If you would turn with me in your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 1; it can be found on page 553 of the Bibles in the pews. And tonight we are beginning a new sermon series in the book of Ecclesiastes and we’ll start with this – vanity, weariness, nothing new under the sun, striving after wind, the evil days and the years of which you say, “I have no pleasure in them.” That may not sound like a very cheerful way to start the week going forward for us, but this book is full of phrases like that. We’re not going to find much in the way of inspirational sayings in the book of Ecclesiastes. You know and are probably familiar with some of those home decorations that people call “Home Goods quote aesthetic.” Things like “Live Laugh Love,” “Choose Happiness,” “But First…Coffee.” Yeah, there’s none of that in the book of Ecclesiastes! The writer of Ecclesiastes is not a motivational speaker, he’s not a self-help guru or a life coach. He is a realist. And sometimes, what he says might rub us the wrong way. But there’s wisdom here. There’s wisdom from God. There’s wisdom that we need when we are busy and caught up chasing after the good life. There’s wisdom that we need when we find out that the good life isn’t all that we thought it would be. One writer said this in relation to this book. He said, “In order to be prepared to hope in what does not deceive, we must first lose hope in everything that deceives.” “In order to be prepared to hope in what does not deceive, we have to lose hope in everything that deceives.” That’s Ecclesiastes.
And we’re going to look at the opening and the closing verses of this book tonight and we’re going to see, number one, life under the sun, and number two, life under the sight of God. And the difference between those two things is the difference between wisdom and folly. It’s the difference between hope and despair. It’s the difference between life and death. And so let’s turn our attention to the book of Ecclesiastes, and before we do, let’s ask God to help us as we study His Word.
Father, we confess it is so easy to get caught up chasing the good life and living for all this world has to offer to us. And we put up around us protective shells and barriers to ignore or to lessen the pain and the despair that may creep into our lives. And so we pray that You would pierce through those protective barriers tonight, that You would pierce through to our hearts that we would see the hope that does not deceive, that we would see the hope that is ours in Christ Jesus from Your Word, the book of Ecclesiastes. And so we ask that Your Spirit would do the work which You promised that Your Spirit would do. We are ready to hear. Speak Lord, for Your servants listen. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Ecclesiastes chapter 1, the first eleven verses:
“The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new’? It has been already in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.”
Let’s flip over a few chapters to the end of the book to chapter 12. We’ll pick up there in verse 8:
“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.
Besides being wise, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care. The Preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth.
The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.”
The grass withers and the flowers fall but the Word of our God endures forever.
Life Under the Sun
This book really begins with a question. It’s the question that’s posed to us in verse 3 and the question that we’re going to find several times throughout this book. He says, “What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” In other words, “What’s the point? What’s the value of a life?” This is the beginning of an honest evaluation of what life is all about in the here and now, in “life under the sun,” as the writer calls it. And the voice that we’re introduced to here is that of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. That fits as a description of Solomon. In fact, throughout most of history the book of Ecclesiastes has been attributed to Solomon because he is the son of David, king in Jerusalem. But you notice he doesn’t specifically identify himself as Solomon, does he? Instead he is the Preacher, or “Qoheleth.” Qoheleth is the Hebrew word that’s translated “preacher” and it means something like “the one who compiles” or “the one who assembles.” And you can see it translated in different places as being “the teacher,” or maybe he is “the professor” or “the philosopher.” If you look back in the ESV in the pew Bibles, there’s actually a footnote at the bottom of chapter 1 and he’s called, “the convener or collector.” This is someone who has gathered experiences, he has gathered observations about life, and he’s seeking to communicate something about wisdom in light of those observations and experiences.
The most straightforward interpretation of who this is, is Solomon. There are others today who will say this was someone, maybe a literary technique that is attributing these words to Solomon, or perhaps these are the words of Solomon that were gathered and put together at a later date. We don’t really know for sure, but we are told that these are the words of one man, the Preacher, as the inspired Word of God. And yet as being the words of one man, the ideas that he presents to us and deals with in this book are universal. They are concerns that almost everyone thinks about – the desire to make an impact or to leave a legacy or to make some contribution in some way. And yet there are some people today who say it’s pointless to even talk about or think about the point of life. There’s one philosopher named Thomas Nagel. He wrote a book, “What Does It All Mean?” He says that life is not only utterly meaningless but it’s absurd, and that it is ridiculous to take ourselves so seriously as to even ask or think about the question of the meaning of life. And yet notice where he makes that comment in that observation. He does that in a book, in a book that is meant to be read by others and to influence others and to be passed down to others. We all want to make an impact in some way. Obviously Nagel feels like his own ideas should have an influence beyond even his own mind. That’s the way we all feel in some way. We want something to show for our efforts.
