Life Under The Sun - [Ecclesiastes 1-2]

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What's the meaning of life? Let's make it more specific. What's the meaning of your life?
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Why do you exist? Does it matter? Do you matter?
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Does your life matter? The world, it has no clue.
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One man said life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.
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It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury.
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Mark Twain, before he died, wrote, a myriad of men are born. They labor, sweat, and struggle.
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They squabble, scold, and fight. They scramble for little advantages over each other. Age creeps up on them.
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Infirmities follow. Those they love are taken from them, and the joy of life is turned to aching grief.
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Death comes at last, the only unpoisoned gift earth ever had for them.
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And they vanished. They vanished from a world where they're of no consequence, a world which will lament them for a day and forget them forever.
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That's what the world has to offer for hope and for meaning. I guess at least they're honest.
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At least it's not, how are you? Oh, I'm doing fine, white picket fence. How are you? Good, and you?
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Can we know if there's any meaning to life? Is everything so dour and down and going to get worse?
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If you have a Bible, turn to the book of Ecclesiastes, found kind of in the middle of your Bible, and we're going to find out from this book of God's wisdom that there's hope, that there's good news for people, that life isn't just vain, futile, meaningless, worthless, purposeless, and then you die.
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There's hope to be found. I love this book for lots of reasons. One is it's a good kind of gut check for me because I see in the book of Ecclesiastes, when you're focused only on the meaning of life found in life or found in your own life, things become very, very problematic.
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But when you find joy and satisfaction, not in the world, not in yourself, but in the triune
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God who made you and redeemed you, there's joy to be found. So when my life becomes frustrating and full of vexation and trouble,
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I do a little gut check and say, has my perspective been properly adjusted?
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Am I thinking about who God is? Am I walking by faith or am I not? There is meaning to life, but it's not found in life, it's in the triune
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God who gives life. Did you know, dear Christian, God wants your life to be satisfying?
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He wants your life to be full of the Spirit's fruit, love, joy, peace.
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One man said, God the Father intends man's life to be fulfilling, but only if that life is lived with a proper focus on Jesus Christ by the
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Holy Spirit. Is this everything there is to life? Isn't there something more?
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And Ecclesiastes gives the answer. So I thought I was going to just do a couple sermons in Ecclesiastes and then go to the next book, but I think we're in it for a little while because I couldn't, what am
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I gonna do? Pick and choose? Hop, skip, and jump? Do you ever do the triple jump? How could I triple jump through Ecclesiastes?
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So today we're gonna look at Ecclesiastes one and two, and we're gonna see the problem if we're focused on the world alone and on life alone in this world, and then is there a solution?
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That's the second part of the sermon, the problem and the solution. If I were going to teach a college group or career group, a high school group, this is probably one of those books that I would teach because it exposes the vanity of seeing life and the purpose of life found only in this life.
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So Ecclesiastes one and two today, if you notice even in your Bibles, probably there's a different kind of typeset.
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The font is a little different because you'll see the way it's put in a paragraph, you'll see that this is a wisdom literature.
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It's poetic. It says in chapter one, verse one, the words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
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The word preacher is where we get the word Ecclesiastes. Think ecclesiology, the doctrine of the church, the one who preaches to the church.
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That's what the preacher is. Luther called this the preacher. He called him the preacher.
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The preacher's going to try to give wisdom to people so that they don't fall prey to meaningless, dour, sour life.
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You say, who is this person? Well, we know in some sense it's anonymous because we don't have a name, but it's the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
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We know in this book, this person's wise, this person has a lot of money, this person has a lot of influence, and most say it's
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Solomon. If it's not Solomon, I don't really care. It's inspired by the spirit of God, but I think Solomon wrote it.
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Probably what's happened is Solomon, when he was courting, he writes the Song of Solomon. He's a little older, he writes
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Proverbs, and now he looks back on his life and he writes Ecclesiastes. This book is what we call wisdom literature, and so it doesn't read like an epistle like Romans.
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So you have to remember there are things in here like sarcasm, there's things in here like satire, pithy little sayings, general truths.
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And let's start off with one of those very important topics right at the very beginning is the problem before the solution.
