Feast: Ecclesiastes: What is it All About? (Part Two)

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John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 15-Oct-11; 77 minutes

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We are going to start this sermon in Deuteronomy 30:11-20. I noticed a fairly significant thing in my Bible regarding these verses. It had nothing to do with what is said, but it has very much to say about what the publishers of this particular edition of the Bible did on that page, and that is they underlined these words.

There is hardly a place in this particular Bible where they chose to do that, it hardly does not exist. But they underlined this entire section. Somebody in the publishing company thought that this was notable, and in order to draw attention to it why they underlined these words.

I want you to underline it in your mind because even as I said earlier that the book of Ecclesiastes was written specifically for Christians, it did not benefit the Israelites all that much except on a very basic level. Yes, it benefited them, but it is really written for God’s children.

The same is true of the book of Deuteronomy and it is so important God says, "I want you to preach on that every seventh year during the Feast of Tabernacles." We are going to lift this section out of Deuteronomy 30, because it applies in spades to what we are going through in the book of Ecclesiastes.

The two are linked like this.

Deuteronomy 30:11-20 “For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?” Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?” But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it. See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the LORD your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess. I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the LORD your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”

Ecclesiastes is revealing to us that God understands full well that people, most especially His own spiritual children, are going to seek purpose and fulfillment in life. People will want direction and focus for their energies. Ecclesiastes is God’s rather direct, blunt, and yet fairly detailed response to some specific questions people will have.

They are direct enough without forcibly taking away the individuals free moral agency. We must choose. Ecclesiastes is showing that despite all the activities that we might use to occupy our time and energies seeking achievement and fulfillment, there are still only two ways of life: God’s way and the world’s way, or we might say God’s and Satan’s. Ecclesiastes is continuously urging us to always choose God’s way of faith in him.

Somethings I would like you to remember from the first chapter in order to keep the continuity flowing right on into chapter two are the following:

1. Ecclesiastes is intensely practical to everyday life, but at the same time it may require a great deal of meditation, or it is easily passed off as possessing little value.

2. There are two especially important terms, “Vanity” and “Under the sun.” Vanity which indicates empty, meaningless vapor or breath, suggesting unsubstantial and unproductive, and it does so with a sense of despair, bitterness, and bleakness. It is described as somewhat like what is left over after a soap bubble bursts. I especially like the translation in The Message Bible, "Smoke, smoke, nothing but smoke. Think about smoke, it stings the eyes, and chokes the breathing, and it stinks. It’s not a pleasant thing to be around. Neither is the vanity of which Solomon writes. Now this translation “Smoke, smoke, nothing but smoke” is not literal but it catches the essence of vanity’s meaning.

“Under the sun” indicates perception of, and life and its events as discerned by the unconverted mind. A mind that might be quite intelligent, but does not see things from God’s spiritual perspective. Until that changes, nothing will substantially change towards producing an abundant life.

3. Finally, Solomon urges us to understand that we cannot change what is crooked in the world. We can change ourselves because God has enabled us, empowered us to do so, but we cannot change this crooked world. That is going to require the return of Jesus Christ and an entirely new system governing an entirely new spirit. The result of that, brethren, is we have to live, we have to make our choices, in this vain, unsubstantial world. We have to overcome and grow within it.

It presents great challenges for us, as we just heard in the sermonette ["Overcoming Troubled Hearts"]. It troubles us, puts us into despair, wears away at our faith, it eats away at our love. It will wear us out. That is what is going to happen. The saints are going to get worn out. Yet we have to make our choices—the right choices—as this continues to come upon us and we want to be able to do that because we have the faith and the love that Clyde [Finklea] was talking about.

Turn with me now to Ecclesiastes and we are going to go into the first chapter again, the last 3 verses.

Ecclesiastes 1:16 “I communed with my heart, saying. . .

You can get the idea of what he is doing when he is communing with his own heart, he’s meditating, he’s turning things over, looking at them back and forth from as many angles as he can, asking questions of himself.

