On June 5, 1965, the Rolling Stones released their single “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” which went on to be their first number one hit in the U.S. The song was a response to the rampant commercialism that the band had observed in America. But the idea behind the song was certainly nothing new. When Qoheleth wrote the book of Ecclesiastes well over 2,000 years earlier, he expressed that same idea. Let’s read his version of “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.”
1 I said in my heart, "Come now, I will test you with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure"; but surely, this also was vanity. 2 I said of laughter - "Madness!"; and of mirth, "What does it accomplish?" 3 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. 4 I made my works great, I built myself houses, and planted myself vineyards. 5 I made myself gardens and orchards, and I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. 6 I made myself water pools from which to water the growing trees of the grove. 7 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. 8 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. 9 So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me.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 from all my labor.11 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.
In this section, Qoheleth continues to address the question he asked all the way back at the beginning of Chapter 1:
What profit has a man from all his labor in which he toils under the sun?
Ecclesiastes 1:3 (NKJV)
The author has already answered that question implicitly by describing how man is unable to even influence the cycles of nature that God has put into place, no matter how hard they might try. And then he went on to describe how man’s attempt to gain wisdom and knowledge apart from God only produces grief and sorrow. Here at the beginning of chapter 2, Qoheleth expands his search for the answer to his question.
In order to answer that question, Qoheleth engages in an intellectual exercise to explore whether the pursuit of joy and pleasure provide man with any profit in this life “under the sun” here on earth. It is important that we understand up front that it is not so much that Qoheleth is put to the test with pleasure, but rather that pleasure is put to the test by Qoheleth. The author is careful to point out at both the beginning and end of this discourse that his wisdom remained with him throughout this experiment. There is no evidence here that Qoheleth gave himself over to wanton self-indulgence in pleasure. Instead, he makes it clear that this evaluation is something that takes place in his mind – probably as he looks back over his life and thinks about whether or not he had found satisfaction in his pursuit of pleasure.
We find the answer to that question right up front. Qoheleth begins with his conclusion in verse 1: “this also is vanity”. It is the same conclusion that he will repeat again at the end of this section in verse 11. In the intervening verses, he goes on to describe the process by which he came to that conclusion.
Once again, we can’t be sure whether or not this is a firsthand account by Solomon or merely the author taking on his persona, but Solomon certainly comes to mind as we read this passage. Much of the description of what the author achieved and acquired echoes that which we know of Solomon’s reign from the accounts in 1 Kings 3-11. He constructed buildings, had many slaves, engaged in relationships with a large number of women and amassed much wealth. But once again, the lessons that we can learn and the principles that we can glean from this passage really aren’t dependent upon the identity of the author. Many, even in our culture today, have embarked on the same path that we find described here in this passage.
So let’s see how we can apply the lessons that Qoheleth learned from his quest to see if there is any profit in pursuing joy and pleasure.
1. Man’s attempt to create joy through his own efforts is vapor
In much the same way that we discovered last week, this passage takes us all the way back to Genesis and the beginning of creation. God created Adam and Eve and they had perfect joy. They didn’t need to seek out pleasure because they found all their joy in their relationship with their Creator. They didn’t need to build a house, because God had provided them with shelter. They didn’t need to plant gardens or build pools to water the gardens because God had already done all that on their behalf. They didn’t need to seek out others for their physical pleasure because God had made them one.
But when sin entered into the world, that all changed. For the first time they experienced shame and they fled from God:
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
Genesis 3:7, 8 (NIV)
As a result of their sin, Adam and Eve were not only removed from the Garden, but they would now have to work to provide for themselves all that God had originally provided for them:
So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
Genesis 3:23 (NIV)
And ever since that time, man has been trying, by his own efforts, to re-create that which he had before the fall. Qoheleth had certainly engaged in that kind of effort. Not only had he built a great palace in which to live, he had also planted gardens and orchards and developed pools to provide for the watering of that which he had planted. The word that is translated “orchard” here is quite interesting. In other translations, it is rendered “park”. This word is related to the Persian word for an “enclosed place” from which we derive our English word “paradise”. The Greek equivalent of that word is used three times in the New Testament – each time referring to heaven. So what we see here is man’s effort to create “heaven on earth” and then to populate that world with the king’s own people – male and female slaves and their descendents.
