Test one, two, okay. All right, so we will be... For announcements, we have an examination that could be as early as next week for Jonathan Reese and for Aiden Parrish to come to the Lord's Table. So we have a congregational meeting next week, so we'll be discussing whether to have that examination be the same week or to be following after that. If there's no business really to be dealt with in the congregational meeting, it may still overlap. We also have a petition for emancipation to be heard for the council, which will be occurring also likely that same week or whatever time we have the examinations for Jonathan and Aiden. And then my house will be hosting this week Whiskey and the Word, is that right? Okay, great. And so we'll be getting that out. If you want to know where that's occurring, feel free to reach out to me or to my wife. And this Lord's Day for the morning service, we will be reading Exodus 24, singing Psalms 23 and 24. Deacon Schaffer will be giving us a psalm meditation on Psalm 24. And I will be continuing to teach through the book of Ecclesiastes will be in Chapter 2. If you don't have the handout, raise your hand so we can get one to you. OK. Alright, and let's begin now with the call to worship. Please stand for the reading of God's Word. Our call to worship is from Deuteronomy 6, verses 4-9. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, as to things that are unworthy. And Father, we ask that you would be merciful to us. We confess that we are guilty in Adam, that we're guilty in the corruption of our natures, and that we're guilty for the particular sins we've committed. And we ask that you would forgive us by the blood of Jesus. Father, we ask that you would view us as righteous by his perfect obedience. Father, we ask not only that you would deal with the guilt of sin, but that you would deal with the power of sin. And that you would subdue in us all evil desire, all foolishness. That you would cause us to put the flesh underfoot. And that we, governing ourselves well, would see the world around us reordered and subdued. and that we would see all demonic powers pushed back. Father, we know that the praises that you have written in your book of Psalms, that those very praises are a two-edged sword in our hand. And we ask that you would use the mighty power of your name, that you would use your worship to bless your people and to cause your name to be hallowed in the earth, that men would give their focus and attention to you and your word, and that your name would cause trembling. Father, we pray that you would cause your kingdom to be built up and Christ's mediatorial kingship to be praised, to be acknowledged by kings, Father, we thank you that in North Dakota, we ask that you would bless them and prosper them and the work that they do to preach to magistrates and to seek to save little ones from murder. We ask that you would bless them and prosper them and give them honor and strength. Father, we pray that you would cause a growth in unity amongst the churches. Father, we pray Covenant Bible Church and Pastor Joel Webben, that you would help him to know what is wise to say and to help him to be able to attack the right enemies and to be able to speak truth with the platform that you've given to him. We pray that you would prosper him and his church, that you would bless them with wisdom. We ask that you would give to them power and honor, and that you would cause an increase of unity there. We pray for Pastor Schwartley and Covenanted Reformed Presbyterian Church. We thank you for the work that is occurring there and the work that he is pouring into us. We ask that you would help us as we work through the Covenanted uniformity. to be able to work through things and come to agreement and see things put into good order and to know what is wise to include and wise to exclude. We ask that you would help us to see a Presbytery formed quickly. Father, I pray for the men in Battleground Washington and Westminster Presbyterian Church there, Pastor C.R. Wiley, and Camden Spiller and his family and all that they are doing to build up in that town. And I ask that you would cause work to be done well and work to be powerfully ordered for your glory. Father, there are many men in many places doing much for your service. And we know that wisdom was not born with us and it will not die with us. So Father, we look to you and we trust you that you will cause more and more for your will to be done in the earth as it is in heaven. And so, Father, we pray that you would in us cause us more and more to emulate the righteous angels, to be transformed after the image of Christ. That we would do your law promptly upon hearing command and that we would do it with our whole heart, that we would do it sincerely, that we would not with hypocrisy put on the forms. Father, we ask that you would provide for us. We are a needy people. We are a people who have not the power to generate wealth. We do not have the power in ourselves to uphold our very lives. Our lives are vapor, but a nose breath worth of life is in us. And so Father, we ask that you would provide for us, that you would give to us strength and resources and life and health. that You would uphold us, and that You would cause us to think upon our days and to number them. Father, we pray, knowing that we have committed so much sin, and knowing we have been forgiven so much, we ask that You would help us to be quick to forgive each other when we cause offense. We ask that you would help us to build deep relationships, to resolve real conflicts, and to be able to do serious work. We know that pure niceness or facade, the outward pleasantness of things is insufficient to bear the weight of relationships where real work is being done. And so we ask that you would help us to resolve problems as they arise and to see real peace reign, that you would remove strife from us. And Father, we pray that those who are unjustly enemies, that you would subdue them. Those who are friends that are offended, you would help us to work through things. And for those who are at peace, we ask that you would retain peace for us, that you would build up our relationships and cause us to rejoice in working together. Father, we pray that you would help us to order our lives, our schedules, our time and space, that you would help us to order our property, to avoid temptations and to encourage good work. And we ask that you would help us in our relationships to spur each other on. Father, there is so much evil and crookedness around us and in us. We ask that you would deliver us from evil. You know what is lacking, Father, and you can add. Father, you know what is crooked, and you can make straight. And so we look to you who can do all things and do more than we can imagine or ask. And we ask, Lord, that you would do it. We pray this to you, knowing you have the authority and power, and you will glorify your name. And so we pray this, being empowered by your spirit, coming to you by the mediation of Christ, when we say amen. Open now your Bibles to Exodus 24, and please stand for the reading of God's holy word. Exodus 24. Now he said to Moses, Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar. And Moses alone shall come near the Lord, but they shall not come near, nor shall the people go up with him. So Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments. And all the people answered with one voice and said, All the words which the Lord has said we will do. