September 28, 2025
Taking the Vanity of Vanities into the Holy of Holies
Ecclesiastes 1:1-11
Vanity of vanities all is vanity. These are the first words of Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes. These words came from a man who struggled greatly in life. His struggles came from the fact that he spent much of his life trying to find fulfillment and contentment outside of God. That’s why he opens this book with such a powerful and bleak statement in Ecclesiastes 1:1-11.
1 These are the words of the Teacher, King David’s son, who ruled in Jerusalem. 2 “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!” 3 What do people get for all their hard work under the sun? 4 Generations come and generations go, but the earth never changes. 5 The sun rises and the sun sets, then hurries around to rise again. 6 The wind blows south, and then turns north. Around and around it goes, blowing in circles. 7 Rivers run into the sea, but the sea is never full. Then the water returns again to the rivers and flows out again to the sea. 8 Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content. 9 History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. 10 Sometimes people say, “Here is something new!” But actually it is old; nothing is ever truly new. 11 We don’t remember what happened in the past, and in future generations, no one will remember what we are doing now.
Solomon continually uses the word interpreted here as “meaningless” all throughout Ecclesiastes. In fact, he uses it 37 times in this book. The Hebrew word it is interpreted from gives us a picture to understand his fervent use of this term. It is a picture of a vapor in the wind, much like how James describes life in the New Testament. However, Solomon’s words don't focus as much on the brevity of the thing, but rather on the emptiness of it. There is not much vapor at all. When it exists, it doesn’t have a large volume or mass, and it will always fade away quickly. He says here that EVERYTHING is empty. This was the same man who proclaims in Chapter 5 that there is at least one good thing, and that is to enjoy and be content with the blessings of God. So why does he say even those blessings are worthless here in these verses? He says this because of what he had made of the blessings of God. He had turned them into something they were never supposed to be. Last week, we read that Colossians 3:3 says that as Christians, we have died to our old lives and are now hidden with Christ in God. However, Solomon was not hidden in God; instead, he tried to hide in the blessings of God. Not only did he try to use these blessings in a way God never intended, (as his identity and hiding place), but he used and distorted the blessings of God in ways that they were never meant to be enjoyed. This is what made them worthless. I’ve used the illustration many times before that God’s blessings are like fire. When fire is used in a fireplace, it can bring warmth or cook food, but just take that same fire that was just a blessing out and place it on your bed, and you are inviting disaster into your life. God’s blessings are the same way. When they are used as God intends and according to God’s design, they are good and will bring us joy. When they are used outside of what God wants and intends, they will bring brokenness and destruction into our lives. This distortion of God’s blessings is a tactic that is as old as time, and it is a part of Satan’s plan to deceive the world. Satan wants to distort all the blessings of God and turn them into sin. He was very successful in doing this in the life of Solomon. Satan started this game plan early in creation. In fact, the first time we saw it played out was in the Garden of Eden. God gave Adam and Eve freedom of choice so they could experience His love. But Satan convinced those two to use the gift of free will to do whatever they wanted to do. With that rebellion and twisting of God’s gift, sin and brokenness entered the world. So this morning, we are going to take some of those things that Solomon considered worthless into the presence of God to see how they are supposed to be experienced and see if we are correctly experiencing them in our own lives. Another way to say this is that we will be taking the vanity of vanities into the Holy of Holies to understand how God wants us to enjoy various parts of life versus what our enemy tells the world about those very same blessings.
Wisdom in the presence of God - Ecclesiastes 1:12-18
12 I, the Teacher, was king of Israel, and I lived in Jerusalem. 13 I devoted myself to search for understanding and to explore by wisdom everything being done under heaven. I soon discovered that God has dealt a tragic existence to the human race. 14 I observed everything going on under the sun, and really, it is all meaningless—like chasing the wind. 15 What is wrong cannot be made right. What is missing cannot be recovered. 16 I said to myself, “Look, I am wiser than any of the kings who ruled in Jerusalem before me. I have greater wisdom and knowledge than any of them.” 17 So I set out to learn everything from wisdom to madness and folly. But I learned firsthand that pursuing all this is like chasing the wind. 18 The greater my wisdom, the greater my grief. To increase knowledge only increases sorrow.
Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived. He was blessed by God with that wisdom (1 Kings 3 & 4). The wisdom God granted him came with a choice. He could use it to pursue the wisdom of the world or the wisdom of God. Paul speaks of the differences between these types of wisdom in 1 Corinthians 3:19-20, “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say, “He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness.” And again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise; he knows they are worthless.” There were times when Solomon no doubt tried to pursue the wisdom of God, but in the end, he rejected God and spent most of his time pursuing the wisdom of this world. This rejection of God and Godly wisdom is very evident in these few verses and is the reason he called everything worthless. As he begins this portion of Chapter 1, we can see that there is nothing wrong with his motives for pursuing understanding. It’s in the very next statement that we see he is pursuing the wrong kind of wisdom when he says, “God has dealt a tragic existence to the human race”. To understand the difference between worldly wisdom and Godly wisdom, we need to understand that Godly wisdom is wisdom that is based and founded upon the Word of God. While worldly wisdom does not and finds its foundation in human reason alone. Jesus spoke of Godly wisdom many times during His ministry and specifically at the sermon on the mount recorded in Matthew 5-7. He said, “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!” Godly wisdom does not negate worldly wisdom, but it makes sure that it stays grounded in the truth of God’s Word. When we look at his first statement through the lens of the Word of God, we see that it wasn’t God that dealt humans a tragic existence. It is humans that dealt with that tragedy. Romans 3:23 tells us that we all have sinned and have fallen short of God’s standard. Romans 6:23 tells us that the consequences of that sin are death. Ultimately, that death will be an eternal separation from God in a place called Hell. In Revelation 20:14, Hell is also called the second death. The consequences of our sin are more than its ultimate destination; it is also all the brokenness and tragedy that Solomon speaks of in this passage. There is no doubt Solomon is processing these thoughts through worldly wisdom. We see it again in verse 15 when Solomon says that what is wrong cannot be made right and what is missing can never be recovered. This is true through the world's eyes, but with God, nothing is impossible. As a matter of fact, in Romans 6:23, where we are shown the consequences of our sin, we are told that the lost can be found and the crooked can be made straight. God is the only one who can save a lost and twisted sinner. He did so through Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. Solomon could not see this because the wisdom he was pursuing was just the wisdom of this world.
Wisdom is a wonderful thing and is definitely a gift from God. I’d venture to say that without the wisdom demonstrated through scientific pursuits, many of us would not be here today. True wisdom must be based on God. Solomon himself said this in Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Many today will tell you that if you want to pursue the sciences, you cannot be a follower of Jesus. However, the funny thing is that if you look at history and at those who have won Nobel Prizes in the science fields, you will see that there are just as many followers of Jesus who have won as there are atheists. Science does not disprove God. As a matter of fact, science shows us there is a God. The problem is not in wisdom, it’s in wisdom that ignores God as its foundation.
Pleasure before God - Ecclesiastes 2:1-11
1 I said to myself, “Come on, let’s try pleasure. Let’s look for the ‘good things’ in life.” But I found that this, too, was meaningless. 2 So I said, “Laughter is silly. What good does it do to seek pleasure?” 3 After much thought, I decided to cheer myself with wine. And while still seeking wisdom, I clutched at foolishness. In this way, I tried to experience the only happiness most people find during their brief life in this world. 4 I also tried to find meaning by building huge homes for myself and by planting beautiful vineyards. 5 I made gardens and parks, filling them with all kinds of fruit trees. 6 I built reservoirs to collect the water to irrigate my many flourishing groves. 7 I bought slaves, both men and women, and others were born into my household. I also owned large herds and flocks, more than any of the kings who had lived in Jerusalem before me. 8 I collected great sums of silver and gold, the treasure of many kings and provinces. I hired wonderful singers, both men and women, and had many beautiful concubines. I had everything a man could desire! 9 So I became greater than all who had lived in Jerusalem before me, and my wisdom never failed me. 10 Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors. 11 But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless—like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.
Not only did Solomon try to hide and find his identity in his wisdom. He also tried to hide and find his identity in the pleasures of life. He found them worthless as well, leaving him empty, desperately seeking what would properly fill the void he felt in his soul. He tried to fill this void with laughter at the bottom of a bottle. He tried to build all sorts of things that would fill the void. He had servants to cater to his every whim and he had the best entertainers at his call. We are told in 1 Kings that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines all the while trying to fill the void in His heart. He had everything you could ever imagine and could ever want to acquire, but still, he called it all worthless. They are worthless because of the way that Solomon was using them. These things were never supposed to be used to make you whole. They were just blessings from God to be enjoyed properly and not be substituted for God Himself. Solomon had fallen into a trap that Paul had warned Timothy about in 1 Timothy 6:17, “Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment.“ Solomon was trusting his riches to bring him enjoyment instead of God. He was trying to experience all of these blessings on his own terms. He tried to deal with the stresses in life with laughter & entertainment, hoping it would bring him happiness, but they only left him empty. The same thing goes for us. When we try to deal with the stresses of our life by running to pleasure and entertainment, no matter their form, we are going to find them lacking. We will continually try to use them to medicate our souls, when only the Great Physician can help. We must find our “all and all” in Jesus Christ and run to Him first in all situations, using entertainment in moderation and within the guidelines that He has laid out for us. As Lenard Ravenhill said, “Entertainment is the devil's substitute for joy. The more joy you have in the Lord, the less entertainment you need.”
