Pleasure is Pointless
Ecclesiastes 2: 1-11
Pleasure is pointless DIG: What key phrases tell you about the perspective of his passage. What great projects did Solomon undertake? What desires were such projects meant to satisfy? Why is the Teacher so unhappy with what so many would call success? What could be the reason Ecclesiastes is in the Bible? Why isn’t the world enough to satisfy your needs?
REFLECT: What is the most important project you have undertaken in the last year? How do you measure your success in that? What pleasures are you tempted to take for yourself instead of seeking the pleasure of God? Do you see yourself as more led by your heart, or by your head? In what areas do you find yourself controlled more by your desires or wisdom?
If we were able to find lasting satisfaction in earthly pleasure,
then we would never see our need for God.
There are those in the world today who experience more pleasure than most people in the history of the world. Yet in spite of their prosperity – or maybe because of it – they still suffer from poverty of the soul. The taste of pleasure has grown their appetite for this world beyond satisfaction. Meanwhile, they are still desperately searching for meaning in life.
The pleasure test: Solomon first tried to think his way to the answer, using his mind to figure out the point of existence. But his quest for knowledge through human intellect ended in frustration and sorrow (to see link click Ce – Wisdom is Pointless). So, the Teacher decided to take another approach. He started talking to himself again – not about life changing like the grace and beauty of God, but about getting more out of life. I said to myself, “Come now, I (he used the word I almost 40 times in these verses) will test myself with pleasure and enjoy good things” (2:1a). Clearly, he was self-indulgent in the pursuit of self-centered pleasure.
But almost immediately the Teacher tells us that this new quest failed as spectacularly as the first one did. Pleasure did not satisfy his soul any more than wisdom. But this too was pointless (2:1b). Although it seemed to hold out the promise of purpose, pleasure vanished like the wind, leaving the Teacher empty handed. The pursuit of pleasure turned out to be nothing more than pointless self-gratification.
Lest we think that Solomon failed to give self-gratification a fair chance, he lists all the pleasures he sought after. First, he experimented with comedy. Some people deal with their insecurities by joking about something. When they get down on themselves, they make fun of other people. When they are bored, they look for something to give them a giggle, such as a funny clip on YouTube – anything to get a laugh. The Teacher tried this sort of thing too, yet it failed to bring him lasting fulfillment. Of laughter I said, “This is stupid,” and of pleasure, “What’s the use of it” (2:1a-2)? Solomon discovered that when it comes to the meaning of our existence, laughter is a useless pleasure.
The next pleasure Solomon tried was alcohol, another popular way to seek enjoyment in life – or else to escape your troubles. Knowing this, the Teacher-King said: I searched my mind for how to gratify my body with wine and, with my mind still guiding me with wisdom, how to pursue foolishness; my object was to find out what was the best thing for people to do. But what do we make of his comment that his mind was still guiding him with wisdom while drinking? In one of his famous proverbs, the Teacher declared: Wine is a mocker, strong liquor a rowdy; anyone led astray by it is unwise (Proverbs 20:1). But maybe Solomon’s wine-tasting was a controlled experiment. Maybe he was drinking in moderation and then soberly assessing his experience. Maybe he was not an alcoholic after all, but merely a connoisseur. But either way – whether his wine drinking was marked by sophistication or inebriation – the man was looking for pleasure while he still had time. So, Solomon introduced a prominent theme that he would use in the rest of the book: namely the brevity of life, during the short time we have to live under heaven (2:3).
The Solomon of Ecclesiastes grabbed for all the gusto he could, but still came up empty. There were many other pleasures in his life and Solomon was rich enough to try almost all of them. The scope of his achievement is indicated by the fact that the Teacher mentions everything in the plural: I worked on a grand scale – I built myself palaces, planted myself vineyards, and made myself gardens and parks; in them I planted all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the trees springing up in the forest (2:4-6). The best of all, it was all for him. His palace was paradise regained, a man-made Garden of Eden.
Given the vast scope of his building projects and the huge size of his property, Solomon needed a massive workforce. To that end he bought male and female slaves, and had many home-born slaves as well. And to feed them all he also had many herds of cattle and flocks of sheep across his royal ranch. More than anyone before him in Jerusalem (2:7). We see all of this in the life of King Solomon, who had countless servants waiting on him hand and foot (First Kings 10:4-8), and so many animals that every day the chefs in his royal kitchen prepared ten fattened oxen, twenty pasture-fed oxen and one hundred sheep, in addition to deer, gazelles, roebucks and fattened poultry (First Kings 4:23).
Needless to say, the Teacher-King also had a lot of money – some from taxing his own people and some from foreign tribute: I amassed silver and gold, the wealth of kings and provinces. He used some of his money to make beautiful music, both literally and figuratively: I acquired male and female singers, things that provide sensual delight. Music was a rare pleasure in those days, but Solomon could afford to bring it into his own home. Sex was more common, but few people have ever experienced it on the scale of King Solomon who had a thousand 700 wives and 500 concubines in his royal harem (Ecclesiastes 2:8; First Kings 11:3).252
Personal reflection: This is how the Teacher summarized his experiment with pleasure. So, I grew great, surpassing all who preceded me in Jerusalem . . . I denied my eyes nothing they wanted. I withheld no pleasure from myself; for I took pleasure in all my work, and this was my reward for all my work (2:9-10). Rather than waiting for God to make him great, as He had promised (1 Kgs 1:37), the Solomon of Ecclesiastes made himself great. Whenever he saw something he wanted, he took it. Whenever he was tempted to indulge in a fleshly pleasure, he gave in. He denied himself nothing. Not really what God had in mind.
