Let's turn to the word of God in
Ecclesiastes this morning.
Ecclesiastes begins with these words.
The words of the preacher, the son of
David, that is Solomon, king in Jerusalem, vanity
of vanities or futility of futilities or emptiness
of emptiness, everything is empty.
It's quite amazing that a book of scripture
should begin with such words.
Emptiness of emptiness, everything is empty.
What advantage does a man have in all
his work, which he does under the sun?
It's one of those difficult books in the
Bible to understand.
And yet, as we read it, we see
why God has placed it in scripture.
You see, Solomon was, humanly speaking, the wisest
man that lived as far as human wisdom
was concerned.
The Lord told him when he asked for
wisdom and understanding heart, the Lord said to
him, as we considered in 1 Kings 3
and verse 12, 13, that he would have
wisdom such as no one ever had before
him or after him.
And in the years when he had a
little fear of God, way at the beginning,
I think that was the time when he
wrote Proverbs.
And Proverbs demonstrates divine wisdom.
Ecclesiastes demonstrates human wisdom.
The wisdom, verse 3, chapter 1, verse 3,
of the man who lives under the sun.
That expression, under the sun, comes very often.
This man lived under the sun.
Proverbs demonstrates the wisdom of a man who
lives above the sun, in the heavenlies, which
is where we're called to live.
Then why has God placed the book of
Ecclesiastes in the Bible?
The Bible describes not only divine wisdom, but
also human wisdom.
For example, a large portion of the book
of Job is the speeches of a number
of people who said things that were wrong.
God himself said at the end to them,
what you have said about me was wrong.
And yet a large section of the book
of Job describes that.
The Bible says in Psalm 14 and verse
1, the fool has said in his heart,
there is no God.
So even what the fool has said is
written in scripture.
So the book of Ecclesiastes has been written
to show us, however clever you may be,
and here is the cleverest and the most
intelligent man that lived on the face of
the earth, writing, you'll still miss the way
to find God if you depend on human
cleverness.
Jesus once said in Matthew 11 and verse
25, he said, I thank you, Father, that
you have hidden these things from the clever
and the intelligent, but you have revealed them
unto babes.
What do babes have which clever and intelligent
people do not have?
Jesus himself said, the greatest in the kingdom
of heaven is a child.
Humility.
It's very difficult, very, very difficult to find
a clever, intelligent person who is humble.
Almost every one of them is proud, unless
they have understood the Lord.
It's not a crime to be intelligent, but
it's wrong to be proud of our intelligence.
What do babes have?
All newborn babies, they are not proud.
So Ecclesiastes is the writing of a man
who tries to know God, but is proud
of his intelligence.
Now, it's very interesting.
I want to show you two passages of
Scripture, which you may not have noticed.
Even though Solomon was the wisest and the
most intelligent man that ever lived, humanly speaking,
yet, and even though he was the one
who was going to construct the temple of
God, yet we read these amazing words in
1 Chronicles and chapter 28.
1 Chronicles 28 and verse 11, David says
to Solomon, he gave Solomon the plan of
the porch of the temple, buildings, storehouses, upper
rooms, inner rooms, room for the mercy seat,
and the plan for all that he had
in mind, for the courts of the Lord,
for the surrounding rooms, and 13 for the
division of the priests, for the utensils, verse
14, how much gold, verse 15, to put
for the lampstands.
Now, you wouldn't think that the most intelligent
man on the face of the earth needs
to be taught how much gold to be
put in the lampstand, and how to construct
the forks, verse 17.
It's really amazing that the most intelligent man
in the world has to be taught even
how to make the forks in God's temple.
Why?
Because David was a man after God's own
heart.
Solomon was a man who was clever up
there in the head.
And David said in verse 19, the Lord
made me understand all this in writing by
his hand upon me.
So we see that just like God gave
the plan of the tabernacle to Moses, not
when he was 40, when he was full
of the wisdom of Egypt, he would have
modified it considerably, and the glory of God
would not have rested on it.
But he gave it to Moses when he
was 80, after all that chaff of human
wisdom had been taken out of his mind,
and he was willing to submit to God's
wisdom, and make that simple structure.
In the same way, the pattern of the
temple was given not to Solomon, but to
David.
Solomon was only the contractor who built it,
not the architect who designed it.
Because God, when he gives his plan, he
does not give it to intelligent people who
got good brains, he gives it to humble
people who got a good heart.
Now if you're intelligent and also humble, that's
fine.
But the primary thing is not your intelligence,
it's your humility of heart.
Let me show you one more verse in
1 Corinthians 3.
This is an introduction to the book of
Ecclesiastes.
1 Corinthians 3, it says, verse 18, There
are many ways in which we can deceive
ourselves, and this is one way.
