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ECCLESIASTES 6: 1-12 #8
WRESTLING WITH LIFE’S FRUSTRATIONS
If you would please, take out your Bibles and turn in them to the Book of Ecclesiastes, toward the middle of your Bible. Ecclesiastes chapter number 6. You know, one of the most ballyhooed athletes in American history is a guy by the name of Deion Sanders. “Neon Deion” one of the few athletes who had the ability to play both professional football and professional baseball. A guy who was very flashy and quick and fast; a guy who was pretty cocky. He was so good he could dominate a game; a handsome guy with a great smile. I remember them saying that Deion himself could basically cover one-half of the football field on defense. He was the guy who put “multi” in “multi-millionaire.”
It’s interesting. Robert Morgan was with his daughter and went to Atlanta to see a baseball game where Deion Sanders was playing at the time. As they came into the stadium, “Neon Deion” was warming up. Robert said this, “I was thinking to myself: ‘What would it feel like to race onto the field wearing a major league uniform being cheered by thousands?”‘ Then he said, “Deion later wrote about that period of his life: ‘I was in a bad situation. I was on the brink of having the best year of my baseball career, but my stepfather had just passed away, my wife was divorcing me, and it was all over newspapers that my family life was coming apart…I began to think that it was over for me, without realizing how bad off I was, I became suicidal.”
Robert goes on to say, “in the stands that day I thought: ‘They call him Mr. Millionaire Athlete, Prime Time Sanders. He is on top of the world’.” Deion later wrote: “I was running on empty, but I had to keep acting like I was the life of the party. Everybody depended on me for that. I was supposed to be the catalyst of the team. I was supposed to keep my energy and attitude together…but I was barely holding on.”
Robert goes on to say, “When the game ended, I caught a glimpse of Deion as he trotted off the field. With a wave to the crowd, he ducked into the tunnel and disappeared. Robert said, “I began to think about the lifestyles of the rich and famous.”
About the same time, Deion was writing of this era, “I remember sitting on the bench one day, emptying a whole bottle of Tylenol 3 capsules into my mouth right in front of the whole team. The players acted as if they didn’t even see it. I was crying out for someone to talk to me, to ask me about my situation, to care that I was dying inside, but who could have imagined that I was in so much pain…I was hurting. I had plenty of money and everything else a man could want, but I was desperately empty inside.”
Not long after that game, Robert Morgan read in the newspaper how Deion Sanders tried to kill himself by driving his custom-made sports car off the side of a cliff. How does this happen? How does this happen to a man who has “everything?” Well, the reality is that Deion Sanders did NOT have everything he really needed. What can we learn from him?
There is another person that we can learn from. His name is Solomon and he wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes. We, have over the last couple of months, taken a pause in our study of this book. We want to read and immerse ourselves in it this morning. I want to remind you that this is a confessional autobiography of a man who knew God, who drifted from God, who lived much of his life seeking fulfillment apart from God. And he basically says: “Don’t come this way.”
What we have in Ecclesiastes is a divine warning against attempting to find lasting fulfillment apart from God. As he writes this book, you will remember that his focus is on “life”, as I like to call it “life down under”. His focus is on the flatlands of earth. His focus is on one-dimensional living. He examines life on the human plane. He looks at life as we can see it and touch it and hear it and experience it.
Part of the strategy in the book is to counter some common assumptions that occur in life. I believe there are at least three of those that he counters in this book. Just to remind you: One is the assumption, well if I can do _________, if I can experience this (whatever goes in the blank), then I am going to know lasting fulfillment. That is an assumption many people have. A second assumption about life that people often have is, that life should be reasonably easy, life should be innately fair, and readily understandable. Literally, that is the way some people approach it. It ought to be pretty easy. It ought to be innately fair. And it should be easy to understand. But that is an assumption that is NOT true.
Then a third assumption about life that he counters in this book is the assumption that I don’t really need God. There are literally tens of thousands of people in this town who are operating by that assumption this very day. We have been reading a quote from Augustine that I think summarizes all this well, it says “He who has God has everything. He who does not have God has nothing. He who has God and everything has no more than he who has God alone.”
Ecclesiastes is a book that is written especially for young people to learn from, to tune into. By the way we have an outline of the book that is available. You can get this in the Welcome Center. It gives you the whole outline of the book.
