Glory Fades

Let's go ahead and turn to Ecclesiastes chapter four. This morning we'll be wrapping up Ecclesiastes chapter four. Ecclesiastes chapter four. If you're using the New King James Pew Bibles, you'll find that on page 590. Ecclesiastes chapter four. We'll be reading verses 13 through 16. So brothers and sisters, hear now God's perfect word.

Better a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who will be admonished no more. For he comes out of prison to be king, although he was born poor in his kingdom. I saw all the living who walk under the sun. They were with the second youth who stands in his place. There was no end of all the people over whom he was made king. Yet those who come afterward will not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and grasping for the wind.

Prayer for Illumination

As soon as this portion of the reading of God's word, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. It is good, it is perfect, true, righteous altogether. So Father, now we pray that your Holy Spirit would please teach us. Lord, our minds are often dull, our hearts are often hard. Our ears are often closed and distracted. Father, please help us to work through this passage and teach us how we are to live for your glory. God, we need your spirit to help us with this, we pray in Jesus's name, amen.

Sermon

Survey done in 2023 asked a whole bunch of teenagers what they wanted to become or what job they wanted to do when they grew up. Now this was pretty surprising for a number of people. Now you would imagine some of the normal ones there, right? Professional athlete. Musician. Actress. But some surprised people. Pro gamer. YouTuber, online influencer. And there's a whole bunch of people who will kind of laugh at that, like, this stupid younger generation. But I'm going to submit to you that I don't think there's much difference between the person who wants to be a social media influencer and the person who wants to be a professional basketball player.

Because both of them At the end of the day, both of them, many of them, their hearts are that they want the fame and the glory that comes with it. They want their name written somewhere on a board that's going to be remembered for all time. They want people to remember, they want their lives to be significant.

And if we step back for a second and we put away our pride and we recognize with a little bit of face in the mirror type honesty, I think that's all of us. None of us want to live a life where somebody at the funeral says, you know, her life was insignificant. His life was forgetful. No, there's something that grabs our hearts and makes us know that we want our lives to actually mean something. We want to know, why does my life matter?

First Point

And that's just the first point here. The human itch is for significance. We want to cry out, I want my life to matter. And so this idea that we have of this obsession of cultural influencers and online influencers, it's nothing but an outworking of that existential angst in the American soul. A longing to be remembered, wanting to make an impact, wanting something weighty for our lives.

Everyone wants their life to count. But Koaleth, man, the preacher here just doesn't give us that room. Because at the end of the day, there's something that gnaws at us, something deep down that knows Someday we are gonna die. And in a hundred years, probably won't be remembered. Our names will probably be forgotten. The glory days will fade. You don't believe me about this? Just over a hundred years ago, there was a name, William Jennings Bryan.

And unless you're a history nerd like me, most of you probably have no clue who he was. Even though he was the Democratic nominee for president three different times. You may not know somebody's last name like Lazaridis. But in the 90s and the early 2000s, if you were amongst the tech world, That was one of the owners of Blackberry, whose name was in headlines all the time.

If you talk to anybody really under the age of 20, the likelihood of them hearing a name that some of you might think, oh, everybody knows this name, Ed Sullivan. I notice no kids are laughing. They don't have any clue who this guy was, and yet he's the one who made people like the Beatles and Elvis. Everybody knew about them because they were on the Ed Sullivan Show. And he was, if you were gonna turn on your TV, that's who you were going to watch, and yet, his name is fading away like the wind blowing the chaff.

You talk to people who, or read interviews and things about people who won the gold medal at Olympics, And they live in the limelight for that moment, right? They get the gold medal placed over their head, and the flag comes down, and the anthem plays, and for a moment, thousands, millions of peoples of eyes are on that person because they reached this pinnacle of performance. Do you know what happens to most of them when they go home?

The glory fades. The attention's gone. And time after time, they'll write about a deep depression that seeks in over them, because they realize they've won. But five years later, nobody cares. Because guess what? There was a different champion the year before. So we gotta wrestle with that. As we long for this, we long for significance in our lives and yet we know human glory and memory fades.

What does Solomon have for us in these verses? I'm gonna go through them with you. We'll look at verse 13 and then 14 and then 15 and 16 are together. So first look at the contrast between wisdom and folly in verse 13. Better a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who will be admonished no more. There's a contrast here in these two verses, right?

