May the Lord teach us to number
our days and apply our hearts to wisdom. I want you to turn with me to
the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 1. Ecclesiastes chapter 1. The Holy Spirit of God, in 1
Kings 3, was pleased to give us an account of the
Lord speaking to a man named Solomon. 1 Kings 3, 5 says, in
Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night. And that's where God said, ask
me what I shall give thee. We read that account last week.
I won't read it again for the sake of time, but you know what
Solomon asked, he asked for wisdom. And the Lord said, because you
didn't ask for money, lands, your enemies, he said, I'm gonna
give you what you've asked. and will give you all the other
things you didn't ask for. And he did. In verse 15 of 1
Kings 3, Solomon awoke, and behold, it was a dream. And he came to
Jerusalem, and stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord,
and offered up burnt offerings, and offered peace offerings,
and made a feast to all his servants. The Lord had told him in a dream. He knew it was a dream, but the
Lord spoke to him. And after he woke up, he was
in Gibeon. He was in a place called Gibeon,
and he went to Jerusalem. And the reason he went to Jerusalem
was because, according to verse 15, he came to Jerusalem and
stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. He went there because that's
where the ark was. Well, just turn with me to Exodus
chapter 25. I want us to look at for a minute
concerning this ark. Exodus chapter 25. Exodus 25,
and I want us to read the account of what God told Moses to do
concerning this ark. Exodus 25, I'm gonna read verses
10 to 22, And they shall make an ark of shittum wood, two cubits
and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half
the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof.
Thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, within, without. Shalt
thou overlay it, thou shalt make upon it a crown of gold round
about. Thou shalt cast four rings of
gold for it. Put them in the four corners
thereof, the two rings shall be in one side, the two rings
in the other side of it. Thou shalt make staves of shittum
wood, overlay them with gold. Thou shalt put the staves into
the rings of the sides of the ark, that the ark may be borne
with them." Whenever God told the people to move, they were
going to bring the ark. And this is the way God said,
you're going to bring it. You bring it, you make it the way
I said make it, and you bring it the way I said bring it. The
staves shall be in the rings of the ark, they shall not be
taken from it. Thou shalt put into the ark the
testimony which I shall give thee. Thou shalt make a mercy
seat of pure gold, it's going to be the top, we're going to
make a top for it. Two cubits and a half shall be
the length thereof, a cubit and a half the breadth thereof. thou
shalt make two cherubims of gold of beaten work, shalt thou make
them in two ends of the mercy seat, and make one cherub on
one end, the other cherub on the other end, even of the mercy
seat, shalt thou make the cherubims on the two ends thereof, and
the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering
the mercy seat with their wings, with their faces shall, and their
faces shall look one to another toward the mercy seat, shall
be the faces of the cherubims. Be, thou shalt put the mercy
seat above upon the ark, and in the ark thou shalt put the
testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee,
and I will commune with thee, from above the mercy seat, from
between the two cherubims, which are upon the ark of the testimony
of all things, which I give thee in commandment unto the children
of Israel. Now, here's what the Lord told
him. I want you to make an ark, and
I want you to make a top for it. The top was the mercy seat. This was the ark of the covenant. according to Numbers 1033. He
was overlaid with gold, without, within, gold setting forth the
holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ in his essence as being God,
in his humanity as being man, God, man, mediator. And turn with me to Hebrews 9.
I'll tell you what was in that ark. Hebrews chapter 9. Within that ark, they were found
three things. God told Moses, I'll tell you
what to put in it. And the Spirit of God moved upon
the writer to Hebrews to tell us what was in it. Hebrews chapter
nine, verses three and four, after the second veil, the tabernacle,
which is called the holiest of all, which had the golden censer
and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein
was the golden pot that had manna and Aaron's rod that budded,
and the tables of the covenant. There was a pot, golden pot,
that had manna in it. When God let manna fall from
heaven, it had some of that. It had Aaron's rod that budded,
and then it had the two tables that God had given Moses that
second time. Two tables were in there. that
within that arc, there was the manna that set forth Christ,
the bread of heaven, he who is the food, the sustenance, the
life of his people. And then the rod, turn to Isaiah
11, I'll tell you what this is, I'm gonna read this. Isaiah chapter
11, that rod that budded, that rod that budded, Isaiah 11, I'll
read verses one to four. That rod that budded set forth
Christ and his humanity, the strength of God. This is the
strength of the Lord. Isaiah 11, there shall come forth
a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a branch, a capital B branch,
which shall grow out of his roots, and the Spirit of the Lord shall
rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom, understanding, the Spirit
of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear
of the Lord, and shall make him of quick understanding in the
fear of the Lord. He shall not judge after the
sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears,
but with righteousness shall he judge the poor. and reprove
with equity the meek of the earth. He shall smite the earth with
the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall
slay the wicked." Now who do you think he's talking about?
