Continued Downward

You’ve no doubt seen the t-shirts or the billboards, or watched the commercials, where the theme was nothing more than…”if it feels good …do it!”

It even makes its way into boutique shops, handcrafted on little plaques, and the bookstores line their shelves with self help books like “looking out for #1” or “Pulling your own strings.”

Even the restaurant business picked up on the theme by announcing “You deserve a break today” or “Have it your way”

Society has boldly embraced the idea of thinking less about others while giving more attention to ourselves.

We are programmed to buy into the concept that somehow…we deserve it! And while the slogans may be new, the concept of self-ism has been around since the fall of Adam.

We see it in our nurseries, as one child hoards the toy that another wants, and the sad part is it doesn’t stop until it reaches the highest offices of both the corporate world as well as governmental.

Last Sunday we began a new series from the book of Ecclesiastes, and you may recall we were introduced to a king who had it all…peace, prosperity, brains, good looks…he was the poster child of success…except there was just one problem…he was living his life horizontally…living as he put it, “under the sun”…

We might say in today’s language quite simply he was living it like a lot of people today….without God.

And despite all his efforts to gain happiness we discovered last Sunday what we already knew, a life without God is a life that is empty, void and without purpose….this morning as we get into chapter two we discover that king Solomon is still searching, still trying in his humanness to find the answers…let’s begin our study together this morning…

1 I thought in my heart, stop right there for a second…isn’t it interesting that after all he has written in chapter one we find him talking to himself…he didn’t get an appointment with a counselor, he didn’t go visit his pastor, nor did he even go check out his fathers history…and even worse he still is yet to involve God in on this search…

Rather this intelligent guy who has it all, determines to do it his way….lets go on… I thought in my heart "Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good." But that also proved to be meaningless.

Long before the days of Hugh Hefner we find king soloman allowing his fantasies to become reality, and like a rushing river he plunges head first into a lifestyle of erotic pleasure… listen to these words from 1 Kings 11… “Solomon loved many women besides Pharaoh’s daughter. They were from other lands. They were Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. 2 The Lord had warned Israel about women from other nations. He had said, "You must not get married to them. If you do, you can be sure they will turn your hearts toward their gods." But Solomon continued to love them anyway. He wouldn’t give them up. 3 He had 700 wives who came from royal families. And he had 300 concubines. His wives led him down the wrong path.

4 As Solomon grew older, his wives turned his heart toward other gods. He didn’t follow the Lord his God with all his heart. So he wasn’t like his father David.”

It was Dr. Sorokin a professor at Harvard University who wrote a book copy write 1956 titled “The American Sex Revolution”…just listen….

“The sex drive is considered to be the most vital mainspring of human behavior. The traditional “Child of God” created in Gods own image is now nothing more than a sexual apparatus powered by a sexual instinct, preoccupied with sexual matters, aspiring for and dreaming, and thinking mainly about sexual relations. He goes on to say;” Our civilization has become so preoccupied with sex that now it oozes from all pores of American life”

Solomon takes the same route and when he sums it up…listen to what he says… But that also proved to be meaningless.

Oh that this morning some of you would hear what Solomon is saying…teenager listen….young person listen….dad, tucked away with your computer…listen this morning, mother thinking this new on line chat room affair is nothing more than a fantasy….listen….here is the truth….all the rest is a lie….its an empty futile trip….and the only souvenir is going to be your broken heart, your marriage split, your virginity lost forever, and God forbid some unplanned pregnancy that I promise you girls 9 times out of ten you will go through it all by yourself, because Mr. He man is really nothing more than a wimp, and he will run on you….leaving you there to fend for yourself….why not listen this morning…before you go to far….why not listen this morning before you log on to that site…listen to me please!!!!!