The Vanity of Women (Pt 1)

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

out your copy of God’s Word this morning and turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 2 where ideally if the rapture doesn’t happen in the next 47 minutes and I don’t die we’ll finish looking at this last place that Solomon is looking for life the last wrong place that he’s trying to find meaning and satisfaction for himself. Really this couldn’t come at a better time to have arrived at this verse. Of course I planned it just like that. To arrive at the last part of chapter 2 verse 8 right in the midst of pastor Z’s Sunday morning messages talking about lust and the heart and as Jesus is dealing with that in the Sermon on the Mount as well as the fact that we’re going through the trespassers will be prosecuted series on Wednesday nights. So as we come this morning to talk about the vanity of women, about relationships and even the physical pleasures that are associated with that, again I think it’s a very profitable time. I do anticipate that some of you here this morning probably need to get a little bit fired up about this subject.

In fact, just two songs ago that we sang, Purify My Heart, some of you need to be more than just singing that song. You need to be praying that prayer and asking God to actually be doing that in your heart, even this morning. We talked to the staff a little bit yesterday morning about the message from last Sunday on the vanity of music and it certainly seemed like some of you realized that that had some application to you, others of you acted like maybe that must be for somebody else who from all external appearances probably should have been realizing that I was stepping on your toes and not somebody else’s first.

And even as we talk about the vanity of women this morning and the application that will have to the vanity of men. I just don’t like saying that phrase out loud. Again, there is some toe stepping that needs to be done and it’s your toes that should be feeling the pain, not you looking out for other people around you and thinking, oh, their toes should be hurting right now. The first place to look is at yourself. And some of you need actually that refiner’s fire to come and purify your heart.

And as we get started, I kind of thought it would be great to bring out some Edwards as we start. As a matter of fact, I actually posted this on my blog, February 19th of this year. By that point in time, I had pretty much concluded that we would be studying Edwards at the next snow retreat. So that was again back in February that I had pretty much decided that. And so I was trying to throw some teasers out there without anybody really knowing it. Of course I could have gone another way and just said that I was quoting Edwards for another reason. But anyway, I actually put this up on my blog and the title for that particular post was called Heat Over Heat.

And relating to how sometimes, you know, The pastures get a little bit fired up and how some people don’t like that. And they get heat over heat. And here’s some thoughts Edward gives on that. If any of you that are heads of families saw one of your children in a house that was all on fire over its head, that’s just kind of a long way to say that they were in a house on fire.

one of your children in a house that was all on fire over its head and an imminent danger of being soon consumed in the flames that seemed to be very insensible of its danger and neglected to escape after you had often spagged to it and called to it would you go on to speak to it only in a cold and indifferent manner. You got the picture? Your kid is in the house that’s on fire and you see the beam about ready to break and fall and crush them and burn them and you’ve been calling to them to you know pay attention and wake up and get out of the house and they just act like you know nothing is wrong. He says would you continue to speak to them in a cold and you know in different manner? Excuse me Hey, son, maybe come on out.

Would you not cry aloud and call earnestly to it and represent the danger it was in and its own folly of delaying in the most lively manner you were capable of? Would not nature itself teach this and oblige you to it? If you should continue to speak to it only in a cold manner as you are want to do ordinary conversation about indifferent matters, would you not, I’m sorry, would not those about you begin to think you were bereft of reason yourself? That is, as other people are outside your house with you, watching you call to your kid who’s in the house that’s about ready to fall and destroy them, would they not start to think you were the problem if you just kept talking to them in an indifferent and cold manner? Come on, come on out. Okay, don’t.

I mean, other people around you would begin thinking that you were having a problem. If then, we who have the care of souls knew what hell was, had seen the state of the damned, or by any other means become sensible how dreadful their case was, and saw our hearers in eminent danger, and that they were not sensible of their danger, it would be morally impossible for us to avoid abundantly and most earnestly setting before them the dreadfulness of that misery they were in danger of and warning them to fly from it and even to cry aloud to them.”