I think that goes back to the book of Genesis, to the cultural mandate in Genesis chapter 1 – “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it.” God has made and commissioned and blessed us to use the gifts and the resources that He has given to us in order to be responsible and productive with those things. We want to make our parents proud. We want to set our children up for success. We want people to say nice things about us when we die. But how much does it really matter? How much does it really matter in the big scale of history? That’s what the Preacher is asking in these verses when he says, “What does man gain by all the toil with which he toils under the sun?” His answer is, “Not much.” It doesn’t make much of a difference under the sun because for one thing, our lives barely register on the timeline of history. Generations, he says, generations come and go but the world keeps on going. The time passes and seasons change, the earth is replenished, and what are we compared to all those things? We are a mere blip on the radar. We are here for a little while and then we are gone. But everything else continues on just as it always has.
I think it’s one of the funny things about toddlers, and maybe I can say this because I don’t have any toddlers in my house, but you’ll notice the way toddlers will almost as soon as they are able start to grasp for control. And they’re like these tiny little cute dictators and they’re telling everybody, “No,” and “You sit there,” and, “I want the jelly on the bottom piece of the bread of my sandwich.” And they’re just grasping for control at every turn. And you can’t help but think, “Here they are looking for control at such an early age and you did not even exist a few months ago!” And we’re not much better, are we? Because we like control and we like to order everything around our own plans and our own ideas and we weren’t even here very long ago, not many years ago, and we won’t be here many years after this. David writes in Psalm 39, “O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days. Let me know how fleeting I am. All mankind is as a mere breath.”
See, our lives are brief and they are fading away, and that’s not to mention that so often our lives are full of trouble. And that’s what Qoheleth the Preacher is saying to us in these verses. Verse 8, he says, “All things are weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.” We can all agree sometimes, can’t we, that we are left speechless by the disappointments and the tragedies that we experience in our lives, and that’s not to mention the ones that we see in the lives of others around us or in the world far and wide. We are exposed just in the last weeks, over and over again, with news about the pandemic and about war and about hurricanes. And there are some problems that are so big around us, they’re so complicated and complex, that we don’t know what to think about them. We don’t know what to do about those things. And then even the happy times, even the happy times in our lives don’t live up to the expectations so often, do they? They don’t bring us any lasting satisfaction. In fact, the things that once might have brought enjoyment to us, so often the next time we experience them do not bring the same level of enjoyment and it doesn’t last as long.
I saw an interview recently with Michael Jordan and for those of you who know anything about Jordan, he is and was ultra, hyper competitive and very successful throughout his career. He won an NCAA championship. He won six NBA rings. He won two Olympic gold medals. And he said the thing, the hardest thing about his retirement was his struggle with what to do with his competitive desire. And so what did he do? He decided to take up fishing. He said fishing was something that could help him relax, it was very calming, it helped to teach him patience. And then you know what headline I read recently about Jordan? It said this. “Michael Jordan caught a mahi-mahi to capture an early lead in a $3.4 million dollar fishing tournament in North Carolina.” He has to win at fishing! That’s that competitive desire! That’s the unsatisfied desire that he has felt throughout his career and into retirement and it continues on. It’s like what C.S. Lewis writes in “Mere Christianity,” that, “We find in ourselves desires which no experience in this world can satisfy.”