Foolish pleasure: On “the morning after,” while still suffering the after-effects of his pleasure trip, Solomon said: Then I looked at all that my hands had accomplished and at the work I had toiled at; and I saw that it was all pointless, like chasing the wind, and that there was nothing to be gained under the sun (2:11). The king was facing up to reality, looking at life the way it really is under the sun, cutting God out of the picture, and he wants us to know it isn’t pretty. Squeeze all the pleasure out of life that you can, and still there is nothing to be gained. Pleasure, pursued for its own sake, cannot satisfy our souls. We can learn this lesson from Ecclesiastes, or we can learn it from our own melancholy experience.
Longing for God: When we finally discover that all the pleasures we pursue under the sun cannot satisfy our souls, then maybe we will look beyond this world. Our unsatisfied longings are a spiritual clue that we were made to enjoy the pleasures of ADONAI. If we were able to find lasting satisfaction in earthly pleasure then we would never see our need for God. Our dissatisfaction should point us back to YHVH, not away from Him. Maybe this is why Ecclesiastes is in the Bible. It is here to convince us that satisfaction only comes from God Himself. The world is not enough. We were made for another world (Philppians 3:20a). There is a God in heaven who sent His Son to save us and then to satisfy us. In order to accomplish this saving purpose, Ha’Shem’s unselfish Son could not live to please Himself, but He had to live for His Father’s pleasure. Think of it this way, everything that Solomon pursued, Yeshua was tempted by, yet resisted. This makes Him the Savior of every dissatisfied sinner.
Holy pleasure: When we turn to ADONAI, something surprising happens: the very pleasures that failed to satisfy us do not help us to find even greater joy in the goodness of God. This is not true of foolish pleasures, of course – what the Bible calls the passing pleasures of sin (Hebrews 11:25). However, this is such a thing as holy pleasure . . . pleasure that comes when we are in the presence of Yeshua Messiah.
Late in the fantasy Prince Caspian, from the Narnia Chronicles, C. S. Lewis portrays the sisters Lucy and Susan having “a romp” with Aslan. The great lion-king has returned to the Land of Narnia and awakened the forest. There is raucous dancing, with laughter and shouting, and a feast of luscious grapes that taste like wine. A wild boy is dancing there, dressed only in a faun-skin, with vine-leaves wreathed in his curly hair. Lucy and Susan’s brother Edmund looked a the boy and remarked, “Now, there’s a chap who might do anything – absolutely anything.” Later, the children figure out that the wild youth was Bacchus, also known as Dionysius – the god of wine. This prompted Susan to make a wise observation, “I wouldn’t have felt very safe with Bacchus and all his wild girls if we’d met them without Aslan. “I should think not,” replied Lucy.
This principle applies well to the life of a believer: pleasure is only safe for us when the LORD is there. This never happens when we take pleasure for ourselves, or make it our main passion in life. It only happens when we receive pleasure as a gift from ADONAI, the way David did when he said: In Your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11).
We taste God’s pleasure when we receive laughter as a gift from Him – not mocking other people or joking in a vulgar way, but laughing at ourselves and our limitations, knowing that one day we will enter our Master’s joy (Matthew 25:21).
We taste true pleasure when we receive wine as a gift from God, drinking it with a happy heart (Ecclesiastes 9:7) – not abusing it by making a mockery of ourselves by getting drunk.
We taste God’s pleasure when we design good homes or other beautiful buildings, providing that we build them for the glory of God and not our own grandeur.
We taste God’s pleasure when we stroll through a beautiful garden, feast our eyes on the colors of creation and see the beauty of the LORD.
There is beauty in everything that Solomon mentions: in rewarding work that is done for the glory of God (Colossians 3:23), in feasting at a banquet table with thanksgiving (First Timothy 4:3-4), in silver and gold that is invested in the Kingdom of God, with the guarantee of an eternal return (Matthew 6:19-21). There is pleasure in music that delights the ear and moves our emotions to the worship of ADONAI.
There is pleasure in sexual relations when they are shared as the Desiger intended. When sexual intimacy is given to someone else rather than taken for ourselves, and when it is shared exclusively between one man and one woman who are bound by a love covenant for life, then intercourse finds its greatest pleasure.
God is not a killjoy. He is not trying to take any pleasure from us . . . but to give us more. Once we learn how to find our satisfaction in God Himself, then all His gifts become the best and truest pleasures. The divine gifts of creation are meant to be enjoyed as matters of stewardship rather than possession. Happily, we don’t have to be as rich as Solomon to experience meaningful pleasures. We simply need to receive what is in the world around us as a gift from a loving God, and then give thanks to Him in the name of Yeshua Messiah.253
Dear Heavenly Father, Thank You that the future joy of life in heaven, will be far greater than any time of pleasure on earth. There You will live among Your children in your perfect home in heaven where there will be no pain, no shame, no crying no dying! “Behold, the dwelling of God is among men, and He shall tabernacle among them. They shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them and be their God. He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Nor shall there be mourning or crying or pain any longer, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:3-4).
When we set off to find happiness or joy on earth, we seldom find it. Instead, when we offer to serve others and give ourselves wholeheartedly to You, dear Lord, and Your work, it is then that we find what we most need. O Giver of every good and perfect gift (James 1:17), I ask today that You give me a chance to serve You and others in a way which brings glory to You and to Your Kingdom. My heart rejoices in blessing You, for You are so wonderful, awesome and loving! In Your holy Son’s name and power of His resurrection. Amen
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