How Much to make Life Worth Living?

Scripture Reading

Ecclesiastes 6 NKJV

There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men: A man to whom God has given riches and wealth and honor, so that he lacks nothing for himself of all he desires; yet God does not give him power to eat of it, but a foreigner consumes it. This is vanity, and it is an evil affliction. If a man begets a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with goodness, or indeed he has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better than he— for it comes in vanity and departs in darkness, and its name is covered with darkness. Though it has not seen the sun or known anything, this has more rest than that man, even if he lives a thousand years twice—but has not seen goodness. Do not all go to one place? All the labor of man is for his mouth, And yet the soul is not satisfied. For what more has the wise man than the fool? What does the poor man have, Who knows how to walk before the living? Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of desire. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind. Whatever one is, he has been named already, For it is known that he is man; And he cannot contend with Him who is mightier than he. Since there are many things that increase vanity, How is man the better? For who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he passes like a shadow? Who can tell a man what will happen after him under the sun?

Jesus declared that Matt 6:24

Matthew 6:24 NKJV

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

In this chapter, Solomon continues to talk about money. He explores the second part of Jesus’ statement - what happens to someone who serves money? The point of all of it is that this will not satisfy.

I. Unused Wealth is pointless

Solomon now gives another counterpoint to his observation in the previous verses that the power to enjoy your prosperity is a gift of God - where the individual that gets rich doesn’t ever get to enjoy that wealth, because someone else ends up taking it, or perhaps because he dies before enjoying it and it is distributed to another person.

It is best to translate the last part of v.1 as “it weighs heavily on men.” the Heb. lit says “it is great/many on man.” which could be saying that many people have this problem, or that the problem itself is great - that is, it weighs heavily. In other words, Solomon isn’t making a judgment about how often it happens, but rather on how tragic the situation is.

Here, the wealth is entirely spent on yourself, there’s nothing higher to do with it. This is the result of not knowing about eternity. Obviously if you take the time, hard work, and sacrifice to build prosperity and then don’t get to enjoy it, it is rather useless.

Remember that, for the Christian, there is something more to do with wealth than just be comfortable.

II. Better off dead?

Solomon starts off with hyperbole - a man who has everything the ancients could want - superlatively long life (2000 years!), 100 children (!), and wealth. Side note - many children was the desire of everyone back then, and many children is in fact a blessing from God Ps 127:3-5.

On the other extreme is someone who has absolutely none of these - a stillborn child, who dies before even getting started, Not only isn’t rich, but has absolutely nothing; Not only doesn’t have honor, but doesn’t even have a name. It is not possible to imagine someone with less of life’s good things.

This hinges on the idea that there isn’t any difference between them in death - “all go to one place” refers to the grave. So there isn’t proof exactly that infants who die go to heaven, however, Solomon aphorism will only work all the time if the stillborn child does go to heaven - a man who lives a long time, gets rich, but never enjoys life and makes a deathbed profession of faith will go to heaven, but will never have “seen goodness.” If the stillborn child goes to heaven too, then the stillborn child is slightly better off - the stillborn child never knows suffering, but has no reward for faithful service since he never got the chance to do anything. The rich man with the deathbed confession also has no reward for faithful service, as he wasted his life, but, unlike the stillborn child, knows very well what it means to suffer. If children who die don’t go to heaven, then the rich man with the deathbed confession is very, very much better off.

At any rate, being satisfied with goodness isn’t just a function of how much money you have, but your attitude toward what you do have. Practice an attitude of gratitude.

III. Neverending Needs Require Living for God

The three proverbs in this section all refer to various ways that the desires of man aren’t satisfied by labor.

First, people generally work to survive, yet no matter how long they work, they still need more to survive.

Second, wisdom doesn’t shortcut this feature - the wise man never outworks his need for more food; the poor man who knows how to improve himself by “Walking before” others still needs food.

Third, the “wandering of desire” may shortcircuit the process of being satisified. If you are always looking for more or comparing yourself with others, you’ll never be satisfied regardless of how much you have.

IV. An Uncertain Future Requires Faith

The inherent character of reality and of the nature of man is set and cannot be altered. Trying to undo the fundamentals of reality and humanity is absolutely futile. This ought to be obvious, but today there are legions of people that believe they can do that very thing. Simply stating that we are going to make reality different doesn’t make it so. So it’s best not to try to resist the impossible, but to act within what is real.

The gender craze

People believe that the advent of technology or “progress” has somehow made us materially and morally better than previous ages. Yet human nature hasn’t changed.

Since many parts of our world make “futility” an unfortunate and irresistable reality, Solomon’s apparently rhetorical question is in fact the issue. We can’t change fundamental reality, so we ought to focus on what can make us better.

However, the problem with doing that is that we are really bad at predicting the outcome of human actions. Things that seemed to be really important at the time turn out to be not important at all, while other, seemingly unimportant things, turn out to be world-shaking. Thus figuring out what will truly make man better is really hard. You can’t always predict which part of your service to the Lord will have the most impact; you also can’t always see which of your foolish actions will cause the most damage.

Solomon here doesn’t provide an answer to “what is good for man.” However, he does know the answer. Remember the conclusion to the book. “fear God and keep his commandments, for this is man’s all.” In other words, we don’t need to predict which of our actions will turn out best, and which will turn out worst. Instead, we need to believe the Lord, and live according to his Word. God will take your service and use it in the way that pleases Him. Everything done for Christ will benefit you somehow; everything done against him will hurt you somehow. How exactly you may not even figure out before you die, but since God has given you a roadmap of how to get the best out of life, just do that and leave the results up to God.