In the sermon 'The Reality of Our Mortality,' Mike Davenport explores Ecclesiastes 2:12-26, emphasizing the futility of human efforts without God. Solomon's reflections reveal that wisdom, though better than folly, offers no ultimate advantage since both the wise and fool meet the same end—death. Solomon despairs over his labor, recognizing that all his gains must be left to successors who may squander them. The sermon urges us to live life 'backward,' prioritizing our mortality to reshape our ambitions and desires. Davenport illustrates this with the story of Southwest Airlines Flight 1380, highlighting how a glimpse of the end brings clarity to life's true priorities. Ultimately, true joy and satisfaction are found in recognizing God's gifts and living with Him at the center. Solomon concludes that the fleeting pleasures of life are vanity without the eternal perspective that comes from faith in God.

Sermon text Z, Ecclesiastes chapter 2 verses 12 through 26. Ecclesiastes 2, 12 through 26. Then I turned myself to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who succeeds the king, only what he has already done? Then I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness.

The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. Yet I myself perceive that the same event happens to them all. So I said in my heart, as it happens to the fool it also happens to me. And why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, This also is vanity, for there is no more remembrance of the wise than of the fool forever, since all that now is will be forgotten in the days to come.

And how does a wise man die? As the fool. Therefore I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me for all his vanity and grasping for the wind. Then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun because I must leave it to the man who is to come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool. Yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled, in which I have shown myself wise under the sun.

This also is vanity. Therefore I turned my heart and despaired of all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun. For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, yet he must leave his heritage to a man who has not labored for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. For what has man for all his labor, and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun?

For all his days are sorrowful, and his work burdensome. Even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity. Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also I saw was from the hand of God for who can eat or who can have enjoyment more than I For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in his sight But to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and collecting that he may give to him who is good before God.

This also is vanity and grasping for the wind." Let's pray. Our Father, we come before you this morning after a week of toil, seeking you, seeking rest, God I pray that as your word is proclaimed you would help us to see the futility of striving after the things of this world. That we would see the futility of life without you. God, through the preaching of your word, I pray that you would show us Christ. Show us our great need of him.

That He alone can satisfy the deepest needs of our souls. Lord, empower our brother that he may preach Your Word. Lord, convict us of sin, open up our hearts and our minds that we may hear and understand and believe your word today. And now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. To God, our savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty dominion and power now and forever amen.

On April 17th this year, 2018. Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 left New York City for a three-hour flight to Dallas, Texas with 144 passengers on board. CNN reported that the plane was ascending past 32, 500 feet when a fan blade in The number one engine broke off due to metal fatigue and shattered the window at row 14 of the airplane. One of the passengers, Jennifer Reardon of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was suddenly sucked into the gaping hole where the window had been. Fellow passengers struggled to pull her back into the cabin.

The plane was forced to make a detour and land in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In spite of multiple attempts to save her life, both there in the airplane and at that local hospital, 43-year-old Jennifer Reardon passed away in the hospital, leaving behind her husband and two children. World Magazine reporter Jamie Dean wrote an article about the incident in the May 12th issue. And the article was entitled, Begin with the End. Work is important in life, but It will not be on our minds in our last minutes." In the article, she writes the following regarding what took place on the airplane the moments after that incident.

In the moments that followed, some of the nearby passengers tried to revive Reardon. Others bought in-flight Wi-Fi to send what they thought may be final messages. I haven't read about anyone emailing the boss about an important file or an upcoming meeting. Pastor Timothy Borman, who was on the flight with his wife, texted his dad with a message for the couple's daughters ages 6, 4, and 2. Tell the girls we love them and that Jesus is with them always.

And then Jamie Dean writes, a glimpse of the end brings clarity. It's not a call to quit our day jobs, it's a reminder to pursue them with zeal Knowing God uses our work in His world for His purposes, and when we're productive, we reflect the image of our creator. Well, as Jamie Dean clearly declares in the title of the article, work is important in life, but it won't be work that is on our mind in our last minutes on earth. A glimpse of the end brings clarity. Therefore, we should begin with the end, the end.

