For those of you that were with us last week, we looked at the, I believe it was just verses 12 through 15 of Ecclesiastes chapter one. And as I shared with you last week, it's a book and an area that I've been, I don't feel sinfully avoiding, but certainly it's a place that God has had on my heart for some time, for over a year now. And I do feel like he has drawn us back to this chapter in Ecclesiastes and would invite you to turn with me to Ecclesiastes chapter one, beginning in verse 16. And we'll read the rest of chapter one, which is just a handful of verses. And then I want to also read the first 11 verses of chapter two. And those will be our scriptures this morning that we want to bring to you. And we pray that the Lord would bless his word to his honor and glory to our edification. to our minds and hearts that we would leave here and from this place this morning edified and informed about what God has said through this man. Um, seemingly most likely Solomon. Others have thought other others wrote it, but certainly it seems to me that Solomon did. But either way, we know God ultimately is the author of these words, whatever man penned them. These are the words of God, the one who called all things into existence, who called you into existence, and who made you, created you in his own image so that you would have fellowship with him. And these are the words that God speaks to us about our lives in this book. And we'll have some to say about this as we look at the message this morning. But these deep questions of life, what is its meaning? And as I think about Ecclesiastes and the entire book and others, of course, as well have thought these same words and these same thoughts, it's man's search for meaning. Our search for meaning here And before I read this morning, I want to just make a quick note again, as I have in the past, that what Solomon is speaking of when he's looking for meaning, he specifically uses this phrase under the sun. What is the meaning of life? What's the purpose of life under the sun? And he concludes, and we've already looked at it in chapter one through a couple of different messages that Everything under the sun is vanity, it's emptiness, and that, of course, a pessimistic and a negative tone, negative message in its way, but we have to remember that that's where he's looking, and he's looking for that place, that thing, those things, perhaps, that would bring meaning to this life, and he's searching for it, and he's looking for it. I don't know that there's a human being that's alive today, or ever has been, or ever will be, that won't be on this same journey, this same search. There's something in the human heart that points us to meaning that is deeper than just the outward things of our lives. Our money, our houses, our jobs, our relationships, our families. something that just goes deep in the human heart that doesn't go that deeply in any other creature that God has made. And Solomon is wrestling with some of the deepest questions of life. And so, in transparency for you, from my perspective, this is an intimidating book. It's a book that many have avoided. because it deals with things that are difficult to deal with and difficult for us to come face-to-face with, particularly if we are not found seeking the answers to that question in God and in our hearts before Him. Even a religious way of life, a life dedicated to a religious mode of living and conduct, This doesn't answer the deeper part of the question. Why am I here? As God created me simply to attend church on Sunday, to tithe to my church, to live a life that others would call moral and good, and as they bury me and place my body into the ground, that they would say he was a good man. There's more than that. that we seek and that we long for, I think, as human beings with hearts that God has made. And so that's what Solomon is dealing with and wrestling with in this book, all of these 12 chapters. And it's a difficult book to divide up and speak on from one Sunday to another, though to speak on all 12 verses, we would need hours upon hours upon hours. But I want to look today at just these verses And the title for the message today, it would be Testing Wisdom and Pleasure for Purpose. Testing Wisdom and Pleasure for Purpose. That's what Solomon's doing. He's testing various things. He's finding out, he's seeing if in them any purpose is to be found. He's already in chapter one, as we said, given us the conclusion of all of his searches. This is his writing after he has completed his search. his endeavor to find meaning under the sun here in this world. And I wanna look just today at these two tests, this test of wisdom and this test of pleasure. He makes both of them here together and he concludes like he concluded already for all of his other tests, it's empty and vain. So let's read together Ecclesiastes chapter 1 verse 16. Solomon says, I said in my heart. I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge, and I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceive that this also is but a striving after wind. For in much wisdom is much, much vexation and He who increases knowledge increases sorrow. I said, in my heart, come now. I will test you with pleasure. Enjoy yourself. But behold, this also was vanity. I said, of laughter it is mad, and of pleasure, what use is it? I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine, my heart still guiding me with wisdom, and how to lay hold on folly till I might see what was good for the children of man. to do under heaven during the few days of their life. I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks and planted them in all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines the delight of the sons of man. