Good morning. We're continuing our series through the book of Ecclesiastes, and today we will be considering the second half of chapter 2, Ecclesiastes chapter 2. We've seen already that the preacher of the book of Ecclesiastes, as he likes to identify himself, he has embarked on a research expedition of the world. He set his heart to seek and to search out by wisdom how life under the sun really is. And he discovered that life outside of Eden is what we live and that it's a life that's filled with burdens and is quickly evaporating. Everything under the sun is like a brief breath. Everything under the sun is a passing image of a shadow. All of the children of Adam are humbled by God under this reality. And the reality is this from the dust to the toil and then back to the dust cycle. And so, We can live out our lives in one of two ways. We can close our eyes to how things really work, and we can play a game of pretending that we are the exception, and we can pretend that if we toil longer, harder, smarter, And if we can play longer, harder, smarter, then somehow by that we can rescue ourselves from that dusty destination. And somehow we can build and collect lasting happiness and lasting safety, lasting contentment, lasting rest by building and collecting the treasures that are found in this here and now life. Or we can open our eyes and we can honestly look at the here and now life and we can live out our brief and hard lives humbly submitting to the toilsome task that God has given with our hope for lasting happiness and our hope for lasting safety and our hope for lasting contentment and lasting rest on a reality that we cannot see with our eyes but has been promised and can be grasped by faith." So the first thing the preacher did in his expedition was to see if the increase of his knowledge and wisdom of a broken world would give him the lasting peace of soul that we're all longing for. Is there some secret to lasting happiness just by knowing the world better? Well, we see what happened to him. The more he searched and the better he understood the world, the more he understood how broken it is. There's a crookedness, he said, under the sun. There's a brokenness in this world that's not going to be fixed by anything under the sun. There are gaps and deficiencies that are not going to be filled in in this life. There are perplexing questions that we cannot answer. there are all kinds of disappointments and all kinds of frustrations and all kinds of unfulfilled plans. And this world and this humanity, we all groan under this. Now, yes, the preacher did increase his wisdom, yes, he did increase his knowledge, but the fruit of that study was not an increase of happiness, it was an increase of grief and sorrow. as he considered just how broken things are. Now, there's nothing wrong with wisdom, of course. There's nothing wrong with increasing our wisdom and our knowledge of how things really are. Is that not the point of the book? There's nothing wrong with wisdom and knowledge, but that's not the treasure for lasting happiness. You should expect that listening to this book and your own growth and sanctification is going to bring with them a more mature and a more profound grieving and sorrow when you think about the results of the fall into sin. And I hope that you can already agree that this increase of grief and this increase of sorrow over the here and now reality will only further encourage you to put your love upon other treasure. Next, we saw at the beginning of chapter two, we saw how the preacher explored pleasure, the pleasure of work and the pleasure of play and the pleasure of possessions and the pleasure of entertainment. Could this be it? Could this be the secret? Would this be the secret to lasting happiness? Would it be by the building and the collecting of pleasurable possessions, pleasurable circumstances? Could it be that way that the preacher could finally discover lasting peace for soul and body? Could he work hard enough? Long enough, smart enough, could he tear down his barns and build bigger and bigger barns with more and more stuff so that eventually he could arrive at a point where he could look at that and say, so behold, your Sabbath rest? No. And why not? Well, because all of the earthly treasures and all of the earthly pleasures he had built and collected with his own toil, he says, ultimately they were all passing shadows. They were all a single breath on a cold day. All of his accomplishments were like a single wisp of steam rising from the teacup. Yes, he did increase his material possessions. And it was not necessarily sinful. But he had to admit that all of it together gave him no lasting profit, no lasting gain, no lasting advantage beyond this here and now life. He had worked his fingers to the bone, chasing and building and collecting. all of these possessions and all of these circumstances, but he knows that ultimately, in the end, they will all leave him empty-handed, just as if he had spent his whole time trying to grasp and hold on to the wind. At the same time, he also discovered that his work wasn't without any point, it wasn't meaningless, it wasn't pointless, because he told us that he did find enjoyment in his work, There is a reward that God gives to those who work. He had this enjoyment in His heart. He was able to look at His accomplishments and enjoy them. There wasn't anything wrong with that. It's just that that reward was a temporary reward. But it was a reward nonetheless. His heart, He says, did rejoice in all of His labor. But at the same time, He had to admit that that reward could only last as long as the labor itself. So again, his final profit statement after his experiment with pleasure, the bottom line is that it was all a passing shadow. But we must all admit that we all struggle with the game of pretending. We all struggle to one degree or another pretending that we can find or we can build or we can collect or we can store up