Ecclesiastes 5:8-12

Ecclesiastes chapter 5 verses 8 to 12, If thou seest the oppression of the poor and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter, for he that is higher than the highest regardeth, and there be higher than they. Moreover, the prophet of the earth is for all. The king himself is served by the field. He that love is silver shall not be satisfied with silver, or he that loveth abundance with increase. This is also vanity. When goods increase, they are increased that eat them. And what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholds, of them with their eyes. The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much, but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. My God blessed to us is sacred and holy word this evening. Thomas Naylor was teaching business management at Duke University. He had each of the students fill out a personal strategic plan. He reports, with few exceptions, what they wanted fell into three categories, which he said were money, power, and things. Very big things, including vacation homes, expensive foreign cars, huge yachts, and even airplanes. This was their basic request of the faculty said, teach me how to be a money-making machine. There is no thought to humanitarian service, no thought of spiritual values. Money seems to be their answer to satisfy. action in life. What the students at Duke University want, it appears to be what most people want in our society today. Which leads us to the question, what is your greatest goal in life? It may be surprising to know the Bible has a great deal to say about wealth, about power, about money, about material things. Solomon, as we have said in the past, one of the richest men who ever lived is going to provide some divine insight in this whole matter of money and wealth. What the Bible has to say conflicts with the thinking on the most people that we live around. Because most people think if they just have money and possessions, Somehow it would equate to happiness in this life. Solomon knows better. He fully realizes that true satisfaction of life is not a matter of being a money-making machine. We want to talk about tonight the problem of wealth from our text. I’ll begin by talking about the oppression of the poor shouldn’t surprise you. Versus eight and nine. If thou seeest the oppression of the poor and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter, for he that is higher than the highest regard if, and there be higher than they. Moreover, the prophet of the earth is for all. The king himself is served by the field. The struggles. of the working class are all around you. There is an old English music hall song that sums up the unchanging inequities of this fallen world in which we live. And it’s sung with a cheerful resentment by the British working class. It goes like this. It’s the same the whole world over. It’s the poor what gets the blame. It’s the rich what gets the plunder. Ain’t it all a blooming shame. Kindest little ditty, I think, is some down-to-earth philosophy with regard to life. Supposedly, the poor get the raw end of life, and it’s a real shame. Implied is the fact that the poor must be the salt of the earth. They must be the virtuous, hard-working, people that carry the country. Yet virtue doesn’t pay the rent. Therefore, who wants to be poor? Supposedly, the few rich are blood-sucking parasites of society. Now, if you look at this carefully, you’ll see this is a real socialist agenda that they’re singing about here in this situation. Obviously, any impression of the oppression of the people, poor is something that is shameful and evil. The Bible condemns such a behavior. We’ve talked about this in the past in Chapter 4 when we looked at some passages there. The Bible nowhere indicates that there is some meritorious virtue in being poor, as if being poor automatically put you in that category. Though poverty, is looked upon by some as a kind of a means of grace, it’s not true. The fact of the matter is the poor can be just as covetous as the rich, perhaps even more so at times. The only good thing about being poor is it is a humbling thing. And for one who is going to seek the Lord, that’s a good place to start with a humble spirit. The Word of God indicates that God God will be the helper of the poor. He will be the helper of the oppressed when they turn in faith to him and they seek his help in their troubles. God certainly will bring to judgment those who are engaged in the evil deeds of oppression and exploitation of the poor. He speaks here about the highest of the high still rules overall. That’s the Lord. That’s God himself. There are higher than the highest in this world, and that, of course, is the Lord. He’s higher. He calls people here to minister his people, to minister those to need. And yet Jesus declared that the poor you have with you always. It’s no escaping that. It is a farce to think if we took everybody in our society and redistributed the wealth of society, which our government is involved directly in doing at the moment, if we redistributed the wealth of everybody and our whole country, that somehow would stay that way, no, it won’t, because those who are enterprising will make more money and those who are foolish, we’ll spend it and blow it on something or other, and you end up in the same situation you are right now. You have the rich and you have the poor. It’s just the way it’s going to be. So the struggling working class is all around you. That’s