There are a lot of frustrations in life
and many tragedies.
But, uh, I just was captured by this
particular one.
This fella gave me this.
He knew that I was preaching on the
tragedies and frustrations and difficulties of life.
And he thought I would appreciate this one.
Here's what he sent me.
He said, a certain preacher loved golf as
much as anything else on earth.
Not me, by the way.
I'm not into golf.
I'm not into spirit-filled sports or tennis,
racquetball, etc.
Not golf.
But anyway, this preacher loved golf.
He said golf was an absolute passion in
his life.
He played two or three times every week.
And during one period of his ministry, his
schedule was so packed with weddings, funerals, hospital
visits, counseling sessions, preaching missions, he went for
three weeks without playing one game of golf.
He was about to die.
His schedule didn't offer any break in the
weeks ahead, so finally his passion got the
best of him.
And he decided he'd pretend to be sick
on Sunday morning.
Get someone else to preach for him.
Drive 50 miles away to a neighborhood, neighboring
town, where no one knew him and he'd
play golf on Sunday.
It was the only time he could find
in the week.
On that given Sunday morning, he calls the
chairman of the board, told him he was
sick.
Then he apologized to God, loaded up his
clubs, headed for the golf course in that
other city.
As he teed up the ball on the
first tee, an angel looked down from heaven,
aghast.
Said, Lord, look at that.
A preacher of your word playing golf on
Sunday morning.
How terrible.
Strike him dead.
God was so upset that when he went
on to the third hole, he sent a
gust of wind that made the preacher's ball
sink into the cup on the first shot.
A hole in one.
The angel stood by, puzzled.
Said, Lord, why did you do that?
Is that supposed to be a punishment?
God said, of course.
Just think about it for a moment.
That's the first hole in one that preacher's
ever made, but who can he tell about
it?
So to all of you that see that
as frustrating, you are now ready for Ecclesiastes
4, the tragedies of life.
Chapter 4, verse 1.
Then I returned and considered all the oppression
that is done unto the Son.
And look, the tears of the oppressed, but
they have no comforter.
On the side of the oppressors there was
power, but they have no comforter.
Therefore I praise the dead who are already
dead more than the living who are still
alive.
Yet better than both is he who has
never existed, who has not seen the evil
work that is done unto the Son.
Again, I saw that for all toil and
every skillful work, a man is envied by
his neighbor.
This also is vanity and grasping for the
wind.
The fool folds his hands and consumes his
own flesh.
Better is a handful with quietness than both
hands full, together with toil and grasping for
the wind.
Then I returned and I saw vanity unto
the Son.
There is one alone without companion.
He has neither son nor brother.
Yet there is no end to all his
labors, nor is his eye satisfied with riches.
But he never asks, for whom do I
toil and deprive myself of good?
This also is vanity and a grave misfortune.
Well, there are three tragedies in these eight
verses that Solomon mentions that I think are
common to us all.
One is a lack of comfort.
Today they might call it strokes.
A lack of comfort in life.
Secondly is a lack of contentment in verses
four to six.
A certain restlessness characterizes us all.
And finally there's a lack of companionship, which
seems to be the problem of many, many
people today.
And that's in verses seven and eight.
Comfort, contentment, companionship.
And he deals with the three tragedies related
to this.
Now let's start with comfort.
And to begin this whole thing, just to
get our hearts thinking about it, technically what
he does is he shows us the extent
of the problem not only among the oppressed
people who are really under a heavy burden,
but he shows us the extent of the
problem also among those who do the oppressing,
who've got power.
In one case we've got tears, in the
other case we've got power.
But the end result is the same.
There's no comfort to either one of them.
And that's a great tragedy in life.
So no matter whether you're on the bottom
end really suffering, going through a special trial
or burden or heavy trip in your home
or at work, or whether you're the one
dishing it out and you seem to be
on top of the totem pole, riding high,
lots of power, lots of authority, lots of
influence, the same thing is true of both
people.
There's no comfort in the world.
I'd like you to turn to Lamentations, which
follows the book of Jeremiah.
Lamentations.
Jeremiah was called the weeping prophet.
He was crying over the situation in his
day, in his culture.
People have gone crazy with sin and idolatry.
And God had come to Jeremiah and said,
Jeremiah, I've had enough.
I'm going to destroy this place and I'm
going to wipe Jerusalem out.
I'm going to bring Babylon in and I'm
going to just level the place.