Think with me a minute. If that's the case, if our last minutes will redefine what is truly important in life, are we not fools for failing to give greater attention to these very things now? Knowing that if Christ does not return in our lifetime that we ourselves will have our last seconds or last minutes, possibly last hours or last months. Why do we have such a hard time facing the reality of our mortality? It's something that we just don't want to think about.

Well as David Gibson states in his commentary on Ecclesiastes, left to our own devices we tend to live life forward. Ecclesiastes teaches us to live life backward. It encourages us to take the one thing in the future that is certain, our death, and work backward from that point into all the details and decisions and heartaches of our lives and to think about them from the perspective of the end. It is the destination that makes sense of the journey. If we know for sure where we are heading, then we can know for sure what we need to do before we get there.

Ecclesiastes invites us to let the end sculpt our priorities and goals, our greatest ambitions and our strongest desires. And then he says, I want to persuade you that only if you prepare to die can you really learn how to live. Well having already sought to persuade us of the vanity of life as seen through the cycles of nature itself, Solomon has begun mounting an argument from his own bitter experience. He's actually in demolition mode because he had set these things up and found that they had failed. So he's in demolition mode for our purpose, for our help.

He's destroying before our eyes all of the bubbles of life that we may be setting our hopes upon. As we saw a couple of weeks ago, he began by bursting the bubble of unrivaled knowledge and then bursting the bubble of unmatched pleasure. Well he continues bursting bubbles in our passage today. So first we find Solomon bursting the bubble of uninterrupted advantage. Bursting the bubble of uninterrupted advantage.

In these verses, Solomon introduces a new dilemma to his search for meaning and for purpose and we see it right there in verse 12. He says, then I turned myself to consider wisdom and madness and folly. Having given his heart to a pursuit of wisdom and then of pleasure, a pursuit of pleasure that embraced madness and folly as well as legitimate pleasure and having come short in those pursuits and being left with but two fistfuls of wind, he now turns his attention to consider wisdom and madness and folly, the two paths of his previous pursuits. He now takes hold of these two paths in order to examine them to see if wisdom actually has any advantage over folly. And so he places each one in the scale, wisdom on one side, madness and folly on the other.

Well, as any wise man would, Solomon anticipates someone in the crowd saying that there is more that can be added to the scales. You left something out. Look over there, you left something out. He understands that. And so Solomon heads that fault off at the past and reiterates the fact that no other weighty thing can be added to the equation for any successor would be unable to match what he could bring to the table in regard to considering these things.

He goes on to say in verse 12, for what can the man do who succeeds the king? Only what he has already done. Categorically, nothing more can be added. What you and I could add to the scales today would only be duplicates of what's already there. There is nothing new under the sun.

So as he examines these two paths, wisdom and folly, things become pretty clear to him. There in verses 13 and 14, he says, then I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness. The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. Now we need to take a moment to define once again both of these words as Solomon is here using them, wisdom and folly. The wisdom he is talking about here is not, it's not the wisdom he reveals to us in the book of Proverbs.

This is a wisdom gained through general revelation, a wisdom that is searchable by and attainable to all men indiscriminately. They just have to pursue it. It is not specifically that wisdom that begins with the fear of God. It's not that wisdom. Solomon simply describes it as using the eyes in your head.

It is a wisdom that Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 1 as a worldly wisdom that does not in and of itself lead to the knowledge of God. As for folly, Solomon refers to, it's coupled with that term madness. It's a maddening folly. The ideas we saw earlier in our study revolves around being or behaving badly, wildly, and irresponsibly. It's the very opposite of wisdom.

Well, putting these on the scales results in a response that we should expect. Wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness. All the weight comes down on the side of wisdom it excels Folly in madness Even the wisdom that general revelation offers far excels this folly that we all enter into the world with. Light excels darkness in a few ways. First by creation, it excels it by creation.