Ecclesiastes 1:16-18 . . . “Look, I have attained greatness, and have gained more wisdom than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My heart has understood great wisdom and knowledge.” And I set my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is grasping for the wind. For in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.”

Now chapter 1 provides the beginning of the foundation for the entirety of the book. Chapter 2, which we are going to go into today, more or less completes the foundation, so we are still on the foundation, and it is after the foundation that we begin to look at more specific answers to things. But the foundation is very important because everything else in the book is built on it and builds from it.

So here are Solomon’s openings conclusions of his opening thoughts. It is interesting to get a quote from some other commentator on this. This commentator describes Solomon’s evaluation here as, “Life is lived seemingly from purposelessness to the ridiculous.” I do not think that man understood the book of Ecclesiastes, because Solomon was not like that at all! He has written a very engaging book here and like any good author does, he lays a foundation and then goes on to prove what his foundation is solidly supporting.

"Purposelessness" indicates having no reason and or goal to it. Did Solomon really believe that? I do not believe so. "Ridiculous" means unworthy of any consideration. Is life unworthy of any consideration? If that is so, then why did God create us? Why did He give us a book like this that challenges out thinking, and makes us want to really search more deeply into what life is about?

Well, why does it seem this way to these people? It is because life is seemingly lived subject to endless, predictable, ever-repeating cycles, and at the same time, lived within problems that cannot be understood nor solved. Now, you see, that is indeed a carnal way of looking at things.

All is vanity and the crooked cannot be made straight. However the story does not end there because Solomon, a man with a very graciously gifted mind was persistent toward finding some answers, which he is going to pass on to us, and so he did not give up. But he turned that gifted mind to the challenge of seeking those answers.

Galatians 1:3-5 Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Now what I want to get out of that is “this present evil world.” Life is being lived within it and it is a major challenge for us to not only live in it, but to overcome its wearying and wearing influences on us. And not only that, the world is a very confusing place, and this confuses us regarding our choices from time to time. There is much that seems to be out of order in terms of the way we think that things would be if they were done in a more correct way.

Now by way of review, I think it good to again remind us that Solomon was perceiving things here from “under the sun,” and so therefore he was looking at things from a carnal perspective. He is looking at things and reaching conclusions at first without the miracle working revelation of God to guide his outlook.

So chapter one is the initial analysis of the problem, and it is not intended to be the entire story by a long shot. There are so many more angles to these questions that are occurring that must yet be pursued until a much more complete picture is formed, and a truer more precise evaluation made. Now I injected that because I want you to be patient with Solomon as he goes through here. We are still on the foundation, and we have not gotten to many of the answers yet.

The world and the things in the world—the things that the people in the world spend their life and times pursuing—are very attractive to human nature. That is why John urges us not to love the world or the things in the world. The world’s way is not the way to the abundant life, but it is the way of death.

If we are going to make sense out of the book of Ecclesiastes we must understand, believe, and begin making good decisions regarding this. The world must be seen clearly for what it really is, not for what human nature puts a shine on in order to make it appear more attractive. The world is a major diversion to making clear, right, godly choices, because human nature makes it look better than it actually is! Human nature makes it look as though people in the world are really having fun, making lots of money, and are free as a bird!

What a difference. God says they are enslaved. But human nature can make that slavery look good. If you think that does not affect our choosing what to do. . .. It makes men appear more handsome, and girls prettier, and socially adept, whereas fellows and girls in the church are clods by comparison.

So we must ask ourselves a serious question: Do we want to be in the image of Jesus Christ, or do we want to be in the image that Satan would mold us into through his world? Which will it be? That is the big question in the book of Ecclesiastes.

The world is our enemy. It is with us every day, constantly, on the radio, on television, at work, on the road, commuting here and there. We see it in fashions, we hear it in music, we see it in shows, and all the while it is putting impulses into our minds to make decisions one way or the other, and it looks so attractive.

The overall question that Solomon is seeking answers to is, “Does what the world pursues really pay off in the end?” The answers for us are found by means of faith through choosing to follow many answers that Solomon provides from his experiences.

