Let us rise to hear the reading of Scripture, first from Luke 12, and then from Ecclesiastes 2. Luke 12, beginning in verse 16. Then He spoke a parable to them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, since I have no more room to store my crops? So he said, I will do this. I will pull down my barns and build a greater. And there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have many goods laid up for you for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him, Fool, this night your soul will be required of you. then whose will those things be which you have provided? So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God." Now let's turn to Ecclesiastes 2, and please forgive my stuttering. Ecclesiastes 2, verses 1 to 11. 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 good does it accomplish? I searched 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 treasure 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 for all my labor. Then I looked on all the works my hands had done, and on the labor which I had toiled, and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun." Let us now pray for God's illuminating grace. O Lord God, who is a people like us, with your Word so near to them, we praise you for this blessing, and we ask, O God, that you would visit us this evening with your power. Teach us with clarity, enable us to receive your Word with faith, and Lord, we pray that you would sanctify your Word to us and bless us by it, for we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. The world is your oyster. The only thing predictable in this world is that it's unpredictable. And every person can change the world, and every person should try. What these little bits of fortune cookie wisdom all have in common is that they don't describe the world as it is. They describe the world how they wish it was. And against the backdrop of these silly little sayings is the book of Ecclesiastes. Written about 3,000 years ago by King Solomon, this book thunders with a realism and a clarity unlike those sayings. The world is not your oyster, but it's a constant reminder that your days are numbered. that you are fleeting. And whether the Lord gives you 60, 80, or even 100 years, at the end of it all, you will say, my life was like a vapor. And though the exact circumstances of your life may vary widely, might even say that they are unpredictable, this world is not. In this world, you will know sadness and grief, labor and toil, The ground is cursed for your sin. And you will only eat by the sweat of your brow. And it doesn't matter how hard you try. You can't change it. And that message, some people find disturbing. But it ought not be the reaction of the Christian. It shouldn't be surprising. It's just the world as it is. This is the reality of living in a fallen world. And it certainly shouldn't be devastating. Because at the end of the day, your home is not in this world. But your citizenship is in heaven with Jesus. And your hope is not in this world, but in a world to come. Where the curse will give way. where there will not be any more sadness or grief or any tears and any eyes. But you're not there yet. So the question is, what do you do between now and then? Solomon, thankfully, gives us the answer to that question in the last two verses of this book. You should fear God. and keep His commandments. For this applies to everyone, and God will bring every action into judgment, whether good or evil." But that's easier said than done. This world is a tricky place." And that answer comes at the end of the book, after Solomon has gone through alternative suggestions, other ways of coping with life in a fallen world, and one by one, he shoots them down and exposes them for what they really are. False gods. Idols. They aren't answers, but they are coping mechanisms that help no one. And at the end of the day, just like the idols of old, they have eyes, but do not see, ears, but do not hear, and hands, but they do nothing. And those who serve them will become like them. This section, in Ecclesiastes 2, 1-11, is a stiff warning against two particular coping mechanisms of life in a fallen world. Pleasure and prestige. And no matter how you shake it, these things will not satisfy your soul. They can't. Neither pleasure nor prestige will ever satisfy your soul. Let's unpack this text one at a time. First, pleasure. Verses 1-3. And before we get into it, let me say something of a Christian doctrine of pleasure. First of all, there's nothing inherently evil with pleasure. God has given us many things that make our heart glad. He gives us bread to strengthen our physical stature. He gives us oil to make our face shine. And He gives us wine to gladden our hearts. These things are good gifts from God that we must enjoy subordinate to our ultimate fulfillment, our ultimate satisfaction, which is found in God alone. But that's not what Solomon is proposing here. Solomon is proposing something entirely different. He is seeking to find his satisfaction in the pleasure itself. In verse 1 he says, I said in my heart. There's something of an internal conversation that's going here. Heart is often times used in the Old Testament as the seat of the emotion, but also the seat of the intellect. He's considering something very important. Come now, I will test you with mirth, or pleasure. So go enjoy yourself. But surely this also was vanity. There is a proposal here. First of all, that Solomon would seek to try his heart with pleasure. Therefore, go and enjoy yourself. And immediately after that, there is an emphatic rejection. And behold, this too was vanity. What Solomon is proposing here is an abandonment to pleasure, a giving up of oneself to see if he could find his satisfaction in the lust of the flesh. And his emphatic conclusion answers that question in the negative. But he doesn't stop there. He then continues in the next two