Life Under The Sun (part 1) - [Ecclesiastes]

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Turn with me, if you will, to the book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes has become over time one of my favorite books in the

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Old Testament. It is interesting to go back here and take a look.

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And you begin to realize, if you learn anything about modern human philosophy and what the philosophers of our day say about the human condition, and how accurately

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Solomon identified all of this and wrote it down probably 4 ,000 years ago, 3 ,500 years ago, 4 ,000 years ago.

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A lot of study could have been avoided. Just pick up your Bible and read what Solomon had to say about the human condition.

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In particular, the human condition apart from God and what happens.

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And he accurately outlines what happens to society and to individuals when they try to live their lives as if God was not there.

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And he correctly comes up with the conclusion that it's all vapor. It's all emptiness.

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Nothing has any final meaning to itself.

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And indeed, this is exactly where the pace of Renaissance thought has brought us, starting with the beginning of the

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Renaissance in which they decided they would place man at the center of everything. And even such thinkers,

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Renaissance thinkers as Leonardo da Vinci knew where they were going.

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He predicted exactly where they would wind up. And it's exactly where we are today, a state of universal despair, meaninglessness, the idea of what's it all about.

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But Solomon got there first, went over the whole thing first. And so I have four opportunities to speak during the time that Pastor Mike is away.

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And at least two of them will get devoted to Ecclesiastes. And perhaps all four we'll have to see. So open your

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Bibles with me, if you will, to Ecclesiastes. And he starts off, the words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

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Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

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What prophet hath a man of all his labor that he taketh unto the sun? And so this is the diary at the end of his life.

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Solomon's an old man when he comes to write the book of Ecclesiastes. He has risen to be king of Israel at the height of its power.

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Solomon is one of the wisest men that has ever lived. He was certainly the wisest man of his day.

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He's one of the wisest men of all time. More than perhaps anybody else who's certainly anybody who's lived up to his time, and probably anybody who's lived into the modern time, he can say, been there and done that.

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Because he was in a position that he did not have to deny himself anything.

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And there are certain individuals today who make the list of the 100 richest men, or whatever it is, that just got published.

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And they, too, don't have to deny themselves anything. In terms of material possessions, whatever they want, they have sufficient resources that whatever they want will be provided for them virtually instantaneously.

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And with some restrictions to the fact that Solomon was living in an agrarian, non -technological society, it was essentially the same for him.

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Whatever he wanted, he got. Whatever the king wants, the king gets. He didn't have a stereo system, but he didn't need one because he had musicians at his beck and call 24 hours a day.

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If he wanted to hear the latest hits, they came in and played for the king, whatever it was.

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And so if anybody can find meaning in life, it's got to be

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Solomon, right? Because whatever it was, he could have it.

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Whatever it was, he could have it. And yet, here at the end of his life, he's going to talk about life under the sun, life on this earth, life in the world.

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And his original thesis is verse 2. Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity, meaning there's no meaning to any of it.

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Every bit of it is vapor. There's no permanent fixed meaning to anything.

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It's a very pessimistic book. Now, Solomon, again, like I said, is at the end of his life.

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He has written three books. He wrote Song of Solomon, probably when he was a young man.

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He wrote Proverbs, probably during his middle age. But now he gets to the end of his life.

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And so this is the diary and his conclusions about life. Now, he's going to discourse on the futility of life without God, because man is infinitely curious.

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Man asks questions about life. Why am I here? Where did I come from? Where am

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I going? As Schaefer put it, the theologian and the philosopher basically wrestle with the same questions.

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They express them slightly differently, but they're basically going after the same thing. And men intrinsically know that there is a

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God there and that they are created in his image. They suppress that knowledge, as Paul tells us in Romans, but they know it.

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And anyone who's ever tried to deal with children in evangelism will tell you that it is not necessary to explain to a child that God is there.

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A child instinctively knows that. It's not until they grow up and become sophisticated that they suppress that knowledge.

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And so we know we're missing something. We instinctively know that and we're out looking for it.

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There's got to be a meaning somewhere, we keep saying to ourselves, because we are undeniably here.

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So where did we come from? And why are we here? And the problem is that the natural man in and of himself has no ability whatsoever to discern the answers to these questions.

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Now, you might say that Solomon has lived a wicked life, which he has.

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And so isn't it unique that three of his books are placed into the realm of Holy Scripture and placed into the canon?

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And yet, as William Arnault puts it, this is the man whom

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God has chosen as the schoolmaster to teach us the vanity of the world when it has made the portion of the soul.

