Solomon closes the book of Ecclesiastes with these words. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.

Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. Each of us have been given only one life. What will we do

with it? Life. It's not a game. And in this journey through the book of Ecclesiastes,

Scott Pauley will guide us to better understand the true meaning of life.

I love to laugh. Recently, I was talking with a friend, and I don't even remember exactly what we got off on, but the conversation turned to laughter. It was a good reminder to me because

life gets serious, days can get heavy, but you don't want to lose your laughter. It was a good reminder to me because life gets serious, days can get heavy,

but you don't want to lose your laughter. You know, they say that the average child laughs 300 times a

day, and the average adult laughs 17 times a day. What happens to us? What happens to the simplicity

and sincerity of childhood?

For sure, we grow, we mature in our understanding and experiences start to define the way

we look at things, but there's a tenderness and a joy that you don't want to lose.

You want to add adulthood to childhood, but don't lose all the childlikeness in your

adulthood.

And sometimes on sad days, it's easy to lose a glad heart.

There are lots of joy stealers in this world, and so you've got to guard that.

But I want to say today, as we return to Ecclesiastes chapter number seven, that not all laughter is good.

In fact, not all laughter is of God.

We're living in a world right now where people are laughing their way to hell,

where they're sitting watching things and listening to things that they ought to be broken over,

they ought to mourn over, and instead they're laughing about it. They're making light of things that are heavy things. And that's why Solomon wrote beginning in Ecclesiasties

7 and verse number three, sorrow is better than laughter. For by the sadness of the countenance,

the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,

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