How to Evaluate Life

Introduction: This is one of the most somber books in the Scripture, chronicling Solomon’s intellectual, and emotional search, where he discovers there is nothing to the human experience, outside of a relationship with God. In this portion of the text, he shares how people should evaluate life. 

A. The Writer:  Probably Solomon, though he did not sign the writing, there is sufficient information to prove him as the penman.  

B. The Writing: 1) Proverbs - Foolishness 2) Ecclesiastes - Frailty  3) Songs of Solomon - Feelings 

Have a Clear Perspective of Life

Perspectives from the Past (1:1) - “1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem.”

Psalm 40:9 - “9 I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest.” 

Jonah 3:2 (HCSB) - “2 "Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach the message that I tell you."

Perspectives from the Process of Life (1:2-3) - “2 "Absolute futility," says the Teacher. "Absolute futility. Everything is futile." 3 What does a man gain for all his efforts he labors at under the sun?”

Psalm 39:5 (NLT) - “5 You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath. 6 We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing. We heap up wealth, not knowing who will spend it.” 

Psalm 62:9 (HCSB) - “9 Men are only a vapor; exalted men, an illusion. On a balance scale, they go up; together they [weigh] less than a vapor.” 

Proverbs 23:4-5 (HCSB) - “4 Don't wear yourself out to get rich; stop giving your attention to it. 5 As soon as your eyes fly to it, it disappears, for it makes wings for itself and flies like an eagle to the sky.”

Matthew 16:26 - “26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? orwhat shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” 

Understand the Process of Life 

Process of Created Nature (1:4-7) - “4 A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.

5 The sun rises and the sun sets; panting, [it returns] to its place where it rises. 6 Gusting to the south, turning to the north, turning, turning, goes the wind, and the wind returns in its cycles. 7 All the streams flow to the sea, yet the sea is never full. The streams are flowing to the place, and they flow there again.

Psalm 89:47-48 - “47 Remember how short my life is, how empty and futile this human existence! 48 No one can live forever; all will die. No one can escape the power of the grave. Interlude” 

Psalm 90:9-10 (NIV) - “9 All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan. 10 Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

Psalm 119:90-91 (NLT) - “90 Your faithfulness extends to every generation, as enduring as the earth you created. 91 Your regulations remain true to this day, for everything serves your plans.

Process of Human Nature (1:8) - “8 All things are wearisome; man is unable to speak. The eye is not satisfied by seeing or the ear filled with hearing.”

Illustration: The Rolling Stones (1965) released one of their most popular songs, “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.” 

Matthew 11:28 (HCSB) - “28 "Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

Proverbs 27:20 (NLT) - “Just as Death and Destruction are never satisfied, so human desire is never satisfied.”

Regard the Permanence of Life

Permanence Can Be Seen In The Cycles of Life (1:9-10) - “9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Can one say about anything, "Look, this is new"? It has already existed in the ages before us.”

Luke 17:26-29 (NLT) - “26 “When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day. 27 In those days, the people enjoyed banquets and parties and weddings right up to the time Noah entered his boat and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 “And the world will be as it was in the days of Lot. People went about their daily business—eating and drinking, buying and selling, farming and building— 29 until the morning Lot left Sodom. Then fire and burning sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.”

Predictability Can Be Seen in the Human Existence (1:11) - “11 There is no memory of those who came before; and of those who will come after there will also be no memory among those who follow [them].”

Illustration - Time Person of the Year

Owen Young: Young chaired a committee that authored 1929's Young Plan, a program for settlement of German reparations after World War I.

Pierre Laval: Laval was first elected Prime Minister of France in 1931. Laval was popular in the American press at the time for opposing the Hoover Moratorium, a temporary freeze on World War I debt payments that was disliked in both France and the US.

Hugh S. Johnson: In 1933 Johnson was appointed director of the National Recovery Administration. US President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave him the task of bringing industry, labor and government together to create codes of "fair practices" and set prices.

Harlow Curtice: Curtice was President of General Motors (GM) from 1953 to 1958. In 1955, GM sold five million vehicles and became the first corporation to earn US$1 billion in a single year.

Andrew Grove: In 1997, Grove was Chairman and CEO of Intel, recognized as a pioneer in the semiconductor industry.