WWUTT 1744 Cast Your Bread Upon the Waters (Ecclesiastes 11:1-10)

After all the things that you have experienced in your life, have you ever wished you could go back and instruct your younger self?

What would you say? Well, the preacher in the book of Ecclesiastes thinks about that when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the

Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our

Q &A on Friday. Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gate. Thank you, Becky. As we have been going through the book of Ecclesiastes, the last couple of weeks we've just done like 10 verses at a time.

It was 10 verses two weeks ago, then we finished up chapter 10 last week, and this week we're in chapter 11, which is, it's just 10 verses.

So, it should be easy for us to get all the way through this chapter today. Let's look at it together.

I'm in the Legacy Standard Bible. This is the Word of the Lord in Ecclesiastes 11, 1 -10.

Cast your bread on the surface of the waters, for you will find it after many days.

Divide your portion to seven, or even to eight, for you do not know what calamity may occur on the earth.

If the clouds are full, they empty the rain upon the earth. And whether a tree falls toward the south or toward the north, wherever the tree falls, there it lies.

He who watches the wind will not sow, and he who looks at the clouds will not reap.

Just as you do not know the path of the wind and how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the work of God who works all things.

Sow your seed in the morning, and do not put your hands down in the evening, for you do not know whether morning or evening sowing will succeed, or whether both of them alike will be good.

The light is sweet, and it is good for the eyes to see the sun. Indeed, if a man should live many years, let him be glad in them all, and let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many.

Everything that is to come will be vanity. Be glad, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be merry during the days of young manhood, and walk in the ways of your heart and in the sights of your eyes.

Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things. So remove vexation from your heart, and put away evil from your flesh, because childhood and the prime of life are vanity.

It would be helpful for us here at the start of this chapter to ask, who is the preacher talking to?

Seldom over the course of Ecclesiastes has the preacher ever been addressing anybody, he's just been musing to himself.

But here we have in chapter 11, cast your bread on the surface of the waters, whatever that means, and then toward the end of the chapter, be glad, young man, during your childhood, and verse 10, remove vexation from your heart, and put away evil from your flesh, because childhood and the prime of life are vanity.

Who is he addressing here? It would be easy for us to say that he is addressing his son.

Because when you consider that this is Ecclesiastes, it was written by Solomon, and in the book of Proverbs, that's who

Solomon was talking to. It was a father passing on wisdom to his son. So maybe that's the case here.

Solomon is once again passing on wisdom to his son. I don't think that's the case, though, because Solomon is coming to the end of his life.

He's looking back over everything that he's accomplished. So it's unlikely that he's passing on wisdom to a young child, or a young man, when he's already got sons that are going to assume the throne after him.

Now, that doesn't mean he didn't have young men in his household. I mean, the guy had 1 ,000, well, it was 700 wives and 300 concubines.

So he had a lot of women in his home, and still probably had ankle biters in the house, even up to the point that he died, which is disturbing to think about.

So he probably did have youth in his home that he still could have been raising in wisdom.

I'm going to argue here, though, that Solomon is talking to himself, and specifically he is talking to his younger self.

We understand context, not just what we have read up to this point, but even what we're going to read.

And as you read on into chapter 12, Solomon is clearly talking about old age.

And so given all of the wisdom that he has gleaned over the course of his pondering the world, all that has been given to me,

I've lived in richness, I have lived with wisdom, and I've even given myself over to simple -minded folly.

I have not found any inherent meaning and wisdom in all that there is under the sun.

Everything is vanity, or it's all for nothing. There is no inherent meaning in these things unless what you do is done unto the praise and glory of God.

So as he's looking back over his life and he's reflecting on all of this, he's also thinking to himself, how would all of this wisdom have benefited me if I had learned this when

I was younger? And so chapter 11 is as though he is speaking to his younger self.

And in so doing, that becomes valuable wisdom for us that we can apply, because we don't have to wait to the end of life to learn these things.

There is a man who has already gone through all of this and pondered it and is now passing it on metaphorically to his younger self.

But through the Holy Spirit of God speaking through these words is a benefit to us.

So let's look at it again here. Ecclesiastes 11, verse 1. Cast your bread on the surface of the waters, for you will find it after many days.

Now, I have no idea what that means. So I had to go to some commentaries. I needed to get a little help on this.

And it turns out there are many commentaries that did not understand what this meant. Or I'll say it this way.

I think the majority of the commentaries that I read came to the same conclusion, but they didn't really know how they got there.

Because, you know, what's bread? Who casts their bread on the waters?

How do you find it after many days? Bread on the water gets soggy, and it just, you know, it kind of, doesn't it just dissolve into the water?

You've surely thrown bread in the water at the ducks before. You know what happens to bread if it sits there in the water and the ducks don't come and eat it or the fish don't eat it.

So what does it mean to cast your bread on the surface of the waters? Now, here is what the commentators have concluded together, that this is about charity.

