Filling the Hole in our Lives

I want to talk about Mr. Riches' lead-in to the sermon here. Because, you know, when we lose someone who we know very well, and it's a sad time, and we reflect on their lives and the example that they set before us. And we reflect, I hope, on life as well, and that we recognize what God has given us. You know, I recall verses where David, you know, when he was alone and he could spend time thinking, he would talk about, you know, how carefully and wonderfully made we are. And, you know, we take our bodies for granted, and our bodies go through an awfully lot, and we just kind of do whatever we will with them, and they still are so carefully and wonderfully made that they last despite what we do with them and what we put in them. 70, 80, 90 years, you know, if God allows that amount of time for us. Fearfully and wonderfully, fearfully and wonderfully made. As David would muse, and he would look up at these stars in the heavens, and he would look and contemplate what is up there and how great God is that all these stars and all these, all the things in the firmament were up there, he realized there was God. There is a God, and he used that experience in life to draw him even closer to God. And I hope maybe we take the time in a very busy world to just stop and smell the roses, if you will, that we will see God and not get so involved in all the busyness of life and all the things that can consume our time, the Facebooks and the texts and the TV and the movies and the video games and things that we can kind of lull ourselves to sleep and just dull our senses totally if we just never take the time to just experience and to contemplate and to think about what God has done and what he's put in all of our lives and who he is.

And I hope all of us think about and realize the potential that God has given us.

You know, David talked about the potential of man, and he said, What is man? What is man that you're mindful of him? What are we doing here on earth? Just physical human beings who live and die and return to dust again. What is man, God, that you are mindful of him? And in Hebrews 2, you know, let's go back to Hebrews 2 and read what it says there.

Hebrews 2 and verse 6. The author of Hebrews, quoting here from the Psalm that David wrote that in in verse 6, he says, What is man that you are mindful of him or the Son of man that you take care of him? What is so important about us? In the scope of things, it would seem like we are insignificant to God and really more trouble to him than we're worth. You've made him a little lower than the angels. You crowned him with glory and honor and set him over the works of your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet. He created us. He created this earth. He created this earth so that we would be on it. And he gave us dominion over the earth. He gave mankind dominion over the earth. And, you know, so much more as we see, as we see what the potential for man is in this time that he's given us on this physical earth. Going on in verse 8, it says, For in that he put all subjection under him. He left nothing that is not put under him. Nothing.

But now we do not yet see all things put under him. Not yet. Not while we're still human beings, not while still God is perfecting us and changing us and seeing what choices we will make and see, do we really count important? Is it really at the forefront of our minds as if we're overriding things as we go about our daily business, as we work, as we play, as we recreate, as we're on the internet, as we go to school, as we work with our neighborhoods and work with people? Do we realize what God has called us to? We don't yet see all things put under him. We should be mindful of it. It should spur us on. It should give us reasons and the incentive we need to make the choices for God that we need to make every day. But we see Jesus, who is made a little lower than the angels, just like you and me. Flesh and blood, we see Jesus, who is made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, might test death for everyone. He was the forerunner.

He was made a little lower than the angels, but now when he's resurrected, the angels are subject to him. The same potential, the same thing that God has in mind for us. Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 3, when he's talking about going to court with your brothers, and he says, can't you just judge these matters yourself? You're the people of God. You know what right and wrong is.

You can judge these things. You don't need the court, the law, the land involved. Use God's law to do these things. Let me not just quote. Let's go back and look at 1 Corinthians 6, verse 3.

But he reminds the Corinthians, and he reminds us in that chapter, who we are, who we are, what potential that God has for us. 1 Corinthians 6, verse 3, don't you know that we shall judge angels? Don't you know that? Don't you remember it? Don't you realize it? Don't you get it? I asked our teens today, and I asked our parents now, and I asked the teens, do we remember that? Do they know what potential God has in mind for every single person in this room, every single person, regardless of their age, every single person?

Are we mindful of that? Do we make sure in our families we're teaching that, that our kids know who they are, how important they are to God? Are we asking and teaching them that the potential that they have is far greater than anything in this life that this world can offer? We want them to be successors, and they will be if they follow God's way. He promises that if we follow Him, blessings will come upon us. He never promises that there's never going to be any trials, never any temptations, never anything like that, but as long as we choose God, we learn from everything, we get stronger, God will provide.

He wants us to be the best at what we can be. In fact, He commands it, right? In Ecclesiastes 9, too, He says, whatever your hand finds to do, whatever, whether it's baseball, whether it's reading, whether it's engineering, whether whatever it is, do it with your might. Do it to the best of your ability. He doesn't say, just slack off and only think about me. Do it to Him. Do it to His glory. In 1 Corinthians 10, verse 31, it says, whatever you eat, whatever you drink, whatever you do, do it to the glory of God.