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And he, God, hath done all things well. The man who has drained the cup of pleasure can best tell of the taste of the dregs.

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Now, for those of you who don't drink wine, the dregs are what's at the bottom of the bottle. And, of course, modern day wines, they filter everything, but they put it in the bottle so you don't have this problem.

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But the type of wine that William Arnault was thinking of in the 19th century, the stuff all settled to the bottom.

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And if you tried to get that last bit out of the bottle, it was not pleasant. And that's what he's referring to.

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Solomon, better than anybody, knows about the unpleasantness that sits at the end of a life lived as if God is not there.

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And so, let's see what he says. First of all, Solomon clearly identifies himself as the author of Ecclesiastes, but he conceals his name.

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He says, the words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Well, now, the son of David, king in Jerusalem, there's only one possible person that fulfills that description.

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But Solomon's name means peaceable. But he doesn't use his name because Solomon's life, he has done nothing but bring trouble upon himself personally and upon his nation as a whole.

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Solomon is the king. And as the king, he's the man in charge. And God is going to hold him responsible for his nation and the spiritual welfare of his nation during the time that he was king.

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And so, what has Solomon done in his life? Well, first of all, he's married foreign wives, and not just one or two, but 300 and something of them.

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And as one child put it, and besides that, he had 700 porcupines. You know, beyond that, it's concubines.

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That's a joke, folks. So, you know, Solomon can't...

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He doesn't have one or two women. He's got a thousand of them. And as these foreign wives, all acquired in political alliances to build his kingdom and secure political borders and what have you, as they came in, he allowed them to bring in their false gods, their idols into Israel and to set up places to worship these gods and to worship them.

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And no doubt, he participated in that himself. And by so doing, he has led not only himself, but his whole nation has been led away from Yahweh.

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And all of the rules and restrictions that Yahweh has placed upon his people have one central purpose, which is to keep them separate from everybody else.

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And so, Solomon is guilty of a serious sin here, that he has led the children of Israel away from the true

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God. Because God said in Exodus, God said, what? What's the first commandment? I am the

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Lord thy God, who have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, thou shalt have no other gods before me.

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That was rule number one. And so Solomon, peaceable, has had no peace of conscience, no peace in his personal life, no peace in the nation either.

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Yes, there was an absence of open combat in that sense, but just because you're not fighting somebody doesn't automatically mean you're at peace.

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And so Solomon does not use his name. He calls himself the preacher. The Hebrew word is koheleth, which has the root or concept of gatherer, one who gathers, one who reaps.

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And so let's look a little bit about what the preacher is. First, the preacher is a penitent soul.

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He's a penitent soul. He has wandered away. He has wandered away. But now, just like the prodigal son, he has come to himself, and God has gathered him in.

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God has gathered him into himself. And so he returns to God.

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He returns to God, his father. And proving once again that divine grace makes great sinners into great converts.

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You know, John Newton made the remark, you know, all

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I know is that I am a great sinner and he is a great savior, talking about Jesus.

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But only the truly penitent soul is accepted when you will come to God. Real sorrow, real sorrow is what is sought.

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The sorrow that comes from realizing that we have caused an offense to Almighty God.

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That's first and foremost what should be in our mind. And when we present the gospel, the first thing that we must present is not that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

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Because frankly, he might not. The first thing is, is that God is there.

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There is a God who's created everything and he created you. And you have offended him mightily.

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That's the bad news. That's problem number one. And only the truly penitent soul can come to God.

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We don't want the phony sorrow that comes from a child who's sorry that he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

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Or he's sorry that, you know, he knows that he's going to get punished for what he just did.

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What we're looking for is the kind of sorrow that produces true repentance, which is a change in behavior.

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You know, we want you to turn around and go the other way. True biblical repentance, which produces a change in behavior.

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God cannot be used and Jesus cannot be used as a fire escape. You can't, you know, sign up just so that when it's all over, you get taken into heaven in spite of how you lived in your life.

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Now, the preaching soul is also one who is doing gathering. He has gone astray himself.

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And doubtless, as we pointed out, he's led others astray as well. But now the one who has gone astray has been gathered in and he will go out and gather in others at the end of his life.

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He is setting forth to, as best he can, correct the wrong course that his life has taken.

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He doesn't have a lot of time left, but he's going to use what time he has as best he can to accomplish this.

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But as we look through the Bible, don't we see examples of that over and over and over and over again?

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We might think of the apostle Peter who denied his Lord and Savior. And yet what does

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Jesus do to Peter? He gives him a charge. You, Peter, go feed my sheep. Peter, you take care of my sheep.

