Everything Is Meaningless - Two Are Better Than One

So you know I was thinking about.

We've been going through the series on Ecclesiastes and if you got your Bible, we're going to be looking at Ecclesiastes, chapter four, this week.

And I was considering today.

The Lord kind of gave me a different thought this morning.

I don't know how many of you enjoy this, but I love going out and watching the stars and you know, just this whole past week I got this notice on my phone that said that this whole past week was going to be a great week for meteors and a meteor shower.

In fact, last night was going to be the best of the year, right, and I don't know how many people got to see them.

I didn't see them.

We went out like it, and I could do this because I didn't have to go to work next day.

We went out like at 2 am up into the mountains, and this sky, when we were out at first, was fairly clear and by the time it got to the point we got up on the mountain over in near Townsend and got up there, the clouds had slowly moved in and our chance to view the stars was gone.

And that happened last night, I think too, and I just thought about that and I thought you know that's the way life is sometimes.

I said what it looks like from at first.

Look eventually.

Sometimes the clouds come in and we can't see heaven at all and things don't look like we hope they will.

But God's still there.

I want you to hear that God is still there, god's glory is still there in your life, and so with that, I just want to kind of give you some take on what chapter 4 is about as we get into it.

Last week, mark talked about some things that had to do with how the things that Solomon who really, we think, wrote the book things that he observed, things that he saw, and Mark kind of made a point about that.

This morning we're going to look at four common realities that Solomon observed, which reflect what he calls life under the sun Not under the sand, but under the sun, which is a statement of reality of life.

Things are not always what we hope they'll be.

Sometimes they're not very good at all, and so these are the things.

Let me just give them to you and then we'll read the passage.

The first one is oppression, envy, aloneness or loneliness I think aloneness is a better way of thinking of it and then arrogance, oppression, envy, aloneness and arrogance.

And I got to thinking why did he pick these things out in particular?

And I think it's because the problems they represent are like, sometimes, like our naive attitude about the way we approach life, the way we adopt our practices, based on the way we see life and it's a lot of times it's the way the world sees things, and what God wants us to see is things from his perspective Life above the sun and not from down here, and we have that as Christians.

As one of the early church fathers said, ecclesiastes, instructing us through enigmas.

You know what enigma is?

It's a question you can't answer.

Instructing us through enigmas guides us to the other life.

We need God's wisdom and grace to choose what's better.

We need to look through the lens of scripture to know what we should do.

And so Solomon gives these observations, and it ought to make us stop and consider, as he goes through these, how we should navigate life in a fallen world.

Because, folks, this is where we live, but we're not there where we will be yet, but we still have to live here now.

Let's just read through this passage and we'll begin.

In chapter four of Ecclesiastes, and beginning verse one, it says.

Again, I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun and behold the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them.

On the other side of their oppressors, there was power and there was no one to comfort them.

And I thought the dead, who are already dead, more fortunate than the living who are still alive.

But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.

Again, I saw that all toil and skill and work come from a man's envy of his neighbor.

This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh.

Both is he who has not yet been and has not yet seen the evil, that the evil deeds that are done under the sun.

And so let's just stop right now.

I want to ask God to just apply these truths that we are going to read this morning, and he can do that.

I want you just to see here that the word of God has power, and I hope you're expecting that God will speak to your heart this morning.

Ask him that right now.

Let's just pray together.

Father, we're thankful for your word.

We ask you that you would apply it to our lives and Holy Spirit, just put it deeply into our hearts, speak to the things that we need to know to change us, and we ask for that in Jesus' name.

And so he begins here this morning with this idea of oppression.

And this first one is oppression in which means injustices, if you will, or extortions, and this is something that we're really familiar with.

When Solomon looked at society, he saw how people are often mistreated for money by those who hold more power, and I'm sure you and I could think of many places in our world today, in the political realm and in the governmental realm and in the court system, and all these places where people experience injustice, and we don't have to look far for that.

I was, a few years ago, back in the 1980s, had a chance to go with a friend of mine who was the leader of Campus Crusade over at the University of Tennessee, and he selected one student to go with us it was just three of us to go to China and I was very excited.

We went there and the purpose was to minister to students who were working sort of with the underground church there in China.

It's been long enough.

