Sermon: Ecclesiastes Resumed (Part Thirty-One)

A Summary of Chapters 1-7
#1782
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 21-Sep-24; 80 minutes 2024-09-21

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Now this sermon and the next several (and I do not know how many several is), are the result of a promise I made to my sister Diane McIver a few years ago, in which I told her that I would someday finish my dad's very long series on the book of Ecclesiastes.

It was a book that he was fascinated by. It did not start out that way. From his own mouth he said that Ecclesiastes kind of confused him and depressed him. And so he was not necessarily wanting to study it much. But that changed over the years and he began to give sermons about it or Bible studies.

He gave a short series on the book in 1993. He titled that "Ecclesiastes and the Feast of Tabernacles." In 2011, he gave a three-part series at the Feast and he called that one "Ecclesiastes: What Is It All About?" Then the next year, he took it up again in a nine-sermon series, "Resuming Ecclesiastes." And then early in 2013, he gave a sermon, "God's Sovereignty, Ecclesiastes, and God's Will." Finally, beginning in March of 2013, he restarted his "Resuming Ecclesiastes" series calling this one, renaming it "Ecclesiastes Resumed" and that ran for 30 sermons, ending in August of 2015. And after those 30 sermons, he had covered up to Ecclesiastes 8:4.

And I cannot remember why he stopped. My best guess that I can think of is that a feast was coming up when he stopped there in August of 2015. And I do not know if you have these things marked in your mind, but 2015 was one of those feasts where he had decided to cover Deuteronomy, and his study then, I think, led him to give subsequent sermons on the series called "Leadership and the Covenants," which ran for not five, not 10, not 15, not even 20, but 22 sermons all the way to September of 2017. So two years later. Perhaps at that point, "Ecclesiastes Resumed, Part Thirty-one" was somewhat out of sight, out of mind as he tackled other subjects that tickled his little gray cells in there, particularly his long series on Hebrews and its background, which stretched to not five, not 10, but 25 sermons.

So putting this all together, my dad gave 45 sermons on the book of Ecclesiastes and reached chapter 8, verse 4. If I cover the final five chapters at the same rate, it should take me about 32 sermons to finish the book. Well, that is the whole 45 on that ratio. If we take 30 for the "Ecclesiastes Resumed" series, it will take me 21 sermons. I have no intention whatever of being that thorough. It is not my way. If I go beyond about, I do not know, 5, 6, 7 sermons, I start to feel, "Man, I'm beating a dead horse here." We are just, dad and I, very different people. I do not think the same way that he did in terms of he would just plunge into the depths of something and try to reach the bottom that was not there. And I am not quite that way. I can go deep on some things if I want to. But normally, my mind is one of those things that, "Ah, that looks cool. Let's go there" and try to wrap things up quickly.

In fact, I want to finish this last part of Ecclesiastes in like six or seven sermons, if I can. I have given myself the goal of trying to cover a chapter a sermon. So that will take me through the feast and beyond by a few assignments. It may take more. I am not saying it will only take six or seven sermons. It may take 10. I do not know. I will have to see how deep I want to go in each one of those sections. I could certainly go 21 sermons if I wanted to because there is plenty of material in the book of Ecclesiastes to take a lot of deep dives. But I am hoping it will not be any more than about 10 at the most.

So this sermon (all 92 minutes that I have left) will get us up to speed on the book overall. And I hope to focus your attention on the major themes of Ecclesiastes up to chapter 8. So this will be a summary or a review of the highlights of the book that my dad went over. If you want further in-depth information on any of these things that I cover, go to the series and find them there. You will find a treasure trove of very deep theology about those various things in his sermons. And if all goes to plan, this sermon then will serve as a bridge between his studies of Ecclesiastes and mine.

Let us look at the first chapter of Ecclesiastes. I want to pull out two verses here as we start.

Ecclesiastes 1:1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

Ecclesiastes 1:12 I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.

Now, we could spend whole sermons on each of the several background topics of this book. You know, if you open up a commentary, you usually get a preface and then you get an introduction and it tells you all the background material you need to know about the particular book in question: the author, the date, the structure, the genre, the historical background, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You could really go deep into some of those areas and some commentators are very good at giving you an idea of who, what, where, when, why by just covering all this background information. They are all valuable and they are usually pretty interesting.

But theologians and commentators of all stripes argue these matters till the cows come home and way beyond, to midnight or beyond. But the book itself is very simple in this regard. It tells you right up front. And if you are thinking of it literally, if you believe the Bible, then the simplest thing to realize here is that this person who wrote the book, who he says twice was David's son and he was king in Jerusalem, well, your only conclusion is that it was Solomon. There was no other king in Jerusalem, David's son, who had the philosophical chops to do this sort of thing.

