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Sermon by Josh Rice from Ecclesiastes 2:4-11.
The text this morning is Ecclesiastes chapter 2, verses 4 through 11. I increased my achievements. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made gardens and parks for myself and planted every kind of fruit tree in them.
I constructed reservoirs for myself from which to irrigate a grove of flourishing trees. I acquired male and female servants and had slaves who were born in my house. I also owned livestock, large herds and flocks, more than all who were before me in Jerusalem.
I also amassed silver and gold for myself and the treasure of kings and provinces. I gathered male and female singers for myself and many concubines and delights of men. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem.
My wisdom also remained with me. All that my eyes desired, I did not deny them. I did not refuse myself any pleasure, for I took pleasure in all my struggles. This was my reward for all my struggles. When I considered all that I had accomplished and what I had labored to achieve, I found everything to be futile in a pursuit of the wind.
There was nothing to be gained under the sun. Let's pray. Father, again, we thank you for your word, the gathering of your saints, Lord, the singing of spiritual songs and hymns. And Lord, we do pray that our hearts are oriented to be in service and humility and gratefulness to you.
Lord, as we open your word this morning, I pray that your spirit would illuminate the words for the hearers, God, that you would use Josh as a vessel to communicate your good truth, or that we would live in obedience and pleasure, Lord, in your kingdom.
And so, God, give us grace and peace as we hear your word, as we reflect on it, Lord, as we're changed and molded by it. Lord, just let us be a people who serve you well. It's in your name we pray, amen.
I sought all week to decide how to start this thing, so I'm going to start this way. Wisdom oftentimes requires the decision between what is best and what's good. Even the fool, many times, can decide between what's bad and what's good.
And so, when we look at wisdom, and especially as we look at chapter two, there are choices between things that are good and things that are better. Today, when we look at the text, there's a choice between building things and doing nothing.
And building things is better than doing nothing, but building things has a ditch that can be fallen into. There's a guy who ruined this kind of thinking for many in my ilk, you guys have probably all heard of him, because he was immensely famous within our little, tiny sect of reformed people.
His name is Tim Keller, and he rose to prominence about 20 years ago, and his lasting legacy really is this thing called the third way. The third way. And that is, God's neither a Republican or a Democrat, there's a third way.
The left wants to kill babies, the right doesn't care about the suffering of the poor, there's a third way. Now, the problem is, with the third way, is that oftentimes it coddles to the left and punches to the right, and it's been used to do that over and over again.
But the issue is that there really are, on most issues, two different ditches. There's a way that you can fall into the ditch, and the way of wisdom is to stay on the path of wisdom, to walk on that road.
And the word of God is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. The word of God contains the wisdom of God for man. It's his revelation, it shows us his character. And so the path of wisdom is the man who rightly applies the word of God in difficult situations.
And I think that's what Solomon is talking about. Even further down the rabbit hole, if you're in my camp, which, look, let's take the one that I just said, reformed people in America, and let's divide that down even to like a tenth of that.
You got this idea that is called Christian reconstructionism, and it has a virulent strain. I would call this like the, it would be referred to as like the Uber right, okay? You're talking about people in Christianity, and what the basic idea of Christian reconstructionism is is that we have to orient all of the laws to match Scripture completely, and Christians need to get off their butts and start taking back over the arts and Hollywood and schools and businesses.
We need to own this. We need to reconstruct what we've lost for the glory of God. Here's the thing, the rallying cry of the reconstructionists is Kuyperian. There's a guy named Abraham Kuyper, and here's his quote, there is not one square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, mine.
That statement is undoubtedly true, and what flows from that is an idea that there is nothing neutral, nothing. If you're not ruled by Christ, you're ruled by the opposite. That is the idea. So we have to rebuild the kingdom, and then the opposite side of this, I'm going to try to explain that having your hope in that can be one of these ditches, that the primary purpose of the church is to rebuild what we've lost civilizationally.
And there's a lot of conflation. What is the church? What is the civil magistrate? What are families? What are businesses? And they all have forms and functions, and I will tell you that the church's purpose is to administer the means of grace.
We are here to sing praises to God, to hear His Word preached, to gather in communion, to celebrate baptism, to pray, and to teach Christians to obey all that God has taught, and that's to understand His Word.
The church's function is not to govern, but there are a few who say that it really is. No one wants a papal decree where the emperor is basically tied in with the pope and the church gets to execute people.