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. And he rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he sent young men of the children of Israel who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins, and half the blood he sprinkled on the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, all that the Lord has said we will do, and be obedient. And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, this is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to all these words. Then Moses went up, also Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. And they saw the God of Israel. And there was under his feet, as it were, a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity. But on the nobles of the children of Israel he did not lay his hand. So they saw God, and they ate and drank. Then the Lord said to Moses, Come up to me on the mountain and be there, and I will give you tables of stone and the law and commandments which I have written, that you may teach them. So Moses arose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up to the mountain of God. And he said to the elders, Wait here for us until we come back to you. Indeed, Aaron and Hur are with you. If any man has a difficulty, let him go to them. Then Moses went up into the mountain, and a cloud covered the mountain. Now the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day, he called to Moses out of the mist of the cloud. The sight of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel. So Moses went into the mist of the cloud and went up into the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights. Please remain standing, open your Psalters to Psalm 24. Psalm 24, a Psalm of David. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and all those that dwell here on the earth. For he has founded the earth upon the seas and established the world upon the waters. Oh, who can ascend to the hill of the Lord or who can stand in his place of holiness? He who has clean hands and the man of pure heart, who lifts not his soul to what's vain nor tells lies. Yes, he will receive the blessing from the Lord, righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is a generation that seeks him out. Yes, this is Jacob who does seek out your face, Selah. O gates, lift your heads. O doors everlasting, be lifted and the King of glory will come. Oh, who is this King that in glory appears? He is the Lord, strong and mighty in battle. O gates, lift your heads. O doors everlasting, be lifted and the King of glory will come. Oh, who is this King that in glory appears? The Lord of hosts. He is the King of glory. Selah. You may be seated. Psalm 24 is a psalm that... glorifies God, it describes who he is, what he owns, it describes who inherits that, and it describes our Redeemer. It's a beautiful psalm. So the layout is our first metrical verse in our Psalter describes that glorification of God and his universal dominion. The second and third describe who the true Israel is. And the fourth and fifth picture the Redeemer who's opened the gates of heaven for Israel. So let's look at that first metrical verse. So God owns all. His dominion, universal. Not just the property, not just the land, but the people. And it's attributed to the fact here that he made it. So there's a statement, the earth is the Lord, and then a reason is given, for he's founded the earth upon the seas, the work of creation. All that exists he created from nothing. We're not our own, it follows from that. We belong to God and we're to act according to his purpose. So it moves into the next section, which describes who is the true Israel. Who can ascend to the hill of the Lord? Who can stand in his place of holiness? He who has clean hands, the man of pure heart, who lifts not his soul to what's vain, nor tells lies. There's a picture here of Christ, and there's also a description of the elect. So notably, there's nothing about race, gender, nationality, anything like that. There's a description of character. He who has clean hands and the man of pure heart. So we know that we, or the elect, are made clean by placing our faith in Christ. So the third magical verse follows on from this. Yes, he will receive the blessing from the Lord, righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation that seeks him out. Yes, this is Jacob who does seek out your face. So it's that man that's described in the previous verse who will be blessed by the Lord. And there's a lasting testimony here to the fact that men are saved by nothing else than faith in Jesus Christ. The true Israel is that family of true believers, and that's the church today. So the fourth and fifth metrical verses, very similar. O gates, lift your heads, O doors everlasting. Be lifted, and the King of glory will come. O who is this King that in glory appears? He is the Lord, strong and mighty in battle. The fifth is the same, except it's the Lord of hosts. He is the King of glory. So the repetition is notable. The last sentence is what changes. He's the Lord strong and mighty in battle, and he is the king of glory. And it's talking about the gates being lifted, and that's what Christ accomplished for us. He lifted the gates of heaven. He came to us, and by his work, we too can enter the gates of heaven. So those final verses answer the question posed at the beginning in the second metrical verse, who can ascend to the hill of the Lord? That's Christ. He was the only pure one, the only one capable of approaching by his own righteousness. The question then is one of, the question that's being asked at the end is almost like what a watchman would be asking. Who is this king that in glory appears? Who's approaching the walls? What are his attributes? What does he do? How does he act? So those are questions about our Lord. And in asking those questions, we're asking, how do we glorify him? So if we're to make him known, part of glorifying him, we must know him. And that's our life's work, to be asking how to be conformed to his image and apply it. So Psalm 24 glorifies God in his universal dominion. He owns all. The earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof. Not just some, the fullness. Describes the true Israel that's all believers. Irregardless of race nationality et cetera. And then. Follows on by giving us a picture of the Redeemer who opened. The gates of heaven. For us. His church. Of any comments questions or objections from voting members or those with speaking privileges. Pastor East. Yep. Agreed, yes. All right, thank you. Please stand to sing Psalm 24. Psalm 24, a psalm of David. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and all those that dwell here on the earth. For he has counted the earth upon the seas and established the world upon the waters. Or who can ascend to the hill of the Lord? Or who can stand in his place of holiness? He who has clean hands and the man of pure heart, Who lifts not his soul to what's vain nor tells lies, Yes, he will receive the blessing from the Lord, righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation that seeks him out. Yes, this is Jacob who does seek out your face. O gates, lift your heads, O doors everlasting. Be lifted, and the King of glory will come. O who is this King that in glory appears? He is the Lord strong and mighty in battle. O gates, lift your heads, O doors everlasting. Be lifted, and the King of glory will come. O who is this King that in glory appears? