The Limits of Pleasure

[0:00] And this morning our attention will be directed to verses 1 through 11.! As noted in the bulletin, this sermon is a continuation of our sermon series in the book of Ecclesiastes.

[0:16] Those of you who have been here for the start of this series, remember that the book of Ecclesiastes opens with a question by its author who refers to himself as the preacher.

[0:28] And the question is found in verse 3 of chapter 1. And he asks, what does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?

[0:41] And the preacher's conclusion is that he gains nothing. And he refers to the nothingness that man gains from all of his toil under the sun as mist, as a vapor, as a mere breath.

[0:54] And so far what we have seen is how the preacher in verses 4 through 11 of chapter 1 goes on to illustrate the emptiness, the monotony of life in a fallen world by reminding us how the earth is like a permanent merry-go-round where people get on when they are born and they get off when they die.

[1:18] And the preacher says this happens generation after generation. And he also reminded us about the repetitive rising and setting of the sun and the circular blowing and returning of the wind and how the rivers flow into the sea, and yet the sea remains the same.

[1:37] It just never gets full. And he uses that description from nature to show us what life is like in a fallen world without any reference to God.

[1:50] He says it is a mist, it is a vapor, it is a mere breath. And then last week we considered how the preacher set out to understand the activities of man under the sun using wisdom.

[2:08] He tried to understand what fallen people do in a fallen world. And he was frustrated in his quest because he found that things were mysterious, things were difficult to understand, you couldn't comprehend them.

[2:22] And he referred to these difficulties and these mysteries as things that are crooked and can't be made straight and things that are lacking and therefore can't be counted.

[2:34] And then he concluded that everything under the sun, everything done under the sun is vanity and a mere striving after wind. The preacher also found out that wisdom doesn't satisfy.

[2:50] He tells us that with wisdom comes much vexation of soul and with knowledge comes more sorrow. And so this morning we come to chapter 2 where the preacher shares another of his attempts to understand life under the sun.

[3:08] And we will be considering this morning what he did. So Ecclesiastes chapter 2 starting in verse 1. Please follow along as I read.

[3:19] I'm reading from the English Standard Version. If you have another translation, yours would read somewhat differently. I said in my heart, come now.

[3:31] I will test you with pleasure. Enjoy yourself. But behold, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, it is mad.

[3:44] And of pleasure, what use is it? I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine, my heart still guiding me with wisdom, and how to lay hold on folly till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life.

[4:06] I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees.

[4:19] I made myself pools from which to water the forests of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had slaves who were born in my house.

[4:30] I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces.

[4:46] I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem.

[5:01] Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.

[5:20] Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil that I had expended in doing it.

[5:31] And behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

[5:43] Let's pray together. Father, we pause this morning and we thank you for your word. We thank you, Lord, that the entrance of your word brings light.

[5:56] Lord, would you cause your word to enter our hearts and cause our darkened eyes to be illuminated. We pray that you'd use your word to quicken our souls.

[6:08] Lord, use your word to raise the dead. Open the eyes of the blind. Open the ears of the deaf. Father, I pray you would pour out your Holy Spirit upon us afresh this morning.

[6:25] Would you grant me grace to faithfully preach your word and grant us all grace to hear and obey your word. We ask you to do these things in the name of Jesus.

[6:38] Amen. Amen. So having tried to understand human activity under the sun, using wisdom in these 11 verses, what we see is that the preacher now turns to pleasure.

[6:53] But what we should notice is that his exploration of pleasure is somewhat different from his study of man's activity under the sun using wisdom. When the speaker employed wisdom, he was deeply investigating and thinking about all aspects of life.

[7:14] But here in this chapter, here in these 11 verses, the preacher now is not just thinking. His experiment is not just mental and theoretical.

[7:25] His experiment is now physical and experiential. Having seen the limits of wisdom, the preacher decides to experiment with pleasure and he tells us what he did in verse 1.

[7:40] He said in his heart, Come now, I will test you with pleasure. Enjoy yourself. And then the preacher goes on to detail the pleasures that he enjoyed.

[7:56] But before he details them, what we see him doing is he tells us, he gives us his conclusion about what he had done.

[8:08] He tells us what he discovered. He tells us that the unbounded pleasures that he experienced were really nothing more than vanity, nothing more than a mist, a vapor, a fleeting breath.

[8:24] He tells us that all of his revelry and the laughter that he got from it was madness. And the pleasures he experienced, he asked of it, what use is it? Meaning it was useless.

