Is Everything Really Meaningless?

Well, good evening, everyone. Thank you for coming to LBC's, what is it, how many years? Let's say 25th annual conference. That sounds pretty good. Tim, what is it? How many years has it been?

Thirty-two. Has it? Oh, I undercut it. Wow. 32nd. 32nd annual conference for LBC.

This year we have Brian Borgman. It's a pleasure to have him. He comes all the way from the mountains of Nevada, Minden, Grace Community Church. he's going to deliver the word for us in Ecclesiastes, it's going to be a great study a lot of people get that book off kilter and so he's going to help us understand it better so we're looking forward to that let me go ahead and pray and we'll begin oh father I thank you for this time that we can join together as Christians as brothers and sisters in Christ and to hear your precious word proclaim, to hear your truth God in heaven may we never be a people in which we take that for granted that we can have your truth in a world filled with lies, that we can have Jesus Christ to show and reveal and give us the power to live this life in a way that glorifies you and enjoys you forever.

What a great gift we have in your word. And we thank you for our brother Brian for coming and sharing the word with us. We thank you for Ariel, his wife, for coming with him. Lord in heaven, I pray that you would bless their ministry, bless our time together, May you be glorified today, tomorrow, and into the week, and into the Lord's day. We thank you and praise you in Jesus' name.

Amen. Scripture reading, 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 17. So we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasted away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal way of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

It's a delight to introduce our speaker, Pastor Brian Borgman, as you know from Minden, Nevada. And I found on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada the most beautiful place in the earth. Although, I don't know if you can compare it to our swamps. So it's really good to have him. Grace Community Church is a fellow fire church with us. We're in the same fellowship.

Brian serves on the board of fire. And it's just a privilege to have him here. I'm so glad that he decided to come, especially this topic. This is one of the books that I've always thought, and I really got to dig into this one. I don't quite get it, so I guess I don't have to do that now since Brian is here. But it's a delight to have him here.

So Brian, come and minister the Word of God to us. Well, it's a delight to be in LaRue. You can cross it off my bucket list. Actually, I stole that joke from David Miller, I think. But anyway, it's a delight. Your Pastor Tim Pasma is, well, I don't want to say anything that would be overly flattering, but many, many of us look at him as a father in Israel.

His wisdom as a counselor and so forth is amazing. And then Andrew Beebe, I don't even know him. we became very well acquainted. We've had some phone conversations, and we've done something similar at our church. We have a young man. I say young. He's 20 years my junior, who is just a wonderful pastor, wonderful preacher, and it's important that the church think about how it will transition and about future generations.

And so I just applaud the strategy. I think it's good for the church. So I'm delighted to have my wife, Ariel, with me. And she is the best person that I know. And she is an absolute delight. And she makes me laugh all the time.

And a lot of times she doesn't even try. She is, I should have started a book years ago. I'd be rich. We have these things called aerialisms. And they're basically the butchering of ordinary cliches that everybody would know. But under Ariel's skillful hand, they turn into something completely different.

So just tell you a little bit. Pastor, did they call you Pastor Tim? Pastor Pasma? Bishop Pasma? Tim said I lived in the most beautiful part of the country. And we really, we live in a really wonderful area.

It's absolutely beautiful. and we are just about 30 minutes from South Lake Tahoe. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. If you really want to get an idea, how many of you have heard of South Lake Tahoe? Oh my goodness, I am in the sticks. That's amazing. I thought it was world famous.

So if you want to know where we live think of the Cartwrights Bonanza Ponderosa Virginia City That where we live All right So Haas was a personal friend of mine Well, we're here to talk about the book of Ecclesiastes. So I'm going to ask you to go ahead and turn there. And we're just going to read tonight the first three verses. then what we'll do is tomorrow we'll take up two passages chapter 3 and then I believe chapter 9 and then on the Lord's Day we'll do chapter 12 and so let me read this to you and I'm reading from the New American Standard it says 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 advantage does man have in all his work which he does under the sun well let's pray and ask for god's help father thank you for your holy word father where would we be without the scriptures we thank you that all scripture is God breathed and profitable for doctrine correction reproof and instruction in righteousness and father we pray tonight for your help as we look at this book and we pray that you would help us to understand the concepts and we pray that this would be a blessing and for edification for your people in Jesus name amen so let me just forewarn you so tonight is going to be a little bit more like um like a seminary class and then tomorrow we'll be preaching and then the lord's day will be preaching so um if if this uh bores most of you and only half of you come back tomorrow um you'll miss the best part, so don't be dissuaded by tonight.