God created light on the first day. He created sources for the light a few days later. Light has a source. Darkness simply exists where there is no such source. Second, light excels darkness by nature.

You see, darkness is driven away by the presence of light. Darkness doesn't permeate or drive out light. It may surround it, just like we look outside now and it's bright outside, but later on the sun sets and darkness seems to shroud, but where there's a source of light it doesn't penetrate, it can simply surround it on the parameters. Third, light excels in terms of practice. Now, what do I mean by practice?

Well, we typically do one thing when it's dark. We sleep. We sleep. Whether by natural light or by means of electricity we do all our typical daily activities in light. Why?

Because it's easier when we can actually see what we're doing. In that way as well, light excels darkness. Young people, children, I want you to be persuaded, I want you to be persuaded of how much better wisdom is than folly. Now again, Solomon's talking about the wisdom that's through general revelation and even that wisdom is better than folly. But the we have special revelation, the Word of God, and in it the true wisdom of God that begins with the fear of God.

And that even more excels the folly of this world. Think about it. Going through life without wisdom, it's like riding your bike in the dark. I'm not talking about the dark just before dinner, maybe just a little bit after dinner now that we're in the summer months, right? It's you can still make out things and you still ride your bike.

I'm talking about if you were to ride your bike on a cloudy night, two o'clock in the morning. Imagine that. Imagine riding your bike in the dark. Going through life without wisdom is like that. It's like shooting your BB gun in the dark.

It's like tossing a ball in the dark. You don't know where to throw it, and if they happen to find it, you don't know how it's coming back to you or where it lands when it misses you. Going through life without wisdom is like operating power tools in the dark. It's like driving a car in the dark without headlights. When darkness descends on the day, these activities cease.

Why? Because we realize the futility in continuing as well as the potential danger to ourselves. It's futile and it can be dangerous and yet such futility and such danger do not even cross our minds as we plow on through life without wisdom guiding us. We understand it. We understand it in the natural world.

Why don't we get it in the spiritual world? Well, Solomon no doubt here breathes a sigh of relief. Finally, a breakthrough. Finally, he has arrived at something of meaningfulness and satisfaction. But then we run across that dreadful word, yet.

Yet. You see, Solomon lifts up his head having weighed wisdom and folly in the scales and says, ah, I've latched on to something good. And he lifts up his head from the scales and he looks ahead. And at this point in his pursuit and considerations he's been actually doing what we all do. He's living life forward.

How do I go on from here? He's simply journeying with no particular destination. But now he lifts up his head and he looks a little further down the road. Now the reality of his own mortality settles in and he doesn't like what he sees. Verses 14 to 16 he says, Yet I myself perceived that the same event happens to them all.

So I said in my heart, as it happens to the fool, it also happens to me. And why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, this also is vanity. For there is no more remembrance of the wise than of the fool forever, since all that now is will be forgotten in the days to come. And how does a wise man die?

As the fool. Yes, wisdom is better than folly. It is more advantageous. It is more profitable. Wisdom excels folly, but it is short-lived, for the same event happens to the wise man and to the fool.

In using the word event, Solomon is describing something that happens to them from the outside. It's not something of their own doing or of their own choosing. It's something out of their seeming control. This event is a leveling event. It totally wipes out all distinctions and all differences.

All of the wisdom of Solomon was not sufficient to bring distinction when this event hits. What is the event which Solomon is referring to? Death. Death. How does a wise man die?

Just like the fool. The wisdom that was gained, useless. The pleasures that were amassed, gone. The achievements rendered of no effect, the legacy left behind, right? The legacy short-lived and quickly forgotten.

Short-lived and quickly forgotten. That which distinguishes the wise man and differentiates him from the fool will be forgotten in the days to come. There is no more remembrance of the wise man than of the fool forever. The distance itself that existed between one man's wisdom and another man's folly, it's been forgotten, It's fallen to the ground. As David says in Psalm 103 15 through 16, as for man, as for man, both the wise man and the foolish, His days are like grass.

