Ecclesiastes Lesson 2

6-8-97

Last week after the sermon there were a number of comments and one of the ladies in the congregation asked what I thought was a very obvious question; I don’t know why I didn’t emphasize it more when I started. Since we’ve been working with Solomon and the book of Ecclesiastes what she said was: how could the wisest man who ever lived get off the track like he did. I made the case last week from the text that here was the wisest man, Solomon, who ever lived, a man who probably in history the only man I could think of that could approach Solomon in his comprehensive skills would be Leonardo DaVinci. How could a man with this gift blow it like he did? So we want to spend some time developing this. In the bulletin is a three point review because it’s essential that we understand how he could blow it, because otherwise we will not understand why the Holy Spirit even put this book in the canon. So it’s essential that we do a little review here about wisdom and Solomon.

Let’s review a few things about Biblical wisdom so we understand the word chokmah. Wisdom is one-third of the Old Testament; one-third of the Old Testament was written in books which we call The Writings, as distinguished from The Law, the first five books, and The Prophets. It might surprise some of you to know that one of the books in The Writings, in the wisdom section of the Bible is the book of Daniel when you would think that the book of Daniel should be in the prophet section. So there is something about this wisdom thing that’s very important in the Bible.

I’ll make five observations about wisdom. The first observation is that wisdom Biblically refers to the tools of dominion given to man in Genesis 1. In Genesis 1 man was created to subdue the earth and wisdom is the way he does that. It’s related to Genesis 1. This is why Dr. Hubbard, who for many years taught Old Testament on the West Coast, said: “wisdom has as one of its functions an explication of Genesis 1 and 2. It is part of the outworking of the God-given commands to subdue the earth and name the animals. Understanding the creation is not merely a means of success for man; it is a divinely designed way of blessing. By acquiring and applying wisdom man fulfills one of the purposes for which he was created.”

The second observation about wisdom, wisdom can refer to any skill people have; it doesn’t have to have a spiritual connotation. Wisdom can be artistry, wisdom can be crafts, wisdom can involve technology, wisdom can involve human relations, without necessarily pointing to the spiritual motives behind it. For example, Satan in Ezekiel 28 is referred to as a wise person. Now we certainly wouldn’t say Satan is a wise person, I mean, he’s the chief rebel in the universe. But the point in saying that saying that Satan is a wise person is that he is a very skilled criminal. One of the police officers in the congregation once told me, he said you know we policemen only catch the stupid ones; the smart ones always get off. It reminds me, a friend of mine was in the military in Fort Campbell and he was telling about this GI that decided he was going to rob the Base Exchange. So he showed up at the exchange place with a hood over his head and a firearm and held the place up and took off. Only one problem; he had the uniform on and what do you suppose is here; so the MP’s just went over to the barracks when he came back and they were waiting for him, they gave him a little reception. That would be a person who was a rebel and a fool. He couldn’t even commit a crime effectively. So wisdom refers to skill but not necessarily the motive behind it.

The third observation about wisdom; wisdom is associated with growth and maturity. Wisdom is a process, it’s acquired over time. Jesus grew in stature and wisdom. You might say this as sort of an easy to remember thing. If you want to remember a Biblical view of wisdom maybe expressing it this way will help; it’s being “street smart” in God’s creation.

The fourth observation about wisdom is that wisdom Biblically presupposes The Law and The Prophets. And here is where Solomon started to get off. Remember we said that the first two sections of the books of the Bible in the Old Testament were The Law and the Prophets. What was the center of gravity of The Law and The Prophets? Allegiance to Jehovah, it was the creative work of Jehovah; it was the saving work of Jehovah. It was God’s electing work of the nation Israel to be the custodian nation of the Word of God down through history. So all of this is the background for wisdom and after all that, then on that foundation and that foundation alone wisdom was to be built. So wisdom should presuppose the other parts of the canon. In other words, we have to be street smart in God’s creation, not a creation of our own fantasy land.

And finally, the fifth observation about wisdom is that it flushes out the deeper theology of the Bible; it expresses it in the everyday details of life. If you want to see how this pattern works ask yourself, why is it that every New Testament epistle has two parts, Ephesians, Colossians, whatever, you always see the heavy theology and then you see the details, the application to this area, that area, some other area. That’s the wisdom section. So when the Scripture is written the Holy Spirit always gives the vision of who and what God is and then He tells us how that applies in the details of our life. And that “how that applies” stuff is wisdom.

