Ecclesiastes 1-2, What’s the Use?

Ecclesiastes 1–2: The Vanity of Life Under the Sun

Ecclesiastes chapter 1 and 2. Hear the word of the Lord. The words of the preacher the son of David. King in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities says the preacher. Vanity of vanities all is vanity. What does a man gain by the toil at which he toils under the Sun?

Generation goes and generation comes but the earth remains forever. The Sun rises and the Sun goes down and hastens to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north.

Around and around goes the wind and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full to the place where the streams flow where they flow again. All things are full of weariness a man cannot utter it.

The eye is not satisfied with seeing or the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be and what has been done is what will be done and there is nothing new under the Sun. Is there a thing of which it is said see this is new.

It has been already in the ages long before us. There is no remembrance of former things. Nor will there be any remembrance of latter things yet to be among those who come after I. The preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.

And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I've seen everything that is done under the Sun and behold all is vanity and is striving after wind.

What is crooked cannot be made straight? What is? Lacking cannot be counted. I said in my heart I have acquired great wisdom surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me and my heart has had Great experience of wisdom and knowledge and I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly.

I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind. For much wisdom is much fixation and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. I Said in my heart come now. I will test you with pleasure. Enjoy yourself, but behold this also is vanity.

I said of laughter it is mad and a pleasure. What use is it? I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine my heart still guiding me with wisdom and how to lay hold on Folly till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life.

I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks and planted in in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees.

I bought male and female slaves and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks more than all who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces.

I got singers both men and women and many concubines the delight of the children of man. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also, my wisdom remained with me and whatever my eyes desired.

I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure for my heart found pleasure in all my toil and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had Spended and doing it and behold All was vanity and a striving after wind and there was nothing to be gained under the Sun.

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. Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly as there is more gain in life than in darkness.

The wise person has his eyes in his head. But the fool walks in darkness and yet I perceive that the same event happens to all of them. Then I said in my heart what happens to the fool will happen to me also.

Why then have I been so very wise and I said in my heart that this also is vanity. For of the wise is of the fool. There is no enduring Remembrance saying that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten.

How the wise dies just like the fool. So I hated life because what has done under the Sun was grievous to me. For all is vanity and a striving after wind. I hated all my toil in which I toil under the Sun saying that I must leave it to the man who will come after me and Who knows whether he will be wise or a fool.

Yet he will be master of all for which I toil and use my wisdom under the Sun. This also is vanity. So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the Sun 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.

This also is vanity and a great evil. What is a man? From all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the Sun. For all his days are full of sorrow when his work is a vexation even in the night.

His heart does not rest this also is.

Vanity.

There is nothing better for a person then he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also I saw it's from the hand of God for apart from him Who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to the sinner.

He has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. May the Lord have his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word.

Driven People and the Question of Use

Well, are you a driven person. I Bet you are what other kind of people go to a gym and sing psalms and listen to long sermons on the Bible. And if you just wanted to play church, you'd go to a decent-looking sanctuary and you'd sing your old favorites.

Or maybe the newest hits and you'd hear a peppy brief motivational speech and be home early. Driven people they're focused. They're ambitious. They're determined. They're intense. They're not wanting to waste a second.

Singapore is full of driven people always on the go. Filling the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run. And Singapore escalators aren't just for writing for example. Therefore making your stair climbing faster many people walk up the escalator as it's moving there.

Escalators even have a yellow line right down the middle of it. For those lazy people they got some lazy people in Singapore. For the lazy ones who stand and ride and they on the right side and we Escalator walkers knows to say we we escalator walkers passing on the left and that one way that one way I fit into Singapore pretty well.

Well, I may be the only Westerner ever to tell a Singaporeans up move. As he was standing in the middle of the escalator as I was trying to get walking up move.

Life's too short just to ride the escalator.

Well, some of you have succeeded in business because you're driven people. You might have come from China and currying get to get here. Maybe then another debt to buy or open a restaurant and then you resolved to pay off that debt and then help support people back Home your family they're driven by the weight that it is all on you.

And so you work 14 hours a day seven days a week. No days off other than maybe Thanksgiving once a year because no one goes out to restaurants on Thanksgiving. Now understand most of us here Sunday's a day off anyway.

So there's no sacrifice and coming to church on Sunday for at least a couple others here. Three others their business can be open on Sunday. They own it themselves. So being here closing down or having to have somebody else to work.

