LIFE WITHOUT GOD
Notes
Transcript
The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.
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.
All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.
All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
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.
Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us.
There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.
Life in Itself is Empty
Life in Itself is Empty
The book of Ecclesiastes is a book of theistic philosophy. The book of Ecclesiastes begins were human philosophy ends; “vanity of vanities all is vanity.”
Certain phrases and words in the book of Ecclesiastes are key to understanding its meaning. “Under the Sun” is a phrase that is used often in chapters one and two and it means; “to live life without reference to God.” “Vanity” is another word that is used often in chapters one and two and it means; “pointless, futile, or meaningless.”
In Hebrew, a word is used twice to make it a superlative. For example, the “holy of holies” means the most holy place. So when Solomon uses the phrase “vanity of vanities,” he means that life is the ultimate vanity.
When Solomon uses the word “vanity” he doesn’t mean that life is ultimately meaningless. Nor is he is saying that life is chaotic or disordered. What Solomon means by vanity is echoed in other Scriptures. As James says,
yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
God tells Adam in
Genesis 3:19
By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Job says in
Job 1:21
And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Materially speaking, life is short and then you die. You will lose everything you own to the next generation. Your children will rent out your house, purge your possessions, and spend your inheritance. Ultimately, you will be a distant memory at a Thanksgiving meal.
When you die, there will be a funeral. You may have 25 or 2,000 people attend. But you know what they’ll do after the funeral. They eat potato salad and have a great time together. Then they will hurry back to work because somebody was covering for them while they took the morning off. That night they’ll go home to their families, watch a sitcom rerun, and forget all about our memorial by morning. In the end, you will lose everything. All is vanity. Vanities of vanities-that’s life. It goes quickly, you die, and pretty soon nobody knows who you were. Be encouraged! Sometimes facing reality is difficult and even discouraging but that’s one great thing about the Book of Ecclesiastes-Solomon tells it like it really is.
The writer of Ecclesiastes identifies himself in verse one as the “Preacher”. He describes life in 1:1 through 1:11 as a machine that grinds you up and spits you out. This despair leads him on a journey down three paths in search of meaning, understanding, and purpose for life.
Solomon’s Journey for Purpose
Solomon’s Journey for Purpose
I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.
And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.
I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.
What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.
I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.”
And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.
For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.
His journey begins in 1:12. We will label this first path the path of intellectualism. He believes in his heart that by acquiring great sums of wisdom he will be able to make sense out the machinery of life. We discover the end of this first path in
And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.
For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.
The wisdom spoke of here by Solomon is not the wisdom of God and His word; it is wisdom derived from exploring human knowledge such as; philosophy, religion, psychology, sociology, history, logic, and rhetoric. What he discovers is that all an educated man can do is die and educated failure.
All the learning in the world won’t help you change the human heart.
All the learning in the world won’t help you change the human heart.
In the movie Mosquito Coast, Harrison Ford plays an atheist who flees America to set up a perfect community in a remote jungle. Early in the movie, he meets a missionary (portrayed in the worst light possible) bound for the same area.
When he arrives, the atheist sees immediate success in establishing a thriving village. But by the end of the movie, the atheist totally destroys his village because he finds out that even though he can help people scientifically, he cannot deal with their sinful hearts. And he also finds that he can’t deal with his own sin.
Meanwhile the unflatteringly portrayed missionary has a loyal, loving following of people at the end of the movie. The people are joyful, hopeful, changed, and peaceful –a fact that irritates the atheist. He finally gets so enraged that he destroys everything around him and himself.
Mosquito Coast is a movie that puts flesh to Ecclesiastes 1. The atheist increased in wisdom more than all people around him. He was brilliant. He could change everything about society except the heart of sinners, so he ended up destroying himself. You’re never going to ultimately change man through human wisdom. Meaning for life must come from something outside of us.
