06 Mar 3/15/26 Ecclesiastes 4:4-8 “The Land of Er”
3/15/26 Ecclesiastes 4:4-8 “The Land of Er”
I think most of you know that I like to read. Some might say that I like to read a lot. This comes from the man who almost never read a book when he was in junior or senior high. I picked up the bug in college while taking an Introduction to the Novel class. Young people beware of this class when you go to college. Anyway, I have my favorite genres and I have those that I rarely read unless it’s highly recommended. I read a little more fiction and a little less non-fiction. I have even been known to read the operators manual of a new cell phone that really hasn’t done much good for me. Anyway, sometimes there are books that I know are good but are hard to get through and understand. I remember one book that was a best seller that I tried to read several times but I just couldn’t get past page 100. It was just too boring and it made absolutely no sense. Today’s reading comes from Ecclesiastes which was written by King Solomon, who wrote Proverbs, the wisest king to ever live. I have always struggled with this book because it almost seems to be written from an almost negative stand point. Then I take another look and he has just hidden the positive rather well. Today, we are going to look some meaningless things we do. Let’s see if we can find the positive.
Author and Pastor John Ortberg tells a story of calling a wise friend for some spiritual advice after moving to Chicago. John described his life. The church he served moved at a fast pace. His family life was as follows. They were in the van driving, soccer league, piano lesson, school orientation night years. His spiritual life was not right. He couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong but something was wrong. He asked the wise man what he should do. After a long pause the wise man said, “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.” After a pause John replied, “Okay, I’ve written that one down.” Then he said rather impatiently after another pause, “That’s a good one. Now what else is there?” This was a long-distance call for John and he had many things to do so he was anxious to get as many spiritual wisdom nuggets in the shortest amount of time. After another long pause the wise man said, “There is nothing else. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.” I can’t help but wonder if there are a few people here today that might heed that advice including myself. You might want to write that down, “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”
I think that one of the problems we have and it is alluded to here in our passage is that we live in the ‘Land of Er.’ It first got this idea from Andy Stanley and I’m going to take this in a little different direction but we need some basics. There are some Bible scholars here today that might be thinking that I was going to talk about Ur spelled u, r. This is the land where Abraham lived before he was called by God. However, we are going to talk about the land of er, spelled e, r. This is our land today.
I think we all suffer from this disease ‘er’ to some extent. Here’s what I mean. Someone once said that if you speak from weakness, you will never run out of material. Well, I’m speaking from weakness today so we could be here all day. I also think that being caught in the land of ‘er’ is a younger person’s dilemma, at least it was in my case.
Here is what I mean. When I was younger, I wanted to be richer, smarter, thinner, handsomer, taller, cooler, happier and talented-er than the people around me. I would look to my right and see a musician who could really play an instrument. He was talented-er than me. I would look at the guy to the left who was far handsomer than me. Then I would find more people on my right who had far more another ‘er’ than me. Soon everyone on my left had far more ‘er’ than me.
What I ended up doing was comparing myself to everyone and the result was that I was never me. It is lucky that I didn’t break my neck swiveling from right to left. What was really happening was that I wasn’t leaving any room to be me when all I wanted to do is be like someone else. Now I know that I’m not the only one here that has this ailment or has suffered from it in the past.
How often have you thought that your children are smarter than others or prettier or athleticer, or any other ‘er’ you can think about? Or have you ever applied ‘er’ to your spouse? You might say they had a positive ‘er’ to someone else. If you go to the negative ‘er’ then I might suggest you look out because the outcome might not be that pretty. You might end up not prettier than anyone! We talk about our homes being bigger than our neighbors. Of course, the one I would like you to get is to be a better giver than anyone else. I mean that in a positive way for our churches.
Actually, the bottom line to all this is that you will never measure up if you are in this comparison game. If you look at the word, you will see that there is no win in comparison. Every once in a while, I like to say that something is a win-win situation especially when we are talking about Jesus in our lives. However, we also have lose-lose situations. These happen anytime you are working for the devil. Guess what? When you are in the comparison game, you are working for the devil. The comparison game, the ‘Land of Er’ is a lose-lose situation. I have found that as I have gotten older, I don’t live there nearly as much as I did years ago.
Before I start, I want us to remember that this was written about 3000 years ago. It is hard to believe that they had this terrible problem then and we have not found a way to solve it to this day. Oh, there is a way to solve it but we don’t want to solve it. Solomon begins by telling us that all labor and achievement spring from man’s envy of his neighbor. This is quite and an indictment against his society. All achievement and not some! Wow!
Before we go too far condemning them, let’s look at our own society. Just about all advertisement in this country is geared to convince you that you aren’t happy or that you are sadder without this product. Think about that for a minute. Not being satisfied can also be grouped into this category. How can we be happier unless we have a newer car in our driveway? How in the world can you be satisfied unless you are a drinker of Coca Cola? You probably won’t even survive unless you have the new I-watch. I’m being a little extreme here but I hope you get the message that the advertising message out there is not a good one.