I don't think it's a worry to share this with you, but basically we got over there and one of the days that we got to go and kind of tour some of the places as well as minister to the students, we got to go to Tiananmen Square, and I don't know if you know anything about Tiananmen Square, but if you know your history, you know that it was a place that there was a lot of things going on that were not good and we had to have a person that was a tour guide for us, because hardly anybody at that time spoke English.

And so this little gal from our tour company actually ended up being a member of the underground church in China, and we were so thrilled, and so she began to take us around Tiananmen Square, which is a massive place.

It's like the square in Moscow, they have one there in China and all around the square there were soldiers stationed at different places, and as we were walking around the middle, one of the students said whatever to the tour guide.

He said whatever happened to that Tiananmen Square incident, and if you know your history, there was a picture in Time Magazine at that time where you have this man who's standing in front of a tank trying to prevent the communists from taking their rights.

They were treating people with many injustices and it's just a classic picture of the man standing in front of the tank defying the government for what they were doing.

And that guy that was with us, the student.

He said whatever happened to that Tiananmen Square incident and the look on our tour guide's face you could see she was terrified and she said let's keep walking.

And she said let's keep walking.

We got about probably 30 more yards and the student must not have heard her and he brought it up again.

He said whatever.

I didn't hear whatever happened to that Tiananmen Square incident.

And the girl said we need to go right now and we left no-transcript, which kind of gives you an idea that the oppression that they were under absolutely terrified them and so many things happened in the underground church and to the people over there.

It's just an example of injustice in our world and it happens in so many places.

Sometimes what should happen when we think the things that are ought to be in place don't.

What should turn out to be right has done wrong, and we even think of this all the way back to how this applies, even in our childhood, and I can think about this.

What do we say when we're on the playground?

We say, hey, that's not fair, and we understand injustice, even as a child, but it doesn't stop at the playground.

It goes always to the pinnacle of power, the greatest heights, people who have control.

Someone said the problem here is that even the place of justice is unjust.

The very place where we most expect and most need to receive justice turns out to be a place of unfairness.

Even the court system is corrupt.

This is not merely a frustration, like some of the other problems we read about in Ecclesiastes, but a manifestation of genuine evil.

Innocent people are convicted for crimes they never committed.

They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, or maybe the wrong color in the wrong neighborhood.

Just as frequently, other people get away with murder.

They have the money to hire better lawyers, or else they hide behind the structure of a large corporation to take advantage of people who were less fortunate.

And so Solomon is looking out on his own society and he's seeing all these things.

He sees all these injustices that he sees, just like we see them today, and his focus is not merely on the I think, just the evils of the opposition.

But if you go on and you see the personal pain, it comes from it.

The real tragedy, he says, is why?

Look at verse one there was no one to comfort them.

And he's not just complaining about it, because there is wickedness around us and this is a hard place to live and there's not justice in a lot of cases.

But the wickedness in the place of justice cannot be corrected.

Do you ever feel like that?

You see things going on around you and in the halls of government, in the places of power, and you wonder can anything be done about this?

Sometimes it's just not in our power to make those changes and correct the unfairnesses of life.

And even so, I think God uses such things to test us, to see what we will do.

He says as much in chapter three, verse 17,.

We're gonna get to that.

But there are times you and I could do something when we don't, for various reasons, and rather than push back against the tide of darkness and evil, we just kind of watch it and we go.

We sigh that's the actual word that's used here.

It's to sigh because we don't or can't do anything.

Martin Luther King Jr once said the ultimate tragedy is not the oppression by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness.

Only light can do that.

And that's the end of that.

An older gentleman by the name of DeCittiris Erasmus, who was in the early centuries, he said he who allows oppression shares the crime.

Well, notice how Solomon has kind of structured his words in this chapter.

He uses a series of comparisons that we're going through and he's basically saying this one is better than that one, this one is better than that one.

He does it all through the four examples where he goes through this morning.

We make comparisons all the time, don't we?

So this one is better than that and this food is better than that food.

That person is better at this than that person.

But the comparison Solomon uses really help us to consider how God's wisdom is better than human reasoning.

It's better than the way we typically think of things.

And so, with all the evil in the world, solomon ends up by saying the scope of human misery can lead us A lot of times, when it doesn't seem to get resolved, to despair and hopelessness because we can't see anything done.

