Evil Under the Sun – Ecclesiastes 6

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Ask people who are older. Ask the people who have lived all their lives, accumulated all their hearts ever wanted, and yet never had peace with God. Never had inward satisfaction. The hurt, the pain grows with the years. It does not lessen. Until we find our peace in the Lord, we’re never going to know that inward satisfaction. You’re going to keep struggling, keep climbing, keep thinking you can somehow solve this problem yourself. But the peace, the joy, the happiness you’re looking for is found in your relationship to God. And he can make a day that the world would say is coming. He can make it exciting to you because you’re rightly related to him.

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Well, what a blessing it is to have you with us for this, the Friday edition of Hope for Today. We chase more. We grab for security. We stack up things. And still, still we lie awake at night empty. Ecclesiastes chapter 6 says the problem isn’t what we don’t have. It’s who we’re living without. Today, David Hawking continues his message titled Evil Under the Sun as God’s word exposes why nothing satisfies the soul until God himself does. And we’ll be back in the passage in just a moment. Here’s a quick word about the Home for Today Media Center at davidhawking.org. Listen, this is your hub for Bible teaching, audio, video message archives, and resources you can study on your own time and at your own pace. If you want to go deeper and you’re looking for solid, uncompromised Bible content, you’ll find it there under the Media tab at davidhawking.org. That’s davidhawking.org. Well, as promised, here’s David with day two of Evil Under the Sun. Our setting in Ecclesiastes chapter 6.