As a flower of the field, so he flourishes. And though the degree of flourishing may differ greatly, yet the wind passes over it and it's gone. And its place remembers it no more. And so how Solomon's hopes are shattered, they're shattered. Are shattered.

They're shattered. Then I said in my heart, this also is vanity, is vanity. And it leaves him in a place that he can no longer enjoy anything. Verse 17, therefore I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me for all his vanity and grasping for the wind." As the ESV study Bible points out, this hatred of life is not to be interpreted as a capitulation to utter despair, but a statement declaring that he finds life deeply disappointing in certain key aspects. Life has lost much of its sweetness to him.

And this is where we will be if we live life forward and not backward. This is where you will end up. You'll look ahead at approaching death and think all is vanity because I've lived life forward. It means nothing. We must live life nothing.

We must live life backward with the fixed understanding and grasping of our own mortality and how to live in light of it. Author David Gibson says this, when we accept in a deep way, in a deep way, not just acknowledging, when we accept it in a deep way that we are going to die, that reality can stop us expecting too much from all the good things we pursue. We learn to pursue them from what they are in themselves, rather than what we need them to be to make us happy. Death reorients us to our limitation as creatures and helps us to see God's good gifts right in front of us all the time, each and every day of our lives. Instead of using these gifts as means to a greater end of securing ultimate gain in the world, we take the time to live inside the gifts themselves and see the hand of God in them." And so we're left with these two questions.

Has death reoriented us to our limitations as creatures. Has death reoriented us to our limitations as creatures? That's what chapter 12 is all about in Ecclesiastes. You don't understand your limitlessness when you're young. Solomon says, my son, my daughter, you and your youth, remember God today.

Understand your limitations today. That's the first question. Has death reoriented us to our limitations as creatures? And secondly, has death helped us to see God's good gifts right in front of us all the time? Has death reoriented us to see God's good gifts in front of us all the time?

What are we doing? We're running off to grab that bubble and that bubble and to chase it only to find wind in our grasp when God sets his good gifts right in front of us all day long each and every day. Death reorients us to not chase all of these things, but knowing our limitations to live right there in the good gifts of God that he gives us each and every day. Solomon though is not yet done with his consideration of wisdom's advantages over maddening folly. Something else besides death is bothering him, something else.

Next we see Solomon bursting the bubble of undeniable gain, bursting the bubble of undeniable gain. The wisdom of Solomon exerted in his labors has brought him much gain. Anyone who came to see the wisdom of Solomon saw for themselves the great wealth that had come through his unceasing labors, such that the Queen of Sheba said that half of it hasn't even been told me, but now I see it. It was undeniable. Solomon was the richest man on earth.

But here's what we read. Then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool. Yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity.

Therefore I turned my heart and despaired of all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun. For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, yet he must leave his heritage to a man who has not labored for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. For what has man for all his labor and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun? For all his days are sorrowful and his work burdensome.

Even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity." Solomon's response to his first conclusion came at the end of his consideration, therefore I hated life. He gets so worked up here that he states his conclusion in this next section before he even gives us the glimpse of his consideration. He told us what he was doing before. I took wisdom, I took folly, put them in the scales.

Hey, wisdom excels folly. And then looking at the end, oh boy, look what's at the end, death. And death demolishes it. Now, before he gives us a glimpse of what he's getting ready to consider, he just comes right out and says it, I hated all my labor. He jumps right into it.

It's as if he says, life isn't the only thing I was disappointed in. I came to the same disappointment in regard to all my labor too. We find in these six verses the reoccurring theme of labor or work. The words labor or labored occur here in these verses six times. The word toiled occurs four times and the word work once.

The reality of his own mortality has not only led Solomon to despair of the wisdom that he had gained. He now despairs of the wealth that he had gained as well through all of his labors. What led him to such despair? The fact that he must leave it to the man who will come after him. I'm the one that gathered and now I've got to leave it to the one coming after me.

