So, all right. Let's pray as we get started tonight. Father in heaven, Lord, thank you for gathering us together tonight, and thank you for this time. Lord, we ask that this would be holy time. In other words, set aside for you, that our minds and our hearts would be cleared of the things that would cause us to worry, as Lily, I mean, and not Lily, Oh, joy, and Tina said. And just that worry just doesn't add any value. And so we want to just, right now, as a group, set aside our cares, set aside our concerns, and say, Lord, you take them tonight. And we want to open ourselves up to whatever you want to speak to us. And so we ask, Lord, that you would speak to our hearts. And so please direct us. Please guide this. This is your word. And we're looking to you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So it's been an interesting and enjoyable winter to actually look at you guys as an age group. And so we're not allowed beverages in the sanctuary. OK, all right. Thank you. OK. All right. OK. Close call. That would have been at the airport, where it's like, sorry, sir, you can't take that past this point. You can dump it out here or either drink it now. So complete waste of time. OK. So this. This last winter, I just was thinking about you guys as an age group. I don't know if you realize it, but you actually are a new age group on the whole spectrum. Not a generation thing. It's not the Gen X, Gen Z, millennial, that kind of talk. It's not that. It's like you are in a particular stage of life that has now actually come to definition. So it's called emerging adulthood. It's a thing. And so there are several factors that have actually led to a postponing of adulthood. So by adulthood, typically in the past, what would it be to be an adult? What would that be? Well, it would be things like, I'm done with my education. I'm working full time. I'm married. Maybe even have kids. I guess I'm an adult now. And actually, having a child is the fast track Whether you want to be or not, whether you're ready or not, you're going to have to do some adult things now because a child has come. I mean, that is one of the ways that kind of like don't pass go. You just get immediately pushed into it, whether you're prepared or not. But for a lot in your age group, though, there have been significant changes that have delayed arriving at the point that Jeffrey Arnett, who I read his book on this, he's like the leading scholar on this, It would be things like financial independence, making your own decisions, and accepting responsibility for your own life. So to get to that point where it's like, I'm not blame shifting anymore, I'm not living off of so-and-so anymore, and nobody's telling me what to do. I am deciding for my life for myself. I guess I'm an adult now. Okay, like that. There are several things that have pushed that later and later in life. And so one of them is the fact that we have become a knowledge-based society. And so more and more people are needing college to actually, you know, have a decent job. It's been that way in the past. It's become even more that way now. And so as a result, college has become kind of the new high school. It's like, now they go to college. And it pushes it out even further before I actually have to start accepting responsibilities and making my own decisions. And so it gets pushed further. One of the indications of that, by the way, is when I was at Hillsdale College, I would listen to some sophomore or some talk about us kids. And I thought, you know, back in the 60s, a professor might get punched if they called a college student a kid. It's like, we are not kids. We're old enough to go fight in Vietnam, and we should have the vote. They changed it, lowered it to 18 in 1971. We're not kids. We're adults. But that's changed, changed the mindset. So that's one of the big ones that led to it. It's like it's now, it used to be you'd have an eighth grade education. You'd go out and work. And only certain people that were going into professions would do high school. My grandpa was that way. You know, eighth grade education. He's working the farm, you know, 15 years old, 16 years old. You follow? It's like he's, what is he doing? He's kind of being a man. He's running the place and different things. So it's kind of pushed it farther, but the one that is actually the most significant is the detachment of sexual experience from marriage. The fact that our culture accepts having sex and intimacy and physical intimacy without being married to the extent that people in their lower 20s cohabitate and aren't necessarily even thinking about marrying this person. It has postponed the accepting of responsibility, the accepting of settling down into this is my love for life, this is my job, my work for a lifetime, just settling in. And now I'm settled. I guess I'm an adult now. That has created this big space that now they're calling emerging adulthood. It is not adolescence. Adolescence is that wonderful age where your body is an adult, but your mind is a child. So it's that very awkward, weird stage of your body got ahead of your mind and development. And so that's an awkward stage that's often in early high school and different things. High school is kind of like this rite of passage. You get to be an adult, and 18, and vote, and things like that. But then now it's become this new stage. And so I'm fascinated by it, and this past winter. The Lord granted me opportunity to give four messages on like this time period, like this was on my heart. What would this age group need? Now some of you maybe aren't in that age group, you know, but I'd say most of you are in that age group. Various places. Those of you who are married have kind of stepped maybe beyond, you know, because now you're taking responsibilities there, but many of you are going to find yourself there. And so, Here's what it's characterized by. Identity exploration. Who am I? Trying to figure out who I am. What am I supposed to do with my life? Who am I? That's a big question. And how many go to college and piddle around and just spin their wheels, try this major, try this major, then go over here, stop this, not knowing what exactly I'm supposed to do. I don't have direction. I don't really know who I am. That's a big one of this time period. Another one is a feeling in between. This is characterized by, I feel in between. I'm not an adult fully yet, where I can say I'm answering to nobody, and I'm totally taking care of myself, and I'm owning my life, as it were. But I'm not still an adolescent anymore, and I'm not back at home anymore. So that one, that's out. So a feeling in between. Instability. I could go anywhere. I could live anywhere. I don't have any obligations. This is actually, this is the time period of your life where you actually have the least, you answer to the least amount of people in your life. Because you've left your family that you grew up in. And unless you're married, and then children come along, like a little Malachi, come along, you're not answerable to anybody else. It's like, if I want to stay up all night on Friday night, and I want to go somewhere, or I want to hop on a plane and do this, or I want to plane maybe out of your budget range. But you know what I'm saying. If I just want to drive to the next town or something, I can do it. I don't have to ask anybody. I don't have to seek permission. I can just go. And so self-focus. dominates