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Exchanged Glory IV: A Time for Every Purpose
God has given us our acquiring emotions for a purpose. He has built into us a desire to walk in His blessings, and He appeals to it repeatedly to encourage us to seek Him.
The “Cain (acquiring) – Abel (hebel – dissatisfaction) – Seth (appointment)” pattern appears in the book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon describes himself as an acquirer.
I bought slaves, male and female, who had children, giving me even more slaves; then I acquired large herds and flocks, larger than any before me in Jerusalem. I piled up silver and gold, loot from kings and kingdoms. I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song, and — most exquisite of all pleasures — voluptuous maidens for my bed.
(Ecclesiastes 2:7-8, The Message)
The Hebrew word for ‘bought’ in these verses is ‘qayin,’ the same word Eve used when she named Cain. Even if Solomon had used a different word, the whole flavor of what he describes in the first two chapters of Ecclesiastes is one of acquiring. He wanted to obtain what seemed good in life.
Solomon got carried away in his pursuits, and he suffered for that (I Kings 11:1-13), but this doesn’t mean that all of his acquiring was bad. In fact, in Proverbs 4:5 the Holy Spirit inspired him to tell us to acquire wisdom. (The Hebrew word used is ‘qayin’ – the word from which we get the name Cain.)
Acquire wisdom! Acquire understanding! …
(Proverbs 4:5, NAS)
God has given us our acquiring emotions for a purpose. He has built into us a desire to walk in His blessings, and He appeals to it repeatedly to encourage us to seek Him. Moses told us to choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19). David told us to taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8). Jesus told us to store up treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:20). All of these scriptures appeal to a need within us to fill our lives with good gifts. The whole idea of rewards and punishment, which appears from cover to cover in the Bible, is based on the fact that we are designed to acquire.
Solomon knew more about acquiring than perhaps anyone in the Old Testament. He was amazingly successful at it. He attained wisdom, a kingdom, wealth, and power beyond anyone else before him (1 Chronicles 29:25). Although he can be rightfully criticized for his excesses, the Bible is clear that he wasn’t totally selfish in his pursuits. From his position of privilege, he decided to help all of us by performing a research project into what life is really about.
I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I set my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven; …
The book of Proverbs presents the early results of Solomon’s research, and the book of Ecclesiastes presents his final report. It contains surprising findings. He shares that although our acquiring emotions can lead us into much good, they can’t handle the hebel of life, the curse of sin and death. The answers to that plague aren’t found in human-directed acquiring – they can only be found in God’s appointments.
Sadly, though Solomon taught this, there is a fair amount of evidence that he failed to consistently live it. This occurred because his heart turned away from the Lord in his old age.
As Solomon grew older, his wives beguiled him with their alien gods and he became unfaithful — he didn't stay true to his GOD as his father David had done.
(1 Kings 11:4, The Message)
This is a tragic story, and it has special significance for me. Solomon is the Biblical author with whom I identify the most. I read his writings and think, “I can relate to this guy.” That makes it hard for me to face up to the disaster that occurred in his old age, but I make it a special point to do so. Since I tend to fall into the same mistakes Solomon did, I want to make sure I learn from his experience.
The book of Ecclesiastes is a fantastic place to do this, and I believe that recognizing this is a key to interpreting the book. If we can see what was going on in Solomon’s heart, we can understand how his pursuits veered off course.
One observation we can make is that though God was speaking to Solomon, for a significant part of his life, Solomon wasn’t happy about what was being said. Here is an example:
Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gains understanding …
And I set my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is grasping for the wind. For in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.
Solomon saw that wisdom and knowledge were gifts from God, yet his experience was that they resulted in much grief and sorrow. Why? I believe it was because he often missed God’s way to work through sorrow and grief to joy. He tried to use wisdom and knowledge to satisfy his acquiring emotions, which was a mistake of colossal proportions.
The hebel of life was too powerful for that. It undermined and frustrated his pursuits, so the wisdom and knowledge that should have resulted in joy backfired. They actually had the unintended consequence of sharpening his senses so that he experienced his pain more intensely.
Only in a close relationship with his Creator could Solomon have discovered the path to true joy. It is in that context that wisdom and knowledge lead through sadness to fulfillment. Solomon needed to submit his acquiring to God’s time and way; this was where he could find his Master’s plan in the middle of sorrow and grief. When he instead chose to pursue life according to his own agenda, he was robbed of the promise the Holy Spirit inspired him to write in Proverbs 3:13 (Happy is the man who finds wisdom…).
We should look at this more closely. When any of us comes into contact with the true nature of the curse of sin and death, it will bring us grief and sorrow. This was true even of Jesus.
… a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. …
When Jesus took on human form, He felt in a unique way the misery that stretched from the Garden of Eden to the end of time. He understood how the hebel of life frustrated mankind and short-circuited God’s blessings generation after generation. He wanted everyone to be able to find true happiness, but He saw how the curse undermines us and leads to pain. It was impossible for Him to be in the middle of that without feeling grief and sorrow.
