I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, Part 1

Errol Flynn, born in 1909, was one of the biggest stars of Hollywood's Golden Age. His life itself seemed like a script to a movie. Born in Australia, he travelled the south seas as a trader and soldier of fortune. After turning to acting, he found incredibly success in Hollywood, and deliberately used his wealth to pursue every pleasure he could access. He had three marriages and multiple affairs with the world's most beautiful women. He owned mansions, a series of luxury yachts, and lavishly used alcohol and drugs. He published two novels plus a successful autobiography.

That autobiography, published at age 50, concludes with him reflecting on his life and comparing it to a painting. He wrote that his life was not like a painting by Van Gogh or Rembrandt that made sense, but was more

like the dappled obscurity of some surrealist painter of today's small gallery, where you have to peer hard to find meaning, where the colour splashes endlessly, losing itself in a mosaic of insane design, mayhem-like wold stroking of the brush, drunken sprawls of pil laid on heavily in the wrong places.

I have tried to paint it in words, for I could not possibly do it in plastics. But no matter, there I am, unable to understand myself. Still not knowing who I am. Still hunting for my soul…

Oh, I have seen enough and done enough and been places enough and livened my senses enough and dulled my senses enough and probed enough and laughed enough and wept more than most people would suspect.¹Errol Flynn, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, pp. 379-380.

The book ends with him describing a beautiful house on the coast of Jamaica he bought for himself as a 50th birthday present, where he lived completely alone, a trail of chaos left behind him.

And that year he died, partly from the effects of alcohol abuse.

Errol Flynn tried to find meaning in life through pleasure. And he found that it lead to nothing. And it's really sad. Hearing his story makes me wish he had read the book of Ecclesiastes.

The Pursuit of Pleasure

I mean that seriously—I'm not being snarky. I wish he had read these words that we are going to read today. Because in today's passage, Qoheleth—the "Preacher" of Ecclesiastes—also tried to find meaning in pleasure. But he did it on purpose. After wisdom ended up being an empty pursuit, he continues in his goal to "see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life" like we read in verse 3.

Still hanging on to his wisdom, he wants to know what we're supposed to do with these lives of ours. And so what does he turn to next? What's next on the list of possible answers for what's good? Pleasure. “I said in my heart, ‘Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself’" (Ecc 2:1a).

Qoheleth knows we're not here for a long time, so he wonders if the answer is to just have a good time. And in the verses that follow he describes the various ways that he pursued pleasure. I've broken it down into six: laughter, liquor, land, luxury, lust, and labour.

Laughter

In verse 2 we read, "I said of laughter, 'It is mad.'" Here Qoheleth is giving us a sneak peak of his evaluation of this whole experiment, but along the way we find out that laughter is one of the things he tried to find meaning in.

We don't know how he pursued laughter—court jesters, stand up comedians, jokes, funny stories—but this sounds like this is one of the things he tried. He tried to just have fun and laugh.

Liquor

Next, he tries liquor, or more specifically wine, which we see in verse 3. "I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly" (v. 3).

Qoheleth makes a conscious decision, guided by wisdom, to try out alcohol and folly or foolishness. There is a connection between drinking lots of alcohol and acting foolish, isn't there? It is a fact that drinking more alcohol than you should makes you think and act stupid. It makes you do things you wouldn't do otherwise. And Qoheleth wonders, maybe the foolishness that comes from alcohol is what's good for people to do with their lives.

It sounds like Qoheleth had been listening to country music. I went on Apple Music this week and looked up the songs featured in the 2025 Canadian Country Music Awards playlist. The first three mentioned alcohol in their titles, and the first seven were either about or had an overt reference to drinking. And number eight talked about a bar.

And for a lot of people, this is their life. I used to work on a construction crew with a bunch of guys who thought exactly this way. They worked all week so they could afford lots of beer on the weekends. They would come back on Monday, badly hung over, bragging about how they couldn't remember a thing from the past 48 hours, and do it all over again.

