The Great Experiment (Morning)
Download MP3If you have a bible, turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 1. It's also there in your worship guide. Last Sunday, we began our sermon series on Ecclesiastes. And if you remember, I lit a candle here and I blew it out and we got to see the smoke rise. Do you see any trace of that smoke here this morning?
Joel Brooks:It's gone. And not a single trace of it remains. And the reason it's not here anymore is because it's hevel. Last week, Solomon introduced us to that term, that word hevel, which means a puff of smoke, meaningless, something that's only here for a moment and then it's gone. Something when you try to grasp it, you can't get a handle on it.
Joel Brooks:It's hevel. And he says that all of our lives are hevel. And I heard a lot of feedback from last week's sermon. I heard we had great home group discussions going on, which makes me really happy. I also heard back from a few people saying that they decided that they would no longer do laundry, and that they would no longer, load the dish washer, they would no longer mow their lawn.
Joel Brooks:Why, honey? It's all hevel, you know? And that's not the point of it, but at least you were kinda listening. How did Solomon come to the conclusion that all of life is Hevel? Well, he used all of his money, all of his power, all of his wealth to do an experiment, to do an experiment that led him to the conclusion that all of life is heaven, and we are gonna be looking at that experiment this morning.
Joel Brooks:And so if you would read with me, wanna look at chapter 1 verses 16, I wanna read through 18. Now I'm gonna do like we did last week. We're gonna read a little, talk about it a little. We'll go work our way through a lot of chapter 2 as well. So verse 16.
Joel Brooks:I said in my heart, I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. And I perceive that this is but striving after wind. For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Father, I pray that through Your word and through your spirit, you begin to do a new work in us. You'd give us the ability to get off the treadmill of life and actually have a real life in which you are doing something new. Jesus, I pray that your call to us would be irresistible, That we would come to you for rest and for refreshment. So Jesus, I pray that in this time, my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. Lord, may your words remain and may they change us.
Joel Brooks:We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So it's only fitting that Solomon would begin his sermon, his his quest, I mean, for the meaning of life by talking about wisdom. But it notice almost immediately, he goes ahead and he gives us the conclusion that with much wisdom, there there is vex vexation. Wisdom only brings vexation.
Joel Brooks:A word you don't even have to look in your dictionary to know what it means. Frustration. Angst. In other words, after listening to all of those podcasts, after reading all of those New Yorker journal entries and articles, all the scholarly books he poured over, his sorrows only increased. The wiser he got, the more sorrow it brought.
Joel Brooks:He he proved the saying that that we know, ignorance is bliss. And you might be wondering how in the world can Solomon say this. After all, he wrote the Proverbs, which are all about wisdom. And yes, he did write all about wisdom in the Proverbs. And if you read through Proverbs, one of the things he says is the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Joel Brooks:But notice he does not mention the fear of the Lord here. The Lord's not gonna be mentioned anywhere here as he talks about this type of wisdom. And so what I believe that Solomon is describing here is a worldly wisdom, not a godly wisdom. This is a wisdom that does not take God into the equation. And the reason that a worldly wisdom only brings sorrow is because all worldly wisdom could do is bring clarity to the problem.
Joel Brooks:But it is powerless to offer us any solution. Worldly wisdom is like looking through a microscope and when you look through it, you can see that your cells have some incurable disease, but you're powerless to bring healing. Whirly wisdom has its limits and I believe that that's the wisdom that Solomon's gonna talk about and use here. And he's gonna use this wisdom to do a little experiment for us. It's actually not little.
Joel Brooks:It's gonna be a pretty huge great experiment. In chapter 2, Solomon says he's gonna pull together all of his wisdom, all his power, all of his resources and wealth to pursue pleasure with everything he has and see if he can find any meaning there. That's the experiment. Look at verses 1 through 3. I said in my heart, come now.
Joel Brooks:I will test you with pleasure. Enjoy yourself. But behold, this also was hevel. I said of laughter, it is mad and of pleasure. What use is it?
