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"Behold, all is vanity!" Ecclesiastes 1:14
Nothing can fully satisfy a personbut the Lord's love and the Lord's own self. Christians have tried other pursuitsbut they have been driven out of such fatal refuges.
Solomon, the wisest of men, was permitted to make experiments for us all; and to do for uswhat we must not dare to do for ourselves. Here is his testimony in his own words, "So I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I denied myself nothing my eyes desired. I refused my heart no pleasure. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind! Nothing was gained under the sun!" "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!"
What! Is the whole of it meaningless? O favored monarchis there nothing in all your wealth? Nothing in that wide dominion reaching from the river even to the sea? Nothing in your glorious palaces? Is there nothingin all your music and dancing, and wine and luxury? "Nothing!" he says, "but a chasing after the wind!" This was his final verdictafter he had trodden the whole round of pleasure.
To embrace our Lord Jesus, to dwell in His love, and be fully assured of union with Himthis is all in all. Dear reader, you need not try other forms of pleasure in order to see whether they are better than Christ. If you roam the whole worldyou will see no sights like a sight of the Savior's face! If you could have all the comforts of lifewithout the Savior, you would be most wretched. But if you possess Christthough you should rot in a dungeonyou would find it a paradise! Though you should live in obscurity, or die with famineyet you would be satisfied with the favor and goodness of the Lord!
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