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Well, what a joy and a delight it is to be with you again this morning after having had my own heart Challenged and convicted And encouraged and comforted last night.
I tell you I was ready to preach when I left last night Or as they used to say in the church, I grew up in after hearing the sermons last night I was ready to charge hell with a water pistol and And so it's just good to be back today in God's house at this conference This conference its very existence is really an encouragement to me my sincere prayer is that the fires of the Reformation and The theology that came out of the 16th 15th and 16th century Reformation would burn in North, Florida That is my passion.
That is my goal to see the church restored to good theology It was so encouraging last night to hear a reminder that Ordinary means of grace ministry is sufficient and the Word of God is where God has invested his power in a lot of ways, I think evangelicalism has reached somewhat of a nadir in Some aspects when you look around and see all of the pragmatism that's going on and all of the programs and gimmicks and techniques and What we need to call the church back to is exactly what we heard last night and that is fidelity and fidelity to and confidence in the sufficiency of The gospel as it's preached to build the church and those are the means that God uses To build his church and that's the church that the gates of hell cannot stand against so it's good to be back here again The bar was it set impossibly high last night.
So I hope you're ready to be a little bit disappointed That's a pun because I'm preaching from Ecclesiastes But the topic that I've been given Is holiness in a discontented world and to speak to that topic? I do invite you to turn with me in God's Word to the book of Ecclesiastes.
I Really could almost select any passage in the book of Ecclesiastes to preach from but I don't want to give you an overview instead I want to zero in on one specific passage.
I've been given an hour this morning and This morning Kristen asked me how long I was gonna be preaching I said well I've been given an hour, but I don't think I'll use that long and that was met with a snicker a giggle followed by an eye roll Followed by a quote.
Yeah, right so you all might experience what she experiences every Lord's Day and that's Typically, I preach for an hour, but I'm gonna try to shoot below that and hopefully we can all prove Kristen wrong this morning Ecclesiastes chapter number one and We're gonna be looking at verses 12 of chapter 1 through verse 26 of Chapter 2 but for time's sake obviously we won't read the entirety of that passage instead.
I just want to read verse 24 25 and 26 from chapter 2 Please ask these two verse 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 For apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases God For to the one who pleases him.
God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy but to the sinner he is given the business of gathering and collecting Only to give to the one who pleases God This also is vanity and a striving after the wind in Greek mythology There was once a king named Tantalus and Tantalus was given Everything that one could ever want He had riches He had wealth He had acclaim and esteem and he had power and in Greek mythology Tantalus was the son of Zeus and as the son of Zeus He was invited often to go up on Mount Olympus and to eat and drink with Zeus and with the other gods and as the story goes once Tantalus was eating with his father Zeus and and there in a meal together They enjoyed the finest food Ambrosia and they enjoyed the sweetest drink Nectar and they did it together And Tantalus was privy and the recipient of so much more than ordinary mortals had received But Tantalus could not find satisfaction in everything that he had and so at one meal with Zeus As the story goes he stole some of the ambrosia to take back for himself because he didn't believe he had been given quite enough to satisfy him And when Zeus found out about Tantalus's crime of stealing He sent it's him to the netherworld called in Greek mythology Tartarus and there in Tartarus Tantalus's eternal sentence Was to stand in a pool of water With a bough of trees Heavy and hanging low with fruit right above his head and and forever Tantalus was to feel hunger pains But every time he would reach up to try to pick some of the ripe and sweet fruit right above his head The bough would retreat just enough so that it was just out of his reach and forever Tantalus was sentenced and consigned to feel Thirst but every time he tried to bend over just to satiate his thirst a little bit We try to reach down and scoop some of the water up to get just a sip the water would retreat just out of his hand reach So Tantalus would always be hungry, but he would never be able to eat He would always be thirsty, but he would never be able to drink And the English language has picked up on the story of Tantalus and we've invented a word and we've made it a verb form To describe what it means to always be reaching after something that you can never quite grasp And that word is tantalized To be tantalized is to always trying Always be trying to get something that you never can quite get your hands around.
