Meaningless

These are the words of the Teacher, King David’s son, who ruled in Jerusalem. “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!” [Ecclesiastes 1.1-2]

What lies at the root of this statement? Sin. Loss of focus on God.

When life becomes meaningless to someone, it is because they have taken their eyes off the LORD. This is precisely what Solomon did. He became overly focused on the women in his life and their influence drew his focus off the LORD and instead onto the detestable gods Ashtoreth and Molech.

It is absolutely critical in light of my post yesterday regarding Song of Solomon (It's In The Bible), that we understand the key ingredients involved with the worship of Ashtoreth and Molech. 

Among other things, the worship of Ashtoreth involved sexual immorality. This is important to correlate to the fact that Solomon acquired hundreds of wives and concubines. While many men have wondered what that might have been like, suffice it to say, Solomon lived it and, even in the most conservative scenario, was highly sexually active. And yet he said, “Everything is meaningless.”

The importance of understanding Solomon's elevated sexual activity should be considered as it cojoins with the worship of Molech. The more sex, the more incidence of pregnancies. The more pregnancies, the more babies. The dark prevailing practice in the worship of Molech involved burning (sacrificing) children.

While a healthy and active sexual life is certainly not prohibited by the Bible between and man and his wife, it must never displace focus on God Who gave it! When it does, immorality lies close at hand which unleashes an insatiable and meaningless cycle of stimulation and gratification. The more sex, the more babies - which 'conveniently' makes the worship of Molech "practical." Instead of feeling guilty for all the immorality that yields babies, the unbridled worship of Ashtoreth sets the stage for the sacrifice of those babies to Molech as a 'spiritual' event justifying the sexual activity that yielded them. Ashtoreth and Molech justify each other in the dark dark world where focus is not on God.

Such was the condition that led to Solomon's "meaningless" demise and such is the condition of the "meaningless" world today. Sexual immorality (worship of Ashtoreth, whether it's called that or not) is the leading cause of out-of-wedlock babies. Abortion (worship of Molech, whether it's called that or not) is the hand-in-hand solution to those pregnancies (babies). Ashtoreth and Molech compliment each other just like sexual immorality and abortion compliment each other in meaningless creation and termination of life.

The problem all starts with losing focus of God.

How easily we lose focus of God. How easily I lose focus of God - and when I do, my personal experience is that sexual immorality comes easily into focus. For the record, "focus" has to do with both the mind and/or the eyes. The importance of disciplined focus on God cannot be overstated in this world that is in overdrive visually and mentally stimulating us to the worship of Ashtoreth (sexual immorality) and the worship of Molech (excusing our sexual immorality by eliminating the results of it).

It is not enough to launch crusades to fight sexual immorality and abortion. Unless our crusade is to love the LORD our God with all our heart, soul and mind, all other efforts find no meaning - they are meaningless. In fact, the "crusader" against immorality and abortion whose focus is not wholly set upon God oftentimes falls victim to the very meaningless sin he crusades against. Who can deny this fact?

I wish I was speaking of something I knew nothing about... Sexual immorality is something every human must guard against - some do better than others - but all are vulnerable. To deny this fact would be to deny the universally proven statement, "sex sells." Never in all of history has it been more difficult to live in this world and not be of this world where sexual immorality and perversion abound in an unending mental and visual assault upon mankind, ...all to a meaningless end.

We must focus on God. To do so, we must die to our carnal desires and all that stimulates them. When Jesus called us to follow Him, He used no uncertain verbiage to describe this:

Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me. [Luke 9.23]

A dead man doesn't lust, just like a dead man doesn't hate (Luke 9.23 applies to both and more). The only way we can enjoy this death to lust, hate, greed and the likes is in the person of Jesus Christ. Otherwise we meaninglessly die in our sin, not unto enjoyment but, unto eternal damnation.

Harsh? Of course! But nothing else will break the seductive (albeit meaningless) spell of Ashtoreth and Molech being cast upon society more now than ever!

Pray this with me...

Father, I want my focus to be on You and only on You. Forgive me for focusing on this meaningless world and myself as it encourages me to do. May my focus be on You and may my focus on You be crystal clear as I look upon Jesus. I believe He carried not only my sin, but me, to the cross - may I be found dead with Him on that cross daily so that I might be found alive in Him forever as He now sits at Your right hand. This is my only hope - this is my only meaning - You are my only salvation.