SPEAKER 01 : 2:19

Look at verse 6. Even if he lives a thousand years twice over. If he lives a thousand years twice over, that’d be like being Methuselah twice. But he has not seen goodness. Do not all go to one place. Now, a lot of people, when they read this in Ecclesiastes, they think it’s kind of morbid and discouraging and depressing. And Solomon continues to make us face death. And I’ve thought a lot about that. I believe our society runs away from that. We run away from that. We had a rash of books in the last couple of years on death, and it seems that some people are starting to write about it and get interested in it. But you know, death is a fact that’s all around us. People are dying every day. The chances that death affects us through a loved one dying or a friend dying, even this week, are very powerful, even the odds. There’s hardly a week goes by that someone, at least through extended family, has somebody who dies. Death is an inevitable fact. If you pick up your newspaper, you can read about a lot more in the community. Death is a fact. And Solomon continues to face us with death and man wants to run away from it. Now to a believer, hey, it’s no threat at all. Why? Because when you’re absent from the body, you’re present with the Lord. Paul said, I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better. So death becomes a blessing to the believer where it’s The end, the termination for the unbeliever. He thinks that’s it. It’s all over. There’s nothing more. So he fears it. Not because he might fear dying, the process of it, but because he fears it’s the end of everything he’s been living for, which hasn’t brought any peace anyway. So sometimes death to him can be the sweet escape. Death is a reality. And I see here the futility of life when there’s no inner satisfaction simply by his comment about the fate of both, regardless of whether it’s a stillborn child or a man who’s lived a thousand years twice over. So you got 2,000 years you lived. Both the stillborn child and you both head for the same fate. Both of you will die. So it’s death itself that is the great equalizer and causes us to once again think about our meaning, our purpose, and why we are living our lives and to whose glory is it. A third way in which I see that futility of life is in the contrast with a poor man in verses 7 to 9. Take a look at that for a moment. It says, all the labor of man is for his mouth. You know, I’ll say one thing about Solomon. He was the wisest of the ancient world, but he’s also sometimes the most blunt. Now, we don’t even talk like this, but Solomon lets us know the real truth. All the labor of man is for his mouth. And yet the soul is not satisfied. Take your Bibles and turn over to Proverbs chapter 16. Proverbs chapter 16. And look at verse 26. Same man wrote this. Proverbs 16, verse 26. The more, by the way, that you compare Proverbs with Ecclesiastes, the more you become aware of the person being the same writer, and that Solomon undoubtedly is quoting many of his previous Proverbs in the book of Ecclesiastes and referring to them. But in Proverbs 16, 26, this sounds like the same point in Ecclesiastes. It says, Now those are parallel statements. So the mouth, we learn, is a teaching of selfish pursuit. He labors for himself. Now come back to… Ecclesiastes again, and take a look at that again. Ecclesiastes 6, therefore, verse 7, when it says all the labor of man is for his mouth, it’s the same way of saying all the labor of man is for himself. We’re trying to do something for ourselves. And you know, a lot of times they tell men that they get their self-image through their work. By the way, I don’t believe that. I believe you get it from God. But anyway, a lot of people are trying to get it through their work. So if things are going well and you are productive and you are producing greatly at work, then you kind of feel like you’re worth something. If you aren’t producing or people are on your case all the time, then your self-image drops. Now, the way to handle that is never even think of your work as being the cause of good self-image. You look at it in relationship to God, not productivity. But all of the labor of man is for his mouth, for himself. Yet the Bible says the soul is not satisfied. Turn back to Proverbs again and look at chapter 30. There’s an interesting little proverb about why people aren’t satisfied. Proverbs chapter 30, beginning at verse 15. Now the problem here is that whether you’re rich or poor, the problem is that the soul, the inward man, is not satisfied. And here’s an interesting principle. In Proverbs 30, verse 15, it says, The leech has two daughters. Now I don’t know if you have ever had a leech attack you. I was swimming up in Crater Lake in Oregon once, and a leech got on me. Now, I don’t know if you have ever had a leech. It’s not, you know, I’m not asking you to go out and illustrate the sermon by running out and get a leech and see if this works. But that leech gets on you, and boy, they really go after you. It’s hard to stop those little things. And I really, when I read this verse, I read it with some, you know, interest, because I’ve had it happen to me. Now, here’s what it says. The leech has two daughters. Now, I did not know that. But anyway, the leech has two daughters. crying watch this crying give give now that just cracks me up first of all when you know what a leech is and then the fact that the two daughters of the leech are saying give give boy that is vivid to anyone who’s ever been you know attacked by a leech then it says there are three things that are never satisfied Solomon saying the soul is not satisfied four things never say it’s enough The grave, more people keep dying. You think once the grave got one dead in it, they wouldn’t want any more. The barren womb, the woman still wants a child because she’s barren. The earth is not satisfied with water. It drinks it up, but it always wants more. Why not one good rain and that’s it? We don’t need any more. But it needs more. And fire that never says enough. You put one wood in a fire, it ought to be enough. You put another wood, it keeps consuming it. It’s never enough. The leech has two daughters saying, give, give. This little proverb is really, really answering for us why our souls are not satisfied. Because we’re like a leech, still sucking it out of life. Trying to get everything we possibly can. And there’s no peace, there’s no contentment. Because the heart is not satisfied in its confidence of God and what God is doing. It’s after something else. I look at some people in the face, and you know, if you’ve got gray hairs, you really identify with this. Because you can look back over your life and you think about… How restless we often are. We want something. You can look at people in the eyes and you know they’re after something. And sometimes you just feel like saying, what is it that you are after? What is it that you want? What is making you so uptight? What are you after? A lot of people don’t know what they’re after. They might think it’s something they want and they get it and it still doesn’t satisfy. They still want more. They’re like the daughter of the leech, man. Give, give, give me more. I want more. But the more they get, the more unhappy they are, and the soul is never satisfied. Back to Ecclesiastes 6. Boy, you talk about practical stuff. This is where we live every day. And so the great evil is not only frustration of having everything you want and not being able to enjoy it, and the futility of life when there’s no inward satisfaction. But one more thing in verse 10 to 12, and that’s the failure of man to improve his situation. Now, you’re going to try. You’re going to be frustrated. And as we said