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory. All right, please remain standing. We'll read a little bit now out of the book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes chapter one, verse 16. I'll be reading through the whole of chapter two. We'll be focusing on chapter two and trying to get through the whole of the chapter. We got about halfway in last time or a third of the way in. Chapter one, verse 16. I communed with my heart saying, look, I have attained greatness and gained more wisdom than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My heart has understood great wisdom and knowledge, and I set my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceive that this also is grasping for the wind. For in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. I said in my heart, come now, I will test you with mirth. Therefore, enjoy pleasure. But surely, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, madness. And of mirth, what does it accomplish? I searched in my heart how to gratify my flesh with wine while guiding my heart with wisdom and how to lay hold on folly. till I might see what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives. I made my works great. I built myself houses and planted myself vineyards. I made myself gardens and orchards. I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made myself water pools from which to water the growing trees of the grove. I acquired male and female servants and had servants born in my house. Yes, I had greater possessions of herds and flocks than all who were in Jerusalem before me. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the special treasures of kings and of the provinces. I acquired male and female singers, the delights of the sons of men, and musical instruments of all kinds. So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also, my wisdom remained with me. Whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor, and this was my reward from all my labor. Then, I looked on all the works that my hands had done, and on the labor in which I had toiled, and indeed all was vanity. and grasping for the wind. There was no prophet under the sun. 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 perceive it, the same event happens to them all. 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's 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. 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, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool. Yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled, and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun, This also is vanity. Therefore I turned my heart and despaired of all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun. 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. Nothing is better for a man than 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 or who can have 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. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind. You may be seated. All right, so the emphasis in this text is on mirth. The idea of mirth is this idea of seeking pleasure, especially seeking pleasure, not just even by yourself, right? Because you could do this kind of lonely pleasure seeking. You can think of somebody in the basement playing video games, having access to food and drink and all that. And you might go, well, loneliness might be the thing that this person has. Mirth can include pleasures of any variety, but it tends towards this idea of being with other people. Think of feasting together, laughing together, sharing in all the enjoyments together. And so this picture that you might have of a king in his feasting hall with his men, with those who have accomplished much, you might think, well, sure, you can have pleasures and be lonely, But here we have pleasure with other people, not even just by yourself. And so all of the things are done. You might go, well, pleasure by itself gets boring if you're just seeking after pleasures in terms of just games, just play, just eating and drinking, just sexuality. Those things might get boring. But he throws into it the enjoyment of work, doing any project he wants. And so he has tried to define mirth in the best way he can. He has steel-manned the idea of mirth. He has said, pleasure-seeking that will be analyzed here. is the pleasure-seeking of doing everything that men might say is enjoyable. And doing it with the power of a king. And not just a king. A power of the greatest king to arise in Jerusalem. The king of Jerusalem that dominated the space between the Euphrates and the Nile. A man who put under subjection, or received from his father, a zone of subjection from the Euphrates to the Nile. from the southern wilderness up to Asia Minor, a man who dominated that space. And so the mirth that he can have, the pleasure-seeking that he can have, the way in which he can be free from the interruptions of other men to disrupt his merrymaking, do you think that you have as much power to effectively seek after merrymaking as Solomon had? So he is providing for us here the consideration. Remember, at the end of chapter one, he reached a point where he said, you know, wisdom brings grief. It brings offense. You see evil, and you see waste, and it troubles your soul. Knowledge increases sorrow, pain, suffering. You see the crookedness of the world and the things that are lacking, and it brings torment to your soul. So enough of that. Let me go away from wisdom. I've obtained more wisdom than others. I'm lonely in my wisdom. Let me make merry with others. And he seeks to say, but let me not throw off wisdom in total. Chapter two, verse one, I said in my heart, come now, I will test you with mirth. Therefore, enjoy pleasure. But surely this also was vanity. He gets to us the conclusion of the matter before he goes through all the testing he did. I will test you with mirth. So he starts off, and this is a scientific paper, he's saying the experiment is on pleasure. Here's the hypothesis. If the good is pleasure, if the good life for man is the life of pleasure seeking, then I would expect that obtaining pleasure will result in fulfillment. We ran the tests. The conclusion of the tests was pleasure is not the good. It was not fulfilling. It left me with an empty hand. It was vanity. It was meaningless. So then we have him examining some of the components of it. Verse 2, I said of laughter, madness. If you laugh, you go, you know what's good? Good times. Good times are kind of defined by sitting around and laughing with your friends. You go, really? What if you just laughed for an hour straight? What if you laughed for a day straight? How many nights without sleeping, with just laughter after laughter after laughter, would you start to think that the laughing was less valuable? Would you start to think that it's a form of torture? It's interesting, you think of laughing