"Money is Hevel (Ecclesiastes 5:10-6:12)” | 10/9/22
Ecc 5:10-6:12 | 10/9/22 | Will DuVal
What comes to mind when you think about MONEY?
Maybe you’re a big fan, like David Lee Roth, who said maybe “Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right beside it.” Or Joan Rivers, who quipped “People say that money isn’t the key to happiness, but I always figured if you have enough money, you can have a key made.”
Perhaps you’re more cautious, like Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wisely observed that “Money often costs too much.”
Or perhaps you’re downright cynical, like Will Rogers, who pointed out that “Too many people [work jobs they don’t enjoy to] make money they [don’t need]..to buy things they don't want..to impress people they don't like.”
The Bible has PLENTY to say about money (over 2,300 verses!). From the POSITIVE…
Prov 10:22 “The blessing of the Lord makes rich”
Prov 21:20 “Precious treasure and oil are in a wise man's dwelling”
But typically Scripture is more CAUTIONARY:
Jesus warned “You cannot serve both God and Money” (Matt 6:24).
The apostle Paul warned: “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.” (1 Tim 6:10)
And Proverbs 11:28 warns us that “Whoever trusts in his riches will fall”.
And this morning in Ecclesiastes chs5 and 6, King Solomon will join the chorus of cautionary voices, by pointing out SIX problems with money. Or to be more precise: with looking to money to find your fulfillment in life, your purpose, your WORTH. Remember, Solomon’s driving question throughout our study of Ecclesiastes thus far has been this: “Why are we here? What’s the POINT?” He’s searching for MEANING. And so far, he’s BEEN searching in all the proverbial wrong places: work, pleasure, social progress, social justice, power, popularity, politics, empty religious ritualism. But this morning Solomon’s gonna take us down one of the most commonly tried and most bitterly disappointing paths in our collective search for meaning: the path of MONEY.
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Now, before we even get started, it’s worth noting that some of us may be tempted to tune out this morning’s message for one of THREE reasons:
1) You don’t think you HAVE money.
2) You don’t think you IDOLIZE money.
OR 3) You just don’t want to feel CONVICTED about it.
Some of us don’t view ourselves as wealthy. According to the Washington Post and Forbes, however, even the average American today ranks in the top 10% of wealth across the globe (Nair, “Most Americans…matter?”), and we are 90x richer than the average person throughout all of human history (Worstall, “Average American…Being”). If you could afford to eat breakfast this morning, in the comfort of your own apartment (...or even HOUSE!), drive here in your own car, and read the Bible app on your SMART PHONE, then yes, you’ve got money, and this sermon is for YOU.
“Okay,” you admit, “...but I don’t IDOLIZE my money.” I don’t NEED it to be happy.
I wonder if you would still FEEL that way if you checked your bank account statement tomorrow morning and discovered it was all gone? If the stock market collapsed tomorrow and you lost EVERYTHING.
You know, there was a man in the Bible who felt like he had his priorities pretty straight… until he met JESUS. And Jesus told him to go give ALL his money away, so he’d be free to follow Jesus unencumbered. If God the Holy SPIRIT whispered that SAME command into YOUR heart this morning - “Go sell EVERYTHING you own; I’m sending you to a third world country to be a missionary” - how much time do you think you’d spend trying to convince yourself that you just hadn’t gotten enough sleep last night… you must be hearing things!
The truth is NONE of us thinks we’ve got a problem with money... until we start having money PROBLEMS! Then we realize pretty quickly, as Philip Ryken accurately diagnoses, that we ALL suffer from at least an ACUTE case of the potentially FATAL disease known as “affluenza” (Ecclesiastes, 132).
Or thirdly, perhaps you KNOW you’ve got money, and you know you LOVE money, and therefore, you just don’t WANT to hear Solomon’s words of exhortation this morning. “The wise see danger ahead and avoid it, but fools run headlong into trouble” (Prov 27:12; my translation). Don’t be a FOOL this morning; Solomon wants to WARN you of the DANGER of money - SIX dangers.
Would you STAND with me… SCRIPTURE - Ecc ch5,v10 - end ch6:
“He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity. 11 When goods increase, they increase who eat them, and what advantage has their owner but to see them with his eyes? 12 Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep.
