Ecclesiastes 4:7-12

Ecclesiastes chapter 4 tonight, and I want to read verses 4, or excuse me, verses 7 through 12. Here, Ecclesiastes chapter 4, verses 7 through 12. Then I returned, and I saw vanity under the sun. there is one alone and there is not a second yea hath neither a child nor brother yet is there no end of all his labor neither is his eyes satisfied with riches neither saith he for whom do I labor and breathe my soul of good this also This is also vanity, yea, it is a sore travail. Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, They have heat, but how can one be warm alone? And if two prevail against him, or excuse me, if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him. And a three-fold cord is not quickly broken. May God bless to us his sacred and holy word this evening. Socrates, the philosopher, once asked a simple man, what he was most thankful for. He thought for a moment and he replied, I’m very thankful for being such as I am that I have had the friends that I have had. A true companion, according to the Bible, sticketh closer to a brother, or sticketh closer than a brother, and he love. at all times according to the book of Proverbs. Our English word friend actually comes from a root word which means freedom. We have the idea of having the freedom to speak before a friend, our whole mind, whatever is on our mind, and they are willing to listen and give their opinion upon it. A genuine friend set you free. to be who and what you are and to talk freely about your problems. There’s an openness to such a relationship. Now Solomon speaks in this passage about the blessings of companionship or friendship, or if you would, marriage, because marriage is classified as a covenant of companionship. His goal is to prove that life should teach you some things. There are some obvious lessons to be gleaned by an observation of events that take place in this life. Look around you at the world and see how people live. What makes them tick? What makes them the way they are? He’s still addressing the issue of basic. philosophies of life. But what he’s asking you to do here is evaluate the results for yourself. And the bottom line is that personal relationships are much better than material possessions. This is something we should factor into the way we live. So you should be thankful for good friends. Let me begin tonight by saying this. You must avoid solitary selfishness. In verses 7 and 8, then I returned and I saw vanity under the sun. He’s still looking at life under the sun here. He’s taking another look. There is one alone, and there is not a second. Yea, he hath neither child nor brother, yet is there no end of all his lay. labor, neither is his eyes satisfied with riches. Neither saith he. For whom do I labor and breathe my soul of good. This is also vanity. Yea, it is a sore travail. Now he asked you here to look around and to consider the lowly miser. you would like in Dickens Christmas Carol Ebenezer Scroach look and see those who fit that category and as a whole you’ll find them to be a very lonely group of people it’s very typical remember billionaire Howard Hughes and how he lived at the end of his life. He ended his days as a chronic recluse all by himself, living alone, with his fear of disease. And that’s how he ended his life. Solomon here speaks of a wealthy miser who is lonely, discontented, and unhappy. Now here is a man who is too big, busy making money to pursue marriage. Never had a family, never had any children. The indication here, he’s not, doesn’t have a brother either. He evidently has no other family connected to him here, another relationship with them. No one to support. No one to support. No one to share his wealth with. No one to leave his money to after he dies. But yet he’s torn with an overwhelming less to continue making money. So he just continues down that course. He powing up the money. And obviously it’s senseless. He can’t spend it all. He has no one to give it to. No one even to leave behind the money to. he’s suspicious of people. Maybe he doesn’t enter in friendship because he has this idea, maybe they’re just making friends with me so they can get my money. So he hoards it all. He keeps it for himself. He is surly, he is withdrawn, he is despondent, he’s self-absorbed, and this is the way he lives. He continues his wretched pattern of life in order to gain more and more money that he doesn’t really need. he never stops to ask himself, why am I doing this? Who’s going to benefit? From all that I’ve accumulated. I have no family. I have no wife. I have no child. I have no brother to leave this to. He says, this is vanity. Solomon says. This is vexationist spirit to do this. Many years ago, Hetty Green was called America’s greatest miser. She lived and died in 1916 is when she died, but she lived early on in the 1800s. And she left an estate at that time of $100 million, which was quite a lot of money for that day and age. But she was so miserly that she ate cold oatmeal every morning for breakfast, cause she didn’t want to spend the money to heat the water to cook the oatmeal to keep you know, to warm it up. It’s been said that she died of a stroke while arguing the benefits of skim milk over whole milk because it was cheap. Sadly, there are many people that are sort of like that in this world. In fact, many children have had fathers like that, many wives have had husbands like that. there are those who have husbands they never see, it seems, from day to day. They’re gone off working and they come in late and there’s just no real relationship with the wives. They’re like two ships passing in the night. Randy was telling me about a woman that she knew from the homeschooling group. Didn’t see the husband for months on it. and when he did show up, you know, chaos ensued. At least this family, this man has no family to neglect. You know, he doesn’t have anybody. Now, friends, as a Christian, you need to avoid this kind of living, this lifestyle. This is selfishness. A covetous