Good morning. If you will turn with me to the
book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes chapter one. Your Bible's like mine, it's
page 856, Ecclesiastes chapter 1. We'll start in verse 1. The words of the preacher, the
son of David, King in Jerusalem. This is referring to Solomon.
The book of Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon. He was the
son of David. David had many sons, but none
like Solomon. David, it tells us, was a man
after God's own heart. So was Solomon. God in human
flesh chose to come here through the lineage of David Solomon
this man Solomon he was the son of David he was king of Israel
for 40 years just like his father David and verse 1 tells us he
was a preacher now no doubt it was a great honor to be David's
son I don't know that David's other sons thought it to be an
honor but it was to Solomon no doubt it was a high honor to
be king of Israel it was a mighty nation But the greatest honor of all
for Solomon is that he was called by God to be a preacher, a preacher
of the Word of God, a preacher of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Now, Solomon was a mighty man. He was a wealthy man, powerful
man. But I thought of this quote concerning
what a preacher is by our brother Scott Richardson. You know, we
think of Solomon as somebody, okay? Well, this is the quote.
A preacher is a nobody. who tells everybody about somebody
that can save anybody. And I'm sure Solomon would have
gladly claimed that to himself. Just a nobody. Now, I'm thankful
for Solomon. He's a dear brother whom our
Lord used to pen three books of the Bible. Proverbs, the book
of wisdom. And we know wisdom is Christ.
Christ is wisdom. He wrote this book, Ecclesiastes,
which I believe is a reflection on the vanity and emptiness of
human life without Christ. And the Song of Solomon, the
beautiful love story between Christ and His bride. Verse one
again, it says, the words of the preacher, the son of David,
king in Jerusalem, vanity of vanities, saith the preacher,
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Now, this statement right here
pretty well sums up the whole book of Ecclesiastes. And know
this, Solomon here is writing under the inspiration of God,
all the scriptures are. But he's also writing from experience. He had lived this. Everything
we're gonna look at this morning, he lived it. He knew it firsthand
to be so. Now, the word vanity means empty,
unsatisfactory, Unsubstantial and worthless. Absolutely worthless. But right here, it specifically
means this. Breath or vapor. And I can't help but think what
our brother James told us. He said, what is your life? It
is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth
away. Vanity of vanities. It'll all perish, it's just a
vapor, that's all it is, just a breath. Verse three, what prophet
hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun? One
generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earth
abideth forever. We labor, but to what prophet,
to what end? When we leave here, our bodies
are going to return unto the dust from whence they came and
our souls are going to meet God, gonna go stand before God. And
whatever we have in this life, when it's time for our life to
come to an end, whatever we had, we're gonna pass it on to our
children, and then they're gonna pass it on to their children,
and so on and so forth, until the Lord comes back. I thought
of a verse in 1 Timothy 6. It says, for we brought nothing
into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. It's
all vanity. It's all gonna perish. It's all
worthless. And I thought of this, too. What
about spiritual labor? I don't think any of you know
this, but my daughter has become a big Alan Jackson fan. And one
of his songs, where I come from, trying to make a living, where
I come from on the front porch, where I come from, he says, working
hard to get to heaven. Every time it gets to that line,
I don't want my child to hear that. and I'll pause it or stop
it or something. I don't want her to hear that
because people are working hard to get to heaven. Where they
come from, that's what they're doing. It's what they're working towards,
what they're striving towards. But did you know that's laboring
in vain? Did you know that's labor that will accomplish absolutely
nothing? And the reason is because salvation's
of the Lord. It's His work, not ours. We can work as hard as we want
to to try to get to heaven, but it ain't gonna work. It's not
gonna work. There's no profit to the labor
of a man trying to save himself. It's not gonna happen. Look at
verse five. That right there is a picture
of our life. The sun goes up, stays up for
a while, And it goes down. Again, my daughter
says, why is it dark? I say, because God made the sun
come up, and then he made the sun go down. It's very simple.
