Turn with me to the book of Ecclesiastes. I know Pastor Bruce read verses eight to 11. I'm gonna go ahead. It's been two weeks. Thank you, Pastor Carl, for preaching last week. We will continue on in part two of this text here today. Look with me at verse 1 of Ecclesiastes chapter 2. I said in my heart, come now, I will test you with pleasure. Testing is hard. Enjoy yourself. But behold, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, it is mad and a pleasure. What use is it? I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine, my heart still guiding me with wisdom, how to lay hold on folly till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days. of their life. I made great works. I built houses. I planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself theme. I made myself pools. from which to water the forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons A man, and so I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also, my wisdom remained with me, and whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. And then I considered all that my hands had done, and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity, and striving after when, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. Let me pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we praise you for you made our life matter and meaningful. Lord, you in trappings and deadness and us being but mere beggars, you brought us to the table, you gave us light and eyes to see and ears to hear and we are saints. And we see things from a perspective in which those who can't and are amazed We were prisoners, we were chained. We were in the prison cell of sin and you released us to the glory of your pleasure. Lord, your pleasure of your children, of your church. Lord, I pray for today as we discuss things that Solomon and many, including those in this room, chase after, chased after, or may chase after, like music and the pursuit of romance. Lord, I pray that you would protect my lips. I pray that you would protect the things that I say and may every word that I say be right and biblical and be honoring and pleasing to you in a group of people such as this. Lord, please protect our hearts and may you press us in ways that we need and may you encourage us in ways that we need also. And we pray this in Christ's name, amen. Well, a few weeks ago, as I said, Solomon moved from the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge under the sun, those things that he chased after to satisfy his soul, if you want to say, to make his life meaningful, void of God, and then to enjoying himself with whatever the earth had to offer, the pleasures of the earth is what he said. Two weeks ago, Solomon opened up this section, as I already read, by saying, come now, I will test with pleasure the things of the earth. I will use such things and I will test them and see if they'll fulfill. Will it fill my cup? He put all of those things to the test. He took them to the highest degree possible, and he could because of his position, and he ran them out to the furthest possible point that a human could possibly pursue them as one who was obviously exponentially wealthy and had many resources at his fingertips, and to see if those would satisfy and make his life be purposeful and meaningful. And so at this point, we've covered laughter, alcohol, work, money, homes, and gardens, if you want to say. The world's wisdom, the world's wisdom, that's key, remained with him the entire way as he calculated and he considered and he thought through in a very intentional way, actually, every pursuit and left nothing which his eyes and his heart desired. Everything that they desired, he went after. And he went after it to the best. The best comedy shows, if you want to say. Solomon had them not on a TV, he had them up close and personal. The purest and best wine the earth could possibly provide, he drank. watched the work and all the work that was done underneath his watch as he built the most beautiful, most elaborate homes the world had ever seen, including then the surrounding of the homes, the pools and gardens and those such things that the wealthy can do. And then he would step back and he would consider it all that he had pleasured himself with and thought through the reward of it. Well, today's message or passage continues as we look at two more pursuits. Music or entertainment, if you want to say, and women. Music and entertainment and women, as we'll see, pressing to the furthest possible point the pleasures to the limit that no one maybe ever has. once again leaving himself digging this hole and continuing to dig and coming up empty. As we get into this message, music, entertainment, and women, remember 2 Peter 1.3 says, his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. In other words, the word of God speaks to all of these things. And so with that, let's look at our first point here, the pleasure of music. I also gather for myself, again, silver and gold, and then he got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, as we'll go on. And I think we all would agree, to whatever degree you like music, music is a very powerful thing. It's ever present in all of our lives in some capacity, if you consider. Many of us have personal playlists that we've created, and we can click a button, or we spend times in the car. I've heard many of us say some of our favorite times of worship is in the car by ourselves, just singing to the Lord. There's background music at coffee shops that maybe we don't even think about, or restaurants. Even you go into