It's a sacrifice for them. Understand because normally they would just work work and work at work thing because it got to make money. But they don't well, but that's that's their life. This is just work.

There's no vacations. There's nothing but work for years. I'm not talking about a couple years I'm done, but decades living simply it takes drive and discipline a will of steel. All of the hope that one day You'll be able to afford something better.

That the debt should be paid off the family back home will be taken care of and maybe You haven't missed too much of your kids lives. So that eventually you'll be able to relax and you'll get a nice house and see your kids succeed.

You're driven.

There's good news for driven people and Ecclesiastes. You can relax now. Enjoy life. Enjoy now. 20 years ago. I Was depressed. I was 37 years old living in a nice home in Kentucky. Just a couple of months earlier I thought I was set for the life.

I have been working hard so hard for I was the type of guy who told Singaporeans to move. I Bulldozed my way through a PhD program while while working walking outside in 30 degree below weather in Chicago.

Writing academic papers hunched over in my car at 3 a .m. I Had arrived finally I thought. To where everything I've been working for to get it a church academics. Success, but it all turned to nothing.

And so I sat in the recliner. Staring out the window. Staring at nothing really with a TV on but not really watching a freezer full of ice cream. Which I didn't eat because I didn't care. And I thought.

What's the use.

There's good news.

For depressed people and Ecclesiastes first. You're right. What is the use? But you might as well enjoy yourself. Ecclesiastes is perhaps the strangest book in the Bible. Stranger than the Song of Solomon, which is not An allegory.

Even stranger than Revelation with bees coming out of the sea with ten heads and seven horns, which is an allegory. Ecclesiastes is the only book in the Bible in which a fundamentalist Graduate of Bob Jones University who would swear he believes in the inerrancy of Scripture would say I don't like that book.

It's worldly that literally happened. I guess I'm more fundamentalist than the fundamentalist because I believe even Ecclesiastes is inspired and indeed. That Ecclesiastes is in the Bible is proof of the inspiration of the Bible that God put the Bible together.

Not just a bunch of religious people because religious people would never have considered Ecclesiastes for a book. They put together they had a committee of religious people. We're gonna put together a Bible and you send a Ecclesiastes here.

Here's my submission consider this for your Bible. Hey, look at that. Sorry. No way go away. We don't want this not for our book. Thankfully God did include it. I love Ecclesiastes because it's good news for driven people like me.

Good news for people like me. Are you so driven you walk up escalators? People are so sure that you can make something of yourself make a name a career or a fortune a family. People like me who might be driven to despair when finally you stare out the window and you realize you've made nothing.

There's good news for you. When you realize that I think my usual way of preaching is not right for Ecclesiastes. This is a fit. Standing behind the puppet like this formal and focused. Like a laser beam getting the message across the message of the passage to cross to you intense driven.

Kind of the mood of my usual style. It's unfit Ecclesiastes. Doesn't you know, I should be even consider this. I should be sitting down here on the platform. On the edge of the platform kind of looking out sideways.

For the wall over there, you're not even looking the eye that's too intense. Leaning back against the pulpit legs crossed. There's a cup of something tasty in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I Don't smoke.

I never have. You know, it's bad for your health after all, but I got a feeling what the preacher would say. You'd say well if you like it, don't worry about it. You're gonna die. Anyway, you might as well enjoy yourself.

I'm probably not the best one to speak on Ecclesiastes. I Should be able to sit back and the Bible in my lap blowing smoke in between saying dude. It's all meaningless. Anyway, chill. That didn't come naturally to me, which is why I need Ecclesiastes.

The Facts: Vanity of Vanities Under the Sun

Well here we see the good news for driven or depressed people. What's the use they think when life doesn't turn out like they think we see that here in five parts.

First facts.

Second philosophy third fun fourth forgotten and finally futility and oh the joy of alliteration. First the facts. What's the facts. You driven or depressed people? The preacher tells us. The Hebrew word comes from the preacher here translated comes with a word for assembly or gathering.

It means the one over in assembly the assembler. The preacher the teacher of the speaker maybe the president it could be perhaps the professor. He says he's the son of David King in Jerusalem. He's the philosopher King The wise man and he's gonna tell us the facts.

The facts are.

Vanity of.

Vanities.

