If you have gone through education in the American school system or are currently being educated in the American the American school system, you either have or can look forward to the experience of a baptism in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. And if you experience that baptism, the tale I am now going to tell you might sound a little bit familiar to you. It's called the Pardoner's Tale. It tells a story of three young, reveling men sitting in a tavern when one day they see a casket being carried through the street outside of the tavern, and they inquire who might be in that casket and discover that it's one of their dear friends. And they inquire how has he come to this fate, and he they are told that death has been taking many souls in this town of late.

The young men are enraged and decide they will avenge themselves upon this death, and they go on a quest to find death and as they roam the streets they find an old man who tells them if they were to pursue death along this path they would find him underneath a tree at the end of the path they sprint up the path and they find this old tree of which the man had spoke and find that under the tree is an enormous pile of gold, making them richer than they could have ever possibly dreamed. Well, they give up on pursuing death because they found something much greater than vengeance and they decide that they'll split the gold among the three of them equally, but they can't take it back to their homes right now or people will think that they have stolen this gold and so they settle upon the plan to wait it out until the evening and then carry it to their homes under the cover of darkness. That's a long time to wait, and they're very excited. They would like to celebrate, so they decide the youngest in their party will go into town and bring back bread and wine that they can feast until they engage in their task.

Well, the youngest, as he's walking into town, thinks to himself, that's a lot of gold. But you know what it'll be even more if I get rid of the two others and don't have to divide it with them. And so he buys a little bit of poison at the tavern along with, apparently, you can buy, poison at taverns in Chaucer's times he loads it into the wine and he carries it back to his friends what he finds when he meets his two friends is that they've discovered a plot of their own the two friends leap upon him stab him to death and then to celebrate that now they have more gold for themselves drink the wine, and die under the tree. The three men indeed met death under the tree. Now you can see the kind of tale this is.

It's a moral tale telling you something of the danger of greed. But the irony in the way that Chaucer frames this tale is that the one who's telling it is the pardoner, and the pardoner is a person who has been given authority to go around offering people the sacrament of penance. And so he tells this tale to prick people's consciences so they'll feel guilty about their sin and they'll come to him and they'll confess their sins to him and then he'll give them remission forgiveness for their sins but in so doing he's constantly collecting money from people so the irony of the structure of this tale is that the pardoner who's telling this moral tale is actually more guilty of greed himself than in even the characters in his story or the people who are confessing their sins to him. And if you were to read a little bit of the scholarship on Chaucer, which I indulged myself in this week, you'll find that literary scholars are debating all the time about the nature of this structure of the tale, but I will give you my literary hot take right now. I think that the structure of this tale tells us something a little bit about the nature of greed in the human heart.

The way that greed works is that it's very sneaky. It's easy to recognize it in others, it's much more difficult to be honest enough to recognize it in yourself. In fact, the way that the scriptures, and particularly Jesus in his own teachings, talks about greed is a little different than the way he talks about other sins. In Matthew chapter six, he calls it a sin of the eye that can darken your entire body. Or in Luke in chapter 12, Jesus says this, watch out, be on guard against all kinds of greed, for life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.

That kind of language that Jesus uses, be constantly vigilant on guard against greed sneaking into your heart, isn't exactly the way he talks about other sins. And you can see that kind of in the nature of greed, can't you? Other sins aren't exactly like this. They sneak up upon you and you don't even realize that you're doing it. And that's not the way grand larceny works.

No one says, wait, this isn't my car. Oh, that's why I had to smash the windows and hot wire it. Who knew? Greed sneaks into your heart and you don't even realize that it's there, so you have to watch out and be on guard against it all the time. Ecclesiastes chapter five and six indeed are two chapters about money and greed, and they are structured a little bit like the partner's tale.

