Empty Pleasures

Take your Bibles with me again and turn to Ecclesiastes 2. Ecclesiastes 2. We are going to look at verses 1-10 tonight. Let’s go ahead and read it.

”1 I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also [is] vanity. 2 I said of laughter, [It is] mad: and of mirth, What doeth it? 3 I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine, yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom; and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what [was] that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life. 4 I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: 5 I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all [kind of] fruits: 6 I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees: 7 I got [me] servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me: 8 I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces: I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, [as] musical instruments, and that of all sorts. 9 So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me. 10 And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour.”

Remember, Ecclesiastes is a book of goads and nails. It is a book that forces us to deal with some heavy truths about life and it uses those heavy truths to push us to God.

But it’s also a great experiment.

You know, one of the dumbest things that people ever say is “I’m going to do it myself, I’m going to live my own life, I’m going to make my own experiences.”

A big part of wisdom is learning from other people’s experiences so you don’t have to go through it yourself.

Listen, I’d rather learn from the experience of a person who jumped off a cliff than get that experience myself. There are a lot of experiences I’d rather borrow than live out myself.

Ecclesiastes is a book of borrowed experience. Solomon has made it to the top in every worldly way and he’s giving us an honest look at it so we can learn from his experience, so we can learn what things are worth living for and what things aren’t.

Look at verse 1 with me:

”I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also is vanity.”

This verse sets up this whole section. Solomon is telling us something he is going to try to find satisfaction in. In this case, he’s telling us that he is going to try to find satisfaction in pleasure.

So the first point tonight is simple. It is…

1. The emptiness of pleasure.

Solomon tells us in verse 1 the end result. He tells us that seeking meaning in pleasure is “vanity” it is empty. It is hollow.

But he goes into a lot of detail in how he himself lived for pleasure in verses 2-8.

The first thing Solomon tried was the pleasure of…

Laughs (2)

Look at verse 2:

”I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?”

If you turn on your TV, one of the biggest things out there is comedy. I mean, you’ve got Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert and those are just the big time guys. There are dozens of other guys and whole channels devoted to comedy. You’ve got stand up and sit coms and comedy movies. You can spend all day on Youtube or on Netflix just watching comedy videos.

I have to admit - I like to watch comedy videos sometimes. I like to laugh.

Solomon decided he was going to live for laughs. He was going to get all the chuckles he could get and his conclusion was that it is pointless. That it is mad.

So the next thing Solomon tried was…

Alchohol (3)

Solomon tried booze. Look at verse 3:

”I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine,”

A lot of people are living for booze. They are living drink to drink. They can’t make it without a little drink “to take the edge off.”

Solomon himself should have known better. He is the one who wrote Proverbs 20:1

”Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.”

It never ceases to amaze me how many people I meet in life who cannot imagine having a good time without booze being involved. Really.

I’ve been to several Chamber of Commerce get togethers here in town and every single one of them, every one, has to involve alcohol. It’s like you can’t just go and meet people and talk without booze being involved?

But it ruins lives. It deceives people. I wrecks marriages. It puts kids in the hospital or in an early grave. It sends people to the gutter.

You can have a lot of fun and not be a drinker. You can enjoy life and not be a drinker. You can have great conversations and not be a drinker.

So Solomon chased laughter and alcohol, then he picked it up and chased…

A beautiful house (4-6)

Look at verses 4-6

”I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: 5 I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits: 6 I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees:”

Solomon didn’t just have a nice house - he had the nicest house in the world. He had his own vineyards and gardens and orchards. He had his own olympic swimming pools and ornate fountains and ponds. He had his own parks and ornate gardens.

Solomon was a lot like Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson was a political philosopher and a businessman and a president but he was also an architect and his architecture was so good, it’s on the back of the nickel. When you go to Washington, D.C. you are seeing the outworking of Thomas Jefferson's brilliant architectual mind.

Solomon was like this. He built amazing wonders of the world for himself to live in. He had houses and summer houses and hunting retreats and beach houses.

But it didn’t make him happy. It didn’t bring fulfillment.

So the next thing Solomon want after was…

Stuff (7-8)

Look at verses 7-8

”I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me: I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces: I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts.”

Solomon had thousands of people working for him. He had more wealth than anyone in the world. They didn’t have Amazon Music in Solomon’s day. There were no recordings, but Solomon had private choirs and singing groups who could sing for him any time he wanted music.

