The Purpose To Life (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle

Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

Mike Abendroth is your host. That is me. I'm thankful for Steve Cooley filling in for me a little while while I was on vacation.

I was on holiday, as the Brits would say, as the Europeans would say, and today

I'd like to talk to you about what you live for. What is the meaning of life?

I thought I would just pick a random topic and I flipped through the

N's and I couldn't find anything, the O's, the P's, and then I went to the M's, meaning of life, and thought, that'd be a good radio show.

If I was flipping around the dial and heard some kind of sports talk radio, if I heard some kind of 60s throwback music, if I heard real music like the music of the 80s, alternative music, then

I heard there's somebody gonna be talking about the meaning of life. I probably would listen, at least for a short while, see if I like their answer, and then

I probably would turn it off if I didn't like it, but my question to you today is why do you live?

Why are you on earth? What is your purpose for living? Yes, you, not your husbands, not your wives, not your friends.

Why do you live? Why are you on this earth? And we could do a little fill in the blank thing.

I live for blank. If you had to answer that question, I live for blank. Maybe you live to shop.

Maybe you live for the Red Sox. Maybe you live for the Patriots. Maybe you live for pleasure.

Maybe you live for sightseeing, travel. Maybe it's a culinary issue and you live to eat.

There could be a lot of things. I live for my kids, you could say. Ernest Hemingway, who wrote

For Whom the Bell Tolls and Farewell to Arms, along with a variety of other well -accredited

American literature pieces, said this about his life. Now, see, you can be a literary genius, but you can say things like this.

I live in a vacuum that is as lonely as a radio tube when the batteries are dead and there is no current to plug into.

And here you have a son of Christians. He grows up in an evangelical

Christian home. His grandparents, Christian missionaries.

His father, a friend of D .L. Moody. And here, this young man grows up and he turns his back on the

Lord. And when you do that, you can rest assured that the Lord's back will be turned to you.

A letter from Ernest Hemingway's mother, written in 1920, gives insight into this man.

Unless you, my son, this is from the mother. Unless you, my son, Ernest, come to yourself, cease your lazy loafing and pleasure -seeking.

Stop trading on your handsome face and neglecting your duties to God and your

Savior, Jesus Christ. There is nothing for you but bankruptcy. You have overdrawn.

Now, what kind of mother would write a letter like that to their son these days? It would be, you know, you probably need some medicine or, you know,

I'm sorry, son, for the way I raised you. You know, it'd be all backwards. But back in these days, 1920s, at least people thought, it seems to me, they would think better.

And so, she's talking about spiritual bankruptcy. You have overdrawn.

And here we have this man, Ernest Hemingway, who in a Playboy magazine interview that I read about,

I didn't read the magazine, 1956. What is immoral is what makes you feel bad after.

And so, Hemingway said, people with different ideas about morality call me a sinner.

Wages of sin, they say, is death. Well, one man said,

Hemingway cheated death time and time again to become a scarred and bearded American legend, a great white hunter, the husband of four wives, a winner of the

Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes. Sin has paid off for Hemingway. And so, it was all kind of mockingly said, and sin is gonna find you out, and the wages of sin is death.

But here's Hemingway, winner of the Nobel Prize, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Farewell to arms, sun also rises.

For whom the bell tolls. 10 years later, in a review of the book,

Papa Hemingway by Hotchner, in the same Playboy magazine, talked about Hemingway, how he tried to kill himself on numerous occasions, how his marriages fell apart, how he had tons of extramarital affairs, and how he then finally killed himself.

It's pretty amazing. So my question to you is, what are the answers to life? Is there a purpose?

If Hemingway, who can drink down the best of life and finish the glass in one gulp, what about us?

What about you? William Blake said, less than everything cannot satisfy man.

Now, is that good news or is that bad news? Less than everything cannot satisfy man.

My name's Mike Abenroth, it's No Compromise Radio Ministry. If I didn't say anything else, that's probably worth the time tuning in today.

