Transcript
It’s time to start our service.
It’s good to be here with you today. It’s been a few weeks since we have posted a lesson. I didn’t count it, but I think it’s been about six weeks. I hope you have been blessed in that time. I know when we ended the last lesson, I encouraged everyone to check out some of their local churches online to see if they might find some healthy churches. I hope that you were able to take some time in the past weeks to do that.
I have been blessed these last weeks and busy. I have been doing some work with different ones overseas. There have also been positive developments here in Jeffersonville as well. I have greetings for you that I want to share. The brothers and sisters in Brazil and South America send their greetings. So do the brothers and sisters in Norway and the United Kingdom. I have greetings from the saints in Germany and Switzerland as well. And, of course, our many friends across Canada and the United States also send their greetings. I send you my greetings too.
I should also mention that God is blessing the work in the Philippines, so keep them in your prayers. There is continuing, wonderful progress among the churches all across Africa, so just keep each of them in your prayers. It is really amazing how God has worked and brought things along.
If this is your first time joining us and you wonder who we are and what we are up to:
My name is Charles Paisley. I and most of our listeners here are former members of the cult following of William Branham known as The Message. The Message is a global doomsday cult with millions of members. It started here in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and spread all over the world. I am a former associate pastor of the second-oldest Message church in the world, right here in the Jeffersonville area.
This is a little mission we operate to offer encouragement to those leaving The Message and to take a look at the plain reading of scripture as we seek to wash out of our minds what, for most of us, has been a lifetime of indoctrination.
Today, we have just a small little thought I will be taking. I don’t even hardly know that I would call it a sermon, but I hope I can say a few things that might be helpful to some of our listeners.
The title of our lesson today is The Wellspring of the Joy of Living. If you’re like me and you enjoy a lot of old music, you might know that is a line from an old hymn. I’ve always thought that was a really lovely turn of phrase, and so I decided to use it for the title today.
Most of the text I am going to read from today is in the book of Ecclesiastes. If you would like to turn there with me, I will start in the first chapter. I will just read from verse 12 down to 15 to begin. I invite you to open your Bibles and follow along with me.
Chapter 1, verse 12 of Ecclesiastes:
12 I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 14 I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. 15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.
Let us pray.
Lord God, as we approach the scripture today, we look unto You for guidance and help that we might learn of You. Speak to us by Your Spirit, that we may know the truth and be set free by it. Grant it to us. This we ask, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Introduction:
Well, brothers and sisters, here we are today looking at the book of Ecclesiastes. This will just be one little lesson today. We move onto some new things next week, but it has just been on my mind to try and touch this topic a little bit today.
In the places that we come from, there are a lot of people who struggle—struggle very deeply. It has been common for some of them to leave this life early because of the heavy burdens our former system of religion placed on them. I just want to offer this little thought today as something that might be a little help.
As we come to the book of Ecclesiastes, this is one of the most interesting books of the entire Bible to me. In the system of religion we come from, this book is an enigma. I don’t think in my entire life I ever heard a Message preacher take a sermon from the book of Ecclesiastes. The reason, I think, is because for the most part, this book of the Bible is totally incompatible with our former religion.
The people in The Message have no frame of reference to even approach it. But I hope to use it here today to illustrate something.
The book of Ecclesiastes was written by King Solomon. We find that up in the very first verse in the book. If we were to jump to the very end of the book, we would discover that Solomon is writing this when he is an old man. He is very near the end of his life when he writes all this down. In many ways, this book is a reflection back on the life he lived. He is sharing the story of his life here.
It is a powerful story and a very sad story. I think it’s maybe one of the most tragic stories in the whole Bible.
Here in verse 15, right at the opening of the book, Solomon sums up in one line the whole big problem. He said:
15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.
Solomon was a man who could see things very clearly. He was the wisest, the smartest, the most intelligent man in the entire world. That is what the Bible tells us. Not only that, he was also the richest, the most powerful, and the most popular. Every category you could come up with, Solomon was the greatest in the entire world.
And yet, with all of his wealth, power, knowledge, wisdom, and might, he says in verse 15:
15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.
There was nothing Solomon could do to straighten out the problems of the world. There was nothing he could do to fix the root issues. The problems in the world were so numerous, what was lacking was so vast, it could not even be counted.
Solomon saw with deep clarity the hopelessness of the situation he was facing. He even came to understand that the more you see and the more you understand, the bleaker things look. He alludes to this in verse 18. Let me read it to you:
18 For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.
There is so much truth to that statement. The people who see the most clearly tend to be prone to melancholy. We see that all through the history of mankind.
The more clearly a person can see the world, the more obvious the depth of its problems becomes. Seeing clearly the predicament the world is in can lead people to sorrow. That is where it led Solomon. He found himself in a place overtaken with sorrow. In our world today, we might say he was depressed.
This came upon him after he realized there was no real solution. What was crooked could not be straightened. What was lacking could not be numbered. He was in sorrow over it.