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Or we might think of the apostle Paul who's out, you know, trying to haul, throw

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Christians into jail. And yet he is confronted in person by Jesus Christ on the

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Damascus Road who says, Paul, Paul, why are you persecuting me?

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He said, it's a hard thing you're trying, isn't it? You know, but Paul, you're mine.

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You know, you're mine. You're my apostle to the Gentiles. I have a job for you to do. And away he goes.

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And so in that sense of the term, God is definitely the

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God of the second chance. He talks to us as well the same way. Brings us to himself.

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Brings us to himself. Works a work of grace in our lives and then sends us out to do his job. The entire

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Bible, if you want to look at it this way, with the sole exception of Jesus Christ, is the entire

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Bible is the record of God using incompetent people to do his work.

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You know, unqualified, incompetent people. The only exception to that is Jesus himself who did exactly what his father wanted him to do from day one.

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So anyway, God does. God chooses whom he will and he puts them to work doing his business.

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So now Solomon also refers to himself as the son of David. And I suspect in this point here, he is using

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David as his standard of reference for what it means to repent. Because David too was a great sinner.

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But David too was also a great repenter. David knew how to repent. Just read

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Psalm 51 and you get the flavor of David's repentance.

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And there is sorrow associated with that. And David pours that out, puts it down on paper in Psalm 51.

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Solomon identifies himself as the son of David and also points out that he's the king of Israel.

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Now, who made Solomon king of Israel? God did. If you read in Kings, you can read in Samuel and in Kings and right through there, you'll read how, you know, it was not an open and shut deal that Solomon was going to be king.

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But God said Solomon's going to be king. Solomon was not the first son of David.

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But he was the one that was going to be king after David and God worked this out. God put him on the throne and God promised that because Solomon asked for wisdom.

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Then God said, I'll give you wisdom and I'll give you all this other stuff besides and God did not go back on his promise.

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He fulfilled all of that. But as the book of Ecclesiastes illustrates, without the divinely given ability to enjoy what

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God has given us, it's all meaningless. That the possessions themselves in and of themselves are not going to give you happiness, contentment or any of those other things.

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In fact, it causes pain and agony. As we'll see a little bit later on, if you are successful in your business, if you're diligent, you work hard, you're successful in your business, what does that get you?

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It gets you the envy of your neighbors. You know, isn't that great? So anyway, basically

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Solomon used the office of king poorly. But at the end of his life, he's going to use his position and his influence to preach

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God's Word because he is the king after all. And what the king has to say carries greater weight than what, you know,

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Joe down on the corner has to say. And so he's going to use his position to make his message.

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And so Ecclesiastes outlined something like this. First of all, there's an introduction, the first 11 verses, chapter 1, verses 1 to 11.

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Solomon is going to present his primary thesis which is that everything is transient, nothing is permanent, nothing has eternal value.

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The second thing is going to be Solomon's investigation of life and that's chapter 1, verse 12 to chapter 6, verse 9.

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This is where we're going to spend most of our time tonight. And then Solomon will get into his conclusion starting at verse 10 of chapter 6 and going on to verse 8 of chapter 12.

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And finally, Solomon gives his final advice in verses 9 to 14 of chapter 12.

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And like I said, over the next few weeks, we're going to hit all the way through the book.

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And so I'll give you the whole overview right now, you know. There are two themes presented in Ecclesiastes.

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The first one is, apart from God, everything is vapor, everything is emptiness, nothing is permanent, nothing is transient.

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And the second thesis is that with God, everything becomes a gift from His hand.

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That's the whole book. Let us pray. No, we'll keep going.

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There are also two options presented in Ecclesiastes. Man's options are

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God or nothing. God or nothing.

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In fact, if you study Francis Schaeffer in his writings, he's saying the same thing.

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He outlines the way that these two choices have been presented and describes them largely in terms of the thought that has developed since the time of the

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Reformation where you have Reformation thought on one side and Renaissance thought on the other and how things have kind of diverged at that point.

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But he's saying the same thing. You have only two choices, God or nothing. The problem is men refuse to choose either one.

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We refuse to choose either one. We don't want to be ruled by a sovereign God. What did the crowd say at the crucifixion?

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We will not have this man to rule over us. That's the bottom line.

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We will not have this man to rule over us. But on the other hand, we're not willing to accept the alternative which is that there's nothing out there.

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There's got to be a meaning someplace. We'll rush around. We'll try to find it somehow.

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Man instinctively knows that he needs a reference point to give everything meaning. This should not come as a great revelation to you.