13 There is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owner to his hurt, 14 and those riches were lost in a bad venture. And he is father of a son, but he has nothing in his hand. 15 As he came from his mother's womb he shall go again, naked as he came, and shall take nothing for his toil that he may carry away in his hand. 16 This also is a grievous evil: just as he came, so shall he go, and what gain is there to him who toils for the wind? 17 Moreover, all his days he eats in darkness in much vexation and sickness and anger.
18 Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. 19 Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God. 20 For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.
There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: 2 a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity;[a] it is a grievous evil. 3 If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life's good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. 4 For it comes in vanity and goes in darkness, and in darkness its name is covered. 5 Moreover, it has not seen the sun or known anything, yet it finds rest rather than he. 6 Even though he should live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoy[b] no good—do not all go to the one place?
7 All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied.[c] 8 For what advantage has the wise man over the fool? And what does the poor man have who knows how to conduct himself before the living? 9 Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the appetite: this also is vanity and a striving after wind.
10 Whatever has come to be has already been named, and it is known what man is, and that he is not able to dispute with one stronger than he. 11 The more words, the more vanity, and what is the advantage to man? 12 For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow? For who can tell man what will be after him under the sun?” This is the word of the Lord… Let’s pray…
Problem #1 with Money - It can’t fix your RELATIONSHIPS. (5:10-12)
Solomon begins in v10 with a summary statement, his thesis, his abstract for this entire section: “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.” It’s HEVEL. And we will pick UP this idea of the insatiability of chasing money later in point #5. But interestingly, here, Solomon begins by discussing money’s effect on our RELATIONSHIPS. Perhaps that’s because he’s still got relationships on the brain from last week in ch4; you may recall: they were the one pursuit that Solomon has actually said anything POSITIVE about in 5 chapters of Ecclesiastes now - “Two are better than one” (4:9), he said.
But he qualifies that here, by saying, “Maybe two AREN’T better, once MONEY gets involved.” Surveys consistently reveal that money is the leading cause of marital conflict. But Solomon notes its divisiveness is even more far-reaching than that; v11: “When goods increase, they increase who eat them”.
He observes, “Money has a funny way of attracting people to you, doesn’t it?” Win the lottery, and you’ll discover just how many long-lost fourth cousins, thrice-removed you have - they ALL come outta the woodworks!
But Solomon says, “It’s not RELATIONSHIP they’re after; not YOU, just your MONEY.” Don’t you feel a little SORRY for someone like Jeff Bezos? $144 billion dollars, now divorced… and he will always have to question, doubt, with ANY woman he dates for the rest of his life: “Do you really love me, or just my money?”
And according to Solomon, that DOUBT begins to drive a WEDGE in the wealthy person’s relationships over time; v11: “what advantage has the owner but to see them [all these so-called friends and family] with his eyes?” I SEE a whole lot of people trying to get close to me, but I can’t really get close to them. Cuz you can’t TRUST them.
He continues in v12: “Sweet is the sleep of a laborer… but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep.”
There are 3 ways to interpret that. It is BIOLOGICALLY true that a full stomach can keep you awake, with indigestion, it can throw off your body’s circadian rhythm, etc.
But it’s also EMOTIONALLY true that wealth can cause sleeplessness, because the rich person just has more to WORRY about. To keep them AWAKE at night, fretting over.
But given the context of v11 and relationships, the main point Solomon may be trying to make here is that it is SOCIALLY true - a “full stomach” keeps the rich person awake with GUILT. When you lie down at night, how can you pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” when you know full well that your belly is FULL of THREE days’ worth of bread, while your neighbor’s is EMPTY? That you are in physical discomfort because you stuffed your FACE so much, while as many as 9 million children - 1 in 8 kids - in AMERICA, might go to bed hungry tonight (feedingamerica.org).
So what do we do? We try and tire ourselves out enough to get some sleep. Derek Kidner scoffs, “Our exercise-machines and health clubs [prove that]... one of our modern absurdities is to pour out money and effort just to undo the damage of money and ease.” (Ecclesiastes, 56)
But money can’t buy you sleep, and it can’t buy you FRIENDS (not REAL friends, anyway).