Less than everything cannot satisfy man. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this pretty pace from day to day.

To the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools. The way to dusty death, out, out, brief candle.

Life's but a walking shadow upon the world. A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage.

And then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury.

What is the meaning of life? This is fairly pessimistic.

This is fairly not fun at all. What are we going to do?

What does the world say life is all about? Well, follow the world's advice, and you're going to be like Henry David Thoreau, stating most men live lives of quiet desperation.

There's got to be more than life. And if today you feel alone, if you as an unbeliever, or even as a

Christian, feel frustrated, you know, as holidays come up, and some people don't even like holidays.

They think, oh no, we're a couple months away from Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I don't like those kinds of things.

It just reminds me of grief, and loss, and pain, and sickness, and death. Well, there's a book in the

Bible that you need to read that should jumpstart you, that would recharge your battery and give you the proper spiritual outlook, to give you a worldview, if you will, so that you can understand life.

And if you're a listener today to No Compromise Radio, and you listen regularly, we coming up on 300 shows.

So maybe if you listen to even a third of those, you probably would guess the book that I'm going to.

Seven minutes of me just rambling and saying how bad everything is. And once you get the diagnosis, then the cure seems sweeter, doesn't it?

Once you realize how bad your sin is, you then fully embrace the realities of Christ Jesus and all

His excellencies. The Savior seems greater because you've been saved from a greater sin, at least a perception you now perceive properly and realistically and truthfully of your sin.

So it's the same thing here. When the world is basically suicidal, yet too drugged up to sometimes even consider those things, then what's going to happen?

And I know even in my own life, frustration, loneliness, depression, boredom, why am

I alive? You feel like you're just one little small person on the speck of this planet.

And unless you're extraordinary and somehow you're at high levels of politics or medicine or law, or even if you are in those places, you get everything and then you want more.

How many girls are too many girls? Well, ask Mick Jagger or Pete Townshend. How much pleasure can you take?

You just need more. It's the law of diminishing returns. You've been pleased in the past, but to get the same level of pleasure, it just takes more and more and more and more of what you think you need.

So to go to God's word, the God who created us, certainly with this

God incarnate, Jesus Christ, who came to give life, that we might have it more abundantly.

This God who in Genesis 88 times talks about God blessing people.

400 times in the Old Testament, God blessing people, blesses people, gives them a blessing.

And 88 of those times in Genesis, God blessing people. And so how would

God bless people? Would he just make us so that we're perpetually and continually frustrated?

No, there's an answer. There's an answer. When you're at the end of the rope, your rope, then there's an answer.

As my father used to say, when you're sick and tired of being sick and tired, you turn your

Bibles to the book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes, life should be enjoyed in the fear of God as a gift from God himself.

And if that is going to be your perspective, you're going to have a life that's full, rich, satisfying.

I keep thinking of one of my favorite bands when I was growing up, the Rolling Stones, I can't get no satisfaction.

I think of Bono with you too. I still haven't found what I'm looking for. Here we have the book that if I could give you a theme, a theme sentence,

Ecclesiastes teaches that life should be enjoyed in the fear of God as you see life as a gift from God himself.

Ecclesiastes is a wonderful book and you can open your Bibles if you'd like to Ecclesiastes. We're gonna just kind of put our toes in Ecclesiastes today and I'll pick it up next time.

That'll either be tomorrow or next week. And we have the preacher.

The meaning of the word koaleth is preacher. And here the king,

Solomon, the preacher has experienced life and he has seen a lot.

He is the son of David. He is the king of Jerusalem. He's the king over Israel in Jerusalem. Three times this author identifies himself in chapter one and that would be

Solomon. And this man, Solomon, wants to teach us, wants to teach you that life should be enjoyed in the fear of God as you see life as a gift from God himself.

Now, maybe when Solomon was younger, he's writing Song of Solomon. When he's middle -aged and he's got sons, he's writing

Proverbs, my son, my son, my son. And most people think when Solomon was older, after he forsook

God often, he writes Ecclesiastes. And so we're looking at the book of Ecclesiastes.

