Eccl 2:15 (NIV) Then I thought in my heart, “The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?” I said in my heart, “This too is meaningless.” You can feel Solomon’s pain. There he had everything that anyone would ever want on this planet and he was not happy. If anyone was able to find happiness, from a worldly stand point, he certainly had the best opportunity to find it. Help me see that he did everything everyone else is doing to find happiness and it didn’t satisfy him.

There was one thing different about Solomon that isn’t true of everyone. There was a time when Solomon WAS happy. He knew what happiness felt like. So, since he knew what happiness felt like, why didn’t he go back to it? Once a person experiences extreme pleasure that comes through the sinful nature, their body does everything in its power to keep them from giving it up. Jesus gives pleasure. It is a pleasure that doesn’t addict, doesn’t drive, and doesn’t enslave you. Solomon was addicted to extreme pleasure and was unable to break free from it.

Eccl 2:16 (NIV) For the wise man, like the fool, will not be long remembered; in days to come both will be forgotten. Like the fool, the wise man too must die! Can you see how Solomon’s mind was torturing him. He couldn’t turn it off. When he was yielding to God, God put his thoughts on things that would help people. Once Solomon zeroed in on himself, all he could think about was what was going to be good for him. He is now selfish, self-centered, and self-absorbed. That is a torturous way to think.

Eccl 2:17 (NIV) So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. God had a work for Solomon that would have brought great joy. When Solomon was a king that was serving the people, his thoughts were on how to best help them. When his happiness became his top priority, he lost all those things that made him happy. When you go after those things you need first, you not only don’t get them, you lose what you already have. That will cause you to hate life.

Eccl 2:18 (NIV) I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. Jesus has a principle that really brings great blessing to you and people like Solomon: Luke 6:38 (NIV) Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Once this happens to you, you don’t care who gets your things once you are gone.

Eccl 2:19 (NIV) And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. Can you see where Solomon’s heart was? He wasn’t doing what Moses and Abraham were doing:

• Here is what was motivating Abraham’s life: Heb 11:9-10 (NIV) By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.


• Here is what was motivating Moses’s life: Heb 11:24-27 (NIV) By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw Him Who is invisible.