How to seek and find true contentment
Text Ecclesiastes 2:12-23 Time 05/06/2005 Place Childs Hill Baptist Church
We are looking at the
first section of the Book of Ecclesiastes, which we find in the first
two chapters of the book. We have already looked at 1:1-2:11 and we
have looked at a number of things.
1. The introduction to
the book and what it says. We considered
- Who wrote the book The Teacher or Assembler, Son of David, king of Jerusalem. Solomon.
- His initial text (2) Subject to the fall! Subject to the fall! says the Teacher. Utterly Subject to the fall! Everything is Subject to the fall.
- His searching question (3) What does man gain from all his labour at which he toils under the sun?
2. The monotony of
life under the sun as brought out in verses 4-11
- The dreary passing of generation to generation
- The unvarying cycles that characterise the natural world
- The wearisome nature of human desire
- The endless repetition that characterises life under the sun
- The thoughtless lack of appreciation of generation to generation
Then last week we looked
at the way that Solomon spent his time exploring two possible avenues
to satisfaction – the way of wisdom and the path of pleasure. He
was a man in a position to do such a thing. By doing this he
discovered quite conclusively
3. The fact that the
way of wisdom cannot unravel life’s enigma
4. The fact that the
path of pleasure cannot satisfy a man’s soul
We spoke of the gratification
test, the enterprise test, the possessions test.
This week I want to say
two things to you. Firstly, more negatively and following on from
what has already been said but, secondly, more positively, taking up
what is said in verses 24-26.
1. Understand why contentment cannot
be found in human wisdom
In verses 12-23
Solomon continues to describe his efforts to examine life to see if
satisfaction or contentment could be found in what it had to offer.
He tells us that he discovered a number of things.
1. Wisdom has certain
undeniable strengths – it is superior to madness and folly
12 Then
I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom, and also madness and folly.
What more can the king’s successor do than what has already been
done? As we have said he was in a perfect position to do this.
Who could be in a better position? And what did he discover? Well,
first he says (13, 14) I saw that wisdom is better than folly,
just as light is better than darkness. The wise man has eyes in his
head, while the fool walks in the darkness. If you want to
compare them – human wisdom on one hand and madness and folly (the
let’s go with the flow, let’s seize the moment and live it up
approach) on the other, then there is no competition. Wisdom wins
hands down. It’s like the difference between light and darkness.
Certainly I’d rather be ruled over by a wise king than a mad one or
a bad one. There are plenty of problems with human wisdom, with the
attitude that says be rational, be self-denying, seek knowledge –
the route of hard study and diligent exploration. However, compared
with the way of irrationality, the self-indulgent and feelings based
thoroughfare, especially when it leads to madness and folly – it is
superior. Madness and badness will inevitably lead you to sadness.
Now we have a general
principle here, I think. We must not let people push us to extremes.
Yes, we are saying that human wisdom, human science cannot make sense
of life. It cannot discover the meaning of life or give complete
satisfaction. However, that does not mean to say it is of no use
whatsoever. Humanist scientists and inventors have come up with all
sorts of useful and helpful things. Similarly we do not take the view
that all music or all art not produced by believers has no merit
whatsoever. That would be an extreme position to take and one that
the Bible does not lead us to.
We can make all sorts of
statements such as these – education (yes even a humanist one) is
better than ignorance, hard work is better than laziness, giving is
better than stealing, helping people and being kind is better than
being unpleasant and mean, coming to church is better than not going
anywhere, reading the bible is better than not reading it. We do not
believe that any of those things or all of them together can lead to
satisfaction and meaning in themselves but given the choice some
things are simply better than others. Better to live here where there
is still some freedom for the gospel than in Saudi Arabia where there
is practically none, better be an educated humanist who can read than
an ignorant slave or pagan who has never even seen a Bible and can’t
read anyway.
2.
Wisdom has certain crucial weaknesses
Having said that we must
recognise the weakness of merely human wisdom. Three particular
things seem to come out here. Let me put it like this.
