What has Pleasure Done for Me? (Eccles. 2:1-11)

The word ‘pleasure’ is a kind of neutral word that usually needs an adjective or two to clarify it. We know that pleasure is something that everyone is interested in, although sometimes it can be very elusive. Years ago, I heard a Christian singing a song which contained these lines:

I walked a mile with Pleasure;
She chatted all the way;
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow;
And ne’er a word said she;
But, oh! The things I learned from her,
When Sorrow walked with me.

As far as I could find out on the Internet, the author (Robert Browning Hamilton) was described as an amateur poet who lived on the east coast of America in the late decades of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century. I don’t think we can find a collection of his works anywhere. But these lines have become well-known because they describe what many people have experienced. I wonder what Solomon would have made of them.

I recall also a few years ago reading a comment made by Eric Liddell. He said, ‘God made me fast, and when I run I feel his pleasure.’ We may describe that ability as a natural talent from God and because Liddell used it for God’s glory he conveyed a sense of his delight to him as he ran. And we could extend that possibility to all of his natural gifts when the recipients use them for his praise. I wonder what Solomon would have made of Liddell’s experience.

Another quotation that kind of startled me when I first read it was by Jim Elliot, one of the martyrs in Ecuador in the 1950s. He said on one occasion, ‘Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on earth!’ When he said those words, he was young and had many other options he could have pursued. I wonder what Solomon would have made of Elliot’s exuberance.

A precious ability misused (2:1)

As we saw in chapter 1, Solomon had discovered that life was not all that it claimed to be. How did he make this discovery and what was the first step he took that eventually brought him to the right conclusion? The answer to this question is that he spoke to himself. One of the problems of today is that we have become absorbers rather than analysts of life. We just take what comes our way without asking any questions. If there is a response, it is usually a gut reaction more than an intelligent assessment. Yet we were made by God to think.

One of the first activities God made Adam to do was look at all the animals and name them. This naming was not at the level of naming a cow Daisy. Imagine the scene. Along they come in a line, and Adam is asked by God to observe them and provide a name that describes them. The point is, God asked Adam to think. And here Solomon is thinking about finding a meaningful life. So he decides to experiment with the pursuit of pleasure.

Wine, women and song, and much more

Solomon summarises in this section the activities of several years. He had engaged in a wide choice of pursuits, including vast building schemes, cultural enterprises, musical events, accumulation of things, sexual gratification, and victories in battle and subsequent increase in territories. Some of them seemed harmless, others could be described as being for the public good, and several of them were fulfilments of his role as the king of Israel as he expanded its infrastructure as well as its borders. All these things, he noted, were assumed to provide happiness and fulfilment.

Not only did he engage in a wide range of activities, he also participated in them with energy. His wisdom remained with him (vv. 3, 9), so he was able to select what was best, and he entered into it all with enthusiasm. Moreover his pursuits elevated him and gave him very prominent status – ‘I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem’ (v. 9). Initially he enjoyed all that he was doing (v. 10), but after a while, as he looked at all his achievements, he made this startling and sobering conclusion: ‘Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun’ (v. 11).

We could take his list and imagine him asking some direct questions: To the indulger in wine, he would ask, ‘Does wine give you lasting pleasure?’ because, he would say, it did not give such to me.’ To the architects of huge projects, he would ask, ‘Did your projects give you lasting pleasure?’, because, he would say, I was responsible for many and they did not give lasting pleasure to me. To those who are focussed on making money, he would ask, ‘Does your riches give you lasting pleasure?’ because, he would say, I became very wealthy and yet all I had gave me no joy. To the lovers of music, he would ask, ‘Does your songs or listening to polished performances give you lasting pleasure?’, because, he would say, I put together the best possible choir and it gave me no permanent pleasure.

All the aspects we have just mentioned – drinking wine, building projects, possessions, music – can obviously be harmless in themselves. But Solomon also reveals that his pursuit of pleasure had its darker side, with at least two disturbing aspects to it. One was his willingness to turn people into slaves – to use them to try and discover what would make him happy – and the other was to develop a harem and use women to fulfil his own physical desires. And can we not agree that we are aware that the pursuit of pleasure still has its darker sides in which we can use people to satisfy our own ends?

In the end, Solomon lost all restraint (‘I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil’, v. 10) and imagined that he actually deserved what he was receiving, and all he was receiving was short-term pleasure. For a period, he does not say how long, he became what we would call a hedonist, totally devoted to pleasure.

What does the Bible say about pleasure?

