Ecclesiastes Chapter 2 Part 2

Shalom and welcome to via hafte yes Ryan a Hebrew phrase which means you shall love Israel we hope you'll stay with us for the next 30 minutes as our teacher dr. Baruch shares his expose Ettore teaching from the Bible dr. Baruch is the senior lecturer at the Zahra Avraham Institute based in Israel although all courses are taught in Hebrew at the Institute dr. Baruch is pleased to share this weekly address in English to find out more about our work in Israel please visit us on the web at love Israel you are G that's one word love Israel dot o RG now here's Baruch with today's lesson well we began last week or two weeks ago a study in the book of qohelet or Ecclesiastes and tonight we're going to finish up chapter two now we've seen some things we see that King is pursuing something and one of the ways that we can respond to what is he is pursuing is he wants satisfaction he wants something that has significance lasting significance and he's tried to find that in wisdom and knowledge and he said this led to vanity it led to pain and suffering and despair and therefore as we saw last week he tried to find it in pleasure in delight in the passion of his very being that flesh of his body also he pursued wealth and the accumulating of things and here again he found that this was futile it did not bring about anything that truly satisfied now there may be times of joy but sooner or later and usually sooner that joy gives away and the more that he acquired the more that he accomplished well there was joy but the joy seemed to depart faster and faster so once again he saw this as Hevel that word which means futility or vanity that which is here and then this dissipates so after making that conclusion we're going to press on today in the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 2 and look with me if you would to verse 12 we see here that King or Solomon he is pursuing but he's not finding lasting pleasure he says everything is vain or futility Under the Sun verse 12 and I turn to see wisdom and madness and folly now he's spoken about these three things and really madness and folly may be simply two words to describe simply a pursuit of fleshly desires of gratification of oneself so we have wisdom and we have this this self gratification and he said I've set my heart he's turned to see these two things for what is it for the man that comes after the king was it not already done and what he means by this is this the one who comes after me what's what's left for them he's saying that he's achieved everything so there's no goal that they can put higher than his he's achieved it there's nothing left to be seen as a obstacle to to overcome and obtain that which is on the other side so once again he says because of his life it's futile it's in vain for the ones who are going to follow after him he says in verse 13 and I looked and there was a advantage to wisdom more than than folly so he's making now an assessment neither one of these is going to really satisfy but when we compare them and that's what he's doing now in verse 13 when he compares wisdom their pursuit of knowledge and he compares that to simply the pursuit of pleasure of earthly satisfication and gratification of the body he says here there is an advantage of wisdom over that of folly as the advantage of light is greater than darkness and then he tells us in verse 14 the wise one his eyes are in his head now here it's kind of an idiom what he's saying is what he's going to take in remember eyes eyes are what you see what you bring into your inner being and he says the eyes are going to be in our head meaning it is better to pursue knowledge so he says in this first the wise one his eyes are in his head and the foolish one will in darkness he walks now what's he revealing here well he says there is some advantage to wisdom learning things having knowledge even a worldly knowledge there are some advantages to that it is superior to that which is just simply to try to pursue pleasure and delighting oneself and the fleshly carnal natures in fact what he says and this is pretty astute he says when you pursue pleasure when you set your sights on simply trying to bring gratification into your life it's going to bring darkness meaning you're not going to have the ability to perceive it is going to be something that leads you and we'll see this later on into deceit but when you pursue wisdom when you pursue knowledge there is some benefit from that now here again does it have a lasting benefit does it have eternal consequences to it when you learn the things of this world no but there are some limited not eternal benefits for knowledge and wisdom of this world so we read on in verse 14 once more he says the wise man his eyes are in his head but the foolish and darkness he walks and then he says also I know that an event now what event is he speaking to well he's speaking of death he says also I know that there's one event now this word Akkad one can be in this usage meaning sane there is the same event for the one who is wise in the one who is foolish he says one event will happen to all of them so what do we find here you can't escape death whether you pursue wisdom intelligence knowledge and knowing everything that one can know in this world even if you were to achieve all that one day you're still going to die and even though knowledge is better than folly and foolishness and the pursuit of pleasure in the end that one who is wise and that one who is foolish they come to from his perspective at this time that same and neither one of them escapes death now here's the problem I don't want to get ahead of ourselves or ahead of what King is revealing but if life is nothing more than the days that we have upon this world well even though there may be some advantage to being wise and knowledgeable in this world in the end the same things going to happen death and what does he say about death well keep reading in the scripture verse 15 I have said in my heart as an event of the foolish also it will be to me and why is my wisdom any better I have spoken in my heart that also this is vanity so he simply wants to set up this same truth that he is revealed and that is the