That's the potential that He's put in us. It has physical meaning, and it has spiritual ramifications as well. God made man with everything we need. You know, you look at man and you marvel at the nature in man. You see the desire that God put in man, the desire to achieve. I mean, we live in that's just absolutely astounding. You know, this morning I was printing my sermon off on a wireless printer, and I thought, how does that work? Here I am two or three rooms away. I push a button in the other room. Something is printing off, and I thought, my mind doesn't even conceive of that.

But somewhere along the line, someone thought, I'll bet we can make this thing print here, and in another room without any wires, it prints. Little things amaze me. I'm sure our young people think I'm pretty simple, and I am in technology. But the more I learn, the more fascinated I become. Mankind, God has equipped us with so many things. He's equipped with physical potential. He's given us the nature of self-preservation. We know how to provide for ourselves in the world.

He teaches us how, and we ultimately look to Him to provide for us. He sustains us, but we learn how to sustain ourselves. He's put within us creative abilities. He's given us all talents.

He's given us all abilities. They vary. Not everyone has it. That's what makes the world go around, right? Everyone's got a different talent and ability. He expects us to use those things, and it's fun when we use those things and we see what happens to us. You know another thing that God has put in every heart of every man in every society that ever has listed, ever existed? He's put within them the knowledge that they need a higher power. Every society has gods. You know, we were over in Greece.

You know, I marveled at the stories that came about, and they would talk about their gods, and I thought, how could those people have ever believed that? But they needed to know there was something beyond them, something beyond just who they were. And even those stories seem ludicrous to us today. They believed and they had to have a God that superseded them because they knew that they were insufficient of themselves.

Of themselves, they knew they lived the 70, 80, 90 years that God gave. There must be something greater. And every society that has ever existed has looked for a God, something that they could say is greater than me. Today we have the same things, you know? We have churches that teach a different Jesus than we know, that teach a different God than we know, and yet they look and say, this is our God. This is our God. This is who we will follow. And even people that don't want to believe in God, you know, they have a God.

There's atheists out there, and they make themselves God. We don't believe in God, but you know what? They've done the same thing that Satan said he would do. I'll make myself God. There's something better than that. You know, we have people that look at horoscopes. We have people that go to fortune tellers and psychics. They're looking to something. There's something beyond who they are. Every single society has wanted and looked for that. They are searching for God.

We are a blessed people. We are a blessed people because we know the real true God.

And that sets us apart and gives us something that no one else in the world accepts God's people have. And that is a sense of satisfaction that they can't possibly know. Because they keep searching. They keep looking to fill a void in their lives that God put there. He put that there in them. They know there's something beyond the physical life that we have, but they don't know what it is. You and I know. You and I know what it is. Let's go back and look at Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 3. A very wise man, you know, a very wise man who God gave so much to, but he made decisions in his life that led him to lose everything that God had given him. But let's look at what he said here in this book that he wrote near the end of his life.

In Ecclesiastes 3, this chapter is known for beginning with there's a time for every season, but let's look down to chapter here in verse 10. Ecclesiastes 3 and verse 10. Solomon writes, I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity in their hearts. He's put eternity in their hearts. They know there's something beyond this physical life. They just don't know what.

And they grasp. And they search. And they try to fill that quest within them in a number of different ways. He's put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. mankind can't find it out of himself.

You didn't find it out for yourself. I didn't find it out for myself. Only when God opens our minds do we get it. Only then do we understand what eternity is. Only then do we get what He's saying.

Solomon goes on and says, I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice and to do good in their lives, and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all of his labor. It's the gift of God. God gives us the gifts. He's given you and I all those gifts, and He's given us so much more. We know what eternity is. We know what the answer to those things is. Verse 14, I know that whatever God does, it will be forever. Nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken from it. God does it that men should fear before Him. That we fear before Him, that we are in awe of Him, that we would follow Him, because when we find and learn what God has given us, it is a tremendous, tremendous gift. Before we knew the truth of God, we were unsettled.

Life was not complete. When we know the truth of God, there's something that happens to us.

We can say what Paul said, no matter what state we're in, we're content.

With godly contentment. When we know God, when we know the truth of God, and when we commit ourselves to follow Him. I want to put a quote. I want to put a quote up on the screen behind me here. I'm going to read it to you. It was written by a French philosopher from the 17th century named Blaise Pascal. This comes from his book, the Pensees. He has a style of writing that many philosophers do. I put it up there so you can contemplate it. We're going to leave it up there for a while. He didn't know the truth of God, but as he thought about life, and as he looked at what man was, and the quest he has for this, this is what he wrote, back 400, 400 years ago. What else is this craving and this helplessness proclaimed but that there was once in man a true happiness of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace?

He knew at one time man was happy. He was complete. And he didn't maybe know Adam and Eve, but we know that in the Garden of Eden there was completeness there. There was unity between man and God and creation until Adam and Eve decided, he decided, I reject God. I'm going my own way and live the life of anything but the peace and happiness and the true happiness that he speaks of. He goes on and he says, This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there, the health he cannot find, and those that are. Keeps searching, keeps looking at everything in life. Is this the answer? Does this fill me up? Does this fill the void that's in my heart and in my mind, in every direction and everything? So none can help since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object. In other words, by God Himself.