just the way it is. And there’s no escaping the fact that there are going to be poor people in our world. Now you find that the secular world isn’t fair. In 1801 during the Battle of Copenhagen, Admiral Horatio hornblower ignored a signal by his superior. Admiral Hyde Parker. Parker signaled Nelson to break off the sea battle. But Nelson didn’t want to do so. As I told you before, he was blinded one eye, so he put, he moved the patch over to his good eye, put the telescope on the blind eye, and told his captain of his ship, I can’t see the signal. And therefore, he got away with it. He won the battle and became a national hero. And the phrase, the Nelson I, became a byword for breaking the rules and getting away with it. Solomon sees here that there are rich people who are getting richer. Not all rich people, but there are rich people who are getting richer by exploiting the poor. where the poor are oppressed bureaucracy and the law give it the Nelson I. They just let it happen. The profit of the land is taken by all sorts of people. The king gets his cut. The poor guy, the little poor guy’s out there working farming, but the king’s going to get his cut. And others will get theirs as well. We have eminent domain laws where if they want your property, they just take it. They take your property from it. They give you something for it, but it’s not really what it’s worth. They just take it. Naubos Vineyard was taken by craft and force when he refused to sell it or swap it. By King Ahab. Actually, by Gisabelle, for the king. Our legal system favors the rich and the powerful, the politically connected. They have the best legal minds. Of course, there are Joe’s judges who will take the bribes and favor the rich. And, of course, there’s always the local and federal taxes, state taxes. They all take their cut off to top as well. So Solomon says, you shouldn’t be surprised that such things happen that the little guy gets exploited. What can you expect in a world that has no fear of God before its eyes. What else can a depraved society produce? It has no absolute values. All it gets is a, maybe it offers, is a 51% vote which often gets manipulated anyhow. By the media’s a bias, by the lies of the politicians. And as we know in every election, the dead get the vote. There’s a lot of corruption that takes place. So often we end up with evil dictators or people who act like dictators and you get all kinds of trouble. Don’t pin your hopes on any kind of revolution, by the way. Because you’re just trading one evil leader for another evil leader. And you’re not going to get anywhere doing that. It’s all in will take that up later. you just get a new set of people exploiting you, that’s all. The all-consuming passion for money inevitably leads to misery. It creates an atmosphere where people will cheat others just to gain wealth and to get ahead. So you find the secular world isn’t fair. Now, why wealth might appear to you to be the answer to all lives problems. There is an assumption that if we just had greater riches it would be a good thing and would come out ahead. We won’t be at the bottom. We won’t be oppressed. Certainly if we have an increase in personal wealth, it may relieve financial press, or assuming you don’t go on a spending spree and spend all that you make, which some people do. Now the Bible does not forbid the earning of money. It doesn’t forbid enterprising effort as long as we honestly make our money. Material success can be a blessing from God or it could be a curse from God, depending on who you are and how you’re going about things. However, your highest goal cannot be to be a money making machine. That cannot be. That cannot be. the main focus of your life. Wealth should be thought of in terms of you being the steward of God’s goods. So that whatever we have in this life it really belongs to God and we’re sort of like overseeing it for him while we’re here on Earth. Your wealth is given so that in some way you as a child of God may, cause the progress of the kingdom of God to take place. To look and work toward that end. Money-making schemes don’t have that goal in mind. One of the reasons that state lotteries are so popular and even these sweepstake, publishers sweepstakes and so forth, is they create a great interest in getting rich quick. instantly. You don’t have to work for. He’s, boom, all of a sudden you’re rich, you got it made. Instant wealth seems to promise instant happiness to people. People get excited about living the good life. But Solomon here demonstrates that human sin can turn that gold into dross and turn perceived blessings into curse. money and wealth isn’t all that it’s portrayed to be. So the oppression of the poor shouldn’t surprise you. It happens all the time in society that’s corrupt and evil, and we live in a very perverse generation. Secondly, you might be surprised to learn that wealth cannot provide satisfaction. Versus 10 to 12, he takes this up. He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with sulfur. Nor he that loveth abundance with increase, this is also vanity. When goods increase, they are increased, that eat them. And what good is they’re to owners they’re off, saving the beholding of them with their eyes. The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much, but the abundance of the poor will not suffer him to sleep. We should beware here of the deceitfulness that of riches. Remember in the parable of the sower Jesus talked about the seed is sown among