Been There. Done That. Now What?
01/22/2006 - The Myth of More
All he ever really wanted in life was more. He wanted more money, so he parlayed inherited wealth into a billion dollar pile of assets. He wanted more fame, so he broke into Hollywood and while still in his twenties became a filmmaker and a star. He wanted more sensual pleasures, so he paid handsome sums to indulge his every sexual urge. He wanted more speed, so he broke world records flying planes faster than anyone ever before. He wanted more thrills, so he secretly dealt political favors so skillfully that two American presidents became his pawns. All he ever wanted was more.
He was absolutely convinced that more would bring him true satisfaction and happiness in life. Unfortunately, it didn't. He ended his life emaciated, colorless, with a sunken chest, grotesque, six inch long, corkscrew like fingernails, rotting, black teeth, tumors throughout his body, and innumerable needle marks from his ongoing addiction to drugs. Howard Hughes died believing the myth of more. He died a billionaire junkie, insane by all reasonable standards.
Howard Hughes' story is tragic. Director Martin Scorsese put his life on the big screen in a movie called The Aviator that last year won five Academy Awards. And if you saw that movie you saw a man who had it all … money, fame, power, good looks, a fertile, creative mind, everything, but peace and contentment and satisfaction in life. And to get that he thought he just needed to have a little more.
The author of the book of Ecclesiastes could certainly sympathize with Howard Hughes and countless others like him who have swallowed the myth of more. For you see he had more of everything than anyone else who ever lived and yet still couldn't find what he was looking for.
This morning we begin a new series called Been There. Done That. Now What? It's a series in which we're going to find out what the richest, wisest, most powerful man on earth discovered about money and sex and power and fame and a whole lot of other things. And we're going to do it by exploring his journal called Ecclesiastes and by entering his quest to uncover what life is all about.
If you have a Bible turn with me to the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. It's about halfway through your Bible and on page 472 in the Bibles we give out.
The name Ecclesiastes comes from the Greek word ecclesia which means”assembly.” It's the same Greek word from which we get our word “church.” Ecclesia means an assembly of people and Ecclesiastes means “one who calls the assembly or leads the assembly.”
So the title of the book refers to the person who addressed an audience of people kind of like we have here this morning. These are the words of the Teacher or the Preacher who would lead the public gatherings of Israel. And Ecclesiastes 1:1 identifies this person as the son of David, the king in Jerusalem.
This morning I want to look at the preface of this journal which is found in Ecclesiastes 1:1-3, The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem: 2“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” 3 What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?
As you can tell already this is a very positive, upbeat book! I'm sure the people in the assembly went home that day really pumped after hearing this message!
“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” Sounds depressing, doesn't it? And it is … if that's all there is to life.
Ecclesiastes is a strange book. It doesn't seem to fit with the rest of Scripture. One commentator called it the most mysterious book in the Bible. The ancient rabbis weren't even sure that Ecclesiastes belonged in the Bible. It was one of five books known as the Antilegomena that for various reasons were debated. Ezekiel and Proverbs were questioned because of some apparent internal contradictions, Esther because it never mentions God, Song of Solomon because it was way too sensual for the rabbis and Ecclesiastes because of its skeptical and cynical view of life.
So why are we taking the time to study this book together? Because it's there and we know that all Scripture is useful for teaching and rebuking and correcting and training in righteousness as the apostle Paul says and that includes Ecclesiastes. And because it's filled with wisdom that can bring perspective and clarity to our lives and save us from wasting them in the pursuit of things that don't satisfy. It can fuel our love for God and for each other as all Scripture was meant to do.
We're going to ponder it together as a community because it says in black and white the things we so often think about, but are too afraid to admit. The book is bold and honest and raw and draws us into the real life human struggle that we all face. Life isn't fair and we just can't figure it out. Ecclesiastes gives us a place to process and talk about the pain and the suffering and the injustices of life. And there's no better person to facilitate that process for us than the wisest human being, next to Jesus, who ever walked this earth. His name was King Solomon. And this is his story.
Solomon was the favored son of David and Bathsheba. He was a child of privilege whose name means “peaceful.” On his deathbed David ordered that Solomon be anointed king of Israel and offered this advice to his son found in 1 Kings 2:1-4, When the time drew near for David to die, he gave a charge to Solomon his son. 2“I am about to go the way of all the earth,” he said. “So be strong, show yourself a man, 3and observe what the LORD your God requires: Walk in his ways, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and requirements, as written in the Law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go, 4and that the LORD may keep his promise to me: ‘If your descendants watch how they live, and if they walk faithfully before me with all their heart and soul, you will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.'
Solomon lived around 1,000 years before Christ and ruled Israel for forty years during a time of great peace and prosperity. In fact, he led Israel to the zenith of its power. He wrote three of the sixty-six books in the Bible … the Song of Solomon when he was young and hopelessly in love, the book of Proverbs during the middle of his life when God was blessing everything he did, and the book of Ecclesiastes at the end of his life, when he was old, confused, cynical, and deceived by the myth of more.
It's been said of Solomon that when he was a young man he sang songs, when he was middle aged man he composed proverbs, and when he was old man he wrote of the emptiness of life. Solomon is the only individual on this planet who's ever been given a blank check by God who said fill in the amount. Tell me what you want me to do for you and I will do it.
Turn over to 1 Kings 3:3-15, Solomon showed his love for the LORD by walking according to the statutes of his father David, except that he offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places. 4The king went to Gibeon to offer sacrifices, for that was the most important high place, and Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. 5At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” 6Solomon answered, “You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day. 7“Now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. 8Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. 9So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?” 10The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. 11So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, 12I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. 13Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for—both riches and honor—so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. 14And if you walk in my ways and obey my statutes and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.” 15Then Solomon awoke—and he realized it had been a dream. He returned to Jerusalem, stood before the ark of the Lord's covenant and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then he gave a feast for all his court.
