False Security
Though we may be wealthy, be honored,
and have many children, we must live in
the will of God in order to experience
lasting satisfaction and fulfillment.
Here now is Dr. Gene Getz:
Once again as we go into this particular
chapter here in Ecclesiastes,
we see Solomon's earthly perspective.
His limited perspective.
We see glimpses of truth and understanding.
And yet the whole of Ecclesiastes
reveals to us a man that God gave great wisdom.
But a man who misused that wisdom
and made some very, very bad decisions.
I've called this particular section of
Scripture here in Ecclesiastes 6,
the first 3 verses, earthly blessings do not satisfy.
And that's really repetitious
because we see that all the way through
the book of Ecclesiastes.
Earthly blessings do not satisfy.
And once again that theme comes up
with some additional specific things that
Solomon outlines here. He says:
Here is a tragedy I have observed under the sun,
and it weighs heavily on humanity...
And so Solomon says: As I look out at
my own experience, as I look out at
my fellow human beings, here's what I see.
...God gives a man riches, wealth, and honor...
And let me simply say that certainly,
He has that right. The source of everything is God.
And Solomon certainly acknowledged that.
...God gives a man riches, wealth,
and honor so that he lacks nothing of all
he desires for himself,
but God does not allow him to enjoy them. ...
And here he gets pessimistic.
And he goes on to explain what he means.
...Instead, a stranger will enjoy them.
This is futile and a sickening tragedy....
And someone said to me today
as we were going over this:
Boy, he was pessimistic about a lot of things.
Particularly about life and the results of
his own journey. His own search.
And he goes on to say:
...A man may father a hundred children
and live many years.
No matter how long he lives,
if he is not satisfied by good things and
does not even have a proper burial,
I say that a stillborn child is better off than he.
Now the interesting thing is as we look
through his statements.
Again we see this is a personal confession.
It appears he's actually living in fear of
these things that are going to happen.
Now think about this.
Solomon was a man who humbly
prayed for wisdom. You remember?
When he became king.
He said: I can't handle this and
he went to God with humility.
And God honored that.
And said: Because you've come for wisdom,
and not honor and wealth,
I'm going to give you honor and I'm
going to give you wealth.
Somewhere along the line of course,
as we've seen, Solomon certainly got sidetracked.
And began to pursue things with his wisdom
that was purely worldly and earthly.
And we see that. We see that in his life.
And he's giving testimony to the fact
that he tried to find happiness in
pleasure but it just didn't work.
And he couldn't even rejoice
in his family and his children,
and what God actually had given him.
But the other interesting thing is here,
they didn't have eternal hope.
There's no evidence in some of his
statements that he had eternal hope--
hope beyond the grave.
For example if you look at verse 12.
For who knows what is good for man in life,
in the few days of his futile life that he
spends like a shadow? ...
Now as you read these statements,
you have to say: he really was speaking truth.
There was a lot of truth.
In fact, if you go to the book of James in
the New testament, it talks about the
fact that life is very, very fleeting.
And he's talking about that.
When all is said and done, it's very, very brief.
And so that is a reality.
And most of us experience that as we grow older--
realizing that life passes by.
It goes more quickly as we get older.
But notice what he said:
...Who can tell man what will happen
after him under the sun?
Again we see his very limited
perspective on life after death.
Though he had a lot of wisdom.
He did not use that wisdom to even find out
what he could have found out by going
to his forefathers. For example to Abraham.
And to those who followed Abraham
and even to his own father.
Now David, his father, didn't have a
total perspective either because of
some of his sinful behavior and
bad choices he made.
But he certainly believed in life after death.
It's interesting that when you get to the
New Testament, for example the book of Hebrews.
We have a New Testament perspective.
The Holy Spirit gives us information on
these Old Testament characters.
For example, the author of Hebrews--
his perspective on Abraham.
And here's what he says about Abraham:
For he was looking forward to the city
that has foundations, whose architect
and builder is God.
Now that's not the earthly Jerusalem.
That's not the earthly Bethel.
That's not the earthly cities in Canaan.