And if you see regular words that pop up, words that are repeated on a regular basis, in Bible study, that should help you clue in and ask you, and make you ask yourself the question, why is that there?

And so when you look at the book, Ecclesiastes 1, 2, vanity of vanities, says the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

You wanna know the motto? You wanna know the recurring theme that comes up, the negative recurring theme?

Vanity of vanity, says the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

Vanity once, vanity twice, vanity three times, sold, no, five times, that word is used in chapter one, verse two.

And vanity can mean lots of things. Vanity could mean futility. Vanity could mean things are transient.

That's exactly what it means here. Things are transient, things don't last.

All is vanity. There's a futility that's out there when men try and try and effort and sweat and toil and labor.

And I was gonna say Paul. Solomon says, what advantage does man have in all his work, which he does under the sun?

There doesn't seem to be any gain. There's no advantage. There's nothing left over at the end of the day.

And with a language that is just simply brilliant Hebrew poetry,

Solomon writes in chapter one, verses four to 11, this cycle of in and out, up and down, old and young, life and death.

And you can just feel like you're in some kind of washing machine and it's a spin cycle.

Around we go. It's agitating forth and back, back and forth. Generation goes in a generation comes.

Ecclesiastes one, four, verse five, the sun rises, the sun sets. Rivers flow into the sea at the seas not full.

All things are wearisome. The eyes not satisfied with the scene. Is there anything of which one might say, see, this is new.

There's no remembrance of earlier things. And also of later things which will occur.

You can just feel that. You can feel that there's just nothing under the sun that is new.

Nothing from the perspective of earth alone, society alone, people alone can help.

Yet we're going to see that God is going to intend for man to live a satisfying, fulfilled life as he focuses his being on Christ Jesus, fearing this

God, loving this God. And then if you do, you won't have a life that's full of futility and vanity.

You will not have a life that ends in despair and pain because God, the giving

God, James one says, the generous God, the giving God gives good gifts to his people.

And God wants you to enjoy himself and his son and his word and his creation and have purpose in life expressed through fearing

Jesus Christ and obeying him. In light of what God has done for you, if you're a

Christian, responding with reverential fear, with awe, with praise, with speaking well of Christ Jesus and obeying him.

This is wise living for us. And the Bible has all kinds of genres and all kinds of literature.

And it is good for us to read some stories with the narratives. It's good for us to look at apocalyptic with things like Zechariah and revelation.

It's good to read prophecy. It's good to read gospels. But here we have this wisdom literature.

It's so practical. You just look at our society today, just take drive to ale wife and take the tea in and then watch people.

The closer you get to the heart of the city, the worse it seems to get with just the withdrawn looks and the faces and the purposelessness that people have.

Solomon was a man who was wise enough to tell us here, this is worth my attention.

Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived. God said, you could have whatever you want.

Solomon said, you know, I'd like a wise and understanding heart. And God said, because of that, I'm going to give you everything.

I'm not, you didn't ask for money, but I'm gonna give you riches. You didn't ask for fame. I'm gonna give you fame.

You asked for the right thing. He had all kinds of great insightful decisions.

Remember those two ladies and there was two children. One died, one stayed alive. One was alive.

Whose kid is the live one? Whose kid is the dead one? And Solomon said, you know, let's chop the live one in half and divide the living child in two.

Split it up, divvy it up. And then he watches the reactions and he could tell the one that said, no, no, that's okay.

That's the mom. So if you've got a life full of frustration, maybe

I could describe your life as one continual little, one continual toe stub where you just are walking in the summertime and you've got bare feet and you hit a rock and you just split your big toe open and just hurts like mad.

You can feel the throbbing. That's your life. You've got some kind of horrible thing going on and you have a real challenge in your life, real difficulties, real issues.

Well, I think that Ecclesiastes has the answer for you. Ecclesiastes has the answer for you.