Problem #2: Money won’t fix your SUFFERING. (5:13-17)
YES, money can of course alleviate some forms of suffering - money can BUY you that bread that keeps you from starving, that medication to treat your illness. But Solomon’s point here is that money can actually CAUSE other forms of suffering. He says in v13: “There is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owner to his hurt”. The implication is that these were riches “kept” that SHOULD have been SHARED. Even secular social scientific studies show us that greed will make a person UNHAPPY, and conversely, one of the best indicators of a person’s happiness is their generosity (Schwantes, “Science Says… Happiness”, Inc).
And if the AVARICE doesn’t hurt you, the RELINQUISHMENT certainly will. “Why bother hoarding your money,” Solomon asks, “when you’re just gonna LOSE it all eventually anyway; if not in this lifetime - v14 - then in the life to come - v15.”
You may lose it while you’re still HERE, and have to WATCH it disappear before your very EYES - v14 - “in a bad venture”. The housing bubble pops. The stock market crashes. Your business deal falls through. Your horse loses the race. Money can be unstable, volatile. So Scripture warns us not to “set [our] hopes on the uncertainty of riches” (1 Tim 6:17); cuz money’s been known to “suddenly sprout wings [and] fly away like an eagle toward heaven.” (Prov 23:4-5) And when it does, as it did for this grievous man in ch5, your money will “spoil (your) life twice over, first in the [selfish] getting, then in the [bitter] losing.” (Kidner, 58) The only thing that ruined this man’s life more than all his hoarding of riches in v13 was his SQUANDERING of them in v14!
And the heartbreak is only exacerbated because he was a “FATHER”, v14, who’s now left with “nothing in his hand” with which to bless his son; Proverbs 13:22 commends “A good man [who] leaves an inheritance to his children's children.” (By the way - that includes your SPIRITUAL children as well - Jesus said, “Who are my mother and brothers?” It’s my SPIRITUAL family, the CHURCH!” - so quick PSA: if West Hills is not yet written into your will, Mark Johnson would love to help you fix that.)
Because remember: you can’t take it WITH you when you GO! v15: “As [you] came from [your] mother's womb, [you] shall go again, naked as [you] came, and shall take nothing… that [you] may carry away in [your] hand”.
The ancient Egyptians wanted to ensure their pharaohs had all the RICHES they would need for the afterlife, so they used to bury them in ornate garments, wearing their finest jewelry, with expensive oils and vintage wines; you know how do we KNOW? Cuz they didn’t take it WITH them! We found piles of bones, laying next to a bunch of STUFF. Hearses don’t pull U-hauls.
And the rich fool KNOWS this - that’s why he’s left MISERABLE in v17: “all his days he eats in darkness in much vexation (frustration) and sickness and anger.”
As Kidner puts it, “If anything is worse than the addiction that money brings, it is the emptiness that it leaves.” (56)
So here’s how the great J.C. Ryle summarized this vicious cycle that unfolds in vv13-17; he said: “Money… brings with it quite as many cares as it takes away. There is the trouble in the getting of it. There is anxiety in the keeping of it. There are temptations in the use of it. There is guilt in the abuse of it. There is sorrow in the losing of it. And there is perplexity in the disposing of it.” (Practical Religion, 327)
Or listen to how Randy Alcorn paraphrases EACH of Solomon’s warnings in vv10-17 thus far:
V10: “Whoever loves money never has enough”. The more you have, the more you want.
V11: “As goods increase, so do those who consume them.” The more you have, the more people (including the government!) will come after it.
V12: “The abundance of a rich man permits him no sleep.” The more you have, the more you have to worry about.
V13: “I have seen… wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner.” The more you have, the more you hurt yourself by holding on to it.
V14: “I’ve seen wealth lost through some misfortune.” The more you have, the more you have to lose.
And V15: “Naked a man comes… and naked he departs.” The more you have, the more you’ll leave behind.
Or as it was summarized even MORE succinctly by the great Biggie Smalls: “Mo Money, Mo PROBLEMS!”