verses to unpack it a little bit more. First of all, he unpacks the conclusion. in verse 2, and then he goes back and unpacks the proposal. Verse 2, I said of laughter, madness, and of mirth, what does it accomplish? You might be thinking to yourself, isn't laughter good? Didn't Solomon say in Proverbs that laughter was medicine for the soul? Indeed he did. But once again, this isn't an enjoyment of laughter as a good gift to God, but a giving up of yourself to laughter. And that is foolishness. Because this world isn't a joke. There are real struggles. real trials and real tribulations that we all experience. There's an illustration in a biography called The Mask Behind the Mask. Psychiatrist is dealing with a man who is helplessly melancholy, outrageously depressed, and everything he tries, nothing works. So as he's getting up and leaving his weekly meeting, he has a last-ditch effort, and he says, you know what you should do? You should go to the theater. There's a comedian there. You need to have a good laugh. He wears a pink Panther mask, and he's got everyone belly laughing. You just need to go have a good laugh. He says, that's a good idea. Maybe I need to have a good laugh. And as he gets to the door, he turns to the psychiatrist and says, by the way, I'm the comedian. That's what's in view here. If everything's funny, nothing's funny. If everything's a big joke, you're living in a life of madness. And that's the condemnation that Solomon gives. He then works from that to, and I said of mirth, also could be translated pleasure. What does it accomplish? At the end of the day, after you've had your fill, what do you have to show for it? And there's something of a transactional nature here. You could think of pleasure as something like revenue. And there's also a cost with every pleasure. And though these people might enjoy their pleasure in the moment when all is said and done, they've found that their costs exceed their revenue. They're in debt. And unregenerate men, in their foolishness, seek only to increase their revenue. But what they don't know is that the costs must rise also. Further and further they go, down into the hole. Just ask a drug addict who started drinking at a tender age, enjoyed it for a time, but soon found it wasn't enough. And then he turned to marijuana, and progressively, progressively, down, down, further into the hole, until he's addicted to something like methamphetamine. He didn't decide to do that one morning. There was a progressive nature. And his life tells you, of mirth or of pleasure, what does it accomplish? Nothing. Adds no stature to your frame. So then, after giving a proposal and a conclusion, unpacking the conclusion, he then goes back and unpacks the proposal. I think verses 1-3 are something like a chiasm. While that might sound like a fancy seminary word or higher level thinking, it's not. It's this simple. When the going get tough, the tough get going. So now we're going back to the proposal and seeing what Solomon did before he reached this conclusion. He says, I searched in my heart, again, there's the mental engagement of the mind, how to gratify my flesh while guiding my heart with wisdom, and how to lay hold of folly till I might see what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives. Some people will say that, while guiding my heart with wisdom means that Solomon didn't utterly give himself to gratifying his flesh with wine. It was always temperate in some measure. Other commentators will say that, no, well, perhaps after rejecting wisdom as a satisfaction in this life, what he's really doing is combining wine and wisdom to see if together, this highbrow society might satisfy him. But I think the fact that he sought to lay hold of folly tells us that he really did try to see, while guiding his heart with wisdom, if there was any satisfaction in drunkenness. Any measure at which he could say, this is it. I found it. And that last phrase tells us what we need to know. To see if there was anything good for the sons of men to do under heaven the days of their life. He's trying to cope with the world as it is, and he's finding nothing satisfaction. He's finding no satisfaction. There's a number of things that we see in our society that mirror this. One of which is that our youth today are exposed to more pleasure at an earlier age than we've seen in recent memories. It's all around. And simultaneous to the rise of pleasure, there's also a rise of depression. And this text tells us that those two things are related. that seeking to find satisfaction in the pleasures of this world, more and more children and youth are feeling utter despair. Not only that, but there is the propaganda machine of the media, movies, songs, Reality shows, you name it, they are constantly bombarding our youth with the message, off with the shackles of restraint, give yourself to your pleasure, disobey your parents, and then you will find satisfaction. Not only that, but sometimes Christians can operate under the assumption that all of our youth are going to ultimately have a fling with the world. They'll see for themselves, and then they'll come back. But I tell you this day, that it's not true. And you don't have to believe a lie. If you're a young man or woman in this congregation, finding the siren song of this world alluring, let me tell you, there's nothing for you at the end of that road. There's nothing there. At best, you will find yourself beaten, broken, and bruised. And at worst, it may cost you your soul. If Demas could forsake Paul, having loved this present world, or Judas could betray the Son of Man for thirty pieces of silver, don't think it couldn't happen to you. Own the God of your baptism now. Come to Jesus Christ. Find your fullness and satisfaction in Him and Him alone. In Him is pleasures forevermore. He is the one that saves you not only from judgment, but from a life of futility and