Today, what I want to talk about as we come to Chapter 6, I have entitled the message “Wrestling with Life’s Frustrations.” This in some ways is a dark chapter, a difficult chapter even to understand. But one thing about Solomon is, he doesn’t flinch. He wants to point out that life can leave us numb; life can leave us empty; life can leave us feeling frustrated, especially if we think that genuine happiness can be found apart from God.
Let me give you the outline I have of Chapter 6. Basically, I think his flow of thought goes like this: Apart from God, number one, wealth, family and long life can fail to satisfy. That is verses 1-6. Apart from God, wealth, and family and long life can fail to satisfy. Secondly, he wants to say: Apart from God, Number two, our drives and our desires (the things that move us through life) can leave us feeling unfulfilled. That is Verses 7-9. Apart from God, our drives and desires can leave us unfulfilled. Thirdly, he wants to say in this chapter: Apart from God, life marches on as we grope in the dark for answers. That is verses 10-12. See, apart from God, life just marches on, and apart from God we are just groping around in the dark for answers. The underlying premise in all of this is that we were made to know God.
Richard Halverson, who was the Chaplain of the Senate for many years, says, “Man without God experiences an increasing hunger that finds less and less satisfaction in life. He learns more and more about less and less. He becomes increasingly insensitive to the basic realities of life, increasingly immune to the deep things of the heart and mind. He ends up with an insatiable appetite that gnaws and growls intermittently. He is God hungry. Man was made for God. His restlessness increases in ratio to his rebellion against the rule of God in his life until rebellion leads to total impasse, and man finds himself arriving at the ultimate in frustration and futility.”
Deion Sanders experienced that and Solomon researched it. The question of the day for me, and the question of the day for you is, will you and I learn from that? Will we learn from that?
Let’s look at Chapter 6. It begins first with that idea that, Apart from God, wealth, and family, and long life can fail to satisfy. We see that in Chapter 6, verses 1-6. Notice he says there in verse 1, “There is an evil which I have seen under the sun.” He’s saying, as I have gone around doing my observing of life, I notice this “is prevalent among men.” What I have seen is a common thing. It is all over the place. Notice he goes on to say, “ a man to whom God has given riches and wealth and honor—so that his soul lacks nothing of all that he desires—but God has not empowered him to eat from them.” God has given to individuals riches and honor and wealth. You do remember that God is the one who gives all of those things.
Keep your finger in Ecclesiastes 6. Go the left in your Bible to 2 Chronicles, Chapter I. You’ve got Samuel, you’ve got Kings, you’ve got Chronicles. 2nd Chronicles, Chapter 1, verse 11 says that God gave these things to Solomon in spades. In verse 11 God says to Solomon ‘Because you had this in mind, and you did not ask when God said you could have anything, you did not ask for riches, and wealth, and honor. You did not ask for long life but you have asked for wisdom and knowledge that you may rule My people. Then Wisdom and knowledge, (verse 12), has been granted to you. And I will give you riches, and wealth, and honor such as none of the kings who were before you has possessed nor those who will come after you.”‘
The wealthiest guy who ever lived; the greatest honor of anyone who has ever lived on the planet earth; the greatest wealth of anyone who ever lived. Solomon knew what he was talking about. He says, I see people who get riches, and wealth, and honor. They have the best vehicle you can buy. What is the hottest car you can possibly get today? Tell me… a Nissan 350Z? Anything else? I guess that carries that day right there! We are talking about someone who has got a Nissan 350Z. He’s got the best car; they’ve got all the latest electronics; and they always eat at the “chicest” of restaurants. But yet they still have, on the inside, a hollow feeling.
You notice it says that God ‘has not empowered him’ there in verse 2, God has not empowered him. The NIV says that, “God does not enable him to enjoy them.” Even the ability to enjoy things; to derive satisfaction from them; to draw pleasure from them, comes from the hand of God. Did you know that?
We saw that in Chapter 2, verse 25. It says, “For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without God?” He is the one who actually gives us the ability to get satisfaction and enjoyment and pleasure from these things! God is the one who gives us joy.
He goes on to talk about how, in The New American Standard 6:2, a foreigner ends up enjoying them. It is a little unclear what the scenario is: whether the person’s health fails, whether they end up dying, but somehow, they get ALL this stuff and they are really not able to enjoy it. And ultimately, a stranger gets the benefit from it.