It wasn't that long ago that My nephew had a birthday party and I watched as my son and and my nephew and his other Friends were chasing these bubbles that a lady was blowing and and they were going after him with everything that they had and Just as they reached those bubbles, you know what happened, don't you? Right when they got their hands on those bubbles those bubbles bursted well about three thousand years ago a Real life Tantalus lived and his name was Solomon the son of David and much like Tantalus Solomon had everything a mere mortal could ever want and wish for He had the best that the world had to offer and yet he writes the book of Ecclesiastes To show us that apart from God those things cannot satisfy.
They're just like bubbles and When you try to find your highest fulfillment In things the world has to offer divorced from the God who gives them Then you will end up where Solomon landed and that is chasing after the wind Feel like you're trying to grasp bubbles We live in a world much like Solomon's and our culture around us tells us That if we could just have more stuff then we'll really know satisfaction Our culture around us constantly tantalizes us with things which purport to make us happy Ostensibly telling us that if you just have a little bit more of this Then you'll truly know fulfillment and contentment.
Just get your hands on a little bit more But I call us Christians within this cultural context is to let God be true and every man a liar And what that means? Relevant to the topic this morning is Listen to the man who's already had all the stuff and take the lesson that he wants to teach you Namely that all of that stuff cannot compare to the God who gives that stuff See Solomon's problem was he was trying to substitute the gift For the giver and that doesn't work in all discontentment in all Dissatisfaction all lack of fulfillment That we experience as Christians ultimately is a function of this very problem That at some point we have believed the lie That fulfillment can be found in the gift and not the one who has given it The Holy Spirit inspired Solomon to write three books in our Bible Well two and most of a third The first book is a book of romance It's a book that celebrates The love of a husband and wife and beyond that of Jesus Christ in his church The second book is a book of rules that gives us ethical norms and principles by which we can live our lives and glorify God and Then the third book that Solomon wrote toward the end of his life Is a book of regrets? Where he looks back over all of the tattered vast wasteland of despair over all of the mistakes that he had made And he encourages his God's Church Not to make the same mistakes in this book Solomon refers to himself in the Hebrew title as Kohelet and Kohelet It's a form of the Hebrew term kohol, which is the Old Testament word for assembly It's companion in the New Testament in the Greek is ecclesia often translated church or gathering together And the book of Ecclesiastes is called Ecclesiastes because it's named after the Greek Septuagint titles of the books and therefore Ecclesiastes is Kohelet is as the King James translates it the preacher The man who calls assembly and this book is a sermon of sorts to recalibrate our thinking And to show us that ultimate fulfillment and satisfaction is found in Christ and in Christ alone and the key word of this book Is the English term vanity? Hebrew is habel and Habel has a wide variety of glosses It can mean empty It can mean vain.
It can mean a breath It means Transience it means brevity.
It means temporal and in the context of Ecclesiastes It has more to do with the way the world is passing away Isn't that what John writes in first John chapter 2 the present form of this world is passing away.
It is Transient it is short.
It is brief and that is what have veil and it entails this this word Vanity or Transient what it entails in the book of Ecclesiastes is this it's the disappointment Which comes when a man who is created for eternal purposes Tries to locate his highest fulfillment in temporal things Let me say that again vanity as defined by Ecclesiastes entails the disappointment That humanity will experience When they who were created for eternal things Tries to find their highest fulfillment and joy in temporal things that pass away And so that's why Solomon says vanity of vanities Solomon's salt happiness His quest for fulfillment was genuine.
He went after it with vigor With gusto notice back in the text in verse 13 of chapter number 1.
He says I applied my heart In verse 1 of chapter 2.
I said in my heart come now.
I will test you with pleasure Down in verse number 12.
I turn to Consider to think about to ruminate on wisdom and madness and folly So you get the sense of what Solomon was doing happiness and fulfillment and pleasure and joy and contentment is not something He just kind of thought about in passing and and then just moved on to something else No, this was something that defined his life this quest for happiness This quest for contentment was something he went after with all of his heart And with all of his mind he searched it.