And that brings us to Problem #3: Money won’t fix your JOYLESSNESS. (5:18-6:2)
Solomon actually concludes ch5 and all this gloom and doom talk about money on a note of HOPE, in vv18-20: “Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all [your] toil… [Solomon has already recommended this three TIMES in Ecclesiastes, you may recall (2:24; 3:13; 3:22), and he will actually repeat it three additional times'' in the book (Wiersbe, 1125)].
v19 Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil - this is the gift of God. → Solomon says, “Sometimes we recognize that our wealth and possessions are “gifts from God”, but we FAIL to recognize that even the “power to ENJOY them” is a God-given gift. I like the analogy Warren Wiersbe offers; he says: often “we thank God [before we eat] for our food, but we should also thank Him for healthy taste buds”. Cuz the finest food in the world isn’t worth a hill of beans if you don’t have the power to ENJOY it!]
v20 For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.” → Solomon’s already lamented, at LENGTH, that life here under the sun is HEVEL. It’s HARD, it’s “vanity”. But now he says: “I’ve found an analGEsic - a numbing agent - for the pains of life: it is CONTENTMENT. Learn to be content with exactly what you’ve got - whether little or much! - and you will not only SURVIVE life here under the sun, v20, but you may even actually ENJOY yourself along the way, v19!
See, the question isn’t how MUCH money you’ve got, but how you REGARD whatever money you happen to have. If you’re not content living on $500 a week, you won’t be content living on $5,000 a week! But if you ARE content with $5,000, then you can LEARN to be content with even just $500. Like the apostle Paul: “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I’ve learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.” (Phil 4:11-12)
Contentment isn’t about what’s in your wallet; it’s about what’s in your HEART. But what you DO with what’s in your wallet will REVEAL what’s truly in your heart.
And here’s the sad IRONY that Solomon discovers:
The more money you have, the harder it actually is to be content!
Like John D Rockefeller admitted, when a reporter asked him, “Mr. Rockefeller, which million that you have earned was your favorite?” and he replied, “My NEXT million.” (Alistair Begg, “In Search of Meaning”)
Because as ch6 opens now, we read: “There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them”.
See, there’s not a direct proportionality between wealth and the ENJOYMENT of wealth; as a matter of fact, if MY personal experience is any indication, there’s actually an INVERSE relationship between the two! The most grumpy, spoiled, entitled, miserable people I know also happens to be some of the wealthiest. And conversely, the most joyful people I think I’ve ever met were probably the orphans in Guatemala from my high school mission trip days, who had absolutely NOTHING, materially speaking, but they had EVERYTHING, spiritually speaking; they had a FULLNESS of JOY, that I have not witnessed in my two decades since then, here in America. So we need to be careful feeling TOO sorry for folks who are “less fortunate” than us; sometimes I question who is truly more “unfortunate”.
For the man Solomon witnesses in ch6, it was DEATH, ultimately, that robbed him of the opportunity to enjoy his riches, so “a stranger enjoys them” instead, v2; “This is vanity… a grievous evil.”
It ought to remind us of the wealthy fool from Jesus’ parable in Luke 12, who had nowhere to store all his many crops, so he tore down his barns so he could build BIGGER barns, so he could store up enough food to last him the rest of his LIFE… not knowing that God would TAKE his life that very night. “And the things you have prepared,” Jesus asked, “whose will they BE?’”
Can we make this really PRACTICAL for a second? It is FOOLISH to live for your retirement… unless you’re RETIRED! Then by all means: carpe your diem; “accept your lot… eat, drink and find enjoyment” in your retirement. But if you are in your 20s, your 30s, your 40s, your 50s… your early 60s?!... and your quality of life is dictated by the number on your 401k statement, then you are a FOOL! I’m not saying don’t save for retirement. Proverbs 6:8, 21:20 - the Bible clearly endorses the idea of saving. But don’t waste your life always looking ahead to a future that you’re not even PROMISED. Sure, save for the future, but LIVE for the present. We need to take life as it comes to us - as God GIVES it to us, graciously, as a GIFT! - and simply ENJOY it.
Problem #4: Money won’t fix your RESTLESSNESS. (6:3-6)
Money cannot bring you “REST” (v5) - true rest, rest for your “SOUL” (v3) - because friends: the hole in our souls isn’t a money-shaped one! As Saint Augustine famously testified: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in thee.”
V3: “If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years… but his soul is not satisfied with life's good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he.” → Apparently this man was SO restless, that he couldn’t even stand to go home at night to his family - to LEAVE his work at the office, cuz he was just such a SLAVE, to the earning of all that money - that when he DIED (at the ripe old age of 2,000; Solomon is painting this hyperbolic picture for us to emphasize the point: that money - like age, like kids - it’s not about QUANTITY, it’s about QUALITY!)... Because out of ALL this guy’s 100 kids, NONE of them cared about him enough that they could even be bothered to arrange for a proper BURIAL when he died - that was the ULTIMATE dishonor in Solomon’s day.