And if that is the case, then we know that Solomon lived until about 930 BC, maybe 931. That is what I have seen in several references when I looked it up. So, late in the 10th century is about the latest it could be if Solomon himself was the author, and I think he was now Solomon. If you will notice in each of these verses that we just read, verse 1 and verse 12, said that his name was or his title or a nickname was the Preacher. In Hebrew, this word is Qoheleth, or I have sometimes seen it started with a K. And this Qoheleth was David's son and king in Jerusalem. I will probably say Qoheleth every once in a while and I will say Solomon probably more, but this is the name he used in writing it.

So what about Qoheleth? What does this mean? The New King James says here that in their estimation, I should say the editors and translators of the New King James, decided to translate this as the preacher. And that is good. That is actually a very good translation of this word. It could also be teacher. It could be philosopher, to put it in a secular sense. It could be as common as just a speaker or a spokesman. It is just someone who speaks. But it literally means at its base one who assembles. Interesting. One who collects or gathers. And there is a little caveat here. It is not just one who, let us say, goes along the beach and collects shells or something like that or somebody who collects Harley Davidson's or any of that kind of collector. This is one who collects people for instruction. So that is why they say it is a preacher, it is a teacher. It is a public speaker of some kind. It is a person who stands up among people that he has called to himself to hear, to be instructed.

So a public speaker or a teacher is very fine definition. In this case, because of the content of what we see in the book of Ecclesiastes, a preacher of wisdom is very good, a very good translation. It fits what we know about Solomon, that he was a wise man, wisest among men other than our Savior Jesus Christ. And evidently he would give his wisdom to the people in assembly.

Let us see this here in Ecclesiastes. Let us read verses 16 and 17. He writes,

Ecclesiastes 1:16-17 I communed with my heart, saying, "Look, I have attained greatness, and have gained more wisdom than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My heart has understood great wisdom and knowledge." And I set my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also was grasping for the wind.

Let us go back to the first book of Kings, chapter 3, verses 12 and 13. This is in the chapter where Solomon requested of God that he be given understanding. He did not ask for money or wealth or power. So here in verse 12 is part of God's response to him.

I Kings 3:12-13 "Behold, I have done according to your words [God tells Solomon]; see, I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, nor shall any like you arise after you. And I have also given you what you have not asked: both riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among the kings all your days."

So clearly the son of David, king in Jerusalem title fits best on Solomon among all the kings of Israel who ruled or all the kings of Judah too, who ruled from Jerusalem.

But let us flip back to Ecclesiastes 12. Keep your finger in I Kings, if you will.

Ecclesiastes 12:9 And moreover, because the Preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yes, he pondered and sought out and set in order many proverbs.

This gives us a little clue that not only did he seek out the wisdom and understanding, but he also disseminated it among the people one way or another. And of course, this book of Ecclesiastes is a written version probably of what he taught the people. I am sure that God, having given him a wise and understanding heart, kind of compelled him not to keep it to himself, but to spread it among the people of Israel. And so he is rightly called the Preacher. As a matter of fact, one commentator here said that if he were translating a new translation of the book of Ecclesiastes, he would translate Qoheleth as pastor, that he was the pastor of Israel.

Back to I Kings and we will see that Solomon did this, this one time that we have an instance of this in verse 32 of I Kings 4. And I could go elsewhere here if I wanted to because in chapter 8 when the Temple was dedicated, it says that Solomon assembled the people, which is very close to the name Qoheleth.

I Kings 4:32-34 He spoke three thousand proverbs, and his songs were one thousand and five. And he spoke of trees, from the cedar tree of Lebanon even to the hyssop that springs out of the wall; he spoke also of animals, of birds, of creeping things, and of fish. And men of all nations, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom, came to hear the wisdom of Solomon.

These were public occasions when Solomon spoke his proverbs, sang his songs, spoke about nature, and probably used them as metaphors for some of the wisdom that God had given him.

So maybe we need to revise our understanding a little bit of the work that Solomon did as king of Israel. He was not just sitting on his throne dispensing judgment and then playing around all the time like a playboy, which Ecclesiastes 2 kind of pictures him as doing. But he was also a very serious preacher and he would gather, collect, assemble the people of Israel to hear, and not only the people of Israel, but people from all the kingdoms of the earth came to hear him preach. So really neat to think about.