And Jeremiah writes a tremendous prophecy of 52
chapters dealing with that great coming destruction of
Babylon and relates it even to some things
that are coming in the future in our
own generation.
But the conclusion of Jeremiah, and actually in
the Hebrew Bible they're part of the same
book, is this section we call Lamentations.
It's the weepings and the lamenting of a
prophet who sees the judgment of God upon
his people.
Sees people who have decided to go their
own way, to live it up, materialism, immorality,
idolatry.
It had dominated their lives.
And he cries out these Lamentations evaluating the
situation.
Beginning at chapter 1 of Lamentations.
Look at verse 1.
How lonely sits the city that was full
of people.
How like a widow is she who was
great among the nations.
The princess among the provinces has become a
slave.
She weeps bitterly in the night.
Her tears are on her cheeks.
Among all her lovers she has none to
comfort her.
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her.
They have become her enemies.
What was true of that city in that
hour of crisis is often true of our
lives, isn't it?
There's no comfort when we need it, when
we're going through the hard times and the
trials.
People easily forsake you that you once thought
were your friends.
In verse 9 it says, Her uncleanness is
in her skirts.
She did not consider her destiny like many
of us.
We don't think about God, we're just living
it up.
Therefore her collapse was awesome.
She had no comforter.
Oh Lord behold my affliction for the enemy
has magnified himself.
No comfort.
Look at verse 16.
For these things I weep.
My eye, my eye overflows with water because
the comforter who should restore my life is
far from me.
My children are desolate because the enemy prevailed.
Zion spreads out her hands but there's no
one to comfort her.
You ever wanted it so bad and yet
there was no one there?
Well we could go on and on in
lamentation.
Verse 21.
They have heard that I sigh with no
one to comfort me.
All my enemies have heard of my trouble.
They are glad that you have done it.
Bring on the day that you have announced
that they may become like me.
There is a sense of vengeance on those
who had just wiped out Jerusalem.
There's no comforter around.
I'd like you to turn back to Job
chapter 35.
If there ever was a classic example of
somebody who was going through the tragedies of
life and experiencing this problem, it was Job.
There's no comforter.
Yet the Bible speaks about men who came
by Job as his comforters.
You know people can come by and try
to comfort you when you're really hurting and
if they're not really dishing it out right,
I mean it can hurt a lot more.
Job listened to all this stuff that they
were dishing out to him and all of
his grief.
He had lost his family.
His kids are dead.
His wife says curse God and die and
she forsakes him.
He's got boils all over his body.
They're coming by and trying to evaluate why
he's having all this trouble.
And of course like many people who try
to counsel us in times of grief, they
say you know your problem is that you're
not walking with God.
That's the problem.
If you had faith to believe what God
can do, you wouldn't be sick.
You wouldn't have these problems if you just
learned to trust God.
And all this comfort kept coming on.
One man said well your problem is Job
you don't understand who God is.
Another man says your problem is you don't
understand who you are.
You are a worm man.
You are a duck.
You are a dirty rotten depraved sinner.
And that's why this is all coming on
you.
None of which Job denied.
But he took about as much as he
could and in chapter 16 verse 2, he
said miserable comforters are you all.
Maybe you'd like to say that to a
few folks who have been trying to minister
to you lately.
But look what he says in Job 35
verse 9.
Speaking of oppressions in life and heavy trials.
Because of the multitude of oppressions they cry
out.
They cry out for help because of the
arm of the mighty.
But no one says where is God my
maker who gives songs in the night, who
teaches us more than the beasts of the
earth and makes us wiser than the birds
of heaven.
There they cry out but he does not
answer.
Because of the pride of evil men.
They want comfort.
They want answers but they don't get them.
Because of the pride of their own hearts.
Back to Ecclesiastes again chapter 4.
So as he looks at the extent of
the problem, the lack of comfort, he sees
it in the oppressed as well as the
oppressors.
He sees the tears as we have clearly
mentioned in verse 1.
The tears of the oppressed and he sees
the power of the oppressor.
But neither one has a comforter.
Psalm 69 20 which is quoted of Jesus
in the New Testament says, Reproach has broken
my heart and I am full of heaviness.
I looked for someone to take pity but
there was none.
And for comforters but I found none.
How true that is in life.
Psalm 119 134 David said, Redeem me from
the oppression of man.
And in verse 136 he says, Rivers of
water run down my eyes because men do
not keep your law.
