The Voice of Experience
Notes
Transcript
Scripture Reading
Scripture Reading
I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
And I set my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven; this burdensome task God has given to the sons of man, by which they may be exercised.
I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind.
What is crooked cannot be made straight, And what is lacking cannot be numbered.
I communed with my heart, saying, “Look, I have attained greatness, and have 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 perceived 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, and 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 profit 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 perceived That the same event happens to them all.
So I said in my heart, “As it happens to the fool, It also happens to me, And why was I then more wise?” Then I said in my heart, “This also is vanity.”
For there is no more remembrance of the wise than 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.
There is a restatement of the earlier theme (1:1-3). He is investigation the nature of “labor” and “toil”. He calls it “this burdensome task” (evil affliction). What does he mean by this?
Work (the action of trying to make/build/create something) is exhausting.
Suffering, even if not related to work directly, is also obviously a bad thing.
So the question is, why does God subject man to doing difficult things? What advantage or gain do we receive from doing hard stuff?
He states that he has seen “all the works that are done under the sun.” here is clearly must be all without distinction, not all without exception, for could not possibly have seen every action ever done, but he has seen all of the various kinds of things that can happen to mankind.
Therefore his argument here is that he has observed and experienced every sort of thing that mankind can do, and he is going to show that they all fail to produce lasting value, real advantage after all is completed.
I. What about Broken Things?
I. What about Broken Things?
His first observation is that this world is full of innumerable broken/crooked/faulty things/people/organizations. These broken things are everywhere you look, and prevent us from achieving the expected value from out labors.
Natural disasters - drought strikes, and the farmer’s labor to produce food fails; Storms hit, and destroy billions of dollars of property damage; Disease strikes and cuts down the good and bad alike in their prime; etc.
manmade disasters - diplomacy fails, and war causes the needless deaths of millions; personality conflicts break up companies; governments; marriages; cause hardship within families; Poor organization wastes efforts to build lasting value; corruption causes societal breakdown and hurts many.
self-sabotage - when we are the architect of our own demise. We give in to anger and hurt those we love; we fail to discipline ourselves, and fail at our job, or our health gives out because we lack the self-discipline; We sacrifice short-term gratification for long term pain.
II. Is Knowledge its own reward?
II. Is Knowledge its own reward?
Now Solomon himself is very much about wisdom Prov 4:3-9, so whatever this means, he isn’t telling us that we shouldn’t be wise. But still, how can Solomon both say “get wisdom, and with all your ability get understanding” and “knowing wisdom is grasping for the wind, because more wisdom means more sorrow”?
When I was my father’s son, Tender and the only one in the sight of my mother,
He also taught me, and said to me: “Let your heart retain my words; Keep my commands, and live.
Get wisdom! Get understanding! Do not forget, nor turn away from the words of my mouth.
Do not forsake her, and she will preserve you; Love her, and she will keep you.
Wisdom is the principal thing; Therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.
Exalt her, and she will promote you; She will bring you honor, when you embrace her.
She will place on your head an ornament of grace; A crown of glory she will deliver to you.”
I think here we should ask what Solomon is here aiming to get with his wisdom. He’s looking for lasting advantage, for something that stands the test of time. Thus, whatever he is getting must be done for its own sake not for something else. If it’s for something else, than the “something else” is the real thing that stands the test of time. Thus here, he isn’t telling us to be wise to please God, or to receive God’s blessings; or to help other people. This here is knowledge for its own sake. He wants to know if knowledge is its own reward, if the mere fact of knowing stuff is that which truly matters. After all, you’ll always have what you really learn.
And his entire project, the massive search for wisdom that made Solomon so wise in the first place, this whole project isn’t valuable for its own sake. He was tremendously blessed by God. His wealth was directly the result of his prodigious wisdom. His initial drive for wisdom, however, wasn’t for its own sake, but to please God. He knew that God expected him to rule justly 1 Kings 3:7-9.
Now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant king instead of my father David, but I am a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in.
And Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen, a great people, too numerous to be numbered or counted.
Therefore give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?”
So the pursuit of wisdom to be a good king who is able to judge God’s people rightly - that’s of immense value, for his wisdom is essential to pleasing God in his role as King. However, that’s different from what Solomon is doing here.