Even if you don't see any return, even if you're not going to get any benefit from it, that you can observe, you should still be charitable with your bread, be charitable with what you have.

So give it to others. Maybe you'll get something in return for that. Maybe you won't see any return.

But don't be stingy with it. Share what you have with other people. That's the conclusion that a vast majority of the commentaries

I read have come to. Although they don't agree on how you get to that point. Because what is meant by casting your bread on the surface of the waters?

Here is what I deduced based on the number of commentaries that I read.

And those commentarians were not talking amongst one another. This is kind of like they're all talking in my head, and so here's what

I was able to come to. Casting your bread is casting your seed.

It's casting the seed that becomes grain, that you then harvest and turn into bread.

So casting your bread is casting the seed on the ground, which is going to be watered and grows up.

So cast your bread on the surface of the waters, and you will find it after many days.

What happens to that seed after it's in the ground and it gets watered? It's going to grow up. When you throw the seed, you don't know where it's gone.

It's not like you can go into the ground and start kind of picking through the dirt and pulling the seed back out. You'll find a few seeds, but you can't get them all back.

So you need to be generous. You need to sow your seed, and it will grow up.

You will find it after many days. There will be a benefit to this, even though you may not know what it is right away when you're sharing what you have with other people.

And maybe as you are charitable with others, no one gives you anything in return.

You don't in this lifetime see any benefit to the sharing that you did.

But in the kingdom that is to come, there will be great reward for you. Jesus talks about this in Luke 14, verse 13.

When you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you, for it will be repaid to you at the resurrection of the righteous.

And that's how we as Christians in this world should be. We should be willing to be generous with all of that God has blessed us with.

We may not see any return for it on this side of heaven, but we certainly will receive the reward at the resurrection of the righteous, because you will be among the righteous who are raised from the dead.

So we go on from there, Ecclesiastes 11, 1 to verse 2. Divide your portion to seven or even to eight, for you do not know what calamity may occur on the earth.

Now the point here is really to be always generous. Don't just be generous one day of the week.

How many days are in a week? Seven. Divide your portion to the seven or even to the eight.

In other words, keep going. You were charitable this week, good, but keep going even into the next week.

So don't just be charitable once. Continue to give charitably. And again, it is at the resurrection of the righteous that you will receive your reward, for you do not know what calamity may occur on the earth.

You don't know how many days you have to live. You cannot pick a season to be generous. I'm going to be generous in this season, and then

I'm going to receive a great reward in heaven that is to come. No, you should always be generous.

Live your life with generosity, and the reward comes not from this earth, but it will come from Christ in the kingdom that is to come.

Verse 3, if the clouds are full, they empty the rain upon the earth, and whether a tree falls toward the south or toward the north, wherever the tree falls, there it lies.

Now, what this is saying with this metaphor, with this word picture, is that there are laws that govern everything, and no matter what you do, you cannot change or upset those laws.

When the clouds are full, the rain falls. There's nothing that you can do to stop the rain.

When a tree falls, whether it falls to the north or it falls to the south, wherever it hits the ground, there it lies.

You've got gravity, okay? You are not going to defy gravity. It seems like such a common -sense statement, wherever the tree falls, there it lies.

Well, duh, I mean, it fell down. There's the tree right there. But you could not have done anything to prevent its fall, though you may have had something to do with which direction it fell.

You still don't have any control over these laws that God has established, which governs all things.

Now, this even goes back to verse 2, because notice the last portion of verse 2.

You do not know what calamity may occur on the earth. This is the wise man pondering the fact that, no matter how long he's lived, his days are numbered, and there's nothing that he can do about his days.

He cannot extend them beyond the limits that God has set. And so, therefore, in the days that he has been given, he needs to live wisely in all of them, not just in certain seasons, but always and unto the

Lord. Verse 4, he who watches the wind will not sow, and he who looks at the clouds will not reap.

Once again, there are not seasons in which to live righteously. I'm going to live righteously in this season, and I'm going to be a fool in this season.

You should live righteously always. If you're waiting for the weather to be perfect to go out and sow your seed, then the seed is never going to get sown.

There may always be some kind of weather event that prevents you as a farmer from going out to the field and sowing your seed.

So if you're just watching the wind and that's all you're doing, then you're not going to go out and sow. And after sowing, then, after you've sown your seed, if all you're doing at that point is just watching the clouds, well, then you're never going to go out and reap.

So I need to wait until the weather is nice, and then I can go harvest my grain. Remember that the

Apostle Paul told Timothy to preach the word and to be ready in season and out of season.

There is always a time to live righteously, and that time is right now, to turn from sin to the righteousness of Jesus Christ and live in holiness and uprightness all your days.

Pursue wisdom all your days, knowing once again, as we have in Colossians 2, that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

This is the wise man passing on to his younger self that he needs to not wait for certain seasons to do these things, but he needs to be doing righteously always.

Verse 5, just as you do not know the path of the wind and how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the work of God who works all things.