But that's our life. Every day, we get up, we go here,
we go there, we do this, we do that, and we go down again. We
get up the next day, do the same thing. Our lives are flying by. Flying by. But you know, we acknowledge,
you mentioned in your prayer, every day Lord made. Every day the Lord has given
us. This whole world is running according to His circuits. You
know, as I said, the wind returns to its circuits. Everything is
running according to God's circuits. Our steps are ordered by the
Lord. Every single one of them. Gracious handfuls of purpose
guide us every step of the way, every day of our lives, wherever
we go. Verse 7 says, all the rivers run into the sea, yet
the sea is not full. Unto the place from whence the
rivers come, thither they return again. All things are full of
labor, man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with
seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. Never full and never
satisfied. Again, is that not us? Honestly. Our lives are a continual cycle
of labor, and yet, like the sea, we're never full, never satisfied. All we ever want in this world,
in this life, is more, more, more happiness, more money, more
time. We just want more. Whatever it
is, we just want more. I've lived 30 years. I'm looking
at people that have lived longer than me, some that have lived
less than me. But I'm telling you from my 30
years of experience, the material things of this life cannot satisfy. They just can't. They just can't. There was a time when we made
a little more than we make now. And guess what? I was no happier
then than I'm happier now. In fact, I'm far happier now
than I was then. It's not happiness. It's all vanity. That's what
he's telling us here. It's all empty. It's all a vapor.
It's all going to perish. It's all worthless at the end
of the day. That's what it is. Let's acknowledge that. Let's
see it for what it is. Now, I will say this. There is
satisfaction to be had, and I mean real satisfaction, but it's not
in the things of this life. It's not in the things, the temporary
things of this world. It's in the Lord Jesus Christ.
If we want true satisfaction, And when we can have that satisfaction
in this life, my happiness in this life is in Him and Him alone. And it was so for Solomon too.
Verse nine, the thing that hath been, it is that which shall
be. And that which is done is that which shall be done. And
there is no new thing under the sun, contrary to what we sometimes
think. There's nothing new, no new thing
under the sun. Verse 10, is there anything whereof
it may be said, see, this is new? It hath been already of
old time, which was before us. Men and women are still sinning
against God. You know, this is probably not wise, but
I tend to follow the news fairly closely. It seems like now's
gotta be the worst it's ever been. God says it's nothing new. The heart of man is still desperately
wicked. We're still sinning against God with every thought, every
imagination of the thought of our heart. It's just evil continually,
just like it was in Noah's day. It's still the same today. All
flesh is still just grass. If the Lord looks down from heaven,
does he see men seeking him and doing good and understanding?
You read Psalm 14 and Psalm 53, he tells us, no, not one. That's
how all men and women still are. Nothing's changed. Nothing new. The creatures God made are still
mocking their Creator. Solomon tells us in chapter 12
here, to remember our Creator. Remember Him right now. Remember
Him in the days of your youth. While the evil days draw nigh,
remember Him. Apart from His grace, nobody
remembers Him. Nobody considers Him. All His
creatures just deny Him, steal His glory, dishonor His name,
love that which He hates, hate that which He loves. It's nothing
new. Nothing new. But, I rejoice to
tell you this, God's will is still coming to pass in everything. Nothing's catching our God by
surprise. He's in the heavens doing whatsoever He's pleased
to do, as He always has, as He always will. Our verse tells
us here, that which is done is that which shall be done. What's
that? Whatever He's purposed to do. The mouth of the Lord
hath spoken it, it shall come to pass. Verse 11 right here,
there is no remembrance of former things, neither shall there be
any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall
come after. The sinful things of this life
are soon gonna come to an end. All our sinful, wearisome labors
and endeavors So here's a word of exhortation. Let's stop laboring
for that which satisfies not. What should we do? Let our soul
delight itself in Christ. I believe we're told that in
the book of Isaiah. Let your soul delight itself
in fatness, that's Christ. Hearken unto him, hear him. Let's
labor therefore to enter into his rest. How do we do that? by looking away from our vain,
empty, worthless, unsatisfactory selves, especially when it comes
to our hope of salvation. Let's look away from self and
to Christ who is all the fullness of God. Away from my empty self
and to Him who is all in all. The former things are passed
away. Told this in Revelation. Behold, I make all things new. I like hearing that. Because
I look around, and I look within, and I don't like what I see.