Let no man deceive himself.
If anyone among you thinks he is wise
in this age, like Solomon, clever and intelligent
according to this world, let him become foolish,
so that he may become wise.
Many of you are intelligent.
Thank God for the intelligence he has given
you.
I want to ask you, doesn't this verse
apply to you?
Are you intelligent according to this age?
That intelligence is okay to study physics and
science and mathematics.
But when you come to scripture, it says
here, become foolish if you want to become
wise.
Have you understood what that means?
It means lay aside your human cleverness and
come to God and say, Lord, in spiritual
things I'm as stupid as a donkey.
Please teach me.
Because, verse 19, all the cleverness and intelligence
of this world is foolishness with God.
And that's what the book of Ecclesiastes demonstrates.
For it is written, God is the one
who catches clever people in their cleverness.
And verse 20, The Lord knows the reasonings
of all the clever people in the world
are useless.
You take the reasonings and the arguments of
all the cleverest people in the world, put
it all together and God says it's useless.
It's foolishness.
When it comes to spiritual things, it's the
one who is humble who has got a
great advantage.
And the person who is intelligent and clever
and not humble has got a tremendous disadvantage.
So when you go to study the scriptures,
what is the greatest thing you need?
Not intelligence, but humility.
If it was intelligence, Jesus would have gone
down to Jerusalem, to the Bible school that
Gamaliel was running and selected his twelve apostles
from there.
Why didn't he do that?
Why did he go to the lakeside in
Galilee to people who had never been to
a Bible school, who were fishermen and tax
collectors and the type of people you should
never choose because of humility.
They were willing to learn.
I want to ask you, are you teachable?
If you get offended by what I say,
that is the clearest proof that you are
proud.
Only proud people get offended.
A humble person says, Lord, teach me.
Particularly when your word says that you have
hidden these things from the clever and the
intelligent, reveal them to babes.
I want to be like a babe.
And Ecclesiastes demonstrates how you can have a
lot of knowledge.
It's like psychology.
There are a lot of good things in
psychology, but it's not divine wisdom.
And it's more dangerous when you have the
good mixed with the bad than when you
have the bad alone.
If a man wants to poison someone, he
mixes the good with the bad.
A little bit of poison in a glass
of milk.
Outright bad is easy to detect.
And that's the danger in psychology.
There's a lot of good things in it,
but it's not divine wisdom.
Divine wisdom comes from the scriptures.
And a lot of things that psychologists say
who do not submit their mind to God's
word, what they say is wrong.
And if you follow them, you'll go astray.
Ecclesiastes, compared with Proverbs, we could say, is
like what we've been saying from the beginning.
Cain and Abel.
Cain was not an atheist.
Cain was a religious person.
Solomon, Abel, was a spiritual person.
Through the ages, you have this conflict between
the religious person and the spiritual person.
Saul was a man of the head, a
religious person.
David was a man of the heart, a
spiritual person.
The Pharisees were people of the head.
They had knowledge.
Jesus emphasized the heart.
It's not that the head is not important.
It's not that the brains are not important.
But the brains, like I said the other
day, must be like the wife under the
headship of the heart and the spirit.
And so, we could say this stream that
began with Cain and Abel of religiosity and
spirituality, and began with Nimrod and Abraham of
Babylon and Jerusalem, continues through in Ecclesiastes and
Proverbs, and finally ends with Babylon and Jerusalem
in Revelation.
Ecclesiastes is the words of a preacher, verse
1.
A preacher who is preaching.
He's interested in preaching.
Many of you may want to become preachers
in the days to come.
And what are most preachers interested in?
In presenting a good sermon.
And how do they present it?
How do they prepare it?
With a lot of study.
That's good.
We need to use our mind.
I study too.
I've studied this book for 40 years.
But, many preachers have no preparation of the
heart.
And you can present a very accurate sermon
with your head, and it doesn't go to
people's hearts because it comes from your head.
So, Proverbs deals not with preaching, but with
practicing.
And on the basis of practicing, we preach.
Now this is a very important difference.
I want to show you one more verse
to draw this contrast in Matthew 23, and
verse 3.
The difference between the Pharisees and Jesus, between
religiosity and spirituality, is here.
Matthew 23, verse 3, Jesus said, the Pharisees
are people who say things, but don't do
them.
At the same time, verse 3, He said
to the disciples, everything they say you can
do, because what they say is accurate.
The Pharisees were the evangelicals and the fundamentalists
of their time.
What they said was correct doctrine.
But they did not live in their homes
like they preached in the pulpit.
They preached high standards in the pulpit, but
they lived in another way in their relation
to money and in their home.
Just like many preachers today, whose doctrine is
right, but whose life is wrong.
They preach, but do not practice.
