Sermon: Ecclesiastes Resumed (Part Thirty-Eight): Ecclesiastes 11:1-8
#1794
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 07-Dec-24; 85 minutes
description: (hide) Just as professional racing is encumbered by risks beyond the control of the drivers, life also contains risks and problems for both people living under the sun and people living over the sun in this under the sun world. Even though Almighty God is sovereign over all things, He does not promise His chosen saints a problem free life. He does not even say His people will have fewer problems than the rest of mankind. Solomon counsels us to exercise diligence, work hard, plan for disruptions, obstacles, and roadblocks, spreading risk to work within this futile under the sun world. The proverbial saying about casting bread upon the waters, when traced back to the etymological roots, indicate that diversifying investments such as placing part of the freight on several sea-going vessels, will make it more likely that the entire investment will not be lost. We should spread our investment, diversifying our efforts so future economic situations will not hit us so hard. Our lives are full of risks, but if we wait until the ideal time to act or move forward, we will remain paralyzed by fear. God is never pleased when we see the dangers surrounding us as bigger or stronger than He. Since we cannot predict God's acts and interventions, we must live with enough flexibility to account for them, taking some calculated risks to keep ahead of any problems that may crop up. Solomon counsels us to steer our thoughts toward what is not worthless—the things of God which are eternal, which will go through the many days of darkness in the grave. Seeking God is what matters. That project should be front and center among our activities while the light still shines for us.
transcript:
Most of you know that I am a racing fan, particularly NASCAR racing. And I do not know if that is a good thing or not. Most people think that racing is beneath them or something, especially NASCAR racing, which started with all the hicks in the South, at least that is what people think. But it is a great sport and I do not see why people deride it so much. They think that NASCAR is just turning left, because most of the races that they race are ovals, but now they have actually added a lot of road courses and even a street course like F1 and some of the other racing circuits.
But there is more to racing than just going fast. There is a lot of skill involved. The drivers have different driving skills because they come from different places. Some are open wheels, some are stock, some come out of various other things. So they have different skills that they bring to the racing. The setup of the cars, they are supposed to be the same roughly, but there are crew chiefs and engineers who are able to get another couple horsepower out of the car, and it is just a matter of their engineering skills and their mechanical skills.
Every track you go there are different track conditions—some have concrete, some have asphalt. They have even run a few dirt races at Bristol. The tracks are different in terms of whether they are ovals, tri-ovals, d-ovals. They have, of course, the road courses and the street courses and it really tests the drivers. And you cannot count out weather too. If it has been raining or whether it is dry, how the wind is going, not just the fact that it is moving, but from which direction. Different race strategy sometimes because of the way the fuel window is or the tire window, you have a different strategy for when you are going to pit. There is a lot going on, that is my point. A lot of different conditions that make the races unpredictable.
Back in February of 2001, that was the week after the Daytona 500 that claimed the life of Dale Earnhardt, I bought tickets to go to the Dura Lube 400 in Rockingham, North Carolina. It is about 75 miles southeast of Charlotte so it is easily drivable, get there in a few hours except for the race traffic, which always makes it a little bit longer than that.
But like a lot of longtime race fans, I wanted to go to support Dale Earnhardt, Jr, Dale Earnhardt's son, because he had just lost his father the week before, but he was racing. It was a gray day and rain was expected throughout the day, so I had already figured that, yeah, I was probably going to have to sit out a couple of rain delays. It would be a very long day. Ended up not, but that was some of the adverse conditions that were happening.
So my brother-in-law and I sat in turn 3. Four turns in an oval. And as is tradition, we rose to our feet as the race started. The cars came up to speed as they came out of turn 2 and they were just roaring down the backstretch, and we were at the end of the backstretch. And before the lead cars came around turn 4 to the start-finish line, the back of the pack was right in front of us. And as it happened, Ron Hornaday (I do not know if you old timers know that from truck racing and all that), but he was in Cup at the time and he hit the back of Dale Jr's car. The one that I had come to watch.
He hit the back of Dale Jr's car and spun him out into the wall going at about 150 miles an hour. The accident took him out of the race. It destroyed the right front and he got out limping and he ended up very badly bruised. I mean, what more could happen to this young man after his dad died and all the stuff that went into that?
This is where we get back into the idea of all the different things that happen in a NASCAR race. What was the problem? What happened that Dale Jr got knocked out of that race, not even before the first lap had ended?
Well, the first factor is the track was still damp because it had rained overnight, that morning. And this made the drivers—remember, this is the first lap. They had not gotten the heat of the cars into the track. The drivers ahead of them were tiptoeing through turn 3 because they did not want to spin out on the still-damp track. But right in front of Dale Jr, someone cut down in front of him and he had to brake. It was either he braked or he ran into that other car, so he braked. And that surprised Ron Hornaday who was right behind him, and he hit Dale in the rear. Neither one of them was at fault. If you want to put fault on somebody, it was the guy who cut down in front of Dale, but really he was just trying to get into the racing groove and he saw an opening and he went for it.
