“Folly is Hevel (Ecclesiastes 4:4-5:9)" | 10/2/22
Ecclesiastes 4:4-5:9 | 10/2/22 | Will DuVal
I heard a joke recently about a foolish man who got tired of being the brunt of all the office jokes, so he went home one evening and memorized ALL the state capitals. At the staff meeting the next morning, the fool stood up and announced: “I just want you all to know that I did something last night I bet NONE of you could do: I memorized all the state capitals!”
Shocked, one of his co-workers asked, “What’s the capital of Missouri?”
“Easy,” replied the fool proudly, “It’s M.”
As Proverbs 18:6 reminds us, “A fool's lips walk right into a fight, and his mouth invites a beating.”
Well, this morning, King Solomon wants to help us avoid beatings. We’re in week 4 of our sermon series in the book of Ecclesiastes, and just like any book of WISDOM literature, the ultimate aim of Ecclesiastes is to help us AVOID foolishness; to make us WISE.
Wisdom can be understood biblically as: “competency at living WELL”.
Folly, then, is IN-competence at right living; an IN-ability or failure to act as one should.
And the Bible often uses the analogy of walking the path of life: Prov 19:3 warns, “a man's folly brings his [path] to ruin”, but Prov 15:21 says, “a man of [wisdom] walks straight ahead.”
And Solomon, our tour guide through Ecclesiastes, wants to help us find that “straight and narrow” path, the way of wisdom. But before we do, Solomon is gonna lead us down just about every DEAD END path that HE ever tried taking in his vain pursuit of meaning and joy here “under the sun”, to make sure we know which paths to AVOID!
So far, that has included WORK, CREATION, KNOWLEDGE, PROGRESS, LEGACY, PLEASURE, WEALTH, TIME, even WISDOM. But Solomon’s not done searching yet! He is bound and determined to try EVERY possible path here under the sun, to make sure that NONE of them lead to meaning or joy… apart from GOD. So Solomon’s gonna check 6 NEW paths this morning in chs 4 & the beginning of ch5 - actually FIVE new paths; cuz 1 is a repeat. But spoiler alert: ALL of them he’s gonna call “FOLLY”, “foolishness”. He uses the words “fool” or “foolish” 5x in these 25 verses, to describe these 6 paths. Lots to get to, so let’s dive in…
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Would you STAND with me… SCRIPTURE - Ecc ch4,v1 - ch5,v9:
“Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. 2 And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. 3 But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.
4 Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man's envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity[a] and a striving after wind.
5 The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh.
6 Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.
7 Again, I saw vanity under the sun: 8 one person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, “For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?” This also is vanity and an unhappy business.
9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. 10 For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! 11 Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? 12 And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
13 Better was a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice. 14 For he went from prison to the throne, though in his own kingdom he had been born poor. 15 I saw all the living who move about under the sun, along with that[b] youth who was to stand in the king's[c] place. 16 There was no end of all the people, all of whom he led. Yet those who come later will not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and a striving after wind.
5:1 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. 2 [b] Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few. 3 For a dream comes with much business, and a fool's voice with many words.
4 When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. 5 It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. 6 Let not your mouth lead you[c] into sin, and do not say before the messenger[d] that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? 7 For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity;[e] but[f] God is the one you must fear.
8 If you see in a province the oppression of the poor and the violation of justice and righteousness, do not be amazed at the matter, for the high official is watched by a higher, and there are yet higher ones over them. 9 But this is gain for a land in every way: a king committed to cultivated fields.”
This is the word of the Lord… Let’s pray…
#1 - It’s folly to trust in PROPRIETY. (4:1-3)
Propriety is “rightness or justness.” It’s folly to trust in JUSTICE, here under the sun, in our sinful, fallen world. As Solomon laments in vv1-3:
“I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power…”
Now, some of you aren’t gonna like what I’m about to say - what SOLOMON just said (so I’ll forward your angry emails to HIM) - but Critical Theory is HALF-RIGHT. According to Ecclesiastes 4, the social philosophy known as “critical theory” really does get the story HALF-right. It is RIGHT in its diagnosis of our problem here under the sun; it just offers us the wrong PRESCRIPTION in response. Here’s what I mean:
Critical theory essentially understands all of human history as a struggle between the oppressed and their oppressors. It’s a struggle for POWER, and whoever HAS more power - bigger army, more money, better technology - tends to use that power to advance their own cause, often at the expense of OTHERS, so as to KEEP their power. And Solomon is just as clear here as the annals of history are: there really are “oppressed” and “oppress-ORS”.