And you know when you read passages like Proverbs 5, and we’ve kind of looked at that in the past and I mentioned that a couple Wednesday nights ago I think as well, when you look at Proverbs 5, you look at really any passage in Scripture that talks about any kind of sin that, you know, makes your life miserable and has the possibility of making your eternal life even more miserable. I mean, any of those, it would be morally wrong for a friend or for like me to to just kind of act like that’s okay for you to just keep walking down that path. That would be wrong. And so again, it is important for us to treat important things like they are important.

And sometimes it is the right thing to get fired up. And may God bless the means of our hot and passionate appeals to overcome deadness and hostility and unbelieving hearts. I mean no matter how exercised and excited I am in preaching a message, there’s no guarantee that that does anything. But if God would so choose as we study His word and as we then recognize the significance and the importance of the loves of our hearts, may He use the means necessary to make the right changes. I tell you what, you will much rather have me give you heat in a message than have heat in hell. I mean, and I haven’t been there. So I’m not speaking from experience, I’m speaking just from what I can only imagine that we read about those descriptions from Scripture.

It’s my desire, I think it is Solomon’s desire as well, that we get the point and then get away from the loves in our heart that, you know, push God away, trying to get our own pleasure, we come to another one of those this morning. And this kind of heat from Solomon, this kind of heat from me, I mean, I’m not telling you right now that I’m planning on yelling and screaming this morning, but I am pretty passionate about it. And as I desire for some toes to be stepped on, I don’t even know all the toes that need to be stepped on, the Holy Spirit does, and hopefully, you know, His foot is a lot bigger than mine.

And I hope that it hurts if that’s what the Spirit needs to do in your heart. We are in this series on looking for life in all the wrong places that began back in chapter 1, verse 18. Solomon was testing and now is describing for us, testing out everything under the sun to see if there was something he could find that would bring him satisfaction, bring him meaning, bring him some happiness and joy and pleasure to his life. Solomon had basically created a world. He had created the environment around him where no fruit was forbidden. He was trying everything. He tried it all. Now he’s giving us the results of that test.

Now please understand that most of these things, in fact I’m going to try to describe how all of them at least used rightly, can be okay. I mean for example when we talked about the vanity of education and wisdom, does that mean that there is no value in education and wisdom at all? Is that what it means? know. Obviously there is value in education and living wisely. There is value in that. It’s just that you can’t get life from education and wisdom. How about pleasure? You know what?

Pleasure is something that God gives. Pleasure is a gift from God. If used rightly, it’s something that enables us to enjoy God. We’re able to thank God for the various pleasures that he gave us. I mean, he is the one who created us with that capacity for pleasure to begin with. That’s part of the reason for the quote in your bulletin. Can I see this for just a second? The quote in your bulletin, the godly are designed for unknown and inconceivable happiness. God is, thank God is the one who made that hole in our heart and the longing for desire, the longing for pleasure.

And you know what? He hasn’t created that for no reason. He’s created that to have it be satisfied. The issue is where we get that satisfaction from. So pleasure in and of itself is not necessarily wrong. It’s just where we’re getting the pleasure from. And in fact, God has designed the absolute greatest eternal and infinite pleasures for us to enjoy things that are inconceivable to our finite minds. He has planned pleasure for us beyond what you can conceive with him in eternity. You can’t imagine how much he’s going to satisfy the desire for happiness and joy that you have, how much God will be able to do that.

He’s the one who created the desire. He’s the one who will be able to satisfy it. So wisdom and education in and of itself is not wrong, but when you look for that for life, you’re not gonna get it. And when you look for pleasure itself as a satisfaction in life, not gonna find it.

Alcohol, I know most of you are thinking, well, how’s he gonna say this one is good? Well, at least in the Old Testament, drinking wine was actually associated with God’s blessing. It was something that they received and something they enjoyed that helped them celebrate God. Even in Ecclesiastes later on, we’ll see how he talked about that. So at least in Solomon’s day, alcohol was something that could be used, could be used to celebrate God’s goodness. Now if you’re looking for life in beer or the buzz or whatever else, it’s not there. It is not really the high life, but again, at least for Solomon, it wasn’t inherently wrong.

