The Four "L's" of an Empty Life

0:01 Dwayne here. Tac Room Bible Talk. Um I didn't go put my Sunday go to meeting clothes on today. I just I had some verses and a thought on my mind and I said, you know, I'm going to come in here and record while it's on my mind. Uh but it's just us. We're just working people. Um and so it's all good. It doesn't matter. I'm going to give you a little bit of background here about what I'm talking about. Now, King David King David, this is the same David the psalmist. This is the David that killed Goliath. This is the same David that sinned with Bathsheba, had her husband Uriah killed, and took her as his wife. Um he had their first child died

0:48 and as as an infant, God's judgment. But what we sometimes forget and skip over and by that we miss a great truth of the grace of God is that his next child was named by Bathsheba was named Solomon. Now, God and David determined that Solomon was to be David's successor. All right? I don't know all the whys and everything about it, but that's that's what it was. So when David died, he was old, Solomon apparently was still a very young man. And David in spite of his weaknesses and his sins did mighty mighty things and he loved

1:35 God and he was a very successful, very beloved king in Israel. All of a sudden he dies and his young son has to step into his shoes. And he is intimidated by what lies before him. And God comes to him one night and says, "Look, I made a covenant with your father. And now I'm going to reiterate that covenant with you. I'm going to carry that covenant on through through you. Because of your father. So ask me for a gift. This I'm going to prove to you that that I mean what I'm saying about ask me for a gift. And Solomon said, look, I'm he said a child and I he

2:22 we don't know how old he was, all right, but he considered himself too young for the burden that's placed upon him. He said, I don't know how to go out or come in. I I don't know what to do. And all of a sudden I find myself responsible for this kingdom. And [snorts] I find myself responsible for filling the shoes and carrying on the legacy and the work of David of all people. And I I'm not set up to handle that. I can't handle that. So what I what I ask of you is to give me wisdom so that I can rule this kingdom uh wisely. And it said the saying pleased God. And God said, since you didn't ask for fame or you didn't ask for wealth and riches, I'm going to give you what you asked

3:07 for, but I'm also going to give you uncountable wealth and fame. But I'm going to give you the wisdom and and Solomon became the wisest man the wisest man that ever lived. Uh and he wrote um much of Proverbs and he wrote Ecclesiastes in the Bible and he wrote Song of Solomon. Now we're going to look at some verses here in Ecclesiastes and we'll start in chapter 1. So if you want to pause this and grab your Bible real quick, um this is not going to be a deep doctrinal deal, but I think it's going to be it's going to be kind of eye-opening and and very helpful for some of you, okay? So we're in Ecclesiastes chapter 1, verse number 12, Solomon is talking

3:53 himself. He says, "I the preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem." I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven. This sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith. If you go down verse number 17 in that same first chapter, and I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief. And there's a whole lot of truth to that. And he that increase it knowledge increases sorrow. So, he set out

4:39 to find the meaning of life. The question that is still haunting and reverberating over the earth today. The question that so many individuals, men and women today, are are saying, "What's it all about? What is my life about?" So, we carry on in chapter two. He says, "I set in my heart, go to now, I will prove thee with mirth. Therefore, enjoy pleasure, and behold this also is vanity. I said of laughter, it is mad, and of mirth, what doeth it?" So, he said the first thing that I tested to find meaning in life was laughter. It was humor. You look at what a billion-dollar

5:26 industry comedy is in this country today. And how empty it is. And people who go and they go to these comedy clubs, and they go to these specials, and they watched all all you watch all these comedy shows on TV and you watch all this stuff and you sit there and you laugh at the jokes. But when the comedian is gone and the special is over you've gained nothing in life. The and we can expand this out. It's not just laughter, it's emotional gratification.

6:11 People look for some depth in their life and they look for some meaning in their life and and they seek emotional gratification. And he said, I said of laughter, it is mad and of mirth what doeth it? What good is it? What does it do? What what what does it do? That is not the answer. There's so many things that we could be doing in our life in our downtime to make ourselves calmer to make ourselves wiser, to make ourselves more understanding to make ourselves more solid

6:58 to make ourselves more everything that we should be but instead we we we just look for somebody to make us laugh. Just make us laugh. And when the laughter dies out we're left right where we were. It's not the answer. It's vanity. It's emptiness. He says in verse number three, I sought in my heart to give myself unto wine. Yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom and to lay hold of folly till I might see what was that good for the sons of men which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life. He says I tried liquor. I tried laughter, that didn't work. I

7:45 tried liquor." And we can expand that to physical gratification. The answer must be in feeding this flesh and doing whatever it takes to make this flesh feel good. And there's so many people out there, so many Christians. Now, I know I hammer on this a lot, and I know some of you're tired of hearing it, but such a huge portion of today's what is falsely called worship music is just this right here. It's just chasing something to make the flesh feel good right now. And you walk out of that service and you feel as lost and as empty and as

8:31 vain as when you walked in because you're artificially pumped up by the shallow words and all the people around you waving their hands and the drums and it's just a physical gratification. It does the same thing as getting drunk. It does the same thing as physical intimacy with another person. It does the same thing as as people who overeat and eat for the wrong reasons and eat the wrong things and eat things that they know are slowly killing them because it tastes good. And and there's that that dopamine in the brain and there's

9:16 everything going on and and Solomon said, "I tried it. I tried it trying to find the meaning of life." He says in verse number four, "I made me great works. I builded me houses. I planted me vineyards. I made me gardens and orchards. And I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits. I made me pools of water to water there with the wood that bring it for trees. I got servants and maidens and had servants born in my house. Also, I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me. He said, "I tried work. I tried labor." And there are generations out there who sought for meaning in

