us that strength.

We have nothing of which we can boast.

Whatever we have—whether in the realm of the spiritual or whether in the realm defined by wealth administered in this world—we hold everything as stewards.

All that we have is because of God’s mercy; we have nothing of which we can boast.

This knowledge reminds me of a story I heard on one occasion.

A newspaper reporter was sent to interview a successful entrepreneur.

“How did you do it?”

he asked.

“How did you make all this money?”

“I’m glad you asked,” he replied.

“Actually, it’s a rather wonderful story.

You see, when my wife and I married, we started out with a roof over our heads, some food in our pantry, and five cents between us.

I took that nickel, went down to the grocery store, bought an apple, and shined it up.

Then, I sold it for ten cents.”

“What did you do then?” the reporter asked.

“Well,” he said, “then I bought two more apples, shined them up, and sold them for twenty cents.”

The reporter was beginning to catch on and thought this would be a great human-interest story.

“Then what?

Then what?” he asked excitedly.

“Then my father-in-law died and left us $20 million,” the businessman said.

That man had already forgotten that he had received wealth.

He had not earned it.

You have nothing that you did not receive.

In our text, the Preacher presents a picture that is disturbing if we live for what we can gain.

Actually, he presents two scenarios of people destroyed through trusting in their wealth.

Then, he reminds his readers that the same end comes to all alike.

The first of these two men is a man who tried to have it all.

He gathered wealth, making it the */summum bonum/* of life.

In the end, the thing he loved destroyed him.

Think about that!  Wealth destroyed this man!

This man, who toiled to become rich, was destroyed by what he had accumulated.

In this disturbing scenario, riches proved to be a curse instead of a blessing.

Solomon, reflecting on he had observed during his life, remembers that riches were the source of injury for that man.

Wealth imposed an obligation on that man whom Solomon once knew, but that man failed the test and squandered what he had by consuming all that he had in a futile quest to obtain more.

Solomon calls the destructive power of wealth a grievous evil [*5:13*].

More accurately, wealth became for this man a depressing misfortune, or even a sickening tragedy.

The word for grievous (*hôlâh*) is literally “sick.”

The word for evil (*rā‛âh*) means “disaster” or “misfortune.”[3]

Through hoarding his wealth, we are led to understand that this man suffered because he denied himself commodities necessary for daily life.

The picture is of a man who failed to care for his own legitimate needs because he could not bear to part with money.

Dr. W. A. Criswell related the story of a Kentucky hog farmer driven by an endless quest for money.

That man’s life could be summed up by hogs.

He raised hogs so that he could sell them and use the money from the sale to buy more hogs, so he could sell them and get more money.

That man’s wife lived a hard life, and in her hardscrabble existence, she never had new clothes, because all her husband’s money was tied up in hogs.

He had to make more money, so he could buy more hogs and make more money, so he could buy more hogs.

She was expected to be quiet and let him make money.

That wife asked her husband repeatedly to give her a little money so she could buy some gingham so she could make herself a dress.

She wanted to look nice, and to feel good about herself, as would any woman.

But that man refused his wife’s request.

He had to make more money, so he could buy more hogs.

A day came in which that long-suffering woman became ill, and the illness took her life.

She was buried in the church graveyard.