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Everything needs a reference point. Even such questions as how fast am

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I going, you're implying how fast am I going compared to what? You know, compared to the ground or compared to something, you know, or if Captain Kirk, this is the obligatory

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Star Trek reference, if Captain Kirk asks, you know, what's our speed?

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Well, the next question is or what's our course? The next question is from the helmsman is compared to where?

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What's my point of reference? And so, man knows that he needs a reference point.

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In fact, he knows he needs an infinite reference point. Only God will do as a reference point.

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In fact, this is a subject for another sermon on another day, but only a Trinitarian God will do as a reference point.

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That's a whole another subject, but we'll go there at some time. But you do, we need an absolute being from which to hang everything else.

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But since we refuse to accept God as our reference point, the next thing we try is we try, okay,

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I'll use myself as my reference point. And this is the recipe for disaster. Now, I do want to comment before we start in here that Ecclesiastes, the book of Ecclesiastes is part of the inspired word of God.

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It's in the canon of scripture. It is inspired. It was put there. This is part of the

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Bible that is good for profitable for our instruction and all the rest of it that 1

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Peter talks about. But keep the distinction in mind. There is a distinction in scripture between what is descriptive and what is prescriptive.

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And much of what Solomon has to say in the book of Ecclesiastes is human reasoning.

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He is laying down, this is what human beings think left to themselves. This is the result of where it goes.

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So, Solomon is going to present the human world view and he's going to trace it to its ultimate end.

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And so, it's going to be kind of gloomy as he goes through. But at the end, he's going to end on a positive note and he's going to sum up the only real valid approach to life which is fear

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God and keep his commandments. But first, he's going to set forth his basic thesis and it is human viewpoint, verses 1 to 11 of chapter 1.

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And he starts off, what profit, verse 3, what profit hath a man in all of his labor which he taketh under the sun?

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And so, he's wrestling with the question of what we call in this modern day metaphysics.

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The issue of being as Schaeffer calls it. We observe the universe, things do exist.

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But one of the profound questions of humankind is, why is anything there?

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It is much more logical that nothing would be there, quite frankly. So, why is anything as opposed to nothing there?

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Where did it come from? How did it get there? And all of these things, all of these individual things, these particulars, what gives them meaning?

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What is the overarching thing that gives all of the little details meaning?

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Where did they come from? And as I pointed out, we have two schools of thought that have influenced modern day.

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And the first one which we call reformation thought uses God as its point of reference and everything comes from that.

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Our legal system comes from that. Science comes from that. It aligns with what man observes about himself.

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That man is different from the rest of the animals. We're not simply the creature that managed to claw to the top of the food chain.

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That we are fundamentally different. We have personality. We have manishness.

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And I know everybody that's got a pet says, well, my dog has personality. Well, this is not the same thing, folks.

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Man is driven to communicate. Man is driven to love. And why is man that way?

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And the answer to that question is that man is a creation of a creator God who has created him in his own image.

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And these are characteristics of God. On the other side of the question, we have the

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Renaissance thought which uses man as the point of reference, which is certainly the dominant philosophy of our time.

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And it sees no intrinsic difference between man and non -man. This is called determinism.

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That men are simply cogs in some big impersonal machine. Ultimately, nothing has meaning.

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They're reinforcing Ecclesiastes. It results in a descent into despair.

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Why are so many people running around, rushing around, frantically looking for happiness? In all the wrong places,

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I might add. It's because life leads to despair if you don't have

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God to anchor to. It runs contrary to what man observes about himself.

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People say we are becoming more and more an isolated society, isolated from each other. We may be in the middle of a huge group of people, and yet we are isolated.

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And we do this to ourselves. And the problem is that man is finite so that he is insufficient as a reference point.

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Man may invent gods of his own, little G. The Greeks had

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Zeus and all the rest of them. And the Vikings had Odin and all of those guys.

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But when you look at them, they're just supermen. Yes, they have superpowers, but they have all of the jealousies and all of the failings and all of the foibles of mankind.

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They're petty. They're jealous. They stab each other in the back. Certainly not the kind of people that we would want to follow.

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And so they are unsatisfactory as reference points. Modern behaviorists, men like B .F.

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Skinner or men like Francis Crick, they attempt to address the whole problem by saying, well, men are just cogs in some vast impersonal machine, or we're the sum total of the chemical elements that make us up, and there's nothing unique about us.

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But this, too, comes contrary to what man observes about himself for his entire existence.

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And when you think about it, no behaviorist can really live that way. You really can't because there's two things that we observe.

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Just watching mankind, we observe two things. First of all, even though we are fallen creatures, there is a nobility about men.