medical offices, there's music of some sorts playing in the elevator, right? Elevator music, or YouTube, or personal clips that you guys have even created, and then we obviously know music matters in the movie industry. If there was no music in certain scenes, they would be pretty boring, I think we would all agree. And so music is a powerful thing that is a gift from God, and it has the ability to set off some, I don't know, 50,000 fans, if anyone's ever been up to Brown Stadium, and they play Who Let the Dogs Out, and people act like dogs for a time. Somehow that song has the ability to set people off and go crazy, and it's been around for quite some time, as any of us who have been around for a while know. Or in a few notes of a song, it can move someone to tears. As you consider and think back to a loved one or a family member or someone whose life is in complete disarray or a past relationship maybe that didn't work out, a few notes of a song can make your mind think and conjure up emotions. The first time music and instrumentation that we see in the scriptures was Genesis 4. His brother's name was Jubal, and he was the father of those who play the lyre and the pipe. And then he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. And so you see this happening very early on. God has given mankind the ability to create music. Some of us, our favorite time we come together is singing to the Lord together as one. So he's given us instruments and the ability to create songs and write down words that then elicits a response from us. And so from my understanding, there are even some 22 references, not just song and music, but usually a lot of times what goes along with that is there's 22 references to even dancing in response to worship. which inevitably, again, was alongside music. Usually people don't dance when there's no music. They're kind of weird. No, I'm just kidding. Anyone who dances with no music, you do you, OK? But usually that happens. If someone's dancing, there's music that's accompanied by it. And so next Sunday we'll have dance. No, I'm just kidding. But you see this example as they come through the Red Sea, and then there's a response in song in Exodus chapter 15, for when the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought back the waters of the sea. The people of Israel walked on dry ground. Then Miriam, the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing, and they sang to the Lord, right? They respond in, worship to what God has done. You see this in Ephesians 5. We quote this verse, right, many of times, that we address one another. When we come together in worship, it's not for us. We're actually addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. We're singing and making melody together to the Lord with our hearts and in response of thankfulness. the Psalms of praise, of worship, driven by God's word. So true, pure worship, it is driven by the very word of God. And we see that in Colossians, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. And then out of that purity of God honoring music and worship, singing Psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs. And so the Word of God has to drive the worship of God's people as we sing in various ways and songs and instrumentations as we adore the Lord. And so God has given us truth to then drive song. And so hymns, we've heard the word hymns, they're praising and giving honor and thanksgiving. We saw this in Matthew 26, actually, after the Last Supper, Jesus with his disciples, it says, and when they had sung a hymn. So there was a response of singing there, even after the Last Supper. We remember this as we studied the book of Acts, that they're in prison. Paul and Silas, it's mind-blowing to think the position they're in, and they respond not in, oh, poor me, they just respond in worship. It says that about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns. The prisoners then listening to them, and then the Lord did his work as the earthquake opened the prison doors. So as God's children, we are called to shout for joy. I love the way the NIV puts Psalm 98. Shout for joy to the Lord. All the earth burst. It's this explosion of jubilant song and music. And we know that we have not heard the song of all songs, if you want to say, as we explode in worship and glory. Someday. We read earlier from Psalm 96 and it's this, it's emotional, driven by truth. Singing and worship is an emotional experience. I'm okay with using that word as we remember what the Lord has done for us. And you think through the word prison and beggars and those such things that we just sang. And so the highest purpose of music and song and dance is to extol or give the highest glory and honor possible to God's greatness. The creation of music was for such thing. Extol literally means to offer just the highest or the utmost praise and thanksgiving possible. And so written words put into an arrangement, they do all kinds of things to our emotions. They comfort us, they motivate us, they embolden us, right? There's some songs that you sing and you like, you could like run through a wall you feel like as you know who has you, right? And who is on your, and so they come over us as we experience such things. And for Solomon, this would have been experienced from the time he was a young guy, right? From a young boy, he would have saw dad playing music and singing songs. We saw King David, his dad, play the harp for King Saul and for Samuel, if you guys remember. And so his dad, let's put it into those terms, because that's what he was, his dad wrote and in many