Doug McMasters: Let's take our Bible and go over to the book of Ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes.
Doug McMasters: Is this turned up enough for all of you?
Doug McMasters: Is that better?
Doug McMasters: Yeah, thank you, enoch.
Doug McMasters: I've been excited about our journey through the Word of God as we go down Route 66.
Doug McMasters: And we come to the book of Ecclesiastes this evening, and the opportunities that we have in this are to get not only a good overview of different books of the Bible but sometimes a necessary correction to maybe some gathered insights or understandings that we've had about particular books.
Doug McMasters: Hopefully, during this journey along Route 66, you've stopped at least once or twice, maybe more times, in saying I never really understood that book.
Doug McMasters: Now I do.
Doug McMasters: I think, mike, you'd talked to me about 1 Chronicles, wasn't it Ezekiel?
Doug McMasters: There was somebody that talked to me about Chronicles and, ted, you just opened up 1 and 2 Chronicles to them in a way that they'd never really captured before and said that they were really, really enjoying going back and reading it with the kind of help and understanding that you'd given them.
Doug McMasters: I don't remember who that was now, so if you're in here, please forgive me for forgetting.
Doug McMasters: It was you that told me, but we're in Ecclesiastes.
Doug McMasters: Ecclesiastes is one of those books that I think, often brings a lot of question marks more than answers to some people.
Doug McMasters: Someone said it's simultaneously one of the most fascinating books of the Old Testament, but also one of the most perplexing books of the Old Testament.
Doug McMasters: It really does offer us, when you read commentaries on it, just what seems to be an extremely wide spectrum of understanding, even among those people who spend a lot of time and effort drilling down into the book.
Doug McMasters: Someone described it this way, said that Ecclesiastes is like a desert sphinx it teases us with questions, yields its secrets only grudgingly and will not allow us the luxury of easy answers, and I think that's true.
Doug McMasters: One person said of Ecclesiastes it's thoroughly irritating but at the same time also mesmerizing.
Doug McMasters: In its appeal.
Doug McMasters: It draws me toward it by mirroring the perplexity that I feel as I grapple with life.
Doug McMasters: Right, and I think you can, if you're familiar at all with Ecclesiastes, understand where that author was going.
Doug McMasters: So opinions about Ecclesiastes vary widely.
Doug McMasters: It's very true about life.
Doug McMasters: It speaks honestly about the difficulties of life, and so Herman Melville called it the truest of all books.
Doug McMasters: But then on the other side was a German author who said that it is a book that digs its own grave.
Doug McMasters: Wow, well, why do we call this book Ecclesiastes?
Doug McMasters: That sounds like maybe some Episcopalian gave it a title, right, ecclesiastes.
Doug McMasters: Well, the English word Ecclesiastes comes from the Latin verba Ecclesiastes or from the Greek remata ecclesiastitu.
Doug McMasters: So both Greek and Latin kind of force us into the direction of calling it Ecclesiastes.
Doug McMasters: But those translations take a Hebrew word, koheleth, and transliterate it, and we translate it into Ecclesiastes, which is now then transliterated into our Ecclesiastes.
Doug McMasters: So what is Koheleth?
Doug McMasters: Well, koheleth is a word derived from a root word which means to assemble people, right, to assemble people.
Doug McMasters: Now, what's the connection between Ecclesiastes and assembling people?
Doug McMasters: Ecclesia, a church, is not a building but a gathering of people, right?
Doug McMasters: So when we call ourselves the church or when we go to church, what we mean is what we should mean is that we're going to the assembly of God's people.
Doug McMasters: We're not going necessarily to a building.
Doug McMasters: We could go to church in the field, across the road, as much as we could inside this structure.
Doug McMasters: So an ecclesia is not a building but a congregation.
Doug McMasters: It's a gathering, an assembly of people.
Doug McMasters: And so the term Hebrew term koheleth, which means to call an assembly.
Doug McMasters: That's where we get the connection, and so the term means one who speaks or one who calls an assembly together.
Doug McMasters: This is why sometimes you, when you read Ecclesiastes, for instance in the CSB, in verse 2, chapter 1, you'll see a term there the teacher.
Doug McMasters: Right, that's the term koheleth.
