Empty Lives

THE EMPTYNESS OF LIFE WITHOUT GOD

TEXT: Eccl a 1:2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

INTRO: Concerning the ways of man, Solomon spoke with authority 1 Ki 10:23 So king Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth for riches and for wisdom.

1. Solomon had the power and position to try every thing his heart desired.

2. Satan’s lie is that if you could only have this one more possession or this one more pleasure or this one more bit of worldly wisdom, you would be happy.

But listen to the King who exceeded all the kings of the earth for wisdom! - "all is vanity."

The Hebrew word Vanity used here is ’HAB-ALE’ which means "emptiness or vanity; figuratively something transitory and unsatisfactory;"- Strong’s Hebrew dictionary

I/ LIFE WITHOUT GOD IS EMPTY BECAUSE LIFE IS TRANSITORY

Eccl 1:4 One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

Psa 90:10 The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

If you are now 35 - you have only 12,000 days left - But that is a snap of the finger compared to eternity. James 4:14b For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

The late President Kennedy never dreamed on Friday morning November 22, 1963 as he ate breakfast during the peak of his life, that by 2 o’clock that afternoon he would be in eternity.

Life is short even if it is not cut off as was President Kennedy’s. When I was young, I flight tested aircraft, and some of my close friends died doing the same thing. When I last saw them, they were

eager to do the job set before them for that day, then they were gone. Their airplane crashed and

burned. One day doing FCLP’s (Field Carrier Landing Practice) in the Navy, I saw the cadet in

front of me in the pattern, crash and burn. He was only 20 years old.

So what is worthwhile in life? Let me tell you a story of a young man that was saved at the Lincoln Baptist Church where I was pastor. He grew up in a broken home, dad had left, mom had died, he

lived in a old railroad boxcar. Washed dishes in café’s and cared for himself. Since he was so poor,

he had no friends had never traveled, and was often looked down on by society. He had experienced

very little love, honor, position or possessions. When he was 20 years old, he died of brain cancer.

I was asked to say a few words at his grave site. What could I say?

I thought of Solomon who had everything this world could offer, and Ray who had nothing of this

world. There was only a handful of people at his funeral. Then I realized that in his short empty

life, Ray found the most precious thing life had to offer: The Lord Jesus Christ! He was now living

in a mansion in heaven richer than us all.

The point is if you find Christ, you are immediately successful in life, but if you have all this world

has to offer, and do not find God through Christ, your life is "empty and unsatisfactory".

II/ LIFE WITHOUT GOD IS EMPTY BECAUSE KNOWLEDGE BRINGS NO PEACE

Eccl 1:16 I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.

Eccl 1:17 And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.

A/ Knowledge that does not recognize God brings "vexation of spirit".

For example, Intellectuals of our day, say that sometime in the ageless past, a single living cell arose by spontaneous generation or chance occurrence. And from this cell gradually evolved plants, multi-celled invertebrates, then fishes and insects, then amphibians, then reptiles, then birds and mammals and finally man.

The author of this theory was vexed in his spirit and said "why if species descended from other species by fine graduations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? As by the evolutionary theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them imbedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?"

Another Evolutionist named Wallace, must have been vexed in his spirit when he said, "The mental requirements of the lowest savages are very little above those of many animals. How then was an organ (the brain) developed so far beyond the needs of it’s possessor? Natural selection could only have endowed the savage with a brain a little superior to that of an ape, whereas he actually possesses one but very little inferior to that of the average members of our learned societies"