Air Under the Sun
Notes
Transcript
The Preacher
The Preacher
1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
His Identity
His Identity
Solomon, he was the son of David and he was king in Jerusalem.
His Identification
His Identification
The Hebrew word translated preacher means caller or assembler. It comes into Greek as ekklesiastes (hence the name of the book), ekklesesia meaning assembly and he being the one to address the assembly: the preacher.
Solomon was not trying to portray himself as a Pastor, as we might think of it today, but rather as one who draws together and addresses an assembly.
His Intention
His Intention
Ecclesiastes describes life “under the sun,” meaning the life of the normal person and their normal, human experience apart from God.
This is life under the sun
Not life under the Son
The Message
The Message
Vanity
Vanity
The word translated vanity comes from a word that means human breath, but not as a life-giving thing but as a transitory thing we just do without thought or awareness. It carries the idea of meaningless, useless, and empty.
Believer’s Bible Commentary (I. Prologue: All Is Vanity under the Sun (1:1–11))
Life is transitory, fleeting, useless, empty, and futile. It has no meaning. Nothing on this earth provides a valid goal of existence.
Vanity of Vanities
Vanity of Vanities
Of all of the meaningless things that we could define or describe, life is the most meaningless of all.
Nelson’s Old Testament Survey (Theological Emphases)
The unusually pessimistic statements in this book must be understood as the musings of a person attempting to think and live apart from divine revelation. That is, its conclusions in various matters must be taken with considerable caution, for as often as not the “man in the street” is wrong in his basic assumptions and therefore deviant in the theological assertions that derive from them.
The Proof
The Proof
The author presents several scenarios that prove his assertion:
Humanity
Humanity
3 What profit has a man from all his labor
In which he toils under the sun?
4 One generation passes away, and another generation comes;
But the earth abides forever.
Believer’s Bible Commentary (I. Prologue: All Is Vanity under the Sun (1:1–11))
It was H. L. Mencken who said:
The basic fact about human experience is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not that it is predominantly painful, but that it is lacking in any sense.
Nature
Nature
The Sun
The Sun
5 The sun also rises, and the sun goes down,
And hastens to the place where it arose.
The Wind
The Wind
6 The wind goes toward the south,
And turns around to the north;
The wind whirls about continually,
And comes again on its circuit.
The Water
The Water
7 All the rivers run into the sea,
Yet the sea is not full;
To the place from which the rivers come,
There they return again.
Experience
Experience
Sensory
Sensory
8 All things are full of labor;
Man cannot express it.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing,
Nor the ear filled with hearing.
Progress
Progress
9 That which has been is what will be,
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which it may be said,
“See, this is new”?
It has already been in ancient times before us.
History
History
11 There is no remembrance of former things,
Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come
By those who will come after.
The German philosopher Georg Hegel famously said, “The only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.”
We ignore it, forget it, and repeat it.
Even for the few who study it…ask them to name the last 10 Vice Presidents of the United States. Most of us cannot, though Vice President is a pretty high position and we’re talking about a pretty near term of history.
Conclusion
Conclusion
This is only the Prologue and we already find this depressing.
How did we get here?
How did we get here?
In a word: sin
20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope;
How do we get out of here?
How do we get out of here?
In a word: salvation
21 because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. 23 Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. 24 For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.
The world that is, along with its vanity, is the broken version. The truly new thing that the man “under the sun” does not see if the first coming of Jesus for salvation and the second coming of Jesus for resolution. This one new thing—Jesus— gives us hope and breaks the cycle of vanity for those who receive Him.