He says as much.

In verse two he says I thought the dead, who were already dead, more fortunate than the living who are still alive.

But better than both is he who has not yet been born and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.

Now, that's a reality statement.

It doesn't mean that he wants to take his own life or that life's not worth living.

He just it's an expression of things are hopeless, and I'd rather not see all the evil that I see in the world.

That'd be true, wouldn't it, if your existence was just limited to this life, if all you saw was the clouds, right, and if there was no heaven, if there was no hell, then it really wouldn't matter.

There would be no future hope.

But there is, and that's what we know as believers.

And I want you to remember what Solomon had said in chapter three and Mark went over this in a bit in the scripture, in verses 16 and 17.

Here's what he said earlier, solomon.

He said I saw under the sun that in the place of justice even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness even there was wickedness.

I said in my heart God will judge the righteous and the wicked.

See, he had this perspective, and it wasn't just here and now.

Even though his words sound pretty pessimistic, there was a hint that there was something beyond this life, something beyond the misery, and so he sort of hints at that.

But you can be sure, if there is injustice, god sees it and he knows it.

Even in your life, in my life, you ever get in a situation where you said that's just not fair.

It's just not fair and it happened to you.

But God, here's how he feels about injustice, about impression.

Psalm 103, verse six, says the Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.

He in scripture, consistently reminds his people all through the Old Testament about the abuse of power.

And here's an example in Deuteronomy he says in verse, in chapter five, and two different standards.

Here is kind of what he's saying.

You shall not have in your bag two kinds of weights, a large and a small.

You shall not have in your house two kinds of measures, a large and a small, a full and fair weight.

You shall have a full and fair measure.

You shall have that.

Your days may be long in the land that the Lord, god, has given you, for all who do such things, all who act dishonestly, are an abomination to the Lord, your God.

What he's saying is he doesn't like it when someone puts their thumb on the scale of justice.

Proverbs 17, 15 tells us that God hates those who pervert justice by declaring guilty people innocent and innocent people guilty.

Proverbs 6, verse 17, says God hates those who commit the ultimate act of injustice, which is the murder of the innocent.

Proverbs 6:17

So you think of all these things, whether it's abortion or human trafficking, and I'm so thankful for the ministries that we have in our church that try to help people who are caught in these things.

But there's so many, and but God has a word to say.

He will judge those people, He'll correct those problems, even though it might take a while, and our timing is not his timing.

But here's the thing In a way, as God's people, we're not just to refrain from agreeing with him by oppressing others.

We're supposed to actively see God's kingdom and keep people who are being oppressed from being oppressed.

Part of the problem with the church is that we've said it idly by and just watched things happen and didn't say a thing.

Leviticus 19 says you shall do no injustice in court.

You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.

Isaiah 1, verse 17, says Learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widows' cause.

Isaiah 1:17

And so what are you saying is that people who can't do that for themselves, who don't have power, you need to take up for them?

I can't remember how many people in our church that I've heard say that they were put out of their house or their apartment because the landlord said they didn't want to let them pay what they're paying and they just kind of put them out of their house.

These are the kinds of things that we need to take up for people for, and you can be a part of God's justice, his program of making things right, if you don't sit ollie by.

This is what Solomon sees.

Solomon next turns his eyes into the working world.

So, from oppression and injustice to envy, to envy Notice what he says in verse four.

Then I saw that all toil and all skill and work come from a man's envy of his neighbor.

This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

So Solomon sees, a whole lot of our work is motivated because we want to be and we want to have what that other guy has.

In fact, a lot of our capitalism is built on having ambition, and not all of it's bad, but some of it.

If it's to step on the other guy, it's not what God would choose and it's not right.

Think of these examples of your coworker, for example, gets a promotion that you applied for and you congratulate him while secretly wishing he didn't work there at all.

You ever felt any of that?

Your friend goes on a fantastic vacation and they decide they're gonna send you all the pictures and they send it to text it to your phone and you usually like their stuff, but this time you don't.

This is envy, a business competitor.

He has strings of successes and you have people that do so well and you start thinking about all the things you don't like about him because, simply, he's succeeded and you and your attempts to do that you haven't.

I mean you can think of a lot more, but envy's a common problem and you say, well, what is envy?