this time period of life, because there's nothing really I'm sharing space with that obliges me. You can do it voluntarily, but I'm required to. So that's another one that's there. And optimism. I could be anything. I could go anywhere. Nothing's set. I haven't chosen who I'm going to marry. I haven't chosen what I'm going to do for a career. You know, it's like, oh, I wonder if it could be this person. I could do this. I could try this out. You know, because there's like all these possibilities. But then flip side of it, and this is the one that probably disturbs me the most, is it leads to a ton of anxiety. Because can you imagine what it was like back in, let's say, 1915 when you went to your local grocer and you wanted to have breakfast cereal? And you had Quaker oats, cream of wheat, maybe post cornflakes. And it's like, OK, three choices. Now when you go down to Meijer or Walmart and there's an aisle that's longer than this aisle of just straight cereals on both sides, it's like, OK. I remember we went on a date once, and my wife, it was in Minneapolis, and she was, we were about 20 years old, about that time period, and she stood in front of like, it was a restaurant, and it had about 30 different pies to choose. We must have stood there a half hour. Right? She could not, because it has to be the right one. I only get one choice. And what if I don't like it? Right? But I'm here. Oh, there's so many to choose from. Should I be conservative when I know? Should I try something new? But if I don't like it, then I blew my choice. Can you relate? There's an anxiety that comes with freedom to choose. I get to choose. Now, what if it's not breakfast cereal or choosing a dessert? It's like, we get this ideal of soulmate. You know, like there's some soulmate out there. Oh, just that, that, that person that we just gel. We can talk about anything. You know, we just, we're, we match, right? That soulmate out there. You know, and so then, People, this is an idealized version of marriage that is actually jeopardizing marriage after marriage after marriage, because every marriage does what we said in the fall, like Song of Solomon. It eventually tanks at one point. It gets rough patches, and you have to work through it. But then what if the rough patches come and say, well, I must not have chosen the right one. Maybe I missed it. So then divorce. And then look for the next one, right? Oh, now I've found my soulmate. Here, you know. It's a phrase. The other phrase is dream job. Like, there's some job out there that just is me. It's just me. It expresses me. It allows me to just, you know, to just, that's just me. OK, you following? So like, can I have this dream job? Can I have this soulmate? And then it's like, but I need to find that. So what if I don't? What if I don't understand myself? And if I lack a self-understanding, then how can I know what my soulmate will be? How can I know what my dream job is going to be? So who am I? And it kind of plays on each other, but the possibilities are limitless. And I haven't locked into anything yet. So it still feels relatively safe, because I've made that commitment. Okay, can you kind of relate to this time period of life where there's these kind of feels? And so, I'm gonna use, basically, I'm gonna use three different books of the Bible to get at this. And one tonight, Lord willing, another one next week, another one after that. Short books, so breathe easy. Short books of the Bible. And then the last night, a message from Jesus. to extrapolate out at the end of the month a message from Jesus to kind of like, you know, call us forth to say, how should a Christian think about this? Especially in light of the cross and the resurrection. We just celebrated that Easter. Especially in light of the cross and the resurrection. How does this apply to me in light of this is my hope. I have placed my trust in Jesus, who died for my sins, who rose again on my behalf and behalf of the church to save us from this present evil age. That's my hope for forgiveness, my hope for eternal life. That same hope, as we saw in James, is then what defines how I live. So how do I express that hope in my choices of a spouse, of a job? How do I express that hope? as I look at what I should be focusing on. So that's the aim of this month. And if you were at Bearcow, you will recognize this is what I preached up there when I was horribly sick and didn't talk like myself. And they didn't record a thing at that point, just because it wasn't God's will. All the things were in place. Everybody did their job, but it just didn't happen. And so that wasn't. So I think Philippians 3 is appropriate. If you were at Barachel, and some of you I know were, then Philippians 3 is like, to repeat the same thing is no trouble for me, and it's a safeguard for you. And so, you know, so enjoy the second go-around, and may the Lord give you even more things than you got the first time around. And those of you, if this is the first time, then praise be to God, I'm glad, because it fits your age group. I thought about it. I was like, as the spring went on, I was like, I need to do another series. And I was like, wow, what age group am I talking to? It's like emerging adults. And I have material for emerging adults. So why shouldn't I give it? So I'm giving it. So I prayed about it, and the Lord didn't say no. So it's like, OK, Lord, here we go. So with that, Ecclesiastes. Chapter 1. It starts with a poem, and the book ends with a poem. So I'd like to just focus on the poems at first. All right? So here's your first poem. The theme verse is found in verse 2. After the intro, the words of the preacher, Koheleth, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. I'm assuming it's Solomon, the son of David, who's wise enough to write a book like this. And he says in chapter 2, nobody's like him who's been in Jerusalem, who can be like the king, and who could top the king. He kind of has a dare. And if you know Solomon, he basically made silver was so common in his days, it was like gravel. So opulence everywhere. Endless money, it seemed like. And so I think it's Solomon. Now, it may be, though, some other prophet added the ends of the book and bookended it. that Solomon wrote a very pessimistic book, and then it was framed by a prophet with a bigger vision. That's a theory. It's possible because it's third person in verse one, and it ends in third person after chapter, I believe, 12, verse eight, where it repeats the theme, vanity of vanities. So, vanity of vanities, says the preacher. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Vanity of vanities is a phrase like holy of holies or song of songs. It is the songiest song, it is the holiest holies, it is the vanitiest vanities. Okay, the most vanity you could ever have is everything. Well, this ought to be a cheerful book. Verse three, what advantage does man have in all his work? which he does under the sun. A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. Also, the sun rises and the sun sets, and hastens to its place it rises there again. Blowing towards the south, then turning toward the north, the wind continues swirling along, and on its circular courses the wind returns. All the water flow into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, there they flow again. What are some of the things being described here? We have names for these things. An aquifer, water flowing, literally carrying water. Does it always go down? Somehow the water ends up back where it started again. Rob? What cycle? Give me a cycle. Okay, cycle of life, generation comes, generation goes, right? The cycle of the day, sunrise, sunset, you know, the cycle of the weather, all of a sudden it's like a day like today, it's sunny out, and then now it's like snowing on me, giant flakes, and then, you know, it's back to sunny again, and, you know, and like the wind blows out of the south, and the wind blows out of the north, and the wind blows out of the south. All of life, as you look at nature, seems to have a cyclic pattern. It's like a pendulum. More than, say, a circle, it's cyclic in that it goes back and forth with a certain periodicity, you know, so it's like the water's down, then it goes up, the sun comes down, then it comes up, the wind's from the south, then it's from the north, and there's a, you know, it's like that as I look at nature, okay? Now, this is the premise of the book. I looked at all things under the sun. He says many times in this book. If you just say, I'm not going to listen to Moses, I'm not going to listen to the prophets, I'm just going to look at the world and what do I see? I see cycles. I see repetitions. You follow me? That's what I see. That's what the Greeks saw. They saw all of history as cyclical. It wasn't a story. It wasn't like linear. It wasn't driving from a beginning to an end. It was cyclical. Whether it's Herodotus, it's the East in power, then it's the West in power, and then the East in power, and then the West in power. You might say, like, American politics, you have a Democrat in office, then you have a Republican in office, then you have a Democrat in office, a Republican in office. You know, and it's just cyclic, cyclic, cyclic. And of course, the East, with reincarnation and views of the world that way, it's very much like what comes around, goes around. This is a very, if you don't have God speaking to you, you don't have a revelation from above, and you just look at the world, how does it look to you? You get it? That's what this poem's about. Let's keep reading. Verse eight, all things are wearisome. Man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear filled with hearing. Isn't that an interesting thing about movies? Why don't we just have one movie? We could watch it again. I mean, right? We could watch it every weekend. Just that one movie. Why don't we just have one movie? Why do I go to people's houses, and I see like, back in the day, you'd see like all these DVDs around, like lined up on some shelf. Of course now, it's like online, and you got Netflix, and you got different things you download, and different things, you know, all this stuff. How about playlists? Why can't you just have one song? Just, that's your song, your signature song, for a lifetime. It's kind of like chewing gum. That's what pop songs are like to me. It's like, at first, it's like, oh, this tastes great. Love to chew this song. And then after a while, it loses its flavor, and you're like, Yuck. I want another stick. You know what I mean? It's like bubble gum songs. It doesn't last. So movies come and movies go. Songs come and songs go. And so it's like this is topping the charts now, and now it's gone, and then later it's replaced by another. You get the idea, right? All things are wearisome. The eye is not satisfied with seeing The ear is not filled with hearing. That which has been is that which will be. This is wonderful poetry. That which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one might say, hey, See this, it's new. Already it has existed for ages which were before us. There is no remembrance of earlier things. And also of the later things which will occur, there will be for them no remembrance among those who will come still later. We'll come back to this part, because that's a challenging phrase, nothing new under the sun. We'll come back to that one. So everybody got the idea so far? Let's go to the last chapter, the last poem. This actually follows some interesting counsel. Chapter 11, verse 9 says, rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. Don't take that out of context. OK? And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes, okay? I mean, I could just say, the Bible says, and they quote this, like it says, I should follow the impulses of my heart and the desires of my eyes. Right there, it says it, right there. And I'm a young person, so it's speaking to me. Because it says after that, yet no God will bring you to judgment for all these things. And so just be aware when you follow the impulses of your heart, the desires of your eyes, there's accountability for these things. But it's interesting, remove grief and anger from your heart and put away pain from your body because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting. There is a side of me as an older man, now a grandpa, that when I see you guys as age group and I hear about an opportunity you have to go live in another town, do something over the summer, intern here, it's like, go for it. Just do it. You're not going to get that opportunity when you have a family and you're locked into various responsibilities. Right now, you're free. And this seems to say that, you know, you can do it now. You can't do that necessarily later. So if the opportunity arises and you're not breaking obligations or love, you know, commitments and things like that, that you know your family needs you or something, but why not? And so this is part of being young. You're only young once. And so you're only in good health and good body and good mind. And so you can go out and you can do things like wind sailing and other things that it could be dangerous for somebody of my physique to do. Thank you, Dave, that was good. I used to wrestle, and it's like tempting, you know, to meet somebody who wrestles. Like, you know, I would just like to like, oh man, it'd be good to get at it again. There's like, no, no, this is, my muscles are way too not stretchy anymore. This is a good way to pull things, you know. So no, we don't want to do that. But when you're young, you know, Do it, you know, go for it. Why not, you know? Okay, you get the idea. Now here comes the sober reminder. Chapter 12, last poem. Remember your creator in the days of your youth. It's part of worshiping God, by the way. You give God your best. That would be like the fat portions of the animal. You give God your best. You give God your first, right? Of the first of your increase, you tithe right off the top, right? Of the first. You let God be first. Think of your entire life. Guys, you have the opportunity to make your life a living sacrifice. You can give God your best. You're in the prime of life. You've got energy. Your mind can absorb and think and learn so much. And you can engage in a variety of things and have that. energy level, right? It's like, wow. And it's first. Instead of like going, I'll get serious about God later in life and put him on the back burner, the back burner. No. It's like, say, God, you are God. You made me by your choice. You didn't have to. The world wouldn't be looking for me like, hey, where's Bob? Wasn't he supposed to be here in 2024? I thought we were supposed to see him. We wouldn't even know about a Bob, right? you know, or a Daniel, or, you know, it's like, right? He wouldn't know about everybody, you know? So it's like, God created me because he wanted to, Revelation 4, 11 says. By his will, they are and were created. He chose to create me. So I'm going to honor him. Here I am, Lord. Send me. What do you want from me, right? And give him my best. Give him my first. Many of you have, by the way. I know your testimony. What an awesome thing. Praise God for that. And some of you still have that opportunity. Maybe some of you are right now considering it. I'm urging it. Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before. The evil days come. That just means bad days. The bad days come. The hurtful days come. And the years draw near when you will say, I have no delight in them. It is to me one of the biggest tragedies of life that somebody spends their entire life trying to make their retirement be a wonderful playland. Their body at that time isn't usually equipped to play. Okay? It's just not fitting often. Okay? And so like to think their entire life planning for that while they're aging and deteriorating. I used to wash windows for six and a half years in Louisville, Kentucky. Many of my customers, right, were elderly people who couldn't wash their windows anymore. And so they'd tell me things, you know, about something like my grandma used to say, the golden years are tarnished. You know, these years aren't so fun. You know, where, like, I go to doctor appointments. That's my social life. You know? Don't you, right? When you talk to your grandparents, isn't that often what it is? Like, went to the doctor yesterday, got to go this Friday, got to see this specialist. The body is breaking down. What a blessing that you guys aren't driving around in an old vehicle. You've got a young body to, like, drive through life right now. Don't wreck it. It's easily wrecked. Don't wreck it. But remember your creator now, before the bad days come, in which you say, I don't delight in these days. Before the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened, and clouds return after the rain. In the day that the watchmen of the house tremble, and mighty men stoop, And the grinding ones stand idle because they're few. And those who look through windows grow dim. What is this talking about? Grinding ones. They grow few. Before you lose your teeth, before you look through windows and cataracts, make everything look dim. My windows could use a good washing right now. I mean, laser surgery does quite amazing things for people when they're 70 years old and they get rid of the cataracts. All of a sudden, it's like the world is brighter. It is brighter. I got floaties all over the place now in my eyes. I was just thinking that the other day. I mean, I can see. It's like a floating cloud. It is over here on the side. I can see it. It's like my vision is clouding. on me." Stoop, right? The mighty men stoop. The watchmen of the house tremble. And the doors on the street are shut as the sound of the grinding mill is low. So this is hearing. And one will arise at the sound of a bird. You don't sleep well. You sleep late. And all the daughters of song will sing softly. I know, men. that they cannot hear a pitch, like a woman's pitch. They've been around machinery, and that one, that note, that pitch level, it just erased from their hearing. Because 40 years of working around a certain machine just kind of erased it. And so the hearing is gone, you need hearing aids in. Furthermore, men are afraid of a high place. Don't go up the ladder. Right? Right? Don't go up on a ladder. Of course, bad things happen when old people fall off ladders. And they're afraid of tears on the road. How many of you have grandparents like, please be safe. Watch out for the deer. Right? You know? I mean, call me when you get there. Let me know you got there safely. Right? They're concerned. Where when you're young, you're like, you just kind of like, hop in the car, drive around, you know? There's such a thing called deer. It's like, you know? I mean, it happens in this area. And all of a sudden, it's like, it just hops up and hits the top of your car. And you're like, you know, I guess I should be looking for those things more often. Furthermore, OK, and the almond tree blossoms. Almond trees were famous for their white blossoms. We have some elderly people in our church that like snow white hair. You know, it's just white. The almond tree blossoms. The grasshopper drags himself along, and the caperberry is ineffective. That is, sexual virility is gone. OK? Those are code words for that in their culture. And so it's like, The desire for intimate relations is just done. It's not happening. For man goes to his eternal home while mourners go about in the street. Remember him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the well is shattered, and the wheel at the cistern is crushed. What is that? Golden Bowl, Crystal Bowl. Let's take the Crystal Bowl. What's that? When I washed windows and I took those storm windows out, one of them was as tall as me. And it did not have a metal frame, and it was special glass. And I tried to get that big thing out, and I twisted it because it wasn't in a metal frame. It's a $100 expense in the late 90s to get that thing replaced. You ever want a do-over in life where it's like, can I do that again, Lord? I want to do that, you know? It's irreparable. When glass breaks, it's irreparable. It is done, shattered, crushed. What is this? Death. This is death. You age. Everything quits working, starts slowing down, the days aren't fun anymore, it's hard, and then you die. When dust, then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, says the preacher, everything's vanity. This is the second time he says vanity of vanities. The first time has the reason that everything is cyclic. In other words, everything repeats in this life. You do a homework assignment one day, you have to have a homework assignment the next day. Anna Grace, you grade homework one day, you gotta grade homework again the next day, right? You know, so it's like one assignment after another assignment, one test, then another test, but, but, but, but, but, Pastor Bob, eventually we graduate. And then you go to a job, and the boss gives you another assignment. And I want you to do this assignment. And then you have to do another assignment. And you get it done. And pretty soon, you're like that lady that I read about in World Magazine who was a lawyer and who spent months on a case. And she finally plopped the big case down on her boss's desk with a feeling of relief. And right after the boss said thank you, he assigned a new case to which she said, I quit. Well, OK, so eventually you quit. Then the last poem says, and you die. That's life. You spend your entire life doing the dishes, night after night after night after night, mowing the yard, week after week after week after week. And if you're in Michigan, interspersed with shovel, you have a snowing shovel. And then eventually, you die. So vanity of vanity, says the preacher. Everything's vanity. That is the conclusion to the story. Records are made to be broken. Blockbuster movies will be followed up by another blockbuster movie. Michael Jordan's will be followed by LeBron James. And then somebody else will come along and take over. And pretty soon, you're forgotten. And all your records and all your accolades, you follow me? This is life. And then the dust returns to dust, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, says the preacher. Yes? So