the thorns and that is the person who hears the word and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke it out. And he uses that phrase the deceitfulness of riches. The desire for wealth often causes a person to cast aside the truth of the Word of God. The wealth becomes more important to them. And so you can’t serve God and Mammon and when wealth is your chief goal, it becomes your God, and therefore the true God gets slighted. Jesus sees that there is deceitfulness. Because wealth promises more than it delivers. Children look forward to a birthday. They believe that if they get that they get that special toy on their birthday that they just got to have, that they’re going to be happy. They’ll tell their parents, this is all I need. Just get me this. And I’ll be happy. Whether it be the new Barbie or the train set or the truck or the latest video. game or whatever. Nothing else seems to matter. If I could just have that, I’ll be happy. Well, guess what? If they get that within a few days, they’re playing back with their old favorite toys and eventually what they just had to have isn’t really that important after all. Now, as an adult, you have some more sophisticated taste in your children, but basically, you’re the same way. You get to the point where if I just had this, I’d be happy. But if you get it, ultimately you won’t be happy either. You’ll be just like your children. You just got to have it. Whether it’s a new car or expensive shoes or the latest Apple phone or some electronic gadget that they’ve just come out with, you think, I’ll just be satisfied if I have that. My friends, no matter what you have, there’s a lot. There’s There’s no perfect house. There is no perfect vacation. No perfect coin collection, no perfect car, no perfect shoes, no perfect phone. Today’s goal becomes tomorrow’s bottom line. In ambition never stops hustling for something bigger, something greater. And so you just end up pursuing something that’s of more value or more greater size. You know how they sometimes when people have donkeys that pull their carts, they would put a carrot on a on a string and put it on a stick and hold the carrot out in front of the donkey and the donkey will move trying to get that carrot. Well, that’s the way wealth is in some cases. It’s held out there before us, and even, you can never really obtain what you’re looking for. There’s always something newer or better to chase after, so it’s a never-ending quest. So the deceitfulness of riches. Now, there are specific reasons wealth guarantees you dissatisfaction. You will find that there is never enough in verses 10 and 11. The Chevy that you have today, you get tired of. You decide you need a Cadillac. Then you get the Cadillac and say, you know, I’d really like to have a Mercedes. You get the Mercedes and you say, you know, I’d really like to have one of those European sports cars, one of those Ferraris. The owner of the $500,000 house decides he needs a million-dollar house. And if he gets the million-dollar house, he looks at starts looking with envy at the $5 million house. You got to have that. And on and on it goes. The modern barometer of economic success, the standard of living, is not a fixed point. It keeps moving. Now, today we hear a lot about the $15 an hour minimum wage. I got news for you. If you get $15 an hour, the next thing you know, they’ll want $20 an hour, then $30 an hour. Then $30 an hour. and $50 an out. It’s never going to end. As your goods increase, you find there are more people to consume them, as he talks about here, including the government, which has the graduated tax. The more you make, the more they want to take. It’s funny, if you think about sports stars or Hollywood stars, they have scores of people around them. To help them cope with the demands of stars, him in its wealth. You have to have an agent. You have to have a bodyguard or two. You have to have a fashion designer, a business director, various servants, a hairdresser, a groomer, and who knows what else. And they all eat up wealth, you see. The heavyweight champion Mohammed Ali was known for having at least 50 to 100 people around him whenever he went to a fight. He had his wife, he had his children, he had his trainer, he had his seconds, he is a dietitian, he had his sparring partners, his friends, his religious guides. It was literally a circus atmosphere. And they all were eating up the wealthy was making. Success always necessitates the recruitment of a staff to administer to your growing. possessions and assets. You need a lawyer. You need a business agent. You need an investment counselor. You need a secretary. You need employees. As you go along, you just have to keep putting more people on the payroll, so to speak. So this sort of steals the glaze off your donut. Expenses and overhead increase, profit margins decline in connection with your gross income, as they say, it’s not what you earn, it’s what you can keep that counts. So wealth has its burdens. There’s never enough of it. Your wealth doesn’t make life meaningful. The last part of verse 11 talks about what good is there to the owners they’re off, saving, the beholding of them with their eyes. So that’s a sort of anti-climatic. because it seems like the joy is in the making of it, but once you got it, then what? Suppose you buy a specific piece of art, maybe you decide you’re going to collect art, maybe statutes, maybe paintings, so you get a Remmark brand or something like that. What are