Contentment and Joy Amidst the Contradictions of Life Ecclesiastes 6-7 Dan Brooks, Pastor Sunday Evening, January 19, 2014 Intro: We ve just come out of Ecclesiastes 5 and heard Solomon reach another conclusion regarding life. 5:18 20 18 Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. 19 Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil this is the gift of God. 20 For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart. But Solomon has observed something else that he says is evil or a serious tragedy as translated in the NLT. For God to keep us occupied with joy He has to make sure that we have the right perspective on our lives. I. PROSPERITY ISN T ALWAYS GOOD (6:1-12). A. Prosperity comes from God (2a). 1. Wealth 2. Possessions 3. Honor 4. Seems like these are the right ingredients for a great life, don t you think? 5. Quotation: While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery (Groucho Marx) 6. Question: Why aren t the world s richest people always the most content and satisfied? B. Power to enjoy prosperity comes from God (2b-8). 1. Power to enjoy them (2): ל) (א כ lit., Power to eat. a. This is in contrast to 5:19 b. Prosperity without the divine gift of enjoyment is nothing. 1 2. His soul is not satisfied (3): (שׂבע) to eat or drink one s fill a. One could have the things men dream of which in Old Testament terms meant children by the score, and years of life by the thousand and still depart unnoticed, unlamented and unfulfilled. 2 b. Life s good things in and of themselves, like having many children and a long life, cannot satisfy our desires. c. Things don t have the power in themselves to satisfy us. 1) Ill.: It s like expecting your coffee to supply the RDA of vitamin C. It s not in there! d. Better to be stillborn than to have prosperity without satisfaction! 1) Why is a stillborn baby better off than this man? 2) A stillborn baby finds rest that eludes this man in his life. e. Question: Do godly people struggle with this same thing? (Compare Job 3:11-13; Jeremiah 20:14-18.) 3. His appetite is not satisfied (7): (מלא) filled a. Here is a man who works hard so that he can eat--and he s able to put really good food on the table--but his soul remains hungry for more. 4. Is there really any benefit to living this life? (8) a. Wise or fool? [Rich or] poor? b. A: Not without the power to enjoy life! 1 Kaiser, 80. 2 Kidner, 59.
P a g e 2 C. Contentment is better than prosperity (9-12). 1. Defining contentment: satisfaction with things as they are. 2. A proverb: better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the appetite a. Appetite: פ שׁ) (נ also translated soul as in 6:7. b. At the heart of discontentment is a wandering soul. c. Question: Is your soul spending time at home these days or is it restless and on the prowl? 3. Christian contentment is the result of: a. Accepting our place in God s world (10) 1) He is not able to dispute with one stronger than he. 2) The poet James Weldon Johnson wrote a famous work titled God s Trombones and in that work is a piece titled The Prodigal Son. It begins with the lines: Young man Young man Your arm s too short to box with God. 3) You and I are not able to dispute with the God who is stronger than we. b. Trusting God for what is good in my life (12) 1) Who knows what is good for man? 2) Who can tell a man what will be after him? 3) The only right question to both of these questions is God! c. Look up the following NT passages. Do they agree or disagree with Solomon? 1) Php 4:11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 2) 1 Ti 6:8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. 3) Heb 13:5 Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. a. Today the business world contains many clever men who work hard because they are obsessed with piling up money, while on the other side there are those who are ever alert for a quick profit honest or dishonest. In between come the average men and women who, though poor in material things, have come to terms with life (v. 8b). They also work for their living but are content with what they have ( what the eye sees ), without the wandering desire that tries to grasp the elusive wind (v. 9). 3 4. Prosperity without the power to enjoy it is a curse. 5. Contentment is always best. D. Application Questions: 1. Are you satisfied in life? 2. If yes, then praise God for giving you the power to enjoy your work, possessions and relationships. 3. If no, then are you seeking satisfaction in something other than God? a. Are you expecting to be satisfied through the people around you? b. Are you expecting to be satisfied through the opportunities in front of you? c. Are you asking God to give you power to enjoy your life as it is and practicing contentment with things as they are? II. PAIN ISN T ALWAYS BAD (7:1-10). 3 J. Stafford Wright, Ecclesiastes, in The Expositor s Bible Commentary: Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 5 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1991), 1172.