Doug McMasters: Other translations will call koheleth the preacher, other translations will call it the convener of the assembly, trying to bring in that idea of one who gathers a group of people for the purpose of conveying some instruction.
Doug McMasters: So our Koheleth.
Doug McMasters: Here the question arises is this a title or is this a name?
Doug McMasters: Is this person's name Koheleth or is his title Koheleth?
Doug McMasters: Well, I think it can be both, right?
Doug McMasters: So if someone back there yelled out hey, preacher, micah and I probably would both turn our heads, because there's something about the role and the title that gets attached to us in a way that you could almost use it as a name, right?
Doug McMasters: I discovered that when Pat MacArthur yelled at John MacArthur one day by using the word preacher and he turned his head.
Doug McMasters: If you want to know more about that story, I can tell you later, but it was pretty funny.
Doug McMasters: So we find the English challenging.
Doug McMasters: Is it preacher?
Doug McMasters: Is it teacher?
Doug McMasters: Is it convener of an assembly?
Doug McMasters: Yes, but it's not teacher like a classroom, and it's not preacher, like a pulpit.
Doug McMasters: So it's a little different than that.
Doug McMasters: It's someone who's gathering a group of people to convey instruction, but does it by way of saying I took myself on a journey and as I took myself on a journey I learned some things that gave me wisdom.
Doug McMasters: And as you go on your journey, I asked you to enter into my journey so that you might have the kind of instruction I've gained.
Doug McMasters: So that's why teacher I think probably of all of the terms probably works out the best, right?
Doug McMasters: Well, let's talk a little bit about the author In Ecclesiastes 1.1, the words of the teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: So naturally we're going to think of King Solomon, king in Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: So naturally we're going to think of King Solomon.
Doug McMasters: We might think of some of the other kings who are of the lineage of David, but this is the only physical first-generation son of David who was king in Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: And as we read through Ecclesiastes, there are a lot of things that we read there that really do line up perfectly with Solomon, chapter 1 and verse 16, I've acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me.
Doug McMasters: That sounds like Solomon.
Doug McMasters: Solomon was promised because not only a wise and discerning mind, but he would also have riches beyond compare, and when we read Ecclesiastes, there's certainly a person here who has great resources available.
Doug McMasters: As we read here, the teacher goes on to describe houses that he built and gardens that he planted and the power and luxury that were just seemingly in his hands in fullness.
Doug McMasters: The description of this teacher in Ecclesiastes 12.9 talks about him gathering together wisdom, which reminds us of a statement in 1 Kings 4.32, which talks about him, solomon, weighing and studying and arranging proverbs with care.
Doug McMasters: So, from the earliest days, a lot of people have seen this to be Solomon.
Doug McMasters: Now, if you know the track of Solomon's life, you know that there isn't just wisdom in Solomon's life.
Doug McMasters: There was also a lot of folly.
Doug McMasters: His life and his leadership were sidetracked by the pursuit of various inappropriate activities, and so a lot of people think that this is Solomon not in the vigor of his strength, not in the rush of early years of monarchy, but at the end of his days, as he's come to the end, hopefully repentant of his sins, returning to a right and proper understanding and fear of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: And so this is perhaps his final testament of the Lord, and so this is perhaps his final testament, maybe his words, given even directly to his son, rehoboth, to give him the wisdom that he was obviously lacking, when the day would come when he would become the king.
Doug McMasters: I've kind of introduced this to you already, but let's talk about its place for a minute.
Doug McMasters: This is within the corpus of what we call the wisdom literature of the Old Testament.
Doug McMasters: Ecclesiastes is definitely one of those books that is meant to provide to us wisdom and understanding and discernment how to live our lives rightly before God, in full honor and respect, and even fear of Him.
Doug McMasters: It repeats that refrain in Proverbs the fear of the Lord's, beginning of knowledge, right, the beginning of wisdom.
Doug McMasters: Ecclesiastes 3.14,.
Doug McMasters: God works so that people will be in awe of him.
Doug McMasters: Ecclesiastes 5.7,.
Doug McMasters: Many dreams bring futility, so do many words.
Doug McMasters: Therefore, fear God.
Doug McMasters: And then Ecclesiastes 12.13.
Doug McMasters: When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this Fear God, keep his commandments, because this is for all humanity.