While this identification of Qoheleth as Solomon is contested by modern scholars, I do not think we should believe them. It is my opinion that we should take this literally, that it was Solomon. They contend that someone much later wrote it as an apocryphal work and used Solomon's biographical details to give what he wrote more weight. But that just does not sit right, that God would allow that sort of thing. It is much better and more natural to read this as it was Solomon himself. We should take the text at its word, that the one who wrote this was Solomon.

Now we cannot rule out that it was not later edited and some of the words maybe updated. So scholars now say, well, this looks like it was from the Hebrew that they spoke around the time they returned from exile. Well, that may very well be because maybe Ezra got in there and changed a few words that had changed their meanings or whatever over the years. I mean, that had been a long time. Between Solomon and Ezra is about what 500 years, maybe not quite that much, but it is a long time and when that happens, when time moves on, language moves on. And perhaps that is what happened. It obviously looks, at the end of Ecclesiastes, that there was someone editing it and perhaps they tacked on the epilogue here from 12:9-14. But, you know, the whole book, except for a few verses that may have been edited, was Solomon's. I think as an editor I would not have the pride to edit Solomon himself. You know, maybe updating it in terms of language so it was understandable, yes. But to change what Solomon said, nah.

Lately, the scholarship on the book of Ecclesiastes has gone into a great deal of verbiage on the book structure and genre as if they are really that important, and they will go pages and pages trying to compare it to this old Middle Eastern text, and this Assyrian thing, and that Babylonian thing, and this is what the Egyptians were doing at the time and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But it is not really that important. I mean, we can see when we look at it that it is a book of wisdom. We do not need a whole lot more than that to get what we need out of it as God's children. So it is a lot like Proverbs except that Solomon decided, instead of just listing his proverbs like he did in the book of Proverbs, he puts a frame around it, what I will call a philosophical autobiography, because he uses his own life and his own thinking about these things as a kind of a frame on which to tack all this wisdom and say, Look, this is what I did. God gave me a special wisdom and understanding and this was the process I took in order to come to a greater understanding of what life is really like. And I think this is the right way to do it.

And then he says, there is this you have to think about, and then there is also this and this and this and this you have to think about. And when we get into about chapter 4, he is saying, well, since we have reached some preliminary conclusions on this matter, we have to understand that life is this way. And because life is this way, we have got to understand that this is better than this and this other thing is better than this other thing. And then he lists several of those. And he said, well, this got me to thinking about this and you will go into a bit about that subject, but it is all within the frame of how he himself came to understand these things. So it is a kind of a philosophical autobiography.

And he gets to the end in that section I mentioned, chapter 12, verses 9 through 14, and if it is his words, basically the frame is concluded. This is what I finally reach, this is the conclusion I finally reach when putting all of this stuff together: fear God and keep His commandments. That is the whole duty of man.

So that is the structure. He is giving us his thinking process so that we can come to understand the very important truths he is trying to get us to understand about our lives and how to live them.

Also, it is a warning for those who would come after and read this book, how to avoid his mistakes. And we know Solomon made a great many mistakes. We can compare Deuteronomy 17, which tells us kings need to do this and not do that. And then we look at his life and we see that Solomon did all the things he was not supposed to do. And so he is telling us through this book, which many people think he wrote late in life, that this is how you avoid my mistakes. They are, in fact, humanity's mistakes. We all make them in one way or another. And the chief mistake we all make is ignoring God and His instructions and His perspectives. And Solomon is trying to get us to come around to understanding that God and His instructions and His perspectives are the only way that we are going to have true life with meaning and joy in this life. And not to mention, the life to come.

Let us get into chapter 1. We have got to do one chapter every eight minutes. We will read verses 2, 3, 9, and 15, 17, and 18. So we are going to hop, skip, and jump through here.

Ecclesiastes 1:2-3 "Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher; "vanity of vanities, all is vanity." What profit has a man from all his labor in which he toils under the sun?

Ecclesiastes 1:9 That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done. And there is nothing new under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, what is lacking cannot be numbered.

Ecclesiastes 1:17-18 I set my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is grasping for the wind. For in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

What a downer! But this first chapter is a marvel. It is a piece of literature par excellence in my estimation. It is absolutely packed full of principles and realities that form a firm foundation for the pursuit of wisdom—and I should say, for the life of a Christian.

Solomon is very honest about life. And that is why we have the first chapter, because he is honestly telling us what life is actually like. Because God gave him the ability to see life, to see humanity, to see the whole picture as it really is. American novelist, Herman Melville, called Ecclesiastes, "the truest of all books." One commentator describing Ecclesiastes ability to capture life's futility and frustration, advised readers to "think of Ecclesiastes as the only book of the Bible written on a Monday morning."