It says about Jesus, in Acts 1, verse
1, The first account I composed, O Theophilus,
about all that Jesus began to do and
teach.
Though it refers to his life, I want
you to notice that expression.
He did and taught.
He did not practice what he preached.
He preached what he had already practiced.
He lived for 30 years and did without
preaching.
And then preached for three and a half
years, what he had done.
That is godliness.
It's the Christianity of the heart.
That's the contrast between Ecclesiastes and Proverbs.
And there are many good things in Proverbs
and we can look at them.
In the first two chapters, he's speaking basically
about the emptiness of all knowledge, pleasure, achievements
and labors.
And it's obvious that right through the book,
here is a man who does not know
God, but he's not an atheist.
He speaks about God.
But he never uses the covenant name of
God, Jehovah, or Yahweh, whichever way you take
it in the whole book.
Not once.
And that's unique.
Proverbs uses it all the time.
There's no covenant relationship with God.
It's an academic knowledge of God.
Knowledge about the facts of God.
Maybe accurate knowledge, but not the result of
a heart relationship or a covenant relationship.
We read as you turn to the last
two verses of Ecclesiastes 12.
What is the conclusion of everything?
The conclusion is, fear God and keep His
commandments because this applies to every person.
You see, he's not teaching anything wrong.
But the reason for this, why should you
fear God and keep His commandments?
Is it because God is a good God?
Is it because you love Him and He's
done so much for you?
No.
Because, verse 14, one day God will judge
everything, what is hidden, whether it's good or
evil.
You see, the man of the world can
be frightened into doing good things out of
fear of judgment.
This is how all false religions operate.
All false religions operate on the principle of
God is going to judge you, even those
who say that you will be reborn into
this world, so therefore be kind to the
poor people and to the beggars now because
God will judge you and decide in what
form you will be reborn into this world.
It's the fear of judgment, even in false
religions.
And it's in false Christianity too.
It's like that.
Where the motivation for obedience is the fear
of God's judgment, you have a false Christianity.
True spirituality is not motivated by the fear
of judgment.
Jesus did not obey the Father because He
was afraid the Father would punish Him.
He obeyed the Father because He loved Him.
And Jesus said, if you love Me, keep
My commandments.
That must be the motivation for our obedience.
That is not what Ecclesiastes deals with.
And so, because this was His basic principle
in life, He felt, well, I must do
what I can.
There was a sort of indifferent attitude to
life and a fatalism.
Okay?
Things are like that and I'm not going
to be surprised at anything that happens.
It's obvious that this man never sees beyond
this world.
He doesn't know anything about heaven.
He doesn't know anything about eternity, even though
he mentions eternity once here.
And he was afraid of death and he
decided to make the most of this life
with a little bit of fear of God
put in.
Just to be on the safe side.
You see, here is a person who, as
I said, tries to discover God through his
senses, through his intelligence and through his reasoning
without the help of the Holy Spirit.
And if you do that, even if you
say you are following Christianity, you will be
as wrong as those people who are following
other religions.
You can know nothing about God without the
help of the Holy Spirit.
It says the Holy Spirit reveals the deep
things of God.
1 Corinthians 2.
I don't have time to show you.
Read it sometime.
Who is the one who knows the inner
thoughts of God?
No man.
Only the Holy Spirit.
How can I know the inner thoughts of
God?
By my reason?
By using my intelligence to study?
Do you know that the people who crucified
Jesus Christ were people who studied the Bible
every day?
And studying the Bible, which spoke so much
about the coming Messiah, when the Messiah came
into their midst, they called him the Prince
of Devils.
Why?
I mean, if the Greeks and the Romans
called him that, we can understand.
They don't have the scriptures.
If the Sadducees, who had wrong doctrine, who
were like the liberals, called him that, we
can understand.
It's the Pharisees, whose doctrines were correct.
The fundamentalists, who looked at Jesus and said,
He is the Prince of Devils.
They were intelligent.
There was no shortage of intelligence.
They were not humble.
Their heart was not right.
Their head was right.
And if that could happen 2000 years ago,
it can happen today.
If we don't have a humble dependence on
the Holy Spirit to give us revelation, that's
the word, revelation on the Word of God,
we will go as astray as Solomon did
in Ecclesiastes.
When Peter looked at Jesus and said, You
are the Christ, the Son of the Living
God.
He, Jesus said to him, Blessed are you,
Simon, for flesh and blood has not revealed
this to you.
That means, your human cleverness and intelligence did
not reveal this to you.
But my Father in Heaven, how is it
an illiterate, unlearned person, I mean illiterate means
in the sense of not learned in the
Scriptures, unlearned in the Scriptures like Peter, how
is it he could understand who Jesus was
when people who studied the Bible day and
night like the Pharisees could not?
