Kenny Moorer - The Bottom Line Part 2_ Final Lessons from a Wise Man

1:47PM Jan 28, 2025

Speakers:

Kenny Moorer

Keywords:

Ecclesiastes

fear God

keep commandments

life direction

misspent youth

pool game

Roy Rogers

Randy Travis

Solomon

wisdom

proverbs

judgment

bread of life

Jesus

eternal life.

My junior and senior year in high school, during September and October, on Thursday or Friday afternoon after school, I'd walk downtown and I'd stop at a business that had a couple pool tables. I'm just gonna leave it at that. The man's name was Frank. He ran that place of business, and he invited me to come in when I was a junior, but he invited me in for a really good reason. He wanted to know about the game Friday night, and he figured I could give him a pretty good scouting report, which I did for a couple of years. I'd go in and he gave me a free game of pool. And while I was playing the pool, playing a game of pool, I'd tell all the fellas about the game that was going on on Friday night, and I would share the report, and then a lot of times it would be followed by the game that we had previously played. And I had a good time doing that. They wanted to know about the game, they wanted to know about the team and all of those kind of things. So I'd go in and I'd talk to him about that. I don't recall at all any alcohol that was in there. And there was only an occasional, as I recall, there was an occasional use of a brief profanity if a short shot was missed, but I was usually busy telling a story. I'm telling all this by way of confession because I know my mom's watching this morning. So I'll make my conscience feel better when I get done with this, if you want to know the truth of the matter, but I wanted to tell you about that I did learn something. I learned to play pool a lot while I was with those guys, and they appreciated the inside scoop that I gave them, but I remember Frank telling me on occasion he'd say, you know, one game of pool and a scouting report is not going to hurt you. And I guess that that kind of salved my conscience for going into a place that probably had my dad known that's where I was going, he probably would have nixed that. And again, I'm not altogether sure why I'm telling you that this morning, except to tell you what I'm about to tell you.

I read a story this week about a game of pool that Roy Rogers, and there's seven people here who know who Roy Rogers is, and you're all over 70, but I know, and even I'm not quite 70. Roy Rogers played a game of pool with Randy Travis. Now that's a name you probably know a little bit more. And during the game, Randy cleared the table, as I understand it, to which Roy Rogers replied, signs of a misspent youth, which I guess Rogers was trying to tell Travis, you probably were in places you shouldn't have been, and probably spent too much time in those places. Signs of a misspent youth. One of the reasons Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes is to fend off a misspent youth. I see, today, I see a lot of a lot of people, not just young people, but a lot of people who I believe have misspent their lives. We all, and I like to use this language, we all spend our lives. I want you to think about that. How do you spend your life? The question really is, what are you accomplishing with your life? Or to use the spend metaphor, what am I buying? What are you buying with your life? What? What are you investing in? And what will be the outcome of how you spend your life? Isn't that what; isn't that really what Solomon is doing in the book of Ecclesiastes, he's trying to tell us, here's how you spend your life if you want the greatest reward, a reward that is otherworldly. That's the difference. So somehow we've got to get our mind wrapped around the fact that there's something greater out there that we've not seen, but that we've been promised, and it will be worth the effort that we take, the effort that we put in to obtain that. And that's the difficulty, I think for a lot of people, it's, well, I don't really know about that. We're told about that. We're academically we're told about that in Scripture, but because none of us have seen it, it remains something that's just a little bit oblivious to us. And it's someone out there, and it makes it hard for some people to attach themselves to that very thing. And so what I want us to talk about today is, I want us to extend what we talked about last week a little bit.

Last week we we really started in Ecclesiastes 11 as we talked about the bottom line and thinking about some of the things that Solomon would say. I believe, generally speaking, that Solomon said these things and he talked about some things toward the end of chapter 11 that we need to do. Which is rejoice, rejoice in the fact that you have life. And as I tried to get across last week, some people are just not happy about life, and I know there are difficulties, but what he says is, you need to rejoice about your life. Understand that it's something that you've been given, that you don't have to have. It could be taken from you. So while you're living, rejoice in that life and remove sorrow. Or, as we talked about last week, vexation of spirit. Take move. Take that away. You can't avoid that. But he's saying, Don't that, don't let that sit on the burner and just affect you your whole life. Deal with it and move on from it. I think that's the idea. And then, of course, as he moves into chapter 12, he talks about, you need to remember your Creator, and you need to remember your Creator while you're young. That's an advantage to any of us in our youth, if we remember the God who created us.

