A Selfish Person’s Life Is Nothing but Regret
1I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with mirth: therefore enjoy pleasure”; and behold, this also was vanity. 2I said of laughter, “It is foolishness”; and of mirth, “What does it accomplish?” 3I searched in my heart how to cheer my flesh with wine, my heart yet guiding me with wisdom, and how to lay hold of folly, until I might see what it was good for the sons of men that they should do under heaven all the days of their lives. 4I made myself great works. I built myself houses. I planted myself vineyards. 5I made myself gardens and parks, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruit. 6I made myself pools of water, to water from it the forest where trees were reared. 7I bought male servants and female servants, and had servants born in my house. I also had great possessions of herds and flocks, above all who were before me in Jerusalem; 8I also gathered silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and of the provinces. I got myself male and female singers, and the delights of the sons of men—musical instruments, and that of all sorts. 9So I was great, and increased more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My wisdom also remained with me. 10Whatever my eyes desired, I didn’t keep from them. I didn’t withhold my heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced because of all my labor, and this was my portion from all my labor. 11Then I looked at all the works that my hands had worked, and at the labor that I had labored to do; and behold, all was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was no profit under the sun. 12I turned myself to consider wisdom, madness, and folly: for what can the king’s successor do? Just that which has been done long ago. 13Then I saw that wisdom excels folly, as far as light excels darkness. 14The wise man’s eyes are in his head, and the fool walks in darkness—and yet I perceived that one event happens to them all. 15Then I said in my heart, “As it happens to the fool, so will it happen even to me; and why was I then more wise?” Then I said in my heart that this also is vanity. 16For of the wise man, even as of the fool, there is no memory for ever, since in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. Indeed, the wise man must die just like the fool!
Look into thousands of years of history, and it seems as though a few outstanding people, rather than the countless people who lived and died without a sound, made history according to their own firm convictions and ideas. Of course, every age had its outstanding people. But history flowed on without wavering because of the nameless people who filled each age. Those in power started wars between nations to satisfy their craving to show off their own existence, and they used the powerless as tools to feed their own desires.
Look at history as it flows along, and you find people who were oppressed and bound by those who ruled by force, people who were set free from bondage, and people who rode on the coattails of power. In every age, when the rulers had an upright and good conscience, an age of peace opened, and when they had an evil conscience, many people were sacrificed. Yet whatever the rulers achieved, and whatever pain ordinary people suffered, as the years went by they were all naturally forgotten.
If you are concerned about the salvation of the people who lived in the past, the answer is this: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.” No one who strays from this word can be saved. Watching people vanish into history, Solomon said that being wise and being mad are alike, a life as empty and vain as chasing after wind. Whatever their lives were like, in the end they return to dust. That is why he said it was as vain as chasing after wind.
What gives you a sense of achievement? It matters a great deal that people live with a sense of achievement. So while we live, we must do our best to reach our plans and goals, but we must live honestly with a good conscience. Yet whether what you planned came to pass or failed, in the end, as the years go by, it will all be forgotten, and rejoicing and grieving, being moved and losing heart will happen over and over again. Do not forget this, and live now according to God’s word. The word of God is Jesus Christ, and that Word is eternal life.
The time you worked hard, the pain of failing and losing heart, the time you were proud: all of it vanishes like mist the moment you return to dust. Do not forget this. Look further ahead and live today wisely. What I mean is that you must live thinking about what you will leave behind today. Those who used tricks to beat others and those who acted according to good law alike will simply return as bodies to a handful of dust, and their spirits will meet God. The only standard of judgment is the Word. So, to enjoy peace and rest after death, you must leave faith behind in every problem you meet in life.
God sent us into the world so that we would receive Christ, the key to heaven, in a world of darkness. Whoever believes in Christ believes in God, and whoever sees Christ sees God. That is why faith is such a precious gift.
