Take and Give, Part 2: Riches Kept - Ecclesiastes 5:13-17

Riches Kept and the Passing Nature of Wealth

Well this morning we continue in Ecclesiastes chapter 5 and we're looking at verses 13 and 17 and this is Part 2 of what we began last week and I've entitled this little stretch take and give because that's where we're going both This morning as we did last week and also next week.

I want to hold together this idea that may not even be fully clear yet, but it certainly will be Next Sunday morning. And so I've I've focused in on a little phrase here that we have in verse 13 Which is riches kept and that's really going to be the lens through which I look at verses 13 through 17.

This passage which I'll read in a moment is actually echoing Territory we've already walked through earlier in Ecclesiastes chapter 2 Verses 18 to 323 and that was the King's own experience some of the things that he's describing here in chapter 5 and to summarize Really chapter 1 verse 26 through that little section chapter 2 verses 18 through 23 We have the king who realizes he spent so many years working for something that passed out of his hands so quickly.

Now here we'll see in verse 14 it it happened suddenly here in chapter 5 it happened gradually. Between chapters 1 and 2 it took a long time for him to realize just how passing the wind of his pursuit had been but as Eric Ortlund says He seems to be putting Infinite demands on finite things asking them to satisfy him in ways They were never intended to and we are not much different.

We expect some permanent gain under the Sun for our work and then we are bitterly disappointed when life fails our Expectations that happened over time in the king's life here in chapter 5. It happens in a flash a grave misfortune that leaves this bitter Disappointment and the days are consumed in darkness and sorrow.

And so as we look at chapter 5 we're getting sometimes the the misery or the dread of Of life under the Sun all compacted into a moment into a climactic event or downturn. Sometimes for all of us under the Sun it will happen gradually for some of us under the Sun it happens all in a moment.

And so let's read together Ecclesiastes 5 beginning in verse 13. There is a severe evil which I have seen under the Sun. Riches kept for their owner to his hurt but those riches perish through misfortune and When he begets a son, there's nothing in his hand as he came from his mother's womb naked shall He return to go as he came and he shall take nothing from his labor.

Which he may carry away in his hand and this also is a severe evil just exactly as he came so shall he go. And what prophet has he who is labored for the wind all his days? He also eats in darkness and he has much sorrow and sickness and anger.

So as I said, we're looking at riches kept. That's our lens for verses 13 through 17 and we'll break that up a little bit into three parts the first part very very quick. But we'll look at riches kept in verse 13.

Riches Kept as a Source of False Security

Riches that perish. Riches perish in verses 14 through 17 and then want to draw this toward Christ at the end and magnify his work and what that means for us. And we'll look at riches lost and found. Okay, riches kept riches perish riches lost and riches found.

Ecclesiastes 5 13. There's a severe evil which I have seen under the Sun riches kept for the owner to his hurt. So the king again describing the evil he's seen that's language. We saw in chapters 1 through 3 this grievous evil that I've seen under the Sun by the way.

That's gonna be a sharp contrast beginning in verse 18 next week where he says I've seen what is good. We could translate what is beautiful what is fitting under the Sun? So we're gonna have a sharp contrast next week as we consider something good.

Something positive out of this rather dreary and bleak picture in verses 13 through 17. The language of riches kept to his hurt. That's the language of a miser of a hoarder. Someone who's amassing wealth.

Someone who's clinging to it planning with it trusting in it. Lusting for it. It's exactly who we described last week the desire for gain. The mantra is more. More more these are riches kept to his hurt.

We should not read here in verse 13 someone who's preparing a wise Investment. Someone who's hoping to lay aside something to lay down to his heirs. The fact that he has nothing in his hand to give to his son is an afterthought.

That's not the Drive or the engine of this man's motivation. He has been storing for a long time. He's been trusting in and planning on his wealth for a long time. That's why these riches were kept to the hurt of the owner.

It's a variation on Paul said the love of money. Pierces through with many pains and sorrows. This love of money is at work in this man. If you don't believe it here in verse 13 look at where he ends in verse 17.