So for Him to say, it's all going away, and I make everything new,
and we see all that in light of Christ, doesn't that make
you happy? It makes me rejoice. Verse 12 right here says, I the
preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem. Now we already
saw in verse 1, this is talking about Solomon. He was a preacher. He was king of Israel. Verse
1 told us he was the son of David. But this isn't just referring
to Solomon. It's not just talking about Solomon.
I believe you all know this, but Solomon was a picture or
a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. You remember the story of the
Queen of Sheba? She heard of him. She heard of
his riches. She heard of his glory, his kingdom,
his reign. And what'd she do? First, she
wanted to go see for herself, which we should want to hear
for ourselves. We should want to see for ourselves.
But she came with this attitude. We'll see about that. I'm going
to go prove him with some hard questions. Here's what she went
away saying. The half was not told me. Thy
wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard. And the same is going to be true
for us who stand before the presence of Christ. We'll say, oh, I heard
thousands of messages, and I rejoiced in them. Oh, but the half wasn't
even told me how glorious you are. Half wasn't even told me.
But we're told in the Gospels that, Behold, a greater than
Solomon is here. You see, at the end of the day,
Solomon was a sinner like you and me. Mighty man. But we're told specific accounts
of sins that that wonderful man committed. He's no better than
us. There's only one who sinned not,
and that's Christ. He never sinned. All of us have
sinned to come short of the glory of God. All of us. The Lord Jesus
Christ, He's the Preacher. And I love how the Preacher here
has a capital P. He alone is the Preacher. When
we're in glory, well, who's gonna preach? Are you gonna stand up?
No, no. We're all gonna sit down as low as we can at His beautiful
feet. How beautiful are the feet? And
we're gonna hear one voice. We're gonna be gathered into
one fold. There's gonna be one man speaking. He's the Preacher.
He's the Son of David. He's the King. Now, unlike Solomon,
I mentioned they're both the son of David. You know one glaring
difference? Solomon was just David's son.
Christ, it said, was the son of David and also David's Lord. Big difference. The Lord Jesus
Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords. Verse 12. I, the preacher,
was king over Israel and Jerusalem, and I gave my heart to seek and
search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under
heaven. This sore travail hath God given to the sons of man
to be exercised therewith." We seek a lot of things, don't we?
We ask the Lord for a lot of things. When the Lord told Solomon,
he came to him in a dream, and he said, ask what I shall give
thee. Here's what Solomon asked the Lord for. He asked for an
understanding or hearing heart with which to judge the people
over which he was keen. And the Lord told him, he said,
you didn't ask for long life. You didn't ask for riches. You
didn't ask for the lives of your enemies. Now, the Lord gave him
all that too. But he asked for an understanding
to discern judgment. And when I wrote that down and
I was looking at that, I thought, if I could ask God for anything,
I promise that is not the first thing I would ask for. In fact,
I don't know that I would even ask for that. Without reading
this and being reminded, hey, that's what we should seek. That's
what we should ask for. I don't think I would. But I
say that to say this, may we learn from that. You know, there's
a lot of things we seek. There's a lot of things we pray
for daily. But may we pray for this. Lord, give me an understanding
heart. Give me a hearing heart. Give
me the mind of Christ. But know this. If God gives us
this, know that it does not come without what he told us there,
sore travail. In verse 13, this sore travail
hath God given. And I looked at that for a while,
and I wasn't really sure what to say. But here's the conclusion
I came to. As a believer, to know and experience
the goodness of God, to have the wisdom of God, Christ himself,
revealed to us and in us, is it not sore travail to find ourselves
daily murmuring, complaining, and sinning against God, who's
been so continually good and gracious to us? Whenever whenever
Solomon when he when he was faced with things where he had to hear
both sides and then Pronounce the solution. And again,
I think of that right there after the Lord gave him all that wisdom.