same event happens and therefore despite his wisdom what do we know he says it's really in the end because of death no better and it leads to that same conclusion that it doesn't satisfy it doesn't give us a feeling of satisfaction or substance to it because it's temporal so he says this too is folly verse 16 he says for there is no remembrance of the wise with the foolish so he's doing a a comparison he's saying in the end when you look the wise one isn't going to be remembered really any differently than the foolish person now you might say well there are historical books for people who have demonstrated wisdom intelligence knowledge their accounts what they discovered the first time that this was revealed to humanity their names are still written there and that's true but what happens with time well eventually we forget them I'm sure the person that that discovered the will that invented that I mean they remembered him for a while until something better came along or it just became so commonplace it was forgotten but from an eternal perspective the wise one isn't going to be remembered any more than the foolish you can take the wisest person that ever lived upon this earth and if he's not in the kingdom god those of us and the kingdom of God we're not going to remember him that memory what he learned what he shared his knowledge is going to be forgotten and that's what he's saying here and once again throughout everything Solomon is saying is that he's looking for something that endures something that lasts something has eternal consequences and at the end whether you're wise and there's an advantage to that but in the end that wisdom that knowledge that you obtain it's going to be forgotten by you you're not going to be associated with it so there is no memory for the wise with the foolish and then it says lay olam forever from an eternal standpoint point he says they shake a VAR heya meme Hawaii which is an idiom it says you know basically those long days that faraway days in the past that have have gone away that have come and gone he says everything eventually is forgotten and how is the death of the wise with the foolish meaning how is there any difference between them therefore he says look at verse 17 when you have that perspective and the key thought here and this is very important what Solomon has been talking about for several verses is death and he's saying here death is such a killjoy I mean maybe if I could just go on and on and pursuing more knowledge and more knowledge or for the person more pleasure and more pleasure more satisfaction of the flesh gratification maybe if I was on going and didn't die that would be ok but he's always coming back to the reality that death is going to happen and death brings what he would say is abrupt end and after death whether it's a few years a few decades a few hundred years a few thousand years maybe that person's going to be remembered for 5,000 years but from an eternity standpoint eventually the time will come when they will be forgetten forgotten that that knowledge that they had well it's all going to be commonplace everyone is going to understand it and therefore there's going to be no more reason to remember that and therefore he says look again verse 17 he says I hate life for rah and that word means evil it means that which is in many places the opposite of God's will but here he simply says it's not producing what I'm looking for therefore I can't find it in life so I hate life and he says for the works of mine are evil which I've done under the the heavens or here under the Sun when it says evil just means it's not producing what he desires it's not satisfying to him so he calls it raw or bad he says these works don't accomplish what I want therefore they're not good look now to verse 17 at the end for everything is heaven everything is vain and wrote Ruach now we saw that expression in Chapter 1 wrote Rewa and it can be understood in two different ways the word Road can be friendship and therefore friendship with the win if your best friend is the win are you really having a good friend the wind comes and goes and it doesn't really matter there's nothing to the win secondly if we translate that as not the wind or excuse me not friendship but in another way which is eating it's as eating the wind not much taste no nutrition nothing comes from it and that's why some have said chasing the wind there's no point to it so over and over what we see here is Solomon saying no matter what I pursue no matter what I do there's no lasting effect to it it's like pursuing or eating or friendship with the world it just doesn't have anything of substance to it and that's why it says I hate life and all my deeds are our bed meaning they don't accomplish my desired results now move to verse 18 and I hate all my toil which I labored under the Sun why does he hate that now verse 18 the second half he says because I will leave it I will set it to a man that will be after me now he's learning something he's talking about all the effects of his labor what he's tutorial for whether its knowledge whether its possessions whether its wealth whatever it may be he says because of that that death that is going to to visit me it's going to happen to me because of that all which I have written down this knowledge that I have gained it's going to be passed to another and likewise all my wealth all my possessions everything that I have accumulated it's going to go to another I can't stop it when I'm not here someone else is going to get it and therefore it doesn't have any lasting nests for him he's not going to be satisfied because there's going to be another one that is in possession of it so he's not happy by that look now to verse 19 he says here and who knows that that this one's going to be wise or whether he's going to be foolish we don't know and therefore he says maybe he won't know how to utilize it and he has no in the end control of where's going to go now you say well today we do do we really well we can have a will we can have a contract that says I want this possessions this wealth to go to this person y know an individual that they received a trust fund and he had plenty of money to live for the rest