The Lord Jesus Christ. The rod the strength of the Lord. And then also in that ark was
the tables of the covenant, those tables which were written with
the finger of God, the expression of the demands of Almighty God
according to His law. Do and live. Break these and
you'll die. There was those two tablets,
but these two were kept. by God Almighty, the Lord Jesus
Christ, the God-man mediator. So the significance of Solomon
meeting in Jerusalem, going into Jerusalem where the ark was.
God said, that's where I'm gonna meet with you. That's where I'll
meet with you. I'll meet with you. And so in
this dream, he heard what the Lord said, and obviously the
spirit of God drew him to go to Jerusalem because the ark
was there, and there where the ark was. The Lord said, you build
this mercy seat, it's gonna be a top, and it's gonna have these
two cherubim, and they'll have their wings, and their faces
will be toward each other, and their wings, and it'll cover
over the Ark of the Covenant. So God said, I'll meet with you
above the cherubims. That's where I'm gonna meet,
that's where I'm gonna speak to His people. Now I'm gonna
make a few comments about these cherubims. Turn with me to Ezekiel. Ezekiel, I'll just read, I'll
read a few verses here and we'll, I want us to understand what
is going on here before we look at those first three verses in
Ecclesiastes. This is Solomon now, this is
who penned Song of Solomon and the Proverbs and now Ecclesiastes. God met with him in a dream,
spoke to him, he went to Jerusalem where the covenant, where the
ark was, Here was this ark, here was these cherubim. Let me show
you something of the significance of those cherubim. Ezekiel chapter
one, verse one, it came to pass in the 13th year, in the fourth
month, in the first day of the month, I was among the captives
by the river of Chebar. The heavens were opened and I
saw visions of God. He said in verse five, he's talking
about these visions, out of the midst thereof came the likeness
of four living creatures. And this was their appearance,
they had the likeness of a man. And then in verse 10 of chapter
one of Ezekiel, and the likeness of their faces, they four had
the face of a man, face of a lion, right side they had forehead,
the face of an ox on the left side, and they four also had
the face of an eagle. Now these cherubim, that's what
he said, these were these living creatures. I'm gonna show you
something, you can turn over to Ezekiel chapter 10, verse
20. I'm gonna show you who these
living creatures were. Ezekiel chapter 10. Verse 20, and this is what the
Spirit of God moved Ezekiel to say, this is the living creature
that I saw under the God of Israel by the river Chebar, and I knew
that they were the cherubims. Had four living creatures, face
of a man, face of a lion, face of an eagle, face of an ox. And these cherubim, These set forth the God, God
Almighty, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Four faces.
Face of a man, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God, and the Word was made flesh.
Here he is, four faces, setting forth. Almighty God in the symbolic
type and picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, and his blessed
person as the redeemer of his people. The ox, he's the sacrifice. The eagle under whose wings all
his people are kept. The face of a man in the face
of a lion, he who is the strength, the lion of Judah. And so Lord
told Moses, he said, you make this mercy seat and you put on
top of it the cherubims and you let their faces face toward each
other and I'll meet you above the cherubim. Where does God
meet with his people? One place, in the person of the
Lord Jesus Christ. So Solomon, a man chosen of God
to build the temple of God that a man that was blessed with wisdom
more than any man born in Adam, he who reigned as a king in Jerusalem,
this man that asked wisdom, he was gonna, God said, I'm gonna
give it to you. But as we said last week, this
is how wisdom is learned, experience, experience. There's some things
that, that we believe by faith, but we experience them in our
heart, we believe them. But there's a lot of things that
we learn in this world by experience. Truly, I've told you before,
whenever somebody starts talking about, you know, somebody's going
through a real trial, tribulation, and they say, well, I understand,
and my answer is always this, you don't know if you hadn't
been there. It's a theory to you. You're speaking out of no
experience, so you don't really know. But this man who asked
for wisdom, God's gonna give it to him. He's gonna give it
to him, but it's gonna come with a very high cost. He's gonna learn some precious
lessons, needful lessons, lessons that we need to hear, that we
need to be taught. but he's going to learn these
lessons at a very high expense. And so here he is. Here's the
confession. Here's Solomon. Turn back to
Ecclesiastes 1.1. Here's some lessons going to
be learned. There are going to be some lessons that he's going
to speak from the heart. He's going to speak from experience
as he's moved by the Spirit of God. It says in verses 1 and
2, the words of the preacher. And if you want to know when
this book was written, go back and listen to the message from
last week that I preached on the preparation for going in
here, where Solomon spoke of things that happened to him.