There's the woman whose baby died, and she came to him, and
she took the other woman's baby, and he had to make the judgment
of, well, who gets the baby? And he said, well, here's what
we'll do. We'll just cut the baby in half. You can both have
half. The woman who had stolen the baby thought that was a great
idea, but the real mother said, just let her keep the baby. Let the child live. And Solomon
knew that has to be the mother. But do you think it wasn't sore
travail to him to have to look at someone saying, yeah, just
kill the baby? You think that was troubling to him? Is it not
troubling to us having to live with ourselves, the thoughts
that often run through our wicked minds? You find yourself in a
bad situation in your home or at work or anywhere, and you
sit back and reflect on yourself and think, man, I could have
avoided this. Sore travail to have the wisdom
of God continue on in the sin that we are. And I say that not
to say, well, let's stop sinning. I say that to say, let's look
away from self into Christ. I'm not gonna find any hope in
ourselves. Paul said, to will is present
with me, but how to perform that which is good, I just find not.
And so he concluded, oh, wretched man that I am. But then he said,
who shall deliver me from the body of this death? He said,
I thank God through Christ Jesus our Lord. Oh, do you need to
be delivered? I have no doubt our brother Solomon
felt the same way. Verse 14, I have seen all the
works that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity. In vexation of spirit, Solomon
saw many things, and this was his conclusion of the whole matter.
It's all vanity. It's all a breath. It's all worthless.
It's all empty and full of sin. Now, the word vanity right here
specifically means the fruitlessness of all human enterprise and endeavor. He said, I looked and I saw all
the works that are done under the sun. That's what I see. Everybody
thinks they're working hard to get to heaven and leave a legacy
behind. I want us to stop and just consider
our life, consider our works, for what they are. And I thought
that description was very good. Fruitless endeavors. Fruitless
endeavors. All the works that are done under
the sun, all the sin, all the self-righteousness, the arrogance,
the pride. Fruitless. Fruitless. And again, I want to see this
in a spiritual context. What shall we do that we might
work the works of God? People think they're living for
God, working for God. You know, false religion is full
of sin, self-righteousness, arrogance, pride, ignorance. False religion's empty. It's
vain. It accomplishes nothing. People
just believe it and march right along to hell, believing the
lie that was told them, and they were believing the lie that was
told them, and it just goes back and back and back. all the way to Cain,
who tried to bring his fruits before the Lord. If we're gonna try to be accepted
before God by what we've done, just know this, it's vanity,
okay, that's it. Verse 15, that which is crooked
cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot
be numbered. Now this, again, this is referring
to all mankind, we're crooked, we're wanting, And it says, cannot
be made straight. We cannot fix the problem that
we have. We can't cure the sin that we
are. We can't do it. Can't do it. I like this verse,
Deuteronomy 32 verse five says, they have corrupted themselves.
Their spot is not the spot of his children. They are a perverse
and crooked generation. And if you go look at the account,
it's specifically talking about God's people. And here's another
verse, Daniel 5, thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting. Every son and daughter of Adam,
that's the case, all right? That's troubling. That's not
good news. Now, if you want good news, turn
over to the book of Isaiah chapter 40. I wanna show you something
here. Isaiah chapter 40. Isaiah 40, look at verse 3. Now
look at this. and the rough places plain, and
the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall
see it together, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. I thought the crooked can't be
made straight. With us, no, it can't be. But
praise God, with him, all things are possible, and certain, and
sure. God makes crooked, corrupt sinners
straight. in the Lord Jesus Christ. You
remember, straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth
unto life and few there be that find it. It's Christ, we gotta
be made straight. If we're gonna be weighed in
the balances and not found wanting, must be in Christ. Gotta have
Christ. Back at our text, Ecclesiastes
1 verse 16. It means if we're gonna be saved,
God's gonna have to do it. Let's pray for Him. Lord, save
us. Put me in Christ. Save me for Christ. Save for
His honor, for His glory. Verse 16, Ecclesiastes 1. 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. We would
likewise do well to commune with our own heart. And by that, I
mean this. Let's acknowledge what we are.
Whatever God in His Word says about you and me, no matter how
painful it is to read, I don't want to read that every imagination
and thought of my heart is evil, and that my heart is desperately
wicked, and that I can't do good, and just laugh it off. Well,
oh well. Salvation's up, Lord. I want to mourn over my sin.