and you think of a good time, but at the same time, if you think about art, oftentimes there's a portrayal of the sort of mad as laughing. Or there's a portrayal of the wicked as laughing. Hyenas. This idea of a sort of madness in that laughter. And so you can see immediately, okay, mirth leads to laughter. Laughter, good times. But laughter is an end in itself. Laughter is the good and how to lay hold on folly till I might see what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives. This idea that pleasure-seeking is a form of folly is saying, the gratifying of the flesh, of the desires, of the sensate. If you pursue these things, people view it as folly, but is there perhaps a moderation in folly? How much folly should be pursued? If you have wisdom and you have folly, perhaps it's like a yin and a yang. Maybe there's a bit of foolishness in wisdom, and a bit of wisdom in folly. Perhaps these things must be in balance, and they must go back and forth. Is there a right amount? Is there a balance to be achieved between these things? And so this effort to try to, if you just chase after pleasure maximally, it becomes obvious after one night of hard partying, this was a bad decision. The hangover, the pain, the difficulty, the frustration, the collapse of responsibility, the incompetency that follows. the ways, if you're wise and you look upon this crass hedonism, that crass hedonism becomes obviously foolish upon immediate examination. And so what Solomon does, remember we have this name, there's not just a barbaric hedonism, but there's a name, there's a label for this sort of intelligent effort to take pleasures and minimize pains, and to try to level it out, and to try to maximize sort of the rate at which you're able to have these pleasures, and that name is Epicureanism. There's a restaurant, I can't remember if it's here or someplace else, called Epicurean. Clever name. The idea that they've designed their restaurant to maximize the pleasure and reduce the pains. Perhaps except for the bill, I'm not sure. But this idea that you go into a place and they're trying to give you an intelligent balancing of pleasures and minimizing the pains, that idea, that's what Solomon's pursuing here. Is there a way to use pleasure to escape from the pains of wisdom and knowledge while still retaining the wisdom and knowledge? And the difficulty here is trying to make pleasure into the good or an equal good with wisdom, that is what leads to the destruction, the foolishness. We can never place anything over the knowledge of God or equal to the knowledge of God without making it a false god. Verse 4 Actually, let me reread verse 3. I searched in my heart how to gratify my flesh with wine while guiding my heart with wisdom and how to lay hold on folly till I might see what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives. So part of this Solomon's almost going back to what Eve did. Adam received from God a word. And the word was this. There was command to exercise dominion over the earth, to fill it, to have children, to subdue the earth, to fill that earth with children and children with knowledge. There was the institution of marriage. There was the giving of the tree of life. There was a giving of every tree in the garden. God said, you may eat of any of them, except for one. And the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the tree of trying to define or determine good and evil for yourself as opposed to believing God when he defines good and evil. And so we have Satan coming and tempting Eve. Did God really say you shall not eat of any tree of the garden? And so she presents to him this wrong restatement of the command. And then she listens to this false prophet and she looks at the tree and says it's pleasant to the eye and it's good for food and good for knowledge. She runs an experiment very similar to Solomon. Solomon runs an experiment. Wisdom brings pain. Maybe I will try out something else. Maybe there's something else that's better than what God prescribed. And so he experiments with it. Or experiments based upon our observations, based upon false prophets, based upon trying to test God to see if he's actually right or not. There's two ways of testing God. One is to do what he says, even if you're unsure about the results. You test him and you see if he does what he promises. And that's good. You believe what he says, even if you don't understand all the implications, all the applications, you take what you understand and you apply it. And you test him and you see if his promises will be given. And there's testing God by saying, maybe God's wrong. What if, instead of doing what he told me, what if I do something else and see if the curses he's threatened will really come? We are forbidden to test God in that way. So Eve and Solomon, both grand examples of testing God by going and running experiments on what he has forbidden. Now verse four, here we have again, this is the list of works. I made my works great. I built myself houses. Nothing wrong with building houses. But it's not the good. Maybe this house will make me happy. Maybe that house will make me happy. Maybe if I make it three times bigger, it'll make me happy. The house is never big enough. And at some point it's too big. and its bigness makes you uncomfortable. People go through lives buying bigger and bigger houses until they decide that the big house is making them unhappy and they buy smaller and smaller houses. What a fickle creature man is. I made my works great. I built myself houses and planted myself vineyards. I made myself gardens and orchards. I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made myself water pools from which to water the growing trees of the grove. I acquired male and female servants and had servants born in my house. Yes, I had greater possessions of herds and flocks than all who were in Jerusalem before me. The vineyards would not only be beautiful, but it would also be a source of income. We're told in the Song of Solomon that one of the vineyards that Solomon had was a vineyard that produced a thousand pieces of silver worth of income per annum. In many vineyards, there are sources of income. There are also sources of beauty. And there are also sources of wine and rejoicing. He had gardens and orchards, so you'd have fresh fruits and vegetables and enjoyment of it. Gardens are beautiful, orchards are beautiful. They all require work to maintain. You know, it doesn't require a lot of work for weeds to grow. It does require a lot of work for other things to grow. If you don't keep the weeds out, they take over. These things become sources of work. But they also become sources of revenue. And Solomon had servants. He got to enjoy Working in it whenever he wanted and not working in it whenever he wanted. He got to enjoy watching other people work. Solomon's attitude to some extent might have been, I love work. I could watch it all day. That idea of going about and seeing and doing whatever you want, whenever you want. And here's the beauty of these places and the revenues of these places and the fruits of these places. He can enjoy the wine. He can enjoy the vegetables. He can enjoy the fruits. I made myself water pools from which to water the growing trees of the grove. These would