He considered it He tested different hypotheses all to find out that if divorced from God nothing this world can offer you Can can make you content Can't fulfill you.
So what I want to draw out of this passage is The three-step progression that Solomon goes through To demonstrate for us that life without God will leave you discontented and hopefully to instruct us on How to be holy in a discontented world number one The first thing that Solomon does is he? catalogs his Experiences in verse 1 in chapter 1 verse 12 down to chapter 2 verse 10.
He lists the Experiences that he went through in order to try to find joy and I'll just point out three of them number one Solomon says that he tried to find joy in wisdom That's verses 12 to 18 and in these verses if you have the ESV it kind of Shows it to you But what you have in verses 12 to 18 are two paragraphs and these two paragraphs the first paragraph ends with striving after the wind and then it goes to a proverb that demonstrates the principle that he's discussing and And the marker in the text that he's about to transition to the proverb is the phrase striving after the wind So in verse 14, what is vanity and striving after the wind and then he gives you a proverb that kind of sums up What he's trying to tell you and then again in verse 17 Striving after the wind and then he gives you another proverb that sums up the lesson that he's trying to teach So the first thing he tries to do is he tries to find joy in wisdom now Look at the examination he made in verse number 12 I the preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem And I applied my heart to seek and search out by wisdom all that has done under heaven It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with I've sought Human wisdom and we know that Solomon Before the Lord Jesus Christ was the wisest man to ever live and he took and he applied that wisdom to trying to find happiness And fulfillment and what he discovered is it's an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with He says in verse 14.
I've seen everything now, obviously, that's hyperbole Solomon wasn't omniscient.
He hadn't seen every single thing that was possible to be seen.
But what he's saying is I Have a lot of wisdom.
I Have experienced the best of human wisdom.
I possessed it.
God gave me human wisdom I've seen everything that is done under the Sun and behold all this vanity and a striving after the wind Well, what do you mean by that Solomon look at verse number 15? And this is what we call synonymous parallelism the the first phrase in the couplet is Parallel by the second phrase they're saying the same thing in a little different way What is crooked cannot be made straight and what is lacking cannot be counted.
You know what Solomon is saying there What he's saying is this the best of human wisdom is human wisdom at best I've had human wisdom I've sought fulfillment in my own human wisdom I've looked at everything that goes on under the Sun and I've philosophized about it.
I don't even know if it's philosophize a word It is if you're from Hilliard He is he is gone about trying to find joy in wisdom and what he's saying is What is crooked can't be made straight There's a Gordonian knot that I cannot untie in my own human wisdom.
What is lacking can't be counted I mean, isn't this a self-evident axiom? You can't count what you don't know is there I mean how much possible information and knowledge is there in the universe a Lot more than we as human beings could ever know right? So how can you count it if you don't even know it's there How can how can we fully exhaustively know everything there is to know so if Knowledge and wisdom is where you think you're going to find joy Divorced from God I can tell you you're going to end up in the same place Solomon ended up and you feel like you're chasing the wind Socrates at the end of his life who's a paramount example of human wisdom Said the only thing I know for certain Is that I know nothing for certain That's where human wisdom will get you The world through its wisdom says Paul Did not know God the world in its wisdom placed wisdom incarnate on a cross But it was by God's wisdom that they did that you see the beautiful tension there that men and all of his wisdom could not conceive that God would become a man and hang on a cross and die for sinners and rise again on the third day and Because he committed in their estimation blasphemy, we're gonna put him on the cross because that's what makes so much sense to us And it's that same cross in the preaching of that cross that is foolishness to the world but it is the wisdom and the power of God in the salvation and Solomon began his life understanding those truths but his heart at some point turned away from God and he started investing his hope for fulfillment and satisfaction in human wisdom and It left him high and dry and then look at the reflection he performed in verses 16 to 18.
I said in my heart I have acquired great wisdom Surpassing all who were over who were over Jerusalem before me My heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge and I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly To distinguish between the two I perceive that this is also a striving after the wind why here's the proverb that sums up The principle that he's teaching in much wisdom is much vexation and he who increases knowledge Increases sorrow.
