Life Under God’s Control

Transcript

GR 2122
04/07/2019
Life Under God’s Control
Ecclesiastes 2:1-17
Gil Rugh

We’re studying the Book of Ecclesiastes together. If you’re new, the Book of Ecclesiastes is right about in the middle of your bible. After the Book of Psalms and Proverbs, you come to Ecclesiastes. Then you’ll have the large prophetic books, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel. But Ecclesiastes fits right in there. A number of commentators write and think this is the most difficult book in the bible. I think that may be a stretch, but it does challenge us. It indeed is one of the most practical books in the bible and we’ve been talking about that. The Book of Ecclesiastes is part of what is called the wisdom literature as they title different sections of the bible and it is talking to us about how to live wisely, on this earth living our life under the sun, under the skies. We are here living in a world that is under the curse because of sin. Life can be difficult, life can be unpleasant, it can be painful for believer and unbeliever alike, for those who are the children of God and those who are not.

We’ve recently had what we call a disaster in Nebraska. It has been for many with the floods that have occurred, and those floods can devastate homes and lands of those who are believers in Jesus Christ and those who are not. It’s not as though God channels the water away from the home of those who are His children or their farms or whatever. It’s part of living in a world that is under the curse and impact of sin and the Book of Ecclesiastes is writing to tell us how to live wisely as God’s people in this world.

Come to the end of the book again if you would, back in Ecclesiastes chapter 12. The book started by declaring that all is vanity or a breath and it ends that way with verse 8 of chapter 12. We’ll say a word about that word vanity again in a moment. “Vanity of vanities… all is vanity!” all is a breath, but then wants you to know, verse 10. “The Preacher”, Qoheleth, the writer of this Book of Ecclesiastes, the man Solomon, the one who has assembled people together to hear his instruction, “sought to find out delightful words and to write words of truth correctly.” So, this is not to be a discouraging or depressing book. These are delightful words, these are words of God, His words through Solomon. They are written truthfully, they’re written correctly, words of truth correctly written. Jesus said in His prayer to His Father “Your word is truth” and this is truth. “The words of wise men are like goads, and masters of these collections are like well-driven nails; they are given by one Shepherd.” That one Shepherd is the sovereign God, the Shepherd of Israel and our Shepherd. You’ll note these are for our benefit to sharpen us for our living, to be able to live wisely and to enjoy life, even though much of it will entail unpleasantness. We are to have joy and keep in mind when all is said and done, as verses 13 and 14 conclude, we will give an account of the days of our life to the God who is the Judge of all men, a very practical book in giving very practical and wise advice.

Come back to chapter 1 of Ecclesiastes. I mentioned the statement in chapter 12 verse 8, that is also said in chapter 1 verse 2, “Vanity of vanities,” and we need to clarify a translation in our bible. But key to the meaning and understanding of Ecclesiastes is getting the translations right. You know that the Book of Ecclesiastes was written in Hebrew, and so when you go from one language to another there will always be challenges to use the words, the expressions, and so on that most accurately reflect the original, and there’s no disagreement basically on what the original word here is. Would you want to put up hebel. We’ve looked at this word a number of times and we will through the Book of Ecclesiastes because it’s important. This Hebrew word I’ve put up there at the top, hebel, its translated vanity. Its basic meaning, and everyone’s agreed on this since I don’t see any disagreement, it means a puff of air, a breath, a vapor. When it’s used as a metaphor, as it is here, what is it indicating? What is the picture being given? Is it something that is worthless, without value? Some of the modern translations, I believe the New International Version, translates it worthless. Our New American Standard has vanity, which is something without value, meaningless, and that could be with a puff of air, it’s here, it’s gone, it’s nothing. But I think the meaning better is as I’ve put on here. It means “something that is impermanent, transient, ephemeral.” It’s not lasting, it’s temporary. It’s not saying it’s without value. We’ll have to keep mentioning this because this word is used repeatedly through the Book of Ecclesiastes, so I will draw it to your attention often. Particularly for those who may not be here at the early part of the book so that they’re not lost in the study.

