A study of the Book of Ecclesiastes
Finding Satisfaction In Life
Sermon # 3
“When All You Have Ever Wanted Is Not Enough”
Ecclesiastes 2:1-11
In the light of the title of this message, “When all you have ever wanted is not enough” I want to begin by asking some very simple questions but with very difficult answers. 1). Are you happy? 2).What is it that will finally make you happy? 3). When will you finally be happy?
So many people live under the false hope of “I will be happy when…..!” Every one of us has some-thing or some set of circumstances in the back of our mind that we anticipate will make us happy. We assume that once we achieved this, experienced this, once we have accomplished this, then we will be satisfied and finally be happy!
If you have lived this life very long you probably can look back at your life at some point and see that at some point you thought you would be happy if you just accomplished this or acquired that. And so you worked with that end in mind and upon attaining it did not provide the lasting happiness that you thought it would bring. Peter Kreeft says this kind of living is like a “wild goose chase, without the goose.” So you keep working harder and harder to make more money, climb the corporate ladder, pursue new relationships, with hope that then we finally find satisfaction and be happy. All the while missing out on the blessings of what we already have.
I read a story about a rich American businessman while vacationing in Mexico who was disturbed to find a fisherman just sitting lazily beside his boat. "Why aren't you out there fishing?" he asked. "Because I've caught enough fish for today," said the fisher-man. "Why don't you catch more fish than you need?" the rich man asked. "What would I do with them?" "You could earn more money," came the impatient reply, "and buy a better boat so you could go deeper and catch more fish. You could purchase better nets, catch even more fish, and make more money. Soon you'd have a fleet of boats and be rich like me." The fisherman asked, "Then what would I do?" "You could sit down and enjoy life," said the industrialist. "What do you think I'm doing now?" the fisherman replied.
The first chapter revealed Solomon as he looked for the meaning of life in wisdom (gaining more and more knowledge) and having found no satisfaction there he turns to a new pursuit of meaning of life. We have a modern term for this it is called hedonism. Hedonism is the principle that pleasure is the sole or chief good in life and the pursuit of it is the ideal aim of conduct.
Solomon describes the search that he is going to go on. It is a quest for pleasure. He is searching for relief from the futility of life through pleasure. He actually catalogues for us the different ways in which he pursued pleasure. He gives us the possibilities that he investigated; alcohol, comedy, self-motivated building projects, entertainment, servants, music and sex. Solomon had everything necessary to carry out his grand experiment. He had almost unlimited resources, money, and time.
Solomon begins by saying, “I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure” (v. 1). Everything included in this brief statement is of importance. “I said in my heart” it does not seem that Solomon in any way looked for divine counsel. An important word, which gets repeated in every single verse, is the word “I”. There are so much “me, myself and I” in these verses we come to under-stand that this pursuit of pleasure is all for himself. Solomon says, “I will test” indicates that that what follows is a deliberate experiment, a deliberate attempt to discern from personal experience.
We of course have many contemporary examples of individuals who lived lives devoted to pleasure; Kurt Cobain, River Phoenix, Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix. All of them sought pleasure and all of them died young.
Let’s examine the various avenues that Solomon used in the pursuit of the meaning of life.
First, The Pursuit of Pleasure. (2:1-3)
“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.”
• The Facets Examined.
The pleasures of laughter, alcohol and music.
Laughter
Concerning laughter he said it is “madness” – not in the sense of something insane, but rather of something that is evil. An examination of much of what passes for comedy in our day, is in fact morally perverse. (not all of it, there is a kind of joyful laughter –Proverbs 31:25). But a lot of the jokes are frivolous, profane, cynical and even cruel.
Alcohol
Solomon is not saying the intended to get plastered. He means that his consummation of alcohol will be a controlled experiment. He not be giving himself over to drunkenness but drinking in moderation and then thoughtfully assessing the experience. It is interesting to note that Solomon also wrote Proverbs 20:1, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.”
Music- (8b)
Down in the second part of verse eight Solomon says, “I provided for myself male and female singers.” Music was a rare pleasure in those days. But Solomon could afford to bring into his own home. Performing for the king would be only the very best. Your life literally depended on it.
• The False Promises of Pleasure.
The Law Of Unfulfilled Expectations.
Enjoyment will decrease unless the intensity of the pleasure increases. There is always the thought that getting the next thing would do it. You thought that getting more would do it, and then it didn't, and then where do you go? You see, Solomon is saying, “Don't think that the next thing will do it; don't think that the more will do it, because I had the next thing and I had the more, and it didn't do it.”