When that lust cannot be satisfied when that money is taken away. He's consumed in days of darkness and sorrow and sickness and anger. The love of money as we saw in 1st Timothy 6 last week that love is the root of all kinds of evil.

And this is how some even stray from the faith in their greediness and they pierce them through. Themselves through with many sorrows. Who's the man in verse 17. A man pierced through with many sorrows.

He doesn't have the money, but he still has that love of money. That's why he's living in darkness at the end. So what we saw last week was Jesus own warnings about clinging to the things that crumble.

Charles Simeon puts it so well. Christianity does not require a man to cast away or even to give away the fruits of his own labor but it absolutely forbids him to treasure up his wealth and use it as a source of safety or happiness.

I Think we can see that just in the beginning of Acts. We have Land sold and they're free to do with the fruits of that sale as they please but they cannot lie to the Holy Spirit. Christianity does not require us to cast away to live this life of vowed poverty to be ascetic Monastics we were able to enjoy as we'll see even next week the fruit of our labor.

So long as we're not hoarding it keeping it to our own hurt using it by by putting our trust in it. This is our security. This is our safety. This is the thing that if I have a little bit more and I get where I need to be.

That's what I will finally find happiness in. So those are riches kept but then we see in verse 14 through 17 riches perish and look at how it begins in verse 14. But those riches perish through misfortune.

When Wealth Perishes and Leaves Sorrow

Here we have to pause what's happened here between verse 13 and 14. We began with the hoarder with the more more more mentality someone clinging and holding what must crumble to their own hurt. But those riches poof.

They perish. And how did that happen? Well, we have here in the translation a misfortune. Some translations lean into this and they say a bad investment. Sometimes that that word this this evil or this bad is often used to speak of a business transaction gone awry.

Let me give you some other translations here the the the NIV the NAB some misfortune. Get the idea of bad luck. It's probably a lousy translation. But it didn't go the way you wanted it to go. A bad business deal.

Nasby a bad investment a bad venture. RSV so you get the idea some some decision or some event has happened that brought about this misfortune. Now the thing about Misfortune is it may be a choice you made or you may have had nothing to do with that choice at all.

The point is it was a misfortune. It may have been a stock you chose that plummeted a Time that you chose to invest that was the worst time because the bubble was beginning to burst or it was 1929 on Wall Street and you put everything in.

This would be perhaps a misfortune a bad investment but it may be something you had nothing nothing to do with. You're simply a victim of the economy a victim of Turmoil in the world may be a war opening up.

Was the the beginning of the book the consequence of ideas or RC Sproul talks about encountering a man sweeping a parking lot and in talking with him he realized this man had been a university professor in the Eastern Bloc.

And he had to run away for his life. And so coming to America he had to take a janitorial job sweeping a parking lot. That's a misfortune. That's a grievous evil under the Sun that man didn't make a bad investment or a bad choice, but this is what happened to him.

Bad turn leads to bankruptcy and so we already saw the idea of the crookedness under the Sun the crookedness of Creation gone awry things don't go the way that they should go in life. And then the tragedy here is all that Riches that were being amassed the things that were being clung to a little bit more more now.

It's all gone that fortune had been doomed and guess what that makes the hurt hurt more. No wonder he's alone in darkness. It wasn't just that he had it and it was gone quick. He worked for it. He added to it.

He invested it. He supplied it. He treasured it. He hoarded it and now it's all gone and that makes the sting Hurt even more. I I think of the example in my own life. When I was in high school and I had worked many odd jobs from from paperboy and I worked my dad's dental lab for some years and I worked at D 'angelo's and I worked at Shaw's and I kept on saving up All of my paychecks as best as I could and at the time I was really interested in Cinematography and I kept up with what's an affordable camera that I could start practicing with and I I Volunteered at the local TV station and Lemminster the cable station just to get hands-on equipment and get some training.

And then I tracked on eBay my dream camera. I'll never forget it the Canon GL 1 Mini DV prosumer camera. This was going to be my ticket to Cinematography and I they went at the time for about $1 ,800.