I think what is being pictured, and we’ve looked at passages parallel in the Old Testament and New Testament as well, that portray the fact that the things of this physical life are not permanent; death being the outstanding evidence. We’ve had a beginning and we will have an end on this earth as physical human beings so he’s talking about life that he calls under the sun under the skies, our physical life dealing with the day-to-day things. Verse 3 gives the question that will be in view throughout all 12 chapters. “What advantage does man have in all his work which he does under the sun?” What is the advantage, what’s the purpose of our work, labor, toil day by day? Then we saw the comparison, the big things, the earth, the sun, the wind, the waters. They all continue. They were going on before we were born. They’ll go on after we die. We are but a breath. You know, (sound of a breath), we’re here. That’s it, we take a breath. That doesn’t mean it’s without value. You can’t live without a breath and multiple breaths, but each one is brief and passing. It’s written by Solomon.

Down in verse 14 of chapter 1, as he evaluates “all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is a breath.” Remember every time you see that word vanity or futile we’re going to be talking about this word. It’s all a breath and I’ll probably translate it temporary or transient. “All is temporary and striving after wind,” and that expression will be used seven or eight times, seven times exactly. One translated the same way because it uses a synonym for striving but that would be eight so it appears. What does it mean striving after the wind? We talked about this in our last study but I’ve put a slide here so we can look at it. The translation in our bible is “striving after wind” and for those of you who are grammarians this can be an object of genitive or a subjective genitive, and if you don’t care that’s fine, just listen. (Laughter) Striving after the wind would be desiring the wind. That’s the way it’s translated in our bible. That would be an objective genitive and you’re pursuing the wind. I think it’s better taken as a subjective genitive, something characteristic of the wind, the desire of the wind, the wind’s desire or as one translator put it, the whim of the wind. And it means something changing, unpredictable, unknowable, temporary, and out of our control.

The previous word meant temporary, transient. This can have the idea of being temporary as well, because the wind changes. The wind itself is ongoing, it’s permanent. We saw that in chapter 1 verse 6 where it’s part of the earth and this world system. The winds keep blowing. They were blowing before you were born, they’ll be blowing afterwards. But in our day-to-day life we experience a changing wind. It might be calm in the morning and windy in the afternoon or vice versa. We have plans that are an outdoor activity and we say, “I hope it’s not real windy.” But I think what is being conveyed, it’s the whim of the wind, the wind’s desire indicating we have no control over it. I can’t decide whether the wind will blow strongly or be very calm and it’s unknowable. You know, I realize with our weather we predict the wind and so on, but basically, it’s out of our knowledge and we get upset with the weatherman when he gets things wrong, as though he created the weather. He’s just trying to report it. But if he doesn’t get it the way we want it, he ought to get fired. It’s God who controls the weather. He sends it. It’s out of our control.

These points are crucial. I want to review some verses and maybe add one or two. Look over in Ecclesiastes chapter 8. The unpredictability, uncontrollability of life is what is being viewed. In chapter 8 verse 8 of Ecclesiastes, “No man has authority to restrain the wind with the wind…” That’s why it’s uncontrollable, it’s out of our control, nobody has the authority to control the wind. Now Christ did. The Son of God, on the Sea of Galilee calmed the storm and the disciples were in awe. Who can command the weather? Who can control the wind? We can’t. That’s the point, the whim of the wind, the wind’s desire. From my perspective, the wind goes where it wants when it wants. I mean, I get up and hope it’ll be calm this afternoon, but I have no ability to control it, to influence it, is the point. So, no man has authority to restrain the wind with the wind. You can’t do anything with that, that’s the way life is.

Stop at chapter 9 verse 11. I was going to skip this. Just note the last line in verse 11 of Ecclesiastes 9, “for time and chance overtake them all.” We’ll talk more about that verse when we get there but that’s the idea. You know life’s out of our control, many of the things there. We don’t control things. That’s the point of the desire of the wind. It’s like our life, it’s temporary and out of our control. Now there are two points that we have to keep in mind. Our daily life lived on this earth under the sun under the skies, it’s temporary and it’s out of our control in the major events. I can decide to have lunch today or not, those kinds of things. But the big events like we saw that really make a lasting, long term difference, the earth goes on, the sun will come up, the wind will blow, the rivers will flow to the ocean and the ocean won’t be full; those things go on. We are here temporarily, and we don’t control things. They are as they were before we came, they will be after. Look in chapter 11 of Ecclesiastes verse 5, “Just as you do not know the path of the wind…” You see when the wind is used, it is something that is unknowable and uncontrollable to us. That’s the picture; it’s the desire of the wind.