Only one way to fill that void. Only one way. And mankind, from the time that Adam and Eve rejected God, decided they were going to choose their own way and leave Him behind, has suffered the same thing. How do we fill this void? And the search for meaning, the search for immortality, the search for what eternity is, goes on and on and on. Among every man, every civilization, from the time of the beginning, and it will continue right until the time that Jesus Christ returns, and He fills that void, just as He and God have filled that void in us.

That we can be at peace, that we can be at home, that we can be, we can have the meaning in our life that none of us should ever take for granted. Because everyone in this room, everyone in this room knows something and feels something that no one outside of God's calling has ever known and experienced. No one. Even Blaise, Blaise Biscall, he knew there was something there, and he knew the answer had to be God. He didn't know what the truth was, but he thought there's only one way to fill it. All of us know the way to fill it. All of us have the answer. Teens, you have the answer.

Young adults, you have the answer. Middle-aged, older people, we have the answer. But filling it with the right stuff is the key to a happy and meaningful life, and that's what we want.

We want a happy and meaningful life. Parents, we want for our children a happy and meaningful life. We don't want to subject them to searching forever what the meaning of life is. We don't want them looking in all the wrong places for some way to fill that void that they have, just like you and I have. You have the answer. They have the answer. But it's our job to make sure we all keep it in the front of us. It's all our jobs that we teach our young people that, and they understand what God has called them to, what their potential is, which is the same potential that you and I have. And if we don't do that as parents, we are sorely, sorely, sorely remissed, sorely remissed. And all of us have fallen short in that in some way, whether our kids are still with us or they have grown. But, you know, God wants us to know He has called us, He has given us this meaning in our lives. It's so important for us to know that we must hold it dear and that we must keep the answer and fill our lives with all the physical quests of life that God says is okay. Well, always with the overriding thing that we follow God and we are His and we let Him lead us and we make the choices for God always. In the book of Ecclesiastes, let's go back to Ecclesiastes 1. You know, Solomon is a tremendous example of someone has the same potential that you and I have. He's no different than any of us. He grew up, if we want to say, in a church household.

His dad believed in God. His dad was David. His mother Bathsheba must have believed the same way because God said, of all the sons of David, Solomon is the one that I want to be king over Israel. He grew up and he had a position that he could have never attained on his own. God gave it to him. The same goal that God has for you and me, right? He wants us to be kings. He wants us to be priests. Every single one in this room has that potential. He says so. The Bible says to Revelation 1.5, Revelation 5.10, that's what he is preparing us for. And the people of God who chose God, in many cases, ended up in physical positions as well as spiritual positions that were higher than they ever could have imagined in their lives. Solomon is one of those. He became king, king over what became the greatest nation on earth at that time, king. But you know, Solomon made some wrong choices along the way. He had it all. It was all right there in the palm of his hands.

But choice by choice by choice, he threw it all away. There were women. He said, you know what? I want the women. I want the wealth. I want to choose this and I want to choose that. And Solomon lost it all. He lost it all. He lost the grace of God. And then at the end of his life, when he should have been filled with meaning because he had the answers, he found himself searching for meaning again. And the book of Ecclesiastes, you can see him searching for meaning. You can see him looking for something that he knew back when he was young, but he threw it away. He threw his way and his life became a waste, if you will. But he left a powerful lesson for us. Let's look at some of the words that he wrote at the end of his life. Ecclesiastes 1, let's pick it up in verse 12.

He says, I, the preacher, was king over Israel and Jerusalem. And I set my heart to seek out and search by wisdom concerning all that's done under heaven, this burdensome task that God has given to the sons of man of which they may be exercised. I wanted to see how it all worked. I had seen all the works that are done under the sun and indeed all his vanity, he says, and grasping for the wind. I first, after the physical, I did all these things. I wanted to know how it all worked, but you know what? At the end of my life, I thought it didn't satisfy me. All that quest of that wisdom didn't satisfy me. I was unfulfilled. What is crooked, he says, can't be made straight and what is lacking cannot be numbered. I communed with my heart, saying, look, I have attained greatness. I've gained more wisdom than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My heart has understood great wisdom and knowledge. And I set my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceive that this also is grasping for the wind. I searched after the things, but I did it apart from God. I determined at the end of my life it was a meaningless waste of time. For in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. Let's drop down to Chapter 2. Here I said in my heart, come now. I'll test you with mirth. It's a noble question. I'm just going to be happy. I'm going to look for everything in the physical life that will make me happy. I'll test you now with mirth. Therefore, enjoy pleasure. But surely I found out after I did that. He had the means and he had the money and he had the position that he could do anything he wanted, anything that he wanted he could have. And he sought for happiness and mirth in all the wrong places. And at the end of his life he said, it was meaningless. It was empty.

