The Problem with Wealth – Ecclesiastes 5:8-20

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He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver. That’s what the Bible teaches. We are being promoted constantly to love it. Money is the summum bonum to everything. It’s the highest good. It is the answer to all of my problems. And the acquisitions which my money brings, possessions, are being said to me constantly in the commercials we watch and hear, constantly is promoting me that if I only got that which they’re advertising, I would somehow be satisfied.

SPEAKER 01 : 0:54

Welcome to the Tuesday broadcast of Hope for Today. He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver. It’s a simple statement, and yet a devastating one as well. Because it exposes a lie we all feel, that if we just had a little more, we’d finally be content. But Ecclesiastes chapter 5 tells us that doesn’t work. Desire grows, anxiety grows, and satisfaction stays just out of reach. Today, Bible teacher David Hawking continues in Ecclesiastes 5, 8 through 20, with day two of his message, The Problem with Wealth. We’ll be back in a passage in just a moment. Just let me ask you something. Have you ever wondered if life is really worth the heartache, the struggle, the pain we so often find ourselves facing? That’s the dilemma David Hawking looks at in our featured power package, Is Life Worth Living? It includes David’s study of Ecclesiastes in book form and every audio message from our current radio series. The book and all the messages, the complete package, just $40. You can get it online at davidhawking.org. That’s davidhawking.org. Or by calling us at 875-BIBLE in the U.S. or 888-75-BIBLE in Canada. And Bible by the numbers is 242-53. And remember, your order helps keep Hope for Today going. And by the way, your prayers, they are so important as well. Please do pray for us. As promised, here’s David at Ecclesiastes 5, verses 8-20, the day two of The Problem with Wealth.