Solomon inherited the throne from his father, but to keep it he had to make the painful decision to kill his older brother. When his older brother Adonijah plotted with Joab, David’s commander of the army, and Abiathar the priest and coveted the throne, Solomon, with the help of David, the prophet Nathan, and his mother Bathsheba, proclaimed that he had become king. His brother Adonijah had plotted rebellion, but Solomon forgave him. Even so, when Adonijah talked Solomon’s mother Bathsheba into helping him take Abishag, the young woman who had cared for David, as his wife, Solomon could no longer forgive a brother who would not give up his greed for the throne.
Perhaps Solomon found it hard to bear the duty of a king who must decide life and death. But after killing his brother Adonijah, his mortal enemy, he came to see how great his power was. That is where pride begins, so we must be careful. Though he became king with his father’s help, he had the wisdom God gave him, and he possessed great wealth and power.
When God made Solomon’s name great, Solomon saw the people and the nations fear him and realized how great his strength was. At that point he should not have forgotten that the one who ruled over him was God, and that he had received his mighty strength from God. Once he thought everything he owned was his own, from then on he began to live for himself. In this he was deceived by Satan’s scheme to throw him into death.
Nothing is as miserable as living selfishly for oneself alone, for in the end such people are forsaken by God and by others. Selfish people put themselves at the center of everything, so they do not pay attention to how others feel, and they become more and more isolated. Such people are generous to themselves and stingy toward others, so the more wealth and power they have, the more miserable they become. That is because they have blocked, by their own doing, the way by which God and good people could help them.
God simply watched as Solomon boasted of his strength, enjoyed pleasure, and wielded power. Like a huge pillar set up in the middle of a small house, the world and selfishness filled Solomon’s heart, so God could not help him. Yet the life he used as if it were his own also belonged to God. So however outstanding a person is, at some point they will be held back. No one can resist when God calls. So those who do not have a right understanding of death meet an empty end.
Even though he had great power, his life was not Solomon’s own, so he should have lived with the last moment of his life in mind. He was a human being made from a handful of dust, so in the end all he owned was a handful of dust. Sadly, though, he had to leave even that handful of dust behind in the world, so not even that was Solomon’s. The place a typhoon has passed through is as devastated as if bombs had fallen, yet strangely, the wind that did it is nowhere to be found. When the cherry blossoms are in full bloom, nothing compares with their beauty, but once the flowers fall, the tree that was so splendid looks all the more shabby. Life is like that. Power and wealth seem to decide the quality of life, but once life is lost, they too are all vanity.
Solomon knew how thankful he should be for God’s grace, and he knew how great a power it is to have wisdom. That is why, even as he enjoyed pleasure and worshiped idols, he must always have felt empty, dark, hollow, and stifled. God made his will known in many ways so that Solomon could turn back. But Solomon did not leave the place of sin, and so he came to a moment of regret.
At first, Solomon too probably worked to make the nation rich and strong and to set the people on the right path. He resolved to live by the Word, and he urged the people to offer pure sacrifices to God. But Satan was not about to leave alone a Solomon who kept glancing toward the world. When Satan whispered to Solomon that it was only natural for him to enjoy wealth and glory, Solomon grew bored with his peaceful life and began to look for things to please his body. The priests offered the sacrifices and the people were at peace, so he had nothing to do. The thrill of completing the temple over seven years was gone, and living in the beautiful palace he had finished over thirteen years for himself and his wives no longer delighted him. The people were worn out from building the palace, but Solomon was sunk in pleasure and paid no attention to their suffering. He wondered how he could live more pleasantly and how he could have more power, and he withheld nothing his heart desired and did everything that looked enjoyable. So his life was filled with sin.
God blessed Solomon because of his covenant with David. But God had also made a promise directly with Solomon, so he waited for Solomon to realize it and come back. Solomon, however, lived for pleasure rather than for the promise. Not everyone is like this, but when people become rich, they grow spiritually dull. They think money can solve their problems, so they decide everything as they please.
This shows that it is not those with great wealth who are proud; whatever they own or do not own, it is those who are rich in spirit who are proud. People filled with the Holy Spirit are always humble, however much wealth and power they have, because they acknowledge that it belongs to God. A person who is a small vessel grows proud with only a little. So it is not the rich who are proud but those who have left God. When a person who is a large vessel looks at one who is a small vessel, the small one still has a long way to go, but is already full to the brim and has no room to look for God’s will.