How about work? I mean, the vanity of work. Is work wrong? No. We looked at Ecclesiastes 9 that says work with all of your effort. And in fact, in Ecclesiastes 2, 24 through 26, working and being able to enjoy that is a gift of God. God has made us to work. He has made us to express our creativity as we are made in His image. He has made us to enjoy producing and working hard and being tired from that and then resting. That’s His plan. In and of itself, work is not vanity, but when you look for life in it, it’s not going to be there. What’s the next one? Money or riches. Again, inherently money is not wrong. whether you depend on that to bring you meaning in life and what you spend it on and those kinds of things. Money actually can help you serve God. Money is a gift from God. He is the one who brings riches and provides that as a blessing. It says in the book of Proverbs, how about music? I mean music used rightly in proportion is an amazing gift.

I mean, come on, you got those flats and the minor key from What Child Is This? If that doesn’t kind of just, you know, stop you and think about the words, What Child Is This? You know? And the music itself just kind of stops you and is kind of different enough to make you think that, oh, this is actually different that God became man.

I mean, that’s good stuff. Music can help us to worship God better, but as with all these other things, music can actually replace God in your life. And it’s the same way with this last one, at least there is a proper way to see relationships, specifically a relationship. There is a proper place for the physical pleasure of a relationship and that is in marriage, committed marriage. There is a proper place and that is as well a gift from God. It’s just a wedding gift. And yet, I mean, do I really need to talk a lot about how this is right where our world is today? I mean, does it really take too much evidence?

You know, I don’t need to give you any stats on, you know, what’s on TV or what’s in movies or what’s in music or what’s on billboards or the amount people talk about sex and talk about girls and talk about boys and all those kinds of things. I mean our world is a wash in thinking that life is found in a girl or in a boy. And Solomon is going to tell us that’s not where life is. There is a proper place. There is a proper way following God’s designs to get pleasure from the marriage relationship, but when you go outside of that, when it’s out of proportion, then you’re not going to find meaning and satisfaction in life. The problem was not necessarily for Solomon that these things in and of themselves were sinful as much as he was looking to them to provide meaning and definition for his life. Well, we come to this last one this morning found in verse 8. I’ll read the whole thing. I also gathered for myself silver and gold in the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women. And here’s our section for today, and many

concubines, the delight of the children of man. The preacher rounds off his list of central pleasures with the vanity of women. And obviously, ladies, this has application for you as relates to the vanity of men. Solomon was a man, he was looking for life in women. Ladies, it applies to to youth, looking for life, the stupidity of men. I mean the vanity of men. OK? So nobody gets out of it because the title is Vanity of Women. Well, number one, his pursuit. His pursuit. I got. And then you could skip over, right? Because this is one sentence here. And we talked about the first part of the sentence last week. But it’s the same sentence.

there’s only one verb. So when he got for himself, verse eight, I got singers, both men and women. That was the first thing, but now he’s just describing another thing that he got. So for today, we could just skip over the singer’s part. I got many concubines. That’s his pursuit. Now Solomon is well known for his women.

for his women. He was the original ladies man it seems like as well as he was known for the downfall that came because of the women. Look at 1st Kings chapter 1. I was thinking about it earlier I’m sorry chapter 11 1st Kings 11 I was thinking about earlier this week how great it is preaching through this series that there is so much on Solomon and that we can go back to the historical stories, the context, and actually then see this worked out. I mean, as we have looked at his riches, some of the other parts of his kingdom, his buildings, and all those kinds of things, that’s great to have that historical context for us right in Scripture. It’s great to see some of his other conclusions not only in the rest of Ecclesiastes but even in many of the proverbs that he wrote. So I really have appreciated and enjoyed being able to come to other parts of scripture to fill in some of these details. Look at 1 Kings chapter 11 starting in verse 1.

Now King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sedonian, and Hittite women from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, you shall not enter into marriages with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods. Solomon, look at this, clung to these in love. This This was a passion. This was a major pursuit for Solomon. He clung to these in love. Well, and how many was he clinging to? Well, verse 3, he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. That makes me tired. 700 wives and 300 concubines, I am wondering just how many children this guy had.