And this is what makes it so different from the rest of the Bible. Not that the rest of the Bible does not give us the realities of life, but this book of Ecclesiastes crams it into these 12 chapters; and especially we are talking about chapter 1 here, into those first 11 verses and then a few nuggets as we get down to verse 18. It is very compacted in terms of reality, what life is actually like on Planet Earth for human beings.

Yes, I will admit it can be a downer, but it is exposing reality to help us see life in this world as it actually is and giving us sound advice about living in it while pursuing what is higher and greater.

You know, we could become eggheads and put ourselves in an ivory tower and maybe kind of get above the rest of the world and not have to worry about a lot of those things. But that is not the case with most of us. And even the person who is in the ivory tower is going to have to interact with the world as it really is on occasion.

Solomon is saying, Look, this is life, it is bad, it is futile. It is frustrating. It is terrible. I know you have got questions about why this is. But he understands too that the readers of his book, the ones he is really trying to reach, are the ones whom God has called, that God is working with. And he is saying, Look, you have got to do your best to obey God and to pursue the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. But you have got to understand that you are doing it in a place that is an absolute chaotic mess and nothing is going to work out right. Even for you things are not going to go the way you think they should go and they are going to end all too soon.

So if this is the case, how do you make the best of it? That is what Solomon is trying to teach us. How can we make the best of the life that we have in this evil world, frustrating world? So we could say, if I can just put it in a few words, Solomon is passing on insider information. He is giving us his lifetime of wisdom, searching out God's ways, and letting us know the best parts that we need so that we can live a life above the sun, even though we live in a world that is under the sun (and we will get to that in a minute).

Let us go to Romans 8. I want to pick out a paragraph here starting in verse 18.

Romans 8:18-21 [Paul writes here] For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

One of the greatest truths that you can have as a child of God, as one of the elect, is this knowledge of intentional futility. God intentionally made this world futile and frustrating. All is vanity, said Solomon. Life seems meaningless. Nothing lasts, everything passes so quickly, events repeat monotonously, achievement is extremely difficult for most people, and rewards, when they come, are unfulfilling.

Qoheleth is teaching, cluing us in that this is by divine design. (That would make a good TV show title: Divine Design.) God made human life this way for a reason. It is an object lesson of futility, showing us—the elect—that life without Him is meaningless. It is a waste of time, a waste of resources. Only He, infused into our life, makes life livable. And I mean that to the extreme. Only with God in us do we actually live. Jesus says, "Let the dead go bury the dead." So only God, with His life in us by His Spirit, can make human life even livable, bearable.

So Solomon gives us another metaphor to inform us that there are actually two kinds of life. The one which we know best because we are human and we have lived, is what he repeatedly calls "life under the sun," meaning on this earth, in this milieu of frustration and vanity. Occasionally he will call it "under heaven," which has a slightly different meaning but not enough to go into right now. But this life that we know so well is vanity. That is, this metaphor is like a puff of smoke that disperses in mere seconds. It is almost total nothingness and meaningless, valueless. It is not worth a thing. And God gives this life to mankind generally.

Ecclesiastes 1:13 I set my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven [and he calls all that is done under heaven, he defines it here]; this grievous task God has given to the sons of man, by which they may be exercised.

There is a lot packed in there. But God says that the life that He gives mankind is a grievous task and it is just there so we could be exercised. This is a very poor translation. I think a good translation would be "this burdensome task" or "this bad business" or "this evil activity" by which humanity may be afflicted. The margin here in my Bible says occupied, but the word is actually afflicted. It is not just a burden, it is not just grievous. In a way we could say it is a punishment. It is what we deserve because Adam sinned and every one of us since that time, one after the other, after the other, after the other, has sinned and we created this mess by our sins. God would have been very happy to let us all live in the worldwide Garden of Eden, but we sinned and decided—they did for us, but we have all agreed with them all down through the ages—that we did not want God involved in what we were doing.

So what did God do? He said, "Ok, that's your decision." *Clang*—shuts the gate, kicks them out to the east of Eden and puts an angel there with the sword so they cannot get back in. "Here you go. Here's the world without Me." And what has it been? Vanity, frustration, destruction, warfare, death. This is the burdensome task, the grievous thing, the bad business, the evil activity by which humanity may be afflicted. Self-imposed. But God allowed it to teach us all a lesson: that without Him, we can do nothing, nothing good.

Now, the other kind of life is not mentioned outright for several chapters as if it is really not an alternative. And you know what? It is not an alternative, not for the vast majority of humanity. They have no say in what kind of world they live in. But God chooses various ones to give them an alternative life. He calls them out of this world as His elect. He gives them the Holy Spirit and He says, "Look, you live in a world that is just trash and it's so frustrating and nothing good will come out of it. But I've chosen you to stick your nose above the reek and try to make a life in this terrible world, proving that you're going to be faithful and go the way of God, even though everything around you is telling you to go another way."