He considered the reality of creating a heritage through his own wisdom, through his own knowledge, through his own skill, and then at his death, quite possibly having to place that wealth into the hands of a fool that may come after him. All the toil, all the labor, all the work to build something and the fruit of it placed into the hands of a man who had not labored for any of it." One of the men mentioned in our Bible study Monday morning, It's kind of like the next to the youngest who spends an afternoon creating this nice tower out of blocks. And he turns his back for two seconds and hears a loud noise, only to turn around and see his little two-year-old brother or sister looking at him like, uh-oh. The whole afternoon building like that, it comes crashing down. And for Solomon, the thought of leaving behind everything he had worked for was made all the more difficult by the contemplation of the very one who would come after him.

By this time in his life, he knew who that would be. Think of what he would be anticipating. Everything he had gained left in the hands of his son, Rehoboam. Are you familiar with Rehoboam? In the life of Rehoboam, at least what we know from scripture, we see a young man in very much need of the Book of Proverbs type wisdom.

After Solomon died, his son, Rehoboam, ascended to throne. All that Solomon had amassed was his. It was his. All Israel came to him and urged him to not tax the people so heavily as had his father. And if he did lighten the yoke upon their shoulders, they would serve him gladly.

We'll do it gladly. Just lighten the yoke, man." Well, Rehoboam, he did the right thing at first. He consulted with the very counselors of his dad, the men who had stood there in the court of Solomon and heard day after day the wisdom of Solomon. He consults them and these counselors told him listen to the people, Just listen, listen. But we read that Rehoboam rejected the advice which the elders had given him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him who stood before him.

So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day as the king had directed saying, come back to me the third day. Then the king answered the people roughly and rejected the advice which the elders had given him and he spoke to them according to the advice of the young men saying, my father made your yoke heavy but I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scourges." And as a result, ten of the twelve tribes rebelled and started their own kingdom. Solomon's kingdom was now one-sixth of what it had been before, and this is the earliest days of Rehoboam as king. And then we read that in the fifth year of his reign, verse Kings 14, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem and he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king's house.

He took away everything. He also took away the gold shields which Solomon had made. And if that was not bad enough, Israel and Judah, who had known peace all the days of Solomon, We read in 1 Kings 1430, they were at war with one another throughout all the days of Rehoboam. All the days, war and strife. Was it any wonder that Solomon despaired of all the labor in which he had toiled under the sun?

He didn't know what was coming but he could see it. He could see it. Such thoughts of the reality of what death would do with all the profit and gains brought his heart to this point. For what has man, for all his labor, and for the striving of his heart with which he is toiled under the sun for all his days are sorrowful and his work burdensome even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity.

This echoes the words of Moses in Psalm 90, verse 10. The days of our lives are 70 years, and if by reason of strength they are 80 years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow, for it is soon cut off and we fly away." And as if the days were not burdensome enough with all of the labor, Solomon points out there is often loss of sleep over what we fail to accomplish today or a loss of sleep thinking about what it is that we have on our plates tomorrow. My friend, do you feel the weight of Solomon's argument? Can you really think about your wisdom and your wealth, which pale in comparison to his, can you really think about those things? What you already have and what you hope to attain in the near future, can you bear to think about it all being swallowed up in death?

All of it. For Solomon, the avenues of the pursuit of wisdom had all been explored. The buzz from that last glass of wine had worn off. The comedy show was over. The entertainers had packed up.

They had gone to the next city. Maybe, maybe the evil days he so much dreaded, the ones that he warns the youth about in chapter 12, maybe Those days were even now upon him where it was hard to get out of bed. The slightest noise waking him up, the gray hair hanging down upon his shoulders, the eyes not quite able to make things out like they used to. The grinders, the teeth, gone. The taste of the things that he used to enjoy and the taste has diminished.

Hard to get around, hard to stoop down and then harder to get back up again. Maybe those Maybe those days were already upon him. Now, now the end comes into sharp view and he doesn't like what he sees. Commentator Charles Bridges makes the following observation, who will not listen to the pleading voice of the Savior, contrasting this field of fruitless disappointment with his own offer of solid peace and satisfaction. Wherefore, spend ye your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not, hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight in fatness." Isaiah 55, too.