So wisdom then, necessarily, if Solomon is the wisest man it means he was very, very skillful, not necessarily that he was spiritually alert at all times. Remember we gave some of the background for Solomon, that he was uniquely gifted, that he was extensively… he was a very cosmopolitan person, he had his two fleets, the Mediterranean fleet in the west, he had for the southern part of the kingdom in the Gulf of Aqaba, he stationed his second fleet, and with these fleets he explored the world bringing back all kinds of exotic plants and animals.

But we want to go on, the second part of the review; you’ll see that God’s discipline came upon Solomon. We want to turn to 1 Kings 11 so we understand the sentence, the light sentence that God imposed upon him. It’s this sentence that forms the backdrop for the book of Ecclesiastes. We want to review this a little more than we were able to cover it last time. The issue is given in verses 1-6 of 1 Kings 11. Watch key words in these six verses; just mentally to yourself as you go through these verses watch for the words that are repeated; there are two nouns in these six verses that are repeated several times. See if you can pick them out.

“But King Solomon loved many foreign women; in addition to the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites, [2] Of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go into them, neither shall they come in unto you; for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods. Solomon clave unto these in love. [3] And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart. [4] For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David, his father. [5] For Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. [6] And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as David, his father.”

Notice in the first 3 or 4 verses the word “love” and the word “heart” are repeated. The principle in Solomon’s fall is the same principle of all sin. What was the original temptation in the Garden? The original temptation in the Garden was not immorality. The original temptation in the Garden was to “become like God, knowing both good and evil.” Now what Satan said was that that’s what you want to be, you want to be in the position where you are the final interpreter of everything. You define good and evil; after all, God made you with this wonderful brain, God gave you all these wonderful things and it is your right to define good and evil. You are the final interpreter of reality; you are God. That’s the temptation.

You’ll notice that the women in verses 1, 2 and 3 are tied in with the goddesses of verses 5 and 6. What is this connection? Solomon was very inquisitive; Solomon, it says in 1 Kings 10 and earlier brought back all kinds of things from the world, he had wild exotic animals, exotic botanical specimens, he was very interested in things and apparently brought back a lot of women too, he entered into a lot of treaties. These were political marriages remember, this wasn’t just a collection; he had reason for doing this. And it was those reasons where he got in trouble. His objective was to solidify treaties with other nations, with which he was not to enter into treaty. Why would he enter into treaties? It’s simple, why do nations today enter into treaties? Security, we feel more secure when we enter a contract or a treaty. So because Solomon at this point engaged in a massive diplomatic effort around the world to get Israel to make treaties…, this is why George Washington in his farewell address, he gave his famous farewell address to this country and he said to Congress, you beware of what he called entangling alliances. In other words, when you enter into contracts with other nations your word is on the line and you don’t know what’s going to happen in the future and you may be sucked into conflicts, you may be called upon to supply needs that you never even dreamed of because you signed on the dotted line this contract. And it was because of insecurity.

Solomon, right here, the very fact that he’s entering into these treaties, these political marriages, tells you immediately what’s going on in the man’s heart; he is not trusting the Lord with the kingdom. And it’s ironic that he’s doing this because he, as a young boy, sat there and watched his dad defeat every enemy on the field of battle. David was a victorious warrior; David illustrated the principle that real freedom comes through military victory and there is no substitute for military victory. And David was the one who did this. Solomon as a young man sat there and watched his dad lead armies into battle and destroy the enemy that threatened Israel. He had remembered the great illustration of Goliath and he remembers the stories told of his father, and it was this boy who was raised in this home, who, when as an older man, began to faint in his faith and trust in the Lord and place his trust in human alliances.

The next step, and it talks about his heart in verse 2, 3 and 4, his heart was pulled away. Well why? Because in these political alliances if he married Princess Jane from some country he had to keep Princess Jane happy because if Princess Jane wasn’t kept happy she’d go tell her old man, king so and so who entered into the treaty, and Solomon would have a problem. So again, insecurity, his trust was not really in the Lord, his trust was in his wisdom. And he began to rely upon this, so now to get dragged into pleasing whatever Jane wants Jane gets. And Jane has a presupposition that is pagan; she believes in her gods or her goddess and that this is part of the creation, etc. So Solomon is faced with the problem, how do I please my wife and he gets dragged into this position of compromising the heart presupposition of his life in order to please his women.