So it was about 2003, and every year we go to the same place on vacation. We go to Bandon, Oregon, southern Oregon coast, absolutely beautiful, and 2003, and I'm standing there in the little cabin that we would stay in every year, and I'm watching my kids. It was a big thing. We pull up and they pile out of the van and they run into the cabin and it's just this wonderful ritual and I'm standing there and I'm watching my boys wrestle and I'm watching my daughter stand there and I'm thinking, she's going to start her freshman year in high school and look at these boys.

It was just yesterday that they were just little boys. And this wave of melancholy overtook me. I think it's a common experience. And I had this overwhelming, sad sense. Where's the time gone? Why has it gone by so fast? it seems just like yesterday that Ashley was in her you know, Oshkosh bagosh overalls and we're having to change Alex's diapers and where does the time go? and then this question why does it go by so fast?

I'm thinking to myself soon, she's going to graduate from high school Soon she'll end up being married. Soon she'll end up being a mom. And I had just watched my dad bury his parents. And I'm thinking to myself, you know, it's going to be a blink of an eye before they're watching us bury our parents. And then it's going to be two blinks of an eye before their kids are watching them bury us. ever have that sense of melancholy of how fast the time goes well let me just fast forward for you just a little bit and that is Ashley is a wife and a mom of three boys 11 8 and 8 and my boys are grown obviously they didn't stay little one of them's a father of three and my kids have watched me bury my mom and they've watched Ariel bury her mom.

And so again, I asked, where does the time go? And why, why does it go by so quickly? Well, that moment on the Oregon coast in 2003, in a sense, compelled me to finish a project that I'd been working on, on and off for over a decade. And that was, for some reason, I thought, you know, the book of Ecclesiastes actually has the answer. Now, I can't tell you why I thought the book of Ecclesiastes had the answer, but I was pretty sure that I needed to dive into this book in a way that I had never done before.

And so that's, in fact, what I did. And I'm going to argue that the book of Ecclesiastes addresses the issue of the brevity of life and gives us a perspective on how to live this short life in a way that glorifies God and does good to our souls. So, tonight, I'm just simply, think of it this way, I am an evangelist to try to get you to change your mind on the way you read the book of Ecclesiastes.

Alright? Right That unashamedly I want I want to convert you to the correct view of Ecclesiastes All right Now in order to do that we have to lay a little groundwork all right Because when a college student comes up and tells me oh, Ecclesiastes is my favorite book, I think, one, you're a college student, too, so you don't know what you're talking about, and three, you have no clue what Ecclesiastes is talking about, all right? So people tell me all the time, oh, I love Ecclesiastes, and I think to myself, I think you love what you think Ecclesiastes is saying, not what it is actually saying.

So Ecclesiastes is a challenge, right? Have you ever read through the Bible and you get to Ecclesiastes and you're like, this is weird. The book is honestly like this oddity. And I want to just tell you that if you felt that way, that's a fairly common perspective even in Old Testament scholarship. One Old Testament commentator says Ecclesiastes is perhaps the most enigmatic book in the Old Testament.

I would agree. One commentator says the book of Ecclesiastes might be called the black sheep of the Bible. I think that's good. My Hebrew professor said that Ecclesiastes was the problem child of the family of Scripture. All right. Now, as we talk about Ecclesiastes, there's going to be a few things that we need to understand right up front.

So one is that in Hebrew Bible, the name of the book is Kohelet. But the author of the book is also identified as Kohelet. So I will talk about Kohelet as the author, and I'll talk about the book sometimes as Kohelet, so you know what I'm talking about. The other thing we have to get straight from the beginning is that Kohelet, the book of Ecclesiastes, is like a jigsaw puzzle.

Now, how many of you actually really like jigsaw puzzles? Yeah, that's about the same percentage I get everywhere. You know, maybe about 4% of the people really like jigsaw puzzles, which leads me to believe that jigsaw puzzles are overrated. But it makes a good illustration. So you don't have to be a jigsaw puzzle connoisseur to know when you start with a jigsaw puzzle, what's the first thing that you should do? okay this is why most of you don't do jigsaw puzzles i i heard like six things what what okay turn all the pieces over okay that's a good first step i like that right okay um what else might you do look for corners right by the way we're missing something that actually should be like the first step.