But really, the fault was NASCAR's. When you take it all the way back, the fault was NASCAR's because they had tried to get the race in a very narrow window before the rain started up again. They did not dry the track enough to make the racing safe. In the end, the wreck happened in adverse circumstances and conditions among 43 drivers, all looking for an advantage in the chaos of racing at those high speeds. And it ended up being just another one of those racing deals. As they say in NASCAR, "That's racing. Rubbing is racing."
Let us go to Matthew 6, verses 25 through 34. Because this introduction has a point to it. I am just not telling you racing stories because I want to. Jesus says here in the Sermon on the Mount,
Matthew 6:25-34 "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."
Jesus was certainly aware of the chaos and the uncertainty of life. He knew some things happened out of people's control. A lot of things happen out of people's control. And He tells His disciples—us—that we should not worry. He says, do not stress about these things. Do not be anxious about the things, these little things. Everybody has these worries, these uncontrollable things. You do not need to really think too hard about them because God is there. He is in control. He has a special relationship with His elect. He is sovereign over all things, and we should have faith in Him to do the best for us, whatever the situation. He will keep us in clothing, He will keep us in food, He will keep us in drink. Do not worry about those things. Those are minor.
God has spent, you know, the last 6,000 years providing for mankind. So do not worry about those things. He will watch over you and He will make sure that you have what you need. So just have faith in Him to do the best for us in any situation. Whatever the wild circumstances that are flying around us, like in a NASCAR race, you may be going 150 miles an hour in your own life, in the rat race or whatever you happen to be doing, but He has got your back and He is going to give you the things that you need, and you have to trust Him enough to do that.
That is how we, as God's elect, must live—an over the sun way in this under the sun world. We have to face the same conditions as people who have not been called, but we have the added advantage of God in us, God working with us. We have to not worry about those under the sun things as much as we need to worry about the over the sun things. Our priorities have to be, as He says here in verse 33, seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Those are the over the sun things that really matter. If we are seeking those things, God will surely supply the under the sun things. But we do not need to get stressed out about those things. He will provide.
But notice that He does not promise us a problem-free life. You know, after He says all these things about have faith and pursue righteousness in the Kingdom of God, He does say "sufficient for the day is its own trouble." You will have troubles. I know you know that from experience. You have all had troubles. He does not even say that we will have fewer problems. We actually may have more problems than those people who live under the sun because God is doing something with us in which He is teaching us and training us to handle problems.
As someone said to me the other day, He is training problem solvers. And so you have problems, not because you are unworthy or because you did something wrong. You have problems because you are children of God. And He is giving you or putting you through the curricula that He has devised over time to get us there, to get us to His Kingdom. And so sometimes when you take tests in school, some are easy and some are hard and some you do not pass. So, He is putting us through these problems, but He is telling us, "Look, you're going to have these problems, you're going to have these troubles. They're going to come upon you."
So, worry about them. You know, worry about the spiritual problems and passing the spiritual test, not the normal physical under the sun things that everybody goes through. Because you want to impress the Teacher. You want to impress Jesus Christ with the way that you follow Him and grow toward the Kingdom of God.
So Jesus just says, do not worry about those things. God is in charge. He will keep you in food, He will keep you in clothing, keep you in drink, not that kind of drink, the better stuff like water. But it is better just to pay attention to our present problems and their spiritual significance and not dwell anxiously on future ones. Because each day will have its own problems. You cannot solve your future problems. You can only solve the problems that you have right now.
This has been an introduction in terms of the book of Ecclesiastes. In chapter 11, where we are, Solomon, also called Qoheleth, meaning the preacher, shifts his focus from what he had contemplated in chapter 10, which was leadership and our response to leadership, to making the best of our uncertainty and lack of control over the future. And this blends in very well with what Jesus says here.
We are going to get Solomon's wise advice about our present problems, our uncertainty about the future, and the lack of control that we have. And then, of course, we have the background already now of the wisest man who ever lived, Jesus Christ, who put a spiritual spin on these things for us because as a foundation here, we have to understand that Solomon is mostly talking to those under the sun. And we have to apply the lessons spiritually to us who are trying to live over the sun lives.
So, Solomon's counsel in chapter 11, we will get through the first eight verses today, boils down to diligence. We have to be diligent about the way we approach life and our problems. That is how we move forward through them—through diligence. So he tells us to work hard, to plan for disruption, spread risk to work within this futile under the sun world. And at the end, he encourages us to squeeze as much joy out of this life as we can, while keeping a proper godly perspective. You can have a lot of fun that you think is joy, but which is ungodly. So he is saying, take joy out from this life but do it in a godly way. And he later talks more about that in the end of chapter 11 and on into chapter 12 speaking about that, yeah, have fun in your life, but know that you are accountable for everything you do.
Ecclesiastes 11:1-2 Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Give a serving to seven, and also to eight, for you do not know what evil will be on the earth.
Now, verse 1 is among the best known proverbial sayings in the book, "Cast your bread on upon the waters." And from early times it has been understood to mean that we should be generous in our charity because when we fall into need, others will rally to our aid. That is the normal interpretation that this first gets or it was the interpretation that most gave up until probably about 1900 and things began to change in the way people interpreted these two verses.