There are very few, if any, that advocate that. However, there can be a misplaced hope in building things. We have to build something, and that's a reaction to what has been the dominant teaching in the American church for at least a century, which is that none of that matters at all.
The only thing that matters is that you proclaim the gospel. And the way you know that you're a Christian is that you assent in your mind to the truths of the Bible. So if you believe and say a prayer and believe in your mind that He is God and you have some quiet time sometimes, and you just believe the propositions, then you're a Christian.
That's the other ditch, because God's Word demands things of us. James says that without works, your faith is dead. Paul says that we are saved by grace through faith and not as a result of works. And both of those verses are equally true.
If you don't have works, you're not a Christian. But you're not a Christian because of your works. It's a paradox. And the solution is, is that Christ saves a people and then He demands things of them as a king demands things of his subject.
Christ said at the Great Commission, all authority under heaven and earth has been given to me. That is a kingly decree. And when the king has subjects, the king administers laws. There are things that you have to do.
If you don't do them, then you're not a loyal subject. So we have ditches. There's the ditch of pietism, which the only thing that matters in Christianity is what you confess with your mouth. Doesn't matter what you do, as long as you don't say bad words, engage in sexual immorality, and as long as you're against abortion, you're probably okay.
And then we have this other ditch over here where it is, look, we just got to build it all. This church, we need to be a church for our grandkids and our great grandkids. This church is not just for us, it's our legacy.
500 years from now, we need to have this church. And Solomon would look at that and say, it's chasing the wind. Futile. How can you do that? Can you order tomorrow in your life? Is your day tomorrow going to go off without anything unexpected happening?
The answer is, you have no idea. You have no idea. So how can we have a church for our grandkids? It's a flawed idea. God builds the house. God gives the lamp stand. So confusion reigns today. It reigns today.
So we look at the king, Solomon, the greatest king, his words, and he was right. And the king sets off, and what he's going to do for us is understand. First of all, in understanding Ecclesiastes, you have to remember this.
Ecclesiastes is the wisdom of a king who is trying to teach his sons and the rulers of Israel how to rule wisely. That's what it's about. It's not about blue-collar workers and what they're going to do tomorrow.
It's about the kings of Israel. Now, does that mean we don't have application? No, it doesn't. But it does mean that we have to be careful with application. You can't just take what he says and be like, oh yeah, that's for me.
In large part, it's not. In large part, it is for rulership. And so what Solomon does is he goes down every avenue and every path that's available to him as being the most powerful man in the world. There is nothing denied to him.
He said it in the text, you heard it right, that he did not deny his eyes anything that they saw for pleasure. He went all the way to the end of every lie that human beings believe about contentment. And he comes back from that to report to us all of the lies that we believe day to day and that his sons would believe.
Because his son, his son, Solomon's son, believed that he would be greater than Solomon and he lost the kingdom. Not even one generation. And it's gone. And the reason why is because Solomon's son did not listen to wisdom.
Solomon's son did not believe his dad when his dad wrote down and said, all of this chasing is futile. It doesn't matter. There's only one thing that really matters and that is, what are you going to do with what God demands of you?
What are you going to do with that? So he goes on an examination. And I'm going to take you through a few examinations that Solomon takes us on this morning. We looked last week at the examination of pleasure.
Is there contentment in pleasure? No. You can't get enough. And when you get some, you just want more. It's like my dad's Butterfinger ice cream. You're not stopping at one cup. Nay, two. Nor even three.
It will be more. And it keeps building. And at some point, some theoretical point, it doesn't satisfy at all anymore, right? I've not found that point. But there is a point out there. I think there is.
So Solomon looks at first and he does this. He does what every king falls into this pit. Our president right now, what's he doing? He's renaming things. But even more particularly than that, he's building a huge courtyard to himself, right?
Because every leader believes this is what you have to do. You got to get buildings named after yourself. If you want to live on, you got to have the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural Food and Life Sciences.
Even today, if you ask a person on the street, who's Dale Bumpers, I defy you. I bet it's 99 .9 of people under the age of 35 have any idea who that is. Chasing the wind. Chasing the wind. I made my works great.
I built houses for myself. I planted vineyards for myself. I made for myself gardens and parks and I planted them all kinds of fruit trees. Sounds like heaven, doesn't it? I made for myself pools of water from which to water a forest of growing trees.
