Sermon Discussion Questions:
1. Have you ever studied the book of Ecclesiastes before? What are your thoughts on the book?
2. Read Eccl 1:1-11 together. What questions do you have?
3. How is life less like being a helicopter pilot and more like being a passenger on a train? Or, What illusions does the book of Ecclesiastes come to disprove?
4. What is the connection between the word "vanity" and the story of Cain and Abel? What does Solomon mean when he says that "everything is vanity"?
5. What "new thing" tends to distract you most?
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
This is perhaps one of the most famous poems in Western literature. It is called Invictus, which is Latin for “unconquerable,ˮ and it was written by William Ernest Henley in 1875. It is so popular because it encapsulates the indomitable, fighter spirit that we, Americans, particularly love. It is the same reason we love comeback stories, Winston Churchill facing down Hitler, and Rocky Balboa and Captain America dragging themselves back into a fighting stance after being knocked down and, wiping blood from their mouth, saying, ‘I can do this all day.ʼ Henley admits that whatever bleak or painful circumstance he encounters, his “head is bloody, but unbowed.ˮ Nothing conquers him. Even death itself, “the Horror of the shadeˮ and “menace of the yearsˮ finds Henley unafraid. He isnʼt afraid to die, isnʼt afraid to face hard circumstances, he is brave, unyielding, and resolved. Now, there is something certainly praise-worthy about grit, about a manly resistance to the crashing waves of circumstance. But I wonder if you caught the extent of Henleyʼs defiance?
Ecclesiastes 1111 4
In the final verse, he lifts his eyes to the throne of heaven and proudly asserts that even the final judgment doesnʼt intimidate him. The narrow gate that Jesus summons us to, the threat of eternal punishment—Henley bows to no one. I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.
I donʼt know if you could craft a more perfectly satanic poem. The poem sounds like something that John Miltonʼs Satan in Paradise Lost would recite. Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.
And here is our danger: we may blanch at the starkness of Henley going toe-to- toe with the Almighty, but there is a lot more of this poem under our fingernails than we realize. We may not put it in so many words, but we feel like we are the captain of our soul, the master of our fate. Our life, our time, our money, our leisure—these are little kingdoms over which we rule and how dare anyone else ever tell us otherwise? And we know this to be true because when we feel like we are no longer in control of our life...when our application is denied, when our kids refuse to listen to us, when life slams the door in our face...we lose our minds, we become depressed, we burn ourselves up to try to regain that comfort of control. Choice, options, freedom, opportunities—these are the gods of our day. All of modernity—from our technology, to our leisure, to our medicine, to our careers, to our politics—all of it conspires with our flesh to tell us: You are in control, nothing happens unless you want it to, and with enough grasping and grit, you can do whatever you want.
The book of Ecclesiastes stands as a stark and unsettling rebuke to this line of thinking. It descends upon our paper castles and styrofoam illusions like a 600- pound gorilla, tearing them to shreds. The Preacher in Ecclesiastes makes argument after argument after argument that expose that the roofs we are hiding under are made of tissue paper and will do nothing to protect us from dark rain clouds of our own mortality and the toil of life.
If we tend to imagine our life like we are helicopter pilots—free to go up, down, right, left; free to speed along or take our time as we travel to wherever we desire —then the Preacher in Ecclesiastes wants to persuade us that our life is actually more like a train ride. We are passengers who can move up and down corridors, who can have different experiences of the journey depending on our wisdom or folly. But we are not the conductor. We cannot get off. We are not even the ones who chose the destination. We are on a set of tracks that are inevitably taking us
Ecclesiastes 1111 5
all to one location: the grave. And, the Preacher leans forward and whispers disturbingly, “The ride is much shorter than you think.ˮ
But it isnʼt until we realize how little control we have, how fleeting our life is, how much we are only passengers on a journey we are not in charge of...that we actually are set free to enjoy the ride. That is the point of the book of Ecclesiastes.
Page 553 in pew Bibles.]
The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens to the place where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.
All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.
All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.
What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is newˮ?
It has been already
in the ages before us.
There is no remembrance of former things,
Ecclesiastes 1111 6
nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be
among those who come after.
Eccl 1111
Who
“The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.ˮ Eccl 11
The book of Ecclesiastes gets its name from the author of the book. The “Preacherˮ or, literally, “the one who gathers an assembly together,ˮ which in Hebrew is Qoheleth, or in Greek is Ekklesiastēs.