of his life but you don't want that money and that satisfaction knowing that he would not have to work a day in his life it didn't please him it didn't satisfy him he wanted to achieve something so he started to he started to he started a business and he took that trust fund and he took the value of it in order to get loans for his business to achieve something that would give him him pleasure he thought well what happened well in a very short amount of time that business failed he thought he had kind of just unlimited resources but he found that when that business failed and he could not pay off his debt that he had to give up his trust fund so that wealth exceedingly wealth that was given to him that would last him several lifetimes well in a few short years someone else was in possession of it and that's why he says who knows in the end who's going to be getting what I've labored for all my life and in the end will that person who is in possession of it be wise or will be he be foolish for the one who rules over all my labor that I labored for all the wisdom that I have displayed under the heaven he says also this and then he says also this is vanity or futility of no lasting effect now looked to verse 20 so what's this response well in all of this we're going to see that um until this time we haven't seen all those Solomon has mentioned God he believes in God he really hasn't consulted God he hasn't prayed he has not been a sewer of scriptural truth no he acknowledges there is a God by some of the things that he said but he is not succumbing to biblical truth he is believing that he is the one that sets out and achieves based upon the wisdom and the knowledge that he has now much of that is from God but never less he's really not acknowledging God in his life and that's going to be very important towards the end of this book but look now to verse 20 what was his position how did he feel about himself it says in verse 20 and I went around and the word here's yesh that is not just disappointed but but in despair and just emotionally bankrupt because he is so dejected that he's not experiencing what he's longing for so I went around dejected of my heart discouraged concerning all the labor which I labored or toil which I toiled however you want to translate that word a mouth that was done underneath the Sun verse 21 for there is a man that his toil which he did was with wisdom and with knowledge and with cash wrong which is Talent but to a man that has not told in it he will get give his portion so he's saying here I accomplished this all with wisdom and understanding and with talent but in the end what's gonna happen it is going to go to someone who has not torold for it and someone else is going to get my portion and all of this is just not futility he says all of this is rah rah ba which is great to him great evil it means to him this just isn't right now here's the problem what we're going to learn is that Solomon at this time is approaching life from his own vantage point very foolish thing to do what we should be praying for what we should be seeking is God's perspective having him revealed to us how he see things so that we could respond under his wisdom not our wisdom and it's only when we are pursuing his purposes is there going to be anything of substance to what we do with our life and once again not wanting to get too ahead of myself it's only when you have a kingdom perspective when you realize that this age is just a vapor that means our life we're born today we die tomorrow from God's perspective what is a thousand years it's a day a fleen moment and therefore if we're not setting things are like building them edifying them upon that which is eternal that is the kingdom of God we're gonna have that same futility overtake us thinking that everything is vain everything has no lasting meaning and therefore everything is just evil and we're going to be discouraged just like Solomon was walking around discouraged in his heart well look now if you would to verse 22 for what does it make man in all of his labor and in all of the concepts the ideas of his heart so he's speaking here about two things he's speaking about what he has done and also what he has learned what he can imagine the ideas that he has in his heart he says you know what does this make a man all of his labor or toil and all the ideas of his heart that he toils with Under the Sun what's the end result of that and you know what we're gonna find well in the book of Revelation most of the things that we put our actions towards our deeds that we invest our intelligence most of those things even for the believer what we spend the vast majority of time on and then it's going to be destroyed by the judgment of God did you know that because you can and there's nothing wrong with with working so that you can have a a reasonable house to dwell in that you can have comfortable transportation when you go to work and come back and when you go from place to place now these things in and of themselves are not wicked or evil but what we realize is this people might say you know to pay off my house I took off I took a 30-year mortgage and therefore for 30 years I went to work and maybe four or five hours a day was just to pay that mortgage there's nothing wrong with that but in the end what's that house going to be a hundred years after you die or 200 or 500 in the end it's going to be not here and even if it is all these material things when God's kingdom comes it's going to be preceded by judgment and so much of what we labor for is going to be in a moment it's going to be destroyed what does the book of Revelation says it says that in an hour that just means a moment the wealth of the world is going to come to nothing so if our focus now we live in this world we are restricted to some things we have to work to have food have clothing have shelter obviously work it's not bad we're going to see that in a few minutes and although we needed to survive it doesn't have an eternal aspect to it and the things that we accumulate we might buy a home and be so pleased and delighted that we live in this location but you know what it's gonna wear out everything does and the joy the pleasure it is