[8:37] And then we see also in his concluding words in verse 11 that after evaluating all of his pursuits, he comes to a very similar conclusion and says the same thing. He says, And I considered all the work of my hands had done, the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity, a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

[9:01] What we have before us, really, is a case study on pleasure. Here's a man who acquired for himself every imaginable or desirable pleasure that he could think about, and he indulged himself in all of the pleasures.

[9:19] Notice what he says in verse 10, just for emphasis. He says, Whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. I kept from my heart no pleasure.

[9:31] I kept my heart from no pleasure. I think it's fair to say that the preacher, the amount of pleasure that he experienced, if pleasure could satisfy, he would have been satisfied.

[9:49] I really don't think that anyone could read this account and say, Well, he just didn't have enough. That's why he really wasn't happy at the end of it all. I think a reasonable person reading this would say, You know what?

[10:02] Yeah, I think that's enough. But what we see is after all of this abundant indulgence in pleasure, the preacher said, It's nothing.

[10:17] It's vain. It's empty. It's like chasing wind. So here's the big question this morning. How is it, and why is it, that after experiencing experiencing and enjoying almost limitless pleasure, the preacher, in the end, was dissatisfied and disappointed?

[10:38] Or to put the question another way, why can't earthly pleasures satisfy us? That's the question I want us to consider in our remaining time.

[10:54] There are two aspects of the preacher's experience with pleasure that I want us to consider, and the first one is his pursuit of pleasure, the pursuit of pleasure.

[11:07] We see the preacher stating his goal in verse 1. He was going to enjoy himself to his heart's content with pleasure. But he tells us a further reason that he was doing this in verse 3.

[11:20] He says, I wanted to see what was good for the children of men to do under heaven during the few days of their life. The preacher was, in a sense, really saying, well, this is not just for me.

[11:33] I want to do this for the children of men. I want to explore pleasure. I want to see what is worthwhile to be done on the earth. If you want to think of it in a certain way, sometimes experiments are done for the good of humanity or for the good of mankind, and at the end of that experiment, we all benefit from the results of it.

[11:55] We can see this as a kind of experiment about the ability of pleasure or the extent to which pleasure can bring satisfaction to us. That was the goal of the preacher.

[12:08] He wanted to see what was worthwhile for a man to engage himself in. We shouldn't miss that the preacher alludes to a sobering reality that we sometimes don't like to think about, but in verse 4, the preacher alludes to death.

[12:33] Sorry, in verse 3, he alludes to death. He alluded to death in chapter 1 in verse 4 when he talked about generations coming and generation going, but here, in a very direct way now, he says that he wants to evaluate what is worthwhile for the children of man to do in their few days on the earth, their few days of life.

[13:01] life. So the preacher is bringing us face to face with the reality of the gravity of life and the certainty of death, and the preacher is saying to us it is so brief that he measures it not in years, he measures it in days.

[13:16] And in light of this brief life and this certain death, the preacher is investigating what is worthwhile for us to do during our few days on the earth.

[13:37] And so what we see is the preacher starts out and in verse 3 he tells us the first pleasure that he went after. The first pleasure the preacher went after was the enjoyment of alcohol or more specifically wine.

[13:50] The preacher says that he searched within his heart how to cheer his body with wine. This was no casual drink that the preacher was engaging in. The preacher was seriously dedicating himself to experiencing the ins and outs, the ups and downs, the roundabouts of alcohol and more specifically wine.

[14:16] This was a serious and a concerted study to experiment with obtaining pleasure from drinking alcohol. Now some of you may be wondering whether the preacher got drunk but it would appear that the preacher certainly overindulged in alcohol even though he says that his wisdom was still with him that he was still guided by his wisdom.

[14:46] I think when we consider this account we have some idea that the preacher's wisdom was not divine wisdom. The preacher's wisdom was human wisdom because if the preacher had divine wisdom he would not indulge in some of the things he indulged in in pursuing pleasure.

[15:03] So we shouldn't rely on the preacher's wisdom to say have the discretion to not drink so much. I think the preacher gave himself fully to experiencing the pleasure that drinking wine can actually bring to a person.

[15:21] Now let me just offer an explanation that I think could help you as you try to engage this unusual preacher. I think one observation might be is that he sounds like some modern day preachers.

[15:34] you know withholding nothing that brings them pleasure. But if all of this seems a bit contradictory don't think for a moment that this preacher was the preacher when he was indulging and engaging in all of these things.

