Latest / INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living / Ecclesiastes │ Msg 2140 - Pastor Chuck Swindoll Insight for Living

Transcript

Ecclesiastes │ Msg 2140 - Pastor Chuck Swindoll Insight for Living · INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living

0:02
Speaker 1: It seems as though there are a couple of different
0:04
Speaker 1: types of people who could best understand the Book of Ecclesiastes.
0:09
Speaker 1: First would be those of you who are very very bright,
0:13
Speaker 1: or have raised children who are very very bright. I
0:20
Speaker 1: don't mean to be funny when I say that, I
0:22
Speaker 1: think that Solomon, who was indeed the brightest of the bright,
0:27
Speaker 1: highly intelligent, in fact a genius, illustrates the struggles of
0:34
Speaker 1: a person who is in that mental bracket. It's been
0:39
Speaker 1: my experience that the more brilliant a person, the greater
0:43
Speaker 1: it seems their number of struggles. The a dullered, the sluggard,
0:49
Speaker 1: it seems, has few struggles in life, whereas those who
0:54
Speaker 1: are highly intelligent, who have found that the simple and
1:00
Speaker 1: do not satisfy, they in fact have a ring of
1:04
Speaker 1: simplistic character. Those individuals struggle deeply, most deeply. As a result,
1:14
Speaker 1: individuals who are in this realm mentally come to a
1:21
Speaker 1: cynical side of life, often as it relates to spiritual
1:25
Speaker 1: things that I believe is what happened to Solomon. But
1:28
Speaker 1: there's something more than that. The second group of people
1:32
Speaker 1: who would understand would be those of you who are
1:35
Speaker 1: going through or are living with individuals who are going
1:39
Speaker 1: through what I will call a midlife crisis. This is
1:43
Speaker 1: an interesting phenomenon of our era. It has always been true,
1:47
Speaker 1: but it seems to be growing more so that individuals
1:53
Speaker 1: reach a plateau where they begin to question those things
1:58
Speaker 1: they have embraced all their life. If you are struggling
2:02
Speaker 1: with the problem, and many many are, you're certainly not alone.
2:09
Speaker 1: You need to read a book entitled Men in Midlife
2:11
Speaker 1: Crisis by Jim Conway. In the book, mister Conway has
2:16
Speaker 1: done a great deal to help us understand what that
2:20
Speaker 1: problem is about. I quote from several things he says.
2:24
Speaker 1: The man approaching midlife has some strange and difficult times
2:28
Speaker 1: ahead of him. The midlife crisis is a time of
2:32
Speaker 1: high risk for marriages. It is a time of possible
2:37
Speaker 1: career disruption and extramarital affairs. There is depression, there is anger,
2:43
Speaker 1: There is frustration and rebellion. The crises. The crisis is
2:51
Speaker 1: a privacy thing that seems to affect not only the
2:54
Speaker 1: physical but also the social and cultural and spiritual and
2:58
Speaker 1: occupational expression of a man's life. It's at the time
3:03
Speaker 1: when a man reaches the peak of a mountain range
3:05
Speaker 1: he looks back over where he has come from and
3:08
Speaker 1: forward to what lies ahead, and he asks things like
3:12
Speaker 1: navad I've climbed the mountain? Why am I different for
3:16
Speaker 1: doing it? Do I feel fulfilled? Have I achieved what
3:21
Speaker 1: I wanted to achieve? He goes on to describe it
3:26
Speaker 1: in the form of a statistic. Lee Stockford presented findings
3:30
Speaker 1: based on three studies involving more than twenty one hundred
3:35
Speaker 1: men and women. His research indicated that eighty percent of
3:39
Speaker 1: the executives aged thirty four to forty two were hit
3:44
Speaker 1: by the crisis. Doctor Daniel Levinson or Yale researcher, who
3:48
Speaker 1: has been involved in an extensive study of the midlife mail,
3:51
Speaker 1: puts the midlife decade at about thirty five to forty five. Another,
3:56
Speaker 1: such as the book entitled Passages, echoes Levinson's view. Many, however,
4:03
Speaker 1: put this crisis at about the age of fifty three.
4:07
Speaker 1: Things happen to a person to make it generally a
4:11
Speaker 1: description of that at that time. First, some biological changes
4:17
Speaker 1: take place. He is losing physical vigor and muscle tone.
4:23
Speaker 1: His body weight is shifting. That's a nice way to
4:25
Speaker 1: put it, isn't it. He is losing his hair, that
4:28
Speaker 1: is a rather bold way to put it. Death suddenly
4:31
Speaker 1: becomes a reality. Second, psychological makeup changes his ego. His
4:38
Speaker 1: self image is drastically affected. He begins to view himself
4:42
Speaker 1: as less of a man because his view of self
4:45
Speaker 1: worth stems from his physical strength. He may be having
4:49
Speaker 1: trouble or dissatisfaction at work, and because many men draw
4:52
Speaker 1: ego's strength from their work, this may hurt his self image.
4:56
Speaker 1: He may think he's not the man he used to
4:58
Speaker 1: be or planned to be. He may see that he's
5:01
Speaker 1: not going to meet all of his goals, or perhaps
5:03
Speaker 1: he has met them and is saying so what. The
5:07
Speaker 1: third major area of life being affected as his social life.
5:11
Speaker 1: The world in very clear tones tells him there isn't
5:14
Speaker 1: meaningful life after forty and he can't get a job
5:18
Speaker 1: after forty five or fifty. Television commercials continue to affirm
5:22
Speaker 1: that youth is good and age is bad. He begins
5:26
Speaker 1: to reevaluate his life in social areas, his relationship to
5:30
Speaker 1: his wife, his children, his career, his colleagues, his friends,
5:34
Speaker 1: the world around him, and especially his God. It's been
5:39
Speaker 1: my observation that many men I've talked with who struggle
5:42
Speaker 1: with the problem have for some reason or other, placed
5:46
Speaker 1: God out of their lives and have decided they are
5:50
Speaker 1: going to enjoy some things that they have been putting
5:53
Speaker 1: off all their days, and as far as they are concerned,
5:59
Speaker 1: God can wait for a while. They'll answer to him
6:01
Speaker 1: later on, and they're on their way in a sort
6:05
Speaker 1: of a quasi psychological social spiritual tale, sped until either
6:12
Speaker 1: crisis much greater than that one occurs, death itself, or
6:18
Speaker 1: some miraculous intervention, or simply the passing of time. I
6:24
Speaker 1: personally am of the opinion that Solomon was in the
6:28
Speaker 1: midlife crisis when he records the journal of the Book
6:32
Speaker 1: of Ecclesiastes. I really believe that the man records for
6:37
Speaker 1: us his honest feelings when he reached that time where
6:43
Speaker 1: nothing seemed to satisfy. Before I go any further in
6:47
Speaker 1: the book, let's answer some questions that I think are
6:50
Speaker 1: essential to an appreciation and an understanding of the book.