provide utility, but they would also be beautiful. This idea of a place to swim, a place to be, a place to receive cool waters, running waters. Think of the aqueduct systems of Rome, how much we're impressed by them, or the hanging gardens of Babylon. I acquired male and female servants and had servants born in my house. Slaves. What acquisition can you have that would be more impressive than to own people? To have people who have known no life except for the life of your household. Born into your house. Male and female servants. Yes, I had greater possessions of herds and flocks than all who were in Jerusalem before me." These would be income producing. You have the idea of being able to sell off the produce of them, being able to use them, being able to increase their number, being able to sell off those that are born of them. And these are income producing. All of these things are beautiful, enjoyable, interesting. All of them are things that produce revenues. And so, the wisdom of his Epicureanism is this. He spins and spins, and yet his revenues increase. He gets to see work that he enjoys, but he only has to do it when he wants to. Otherwise, other people do it. He gets to plan or engage in the work however much or little he wants. He gets to enjoy of its fruit. He gets to see it. Yes, I had greater possessions of herds and flocks than all who were in Jerusalem before me. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the special treasures of kings and of the provinces. Think about silver and gold for a minute. Silver and gold are currency. They're stores of wealth. They don't produce income unless you lend it out. But the idea of having something that's durable wealth, the animals can die from plague. The trees can be destroyed by frost. But to have wealth of all of these different varieties and to have them geographically dispersed, the diversification of his investments was great. And there's a difference between possessing silver and gold versus possessing the special treasures of kings and of the provinces. You know, rich people might stack up gold and silver and store it in a place where they can't see it. They might want to see it. You might Scrooge McDuck style swim around in it. You always wonder how he survived any one of those jumps. I guess it's because he's a cartoon. But you look at this, this idea of storing up the money. And there's a certain beauty to gold and silver. But it's very different than to store up the special treasures of kings and of the provinces Highly valuable pieces of art. Ornate working of jewelry. The jewelry is not merely equal to its value in terms of the weight of the metals, or the weight of the stones. There's a value often in the uniqueness of them, in the craftsmanship of them, in the special treasure nature of it. You might have a natural stone that is unique. or hard to replicate. All of these things. The idea that there's not just wealth in the form of capital, but even in the special treasures that kings put on display. You think about some people, they're so rich that they have rooms just to display treasures in. Some treasures are so magnificent that they're deserving of a room by themselves. Think about museums and how the paintings that you might see hung in a museum, if the paintings are not viewed as particularly remarkable, you'll find that there's a lot of them in the same room. But those paintings that draw crowds, those paintings that men get onto planes to see, the ones that they know by name to ask about, they often have a room just for them. Solomon gathered to himself the special treasures of kings and of the provinces. His wealth was in artistic form, in beauty, in revenue production, in wealth preservation, in the storing up of metals. He had men to work. And he also gathered to himself beauty in his household. I acquired male and female singers, the delights of the sons of men, and musical instruments of all kinds, all cultural wealth, all beauty, all capital, all revenues. Go to the third page. So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also, my wisdom remained with me. He is emphasizing again that he has great power and he was intelligently engaging with the pursuit of pleasures. I think this is a display of what the New Testament we see called the pride of life. The pride of life is this idea that you have the power to bring things about by yourself. And it's sort of this chasing after power as the good. The pride of life was present there with Solomon. And so we see him continue on and we see the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh. The lust of the eyes is an acquisitive craving. The chasing after a property as the good. And the lust of the flesh is this chasing after good feeling. He is intelligently chasing after good feeling and property to maintain the ability to get the good feelings and power to make sure to guard his ability to get the good feelings. He is, with all worldly wisdom, guarding his pleasures and his revenues. This is a long-term thinking, continuous flow of pleasure-seeking, behavior by the most powerful man on the planet. If you think you can do Epicureanism better, you're an idiot. His experimentation was far better than what you can achieve. Whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor." He wasn't just working to have to earn a living. The work he did was the work he wanted to do. You think, why do children play Minecraft? Because they want to build things. Why do men have hobbies? Because they enjoy the working that they're doing. These things, whatever his eyes desired, he did not keep from them. He did not withhold from his heart any pleasure. My heart rejoiced in all my labor, and this was my reward from all my labor." The reward of all his labor says, I could do all of it. I could enjoy anything, and I could do anything I wanted, whenever I wanted, and the result was that it was all meaningless, and it was like grabbing the wind. You look in your hand, and there's nothing there. I didn't gain anything. So this question of gain is what he's drawing us to. Solomon with excellent art of writing and masterful examination of the definition of profit and pleasure is saying, pleasure isn't profit and it doesn't give you profit. So you start to go, okay, what is profitable? What's good? What's worth getting? Because Solomon seems to have gotten everything you can get. So what's worth getting? He is controlling himself in a way so as to, with great discipline, pursue his own pleasure. There are four places where control exists in society by the design of God. You govern yourself. The household is governed by a patriarch and a matriarch, but the patriarch is over the matriarch. The church is governed by officers, but the head of the church is Christ. And the state is governed by magistrates, and the king of kings is Christ. Every one of these is meant to exercise some control. The state is meant to use the sword and apply the word of God in law to restrain the most egregious outbreaks of wickedness. It restrains evil men. It restrains armies. And it stops ongoing chaos in the streets. What state could govern Solomon? What king drew tribute from him. There were none. There were no states, no kings, except for the God of heaven over him. In the church, he was not a