I'll tell you, that sounds like my heaven. A bunch of fruit trees, beautiful, majestic forests with waters flowing. Wouldn't you like to just sit out there under that? Isn't that peaceful serenity right there?
And what the teacher does is he looks at all of his works and he looks at his beautification and he knows that you and every powerful man who's ever lived dreams of this. I want to have my hanging gardens.
I want to have my wonder of the world. And there's probably about five people in here who could even name the seven ancient wonders of the world. Why? Everybody could name them at a certain point, but look what history does.
It grinds buildings to dust. It takes names into oblivion and obscurity. And the younger generation says, who are you talking about? Who are you talking about? The greatest athletes of your time, you're one and a half generations away from nobody even knowing who they are.
You watched with such excitement. You know this, right, men? You dream of doing this. Wouldn't you love to have your castle with your orchards and your running waters and your courtyard of beauty where you could look out your window as you eat breakfast and see your domains, see the trees.
If you're of my ilk, see your golf course out there that you can just go play anytime. The beauty of the landscaping. Amazing. Serenity. What a place. And Solomon knows that this is a rat race. It is a temptation for those in power to have the means to just build monuments to themselves.
I want to build it. It's going to benefit me. It's going to benefit my children. They're going to inherit it. It's going to be beautiful. And we see this with rich men all over the place, right? The pleasure of building beautiful homes.
The pleasure of having garden paradises. The pleasure of orchards, pools, and parks. Isn't that the point of having all this money? So that you can do public works and these huge parks that are going to benefit everyone and they're going to go, oh, that's Turnbow's Park.
What a benefactor of Springdale. What an amazing man who blessed so many. 50 years later, there's a bunch of people using drugs out there and running people off. You have to turn your money into an estate for the future, right?
You have to build a wonder of the world for your legacy and posterity. Solomon felt the need, right? If I am the greatest king, I need to have the greatest works. I need the buildings. And they were something else.
1 Kings writes down for us in chapter 7. Solomon built his own house for 13 years. And he completed all his house. And he built the house of the forest of Lebanon. Its length was 100 cubits and its width 50 cubits and its height 30 cubits.
That's one of them. There was five in a complex on four rows of cedar pillars with cedar beams on the pillars. And it was paneled with cedar above the side chambers, which were on the 45 pillars. 15 in each row.
Now, there were artistic window frames in three rows. And window was opposite window in three ranks. And all the doorways and doorposts had squared artistic frames. And the window was opposite window in three ranks.
This was the cabin to end all cabins of the ancient world. Where you would see the artistry of the greatest artist. You would see the finest wood paneling from the cedars of Lebanon that were famed the world over.
And Solomon built it. It took 13 years. And he had endless resources for laborers. We see later, right, that the slaves were of his own house. They were his homegrown people that were loyal only to him.
He was the master of masters. And he had all of the craftsmen, the greatest architects, the greatest craftsmen, the greatest carpenters, everyone that he could find to build this house. And it's one of five.
It's one of five that are mentioned in that passage in Kings. It's a hall of pillars. That's what it was called. He had a throne hall. He had his own private residence. And he had the Pharaoh's daughter's residence, which was probably his favored wife.
Because it was an important political alliance. These houses were a complex. These houses took nearly twice as long to build as Solomon's temple. And they dwarfed the temple in size. And you remember how the scripture talks about Solomon's temple.
The gold. The wood. The silver. The instruments. The curtains. What an amazing thing. A house of God to worship him. That his father, David, had hands that were too bloody to build this temple that would flow out with blood.
But Solomon built it. Because Solomon was greater. Because Solomon lived with the surety of peace because he was unassailable. The man with all the wisdom. The man with all the riches. The man with the house in the woods.
The man who had the wonders of the world that the world could not imagine. Had never seen before. See here you have to understand that Solomon was not only building for himself. He was benefiting everyone around him.
All the kings paid tribute because it was worthwhile to pay tribute to Solomon. You wanted to be friends with this guy. Not only because of his riches. Not only because of his military power. But also because he would help you in matters of wisdom in a very real way.
All the people flocked. All the nations in a foreshadowing of what would happen at the end of days. All of the nations flocked to Zion to see Solomon administer the law. The Queen of Sheba came to see the wisdom of Solomon.
We can't imagine what he was like friends. We can't imagine. Unbelievable power. Unbelievable wealth. And he would build pools which would still be in place when Christ would walk the earth a thousand years later.