Tradition teaches us that this book was written by Solomon at the end of his life. If you are curious about the competing views of who authored this book, you can check the weekly email this week where youʼll find an article I wrote about it—but it in short, I believe that we are clearly to identify the Preacher of Ecclesiastes with Solomon.
You remember that Solomon is granted by God divine wisdom, surpassing all others 1 Kings 3. Solomonʼs life, unlike his father, David—which youʼll remember from our time in 1 Samuel was marked by danger, desperation, persecution— Solomonʼs life is marked by a stunning and unparalleled luxury, ease, and peace. Listen to one description of what the kingdom of Israel was like when Solomon reigned:
“Judah and Israel were as many as the sand by the sea. They ate and drank and were happy. Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt. They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.
Solomonʼs provision for one day was thirty cors of fine flour and sixty cors of meal, ten fat oxen, and twenty pasture-fed cattle, a hundred sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fattened fowl.
[Note: A “corˮ of flour is about 275 pounds. Verses 2223 are describing what the grocery order was for Solomonʼs royal court on a daily basis—a testament to both the size of his royal court, and the sumptuous provisions.] For he had dominion over all the region west of the Euphrates from Tiphsah to Gaza, over all the kings west of the Euphrates. And he had peace on all sides around him. And Judah and
Ecclesiastes 1111 7
Israel lived in safety, from Dan even to Beersheba, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, all the days of Solomon,ˮ 1 Kings 42025.
If there was such a thing as Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous in the ancient world, Solomon would certainly be on it. In fact, we are told that Solomonʼs wealth and wisdom make him an international celebrity: “Thus King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. And the whole earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind,ˮ 1 Kings 102324.
Solomon had everything, everything. Yet, you can have all the money and credentials in the world, be given every opportunity, every comfort, every thing that one would dream of—you can even be blessed by God...and throw it all away. And that is exactly what Solomon did. You can read of Solomonʼs downfall in 1 Kings 11 where Solomonʼs sexual appetite eventually devoured his devotion to the Lord. Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines who turned his heart away from Yahweh and to worship false gods.
Christian, donʼt presume that because your life is easy and comfortable, that you arenʼt in danger of falling away from God. Donʼt presume that because you had an intense season of spiritual devotion in the past, of intimacy with the Lord, that you need not pursue the Lord with zeal today. Donʼt try to eat yesterdayʼs manna, go out day by day, early in the morning, and seek for the bread of life for this day, for this moment, for this temptation.
We never read of Solomonʼs repentance in the book of Kings or Chronicles. But Jews prior to Jesus long taught that Ecclesiastes represents Solomon in his old age, after pursuing every possibility of pleasure, turning back to the Lord. Perhaps this is why, unlike the Proverbs or Psalms Solomon wrote that bear his name, he is simply identified with moniker: Preacher or Teacher. Solomon was a name that was internationally known as one who was abundant in wisdom and blessings. Perhaps, at the end of a wasted life, like the prodigal son who believes he is not even worthy to be called a son, Solomon doesnʼt even feel worthy of his own name.
What
What is the Preacherʼs message for us?
Ecclesiastes 1111 8
Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. Ecc 12
This word “Vanityˮ is the banner of the book. The word is repeated 38 times in the book, and the superlative form we find here vanity of vanities, all is vanity, is repeated at the very end of the book. So, like two bookends, this passage serves as a summary of the entire message of Ecclesiastes. But what does it mean?
The Hebrew word for “vanityˮ, hevel, is difficult to translate into English to fully capture its meaning. Concretely, the word refers to breath or wind. It is often used in the Bible to describe idols and false gods who are as insubstantial as wind and as ephemeral as a breath in contrast to the weighty glory of the real God. But when used to describe the human experience, it is usually used to refer to transience or temporariness.
O LORD, make me know my end
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting I am!
Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere
breath! Selah
Ps 3945
The word actually comes from the story of Cain and Abel—Abelʼs name in Hebrew is hevel. Abel, a life cut short, in time has his name associated with the fleeting and brief experience of life. But, there is another shade of meaning to the word besides brief, and we can see it also from the Abel story, and that is: frustrating, baffling, enigmatic. Why did Cain kill Abel? For no good reason at all. Abelʼs blood was spilled because sin dwelt in the heart of Cain and it pushed him to an irrational, bizarre, and wicked act. Imagine the experience of Adam and Eve as they had to come to grips with why one of their sons would kill their other son— think of the pain, the befuddlement, the frustration, the why? that would be running through their mind. Hevel conveys both the transient temporariness of life, as well as the experiences that leave us frustrated and baffled. From the gravest of injustices to the most mundane of frustrations. Life can so often feel like trying to screw the bolt into place, but the threads never seem to line up. It is like attempting to grab smoke, to shape mist—it is futile and if you keep trying, you will
Ecclesiastes 1111 9
soon grow frustrated. And Solomon wants you to know: there is nowhere under the sun to flee from it. Vanity is everywhere. Kingʼs palaces and prostitutes beds wonʼt be an escape. Vacations and children and careers and romance will not protect you from the vanity of life.