Well, women were such a large part of Solomon’s life that it would have been very surprising to us if he would not have included that at all here in his list of looking for life. I mean, in fact, to have gotten a description of all the places he was looking for satisfaction in his life and to have not included the women, again, that would probably, that might be a huge argument for this not being Solomon who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes if that had been the case. Because obviously, I mean, and I’ll work through this a little bit more later on, but that many women in your life, I mean, there’s no way that that just doesn’t dominate, you know, how you spend your days.

You don’t just wake up one morning with 700 wives and 300 concubines. That doesn’t happen. Now, one of the reasons, at least for the wives, is history reveals that Solomon was very aggressive in his foreign policy. In sealing treaties in ancient days, it was customary for a lesser king to give one of his daughters in marriage to the greater king, again, as the sealing or the ratification of that treatise or that deal. And so every time a new treaty was sealed, Solomon ended up with yet another wife. Or at least that probably happened multiple times. These wives were considered tokens of friendship and sealed the deal, sealed the relationship between the two kings.

And I mean, you see the practical part of that, if you have married the daughter of, You know, this other ruler, then the anticipation or the expectation there is, is that the daughter would be like a guarantee of the fact that you then wouldn’t go kill her dad and take his stuff. The idea is he gave you this very important thing of his as kind of a guarantee that you don’t need to come take anything else, okay? You have her and we’ll get along and leave me alone and my stuff. So you can see that very practical part of this deal at least. But there is no way that he came up with 700 wives just by making treaties with foreign countries.

And certainly the 300 concubines were not given in treaties. And the reason why he’s mentioning them here in Ecclesiastes chapter 2 is very simply not to show how wise of a ruler he was, it was to show his desire for physical pleasure, for gratification of the flesh. That was his pursuit in the wives and in the concubines, at least what he’s mentioning here is looking for life in that physical again pleasure. Now I do want to give you just a little bit of Old Testament context as it relates to polygamy. I am pretty sure that none of you woke up this morning and thought that you were going to be hearing that word and we were going to talk about it in a message.

But I thought this was very interesting and you know primarily when I’m studying for preaching messages I’m studying to learn it myself and then whatever gets me you know fired up I’d bring to you because I think you know maybe that will get you fired up as well. So anyway I needed to do a little bit of research on this and of course that was one of our biggest questions about Solomon at the beginning of Ecclesiastes anyway is how could we learn from this guy? How could we get wisdom from this guy who had 700 wives and 300 concubines? In fact, I was going to mention this later. Let’s see if I can find it. Jim in Huckleberry Finn.

If you remember that at all, this was at least one of the reasons that Jim in Huckleberry Finn gave for why he couldn’t believe the Bible. Not just who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes. This is the reason that Jim gave for why he wouldn’t believe the Bible.

Because how could the Bible call Solomon the wisest man in the world and have 700 wives? And Jim could never see how those two things went together. Anyway, polygamy is marriage to multiple wives. That’s what the word means. Polygamy, if you haven’t heard that before. Pastor Z actually used that word in his message this morning and he talked about other countries and then some other states located around us. I don’t know why he didn’t mention Montana in his list. I’m just kidding. Utah primarily though, some in Idaho, some maybe in every state. I don’t know but polygamy is marriage to multiple wives. Now in scripture we have multiple instances of polygamy, however we never find polyandry and polyandry is marriage to multiple men. You actually don’t ever find that in scripture. There’s a good number of cases of polygamy, marriage to multiple wives, and we’ll look at a few of those, but you never find polyandry. That’s the word for marriage to multiple husbands. Now even though Genesis chapter 2, I think makes

it really pretty clear that marriage is to be between one man and one woman. In In the Old Testament, there are actually a lot of examples of polygamy. In fact, Abraham with Sarah and his concubines or her servants. We see that in Genesis chapter 16. We see Jacob who married Leah and Rachel in Genesis 29. Esau had three wives in Genesis 26. You see it there. Gideon in Judges 8 had many wives. David, King David had seven named wives. He perhaps had more than that, but in 1st Samuel 18, there are at least seven that are named. And then Solomon here with his royal harem. 1st Kings 3 talks about that. 1st Kings 11 obviously talks about that as well.