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And here's the problem stated, verse two. Life is frustrating, fleeting, and vain.
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That's the first problem this preacher sees. Vanity of vanities, Ecclesiastes 1 .2
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says the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. And he looks around and he says everything is vain.
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Now the Hebrew word can be translated different ways, and I think he's using that word because he wants it to be a little ambiguous.
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The Hebrew word can mean something like this, perplexing, life is perplexing, puzzling.
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If I were to say riddle me this, what would you think of? I know what the older folks would think of if I said that.
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Life just is, it's like head scratching. I can't figure this out. I look all around and it's perplexing.
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Well, the word can also mean what it's translated here, vanity, it means futile, it means frustrating, not scratching your head, but pulling out the hair on your head.
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I look at the world and it's just so frustrating to me. Futile, doesn't seem to be going anywhere, it doesn't benefit anyone.
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And then it also can mean fleeting, transient, it doesn't last.
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We'd go to the 99 cent store with the kids when they were little, they'd all get $5, they could pick whatever they want.
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It was really a psychological test to see what they would buy, lasting things or just candy, et cetera. And so you get those little bottles of bubbles and you put the little stick in there with the round thing and you take the bubble and you blow in the bubble and the bubble comes out a little bit and within a few seconds, what happens?
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It's gone. That's that Hebrew word here. So it could mean perplexing, it could mean frustrating, or it could be temporary.
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And context will help us with all of these things. He repeats vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities.
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When you repeat a word, you're trying to make an emphasis here. Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords,
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God sits in the heaven of heavens. Where are the answers to be found in life?
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If things are fleeting, things are temporary, things are frustrating, things are head scratching. Verse three, what does man gain by all the toil in which he toils under the sun?
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I could ask you the question for all your life's work, what do you have to show for it? I've been working,
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I think, since I was 13. First job was catching crawdads. We'd sell them to the bait shop. We would go to Crawdad Creek and catch crawdads.
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Have to wear socks when you wear shoes in Crawdad Creek because otherwise the leeches would get on your legs. I guess you could sell leeches too.
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After all that work, I've worked for almost 50 years, what do I have to show for it? Take a look at the passage again.
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What does man gain by all the toil in which he toils under the sun? You're gonna see the preacher use that terminology all the time, under the sun, under the sun, under the sun.
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I don't think he's saying from a secular perspective, how do we view the world?
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I think here's what he's saying. The world is fallen, cursed. How can there be anything good coming out of it?
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How can we have any good coming out of a fallen, cursed world? The false true,
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Adam did sin. Listen to Romans 8, for the creation waits and with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God, for the creation was subjected to futility, vanity, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it.
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Adam sins and there's chaos ever since. There's disaster ever since.
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To the woman, God said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain, you shall bring forth children.
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Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. And to Adam, he said, because you've listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which
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I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you.
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In pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles, it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat of the plants of the field.
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But by the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken, for you were dust and to dust you shall return.
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This is a really good question. What does it matter if I work and work and work and work and work in this fallen world?
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I love these kinds of questions in the Bible. There are probing questions like this in the Bible. I call them, I think there's a theological word for them, gut check questions.
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Here's another gut check question. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?
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Here's another gut check question. What can a man give in return for his soul? That's the
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Lord Jesus. Job asked this question. How can man be right before God? The writer of Hebrews, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?
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And now I'll make it personal. I ask every one of you the question. What have you gained by all your toil?
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It's a rhetorical question. There's no gain, it doesn't last. In Chicago, Cook County, they have a sewer employee saying,
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I don't know if it's true or not, but I sure liked it, it gets the idea across. I dig the ditch to get the money, to buy the food, to get the strength, to dig the ditch.
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Happy Monday tomorrow. It's my day off. Under the sun, fallen world, what does it matter?
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Why do we live? And so what the writer does is he wants to make sure we realize that the real problem, because the solution's better once you know the problem.
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It's a little problem, solutions aren't that good. If it's a massive problem, then solutions are wonderful. He gives a poetry in verses four through 11, and here's the poetry as he dives straight into the deep end of the pool.