Let me put it the way Einstein put it the more we know the more we understand how little we know Dante Rossetti once said the most tragic thing about atheism is when they feel supremely thankful But they have nobody to think That's human wisdom It will look at a universe that is infinitely complex and Reason back.
Yeah, this could have come from nothing It will look at a human body in all of its fabulous detail and design And reason that yes, this could have come from a simple one-celled organism and It will tell you that your life is Not important See there are three realities that every human being must grapple with and that Solomon grapples with in this book of origin of purpose and Of destiny or let me put it another way Where did you come from? where are you going and Why does your life matter now? And in an unbelieving worldview under the Sun as Solomon puts it apart from God human wisdom will tell you you came from nowhere and You're going back to nowhere But your life really does matter You see how foolish that is If you came from dust and you're going back to dust How can the time in between possibly have any significance that's where human wisdom will lead you my friend Utter despair trying to grasp The wind so he tried to find joy in wisdom Apart from God and it wasn't there Number two, he tried to find joy in wantonness Verses one to three of chapter number two.
It's like Solomon says.
Okay, if it's not in wisdom, maybe it's in folly So look at what he says Number one in pleasure in the folly of pleasure.
I will test you with pleasure Enjoy yourself Let the party begin but behold This also was vanity.
I said of laughter.
It is mad and a pleasure What uses I mean you can see Solomon at the party and the music is turned up and in verse 3 The wine the alcohol is flowing and he's doing everything He knows how to do to try to put out of his mind the fact that he is mortal and he's gonna die And therefore what does my life mean? I tried to fill it with pleasure and wantonness and you can see in verses 1 & 2 some elements of hedonism can't you hedonism is the philosophy of My life is defined by the pursuit of the maximal amount of pleasure that is possible that I can cram into these 60 or 70 years Let me pursue as much pleasure as I can and in verse 3 seeds of epicureanism Eat drink be merry why tomorrow we die.
We're gonna die anyway, so we might as well let the party Roll while we're alive look at verse number three.
I Search with my heart how to cheer my body with wine.
Maybe if I can inebriate myself enough I can escape the reality of the of the transience of the tragic Brevity of life under the Sun in a fallen world apart from God 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 look at this few days of their life So he sought it in wantonness And he discovered that no matter how inebriated I might become no matter how live the party might be No matter how much pleasure I might have When I wake up the next day the reality is still staring me in the face You're gonna die This life is brief It's short and it's over So contentment was not in wisdom Contentment was not in wantonness and then he tried to find joy in wealth.
Look at verses 4 to 10 and this is just a List if you were gonna just make a list to give characteristics of opulent fabulous wealth in Solomon's Day This would be the list Number one.
He had all the stuff one could ever want look at verses 4 to 6.
I Make great works.
I built houses.
I planted vineyards for myself I made myself gardens and parks and planted in them all kind of fruit trees I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees And if you look back at the historic account first Kings 7 8 and 9 of Everything that Solomon had you'll see he wasn't lying so much so that when the king queen of the South comes in first Kings 10 She's absolutely blown away and left breathless And everything that Solomon had and all that his kingdom entailed Solomon if you read this passage your mind should go back to the Garden of Eden if you read verses 4 to 6 What what was characteristic of Solomon was characteristic of the Garden of Eden with pools and with vegetation and with vine Solomon had recreated the Garden of Eden in his kingdom but if problem was he had left off walking with God in the cool of the day and therefore Eden Had become a little more than a wasteland to him So he had all the stuff that one could ever want Notice in verse 7 he had all the servants one could ever want both human and animal I bought male and female slaves and had slaves who were born in my house I also had great possessions of herds and flocks more than anybody who had been before me in Jerusalem he had servants and he had stuff Moreover, he had all the silver one could ever want look at the first part the verse number eight.
I also gathered for myself Silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces.
I mean Solomon exported goods and in trade He imported gold of Ophir the finest gold of all of the world His ships were sent out and they would come back load-bearing full of gold Low down in the water weighed down with all of the gold and silver that one could ever want Rockefeller was once asked by a magazine interviewer You've made all of this money in your lifetime and you're still Incessantly driven and passionate in your ambition Mr.
