Uncontrolled Appetites Series

Uncontrolled Appetites

Ecclesiastes 6:1-12

Rev. Brian Bill

September 14-15, 2024

Several years ago, Beth and I watched a season of “Alone,” which took place in the Arctic. The show tests the survival instincts of humans by pushing them to their limits in extreme conditions while isolating them from others. In Season 7, anyone who lasted 100 days would receive $1 million. One man, who was struggling with the horrible weather, lack of food, and missing his family, finally tapped out. As he contemplated turning his back on one million dollars, he made this startling statement: “I realized everything I want I already have!” He pulled out of the competition and went home to his family.

Here’s a question. How can you become satisfied in every situation so you can say, “Everything I want I already have?” You might want to lean forward to hear the answer because it’s a secret: God has so ordered the world and your personal circumstances that no matter what situation you are in right now, you have everything you truly need to be content.

As we’ve been learning in Ecclesiastes, it’s a myth that you always need more.

Capitalizing on our inherent dissatisfaction, the worldwide marketing machine spends approximately $250 billion annually to make us unhappy with who we are, what we have, how we look, and what we do.

• In the 1970s, the average person viewed between 500-1,600 ads per day.

• In 2007, an individual was exposed to approximately 5,000 ads daily.

• With the explosion of the internet and social media, studies now estimate up to 10,000 ads bombard us each day!

We’re being sold stuff all the time…and it’s not all that difficult to do because most of us are already dissatisfied due to our default setting of discontentment.

While some advertising is altruistic, it’s fair to say most advertising strives to influence us to spend money we do not have on things we do not need.

I’m reminded of something Will Rogers often said: “We buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t like.”

Today we come to the halfway mark of the Book of Ecclesiastes. Chapter 5 ends with a positive and upbeat focus as Solomon links the peace of Jehovah with the presence of joy as we saw in verse 20: “For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy.” I hope you’ve been occupied with joy this week by living in light of God’s good gifts to you. Let’s pray the prayer we were challenged to pray last week: “Heavenly Father, you are in charge of everything that is going to happen to me today, whether it is good or bad. Please make me to be occupied with joy so I can live on mission for you.”

As we come to chapter six, one would think Solomon would continue on a positive note, but instead, we come face-to-face with one of the darkest chapters in the Bible as he describes how dissatisfaction can literally decimate and derail our lives. Our uncontrolled appetites will end up consuming us.

Let’s stand and read Ecclesiastes 6:1-12: “There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: 2 a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity; it is a grievous evil. 3 If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life’s good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. 4 For it comes in vanity and goes in darkness, and in darkness its name is covered. 5 Moreover, it has not seen the sun or known anything, yet it finds rest rather than he. 6 Even though he should live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoy no good—do not all go to the one place? 7 All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied. 8 For what advantage has the wise man over the fool? And what does the poor man have who knows how to conduct himself before the living? 9 Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the appetite: this also is vanity and a striving after wind. 10 Whatever has come to be has already been named, and it is known what man is, and that he is not able to dispute with one stronger than he. 11 The more words, the more vanity, and what is the advantage to man? 12 For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow? For who can tell man what will be after him under the sun?