Kind of interesting how that happened to Wildwood, because this facility in which we are located, it used to be the Redlands Racquet Club, a tennis club in Norman. It ended up going bankrupt and we were able to purchase this building at a fraction of its worth. See, someone built all this and were never able to get enjoyment out of it long term, and a stranger—which is you and me—ended up getting to enjoy it.
Notice he goes on to say in verse 3, “If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years.” Now this is what we like to call a “hyperbole” okay? There are men who would love to perhaps have the experience of fathering a hundred children, but that is virtually impossible with one wife, Okay? Right ladies? Yeah! If you calculate it out, 100 kids is 75 years of back-to-back pregnancies. That is not going to happen. But in a hyperbole, you overstate the case to make a point. He says, you have one hundred kids, a hundred of them, and “many years,” but his soul may not be satisfied with good things. And he says, he doesn’t even have a proper burial.
The implication seems to be—and the illustration—you could have a hundred kids, but there is no guarantee when you come to the end of your life that even a hundred kids are going to care for you at your deathbed. In fact, the implication seems to be that they may care less for you than they do for the inheritance. They are going to care more for the money than they really care for you!
By the way, I have seen that attitude when people are on their deathbed and right afterwards. It is interesting to watch as you observe that people care more about the money than the person who dies. He is saying, there are just no guarantees here.
Notice he goes on to say…this is kind of interesting, Solomon says, ”then I say, better the miscarriage than this guy.” Better a stillborn than this guy, “for it comes in futility and goes into obscurity; and its name is covered in obscurity.” A stillborn never sees the sun; it never knows anything; it is better off than he is. He is saying someone who thinks he is going to be able to enjoy all these things and then doesn’t get the opportunity—a stillborn is better off than he is.
Why would he say that? Well, a stillborn, one who is born without any life never experiences the problems of life; never experiences the frustrations of life; never experiences the disappointments of life. They never waste any of their time pursuing meaningless, empty things. They never live their life and end up at the end being empty-handed.
Notice what he goes on to say. There is more hyperbole in verse 6. Solomon says, “Even if the other man (in contrast to a stillborn) lives a thousand years twice.” The longest-living person we have the Bible was Methuselah, I believe it was 960 years. He says, even if a somebody lives two thousand years, they are not going to be better off if they go through all those years and they are not able to enjoy things. Life has curves. Life has dead ends. When you leave God out of the picture, you end up ultimately feeling empty and hollow; and confused and frustrated. Apart from God, wealth and family and long life even can fail to satisfy.
Now the second thing he wants to say in this chapter is that apart from God our drives and our desires can leave us feeling unfulfilled. That is verses 7-9. Look at those verses with me. It says, “All a man’s labor is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not satisfied. For what advantage does the wise man have over the fool? What advantage does the poor man have, knowing how to walk before the living?” Verse 9 – “What the eyes see is better than what the soul desires. This too is futility and striving after wind.”
What he is saying is, apart from God being involved, life is really like a treadmill. We desire to eat, we get the food, and soon we are hungry again. Apart from God, what is life really like? Life for us is a lot like birds. Birds spend their time building a nest, eating, and trying to escape their enemies.
By the way, at our house we have this light over our front door. It has a missing panel out of it that I can’t replace, and this bird keeps coming there and building a nest in my light. I leave my light on all night, so when that bird is in there it blocks the light. I am up there repeatedly pulling this junk out of there. I throw it behind the bushes. The same day it is full again. I pull the stuff out of there, throw it behind the bushes. I figure the bird can’t find it back there, you know, to make it work a little harder. But the bird doesn’t really know what is going on. The drive, the desire is to build this nest and I am not going to let it build the nest.
You know life is sometimes like that. We have these drives and desires to do things, and we do them, then we tum around and have to do them again. Sometimes we end up merely “existing.“ That is kind of the way birds are, they just exist, they don’t really live. That can happen to us when we deal God out of the equation.
In verse 9 he says something interesting. He says, “What the eyes see is better than what the soul desires.” I think the idea there is that things look like they are going to deliver more than they do. Have you ever experienced that in your life? Even the Nissan 350Z is probably like that. It looks like it is going to deliver more than it does. The New Living Translation translates this part of verse 9 as, “Enjoy what you have rather than desiring what you don’t have.” Enjoy what you have rather than desiring what you don’t have.