I Didn't have that much but I had about 1600 and I found one on eBay. Now. This was the old days of eBay. This is the Wild West days of eBay. There's no buyer protection. PayPal was in its infancy. Elon hadn't developed it yet or sold it.

And so I went to the bank and I got a money order and That the address was a P .O. Box in Philadelphia. I'll never forget this man's name till I die. It's a fake name, of course, Leon J. Williams, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

And all the years of my savings went in that money order to this P .O. Box. Never to be heard from or responded to again. No camera ever came. I remember the days going by in the weeks going by. Remember opening up a case at the post office and they said it's a P .O. Box.

We can't help you at all. There's nothing we can do. And then I said, why did I save up so diligently for all those years? And so then I had a stretch where every paycheck was gone within a day. Out back steakhouse Circuit City.

It's like I I've seen how fast wealth can go. Well, that's not a very good response either but it hurt I Was in high school. It still kind of hurts. I'm like Leon Williams is gonna get what's coming to him.

We were in Philadelphia this week. I'm like if I hear a Leon William. It's still in my mind you work so hard for something and then it's gone. It's gone. And we have this great turn in verse 15 and it echoes Job 1.

You'll recognize in Job 1 the same language, although it doesn't have the same response. And I think we're meant to see that as something of attention here when we look at the man Described here in verses 13 through 17 compared to Job who was a devout and righteous man who feared God.

In Job 1, of course you have naked. I came from my mother's womb and naked. I shall return. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away blessed be the name of the Lord. We have that same echo here in verse 15 as this man came from his mother's womb.

Naked shall he return to go as he came and he'll take nothing from his labor, which he may carry away in his hand. But there's no benediction here. There's no turn of praise to say blessed be the name of the Lord.

This man doesn't end with some faith clinging to his hope in the Lord his a his days end in sorrow and darkness. Verse 16 adds on to it. This is a severe evil just as that exactly as he came he'll go.

So what was the profit of all his labor for the wind? This phrase we've seen but it's not actually the same phrase. We've seen laboring for the wind here is it's more like he's he's laboring literally for the wind.

He's not chasing after the wind. That's how we've seen it. He's not pursuing the wind. It's like he's investing in the wind. He was saving up for the wind. What was the point of it when it's all gone?

Well, we enter into this man's crisis as it were. What was that all for? What what gain was there in that it was to my own hurt now. I have nothing now. Sadly my family has nothing. My son has nothing.

The problem was not saving. The problem was not even wise investment. We we have enough in Proverbs to understand the the importance of wise stewardship and wise Investments and even bequeathing a legacy if God so enables but that's never guaranteed to us.

That's never secured to us. And the problem is we often look to that as our security. We put our trust in it and look at again at what first Timothy says command those who are wealthy. Why do you have to command it because they probably won't even hear it.

Otherwise, he doesn't say suggest or remind. He says command command those who are wealthy in this present age. Not to be haughty. That's not to be puffed up because wealth has a way of doing that relative wealth has a way of doing that.

Oh I feel bad. You have these anxieties and these stresses. I feel bad. You don't know how you're gonna make ends meet. There's a natural puffed up freedom the sense of an air of being a cut above that comes with wealth.

Command them not to be puffed up in that way. It's un-christian. It's un-christian deeply un-christian. And then what does he say next? Not to trust in Uncertain riches. Those two things go together.

Don't put your trust in riches. Why riches are uncertain. Don't you see that here in verse 14? One bad turn. One bad collapse. One bubble bursting. One horrific event. One tragedy. One unexpected accident.

One unexpected health report gone. And What was it all for? To command those who are wealthy. We are wealthy relatively speaking in this room. Not to be puffed up. Not to trust in Uncertain riches but put your trust in the Living God who richly gives us all things to enjoy.

That's really a great summary of where we're going next week. Even we could almost say if you include 18 and following you have it all there compact in first Timothy 6 17. Wealth of course is something that God gives for us to enjoy but from a biblical point of view as Bobby Jamison says so well.