Come to the New Testament to a passage we looked at in our last study, John chapter 3, the Gospel of John. Jesus is speaking with Nicodemus. John chapter 3 verse 8, “The wind blows where it wishes…” You hear the sound, but you do not know where it comes from, where it is going. You see the desire of wind, the wind blows where it desires, and you don’t know, you have no control. You don’t have the knowledge of where it’s coming from, where it’s going, and when. You know, with our knowledge today we get a little more insight, but the basic truth is there we can see it being illustrated. It’s the desire of the wind. His point is, it’s not under your control, it’s not even within your knowledge realm. You plan your vacation three months in advance and the weather may be the worst it could be. We planned to be at the lake and do boating, and it’s stormy and windy and cold, and you just have no control over it. That’s the point. It’s outside of us.

See these two points together, temporary and out of our control. Come over to James chapter 4. James is all the way back at the back of your New Testament, just after the Book of Hebrews, the last large book before the book of Revelation and then they’ll be several smaller letters there. The Book of James is sometimes called the wisdom book of the New Testament because it deals with things like the wisdom literature of the Old Testament does. In James chapter 4 verse 13, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.’ Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.” You see it’s like the whim of the wind, the desire of the wind, and you’re at the wind’s mercy. They could appreciate that in biblical times when they used sailing ships and we see that with Paul. If they drift pass, he talks about his travels and that they don’t want to drift past the harbor at the wrong time, because they didn’t have the power to get back. They were at the mercy of the wind, the wind’s desire here.

Therefore, “you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow.” I don’t know, we’ve had people that were here one Sunday and they’ve passed away before the next Sunday. You don’t know. I heard of a person who had been part of this church for a number of years and moved away long ago. But they would visit, he and his wife when they were back in town. Every other year or so, and we had great fellowship and I heard this week he passed away, just gone. “You don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow” and then note the next statement. “You are just a vapor…” just a cloud, just a puff of air “that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” So, you see what James picks up. Two things here, your life is temporary, transient, it’s like a vapor, like a puff of air, and it’s out of your control. It’s out of your knowledge because you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. That’s the point. These two ideas are what are being stressed in Ecclesiastes and I keep mentioning these and I will because this is key to understanding the book. If you translate it as everything is worthless and chasing after nothing; no, I think he’s giving us wisdom for living life. Life is brief, but it is important. It’s very worthwhile. It’s not under control, but it’s under the control of the God that we serve. You’ll get to that at the end of chapter 2, which I thought we might do today, but I have reason to doubt that now.

Come back to Ecclesiastes. We moved in chapter 2 quickly with the first three verses. Solomon is telling about himself. We saw in chapter 1 verse 12, “I, the Preacher” is the one who gathered the group together for my instruction. He was the king. He’s evaluated “all the works which have been done under the sun” in verse 14, and it’s all temporary and out of our control; and then he’s going to elaborate those two points. In verse 17, “I set my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly; I realized this too is the wind’s desire.” With all his wisdom, with all his knowledge, his ability to evaluate things good and bad, I realized it’s all the whim of the wind. It’s out of my control, and I don’t know about what will happen. He picks up that striving after wind or desiring the wind in verse 14 and uses it at the end of verse 17. And then when you come into chapter 2 verse 1, “’Come now, I will test you with pleasure.’ This is talking to himself. ‘…So enjoy yourself.’ And behold, it too was temporary,” a puff of wind. All you can say is this is life. Now that’s not discouraging, its reality.

The point of the Book of Ecclesiastes is to be sure we as God’s people function wisely in the world and you don’t function wisely, when you hide from reality. This is the health and wealth preaching that God doesn’t want you to be sick, God doesn’t want you to be poor. Well we might like to think that, but it’s not true. We live in a harsh world. We live in a world that is difficult, a world that is under the curse of God that results in the work that He has ordained for us, has become wearisome and toilsome, and unpleasant and hard, and yet He hasn’t taken all the joy out of life. The Book of Ecclesiastes is telling us to face life with wisdom, so that we can experience the joy that God intends for us as we go through this difficult life, and not a life with no difficulty, but neither a life without joy. That’s where the Book of Ecclesiastes is taking us.