The Law Of Diminishing Returns.
And there are some–they got it and they liked it and then they got bored with it. It kind of didn't do the same thing for them three years later; it was boring. And the thing that you once craved and delighted in becomes boring.
Take the addiction to Meth as an example. The usage of meth causes the brain to release a large amount of the neurotransmitter dopamine which leads to a prolonged pleasurable experience. While initially pleasurable, repeated usage of meth depletes the stores of dopamine in the brain and obliterates the wiring of the dopamine receptors. In turn, meth users become addicted to meth because the naturally-occurring dopamine is no longer available and they are unable to experience feelings of pleasure. [Meth Abuse & Addiction Signs, Effects & Symptoms -hwww.acadianaaddiction.com/meth/symptoms-signs-effects/Symptoms]
The Law Of Unintended Consequences.
As you are pursuing pleasure, and ignoring the restraints instituted by God for our good, you discover that along with that pleasure came something that you thought never ever would happen. “I didn't realize that pursuit of pleasure would cost me my family, my children. I didn't know that that pursuit of pleasure would cost me my church, my job, my community.” Pleasure is a liar and a trickster and a cheat.
From the pursuit of pleasure he moved on to …
Second, The Pursuit of Projects. (2:4-7)
“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.”
There is of course satisfaction in designing and building things. But what happens when the task is completed. One example of this extreme is the Winchester Mystery House. The Winchester Mystery House is a mansion in San Jose, California which was once the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Wirt Winchester. The building starting in 1884, the property and mansion were claimed by many, including Winchester herself, to be haunted by the ghosts of those killed with Winchester rifles. Under Sarah Winchester's day-to-day guidance, its "from-the-ground-up" construction proceeded around the clock, by some accounts, without interruption, for the next 38 years, until her death on September 5, 1922. The house is a maze of rooms, doors that open to blank walls, staircases that go nowhere, all in order to just keep building. There are roughly 160 rooms, - 40 bedrooms, 2 ballrooms (one completed and one unfinished) as well as 47 fireplaces, over 10,000 panes of glass, 17 chimneys (with evidence of two others), two basements and three elevators all without any real purpose (other than the hope that it would confuse ghosts).
Solomon however has a purpose in his construction projects, he hope to find purpose in life. The scope of his works seen in the fact that everything he lists in the plural. Solomons’s building and landscape projects were great projects – but the list is self-serving his works are not for the public for himself alone. In verses 4-6, “I made myself” is repeated four times, it is obvious that this were not public works for the people to enjoy but built entirely for his own enjoyment.
Some of Solomon projects were his house (1 Kings 7:1 “Solomon took thirteen years to build his own house); cities (2 Chron.8:4-6); gardens; vineyards; orchards; forests; & the watering systems needed to serve them. According to (1 Kings 7) his palace included; the cedar-pillared House of the Forest of Lebanon, perhaps an audience hall, a treasury or strong room, the Judgment Hall where Solomon's magnificent ivory throne stood, a special palace for the daughter of Pharaoh, Solomon's most high-born wife, and living quarters for Solomon's multitude of wives and children.
It seems odd that in his list of all his building projects he does not mention the biggest, most historically significant thing he built – the Temple in Jerusalem. The account in 1 Kings tells us it took him seven years to build the Temple – yet it took him twice that long to build his palace. The Temple was built for the glory of God – the palace was built for the glory of Solomon.
From the pursuit of projects he moved on to …
Third, The Pursuit of Possessions. (2:8)
“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.”
We read about Solomon’s incredible wealth in 1 Kings 10:14-29 – the word gold is repeated fourteen times in this chapter. In verse one of chapter ten of first Kings its says, “The weight of gold that came to Solomon yearly was six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold,” and then in verse twenty-one it says, “All King Solomon's drinking vessels were gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. Not one was silver, for this was accounted as nothing in the days of Solomon.” (1 Kings 10:1, 21) 666 talents of gold each year is equal to twenty-five tons of gold annually, which he used primarily for himself.
The Bedroom (Sex)
The last part of verse eight is a difficult one because the Hebrew word does not occur elsewhere in the Bible. He says he has the “delights of the sons of men” which is variously translated by some as “concubines” (RSV) and “harem” (NIV) by others. Concubines were for sexual pleasure only. Here he speaks of many concubines but 1 Kings 11 gives us the raw statistics – seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. Solomon’s interest in sensual pleasure illustrates the simple truth: You cannot mean business for God and live for the flesh at the same time! Jesus warned in the Sermon the Mount, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matt. 6:24)
From the pursuit of possessions he moved on to …
Fourth, The Pursuit of Prominence (2:9-11)
“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.”