And that was his battle, and this is why in verses 1-2 it’s reiterated, a principle in the Word of God and for young people particularly, you watch who you marry. So many people get emotionally involved with unbelievers and then they spend the next 20 years of their life trying to lead them to the Lord. And there are a lot of examples of that I’m sure you’re personally aware of. It’s a sad situation and why is that? It’s the same principle, we get emotionally involved with something, our security, our happiness depends on this person, it’s not what the Lord supplies, if I trusted the Lord for a partner for life He’d bring this ugly and I’d wind up in the middle of Africa and I’d wind up in Africa without any means of support or something, all kinds of nightmares if I trust the Lord for something. So what happens is that we then compromise and one compromise leads to another and we find ourselves in misery because of it. And with Solomon it’s not some strange thing that happened.

But in verse 9 the sentence that God passed upon this man is very sobering and it’s going to be the reason why later he speaks as he does in the book of Ecclesiastes. So we want to watch carefully how God dealt with this problem. In verse 9, “And the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the LORD God of Israel, who had appeared unto him twice,” and notice in verse 9 there’s a little notice, God had already appeared in two magnificent Theophanies to Solomon. A Theophany is a God-appearance, it’s not common place; this is a supernatural thing, it’s a dramatic thing, it’s a special thing, God says I talked to you, twice I appeared to you personally, there is no excuse for you not trusting Me. You have had two experiences that very few people in the human race ever have and I gave you two examples of that and you still can’t trust Me.

So the Lord says in verse 11-12, He announces that the kingdom will be taken away from Solomon, “I will rend the kingdom,” and he says also in verse 11 because “you have not kept My treaty and My statutes,” now the treaty and the statutes in the Old Testament had a blessing and a cursing provision. You can read the blessings and the cursings; it occurs two places, one in Leviticus 28 and one in Deuteronomy 28. And the blessing and the cursing said that your security depends on your obedience, if you will trust Me I will take care of the security problem, I will take care of the economics, I will take care of the climate, I will take care of your military, I will take care of you. So the issue wasn’t at all that God couldn’t take care of them, the issue was whether the people would trust in the Lord’s provisions of the covenant.

So in verse 11 God puts his finger on the problem; He says look Solomon, you entered into a treaty with Me, it’s My treaty, this is Yahweh’s treaty, but what you did is you thought that treaty wasn’t worth it and so therefore what you did is you entered a treaty with Pharaoh, you entered into a treaty with king A, king B, king C, and you’ve entered into all these treaties and with that principle here’s what happened to Solomon. His basic heart presupposition shifted. Now his most basic fundamental belief was in his own ability to solve his own problems. And here begins the slide and the descent.

And as you look at his later years, in the same chapter, 11:33-36 there’s a vision, a word from God, coming to one of his political enemies. [Verse 31, “And he said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces; for thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, Behold, I will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee.…” [33] Because they have forsaken me and have worshiped Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, and Milcom, the god of the children of Ammon, and have not walked in My ways, to do that which is right in Mine eyes, and to keep My statutes and Mine ordinances, as did David, his father. [34] Howbeit, I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand, but I will make him prince all the days of his life, for David My servant’s sake, whom I chose because he kept My commandments and My statues. [35] But I will take the kingdom out of his son’s hand, and will give it unto thee, even ten tribes. [36] And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David, My servant, may have a light always before Me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen to put My name there.”]

And he’s going to raise up Jeroboam, and Jeroboam is going to undermine the kingdom and he’s going to do it with the blessing of God. And verse 39, it concludes by saying “And I will for this afflict the seed of David, but not forever. [40] Solomon sought, therefore, to kill Jeroboam.” So for the rest of his life, from this point on in his life he had no peace. Here is the man who thought by all of his wisdom he could have peace. He’s going to die but right here in his life where God lays on the sentence of death, the sentence of rending the kingdom, from this point on he leads a very miserable existence. He realizes he is not politically secure, he sends out hit men to try to kill off Jeroboam because he knows God is going to use Jeroboam to take away the kingdom from his son, so there’s a very insecure future for Solomon.

And in those years between the sentence of 1 Kings 11 until he drew his last breath in verse 43, he lived a miserable existence, and it’s out of that existence that he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes. One of the other things not mentioned in this passage, but one of the other sad ramifications of this is Solomon could have stood in the Messianic line, but the blood line of Jesus Christ does not go through Solomon. The kingdom was taken from him, and although the legal line given in Matthew for Jesus comes through Solomon, the blood line does not, it bypasses Solomon. So there were a lot of ramifications down through the centuries for Solomon, his act and God’s sentence upon his life. Now God loved Solomon, God is his security, verse 39, He says My discipline is going to be secure, the house of David will reign, but because you’ve disobeyed Me you’re going to experience misery.

Verse 41, “And the rest,” we don’t have these books; these are some of the so-called lost books of the Bible, “the rest of the acts of Solomon, and all that he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the book of the acts of Solomon?” A book that has disappeared but the content of which, most of what the Holy Spirit thought important is preserved in Kings and Chronicles.