You got the first guy, and in the Hebrew it's just tov, good, right? It's good to have a poor. Now this idea of poor here is not so much of a financial as this is somebody who doesn't have any prestige in life. Somebody who didn't come from the right pedigree. They don't have the right last name. They don't have all the blessings of society. They came from the lower rungs of the people. And yet, that young person is wise. It's good to be young. even if you're not of a noble birth, yet wise. It's even better than the king.

Now, this is one of those difficult things in a Hebrew mind, right? Because in the Hebrew mind, if you are old, you've been through the school of hard knocks, you've had all the experience, you've had time to read the books, to meditate on the word, you've had time to work through everything and get life straight where you have wisdom. We're supposed to look to those who have the hoary head of wisdom, right, of glory, those who are white and gray-haired and silver-haired. You're supposed to be able to say, see, look, that person has been through it.

I could go to them. They have the wisdom, and they know what to do. They have the knowledge, and they know how to apply the right knowledge at the right time in the right place for God's glory and loving others. And that's what we want of our rulers, isn't it? We want them to make the right decisions at the right time in the right way to bring God glory so that the subjects are blessed. And Solomon says here, this king who's had all the pedigree, who has had the power, who's been in power for a long time, he's old.

And yet there's a problem. He's foolish. Some translations might go so far as to say he's stupid. Why? He's a king who will be admonished no more. This idea of not being admonished anymore is this idea that he won't receive correction or advice from anyone.

He has advisors, he has the knowledge, but he digs in his heels, and it doesn't matter that he sees everything else falling out from underneath his feet, everything's going wrong with his plans, he won't be corrected. He won't turn from his ways. He digs in his heels. He won't be advised, why?

Because he's filled with pride, or novelty, or ignorance. And Solomon says it's better to have the young guy than to have the king who will be admonished no more. So wisdom outweighs age. Wisdom outweighs pedigree. Wisdom outweighs even office. But even wisdom is fragile if one stops listening. If one stops listening, you cease to be wise. And so Solomon is looking at this contrast and he's saying that even a leader who won't listen to advice It's doomed, no matter what experience and history he may have. In American history, we can go to Woodrow Wilson.

He was elected in 1913, and in 1913, he was seen as the young contender, full of reforms and energy and vigor. But then, as World War I happened, And then he was re-elected. He became more and more entrenched in his views. More and more, this is the way it's going to go. Less and less able to listen to those people who are trying to say, you're becoming so stern that you're not willing to compromise or listen to people. And he started making himself more recluse.

And after he had a series of strokes, people couldn't talk to him anymore. And he faded. into the background. Historians will look at some of the things that he did in the end of his, in his second term, and they'll specifically say, these things that Woodrow did, even though people advised him against, are some of the very things that instigated World War II happening just a few decades later. The fallout effect of things that people said, you shouldn't do this.

Here's going to be the downward stream. And that's not to cast a whole light on everything Woodrow Wilson did, I'm just trying to give you an example of a man who started becoming more hard-hearted not listening. But notice in verse 14, there's a reversal of fortune that happens. For he, that's talking about that young guy, for he comes out of prison to be king. although he was born poor in his kingdom.

So this young guy, this youth, in Hebrew the word there is yalad, right? Sometimes I wonder, I don't know if there's any connection between these, but I always remember the Hebrew word yalad as like a young person, because what's a Scottish guy going and saying, oh, yaladi, right? So anyways, weird Hebrew thing in my brain. But this young guy, by the way, he could be like 30 and still be called a yalad, right? But he's a young guy. doesn't have gray hair yet. What happens to him? Well, he becomes king. The young wise one comes out of prison and he becomes king.

Now, prison in the ancient Near East isn't like today where it's only just punishment. Normally, people were sent to prison in the ancient Near East because either A, they were debtors and they were going to be used for cheap slave labor until they were able to pay off their debts.

Even if, like, you got yourself into too big a debt, they may arrest your wife and your children and force them into prison with you to pay off your debt. Or, number two, is you're a political prisoner. Right, you're a problem to somebody in the establishment and they throw you in jail. Or it's just a temporary holding place. It's more like what we would think of a jail than a prison.

