I Can't Get No Satisfaction
Tom Shrader walks through Solomon's quest for satisfaction in Ecclesiastes 2, showing how the wisest man who ever lived tested pleasure, accomplishments, wealth, and relationships only to find them all meaningless. Solomon's conclusion is that true satisfaction comes only through faith in God and living by His promises, not through horizontal pursuits under the sun.
“If you think that's going to give you lasting happiness, you're nuts.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Reflections From the Top of the Heap (2002)
Recorded: 2002
Duration: 40 min
Themes: satisfaction, meaninglessness, pleasure, wealth, accomplishments, purpose, wisdom, contentment, searching for meaning, successful but empty, wealthy but unsatisfied, career focused, pleasure seeking, midlife crisis, questioning life purpose, feeling spiritually empty
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 2:1-26, Hebrews 11:1, Galatians 5:22-23
Theological Themes: ecclesiastes, vanity, under the sun, solomon, old testament wisdom, biblical worldview, horizontal living, eternal perspective
Full Transcript
All right, today starts session two of a new series that we are titling Reflections from the Top of the Heap. In our introduction last week, we told you that what we're looking at, really, is the wisdom that we can gain from us taking the time to listen to somebody who's been there, somebody who's done whatever it is you think is going to make you happy. And His name is Solomon.
I was struck last week, as we went through that lesson, how really dark this is. And how Solomon doesn't really give you much room to breathe, at least initially. What is interesting to me is, nor does He let up this week. What Solomon is doing is basically holding up life for you.
Life Under the Sun
Remember a couple of the key terms. One of them is under the sun. In other words, life as we look at it horizontally, life as we see it, as we sit here and look at and evaluate life and all the aspects of life. And the conclusion that Solomon gave us last week is that life is meaningless, that we're all searching for some sort of significance. We might even say happiness.
Solomon says to you, essentially, that happiness is not a very worthy goal. I would argue it this way, that happiness is not a goal at all, but is a natural by-product of a life that's lived in the pursuit of a relationship with the one true God through His son Jesus. That's what I would say. But we're all looking and searching.
Here's what Oprah said two weeks ago. She received the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award just about two weeks ago. Here's what she said, "We are all just regular people seeking the same thing. The guy in the street, the woman in her classroom, the Israeli, the Afghani, the Zuni, the Apache, the Irish, the Protestant, the Catholic, the gay, the straight, you, me. We all just want to know that we matter. We want validation." Julia Roberts, by the way, called Oprah a girlfriend to the world.
The World's Search for Meaning
I think that's the kind of garbage that dominates the world. We're all in this together. We're all searching together. We're all struggling together. We're all the same. I watched Terry Bradshaw yesterday morning. I happened to be up very early watching Don Imus and he had Bradshaw on promoting his new book.
Bradshaw is talking about all sorts of stuff and he's ADD and that's why he can't concentrate. I don't know how you can quarterback in the NFL and be ADD and not concentrate. But I guess you can. And that's why he's had three wives and all that goes with it. And he's not copping out at any of that. He said, "This is it. And I did our Baptist thing. I asked Jesus into my life. And that's the way we do it. But I know other people do it other ways. And it really doesn't matter because we're all headed—" We're not all headed in the same direction. That's why I didn't even have time to finish that sentence. We're just not all headed in the same direction. And I know that's the dominant thought.
I do think Oprah is right when she says, everybody wants to know that they matter. I don't think anybody wants to waste their life. I doubt you're here today saying, "Gee, I want to see what I can do to waste this." Well, you might be saying it about today because it's game day. But I mean, you don't want to say, "I want to waste my life." Everybody I know, especially guys, at the end of their life want some sense that they were here and they made a difference.
Solomon's Unique Perspective
Solomon says, if you're going to try to get at the end of your life and think that you made a difference because of the stuff you did here on your own for yourself, you're wasting your time. Life is meaningless. The book of Ecclesiastes, the word Ecclesiastes means the one who has arranged or assembled the facts.
So here's what happens. Here's Solomon. He's at the end of his life. Solomon is arguably one of the most extraordinary men that's ever lived. And in a way, God allowed Solomon to experience all the things that you think would make you happy so that he can give you a report on what it's really like.
And again, it's probably questionable whether we're smart enough to learn from Him. We could probably argue that we're still saying, "No, I need to touch that stove myself to figure out it's hot." But if you are wise and you will listen to the wisest man that ever lived, He's going to give you some insight into life.
