Ecc 5:14-17 | KingComments | STEP | If a man sticks to his money with his heart, his thirst for money cannot be quenched ( ). For such a person, money is his idol, the mammon, the god of wealth ( ). Money is a good slave, but a bad master. Whoever has the money as his master, is hunted by his desire for always more. His love for money controls and destroys him ( ). The same goes for loving abundance. He who sticks to abundance with his heart, always wants to have more income. He wants an increasing bank balance, more and more real estate, an increasing harvest by having more lands. Solomon points to the vanity of money and income. He is going to explain the vanity, the emptiness of money and income in the following verses. The Lord Jesus lifts this subject to a higher level when He says to a man who is risking to lose his inheritance: “Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions” ( ). He who has a lot of goods, has a lot of friends ( ) or as Solomon already said in the book of Proverbs: “Those who love the rich are many” ( ). The more wealth, the more profiteers. Also all kinds of charitable organizations know how to find you and always appeal to your possessions. You have to deal with a lot of nagging of people. You also have to leave the control of your goods to others. You cannot possibly control that all by yourself. But are you well aware that those whom you’ve entrusted your possessions to, may clean you out? They control your possessions in such a way that you yourself cannot get a hold of it and they profit from it. You look at it, but in fact you’ve lost the enjoyment of it. The only profit you have is the thought that it is your property. Money makes clear that money does not satisfy. It attracts people who want to hitch a ride on your wealth and want to parasitize, quite disrupting the peace in your life. Poverty may cause problems, but do not think that the love for money is a good solution for those problems. Just look at “the working man”, the hard worker, with a simple profession, a low income with no possession ( ). This man does not have any of those problems. He who is without possessions, is without worries, in any case no worries about his properties and therefore also no people who are whining his head off in order to get some of his abundance. He is not worrying about whether he has little or much to eat, for he always has enough. At the end of the day he falls asleep. And his “sleep … is pleasant”. He has no nightmares; there is also nothing he is fretting and tossing about. That is quite different from the effect that “the abundance” or multitude of goods has on the rich man. A rich man has a lot to eat and does so too. He stuffs himself so much that it makes him nauseous so that he cannot sleep. Excess harms. Another thought is that he is worried about how to maintain and increase his abundance. He is controlled by it ( ) and frets over it, with the result that it “does not allow him to sleep”. The more riches, the less night’s rest. A lot of worries, little sleep. The big bed with the best mattress does not give him the ‘pleasant sleep’ the working man has who is lying down on the sack of straw. One does not need money to be happy. Just look at the working man. He eats his bread by the sweat of his face. Working hard also ensures a good digestion. He who only organizes dinners in order to get large orders, gets fatter and fatter and more and more restless. The fitness clubs love to welcome such people. One of the reasons of the existence of those clubs is that people become too fat by too much and wrong eating. It is an example of symptom treatment. The life style is not changed, but the results of the wrong life style is being treated. It is trying to empty the ocean with a thimble. The following story may serve as an illustration: A rich industrialist met a simple fisherman. The rich man was bothered by the fact that on a sunny afternoon the fisherman leaned backward in his boat, while his feet were dangling overboard. ‘Why aren’t you fishing?’ he asked. ‘Because I have caught enough fish for today’, the fisherman replied. ‘Why do you not go catch more fish?’ asked the rich man. ‘What should I do with it?’ ‘You could make more money’, said the rich man, who was becoming more impatient, ‘and buy a better boat, so that you can go deeper fishing and catch more fish. You can buy nylon nets and catch even more fish and make even more money. Then you can buy more boats and hire others to help you fish. You would soon have a fleet of boats and be as rich as I am!’ ‘And what should I do then?’ ‘You could sit down and enjoy life’, the industrialist said. ‘What do you think I’m doing now?’ the fisherman replied and looked out over the sea. There are more disadvantages connected to riches than just insomnia by exuberance or worries. One of them is that the hoarding of riches is for the owners “to their hurt” ( ). The Preacher calls it “a grievous evil”. It is an evil that makes one sick, and it is also an evil that comes upon the owner. It makes you sick from the sickness that riches cause. The owner of riches becomes sick when he eats too much of his riches and gets stomach ache with the result that he cannot sleep ( ). But it could also be the other way around, which is that the wealth eats him up. He gets sick with the idea that he could lose his riches just like that, for example by theft, a wrong speculation or a thoughtless investment. He protects his riches anxiously, while he realizes that he has no absolute guarantee that his safety locks, alarm systems, cameras and hired security guards, rule out theft. Paul states the same warning and deepens it because he connects riches with faith: “But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” ( ). In it is about cases in which someone was rich, but who lost his riches. That happened “through a bad investment” ( ), whether by others or by himself. Others might have robbed him. He may also try to cheat others in order to enrich himself and therefore got financially wrecked for example by theft or fraud or a sudden change of circumstances. In this way riches may get wings and just disappear. You are a mere spectator and can do nothing about it or get anything back. This verse contains a lot of frustration. It is about a man who has worked long and hard, and has lost everything in one go. He and his family are destitute. An extra frustration is that he cannot leave his son anything. During his life, his riches has not done him any good. He has not been able to enjoy it, he has lost everything, and he cannot give anything to the son he has fathered. It delivers him a triple frustration. This evil cannot happen to us with regard to the treasures that we have gathered in heaven. Evil practices cannot rob us from them. There is no thief that can get there ( ). Therefore it is a good thing to invest in the heavenly things. Apart from the loss of riches and health and getting a disease and frustration, one cannot take anything with him at the end of the journey either. What a foolishness it is to work for riches, the striving for it and trying to pocket as much of it as possible. Every man leaves the world as he came into it: naked ( ). Even if he had his coffin made of gold and his hands filled with money when he is in the coffin, it would not do him any good. He is lying dead and stiff in his coffin and there is nothing left “that he can carry in his hand”. This awareness must put a stop to a man’s pursuit for wealth. What a man had in his hand at birth was the capital he brought into the world: nothing. In the same way he leaves the world again ( ; ; ). It is as the saying says: There are no pockets in a shroud. We cannot take anything to heaven. However, we can send our treasures ahead by giving away as much as possible for what promotes God’s work on earth. If the thought pervades that a person will “return as he has come”, i.e. with nothing in his hand, it is “also a grievous evil” ( ). He has to grudgingly accept that this is reality, but he does not get around to it to agree that all the riches a person possesses under the sun, will end up being nothing at all. He must be aware that making an effort to become rich is equal to toiling for wind that cannot be held either. It takes more than that to agree that it is so and that is the understanding that any increase in money and goods during life will not bring anyone anything for eternity. strengthens the conclusion of by recalling all the efforts and hardships that man has made to acquire his possessions, which he has now lost again. Concentrating on his wealth – both on its growth and its loss – has led him to a sad, shady life, “in darkness”, without any prospect of joy. He can sit in full daylight and yet in darkness because his heart is darkness. He has not been able to enjoy the full light. Physically, he didn’t fare well either. His mind and heart have been torn apart by his wealth. He was also upset about the lack of results or losses on the stock market, about the sometimes low return on his money. What annoyance he felt when he saw his wealth evaporate.