Now what is Solomon going to do, how do we characterize all this in his accomplishment in the book of Ecclesiastes. Here’s a parallel, there are several parallels. What other men can you think of in the Scriptures that experienced a life sentence like this? We know one of them, the author of the Torah, Moses. Moses hit the rock twice and because of that God gave discipline. It didn’t mean that God did not love Moses, it didn’t mean he lost his salvation, but it did mean that his future was constrained and he would, for the rest of his life, remember the mistake that he had made. Moses was excluded from the land; he would have to pass the torch to the people he had trained, the objective, that wonderful objective for forty years he led the people, he himself would never ever set foot in the land that was promised, the land flowing with milk and honey; that was his life sentence.

But there’s a second, probably even more parallel to Solomon, and that is Samson. Samson, in the book of Judges, he compromised himself, he married a Philistine, the people that were the enemies of God, he became the same way, like Solomon, he came under the influence of this Delilah and you know the story, the Philistines captured him, punched his eyes out, and then they were going to mock him. And so one evening they decided they were going to have a big party so they invited everybody to the temple of Dagon, and three thousand men, women and children that night gathered in this great temple because they were going to have sport with Samson, they were going to make fun of this Jew. They were going to ridicule him. They made the mistake, or course, not only were they going to attack Samson but they were going to attack Samson’s God. Now God will tolerate a lot of things but when we attack His name there are consequences. And for those three thousand men, women and children in that temple of Dagon that night there were very severe consequences because though they had punched Samson’s eyes out, and though they thought because they had given him a haircut that the had lost his strength, suddenly he prayed as he came into that temple with the roaring crowds and the mocking, laughs, etc. he said God, give me one last chance. And Samson committed suicide but in so doing he pulled the pillars of that great building down on himself and he totally destroyed and annihilated the entire Dagon cult; he took it down with him.

Now Solomon is going to do much the same thing in the book of Ecclesiastes. He is a man who has been burned by the tempter. Satan has tempted Solomon and said you can be as God knowing both good and evil, and Solomon had come to himself and he said all right, Satan you burned me once but before I die I am going to write memoirs that expose your whole program. And the book of Ecclesiastes is an exposition to undo Satan’s temptation to become like God, knowing both good and evil. Solomon says listen, I had all the assets in the world and I tried to become God knowing both good and evil and let me tell you, detail by excruciating detail what it’s like. I listened to the tempter and here’s my report. So the book of Ecclesiastes does to the temptation what Samson did in the temple that night to the Dagon cult.

The Israelis remember this; I have here a book called The Samson Option, written by Seymour Hurst of the New York Times and it’s an exposition of how even today, or at least a decade ago, the Israeli military had a code name for their end time scenario. Of course, the Israelis were afraid that they would be left and abandoned by the United States and they would be invaded by the Arabs so the Israelis devised a plan in the doomsday plan of Israel and the doomsday plan was called Operation Samson. “The Israelis, said Norman [can’t understand name], would fight with conventional weapons for as long as they could and if the tide were turning decisively against them and if help in the form of re-supply from the United States or other guarantors was not forthcoming, it is safe to predict that they would fight with nuclear weapons in the end. It used to be said that the Israelis had a Masada complex, but if Israelis are to be understood in terms of a complex involving suicide rather than surrender, rooted in a relevant precedent of Jewish history the example of Samson, whose suicide brought the destruction of his enemies would be more appropriate than Masada.” The whole point was that the Israelis had a plan, a one-way suicide plan. Fighter pilots would get in their aircraft with nuclear weapons and they would take out every oil field in the world; in one afternoon they would destroy the world’s ability to have any kind of petroleum source, energy sources. And that was their [can’t understand word] take me out and I will take you out with me.

And that was what Samson did; you want to make fun of me and make fun of my God, I will take you down with me. And that’s what the book of Ecclesiastes is, this is why there’s somewhat a dirge to it, that’s why there’s sadness to it, but understand the big idea. This is an exposition, a sort of a revelation of the secret plans and shenanigans and stratagems of Satan.

So let’s go to the book of Ecclesiastes and we’ll skip the poem, we went over the theme of the cosmos last time, and get right in on the text in verse 12. We’re going to look at two parts in the book of Ecclesiastes, verses 12-18, verses 1-11 of chapter 2. Verses 12-18 give Solomon’s methodology, the chokmah methodology, the methodology of wisdom. He is going to explain here exactly how, in all of his pilgrimage spiritually, what he did, where he failed, so that in the future generations men will have the advantage of his failure.