The Holy Spirit.
That's what makes the difference then and that's
what makes the difference today.
So what am I emphasizing?
I'm saying, if you want to understand God's
Word, depend on the Holy Spirit.
Otherwise, you'll have a lot of good things,
but you could go wrong.
So in chapter 1, basically, he's saying how
he tried to find satisfaction in chapter 2
as well through various forms of pleasure, getting
more and more property and making ponds of
water, chapter 2, verse 6, and having a
lot of slaves, chapter 2, verse 7, collecting
a lot of silver and gold, and all
that.
And verse 10 says, everything that my eyes
desired, I did not refuse them.
And at the end of it all, he
says in verse 11, thus I considered all
my activities and there was no profit under
the sun.
He goes on in chapter, he talks about
the futility of hard work, all the fruit
of my labor, verse 18.
I have to leave it to somebody who
comes after me and who knows whether he'll
be a wise man or a fool.
Again, he uses that expression of under the
sun, verse 20, under the sun, verse 22,
everything was vanity.
Now he says something which is interesting here
in verse 26.
To a person who is good in God's
sight, God has given wisdom, knowledge, and joy.
Now this is a correct statement.
If you are good, not if you are
clever, if you are good in God's eyes,
that means your heart is clear and clean,
God gives you an earthly task of accumulating
wisdom, divine wisdom, the knowledge of God, and
the fullness of joy that is found in
the presence of God.
In thy presence is fullness of joy.
But to one who is a sinner, what
task does God give?
He gives him the task of gathering, hoarding,
collecting money, material things, so that one day
it can all be given to the man
who is seeking God's kingdom first.
In eternity, the meek will inherit the earth.
There's no doubt about that.
So you see, you are, all of us,
are either in the business of pursuing wisdom
and the knowledge of God and the joy
of the Lord, which is our strength, or
we are in the business of hoarding, collecting,
gathering.
And it's a very accurate description of a
spiritual man and a worldly person.
Now, a religious person is actually the same
as a worldly person.
He's got Bible knowledge, not knowledge of God.
And he spends his time hoarding and collecting.
Maybe he hoards and collects a whole lot
of useless information in the world, which doesn't
help him spiritually.
Chapter 3, on to we're at chapter 6
almost, we could say broadly, this is, he's
just trying to prove how everything is vanity.
In verses 1 to 8, he says, there
is a time appointed for everything.
There's a time for every event under the
heaven.
You see, here's a person who's a very
sharp observer of nature, human nature, the world,
circumstances, and after many, many years of observing
with all his clever, cleverness, intelligence, and observation
powers, he says, there is a time and
a season for everything.
Now, a lot of things here are true
and false, just like I said earlier.
Psychology is a mixture of truth and error.
Verse 2 to 8, there's a time to
give birth and a time to die, that's
right, time to plant, to plant it, but
then, it says here, there is a time
to kill.
For a spiritual man, there's never a time
to kill.
He never kills.
It says here, in verse 8, there is
a time to love and a time to
hate.
For a spiritual man, there's never a time
to hate and there's never a human being
to hate.
He loves all the time, every human being,
irrespective of that person's attitude.
Now, psychologists say that there are people who
suggest this procedure.
If you're angry with your father, the way
to get it out is get a pillow
and keep on hammering it and imagine that's
your father and get all your anger out
of your system and then you'll deal with
your father okay.
Now, that's not God's way.
That's a time to hate.
God says, no, love, love your enemies.
So, here is an example of how worldly
thinking mixed up with spiritual wisdom, this is
characteristic of a religious man who is not
led by the Holy Spirit and I believe
that many of us are in danger of
that.
If you don't live in humility and brokenness
before God, it's very easy to be led
astray into because a number of things we
understand is right and a lot of things
sound right.
Let me give you one example.
There's a lot of teaching in Christendom today
on visualizing.
They say, visualize that even though there are
only five people in your church, that you're
going to have 50,000, that even though
you're meeting in a little shack, you're going
to meet in a great building.
Picture, shut your eyes and picture it in
your mind.
If you're lame, just picture that you're walking
and visualize if you only have a scooter,
picture that you have a nice new car
and trust God for it and you'll get
it.
Most of this is related to earthly things
and this sounds in the years of so
many believers who don't have discernment as though
this is faith.
It's not.
It's New Age teaching.
New Age is a heathen conglomeration mixture of
all religions.
Faith is not based on visualization.
Let me tell you that.
Read God's Word, Romans 10 17.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the
word of Christ or the word of God.
Faith can only be based on what God
has revealed.
Abraham could not just believe that I'm going
to have a son.
God told him he's going to have a
son.
Then he could believe it.
Otherwise, it's not faith.
It's visualization which is not scripture.
You can't just believe for whatever you like.