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also, my wisdom remained with me. and whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. Recalling that the preacher here, as he identifies himself, Solomon, we believe, recalling that he has already given us his initial conclusion in the first chapter, that life under the sun is empty and void of meaning. He now begins to share with us the details of that search, the details of his search here for meaning in wisdom. as well as what he calls madness and folly. And his conclusion, vanity of vanities, as he said in the first chapter, all is vanity, we note again, is not a conclusion that he reached without a purposeful and exhaustive and honest search. He notes specifically multiple times, did you note how he said, I said in my heart, This was something that he himself was wrestling with. He wasn't wrestling with these thoughts to impress other people. He wasn't concerned with how he looked to others. He's going to run the gambit of activities from wisdom and here to pleasure, from being wise to even being foolish. He for himself is going to exhaust this search. That's how much he's interested in wanting to find out what the meaning of life is and where the purpose for life is to be found. And here specifically, he is searching to see if either one of these things, wisdom or madness and folly, brought meaning to one's life. That's his search. So never forget that this is the context of Ecclesiastes as you read it. None of the things that Solomon tests are the ultimate point that he is trying to reach. In other words, his goal is meaning, purpose. What is the purpose for man's life under the sun? His goal is to discover what it is that man is supposed to be doing with his life in order to fulfill the purpose for which he has been made. Why are we here? His goal is not, first, to become wise. His goal is not to become wise for wisdom's sake. His goal is not to find madness or folly for their own sake. Even his request, Solomon's request, of God for wisdom reveals this to us. Even understanding why he asked for the wisdom that he was given helps us to understand Solomon's Whatever you might think of him and the mistakes that he certainly made in his life, he seems to me, at least here in writing Ecclesiastes, to be a man of deep honesty with himself. He's not lying to himself. He's not fooling himself. He's not... covering his concerns and ignoring them or moving beyond them. He's wrestling with them and he's dealing with them, and I would encourage you to do the same thing, to be honest with yourself. In your own heart, as you seek the answer to that question, why am I here? What is the meaning of my life? And Solomon, again, his wisdom that he seeks, it's not for wisdom's sake. He's seeking wisdom in order to see if there's any purpose in it, any meaning to be found in it. He's not seeking pleasure for pleasure's sake alone. He's wondering, is that where meaning is? And if you read in 2 Chronicles, when Solomon asks God for wisdom, and of course Solomon known as a man of wisdom, but if you read the account of when Solomon was given this wisdom by God, we find out that even then wisdom itself was not Solomon's intention. That's not why he asked for wisdom in order to become wise, so that he might be impressive to people. Listen to what we find in 2 Chronicles 1, verses 10 and 11. conversation between Solomon and God and Solomon to become king in Israel his father David has died and And God says ask me what you want from me. What do you want from me Solomon? And this is what Solomon says give me now wisdom and knowledge And he doesn't stop there Give me now wisdom and knowledge. He has a reason, Solomon does, for asking that. Give me now wisdom and knowledge to go out and come in before this people, speaking of Israel. For who can govern this people of yours, which is so great? So Solomon asked God for wisdom, not for wisdom's sake. He asked God for wisdom because he was being tasked with something he knew he could not do without wisdom, which was to govern God's people. God answered Solomon, if you go on in Second Chronicles, because this was in your heart, God says to Solomon, and you have not asked for possessions or wealth or honor or the life of those you hate or who hate you and have not even asked for long life, but have asked for wisdom and knowledge for yourself. Listen to what God says that you may govern my people over whom I have made you king. He acknowledges that God does. He acknowledges that Solomon's request for wisdom is not so that he might be seen by the world as a wise person. In fact, I wonder if Solomon, rather than wanting to be known as somebody who was wise, I wonder if his first thought in his heart, and I think it was, was, I want to be remembered as somebody who understood that the task he was given was greater than he could