We know that Abraham had faith and
we don't know all the specifics of his faith.
But here, this New Testament
commentary helps us to understand his
perspective on eternity.
We see this in relationship to some of the others
that are mentioned in Hebrews 11:
Abel--who was of course the son of Adam and Eve.
Enoch--who we don't know exactly
everything that happened to Enoch
except it says: God took him.
And we don't know whether that was in death
or whether it took him without dying.
But he certainly had an eternal perspective--
a man who walked with God.
There was Noah.
And it also, in Hebrews, Sarah is included.
And her perspective.
And lumping these together,
summarizing, the author of Hebrews said this:
These all died in faith
without having received the promises...
The promises that were eternal.
...but they saw them from a distance, greeted them,
and confessed that they were foreigners
and temporary residence on the earth.
The very interesting thing is that
Solomon is not mentioned in Hebrews 11,
along with these other Old Testament personalities.
We go on to read verses 13 through 16:
...But they now desire a better place--a heavenly one. ...
This is eternal perspective.
...Therefore God is not ashamed to be
called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
So again we see that Solomon, with all
of his wisdom, really did not use that
wisdom appropriately as life went on
in order to search out some of these
great truths that could have been
revealed to him--
in the documents that had already been
written such as the Pentateuch.
Such as the first five books of Moses.
And we know that other kings
discovered the law, which in essence,
was referring to those first five books.
And there's great truth in those first five books.
That Solomon, because of his choices,
missed and ended up with this rather
pessimistic view of life.
And God, I think, in His great wisdom,
has allowed us to look in on his life as he
records these things in the Word of God.
In the New Testament--
wow, it's a book of hope.
As you read the Old Testament--
though there is hope that is spread throughout,
the focus is pretty earthly.
But as you get to the New Testament,
though we live on this earth, the focus is on eternity.
And we see that throughout the books that were written,
authored by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
And Luke in Acts as he wrote that.
And the Epistles that were written,
particularly the Pauline Epistles.
And we could be here for a long, long time
just reviewing some of the wonderful promises
that we have for eternity.
I think one of the most classic passages
right there is in Ephesians where Paul is writing--
not only to the believers in Ephesus--
but throughout Asia.
And he begins this wonderful letter by
reassuring them and us that:
We have been chosen in Christ.
Even before the foundation of the world.
He goes on in verse 7 to say:
We are redeemed by the blood of Christ.
This is the essence of God's plan
in terms of Genesis to Revelation.
As someone called it, the "scarlet chord"
as it runs through--the shedding of blood.
Without the shedding of blood there is
no remission even in the Old Testament.
But it was pointing to the blood of Jesus
that was shed for the sins of the world.
Paul went on to say:
We are adopted into the family of God.
We are His children by faith.
And here's the most reassuring statement:
We are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.
God sent His Holy Spirit as a down
payment for our eternal inheritance.
And so the New Testament is filled with hope.
Let me just give you what I've called a
total biblical perspective.
Let me just state this in relationship to our lives here.
Without knowing the one who said,
"I am the way, the truth, and the life,"
men and women will be never be fully
satisfied in this life.
Though they may believe they have
experienced all there is that can bring satisfaction,
they are not aware of what is truly missing:
Christ's presence now and His promises
for a better life to come.
In essence, they don't understand that.
And if we don't understand that,
we do not really have total fulfillment in our lives.
Now the Reflection and Response question says:
Why is it easy for non-Christians to
become self-deceived and believe they
would never change a thing as they look
back on their life?
I thought a lot about that.
And part of it is mystery
and part of it is "life is unfair." Because there
are people who have much who are evil.
And people who have little who are righteous.
We'll see that as we go along here.
Because Solomon wrestled with that issue as well.
But any one who says: I would
not do anything differently
at the end of my life--who does not know Christ--
is deceived. Has been satanically deceived.
And Satan is out to deceive us.
So we go back to this Principle.
Which comes right out of this passage:
Though we may be wealthy, be honored,
and have many children, we must live in
the will of God in order to experience
lasting satisfaction and fulfillment.
And that, you see, is really the total biblical story.