That's what I mean.
How something sounds so similar.
Positive thinking.
Am I against positive thinking?
No.
All I'm saying is that's not faith the
Bible speaks of.
That's psychology.
It's a good thing to be.
You sort of think positively.
It's good for business people and people who
get depressed frequently.
But it's not the final answer.
The final answer is the Holy Spirit revealing
Christ to our heart.
Now it's very easy in our day and
age to be deceived by all this.
And that's why Ecclesiastes has a message particularly
for our century and our time.
The danger of depending on these things.
That is human reason.
Okay.
Verse 11 is the one place in Ecclesiastes
where the word eternity comes.
It's true.
What it says here.
He has made everything beautiful in its time.
God has made everything beautiful.
I agree.
He has also set eternity in their heart.
That's right.
Like one godly man many centuries ago said,
there is a God-shaped vacuum in the
human heart.
A vacuum in the shape of God.
It will never be satisfied till God comes
there.
You will be restless.
We are restless until our souls find our
rest in these, said another.
See, God has put eternity in our heart
so that ultimately you will never find satisfaction
in money, never find satisfaction in women, never
find satisfaction in property, honor, position, being the
president of the world's greatest country.
You will never find satisfaction in any of
these things because God has put eternity in
your heart.
And it says here, yet so that man
will not find out the work which God
has done from the beginning to the end.
It's a question of how we read it.
The margin says, without which man will not
be able to find out the work which
God has done.
Unless we give, I prefer to read it
like that, unless we give primary importance to
that God-shaped vacuum in our heart, to
those eternal things, we will never be able
to find out what God has done from
the beginning until the end.
And if you don't find out, then I
say, well then, like it says in verse
12, I know there's nothing better for them
than to rejoice, to do good in one's
lifetime.
You see, psychologists don't tell you to do
evil, and the religious man does not say
you must do evil.
No religion says you must do evil.
Yeah, you must do good in your lifetime.
I want to turn further to verse 19.
Now, see what he says here.
Here's truth and error mixed together.
The fate of the sons of men and
the fate of beasts is the same as
one dies, so dies the other.
You see, here's his understanding.
And men and animals both die, and they
all have the same breath, and there is
no advantage for man over the beast, for
everything is empty.
Verse 19.
All go to the same place.
A man and a dog both go to
the same place.
What is that?
He's thinking of this world.
He's not thinking of eternity.
He has nothing, no clue about eternity.
He says, they came from dust, they go
back to dust.
Who knows that the breath of man ascends
upward and the breath of the beast ascends
downward to the earth.
He says, who knows whether, some people say
that the breath of man goes up and
the breath of the beast goes down.
Who knows that?
He certainly doesn't.
The wisest and the most intelligent man on
the face of the earth is trying to
understand God and religion.
He gets a few things right and he
gets a lot of things wrong.
A book written in scripture to warn us
not to seek God without the help of
his word and without the help of his
Holy Spirit and to warn us about all
the teachings of clever intelligent people today whether
they call themselves Christians or not.
If it's not founded in God's word, I
personally don't want to waste my time listening
to it or reading it.
Chapter four, here are some good things.
Verse nine to twelve.
Two are better than one.
Absolutely right.
Because they have a good return for their
labor.
See, just like in marriage, there's a strength
in husband and wife.
They can accomplish more than if they served
the Lord individually.
A husband and wife working together can accomplish
much more for God than if they worked
separately.
Even physically, they multiply, they have children and
more is accomplished than if they were alone.
And spiritually too.
Jesus said, where two or three are gathered
in my name, two minimum, I am in
the midst, whatever they bind on earth will
be bound in the heavenlies.
That's Matthew 18.
So, two are better than one, we could
apply it spiritually too.
For, here's another reason, if either of them
falls, the other one will lift him up.
It's wonderful if you have a fellowship where
a brother is willing to lift you up
when you are discouraged.
And you can lift him up when he's
discouraged.
But woe unto him who is alone when
he falls and he doesn't have anybody to
lift him up.
Furthermore, if two are together, they can be
warm.
I believe we can keep the fire burning
in each other's hearts when we have fellowship.
You know, when a number of coals are
together in a fire, it all burns, they
all burn.
But if you take one coal and keep
it outside, even if it's the hottest coal,
it dies out.
It needs fellowship in the fire to keep
burning.
Don't think God has called you to live
alone.
He's called you to live in fellowship.
You can keep warm on fire if you
seek fellowship.
Another reason, verse 12, one person may be
overpowered by somebody, but two can resist him,
resisting the devil.
We can apply all those verses spiritually and
there's some tremendous truths there, absolutely correct.
And a three-fold cord, a cord of
three strands is not easily torn apart.
I've often used that illustration for marriage.