The Hunt for Satisfaction
And again, today does not provide you much relief. Today is much like last week and the next couple of weeks. Solomon takes life. It's as though it's a prism. He takes it and just slightly turns it so that we can see basically the same truth with just a little bit of different spin on it.
So if you're here today and you're saying, "I want to be happy. I just want to be satisfied," Solomon is saying to you, all of the things that you think are going to make you happy won't. He speaks from personal experience and here's what I know. I know you're just like me and you're thinking, "But I'm the exception."
I think that's one of the basic fundamental principles that I see almost universally with everyone I deal with. Everybody thinks they're the exception. Everybody thinks there's these universal principles that are applying to everybody but them. And I know Solomon's going to talk about money's not making you happy. And you're thinking, "Try me buddy, bring it on, I'll bet I'm the exception."
So Solomon goes on a hunt. It's not hunting for deer or quail or elk or dove. Solomon is hunting for pleasure. He's hunting for happiness. He's hunting for satisfaction. And he's looking exactly where you would look. You've got your outline in front of you. We'll just work our way through this, again, looking at life on a horizontal plane.
And we're working our way, if you have your Bibles, through the book of Ecclesiastes in the second chapter today. Here's his first thing. He decided to try the idea of partying to find pleasure.
Here's what he says in verse 1, chapter 2: "I thought in my heart, come now and I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good. But that also proved to be meaningless. Laughter is foolishness. And what does pleasure accomplish? I tried cheering myself with wine, embracing folly, my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their life."
He said, "Listen, here's what I decided to do. I decided to cheer myself with wine. And I decided to embrace all those things that you might even call folly. I tried to do them with my eyes wide open. I didn't disengage my mind, because I wanted to find happiness here." And he said, "You know what? I didn't find much happiness there. I tested to find out what was good, but it was foolishness. I tried to cheer myself with wine."
The Pursuit of Pleasure Through Alcohol
In my old days, one of my favorite times of the day was about 4:30 to 7, happy hour. I was a happy hour kind of guy. Never met a happy hour we didn't like. We were pretty good connoisseurs of happy hour.
There was a place down by where we worked, there was a Black Angus restaurant down on Broadway in Tempe that had just a terrific happy hour. The drinks were call drinks, so you're getting two Johnny Walker and water for about a buck and a quarter in those days. That's a pretty good deal. Great hors d'oeuvres. Then they were terrific about coming around a little before 7 and saying, "Last call." And you could say, "Well, just bring me six of those." And you could hang out.
So we would do that. I remember, I don't want to say daily, but I remember regularly driving home thinking, "Why am I not happy? It says happy hour, man, I'm in there full bore. I'm working as hard as the next guy on this thing. And I'm more unhappy at the end than I am at the beginning. I'm lonely, I'm miserable, I'm driving home, I don't it."
That's what Solomon—Solomon could have helped me. But you know what? I would have never listened anyway. But Solomon could have helped me because he said, "You know what? I tried to cheer myself with wine, didn't work."
The Illusion of Happiness Through Material Possessions
Here's what he said. He said, "You know what? I just need a new house. If I had the right house, I'd be happy." Verse 4, he said, "I undertook great projects. I built houses for myself. I planted these massive vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted them with all kinds of fruit trees."
Solomon said, "Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to get together and I'm going to build the house. And I'm not going to be like a lot of people when I get all done. I'm not going to have nothing left for landscaping. I got vineyards, I got trees of all the kinds, and I'll bet you I'm going to be happy in that house."
Two stories, both true. There was a house in Tempe, still there, and I remember one day driving and I just loved this house. It wasn't the biggest house. It wasn't the best house. It just was a house that, man, boy did I that house. I went home and I said to Susan, "I have found a house." And she said, "Well, why don't we buy it?" And I said, "Well, maybe two or three of our families would have to go together for us to get this house because we can't afford this house. But this is a great house."
One day we're out and I drove her by and she said, "Man, that is a great house." I said, "That is a great house. It is a terrific house." One day, I'm up early, turn on the TV, and there's a picture of the house. The night before, the guy who lived in the house with his cute little wife and his stair-step kids had gone down into the basement and blown his brains out. It was just a very interesting, yet random, yet real example that we tend to think, "Oh, if I had that house, I'll bet I'd be happy."
The Jackson Hole Story
We had a friend who went up to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and he loved it. He decided he wanted to buy a house there. He did something real smart. He drove through, found the area he liked. He didn't know anybody up in Jackson Hole, kept seeing the same realtor name on all these. So he got hold of the realtor and said, "Look, I've got plenty of money, and if you want to make a couple phone calls, here they are. Call my bankers. I've got plenty of money. I'll make a deal and I'll make it fast."
