Living More and Enjoying It Less!

Living More but Enjoying It Less!

Eccl. 1:12-2:26

Back in the days when cigarette advertisements were permitted, one advertiser asked, “Are you smoking more, but enjoying it less?” Transposing the question onto modern man’s lifestyle, I think we would have to conclude that never in history have so many traveled, toured, tasted, viewed, experienced, so much only to enjoy it less. 

1. The Persistent Search for Personal Satisfaction

Solomon sets himself a huge project of exploration - "All that is done under the heavens" (1:13). What do you think the response would be if you set out to get a PhD, and told the professor that your research topic was, “all things done under heaven!”

Notice how he states his immediate and preliminary negative observation in chapter 1:13b-15: “What an “unhappy business" (ESV) or, “a heavy burden" (NIV). The Hebrew word is “ra”, meaning “a business or task that is bad or evil." Solomon pronounces the whole human enterprise "bad" - and he blames God! 

Immediately then, we can see that he is not excluding God from his research or equations. God is very much involved in all the processes, events, situations, and outcomes that he will explore.

As a brief aside, “Solomon mentions God forty times and always uses “Elohim” and never “Jehovah.” Elohim (“God” in the English Bible) is the Mighty God, the glorious God of creation who exercises sovereign power. Jehovah (“LORD” in the English Bible) is the God of the covenant, the God of revelation who is eternally self-existent and yet graciously relates Himself to sinful man. Since Solomon is dealing exclusively with what he sees “under the sun,” he uses Elohim.

But far from that conviction solving anything, he can only conclude that God is somehow implicated in the way human life is such a heavy burden and all human accomplishments seem to be ultimately as frustrating as chasing the wind (v. 14). It's all God's fault!  

Doug Wilson writes, “The fool sets about straightening the crooked. But Solomon, eyes open, saw that the crooked cannot be straightened out (1:15). And why not? Looking ahead, we see that it is because God is the one who made it crooked (7:13). This burdensome task is therefore God's doing (1:13). There is a purpose behind this meaninglessness - it is the purpose and intent of God that sinners cannot straighten what He has made crooked. (Ec.7:13, “Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?”) 

Again, in the words of Doug Wilson, “The descent into hell begins. Solomon had set himself to a particular task, that of figuring it all out (1:12-18). He set his heart to seek (v. 13), and he communed with his heart on the subject (v. 16). He set his heart to know (v. 17). This is his testimony of his descent into madness and folly. He fell away from God with his eyes open, looking around himself the while. The whole investigation was a sorry business, producing sorry results.”

So off we go with the wise man on a wild goose chase for meaning in life under the sun. First, he tried:

1. Higher Education – 1:13-18
2. He Tried Learning – British author, Malcom Muggeridge said, “Education, the great mumbo jumbo and fraud of the age purports to equip us to live and is prescribed as a universal remedy for everything from juvenile delinquency to premature senility.”
3. Personal Experimentation – 2:1-2, 10a
4. He Tried Laughter – 2:1-2 - His attitude was maybe the clown is better off than the clever man! His conclusion could be expressed in a popular song of years gone by - “Although I laugh and I act like a clown, beneath this mask I am wearing a frown.”
5. He Tried Liquor – 2:3 - Was there a drug that could bring instant lasting happiness and satisfaction? He didn’t become a drunken sot but a connoisseur of fine wines.
6. He Tried Lust – 2:8 - 1Ki 11:3-4, “He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father.”

Solomon tried, “wine, women, and song.” But he found his like the experience of the poet, who wrote: “I tried the broken cisterns, Lord, but ah, the waters failed. Even as I stooped to drink, they fled and mocked me as I wailed.”

1. Scientific Exploration – 2:4-6
2. He Tried Labor - 2:4-6
3. Architectural Projects – 2:4a – These were not public works, except for the building of the Temple, but private works. It took him 7 years to build the Temple and 17 years to build his own house.
4. Agricultural Projects – 2:4b-5
5. Material Accumulations – 2:7-8
6. He Tried Luxury – 2:7-8a
7. Musical Stimulation – 2:8b
8. He Tried Listening – 2:8b, “… I got singers…”
9. Public Admiration – 2:9

1Kings 10:23-25, “Thus King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. And the whole earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind.” Every one of them brought his present, articles of silver and gold, garments, myrrh, spices, horses, and mules, so much year by year.” 

1. He Tried Leadership – 2:9, “So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me.” Every Christian should know that things can’t bring satisfaction or bring happiness, but for many the poet was right: “Ask the rich man, he’ll confess, money can’t buy happiness; ask the poor man, he don’t doubt that he had rather be miserable with than without.”
2. The Pessimistic Summary from Actual Experimentation

Eccl 2:17, “So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a chasing after wind.”

Let this thought challenge you: “If nothing in this world can provide happiness, then does it not stand to reason that you and I were designed for another world!”

1. The Analysis of the Experiment – 2:12-23
2. Death is the great equalizer and is no respecter of persons – 2:12-17
3. Death doesn’t recognize the excellence of wisdom – 12-14
4. Death doesn’t respect the desire for wisdom – 2:15
5. Death doesn’t remember the work of wisdom – 2:16
6. Death doesn’t relive the burden of wisdom – 2:17

We all step on the treadmill of life and try to outrun death with all our activity but to no avail. The Grim Reaper is faster than all of us. He catches us all. All our “new” innovations have only allowed us to postpone death for a little while longer.

2. Others will inherit what we’ve done – 2:18-23
3. We don’t know what they’ll be like – 2:18-19
4. They haven’t worked for what we’ve done – 2:20-21
5. Our struggles and sorrow make no difference – 2:22-23

III. The Proper Solution from Biblical Revelation

The message of Ecclesiastes isn’t that earthly joys are worthless, but that they are not ultimate.

Enjoy Life – 2:24

The fact that Solomon admonished his readers not to look for the answer to life in the pleasures of life itself did not rule out his encouraging them to accept their lot in life and to be glad for the simple pleasures of life including food, work, marriage, and doing good. This theme occurs seven times in the book: Eccl 2:24–26; 3:12–13, 22; 5:18–20; 8:15; 9:7–9; 11:8–9. “These modest pleasures are not goals to live for, but bonuses or consolations to be gratefully accepted.”

When we recognize that no earthly goods are ultimate, we can stop treating them like they are. When we own the fact that death will take everything from us, and take us from everything, we’re free to enjoy life’s flickering goods for what they are. God richly provides us with everything to enjoy (1 Tim. 6:17).

One of the main reasons why Ecclesiastes is in the Bible is to convince us not to love the world or live for its pleasures. This message is not intended to discourage us or to make us any more depressed than we already are, but to drive us back to God. This is not all there is. There is also a God in Heaven, who has sent his Son to be our Savior. That Son resisted the pleasures of this life to fulfill the purposes of God for our salvation. As Mark Driscoll has said, "Everything Solomon pursued, Jesus was tempted by, but resisted."

So, begin to live in light of the certain tragedy of death, and the victorious provision of life in Christ alone, then you’ll be free to enjoy the craziness of life. When you stop treating this life as if it must satisfy you entirely, you’ll find it more satisfying.

Want to live well? Prepare to die by trusting in Christ alone, through faith alone. Know that the breath will vanish, the heart will stop for the final time, despite all that you try to do to prolong it, and enjoy the fleeting glory of this world, with the guaranteed prospects of a New Heaven and New Earth in your future.