It didn't fill what I was looking for. I set a flatter, madness, and a mirth. What does it accomplish? I searched in my heart how to gratify my flesh with wine while guiding my heart with wisdom and how to lay hold on folly till I might see what was good for the sons of man to do under heaven all the days of their lives. I made my works great. I threw my heart and my soul into the physical works of life. I built myself houses, planted myself vineyards. He chased after women and he had a thousand of them. Didn't satisfy them. I made myself gardens and orchards and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made myself water pools from which to water the growing trees of the grove. I acquired male and female servants and had servants born in my house. I had greater possessions of herds and plaques than all who were in Jerusalem before me. And he was rich. I gathered for myself silver and gold in the special treasures of kings and of the provinces. I acquired male and female singers, the delights of the sons of men and musical instruments of all kind. I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem, and my wisdom remained with me.

Whatever my eyes desired, I didn't keep from them. Everything I wanted, I did. Everything I wanted, I got. I didn't withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor and this was my reward from all my labor. I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled. And it was all vanity. It was all meaningless. It was all futile. It didn't fill me up. At the end of my life, I'm searching again. I had the answers at the beginning, but now I'm searching. My life isn't what I thought it would be. None of those things filled me up.

None of those things filled me up. The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. I, myself, for saying the same event happens to them all. He had the right answers when he was young, but he let life and his lusts and his desires take him away from those answers.

And later on in life, he found himself searching again. What was he searching for? The same thing that Blaise Pascal was talking about in that quote up there. He was looking for God again. He had lost what it was. Every single one of us in this room could be Solomon. And how sorry would it be at the end of our lives or early in our lives that we look and we're searching for meaning when we have the answers all alone? God's not withholding anything from us, but He's willing to give us all if we will just follow, if we will just yield to Him. And so today, you know, you look at Solomon, and over and over in the book of Ecclesiastes, he says, I was looking for these things. I was searching for these things. My life has no meaning. You talk to the people in the world around you, they have no meaning. Their life lacks so much that our life doesn't lack.

How do they try to fill it? How do they try to fill their lives? Well, we can look at society around us, and we can see how they try to fill their lives. Rock stars, so many people, so many people, oh, if I could just be a rock star. Rock stars, do they find meaning in their life? How many of them are on drugs? How many of them have happy lives, fulfilled lives? Or are they always looking to do a different thing and whatever? Movie stars, directors, authors? You know, they're always looking. They're always like, oh, that wasn't enough. We have to search further. We'll be happier if we can exploit this and even more and come up with even more graphic files, even more graphic sex, and even more unnatural sex to give to the public because they're looking for more.

Looking for more and they can't find it. It never fills up. It is always this void and they keep feeding and feeding and feeding, but it never satisfies. It never goes away. And so we see people. So many of them live unhappy and unfulfilled lives, and if you knew what their lives were like and what they were thinking and how they search and how they try to fill it with things that destroy them, young people, none of you would want it. Parents, you don't want that for any of your children, and they don't have to ever go through that. If we teach them, if they fully understand who they are, what God has called them to be, that we don't neglect that teaching, that we don't neglect that vital information from them. That also reminds us who we are.

Basketball makes you happy. Football makes you happy.

You know, just this week, with the young man from Washington State, he committed suicide.

He committed suicide, and there he was going to be the starting quarterback for Washington State next year, and he commits suicide. Wouldn't you think if football was the quest in life, that was the thing that made you happy, that when you get named the starting quarterback, or you're likely to be the starting quarterback, you would think, I'm filled, I'm satisfied, he's missing something.

We don't know what. He killed himself. How many movie stars killed himself? How many go on drugs? How many live lives of sexual abandon, thinking, oh, all the sex and all the buried sex and all the partners I have are going to fill me up, and they're going to make me whole, and I'm going to be happy and full again? Didn't work for Solomon. Doesn't work for any of them.

Nothing satisfies in this life.

Unless we have the thing that fills us all up, that makes all the other things in life worthwhile, all the quests, all the accomplishments.

You know, as we grow older, if we don't know who God is, we can find ourselves searching.

And I always am puzzled. People who keep searching, they find the truth, they look in the Bible, they know the truth, they know God has called them, and they keep searching, and they think, what are you searching for? You know the truth. Look in the Bible. Read the Bible. When you come to church, listen to the Bible. You know, it used to be said by someone far wiser than me, look in the Bible. Don't believe everything I say. Look in the Bible. And if you don't see in the Bible what I preach, come and tell me so we can correct it together. And so that we look at it together and that we get the record straight because the only reason I'm here, and I hope the only reason you're here, is to follow the Bible and be where God wants us to be. As we grow together and as we live together, and as we, God perfects us together in this area that we are in.

Over in Ecclesiastes 5. Ecclesiastes 5, verse 10.

Solomon says this, again, at the end of his life, he's had it all. He who loves silver is not going to be satisfied with silver. If you're classed, if you think, if, hey, I can make a million dollars a year, if I could be a billionaire, my life would be full.