Joel Brooks:I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine. My heart still guiding me with wisdom, and how to lay hold of folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. Now for most of us, there was a time that we begged God, pleaded with Him, prayed to Him to give us the things that we now have and take for granted. Perhaps it was the job that we have or the salary we now have or the neighborhood we now live in or the spouse we have or children or maybe the vacation we just took. But likely there was a time, maybe it was 5 years ago, 10 years ago, that you pleaded with God.
Joel Brooks:God, would you just give me these things? And he did. Are you satisfied? Is your soul content? Or do you think you need more of what God has already given you?
Joel Brooks:Are you already thinking of a new 5 year or another 10 year plan? You have new goals you you need to achieve and get to in order to bring some happiness. The the problem for us is we always think happiness comes when we just get a little bit more, just a little more of what God's already given us. So what Solomon is going to do here in this experiment is he is going to, acquire way way more than you could ever acquire. And he is going to do way way more than you could ever achieve.
Joel Brooks:And he's gonna see where this leads. In the end, would it lead to happiness? And so he goes all in in this experiment. And by going all in, I mean he goes all in. The more I've thought about this, the more I've realized that what Solomon is actually trying to do here is to recreate the garden of Eden itself.
Joel Brooks:He's trying to replicate paradise. Trying to create a paradise, in which there is bounty, there is fruit. There's a world of running around naked and unashamed. But this time, there will be no forbidden fruits. This time, there's gonna be no restrictions.
Joel Brooks:This time, he will get to do whatever he desires. And so what you're gonna notice is the pronoun I is gonna be used over 40 times in this chapter. He will only follow his own desires, but he's he's recreating the garden here, but with no forbidden fruits. Now to get things started, Solomon's gonna begin throwing the most epic parties that have ever been thrown in the world's history. Parties that make the great Gatsby's party look like a little backyard barbecue.
Joel Brooks:But we know this because when we read through 1st Kings chapter 4, we read, what Solomon had to do, the amount of food they used just for these parties on a daily basis. We read this in 1st Kings 4. That Solomon's provision for just one day was 30 cores of fine flour, that's 65 100 liters, and 60 cores of meal. 10 fat oxen, 20 pasture fed cattle, a 100 sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks. I don't even know what roebucks are.
Joel Brooks:They sound tasty. And fat and fowl. So, most scholars, they say this would have been enough to feed 15 to 20000 people each day. Every day, 15 to 20000 people feasting. So one of the best days of the year is what's known as Best Worsfest.
Joel Brooks:I mean, there's Easter and just under that, there's best worst fest for our church. And and if you know, that's when we we rent out Avondale Brewery. We go there and we just grill out a ton of sausage and eat it. I mean, let's not over complicate things. That's all that you need.
Joel Brooks:And in this past year, we grilled out £400 of sausage. This is the best. It's the best evening ever. Solomon looks at that £400 of sausage and goes, please. Please.
Joel Brooks:That's that's like the appetizer for our appetizers. That's that's nothing. I mean, these feasts, they would be the very best that money can buy. Caviar, champagne just spilling over the tables. He said that he gave himself over to laughter.
Joel Brooks:He would he would bring in, you know, the best comedians. We'd try to amuse ourselves by listening to, you know, or watching some TikTok videos, maybe some YouTube. He No expense spared. And these parties happen night after night after night. But all the while during this, I love this song.
Joel Brooks:It says I search with my heart how to cheer my body with wine. My heart still guiding me in wisdom. He thinks he's still. Wisdom is guiding. He never forgets why he's doing this.
Joel Brooks:But he searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine, my heart so guiding me with wisdom and how to lay hold of folly. In other words, he did some really high brow partying, and he did some really low brow partying just to get the full experience. There's times he brought out the tux. You know, brought out the, the $10,000 bottle wines, maybe the 20, 25 year old scotches, and he brought them out, put them by the ice sculptures, had the orchestra set up playing while people were waltzing around. Maybe for entertainment.