So I want to go to part two today, and as you have probably deduced part two is going to be the end of the book of Ecclesiastes that says this beginning in verse nine, "And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge. Yes, he pondered and sought out and set in order many proverbs. The preacher sought to find acceptable words. And what was upright words of truth. The words of the wise are like goads, and the words of scholars are like well driven nails given by one shepherd. And further, my son be admonished by these of making of many books, there is no end, and much study is wearisome to the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter of fear God and keep His commandments. For this is man's all. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether it is good or whether it is evil." I mean, Solomon knew what he was talking about. He not only had wisdom, but he had wisdom from God. And what he was allowed to do is, is live his life and be affected by all the things that that affect us. And then he reached the conclusion that we've just read about. So the bottom line is, this is what the wisest man, other than Jesus Himself, the wisest man, really, who's ever lived, he said, This is what everybody needs to understand. He was a great teacher, and I hope he is a teacher that inspires all of us to live as he would want us to live. I've read this recently. The mediocre teacher tells. He or she just, just tells a student what a student needs to know. The good teacher explains. There's another layer in there. It's not just, I'm going to tell you something, I'm going to explain that to you. That's what a good teacher does. The superior teacher demonstrates. That's another level to to the previous two, but the great teacher inspires. Some of us are what we are because someone has inspired us to be that. They didn't just tell us about it, they didn't just explain something, they didn't probably just demonstrate something, but they there was some level of inspiration that was given to us to move us in the direction that many of us have gone. All of us probably have had teaching in school, in whatever capacity that is, and we've had people to influence us, but we've had some people who have inspired us to do some things that we've done. I have my list. You have your list. But I think what Solomon is trying to do as he writes this great, great letter is to inspire us to great things. He is trying to tell us, this is what you need to do. I'm explaining it to you. I am demonstrating it to you by how I've lived my life. But what I really want to do is inspire you or move you to do that and if we listen, we can do that. So what I want to do today is just look at a few things from these last few verses that I hope will inspire us.

Now, before I say that, let me say this, and I probably say this again at the end. If you're in this audience this morning and you are not fearing God or at least if I could say it this way, you're not, you're not concerned with God-things, you may or may not believe in God, but you're clearly not concerned about God-things. I want you this morning to think about this. I want you to ask yourself, then where is your life at? Where is it going? Well, what's going to be the end game in your life? If you're not concerned about fearing God and keeping His commandments, then what is the end game for you? And I would suggest this to you if you're satisfied with what that end game, end game is without God, that's your business, and I doubt that, I'm sure that, I can't persuade you otherwise. I'm just another voice. Solomon's a voice. But I hope if you're here this morning and you're not inclined toward anything that relates to godly things the way God intends. I hope you'll give some thought to this, to what we're going to talk about for a few minutes.

First thing I would suggest to you that coming out of beginning in verse nine is that Solomon would say, you know, the strength for this life is found in what you can hold on to. The strength in this life is what you can, in essence, hang your hat on. And so what he would say is this, "because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge. Yes, he pondered and sought out and said it in order. In many proverbs, the preacher sought to find acceptable words and what was written was upright. They were words of truth. The words of the wise are like goads, and the words of scholars are like well driven nails given by one shepherd." Well driven nails. Well driven nails and goads play a part in what he says. Goads were a pointed stick. They were just a pointed stick in order to prod a stubborn animal, but not just to get him to move, but to get him to move in a particular direction. That's why you would take a stick that was pointed and you would, you would prod the animal, and you would prod him so that he would go in a particular direction. And so that's what Solomon says. That's the strength to this. And then he says, there are, well driven nails, these, the truth, and these words are like well driven nails. I want you to think about that. Well driven nails are strong. If you take a nail and you hammer it, or you drill it into something that it's hard, and if you don't make it go deep, and if it's not strong itself, it's going to break. It's not going to hold what was intended to hold. And Solomon's words point us in the right direction, and it points us to a thing that will hold what it is that we need to hold. That's, I think, what he's trying to say here. Isn't that what you want? Don't you want your life to go, Listen carefully, don't you want your life to go in the right direction? And as you're going in that direction, don't you want what your life is, don't you want that to hold up? So what I see among a lot of people, first of all, they're not going the right direction. And if they're not going the right direction, what they're trying to build their life around, it doesn't hold up. And so what you have is disaster. Not only are they going the wrong direction, but they're sinking. And what Solomon says is you need to go the right direction, and you need to stay here. You need to stay where your life will be strong, where you will be strong. Don't go here and then go down. Don't do that. So that's what Solomon, I think, is trying to tell us, these nails can hold the weight of our lives.

