Welcome back, my dear friends. After one and a half years of teaching and talking about Sin, it is time to bring our study of the “Anatomy of Sin” to a close. Over our time together, I’ve talked about the fundamentals of Sin, answered questions, such as did God create Sin, where did Sin originate, how Satan brought Sin to earth, and talked about our Total Depravity in the eyes of God, the degrees of sin, and the Gospel of Satan (Christless Christianity). I’ve discussed the personal characteristics of Satan and his deceptive kingdom. We’ve learned about God’s Common Grace as it relates to Sin, the You Factor in Sin, and how to claim victory over Sin. Finally, I’ve shown you through God’s Holy Word how a believer is to prepare and dress for the daily battle against wicked spiritual forces and the cosmic powers of the dark age.
The knowledge and understanding of how Sin affects your thinking process is important for each one of us. Sin is the driving force of the world we live in. The ruler of this earth, Satan, (2 Corinthians 4:4) uses his minions to tempt us day and night to sin, keeping us from God’s saving Grace.
I want to close our study of “The Anatomy of Sin” by looking at and understanding where your source of “Wisdom” comes from. Just as there are two types of individuals living on this earth, believers and unbelievers, there are two types of wisdom we can seek after — “Satan’s human wisdom” or “Godly wisdom.” That is why the knowledge of how sin affects your thinking process is so important for each of us to understand.
For the unbeliever, the only source of wisdom available is Satan’s human wisdom. These are life’s philosophies and values that have been crafted and taught to the world by Satan. These philosophies and values of human wisdom are supported through our worldly educational, social and religious systems.
However, the believer is caught in the trap of having access to not only Satan’s human wisdom but also Godly wisdom. This is the game Satan loves to play with the believer’s thinking process. He tries to blend them together in our mind to confuse us.
12 When Adam sinned, sin entered the entire human race. His sin spread death throughout all the world, so everything began to grow old and die for all sinned. Romans 5:12 (TLB)
So, if we are born in sin, live in sin, and die in sin, what do you have to show for your existence here? Fifty or a hundred years from now, will anyone remember you, or what you did?
Our lives are but vapors in the wind. On a cold morning when you go outside take a breath and exhale. What you see is a white mist that appears in the air and then disappears. That, my friend, is our life span here on earth.
14Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. For you are just a vapor that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away. James 4:14 (NASB)
Human wisdom tells us that the drudgery of life can become a useless repeat of the same activities day after day, never achieving anything of value. Life moves on. One generation is always passing from the scene, and another is always arriving. Man is born merely to be caught up in the generational tide and then die. The sun rises and then it sets, races around the earth to rise again the next day. The rains come, run into the sea, evaporate, then come back over land, rain again and run back into the sea. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. Life is an endless and meaningless repetition. Man’s labor achieves nothing permanent; only the earth remains forever. The universe goes on, and we are lost in the revolving, mindless gears of its machinery.
Does a statement like this leave you feeling like there is little or no hope for your life here on earth? It does me.
The above conclusions about life came from one of the Old Testament Kings. King Solomon, the wealthy and wise king of the nation of Israel who succeeded his father, King David, said in the first chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes,
“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” (1:2 NIV)
The Teacher has completed his survey of life and gives this conclusion and understanding of life from a human wisdom’s perspective. He has concluded that everything is futile, senseless and meaningless.
For the unbeliever, as well as the believer, King Solomon’s view of life is right on target. Why? It is because of this bleak outlook on life that Satan has crafted a system of pleasurous temptations to take your mind off of your miserable lot in life.
What is your purpose on this earth? Surely, we don’t exist just to work, possibly marry and have children, grow old and begin to lose our memory and our very self-worth to dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, and then die? There must be something more. Right?
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary tells us.
\”The Teacher\”, writing as a wise and observant king of David\’s line, sets out his theme. He lives in a world riddled through with vanity, futility, and frustration. Human beings, struggling to live, meet frustration at every turn. One looks back to the record of sin\’s entry into human life (Gen 3:6-24). Humanity chose to become self-centered and self-guided rather than remaining God-centered and God-guided. Thus, they became earthbound and frustrated, and this book demonstrates that there is no firm foundation under the sun for earthbound people to build on so as to find meaning, satisfaction, and the key to existence.”
