''Vanity, Vanity, All Is Vanity''
''Vanity, Vanity, All Is Vanity''
Read Ecclesiastes 1:1
Proverbs 8:34-36 is a simple, yet radical answer to that essential question of what is life all about. Concerning true wisdom we read...
Blessed is the man who listens to me ... whoever finds me finds life, and obtains favour from the Lord; but he who sins against me wrongs his own soul; all those who hate me love death.
The principle presented is that in finding wisdom from God, one finds Life. The one who instead hates God and His wisdom, has a death wish.
The generation growing up today seems obsessed with death. Generally speaking society is pessimistic about life, cynical, and escapist. “We're going to die anyway so let's carry on our perversions, and excesses”. “Hope I die before I get old”. “I can't get no satisfaction”. So there is an accepted way of living that drowns the sorrows with alcohol, or dreams about winning the Lottery. But there is no answer to the great question - What is life all about?
Ecclesiastes is a book that gives the answer. It is ever relevant, for it presents glaring realities of life. It is most useful, even vital, that we see the reality it presents; and deliver to a careless world, the message of what life is all about; with, and without God.
1. The Book: Ecclesiastes is a Sermon about Life⤒🔗
Although age and experience is somewhat devalued in today’s world, yet a cursory scan of job vacancies will show how necessary experience still remains. The book of Ecclesiastes is written by a man of experience, Solomon the wise; and not simply wise Solomon, but Solomon who has done it all, seen it all, tried it all.
Graced with wisdom from God Solomon then sadly lived too much in the world. But when he wrote this wisdom book, he is in his closing years, and makes this statement that all people everywhere should stop and consider.
Of course there are not simply the words of wise, experienced Solomon – but words from God, and words from God on the most important matter – the facts of life.
Consider the acclaim given to a major scientific breakthrough. There will be a proclamation – “We have found the secret of life” (the DNA chart), or “We have found some secret on some distant planet”. But is there any listening to the one who made DNA; or the one who made the stars?
We live in a world that has pretty much said that God is dead. If that is so, then we should think what is left. Secular humanism is the fancy title given to much of the philosophy of life around us. But what does it amount to? What is the logical conclusion? The Word of God answers in the book of Ecclesiastes.
Secular humanism, (that God is dead and man is god), has been presenting us with a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But every child knows there is no such thing. The rainbow keeps moving and the gold is never found. Solomon takes this “life without God” principle and drives it to its logical conclusion and he smashes the manmade idols along the way.
I remember as a child, a relative of mine having a china cabinet. To my untrained eye it was full of old cups and saucers, and other ornaments. My untrained eye noticed also that many of the cups were cracked, glued together yet still placed in the cabinet! I often wondered why they were never simply thrown out. (Such are some people...!)
Solomon, as a man of experience, brings the word of God, from the standpoint of “God is dead”. He wants us to look into the cabinet and see the crockery of this world. It is all cracked, glued, and badly painted. And he tells us, firmly, to toss it all out.
We should learn here a lesson for our own witnessing. He doesn't arrogantly dismiss the world. He gets alongside, befriends it (almost). Then he says, “I want to see your world, and I want you to see it too – really see it”. Solomon has been there and done it all and steps into the shoes of the pagan with real evangelical empathy.
Now I’m not saying we are to become like the world to win the world but we are to know the world, to be able to speak of the world as cracked and painted china. Christ tabernacle remember.
Increasingly, with some people in today’s world, we almost need some “pre-evangelism”. We live in a post Christian era, facing respectable atheism, successful secularism, and intellectual evolutionism. How does Solomon face-off against such mighty opposition?
He begins his sermon (the Book of Ecclesiastes) with his text: (1:2) “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity”.
Following on from that in the book of Ecclesiastes we have exposition; expansion; and application. It is carried through with vivid illustration; and gripping logical argument, coming to inescapable conclusions. And his purpose? – to bring the fear of the Lord to the inquirer; that he may find life in God and his favour, by grace and mercy. When man is so humbled, and brought to the point of despair, then he is beckoned to look up.
2. The Text: A Statement about Emptiness←⤒🔗
His statement is that Life (under the sun/without God) is meaningless ... or vanity of vanities. Literally, the phrase suggests “meaningless multiplied”; emptiness times emptiness. He will prove his point with much logic, but he first opens with this staggering statement that gets attention. It is a good preacher's pattern! He has searched the totality of existence and tried to make sense of it all. This is the sum theory; the conclusion of the thesis – it is all meaningless. It all boils down to this: Life ... is one big nothing. No, it’s a nothing of nothings.