They begin by help allowing us to survey the world around us and see there's greed in the world, and then the rest of the text invites us to peer into our own hearts and see that there's actually greed inside of us as well. Notice verses eight and nine in chapter five begin by looking around us. Verse eight says, if you see in a province the oppression of the poor and the violation of justice and righteousness, don't be amazed at the matter. This is just a kind of axiomatic statement. Recognize that you're in a fallen world and when you see injustice you don't need to be shocked, you can actually go into the world expecting that that's the way things are going to happen.

And why is that? Well look at the rest of verse eight. For the high official is watched by a higher, and there are yet higher ones over them. And what Solomon is saying is just in the basic hierarchy that all human societies establish for themselves, they are acknowledging that people can't be trusted because human beings are corrupted and they will use their power to exploit others, and so you have to create a hierarchy in order to to to query your own heart and see that it's also inside of you. He also gives a kind of external demonstration of the solution.

Look at verse nine. But this is gain for our land in every way, a king committed to cultivated fields. What is beneficial in the external society around you is a king that's not concerned with using his power to exploit, but using his power to cultivate good for those around him. So in a human heart, on an individual level, what is good for an individual is not to be covetous and greedy, but to be content and to share what is good. Now, the rest of the text is going to invite us to query our hearts and indeed see the nature of greed in our own hearts and offer us the solution.

So a kind of quick outline of this text is that Ecclesiastes chapter five and six teach us that money won't satisfy, why money won't satisfy, and what will satisfy. And if you were in attendance in our morning worship, you saw Jesse walk us through Proverbs 31, which is a chiastically structured proverb. We are indeed, again, in another chiastically structured text. Who knew that twice on a Sunday, we would have a chiasm on the screen? Now, chiasm is a traditional way of structuring a text in Hebrew literature, and the way that it works is like a stair step, so that where you begin is where you end, and you're slowly working yourself to what is in the middle.

What is in the middle is what will satisfy at the end of chapter five. But for the sake of time, I'm gonna sandwich, take the bread on the outside, and then take the condiments on either side of the meat and put them together, and then we will do, last of all, we'll do what will satisfy the kind of climax of this passage. So first, that money can't satisfy. You see this in chapter five and verse 10. Look at verse 10.

He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income. This also is vanity. And you see it repeated again at the end of the text. If you'll flip over to chapter six, notice chapter six and verse seven. In chapter six and verse seven, we see a variation of the same theme.

All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied. These two basic axiomatic statements just tell us a straightforward fact, money and possessions will not satisfy. Another way that you could think about this is that Solomon is pointing out the stupidity of sin. Much of the scriptures tell us about the moral evil that sin is, the repugnancy of sin, but this text is just telling you, practically, it's stupid. It won't work.

Money can't satisfy you because it's not what it's designed to do. So he who loves money will never be satisfied, and he who pursues material goods goods will never quench his appetite. You notice chapter six and verse seven, all the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied. What Solomon is saying is that material possessions function in the human heart like food. One meal just leads to an appetite for another one.

Now you see this, it's just basic in human nature. Our youngest turned five, today. He turned five, but we gave him his presents yesterday, and he had a lot of them. And do you know how he walked through his presence? I mean, you can predict how he walked through his presence.

He opened one present. Wow. This is the best ever. Open the next one. Wow.

This is the best ever. On to the next one. And when he got to the last one, wow. This is the best ever. That's it?

Alright. Moving along. This is built into human nature you see it in a little child but it's the same basic phenomenon that occurs in every single human heart all human possess all material possessions that a human being possessions that a human being pursues are like meals. You experience them, but that experience satisfies for a moment, but it just produces another appetite, probably an even deeper, stronger appetite, Because material possessions were not intended to slake the human thirst for satisfaction. If you flip back to chapter five and verse 10, you see what Solomon says here along the same lines in chapter five and verse 10.

He says, he who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income. And this is a vanity. If you love money, money's never going to love you back. There is something in the scriptures that you are supposed to love. In chapter nine verse nine, Solomon's going to tell us that you should enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your fleeting life that God has given you under the sun, because that's your portion in life and the toil at which you toil under the sun.