That's what I'm talking about. That's what He's saying here. Let's acknowledge what we are,
whatever God says about us, whatever God declares about himself and
how strict and holy and just as he is, how righteous he is,
how pure, too pure to behold sin. Whatever God says about
himself, let's believe it. Let's bow to it by his grace,
believe it, bow to it. But let's also, let's not leave
out this. Let's make sure we acknowledge
and rejoice in what God says he's done for us. You notice
how Solomon said right here, verse 16, that he was come to
great estate and gotten more wisdom than all that had been
before him. He had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. I was
gonna look, but for time's sake, I won't. But in 1 Corinthians
chapter one, it says, hath not God made foolish the wisdom of
this world? People think they're so wise.
We think we're so wise. After that, in the wisdom of
God, the world, by wisdom, knew not God. The only true wisdom is Jesus
Christ. Everyone and everything else
is not wisdom. Not wisdom. Solomon came to great
estate in wisdom. And when I think of that, I think
of this verse. Oh, the unsearchable riches of
Christ. Solomon had a lot of wealth.
If you read his daily provision, it's amazing, honestly. Truly amazing. But that was nothing
compared to Christ. That's his wealth that can never
be told. That's something I believe the Queen of Sheba is experiencing
now, too. Glorious wealth in Christ. Verse 17 says, and I
gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly.
I perceive that this also is Vexation of spirit. By nature,
we don't know foolishness from wisdom, spiritually. You know,
from a young age, at least we make an effort to teach our kids
right from wrong, do this, don't do that. But we don't understand
spiritual things because we're not spiritually discerned. We're
not given to know that until God gives us wisdom, reveals
these things to us. Religion is so full of just Foolishness,
madness, and folly. But again, the only wisdom is
Christ. I was wondering why right here Solomon gave his heart to
no wisdom, but why madness and folly? Why madness and folly? And when I read that, Be quite
honest with you, I'm really not sure. But I think it goes along
with knowing what's wise. Well, on the flip side, you know
what's unwise. You know what the foolish decision would have
been. Let's just cut that baby up. But that was never his intent. That was never his intention.
And I thought of our Lord being what Solomon's picturing here.
Pictured our Lord. Our Lord is wisdom. He gave his
heart to know wisdom. And to know madness and folly.
When our Lord hung on the cross, he became that. You know that? He became that. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 8,
he said, And when I consider that verse, I think about, well,
what do I know? What do you know? We think we know so much. Happy Jack. I love when you tell
that story. Happy Jack. This was all that man could say.
I'm a poor sinner, and nothing at all. But Jesus Christ is my
all in all. And the church just kept asking
that poor man question after question, and that was his answer.
He had one tune, beautiful tune it was. It's all he knew. I'm working on a degree. I'm
learning things. I'm ready to be done, too. But
whatever we learn in this life, may we honestly remember there's
just one thing and one person we need to know. This is life
eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. That's it. We just need
to know Him. All right, verse 17 again. And
I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly.
I perceived that this also is a vexation of spirit, for in
much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge
increaseth sorrow. Again, Solomon, he lived it.
With all the wisdom God gave him came much grief, much disappointment,
much sorrow, much heartbreak, heartache, The more he knew and
the more he saw, the more he had reason to mourn and lament. It wasn't just seeing the sin
of others. It was mostly seeing the sin within. Has that been
your experience? Seeing our sin will do that to
us. Again, having the mind of Christ, the heart of flesh that
he has given us to know him, and yet we still have our sin
that we live with. Here's a lesson for us, okay?
Let's learn to hate our sin. Shall we continue in sin that
grace might abound? God forbid. I don't enjoy doing
that. I don't enjoy knowing that I
sin against God. You want to dishonor your father
or your mother? We don't, do we? How much more are heavenly
fathers? Let's learn to hate our sin. Our sin is the cause
of all our vanity. Our sin is the cause of all our
misery and weariness from all our labor. We need to be safe
from it. May we learn to value Christ. He's the pearl of great price.
May we learn to value Him, to seek Him above all else, to look
to Him and trust in Him and Him alone. The only true joy and
satisfaction that we can possibly have is in Him. If we have Him,
then we have everything. May God enable us to look away
from our vain selves to Him alone. Alright, you're dismissed.