ever see to without God's wisdom. It's easy if we don't keep this in mind and in view as we read Ecclesiastes, it's easy to come to incorrect conclusion about the things Solomon tests. And he's gonna test a lot of different things. It's easy for us to come to the wrong conclusion about those things if we don't keep this ultimate purpose in view, which again was, what is meaning? What is the meaning of man's life? If we don't keep that in view, one might be tempted or one might easily make wisdom and foolishness equal to one another. Because apparently, according to Solomon's testing, both failed in the test of whether they had meaning in themselves. And so we might come away from that with the wrong idea about these things that he tests. We, again, might make wisdom and foolishness equal to one another. We might make pleasure and honor equal to one another. But the result of this type of thinking makes it nearly impossible for us to rightly think about anything. And the reason for this is because, as will become clear later in the book of Ecclesiastes, pleasure, laughter, mourning, knowledge, foolishness, wisdom, meaning, all of these things, all of these individual things that Solomon tests They aren't equal. Some of them are better than others, and he's going to reveal that to us and show that to us a little bit later in the book. So don't get tripped up here, thinking that Solomon is trying to tell you how to find meaning and purpose, that it's to find meaning and purpose in things. He's not revealing to you, to me, to others that have read his book. He's not telling us, this is what you ought to do, this one thing. You should be wise and then you'll find meaning. You should seek pleasure and then you'll find meaning. That's not what he's doing. He's not telling us merely what to occupy ourselves with in this life under the sun. That's not what he's doing. His investigation is meant to discover the meaning and purpose of life, and his conclusion is that this meaning and purpose is not to be found in any of these things alone. It's an important thing, I think, to keep in mind as you search for meaning in your life. It's not going to be found in any one particular thing. Wisdom, pleasure, madness, folly, laughter, mourning, You know, one can be wise in the strictest sense of the term wise, which means to be skillful, intelligent, someone who is capable, someone who has the ability to accomplish things. One can be wise in an earthly sense, under the sun, wisdom. One can have that and have absolutely no clue about what the meaning of life is. One can be simple in the eyes of the world. One can be very simple in the eyes of the earthly wise and be far ahead of most of them when it comes to having peace and knowing what purpose and meaning is in life. So an early key for us here, and perhaps one of the most important things I want to share with you today, something that you probably already know, but I don't want it to go without being said. all things according to Solomon, according to the word of God, all things under the sun, under the heavens, all things here separated from the awareness of those things that are above the heavens, above the sun, outside of this life, all things here separated from an understanding of those things there are empty. Searching for meaning in them is to set out on a search to catch the wind. That's what Solomon tells us. As I thought of this passage and as it has been coming in and out of my mind and my heart, I thought, oh, how Solomon knows the restlessness of the human heart. how he so clearly understood that restlessness in the human heart, and I believe today that you and I feel it too. This desperate search to know the why behind our lives, to know what our lives should be spent doing. We're at the heart of it here in Ecclesiastes, and I beg you to listen to him. and thus to God, who's the ultimate author of this book, who has the answer for you. And today, in testing wisdom and pleasure for meaning, we're going to find Solomon with the conclusion that he's already told us, vanity of vanities, all is vanity, including wisdom itself and pleasure itself. These things are empty. And it's like trying to find in this life things with meaning and purpose in themselves apart from God and eternity and that that is at the deepest root of the human heart. To find meaning and purpose in these temporary things of the world, again, it's like trying to catch the wind. And you know, I thought about that phrase. I thought, well, you could catch the wind, I suppose. You could get some sort of box or some sort of some equipment and you could hold it out in the wind and you could capture that wind. But the moment that you do that, it's no longer wind. It's just air. The very moment you catch the wind, it ceases to blow and ceases to be the wind in the same way. The very moment you catch what you believe will bring you meaning and purpose under the sun, that thing that you are seeking, it's going to be like the wind, even if you could catch it, which I think the whole intent of Solomon here is to tell us that the futility of trying. But even if you were to catch that thing you're seeking right now, and I don't know what it is for you, I have an idea, because like you, I have a heart that is human, and it has fallen, but it is also