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There is a nobility about men. Soldiers lay down their lives for their comrades.

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Soldiers throw themselves on hand grenades to protect their buddies. Men enter burning buildings to rescue other people.

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Men give up their seats in the lifeboats. We go by what's the cardinal rule?

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Women and children first. So why do we do that? Why do we do that? And on the other side of the coin, men are also cruel because man is alienated from God who created him.

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And man is also alienated from other men because of that very thing. And man is alienated from himself.

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And so Solomon starts off. He's actually siding with the

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Renaissance position. Long before there was a Renaissance, Solomon begins where Renaissance thought ended up.

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He starts off saying everything is emptiness. Nothing has any intrinsic value or worth. And the

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Hebrew word he uses is hebel which means vapor. It means vapor, you know, just a white cloud that suddenly dissipates.

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He was way ahead of William Shakespeare. Well, Shakespeare described life as a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

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But Solomon was way ahead of him. Solomon reinforces his point.

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Nothing has any intrinsic value. Everything is meaningless. And so he goes down. He says here's my support for this.

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One generation passes away. Another generation comes. And the earth abides forever.

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Well, right now, in this day and age, uniformitarianism is also part of the signature philosophy of our time.

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Is that everything goes on, always the way it has, billions and billions of years to coin a phrase, you know.

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And that's where we are. Is that nature is permanent. Humanity is temporary.

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And it's one generation goes. Another generation comes. You know, that's the way it goes.

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And he says the sun rises, the sun sets. The sun rises again. That goes on.

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Human beings don't go on. But the sun keeps rising and setting. And the wind blows and keeps going along its circuits and its paths.

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And, you know, the rivers run to the sea, but the sea is not full.

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It says under the place where the rivers come, they return again. See, Solomon knew all about the cycle of evaporation and rain and the whole thing.

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You know, he was up on the science of his day. And this is this weary round, weary round.

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But nature is permanent. Nature is permanent. And mankind is temporary and transient.

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And all of man's efforts are transient. That's the philosophy that Solomon is laying down.

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And it's the philosophy that you see today. You know, mother earth, earth first, all of these things that get into it.

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Is that as if the earth somehow is something that overrides the needs of human beings.

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It's always puzzled me. It's one of the curious things that, you know, people are very concerned about nature.

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And they're not concerned about men. And yet, I've never had it explained to me why a beaver's dam built on a creek by some beavers, for beaver's purposes, is part of nature.

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But Hoover Dam, which was built on a river by man, for man's purposes, is not.

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You know, but we see that all the time. We see that all the time. And so, he says, all things are full of labor.

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Man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

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The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be. And that which is done is that which will be done.

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And there is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything whereof it may be said, see, this is new.

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It has already been of old time which was before us. There is no remembrance of former things. Neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come after.

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In fact, Solomon is saying there's nothing new under the sun. And the only reason we think there are new things is that our memories are not very good.

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We don't remember the past more than a generation or two. And therefore, something comes along and we say, oh, this is new.

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But it isn't, according to Solomon. And yet, what does God say? We go to Revelation, and God says, behold,

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I make all things new. I'm going to make everything new.

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Heaven and earth is going to pass away. This is not, this is the disposable earth. It is not a permanent thing.

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Heaven and earth are going to pass away. My word is what is going to stand firm. And, you know, things are going to be new.

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Things are going to be new. But Solomon has stated his thesis. And he's presenting his proof.

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And he's trying to figure out what's it all about. But we should note that apart from a proper view of God and a proper relationship to him, it's impossible for anyone to figure out what's going on.

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And so what does Solomon do? He launches into his proof. And he said, okay, well, the first thing

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I'll try is I'll try wisdom. You know, I will go get advanced degrees. And certainly that will answer my question.

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And so he was the wisest man of his day. And he was certainly one of the top ten wisest men ever to live on earth.

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And yet he finds that this doesn't cut it. He comes in verse 18 to the end that, for in much wisdom is much grief.

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And he that increases knowledge increases sorrow. This is not the answer.

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He says, I am come to great estate and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem.

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Yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And, you know, he said,

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I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. See, he got his degree in philosophy.

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There it is. And he perceives that this is vexation of spirit, vexation of spirit.

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And so his conclusion is in much wisdom is much grief. There's such a thing as being too smart for your own good, says

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Solomon. And so, okay, well, if wisdom and education is not going to do it, well, surely pleasure will take care of the situation for me.

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And so Solomon tries pleasure. And much of Western society is convinced that pleasure is an end in itself, that pleasure is not the byproduct of something but that it's an end.

