READ Verse 1
Sometimes we might wonder, ‘Why is Ecclesiastes in the Bible?” Why did God put it here? What purpose does it serve?
Well, it serves a very important purpose. You see, sometimes we are tempted to think that life is about maximising pleasure. We think that somewhere out there someone out there is the sexpert. They get lots, and have discovered the secret to sexual pleasure.
We think this because our media and our entertainment industry is fascinated with sex and nudity and pleasure. Our movies and TV shows always talk about sex, implying that all these people are achieving complete and absolute sexual fulfilment. The covers of mainstream women’s magazines and health and fitness magazines proclaim it. Billboards promise it to us. You too will be able to do it for longer, if only you would go to some men’s clinic and pay lots of money to have something shoved up your nose. Pharmacy shop windows advertise ‘Horny Goat Weed’ or other aphrodisiacs to enhance sexual performance, whatever that is. And there’s Viagra if you’ve got a serious problem. And while there might be real health issues here, standing behind all this stuff is the lie that sex can ultimately fulfil.
And many blokes believe these lies. And so not only do they buy the Harley Davidson and get the hair cut and go to the Gym. They also decide to leave their wives and try to start again with another woman. Or maybe more than one.
Because they believe that sexual fulfilment and pleasure and happiness is not to be found with the wife of their youth, the one woman whom they promised to love for better or worse, richer or poorer, and in sickness and in health. But it’s to be found in the arms of another woman. Or many other women. Fulfillment in the many, in the exotic, in the variations and in the novelty.
And what does Ecclesiastes tell us? It tells us that someone has already tried all this before. Someone with much more capacity to be a hedonist than you or I. Solomon has tried it, and it was all a chasing after the wind. Let me read to you from 1 Kings 11:
1 Kings 11:1-3 ESV Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the LORD had said to the people of Israel, "You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods." Solomon clung to these in love. 3 He had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart.
If anyone had the capacity to plumb the depths of sexual experience, it was Solomon. Wives on tap from every nation under heaven, to try them all out and experiment with being a hedonist. And yet, when we read the Teacher’s reflections on the whole sorry experiment he says this. Ecclesiastes chapter 2 verses 8 to 11, starting at the bottom of page 1:
READ ECCLESIASTES 2:8-11
I can’t get no satisfaction.. though I try, and I try, and I try. It didn’t satisfy, it didn’t fulfil, it left him with nothing lasting under the sun.
Of course, when high profile people have affairs, it appears on the cover of many magazines. One high profile person is said to have had affairs with over 120 women. And of course, there is much outrage. But I wonder how many of us men secretly envy him. Part of us agrees with the outrage of the women’s magazines. But I wonder if part of us also reckons that he was living the dream life. He had his own harem.
What makes what he did bad? Is it just that he got caught. Like when Warnie appeared on TV to apologise and said, ‘Well, I got caught, so I guess it was wrong’. Does getting caught make it wrong?
Kaysar Trad in the Sydney Morning Herald argued that having 4 wives does away with need for adultery. It recognises the greater need for men to have sex, and it doesn’t tire the woman out. And all this seems appealing, certainly to men, and even to some women.
But why stop at 4? Why not 5? Mohammed had more than 5? So did David and Solomon?
In the end, polygamy doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because of creation. It works against the way God created man and woman.
Genesis 2:24 ESV Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Marriage is God’s design for sexual expression. It is an exclusive relationship between one man and one woman for life to the exclusion of all others. And as Jesus says, What God has joined together, let not man separate.
Look at every example of polygamy in the bible: Lamech with Adah and Zillah, Abraham and Sarah and Hagar, Jacob and Rachel and Leah, Elkanah with Hannah and Peninnah, David and Solomon with their harems. None provide a model for marital happiness. None show the polygamy produces domestic bliss, satisfaction or brotherly love. Instead, all these stories are sorry and sometimes bloody accounts of factions, strife, envy, mockery, one-upmanship, quarrels and disharmony. The wives quarrel with each other. Their children quarrel with each other. And they all quarrel with and manipulate the husband. I just can’t find a woman! Solomon’s rampant yet unsatisfying polygamy may provide a clue for a perplexing passage later in Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 7:23-29. Let’s look at the bottom 3 paragraphs on page 6.
READ ECCLESIASTES 7:23-29
Some here accuse the bible of misogyny. There you go, the bible is anti-woman. It thinks that there is not one decent righteous women in a thousand, even though it can find one righteous man. But I think there is a better understanding which takes into account the wider context.
For the teacher who says this is Solomon. And he decided he would test out having a harem, and all the delights that sex on tap would bring. So he got his thousand women. But he discovered that having the harem was still vapourous vanity. It didn’t provide lasting satisfaction.
And so it is not surprising that he finds women are bitter. He finds their hearts are snares and nets and their hands are chains. And this is not surprising. For in 1 Kings 11 we read:
1 Kings 11:4-10 ESV 4 For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. 5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 6 So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and did not wholly follow the LORD, as David his father had done. 7 Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. 8 And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods. 9 And the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice 10 and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the LORD commanded.
He was ensnared by these women into compromise and false worship and idolatory. And Solomon the wise man should have known better. For Deuteronomy 17:17 told the King that ‘he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away’ Solomon, in his hedonistic search for pleasure, ignored God’s word. And so he found the women he sought to use for his own ends, whether political, philosophical or sexual, a snare and a trap and chains and bitterness.