So this other life, we understand, is the "over the sun" or the "heavenly" life above the sun that is available only to the ones whom God calls and gives His Spirit. We could call it the converted life.

If you will, let us go to Ephesians 2, verses 4 through 10.

Ephesians 2:4-6 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses and sins [just like the rest of the world], made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) [You did not do anything to make God pick you out of the muck. He did it all Himself and gave you grace.], and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

He raised us out of the "under the sun" milieu as I called it and raised us up together with Christ to sit with Him in the heavenly places. Now, this physical life does not mean a hill of beans. It is the spiritual life that now He has given us that we have to concentrate on even though we physically live in the "under the sun" world.

Ephesians 2:7-8 That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.

We need to remember that. Everything that we have that we can consider something to be above the sun, comes directly from the Father and from Christ through the Spirit.

Ephesians 2:9-10 Not of works [we did not do anything], lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Paul is telling us very plainly, without mincing any kind of words here, that we would be just like our neighbors, just like people all over the world if God Himself did not by grace grant us a peek at the life above the sun, allow us to choose to follow that, and then gave us everything we needed through His Spirit to accomplish His purpose. That is, that He was going to work with us to make us like the citizens of heaven. That is, Them—the Father and the Son. We are citizens of this earth right now. And it is terrible. But He has given a few—His little flock—a chance to rise above it and only by His grace and by His gifts is that possible.

So for the elect of God, as my dad was fond of saying, everything matters. Despite living amid the vanity of this world, because we have been called, because we have been given His Spirit, because we have been given this great hope of eternal life in the Kingdom of God, we must constantly and consciously make godly evaluations and choices to remain in union with God. Because if we do not, we are going to be sucked back down into the morass, back into the swamp of life under the sun. And Paul comfortingly says that God gives us grace and guidance and gifts along the way. And if we did not have those things, we would be sunk.

Back to chapter 1 of Ecclesiastes. I think we will get through this because we are going to start revving up here after chapter 1. I told you chapter 1 is amazing. I could probably have just stayed in chapter 1 this whole sermon. But we are going to get to these others.

He ends chapter 1 with a couple of observations. And we need to understand that these observations are about life under the sun.

1. Under the sun, broken things cannot be fixed, missing things cannot be found.

2. Under the sun, the pursuit of truth and wisdom produces little more than disappointment.

He says wrongs cannot be righted, injustices cannot be reversed, natures, that is, terrible human nature cannot be reformed, and things like that. What seems to be lacking in people or in society cannot be found and added back in to complete or fulfill the grand desires of humanity. What we long for cannot be satisfied. It will not happen.

So get this, the world, broken and incomplete, cannot be fixed by human means. That is what living under the sun means to us now. Humans do not have answers. They do not have the wherewithal, they do not have the strength, they do not have the power, they do not have the morality and character to fix human problems. So that is the world we live in.

Finally (this is down in verse 18), any quest to figure things out will only end up irritating us, frustrating us, or angering us because, as we learn more about life in this world, all we do is uncover more disturbing things. And the chief of those is that ultimately the most disturbing thing is what we just went over. There are no satisfying answers and no fixing anything! That is so frustrating to people. Writers, philosophers, theologians, other kind of thinkers and politicians (well, they are not thinkers), and other people who try to pursue wisdom, even human geniuses cannot find out any kind of answers to what is going on, and this world will end before anything like that happens. The only answers that work are from outside the under the sun world—from God.

So those who set out to learn and to help humanity, maybe out of the goodness of their heart, trying to understand those the answers to the big questions, only end up unsatisfied, frustrated, and sorrowful. In the end, the answer to their questions—they all have the same answer—under the sun human beings cannot solve human problems. It is a grade above us. At least one grade. We cannot do it.

Finished chapter 1. Let us go into chapter 2. Starting in the first verse,

Ecclesiastes 2:1-3 I said in my heart, "Come now, I will test you with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure"; but surely, this also was vanity. I said of laughter—"It is madness!; and of mirth, "What does it accomplish?" I searched in my heart how to gratify my flesh with wine, while guiding my heart with wisdom, and how to lay hold of folly, till I might see what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives.

Ecclesiastes 2:9-13 So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor; and this was my reward from all my labor. When I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun. Then I turned myself to consider wisdom and madness and folly; for what can a man do who succeeds the king?—only what he has already done. Then I saw that wisdom excels [or exceeds] folly as light excels darkness.

