SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Sarah.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning, everyone.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for that warm welcome.
SPEAKER_00: Your checks are in the mail.
SPEAKER_00: Open your Bibles, please, to the Book of Ecclesiastes.
SPEAKER_00: The Book of Ecclesiastes, if you let your Bible just sort of fall open in the middle, it usually lands on the Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, cell phone Bible users, you can just drop your phone on the floor and make a note to purchase a real Bible.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just serious.
SPEAKER_00: For those of you who have arrived this morning expecting to see Josh Thompson, he has not grown old, neither has he grown any hair.
SPEAKER_00: I am a substitute.
SPEAKER_00: Ecclesiastes.
SPEAKER_00: You look at Ecclesia, the first part of the word, it's the Greek word for church.
SPEAKER_00: Church simply means assembly.
SPEAKER_00: We are an assembly of believers.
SPEAKER_00: We are the assembly of God, as it were.
SPEAKER_00: And to be fair, the same word is also used for a group of rioters in the book of Acts, but that's a different story.
SPEAKER_00: Ecclesiastes, the title of the book, is from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible known as the Septuagint.
SPEAKER_00: And the Hebrew word for assembler is Kohelet.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon was the assembler, and he assembled the Jewish people to hear words of wisdom in his old age.
SPEAKER_00: The approach to life as we live it is marked on the one hand by some who are falsely or vaguely optimistic.
SPEAKER_00: Like the guy who fell off a multi-story building when passing the 20th floor was heard to remark, So far, so good.
SPEAKER_00: And some people who make their way through life have some kind of vague hope that it's all going to pan out in the end.
SPEAKER_00: Others are chronically pessimistic.
SPEAKER_00: Like the young man on top of the bridge over the Hudson River who's standing there about to jump.
SPEAKER_00: When a policeman caught him and said, What are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: To which he replied, I'm going to end my life.
SPEAKER_00: It's a miserable affair.
SPEAKER_00: The policeman said, Don't be so rash, let's take time and talk.
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you 10 minutes and you can tell me why you should end your life.
SPEAKER_00: And you give me 10 minutes and I'll tell you why you should continue living.
SPEAKER_00: And so they stood together on the bridge for 20 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: And then both of them jumped into the Hudson River.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon calls us neither to a false optimism or a chronic pessimism, but to realism.
SPEAKER_00: To use our minds, to engage our faculties, to examine the evidence, to think things through, to stand, as it were, square with the world, with a humble heart, seeking God, believing that he will reveal himself to those who earnestly cry out to him.
SPEAKER_00: And that is what Solomon opens with here in the words in the opening book of Ecclesiastes, and I want to look at it with you here this morning in chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: And if you are able, would you please stand with me for the reading of God's word?
SPEAKER_00: I'm starting in chapter one, verse one.
SPEAKER_00: The words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
SPEAKER_00: What profit hath a man of all his labor which he takes under the sun?
SPEAKER_00: One generation passes away, and another generation comes, but the earth abides forever.
SPEAKER_00: The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to its place where it rose.
SPEAKER_00: The wind goes toward the south and turns about unto the north.
SPEAKER_00: It whirls about continually, and the wind returns again according to its circuits.
SPEAKER_00: All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full, unto the place from whence the rivers come, there they return again.
SPEAKER_00: All things are full of labor.
SPEAKER_00: Man cannot utter it.
SPEAKER_00: The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
SPEAKER_00: The thing that has been, it is that which shall be, and that which is done is that which shall be done.
SPEAKER_00: There is no new thing under the sun.
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything whereof it may be said, see, this is new.
SPEAKER_00: It has been already of old time, which was before us.
SPEAKER_00: There is no remembrance of former things, neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.
SPEAKER_00: I, the preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem, and I gave my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all the things that are done under heaven.
SPEAKER_00: This severe travail has God given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith.
SPEAKER_00: I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That which is crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is lacking cannot be numbered.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks be to God for his word.
SPEAKER_00: Shall we bow for a moment and ask him to speak to us through his word, as we have the privilege of opening it together?
SPEAKER_00: Lord, there is so much that crowds our minds by way of distraction.
SPEAKER_00: We ask for your help to deal with that.