spirit makes you a single recluse. It’s important that we develop a healthy home life. that we were willing to sacrifice for our wife. Remember Ephesians 5 talks about Christ laying down his life for the church as an example of the way we’re to take care of our wives. As husbands, we’re not to live selfishly. We’re not to miserly hoard up money for ourselves and never consider anyone else at all. So they should consider the lowly miser. Then he says, well, look at all the vanity of this. behavior. If you’re a couple of this miser, you’re only happiness in life is counting your money. How much gold can I accumulate? How many possessions can I have? Well, I only have 30 classic cars in my warehouse. Maybe I need some more. Art collection of rare art, needs new art. to keep up the pace. How many cars do you need? How much art do you need to look at? Solomon here sees this as a sore travail. The comfort, the peace, and usefulness to others that you could have had. It’s sacrifice, just so you can make an idol out of the almighty dog and what it can buy. You’re cut up in self-satisfaction. Here you are. You’re a perishing sinner. You’re going to die. You’re going to end up in hellfire, and the passing earthly possessions you have are going to be snatched away from you at death. It’s going to be gone. What are you doing? Your final end is an eternity of unchanging misery. You’re like the rich man in the story that Christ told about the rich man in Lazarus. And you recall when he dies and he lifts up his eyes in hell that Abraham tells him he said, you’ve received the good things in this life. There’s none in the world to come. There’s none for you now. My friend, you can lay up earthly treasure for yourself and as we read from the scriptures in Luke 12 there and not be rich toward God, what a mistake. that would be. Yet even in this life, no amount of wealth can compensate for the loneliness and the lack of happiness. What a fool, Solomon says. By way of contrast, you as a believer may not have much in this life. You may be someone who may be considered living in poverty because you don’t have much. But if you have Christ, you have riches beyond what other men have, for the Bible tells us very clearly is having nothing yet possessing all things in 2 Corinthians 610 because in Christ we’re of air of all things. If you have the gospel, you know Christ is the Savior. Why, that makes you truly rich. So you must avoid solitary selfishness. Secondly, tonight, you should realize the blessing of companionship which he takes up here in verses 9 through 12. Now he should value friendship. Notice verses 9 and 10 here. Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. Or if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him that is alone when he falleth where he hath not another to help him up. Remember the statement one of the wise statements by Ben Franklin. A friend in need is a friend indeed. And to have a friend when we need one is the most comforting. You know what it is to be rescued by a friend who reaches out and helps you in your hour of trial or hour of need. And to have that ready help available, you know that they will come and help you. Companionion is better than isolation. And joint labor produces greater returns than that which is done alone. You can do more with two than you can with one. There are certain things that are impossible to do with one person, but you could do with two. People of the day would travel and the roads were not always the best for traveling. If you fell or got injured, you’d be laying there. If you’re by yourself, you can be laying there for who knows how long. There are people who live alone. There are people who fall and are, you know, break a hip or a leg or something. And they lay there for days until someone comes and helps them. So someone checks up on them. That’s a, you know, that’s a terrible thing to happen. We had a woman in the church who was living alone. And it was a good thing her her son would stop in every day to see how she was doing. She lay there for four hours. Injured. Laying on the floor. I mean, what a terrible thing to happen to you. Today they have those life alert, alarm, things. You could contact people, get some help. But it’d be a terrible thing to have a fall. And then there’s no one around you to help you to support you. No way to get any assistance. Bill Geraci, went out fishing all on the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and went to an isolated spot. Somehow because of a landslide, a boulder came down and lay on his leg. And so he was trapped there, and there was, you know, he could yell all he wanted to. There was no one around. It could help him. With night coming on, he thinks, I don’t know if I’m going to make it through the evening, you know, if I don’t get free. And so he was pinned under this large rock and he did something which most people would never dream of doing. He relied on his skill because he was an assistant to a physician at a Denver hospital. So he took a nylon cord out of his tackle box and he tied it tightly a body his knee and he ended up cutting off his leg that was trapped underneath this rock with a knife, penknife that he had. I don’t know how he did it. He dragged himself to his car, drove 10 miles to the nearest town where he got some help. He survived this traumatic event, got an artificial leg, and guess what? He was back fishing again in his favorite spot. there in the Rocky Mountain Hills. But if only had a companion the first time, he was out there. Some of you know Pastor Gordon Ketty. And he said when he was younger, in younger years before he entered in the ministry, he was a biologist. So he said one day he was on the river Yython in Scotland. He said, I experienced the truth of this very text of scripture. He said he was taking core samples of mud where the tide meets the current in connection with the research concerning a species of anilid worm. He said, I was sifting through a sample of mud and the water was