In the book of Ecclesiastes, we have been studying Solomon's search for satisfaction in life. And when we speak of satisfaction, we speak of that peace and contentment, that state of mind where there's a sense of meaning and purpose to what we're doing in life. We've been looking at his search for satisfaction thus far in chapter 1. through chapter 2 and verse 11. And we need to remember as we study this book that the search that he is relating to us was from a particular perspective. And that perspective was what he calls an under-the-sun perspective. A perspective that's limited to the horizontal. to the material, to the physical, to man's life and his experience. And there's nothing really that transcends it. Or if there is, he can't know about it. And therefore, he has been looking at life from what we might call a humanistic, materialistic, perhaps even we could say atheistic perspective. And what has he found? His search has been extensive. He has summarized that search for us. And it has been extensive. He has not left, as we would say, any stone unturned. He began his search for satisfaction through the mind, through the powers of reason, the rational aspects of man. If you look at man and his superiority over the animal world, we come down to what is the basis of it. His reason, his mind, his intellect, his ability to think through issues and to penetrate the mysteries of life. Or so he thinks. And Solomon, a man endowed naturally with a great mind and a great intellect, we might even say he was a genius, sets out on a search for satisfaction to answer the questions of life, the purpose of existence and the meaning of it all. And the end of his search is that all is vanity. That is, man's search for knowledge and understanding to be able to interpret his world and his experience to the satisfaction of his soul, leads to despair. So he says in verse 14, I have seen all the works that are done unto the Son, and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Well, if it's not through the mind of man, perhaps it's through his body. Perhaps it's through his sensual experience. That is, the experience of his senses. And so in chapter 2, verses 1-11, he sets out on his search in the other direction. But in doing this, he does not set aside his rational powers. But his goal is to find out if pleasure is man's highest good. Is this where we can really find satisfaction in life? And what he's pursuing here is what has come to be known to us as the philosophy or worldview of hedonism. That pleasure is man's highest good and therefore it should be pursued. Yes, pursued for its own sake because pleasure is the ultimate good in life. We noted last week as we looked at his search that there were two varieties of hedonism that have been in the ancient world and the continuing varieties of one of the two throughout history, and that is the Cyrenian and the Epicurean. The Cyrenian was the reprobate, the glutton, the drunkard, the whoremonger, the man who just gave himself over to his lusts. There's been quite a few of those. Quite a few advocates of that. Quite a few practitioners. But that's not what Solomon seeks. We saw that he was seeking what has come to be known to us as the Epicurean approach. Where a man retains his rational powers, he operates with moderation. He understands the glutton and the drunkard and what that really brings. In fact, it actually winds up bringing more pain than pleasure. So therefore, he goes about with wisdom and carefulness and pursues within the bounds of moderation through wine, women, and song, and luxury, and riches, beautiful buildings, and fine food and drink, to see if this will bring some peace and contentment to this poor man's troubled soul. What's the result of his search? Verse 11 of chapter 2. All of this. All pursuit of pleasure for itself and for its own sake as the key to life and happiness. All of this is vanity. Vanity. Emptiness. Meaningless. Purposeless. to no end. Yes, the result of his experiment. Therefore, through the mind, through the pleasures of the body, which is the summary of all that man can seek, because his powers are limited to that of his mind and his senses, his reason and his experience, and all of it comes up empty and vanity. Now, in our text this morning, beginning at verse 12 through to verse 23, Solomon, though he was not yet done, You say, well, hasn't he searched it all out? He's tried reason and rationalism and philosophy and he's tried sensual pleasure and hedonism and he's come up empty. Aren't you done yet, Solomon? No, he's not yet done. He can't give up quite yet. And he returns now, after seeing the pursuit of pleasure has failed, that perhaps he overlooked something in the other sphere of wisdom and philosophy and reason. Perhaps there's something that I didn't see, he says, that there is some satisfaction in the realm of wisdom and knowledge. He hinted at this type of thing in verse 17 of chapter 1 when he says, even after he had drawn the conclusion that Human philosophy is actually vanity and vexation of spirit because, as verse 15 tells us, there's too many crooked things out there the mind can't straighten out and too many holes in our knowledge that we cannot fill. But what about the possibility of comparing the options? Wisdom and madness. Or wisdom and foolishness. And what he's doing here in chapter 12 is returning to that theme. He's trying to salvage something. in life under the sun. And so it returns now in this section to the comparison of wisdom and folly in the hopes that by contrasting these two, he will derive at least some satisfaction from the superiority of wisdom to folly. Solomon, after all, is a very wise man. And he is considering this possibility that it must be more satisfying to be wise than to be a fool. So maybe we can't find full satisfaction, but can there be a measure of it? When we look at the option, and we look at folly, we look at madness, we look at foolishness, is there not some satisfaction to be grasped from wisdom and knowledge itself? Now his answer, as he seeks the answer to this question, that is, in spite of limitations of wisdom, Can't we find some satisfaction here? Isn't there some superiority? Life of wisdom to life of folly? His answer may surprise you. His answer is no. We cannot. Not even by comparing wisdom to folly can we actually find any satisfaction. The same result, the same conclusion is reached. It is vanity, empty, meaningless. That is human wisdom. You see, Solomon was a man who thought deeply. He sought to penetrate to the heart of the matter. He was ruthless, as it were, in searching things out. Many of us refuse to think about things too deeply because of all of the vexation it brings to our minds. So we just live this surface type of life and go along in our carefree ignorance until reality, which always has its way of forcing itself upon the experience and mind of man. You can only press aside the ultimate issues and questions of life so long. Solomon didn't wait to be pushed. He searched out the matters from the beginning. And he looked very carefully at the matter. And when he compared a life of wisdom to a life of folly, his conclusion was there is no superiority in a life of wisdom to a life of folly. Now remember, again, the perspective from which he is asking and answering the question. It is an under-the-sun perspective. And if our perspective is limited to man and his material world, in that worldview, in that perspective, there is no ultimate reason for choosing wisdom over foolishness. Because in the end, And this is his