Have you ever noticed that sometimes we become so focused, so focused, on what we wish we had, that we feel unhappy and unfulfilled with the things that we have. Ever noticed that? We become so focused on the Nissan 350Z that we really can’t enjoy what we’ve got because we are so focused upon it.
What are you wishing for right now that you believe if you got it, THEN you would be happy? What are you wishing for right now that you think: If I could just get THAT, then I would be happy. Truly what Solomon is saying is that we need to cease and desist this whole approach. We are trying to cram things; we are trying to cram accomplishments and popularity and status, in a vain attempt to fill a God-shaped vacuum in our life—and it won’t do it! None of those things; none of those accomplishments; none of the popularity; none of the status that we have can fill the God-shaped vacuum.
You see, apart from God, wealth and family and long life can fail to satisfy. Apart from God, our drives and desires can leave us feeling unfulfilled.
Thirdly, Solomon wants to inform us that apart from God, life marches on as we grope in the dark for answers. We see that in verses 10-12. Notices what he says in verse 10, “Whatever exists has already been named, and it is known what man is; for he cannot dispute with him who is stronger than he is.” You know what he is saying in verse 10? The reality is: I am not the master of my own life. The reality is you are not the master of your own life.
He says in verse 10, “Whatever exists has already been named”. That is a little veiled to us, we are not sure what he is referring to there, but in Biblical times when you would name something, it was demonstrating that you were sovereign over it. In the creation, it is God who names heaven “heaven” and earth “earth”. In the creation, it is God who calls the light, “day”, and the dark, “night”. It is God who names man. By naming those God is demonstrating that he is sovereign over it.
Adam, you recall, in the Book of Beginnings names all of the animals because by naming the animals, he is demonstrating his sovereignty over it. What Solomon says is, what exists has already been named. God is the one who is already in complete charge of everything. He is the one who decrees what is going to happen in my life and your life. He is the one who is the true master.
So, he seems to be saying there in verse 10, you cannot dispute with someone who is stronger than you. If you are taking notes, you can just write down the phrase “You can’t fight with God.” Sometimes we try to do that, don’t we? We might object to what God is doing; we might start kicking and stomping our feet; we might start screaming and complaining, but when you get to the end of all of that—guess what, God is still sovereign.
I believe that we call a lot fewer shots in life than we even think we do. Someday when we get to Heaven, we are going to find out just how much God was in charge. A lot of times we say, “I want an explanation” and the answer always comes back “Daniel 4:35” – you can write that down and look it up later. I want an explanation God! Daniel 4:35. You need to explain this to me! Daniel 4:35. Wait a minute! I don’t like what… Daniel 4:35. He is the master. He is one who is in charge. We are not the center of the universe.
In fact, it is kind of interesting in verse 12. He asks an interesting question. He says, “For who knows what is good for a man during his lifetime during the few years of his life?” I mean, who really knows that is good? I like to pretend that I know what is good. I like to think that I know what is good. But Solomon is saying, really, when you look at it humanly, who really knows what is good for them? I mean, we think we know but do we really know?
Ray Stedman said this, “Do you ever wish for something you thought was just right for you, but then when you got it you wished you didn’t have it?” He said a high school boy once said to him, “I was praying, ‘Lord, if I could just go with that beautiful girl, I would be the happiest boy alive.”‘ That was his prayer. Then he related how he got acquainted with this girl and they went out a few times together. And then he shifted his prayer. He said, “Lord, if I could just get rid of this girl, I would be the happiest guy alive.”
Who really knows what’s good? Surely, we don’t, but God does. “Who knows (verse 12) what is good for a man during his lifetime, during the few years of his life.” Then notice it says at the end of the verse, “for who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun?” See, the truth is we do not know what is best for us. In fact, we really don’t even know the future. Dial back two years ago and if you said, Bruce, do you know that you are going to get prostate cancer? I had no idea that was coming. See, we don’t know what is best and we do not know the future. Apart from God, there are not ultimate answers.
I like what it says in verse 11. It says, “For there are many words which increase futility.” In other words, it says you can talk all you want about this stuff. You can spout braggadocio; you can play the game that you have got it all together, but the reality is you are just making noise. You are just making noise. Nothing more than that.