But this superhuman effort to imitate God’s original creation could never possibly duplicate the kind of joy that Adam and Eve experienced before the fall. I’m sure that at first Qoheleth experienced a great sense of accomplishment and even some temporary happiness. But he soon came to understand that any joy that resulted from all his toil was merely a “vapor”. It was only temporary and fleeting – as frustrating as trying to herd the wind.
Those who live for pleasure find out very quickly just how true it is that their attempts to create joy through their own efforts are vapor. Whether they try to find joy in alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, money or possessions, there quickly comes a point where they become a source of bondage rather than a source of joy. Over a period of time, people find less enjoyment in all these things, so they need more and more to provide them with the same degree of enjoyment. That’s how people eventually become addicted to these substances and behaviors. And the end result is that they not only hurt themselves, but they have a negative impact on the lives of those around them.
2. Man’s attempts to produce an advantage for himself is vapor
You can’t read verses 4-10 without immediately recognizing that this entire section is dominated by the words “I”, “me”, “my” and “myself”. In fact, these words are often used together to emphasize the self-centered nature of Qoheleth’s efforts:
• I built myself
• I planted myself
• I made myself
• I acquired for myself
This is the very attitude that Jesus addressed as He shared this parable with His disciples:
And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ’What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ’This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’ But God said to him, ’You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."
Luke 12:16-21 (NIV)
You’ll notice that Jesus never condemned this man for being rich. He didn’t condemn him for working hard and producing a good crop. He didn’t even condemn him for being industrious and building bigger barns to store the bountiful crop. But what He did condemn was the man’s attitude of hoarding the abundance that God had given him for his own selfish uses.
As we will see in a moment, and will continue to see throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, there is nothing wrong with having joy in the fruit of our labor. In fact, later in the book Qoheleth will describe the ability to enjoy the fruits of our labor as “a gift from God”. The Bible also consistently commends the value of hard work and condemns sloth and laziness. But when we toil for the express purpose of trying to satisfy our own selfish desires, we find that all that effort is nothing but “vapor”. That’s exactly the point Jesus is making in His parable. The rich farmer was storing up all his crops, but it would do him absolutely no good at all when he died that very night.
As Qoheleth looked back on all his toil and efforts, he recognized that nothing he had done had provided him with any profit or advantage in his life “under the sun”. That conclusion had to be quite a shock for his readers. I think they must have viewed Solomon in much the same way that we look at someone like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet and think that surely they must be happy with all that they have accomplished and all their wealth. But if not even Solomon created a profit or advantage with his accomplishments and wealth, certainly no one else could possibly hope to do so.
Every year Americans spend over $50 billion trying to produce an advantage for themselves by winning the lottery. But only a small fraction of those who participate beat the astronomical odds and win the big jackpots. And even those who win find that any joy that they might get is only vapor.
In his March 2007 appearance on Good Morning America, psychologist Steve Danish, a professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University, who has studied the impact of instant wealth on lottery winners, remarked:
The dream you have about winning may be better than the actuality of winning," he said. "There have been families that have just -- just been torn apart by this process.
He went on to cite these examples:
• Kenneth and Connie Parker were winners of a $25 million jackpot. Their 16-year marriage disintegrated just months after they became rich beyond their wildest dreams.
• Jeffrey Dampier, a $20 million winner, was kidnapped and murdered by his own sister-in-law.
• In 2002, Jack Whittaker won the largest individual payout in U.S. lottery history. "I can take the money," Whittaker said at the time. "I can take this much money and do a lot of good with this much money right now." But it didn’t work out like that. Whittaker’s life was consumed by hardship, including the death of his beloved granddaughter Brandi, who was a victim of a drug overdose, and the breakup of his marriage. "If I knew what was going to transpire, honestly, I would have torn the ticket up," said Jewell Whittaker, Jack Whittaker’s ex-wife.