Solomon wrote “wisdom” on that blank check and God was so impressed that he gave him wealth and honor and power and a long life as a bonus.
And because of God's blessing this man had it all. He had great wealth. Turn to 1 Kings 10:14-15, The weight of the gold that Solomon received yearly was 666 talents, 15not including the revenues from merchants and traders and from all the Arabian kings and the governors of the land.
As king of Israel Solomon received 666 talents of gold each year. 666 talents equal about 25 tons which is 50,000 pounds or 800,000 ounces. At today's gold price of about $555 a troy ounce that's an income of $445,600,000 a year just in gold alone. That's a lot of money. I know that's more than I make!
He had great fame. Look at 1 Kings 10:23-25, King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. 24The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart. 25Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift—articles of silver and gold, robes, weapons and spices, and horses and mules.
Just like celebrities today, people wanted to know what Solomon thought on every conceivable subject and they traveled for all over the world to seek his counsel. They wanted to know what kind of clothes he wore and what toothpaste he used and what kind car he drove. If you talked to this guy at a dinner party he'd be an expert on construction, literature, medicine, film, poetry, music, gardening, technology, investments … the most fascinating person in the room. His picture was always on People magazine.
He had great power. 1 Kings 10:26-29 says, Solomon accumulated chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses, which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem. 27The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees in the foothills. 28Solomon's horses were imported from Egypt and from Kue—the royal merchants purchased them from Kue. 29They imported a chariot from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty. They also exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and of the Arameans.
Horses and chariots were the nuclear warheads of Solomon's generation. And he stockpiled them. He was so wealthy and powerful that silver was as common as rocks in Jerusalem.
He had great sex or at least it was available to him anyway he wanted it. His palace was steamier than Hugh Heffner's Playboy mansion. 1 Kings 11:1-3 says, King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. 2They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. 3He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.
There has never been a man like Solomon nor will there ever be. He was richer and more powerful than Bill Gates, George Bush, and Oprah Winfrey combined!
Solomon started out great. Everything he touched turned to gold. He couldn't ask for more. But then something happened to him, something went terribly wrong. It didn't happen overnight. It happened over time. His heart that once beat so hard and so fast for God gradually slowed down until it finally stopped beating at all.
And 1 Kings 11:4-6 gives us a clue why, As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. 5He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. 6So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD; he did not follow the LORD completely, as David his father had done.
Solomon turned away from God and started to follow other gods. And like so many who choose the same path he couldn't find what he was looking for. The term he uses is vanity translated “meaningless.” It's used 35 times in the book. The word literally means “vapor.” It's like the mist that comes out of our mouth when we speak on a cold, winter day. It's there and then it's gone. It's what you have left after a soap bubble pops.
In The Message Eugene Peterson translates Ecclesiastes 1:2-3 this way, Smoke, nothing but smoke. [That's what the Quester says.] There's nothing to anything—it's all smoke. What's there to show for a lifetime of work, a lifetime of working your fingers to the bone?
Vanity is when we've added everything up and the sum comes to zero, nothing, zip. Emptiness, futility, absurdity, frustration is where all Solomon's wealth, power, pleasure, and wisdom left him. What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?
That little phrase “under the sun” appears 29 times in the book and it's the key to understanding what's going on. It describes Solomon's perspective perfectly. He said he could see no advantage or profit in a life lived out under the sun. And he was right.
We will never begin to understand life if we look at it simply on a horizontal plane. “Flatland living,” as someone described it, will never make any sense. Solomon is absolutely correct in what he's observed. But is that the only way to look at life? Life apart from God is meaningless. Take God out of the equation and life has no purpose because the meaning of life cannot be found in life itself.
Ed Young has said, “After studying Solomon and seeking to understand his life, I am more convinced than ever that God gives us enough reasons for our faith to be reasonable, but not enough reasons to live by reason alone.”
Solomon is going to tell us in his journal what works and what doesn't work and he wants to prevent us from learning lessons the hard way. Ecclesiastes gives us the key to life, actually there are two keys. The first is to fear God. He speaks of fearing God in chapter seven and eight and then in his conclusion in chapter twelve. And the second key is to enjoy life. He mentions that ten times in the book. Life is to be lived joyfully and thankfully and responsibly before a holy God who will one day bring every deed into judgment.
Life without God is meaningless and purposeless, like soap bubbles. But life with God is meaningful and purposeful and lasts forever.
Old Solomon sat back and looked at all that he had done, built, conquered, acquired, achieved, and said, “Been there. Done that. Now what?” But how did that happen? He started out so well. What happened to the fire of his youth or the wisdom of his middle aged years? Like Howard Hughes, what became of this man who had everything under the sun?
Perhaps this story gives us a clue. A Danish philosopher tells the story of a spider who dropped a single strand down from the top rafter of an old barn and began to weave his web. Days, weeks, and months went by, and the web grew very large and very complex. It provided food for the spider as flies and mosquitoes and other small insects were caught in its elaborate maze. The spider built his web larger and larger until it was the envy of all the other spiders.
Then one day this productive spider was walking across his beautifully woven web admiring his work when he noticed a single strand going up into the darkness of the rafters. “I wonder why this is here?” he thought. “It doesn't serve to catch me any dinner.” And saying that, the spider climbed as high as he could and severed the single strand that held it all together. And when he did, the entire web tumbled to the floor of the barn taking the spider down with it.
That's what happened to Solomon. He forgot the single strand that sustained his life. He forgot the God who blessed him. And so as we prepare to take this journey together through the enigmas of life let's not forget the strand that holds it altogether and stay connected to the God who alone gives meaning and purpose.