Do you realize that there is actually a law given to men with multiple wives. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 21. Again, I, until this week, hadn’t ever gone through and studied anything about polygamy. I mean, we definitely live in a culture I was definitely raised in a church and just society where one man, one woman, that was it. That’s all you could talk about as, you know, marriage. But look at, like I said, Deuteronomy chapter 21, start in verse 15. If a man has two wives, here is a law that assumes that there’s the possibility of more than one. That’s kind of interesting. If a man has two wives, it doesn’t say get rid of one.

It doesn’t say he is in adultery. It doesn’t say he is in the wrong. Though, honestly, that’s kind of more what I would expect to come after a phrase like that. If a man has two wives, he’s wrong. But this says if a man has two wives, the one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have borne him children. And if the first-born son belongs to the unloved, Then on the day when he assigns his possessions as an inheritance to his sons, he may not treat the son of the loved as the firstborn in preference to the son of the unloved, who is the firstborn, but he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that he has.”

There is then at least a law that describes what could happen if a man had two wives. Also I want you to look at Deuteronomy 17. The paragraph starting back in verse 14 helps us to know that this is a paragraph talking to kings, what kings were allowed to do and what kings were not allowed to do. And look down at verse 17, and he shall not acquire many wives for himself. The reason lest his heart turn away. You know what’s interesting about that, however, is that there is no explicit prohibition for others who are not the king not to have multiple wives. I can’t find one. There is not an explicit prohibition to those who are not the king that they were not allowed to have multiple wives.

though Genesis 2 I think makes it pretty clear what it’s supposed to be and I’ll have a few more things about that. Basically all the passages in the Bible where the practice of polygamy is mentioned, though they don’t immediately jump in and say and it was wrong, they do jump in and say and here are all the problems that came from it. You will never find a passage that it tells you of the benefits of it. Only the problems. Not one passage that talks about the blessings of polygamy. There are dozens of passage where polygamy is reported and you always then get things like trouble and jealousy and strife and unhappiness.

And if we’re sensitive to those stories at all, the impact of those stories really starts to make it clear that God’s design is not one man and multiple women but one man and one woman. I mean in some of the instances that I mentioned before the whole thing with Sarah and Hagar did not work out really well. In fact the offspring the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac still fight today and there was some pretty significant bitterness that took place. I mean Rachel and Leia did not get along with one another. There was not a piece in that house with a barren woman and a fertile woman and Jacob loved the unfertile woman, the barren woman, and you know all kinds of difficulties took place there. I mean the problems in David’s house that that came from multiple wives and then siblings and all that.

And certainly then Solomon’s forfeit of his entire kingdom because of it all lead us to realize that the results of polygamy are pretty disastrous. The best I can determine is this. And here’s kind of my conclusion for the moment, at least, without doing further study. it seems like polygamy was legal, but sinful.

However that goes together, it seems like it was legal, but sinful and certainly not ideal. Now where do we find, again, explicitly stated that polygamy equaled adultery, nor do we specifically find that concubines equaled adultery so far as explicitly goes, but from what we know, I definitely think those things are sinful, though in the society and even in the Jewish society for certain status, certain level of guys, it was legal. You know, we have things like that today that are sinful, but not legal, right? It is not, I’ll just think of one example, it is not illegal to be drunk at your house. It’s illegal to be drunk, you know, out in public or then the damage that you caused from that.

But it’s not illegal to be drunk. It is, however, a sin to be drunk. And so as best as I can see, it must have been legal. I mean, they didn’t try to, you know, overthrow the king because of it. And yet it was certainly sinful. Both marriage to multiple women and even there was some kind of legal bond even between the king and his concubines. Different than marriage, but yet not like he was just taking anybody that he wanted and then leaving them. There was at least some kind of legal bond where he had to then take care of them. But Solomon can’t get out of it that easy. Even in saying the Old Testament context, polygamy maybe was legal, but sinful, Solomon can’t get out of it for a verse we already read back in Deuteronomy 17 verse 17.

To kings he shall not acquire many wives. Even at best if we could say that it was legal for some people it was not legal or lawful at all for kings. That means that David was in direct disobedience to Deuteronomy 17. That means Solomon was in direct disobedience to this command to kings.