See, men and women, in our life we can either keep trying to cram things into the God-shaped vacuum in our life—whether it is stuff, whether it is money, having wealth, whether it is having popularity, notoriety, whatever it may be, accomplishments. We can keep trying to stuff and jam those things into the God-shaped vacuum OR we can set them down and look to the living God. Which is really what ”Neon Deion” did.
Robert Morgan went on tell the story of how things changed for Deion Sanders. Some of his friends began sharing with him the message of Jesus Christ. And one morning, in the wee hours, Deion Sanders opened his Bible to Romans chapter 1O, verses 9-10 and he read forty-three words that changed his life. “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes to righteousness and with the mouth confession is made to salvation.”
Deion wrote these words: he said, “The words hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew they were meant for me, and at that precise moment I was delivered. I put my trust in Jesus and asked him into my life. As soon as I realized what I had done I was so excited I had to tell somebody, so I got on the phone and called my attorney. I said ‘Eugene! Eugene! I did it!” What Deion, what did you do? “I got saved,” he said. I got delivered from the futility; I got delivered from the frustration in my life. I got rescued from the darkness I was in. I got rescued from divine judgment.
The question is, what are WE going to learn? What are we going to learn from Solomon?
I think if Solomon were to appear here and walk through those doors and come up on this stage, I think we would listen very carefully to what he had to say. The amazing thing is he is making an appearance in the letter that he wrote. Are we going to learn anything from this guy?
Are we going to learn from Deion?
Ed Young said, “A man can bail out, fog out, burn out, or blow out—but he will never understand what it means to truly live apart from a relationship with the Living God. He is the Person behind the purpose. He is the Storyteller behind the story of life.”
What are we going to learn? What are we going to learn? As we leave our study today I want us to think about some Life Response we can have from Ecclesiastes chapter six. I would like to build that response around two words.
The first word is Come and the second word is Start.
What do I mean by that? Well, the first Life Response we can have is to simply Come to Jesus Christ. There are some people here today and some people potentially listening to my voice in the future who need to do that. Who need to come to Jesus Christ. Who need to admit they really need to turn away from trying to live their life in futility. And turn to the one who loves them. The one who died for them. The one who wants to be the leader of their life…to save them…to deliver them.
Some of you have heard about Jesus Christ far too long…without coming to Him by faith.
We’re going to have a prayer opportunity in just a moment where you can do that if you’ve never done that. The first response is to Come to Jesus Christ.
The second response I think we can have is this: to Start Living in the Now. To Start Living in the Now. It’s just so easy for us to say, if I could just get married. If could just get that job. If I could just buy that. If I could just build a house. If I could just make this much money.
THEN I could be satisfied. And the problem with that is that too much of that is out there in the nether world that we’ll never see. We need to start living in the now.
You know what that really means? That means enjoy your food now. Don’t think about, if only I could have…a steak dinner. Or steak and shrimp and lobster, THEN, then I’ll be satisfied. Enjoy your food now.
Enjoy your home now. Enjoy your family and your friends now. Just don’t waste your life saying, IF ONLY, then. Start living in the now.
Let’s pray together. Father we really are amazed at how candid Solomon is in this book. And Lord it is amazing that we hear the story of Deion Sanders , with all that talent, and all that wealth, and all those privileges, all that ability, and yet he wasn’t happy apart from walking with God.
And we sort of believe that intellectually, maybe, but we don’t believe that emotionally. Somehow, we keep thinking IF I had all this stuff, THEN I’d be satisfied. Help us to realize, Lord, that it all comes back to the core—which is knowing God.
Father, I just want to say for any men and women we may have here who have never come to Christ that they might do so right now. In the quiet of their heart, they would be able to say to you “I acknowledge that You are the one in charge. I acknowledge that you are the Master of it all. I believe that you died for me. I believe that you cared for me from before the foundation of the world before I was ever born. And I believe that you want to deliver me into life that is as life was designed to be.
If that is your heart, would you just tell that to God? Say, it is time for me to lay some of this stuff down and turn to the person of Jesus Christ and allow him to be not only our forgiver, but also the leader in our life. Father, we thank you for loving us. We thank you for giving us the Book that shows us the way. We thank you that when life is lived your way, on your terms, that is when we really find lasting satisfaction. We pray these things in Jes