MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Ecclesiastes 5:10-12
THE IMPOTENCE OF WEALTH
Wealth, though it confers great social influence and power, has yet some elements of weakness, and fails when the severest tests are applied.
I. Wealth cannot Satisfy the Desire it Raises. Wealth stimulates desire, and when attained feeds that desire; but not to satisfaction. (Ecclesiastes 5:10.) The appetite only increases by what it feeds on. The fever of gain only rages the more with the increase of possessions. This insatiable desire of wealth is,
1. Irrational. Reason would teach us that as our wants are satisfied, desire ought to abate. When we have abundance, there should be the repose of contentment. Yet those who have gained great wealth desire more, not because it is wanted, but only to satisfy a restless craving. The undue pursuit of wealth is an infatuation—an untamed passion which has broken away from the control of reason.
2. It shows that the soul is on some wrong track of happiness. That which is a real good to man gives him a pure and a permanent joy. But when the pursuit of an object ends in an unsatisfying result and the rage of tortured desire, the soul has missed the path of true happiness. Riches do not satisfy, and cannot therefore be our chief good.
3. It shows that man is greater than wealth. He may yield himself to the absorbing passion, and worship the assumed majesty of wealth; yet in the lucid intervals of his better reason, he feels that the greatness of his nature refuses thus to be satisfied. And whether he understands the eternal truths of the soul or not, they have nevertheless their operation. He cannot go against the great facts of man’s essential life.
II. Wealth has Certain Evils Inseparable from it. (Ecclesiastes 5:11.)
1. As it increases, fresh channels are opened for its dispersion. The rich man surrounds himself with a numerous train of attendants; who, though they minister to his comfort and ease, multiply his cares and eat up his stores. There are always plenty to spend the most carefully hoarded treasures.
2. Increasing wealth creates artificial wants. Luxury attaches new burdens to a man. He comes more and more under the tyranny of habit. The increased comforts and luxuries that riches procure become at last a necessity of nature. He who lords it over many thus becomes himself a slave. The artificial wants that are created have the force and impetuosity of nature.
3. Wealth, however great, cannot be incorporated with the human soul. A man cannot make his treasures the garniture of his soul. They are altogether outside of him. The owner of great riches, and of all that riches procure, can enjoy no superior advantage than the beholding of them with his eyes. (Ecclesiastes 5:11.) A man really has only what is within him; all else is uncertain and transitory.
III. Wealth is often gained at the Expense of Real Comfort. The rich man frequently but purchases his state and grandeur by the loss of solid comforts. The many cares of his great riches deprive him of the full benefit of some of nature’s most important gifts.
1. He is often deprived of the blessing of sound slumber. (Ecclesiastes 5:12.) The multitude of cares, with which increased riches fill him, make his mind uneasy and banish sleep. All his riches cannot purchase this blessed gift.
2. He has reason to envy his poorer neighbour. Though he has power to multiply comforts, yet there are simple but important gifts of nature which are beyond his reach. These are often bestowed in abundance upon his humbler brethren. Relieved from complicated cares and anxieties, and prepared by the fatigue of labour, the poor man enjoys sweet sleep. His diet may be precarious; now a liberal, and again a scanty fare, yet his severe duty in the battle of life brings him repose. He may well be envied by pampered wealth seeking refreshing slumber in vain. The blest enjoyment of life is greater than any earthly treasure, and he who depends upon wealth for true happiness must miserably fail.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Ecclesiastes 5:10. When a man begins to amass money, he begins to feed an appetite which nothing can appease, and which his proper food will only render fiercer. To greed there may be “increase,” but no increase can ever be “abundance.” … Could you transmute the solid earth into a single lump of gold, and drop it into the gaping mouth of Mammon, it would only be a crumb of transient comfort, a restorative enabling him to cry a little louder, Give, give [Dr. J. Hamilton].
The love that burns in holy souls delights to rest in its object in calm and contented repose. But the base love of gain is a torturing passion, for ever uneasy and unsatisfied.