It doesn't work. Solomon had that he who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver, nor he who loves abundance would increase. It's all futile. Vanity there should be translated, but it's all futile. It's all meaningless when you look at things in life. Over in verse 6, verse 7.

Solomon says that it's all there. He wasted his life. He wasted all the opportunities that God laid before him. At the end of his life, as he stopped and he thought about who he was and what he had done and what he left behind, he began to realize, realize what he should have done with his life. It was a little too late for him at the end of his life. He had wasted it. He had thrown it away. I hope. I hope that Solomon repented. The Bible doesn't tell us whether he did or not. I hope he repented. And he told God, I've wasted my life. I've repented what it is, but we, that's between him and God. God knows what Solomon did and did into his life. We'll read about that a little bit more. You know Solomon, when we could talk about Samson, in the teen Bible study we talked about Samson, he did the same thing. He had all the potential on earth. He chose the world. I want this girl, mom and dad, to get her for me.

Led him to ruin. And he didn't learn his lesson once because the first wife wanted nothing but to destroy him and to uncover his secrets and take away his power from him. He went down the same path again, and this one really did make the difference in his life. And she uncovered his secrets, and Solomon lost it all. There he was born with such promise. Godly offspring, just like all of our children are. Godly offspring, just like God wants all of us to be, he sees us as his children with all the potential that we could possibly even imagine. And Solomon threw it all away for this and that and whatever, and he lost it all. At the end of life, here he was blind, and he was just kind of an entertainment figure to the Philistines, marching around in a circle, and they would clap and laugh. And so this is, look what we overcame, because you know what we learn is that the world wants nothing more than to just overcome us. It just wants us to lose the potential that we have. And when we look to the world for fulfillment and satisfaction, we lose every single time. Solomon, Samson, those who have tasted the truth of God, who have given it up because they wanted whatever it is they wanted. They lost it all. Because you don't choose the world, the world is not what eternity is made of. The world is passing away, and all the lusts thereof. Eternity is only in God. Satisfaction and fulfillment is only in God, nowhere else.

Young people, listen and remember. And whatever choice you make, when you're feeling unsatisfied in your life, if you make the wrong choices, you remember there's only one place that you're going to feel satisfied and secure, and that your life is filled, and that's with God. The things you know today, don't throw it away. Don't make the wrong choices. Yes, pursue careers. Yes, pursue your interests. But remember who you are and make those choices that coincide with your beliefs preeminent in your mind. You know Solomon, Samson, they followed the way of the one who brought the world to its knees. Satan was the same way. Satan was created, God said, as the most beautiful creature that there could be. He had all the potential in the world. God said, back in Ezekiel 28, you're the chair of the covers. I created with you, with beauty. I created with you with potential, just like he does you and me. But Satan, somewhere along the line, decided, I want me first. Not God first. I want me first. And so, even though he had all this creative ability, and even though the world, apparently the earth, because it says in Ezekiel 28, God cast him down to earth, to the ground, when he destroyed everything that God had developed in him.

The earth was a beautiful place, apparently. Satan had creative abilities. God gave those to him.

You know, the dinosaurs, magnificent creatures, probably existed during that time. And all the other things that we uncover fossils for, there's a place in history for them. But Satan got full of himself. And you can read it in Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14. We've talked about those scriptures before, where God said, you became full of yourself, Satan. You destroyed everything that I created in you, everything I wanted for you, you made the choices. That ended up in destruction. And God cast Satan back down to earth, and when he sat him back down to earth, earth became void. And chaotic and confused. You read it there in Genesis 1, verse 2. God created the heavens and earth in Genesis 1.1. And in Genesis 1.2, the earth became void and chaotic and confused.

Satan did it. He made the wrong choices. Everything he worked for, absolutely worthless.

Absolutely worthless. The same thing that will happen to us if we reject God, if we decide it's all about me and not about him. If we do the things in our lives that are there to glorify us, rather than him. To put us forward, rather than putting him forward. If we reject what God has done and what we're told and what we're taught in His Holy Spirit, and we put ourselves in the same position that Satan did, in the same position that Adam and Eve did, in the same position that Solomon did, in the same position that Samson did, and the same position that so many that we know today put in. It's what I want, as opposed to putting God first and following Him.

Satan. Satan made a mess of things. And you know what his destiny is, young people, right? I know our older people know that. He's on earth today, and what is he doing? He hasn't repented. He hasn't even seen the wisdom in it yet to say, I was wrong. I'm going to follow God. I wasted my potential. And he still, in something that just seems incredibly, incredibly prideful and incredibly demented to the point where we can't understand it, he still fights against God, even though he knows he cannot win. It will never be the way that he wants. Just like we won't be who we, God wants us to be without Him. We simply, it simply will not happen.

And so, he wants the same thing for us. Misery loves company, they say. Satan wants nothing more than to steal your eternity from you. Young people, Satan wants nothing more than to steal your eternity from you. He wants you to be miserable just like him, and at the end of the book of Revelation, we find he's going to be bound forever. No freedom, no potential, no fun in life, just bound forever. That's what his legacy is. That's what ours will be, too, if we ever choose us and the world and our own interests above God.