And if you love that, if you love your wife, she can love you back. But if you love money, then you will never be satisfied because it's not what money was designed to do so what money will end up doing to you is in verse 11 when goods increase they increase those who eat them And what advantage has the owner but to see them with his eyes? More wealth just produces more weariness to the wealthy. You know, this is a basic axiomatic principle in the scriptures, but it's also borne out in every stage of human history. A few years ago there was a very short article in The Guardian newspaper in The UK that was kind of doing the rounds on the internet.

The title of the article was, I am a therapist to the super rich. They are just as miserable as succession makes them out. Succession was an HBO series, I guess, a few years ago, and he describes his experience counseling billionaires in this article. I wanna read you a quote from this article where he says, what could possibly be challenging about being a billionaire, you might ask? Well, what would it be like if you couldn't trust those close to you?

Or if you looked at any new person in your life with deep suspicion. I hear this from my clients all the time, what do they want from me? Or how are they going to manipulate me? Or they're probably only my friends because of my money. Or as Solomon says, when goods increase, they increase those who eat them.

More wealth just brings more weariness. Now, most people live their life thinking that if I could just get a little bit more, a little bit nicer job, a little bit nicer car, a little bit nicer house, then I would be happy. But those people who actually experience the thing thereafter find that that experience was like having a meal. It was nice, but now I need more. What Solomon is teaching us is this basic reality that money and experiences and material possessions cannot satisfy.

But there is a better way to live your life, and he begins to kind of lift the shades on a better way of living as a human in verse 12. Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep. That is, godliness with contentment is a great gain. Solomon has obviously not demonized money, but he is teaching us this basic principle that another bedroom in your house will not help you sleep better, but godliness with contentment will. Well, that's this basic axiomatic principle with which Solomon begins.

Money will not satisfy. But then he moves on a little bit further and he explains to us why money cannot satisfy. Notice chapter five and verse 13. Verse 13 reads, there is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun. Riches were kept by their owner to his hurt.

And notice that phrase, there's a grievous evil I've seen under the sun? If you flip over to chapter six and verse one, you see the exact same phrase. There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind, and then he goes through the rest of it. So this is the second part in this chiasm, where these these are functioning as the condiments around the meat that will be at the end of chapter five. And what Solomon does in this in these two sections is he walks through three reasons that money cannot satisfy.

Number one, if you lose it, you're lost. Look at verse 13 again. There's a grievous evil that I've seen under the sun. Riches were kept by their owner to his hurt. Now, this language, riches are kept by an owner, this word for kept is a word that could be used for guarded or hoarded.

That is, the concept here is that this individual has made his material possessions ultimate. He's built a sense of identity on it. This is what will give him security, satisfaction, and status, but look at what happens in verse 14. Verse 14, and those riches were lost in a bad venture. So everything that he had guarded up and treasured and hoarded was gone.

It doesn't give us any details about the nature of the bad venture, but this is the nature of living under the sun. In this world, anything that you acquire can be lost. And as soon as he loses them, the result in his life, if you flip over to verse 17, is that all his days he eats in darkness, in much vexation, in sickness, and in anger. He spends his life in gloom, joylessness, and despondency. He's lost what he made ultimate, and now he has lost everything.

The scripture teaches this is the nature of what happens to a human being who makes material status his all, is that he can lose it, and if he loses it, then he is lost. Now that might sound a little bit extreme, and it is a little bit extreme, but we see this principle play itself out over and over and over in human history. When I came to know the Lord when I was a college student, it was kind of during the great recession, in eight to ten kind of era, and there were, it seemed to me, every single week on the news, new stories about wealthy people who had lost everything committed suicide. They hung themselves, they shot themselves, they cut themselves, they drugged themselves, they threw themselves off buildings, and they threw themselves in front of trains. This is the reality of living in this world.

If you make anything in this world ultimate, you are susceptible to loss, and if you lose it, you'll lose everything. And Solomon says, that is not the way to live your life. Now, Solomon is using extreme examples here, but he's using extreme examples in order to invite us to recognize that the same basic tendency resides in all of our hearts. When we place our hope in things in this world, we're placing our hope in things that can be lost. There is hope in the one who made this world, and he can never be lost.