God's word is never described as a soft feather that just tickles. It's described as a double edged sword. That's the passage that was read for us by Jared a moment ago from Hebrews four and verse 12. It's intended to make us uncomfortable. It divides. It cuts. It's divided. That's why it's sometimes hard. It's sometimes hard to say. You know, that's what I want. It's hard to do. If it was an easy thing to do every. Body would do it, but it's a hard thing, but it's a hard thing that has great benefits. And it's given, he continue to say, it's given by one shepherd. Now I want you to put that together. Why does he-- why does He say it's given by one shepherd? He could say it's given by a lot of things. He he could use a lot of metaphors here, really, to talk about the shepherd or some, use some, other language here, but it says it is given by one shepherd. It's because the shepherd gives direction, and the shepherd relates to the sheep. A shepherd directs sheep, goads and nails, and this imagery was clearly understood in Solomon's day, and in Jesus day. It's interesting if you go to Israel today, you're still going to see it. You're going to see sheep with a shepherd a lot of places. Obviously the Lord knew exactly what he was talking about. But that's because they saw that, and we need to see that. So the answer to the question is, at least initially, is what you need to do, is you need to go in the right direction, and you need to hook your life on the truth of what God says, because it stays there, it holds, doesn't fall, holds. And I know, as I said to you early, and I'll just, I'll just reinforce the stuff. I know a lot of people, and you do too, whose lives are in disarray because they're not going the right direction, and maybe more importantly, initially, they're not interested in going the right direction. That's why the word of God speaks to the heart. That's why, when Solomon tells these things, he's hoping not just to tell you something, he's hoping to inspire you to do something about that, and me to do something about that. That's why these -- that's why these words never get old. That's why these words are always applicable, because it, because they're a lot of people, a lot of people who not following what Solomon said. This might be one of those sermons that, if you know, if you could preach the same thing every week for the next 10 years. This might be the sermon. What are you hanging your life on? What direction is your life going? You need to continue to think about that.

And he kind of, kind of continues the thought in verse 12, where he says, You need to avoid these false directions. Verse 12 says, "and further, my son be admonished by these," what he's just told you, be admonished by these words of and he says, "and then of making of many books, there is no end, and much study is wearisome to the flesh." Many books, there's no end. The study of these is wearisome to the flesh. I want you to imagine the futility of study when it's not the truth you ever thought about that? You ever thought about, maybe you maybe you have studied something before. Maybe there's been a mindset in your heart and in your life that's caused you to look at something, and as you're studying this, you're going-- you're saying to yourself, This isn't true. And while you're doing that, you may have been incentivized to go ahead and study it, but while you're studying the conclusion is this doesn't even make any sense. This can't be what the truth about whatever it is that you're studying is, and that's frustration. And I think a lot of people have that. I think a lot of people live their life. They continue to live their life, but they continue to live it frustrated. You may be you may be that person. There's something about your life that you enjoy, but then in the final analysis, and then in the deeper analysis, you're frustrated by it. Is that you? Well, it may be that you've encountered this futility of study and this futility of effort, because everybody has wisdom for life, everybody's got an idea, everybody's got an opinion, everybody's got a thought, everyone even has their explanation. Here's what I think. You ask me what do you think about life? Well, here's, here's what I think life is. I was talking to Mitch. This just came to him. I was talking to Mitch yesterday, he and I were together and we were just talking about people, and we're talking about why, why don't people do what they ought to do? And I think he and I are both, we're, I think, we're both convinced people, do what they do because they think they're saved. I can't imagine somebody living life thinking, You know what, I'm in deep trouble. I won't do anything about it. I just think a lot of people think they're fine. They've just decided for themselves. They've come to their own reasoning about what life is all about, about what life hereafter is all about. They've reached their own conclusions. They're not trying to find out what the truth is. As Solomon says, He said, I gotta tell you the truth. But they've reached some conclusion that says, You know what, this is what I believe this is what I'm going to do. Everything's going to be fine. I really think a lot of people feel that way, and as a result, they're not interested in talking about God.