Sometimes, Bible translations will translate hevel as meaningless, as the NIV does. But I think this is misleading. It can lead you to think that Solomon is some French existentialist who thinks that there is no meaning in life. As we study Ecclesiastes we will soon find that this is not the Preacherʼs view: he commends a life of wisdom, of enjoying Godʼs creation, and exhorts us to fear God and keep his commands. He clearly believes that there is meaning in life. His point, however, is that this life is brief, this life is often unmanageable, and if you think that you can tap all your significance and meaning in this life alone, then your quickly approaching death will soon prove to you that that is a foolʼs errand. And he proves that by his next question.
What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?
Eccl 13
“Under the sunˮ just refers to life on this earth as we know it. And life on this earth is marked by “toil.ˮ We canʼt hear that word “toilˮ without thinking about the story right before Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel is in Genesis 4, but we are introduced to “toilˮ in Genesis 3. Because of the curse of sin, Adamʼs labor is now cursed with toil: thorns and thistles, pain and toil—that is how your work will be, until you collapse back into the dust from which you came. The files somehow get deleted; the deal falls apart; the laundry has to be washed again. Hevel is the experience of living and working under the curse in this world. And Solomon asks, what do you gain by all that toil under the sun?
“Gainˮ here refers to what is left-over. You could think about it financially—you could work just enough to pay your bills so that you survive, and at the end of each month, there is no money left. Or, you could work harder to make a surplus so that you can put money in savings—this is what is left-over, gain. And month by month, year by year, your savings grow. Or, you could switch the metaphor to any other pursuit: your career, your achievements, your intellect, your relationships, etc. And letʼs say that you live a fairly impressive life—you toil and labor, and letʼs say that at the end of your life your “savings accountˮ of whatever kind it is, is
Ecclesiastes 1111 10
fairly large. Maybe you have lots of money; maybe you are well respected by others or have built a considerable business. Your impending death will render all of that useless. You will not, like Pharaohs of old, carry any of that with you into the grave. That is what Solomon means with his question: what does a man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?
He then illustrates this with his poem on the cycles of nature:
A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens to the place where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.
Eccl 147
Why is Solomon telling us this? On the one hand, he is underlining just how transient, how brief human life is in comparison with the seemingly endless age of the earth, “the earth remains forever.ˮ Generations upon generations of people have lived and died, while the sun keeps rising, and the wind keeps blowing unchanged. But, on the other hand, it also is an illustration of “no gain.ˮ The sun, wind, and rivers last far longer than any generation of man does, yet even they are marked by a kind of repetitiveness. The word for “hastensˮ in verse 5 where we are told the “sun hastens to the place where it rises,ˮ literally means “panting, or heaving,ˮ as if the sun itself is toiling over its labor. The wind, for all its force, just winds right back where it started. The water flows into the ocean, yet the ocean never fills—there is no gain. Solomon then connects this weariness with us in the next verse.
All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it;
Ecclesiastes 1111 11
the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
Eccl 18
Just like nature repeats itself endlessly and is never “done,ˮ so too do humans stand as constant vacuums, black holes of experience. Our eyes, our ears are instruments that never have enough—they always draw in more. There is no movie, no music, no lecture, no art, no experience that has ever left you feeling: I need nothing else. The best of our experiences...fade. Which makes this world filled with a quality of weariness that is inexplicable, unutterable. Who can rightly articulate the depth of weariness that lies in your heart? What wearies you? What weighs you down? There is some gravel in the gearbox of your heart and your mind, some frustration in your parenting, in your marriage, in your work, in your friendships, in your quiet solitude when you are just have the time to think about the kind of person you are.
But our minds quickly dart down an escape alley: we can fix this! We just need to try something new! We need a change of scenery, a new job, a new spouse, a new boat, a new self-improvement regiment! But Solomon has headed you off already. The remedy to your weariness does not lie at the end of the alleyway of newness, because that alleyway is actually an illusion.