so cold. The mud was so cold. His hands were freezing and it actually caused him to pass out. He was in a boat, a roadboat at the time, when he passed out. And he apparently fainted dead away at that point, out of shock. When he came to, his friend Dick was straightening him up in the boat. Dick was there looking for either duck regurgitations in the same mud. Boy, these guys were a pair of repair, one thing. And he’s stuck. straighten him up in the bottom of this boat. And Kennedy said, I recall two things from that point until he got to shore. First Dick, he said, in his typically English understatement, said with a chuckle, it’s just as good that you didn’t fall out of the boat, old boy. I’d had to row away without you. And the other was how thankful he was to God for a friend that he knew wouldn’t row. way if he had fallen off into the water. So we should value friendship. Now, you should appreciate the warmth friendship provides. In verse 11, he talks about if two lie together, then they have heat. Now, this truth certainly can imagine how this would refer to the marriage relationship. What is it with women? They have the coldest feet. I don’t know what it is, but it happens. but not just to pick on them. If you recall from Scripture, when Old King David had reached that point where he was lying in bed and couldn’t get warm, they found a young maiden to lie in bed with him just to give him heat. Her name was Abishag, the Shunamite, a very beautiful woman. He didn’t have relations with her. But she kept them warm. at night while he was sleeping. We can even make it a wider account than this. If you read in scripture, it’s interesting. There’s a story that Jesus told, a parable, I guess, where a man’s neighbor comes and knocks on his door for some loaves of bread because he had some visitors come to his house. And the man says, I’m in bed with my family. I can’t be getting up. But he says, the guy’s persistent and keeps knocking on the door and finally he gets up. He’s talking about being persistent in our prayer life from this story. But here they were all in bed together in order to keep warm. The whole family would be in bed together, sleeping together. We said a family in our church that they did that. I don’t know how long they did that, but the kids were getting older. I mean, eight and nine years old. They were, everybody, you know, they had like five kids. They were all in bed together. I hope they had a giant king-sized bed because I don’t know how they all fit in there. He did say, the husband did say, you know, you have an elbow or a leg in your face and stuff like that. I don’t know. But they bundled up together. And then back in those days, they did it to keep warm. If you look at the old guardhouse at Fort Niagara in New York, you can see a bed on which 12 soldiers could sleep at one. They would all have their uniforms on, ready, if the century called them, but they were all together. Why were they all together? Keep warm. Because it got cold. And so they would bundle together. So you can appreciate the warmth a companion provides. You can appreciate the security a companion provides. As verse 12, if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him. Now, if you have a companion, You have, in a sense, collective security. The man who fell among thieves was alone. They went on the Jericho Road. There was no one to help him fight off his attackers. Today’s bandits will stalk in the evening. The lone person is walking down the street. They’re easy prey. You always feel safer. You have someone. I told you about when I was in seminary, there was a guy that used to be in a gang. And he came to know the Lord, and he was my sweet mate. And so when we went out at night in Fort Worth or Dallas or Arlington area, I never thought any. I was never afraid when I was with him because I thought, boy, he could take on, you know, a couple guys at one time if he had to. He was that kind of guy. Big, strong guy. guy, he was short, but he was like stocky and strong. And so I thought, well, I’m not worried when I’m out with him. We can appreciate that. People often told when they leave work, don’t go to your car alone, you know, go out with some other workers so you’re not easy prey for someone. So you can appreciate the strength here of, or the security, a companion provides here in this situation. You can appreciate also the strength the companion or two provides. In verse 12, we also read a three-fold cord. It’s not quickly broken. Ties that bind you with someone else give strength. The illustration focuses on the fact that two are better than one, and three is even better than two. Three cords. bound together, make a rope. Individually, the cords may not be as strong as you would like them to be, but when you bind them together, they are strong together. I’m reminded when I thought about this text, I thought about David’s Mighty Man. There are groups of three. They’re the top three guys, and then there’s the second group of three and so forth. What’s that all about? Well, have you all about? You were around those three guys, you didn’t have to worry. You know, some of them were taking on, you know, four, 800 guys at one time, but I didn’t care. They weren’t going to back down. The three musketeers. So when two or three are banded together against an enemy, they’re difficult to overcome. Look at Jonathan and his armor bearer. They took on that Philistine garrison. Slaughtered them all. Sure, God helped him. But two men took him on. He had someone to help. Jonathan is the only one with a sword. He had someone to help him. He’d knock him down and the other guy would finish him off. Look at the Israelite captains, Joab and Abishai, when they were fighting against the Ammonites and the Syrians at the royal city of Raba. What did, what did, did Joab say to his brother Abishai? He sent Abishai against the city, against the Ammonites. The Syrians were out in the field, so they sort of had them surrounded. The Israelites surrounded. He