emptiness. And He is freely offered to you this very night. Don't leave until you find yourself in Jesus. Well, after unpacking the utter emptiness of pleasure, Solomon moves on to another possible answer. What about prestige? What about my works, my reputation? I'm going to read through these verses again, and I want you to have in mind how far above These accomplishments are from anything you could ever hope to accomplish. If you're a successful person, or you hope to be, be assured you will not be more successful than Solomon. Let us read now in verse 4. I made my works great. I built myself houses and planted vineyards. I made myself gardens, orchards, all kinds of fruit trees, water pools from which to water the growing trees of the grove, male and female servants. I had servants born in my house. I had greater possessions of herds and flocks than all who were in Jerusalem before me. I also gathered for myself silver and gold, special treasure of kings and of provinces. I acquired male and female singers, the delights of the Son of Man, and musical instruments of all kinds. I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem, and my wisdom remained with me." I want you to notice a couple of things about these verses. First of all, the repetition of, for myself. It comes up about seven times in those few short verses. All of Solomon's labors, all his projects and his works are done for himself. He is trying to make His name great in the same way that the builders of Babylon tried to make their name great by building a tower into heaven itself. And notice all the language about trees, orchards, flowing water, fruit, and all these things. It's reminiscent of Eden. Solomon is trying to make an Eden for Himself in this world, and it's an utter failure. It's not working. Just a brief note on verse 8. If you're reading the New American Standard, or perhaps the ESV, it might say concubines instead of musical instruments. It doesn't really matter. This word is a rarely used word in the Hebrew Bible. There's discrepancy as to what exactly it means. But it's for Him, and it's for His pleasure. Whether it's instruments or concubines, they're serving the same purpose. And you might think to yourself, how could these things be wisdom? How could He say in verse 9 that my wisdom was with me? This is the opposite of all wisdom shown in the Proverbs. And indeed, it is something of an ironic usage. This isn't wisdom. This is folly. He then moves in verse 10, and he gives a description of the extent of his search. Whatever his eyes desired, anything that he thought would be pleasurable or filling to him, he did. And I don't think that it's something in terms that he must see with his eyes, but something like a vision. If he envisioned that perhaps this next great building project or this level of stature would fulfill him, he gave himself to it. He did not withhold his heart from any pleasure. And there's an important connection there. Because he's already rebuked pleasure. And I've divided this up in terms of pleasure and prestige, but what this verse does is it tells you that there's really no difference. They may be different in degree, but not in kind. What's in view here is really just a more sophisticated kind of pleasure. He's seeing if his great name, his great reputation, all the accumulation of his works would be pleasurable in his sight. You could think of it as something of the difference between the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Different slightly, but not in kind." So there's the relationship between prestige and pleasure. But there is something of a silver lining in these verses. He does say that he had a reward. He does say that there was something in all this that he found pleasurable. And it was his labor. When he was engaged in these building projects, he had some measure of satisfaction and reward in his labor. Not in the things themselves, not in the houses, the orchards, the vineyards, or any such thing, but in his labor. But then he concludes what this meant to him in verse 11. He says, he looked on all his works that his hands had done. He scans the horizon, as it were, looks upon all these things that even the Queen of Sheba could come to him and say, not the half of it was told me of all your wisdom and your glory. And Solomon, looking across the horizon, says, and indeed, all was vanity, grasping for the wind, and there was no profit under the sun. There was nothing in all this accumulation that satisfied his soul. Vanity, grasping for the wind, no profit, an emphatic rejection that this is what his soul desired. And what we'll find out in the rest of chapter 2, it also created a problem for him. Because he has all this stuff, and what's he going to do with it? He came into this world naked and He will certainly leave naked also. But His stuff will remain behind. And who knows if a fool should inherit His stuff and squander it? And indeed, the kings of Judah testified that His fear was realized. The temple, the kingly palace, and all of the southern kingdom was brought to the ground. Solomon went on, and a series of fools inherited his stuff and squandered it. Just in the same way that pleasure and depression going together is an illustration that pleasure will not satisfy, there's another illustration common in our society that testifies that prestige, good, strong name in terms of your accomplishments will utterly not satisfy either. It's not uncommon for children of wealthy tycoons to rebel against their parents. It is not uncommon for them to be brought to such despair that they would even consider harming themselves. And what Alistair Begg points out I said, that's actually a rational response, in a certain sense. Because they're looking at their Father, laboring and toiling for the treasure of this earth, and though He may be deluded into thinking that it's satisfying Him, they see through it. They see that