Doug McMasters: Like other parts of wisdom literature, ecclesiastes is reflective.
Doug McMasters: It's looking at God's world and God's works and reflecting upon those things in order to understand better this life, this world, by way of God's point of view, and so it overlaps with other wisdom literature in doing that, but it also does so in its own very unique, distinct way.
Doug McMasters: It has some correlations with, say, the book of Job, for instance, where Job speaks about this puzzling thought that a righteous person could suffer.
Doug McMasters: Well, ecclesiastes says that's not just something Job alone experiences.
Doug McMasters: There are a lot of righteous people who suffer.
Doug McMasters: But it also goes to the book of Proverbs, where Proverbs lays out how life should run in expectation of wisdom.
Doug McMasters: Right, but then Ecclesiastes goes to the exceptions of those expectations.
Doug McMasters: The race is not always to the swift, the battle is not always to the strong, and so we find this wisdom literature unique, especially as we see it in its sort of journey motif.
Doug McMasters: And that leads us to the structure question.
Doug McMasters: How does this story get told?
Doug McMasters: This is one of the most vexing issues for people who spend a lot of time with Ecclesiastes.
Doug McMasters: And it's perhaps one of the most vexing issues for people who spend a lot of time with Ecclesiastes, and it's perhaps one of the most vexing issues for you as you read it.
Doug McMasters: What is its structure?
Doug McMasters: I don't feel it taking me anywhere in a linear way.
Doug McMasters: Some people get discouraged by that, seeing it and feeling its seeming disorganization and even its contrary nature to itself at times.
Doug McMasters: Some Bible scholars have said this.
Doug McMasters: There is no progression of thought in one section to the other.
Doug McMasters: The author offers no universal or satisfactory answer to any of the problems that he raises.
Doug McMasters: Well, if that's true, that would be a very discouraging perspective.
Doug McMasters: Added to that, as I said, are these puzzling contradictions that are inside of it, distractions that are inside of it.
Doug McMasters: For example, in chapter 2 and verse 13, the teacher speaks about wisdom in a very, very laudatory way and yet two verses later questions whether wisdom is valuable at all.
Doug McMasters: How can it both be profitable and not profitable at the same time?
Doug McMasters: He talks about pleasure in chapter 8 and verse 15.
Doug McMasters: But he also says in chapter 2 and verse 2 that pleasure is useless.
Doug McMasters: So which is it Right?
Doug McMasters: He praises life in chapter 9 and verse 4.
Doug McMasters: Praises work in chapter 8 and verse 22.
Doug McMasters: But then, in chapter 2 and verses 17 and 18, says that he hates both work and life.
Doug McMasters: Now tell me if that doesn't resonate with some of your own thoughts as you take the conglomerate of your days and try to distill them all down to statements, does it not?
Doug McMasters: So, instead of finding some sort of linear movement, I think it's better to be able to feel some structural features that I want to introduce to you.
Doug McMasters: First of all, there are some things that are very much structural in their placement.
Doug McMasters: For instance, there are two voices that we hear in the book of Ecclesiastes.
Doug McMasters: The first voice listen to it.
Doug McMasters: Look at verse 12.
Doug McMasters: I, the teacher, have been king over Israel.
Doug McMasters: In Jerusalem, I applied my mind to examine and explore through wisdom all that is done under heaven.
Doug McMasters: Okay, so this is a first person statement, right?
Doug McMasters: I, the teacher.
Doug McMasters: Chapter two, in verse one, I said to myself go ahead, I will test you with pleasure.
Doug McMasters: Then, in chapter six, verse one, I have seen another evil under the sun.
Doug McMasters: Chapter 9, I have reflected on all of this.
Doug McMasters: There's this first person voice, but it's not the only voice in the book.
Doug McMasters: Ecclesiastes begins with a different voice.
Doug McMasters: Let's look at verse one with me, the words of the teacher, son of David, king of Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: This voice sounds like it's somebody else's voice talking about the teacher.
Doug McMasters: That's reinforced in chapter seven, in verse 27,.
Doug McMasters: When we get this little note that says there, look, says the teacher.
Doug McMasters: This is what I've discovered.
Doug McMasters: So somebody's talking about the teacher.
Doug McMasters: Now, right, not just mentioning the teacher, talking about the teacher.