He spoke when his heart was turned by many women, many strange women. It's over from, if I remember
correctly, it's over in Ecclesiastes 12. You can read it. And you
know what he said? Guess what he said. concerning his heart
being turned by many strange women. He said, it's worse than
death. It's worse than death. Now you
just, you just stop and think just for a minute concerning
you, your spouse. You think about this. You, God doesn't keep you and
your heart's turned and you find yourself, your heart being turned
towards someone else in a moment of passion or just being unkept
by God, found yourself unfaithful. Solomon said, I experienced that. And he said, I'll tell you what
it is. He said, it's worse than death. The pain, the pain of
realizing what he had gone through, what he had suffered, David,
whenever David was allowed of God, David did just exactly what
he did with Bathsheba. And after God sent a prophet
to him, he told him, the prophet told him, he said, you're the
man. You're the man. And David moved, was moved by
God's spirit to pen Psalm 51. Go back and read it. Have mercy
on me. against thee and thee only have
I sinned and done this evil in thy sight." So here was Solomon
now. He's gonna learn some things.
Words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem,
and he's gonna sum it up right here. He's come to the end of
his life. This was written toward the end of Solomon's life. Vanity
of vanities, saith the preacher. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Solomon said everything that
is associated with this world, everything that's going to perish
out of this world is emptiness, is vapor, it's just fleeting
breath. Now this is coming from a man
that knew and loved God and was loved of God and permitted of
God to experience what he learned concerning what he's talking
about. He's saying, I know what I'm
saying. Here was a broken vessel of God's
mercy, broken. returning by the Spirit's direction
from the cisterns of this world. And he had seen he was permitted
to express what was painfully taught. He learned these things,
but he learned them at a high cost. His name, Solomon, means
peace, peace. And he was speaking like Naomi.
whose name means pleasant, how she spoke in the book of Ruth
when she was returning to Bethlehem after having been sorely tried
in Moab. They came back and she saw her
people that knew her and they said, is that Naomi? And she said, don't call me Naomi.
Call me Mara, call me bitter. For the Almighty hath dealt very
bitterly with me." She'd learned some things. She'd taught some
things. So here's the preacher relating
the end of a man coming to the end of his life and his heart
now made sensitive to know the reality of having this world's
good. This man had more money. The
scripture bears that out. It's in that last message. He
had more money than any other man had in the world. He had
things and mess and stuff. And the queen of Sheba came and
she saw all the stuff and how his servants ascended up, how
they came down, how they served his table. Everything he had
was gold. None of his cups were silver.
I mean, it was the best of everything. He had it all. Had all of it. He could give sound advice. People
came to him and asked him stuff. And he experienced everything,
even having his heart turned. And here's what his conclusion
was. It's nothing. It's nothing. Vanity of vanity. All is vanity. Here was a man
blessed of God, taught of God. A man blessed to not be left
to himself. To continue in that wandering,
that experiencing. This man was gathered by God.
He was loved of the Lord. God loved him. That's in Nehemiah. God loved this man. This was
God's man. And he was gathered and brought
back to an understanding. of that which God was pleased
to teach. You know, I heard somebody say
one time, you know, you ask the Lord for something, be careful
what you ask for. He may give it to you. Be careful. Lord,
not my will, but thine be done. Lord, have mercy. Lord, if it
please you. Lord, help me. This man, this was a prodigal.
You want to see the example of a prodigal? We read that parable
when that prodigal son, give me what I got coming to me, and
he wasted all of his living, righteous living. He was reduced
to eating the husk that he was feeding to the hogs. Now here's
a prodigal. Like all that are fetched by
the mercy of God, brought to himself to know the reality of
the things of this world, are nothing but disappointments.
I mean, going after these vapors. Well, if I get this one, if I
can do that, you know. And he said, this is what I've
discovered. I've had it all. He said, you
ain't had nothing compared to what I've had. You think you
got stuff? I got stuff. I had stuff. And he said, it's empty. It's
false. It's lying to you. You're going
to come to your life, you're going to come to the end of your
life and you're going to die and you're going to have nothing.
Naked we came into this world and naked we're leaving. He said
all this stuff you think you got to have, the things of this
world were created and placed here for the good and the comfort
of God's people. All of this, it was made for
the Lord's people. Like God prepared a garden and
put Adam and Eve in that garden to keep it, to till it, to keep
the garden. And here all this stuff was for
God's people. I tell you this, I mean, I've
told you before, I enjoy, I'm thankful to live in a house.
I'm thankful to have some clothes to put on, a car to drive. I'm
thankful to be able to have some food to eat. I'm thankful, but
here's the thing. These things were not put here
to draw our hearts, you know, away from God. Seek ye first
the kingdom of God. I wish I could remember that.