something from under the sun other than dust. And so today the preacher is going to be very straightforward with us. He's going to be very plain spoken about why there is no exception to this. Why? There is no lasting profit, no lasting gain, no lasting advantage to be found or collected or stored up among the things under the sun. Now the reason why, he's been hinting at. He's been hinting at this ultimate reason all along, but he hasn't used the word yet. There is this wall of reality that he's been hinting at, but he hasn't used the word yet. There's a wall of reality that all of us have in front of us, and none of us are going to get around it. And in this wall of reality, there is but one gate to pass through it, and all who pass through this gate will have their pockets completely emptied. So let's listen as he begins here at verse 12 to explain this to us. Chapter 2, verse 12, he says, Then I turned myself to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who succeeds the king? Only what he has already done. Then I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness. The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. Yet, I myself perceived that the same event happens to them all. So I said in my heart, as it happens to the fool, it also happens to me. And why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, this also is vanity. For there is no more remembrance of the wise and of the fool forever, since all that now is will be forgotten in the days to come." And how does a wise man die? As the fool. Well, again, at the beginning of this section that I've just read, the preacher reminds us he's conducting a thorough investigation. He's looking at life in a world where things are broken and where things are just simply missing. And he's thinking about it from the perspective of wisdom and from the perspective of foolishness. You can look at life with your eyes open to the truth or you can look at this life with your eyes shut to the truth. Can either one Wisdom or folly discover lasting treasure under the sun? Can either one? Is it the wise man or is it the foolish man who discovers lasting happiness with his stuff under the sun? Which is it? Is it wisdom or is it folly? Who is it that discovers the secret to getting off of this dust to toil and back to the dust treadmill? Who is it who finds a way to escape this humbling, toiling task that God gave to the children of Adam? Who is it? Well, the answer is nobody. The answer is nobody. We remember the illustrations from chapter 1. No, the sun in the sky labors only to return to where it started. The wind and the waters have labored for thousands of years with unimaginable power and determination only to return right back to where they started and so they serve as an illustration of us. Whether you're wise or whether you're a fool, you end up back where you started. Now, the preacher knows, you'll notice here in verse 12, the preacher points out, he speaks as if he knows that you might be tempted to say to yourself, well, I'm a little more clever than him. I'm a little more clever. than this king who tested himself with pleasure, and maybe, just maybe I can, or if I can collect just a little bit more than he did, then I'm gonna be the one who can find something lasting. But it isn't true, he says. What are you gonna do, you who come after the king? Well, the only thing you can do is what he's already done. And you're not going to discover anything different than he discovered. All that you build, all that you collect, all that you store up, he says, it's all been done before. It's all been built. It's all been collected. It's all been stored. It's all been attempted before you with the same result. It was all ultimately a grasping for the wind. There's nothing new under the sun. You can only do what has been done before with your labor. You can be rich and wise, you can be rich and foolish, the riches just won't last. Now please listen very carefully. Is the preacher telling us therefore that it doesn't matter if you seek wisdom or if you seek foolishness? No, of course not, he's not saying that. Notice he tells us that wisdom is better than folly. There is a difference. Living in light of the truth excels living in a lie. There is a difference between wisdom and folly. He tells us there in verse 13. It's the difference between light and darkness. The light is better than the darkness. The wise walk around seeing things as they really are, but the foolish stumble around in the darkness of lies and ignorance. Of course, there's a difference. It's the difference between the wise, reverential submission to the God of covenant and the foolish, unsubmissive rebellion against the God of the covenant. Of course, there's a difference. One path is better than the other. However, however, And there is something that the wise and the foolish share and share alike. There is still something that the believing and the unbelieving share alike. And it's this wall of reality. This is the reason. This is the reason why the labor under the sun for both is a grasping for the wind. He says in verse 14 that the same event happens to them all. Do you know what that event is? Think about the two paths. Think about these two paths. One over here is the path of wisdom. It's the path of faith. It's the path of acknowledging the truth. And the other over here is the path of foolishness, unbelief, and disregarding the truth. Aren't these two paths heading in the opposite direction? Yes, they are. But we hear what the preacher has just told us. The preacher has just told us that the same event happens on both paths. So where do these different paths end up meeting? There is no exception to the truth that there is no lasting profit or gain or advantage to be found, collected, or stored among the things under the sun by either the wise or the foolish. And why is that? Well, you'll notice that now the preacher speaks the dreaded word in verse 16. It is because