Welcome every sinner. Welcome every sinner that feels his need of this precious remedy. But this is not the end of the story. Having spent the entirety of the portion of this book thus far on life under the sun, Here in these closing verses of chapter 2, Solomon provides us with a brief glimpse of reality above the sun, a brief glimpse of realities above the sun. So look with me at verses 24 to 26.

Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also I saw was from the hand of God. For who can eat or who can have enjoyment more than I? For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in his sight, but to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and collecting that he may give it to him who is good before God. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind.

Now there has been much debate and many words written regarding whether this portion is to be taken in a positive sense or in a negative sense. And I can see the validity of arguments on both sides. I can see the validity on both sides. But I feel that the weight of evidence lies on the side of seeing this in a positive light as a very brief glimpse, brief glimpse of the realities of life as seen above the Sun. Listen to the argument set forth by Philip Riken.

He says, I believe that Ecclesiastes 2, 24 to 26 is more positive as compared to others. Indeed, he says, it is the first of the book's enjoyment passages. The preacher is not giving into despair here but beginning, beginning to see the difference it makes to live with God at the center. He is not seizing something for himself, but receiving it from God. Thus, his message is not simply vanity under the sun, but also joy from the hand of God.

There is a bittersweet balance, he says. We live in a world that is cursed by sin, but it is also a world that God created good, that He has visited in the flesh and that He is working to redeem through a cross bearing crucifixion and a life-giving resurrection, thus we experience both the agony and the ecstasy. I believe this explanation also sets the stage for a deeper and longer consideration of life above the sun, from a worldview with God in the picture, yea, God at the center. He says it is a gift. It is a gift from the hand of God for a man to eat and drink and enjoy the fleeting profit of his labor.

Psalm 128 verses 1 and 2 says something very similar. Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways. And by the way, when it talks about a man good in the sight, this is what it's referring to. A man who fears the Lord and who walks in his ways, blessed is that one. When you eat the labor of your hands, you shall be happy and it shall be well with you.

This is the gift of God. Well, the end of verse 24 has been translated in the following way in our New King James Version text, for who can eat or who can have enjoyment more than I." Now in the margin of your Bible, maybe like mine, if you've got a place for footnotes, you may have a note there that points out that these last three words have also been translated in a different way, in a way that seems, I think, to better fit the text. The more than I has been translated without him or apart from him. And so it reads something like this, this also I saw was from the hand of God for who can eat or who can have enjoyment apart from him. And then the text goes on to say that it is God who gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy.

There's more of a continuous flow. It's from the gift, it's from the hand of God. It's a gift. And who can enjoy it apart from it being a gift from his hand? For God's the one who gives wisdom and knowledge and joy.

Can I ask you a question? Do you know anything of the simple enjoyment of good brought from your daily labor? Do you know anything of that satisfaction, that joy, that doing the labor brings. Yes, that same labor you did yesterday and the day before and last week that you've been doing maybe for decades. Have you found a sense of enjoyment?

Yes, the days are often sorrowful and burdensome, but Are you also failing to find enjoyment in your God in the midst of it all? Philip Riken faithfully goes after our hearts. He says, so If we are having trouble finding enjoyment in life, God must not be at the center of things for us. Let me say that again. If we are having trouble finding enjoyment in life, God must not be at the center of things for us.

Then he goes on to say, if we are deeply dissatisfied, this could be the reason. We have been taking good things and making them ultimate things, when in fact They are God-given things. We are taking good things, making them ultimate things, when in fact they are just God-given things. Our God is a giving God. We find that word several times here in these last verses, give, give, giving.

And Solomon ends this chapter by demonstrating how it is that God gives. To the man who is good in his sight, God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy. But to the sinner, God gives the work of toilsome labor in heaping up and that not ultimately for himself. Commentator Charles Bridges says this, Good and evil are portioned out according to character. Where the stamp, good in his sight, is broadly marked, gifts and grace flow out abundantly.