Solomon's pools. These were great works. They irrigated the whole area. They gave water to the other vineyards and surrounding areas and forests. He made Israel lush and bountiful with his riches. And the people didn't care about the high taxes.
Because who cares about taxes when you have peace and prosperity? Nobody gets up in arms about taxes when they're wealthy. People get up in arms about taxes when they're starving. And nobody was starving under Solomon's shade tree.
We heard it, right? Everyone sat under their own fig tree. These were promises that are given to God's people that are heavenly in orientation. And you have to understand this when we look at Ecclesiastes.
Remember, remember, under the sun, under heaven, and then you have in the heavens. Solomon is looking at everything under the sun. And what he's seeing is that even heaven on earth under the sun is vanity.
It's a smoke, the mist that you try to grab, and it fades away. It's as nothing, no substance. So as Solomon examines what every king wants to be known by, their monuments, their buildings, their gardens, their largesse.
Solomon took this road all the way to the end. He built everything. He had everything. All the greatest craftsmen. His pools lasted. His houses were magnificent. His gardens were lush. His forests were expansive.
He had huge, huge plots of land and beautiful buildings and agriculture, the likes of which the world had not seen. And there is a desire in every king for this kind of wealth. And Solomon comes back, and he reports, and he says, folly.
And in fact, we're going to see he says it in three different ways. Is there a desire in the church for this kind of wealth? I have long observed that churches are fascinated by buildings. Fascinated.
If you want a church that your grandkids are going to enjoy, you've got to have the building, right? If you build it, they will come. That is the current church growth strategy. You guys understand this.
If you can bring in a huge amount of money and build a giant building, it will fill up. There is a never-ending need for people to grab some religious accouterments on themselves, and they will go to the easiest place to get it.
If you build it, they will come. Solomon built it, and they came. They came to see. We would come to see. So that's examination number one. The king's works, the building, the monuments. Second examination is the king's court.
The king's court. I bought male and female slaves, and I had home-born slaves. Also, I possessed flocks and herds larger than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. Also, I collected for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces.
I provided for myself male and female singers and the pleasures of the sons of men, many concubines. You see, Solomon was so wealthy that he didn't just have slaves that he bought. He had slaves that loved him.
They were born in his palace. They were loyal to him, and they loved him. Exceedingly loyal to him. Why? Because he was rich. And because he was rich and because he had peace, Solomon could be very benevolent.
There was no threat. God had given him everything. What king could have greater subjects than the ones who are enslaved to him but who still love him? Those who are in awe of him and see him as their father.
That's what it was like in Solomon's court. Nobody wanted to be outside of that. He's your father who provides. He is the wisest man on earth, dispensing God's law. Who would want a king other than Solomon?
And what king would want greater subjects than these? The ones who obey because of love and gratitude. These people are getting the work done, aren't they? Solomon's court. No one's going to fight him.
Look at his army. Look at the loyalty of the people. Solomon is still revered above almost anyone among people who call themselves Jews today. They're getting the work done. Can you imagine? Can't you see the idea?
Imagine what we could do. Imagine what we could do if we had the most industrious and loyal workforce ever. What an economy we could build. We wouldn't have these lazy whippersnapper kids. It's all their fault.
All the time, right? No, what we would have is we would have people who want to get things done just because they love the country so much. Amazing. It doesn't stop there. His court included agriculture that no king had ever had before.
Flocks upon flocks. Food security. Isn't that the key to a peaceful kingdom? Food security. People can be a little bit upset in America today, but as long as the food flows, you don't want to risk it.
Because you'll only risk it for the biscuit, right? You're starving. You'll risk everything. When you're hungry, you'll take a lot. Solomon has all kinds of meat everywhere. The flocks are there. The milk is there.
The wool is there. And we know about his orchards already and the horticulture. And he can tax them to the hilt. They have plenty to give. It doesn't matter. His gold was so plentiful that lesser metals were nothing to him.
Second Chronicles 9 .27 says, The king, this is Solomon, also made silver as plentiful as stones in Jerusalem. And he made cedars as plentiful as sycamore trees that are in the Shefala. Not making a lot of stuff out of sycamore trees.
But cedars, we make all kinds of pretty things out of them. Very expensive fence panels today, right? Mine's pine. Who can afford the cedar? But Solomon, he made it to where silver basically worthless.
Why would you even mess with silver when you have so much gold? And you know where he was getting it? From every king around. Every nation that had been a threat to his father David and to Saul before that.