The oppression of man and the attitudes of
people in society and often cause broken hearts
and the problems at work and the problems
in our home.
Broken homes, broken marriages, anger, bitterness, hostility, you
name it.
Our world is filled with this problem.
Tears and power, there is no difference in
one issue and that is they have no
comforter.
I looked for someone to comfort me and
there was none.
If you ever wanted that so bad it
hurt inside and no one, no one could
seemingly relieve that ache.
No one could somehow soothe that hurt you
felt.
You know what Solomon is saying here then.
You know, you feel it, you feel this
passage, you know, hey I know what this
is all about.
No comfort for my soul, how often that
is true.
And the oppressors who have power, you know,
think somehow by all I've gained, all I
can do, those who are making it hard
on the rest of us, who are using
us and manipulating us to somehow get what
they want.
They also have the same problem.
There is no comforter.
Some of the loneliest people in the world
are those with power and prestige and influence
who think they have it made, who've got
all the money they ever wanted in life,
but there's no one to comfort their soul.
Solomon speaks of these tragedies out of experience.
He had all that man could possibly ever
want in life.
The Bible speaks often about the seriousness of
those oppressors who have power.
It says in Proverbs 14.31 that he
who oppresses the poor reproaches his maker.
No wonder there's no comfort for their soul.
Proverbs 28.16 says a ruler who lacks
understanding is a great oppressor.
Proverbs 22.16 says he who oppresses the
poor to increase his riches and he who
gives to the rich will surely come to
poverty.
God has strong things to say.
Let's take a look at the evaluation of
the problem in verse 2 and 3 after
showing the extent of it, whether you are
the oppressed or whether you are one of
the oppressors.
Look at the evaluation he makes.
Where are the people who supposedly love and
bear your burdens and share with you in
time of need?
Christians who know that's what the Bible teaches
us to do often feel motivated out of
obligation and duty to do that rather than
out of compassion and the love of Christ
and the power of the Spirit.
And as a result, even Christian people are
left with the same feeling in their heart.
There was no one, no one to comfort
my soul.
The evaluation of the problem as Solomon sees
it, verse 2.
Therefore, I praise the dead who were already
dead more than the living who are still
alive.
He said, I look at this problem with
no comfort, no relief, no one to really
care about you.
He said, we might as well die.
It's a lot better than living through all
of this.
Better yet, he says in verse 3, is
the one who has never existed, who has
not yet seen the evil work that's done
under the sun.
So in his mind, the best thing that
could ever happen to you is not to
have been born.
Isn't that exciting, thrilling, really builds you up
today?
But frankly, it sometimes takes years for a
person to identify with this passage.
If you're young here, you probably have experienced
some pain in this regard.
But the pain of the years becomes unbearable.
And if you've gone a long time, and
you've lived your life, and you're no longer
after anything, you're just kind of sailing to
those retirement years, or you're kind of just
winding down a little bit, or you're kind
of looking to a little relief, a little
rest, a little peace.
I don't know where you are on the
ladder, but I'll tell you this.
The longer you live, the more you know
that it's more important to have comfort for
the soul than it is to achieve all
the great things in life.
It's more important to have peace and relationships
and love and care and compassion than it
is to accumulate all that this world can
possibly give you.
And the longer you live, the more you
see it.
And so you can say with Solomon, hey,
I know what he's talking about.
You might as well not be born if
you're talking about comfort.
If you're talking about the issue of where
we really are, the hurts and the pains
and the heartaches of life, it'd be better
that you're not born, and to have to
face all of that without comfort.
Hey, thank God there's a solution.
We'll get to it in a moment.
But Job knew what this all was about.
In fact, flip back to chapter 3 again
of Job, just to kind of remind ourselves
of this problem, just evaluating it.
I look at the great men of the
Bible, and don't think because you're such a
super Christian that you won't ever feel this
way.
You know, Elijah was a prophet of God,
and God did great things in his life,
but I read in 1 Kings 19, for
him making this statement, Now, Lord, take my
life, for I am no better than my
father's.
You know, I've read that story many times,
and I really wish that in between the
lines, God would have said, right on.
You haven't said anything new.
I'm no better than my father.
I'm going through pain and agony.
No one to comfort my soul.
How about Jonah, the prophet of God?
City repents, and he's out there on the
hill, watching all this, and kind of upset
that God wasn't going to wipe the city
out.
He was looking for a nice, neat, tribulation
-type Revelation vision passage, you know, right before
his eyes.