by vanities, do you mean uselessness? Like, what exactly are you referring to? That's a great question. So the word in Hebrew is hevel. Everybody say hevel. Hevel. Say it again. Hevel. Hevel. OK, now put your hand in front of your mouth and say it again. It means breath. Breath of breath. The breathiest breath. That's all that life is. It's just a breath. Think of that metaphor. Everything's a breath. Okay, everybody. You took a breath today, right? All you need is one. Okay, just take your breath and then go about your day. Tomorrow, take another one. That'd be ridiculous, right? We take many breaths all day long. We breathe, and we breathe, and we breathe, and we breathe. So what the word means is temporary. It's all temporary. Sometimes it gets translated meaningless and different things. I don't think that's on the right track. There could be an argument for it. But it literally means breath. And when you look at what he's talking about, everything in life is temporary. Which leads to the next question in chapter one. What advantage does a man have? I have one of these in my pocket, because I don't carry a phone, so I still carry a list. This is my list. It's this elusive dream that someday Every item gets crossed off and I enter into this wonderful just glide of like nothing's on my shoulders. Nobody's expecting anything. Everything's complete. Feel it. And don't you just like, those of you who love lists, don't you just strive for that elusive carrot and it's out in front of you and you keep chasing it? And you're like, cross off, cross off, cross off, cross off, cross off. You never get there. What advantage is there? So you're like, OK, I'm going to be extra efficient with my time. I'm going to manage my time well, chalk a lot of things in there, double up, get things done quickly, so that what? Well, now I guess I can do the next thing on the list. You follow me? For what? So you get to kick back. And then you got that looming sense. It's the weekend loom, that Monday coming. You know, it's like we're all going to start this cycle again. To what advantage was it that I made Friday? Because Monday comes again, right? And then we do another week, and it's Friday, and then it's Monday. But it's Friday, and it's Monday. And everything is wearisome. Nothing's new under the sun. You get the idea? It's like living for the weekend just doesn't satisfy, because Monday comes. Weekends are just a breath. That's life. How depressing. That's what the book is like getting at. Everything's a breath. Even the greatest achievements. The greatest achievements. What do you do the next morning? You know, when you win, like, you know, say you're Michael Jordan back in the 90s and you just won, you know, the NBA championship. Well, I guess you gotta try to win it next year. And then win it again and get a three-peat. And then retire? I guess you gotta do another three-peat. You know, but then eventually you retire and you're like Tom Brady and you can't come back again. You know, because it's like you're just getting old. And then you die. That's Ecclesiastes. It is so realistic. It's like, it is such an airtight argument. It's so pictured by observation. This is what life is about. It's very cyclic. And then you die. And that's the whole book. So what advantage is there? For all the work and all the toil that we do under the sun, how did we get ahead? I got one guy right now at church that he tells me, we don't need another degree in our house. It's like, we already pursued degrees and masters, and we don't need another one. So you get one, I guess I want another one. And another, what do I do now? And so, OK. With that in mind, one of the greatest objections, though, is somebody show me their smartphone. If I got a smartphone, they can show me, raise up. OK. OK. Thank you, Jayden. OK. Solomon didn't have one of them. Right. Right. You know? There wasn't anything like that. You follow me? The challenge is, is there anything of which one might say, see this, it is new. Smartphone. That wasn't back there in ancient days. Right? We usually point to things like technology, medicine, Developments in medicine, like polio vaccine. I just read in World Magazine today. I have it over here, this picture of this man. He is, let's see, where is it? There's a picture of him. Oh, it's too bad I can't pull it up. Maybe it fell out somewhere. Oh, there it is. It did fall out. It's a small picture, but he's upside down. It looks upside down because he's laying in an iron lung. In 1952, at age six, he got polio, and he lived his entire life in an iron lung. One of two people left living in one of these, and he just died at age 78. A doctor taught him how to breathe with throat muscles. So he could actually be out of the iron lung for a little while, and he earned a law degree and practiced law in Dallas, Texas. This is definitely a man that didn't let something stop him. I mean, that's an amazing story. And yet, for all of that, he still died. That's Ecclesiastes. But there's a polio vaccine that comes out in 1950-something, and Jonas Salk, and the polio vaccine, which is a blessing on the world that we don't have that same threat anymore for our children. You follow me? That same threat. So they didn't have a polio vaccine. They didn't have cars. They didn't have smartphones. Turn with me to Chapter 3. There's a poem in the middle of the book. Maybe you guys have heard it. Maybe you recognize Pete Seeger's song, Turn, Turn, Turn. How many of you know that song? It's back in the 60s. The birds sang it. Other people sang it. What's that? Do you have any more words to it? Well, yeah. For every season, turn, turn, turn. It goes like, a time to this, a time to that, a time to, you know, and it goes through this poem. That there is an appointed time for everything. There is a time for every event under heaven, a time to give birth, a time to die. A time to plant, a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill, a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to weep, a time to laugh. A time to mourn, a time to dance. A time to throw stones, a time to gather stones. A time to embrace, a time to shun embracing. A time to search, a time to give up as lost. A time to keep. A time to throw away. A time to tear apart. A time to sew together. A time to be silent. A time to speak. A time to love. A time to hate. A time for war. And a time for peace. There's a time for every event under heaven. And you notice, it's always, it's a pendulum, right? There's a time for one extreme, then the other extreme, then the other extreme, the other extreme. It lists pairs, pairs, pairs, pairs, pairs, pairs, and ends by saying, verse 9, what profit is there to the worker from that in which he toils? In other words, how does he get ahead? Because you do one, then you do the opposite. You do one, you do the opposite. You do one, you do the opposite. Life is full of searching and giving up. Some of them are very mundane, sewing and tearing apart. Some of them are very serious, war and peace, death and birth. You follow? My conclusion is, my conclusion on this like cell phone, you know, jet engines, polio vaccine, is that Solomon's not talking about the product as much as what the product represents. That, in other words, though the items are new, he even says, nobody has been as rich as me in Jerusalem. So he, like, outdid everybody else. So that was new, you might say. But the products, in