The End of the Matter

Anyone who has ever read the Book of Ecclesiastes will recognize that it has an almost haunting theme. It’s text seems melancholy and even cynical. The writer has taken a look at life and concluded that much—if not all of it—is meaningless. And he tells us so in no uncertain terms! In the very first chapter, we read these words:

“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.” (Ecclesiastes 1:2–7, NIV)

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9, NIV)

“I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” (Ecclesiastes 1:12–14, NIV)

The rest of the book continues in the same bleak and disillusioned tone. The author tells us that he has carefully looked at life for meaning and found none. He tells us that wisdom, the pursuit of pleasure, toil and hard work, riches and material wealth are all meaningless. The writer reaches a crescendo of fatalism in chapters eight and nine when he says that all men, weather righteous or wicked, weather good or bad, weather spiritually clean or spiritually unclean, weather they offer sacrifices to God or not, all face a common destiny. That destiny is death. Later in his book the author writes: “No man has power over the wind to contain it; so no one has power over the day of his death. As no one is discharged in time of war, so wickedness will not release those who practice it.” (Ecclesiastes 8:8) NIV

In this one verse, the author points out three unchangeable truths concerning your appointment with eternity:

I. YOU ARE ULTIMATELY POWERLESS TO PREVENT DEATH

1. we are living in an era where medical science is advancing by such leaps and bounds that the average physician is hard pressed to keep up with the technology

2. today, it seems that much of the human body can either be replaced, repaired, regenerated, or transplanted

most of our joints can now be replaced or rebuilt with steel and plastic

you can “print” new body parts through a process called bioprinting, a technique that creates human tissue using a special “ink” made from donor stem cells

some of you here this morning see clearly through the corneas of others

limbs can be reattached

robots helping doctors perform surgery

hearts, lungs, kidneys, and livers can all be replaced

3. yet, with all our advances, man is powerless to prevent that which fills his heart with dread

a. we can repair the body

b. we can prolong life

c. and some, who have a lot of money, will even try to cheat death

ILLUS. Some of you have heard about Cryonics: This is the process of freezing and storing the body of a diseased, recently deceased person to prevent tissue decomposition with the speculative hope that at some future time the person might be “thawed out” and brought back to life upon development of new medical cures for whatever ails them. It’ll only cost you about $80,000. The Cryonics Society of New York, has taken as its motto, "Never say die!"

d. NEWS FLASH! unless you’re alive when Jesus comes, you’re going to die

“A person’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.” (Job 14:5, NIV)

4. no matter how hard we try, we cannot cheat death and we cannot prolong life forever

“Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” (James 4:14, NIV)

a. according to this passage, our lives are like the morning fog that hangs low in our Missouri valleys early in the morning

b. it is here for but a short time

c. when the sun rises high in the sky the mist quietly melts away and we hardly even remember its presence

5. the author of Ecclesiastes puts it this way: I looked at everything done on earth and saw that it is all useless, like chasing the wind.

ILLUS. When I was about ten, my brother and I were staying with my grandmother while our parents were out of town. We must have been giving grandma a particularly difficult time one day. She was trying to get things done and we were constantly underfoot. Finally, in desperation, grandma gave my brother and I each a Mason jar and told us to go out in the back yard and try to catch the wind. Well, that sounded like a neat idea and so we did and of course grandmas don’t lie about those things. She told us that we’d know when we caught it, because we could crack the lid and listen to it rush out! Needless to say, neither of us caught the wind that day. But it kept us out of grandma’s hair for a while.

6. the author of Ecclesiastes tells us that trying to prevent death is like trying to catch the wind in a jar—it simply cannot be done

a. death does not discriminate

1) it comes for the righteous and the wicked

2) it comes for the good and the bad

3) it comes for the spiritually clean and the spiritually unclean

4) it comes for those who offer sacrifices to God and for those who do not

5) it comes for those of advanced years and it sometimes comes for the far too young

6) it comes peacefully for some and violently for others

7. we are ultimately powerless to prevent our death

8. but even though our bodies will die, that does not mean that our spirits die

a. they live on

b. God created men to be immortal and His greatest desire is that you spend eternity with Him in His Heaven

II. YOUR BATTLE FOR ETERNITY IS WON OR LOST IN THIS LIFE

1. no soldier, the writer of Ecclesiastes says, “is discharged in the time of war”

2. I think the implication of the writer’s thought is this:

a. just as a nation makes preparations to win a war, so too, must you make preparations for eternity

ILLUS. C.S. Lewis bluntly wrote: “He who provides for this life, but takes no care for eternity, is wise for a moment, but a fool forever.”

3. Jesus told His disciples much the same thing 2,000 years ago

“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:35–38, NIV)

A. THE SCRIPTURES URGE YOU TO BE PREPARED FOR DEATH

1. that does not mean you are to have a morbid pre-occupation with death

2. rather, we must recognize that death is as natural a part of life as is birth

3. since death cannot be prevented, you must prepare for it

a. many in our culture take great pains to prepare for their death practically

1) they make wills spelling out the distribution of their estate

2) parents will make arrangements with family or friends concerning the care and raising of children

3) couples will purchase cemetery lots, pick out caskets, have headstones carved and set, and may even pick out a prepaid burial package with the local funeral home

4. while important that’s not the kind of preparation the bible is referring to

a. Jesus tells us that you must be spiritually prepared

1) it is this area of life where so many are found wanting

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:13–14, NIV)

b. eternity is real—the only question is “Where will you be spending it?”

c. all men—weather good or bad—are immortal ... you will live forever

1) death is not the end of your existence, but merely ushers you from one plain of reality into another

ILLUS. Dr. Amos Tarver writes: “Death is not a period, but only a comma in the story of life.”