The next few things he mentions are the buildings that he built, the projects that he completed, and the ownership of slaves. I think all of these things have one major thing in common that God never calls us to participate in and that is based on selfishness. This could be said of most of Solomon's problems, but specifically, it is on display here. When it comes to the projects that he built, they were made only for him to enjoy. It seems that his enjoyment was the only thing on his mind when he had them built. When we look again at 1 Timothy 6:17 and see the trap that Solomon had fallen into. We can look at the very next verse and see that Paul says, “Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others.” Solomon saw his money as a way to get everything he wanted and experience everything he ever wanted to experience. Never once does he mention that these projects were planned and completed with others in mind. When it comes to the slaves he owned, those were just there to cater to his every whim. Again, this was just selfish in nature, but that’s not what we are called to do with people. In 1 Peter 4:10, Peter says, “God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another.” Paul says in Acts 20:35, “And I have been a constant example of how you can help those in need by working hard. You should remember the words of the Lord Jesus: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” Paul again wrote to the church in Galatia, in Galatians 5:13-14, “For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It’s extremely clear in Scripture that to find fulfillment in life and walk in obedience, we are not to love stuff and use people. We are to love people and use stuff. Solomon didn’t do it God’s way and found the blessing of God to be empty because of it.
The last thing Solomon mentions here is the emptiness he finds in romantic relationships. If there is one topic that proves how Satan has deceived the world by distorting the blessings of God, this one is it. There is a lot of confusion about what marriage is and is not in the world today and what relationships are supposed to be, period. For a follower of Jesus who stands upon the Word of God, there is no confusion because God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 4:13). His design for marriage is clear and is defined starting in Genesis 2:24 where we are told it’s one man and one woman who leave their families to be joined as one flesh. Jesus reiterates this in Mark 10:6-8 saying, “But ‘God made them male and female’ from the beginning of creation. ‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together.” This is what marriage is: it’s one man and one woman in a lifetime covenant that was entered into before God. However, Satan has deceived the world into perverting this idea by not only bringing confusion into gender, but by taking the institution of marriage and distorting it, by convincing everyone that marriage can be whatever you want it to be and not what God has decreed. The writer of Hebrews addresses this in Hebrews 13:4, “Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery.” Solomon did the same as the world is doing today, he did not honor marriage and what it is supposed to be but instead made it into what he wanted it to be. He had 1,000 women, many who were the ones who would lead him away from the Lord. He thought that all those relationships would bring him joy, but he was just left wanting. That’s what sin does. It turns the things of God into something they were never supposed to be. It takes the fire out of the fireplace and tosses it into the room. When we do this with our relationship whether they are marriages that don’t meet God’s plan, relationships that God forbids, or sex enjoyed outside of the marriage covenant, these things are all the twisting of God’s design when we try to experience them outside of God’s design we will never experience the fulfillment that God meant for them to bring us.
Solomon spoke of many things that were vain besides pleasure and wisdom. He spoke of work, wealth, power, and popularity. However, everything he brought up that he tried to find fulfillment in, he said, was empty. We try many things to find fulfillment in life as well. Many of them are good things from the Lord, but we try to make them something He never meant for them to be, all the while trying to make them fill a hole they were never supposed to fill. One would think Solomon never figured it out as you read the Book of Ecclesiastes, that is, until you get to the end. In Chapter 12, verses 13-14. “That’s the whole story. Here now is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty. God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad.” That’s the solution. The wisest man who ever lived finally figured it out. Nothing is going to fulfill you or bring you joy outside of God. Therefore, so follow Him, obey Him, and remember it’s not just those things that other people see — it’s still obedience in the places no one sees. That’s how to make everything meaningful in life. It's to bring it all under the Lordship of Jesus and follow Him in obedience. Solomon didn’t figure that out until near the end, but because of God’s Word, we don’t have to wait that long. We can find meaning in it all today by taking everything we think is worthless in our lives and bringing it under the authority of God to see what He has to say about it.