6:54
Speaker 1: First of all, who wrote it? Verse one and verse
6:57
Speaker 1: twelve of chapter one will help us answer the question.
7:01
Speaker 1: These are the words of the preacher the son of David,
7:04
Speaker 1: King in Jerusalem. There was only one son of David
7:08
Speaker 1: who became king in Jerusalem, and that was Solomon, and
7:12
Speaker 1: therase any other question. Verse twelve says, I the preacher
7:16
Speaker 1: have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. Now this same
7:22
Speaker 1: individual is named Solomon in other parts of the Bible.
7:26
Speaker 1: He is an adult. He has reached the pinnacle of success.
7:31
Speaker 1: He has reached the highest position in the land. He
7:35
Speaker 1: is to that nation what the president is to ours.
7:38
Speaker 1: His familiar habitat is the oval office. And suddenly, in
7:43
Speaker 1: that high ranking position, cracks began to appear in his thinking.
7:48
Speaker 1: We don't know why, we don't know what's split. We
7:52
Speaker 1: don't know what occurred. We don't know why it occurred.
7:54
Speaker 1: We only know that it did. And the man began
7:58
Speaker 1: to question some of the foundations and opinions that had
8:01
Speaker 1: been passed down from his father, and he had perhaps
8:05
Speaker 1: passed on to others. Solomon is the writer of the book.
8:09
Speaker 1: What's the meaning of the title. It's a long title
8:12
Speaker 1: that seems to have sort of a sort of a
8:15
Speaker 1: religious tone to it. What does Ecclesiastes mean? Well, it's
8:20
Speaker 1: an interesting word. It is the term that means master
8:26
Speaker 1: of assemblies. It's the thought of one who speaks as
8:31
Speaker 1: a as a speaker or a preacher to groups of people.
8:34
Speaker 1: He gathers thoughts and ideas, and he shares them. Cohlith
8:39
Speaker 1: is the name used for preacher, and it's the word
8:42
Speaker 1: here with the idea of being a master of speakers
8:47
Speaker 1: or a master of assemblies. Hold your place here and
8:51
Speaker 1: answer the question with me as you look at first
8:53
Speaker 1: Kings four. Was Solomon a public speaker? What he qualifies
8:58
Speaker 1: that first Kings four? And I also want to read
9:01
Speaker 1: a parallel in one Kings ten, So find both chapters.
9:05
Speaker 1: We'll read chapter four first, and then we'll look at
9:09
Speaker 1: the reference in chapter ten four verse twenty nine. Now
9:19
Speaker 1: God gave Solomon wisdom and very great discernment and breadth
9:25
Speaker 1: of mind, like the sand that is on the seashore.
9:29
Speaker 1: Now that doesn't simply mean he had a good theological understanding.
9:32
Speaker 1: It means he had a broad understanding of all of life.
9:36
Speaker 1: He could speak on many subjects theology as well as others.
9:42
Speaker 1: Looked down to verse thirty two. He spoke proverbs three
9:45
Speaker 1: thousand of them. He wrote songs over a thousand of them.
9:49
Speaker 1: He spoke of trees from the cedar that is in Lebanon,
9:52
Speaker 1: even to the hissip that grows on the wall. He
9:55
Speaker 1: was a botanist. He spoke also of animals and birds,
9:58
Speaker 1: and creeping things fish. His knowledge was broad. They came
10:02
Speaker 1: from all over to hear him speak. As he gave
10:04
Speaker 1: lectures on this Men came from all peoples to hear
10:07
Speaker 1: the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth,
10:10
Speaker 1: who had heard of his wisdom? Was he popular? Chapter ten,
10:14
Speaker 1: verse twenty three. King Solomon became greater than all the
10:20
Speaker 1: kings in the earth in riches and wisdom, and all
10:23
Speaker 1: the earth was seeking the presence of Solomon to hear
10:25
Speaker 1: his wisdom, which God had put in his heart. He
10:28
Speaker 1: not only had wisdom, he had money, he had fame,
10:32
Speaker 1: He had the world with a tale. He was eminently successful.
10:38
Speaker 1: But he went through the time of crisis that we
10:41
Speaker 1: read about in Ecclesiastes. And turning back to the book,
10:44
Speaker 1: let me say that many a person who is a
10:47
Speaker 1: public figure is nevertheless extremely human and struggles deeply. At times.
10:55
Speaker 1: Cracks appear in the oval office of our own nation.
10:59
Speaker 1: It should never shock us that humanity is there. At times.
11:03
Speaker 1: Dishonesty will emerge from the life of a senator, or
11:07
Speaker 1: immorality from the life of a congressman, or the life
11:10
Speaker 1: of a pastor, or the life of a counselor, or
11:13
Speaker 1: the life of a teacher or professor, that you have
11:16
Speaker 1: admired much of your life. You have little reason to
11:20
Speaker 1: be disillusioned by that. It's the humanity in all of us.
11:26
Speaker 1: The only problem is that when it strikes a Christian,
11:29
Speaker 1: it becomes scandalous information. Solomon is honest enough to say,
11:35
Speaker 1: I had struggles like you can't believe. And in the
11:39
Speaker 1: midst of those struggles, when things began to fracture and
11:43
Speaker 1: break in my minds, I kept a journal. And for
11:46
Speaker 1: some reason, God has preserved the journal of this master
11:50
Speaker 1: of assemblies. And I'll tell you what I went through
11:53
Speaker 1: as I searched for happiness without God. The third question
11:59
Speaker 1: is what are the union neaknesses of the book itself?
12:02
Speaker 1: And there are a couple I want to add here.
12:04
Speaker 1: First of all, it is the most secular of all
12:08
Speaker 1: Bible books. If I were to speak to lost audiences
12:12
Speaker 1: and I were asked to use a Bible book, this
12:15
Speaker 1: is the book I would use. This is my preference.
12:18
Speaker 1: It hits people where they live in the secular world,
12:21
Speaker 1: and you'll see that as we work our way through.
12:24
Speaker 1: It's the most secular about every major ism, even heresi
12:28
Speaker 1: is found in this book. Look at chapter two, verse sixteen,
12:33
Speaker 1: for example. For there is no lasting remembrance of the
12:39
Speaker 1: wise man as with the fool, inasmuch as in the
12:42
Speaker 1: coming days all will be forgotten, and how the wise
12:46
Speaker 1: man and the fool alike die. So I hated life,
12:50
Speaker 1: for the work which had been done under the sun
12:53
Speaker 1: was grievous to me, because everything is futility and striving
12:56
Speaker 1: after wind its emptiness. It's beutile, it's striving. It's of
13:02
Speaker 1: no use, it's of no value. There is no satisfaction.