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It is to be sought and to go out looking for pleasure. And certainly Solomon was well equipped to try the endless search for diversion.

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The thing of it is, he finds at the end, he goes down the things that he did.

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He said he gave himself to wine. And you can be sure that he had the best vintages available.

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You know, he was not getting the $1 .59 stuff from the corner supermarket. He got the very best that there was.

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And he was going to lay hold on folly that I might see what was good for the sons of men.

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And he said, I made myself great works. I built stuff. And so he tries all of these things.

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You know, we can extend the whole idea to if he was alive today, he'd be trying cocaine and other drugs, whatever it is.

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But pleasure, whatever it was that seemed to be pleasureful, he's going to try that.

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And he discovers that pleasure feels good for a while.

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It also dries you up and drains your resources. And ultimately, there's nothing there.

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Ultimately, there's nothing there. As has been commented before, if you go on a drug -induced trip, it's the same old world when you get back.

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And so now he says, well, okay, if pleasure won't do it, I will now go in for stuff and things.

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I'm going to acquire possessions. And so he launches off, houses and great works.

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You know, he built houses. He built all kinds of constructions, projects, all of that sort of things that he did.

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And he said he has vineyards and gardens and orchards. That's verses 4 and 5. And he made pools of water.

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Don't sell that short because Solomon's living in a desert. And so this is a great luxury is to have water available to cool you and to refresh you whenever you want it.

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And yet he did all of this. And he said, I have servants.

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I have servants in my house. And he doesn't mean that he had a butler and a couple of maids. He means he had, you know, hundreds or perhaps even thousands of servants at his beck and call.

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Again, as we pointed out earlier, Solomon, there's nothing that Solomon wants that Solomon does not get instantly.

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Instant gratification. And he's got flocks and herds.

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And again, Solomon is living in an agricultural agrarian society. And so wealth is measured by the sizes of your flocks.

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And he's pointing out that he is an extremely wealthy man. And he also had gold.

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He also had gold. He had silver. All of the he was surrounded by nations that sent him tribute week and month and year after year after year.

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And so he's got singers and musicians. Now, again, anything that brings pleasure, he had it.

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And for good measure, he throws in that whatever mine eyes desired, I kept not from them as just in case

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I forgot to mention anything. This covers everything else. I had everything. And so verse 11, verse 11, then

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I looked at all the works that my hands had wrought and all the labor that I had labored to do.

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And behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit. And there was no profit under the sun.

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Doesn't mean anything. Doesn't mean anything. And so he drives home the basic idea of the rest of his investigations of life.

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And he comes to the conclusion that while education is better than folly or wisdom is better than folly, it's still meaningless in the end.

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Yes, one is relatively better than the other, but neither one has anything eternal, any eternal benefit to it.

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Because, as he points out, both the fool and the wise man die. Death is the great leveler.

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And so it doesn't matter if you were smart in life and another man was foolish in life. They're both equally dead at the end.

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Now, you may have seen the bumper sticker that says he who dies with the most toys wins.

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I saw another one that said he who dies with the most toys is dead, which is much more to the point.

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Because ultimately, we're all going to die. Rich or poor, wise or foolish, in the final analysis, we're all going to die.

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The modern expression is life is very difficult. Insert your own phrase there.

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And then you die, right? That's a modern attitude. And then in the end, he says reputation counts for nothing.

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You know, we say we have our good name. Well, good. And you should have a good name.

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But, as Solomon points out, there is no remembrance of the wise more than the fool.

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Seeing that now is in the days to come, all will be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man, like the fool.

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So it doesn't matter what your reputation is when you die. Nobody's going to remember you within a very, very short time.

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Even people that go out and exert huge amounts of money and huge amounts of influence trying to be remembered,

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I would be willing to say that you could go to any city that has a Carnegie Library in it.

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Carnegie built libraries all over the United States. And you can go into any one of them and ask anybody in there who

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Carnegie was, and I would be astonished if more than one person in a hundred could tell you. They don't remember.

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Carnegie's the guy that built the library, you know, if they even bothered to notice the name. You're not going to be remembered,

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Solomon says. And so, after a while, it all feels great.

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Solomon rejoiced in all that he had built and acquired, because there is gratification in getting the new toys and landing the big sale and getting the big promotion.

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There is pleasure to be had in the world, but it's all temporary. It's all temporary, and it's cyclical, and the zero point escalates.

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So if a bonus of one size was enough to give you a real good feeling this year, next year is going to take a bigger bonus, and the year after that, bigger still, because there's nothing of intrinsic worth.