One day Solomon suddenly found that he had not looked to God or to those around him, and he came to regret deeply the selfish life he had lived only for himself. Even if he married to build friendly ties with foreign nations, having a thousand wives is not something a man of God can do. He turned away from the cries of the people who suffered because of these women, and then he came to look back on what he had been doing all this time.
Solomon had a thousand wives, people to serve him, and a vast territory, but he was not happy. For, like a heart branded as with a hot iron, his sense of what is good was gone. Solomon feared God, but he could not give up the world. He had heard God’s voice himself, had given outstanding judgments by God’s wisdom, and had experienced firsthand that God is alive as he won battles. Such a man lived a life apart from God.
When he realized how great a sin he had committed and repented with tears, he found that sins that had looked faint until then stood out more and more clearly. The more you repent, the more clearly sin shows itself and the more regret rises in you. So show the wisdom now of fighting sin and overcoming it.
In 1 Kings 9:3, God, having heard Solomon’s prayer, promised that he would make the temple holy, put his name there forever, and that his eyes and his heart would be there perpetually. Solomon had received this promise from God, and the temple where God was present stood before his eyes. Even so, he committed many sins. He came to realize that the God who had been with him when he lived by faith had also been watching him when he sinned.
When Solomon realized this, he was too ashamed to face God. He grieved over himself for having lived for a world of vanity of vanities. There were times when he thought of God even while he was sinning, but he was ashamed of himself for having been dragged around by Satan because he could not make a decision of faith.
If you think you have strayed from the truth, turn back quickly. Satan never lets go easily, so it is by relying on the Holy Spirit and deciding firmly that you can win. Otherwise, Satan will drag you into an even deeper pit. Satan will do anything to lead a single soul to hell. Even when you have a full faith, he keeps tempting you, so you can win only by praying, praising, and staying in the Lord.
Solomon sought women and wine for the pleasures of the flesh. Wine numbs reason and controls people at will, so believers who walk the narrow path of truth are forbidden to drink it. Proverbs says that those who are drunk are easily swept up in sorrow, strife, and complaints, so they are always getting into quarrels. It says that they stagger and cannot defend themselves, so they bear wounds from sword or spear, and that with bloodshot eyes they go about seeking mixed wine that is harsher and stronger.
The behavior of a drunkard is recorded so exactly because Solomon had experienced it. He knew how he had changed and how clouded his judgment had become when he was drunk on wine [sin], so he said that wine does no good. Wine goes down smoothly at first, so you feel nothing, but once the alcohol spreads through the body, it is like a snake’s poison spreading: your eyes see strange things, you speak perverse things, and you can no longer act normally. Solomon accepted Satan’s temptation and handed himself over entirely to wine.
Satan’s power is human sin, and Satan’s food is human sin itself. Jesus Christ has redeemed that sin, but the human heart that is not thankful began to fill with sin again. Those who pour wine, which is like a snake’s poison, into the precious clay vessel where God’s Spirit dwells lose control of themselves and easily do things they would never do if they had not been drinking. We must consider whether believers who believe in the pure and holy Jesus Christ can really live this way and still enter heaven.
To enter heaven we must be without sin, so we must serve Jesus Christ as our king, our master, and our everything. Do you think someone who fell to Satan’s temptations and sinned all their life can enter heaven, that holy and beautiful place where angels, saved believers, and even flowers of every lovely color praise God? Only those without spot or blemish enter heaven. Those who keep God at a distance and do not fear sinning cannot enter heaven.
Jesus Christ, who bears the nail marks in both hands and both feet and the mark of the spear in his side, said that he would go and prepare a place and then come back for us. So until then, we must fight sin and overcome it. Not only wine: anyone whose heart is captured by the world that Satan rules cannot help but live an ugly life. Those who are addicted to the world throw away their precious character, their work, their family, and their life, and run toward death only to satisfy themselves. They have no interest at all in how thankful they should be for breathing, for the people beside them, and for the work they are doing now, so they live only for themselves. Those who are truly thankful live according to the will of Jesus Christ and always put the Lord first. After he sinned, Solomon always had regret in a corner of his heart, but he could not give up pleasure and boasting, and he wasted a great deal of time. The more he clung to the world, the emptier his heart became, as if it had been hollowed out, and Solomon tried everything he wanted in order to fill that empty heart. But the only thing that could fill his heart was God’s grace.