“I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.” People have a problem with the past tense in verse 12, how could Solomon say he “was” king when he was still king all the time he was alive. I believe verse 12 is past tense in the memoir sense of the word; he is looking forward to the future and he’s addressing a future audience that will be looking backwards in time. Moreover I think there’s another reason he uses the past tense in verse 12, because at this point he realized he really was no longer king; God was going to take the kingdom away from him, his dynasty was going to end, and so he sees his whole life as sort of an end, all of the great castles that he had built for himself turned out to be nothing but a sand castle and God’s waves of water would come in and wash it away. So he looks upon it as “I was king.”

Now in verse 13 through the end of the chapter he describes his methodology. It’s important that we understand this man was not stupid; he was very, very careful in how he went about this. This is why, I believe, Satan wants to suppress the book of Ecclesiastes, why he’s labored so hard in church history to mistranslate it, why he’s tried to hide it away so people wouldn’t read it, because it’s really a revelation; it’s the secret papers of what goes on in the world system.

Verse 13, “And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom,” the word “seek” emphasizes depth, the word “search out” emphasizes horizontal scope. So not only was he a deep student but he searched out many, many different areas of life. I “searched out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven; for this sore travail” or this sorrowful occupation “God has given to the sons of man to be exercised with it.” And in his retroflection he thinks back to the fact, he says “sons of man” meaning that every man, woman and child is included in verse 13. He says I have done the experiment but what I have done applies to every living person, every son and daughter of Adam and Eve. He this “sore travail” or this has been God-given. It’s the fact that he uses the noun God in verse 13 tells you immediately why a lot of critics of the book of Ecclesiastes are wrong; what the 20^th century critic likes to do because he’s existentialist and he believes the universe is irrational, there’s no more hope, he says aha, see, there’s an existentialist book in the Bible, and they quote Ecclesiastes. But a real existentialist doesn’t believe God exists; he really doesn’t believe there’s a plan and an order, he believes there’s nothing out there, hence the deep depression.

So don’t misconstrue, Solomon never abandons his God-consciousness, he never abandons the fact that there is a plan to life. Solomon’s argument is that you can’t get to that plan by human means. You can only understand life to the limit that God allows you to and at that point you have to trust. You know that hymn, “I know not what the future holds, but I know who holds the future,” it’s that simple. And what he’s saying is ultimately we have to trust the trustworthiness and heart of God; we cannot do it by our own ways.

Verse 14 the report, “I have seen all the works that are done under the sun and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit,” there’s the word hevel again and all is preoccupation with wind.

Verse 15 emphasizes the wrongs in the world, “That which is crooked cannot be made straight; and that which is wanting [lacking] cannot be numbered.” Here is the iniquity. Briefly stated what verse 15 is saying is the world is not fair and if we’re going through the world thinking we’re going to have justice, you’re crazy. You’re not going to have justice, I’m not going to have justice, there is not going to be a righting of justice in this world. Here’s the greatest king who controlled the courts and even he couldn’t straighten it out. I was just talking to a person working together with the government, you hear all these plot theories, about there’s two million Russian soldiers in Mexico and there’s a bunch of communist equipment hidden away because they’re going to occupy the United States. Well, I know where half the equipment is, I work with it all the time, it’s not to occupy the United States, we’re studying it. And besides, my final answer to all the conspiracy theories is I work for the federal government, it’s so stupid it couldn’t carry out a conspiracy.

Verse 16, he talked to his own heart, “I spoke to mine own heart, saying, Lord Jesus Christ, I am come to great estate, I have gotten more wisdom [than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem; yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge]” all this wisdom and his conclusion in verse 17-18 is he labels it, and this is exaggeration, but he labels it as madness and folly, crazy! He is not a total pessimist; don’t misread the text. All he’s doing is warning us, don’t do what I did, don’t get so wrapped up in all the details of life that you lose the Creator and a relationship and trust with Him. Verse 17-18 is a report of what emotionally, psychologically this sort of approach to life results in; you cannot in verse 17-18 see any word for happiness there, there is no happiness in this, the happiness and satisfaction comes only because we know God. [“And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly; I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. [18] For in much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”]