Doug McMasters: And then, when you get to chapter 12 and verse 9, listen to these words and tell me if this doesn't sound like a second voice.
Doug McMasters: In addition to the teacher being a wise man, he constantly taught the people knowledge.
Doug McMasters: He weighed, explored and arranged many proverbs.
Doug McMasters: The teacher sought to find delightful sayings and write words of truth accurately.
Doug McMasters: Ah, now it really sounds like a second voice talking about the first voice.
Doug McMasters: So one thing that we can feel here is that there's something going on.
Doug McMasters: There's Solomon and his journey and somebody else helping us see Solomon in that journey.
Doug McMasters: But there's more to this.
Doug McMasters: Structurally, there's also some bookends.
Doug McMasters: Let's go to verse 2 of chapter 1.
Doug McMasters: Absolute futility, says the teacher.
Doug McMasters: Absolute futility, everything is futile.
Doug McMasters: Chapter 12, the last chapter of the book.
Doug McMasters: In verse 8, absolute futility, says the teacher, everything is futile.
Doug McMasters: So there's kind of a bookend there.
Doug McMasters: Right, there's bookends.
Doug McMasters: The front starts with futility and it ends with futility.
Doug McMasters: But if you move a little deeper into chapter 1 and a little earlier in chapter 12, you'll notice that there's also two poems that follow this, beginning in verse 4, a generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.
Doug McMasters: The sun rises and the sun sets, panting.
Doug McMasters: It hurries back to the place where it rises, gusting to the south, turning to the north, turning, turning goes the wind and the wind returns in its cycles.
Doug McMasters: When you look at the closing poem that begins in chapter 12, or perhaps even in chapter 11, near the end of it, you'll see a bunch of similarities there.
Doug McMasters: The first one speaks about generations coming and going, like the endless repeating patterns of the sun and the wind and the rivers no-transcript.
Doug McMasters: In the second poem, at the end, you also get this sense of impermanence and futility that's contemplated directly and comes to the very end of it all with death.
Doug McMasters: There's also words that are common to both poems, words about the sun, words about the wind, words that call us to remember.
Doug McMasters: So there's a lot of connecting points there.
Doug McMasters: So what do we have?
Doug McMasters: What am I saying?
Doug McMasters: We have two voices and bookends.
Doug McMasters: We have an introduction and an exit.
Doug McMasters: We've got these statements about vanity.
Doug McMasters: We've got these poems with similar themes.
Doug McMasters: What about the inside?
Doug McMasters: What about all of that in the middle?
Doug McMasters: Now, now that we've seen there's some cohesion and coherence and connection between chapter 1 and chapter 12, what do we do with 2 through 11?
Doug McMasters: Well, this is where it gets a little more complex and this is where, truly, those who are trying to find a structure really, really have to wrestle with it.
Doug McMasters: I think the answer is not to look for structure, the way we think of structure, but to remember who's teaching us here.
Doug McMasters: This is the Kohelet, this is the teacher, preacher, convener of an assembly, this is a person who's inviting us into their journey.
Doug McMasters: None of our journeys are linear.
Doug McMasters: Our journeys are filled with all kinds of twists and turns and side roads and returns back to the main roads, right?
Doug McMasters: So when we're taught here by this teacher, we're brought along on that kind of journey.
Doug McMasters: He's not laying it out systematically, line upon line, like we might expect.
Doug McMasters: He's wanting us to just go with him as the wind carries his life through all of these discoveries and understandings.
Doug McMasters: So when we talk about preaching and teaching, there's more than just a good outline that captures our attention.
Doug McMasters: Right, good outlines are helpful, but someone can be a dead asleep listener to a good outline If the preacher doesn't modulate his voice, doesn't have something interesting to say, doesn't use perhaps rhetorical skills or gestures or whatever to try to keep people's attention.
Doug McMasters: A good outline won't do that.
Doug McMasters: So this teacher moves away from the easy outline but uses a lot of rhetorical devices to keep our attention.
Doug McMasters: He wants to maintain our interest by using words like hyperbole, by speaking about things to the extreme and causing us to think.
Doug McMasters: By using this hyperbole, For instance, in chapter 2 and verse 8, I hated all my work that I labored under the sun, because I must leave it to the one who comes after me and who knows whether he'll be a wise man or a fool.