point, both are equally meaningless. If there is no God, if there is no Creator, if there is no day of judgment, the vertical aspect, if there is no divine plan or purpose, if we're limited to a man-centered materialistic or idealistic worldview where death ends all, then we have no basis for the value judgment that wisdom is superior to folly. That's what he's saying. There's no profit to either of them. There's no profit to anything in that worldview. And so this section of Ecclesiastes I think is very important. It's bringing everything to home in his survey of finding satisfaction in chapter 1 and 2. Surveying the whole field. He's going to go back and fill in the blanks. He's going to go back and he's going to look at matters in a closer fashion in the areas of rationalism and in the areas of our empiricism, our experience of pleasure. But right now he's coming to the conclusion of his survey. And the ground that he's covering here is very important. Because many of us stake our claim right in this section, in this kind of thinking. And that is this. Well, I'm not perfect. Well, I don't understand all the questions. But my life is better than fill in the blank. How many of us find some satisfaction in that? We compare our life, our thinking, though maybe it's messed up, maybe we have a lot of questions, maybe there's a lot of turmoil in our life, but we finally find some satisfaction by comparing ourselves with someone else or some other worldview. And we come to this conclusion that, well, my life is better than the life of a fool. And this is a very shallow satisfaction, by the way. The satisfaction that we find in life by comparing ourselves to someone that we consider to be below us, that we are superior to, that we're superior to them in their way of life. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12, 10, that such people who compare themselves with themselves and judge themselves by themselves are not what? Wise. They themselves are fools. You don't do it that way. That's not how it is to be pursued. And also in Luke 18, verses 9-11, He spake this parable unto certain who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. And we have the story of the publican and the Pharisee. He was a fool. His whole life was wrapped up in this fact and he found his significance in this point, that he was better than others. He's a foolish man. And so Solomon is taking away even this refuge. You don't find it in philosophy, you don't find it in hedonism, but you can't even find it in the comparison of your supposed superior life to someone else. Because we can always find somebody whom we consider to be below us in intellect or whatever. And so then what we have is Solomon concluding his under the sun perspective. by telling us that even this comparative idea that wisdom, and again he's not speaking of godly wisdom, he's speaking of human wisdom and knowledge and intellect and wit and reason, whatever you would want to call it, that this wisdom is not superior to human folly. But both are equally to be considered as vanity. Now how does he come to such a conclusion? Well, let's look at it. In verses 12 to 15, He concludes that the wise man and the fool experience the same calamities and come to the same end. No difference. Look at their life. The same kind of things happens to the fool as to the wise man, and in the end, they both die. Secondly, in verse 16 and 17, he shows us that the wise man and the fool will be equally forgotten. There's no remembrance of one over the other. So again, what? The superiority of wisdom to folly. If you're the wisest man on earth, you're still going to be forgotten. And number three, in verses 18-23, he shows us in this comparison between wisdom and folly, that the achievements of a wise man really don't bring him any satisfaction, but only vexation and sorrow. And he's going to give us some reasons why that is the case. Three reasons why that the achievements of a wise man can only bring him vexation and sorrow and not satisfaction. Let's look at these now, beginning in verse 12, where he shows us that the wise man and the fool ultimately meet the same end. And that's why there cannot be superiority of the one over the other. And I turn myself to behold wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do that cometh after the king? even that which hath been already done. Then I saw that wisdom exceleth folly, as far as light exceleth darkness. The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walketh in darkness. And I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all. Then I said in my heart, As it happened to the fool, so it happeneth even to me. And why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity. Turning then in verse 12, and I turn myself. He turns himself from his search for satisfaction and happiness and meaning in life through pleasure. He turns back then to this consideration of wisdom as we've just explained in our introduction. And he says, as he comes back to this question, and considers it anew from all possible angles, he would have us remind us of this if we think that Solomon is lacking in his experiment. For what can the man do or what can any man do that comes after the king, even that which has been already done? In other words, what I'm doing in my experiment here in chapters 1 and 2, no other man can actually outdo. Hear what I'm saying. You can't go on this path in any deeper way or more thorough way than I have done. He's saying my inquiry here is final. Please consider it such. Don't be a fool and cast away what I'm telling you. And here's what he tells us then. He said, I saw that wisdom excels folly. It's excellent. Excelleth folly as far as light excelleth darkness. What is this saying? What Solomon is telling us here, at first he concluded the superiority of wisdom to folly. And there is a profit of wisdom over foolish behavior, unthinking behavior, nonsensical actions. And he says, if you look, there seems to be an obvious advantage to the life guided by wisdom and human prudence. This is not the case. speaks of that advantage in verse 14. Perhaps these are proverbial expressions that were even in use in his day. The wise man's eyes are in his head. In other words, they're where they should be. He's thinking. He's using his powers of reason, his senses properly, and he's looking about and he's evaluating and thinking and judging. And he knows where he's going because his eyes are in his head. And he's using his faculties properly. But the fool's different. He walks in darkness. It's like he walks with his eyes closed. He does not think about what he's doing. He does not ponder his decisions. He plunges ahead like a blind man. Trips and stumbles and falls. There's no purpose and no goal in life. And my word, that's got to be superior, inferior I mean, to the life of wisdom. Uh-oh, though. He's a deep thinker. But wait a minute. Then it came to my mind, verse 14, that the same events happened to them all. The wise and the fool. What does he mean? When he speaks of the event here, one event, I believe he's speaking ultimately to the event of death. That's the ultimate event in every person's life. It's an event to which every one of us moves. And we will not escape. None of us in this room will escape death. It is the event, the one event. But I think it's also included in that one event is the whole process of dying that begins when we're born. It's funny to think of it that way, but as soon as you're born, you start dying. Because that first beat of that heart has made it one beat closer