On the backside of the bulletin is a little diagram, it’s one that I’ve used for many years, it was devised by a Spanish creationist about 20-30 years ago, and it’s an exposition of the limitations of human experience. And in the bulletin I put two points with question marks, one in the upper right, and one in the lower left. And what this is is a domain; it’s a map of the domain of human experience. No matter who you are, no matter when you live, no matter how intelligent you are, you are trapped in the sense that all of your experience has to be contained inside that area. The question that we raise and the question raised by Ecclesiastes is if you have all this experience and all this data, what happens to the unknown data that you don’t experience? And the question is how can you draw a universal truth, an absolute truth from a limited data set. What do you do about the next piece of data, that it won’t invalidate everything else you’ve learned? On the non-Christian, non-Biblical basis this is the dilemma of knowledge. This is why we can say, and it’s not arrogant, it’s not being cocky, there is no basis for education apart from the Word of God and the reason we say that isn’t because we’re some arrogant Christian, it’s because of the fact that only in the Word of God are we assured there’s a plan out there beyond what humans experience.

All other approaches to education start with man; all other approaches start with what man experiences and draw its conclusion from that, but the problem with that is that you never can draw absolute conclusions from limited experience. And we need absolutes and we need unlimited truth in order to live our lives. We have to know where we’re going after death, for example, we have to know how the scales get balanced. How are you going to know that if you haven’t experienced the after life? So there are a lot of questions in life that we don’t understand. And yet we have to go on living, so how do you get those? You either try to make them as speculations out from the human heart or you trust in the God who has His plan and His ways that He reveals to us. So that’s the point of Solomon and his experience.

Now in chapter 2 we’re going to move on to his first investigation, and Solomon put it first because he knows most people try this one first, it’s the investigation of pleasure: can I secure happiness by pleasures in life. It’s very contemporary, very appropriate. Verses 1-2 summarize the eleven verses; Hebrew has this style, you’ll see it a lot where there’s a summary and then there’s an exposition of the details. The style of writing is much like a newspaper journalist, the first two or three paragraphs is the essence of the story and then if you’re interested you read on for the details. Verses 1-2 is the essence of the experiment, verses 3-11 are the details of the experiment.

“I said in my heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure; and, behold, this also is vanity. [2] I said of laughter, It is crazy [mad]; and of mirth, What does it do?” The word “mirth” for happiness in verse 1 is a word that emphasizes outward happiness, it emphasizes laughter, it emphasizes the social good times. But the second word in verse 1, the “pleasure” word emphasizes inner happiness. So what he’s saying there is I will test you, he’s doing his experiment, I want to take external happiness, the good times and see if from the external good times, my social life, the things that I personally enjoy, if I can go from there to personal inner satisfaction. And the result of the experiment is hevel, meaning that what he found was temporary; the best pleasures of life only gave me temporary, the moment they stopped my pleasure stopped. My pleasure was contingent on my external circumstances.

And this is one of the warnings of this book. You can become a very bitter and miserable person if you’re going to allow your happiness to depend on how people treat you or your environment because that makes your happiness contingent on other people; it makes your happiness contingent upon your circumstances. And what Solomon is saying, I tried this folks, it just doesn’t work. And he gives three experiments; verse 3 is experiment A, verses 4-6 experiment B, and verses 7-10 experiment C. Let’s look at each one of these experiments.

In verse 3, “I sought in mine heart to give myself to wine,” now let me be careful of the translation here, I’ve looked at some of the modern translations and they’re better than the King James here but let me try to translate it as literally as I can based on what I have left of the Hebrew skills I once had. Verse 3 says “I sought in my heart to give myself unto wine,” no problem there; no problem, he’s going to do an experiment with wine and this isn’t grape juice, this is wine, this is a stimulant and he’s going to try to do an experiment with it. But then he adds this, and I think the Holy Spirit put this in here so somebody reading this isn’t going to get the wrong idea of going out and having a party. He’s saying, literally it reads: “to lead my flesh with wine but my heart was being guided by wisdom.” So he makes a careful thing here, the translators struggled with how to express this and mine certainly doesn’t express it very well but it shows you the structure. The word “flesh” is used and associated with “wine,” and the word “heart” is used and is associated with “wisdom.”

Now what do we mean by this? Apparently what he’s saying here is that he maintained self-control. He was an amazing individual; obviously he didn’t have any chemistry problem with his body so he wasn’t an alcoholic and he could handle his liquor. And he wanted to do an experiment to see if he really could get any… what was the kind of happiness that comes out of this. Today we could say drugs or anything else that people try, take a pill to get real, that sort of thing. So he does this experiment and notice it says… there’s a conjunction in the middle of verse 3 that you want to notice, he says “until,” so this went on and on for some time, he experimented with different kinds of wine perhaps, different amounts of wine, different frequency of it, and I did it “until I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life.”