Chapter 2 summarizes Solomon's great experiment to find satisfaction and joy in life. He tried everything. Mirth, wine, women, work, money, music, you name it. He did everything. He tried his hand at everything. And when he finally sat down to consider what he had accomplished and the pleasures he had enjoyed, they totaled a big fat nothing. They did not last. They had to be constantly repeated. And every time he repeated it, it had to be bigger and better to get the same sort of satisfaction out of it.

But nothing truly satisfied him for very long. And so he concludes, there was no profit under the sun. In this configuration of the cosmos, there is no good. It just falls flat. It is vanity, a puff of smoke. That is it. Nothing really changed. Nothing got better. Nothing. I mean, he could have turned into a nihilist right there. But he kept his wisdom, it says, and after thinking about it some more, he decided that even though life is nothing, that it is vain, that there is no profit, some things though are better than others.

Wisdom, he says, excels folly. And this principle winds throughout the book. Even though life is futile and nothing lasts, there is a hierarchy of good and evil in the world, and it is because of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It opened humanity's eyes to both good and evil and then they were given free will to choose. And so if we have a choice under the sun to choose, well, we should choose wisdom. We should choose all those things that are on the good end of the spectrum, rather than the things that are on the evil end of the spectrum.

So this hierarchy, it goes bottom up from the worst, to worse, to bad, to good, to better, to best. Right? That is the spectrum of human activity. And he says it is better to do this rather than that. And he goes through a series of these. But right here, we have to understand that it is always better to pursue good things, the good half of the spectrum, the good half of the hierarchy because pursuing those things is wisdom. Falling on that end of the scale is wisdom. It is always wisdom. You never do evil. That is folly and madness!

But if we stay on the good end of the scale, that is better, that is much better. So do not go to the dark side, Luke. You know, go on to the good side, stay on the good side. Put it another way, even under the sun there is far more to gain in the goodness of wisdom than in the evils of folly. So if you want to have a good life, even under the sun, choose the good things, choose the better things. In fact, why not choose the best things?

Now in this chapter, he finishes on a mostly positive note. I am not going to read any of it, but he concludes here that it is better to enjoy the good things in life: honest labor, food, drink, your family, and that sort of thing, the satisfactions of simple pleasures. That is a good thing. But as he ends the chapter, he cannot help but warn us that even these things are vanity. They are ultimately unsatisfying because they pass away.

Let us go into Ecclesiastes 3, verse 1.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.

We all know this section quite well, I am sure. It is that section where there is a time for this and a time for that. And it provides, this section does, a simple truth that life organizes itself in various times, or seasons. And they are comforting. We know that we have passed into a time of peace after a time of war. And that is great. But on the other hand, these seasons, these times are inexorable and terrifying because if we turn that around, that we are in a season of peace, and we know that there is going to come a season of war and we cannot do anything about it. That is scary.

So we are trapped in time. We are trapped in these seasons and subject to them and we cannot do anything about them. They are inexorable, they turn from one to another and they keep going through life. We cannot schedule them, we cannot avoid them, especially when the negative side of them hits. And so we seem to live under the sun at the whim of a uniform pattern of life. Bad after good, good after bad, just keeps going on and on and on and on. We cannot shake out of it.

But let us go down to verse 10.

Ecclesiastes 3:10 I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied.

This is referring us back to chapter 1 where it said the same thing, and we know that this God-given task is very grievous and it is an evil business. Remember, that is what he said. That is what we are afflicted by. But in verse 11, he gives us a little bit of light.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.

Now, we have to see that as under the sun for the most part, but it means something different for those of us who have been called to come into the heavenly places. So Solomon does not let us get too morose about life and being stuck in time. He says, there is a purpose to all of this. Without saying it, he is saying God is sovereign. He made time. He is in charge of time. He controls time. These seasons that He says we go through are under His hand. And more than that, we can be thankful that God times everything perfectly. And He does that especially for those whom He has called, those who He has called out of living under the sun to live a life above the sun.

So overall, Solomon is telling the converted, who have eternal life by His Spirit, we are not just yearning for eternity or immortality like those who are under the sun, he is telling us to trust God's timing in our lives. He is telling us to trust God's overall purpose for humanity. This is actually a call to faith here for us. Things are terrible. Things are terrible all the time. This is the way God has done it. He has decided in His purpose to do it this way. But just trust Him, He has the power to work it out and He will do it perfectly at the exact right time. He is in control. Trust that, and all will work out according to His sovereign will.

Now he ends in chapter 3 with two points. 1) God is aware of sin and injustice and He will sort it out in His judgment, at His time. 2) Humans have animal life and thus will die under the sun. What happens afterward is a mystery.