Doug McMasters: Well, you're kind of like yeah, yeah, me too.
Doug McMasters: That's going to happen to me too.
Doug McMasters: Yet he will take over all my work that I've labored skillfully under the sun.
Doug McMasters: He will take over all my work that I've labored skillfully under the sun.
Doug McMasters: So that kind of hyperbole there.
Doug McMasters: Right, did he really hate all of his work simply because he couldn't see it through to the next generation and put it into skillful hands?
Doug McMasters: No, no, he talks in other places about actually being able to enjoy work.
Doug McMasters: No, he talks in other places about actually being able to enjoy work.
Doug McMasters: But the hyperbole is there to make a striking statement, to cause us to think.
Doug McMasters: He also uses some common figures of speech, like simile, like the crackling of burning thorns under the pot.
Doug McMasters: So is the laughter of the fool, chapter 7 and verse 6.
Doug McMasters: Our metaphor, for instance a live dog's better than a dead lion.
Doug McMasters: Now is he really taking us to the vet's office and asking the veterinarian so which is better here, a live dog or a dead lion?
Doug McMasters: A veterinarian, so, which is better here, a live dog or a dead lion?
Doug McMasters: No, he's using that metaphorically, right?
Doug McMasters: Or he's using metonymy.
Doug McMasters: Get it out of my mouth, metonymy apart for the whole.
Doug McMasters: Ecclesiastes 10.18,.
Doug McMasters: Because of laziness, the roof caves in and because of negligent hands.
Doug McMasters: 10.18, because of laziness, the roof caves in and because of negligent hands, the house leaks.
Doug McMasters: Now is Solomon simply telling us about how to have a well-constructed house?
Doug McMasters: No, he's talking about how to have a well-constructed life, and the house could stand for our whole life.
Doug McMasters: If our house is a shambles, our life is a shambles.
Doug McMasters: So the part stands for the whole.
Doug McMasters: He uses vivid numerical figures to help us understand the power of things Chapter 4 and verse 12.
Doug McMasters: If someone overpowers one person, two can resist him.
Doug McMasters: And what's the next part?
Doug McMasters: A cord of what?
Doug McMasters: Three strands is not easily broken.
Doug McMasters: Why do you remember that?
Doug McMasters: One, two, three, it's simple as that.
Doug McMasters: It's a rhetorical device.
Doug McMasters: He also uses humor, including ridicule and sarcasm.
Doug McMasters: Ecclesiastes 10.3.
Doug McMasters: When a fool walks along the road, his heart lacks sense and he shows everyone he's a fool.
Doug McMasters: Verse 15.
Doug McMasters: The struggles of fools weary them, for they don't even know how to go to the city.
Doug McMasters: You can imagine this person who's like wandering around in such foolishness he can't even make his way down the street to get where everybody knows he should be going.
Doug McMasters: But something else that the teacher does here besides use these rhetorical devices, there's one that he likes to use the most and that is to ask questions.
Doug McMasters: To ask questions.
Doug McMasters: Now, a lot of people think that these questions are thrown out there simply for rhetorical effect, that as if the answer is an automatic no.
Doug McMasters: What does a man gain?
Doug McMasters: Well, people would say, well, the answer is simply nothing.
Doug McMasters: I don't think that's true.
Doug McMasters: We have to ask ourselves every time a question is thrown up there is it a rhetorical question or is it a genuine question of investigation?
Doug McMasters: Don't assume it's one or the other immediately.
Doug McMasters: When he says who knows or does a man gain?
Doug McMasters: Don't automatically assume the answer is a negative answer.
Doug McMasters: He might be seriously asking the question and then providing the answer.
Doug McMasters: For instance, in chapter 6 and verse 12, who knows what is good for a man.
Doug McMasters: Well, the rhetorical answer would be nothing in that negative kind of frame.
Doug McMasters: But if you read after chapter 6, you find out that he actually answers the question and says there are things that are actually good.
Doug McMasters: So it's an investigative question, not a rhetorical question.
Doug McMasters: Another example in chapter 1 and verse 3, what does a man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?
Doug McMasters: Is he rhetorically denying that there's any gain or is he asking the question genuinely?
Doug McMasters: Well, when you read further on, you find in chapter 2 and verse 13 that there is some gain.