Join me as I close my series on “The Anatomy of Sin” by journeying with King Solomon through his book of Ecclesiastes. This will be a two-part series comparing Satan’s worldly human wisdom to God’s wisdom to answer life’s questions from two different points of view.
In this first lesson, King Solomon will deal with looking at life through “Satan’s human wisdom,” and then in the next lesson, he will look at life using Godly wisdom. It is through the comparison of these two points of view that we will find out how we can find true meaning, satisfaction, and the key to existence in this sinful world we live in.
Let’s start with answering the question: who is King Solomon?
King Solomon, the son of King David, lived 3,000 years ago and reigned over Israel from 970 to 930 B.C. King Solomon was the wisest and wealthiest person who ever lived. If you were to estimate his wealth by today’s standards, his net worth would be more than $2.1 trillion.
How did King Solomon become so rich and wise? We find our answer in 1 Kings 3:3-13. Solomon sacrificed to God, and God later appeared to him in a dream, asking what Solomon wanted from God. Solomon asked for wisdom. Pleased, God personally answered Solomon\’s prayer,
11 So God replied, “Because you have asked for wisdom in governing my people with justice and have not asked for a long life or wealth or the death of your enemies— 12 I will give you what you asked for! I will give you a wise and understanding heart such as no one else has had or ever will have! 13 And I will also give you what you did not ask for—riches and fame! No other king in all the world will be compared to you for the rest of your life! (NLT)
The book of Ecclesiastes
The book of Ecclesiastes is unique in Scripture in that it is the only book in the Bible that reflects a human, rather than divine, point of view.
Ray Stedman in his book Adventuring Through the Old Testament advises and cautions us this way.
“Ecclesiastes is filled with error, yet it is wholly inspired. This may seem confusing. After all, isn’t divine inspiration a guarantee of truth? Not necessarily. Inspiration merely guarantees accuracy from a particular point of view: If it is God’s point of view, it is true; if it is a human point of view, it may or may not be true. If it is the devil’s point of view, it may or may not be true, for whenever Satan speaks, most of his statements are in error and even the truth he uses is intended to mislead.
Inspiration guarantees an accurate reflection of these various points of view. When the Bible speaks, it speaks the truth about God’s truth, and it speaks the truth about the errors of human beings and of Satan. Because Ecclesiastes reflects a human, rather than a divine, point of view, it is often misused and twisted out of context by the enemies of God’s Word. Ecclesiastes is the favorite book of atheists and agnostics. Many cults love to quote this book’s erroneous viewpoints and give the impression that these words represent God’s viewpoint on life.
Though Ecclesiastes is inspired by God, it is designed to show the futility of life from a purely human viewpoint.”
Ecclesiastes The Inspired Book of Error
During King Solomon’s 40-year reign, Jerusalem experienced a period of complete peace. Since Solomon did not have to bother himself with war and military life, he had all the time he needed to pursue his inquiries into the meaning of life.
He also had all the wealth he needed, plus a keen, logical mind. With great resources of money, time and intellect, he was free to discover what life is all about. Therefore, the value of Ecclesiastes is that it sets forth life from the standpoint of Satan’s human wisdom, apart from divine revelation or Godly wisdom. How did King Solomon’s observations about life using only human wisdom get him to this bleak point of view?
For that answer, we must start at the beginning to find out how we’ve ended up like this. We need to go all the way back to Genesis. When God made Adam and Eve, they were perfect, and He placed them in a perfect garden. Had they remained God-Centered, they would have lived perfectly for all eternity in fellowship with God. However, they chose to become Self-Centered and started the death process for everything on earth. In Genesis 3:17-19, God places His curse on man.
17 And to the man he said, “Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. 18 It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. 19 By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return.”
Because of Adam’s sin, God placed a curse upon the world, the people, the animals, the plants and the very ground. Adam had to fight weeds and thistles to make a living out of the ground, while Eve had to suffer in childbirth. Suffering and toil are part of the curse God put upon this earth because of sin. Through Adam’s struggle to make a living, he would have to toil and sweat to get a harvest. This would remind him that his disobedience had affected all of creation.