Solomon says it is a grievous and vain life that we, “the sons of men,” have been given. The term “sons of men” literally means the “sons of Adam” –men who have been cursed and are fallen. It is tough to be born a fallen human. Adam had no philosophic problems in the garden. He walked with God in the cool of the day. He was in touch with infinite reality; he had absolute answer for creation, for the dignity of man, and for the distinctiveness of his wife. He understood himself in relation to the animals and to the cosmos. He knew why he was here. He knew where he was going. He knew what he was to do, but he sinned.
When Adam sinned, the lights went out. His awareness of his place and purpose vanished. His eyes darkened, and his offspring have continued in that state. His children cannot look up and know what is up above the sun. We are just down here in this machine, trying to find some scrap of meaning.
This world is fundamentally flawed and you can’t fix it. There must be something outside the system that can give purpose to life; “what is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted.”
I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity.
I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?”
I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life.
Solomon continues his journey for meaning in by pursing hedonism; that is to say pleasure. Solomon’s life statement would be; “If it feels go do it.” Solomon’s conclusion is found in 2:1; “vanity.”
No matter how much fun you have you have to wake up to the real world. Pleasure will make you mad or crazy because you have to deny the reality that life is filled with pain. A life of pleasure doesn’t leave room for getting fired from a job, seeing a loved one waste away with cancer, or having a child die in a car accident. The only way to live for pleasure is to deny the reality of people hurting all around you with no ultimate meaning and purpose in life.
I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself.
I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees.
I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees.
I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem.
I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man.
So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me.
And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.
Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
Solomon’s third and final journey leads him down the path of materialism. He chronicles this journey 2:4 through 2:11. Solomon’s conclusion in
Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
Precepts from the path
Precepts from the path
So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done.
Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness.
The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them.
Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity.
For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool!
So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.
In 2:12 through 2:17 Solomon gives summary to all that he has experienced. Solomon says that he has tried it all and anything else someone does will only be a repetition of what has already been done.
I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me,
and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.
So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun,
because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil.
Solomon goes on to say that in 2:18 through 2:21 that he hated everything he built and accumulated because he knew that he couldn’t take it with him.
Note his progression: He hates his labor, and then he completely despairs. Solomon is depressed. This is the inevitable ending of life without God. Solomon is humanity in a microcosm.
A life built on self, heads toward depression and despair. Solomon sees that all his labor will be left behind. Someone will take your beautiful house buy it paint it orange and rent it to college students. Your favorite pair of shoes that you paid too much for will end up at the Salvation Army. The land you worked so hard to acquire will become a rock quarry or maybe the new county land fill.
Solomon further despairs in 2:22 and 2:23.
What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun?
For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.
He says that while you are alive and enjoying the things you accumulate, they are still a pain. The more things you have, the more things you have to take care of. Solomon says that as hard as you work during the day, at night you will lie there and worry. You aren’t going to lie down to sleep and think, Happy am I. Behold my car. Behold my house. Behold my trophy wife. Instead, you twist and flop in the stress and trouble that come with your accumulated glories. When we come to the end of 2:23 Solomon wants us to be depressed. He is building tension and anticipation. He wants you on the edge of your seat awaiting the answer.
Purpose from the path
Purpose from the path
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,
for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?
For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.
So it is in verses 24-25 that he gives us the answer. No one can enjoy life in proper perspective “apart from him.” Proper perspective is that everything is “from the hand of God”. God graciously gives all things for his people to enjoy. However, things will not have purpose without an understanding that; “this is from the hand of God and apart from him who can eat or have enjoyment.”Solomon concludes that life without God is vanity.
I know what you are thinking. Life for Solomon is going to be easier now because he has discovered that life without God is meaningless; not so fast my friend. Solomon’s revelation and understanding only reveals to him a new set of issues, namely, how does one live in a world that is understood to be controlled by a Sovereign God but in reality appears to be controlled by evil. This becomes Solomon’s focus remaining focus in chapters 3 through 12. Solomon moves us from living life without God to living life with a Sovereign God