Anyway, the point is this guy comes up out of prison, but coming up out of prison into this prestige of being a king is saying he's able to overcome the shame that came with his chains. It's quite astonishing in the ancient Near East for this to happen. And so there's this paradox in verse 14. This young one who's poor, this young one who's but wise, comes out of prison, and even though he is poor, he can rise up, and the one who is famous can end up becoming the fool. So there's two different reversals in view. The raising up of the underdog and the casting down of the foolish king. We see this a few different times in scriptures, don't we? The Lord loves to do this. We find this with the story of Joseph.

When he goes down into Egypt and he's sold into Potiphar's household and he gets thrown into prison. And then what happens in prison, he gives a series of interpretations of dreams that lead him to become second in command in the kingdom. You're able to, but what did they have to do when he came out of prison? I love that little tidbit in Genesis. They gotta clean the guy up before he goes and sees Pharaoh. So he gets cleaned up and he becomes this man of prominence.

We find this with David. David's just a boy out in the fields, tending the flock, trying to keep him safe from the lions. And what's the Lord do? The Lord sends Samuel to go find David, the runt of the family, to anoint him as king. Even Solomon himself, who I'm convinced is the one writing this book, he's not the firstborn of David.

He's not the firstborn of the first wife, and yet he's the one who is born in this shameful type scenario between his father and his mother, and yet that's the one God chooses to raise up and become king. And so there's a principle here that wisdom can raise up the forgotten and the despised like Joseph, David, and even Solomon himself.

Yet, look with me at verses 15 and 16. There's a fickleness of popularity and an inevitability of being forgotten. This is the hard truth that Solomon gets to in verses 15 and 16. We're eventually going to be forgotten. Verse 15, I saw all the living who walk under the sun. They were with the second youth who stands at his place.

There was no end of all the people over whom he was made king, yet those who come afterward will not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and a grasping for the wind." Solomon looks in verse 15 and he sees The generations coming after each other, and what happens with these generations of people who come after each other? Well, there's this second youth who arises, this new king who takes over from the king who is very popular, who is wise and was young, and people were falling before him, it was like a sea of people before him, but what happens? A second one rises up, and he becomes king. And what happens to the memory of both of them, though? Yet those who come after him will not rejoice in him.

The crowds had come together for the rising star, right? They had remembered, we have this youthful king, he's full of young ideas, he's got wisdom, he's able to apply them, this is gonna be wonderful, our kingdom's gonna be great. And yet, when he gets old and gray, it's time for the next generation to lead. No one remembers him anymore. They don't rejoice in his reign anymore. It's just, oh yeah, that was that guy. Grandma and Grandpa's king. But we have our guy now. The crowds quickly leave him.

Proverbs chapter 14, verse 28 says, a large population is a king's splendor, but a lack of subjects is a prince's ruin. Eventually, people just become disenchanted. The novelty is no longer new. It fades into the old. It becomes normal. And people get cold and tired. It becomes humdrum. And the human heart wants the next thing. It says more about the crowd's fickleness than about the leader's worth. This guy still was wise. His wisdom didn't change, but his novelty wears off. And the people don't rejoice in him anymore. This is a hard thing for us. Human acclaim is cyclical. People are popular until they're no longer popular, and then we need somebody else popular.

I was just talking to somebody this week. It was kind of funny, right? We're gonna go to a baseball game on Tuesday this week, and I was talking to somebody about this, and they said, oh yeah, I used to be a Cubs fan. I said, used to? And they said, yeah, that was when they had Sammy Sosa.

And he started talking about all these big names of people he really liked. And I thought, oh, so when the popular players are no longer playing, you no longer like the team. There's a term for that type of person. But the point is that we have to have a term for bandwagon fans. Because that's the popularity cycle. Whoever's doing well, there's a groundswell of support for them. And then what happens when they're not anymore? Quick drop off in the ticket sales. Because human glory is fleeting. And as Solomon says, surely this also is vanity. Grasping for the wind. And you might say, well, hold on here. Aren't you just kind of being a little bit defeatist? Did you take a sour pill this morning, Brian? Did you just get all mopey? No, no. This is what Solomon's dealing with. Again, I'm just going to ask you, how many of you remember Robert Lucas? What is fame? It's not in your memory? You don't remember? Robert Lucas? How can you not remember him?