13:06
Speaker 1: The words appear in their synonymous form thirty five to
13:09
Speaker 1: forty times in the book. It is a book that
13:12
Speaker 1: lacks satisfaction on the part of the writer. Look at
13:16
Speaker 1: the next page, Chapter three, verse eighteen nineteen and verse twenty.
13:21
Speaker 1: I said to myself concerning the sons of men, God
13:24
Speaker 1: has surely tested them in order for them to see
13:27
Speaker 1: that they are but beasts. For the fate of the
13:30
Speaker 1: sons of men, And the fate of beasts is the same.
13:34
Speaker 1: As one dies, so dies the other. Indeed, they all
13:38
Speaker 1: have the same breath. And there's no advantage for man
13:42
Speaker 1: over beast. For all is vanity. All go to the
13:47
Speaker 1: same place, all came from the dust, and all return
13:52
Speaker 1: to the dust. Well, if that's not universalism, I've never
13:55
Speaker 1: read it. I mean, what good is it to be
13:57
Speaker 1: man as opposed to being a dog or a horse
14:01
Speaker 1: or the cattle in the field. We're all the same,
14:06
Speaker 1: We come, we go. Life has its monotonous repetition, and
14:10
Speaker 1: there is no meaning to it whatsoever. Now this might
14:14
Speaker 1: shock some that have a very strong view of inspiration.
14:19
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone here could have one stronger than I,
14:22
Speaker 1: and I want to help you understand that inspiration does
14:25
Speaker 1: not guarantee that everything recorded is a rule to live by.
14:32
Speaker 1: Inspiration guarantees that what was written was accurately written and
14:36
Speaker 1: has been miraculously preserved. We have God breathing out his
14:41
Speaker 1: message through the pen of man. Not everything in this
14:46
Speaker 1: book is a rule to live by. The arguments and
14:50
Speaker 1: Ecclesiastes are not God's arguments. They are God's accurate record
14:55
Speaker 1: of man's argument. Remember that secular writers attack inspiration and
15:03
Speaker 1: they take to task in the Book of Ecclesiastes and
15:07
Speaker 1: illustrate you can believe that's inspired. Listen to what it says.
15:12
Speaker 1: I've seen it done in college classrooms, and I'm sure
15:16
Speaker 1: you will live to see it as well. This is
15:19
Speaker 1: simply guaranteeing we have an accurate record. It doesn't mean
15:23
Speaker 1: that everything is something to live by. The second thing
15:27
Speaker 1: I would say about Ecclesiastes is that it is one
15:29
Speaker 1: of the most convincing literary works, declaring that apart from God,
15:34
Speaker 1: there's no satisfaction if you're beginning to teeter on the
15:40
Speaker 1: tight wire in life, wondering if maybe it wouldn't be
15:44
Speaker 1: a lot better without God and all of that trip
15:47
Speaker 1: that God brings. As they say, get a good dose
15:52
Speaker 1: of Ecclesiastes and don't forget it, because vicariously you can
15:57
Speaker 1: enter into all these pursuits with Solomon and you will
16:00
Speaker 1: lind up with the right answers without the scars. That's very,
16:06
Speaker 1: very important. How about the key verse? Is there a
16:10
Speaker 1: key verse to live by? You bet? Chapter ten, verse nineteen.
16:15
Speaker 1: I want you all to turn to it. There's your verse,
16:22
Speaker 1: Men and women chapter ten, verse nineteen. Especially one of
16:28
Speaker 1: the trustees of the church to see that verse. Men
16:30
Speaker 1: prepare a meal for enjoyment. Wine makes life merry, and
16:33
Speaker 1: money is the answer to everything. I'm just kidding you.
16:36
Speaker 1: That's not the key verse. It's over in chapter two,
16:38
Speaker 1: verse eleven, Chapter two, verse eleven. That verse will set
16:44
Speaker 1: your free, So get away from that one. Get over
16:46
Speaker 1: to chapter two, verse eleven. I had some men walking out, saying, yes,
16:52
Speaker 1: that's the verse. I'm leaving. I'm going right now. No,
16:55
Speaker 1: the only reason to walk out is to see the game.
16:57
Speaker 1: And if you stay, baby, don't you get out here?
17:01
Speaker 1: Chapter two, verse eleven. Thus I considered all my activities
17:06
Speaker 1: which my hands had done, and the labor which I
17:08
Speaker 1: had exerted, and behold, everything was vanity and striving after
17:13
Speaker 1: when there is no profit under the sun. As he
17:17
Speaker 1: beats his breast, I cannot find any satisfaction in life.
17:23
Speaker 1: The reason is he has axed out God. He has
17:29
Speaker 1: everything a man or woman could want. He has simply
17:33
Speaker 1: put his God on the shelf. And he has told
17:36
Speaker 1: his father, as it were, forget it, David. He has
17:40
Speaker 1: told his heritage forget it. He has told his nation,
17:43
Speaker 1: forget it. I don't need Jehovah. I am going to
17:46
Speaker 1: find happiness without God. And he says in chapter two,
17:51
Speaker 1: verse eleven, you know I didn't get what I needed.
17:58
Speaker 1: What I wound up with was a mouthful a cotton candy,
18:01
Speaker 1: a handful of air, a lot of froth. Hard as
18:09
Speaker 1: it may be for you to believe this, some of
18:10
Speaker 1: you who are young, some of the most struggling disillusioned
18:16
Speaker 1: men and women today are those who hold chairs in
18:19
Speaker 1: the highest places of universities around our country and around
18:23
Speaker 1: our world. As one of them said in a very
18:26
Speaker 1: incredible speech that I read recently, the real question now
18:30
Speaker 1: that faces us in life is whether or not we
18:33
Speaker 1: commit suicide. They have no answers. Solomon is there, and
18:47
Speaker 1: rather than committing suicide, he simply says, I am going
18:50
Speaker 1: to find that that happiness. I'm up to here with Jehovah.
18:58
Speaker 1: I'm up to here with the discipline of the Christian life.
19:01
Speaker 1: I have had it, I have seen my last day
19:04
Speaker 1: in the temple. I am on my way to real living.
19:08
Speaker 1: And he takes off, and he tells you about it
19:12
Speaker 1: in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Go back to chapter one.
19:14
Speaker 1: Let's get a survey right quick. The question behind everything
19:19
Speaker 1: he writes is is life really worth living? Is it
19:23
Speaker 1: really worth living? He begins with the monotony of life,
19:28
Speaker 1: and I want to show you several of these monotonous cycles.
19:32
Speaker 1: It's boring as he sees it. Verse three, What advantage
19:36
Speaker 1: does man have in all his work which he does
19:39
Speaker 1: under the sun? Ever, ask yourself that question as you
19:42
Speaker 1: drive on that crummy freeway all the way to Torrance,
19:45
Speaker 1: all the way down to la every day, don't you ask?
19:49
Speaker 1: What advantage is there? All I'm going to do is
19:51
Speaker 1: get there, spend eight hours, turn around, and go all
19:54
Speaker 1: the way back to Fullerton, day after day, year after year.