Obviously, that perks up the ears of a realtor. They're in the car real quickly, walk into the first house, and they go through this house. He says, "Spectacular house." The realtor said, "Got a motivated seller. This couple is going through a divorce." Go in the second house, got a beautiful home, motivated seller, going through a divorce. They're now in the fifth home. On all four of the previous homes, they've heard motivated seller going through a divorce.
In the fifth home, he said, "We walked in, we walked through this massive front door into this gigantic room that was nothing but glass, looking at the mountains. It could not have been more spectacular." He said, "I turned to her and said, 'I bet you got a motivated seller because they're going through a divorce.'" And she said, "That's exactly right."
He said, "How can this be? Five homes, five divorces." She said, "Well, you know what? People from New York and Chicago and Los Angeles, Atlanta, they think if they come to this place and they see this beauty, they think if they come and live here, all their troubles will go away. They're saying this is a magnificent place and this must just be one of the most beautiful places on earth. I'll bet if we lived here, we'd never fight." And she said, "They're here about six months and you can just start watching these houses come back on the market."
Solomon said, "Well, I could have helped you out there, buddy, because I did that."
built these houses and I had these vineyards and I did all this. How about this? He said enough of that. I'm going to get involved in public service. I'm a builder. I'll build like a stadium or something like that. I'll throw myself into public projects. He said, "I made reservoirs to water the groves of the flourishing trees." In other words, he said, I took the water that we needed so desperately and found a system to move the water from one place to the other. And he said, I wasn't doing this just for me now. This is for everybody's good. This is public service. I'm in this for public service. I'm in this for the common good.
He was pretty good at it. We're going to see in a few weeks that he was renowned throughout the world as a man who did extraordinary things. Remember the Queen of Sheba comes to see him and is absolutely, like everyone else, blown away by what they see. And they all came with gifts, brought $60 million. She said, I heard all this stuff. I heard it was this way, and in fact, it's true.
When Public Service Isn't Enough
So Solomon says, I tried all that. Here you go. He said, you know what? I thought I'd throw myself into my business. Maybe that's what it is. Now, I've had enough of this charitable stuff, enough non-profit stuff. I'm going to build the business.
Here's what he says, verse 7: "I bought male slaves and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house, and I owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me." There was nobody bigger than me. When they published all of the results and they said they got the Fortune 500, they never had to move the number one spot. It was me every time, every year. Nobody came close to me. I got more going on than anybody else.
A friend of mine was teaching to a group of freshmen at UCLA. They were asked the question, what would provide meaning for them? What would they like in life? What would their goal be? Their number one goal was to become the top expert in their field. They said, if I got that, I think everything else will fall into place. My buddy here, Solomon, says, you know what, I did that.
The Obsession with Being Number One
Lee Trevino said this direct quote: "Golf is more important to me than anything in life. More important than my religion, more important than my wife" – we would have to add wives to that now – "more important than my kids or anything else. I can't wait for the sun to come up in the morning so I can go and play golf." And you would argue, or I would, that he's probably in the top 25 of the guys that ever played. He said, I can't wait for anything else. Be number one. It's got to be it. Isn't that the grind you hear all the time?
In 1977, I was working for Motorola. In those days, the southwest area was not one of the thriving areas for communications electronics. It was a good area, but not a great area. We had regions – I think there were five or six regions in the country – and we'd never been the number one region. As the year unfolded, it became clear that we had a shot at being the number one region in the country. Not only that, this zone, which was the Phoenix area, our zone had a shot at being the number one zone within the number one region in the country.
It was right at the end. And in that day, here's how we did business, no fluff. When you closed the year end, there was no "hey, the order's coming." You had to have the hard copy signature and check. You had to go to Sky Harbor, you had to put it on a yellow Hughes Air West plane, and they had to be in San Diego in hand to log them in.
The Hollow Victory
We're at the end of the year. They came in and said this: "We know you guys are way over quota, we know you got orders sitting in your desk – it's the standard thing, they're going to come in right after the beginning of the year, and that's fine with us – but we're close to being the number one region and the number one zone in the country. Will you help us out?" So we said, well, let us talk about it. So we talked about it – we're team players to a point, let's not get carried away with this. And so we decided to do it.