He thought God would come in and wipe
the Assyrians out.
He's running through the city, repent.
The day of judgment's coming.
Repent!
You know, those fools did it.
They actually repented.
Now he's sitting out on the hill and
says, I don't believe this.
After all they've done to us, and God,
you're going to let them live?
Well, they repented.
I don't care.
God has a weed come up.
Big gourd plant covers him, because it's hot.
And he likes the shade.
That's better.
And then the gourd dies.
It withers and dies.
He says, thanks a lot.
That's what I get.
I mean, I can't even get a little
plant.
So just take my life.
It's not worth living anymore.
Everything's going bad.
I mean, you're not killing the Assyrians?
And you're not even giving me a plant?
And it's hot out here?
I quit!
And God says, you mean to tell me
you don't even care for 120,000 people
in that city that can't tell the right
hand from the left hand?
Obviously referring to the children of that massive
city of Nineveh.
He didn't even care for the kids, let
alone anybody else.
See, sometimes we're our own problem.
Job, in Job chapter 3, verse 11, said,
Why did I not die at birth?
Why did I not perish when I came
from the womb?
Why did the knees receive me?
And why did the breasts that I should
nurse?
And now I would have leaned still and
been quiet.
I would have been asleep.
Then I would have been at rest.
You know, if you're really tired, this sounds
attractive.
You know what I mean?
Sack time.
Think of it.
Eternal sack time.
Not bad.
You read down in verse 16, Why was
I not hidden like a stillborn child, like
infants who never saw light?
There the wicked cease from troubling, and there
the weary are at rest.
There the prisoners rest together.
They do not hear the voice of the
oppressor.
The small and great are there, and the
servant is free from his master.
See, Job said the same thing that Solomon
did in Ecclesiastes, and maybe you do too.
But you know, I got to thinking about
this.
The sorrow, the tears of the oppressed, the
fact that there's no one to comfort.
I got to thinking about how one day
God's going to wipe away all tears from
our eyes.
There'll be no more pain, no sorrow, no
heartache.
The Bible says they'll hunger no more, they'll
thirst no more.
God's going to take it all away.
There was no comforter for my soul, Solomon
said, so what's the use of living?
Back to Ecclesiastes chapter 4.
Not only a lack of comfort, but also
a lack of contentment, and boy do we
see that everywhere.
The restlessness in life.
What are people after?
Whatever they're after, they're sure going after it
rapidly.
They're doing all they can to get it,
but what are you after?
What do you think you're going to get?
In Ecclesiastes chapter 4, he said, Again I
saw that for all toil and every skillful
work, a man is envied by his neighbor.
This also is vanity and grasping for the
wind.
Now the source of the problem as to
why we lack contentment, and most people do,
they're not contented with where they are, they
want things to change.
Well the source of the problem, he says,
is envy or competition.
It's the law of the jungle, man.
It's a rat race out there and everybody's
out to get you.
The New IV, New International Version, says it
springs from man's envy of his neighbor.
New International says it's the result of rivalry
between a man and his neighbor.
Envy, competition.
Hey, isn't that the American way?
Proverbs 14.30 says that envy is rottenness
to the bones.
Why don't we learn that?
We keep going on.
What do we want?
We're envying.
Charles Bridges in his great commentary on Ecclesiastes
says, The better the work, the more is
the man hated by those who have no
heart to imitate him.
Interesting.
The better the work that he does, the
more is the man hated by those who
have no heart to imitate him.
What's the result of all this?
Two things.
Solomon says vanity and grasping for the wind
or emptiness and elusiveness.
There's nothing there.
What are you after?
It's grasping for the wind.
You can't get a hold on anything.
And it's meaningless.
It's vanity.
You just think it's meaningful.
But you will soon discover that it's not.
So Solomon gives a source of the problem.
It's envy in the heart.
Jealousy.
Wanting more than what we've ever gotten.
Jealousy can creep into your heart down there
where you work.
And you and I both know it.
And the older you get, the more serious
it can be.
You're just wiser in how to contain it
inside of you.
And you watch jobs and opportunities and positions
being given to other people and sometimes younger
people.
You say, I've worked for this company all
these years and look at what they're doing
to me.
Envy, jealousy, competition.
You never achieved in your business what another
person in the exact same business did.
And they're doing much better and you see
them with far less resources and talents and
abilities.
And you watch them grow and your business
is not growing.
And envy and jealousy comes in again.