Lord, put a watch on my mouth, on my tongue. Am I seeking first
the kingdom of God? Seek ye first the kingdom of
God, His righteousness, all these things will be added to you. Solomon said in Ecclesiastes
verse three, we'll stop with this verse. What prophet hath
a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun? Here was a question of a preacher that was taught
of God. He wasn't trying to impress anybody. He wasn't trying to draw attention
to himself. He didn't do this for a living.
God called this man to be a preacher. And God taught this preacher
something. And this preacher is asking some questions as the
Spirit of God moved on him. And he asked this question, concerning
some things that he had learned. He was the son of David. David,
his daddy, was a man that had experienced some of the same
pain of going after things in this life and brought back by
God. But Solomon, Solomon was taught
more, given more. David had stuffs, Solomon had
more here. He was the king, and being a
king should have ruled according to God's word by example. And
God Almighty let him learn some things. You want that? You want those things? Here's what it's gonna do. Here's
what's gonna happen. But God Almighty, but God, rich
in mercy, wouldn't leave him there. was pleased to leave him
there, Solomon would have gone the way of all that made a profession. Solomon knew the scriptures.
If God wouldn't have brought him back, he'd have kept going
until he just left this world. Kept going, but he brought him
back to ask this question. What advantage, what profit,
what advantage does a man have by all his labor which he performs
under the sun. Mark chapter 8 verse 36 says,
for what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and
lose his own soul? What did you have? Where do you
think all that stuff went? What happened to it then? Somebody
just picked it up and they're going to lose it too. It's going
to perish. The Lord spoke in Luke 12, 15,
take heed And beware of covetousness. For a man's life consisteth not
in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. There's one place of hope. There's
one place. There's one possession. First
John 5.12. Now listen to this. This is the
only possession that endures. He that hath the Son hath life. And he that hath not
the Son of God hath not life. Turn to Matthew 6 for a minute.
Matthew chapter 6. Matthew 6, verse 19 to 21. Lay not up for yourselves treasures
upon earth. Now, he's not saying don't, you
know, don't do anything. I mean, it's good. Be responsible. If you have a
savings account, that's okay. If you got an IRA, that's okay.
But if riches increase, don't set your heart on them. Lay not up for yourselves treasures
upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, where thieves break
through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, where thieves do not
break through and steal, for where your treasure is. What you treasure, there will
be your heart also. Worldly mindedness, a treasure. Whatever you treasure, that's
what you're going after first. That's your first, your treasure. That's what you're going after.
That's a fatal symptom of hypocrisy. A treasure to choose to seek
after that, to seek after the things of the world over the
worship of God. To go after something else at
the expense of this? Meeting together and hearing
the gospel and worshiping God? Matthew 4, we read this recently,
but I thought this was such a, Matthew chapter 4, I thought
this was such a relative verse. Matthew 4, this is where Lord
called some of his disciples, Matthew 4, 18 to 22. And Jesus,
walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called
Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for
they were fishers. And he said unto them, follow
me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway
left their nets and followed him. And going on from thence,
he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, John his
brother, and a ship with Zebedee, his father, mending their nets.
And he called them, and they immediately left the ship, and
their father had followed him. Brethren, brethren, children
of God, we're blessed people. Romans chapter eight. Romans
8, 16. Romans 8, 16 to 18 says this. Spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit, listen, that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs,
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. If so be that we
suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings
of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory which shall be revealed in us." The Spirit of God told
us something. He said, listen, we're the children
of God and being children, adopted in the beloved, then we're heirs. We have an inheritance. We are heirs of God. What does
that mean? That means that God is our inheritance. God is our inheritance. He told Abraham, he said, Abraham,
I am your shield and your exceeding great reward. If a man, if a
woman has God, what do you have for an inheritance? I got God. What else do you need? We're heirs of God and joint
heirs with Christ. What does that mean? That means
whatever he receives as the obedient servant, the servant is God,
he owns it all. But he who humbled himself to
servant will be with him. And whatever we suffer, scripture
says in this word, It's not even compared to what
we shall have in glory. In that day, a great day of judgment,
the scripture reveals that the Lord shall separate the sheep
from the goats. So I know that there's a sheep
and I know there's some goats. Goat's going to be in his left
hand, sheep on his right hand. I know he's going to separate
them, they're not going to be together. He's going to say something to
the sheep. He's going to say to them, enter
in. Enter in. Enter in to what? To
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
Now let me ask you something. What does this world have to
offer that's going to compare to that? A believer says, Lord,
keep me. Lord, set my eyes toward Christ. Lord, keep me from the vanity
of this world. And let me be found, found among
your people. worshipping you, waiting on you,
looking to you, coming to you, for Christ's sake. Amen. All right, let's take a break,
just a few minutes here.