SPEAKER 04 : 2:47

If you see the oppression of the poor and the violent perversion of justice and righteousness in a province, do not marvel at the matter. For high official watches over high official, and higher officials are over them. Moreover, the profit of the land is for all. The king himself is served from the field. He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver, nor he who loves abundance with increase. This also is vanity. When goods increase, they increase who eat them. So what profit have the owners except to see them with their eyes? The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much. But the abundance of the rich will not permit him to sleep. There is a severe evil which I have seen under the sun. Riches kept for their owner to his hurt. But those riches perish through misfortune. When he begats a son, there is nothing in his hand. As he came from his mother’s womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and he shall take nothing from his labor, which he may carry away in his hand. And this also is a severe evil, that just exactly as he came, so shall he go. And what profit or advantage has he who has labored for the wind? All his days he also eats in darkness, and he has much sorrow and sickness and anger.” Here is what I have seen. It is good and fitting for one to eat and drink and to enjoy the good of all his labor in which he toils under the sun all the days of his life which God gives him, for it is his heritage. As for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth and given him power to eat of it, to receive his heritage and rejoice in his labor, this is the gift of God, for he will not dwell unduly on the days of his life. Because God keeps him busy with the joy of his heart. Our money, according to our Lord Jesus, is often what we are. How we use it reveals what we really are inside. What we do with our money reveals very much how much commitment and discipleship we really have in our lives and our relationship to Christ. It can cause great moral defilement, back to Ecclesiastes again, not only by punishing the poor and perverting justice and righteousness, but the writer brings up the matter of profiting from your position. And it’s by implication here in verse 9 as he says moreover, like in addition to all this I’ve just mentioned, the profit of the land is for all. How true that is in an agricultural society, isn’t it? That’s why the next statement says the king himself is served from the field. He’s got to live. There’s one area in which rich and poor are all equal in terms of our dependence upon the land in order to eat, in order to live. I look at this and I say, man, how many people have profited off the needs of others. I think of the profit of the land as probably the indication is here by the way it’s expressed of the whole problem of taxation. And I think of all this that we see in the Word. We say, where’s the justice? Where’s the rightness in all of this? And Solomon says, I’ll tell you what money does. Money puts you in a position where you profit off the very land that all of us supposedly are to participate in and to live off of, even the king himself. But the higher up you get, the more power, the more influence, the more position, the more wealth, the more you profit even off the basic needs of people. The other day I was standing outside of a grocery store. Gone in and I went around. I was looking for a box. And the guy says, well, just go around back, pick yourself up one. So I went out and back to look at the box. And I got there at the time they were dumping out. And you’ve probably seen that. You know, I just don’t. It isn’t my fun hobby to go to the grocery store on the backside and wait till they come out and watch them dump the food out. But I just happened to be there watching all this. And I thought to myself, all that stuff being dumped out, you know. You know, maybe some of it was rotten, but the majority of that stuff that was being dumped out is just, you know, it’s old, we’re putting in some new stuff, whatever. And I looked at all that stuff and the waste that goes on. You know what that is. I don’t need to bore you with those details. And I look at all the profiting off of it. even off of basic needs. And Solomon’s looking at all this as the wisest and wealthiest of the ancient world. And he’s saying, look, I’ve seen it all. It’s there. It’s corrupt. The system’s corrupt. And I say, is there anything new? We live in the same problem today that he lived in. What is he trying to tell us? He’s trying to tell us that money, friends, can cause moral defilement. And he illustrates it on a level where he ought to know. He experienced it. He knew what the problems were. And he’s trying to warn us. The Bible in the New Testament warns us. Be careful about it. The love of it can lead you into all kinds of trouble. Be careful. Turn over to Proverbs 11, please. Proverbs 11, look at verse 24. These words, so relevant even for today, even though they’re written many, many hundreds of years ago. Proverbs 11, verse 24. There is one who scatters, the Bible says, and yet increases more. Boy, is that an important principle. And there’s one who withholds more than is right. Boy, you see that in business life today. But the Bible says it leads to poverty. The generous soul will be made rich, and he who waters will also be watered himself. The people will curse him who withholds grain, but blessing will be on the head of him who sells it. You know, one of the neat things happening in our society is many church groups across America have now gotten involved in the gleaning of the fields. While I was up in the Northwest, they had article after article about it. How they go out to the fields where our agricultural experts have already picked it off to send it to the stores and our marketplaces here in the cities. But church groups are seeing that what they left behind is enough to feed many, many people who are hungry. And companies now are letting them go in there and glean those fields, just like they did in Bible times. And they were listing off various church agencies and all the grain and products and agricultural blessings they had pulled off after the companies had come in and taken theirs. And it was tons of stuff and they were feeding so many people. I read that stuff. I said, praise the Lord. Some Christians saw that. They saw that open door and they moved in there. And now they’re meeting the needs of a lot of people that are hungry. And I look at this and I say, hey, the Bible said this a long time ago. The people curse him with whole grain, but blessing is on the head of him who sells it. When you have a heart to minister. There’s one who scatters yet increases the more. I kind of agree with Senator Mark Hatfield, who in a speech at a Chicago prayer breakfast said this about the trouble of money and leadership. He said the more prestige and power a man gains, the harder it is for him to admit he is wrong. Whenever power becomes the aim of a man’s life, he unconsciously places himself above the laws of God and his fellow man. Every man who has a prominent position is under the continual temptation to use all means available, both lawful and unlawful, to maintain and augment his power and prestige. He’s in a place of grave moral danger. That’s all we’re reading in Ecclesiastes. If you’ll turn back there, please, to chapter 5, we’re saying that money, one of the problems with it is that it can cause, doesn’t need to, but it can cause moral defilement. Let’s talk practical. Let’s talk turkey. Let’s don’t mess around. If something I’ve said, just in passing, caused you to think about something in your life that you know is not right, I ask you the question as I ask myself, what are we going to do about it? What are we going to do about it? Are we going to go and try to make it right? Have we cheated? Have we done something wrong? Have we slipped something under the table? Have we tried something that isn’t right, isn’t lawful? We’ve done it, and we know we’ve done it. Now what are we going to do about it? I think it’s time again to understand that the Lord honors repentance. The Lord honors confession. Those who confess their sin and forsake it, the