Wisdom and knowledge brighten the path heavenward. Joy gladdens the heart. Common mercies are sealed with covenant love. Two words suffice to describe the man of God's present happiness. Godliness with contentment.

Godliness with contentment. In this school of divine instruction, he says, the man of God is disciplined for heaven. No such brightness beams upon the sinner's lot. Prudent and prosperous he may be, but God giveth to him travail as his portion to gather and to heap up, not to enjoy. The unfaithful steward is cast out.

His privileges are transferred for better improvement to him that is good before God. Yes, he is the man accepted and honored. To all beside, the burden of the song is still the same. This also is vanity and vexation of spirit. Dear friend, as you sit here this morning under the sound of my voice, don't ignore the proverbial elephant in the room.

It has been appointed unto men to die once and after that judgment. It's It's been appointed. Are you prepared to die? Are you ready? Not will you be, are you.

Only those who are prepared to die are truly ready to live. When death stares us in the face, as it did for the 144 passengers aboard Southwest Airlines Flight 1380, This life and the pursuit of satisfaction in it and through it comes to a screeching halt. And we are left facing the reality of our own mortality. Things that were once important to us will no longer be important. Things that were urgent will be suddenly unimportant.

Things that were planned and on our calendar will leave their imprint right there as things left undone. When that day comes And that day comes and you open your hands. What will you find in them? Will it be wind? Will it be wind?

Two fistfuls of wind. What will you have that will last? As you make your way through the field of life, you walk over and over and you walk right past the hidden treasure that is found in Christ alone. Maybe You know the treasure is there, but you are tripping over Christ. He has become a stumbling block to you, and you're tripping over Christ Himself, even as the Pharisees.

You're busy with yourself with the things that this world has to offer you, the wares of vanity fare that will all pass away. And Christ this morning offers you true joy, true peace, true prosperity, a true inheritance, an enduring kingdom, and an everlasting crown. Yea, he offers himself, he offers himself the living waters that will refresh the deepest thirst of your soul. Hear his own words, come to me. Come to me.

All you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly and hard, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Feel the impact of these wise words from author and pastor David Gibson. We all know what it is like to have tasted the best life has to offer and still to be left wondering what comes next. The preacher tells us that God, that God has to give us enjoyment or the thing itself, be it phone, sex, house, car, will leave us unsatisfied. And the way God gives us enjoyment in His gifts is by giving us perspective on ourselves.

When we know that the gift is not meant to be a stepping stone to greater things, when we realize that we are not meant to rule the world or master our own destiny or achieve ultimate gain through our careers. Then, then we discover that enjoyment or joy is itself the reward that we may expect from life in all our effort expended in living it. There is no surplus to joy beyond joy itself. There is indeed no pathway to joy except by refusing to pursue it and to grasp at it. What are you looking to for joy?

Well, may the words of the hymn writer be our ever-increasing desire and ultimately our experience. Father, I know that all my life is portioned out for me. The changes that are sure to come, I do not fear to see. I ask thee for a present mind intent on pleasing thee. I would not have the restless will that hurries to and fro, seeking for some great thing to do or secret thing to know.

I would be treated as a child and guided where I go. I ask thee for the daily strength to none that ask denied, a mind to blend with outward life while keeping at thy side. Content, content to fill a little space if thou be glorified. In service which thy will appoints, there are no bonds for me. My secret heart has taught the truth that makes thy children free.

A life of self-renouncing love is one of liberty. May God give us grace. Oh Father, we thank you for these wise words of Solomon that bursts all the bubbles that we spend so much time chasing. Oh, give us grace to lay hold of that sure foundation, Jesus Christ. Oh Lord, for those who know of Christ, have heard his gospel and yet don't know you, and continue to trip upon Jesus as they run around in this life.

Oh, may they stop. May Christ become precious. And may we all love him and know Him, serve Him, and live for Him who gave Himself for us. In His name we pray, Amen.