ways conducted a myriad of songs in front of Solomon, no doubt. And so in the middle of Jerusalem, there was a time in 1 Chronicles where David actually assembled hundreds upon hundreds and he reprimands the Israelites and then they respond in a song that David then wrote in 1 Chronicles 15, and you can go ahead and just jot those down. At the end of verse 29, again, you saw King David dancing and celebrating. And so music was a big part of Solomon's life, and we could go on through various texts to prove that, but for time's sake, we'll move on. However, we know all the pleasures in this text, which Solomon was testing, was for himself, not to extol the glory of God, it was for Solomon. As we see in Ecclesiastes 2, it says, I made, I built for myself, I made myself, I made myself, again and again, it's all about Solomon. And so today it says he assembled or he gathered for himself. And first it says silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. But then that I gathered also points to gathering of singers, both men and women for the purpose of music and entertainment. And so this word here is gathering mass amounts, a collection, a large group, which again, he would have the money to pay for such singers, both men and women, not for the purpose of worship and to extol God. Why do I say that? Well, we know this because at that time, women were not connected to worship at the temple. And so women would have been there purely for entertainment purposes of Solomon and to pleasure Solomon in the area of music and being entertained, to put on a show, if you want to say. We don't know the style of music. I mean, we could go around here and speculate. The lyrics of the music, we don't know the beat of the music. That's a fun thing to debate in the Christian world. The point here is that Solomon's purpose and pursuit was for the pleasure of himself. It was for the entertainment of him. At that time, again, music, he uses the term music here, but music was one of the main forms of entertainment at that time. And so I think it's fair to put music under that umbrella here as we move forward. And when you look up the word entertainment, according to Webster's, it's defined as an amusement or a diversion provided especially by a performance. an amusement or a diversion. And so the pursuit of the pleasure of laughing was, again, for himself, and the list goes on. And I think it's fair to say the pleasure of music and entertainment from the under-the-sun perspective, at its very core, consider with me, is for yourself. In other words, being entertained at its very core is for the sake of oneself's pleasure. Entertainment, again, what's a diversion here as we define the word entertainment? It's an activity that diverts the mind. So, it goes on and says an activity that diverts the mind usually, and I think this is fascinating, this is in Webster's, usually from serious concerns. So entertainment is a diversion or entertainment, it diverts the mind usually from serious concern. And so in other words, it redirects our mind when going through difficult times or having hard responsibilities and it diverts us from going after such thing. It distracts us from keeping our focus on that which maybe we need to keep our focus on. I loved Sean Higgins. Again, I brought him up a couple times. He said it's like walking around with headphones in or phone coverings over our face or phone coverings or earbuds for the sake of not wanting to talk to real people and deal with actual real interactions. Well, that happens today, right? I don't have to talk to anyone. I can walk through wherever if I just put my earbuds in and I look at my phone the entire time. For another illustration's sake, consider an army is attempting to take over a secure or a fortified city. They're going after it. For those who like the military type thing, the general and his army uses a diversion attack, right, or tactic, by sending in this smaller group to like a side city somewhere. So it diverts the enemy's mind, and then the enemy goes after that, and while they're going after that, they go in and they conquer. And so what's interesting, I'm not discussing the quality of music, by the way, or the content of music here, but purely music being that which consumes mankind or consumes the mind that attempts to divert or find satisfaction in and of itself. And so Solomon was filling his time, paying singers and entertainers, not to point his eyes and heart to the one who provided entertainment and singing and dancing and instrument playing, but to redirect it from no doubt difficulties that were going on in his kingdom. In other words, Solomon was in his palace and he had the best and latest and greatest entertainers of the day. Just consider that. Think about you guys had the ability to purchase or pay for the best of the best, whoever that may be, okay? And you could pay them to come to your house and he had the ability to fill his mind with never ending noise and attempt to divert or drown out his life of emptiness, void of God. And in many ways, entertainment, and in particular here, music, is used to forget about the cares of the world, the reality of life, many times. It's no different than what else he's been talking about. It's no different than the purpose of sinful laughter, if you wanna say, or laughter in and of itself at times, to divert your mind. Or drunkenness, right? The point is to get away from the cares of life. You hear that, like, oh, I've had a hard week, I just need to go get a six pack. Or, right, drugs. Drugs' purpose is to divert your mind from the reality