Chapter two begins that pursuit more earnestly. Most of you can probably remember a popular song by Peggy Lee. Peggy Lee did not write either the lyrics or compose the music but it was her rendition of this song that made it become famous, because it was catchy, and it contains a very interesting story, and this story applies to the book of Ecclesiastes.

The title is, “Is That All There Is?" I think this song’s lyrics are a good introduction to what follows in chapter two. Here is one stanza Peggy lee sings:

“When I was twelve years old, my father took me to the circus, the greatest show on earth. There were clowns and elephants and dancing bears and a beautiful lady in pink tights flew high above our heads. And so I sat there watching the marvelous spectacle and I had the feeling that something was missing, I don’t know what, but when it was over, I said to myself, 'Is that all there is to a circus?'”

And then that portion of the lyrics was followed by a refrain repeated after each stanza and it went like this, "Is that all there is, is that all there is, if that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep on dancing, let’s break out the booze, have a ball, if that’s all there is.”

Diversion, because that is all there is.

Another stanza tells of her seeing her family’s house on fire. Boy! That would be exciting! But is that all there is when you are seeing your family’s house burn?

Another stanza talks about the first time she fell in love and into another stanza she even goes so far as to explain that she will never commit suicide because she knows that that is going to be a disappointment too!

What is the theme of that song? It is disillusionment. Is that all there is in life?!?! Human nature makes it look so good. But some people have enough perception to see that "something is wrong here!"

Some of you might have been fans of the rock band U2. I never was, but I remember it. They have a song which is titled, ‘The Wanderer.’ And the theme of that song was drawn from Ecclesiastes, and it featured Johnny Cash as the singer. And the theme went like this:

“I went out there [meaning to the world] in search of experience to taste and to touch and to feel as much as a man can do before he repents.”

I am not kidding you! That is the way the song lyrics go! You see the lyricist was admitting that the only need for repentance would be that he knew that there was nothing left out there to chance. It was not working, so now he was going to try religion.

You see that song too is expressing disillusionment with what life in the world was producing! So Johnny Cash, as a last resort, was going to go God’s way. It is rather cynical, but it is also the way many people in the world choose to do.

Ecclesiastes 2:1-11 I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure”; but surely, this also was vanity. I said of laughter—“Madness!”; and of mirth, “What does it accomplish?” I searched in my heart how to gratify my flesh with wine, while guiding my heart with wisdom, and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives. I made my works great, I built myself houses, and planted myself vineyards. I made myself gardens and orchards, and I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made myself water pools from which to water the growing trees of the grove. I acquired male and female servants, and had servants born in my house. Yes, I had greater possessions of herds and flocks than all who were in Jerusalem before me. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the special treasures of kings and of the provinces. I acquired male and female singers, the delights of the sons of men, and musical instruments of all kinds. So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor; and this was my reward from all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun.”

Here Solomon begins to show various activities that virtually everybody experiences to some degree in his or her life, and he is putting these things to the test. It is also very interesting that many of the things he put to his test are the very things that most people attempt to get their fulfillment from.

It is a truism that so much emphasis is put on these activities, that it leads the ones involved in them to believe that these are the things that life is all about. Everybody who can is doing these things and I believe that we can all agree that this nation is right now undergoing a huge surging wave of desire for pleasure. We will examine some things a little more closely a little bit later.

Now we will just use pleasure as an example at this point.

Despite the fact that the nation is in the midst of a serious economic downturn, people still find money to spend on movies, professional and collegiate sports, and eating out, none of which come anywhere close to the necessities that truly bring joy and fulfillment to life.

Take notice to what Solomon said to himself in verse 1: “Come now I will test you with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure.”

Today we might not say that. Today we might say, "Let the good times roll!” and “Let’s have a ball!” Just like the song. And so he tested himself with pleasure. But the answer was, at the end, that he found his level of hedonism meaningless. He found laughter and mirth to be madness and useless. That is what he said. "Laughter and mirth to be madness and useless," and the word madness is even worse than it looks, because it does not mean that one is out of his mind or insane. Rather he said mirth is actually a moral perversity.