So Solomon says: “a stillborn child is better off than he.” Because v5: at least it is at REST.
October is infant loss awareness month. Having lost three babies of my own to miscarriage, I can tell you that while it is some small comfort to know that they are at REST - in Heaven, waiting for me and Polly to come join them - it is still a “grievous evil” (to use Solomon’s words) when a parent loses a child. You can’t help but ask, “God: why did you even permit this child to be conceived if it wasn’t going to live?’
And in a similar way, Solomon asks here, “God: why did you even permit this man to have all this wealth… to have this nice big family… to live 2,000 years!... if the man couldn’t ENJOY it?’” (Wiersbe, 1127)
And here’s the answer, friends: it’s to try and point the man back to HIM - to GOD! Here’s how Danny Akin explains it: “Perhaps one way God saves those who are rich is by the meaninglessness of riches that cannot be enjoyed. When you get to the top and get everything you ever wanted but still feel empty inside, then you know that there must be something better and more satisfying out there. God wants to expose our need of Him and show us that riches cannot be ultimate. .. nothing but God can ultimately satisfy!” (82)
Our hearts are restless till they find their rest in HIM.
How about YOUR heart this morning, friend? Your JOY, your contentment?
Your SATISFACTION; that’s problem #5, as we read on in vv7-9 now: Money won’t fix your INSATIABILITY. (6:7-9)
Solomon finally answers our long-anticipated question here: If it’s so FOOLISH to let ourselves be enslaved by money, and the PURSUIT of it, then why in the world do so many of us DO it; why are we even tempted to go down this dead-end path?
His Answer: “All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied.”
It’s our insatiable appetite for MORE. And “mouth” is just a metaphor here. Interestingly, the Hebrew verb for “eat” is often used in Ecclesiastes - like we just saw in v2 above - in the broader sense of “ENJOY” (Rogland, 1073). That can be enjoying ANYTHING - money, jewelry, clothes, cars, TV, college football, Cardinals baseball (too soon? It’s HEVEL!), social media, video games, porn, sex… or maybe it IS food for you… or alcohol, or caffeine, or nicotine… or laughter, or self-pity, or praise, or worry… we fill our hearts with the oddest things. Cuz our hearts are so desperately SICK - Jeremiah 17:9 tells us - “who can understand it?”
What is YOUR insatiable craving? That thing that your heart can never seem to get ENOUGH of?
Our things may be DIFFERENT, but we all have something. V8: “the wise man has [NO] advantage over the fool”. You look down your wealthy nose at the indigent meth addict, when you are just as addicted to the approval of your country club friends.
Or v8, Solomon flips the whole sermon on its HEAD now: “what does the poor man have who knows how to conduct himself?” → If money is so dangerous, maybe we should just avoid it altogether, pursue WISDOM instead! Solomon says: “Why?! So you can be enslaved to WISDOM instead? The insatiable longing for WISDOM?” There’s no escaping it! We’re ALL a slave to something.
So he warns in v9: “Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the appetite.”
Better to see a thing RIGHTLY - perhaps you DO notice and appreciate its attractiveness, the qualities that MAKE it so tempting for you to want to chase after; but then you need to ALSO see that even if you were to chase and CATCH it, GET it!... you need to see its utter inability to ultimately SATISFY you - so you don’t BLINDLY follow your “wandering” appetite.
Better to see that 2023 Corvette zoom on past, and appreciate it - “Man, that is a beautiful car” - but see it rightly as unable to satisfy me - “...but if I owned it, it’d be fun to drive… for a few months… then I’d get over it. But I’d still be stuck with the payments. And I’d live with the constant worry, every time I left it in a parking lot, that it was gonna get dinged up, scratched. Eh, not worth it. I’m not gonna let my appetite wander…
Better to see your neighbor’s attractive wife next door - “Wow, that is a beautiful woman”; praise the God who put HER together!” - but then quickly see the dangers of your wandering appetite.
Better to SEE your friends’ pictures from their dream vacation, and appreciate how amazing it must have been… without ENVYING them, and maxing out your credit card, chasing after their fleeting pleasure.
And that’s why money is so dangerous: it can actually BUY you all those things that your heart is blindly chasing after, that you THINK will make you happy, but inevitably leave you wanting more. Wanting a faster car, a sexier woman, a more luxurious trip.
