The book of Ecclesiastes is our study today, and this is nearing the end of our survey of the wisdom literature portion of the Old Testament. There's still much Old Testament left to cover, but I did map it out again recently, and we should be on track to finish the New Testament just before Rally Day, provided I don't get sick at all. We should be fine. So that's the aim based on our current combination of books, but Ecclesiastes is the second to last book of the Wisdom literature, and I should have mentioned this before, just a reminder. Next week, we will not be meeting in here. We will be part of the All Adult Sunday School for the Missions Conference. And that's because it's important for you guys to take stock of the missionaries that we support all over the world. And understand that this is more than what happens at this corner in downtown Greenville. This is a worldwide thing. The gospel going forth into all nations. That's also why I ask y'all who are not in the choir to still stay in during the missions moment on Wednesday nights. because they're chances to see what the Lord is doing through the ministry of this church. These are missionaries that we are supporting. And so you see the work that we're sending out there. It's really a blessing. So be there, be ready for that, be plugged in for that. And then the following week, February 5th, I will not be here because there's another church in our presbytery that needs a minister that day. So I'm going to go preach there and administer the Lord's Supper and I'll be back with you guys that evening. So we're taking a little bit of a break after today. But when we get back, we'll do Song of Solomon, which is every youth pastor's dream to teach to teenagers. Next week, so we covered all that. And so let's go ahead and get into Ecclesiastes now. Ecclesiastes is not an edited, spliced together volume like Proverbs we talked about last week or like the Book of Psalms. This is one unified, cohesive whole. It's not done by various authors. It's, despite what modern critical scholars will tell you, the author is Solomon. There's no reason to believe otherwise, no compelling reason anyway. The book does not explicitly use his name, but if you look at, say, chapter one, verse 12, it says, I, speaking in the first person, so the writer of this, I, the preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. Now, we don't have to know a lot about the line of David, But how many sons of David, because he's also identified in chapter one, verse one, as the son of David, king in Jerusalem, how many kings after David reigned over all of Israel in the city of Jerusalem? One. So our pool to select from of potential authors, though his name is not used in the book, is one, and that is Solomon. He's the only one of whom that could be said. The overall thrust of the book might be considered a case study for the two ways to live. I'm actually very glad that Anna selected Psalm 1 because that is the paradigm. There's the way of the one who stands with sinners, who walks with scoffers, who sits in the scorner's chair, and then there's the way of the one that delights in the law of the Lord. Now there's a lot of different nuanced fashions in which those two ways might express each other, but those are the two options. lighten God's word or not. And Ecclesiastes is something of a case study of someone who tried both ways. Look at chapter two and verse 12. Solomon writes, 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. So Solomon says, I gave myself over to consider, there's the way of wisdom, It's the way of following. It's the way of following the Lord, and there's madness, and he has explored these two ways to live. Most likely, this is written towards the end of Solomon's life as an assessment on the choices that he made. Would somebody please read for us 1 Kings 11, verses one to seven. 1 Kings 11, one to seven. And you'll get a flavor for where Solomon kind of went off the rails here and have evidence of him pursuing what he would later regard as madness and folly. Yes, Ms. Babington. Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women. In the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, you shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will trample in your heart after their gods. Solomon clung to these in love. He had seven hundred wives, two princesses, and three hundred concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. 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. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. 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. Then Solomon built a high place with Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and Thimolek, the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. Thank you, Afton. So he followed the religion of his wives in love, it says. It's from his heart. And he built altars to these false gods in Israel. Very wicked. Very abominable thing to do, very faithless. And yet, there is reason to believe that Solomon turned back to the Lord at the end of his life. Are you still in First Kings, by chance? You flip it back already. All right, you are, okay, can you read us chapter 11, verse 43? All right, so when you're reading the books of Kings and Chronicles, If a king is buried in the city of David, that's a good sign. If he's buried anywhere else, it's a bad sign. As a matter of fact, Chronicles, when it covers Solomon's life, actually leaves out the whole apostasy thing. Because again, we discussed when we studied those books, and I can rehash this for somebody else later if you want, it's not denying it happened, it's just the thrust is actually the hope in a coming king. So nonetheless, there's reason to believe that Solomon turned at the end of his life, and the product of that turning is an evaluation of his life, which we have in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Are you all with me? Does that make sense? Okay, so he's evaluating this, and so I think the best way to understand Ecclesiastes is to see Solomon saying, I did everything there is to do in this life following after the ways of the world. I did it all. I was the unrivaled king of one of the most powerful nations in the world, at a time when there was no hostility, no enemies, no wars to fight. I just got to give all of my wealth over to fulfilling my own pleasures. I did it all. And he's gonna tell us what he found. And so we'll look at this book under this outline. The introduction to the book, which is where we'll spend most of our time, chapter one, verses one to 11. That's the introduction. There's the search for meaning under the sun. That's chapter 1, verse 12, through all of chapter 6. Then there's human limits concerning knowledge, chapter 7, verse 1, through chapter 12, verse 7. And then finally there's an evaluation of the whole. There's a conclusion, chapter 12, verse 8, to the end of the book. So there's an introduction, a