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There's this rhythm of life that doesn't get anywhere. These ceaseless repetitions that make us go nowhere, seemingly, and you can hear the lack of gain.
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If verse three says, what does man gain? Answer in verses four to 11, nothing.
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And you can just kind of feel the rhythm to this. It's a bad rhythm, but you can feel it.
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Verse four, a generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.
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I don't care if you believe that the earth is 6 ,000 years old, six million years old, or six billion years old.
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People come and go, but the earth stays. That's the idea. Verse five, sun rises, sun goes down, hastens the place where it rises.
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I mean, doesn't it go anywhere, up and down, back to where it was supposed to go? Wind blows to the south, goes to the north, around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits, the wind returns.
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I mean, it's like on this merry -go -round, but it's not so merry. What do you call a merry -go -round that's not merry? Around, yeah, or a depression around.
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Frustration around. Let's go, what do you want to ride on, kids? Oh, the frustration -go -round. That's verses four through 11.
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All streams, verse seven, run to the sea. You'd think they'd overflow after all these centuries of filling up by the streams, but the sea's not full.
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To the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. All things are full of weariness.
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A man cannot utter it. The eyes not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
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I mean, you just cannot get any satisfaction. Have you found what you're looking for?
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Some people still haven't found what they're looking for. Ecclesiastes' writer hasn't.
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I mean, you see, I mean, this is just a good illustration. You ever go to a store and you buy something that's really good, you really like it, it fits well, it looks good, or you can use it for something wonderful, and you're so excited about it, if you're not driving home, you actually open it up, the package again in the car, and look at it again and go, man, this is just the best.
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I got the best deal. One month later, the thrill is gone. Nothing satisfies.
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Hey, at least we have technology, that's new. That satisfies, well, at least till iPhone 14's out, but at least it's satisfying, at least temporarily.
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Jean -Paul Sartre said, things are entirely what they appear to be, and behind them, there's nothing.
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There's no man behind the curtain, under the sun, if you're not looking by faith.
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Verse 9, you can start singing Doris Day here. What has been is what will be.
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Que sera. And what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.
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Is there a thing of which it said, see, this is new? It has already been in ages before us.
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History is going nowhere. Forget circular, forget linear.
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It's going nowhere with this perspective. Karl Marx said, history repeats itself, first as a tragedy, then as a farce.
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There's no remembrance of former things, verse 11, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.
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People come and they go. The grandkids might know a little bit about my name.
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The great grandkids won't know me. Nor will anybody else. Mike Avendroth, who?
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No remembrance. By the way, not to be remembered was a curse. In Deuteronomy, in Jeremiah chapter 11, let his name be cut off from the land of the living, that his name be remembered no more.
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Are you happy so far? I mean, this is supposed to be bleak and gloomy.
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That's the mood. You just can't stop here. It gets worse before it gets better.
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Life isn't just frustrating and vain. Wisdom doesn't help. Look at verses 12 through 18.
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I mean, maybe life is just awful, but if I could be a philosopher, I could navigate it.
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I could think through. I could say, you know what? Even though this world is horrible, if I know things about it,
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I can analyze it and it'll get better. I think there's a way out. There's an escape out of this.
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Life under the sun, I think I can make it out. Where frustrations are turned up to volume 11,
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I know what I could do, wisdom. Verse 12, now he moves to a first person account here.
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This is autobiography kind of writing. I, verse 12, the preacher, have been king over Israel and Jerusalem.
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Why does he say that? Well, if anybody could know what he's gonna do and have the resources to figure it out, it'd be this king.
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Certainly he could figure it out. He has the resources to calculate it.
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He says in verse 13, "'I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom "'all that is done under heaven.'"
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It's an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. First time the word
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God is introduced. Almost in passing, Elohim, this great creating
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God. This is just not working out. I'm not figuring this out.
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Wisdom doesn't help me. Verse 14, "'I've seen everything that's done under the sun "'in this fallen world, and behold, all is vanity.'"
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Now he adds another metaphor. From vanity, under the sun. Now, do you see the next one?
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It's striving after wind. When we were bored as kids, my dad would always look over at us and say, "'Go chase cars.'"