It seems strange that at the very time that he is living the lifestyle of the rich and famous he says his wisdom remained with him (v. 9). “Obviously he could not be talking about the kind of wisdom that begins with the fear of God. Maybe he is referring to his raw intelligence – he was still as smart as ever. More likely, he meant he was still serious about conducting his experiment, about testing his heart to see whether pleasure would show him the meaning of life.” [Philip Graham Ryken. “Ecclesiastes: Why Everything Matters.” (Wheaton, ILL: Crossway, 2010) p. 50]
In verse eleven he says, “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.”
The verb translated “look” or “consider” (pana) literally means to look someone or something right in the eye. He uses a term “indeed” which is emphatic and means “behold.” So Solomon is saying that he faced up to his situation and his life as it really was, and he found it only transitory and meaningless. He found no lasting satisfaction. And reason is that is how God designed us. If were able to find lasting satisfaction in earthly pleasure, we would never recognize our need for God. This is why Ecclesiastes is in the Bible, it is not to make us depressed or discourage us but to drive us back to God.
Conclusion
The lesson that Solomon would have us learn is the Biblical solution to hedonism and the pursuit of pleasure is not to renounce pleasure, but to seek pleasure in God. In the language of the prophet Jeremiah, the lesson is to turn from drinking from the “broken cisterns that can hold no water” to the Lord, “the fountain of living waters” (Jeremiah 2:23) The promise given by the Lord, is that if one drinks from him, the water that quenches our thirst forever, a spring welling up to eternal life. (John 4:13-14)
“The last thing I believe Jesus says to every person in this world who has sold out to pleasure is ‘I will help.’ He helps like no other. “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6-8- NASB)….How does do that? He adopts us….. You may have never noticed it, but the classified sections of most big city newspapers have a section called ‘Adoptions.” It does not announce who has been adopted, but who want to adopt. Couples who do not have children advertise to pregnant women who may be considering giving their child up. Listen to three of these entries: ‘California doctor-dad, at home mom wish to adopt newborn. Will provide love, security, and opportunity. Call Steve and Elaine.’ And another one; ‘Desire baby to adopt. Outdoorsman dad, stay-at-home mom, one crazy dog, wish to provide love and financial security and a great home to your newborn.’ Then this one: ‘Adoption. Joan, a Texas elementary art teacher. David, a success-ful professional, wish to adopt your baby and provide a wonderful life filled with love and stability. Will share photos through the years. Please call.’ Do they touch your heart the way they do mine?” [Ed Young. “Been There Done That Now What?” (Nashville; Broadman, 1994) pp. 48-49] What Jesus promises is not temporary gratification but lasting joy. He promises a place with Him, in whose presence is fullness of joy forever.
“When All You Have Ever Wanted Is Not Enough”
Ecclesiastes 2:1-11
First, The Pursuit of Pleasure. (2:1-3)
•The Facets Examined.
Laughter (Proverbs 31:25).
Alcohol (Proverbs 20:1)
Music
•The False Promises of Pleasure.
The Law Of Unfulfilled Expectations.
The Law Of Diminishing Returns.
The Law Of Unintended Consequences.
Second, The Pursuit of Projects. (2:4-7)
His palace (1 Kings 7:1); cities (2 Chron.8:4-6); gardens; vineyards; orchards; forests; & the watering systems.
Third, The Pursuit of Possessions. (2:8)
Solomon’s incredible wealth (1 Kings 10:14-29)
Fourth, The Pursuit of Prominence. (2:9-11)
“When all you have ever wanted is not enough”
Ecclesiastes 2:1-11
First, The Pursuit of _________________________. (2:1-3)
•The Facets Examined.
______________________ (Proverbs 31:25).
_____________________ (Proverbs 20:1)
________________
•The False Promises of Pleasure.
The Law Of Unfulfilled _________________________.
The Law Of __________________ Returns.
The Law Of Unintended ________________________.
Second, The Pursuit of ______________________. (2:4-7)
His palace (1 Kings 7:1); cities (2 Chron.8:4-6); gardens; vineyards; orchards; forests; & the watering systems.
Third, The Pursuit of __________________________. (2:8)
Solomon’s incredible wealth (1 Kings 10:14-29)
Fourth, The Pursuit of _____________________________. (2:9-11)