the wise and the foolish both die. The shared event is death. We remember that it was by one man, Adam, that sin entered the world. And death entered the world through sin, and thus death spread, how far? Death spread to all because all sinned. How does a wise man die? He dies in the same way that a foolish man dies, that is to say, with all of his pockets emptied. With all of his pockets emptied. Everybody, wise or foolish, rich or poor, famous or unknown, great or small, arrive, all arrive at the same gate where all of your guns are checked, and all of your clothes, and all of your houses, and all of your cars, and all of your accomplishments, and all of your trophy cases, and all of the accolades from friends and from family, and all of the pleasure from that, it's all turned in. Every scrap of it is all turned in at the one and same gate that we all have to pass through. The preacher says that the gate that the fool will walk through is the same gate that he will walk through. All pockets are emptied upon entering the gate. The wise and the foolish, the believing and the unbelieving alike will step from this shore and we'll cross a dark river. And in that crossing, everything that you built and everything that you collected and everything that you stored up and everything that you treasured and loved from the dust of this world, it'll all be washed away. Every last scrap of it. This is why the preacher has all along been emphasizing his point about all of humanity laboring and anxiously chasing, only in the end to have to leave all of their stuff behind. This is one of the reasons why he told us that his own increase of knowledge of a broken world increased his sorrow. And this is why he told us that pushing the human limits of pleasure in the end left him with nothing lasting. Because the wise and the foolish, the hardworking and the lazy, the believing and the unbelieving, the rich and the poor, all leave this world by stepping across the same threshold. The preacher here, for all of his wisdom and all of his labor, has not collected anything more lasting from under the sun than anybody else. And this is true for everybody. So I must ask at this point, will you humbly receive what he says or will you pretend that you are the new thing? that escapes death, that somehow escapes death's confiscation. Remember, wisdom is better than folly. The truth excels the lie. Honesty is better than pretending. So take this moment right now and think about your own arrival at the gate. and the permanent removal of everything in your pockets. Take a moment and think about the fact that there is nothing from the here and now stuff that has the power to endure through that gate, not even your own body. Even if you were clever enough and even if you were strong enough to live 930 years like Adam, you would still find him waiting for you. You know who he is. You would still find death waiting for you. He's very patient. He's not bothered at all by all that kale and broccoli that you like to eat. He doesn't get anxious about that at all. and all of that exercising that you like to do, that's great. I'm not saying don't do that, but that doesn't make death worried. He doesn't get anxious, he doesn't get nervous, because you have an appointment that you cannot get out of. And when you meet up with that appointment, when you die, when you arrive at that gate, you will not take any of your earthly profits And as the preacher points out again, you will eventually be forgotten by this world. You'll be gone, the world will go on, no matter how wise you were or how hard you worked or how long you lived. Well, this is pretty heavy stuff, isn't it? How does the wise man die, he says? Just like the fool. Both come to the same gate, and they both have everything confiscated from them. Now, how does this reality make you feel when you think about what the things of this life can ultimately give you? Yes, let's not forget you can find enjoyment in your labor, but when you cross the threshold, it will all escape your grasp like a wisp of smoke. Does it make you want to look elsewhere for treasure that will last? Does it make you want to look for a treasure that will provide a joy and a happiness and a contentment that will last, that you can hold on to through that gate? Does this reality help you to see the limitations of what this world can give? Does it help you to love this world a little more or less. At this point, when you think about your own arrival at the gate, when you think about your own crossing of the dark river and the washing away of all of your houses and gardens and water pools and entertainments, are you stirred to think about your priorities? Are you stirred to think about what's most important? Are you stirred to think about what's really worthy of your loving devotion? Does your own unavoidable death make you think about what's worthy of your highest love? Does it make you think about what's worthy of despising with a godly love and a godly despisal? If so, then you're hearing the preacher correctly. If you're being stirred to think about what you love and what you hate, the Lord is working on you and He worked on the preacher. So listen now to how the preacher described his own reaction as he thought about his own passing. He learned to properly hate and to despise and to properly remove his hope from the treasures and gifts that just don't last. Listen to how he describes it here in verse 17 and following. He says, Therefore I hated life, because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind. Then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who will come after me. who knows whether he will be wise or a fool, yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled, in which I had shown myself wise unto the Son. This is also vanity. Therefore I turned my heart and despaired of all the labor in which I had toiled unto the Son. For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, yet