So we bring the orders in, they fly them over, we're sitting around now, because you've got to wait. The whole country is just closing down by segments, and when that day of business is over, it's done. So we're sitting around and we're having a couple of beers and we're just talking, and all of a sudden the phone call comes in. We are the number one region in the country, and we are the number one zone in the number one region in the country. And I mean, we're cheering – it was before the high-fives, so we were low-twoing everybody, and we're doing everything there is to do. We're going through the whole thing. We don't know what we're doing. We're cheering.
This is a Friday. We had a standing sales meeting for Monday morning. Monday morning at 7:30 we're in there. Our guy gets up and here's what he says: "Gentlemen and lady, congratulations. You were the number one zone in the number one region in the country. However, you're all at zero today." And I said, you know what? I don't think this is going to be my deal very long.
Isn't that the way it is? We were in that very same room, and I'm not saying it's not worthy to be the number one zone – I'm not saying any of that. But if you think that's going to give you lasting happiness, you're nuts. You can win a championship, and then another championship, and then another championship. I read someplace the other day that the guy was saying, what's wrong with Tiger? He's the leading money winner in the U.S. and Europe – nobody's ever done that.
What's wrong with Tiger? Nothing. Nothing's wrong with Tiger. He's just roping it down the middle and raking in the dough and winning all the championships he can. Nothing wrong with Tiger. But see, if you only do it 99% of the time, Solomon says, that's what I did. I was at the top of my game.
I had a guy come up to me Sunday, smiling ear to ear, and he said, about two years ago, you were talking about management, and you were saying how management has all of these demands. You were saying to me, to us, to all of us, that we ought to, when we take a job or evaluate our job, not just ask, what will you pay me? But ask, what's it going to cost me to work here? How much is it going to cost me to work here? How much time are you going to want? How much inconvenience am I going to put up with? How many soccer games am I going to miss? What's it going to cost me?
He said, you know what? I've been a manager for years. He said, January this year, I went in and left the office and went back into a cubicle, and I'm a sales guy. He said, I have had the greatest nine months of my life. I've been at every soccer game, I've been at every little league game, I haven't missed the ballet, I go home at night, I don't have to be a psychologist and a marriage counselor to 50 other people in this office. He said it was exactly right.
Hey, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with management. That's not my point. What I'm saying is, this is not where you're going to find meaning in life. And the problem with it is that most people think they will.
The Pursuit of Wealth
Solomon says this, it's a little bit of a different twist. He said, I decided I'd just start saving money. Here's what he says, verse 8. You see it? "I amassed silver and gold for myself and the treasure of kings and province." Solomon says, I'm just going to go for the cash. I'll bet I'll find meaning there.
Solomon's take in gold annually was estimated at 600 million dollars. Now that may not even sound like that much today, but if you remember, that's 3,000 years ago when a buck was a buck. Six hundred million dollars every year, and if that wasn't enough, here's all he'd do. He'd just pass a new law and he'd just make a new tax, because that's how he got his revenue.
You don't even have to kid yourself here. Most everybody I know falls into the trap of thinking money will solve your problem. I was in a meeting one day and a guy said this, and there's a lot of wisdom to it. You can argue with it, but he said this: If you've got a problem that money can solve, you don't really have a problem.
Bill O'Reilly, in his book, The O'Reilly Factor, writes this. Here's something that really surprises me: The more stuff I have, the more stuff I want. So I looked around and saw that everyone else was the same way. It was not until I had a few things that I noticed how this works. Material stuff is addicting.
The Never-Ending Cycle of Want
There's a guy, in fact he may even be a descendant of Solomon. He's with Money Magazine and his name is Seymour Lieberman. Here's what Seymour said: "We find that people generally will say if they had more money, they would be satisfied financially. When they get more money, they are no more satisfied than when they had less. We see this over and over again."
Orange County did this and reported the results in the Orange County Register. Money Magazine ran a story with this: People who were making 50 said they'd be happy if they were making 60 grand. People making 60 said they'd be happy if they were making 70. People making 70 said 80, 80, 90, 90, 100, 120, and it goes on and on and on.
Because what we do, unless it's extraordinary wealth, is just ratchet up our needs. All we do is say, well you know what, it's not that I need a car, I need that car. It's not that I need a house, I need that house. It's not that I need a vacation, I need that vacation.
A Vacation That Ruined Vacations
We had a real interesting thing this summer on vacation. This is a curse. We stayed, someone gave us a trip, and we went on this cruise. Susan and I took the girls and we paid for it. We stayed at the bottom, a little above the water, with a little hole that you could see out of. And it was very nice.