SPEAKER_00: So much that clutters our hearts by way of interference, so much that provides stumbling blocks on the pathway of faith.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that we may be open and ready to receive your truth, and ask that you will straighten a pathway of obedience before us, that we might walk in the footsteps of Jesus, in whose great name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: If you would be seated, please, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: One of the accusations, which is continuously leveled against Christianity, is that it is an escape from reality, that in order to come to terms with biblical truth, one has to disengage one's brain.
SPEAKER_00: That to live a Christian life of any worth at all involves an ostrich-like existence.
SPEAKER_00: And many will say that those of us who have staked our lives in the veracity of God's Word on the historical data of the New Testament and the risen Lord Jesus are somehow misguided.
SPEAKER_00: But far from Christianity being an escape from reason, it is a call to reasonableness.
SPEAKER_00: And as I mentioned early, to use our minds to think clearly, to feel deeply, and to live wisely.
SPEAKER_00: The Book of Ecclesiastes is apropos for where life is being lived.
SPEAKER_00: It is a solid dose of reality.
SPEAKER_00: The famous author, poet, Nobel Prize winner in literature, T.
SPEAKER_00: S.
SPEAKER_00: Eliot, way back in 1936, wrote this: Men and women cannot handle a large dose of reality.
SPEAKER_00: And that is why men and women feed on a constant interference of fantasy and mirage.
SPEAKER_00: If I can just get out of here, if I can just find the answer somewhere else.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon, unlike a university professor waxing eloquently about some subject he's quite distanced from as he speaks to his students, is involved in the questions he raises.
SPEAKER_00: As one person put it, he's built an observation tower at ground level.
SPEAKER_00: And while we try to understand this book, it's important to note that this book understands us, that it turns the searchlight on our own lives.
SPEAKER_00: And as you read through its pages, you get the funny feeling that the author knows me.
SPEAKER_00: He articulates the longings and deep thoughts of my heart, which for the most part I may never share with anyone else.
SPEAKER_00: Now, just as in much Jewish writing, which puts the most important point up front, Solomon puts his conclusion up front in the opening verse of chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: Look at it with me and continue to glance at your Bible as we work through the verses.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 2, Vanity of Vanities.
SPEAKER_00: Notice how he begins, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's a Hebrewism for the most utter vanity.
SPEAKER_00: The repetition increases the force of the statement.
SPEAKER_00: The Hebrew word is root of the word is havel, and it means breath, puff, vapor, smoke, or futility, depending its context.
SPEAKER_00: Five times in this verse, the Latin word vanitas means empty, and that explains why some of your English translations probably have the word meaningless, and that's a fair translation.
SPEAKER_00: But it is critical to note that the things that Solomon talks about are not vain in themselves.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible speaks to the fact that God has made nothing in vain.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what then?
SPEAKER_00: They are vain when put in the place of God and made the chief end.
SPEAKER_00: Let me repeat that.
SPEAKER_00: They are vain when put in the place of God and made the chief end.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't understand the phrase under the sun, and you probably saw it when we read it, and fail to see that in its context means under the sun apart from God, then you will never understand this book.
SPEAKER_00: Let me show you a couple of them if you look in your Bibles.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 1, verse 3, we read, under the Sun.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 1, verse 14, I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 2, verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, on the labor that I had labored to do, and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and then there was no profit under the sun.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore I hated life, because the work is wrought under the sun is grievous to me, for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 18, yes, I hated all my labor which I had taken under the sun.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 19, at the end, I have rule over all my labor wherein I have labored, whereas I have shown myself wise under the sun.
SPEAKER_00: This is vanity.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20, therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labor which I took under the sun, and on and on and on it goes.
SPEAKER_00: You get the idea.
SPEAKER_00: So we move through chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: The question for us is this Do the facts of life bear out Solomon's thesis?
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's look at them.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: He says, What profit has a man?
SPEAKER_00: Just stop there.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, what advantage?
SPEAKER_00: Or what's the point, we would say?
SPEAKER_00: Whether you are a mother, a teacher, an executive, an engineer, a pilot, or a driver, number one, there is an inherent monotony to life.
SPEAKER_00: An inherent monotony to life.
SPEAKER_00: Children get this right away, you don't have to tell them.
SPEAKER_00: You hear it echoing through the halls of your house.
SPEAKER_00: Mom, I'm bored.