he must leave his heritage to a man who has not labored for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. For what has man for all his labor and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun? For all his days are sorrowful and his work burdensome. Even in the night, his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity. Well, at first, he might sound like a man who is expressing suicidal thoughts, especially when he says that he learned to hate life. He's describing how he learned to hate this broken and deficient world. He says he hated life, and by that he means he learned to hate life under the sun, because everything he did was susceptible to distress or to misery or to frustration. But he's not a man who's trying to escape. He's not a man who's trying to escape the reality of a broken world. Here is a man who has come to honest terms with it. He sees a truly grievous, a truly frustrating situation in a fallen world. No more pretending. God gave a burdensome task to the children of Adam by which they would be humbled. And what we've just read is the confession of a man who is humbled under the burdensome task and humbled by the reality that despite all of his labor, he was unable to build and to collect anything that he could keep for himself. He was unable to build and collect and store up for himself. anything that was worthy of His devotion. He humbly confesses that there was nothing that He could build or collect or enjoy by His own toil that was worthy of His hope for lasting happiness, or lasting contentment, or lasting safety, or lasting rest of soul. He found nothing under the sun that could earn His highest affection. This is the confession of a godly rearranging, of a godly management of his love and his hate. He thought about dying. He thought about the confiscation of all of his stuff, including his own body. And so he says, therefore he turned and he redirected his heart. And this was a turning and a redirecting in a good way. He had been thinking about what God said to Adam when he said, "'Cursed is the ground for your sake. "'In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. "'Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, "'and you shall eat the herb of the field. "'In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread "'till you return to the ground. "'For out of it you were taken. "'For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.'" He'd been thinking about that, and he humbled himself. Can you see where he is? He's humbling himself right in the middle of all of his palaces. He's humbling himself right in the middle of all of his gardens and water pools and herds and flocks and silver and gold, and he confesses, as it was for Adam, so it is for all. What is it that is worthy of your love and your hope and your devotion and your sacrifices. Here's a hint, you won't find it under the sun. What is it that's worthy of your love and devotion and your highest affections? What's worthy for your hands to be clinging to? What's worthy? It won't be found by anything but the labor of your own hands. Can you see what's going on with the preacher? Something happened in his heart. Something happened in his heart when it came to love and hate. Do you see what he's learning? He learned that he could not serve two masters. Because either he would love the one and hate the other, or else he would be loyal to one and despise the other. Don't misunderstand what he's saying. This is not a man who wants to quit life. He is a man who has learned to engage with life with no more pretending that he can serve and love and be devoted to both God and his stuff. He's telling us that he learned to properly hate the things under the sun and with that he is implying that he had learned to save his love and to save his devotion and to save his hope for something above the sun. He tells us that he considered his own passing from this life and how his own pockets would be emptied. And then he tells us how all of his stuff would then belong to someone else. And he had no power to control any of it after he was gone. And you might say, well, that sounds frustrating. Well, it is sort of. Why does it sound right? I don't like that. Well, good. We shouldn't like that. It sounds broken to us. I work for all of this. I do all this work and I don't get to keep any of it. It goes to someone else. He had worked very hard for his stuff. But one day someone who hadn't even worked for it would have it. And who knows, who knows if that's gonna be a wise person or a foolish person. He thinks about this reality. And it moves him to make this statement about how he learned to hold it loosely and to not love it as lasting. He learned to hate it. He learned to deprioritize it in the right way. You notice he even remembers the sleepless nights that can torture a heart. all busy with building and collecting and toiling and repairing, but he has to admit it was all ultimately a midnight grasping for the wind. He has done this. He honestly thinks about dying in order to properly think about living. He honestly thinks about dying in order to properly think about living. He looks to the end to know how he should live now. The reality of death, tapping him on the shoulder, did not drive him into fearful hiding. It drove him to repent of clinging to the wrong things. He looks at this gate of ultimate confiscation. He looks at that one-way road. He looks at the dark river in order to better understand what is most important now. In order to see more clearly, what is it? What is it that's just a shadow and what is it that's not just a shadow? He tells us he learned to hate his labor, but he's not preaching laziness. Don't misunderstand him. He's not preaching to us laziness or irresponsibility. He is actually preaching to us the responsible and godly management of the heart, the godly management of our affections, the godly management of our devotions, the godly management of