In one of the vital perplexing books of the Bible, Ecclesiastes, we’re launched to “the Preacher,” a king in Jerusalem—maybe King Solomon—who got down to uncover what was worthwhile within the quick area of his life.
Regardless of being referred to as “the Preacher,” his perspective is considered one of secular man, trying round on the issues that may be noticed “below the solar” (Eccl. 1:3, 9, 14). The conclusion he involves time and again is that every little thing is “self-importance” or “a striving after the wind” (Eccl. 1:14). There’s a futility to life, he says, that takes the air out of each endeavor.
Within the first two chapters, the Preacher considers three paths that some suppose result in life—the identical paths that many people stroll at the moment in our seek for which means.
Is There Life in Worldly Knowledge?
I utilized my coronary heart to hunt and to go looking out by knowledge all that’s completed below heaven. It’s an sad enterprise that God has given to the youngsters of man to be busy with. (Eccl. 1:13)
Is there life earlier than dying? The Preacher begins by in search of life in the way in which of knowledge. He supposed, as many do at the moment, {that a} ample training might equip him to dwell effectively.
However he realized that extra information creates extra issues: “In a lot knowledge is far vexation, and he who will increase information will increase sorrow” (Eccl. 1:18). In any case, he provides, the smart individual and the idiot will each be lifeless in the future, so what’s the purpose? “I stated in my coronary heart, ‘What occurs to the idiot will occur to me additionally. Why then have I been so very smart?’” (Eccl. 2:15).
The knowledge of the world, it seems, doesn’t resolve all our issues. Why is it {that a} society that put males on the moon can’t cease wars on the bottom? Why is it yow will discover vivid docs standing exterior of the hospital nursing a cigarette? The explanation is so simple as it’s difficult: Schooling can inform us, it may enhance us, it may do nice and beneficial issues for us, however it may’t change our human nature.
Is There Life in Pleasure?
No matter my eyes desired I didn’t preserve from them. I stored my coronary heart from no pleasure, for my coronary heart discovered pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. (Eccl. 2:10)
Is there life earlier than dying? The Preacher additionally sought it on the trail of hedonism. He seemingly arrange pleasure as his prime precedence. He ignored the judging gaze of God and of different folks and made probably the most of alternatives for wine, ladies, and music. He even discovered pleasure in his “toil,” residing out the adage that should you love what you do, you’ll by no means work a day in your life.
But, as Robert Burns has noticed,
Pleasures are like poppies unfold,
You seize the circulation’r, its bloom is shed;
Or just like the snow falls within the river,
A second white—then melts without end.
Or, within the phrases of a unique form of poet: “I can’t get no satisfaction.” Pleasures are instantly engaging, holding out each prospect of enjoyment. However, the Preacher realized, greedy for pleasure is like greedy the wind. It’s instantaneous bloom, instantaneous fade; it’s like snow that instantly melts away because it falls on a rolling river.
Is There Life in Materialism?
I made nice works. I constructed homes and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in all of them sorts of fruit timber. … I additionally gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. (Eccl. 2:4–5, 8)
Is there life earlier than dying? The Preacher additionally looked for it on the trail of materialism, gathering up each trapping of wealth out there to him.
Most of us are consumed by the considered what we’ve got and don’t have. Our work follows us house within the night, and our portfolio—or lack of 1—retains us up at night time. We might discover ourselves haunted by the sense that we haven’t actually “made it,” that we’re not as professionally or financially profitable as we hoped to be, that we’re not as safe as we really feel we should be.
The Preacher had all of it, however “all” was not as fulfilling as he had imagined: “I thought of all that my arms had completed and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was self-importance” (Eccl. 2:11). He regarded round him and got here to the conclusion that—within the phrases of the Frank Capra movie of the identical identify—“you may’t take it with you” (Eccl. 2:20–21). All he had gained was a supply of stress with out offering happiness: “What has a person from all of the toil and striving of coronary heart with which he toils beneath the solar? For all his days are filled with sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even within the night time his coronary heart doesn’t relaxation” (Eccl. 2:22–23).
Is There Extra Than What’s “Underneath the Solar”?
I hated life, as a result of what is completed below the solar was grievous to me, for all is self-importance and a striving after wind. (Eccl. 2:17)
In response to all this stuff, the Preacher flirts with a form cynicism: There’s no level. There’s no function. If there’s a God, He doesn’t care. All of life’s guarantees are empty.
Cynicism could also be a response to disappointment, however finally, it’s a form of ethical rise up. The denial of God’s existence or goodness leads us to ignore proper and improper. “The idiot says in his coronary heart, ‘There isn’t any God’”—and justified by this perception, “they’re corrupt, they do abominable deeds” (Ps. 14:1). As Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov places it, if God is lifeless, then all issues are permissible. There isn’t any life in this sort of cynicism! It’s an embrace of dying.
What the Preacher wanted to comprehend—and finally discovered—is that the reply to life shouldn’t be “below the solar” in any respect. He wanted to cease trying down and lookup! “Keep in mind additionally your Creator within the days of your youth,” he says as he brings his guide to a detailed (Eccl. 12:1). “Concern God and preserve his commandments, for that is the entire obligation of man. For God will convey each deed into judgment, with each secret factor, whether or not good or evil” (Eccl. 12:13–14).
That expectation of judgment might not be encouraging as we consider all of the methods we’ve sought which means—or the methods we’ve rejected it. However the story of the Bible is that human beings have turned their backs on God though He gave them every little thing to get pleasure from and all they wanted to dwell rightly. The primary man and lady, Adam and Eve, disobeyed God’s command and ate from the tree He had forbidden, they usually set out on a path the place life can’t be discovered.
What the Preacher wanted to comprehend—and finally discovered—is that the reply to life shouldn’t be “below the solar” in any respect.
All of us stroll that path. “All we like sheep have gone astray,” declares the prophet; “we’ve got turned—each one—to his personal manner” (Isa. 53:6). We are saying, “I’ll be my very own god. I’ll run my very own life. I’ll do my very own factor.” However finally, other than God, we are going to discover ourselves in the future saying with the Preacher, “All is self-importance.”
What can we do? We will discover life in Jesus Christ! As a result of although we’ve got strayed from God into sin, “The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6).
Jesus is the everlasting Son of God, who grew to become a person to take us from our empty existence and restore us to God’s everlasting function. By dying on the cross, Jesus took the punishment for our evil deeds and invited us into the household of God. What He affords shouldn’t be a faith however a relationship of belief and forgiveness. He doesn’t ask anybody to earn their acceptance with God; He affords it to us as a present.
To grasp the life that’s really life calls for not less than this: that we perceive that Christ died in our place, taking the punishment of our sin. Within the consciousness of such immense love, we are able to lay down the arms of our rise up, hand over our dead-end paths, and say, “Lord Jesus Christ, forgive my sin. Fill my life. Make me all that You want for me to be.” And it’s in that transaction that we transfer from the realm of merely present into the realm of really residing.
This text was tailored from the sermon “True Dwelling” by Alistair Begg.