You take the lid off. When you take the lid off, what do you have on the lid? The picture of what the puzzle is supposed to look like, right? So now you have 500 pieces or a thousand pieces or however many pieces. I like the ones that we did with our kids that were like 15 pieces, all right, and they were wooden. And so you look for the corner pieces, and then you try to find the edges, right, and you're kind of putting those off to the side, and you've got the big picture of what the puzzle's supposed to look like when it's done, all right.

So Ecclesiastes, think of it as a jigsaw puzzle. And what happens a lot of times, I'm absolutely convinced, is that people approach Ecclesiastes and they pick up this piece and they go, oh, look at that, and they pick up this piece and they go, oh, look at that. I bet those fit together somehow, and they're just mashing the pieces together instead of actually having a big picture and try to get the corners and then the edges.

The corners and the edges frame in the puzzle so that you can tell where the pieces go. I argue that Ecclesiastes is very much like the jigsaw puzzle. You have to actually see the corners. You have to see what holds or frames the picture together. You have to find the edges and then work from there. In other words, you can't just go at it from a piece-by-piece approach.

You have to do it from a big picture approach, and then the pieces fit into the big picture. You obviously have heard of the analogy of losing the forest for the trees or something like that, right? So paying so much attention to an individual tree that you forget that there's a forest, right? So that's in a sense the book of Ecclesiastes. But there's another analogy for Ecclesiastes that I really like and I realize I'm in Ohio so I don't know how many of you have ever been to Disneyland?

Oh, more than do jigsaw puzzles. Okay. Now, we took our kids to Disneyland and there was a brand new ride. And this is many years ago now, so it's now probably an old ride. And it was the Indiana Jones ride. Okay.

Now, Satan created the Indiana Jones ride. it was absolutely horrific my boys wanted to ride it so bad they wanted to dad dad dad please so we wait in line for six days and then finally get on and this this thing and they they bring that bar down and click and so you know you're stuck and that thing starts with a jolt that gives you whiplash. And then when you think it's going to go right, it jerks you left. And then it has sudden stops and then sudden starts.

And it's just rocking you back and forth, jerking and jolting And so by the time you done you have whiplash herniated discs and you are suffering from motion sickness That the book of Ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes is like the Indiana Jones ride When you think Solomon's supposed to go right, he jerks left. When you think that you're about to slow down, it's a sudden stop, and then a start again. In other words, it's a book filled with unexpected twists and turns, starts and stops that are designed, they're designed, one, to make you feel the pain of the journey.

Solomon's a master teacher. And before he goes and starts giving conclusions about God and life and all of that, what he does is he reminds us that the journey to these conclusions is a painful journey. And he is totally good with bringing us along to make us feel the pain that he went through on his journey as God revealed these things to him. And so, sometimes, sometimes repetition and painful repetition is the best way to learn something.

Now, as we think about this book, the difficulties are obvious. By the way, you have all these different perspectives on Ecclesiastes. Solomon or whoever wrote it, most people don't think Solomon wrote it, we'll talk about that in a second, but he's a cynic, or Kohelet is an agnostic, or Kohelet is a hedonist, or Kohelet is a skeptic or a nihilist or he's just an ordinary old worldling.

And what I want to say is I feel a degree of sympathy with people who have made such conclusions because what other book of the Bible says, so I hated life. By the way, you won't see that message on TBN. Or what about this? so I commended pleasure for there's nothing good for a man under the sun except to eat and drink and to be merry and you think egads I hope my college age child doesn't read this book or what about this by the way how many sermons have you heard on this don't be excessively righteous by the way you do have to laugh a little bit because then he turns around and says Yeah, but they'll be excessively wicked either.

How about this? Now, you will hear this on TBN. Money is the answer to everything. All of these sayings and more shocking statements are in the book of Ecclesiastes. And there are times where you just say, why is this book in the Bible? How do I understand this book?

