Ecclesiastes 1:2

Ecclesiastes chapter 1. I’m going to read the first 11 verses, but our focus in particular will be on verse 2 tonight. The words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, Seth the preacher. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. what profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh but the earth abideth forever. The sun also riseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about under the north. It whirleth about, can’t beaunteth. continually, the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea, if the sea is not full. Under the place from whence the rivers came, come thither they return again. All things are full of labor. Man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, or the ear filled with hearing, the thing that hath been, it is that which shall be. That which is done, that which shall be done. And there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any anything whereof it may be said, see, this is new? It’s already of old time. It have been already of old time, which was before us. There is no remembrance of former things. Neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after. May God bless to us his sacred and holy word this evening. Oh God, I’m bored with the last words written by an old movie actor before he committed. suicide. He had grown old. His prime was over. The things that he thought were meaningless in his life. He realized were just empty. And there was nothing left for him, so he thought. And so he committed suicide. Despair is one of the things that destroys your soul. Despair is one of the things that destroys your soul. despair. And a life without purpose finds all his vanity, just as Solomon writes here in verse two. Now this is not just an academic theory. I sort of have some firsthand knowledge of this experience happening in my own life. Years ago, many years ago, I used to warded game once a week. In the evenings, we’d by four to six other men we go through military simulation situations. And one of the gamers, one of the players came in, bemoaning the fact that he had a terrible week. Everything went bad for him that week. And he’s, you know, he’s given us the rundown on what’s all happening. And then he uttered words, which I’ll never forget. It stuck with me all these years. echoing Solomon here in this passage of scripture. This is how my unsaved friend summed up his life. Life stinks, and then you die. That’s how he put it. For many, I suppose that life is filled with despair and frustration and violence and drunkenness and drug addiction, and then it leads all to suicide. The spirit of the day seems to be what’s the use? what’s the purpose of all this? What is there to live for? Or as Paul puts it in his epistle, Let us eat and drink and be married. For tomorrow we die. You might also just have as much fun and pleasure in this life as you can because we’re going to die soon. And that’s it. Now the Bible here in this book, and really, if you look from Genesis’ direct, I think you’ll find this to be true. It speaks about the meaning of life, the true meaning of life. But here in the middle of the Bible, we have this little book of Ecclesiastes, which really focuses in, really zeroes in, on this issue of what is the true meaning of life? What is it all about? Why am I here? What is to be gained? It’s sort of an open. declaration that God has given us to make us seriously consider why we’re here. In a very graphic manner, Solomon here exposes the true realities of life and then points you to God’s answer. This is one reason Solomon calls himself the preacher. He’s proclaiming God’s truth to us here in this book. We saw that passage in chapter 12 where it’s the words of one shepherd that he gave us here. he sought for words to speak and he gave us the words of one shepherd which is Christ, which is an indication of the inspiration of the book and that these indeed are the words of God himself to us and for our benefit. Now, as you go through this life, your life may appear be one meaning charade. Vanity of vanities, Seth the preacher, all is vanity. He’s just very strong language. He reinforces it by repetition and then provides a generalization here. All. All is vanity. I thought about John Owen’s book, The Death of Death and the Death of Christ. Here are the Vanity of Vanities. The Death of Death. and the death of Christ. That great book on the atonement of our Savior. What he’s saying here is that everything appears to be empty, hollow, vain. Not only is everything vanity, but the vein is kind of vanity. Vanity of vanities. Solomon’s focus here, and you notice from verse 3, is on everything under the sun. Now, it’s important that we get as perspective. He’s talking about the things of this life. If we just deal with what we have of this earth, earthly things. That’s what I’m talking about, he says here. Because at the end here, he’s going to point us to the true answer, as we saw last week, and that is, you need to know God in chapter 12, verses 13 and 14. But right now, he’s thinking in terms