19:58
Speaker 1: What advantage is it? You look at me like you
20:01
Speaker 1: don't believe that. That's exactly what goes through our minds.
20:05
Speaker 1: What in the world are all of these miles gonna
20:08
Speaker 1: prove when it's all over, Only that next week I've
20:11
Speaker 1: got to drive them again. There is an incredible boredom
20:15
Speaker 1: connected with life. I don't think that's addressed enough in
20:18
Speaker 1: the pulpit. I don't think other Christians are saying much
20:22
Speaker 1: about that. But many of you who hear my voys
20:25
Speaker 1: at this moment are desperately bored with life. Here's another
20:30
Speaker 1: one Verse three, Verse four. A generation goes, a generation comes,
20:34
Speaker 1: The earth remains forever. The sun rises, the sun sets,
20:39
Speaker 1: hastens to its place, and there it rises again. The
20:42
Speaker 1: wind blows to the south, it blows to the north,
20:44
Speaker 1: it continues swirling along the circular course. The wind returns.
20:48
Speaker 1: The rivers flow into the sea. Yet the sea is
20:51
Speaker 1: never full to the place where the rivers flow, they
20:53
Speaker 1: flow again. All things are wearisome. Man is not able
20:56
Speaker 1: to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing,
20:59
Speaker 1: and the year is I'm not satisfied with hearing. You
21:01
Speaker 1: noticed that. Are you into sound equipment? You'll learn that
21:07
Speaker 1: used to be that you would be satisfied with a
21:09
Speaker 1: simple little record player. Just a little record, put it on,
21:12
Speaker 1: put the needle on. Zip you'd hear it. Fantastic. You
21:15
Speaker 1: go to sleep, hum in the tune. Not now. Now
21:18
Speaker 1: you've got all of these incredible kinds of equipment that
21:22
Speaker 1: you can get into. Right. I know my son has
21:26
Speaker 1: begun to get into it, and I'll tell you it
21:29
Speaker 1: is unbelievable. You thought you were satisfied until you run
21:32
Speaker 1: across Panasonic zip Zap red blue deal that they show you,
21:36
Speaker 1: and you say, wow, that looks great. Mine sounds like
21:39
Speaker 1: it's from hunger. I've got to get one like that.
21:41
Speaker 1: So you got one like that, you bring it home
21:43
Speaker 1: and you enjoy it. It's beautiful. And the guy says
21:45
Speaker 1: to you, don't you realize that you've got to have
21:47
Speaker 1: sound equipment that's made by a certain firm for you
21:50
Speaker 1: to really enjoy that. I didn't know that. So you
21:52
Speaker 1: go get that system and you begin to listen to it.
21:54
Speaker 1: He says, don't you realize that those speakers will never
21:57
Speaker 1: handle the sound that's going to come out of that equipment? No,
22:00
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. So you got speakers the size
22:02
Speaker 1: of this, this baptistery, you know, great big things. They
22:06
Speaker 1: blow you away. And then that guy says, do you
22:08
Speaker 1: hear that click and that speaker? And you think, oh, man,
22:10
Speaker 1: I never realized that click was in. I can't live
22:14
Speaker 1: with that. So you go buy another set of speakers.
22:17
Speaker 1: It never ends, it never stops. It's constant. You thought
22:22
Speaker 1: you liked your home until you saw the one four
22:24
Speaker 1: blocks away night man, that's fantastic. I can't live in
22:27
Speaker 1: this dump. We got to get into that one. And
22:29
Speaker 1: so you move into that one and the tile breaks
22:32
Speaker 1: and you got to replace a tie, You got to
22:33
Speaker 1: fix the kitchen up, and before you know, somebody says,
22:35
Speaker 1: you know, this house is worth so much more? Got
22:38
Speaker 1: a new one. You know thirty miles away you can
22:40
Speaker 1: get one and make on okay, man, So you sell
22:42
Speaker 1: your home and you move out there, and it's constant, constant, constant,
22:46
Speaker 1: it never ends. And Solomon is just putting into plain
22:51
Speaker 1: old English the kind of stuff that we think, and
22:54
Speaker 1: we think we're the only ones thinking it. Is there
22:58
Speaker 1: an end to all of this? Is it possible to
23:01
Speaker 1: be satisfied? Not without God? See here is the dimension
23:10
Speaker 1: that brings it into balance. He is the one who
23:13
Speaker 1: says you can be contented, like the woman who wrote
23:20
Speaker 1: the good life exists only when you stop wanting a
23:23
Speaker 1: better one. It is the condition of savoring what is,
23:29
Speaker 1: rather than the longing for what might be. The itch
23:34
Speaker 1: for things so brilliantly injected by those who make and
23:37
Speaker 1: sell them, is in effect a virus draining the soul
23:42
Speaker 1: of contentment. A man never earns enough, a woman is
23:48
Speaker 1: never beautiful enough. Clothes are never new enough, the house
23:52
Speaker 1: is never furnished enough, the food is never fancy enough.
23:57
Speaker 1: There is a point at which salvation lies in stepping
24:01
Speaker 1: off the escalator and saying enough what I have, will
24:07
Speaker 1: do what I make of it is up to me.
24:13
Speaker 1: Solomon's on the escalator and it's running fast, he can't
24:20
Speaker 1: get a handle on it. There is hopelessness, there is despair,
24:24
Speaker 1: there is emptiness, purposelessness. And so he begins to pursue
24:30
Speaker 1: the things that he thinks will satisfy. He begins a
24:34
Speaker 1: hedonistic pursuit. In chapter two, turned there, he begins the
24:39
Speaker 1: pursuit that says pleasure at all costs. Verse one. I
24:45
Speaker 1: said to myself, Come now, I will test you with pleasure,
24:48
Speaker 1: so enjoy yourself the same old playboy philosophy. Behold, it
24:54
Speaker 1: was futility. I said, of laughter, it's madness, and of pleasure?
25:00
Speaker 1: Does it accomplish? You know? A laugh a day doesn't work?
25:04
Speaker 1: How about a bottle a day? So chapter two, verse three,
25:08
Speaker 1: he turns to Booze. I explored with my mind how
25:10
Speaker 1: to stimulate my body with wine while my mind was
25:13
Speaker 1: guiding me wisely, and how to take hold of folly
25:16
Speaker 1: until I could see what was good, what good there
25:18
Speaker 1: is for the sons of men to do under having
25:20
Speaker 1: a few years of their lives that didn't work. And
25:23
Speaker 1: so since since laughter wasn't working and drink wasn't working,
25:30
Speaker 1: let's do things with my hands. So I engaged in construction.
25:33
Speaker 1: Verse four. I built houses. I planted vineyards. I made
25:38
Speaker 1: gardens and parks for myself. I planted all kinds of
25:42
Speaker 1: fruit trees. I could have told him that wouldn't work.