The feverish thirst for gain only rages the more its demand is answered; but all healthful desires are easily satisfied, and give repose and enjoyment to life.
The toils of covetousness know no Sabbath—no healthful relaxation of the strain of life. They hurry their victim onward to some illusive goal which recedes, as they approach it, into a land of vain shadows.
The soul has a capacity altogether infinite, and refuses to be satisfied with the vanishing good of this life.
What is a miser but a poor, tortured, uneasy soul and heart that is always looking after that which it does not possess; it is therefore vanity and wretchedness. If now God gives thee riches, use thy share as thou usest thy share of water, and let the rest flow by thee; if thou dost not do so, thy gathering will be all in vain [Luther].
Ecclesiastes 5:11. The strongest chain, if it has sufficient length, will snap under the pressure of its own weight. Great riches may become so unwieldy as to ruin the happiness of their possessor.
The menial service and attendance which are at the command of wealth, introduce many complexities into life, and increase the burden of care and vexation.
It is wisely ordered that rank and wealth cannot be entirely selfish. They give employment and the means of subsistence to others.
The river that flows through the estate of the wealthy man cannot be pent up there, but must flow on to enrich other districts.
Great riches and multiplied sources of pleasure do not necessarily give increased capacity for enjoyment. If their owner lacks exquisite taste, and an answering mind, their effective power to raise his happiness is but small.
The spectator of the outward signs of grandeur often derives more real enjoyment than the possessor.
Let a man consider how little he is bettered by prosperity as to those perfections which are chiefly valuable. All the wealth of both the Indies cannot add one cubit to the stature, either of his body or his mind. It can neither better his health, advance his intellectuals, or refine his morals. We see those languish and die, who command the physic and physicians of a whole kingdom. And some are dunces in the midst of libraries, dull and sottish in the very bosom of Athens; and far from wisdom, though they lord it over the wise [South].
A rich man buys a picture or a statue, and he is proud to think that his mansion is adorned with such a famous masterpiece. But a poor man comes and looks at it, and, because he has the æsthetic insight, in a few minutes he is conscious of more astonishment and pleasure than the dull proprietor has experienced in half a century. Or, a rich man lays out a park or a garden, and, except the diversion of planning and remodelling, he has derived from it little enjoyment, but some bright morning a holiday student or a town-pent tourist comes, and when he leaves, he carries with him a freight of life-long recollections.… Such sight-seers, though they leave the canvas on the walls, and the marble in the gallery—though they leave the flowers in the vases, and the trees in the forest; they have carried off the glory and the gladness; their bibulous eyes have drunk a delectation, and all their senses have absorbed a joy for which the owner vainly pays his heavy annual ransom [Dr. J. Hamilton].
Ecclesiastes 5:12. The refreshing repose which labour brings is often denied to the children of soft indulgence. Hence learn,
1. The limited power of wealth. It cannot purchase what is of the highest value.
2. The humbler conditions of life have some counterbalancing advantages. To the poor man is given that healthy refreshment and repose which his rich neighbour often seeks in vain.
3. How little does our true happiness depend upon the outward!
The walls of gold that keep out famine cannot bar the passage of the tormenting spirits of restlessness and anxious care.
The unequal distribution of human happiness is more apparent than real. The humblest plodder in the obscurest condition of life has his special advantages and consolations. Providence has wonderful compensations.
If the poor could get a taste of opulence, it would reveal to them strange luxuries in lowliness. Fevered with late hours and false excitement, or scared by visions, the righteous recompense of gluttonous excess, or with breath suppressed and palpitating heart listing the fancied footsteps of the robber, grandeur often pays a nightly penance for the triumph of the day [Dr. J. Hamilton].
The most precious things of life are beyond the power of wealth to purchase. Like wisdom, sleep is the gift of God.
The worshippers of Mammon must submit to a most heartless tyranny—worn down by severe and restless service, and no solid reward to crown the end.
He who takes a thoughtful and sober view of human life will strengthen his sense of contentment, and abate the fires of envy.