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I'm like, D -S -S. Go chase cars? What do you mean, go chase cars?
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Where does that come from? If he was thinking like Solomon, he could have said, go chase the wind.
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You're never gonna catch it. And if you do, what do you do with it? Everything is vanity.
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Why are we on this earth? Why do we live? Why do we get up every day? Verse 15, "'And we can't do anything about it.
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"'What's crooked cannot be made straight. "'The world's frustrating and I can't do anything about it.
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"'And what's lacking cannot be counted.'" If I could figure out the riddle of life, the enigma of life, if I could get through the bodyguard of lies, maybe
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I could figure it out and he can't do it. I said in my heart, verse 16, I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.
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I've applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceive that this also is but a striving after wind.
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It doesn't matter if you're Socrates, it doesn't matter if you're Plato, it doesn't matter if you're Aristotle. If you're just looking this way, think about blinders on a horse.
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Sometimes they call them blinkers. And so the blinders on the horse, if you put blinders on a horse because you're going in the city, you don't want them to see things to the side that might scare them and they rear up.
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They're like, look ahead. Here's the blinders on the world if you're not thinking about the triune
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God. They're here. They're keeping you to look down so you never think, oh, the just shall live by faith.
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There's a God, a transcendent God, a God who's raised himself from the dead and is going to return and make all things right.
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There are these blinders that just keep pulling you down and down and down. And by the way, I said it earlier, I wanna repeat it.
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You start feeling this way and thinking this way of frustration and vexation. It's no different than if I say to myself,
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Kim and I were, we went to the main a couple weeks ago and I grabbed this plant thing, but I didn't see it had all these thorns.
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And so I had like five thorns embedded in my hand and I didn't have a needle or anything to get those things out. So day after day, before I could have that needle to extract those things, it was giving me pain, telling me something.
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When you're feeling the pain of depression, futility, vexation, frustration, the Lord is kindly telling you, dear
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Christian, something, is he not? Verse 18, you know what?
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It'd just be better to be stupid about all this. For in much wisdom is much vexation, but he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.
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Ignorance is bliss. Because at the end of the day, I figured this all out and there's nothing to figure out.
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It's still the end of frustration and vanity. One Greek philosopher said, only the educated are free.
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Not true, not true. Thomas Watson, the
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Puritan writer said, how unprofitable is the luxuriancy of knowledge. He who is only filled with knowledge is like a glass filled with froth.
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What a vain, foolish thing it is to have knowledge and make no spiritual use of it. Solomon, the writer says, you know what?
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Life is really horrible. I'm gonna try to be smart about it. First one
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I have to accept, second one didn't work. I know what I'll do. Let's try possessions and pleasure.
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Verses one through 11 in chapter two. One man called this the freshman, sophomore and junior years of college.
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I didn't say it, but they said it. This is Paul talking about 2 Timothy 3, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
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Hey, if we can't figure things out, we might as well have a little fun. Come on, club med vacation, let's just go for it.
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I said to my heart, come now, I'll test you with pleasure, enjoy yourself.
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But behold, this also was vanity. You're gonna notice in this section, the unholy trinity of I, myself and me.
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It's just all about me. I'm gonna kind of do a philosophy, a Greek philosophy that says pain is bad, pleasure is good, that didn't work.
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So you know what? I'll yuck it up a little bit. Verse two, I said of laughter, it's mad. Of pleasure, what use is it?
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I mean, I get a little short -term relief when I go see Brian Reagan and do some comedian shows. Some of you didn't look up when
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I was preaching when I said a Bible verse, but I just said Brian Reagan, about 10 of you just looked up, right there. Bunch of pagans, saved by the grace of God.
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Sometimes the sense of humor can kind of cover things, but deep down, it doesn't help.
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I mean, all you have to do is think of Robin Williams and you realize that. Ella Wheeler Wilcox said in her famous poem, laugh in the world, laughs with you, weep and you weep alone, for the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, but has trouble enough of its own.
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Maybe I'll try drinking, but controlled drinking. Look at what he says. Verse three,
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I searched my heart how to cheer my body with wine, my heart still guiding me with wisdom.