Asking how to enjoy our wealth under the Sun. It's like asking how we can enjoy indoor fireworks. It's not impossible. He says but it's close. And if you're gonna light m80s in your living room, you better have taken a lot of precaution.

That's the idea Martin Luther would put it this way. This is how we should think to ourselves to be sure I will work for myself and I will work for my children and if God gives us something We're gonna use it and if there's something after we use it left, my son will have it.

But if there's nothing God will provide for him just like he provided for me. That's someone who's not trusting in uncertain riches but trusting in God. There's a world of difference there brothers and sisters and you don't want this end.

Look at verse 17 all his days. He eats in darkness. Is that a picture of he's trying to cling to what's left? So he only puts a little oil in the lamp and let's turn all those lights off. I actually would like to be the kind of family that gets better at turning lights off.

Whenever I would pull on to our block all of our condo neighbors was all pitch black and we had every window. Bright and shy. It's like what? There's three levels here. No way. We're spread out like that.

So it's actually a good thing to conserve electricity if you can but not to this extent this man's eating in darkness. Is he pinching pennies still? You've seen the Movie representations of Ebenezer Scrooge.

They do a good job. Everything is in dark. That's any little penny that can be pinched any scrap that can be saved. He's he's keeping these riches to his own hurt. But I like to think rather than this being the the hoarding element, it's actually the depression element.

This man put everything on his riches and now that they're gone. He essentially has nothing left to live for. So what's his life reduced to? Sorrow sickness anger. He's resentful. Frustrated he's ill and of poor health because he's pierced through with so many sorrows and mental torment and anguish.

His life is described as this much sorrow. Full of it sounds like a bunion character. Mr. Much sorrow you remember early in chapter 2 we We had the difference between the wise who have their eyes in their head and the fool who walks in darkness.

Well here the fool is eating in darkness, too. We have what Michael Fox describes as suffering from success. He had been so successful that he could not stomach and deal with the loss of that worldly wealth.

And though he's extremely frugal and miserly and he he's able to hoard and try to build himself back. He can't get past the despair the resentment the frustration. And so now he's living poor in order to die rich.

Poverty of Spirit and the Blessing of the Poor

Are you living poor in order to die rich. The great Anglican preacher one of the good Anglicans if we could put it that way. JC Ryle. Bishop JC Ryle, I remember preaching through the Gospel of Mark some years ago and every week it was like dessert to read the exposition of JC Ryle on the Gospel of Mark and He has a great four volume set called the expository thoughts on the Gospels.

You could read those like a daily devotion. They're so good. JC Ryle was converted in 1837. He had sat under a sermon from Ephesians 2 8 and it pierced him in his very heart and he Surrendered his life to Christ and he became a Christian and he was he was born in a very affluent Household.

You could say he was a child with a silvert spoon. He was converted to Christ in 1837 and four years later in 1841. He endured what you could only say was a roller coaster in his life. His father. He's the heir his father.

This very wealthy and well-to-do man this father who had secured his son's passage his son's future. His son's health and well-being his son's success. His father lost everything. He lost all of his assets because they were not properly insured.

He lost his business and then he lost his home to bankruptcy. It all happened in 1841. Ryle said even as the son. If he had not known the Lord by that time He was in such a state of despair that he would have taken his own life.

Later, he wrote this. God alone knows how iron entered my soul. He's saying this as a Christian. God alone knows how iron entered my soul. I'm quite certain it inflicted a wound on my body and on my mind.

Which I feel the effects most heavily even this day and even if I live to be a hundred I'll feel it. To suppose that people do not feel things because they do not scream or yell or fill the air with their cries is simply nonsense.

He wrote this when he was 32 years old. I Do not think there's been a single day in my life for these past 32 years that I have not remembered. Humiliation, it's a hard thing when that misfortune comes.

He called it the blackest period in his life. But it was that same year that he was called to ministry not because he saw it as some great venture or opportunity. In fact, it was one of the last things he wanted to do.

He said I never had any desire to become a clergyman. Those who fancy that my my will or my taste were gratified by it or entirely mistaken. I became a clergyman because I felt shut to do it and saw no other course in my life.

