Sermon Tone Analysis

Ecclesiastes 5:10-12

Do You Have Enough?

He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.

When goods increase, they increase who eat them, and what advantage has their owner but to see them with his eyes?

Sweet is the sleep of a labourer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep.[1]

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lmost every Canadian has heard at some time that “money is the root of all evil.”

That quotation must assuredly appear in the widely read, though little published, *Book of Common Misquotes*.

Despite our general confidence that money is evil, and despite certainty that this is taught in the Bible, nowhere does this teaching actually appear.

The Apostle Paul does in fact warn that the *love of* money is a root of all kinds of evil [*1 Timothy 6:10*].

However, it is the */love/* of money, and not the money itself, that creates conditions for evil.

Money is a tool, an instrument that can either destroy the individual, or a means to build and strengthen others.

If wealth can bring happiness, then this must be the happiest generation since the creation of the world.

We have more disposable income, more credit (and more debt), and more possessions (together with more worries) than any generation preceding us.

I daresay that if you should interview any fifteen billionaires, you will find that thirteen of them are not happy.

And if you hit all of them on the right day, you will find that none are satisfied.

The obvious conclusion is that wealth cannot bring satisfaction.

Money can buy us tons of comfort, but not an ounce of contentment.

The one who has a love affair with money is addicted to it and will never ever have enough.

Chuck Swindoll writes perceptively, “Profits, dividends, investments, interest benefits, and capital gains only whet the appetite for more—like the pathetic person who stands at the slot machine and drops in one quarter after another.

Even when the bells ring and the whistles scream and the gambler ‘strikes it rich’ as four hundred dollars’ worth of quarters plunge into his lap, that’s never enough.

Those coins wind up back in the machine to go through another time.

Never enough.

When we’re financially strapped, we think other wise.

We tell ourselves that we’ll be content, if only…  But we’re not.”[2]

Contentment arises out of self-confidence and wholesome relationships.

Contentment is the result of satisfying and fulfilling participation in the life of others.

Either this is true, or contentment results only because of gross ignorance, much as the “Gammas,” the “Deltas” and the “Epsilons” described in Huxley’s “Brave New World” were content because they were ignorant of history, emptied of ambition through brainwashing, and because insipient depression was addressed chemically.

In our heart, each of us knows that we are not satisfied by the acquisition of “things,” or even through accumulation of money.

Nevertheless, we are driven by external forces and by internal desires to accumulate and grab all we can.

We assure ourselves that the next big purchase will make us happy, that the new toy we are getting will be enough, and we know that we are deceiving ourselves.

The dark words of Solomon confront us and compel us to ask ourselves if what we have is enough.

Or is there something missing?

Really, what is at issue is how we use what we have received.

That is the message today.

Join me in exploration of Solomon’s disturbing words found in *Ecclesiastes 5:10-12*.

The False Promise of Wealth — He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income.

The Queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon.

Her purpose was to witness his wisdom and to see his wealth with her own eyes.

Her assessment of this man was that the half was not told me [*1 Kings 10:2*].

The gold that came into Solomon’s Kingdom in a single year was twenty-five tons [see *1 Kings 10:14 hcsb*]!

The nation enjoyed unprecedented wealth, to the point of being described as ostentatious.

The writer comments that the king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stone [*1 Kings 10:27*].

Twenty-five tons of gold, when gold is valued at $560 USD per ounce, amounts to $448,000,000 USD.

Allowing for inflation-adjusted value of a given medium of exchange, the income to the Kingdom Solomon ruled undoubtedly equalled, or more likely greatly excelled, the annual income received by the US Treasury!

Solomon knew something about money.

He knew the consequences of having unimaginable wealth.

His conclusion?

Dissatisfaction.

Disappointment.

Disillusionment.

Notice that Solomon does not write of someone who possesses money, he speaks of an individual who loves money.

At this point, he is not speaking of those who have money, but of those who want money.

Joey Coyle could no doubt echo Solomon’s revelation about the dark side of wealth, if he were still alive.[3]

For those who live in and around Philadelphia, Joey Coyle became a local legend—a dockworker who was embraced by a city of blue-collar toilers.

Overnight, Coyle went from a nobody to a folk hero by not doing the right thing, an action (or lack thereof) of which everyone seemed to approve.

After all, what would you do if driving down the road one day you came upon an unlocked metal box containing two unattended sacks of money containing 1.2 million dollars?

Ramon Menendez directed the movie “Money for Nothing” based on the story of Joey Coyle and two friends who were driving behind an armoured truck on February 26, 1981, when the back doors swung open and the sacks of money fell out.

The money represented part of a night’s take for a casino.

Coyle retrieved the unmarked bills and started spending them freely, handing out $100 bills all over his neighbourhood.

The loss of that kind of money caught the attention of the FBI, and the ensuing federal investigation into the disappearance of the money caused him to panic, and authorities picked him a few days later as he was trying to board a flight to Mexico.

His boots were stuffed with $105,000 cash.

In February of 1992, a jury found him innocent of theft by reason of temporary insanity.

What was it like for the then unemployed longshoreman to be unbelievably rich for a few days?

“I wouldn’t put nobody in my situation,” Coyle said.

“Everybody’s thinking: ‘That must have been great.’

Little do they know it was nothing but agony and despair.

I musta’ [sic] aged in those six days twenty years.

You have no idea what money does to you—especially that kind of money.”

There is a tragic, unfilmed epilogue to the Joey Coyle story that those outside of Philadelphia may be unaware of.

Even as he claimed to be eagerly awaiting the release of this movie, Joey Coyle committed suicide.[4]

Maybe money doesn’t actually satisfy, and certainly, money obtained illicitly cannot long satisfy.

How much is enough?

I recall an occasion after my brother accompanied his class on a field trip to the Woolaroc Museum near Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

Upon returning home, he told me he had seen a cheque, written by Mr. Frank Phillips, the founder of Phillips Petroleum Company, and that cheque was made out for $1,000,000.

It seemed like a tall tale to me as young boy over fifty years ago.

Later, during my days of membership in the First Baptist Church of Dallas, I was informed that at least sixty millionaires held membership in that congregation.

I knew some of those “millionaires,” and I can testify that they were for the most part godly men and women who endeavoured to honour God.

Many were common people with rather pedestrian tastes.

The thought of such wealth nevertheless beggared my imagination.

Today, millionaires are not all that rare.

If an individual begins early to save a portion of each paycheque and invests regularly while applying sound investment principles, it should not be at all surprising for that individual to have a million dollars at or before retirement.

However, what a million dollars can buy today compared to what a million dollars could buy fifty years ago is another story.

We think that if we only have more money, it will satisfy.

But when we obtain what we so desperately want, it really doesn’t satisfy.

Why is that?

Why is what we have never quite enough?

Money is never quite enough because life is changing.

Inflation eats away at what we have, so that the goal of “enough” is always shifting.

I recently went to a movie with Lynda and Rochelle.

The cost of a matinee ticket was six dollars.

I’m not that old, but the cost of a movie matinee when I was a boy was ten cents.

At the movie we recently attended, popcorn and a soft drink, or bottled water, was $8.00.

With the remainder of my quarter as a boy, I would have enjoyed a candy bar and a Coke® and had a nickel left, after paying admittance.

I realise that it has been fifty years, but that is a significant increase in costs for entertainment.

Inflation eats away at what we think is enough, but really, the discontent is in our hearts.

Dissatisfaction comes from our search for a “cheap” fix.

There are several verses of Scripture that challenge us to reflect on the way in which our desires drive us to greed.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?

Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?