When Nothing Satisfies

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? Ecclesiastes 1:2-3

Are you satisfied with your life? I think many people in America are not. The countless number of self-help books in our bookstores bare testimony to this fact. Previously, America underwent tremendous hardships. Everybody looked forward to the “happiness” that peace, technology and economic prosperity would bring. When these elements did not deliver what they promised, the 60s generation rejected the consumerism of their parents and looked inward for answers.

And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind. Ecclesiastes 1:17

So we moved on to psychology, self-help, self reflection. The only problem is that many in the Boomer generation traded a bad theology for an even worse theology. You know “we are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.” All you have to do, they say, is look within you to find the things that give you purpose and happiness, and you’ll find contentment and satisfaction. Unfortunately, some “pastors” have even jumped on this bandwagon of what you can do to make yourself happy. Solomon discovered, however, that those who try to reform themselves are no better off then those who live carelessly; both group’s efforts are rendered as vanity by the grave.

Other voices within Christianity have tried to solve this problem by reducing faith to a set of rules or replacing a faith in Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice for a faith dependent on the amount of faith they have. If you follow these rules, if you have enough faith, everything will be hunky-dory. The problem is that at the end of the day good Christians and heathens suffer the same fate. Think about it, you live a perfect life and just as many Christians die as those who live a wonton lifestyle – 100 percent. What does all that clean living get you in the end? “Well it’s not the outcome but what happens in between” one might object. But once again Solomon concluded that moralism does not advance your material life any better than a life abandoned to sin. Christianity doesn’t do so good if you judge it strictly by what it will bring you in this life. When Solomon saw this, he stated in chapter 8 that you might as well eat, drink, and be merry, because it is all vanity.

I said of laughter, "It is mad," and of pleasure, "What use is it?" Ecclesiastes 2:2

Having given up on looking inward, we turned, once again, to an outward gaze … towards materialism. All you have to do is watch the videos of today’s younger artists to see this message being preached: you will be something and be happy if you have a big car, lots of gold, and several scantily clad women by your side. In all these things, Solomon was an expert. He made The Donald and Bill Gates look like beggars. Solomon had tested the limits of strict materialism to its limits and found it to be lacking. One gets the feeling from reading Ecclesiastes that the more he tried to please himself with the things of this world, without God, the more he fell into despair.

My friends, things have not changed in 3000 years since he wrote those words. This world is meaningless if there is no heaven and after life. The more we seek justice solely in this world, the more we’re frustrated. The criminal dies, as well as the victim and their families, without any sense of equanimity. What’s it all worth when both the innocent and the murderer suffer the same – the grave? What’s it all worth when the rich the poor both end up with nothing at the end of the life? What’s it all worth when the laughing and the solemn both end up in the unsatisfied and then in the grave?

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil. Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

Solomon began by looking at all these things with the mindset that this life is the only one we’ll live. This life is meaningless if you view this life as the only life we’ll live. Ultimately, you’ll always be disappointed if you judge this life solely by what your efforts pay off in this life. That is Solomon’s conclusion at the end of Ecclesiastes. He realized that all his efforts to satisfy himself by looking inward and outward were futile. He finally realized that our only hope is to look upward.

Success is not measured by what your efforts produce in this world but what they will produce in the eternal existence after this life. The life we live now is just a prelude, a training ground, for the life to come. The events of this life are made meaningful when they result in spending an eternity with God in heaven. There can only be justice in this world if there is a heaven and hell. We don’t really suffer the same fate as evildoers. Evildoers don’t really get off “scot free,” because they are eternally separated from God in hell, but we will spend eternity with Him. Our suffering or abstinence only has meaning if there is a heaven and hell. The “party’ers” don’t really suffer the same fate as those who abstain, because the path of pleasure only leads you further away from God. All of our striving for wisdom and self discovery only have meaning if there is a heaven and hell. Being wise is better then being a fool, because God will grant heaven to those who seek the wisdom of God. The world’s self-help isn’t better than the help of God. Those who reject God’s wisdom will experience destruction, while He grants perfect wisdom and freedom from our faults to all those who trust him. Heaven and hell make righteousness really righteous, justice really just, wisdom really wisdom.

Behold, these are but the outskirts of His ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of Him! But the thunder of His power who can understand?” Job 26:14

God created the world as a gift, a foretaste, so we should have some way of knowing who He is. His voice calls from the sunset, “I am more beautiful than this magnificent sight.” He shouts from the mountains, “I am larger and more powerful than the strongest rock.” He screams from the depths of space, “I am more vast than the incomprehensible reaches of space.” God has placed us in the center of these, so we can have some way of describing the indescribable greatness of God.

In all these things our souls are restless. God intended it to be that way. He’s placed it in our soul to be hungry for something more. This world, after all, is just a teaser for the life to come. It’s like the wonderful smell of turkey in your house on Thanksgiving Day. The smell is good but that’s not what you came for. Similarly, the world’s injustices and partial justices should make us look forward and crave that final justice. We feel the love of our family and friends but still feel frustrated by the barrier that divides us. I love my wife, but I know I hold on to so many things that keep our relationship from growing deeper. Likewise, now I only worship God with a part of my body. Sin and the tending to this body distract me from the praise, adoration, and worship that I owe God. Oh, that one day I might put off the constant nurturing of this flesh, so my attention might be solely devoted to you! Similarly, “now I know in part, but then, I will know even as I am known” (1Cor 13.12) I only know God with a portion of my mind; I obey him with only a portion of my body and strength. But then, I will be perfect and have the strength to know Him!

So, in the end, Solomon concluded that happiness isn’t found in looking inward or outward, but upward. We can add to this knowledge that success isn’t measured by what we can accomplish in this world but by what our lives will produce in our eternal existence after this life. This world is meaningless, if there is no heaven and hell.

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