Joel Brooks:You know, they would do a little horse racing. Maybe some yacht racing. I'm not really sure what the ultra rich do, but this very high brow kinda partying here. And then there was times he went really low brow. He took off the tux and he put on the t shirt tux.
Joel Brooks:And then he gets out the lawn chair to which he puts in the above ground pool that he sits down. He opens up his Coors Light, and he's watching some NASCAR while listening to Kid Rock with a few thousands of his best friends. He's doing it all. Night after night. Over and over.
Joel Brooks:Partying. We we don't know how long he did this. It was for a while. I mean, think of it this way. He we'll find out later he marries 700 women.
Joel Brooks:If he gets does 2 weddings per week, that's 7 years nonstop of weddings. Somehow, so you have all your wedding feasts which are huge parties and then He fit in other parties in between. I mean I don't know how He did it. But this is for some extended time He is partying. And then at the end of the day, he says it's all hevel.
Joel Brooks:It's meaningless. Vanity. Puff of smoke. Hevel. I'm sure after the first night of that epic party, he just thought, man, I couldn't get any better than this.
Joel Brooks:He was actually right. It'd go downhill from there. I mean, that first party, you know, there was, the thing with the horse and the pool and the trampoline. He could barely remember it. It's like, wow.
Joel Brooks:But it was epic. I I I gotta somehow top that. And so maybe it brings in a few more celebrities, a few more, you know, high priced bottles of wine. But it's not quite as fun. The sequels never are.
Joel Brooks:I mean, we see this in movies all the time in which we think when we do a sequel, we just have to add more and that makes it better. You know, get bigger dinosaurs, more dinosaurs, more aliens. Whatever it is, that'll make the movie better. But it it's never quite as good as the original. And so he's doing this, bringing in more and more things.
Joel Brooks:And the parties are still good, but they're beginning to wane. Years of this. Finally, I bet he cannot even look at another bite of caviar. He just wants it off. He just wants off this treadmill, which is what the parties have become.
Joel Brooks:Now in doing all this, he says his wisdom's still guiding him. He's not once forgotten why he's doing this experiment. Will this pursuit of pleasure satisfy? Well so far, no. So Solomon, what he decides he needs to do is to quit the party he's seen and he needs to grow up a bit.
Joel Brooks:He needs to, you know, get a job, move out of the frat house and into an actual house, be productive with his life. And so we read in verses 4 through 6 this. I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees.
Joel Brooks:I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. Now we know from 1st Kings that Solomon took 7 years for him to build the temple. But it took him 13 years to build his house. It was quite a house. And I won't bore you with all of the details about the house.
Joel Brooks:Let's just say it's nicer than yours. Nicer than yours you could even dream about. So he builds this incredible house, but notice it doesn't just say house singular, he built houses. Remember the 700 wives? We read in 1st Kings that he built each of them a house.
Joel Brooks:So he's got he's got hundreds of houses now. So he's not just building a house. He's building subdivisions. Huge, gated, wealthy subdivisions. And then after building these houses, he decides he needs to plant vineyards, because apparently he wants to drink his own brand of wine.
Joel Brooks:And then he moves on to doing a little landscaping. By landscaping, I mean that he built huge gardens and national parks. I mean, Lauren and I, we, this past week, we planted our vegetable garden. We have 4 tomato plants there. Solomon would come by and be like, I like what you did with it.
Joel Brooks:I mean, the little cages are nice. Have you seen my national park? He built a national park. We just planted a little rose bush. He planted a forest.
Joel Brooks:Verse 6 says, it mentions that he built special pools to water these forests. And do you know that if you go to Israel, that you can actually see these pools? They're there to this day. There's 3 of them. They actually they collectively hold 160,000 cubic meters of water which means absolutely nothing to you because you don't know the metric system.