Should we be surprised that he couldn’t found a proper righteous wife in his harem? Of course he couldn’t find a righteous woman. He couldn’t find a righteous woman because he went looking in all the wrong places. He went looking amongst the pagan nations.
It’s like someone nowadays complaining. Look, I went down to Kings Cross, and Darlinghurst, and Oxford Street. I’ve been diligently night clubbing, going out each night to all the hot pick up joints. Whatever meat market is advertising its wares, I’ve been there. I’ve rung all those numbers that get advertised on late night television. I’ve followed up all those ads in the newspapers’ personal column. And I can’t find one decent righteous woman.
And I think I would say two things. First, of course not, you goose. You’re looking in the wrong place. You need to go to church or bible college or beach mission to find the righteous ones. And second, even if you found your ‘righteous woman’ and she had the misfortune to say yes to allowing you to use her, she would more than likely wouldn’t be righteous for much longer. You’ld probably drag her down to your level. And that’s why he couldn’t find one in a thousand. Because he’d either chosen badly in the first place, or ruined the decent ones he had.
In the end, it is the bitter and twisted Solomon who fell into the snares and traps and chains of the wrong sort of women. He did not please God, and therefore he didn’t escape them. He is the sinner that was taken by unrighteous women, to his own ruin and the ruin of the entire country. As Nehemiah said later of Solomon:
Nehemiah 13:26 ESV Did not Solomon king of Israel sin on account of such women? Among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was beloved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel. Nevertheless, foreign women made even him to sin.
He is the archetypical man who went in search of many schemes. Your youthful potency will disappear The stupidity of Solomon’s quest for sexual fulfilment is found in the fact that in the end, each of us will lose it. The plumbing will break down. The equipment won’t work anymore. We will in the end become worn out and die. Let’s start on page 10, third paragraph down:
READ ECCLESIASTES 11:9-12:7
Death means we lose the lot. And that means we lose sex. The caper-berry was an aphrodisiac. It was the ancient Viagra or horny goat weed. It stimulated sexual desire. But just as we lose our sight, and our hearing, our posture, our teeth, our sleep, and our mobility, so also we will lose our sexual potency. The caper-berry won’t work. It will fail. And so the pursuit of sex as a reason for living is vapour. It is vain and stupid and meaningless. Because it is only temporary anyway.
So what does the Teacher think that we should do? How can we learn from Ecclesiastes and put it into practice. What does he think is the best and wisest way to live under the sun? Well, he has tried the harem and polygamy, and he has seen that sexual hedonism doesn’t work.
But he also sees that singleness, aloneness, is not good under the sun. We see this in Ecclesiastes 4:7-12. At the very top of page 4.
READ ECCLESIASTES 4:7-12.
We notice first of all that there is no mention of a wife. It speaks of a man without son or brother, but not without wife. And thus this passage is not just about marriage. But I think there are a three things that show that this applies to marriage.
First, to have a son, one must have a wife. Having a wife, or at least a woman prepared to bear your children, is necessary to having a son. Second, the teacher speaks of lying down and keeping warm together. And it is more likely that this would refer to a man with his wife. And third, and following, maybe the cord of three strands refers to what happens when a man and his wife lie down together. One thing leads to another and soon enough, their two becomes three 9 months later!
All of this agrees with what God observed at the creation in Genesis chapter 2:
Genesis 2:18 18 Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for1 him."
From the perspective of creation, companionship is good. From the perspective of life under the sun, two is better than one.
And so the teacher makes this observation in Ecclesiastes 9:7-10. Page 8, second paragraph down.
READ ECCLESIASTES 9:7-10.
God the creator of the world, wants us to enjoy his world. And since your days are so vaporous, so much like mist, enjoy life with your wife. Spend your days with the wife whom you love. For you only have a few days, and they are like mist and vapour. And you will not be able to enjoy life with her in the grave.
So the teacher sees benefit in marriage, and life with your wife. As the proverb says:
Proverbs 18:22 ESV He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD.
And as the Apostle Paul says:
1 Timothy 4:1-5 ESV Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2 through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, 3 who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. Marriage is good and pleasing to God.
But I also want to say something about the provisionality of marriage. That is, the teacher is observing life under the sun all our vaporous days. From the perspective of life under the sun, marriage is better than singleness.
But the days of our life under the sun flash past us. They are gone in the twinkling of an eye. You are going to the grave. That is where you are heading.
We must always say that marriage is good in this short life under the sun. It is for many purposes better than singleness. Two is better than one. It is not good for man to be alone. It is better to marry than to burn.
Nevertheless we also must still equally say something else. Our life under the sun is transitory. Our death is approaching. The world in its present form is passing away. And Jesus tells us, in the world to come they will neither be married nor given in marriage. They will be like the angels. The only marriage will be that between Christ and the Church, the lamb and his bride. And so, because of the new creation, being single now is better.
Creation says it is better to be married. The new creation says it is better to be single.
Both are true for the Christian. If you are married, rejoice in the wife of your youth. But realise marriage is only for this life. And there is a real sense where you should live as if you had none. For our world in its present form is passing away.
And if you are single, rejoice in your opportunity for undivided devotion to the Lord. Use your singleness for the kingdom of God. For this world in its present form is passing away.
Let’s pray.