Ecc 1:1-11 | An Ice Bucket for the Soul

Intro

Confusing - messy book. ‘He is responding to a messy universe. That is why, in the end, his book is somewhat messy, nonlinear, and nonsystematic. Its form mirrors its content and its focus of interest.’ - Provan, 57 ‘Life is confusing and chaotic, what better way to assess it than with a rather confusing and chaotic book. ‘Is there a better way to explain how life can leave you scratching your head than by writing a book that leaves you doing the same?’ - Gibson, 12

Ecclesiastes 1:1–11 (ESV)

1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

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Ecclesiastes is a very difficult book. Some have even tried to remove it from the canon. What is crazy - is that there have been those who have wanted to remove it… becuase it is too pessimistic about life AND, those who want to remove it beucase it is too positive about living a joyful life/

So what should we do with it? We should wrestle with it’s truths. Or maybe a better way to think of it, is we should try and allow the wisdom of Ecclesiastes to wrestle with us.

2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

3 What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?

Hebel = Vanity - not meaningless

Literally translated as breath or vapor.

Psalm 144:3–4 “O Lord, what is man that you regard him, or the son of man that you think of him? Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.”

Gain

Life is Fleeting

Life is momentary.

We love to pretend that life is endless. That we will not die.

We are living in a world where soon we will not.

Life is Elusive

Unable to be grasped, controlled and manipulated.

Life is Repetitive

Life, like the world is cyclic.

9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us.

There is nothing new we can ever discover to break the cycle and to satisfy us.

‘The preachers perspective is this: humans long to come across something in their lives that will break the constant repetitve cycle, something to say or see or hear that will truly be new and therefore significant - but thre is nothing.

What Gain??

The reality is that in this fleeting, elusive, repetitve life, no matter how much we have, there is always more. No matter how much we accumulate, we are never full, and when we inevitably die, there is never any left over.

TRANSITION - What do we do with this

‘Under the Sun’

Often I think we make the mistake of interpreting the preacher as merely giving us the perspective of a secularist who doesnt have God.

Or, to put it in our terms - we go… okay i get it, sure life is Fleeting and Elusive and Repetitive, but… that’s without God.

But we have Christ - (there is certainly something valid to that). The Christian still dies, cannot control thier world and endures the monotonous repetitive life.

under the sun, isnt a geographical statement… its a time marker.

Now vs. then (later)

It refers to life in a world, that God created as good, yet is disastrously corrupted by sin.

4 A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. 5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. 6 The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns.

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7 All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. 8 All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

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9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us.

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11 There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after. adsf