The curse God placed on Adam still exists today. King Solomon reasons, What do people really get for all their hard work? 10 I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. (3:9)
Solomon begins by demonstrating the meaninglessness of life apart from God. He goes on to substantiate his claim by proving the meaninglessness in nature, human society and human behavior using Satan’s human wisdom only in his observations.
In chapter one, King Solomon begins with observing life in general as it relates to nature.
3 What do people get for all their hard work under the sun? 4 Generations come and generations go, but the earth never changes. 5 The sun rises and the sun sets, then hurries around to rise again. 6 The wind blows south, and then turns north. Around and around it goes, blowing in circles. 7 Rivers run into the sea, but the sea is never full. Then the water returns again to the rivers and flows out again to the sea. 8 Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content. 9 History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. 10 Sometimes people say, “Here is something new!” But actually, it is old; nothing is ever truly new. 11 We don’t remember what happened in the past, and in future generations, no one will remember what we are doing now. (1:3-11 TLB)
He goes on to say
I soon discovered that God has dealt a tragic existence to the human race. 14 I observed everything going on under the sun, and really, it is all meaningless—like chasing the wind. 15 What is wrong cannot be made right. What is missing cannot be recovered. (1:14 -15 TLB)
Solomon has discovered in his observation of nature, that all this is meaningless repetition. He feels the utter weariness of this endless cycle. So, what is his outlook? The universe goes on, and we are lost in the revolving, mindless gears of its machinery.
Knowledge has always been at the foundation of our civilization. Everything we have and all that we’ve accomplished and achieved was produced with the knowledge we’ve learned since our existence. Let’s take a look at what Solomon found out concerning knowledge.
16-18 I said to myself, “Look, I am better educated than any of the kings before me in Jerusalem. I have greater wisdom and knowledge.” So I worked hard to be wise instead of foolish—but now I realize that even this was like chasing the wind. For the more my wisdom, the more my grief; to increase knowledge only increases distress. (1:16-18 TLB)
If human knowledge only increases the distress in our life, it seems all we can do is exist and make the best of it while on earth. Human wisdom now tells you, you might as well live it up while you can, because it will all be over someday. Satan’s wisdom tells us that life is short — play hard.
It sounds practical. It seems to make sense. But this is not God’s counsel. It’s the world’s counsel. It’s Satan’s counsel — and it’s a snare for the worldly, the proud and the foolish.
So, in order to relieve the stress and boredom of life, Satan has filled this earth with every imaginable pleasure we can think of. So, King Solomon says,
2 1-2 I said to myself, “Come now, be merry; enjoy yourself to the full.” But I found that this, too, was futile. For it is silly to be laughing all the time; what good does it do? 3 So after a lot of thinking, I decided to try the road of drink, while still holding steadily to my course of seeking wisdom.
Next, I changed my course again and followed the path of folly, so that I could experience the only happiness most men have throughout their lives.
4-6 Then I tried to find fulfillment by inaugurating a great public works program: homes, vineyards, gardens, parks, and orchards for myself, and reservoirs to hold the water to irrigate my plantations.7-8 Next, I bought slaves, both men and women, and others were born within my household. I also bred great herds and flocks, more than any of the kings before me. I collected silver and gold as taxes from many kings and provinces.
In the cultural arts, I organized men’s and women’s choirs and orchestras.
And then there were my many beautiful concubines.
9 So I became greater than any of the kings in Jerusalem before me, and with it all I remained clear-eyed, so that I could evaluate all these things. 10 Anything I wanted I took and did not restrain myself from any joy. I even found great pleasure in hard work. This pleasure was, indeed, my only reward for all my labors. (2:1-10 TLB)
King Solomon had provided himself with wine, women and song as well as luxuries, buildings and gardens. And although these brought him pleasures for the moment, they also brought him no enduring satisfaction, for he was always seeking something new to do.
11 But as I looked at everything I had tried, it was all so useless, a chasing of the wind, and there was nothing really worthwhile anywhere. (2:11)
Moving on, Solomon says surely it will be good for me to understand the difference between being wise and being a fool.