SPEAKER_00: And many of our lives are possessed of that same kind of monotonous feeling.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what this sociologist said, and I quote, by and large, people seldom enjoy their work, nor do they enjoy traveling to and from it.
SPEAKER_00: Most jobs are repetitive, require very little personal initiative, and for the most part, people are incapable of fulfilling their full potential through them.
SPEAKER_00: People go to work that they do not enjoy, spend a considerable portion of their working hours getting to and from it, and thus it looms large in a life that is not very pleasant at the outset.
SPEAKER_00: Incidentally, this explains road rage.
SPEAKER_00: A pent-up frustration of being late, to go somewhere to do something you don't want to do, punch in, punch out, and do your best to make sense of it all?
SPEAKER_00: And finally die?
SPEAKER_00: What's the point of that?
SPEAKER_00: Monotony.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: One generation passes away and another generation comes, but the earth abides forever.
SPEAKER_00: It's a comparative.
SPEAKER_00: It's number two.
SPEAKER_00: Life is marked by transience.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't even expounded upon here.
SPEAKER_00: The frailty of your life is not even in question.
SPEAKER_00: Verses five through seven, if you look at it, there's three nouns here.
SPEAKER_00: Verse five, the sun, verse six, the wind, and verse seven, the rivers.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a very key word.
SPEAKER_00: Look at it, find it, the word again.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon lists these things because life mirrors them.
SPEAKER_00: Number three, life is repetitive.
SPEAKER_00: Life is repetitive.
SPEAKER_00: Children get this right away too, right?
SPEAKER_00: Why do I have to make my bed?
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna, you know, you know the rest of it.
SPEAKER_00: We'll jump to verse eight.
SPEAKER_00: It says, all things are full of labor, man cannot utter it.
SPEAKER_00: The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
SPEAKER_00: Fourthly, life is insatiable.
SPEAKER_00: Life is insatiable.
SPEAKER_00: There's not a person in this room who can't finish this Rolling Stones mantra.
SPEAKER_00: I can't get no.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And I've tried and I've tried and I've tried and I've tried.
SPEAKER_00: Which of course is followed by those deep and meaningful lyrics, no, no, no, and hey, hey, hey.
SPEAKER_00: Just when you find the perfect vacation, someone sends you a better-looking brochure.
SPEAKER_00: You find the perfect brunette, along comes that blonde.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon observes that life is a huge appetite that can never be satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: We always want more.
SPEAKER_00: Sports, concerts, songs, meals, vacations, you know, fill in your blank.
SPEAKER_00: Singer-songwriter Paul Simon, in his 1960s hit song called Slip Sliding Away, wrote these lyrics.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the nearer your destination, the more you're slip sliding away.
SPEAKER_00: It's a catchy little tune, depressing lyrics, but it spells out exactly what Solomon says.
SPEAKER_00: Life is insatiable.
SPEAKER_00: All the stuff slips right out of your grasp.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've been trying to unscramble your life by filling it with relationships, there is no one on the face of the earth that can deal with the deep longings of your life.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been trying to satisfy it with intellectual pursuits, there's not a theorem you can ponder that will ultimately satisfy your intellectual curiosity.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've been looking for it along the lines of an emotional trip, there's not a journey you can take or a drug you can ingest that will answer the insatiable longing that is built into the very core of your being.
SPEAKER_00: And the sooner you own up to this, the sooner you're able to make sense of your life.
SPEAKER_00: Well, verse 9 and 10, and just glance at it with me, number five, there's nothing new.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing new.
SPEAKER_00: It's like when you ask the average person, hey, what's new?
SPEAKER_00: What's the answer?
SPEAKER_00: Same old, same old, right?
SPEAKER_00: Or worse yet, the shrug.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, how are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: Huh?
SPEAKER_00: What's up for the weekend?
SPEAKER_00: Did you have fun at that point?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, great.
SPEAKER_00: Nice talking to you.
SPEAKER_00: We must have this conversation again soon.
SPEAKER_00: May I suggest to you that the real burden of life from the point of view of the human secularist is not so much that it is tragic, but that it is trivial.
SPEAKER_00: And the shrug is the saddest commentary on life of all.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon says that ultimately there are no surprises, no breakthroughs, nothing new.