Qoheleth gave it a try. Maybe living for the weekend bender is what's good for people to do with their lives.

Land

After liquor, he tries land development. We see that in verses 4-6: "I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees."

Lots of people find pleasure in this kind of thing. Walk around town here and you'll see lots of homes that have been either built or fixed up, with beautiful gardens and even little ponds.

We might do that kind of thing in our backyard, but imagine being a king and being able to do that on a grand scale, a city-wide scale? That's what Qoheleth is wanting us to think of here.

This recalls 1 Kings 7, where Solomon spends thirteen years building his palace, and a home for his first wife, and a great hall, and a throne room, all made with imported cedar and costly stones. We can also think about the pools and water works in Jerusalem.

It's very interesting that many of these words used here for planting tees and watering them are found in Genesis 1 and 2. Some have suggested that Qoheleth is trying to re-create Eden with his personal garden projects. His own private paradise to satisfy his longing soul.

Luxury

Next up is luxury. Verse 7: "I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women,…

We are supposed to think here about great riches, which once again fits the picture of Solomon in 1 Kings. He was sickeningly wealthy. So wealthy, and with so much gold in abundance, that silver became basically worthless (1 Ki 10:21).

And so he could buy whatever he wanted. No budget, no "can I afford it." The answer was always yes. So he filled his house with slaves to do whatever he wanted. He gathered treasures from around the world. 1 Kings 10 speaks about ships bringing Solomon "gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks" (1 Ki 10:22).

He even got himself a personal choir. This would have been the ancient luxurious equivalent of a home stereo. A whole team of professional singers just standing by to sing whatever you wanted them to.

Qoheleth enjoyed luxury—all that the world had to offer.

Lust

And finally we read, at the end of verse 8: "and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man." (v. 8). Qoheleth engaged in lust.

1 Kings 11 tells us that "King Solomon loved many foreign women… Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines" (1 Ki 11:1, 3).

Wives had status. Concubines were basically half-slaves who did not have the status of wife but whose bodies were available for Solomon to enjoy whenever he wanted. And as 1 Kings goes on to say, this grotesque indulgence in lust was Solomon's downfall.

Here in Ecclesiastes, the focus is simply on the women and the pleasure they afforded Solomon. The Hebrew word translated "concubine" in verse 8 is not actually the standard word for concubine. It's a word that only shows up here in the Hebrew Bible, which is why some translations—like the king James—render it as "musical instruments." It seems best to understand this word as referring, not to concubines specifically, or even to women in general, but to a specific aspect of female anatomy.

When Qoheleth sees his harem of women, he does not see women, people who matter. He just sees a collection of body parts that he finds enjoyable. That is a good description of what lust does. And that's what Qoheleth is described as enjoying.

Labour

Finally, Qoheleth talks about labour. In verses 9-10 we read, "So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil." (Ecclesiastes 2:9–10).

When Qoheleth speaks about toil here, is this a separate item on his list? In addition to all of these other things he pursued, he also worked hard, and found pleasure in a hard day's work? Or, is "toil" here speaking about his toil in trying to find pleasure in all of these other things? In other words, he worked hard at satisfying himself with wine and building works and acquiring women.

Maybe it's one or the other, or maybe it's both. Either way, he did find pleasure in his labour.

Pointless

But after all of this—laughter, liquor, lands, luxury, lust, and labour—did Qoheleth find what he was looking for? Did he find out what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life?

Not in the slightest. We already got a preview of this back in verses 1 and 2. “I said in my heart, ‘Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.’ But behold, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, ‘It is mad,’ and of pleasure, ‘What use is it?”’” (Ecclesiastes 2:1–2).

Pleasure was just one more bit of vanity—a temporary puff of breath. Laughter was madness. Pleasure was pointless.

And he gives his judgement on this whole project in verse 11: “Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 2:11).