Every nation that they had warred against constantly and had warred against for years as they went into Canaan. All those kings now, they're under Solomon's heel. They're paying him gold and he's amassing it.
There's no limit. There's no limit to the riches Solomon had. Can you imagine? Can you imagine a country where the treasury is in not only surplus, ridiculous surplus? What if you just changed our national debt around?
What if we were like 39 trillion in surplus? The rest of the world owed us that. Would you feel pretty good about your kingdom? It would take away about 40 of the whining we hear from people who talk about, oh, we're dead.
We're all going to die. Solomon was in no danger of that. His kingdom didn't even last one more generation. Do you see it? Do you see the irony? You could not imagine a stronger kingdom than what Solomon had.
It didn't even last through his son. He had the best private shows and spectacles. He had Creed playing in his backyard. The Beatles, you betcha. All the kings. All the best ones. All the best actors.
All the best female vocalists. All the best male vocalists. All of the best musicians. All of the best poets. The entertainment was there. There was no sparing of the expense. And they were all coming into his house and playing for him.
And many of you who are more oriented that way think, what a dream. What an amazing thing. The best concerts in my living room. The best shows all the time. He had the best. That was his court. And did he have sex?
You betcha. All of the wives. All of the alliances. None of the downsides under the sun. 1 Kings 11, 3, he had 700 wives. Princesses. 300 concubines. And his wives turned his heart away. As Solomon is a young man pursuing, you can almost hear him say, it's good to be the king.
He can do anything he wants. He has a new one every day for every day of his life if he wants to. Men, you know you fantasized. You know in our twisted life that we've thought, you know, new is always better.
That kind of thing. And we know that it's a lie of the enemy. It gets identified as a lie of the enemy. But Solomon, for your benefit, friend. Solomon, for the benefit of his son, pursued this all the way to its end.
And he can come back and tell you it's the opposite of wisdom. They turned his heart away. He examines greatness. This might be the most alluring of all of the temptations, right? Then I became great and increased more than all who preceded me in Jerusalem.
My wisdom also stood by me. All that my eyes asked for, I did not refuse them. I did not withhold my heart from any gladness. For my heart was glad because of all my labor. And this was my reward for all my labor.
If you get right down to the bottom of it all, isn't that what every king wants? Greatness. Isn't that what every man wants? Greatness. He was greater than Saul, but he was even greater than David. There's none like him, ever.
He had absolutely everything. And then he says this, strangely, and we're going to come back to it. He kept his wisdom. And you have to ask the question, how? What does that mean? How did he keep his wisdom?
We just read his wives turned his heart away. How did Solomon keep his wisdom? What does he mean? Well, he disobeyed God's law, right? But he kept all the possessions and the power and the pleasures. He sounds like those Psalms that say, like, Lord, how long are the wicked going to prosper?
Solomon sought after everything that was not the command of God. And in everything, his hand became richer and richer and richer. God didn't punish him for having all these wives and concubines. God did not take his stuff away.
He only grew greater and greater and greater. He administered the law wisely, and yet his own son can't keep it. And Solomon himself breaks it at every point for the kings, does he not? He amassed chariots.
He amassed women. He amassed gold. Contrary to what the law of God explicitly demanded of kings. And make no mistake, there was no one who knew the law better than Solomon. He wrote it because that was what was required of kings.
And Solomon asked for wisdom so that he would rightly judge God's glorious people. In order to do that, you have to know the law. Solomon could preach this sermon a million times better than the best preacher on earth right now.
He understands it all the way. But we'll come back to that. How did he keep his wisdom? Here's what we see. His labor was fruitful. His striving productive. His heart was glad under the sun. His labor did not vanish.
He saw what he worked on and it was good. He saw the fruit. He saw the gold and it exponentially kept growing. There was no stop to it. The rich kept getting exponentially richer. We've never seen anything like it.
His rewards were absolutely astounding. And then we make the turn. We've examined his buildings and monuments. We've examined his court. We've examined his greatness. And what is the end of the matter for all of these things?
Doom and disillusionment. Thus I turn to all my works which my hands had done and the labor which I had labored to do. And behold, all was vanity and striving after win and there was no advantage under the sun.
This is what we call a terminology pylon here. It's not good enough to say it was vanity. He uses three different ways to describe his striving. It was vanity, futility, it was striving after the wind and it had no advantage, no profit, nothing good.