Doug McMasters: Chapter 5 and verse 9, there is some gain.
Doug McMasters: Chapter 7 and verse 12, there is some gain.
Doug McMasters: Chapter 10 and verse 10, there is some gain.
Doug McMasters: So he's answering the question.
Doug McMasters: So this teacher takes us on a journey.
Doug McMasters: He asks questions, he uses rhetorical devices, he goes to hyperbole and the metaphor and metonymy, he goes to simile, he goes to questions both rhetorical and true and genuine.
Doug McMasters: But he also makes some observations and draws some conclusions and casts those observations and conclusions along the way.
Doug McMasters: Along the way, when he makes observations, we read words like I saw right, and when he makes those observations, predominantly those observations are more on the negative side, seeing human weakness and transitoriness, that our lives are really brief and fleeting, obligatoriness that our lives are really brief and fleeting.
Doug McMasters: But he also has instructions, and those instructions aren't negative, they're actually more positive.
Doug McMasters: And those instructions help us to be wise and a certain kind of wisdom, a wisdom of prudence, a wisdom of discretion, a wisdom of moderation, a wisdom that understands what it means to be even keeled in a topsy-turvy world.
Doug McMasters: So look for those, and when you look for those observations and those instructions, you will actually see, within the middle of this book, four cycles of observation, instruction, observation, instruction, observation, instruction.
Doug McMasters: Now, they're not as neat, cut as that, they kind of bleed over into each other, but there's a predominance of observations followed by a predominance of conclusions and instructions in four different cycles.
Doug McMasters: Now that gets me right to the heart of what I think is probably the most important thing to understand, and how to understand this book.
Doug McMasters: Let's go back to chapter 1, in verse 2.
Doug McMasters: None of our English translations really do this justice.
Doug McMasters: Justice.
Doug McMasters: There's one Hebrew word that's mentioned five times in one verse, in chapter 1 and verse 2 of the CSB absolute futility, absolute futility, everything is futile.
Doug McMasters: That's actually one Hebrew word being repeated several times.
Doug McMasters: Havel, havel, says the teacher, havel, havel, everything is Havel.
Doug McMasters: Now the question is what does Havel mean?
Doug McMasters: Chapter 12 and verse 8, remember the?
Doug McMasters: This is one of those observational points, and I talked about the observations and the instruction cycles.
Doug McMasters: Well, 23 of the 38 uses of Havel are in those observational sections.
Doug McMasters: Eight of them are in these two verses.
Doug McMasters: What does this word mean?
Doug McMasters: It's used dozens of times.
Doug McMasters: Well, the word Havel, translated literally, means a mist or a vapor or a breath, literally.
Doug McMasters: And you go to other places in the Old Testament where it is a mist or a vapor or a breath.
Doug McMasters: Where the interpretive question comes is where the interpretive question comes is what do we do with the very concrete vapor, midst or breath, and turn it into a metaphor.
Doug McMasters: Metaphorically, what is it referring to?
Doug McMasters: Metaphorically, it could mean speaking about something that's fleeting or elusive.
Doug McMasters: Right, what is a vapor?
Doug McMasters: Royal had our freezer open and we have a bottom level freezer and an upper level refrigerator, and when I was down in what we call our den, I could look up the steps.
Doug McMasters: And when I was down in what we call our den, I could look up the steps and when she pulled the freezer, there was condensation rolling out from under the bottom of the freezer and it drifted and faded away within a few feet.
Doug McMasters: It's Havel, it's a mist, it's a vapor, it's a breath.
Doug McMasters: There for just a little while and gone.
Doug McMasters: So take out the words absolute futility of verse 2 and put in these words vaporous, vaporous, says the teacher.
Doug McMasters: Vapor, vaporous, says the teacher.
Doug McMasters: Vaporous, vaporous everything is mist.
Doug McMasters: Does that sound a little different to your understanding than absolute futility?
Doug McMasters: Absolute futility gives it a negative moral tone, whereas Havel carries more the idea of transitoriness and brevity, without the moral connotation.
Doug McMasters: What is our life?
Doug McMasters: It's a puff of wind.
Doug McMasters: What is our life?
Doug McMasters: It's a vapor.
Doug McMasters: More than just futile, chaotic, empty, useless, meaningless.