Some people in the world can perhaps relate to what that feels like—a situation where there is just nothing to be done, no solution, no way to fix it, no way to make it better. It is what it is. In Solomon’s case, it led him to sorrow.
As we move into chapter 2, Solomon starts to list the things he tried to make himself feel better. If you read this whole book, you will see that Solomon tried literally everything you could think of to feel better.
Let’s look at chapter 2. Starting at the top, Solomon wrote:
2 I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity. 2 I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” 3 I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. 4 I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. 5 I made myself gardens and parks and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. 6 I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. 8 I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man.
Solomon indulged every appetite he had.
9 So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. 10 And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.
Solomon fed every human appetite to find joy and pleasure in life. Remember from chapter 1: this was all set in motion by his sorrow. Now, in verse 11, after trying all these things, Solomon reflects:
11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
After everything, Solomon came back to the same bleak outlook. It was all pointless. In verse 17, he tells us where this left him:
17 So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.
This is how the book of Ecclesiastes goes. King Solomon tells of all the things he did to bring lasting happiness and joy to his life and to even try to make the world better.
He tried everything imaginable—riches, parties, music, justice reform, temple worship—but nothing brought lasting joy.
Joy would come for a season, but then it would run dry, and the sorrow would return.
By the time you reach chapter 12, Solomon is an old man waiting to die. He reflects that everything he had done seemed to be worth nothing. He even says that writing Ecclesiastes had been vanity.
The book ends on the same bleak note. Solomon was a depressed, unhappy man for much of his life. Nothing he tried seemed to make it better. When you reach the end, it almost seems like he died that way—a tragic ending to a tragic story.
The Lesson of Solomon
Solomon is one of those characters in the Bible who is not exactly a model we should follow. There are people in the Bible who are there to help us see what not to do, to help us see what doesn’t work. And, in a lot of ways, Solomon is one of those characters. He is here to help us see some things not to do and some things that don’t work.
If we reflect back on what Solomon did and tried, most of what he did was not bad. It was not bad to study and become wise. It was not bad to get married or build houses. It was bad of him to practice polygamy. The law of Moses forbade the king from multiplying his wives, but Solomon did just that. So that was not good. But it was not bad for him to do some gardening and plant fruit trees. It was not bad for him to try and make the justice system better. It was not bad for him to go to the temple and study with the priests. All that was good. Most of what he tried were good things.
But none of it ever brought him lasting contentment and joy.
When Jesus came, one day he was preaching, and he told his audience that a greater than Solomon had come. Jesus was talking about himself. Jesus was greater than Solomon. Solomon saw no way to make the crooked straight. He saw no way to fix what was lacking.
But Jesus was greater than Solomon. Where Solomon saw a problem, Jesus saw an answer. In fact, Jesus was the answer.
In one sense, Solomon had it right. There was nothing he could do to make the crooked straight. All of his efforts, and all of his endeavors, and all of his labors, and all of his work could never do it.
Solomon was right.
But Jesus had the answer. And the answer is that we have to look outside of ourselves. We have to look outside of this world. The world can’t fix itself. We can’t fix ourselves. We need a savior. We need someone to come save us from all this which we are in.
That someone who will save—his name is Jesus. The vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon received.
We can’t fix everything that is wrong, no matter how hard we try. It takes a savior to save us. And one day, our savior is coming again, and he will fix the entire world when he does. Everything that is crooked, he will make it straight. And everything that lacks, he will make it complete. Not us, not in our doings, not in our labors. But our savior will do it. It will be his work and his labors that do it.
And in this life, there is joy to be found in that truth. Jesus said that if we would ask of him, he would give us living water that would spring up into life eternal. He gives us a promise of a better and brighter day.
There is a lot of sorrow in coming to realize that there are problems in this world that we cannot fix. But when we can realize that our problems today are just for today, and decide to look to Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, and fasten our eyes on him and his promises, for the joy that is set before us, we can go on.
There will be a bright tomorrow, and all this will be behind us. And all of us who are in Christ will be there together. And that is as sure as anything is sure.
So I want to encourage you today. If you find yourself a little bit like Solomon, always focused on all the problems, always focused on the things you cannot fix, always focused on finding the next thing to try to make yourself feel better about it—and never finding a lasting satisfaction—
Then let me encourage you to start looking outside of yourself. Start looking to Jesus. And start dreaming about that brighter tomorrow.
There is hope in Christ. And the joy of the Lord will give you strength.
Amen.
Let me close here in prayer:
Lord God, we thank you for sending your son. We thank you for the promise of life eternal we have in him. Comfort the hearts of my brothers and sisters today and give them peace. Stir joy within their hearts so they can be strengthened for the days that lie ahead. Help us learn to not make the same mistakes Solomon made, but teach us to rely on he who is greater than Solomon.
This we ask, in Jesus’ name. Amen.