Proverbs. Let's go back to Proverbs. Proverbs 27.

Proverbs 27 verse 20. Hell, I'll wait until you get there. Proverbs 27 verse 20.

Hell and destruction are never full. See those words? Hell and destruction are never full. They are never satisfied. There is no peace. There is no calm there. There is nothing. There is only a nagging, nagging thing to man that can never be filled. Hell and destruction are never full. So the eyes of man are never satisfied. The eyes of man are never satisfied. When you look at things through your own eyes and you choose to do things your own way, like Adam and Eve did, like Satan did, like Solomon did, like Samson did, like so many others that we could recount, and many that you might know, even in your own personal experience, like so many others did, it is never full. They keep searching, like the proverbial, like the hamster on the treadmill. It just goes round and round and round. They never get anywhere. They never get full because there is only one answer, only one answer to a full life. There is only one way to achieve that. There is no other way. Solomon took a life of promise and he brought it to nothing.

Just like Satan took a promise of life and potential and brought it to nothing. Just like Samson did. A faith that I hope none of us, none of us, do.

Let's go over to Daniel 1. Daniel 1. Let's look at one man in the teen study. We talked about some others who made the right choices in life and did the things that made the right choices and followed God. Their lives turned out very well. Daniel happens to be one of those.

Let's look at Daniel 1. You know the story of Daniel and what he did and his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Here they were in Israel. Israel. A land that knew the Torah, that knew the commands of God. When they were taking the Babylon, they might have thought, oh, good.

Oh, good. We can leave all that stuff behind. We don't have to worry about that anymore. God has put us here in Babylon, and we can just taste of what Babylon has. Many people would say they wouldn't blame them, right? Young men who find themselves by no choice of their own in Babylon. They were the finest men of the time that Nebuchadnezzar the king of all the earth. A world-wirling emperor at that time who had a fine society said, bring these guys. They're going to be trained. They're going to be my special people. They seem to be bright young men.

But Daniel and his friends, when they got to the king's table, and they looked around Babylon and saw all the things in life that you and I might look around, and our young people might look around and say, you know what? That life looks a lot better. I would love to just go to Friday night basketball games all the time. I'd love to go to the Saturday afternoon football games. I'd love to do the things with my friends that they want to do, rather than what my parents tell me I have to do. And they looked at all that, and they even looked at the table around them, and they saw all the things that, you know, as we look at the physical thing and say, look at this table, it's all laid out for us. And they looked at all that society. It's all there just for the taking. And God is the one who put us here. Why shouldn't we partake of it? Verse 5 says, the king appointed for them a daily provision of the king's delicacies. And we could get into the food element of it here. But, you know, the king said, anything you guys want is yours. Here's all the delicacies. And delicacies doesn't mean unclean meats, okay? There's much more involved in delicacies than unclean meats that Daniel and his friends rejected. You can have it all. Take it all. You're the chosen ones out of Judah that I'm going to bring, and I'm going to make you part of my court. You can have it all. Everything in Babylon is yours. What a young man! What a tremendous thing he might think.

Daniel said, we're not doing it. We're not going to eat those delicacies. We're not going to participate in this life. We're going to live the way God taught us to live and the way we were taught from our youth how to live. That's our choice. And after just 10 days of just eating physical things and making that choice, the king came back and said, they're so much, they look so much healthier than my men. Just think what he said years afterwards when they adhered to that. Some commentaries say Daniel never veered from that physical diet. We know he never veered from the spiritual diet. He served God all his life in a land where he was expected to become like the king's men. But he never veered from God. Look how full his life was. He became second in command in Babylon, the greatest nation on earth at that time. Did he have tests? Did he have trials? Did he have to stand up and say no to the most powerful man on earth? Yes, he did. On more than one occasion, God rewarded him for that. He had a life fuller than anything he would have had if he had just said, I'm going to become one of the Babylonians. I'm just going to be like one of them.

He would have never attained or had the exciting life that he did.

Young people, same thing as for you, older people, young middle-aged people, young adults, all theirs for you, too. God made the same promises to Daniel, to the people of Old Testament, that we read about him in Hebrews 11, that he makes to us today. It's promises that you can count on, but implicit with those promises, his actions, and choices that we make.

Implicit in that is the choices that we make. We can name other young people who did the same thing, Joseph we talked about. He ended up second in command in Egypt. He could have easily, as a young man, said, hey, Potiphar's wife is throwing herself at me. Why not?

He said, no, I'm not going to bring dishonor on God in that way. I'm going to stand, and through it all he stood. For God, he remembered what he was taught, and he became second in command in Egypt.

We can look at David. We can look at Ruth. Ruth, when she was exposed to God, who was given the choice, go back to Moab. Her mother-in-law said, there's nothing for you here, just go back to Moab. But she had a taste of what truth was, and she said, no, Naomi, wherever you go, I go. Wherever your God is my God. Why did she do that? She did it because she was full. She saw something. She knew something that was going to satisfy her life, and she became grandmother to King David. She's named in the lineage of Jesus Christ.