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I'm not gonna go out and just get totally wasted because I need to see things through the filter of wine.
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Wine gladdens the heart, God says, wine makes the heart glad. I'll have a little bit of that and maybe that will help me.
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This is not just debauchery of Solomon. And how to lay whole on folly till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life.
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I'm not gonna drown everything with alcohol, but I'm gonna use it as an interpretive grid. Will that work?
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Well, that didn't work. Verse four, maybe I'll build things. I made great works. I built houses, planted vineyards for myself.
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Maybe I'll get into like green piece, Earth Day stuff, environment stuff. I made for myself gardens and parks and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees.
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I made for myself, see myself, myself, myself, pools from which to water the forest of growing trees.
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I mean, gardens, lush, verdant. And if you've got money to buy anything you want, you've got money to buy people you want.
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Verse seven, I bought male and female slaves. I had slaves who were born in my house.
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I also had great possessions of herds and flocks more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem.
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Life under the sun with blinders on needs to come to this realization. Men and women are not meant to consume, they're meant to worship.
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And when that is not understood, nothing satisfies. Verse eight,
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I collected for myself silver and gold. Maybe money will work. Maybe we'll ask
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Jay Gould, the American millionaire who died with so much money, he said on his deathbed, I suppose
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I'm the most miserable man on earth. If you're my age, you remember back in the 60s, they had a show called
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The Millionaire. It's like an Alfred Hitchcock show. And the person would show up at a door, a butler, and he would say, my master has given you $1 million tax -free.
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And you would watch basically the disintegration of that family because they had all the money. Money's not the answer.
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I provided for myself male and female singers. Maybe music, that's the answer.
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I mean, can you imagine the power of music? Comforting Saul, the power of music.
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Soldiers going out to battle to death under the power of music. And then of course, for Solomon, it was sex, the pleasures of men, many concubines.
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How many wives did Solomon have? 700 mother -in -laws.
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Happy Mother's Day, you know. And 300 concubines. Kids, the way you remember concubines is this,
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Solomon had 700 wives, that's 699, too many, and 300 porcupines to stay away from the concubines.
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I'm preaching to the young people, too. William Blake, less than everything cannot satisfy man.
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Less than everything cannot satisfy man. Verse nine, so I became great, surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem.
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My wisdom remained with me. Whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them.
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I kept my heart from no pleasure. For my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was a reward for all my toil.
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I see life as a drink and I guzzle it. Only one passing moment we hear about God in verse 13.
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Nothing in this section. One writer said, the best cure for hedonism is an attempt to practice it.
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Was Solomon content, happy, filled with joy? Verse 11, I considered that all my hands had done and all the toil had been expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity, fleeting, futile, vain, frustrating, and striving after win.
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There was nothing to be gained under the sun. And to make matters worse, life is awful and then you die.
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Verse 12 and following. With blinders on, thoughts like that, it's inevitable to think about.
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Verse 12 through 16, talk about frustration. I'm gonna die one day, then what?
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Verse 12, so I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly for what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done.
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I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness.
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And yet, here's the point, I perceived that the same event happens to all of them.
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Then I said, my heart, what happens to the fool? Death will happen to me also. Why then
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I have been so very wise? I said, my heart, this is also vanity. For as the wise, excuse me, for of the wise as of the fool, there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come, all will have long been forgotten, how the wise dies just like the fool.
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I can be smart, I can be wise, I can figure it all out and I still die. Death, the equalizer.
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Gordon Keady said, death is the wall that under the sun secularism cannot climb. Even the remembrance of those who have died perishes with those who knew them personally.
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Interesting, Beethoven, Keady said, may be said to live on in his music, but the truth is we know the music, not the man.
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Is there any good news yet? Not quite, verse 17. If you want to live like there's no
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God, if you want to live like the meaning of life is found in life, if you're here today as an unbeliever,
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I can tell you what you're going to end up finding out. And this is a warning to believers to make sure we're not having the blinders on.
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Verse 17, the inevitable end of thinking like there's no
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God who rules and reigns, who's transcendent, who's eminent, who's above us, who's with us, think incarnation.