But he just said he had everything, right? He just said it was good. And so now we answer the question, how did he keep his wisdom even while disobeying God's law? Understand, this is where we make the turn and this is what Solomon says is not only for his sons but it is for everyone who would follow God.
It is for everyone who would seek wisdom as we are demanded to seek wisdom from the scripture. Take heed here, brothers. This is where Solomon turns to us and to the Christian. We do well to listen to him because Solomon is writing as one who has experienced and observed all of the things that tempt us to the fullest.
There's only one person who ever lived. Who was tempted to the extent that Solomon was. And yet he was without sin. Can you imagine the temptation and how it escalates when you don't give in? Because when we are tempted sorely, we often seek the relief valve of giving into the temptation and then the temptation stops.
But Solomon, because of his success, because of his position, because God wanted Ecclesiastes to be written through the hand of his Holy Spirit by Solomon, God gave to Solomon all of the ends to his temptation even though he kept giving in.
Solomon kept going further and further and further. You might have thought, hey, 15 wives, that seems like a pretty good number. No, no. Solomon needed 700. He kept going. He observed everything that tempts you to the fullest.
Don't you know what you're tempted to do? You're tempted to seek knowledge, aren't you? We value the wise and the smart. You're tempted to seek greatness either through your accomplishments or through your athleticism.
You are tempted to seek pleasure through sexual fulfillment or through the entertainment of your senses. You are tempted in all these ways. Many are tempted to seek comfort in drugs. Many are tempted to seek acceptance in relationships.
Many are tempted to seek wisdom by philosophy. And we are not tempted nearly as far as Solomon was. He went all the way to the root of every one of these things, all of them, and he reports back. And Solomon, even now, as he writes Ecclesiastes, he was part of the rat race, but he was above it because he didn't lose his wisdom.
What Solomon did was Solomon broke God's law grievously. And then he writes, it's vanity. It doesn't matter what you get. It doesn't matter how successful your schemes are. And let's be honest, men and women, yours are often not that successful.
Is there any great among you? Solomon pursued greatness and he achieved it. And he reports back and he says, there was no advantage. Everything that you spend your life striving to do for its own merit, Solomon's already done it.
And he says, it didn't do anything for me. All I wanted was more. He imparts this wisdom to his sons. And today we know we've been called friends. We've been called brothers. We've been called inheritors of a covenant of a promise.
And our father, if we are in Christ, our father is the father of Solomon. And he has given us wisdom and he expects us to live accordingly. So let me ask you a few questions in application. Does Solomon not give his wisdom to his sons without any varnish on it whatsoever?
There's no polishing up. Can you imagine telling your son, son, I had 300 whores and it didn't do anything for me. Don't we whitewash? We really do. And we are arrogant. We are arrogant in thinking that we've gone to a place where God's forgiveness doesn't reach us.
We always think, but I know he knows, but I don't really act like he knows. But Solomon shows us wisdom in that he imparts wisdom to his children without any whitewashing on it. I had all the gold. I built everything.
And why did I build everything? Because I would be great. Would you say that to your son? The reason I did it is because I want to be great and I want people to worship me. I want people to see how great I am.
And our egalitarian society goes, ugh, yuck. But Solomon doesn't wrap it up that way. Solomon says, I was great. None greater. And it's worthless. Do you impart wisdom to your children, fathers? Or do you make yourself the shining knight of purity?
Your boys don't need that. Your boys need to see the wisdom of Solomon. The wisdom of Solomon is what the Lord delights in. That is a humble and contrite spirit. Men, you've not made it through this life without grievous sins.
Your sons need to hear. And the nature of the folly of youth is that they often won't listen. But guess what? You're in good company. Solomon's didn't listen to him either. Is even telling your sons vanity?
Maybe, but you do it anyway because there's ditches here, right? Obviously, it's age appropriate. But your teenage son does not need to hear about the dangers of the world in a way that no one would understand.
We don't need to use euphemisms. We need to tell people bluntly and directly what the dangers are and what the paths and the ends of those dangers are. Friends, I pick one and it's an easy target and I pick it all the time.
I hope it's not lazy. I hope it's because there is a need to do it. You guys have seen this in my lifetime. It's the scourge. It's an absolute scourge of sexual immorality on the internet through the vehicle of pornography, right?
And I'm not gonna lambast again today, but I wanna look in a different way. This sin scourges through the church and takes men out of the battle because of us. It's our fault. We do not use the wisdom of Solomon and we do not tell our sons of the ever-present danger that exists in your house at all times.
