Ecclesiastes 3:16-4:16
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Good morning, church family.
I want to start today with a question. This is actually interactive, so when I ask this question, I am sure some of you will know the answer.
Are you ready for the question?
What is the chief end of man?
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**SLIDE** - Westminster Shorter Catechism Q1/A1
Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
Now, some of you may know that immediately as the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism.
And you may wonder why I ask that question as we begin.
Simply because we need to understand what our goal, our aim in life is as we study the text today.
This morning we are going to be looking through Ecclesiastes 3 starting in verse 16 and moving all the way through the end of chapter 4.
And, honestly, there is a lot of depressing stuff here. There is vanity. Loneliness. A sense that everything is pointless.
Solomon is dealing here with life, death, good, evil - all of life as we know it.
These are heavy topics, and we must handle them with care. We must see the light, or all will seem as shadow.
The Gospel is the light in this dark world. To paraphrase Galadriel from The Two Towers, the Gospel is a light to us when all other lights go out.
And when we think about hope, light, we need to understand the underlying theme of these verses.
You see, our big idea today is that God made us for relationship.
We see it in the Garden in Genesis:
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
God Himself is Triune in nature, in perfect relationship together with Himself. I know we can’t wrap our minds around that, but God exists as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit in perfect communion together.
God gives Adam a wife who is to complete him, and she does until Adam and Eve’s sin wrecks everything.
We are made to have relationship. We are made to have relationship with God, and we are made to have relationship with one another.
These two ideas really drive home the point here in chapters 3 and 4.
We see King Solomon living in a fallen world and commiserating over the futility of it all. Let’s dive in and see what we can learn from the wisest of all men today.
**SLIDE** - Point 1
We are made to have relationship with God.
16 Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. 17 I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. 18 I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. 19 For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. 20 All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? 22 So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?
In the last part of chapter three we see that Solomon sees injustice in the justice system. He sees unrighteousness in those who are ment to be righteous.
Sounds very familiar, right?
If you turn on the news for more than 3 seconds, you will hear about corrupt politicians, activist judges, law enforcement officers utilizing positions of power for unethical purpose. You will hear about scandals in the church, abuses of power, and shame brought to entire denominations because of the prominent actions of a few.
Wickedness in the places of justice and righteousness.
And Solomon has the right response in verse 17:
17 I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work.
James looked last week at the idea of time, and a proper time for all things.
But where Solomon falls into despair is the end result that he sees.
Mankind are no better than the beasts.
That is where we have to assess Solomon’s words here. We can read what he wrote, but we need to hear what he didn’t say.
Mankind are like beasts, when there is no relationship with God Almighty!
We are made to have relationship with God!
When we do not have that relationship with God, what do we see?
Solomon tells us!
19 For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. 20 All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.
Now, we understand that not everyone behaves as a beast. We have to understand, as we have been working through this book, that Solomon is talking hyperbolically. Everything is a bit exaggerated in his assumptions. But what he is saying leaves us to interpret what he didn’t say.
If there are some who are not beastly, then how do we see them? What is their purpose?
Solomon is struggling with the notion that everything is for nothing. He has this huge brain with all of this wisdom, but it all seems to mean nothing.
Because Solomon is like the church of Ephesus in Revelation 2. He has lost his first love.
As we’ve studied Ecclesiastes, we haven’t really talked too much about Solomon the author. Yes, we talked about his wisdom, his riches, etc. But not about who he really was.
Because when he starts out, he was a good and faithful man who trusted God.
3 Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father, only he sacrificed and made offerings at the high places.
Oh, so we already see there are some issues. He loved God, but made sacrifices at the idol’s temples, the high places. This was because he hadn’t built the temple yet. He wanted to worship God, so he decided to do it in the wrong place.
Still, in spite of that, the Lord blessed Solomon:
14 And if you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days.”
God told Solomon what he needed to do. Solomon needed to walk in the Lord’s ways.
But in Solomon’s life of wisdom and wealth and all those good things that God had given him, he let his heart wander.
1 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women,
His weakness for companionship starts to show...
3 He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. 4 For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.
6 So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done.
Solomon let his heart wander, and in doing so, he lost the most precious thing he could have: relationship with God.
When we allow our relationship with God to be supplanted by things - by wealth, by power, by other people - we lose what is the primary purpose in our life.
What was the question we started with today?
What is the chief end of man?
To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
You cannot enjoy someone you do not have a relationship with.
Solomon let his heart wander from God, and all of the bounty of this world became superficial and pointless.
His response?
These wicked people masquerading as righteous will be judged by God. And that they will seem to themselves and others as nothing more than beasts.
Solomon is correct: God does judge the righteous and the wicked. But Solomon’s conclusion shows his judgment is askew. Because Solomon concludes that people are no different than animals.
Formed from dust, and to the dust we are returned.
No one knows if the spirit of man is any different than that of an animal.
Except we know. We know that God has made us a little lower than the angels. That God has called us. That those who believe in the name of the Lord Jesus shall be saved. That those who live to serve God do not just die and that’s it.
12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Solomon is speaking out of his grief. His fear that his whole life has been lived in vain. Earlier in this chapter, Solomon laments that eternity is on the heart of man, but man cannot comprehend eternity from God’s perspective.
His only conclusion, living estranged from God: The only joy is man’s work.
We have seen some of it before a couple weeks ago when Andrew took us through chapter two, and Solomon does reference that idea here in verse 22 as well:
24 There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, 25 for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?
In verse 22 here this sentiment is echoed:
22 So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?