1. The verses we have considered briefly from Solomon indicate that pleasure covers a wide range of interests and activities.
2. God experiences pleasure: ‘I know, my God, that you test the heart and have pleasure in uprightness’ (1 Chron. 29:17); ‘but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love’ (Psalm 147:11); ‘For the Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation’ (Psalm 149:4).
3. God wants his creatures to have pleasure: ‘also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil – this is God’s gift to man’ (Eccles. 3:13).
4. Heaven is a world of pleasure: ‘You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures for evermore’ (Psalm 16:11).
5. People can get pleasure from surprising sinful acts: ‘They only plan to thrust him down from his high position. They take pleasure in falsehood. They bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse’ (Psalm 62:4).
6. The love of pleasure will lead to poverty: ‘Whoever loves pleasure will be a poor man; he who loves wine and oil will not be rich’
(Prov. 21:16-18).
7. Pleasure can cause people to give up the Christian faith: ‘And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature’ (Luke 8:14).
8. Sinful pleasures do not last: ‘Moses … choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin’ (Heb. 11:25).
9. It will be a feature of the last days (the period between the two comings of Jesus): ‘But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power’ (2 Tim. 3:1-5).

Did God make Adam so that he would have pleasure?

We can deduce many things from the information about creation given in Genesis 1 and 2, such as the wisdom of God in knowing what to do and his power in being able to accomplish it. The author also highlights the fact that the activities of his creating work gave God great pleasure, as the refrain ‘God saw that it was good’ indicates.

Moses also records the fact that Adam and Eve were made in the image of God, that they were like him. Since that was the case, they would have been created with the capacity for pleasure. Adam’s pleasure reached a high point when God introduced him to Eve and he burst out into song to celebrate the gift that the Lord had provided. Prior to then, God’s assessment of Adam was that he was not complete, but now with Eve he was, and we can see from the Genesis account that there is a connection between his completeness and pleasure.

We can see that the capacity for pleasure is part of what it means to be an authentic human. But does that mean any kind of pleasure? Surely the answer to this question must be that he should find pleasure in the same things that give God pleasure. One way to experience pleasure would be the proper use of the various gifts that God gave to his creatures. As long as these talents were used aright, the performers and the recipients would be blessed.

One aspect of the description of the fall is that it involved looking for the wrong kind of pleasure. Moses describes Eve’s thinking in Genesis 3:6: ‘So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.’ Instead of pleasing God, she now wanted to please herself. What was the outcome? Her action did not bring pleasure, and it was the first of countless similar actions that have displeased God.

We can see this focus on self-pleasure in the attitude of Solomon that he himself describes. All that he did he did for himself. He did not care at that time if he was pleasing God. And we can see this same attitude in the verse of Paul in which he says what features will be found in society between the two comings of Jesus – they are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

What does God say about such actions?

In Jeremiah 2:12-14, God makes this surprising complaint: ‘Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate,
declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.’

God describes himself as the fountain of living water. In this illustration, he presents himself as the permanent source of endless satisfaction and pleasure. Moreover he says that he is available for everyone, just as a fountain was for each person in a community. As a fountain, he pours out abounding grace, and it includes forgiveness for the past, companionship for the present, and great prospects for the future (after all, the Fountain will still be flowing).

In contrast, his people Israel had forsaken him for their own strategies, whatever they were, that were full of cracks and holes. Even when they put inferior water into them it did not stay, so even their attempts to find pleasure and satisfaction failed every time they tried. The amazing feature of this illustration is that God does not want us to have any cisterns, just himself continually.

I recall reading what George Muller said on one occasion when he was speaking about full surrender to God. He spoke about a time when he did this and since then he said that ‘God, God, God alone became my portion. I found my all in Him; I wanted nothing else. And by the grace of God this has remained, and has made me a happy man, an exceedingly happy man.’ He continued, ‘I can say from my heart, God is an infinitely lovely Being. Oh! be not satisfied until in your inmost soul you can say, God is an infinitely lovely Being!’

What does Jesus say about this?

We get an answer to this question in John 4:13, in words that he spoke to the woman of Sychar: ‘Everyone who drinks of this water [from the well] will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ Here Jesus informs us that the living fountain can indwell us and pour his blessings into our hearts, and when we have that, then it expands our enjoyment of and delight in the good things that God gives.

How is our love of pleasure? Part of the problem is that we don’t trust God to make us happy. We can close by repeating some words of Lachlan Mackenzie that he wrote about the happy man. ‘Happy is the life of that man who believes firmly, prays fervently,
walks patiently, works abundantly,
lives holy, dies daily,
watches his heart, guides his senses, redeems his time,
loves Christ, and longs for glory.
He is necessitated to take the world on his way to heaven,
but he walks through it as fast as he can,
and all his business by the way is to make himself and others happy.’