where we're placing our hope for lasting happiness. Now, if we stand back and we take a look at all of this, does this mean that we're supposed to have no enjoyment at all under the sun? Are we bound to walk through our days under a dark and gloomy cloud? No, not at all. It's actually quite the opposite. The truth about dying, if you are a believer, will actually liberate you. The truth about dying, if you are a believer, will liberate you to properly and confidently enjoy this life and to enjoy it as a gift from God. Now, listen to his conclusion as he strikes this very careful balance. He begins at verse 24 saying, "...nothing is better for a man that he should eat, drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor." Did I just read that from the Bible? I just read that from the Bible. And he's not being sarcastic. This is a man who speaks as a liberated man. Nothing is better for a man that he should eat and drink and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also I saw was from the hand of God. For who can eat and who can have more enjoyment more than I? For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in his sight. But to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and collecting that he may give to him who is good before God. us it was vanity and grasping for the wind. There is a key that unlocks the door to enjoying life and here it is. It is agreeing with the Lord when He describes what we can really expect from this life. That's the key to enjoying it. The key to ruining or creating a bunch of misery and frustration in your life is trying to get things that this world just can't give to you. Or trying to get things out of your stuff that your stuff is just simply unable to provide for you. But if you're liberated from that, if you're liberated from that kind of foolishness, you can be liberated into a context of joyful living. and enjoying the stuff that God has given to you, and enjoying your accomplishments, and enjoying these little gifts and rewards that God gives along the way. Because now you know they're just temporary. Not trying to get something out of them that they were never designed to give to you. Here's a man who has been liberated. There's a key to unlocking the door to enjoying life and it is this, it's agreeing with the Lord when He describes what you can really expect from this life. It is serving the Lord as your Savior and then seeing the stuff of this life as His temporary gifts. If you invest your heart and your devotion and your hope for permanent happiness and lasting peace of soul in the things that will in the end be confiscated, then you know what you're facing. It's constant disappointment, constant frustration. All that you'll have in life is anxiously trying to chase after the next high when the last high fades. If you are clinging to this life as if this is all there is, then you will sacrifice eternal things for temporary things. Because you will sacrifice for what you think is most important to have. You will prioritize everything and you will arrange all of your loving and all of your hating in order to serve what you think will give you rest, peace of soul. But, if Christ is the master you serve, and if it is gospel treasure that fills your vision, And if it is the light of the knowledge of Christ, which is the lamp of your life, then you can enjoy the good things from your labor for what they really are without clinging to them as if they will save you. This wisdom and knowledge and joy, the preacher points out, it only belongs to believers. It only belongs to believers who are not storing up for themselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. It is those who look to Christ when they say Sabbath. It's those. It's those who first look to Christ when they say Sabbath who can then eat and drink and enjoy good in their labor. Do you know why? It's because they've been liberated. They've been liberated to find lasting happiness in Christ. And they've been liberated from trying to expect that from temporary gifts. Believers have this gospel freedom to use the gifts to serve them as they serve Christ. But for the sinner, that is to say here the unbeliever, without a Savior, all the unbeliever has is this unhappy and burdensome task that God's given. That's all they have. Toiling, fighting the thorns and the thistles, gathering and collecting in a world where God sovereignly rules to make everything work together for the good of His people. Well, let's conclude with an application to ourselves. In Luke 9, Jesus says, "...if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it." Why? It's as if he has been himself meditating on Ecclesiastes chapter 2. Whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and is himself destroyed or lost?" What's the point he's asking here? For a man or a woman to go through all of life sweeping their arms and sweeping their hands to gather up stuff, what if they could sweep up everything under the sun? Well, you still gotta go through the gate. You still have to cross the dark river. You may enter, you may step off this shore with your arms as full as they can possibly be. It'll all be washed away. What profit is it to you, Jesus is asking, even if you were to somehow be smart enough to gain the whole world? But you yourself are destroyed or lost. Wisdom is better than folly. The truth is better than pretending. If your devotion is to save your here-and-now life with the here-and-now things at the cost of what ultimately lasts, you are on a fool's errand. That is folly. That is ignoring the truth. It is folly It is to ignore the truth to sacrifice what lasts in order to have what will end up being destroyed. The wise man sees the truth of his own soon crossing of the dark river. The fool deliberately ignores it. The wise man, therefore, learns to take up a godly management of his love and his hate. The wise man knows that his food and his drink and his houses and his gardens and