It's Time for You to Get a Life Part 1

What does the book of Ecclesiastes say about the character of King Solomon?

Listen to Adrienne Rogers. King Solomon had everything. He had power. He had popularity. He had prosperity. He had prestige. He had pleasure, anything his heart could desire. He had it all, and yet it was a washout for him.

He was drawing his breath and dying at the same time. And I think that if he'd been living today, somebody might say to him, hey, man, get a life. Welcome to Love Worth Finding, featuring the powerful and biblical lessons of pastor, teacher, and author Adrienne Rogers. Ecclesiastes is the journal of King Solomon.

It's a record of the perplexed thoughts he had as well as some of the mistakes he made. There are three important themes from this book that we need to consider as we view the beauty of the life that we're given to live by God. If you have your Bible, find the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament as Adrienne Rogers encourages us with part one of It's Time for You to Get a Life. Take God's precious word and find the book of Ecclesiastes.

It's not all that hard to find. Psalms is just about in the middle. And then if you'll turn to Psalms and turn right, Psalms Proverbs, Ecclesiastes. And I want you to take your Bible and leave it open for the entire message because we are going to cover an incredible amount of Scripture.

The title of our study today is It's Time for You to Get a Life. Listen to what Solomon said here, by the way, who was the author of this incredible book, chapter 1, verses 1 and 2. The words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, says the preacher. Vanity of vanities.

All is vanity. The scene is the Rose Bowl in California. The University of California and Georgia Tech are both undefeated.

What a game it is. Georgia Tech has the ball. It's late in the second quarter, almost to halftime.

Georgia Tech is pressing hard on their own 30. Thomason has the ball, and he charges, and he fumbles. Roy Regals from California picks up the ball. He lifts his head. He knows this is his golden moment, and he begins to run with that ball.

Yard after yard, he is running. He's pumping his legs. His balance is there.

His head is down. He's got the ball. He's making the moves. He's running, running, running, running. The sad thing is that Roy Regals is running in the wrong direction. When he picked up the ball, he got confused, and he is running in the wrong direction. For 67 yards, he runs.

The opposing team is leading the interference. Finally, Roy's teammate catches him on the one-yard line. Can you imagine how he felt?

Can you imagine the humiliation as he went back and sat on the bench? Well, Solomon was something like that. The ball of life had been thrust into his hands, and in confusion, he begins to run toward the wrong goal, and Satan was leading interference for him. Now, friend, many of us are like that.

Many of us are confused and perplexed, and we really do not know what life is all about. Now, the book of Ecclesiastes is the journal of King Solomon. Now, King Solomon had everything. I mean, you talk about a man that had everything.

Listen, folks. He had it all. He had power. He had popularity. He had prosperity. He had prestige. He had pleasure, anything his heart could desire. He had it all, and yet it was a washout for him. He learned how to have a living but not a life.

He was drawing his breath and dying at the same time, and I think that if he'd been living today, somebody might say to him, hey, man, get a life. Now, what you have here in the book of Ecclesiastes is his journal and his record of some of the perplexities that he had, some of the mistakes that he had, and we're going to open the Bible and look today. Somebody said, you need to learn from the mistakes of others. You don't have time to make them all yourself, and so what we're going to do is to look here and see three basic things that are in this book. Now, this book has 12 chapters, and so we're just going to dip in and dip out, but we're going to stay basically in the book of Ecclesiastes, and I want you to learn now about the life that we need to live. The life that God wants you to live is we're in this series of messages of a lifestyle for the last days.

First of all, I want you to see what I'm going to call the complex mysteries of life, if you will. Again, verses 1 and 2, the words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem, vanity of vanities, saith the preacher. Vanity of vanity, all is vanity. Now, what does he say, vanity of vanities?

For emphasis. When the Bible wanted us to know how holy the sacred place was in the tabernacle, what does he call it? The holy of holies. When our Lord wants to emphasize the truth, what does he say? Verily, verily, I say unto you. When we talk about the majesty of Jesus, we say he is the Lord of lords. What Solomon is saying, hey, this is king size.