25:45
Speaker 1: I made ponds of water for myself from which to
25:48
Speaker 1: irrigate a forest of growing trees. I brought male and
25:52
Speaker 1: female slaves, and I had homeborn slaves. I possessed flocks
25:56
Speaker 1: and herds. I got into livestock. Does that like today's man? Oh,
26:01
Speaker 1: the Bible is so relevant. I possessed flocks and herds
26:05
Speaker 1: larger and larger than all preceded me. In Jerusalem, he
26:09
Speaker 1: even got into that scene. I collected for myself silver
26:14
Speaker 1: and gold. He had coin collections and precious gems, and
26:21
Speaker 1: the treasure of kings and provinces. I provided for myself
26:24
Speaker 1: male and female singers, and the pleasures of men. There
26:26
Speaker 1: were gestures, there were there were choirs that came and
26:30
Speaker 1: entertained me. And I set back and drank it in,
26:33
Speaker 1: and it didn't satisfy. I had many concubines. I went
26:40
Speaker 1: the sex trip. I went that whole scene. I took
26:43
Speaker 1: the whole nine yards, and that wasn't where it was.
26:48
Speaker 1: And I considered all my activities. Verse eleven after all
26:54
Speaker 1: the things my eyes desired, I didn't refuse them. Verse ten.
26:57
Speaker 1: I took all my activities which my hands had done,
27:00
Speaker 1: and behold, all of it was a bag of wind.
27:08
Speaker 1: If you're a searcher, and if you think pleasures will
27:10
Speaker 1: do it, and bucks will do it, and things will
27:13
Speaker 1: do it, and stuff that you can build and perfect
27:19
Speaker 1: will do it. Stop it won't do it. You can
27:25
Speaker 1: never go the limit Solomon went. He went further than
27:27
Speaker 1: any of us will ever go, and he said it
27:30
Speaker 1: won't do it. Abraham to the Middle East Crisis is
27:38
Speaker 1: a fine book by a fellow named G. Frederick Owen.
27:42
Speaker 1: In it, he described Solomon brief terms, but very very vividly,
27:46
Speaker 1: to share them with you. Maddened with the love of show,
27:51
Speaker 1: Solomon swung into a feverish career of wastefulness, impropriety, and oppression.
27:58
Speaker 1: Not satisfied with the necessary, the buildings and legitimate progress
28:01
Speaker 1: of his past years, he overburdened his people with taxation,
28:05
Speaker 1: enslaved some, and ruthlessly instigated the murder of others. All
28:10
Speaker 1: Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and those of his
28:14
Speaker 1: house of pure gold. The shields of his mighty men
28:19
Speaker 1: were made of beaten gold, and his great throne was
28:22
Speaker 1: made of ivory and overlaid with the finest gold, silver,
28:25
Speaker 1: and Jerusalem became as common as stones. Solomon literally built
28:32
Speaker 1: himself a paradise of pleasure. One of his chief resorts
28:36
Speaker 1: was Etham, where when the mornings were beautiful listen to this,
28:40
Speaker 1: he often went in stately progress, dressed in snow white raiment,
28:44
Speaker 1: riding in his chariot of state, which was made of
28:47
Speaker 1: the finest cedar, decked with gold and silver and purple,
28:52
Speaker 1: and carpeted with the costliest tapestry worked by the daughters
28:56
Speaker 1: of Jerusalem. He was attended by a bodyguard of sin
29:00
Speaker 1: sixty valiant men of the tallest and handsomest of the
29:03
Speaker 1: young Israelis, arrayed in Tyrian purple, with their long black
29:07
Speaker 1: hair freshly sprinkled with gold dust, every day glittering in
29:11
Speaker 1: the sun. Solomon, like many another absolute monarch, drove too
29:18
Speaker 1: fast and traveled too far. He became debauched and effeminate,
29:26
Speaker 1: an egotist, a cynic, so satiated with the sensual and
29:33
Speaker 1: material affairs of life that he became skeptical of everything
29:37
Speaker 1: good to him. All became vanity and futility. Look at
29:49
Speaker 1: verse twenty I completely despaired. Look at those words, I
29:58
Speaker 1: completely despaired of all the fruit of my labor for
30:04
Speaker 1: which I had labored under the sun. That's a man
30:07
Speaker 1: in midlife crisis, if you've ever read him. Is almost
30:15
Speaker 1: a sense of self pity. I've worked and worked and worked.
30:18
Speaker 1: I've labored hard. I've worked my fingers to the bone
30:21
Speaker 1: to put together all of life. And What'll I have
30:24
Speaker 1: to show for it? Some cynic answers, bony fingers, that's
30:28
Speaker 1: all you've got. And he looks at his hands that
30:30
Speaker 1: are empty. He looks at his life that's empty. He
30:32
Speaker 1: looks at his soul that's filled with guilt, and he
30:35
Speaker 1: says verse twenty four, there's nothing better for a man
30:38
Speaker 1: to do than eat, drink, and tell himself his labor
30:41
Speaker 1: is good. Just keep pressing on. And that's what ninety
30:44
Speaker 1: five percent of the people you run into are saying.
30:47
Speaker 1: Just keep going, Just keep going. Don't stop and ask.
30:49
Speaker 1: Just keep going, God says, put on the brakes, you
30:55
Speaker 1: keep going. You dangle from a rope. Stop, preferably stop
31:02
Speaker 1: while you're young. Solomon turns to fatalism in chapter three.
31:09
Speaker 1: There's a time for this, there's a time for that.
31:12
Speaker 1: Then there's a humanism that comes into the scene. I
31:14
Speaker 1: know verse twelve that there's nothing better for them than
31:17
Speaker 1: to rejoice and do good in one's lifetime Verse fifteen.
31:21
Speaker 1: That which has been already and that which will be,
31:24
Speaker 1: has already been. For God seeks what has passed by.
31:29
Speaker 1: I have seen under the sun that in the place
31:30
Speaker 1: of justice there's wickedness. In the place of righteousness, there
31:34
Speaker 1: is wickedness. And I'm confused. Verse twenty. We all go
31:40
Speaker 1: to the same place. Why sweat it? That's cynicism to
31:45
Speaker 1: the maximum. There's a smattering of agnosticism as well as
31:52
Speaker 1: universalism all the way through. Hold your place here and
31:54
Speaker 1: look at Proverbs fourteen twelve. Fourteen twelve. There is a
32:04
Speaker 1: way which seems right to a man, but its end
32:11
Speaker 1: is the way of death. You've heard the verse and
32:15
Speaker 1: maybe didn't quite know where to put your finger on it.
32:18
Speaker 1: There it is. There is a way that seems right,
32:25
Speaker 1: but it doesn't satisfy. Listen to the commercials, view the films,
32:34
Speaker 1: read the media. Check it out regularly. You will hear
32:40
Speaker 1: it pulsating. There's always something new, something different, something brighter,
32:47
Speaker 1: something larger, something softer, something with a better aroma, something
32:56
Speaker 1: more solid, and says, without God, nothing will do it. Nothing.