But if you put your trust in the untrustworthiness of riches, you are in a desperately, a desperate situation. The second reason that money cannot satisfy, first, if you lose it, you're lost. And secondly, even if you do keep it, you're still lost. If you flip over to chapter six, Solomon tells us the second great evil. Chapter six and verse one, there's an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind.

A man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. So here, the scenario is different. This person has all that he wants and he doesn't lose them, but he can't enjoy them. God forbids him. God does not grant him the ability to find satisfaction, identified, perhaps, based on chapter two, verse 18, it's something to do with inheritance problems, which, by the way, incidentally, in this little Guardian article is one of the main problems rich people face is that they're not very good at passing off their wealth.

But the accent in this particular text is that God does not grant enjoyment. The nature of things that God created is that God controls them. And in God's providence, he often does not grant satisfaction to those who possess the things he created. Solomon tells us that and we can take it just axiomatically, but we can also look around in the world and find that this is the way the world works. The same article from The Guardian goes on to describe people's experience of wealth by saying that there are struggles with purpose, the depression that sets in when you feel like you have no reason to get out of bed.

Why bother going to work when the business you've built or inherited runs itself without you now? If all your necessities and much more were covered for the rest of your life, you might struggle with a lack of meaning and ambition too. My clients are often bored with life, and too many times, this leads them to chasing the next high, chemically or otherwise, to fill that void. There's a perception that money can immunize you against mental health problems, when actually, I believe that wealth can make you and the people closest to you much more susceptible to them. This is why Solomon says, if you look at verse three and following, a stillborn child is better off than he.

Because in verse five, at least the stillborn finds rest. But the man who puts his hope in material goods will find his insatiable hunger never gives him rest. How can it be that a person who has all the world can offer is not able to enjoy those things? What Solomon's hinting at is that God has built into the created world side effects, negative side effects for those who pursue wealth without God. So that the experiences still give a high, but they come with undesired side effects, a little bit like those drug commercials that you've seen where everyone is happy and they're offering you paradise, and then comes this super speed list of a million side effects that will strike you if you don't use the pills properly.

Look at the wonderful things that you can have, except if you pursue this world without God, you'll have depression, paranoia, psychosis, substance abuse, eating disorders, social anxiety, broken marriages, hopelessness, insomnia, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. God has designed the world in such a way that if you pursue this world without God, those negative side effects will kick in and they're inviting you to recognize that the world is supposed to point you to the creator and not serve as an end in itself. Money cannot satisfy, because even if you keep it, you're still lost without God. Or let me say it more intelligently by just quoting Jonathan Edwards. The pleasures of the outward senses that content the beasts will not content man.

He has other faculties of a higher nature that stand in need of something to fill them. If the senses are satisfied to the full, but the faculties of the soul are not filled man will be in a craving restless state or the way that I say it to the high school students in our church you're not a squirrel You were made for more than to just have your appetite satisfied. You were made for God. So money cannot satisfy because if you lose it, you're lost. If you keep it, you're lost.

But then thirdly, Solomon says at the end of chapter six, excuse, the end of this little section in chapter six, either way, death is going to strip you of everything. Look where he ends this section in verse six of chapter six. Even though he should live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoy no good, do not all go to the one place. Solomon is saying, every story ends the same. When a wealthy person dies and you ask the question, what do they leave behind?

The answer is always, everything. Every single story ends the same. Money will not satisfy, and you know that because where it is ending is where it started, here. You cannot take it with you. So, there is a better way to live your life.

And what Solomon is inviting us to is to query our hearts and to recognize, are there ways in which I have tried to make the material world into a stupid substitute for the living God? Material goods cannot save, cannot change, cannot be relied upon, but there is one who will, and he alone will satisfy the human art. So money cannot satisfy, but God will. Look at the middle of our chiasm. What we've skipped over in jumping to chapter six is the end of chapter five.