[15:54] I think we should see that the preacher is recounting what happened in the past. He's recounting what happened in his life to teach and to share.

[16:07] It's kind of like if a person were to come before us and maybe that person was addicted to drugs and began to recount and talk about what they did in abusing drugs or alcohol or some other substance and they're doing it as a preacher but they weren't a preacher when they actually did it.

[16:26] So that's the understanding that you need to get about this. The preacher is preaching and teaching from his life's experience but he was not preaching and teaching as he was engaging and doing all of these exploits into unbounded sinful pleasures.

[16:49] So after alcohol the preacher no doubt alcohol wasn't satisfying enough he moves on to great works. We see in verse 4 he made great works he built houses and planted vineyards for himself.

[17:04] In verse 5 we see that he made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. And then we see that he needed to water these things.

[17:17] So in verse 6 he built pools kind of irrigation system to water these vast gardens and vineyards that he planted.

[17:28] and naturally you need a lot of work to workers to get this kind of work done so he had large numbers of slaves he acquired slaves males and females male and female slaves and even he said some were born in his house above and beyond all the ones that he purchased.

[17:50] In verse 7 we see that the preacher had livestock great amounts of livestock he says more than any who was before him in Jerusalem. In verse 8 he had incredible financial resources he had a lot of gold and had a lot of silver causing the treasury of kings.

[18:12] And also in verse 8 we see that he had art and entertainment he had music and singers and no doubt dancers among those singers as well.

[18:23] And he had male and female singers. One commentator made the point that the singers in the temple were only male but this preacher was as he was engaging in all of this he diversified and he had also females to be a part of his entertainment.

[18:46] In verse 8 we see that the preacher also indulged in he indulged in unbounded sexual pleasure. no doubt he had wives the wives aren't mentioned but he had concubines and notice that he gives an adjective he not only had concubines he says he had many concubines the delight of the sons of men.

[19:11] And this is different from saying that you had wives because the whole idea of concubines is that they're purely there for pleasure purely there for the gratification of someone else and he didn't have one or two he had many of them.

[19:30] I looked at this as we were considering as I was studying and I thought this is quite an interesting morning to be covering this when we're all together and the children are in from children's church so I thought maybe it's a way parents that you could talk to your children about sex be a natural opportunity some will ask questions some may not you can draw them out talk to them it's better that they hear these things from you than from some child at school so take advantage of that opportunity I want you to just think for a moment and I don't even think that we can imagine though let's try the environment in Solomon's world or I should say the preacher's world though some would say this is Solomon but certainly in the preacher's world all the pleasures that you could ever dream of alcohol flowing freely music is there all the revelry indulging in every single pleasure there's abundance of food money to no end and the preacher engages in all of that now let's summarize his accomplishments because I think they would really help us to see the kinds of pleasures that the preacher engaged in and I also think they'll help us to see that there is no pleasure that we could think about in terms of categories that the preacher did not have here's the summary of his unbounded pleasures that he had first he had food and wine animals and wine and all the fruit trees he enjoyed the pleasure that came from work and from accomplishments achieving things engaging in large projects and completing them he had money and possessions he had real estate undeveloped and developed he had gold and silver he had slaves he had cattle he had art and entertainment music and singers and perhaps dancers as well and then he had sex and companionship he had many concubines and then added to this the preacher also remember he had unusual wisdom and then he was king so he had unbelievable power and those no doubt opened doors to more pleasures for him as well so the preacher had it all he kept no pleasure from his heart but you know what after some period of time and we can imagine that what the preacher describes here this would have taken perhaps decades perhaps the preacher indulged himself in this way

[22:39] I mean if you think about it I think the point is going to be built like two years and this is a massive undertaking these are massive undertakings and they didn't have things like cranes and scaffolds and modern kinds of things so this is a very long kind of endeavor but at some point it began to dawn on the preacher that something was wrong it could have been as he saw the works coming to a conclusion as he saw things beginning to be circular and he wasn't doing anything new it became evident to the preacher that something was wrong and this brings me to my second and my final point this morning the problem with pleasure the preacher found a problem with pleasure after his pursuit of pleasure his unbounded indulgent pursuit of pleasure he found that something was wrong he found that even though he withheld no pleasure from himself and he could honestly say there was nothing that I saw or desired that I didn't give myself the preacher had to acknowledge that he was still empty he was disappointed he was disillusioned and he was dissatisfied and the preacher knew within his heart of hearts that it wasn't because he didn't have enough that was not the reason he had an abundance of it and yet two times in retelling this experience to his audience two times he says to them in verse two and then in verse eleven the preacher says all of these pleasures were vanity a mist a vapor a mere breath again look at how he says it starting in verse one to the end of verse one he says but behold it was all vanity and then in verse eleven then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil

[24:56] I had expended in doing it and behold all was vanity the preacher is actually surprised and he cues us into his surprise with this word behold each time in verse two and also in verse eleven behold sorry in verse one at the end of verse one behold and then in verse eleven behold it's all vanity the preacher is surprised that seeking pleasure is a worthwhile means of lasting joy and satisfaction it's like chasing after wind trying to catch the wind with your bare hand he's surprised that even the abundant pleasures that he had produced no true and lasting gain for fallen men and women living in a fallen world and when I asked you this morning what about you the preacher was surprised are you surprised that all that the preacher experienced and amassed all the pleasure that he went after and achieved that surprise surprise it didn't satisfy abundance of food and wine abundance of work and accomplishments abundance of money and possessions art and entertainment sex and companionship it was still empty so what's the problem first of all

[26:37] I want you to consider that when we examine this category of things these five categories and I believe we fit all of them in there when we examine this list there's nothing on the list that's bad in and of itself now I gave a different list than there because instead of putting concubines in number five I translated that into sex because that's what he was pursuing but there's nothing on this list that is bad in and of itself there's nothing wrong with the food and wine that gives from God there's nothing wrong with work and accomplishments God has given us work and he wants us to find pleasure in our work the way he found pleasure in his work when he was done he said was good he is the one who blesses and gives money and possessions he is the one who gives us the gifts of music and song and the ability to enjoy the arts he is the one who has given us the gift of sex and companionship so these things are not bad in and of themselves what makes them bad as we see in the case of the preacher is when they are pursued selfishly when they are pursued excessively and when they are pursued sinfully notice the selfishness of the preacher and you may have already seen it as we were going through notice how many times the preacher uses the first person singular pronoun

[28:07] I he uses it 18 times he uses my 13 times he uses me 4 times and myself 4 times the preacher did all that he did for himself to derive pleasure for himself he thought about no one else he thought about nothing else than giving himself pleasure these gifts that we are talking about this morning these things that the preacher pursued these are gifts from God and they were given by God to us to be enjoyed they can bring us pleasure but they can't bring lasting pleasure they cannot bring us ultimate pleasure and herein lies the biggest problem with pleasure earthly pleasures have limits so there will always be this void in the hearts of those of us who live life in this fallen world there will always be this emptiness in our hearts even though we indulge in pleasures and even if we go to the extent that Solomon did that the preacher did sorry that we never will get what he got we would still fall short and we will still be dissatisfied we will still be unhappy and really the truth is we don't need to experience what the preacher experienced we don't need to acquire what he acquired and take as long as he actually took to see that pleasures don't satisfy pleasures cannot fill the longing in the human soul like most of us in this room have lived long enough and we have experienced enough of life to come to that reality we try to satisfy the pleasures the desires of our hearts with the pleasures of this life and they make us even more and more empty have you ever wondered why some people who from the world's viewpoint are successful they have all that the world considers successful and yet these people turn to alcohol and drugs not to produce pleasure but to drown pain have you ever wondered why you have more people wealthy people who commit suicide in the midst of their wealth than poor people who commit suicide in the midst of their poverty and I think it's because a lot of them have done what the world says you need to do to be happy and to be fulfilled they do it they go to the top of the mountain and they realize they're still empty and so many of them check out on drugs and alcohol to escape it all and some escape it all finally through suicide so what is the problem with pursuing earthly pleasure to satisfy the longings of the human heart here's the problem no earthly pleasure can truly satisfy the deep longings of the human heart and the reason is that

[31:43] God created us for relationship with himself and therefore nothing else will do when Adam sinned when Adam fell everything changed he and Eve were put out of the garden which was symbolic of being separated away from God and the Lord prevented them from going into back into the garden and prevented them from having access to the tree of life this is what it says in Genesis 324 he drove out the man and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim with a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life so man was blocked from the tree of life and that's an act of mercy that was an act of mercy by God because had man in a sinful condition been able to go and eat of the tree of life he would have had eternal life in his fallen state he would have lived forever in his fallen state because that's what the tree promised the tree promised if you ate of it you would live forever so God protected him from that and God had a plan and God sent his son