He was the most important man of his time in this state. He was the first territorial governor of Iowa, and you don't remember him? You don't remember Chester, I keep having to look at my notes, because I don't even remember these guys, right? You don't remember Chester Arthur? I mean, he literally was the top dog of his age. You don't remember him? He was the 21st president of our country. You don't remember Chester? Did you even know we had a president named Chester?

I know I didn't until it was like Friday and I was trying to find illustrations for this. And it's amazing how many illustrations I was able to find where I was like, I don't know nothing about that president. And at one point I memorized all the names of the presidents and I don't know this guy's name.

And so there's this arc of the story, right? You get this, This young, up-and-coming guy who surpasses the old king, but when the young and up-and-coming guy goes away and he has a second-in-command, what happens? His glory fades and people don't rejoice in him anymore. Do you see the ark? Do you see the up-and-coming and then the fading glory? So we're left. That's just where he leaves it in verse 16. That's it. For Solomon, it's just, here's the wisdom principle, guys.

Third Point

But does that actually solve the nagging heart? So why does it matter? Is there ever a king who ever has any reputation that people will always rejoice in? Well, thanks be to God that there's Lord Jesus Christ. That's the third point. Jesus is the wise king who endures. 1 Corinthians 1, verses 22 through 24. You're welcome to go there if you want, but you don't have to. 1 Corinthians 1, 22 through 24 describes Jesus this way.

For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified. To the Jews, a stumbling block, and to the Greeks, foolishness. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

See, there's a reason why Jesus Christ has been preached for 2,000 years. because he is the power of God and the wisdom of God. You wanna know the wisdom of God? Go look to Jesus Christ. You wanna see the power of God in effect? Go to the King of Kings, see Jesus Christ, and you'll find a crown that never fades.

You'll find a glory that never diminishes. But his dominion is from sea to sea. His glory extends to all the nations from every people and every tribe and every tongue and every nationality, it is Jesus Christ who gets the glory forever. And it never diminishes, it just gets better.

Unlike earthly kings, Jesus humbled himself. He was the one who was poor, despised, He was the one who came from the most humble of origins, born to a virgin, birthed in a barn, made of no reputation, had no comeliness or beauty that we might be attracted to him, and yet has been exalted to the right hand of God the Father Almighty. and holds all power and rule and dominion in his right hand forever and ever. The people will remain fickle.

Right, the people of Jesus's day, they thought, here's the Messiah, he's gonna come. Did you see the groundswell of popularity for Jesus as he entered into Jerusalem? As we even call it the triumphal entry, right? He goes into Jerusalem and the people are putting down the palm branches, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest, and just give it like a snack time and a dinner break and a sleep.

Then they're gonna wake up and say, crucify him. He's no longer popular. Now we're just gonna wag our heads at him. Get yourself down from the cross. He dies in abject humiliation, and yet, he conquered sin and death. Yet he had the greatest victory the universe has ever seen. The world did not know the mission that he was on.

They wanted a king that they could rejoice in. They wanted their superstar. They wanted their gold medalist. They wanted one that would finally overthrow the Romans and life would be good and be great forever. But they didn't want Christ's view of being the prince of peace. But he is our prince of peace. He is our king. He is our lord. This is why we went to Revelation chapter 11, right?

Because when we get that picture of that trumpet that's blown in heaven, you have the elders there and you have the people. And what do those who labored do? Those who are the elders in the church, as they go and they see the lamb who is slain and they hear the trumpet, do they keep their crowns because they love their own glory? No. No, in Revelation 11, they take off their crowns, and they put them at the feet of their Savior, of their Lord, and they say, you are worthy to be praised. Do you see, your itching in your heart that you want significance is the pride that Satan wanted you to have when you looked to yourself. your own glory, but we, Christian, you, Christian, you get the blessing of serving and working towards a glory that will never fade, because all of your good works go to glorify your Father who is in heaven. So we don't labor for our own glory, for our own crowns, but we cast our crowns at the feet of Christ.