It may be that they think, you know, I'm a good person. I'm a really good person. I'm in all these civics clubs, civic clubs, and, you know, I'm, I got a I got a good family, you know, I don't beat up anybody. I've never been in jail. Only had one speeding ticket. I'm pretty good, pretty good fella. And I think they, I think a lot of people just simply think that is the deal, and the way they do find out what it is that they want to feel good about in life is that they'll listen to a lot of other people. They'll listen in this day and age people listen to podcast. I'm confident many of you, especially those of you who are younger, listen to podcast, or you read blogs, or you find self help books, and I'm not-- I'm not innocent of some of this myself. Are you looking for these five minute a day videos? You're looking for something that's good. And I'm not diminishing any of those. I'm not-- I'm certainly in no way saying don't do that. I do some of that myself, but if any of that is not guided by the foundation of God, it's worthless. It's just worthless. And I would tell you to stop, stop paying attention to it, unless it's grounded in something that's going to strengthen the faith that you have in God Himself. Isn't that what Solomon saying? There's some good to be gained from many books or many anything; you add to that what you want to put. And every generation thinks that they've they've gained some benefit. Those of you who are younger think very quickly that you know, you know the best way to raise kids, and you may. You may have a better way to raise them than my wife and I raised ours, or that my parents raised us. But the fundamentals are the fundamentals. They just are and they're always going to be but people who separate themselves from God don't have the answer. I'm telling you, they don't have the answer to life. And if, and if you have separated yourself from God, you don't have the answer. I don't care how much you listen to, I don't care how much you read. If it hasn't found its ground in God, you're headed off this wrong direction, and it's going to fall. That I'm sure of.

God always has the answer, and that's why he, I think, used Solomon to tell us about it. Here's the answer. So avoid false direction. Don't go down a road that's going to lead you to disaster. Don't do that, because what you want to be is the whole person. You want to be this complete person. Verse 13 says, "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep His commandments. This is man's all. "This is-- this is who man is all about. And it's about as succinct as it can get. It won't take you five minutes to read this and apply it. "Hear the conclusion. Fear God and keep His commandments." That's the bottom line, right? What is, what is the advantage of this life? Here's the way, here's the way you gain the advantage. Here's the way you're pointed in the right direction, and you have a strong life. Here it is. You ready? "Fear God, keep His commandments." That's it. Are you convinced of that? Are you-- are you fully convinced of that? Are you trying to work your way around that. You may be that academically, intellectually, you say, I get it, Kenny, I see what you're saying, but I'm just not ready for that. Well, that's your prerogative. Nobody's saying you have to. God didn't say you have to. God's saying though, here is the truth. Hear it. Hear the words of truth. And if you want your life to be what it needs to be in order to be complete, here's what you need to do. And the Bible tells you how to do both of those things. It tells you how to fear God. It not only tells you his commandments, he tells you how to keep his commandments, and it talks about those and explains those, and it tells you, in multiple places, why they are a benefit to you. And so what he's saying is, God cannot be an afterthought, cannot be-- can't be a hobby, can't be an occasion. It can't be something to do two or three days a year, on holidays. It can't be that. Can't be that. That's not, that is not, that's not your life. Your life is not Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July. It's not that. God is not something we do when it's good for us or when we need him, that's what a lot of people that we see that all the time. Lot of people become religious when they need it. I get that. I get the fact that they need it. God has put eternity in their hearts. They know that there's an advantage. They just don't want it all the time. They don't even see it as necessary all the time. And what God says is, no, it is. Here's how Jesus said it. In John six, he was talking about this bread. You know, he's the bread of life. In John six, verse 35, "Jesus said to them, He said, I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst." Don't you think that's a pretty good thing to tell somebody? If you'll commit to me. You'll never be hungry, you'll never be thirsty. Now they obviously, they don't, they didn't understand all that, but you understand that, right? You understand where he's going with this. Because you've read John six multiple times. You've studied John six multiple times. That's what Jesus said, and here was their reaction to it. "The Jews then complained about him because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven." They complained about him because he said that. Apparently they didn't-- they didn't even take the time to objectively listen to what he said and contemplate what he said, and think about what he said, and even ask the question, is this true? No, they just complain about him. They complained about him because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And so Jesus said it again. When you get to verse 51, "I'm the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he'll live forever." There you go. Okay, that's something else that he said that he's added to it. You'll live forever. I like that, don't you? "And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." Now there he's confusing them again, maybe, right? But he's trying to get him to see. So in verse 52, "The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves now saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Now we got another issue. They're still not they're still not understanding. And I get that, but Jesus trying to help him understand, right? And so he goes on to explain even further when you get to verse 53, "Then Jesus said to them, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I'll raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. For he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in Me and I in him." He's just, he's just adding layer upon layer to the good conclusion, right? "As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the father. So he who feeds on me will live because of me." He who feeds on me. Man, that's, that's pretty strong language. Feed. You feed on me? You'll live. "This is the bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers ate the manna." Not that kind of bread. They're dead. "He who eats this bread will live forever." He who eats this bread will live forever. Your whole life has got to be about Jesus. And I think that's something that we wrestle with. I think it's something that I wrestle with.