33:08
Speaker 1: So chapter four he begins to observe. He's not involved
33:12
Speaker 1: now he's just observing. Maybe he's getting tired. He observes
33:18
Speaker 1: oppression Chapter four, verses one to three. He sees poverty,
33:22
Speaker 1: he sees pain, he sees abuse, he sees crime, he
33:26
Speaker 1: sees the social life, and he says it's better not
33:28
Speaker 1: to be born. In verses four through six. He looks
33:33
Speaker 1: at industry and idleness, and he says, the industrious is
33:36
Speaker 1: envied by his neighbor, and the idol doesn't get the
33:38
Speaker 1: job done, and it caves in on him. You can't
33:40
Speaker 1: win one way or the other. He looks at solitude
33:42
Speaker 1: and loneliness in verses seven and eight. He looks at
33:47
Speaker 1: companionship in verses nine through twelve, and that doesn't fit.
33:51
Speaker 1: And he looks thirteen through sixteen at popularity, and that
33:56
Speaker 1: doesn't fit. He says in the last part of verse sixteen,
34:01
Speaker 1: it's all vanity and striving after wind chapter five, the same,
34:07
Speaker 1: chapter six, chapter seven, chapter eight, nine, ten, until chapter eleven,
34:13
Speaker 1: chapter eleven, there's a switch. The whole smorgasboard has sort
34:20
Speaker 1: of passed in review, and now he begins to pass
34:24
Speaker 1: along a little advice. He's come to a pause in
34:30
Speaker 1: his pursuits, and he says, it's time to write a
34:34
Speaker 1: chapter and maybe someone someday will read it. In verses
34:42
Speaker 1: one through six, he talks about the investment of your life.
34:46
Speaker 1: In verses seven through eight, the enjoyment of life, and
34:50
Speaker 1: nine and ten the end of life. You want a
34:54
Speaker 1: good devotional to bring to a secular group, have edit
34:57
Speaker 1: there it is right in front of you. Is life
35:01
Speaker 1: worth spending? That's if it's worth spending. It's worth spending
35:04
Speaker 1: on someone other than myself. I've learned that, says Solomon.
35:08
Speaker 1: Cast your bread on the waters, for you'll find it
35:11
Speaker 1: after many days. There's a risk involved. There's a risk
35:17
Speaker 1: in dividing your portion to seven or even eight. You
35:20
Speaker 1: don't know what may occur. But let it go. Release it.
35:24
Speaker 1: Have you accrued something, Let it out, Let it go.
35:28
Speaker 1: Has God blessed you with material goods? Share those material goods.
35:31
Speaker 1: Don't die with a big sack full of them. What
35:34
Speaker 1: good will it do in a box. Don't leave it
35:38
Speaker 1: for the state, they'll rip it off. Give it to
35:41
Speaker 1: your kids, Give it to the ministry of good things.
35:44
Speaker 1: Watch eternal things bloom and blossom. Cast your bread out
35:48
Speaker 1: there on the waters. Enjoy what life is about. Yeah,
35:55
Speaker 1: look at verse nine. I can see Solomon like a professor,
36:00
Speaker 1: linging across a desk and says, young man, listen to
36:03
Speaker 1: me right now, got it? He says, Rejoice, young man,
36:08
Speaker 1: in your youth, and let your heart make you happy
36:12
Speaker 1: in the days of your youth, and walk in the
36:16
Speaker 1: ways of your own desire, and let your eyes be
36:19
Speaker 1: satisfied and your heart be pleased. But for all of
36:24
Speaker 1: this God will bring you into account. Never had your
36:32
Speaker 1: daddy tell you that? Maybe never that daddy is telling
36:40
Speaker 1: you that tonight, that Daddy cares enough for you as
36:46
Speaker 1: his child to tell you the truth before you get scarred.
36:52
Speaker 1: You think it's fun in games to mess around it,
36:55
Speaker 1: have at it, relax, blow it, let it all out.
36:58
Speaker 1: Let me tell you, says Solomon, whose body was probably
37:01
Speaker 1: racked by venereal disease, whose mind was beginning to crack,
37:07
Speaker 1: whose whole structure for living was being altered and shifted
37:11
Speaker 1: and changed. Let me tell you, says Solomon. God brings
37:15
Speaker 1: you into judgment, and you haven't been dealt with like
37:18
Speaker 1: he can deal with you, remove vexation from your heart,
37:24
Speaker 1: put pain away from your body. Childhood and the prime
37:29
Speaker 1: of life, or fleeting when you get old you start
37:32
Speaker 1: talking like that, Oh remember how things used to be,
37:37
Speaker 1: or oh if I had it to do over again,
37:39
Speaker 1: and all of that, what do we do? We were
37:40
Speaker 1: reflecting back on the prime of life. And as I
37:45
Speaker 1: look out into your faces, I see most of you
37:47
Speaker 1: in the prime of life. I think, what a what
37:51
Speaker 1: a relevant message. A hitch in the Marine Corps did
38:00
Speaker 1: more for me than any twenty years in a seminary
38:03
Speaker 1: would ever do. Regarding life, I saw it in the raw,
38:06
Speaker 1: I mean filthy raw of life. By the grace of God,
38:11
Speaker 1: I've experienced a protective shield from the blast of the flesh,
38:16
Speaker 1: but it was tough. But as a result of that
38:21
Speaker 1: perspective God gave me I was able to minister only
38:26
Speaker 1: for a few months, eighteen months and an island overseas.
38:29
Speaker 1: But I tell you I saw men picked up from
38:33
Speaker 1: the gutter. One young man stumbled in on a New
38:38
Speaker 1: Year's night, and I happened to be there writing a
38:41
Speaker 1: letter to my wife. I was the only one, I
38:43
Speaker 1: think in the world at the base on New year's night,
38:47
Speaker 1: and I heard the door open and I heard him crying,
38:51
Speaker 1: nineteen year old young man from Idaho. He shuffled down
38:54
Speaker 1: and ran into several lockers on the way down, and
38:57
Speaker 1: he fell over in his vomit, right right behind me
39:01
Speaker 1: where I was sitting. I turned around and I called
39:03
Speaker 1: him by name, and he said, I need help. And
39:09
Speaker 1: he began to describe where he had been and what
39:11
Speaker 1: he had done, and he was convinced that he was
39:16
Speaker 1: diseased his mouth. This person, he was the he was
39:21
Speaker 1: the living end of life in its in its degradation.
39:28
Speaker 1: And I picked him up and I put my arms
39:30
Speaker 1: around him, and I said, you have come to the
39:32
Speaker 1: place where God wanted you to be years ago. Let's
39:38
Speaker 1: deal with it right now. I've cleaned him up, showered him,
39:42
Speaker 1: got him sober. At two o'clock in the morning, outside
39:46
Speaker 1: under the moon, this guy gave his life to Jesus Christ.