The word literally means vapor. It's like a puff of wind, you know, like that mist stuff comes from vaping. Right, you've seen that it's kind of disappears. You see it for a few seconds. Dissipates everything under the Sun is like that except it gets worse.

It's not just vapor. It's vapor of vapor. If vapor could produce vapor.

Well, that's it.

If the whole universe were vapor and in that vapor universe there was his own vapor. That's what everything is like under the Sun. And notice under the Sun that's the qualifier. Specifying of what exactly is vapor?

What's vanity? What's meaningless? What's empty? What's unsubstantial? What's useless not everything but everything under the Sun? What is under the Sun is the world we can see that we can? Observe the horizons of this world the things we look at we hear we touch we taste.

The work we can do the things we can achieve with our bodies our minds. That's the stuff. That is vanity this vapor, it's meaningless. This is for nothing. Of course for most people that's their whole lives.

They live constantly for what is under the Sun and so for them. Yes, everything is meaningless and they don't know it and if they find out without God's Word. They're going to be very depressed. They're going to start staring out the window and thinking.

What's the use?

The fact is that under the Sun you're getting nowhere. 16 tons and what do you get another day older and deeper in debt? What's the gain if you work for 14 hours a day seven days a week for years? To make a life for you and for your family and your family doesn't care.

I Know a couple who did that who work. Those long hours even kept the kids out of church so that they could work on Sunday for them. Keep the business open. Who grew a successful business were able to branch out to two restaurants.

They were then after a while they acquired enough money able to buy a nice house near a golf course and. At least one daughter grows up and goes away and never wants to visit again. What did the man gain from all his toil?

Verse 3 gain. It means profit you end up with more than you began with your work has gained you this. Something you can point to a house a bank account a car a family. Under the Sun in this life people think that they gained if they end up with more money than and more stuff.

Then they started with then they were raised with. He who dies with the most toys wins, right? That's what they think. They said they don't really think at all or they'd see that here under the Sun. No one gains because everyone ends up with exactly what they came with.

Nothing hearses don't pull you hauls after all no trailers pulling their stuff up to heaven when they're done. You can't transfer money to the dead. I Mean the Chinese try it doesn't work. They even have this paper money stuff and they have this idea that if you in a funeral you burn it.

It somehow gets transferred to the dead. Of course, it doesn't work. This it goes nowhere at Mary's father's funeral back like I think in 92 around that time. They these stacks of this paper money stuff, right stacked up there ready ready and they're gonna burn it and it's supposed to go to Him wherever he is so we can spend it.

Of course, it's fake stuff some printer prints out they buy it. But it's supposed to be transferred and somehow it becomes real money over there. I think of his burn if it's fake here, it's gonna be fake over there.

Even if it gets there. Anyway, I'm looking at this stuff. I guess he's she's my sister-in-law to she's Mary's brother's wife. Comes up to me and Jeff and she says yeah, we burned this was the father so he'll get the money.

You know normally at a funeral I would try to be respectful. What are the beliefs of the people. But I'm figuring I'm dressed in black just like she is. I'm just as much a relative to the deceased as she is.

And so I just say it doesn't go anywhere. It just burns up. Come smoke vapor.

Nothing.

You can't transfer money to the dead so we all end up as empty-handed as when we started so. What's the use? Generation goes and new generation comes but the earth remains forever at least it lasts for this age and will outlast all of us.

The Sun rises and the Sun goes down and hastens to the Place where it rises same old same old. The fact is that nothing is changing the wind blows around the water flows into the oceans evaporates falls as rain Circulates again.

Everything is going around and around like a merry-go-round. It's getting nowhere like a treadmill. When I ran I hated treadmills, I hate the feeling of exerting yourself, but then getting nowhere. You are getting nowhere, but I realized hey.

You know if I if I ran my usual course out to the roads. Turn left out of my driveway went for six miles my usual course. I ended up back at my driveway, I Hadn't gotten anywhere now an optimist to say but you got in shape.

Yeah for a while then I stopped running and I got chubby again.

All things are.

Full of weariness. He says in verse 8 a man cannot utter it. You can't describe How tiresome life is under the Sun how it drains you so that you eventually just shrug your shoulders and mutter.

What's the use?

The fact is we're never satisfied again in verse 8. The eye is not satisfied with seeing or the ear with hearing, you know, you never watch a movie. This is so good. I mean that movie is so excellent.