Again, he is the one who governs all of this and holds it all in his hands. You cannot control it, especially those things down to the smallest detail.

In Psalm 139, which I preached on recently, there in Psalm 139, you formed my inward parts, you knit me together in my mother's womb.

And David goes on to say, such thoughts are too lofty for me. I cannot even fathom all of the things that God is doing that I have no control over.

And Solomon is pondering that same thing here in Ecclesiastes chapter 11. God is the one who is doing all things.

Though you as a king, remember you have an old king talking to his younger self as king, you as a king don't control everything,

God does. And so you must subject yourself unto the Lord in everything.

As we read in Colossians 1, in Christ he is before all things, and in him, in Christ Jesus, all things hold together.

Jesus is keeping this world from flying apart at the seams. He is actively involved in everything, from the microscopic stuff that is so tiny to the minute detail that we could never even observe, to the maxim, the stuff that's going on in the universe that is so far beyond our perception.

Christ is in the midst of all of this. He is even here right now with you and me.

We who are followers of Jesus Christ, who have his Holy Spirit dwelling within us, he is with us.

And he does care about us in what our thoughts are and what we are doing, and that we would commit our way unto the

Lord. In 1 Peter chapter 5, Peter says, to humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, casting all your cares on him, because he cares for you.

It is proud and arrogant when we don't give our cares unto the Lord. Jesus is with us.

He cares about us. He is even holding our world together around us where we stand, or where you sit, or wherever you are.

So commit your way unto the Lord, and confess yourself unto

Jesus Christ, your Savior. Verse 6. Sow your seed in the morning, and do not put your hands down in the evening.

For you do not know whether morning or evening sowing will succeed, or whether both of them alike will be good.

In other words, you do this work all day long, from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed.

Don't suddenly get to the end of your day and become slack in righteousness. And this was a real problem for me as a young man.

I had real difficulty with this. I felt like I lived my day pretty good in righteousness, but then suddenly I'm by myself at home in the dark with my computer open, and I let my guard down, and I start devoting my mind to things that I should not be thinking about.

So be righteous always. Be after Christ every waking moment of your day.

And again, as it's said in Psalm 139, even when I sleep, you are with me. He is with us, guarding us, and keeping all things together.

Verse 7. The light is sweet, and it is good for the eyes to see the sun.

There's practical application in that. It's good to do our work in the daytime when there's light, and we can see what it is that we have to do.

And we don't devote ourselves to darkness, but there's a spiritual application in this also, that we would walk in the light as he is in the light, for in him there is no darkness at all, as it says in 1

John 1. Verse 8. Indeed, if a man should live many years, let him be glad in them all, and let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many.

Everything that is to come will be vanity. Now, darkness here may not necessarily be in reference to sin.

It may be in reference to just difficult, gloomy trials and hard days.

But let us let him remember those days, so that he will rejoice all the more in the days that are glad.

So we have that instruction, that exhortation itself in verse 9. Be glad, young man, during your childhood.

Be glad when the days are the best for you, when you have everything out in front of you, when the world is wide open and full of possibilities.

Be glad, and let your heart be merry during the days of young manhood.

When your body is strong and full of vigor, and you're not being weighed down by the aches and pains in your body.

You know, while I am recording this, I am struggling with back spasms today. And it took me a little while actually to get started with this particular devotional, because I was having trouble catching my breath because of my back spasms.

I'm getting older, and my body is telling me that. So enjoy your youth when you have all of this vitality in your body.

But don't devote that vitality to unrighteousness. Even in your youth, live righteously, so that you have no regret when you get older.

You're not looking back on stupid things that you did in your younger years. Even when you are young, be devoted to righteousness, the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

Walk in the ways of your heart, as verse 9 goes on to say, and in the sights of your eyes.

Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things. So may the desires of your heart be what

God desires. Not what you want in your flesh. That's not necessarily what the preacher is saying here. Go after what you want, but let what you want be what

God wants for you. For God will bring into judgment everything we do.

Everything we say, the thoughts we think, the things that we do. Commit your way unto the Lord. If you commit yourself to righteousness when you are younger, you'll enjoy those days even more when you are older.

But if you do foolish things in your youth, then you'll be reaping the consequences of that, even when you're older.

Verse 10, so remove vexation from your heart. Remove the desire for sin and unrighteousness.

Put away evil from your flesh. Because childhood and the prime of your life are vanity.

Just because you feel young and full of vitality, that doesn't mean your life is meaningful.

There's not meaningfulness in your life unless you have devoted yourself to God and you live for the glory of Christ.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for these words and may they be convicting to us, that we would turn from sin and live in righteousness all our days.

May we enjoy the fruit of righteousness in our lives, a righteousness that comes not from ourselves, but from Christ who has clothed us in his righteousness, that we may live holy before you all our days.

If there is any sinful way in us, seek it out, God, that we would be convicted over our sin, confessing these things before you, cleanse us from all our unrighteousness, and renew a right spirit within us, as said in Psalm 51.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes.

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