SPEAKER_00: Well, moving to verse 11, number six, life is marked by insignificance.
SPEAKER_00: Life is marked by insignificance.
SPEAKER_00: What you do will not be remembered.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody thinks that someone or something will be immortal.
SPEAKER_00: Famous people, actors, singers, business titans, people who put their names on plaques and on buildings.
SPEAKER_00: Well, guess what?
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't last long.
SPEAKER_00: Apart from God, as one person put it, all you can do is launch into acts of silliness.
SPEAKER_00: So, is this pessimism?
SPEAKER_00: Is this all there is?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: This is life under the framework of the sun apart from God.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon sets up and asks the essential question: is there life before death?
SPEAKER_00: Or is it the limit of our senses simply to survive?
SPEAKER_00: Because if it is monotonous and transient and repetitive and insatiable and trivial and insignificant, then what else is it?
SPEAKER_00: Well, verse 12, if we move there, Solomon takes a pause, as it were, and ponders out loud.
SPEAKER_00: He contemplates life.
SPEAKER_00: And it is critical to understand, if you look with me at verse 13, that his wisdom remained.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon's wisdom remained.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon was not the Hugh Hefner of his age with his Playboy mansions and bunnies and purely hedonistic pleasure-chasing lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00: No, Solomon was putting these things to the test.
SPEAKER_00: And at the end of verse 13, what he essentially says is this ultimately the burdens of life have been laid upon men for their rebellion against God, seeking to make things that are listed in chapter 2 and the rest of the book their chief end.
SPEAKER_00: And so concluding, he reads, he says in verse 14, I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That which is crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is lacking cannot be numbered.
SPEAKER_00: Putting it in the vernacular, life is like a Rubik's Cube with two blocks missing.
SPEAKER_00: No matter how many times you spin the thing, you can't get all the reds, the blues, and yellows where they need to be, because it is inherently flawed.
SPEAKER_00: Like you and me.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone here been able to put the Rubik's Cube of their life together in such a manner that you can answer the whence, the whither, and the whys of your life?
SPEAKER_00: Well, cutting over to verse 18, Solomon concludes that what you learn brings grief and sorrow.
SPEAKER_00: You can see it there.
SPEAKER_00: And what he learned is what he's been talking about: that life is monotonous, it's transient, it's repetitive, it's insatiable, it's trivial, it's an insignificant apart from God under the sun.
SPEAKER_00: And thus he forces you to ask yourself this question: Are you still so proud to hold on to these dead-end streets apart from God?
SPEAKER_00: Incidentally, attending services will never fill this void.
SPEAKER_00: Religious exercise will never fill this void.
SPEAKER_00: An interest in the well-being of others will never fill this void.
SPEAKER_00: Perception in all manner of activities can never answer the deep, insatiable longing of the human heart.
SPEAKER_00: That God-shaped void may only be addressed by God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: So, is there life before death?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, there is.
SPEAKER_00: It is in He who said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_00: Same one who said, and I am come that you might have it more abundantly.
SPEAKER_00: One thought and I'm done.
SPEAKER_00: It may be that you are here today and you are probing, as it were, along the fringes of faith.
SPEAKER_00: I encourage you to consider that nothing else will ever satisfy in the journey of life apart from a living, breathing relationship with God the Father through our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You will remain forever dissatisfied until you come to know Him.
SPEAKER_00: You are far better off to give your life in the full bloom of opportunity than to straggle into His presence, offering Him the remnants of your dead-end journeys down the dead-end streets of this dead-end world.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that you and I, created in his image, were actually made for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: It should not surprise us then if we choose to live in the dark that we cannot see.
SPEAKER_00: Would you bow your heads with me as you sit here for a moment?
SPEAKER_00: Lord, some of us may just want where we sit to acknowledge our sin and rebellion before you, to acknowledge the wonder of your dealings at Calvary, opening up a door of forgiveness and faith.
SPEAKER_00: And from our hearts cry out, Oh God, take me off these dead-end streets and put me on the one-way street with Jesus at the head.
SPEAKER_00: Turn me around, turning from all that I know to be wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Fill my life and make me all that you desire me to be, that I too may go out to cry and cry out on the pathway of life, that others too may come to follow Jesus, in whose great name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Aaron is going to lead us our time of communion.