Selfish people, for the sake of their own satisfaction, join with Satan and cannot help throwing away all grace. That is why they cannot easily get out of the evil way. They think their own thoughts, judgments, decisions, and ideas are right, so they do not turn back. That is why Jesus said to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself [Luke 10:27]. In the end, Solomon knelt before God only after he had grown old and lost his strength. If you too live as the flesh desires, you will regret it after Satan has taken all of God’s grace from you, as he did from Solomon. Only after he grew old did Solomon realize that his life, lived as his body desired, had been no different from that of an animal.
Ecclesiastes 2:3
3I searched in my heart how to cheer my flesh with wine, my heart yet guiding me with wisdom, and how to lay hold of folly, until I might see what it was good for the sons of men that they should do under heaven all the days of their lives.
Solomon sought every pleasure in the world, and wine, to cheer his flesh, but he already knew that these could not satisfy him. The stress of holding on to power was so great that he tried to fill his heart with other things, but nothing in the world satisfied him.
Do you think your state of mind could be the same when you live an ordinary life and when you own tens of billions of won? To keep his throne, Solomon had to bring the kings of other nations under his authority, so he must have been under great mental strain. To others he may have seemed to live happily in wealth and glory, but he was always lonely and always had to stay on guard, so he was never happy. From the very beginning, Solomon was a man who could be happy only by walking with God. The one thing he truly longed for was God’s grace. Even in the moments when he was sinning, what he wanted to hold on to was God’s love and care.
You too have probably had this experience. When you are absorbed in games or amusements, there are times when you think, “What am I doing right now?” and hear the voice of a good conscience saying, “This is not the time for this. Shouldn’t I be going to God?” The wise person is the one who decides quickly and turns back at that moment. But habits such as pleasure-seeking, hot temper, and laziness are held by Satan, and he never lets them go easily.
Satan knows that if he keeps his grip on believers to the end, he can bring them down, so he does his utmost to drag them to hell. And sin becomes a habit, which makes it even harder to break. At first two hearts struggle, but as time passes, people settle into the world, and further still, even the thought of turning from sin disappears. The habits of the flesh have the strength to overcome faith, so unless people make a decision as if ready to die, it is never easy for them to leave the place of sin.
Before you lament, as Solomon did, that you have lived a life of vanity of vanities, I hope you will make your decision now. Solomon realized that what he had done by wisdom and what the fool had done in darkness would in the end be forgotten alike once they died. Since both he and the fool would be forgotten in the end, he said that all is vanity. Solomon wished that people would not lament at the end of their lives as he did, but would live a blessed life walking with God, so that their lives would have no regrets.
You who are wise, I hope you will understand Solomon’s heart and live a life without regret. If you must stand at the edge of a cliff before you know it is dangerous, and fall before you know it hurts, Solomon would rebuke you and ask why you did not believe what he said. Brothers and sisters, the prudent person is the one who sees the hardships of others and does not go that way, and the wise person is the one who watches others solve their problems and learns how. Selfish people regret only after they suffer, so they cannot help wasting a great deal of time.
You have a mature faith, you know what life is, and you have learned how to live. That is why you must keep your center when something very joyful happens, and if you keep your center when something very sad happens, your faith should stay unshaken. If you rejoice too much when something good happens and grieve too much when something sad happens, you are at the center even of those feelings, so it is hard to have a mature faith. If, like a calm sea, you take in both joyful and sad things well and are considerate of others, you can build up faith in all things, win a spiritual victory that goes beyond this life, and become holy believers who enter the eternal kingdom.
Had Solomon been considerate of the people beside him, according to Jesus’ word to love your neighbor as yourself, he would have had a faith that succeeded. With a mature faith that is considerate of others, become holy believers who praise the glory of God, and live a life without regret. I earnestly ask this of you.