I am not saying that the charity interpretation is wrong because it can be interpreted this way, but it may not be Solomon's intent that it be understood that way. I mean, is it not kind of weird to think of charity as throwing or sending, which is the literal translation of that word, bread onto rivers and ponds and lakes and streams and oceans? I mean, what happens when you throw bread into water? It just becomes soggy. It very quickly becomes soggy, and it becomes food for fish. I mean, you are not helping anybody but the fish. So, we need to try to figure this out, which I aim to do here in the next few minutes.
Verse 2, especially the first line: "Give a serving to seven, and also to eight," is parallel to cast your bread upon the waters. The only difference really is that from casting or sending bread, he is now saying give portions to many people. And portions or servings you could think of it in terms of food, or lots of things in a literal sense. You have a lot of this and a lot of that and you give them. Let us say it is a pile of wood and you are investing in somebody's business, or let us say the lot is actual money that you give to somebody as an investment or to help them out. That is what we are talking about. It could be land that you either give or donate or allow somebody to use.
Now, that is an interpretation of what the lot or the portion is. It could be food. It could be a lot of other things. It could be, given the possible charity scenario, that it is actually talking about donations of some sort.
And who are the recipients? In verse 2, it says, the recipients are seven or eight. Seven or eight what? It does not actually tell us. It could be people, you know, individuals, could be families, could be tribes, could be companies, could be whatever. All it really tells us in the way it is written here is that it is a lot of people. It is multiple people, not just seven or eight. It is just a large number. It is kind of a Hebraism to say many, more than you might expect. So, seven or eight is not necessarily important to know, just the fact that Solomon is telling us that if we are spreading these portions around, it should be to a lot of different people or institutions.
Now the general meaning that comes out of both of these verses is pretty clear. We are wise to spread or send or give whatever it is that we are giving widely. We are wise to spread whatever it is widely. That is just the general overall understanding that comes out of this. But these verses have two different but related conclusions. The second half of verse 1 says that when you are sending your bread you will find it after many days. So it is speaking about finding or discovering the bread in the distant future. And verse 2, when it says "for you do not know what evil will be on the earth," speaks about unknown future dangers.
The common idea in both of these conclusions is the future. We are thinking about doing something, casting or sending something to have a future return in verse 1. And in verse 2, we are giving or spreading something around to multiple people because we do not know what the lies in the future. Those are the two different conclusions and they have to be read together to get the full understanding of what Solomon is advising here.
What he is advising us is to do something now to prepare for the future. Whether it is a good thing like receiving something in return or whether it is a bad thing like a hurricane that sinks the ship that has your stuff on it, that is a loss, but you put things on multiple ships so that loss does not hurt quite as badly.
Let us go to Luke 12 and we will start in verse 16. This is a parable with a similar theme.
Luke 12:16-21 [This is the rich fool.] Then He [Jesus] spoke a parable to them, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease; eat, drink and be merry."' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will these things be which you have provided?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
As I said, this parable deals with the same theme that Solomon does back in Ecclesiastes 11. And the basic understanding is we do not know what the future holds. As over the sun people, people who have been called and chosen by God, we must prioritize God in our plans. He always has to be the one that we look to and keep in the center of our focus. So Jesus says that we need to have as our first objective to be rich toward God. That is where our wealth should be. In another place He talked about laying up treasure in heaven, not on this earth. So He wants us to be wealthy, if you will, in the godly things rather than rich in any kind of monetary wealth or any kind of under the sun achievement. Even if it is just the achievement of seeing how much you can eat and drink and have fun. That is probably the lowest goal that people have in the world.
So, Jesus' advice, it does not come out directly, but it parallels what Solomon says, is to plan for the future with spiritual growth as job number one. And even if the worst happens, like your death, you have wisely taken care of the most important facet of a converted disciple's life. That is, being rich toward God. Even if your physical plans do not come to fruition because you die, well, your spiritual plans will in the resurrection come to fruition because you have put as your main priority, becoming rich toward God.
The emphasis shifts again from what Solomon says in a physical way to the spiritual under what Jesus says here, that whatever happens in this life, you have always got to put God number one and accrue the spiritual riches, so that you can at least achieve that goal—the most important goal. And if we do not do this, Jesus is pretty direct. He says you are a fool. You are a fool if you do not put God first.
Now let us go back to chapter 11, verses 1 and 2 of Ecclesiastes and read these again.
Ecclesiastes 11:1-2 Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Give a serving to seven, and also to eight, for you do not know what evil will be on the earth.
Actually, I want to read more. I just want you to see the context all the way through verse 8. It will help.
Ecclesiastes 11:3-8 If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth; and if a tree falls to the south or the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie. He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. As you do not know what is the way of the wind, or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, so you do not know the works of God who makes all things. In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold your hand; for you do not know which will prosper, either this or that, or whether both alike will be good. Truly the light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to behold the sun; and if a man lives many years and rejoices in them all, yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many. All that is coming is vanity.
I read this so that we could get the context of these eight verses. We cannot forget the context when we are studying any scripture, especially we want to understand the context when we are studying something as deep as Solomon's thinking.