We have to understand that he is talking in an under the sun manner here. It is not that we do not know what happens afterward, but the vast majority of people in this world have no idea what is coming after. And so we have to deal with that. And of course, it has gotten to the point now where all of us here with our advanced brains and everything, we are just kids of the apes and we are going to die like apes, and people believe that. So just understand that all of this is for a purpose, all this sin and injustice will be corrected in time, but it is God's time. It is perfectly timed and there is more to come than people know. And we have to just be able to understand that and deal with it as we go through life with an above the sun mindset.

Chapter 4, here is where we go into our fifth gear. With chapter 4, the book morphs a little bit into a collection of short paragraphs. You could call them Solomon's studies on limited topics. And he often concludes that one thing is better than another. This is better than that. So in chapter 4, he concludes these things:

It is better not to have seen or experienced the evils of this world. But we do not have that choice. Also, it is better to have enough, that is, money or food or what have you, to have enough without strife then incur the envy of a neighbor. Also, it is better to have family and friends than to be a lonely workaholic. It is better to have companions because there is strength in numbers. It is better for a leader, no matter what his age, to be wise rather than foolish.

Chapter 5. (Look at that, that was about two minutes.) The pattern continues in chapter 5. But I want to read the first seven verses here because it hits us between the eyes.

Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 Walk prudently when you go to the house of God; and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil. Do not be rash with your mouth, let not your heart utter anything hastily before God. For God is in heaven, and you on earth; therefore, let your words be few. For a dream comes through much activity, and a fool's voice is known by his many words. When you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it; for He has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you have vowed—it is better not to vow than to vow and not pay. Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God that it was an error. Why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy the works of your hands? For in the multitude of dreams and many words there is also vanity. But fear God.

This passage is very important because it strikes at a person's attitude toward the worship of God. He sounds a lot like a pastor or a preacher here, I think. What he does is he urges us to pay attention to God's Word and to be very careful in how we worship. He asserts that it is evil, it is real evil to go through the motions and give lip service, appearing to be devout when we come to worship. We have got to feel it and live it and practice it honestly and sincerely. If we do not, we are hypocrites—and hypocrisy is evil.

This kind of worship is insincere and deceptive and irreverent to God. So he says, watch your step when you come before God, watch what you say. If you promise something before God, oh, you better fulfill it! Because God hears and God does not forget what we promise, what we say. Do not make excuses about these sort of things because God will hold you to it. He is talking in this case about vowing things or promising things, but do not make excuses for why you did not fulfill what you said you were going to do. God is not going to take that. Why were you not good to your word? Why did you not fulfill what you said? You remember, Jesus says, our Savior says that we are going to be judged for every idle word. God is listening to what we say! So let your words be few.

And finally, he ends up saying just at the end, "Fear God." He is strong. He is Sovereign. He is your Judge. Give Him the respect, deference, and obedience that He deserves.

The last half of chapter 5 deals with vanity of money, profit, and abundance. It is all temporary. We cannot take any of that money or abundance with us when we die. It is going to be given to our heirs. Money, profit, that sort of thing has its benefits, but it also brings troubles, and you have to weigh the benefits against the troubles. For instance, when you have a lot of money, there is more chances for corruption. There are more chances for people to be freeloaders and have their hands out wanting your money. I mean, when people win the lottery, how many freeloading relatives come out of the woodwork? There are also troubles, like worry. How do you store your money? How do you keep it from robbers? How do you make sure it grows, etc.? There are sleepless nights when you wonder if the stock market is going to bottom out and all your money is going to go away, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. These are all the things that happen when you have money and maybe if you do not have money, you have a lot fewer wrinkles in your forehead.

You have got to weigh this. Do you want enough or do you want to be rich? And you have to understand there are good things and bad things on both sides. So he repeats what he says at the end of chapter 2. He says, Really guys, the best we can do is to trust God to give us joy in those simple pleasures of life.

Now, chapter 6. I do not know why I rushed to chapter 6 because it is a downer.

Ecclesiastes 6:1-2 There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men: A man to whom God has given riches and wealth and honor, so that he lacks nothing for himself of all he desires; yet God does not give him power to eat of it, but a foreigner consumes it. This is vanity, and it is an evil affliction.

This chapter focuses on the lack of satisfaction under the sun. It is a dark chapter intimating that life under the sun is a long list of disappointments, dissatisfactions, and unfulfilled promises. Martin Luther (he was the first Lutheran, by the way), he commented that "it is a description of a rich man who lacks nothing for a good and happy life and yet does not have one." He has got all the ingredients to have a great life and he has a terrible life. He fails to enjoy what he has worked all his life to gain. Somebody else enjoys the fruits of his labor. And Solomon calls this "a grievous evil." It is an evil affliction to work so hard and gain so much and not be able to enjoy it.

