Ecclesiastes 2: How Can I be Satisfied?

"There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?" Ecclesiastes 2:24-25

It is a fact of life that we often feel unsatisfied. Our hearts were created by God to worship something, yet when our worship is in the wrong direction, we are left empty and dry because we are not praising the thing that we were created to praise. Why is this so? And how do we overcome this pattern in order to find ultimate satisfaction?

In Ecclesiastes 2, Solomon is going through the exact same struggle. He is trying to find satisfaction in this life, so he goes through a life-long experiment to try to find it. When he is done, he tells us of his great discoveries so that we don't have to go through the experiment ourselves.

First, Solomon experiments to see if want will fulfill his satisfaction. He desires pleasure, so he go outs and gets it. He drinks wine, builds great buildings, and has sexual relations with multiple women. Yet in the end, he is left dry and empty, and considers it all in vain. Surely want will never satisfy us, for there will always be something more to obtain, and even if we do obtain it, it will leave us empty because although we thought it was what we needed, it truly wasn't.

Second, Solomon experiments to see if wisdom will fulfill his satisfaction. Since sensual pleasure in his body left him empty, perhaps he can fill all of his desires by overcoming this world with his mind. However, this too left him vain and empty. After all, no matter how hard he tried to gain wisdom, he realized in the end that the very same thing would happen to him as to the foolish person: death. Surely wisdom will never satisfy us, as it cannot deliver us from our greatest fear of death.

Third, Solomon experiments to see if work will fulfill his satisfaction. If gaining all pleasure and wisdom possible does not satisfy, perhaps satisfaction can be found in a good day's labor. However, Solomon finds also that this is vanity, as there is no assurance that all he works for will not be destroyed by the one who comes after him. Therefore, the three false pleasures of want, wisdom, and work all fail Solomon. None of them can satisfy; he is left empty and dry.

Before we reach our conclusion for this morning, let me ask you, have you ever sought satisfaction in one of the things above? Perhaps you thought you could satisfy yourself by giving yourself all your body wanted, such as alcahol, drugs, or immoral sexual pleasures. Perhaps you thought that you could satisfy yourself by gaining wisdom that might overcome all of your fears and failures. Perhaps you thought that you coul satisfy yourself with work in order that you might build a name for yourself. Before we go any further, ask yourself: which of these traps have you fallen into?

However, Solomon does not leave us without a conclusion. Note Ecclesiastes 2:24-25, quoted above. In conclusion, Solomon states that the best thing for man to do is to enjoy what God has given to him, because after all, all that man has been given has been given to him from the Lord. However, this may seem contradictory. Didn't Solomon just say that finding pleasure in worldly things is vain? Surely he did. However, Solomon's conclusion here is not a matter of substitution but of order. Solomon is saying here that we ought to use God's gifts to enjoy the one who has given them to us, not the other way around. We ought to love the Giver, not the gifts. We ought to take enjoyment in this world because God has given it to us by his grace, yet we ought not to idolize the world in making it our only hope (see 1 John 2:15). As C. S. Lewis once put it, "There are many great things you can do with sand, but don't try building a house on it."

So, where are you trying to find satisfaction? Are you seeking pleasure as your end, which will only deliver upon unsatisfying hedonism? Are you seeking wisdom as your end, which will only deliver upon self-righteous moralism? Or are you seeking work as your end, which will only deliver upon arrogance and pride? Let me encourage you today, seek God as your end, and enjoy the things he has given you as a gift rather than a foundation. Amen!