Well, that brings us to basically an array of interpretive schemes. How have scholars and Old Testament commentators understood this book over the years? And one is that it is, now you have to follow this one because this is a little interesting. It is the accurate record of flawed human reasoning. so it's flawed human reasoning but it's accurately recorded for us in the bible now i want to say i think that's actually beneath the idea of god-breathed scripture okay by the way that was the that was the view of the old scofield reference bible another view life has no ultimate value and it's just sort of fatalistic wisdom So in a book that's actually pretty good overall, Gordon Fee and Doug Stewart, reading the Bible for all it's worth, they argue that Ecclesiastes is just a foil to the rest of Scripture, teaching us that life has no ultimate value.

So you kind of hold that up and then go, oh, well, thank goodness for Romans or something like that. Another view is that you have two writers. you have one the unorthodox teacher unorthodox okay and he writes the bulk of the book and so here are the rabbis they're about to trash the book of ecclesiastes because it is obviously written by somebody that's unorthodox and then you have the frame narrator the frame narrator is the guy who says we shouldn't we shouldn't trash this book we should salvage the book I know how to salvage the book. I'll do a prologue and say I'm Solomon, and then I'll do an epilogue and say fear God and keep his commandments, and you have an orthodox beginning and an orthodox end, and everything in between is unorthodox, and yay, the book of Ecclesiastes is saved.

Other people think that it's an internal debate, so Kohelet or Solomon is actually playing, in a sense, both roles as sort of a pessimistic cynic and a believer. And so a lot of times with this view of sort of this internal debate, you have the book of Ecclesiastes seen as an evangelistic effort to depress you into salvation. I have a quote here, I won't read it, and it says exactly that.

Then there, of course, is the antithesis, or what would be called the dialectic view of life, and that is the antithesis ends up being life. So what Ecclesiastes is doing is saying, so there's life without God, and then there's life with God. okay and life is so and by the way i think this is pretty this is pretty common view life without god empty, life with God is full, you have life under the sun, you need to get and live above the sun, that kind of antithesis, all right? Now, there's one thing that all these views have in common, and there are others, but we won't take time to look at them.

All of these views have two things in common. One is they're all negative. They all look at the book of Ecclesiastes as a negative book or a pessimistic book. The other thing that they all have in common is that they all take this little word, Havel, all right? So I'm going to say this word a thousand times between now and Sunday afternoon, Havel. So it looks like, transliterated into English, H-E-B-E-L, but it's Havel, and it is the word that we have translated vanity or futility or meaningless.

In Hebrew, it's simply the word for breath or vapor or mist. All of these views have in common that they take a pessimistic view and then the second thing they all have in common is they translate the Hebrew word hevel negatively as vanity, meaningless, or futility, or something like that, but all negative. So here's an interesting question. So like the NIV says, meaninglessness, meaninglessness.

All is meaningless. So if that's true, then close the book. why keep reading if everything is meaningless then everything he's about to say is meaningless okay um vanity is interesting one uh vanity comes to us actually from the volgate um and we'll talk about that in a second and so i want to propose something different okay and by the way this isn't just me, there are other guys that hold this view, and that is, the book of Ecclesiastes, one, is not pessimistic, it's optimistic. And that two, it realistically deals with the, not the so-called vanity of life, but it deals with the brevity of life.

Okay? This is critical. Everything else I'm going to say is based on this distinction. Okay? By the way, who was the first person killed in human history? Abel.

You know what Abel's name is? It's Avel, which is Havel. Why was he called Avel? Because his life was short. Now, so life is short. Life is a gift.

All right? and we are called by God to actually embrace the brevity of life and embrace the gift quality of life and thus glorify God by enjoying the short gift. Alright? So, I'm going to argue that that premise is not only what Ecclesiastes is about, but I'm going to argue that that premise will actually change your life. Okay? Now, that brings us to New American Standard says the words of the preacher.

Understand in the Hebrew Bible it says the words of Kohelet. Now, sometimes you have this word translated as, like the New American Standard, preacher. And when you think of preacher, what is the context that comes to mind? A sermon? Taking place where? In a church, right?

So preacher has a very strong, what we could call ecclesiastical emphasis. Other translations say the teacher. And so teacher would have what kind of context? School, classroom, academic, the academy, right? Some would say, actually, professor would be a good one. But that has the same connotation, obviously, the academy. me.