Doug McMasters: No, it's something different than that.
Doug McMasters: All of our lives, every single one of us, every single human on earth lives a Havel life of brevity.
Doug McMasters: We're just mists that are here for a little while.
Doug McMasters: There's not a single aspect about our human existence that is not touched by that transitory nature of our life.
Doug McMasters: If we give ourselves to wisdom, we'll only be wise for a little while we give ourselves to work.
Doug McMasters: We'll only work for a little while we give ourselves to pumping up our bodies with exercise.
Doug McMasters: We'll only be strong for a little while we give ourselves to our families.
Doug McMasters: We'll only be in our family for a little while.
Doug McMasters: If we have money, we're only going to have it for a little while.
Doug McMasters: If we enjoy the pleasure of an ice cream cone, it's going to melt, and so will we enjoy the pleasure of an ice cream cone.
Doug McMasters: It's going to melt, and so will we.
Doug McMasters: This is what Solomon is driving at, more than just saying life under the sun is absolutely meaningless to actually saying life under the sun is just brief, it only lasts a little while.
Doug McMasters: And how can you gain wisdom when everything just seems slipping out of your hand all the time, when none of it seems like it really hits you in the satisfaction spot?
Doug McMasters: That's the journey.
Doug McMasters: That's the question he's dealing with more.
Doug McMasters: Yes, he gets into the realities of human existence and the vexations that we feel and the challenges of making sure that we don't make gods out of all the stuff that's here.
Doug McMasters: Yes, he gets there, but he wants us to know more than just this sort of negative, nihilistic framework that says life sucks and then you die.
Doug McMasters: It's more than that.
Doug McMasters: He wants to take us on this journey.
Doug McMasters: So he immerses himself in work and finds out that work in and of itself is just not it.
Doug McMasters: He immerses himself in acquisitions and finds out that that's just not it, and he goes into pursuit after pursuit after pursuit after pursuit Some legitimate and some seemingly very illegitimate and comes back saying I didn't find anything there Because it's fleeting and I'm fleeting.
Doug McMasters: So how are we to live a life in this fleeting world, in this one that's given to change, when we're given to change, when expectations don't always come to pass into change, when expectations don't always come to pass, when you rally behind a leader and then that leader becomes corrupt, when you gain some money and find it has to go, when you enjoy your job and then you have to work right, how do you find any of this?
Doug McMasters: How do you find help in the middle of an elusive, ephemeral, enigmatic life that's going to end in death?
Doug McMasters: Well, what does he tell us?
Doug McMasters: He said there's wisdom in caution, there's wisdom in moderation.
Doug McMasters: Don't go fully any one direction, thinking that somehow you found the secret because it won't be there.
Doug McMasters: The answer will not be in any one of those pursuits.
Doug McMasters: So step back a little bit, be moderate, be cautious, be even keeled.
Doug McMasters: He goes into that in some ways.
Doug McMasters: He examines, for instance, your youth.
Doug McMasters: Enjoy your youth, but remember you're not going to have it forever.
Doug McMasters: Enjoy your job, but remember it's going to be repetitious.
Doug McMasters: Enjoy.
Doug McMasters: He goes there, but he gives you those moderating tones all the time because what he's trying to teach you is these things are gifts, but they're not gods.
Doug McMasters: They can't give you what only god can give you.
Doug McMasters: But there are gifts from the God who does give you everything.
Doug McMasters: So work and money and friends and relatives, and life itself, health, vitality.
Doug McMasters: All of these things are to be welcomed as gifts, but not as gods.
Doug McMasters: Be moderate, be moderate, but not as gods, be moderate.
Doug McMasters: But he also tells you that it's okay to take pleasure in those things.
Doug McMasters: Counter to this sort of negative, meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless perspective.
Doug McMasters: Solomon interjects many different times that there truly are pleasures to be had, even in the fleeting moments of life.
Doug McMasters: Let me read a few of these for us.
Doug McMasters: Ecclesiastes 2.24.
Doug McMasters: There's nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.
Doug McMasters: This I saw, is from the hand of God, for, apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment?
Doug McMasters: Ecclesiastes 3.10.
Doug McMasters: I've seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.
Doug McMasters: He's made everything beautiful in his time.