Life without God, that dismisses God and his Word is a miserable life indeed. Man is building his tower of Babel, and stupidly thinks he can reach the heavens, or maybe is still trying to find that pot of gold, which isn't there. Solomon says, “I've been to the rainbow's end. There's nothing there!”
We live in a day of wonderful technological inventions. Children today may have never seen a black and white TV. They cannot imagine living without video. They laugh at parents remembering when there were only two channels. “Did you really have to get out of your chair to change to BBC?”
We have CDs, DVDs, PCs, Mobiles, and now WAPs. What a wonderful world – yes? Or perhaps not. Someone has said that the world is all title page without contents – a good illustration.
Some books have fantastic covers but the story is very poor. The world without God has a spectacular cover on the front but inside it is blank – miserably empty.
What profit has a man from all his labour ... the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing. 1:3, 8
Putting it in a nutshell, life's a rat race. We grow up, increase our wealth. We buy a house, a car, and live for success, or fame and fortune. Miserable man, get real! What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world?
But hold on! There is earthly profit. Yes, but what is the worth of this as a man takes his dying breath. Do you know what it is like to clear out a house after someone has died? The house of mourning can teach us many things about the emptiness of this life.
In our world we have set up for worship the idol of consumption. We live in a massively over-advertised society which constantly purveys its wares as essentials. “You just have to have this”. Then when you get it, “You must have this also”. “the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing”.
Gordon Keddie – “It is all journey, and no destination”.
You might have taken one of those Stena day cruises on the HSS from Belfast to Stranraer. Special rates apply for those who don’t get off in Scotland and simply want the two hour “cruise”, while entertainment is promised during the brief journey.
Some people live for the journey, not the destination. Since according to their philosophy, there is no destination (“God is dead”) we are fully justified in partying all the way. But Solomon hits home. It is all futile; empty.
What are you working for? – to make a name for yourself? – to make a fat profit? – to leave your mark on the world's stage. But the mark is a mark in dust. Life is meaningless, and futile, and...
One generation passes away, and another generation comes ... The sun also rises, and the sun goes down ... The wind goes towards the south, and turns around to the north ... That which has been is what will be ... And there is nothing new under the sun. 1:4-7, 9
There may be new actors on the stage and new scenery, but the storyline is the same. The story of fallen humanity is a story of sin, misery and death. We may live with wonderful new technologies; but Luther was right – “We do nothing new because the old Adam is in us all”.
I remember as a young nineteen year old just beginning my university studies, being overwhelmed by Queen's University Library. The only other libraries I had ever seen were school libraries, or even town libraries but this one was a tower block in itself! Oh, if I could only drink in the wisdom found in such a building.
But what is found in a library? According to one cynic, “Much wisdom from many dead people”. So one commentator spoke of a library as – “a cemetery of departed reputation”.
The wise in their field, they write books, and die. And so it goes on – depressingly repetitive.
We have a number of goldfish. We've had them a few years. Apart from being transferred into a basin once in a while, for cleaning, they swim around the same bowl every day. I’m told that goldfish have such a short memory the next time round the bowl seems like a new experience!
What's the difference between them and us? We have a larger bowl! But our memory should teach us that we have been round this corner before. We don’t have a merry go round, but a “weary go round”. So some have said – “Stop the world I want to get off”.
What a depressing sermon, preacher! Yes, it is. In the reality of life without anything else; life lived “under the sun”, we must see it all as meaningless, futile, and repetitive. So the preacher says at a funeral – “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust”.
But do you see what wise old Solomon is doing? Like one mighty man of old, he is making us eat grass. He is bringing the worldly man to see the logic of his position in order to bring him to despair.
But what he will do as he proceeds, and what we must do, is to realise the glorious reality that God is not dead.
Conclusion←⤒🔗
“Under the sun” all is vanity, but there is life “under the Son”. Jesus came that we might have Life, and have it abundantly.
Eat the grass the world offers – it presents you with a life that is empty, futile, and repetitive. But may God restore spiritual sense to mankind, and help us look up!
Why waste your energy on things of no significance? “All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to his blood.”
Be honest; become a realist. Look at the birds, the fields, the heavens shouting forth the glory of God.
God has made foolish the wisdom of the world. And God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save.
The world's wisdom is empty, but more, it is deadly. And many are going to their eternal reward still looking for the pot of gold. They have lived a restless life and they face an eternally restless death.
May the Lord instead direct us all to find Life;
Come to me, all you who labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.Matthew 11:28
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