to the time when it can no longer do that, or whatever the system is that would ultimately shut down, however your life would end, we are moving to a definite end. And this event of death is preceded through all the kinds of calamities that are the common lot of men in a fallen world. And the same types of events, the same types of calamities, happen to all kinds of men. It doesn't matter if you're wise or foolish. The wise experience natural disasters just as the foolish. In the tremendous devastation that was wrought a little over a year ago in Hurricane Katrina, there were godly wise people and what happened? The event happened to them just as the fools. Their homes were washed away like others. It didn't help them in that situation. The wise are also overtaken by the sufferings and the calamities of war, just like the fool. Sickness. pain, suffering, disappointments, death of friends and loved ones. All of these things happen to both the wise and the fool. And these are the big stuff of life, aren't they? These events, these calamities, these disappointments, the sickness, disease. It happens to both the fool and the wise man. In other words, if wisdom is superior, why can it not enable a man to avoid these things? Under the son perspective, the same thing happens to each So where is the advantage? The most dreaded, the most difficult, the most fearsome things that we all wish would never happen to us happen to both the wise and the fool. So where's the superiority of wisdom? It can't deliver us from any of these things. But especially in the most significant thing that he thinks of here is that dreaded event, of all dreaded events, death itself. Here's what he says in verse 15. After he realized and perceived that one event happens to all. The event of disease. That one event happens to both the wise and the fool and so forth. Then I said in my heart, I drew this conclusion. As it happens to the fool, so it happens even to me. So why was I then more wise? What advantage was my wisdom to me in the end? Why did I expend such toil and headaches to gain knowledge and wisdom, when in the end I meet the same fate as the fool meets." And remembering again, this fate, this death, is viewed from an under-the-sun perspective. What do we know about death from an under-the-sun perspective? All we know is that's it. You're cancelled. You're history. You're done. You're finished. You cease to exist and your body is put in the ground. That's all we know. It ends everything. All of your dreams, all of your hopes, everything is wiped out. All of your works become nothing as far as you're concerned because you're dead and you're gone. You see, death reduces the wise and the fool to the very, very same status. Derek Kidner has a very good discussion of this in his commentary on Ecclesiastes. I'd like to read this section to you. He says, The bare comparison of wisdom and folly is simple, but the final assessment is shattering. Nothing could be more obvious than that the two compare with one another's light with darkness. But Kohalath, the Hebrew name for preacher, has the wit to remember that they are abstractions. wisdom and folly, and we are men. It is little use commending to us the ultimate worth of wisdom if in the end none of us will be around to exercise it, let alone to value it. This, of course, is why the purely human achievements which we call lasting are nothing of the kind. As men of the world, we may revere them in this way, but only for a lack of Kolev's honesty in seeing that in the days to come all will have long been forgotten. He has no illusions. Though by rights it is we who should have none, Kidner says, we who have heard from the secularists themselves that our very planet is dying. So, for the first time in the book, but by no means the last, the fact of death brings the search to a sudden stop. If one fate comes to all, and that fate is extinction, it robs every man of his dignity and every project of its point. As to man's dignity, what is so mortifying, an appropriate word, about death's final leveling of wise men and fools, to which we could add good men and bad men, saints and sadists, and every other pair of opposites, is that if it is true, it allows the last word to a brute fact, which tramples on every value judgment we can make. Everything may tell us that wisdom is not on a par with folly, nor goodness with evil, but no matter. If death is the end of the road, the contention that there is nothing to choose between them will get the last word. The choices that we positively knew to be significant will be brushed aside as finally irrelevant. And continuing with Kidner, but he goes on to a later verse, but I want to put this all together. Quotes the phrase, so I hated life. If there is a lie at the center of existence and nonsense at the end of it, who has the heart to make anything of it? If, as we might put it, every card in our hand will be trumped, does it matter how we play? Why treat a king with more respect than a knave? Why then was I more wise if the same end meets both? Let me give a couple of illustrations on what he's saying here. Perhaps this will even help the younger ones here to grasp what we're saying. Let's take a battlefield situation. We'll take two soldiers in a battlefield situation. One of these soldiers is a very wise soldier. He's learned his lessons well. He has studied all the arts of warfare, how to use his weapon, how to protect himself, how to make himself the least vulnerable possible. He wears all of his body armor. He does everything by the book. And he's labored to be a wise soldier on the same battlefield as a foolish soldier who has not learned his lessons, doesn't have his body armor on, does not think about the dangers that are before him. They are both on the battlefield and as the event unfolds, both of them are killed. What does it matter? Is there any difference? They're both dead. Being a wise soldier didn't make a whit of difference in the end and therefore wipes out all the value judgments that he had or others had about soldiering. Let's even take it back another step because let's look back to the parents of these two men. The wise soldier was wise because he had parents that trained him well and the foolish soldier was a fool because he had parents that were foolish. So the wise son goes forward in life, the fool goes forward in life, and in the end they both die. What was good of the parents' wisdom? They're both dead. All their labors expended on that son mean nothing. Because the same thing happened to the son of the foolish parents. And that's why, with that kind of perspective, Solomon says this also is vanity. the search after wisdom and knowledge. Because in the end, the wise man is the same as the foolish man, if you really think about it. Verse 16, not only do the wise man and the fool have the same events and the final event of death, both the wise man and the fool will be equally forgotten. But there's no remembrance of the wise more than the fool forever. Seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten, and I'll die at the wise man, as the fool." Returning also to the idea that they die the same way. But here his point is, not only do they die, but the remembrance dies. Back in chapter 1, verse 11, remember we talked about this. He said, there is no remembrance of the former things, neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come. It was those that shall come after. And so here another thought comes to Solomon's mind. Yes, both the wise and the foolish meet the same end, but perhaps