Same thing for all of us if we will just put forth the effort. Young people, don't forget it. Parents, make sure your young people know what God has called them to. Make sure you are teaching them God's way. Make sure that even if they make the wrong choice to choose the world in the way of vanity, utility, that Solomon would say, if they make the choice that even when they are old, they might, like Solomon, look back and say, I know where I blew it.

I made the wrong choices. My life was meaningless. It didn't turn out the way that I wanted to at all.

They have to make the effort. Parents, we must make the effort. We have to do it. You have to have that part of what you talk about in your homes. You have to make sure your young people know that if they throw it away, they're throwing away something they can, that they will never attain in this life. These we have to do what Deuteronomy 6 says. Talk about it day and night. Teach it at home. Make God part of who we are. Bring Him into the household. Bring Him into the discussion. Make sure our children know God is leading them. He loves them. He has potential for them. He will work with them. Make sure they know that and make sure they know the right choices to make.

If we don't do it, we are withholding from them the greatest gift we could ever give them.

The greatest gift we could ever give them, the greatest gift that God could give any human being that He has given us. None of us want our children and none of us want us, right? Because even older, we can make the same mistakes Solomon made. We can make the same mistakes Saul made.

And we can look for meaning in all the wrong places. We can fill those holes in our lives with so many things that are different and different places than what we would want them to be.

I want to give you—I'm going to do it very quickly here—seven points. Seven points. It's not going to take long to do it. But if you're a young person, if you're a middle-aged person, if you're a young adult, if you're an older person in this congregation, then you kind of feel unsettled. If you kind of feel like you're searching, if you kind of feel there's a void in your life, there's things that you can do to get back to where you want to be. Young people, number one, prove God exists. Prove it. You can prove it. And if you're older and you kind of lost that and you've lost kind of that first love, prove it again. Go back to the Bible.

You know, there's a psalm—I didn't write it down—that says, there—if the fool says in his heart, there is no God. Don't let your children ever come to the point where they would say there is no God. If they've done that, we've failed as parents.

Go back and prove it, young people. A week ago, I put in my letter seven great questions that Dr. Ward said everyone should answer in their lives. Does God exist? What's the purpose of man? What's the purpose of God? What is God working today? Go back and look at those. You know, every young person should know the answers to those questions. You can talk about them at home. You can deal with them. We can deal with them in teen Bible studies. If teens, as you go back and you look at those and you look at those questions, you ask yourself, do I know that? Do I understand that? And if you don't know, and if you want me to come and sit down with you, we will sit down and talk about it from the Bible. We will show you who God is. We will show you what His purpose is. He will show you what man's purpose is, why He put man here on the first place, why there is a physical earth, why there is a physical body. What is God working below? Because it all has a purpose, and you and I know it. It's there in the pages of the Bible that we have. Prove that He exists. In 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 21, you don't have to turn there. You can mark it down. It says, Prove all things, hold fast, that which is true. Prove it. Prove it. And then clean to it. Clean to it and put it in your mind and make sure you hold on to it. Number two, take some alone time. Turn off the cell phone. Turn off the video games. Turn off the TV. Turn your phone off for a while. If we live in one thing and I find myself even in the same thing, I sit and I'm doing something. I hear my phone ding, and I think, what? My natural inclination is, who sent the message? What email has come in? What text is there? Sometimes I just have to turn my phone off for just a little bit, so I have some alone time with God. So I'm not being interrupted by all these noises and dings that are around the house. You have to have some alone time. Young people, you're 24-7. You don't have to be connected to everyone. Satan uses that as a tool. If he could fill our minds with everything else, there's no room for God. Take some alone time. Go out and look at the stars. Go out and do something in the yard. Do some of the things that you know that you can do that will teach you of God. You need some time each day to touch God, to know your Creator. Have that alone time and stay, you know, and get to know Him. Read the Bible. Read the Bible. You can get off the Internet for a while. You don't have to read every text message the minute it comes in. Take some time and actually look in this book that you've heard said from the time that you were very young. This is the Word of God. What's more valuable to read than the Word of God who holds your life and eternity in His hands? What could be more valuable than that? Pick it up and read it, even if it's for a few minutes every day.

If you want a prescribed Bible program, reading program, we'll give you one. Your parents will give you one. Read it. See what it says. Now, let's turn back in regards to that to John 6.

John 6, verse 35.

We read this not too long ago when we were talking about the bread of life and eternity. But, you know, Jesus Christ said this. He said in John 6, 35, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never hunger. They'll be satisfied.

You want to be filled up? Read the Bible. Read it. Young, middle-aged, young adults, old, read it.

He who comes to me will never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. You'll be satisfied. Unlike the world and your friends around you who keep searching and searching and searching because God hasn't given them the gift yet of what will fill them up, what will satisfy them, what will make their life complete.