We’ll finish Lewis’ thought a little bit later, but that’s what the writer of Ecclesiastes is saying. “The eye is not satisfied, the ear is not filled with hearing.” And you think about it, for somebody like Michael Jordan, that he is one of the greatest basketball players of all time, and yet he’s only one on a list of number of great basketball players, and all of those on that greatest list of basketball players probably will not be remembered in 100 to 150 years from now. I’m sure that we could say that there were extremely fast Egyptian chariot riders and there were amazing Greek Olympians and there were elite Roman gladiators. They were the GOATS of their time – “the greatest of all time.” We don’t know anything about them. We’ve never heard of their names. You see, “there’s nothing new under the sun,” verse 9 says. Verse 11, “There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.” You see, for the most part, in general, our work, our achievements don’t stand the test of time. They don’t last. That’s what he’s saying.
There is something that is predictable about most of our lives. I was looking for a car recently and so there was one that was at the top of my list and I was reading some articles, some reviews about this type of car, and it said that this company knows their target audience. It is a middle class, middle age, balding white male. It didn’t say that about the balding part. But I couldn’t help but think, “Am I that generic that this is my choice and they know me so well and I fit into this category so clearly?” You know, we live in this time where it’s all about self-esteem and everybody is special and we’re all about self-promotion. I can’t help but think about my old college Spanish professor who said, “You think you’re so special?” He said, “Your great-grandkids won’t even remember your name.” In just three generations, your own family won’t even remember you. There are exceptions to that, of course, but he’s right in a lot of ways. And that sounds harsh. It sounds mean and nasty, and yet that’s life. That’s life under the sun as Ecclesiastes is talking about it. And if we live just for the sixty or seventy or eighty years of this life, and we’re not even guaranteed that along, are we, if we’re just living for what we can acquire or what we can produce in this life, then the inevitable conclusion that we must come to is the same thing as the Preacher in Ecclesiastes. That it’s vanity. “Vanity of vanities. All is vanity.”
Vanity is the key word and the theme of this book. It’s the Hebrew word, “hevel.” It’s found 38 times in the book of Ecclesiastes. It means, as you see translated in the ESV, “vanity,” but you may find it in other translations as “meaningless.” It means something like “breath” or “vapor” or “enigma.” It’s describing the fleeting nature of our lives and our experiences. We are finite; we are limited. We can’t understand everything. We don’t know what tomorrow brings and so we run into these dead ends in our lives, in our search for significance. We find that our deepest longings and our deepest desires are unsatisfied in this life. And so with that comes frustration and disappointments and dissatisfaction. With that comes vanity. “Vanity of vanities. All is vanity.”
But what if those longings, what if those longings are not meant to be satisfied in this life. And you see, that’s what C.S. Lewis is talking about in “Mere Christianity” when he says this. He says, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not mean that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to suggest the real thing – that those longings in our hearts are meant to point us to something else.” Just beneath, you see, just beneath the surface of this search, the search in Ecclesiastes, this search that leads to the conclusion that all is vanity, just beneath that is a search for something bigger. It’s a search for meaning, for purpose, for significance. It’s a search for love and justice and blessing.
I think we could say this – that it’s a search for shalom, for shalom, that Hebrew word that means “completeness” or “wholeness.” That overarching, all-encompassing peace or wholeness for which we were created. That peace in which everything is right within ourselves and with others and with the world and most ultimately with God. That’s at the heart of the search of Ecclesiastes because we live in a fallen and sinful world and the effects of sin that lead to that longing for shalom, it’s the effects of sin, it’s death. It’s death that is staring in the face of the Preacher and leading him to this longing for shalom because sin and death ruins everything. And the only answer, the only answer to the cry of vanity is a hope for eternity.
Life Under the Sight of God
And so that’s why it’s so important to read Ecclesiastes, all of Ecclesiastes, with a view towards the finish, the conclusion; to read all of it in light of what he says in chapter 12. If we look back there, we see in verse 13, this is what he says. “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” You see, the search for wisdom or for meaning under the sun ultimately makes us look outside of under the sun, makes us look beyond life under the sun. And the reason that anything matters is not because of the satisfaction or the happiness that it can give to us in this life. The reason that anything matters is because it’s done under the eyes of God and He will “bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil.”