If I ask everyone here what is the definition of envy, I'd get probably 10 or 15 different answers.

Let me give you one that Aristotle laid out.

It was a pretty clear definition and it's found in his famous work, rhetoric.

He says this.

It's a definition that I think has stood the test of time.

According to Aristotle, he said envy is pain at the good fortune of others.

Envy is pain at the good fortune of others, so it's kind of like you can't really celebrate with them because you want what they have, and that's why some people work long hours, that's why some people make unethical decisions, that's why people step on their fellow workers to get ahead, so they can have more, get more, and what we think is well, that could have been me, that could have been me.

That's envy.

So I confess, I make a confession last week I was full of envy because Mark had a fantastic message and I wanted what he had.

No, but it was good, and it was good.

What Solomon's saying?

He's saying this is an empty, vain way to think.

This attitude of wanting what somebody else has instead of appreciating what God has given you.

And so you know what it produces something else than just besides an envious person.

He talks about someone else, and that is the dropout.

So if you can't have what you want and you continue to get pushed down and get disappointed, some people just drop out of life.

He says this the fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh.

You say what in the world does that mean he folds his hands and eats his own flesh?

Well, folding your hands means he's lazy, he's not doing anything and, as a result of that, he ends up consuming what he has.

And then what happens?

He has nothing left, he's consumed it all.

And then, after he's consumed it all, he starts.

Because he's so complacent and self-focused, he eats up his self-respect.

You never see somebody who gets to the point where they don't value their own life and they don't respect themselves because they're not doing anything, because they're lazy.

So we can get so inwardly focused, and that could happen to us when we get discouraged and we lose our hope in Christ.

So you see two errors here consumed with work because of envy or destroyed by laziness.

This is what Solomon is seeing Now.

I just ask you this morning which is more of a temptation for you Consumed with envy or laziness?

Maybe you're tempted to envy what other people have and you weigh yourself trying to get it.

Or maybe you think you're above all that and you don't have a problem with envy, and yet you have such a negative attitude about work.

When you go to work, you avoid certain things.

You don't work as unto the Lord, your heart's not in it, you're just getting through the day.

Well, this should speak to.

Solomon's wisdom tells us there's a balance to be found, and it's in verse six.

He says better, this is the better than something else.

Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.

The Hebrew there literally reads who are content with a handful of quietness.

So for those who found the balance between just going at it full bore and giving their whole life to something, and those people who just decided they're gonna give up on life and drop out, there's a balance.

And he says it's quietness.

It's like a handful, not two handful, but a handful, that's enough.

He's basically says that's enough for me.

And so we have to ask ourselves are we content with what God is, at, what he's given us?

That's a question.

Paul says.

He says learn to be content.

Learn to be content.

The Bible says that, like this, godliness with contentment is great gain.

And so what you get in return is less stress, and that's because there's less worry, and there's less worry because you're trusting God to provide every need you have.

So have you learned to be content.

That's the question, you know, if we model ourselves after Jesus Christ.

If you look at the gospels, he was a hard worker, he was a carpenter, but he said at one time he said my father is always working and I'm at work, and this is the better way work hard, be content with what God has given you.

So the problem is is that we're not satisfied so often with what God has given us.

The grass is not always greener on the other side.

It's like the little girl who who, thinking of Psalm 23, she spoke better than she knew she said, instead of saying the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, she said the Lord is my shepherd, that's all I want, that's all I want.

Is that the way you think, and most of us?

So we want so many things.

This is a hard thing to say the Lord is my shepherd, that's all I want, because, whether we admit it or not, we want some other things.

Well, let's look down, and I want us to skip over and jump down to verses 13 through 16.

We're looking at a third problem that he talked about oppression, envy, the problem that Solomon sees here, and we'll come back to verses seven through 12.

Solomon sees.

At the end of this section he makes this observation about arrogance.

Arrogance, and it relates to our human bent toward this problem.

He says better was a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice, for he went from prison to the throne, though in his own kingdom he had been born poor.

I saw all the living who move about under the sun, along with that youth who was to stand in the king's place.

There was no end of all the people, all of whom he led.

Yet there was one who came later, who will not rejoice in him.

Surely this also is vanity.

And striving after when?

Oh, this is a little hard to follow, but this is the only story or illustration he gives in this passage, and let's see if we can get the gist of it.