12 Now I began a study of the comparative virtues of wisdom and folly, and anyone else would come to the same conclusion I did — 13-14 that wisdom is of more value than foolishness, just as light is better than darkness; for the wise man sees, while the fool is blind. (2:12-14 TLB)
His conclusion:
And yet I noticed that there was one thing that happened to wise and foolish alike— 15 just as the fool will die, so will I. So, of what value is all my wisdom? Then I realized that even wisdom is futile. 16 For the wise and fool both die, and in the days to come both will be long forgotten. 17 So now I hate life because it is all so irrational; all is foolishness, chasing the wind. (2:15-17 TLB)
After King Solomon realized both the wise and the foolish will eventually die, he also realized something else.
And I am disgusted about this—that I must leave the fruits of all my hard work to others. 19 And who can tell whether my son will be a wise man or a fool? And yet all I have will be given to him—how discouraging!20-23 So I turned in despair from hard work as the answer to my search for satisfaction. For though I spend my life searching for wisdom, knowledge, and skill, I must leave all of it to someone who hasn’t done a day’s work in his life; he inherits all my efforts, free of charge. This is not only foolish but unfair. So, what does a man get for all his hard work? Days full of sorrow and grief, and restless, bitter nights. It is all utterly ridiculous. (2:19-23 TLB)
So, what does a man get for all his hard work? Days full of sorrow and grief, and restless, bitter nights. Let’s add that to the boredom and distress that knowledge brings, and the lack of satisfaction pleasure brings, and what is King Solomon’s conclusion? It is all utterly ridiculous.
The gold-leaf standard in Satan’s world today is to be beautiful, rich and successful. The world judges an individual by his or her wealth. The richer a person is, the more they are admired. Surely if King Solomon lived today, he would be at the top of the heap because he was the wealthiest person who ever lived. So, King Solomon asks himself: what about wealth? He concludes,
10 He who loves money shall never have enough. The foolishness of thinking that wealth brings happiness! 11 The more you have, the more you spend, right up to the limits of your income. So, what is the advantage of wealth—except perhaps to watch it as it runs through your fingers! 12 The man who works hard sleeps well whether he eats little or much, but the rich must worry and suffer insomnia. (5:10-12 TLB)
The rich have everything they want and need, yet they still have cravings that can’t be satisfied.
Ray Stedman adds these comments on Ecclesiastes
“In chapter 5, King Solomon examines religion, and yes, even religion, he finds, is meaningless! Trying to live a good life and be a good person is meaningless! There’s no practical value to it, no ultimate satisfaction. What’s more, it’s hard to tell religious and irreligious people apart! He observes that many religious people behave in unethical ways. They break vows to God. They oppress the poor. They are greedy and selfish. Religious formalism is empty and meaningless like everything else.
In chapter 10, he explores the inequity, unfairness, and uncertainty of life. Even a wise lifestyle can let you down. Sometimes, no matter how carefully and diligently we live, we end up at the bottom of the food chain. Slaves end up on horseback, while princes wind up walking. Fools climb to the top of the heap, while the wise end up underneath it. Despite your best efforts to live a good life, in the end life is not fair. In fact, life is meaningless.”
Solomon’s quest to find meaning and happiness in his life under the sun through Satan’s human wisdom didn’t really turn up anything of value except meaningless boredom, distress, worry, insomnia and the lack of satisfaction.
In today’s society, when people experience these types of thoughts, they get a sort of tunnel vision that all is hopeless. They find themselves in the middle of a crisis and turn to alcoholism, drug abuse and even suicide as their answer. My friend, this is what relying on human wisdom will bring. This is the foundation of Satan’s human wisdom philosophies, and he welcomes all that will follow him into darkness and an eternity with him in hell.
Unfortunately, and not to be cruel, this, my friend, is all that an unbeliever has to look forward to in his or her lifetime. They are unable to access Godly wisdom because they are separated from Him by Sin. Unless…
9 If you say with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved from the punishment of sin. Romans 10:9 (NLV)
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV)
The unbeliever is born merely to be caught up in the generational tide and then die. Their life without God will leave no long-lasting impression or benefit for the generations to come.
From a human point of view, the Teacher has summed up everything quite well. Life lived apart from God comes to only one end— meaninglessness and despair.
But there is another viewpoint that I haven’t shared with you yet. Join me next time as King Solomon searches for the perspective that sees life from beyond the sun, not merely under it; here comes the perspective of God.
Until next time, my friend, may His mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you.
The Anatomy of Sin
⇐ Prepare for Battle | The Wisdom of Godliness ⇒