there's yet a difference in them. The wise men are remembered, and the fools are forgotten. But he says, no, that's not the case. The wise and the foolish are equally forgotten. The works and the achievements of today that seem so important and so significant and so wise and witty and great will someday all be forgotten. This comes to my mind often in studying and considering the subject of archaeology. Particularly my interest, as you would imagine, was in biblical archaeology. And one of the ways in which the archaeologists are able to find areas to dig and to research is they've learned the kind of things to look for. And one of the things they look for is what's called a tell or a mound on the surface there in the area of Palestine and so forth. And what is the tell or the mound? What is it? It's basically artificial. When they begin to dig at the top of it and they go down, they find layers of occupations of the peoples that lived there. In other words, one came, they died, others built on the ruins. They died for some reason in disease or warfare. They were destroyed. Somebody builds on their ruins. And they die and somebody builds on their ruins. And in the end, it's just a mound there that's covered by everything. All the wise men, all the great men, all the achievements of those people completely forgotten and buried in the dirt. All forgotten. There were wise people who lived one time on that tale and there were fools who lived on that same spot. They met the same fate. We don't know who they were. We don't know their names. We don't know anything about them. They're completely forgotten. You see, when we look at this span of history, and we recognize that we have history books and remember deeds of men to an extent in a certain time, we're just looking at a snapshot of history. And all of the peoples that came and the wise men and philosophers that preceded our time, we don't have any idea who they are. In their day, they were celebrated. Men of great renown. who wrote their books and gave their lectures, and we don't even know what those books or lectures are. They have been forgotten. And Solomon's conclusion here is that there's no advantage to being a wise man because you're going to be forgotten just like a fool. One of the things that the people under the sun like to take as some satisfaction is even though they might die and they might end their existence, in some way they'll still exist in the minds of others. As one generation retells their exploits and wisdom to the next, and that some way, even though death ends all, there'll still be some way, they'll have this legacy, they'll have this remembrance among men. And Solomon realizes the cold and brutal fact that no, we'll all be forgotten. I think when we talked about chapter 1, verse 11, I talked about your own family history. How many generations back do you know anything about your ancestors? How far back? People like you and I, having children, raising them, someday you're going to be forgotten too. In the same way that you and I forgot our ancestors. It's a fact. If you look at life under the sun. And life under the sun is not a very encouraging perspective upon which to view life. And so he comes to verse 17. And really in a sense, I think verse 17 is a culmination of everything he's been telling us from chapter 1 verse 12 until now. the futility of human wisdom and philosophy, the futility of hedonism, now trying to find some significance in wisdom over folly. He can't find it there. He says, therefore, I hated life. Wow. Therefore, I hated life. Strong word, hate. This is the naturalistic conclusion. The under the sun interpretation. It is grim indeed, but it is the truth. And men who are of this perspective, few there have been who have been willing to admit it. They can't face it, because if they do, then there's not really much option left in living. Therefore, they may choose to terminate their life, suicide. But certain unbelievers, certain infidels, as we call them, have had the courage to say so, and one of them is Voltaire. We don't have time to examine him, but interestingly, one of the things that he said, particularly that he wrote to a friend, is this, I hate life. That's exactly what Solomon says. Voltaire's under the sun perspective. philosopher, whatever you want to call him, hedonist. He gave himself to a life of wickedness and attacking Christianity and the Bible. And his conclusion was, I hate life. Why would a man hate life under that perspective? Why would Kohalath come to this position? It's because when he adds it all up, it all seems so senseless. The struggle to achieve, to be successful, to have wisdom and knowledge, to enjoy life is undermined by all the suffering and the hardship. And for what? To die as a fool dies and be utterly forgotten as a fool is forgotten. He says, I hate life. I hated life. And then he says, which is wrought under the sun is grievous to me. Grievous. All the toil and labor of life, particularly the work in this context, what he's talking of, gaining wisdom and knowledge, it's vanity and vexation of spirit. It's valueless. And all it does is bring more trouble and vexing thoughts to my mind. Therefore, I hated life. But he's not done. He goes back again for a minute. And he thinks, well, perhaps my labors. The labors of a wise man. Maybe his thoughts and so forth, but there's labors of his wise men. Perhaps there we can find some satisfaction in comparing it with folly. He says, therefore, because the work which is wrought under the sun is gravest to me. Verse 17. What work? The work of a wise man. His labor. Is it satisfying or unsatisfying? He tells us here that it is unsatisfying. As a wise man, he deeply thinks about these things and when he thought about all of his labor and all of his achievements, three things came to mind that vexed him. And these same things will come to the mind of an under-the-sun thinker if they will think deeply. Verses 18-20, Yea, I hated all my labor which I had taken under the sun. because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me. And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? Yet shall he have rule over all my labor wherein I have labored, and wherein I have showed myself wise unto the Son. This also is vanity. Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labor which I took unto the Son. The labors of a wise man are not fulfilling, but they vex his soul. Number one, because he knows the results of his labor will be left to another man and that man very well will be and ultimately there will be a fool who takes it over. And that fool will take the wealth and the wisdom and all of the works that this wise man labored to build and he will take them and he will squander them, he will misuse them and they will be dissipated under his hands. So all the hard-won gains of life, Solomon is saying, all the hard-won gains, all of my struggles will be dissipated in short order in the hands of fools. And he knows this by observing. This is what happens all the time. We heard about his riches in chapter 2, verses 4-8. All those riches will be squandered, lost and gone, which we do know in Solomon's case actually happened. And the wisdom that took so much time for him to secure, and that he seeks to hand on to others. Furthermore, he's reminding himself here too this terrible thought that he has to leave it all behind himself. You work hard all life and you build up all of these fruits of your labor and then death comes and you don't take any of it with you. But this thought that a fool will take over the