Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are You Chasing Pleasure? | The Writings | Ecclesiastes 2

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

What's the secret to happiness? Is it found in chasing your own pleasure? Will pleasure truly satisfy? In today's episode, Patrick shares how the Preacher's experience in Ecclesiastes 2 reminds us that the pleasures of this world are not worth building our life on. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Ecclesiastes 2

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. What's the secret to happiness? In David Foster Wallace's modern classic, infinite jest, he records an ongoing conversation between an American spy named Steepley and a French-Canadian spy named Marat. Now, the American spy, Steepley, he explains that all good Americans understand that the key to happiness is the freedom to have what you want.

and do what you want so long as you don't hurt anybody else. Now, he explains that if everyone just ran after their own desires, and they tried their best not to obstruct someone else's desires, well, then somehow the free market and common sense and decency would see to the rest. Everybody would have maximal happiness. The scene is striking because steeply says the quiet part out loud. He speaks the truth that not just Americans, but many people in the West, and he speaks it forth rightly, that the secret to happiness is to treat yourself, to focus on your desires, to pursue your desires, to buy what you want, to have what you want, and to trust your

wants as the only faithful map to the promised land. In Ecclesiastes, too, the preacher, the author of Ecclesiastes, he tells us that he tried this exact approach to happiness, and as a kingly figure, he went so hard into the paint that the paint started peeling. Question is, does pursuing our sexual, social, and chemical desires really lead us to deep happiness. Is the American the spy named Steepley? Is he right about the world? Well, let's pick up in Ecclesiastes 2 verse 1. I said to myself, come now. I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good. But that also proved to be meaningless. Laughter, I said, is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish. I tried cheering myself with wine and embracing folly. My mind still guiding me

with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their life. I undertook great projects. I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more her than flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers and a harem as well that delights of a man's heart. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this, my wisdom stayed with me. I denied myself nothing my eyes desire.

I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor. And this was my reward for all my toil. Now he's about to tell us what the reward of all this pleasure-seeking was, but before we get there, we just need to name the fact. The preacher was living it up. He denied himself nothing. He experienced sexual pleasure in harems, wild parties, extravagant and luxurious living. He spared no entertainment, constantly amusing himself with singers and dancers.

He had everything that he wanted. And so he did exactly what the American spy steeply said every American. should do if we want to be happy. You should treat yourself. You should seek your own pleasure and comfort. And this guy, the preacher, he did it better than anyone that we know. He lived to the max. If living for your pleasures really is the max. And so what was his conclusion after all of this pleasure seeking? Well, we pick it up in verse 11. Yet, when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless. a chasing after the wind, nothing was gained under the sun. It's maybe what you expected him to say,

but on a deep level, is it really what you expect him to say? I mean, in the depths of your heart, do you really believe that chasing after your own pleasure, extravagance, wealth, and comfort, and desires is going to make you unhappy that you'll say it's all meaningless, it's all chasing after wind? Is that what you really believe deep down? Well, that's what he says, because he tried it himself that chasing after pleasure is a wind. He says that chasing after pleasure is meaningless. Now, in Hebrew, that word meaningless is actually Hevel, which can be translated as a lot of different words. It's hard to capture in English, but it could be translated as vapor or mist. And that's the image that the author has in mind here. Everything is vapor. It's a mist.

Think about this. When you try to grab vapor or a mist, what happens? Well, it disappears into your hands? Or what happens if you try to build your life on top of vapor? Well, the building comes falling down. Vapor is here one moment and then it's gone. It's visible, but it's insubstantial. And so it is with pleasure. You see, later on in this very chapter, the preacher says that there is a place for pleasure in life. He says in verse 24, a person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. But his point at the end of the chapter is clear. You can enjoy vapor when it appears, but you can't build your life on it. You can't chase after it. If you're trying to chase after vapor, you're chasing after the wind. You can't control it. You can't find it

if you want it. It changes in one moment. It disappears in the next. He's saying, look, pleasure is fine. Enjoy it and glorify God when you experience it. But building your life on it is a fool's errand. You will be miserable and empty. You'll be a shell of a person who's living for wind. pleasure is fine when it's here, but you can't control it and it will be out of your hands before you know it. This takes me back to that scene from David Foster Wallace's novel, Infinite Just Gest. After the American spy, Steepley, explains the secret to happiness, just chase your pleasure. The French-Canadian spy, Marat, responds, and he says that steeply may not see himself as religious, but in fact, steeply is deeply religious. And he tells steeply that if all he

seeks as his own pleasure, and all every American seeks as their own pleasure, well, then they're all just worshipping the same idol, the idol of self. Murat explains, your temple is yourself and your sentiment. In such an instance, you are a fanatic of desire, a slave to your individual, subjective, narrow self-sentiments, a citizen of nothing. You become a citizen of nothing. You are by yourself alone kneeling to yourself. Now, David Foster, Wallace wasn't a Christian, and Infinite Jest is not a Christian novel by any stretch of the imagination. And yet, it's echoing the book of Ecclesiastes. Those who chase after pleasure all end up becoming catatonic. If we chase after pleasure, we all end up empty or dead, literally in some

cases, or maybe as addicts in other cases, because what is addiction except for a chasing after pleasure? This passage in Ecclesiastes, that's story infinite just, it's a warning that if we chase our desires, if we think that treat yourself is the key to happiness, if we think that self-care and self-obsession are the way to joy, well, I'll only end up drunk on me. And like many drunks, I'll get addicted to my drug of choice, chasing pleasure, because it promises to be my closest friend, my greatest ally. But in the end, the preacher tells us the truth. Pleasure and seeking after pleasure, building your life on pleasure, it ends up taking away everything that matters. And once everything that matters is gone because you've been seeking yourself and your

own pleasures and your own interest, well, it's only at that point that your selfish desires take off the mask. And you realize the truth, it's not your friend, it's not lovely, it's not desirable, it's an overseer, it's a taskmaster, it's an enslaver. And so the preacher warns us, enjoy pleasure when you have it, give glory to God. No, you can't control it. Don't build your life on it, build your life on something bigger. God is the only substantial foundation upon which we can seek ongoing joy, not a joy found in the pleasures of this world and drink or sex or fun, but a joy that transcends this world and goes on into eternal life, a joy found only in his presence.