The emphasis there is on the fact that he tried a stimulant drug experience, and what he discovered out of that experience was that… he’s going to conclude at the end of the chapter, he summarizes all three experiments but you know where he’s going to drive it at, he’s going to say when it’s all over it’s all over and there’s nothing there, there’s nothing to this thing. There’s a passage in the New Testament associated somewhat with verse 3 that we want to be careful of and often we, in our zeal to communicate the New Testament we kind of screw up a little bit.

In Ephesians 5:18, “Be not drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit,” people often use that kind of sloppily as a comparison, they say as wine controls you the Holy Spirit controls you. I would suggest that that’s not a comparison in Ephesians 18, it’s the reverse, it’s a contrast. In other words, “Be not drunk with wine” is just allowing something else to control your mind and you can’t make the decisions of faith when you’re inebriated. You can’t trust the Lord, you can’t make a decision, you don’t have discernment. You can tell that when you’re on medications, you have certain medications and you just feel slow and your reactions are slow and you demean yourself; you have destroyed your control center with drugs and with alcohol.

And for that reason when Jesus Christ was on the cross He was offered some drugs; He was offered some anesthesia of the day and you remember Jesus’ answer; if you watch the text of the death of Jesus Christ He rejected all medication until after He said “It is finished.” Then they gave it to Him. Now why do you suppose He did that? Because all during the pain of bearing our sins for Himself He had to have a clear mind. Now He could have chickened out, like a lot of us do; when the pain gets so great you just want something to take away the pain, but Jesus Christ, when He was taking the pain that was unimaginable upon Himself He said no, I don’t want medication, I have to think clearly because I have to keep talking to My Father. And He continued to recite Psalm 22, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me.” He kept His mind on the Word, the Word, the Word, the Word, the Word. He was talking to the Father all during this, expressing His faith while He bore our sins on the cross. Then after that He accepted some medication and some relief. But it’s a very interesting illustration how the Bible teaches this. The Bible is not some book of prudery, there are reasons why the Bible says what it says and this is one of them. It’s not that wine isn’t good, he’s saying, however, that wine doesn’t give any kind of satisfaction.

His next experiment, verses 4-6 is what we could call his experiment with environmental architecture, and notice again what noun is repeated; just read verses 4-6 quickly, what noun do you see repeated over and over. “I made me great works; I built me houses, I planted me vineyards; [5] I made me gardens and orchards, I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits. [6] I made me pools of water, to water the wood that brings forth trees,” etc. So who is it for? It’s for him, and he had an amazing building program. Solomon was a master builder; in fact, he built these pools in verse 6 so well that I am told that they formed one of the backgrounds for one of the modern water supply systems for the city of Jerusalem. One of these pools was 582 feet long, 207 feet wide and 50 feet deep. Now you’d need a big tractor to build that tractor. But it lasted, these pools that Solomon did were repaired somewhat in Roman times, they were repaired by the Turks in 1902 and the British army engineers in 1917. So this gives you an idea of how these pools were; they were four miles south of Jerusalem, they collected water so that the people could drink water. There’s no water in Jerusalem, it’s up on a hill. So this is how he waters the place. He wanted a lot of water because he planted a lot of exotic trees.

He had a perfect environment. He had summer homes, he had winter homes, he had cottages, he had urban homes, he had suburban homes, he had places in the country, he had his ocean city. So he had all of these things that he devised, all of the pleasures and he had unlimited finances. He paid for everything in cash. So here is this man with all these assets and he does this experiment; does this give me happiness. Is living in a great and fine house… nothing wrong with that, but that doesn’t give my spirit eternal happiness.

Now verses 7-10 he goes into the party times and what he did. Experiment C is with wealth and social life. This is rather phenomenal. “I got servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of herds and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me.” To give you an idea of the size of his agricultural assets, in 1 Kings 8:63 you can read that at one time they had a massive festivities at the temple of God and they gave sacrifice. During those 14 days they sacrificed 22,000 oxen… 22,000 oxen. If they did that every 24 hours that comes out to about 65 every hour. Think of the blood all over the place that was going on during these sacrifices. And he had 120,000 sheep sacrificed. All of this to commemorate worship. By the way, that’s the background and the Christmas story of why the shepherds were watching their flocks by night in Bethlehem; people forget that they were in a business down there, Bethlehem is only five miles down the road from Jerusalem, that’s where they raised the sheep to kill them in the temple. That’s why the shepherds are out there with the sheep; they are the temple sheep.