hard won gains of his wisdom is galling to him. And when he sees it in that light, and he knows that sooner or later, maybe the next generation, maybe even the one after that, it won't happen. But sooner or later, it will. And a fool will take hold of it and it will all be dissipated. How vain it is. Because I thought about this concept of the wise laboring to deliver something and to erect something and to make something good and lasting that will go on and bless generations and the realization of the historical truth that that is not what really happens and that others dissipate. It came to my mind when I thought about our country. And I thought about those wise and hard-working men and women who came before us and labored and even spilled their blood to give to us the United States of America, our U.S. Republic, our U.S. Constitution, in spite of some of its flaws. A wise edifice of human reason and understanding. Our founding fathers scoured all the wisdom of this world. They went to Rome. They went to Greece. They even went to the Bible. And they looked through all of these things to build up a very wise republic. But today, it's in the hands of fools. All their work is crumbling and we're witnessing it. What they said and what they built and what they meant is ignored. And when I speak of being in the hands of fools, and I appreciate Myron's prayer in this regard, I'm not talking only about the politicians. I'm talking about us. The citizens. The old saying, I don't know if it's apocryphal or not, but when Franklin came out of the courthouse after the Constitution situation convention, a woman met him and said, well, sir, what have you given us? And he said, a republic, if you can keep it. Fools don't keep what wise men give to them. And this is what we see around us. The corruption, the disregard of this work of wisdom is just all around us. And it is meaningless. The U.S. Constitution, except for some of its procedural things that we still follow, is virtually meaningless today. But it's just not there. The men who had the vision and the godly passion to raise up for the training of godly men in the ministry in Reformed theology and preaching, they began in America with Harvard. The wise have raised this up. Today it is in the hands of fools. And these founders of Harvard, as the saying goes, would turn in their grave to know all of their work is being administered by fools. And they're just two examples. And if you think about history, and you think about our history, especially as Americans, to see where we were to where we are, you understand exactly what Solomon's saying. The way to overcome that is not think about what's going to happen down the road. Not going to think about the fact that sooner or later fools are going to take over your work. But Solomon won't let us escape that. And he says this is exactly what's going to happen. And he says, I turned about, verse 20, I went about to cause my heart to despair. I just looked about me and my heart was caused to despair by what I saw of all the labor that I took under sun. As I looked at this situation, there was a sense of hopelessness. that came over me." And so the fact that the labors of the wise will be dissipated and ruined in the hands of the fools takes away the satisfaction of the labor of the wise. But there's another thing that happens. Verse 21, the fruits of the labor of the wise will be left to someone who didn't labor for it at all. You say, well, that's normal. But here's what he's trying to say here. He says, this is a great evil. What he means by it, it's unfair. In an under-the-sun perspective, you work all your life, you labor, you sweat, you sacrifice, and you do all this to build up this wealth, and then somebody else without doing any of that is handed it. That's unfair in an under-the-sun perspective. We work, they receive the reward without work. Number three. And that was in verse 21. I don't think I read the verse. Excuse me. For there's a man whose labor is in wisdom and in knowledge and in equity, yet to a man that hath not labored, therein shall he leave it for his portion. And he says this is vanity and a great evil. That's what he means. For an under-the-sun perspective man, that he has to do all of this work, and in wisdom and knowledge and in equity, that he's a just man, he does all of this, and then it's handed to somebody else. It's great evil. Great injustice. And number three, in verses 22-23, the third thing that renders the fruits and the labors of a wise man to be vexation is when he contemplates the struggles and difficulties that have been connected with his labors. Here's what labor has brought to the man. For what hath man of all his labor and the vexation of his heart wherein he hath labored under the sun? For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief. Yea, his heart taketh no rest in the night. This also is vanity. What really is the outcome of a wise man's labor to succeed and to produce? He works in a world, though, that is filled with obstacles and difficulties. No man advances, no man achieves without great effort. There are so many things that come our way that we cannot control. And it's a struggle to succeed. And anyone who has succeeded has fought a mighty battle to get there. Because it seems as though the world is just against us on every hand. And what did that battle do to Solomon? Here's what he tells us in verse 23. By day it was sorrow and grief, and by night it was sleeplessness and restlessness. All of the works, verse 21, of the wise man, his labor and wisdom and knowledge and equity to bring the fruits of his wisdom in his profits and in his achievements. What he tells us in verses 22 and 23 is what it really meant to him. It meant all day in sorrow and grief and all night in sleeplessness. It's not too satisfying. He says, by day I had sorrow and grief. The word sorrow here means literally pain. And this can be applied, and is used in the biblical text, to both mental and physical pain. Grief refers to the response that we get or we give, what we feel, when we consider ourselves the objects of unmerited treatment. And so we're angry. We're vexed and we're grief. And so he goes into the world and he fights his battle as a wise man to achieve and to succeed and to find satisfaction in that. Instead, he gets mental and physical pain and he always has this sense that he's not being treated the way he should. And so he has grief and anger. An angry, pain-filled man. Well, at least by night he can get some rest. No, that doesn't work either, he tells us. Nope, his heart takes no rest in the night. Sleepless, restless nights of worry. So he worries all night, experiences sorrow and grief by the day. No wonder, he says, I cannot take satisfaction in my labor. It's going to be left to fools who are going to squander it. It's going to be left to somebody who didn't work like I did to get it. That's unfair. And my struggles bring me not satisfaction, but through the day I have sorrow and grief and at night I can't sleep. That's why he says, I hated life. Now remember, in verses 12-23, we're talking about an under the sun perspective. That phrase appears five times in the verses we've just looked at. Verse 17, life under the sun, work wrought under the sun. Verse 18, the labor which I have taken, where? Under the sun. Verse 19, Under the sun, I've showed myself wise. Under the sun, verse 20, which I took under the sun, and verse 22, the labor under the sun. Very emphatic. So also is the word vanity, which appears four times. Vexation of spirit also