his water pools and even the health and strength of his own body are all but temporary gifts and it's all already evaporating. But the fool sacrifices whatever he must so that he can cling to those things as if they have the power to endure through the gate, as if those things have the power to ferry him across the dark river. And so I believe that the Lord is asking you this very question this very morning. What profit, what lasting gain is it to you if you gain and save to yourself only the food and drink and comforts and safety that this world can give? He is saying that there is no lasting gain and that there's no Sabbath for soul or body to be discovered among any of the treasures and pleasures under the sun. He is reminding us again of this truth that we have heard so many times before that 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. And again, you can probably look to your own use and sacrifices of your time and your money and your talents to get a clue on where your loyalty lies. When the preacher says in verse 17 that he hated life, can you hear him making a declaration of his loyalty? When he says he hated life, can you hear him making a declaration of what he learned to properly despise? As being not anywhere worthy of the devotion of his heart. He looked to the end of his life under the sun and he honestly saw the loss of all he had labored for. And then he learned to properly scorn or to not put his hope for the happiness of Sabbath and things that just would not last. And so this can be helpful to you in the same way. The truth of your unavoidable crossing of the dark river, this truth for you today can be a soul-strengthening truth if you want to endure in following Christ. This will strengthen you. This truth will liberate you from these things that are only here for a short while. This truth will liberate you from serving them as your master. When the preacher said he hated life, what he was saying was that he had learned not to love the world. and he had learned not to love the things in the world. You can love the world and make all your priorities and sacrifices serve that love, or you can make all of your priorities and sacrifices serve your love of God through Christ. But you can't do both. You can't do both. And there are no exceptions to this. You'll love one and hate the other. You'll be loyal to one and despise the other. That's just the way it is. And the preacher learned that by looking to the end. By looking at the ultimate confiscation of everything in his pockets. So that he could then look at what was in his pockets and say, you're not worthy of my love. You're not worthy of my devotion. He learned to be thankful for them. He learned to enjoy them. He learned to be able to look at his banquet table with the food and the drink and all of the happiness around that. He learned to enjoy that properly. He just learned not to set his devotion upon it. He learned not to set his hope for Sabbath upon what was on his table. He learned to look at the food and the drink and his accomplishments, the trophy cases. He learned to look at those things and say within his heart, Lord, thank you for the things you've given to me to enjoy And at the same time, he says he learned to hate those things, to properly despise them, to properly turn his face away from them, to properly not put his trust in any of those things. So, when the preacher says he hated life, he was saying that he had learned to not love this world or the things in it. If your love is set upon this short and hard life, then your love is not set upon the Father, 1 John 2.15. All that is in the world, John told us, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, it's not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is what? John says the world is passing away. Why? It's almost as if John had been meditating on Ecclesiastes. All that's in the world, everything, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world and the world is passing away and the lust of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever. The book of Ecclesiastes can help us to repent from serving the wrong master. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Do you not know this? You know this. Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Can you hear what the preacher learned? He looked to the end, contemplated those things that will last and things that will last forever. He learned how to make himself an enemy of the world. He learned how to not trust it. He learned how to keep it properly at arm's distance. Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." The gospel liberates us. Thinking about the truth of our dying, thinking about gospel treasures that endure through that gate, Having our minds fixed upon gospel treasures that will not be washed away in the dark river, these are the truths that will strengthen us to endure in the here and now life with Christ. So whatever good things that God has given to you, enjoy them with thankfulness in your hearts to Him. But you know what your real treasure is. How about this for treasure? the forgiveness of your sins. How about that for treasure? Can you put a value on that? What number can you put on the forgiveness of your sins? How about justification? Being accounted as righteous before God for the accounting of the righteousness of Christ into your account before God. What value could you put on that? The promise of sanctification? The promise of glory. This is the gospel treasure. This is what we store up. This is what we need to be sweeping our arms out wide to collect and draw to ourselves. Forgiveness. Reconciliation with God. Peace with God. Acceptability with Him. The promise of glory. Unending. You know what, that's treasure that's worthy to fill our vision. This is a Savior worthy of our devotion. Look to the end. Consider the ultimate confiscation of everything in your pockets. This truth will help you to endure in following Christ.