Because lastly, problem #6, even if you got it ALL, Money won’t fix your MORTALITY. (6:10-12)
Solomon always finds a way of bringing it back to DEATH at the end, doesn’t he? I was taught that a preacher’s always supposed to bring the sermon back to JESUS at the end, but I guess when you lived 1,000 years BEFORE him, when all the deepest longings of your heart HADN’T yet been fulfilled in Christ, the best you could do was bring the sermon back to DEATH instead. Hope-LESS-ness.
Remember: that’s the beauty and the AGONY of this wonderful, terrifying book called Ecclesiastes: Solomon’s taking us on a journey down every single dead-end path that HE ever tried taking in his vain life to find meaning and joy and fulfillment… and he’s determined to take us FAR enough down the path until we can see the CLIFF that it’s about lead us off, if we don’t turn BACK! ABORT! Try a different path! Money’s not the answer.
Here’s his conclusion: v10: “Whatever has come to be has already been named” → You THINK money is power, that it’s gonna open DOORS for you in life, that with enough money you can become the master of your own fate. But Solomon says, “You don’t even realize: everything that happens in your life has already been sovereignly ordained by God before the foundation of the WORLD!” It’s ALL been “predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will” - Ephesians 1:11.
Solomon continues: “and it is known what man is”. You know what he IS? What we ARE? In a word: we are temporary. MORTAL. We’re here today, gone tomorrow.
And what’s worse, v10: “he is not able to dispute with one stronger than he.” Solomon says: there’s not a THING you can do about it. All the money in the world cannot buy you permanence… IM-mortality. God - the One “STRONGER” than you, the One who FIXED the number of your days before you were even born (Job 14:5) - he’s not some used car salesman you can HAGGLE with. Your money is no good with Him. It’s the wrong kind of CURRENCY, if you’re looking to ADD DAYS onto your life.
So V11: the “more WORDS” you use, TRYING to haggle with him, the more HEVEL you are spewing. “What is the advantage to man?”; what GOOD is your arguing… what good is your MONEY, in a conversation with GOD, about how many DAYS he’s going to let you live? It’s NO good, no advantage.
So Solomon concludes in v12: “who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life” - Solomon says, “I know I ended ch5 on a hopeful note, that it’s good to eat and drink and ENJOY whatever money God blesses you with, for whatever TIME he blesses you with here under the sun… but now that I, Solomon, am at the end of my OWN life, now that I’ve actually MADE it all the way to the end of the path, and I’m peering over the precipice of that eternal cliff - DEATH!”, he says, “I’m not so sure.” Who KNOWS what’s “good”? Who can say? WAS it “good”, to live it up, for 70, 80, 90 years, if you’re just gonna DIE in the end anyway? And in the grand scheme of ETERNITY, our “few days of this vain life… just pass like a mere shadow”? Like HEVEL, smoke, vapor?
And worst of all, we don’t even know what comes NEXT. NONE of us can see all the way to the bottom of the cliff: “For who can tell man what will be after him?”
You want a good word picture for all this? Stand on the edge of an infinite cliff, that you can’t see the BOTTOM of, and try throwing MONEY off it, thinking maybe it’ll cushion your fall at the bottom.
And that’s where Solomon leaves us. Cuz he preached 1,000 years before the Solution to all SIX of these problems would arrive. It’s JESUS!
Are you looking for someone who can fix your RELATIONSHIPS? Jesus calls us his family - his brothers and sisters (Mt 12:49) - he PRAYS that we may all be “one”, just as he and the Father are one (Jn 17:21)
Want someone who can fix your SUFFERING? Jesus promised He would overcome ALL the suffering of this world and give us PEACE (Jn 16:33), and he PROVED it in his resurrection.
Want someone who can fix your JOYLESSNESS? Jesus’s promises all who “abide in his love” that “my joy will be in you, that your joy may be full.” (Jn 15:10-11)
Want someone who can fix your RESTLESSNESS? Jesus invites us: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest… For I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Someone who can fix your INSATIABILITY? Jesus declared “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall NOT hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”” (Jn 6:35)
Most of all, do you NEED someone who can fix your MORTALITY? Jesus promises ““I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.”
Trust in money, and you will be left eternally disappointed.
Trust in JESUS, and be eternally fulfilled.