made in the image of God, and it knows that there is something far deeper than the rudimentary activities of our life. We wake up in the morning, and we get ready, and we go to work, and we work a long day, and we come home at night and spend some time with our families, and we enjoy company with one another, and eat dinner, whatever it might be, and then our evening routine, whatever it might be, and then we go to bed, and we get up, and we do it all over again, You know, whatever that is, though, that you're seeking, and you say, boy, if I just caught this, then my life would have meaning and purpose. I want to tell you in the same way, the very moment you catch what you believe will bring meaning to your life under the sun is the very moment that whatever it is, will begin to lose its power, lose its meaning, and lose its ability to bring you purpose. At least, at the least, I believe it will be when it begins to do so. It's as though you catch it and it becomes what you never thought it would be. Money becomes a burden, not a pleasure. It becomes a headache, not a relief. A job becomes a misery and not a purpose. Ease and comfort, sometimes I think, especially in our nation, that's where we think meaning and purpose is found, is in ease and comfort. But even when you catch ease and comfort, They become their own kind of torture, because as it becomes less and less necessary for you to move and your life becomes more and more about not striving for a goal, your body and your mind begin to atrophy to the point that you're no longer any good to anyone for anything, because you just become motionless. If you don't believe me about these things, If you're thinking in your mind, no, preacher, if you knew what I'm seeking in this world, if you knew what I was after in this life and things under the sun here, you would understand and you would know that I'm on to something here. And I want to tell you, according to the word of God, you're not on to anything. If you don't believe me, just wait a little while. just wait a little while, go ahead and chase after that worldly dream of yours that you think will satisfy, that you think will bring the meaning that you think now perhaps is the answer to that question of what is the meaning of your life. Even if you succeed where most fail, by the way, and you obtain all of your dreams, the meaning and purpose you thought you would find, the moment you catch it, it will begin That meaning and purpose will begin to drain away with every second that you hold it. You've caught the wind, just to find that it's no longer the wind. You've caught what you thought was going to bring meaning, and when you didn't hold it, you saw it, and you assumed, and you presumed, and you imposed on it meaning and purpose. And if you catch it, you'll find that it doesn't have what you thought it had when it comes to meaning and purpose. Now, I think we have here in Scripture here from chapter 1 to chapter 2 in Ecclesiastes, I think we have an unfortunate division of the chapters. We know, again, chapters and verses were not in the original inspired writings. We are advantaged by them and helped by them. They can also be something of a stumbling block, though. And I think here that chapter one, in my own view, for whatever that's worth, which isn't much, but in my own view, I think chapter one should have ended with verse 15. That point that Solomon makes, the world's broken and there's no fixing it on our own. because I think he begins here in verse 16 of chapter one, something of a new thought. And it's carried on all the way through chapter two, verse 17. So this is why I've read what I've read. I believe this is one section, one wrestling, one test that he reveals, a set of tests that include these two things, wisdom versus folly, foolishness, pleasure. There isn't a human being alive today, again, who has reached any degree of maturity in mind and heart and in thinking who's not wrestled with these questions. Maybe it's a brief wrestling. Maybe they wouldn't even articulate it this way. But this is the heart of what we look for, I think, as human beings. Again, where is meaning to be found? What is the purpose? And there are many answers that people have given to these questions. And many of them, all of them, that are held in this world under the sun here, all of these things, they ultimately will bring emptiness. And the end that Solomon says of them, he describes again as striving after the wind. And human beings, we are given to extremes. we overreact almost as a matter of habit. If you look at human history, it's really just that experience of humanity, and thus societies, swinging from one extreme to another. And this is what I think Solomon demonstrates for us. Human beings, this given to the extreme, we see in Solomon's investigation into wisdom on the one hand, and madness and folly on the other, this tendency to extremes. Wisdom means what we think it means here. Understanding. Discernment. Madness is akin to the word foolishness, and folly here, its root word is speaking of a silliness almost. It speaks more directly of one's behavior, and as Solomon says that he is searching out by wisdom and then foolishness, or excuse me, madness and folly. That's what he's speaking about, these kind of two extremes. These two