Ecclesiastes in Context

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

As I’m sure some of you are thinking, it’s about time. But this is the final, final word. The end of the end of the matter. Even though we finished our verse-by-verse study of Ecclesiastes last week, it’s kind of like when you finish your cup of water. You’ve taken the last drink, But maybe there’s just a little bit more left in the bottom of the cup. So you go back again and tilt your head back as far as you can get it. Let that little drip, the very last drop come down. So that’s what this is this morning. Just trying to get that last little drop of Ecclesiastes before we we send the series packing. And I wanted to take one more morning and try to glue the piece of Ecclesiastes into the bigger Bible puzzle and show you or comment just a little bit about Ecclesiastes in context. I don’t always talk about it. I’m going to talk about it now for just a moment, but one of my main goals Sunday after Sunday in this series on Ecclesiastes was to to let Solomon speak for himself and to not steal or even muffle his thunder.

It was his sermon. And as a preacher, you don’t mess with another guy’s sermon unless you think you know better. And in my case, I don’t think I know better than Solomon. That said, at times, it was painful for me to keep quiet about some things that I know that Solomon didn’t. In fact, you know things that Solomon, the wisest man ever, did not know. It would have been easy, and in fact, it was often very tempting for me to read something in Ecclesiastes that was confusing, or even something that seemed contradictory, it was very tempting to run to another part of the Bible that would have gave us a quick answer, that would have helped us understand something and given us a quick fix.

There are in fact 65 other books of the Bible that confirm the message of Ecclesiastes and in some cases clarify something that was not as clear in Solomon’s sermon. But there are at least a few reasons why I tried to avoid that approach or tried to avoid running to something else. First, that is because Solomon expected his readers to understand based on what he wrote. He was not expecting them to run to another part of the Bible to explain something that he wrote to them. Especially a New Testament book, since the New Testament, none of the New Testament had yet been written, therefore he could not have expected his readers to fill in the gaps by reading something from the New Testament, and I think in a lot of cases even from the Old Testament.

The goal of studying the Bible, Your goal when you come to read any verse or paragraph is to figure out what the author means by what he said. That is your goal. Your goal is not to bring meaning in. Your goal is not to find out what another author would have said about it. Your goal is to try to understand what the original author meant to the original readers. That is your first goal. And so even in my approach, I wanted to show that the best understanding comes from searching a paragraph itself for the clues it provides rather than jumping somewhere else. So Solomon did not expect his readers to go elsewhere.

In fact, that’s even more explicitly my second reason why I tried to avoid jumping to a bunch of other passages because as we looked at last week, Solomon asserted that his argument was sufficient. Not only did he not call other people to go to other parts of the Bible, but he said, this is the end of the matter. All has been heard. He presented sufficient evidence to make his own case. How arrogant that would have been on my part to think that I could have added to, let alone even corrected his own argument. He’s the one who stated it was sufficient, and I believe it was very important to let the preacher make his point the way he wanted to. If I was writing Ecclesiastes, I can’t say that I would have talked about vanity and death and how miserable it is over and over and over again.

It was easy to get tired of that kind of repetition. And yet, that wasn’t my repetition. That was Solomon’s repetition. And he thought that was important. He wanted us to get that. And not only was there repetition of kind of the negative pessimistic part, there was also the repetition. And I mentioned it as little buoys, that buoyed our head back up above the crashing water so that we could at least get another breath of oxygen for the next crash of the wave. He repeated the subject of joy, joy and toil. He wanted us to get that as well.

All that to say, it was enough work for me just to understand or to try to understand what he was talking about, let alone to add to what he was talking about or to try to correct anything that I may have presumptuously thought was unhealthy and unhealthy attention on how painful and hurtful and heavy life is. I wanted him to make his own point and he stated his argument was sufficient. Third, I did not take the Tigger bounce out of Ecclesiastes when it got tough because that is our modern day tendency all the time. We are a culture of people who will do anything to avoid being depressed, who will take medicine, who will get drugs, who will pay hundreds, thousands of dollars to avoid being perpetually discouraged and overwhelmed and in this feeling of heaviness.

We don’t like heaviness. We don’t like hurt. We avoid those things and we soft pedal. You know where that illustration comes from? It’s one of the pedals at the bottom of a piano that you can press to make the noise, the striking of the keys and the striking of the strings inside the piano to mute it, to muffle it. You soft pedal something when you try to take away from how awful it is or to try to make it not as extreme. And we want to do that with the bitterness of life under the sun. But Solomon didn’t want us to do that. And so I didn’t take that Tigger bounce out of Ecclesiastes as something that would be more cheery and peppy and glib because I think we need to understand more of life’s heaviness.

In particular, we need to understand how heavy life is before it gets really bad. It’s no wonder that we are so woefully prepared. When life does crush us, we’re not prepared for that because we haven’t really been thinking about it. And so in Ecclesiastes, we needed to feel the burn and to feel the burden of vanity and to wrestle with emptiness and to come to the end of ourselves to come to the end of our rope and look to God. You know, I very rarely asked you to take your copy and turn somewhere outside of Ecclesiastes. There were really only a few times that I allowed myself and then took us and encouraged us to take a step back and think on a broader level.