And so in a good way in a right way. JC Ryle Lived poor in order to die rich. Some of us yesterday at the conference were talking about the beatitudes and it just Just brought me back to the very first beatitude.

What's the first beatitude brothers and sisters? Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the poor. Yours is the kingdom of God. And Luke 6 20, it doesn't say the poor in spirit as Matthew does it simply says blessed.

Are you poor? The concept here is one of of posture. This is not a well-to-do peasant like some of you were dressed up like last night a well-to-do peasant. I'm a medieval peasant as we're eating pizza and having dessert.

This is a beggar. Blessed are you who beg blessed are you who know what it's like to scrape. You don't feel blessed. Do you it's not a blessed way to live. Is it there's a wound of humiliation. There's an iron in the soul.

That's what JC Ryle is reacting against and Jesus comes to that humiliation to that reaction and he says blessed. Is that not stunning to you. It draws in the richness of the flesh. The richness of Old Testament language about being completely distraught and therefore dependent upon the Lord.

Psalm 69 29 and following I'm poor and sorrowful let your salvation O God set me on high and then I will praise the name of God for the Lord hears the poor. Psalm 86 bow down your ear. O Lord hear me I am poor.

I'm needy preserve my life. This is all embedded within Jesus pronouncement of blessing. Blessed are the poor. Why is that the beginning why is that the first beatitude. Why was that the beginning of Ryle's call to ministry and all that Christ would do in and through him as a result of that Christ does it because to be poor in the sense is the basis and foundation for every other blessing that follows to realize that there's no security in uncertain riches.

There's no happiness that will descend from it to hold it to our own to cling to it to despair or fret over it until we're brought low. Until our trust and dependence is toward God until we're actually brought down to poverty of spirit we cannot be blessed.

We'll never look upward we'll keep looking downward and inward and we'll keep clutching and grasping and clawing. We'll never find the good the sweet the joy in this life. When Jesus entered into his ministry in Luke chapter 4 he's taking the language of Isaiah 61 the fullness of the suffering songs and he's saying I've come to preach good news to the poor.

When he's saying a physician doesn't come to heal those who are well he comes to those who are sick. He's saying I've come for those who are poor, scraping, sick, beddly, needy, they don't know how to get by.

That's who I'm here for. Isaiah prophesied Jesus as what? A light to those sitting in darkness. A light to a man sitting in darkness with frustration and anger and confusion about how his life ended up in this place.

This isn't how I thought it would go. I never thought I'd be here. Now you might not literally go home and sit in darkness but you could have welling up within you that same bewilderment that same frustration hidden pockets of anger and sorrow.

I didn't want my life to turn out like that. I never thought it would be this way. Maybe you're doing quite well in your accounts but you feel quite poor in many respects. And in that darkness Jesus says I came to be the light.

I came to preach good news. I've come for those who are poor. When we think of Jesus' rebuke in Revelation 3 17 you say I'm rich. I've become wealthy. I have need of nothing. Doesn't that describe this man at the very beginning?

You don't know that you're wretched. Don't know you're miserable. Don't know you're poor. The problem is we don't know our poverty. It was one of the chapter intros in that great book Living Life Backwards by David Gibson.

It might have been the intro to chapter 2. It was a quote by Adam Phillips if I remember right. In the beginning it went something like this. Our excesses are the best clues to our own poverty. Our excesses are the things that we store up mount up the abundance that we seek.

Our excess is the best clue to our poverty. You say I'm rich I'm wealthy. I have need of nothing you don't know you're poor. You're miserable you're blind. A Puritan would say if the blessed are poor in spirit then the cursed are proud in spirit.

Christ Became Poor to Make His People Rich

And so we come now to the point where we can hold this all together and I think point it to Christ. And that's riches lost and found. And to get there I just want to begin looking at 2 Corinthians 8. We begin with a church that's being pressed by Paul to consider their own poverty.