And the summary of all of this, it's
vanity and grasping for the wind.
What's the solutions to the problem that people
come up with?
Just look at verse 5 and 6.
Really two kinds.
One, we have the apathy of the fool
in verse 5.
And secondly, we have the attitude of the
wise in verse 6.
These are the solutions to the problem of
lack of contentment and competition and envy and
jealousy and suspicion.
We read in verse 5, the fool folds
his hands and consumes his own flesh.
He just does nothing.
We have those kind of people.
They realize there's competition.
It's a fight out there.
It's a struggle out there.
So they just give up.
They fold their hands and literally they consume
everything they have.
Consuming the flesh is an old metaphor for
starvation.
You're going to wind up with nothing by
doing nothing.
If that's what you're aiming for, you're going
to hit it every time.
Nothing.
That's the fool.
In fact, God says a lot about this.
Turn over to Proverbs.
Just back to the book preceding this.
Chapter 6.
Proverbs chapter 6.
Some people look at the hassles of life
and they decide to do nothing.
I think there's a lot of Christians who
are violating what the Bible teaches about adorning
the doctrine of God because you're apathetic and
complacent at work.
You're doing as little as possible to get
by.
You have no desire to achieve.
See, there are problems on both sides here.
On the one hand, he's telling us that
we've got a tragedy in life.
That's the envy and competition.
But one solution that is not good is
apathy or complacency.
You never want to achieve.
You're not happy with where you're working so
you're just going to float through, man.
Just do what's necessary to get the big
paycheck and live for the weekend.
That's all your vision.
Work to you is an evil, not a
good.
And that's what you're going to reap.
Whatever you sow, that's what you're going to
reap.
God is not against.
God is not against working hard.
God is not against success.
The trouble is, when envy and jealousy enter
the heart, then we have real problems.
But the apathy of a fool, God condemns
him in no uncertain terms.
In chapter 6 of Proverbs, we read in
verse 6, Go to the ant, you sluggard.
You know, when I read this, I always
kind of, I don't know, do you ever
straighten your tie or just kind of sit
back?
I don't know about that, you know.
I mean, God sits there, calls you a
sluggard.
Couldn't he choose a better word, like, you
know, maybe incompetent?
That's not too good.
What could you say?
I mean, lazy?
I don't like that one either.
Couldn't you be softer, God?
Go to the ant, you sluggard.
I mean, I'm offended, right off the bat.
Consider her ways and be wise, which having
no captain, overseer, or ruler, provides her supplies
in the summer and gathers her food in
the harvest.
How long will you slumber, oh sluggard?
Man.
And when will you rise from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber, a little
folding of the hands, there it is again,
to sleep.
And so shall your poverty come on you
like a robber, and your need like an
armed man.
You know, sometimes, I tell you, you can
hardly wait to go to bed.
You know what I mean?
You get so tired, you can't wait to
just lay down for a few minutes, man.
I mean, sometimes you get so restless, so
tired, so worn out, a little sack time,
man, would be great.
But there's a lot of people who've been
in the sack too long.
They're sleeping their life away.
And there's an apathy, complacency problem in all
this where people don't want to take hassles.
They don't want to take confrontation.
They don't want to do this week at
work what they know they ought to do.
They're just going to cruise it through because
they've had it with the hassles.
A little folding of the hands, God says,
and your poverty will come on you like
an armed robber.
God says a lot about it.
You can't run away from it.
Look over chapter 24 of Proverbs, verse 30.
God talks a lot about the importance of
work and staying with the stuff.
So He's not encouraging us to be like
the fool who folds his hands and says,
well, there's so much competition out there.
This private enterprise deal just leads to jealousy
and all kinds of manipulation and hypocrisy.
I'm going to just back off of it.
Proverbs 24, 30 says, I went by the
field of the slothful.
God doesn't have very good words to describe
us, does He?
And by the vineyard of the man devoid
of understanding.
And there it was, all overgrown with thorns.
Its surface was covered with nettles.
Its stone wall was broken down.
Last time I spoke on this, I was
using it in an illustration in another town.
A guy gave me a note afterwards and
he said, I'm really offended.
You just described my yard.
You know, depending on where your yards stand,
you get convicted even reading this stuff.
And God calls it slothful people.
Verse 32, When I saw it, I considered
it well.
I looked on it, received instruction.
A little sleep, a little slumber, a little,
there it is again, folding of the hands
to rest, so your poverty will come like
a prowler and your want like an armed
man.