Joel Brooks:It's 43,000,000 gallons. The man planted entire forest. Once again, all Solomon is doing is he's taking the dreams that you have in which you just think if I could just have a little bit more, if I could just have a little bit, you know, if Lauren and I were thinking if we could just have a little bit more land, maybe just plant a few more tomato plants, All we need is just a little bit more. And Solomon's going, I'm going to the end of that road. I did national parks.
Joel Brooks:I planted forest. He's gone so far beyond where I could even dream about. He says it's hevel. Hevel. I want you to notice the progression here.
Joel Brooks:At least it seems like a progression to me. As he's describing these different things that we pursue, it seems that the it seems to look like he's describing the things we pursue as we naturally get older. Now, first, it's being young, partying, and it's moving into a house, getting a job, working hard to build beautiful things. And now what we see him do is move on to retirement where he can sit back and he can enjoy the rewards of his labor. Verses 78.
Joel Brooks:I bought male and female slaves and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man. So after finishing his house and his garden and his parks, he decides he needs to retire and to enjoy these labors.
Joel Brooks:And so he fills his house with servants, Even his servants have servants. And what this means is he no longer has to even lift a finger to get what he wanted. I mean, he probably woke up to breakfast in bed, in which there would be freshly squeezed orange juice from the oranges that were grown in his very own orchard. Then he'd probably get out of bed to move to his very first massage that day. Perhaps a round of golf in where, you know, he would drive around in the royal golf chariot from hole to hole.
Joel Brooks:Once he gets back to cool himself off, he'd get in the pool, probably get out of the pool and he he he wouldn't even dry himself off. All you have to do is just like, kind of do this. You know, were there just drying him off. Maybe taking him to his next massage. And then, he'd go shopping and he'd buy whatever he wanted.
Joel Brooks:Anything he remotely wanted, he could buy. His closets had closets. His garages had garages. Whatever he wanted, he bought. And then for entertainment in the evenings, we we read that he'd bring in singers.
Joel Brooks:I love that. I mean, we listen to Spotify. This man, he he brought in his favorite artist. You know, he's bringing in Jay z. He's bringing in Taylor Swift.
Joel Brooks:You know, just singing by the pool. Spared no expense. And finally, we read that he got many concubines. And, of course, this is what Solomon is known for. He had 700 wives and then he had a harem of 300 concubines.
Joel Brooks:I mean he would have looked at Hugh Hefner and he would have yawned. Really? That's it? In 1st Kings, we read that he loved marrying women of all different ethnicities. Meaning he, he wanted to marry women of every skin color, every shape, and every size.
Joel Brooks:In other words, hear hear hear this men. Every sexual fantasy that Solomon had, he fulfilled. Everything his eye wanted and desired, he got. 1,000 women there for his pleasure. Verse 9.
Joel Brooks:So I became great. I bet you did after throwing all those parties. Everyone's your friend. And I surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me.
Joel Brooks:Now remember, like, this cannot be godly wisdom. I cannot think of having 700 wives as being godly wisdom. I think he's talking about worldly wisdom here, but he never forgot what he was doing and why he was doing it. Verse 10. And whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them.
Joel Brooks:I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil and this was my reward for all my toil. Once again, Solomon was trying to recreate the Garden of Eden with no restrictions, no forbidden fruit. And what did he learn from this experiment? Well his conclusion is a little controversial. It's certainly un Presbyterian, certainly un Lutheran, because he said it was a lot of fun.
Joel Brooks:He said, you know, gosh, you know, all the drinking, the partying, the materialism, the sex, it brought pleasure. It was fun. And I mean, it almost sounds unchristian, doesn't it? I mean, I grew up in a youth group. You know, we'd go to the mall.
Joel Brooks:You know, we'd hand out tracks, you know, on a Friday night. And usually in the parking lot, there would be the other youth from the high school I went to all gathered around partying, drinking, laughing. And our youth minister would say things like, you know, it only looks like they're having fun. They're really not having fun. What you're doing's fun.