There are a lot of things in my life that compete for my attention. There are a lot of things. There are some things that compete for my attention that I quickly see, what a waste. What am I doing? What am I doing? That's one of them, right? It's got my daily crossword up here. Well, picture my grandkids now that's worth looking at every now and then. But don't you spend way too much time with this right here, way too much, right? I do. But for a person who's committed to having a life lived for Jesus, I may have to reevaluate a lot of things. You may have to reevaluate a lot of things, because Jesus that I'm the bread of life, not these other things that you're involved with. He's not negating those other things. He's just saying you gotta make sure that those things aren't what you're focused on. And it is easy for us to focus on those things, I think because I know how I am. It's one thing, folks, to spend a week or two thinking about a sermon and preparing what you want to say. It's one thing to do that. It's another thing to think about Jesus and how he affects your life. That's one thing a preacher has to deal with, preparing a sermon and preparing what I want to say and how I want to present it, what I want to be the content that has to do, that has to do practically with, here's what I have been asked to do. Here's my responsibility. How am I going to do that? How am I going to present that? What am I going to say about that? That's one thing that's that's part of my life, but the other part of my life that's even more important is, what does it mean to me? What does it mean to me? I do Bible readings, as you might expect. I do Bible readings. I do quite a few Bible readings. You, some of you do quite a few Bible readings, but you're doing it because it affects you. You're doing it, I believe I would imagine because it having some value to you. I have to reassure myself of why I'm doing it sometimes. Are you doing this because it's intended to help you or Kenny, are you doing this because your intention is to help them? Those are two different things. I have to be cautious of that. My whole life should be Jesus, whatever that looks like. But it's got to be that. It's got to be that I understand that he is the bread of life.

And then finally, let me suggest this, you have to trust God. You just have to trust God. Verse 14, "for God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil, that it's interesting God's not going to leave anything out. God knows everything about your life. He knows things that you've forgotten. He knows things you'll never remember. He knows those things and it will affect, it will affect how he renders judgment. Is that not what that says? God will bring, he'll bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. I'm not suggesting that he's trying to destroy you and he's not going to have mercy and grace. I'm not trying to say that anyway, but I am saying this. The last thing Solomon said in this document is he's going to bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it's good or evil. That means something. Don't pass that off. Don't just treat that like, well, that's no big deal. I think, I think the real conclusion is what he said in the previous verse. Well, it's the conclusion, but he says this about the conclusion. He's going to bring everything in the judgment. He knows all you do. He knows all you are. He knows, he knows, and He is a loving God, and He is a God who wants you to be saved, but he wants you to fear him and to keep His commandments. I think the way to say that Jesus would say is you need to be hungry and thirsty. Blessed are those Jesus would say in the Sermon on the Mount who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness. They hunger and thirst for it. They'll be filled. They'll be filled. That's what he wants. That's what he wants from us. When we're filled with something, we don't waste our life in something, and I think that's part of the issue that he's getting at, don't you?

Well, that's it. Those are things that you've heard, I think, for a long time, but I think we need to be reminded of those things, so that's why I want to present this lesson to all of us. You need to commit to God and doing it his way. Then you need to do that. Just do that, commit to him say, Lord, I'm yours. I want to do what you say. I want to live my life for you. I want to hang my hat on strong nails, and I want you to prod me in the right direction. He'll do it, and we'll help you, but you gotta commit to him. Commit to him. We can help you do that this morning. Come as we stand and as we sing.