before, you’re going to try and improve your situation. You say, hey, I can handle this. I can do better. I can solve my problem. I can get joy. And somebody will come along and say, here are three things you need to be joyful. And you will try to do those. You’ll try to do anything to improve your situation. The books that are in our bookstores are capitalizing on the unhappiness, the dissatisfaction of man. Book dealers will tell you that. Guys that are writing books and selling books will tell you that. The way they are marketing stuff today, it’s based on the dissatisfaction and the unhappiness of people. So the book titles will say something like, you can be a success. Amen. I read it and I get more depressed. You can win through intimidation. And I go out and try it and get punched in the nose. You know, and I read all this stuff for trying to help me to somehow achieve because I am deeply unhappy. Hey, society, as one writer says, is absolutely restless. We don’t know what we want. We don’t know what we’re after. We don’t know where we’re going. We’re just going for it with all of our hearts. It’s tragic when you think about it. You see, the real question, verse 11, is the last phrase, how is man the better? How is man the better? Man cannot improve his situation. Just four quick things. You can walk right through the text with him. Verse 10, he can’t change what he is. You cannot change what you are. Now, you’re going to try, but you cannot change what you are. It says, whatever one is, he’s been named already. You say, oh, you can go down and change your name. The word name is referring to character. Look at verse 1 of chapter 7. He takes up that theme, a good name is better than precious ointment. And that’s simply not talking about a title or wording. It’s talking about a character, the development of character. And that’s how the Hebrew word name is applied to people. It often is given late in life, sometimes when the child is 12 years old, to characterize the child. It refers to character. You can’t change what you are. Secondly, you can’t even contend with God about who you are. Look at verse 10. It says, For it is known that he is man, and he cannot contend with him who is mightier than he. You might say, God, I don’t like what you have done. I want you to rearrange my notes. I don’t like who you made. And often a poor self-image, listen carefully, often a poor self-image is really a bitterness toward God himself. Now you don’t want to say that, especially if you’re a Christian. But you’re upset with how things have happened in your life. So frequently we choose something else. Our parents, our circumstance, our weight or something. We’re choosing to blame that for a poor self-image. When in reality we’re blaming God. And that’s very important to understand. The truth is a lot of us are deeply unhappy with what has happened in our lives, whether marriage, family, my individual life, my appearance, my looks, whatever it is. We’re unhappy about something, and the ultimate blame, if you’re a Christian, you know, who made us, has to go back to God, who is working all things out. So I see sometimes the all things of God worked in my life as being category bad, not good. So I wind up, whether I want to, you know, ever say that to another Christian, probably not. But in my heart, I think, God, how come? And the whys to God. Why this? Why did you do this? As you’ve heard me say before, sometimes I think God should answer back, why not? I mean, it’s as though we don’t deserve what God has given to us. My friend, turn that around. Do you want to receive what God would give you if he based it on what you deserve? If he did that, we’d all be in hell. We wouldn’t get anything. So anything that does happen is a result of God’s grace. So what happens in a bad self-image is you often relate this to somebody else. So comparison with somebody else who you think is a little sharper, a little better, a little better off, fewer problems, a little more happiness, you compare yourself with them, and that is often the root of a bad self-image. It’s comparison. Instead of seeing all this from the hand of God. Why should I care whether somebody else is succeeding? I ought to be happy. The Bible says rejoice with them who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. But why do I start comparing myself with somebody else at work? Or with somebody else’s possessions? Why do I do this? It’s because man is controlled with the spirit of the leech. Give, give. And his soul is never satisfied. Because his confidence is not in the Lord. It’s in his own achievement. Who can contend with God? Paul said the same thing in Romans 9.20. Who are we to reply against God? Can the clay say to the one who formed it, why have you made me like this? There’s something wrong in our hearts when we even question. A third thing that I see in this text is that we can’t comprehend what’s good for us. And yet a lot of us think we can. Do you know what’s good for you? You say, hey, I know what’s good for me, man. I need a Ferrari. Hey, man, I know what’s good for me. Wait a minute. We don’t know what is good for us. That’s the bottom line. But a lot of us think we do. That text says, verse 12, Who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he passes like a shadow? The only answer to that, of course, is God. God knows. God’s causing all things to work together for good. No good thing will he withhold from them who walk uprightly. God has a lot of things to say in the Word to tell you, I know what’s good for you, and what I’m doing in your life is good for you. Don’t question me. Man cannot comprehend what is even good for him. And one other thing, he can’t control his future either. You talk about the failure of man to improve a situation, he can’t change what he is, he can’t contend or argue with God about it, he can’t comprehend what is good for him, and he can’t even control his future. As the last part of verse 12 says, Who can tell a man what will happen after him under the sun? We can’t control it. Walter Kaiser, in his book on Ecclesiastes, wrote, “…a man may possess wealth, honor, numerous children, long life, and virtually every outward good that anyone could possibly imagine, yet he can still be a very broken, dissatisfied, and unhappy person. Because prosperity without the divine gift of enjoyment is nothing.” God-given wealth without the God-given power to enjoy it is a great evil. And that is what Solomon is saying. This whole passage, and the book for that matter, ought to cause all of us to say, Hey, Lord, you’re in charge. You’re in charge. You have given everything. I am totally, 100% dependent upon you. It ought to cause me to strengthen my personal relationship with God. If you don’t know the Lord, it ought to cause you to get on your knees and plead for His mercy and to trust His method of salvation, which is Jesus Christ our Lord and His death on the cross. You ought to turn to him before it’s too late. If you are a Christian, you know the Lord. It ought to reestablish in all of our hearts the importance of our vertical relationship. We’re very hung up on the horizontal, and that will follow a good vertical, but not the other way around. Some of us are so pumped up on horizontal relationships that it substitutes for the relationship we ought to have with the living God. You know that, and I know that as a Christian. We can be constantly stroking each other and encouraging each other, which we ought to do. But that in itself can often substitute for our relationship with the living God who gives us all things to enjoy. I think this whole text urges all of us to say, God, we desperately need you in our life. And without you, there is no satisfaction.