of life and the difficulties that may be. or being a workaholic. In particular, usually men become workaholics. When things are tough, they just keep working and stay busy. All of these can be a diversion of the mind or a redirecting to fill one's life to kind of find satisfaction in the things of the earth instead of God himself. And we all know no matter what, as I've said many of times, in such things, you'll always come up empty. You'll always come up digging the hole and digging the hole and digging the hole as we fill our time in many ways with being entertained and forgetting about the main things of life. Consider the amount of time we spend investing, interacting with people, entertaining us on a screen who we've never met before. Just consider that, the amount of time you and I spend interacting with people on a screen who we've never met before instead of real relationships that God has given to us. Douglas Wilson says, mankind is constantly seeking peace through actually eliminating the idea of a moment's peace as he continues to fill his mind as he entertains himself. Another guy said, Sean Higgins, again, how much time and money do we spend on watching something that has never happened with characters who don't actually exist, who most of the time are simply hurting one another? Again, we have not even considered the time spent, if you wanna say, on dishonorable, I'm not even talking about dishonorable things, necessarily, or impure things, or unlovely things, or things that are not excellent, or things that are not commendable, or things that are unworthy of our lives. I'm not even talking about spending our time on those such things. We're considering the purpose of our entertainment, even pure, wholesome entertainment, and why we do what we do. All of us, including myself, have to ask ourselves, now maybe more than ever, in the world that we live in, why do we do what we do, and why do we spend the time doing what we spend the time doing? I mean, consider, unlike in Solomon's day, all of us, whether you're sitting here and have loads of money, or whether you are one of the poor of the poors, all of us now live in a world that we can literally entertain ourselves from the time we open our eyes in the morning until the time our eyes close again at night. Consider with me what Paul said to the church of Ephesus. Remember, they didn't have what we have even. And he said, be imitators of God. As beloved children, walk in love. Christ loved us. He gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering. Then he says, look carefully. In light of being imitators, beloved children, walk in love, be a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God. Now be careful how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of your time, because the days are evil. Therefore, don't be foolish. Understand what the will of the Lord is. Hone in on what you're doing and why you're doing because the days are evil. We got work to do. Don't spend your time getting drunk with wine. Be filled with the truth of the word. God, sing to each other. Give thanks and submit to one another as we honor God. So look carefully is a very powerful phrase that can be translated, be very careful, be doing things of the utmost importance for the glory of God. Take every opportunity possible to think through why we do what we do. Again, we live in a culture with endless noise. I think we would all do well to heed the admonition to schedule in silence. Consider that we've come to a point we actually have to schedule silence or schedule downtime. Jesus actually did that. We would all agree Jesus was very busy. I think many of us think we are busy, yet Jesus' life was full of ministry, yet never in a hurry. Think about that, Jesus's life was full of ministry. He was busier than any of us could ever think were busy, and yet it was never in a hurry because he was keeping the main things, the main things. After a full day of ministry, we see this in Luke 5, where Jesus, he pulls away and he prays, scheduling in silence to spend time with his father. And then we see this with David, who was a busy guy, right? He was a busy guy in the field. And he says, God is our refuge and strength. He's present in times of trouble and difficulties. I won't fear. And then he goes on, he says, In other words, step back and be silent and consider the Lord our God. And so how much of our time is diverted and redirected from things that actually don't matter for eternity? And again, those are hard questions to answer because we all fall short. I understand that. I fall short and so do you. But I want to read this piece from C.S. Lewis that I think you can follow along on the screen from the Screwtape Letters. between a devil, Screwtape, and his undisciplined pupil, Wormwood, on the techniques of the enemy, which was God, in the letters. And it's titled, A Kingdom of Noise. It says, good news. The latest commendations have arrived from the council of the pit. We impressed the lower downs, my zealous Wormwood. They have heard of your proposals to the Noise Proliferation Committee, NPC, I guess. Indeed, places of solitude and moments of silence grow even more scarce in the enemy's vast and vulgar dominion. Oh, what euphoria to see his insufferable creatures constantly multitasking, rushing to fill the dead air with cacophony of cell phones and muzak. leaf blowers and motorcycles, 24-hour news and iPods, not to mention car stereos, cranked up full blast and serenading the cityscape with the hellish sounds of hip-hop and heavy metal. Those nauseating humans cannot escape