And because that’s true, everything matters. What we do, what we say, how we live, how we die matters; it matters before God. And the wisdom that this book teaches to us is to live not with a view only for time – past, present and future – but to live with a view toward eternity. And the only way to find peace, to find the shalom for which this book so desperately searches, the peace and the shalom for which we so desperately long, is through Jesus Christ. The only way to be right with God, the only way to have a settled hope for all of eternity, is through Jesus Christ. You see, to fear God is to trust in Jesus. To fear God is to bow the knee to Jesus in faith and submission. To fear God is to love the One who first loved us and gave His life for us. This is what Jesus says in John 17 – “This is eternal life – that you know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He sent.” And it was Jesus who took the judgment that we deserve, He took the punishment for our sins so that everyone who trusts in Him has their sins forgiven and we have His righteousness in our place in the sight of God to stand before Him securely for all of eternity so that we can then, in that day, know that whatever works we have done to serve our Lord Jesus in this life will be met with the response from our Heavenly Father, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” That’s our hope in Jesus Christ.
And if you find in your heart any hint of the cry of vanity, if you have in your heart a longing for peace – for peace with God, peace within, peace with others, peace with this world – here’s what Jesus says to you tonight. “My peace I give you. Not as the world gives do I give it. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” Receive that as a gift, freely by faith, from His gracious hand. That’s what He’s offering to us tonight in the person of Jesus Christ – an answer to the longing of vanity, an answer to the effects of sin. It’s Jesus and His peace and His love for all of eternity. It’s an eternal hope and we need that if we’re going to live today, if we’re going to live tomorrow with wisdom.
So the question that we must ask is, “What is the horizon of your hope? What is the focus to which you cast your eyes?” What Ecclesiastes teaches us is that there is futility in having a short-sighted, future perspective. If we pursue satisfaction in the immediate future or in the long term future in this life under the sun, then we’re going to rationalize and justify and excuse our own sin in order to gain some benefit for ourselves. We will overwork and we will over-indulge. We’ll give into our lusts and to the allure of the world around us, to worldliness, and we’ll neglect our calling as God’s people, as Christians, all for a satisfaction that will not and cannot last. Will we aim for life under the sun or will we aim for life under the sight of God? Will we live for time or will we live for eternity?
A story is told about the 19th century minister, Thomas Chalmers. Chalmers was licensed to preach at 19 years old. At a very young age he became a minister. And yet, while he was a minister he devoted himself to the study of math and he hoped to one day become the chair of mathematics at Edinburgh University. And it was during that time in his pursuit of the math chair that he wrote this brief pamphlet. And in that pamphlet he wrote these words. He said, “The author of this pamphlet can assert from what is to him the highest of all authority- the authority of his own experience – that after the satisfactory discharge of his parish duties a minister may enjoy five days in the week of uninterrupted leisure for the prosecution of any science in which his tastes may dispose him to engage.” He had it made. He had five days – he could be a minister on Sundays and then five days he could devote to studying math and being the chair of mathematics.
But then something happened. It was as a minister that he was converted. His heart, his life was changed. He trusted in Jesus for the first time. His life changed and he committed himself, he engaged himself in a long and a fruitful ministry. And it was sometime after many years of that fruitful ministry that he was challenged in a debate and somebody brought up from his past those words he had written in that pamphlet about studying math as a minister. And this is how he answered that man. “Yes, sir, I penned it, strangely blinded that I was. I aspired in those days to be a professor of mathematics but what, sir, is the object of mathematical science? It is magnitude and the proportion of magnitude. But in those days, I had forgotten two magnitudes. I thought not of the littleness of time and I recklessly thought not of the greatness of eternity.”
The littleness of time and the greatness of eternity. That’s the issue that confronts us in the book of Ecclesiastes. And the conclusion of the matter, which we have to keep in our mind and keep sight of throughout our whole study over the next several weeks is this – fear God and keep His commandments. Love God and do what He says. Trust Him and follow His way of wisdom and blessing. Let’s pray.
Our Father, we ask that You would, with Your words that are so relevant and so true, they speak to us so plainly and bluntly in many ways in this book, and so we ask that You would awaken us from any slumber, that You would capture our attention, that You would turn our eyes away from our self and the things that we are busy with all throughout our lives and that You would turn our eyes to You, that You would turn our eyes to Your way of mercy and grace in Christ Jesus and that You would turn our sight to the gift and blessing of eternal life in Your presence. And help us to live with wisdom and grace and help us to serve You with joy and gladness and give us the hope that we need for whatever we face, not only today but for tomorrow and the weeks to come. And we pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.