We’ve seen that already back in verse 16. He must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt. The end of verse 17, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold. Solomon was in direct disobedience. For all of the blessings we can say that God gives in making people rich with silver or gold, for all of the security that God can bring people with temporal means like the horses and the chariots. For all of that, Solomon at least was in specific purposeful, willful disobedience to very again very clear commands, prohibitions for the king. It was not lawful or legal, it certainly was then sinful for Solomon period. Now before moving on from this idea of polygamy, understand that the New Testament makes it really clear that it’s to be one man and one woman in a couple different places. There is no doubt in Jesus’ time and the Apostle’s time in defining marriage as one man and one woman.

Might I also add that even in the Old Testament where we don’t ever say marry multiple wives, there’s no positive command to do it, even though there’s no specific prohibition against it. Every story where polygamy is involved shows of the problems as well as the fact that the picture that God intends for marriage is to show His relationship to His people, and how His people should be devoted to one. That is Him. So again, I’m trying to be honest with the fact that there’s no specific prohibition, but in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, there is, as well the fact that it only brings problems with it in the Old Testament.

All of that though is just historical background to the fact that Solomon was disobedient to a very specific command to kings anyway. He was wrong. Now I do want us to think a little bit about Solomon’s situation. This is all under his pursuit. I was trying to give you the Old Testament context, but think about Solomon’s situation. And this is important for us to grasp because he had more than we will ever have in this area really in all of the areas we’ve talked about, but certainly in this area. And so his evaluation is worth listening to. Three things about Solomon’s situation. You do understand that Solomon had the cream of the crop. The 700 wives and 300 concubines were not the ugly girls, right? I mean this is the cream of the crop. These are not the, you know, ape-looking boys if we were applying it to the to the women. You know, these are not the the Cro-Magnon man.

You know, I think a good a good idea of what would have happened here is found in Esther. Look back at Esther. Not back at Esther, wherever she’s sitting if she’s in here. So she’s in the front anyway. Not that Esther, the book of Esther.

And chapter two, you remember perhaps this story that Queen Vashti blows it and irritates the king and so he needs a new one. And so some of the young men suggest to him what he should do, the young men. Hmm, great place to get wisdom from, I’m sure. Esther chapter 2 verse 2, then the king’s young men who attended him said, let beautiful young virgins be sought out for the king, and let the king appoint officers in all of the provinces of his kingdom to gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem and sues of the capital under the custody of Haggai, the king’s eunuch who is in charge of the women. Let their cosmetics be given to them and yet the let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti this you know the king wanted nothing to do with this this sounded just like a horrible idea to him to you know appoint people to bring him all the beautiful girls he thought that just sounded awful no that’s demeaning to women and I can’t be a part of that. I want to find love the old-fashioned way,

you know, or go online or whatnot. No, he didn’t have any of those. This pleased the king and he did so. Look down at verse 12 now, and so that happens, right? And you got the eunuch Who’s in charge? Now to me, that’s like you know some of the shows that are out there where you know guys who don’t like girls are helping them look good. That’s kind of I mean that’s what I think he’s saying by mentioning who he put in charge. The UNIC is somebody who apparently didn’t have lots of interest in girls and so could really help them out and not then need to have one for himself. So he could be detached and help the process.

So again, like this is a nationwide deal. This is not just American Idol, you know, going to six major cities. This is like, you know, the production crew and rulers in all of the places finding the pretty girls.

gathering them together. And verse 12, now when the turn came for each young woman to go into the king after being 12 months under the regulations for the women. And what were those regulations since this was the regular period of their beautifying. Six months with oil of myrrh and six months with spices and ointments for women. This is like, this is not a day spa, this is a year spa, and you get six months of one kind of treatment and six months of another kind of treatment for beautifying. When the young woman, verse 13, went into the king in this way, she was given whatever she desired to take with her from the harem to the king’s palace. In the evening she would go in and in the morning she would return to the second harem in custody of Shayagaz, the King’s eunuch, who was in charge of the concubines.