going to be diminishing no only those things that are of the kingdom are going to have a growing a satisfying and enduring aspect to them within our being of the soul the spirit of man so move on to verse 23 he says here for all of his days are pain in anger so when he looks at things from his perspective trying to find happiness and satisfactions in the work that he's done and when he says to work that he's done what his work has brought about his possessions in trying to find joy and pleasure in the gratification gratification of his self he says endian look again verse 23 for all of his days our pain and anger and his torment also in the nighttime lo Shahab Lebow which means his heart doesn't lay down meaning his heart doesn't have rest now here he's probably talking about heart and a sense of that that that spiritual peace it never stops what does he mean by that he never finds that spiritual peace that inner desire never rests because he's not finding it in these things so once more for all of his days are here makovan pain vikas anger is his torment also in the night his heart does not lay down also this it is vanity so everything that that really makes him him his labor he finds at nighttime no rest from it verse 24 but it is better for a man that he eats any drinks and he shows his soul meaning that he finds satisfaction in the work that he does that is good in his labor now we're getting someplace he says something the joy and what's better is not what our work produces but the work itself that we find a degree of joy and satisfaction and temporal contentment not in what our work produces but in the work itself and we find some great principles here and that is if you want to be wise in this world do something as an occupation that you enjoy the doing of it see many people they pick a profession based upon well I go to this book and if I become this type of profession let's just say a doctor well I'm gonna make this amount of money the average doctor makes this much money a year and therefore I'd like that much money because with that much money I can do this I can acquire this I can have this and so forth but if you don't like being a doctor what's gonna happen well in the end you are going to despise getting up and going to work and even these things that you work produce you're going to associate labor with those things and even though you thought that they were going to be an instrument of joy and satisfaction and pleasure and a feeling of achievement and then you're not going to find any of those things in what your salary being a doctor brought about so what he's saying here is fine it's better to find joy in eating and drinking now understand what that means that expression eating and drinking in the Bible means fellowship very seldom that people eat alone they would eat together they would have fellowship so what he's saying here find pleasure in people in relationship and find pleasure in what you're doing not what you're doing will bring about and the actions themselves so once more look if you would to verse 24 he says for there is nothing better in a man that he eats and drinks and he finds satisfaction of a her at nap show he shows his soul good in his labour that he finds satisfaction in his labour also this he says is from I saw also this I saw was from the hand of God now this is one of the few times that he's mentioning God in his discussion and once more he knows that there is God he allows for that but Solomon here isn't pursuing godliness he's pursuing joy satisfaction contentment something that has an eternal consequence in this world and here's the message there's nothing eternal about this world that's why we know that heaven and earth one day in the future it's good to pass away so don't pursue the things of this world that is not where satisfaction joy and contentment is going to be ultimately experienced so what does he say he says look at verse 25 key me yo how me a hush hoots me many he says and who for who and the ideas more than me is able to eat meaning achieve these things do since Solomon he had the ability to do two things he had the ability to choose what he wanted to do how he spent his time and he also had the resources to enjoy people so he could do what he wanted to do and he could do what he wanted to do who he wanted to do it with and he says who was in a better position than me but here's what he realizes despite that there was no lasting pleasure no eternal contentment in the same way that he said wisdom is better than folly he's saying now doing what you enjoy doing is better than what is the outcome of what you're doing so you better like how you spend your time invest yourself in work that you find satisfaction in that work not what the work produces secondly he says it's also good to eat and drink have fellowship with people but in the end this is not going to bring you that eat it's better it's more satisfying but it doesn't have that eternal aspect to it look now to our last verse verse 26 for a man that is good before him now good before him remember he has mentioned in this section God and he's talking about one who is good meaning one who is faithful to the will of God that God sees how he lives and he's pleased with that person so for the man that is good before him that God is pleased with God guess it says wisdom and knowledge and gladness so God is the one that gives these things now this is a big statement this is a conclusion that we need to write down and utilize and apply to our life that if we want wisdom and knowledge and gladness it comes from God not from what we can acquire in this world no if you pay close attention wisdom and knowledge of this world what did Paul what did Solomon say that it brought about it brought about pain and anger earlier on it says the same thing in Chapter one no it's only a godly wisdom a godly knowledge hey gladness that comes from God that he provides for those who are pleasing to him and then he says and to the Hotei now the Hotei is the sinner now it's interesting when we look at this 26 verse or last verse we are given two extremes to range of possibilities either the one who is good meaning doing God's will or the violator of God's Word and