their self-made dungeon of din, my pride bubbles like brimstone. Wormwood. It is down wrong delicious that you're able to entice your assignments into believing that quiet and solitude are boring and a waste of time. We must be the demon in the whirlwind invading their private space, cluttering their innermost being with commotion and nonstop entertainment. Remember, our greatest ally is constant and pervasive stimulation. Make these loathsome creatures feel empty without a phone in hand or a TV blaring in the background. Convince them that they need to watch the Today Show to keep up with the news. Arrange birthday parties for their urchins, I love that word, at Chuck E. Cheese and for adults at Dave & Buster's. Call their cell phone on their way to work and especially during meals. Put TV screens in restaurants. waiting rooms and airplanes, anywhere humans might have time to sit and reflect. Make sure every restaurant serenades them with the latest pop tunes, and in turn, turn up the volume so it's impossible to have a quiet dinner and a focused conversation. When the miserable wretches escape into the movie theater to indulge in the latest Hollywood regurgitation of sex and violence and obscenity, be certain to pump up the volume during the previews of coming attractions. Our research shows that nothing bombards their senses or raises their blood pressure any higher than this form of mental abuse. Also, continue to offer bargain deals with Six Flags and Walt Disney World for the urchins and gambling casinos for the kingdom of noise. a screw tape letter for the 21st century adults and convince them that a weekend in the mountains or a hike in the woods is positively boring by comparison. And over the time, humans will grow unaware of the high pitch ringing in their ears, their heart racing, and their constant craving for more volume and more stimulation. Delightful. I trust you understand what's at stake. If allowed to contemplate the empty pursuits and mindless activities that fill their days, there's no telling what horrific changes they might make in their lives. As long as the volume is high and the lights are flashing, there's little danger of this. And he goes on, which I won't continue with. Solomon's pleasurable pursuits, all failing, including music, including entertainment, There's nothing new under the sun, guys. There's nothing new under the sun. But surely, an endless amount of what the culture deemed as the most beautiful women the world had to offer will surely fill Solomon's void. Look at verse eight again. I gathered for myself silver and gold, treasure of kings, singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of men. Many, how many? Well, according to 1 Kings, 700 wives and 300 concubines. Solomon included in the pleasures he pursued the idle factory of women. His pursuit, his never-ending obsession, I would argue, with women, including seeing them in many ways as merely property for the sake of his own pleasure. We know as Carl covered the life of David last week in many ways, David fell into sexual sin, but I would actually argue that Solomon took sexual sin to a whole new level as you consider the activities in which he participated in. And there's no doubt the question comes up, 700 wives? How in the world did he have 700 wives? And so just quickly in regards to marriages of the time, many marriages would have been used for political alliances at that time and treaty agreements. And so it was a national type of thing as leaders and kings of nations would literally give women over in hand of marriage. And from my understanding, marrying women from various royal families actually strengthened Israel's diplomatic kind of ties, and it gave them peace and a cooperation with one other. In other words, you please the king, you give the king, whatever king, this, and we'll go on in peace with one another type of mindset. We see this in 1 Kings 3. Solomon made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He took Pharaoh's daughter and brought her into the city of David until he had finished building his own house in the house of the Lord in the wall around Jerusalem. So there was political alliances, national alliances. We also know that Solomon had, again, a ton of money, a load of property, and more than enough housing that would be enticing, if you think about it, for the security of a woman, a man who has such things, and a woman who maybe at the time had little to no tangible power at that time and security. I remember actually not too long ago watching a documentary on women who were completely okay with professional athlete husbands who would go out on them, who would openly live open relationships because the money, the lifestyle, and the security of it trumped the disloyalty of their husband. It gave themselves a sense of, I'll be okay, if you wanna say. And so Solomon was driven with his idolatrous heart towards the pleasure of woman after woman after woman. In 1 Kings 11, it says he loved many women. And even though the Lord said to the people, you shall not enter into marriage with him, Solomon still clung to his obsession with pursuing the pleasure of women. It says that in 1 Kings, it says Solomon loved many. It goes through a list of names. From the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people, you shall not, the Lord said this, enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods. But Solomon clung to these in love. We also must understand that polygamy at that time was very normal. Not right, okay, not pure, not okay, but it was a normal practice, especially amongst