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Here's the end of it. Verse 17, I hated life because what is done under the sun was grievous to me for all his vanity and striving after the wind.
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I'm just disgusted, that's the idea. It's not this hatred, overt hatred, it is disgust. This disgusts me.
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Thoreau, most men live lives of quiet, what? Desperation, that's the idea.
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I hated all my toil, verse 18, in which I toiled in the sun. I must leave it to the man who will come after me.
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By the way, everything you have, somebody else gets it. I thought about that the other day.
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I've collected a theological library for 30 years. I'm going to die, somebody else is going to get it. Well, maybe at least it's
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Luke, but then when he dies, who's going to get it? Everything you have, your house, your car, your clothes, whatever you have, if you were going to run into your house because it's burning down, you have five minutes to pick your most valuable possession and run out with it, what would you bring?
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It's not going to be yours, somebody else is going to take it. Verse 19b, yet he will be master of all for which
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I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. And it even gets a little worse.
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We might as well just cash in the chips, maybe be so despairing. So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over the toil of my labors under the sun.
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Toil all night, take nothing. Because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it.
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This also is vanity and a great evil. Verse 22, what has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun?
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Lloyd -Jones talks about the totalitarian demand of things that we experience as they rule over us.
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And then your mind's raced, you can't even sleep. Verse 23, for all his days are full of sorrow and his work is full of vexation.
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Even in the night, his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.
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When I read this, I think to myself, Mike, gut check. So when you do think about frustration and you're depressed and you're down and you're full of vexation, don't have those blinders on.
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But I also think this way, don't you feel sorry for unbelievers because this is their life?
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Don't you feel like Jesus when He looks and He says, these people have no shepherd, they're like sheep.
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This is the lot of every unbeliever. This is what they experience. The best of what they get is on this earth.
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It's been said, theologians have said it. If an unbeliever does not repent, then they die and they go to hell.
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The worst things that happen to them on life, this kind of stuff, will seem like a veritable heaven compared to the hell they're in.
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This is what they get. This is the unbeliever's lot in life. But they just start over because they're 18, they're 19, they're 25, they're 30, they're thinking through these things, but we already know the answer.
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Aren't you glad you've been rescued from this? What if this was the answer? There's no answer. That would be horrible.
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Did you know they used to read Ecclesiastes on feast days? How could you read it on a feast day?
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Well, friends, this is a Christian book. We have 66 books in the Bible that are
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Christian books that you ought to read like a Christian. There's one divine author, and our great triune
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God has given us information from Genesis to Revelation, and when we read this book, we ought to read it like Christians do.
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We know the answer. We ought not to say, well, we'll go with the authorial intent, only what they say, only what he's learning here, what was in the mind of the author
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Solomon. I don't need to know what's in his mind. I need to know what he says and what it says in light of all the
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Scripture. The divine authorial intent, that's what I'm after. And here we now have a solution.
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I mean, what if we just ended the sermon today, sorry, let's close in prayer now. Be warm, be filled, have your best life now.
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Sadly for the unbeliever, what we just described is their best life now. And if you're not a
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Christian and this is your thinking because you're not a Christian, you have not trusted in the Lord Jesus, the risen
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Savior who died for sinners like you, this is the best it gets for you. I want you to move past this and say, there has to be something more.
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Are there questions that need to be asked and answered that aren't here under the sun? Are there transcendent things, biblical things?
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And so now we come to the solution and the solution is, dear Christian, to see your life and everything in it as a gift from the triune
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God. How can you avoid perplexing, puzzling, frustrating, futile, vain thinking and feelings?
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To see your life and everything in it as a gift from the triune God. The world says you deserve this and Ecclesiastes 1 and 2 says it delivers this.
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And the gulf is depression, frustration, and vexation. We know we deserve hell, right?
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We know we're children of wrath, but God who's rich in mercy, we know that we never were good and right.
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We know we needed to be bought out of the slave pit of sin by the Lord Jesus because the triune God loves us and we say to ourselves, we deserve hell, but we get heaven.