priest, but he was a prophet. And he was also the son of a prophet. And in the church, imagine for a moment that he, like some of his descendants after him, chose to corrupt the worship of God, chose to go into the temple of God, chose to take into his own hand the keys of the kingdom, and to usurp the priests. Who could stay him? Who could stop him and say to him, what have you done? In his own household, after his father died, and he received the kingdom and the throne. As he received all the property that David had piled up, who could tell him what to do? The only government left to Solomon was God over him and his own self-government. And so what we're seeing here is the removal of any sort of constraint of any of these other powers. And to say, if you had pure self-government, what would you do? How would you govern yourself? What is worthy of self-control? The way he pursued pleasure, the rewards were useless, wind grasping, nothing. So we have this problem with pleasure seeking. It leads to boredom. or frustration, and frustration was not his problem. He got what he wanted. So there's this issue of boredom, there's the issue of emptiness. And so we find in verse 12, we go to page four. Then I turned myself to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who succeeds the king? And so not only is it frustrating in this life, not only did he find that it was unfulfilling in this life, but he also began to wonder You know, I'm going to die. And when I die, and when I've done all this pleasure seeking, and when I've built all these houses, and had all these orchards, and vineyards, and gardens, and the pools of water, when all of that has been accumulated, and I've been using it to distract myself for all of these years, is there anything else to do? Is there any progress to make? Is this it? Is this the highest thing? Is it just, okay, one guy somewhere dominating the empire, if he can manage to possess this for his whole life and maintain peace sufficient, that he can enjoy it, so he can keep all of the nations under his feet, so that he can enjoy all of these pleasures. Is there just one guy on the planet? at any given time who may be, if he can have a universal dominion, does that one guy get to live the good life? And everybody else is really just gathering stuff from the gardens for him so he can live the good life. Is that what it comes down to? And even that, he goes, that guy's gonna die. His life ends. And all the things he did, all of these gardens and vineyards and houses, all the slaves he's accomplished to pull together, all the treasures and revenues, what happens to it when he dies? Somebody else gets it. That guy who succeeds him, what can he do? Is he just gonna repeat it? Is he just gonna go, well, now it's my turn to eat of all the gardens and all the vineyards and drink the wine and have the slaves and do what I want? Well, if he does what he wants, is there any progress? Is there anything he can accomplish to continue down the road, or is this just a repetition of the same thing over and over again? How does this not just return to a cycle? You remember at the beginning, his criticism of everything was Everything's kind of just a cycle. It's meaningless because it's the same thing over and over again. The waters come. There's rain. It returns to the sea. The winds move around on their circuit. The eye is not satisfied with seeing. The ear is not satisfied with hearing. One generation comes. The next replaces it. The sun just keeps circling around from our perspective. Is it just a cycle? 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. Okay, so this is a flash. Every now and then, people who are in their unbelief, or people who are in their sin, even if you're a believer and you're backsliding into sin, every now and then, you're in the middle of the sinning, you're in the middle of this unsatisfying life, and something flashes to your eyes, and you see for a minute the foolishness of your sin. The unbeliever might see for a minute the misery of their unbelief. Think about the prodigal son. Ran away, spent all of his money on pleasure-seeking. And he finds himself a servant starving, eating out of the pigsty. And that guy had a flash when he went, you know, even the servants in my father's house have plenty to eat and clothing to wear. Maybe if I'm going to be a slave someplace, I'll do it there. The recognition of the meaninglessness of it, of the mental suffering of where this philosophy leads, flashes before his eyes. And he says, wisdom's better than folly. Folly's not the yin-yang mixture to put together with wisdom. This is not a balancing act. I need to maximize wisdom and minimize folly. Folly is not a useful thing. to have even in moderation. I need to seek after wisdom. This is the realization he has. That wisdom is better than folly in the same way that having eyes in your head is better than not. And you go, what is that? It's better in the same way that light is better than darkness. What is that? Light allows you to differentiate things. He gives for us another picture, right? Solomon is a master at the mental images. What does he give to us? He gives us the mental image of grasping for the wind, and you go, I've got nothing in my hand. And now he has wisdom is better than folly in the same way that light is better than darkness. In case you didn't get it, let me make this plain. It's better in the same way that having eyes in your head is better than not having eyes in your head. When you don't have eyes in your head, what happens? All you see is darkness. So if you want the absolutes, light with eyes in your head versus no eyes in your head. And so then what we have is this idea of in case you still don't get it, the fool is like a person who's walking around a room in the dark. Have you ever walked around a room in the dark, maybe the power goes out? As an experience, generally, I mean just generally speaking, is walking around in the dark a fun experience? Or you're like, I wish I could do this more often. I cannot wait until the power goes out again. Preferably, if I could just be in the middle of a room with lots of stuff in it, and not have a flashlight on hand, if I could have the power go out right then, that would be magnificent. Nobody has ever said that to me, ever. I don't think it's ever happened to you either. This, like, looking around with your hands out, trying to feel stuff while shuffling your feet, and then you bump into something and you go, I just had my hand there. How did I miss it? How is there a table there? That experience of bumping into things, falling over things, and the terror of going around in the dark and falling and not knowing if you're going to hit your head on something, that is the experience of wandering around without wisdom. Wisdom is what it's like. It's like having wisdom when you have the experience of turning the light on and navigating the room. Wisdom allows you to navigate the room. What's the room? The room is the world. The room is life. And so wisdom allows you to walk around seeing what's in the room and differentiating things. The difference between darkness and light is that light allows you to tell the difference between things. Darkness is just a black canvas, and light allows you to see different