Some have said, no, the Kohelet should be understood as the arguer, the debater. My fellow pastor, Daniel Corey, made a suggestion that was really good, but it'll never stick. And that was provocateur. Provocateur. I like it. Right.

But it's never going to stick. You're never going to find a translation that says the words of the provocateur. All right. the son of David. Okay. But the idea is, is that he's provoking us in his words and all of that, all that's true. The Hebrew word for assembly is the word kahal, which the word kohelet comes from that word, meaning one who convenes an assembly.

Now, the problem is, is that it could be a class, it could be synagogue, it could be, I mean, it could be any number of things. And the fact is, is that the book of Ecclesiastes is certainly seen to be as, as we would say, so speeches, not literary. All right. So this is, these are like mini talks. All right. I'm not going to say like TED talks, but you get the idea of these little units and they're all related to each other.

And so because we don't know what exactly the context should be, so the Septuagint called it Ecclesiastes, which of course gives it a church context, but we don't know that for sure. So I just going to stick with Kohelet instead of preacher or Kohelet instead of teacher because I think actually leaving the ambiguity is a little better And so who is Kohelet Well I argue that it actually Solomon Even most evangelicals don believe that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes I believe that he did. He is identified at the end of the book as a shepherd king sage.

He is a wise man. And so I think, and there's no way to prove this, But I think that not only is Solomon the author, it's written during the monarchy, and by the way, there are a lot of linguistic studies that have been done that show incredible verbal parallels between Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Solomonic history. But I think that the book actually has, well, let's just say it's seasoned with the experience of older age.

Okay? The book is written in all likelihood in the twilight of life. And so you have to ask yourself, does the book of Ecclesiastes represent perhaps Solomon's repentance in old age? now I don't think that we can say it dogmatically that it does or it does not but Walt Kaiser wonderful Old Testament scholar actually says this he says there is in the book there is in the book an air of repentance and humility for past values and performance so that part is not absolutely critical to the thesis but I do think it adds a dimension and that is here you have Solomon in his old age and it's a reflection of his own repentance and humility before God and what what God brought him through in his life now we come to this word Havel and if you take a look where it says New American Standard again, vanity of vanities, says the preacher, vanity of vanities, all or everything is vanity.

That reads, and I'll put this into a little more English, it's Havel of Havels. All is Havel. So I would actually argue that we should translate it something like this. Breath of breaths. everything is a mere breath or vapors of vapors everything is a mere vapor one old testament commentator actually an excellent scholar says the history of ecclesiastes is actually a history of the meaning of havel right so you can't you cannot overstate the significance of the word Now, here's another interesting thing, is that the word Havel is used in the Old Testament about 79, 80 times.

Half of those usages are in the book of Ecclesiastes. So the word Havel is used throughout the Old Testament. Half of the uses are actually in the Old Testament. Now, let me just give you some of the poor translation choices. First of all, vanity. Vanity comes, you know, St.

Jerome who did the Latin Vulgate around the 4th century. He translates the scriptures into Latin and the Vulgate ends up becoming sort of the church, the Bible of the church in the West. And he translates the word Havel as vanitas. does anybody know what Jerome's career was? What his job was? He was a monk. He was a monk.

How much fun do monks have? So, one Old Testament commentator actually says this. This is a good observation. Jerome interpreted Ecclesiastes as a treatise aiming to show the utter vanity of every earthly enjoyment and hence the necessity of betaking to oneself an ascetic life devoted entirely to the service of God. So in other words, nobody says that Jerome had bad intention.

He just looked at that and said, oh, vanitas, so empty. And so what should you do with a life that just is nothing but emptiness? Well, join a monastery. so Ecclesiastes ended up becoming sort of a good PR approach for getting those to join the monastery other translations empty, futility or meaningless and my argument is that those translations not only don't work but they're contrary to the rest of scripture and then skew the meaning of the book in its entirety.

Now, in the Septuagint, so that's the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures that came about during the intertestamental time. In one edition of the Septuagint that Jerome used, the word Havel, and this is the, sorry about this part, this is just the seminary part, but there's no enrollment to you, so. Jerome took the Septuagint and in the version that he used, the word was mataiotes, which actually does mean empty.

