Ecclesiastes // Chasing MeaningSample

Sexual intimacy is a gift from God. He invented sex and ordained it to be enjoyed between a man and a woman committed to each other for life. God beautifully described this act as a man and woman becoming one—in body and soul. Sex was never meant to be a physical hook-up. God intended it to be an experience of the whole person coming together in a loving and intimate union.

Then came Genesis 3, and life “under the sun” in a fallen world took this beautiful gift from God and turned it into perverted pleasure and power. Solomon is history’s leader in abusing what was instituted by God.

Ecclesiastes 2:8

I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man.

In Solomon’s attempts to find meaning apart from God, he decided to pursue unbridled sexual experiences. His statement in today’s passage that he took “many concubines” hardly tells the story. The fact is that Solomon loved many foreign women from countries that God had commanded, “You shall not enter into marriage with them... for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods” (1 Kings 11:2). But Solomon walked away from God’s instruction. This wise man allowed his desire for pleasure to overtake what he knew to be right. Well, 700 wives and 300 concubines later, Solomon’s blatant disobedience turned his heart away from God because “his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God…” (1 Kings 11:4).

Unfortunately, Solomon was not the last person to fall into the pit of perverted sexual pleasure. Many men and women allow their hearts to turn from God and toward another person (or persons) for fleeting satisfaction. When it’s all said and done, the forbidden partner “is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword” (Prov. 5:4). At the end of your life, “you groan, when your flesh and body are consumed, and you say, ‘How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!’” (Prov. 5:11-12).

In his book of Proverbs, Solomon provides what might be seen as a personal confession purposed to instruct his sons. After giving a warning about sex outside of marriage, Solomon writes this:

Proverbs 5:18-23

Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love. Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths. The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray.

Father, let us heed the warnings and watch our ways. Sexual pleasure is tempting. Life “under the sun” promotes attitudes, images, and invitations to pull our hearts from you. Guard us against perversion. Keep us pure before you. Remind us that our ways are always before your eyes. In Jesus’ name. Amen.