Rockefeller How much money is enough? You know what? He said Just a little bit more Just a little bit more That was Solomon He had all the gold and silver and more than he could ever spend But it wasn't enough He had all the stuff and all the servants and all the silver and then an 8b he had all the singers Have any of you ever had a choir assembled just to sing for you? Anybody ever had your name mentioned in a song? I mean that's the mark of I guess in our culture today You've really arrived to somebody mentioned your name in a song Solomon had a choir that sang for him and sang about him.
Look at 8b.
I got singers both men and women They sang about my kingdom.
They sang about my glory and my pomp and Then he had all the sensuality that one can ever want.
Look at the last phrase in verse number eight and many concubines the delight of the sons of man A thousand women give or take Many this man had it all didn't he? in terms of stuff and servants and silver and singers Sensuality And it's more like chasing soap bubbles at the end of the day None of these things brought Solomon Fulfillment and contentment and he says as much in verses 9 and 10 So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem Also, my wisdom remained with me 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 of my toil.
So he catalogs his experience and he says I've experienced wisdom and it's not there and Wantedness and it's not there and a wealth and it's not there And then secondly not only does he catalog his experiences But the second step that Solomon gives to us as he's prescribing how to learn contentment as he conducts evaluation After having cataloged all these experiences he conducts an evaluation and his final analysis and you see this word woven All throughout verses 11 to 24 all throughout the book really but especially in verses 11 to 23 You see it in verse 11 in verse 15 in verse 17 in verse 19 in verse 21 in verse 23 It is vanity vanity vanity vanity vanity vanity vanity And he shows us three findings from his evaluation that he conducted Number one if you try to find contentment outside of God under the Sun Solomon says doing is futile look at verse number 11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil that I'd expended in doing it I thought about everything that I'd accomplished everything that I'd done and behold all was Vanity, it's all passing away.
It's chasing the wind and there's nothing to be gained under the Sun One famous rich man on his deathbed was asked How do you feel about everything you've accomplished in your life? And he said I feel a lot like Peter did before he met the Lord Toiled all the night and I've taken nothing I've toiled all the night and I've taken nothing and Solomon felt that way apart from God he Did everything and he found that it was futile if divorced From the one who gives everything That one can enjoy The second thing that he found is not only is doing futile under the Sun, but death is certain under the Sun Look at verses 12 to 17 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 Then I saw that there's more gain in wisdom than in folly and into some degree that is that's that's true There's more to gain in wisdom and folly as long as you live your life.
It's better to be smart than to be dumb It's better not to jump off of a building than to jump off of a building, right? I mean, there's some benefit in wisdom and there's more gain in light than in darkness The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness and yet I perceive That the same event happens to all of them to the wise and to the foolish to the Enlightened and to the still darkened the Same event happens to all of them.
Then I said in my heart I love how you just so much reading like reading Augustine's confessions, right? You're just you're just Eavesdropping on this conversation that Solomon is having with his own soul and you're privy to it You get to hear his own thoughts in his journal here So I said in my heart verse 15 What happens to the fool will happen to me? Also, do you hear the despair in his voice? It might be the wisest man never living.
I might have more than anybody else I might enjoy things that no other human being could even in dream of enjoying But whatever happens to them is gonna happen to me What is that? We're all going to ultimately be if the Lord carries six feet under one day Every one of us.
I don't care if you've got seven zeros in your bank account or one zero in your bank account You're all headed toward the same event Solomon says so he goes on to say Why then have I been so very wise verse 15, what is the point I said in my heart this is vanity 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, you know, that's true That's a true principle If the Lord carries long enough Nobody's gonna remember any of our names and that's what Solomon is getting at here How the wise dies Just like the fool So I hated life.