But the problem with critical theory is its proposed SOLUTION: that all the oppressed just need to band together and rise up to USURP the power; that was Karl Marx’s answer. Or, if you’re a straight, white, male - part of the dominant group WITH the power, then you’re supposed to apologize for your entire existence, and abdicate your power - gladly take DE-motions so that others from marginal groups can gain power, cuz critical theory sees social progress as a zero-sum game.
And that is NOT the Bible’s remedy for the problem. Scripture affirms that we’ve ALL got SOME power - yes, some have more than others; but “to whom much is given, much is expected” - and we’re ALL expected to use WHATEVER power we’ve been given, like JESUS did, to HELP others. Jesus didn’t APOLOGIZE for being the most powerful man to ever walk the planet, God in the flesh. Nor did he think everyone had to be EQUAL; he called 12 disciples, and every ONE of them was a Jewish MAN. But what Jesus DID do was remind those to whom he GAVE power how to USE it: “not to BE served, but to SERVE.” (Mark 10:45)
But SOLOMON rightly observes here that MOST people don’t LIVE that way. He says, “I see a whole lot of OPPRESSION here under the sun.”
Sure, it’s GREAT to pursue justice” - Ps 106:3 “Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times!”; Isa 1:17 “Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause”; Amos 5:24 “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream”; Micah 6:8 “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God” - to ALL those biblical injunctions and the dozens more LIKE them, Solomon emphatically agrees “AMEN!” You can’t follow Jesus and NOT care about justice; just read Matthew 25.
…and YET, Solomon laments here, “If you’re putting your TRUST, your ultimate HOPE, in this pipe dream of us actually achieving God’s lofty vision of JUSTICE here under the sun, you’re gonna be a very sad, disappointed, frustrated person. Because the OTHER major thing critical theory misses is the underlying CAUSE of all this oppression: SIN. We’re all inherently SINFUL. Ever since the Fall, it’s our NATURE to look out for ourselves as NUMERO UNO. And friends, the only cure for that sin, for ALL sin, is JESUS. So until HE returns - to finally defeat ALL injustice and oppression and sin; until we’re living under the SON (S-O-N) - Solomon says, we can WORK toward justice, and we should, but we better expect IN-justice. It’s folly to expect anything else.
But that GRIEVES Solomon! He CRIES in vv2 & 3: “I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. 3 But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.”
“There’s so much EVIL down here; you’re better off DEAD, so you can escape all the injustice. But even better than THAT is to have not even been BORN yet, cuz then you haven’t had to witness ANY of this evil AT ALL.”
This is a difficult, DARK path! Path #1 quickly leads Solomon right back to the CLIFF he’s discovered in each of our last 2 sermons - DEATH!
So he doubles back and tries path #2 - Production (4:4-8).
I told you we’ve got 5 new paths and ONE repeat; this is the repeat. If you’re keeping track, Solomon has RE-examined this pursuit of WORK in every single chapter thus far. He MUST have been a work-aholic, cuz he’s had to RE-remind himself FOUR TIMES now that there is no lasting meaning or hope in our WORK. But this time, he exposes FOUR problems with looking for fulfillment in your work:
First, bad MOTIVATION. V4: “Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man's envy of his neighbor.” He says, “Even our BEST work is driven by bad motives!” The only reason we put a man on the moon is because we were jealous that the Russians beat us to SPACE! The only reason Steve Jobs made us all those cool toys was because he got jealous that Bill Gates was the bigger NERD (and was richer than him). And the reason we BUY them is ENVY. YOU want to be employee of the month. So YOU can get the promotion and the bonus. So YOU can afford the 2019 Honda Odyssey, so YOU can keep up with the Joneses. And Solomon says, “If you think that’s gonna satisfy you, you might as well be chasing the wind”. Cuz there will ALWAYS be another Jones; unless you’re Elon Musk, there will always be someone else to chase (and even Elon is just chasing King Solomon, who was worth 8x his net worth!)