He’s telling us what he’s going to do, like you know, someone is going to undertake a project. He wants to evaluate all that’s involved. You know they’re testing drugs. You watch on TV, they’ll advertise the drug, they’ll tell you the good things, and then they take, you know it seems like 10 minutes, telling you all the negative things that could happen to you if you take that drug. You know, I take a pill that’s good and that’s great, and they gave it to me because they told me the good thing that’d happen. Then they gave me three pages to tell me all the things that could be bad for. You know, I almost flushed it down the toilet, but it’s good. That’s the way that life is. Solomon is going to tell you here’s the trials, the difficulties, what life can be like and you’ll see his exasperation. He’ll tell us, I hated life and then he’ll go on to say that you need to enjoy your life, because there is that reality and we all have it. Something will come up and you despair. You don’t even want to go on and yet the reality of it is, that’s not all there is about life. So, he says, just to pick up with verse 1, “I said to myself, ‘Come now, I will test you with pleasure. So enjoy yourself.’ And behold, it was temporary, transient.” I mean I’m not saying there’s no pleasure, but there’s no permanence in the pleasure. That’s why we keep going on vacation again, and again. We enjoy it, but one vacation doesn’t do it. We want to go again, and we look forward to that kind of thing. “I said of laughter, ‘It is madness,’ and of pleasure, ‘What does it accomplish?’” Because he’s looking at it, I’m living life here. What’s going on and no matter what I do, no matter for pleasure, madness, laughter, it’s all temporary.

“I explored with my mind how to stimulate my body with wine…” Now what he’s doing there is I’m going to try this from both sides. I’m not just going to look at this activity and turn it down. You need to do the test you know, so you know what’s good and what’s bad. Is this really lasting or not so, stimulating my body with wine? But he’s not talking about getting drunk. He’s not going on a binge because he said, “…while my mind was guiding me wisely...” The Book of Proverbs warns about drunkenness and the foolishness of that and you lose control of what’s going on around you. You lose control of your own body and you don’t know what happened to you. You can wake all bruised and you don’t remember how you got all bruised and things like that, so his mind is operating but I’m going to see. Wine was used at weddings, it was something for celebration. He’s talking about the good life. I’m going to look at this but I’m going to be using my mind because my point here is, I’m doing a study. I’m evaluating life as it really is, and this is one of the pleasant things of life. You know we’d say having a good meal, a glass of wine, whatever.

“and how to take hold of folly…” So, these things that the world does, and they’re viewed as you know, foolish. The world is good, “until I could see what good there is for the sons of men…” and remember that expression the word men that’s a singular in Hebrew, it’s not a plural and the Hebrew word for man is Adam. In the beginning of creation God said, “Let us make man in our image” and the word man is Adam, and when He created the first man out of the dust of the earth He named him man, because that’s what Adam means when you translate it man. And He made man male and female when it developed there, so the sons of Adam. Now I think that’s important. We looked in a previous study that carries us back to Adam in the garden and reminds us of what, the curse.

So, we’re looking to “see what good there is for the sons of Adam to do under heaven…” that’s under the skies. It’s another way of talking about our life under the sun; talking about life here as the descendants of Adam, whose sin brought the curse on creation, and on his descendants. “To do”, this is a key concept. Do, work, labor; words that permeate Ecclesiastes, “…the few years” and you have a note a little later in front of years, number 3 and in your margin, it says days, literally. It’s the emphasis, “to do under heaven the few days of their lives.” He’s talking about our activity, what we do with the days of our lives as the descendants of Adam and that means we are under the curse, and toil and labor. You’ll strive. So, here’s what Solomon did.

“I enlarged my works; I built houses for myself, I planted vineyards for myself; I made gardens and parks for myself, and I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees; I made ponds of water for myself from which to irrigate a forest of growing trees.” Remember this is all desert land, but he’s the king, and you can read of him in the first 10 chapters or so of 1 Kings or in the parallel passage in 2 Chronicles. He’s fabulously wealthy, and he’s the wisest man on earth. He can have all of this, create it, and enjoy it. So, he’s done all of this. He built houses, and he built multiple houses, and he built cities. Not just houses and you know this is all going on. He’s got his own park his own gardens, his. “I bought male and female slaves, and I had homeborn slaves.” Because the slaves he had, had children, and those born to his slaves were his slaves. So, he didn’t lack for people to care for him and do whatever he wanted. “I possessed flocks and herds larger than all who preceded me in Jerusalem.”