Joel Brooks:Like it sure looks like they're having fun. I mean, come on. They're they're having fun. Solomon says it was there was enjoyable moments. Brought it brought a lot of pleasure.
Joel Brooks:I remember listening to an interview with Johnny Cash after he had become a believer, after he had given up, the booze, the women, the drugs, and he was talked about living his new lifestyle. And this person interviewing him asked him if there was anything he missed. And he gets kinda this far off look in his eye. He goes, man, I miss the drugs. It's like, what?
Joel Brooks:Man, I miss the Like, are you allowed to say that as a believer? He's like, there were some really enjoyable moments there. Drugs brought him some form of pleasure. So Christians, let's not be so foolish as to say that those things are not any fun. I mean, the world already thinks we're killjoys.
Joel Brooks:It's why if ever I'm going to a party where I don't know people, I try my best to never let anyone know I'm a pastor. And, you know, so they're always asking, hey, so what do you do for a living? Work with people? Yeah. Like, how?
Joel Brooks:What do you work? I teach. Where do you teach? I'm a pastor at Redeemer Community. It's like, the music stops.
Joel Brooks:All eyes look. Party comes crashing down. Because that's how the world thinks of Christians. We're out. We're killjoys.
Joel Brooks:Not at all. We just know that that can't be all there is. There's gotta be more than that. Yeah. Solomon had fun.
Joel Brooks:He had lots of fun, but it's not the final word. Verse 11. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I'd expended in doing it, And behold, all was hevel and a striving after the wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. Solomon says, yeah, I had some pleasurable moments and then they kept decreasing and decreasing and decreasing until finally it became misery. Which is why he would then abort it and then he would go on to something else.
Joel Brooks:And then it would the pleasure would decrease and decrease and decrease, and then he would abort it and he'd go on to something else. And he kept going to the next thing and to the next thing and to the next thing. And now that he's coming to the end of his life, he realizes all of his toil and energy, he never got off the treadmill. All along, he spent his whole life on a stinking treadmill going nowhere, profiting nothing, still unsatisfied. All of life is hevel.
Joel Brooks:Now why didn't this little garden of Eden He created, why didn't it satisfy? Well, because yes. I mean, he he he got everything he wanted with no restrictions, but here was the thing. God wasn't there. That's the difference.
Joel Brooks:There was no like Adam did, there was no walks with God in the cool of the evening. And what Solomon finally realized here is that a paradise without fellowship with God is actually hell. It's not heaven, it's hell. It's an eternal thirst without ever being able to satisfy it. It's being able to get whatever you want and you keep consuming and consuming and consuming, thinking it's gonna finally quench this thirst, but it never does.
Joel Brooks:Hell is being able to get whatever you want until you no longer want it, but you can't imagine your life without it. That's hell. Being able to get whatever you want until you no longer want it, but you can't imagine your life without it. Hell. Hell closely resembles the American dream.
Joel Brooks:John pass John Piper famously said that God's greatest adversary is his own gifts. God's greatest adversary is his own gifts. The arch enemy of God is when we take the things that God has given us to enjoy. Gifts like food and drink and art and sex and entertainment and money, and we take those things and we turn them into ultimate things. Things we believe we must have in order for our happiness.
Joel Brooks:And when we begin to look at the the gifts instead of looking at the giver, we are forever on the treadmill. We never get off. After Tom Brady won his 3rd Super Bowl, he was being interviewed, and in the interview I'll just quote. He says, hey, I know I have 3 rings and everybody's telling me this is it, But there has got to be more than this. I mean this isn't This can't be This can't be what all it's cracked up to be, can it?
Joel Brooks:The interviewer then asked him, well, what's the answer? And all Tom Brady could say is, I wish I knew. I wish I knew. 3 more championships and a divorce later, he's still asking the same question. Still doesn't know the answer.
Joel Brooks:Do you know the answer? Do you? If Solomon, in all of his wisdom, couldn't give us that satisfaction, couldn't give us the meaning of life here, who can? Well, in Matthew chapter 2, Jesus is talking to the wisest people of his day and he says these words. The queen of the south will rise up in judgment with this generation and condemn it.