So… maybe the answer is not to work at ALL. Just don’t even TRY. Bad EFFORT. [**Buzzer Sound*] NO motivation is even worse than bad motivation; v5: “The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh.” “Folding one’s hands” is a Hebrew idiom for LAZINESS. Sloth. And Solomon says, “You might as well EAT YOUR OWN FLESH!” Boy, that’s a vivid image, isn’t it? When you go hungry and you’re wasting away, nothing but skin and bones, just remember: you did it to yourself; you effectively ate your OWN flesh.
So what does he conclude in v6? “Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil…” Why? Because of work’s bad satisfaction, thirdly. “Quietness” here is another idiomatic synonym for CONTENTMENT. “Better to be content with just ONE hand full, than to have BOTH your hands full of nothing but TOIL.” You don’t want NO handfuls, like the fool in v5; but if you’re always grabbing for as MUCH as you can possibly get your hands on, then you’ll NEVER be content cuz you’ll always need just a little MORE to be happy. No, the wise man, woman, will QUIETLY accept exactly what God has given them. That’s the prayer of AGUR in Proverbs ch30:
God, “give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me,
9 lest I be full and deny you
and say, “Who is the Lord?” (God?! I don’t need God - just look at all my STUFF!)
or lest I be poor and steal
and profane the name of my God.”
Just ONE handful for me, please.
Because otherwise, fourthly, you run the risk of all your work leading to a bad RESULT. Vv7-8, he says:“Here’s more hevel: a person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, “For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?”” Solomon finds THREE problems with this workaholic:
For starters, he’s never satisfied. There’s ALWAYS more work to do - “no end to his toil” - and the wealth-aholic will ALWAYS need more money “his eyes are never satisfied with his riches”.
Second, he ends up LONELY. A “person who has NO OTHER.” You spend so much time at the office, you got no time for any friends; even your own FAMILY, those who are supposed to be closest to you, eventually feel like they don’t even know you any more, cuz they never SEE you! So you start driving people AWAY from you, and if you’re not careful, by the END of your life, you’ll look around and realize, “For WHOM was I even toiling?!” I don’t even have anyone to LEAVE my giant estate to, cuz I’ve effectively pushed EVERYONE out of my life.
And lastly, thirdly, you can get so caught up in this PURSUIT of wealth, that you forget to even ENJOY it; Solomon warns, “Don’t work so hard that you deprive yourself of any PLEASURE along the way!” It doesn’t make a BIT of sense to spend your whole life at the office, making all that money, so you can buy that bigger home you’re never even AT… to afford the fancier vacations you never even have time to take, so you can buy your kids the latest gadgets to distract them from the fact that they have an absentee father. Solomon says: “That’s HEVEL! Don’t DO it!”
If you make an idol of work and wealth, you’ll turn into a frustrated, lonely, pleasure-less Ebenezer SCROOGE. A Daniel Plainview, from the end of “There Will Be Blood”, with all that money, and no one to enjoy it with.
So Solomon sticks with the theme of “relationship” in vv9-12 now, #3 - he declares PRIVACY is folly.
Have you noticed the “better than” theme yet?
First, Solomon said, “It’s better not to be born, than to live here under the sun, b/c justice is hevel. (4:3)”
Then he said, “better is quietness, contentment, than busyness, b/c work is hevel. (4:6)”
And NOW he says in v9: “Two are better than one, b/c solitude is hevel. (4:9)”. And once again, he gives us FOUR REASONS why. So listen UP, you introverts! Who fantasize about living all on your own out in the woods somewhere - you’ve SEEN “Into the Wild”, haven’t you? Spoiler alert: he dies alone and realizes only after it’s too late - that “Happiness is only REAL when SHARED.”
It’s better to live in relationship; for 4 reasons (we’ll stick with the “P”s):
First, for productivity. “Two… have a good reward for their toil.” Even if you ARE a workaholic, you can get twice as much DONE. Maybe MORE than twice. Because: synergy - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Second, you’ve got someone to PICK YOU UP, when you’re down. V10: “if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!”
We can take that literally, physically: you remember the LIFE Alert commercials? “Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” That’s when you know it’s time to put Grandma in the nursing home. Cuz she needs a roommate. A nurse. Someone to pick her up. (Don’t make her wait half an hour on LIFE alert to get there!)