So this time, solomon, he begins instead with this is better part, and the contrast first that he gives, and then he goes on to give us the rest of the story to illustrate the lesson.

Let's look at it.

So the contrast he gives is between a poor, wise youth and an old, foolish king, and, by the way, some people take that to be two different characters.

I take this to mean this is one and the same guy.

The young wise youth becomes the old foolish king, solomon says.

He says I saw all this happen.

I'm watching this.

Though the wise man grew up, and though he landed himself in prison, he ended up being low and behold the king.

Who would have ever thought?

I mean, this is a true rags to riches story?

And he goes from obscurity to royalty.

Who would have thought that possible?

So this young king, he said, had a large empire and he had therefore great influence.

He had a lot of people he says in verse 16, there was no end to all the people, all of whom he led Great influence.

But after being in that position for a number of years, he lost the most important thing he needed to be effective.

What was it?

The willingness to listen to the advice of other people.

That was his downfall, and the result is no one liked him anymore.

Though they were being led by him, they didn't care for him.

That's what they he's making.

This point, solomon's point, is terrible, then, to stop being teachable.

Are you teachable?

This morning Story here he gives us should be a warning for all of us, basically just not to be so full of ourselves, like that old king who was unwilling to hear what others have to say.

In fact, I would say being teachable is the most important life skill that you could ever learn.

Proverbs 13, verse 22, says refuse good advice and watch your plans fail.

Proverbs 13:22

Take good counsel and watch them succeed.

I was looking at a blog by a guy named Dave Murray and he wrote on this subject.

He tells us what unteachability looks like.

Take it the opposite.

What is unteachability?

That's not all you got to word, but this is what he coined to tell us what the opposite looks like.

Here's what it looks like according to Dave.

He says don't take notes, read books or learn anything unless it's the bare minimum or what's essential for exam purposes.

Don't ask questions or attempt anything that might reveal your ignorance or risk you looking stupid.

Don't accept responsibility for your failures but blame anyone and everyone else.

Don't seek or accept one-to-one personal guidance or mentoring from parents, teachers, pastors, elders.

Don't talk, but talk.

Talk.

Talk about yourself, especially when you're with someone you can learn a lot from.

Don't take criticism or correction without resentment or retaliation.

Resist, moving out of personal comfort zones and on work, study, ministry or relationships, but always look for the easy and familiar route.

Don't read, listen to or learn anything that challenges existing presuppositions, practices and prejudices.

That's being unteachable.

There's another word for it about teachability.

It's called humility.

Humility.

So he tells a story, and you know what I think about this story.

Also, it's not just for those who need to be teachable, which is all of us, but it's about the young person too, who has something to offer when we don't think they do.

This is an encouragement to young folks, really, because they can bring a lot of wisdom to the table.

That's what this young man brought, and so we need to affirm that and value their contribution to God's kingdom.

And we have such a great group of young folks here and they're actually putting themselves into ministry.

You ought to be thankful for that.

They bring good things to our church body.

Well, let's finish up by going to this, the middle of the passage which we skipped over verses seven through 12.

We see a final problem that Solomon observed in this fallen world that we can learn from, and that is aloneness.

Aloneness, he says in verse seven again, I saw vanity under the sun, one person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asked for whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?

This also is vanity and an unhappy business.

Verse eight literally reads there is one and not a second.

There is one and not a second.

So this is not a feeling about being lonely.

It's about a choice to be on your own, to do things independently and in isolation from everybody else, thinking I can do this by myself.

And we kind of pride ourselves in that in America, don't we?

It's like we call it rugged individualism and they're like way to go, way to go.

Well, that's not necessarily what God would say.

Solomon sees this time this solitary individual who he's working only for himself, not for the benefit or blessing of anybody else.

And so this guy you think about this.

This is a guy who maybe works 60, 70, 80 hours a week, but he doesn't do it for anybody.

He has nobody, he's just working, he's working, working, working.

He's in the rat race, but he doesn't really need to be.

And so he's just working and he's putting all his money and mutual funds and everything else.

And Solomon says for what?

Why in the world he doesn't have any purpose to his work.

He has all this stuff that he buys and he stores it in his garage, but for what purpose?

And he never stops.

He says he never stops and asks why am I doing this?