What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is newˮ?
It has been already
in the ages before us.
There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be
among those who come after.
Eccl 1911
Now, what does Solomon mean here? Our immediate response when reading this
is to think of the internet and space travel and modern democracy. There are
Ecclesiastes 1111 12
plenty of new things, in fact, it seems like today there is no end of new things. That, Solomon replies, is the point. There is no end to novelty. Solomon isnʼt claiming that new inventions or ideas ever happen. Solomon himself was something of a naturalist and biologist himself, studying and lecturing on different animals and trees 1 Kings 43334; there were technological breakthroughs and innovations in the ancient world. His point is that generations come and generations go, and despite our technology and innovations, our fundamental problems have not changed: vanity of vanities, all is vanity; toil and weariness; and what do we have to show for it? How long does that new purchase actually satisfy you, before you find yourself itching for something else to unbox? No matter what, we live in a fallen world, under the curse, wearied by it, and one day (soon) we will die. There is nothing new under the sun that will deliver us from that.
Why
One commentator, writing of Ecclesiastes, says, “This book has the smell of the crypt about it.ˮ Why is there a book in the Bible like this? I remember the first time I read Ecclesiastes as a young Christian I was terrified. I immediately thought: Why is this in the Bible? Is this true? And then felt guilty because I was pretty sure that you werenʼt supposed to think that about a book in the Bible. So I resolved to just avoid the book entirely. Maybe you have avoided this book as well. Ecclesiastes is an unsettling book, it is a difficult book. I was helped by Iain Provan, who writes:
“For we must always consider the possibility, when we encounter a difficult biblical book, that the problem lies not with the book but with ourselves. The “difficultyˮ may be that the book speaks truly about reality while we are devoted to illusions,ˮ (Provan, NIVAC, Ecclesiastes).
The reason this book scared me when I was younger was that, unbeknownst to me, I was under an illusion. I sensed the weariness and toil of life, but I was under the illusion that by becoming a Christian, growing in my faith, and repenting of sin, I would moment by moment escape that weariness. My life would essentially be an upward trajectory of going from bad to good to great, provided I followed all the steps correctly. But Ecclesiastes seemed to be telling me that no matter what I did, I would not be able to escape the frustrations and toil of life.
Now, Ecclesiastes is wisdom literature, a genre of the Bible that is given to help us live wisely in life, applying His laws to our lived experience, day-in and day-out. And a lot of wisdom literature, like the book of Proverbs, does indeed tell us that if we follow Godʼs wisdom, our life will be significantly better! But Proverbs are general truths that describe what normally happens. If you fear the Lord, work hard, tell the truth, and love your neighbor, things will go well with you. But, as one author put it, if the book of Proverbs is like the weather forecast, then Ecclesiastes is like walking outside and actually experiencing the weather. Proverbs shows us the way things should be normally, Ecclesiastes describes what is. And Ecclesiastes does commend wisdom and tells us that life will be better when we walk wisely and fear God.
The main reason that Ecclesiastes is in the Bible, of course, is to show us that if every option of freedom and deliverance and relief on earth is empty, then we need something from heaven! If there is nothing new under the sun, what if something, what if Someone from beyond the sun were to come down to us? Ecclesiastes is just like every other book in the Old Testament. When you read the Law you think: Man, who can perfectly obey this? When you read the history of the kings you think: If only there were a perfect king. And when you read Ecclesiastes you think: who can deliver us from the certainty of death and the toil of life? The answer is Jesus Christ.
He comes to us who are weary and heavy laden and says, “I will give you rest.ˮ He comes to us under the sentence of death and says, “Whoever believes in me shall never die.ˮ
He comes to those who have tried every possible thing to satisfy their thirsty souls and says, “Come drink living water which satisfies your soul!ˮ
He comes to those who are stuck in the merry-go-round of the same old thing and says, Behold I am doing a new thing, I am creating a new covenant, if you are in me you are a new creation, and behold, I am making all things new!ˮ
You see, we know more than Solomon did. He only saw half of the puzzle and strained forward with the eyes of faith. We see the answer to the enigma, to lifeʼs puzzle, and it is Christ-shaped.
But you see, we need Ecclesiastes otherwise we will keep searching through lifeʼs empty, vain novelties, thinking that they are the answer for our weariness, the remedy to solve our toil. We will keep thinking that the answer is to re-assert control, that if we only squeeze harder the smoke will remain in our hand.