Bible says, will find compassion. But those who try to cover it, the Bible says, will not prosper. Yes, money can cause great moral defilement. Secondly, look at verse 10. Money also can cause great disappointment. In the emotional area, especially, or psychological area, it causes great disappointment. Verse 10 says, “…he who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver, nor he who loves abundance with increase. This also is vanity. When goods increase, they increase who eat them. So what profit have the owners except to see them with their eyes?” The sleep of a laboring man is sweet whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of the rich will not permit him to sleep. What are the problems here? Money can cause great disappointment in two areas. One, the lack of satisfaction. That’s verse 10 and 11. The lack of satisfaction. Did you think having the bucks, getting the big job, making the money, did you think that was going to bring you satisfaction? Obviously, you haven’t lived long if you believe that. It lacks satisfaction. And a second part of that great disappointment is a very fundamental and basic thing of all of us, and that is a lack of sleep. A lack of sleep. Now let’s take a look at the first problem, a lack of satisfaction. Now really three areas he mentions. One is the attraction of money. Verse 10. He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver. If you love it, you’re never going to be satisfied with it. Why? As Walter Kaiser says in his book on Ecclesiastes, human desire outruns acquisitions, no matter how large the acquisitions may be. Or to put it in a common man’s language, the more a man has, the more he wants. He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver. That’s what the Bible teaches. That’s kind of a teaching that almost seems to go out the window of our understanding in a world that is dominated by it. dominated by materialism, dominated by the dollar sign, and somebody to say he who loves it will not be satisfied with it. It almost seems strange to our ears because the world is getting us to love it. They want us to love it. It’s a part of what the system is that God says don’t love the world or anything in it. But man, we are facing it every day, aren’t we? We are being promoted constantly to love it. Money is the summum bonum to everything. It’s the highest good. It is the answer to all of my problems. And the acquisitions which my money brings, possessions, are being said to me constantly in the commercials we watch and hear, constantly is promoting me that if I only got that which they’re advertising, I would somehow be satisfied. How foolish this whole thing is. That’s what the world system is. And we sit here sometimes, we ask what it is. That’s what it is. It’s the philosophy of an unbeliever outside of his knowledge of God. An unbeliever who says, if I only could get this, I would be happy. Getting has never brought happiness. But giving has. And our whole philosophy is wrong. Loving silver? What’s so different from Solomon’s words than Paul in 1 Timothy 6.10, who says the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, which some coveting they have fallen into great sorrows and got much pain in their lives. Those who want to be rich, 1 Timothy 6.9, fall into many temptations and snares and traps. Do we want to get rich? I’m saying this, and if I really asked you and you responded, you’d say, hey, man, do I want to? Hey, my whole life’s governed that way. And it takes some years and maturity to understand the problems. So when you’re on the social ladder and you’re climbing, when you’re in the arena of business and you’re trying to get better this year than you were last year, and you’re trying to make the bucks and you’re trying to succeed, and you’ve been told that that will bring you self-worth, which is dumb, but you were being told that, I’ll be important now if I just get successful. But talk to the old heads. Talk to the gray hairs. And ask them if it brings it. How foolish we are. Lack of satisfaction. Some of the world’s most unhappy people, as you all know, are the millionaires of this world. Billionaires. Unhappy. And they are increasing in number daily. Millionaires are increasing every day in this country. People are becoming, in assets, millionaires. But one of the funny things about this is that no one can really tell exactly what the meaning of that is. In one man’s case, he might have liquid cash. In another man’s case, he might have it in investments, which all depends upon the market and the value which people are placing upon the things which he owns. And it’s getting funny as you read even the descriptions and definitions of wealth. And even wealth today in the great information society, which isn’t so much related to what we actually have in possessions, but what we have out there that’s continuing to move. Do you understand what I’m saying? And so we are marketing our money. And we are doing more things with it than we’ve ever done before. And can do more things with it. And we keep adding and keep doing and keep investing. And well, we should. But the question is, what for? What for? What are you after? Now, if you love that, that’s where your heart is. That’s where your treasure is. Solomon says you are headed for terrible ruin. There will be no satisfaction in your heart and in your life. As you get old, you’ll get more miserable. And the ability to enjoy life will not be there because one simple fact. You love this stuff. I asked a friend of mine, we were talking about this coming message, about what he thought about what Solomon said. And, you know, it was just kind of cute. We were just standing, talking, and he just wanted me to understand the problem. He says, Pastor, shoot that verse back to me again. I said, what are you doing? He says, oh, just, love that stuff. I said, come on, come on. He was just, you know, rubbing it in a little bit. But, you know, isn’t it true? That’s much the way we are. We love that stuff so much that we feel empty without it. I’m broke today, people say. What does that mean? Well, it means I haven’t got any money in my pocket. That means you’re worthless, right? Amen? There’s nothing you can do. I don’t have any money. I’m not going to get through the day. Money is the answer to everything. That’s what we’re being taught. And Solomon said long ago that it will never bring satisfaction. So why are we doing this? Why are we doing it? The bottom line behind this is, according to the Bible, if that is your particular desire, it’s going to take your heart away from the Lord. Did you know that? It’s going to take your heart away from the Lord. I wonder what the Lord would really see about us. What would he see? Would he really see commitment in our hearts to him? Would he really see one as a steward who’s just trying to manage his money? Great disappointment, lack of satisfaction, not only in traction of money, but even in the abundance of money. Look at verse 10. He who loves abundance with increase. This is also vanity. It’s emptiness. There’s nothing there. And even in the advantage of money, look at verse 11. All you businessmen, is this a practical one? Businesswomen, look at this. When goods increase, they increase who eat them. So what advantage have the owners except to see them with their eyes? I was just talking with a businessman. The company had been growing, more people being employed, but the trouble is the amount that he’s able to take out is now less than when he started before he got all these employees. Now you say, well, boy, he’s really wealthy. You look at all he’s doing and all his business is blessing, but the actual money he’s taken out of the business is less than he had before he started all of this. And now he’s got all these benefits and problems, and, you know, he has got a mess. And he says, you know what the problem is? He says, it’s hard to sleep at night. Hmm. Verse 12. The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of the rich will not permit him to sleep. Lack of satisfaction, lack of sleep. Increased wealth brings increased taxation, increased burdens. Riches have a knack of disappearing down a drain of increased responsibilities, it seems to me.