there's nothing there. They see what Dad doesn't see, and if this is what life's all about, well, what's the point? But there's also something here that can comfort us. And it's simply this, that your contentment, that your joy in this world is not related to your earthly possessions. Solomon had more than any man who has ever walked across the face of the earth, and he said all was vanity. I knew a friend who used to install equipment at large residential houses, and as he was mesmerized by the size of some of these houses, his boss came and asked him a question. He said, you know, I just had a house like this. His boss said, let me tell you something, brother. If you're not going to be happy in the house you have, you're not going to be happy in that house either. Your contentment in this life is not related to your material possessions. Solomon has everything, and at the same time, he has nothing. The Apostle Paul said he had nothing, and at the same time, he had everything. And he said, if we have food, clothing, and shelter, with these things, we will be content. So resist covetousness and delight yourself in the good things that God has given you. And in the same way, don't put your hope in the things of this world. That was the error of the rich fool, wasn't it? He prospered, he had everything he needed, and so he laid it up in barns. not knowing that that night his soul would be required of him. And Jesus condemns him, saying he was not rich toward God. And circling back to Solomon's description of his works, and how all things were done for himself. He built the houses for himself, the vineyards for himself, the trees for himself. Let your heart cry be now in all your labors, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to your name be glory. Labor in this life for the glory of your God, and that is how you may be rich toward God. I have a question. Why do you suppose it is that God judges people of this world who commit one of these two errors? Why does He make their labor tiresome, unfulfilling, and void? Why does He visit that judgment on them? It's because He's good. It's because they are living a life that is not pleasing to the Lord. And even in these judgments, He is calling them back to Himself. Children, you know what happens ultimately to those who obey not the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who don't submit to Him and bow the knee. You know that hell awaits them, where there is no rest, there is no joy, There is no fulfillment. And God, in visiting these judgments upon those who would find their satisfaction apart from Him, let something of a taste, a tiny taste of hell, enter into their world in order to bring them to repentance. But there's also the opposite that is true. If you are in Jesus Christ, born again of the Holy Spirit, then your home is in heaven, and you may labor not for the bread which perishes, but for that which endures to everlasting life. You may indeed lay up treasures for heaven, and in the same way, that God allows in His judgment hell, in a small measure, to enter into the sons of disobedience in this world. He also allows a little taste of heaven to enter into your world now. Your work has meaning because you are in Christ. Your work has value because you are born of the Spirit. Your work is satisfying to you because God is your Father. Are you a man who goes to work before the sun comes up and returns after the sun goes down? The King of Heaven is with you in your labor. Jesus Christ is laboring with you, and you may know something of the joy in your labor in this life. Are you a mother with many children, tired? Spend your days homeschooling, changing diapers, and struggling to put food on the table at the end of the day? Your labor in the Lord is pleasing to God. And you may enjoy something of this reward now, but there is also a day coming in which the King of Heaven will judge every action, whether good or evil, and your labor in the Lord will be fully vindicated, having laid up treasure for yourself in Heaven. And you will know that the sadnesses and the griefs of this life, the labor in this cursed ground was not for nothing, but it was to the praise and glory of your triune God. So brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus Christ, Look unto heaven, where you will find your rest. Delight yourself in the Lord's day, a mere foretaste of that rest. And out of this fullness, give yourself to all the labors that you have as a good gift from God, and be assured that it is meaningful and pleasing to Him. Let us then pray. O Lord, our gracious God in heaven, we do bless You and thank You that You are abundant in kindness and goodness. We thank You, Lord, that You have visited us in this world with such grace. And we thank You that there is a world waiting for us with even more grace. We look forward to that day, which we shall see You and be like You. And we pray that out of this fullness, that we would indeed labor by Your strength and for Your glory. For we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. We're going to sing now Trinity Hymnal 657. It's a rendition of Psalm 73. You may remember that in that psalm, the psalmist was tempted. He saw the people of this world and he almost wanted to be like them. But then he came to the house of the Lord, he remembered. Let us stand and sing 657 in sweet communion with thee. I have the boldness in my own to keep me near thy side. My counsel through my eerie way, shall guide me and control. And then to glory and reward, Thou wilt receive my soul. Who have I, Lord, in heaven but Thee, to whom my thoughts will strive? ♪ And having the honor, it's not that I can yet decide ♪ ♪ Though flesh and heart should bleed and fail, the Lord will ever be ♪ ♪ The strength and portion of my heart, my God eternally ♪ In the heart of God is heav'n, his good, his grace to see. My refuge is the living God, his grace I long to see.