Look at how the Bible describes Solomon’s daily food in 1 Kings 4:22-23

”And Solomon's provision for one day was thirty measures of fine flour, and threescore measures of meal: 23 Ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and an hundred sheep, beside harts, and roebucks, and fallow deer, and fatted fowl.”

One time shortly after we got married, my mom gave Amanda and I a gift card to this Argentine steakhouse in the city where we lived. It costs like $50 a person to go to this place and there were no menus. You just went in and this Argentine cowboy came by with a giant speak and on the spear was ten different kinds of steak and he would just come up to your table, you would point at what you want and the man would take out what looked like a machete and cut it off on your plate. When you wanted more, he would come again. It was AMAZING!

Solomon had more than that all day every day.

He had everything he wanted. In fact, that is exactly what he says in verses 9-10. Look at them…

”So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour.”

Can you imagine being able to say “Anything I wanted, I got” - that’s what Solomon could say. Listen to what one commentator said about this passage:

Today his face would be on the cover of Fortune, his home featured in a photo spread in Architectural Digest. Pop stars would sing at his birthday party and supermodels would flirt for his affections.

That was Solomon’s life. But look up at verse 1 again. What did Solomon call it all? He called it all “Vanity.” It didn’t satisfy. Every one of those things promised satisfaction - but none of them were anything more than empty.

Listen folks, it won’t be any different for you if you live for this stuff. You could have everything you ever wanted and it still wouldn’t be enough.

Someone once said:

Pleasure’s advertising agency is much more effective than it’s manufacturing department.

Yet we fall for it every single time.

It’s vanity. It’s empty.

So this passage is all about the emptiness of pleasure. But I don’t want you to think from this that pleasure is evil.

Because I want to take a few minutes talking about…

2. The one who fills the emptiness.

You see, God isn’t against pleasure. Psalm 16:11

”Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”

I want you to understand something. The pleasures of this life were created by God. They aren’t evil.

• He isn’t against laughter.
• He isn’t against enjoying creation.
• He isn’t against us using our creativity to build beautiful buildings. (Think of all of the buildings and artisanship in the Old Testament)
• He isn’t against us having stuff (God made it so that Abraham and David and so many other Bible figures were incredibly wealthy).

Pleasures by themselves are empty. But that doesn’t mean pleasures are evil, just insufficient and easily abused. God designed pleasures to be missing something and that something is a relationship with God.

The secret to pleasures is that we have to realize their purpose. They aren’t the steak, they are the seasoning.

What will bring you fulfillment is your relationship with God and your service to Him. As a part of that, God gives us pleasures.

Let’s look at a couple Bible verses about this:

And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Colossians 3:17

Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. 1 Cor. 10:31

Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: 1 Timothy 4:3

Listen, almost every pleasure I can think of, whether it is a nice house or good food or physical companionship. It has a place. God didn’t design us to be robots. He created us and put us in this world to enjoy it.

But we can’t live for it. It can’t become a god. It can’t become our source of meaning and purpose. We have to live for God first and other second, and enjoy the pleasures that He gives us along the way.

Let me put it another way and we’ll be done. The best I’ve ever heard anyone explain this was Jim Berg, a preacher who works at Bob Jones.

Jim Berg said this. He said that you can think of life like a multiplication equation.

On the left (the multiplicand) is what we put into it. You might be a doctor or a multimillionaire and put millions into this side. You might have some kind of handicap and put very little into this side. Then on the far right (the product), on the other side of the equal sign is how fulfilled you are.

Right, so this is the part that most people miss: God controls this (the multiplier). God is the multiplier. So you can put millions in and God can multiply them by -1 and you can be miserable. Or you can have very little to contribute and God can multiply it times 500 and you can live a very fulfilled life. But it’s God that matters.

One other thing and then we’ll be done. Solomon said that pleasures are empty. They are vanity - they are empty - they are blank. But do you know what - God can fill that cup up. God can write on that blank canvas. They don’t have to be empty - they are just empty without God.

So I guess the lesson here is this - don’t live for pleasure. Don’t live for the chuckles. Don’t live for the party or the booze. Don’t live for the stuff or the nice house or the big bank account. Live for God. You might not have all of the stuff this world has, but God has a way of making the stuff that you do have be so much more enjoyable.