Introduction To Ecclesiastes
Message #1

How many of you want to be happy? Then this book is for you. It is a book that describes Solomon's search for happiness. If I had to give a sub-title to it, here are some examples:

How to make yourself miserable as a Christian without really trying!

Eight Easy Steps To Misery.

Take a giant step toward misery? The true story that has captivated 6 million people.

How not to find happiness?

Solomon is a specialist at making misery for himself. So if you enjoy misery you will enjoy this study. Who knows maybe you will find another way of making yourself miserable. On the other hand if you want to be happy you need to pay close attention to the message of this book and heed the warnings that are found there.

I want to introduce the study that we will be doing in Ecclesiastes. I have two main points in the message this morning:

1. The special circumstances in the writing of this book.

2. The spiritual principles found in this book.

I believe the best place to start is with the text: 1:1-3

1:1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

The author is introduced and the internal evidence of this book leads to Solomon. As we will see Solomon has been studying happiness and this is his conclusion:

1:2 "Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher, "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity."

1:3 What advantage does man have in all his work Which he does under the sun?

Verse 2 contains a conclusion. Verse three poses a question? The answer to the question of verse three is answered in verse 2. There is no profit for the man under the sun. WHY? Because everything under the sun is vanity, futility, emptiness.

What does he mean by profit? Profit to you may mean the gain of money after all your expenses are paid. But not to Solomon. Solomon was a billionaire. Hebrew word profit means "over and above" Solomon is seeking happiness, contentment, satisfaction, not monetary gain.

This book is an autobiography of a believer who turned away from God. A spirit of gloom and heaviness came upon him. He woke up one day and said "I am a mess." I ought to be happy. I am Solomon. I am the king. Now he begins to search for happiness. After years of wasted effort he comes to the place we find him in the introduction. He is defeated. He as given up hope. He is depressed and despondent. He has considered suicide. Then God is his mercy and grace reaches down and gets his attention. He repents and is restored to fellowship. Happiness, meaning to life, satisfaction and true contentment flood his soul and fill his life. It is at that point that God says, "Solomon, you are to write a book. You are to tell the world how foolish you were."

So this is the conclusion of a believer out of fellowship. He is absolutely wrong. You have to be careful what you are reading in Ecclesiastes. All Scripture is inspired of God. This book is in the Cannon of Scripture. This book is inspired of God. Every word of it is true. It is true that Solomon said, thought, and wrote these things. Inspiration guarantees the truthfulness and the accuracy of these words. But the words are erroneous. They are false. All of life is not vanity. Solomon is wrong. His conclusion is wrong. Here is why:

Notice the expression "Under the sun". It is a favorite expression of his. He uses it 29 times. What does it mean? God is in heaven above the sun, therefore the outlook of Koheleth is earthbound, temporal, and without God in the picture. He ignores God who is above the sun. He is a believer. He is saved. He is on his way to heaven; but he is out of fellowship.

1. The special circumstances of writing:

Now let me trace for you what has happened to Solomon which has lead him to this conclusion.

1. Solomon was a believer, He learned about the Lord from His father David. David taught Solomon how to walk with the Lord Proverbs 4:1-4.

2. Solomon indicates that he understood a very basic principle: To be successful with God one must walk with God. I Kings 3:5-13,

3. Because Solomon sought the Lord, leaned on the Lord, and trusted in Him God blessed Solomon. And if we had the time to study the blessings of the first twenty years of the reign of Solomon you would have Mt. 6:33 perfectly illustrated: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all things shall be added unto you." Blessing after blessing came to him, numerous blessings, countless blessings, uncountable blessings multitudes of blessing, blessing on top of blessing, blessing underneath blessing, blessings on the right hand and blessings on the left, here a blessing and there blessing everywhere a blessing.

4. Solomon failed the prosperity test. The hardest thing for a believer to do, is to stick with the lord when blessings come his way. It is very easy to be spiritual when you are under adversity. It is very easy to turn to the Lord when things aren't going right. How many people do you know found the Lord in a crisis that they were experiencing? Solomon started out in adversity. From the moment he was made king his brother Adonijah conspired to get the throne. Their were many of David's enemies still at large, and wanting revenge. Then their was the fact that of all David's children he was the youngest and the least experienced. So he started out under adversity and walked with the Lord.

As a result God gave him victory over the internal and external foes of the kingdom. Solomon built the temple for the Lord. He was blessed with riches, success, honor, and one of the fifteen sources of his yearly income is recorded in I Kings 10. From this one source alone he received approximately 20 million Dollars a year. Now twenty million a year could make me smile once or two, how about you?

In the midst of all this prosperity he turned his back on the Lord. He took his eyes off the giver and focused on the gifts. Now I think that I Kings 11:1-3 gives us a key to what took place. He began to collect women. He had at one point 700 wives and 300 concubines. These women the Bible says turn his heart away from the Lord.

Summary:

1. He started out in adversity walking with the Lord.

2. In prosperity he turned away from the Lord.

3. He sinned and being out of fellowship he was miserable.

4. Out of fellowship and under discipline. God appeared to him twice warning him, but he ignores it, 1 kings 11:9,10.

5. Solomon is unhappy and the longer he stays out of fellowship the worst it gets for him.

6. Solomon says to himself "What I Need Is Happiness" and INSTEAD of taking the short road to happiness (repent and return to the Lord) he takes the road to self-induced misery.

2. The spiritual principles found in this book.

1.Solomon began to seek after happiness apart from the only means a believer can find happiness--relationship with the person of Jesus Christ.

Solomon recognized that no matter what he did, no matter what he bad, no matter how successful he was, no matter how hard he looked, no matter what came his way, and everything did, no matter how great a person he was, no matter how usual his talents and abilities were, everywhere he turns, HE IS ABSOLUTELY MISERABLE.

3. His frantic search for happiness leads him to experiment with eight details of life. He made eight experiments and each one leads to a dead end. They were blind alleys.

At the end of his life, after many years of needless misery, Solomon learns this great lesson:

Their is no substitute for fellowship with God

Their is no happiness apart from relationship with God,

We should be very thankful for this book. We have an honest man who had the courage to write about his failure to find happiness. How he sought everything under the sun. He tried everything that you and I would associate with happiness and failed to find it. He failed himself; he failed the Lord.

So this man has a message; listen to the KOHELETH and save yourself a lot of misery.

A square world cannot fit into a triangular shaped heart. Status, worldly pleasures, material things, money, loved ones, friends, are poor substitutes for relationship with Jesus Christ.