said, okay, I’ll take these men, and I’ll fight against the Syrians. You fight against the Ammonites. If the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I’ll say, send you help. If the Syrians are too strong for me, you send me help. Of course, they beat both of them back and defeated both of them. But that’s, you know, they’re two of them together. They had mutual help. They provided for one another. So you should realize the blessings of companionship, friendship, warmth, security, strength. Thirdly tonight, lastly here. you should contemplate the spiritual implications of companionship. Now, I’ve basically laid out for you the earthly aspects of companionship. But let us look at this from a spiritual perspective. Normally, marriage is beneficial for you. The creation story gives us an account of this truth that a man living by himself is not in an ideal situation. Remember what God said? It’s not good for the man to be alone. I will make a help suitable or help meet for him. If it wasn’t good in paradise before the fall, it certainly can’t be good in the wilderness of this world in which we live. To be alone. Now, some religion promote the monastic life. It leads to higher perfection. The Bible doesn’t declare that at all. Two people who are brought together by the Lord’s Providence and are heirs together of the grace of life. One in faith, in hope, and aim. Two are better than one. Two are better than one. What does the scripture say in the book of Proverbs? He that findeth a wife, findeth a good thing, and obtain a favor of the Lord. Love sweetens the toils of life, takes the sting out of troubles in life, and the special relationship of marriage is a strong support between two believers. The covenant companionship that we have with one another. You should think about this from a spiritual perspective with regard to church membership being very beneficial to you. You know, this passage is a rebuke to the religious loner. The lone ranger Christian is going to go off on his own. He never has a church to associate with, to attend. We know that a hot coal left by itself quickly becomes cold, loses glow. But you heap coals together, they hold the glow for a much longer period of time. The most lively professing Christian left alone without Christian fellowship is in danger of waxing cold in the faith. We need one another. It’s not good for us to be alone. The precious communion of the saints warms you spiritually. The members of the body have the same care for one another. 1st Corinthians, 15, and 16. From the head, the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, makeeth increase of the body to the edifying of itself in love. The danger is when the religious loner falls, who’s going to pick them up? when he’s overtaken in a fault, who’s going to help him? There’s no one to assist him. Fellowship with the people God provides mutual assistance. With regard to prayer, with regard to edification, with regard to admonishment, love, and mutual helpfulness. Think about this. Think of the united prayer. Did you have when you have other believers around you? Remember what Jesus? Jesus said in Matthew chapter 18, again I say unto you, if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my father, which is in heaven. If two of you together are praying about this, we think about our own sick and the people we pray for it. As a church, we pray for them. Two are better than one. three are better than two, and the whole church is the best. Think of the mutual edification, the Bible talks about. Arn sharpeneth iron. So a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. Proverbs 279. What are we talking about here? We’re talking about the fact that when we get together, we talk about spiritual things, we edify one another. Do we not? We sharpen one another, spiritually. Look at the mutual encouragement we provide for one another. Remember when David was fleeing from King Saul, and he’s up in the wilderness, hiding out in the caves and so forth. King Saul and his army is looking for him all the time. Guess who encourages David? King Saul’s son, Jonathan, he, he can. goes into the woods, hans him out. Saul, son arose, went to David into the wood, and strengthened his hand in God. How discouraging it could be to be in this situation. Jonathan goes and he encourages him about what God had promised him. You are going to be king one day. Don’t get discouraged. Don’t give up. That’s what we need. That’s we need mutual encouragement, mutual watchfulness. Brother, if a man be overtaken and a fault, he which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness. Look out for your brother. Watch out for his condition. If he falls, he needs someone to lift him up. And spiritually, that’s what we do for one another. It’s interesting. That passage is Galatian 6.1. It talks about that. In Galatians chapter 2, Paul rebukes Peter. Peter had gone to Antioch and they were eating with the Gentiles until some Jews from Jerusalem came and then he separated from the Gentiles. Paul had to rebuke him for it. Because Barnabas even got carried away, we told, with this. You know better than this. by faith, we’re justified justified just like these Gentiles are. What do you mean separating as if you’re better than they are? We lift one another mutual consideration. Hebrews 1024, consider thyself, lest thou also be, excuse me, let us consider one another to provoke unto love and the good works. Don’t forsake the assembling of yourself together, as the manner of some is. One of the reasons is, that we may provoke each other, to love the Lord, to love one another, to be people who live a life of good works as we go through this world. So here are the, these are the spiritual aspects that we take from this text of Scripture tonight. If we look at them from a spiritual perspective, not just an earthly perspective, they still have application to us and benefit to us. Let us not forget these things. as we go through this life. Let us go to take care of the night.