5. it is in this life that you make your choice of where you will spend your eternity

a. will you spend it with God in His kingdom?

b. or will you spend it with Satan in the eternal Lake of Fire?

6. your battle for eternity is won or lost in this life

a. the battle is won through a simple surrender

b. when sinners surrender their lives to Jesus who is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, our eternal destiny is decided in that glorious moment

B. THROUGH THE BLOOD OF CHRIST SINNER ARE RECONCILED TO GOD

1. our Lord Jesus shuts the door in no one's face who would come to him in

“for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13, NIV)

a. there is no one in the world to whom we cannot proclaim the free offer of the gospel

b. it is for all who believe—both Jew and Gentile

2. the blood of Christ opens the way for all who would call upon the name of the Lord who invites both Jew and Gentile, male and female, bond or free, the mighty or the lowly to accept the peace that God offers

3. here is the amazing quality of God's grace

a. the Scriptures tell us that we are the one's at enmity with God

1) that’s a word that means lost men have an open hostility toward God for no reason

b. but God is the one who offers peace and grace

4. how has God accomplished this work of reconciling us to Himself?

“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace,” (Ephesians 2:14–15, NIV)

5. through his death on the cross, Christ abolished the need for the Jewish ceremonial law and it rituals of animal sacrifice

a. at the foot of the cross you will discover that the ground is level

b. by that I mean that, through Christ, all men can approach God equally

6. the Scriptures teach us that God is no respecter of persons

a. since all men are equally lost all men must approach God by the same access ... Jesus!

b. Jesus said it this way: " ... I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)

III. YOU WILL STAND BEFORE GOD AND GIVE AN ACCOUNT

“Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” (Hebrews 4:13, NIV)

1. for those who do not know Christ as Savior and Lord it will be a fearsome thing to fall into the hands of the Living God

2. for those who do know Christ, our God will not allow death to have the final say in our lives

a. sickness, aging and death are concerns that are common to all of us

1) we each have to personally confront these enemies

b. our fears are natural and to face them down is not the norm for most people, but for the believer facing down our fears is the way to abundant life

c. no matter how marred our bodies and minds may become, there is hope

ILLUS. Four-hundred years ago, the city of Florence, Italy was the world’s center of art. Outside the city’s cathedral lay a great block of the finest marble. The block was 17 feet high and had been quarried at great expense for use in a large statue. But it had laid in front of the cathedral for years merely collecting dust. During shipping a great gouge had been made in the middle of the column. The original sculptor thought he could make something of it anyway, but in his attempt he only proceeded to worsen the damage. He finally gave up in frustration.

A generation of artists was to come and go, each visiting the magnificent block in the work yard and suggesting possible designs that would overcome the terrible flaw and still use the entire length of the expensive column. Even the great Leonardo de Vinci contemplated what could be done with it. In the end, even da Vinci could not come up with a design. Besides, he scornfully told the Florence city fathers, “Sculpting marble was work for common laborers, not for real artists.”

Those words stung a young 25-year-old onlooker who just happened to be a sculptor. His name was Michelangelo. For years he had contemplated what could be done with the great stone block that was so seriously flawed. He lobbied the Florence city fathers for months in order to persuade them that his design would take advantage of the flaw and give the city a statue to be proud of. After granting him the commission, it took Michelangelo another three years to release from the stone the beautiful figure that he imagined inside of it. That statue is now one of the greatest treasures of the world. It is the statue of king David as a young shepherd boy.

3. like the original marble column, God’s vision of man; his design for mankind, was perfect and glorious

a. sin took a gouge out of that design, to the point that men seem almost irreparable, and irredeemable

b. but it was not in God’s nature to allow the flaw to permanently mare us

c. He sent His Son into the world to experience suffering and death from the inside

4. God—in the person of the Son—discovered first-hand, the pangs of hunger, the joy of friendship, the love of family, the sleepless nights, the frustrations of life, and ultimately the fear of death

a. He conquered life and death, and He paved the way so that death becomes the ultimate triumph for the believer, and eternal life our ultimate hope

b. in Christ, we do not have to fear life or death

“For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the word that was preached to you.” (1 Peter 1:23–25, NIV)

c. we can look it square in the eye and face it down!

Is life truly meaningless? Of course not. The writer of Ecclesiastes concludes his book, not in cynicism but in faith. He writes in Ecclesiastes 12:13 “Now all has been heard; here is the end of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” NIV

If you will do this, then the rest of life will not be meaningless. God offers you a personal relationship with Him through His Son, Jesus Christ. Adoniram Judson, a Baptist missionary of the 18th century wrote: “Death will never take me by surprise. I feel strong in Christ. He has not led me so tenderly thus far to forsake me at the very gate of heaven.”

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