“Also, I collected for myself silver and gold…” and then we’re told in 1 Kings along about chapter 9 that they didn’t even consider silver valuable in the days of Solomon because he has so much of it. Just piled it up so they had lots of silver and gold but the silver wasn’t considered that valuable because there was so much of it. He’s fabulously rich “…and the treasure of kings and provinces. I provided for myself male and female singers and the pleasures of men” and in case you didn’t know what he meant, “—many concubines.” If I can say this in the Hebrew translation, “many breasts.” I had plenty of women and if you go back to kings and read it, you’ll find out, he had 800 queens and 300 concubines. He could call the most beautiful women at any time he wanted from his own harem, as often as he wanted. When the king called, you went. What didn’t I have? What didn’t I do? So, that’s the conclusion of this, and again you can go back and read it. We’re not going to take the time to go back and read his accomplishments and that? He’s using himself as an example and what he is all of us can learn from it. We’re not fabulously wealthy nor the wisest of whoever lived, but here he’s using himself as one of the sons of Adam. And he could use his wisdom, and had the wealth and the position to try everything out, and we will have lesser opportunities but the same kinds of experiences.

The point he’s drawing, you couldn’t do more, or have more than Solomon had. Come to verse 9. “Then I became great and increased more than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. My wisdom also stood by me.” You know, sometimes you get the idea since Solomon did stumble later in his life and got involved in false worship and so on, that somehow, he just wandered off into nothingness. That’s not true; he still was the wisest man on earth. There’s no indication that God took that away from him, but he’s a fallen being. That didn’t mean he didn’t do wrong things and we know he did, but his wisdom remained with him. He is searching these things out. He’s doing a thorough testing if you will, of what is really, worthwhile in life, what really gives enjoyment. What can I accomplish that is meaningful and lasting? And you’re going to find there’s a pattern in chapter 2. He tells about himself, then he gives the conclusion, like in verses 10 and 11. Then he’s going to talk more and then he’ll give a conclusion in verses 15 to 17. He’s going to talk in verses 18 and 19, and draw it to a conclusion, and he’s going to keep coming to the same conclusion. It’s all transient, it’s all temporary. I can’t do anything lasting and it’s out of my control.

It’s the desire of the wind. That’s where he’s going. Look at verse 10. “All that my eyes desired I did not refuse them.” Now we’re talking about life on earth. Whatever he wanted, whatever he thought might contribute to his enjoyment of life; whatever he thought he might do that would go on. “All that my eyes desired I did not refuse them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure…” Now this doesn’t mean he’d become a hedonist, that he was living for pleasure. He is sorting through things as a wise person. It’s like a scientist, you know, I want to sort this out; I’ve got to test this. This seems to be a possibility, but I’ve got to examine it and test it and maybe under the test we’ll find out it fails. That’s what he’s doing with life, because he has to live as the wisest, richest man on earth. He has to live the days of his life just like we do. He might live in a palace and we live in a less impressive place, but the point is, he’s got to live the days of his life in a world that’s under the curse, as a man who’s a descendant of Adam. “I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure…” and note this, “…for my heart was pleased because of all my labor and this was my reward for all my labor.” Here it becomes something that will be drawn out again and again.

When God put Adam in the garden, he put him there to care for the garden, to tend the garden. Adam was not created to pull up a lawn chair and sit on the Mediterranean or wherever and watch the sunrise and the sunset. He was created to be active, to work. What happened? When he sinned, what God had created him to do now became hard. It became toil, it became wearisome, similar with the woman. Before sin entered in God said to Adam and Eve, “Be fruitful multiply and fill the earth.” They were to have children. What happened to the woman now after sin? In pain, you’ll have children and so on. What God had planned did not change, but what would happen to those carrying out the plan, would be major change, the unpleasantness, the hardness, the difficulty. So, Adam finds pleasure and the reward was in the work he did. He found satisfaction, he found enjoyment in building these buildings and developing these gardens.