What he meant by "mirth" was silliness. It was silly, and it was demeaning of God because there was nothing of any substance to it. It was just silliness. How far is that going to get us into the Kingdom of God? What is that going to do to our character? Should we really be choosing silliness to be something that should be sought for and attained to?

Now Solomon is not referring to the clean, joyful laughter that takes place among friends and brings glory to God. Not at all. He even wrote a proverb on it which you will find in Proverbs 31:25. The point here brethren is that life is difficult! It is no laughing matter to God!

God is serious in His purpose. The difficulty in life that we try to escape we are going to see more and more as we go through the book, is intended by God. Did you hear that? It is intended by God. Did God make the Israelites journey through the wilderness easier? Not really. That was a rough 40 years for people without faith. He had a wonderful opportunity to show them—“I am going to show you how life under Me is really going to be easy."

No, He did not make it easy, and He did not make it easy because God was serious about them growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, and learning what works and what does not work to put fulfillment and real true happiness into a person’s character.

God’s purpose is serious and He wants us about life. I will give you an example here. This is something that we see, right in this site, right here right inside this hotel. It was Solomon who said, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from them.”

I see kids running all over the place here in this hotel. Is that a glory to their parents? Maybe, maybe not, but I doubt it very much. I do not think it is.

Let me give you something that God shows. Is it not God’s children who are given the responsibility to glorify Him? Is that not right? We are to bring honor to Him. Well if we transfer that into the human scene, then, parents, you are to train your children so that they glorify you.

And that foolishness, God says right in the proverbs, has to be driven from them, or they will remain foolish for the rest of their life. Beginning to put these things into our children, you start as early as you can to treat them to honor you.

In the United States of America we do all we can to make the children happy. It is their responsibility to learn to make you happy. That is quite a change—a far different approach.

These principles in the book of Ecclesiastes fit right into this, and we are to be serious about our responsibilities before God.

Are you aware brethren that when Israel went bad, when they sinned, it was when they had good times? That is very easily shown in the Bible. The clearest example is in the book of Judges. They went bad in the 40, 60, 80 years they had good times, and then God would punish them and straighten them out. There is wisdom there and the wisdom is, parents, beware of good times, because that is when we let down. A little bit of advice from Solomon.

A principle there is that the Bible shows very clearly that good times very often produce bad results. There is a reason for this and that is because during good times, people lose their focus, and they let their morals down, and become unbalanced in their approach to life. The important thing is they lose their focus.

"Let the good times roll"—and we end up in the character pit.

Now the great thing about Solomon is that he never really allowed it to pull him down. He always kept his reason, his wits, about him even though he was experiencing them, otherwise he could not come to a good conclusion regarding the tests he was giving himself during these periods of life. Solomon could grasp that what he was doing in his investment in mirth and so forth, that it did not work.

Now here is a comment from another commentator. His name is T.M. Moore, and he translated Solomon’s words in this manner. He says, “I concluded that laughter and merriment for their own sakes were madness. What did they accomplish to help me find lasting meaning and purpose to life?”

Now Solomon did not stop there, he also tried the alcohol route. Today in every alcohol advertisement that one sees on TV great pains are taken to associate it with partying. Everybody is shown hilariously laughing; laughing it up as though fun is unattainable without it. You know that is true. You have seen the advertisements. They want you to associate the laughing, smiling faces with the alcohol that they are trying to sell to you.

Now alcohol can do some measure of that, but we have to understand as the alcohol begins to take effect it is going to follow a biblical principal. Solomon said, “Wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging.” When he said that wine is a mocker, he meant that it lures people on. It mocks. Do this—it eggs those sensation centers in our brain on to begin to want more and what that does is you get caught in a trap. And that trap is that the more you drink, the more you need, the more intense that the hilarity needs to be in order to match the amount of alcohol that is within one.