[33:01] God had before the foundation of the world we read in scripture had ordained that he would send his son who came in the person of Jesus Christ and he walked this earth lived a perfect life and then he went to the cross and he died a substitutionary death on behalf of sinners so that fallen men and women can be forgiven and reconciled back to God and they can be in relationship with him the source of all of their pleasures but salvation is more than about the forgiveness of sins it is primarily about that salvation is also about the satisfaction of the hearts of sinners and the beginning of the sermon I ask the question why can't earthly pleasures satisfy well here's the answer only Jesus can satisfy the longing of the human heart that's why earthly pleasures can't satisfy because only

[34:13] Jesus can satisfy the longing of the human heart that is by divine design but this is not only true at salvation this continues to be true throughout our Christian journey and we talked about it this morning about this need to continue to feast on Christ but many Christians neglect to continue to feed on Jesus through worship and prayer and reading and meditating on God's word and instead like the preacher they seek to fill the longings and the desires for more in their hearts with more pleasure and new pleasures because they don't recognize that that deep longing is not longing for more of the same but it's longing for Jesus the only one who can satisfy our heart one of the most common ways that people express this spiritual longing in their hearts is in this statement that I'm sure you've heard if you have young children or if you've had young children and it is

[35:27] I'm bored I'm bored unbelievers experience this because they don't know Christ and some believers experience it because they are not continuing to feast on Christ and so they spiritually nibble here and snack there but they're not feasting on Christ not feasting on him through the ordinary means of grace that he gives us gathering with the people of God as we're doing this morning lifting up our voices in song worshiping the Lord with our whole hearts praying and feeding on the word of God through maintaining a devotional life spending time in prayer and in communion with the Lord reading and meditating on God's word and by guarding our souls from worldliness being in the world but not of the world engaging the world but not loving the world and that's what we were made for we were made for relationship with God to worship

[36:38] God and to find lasting pleasure through him but see when we don't feast on Christ we're going to feast on other things we will see spiritual boredom and not recognize it as spiritual boredom and we will seek to substitute it or to satisfy it with whatever pleasurable things we think will satisfy it it's the equivalent of eating popcorn when you need a solid meal and like the preacher it's so easy to go out and pursue earthly pleasures that can never satisfy in his book still bored in a culture of entertainment dr.

[37:31] Richard winter a psychiatrist and professor of practical theology at covenant seminary wrote he quoted actually dr. rowan williams who at the time was the anglican archbishop of wales here's what dr.

[37:45] ! Williams said he said we are a deeply dangerously bored society and we're reluctant to look for the root of that why do we want to escape into gambling or drugs or any other kind of fantasy why have we created a culture which seems more in love with fantasy than reality whether that's gambling or drugs or for that matter the national lottery we should be asking what's happened to us why are we so bored dr.

[38:25] ! Williams was no doubt speaking to the situation of the United Kingdom but his words can be applied to all societies it can certainly be applied to our society and here's why here's what's happening and here's why we are so bored we are so bored because we are seeking the pleasures of this life to fill the spiritual longings of the human heart that only a vital vibrant relationship with Christ can fill and that's the problem with pleasure pleasure can never do that and about a month's time once again millions of dollars in precious taxpayers money will be spent on Prime Minister Christie's carnival and you know the reason that he brought carnival he said junk canoe is boring after one particular junk canoe parade he just said junk canoe was boring and so he decided that he would import a foreign festival that is steeped in public debauchery and sexual degradation and alcohol abuse why?

[39:53] to get rid of the boredom and clearly he has not read the words of the preacher no amount of pleasure no kind of pleasure on this earth will bring satisfaction to the human heart no matter how abundant no matter how extravagant no matter how vogue it will never satisfy the human heart and soon carnival will be boring and they have to find something else to fill the boredom but the preacher says it is a mist it is a vapor it is a mere breath it is a chasing after wind friends God did not put us on this earth to search for pleasure in God's design we are to find pleasure in him by glorifying him and it is out of that that we enjoy the gifts that he has given to us we enjoy the pleasure that can be derived from the gifts that he has given to us but they can only go so far pleasure is a byproduct it is not something to be pursued it is not something that we go after pleasure is a byproduct of enjoying the giver of those gifts it brings us pleasure the first question the West