words are related, madness and folly, but there is a different focus. Solomon tells us a little bit more about how he uses these words in a later chapter, chapter 7. He says, My heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things and to know the wickedness of folly And the foolishness that is madness. So as we look at this very briefly, and I I wanted to at least somewhat describe what those words were intended to mean I think in the hebrew from solomon we might think of them as two related things foolish behavior and foolish thinking or we might say believing So is wisdom in any of these things? Solomon seems to be asking, is it in wisdom? Well, he concludes quickly, it's not. It's empty, he says. And so in verse 16 of chapter one, and continuing through verse 17, he's going to test these two extremes. And again, he says in verse 18, that wisdom only increases sorrow. That's what he told us, that it's vexation, that adding wisdom adds sorrow. It seems then to me that Solomon is thinking like many of us think, that meaning and purpose, when found, will drive all sorrow from our lives. That seems to be in Solomon's mind. It seems to be that he concludes, oh well, with much wisdom, there is much sorrow. And so he slingshots away from that feeling of sorrow, concluding, by the way, that that's not where meaning and purpose is found. And so he looks at its opposite. Instead of sorrow, he looks at pleasure. Again, we've been told by a foolish world that sorrow must mean we're in the wrong place. The nirvana of the West is the absence of sorrow by attempting to heap up in our lives as much pleasure as we possibly can so that it overflows and drowns out any sorrow. It's as though we can't imagine that pain might very much indeed be a part of life. and it will be a part of life. But it's as if Solomon is saying, the more wisdom I acquire about life under the sun, the more sorrow I find. And by the way, here is the biblical basis for the phrase ignorance is bliss. You've probably all heard that. I can tell you from experience that there is little that proves true more quickly than the truth that wisdom adds to sorrow. So Solomon, like many others, turns to pleasure instead in chapter two. That's why I think these verses are a collection together. He turns from that search for wisdom and he slingshots over to pleasure. In chapter two, now he turns to pleasure. Perhaps the meaning he seeks, he thinks, will be there, since it's apparently not in wisdom. But we have to once again remember the context and the ultimate search Solomon is making. He's searching for meaning in life under the sun. And the closer he looked at the things under the sun, the more he realized how empty they were. This is the sorrow of wisdom. It's a sorrow driven by the realization that life under the sun, no matter what it is occupied with, is vain and empty if it is absent of God. if it is absent of that that goes beyond things under the sun here. This realization describes the moment of despair in the human heart when, by wisdom, it is understood that even if we gain all that is under the sun, we would be no closer to meaning than when we started out our journey with empty bags attempting to fill them with the things of the world, thinking then that dragging those things along with us, with full bags instead of empty ones with the things of this world, will make us full, and all we've done is fill our bags with empty things, things that don't satisfy, things that don't speak to the needs of the human heart. You know, many find Ecclesiastes to be a depressing book because of this, and perhaps arguably it is, if that's how you're looking at the world and your life. Many think Solomon is telling us to to not think too deeply about these things because it's just going to make us sad. But this type of thinking misses the greater point. Our desire to be happy and to be free of sorrow, to be full rather than empty, That is the condition of the human heart. And when Solomon tells us that nothing under the sun will accomplish that for us, will make us happy or full, when he tells us that, it's as though the immediate reaction of our fallen, sinful human mind and heart is to distance ourselves from that type of thinking and those words that he is writing. We think, well, no, I won't react that way If wisdom won't make me happy, then maybe I shouldn't seek to be wise. But this appears to be what Solomon tests for us, doesn't it? Isn't this what he's testing? Immediately after his conclusion that wisdom brings sorrow, he goes right into the investigation of the opposite. Namely, here, pleasure, laughter, madness, folly. He swings to the opposite side of things. He lives life seeking pleasure. He lives life unencumbered by the requirements of wisdom. He lives life sold out to the single purpose of finding pleasure and laughter, wondering if he might find the meaning of life there, if he just looks closely enough. I couldn't help but find some interesting fact in this to me. As Solomon first seeks wisdom in order to live wisely, he seeks that because he thinks perhaps that's where meaning is. He seeks that to understand how life works. And so in wisdom, he gains this knowledge and this understanding that in life and in the world, all of the things under the sun, they're just empty, they're