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So we come to the passage and we look at that and we say, you know what? Futility and frustration in life shouldn't lead the
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Christian to hatred and despair and to cash in the chips. It should have them take their blinders off and say, what
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I received is from the hand of God. Let's take a look at it, verses 24 through 26.
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There's nothing better for a person than he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.
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41 verses, we've heard God's name one time mentioned and now we hear it again.
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This also I saw is from the hand of God. For apart from God, who can eat or who can have enjoyment?
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Let me flip that around. With God, you can eat and have enjoyment.
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That's fascinating. Take a look at that phrase there.
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I saw is from the hand of God. Let's just walk through this in our minds.
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Christian, your spouse, from the hand of God. Dan Rathbun, your wife is from the hand of God.
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Did you know that? Your children are from the hand of God. Knowing what you deserve and now what you get,
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I'll pick on somebody else besides Dan. Vincent, even though you played the banjo.
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The banjo playing is a gift of God. The way I hear music and I have sight,
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I have smell, I can listen to sounds, guess what? That's from the gift of God, it's from the hand of God.
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We deserve judgment because we've hated the Lord Jesus. We would have been there at the cross and tried to crucify
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Him as well. We're so sinful, yet we're redeemed and now we see His face. We see everything differently. It's like, oh, duh.
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Fellowship of the body of Christ from the hand of God. I have a Bible in my hand, a thousand
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Bibles from the hand of God. I have grandchild from the hand of God.
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I have taste buds from the hand of God. I have a job, it's from the hand of God.
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And knowing all that, then I say to myself, well, I can have satisfaction. I can have enjoyment.
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God wants you to enjoy your life, Christian. God is a giving God, do you remember that?
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Jesus came not just to give life, but to give it what? More abundantly. That's John chapter 10.
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Why? Because He's the good shepherd. Those people back in John chapter nine, those
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Pharisees were awful shepherds to that man born blind. That man's parents were awful shepherds to that man born blind.
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But there's a good shepherd who lays down his life at his own will, and he gives an abundant life.
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And he gives you not just the greatest gift, Romans 8 .32, but if God didn't spare
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His Son, if He gives you the greatest gift, the Lord Jesus, won't He give you other things too? And you can drink a cup of coffee and say, to God be the glory.
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Let's do that together. You can have a meal and say, thank you, Lord. God is by nature a giving
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God, not just the greatest gift, salvation, but other lesser gifts. They come from His hands.
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For God so loved the world that He gave. That's the nature of God, to be good and to be generous and to be giving.
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Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. Man, who made me a judge over you?
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And they said to Him, take care and be on your, and He said to them, take care, be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.
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And Jesus told them a parable. Land of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, what shall
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I do? I have nowhere to store my crops. I will do this, I'll tear down my barns and build larger ones, and I'll store all my grain and my goods.
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I'll say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid out for many years. Relax, eat, drink, and be married.
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Be married. But God said to him, fool, this night your soul is required of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?
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So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. Doesn't that sound like we just were reading it in Ecclesiastes 1?
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And then the Lord Jesus said, don't be anxious about your life, what you'll eat, not about your body, what you'll put on.
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For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens, consider the lilies.
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And then Jesus said, don't seek after what you're to eat and to drink, nor be worried.
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For all the nations of the world seek after these things and your father knows you need them.
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Instead, seek his kingdom and these things will be never given to you, you losers.
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They'll be added to you because you get the greatest gift, you get the smaller gifts.
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Let's think about it this way. I think it's a good correspondence. Do you parent like to give your children gifts?
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Do you like to give your children gifts? I think about when my kids were really little. Remember the first time you go to McDonald's and I've got like a little one -year -old or whatever and you buy the 29 cent ice cream cone.
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Remember those days? It's not really ice cream, but we don't care, it's cheap. And you take your mouth and you kind of make a little, almost like a little bottle nipple thing on there so you can just put it right into your kid's mouth and they put that in their mouth, ice cream for the first time and their faces are like, this is unbelievable.
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And you as a parent, you're like, that's the wrong response, I don't want to do that.
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You shouldn't be thinking that way. Of course, we rejoice in giving our children good gifts.
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And the preacher says then, how much more? How much more? With Him, we can have everything.