When knowledge becomes its own end, education merely to know stuff, then it too becomes empty. Rather, when you know the way things ought to be, it increases sorrow because even Solomon with all his wealth and wisdom couldn’t fix all problems. What was crooked was still crooked, and what was lacking was still without number. Of course, he did fix a lot of problems, but not all of them. And this difference between what you know ought to be and what you see actually is, that’s the sorrow Solomon talks about.
III. Don’t Worry, Be Happy?
III. Don’t Worry, Be Happy?
Well, if knowledge isn’t its own reward, then perhaps the pursuit of pleasure is where its at. This really is all you’ll really get if you ask the world about the meaning of life. Most people don’t have anything higher than just be happy and live life. Well, Solomon tried that, too. And he could really try it, since he wasn’t burdened by the need to work to live. He really could live it up as much or as little as he wanted. Who was going to stop him?
The first kind of pleasure he tried is just generic having harmless fun - telling jokes, trying to have a good time, nothing more, nothing less. Now that sounds pretty good to me. Who doesn’t like having a good time? But then he asked himself, after the jokes were told, and the party ended, what of lasting value did he gain? Obviously all vanishes once the good times have ended. Nothing remains except memories. Thus Solomon isn’t saying that he’d rather be miserable. He’s noticing that no matter how good of a time you had, nothing of value is ever left over.
So since that didn’t work, he tried a little chemical assistance. Does having a little booze change anything. Now notice he clarifies that he was still “guiding his heart with wisdom.” in other words, he didn’t let himself become a drunkard, and remained relatively in control of himself at all times. This means he can still have enough wisdom to be able to relate his experience to you afterwords. But the chemical assistance didn’t change anything. After the drink was gone, all he had left was a headache.
By the way, the only recreational drug available to Solomon was alcohol. But the same principle applies to all drugs used recreationally as Solomon used a little drink. The substances have different effects, but if the goal is to get high, its works out all the same. Nothing of value is left once its all finished. And indeed indulge too much and you’ve actually done yourself and your body serious harm, as Solomon himself knows Prov 20:1.
Wine is a mocker, Strong drink is a brawler, And whoever is led astray by it is not wise.
Now I should note here that Solomon indeed does see a place for enjoying life Eccl 2:24; 3:13; 5:18, just not for its own sake. To live for pleasure is a living death, for it is a shallow life not worth living 1 Tim 5:6. Good times are something to be enjoyed in their season, when the time is right for relaxing. That’s why God gave the Sabbath to Israel, after all. And the author of Hebrews tells us that there remains still a rest for the people of God, a rest from labor and toil that God is eager to give us.
IV. Does Achievement work?
IV. Does Achievement work?
Solomon next tried the opposite - trying to build stuff that would last the test of time. And again he went all out. He spent 13 years building his palace, the house of the forest of Lebanon, the Hall of Pillars, the Hall of Judgment for his throne, and a house for Pharaoh’s daughter; He spent 7 years building the Temple.
Also he built gardens - no easy feat in the dry land of Israel. he developed sophisticated irrigation for his orchards.
He had massive numbers of slaves, plus enormous capital in the form of flocks and herds.
His gold and silver is almost beyond belief. 1 Kings 10:14, 21, 27. 666 talents = 50,000 lbs of gold worth today about $1 Billion.
The weight of gold that came to Solomon yearly was six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold,
All King Solomon’s drinking vessels were gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. Not one was silver, for this was accounted as nothing in the days of Solomon.
The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and he made cedar trees as abundant as the sycamores which are in the lowland.
the “special treasures of Kings” = luxury items only kings could afford 1 Kings 10:22-23.
For the king had merchant ships at sea with the fleet of Hiram. Once every three years the merchant ships came bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and monkeys.
So King Solomon surpassed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom.
Solomon loved accomplishing all this wealth and building (2:10), so when he calls it vanity, its not because he didn’t enjoy it. He loved building things. But again, what did he have at the end of the day? a lot of toys, but so what?
V. Wisdom is great . . . but who benefits in the end?
V. Wisdom is great . . . but who benefits in the end?
On the one hand, Solomon is still the same man who loved wisdom so much in his youth. The wise man knows what is going on, the fool bumbles around, wondering why everything is going wrong, then makes the same mistake again, and again wonders why everything went wrong.