So Solomon had massive amounts of these and in verse 8 he had gold and silver, [“I gathered also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces….” massive amounts of this and gold and silver at that time were international trade. This is how you balanced your currency. So he could conduct international trade, he’d just put gold ingots on a boat and take off and it would be accepted in whatever country it was, there was no currency problems that way, no floating exchange rate. Then he says “I had men singers and women singers,” Now we haven’t got time but in 1 Kings 10 he had a party one night for the Queen of Sheba and the report of that party is given in 1 Kings 10. The Queen of Sheba came in and saw this thing. He didn’t have piped in music, he had live choirs, he gave concerts. He had taken what his dad had developed at the temple, those great Levitical choirs that were used to worship Jehovah God and sing praises, and Solomon expanded those choirs, financed all kinds of things going on with them and developed a secular music program. And this was for his entertainment.

Then he says I gathered “the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts,” and in the modern translations at least they’ve corrected one thing, the King James it says musical instruments, well, they were not musical instruments, these were girls here, and it’s translated concubines. [NAS says: “I provided for myself male and female singers and the pleasures of men—many concubines.”] The Hebrew is very clear, we won’t go into the details but the Hebrew discusses the anatomy of the woman and gives you the distinct impression, along with the word translated “delights” that this is obviously attractive females that are being used in his entertainment. So here’s this man who has all of these things going for him.

And in verses 9-10 we come down to the end of his experiments. “So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom remained with me.” Notice verse 9, it remained with him, correlate that to what we saw in verse 3, he is control. Never once does he lose self-control to wine, women or song. “I was great, I increased more … but my wisdom remained with me. [10] And whatsoever my eyes desired, I kept not from them. I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart kept on rejoicing,” the Hebrew construction is a participle there, “my heart continually rejoiced in all my labor; and this was my portion of all my labor.” See, he’s not denying that it was pleasurable; he’s just simply saying after it was over it’s over; nothing lasts, it’s like cotton candy, you bite into it and it doesn’t last.

So his emphasis then in verse 11 at the end, he says “Then,” notice “then,” after all these three experiments were done, “Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on all the labor that I had labored to do; and, behold, all was hevel [vanity],” not that it was bad necessarily, not that there wasn’t some joy, but he was saying that when we listen to the tempter’s voice and he says to us you can become like God, you can define reality, you are your ultimate authority, think of the pleasures that you can have just being like God. And what Solomon says is I was just like God and here’s what the end result was, all was [can’t understand word], I could not, any more than I could keep that cotton candy, I couldn’t make it last. Isn’t this the cry of the addict; he goes for a shot, he has a high and then he goes ugh, but now he needs two shots because he can’t get it again on the second time around. You see, that’s hevel, it goes away; it goes away, in the addict it becomes a passion, a passion to satisfy and get that high that I once had, and I can’t get again. And Solomon says precisely; life will only give you temporary highs, no matter what, and here’s the catalogue of all the pleasures.

“…all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.” His principle again is that this is an exposition of Satan’s great temptation to be our own people, self-sustained by operation bootstrap. We’re going to see in ensuing Sunday’s how he is going to take the issue of the men in the office, the man in the work place, and he’s going to deal with labor, he’s going to deal with all kinds of problems, old age, there’s going to be a catalogue of these, and we’re going to touch on some of them. This morning we have dealt very crucially with those first eleven verses, his pleasure experiment. Let’s bow for prayer.

Where are our hearts this morning? What is our most strongly held belief? If we are going to trust the details of life, people, environments, stimulus, party times, we’re going to wind up as bitter, frustrated, bitter, disillusioned people. Life has joy, but only temporary ones, and it has a lot of unfair things. It’s not the creation but the Creator that ought to be our object of trust. Father, we thank you that you have given us this warning; we pray that you’d recall to our hearts and give us illumination as to the lessons this man, Your servant learned, and he learned the hard way, he suffered, he became miserable, but he was honest to his experience and he reported faithfully to us that he had been king, he had enjoyed the greatest things you could give a man. He went through every area of life in an area much more intense than any of us personally could do in our lifetime, even if we had ten lifetimes. Father, teach us the lessons that Solomon learned that we not have to re-learn them, that we not have to be stupid, that we not be ensnared, that we not become the suckers for the same kind of temptation that Satan threw at Solomon. Father, we thank You that we don’t have to be that way and we ask Your Spirit to make it true to our souls. We don’t believe just because someone tells us to believe; we don’t believe because our husband or our wife wants us to believe; we believe because You have personally spoken to our heart and we can operate on the basis of the fact that Your Word is living and powerful, it is sharper than any two-edged sword, it pierces the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow and is our critic, is our criterion of all things in our heart. In Christ’s name, Amen.