And that's a deception.

And the deception, what does it cause him?

It causes him to be so busy.

He doesn't ever make any friends or maybe even start a family.

He's on his own.

There's no really clue as to whether this guy is married, or maybe he's just a bachelor, who knows?

But he hasn't any time for anyone else.

He's making really costly sacrifices for wealth and really what we could say is money is his only friend.

Know anybody like that?

Solomon's clear, he said this makes for a really unhappy life.

You know I was thinking of when I was working through this.

I was thinking of the old recluse Howard Hughes, and many of you may not know him, but many do.

He was a billionaire who, back in the 20s, he had so much of the world's wealth but he died alone, and some of these things that you find out about Howard Hughes are amazing.

His life, by the way, was portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie the Aviator in 19 or 2004.

And so, for Howard Hughes, his life was really amazing.

He was a brilliant guy and from 1927 to the 47, he became a really successful film producer and an aviation magnet.

He was well respected around the world.

But he suffered from one little thing.

He suffered from what we call OCD obsessive-compulsive disorder and over the years that began to get worse and worse until he started to defect him and he started to isolate himself and he had this intense phobia by the way of germs.

So he did all kinds of stuff.

He would get in his hotel room, he would pull the shades and be in a darkened room.

He'd watch movies 24 hours a day, seven days a week, months on end.

But he had enough money.

He could stay in these hotels and pay people just to stay there, but he never left his room.

He died April 5, 1976.

And at the end there's pictures on the internet where it shows him he looks like a homeless guy.

In the earlier pictures he looks like a well-dressed businessman, but they show him with because he had this fear of germs.

He had like boxes on his feet, things on his hand.

He let his fingernails grow long.

He just became really odd.

And the reason he became odd is because he was alone.

He left a big estate $2.5 billion to 11 cousins that he didn't even know.

Working, working, working, but having no one Sad.

I used to work with a guy that I ever, once in a while, I dropped by his office and invited him to lunch, and so many times I'd go in.

He said I can't go.

He said I am, so why not?

And he said I am planning out what I'm going to buy with my next paycheck and I thought, hmm, okay.

So in contrast to this drivenness you remember, there's contrast on all these Solomon tells us that companionship is better than being and doing life alone.

That's why we meet here, folks.

That's why people that are not here are losing out, but they don't sometimes even know it, and that's why we need to reach out to them and invite them back.

So you need to be in community.

You don't know what this does when you're not together.

God does things here, folks, when you're here, that he doesn't do anyplace else.

When we have communion, we have baptism, god works and he gives things to us that we cannot get any other way.

So, like this, every Batman needs a Robin, every Sherlock needs a Dr Watson, every Calvin needs a Hobbes, every Frodo needs a Sam, every poo needs a Tigger, every Tarzan needs a Jane, every burger needs fry.

Oh sorry, I'm getting a little close to lunch so I didn't mean to say that.

One but two are better than one.

That's the title of this message.

Two are better than one.

Solomon gives us four advantages to this.

Look at them.

Let's look at them one by one.

The first one is why is two better than one?

In verse nine, because they are more productive in their work.

When you've got two people, he says, they have a good reward for their toil.

So we have a cleaning business on the side.

And when I have to, for one reason or another, or my wife or my daughter goes and has to do that by themselves.

It takes three times as long or maybe longer.

But when we do it together as a team, it gets done faster and we make more money.

Simple, two are better than one.

One reason, he says, is because they can help each other in times of trouble, he says, for if they fall, one will lift up his fellow, but woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up.

You know, I was so thankful when both of my parents, at different times, went through cancer and we cared for them.

But it was a whole lot easier because everyone in the family pitched in and we had a rotating schedule, so it wasn't too heavy on anyone.

This is what he's saying.

In times of trouble, when you have someone to count on, who can pick you up when they need a ride or to help you with a project or do things that you just need help on, you can't do by yourself, it's good to have a friend, good to have a friend.

And the third reason two are better than one, he says, is because another person can help you literally survive.

If two lie together, he says, they keep warm.

But how can one keep warm alone?

You know, that may make us think about marriage, but it's really about something else.

It's about like a traveler out walking the open road, and in that day, if you got caught out in the open fields or open on the open road, guess what?