For men my age, it wasn't like that when I was a kid. You had to go to the seedy video store behind the curtains and everyone in town, you knew you went in there. There was tremendous obstacles to going in there.
There's not now. All of the kids that I teach at high school have it in their pocket. It is a restless evil and they are in it. All of them. That's what the world's doing. All of them. And when I say all, I mean 100%.
All of them. And they don't like it. Did you know that? They don't like it. But it's grasped them and there's no way out. That's their wisdom of the world. But friends, no matter what it is, if it's sexual immorality, if it's that you like to lie a little bit, if it's that you are pursuing this greatness for yourself, did you know that no matter how enslaving that sin seems to be, there is a power that's greater?
And I give a message to you. Even if you are in the most enslaving sin that you can imagine, you are deep in the pits of addiction to it. Did you know that Christ's power is greater than that? You will not.
It is a lie of the enemy that you will suffer with this sin for your whole life. You won't. It's not special. There's victory in Christ. And I can stand here with a clear conscience and say, God took it from me and it didn't happen easily.
It happened through sanctification, through people speaking in my life and through a healthy amount of fear. You should be afraid of sinning against your God. Solomon can tell you he wasn't nearly afraid enough.
That's how he's going to end the way Corey told you last week, right? We know the end of the matter and we don't use it enough. Should you be afraid of God? You certainly should be if you don't love him.
You certainly should be if you are sinning willfully against him. If you don't think your sin is a big deal, you should be very afraid of God because he doesn't take your stuff. He sends you to hell. And let's be honest here.
The reason he sends you to hell is not because you just got a few things wrong. It's because you rebel against his law. People get the death penalty because they murder. People are sent to hell because they sin.
It's a judicial thing. Do you place your hope? Do we place our hope in attaining an empire under the sun? Solomon says don't spend any time doing that. It doesn't matter. Are we chasing the wind of output, riches, pleasure, hope, all of these things that we want?
It's futile. The end of the matter is this. Build stuff. Enjoy stuff. Watch concerts. Enjoy your wife. But you better fear God. You better know his commandments. When the end of the matter is settled, did you know that that's all God is going to care about?
That's what it means that it's vanity under the sun. That's what it means that it's chasing the wind. It doesn't last. And when the books are opened, the son of man, whose blood was shed for the sins of many, if you have this eschatology wrong, let me correct it for you.
The one who's going to be looking at you and looking in the books is the one himself who died for sin. He's the judge. The God-man Jesus Christ will sit and he will open the books and he will look at the law and you will be found wanting.
If you break the commands at any point, you've broken all of them. But there is hope because Christ himself took the penalty for your sin if you're in him. Is he going to judge against himself? No, no way.
So there's always hope. There's always hope. But guess what, friends? There is no hope whatsoever under the sun. Isn't that clear from Solomon? It's vanity. It's futile. All the things you chase around trying to bring contentment, it's not going to work.
So stop trying to do that. Build, but build so that God would be glorified. Build relationships so that God will be glorified and fear him. If there is one message I could leave for the church in America, it would be this.
And I've thought about this a lot. We need to fear God. We need to fear God. That's why we fight so much because we don't fear God. God told us that we should love one another. Didn't he? When we don't love one another, it's because we don't fear God.
So many of the issues that we have come from simply not fearing God. And that is abandoning the way of reason for madness. Let's pray. Father, we are thankful for the study of Solomon. Lord, what a great man who also observed and wrote down for us so that we don't have to question that all of the things we strive for and all of the things that we want, all of the things that we think are going to satisfy us or that they won't.
And Solomon tasted and saw all of them. And Lord, something greater than Solomon came. And Lord, we flock to see that great king's wisdom. And Lord, we desire to have that wisdom. And so Lord, I pray that you would give it to your church, that we would seek it as a precious jewel.
But even more than that, Lord, I pray that your church, specifically the people here at CVC, Lord, I pray that we would fear you. Lord, I pray that I would fear you. So often I don't. Lord, what madness is it?
What madness is it to profess and believe that you are the king of all and that you have demands of your people, Lord, and then to not fear you? Lord, may we confess, may we repent of our pride and the folly of our ways.
And Lord, that your people would come back to you. And that through fearing you, Lord, that we would actually attain wisdom. And that we would please you. Lord, we pray these things in your name. Amen.