The truth is alcohol is a downer. It put ones to sleep. And so you have a foolish thing. The alcohol is actually working against the fun, and at the same time, it is causing the person to lose his grip on right and true and good reasoning. It has to be something that is handled very carefully. Wine is good, strong drink is good. But it has to be kept within very close measures or it is going to be bad. That is a choice we have to make here at the Feast of Tabernacles.

So he took the alcohol route, and it is not hard to imagine Solomon in his splendid dining hall eating choice foods, drinking the best wine, and watching the most gifted entertainers. Undoubtedly Solomon’s servants wished that they could change places with him. But here we have the record right there the king was not happy! He was not being fulfilled. That same Solomon wrote this:

Proverbs 14:13 Even in laughter the heart may sorrow and the end of mirth may be grief.

So when this truth is combined with Solomon’s conclusion in Ecclesiastes 2, it can be seen that Solomon considered laughter and mirth as being so many soap bubbles, bursting and leaving only a light coating of scum behind. It is vanity, and when alcohol is added to the mix, it too is vanity.

What is Solomon teaching us? He is teaching us that pleasure for pleasure’s sake is self-centered, and it just does not work in God’s selfless-centered world. His universe. And it cannot work because it runs counter to a major, major law that operates in God’s great creation. Any self-centered process pulls one like gravity toward disappointment, emptiness, and ultimately death. And unless repentance occurs, it may take quite awhile, but it inexorably moves one in that direction. Selfless pleasure produces true enjoyment and builds godly character at one and the same time as a person holds himself and his mind in balance with what God considers to be reasonable and right.

We are still on the first 11 verses; in fact we only got past 2 verses there. So the next thing here is Solomon tried to actually produce something worthwhile. He employed himself, he immersed himself, in the good life by producing things, even things of beauty.

Buildings of fine architectural design, gardens to beautify their surroundings, and irrigation to sustain them. And in order to accomplish this he had to employ thousands of workers, both male and female, and he not only had to pay these workers he also had to house and feed them in order to sustain the projects to keep them moving toward completion.

I will tell you, brethren. This man was a one-man economic stimulus. In order to feed them, he had to enlarge his herds of sheep, goats, cattle, and chickens. He hired entertainers, pop singers, choirs, and orchestras. It tells us that whatever his eye desired, he did not keep from them.

Why did he do this? I have got to read this to you. It is really rich. Let us see if you can figure it out.

Ecclesiastes 2:10 “Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor; and this was my reward for all my labor.”

He did it because he felt he deserved it. He was entitled to it. That is a word that is in the news nowadays, is it not. He felt he was entitled to it.

Do we not all feel that from time to time we are entitled to the good life? We are entitled to enjoy life, we are entitled to do this, that, and the other thing.

Do not get me wrong here. God wants us to have those things, but we do not ever want to get to the place where we feel we are entitled to it. That is a position of self-righteousness, and it is very dangerous. God wants us to enjoy his gifts, and He is very willing to give them, and He is generous beyond measure, but He does not want us to feel that somehow or another we are entitled, “It is because I am John Ritenbaugh.” Not at all. John Ritenbaugh is no better than anybody else and probably worse than many, many, and that is the way we are. We get the feeling that God owes us things. He has already given us life and breath He has already given us His Spirit, and yet we are insatiable.

I want you to see a bit of the measure of this man's operations.

I Kings 4:21-22 So Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life. Now Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty kors of fine flour, sixty kors of meal.”

30 kors of fine flour is 196 bushels. Can you imagine how long his table was? I am just kidding you. I am sure they did not do that because he was feeding the workers that were working under him, and I am sure that they had places for those people to live. Like I said just a little bit earlier, he not only hired these people, he took care of them as well. That was part of the operation there.

I Kings 4:23-25 Ten fatted oxen, twenty oxen from the pastures, and one hundred sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fatted fowl. For he had dominion over all theregion on this side of the River from Tiphsah even to Gaza, namely over all the kings on this side of the River; and he had peace on every side all around him. And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, each man under his vine and his fig tree, from Dan as far as Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.