P a g e 3 A. Funerals are better than parties (1-4). 1. Funerals remind us of the value of a good reputation (1). a. Note: Solomon uses a play on words in these comparisons 1) 7:1 name (Hebrew shem) and ointment (Hebrew shemen) 2) 7:5-6 song (Hebrew shir) and pot (Hebrew sir) and thorns (Hebrew sirim). 3) A comparison in English might be As the noise of nettles under the kettle. 4 b. Good name and precious ointment c. day of death and day of birth d. Point: A good name and a life well-lived both have influence beyond their own existence. Perfume spreads its fragrance beyond where it is applied. A life well-lived spreads its influence beyond its duration. 2. Funerals remind us of our final destination (2-4). a. This the end of all mankind, and the living lay it to heart 1) Point: Every house eventually becomes a house of morning. 2) Question: Do you ever think about the end of your life? We should. 3) Colleen Ritzer was a teacher at Danvers High School in Danvers, Mass. One of her students, a 14-year-old boy, murdered her this past October. The nation was stunned by the brutality of the crime. At her funeral The Rev. Peter G. Gori... offered advice on how to approach Ritzer's death. Perhaps we should ask not why, or even how she died, but rather why and how did she live, Gori said. b. By sadness of face the heart is made glad 1) The sadness we experience while mourning the death of a relative or friend should result in wise living. 2) That ultimately translates into the kind of joy and gladness Ecclesiastes has been showing us all along. c. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning (4). 1) Wise people always keep their funeral in mind. 2) Testimony: Through the years I ve heard people say, I don t do funerals. 3) According to Solomon, doing funerals is a really good thing. I m not saying that you need to go out of your way to attend funeral services, but you ought never to avoid them when given the opportunity. 4) That s just morbid! 5) No, it s wisdom. 3. To be in the presence of sickness or death has a tendency to bring us quickly to the really crucial issues of life (Kaiser, 83). 4. Application: a. What kinds of things do you think about when you attend a funeral? 1) The person, the family, the testimony 2) The Gospel, the music, the eulogies. 3) Who attends; who s absent. 4) What your funeral will be like. 5) What the family and pastor will say about you. 6) Whether you want a visitation. (And I don t typically call it a viewing. I have to admit that I m bothered by that term.) 7) Whether you want flowers, what kind of casket. 4 Kaisser, 83.
P a g e 4 b. What kinds of things do you want your people to think about at a funeral? B. Rebuke is better than entertainment (5-6). 1. A wise man unveils the realities of life. a. Rebuke: (גּ ע ר ה) a correction that may include warning or alarm b. Proverbs 13:1 A wise son hears his father s instruction, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke. c. Proverbs 17:10 A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool. 2. A foolish friend masks the realities of life. a. His heart is set on trivialities (5). 1) Whereas the heart of fools is in the house of mirth: extravagant partying (4b), the song of fools seems to have no substance. 2) The song of fools is, if not immoral, yet morally and spiritually hollow, senseless, and unbridled madness. 5 3) Point: Choosing your music includes more than determining if it is good or bad, right or wrong. There is music that may pass the morality test, but fail the wisdom test. 4) It s just music about the trivial. b. His heart is entertained by those things lacking long-term significance (6). 1) The illustrating proverb: crackling of thorns under a pot. 2) Question: How long do thorns burn? 3) Illustration: Our recent acquisition of a wood stove. The hard, heavy, dry wood of the oak tree makes the best firewood. It burns hot and long. 4) The fool s laughter has as much substance in it as flames made from thorns. 3. Rebuke is better than trivial entertainment. C. Difficulty is sometimes better than ease (7-10). 1. Oppression sometimes drives the wise mad (7). a. The connection with the preceding is as follows: So great is the vanity of fools, and so powerfully and rapidly does it spread, like the blazing fire of thorns, that even the wise man is in danger of being infected by it; and deluded from the path of probity in consequence of brilliant positions of power, striving after riches, offers of presents or bribes. 6 2. Patience only develops in difficulty (8). a. It is better to wait for God s timing than to be impatient (Kaiser, 84). b. It is better quietly to await the course of an affair until its issue, and not to judge and act until then, than to proceed rashly and with passionate haste, and bring upon one s self its bad consequences. 7 3. Self-control is only seen in the face of irritation (9). a. Be not quick in your spirit to become angry 1) Don t let yourself be easily agitated. b. Anger lodges in the heart of fools 1) Anger: vexation, a feeling of anxiety; strong displeasure, frustration 4. Contentment is best displayed in difficult circumstances (10). a. Say not, Why were the former days better than these? 1) They weren t really better! 2) Finding fault with the present, and a one-sided praise of past times, is a well-known characteristic of peevish and fretful dispositions. 8 5 Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 6 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), 727. 6 John Peter Lange et al., A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Ecclesiastes (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2008), 106. 7 Lange, 106.
P a g e 5 b. It is not from wisdom that you ask this. D. Application for Life 1. Make a list of the contradictions you struggle with. a. b. c. d. e. f. g. 2. How does Ecclesiastes address your struggles? 3. Are yours similar or identical to Solomon s? 4. What does God want you to focus on at this moment? 5. How will God s word make a difference in your life this coming week? 8 Lange, 106.