So look at chapter five in verse 18. What is it that Solomon says will satisfy the human heart? Chapter five verse 18. Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun, the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil, this is the gift of God.

For God for excuse me, for he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart. Do you see the key word over and over? God. God gives a human being enjoyment when he receives his life from God as a gift. Compare verse 19 that says, everyone to whom God has given the power to enjoy them, compare that with chapter six and verse two, that says, there is an individual to whom God has not given the power to enjoy them.

You see what makes the difference? Is this person's relationship to God. A person who is rightly related to his creator is freed up to enjoy the gifts that his creator gives him as gifts. But if you try to live your life in God's world, apart from God, nothing will compensate for the lack of God. Life with God entails, verse 18, toil.

It entails work. It entails disappointment, hard work, disappointment, but it also entails enjoyment and contentment. Or, the New Testament way of summing this up, I as I thought about this this week, I wonder if Paul was meditating on Ecclesiastes as he wrote this to his disciple Timothy. As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. When your hope is on God, your heart is full.

When your heart is full, you are able to enjoy the gifts he gives you. And when those gifts are lost, you aren't lost. Because your heart is full of God who will never leave you or forsake you, so your life can be free of the love of money. When God is ultimate, he enables an individual to enjoy material blessings. And that's where Solomon ends, at the end of chapter six and verse 10, where he gives us a little extra encouragement to set our hope in God and not on the uncertainty of riches.

And I want to close this evening with the end of chapter six. If you look at verse 10, he says, whatever has come has already been named, and it is known what man is, and that he's not able to dispute with one stronger than he. It's a very enigmatic little wisdom way of saying God's in charge here. Notice, he says, whatever has come to be has already been named. Naming something in the modern world as well, but especially in the ancient world, connoted authority, and you'll notice it's in the passive tense.

Everything that's going to happen has already been named. That is just a wisdom way of saying God decrees everything that comes about. Everything that happens happens by God's authoritative decree. And there's someone who knows what man is. That's God and no one is able to dispute with him so because God is in charge of your life and God is in charge of the world and God has appointed the nature of things and God has appointed even the individual minute details of your life be content with your wages and enjoy your life as a gift or as he says in verse 11 the more words the more vanity and what is the advantage to man why are you going to dispute with him your life could be different in your fictional imagination but it isn't different your life is the way that God has decreed it from before the foundation of the world and in the end it will turn out that your life is the life that is best for you Because it is the life that God, in his sovereign plan, is using and orchestrating everything in your life to conform you to the image of his son, Jesus Christ, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

So verse 12, who knows what is good for man while he lives his few days of his vain life, while which he passes like a shadow? And who can tell man what will be after him under the sun? That's a rhetorical question that you know the answer to. Who can tell man what is good for him? God.

And what is good for man? To eat and drink and find enjoyment and all the toil with which one toils under the sun, the few days of his life that God has given to him, for this is his lot. Right relationship to your creator enables freedom to enjoy the gifts of his creation, not making them ultimate, but receiving them from the one who is ultimate. Rightly related to God enables peace contentment deep abiding enjoyment even in the midst of the toil of this life knowing that it will pass like a vapor and you won't even remember it because God will everlastingly keep you occupied with joy in your heart. That's a life of wisdom.

Let's pray together. Father, we do ask that you would enable us to fix our eyes on what is eternal and everlasting, and live lives of joy and contentment, working heartily as for the Lord and not for man, knowing that from the Lord will come our reward. We pray that you would give us eyes to see every opportunity and maximize our time and store up for eternity treasures in heaven we know that all of this is a gift from you so we ask that you by your spirit will give us open hands to receive your gifts and rejoice in them we pray this in the name of christ Amen. And now for a parting word for pastor Jesse Johnson. If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you wanna learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc.church.

If you want more information about the Master's Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to tms.edu. Now if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, DC area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel. I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service. But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church. Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.