They gave us a cruise that had a room, we had a 600 square foot state room. We had a porch like this. When we pulled up to the glacier, the ship pulled up with an angle where we'd even look down. You could look down on all the people out on the deck. We were on our porch with our tea that they brought us to watch the glacier calve. It ruined vacations for me forever, I'm afraid. I'll never be able to do that ever again like that.
But you know what, you start to think, man this is really living. One night I'm coming out of our cabin, and there's some people, and they're down the hall a little bit. It's a husband and wife, and I mean she is on him like white on rice. She is on him, and on him, and he's back at her, and they're like this. I'm thinking, you know what, if you can't make it here, you ain't going to make it anywhere, baby. That's what we think though. If I just had the money, I'd be happy.
Seymour Lieberman says no.
The Arts Won't Satisfy Either
He took one more shot here. He said, you know what, how about if I got involved in the arts. Look at verse 8. "I acquired men and women singers." I've got all of the arts going for me.
There's one thing that grinds me, is when somebody moves here from the east coast. I could probably put a period there, but we'll go on. Somebody moves here from the east coast, and they say, it's fine here, but what I notice is that out here, you don't have the arts the way we have the arts back east. Well, stay there, you know.
First of all, how many times can you go to the ballet? I'm trying this, and I confess, this is stupid, but on my music channel on the cable, we had all those music channels, and I'm up in there messing around the other day, because I never go up there and look.
and here's an opera channel, so I put it on, and I'm listening to this. Susan came in and she said, because I thought I need something like this, I guess. Susan came in and said, what are you doing, and I said, well, I'm listening to opera. And she said, why? I said, I don't know. I don't know what they're saying, and I guess it's really pretty. And she said, turn it off, get it off, what are you doing, Tom? And she's right, and I go through those every once in a while.
Every summer I think, I'm going to read a book on art, because I guess I should know art. And I look, or I go to a gallery, and I look at these, and I'm going, it's fruit. I don't get it. But I sense a certain arrogance there that this is real life. If you were a little more sophisticated, you'd understand.
Solomon said, I had all that. Had all that stuff. Didn't work for me. I'll tell you, you want artsy people, I'll tell you some of the most artsy people that ever lived. Nazi Germany. The Germans would get together at night, and they would listen to these magnificent orchestras play Mozart and Beethoven, and they'd look at the arts, and they'd taste the finest of wines, and they would get up the next morning and systematically pursue the annihilation of the Jewish people.
The Pursuit of Pleasure
Here you go, here's another one. And we get to this, it's verse 8, "I acquired a harem as well as the delights of the heart." And I said, I know how you guys are thinking. If I just had another gal, a new gal, a different gal, or two or three, Solomon had, we've said this a thousand times to you, 700 wives, 300 concubines, He had a thousand women on staff whose job it was, by the way, they didn't use sex as a weapon. They would come in and say, how can I make you smile, Solomon? What can I do to just put a little grin on your face, my man?
And they withheld nothing from him. And if He's walking down the street and He sees somebody else, He's the king, He gets whatever He wants. Think that way. If I could just get rid of this old hag, I'll bet I'd really be happy. Or if I could just get a guy that could afford to buy a condo rather than rent one, I'll bet I'd be happy.
I don't even have to comment on it here. Here's the statistics from the United States government. Second marriages fail at a higher rate than first marriages. Third at a higher rate than second. Fourth at a higher rate than third. Fifth at a higher rate than fourth. That's what we think. Look at, if I could get rid of her, then I'd be happy. If I could get rid of him, then I'd be happy.
And Solomon says, I had it, man. I did that 999 times. 700 wives and 300 concubines. The difference between a wife and a concubine is you didn't have to get an anniversary card for the concubine. That's the only difference I could come up with on this thing. You get the point, don't you?
The Greatest and the Best
Here you go. Two more things real quickly, because all we're doing is laying out the problem. This is like talk radio. All we're doing is laying out the problem to you. We got no solution. We're going to give you a solution for the last two minutes.
He said this, I'll be the biggest and the best. Verse 9, "I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this, my wisdom stayed within me." He's not speaking egotistically. He's not exaggerating. He's saying, this is just the way it is. This is the way it is with everybody. I'm the biggest. I'm the best. I'm the smartest. I'm the richest. I got more girls. I got more houses. I got more everything.
And it's like He wants to stop, but a little bit later in the chapter He says, let me give you one more thing. Look at verse 18. "I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun. Why? Because I must leave him 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've poured my effort and my skill under the sun. This is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and then must leave all he owns to someone who hasn't worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune."