And there is satisfaction in the work we do; God intends us to work. Paul told the Thessalonians anyone who does not work, does not eat. The church shouldn’t be supporting lazy people, it shouldn’t be helping those who don’t want to work. Now we’re floating things, I guess that we as a country ought to support, not those who have a need but don’t want to work. Well how many of us are going to line up to get that money? We think well, I’d like to avoid the toil, the pain, but there is satisfaction in the work because God created us for that.

At my age, I get all kinds of stuff about retirement. I don’t know why, but they tell you what to do and how to plan for retirement. What are you going to do when you retire? I tell you Marilyn and I will sometimes watch the house hunters programs. I’m not advertising, that’s just what we do sometimes in the evening if we’re not doing anything else. I sometimes say, you know, everybody wants to go to the Caribbean or these places and they talk about, now that we’re free from all responsibility. I said, I wonder how many times I could haul my lawn chair down to the beach, sit there to watch the sun come up, sit there all day and bake and toast, watch it go down, fold up my lawn chair. Go home, get up the next morning, go out sit on the beach and watch the sun come up, sit there in the sand, and wait until it goes down. Go back in you know you want to do something. I want to be active. Now you may not want to do the laborious job you were doing, but we all want to do something. We just don’t want to sit. We were created to be active, to do something.

That’s what he’s saying; I found pleasure in my work, in my labor, enjoyment, satisfaction, “…and this was my reward…” Now we’re going to see here, he just brings us along in his wisdom and the direction of the Spirit. We’ll see this is a reward that comes from God. He just tells us now this is his reward. He’s writing, a man who was as we went to the end again, before we did this study today where we’re told about God and our responsibility to God, so that’s what he’s going to do. So, there’s a reward, there’s enjoyment. He was pleased with his labor, “Thus I considered all my activities…” You see this, you talk about labor, you talk about activities, you talk about what you do. That’s the emphasis, that’s what life is, conducting ourselves doing what we do. “I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted (or labored), and behold all was vanity (temporary) and the whim of the wind and there was no profit under the sun.”

Now this is where we go back and forth in Ecclesiastes. There was pleasure, “my heart was pleased” at the end of verse 10. M reward was in my labor and I considered everything that I had done. I don’t think it is worthless. He was used of God to build the temple. I wouldn’t say that was worthless. He wouldn’t say the cities he’s built were worthless, but you know what, he’s wise, he hasn’t done anything eternal. Anybody visited Solomon’s palace that took him multiple years to build? No, why? It didn’t last, and he realizes it’s all temporary. It’s all out of my control, it’s the whim of the wind; there was no profit under the sun. Well, I thought, there’s some profit if there was a reward, but there’s nothing lasting. That’s why he keeps building on this. It’s all temporary. So, in one sense with his wisdom he looked, just like how much time, how many weeks and months would you want to spend building a snowman? Well, you know building a snowman in the snow might be fun, enjoyable, but it’s not going to last. It will melt. That’s the way he’s looking at everything he does, and I had a certain satisfaction in doing it and then I step back, and in my wisdom, that’s not lasting. I worked, I toiled, I applied my wisdom, I got satisfaction and pleasure in doing it, but it won’t last.

That’s reality and you know what God wants us as His people to do is live real lives. The world hides behind it. Pretend. We live in a pretend world. It’s scary you know you’ve fallen down the rabbit hole, and now you can be whatever you want to be and do whatever you want to do, and don’t bring reality into it or you’re a bad person. And that’s not the way Christians are to live. You know this is reality. Solomon you’re right. You’ve done amazing things. You found satisfaction and enjoyment in doing it and that’s your reward, and that’s a reward from God. But never forget and in His wisdom, acknowledge that it’s temporary. It’s the whim of the wind, it’s out of my control.

No matter how much attention, no matter how much effort, no matter how much money, and some of the estimates I saw as they translated the money into modern day terms, one commentator does it for the year 2015, Solomon spent billions of dollars building the temple. That’s not even a big building, but it doesn’t matter how much he put into it. All the gold of that temple is gone and most of the temple is gone. The best you can notice is this piece here, this piece there, and we look for relics and it’s gone. That’s realism. It’s temporary, it’s out of my control and there’s no profit under the sun. Now I’ll see this more because there’s nothing lasting for him, if I’m not doing anything permanent, that limits its value.