vain. And so what does he do? He turns to laughter. The interesting thing I see here in this is that some of the most successful comedians are incredibly intelligent, but tortured people. They see the emptiness of life. They get it. They understand it. Wisdom has come. They realize that it's empty and they turn to laughter. as a remedy. They make fun of it. They're cynical, they're tortured, laughing on the outside, but empty on the inside. We're going to find Solomon in this, something of the same kind of condition as he sets out to test pleasure for purpose. He's tested wisdom and to his understanding, it's not there. So let me turn from the sorrow of wisdom and let me now turn to the pleasure of laughter and folly and foolishness. And he says in verse 1 of chapter 2, I said in my heart, come now I will test you with pleasure. So again Solomon gives us the results here as he then comes to us in verse 2. I said of laughter it's mad, of pleasure what use is it? So he doesn't end with laughter and cynicism. That's not where he ends. He gives us the results of his test before he gives us the details, which is what he does, by the way, in the rest of the reading from verses three through eight. He tells us the details of his search, and I'll cover that, but briefly. It won't take much more of your time today, but he wants you and me here to know right away that this path of pleasure-seeking does not lead where he thought it might, and it won't lead you where you think it might either. But devote yourself to the pleasures of the world and you'll find little else but pain. Again, if you don't believe me, I point you to Solomon's experience. and the universal experience of all others who have sought for meaning and purpose in the pleasures of this world. Not only that, if you don't believe me again, I say to you, well, just give it a little time. I believe you'll discover it for yourself to be true. And God has in Solomon and in the book of Ecclesiastes written this to us, this book written so many thousands of years ago, and yet so true. speaks so directly to your heart and mind. Verses three through eight, he goes through what he did to test it. And he calls out here, by the way, at the end of verse three, he's looking, what's the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life? Do you sense in Solomon, as I do, there's something of an urgency in his search? He knew his time was limited, as do we. None of us know how limited. Not a one of us knows. But it is a limited time that we have, and so there's something of an urgency. I need to discover the meaning of this life that I will have but for a short while. You know, our search for meaning and purpose of our life, it can ironically be clouded by time. because we feel we only have a short time to know meaning and purpose. But the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that when you find Him, you find meaning and purpose. You find forgiveness. You find joy and liberty. You find freedom from sin. You find peace and comfort. an assurance, and you find these things, and not only do you find them, you realize, I have eternity to enjoy them. But when you're searching for meaning and purpose in the things of this life, you're automatically limiting your time with them. There's irony here, I think, again, because when one finds true meaning and purpose, Time is no longer a limiting factor. We'll have forever to enjoy and search out the depth, the width, and the height of the meaning and the purpose of Him who gave us life. Now, verses 9 and 10, as we work our way towards a conclusion, it's important to note what he says here. It's important to note that Solomon's test was valid. He was successful. He became great, he says, I became great. Queens came to his land and were impressed by him, his wisdom, his person, his nation. He was successful. He had become great and surpassed all who came before him. He had drained the cup of worldly pleasure. There was not a drop that remained in the cup that might have changed his idea or his opinion about the taste. You name it, Solomon had it. Maybe you can say many of the same things. If not all of them, maybe you can say much of them. Maybe you've obtained a measure of success in the world. maybe even success that few others have enjoyed. And I would tell you today, by the way, if you're an American citizen living in this country, you are among a very small number of percentage of people who have enjoyed success like few others have. Yet deep in your heart, when you say to your heart, if you have the courage to do so, as you ask yourself deep in your heart, you know, you know it's empty. that emptiness that Solomon felt and the emptiness that you feel. It's not the result of a failed test. It's not the result of not obtaining what you went after. The emptiness results from the fact that you have merely obtained empty things and not full things. But it's important again to note those verses in three through eight. He tells us the details of the search. I was successful. I reached the top. I had the view that few others have had. And all of a sudden, all those things that I thought were full were empty. So here he is, he's left in the same place that he started. Wisdom led to sorrow. Surely there's no meaning and purpose there. And I think in the