And so he took empty and translated it vanitas Okay and here the interesting thing There are no less than three other significant Septuagint versions at that time Just follow me. And they take the word Hebel and instead of translating it mateotes, empty, they translate it with a little Greek word, atmos. and here's the thing is that opmus is used in the New Testament in James 4.14 do you not know that your life is a wreck so Jerome sees in the version of the Septuagint he's using translates it that becomes vanity in the King James Version but there are three other major Septuagint versions at the time of the one he uses, and each one of those three uses the term atmos, which does in fact mean breath or vapor. And so I would argue that the word itself, hevel, we should retain the idea of hevel as vapor so that the emphasis in Ecclesiastes is not on the vanity of life it's on the brevity of life now let me ask you could you find any other place in scripture that just says life is empty life is meaningless and i want to say no because life's created by god and therefore life always has significance all life has significance all life has meaning but can you go to the bible and find places where it says life is short the answer is of course you can and by the way you can go to the psalms and and i've done this in my own bible and that is i'll see a text and i will look it up and frequently when it says for instance psalm 39 life man's life is a mere breath it's the word havel it's the word havel Now, sometimes you'll hear, and this is just, this point's for free.

The idols are said to be vain idols. Well, actually it's chavell idols. Alright? Guess what the word in Hebrew for glory is? It's kavod. Guess what kavod actually means?

It means heavy. Okay? So the glory of God is weighty. God Himself is heavy. That is, God is of substance, right? What is it about the idols?

Vain idols. Don't know exactly what that means. You could say worthless. That's true. But how about this? Compared to the true God who is glorious and weighty, idols are a vapor.

They're nothing. They're inconsequential. They're insubstantial. So I would argue that throughout the Old Testament, Havel should be consistently understood in terms of brevity, in terms of breath, in terms of vapor, in terms of mist. So, is that a common message? And the answer is yes.

So you have it in the Psalms. You have, for instance, in the book of Job. Job bemoans the fact of how fast life is going, but then in his misery it can't go by fast enough. okay he says my life is like a weaver's shuttle right you ever seen a weaver's shuttle that's my days right that's my days and so sometimes havel is used with the idea of a shadow why a shadow because a shadow is something that's passing and passing quickly all right so the view that Havel means transience, vapor, mist, breath, is actually gaining a lot of traction.

And I would say very clearly that if you mistranslate Havel and then say everything's Havel, you're going to create a view of the book that is just defined by a negativity. Whereas if you say everything is breath, now all of a sudden you want to hear what Solomon is going to say. Solomon's agonizing not over the emptiness of life, he's agonizing over the brevity of life.

And that's something that all of us understand. All of us. Now, Havel is a constancy in life. Okay? So, by the way, who is Havel for? Well, it's believers and unbelievers.

Right? Does God give you like 26 hours in a day because you're a Christian? No, your life is short just like an unbeliever's life. In fact, you know the thing that makes Havel such a big bummer is that death is what makes it short. Death is what makes Havel, Havel. now Havel is a constancy in life faith does not make it disappear I will tell you and I'll probably tell you this tomorrow too if you want life to slow down be a miserable person time goes slower if you're miserable time goes by for those you're making miserable so if you want to mitigate the effects of Havel then just be a miserable person In fact, the happier you are, the faster life will go by.

Another thing, God is sovereign over Havel. God is sovereign over the breath quality of this life. And so here's Kohelet, and he's wrestling through. So tomorrow we'll look at the poem on time. There's an appointed time for every event under heaven, all right? And Solomon actually sees not only the constancy that all of life is a vapor but there a sense in which God is absolutely sovereign over that vapor There nothing that happens during that vapor that not ordained by God Himself And so everything, as it were, from cradle to the grave, as short as it may be, it's an appointed time.

And everything that happens in between is appointed. And so there is this wonderful sense where our life is in fact transient, our life is a breath but the works of God last forever you want to take comfort in a life that seems really short understand not only that it's a gift from God but the one who gave that short gift to you is the eternal one and there's nothing that's a breath for him now Havel's often coupled with chasing the wind this is an interesting phrase right you've seen this chasing the wind it's used in about seven or eight places often coupled with Havel and it could mean the whim of the wind which would just be unpredictable right so so just just track with me on this so if you have Havel so life is a vapor or breath and then you add and it's chasing the wind so there's an unpredictable element to it is that true that this short life actually has unpredictable things that happen and the answer is that's absolutely true it could also be the idea of trying to shepherd the wind which of course is simply impossible so you have a short life and you're trying to as it were shepherd the wind and that is to kind of bring things under control, that too is an impossibility. And so, Ecclesiastes is meant for control freaks too.

