Most people in America have a basic dissatisfaction about their lives. This dissatisfaction manifests itself in many ways. People are dissatisfied with how they LOOK. There are those who think that they are too heavy. Or others who think that they are too skinny. And so they work out and apply cosmetics and nip and tuck and attempt to change their outward appearance. They join spas and they go to beauty salons and they adorn themselves in the most up-to-date styles, all in an attempt to look better.

People are also dissatisfied with what they KNOW. We have entered the communications age. We are bombarded with information in books and newspapers and magazines and television and E-mail and Internet.

People are also dissatisfied with what they HAVE. Merely look at how many lottery tickets are purchased each day, each purchaser hoping that he or she will strike it rich so that they can have more money to obtain more stuff.

People are also dissatisfied with their RELATIONSHIPS or the lack of them. There are single people want to be married and married people want to be single.

And people are dissatisfied by what they DO. Most people are not particularly happy in the jobs and careers in which they find themselves. It isn't merely a matter of how much money they are paid. Most people find themselves working at jobs which they feel don't really matter.

There was once a man like that. A man who sought to find satisfaction in himself, in his possessions, in his relationships and in his accomplishments. His name was Solomon.

We already know what became of his search for satisfaction. Solomon presented his thesis statement in verse 2 - that all is vanity- all is emptiness. Now he proceeds to prove his statement through his own experiences.

When Solomon was a lot younger, he had an encounter with God. God appeared to him one night in a dream and told him, "You ask me whatever you want and I will give it to you." What a deal! To be given anything, no matter how big! For what would you ask? What is you heart's desire?

Solomon asked for wisdom. He asked for "an understanding heart" to be able to lead the people of God and to be able to discern between good and evil (1 Kings 3:9).

The Lord commended his choice. The Lord said to him, "You could have chosen wealth or a long life or conquest over your enemies, but you didn't. And because you asked for wisdom, I am not only going to make you the wisest man of all, but I am going to give to you all of those other things as a bonus."

Solomon took that wisdom which was given to him by God and he worked it. He set out upon an intellectual journey to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven (1:13). He looked and he studied and he thought and he pondered. What did he find? He found that rationalism ultimately has no answers that satisfy. It is all empty. If intellectualism brought fulfillment, then our colleges and universities would be "Camelots" of peace. But it isn't so. Knowledge doesn't make you happier. It has just the opposite effect. It brings grief (Verse 18). Increasing knowledge results in increasing pain (1:18).

The next thing that Solomon did was to invest in the pleasures of life. That is the slogan of today's lifestyle - "If it feels good, do it!" That is the message given in our advertisements and in our commercials. You only go around once, so eat, drink and be merry! The technical term for this is HEDONISM.

Solomon tried pleasure. He tried comedians. He tried laughter. And he even livened it up with the best of wines. He ate and he drank and he tried to be merry. He was an ancient man with a modern lifestyle. But it was all to no avail. There are several lessons that we can learn from Solomon's experiences:

1. Sensual pleasures make promises that lack staying power.

• Drugs

• Sex

• Alcohol

2. Sensual pleasures offer to open your eyes, but in reality they blind us.

3. Sensual pleasures disillusion us, making us cover-up artists.

1. The Accomplishments of Possessions.

2. The Accomplishments of Wealth.

3. The Accomplishments of Present Enjoyments.

4. The Emptiness of Accomplishments.

In case you hadn't already noticed, Ecclesiastes uses the term "wisdom" and "wise" in a way that is different from the way in which it is used in Proverbs.

Ecclesiastes is not talking about God's wisdom. This is wisdom "under the sun." This is the wisdom of the world. This is the wisdom of Albert Einstein and of Isaac Newton and of Plato and Aristotle and Carl Sagan and David Thoreau and Spinoza.

Solomon had made it his life's ambition to be WISE. He reasoned that it is better to be wise than to be a fool. A wise man looks to see where he is going while a fool is blinded by his foolishness.

Is it better to be wise of foolish? Is it better to be known as a serious intellectual or as a fun-loving party animal? Is it better to go through life with your head in a book, or with your head in a buzz?

The short term answer is obvious. The person who seeks after wisdom lives in a world where the lights have been turned on - where "light excels darkness." Only a fool operates in a dark room.

But in the final analysis, they both end up in the same place. Both the fool and the wise man eventually die and end up in the grave.

Solomon realized that the same thing happens to the wise man that happens to the fool. It doesn't matter if you have an I.Q. of 60 or 160. In each case, you are born and you live and then you die. The fool doesn't live any longer than the wise man. Neither escapes death.

And when you die, you are quickly forgotten. Before my own father died, I came across some old family pictures. There was one with the name inscribed on the back - Joel Armour Stevenson. I believe it to be my father's grandfather. But when I asked him about it, he couldn't remember. In the space of two generations, a man and his wife who had borne four children had been forgotten so that their own grandchildren couldn't even remember their names.

Solomon's disillusionment turned to bitterness. He "hated life" (2:17). He found himself hating all of his accomplishments. They mocked him because he realized that they would not last.

Go to Israel today and visit Jerusalem. Where is Solomon's Temple? Where are the magnificent palaces? Where are the rich stables? It has all been destroyed. Only some of the weathered foundation stones remain for the rummaging of grey-haired archaeologists.

Solomon realizes that, no matter what he has collected or built or accomplished, he will have to leave it all behind when he dies. You will never see a hearse with a U-Haul. But that is not the worst of it. To make matters worse, you do not really know if the person to whom you leave all of your inheritance will be deserving of that inheritance.

It doesn't matter that you have acted wisely in whatever you have built and in whatever you have invested your time and effort and finances. There is no guarantee that the person to whom you leave it will act wise or whether he will squander it.

Indeed, Solomon will spend 40 years in building a united kingdom of Israel and making it into the premier nation of the world of that day. It will take his son, Rehoboam, only a few months to tear apart the nation. At Solomon's death, Rehoboam will meet with the elders of Israel and he will act so badly that 10 of the tribes of Israel will secede from the union.

But that is not all. A few years later Egypt will invade Rehoboam's weakened kingdom and he will attempt to bribe the Egyptians by stripping off the gold from the Temple that Solomon had built.

As a result, Solomon says that he came to hate the fruit of his labor for which he had labored. There is a lesson here. It is that the fruit of your labor will not endure. The only thing that will last is the fruit of the Spirit.

From where are you seeking fruit? What are you sowing? What kind of seed are you planting? If you only look at life "under the sun" then the only fruit you will enjoy will be the fruit of your own labor. Solomon has shown what will happen to such fruit. It will be passed to another and you don't even have a guarantee as to whether he will make a full use of it or merely throw it away. It is only the fruit of the Spirit that will endure.

Solomon's conclusion is a gloomy one for those who would find significance for life "under the sun." His conclusion it that this is as good as it gets. He concludes that "there is nothing better" - literally, "not good for a man except to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good."

• Man has only limited enjoyment from the things that he does. That has been the conclusion of each of Solomon's experiences. These things do give pleasure, but only for a time.

• If a man who had everything there was to have in this plane of existence investigated everything that there was to investigate and still came back with emptiness, then fulfillment must lie on a different plane.

• Satisfaction is a gift from God. It is only when the Lord enters the picture that a man can find fulfillment in any of his labors. When you place God first in your life and serve Him with all that you do, only then do you find true and lasting satisfaction.