The theme that runs through the whole passage here that we have just read is not just the uncertainty of the future, but how we mitigate the damage unknown future problems will cause. And we do that by diligent present efforts. So, stuff is going to happen. Bad stuff is going to happen. It is inevitable. But we can lessen the damage that happens by things we do now, if we are smart, if we think ahead, if we make good decisions right now in terms of giving, spreading, sending, and these other things that we will see in a few minutes in these other verses.
Now, let us get back to verses 1 and 2. While the charity interpretation works, and I do not want to say that it is not included in how we look at this, I think it is not the best interpretation. And one of the reasons why I think that it does not work is that this charity interpretation implies that one should give to get in the future. I mean, perhaps we can apply that to people in the world, those who are under the sun. They think that the end all of their existence is to amass as much as possible. You know, those who have the most toys in the end win, that sort of thing. I have seen that bumper stickers a few times. But we should have a different approach to life, not just to amass a lot of things. Jesus says in Luke 6:30-36, that we should give without expectation of return.
So if we are applying what Jesus says back into Ecclesiastes 11, then someone who is living over the sun should not be giving to get. Maybe the people in the world will take it that way and that is fine for them, they have not been called. But we have to have a different perspective. Let us look at Luke 6 and see what Jesus says just to cross our T's and dot our I's here. You can hear it from Him.
Luke 6:30-36 "Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods, do not ask them back. And just as you want men to do to you [Golden Rule], you also do to them likewise. But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. But love your enemies, do good and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Highest. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful."
So, if you give to others, maybe you give a couple hundred dollars or $1,000 to someone who is in need, do not expect them to pay you back. Do it out of the goodness of your heart, showing them mercy and trying to help them as best you can. Do not think of it as a loan. Think of that money as lost, if you want to put it that way, and you will be like your Father in heaven, giving and not expecting anything in return.
Back to Ecclesiastes 11:1-2. What I think is that a business related interpretation seems better. Not charity, but business, the hard, cold world of business. Now, the word bread here in verse 1 is lehem, like Bethlehem, house of bread. It is a normal word that the Hebrews would use for bread that you would make with flour of one type or another. But lehem, bread, seems to have been a Hebrew idiom for trade goods, just as it is an idiomatic term in English for money. You know, give me some bread. How much bread did you make from your last job? We use it in a similar way.
But in terms of how it was used in Solomon's day, it seems like it was any kind of good that you would have in trade that you would be buying and selling and bartering and that sort of thing. In this way, verse 1 means that Solomon is urging his readers to send their trade goods to different ports. Or another way would be saying, send your trade goods on different ships. Cast them upon the waters, send them by the waters. And the reason is what he says at the end of verse 1, to ensure future income. That you will get something back from your trading. Even if, let us say, you split your goods on four ships and three sank on the way to wherever they are headed. Well, you still got the one. You are not going to take a total loss, you will still have some income.
Now, he does warn here at the end of verse 1 that it may be many days before you see this return. You know, ship travel back then was not lickety-split. It took time for ships to get from one place to another and of course, if you had goods going out and they had to be sold, the profits would trickle back to you over a long time. So at least you are getting something out of your work, your effort, your labor.
He is giving actually very good practical advice that we need to spread our investments out or spread our business efforts out so that if something goes wrong in 1, 2, 3, 4, or how many of them, which is likely whether it is because of disaster or people you cannot trust or what have you, you know, people steal, you ever heard anybody stealing anything? Nah. No, it happens all the time. Fraud is rampant throughout the world. And so you may in good faith be in business and doing these things, but you cannot trust the people you are dealing with unless you have a solid contract and even sometimes then they will try to rob you blind.
So he is talking about having multiple streams of income. Even if you only have one product that you are trying to trade, you have to make sure that you split that up among various other vendors so that in the case that something bad happens, you will at least get something back. You will at least have some income returning to you over time.
Verse 2, then, also seems to benefit when we apply this business interpretation to it. He is talking about investing in verse 2. As a matter of fact, in the Hebrew, this that is translated "give" here can also be translated as invest. It has that sense. So he is saying, spread your money around that you have to invest. Invest in multiple people or multiple enterprises. Do not put all your eggs in one basket. You ever heard that? That is basically what he is saying. If you should drop your basket where all your eggs are, and they all break, well, that is tough. But if you had it in several baskets and only one dropped and those eggs broke, well, you still got those other baskets and you can use them for profit.
So he is saying, spread out your investments or your entrepreneurial opportunities so you have a greater chance of profiting from them. It sounds like a modern fiduciary here. You know, a money guy who is telling you diversify, diversify. Buy stocks, have some cash, have silver and gold, bonds, invest in a company. Put your money in various places because it is likely that the way the economic cycle goes, some are going to actually just be destroyed, others may be down, but at the same time, when the market goes down, bonds go up. So if you diversify like money managers tell you to do, you end up having a steady profit rather than totally tanking all your money in one investment that goes bad. So, if you diversify, future economic fluctuations will not hit you quite so hard.
