Good evening and welcome to our midweek Bible study. On Thursday nights, we're going through the Bible,

book by book, and chapter by chapter, and verse by verse. And tonight, we are in the book of

Ecclesiastes last week. We finished chapter one. We're going to pick it up tonight, and Lord

willing make it through chapter two. So I'll invite you to turn there in your Bibles

for those of you that are online, and for those of you here, you're probably already there.

So again, really looking forward to what the Lord has for us tonight.

As we make our way through chapter two, it's going to become abundantly

clear that Solomon is learning the hard way. I don't know if you, this is going to date me

for you younger people. This, you have no idea. I think it was back in the 70s. I don't know if you, this is going to date me for you, younger people, this you have no idea.

I think it was back in the 70s.

I don't know if you remember the Fram oil commercial, oil filter commercial, where the guy

would get on TV and he would hold up this Fram oil filter and he would say, you can pay me now or you can pay me later.

Oh, you do remember that.

That has stuck with me all these years because the whole point was you can pay me now for this filter way more better, more better, or you can pay me later

when it's going to be way more expensive because you're going to be paying for a new engine.

So there's the easy way and there's the hard way. And I don't know what it is, and I'll speak for myself, but I have to learn

the hard way, and I have the scars to prove it. Oh, I wish that maybe you're different. If you are,

praise the Lord, you're saving yourself a lot of heartache, a lot of

misery, a lot of problems, a lot of trouble, but there are just some of us that have to learn

the hard way. And such is the case with Solomon. Sometimes, really I would even venture to say most of the time, we only learn by suffering the consequences of our sin and our folly and the emptiness that will always ensue.

And it's almost like we have to go through it.

You know, here God is saying, don't do that, I'm trying to save you from unnecessary and needless pain and suffering. So don't

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