Ecclesiastes 7, 13-15 is like the antidote to being a control freak. Or the idea could be vexation or affliction of spirit. That is the troubling aspects of life. And by the way, all those things fit with Havel. Then you have another phrase in Ecclesiastes called under the sun. Right?

In fact, even unbelievers will say, there's nothing new under the sun. Right? And so under the sun is a phrase that's used throughout Ecclesiastes. And sometimes this has been seen to be some sort of key to the book. And I would argue that under the sun just simply means this. Ordinary life in this world.

Okay? ordinary life in this world under the sun is life for everybody your life on earth, my life on earth believer, unbeliever is life that's lived under the sun it's just ordinary life one commentator actually says this and I think this captures the idea is that this breath of life that's lived under the sun you could say is life in our death row cell and you go wow I came to be cheered up and obviously you didn't know this was about Ecclesiastes I want to say that understanding that life in a death row cell is what life is under the sun actually helps you cope with life because I will tell you that you're actually not ready to live until you've pondered your own death. You're not ready to live this short life as a gift until you've realized that one of these days your life under the sun is going to come to an end. The best way to live, as David Gibson puts it in his fine book on Ecclesiastes, you live life backwards. that is you live life from the perspective of the gravesite.

You think, well, that's depressing. I want to say it's liberating. I want to say it's really liberating. If you don't think about the fact that you're going to die, then you never come to grips with the most massive statement on the end of your life, which is going to be death. And here's the thing, is that death comes to everybody. That's Solomon's repeated refrain.

Death comes to everybody. And so the youngest in here is going to die. The oldest in here is going to die. We had a man in our church who pastored for 60 years. He died at 102. We had another young man in our church that died at 19.

And I want to say, whether you're 19 or 102, first of all, it's a breath. Both of them are breaths. But they end in death. Period. Are you actually, have you actually reckoned with the fact that you're going to die? You go, well, I go to the gym.

I don't care. You're still going to die. I drink wheatgrass every morning. Great. You'll die with bad breath. you know okay yeah take care of yourself steward your body steward your health and all of that but for all of the supplements that you take guess what you're still going to die that's simple and Solomon says we're in this death row cell under the sun and so there are other key words in Ecclesiastes labor for instance but he doesn't use the word labor as in just like ordinary work, which is a gift, okay?

Calling, vocation. He uses the word toil. or labor. And so, you want to know what Solomon anguishes over? And that is this. You spend the prime of your life doing what? Work.

You spend the prime of your life working. You spend the prime of your life changing diapers, doing laundry. running kids here and there. You spend the prime of your life doing things that at the end of the day may make absolutely no sense to you. You may be the guy that digs a hole on Monday and fills it on Tuesday, and that's your job six days a week.

And so Solomon agonizes over this. I spend the best of my life. So what do we do in America? The goal, the dream, Retire as soon as possible. By the way, that's not a biblical vision of life. Retire as soon as possible.

Work has dignity to it. But let's face it. The retirement years are actually pretty short compared to the working years. And how many times have you seen somebody that worked their tail off to try to make a good retirement and then within two months they're dead? Right? My dad drove for UPS for 38 years.

He'd get to work, get in his truck, take two sets of trailers down to Dunsmuir or down to Kettleman City and then pick up two and bring them back. Day after day, year after year, decade after decade. For what? When you start thinking, man, life is short and I just spent the prime of my life delivering trailers. that can cause some serious angst Solomon wants you to embrace the angst he wants you to embrace the dilemma he wants you to embrace the challenge of a short life that is spent in labor this is why he asks so what's the profit? he doesn't mean that in terms of commerce he means that in terms of so what's left over?

What's left over? After I pour myself into my work, into all of the things that I'm called to do, once I do that, what's left over? And then the real agony, and this isn't part of the, we won't touch on this, but part of the agony is what's left over, you leave to somebody who didn't work for it and you don't know what they're going to do with it. and all of a sudden all of your hard work is in the hands of somebody who didn't work and they act and treat what was left over as if it was some sort of entitlement And so there not even any value in the sense of well I created generational wealth And Solomon would say, yeah, then you leave all that money to some knucklehead that doesn't have any sense.