You know, you'll never see a better one. And so you're satisfied. I'll never need to see another movie again. You never hear a song it's just so fulfilling that you're happy I never need to hear another song again.

It's addiction and now with our phones we can feed that addiction all the time constantly staring down. Sometimes people walking around looking at their phones looking at something listening To something and we never have enough of it and we never learn.

That we'll never have enough of it. The fact is that we're not really going anywhere under the Sun in verse 9. What has been is what will be and what has been done is what will be done. The more things change the more they stay the same in verse 10.

Is there anything that is really new? Oh. We might say, you know living in this age of rapid innovation. Well, the iPhone is new. Yeah, this is new in it.

Internet's new.

Maybe but what we do with it is the same.

Nonsense.

Looking at cat videos ranting about politics. Somebody else.

Porn.

Archaeologists have you know, they dig up pornographic engravings from Pompey or from the Canaanites and our with our smartphones. We're conveying the same content. Nothing's changed same song different verse.

It has been already in ages before in verse 10. Maybe one. Well, I'll make a difference. I'll write a book or a song or build a building or give the money or be the parent who will be remembered. But how many people do you know from the past?

Do you even know your own great-grandparents? How many of your eight great-grandparents can you name. And if you're one of those few let's we take it up another great. So you start to forget. What makes you think your great-grandchildren will remember you?

Now I don't mean to depress you. Those are just the facts.

Philosophy Cannot Overcome the Vanity of Life

Well next is.

Philosophy starting verse 12. The facts are that everything under the Sun is nothing that is going nowhere and try as hard as you can. You won't change that. You'll be forgotten just like you forgot your ancestors just like you forgot your great-grandparents.

You might think then well, that's brutal. But those are the facts. What I can do though is understand it. I can be Philosophical. I could be wise. So with my philosophy I can transcend that the meaninglessness the vaporness of the world.

By understanding it I can rise above it. You might think Ecclesiastes is after all wisdom literature and you go to wisdom literature like Job and Proverbs. Ecclesiastes here to overcome the illusions of this world to understand.

And so starting in verse 12. Be a philosopher. Now you may think well, I don't have time. I got so much work to do. But a king does yes the time a philosopher. King in verse 13 the philosopher Applied his heart To get wisdom seek and search out.

He says he sought he searched out. Strenuously, he's laboring at wisdom like some of you have labored at the restaurant business. He's going to succeed in overcoming the dreariness of life under the Sun.

He's going to understand it. You know where wisdom got him? Tells us right here verse 13. It's an unhappy business. This life merely under the Sun is depressing. It makes you want to give up in the matter.

What's the use?

Crawl in a hole. You look at everything in this life business academics sports society. Whatever it is relationships behold in verse 14. Look at the fact. It's vain. It's a vapor. It's like chasing the wind.

You'll never catch it. And even if you did you've got nothing. He declares in verse 16, I've acquired great wisdom surpassing all who were over me. Over Jerusalem before me and my heart has had great experiences of wisdom and knowledge.

He had the wisdom and verse 17. He applied his heart and his mind. He worked hard at it to perceive what's going on in the world what life's about under the Sun. What is it? Like what's his conclusion.

After all his philosophy and straining to understand it's like chasing wind. For in verse 18. In other words because he's explaining why even wisdom under the Sun is wind chasing because in much wisdom that is much keen understanding of the world is.

Much vexation.

Much grief much irritation much anger much sorrow. Because now you see. How many people are wasting their lives on? Nonsense. Living for things that are nothing. Heading toward nothingness. Your insight into it Doesn't change it.

It just makes you sad. You stare out the window and you think.

What's the use.

Fun Cannot Give Lasting Meaning

Third.

Let's try some fun starting in chapter 2. Philosophy didn't work. It didn't help us make it something meaningful out of this life under the Sun.

So might as well have fun.

So let's try every kind of fun there is in chapter 2 verses 1 to 11. First laugh. Go to some comedy club or you can stay home and stream Jim Gaffigan. Now. He's hilarious. Still in verse 2 it's ridiculous in both senses of the word.

Let's drink spin so have all the best wine or maybe beer or liquor if that's your thing. If you still have wisdom and don't get fooled by the intoxication you'll realize That didn't turn out to be anything.