If that man was alive today, and he was doing these kinds of things, you would be reading of him in Forbes magazine as the richest man in the world. There would be pictures and articles about him in Architectural Digest. His parties and his guests would be written of in People magazine and Entertainment Weekly, and magazines devoted to music. There would be pop stars with bulbs flashing all over the place, movie stars, super athletes, and super models would abound wherever he was and whatever he was doing. Seems pretty glamorous, does it not? What a life that man lived!

But you know what? He was not all that happy! This is one of the things that really impresses people that really think on this book, and that is he never lost his sense of honesty. Here he was, probably one of the most gifted individuals that ever walked on the face of this earth, and he would admit that he was not happy with all of this! People would envy him, and he was honest enough to say, "It's not working." I wonder how many of us would have the humility to do that.

Now let us add one more thing to this. One of the things that produce the unhappiness, because brethren there was a major fly in the ointment. It will become very apparent what the fly in the ointment was, and we have to learn from this, what Solomon went through.

Ecclesiastes 2:4-6 I made my works great, I built myself houses, and planted myself vineyards. I made myself gardens and orchards, and I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made myself water pools from which to water the growing trees of the grove.

Ecclesiastes 2:9 So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me.

There is no doubt in my mind that Solomon believed in God, but there is also no doubt from what is revealed in this book that the depth of his belief was not all that great. I believe that God ensured that all of these I's, me's, my's, and myself’s were inserted so that we might discern the driving force of his motivation. These were not public projects, given for the benefit of the citizens of his kingdom that he might share God’s great blessings with them. They were private projects for his own benefit, that he might derive pleasure from them.

And there we have it once again—doing things for the self. His motivation for doing these things was not pure. With that kind of motivation it is not going to produce the level of pleasure, of happiness, of satisfaction out of life. Because as I mentioned before, in God's selfless-centered universe, of which God is at the very center of, it is those things that are done with selflessness that get His attention and bring the blessings of the Spirit and the joy and the fulfillment of life from Him. From whom those blessings flow and only He can give.

As long as we are driven in the way that Solomon was, it is going to turn out to be unfulfilling, a lot of work, and it is one of those things if we could just think of all of the things that he did build, there was no doubt a great deal of joy in the accomplishment of them. And you know how that is, men and women, when you are building something making something, producing something, you are pleased, and that is God’s blessing, but when it is over, is there going to be that kind of feeling carried through? The answer is no unless the motivation is correct. It is successful work that brings a right sense of balance to our lives as we are accomplishing.

Maybe you remember Harriet Beecher Stowe, she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Her father was a minister, and he left this quote behind, and I think that it fits what we are talking about here in Ecclesiastes 2. Henry Ward Beecher said, "Success [and Solomon had success in these building projects] is full of promise until men get it, and then it is a last year’s nest from which the birds have flown."

That is what happened to Solomon. When he was done, he was empty. "What have I done?" It did not give him the pleasure he expected as he was doing the work. And so we see this.

Ecclesiastes 2:10-11 Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor; and this was my reward from all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun.

Now God made sure that the honesty was there for you and me to understand that accomplishments are great while we are doing them, building them, succeeding in them. But if the motivation does not have a pretty good measure of selflessness in it, then it is going to leave us with an empty feeling because God will not back that to the fullest, because the sense of well being is something that flows from Him to us, by His Spirit.

So we can thank God for the honesty that is here. I am sure that Solomon still had quite a measure of it in him, but God made sure that he put it in the book so that we can see that when we make our choices, we have got to think these things through. We have got to meditate, life is serious.

God is watching—and He is not watching over us for the purpose of hitting us over the head with a crowbar or anything like that—because He wants us to see. And He wants to see so that His judgment is correct and that He will make the right moves to move us in the right direction in terms of our thinking. Because He really wants us to make right choices and to be pleased with the results of them.

Now let us go on:

Ecclesiastes 2:12-17 Then I turned myself to consider wisdom and madness and folly; for what can the man do who succeeds the king?—Only what he has already done. Then I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness. The wise man’s eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. Yet I myself perceived that the same event happens to them all. So I said in my heart, “As it happens to the fool, it also happens to me, and why was I then more wise?” Then I said in my heart, “This also is vanity.” For there is no more remembrance of the wise than of the fool forever, since all that now is will be forgotten in the days to come. And how does a wise man die? As the fool! Therefore I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind.