you going to do? All you could do is feast your eyes on it. Can’t eat it. The wealth of a prominent surgeon was desperate. unhappily unhappy, even though she lives in a very large home and has plenty of money to spend. Her husband is so caught up in the vicious cycle of making and spending money just to keep up his reputation as the most successful man in his field. He’s irritable home. He’s unhappy. He’s frustrated with himself. And yet he continues on doing what he’s doing. His wife can look around at all the benefits she has, but she’s not. happy either doesn’t add meaning to life he’s so busy can’t even enjoy what he has he can look at his bank and investment statements you can look at his yacht that’s sitting in his yard idle because he doesn’t have time to take it out on the waterways what’s he going to do doesn’t make your life meaningful just because you have property or money or goods or whatever. Wealth increases your anxiety. Verse 12. Now it’s interesting the way he states this. The poorer laboring man, you know, maybe he lives hand to mouth. He’s worked hard for his money. When he goes to bed, whether he has a lot to eat or there’s a little bit to eat, he goes right to sleep. He, you know, he’s sleepy, he sleeps through the night pretty soundly. He’s not worried about anybody stealing. He doesn’t have anything to steal. So I told my wife one time that someone tries to rob us, they’re going to be hugely disappointed. Sir William Burrell was a Scottish shipowner who devoted most of his long life to collecting art. It is used art collection, all types of things. The Burrell collection, it’s housed in a beautiful gallery in Polock, Park, Lasco. It’s one of the world cultural centers, if you wanted to see some great art. Sir William gave his collection to his native city, but he never lived long enough to see it put on public display. He lived out his last years as a recluse in his own house, Hutton, Castle. He lived in mortal fear of fire and theft, consuming all his great art collection, kept him up at night. The burden of something happening to his famous art collection was a constant source of anxiety to him. Jesus taught to view us to view things from a divine perspective. To lay up our treasure in heaven and not on earth were rusts and moths and thieves can destroy it and take it away from us. Earthly treasure is always subject to loss. Th theft, decay, uncontrolled events, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes. Who knows what can happen. It makes wealth a very fragile thing. It’s the proverbs, the writer of the proverbs, Solomon who wrote about wealth having wings, it just flies away. It’s gone. You have it, and it can be gone. And no time at all. So you might be surprised to learn that wealth cannot provide satisfaction. It’s deceitful, and it actually leads, in many cases, the dissatisfaction. When Thomas Naylor was teaching business management at Duke University, he discovered that, The students really wanted to be taught how to make a money-making, how to be money-making machines. Just teach me how to make money. That’s what’s important. So all in here wants to burst that bubble. Get that out of your mind, he says. Money isn’t the answer. You’re never going to have enough money. Wealth doesn’t provide meaning for life or satisfaction. And wealth can actually increase your worries. Now, some lessons that we can learn from this tonight. One is that. this. The present comfort for Christ’s poor people is this. The Lord reigneth, which executed judgment for the oppressed. Psalm 146 verse 7 and Psalm 97 1 and 2. If we are oppressed in this life, our God will take care of that. We’ll leave it in his hands. But it also gives us future hope, Scripture. The Lord cometh, and he’s going to write all the wrongs that have been done to us by our oppressors. We have a blessed hope. Being with Christ and enjoying eternal riches with Him. A second thing we see here is that humility is an important lesson for the rich to learn. The rich are actually dependent upon the poor worker and their own servants who labor on their behalf. Contentment is the lesson the poor have to learn. The Lord makeeth the poor and makeeth rich 1st Samuel 2.7. And therefore, because it’s in God’s hands, we need to learn to be content with what our lot in life is and not be upset. with the Lord giving us what we have. The third thing is this. A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesses. Luke 1215. Abraham had great wealth. But you know what? He had a heavenly heart. Because we know that even though he had this wealth, he looked for a city which has foundations who has built for a city. Who is built. and maker is God. That was what motivated him in this life. David, the king, had great treasures. Huge treasures. But his heart eagerly sought after a closer walk in fellowship with the Lord. As we read in Psalm 42 in verse 1, as the heart pannedeth after the water brooks. So paneth my soul after thee, O God. Someone has put it this way. He is rich who does not possess so much of this world’s good but who desires little. That he doesn’t need it. He doesn’t need the world’s goods to be happy because his treasure is in his God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that should be our encouragement. He is our true treasure. and he is what should make us happy. Not what we possess, but how little we actually need of what this world has to offer. Then you’re truly rich. Let’s close with a word of prayer tonight.