wealthy men and leaders. this would actually have been a sign of their wealth. Their entourage, if you want to say, of women would have shown and given them power as he had so many or they had so many wives. Again, I want to be clear. This was not okay. This was not pure, but this was very normal and was practiced. It was not okay even for the kings. Deuteronomy 17 says, when you come to the land the Lord has given you and you possess it, and say, I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me, you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose one from among your brothers. And then it goes on in verse 17, and he shall not acquire many wives. And so the word of God was clear that he shall not. One guy said Solomon's acquisition of many wives was a result of political strategy, personal desire, wealth, and cultural norms. However, it also led to a spiritual downfall and had lasting negative effects on the kingdom of Israel. The story serves as a reminder of the complexities and consequences of deviating from God's divine commandments. And so that was the wise. Now let's move on to the concubines. And it's the same question really in many ways with the same answers. And the size of one's concubines, the entourage of them, was power and prestige. Solomon's sinful idolatry of women was for the sake of pleasure. Who are these 300? The New Living Translation, which I would not recommend to study necessarily out of, but it translates it, many beautiful, like these weren't just whatever, the culture of the time deemed what was beautiful, and these were the beauty queens, if you wanna say, of the day. The definition of the word concubine itself, along with its context, makes the understanding of who these concubines were. And their role was very clear. Concubine is defined as a female who was an associate with a man and a sort of secondary wife, but not considered a wife. And from my understanding, they would have had a much lower status than the wives, but they would not be a slave necessarily. They wouldn't define them, I guess you, as a slave. These women's role was for that of being a part of the royal household, but a lower status. They were taken care of. They were given a place to live. They were provided for. They were also given some built-in, if you want to say companionship, and provided the man they were associated with with sexual pleasure, along with it would give them prestige and power. Now, consider they would inevitably bear children through this, which again would add to the sheer numbers of the power of a kingdom and the king. But just like their status as concubines, the children of the concubines were also seen as secondary or second-class citizens compared to a wife's children in the kingdom. They, unlike a wife of a king's children, would receive no inheritance in tangible ways or any benefit from being a part of the royal house, if you want to say. Now the text says many concubines, and it says the delight of the sons of man. And the word delight here is the same word used in Song of Solomon chapter 7, which if you read that chapter in its entirety, it is very clear. The context of that chapter is sexual in nature. It is clear these women, concubines, were for the sake of physical, sexual pleasure, by the way, any and all that Solomon's eyes desired. That's what it says in verse 10. And whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure. And so what they were were there were these 300 women that attempted to fulfill the desires of Solomon's sinful flesh. Sexual gratification, the fleshly pleasures that Paul talks about in Galatians 5. And consider this, this was written a long time ago. He says, now the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry. And then he goes on here, and he goes on, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. And so when you step back and you consider what this is, it's complete idolatry and foolishness to think that woman after woman, concubines, for the sake of short physical pleasure, would ultimately fulfill his fleshly desires. In all reality, these 500 or 300, along with the 700 wives, 1,000, if you want to say, without a shadow of a doubt, consider what brought to the kingdom. Galatians talks about this. I mean, Paul just said this, enmity. Imagine the enmity in this place. Strife, jealousy from woman to woman, anger, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy. Which probably, I was thinking, probably drove Solomon back to drinking some more. Right? He's trying to manage a thousand women. That's not a chauvinistic statement. That's reality. That's a lot of people to manage. In due time, the consequences of sin as his kingdom, the kingdom of Solomon, would be ripped from him. You see this in 1 Kings 3. He had these. His wives turned away his heart. And then verse 9, and the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord. There were consequences for himself. And again, as I stated, these were beautiful women. One guy said it would have been like the beauty pageant of Esther, if you want to say, on steroids. There was a multitude he would pick from, keeping no pleasure from himself. And you can only imagine the vulgarity, the obscenity, the grotesqueness and complete excess of partying and what went on at parties at Solomon's house. Our culture today still celebrates this, glamorizes, normalizes the thinking that man's fulfillment in the area of physical pleasure will somehow satisfy us, when we know in all reality, it leaves men once again empty, chasing after more. And so Solomon's idolatry of women and usage of them only led