Now as you probably perceived already, Solomon turns to a different area of life and consideration. When he says I turned myself to consider, it means that he considered things from a different viewpoint. See he made a conclusion there in verse 11, and then he decided to look at things from a different angle, and he did this of course, thinking: "Well maybe there was something along the way that I missed, that I overlooked, and maybe if I look at it from this side why I’ll find out what it is, or there or I will move over here and look at it."

You can see that all through this book Solomon is analyzing and reaching conclusions, and sometimes the conclusions are a little bit different than they were at first. And so we can thank Solomon for his dogged persistence in looking for answers, which drove him to do something that most of us have experienced when were looking for something.

What do we do when we are looking for something and we cannot seem to find it? We will probably stop and think for a while—“I think I’ll go back there again and I’m going to look at it again, maybe there was something, a paper or whatever, that I forgot to turn over and if I just turn that over then I’m going to find what it is that I’m looking for.”

If we miss it the second time, we may even go back the third or fourth time. Ask Evelyn, she is always following up on me because I never seem to find something and she finds it right away. A different set of eyes. But she is more persistent, and better at that than I am. I am always so busy, that is my excuse.

But this is the way we operate. If we miss something we go back and look at it again, and hopefully the second time around or the third time around we finally get it.

Solomon said that he wanted to examine wisdom and madness and folly, as the King James Version says. However one part of it is a little bit mistranslated. The madness and folly is a figure of speech called hendiadys, in which two terms express a single idea.

So madness and folly is actually one term and it is better translated, mad folly.

Now why should this be understood? It is because if we are analyzing and meditating on these things, Solomon wanted to examine two opposing realities, not three.

He did not want madness and folly and wisdom, he wanted to evaluate wisdom and mad folly. So he was studying the difference between right ways and wrong ways so that he and those that would hear him would clearly understand the choices that are before us. Now in this case being examined, there is only one right way and one wrong way. There is the right way and the wrong way.

In verse 12 his desire to understand this is directly stated. The last half of verse 12 requires a bit more explanation.

“For what can the man do who succeeds the king?—Only what he has already done"

That is it. In this specific case, Solomon wants everybody reading what he wrote, or listening to what he heard following the testing that he is doing, because he does not want to have them have to repeat the same kind of analysis that he is making.

He is saying here, "why repeat what I have already done. Accept my answer. You are not going to get a different answer.

Verse 13 provides a glimmer of hope to Solomon in his otherwise dreary report. In it he perceives that despite all the vanity that he sees in life, wisdom provides a goodly major advantage over foolishness as one lives his life. Let us look at the wording there.

Ecclesiastes 2:13-14 Then I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness. The wise man’s eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. Yet I myself perceived that the same event happens to them all [whether you are wise or whether you are foolish].

In this verse he perceives that despite all the vanity he sees in life, that wisdom provides a good measure of advantage over foolishness as one lives life.

Now recall that figuratively light represents truth, and truth opens the door to wisdom. And so Solomon uses light and darkness to illustrate his conclusion, stating that it is far more advantageous to be in the light than in darkness.

Now think of this in a practical situation, even if we are in familiar territories in our own home, where we supposedly know where everything is, see, but it is really dark in the house, its very likely that we will still run into things. Even in familiar territory! We might even possibly get injured, even though we thought that we knew our way around.

By saying that one in the light has eyes in his head, he is saying that the person with wisdom not only has light, but he also has vision which imparts understanding or discernment. This is important. If one has light, and remember light is truth, even when you are in a dark situation where you do not know your way around very well, if you are wise, you not only have eyes in your head, you can envision what might happen.

This morning Dr. Maas was talking about man being reflective, self-reflective. This enables us to come to answers, to envision end results, because there are an awful lot of situations in life where we do not really know the answers. In fact, that happens really often. But if our eyes are in the head because there is wisdom in our minds, then we can begin to envision a good course of action that will lead to the best possible solution, and that is why wisdom is better.