The apathy of a fool.
That's no way to go.
But the attitude of the wise?
Look back at Ecclesiastes again, chapter 4, verse
6.
This is an interesting verse to analyze.
How do you handle this problem?
There's competition, jealousy, envy out there in the
marketplace.
Now how do I handle the problem?
Solomon says, Better, that's always a key word
in Ecclesiastes to tell you he's going to
give some sort of solution next.
Better is a handful with quietness than both
hands full together with toil and grasping for
the wind.
That's a wise man's statement.
You may look at everybody around you and
say, I have truly accomplished great and mighty
things.
But if you've got toil and turmoil in
your heart, if you've got the lack of
contentment and peace in your heart, then what
good is it?
And better is one hand full with quietness
of the heart than to have both hands
full and be disturbed all the time and
never be at rest.
You're going after too much.
You see the problem of the overachiever again.
You want too much and what you're after
is not there.
Better is one hand full with quietness in
your heart than to have two hands full
but you are troubled and you are grasping
for the wind.
You are going nowhere even though you think
you are.
Quietness.
Wow.
Turn back to Proverbs 15.
Same man wrote both and I think he
probably had these passages in mind obviously by
the direct statements like folding of the hands
which we find in Proverbs and better a
little with quietness than much with turmoil.
This is a concept we see frequently by
Solomon.
In chapter 15 of Proverbs verse 16 he
says better is a little with the fear
of the Lord than great treasure with trouble.
How true.
And verse 17 better is a dinner of
herbs or vegetables where love is than a
fatted calf with hatred.
And that's true too.
You can have the greatest meal in all
the world but if there's hostility, tension, hatred,
bitterness, jealousy at the table you can't even
enjoy your food.
And God says this frequently over in chapter
16 verse 8 better is a little with
righteousness than vast revenues without justice.
Again, better.
What's better?
And chapter 17 verse 1 better is a
dry morsel.
I really don't like the bread when it
gets dry and crusty and it can break
and all that.
But it says better is a dry morsel
with quietness than a house full of feasting
with strife.
When I see this sometimes I think of
Thanksgiving.
National holiday supposedly to thank God and many
homes are filled with tension.
The notes and letters that I receive from
many people about your Thanksgiving is enough to
break a person's heart.
And some of us who are Christians we
don't know what to do about those occasions.
They've just become family tension times.
You don't even want to go.
God says better is a dry morsel with
quietness than a house full of feasting with
strife.
These things we all know are true.
Back to Ecclesiastes 4 again.
So we have a lack of on the
one hand a lack of comfort no one's
relieving us inside no one's ministering to our
hearts though we keep wanting it and we
live in a narcissistic age that's, you know,
crying out for this.
I got needs, man, minister to me and
everybody's saying the same thing and there's no
comforters.
And a lack of contentment?
Man, it's everywhere in this world.
Then it comes to a final problem in
verse 7 and 8 another great tragedy and
that's a lack of companionship.
It's no fun to be alone.
I guess there is differences between being alone
and being lonely.
We could talk about that.
There certainly is.
Sometimes you want to be alone.
I mean, you're so hassled with people all
the time you've got to get alone.
You've got to have a little quiet time,
a little peace.
I understand that.
But sad the person no matter how much
they like their independence and no matter how
much they like being alone sad the person
who grows later in life and discovers all
the pressures and hassles and problems that can
inevitably come to a person and be there
without anyone to care.
If you don't understand this problem go visit
our rest homes and our convalescent hospitals.
You talk about loneliness?
That's why it's important to build your friendships
not only among those in your own family
but among those who are Christian friends that
you have known and ministered through to the
years that in your hour of crisis in
your hour of need there will be friends
who will care and it will be there.
The sad truth is that we see relatively
little of this in the world.
Instead we see lonely people everywhere.
Songs are sung and often become hit tunes
whether they're a song or a piece of
music.
Whether they're by the young and the rock
scene or whether they're by the old of
the past generations and past decades.
We hear the same message coming out.
The loneliness of life.
Where's the true friend?
Where's the true companion?
And Solomon here in verse 7 and 8
lists I believe at least three problems that
we have to face in this matter.
One is the simple problem of loneliness.
Verse 8 says there's one alone without companion.
He has neither son nor brother.
He's alone.
Loneliness.
Proverbs 18.1 suggests that sometimes we cause
our own problem.