[41:27] Minster Shorter Catechism explains it this way with the first question is what it says what is the chief end of man and the answer is man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever that's the way God intended us to enjoy life that is the way God intended us to derive pleasure from life from glorifying him and enjoying him and herein we see the real issue with the preacher's exploits comes into focus missing from the list of pursuits that the preacher pursued is God the preacher pursued all kinds of things but we don't see on the list I applied my heart I sought my heart to seek God he sought wine and food he sought work and accomplishment money and possessions and art and entertainment and sex and companionship and all the pleasures from them the preacher never sought never applied his heart to seek

[42:42] God in all of his endeavors he looked for pleasures under the sun he didn't look for pleasures above the sun and in the sun the S-O-N early church father Augustine of Hippo expressed this problem well to God in his confessions when he said you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you God has made us for himself and our hearts are restless they will continue to be restless it doesn't matter what pleasure we pursue it doesn't matter what we achieve that we think will bring us pleasure our heart will be restless like the waves until they find their rest in God and that's not a bad thing that's by design

[43:44] God designed it so and he designed it that when we experience pleasures in this world and we experience their limits we look to the one who gives us true and lasting pleasure that is beyond the moment that continues beyond this life so Augustine is right we will seek earthly pleasure after earthly pleasure when our hearts are not resting in God and satisfied in Christ and in our spiritual restlessness although we don't have the preacher's resources we will seek our own budget level pleasures more clothes more electronics more social media more TV more movies more sports and recreation more hobbies more exotic foods more projects that we can do around the house and elsewhere and more pleasures that we think will satisfy and we will come to the same conclusion as the preacher what use is it it's all vanity it is a mist it is a vapor it is a striving after wind the human heart is so deceptive that even though we read and hear this account of the preacher's pursuit of pleasures that we could still be there could be some of us this morning who are still thinking that something we want to accomplish or we want to experience that will fix our lives that will fill the longing that will fill this emptiness this lack of satisfaction this lack of a sense of pleasure in our hearts friends let's hear the words of this man who said

[45:55] I've done the experiment for you I've indulged to an unimaginable limit in every single kind of pleasure I've gone down that road I've come up the road now to tell you don't go down that road it's a dead end it's vanity it leads to nothing and the pleasures that we can experience on this earth only make sense when we enjoy them by enjoying God and so I encourage you this morning if there's restlessness in your soul whether that is because you have not yet trusted in Jesus Christ and perhaps you're thinking that you'll get your life together before you can come to him I want to encourage you this morning to come to Jesus instead of trying to do ten things to try to bring satisfaction in your life do the one thing of submitting to Jesus and receiving pardon for your sins and being reconciled to God getting that first button in the first button hole if we don't do that nothing else works you can get all the other buttons in the button hole but your shirt will never be buttoned right until that first one is where it needs to be and then no doubt there are some this morning you have trusted

[47:20] Jesus Christ you know that you've been forgiven of your sins but yet you would acknowledge that you feel bored you would acknowledge that there seems to be this emptiness and you would also acknowledge that you've been looking for it in wrong places you've been as some people say looking for love in the wrong places you've been looking for pleasure and for satisfaction in the wrong places that satisfaction is only God but what happens is when we feel it we don't get the impulse to draw away to pray draw away to open God's word but I want to say to you this morning pray and ask the Holy Spirit to prompt you to do that when you're feeling oh I'm bored and you want to go into some diversion no ask the Holy Spirit to help you to go pull away open his word pray cry out to God and allow him to fill the void that only he can fill in Jeremiah 2.13 the Lord says this about his people he says my people have committed two evils they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters and hewed out cisterns for themselves broken cisterns that can hold no water friends that is a vivid description of all of us when we have longings in our hearts that only God can fill and we go and we hew out our own cisterns to try to fill it and the Lord says that not only cisterns they're broken cisterns and the pleasure that we think it'll bring to our souls is already leaked out before we even bring it to our souls and so this morning I want to encourage us this morning to let this truth be etched in our souls only Jesus can satisfy the longings of the human heart nothing else no person will do no possession will do no accomplishment will do no experience will do only Jesus can satisfy the longing of the human heart it is quite interesting that the preacher goes after pleasure and what you will see is this now transitions the book in a different way because the preacher now is not going to tell us about his experiments and about how he tried to determine this or determine that the preacher now is going to go into just pure teaching and teaching us about life and the observations that he has made about life and the lessons that he has learned in life and so I want to encourage us this morning to see that by divine design the

[50:26] Lord brings this in focus for us and tells us pleasure in this world is a false advertisement always over promises always under delivers God is the only one who over promises joy in him that we can say who have experienced it it's unspeakable and it is full of glory let's pray together