to unhappiness, a sense of idleness, I would argue, problems, and a continuous pursuit that left him searching for more. Again, picture him as an older guy, talking to his son, talking to us, talking to his kids, talking to young women included, sitting here today. Don't do it. Don't pursue such things, don't fall into that trap. Solomon's life of this full, daily, unrestricted, physical pleasure pursuits. And again, as I said a couple weeks ago, I know that sounds crazy, insane, completely unrealistic, 700 and 300 for the sake of pleasure of himself. But we live in that same world. Daily, unrestricted, physical pleasure, it just so happens, it happens through a screen. The grotesque exploitation of predominantly young women as men search and seek out and choose what they can through what I want to call virtual concubines. For the sake of the pleasure of oneself, keeping no pleasure from one's selfish desires with no strings attached, and many times, no one knows. Internet porn is a hub of virtual concubines. It is a foolproof business, by the way. It is foolproof, which seeks to satisfy men's idolatrous hearts. They're idol factories viewing women as merely property and selfish pursuits, leaving them, day after day, unsatisfied. There's a reason why Paul begged the church in Thessalonica, mostly made up of Greeks, that one of the first things he said is get away from the ungodly sexually open practices. Control your bodies. Don't look to that to pleasure yourself and satisfy yourself. In many ways, the bigger and sadder reality for many young, many men and women and young Christian men and young Christian women who enter into marriage or have been in marriages, is because of the way we have our understanding of such things, we walk into or are in marriages that they see this area of their life in a way that is unrealistic, unbiblical, and flat out wrong. And so their expectation of the marriage bed will never be fulfilled because the sadness is is that the virtual world is the one who set the standard of how that is supposed to happen. Sad to say also, when is the last time someone in your life has asked you if you're keeping your eyes pure? When's the last time, those who have sons in here that are of an age that you should be concerned about such things, when's the last time you talked through your sons about the purity of their eyes and the pursuits that they're having through their screens? It's distorting the beauty of that which God gave us, which is beautiful if men are pursuing it within the intended design in which God created it to be. The problem was it wasn't that Solomon didn't desire that which was right and good. It was right and good. The problem was he was attempting to and testing to satisfy by stepping outside of God's design in which God wanted and intended it to be. And you see this, you can see this, it's between a man and a woman, you see it in Genesis 2 on the screen, Matthew 19, Mark 10, 1 Corinthians 7, and then the glory of the gospel in Ephesians 5. I think there's a very sad reality in the church as a whole, and this is something I've wrestled with for quite some time. We've been very good for a long time. and we should be, of pounding the gong and being clear on the sinfulness and even the consequences of sinfulness of sexual immorality outside of marriage. We should pound that gong, by the way. Praise the Lord that we know the grotesqueness of such things like Sodom and Gomorrah and 1 Thessalonians 4. Sad to say, it appears most times we have taken an either-or approach, neglecting the beauty of the way God did design it of the other. We founded this drum so incredibly loud in the church that it has silenced an area of life in the context of marriage that God did allow for. And not just allow for, but even celebrates the delight and pleasures of sexual intimacy. And we have countless people in marriages and those who desire to meet marriage that know all that which the Lord hates, and he does, by the way, and all that they should not be doing, and they shouldn't, by the way, But in the right context, in and of itself, what Solomon was attempting to pursue is glorifying to God himself for the one who created it. Ecclesiastes 9.9 says, enjoy life with a wife whom you love all the days of your vain life that he has given under the sun. Proverbs 5 says, let your fountain be blessed and rejoice, have joy in the wife of your youth. And then you go on in verse 19, it says to be intoxicated with her love. And yes, that includes physical intimacy. And so the question begs to be asked, we're laser focused on many doctrines in the church as a whole, and we should be. Do we even have a theology when it comes to the marriage bed and the glory of the gospel? Or do we just have a theology of what we should not do and we shouldn't? The Bible is clear, it says, for from him and through him and to him are all things. Yes, even the marriage bed. To him be the glory forever. And again, I've thought about this over the years, that many, including many of us, have little to no understanding of what the word of God says in the context of sexual intimacy. And so most of us, sad to say, has acquired or understood this void of God. And so our theology, our vantage points consider this in our worldview of a very important area in the context of the way he had designed it has been shaped by the world which is in opposition to God. And sadly, due to our almost fear and unwilling to see what God himself has to say in a way that honors God, many men have acquired their picture of the marriage bed through virtual concubines, ungodly