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Nothing's permanent. Everything's transitory. And so, Solomon keeps going.

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Solomon keeps going. He says, trying to find meaning in your work, men, is ultimately a fool's errand.

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It's not going to happen. Not going to happen. In the end, you're going to leave everything to somebody else, and you probably won't like that person anyway, and they might even be an idiot.

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Who knows? And even if you score the million -dollar sale, that was yesterday. All your boss wants to know is, what have you done for me lately?

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Right? Absolutely. I'm hearing amens from out there. So he sums it up in verse 23.

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Where does it all come down to? For all his days are sorrows, all his travail grief.

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Yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity. Okay. So, in other words, despair.

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Grief, hurt, the feeling of being cheated, despair. And isn't this all edifying?

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And don't you feel built up in the faith? Okay. But Solomon here in verses 24 to 26,

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Solomon does something that Eastern writers frequently do. He is going to give you a glimpse of what his overall conclusion is going to be.

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Eastern writers frequently use circular patterns in their reasoning. He's going to come back to this.

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But he drops this in right here so that you won't, because by now you're probably feeling pretty bad about this whole thing.

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So he drops this in. And he's going to give you a foretaste of what his ultimate conclusion is going to be.

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And that is, a man should live his life as God has presented it to him. And that everything is a gift from God to be enjoyed.

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He says, there is nothing better for a man than he should eat and drink. And that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor.

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This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God. For who can eat or who else can hasten here unto more than I?

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For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight, wisdom, knowledge, and joy.

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But to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to heap up, that it may give to him that is good before God.

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Now he said this also is vanity and vexation of spirit. So he's not quite willing yet to jump into his final conclusion.

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But he's beginning to get the idea that maybe God is the key to things.

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Maybe it's your relationship to God which is the key. And not how much stuff and things you have or how smart you are.

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Or all the rest of it that he's gone through. And so labor and its rewards, wisdom, knowledge, joy are all good things.

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But not as ends in themselves. They are gifts that God gives his children.

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I was very interested to note in one of the last two issues of World Magazine. The editor was commenting on the current crisis, if you want to call it that, in the mortgage lending business.

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And he ties this in to the fact that men are sinners. He said, where's that connection come from?

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He said, a great deal of the trouble that we get ourselves into comes from us trying to acquire by other means what

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God has not chosen to give us. And so we go off, we borrow more money than we can afford to borrow so that we can buy more house than we can afford to own.

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And then something happens in the economy and all of a sudden we find ourselves in trouble. Just an interesting thought.

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That's not part of the sermon. It's a sideline. But it's true. We do.

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We try. We don't want to wait for God for his time and for his purpose to bestow upon us what he wishes for us to have.

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And we would be much better off if we did. So in Chapter 3,

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Solomon, and we're coming to the end here. In Chapter 3, Solomon continues his proof. His proof is that there is an underlying order of things but not meaning.

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One Bible teacher called the first eight verses of Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 the tyranny of time because to everything there is a season and a time to have a purpose under heaven.

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And you can almost hear a pendulum swinging as you go through those verses. A time to be born.

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A time to die. On and on. And he goes. But Solomon sees that God does determine man's times.

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It physically determines man's times. Verses 1 to 3. And also emotionally he determines man's times.

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And spiritually he determines man's times. Verses 7 to 9. And in the final analysis, it is

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God that judges. Verses 16 to 21. And so the only proper response to his immutable plan is to recognize his hand in all things.

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I said in my heart, verse 17, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked. And there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.

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And then he comes back to the theme that he's already stated when he says,

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Wherefore I perceive, verse 22, I perceive there is nothing better than a man should rejoice in his own works for that is his portion.

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Who also shall bring him to see what shall be after him. And so now in Chapter 4, and these are very broad brush hits.

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In Chapter 4, Solomon is going to take up the subject of fairness. And guess what? He determines that life is not fair.

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Surprise, surprise. Evil really does exist. Now, Solomon comes to an erroneous conclusion in that the dead are better off than the living.

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Because they are no longer exposed to the evil that exists in the world. And, but he says, he points out, he says, when a man is hardworking and diligent and those traits lead to material success, all it earns him is the envy of his neighbors, verse 4.

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And on the other hand, the idle bum folds his hands and refuses to work at all. And he winds up consuming himself, that's verse 5.

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So Solomon concludes that sufficient substance with quietness is the best solution.

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He's beginning to get the right idea. Be willing to be satisfied with whatever

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God chooses to bestow upon you. It is okay to have ambition.

