It is amazing what we can do today. If I decided I wanted to go to Australia tomorrow, I could do it. My credit card would permit me to book the flights even if my current bank balance didn’t. In our day we have been able to do things former generations could only dream of. There are many things we can pursue in our three score and ten years. Wonderful opportunities are given to us by God. But what is your true pursuit? What are you running after? What is your goal? What do you want? In its advertising campaign Microsoft used to ask – “Where do you want to go today?” – suggesting that through the internet and its software you can go anywhere. So where do you want to go?

Solomon had everything at his disposal. He had the money, resources, and the power and ability to virtually do anything humanly possible in his day. As he struggled to find meaning, as he pursued avenues to find purpose, under the sun, he engaged in various pursuits.

In the closing verses of chapter one we find his pursuit of wisdom taught him that the world without God is a crooked, dissatisfying, and disappointing place. He found such deep thoughts would weigh heavy upon his mind. It gave him a headache, and headaches need pain-killers. But Solomon didn’t have Anadin, so he tried the next best thing – Pleasure.

If something is too heavy to mentally bear, there is often the tendency to pursue pleasure. Man swiftly moves from wisdom to hedonism. When the mind is dismissed, the body does the dictating. Thus when people exclude God and His wisdom, they serve their basest bodily desires. What did Solomon do? In Chapter two of Ecclesiastes he confesses to pursuing pleasure in the three areas of wine, women, and work.

The Pursuit of Wine⤒🔗

V 3 – “I searched in my heart how to gratify my flesh with wine...”

How much we see this endeavour around us! As life is too heavy people can’t wait for the weekend. It is the time for alcoholic escapism.

V 10 – “Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.”

This is a no-holds-barred fun time, and he has the money to do it. It all sounds pretty up-to-date. Man is basically a hedonistic animal. He pursues pleasure because he won’t pursue God. He knows something is missing, but it’s too heavy, so fill the gap with booze. Reality is too heavy so crawl inside a bottle. The real world is too serious, so let’s just have some fun.

But where does it lead? Does that drug bring satisfaction? Let me read some portions from another bit of 3,000 year old wisdom – Prov. 23:29-35.

Who has sorrow ... who has redness of eyes? Those who linger long at the wine ... Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart will utter perverse things ... When shall I awake that I may seek another drink?

You wake up with a hangover, and return to your disappointing life. It is the morning after the night before. The pursuit of pleasure from wine, and all other associated mind-bending drugs has a pay-back time.

At the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like a viper. Prov. 23:32

The Pursuit of Women←⤒🔗

Vs 7-10 (portions) – “I acquired male and female servants ... male and female singers, the delights of the sons of men ... I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure.”

One wife is not enough for Solomon. Like father, like son, he had a weakness here; and he has the power to be able to satisfy that weakness. But with a thousand wives he isn’t satisfied!

Isn’t this another area that man pursues today? We live in a society obsessed with the subject of sex. How many men are living that double life in adultery, or pornography, and yet are not satisfied? Scripture calls us to drink from our own fountain.

Prov. 2:16 – Wisdom will “deliver you from the immoral woman, from the seductress who flatters with her words ... her house leads down to death ... None who go to her return”.

Solomon has been there, done it, and met the consequences.

The Pursuit of Work←⤒🔗

Solomon had an important work project to do. It would have been wonderfully spiritually satisfying to build the glorious Temple of the Lord. But Solomon moved on from those spiritually wise days, into worldly wisdom and carnal pleasure. Furthermore, in the pursuit of carnal pleasure came carnal projects.

V 4 – “I made my works great. I built myself houses, and planted myself vineyards”.

Stonewall Jackson, as well as a mighty General in the Confederate Army, was a deacon in his local church. There was an important Deacons Meeting one evening, due to begin at 8pm. At five past, some of the men were not yet present. Jackson paced up and down, and eventually went down the road to the house of one of the deacons. He knocked the door, and when it opened he promptly told the man it was eight minutes past eight. The man made some lame excuse that he didn’t have time to go out tonight. Jackson replied, “You shouldn’t have time for anything else. How can you put aside your obligations in the matter?” He turned and walked back to the church. The man was soon right behind him.

Sometimes the pursuit of work can become a carnal pleasure in itself, and when we complain that we do not have time for this or that spiritual activity, perhaps we should hearken to Stonewall Jackson – “You shouldn’t have time for anything else!”

Solomon’s work pursuits were a little higher than wine and women. Indeed, it is more noble to climb Everest than laugh away your Friday evenings in the pub or brothel. But what is the true worth of the achievement?

Sir Edmund Hillary was the first man to climb Everest. The night before he and Sherpa Tenzing reached the top they drank a lot of tea, as one of the great problems for climbers at high altitude is dehydration. So, in the Corning, upon arriving at the peak, they had full bladders, and their first business at the top was a call of nature. It seems a little ironic that you climb the highest mountain – and then what?

He actually said, “For some reason I didn’t feel particularly excited about our success. I had no sense of ultimate achievement – I just felt I had done rather well on a big challenge”.

His pursuit of such challenges meant that he was not present when his mother died, and he constantly regretted it. Also connected with his “work”, he persuaded his wife to fly into a difficult small airfield, but the plane crashed and both she and his 16 year old daughter died. He never forgave himself. The pursuit of his work, to the detriment of things that really matter, led him to make such tragic mistakes.

Is your work your idol? Do you live to work, or work to live, for the glory of God? That’s a serious question!

V 11 – “I looked on all the works that my hands had done ... and indeed all was vanity”.

Alexander the Great in his youth conquered the known world. When he had won all wars, and captured all enemies, and stood alone in control, what did he do next? He broke down and cried, because there was nothing else for him to do!

If you give an inordinate amount of time and energy to your work, one day you too will break down and cry. Your family has grown up, your parents have died, your achievements may be great, but who cares – it has only been a chasing after the wind.

The pursuit of pleasure, in the form of wine, women, or even the more noble pursuit of work, is a trivial pursuit. Thus the logical conclusion is to say with Solomon in v 17 – I hate life.

World Wars I & II showed man to be more crooked than the enlightened optimists of the previous century had thought. After the hard-working 40’s and 50’s the nation drifted from God, and instead there was the pursuit of pleasure. Thus came the swinging 60’s, and days of sexual liberation. Man ran after the trivialities. However there was some measure of return to hard work, in the achieving 70’s and 80’s. But the economic bubble burst. The 90’s and 00’s for man’s pursuits have not brought the utopia. The nihilistic “I hate life”, has come around, once again.

So in the “nothing new under the sun” world, we’ve done it all, tried it all, achieved it all. But we wake up in the morning, hating to get out of bed. I hate life. Yet, that is exactly where Solomon wants to bring us. Become animal-like, and eat grass. Some even like to smoke it! But it is futile, and trivial. So, look up!

The Pursuit of Godly Wisdom←⤒🔗

V 24 – “There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw was from the hand of God”.

The first half of the verse is similar to before, but the second part shows real wisdom in his philosophy of life.

V 26 – “For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in his sight; but to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and collecting...”

God gives wisdom, spiritual wisdom. God gives knowledge, spiritual knowledge of sin, and the Saviour. God gives happiness, real spiritual blessedness, in that pursuit which first seeks the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Life has meaning; and you can find satisfaction. Real life, a happy life and blessed life, is only found in resting in the shadow of Calvary, turning from sin to trust Jesus Christ, and pursuing the divine way, the divine image of godliness.

Man’s chief end is to glorify God. It is not to pursue wine, women, or the idol called work. Get your priorities right and don’t sacrifice time to trivialities. Choose this day whom you shall serve.