On the other hand, the rewards of wisdom inevitably clash with the reality of death. A rather large part of Mosaic law consisted of rules for inheritance, and of how to get an heir if the normal process of procreation failed to produce a male heir. It was considered important, as the land was gift of Yahweh to the people of Israel. For a family to fail to pass on their ancestral lands was a great tragedy because the family was now excluded from God’s promises.
The firstborn was supposed to inherit, even in a polygamous household where the father really didn’t like the second wife, who happened to have the oldest son.
If there were no sons, the daughters could inherit, but they were required to marry within the tribe, so that the ancestral land didn’t pass out of the larger unit.
If there were no children after the death of the husband, and the widow could still bear children, then the custom of levirate marriage was to assure the family that the name of the deceased would continue.
But Solomon zoom out from the consideration of inheritance to the reality of what inheritance does to your own property. If you are wise, you’ll do much better with your stuff, if you’re a fool, you’ll ruin it. But either way, whatever the results of your life’s work, you’ll be forced to pass it on to someone who didn’t work for it. That’s what it means to inherit. But this means that you will eventually lose your ability to profit from anything you do.
This problem doesn’t ever go away, as it is inherent to the reality of death and heirs. So its just as true today as it was then. It’s also just as true whether your job was “secular” or “ministry.” Every profession has the exact same problem. You will inevitably have to turn whatever you built to someone who didn’t build it.
Furthermore, you’ve probably already inherited a little something yourself, and thus you also have something you didn’t work for. Solomon started with all that David had built. I didn’t plant this church, I’m just the latest steward of other men’s labors for Christ. But really inheritance isn’t ideal. In a perfect world you would live forever and get to keep your stuff. Therefore whatever you build remains yours as long as you want it, so everyone’s stuff is the fruit of the sweat of their own brow.
In addition, eventually everyone is forgotten, and therefore whatever they did and whatever they built are no longer considered theirs at all. Ironically, we still remember Solomon 3,000 years later, but he’s thinking of everyone, not just himself. Most people are entirely forgotten even to their family within about four or five generations. Their memory might linger on in a dusty hall of records or a moldy gravestone, but the real memory of their lives and who they were? gone.
Thus Solomon remembers the toil, the weariness, the sorrow that comes from working hard, from confronting problems (v.23). That was true for Solomon as well. Obviously he wasn’t worried about money, but he did a lot of innovating things, and this innovation didn’t come without tremendous effort on his part. He didn’t do all this just to turn it over to someone else; he did it to get what the work would bring - the houses, the gardens, the fortifications; the business deals making a profit, etc. Yet because he will die someday, that’s exactly what he’s going to have to do.
Perhaps Solomon isn’t quite at the end of his life yet, as while he realizes the possibility of his descendant being a fool, he doesn’t know how his heir will manage the inheritance. Had he been just a few years away from death, he would have known Rehoboam would be his heir and would have known that his son was a fool. Since he didn’t know that, it’s more likely he wrote this before he was extremely old and went a bit nuts with idolatry, but after he had established himself as a wise and wealthy king.
VI. A Provisional Conclusion to the Meaning of Life
VI. A Provisional Conclusion to the Meaning of Life
After just establishing that everything, even our accomplishments, are vanity, it may seem a bit odd that he now wants us to enjoy the fruit of our labor. How can we do that if our work is thwarted by broken things, and will be taken from us at death? But notice that the perspective has changed. Instead of trying to accomplish things for its own sake, he now tells us to take the reward of your work as from the hand of God. This isn’t the final conclusion about the meaning of life, but it does tell us something that we ought to be doing along the way - being grateful for God’s blessing to give us a reward for our labor.
He notes that he alone can enjoy the fruit of his labor, so God wants him to enjoy it.
Notice also here that this enjoyment is tied to your righteous living - the good man is given knowledge and wisdom and joy, the sinner also gathers much stuff, but doesn’t enjoy it, rather God has ways of taking his stuff to give to the one who is good. This - that is the sinner’s fruitless labor - is also vanity, since it does him no good.
Now Solomon is still talking about the reward of working in this life, so “good” and “sinner” aren’t categories about whether those people go to heaven, but whether they are living a moral life down here below. Thus this “good” person is not merely the Christian, but someone who is sold out for God; the “sinner” isn’t just the non-Christian, but someone whose lifestyle gets them in trouble.
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