How about just fooling around? Folly, he calls it in verse 3. Video games. Laser tag. Paintball. Go-karts. Bowling about. Roll a large ball with some little holes drilled into it for your fingers down a Narrow wooden floor to knock over some wooden things.

I don't know what they call them pins. They don't pin anything. Wouldn't things knock them down and then set it back up again and knock them down again and do that over and over. Roller skating going in circles with wheels on your shoes.

Axe throwing. Tubing a rafting down a river. Zip lines.

Skiing.

Paragliding.

Surfing.

Amusement parks with roller coasters. Balling that's what I got. A gym for. Cards majong.

Wordle.

Pool, we've got a pool table that here ping-pong back there back there, whatever. It's nothing wrong with all that stuff. You're not sinning by doing them. But what do you think? They'll be worth in the end.

No, that didn't do it. What about instead of wasting my time on all that stuff? I grow up and I make something something big. The fun of Accomplishment. Most of us don't have the resources to make great works in verse 4.

Most of us aren't Kings here. And so we think if only I had billions of dollars then I could have a meaningful life. That's the only thing between me and meaningful life is those billions of dollars. I could build mansions like the Biltmore the breakers the Hearst Castle Tara Xanadu.

Maybe don't be so selfish. Not just to build something for yourself. Have a building built at your alma mater and then have your name on it. Carpenter Hall right there in the middle of Sanford University.

Wouldn't that be great? That doesn't work. Maybe resorts in verse 5. Gardens and parks. Irrigating pools. Congratulate yourself that you're good for the environment.

Still not working.

Maybe be a business giant a tycoon oligarch. With employees depending on you for their livelihood. Verse 7. I got mouths to food feed. You tell people Your life isn't for nothing because others lives depend on you.

We can tell you somebody because of all the checks you sign and your vast possessions warehouses full of.

Stuff.

Managers to keep inventory. Not just a restaurant, but you're the CEO of a worldwide chain.

China Dragon first taste.

Great wall.

International.

Incorporated with thousands of franchises all over the world you take in your private jet to them all over the world. Bigger than McDonald's you'd be somebody big then when you. Maybe you just want cash a huge bank account in verse 8 like Elon Musk who just this past week Sold seven billion dollars in stock.

So it have the cash on hand to buy Twitter. When you like to have seven billion dollars of cash on hand write a check for seven billion dollars if you need to. Don't like social media. We'll just buy Twitter or Facebook or whatever.

You've caught the wind then haven't you? Well, maybe it's entertainment that you need, you know. Rush Limbaugh once hired Elton John for 1 million dollars to play at his wedding reception. Of course, what do men like?

What is the delight of the sons and literally specifically sons at the end of verse 8 unlike the ESV? I read here not the generic children the sons. What is the light of the sons of men? What a man what literally in Hebrew at the end of verse 8 it's a concubine and concubines.

Girls girls girls. Ah, now we're talking fun. And so you're having all the fun in the world. You're somebody big. Whatever you want you can have in verse 10, whatever my eyes desired. I did not keep from them.

You even enjoy your work love your job and you'll never work a day in your life. Was your philosophy and then you sit back in your recliner. With your concubines waiting on you hand and foot your freezer stock full of Haagen-Dazs Elton John playing for you personally and you stare out the window and think.

What's the use.

Verse 11. Behold Look at all this For all that money all that work all those good times.

Still.

All was vanity Vapor and a striving after wind and there was nothing to be gained under the Sun.

The Forgotten End and the Futility of Labor

Fourth part.

Forgotten.

So starting in chapter 2 verse 12 because fun doesn't work consider wisdom madness and folly.

Which is better?

To be to be wise or to be foolish. You won't be able to outdo this philosopher King for wisdom. You won't have the wisdom that he has and you won't be able to have the vast experiences that he had. So what's the conclusion?

Tell us.

Philosopher King. In verse 13, it's better to be wise and foolish. Just like it's better to be able To be in the light than in the dark if you're wise. Like if you're in the light You can see what's happening.

You can see where you're going. The wise can see he has eyes in his head. He says in verse 14. Well, the fool is stumbling in the darkness. Can't figure out why you're smoking. Least a lung cancer, you know this kind of stuff.

But but seeing so the wise still isn't able to avoid death. It's not like being able to see. He's able then to dodge that ditch of death and he'd never fall in. Maybe he can live a little longer. Maybe he can live a little more comfortably.