This is what Solomon is giving us his advice in terms of not worrying about the future so much. If we do some thinking now and we spread things out, diversify, we are likely to come through any kind of future problem better than other people. Because we have thought ahead, we have been wise. We have made some decisions now that are going to pay dividends in the future. Have you ever heard that? Yeah, I think a lot of people understand Solomon's wisdom just naturally or through their business acumen that these things actually are good pieces of advice.
Now, obviously, we are a church. We think about things in a spiritual way. So, yeah, I have given you some business advice or what to do with your investments, but we live in a world that is very diversified. And this advice then has [audio cut out] in all those areas. So, his overall advice is, spread out your opportunities rather than foolishly count on just one. So, you need a job? Are you going to send out just one resume to one company? No, that is stupid. Now, sometimes you get lucky or something and they would hire you or whatever, they had their eye on you. But in most cases, you are on your own and you are trying to get somebody's attention to hire you. So what do you do? You send hundreds, if possible, of resumes out to various companies in various industries, so you could get the job or at least get a callback on a job. You will have a greater chance of being hired if you spread things out.
What about networking? That was a big thing and still is a big thing. Talk to a lot of people, learn about opportunities that may be in companies that you may never have heard about. At least have a relationship with them. Maybe they will remember you when something comes up and they say, "Hey, we've got a job opening up here. I think you're qualified for it." And that happened because you diversified your relationships and somebody thought of you.
What about, let us say, you are in a job, but you are stuck. You have reached a point where your college or whatever will not make you move any further up the chain. Well, what do you do? Take classes that diversify and expand your skills. If you are in a position like that, you probably have a lot of downtime because you have reached a point where not a whole lot is going on. We have this wonderful thing called the Internet. You can take classes online and learn something else, or maybe you will get a certification that gets you a little further along in the industry that you are in. Maybe a little bit expensive, but it might be a great sacrifice to make so that you can make more money.
I know we have a lot of people who watch the news. Do you watch just one channel or one site on the Internet? You are probably not getting the whole story from that one place. It is better to diversify your reading or your viewing, so you get a good idea of what is actually happening because every news source is biased in one way or another. So, read widely when you are doing that. I would have to also say read widely of the classics and read widely of other things so that you get the viewpoints of other people who have lived over time.
Also, some of you have gone through Ambassador College. One of the things that they told us first off: date widely. They pounded that into us freshmen. Do not get hooked on one girl or do not just go out with one guy. I mean, they would say things like there are many fish in the sea, and many of us chafed at that because that is not the way it was done back home in high school or whatever. But it was actually a good piece of advice. Get to know different people. Find the one that suits you. Do not just go after that unattainable goddess that you see walking across campus who may look gorgeous, but unless you really get to know her and she suits you, she actually may be impossible to live with. I would rather live with a woman who suits me rather than have a trophy wife who I cannot get along with. (I have got both though, so. . .)
Now think about this. When God sows the seeds of the gospel, as it says in the parable in Matthew 13:3-9, He applies the same principle, does He not? He sows the seed widely and it goes on various different kinds of ground. And usually when it goes on rocky soil, it does not do so well, but hey, there may be someone that is rocky soil that actually responds to the truth in a good way. So God uses the same principle in His own actions, at least in that case.
Let us go on to Ecclesiastes 11, verses 3 and 4. We have spent enough time on the first two. But I spent a lot of time there because I want you to get the overall understanding of what Solomon is trying to get us to think. He wants us to think about the future. He wants us to do something in the present that is going to make the future better as much as we can, as far as we can see, as wise as we can be to prepare now for the future.
Ecclesiastes 11:3-4 [we read these already but I will read it again to refresh our minds] If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth; and if a tree falls to the south or the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie. He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap.
Now, I think these verses are pretty straightforward. The first half of verse 3 points out that rain clouds will inevitably produce rain. Duh! Is that not what rain clouds do? Rain clouds, when they come over, drop rain. If they do not drop rain, they are not rain clouds, right? They are just little wisps that fly over and we do not get anything from it. But usually clouds are full of rain.
The second half states that trees fall randomly and they lie wherever they fall. If some of you like more scholarly things to think about, that falls to the south or the north there in verse 3, that is a merism. Charles Whitaker and others like to talk about merisms, and they are phrases that use a set of things to mean everything. So if they use black and white, it means black, white, and all the other colors of the the spectrum. First and last, usually that means all the time in between as well, everything in between. There are many other in the Bible. Hebrew writers seem to like them quite a bit.
In this case, if it falls to the south or the north, it means it falls wherever, in any direction. You cannot predict it. It will fall to the north, south, east, west, northwest, southeast, you know, all those directions in between north and south. He is saying, they fall randomly. You usually cannot figure out where they are going to fall.
So, for natural things we can expect rain clouds to rain, we can expect trees to fall and fall in whatever direction.
But these things can also be evils, troubles, problems. Think about it. It just depends on the situation. Let us say it is harvest time and that rain cloud comes over and rains on your harvest. It has the potential of ruining your harvest, ruining your profits, maybe even ruining your life if that is for your food. And what about trees? Trees fall, right? But what if the tree does not fall on the forest floor, but on your house? It could ruin your house. It can kill whoever is inside. So random acts of nature, as we might call them, can be evil, bad things, things that really hurt. Normal occurrences happening under certain circumstances can be evils that we have to take into account. We have to consider them.
