A sermon by Dr. David C. Gibbs, Jr.

Ecclesiastes 5:10-15

As Americans, we are profoundly blessed. In fact, America has overwhelmingly prospered as a nation since a few groups of struggling pilgrims and colonists arrived on our shores nearly 400 years ago searching for a place where they could worship God freely.  These early settlers formed the United States as a land of opportunity, growth, and optimism—a place where they could raise their families and organize their communities according to the laws of God.

Now, just a few centuries later, our nation has been incredibly blessed by God.  We no longer struggle as the early settlers did, but do we really appreciate how much God has blessed us? How can it be that our nation is slowly being transformed from a God-fearing, common sense-driven community into an increasingly godless, lawsuit-frenzied land?

There is certainly nothing wrong with being blessed. In fact, I like being blessed.  What is wrong is when we don’t realize that everything we have in this magnificently rich nation is not ours.  It is a gift of God.  But if people are not careful, God’s blessings can create two monumental, life-destroying problems.

1.    We start taking the blessings for granted.

Some people think that the way we live in America is the way everyone else in the world lives. But the truth is that the way we live in America is the way people live when they are unbelievably blessed by God.  Half the world tonight will go to bed hungry. Yet most Americans today have had the opportunity to eat literally any amount of food we wanted to eat. Yet somehow this is no longer called a blessing.

Most Americans have nice homes, magnificent vehicles, and comfortable church auditoriums. This is miraculous. Kings, just a short while ago, couldn’t dream of living the way we Americans live today. We all sing the song, “Count your many blessings; name them one by one.” But if we’re not careful, this can all become commonplace and we won’t recognize it as a blessing anymore.

We travel to other lands and see just how little some people have; and yet they are very happy with what they have. We say to ourselves, “Boy, we have so much more;” but we soon find ourselves back home again getting comfortable with “the more.” So, problem number one is that we’re blessed but we don’t think we’re blessed. There is a second problem.

2. We let the blessings warp what we think.

If we aren’t careful, suddenly, we tend to start thinking that all of these wonderful, God-given blessings are ours. God wants us to understand how dangerous such thinking can be. His Word gives us some absolute instructions for handling our prosperity.

In Ecclesiastes 5:10-15, King Solomon, the wisest man, the richest man who ever lived, under the moving of the Holy Spirit, tells us how we should think about our blessings, prosperity, and all that we have. Once again, we need to realize that it’s not wrong to be blessed. It only becomes wrong if we fail to realize that when God gives us His blessings, He wants us to handle them in a certain way. Here in Ecclesiastes, we find the philosophy God designed for man to use when handling prosperity. There are eight parts to this philosophy.

1.    The more you have, the more you want.

“He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver.” Eccl. 5:10a

The first thing God tells us is that the more we have, the more we want. But there is something inside each of us that says, “Oh, no, not me. God doesn’t know me. That may be true for everyone else, but that’s not me. There’s some amount of prosperity that will be enough for me.” You didn’t hear what God said. He said, “He that loves silver will never be satisfied with silver.”

When my wife and I got married in 1965, our weekly food budget was five dollars. Americans spend that for one cup of upscale coffee now. I can remember thinking, “If I can just bump that up to ten dollars, boy, would I be in tall cotton. If I could just spend ten dollars a week on food, I would be happy. God, just get me there.” But you know what? God’s Word tells us that when we love silver, it will never satisfy because there will always be another amount we want.

I John says, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” God commands us not to love silver. It is a thing. God says things will never bring us satisfaction. Isn’t it amazing that no nation in the history of the world has ever survived prosperity because prosperity always destroyed the character of the people. We can say, “That won’t happen to us!” but, my fellow Americans, it is already happening. Here’s the second principle from God’s Word.

2.    The more you have, the less you’re satisfied.

“...nor he that loveth abundance with increase.”  Eccl 5:10b

The more we have, the more we want. And then, the more we have, the less we’re satisfied. We all want to say, “No, God, I’m different. Just drop me a billion; you’ll see. I’ll be satisfied. Just take a shot at it, God.” But the Bible disagrees.

God’s Word is true for everyone. This is God’s pronouncement. There is no satisfaction in mere prosperity.  Just ask some rich oil sheik if he’s satisfied.  Or ask Bill Gates if all his wealth has brought him satisfaction. The answer is no.