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It should probably be said, so therefore, dear Christian, if your wife is from the hand of God, do you treat her as such?
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If your children are from the hand of God, do you treat them as such? Life is out there.
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And if we see things with blinders, we only see things, or ourselves. But when you look up and remember the transcendent triune
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God, you think, oh, you know what the word enthusiasm comes from in the English language?
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It comes out of the Greek. Entheos. To put God into something.
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Yeah, I know it's a pagan word, but we're going to redeem it. You can enthusiastically have things in life because when you see
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God in it, you can have it all. The goodness of God, Psalm 52 says, endures continually.
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Thomas Pantin said, God is originally good, good of Himself, which nothing else is. God is essentially good, not only good, but goodness itself.
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The creature's good is super added quality. In God, it is His essence. God is infinitely good.
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The creature's good is but a drop. But in God, there is an infinite ocean of gathering together of good.
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He's eternally good. He's immutably good. He cannot be less than good. Did you know the original
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Saxon word for God comes from the word good? You just get rid of a letter.
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God, because He's good by definition, by nature. Of course, that's seen most brilliantly when
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God sent forth His Son, made of a woman born under law to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons,
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Galatians chapter four. Ecclesiastes five, which
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God has given them. Ecclesiastes five, God has given them. Ecclesiastes five, it is the gift of God.
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Ecclesiastes eight, God has given. Ecclesiastes nine, He has given. God is not some cosmic killjoy wanting to snuff out all the pleasure of people.
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How about this, James 1 .17? Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the
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Father of lights with whom there's no variation or shifting shadow. How about this in a pastoral epistle?
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A book written to teach pastors how to talk to congregations. Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainties of riches.
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Make sure you train people who are rich not to do that. But instead, you teach rich people to fix their hope on God, comma, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.
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If you're right before God because your sins have been dealt with, you get to enjoy everything.
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It's a gift of God. If our sins aren't dealt with, well, then we better scurry and hurry and figure out how we're right with God.
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But if they've been dealt with, it's from the hand of God. Your friends are from the hand of God. Then he says in verse 26, but to the one who pleases
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Him, God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner, he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to the one who pleases
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God. This also is vanity and striving after wind. Hebrews 11, six, without faith, it's impossible to please
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God. For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
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Literally, he's a paymaster. He pays back. The main reason why we can look at Ecclesiastes.
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Is it getting hot in here? Getting kind of hot. I bet it's really hot up there. They're like, what are you talking about hot? The reason why we read this as a feast wisdom, as a
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Christian book, is because we know something. There's a resurrection.
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There's a resurrection. Jesus' resurrection has proved our resurrection.
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And here's Paul's answer to the person in Ecclesiastes with their blinders on.
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Are you ready? When the perishable puts on imperishable and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory.
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Paul starts to praise God because at death it doesn't end. There's victory at death, swallowed up.
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Why does he use that language? If a snake swallows a rabbit, you don't see the rabbit anymore.
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It's gone. It's not just bitten. No, no, it's completely gone. Swallowing up death forever.
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Quoted right from Isaiah chapter 25 where God wipes away tears from faces. And now Paul taunts.
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Now Paul says, oh, death, because of the resurrection, where's your victory? Oh, death, where's your sting?
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Oh, futility, oh, vanity, oh, perplexingness, oh, transience, where is your sting?
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Life under the sun, where's your sting? I get a resurrected body. I stand before God with every other Christian. Jesus is alive.
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The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us victory through Jesus Christ our
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Lord. And now I end with verse 58 of 1 Corinthians 15.
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Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the
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Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in. There you have it.
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Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word. I pray for those that are here today that are trusting in their own goodness or righteousness or religious duties that you would grant them repentance.
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You'd grant them saving faith. And as Peter would say, that you'd cause them to be born again. For us as Christians, Father, would you by the convicting work of your spirit, the
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Holy Spirit, when we begin to look down on the earth, not looking up to you, when we feel frustration and vexation, and why do we live, would you remind us that we serve a living
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Savior? Father, there's a lost world there, out those doors.
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Would you give us words that we might talk to others about the good news that is the