This means that discipleship isn't about bringing up a whole bunch of little kids or other adults, men and women, who will act like us and then we'll get a big name and then people will know us. No, that's not what it's about. When Jesus gave the call in Matthew chapter 28 to the Great Commission, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, he didn't tell them, and teach them anything you want. Teach them to obey all which I have commanded you." Because they become disciples of Jesus Christ, because Christ gets the glory, because it's His kingdom. And so we have eternal significance in the things we are doing.

Why is every single time you have to submit to your husband, and I can only imagine how hard that must be, why do you do it? Because you bring glory to your Lord who is in heaven. It's not because your husband is worthy of that honor and respect. No, I'm not saying all the husbands in here are dopes and we should treat them and treat men like they're a bunch of idiots, right? But what I'm saying is it's not an intrinsic glory of your husband.

But you submit in the Lord. You love in the Lord. Children, why do you obey your parents in the Lord? Yeah, this is right, right? That's what Paul says in Ephesians. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. This is the first commandment with a promise that it might go well with you.

But are your parents perfect? I'm looking at all my kids and none of them are shaking their head no, but if they were actually paying attention, they would be. No, your parents aren't perfect. So why would you do your chores? Why would you submit to your parents? Why would you do anything that they say even though you don't want to do it? Because it brings Christ's glory. It says obey your parents in the Lord. That's because you're in the Lord and your parents are in the Lord. And so who is the Lord? It's Jesus Christ. You bring glory to your father and to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Husbands, when you love your wives sacrificially, living with them in an understanding way, reading the word with them, pouring out the word over them, washing them in the water of God's word as you care for them, putting aside your own desires and your own goals because you need to live in patience and love with your wife, why would you do that?

Why wouldn't you just act like the tyrant of your home? Why wouldn't you just be the macho man popular culture is telling you to be? Or the wimpy man following around your wife like the culture is telling you to be. Why follow like Christ? Because Jesus is glorified. Why be kind to people? Why give somebody who's thirsty a glass of water? Why give somebody who's hungry something to eat? Why give somebody who's naked and doesn't have clothes and give them sweaters and clothes? Why do any of those things?

Because as often as you did it to the least of these, you did it unto me, is what our Lord Jesus said. Because Jesus is glorified. Do you see? There is eternal significance and reward, not necessarily in this life, but in the life to come. From every time that you've wiped that stinky baby's butt and made that meal and gave something that was yours to somebody else, showed love to somebody else, you are storing up for yourself treasures in heaven. That's why you wake up early. That's why you go to bed with just abject tiredness. That is why you give of your own income to those who didn't work for it because you know that God gets the glory and that it actually matters for eternity.

Do you see the world wants to tell you you get significance for your life from bringing as much glory to yourself now in this life? Bring as much spotlights, bring as much camera, bring as much glory to yourself now in this life, because then you'll be happy, because then you'll finally find meaning and purpose in your life. But it's all going to fade. But that glory which is unfading, and beautiful and glorious is that which is done in the name and for the glory of Jesus Christ.

So why are you living your life? Why are you doing what you do? Is it because you love Jesus? Is it because he, your prophet, priest, and king, has lived and died for you, and so you serve him, and you search for his glory, and you do your, and organize your life for his glory and his fame, or, or is your life filled with a type of self-glory, self-motivation, self-fulfillment? One is motivated by pride, and the other is motivated by love. Who do you live your life for?

Who are you serving for? The nagging question of why or what is good, what Solomon was searching for in these passages, its answer is found in Jesus Christ. So be after another glory. Be after Jesus' kingdom. Be after his glory. For his is a glory that never fades.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. God, even now we remember you with joy and we look forward to that last great day when we can give our account And Lord, for those things that we have done, motivated by pride and self-glory, we pray, confessing to you that that is sin, and asking that you would forgive us. Lord, we pray that you would turn us away from staring at our own belly buttons, being after our own little kingdoms. And Lord, we pray that you would Lord, by the power of your Holy Spirit, turn the eyes of our heart from going inward to looking up and seeing how marvelous your kingdom is. For Father, yours is the power, and yours is the glory, and yours is the kingdom forever and ever.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Before I pronounce the benediction and we sing the doxology, I need to make a public apology. I made a cruel statement about my children during the sermon. I'm sorry. Receive God's blessing. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.