Qoheleth did experience pleasure. Whether it was the pleasure of a good laugh, or a wine buzz, or the satisfaction of seeing a project you dreamed up be built, or good music echoing through your palace, or a night alone with your latest lover, he enjoyed it all. But in the end he realized it was all pointless, because it was all temporary.

The laughter always comes to an end. The joke eventually stops being funny. The Saturday night buzz turns into Sunday morning hangover. The building projects stop feeling special after a while, and they all fall apart eventually. Luxury gets boring when its all you know. When you have so much gold that you stop counting it, then what's it even worth anymore?

The pleasures of lust don't last long, because lust is never satisfied. It demands more, always. The Friday night fling turns into the Saturday morning slump and off you go hunting for your next thrill.

Everything is never enough. And eventually you step back and look at all of the pleasure and realize, not only is each individual pleasure so fleeting and temporary, but your whole life of pleasure is going to end soon. and you'll be buried next to someone who didn't experience any of that pleasure, and you both end up in the same dirt, and you didn't gain an thing from any of it. You chased after the wind, and you caught nothing, and that's it.

Perspectives

What does Qoheleth's perspective on his pointless pursuit of pleasure have to say to us today? How should these truths shape our perspective on pleasure?

Pleasure Is a Gift

Let's acknowledge right off the bat that pleasure, in and of itself, is not inherently bad. Many of these things that Qoheleth describes are things God created for us to enjoy.

And in fact, in several places in Ecclesiastes, seven in total, Qoheleth encourages people to enjoy the things in life, and in five of these passages, he specifically mentions that God has provided them for us to enjoy.

• “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?” (Ecclesiastes 2:24–25).
• “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man” (Ecclesiastes 3:12–13).
• “So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?” (Ecclesiastes 3:22).
• “Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God. For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart” (Ecclesiastes 5:18–20).
• “And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 8:15).
• “Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going” (Ecclesiastes 9:7–10)
• “Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. Remove vexation from your heart, and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity” (Ecclesiastes 11:9–10).

Now there is more beneath the surface here which we are going to come back to next week, but for now we can acknowledge that pleasure in the created things is, at a basic level, a gift from God.

The Hebrew Scriptures affirm this, and the New Testament repeats this. Jesus came eating and drinking, remember? 1 Timothy 4 says that it's false teachers “who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer” (1 Timothy 4:3–5).

Christians sometimes have a hard time with knowing how to process things feeling good because we're so on guard against sinful pleasure that we miss out on the good pleasures that God has given us to enjoy.

Have you ever taken a bite of an amazing meal, and instead of scarfing it down, slowly savoured the food in your mouth, and after you swallowed that mouthful and washed it down with something refreshing to drink, said out loud "that was so good. Praise the Lord"?

That kind of thing should not feel strange to us. We pray before we eat, not just because God is helping us to survive, but because he's given us really enjoyable things to eat. And the same goes for the pleasures of work and marriage and joy itself. Pleasure is a gift.

Pleasure Points to God

And pleasure is not just a pointless gift. Like all of God's gifts, pleasure is a gift that points to the given. Any experience of pleasure here on earth should points us to our ultimate source of joy in God. Qoheleth only barely hints at this here and there, but other Biblical authors develop this idea more fully.

“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

“Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:25–26).

Every experience of pleasure on earth should point us to the giver of pleasure who is the ultimate source of pleasure and the only one who can truly satisfy us.

Pleasure is Not the Point

Which is why, earthly pleasure in and of itself can not be the point. It can not be the goal in life, the good that we seek, or the place we put our hope.

When we pursue pleasure as the goal, instead of the God who gives pleasure, we begin to worship and serve the created things rather than the creator. And that's when an open-handed, thankful reception of pleasure as a gift from God turns into a close-fisted, lustful demand for more and more and more pleasure.

And we're not okay to have a little bit and say "thank you." We need more and more and more because it's all we have.