But verse 4 gives a caution to us about these potential evils. He is saying here, we cannot be daunted or paralyzed into inaction by fear that one of these natural occurrences may occur. Every time a rain cloud comes over, we should not be cowering in fear that it is going to ruin our lives. Some people will not act because they are fearful. They will not act on something until conditions are absolutely perfect. That is what he means by "he who observes the wind will not sow." "Oh, it's too windy. If I throw my seed out there, it's going to be blown into my neighbor's field and I'll get nothing." Or, "Oh! There's clouds in the sky, it's harvest time. I'm not going to reap because the worst may happen."
So, some people will not act on whatever it is until conditions are perfect. It has to be the exact right time for them to do something. "Oh, now isn't the time to get a new job. I don't think so. The economy is terrible!" Or, "I really kinda like this job but you're not paying me enough, so I think I'll stay." You know, somebody who is way too cautious. Nobody is telling them that they have to quit their current job to get a new job, but they are so struck by fear that they will not do anything. They will just put it off.
But Solomon says, "Hey, if it's time to plant, sow your field. It's time." He says, if it is harvest time, and your fruit is just right, reap your crop. Do not be afraid. One commentator wrote, "Our lives are full of risks." We risk every time we step outside our door. Sometimes we do not even have to step outside our door. There may be something that is going to to trip us up. Maybe literally, maybe not. But we have to take risks even in the midst of adverse conditions. It may not be the exact right time, but hey, strike while the iron is hot. Is it not something that we have so many proverbial sayings about these sort of things?
This commentator went on to say, "If we're going to succeed in this world under the sun, we have to give up the luxury of being certain in order to move forward in our life." We cannot be certain, ever. Because something may happen. Something totally out of the blue may come even when you think it is the perfect time. So why are you holding back? It is just fear. It is doing what? It is not doing what Jesus says we should be doing. He says, do not worry, do not be anxious, move forward in faith. Just go. God will have your back.
Now, that does not mean we should not be wise. But it also means we should not have a great deal of fear. We have to have faith. So yeah, we do not want to be foolish and just go where angels fear to tread, as it were. But we must not be petrified into inaction. That word petrified is like, you know, petrified bones or whatever, the petrified forest you will find somewhere close to here. But that word means, we are in stone. We are set in stone. We will not do anything. We will not move.
But let us find something spiritual out of this and let us go to Hebrews 10, verses 32 through 39. Because the author here, probably Paul, tells us that we cannot let this happen to us spiritually either. Remember, this is to the Hebrews, those people who are in Judea, and they are having trouble. They are coming up to a confrontation with Rome and obviously, there has been religious persecution in the area since Christ, since that Pentecost, on the church. So he writes here,
Hebrews 10:32-34 But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings: partly while you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated; for you had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven.
This is the background of what they had gone through already. This is in the past. So he is reminding them about this so that they can use it as a faith booster. They have already been through it once.
Hebrews 10:35-39 Therefore do not cast away your confidence [or your faith], which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: "For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; but if any one draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him." But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.
So God does not want to see His people living in fear because something bad may happen. He does not want us to be drawing back, being paralyzed into inaction, or compromising because it might be better for us. God is not pleased when we see the dangers as bigger and stronger than He is. He wants us to have faith in Him, whatever the circumstances, in His sovereignty and providence and His purpose. And you know, gird our loins, as Peter says, and move forward. Move forward to salvation in the Kingdom of God.
Yes, there are risks for being a Christian. Yes, there are evils, evil spirits working against us. Yes, there are high probabilities of rejection, like from family or employers or what have you. There are high probabilities of pain and suffering, even death. We cannot rule that out, especially as we come toward the end.
But God says, move forward. I do not care how bad it is, you have got to keep growing. You have got to keep moving. You have got to keep Him as the central focus of your life and stay on the plan, stay in the process. Or as they like to say a lot in sports these days, trust the process. There is a good spiritual lesson there. Trust what God has planned for you. Trust in God's purpose. Trust in the fact that God is not wrong, has never been wrong, and will never be wrong. He will do everything that He can to get us into the Kingdom. We are the weak part and He is telling us that we need to be stronger. Move forward.
Let us go to Exodus 14. The Israelites are trapped there at the Red Sea. Pharaoh's chariots are coming down on them. There is nowhere to go—at least from a physical point of view. You know, earlier Moses said, do not be afraid, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. And in verse 14, "The Lord will fight for you and you shall hold your peace." And God says,
Exodus 14:15-16 The Lord said to Moses, "Why do you cry to Me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward. But lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it. And the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea."
The Israelites saw nothing but death and a barrier. They saw the Red Sea, they saw Pharaoh, they saw the geography around them that had trapped them, as stronger than God. God cannot get us out of this. I am sorry, we are dead. Moses, Moses. You should have taken us back to Egypt. God says, "What!? You're just going to stand there?" And to Moses, "You told the people to stand still? What bad advice. Move forward!" So, very dramatic. You see Chuck, Chuck Heston, Charlton, holding his rod out there and the ladies with the wind, you know, going through their hair and the sea parting.