This is vanity of vanity. He said, I can't figure life out. Life is a puzzle. Life is a mystery, and every thinking person knows that it is. And I want to tell you, if you think you've got it figured out, you don't. Some college students were asked to give a definition of life.

Here's some that one honorable mention. Life is a joke that isn't even funny. Life is a jail sentence that we get for the crime of being born. Life is a disease for which the only cure is death. That sounds cynical, doesn't it?

And I'm afraid many college students are just like that. But life is empty. Life is vain apart from God.

Now, I'm going to tell you a secret. God engineered it that way. Did you know that God does not want life to make sense to you?

That may surprise you. But God, in his infinite wisdom, makes life a mystery. Let me give you a New Testament verse that'll back up what I'm about to say.

Romans chapter 8, put it in your margin, verses 20 and 21. For the creature, and that literally means the creation, was made subject to vanity, not willingly, that is, we didn't choose it, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope. In plain English, God made everything confusing. God took all creation, and God said, there it is, but you're not going to be able to figure it out. Now, he did that, not because he doesn't love us, but because he does love us, and God knows that if you and I, in our wisdom and ingenuity and sagacity, could figure it all out, we would never come to him if we could find meaning apart from him. And so this vanity, this confusion, this mystery is a tool that God uses to draw us to him.

This word vanity appears almost with monotony here in the book of Ecclesiastes more than 30 times. And what is Solomon saying? Life without God is a dead-end road. You will never, never, never, ever figure it out.

I don't care who you are, and every wise person knows that he cannot figure it out. And yet man has a desire. He wants to know the deepest meaning of life. Go over to chapter 3 and look in verses 10 and 11. I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.

He has made everything beautiful in his time. Now notice this next phrase. Also he hath set the world in their heart. A better translation may be, or at least another translation may be, he has set eternity in their heart so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. No one can figure it out. You say you've figured out.

You haven't. God put eternity in our heart. God put something in man's heart that he did not put into the hearts of other creatures, other animals.

God gave us a desire to see life from an eternal perspective because nothing seems to make sense here on this earth. When Joyce and I took a vacation one time, which I loved it. She didn't like it that much. She endured it.

I loved it. We went to an island down in the Bahamas. We lived in a little cottage. It had no air conditioning. There were no automobiles on that little island. Only we had a little boat there in front of the island. We could go from place to place in that little boat with an outboard motor and beautiful beach. Hey, it was great. For recreation, we went out and would lie on the dock at night and just look up at the stars. Super. Man, it was wonderful.

Well, get off of that. Anyway, what did we do for recreation? We had an incredible jigsaw puzzle.

I mean a big one, king size. It was the face of a great big pig. We worked from time to time just sitting there putting the pieces of that jigsaw puzzle together, putting it all together.

Pig saw is not a bad name for it. Anyway, can you imagine the joy to put the last piece in place? Now, I want you to imagine a puzzle like that with the last piece missing or two or three pieces or half a dozen pieces missing.

Or I want you to imagine a puzzle like that where somebody slips in some pieces from another puzzle and you're trying to put it together. That's what life is like. God has life confusing and, friend, it's very confusing and you're going to find out that sometimes you think you've got it all worked out because everything is going so smoothly. Just wait a while. Just wait a while. You know, God has a way of putting the good and the bad together.

If you've noticed that, look if you will. Go over to chapter seven and look in verse 14. In the day of prosperity, be joyful. Are you having prosperity right now?

I'm happy for you. Rejoice. But in the day of adversity, consider. God also has set the one over against the other to the end that man should find nothing after him.

What does that mean? You can't figure it out. I mean God takes good times and then God takes bad times. Now, when everything is working out fine, you say, boy, do I have a great philosophy of life. I've got it. I've got the world by the tail, a downhill pull. It all makes sense to me now.

I finally got it figured out. And then adversity comes. Down in Merritt Island, we had a tornado come through Merritt Island. There was a lady who lived in a trailer, house trailer, perhaps a block from the church. That house trailer was absolutely devastated. In that house trailer, she had a parakeet. She had no children.