other words, they're the result of activities. So the activities of curing diseases, the activity of inventing, the activity of war, the activity of birth doesn't stop. Do you follow? We just had two births. I just showed you a death. Countryside Bible Church had two babies born this week. A boy, one little boy, one little girl. Praise the Lord. There's a time to be born and a time to die. And they keep happening. There's a time to invent. Now, can you imagine? Apple just announced they're sending everybody home because they just came out with iInfinity. The phone that will last forever, and they'll never outdo it. They're all done, and they quit, and they're in the Bahamas right now, because they're not going to invent another phone ever again. You follow me? If you cure one disease, what happens? New diseases, or new virility, new kinds of that same strain, and different strain comes up. I wonder if the poem in the middle ends up commenting on the side. that it's not so much look at this thing, like item, but look at this activity. Because the problem is, do you ever get ahead? Do you ever invent something like, we have finally arrived. We're done now. When Pete Seeger wrote that song, Turn, Turn, Turn, he actually changed the final six words of the poem. I swear it's not too late. Meaning, there's a time for peace, and if we would just get serious about peace, it's not too late, and we could end war. And he wrecked the entire poem with that last line. Because the whole poem says you go back and forth at a pendulum and it never stops. You follow? But he said, but if we could just get together, we could stop the pendulum and stop war, which is not true. So we'll still need doctors. We'll still need medicine. We'll still need engineers and inventors. We'll still need all these things because the activities are not going to cease. Does that make sense? OK. Questions at this point? How's your depression level right now? This is a good career booster, a real pep talk. Having worked in industry as an engineer, I worked for a company that made heart catheters for the heart lab. When we did that, I heard in my years of working there, two and a half years of working there, I only heard one time that we ever heard a story about a life being rescued to motivate us to do better work. It was always numbers. We can meet our quota. If we just get serious about it, we can meet it. It was just like every factory. We just got numbers to meet, production numbers, production numbers, production numbers. We could have been making widgets. It didn't matter. We're just making product. You follow me? And as an engineer, my job was what? Save money. And so I started, I quit the job in part because I was being molded into the image of the company. I started looking at everything and started seeing how you could save money if you did it this way or that way. I was starting to become like the company. And so it bothered me. We were saving lives. That's the most common procedure out there, like heart conditions and stents and all that stuff. And yet, only once was that ever used. That's vanity. It's just vanity of vanities. You meet your quota one week, hey, guys, we're back in the shop on Monday again. What can we do this week? So you ready for a great experiment? Let's go to chapter two. This is really interesting. Solomon talks to himself here. I said to myself, remember, he's the king. How many of us go, but, but, but, but, but, but, if I had unlimited time and unlimited resources, oh, what could I do? What could I try then? Well, Solomon had that. Who had better than him? You're the king. He doesn't have to answer to anybody. He does every morning what he wants to do every morning. Nobody tells him otherwise. He's the king. And he's got resources. God made him rich. He's got silver and gold, whatever he wants to do. And so what he says, I said to myself, come now, I will test you with pleasure. Enjoy yourself. Those of you who have been addicted to pleasure, pleasure things, you're going to resonate with this passage. The pursuit of pleasure does not satisfy. It is a chasing after the wind. It is empty. It is a breath. Once you're all done with the party, once you're all done with the pleasure event, once you're all done, What do you do? You do like Proverbs says in the middle of the book about a drunkard. He wakes up in the middle of the morning. He doesn't remember who hit him last night. It didn't hurt me because I don't remember. When will I get a drink? And pretty soon your entire life is in a vicious cycle of just looking for that drink again, looking for that shot again, looking for that activity again that you're addicted to. And your soul has shrunk down to a small little pinpoint where that is all you ever think about and pursue after. And everybody else is being manipulated to try and help you get there. You shorten your conversations so you can get to your pleasure seeking. Come now, I'll test myself with pleasure. God gave him wisdom so he actually can be his own tester and see what he did. So enjoy yourself. He said, behold, it too was futility. What about laughter? What if I pursue laughter, comedy, having a good time? It is madness. Pleasure, what does it accomplish? Verse three, I explored my mind how to stimulate my body with wine. Aldous Huxley had a book called The Doors of Perception. There was a band back in the days called The Doors that was named after that. We're purposely using mind-altering drugs to gain a different consciousness, to find meaning. It's a 1960s kind of experience. I'll test myself. I'll stimulate. I'll stimulate my body with wine. My mind was guiding me wisely. How to take hold of folly until I could see what good there is for the sons of men to do under heaven for the few years of their life. How about projects? My grandpa was a dentist. My dad was a dentist. My grandpa told my dad, because my dad wanted to cut back from five days a week to four days a week, because he found out that the government Basically went up to a new tax bracket and the fifth day a week just ended up going in taxes So why am I working the fifth day a week? I might as well go down to four days a week. My grandpa looked at him and said I Think you need to buy more property Buying more property will give you motivation to go into the office every day and do your dentistry that's what my grandpa did to motivate himself to do dentistry and He had 40-plus different homes they lived in during his life, my grandpa and my grandma. He'd buy a house, fix it up, sell it, buy another one, fix it up, sell it, buy another one. And what's fueling all that is his dentistry back here. So maybe projects is the answer. Maybe I need to live for works, my projects. So he says, I enlarge my works. I built houses for myself. I planted vineyards for myself. I made gardens and parks for myself. and planted them in all kinds of fruit trees. I made ponds of water for myself from which to irrigate a forest of growing trees. How about power? How about having people under you? I bought male and female slaves and had home-born slaves. I possessed flocks and herds larger than all who have preceded me in Jerusalem. How about money? I collected for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. How about sex? How about song? I provided for myself male and female singers and the pleasures of men, many concubines. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines, which concubine, they have no basically legal status as a wife. They're basically a woman you kind of marry in a halfway marriage. They become yours and nobody else's, and they're just for pleasure. 300 of them. If anybody's tried to find satisfying, lasting pleasure in this world, Solomon did. This is the experiment. You follow? Then I became great and increased more than all who preceded me in Jerusalem, and my wisdom stood by me. All that my eyes desired, I did not refuse them." When John D. Rockefeller, who his mom said when John D's plate falls over, it always falls facing up to catch whatever is falling out of the sky. He's one of those guys that just punctilious on tithing, but very pharisaic when it came to how he lived his life and treated employees and treated other businesses and different things, pretty ruthless in some regards. But he got out of it right before the antitrust. He did Standard Oil Company. And he got out of the multi-state business in oil right before the trust busting began. So he walked away with millions of dollars, whatever it was in the day, just filthy rich. He lived to be in his 90s, and he loved golf. There was a smokestack at the end of one of the links that bugged him. So he bought the factory and moved the stack so he could have a nice view on his golf course. At what point is enough money enough money? You know what I'm saying? At what point have I arrived? It's just the way I like it. I didn't withhold, he said, anything I desired, from my heart any pleasure. My heart was pleased because of all my labor, and it was my reward for all my labor. Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done, and the labor which I had exerted, and behold, it was all vanity. All was vanity, and striving after the wind, and there was no profit under the sun. I don't think a person like that ends his days happy. That was really lastingly satisfying. So please, please do not pursue earthly goals with the hope that achieving them is going to give you that lasting sense of profit. Because it, too, is a breath. You achieved it, and now you've got to take another breath. What do you do now? Right? You're Muhammad Ali. You were the greatest boxer of all times. What do you do now when you got Parkinson's? Start a car company. I remember seeing him. Like, he started a car company. But he died with Parkinson's due to the blows to the head and different things, you know? It's like, what do you do when you achieve the greatest? And now you've got to continue to live your life after you've achieved the pinnacle. What do you do? It was a breath. And all you're looking forward to is dying. But maybe I can leave a legacy for the next generation. I'll leave my children off better than myself. And I'll make my imp. I have to die, yes. But I contributed to this world, and I left it a better place. Let's see what he says now in verse 12. So I turn to consider wisdom, madness, and folly. For what will the man do who will come after the king except what has already been done? That's a dare. What are you going to do that's better than what I did? And I saw that wisdom exceeds folly as light exceeds darkness. It is better. It's better to be wise than to be a fool. The wise man's eyes are in his head. The fool walks in darkness. Doesn't know what he's doing. And yet I know that one fate befalls them all. Then I said to myself, as is the fate of the fool, it will also befall me. Why then have I been extremely wise? This is really interesting. Some of you are really into fitness. like you want to eat right, you want to exercise well, you like to think about something like the keto plan, and Eric Berg, you watch his videos on YouTube and everything to make sure you're eating right and all that stuff. And so you just keep this body fit and trim and ready to go. And then Solomon looks down the line and says, and there I am in my casket, nice and fit and trim. Well, over here, this person liked to eat donuts and potato chips. But they're just as dead. But I'm just as dead as they're dead. And they're just as dead as I'm dead. So what purpose was it that I was so wise? I could have had some donuts. You follow? For what purpose is it, Hillsdale College students, that you get straight As? Like, why do you need straight As? Why do you not deny yourself pleasure, sleep, all sorts of, you know, to get straight A's? What's it going to matter? Get to the end of the day, you graduate. Who's going to be asking what you got in college? Nobody in industry cares. And then you get to the end of your days, are you going to put the report card in your casket? You could have actually had some relaxing weekends every once in a while and got Bs. Or like a friend of mine said, Cs get degrees. You know? What purpose was I so extremely wise? Because at the end of the day, dead is still dead. There's not more dead or less dead. It's still dead. And then he goes on to say, he says, so I hated life, for the work which was done under the sun was grievous to me, because everything is futility and striving after the wind. Verse 18, thus I hated all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun. For I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool. Yet he will have control over all the fruit of my labor, for which I have labored by acting wisely under the sun. Can you imagine? You carefully laid out a business plan. You carefully executed it. You carefully vetted all your employees. You carefully watched the market. You built this business from scratch with your own hands. You were like M&S Construction or M&S Manufacturing in Hudson, Michigan, which had 14 different plants scattered between Maranci and Hudson, 14 different buildings for their large manufacturing business. And by the time the grandson got it, based on what I heard and whether it's true or not, they went belly up in the 2008 recession, having overextended their debt load, and the whole thing was 14 empty buildings. All that that grandfather worked for, standing empty. Who knows what'll come after? You could spend your life collecting carefully those salt and pepper shakers, or those little owl ornaments that I see in a local cafe that is carefully displayed. Your tractor collection. little toy tractors, all these metal tractors, probably something in Iowa that shows up from time to time, you know? All these tractor collections. And once you pass away, your children stare and look at that wall of all that collection and go, what do we do with this? Well, I'll take one to remember Grandpa by. I'll take one, too. And it shows up in a garage sale. And then whatever doesn't get sold shows up in the dumpster. your favorite cooed over collection, or whatever it may be, you follow? You might be crafting a nation based on James Madison reading 200 books that Thomas Jefferson sent across the ocean. He collected the wisdom of 200 books about how to craft a Republican government. did what this world had never seen. In one summer, under closed doors, they craft a constitution with checks and balances, separation of powers. And within a generation that lauded them, they're already moving from a republic to a democracy. Within 100 years, they move to an administrative state where experts are not even voted on, but they know better than the people that could be voted on. To then, 250 years later, where they're now becoming vilified as slaveholders and other things. as if they were all about oppression and not