In marriage, if you have a husband and
wife alone, that's not enough.
You need three strands, a husband and wife
and the Lord.
And if those three strands are there, it
won't be broken.
That's a solid marriage.
Okay.
Here's something that's written about correction.
Very good instruction, verse 13.
A poor, wise young man is much better
than an old and foolish king who does
not know how to receive correction.
See, when a time comes in your life,
and that usually comes after God has used
us for some years, and we think we
know so much that we become so proud
that we don't know how to receive correction
anymore, God save all of us from coming
to that place.
I thank God for people younger than me
who have corrected me, and I have received
their correction and become a better man.
If I've got a mark on my face,
a black mark, I'm very thankful if somebody
points it out to me so that I
can wipe it off, and it doesn't matter
to me whether the person who pointed it
out to me is a 20-year-old
or an 80-year-old.
What difference does it make?
I'm very thankful.
Be thankful for correction, because you can become
a better person.
You can become more spiritual, and the danger
is that when we become old, we are
not willing to receive correction, or if you
become kings.
A king is someone who, you know, comes
to the place where he is an authority.
Everybody's got to listen to him.
Some Christian leaders are like that.
They are old, they are kings, and they
are foolish.
And sometimes in their churches, maybe someone who
is young, but wise.
Why?
Because he is willing to receive correction.
Why did this old person become foolish?
Because he stopped receiving correction, perhaps because he
was a king, a leader.
So that's another good word.
Another verse I want to show you in
chapter 4 is, he says in verse 4,
I've seen that every labor and every skill
in the world is done because of a
rivalry between a man and his neighbor.
Businesses improve because they are in competition with
somebody else.
And he says, everything on earth, skill, improvement,
comes because of envy and rivalry.
Unfortunately, a lot of that is true in
Christian organizations too.
One Christian organization goes and gets a good
worker from another Christian organization by offering him
a higher salary.
It's rivalry.
But in true godliness, that's not true.
This is the wisdom of the world.
And a lot of these things are found
in religious Christians who are not spiritual.
In true Christianity, there is no competition with
any other brother, with any other church, with
any other organization.
There is no rivalry at all.
That's just in passing.
Chapter five, here are some good things too.
In verses one to six, one to seven,
he's saying, when you go into God's presence,
don't talk too much.
Listen more.
I wish all Christians would take that, heed
to that word.
It says here, verse two, don't be hasty
in verse, in word or in thought to
bring up a mat in the presence of
God, for God is in heaven, and you
are on earth, therefore let your words be
few.
We must listen more to God than speak.
In prayer, we must listen more than we
speak.
Prayer is like a telephone conversation.
In a telephone, there is a earpiece and
a mouthpiece.
You speak and you listen.
Most people, when they pray, they never give
a chance to God to speak.
They keep on talking.
That's not prayer.
That's an insult to God.
Let me ask you, when you are telephoning
someone who is much more mature than you,
and much more godly than you, who will
speak more, he or you?
Who will speak more?
He.
You have to be very proud to keep
on speaking on the telephone to someone who
is much more mature and much more godly
than you.
Then think when you are talking to God
in prayer.
Don't you think you are fantastically proud to
keep on talking, and you never listen?
How much time do you spend listening?
Let me give you my experience.
In prayer, to me, 90% is listening,
10% is speaking.
My heavenly father already knows everything I need,
but still he wants me to express it,
so I express it, even give me this
day my daily bread.
But to me, most of prayer is silence.
Listening.
Listening to God.
Not silence with our thoughts wandering all over
the world, but listening.
And it doesn't have to be only on
our knees.
The Bible says pray always.
In other words, have the habit of listening
always.
Keep your antenna up of your walkie-talkie.
You know these police with walkie-talkies?
Always it's switched on, always listening to what
headquarters is saying.
To me, that's a beautiful picture of how
a Christian should live.
So, don't make vows to God, verse 4,
which you can't pay.
Verse 5, it's better not to make a
vow than vow and not pay.
Don't make promises to God which you can't
keep.
Say, Lord, I want to be devoted to
you.
Please give me grace.
Recognize that you cannot keep all those promises
you are making.
You haven't kept them in past years.
You are not going to keep them in
future.
Don't tell lies to God.
Be careful.
When you sing songs, don't say, take my
silver and my gold.
Not a mite would I withhold if you
don't mean it.
Take my voice and let me sing always
only for my king.
I hope so.
If you mean it, it's okay.
But if you don't mean it, don't say,
all to Jesus I surrender.
Okay, good.
But it says here, be careful when you
are saying something.
I believe Christians tell more lies to God
on Sunday morning than on any other day
of the week.
Because they are singing such a lot of
things which they don't mean.
Oh, God, nobody in the world is as
much to me as you.