1.It cannot keep you
from future death
You see how Solomon says I saw that wisdom is
better than folly, just as light is better than darkness. The wise
man has eyes in his head, while the fool walks in the darkness; but I
came to realise that the same fate overtakes them both. Then I
thought in my heart, The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What
then do I gain by being wise? The point is that whether you are
wise or a fool, very intelligent or a complete ignoramus you still
die. There is no escape from that. The corpse of a fool is pretty
much like that of a wise man. In days gone by they used to try
weighing people’s brains to see if they could discern a difference
that way but the truth is that no matter how many tests you did on a
dead body you would have no way of knowing which was the fool and
which the wise man. We all die. Wisdom cannot keep you form death. It
cannot save you from passing away, from expiring in the end. Now if
it can’t do that well then what do you gain in the end from being
wise? Yes, it is the better way to live but when it comes to death it
makes not one scintilla of difference. Death is the great leveller.
And so says Solomon I
said in my heart, This too is meaningless. It is empty, futile,
pointless, a mere phantom. You could be the brainiest person who ever
lived, the brightest, the cleverest. You could solve all sorts of
unsolved problems. You could come up with a cure for the common cold
and find a way to form a colony o the moon. You could untie all sorts
of difficult and abstruse knows but still you would die in the end.
You wouldn’t live forever. Or think of it in artistic terms. You
could write the best music ever – Bach/Beethoven/Mozart rolled into
one or be the best artist ever – Leonardo/Picasso/Rembrandt
combined. But you would still have to die. There’s no way around
this brute fact, the fact of death.
2. It cannot keep you
from future darkness
‘Ah’ says someone you may die but your work
lives on. Think of those composers and artists you’ve mentioned –
they live on in their work. Solomon is awake to that idea too. He
says in 16 For the wise man, like the fool, will not be long
remembered; in days to come both will be forgotten. Like the fool,
the wise man too must die! He is making the same point again but
this time he cuts away a further refuge. Most people are forgotten
pretty soon after the die. See 1:16. It’s one of the things that
struck me when my mother died some years ago. I remember her, of
course, and so does my dad and some others. Rhodri my eldest can remember her –
but Owain and Gwion the youngest ones never knew her. We talk to them about her but
already in such a short time she is quickly being forgotten. Name
your great grandparents! All over London there are these blue
plaques. I always look at them if I can. The names on them are
usually unfamiliar. Who was he? I know that those composers and
artists I mentioned are remembered through their work but most of
their contemporaries are forgotten. Who talks about Salieri or Reger?
‘Who?’ you say. Exactly. Bach is only remembered now because
Mendelssohn became a Christian and rediscovered him for us. Who
invented the wheel? The plough? Central heating? Modern shipbuilding?
The typewriter? The Internet? For the most part such people are
forgotten. And you will be too one day – whether you are wise or a
fool.
And so in verse 17 Solomon
comments again. It’s already beginning to be a refrain, So I
hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous
to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. He
still thinks of life under the sun of course. And what a chore
it is. How grievous and depressing. It’s empty, pointless; chasing
after the wind.
3 It cannot keep you
from future disaster
The other thought that often arises here is the
thought that although I must die yet the work will go on through my
successors. Succeeding generations will take up the baton and run on
after me. Again Solomon is aware of that sort of thinking. It is
typified in the way firms used often to be called ‘Brady and son’
etc. But listen to Solomon. That won’t console him. He goes on (18,
19) I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because
I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows
whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control
over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under
the sun. What a horrifying thought. Of course, in Solomon’s
case it followed exactly that pattern. His son Rehoboam was young and
headstrong, nothing like his father and he had soon plunged his
country into civil war and then a permanent split that saw the people
of God separated for hundreds of years to come. This too is
meaningless says Solomon.
The thought plagued him.
20, 21 So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labour
under the sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and
skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not
worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune.
There are many examples
of this sort of thing. You think particularly of successions to the
throne but also in the business world it happens. In Judah you often
had that happening where a good king like Hezekiah is followed by a
thoroughly disreputable man like Manasseh. Or think of Good King
Josiah being followed by evil Jehoiakim. In the history of our own
nation you know how in Edward VI’s reign such progress was made in
Reformation but who followed him but bloody Queen Mary – and think
of all the damage that she did to the cause of God.