Of course you did You try to live life under the Sun you live with this philosophy That ultimately I came from nowhere and I'm headed toward nowhere It will lead you to the same place that Solomon is here I Hated life because what is done under the Sun is grievous to me for all his vanity And striving after the wind so as he's conducting his valuation He shows us that doing is futile under the Sun that death is certain under the Sun and then the third thing he shows us His despair is looming under the Sun because doing is futile divorce from God because death is certain divorce from God Despair is looming Divorce from God and by the way, I don't know if I've stated this already but under the Sun That's what that's what I would understand that phrase to mean life in a fallen world Life as if there is nothing outside of this universe more than this universe life under the Sun Despair is looming if you live your life with the philosophy Under the Sun look at what he says in verses 18 to 23 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 and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool I've got all these millions of dollars Somebody's gonna get him one day when I die and I don't know if he's gonna squander it or save it or grow it or what's? Gonna happen because why should I even care? I'm gonna be dead This also is vanity so I turned verse 20 and here it is and I gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the Sun 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 What has a man? From all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils Under the Sun or beneath the Sun for all of his days are full of sorrow this life in a fallen world Isn't it all of his days are full of sorrow and his work is a fixation even in the night his heart does not rest This also is vanity.
I mean what a cry from someone Who was looking for something? To fill his soul As he conducts this evaluation.
He sees the doing is futile and death is certain and Despair is looming.
He's cataloged his experiences.
It's not in wisdom Can't find it in wantonness and it's not in wealth But finally when you get to verse 24 and I love Solomon does this all through the book? He will take you down this dark hole to get you to the place of despair Only to shine some gospel light and truth on your face in verses 24 to 26 After having cataloged his experiences and conducted his evaluation.
He commends enjoyment He commends Enjoyment you see Christians are not stoics We're not mannequins We're not Gnostics.
We're not dualist.
What does that mean? Well ancient manichaeism was a heresy Gnosticism as well dualism is also called was this ancient heresy that taught that everything spirit everything in the spirit world is good everything in the physical world is bad and therefore the way to God and the way to communion with God and the way the true fulfillment is you turn away from Everything that is physical and you focus merely on the spiritual now this heresy Morphed into another heresy called docutism from a Greek term Docio which means to seem because if physical matter is evil, then what does that do for the incarnation of Christ? So therefore he just seemed to be human He wasn't really human it destroyed the humanity of Christ in the church in there in their councils addressed that thankfully But you know if you read Ecclesiastes Without the biblical lens of God's wisdom that he weaved throughout the book You might be tempted to come to the place where you are almost Dualistic in your approach to life and you might be tempted to think that's what Solomon's teaching It's not all what Solomon's teaching.
So look at what he says in verses 24 25 and 26 and as I've said this is the light at the end of the dark tunnel at this section What do you need for true and lasting joy? How does Solomon can commend to us? Enjoyment fulfillment Satisfaction what you need for true and lasting joy Solomon says to us in verses 24 through 26 is this True joy true commitment true satisfaction is found in God himself That's where contentment is in God himself And he says two things here.
Number one.
God is the source of joy in verses 24 and 25.
There is nothing better for a person Then that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil This also I saw is from the hand of God.
What is from the hand of God? Enjoying the things that he's given to us There's nothing wrong with enjoying food.
Do you enjoy eating? I know I sure do Because my wife is an excellent cook So, you know what we do We eat and we eat well Do you savor fine wine? Do you find fulfillment in your work and ambition and making money? Hey, there's nothing wrong with those things In fact, you can do them for the glory of God Now if you try to substitute those things for God Then you will end up where Solomon ended up when he tried to substitute those things for God your work Can't become your God your food can't become your God your hobbies can't become your God but when you understand that it is God who has given you richly all things to enjoy then you can enjoy God by Enjoying his good gifts.
Look at what he says the power to enjoy life comes from God verse 25 For apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment.
You see the problem in the world is exactly What Augustine I think it was Augustine somebody can correct me if I'm wrong I said so long ago.