heart of man there is an understanding God's will is not for us to be sorrowful. That's why he's made heaven. That's why he sent his son so that we never again would feel those things once we leave this land, this place called under the sun by Solomon. Those details of that search lead to verse 11. I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I'd expended in doing it." All of those things he'd accomplished. All of those things that we could read again of all of those incredible accomplishments that he made. All of his vanity and his striving after wind. Here he is, right back where he started. The hamster wheel has come full circle and he's right back down at the beginning. And if he keeps running, all he's going to be doing is continuing to spiel, to spin that wheel. He makes here an honest investigation of the results of his test. Boy, I would to God that we would all do the same. If anything, again, about Solomon that we might say is he was honest with himself. How much time do we waste not being honest with ourselves? Solomon didn't make that mistake. He goes out and he applies himself to pleasure, to laughter, to madness, to folly, to living free from any kind of those obligations of a wise person and just lives and tries to obtain it all and he's successful. But then, then, He stops and he makes an honest consideration of the result. And this is where so many refuse to go. Maybe, maybe you. Maybe even now you don't want to go here with me, with Solomon. The words to this point have been uncomfortable, but now they begin to be unbearable. You refuse to stop laughing. even though you feel the emptiness of the laughter. You refuse to stop gathering though you feel the emptiness of the things you gather. You refuse to stop long enough to think about how little you have been advantaged by all the toil you've made under the sun in your life. And you listen instead to the whisper of the enemy who tells you the lie that the reason you're empty is because you just haven't found all that the world has to offer yet. And he'll point at something. I don't know, maybe it's a car. When I was 11 years old, it was a BMX bike with yellow spokes. I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen in my life, and oh how I wanted that for Christmas. That's what I thought then. Sadly, there have been a number of other BMX bikes in my life. I wonder what it is for you today. You'll listen to the lie of the enemy who says the reason you're empty is because you just haven't gathered everything. You haven't got what the world has to offer yet. So keep seeking it, he says. Keep running on that hamster wheel, he says. I ask you today to let me pull the cover off of that lie. The one telling it to you, he knows that everything he's offering you is empty. He knows that. He knows everything he's offering you and saying to you, see this thing, it's full. He knows it's empty. He just wants you to waste a little bit more time seeking something else he's promised is full, that's empty. And by the way, he's already working on the lie that he's going to tell you to explain why what you then found is also empty. He's already working on that. He's already working on telling you why you've not found meaning and purpose in what he told you to go after last time, and he's already got the next thing ready. It's endless. He's been doing this a long time. And the only way to overcome his lies is to stop listening to them. Start listening to the one who truly does have fullness to give you. The best solution there to stop listening to the father of lies and start listening to the truth of the Spirit of God as he himself convinces you of what is true what will bring fullness, which is a surrendered life to God, a submission, a calling upon him for forgiveness of sin that placed him on the cross. He died for you to give you fullness, to give you meaning, to give you purpose. Don't listen to the one who has nothing but emptiness to give you. You've been listening to him long enough. He hasn't come through and he never will. The God God has always come through. It's when we turn to the things of this life that we feel the emptiness of it. It's when we turn to God and we say to Him, You are my fullness, that even then the things of this life begin to have some meaning in the context of that greater meaning. Please, I beg you to stop seeking the emptiness under the sun and start seeking the fullness of God's Son. I want to close today. Kept you a little long. Just a few final remarks. A word on the pessimistic tone of Ecclesiastes. As I've mentioned previously, a lot of people avoid this book. I myself have avoided it at times in my life. It's seen as a book that appears to offer little hope. It's pessimistic. It runs contrary to the self-help guru of the day who will encourage you to find your truth, your happiness, and they'll tell you don't let anyone or anything stand in the way of taking what you want in order to be happy in your life. This book of Ecclesiastes, it sounds nothing like the teacher in the classroom telling his or her students that their feelings matter above all other things, because Solomon doesn't even begin to spare our feelings. It sounds nothing like the false prophet who will tell you that you can make peace in your heart by simply wishing for peace. As