We let kids spend their time, little kids as they’re learning, but in things that aren’t lasting. The sad thing is when they’re 25 and 30, and they’re still doing silly things. We don’t want that to happen, so he’s done that. That’s his conclusion, there we have it again, all is a breath, and the whim of the wind and it’s temporary and out of my control, so what profit is there? In verse 12, “ So I turned to consider wisdom, madness and folly; for what will the man do who will come after the king except what has already been done?” Now he gave the foundational things at the very beginning and he just keeps bringing us back to those. This question, “…what will the man do who will come after the king except what has already been done?” If you come back to verse 9 of chapter 1, “That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. And there is nothing new under the sun.” And he goes on to explain that in verse 11. “There is no remembrance of earlier things; and also of the later things which will occur…” there won’t be any remembrance of them either. This is what I’m dealing with, a transient changing world, and I can’t change its temporalness and I can’t control its future. So, he goes on. You think well then, you just make the best of it and go on.

No. Chapter 2, verse 13, “And I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness.” Oh, wait a minute, I thought there was this idea that you really didn’t accomplish anything, and now you say “…wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness.” We still use this expression. We’ll say the difference between that is night and day. What are we saying? You can’t get any more extreme than that. What’s the difference? The difference is night and day. That’s what he is saying, “…wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness.” The difference between wisdom and folly is night and day. I’m not degrading the importance of wisdom. It is extremely important. I’m not saying turn your life over to folly because you can’t make any lasting difference. What I’m saying is live the days of your life with wisdom, and that means you will understand you will be leaving. The world will go on. What you do will be short-lived.

Now we’re talking about life under the sun. I know and understand Solomon about accountability to God. He said at the end of this we’re going to give an account to God, but he’s talking about how realistically we face life. If you don’t have wisdom, you get so absorbed in things of this life and then you try to control it, and you want to be sure and then you try to control the future, but it’s not going to happen. I don’t mean we don’t try to make wise plans, but when all is said and done, it’s out of our control. But “wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness” so I don’t want to miss the point here. He’s not minimizing the importance of wisdom. You can’t over emphasize the importance of wisdom. The difference is night and day if you’re going to have folly or wisdom.

“The wise man’s eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness.” The point is the wise person understands life. He knows how life is to be lived, how we are to conduct ourselves. He understands God’s hand at work even in a fallen world, and that he intends for us to have enjoyment in this life. “…but the fool walks in darkness.” He doesn’t even have a clue. That helps you understand what goes on in the world around us. What goes on in our own country? You may say, what’s happening in our country. Fools walk in darkness, they have rejected the word of the Lord. What kind of wisdom do they have, Jeremiah the prophet wrote? Now we oughtn’t to be surprised that they’re walking around in darkness; they don’t have a clue. The wise man, his eyes are opened. We understand life. We understand why there are difficulties and trials in life. We understand that it is the hand of a sovereign God, who’s directing in all the details of life.

That doesn’t take away the frustration that will come at times. It doesn’t take away the pain. Your closest loved one dies. That’s painful. We’ll see that in a moment. You don’t want to make peace with death. Death is an enemy, it’s where he’s going. Look he says “The wise man’s eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I know that one fate befalls them both.” Just when you think, he’s going to go one direction he brings the balance back. The importance of being wise over being a fool is night and day, and the wise man knows what’s going on and the fool doesn’t have a clue, but there is this frustration. The wise man and the fool have the same fate.

Solomon the wisest man who lived, you read the end of the account of his life in Kings and you know what it says? Solomon reigned forty years and he continued to live—nope he died. You know Job, the most righteous man who lived according to God’s testimony. Do you know what the last verse of Job says? “And Job died…” It doesn’t matter whether you’re the most righteous person on earth, whether you’re the wisest person on earth, or you’re the dumbest worst fool, the same fate awaits us all. That’s what he says, “…I know that one fate befalls them both. Then I said to myself, ‘As is the fate of the fool, it will also befall me. Why then have I been extremely wise?’ So I said to myself, ‘This too is temporary.’” You know the wisdom given to Solomon was not so that he could change his temporalness, his transience. That doesn’t happen.