SPEAKER 01 : 19:56

Now, that’s David Hawking, and you’re listening to Hope for Today. David will be back to close out our time in just a moment or so, so do stay with us. Now, Matt and I have something you’re going to love.

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Matt? Ecclesiastes is one of the most profound and needed messages for our culture today. It is written by the wisest man who ever lived, King Solomon.

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Solomon describes himself, Matt, as you know. As the preacher and his divinely inspired writing in the biblical text is a reflection on all that life offers, which is vanity without a relationship to God. Yeah, Solomon had it all.

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He had fame, wealth, wisdom, pleasures in abundance. A flood of all that the world holds valuable. But he grew to be utterly devout. Yeah, the accumulation of it all did not bring him happiness or peace. No, he learned the hard way, what Jesus taught in Matthew 6, 24. Matt, you’ve got that there. No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon, which is money, from Matthew 6, 24. Again, yeah.

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In our Ecclesiastes radio series and in his book, Is Life Worth Living?, David Hawking will show you Solomon’s divinely inspired reflections on these matters. You see, Solomon discovered, and this book and radio series will help you discover all of life as God intends.

SPEAKER 02 : 21:16

And if your life is rightly related to him, it will be abundantly worth living. And right now we have an excellent value package for you that combines my dad’s book on Ecclesiastes titled, Is Life Worth Living?

SPEAKER 01 : 21:26

Plus the complete collections of David’s messages in our current Ecclesiastes radio series. Now we’re going to be in Ecclesiastes, Matt, for several weeks. And with this package, listeners will have the book, which is a powerful study guide.

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And the complete series saved and secured on audio for years to come.

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Order the Is Life Worth Living package. How much is it, Matt?

SPEAKER 1 : 21:46

$40.

SPEAKER 01 : 21:46

$40. You can order by phone or online today. To get your copy of the Is Life Worth Living Ecclesiastes package, visit davidhawking.org or call us at 800-75-BIBLE in the U.S., 888-75-BIBLE in Canada. And again, Bible by the numbers 24253. And as we step into a new month of ministry, let’s call it what it is. Hope for Today does not exist by accident. It exists because people who believe God’s words should go out clear, strong, not watered down, decide to stand with us in ministry. Your gift doesn’t go into a black hole. It buys airtime. It funds production, pushes the signal further. It keeps our website online, reaching all around the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ and the teaching of God’s word. Whatever the Lord puts on your heart, large or small, it all counts. So if you feel like God would have you show your support, joining with us in ministry, you can give online at davidhocking.org. That’s davidhocking.org. By phone, call us at 800-75-BIBLE in the U.S., 888-75-BIBLE in Canada. Now, many folks prefer to write letters to us. We sure do appreciate those letters. In the U.S., write to Hope for Today, Box 3927. Tustin, California, 92781. In Canada, write to Hope for Today, Box 15011, RPO, Seven Oaks, Abbotsford, B.C., V2S, 8P1. And again, here’s David.

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Do you remember reading in the New Testament about a guy who decided that he had so much coming in and he’s so productive and so much wealth that He’s going to build bigger barns to hold it all. You remember that? And the Bible says our Lord Yeshua telling the story said, Thou fool, this night thy soul will be required of thee. And then whose will those things be? You know, folks, we brought nothing into this world, and it’s certain we can’t take anything out. I think we need to be careful about even about the emotional damage that a lot of money brings to you. Oh, a lot of folks say who get the money to start with, well, hey, this is a blessing to have money, to be able to take care of all your bills and have money to spend and so forth. But folks, the possession of money or the lack of it tears a lot of people up, and it can devastate a marriage. I think we need to understand what God says about our money. Our Lord Yeshua talked a lot about money. Money is a great tool to be used for the Lord, to take care of human needs. And having food and clothing, 1 Timothy 6 says, be content. The whole issue is being contented with the things that you have. when you constantly want something more, you have this great desire to be rich and wealthy, God says that’s going to plunge you into a lot of heartache, going to cause a lot of trouble. And we need to face that. Have you ever laid all your wealth at the feet of the Lord and said, Lord, I want you to use this for your glory. I want you to teach me and show me. And instead of praying it all in front of people, why not use it to be a blessing to people? Well, you sure are a blessing to us. We thank you for your support. We can’t keep doing this without you. God bless you.

SPEAKER 01 : 25:40

Well, thank you, David. My friend, if you’d like to respond to David’s request, call us at 875-BIBLE in the U.S., 888-75-BIBLE in Canada, or give at davidhawking.org. That’s davidhawking.org. Tomorrow on Hope for Today, Solomon goes even further and exposes what money can never fix, why more is never enough, and why the heart never stops wanting, and why true contentment, true contentment only comes from God. Well, don’t miss day three of The Problem with Wealth from Ecclesiastes chapter five. We’ll see you then right here on Hope for Today.