of all that’s related this earthly earthly life, the pleasures, the honors, the activities, the business, the work we engage in, all these things that are related to this life. And all his vanity, he says. We see him, in a sense, slowly sinking into this sad, utter frustration. The dark gloom of it all. A despair wells up in his soul here. He’s not the only one that has concluded this. down through history. The question comes up with, why do people pretend that their miserable earthly lives are meaningless when life stinks and then you die? The preachers are attempting to say, stop partying long enough. Stop getting engaged in everything under the sun long enough to think about your life seriously. Take a good look at your life. It’s interesting that Solomon is not alone in his assessment of this world. Look with me at Psalm 39 in verses 4 to 7. By the way, that passage we read in Jobah carries the same kind of idea, you know, when’s the day going to be over? When’s the night going to be over? And there’s nothing for me in this life. You know, I’ll go to the grave. He’s talking the same way under the strain of the sickness, the boils and so forth. He’s been struck with but here let’s look at the psalmist in verses 4 to 7 here of chapter 34 I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears they looked unto him and were light and their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them you know it would help if I read 39, wouldn’t it? I’m sorry. 39, 4 to 7. Lord, make me to know my end in the measure of my days and what it is that I may know how frail I am. Behold thou hast made my days as a handbreadth and mine age is as nothing before thee. Barely every man at his best state is altogether vanity. See, look. Think about that. Meditate on that. surely every man walketh in a vain show surely they are disquieted in vain he he heath up riches and knoweth not who shall gather them and now Lord what wait I for my hope is indeed many years ago Lord Chesterfield in England described his life in terms that echo those of Solomon here’s what he said I have run the silly rounds of business and pleasure and have done with them all. I’ve enjoyed all the pleasures of the world and consequently know their futility and I do not regret their loss. I appraised them at their real value which is in truth very low whereas they that have not experienced always overrated them. They only see their gay side and are dazzled with the glare. I have seen behind the scenes. I have seen all the coarse pulleys and dirty ropes which exhibit move the gaudy machine and I have seen and smelt the tallow candles which illuminate the whole decoration to the astonishment and admiration of an ignorant audience. When I reflect back upon what I have seen, what I have heard, what I have done, I can hardly persuade myself that all that frivolous hurry and bustle and pleasure of the world had any reality. I look upon all that has passed as one of those romantic dreams which opium commonly occasions and I by no means desire to repeat the nauseous dose for the same. of the fugitive fugitive dream. For the person who lives only for this life and the things of this life, this is really how it ends for it. When they look back on it, this is really what they’re going to see. Everything is meaningless. Something’s missing. And no wonder the suicide rate is high because of this. When their dream comes true, when people accomplish all their goals. It’s interesting that even in the prime of their life, they get disillusioned. The bubble burst. Because what they thought was going to bring them happiness does not. And all of a sudden they’re thinking, you mean I worked for all this? Just to get to this point, and it doesn’t give me what I want. In 1966, about a year before he died, the brilliant physicist, Jay Robert Oppenheimer said, I’m a complete failure. This man had been the director of the Los Alamos Project, a research team that produced the atomic bomb. One of the most, probably one of the most large, useful, big, changing events of our lifetime. He served at they had of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and yet looking back at his life in accomplishing things that were amazing, he says, you know what? It’s all meaningless. When asked about this, he replied, they leave on the tongue only the taste of ashes. Your life may appear to be a meaningless charade. Notice your life seems to be futile. Now, Solomon here is not talking to philosophers. He’s not talking to men of a certain education and certain qualifications. He’s talking to the everyday, down to earth, common man, this is the way it is. No technical terms. Just straightforward teaching people like you and I. A person who works the 40 hours of week, who’s involved in the rat race of life, trying to make ends, me, trying to provide for his family. You know, the guy that’s on the hamster cage that’s going around in the circle. His life just keeps going around, he’s just doing the same thing over and over again. Just to stay afloat, just to stay alive, just to stay a lot, just to