10:03 their life by working themselves to death. They lost their marriages. They lost their kids. They lost their health. They lost everything because their attempt to find meaning in life was wrapped up in their work. In their labor. I'm going to build this. And I'm going to acquire this. And I'm going to do this. Because I have to fill every waking minute with something. Or I am overtaken and overpowered by the emptiness and the pointlessness and the vanity of it all that's inside. So, I use motion and I use labor and I use building to drown out the noise that

10:51 tells me this is empty. This is vain. You build it and it it's going to rot. It's not eternal. It's going to burn down. Okay? It It It's Somebody's going to buy it. And then somebody else is going to buy it. And then it's going to be gone. They're going to put a data center on the farm that your family has worked generations for. And then it's going to be just a big giant ugly concrete monstrosity. You did all that for nothing. Work is good. Labor is good. Okay? Laughter is good. Um physical gratification that stays within

11:37 the proper boundaries is good. All right. Coffee is good. Maybe not for you, but for me, pipes and cigars is good. But it's not the meaning of my life. It's not a tool that I use to drown out that little voice inside of me. That says, "This is all empty." Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, saith the preacher. He says, "I gathered me also silver and gold and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces. I got me men singers and women singers and the delights of the sons of men as musical instruments and that of all sorts. I was great and

12:24 increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired, I kept not from them. I withheld not my heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor. And this was my portion of all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought and on the labor that I had labored to do and behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit and there was no profit under the sun. He said, "I got rich. I got stupid filthy rich. I had three giant garages just full of Bugattis. I had million I had Bitcoins.

13:11 I had millions. I had yachts. I had gold chains. The equivalent in his day, he had it all. And he said, "It's empty. It's vain. It's empty. It's vain." So many people today their their idea of their value and their purpose in life is how much money they have in the bank. How much they have invested. How much Bitcoin they have. How big their house is. Uh how many cars they have. What what are the cars? What's their brands? How much are they worth? Uh what what kind of how expensive furniture do we have in the house? What

13:57 And ultimately in the end it's all vain. It's all vanity. It's nothing. And we as Christians, I'm not talking about it applies, but I'm not talking about the world out there. I'm not talking about the sinners. I'm talking about humans and that includes Christians. All right? If you spend any time in the world of Christianity you right now have already had names popping in your head with this you're like, "Yeah, that's how they are." Yeah, this deacon in the church, he's like that. Yeah, my pastor is like that. But if you're honest, you can say, "Yeah, I've been like that. I'm a Christian. I want to serve God."

14:45 But this is what I've been filling my life up with to provide meaning. To provide purpose. And it hasn't worked. It's vain. And it's empty. And uh it's a tale as old as man. Okay? You're not the first one to go through this. So if we go to Ecclesiastes chapter 12, I'll wait a second. He keeps going on through this whole book. This and that. I'm finding this and it's nothing. And trying this and it's nothing. And getting to this, and it's nothing. And he goes through all of it, the wisest men in the world whose wisdom was given to him by God.

15:33 This is not man-made wisdom. This is godly wisdom. If we go to Ecclesiastes chapter 12, verse number 13, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments. For this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil. He said, "Look, I've been through it all, and I've done it all, and basically what we are expected in life, this is our whole duty of man, fear God and keep his commandments." Now, if if you're a dishonest

16:20 religious you say, "See, that that means salvation, we keep his command." That's not what he's talking about, you bonehead. Knock it off. Knock it off. Okay, this is a general understanding of wisdom to all of mankind. Those of us who are born again, we're born again, but there's so many of us seem to get the idea that once we're born again, we have a different mandate. We have to find our purpose and our fullness of life in some other manner. No. As a born again saved child of God, I have to fear God and keep his commandments, and this is this is the whole duty of man.

17:06 Well, what are his commandments? Well, he tells us in the New Testament, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Ain't nobody told you to memorize the Bible. Reading it is good. Ain't nobody told you you have to read four chapters a day and get through the Bible one time full time every year. That's fine to do that. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not knocking that, but some people think that this is where they're going to find their purpose in life. This becomes their flagellation. Memorizing scripture and reading the Bible through every year after a while becomes their duty. And this becomes the whip on which they

17:53 flagellate themselves in their attempt to please God. God didn't tell you to do that. God told you to fear him and keep his commandments. And his commandments are to love God and love your fellow man. God didn't tell you to go to a church service six times a week. He didn't tell you to do that. Your pastor told you to do that. God didn't tell you to do that. God told you to keep God's commandments. That's it. That's all. If you don't fear God and you don't keep God's commandments, your life is vain and empty. And you'll never find the purpose and the peace even as a Christian

18:41 that you're looking for. You say, "Dwayne, there are a lot of empty miserable Christians out there." Yes, they are. Why? Because they're not wise. Why are they not wise? Because they substituted a man's commandments for God's commandments. And they fear getting putting out of the church. They fear what the people in the church are going to say about them if they don't do what the church tells them to do. They fear the church and keep the commandments of the pastor for this is a whole duty of man. That's That's That's the way they've rewritten scripture in their heart and in their mind. You want purpose? You want your life to not be vain?

19:27 Fear God and keep his commandments. For this is your entire duty. No more. No less. So as is my usual purpose, I'm trying to take some I can't take anything. I'm trying to show you that you can set down some of the godless burden that this world and religion has put on you. And you can walk through this life light and with purpose. Because that's how God designed it. All right? I hope this helps. We'll catch you guys next time.