You can also mark down there 2 Timothy 2.15. Paul, when he was writing to Timothy, a young man who grew up in the church, he said, Go and read the Bible. Don't stop reading it. Every approved man studies the Bible.

Number four. Develop community. Develop community.

We have a lot of teens in this congregation. We have a lot of people in this congregation.

I don't think you understand how big of a blessing it is. Go to some congregations that are much smaller than this. And you know what? They learn to be very close to one another. God put us in a community. He put us in a fellowship. He put us in a body that He wants us to be part of. Teens get to know each other. And we as adults, let's create the opportunities that our teens can get to know each other and have some opportunities to be with one another so that they can see people, the common thread that binds them all, regardless of their individual interests and likes and dislikes. They are the children of God. They are godly offspring. They have the promise.

They are being called by God. Go back and read Acts 2.39. Let's do that. It's not good for man to be alone. Hebrews 10.24 says, Don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together. We need it as all people of God to be together, to learn to love one another, to do the things that God wants us to do. Number five, serve. Serve. Christ came to serve and not to be served.

You know, there's nothing that can bind people together more than if they will just serve together. If they have a common purpose, you know, we haven't had a service project in the church for a while. I hope maybe tonight there's some ideas out there on how we can do some things together to serve others. Maybe you know some needs in the church or some needs that we can work together to do that. Teens, I know. You know, it strikes me when I was in college, no one talked about community service, but I've seen on college applications, even with my own kids, what are some of the community service that you did? Are you fulfilling your life a little bit by doing something for others? Or are you just about yourself? And so serve, you know, serve. Joseph served, Daniel served, Ruth served, Jesus Christ served. We need to look for opportunities and do that. Number six, put into practice in your life good moral qualities, good moral qualities. Certainly, I'm talking about sex, but I'm talking about hard work. I'm talking about honesty. I'm talking about ethics. I'm talking about all those things that I hope you've heard your parents say over the years that they want you to develop so you grow up to be a productive, fine adult. Please be asked these nine, ten, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your mic. Be the best student. Be the best soccer player. Be the best baseball player. Be the best engineer. Be those things. Look for that.

Look and do it, but always remember, do it in the context of who you are, and what God has called you to be. Be come, people of integrity. Number seven, keep yourself pure.

Keep yourself pure. Let's go back to 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy 2.

In verse 22, Timothy was a young man who grew up in the church.

And Paul, as he was getting of age and he was going to become a minister, he says this to him in verse 22, flee also, youthful lusts. He doesn't mean just sex there. That's one of the means. The Bible says, flee fornication. What are some of the youthful lusts today? Drugs, getting in with the wrong crowd, doing the things that, you know, hey, it was really fun to run with this crowd and find yourself in trouble. I know some young people not here, but in the church who have done that and found themselves in jail. But they thought it would be kind of fun to run with that crowd and kind of exciting something he hadn't done before. They found themselves in situations that they never counted on, and their lives were ruined because they made the wrong choice.

Flee youthful lusts. Flee it. Keep yourself pure. Don't do drugs. Don't do alcohol. Don't do fornication. Don't do those things that you've heard about all your lives. Keep yourself pure.

One a happy life, one a happy marriage. Keep yourself pure. You want a life where you've got all of your faculties about you and nothing on your resume that would have any employer ever close the door, and you keep yourself pure. Galatians 5, 22, when it talks about the fruits of the spirit, the love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, gentleness, meekness, faith. Against such there is no law. Your employers, your friends, your spouse, future spouse, want to see that in you. Don't shortchange yourself. Don't handicuff yourself. Keep it. Keep it pure. Keep it pure.

Let's conclude back in Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 12.

Solomon. Solomon who wasted so much of his life, so much of his potential. At the end of it, at least, he came to the conclusion it was all futile. It all meant nothing to me. I was never satisfied. None of it made any difference at all. At the end of his life, he concludes this book that he wrote that is such an instruction book to us in 2018 as well as it was at the time he wrote it for his children and all the people who have read it in every generation since. He says in verse 1, Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, and in the days of your young adulthood, and in the days of your older age. Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, before the difficult days come and the years draw near when you say, I have no pleasure in them, as he did. While the sun and the light, the moon and the stars, are not darkened, and the clouds do not return after the rain. And the day when the keepers of the house tremble and the strong men bow down, when the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look through the windows grow dim, when the doors are shut in the streets, and the sound of grinding is low, when one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of music are brought low. A miserable time. All the potential lost. A time that is just not anything any of us ever want to experience in our lives. In verse 13 he says this. Well, let's read verse 12. He says, Further, my son, be admonished by these, of making many books there is no end, and much study as wearies into the flesh, let's hear the conclusion of the whole matter. His conclusion. The only conclusion you can make. The only answer that mankind has. The only answer you and I have that we have been given. The only answer that Blaise Piscall was looking for when he said, What's going to fill those holes in mankind's life? Fear God and keep His commandments. For this is man's all. Remember it and live it. Pave the path so that the holes in your life are full and you can live a very.