Doug McMasters: Also, he's put eternity into man's hearts, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
Doug McMasters: I perceive there's nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live, and that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all of his toil.
Doug McMasters: This is God's gift to man.
Doug McMasters: I perceive that what God does endures forever.
Doug McMasters: Nothing can be added to it.
Doug McMasters: What God does endures forever.
Doug McMasters: Nothing can be added to it.
Doug McMasters: Ecclesiastes 3.22,.
Doug McMasters: There's nothing better than for a person to enjoy his activities, because that is his reward.
Doug McMasters: Ecclesiastes 5.18, I've seen what is seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil to which one toils under the sun, the few days of his life that God has given him.
Doug McMasters: Ecclesiastes 8.15, I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.
Doug McMasters: Ecclesiastes 9.7, go, eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.
Doug McMasters: Let your garments be white, let not oil be lacking on your head.
Doug McMasters: Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your life that he's given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.
Doug McMasters: Ecclesiastes 11.7,.
Doug McMasters: Light is sweet.
Doug McMasters: It's pleasing for the eyes to see the sun.
Doug McMasters: Indeed, if someone lives many years, let him rejoice in them all and let him remember the days of darkness, since they will be many.
Doug McMasters: All this repetition, all this repetition these are the conclusions in the journey of a ephemeral, vaporous life that there are real pleasures to be had when you take life, in the full picture of it all and understanding its temporary nature, but that God gifts you with things even in the middle of it.
Doug McMasters: So enjoy your food, enjoy your drink, and understanding its temporary nature, but that God gifts you with things even in the middle of it.
Doug McMasters: So enjoy your food, enjoy your drink, enjoy your work, enjoy your marriage, enjoy your health, enjoy your strength, enjoy your youth.
Doug McMasters: You're not going to have it forever.
Doug McMasters: You're not going to have any of it.
Doug McMasters: You're going to die.
Doug McMasters: I'm going to die.
Doug McMasters: Don't get lost in the details.
Doug McMasters: Balance your life out.
Doug McMasters: Work, but take a vacation.
Doug McMasters: Work out, but don't get angry when you can't go to the gym anymore.
Doug McMasters: Use your money not just wisely and for the future Remember you may not have one.
Doug McMasters: Use part of it for pleasures today.
Doug McMasters: This kind of balanced, holistic perspective about life is the kind of wisdom that Solomon, at the end of his days, when he tried to make a God out of everything, realized that it was better just to think of them as temporary gifts.
Doug McMasters: And that brings us to the end of the book.
Doug McMasters: How can you do that?
Doug McMasters: By ordering your life under the sovereignty of God, by giving yourself to Him rather than giving yourself to your pursuits.
Doug McMasters: And only when you're rightly oriented with God can you be rightly oriented with your money, with your pleasures, with your family, with your work, with your health.
Doug McMasters: It's the only way.
Doug McMasters: This is why, at the end of Ecclesiastes, he says that this teacher is constantly teaching people knowledge.
Doug McMasters: He weighed, he explored, he arranged Proverbs, he sought to find delightful sayings and to write words of truth accurately.
Doug McMasters: This is where he wants us to end up.
Doug McMasters: Can I love it, even though I have to leave it?
Doug McMasters: Yes, you can, when you first know that God is sovereign, both in your pleasure and in your pain, your pleasure and in your pain.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray.
Doug McMasters: Father, we thank you for giving us a perspective about life that doesn't paper over the realities of its challenges and difficulties.
Doug McMasters: We thank you that you speak honestly and truthfully to us, but you also grant us something that we wouldn't understand otherwise.
Doug McMasters: You give us a wisdom from above so that we might know how to live under the sun.
Doug McMasters: Lord, I pray that you would help us to recognize that all of our simple things in life are actually sacred gifts from you, that the things that we enjoy can be enjoyed when they're put under your sovereignty, when we are looking to you as the first in our life and not trying to make those things which cannot be first, not trying to make those things which cannot be first.
Doug McMasters: Lord, I pray that you'd help us to appreciate these gifts from you, to appreciate life while we have it, strength while we've got it.
Doug McMasters: Money while we can use it, work while we're engaged in it, family while we're in it, the body of Christ, while we're here, even in the midst of our vaporous lives, and we pray this Father in Christ's name, amen.