Proverbs 18.1 says a man who isolates
himself seeks his own desire and he rages
against all wise judgment.
Sometimes it's dangerous to want to be alone.
Sure, whenever we're with somebody it involves certain
obligations and certain responsibilities.
And some people say I want to be
alone.
I don't have to have the hassles.
I don't have to minister to people.
I don't have to bear the burdens.
I don't have to hear the stories.
My friends, it goes both ways.
It's not easy to develop friendship.
Friendship is developed often in the arena of
hard times and difficult places.
A friendship is something you work on frequently.
It doesn't just come.
There's no spiritual hypodermic needle to somehow solve
the problem of loneliness that many of us
feel right now.
I've seen people that are married for years
and are lonely as all get out.
Live under the same roof and still so
lonely.
I've had people write and tell me that.
These are problems that we have in society.
Loneliness.
Proverbs 27.10 tells us do not forsake
your own friend or your father's friend.
Have you noticed how we have different friends,
parents and kids?
Have you noticed that?
God's advice to kids don't ever forsake your
father's friends.
It goes on to say don't go to
your brother's house meaning a relative in the
day of calamity for better is a neighbor
or a friend who is nearby than a
brother or a relative far away.
What an interesting principle that is.
Is blood thicker than water?
I don't know.
First of all, I never found that verse
in the Bible.
If your relatives are also Christians who love
God and are deep friends of yours you
have a choice, blessed thing from God.
God bless you.
But there are a lot of us who
have found that even relatives can seem so
distant and far away.
So uncaring.
So lacking in compassion and concern.
Some of us will hear that relative word
and have a warm, wonderful feeling for it
and others will hear it and all we
think of is sadness and tragedy and tension
and hostility.
Better is a friend who is near whether
he is a relative or not.
Better is somebody that you ministered over a
long period of time.
Don't forsake your friend ever and don't forsake
your father's friend.
The Bible has a lot to say about
this and we are going to say more
in our next message about friendship.
Loneliness, it's a problem to face.
But there is another problem.
Look at verse 8 again.
It's not just loneliness, it's restlessness.
You might say dissatisfaction.
It says, Yet there is no end to
all his labors, nor is his eye satisfied
with riches.
He's alone, but he keeps on.
What are you after?
What are you going for?
Why are you staying alone?
Why do you not minister to people?
Why do you not bear other people's burdens?
I want to be alone.
I've got things to accomplish in my life.
Listen, I'm hitting at the core of what
secular society is about and don't think I
don't understand it.
Many of you know what I'm talking about
too.
Right now, there is a mood in this
country for independence, singleness, staying away from people,
doing your own thing, retreating into our homes
with massive multimedia communication equipment phases that will
keep us being alone, keep us trapped from
ever caring about anybody, much less the person
next door.
People live in communities today and they have
never met their relatives or their neighbors.
They've never even gone to see them.
Some people have told me that people in
their own direct family they haven't seen in
25, 30 years and don't care to.
I see people in neighborhoods that have gotten
introduced and said, you know, I've always known,
I saw you got in your car, we
just haven't met.
How long have you lived here?
35 years.
It's amazing what's happening to us, but until
somebody like me brings it up, we don't
even think about it.
We just keep going on, buying the lines
of the world, do your own thing, independence,
isolation.
You know, you can be you.
You can do it.
You know, intimidate everybody else and win and
succeed and what's happening to us?
The older we get, sometimes the smarter we
get.
Gets more lonely.
We get more restless.
We wonder if anybody cares.
We're talking about tough stuff here.
Loneliness, restlessness.
There's one more thing though.
Another problem in the lack of companionship that
you must face and that's meaninglessness.
Verse 8 says, For whom do I toil
and deprive myself of good?
Whom am I doing this for and why?
And Solomon says, This is also vanity and
a grave misfortune.
Psalm 39.6 says, Surely every man walks
about like a shadow.
Surely they busy themselves in vain.
He heaps up riches and he does not
know who will gather them.
The psalmist answer, And now Lord, what do
I wait for?
My hope is in you.
So many of us do not have our
hope in the Lord and if we're trying
to walk it alone and you talk about
a problem of companionship, for whom am I
doing all of this?
And then one of the real tragedies is
some guys think they're doing it for their
wives and their families and one day they
discover that the families and the wife never
saw it that way.
I've been doing all this for you.
Hey, we want you, not your things.
And so many of us are living life
in a fast lane, in a rat race
culture, a law of the jungle, survival of
the fittest and I gotta face it all
week long.