You can be the wisest,
most gifted and able person but your son may be a fool, a complete
loser. Even if the son is by-passed and some other successor is
chosen it may still not work. We see it happening not just in nations
and with businesses but in churches too. One man can preach and fill
a place. He dies and another can preach it empty again. The good work
of one blessed generation can all be destroyed in very little time by
a succeeding generation. How sobering. How frightening.
3. Recognise then the
ultimate emptiness of man’s best efforts. Solomon sums up in 22, 23
What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with
which he labours under the sun? All his days his work is pain and
grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless.
Toil and anxious striving -that is life on earth so often. And
where does it lead? Only to pain and grief and constant turmoil. How
empty it all is.
Of course, the world
doesn’t see it. How pessimistic they say, how negative. Now we are
not saying that all is negative. It is all bad news. We have made
that clear. However, under the sun, from a merely human point of view
what reason is there for optimism? Death and darkness and disaster
cloud it all.
2. Realise that true
contentment is found in God alone
That brings us then to
this much more positive rounding off of this part of the book in
verses 24-26. The writer has four important things to say after all this.
1. True contentment is
not found in man
Most translations translate 24 something like the
NIV A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find
satisfaction in his work. This translation is adopted in the
light of two later verses (3:12, 8:15) that use the better than
construction. Apparently, however, 24 does not have this phrase.
It is simply assumed it has dropped out. One writer proposes rather
than that we translate something like ‘Man has no good in him that
he should eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work.’ Man
hasn’t got it in him, we might say, to find satisfaction in this
life. Everything he has is the gift of God and even the power to
enjoy them is God’s gift too. Experience teaches us that
contentment and enjoyment are things beyond us. Sometimes even the
things we love the most fail to satisfy. At times we simply are not
able to find contentment. Why? Because it is not something in our
power. It is in God’s power not ours.
2. True contentment is
found in God alone
He goes on This too, I see, is from the hand
of God, 25 for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? It is
all in his hands. Not only is he the one who supplies our food and
drink and every other blessing but it is he who enables a man to
enjoy those things too. It is when we begin to look for contentment
in these other things that things begin to go wrong. Happiness cannot
be found in things. We know that in our head but in our hearts we so
often forget.
3. So look to God for
wisdom, knowledge and happiness
26 To the man who pleases him,
God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness. Some people can’t
cope with this verse. It seems to them quite out of place. But there
is no reason to reject it. Do you see what Solomon is saying? Wisdom
and knowledge are good things but if you do not have the capacity to
enjoy them then what use are they?
4. And take warning if
you go on in your sins
The final phrase is by way of warning, but
to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to
hand it over to the one who pleases God. And so he concludes This
too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Cf Prov 13:22 A
good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children, but a
sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous. It is important
that we understand what is going on when we see sinner prospering,
being successful and developing this that and the other. They are
simply gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one
who pleases God. Sometimes we see it happening in this life. A
striking example, often referred to, concerns Voltaire’s chateau in
Ferney-Voltaire, on the French border, near Geneva. It was the French
philosopher’s home for the last 20 years of his life, from 1758.
Here he wrote Candide and other works. Jesuit educated his
later anti-religious outlook led him to predict Christianity’s
demise. From 1846, the chateau and its grounds were owned by the
Lambert family, however, and in the 1890s it was used by the Geneva
Bible Society as a Bible depot. It is even said that Voltaire’s old
printing press was used to print Bibles. Over the door of the chapel
is the inscription Deo erexit Voltaire (Built by Voltaire for
God). Another example comes from 1888 when a W C Van Meter had large
numbers of copies of John’s Gospel in Italian printed in Rome. The
room where it was done was a former torture chamber of the
Inquisition. An iron ring in the ceiling of the borrowed building
drew the attention of the printer. On enquiry. he learned of its past.
Other examples are the Monte Carlo radio station from where many
Christian broadcasts have gone out in recent years. It was built by
Hitler as a base for his own intended broadcasts. The extremely
powerful short wave transmitter used there was originally built for
Major General Suharto who led an abortive communist coup in
Indonesia in 1965. More generally, advances in technology (radio,
cassette tape and the Internet spring readily to mind) may be made by
unbelievers but their chief role is in advancing the kingdom of God.
More generally again the whole world in one sense will one day be
handed over to believers for their use.
So yes
pursue wisdom but always remember that contentment is found only in
God himself. Look to him through Jesus Christ.