appears numerous times. In other words, Solomon, as he comes to the conclusion of his introductory account of his search for satisfaction, he emphasizes to all who will hear that there is no satisfaction in life under the sun. Not in our wisdom, not in pleasure, not even comparing wisdom to foolishness, because all is vanity. And therefore, his conclusion is stated in verse 17, therefore I hated life. And as Cohen says on that phrase, life as he interpreted it at that stage was hateful to him because its content appeared meaningless and purposeless. Existence terminated in death, which put the seal of vanity upon every human activity and deprived every good quality of its value. End of quote. So what we see in this section and this opening part of Ecclesiastes is that life is a grim, troublesome, grief-filled affair. If the only reality in the world is that which we see and experience. But this is not the only reality. Genesis 1.1 proclaims an entirely different view of reality. It says to us in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. An omnipotent God is the basis of the physical world. and of man himself who has been made in the image of God. This is not an under-the-sun perspective, but it is the biblical one. Therefore, for man, the fundamental presupposition of all of his thinking that he brings as he tries to understand his world and his experience is that he should view life and all things exist according to God's plan and purpose. This is the opposite of the under-the-sun perspective, which leads people to I hate life. And if the reality is limited to man and his experience, there's no other logical conclusions. Though you may try to escape that. It's the only logical conclusion. All is meaningless. For you know what that makes you? You are simply the chance combination of physical elements and forces. That will someday, the physical elements and forces will disintegrate. You are nothing. Your works are nothing. My works are nothing. Nothing is anything of significance. It's all chance. It's only here that it might go from nothing unto nothing. That's the view of life. But in the Bible we learn something entirely different. Completely different. That God is the one who created all things and all things exist by the will and power of a personal God. The one revealed in scripture. And therefore, everything in life has meaning and purpose according to the will of God. Life is not to be viewed, the scripture says, from an under-the-sun perspective, but from a biblical one. Why should it be a biblical perspective? Because the Bible is the Creator's revelation to us that enables us to view life and the world from the perspective of reality. Reality is not what we think. Reality is not what we experience. necessarily. Reality is what God has ordained, what his plans and purposes are for the world that he makes, he made, and that he governs, present tense. Made, past tense, governs, present tense. And from this perspective, I want to conclude our message by looking at the very things that Solomon spoke about today from the perspective of the Bible. And I just want to note five things. Number one, godly wisdom based in the fear of God and His Word does lead to a life that is far superior to a life of folly. That's what the Bible says. But it's godly wisdom, not human, empty philosophy, vain philosophy, but the Word of God giving to man understanding and knowledge and wisdom. And perhaps the finest statement of this is Psalm 1. Blessed, oh, how happy! Oh, how fulfilled! Oh, how satisfied is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, the under-the-sun people. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. He shall be like a tree, planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly, or the fools, are not so. There's a huge antithesis here. Instead of a fruit-bearing tree, it says the ungodly are like the chaff. The worthless refuse off the kernel of wheat that is just to be disposed of. They're like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish." We could say so much more on that. But godly wisdom excels foolishness, human folly, as light does darkness. Secondly, the same death does not come to a man of biblical faith and wisdom and to the man of unbelief and folly. That is not what the Bible teaches. Solomon was giving the under-the-sun perspective, and in that perspective, it's the same. Not according to the Scriptures. Yes, it is true, both will die, but their deaths are far, far different. Contrast, for example, the death of Judas and the death of Paul. Suicide, despair in Judas. Victory, confidence, hope in Paul. Numbers 23.10. says this. This is the prophecy of Balaam. Speaking of the inspiration of the Spirit, he says, who can count the dust of Jacob and the number of the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his. You see, there is a death of the righteous that is to be desired. It is not the same as the death of a fool. The deaths are different. Because death is not the end according to the Bible. Not even for the fool. But it's only the passageway to a day of reckoning before our God. That's reality. And you can't know that by experience. You know it by revelation. And by faith. Death is not the end. And therefore, the death of the wise man and the death of the fool, speaking biblically wise and the ultimate expression of wisdom, and it's a God-given one, is faith in Jesus Christ. That's the starting point. That is the dividing line. I don't care how wise someone is. I don't even care how much they've studied Proverbs and know how to apply certain principles in living by accumulating themselves this type of counsel. If they don't know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, they do not know the first principle of wisdom. But the life and the death of the fool and the righteous are extremely different. Let me die the death of the righteous." Because it's not the same as the death of the fool. In Daniel 12, this contrast, the biblical revelation that the death of the fool and the righteous is not the same, is stated with power. Daniel 12. And verse 2 and verse 3, And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise, there's that word, godly wisdom, shall shine as the brightness of the firmament. And they that turn many to righteousness as the stars. How long? Are they forgotten? Is their righteousness and wisdom forgotten? No, the righteousness and wisdom will shine forever. Ever. The death of the righteous and the death of the wicked are at a complete antithesis. The coming day of judgment, you see, gives eternal significance to everything you and I say and do. Isn't that the conclusion to which the whole book of Ecclesiastes is leading? Every work will be brought to account. It has significance. It has meaning. Because the God who created us will assign significance and meaning to it according to His righteousness. And Jesus said such amazing words as this, Therefore every idle word men shall speak will give account on the day of judgment. through His purpose and meaning to even our idle words. Therefore, be careful how you speak and how you act. And so the same death doesn't await a man of biblical faith and wisdom and a man of unbelief and folly. Thirdly, the life and works of the righteous will not be forgotten. We've already mentioned that in Daniel 2, 12-3. This is the glorious thing. The works and the life of the righteous man or woman will never be forgotten. It may pass out of the consciousness of men on earth for a short time, but it never passes out of the consciousness of God at all. And