Joel Brooks:For she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. Jesus said that he was greater than Solomon, who was the wisest and the wealthiest person on earth. How could Jesus claim to be greater than Solomon? I mean, those who heard him have got they had to be thinking you're you're crazy. How could you be greater than him?
Joel Brooks:I mean, Solomon was born in a palace. You were born in a stable. Solomon had servants to meet his every need. You don't have anyone. Solomon, he had his keenly garments.
Joel Brooks:Look at what you're wearing. It's just a little peasant's robe. Solomon had great armies that followed him. You've got, look at those little stragglers there you call disciples. Solomon lived in mansions.
Joel Brooks:You don't even have a place to lay your head. Solomon had thousands of horses and chariots, rode around in splendor. You just walk around to little village to little village. How could you, Jesus, possibly claim to be greater than Solomon? And the answer is this, Solomon could never quench his own thirst, let alone anyone else's.
Joel Brooks:Yet Jesus, over and over again, would tell people, come to me and be satisfied. Come to me and drink water that will truly quench the thirst of your soul. No one else spoke like that. We saw Jesus do that with a woman at the well. We all remember that story in John chapter 4.
Joel Brooks:He he asked that woman, he's like, why do you come here day after day and keep pulling water up and drinking it? You know that water, every time you drink it, you're still thirsty, aren't you? I can give you water in which you will never thirst again. Jesus might as well have been talking to Solomon. Solomon, why do you keep going to the wells?
Joel Brooks:Why do you keep thinking if you go here, you get a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, it's gonna satisfy. It won't. Come to me if you're thirsty. I'll end this message simply by asking, are you going to Jesus to quench your thirst? Or are you still on the treadmill thinking if I just get a little bit more, just get a little bit more, just get a little bit more, I'll finally be satisfied?
Joel Brooks:Go to Jesus. I mean, this week, go to Him in prayer. This week, go to Him by listening to Him through His word. If you don't even know where to start, just open up your bible, go to the gospel of John and just slowly, prayerfully, meditatively begin reading through it. Go to your home group.
Joel Brooks:Be honest. Be vulnerable and be thankful. When you're thankful, it takes the focus off of the gifts and it redirects your attention to the giver. Yesterday morning, when I I went, my morning quiet time, I went down to the front porch with my cup of coffee and I sat there, And I decided I would just thank God for the things on my front porch. And so I'm there and I'm like, Lord, thank you.
Joel Brooks:Thank you for the the sofa and for these chairs that we have, that we bought at Sam's Club over 20 years ago. And they're still great. Thank you for the the wooden rocking chair we have over there that I was able to buy from an old man in Georgia. Thank you for the cushions that we have, and for my wife who who made those cushions that we could enjoy. Thank you for the rugs that we have that we found on the side of the road and they looked terrible, but they're kinda functional.
Joel Brooks:I just began thinking and you know what? The more I thanked, the more I was satisfied because it wasn't the gifts. My gaze was redirected to the giver, and it was so much more joy when I I quit looking there and I began looking there. It's like, god. You are so good to give me so many things like this.
Joel Brooks:Most of all though, God, you gave me the gift of Jesus. You give me the gift of your son and through him, I have forgiveness and I have eternal life. And I began thanking God my father for his son, Jesus. Are you going to him to have your thirst quenched? Let's go to him now.
Joel Brooks:Father God, thank you. Thank you. The things we could thank you for are endless. This week, would you give us a heart of thankfulness to whether we're at home, whether we're driving down the road, we begin to thank you for all the things you have given us. The things 5, 10 years ago we prayed for and now we take for granted.
Joel Brooks:May we not take them for granted. And would you redirect our gaze to you, the giver of those gifts. Because those things are just things. But you satisfy the longing of our hearts. And may we go to you.
Joel Brooks:We pray this all in the strong name of Jesus, our lord and savior.