Jesus, however, stayed with His Father’s plan. He found God’s appointments, and this led to a supernatural happiness that put the grief and sorrow into perspective.
But to the Son He says: "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions." (emphasis added)
Jesus found gladness in spite of grief and sorrow; Solomon didn’t. The difference was that Jesus loved righteousness and hated lawlessness while, for much of his life, Solomon loved his pursuits. This led him to hate life.
Therefore I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind.
The book of Ecclesiastes is a shockingly transparent record of Solomon’s journey, and it contains many statements that describe his frustrations as he grew to understand the nature of life. His transparency, together with the fact that he backslid at the end of his life, is enough to make us wonder whether Solomon was really qualified to give the advice he gives.
Nevertheless, the book of Ecclesiastes is in the Bible, so that means it is God-breathed truth (2 Timothy 3:16-17). It is our job to seek to understand what God is saying through Solomon and to put that into practice. God is more than able to speak through anyone, even a person whose heart isn’t right. Balaam, for example, spoke wonderful prophetic blessings for Israel (Numbers 23-24). Then in an amazing display of hard-heartedness, he told King Balak how to undermine those blessings.
… those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.
If God could speak through disobedient Balaam, it makes sense He could speak through disobedient Solomon.
But why would He choose to do so? I don’t know that we can say for sure, but I do think it is clear that Solomon’s waywardness is an asset for the book of Ecclesiastes. There is something uniquely authentic about one of the most successful and wealthy men in the history of the world telling us how unhappy he is. It isn’t what we expect, so it drives God’s truth home with greater force.
What would we think if a satisfied Solomon had told us that his money and influence hadn’t been the source of his contentment? We would be likely to say, “It’s easy for a rich king to tell us that his joy doesn’t come from treasures, but let him try living in my world for a while and we will see if he still feels that way!” Our inclination as sinful humans is to think that if we can just acquire what we want, we will be content. Solomon tells us from hard experience why this isn’t the case.
Before we look at what Solomon found so troubling, we need to consider one other aspect of the book of Ecclesiastes. While Solomon was transparently expressing his frustration with living in the world, he didn’t always clearly distinguish between the truth and his frustration with the truth. The messages of eventual joy and Solomon’s unhappy discovery process were intermixed. For example, consider these verses:
For in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.
Therefore I turned my heart and despaired of all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun.
Now compare the previous two verses with:
Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God. …For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in His sight…
Do wisdom, knowledge, and labor lead to grief, sorrow, and despair, or are they gifts received together with joy? By his experience Solomon said grief, sorrow, and despair, but by his teaching he said joy. I believe the best way to bring these verses together is to see that in verses 1:18 and 2:20 Solomon was describing his difficult journey to truth, and in verses 2:24-26 he was describing the destination he, at least in theory, discovered.
Though this intermixing of difficult emotional experiences with eventual truth can make individual verses tough to interpret, it doesn’t affect the overall message of the book. In Ecclesiastes, we see a man grappling with painful reality – and struggling because it isn’t what he expected. Then when all human answers had failed him, he saw God’s answer, a light at the end of the dark tunnel of human hopelessness.
Don’t we all have similar experiences of disappointment as we attempt to put God’s promises into practice in our lives? Although we might not feel the sort of deep despair Solomon did, the working out of truth is often much harder than we expect. Our hearts lack the understanding and character they need, and we cry out in pain and confusion. We try to avoid that pain, but our attempts to run from it keep us from finding answers to it.
Eventually we must embrace the reality of the battle, make our way through it with uncertain steps, and learn to follow the Holy Spirit in the middle of it. I believe we can draw a parallel to another Biblical author who also struggled with truth:
He yelled at GOD, "GOD! I knew it — when I was back home, I knew this was going to happen! That's why I ran off to Tarshish! I knew you were sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness!
So, GOD, if you won't kill them, kill me! I'm better off dead!"
(Jonah 4:2-3, The Message)
The book of Jonah is focused around the conflict between God and Jonah. The prophetic word through Jonah was as much aimed at teaching Jonah about mercy as it was about teaching the Ninevites about repentance. Jonah struggled to accept God’s heart; he even attempted to run off to Tarshish to avoid it! God’s patient discipline of Jonah was used to highlight how difficult it can be for us to move beyond our human love into His supernatural love.
In the same way, I believe Solomon’s struggle to accept the reality of a world plagued by sin and death in Ecclesiastes demonstrates how difficult it can be for us to work through the frustration that is built into the current state of the world. Our instinct is to believe that we can find satisfaction by acquiring what we desire. This is especially true if we do so in a manner that isn’t outwardly sinful. It is shocking to realize that even when we acquire wisely we may still end up unsatisfied.
So I said in my heart, "As it happens to the fool, it also happens to me, and why was I then more wise?" Then I said in my heart, "This also is vanity."
Solomon’s painful example in Ecclesiastes drives home the point that long term satisfaction can’t be found through our plans, even our wise plans. The world is under a curse that sabotages human joy. The only way to be truly satisfied is to go through the often-difficult process of letting go of human joy to discover God’s supernatural joy.
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