39:55
Speaker 1: He said, I've never never known what it meant to
39:58
Speaker 1: be to be really clean. As he began to pour
40:02
Speaker 1: out his life, and he said, I just wish that
40:06
Speaker 1: I could erase about five bad years. He did have
40:12
Speaker 1: a disease. It did take its toll on him as
40:15
Speaker 1: far as I know he's doing okay now. But here
40:18
Speaker 1: he was not even twenty years old, never had a
40:22
Speaker 1: father tell him what you just heard. Remember your creator
40:30
Speaker 1: in the days of your youth. That's smart. That's smart.
40:37
Speaker 1: Fit your creator into your plan of life. Fit your
40:42
Speaker 1: creator into your intellectual life. Don't limit it, let it
40:46
Speaker 1: run free, let it run a fast and let it
40:50
Speaker 1: go and experience the fulfillment of all that your mind
40:53
Speaker 1: will let you. But keep him in focus. You don't
40:57
Speaker 1: have to cut off your head and commit intellectual because
41:00
Speaker 1: you're a Christian. Some of the sharpest people you'll ever
41:03
Speaker 1: want to meet, or believers on the cutting edge of
41:06
Speaker 1: the intellectual world. It's a beautiful blend to watch. And
41:11
Speaker 1: he says, Zah, remember him early in life. That's smart.
41:16
Speaker 1: Before the scars come in dully edge, and you have
41:23
Speaker 1: to look back and say, when the years are over,
41:25
Speaker 1: I have no delight in them. Do that before old
41:37
Speaker 1: age comes. One of the most interesting and there's even
41:41
Speaker 1: a little humor in this description of old age. Interesting
41:45
Speaker 1: list of old age characteristics is right here in chapter twelve.
41:48
Speaker 1: Look at them with me for a moment. Life really
41:51
Speaker 1: does creep up on you. I told you before about
41:55
Speaker 1: the time your face clears up, your mind gets fuzzy.
41:58
Speaker 1: And here's old solemnon describing it. Right now, remember your creator.
42:04
Speaker 1: Before the sun, the light, the moon, the stars are dark,
42:08
Speaker 1: and before the clouds return after the rain in the day,
42:11
Speaker 1: when the watchmen of the house tremble. There's a picture
42:14
Speaker 1: of the hands beginning to tremble, and the mighty men stoop.
42:18
Speaker 1: That's the legs. They get weary, they get weak, The
42:21
Speaker 1: grinding ones stand idle. Can you guess what that is? Right?
42:26
Speaker 1: They get less and less in your jaws, and those
42:30
Speaker 1: who look through windows grow dim that's your eyes. You
42:33
Speaker 1: can't see like you used to see. Man, Man, I
42:36
Speaker 1: realize that my lenses are still thick. When I look
42:39
Speaker 1: at the sun, my pupils smoke. I went to my ophthalmologist.
42:44
Speaker 1: I said, that's it. I look like a snake behind
42:46
Speaker 1: this glass. He says, it're not gonna get any thinner.
42:50
Speaker 1: I can't wear contacts, I can't blink over the edges
42:53
Speaker 1: did be that thick? It's incredible, and I gotta have
42:56
Speaker 1: bright lights now this. I used to be able to
42:58
Speaker 1: read with a fly's light in a tent. I remember
43:00
Speaker 1: you live, not now. I gotta have a thousand watts
43:03
Speaker 1: on top to see the words. And the doors on
43:07
Speaker 1: the street are shut, and the sound of the grinding
43:09
Speaker 1: mill is low. That's your ears you get. You get
43:12
Speaker 1: heart of hearing. And one will arise at the sound
43:15
Speaker 1: of the bird, and all the daughters a song will
43:17
Speaker 1: sing softly. That's insomnia. You wake up early. You get older,
43:22
Speaker 1: you older, you wake up earlier and earlier. And I
43:25
Speaker 1: used to think, Man, I'm not gonna do that. I'm
43:26
Speaker 1: gonna sleep late like the young folks doing. I'm getting
43:29
Speaker 1: up at five o'clock. I feel like a dummy. I'm
43:31
Speaker 1: out on a patiole this in the birds sing, wondering
43:33
Speaker 1: why I can't sleep. Everybody else is sleeping. I want
43:36
Speaker 1: to say, wake up, guys, I wake up. Everybody else
43:40
Speaker 1: wakes up. Men are afraid of high places and the
43:44
Speaker 1: terror on the road. That's happens when you got You
43:47
Speaker 1: take a trip with an old person, and you'll never
43:49
Speaker 1: you'll ever realize how many calamities were a point. No,
43:52
Speaker 1: don't going to the dumbill close the edge, watch it.
43:54
Speaker 1: Don't get near that. You'll fall over break your neck. Now,
43:57
Speaker 1: I remember the comedian who says for all my life.
44:00
Speaker 1: I thought the only injury I could have as a
44:01
Speaker 1: child was a broken neck. My mother say, don't go there,
44:03
Speaker 1: you break your neck. Don't break your neck. We took
44:06
Speaker 1: a trip with my mother, God bless her, when she
44:09
Speaker 1: was up and getting up in years, and we went
44:11
Speaker 1: to Colorado and we went up that deal. You know.
44:15
Speaker 1: She rode the whole trip looking like this, not looking
44:20
Speaker 1: over the edge. Oh, don't go so close to the edge.
44:22
Speaker 1: The entire time she never enjoyed it. Because you're so
44:24
Speaker 1: close to the edge, We're gonna fall over the edge.
44:26
Speaker 1: That happens when you get old. When you're young man,
44:29
Speaker 1: you want to hang glide, that's fine, just jump on
44:32
Speaker 1: out there when you get older. No, you didn't want
44:35
Speaker 1: to look at it. In the movies, Remember him verse six,
44:41
Speaker 1: before the silver cord is broken. Then paralysis sets in.
44:46
Speaker 1: This is the old spinal cord, and the golden bowl
44:50
Speaker 1: is crushed, and the picture of the well is shattered.
44:56
Speaker 1: There's a coronary, and the wheel of the sistern is
45:01
Speaker 1: christ the old respiratory system grinds to a halt. Remember
45:06
Speaker 1: him before death comes. Ay, that is such good counsel.
45:21
Speaker 1: Don't wait till it comes. See you don't have to
45:28
Speaker 1: keep it up. You don't have to keep going, keep going,
45:31
Speaker 1: keep doing all that stuff. Like the one lady who
45:36
Speaker 1: wrote her testimony. She wrote an anxiety poem called self
45:40
Speaker 1: improvement program. Let me say it again, self improvement program,
45:44
Speaker 1: when after a recitation of many new advances and everything
45:48
Speaker 1: from needle point to guitar to advance Chinese cooking to
45:52
Speaker 1: primal scream therapy, she concludes this in her poem, I'm
45:56
Speaker 1: working all day, and I'm working all night to be
45:58
Speaker 1: good looking, healthy and wise and adored and contented and
46:02
Speaker 1: brave and well read and a marvelous hostess and bilingual, athletic, artistic.