She had no other pets. This parakeet was like one of her children. She loved that parakeet. And the house trailer was gone. The tornado took the whole thing and took the bird gone.

She was heartbroken. About three or four days later, somebody saw a parakeet sitting in a tree. Would you believe coax that bird out of that tree into their hand? And would you believe by fortuitous circumstances they found out this woman had lost this bird and they brought the bird back? Miracle story. Miracle story.

And then you know what happened? The cat ate it. The cat ate it. I mean after all this miracle, all this good stuff, then the cat ate it.

Figure that out. That's what Solomon is saying. You know, the Chinese tell a story about a man who had a prized horse and the horse escaped. And they said, oh, how sad. But then the horse went out and began to consort with some other horses and led them back to the corral. They said, how wonderful.

Look. And then the man's son tried to train one of the wild horses and broke his leg. They said, how bad. But then a war came and the boy didn't have to go off to war.

How good. That's the way life is. God takes the good. God takes the bad. And God puts one against the other. And they both seem to happen at the same time. If you're having a good time right now, you've got a problem right now.

If you're having a problem right now, you've got some blessings right now. It's not like we have 40 miles of good road and then 40 miles of bad road. It's like the railroad track. Oh, here's the good rail.

Oh, here's the bad rail. That's the way life is. God just sets the one against the other. And Solomon says, you can't figure it out. He tries to figure it out. He says, where's the answer?

And he found out it's not in nature. Go if you look in chapter 1, verses 1 through 7. And the words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem, vanity of vanity, saith the preacher.

Vanity of vanity is all his vanity. What profit hath the man of all his labor which he taketh unto the son? One generation passeth away and another generation cometh. Do you know what's happening today? Births and funerals. Births and funerals. There's a whole bevy of babies being born today. There's a world full of funerals today. There's rejoicing the birth of babies.

There's weeping when others go. And what he's saying, one generation passeth away and another generation cometh. But the earth abideth forever. Man's supposed to subdue the earth.

The earth stays here and man goes. And then he says, the sun ariseth and the sun goeth down and hasteth to its place where it arose. The wind goeth toward the south and turneth unto the north.

It whirleth about continually. And the wind returneth again unto its circuits. Here it comes. There it goes.

Over and over and over again. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full. And unto the place whence the rivers came, thither they return again. The rain comes down. The rain runs into rivulets. The rivulets run into streams. The streams run into the ocean. The sun evaporates the water, goes up to the clouds.

It comes down again into the rivulets. Over and over and over again. What's he saying? Nature doesn't tell us anything about the meaning of life. Old Man River, he don't say nothing.

He just keeps rolling along. It's not in nature. Look in verse 8. He says here, the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. Have we ever had a generation that could prove that?

You hear these kids going down the road with these boomboxes and shaking buildings as they go past. One of the ears are not bleeding, but they're not satisfied. The answer's not in nature. The answer's not in history. Look, if you will, in verses 9 and 10, chapter 1. The thing that hath been is that which shall be. And that which is done is that which shall be done. And there's no new thing under the sun.

You say, now wait a minute. There are a lot of new things under the sun. We've got pacemakers.

We've got laptops. We've got laser surgery. Friend, the seven deadly sins are still just as deadly. We still have war. We still have sorrow. We still have greed. We still have immorality. We still have unhappiness.

There's no less dishonesty. I have a treadmill upstairs and I like to watch the news and get on the treadmill. So I'm running on the treadmill and watching the news.

And all these incredible things are happening there in the news. And I'm running, running, running, running, running, running, running, running, running, running. And I get off right where I got on. That's where life is. I mean, the news is coming.

And we get right back where we got on. There's nothing new under the sun. The answer is not in nature. The answer is not in history.

The answer is not in science. Look in verses 13 and 14. I gave my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under the heaven. By the way, Solomon was a brilliant man. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant, besides the wisdom that God gave him before he back slid.

And he said, I have seen all the works that are done under the sun and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. You talk about the adventures we have, the things that we have. You don't understand the meaning of life. You see these kids today with cell phones.