But that was not the lesson. The lesson was God wanted them to move forward even before they saw the salvation. So do not stand still. Even though conditions are against you, move forward. Move forward spiritually.
Back to Ecclesiastes 11, verses 5 and 6. I know a lot of these things are hard to do, but this is the advice we are being given and we have to overcome our physical fears, our mental fears, our emotional fears, and put our spiritual God first. Very difficult to do. I am not trying to minimize that at all, but it is what we have to do to overcome our humanity and live an over the sun life, even though the conditions under the sun are against us.
Ecclesiastes 11:5-6 As you do not know what is the way of the wind, or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, so you do not know the works of God who makes all things. In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold your hand; for you do not know which will prosper, either this or that, or whether both alike will be good.
You do not even know if you are going to succeed. But maybe you will luck out and they both will.
Now, these illustrations extend the thought of verses 3 and 4 with a new illustration or two. Wind, in verse 5, where it says there, "As you do not know what is the way of the wind," that is the Hebrew ruach, which can be translated as wind, breath, life, spirit, or even immaterial parts of humanity like sense, mind, intellect, heart, and that sort of thing. So it has a very broad range of meanings and so the translators have translated it in various ways.
The New King James, the Lexham English Bible, the New American Standard, and others choose wind. Probably they believe that he is talking about wind because he had just mentioned the wind in verse 4, "He observes the wind will not sow." So it was a good follow up as an illustration. The ESV and the RSV, which are related, choose to translate it as spirit. The ESV says, "As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of the woman with child, . . ." they take it as one long illustration rather than two. The Good News Bible chooses the word life to translate ruach. They say, "You cannot understand how new life begins in the womb of a pregnant woman." God's Word Translation chooses breath of life as its translation, "Just as you do not know how the breath of life enters the limbs of a child within its mother's womb."
I think, just as my opinion, that wind may be better and that is strictly is from the mention in verse 4. We do not know how the wind works any more than we know how a baby grows in the womb. We have a general idea by studying scientific things and observing, so we have a general idea. I am sure I could get a meteorologist out here and he could tell me a great deal about how the wind works and I could pull in a doctor or a midwife or something and they could tell me a little bit more about how a child grows in the womb. But at the end of the day, we still marvel at God's design, His ingenuity, His power, all these processes that He makes work because He upholds them and continues them from His throne.
But Solomon is saying these things are far beyond us. I mean, even if we had all the raw materials like God created at the beginning, we could never put it together to make it windy. Or to devise a body that will produce a child. Those things are just way beyond our abilities even to comprehend. And here Solomon is highlighting our human ignorance. He has done this before. We cannot control these things. We cannot control the wind. We cannot control how a baby grows in the womb, except to destroy it. That is terrible. They happen. The wind blows. We know how children are conceived, but that is about as far as it goes for us. So these things happen and we have to work within the system that God has devised and just deal with it.
The last clause here in verse 5, "so you do not know the works of God who makes all things" probably simply means you do not know what God is doing in this world. We have a general idea, like we have a general idea of the wind and a general idea of how babies are in the womb, but we really do not know what God is up to. Especially when the circumstances get more particular. We do not know what is happening in our lives. We have an idea that they are moving forward and we want to do this and that or we are doing this or that, but God may have something totally different in mind and spring that on us at the most inopportune time.
Remember, I started out talking about how we are all going through a process of learning and growing toward the Kingdom of God and God is going to throw problems at us to see how we respond to them and how we solve them. So, what Solomon is saying here, just like the wind, just like the baby in the womb, God and His works are another uncertain factor that we have to take into account. Like I said, He will spring things on us. He will surprise us. He will move something in this world, some people, some news, or some natural disaster, or whatever, and change our lives in an instant. He can do that. He is God. He does not need to come knock on your door and ask you if He can do that. He has total control. Joe Blow, My son, you need a lesson. Bang! It happens. If Joe Blow did not account for God in his life, he is in trouble.
But if Joe Blow actually anticipated that God was going to test him and he had been keeping God as the center of his life, he is ready. Now, he may not be totally ready, he may make some mistakes, but you have a far better chance of dealing with problems of life that God sends upon us if we are keeping the Kingdom of God and His righteousness right there, in the forefront of our minds. So we live at His whim, if you will, and His purposes override our own.
So never leave God out of your plans. We have to live with enough flexibility to account for God's acts. We have to take some calculated risks to keep ahead of any problems that might crop up. Thus he says in verse 6, his advice because of this factor is that we actually have to do double the work. He says, if you go out and sow in the morning, you better also sow in the evening. Why? Well, if you sow in the morning and the wind is up, you are not going to have a very good return from your crop. But if you sow in the evening when perhaps conditions are better, you will probably get a crop.
Maybe we are talking here about the wind again because that has been a theme over these past 3 verses. That Solomon has this idea of the wind making problems for us and we better account for it. It is a very natural illustration, something most people in Israel, I am sure, could deal with because they had dealt with it before.