Even though it may not be perfect, it is going to be far more sure than the other way. And so the wise person, the one who is thinking about the creator God and his eyes are in his head, he is then going to do what? He is going to take the safe course of action regardless. He has got to make a move, but he is going to make the safest move that he knows that God would approve of, because the end result is going to be better.

Even though not perfect, it is going to be better than if he just plunges ahead, regardless.

So it is a statement from Solomon urging caution when you get into a situation where you do not really know your way. That is why the wise survive and build and have better results than those who just plunge on ahead and gamble with life.

These proverbs here are linked in principle to this choosing the right course of action, the one that is safest that you know of.

Proverbs 10:1 A wise son makes a glad father [because that son is going to bring honor and glory to the family name], but a foolish son [one that is making unwise choices all the time and plunging into irresponsible thing,] is the grief of his mother [brings shame to the family name, and gambles with his heritage].

Proverbs 10:8 The wise in heart will receive commands, but a prating fool will fall.

Wisdom is better. He will receive commands and take the counsel that is given.

Proverbs 15:21 Folly is joy to him who is destitute of discernment, but a man of understanding walks uprightly.

Because those who are foolish—mad folly—their eyes are not in their head, they cannot discern. They just plunge on.

Proverbs 29:3 Whoever loves wisdom makes his father rejoice, but a companion of harlots wastes his wealth.

It is folly.

Ecclesiastes 2:18-23 Then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity. Therefore I turned my heart and despaired of all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun. For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill; yet he must leave his heritage to a man who has not labored for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. For what has man for all his labor, and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun? For all his days are sorrowful, and his work burdensome; even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity.

Now that one there is fairly easily seen. At this point Solomon is truly frustrated because even one of his intelligence could not figure out this point. But let me warn you here, as we go on in the book, that coming to an acceptance of what he is talking about here is a major point of growth for everyone of us.

What is he talking about? He is talking about his own death. He did not like to think that he was going to die and what he accomplished was very likely going to go to a son, probably he was speaking of Rehoboam here, I do not know. But he probably already discerned that Rehoboam was not really going to be very much of a good ruler over what he was going to leave him. Do you know what he left him? A mountain of debt. That is really weird, but that is what the Bible shows us. And even the debt that he left, Rehoboam wasted it!

I want to leave you with this little bit of a summary of these two chapters we have gone through.

What Solomon has done as he is laying the foundation is declare four arguments. All four of those arguments appear to show that life is vanity and not worth living. Now here are the things that he addressed in very short order:

1. The monotony of life is vanity. You might remember the beginning of chapter 1 how everything is cyclical, monotonous. “The wind blows to the north… the wind blows to the side, all the water runs into the sea, and yet the sea is never full.”

2. The vanity of wisdom. A person accumulates a great deal of wisdom and it turns out to be vanity too!

3. Here is a man who did not have to work, in terms of earning an income, we will say. He was wealthy beyond belief, but his third argument is: the futility of wealth! What does wealth really get somebody? Not much!

4. The certainty of death (which we are just getting into). No matter how much one accomplishes in the accumulation of knowledge, of wisdom, of understanding, of wealth, experience in the world, getting right and good answers, making right choices—even when you make right choices—we are still going to die, and that one puzzled him for a good while. You will find as we go through, he brings it up, I believe 7 different times! It was a hard one for him to grasp! Why die?! But there is a reason for death. God has it in His purpose that everybody has to face death.

He could keep us alive. But no. He has decided everybody has to face death. I will give you the answer. Because if we really believe in the way God does, that death is necessary, you and I are going to get ourselves prepared for the Kingdom of God before we die, because that is it. It is the finish line.

And if we are wise we are going to be ready. This is what the book of Ecclesiastes is about. It is about getting ready for death, so we can be in the Kingdom of God and as we go along, we make the right choices that build the right things along the way, and our choices are right and good.

What a book brethren!

JWR/slb/drm