Ecclesiastes is full of frustration, bluntness, and even a little hopeless. However, its themes are realistic and necessary for us to grasp.

The disappointment in the vanity of life is good for our spiritual preparation, making us disillusioned with all the world's glamorous but false choices.

Ecclesiastes teaches that life has meaning and purpose only when lived by faith for God's Kingdom, not just for earthly, 'under the sun' pursuits.

The activities that Solomon put to the test and found wanting are exactly those things the world emphasizes: hedonism, silliness, mirth, and foolishness.

Until Christ returns, the world's problems will not be solved. Using godly wisdom helps us to deal with our circumstances, but it won't change the world.

Because of sin prompted, God has deliberately subjected creation to futility. Solomon has accurately taught us that without God, life is meaningless.

Vanity has many nuances, including transitoriness, futility, profitlessness, confusion, falseness, conceit, vainglory, denial, and idolatry.

Love for this world will inevitably bring disillusionment. Because the world is passing away, our priorities should be to fear God and keep his commandments.

The entire Babylonian system has an enslaving, addicting, and inebriating quality, producing a pernicious unfaithfulness and Laodicean temperament.

God's hand was definitely involved in the scattering of the church. We should respond by growing and preparing ourselves for His Kingdom.

Hard trials are not punishments from God for unrighteousness but tests of faith in which He is intimately involved to prepare us for the world to come.

Trials are a means to produce spiritual growth, unless we resort to super-righteousness, straining to please God by exalting our works.

Vision is a picture in the mind's eye that is undergirded by faith and scriptural revelation, enabling one to anticipate events that have not yet occurred.

A basic agricultural principle, what is sown will be reaped, also applies to human behavior. Sin brings death, while following God's Word produces life.

In His profound compassion, Jesus healed a severely deformed women, bent nearly double, of this infirmity that had plagued her for eighteen years.

When Jesus healed a woman bent over by a severe spinal condition, it was in a synagogue and on a Sabbath, arousing the anger of the Pharisees.

Even before we acquire the necessary building blocks of faith, hope, and love, we must acquire the fear of God, which unlocks the treasures of God.

Babylon constitutes the fountainhead of instruction that, like strong drink, impairs the ability to function properly while creating the illusion of ability.