objects in different spaces, to see their use, and to see where they are, and to see what's fitting based upon your location. So wisdom is better than folly in the same way that light is better than darkness, eyes in your head is better than no eyes in your head, and walking around the room with the light on is better than walking around the room with the light off. That picture of the superiority of wisdom to folly is what Solomon wants to stick in your mind. So you go, what's the purpose of life? Wisdom and the knowledge of God. You go, what's the benefit of that? The same benefit of light in a room. And what happens at verse 14, 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." You know what happens there? There's the spark of light in Solomon's eyes, and then all of a sudden, he suppresses the truth and unrighteousness, and the lights go out. Remember, what does light do? Light differentiates things. It allows you to tell the difference, to walk around and see difference between spaces. And what he's just said is, wisdom is better than folly in the same way that light is better than darkness. It allows you to differentiate things. But you know what? Then I recognized there's still no difference, because the same thing happens to both. And what this does for us is it establishes a principle that for any philosophy to avoid meaninglessness, we have to have a differentiation ultimately between good and evil and between the good life and the bad life and what people have. Any philosophy that leads to Life of any kind leads to the same end as a meaningless life. And this is viewed as the most profound sort of philosophy. Every religion is a path to God. Great. Then every life is meaningless and there's no difference between the wise and the fool. This is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible says the way is singular. Christ is the way. The Bible says that there is not a multiplicity of ways to God. There's one way to God. And that makes it so that choices are maximally meaningful. The other thing that we have is this problem that came up early on in these verses, which is Solomon thinking, you know, when I die and I hand everything over, how do I avoid meaninglessness? Any philosophy that results in there being no progress across generations makes it so that your life is meaningless. When your life ends, your work is finished, and there's nothing to build on. An American civil order and social order has been largely built upon people thinking, I earn money so that I have money to use in retirement. Because having money is better than not having money. If there's any left for my kids, I don't really care. This is the good life in America. The life of getting to retirement. Instead of that, the good life is a life that has an answer to the problem of, how do I have meaning across generations? And so it's cumulative. There must be There must be a difference in the results for the wise and the foolish, and there must be a cumulative progress across generations. Solomon's objections are not merely depressing aphorisms designed to make us leave the sermon feeling bad. What they are is highlights for us to know how can we defeat false goods that raise up their heads in rebellion against God. And so one of them is any philosophy that doesn't have an answer to cumulative progress. The Bible shows us that the knowledge of God is the good, and it teaches us that the knowledge of God builds on itself. Look at point 30. Point 30, I have cumulative. The good is cumulative. It builds on itself. As you know God more, it builds on itself. And as you pass it across generations, the next generation knows more than the prior generation. You keep building. The church makes progress. As we work, that work adds up. There's progress across time. It's not just fruitless. It's not just ineffective. It's powerful. And it preserves power. And it spreads power. Knowledge is power. The more you know, the more you can do. It builds. Working and keeping are effective across time. We can pass on material wealth, and we can pass on wisdom. And if you have a wise heir, then the wisdom you've given to them should increase across generations, and the property should increase across generations. That's the general tendency for the property. And for the wisdom, that's the effect. And so we have this idea that the same thing happens to everybody. And Solomon engaged with that further in verse 15. 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 days to come. And how does a wise man die? As the fool. The answer to this is nothing's forgotten. The day of judgment brings all to remembrance. God always remembers everything. And even if the same external event happens to the wise and to the fool, there's a dramatic difference in the inward world of the wise than in the inward world of the fool. If you've read the book of Job, You know that Job had all of his property and all of his family, save his wife, taken from him. And his response was not to say, I've lost the good, oh no, and commit seppuku. His response was, the Lord gives, the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. The fool does not respond that way. Ultimately, Job ends up receiving even more blessing than he had before. Under the sun, without taking God into account, without the God of the Bible, without a focus on the rule of heaven, the glory of God, the events of life are not sufficient to differentiate the wise from the fool. If there's no justice in this life, and sometimes the righteous are punished, John Huss had his goose cooked. We find many men who are righteous, persecuted, and martyred. If there's no justice in this life, then we must rely upon God to differentiate between the wise and the fool and the next. Consequences must be lasting for choices to be meaningful. And so we find two more criteria for evaluating the good life versus the bad life, the true good versus the wrong good. For something to be profitable, it has to be something that you can take with you. The pharaohs of Egypt sought to think about, how can I take my property with me? How can I take my servants with me? They were like, you know, Solomon, We've got something here. So what we'll do is we'll put our goods around our mummified bodies. We'll get to take them with us in the next life. Also, we'll kill some of our servants, mummify them, put them in there too. They'll get to go with us. This will go well. That idea of taking that stuff with you does not work out. There's a famous sort of Ecclesiastes type of poem that comes from Babylon. And the servant is talking to the master. And over and over again, the master comes up with different plans because he's pretty bored. Because he's wealthy and he's bored. And he says, you know, maybe I'll do this. And the servant says, yes, master, do that. That'll be wise. And he says, yeah, I'm not going to do that. And the servant goes, yes, master, that's wise. Don't do it. He does this over and over again in this way that's just, you know, the compounding of it reaches hilarity. And at the end of it, the master says, you know, life seems pretty meaningless. Maybe I'll kill myself. And the slave says, yes, master, do that. We'll prepare a great funeral for you. And the master ends by saying, you know, actually, I don't think I