3. The more you have, the more people will come after it.

“When goods increase, they are increased that eat them.” Eccl. 5:11a

The more you have, the more other people will come after it. Here we are in America today and here come the lawyers! Nobody wants to sue a broke guy; but the more you get, the more somebody wants to take it away. Take a little tiny church meeting in a storefront that has nothing. It’s not too likely they will get sued. But I promise you. Have God bless you with something incredible and folks will start taking swings.

Not long ago, newscasters went to lottery winners who had won $100,000 or more and asked them, “What’s changed about your life?” They said, “Everybody keeps coming after it. My relatives just keep wanting it, and people are suing me and everything.” God is not surprised. His Word says that when goods are increased, people will come out of the woodwork to get them. We certainly see that today in litigation-crazy America.

4.    The more you have, the more you realize it doesn’t do you any good unless you like to look at it.

“...and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes.” Eccl. 5:11b

God tells us that ultimately, all anyone can do with increased goods is to look at them. We might still say, “Well, God, I’d sure like to look for a while!” Remember.  This is God speaking.  This is wisdom literature. I’ve had this passage marked in my Bible for a long time, but I’ve never heard anyone preach on it.  In America, we just don’t want this part of God’s Word to be true. But it is.

5. The more you have, the more you have to worry about.

“The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.” Eccl. 5:12

I have always kind of thought, “Well, I’ve got some troubles now, but I wouldn’t mind trading them for more abundance to worry about.” Trust God. You may think you want more, but God is giving us in these verses His philosophy on riches and prosperity, and He says we are asking for more trouble when we just want more things.

6. The more you have, the more you can hurt yourself by holding onto it.

“There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.” Eccl. 5:13

"Sore evil” means “incredibly, despicably bad.” God tells us here that those who have great prosperity can do themselves enormous harm if they just want to hold on to their riches. My wife has been one of the greatest blessings of my life. Never one time have I suggested that we should give something away, that she has not said, “Well, honey, is that really all you want to give?” Whatever we have, we should jump at the chance to give. God does not give us blessings only to hoard them for ourselves.

7. The more you have, the more you have to lose.

“But those riches perish by evil travail: and he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand.” Eccl. 5:14

Isn’t it amazing how brave we are when we don’t have anything to lose, and how cautious we get when suddenly we start worrying about losing what we have? When we start thinking, “I don’t want to lose this,” God says we’ll have nothing to pass along in the end. Don’t think here only about personal family wealth.  What about our wealth as a nation of freedom, faith and godly living?

8. The more you have, the more it all stays here.

“As he came forth of his mother’s womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand.” Eccl. 5:15

I used to love to listen to Lester Roloff preach. He always said, “You will never see a U-haul behind a hearse.” And you never will because the day you die, everything stays right here. God says you came in with nothing, and He says you’re leaving with nothing. You know the story. A rich man died, and they asked, “How much did he leave?” The answer is all of it, because no one can take anything with him when he dies.

God’s Philosophy in Action

These verses from Ecclesiastes 5:10-15 illustrate God’s philosophy for looking at riches. It would be a wonderful thing for God to prosper the whole world as He has prospered America. God has certainly blessed us in America beyond anything the world could previously imagine, but it is time now for us to reconsider how we should think about that prosperity both individually and as a nation.

Next month, we will look at I Timothy 6:17-19 to see God’s specific instructions for how to use our prosperity and blessings.  In the meantime, we need to ask ourselves two simple questions.  Just how rich are we? And where is our trust? If we lived in a nation where we had little in the way of material blessings, we would have to trust God as America’s earliest settlers did.  But we live in modern America where we can get very comfortable not trusting God because He has blessed us with so much. We need to heed God’s warnings in Scripture about how we should think of His blessings so they will not harm us individually or as a nation.

America has gotten very comfortable with God’s blessings. Will this make our nation truly rich or will it bring us harm? The answer to that question lies in how we respond to God’s blessings. The little bands of settlers in America 400 years ago had to trust God. They had no choice. We Americans today have been blessed with enough prosperity to choose whether or not to continue trusting God instead of our material wealth.  How are we doing?
 

Read part two of this sermon on the Blessings of God.