It’s true EMOTIONALLY too. I used to coach tennis, and it always drove me CRAZY when I had to play one of the stronger players on my team at DOUBLES. I WANTED her to play singles, cuz every match counts for 1 point. So it’s more efficient to have your best players play singles. But when a girl was so MENTALLY weak, that she could make just one mistake and then totally UNRAVEL, I’d have to put her with a teammate who was athletically weaker, but emotionally tougher. An encourager. To pick her up.
And friends: you better BELIEVE it’s true SPIRITUALLY as well: “Woe to him who is alone when he falls SPIRITUALLY and has not another to lift him up!” No, Scripture exhorts us in Galatians 6: “if anyone is caught in any transgression, [any SIN] you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness… Bear one another's burdens.” James 5:19 “My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth… someone bring him back”!
So, two are better than one for “productivity”, for the “pick up”, and third - simply for PLEASANT-ness. V11: “if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone?”
How can one shave the back of his neck ALONE?
How can one unzip her dress ALONE?
How can one SEESAW alone?
Life’s just more PLEASANT, isn’t it, and more practical, when you’ve got a partner.
And Fourth, and lastly, for PROTECTION. V12: “though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him”. And since for most of us, our permanent partners are our spouses, and since I hope and trust that most of us are NOT getting physically attacked on the regular, I think this is a good opportunity to remind you that you ARE getting attacked SPIRITUALLY on the regular. That you DO have a real enemy, but it’s NOT your spouse; you have a spiritual enemy, who wants to “prevail against you” BOTH in your marriage, by DIVIDING you. And by keeping you away from the church, I might add - the wider Christian community - as well. “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Pet 5:8) And how do lions hunt? They divide the herd. They separate the weakest prey from the rest of the herd. One water buffalo, alone, is NO match for a single lion. But amazingly, just TWO water buffalo have been known to survive an entire PACK of lions, because they can stand rump to rump, and NOW they’ve got horns in every direction.
Is that a picture of you and your spouse, spiritually? Are your horns locked in battle with one ANOTHER, making you easy prey?Or do you have each other’s backs, in the daily fight against the world, the flesh and the devil?
Friends, whether you’re married or not, the big takeaway here is clear: we were all made for relationship. In God’s Trinitarian, relational image, for relationship. With one ANOTHER - privacy was the first thing in the Garden of Eden called “NOT good”; Genesis 2:18 ““It is not good that the man should be alone”. But first and foremost, we’re made for relationship with GOD. That’s where Solomon ends this section, in v12: two are better than one, but “a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” Who’s that? You, your spouse… and GOD! The Holy Spirit! The Bible says that when God blesses a marriage - when two become one flesh - God actually comes and INFUSES, He indwells, that new union personally. Malachi 2:15 “Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union?” God is WITH you, IN your marriage. And “a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”
Folly #4 (you get a three-for-one deal this time): it’s folly to trust in Personal Experience… in Power… OR, you can ADD a blank to your bulletin... to trust in POPULARITY (4:13-16).
Vv13-16 are sort of enigmatic. Lots of different interpretations. Some view this “rags to riches” story as an allusion to the life of Solomon’s father, King DAVID, who was a poor young shepherd turned king. Others note the reference to “prison” in v14 and make a connection to JOSEPH’s story. I think it’s probably just a PARABLE that Solomon invents to illustrate the folly of these THREE different pursuits: maturity, power, and popularity.
He starts in v13 with his now-common refrain of “better”: “Better the poor but wise YOUTH than an old and foolish KING who no longer takes advice.” Typically in the Bible - and in LIFE! - old age is commensurate with wisdom, but not always. And here the old king ignores Proverbs 12:15’s warning, that “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.”
So better to be POOR and YOUNG, with WISDOM, than RICH and OLD, with FOLLY.
But the story has a twist ending! Cuz in v14, his wisdom takes the poor youth out of PRISON, and all the way up to the THRONE - he eventually DEPOSES the foolish old king. And v16: “There was no end of all the people” that this wise young king ruled over. And YET, “those who come later will not rejoice in him.” In fact, Solomon’s already told us in ch1: they won’t even REMEMBER him! So Solomon concludes: this too is HEVEL - living for popularity is just as empty as living for power and ultimately, living even for wisdom itself, cuz even the wise king is gonna DIE. And you can’t take your wisdom with you when you go.