46:08
Speaker 1: Won't someone please stop me, honest woman, That's what Ecclesiastes
46:17
Speaker 1: is trying to do. Stop now, just stop and do
46:28
Speaker 1: what well Verse thirteen. The conclusion Number one fear God.
46:38
Speaker 1: That means take him seriously. Number two, obey God, do
46:49
Speaker 1: what he says. This applies to every person we have
47:07
Speaker 1: trafficked in. Perhaps some of the wisest of counsel we
47:11
Speaker 1: could ever hear. Some of us wish we could have
47:15
Speaker 1: heard it forty years ago. Some of us wish we
47:22
Speaker 1: had heard it directly and correctly. When we did hear it.
47:29
Speaker 1: Let me tell you who concerns me the most. That's
47:33
Speaker 1: the kid that's raised in the church, born in the
47:38
Speaker 1: choir law, never known a Sunday when he wasn't in
47:42
Speaker 1: the joint church, every Sunday, week after week, month after month,
47:49
Speaker 1: Sunday school. All those badges. Then she used to resent
47:52
Speaker 1: kids that had those badges, that hang on, that lean
47:55
Speaker 1: over and go. I used to want to go all over.
47:58
Speaker 1: There concern me the most because they never know a
48:01
Speaker 1: Sunday when they weren't around. They've heard it all, they've
48:04
Speaker 1: seen it all. I mean, their lips move when you
48:07
Speaker 1: talk about the doctrines. They got it down, graduating an
48:10
Speaker 1: eighth grade deal, graduated from high school, sumacoom whatever, loodie.
48:16
Speaker 1: How come you know they got out, got into college,
48:20
Speaker 1: Christian stuff, Christian school, Christian teaching, Christian parents, Christian truth,
48:24
Speaker 1: Christian churches. And then all of a sudden, boom, the
48:28
Speaker 1: lid goes off, and they wonder why somebody somewhere somewhere
48:37
Speaker 1: down the line didn't stop and say, Hey, what you're
48:40
Speaker 1: picking up is a whole bunch of cliches about religion.
48:47
Speaker 1: Christ isn't vital in your decision as to what car
48:50
Speaker 1: to drive, or what career to choose, or what decision
48:55
Speaker 1: to make when you're on that date, Christ isn't real.
48:59
Speaker 1: You just call up in the syndrome and you've added
49:01
Speaker 1: a lot of extra binacular that you've picked up all
49:03
Speaker 1: your life. But now that the bills come due and
49:07
Speaker 1: you're surrounded by the sidewalk jungle of competition, you can't
49:10
Speaker 1: cut it. And you're on that plane headed to nowhere,
49:16
Speaker 1: and you suddenly realize I am not prepared for life.
49:24
Speaker 1: Midlife crisis. Here I come. I want to tell you.
49:32
Speaker 1: If it could happen to Solomon, it can happen to
49:34
Speaker 1: anybody who hears my voice. Anybody, if it helps you
49:41
Speaker 1: any I fight like mad that it doesn't happen to me.
49:47
Speaker 1: I address it regularly in my mind. I don't need
49:53
Speaker 1: that stuff. It has no satisfaction. It is an enemy
49:57
Speaker 1: to God. What I need is Him in all of
50:01
Speaker 1: his beauty and perfection and care and loveliness. And I
50:06
Speaker 1: need to live under the cross. If I didn't believe that,
50:13
Speaker 1: I'd be a wild stallion. And if he can slow
50:18
Speaker 1: me down, he'll slow you down too. That's about together,
50:23
Speaker 1: shall I for some of you, this message is perhaps
50:31
Speaker 1: the most relevant thing you could have ever heard this year.
50:35
Speaker 1: For others of you, thank God, you've come through it
50:40
Speaker 1: and you see the fallacy of it, and you've just
50:42
Speaker 1: simply had it confirmed. But for some it still isn't
50:47
Speaker 1: convincing enough, not convincing enough to break off that affair
50:59
Speaker 1: or to say say to yourself, I'm going to be
51:02
Speaker 1: satisfied with enough. No, it's for some not that easily learned.
51:15
Speaker 1: Whatever it takes to come to terms with this in
51:17
Speaker 1: your life, as your friend and as your shepherd, urge
51:21
Speaker 1: you to do it. The years you have left are
51:26
Speaker 1: a gift from God. You spend them like a coin
51:30
Speaker 1: any way you wish, but only once. Father. I pray
51:42
Speaker 1: for the man or the woman who spent their years
51:45
Speaker 1: paying for braces, buying bikes, giving up what they wanted,
51:50
Speaker 1: raising kids, planning and going through the vacations, continually giving content,
52:00
Speaker 1: manunually releasing, who are on the very real cutting edge
52:05
Speaker 1: of a crisis. For them, I pray as the hurricane
52:13
Speaker 1: velocity hits them in this world system, I pray for
52:18
Speaker 1: you to give them roots that will not give, will
52:22
Speaker 1: not break, and will not bend. I ask you to
52:28
Speaker 1: raise up from among the young of this church, a
52:31
Speaker 1: body of men and women who are balanced in no
52:36
Speaker 1: way shocked by the world's system, but very much in
52:38
Speaker 1: touch with it, knowing fully what it means and what
52:42
Speaker 1: it's like, but by your grace, inexperienced in it, and
52:47
Speaker 1: therefore for the most part, unscarred. And I pray that
52:53
Speaker 1: you will send, like missiles of your grace some of
52:57
Speaker 1: these people into lives that haven't the foggiest of what
53:03
Speaker 1: has been declared tonight. I pray that you would put
53:08
Speaker 1: us in touch with and keep us in touch with
53:11
Speaker 1: those that do not know the answers, so that we
53:15
Speaker 1: might learn what questions to ask. We ask not so
53:23
Speaker 1: much for knowledge, but we ask for wisdom, not so
53:30
Speaker 1: much for being sharp and keen, but for being discerning.
53:35
Speaker 1: And I would pray that you would use this message
53:40
Speaker 1: to help that to be accomplished, help us in the
53:45
Speaker 1: process not to leave our warm love for Christ, who
53:52
Speaker 1: is our all in all, in the name of Jesus Christ,
53:56
Speaker 1: our Lord Amen.
54:01
Speaker 2: The preceding message, Ecclesiastes Searching for the Meaning of Life,
54:06
Speaker 2: was copyrighted in nineteen seventy nine, and the sound recording
54:09
Speaker 2: was copyrighted in two thousand eleven by Charles R. Swindall inc.
54:13
Speaker 2: All rights are reserved worldwide