search for meaning, a lamenting of human limits concerning knowledge, and then finally a conclusion. Chapter 1, beginning in verse 1, 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? And in these three verses, we really get a very clear introduction to the book. First of all, we get the author, is Solomon, clearly delineated there. And secondly, in verse 1, he calls himself the preacher, or you may have a translation that says teacher. Preacher is probably the better way to go here because the word in the Hebrew is the root word for a cold assembly. The way it's structured grammatically, though, is he is the leader of the called assembly, which we would think of as a preacher. Dr. Phillips leads us in the worship service, right? That's the role, that's the idea. So that's why it's translated preacher. It's connected to a leader of a worship assembly. And this tells us at the outset that Solomon is writing these memoirs for our benefit. He's not doing, you know, your diary, I did that. No, this is for you, this is designed for people that worship and follow the Lord. And it's to be instruction for us and our view towards God. Then in verse two, we have the motto of the book, Vanity of Vanities. It's actually, the Hebrew for it, if you wanna see, is right over there, the Hevel House. Actually, I think it's also right over there. That was done when this was built. Vanity of Vanities, that's the word. And it means like a vapor, a fleeting breath. The most common illustration is when you breathe out on a cold winter morning and you see your breath for a second and then it's gone. That's the concept here. And so within the wisdom literature of the ancient Near East, there was a style of writing which was called pessimism literature. Ecclesiastes is pessimism with a difference. For other pessimist writings were bleak, and unrelieving, no note of hope. But in Ecclesiastes, we actually are constantly reminded of the possibility of joy, faith, and assurance of God's goodness. So vanity of vanities is the assessment of life under the sun, that is life apart from God. And verse three of this introduction gives us the main question that Solomon is wrestling with in the book. What is there to be gotten out of life? It says, what does a man gain? What profit is there in life? And specifically, life under the sun. What profit will there be for all my work in this life? And apart from God, apart from considerations of heavenly things, What is there to be gained out of life? And that's the question that Solomon is going to try to answer, and he's actually already given us his thesis. Vanity of vanities. Under the sun, divorced from the knowledge of God, what is there to gain in this life? Nothing. We actually spent a lot of time studying that this past summer, where my whole thesis, where we went through Why should I believe in Christianity by James Anderson was either God created the heavens and the earth or nihilism is true that is meaninglessness is true so let's look at this the search for meaning chapter 1 verse 12 through 6 These chapters, he's gonna bounce back and forth, weighing the options. He says he's giving himself over to wisdom and to folly. And actually, if you have an ESV, the section headings that are put there are a pretty faithful summary of the different views that he expresses. There's the vanity of self-indulgence, living just purely to fulfill sensual pleasures. There's the vanity of living wisely, that is actually the right thing and trying to be a good ethical person, apart from God under the sun, he calls that vanity. There's the vanity of toil and working hard. All of this he assesses as vanity. He's tried it all. Now the thing to note is that all of those things can be good. Pleasure is good. Questions, comments, concerns? Thank you. Pleasure can be good. Working hard can be good. Living wisely can be good, if done with respect to God. It's nice to treat yourself every now and again. It's nice to know the value of good days of hard work. It's obviously good to make wise decisions, but done in and of themselves, they are empty. Let's look at chapter two, verse 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. For apart from him, who can eat or 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 striving after wind. What's he saying? He's saying that those who know God can know something of joy in this life. That's true. But those who don't know God, they may have some sense of fun, some sense of fleeting happiness, but ultimately, what is it Jesus says, he who has not, even what he has, will be given over to the one better than him. That is, God stores up riches for all of his people. We see this even in something like the Exodus, when the Israelites are fleeing Egypt. And what happens? Egypt is plundered. They give over all of their wealth. They give over all of their goods. You see this refrain over and over in the Bible. But finding meaning in this life isn't quite as simple as finding enjoyment with thanks in your heart towards God. That's part of it. We want to do that, but there's no guarantee that a life lived in faithfulness to God according to the precepts of his word will actually result in this. It's not a guarantee. It's generally true. Good thing to pursue, but there's got to be more than the joys of this life, even with thanks in our heart towards God. And he'll expand this idea in the famous poem of chapter three, there is a perfect time for everything, right? There's a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted. And he goes through and through and through in this poem. And then in verse nine, he gets to the end of it and he states the question again, what gain has the worker from his toil? And he rehearses essentially what we found so far in verses 12 to 13. Perceive that there is nothing better than for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live Also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil. This is God's gift to man It's the best he's got to offer is is enjoying things for a while we have them but then look down at verse 16 of chapter 3 Moreover so in addition to that because that's not the whole story I saw under the sun, that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness. So in the place that there's supposed to be justice, there is evil done. And in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. 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. 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. 