function. James says, your life is as a vapor. It disappears like a puff of smoke. Man, you’re here for a little while. And then you vanish, you’re gone. This is why Solomon goes on to speak about the futility of life. Notice verse 3. He says, what do you gain for all your efforts in this life? What profit at the man of all his labor, which he takeeth under the sun? What have you gained by it? Why is life so short? Verse 4, one generation passed away, another generation cometh, but the earth abideth for. forever just cycle them through why is there no lasting satisfaction for life verse 8 all things are full of labor man cannot utter it the eye is not satisfied with seeing for the ear filled with hearing no matter how much you hear no matter how much you see it’s not bringing satisfaction to you and then in verses 9 through 11 he tells us there’s nothing really new under the sun the thing that that been is that which shall be that which is done is that which shall be done and there’s nothing new under the sun man the Hebrew word here for vanity is hebel something transitory something unsatisfactory thus something that’s empty or vain she was thirty six times, ecclesiates. He drives it home throughout the book. That’s why it’s such an important verse to consider. It’s interesting that Adam and a son that he called Abel uses the same word. Abel. Vanity. So life is sort of like the wind. It’s like a breath. It comes, it goes. Depending on the context, it can mean here senselessness. It can mean here, something passing, vanity, futility. This is the idea behind the word. Now, if you look at the things that Solomon explores in this book, because he’s going to say, well, you know, I’ve tried this, I’ve tried that, I’ve tried this. None of it brought satisfaction. All of it ended up being futility for it. For example, look at, he looks at pleasures. in verses 1 and 2 of chapter 2. I said in my heart, go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure. And behold, this also is vanity. I said of laughter, it is mad of mirth, what doeth it? Well, mirth? I guess he checked out all the the comedians of his day. All the, all the people that, you know, would bring perhaps some type of laughter to him, some type of enjoyment, fleeting as it is to him. And when he thought about it, it was all empty. It didn’t really amount the hill will beans to him. Look at the idea of the pleasure in chapter 2 in verse 8 here. I gathered me also silver and golden, the particular. the peculiar treasures of kings and provinces. Here’s what you want to focus on. I got me men’s singers and women’s singers and the delights of the sons of men as musical instruments, that of all sorts. But what is he concluded? Versus 10 and 11. And whatsoever mine I desired, I kept not from them. I withheld not my heart from any joy. My heart rejoiced in all my labor. and this was my portion of all my labor, that I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and all the labor I had labored to do, behold, all was vanity and vexation of the spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. What about knowledge? Look at verses 12 to 16 of chapter 2. I turn myself to no wisdom and madness and folly for what can man do that cometh after the king, even that which hath already been done, or been already done. Then I saw that wisdom excel of folly as far as light excels darkness. The wise man’s eyes are in his heart, but the fool walketh in darkness, and I perceived also that one event happeneth to them all. then I said in my heart, as it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me. And why was I then more wise? And I said in my heart, this is also vanity. For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool forever, seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how the wise man dies, and how the wise man dies, and how the wise. and now how the wise man dies as the fool. We can go on and talk about wealth. He talks about that in chapter five, verses 10 to 15. He gathers wealth. He mentions it here in chapter two, about the silver and gold in verse 8, just the first part of it. But he goes on in chapter five to talk, what does he end up saying? I’m going to die, somebody else is going to get it. I can’t take it with me. this too is vanity to spend my lifetime accumulating all this wealth and then I die and somebody else gets it and I don’t know if he’s going to be a very wise man or a fool. He may blow all the money. I may. Work hard to me. Talks about political success in chapter 4, verses 13 to 16. And how a man can become a king. But then the people will start clamoring for a new king, a young, guy’s going to come up and take his place. And guess what? When the younger guy gets there, what’s going to happen to him? Same thing. Somebody else is going to clamor for a new king, and they want some, and a younger person’s going to replace him, too. It just never ends. He talks about youth and enjoying your youth in chapter 11, verses 9 and 10. Should you go out and use, your youth, and, you know, go out there and do whatever you