The point to learn, the end of verse
8, what is the point to learn?
He said, This is vanity and a grave
misfortune.
Two things he's telling us that such a
life lacks meaning.
It's vanity, emptiness.
It lacks meaning.
Sir, ma'am, listen.
If everything I've been telling you, describing you,
your life is lacking meaning.
What are you doing it for?
What are you after?
What are you trying to achieve?
And secondly, when he said a grave misfortune,
he's saying that such a life brings misery.
Paul said, If only in this life we
have hope, we are of all men most
miserable or most to be pitied.
Well, what's the answer to all of this?
Lack of comfort, lack of contentment, lack of
companionship.
And I like what Jerome, who translated the
Bible's original language of Greek into Latin, into
the Latin Vulgate, which was a standard edition
for the Roman Catholic Church for many years.
Jerome wrote in the 4th century, after this
passage, here's his word.
He said, What is missing is Jesus.
I love that.
Just captured by the tragedies of life, a
lack of comfort, a lack of contentment, a
lack of companionship.
I'm all alone.
What's missing?
What's missing is the Lord, friend.
That's what's missing.
He's the answer to comfort.
Blessed be the God of all comfort, the
Father of mercies, who's comforting us in all
of our tribulation.
Contentment, the psalmist wrote, The Lord is my
shepherd, I shall not want.
Perfect peace.
Companionship, there's a friend that sticks closer than
a brother.
A friend who the Bible calls a friend
of sinners.
Someone who loves you even though he knows
what you're like.
He's the friend of all friends.
What a friend we have in Jesus.
All our sins and griefs to bear.
Jesus we're talking about.
Jesus is all the world to me.
My life, my joy, and my all.
What are you after?
We're talking here about the most important thing
in life.
I want you to reach out to Jesus
today.
He's your friend.
He's your companion.
He's the one who knows your needs before
you ask Him.
He'll minister to your heart in a way
that even some Christians ignore.
Though they know Him and love Him, they
forget that He is the one who's always
there.
He'll never leave us nor forsake us.
The Bible speaks of His aching heart wanting
to fellowship.
Sometimes wanting to throw His arms around us.
And so often we ignore and neglect Him
in our lives.
Jesus is the one missing in all this
passage.
A relationship with Him will bring you what
you are looking for.
He calls Himself a comforter.
He calls the Holy Spirit a comforter.
He tells us about all the wonderful things
He's doing for us to relieve our burdens.
He invites us to cast our burdens on
Him and He will sustain us.
Cast all of your anxiety on Me.
He invites us to do that.
You talk about comfort?
The Lord is our comfort.
He is our strength.
And contentment?
Hey, when you know Him and know all
that He is, and all that He does,
and all He's going to do.
No more is that restlessness and dissatisfaction there
when you focus on Him.
You say, having Jesus, I've got all I
need.
All I need.
I don't need anything else.
You and God make a majority.
And because of His wonderful presence in your
life, you'll begin to minister to others.
He is a companion that no one else
is like.
He's one who's always there.
Who cares about me even when I'm sinning
and I'm rebellious and my attitudes aren't right.
He loves me.
He's forgiving.
What a friend.
A friend that sticks closer than a brother.
How we need Jesus.
I hope you know Him.
Father, thank you so much that in spite
of the great tragedies of life, there is
one who can meet them all and remove
the hurt and relieve the sorrow, take away
the tension, all the envy and the strife.
One who gives peace, peace not like the
world gives, who just wants the cessation of
trouble but He gives us peace even in
the midst of a storm.
You've said, let not your heart be troubled.
You believe in God.
Believe also in me.
In my Father's house are many dwelling places.
If it were not so, I would have
told you.
I go to prepare a place for you
and if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive
you unto myself that where I am, there
you may be also.
God, we thank you for your wonderful promises.
You tell us you'll wipe away every tear
from our eyes.
There will be no more pain or suffering
or death or sorrow or sickness.
You are the God of all comfort.
You know what we're going through right now.
You know how many hurts are in this
audience right now, things that we're feeling inside
that the person to the right or the
left doesn't know anything about.
But you do and you've invited us to
cast that burden on you.
You are such a sympathetic Savior.
You tell us you understand all of our
weaknesses and you know all of our sins.
You are a merciful and faithful high priest
able to succor or to comfort those who
are troubled.
We thank you in Jesus' name.
Amen.