will, but I'll send you ahead. And so the moroseness of this other perspective where you go, how do I have something I can take with me? If you make it the physical world, if you make it power, if you make it pleasure, it becomes this ridiculous thing where you come up with all sorts of superstitions that paganism has manifested in all sorts of ways throughout history. And these views, trying to make something continuing. You know what is continuing that you can take with you? Everlasting life. The knowledge of God is everlasting life. And your soul continues into eternity. And you do not lose the knowledge of God. You only get more of it. And so the question becomes also the fear of loss. It's not just that it has to be theoretically continuing. It has to be something you can't lose. Because think about this. You've heard of Murphy's Law. Given enough time, everything that can happen will happen. Given enough time, if you can lose life, if you can lose spiritual life, given enough time, if you can, you will. So in order for the good to be comforting, to differentiate in a lasting way, it must be inalienable. So not only must it continue, but it must be something that's impossible to lose, or else it's not profitable. Because given enough time, you'll lose it. So think about how the Bible provides the only answer for a cumulative good across time. It is the only thing that provides a lasting answer for something that can continue from this life to the next. It is the only thing that provides a lasting answer for how you can gain profit and not lose it. If you don't have these things, the only result that can possibly follow is a meaninglessness, a nihilism, a void of meaning. And so Solomon 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. Beloved, the Bible is the mind of Christ given to us. And it provides answers that no other philosophy, no other worldview, no other system of thought, no philosophy, nothing dreamed up by the brains of men or the minds of demons, Nothing provides the answer except for what God has given to us in the Scriptures. He provides for us an answer to all these things, and He shows us how we can have certainty by tearing down everything else. Do you see the love of God for you in this? that He has created for you an intellectual fortress that not only gives you the ability to have the answer, but also provides you with certainty by destroying every false answer. And so Ecclesiastes is a manual for the destruction of false goods, a manual for tearing down idols. It is a manual for helping us to have stability of soul that we might have fortitude to carry on as we deal with the shocks of this life, and the lies that men spread, and the theft that you endure. The slings and arrows of this life are things that can be borne because we know what lies on the other side of the river. We can rely upon the fact that Christ has attained for us everlasting life. It cannot be lost. It will be taken to the other side, and it will build across time so that our lives are not wasted. And so Ecclesiastes provides for us a protection from the grasping for the wind and a certainty that the work that we do is profitable, allowing us to attain gain. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you have provided for us a roadmap of profit and given to us profit, that you have given to us spiritual life, that your Holy Spirit has caused us to know you, that your Word has delivered to us the words of life. Father, we pray. that You would use these words, that You would use Your Scriptures to help us to tear down the idols in our hearts, and that You would cause us to defend You, risen up in our minds, to defend the glory of Your Son in our minds, that we would be stable, that we would be able to defend against all falsehood. So we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Comments or questions from the voting members those with speaking privileges Mr. Walker After which word you said? Yeah, so depending on the translation, the commentary, the idea of acquiring male and female singers can be interpreted in a more or less lascivious manner. And the idea that if you had slaves that were designed, that were trained in pleasures, That singing might be a part of that or dancing and things like that. And then the idea of sexual gratification there. So some people interpret this as essentially concubinage or some sort of thing. I think that we obviously have teaching elsewhere that Solomon has many concubines. And so we see that he certainly has that. And I think there's sort of an implication there. I don't. I don't know. Because of the context of singers. With the musical instruments. You can you can try to turn this into a. He acquired male and female singers and delights of the sons of men. And then you could have that be sort of sexual activity. Of all kinds or whatever. But I don't think that that's. That's the point there. There's a. You know, there's a straightforwardness in other passages. I mean, Solomon wrote the Song of Solomon. He's not one who's particularly concerned about avoiding, you know, having clarity about sexual things. And also, it's said plainly of him elsewhere that he has those. So, I am not certain. I'm inclined towards the musical interpretation and music being sort of a representative of the enjoyment of finery and the enjoyment of cultural attainments and that perhaps even, you know, obviously other pleasures, sexual pleasures are included in terms of the types of things that he has and has access to. But so, I'm not, I'm not sure there, but I had chosen to just kind of think of it as, as fitting inside of the context of music and agree with the translation there based upon that. So that's my only I was not able to find sufficient information about the alternate usage of the word from other places. So, all right. Okay. Then let's now open our psalters to Psalm 23. And please stand for the reading of Psalm 23. Psalm 23, a Psalm of David. The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want. He makes me to lie down in the green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters and restores my soul again. He leads the way I'll go along the paths of righteousness, all for his own namesake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, surely I will fear no evil for you are there with me. Your rod and staff, they comfort me. And you prepare for me a table there in the presence of all my enemies. Lord, you anoint my head with oil and my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all my days. And I will dwell forevermore in the house of the Lord. Psalm of David. The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want. He makes me to lie down. In the green pastures he leads me Beside the still waters And he restores my soul again He leads the way I'll go along the paths of righteousness, all for his own name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Surely I will fear no evil, for you are there with me. Your rod and staff they comfort me, and you prepare for me a table there in the presence of all my enemies. Lord, you anoint my head with oil, and my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all my days. And I will dwell forevermore in the house of the Lord. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.