He would not go into the… She would not go into the king again unless the king delighted in her and she was summoned by name. And I realize this is a different king, a different story, but I wonder if that’s not a lot of how the story for Solomon went. So in giving Solomon situation, holy cow, it’s almost noon already, let me at least finish this. He would have had the cream of the crop, number one. Number two, if there were a thousand of you, right, and you it’s not like you then had another husband on the side for all the days that the king wasn’t, you know, interested in you, this would have been your life. You were one of a thousand. You would have done absolutely everything you could to impress the king when it was your shot.

You would have done everything you possibly could have, not only because he was powerful, but because you just wanted to be in his presence. I mean, when you’re married, the idea is to spend time together, right? There’s companionship and friendship there, and if there’s 700 wives and another 300 concubines on top of that, like you’re fighting just to have his attention. So the king, probably busy, right, with other things like running a country and getting gold and building buildings, you know, thinking about a lot of other stuff. I mean, these girls were going out of their way to serve and make him happy just so that That may be, you know, because I did this, a thousand into 365 or 365 into a thousand means that it would have taken him almost three years, almost an entire three years if he just spent one day with each one of them.

Almost three years, just one day. Like you would hope to impress him enough that maybe you could get two days out of those three years or maybe, you know, a week or whatever. And the reason that I say that is because, you know, he didn’t have to do any work to get that attention. And some of us think, you know, we want the cream of the crop and we don’t want to have to do anything. Solomon had that. And third, well, and this is really the end of the point. It would have taken just a little under three years to make it around to all the women if he had just given them one day, he would not have gotten tired of any one of them.

I mean, you get tired and you move on. And the reason I mention all those things is because at least our world thinks that, you know, happiness is going to come in the pretty one. And happiness is going to come in the pretty one who does everything for you. And that there’s a bunch of pretty ones waiting to do everything for you so that you don’t have to do any of the work. and there’s another one when this one is boring or tiring to you. Now I realize that’s kind of an extreme, but that is, I mean, if most people were honest, that’s exactly what they would say would be their ideal. That would bring them a lot of happiness and satisfaction.

If they had people fighting for them who were the cream of the crop, they didn’t have to do any work to try to impress them at all and just be constantly served by the other people. And you can move on and find a new one if you didn’t like that one. You know, it’s probably safe to say that Solomon can give us a fair evaluation as to whether there is meaning and satisfaction in life from sex and girls.

If we needed to ask anybody, he probably can give us an evaluation on whether there’s actually real life there. His assessment is I’ve had more than anybody. And you know what? What do you think his conclusion is on this one? Yeah, vanity. I mean, I’m not going to be able to give you any more for now.

But just let me finish for this morning and say, I know, I know, I know it that some of you are expecting and anticipating life and happiness in a person. Whether it is just the relationship or it’s the physical pleasures that come from it, making out or whatever it is, I know that some Some of you think that that’s where life is based on just what’s obvious on the outside. Let alone what is actually going on in your heart on the inside. Everything on the outside says it. And you’re probably not, you’re probably wise enough to know not to show everything in your heart on the outside, at least if you can help it.

And yet I know from my own experience of being in junior high and high school, from my own experience of being alive, what a temptation there is there to think that that’s where life can be found in a person or in, you know, playing the field or all of the things associated with that. And if anybody has experienced more than we can ever imagine anyway, it would be Solomon and he says, you know what, not going to find it. It is striving after the It is empty. It is vanity. Now again, there is a right place.

Marriage. There is a right place. God says that that’s great. Solomon will tell us that that’s great. We’ll look at next time we’re together. But guys, most of you aren’t ready for that yet anyway. And yet you live your days in expectation and anticipation that finding the right girl, the right guy is going to make your life all better and it won’t. It just won’t. Solomon is the one who knew. He tells us so. Father, use this and even the Trespasser’s series on Wednesday nights to challenge everything that assaults us outside of your word really. I mean, even when we come to church, there’s struggles with relationships and love and lust and all those kinds of things.

Even at church, the world assaults us constantly, trying to communicate to us where we can find life. And certainly, this is at the top of the list. This is the number one answer for where most people at least think that life can be found. And though we understand that Solomon was in sin, there’s no condoning his pursuits here. We are at least thankful that you had him tell us about it afterwards and the vanity that’s there. Help us to not need to learn this lesson the hard way, but to learn it from your word. We pray all this in the name of your son, amen. you