Solomon tells us that this is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. All this stuff was meaningless to Solomon as he watched his people. What difference does it make if the neighbors camel was stronger than mine? What difference did it make if my cooking pot was smaller than my friends? What difference did it make if my neighbors had importanter friends than me? None of these things are important. They are all chasing the wind.
I think it might be important for us to take a little inventory as to the things we do where we might be chasing the wind. We do it with our cars and homes, our children and our friends. This coming week I would like you to take an honest look at some of the things you do or are planning to do. If you find that you are doing something because everyone else is doing it, you might want to rethink. If you are following someone in something, you might want to think about taking the lead. In just a minute we will see how to get a little help here.
But first I would like to skip to verses 7-8. Solomon was talking about a man who didn’t have a family and was a workaholic but this can apply to anyone. He not only worked all the time but he also made a lot of money. He was wealthy. One day he asks himself, for whom am I toiling. Why am I depriving myself of enjoyment? Just think, they had workaholics 3000 years ago. They were ruining their lives like they are today.
I have never suffered from this and I think they are a little hard to spot. Some people need 2 or 3 jobs just to survive and that isn’t being a workaholic. That’s survival. But I think that families can easily spot a workaholic. This is because they are being left out of the equation. They are the ones who go school plays and events without you. They are the ones who have to eat dinner without you just about every day.
People, God made us to work but not to work all the time. We find right away Genesis that God made us to do work. However, He also made us to rest. If you are working for the sake of working, then what you are doing is meaningless no matter what you are doing. If God made you to have a family, then you are to take care of that family and that means your presence is a must. God made many of us to have families and we are to take care of those families. Beware of the all work, no play trap. Once the devil gets you here then he has you as you are destroying anyone around you who cares about you. Solomon uses the term meaningless because it’s so to the point.
So, we have people who work too much and then Solomon also addresses those who don’t work at all. Guess what? They had people who didn’t work then, too. They had alcoholics. They had poverty that was self-inflicted like some of it is today. They had the same problems then as today and we know this by what Solomon says. The fool folds his hands and ruins himself. The fool looks at work and says he doesn’t have to because we weren’t made to work. The fool looks at a drink, drinks it and orders much more. The fool says, “yes, I have a family but I don’t have to take care of them. Let the government do it.” The fool ruins himself or put another way, the devil ruins the fool. But all is not lost.
Now comes the important part. Take a look at your hands. Most of us have two hands. They can do much good. They can hold a baby and take care of a child. They can build things like houses or work places. I read a story once where a 7-month pregnant woman lifted a 3000-pound car 6” off a child so the rescuers could pull her out. God made us with two hands so that they can go out and do all kinds of good work in the world.
But often times that is not what they do. We use our hands to make a living so that we can go out and do all sorts of things that dishonor God. We obviously go to casinos and throw our money away so that we have to build more and more of these dark, evil dens where many people have no control over their hands. These are the compulsive gamblers that get very little help. We use our hands to work so that we can use our credit cards to buy more and more of the things that we think make our neighbors happy. How long will it take before we realize that all the beautiful things in the world will not make us happy? Impulse buying with credit cards is just another dark pit put out there by the devil.
So, here’s what we look like. We get caught up in the looking right and look left. We see the wonderful car he has over here and the wonderful family they have over there. Everywhere we look, we find that the grass is greener on the other side of the hill. I think young people starting out are most susceptible to these thoughts because they are starting out and looking for goals. There is nothing wrong with goals but they have to be the right goals. What often happens is that we look left and right and we all we see is temptation. As much as I hate temptation, it is there and we have a way to fight it.
So, looking left and right is ok as long as we don’t act on it. The trouble comes when we decide to look down. We look left, right and then down. It’s the down part that we have to watch out for. Just think about this for a minute. We weren’t made to look down. Try it right now. When you look down, you restrict your breathing, you swallowing and your vision. It is really hard to sing when your head is down which is why many places put their music on screens. The point is that Satan wants you looking down. Then he has your attention so he directs you to the right or left, whichever is worse. Satan has no concern for your well-being. He only wants the best bad-being he can get out of you. He wants you to be badder!
However, when we hold our heads up, then we are looking to God for the answer. Solomon is telling us here that it is much, much better to have one hand full of God than 2 hand full of anything else. Better to have one hand full of the tranquility of God than a thousand of anything else. People, Solomon was the wisest king ever to live. He was great but he was also very broken just like all of us. And yet he realized that life isn’t about anything of this world. Everything we do and say should be about God or at least anchored in God. One hand with God is infinitely better than a million hands anywhere else.
That’s what Solomon is saying here. If you are doing anything else, then you are chasing the wind. You are doing what is meaningless. Solomon had many faults but he was wise. Take these verses to heart. Don’t get caught up in the Land of Er! Don’t play the comparison game. You will not win because as we learned there is no win in comparison. Put your one hand out and raise your other hand to God. All you will ever need in life is one hand in God and the other hand doing God’s will. He has made it so simple for us. Confess yours sins to Him, make Jesus your Lord and Savior, and give Him your hand. The life we have in Jesus Christ is the best life that there can ever be. There are no exceptions. Thank you, Jesus, for first loving us. Let’s pray.
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