And I want you to know that you can enjoy this life that you have, trials and all, pain and all, suffering and all, you can enjoy it in light of God's sovereign goodness, that he has an all -encompassing plan and everything that happens fits into his plan.

And everything that happens is part of God's decree and you can enjoy his gracious gifts to you, salvation, life, health, intimacy, food, children, common grace, special grace.

And as you evaluate your life and as you embrace God's sovereignty, you can have joy.

You can have everything that's opposite of boredom, futility, being lonely and despair.

So I've got a question, question number one. We're not getting very far today, but that's the nature of the beast,

I guess. I don't know, I've been asked the question, do I wanna have an hour on the radio? I don't know, it's hard enough getting five shows together every week because then when the shows are over, then there's five more coming.

It's just like, here we go, tick, tock, knock, knock. So my first question is, you must, let's have it in question, that'd be smart because I just said that.

Do you enjoy life seeing it as a gracious gift from God?

Do you enjoy your life or do you enjoy life because you see it as a gracious gift from God?

Friends, our life is basically like this. People owe us, God owes us.

I expect all these things. If I put my mind to it, I should get it. And I deserve the best,

I want the best. And pretty much that's gonna be a way to live a disastrous life.

You need to see life as a gift from God. And you need to see that if you think the opposite, that you're evolved and that you came from the slime, glue glob, goo glob, glue glob would be bad.

Goo glob, I mean, think about it. When do you ever say those words? Goo glob, glue glob, some kind of big bang.

This is gonna end in a spiraling down into futility because life is difficult and you're gonna think this is just meaningless.

You live a life for yourself and I'll show you somebody who is miserable and they are not satisfied.

Life is fleeting, friends. So live for the Lord Jesus Christ. Live your life with the purpose of pleasing

Christ Jesus. Not to be saved because the only way you can be saved is believe what

God said about looking to his son who lived the life that pleased the father.

But after God has saved you, he intends you to live your life full of enjoyment.

But when you begin to kick against the goads and don't try to please Christ Jesus with your life and with your family, that you're gonna start feeling empty.

You're gonna feel bad. And when you start living your life for yourself instead of God, things don't get easy, they get worse.

And so God gives you the fruits of your wages. And Solomon said, you know,

I tried everything. I tried that. I tried with wisdom. I tried work, chapter one.

I tried trying to figure out riddles. I tried sex.

I tried if it was gonna be today, anachronistically, I tried sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

Solomon would say, I pursued a life of your best life now. I tried to find purpose in my life without Christ Jesus.

I enlarged my works. I built houses for myself. I made gardens and parks for myself. I planted them with all kinds of fruit trees.

I made ponds for myself. I bought male and female slaves. I had home -born slaves.

I possessed flocks. And the ongoing key here is I, I, I, I, I, I, I. And when you have an

I -filled life, you get frustration and boredom and despair granted to you by God's goodness.

So that when you feel that way, you want to flee and say, I've got to focus myself in the right direction.

And so Solomon says, whether it's sex, drugs, rock and roll, materialism, wisdom, education, human labor, that you cannot be satisfied.

You can't be satisfied. And he says in chapter two, verse 24, there's nothing better for a man than to eat and to drink and to tell himself his labor is good.

This also I've seen that it is from the hand of God. For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without him?

Who can have, and you can't have enjoyment without the Lord. No enjoyment in life that's lasting, that's real.

You can't eat and you can't have enjoyment without him. So this is why

I'm saying we need to live for another. Well, some just say,

I think my future's got some hope because I play the lottery. My future's got some hope because maybe there's gonna be a medical advance.

My future's got some hope because I'll get things right with the Lord later. I'm gonna pick up some of these things when we come back next time.

I'd encourage you to read the book of Ecclesiastes and you will find meaning in life.

And the focus is upon Christ Jesus who is the captain of our salvation. He is the one that we look towards.

So if you're feeling bad, eyes off self, on to Christ Jesus. God bless you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.