conversations with friends, which is unbiblical, and they walk into their marriages with unrealistic expectations of what God expects. And so those unrealistic and unbiblical expectations in which Christians acquire from the world What's it do? It leaves spouses in our marriages both frustrated when we are chasing after, in many ways, what God did not intend us to chase after, and we don't even know what the Word of God says about it. There's been a neglecting of an area of life that we refuse to talk about And we have many marriages and people maybe even walking around in here trying to figure this thing out on their own with little to no direction except for don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. But wait, I'm married. I've never thought through how I honor the Lord and enjoy my spouse as the word of God says that matters so much. So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God. So how do I bring glory in an area of my life when I've never discussed this area of my life in regards to the word of God, who's given it to us to enjoy? In a book titled Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, Jonathan Taylor in the very first paragraph says, the mere suggestion of teaching or preaching on such a topic would probably elicit little more than a nervous chuckle or a red-faced embarrassment. And so he goes on to talk about why that book and why they wrote that book. And I have fully realized that this takes much tact and much thinking through to open the doors for a door that's been closed for a very long time. The marriage bed in Hebrews 4 says, let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled. I'm very aware of that verse. It is possible to honor marriage and be pure in our discussions about marriage and the marriage bed. Historically, we use verse four as if the discussion or theology of the marriage bed is completely forbidden. You don't even talk about it. But Al Mohler says, the author of Hebrews enjoins the purity of the marriage relationship and for spouses to pursue fidelity one to another. In other words, that verse that we use so often that you don't even touch the theology of this, that we don't defile is by, it's actually, it's called to be stay faithful to one woman or one man. It doesn't say don't defile the marriage bed by never understanding or thinking through how the glory of the gospel actually impacts the marriage bed itself. Including this, guys, we have large chunks of our Bibles, including the gospel itself, to discuss and which has implications on this area of life. And so consider the marriage bed, and I know I'm in a press time here, I get that, stick with me, we are gonna celebrate together the Lord's Supper. Consider the marriage bed and sexual relationships in the context of marriage. It was and is created by God. It continues to exist because of God, it is good and lawful in the context of marriage, and we are called to understand the glory of God in it. Sadly, discussions about the marriage bed in which we've usually encountered are vulgar and dishonoring. I've referred to the impact of the gospel itself on the marriage bed, which I would love to develop and I hope some point I will be able to. But I want to give you a few quotes from a book that I think has greatly shaped my thinking over the years. It's allowed me to think through and discuss with trusted men and couples through a book that is powerful. It's called Sex and the Supremacy of Christ. And before you get too squirmy, Al Mohler was a part of it, John Piper was a part of it, Ligon Duncan was a part of it, CJ Mahaney was a part of it, and Carolyn Mahaney was a part of it, just to name a few. It is a godly, biblical, God-honoring book. Ligon Duncan says, this book is a glorious start to a forming, a Christian mind that expresses delight in God's gift of marital intimacy. A Christian mind that so desires to delight in that which God delights in, that it revels in rejecting the cheap substitutes pawned off to the passing age as true pleasure, and instead only finds satisfaction in what is purest and highest and noblest and best. Nancy Lee DeMoss says, I cannot think of any gift of God that has been more abused and misused than that of sex. What was intended to be a stunning, pure, earthly picture of amazing, heavenly, eternal realities has been perverted into an alluring but false God that is in fact a grotesque caricature of the true God. The contributors to this volume have provided a refreshing, insightful, and much needed treatment of this sacred subject, calling us to bring our thoughts and lives into captivity to the supremacy of Christ and reflect our ravishment with our heavenly bridegroom and our sexuality. Again, I wish I had time to develop all of that. With all of that said, Solomon steps back, including this area of his life, considers it all, he toiled and behold, In and of itself, void of God, it was vanity. He strived after things that he came up empty all the time, and he was left hopeless, void of God. And so let's end, before we get into the Lord's Supper, with a question, where do you find your ultimate satisfaction? Men in here, where are you finding it? What do you spend most of your time doing in your mind? What controls each and every one of us? Who owns your thought life? As all of these are good and right in and of themselves, God, they are God-given pleasures, by the way. They are from God, but they are for God, and they are to be done to the glory of God. And so are such things the places in which you find your daily satisfaction in their proper place and for His glory.