Someone asked him you say nobody seeks God Why does it seem that there are so many seeking God and Augustine responded? It's not that they're seeking God They're seeking God's gifts without God That's where discontentment comes from but if you understand That it is God who has given you richly Everything that you enjoy you can do it for his glory I mean, it's not that a Water to our soul after going down this dark hole of despair So God is the source of joy and then secondly and finally at verse 26 God is the arbiter of judgment Now he refers to two classes of people in verse 26 the one who pleases God and The sinner and He noticed he doesn't say the one who pleases God just turns away from all of this other stuff and the sinner does it? No, in fact, he says quite the opposite For the one to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy John Calvin said while all men look for happiness Scarcely one in a hundred look forward in God But if you find your happiness in God You can also find joy and true satisfaction in the gifts that God has given to us For the one who knows God you can live your life enjoying the pleasures of life with clear and biblical thinking And the wonderful thing is as Christians who know the truth and who know that we came from somewhere and we're going somewhere therefore the time in between really does matter we can enjoy the things that God has given us in this life and you can say all of this in heaven to All of this in heaven to what a wonderful magnificent kind gracious God we serve We can say with Paul I know what it means to be hungry And I know what it means to be full I Know poverty and I know Riches, I know what it means to be naked and I know what it means to be clothed and I found that whatever state I am in there with to be content.
Why could Paul say that? Because Paul knew that God was the source of his joy and God was the arbiter of his judgment It was God who had justified him and if he had everything or if he had nothing he was fine either way Whatever God in his sovereign dispensation chose to give or withhold You can be Job before the satanic onslaught and say blessed be the name of the Lord or you can be Job after the satanic Onslaught when he's lost everything and he still says blessed be the name of the Lord You can say riches I heed not nor man's empty praise Thou my inheritance now and always thou and thou only first in my heart high king of heaven my treasure Thou art when God is your treasure.
It doesn't matter if you have much or you have little you have everything So let us learn my friends Not to trust in uncertain riches.
No, don't make the mistake Solomon did but in the living God Who gives to us richly? all things to enjoy What is the difference in verse 26? between the one who pleases God and the sinner God has given the one who pleases him the ability to have wisdom and knowledge of joy to the sinner He's given the business of gathering and collecting only to give to the one who pleases God This is the Old Testament's way of saying the meek will inherit the earth We're gonna get it all but the one who divorces himself from the knowledge of God and The gospel of God and who continues to rebel in Christ and tries to seek the gifts apart from the giver and Define their life by sex by alcohol by possessions by money and never turn to their creator They're going to be judged in no ultimate and eternal loss And if that is you my friend and if you are pursuing in your life the gifts and not the giver my Pleading with you is run after Christ.
He is the source of everything good He is the fount of every blessing and he will fill your soul so that you will never thirst again And unless and until you turn to Christ, you're going to be King Tantalus You're gonna reach for the fruit, but it's gonna be always just out of hands reach You're gonna reach for the drink, but it's always gonna be just out of arms reach But if you will drink from Christ, you will be satisfied and you will live forever and forever Matthew Henry said of Ecclesiastes That the message of this book is this The Christian who most appreciates Christ's fullness Is the one who is understand understood? Well the world's emptiness when you understand That the world has nothing but vanity and emptiness to offer you It prepares you for the fullness Who Christ is? May the Lord grant to us today the grace to experience and share fullness of Christ In the midst of a world that is plagued by vanity and emptiness Finally my brethren be steadfast Unmovable Always abounding in the work of the Lord.
Why for as much as we know that our labor Is not in vain in the Lord Our father we do pray that we would be people characterized by contentment this contentment Is almost a foregone conclusion in our world Because although all men look for happiness Scarcely one in a hundred look for it in God Lord, let us be the one in a hundred by your mercy by your grace Lord give us the biblical wherewithal to know in our hearts that Satisfaction and joy is not to be found ultimately in The gifts but in the giver but on the other hand Lord help us to enjoy the good gifts that you've given to us and to receive them with Thanksgiving Because they're sanctified by Thanksgiving in prayer and we thank you God that you are not a God who delights in a Pharisaical kind of stoicism as if holiness equals poverty That's just not true.
Guard us from that kind of thing Holiness equals being satisfied in the Lord Jesus Christ And evermore Lord Give us this water as you did to the lady at the well Satisfy our thirsty soul Christ's name for his sake.