I spent several days this week at a local pastor’s conference. One of the speakers of this conference did his best to convince us to preach through the book of Ecclesiastes. Now, if you are not familiar with the Bible, you might have never even heard of this book. It’s not like it is the book of Genesis or Revelation. It is a small book buried after the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament. But it is a book that is packed with information that addresses a real issue in our world today.
The book is written by King Solomon, the wisest and richest man to ever live. It is a book that he wrote at the end of his life, a memoir of sorts, as he looks back at all the ways he tried to find fulfillment and satisfaction on this earth.
Maybe we should pause there. We can easily see ourselves in his desire for satisfaction. I do not know anyone who doesn’t want this life to be fulfilling. We want it to mean something. We want it to be heading somewhere. We want to get to the end of it all and it have been worth something.
But unfortunately, the more we strive to attain and get, the less satisfied we become. As Mick Jagger and Keith Richards reminds us, we try and we try and we try, but never seem to find the satisfaction we are looking for.
As Solomon sits in his rocking chair evaluating his life, he realizes that everything he has accomplished in life has not brought the satisfaction he thought it would. He was crazy rich, but money didn’t do it for him. There was nobody in the same league as him in regards to wisdom, yet wisdom doesn’t stop death from knocking on his door. He pursued pleasures of women, but those pursuits proved vain. He built houses and parks for himself, but that left him empty. He even talks about his pursuits of alcohol . . . nope, that didn’t work either.
It really is an interesting book. You should read it. He explains all the ways in which he tried and failed to find happiness. I have no doubt they were all enjoyable in the moment, but they all proved to be empty. Hundreds of years later, Jesus will ask, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26)
Solomon’s answer to that question is NOTHING. He may gain the entire world, but it will never bring satisfaction for his soul. And so, after detailing how he tried and never attained fulfillment, he closes with these powerful words: “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13)
Satisfaction will never be found in more stuff on this earth. It is only in getting beyond this world that we find the fulfillment we have been searching for our entire life.
Fear God and keep his commandments.