Let us broaden this out a bit. We have to put diligent effort into our work and our projects to lessen the impact of problems, evils, setbacks, crises, even God's intervention. He says, as we get to the end of this verse, one or the other, one or the other, you know, sowing in the morning or sowing in the evening. This doubling of work will perhaps work in the one and not in the other. Or maybe in the other, but not in the one. He is saying you do not know where your success is going to happen, so you might as well do double the work so that you have a better chance of succeeding or having something work out for you. But if things are just right, if you you hit the lottery, I am not talking about the literal lottery, I am talking about the lottery of risk, you might actually get a good return on both the one and the other.
The uncertainty of life in this world demands that we be diligent to provide for ourselves and our families despite the risks, and under the sun this means you have to work harder and smarter.
So, the wise person, Solomon is saying, does his best to account for every contingency. He has given us a lot of illustrations of these contingencies. Is that impossible? Yes. No human being will ever account for everything that may happen. But a wise person accounts for as many as possible as he can think of. So that means we have got to put a lot of thought into what we are doing to make sure that we do not suffer in the future. It is only wise, then, to do what we can right now, put in the work now so that we can have a better time, an easier time in the future.
Let us finish out verses 7 and 8.
Ecclesiastes 11:7-8 Truly the light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to behold the sun; but if a man lives many years and rejoices in them all, yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that is coming is vanity.
So to end this section, as well as to introduce the next one coming up, Solomon moves to the ultimate evil, the ultimate problem for those living under the sun, and that is physical decline and death. That is the great evil. The New Testament calls it the last evil that will be destroyed is death. When we reach them, our decline and our death, light declines rapidly toward total darkness. That is what he gets into in the next chapter about do these things before you get old and you are not able to react as quickly.
Decline and death are major crimps in our plans (I do not need to actually say that) and they are evils that we have to account for. We have to consider the end—our end—in what we plan.
Now, he begins with the thought here that light—and he is really meaning things like our consciousness, our life, our joys, that sort of thing, the things that we think that are really good. Light is sweet, as he says, it is pleasant. It is good to be alive, is it not? And he says here, it is good "to behold the sun," which may be an intimation of God. You know, God is light, God is the Sun of righteousness. So God is pleasant. He is wonderful, and we have to think of our life and God living in us as a wonderful joy and we have to take advantage of them.
And we tend to experience such joys earlier in life, as a youth, than later in life as we approach death. Because when we are old, life's aches and pains, the hardships we have gone through or the hardships we are currently going through, and the suffering that we are experiencing, are more top of mind. The youth are carefree. They are not thinking about all these terrible things that happen once we start to get a little older. So, when life is full of light, enjoy it, he says. Revel in it, make the most of it. Be happy. Be optimistic. Use the time for good things.
Then in verse 8, he warns us that even if our life is full of joy, even if we are young and full of life, and life is wonderful, we should never allow our mortality to slip our minds. It is coming. It is inevitable. We do not have to wonder whether we are going to die or not. Hebrews 9:27, right? It is given to man once to die. It will happen. So, we should know that as a constant. We do not know when it will happen, but it will happen. So there is always an endpoint and we have to factor that in.
Death looms over us all. So we have a limited time to accomplish our goals, or to change for the better, or to leave a legacy behind us. One of the worst things we can do in life over the sun and even under the sun is to assume we have a lot more time. Time to get things done. Remember the rich fool? He had great plans for new barns and he was going to stuff them full of his food that he was growing, and he died that night. He made the mistake of thinking he had a lot more time. Such thinking like that leads to procrastination and failure because we keep putting things off. But what is the saying? "Make hay while the sun shines." Make hay while it is light. Because you do not want to make hay when it is dark. You cannot.
So for each of us, the light lasts three score and ten, or 80 by reason of strength. You find that in Psalm 90:10. But, he says, the days of darkness actually last far longer. You know, we have 70 or 80 years of light. We actually have hundreds or thousands of years of darkness in the grave. Everybody but the last few firstfruits that are raised at the first resurrection is going to fit into this category of having more years of darkness than years of light.
By comparison, our lives of light are insignificant. It is just a blip on the screen. And even with this knowledge, all that we do under the sun, Solomon says, is in the end meaningless. It is vanity. All our deeds and accomplishments will be forgotten. They are going to prove meaningless, worthless in the end. Because when the New Jerusalem comes down, God says, "I make all things new. The old things have passed away."
So he says this in verses 7 and 8 to steer our thoughts toward what is not worthless. And that is the things of God, the things over the sun, those things that are eternal. And if we stock up on those, those things will go through the days of darkness, as many as they are. They will go through the grave. And what he is saying here is setting us up for what he finally concludes at the end of chapter 12. "Fear God and keep His commandments. This is the whole duty of man."
This is what really matters. Seeking God is what we have to do. That is what matters. And this project should be front and center among our activities while the light shines, until the light goes out, until we reach those days of darkness.
Next time we will consider Solomon's continuing advice about the profitable use of one's early years, or for those whose early years are tiny specks in the rearview mirror, the profitable use of the present before we get older and our systems begin shutting down.
RTR/aws/drm