want to do? This is okay. Go ahead, sow your wild oats, but there’s a day coming on. You’re going to have to stand before God and give it to come for it. Then what are you going to do? It talks about life itself in chapter 3 in verse 19 as well as verse 8 of chapter 11. But let’s look at 319. Let’s go a quick here. For that which befalleth the sons of men, befalleth beast, even one thing befalleth them. As the one diast, so dieeth the other. Yea, they have all one breath, so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast for all is vanity. I’m going to die just like some dumb ox before it’s all over. Is this life all that there is? Well, the popular teaching of evolution is, yeah, this is it. But some is saying if this is it, then everything’s vanity. I mean, what’s the purpose? If that’s the case, my friend is right. Life stinks and then you die. That’s it. From such a perspective, you find that people stay in this life to live because they don’t want to die. They don’t want to go into non-existence, so to speak. Not that that is the case, as Solomon will point out to us, that that’s not the case. The once great tennis player star Boris Becker at the very top of his game said this said he was on the brink of suicide. He said I won Wimbledon twice before. Once is the youngest player. I was rich. I had all the material possessions I needed. It’s the old song of movie stars and pop stars who commit suicide. They have everything and yet they are so unhappy. I had no inner peace. No matter how successful you are in life. No matter what you think you can achieve in life, it all comes down to this one thing. No matter how rich and famous you are, life is futile. It’s all vanity if you’re only living for the things of this life. Let’s put that big if in there. So your life seems to be futile. Let me say that your life is all meaningless if God is left out. We touched on this last week. Solomon’s argument is this. On the surface, he seems to be promoting here the idea that everything is meaningless. But remember, he’s still talking about things under the sun. And so remember this, he’s constructing an argument. He’s saying, look at all that I tried. Look at all these things. You’re going to find the same thing that I found. And there’s really only one thing that you need to turn to. And that is, you need God in your life. There is a God. You can know this God. And that makes the whole difference in this life. But he’s slowly getting there. He takes us through this tour to force, if you would, first. Because remember, He’s dealing with people the wrong ideas about life. He’s dealing with people who think if they just achieve this or they just achieve that, I’ll be happy. And he’s saying, no, you won’t. No, you won’t. You listen to me. And I’m not going to bring you happiness. Man’s chief end is the love God and to glorify him forever. If we miss that, then everything is vanity of vanities and all is vain in this life and empty. So here he does. Here what he’s doing. is he’s exposing the secular view of life. He said, let’s see how this, let’s look all this stuff. Interestingly enough, God placed him in a situation where he had the money and he had the time, he had the wealth. He could try all these things. You and I wouldn’t have the time. But Solomon here, being in the position that he’s in, he has all this time. He can try all these different things. And he’s giving us his experience. So without God, with just a focus on earthly things, he said, there’s no satisfaction. Now originally, when God made man, we know that everything was good. And man could enjoy all the things that God made for him in this life. And man could enjoy the use of his own wisdom and what he could create. if you would, he sort of was given the ability to create things. Like God. God gave him that ability that he could design things and create things. But then sin comes. And the curse comes with it. And whatever man invents gets corrupted by sin. You know, when you think about radio, that was a big thing back in the day. Then television was a big thing. You could actually see people as well, talking and so forth. And now the internet, you know, you can deal with people all around the world and talk with them through the internet and so forth. But every one of these things gets corrupted by man’s sinfulness, so that trash and filth become the purpose for many people. There are many good things in life. you can enjoy but ultimately they don’t bring satisfaction on their own you know you get married and you have children you think well we’ll get married i’ll be happy i hope you are but the truth of the matter is there has to be three in the marriage for you to be happy and god is the third one christ is to be the third one but you get married and the relationship is made miserable maybe by selfishness, by deceitfulness, by unfaithfulness of one of the partners or something of this nature. And that joy, you started out with such a joyous approach and then things got bad. God’s not in your life. You have that child. What a great joy when you have