Some of these fantastic songs written by godly
people, you can sing it even if you
haven't reached that, say, Lord, this is my
longing.
Then at least you're honest.
But if that is not even your longing,
when it comes to that verse, keep quiet.
Let the others sing it.
Let the other liars sing it and you
be honest.
There may be one or two honest people
among them who sing also.
So that's very good practical advice there.
Verse 10, chapter 5, verse 10, he who
loves money will not be satisfied with money
and he who loves abundance nor he who
loves abundance with income.
This also is empty.
There was a godly man who said that
God has made enough in this world for
every man's need, but not enough in this
world for even one man's greed.
That means a greedy man will never be
happy, no matter how much he makes.
Has he become a millionaire?
He wants more.
He who loves money will never be satisfied
with money.
I tell you that.
That's why Jesus said you cannot love money
and love God.
Why?
What is the reason?
Verse 11, when good things increase, when your
salary increases, your expenses increase too.
Absolutely right.
So what's the advantage except that you can
look at that what's written in your paycheck?
Oh, I earn so much, but by the
end of the month there's hardly anything left.
So the ordinary working man who doesn't earn
so much, verse 12, his sleep is pleasant
whether he eats little or much, but the
full stomach of the rich man does not
allow him to sleep.
Now we all know that.
If you eat plenty at night, rich food,
you can't sleep properly.
And the simple man, he's healthier.
There's a lot of practical advice here.
Very, very good.
I don't have time to explain everything.
I'm trying to give you a little appetizer.
You know, you go to restaurants sometimes, some
good restaurants, they have what's initially called an
appetizer.
It's not the main meal.
It's just something to make you have an
appetite.
You know, it's like supposing I keep a
bowl of salted peanuts here, and I give
you just two to eat, and then I
go away.
In a few minutes, that whole bowl will
disappear.
Because you got a taste of, if you
don't have a taste, you may not touch
it, but once you get a taste of
two or three salted peanuts, boy, you can't
leave the rest there.
And what I'm hoping to do in these
studies is to give you a little taste,
not to give you the whole meal, because
the Holy Spirit wants to teach you Himself,
so that you can go and discover things
yourself from the Holy Spirit after you got
this appetizer.
Chapter 6, verse 1.
There is an evil which I have seen
under the sun, and it is prevalent among
men.
A man to whom God has given riches
and wealth and honor, so that his soul
lacks nothing, all that he desires, but if
God hasn't given him the ability to eat
from them, but somebody else enjoys them, this
is vanity and severe affliction, maybe he loses
his health.
He's got such a lot of money, but
he's not allowed to eat this, not allowed
to eat that.
There's a lot of people pursuing money today
in the world, young people who go into
all types of professions, where their goal is
to make a lot of money, they work
hard, perspire, ruin their health, destroy themselves and
they have accumulated their money.
Like somebody said, they spend the first half
of their life ruining their health, accumulating wealth,
and then they spend the next half of
their life spending that wealth to regain their
health, which they lost in the first half
of their life.
A lot of it is happening in the
world today.
You know, people who work long hours, business
people, working, even they have no time for
God, because they want to make money.
So there's a warning against that here.
In chapter seven to nine, there's a lot
of practical advice on how to live in
this world.
A good name, verse one, is better than
a good ointment, good.
And the day of one's death is better
than the day of one's birth, if one
has lived for God completely and the course.
But not otherwise.
Otherwise it is not.
But the man of this world doesn't understand
that.
Chapter seven, verse eight, here's a truth, the
last part of verse eight.
Patience of spirit is better than pride of
spirit.
I want you to remember that Solomon had
a lot of correct understanding.
Only thing, he didn't very often practice what
he preached.
Here's another good verse, verse ten.
Don't ever ask, why were the former days
better than these?
That's not from wisdom.
For us, we must say the future is
going to be better than the past.
Don't always look back to the past, oh,
I had it good in those days.
If you follow the Lord, it can be
even better in the future.
And here's one of those foolish bits of
advice that the wise, clever man of the
world says.
Verse sixteen, don't be too righteous and don't
be too wicked.
You'll destroy yourself.
You know, in the world, they say, you
have to learn to adjust a little bit.
What they mean by adjust is compromise, tell
a lie, give a little bribe.
And that's a very popular word in many
circles, adjust.
Don't be too righteous and don't be too
wicked.
A little bit of wickedness is okay.
And see, this is the, you know, you
have to tell a few black, sorry, white
lies in order to get on in this
world.
Many things like that.
This is the wisdom of the world.
Okay, here's another verse.
Your sisters will get really angry with Solomon
for saying this.
In chapter seven, verse twenty-eight and twenty
-nine.
Twenty-eight, he says, I'm still seeking something
I haven't found.