When it got to be nighttime, you could freeze to death, it would get cold.

And so you know, I think, thinking about someone who has got a friend, you could kind of get back to back and you could stay warm, you could survive.

But it's also true about marriage.

If you're privileged to have a maid, you know, when Nikki and Ollie down at night, she says you are like a furnace and I'm hot, you're making me hot.

So that's not what I'm talking about.

But guess what?

When you have another person to help you survive, that just doesn't mean physically.

It can be spiritually too.

When you're cold in your heart, when you need people to warm your soul for the Lord, and it's just you have a cold heart, guess what?

Somebody comes alongside you and puts their arm around you and says it's not as bad as you think.

There's another day.

This was today, but tomorrow's coming.

There's new mercies tomorrow.

Things like that.

It can warm you up.

Solomon knew what he was talking about.

Being cold, though, is not the only danger that people faced on the open road.

Very often there were dangerous people out there.

If you got caught out there, we know the story of the prodigal son, the good Samaritan Thank you, patty the good Samaritan who got beat up on the road, and there was only one guy who stopped to help.

Solomon says this is a force less than why.

Two are better than one, because they can protect each other, he says, and though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him their safety in numbers.

Including somebody else in your life, it means that defeat, whatever that means to you, is far less likely to take up for you, to defend you, to watch out for you, to tell you things that, if you didn't know them, might harm you.

That's what a true friend does, because not everybody will tell you the truth, honestly, that you need to know.

In fact, you could probably count on one hand today if I said who are your closest friends that you could tell anything to, and they wouldn't judge you.

There wouldn't be many.

David had one.

His name was Jonathan, king David.

But we need our close friends.

And so we see what Solomon saw.

All these things observing oppression where there is no comforter, observing envy where there's no rest, observing aloneliness and our aloneness where there's no one to help.

Observing arrogance where there's no longer any influence, and all these examples are simply about individualism.

It's about trying to live life by yourself.

To be sure, two are better than one.

Someone said JC Lowe Baxter that one of the saddest ironies is the proud folly by which successive generations of human beings commit the same sins, repeat the same blunders, fall prey to the same sins, repeat the same agonizing disillusionments as those who have lived and died before them all because they do not take to heart such a testimony as that of Coaleth Coaleth being Solomon, just a different name.

What they're saying is we don't take God's wisdom to heart and we sometimes think the way the world thinks, and so we go through the pain over and over and over again.

This is life under the sun.

And you know what, as I said, if this is all there is, then life would be pretty miserable.

I mean, this would be this.

It would stink, right, life would stink if this is all there was.

But Solomon adds a footnote, doesn't he?

To the point he makes.

He says a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

The best scenario when life gets hard is not to just have two, it's to have three, it's to have more people on your team, and there's more strength.

There's strength that's added, there's wisdom that's added.

You know what I think of this?

It could be people, but I think of somebody else.

I think of a person.

The Bible says that there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother, and the best friend of all is Jesus Christ.

It's Jesus Christ.

He is the friend of sinners.

He will be your best friend.

Philip Reichen reminds us, as we finish here, what Jesus himself said that we're not simply his servants but truly his friends.

We find the greatest reward when we work in partnership with him, relying on his grace to help us with every difficult task and asking for his blessing to take what we do, in all of its weakness, and use it for his glory.

When our hearts are cold, jesus wraps us in the arms of his love to warm us up again.

When we fall down, he picks us up, reminding us that our sins really are forgiven and that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, he can help us stand.

When we're in desperate danger, fighting against the very powers of hell, jesus defends us and rescues us not just by his death, but also the power of his eternal life.

See, jesus is the friend you and I need most of all Just to ask you this morning have you made him his friend this morning?

Has he made you his friend?

Are you a friend of Jesus?

Two really are better than one when one of the two is the best one of all.

Amen, that's right, father.

Thank you for your word this morning and the reminder that two are better than one, that you are our champion, you are our friend.

Lord, I pray for every person this morning who is discouraged and feeling like they're alone, feel like they've been treated or mistreated by another person.

Lord, for those who want what they don't have and are yet still trusting and not yet satisfied with you and what you give.

Lord, we just thank you for what you are going to do in each person's life.

Lord, as we hear your Holy Spirit speak to us about these things, we ask it in the name of Jesus, amen.