And today's passage shows us the emptiness and pointlessness of living like that. Look where it leaves you.

I want to apply this specifically to young people this morning. Kids and teenagers: many of you have grown up hearing about the bad things that people who don't know God do with their lives.

If you're in high school, you know people who are doing all kinds of stuff like drinking and partying and drugs and sleeping around.

And for a lot of years, one of the approaches people took to discouraging young people from doing all of that stuff was by telling them that it wasn't all that fun. Back when I was a kid, we had the "this is your brain on drugs" campaign showing how bad drugs were for you. I was told to save sex for marriage because it would be funner that way and if I didn't I'd be miserable and sad.

The problem with that is that it hides a big secret: doing all of that stuff is fun. It feels really good. Sleeping around feels good. Getting drunk at a party feels good. Drugs make you feel good.

And as you get older, being rich and being able to build whatever you want—it feels good. These are pleasurable experiences.

And sometimes what happens is Christian kids get old enough and start to try out these things and they realize how fun they are and they wonder why nobody told them, and they start to believe that their dad and mom and pastor and even God was just out to make their lives miserable by keeping them from having fun.

So young people, listen up: today's passage shows us that there is pleasure to be had in drinking and partying and sleeping around and having money. Those things feel fun. "My heart found pleasure in all my toil" says Qoheleth (v. 10).

But Qoheleth also pleasure that comes from these activities, the fun and good feelings, last about as long as a puff of vapour from your mouth on a cold morning. Remember that's the idea behind this word "vanity"? Just a puff of breath. Here, and gone.

My mom grew up in a very strict Christian home, and when she was 12 or 13 she felt like she was really missing out, and she made a choice to go out and enjoy all that the world had to offer. And for the next 6 years or so, she basically did her own version of today's passage. She pursued pleasure in the party scene of the early 1960s.

And one of the big gifts she gave us as kids was that she didn't hide it from us. She told us all about the parties and the drinking and the drugs and what it was like. And I grew up knowing that all of those things felt fun. Until the next morning. The party is great until you wake up with a hangover in a disgusting house on a vomit-soaked couch, and all your friends have left and you have to spend the day alone and empty. Getting high is great until you realize the long-term damage that it does to a young person's brain, and all your buddies passing around the joint at the party won't be there to help you deal with the mental illnesses you'll struggle with for the the rest of your life

Giving your body away to a new person feels great in the moment, until the next morning when you wake up alone, and they've left you alone and pregnant and dealing with the guilt of an abortion or the struggle of raising a child all by yourself.

Pleasure is vanity—a puff of smoke.

Maybe your thing is not drugs or alcohol or sex. Maybe you're seeking pleasure in the digital world. Young men, maybe your phone is a portal to a digital harem of body parts for your pleasure. Maybe it's social media and the vanity of the dopamine hit you get from every video you watch or every like you get on your posts.

Maybe it's longer-term than that. I think of a friend of mine who walked away from Jesus because he wanted to be rich. He got the highest-paying job he could find and he has lots of money, and he does not look very happy. But even if he is, even if he is getting some pleasure from his toil, one day his body is going to crumble into dust along with everything he's bought and it will all have been one big puff of smoke.

So, not just young people, but all of us: our world offers us so much pleasure. It's real, and it feels good, and it's over so quickly. This life is over so quickly. It's all a puff of vapour.

Please, learn from Qoheleth's quest. Don't get to the end of your life, looking back, thinking "what have I gained?" Make Jesus your treasure, and you'll be able to say that even death itself is gain because you'll finally get what you've been seeking for. You enjoyed his gifts, but you've spent your life aching for the giver and death is the beginning, not the end.

Life is a vapour. Pursue pleasure, and end up with nothing. Pursue the giver of pleasure, and you end up with a life that matters and makes a difference, and an eternal hope that can't be stolen from you.

“Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved” (Philippians 3:17–4:1).