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 beasts, for all is vanity. And all go to one place. What he's saying is, even those that Live a life of gratitude to God for the things that they have, which again, I want to say every time I say that, that's good. You're still going to die. Just like the animals, there is no escape from that. And after you've done your best for your life's work, you hand that off to somebody else. And who knows whether they will be wise or a fool. You have no control over that. So he's wrestled through the meaning of life and he's got nothing. He's got to try to do good. And he moves on in chapter seven to begin to consider human limits concerning knowledge. And this is actually, I'm just going to, Ecclesiastes shows us that the righteous and most wise in this world often lose and the wicked get ahead. Injustice takes place. Unfairness reigns. There are things in this life that can become so crooked that they cannot be made straight in this life. And he gives the illustration of a scar that remains permanently or a dent in the side of a vehicle. There are some things that can get broken in this life that on this side of heaven cannot be fully fixed. And the Bible is surprisingly, I would argue refreshingly honest about that. So not only is life a breath, but our ability to fix the things that are wrong in this world is limited at best. Our ability to ensure our own success is supremely limited for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is that we have no control over what tomorrow may bring. He's absolutely right about that. And he's perfectly echoing the struggle and the frustration that Solomon is conveying from trying to work through all of these things. And that's basically summed up in Ecclesiastes 11 and verse 8, where Solomon writes, so if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all, but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. Where is wisdom and meaning in life under the sun? Kevin B. Young Put it this way, he said, if we try to find meaning under the sun, apart from God, vanity is the right assessment. We must be aware of trying to make sense of life apart from God. Because apart from God, apart from a purpose guiding your life, you are left without purpose other than to pursue your own pleasures that you can't even bring to pass and that is irrespective of other people. is Solomon's frustration, and a truth that a lot of you probably already know well, and others of you will know as you grow older. There are things that happen in this world, and they're not an anomaly, that will never make sense. That will not make sense to us fully. And that's just the way it is. Has anyone here ever heard of pointillism? It's a type of art. I'm going to put you on the spot if you're okay with that. Lauren, can you tell us what that is? Um, so, I don't know a ton about it. Okay. But I know, like, basically Crytosm is like, it's a meticulous, like, detailed form of art where you use dots to create a bigger picture. And they're so, like, small that when you piece them all together it doesn't really look like they're So you get back far to see the whole thing right, but it's a series of dots of color that are arranged to make a picture And the idea the reason I bring that up here is In life under the Sun you're not able to back up far enough to see the big picture you see one dot at a time and Maybe you'll be able to make a handful of connections, but you'll never get the full picture But that doesn't make it pointless. There are at least three comforts to take from this. One is that in life under the sun, you know that there is a painter, as it were. You know that there is a design. You know there is a creator who is governing all things. And that, in and of itself, ought to be a source of great comfort. Because without that, it is pointless. But there's more. The older you get, And the more you experience, again sticking with this dot metaphor, the more dots you will see. And you'll start to understand some portions of it, the more you know, the more you experience. But the best resource to make sense of things in this life, acknowledging that you'll never get it fully, is to know the artist himself. And to see how he works in the past, and where he's likely going. And what is the will of God for your life? 1 Thessalonians 4.3. This is the will of God. Your sanctification. 2 Corinthians 3.18. For we are all being transformed from one degree of glory to the next, more and more into the image of His beloved Son. And if you take that component out of the picture, if you remove God and the eternal perspective from your consideration, you're left with a series of random, meaningless events that don't cohere. And that's what Solomon calls vanity. So, what's his final assessment? His final assessment and the conclusion of the book. What's the big question? Does anybody remember? What's the big question of the book? Yeah, James? Yeah. What's the profit under the sun? What do I stand to get? Now my old pastor, from my previous church used to say, and this is a good bit of wisdom, the wrong question leads to the wrong answer. The wrong question leads to the wrong answer. So the question is, what do I get out of it? What is my gain? What is my profit in this life under the sun? The right question is not what do I stand to benefit, what do I stand to gain, but rather what is my duty in this life. Solomon concludes the book this way. The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings they are given by one shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these, of making many books there is no end, and much study is a wariness of the flesh. The end of the matter, all has been heard. What is it? Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. You see, the answer, or the question, rather, is not What is to my advantage here? The question is, how can I best glorify God in any given circumstance? That's shorter catechism one. What is the cheap end of man? Glorify God and enjoy him forever. In other words, believe God's promises, do your best in whatever your given situation is, and then trust the Lord with the result. Because the judge of all the earth will surely do what is right. Where life is no longer, because he will usher in, and that's what Solomon points to at the end of the book. The new heavens and the new earth. He will usher in, after the day of judgment, the eternal reality where life is no longer vain and fleeting, but eternal. Paul, I'll leave it, I'll end on Paul in Romans 8.18. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." In other words, the perspective that we need to take is not that the sufferings of this present time aren't real. They are. We need to remember that they are nothing compared to the life to come and that we can still honor and glorify God even in them. Amen. Let's pray. God in heaven, we give thanks to you for the book of Ecclesiastes. Thank you, Lord, that it tells us the truth about life in a fallen world, and it points us to, at the end of the matter, know that you are there, that you afford joy to your people, that you afford peace and happiness and rest, and, Lord, that we are able to serve you, whatever the circumstance may be, and that if you are our heart's chief desire, you will satisfy the desires of all of our hearts. I pray that you'd make that so for each and every one of us, even now. In Christ's name, amen.