finally, on the Day of Judgment, it will be brought to light to all mankind in the sense that works will last forever. We will not be forgotten because God will not forget us. Let's look at a couple of passages on this. Proverbs 10, verse 7. The memory of the just is blessed, but the name of the wicked shall rot. That's reality, brothers and sisters. Not Koalath's despairing under the sun perspective, but the perspective of the divine God. The memory of the just is blessed. It is a blessed memory, but the name of the wicked shall rot. Of course, the idea of rotting is that of passing away. Psalm 112, verse 6. Surely, he shall not be moved forever. The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance. Koleth said, forgotten. The Bible says, forever the righteous will be remembered. In Hebrews chapter 6, verse 10, we read these words. For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love which you have showed toward His name. And you have ministered and do saints and do minister. Isn't this a glorious thing? If all men forget, God is not unrighteous to forget. Everything you do, all of your work and labor of love that you've showed toward His name, He will remember forever. Your works will not be forgotten. In Revelation 14.13, we have this glorious statement. And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. A different death than the fools. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors and their works. Do follow them. Your wealth doesn't. Your riches doesn't. But your works do. you take them with you. And they are yours forever. And of course, he's speaking here of good. But you know, that's the same for the evil and the wicked and unrepentant. Their works are theirs forever. Their wickedness, they shall never be separated from it. But we, our works follow us. Number four, in contrast to what we've looked at this morning, the righteous man rejoices at the thought of leaving an inheritance to his children. Solomon was in great despair over this thought that he was going to leave it to somebody that didn't labor for it. But the righteous man rejoices at this thought, as it says in Proverbs 13.22, that the righteous leaves an inheritance to his children's children. Long term, he's not even just to his children, but to his grandchildren. He's leaving wealth to them. And we've talked about in the past, the wealth is intellectual, Skills and knowledge, spiritual and material. But the righteous man is thrilled with the thought of leaving the labors of his hands into the hands of his children. He has a multi-generational view of history. Because he knows that God is the God of heaven and he's working a work in history that is going to happen through godly generations. And so he rejoices. Death to him is not a fearful thing that others are going to take over his work, but he is working all the harder so that he can give everything possible to those that come after him. But here's also a very important point. Because he's a righteous man and a godly man, he trains his children to take that wealth and to take it further. He doesn't train his children to live off of his labors, but to build on his labors. and to expand the wisdom and knowledge and the wealth of the family. And He builds within them character so they're not fools who will inherit and dissipate all of the labors of His life. Number five, the righteous man finds peace in the midst of daily strife. And guess what? He has sleep at night. Peace is one of the greatest gifts that God gives to men. The Hebrew word for peace has the idea of a sense of well-being and wholeness that comes from the knowledge of God's love, providence, and care. We read of Solomon here, the under the sun man is vexed day and night. No peace, saith God, is there to the wicked. But peace is one of the great gifts that God gives to us as His children. But in our struggles of life, we get into turmoil, don't we, and the problems it faces. And yet there's a remedy. There's a remedy. Be careful for nothing. And the word careful there in the Old English means full of care or worry. If you're not full of care, full of worries, But in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." You see, the under-the-sun people don't have that perspective. There's no one to call upon. There's no one to unburden themselves upon someone who cares. He careth for you. Cast your cares upon Him, Peter says. He cares for you. And we're also told in the Bible, In Psalm 4, David's in a very dangerous time in his life. The enemies are after his head. But he says, I will both lay me down in peace and sleep. For Thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety. The providence of God. ruling and governing in all the affairs of men. David took this in the personal sense of God's covenant of love and providence that even though he was in great danger and everything around him was in turmoil, he was going to have a good night's sleep because somebody was going to be watching over him all night. Someone already had the next day prepared and planned for him and had the grace awaiting because His grace and mercy is new every day. And then in Psalm 127.2, the final scripture for today, Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." It is vain for you to rise up early and sit up late to eat the bread of sorrows. Vexation of mind. That's the picture of Koeleth that we saw in that passage. It's vain to do that. Just what he was saying. But, so he giveth his beloved sleep. He gives his beloved sleep. This individual in his under the sun perspective, was rising up early, staying up late, always had sorrows, turmoil at night, but God gives his beloved sleep, because his beloved know that God loves them, that he's working all things together for good for them, and that he has plans for them, not for evil, but for good. The under the sun perspective has come to its conclusion, and the conclusion is those who will be brutally honest in their materialistic, worldview centered in man upon his mind and experience, the only logical conclusion is the one of Solomon when he said, therefore, I hated life. But the conclusion of the believer is extremely different. And they love God, the giver of life. They seize the moments and the days as given from Him and they are filled with joy. Let us pray. Father in Heaven, may Your Word do its work. Lord, may Your Word do its work. Transform our worldviews into reality. Banish from our minds our under-the-sun perspective that even we as Christians so often fall into. And lift us above the veil to see Thy hand in our life, created in Your image, with a specific purpose and meaning for every individual life of Your people, that we might find in that great comfort, great joy, and we might love life because it comes from You and it returns to You. And all of our works, for Thy sake, will never be forgotten, but held in remembrance forever. Thank You, Lord Jesus. for giving us meaning and purpose and joy in this world of sorrow. In Jesus' name, Amen. Let us open up the teaching time now to our covenanting men. Comments or questions? Don? For what it's worth, this is a comment. I was listening to And about an evangelist, an apologist this last week, whom I respect very much. And he was briefly talking about Solomon's life. And I don't know enough about Solomon's life and having studied that to know for certain. But the comment that this individual made was that if you look at the kings of Israel, Solomon, I believe he said it this way exactly, is that Solomon was the only king who did not have a prophetic voice during his