Their own plight their own need for provision. But rather than hoard it and cling to it to freely give it over. Because their trust is not in the uncertainty of riches. Their trust is in God who richly provides all things to enjoy.

And Paul sees in that church an example that is Christ-like Christ-shaped Christ-centered Christ-oriented. And he wants his life his ministry to redound in that same way. And he wants the church at Corinth to respond and mimic that kind of life.

So 2 Corinthians 8 he says. Moreover brethren we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia. That's this church the churches of Macedonia. He says be like the brothers and sisters in this church.

In a trial of great affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded. So you have abundance of joy. Abundance of joy deep. How does that happen? What? Abundance of joy deep poverty.

What did J .C. Rowell say about poverty? Iron entered my soul. A wound that I'll never forget. A hundred years on. The sheer humiliation of it. Where is this abundant joy coming from? Peter and I were in Philadelphia and we were waiting for an Uber.

And I had on the street I saw this man and he had a few bags. He looked like he had just gone through a few window shops. He had a beanie and a jacket and he was just sort of strolling along the street.

And I wouldn't have even thought twice of him. Except I noticed him sort of cross the street and go to a few trash barrels. And just look to see if there was anything he could eat. He must have been 50 yards ahead.

I almost froze and I just wish I I just want to say can I help you? Can I help you? What kind of humiliation is there in that? So where is this abundant joy coming from? And look at what this joy is causing these people.

In great affliction with deep poverty to do. He says I bear witness. Not according to their ability, no, beyond their ability. They were freely willing. What does freely willing look like? They implored us.

I didn't go and open up my little travel case. And set up my little nylon banners. And put on a little five minute documentary video and say. Now we're going to have a basket going around Church of Macedonia.

If you'd like to support this mission would you please. He said no, they came to us, they implored us. We saw the trial that they were facing. We didn't even bother asking. We saw the depth of their poverty.

We wouldn't even impose but they imposed on us. Deep poverty. Abundance of joy. And it's not just they implored us. They implored us with much urgency to take the gift. You almost get the picture that Paul and Silas are.

No, no, no, no, you're taking it. No, no, no, no, let's wake up early and leave. We can't afford it. And then they open their duffel bags and there it is. They wouldn't let us leave without it. So now he turns us over to the church at Corinth in verse 8.

Where does this come together brothers and sisters? Depth of poverty. Abundant joy. We find out here beginning in verse 8. The answer will come in verse 9. He says to the church at Corinth. He says to us I speak not by commandment.

I'm testing the sincerity of your love by the diligence of others. God does that. And I said it at the end of the service. God will give us enough to provide for us and enough to test us. And Paul is testing the church at Corinth.

He says I'm not giving you a command. I didn't give the church at Macedon a command. But I'm testing the sincerity of your love. Even by bringing up the diligence of others. I'm testing you. Paul tests the church.

God tests His people. For you know. What does he point to here in verse 9? For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. That though He was rich. Yet for your sakes He became poor. That you through His poverty might become rich.

Can we look at that again? For you know Paul says I'm not going to talk about the needs of the saints in Jerusalem. I'm not going to put on the Sarah McLachlan soundtrack. And make the strongest pitch I can.

And have everybody weeping. So that all the dollars start flowing. I won't even mention their needs to you. I will simply say this. You know the poverty of Jesus Christ. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

That though He was rich. Pause. Let's just start there. Though He was rich. What does that mean? Though He was rich. What kind of riches are we talking about? What does Paul say in Ephesians? That everything that is was made through Christ.

And was made for Christ. It was made for Him. Take that and run it through the Psalms. And when you read That when the Lord descends upon the mountains The trees bend in praise to Him. That the chorus of creation begins to rise with the dawn.

So that birdsong and cricket were Meet in psalm in praise to their Maker. And what is creation praising and worshiping and thanking? It's Christ the Creator. Have the hills ever rejoiced for you? Have the waters ever rushed to bless you?

Have the birds ever spontaneously sung your glories? Have the deer and the elk and the prairie creatures Ever adorned the skies and the airwaves With your excellencies and with your delights? That's riches, riches.