The Problem of Inheritance
Solomon says, you know what? I got all this stuff. I've got all these material things, and here's something. You all know. I can't take it with me, and I don't know who's going to get it.
Absolutely true story. I'm at this kind of conference thing, and it's a group of guys. There's about 50 of us guys there. And with the exception of myself and a couple other guys, they were kind of big, big, big recognizable guys from around the country. One guy, we're out walking one day, and we're talking about different things, and He said, can I ask you something? I said, sure.
He said, I just met with, and I won't give you the name. You would know the name, many of you. And He said, He's in the process of preparing His will, and He asked me what I thought. He's getting ready to leave a billion, that's what it'd be, a billion dollars worth of real estate to His 29-year-old son. I said, well, you know. He said, let's see if this changes. He's a cocaine addict.
Now this, listen to your groan. I mean, that seems kind of obvious to me, doesn't it? And He said, this guy signed the papers? It was William Vanderbilt who said, inherited wealth is as much death to incentive as cocaine is to life. Is that always true? No, that isn't always true. But Solomon grasped this.
And I would challenge you all in here, because when we think of inherited wealth, or we think of millions and millions of dollars, most people now have an estate. I mean, if you've been around and you have a house, and you have some savings, and you have a pension, and you have some life insurance, the average guy has now three, four, five hundred thousand dollars. It's very important to be careful how you distribute that stuff at your point of death. That's what
Solomon says this, and I don't think that's his specific point here. I think that's a sub-point. I think this makes the point of, it's all meaningless. I got all this stuff, and it's still meaningless.
The End Result of Worldly Pursuit
So here you go. How can you find what you're looking for? I want to read to you verses 10, 11, 22, 23: "I denied myself nothing my eyes desired. I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was my reward for my labor. But when I surveyed all that my hands had done, and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Nothing was gained under the sun."
Remember, last week we looked at those terms. Gained—what's left over after the transaction. Under the sun—as I look horizontally. Solomon's saying, I'm at the end of my life, I look at what's left of this life, all that I've accumulated, and he says, it's meaningless.
"What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days, his work is pain and grief, even at night his mind does not rest. This is meaningless." Maybe some of you just had that last night. To the end of the day, you've got all this stuff, it's 1:30, and you're laying there, and you can't sleep. Your mind just keeps going. That's what Solomon says. Solomon said, I went through all this, I acquired everything, no rest.
The True Source of Satisfaction
Here you go, verses 24, 25 and 26: "A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too I see is from the hand of God, for without Him, who can eat or find enjoyment? Here you go. Here's the key. Here's the answer. To the man who pleases God, God gives wisdom and knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner, He gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God."
So this becomes the issue. Solomon is saying, listen, I have to please God. How do I please God? Virtually all religion is some quest at trying to answer that question. Here's what the Bible says, Hebrews 11:1: "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we see, and without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and He's a rewarder of those who earnestly seek Him." Here's what the Bible says: if I want to please God, I do it with faith.
Two Dimensions of Faith
Now listen to this. When we talk about faith, we're using that word in two ways. One is saving faith. It's to come to that point where I acknowledge I'm a sinner. Virtually everybody in the world acknowledges that. What we don't always see is what the Bible says: that our sin is an offense to God, that the wage of our sin is death, that our sin has separated us from God, that in my natural condition I'm at war with God.
In just about two and a half months, you're going to be singing, "God and sinner reconciled." Well, if God and sinner are reconciled, the word reconciliation assumes a preexisting hostile condition. There must have been a war. We were at war. But by faith, I've been saved by grace through faith. I understand who Jesus is. Now I can please Him. I come to that point in my life where I put my faith and trust in Christ alone.
By the way, that's not just what works for white middle class people in the United States of America. That's the only way throughout the world. And I believe that you know that. If people can be saved any other way, why would you spend one dime on missions? If the little guy out there in his grass hut can be saved by just burning leaves to a statue, why would you screw him up with the gospel? If the Buddhist is okay, why would you send a missionary over there? Missions makes no sense unless you believe Jesus is the only way. That's the one way we use faith.
Living Faith and True Satisfaction
Here's the other way. It means now that I understand who Jesus is, I take these promises and I live by them. You know what happens when you live that way? You're going to find satisfaction in this world. Here's what you're going to find: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. That's what you're going to find. Only through Him. We'll talk more about it next week.
Father, help us see this truth. God, don't let us fall into the trap of what this world says is significant, but let us truly understand significance from Your perspective. Father, thank You for the great gifts You give us. Let us enjoy them. We ask that in Jesus' name. Amen.