I thought about that, the false prophet who will tell you, just think it and it's real. Just think it and imagine it in your heart and it will become real. I thought, why, how, how much that that false prophet today has in common with the scientist today who says from nothing can come something. It just all of a sudden appeared, the scientist says, and that's what the enemy will tell you about your life. Just, just seek with abandon what you want and magically one day it will happen. When God says to seek me diligently, purposefully, honestly. Most today believe Solomon's musings have no place in the modern world, but I want you to know what he says is true, and I also want you to know that he he does not say, or excuse me, what he says is not said to hurt you, but to help you. Solomon is going to give us the conclusion of the matter, chapter 12, and he's going to hint at it from this point in Ecclesiastes through to that end. He's going to tell you that the emptiness and vanity of the world is not the end of the matter. It's not the conclusion, but once again he is going to tell you that understanding the vanity of the world is the beginning of the matter. You must feel the emptiness of the world before you can feel the fullness of God. It's just the way it works. You must feel the hopelessness in finding meaning in any activity of life apart from God before you can find the hope that is found alone in Him. So I turn to you now. Which test are you conducting at the moment? Solomon has other tests, and if God continues to direct us this way, we'll look at them in future messages. But here he's tested pleasure and he's tested wisdom. Both have come up short. But I turn to you now, you, as God does, and comes to you, speaks to you. Are you testing the wisdom that is under the sun? Are you trying to figure it all out so that you can treat life and your human heart like a math equation? If I just add this ingredient and that ingredient, that's gonna equal happiness and contentment? Are you trying to find the right combination to make your life smooth and easy and fulfilling? Or maybe you've tried that, and you with Solomon said that that didn't help, so I'm just gonna live a life of pleasure. Drink and be merry. I'm just going to give myself with abandon to making myself in this moment feel good. How many addictions are fed with that type of thinking from alcohol to drugs to sex to you name it. Maybe that's what you're testing yourself with is pleasure instead. It's surely a test that much of the world seems to be conducting. One experiment of pleasure after another. And maybe, perhaps, you've reached a degree of success, something like Solomon did. You've excelled those who come before you. You feel you are closer to the meaning of life than your friends, your parents, or any of the others around you. It's just right there, almost within your grasp. You think you're right. You think you're on the cusp of it. You think you're there, but I ask you to listen. Not to me. Listen to the Word of God. And I beg you to listen to the Spirit of God, if He is speaking to your heart today. Please listen to this one, Solomon, under the direction of God. Listen to one who's been where you are. And by the way, is a few steps ahead of you. Listen to him. You're going to find that the meaning in the things of this life is chasing after the wind. So what? Where do we finish these thoughts? So what? There's a great danger in concluding here from Solomon's words that nothing matters and thus it doesn't matter what you do. That's the pessimistic result if that's where we go. But this is not what he tells us. Solomon is going to tell us that it is good to enjoy things in this life. He will tell us that shortly. He's not here. He hasn't here because here he's testing the things of the world and of this life for meaning and purpose. Solomon's going to tell us that it's good to enjoy things in this life. It's good to work hard and to take pleasure in the fruit of one's labor. He's going to tell us that we ought to find the good things in this life. But finding the good things in this life requires us to find the purpose of this life, which is to prepare for the next life that is coming to us all. You will never be able to appreciate and enjoy the temporary things of this life until you enjoy the eternal promise of heaven in the next. All of the things in this life will simply be empty for you, ultimately. And until you do that, until you find God, all will be vanity, vexation of spirit, and a chasing after the wind. So I encourage you today, now, to come to Christ. In him the fullness of God dwells, the scriptures tell us. He will be your fullness. He will be your all in all. He will be the friend that sticks closer than a brother. He will be the one that as you look out in the emptiness of this life, you see the promise of the one that is to come and then are free to enjoy here as your full assurance of there is settled in your heart. But you can't have the second without abandoning the hope that you'll find it here. So come to Christ today, behold him, turn to him, and live the life of meaning and purpose that God intends for you to live. And be informed by his word to know what that is, and what it looks like, and what it feels like. And may he bless his word today.