So where do we turn when we long for justice, but find oppression? When we toil all day but we’re left JOY-less? When we’re sick of people - ya can’t live WITH ‘em, but ya can’t seem to live WITHOUT ‘em either. And when age, influence, and popularity all leave you feeling EMPTY?
You turn to RELIGION! Only to discover that path #5: PSEUDO-PIETY is folly and hevel as well.
Fake, insincere, worship - empty religious ritualism - pseudo-piety is hevel.
THREE THINGS, that God is after, in real, genuine worship: He wants 1) a changed HEART (v1); 2) close-mouthed HEARING (vv2-3); and 3) committed HANDS (vv4-7)
1) First, a changed heart. Solomon opens ch5: “Be CAREFUL walking into the “house of God”, the temple, presumptuously.” “Unwarrantedly or impertinently bold”. That’s the heart of the FOOL, at the altar, when he offers his sacrifice; Solomon explains he “doesn’t know that he’s doing EVIL.” The IRONY here, and the EVIL, is that the fool is offering a sacrifice, which by definition, and by design, was instituted to atone for SIN, and yet the fool is sinning in his very ACT of offering the sacrifice because he’s unrepentant and unremorseful for his sin which necessitated the offering in the first place!
1 Samuel 15:22 reminds us: it’s not about the ANIMAL; God was ALWAYS after our HEARTS!
““Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to listen than the fat of rams.”
Or Hosea 6:6 “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
God says: “If your heart was in the right place, you wouldn’t need the sacrifice to begin with! And the whole point OF the sacrifice is to GET your heart back in the right place. Otherwise you’re just killing a poor innocent animal for nothing!”
But let’s bring it into the 21st c. now. Cuz we don’t have a temple anymore. But we DO still come to the “house of God”; 1 Timothy 3:15 identifies the CHURCH now as the new “household of God”. And we might not bring dead animals anymore, but we still bring offerings today, don’t we? Romans 12: “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” - we offer God our worship, our songs, our prayers, our time and attention during the sermon; I’m sure some of you consider that a “sacrifice” (some Sundays you may WISH you could just kill an animal instead!)
But Solomon’s question is: HOW do you bring your offering into the “house of God”? Are you just going through the motions? Like the fool, who brings his offering to the Temple week after week, thinking He’s fulfilling his religious duty, but in reality, God is holding his NOSE, because what he wants isn’t the sacrifice but OBEDIENCE. Not a burnt offering, but “steadfast love”. He wants our HEARTS!
Does He have your heart, brother, sister? If you roll in halfway through the opening worship set, just in time to spend the Call to Confession looking for a seat, then you half-heartedly lip sync along to the Hymn of Assurance, cuz “You’re not really an expressive worshiper”, then you doze off during the sermon cuz you stayed up late binge-watching Netflix, and you just get downright frustrated by the closing prayer (“When is he EVER gonna shut up and just let us go HOME?!”) and you rush through the Lord’s Supper, and you check your watch through the closing song, and you check the game’s kick-off time during Announcements, and you skip the Fellowship time after the service… if more than HALF of those 9 marks just described you, then it’s probably a pretty safe bet your heart isn’t in your worship. In fact, it’s not really worship at all. It’s just pseudo-piety. Fake religiosity. And Solomon says: “You’d be better off staying home; “Guarding your steps” around the “house of God”.” Cuz God wants a changed heart.
Secondly, he wants close-mouthed HEARING. Solomon says, “If you DO draw near, it’s better to LISTEN” than to speak; “Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.”
Imagine stepping out of your time machine right into the Pennsylvania State House as the Founding Fathers were discussing and putting the final touches on the Declaration of Independence.
Or stepping right onto the charred battlefield at Gettysburg, as President Lincoln was opening his famous Address.
Or stepping into the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester just as ADELE was singing her first notes ever on stage.
You don’t SPEAK in those kinds of moments, do you? Those are moments when you just shut up and LISTEN. Solomon says, “How much MORE so, in the presence of Almighty GOD!”
The most important commandment in the OT, the one that every good Jew to this day STILL recites twice a day - the shema - starts with the word… SHEMA: “HEAR, O Israel, the Lord your God…” HEAR. LISTEN. Our proper worship begins when we close our mouths and open our ears, to hear from God. That’s why over half this service is just you listening, to God’s words, hopefully, coming through me.