He says, I found one wise man among
a thousand men, but I've not found a
single wise woman among a thousand women.
What does that mean?
Does it mean that men are wiser than
women?
Well, I feel sorry for you if you
believe that because I don't believe it.
God made man and woman and he didn't
make a mistake.
My point is this.
When he says, I didn't find one wise
woman among thousand women, who is he referring
to?
He's referring to his 700 wives and 300
concubines.
What type of women did he have?
Naturally, you can't find wisdom among all those
flirtatious women that he got married to, but
there are many, many godly women who are
much wiser than some of you men.
I'll tell you that.
Okay.
Chapter eight, verse one.
The last part of verse one, it says,
A man's wisdom illumines him and causes his
serious face to beam with joy.
It's a wonderful verse.
The more wisdom you have, the more it
will be seen in your face, radiating joy
and with the joy of the Lord.
Verse 11.
Punishment does not come upon evil people immediately.
That's why they keep on doing evil.
That's true.
Very true.
That if punishment came immediately, we would stop
committing many sins quicker.
You read that.
Verse 11 to 14.
But it goes on to say, But even
if a sinner extends his life a hundred
times, I know it'll finally go well with
those who fear God and those who fear
him.
Verse 12.
I know it will Chapter 9.
Verse 8 is a wonderful verse, which we
could apply spiritually to our life and our
ministry.
Let your clothes be always white.
That means, let your conscience be always clean.
And don't let oil be lacking on your
head.
Don't ever live without the anointing of the
Holy Spirit.
Chapter 9.
Verse 13 to 18.
It says about a small city, which was
delivered not by a powerful king, but by
a simple wise man.
Yet no one remembered that wise man.
Verse 18.
Wisdom is better than strength, better than weapons
of war.
Don't beat down a man to win him.
There's a wise way of winning him.
Have you heard that story of the sun
and the wind that had a competition?
It's one of the parables.
I don't know if it's Aesop's parables.
The sun and the wind had a competition
as to who is stronger.
And they said, okay, there's a man having
a coat, wearing a coat down on that
road.
Let's see who can make him take his
coat off.
He's the stronger.
So the wind went first and blew and
blew and blew.
And the more the wind blew, the man
clutched his coat even tighter.
And do you know what the sun did?
The sun just became hotter and hotter and
hotter and hotter and the man took off
his coat immediately.
So who won?
Wisdom is better than strength.
Be warm and good to people in love
and kindness.
That's the way to win them.
Chapter 10, verse 1, it says here, dead
flies make a perfumer's ointment to stink.
A little bit of foolishness can ruin your
entire testimony for wisdom, just like if one
lizard falls into a good chicken curry.
Only one lizard, one act of foolishness can
destroy your entire reputation for wisdom.
That's why we need to be humble and
ask God to protect us.
Verse 4, it's a beautiful translation in the
Living Bible, when your boss gets angry, don't
quit your job, don't hand in your resignation.
Practical advice.
Verse 8, if you dig a pit for
others, he who digs a pit may fall
into it and a serpent may bite him
who breaks through a wall.
Don't seek to do evil to others because
you can harm yourself.
Another good bit of advice, verse 10, sharpen
your axe.
You can do more if your axe is
sharp.
Keep your conscience clear.
Get to know God's word clearly.
Let the sword of the spirit be sharp
in your hand.
If your knowledge of God's word is like
a blunt sword, you'll have to labor much
more.
Jesus spoke one word sometimes.
He who is without sin, let him cast
the first stone.
Solve the problem.
Man shall not live by bread alone, but
by every word of God.
Solve the problem.
One word, if it's sharp, can accomplish a
lot.
And another verse, chapter 11, verse 1, give
generously to others.
Verse 3, where the tree falls, there it
lies.
Once you die, you cannot change anymore.
And verse 4, don't wait for perfect conditions
to serve the Lord.
Take every opportunity, be instant in season, out
of season, to serve the Lord.
Acknowledge verse 5, that you don't know how
God works in every area.
Verse 9, a good preacher is one who
will teach his people with wisdom, knowledge, he
will think, he will search out, he will
arrange his message carefully and he will speak
in a pleasant, interesting way.
Verse 10, the words of truth.
Excellent words, verse 9 and 10, for preachers.
And thus we come to the conclusion, verse
13 and 14, fear God and keep his
commandments.
So there you understood what Ecclesiastes deals with,
good and bad, and showing us that without
God we may still come to understanding of
certain things correctly, but it will be a
mixture of right and wrong, and the total
effect will be like it says there, one
lizard in a plate of curry, everything is
spoiled.
We must be careful to live in humility.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, help us to apply the truths
that we have heard to our lives so
that we can walk in humility and brokenness
before you.
We ask in Jesus' name.