children. You have all these children and it’s great. You think they’re going to be little angels. I mean, they’re great. But then they end up being rebellious, stubborn, disobedient, disrespectful, and ungrateful. How would that happen? Man’s to pray. He has to pray. So sinfulness begins to destroy these things. Unless God is in the life. I think I told you one time my daughter said to me, Rebecca, she said, when the kids were little, my kids were so bad. she can’t believe it, you know, and I said, well, I told you, totally depravity of man, totally property of man, you know, it’s like, did you get it? You know, I taught you this when we were growing up when we had our Bible study and devotions. Didn’t it register? I guess maybe we think, not my child, but they need regeneration too. So to be without God is to be without hope. So let’s look at Ephesians chapter 2. here as we wind this up tonight. I think this is what he’s leading up to here. Chapter 2, verses 11 and 12 of Ephesians. It says, wherefore remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands. Talk about the Jews calling to Gentiles uncircised. When the truth and the truth. matter is they’re uncircumcised in heart, they’re only circumcised in body, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. You see, this is what Solomon is saying. If you’re without God, this is where you are. You’re without hope. You’re If you don’t have Christ in your life, everything really is hopeless. It’s all vanity. One generation comes along and passes the baton onto the next generation, and on and on and on it goes. This life all is about it. If you don’t have any relationship with God, it’s meaningless. Norse he says you know different than the beast. Now, Solomon would have us know this, and in a sense this is, important for the non-believer to know. But there is a sense in which we as believers need to be reminded of this, too. We just studied Psalm 73 and ASAP got carried away with the riches of the wicked and thought, well, I’m missing out. You know, I’m not happy with the state that I’m in. It seems the rich are, the, the, wicked or prospering and he was envious of them. And he was not. He was focused on the fact they had more earthly goods. Yeah. But does it bring satisfaction? No. And this is his point here in this book. We ought to realize this. We should pity them because they’re pursuing something and even though they may even get it, ultimately it’s not going to bring them what they and as he learns when he goes to the house of God, they’re on a slippery slope. They’re in slippery places. That what God gives them is actually working toward their destruction and not for their benefit. You may look at the things of this life and you guys say they look grand. I wish I had all these things. You may look at heavenly things and think, well, they seem to be awful trivial compared to having all these other things in this life. so almost says you better weigh this carefully we need to weigh this don’t be like asaph you know make sure you go to the house of god get the right right perspective on things because what you have in christ well it may not appear to the world to be much you know they say well you know what are you hoping for here we have more than they have it’s it’s greater than they have do you remember the psalmist in Psalm 4 verse 7 thou has put gladness in my heart more in the time that their corn and their wine increased the wicked may have increased and their wine and their corn and they have all this abundance and the psalmist is saying yes but look what i have i have god’s joy in my heart which surpasses all the material possessions of this life joy and happiness and satisfaction is found in knowing Christ. How about the problem of our sin addressed and the guilt that we have and so forth? The problem that Christian may have is if he gets too worldly-minded, then he slips into the mistake of pursuing the things of this world, this world. Where the real treasure is in God’s truth and in God’s truth. relationship to us. My friends, there are greater riches in Christ in this world ever has to offer. The world is passing. Your life on this earth is going to be over soon. Only heavy any riches retain their value. They’re the only only ones that go with you. Lay up treasure in heaven and not on this right Jesus says for that reason. But that movie star wrote, oh God, I’m so bored and took his life. He had no hope in Christ. All he had is despair. He was a person who realized life is totally meaningless. There are many friends that we may have. There may be neighbors who may have the same or may come to the same conclusion. They may not have reached the point of Solomon and realize how futile things are yet. But they’re going. to. You as the believer possess what they need. And you know how one can obtain that by faith in Christ. This is an area in which we have to deal with people spiritually and echo the teachings of the preacher, Solomon. We have to declare the same truth that he does in this book. Well, let us close with a word of prayer tonight.