V3: “For a dream comes with much business, and a fool's voice with many words.” Where you see a lot of WORK, you deduce that someone must be chasing a DREAM. And when you HEAR a lot of WORDS, you can bet that a FOOL must have their MOUTH open.
So James 1:19 “be quick to hear, [and] slow to speak”
Thirdly, when we DO speak, God wants committed HANDS, ready to follow through on our words. Talk is cheap; you better back it up with your actions. Vv4-7: “When you DO vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for God has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It’s better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. 6 Let not your mouth lead you into sin”.
You’re thinking, “The only vow I’ve ever taken was at my wedding.” But don’t get caught up on the semantics here; how often do you and I make promises to God, but fail to keep them?
I wonder if the most dangerous time in our worship service every week, is the 20-30 seconds I give you after the sermon for private prayer and reflection. For personalizing and applying the message, as the Holy Spirit leads you. Because you may well, I pray, feel led, in that MOMENT, to make all sorts of commitments to the Lord, to commit His word now IN you… to ACTION - “God, I know you want me to share the gospel with that co-worker who you’re putting on my heart this week; I’m finally gonna DO it!”; or “God, I know I need to confess that hidden sin to my spouse on the drive home today”; or “God, I’m finally gonna take the next step at church - I’m gonna get baptized… I’m gonna join as a member… I’m finally gonna plug in and SERVE somewhere… I’m finally gonna start giving financially… or TITHING 10%” - but by the time we’ve prayed, eaten, sung, dismissed: you’ve already FORGOTTEN. Maybe that’s why we don’t get many of those “sermon application” cards turned back in; cuz part of my PITCH to you in using them is that “when you write something down, you’re more likely to actually DO it”. Maybe some of us don’t actually WANT to follow through and do it, apply the sermon; it’s easier to just LISTEN.
Have I touched a nerve yet? Sorry: has SOLOMON touched a nerve? (don’t shoot the messenger!)
Well, if he didn’t with our idols of morality, work, alone-time, power, popularity, or religion, then let’s try one more: #6 - POLITICS! I think you’ll ALL be RELIEVED to know that I’m out of time to go into depth here, but in short, Solomon observes that SOME people’s desire for justice leads them to trust in the GOVERNMENT to fight injustice.
And to those people, Solomon replies… [**loudly**] “HA!” Are you SERIOUS? He says government bureaucracy is the REASON for the injustice; v8: “Don’t be SURPRISED when you see the poor oppressed, when you see justice violated… BECAUSE “the high official is watched by a higher, and there are yet higher ones over them.” The Hebrew verb “watched” there doesn’t mean “accountability”; quite the opposite. The idea is that every politician has someone above them who is “looking out for” them, who’s got their back. COVERING for them, and covering UP for them. Solomon’s talking about the “old boys network” that IS politics.
Friends, if you’re putting your hope and trust in the POLITICIANS, then you’re grasping at straws indeed.
But then Solomon ENDS with this sort of cryptic v9: “But this is gain for a land in every way: a king committed to cultivated fields”.
When the Israelites demanded a king, just like all the other nations, God warned them that any HUMAN king would be sinful, and exploit them, tax them, take from their fields. But back in Deuteronomy 28, God had promised to give TO them; to cultivate their fields FOR them (vv3-5). But they rejected God as their king. And I think Solomon - who had himself WORN the mantle of king, and is now getting ready to pass the torch on to his deadbeat son Rehoboam, who’s about to run the kingdom straight into the GROUND - Solomon’s reflecting here at the end of his life: “You know, it sure would be nice to get back to GOD’S kingship again, wouldn’t it?” A king committed to cultivating our fields FOR us, if we just OBEY him.
But friends, God is offering you and me something so much BETTER than good crops this morning; He’s offering us ETERNAL LIFE! Through His Son, JESUS, the KING of kings, and Lord of Lords.
It’s folly to trust in fairness… in your job… in your privacy… in your life experience… your power… your popularity… your religiosity… your politician of choice…
But it is NOT folly to trust in JESUS! He alone can fill that God-shaped void in your heart, because he alone was God in the flesh. And he alone died for all your sins, to reconcile you to your perfectly heavenly Father. Trust in Him today, and you will be saved.