Man, I used to think that's the ultimate. Listen, you know, and if you don't have a cell phone today, isn't that right? I mean, and his kids in the mall or wherever they are, they're walking around with a cell phone, you know. Hey man, what's up? He doesn't know what's up and he doesn't know what's up. They don't, they haven't got a clue. They got a phone, but they don't know what's up.

They do not know what's up. History may tell us what. Science may tell us how, but neither tell us why. Now, what I'm trying to say is that the answer, friend, is not in these things. The more a man learns, the more he realizes he doesn't understand. Bertram Russell said, philosophy proved a washout for me. You see, apart from God, God has engineered that your life is a washout.

You see, you have to understand, you have to understand that God has engineered that your life is going to be meaningless. Look now in chapter 2, verse 14, the wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walketh in darkness. Now, it's much better to be wise than it is to be a fool. And I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all. Now, here's a man who looks where he's going.

Here's a man who lives with sagacity and perspective. Here's a fool, a happy-go-lucky. But notice, I perceived also that one event happeneth to them all. Then said I in my heart, as happeneth to the fool, so happeneth even to me. And why was I then more wise?

Then it said I in my heart, that also is vanity. For there's no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool forever, seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how, dieth the wise man?

As a fool. Here's a man who goes off to school. He studies and studies and studies and studies and studies. He gets a PhD. He learns all of these things. He walks this way. His eyes are in his head.

Here's another guy. He could care less. He doesn't do anything. And they both somehow get through life. They die. They go to the ground, and they're both gone.

Solomon says, what happened to all this knowledge? Down into the dirt, it's gone, gone, gone. On another vacation, my kids and I were on the beach. You can tell I love the beach. And we made a sand alligator, incredibly beautiful, about eight feet long. And we crafted that out of sand, and we worked on it all morning long. It was great. We just could hardly wait for people walking down the beach to come see our alligator. We went off to do something and came back. You know what had happened? The sand was perfectly smooth.

The water had come up and taken our sand alligator away, and it's like it'd never been there. That's what Solomon is saying. Listen, he's saying apart from God, wisdom is meaningless. He's saying apart from God, wealth is meaningless. Look in chapter 6, verses 1 and 2. There's an evil which I've seen under the sun, and it is common among men. A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honor, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul, of all he desireth. Yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it.

This is vanity. It's an evil disease. Remember when you were young, you couldn't afford anything but beans and rice, but you had a cast iron stomach? And now you can eat prime rib, but the doctor won't let you?

Isn't that amazing? That's what Solomon is saying. And so somebody else eats the things that you have worked for. He's saying apart from God, wisdom is meaningless. Apart from God, wealth is meaningless. Apart from God, work is meaningless.

Look in chapter 9, verse 11. I return and saw unto the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill, but time and chance happeneth to them all. Apart from God, wisdom, wealth and work are meaningless. What a powerful truth for us today. Now, how are we to proceed with the adventures of life?

How are we to live in the good seasons and in the bad? Tomorrow we'll hear part two of this message. It's time to get a life. But maybe today you have questions about who Jesus is or what he means to you. Go to our Discover Jesus page at lwf.org slash radio.

You'll find resources and materials that can answer questions you may have about your faith. Again, click Discover Jesus when you go to lwf.org slash radio. Now, if you'd like to order a copy of today's message, call us at 1-877-Love-God and mention that title, It's Time for You to Get a Life. This message is also part of the powerful series, Challenges to the Cross, for the complete collection, all six insightful messages.

Call that number 1-877-Love-God or you can order online at lwf.org slash radio or write us at Love Worth Finding, Box 38600, Memphis, Tennessee 38183. Life is a complex mystery that only makes sense when you know and follow the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember what Adrian Rogers said, history may tell us what, science may tell us how, but neither tells us why. Are you in a relationship with him today? Do you see things from an eternal perspective? We're so glad you tuned in today and we hope you'll join us again next time for more Timeless Truth right here on Love Worth Finding. A listener in North Carolina wrote recently, I want to share her powerful words.

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