This is life under the sun, without God. Something always happens to ruin things.

He speaks about our appetites never being satisfied. They wander here and there like tramps to find fulfillment, but our appetites always end up being discontent. There is never enough or there is always something else. We feel empty and never truly filled. There is a hole; we pour in and it just goes out the other end. We do not have anything filling us, we have to refill it all the time and nothing ever changes. Man is the same now as he was in the past. He has just got different unsatisfying toys and goals.

But we are no better, no worse than those people who came after Adam and Eve, or any time down through history. And you know, it is useless to argue with God about it. Why did You make us this way? Why are things not getting better?

Romans 9:20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, "Why have you made me like this?"

That is vanity; to ask God and contend with one's maker, "Why have you done this?" I mean, look what happened with Job when he started to do that! You read that in Job 42:1-6. The important thing we need to do is remember that we are weak and ignorant and we need to, in humility, keep this at the forefront of our minds, realize that we are weak and limited. God is in charge. He has a plan.

So Qoheleth concludes, who knows what is good for us and how all of this will turn out? Especially to those who are under the sun. It is best just to let God work.

Chapter 7, very quickly. Solomon returns to the passages explaining what is better in life. He says a good reputation is better. The lessons we learn from death and mourning are better. Wise correction is better. A completed project is better than one who that has not been completed. Patience is better than pride. Wisdom as a defense against misfortune is better. And learning the lessons of adversity is a good thing.

Now, we get to Ecclesiastes 7, verse 15.

Ecclesiastes 7:15-18 I have seen everything in my days of vanity: There is a just man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his wickedness. Do not be overly righteous, nor be overly wise: Why should you destroy yourself? Do not be overly wicked, nor be foolish: Why should you die before your time? It is good that you grasp this, and also not remove your hand from the other; for he who fears God will escape them all.

My dad spent months, many sermons on this paradox in verse 15 and Solomon's admonition not to be overly righteous. And he used Psalm 73 to answer the question. Remember Asaph saw that the wicked were prospering and so he had all of these terrible thoughts. And then he finally went to the house of the Lord and he (snap*) "Ah, this is the answer."

The simple answer here is that excessive judgmentalism and Pharisaical law-keeping are often parts of a proud overreaction to the envy of sinners. Now, I will expand this a little.

When a person sees that somebody has more than he does, and he is a bad person—Why did he get that? Why does he have all this stuff?—the person arrogantly often finds fault with God because he makes a judgment that God is blessing him or allowing him to have all these things. And look at me, I have nothing in my pockets. And then this person presumes he knows better than God about how to deal with people, himself is particular. He brings God into question: why did you bless him and not bless me? Because I have been doing what you wanted me to do. I have been righteous, but here I am begging for bread.

The second thing that happens is that in the process of all of this, the person becomes self-focused and self-righteous, both of which can lead to spiritual death. And so his reaction is to try to impress God by showing Him just how pious and devout he is and thus should be blessed. And if you remember what the children of Israel did in the wilderness, this is the very exact thing. They are tempting God. They are testing God; they are forcing God to act on their behalf. God does not like to be pushed around.

So this is what has been called super righteousness. It is a form of attempting to save oneself through works, combined with excessive pride and manipulation of God. This is why it is so bad. And Solomon warns us against it. It is actually taking the prerogatives of God and placing yourself above Him in one way or another. And the antidote is very simple: fear God and accept His judgments because He is sovereign. And I do not know, I was going to say more importantly, but importantly, He is never wrong. So if He decides this person gets to keep all his money, even though he is a sinner, great. But if he has decided that you should dwell in rags or live in rags and dwell in a hovel, great. Because God is never wrong and He is sovereign.

The rest of chapter 7 consists of short wisdom proverbs ending in an overall conclusion in verse 29.

Ecclesiastes 7:29 Truly, this only I have found: That God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.

This basically says that though humanity started off at creation with a clean slate, we humans have looked for and found many ways to sin. It never ends. We keep coming up with new and interesting ways to sin, but they are all related to all the old ways of sinning. We just find little things to add to them.

And because of this, because we are part of humanity, we are all untrustworthy to some extent in all our relationships. We are not consistent. We are good and evil. We sometimes do the right thing. We often do the wrong thing. But we have to understand that because we are still human and we are coming out of our humanity, little, incremental, bits by bits, even if we have been called to live a life above the sun. So we need to use wisdom and mercy in all of our interactions.

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