And so man's transience challenges our sense of the value of work and at times even of life. Daniel Fredericks, he says transience of life itself and the transience of our labors and joys. These are significant themes in the speech. but the realities of a fallen world are not licensed for negativity coping with and thriving within this transient life is the compensating theme in Ecclesiastes so there are other key words and I can tell you what the corner pieces are maybe I'll do that tomorrow morning but let me just say again in closing one, life is a breath and that's true for all of us.

And so I would say whether you're five or whether you're 95, you have to come to grips with the fact that one of these days you're going to breathe your last. And once you breathe your last, you'll stand before the God who made you. And you'll give an account to that God. And so ultimately, there is nothing more important than counting our days. So that we understand life is short.

Eternity never ends. And so you need to make sure that you actually are right with God through faith in Jesus Christ. So life is transient. It's short. Some of you, I look at my life, I'm still young, vigorous, and virile. All right.

But I have, and this is true for a lot of you, in fact even more severe than my case, you have less life in front of you than you have behind you. You've lived through the prime of life. you are almost at the bottom of that hill. We joke about it. I going to argue in Ecclesiastes 12 it not actually funny You better prepare for it So we all going to die Life is short But life is a gift You know what ruins the gift quality of life?

Looking at it like it's an achievement. The best way I can illustrate this, by the way, this is Solomon in Ecclesiastes 2. He tries to make all of these achievements. He tries to make a name for himself. He wants to have streets named after him. Right.

I mean, he wants to leave some sort of legacy. That's the word these days. Right. I got a legacy to think about. And the fact is, is that Solomon would say legacy. Are you kidding?

So they name a street after you in one generation. They're going to mispronounce your name and have the GPS mispronounce it, too. They won't know who you are. I'm sure. Take a left on Borgman Boulevard. Borgman Boulevard.

Who was that? That's a stupidest name for a street I've ever heard. Solomon says when you look at life as an achievement, you ruin the gift quality. Let me illustrate it a different way. Some parents look at their kids as achievements. Instead of gifts, they're achievements.

And sometimes those achievements are lived out through sports or sometimes through academics or sometimes through making sure that they end up having a good career and they look at those kids as their legacy. My kids are my achievement. Well, I want to tell you something. If you look at your children that way, you will suck the joy out of being their parents.

And you will be incredibly disappointed at the end of the day. All right? gift. Thank you, Lord. Whatever they are, whatever they do, thank you, Lord. I did my best with this little vapor that you gave me called parenthood. And I accepted those kids as a gift.

If I look at them as an achievement, I suck the joy right out of life. I know this is the first time I've ever been here and it might well be the last time but I think that parents in our circles frequently not only turn their children into idols but they turn them into achievements by which they live some sort of vicarious thing the minute you do that you've taken a good gift and turned it into something more than it could ever give you so accept life as a gift getting up every day taking two trailers down to Dunsmuir and bringing two trailers back that a gift I going to say something that will shock you Changing diapers is a gift. I always felt that it was a gift too good to be shared, so I let Ariel have all the joy.

But sometimes you're willing as a husband to make the sacrifice. Those little moments, those little moments, those little moments when you're about to pull your hair out are gifts. And they're going to be gone before you know it. And so life is short. life is a gift life can be really hard so many of you know but to know that there's a God who's sovereign over this short life of mine even my pain and suffering is going to be a breath compared to what God has in store for me in eternity so embrace the gift whatever it may be embrace your work embrace parenting embrace your marriage embrace it as a gift because it will soon be gone and so the book of Ecclesiastes far from depressing us into salvation actually advocates a life of joy in this fleeting life it advocates for us living a life receiving it as a gift with joy with joy knowing that it will soon be over so tomorrow we'll look at Ecclesiastes 3 there's an appointed time for everything and in a sense the mystery of providence and then the second session we'll look at chapter 9 how to live before you really die so I hope that we've laid the groundwork let's pray our father we come to you and father we thank you that you're sovereign you are the sovereign eternal God praise to the Lord the almighty the king of creation and father we pray for those that are without Christ and without hope we pray even tonight you would give them the gift of eternal life and father we pray also that you would help us to come to grips with these great truths in Ecclesiastes and we pray that they would change our lives in Jesus name, Amen