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I'm not saying you should not be, have a certain level of ambition. But only within the framework of what

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God wills for your life. It's fine to have goals. It's fine to drive toward them.

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But we need to know what our proper ends are. And our proper end is to glorify

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God. And all of these things, we should be prepared to change.

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God sets goals in front of us and things that we want to drive for, and yet he can change those as well.

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And so the key thing here to satisfaction is be satisfied with what God chooses to put before us.

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And then in chapter 5, Solomon addresses religion. And he finds that religion isn't the answer either, that mere religious practice does not satisfy.

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What is important is to think correctly about God. But he cautions us, don't make rash promises to God.

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Don't make rash promises to God. And if you do make a promise to God, be sure to keep your word.

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If you vow, then fulfill that vow. God keeps accurate books.

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And he will demand a reckoning in due time. And unbelievers and believers alike will stand before him and give an account.

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Now, truthfully, unbelievers and believers will stand before him at different places and in different times.

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And the consequences will be different. But nonetheless, all of us will stand before God and give an account.

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And keep that in your mind as well. Because if you realize that you're going to have to stand before God and give account for your life, won't that alter the way you live it?

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Won't that alter your way? Doesn't that change what you will see as being important? And so he also brings out that great wealth does not satisfy.

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It brings hardship. We are told not to put our faith in money. And as I've commented before in classes and what have you, that I find it curious that a great many of the people that have faith in money don't have any.

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Have you noticed that? But they're convinced that if only they got their hands on a certain amount of money, whatever that is, that all other troubles would be over.

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You know, they just know that. If I could get my hands on whatever it is, and usually it's a ludicrously small amount. But if I could just get my hands on, you know, $10 ,000 or $100 ,000, if they're really going big, a million dollars, you know, all my problems would be over.

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But they won't. Solomon knows better. Solomon knows better. Money does not bring happiness.

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It brings trouble. There's never enough. And while an ordinary laboring man rests easy at night, the rich man can't sleep because he's worried about his money.

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You know, put it up to modern times, the ordinary laboring man rests easy at night.

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The rich guy is constantly worrying about what the stock market is doing. You know, if you don't have any stock, you could care less to what the

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Dow did, right? You know, and regardless, you can't keep it anyhow.

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It's going to go to somebody else. It's going to go to the nephew that you didn't like. You know, so he comes back to his theme.

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Behold, all that I have seen, it's good and fitting for one to eat and drink and to enjoy the good of all his labor that he taketh unto the sun all the days of his life, which

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God hath given him, for it is his portion. Every man to whom God hath given riches and wealth and have given him the power to eat thereof and to take his portion and to rejoice in his labor, for this is the gift of God.

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So if God has given you wealth, enjoy it and use it wisely. If God has not given you wealth, don't strive to get it as an end to itself.

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You know, remember, if you do have wealth, remember where it came from. Remember where it came from.

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So now in conclusion, let's fast forward to the end of the book because I want to get to the end where Solomon finally draws the whole thing together.

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And he says, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, fear God and keep his commandments.

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For this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.

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So pleasure is not a goal. Pleasure is a gift. Satisfaction is not a goal.

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It is not found in life. Satisfaction is a gift from the giver of life.

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And this goes directly opposite to the philosophy of modern man. But we are to embrace

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God's total sovereignty because in the end, the universe is not random. Even under chaos theory, if you've ever studied any of that, there's an underlying order that lies underneath the chaos.

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Everything from Genesis to Revelation and everything in our individual lives is a result of God's sovereign decree.

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So whatever he puts in your life, thank him for it. It is there at his decree.

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It is not there by chance. Because God promises us,

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I will supply your needs and he knows what our needs are. And there may be occasions when our need is to be scared to death so that we will draw closer to him or whatever it is.

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You know, there you go. And so employ an eternal perspective. There is an eternal value to things.

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Everything is not vapor. Everything is proceeding according to God's sovereign plan.

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And so let us exist in the light of that. He is the creator and the judge. And so we are to exhibit a proper and holy fear before God.

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Back in Proverbs, Solomon said what? The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. And so we are to live our lives today the same way.

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Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we do thank you that you do deal with us in mercy and in grace.

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And we thank you, Lord, help us to acknowledge that what you bring into our lives is there for our good.

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And that what is in our lives is there because you decreed that it be there. Help us,

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Lord, to constantly not faint as the trials come, but not to be restive and arrogant as well, but to accept the lessons that you give to us, to accept what you put into our lives as what they truly are, gifts from a benevolent

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Heavenly Father who wants nothing but good for his children. We ask this in Jesus' name.