So far, this is a pretty sobering passage. But there is something positive that Qoheleth learned from his reflections.
3. Joy comes from the journey, not the destination
At the end of verse 10 Qoheleth makes this observation:
For my heart rejoiced in all my labor; And this was my reward from all my labor.
There was a reward in all that Qoheleth had done. But I think that he was surprised to find exactly what that reward was. There was no profit or advantage in the end result of his work. All that he had built – the buildings, the gardens, the parks, the pools – could never re-create the grandeur of God’s original creation. So there was no joy there. All the people he had at his disposal – his slaves, his wives, his concubines – may have provided a few moments of fleeting pleasure, but there was no lasting joy there either.
So Qoheleth, and by extension all of us, might be tempted to conclude that God doesn’t really want us to have any joy here in our life “under the sun”. But both Qoheleth will ultimately reject that conclusion, and he has ample support in the rest of Scripture. For instance, Paul addresses that same issue in his letter to Timothy:
Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
1 Timothy 6:17 (NIV)
Certainly the first part of that verse would confirm everything we’ve talked about so far this morning. We are not to put our hope in our material possessions, because, by themselves, they do not provide lasting joy. But, as the last part of the verse makes clear, God does want His children to experience joy here on earth. But that can only happen when we put our hope in God rather than in the things He provides for our enjoyment. As we saw last week, we have to resist the urge to worship the gift rather than the Giver of the gift.
What Qoheleth discovered, I’m sure quite to his surprise, was that the joy he experienced was in the labor itself. It was in the journey, and not in the destination that he found lasting joy. Once again, Paul reaffirms this principle in the New Testament:
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
Colossians 3:23, 24 (NIV)
Paul also writes of a reward that we receive as a result of our work. Part of that is certainly our future inheritance – the rewards we will receive one day from Jesus as we stand before Him at the bema. But there is also a reward in this life – the joy of the journey itself.
What Qoheleth and Paul both discovered is that joy comes from receiving life as a gift from God and avoiding the temptation to try and somehow manipulate and exploit that life in order to try and gain some kind of profit or advantage here on earth in our life “under the sun”.
Paul gives us some really practical advice on how we can do that. We need to make sure that everything we do is an act of serving God. This is a principle that we can certainly apply to every area of our lives:
• In our families – Do I love and serve the needs of the members of my family because I understand that God is using me in the process of developing them to be fully committed followers of Jesus? When I view my role like that, then even changing a dirty diaper can bring me joy.
• In our work – In my work do I serve the needs of those whom God has created? I’m convinced that the answer to that question is the key to finding joy in our work. Every one of us needs to think about our work and how we’re serving the needs of others, including those of my co-workers.
• In our community – As I interact with my neighbors, with the clerk at the grocery store, with my teachers, and others that I come into contact with every day, am I being an effective ambassador for Jesus?
• In our church – Am I truly loving the other members of the body? Am I praying for them and helping to meet their needs? Am I supporting them as they minister in our community?
It is indeed possible to have abundant joy in our life here on earth. But that is only possible if we learn to enjoy life as a gift from God and find our joy in the journey itself rather than view our lives as the means to try and gain some kind of advantage or profit for ourselves.
It’s kind of like taking a trip in a car. We can keep asking, “Are we there yet?” every five minutes and be miserable. Or we can enjoy the journey itself – the scenery, the conversation, the time for reading or reflection – and find joy in the journey.
The same thing is true in life. We can constantly look around at the world around us and keep asking, “Am I there yet? Have I made enough money? Do I have a big enough house? Do I have enough alcohol, drugs, sex, or entertainment to find pleasure?” And the reply will always be the same – “I can’t get no satisfaction.” Or we can just enjoy the journey, thanking God for the gift of life and serving Him in return.
Which path are you on?