reign. And I don't remember you mentioning that up in the study this far, but Saul had Samuel, David had Nathan. Other kings had a prophetic voice, but there was not a prophet. Speaking to Solomon's Life now, I could be wrong, but I wanted to see if you had a comment on that or as food for thought as we go through our study here. And I want to look into it a little more myself. But I thought that fairly interesting in his comment was just wondering that if perhaps it wasn't there, but perhaps there was not one sought out. And the question may have been was was that because there was so much reliance upon Solomon's own insight and wisdom that a prophetic voice was not sought out for a biblical or a godly wisdom, perhaps, as it was with David and even with Saul. In particular, what would make it more astonishing would be that Saul, as wicked as he was, had Samuel, and yet Solomon, who seems to be as wise as he was, apparently did not. Yes. That's a very good question. And I think as we read this history of Solomon, and I have to rely on my memory here as well, that there is not that factor that is given there. We do know, though, when he did sin, in some way God communicated to him. It speaks in 1 Kings 10, after his heart had turned from the Lord through the idolatry that his wives had led him into. It said, wherefore the Lord said unto Solomon. And I'm wondering if in the Chronicles, parallel passage, that message was delivered by a prophet or it was delivered by, I think it was a prophet, or it was a night vision or something. The Lord did speak to him prophetically at that point and perhaps, and we can't fill in all the details here, we said there's even some argument over whether or not Solomon actually wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, that he did come to repentance under this prophetic rebuke and in fact the book of Ecclesiastes is his testimony of repentance. And yet, still the judgment stayed in place, because there's another thing to remember, if this be the story of Solomon's life, that we can find forgiveness at God's hand and we can learn from it, but the consequences of our actions are often set and will not be rolled back. So, maybe that prophetic element we do see at that point, somehow God communicated to him. and told him he was going to be judged. The kingdom was going to be rent from him, but not the whole thing. And one of his sons would have two tribes and so forth. And then he repented. But it's clear that Solomon turned his mind from the Lord and was given over to his own, infatuated with his own wisdom, his own power, and he did not seek out the wisdom of God through the prophets. So, thank you. And one other comment then too, in light of that happening, We see as a warning to us as parents is to me as a as a father who who who does have, albeit it's not complete, a multigenerational vision. When we think historically of of generations and we go back way, way, way back to the Old Testament, we see how how distantly related it was. But think of how long there was actually a one king unified rule in Israel. Not long. It wasn't. No. It was very short lasting. One generation. And it was completely split apart and rent in two. And may that be a reminder to us as fathers, perhaps with multiple sons, et cetera, and daughters, that We do seek to, we understand that things are all vanity, but that we would seek to raise up a generation that would be wise to take what we have, take what light, what wealth and responsibility and obligations we have to that further level rather than to sit on their laurels or actually even reverse that tide in another direction. Very good. You know, reality is, according to the Bible, if we don't train our children, we'll have fools. And they will take all of our labor and it will be squandered. And the labor is not, again, just of our material, but I mean like our spiritual labors in their life, training and teaching we've given to them. And so reality is we've got to give ourselves to this work or we're going to see this type of vanity. The result of your life, brethren, is going to be vanity in this regard if we don't do this work. That's reality. The wise man biblically hears that and he sees that and he trains his children to, again, not just live off the laurels of his work, but to expand it and to take it further and deeper and in every way to suppress us. That's success. That's success. But we're in a war and one generation can lose it. So the other thing you do is you teach children to train their children. So then they will train their children and that's the way it works. Thank you for that. That's an excellent reminder to us. Someone else? Robert? And coming from along those same lines that Don spoke, probably from one who has spent more time in folly than in wisdom. Holy Scripture is our life source. If we're not training our children to meditate, as the psalmist says, day and night upon this Word, we'll never have that above-the-sun experience. We cannot live above the sun without God's Word. And from my personal experience, it means moment-by-moment meditation. writing it down and putting it in my pocket so it's always with me. There is desperation for those who have spent lives of folly instead of wisdom in clinging to this Word so that we may live above the sun experience. Did you all hear what Bob said? Here shall you get above the sun. Thank you. This is the book. This is the means that you rise above the sun. Amen. That is a tremendous thought. How do we get above the sun in our perspective? The Bible. This is the Word of God. This gives us that perspective. It's not going to come through religious experience. It's not going to come through anything else, but the Word of God. That's where we get the above the sun perspective. Amen. Thank you for that excellent insight. Anyone else? Chris, up here. Yes, Bill. One of the themes he had spoken of today was Men working very hard to build and only to leave it to those who are foolish after them in seeing it all come to vanity. I appreciate your example of our own history. But this is not something that is peculiar only to American history. Matter of fact, history, the tales are many in history of this. I think of ancient and medieval history and, for example, Alfred the Great who fought many years, his whole life against the Danish Vikings. time and time again, making treaties with them and so forth, and then only to see his work come to naught after he passed away. Or Charles of the Franks, Charlemagne, who at one point, at the height of his empire, almost encompassed all of Western Europe, but because his sons were greedy, And grandsons were greedy. It was divided in pieces at the Treaty of Vernon. And wars were fought many years after that. And there's endless examples of this. So we need to learn from this. And also, as you're talking about death and the Christian perspective of this, I thought of the words of Paul, where he says, to die is gain. So this is our perspective. Thank you, brother. Yes. History is a great resource. In considering these, as I've been thinking and trying to work through Ecclesiastes and trying to come to mind, you see these historical patterns. This is what we see under the sun. And when our interpretation is limited to that perspective only, it all does seem vanity, doesn't it? All Charlemagne's life, for example, all this empire dissipated in one generation. And if death ends it all, what good did it do? Nothing. No lasting significance. Amen. Anyone else? Okay. Thank you all for your insights and comments. Appreciate it.