SPEAKER 03 : 20:05

This is Hope for Today, the Bible teaching ministry of David Hawking. And David will be back in a moment or two with some closing comments, some additional teaching in just a moment. Stay with us. First, Matt and I have a tremendous home Bible study resource to help you get the absolute most out of our current series in Ecclesiastes.

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Matt? Inside Is Life Worth Living, my dad expresses his sincere desire and prayer that his study of Solomon’s messages in Ecclesiastes, under the direction and supervision of the Holy Spirit, will powerfully motivate and encourage your life.

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And in the application of its message, you will find wisdom, peace, and much joy as well. We’re offering Is Life Worth Living by David Hawking together with the complete set of audio messages for our current radio series in Ecclesiastes, the complete package for just $40. Well, hey, let’s take a quick look inside the pack for the topics covered. And Matt, this is incredible and so perfect for what our listening friends are facing today. Amen. I see the chapter one is all is vanity. Chapter two, Matt, living for your job.

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Oh, we got a time for everything, a time for judgment.

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Wow. In chapter five, the tragedies of life, Solomon’s reflections on that. Wow. The importance of friendship from chapter six. Chapter seven, Matt, what happened to integrity? Yeah, right. Chapter eight, the problem with wealth. How about chapters 10 and 11, the value of wisdom and the search for wisdom? Chapter 12, the problem of authority. Is there a problem with authority today? Nowadays, yeah. Chapter 13, how to enjoy what you do. Chapter 14, one event for all. And chapter 15, wisdom is better. Chapter 16, the characteristics. Of a fool. Wow. So much. Well, Matt, this and so much more are in store for you inside Is Life Worth Living? David Hawking’s 172-page deep dive into the riches of Ecclesiastes and inside our radio series in this power-packed Old Testament writing.

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Everything you’ll hear in the Ecclesiastes series on radio plus the book Is Life Worth Living are in our featured resource pack for just $40. The Is Life Worth Living Pack will bless you.

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And your purchase will bless and help the ministry of hope for today. At a donation to help us continue this radio and online outreach, or simply send your most generous contribution and join with us in ministry. And please continue praying for hope for today. To get your copy of the Is Life Worth Living Ecclesiastes package, visit davidhawking.org or call 800-75-BIBLE. That’s in the U.S. or in Canada, 888-75-BIBLE. And we want to take a moment to say thank you to all of you who are standing with Hope for Today through prayers and financial gifts. Listen, those prayers and those gifts make a real difference. They help cover airtime, support production, and keep God’s Word going out day after day to people here and around the world who are hungry for truth. By God’s grace, this program is even reaching places in the world that are often closed to the Bible. You know, if you’d like to stand with us as well, you can give online at davidhawking.org. That’s David, H-O-C-K-I-N-G.org. By phone at 875-BIBLE. In the U.S., 800-75-24253. Or in Canada, 888-75-BIBLE, 888-75-24253. If you’d like to send us a good old-fashioned letter, you can do that in the U.S. Send your letter to Hope for Today, Box 3927, Tustin, California, 92781. In Canada, write to Hope for Today, Box 15011, RPO 7 Oaks, Abbotsford, B.C., V2S 8P1.

SPEAKER 01 : 23:55

Well, let’s get back to David. Father, I thank you for your word. And I thank you, Lord, for reminding us again that the soul is restless until it finds its rest in thee. There are some of us that have been running around with our opinions of all of life and of other people. We’ve been making judgments on everything. And the real trouble is that we are not rightly related to you. We often spend more time with others than we do with you, O God. You have told us that if my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, will heal their land. You’ve exhorted us continually to seek you, to desire you, to delight in you, to trust you, to commit our way unto you, to love you with all of our hearts. God, I pray that by your Holy Spirit you draw all of us back to you right now. that we know that satisfaction is found because we have found you. In Jesus’ name, amen.

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Well, thank you, David. And Fred, if you missed any part of today’s program or a recent broadcast, you can catch up for a limited time at davidhawking.org. Just click on the radio tab and you’ll find our most recent broadcast available to listen again, along with a treasure trove of audio, video, and Bible study resources to help you go deeper in God’s Word. Please remember that when you purchase any of the resources or make a donation, it goes a long way toward helping us stay on the air and online. And it helps us keep on offering all the free resources you see on our homepage and in our media center. So thanks in advance for joining with us in ministry. Well, next time on the program, David takes us to Ecclesiastes chapter 7 for a look at the value of wisdom. Do we value wisdom sufficiently? Let’s find out as we bring you the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, next time on Hope for Today.