about freedom. They weren't perfect men, like you and I aren't perfect, but they weren't trying to create an oppressive state. And so all of a sudden now you're like, what you carefully, carefully crafted to be something that would, you know, be a new order of the ages, a Novus Seclorum something, is now they're toppling over your statues and moving on to something else. And you're not there to say bo peep about it. You can't stop anything. Whole civilizations. We got organizations right now saying, saving Western civilization one student at a time. I dare say that's not going to do the job. I think Western civilization has tanked. and is going out. Civilizations come and go. Civilizations are a breath. A breath. There's only one thing that lasts forever and that's the kingdom of God. Because it's based on something different than this world. Do you follow what I'm saying? A legacy It's in the hands of who knows whom. By the way, having a health directive at the end of your life is only a piece of paper if there's not somebody living there to press it on a doctor. Health decisions in hospitals have long been made by committees. There are only so many dollars to spread around. They will only give, ultimately, so much treatment for people. And ethical decisions have to be made in hospitals. A theologian in Grand Rapids shared with us these things, because he was on one of those ethical committees. You can't do everything to save people's lives and extend their lives. Unless there's somebody there to go, grandpa didn't want this, grandma wouldn't want it this way. It's just a piece of paper. And you're sitting there unconscious, not able to do a thing about it. This book is a signpost in the Bible. If there is no resurrection, the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians, if the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Don't take your life too seriously. Don't get so many goals that you can't enjoy life. Enjoy what's here. It is better, this book says, to find enjoyment in your toil under the sun and to live your days without thinking much about what's coming. That's chapter five. If all that there is is just this, it is actually better to be caught up in a life where you enjoy your work, you enjoy your labor, and you have the fruit of your labor to eat, and you don't think much about, I'm going to die someday. That's a book by Andrew DeBanco that says, basically, it's trying to keep the melancholy away. by chasing after something that lifts us out of ourselves into a bigger sphere, a transcendent kind of dream that we constructed. But if there's no life after death and there's no resurrection, then all that is above us that we're striving for to get us out of our little bubble existence into something that's meaningful is also a big bubble. It will pop. It won't last either, because it's a breath. If the dead aren't raised, But if the dead are raised, it's a game changer. If the dead are raised, then every cup of cold water that you give in the name of Jesus has its reward. Or as R.C. Sproul used to like to say, this moment counts forever. What you say and what you do will show up on the judgment day. And if you are justified in Christ, cleansed by his blood, and given the promise of resurrection, then everything you do in the name of Christ, down to the smallest things, will not lose its reward. None of it is vain. None of it is temporary. The gospel turns Ecclesiastes on its head. But it only does that because it gives you a revelation of a bigger story. But if you didn't have this story, the best you could do is number one, nihilism, where you recognize this life is pointless. Try not to think about it too hard, because those that think about it too hard get tempted to take their life. Or existentialism. Enjoy the moment. Which is what most people tend to do. When I talk to people about the brevity of life, like my brother-in-law, talk to people about the brevity of life, then what ends up happening is some statement comes back like, you know, I'm thinking like, would you want to pursue eternity? And I get back, boy, I better enjoy life when I got it. What bucket list thing do I need to do? You follow me? Well, that's existentialism. Better enjoy the moment, because you don't got many of them, so enjoy what you got. Like, what is that Tim McGraw's country song about he went skydiving and different things, you know? That kind of a thing. It's like, that's all that the world's going to offer you. But the gospel, because there's resurrection, the gospel says, actually, everything here is just the preface of a story that has countless chapters to come, where God will show in the ages to come the riches of his kindness towards us in grace in Christ Jesus. We don't even know the iterations of what that plural ages means. That fascinates me. I'm just in the preface. I don't want to live for the preface. I don't want to see my country ruined. And when somebody's in bad health, I do want to see them recovered. But I don't kid myself as if a temporary spike in America becoming better or a temporary increase in your health is all that significant because I see what's coming in the end. It's still breath. But if I see that you belong to Jesus and you'll rise from the dead, then I know your life counts and you're gonna be safe. So isn't that quite a book? And what's neat about this book is you don't have to have any special knowledge to actually lead somebody down the road I brought you tonight. Everybody sees these things. This is just by observation. And how many people have never actually taken note of how vain this world is and how temporary everything they do is? How many? So maybe the Lord will use this tonight and echo, maybe he's using it in your life so that you quit living for these things and you say, I have to have a hope in Jesus. And you start taking seriously the announcement of good news that the prophets foretold and the apostles confirmed through their experience that Jesus is alive from the dead. And that you should seek first the kingdom of God, or as Jesus says, labor for the food that lasts to eternity. Maybe that's your call tonight to do that. And maybe, or otherwise, maybe you're going to be the one that invites somebody to that, because you'll be the echo of this. So let me pray as we close tonight. Father in heaven, Lord, I remember I used to give this at Hillsdale College as one of my classes. And one of the students came back to me after the weekend and said, we all left your class so depressed. And in one side of me, the Lord was actually pleased with that. Because I think you gave this book to pop our dreams. A dream job is just a breath. A soul mate is just a breath. If there's no resurrection and I have no hope of the kingdom of God, What actually did I achieve if all my boxes were ticked and all my bucket list was emptied? It's still chasing after the wind. So if there's any tonight addicted to a pleasure, a false hope of satisfaction, Leaning in and putting weight on this project or this this career choice Whatever it may be if there's anybody with such a false Hope we pray that you would rescue them tonight and bring them to Jesus who alone can give them That which lasts unto eternity and living water He who comes to me will never thirst he who believes in me will never hunger. I am the bread of life. I So may that message resonate, we pray. Thank you for sending your son. In Jesus' name, amen.