With all of our wisdom down to today, we have talked about it, the Psalmist said the average life will be seventy years maybe eighty, but then there will be pains and aches that come in. Here we are 3,000 years later. Still about seventy, eighty, it doesn’t matter what wisdom you had, you can’t change. “The penalty for sin is death. By one man, sin entered the world and death by sin.” It’s there, the most powerful man who ever lived, dead. That’s what he is saying, there’s one fate. “Then I said to myself, ‘As is the fate of the fool, it will also befall me. Why then have I been extremely wise?’ So I said to myself, ‘This too is temporary.’ For there is no lasting remembrance of the wise man as with the fool, inasmuch as in the coming days all will be forgotten.” Back to verse 11 of chapter 1, “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 come still later.” It’s not only that I won’t live, but my memory won’t live on, and I realize he’s been recorded in the pages of Scripture, but basically you know very little in a few chapters. You have some major events of Solomon’s life recorded, but we know very little of the days of his life and for everybody else they’re totally forgotten. It’s just life.

It’s not only am I going to die, (with laughter) but the memory of me will be gone. I’ve shared with you my father’s parents, my grandparents. As far as I know, I’m the last living person on earth who knows anything about them. My younger brothers were too young to know them. They were both gone. My dad was an only child. It comes. Anybody know them? We know they get forgotten. You know why they advertize on TV you can check your ancestry, find your ancestors? Do you know why you’ve got to find them? They’re lost. You won’t have a clue, so we’ll pay somebody money, so we can go back and find out, and then you wish you didn’t know. They’re all descendants of Adam and I’m not saying there’s anything. If you like to do that, that’s fine. But the point is clear, isn’t it? There’s no remembrance.

Go to the antique store and you can go and find boxes of pictures, old pictures like my mother’s. She called our family in one day when I was back there. We were living here but she said, “I put all the family pictures on the dining room table. Pick out the ones you want, I’m throwing away the rest. I don’t live in the past.” Thanks mom. (laughter) I’m the oldest son. Remember, at any rate we’re back to here, so he’s right. That’s life, we don’t hide from it and pretend oh, don’t talk about death, don’t think about that. That’s not a real world. Charles Spurgeon said, “It is important to be with the dying so we understand life” and he’s saying the wisdom of the bible.

“So…” he said, “…I hated life.” And we’ll have to leave there. Well you say, wait a minute, I thought he was telling us how to enjoy life. “… I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was grievous to me; because everything is temporary and the whim of the wind”, out of my control and there is that. You know you hated life, you talk about everybody’s going to die and death is an enemy. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. I don’t like death, and I understand when a believer dies they go to heaven but that doesn’t help, I’m here they’re gone. I hate the separation. You know I need them here. I understand God knows and that’s where we get the sovereignty of God in this, but the reality, it’s an unpleasant life.

Now my brother died before my parents died. I mean they didn’t expect their son to die before they died. No, we were expecting him, he was going to move down here with us, and he just dropped over dead one evening. I said that shouldn’t happen. It’s life; we live a real life. We want to have the wisdom to handle these things. Why? Otherwise they overwhelm us and then we’re discouraged, we’re depressed, we don’t know what to do with ourselves; and it’s Solomon, I hate life. I hate this happens, I hate death, I hate that people die, I hate that I’m going to die. I hate that everything I do is just going to be lost and forgotten, but there’s more to it than that. That is the reality of life here for a believer and an unbeliever, but for the believer we have a sovereign God that knows us and cares for us and we’ll get to that at the end of chapter 2 next time.

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, for Your word, for the wisdom of Your word. You are the God who is wise, and by Your grace You have given wisdom to us, and Lord we want to live our lives each day wisely with knowledge, applying that knowledge properly with the wisdom that You’ve given us. We want to be biblical. Take these truths that You conveyed to us through Solomon Your servant, and his experiences with life, so that we could learn and live life wisely. Lord, I pray for each one here today that we may take these truths to heart. Pray for those who are here as fools because they have not yet come to know the salvation that is in Christ, the One in whom are found all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. That this might be a day of salvation for them. Bless the day. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.


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