that is the sinner so there's only two types of people those who are obeying the Word of God the will of God and they're going to receive wisdom and knowledge and gladness but to the one who defies God with their life reject his will sees that what God wants is not good and pushes it aside it says the same sinner he gives in yon now an eon is the matter some Bibles will we'll translate this may be the the suffering or the affliction because it comes from that same word lod note which can mean to answer to respond to to be afflicted to be tormented but usually this word in yon is a matter so for the sooner God gives the the matter of gathering things like lace of a leek no slick knows it is to to bring in we could say so the sinner he is going to acquire things he's going to put them in that meaning he's going to store them away but what is God going to do God's gonna give it to the one who is good before him it says late tenth Latos lifts a high Elohim to get to give to the good one which is before God meaning according to God's standards of right and wrong good and evil and he says though in the end even though God will take from that sinner these things that he has acquired and he'll give it to the one who is good in his eyes and they'll receive it now a lot of people get all excited about that but what does Solomon say from an eternal perspective when we look at this from a kingdom perspective he says GoM's a heaven also this is futility or vanity why just because God gives you the possessions and the achievements of other people and that you have them in this lifetime do those achievements those possessions that wealth do they really satisfy do they make you a different person do they change you now you can utilize them but they don't make you different from who you are they don't have necessarily just receiving them and enjoying them doesn't have any eternal impact eternal consequences and in the end what you receive it will also be given to another or simply used so and then there's nothing lasting to it and therefore because Solomon is looking for the eternal he's not finding it he says it is vanity or futility and then he uses that same expression at the end or root Rua it is like friendship with the wind it is like eating a mill of when it is like pursuing or chasing after the wind one never stops it might slow down it may change directions but if it's not windy today it'll appear tomorrow you never can take a hold of a grass but control it be in command of the wind no the wind does what its will and therefore if we just look to Solomon's words in these first two chapters we find that when we pursue knowledge intelligence when we utilize as he says kiss your own the talents and the abilities that we have when we pursue the gratification of the flesh if we become the recipients of the things of other that God sees fit to pour them into our possession in the end none of those things satisfied none of those things achieve what Solomon is looking for within and you know what he's right now we need to remember one last thing before we close and what is that well we need to remember that Solomon is writing this book Ecclesiastes from a confessional standpoint what does that mean he's saying I've experienced this you don't need to go my route trust me I've done all these things and it's not the right way to go in the same way when he taught about love in the Song of Solomon Shir huh Shireen the Song of Songs he says this is not the right way to pursue love and enter into relationship so Solomon is giving us his experience the one who was in such a unique position he's king and he had for the most part unlimited resources and he had unparallel achievements he has done more than anyone more knowledge more wealth more achievements he's the king and he says none of this that I've achieved in and of myself in this world none of it gave me satisfaction there was nothing eternal from it that was pleasing to me it was all vanity of vanities futility of utility it was empty and it brought about in the end What did he say pain and it gave him anger and there was no peace when he would lay his head down at night there was no peace to his heart so Solomon's trying to teach us don't do what I did don't pursue these things because they're going to leave you totally and utterly dissatisfied so it is such a privilege to be able to read this book and learn from a master of this world so that we don't have to make those same mistakes and spend years learning what Solomon has already learned well let's conclude with prayer father God again we thank you for being our wisdom being the one who gives us true intelligence we are grateful to you that you have sought saw fit to give us truth through your word and that we can learn from the life of others that we might be wise enough to not choose the things of this world but to choose the eternal and to learn how important is those things that you reveal in your word that have kingdom connection Kingdom implications so father God thank you for being a God of Revelation bring the changes that you want for us to experience give us your wisdom knowledge so that we can pursue those things that are pleasing to you because when man pleases you you will give us your joy your gladness your satisfaction for it's that which truly is what we're seeking in the Blessed name of Messiah schewe we pray amen well until next week may God richly bless you as you pursue obedience being inspired by his revelation being individuals that are living a praise worthy life until next week Shalom well we hope you will benefit from today's message and share it with others please plan to join us each week at this time and on this channel for our broadcast of love Israel org again to find out more about us please visit our website love Israel not bow RG there you will find articles in numerous other lectures by Baruch these teachings are in video form may download them or watch them in streaming video until next week may the Lord bless you in our Messiah Yeshua that is Jesus as you walk with Him Shalom from Israel

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Length: 45min 47sec (2747 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 12 2018