Probably most notably was Christmas time when I talked about the Incarnation as a story of God embracing vanity and what it meant for the Son of God to enjoy the process and have oatmeal for breakfast again. Or for his mom to stay in his favorite sweater when he was going to a friend’s bar mitzvah. Whatever it might be. I mean, the Son of God embraced the hurt and the pain and the heaviness by becoming a man. And then at Easter, you remember, we also talked about how Ecclesiastes needs Easter, and about how if Christmas is the story of God embracing vanity, Resurrection Sunday is a story of God conquering and defeating vanity.

It tells the story of God putting death to death, of taking away the sting of the greatest enemy in Ecclesiastes and shining a lamp of bright hope under the sun. Those are the only two times really that we try to talk about Ecclesiastes in light of things outside of Ecclesiastes, but now that Solomon’s sermon is done, I want to take this morning to remind you and hopefully even to encourage you by showing you how Ecclesiastes fits into God’s revelation, literally from beginning to end from Genesis 1 through Revelation 22 and in particular how it braces us how Ecclesiastes as part of God’s Word braces us gets us ready for almost unbelievable eternal joy while also warning us about almost unbearable eternal destruction and misery. Both of those things are at stake. Ecclesiastes is meant to get us to think about those things, eternal joy or eternal destruction, but the rest of Scripture even helps confirm that even more. And to do that this morning, I want to give you basically two elements of context, namely

what got us into Ecclesiastes and what gets us out. Those are the two big points. What got us into Ecclesiastes? How did we get into this mess in the first place? And then what gets us out? Is there an answer to the absurdity? In other words, why is life under the sun full of trouble and hassle and pain and vanity? Well, why is it like that? And is there an answer for that? And if yes, what is it? And can we have that please because it’s bad to be in it. It’s messy. Is there an answer? So two large points. What got us into this? What gets us out? First, what got us into Ecclesiastes? Or how do we get into this mess in the first place? Is the negative pessimistic picture Solomon presents an accurate perspective? Or is it just the ravings of an old cranky man who was just bitter. Or is this accurate? Is this reality? Is it consistent with what the rest of scripture teaches about life under the sun? The answer to that is yes. Ecclesiastes, you might be surprised, does not tell us something new because there is nothing new under the sun.

Ecclesiastes is not giving us a new argument. We actually know that Ecclesiastes is not going to tell us something different than what’s in the rest of the scripture because it is just as God-breathed and profitable as the other 65 books. So we could go into Ecclesiastes with the assumption, with the belief that Ecclesiastes was going to be consistent with what we would find in the rest of scripture. So we know that’s true, but I think we can make an even more clear connection in and how we got into this mess. And there are really three events. How we got into this mess, I think, can be summarized by just three simple, yet very foundational events for life under the sun.

You’ve heard of all of these before, but just to remind you, number one, how do we get into Ecclesiastes? How do we get into this mess? It starts with creation. Now I know some of you are like, That’s a duh principle if I have ever heard one. Duh. If there wasn’t God who created life and then who created the Sun, there could be no life looking for life under the Sun. Right. That’s true and I get that on one hand that is just very simply a duh principle, but there’s something very profound in remembering Ecclesiastes begins with creation. They’re like, well everything begins with creation. Okay, yes, but we’re talking about Ecclesiastes and I’m the preacher, so don’t change my message.

Genesis chapters 1 and 2, it goes all the way back to in the beginning. And Genesis chapters 1 and 2 reveal that God created the universe. God created the earth. God created the sun. God created humans. And He created all those things out of nothing. It is entirely His work. It operates under His creativity and His authority and His prerogative. And Ecclesiastes corroborates that truth over and over and over again. You cannot turn over any verse in Ecclesiastes and not find God’s sovereignty crawling all around. Every chapter you turn in Ecclesiastes, God’s control and your lack of control jumps out and scares you, or should scare you if you’re not thinking about it.

Ecclesiastes is full of reminders that it all starts with the fact that this is God’s deal. This is God’s creation. We are part of that. What He does endures forever. No one can add to it. No one can take away from it. He manages the weather. He controls whether plants grow or not. All these things are what Ecclesiastes corroborates about this being God’s creation. He determines Chapter 9, verse 1 of Ecclesiastes. God determines whether we receive love or hate. He is the one who gives out, dispenses joy, or withholds it. That’s Ecclesiastes 5, 19, and chapter 6, verse 2. He is explicitly called our Creator. Remember now, you’re Creator in the days of your youth.

Chapter 12, verse 1. And so Ecclesiastes just makes no sense. You can’t give this to somebody who believes in evolution. You can’t have them read Ecclesiastes. They’re starting from a wrong foundation if you don’t realize that Ecclesiastes depends on the foundation of the fact that this is God’s world. God is the creator. God’s creation is the stage on which everything in Ecclesiastes is played out. So creation is the first event. That’s moving us into how we got into this mess, because number two is the fall. Genesis 1 and 2, creation. Genesis 3, the fall. the word sin or describing people as sinners in Ecclesiastes is not that frequent. I think there’s about seven times you either have the word sin or it’s variation of sinner, only about seven times compared to 38 of vanity. It’s not a big word in Ecclesiastes.

However, you do realize that sin is the culprit behind every problem in ecclesiastes. Now I haven’t necessarily emphasized that because Solomon didn’t necessarily couch it in those terms, but do not miss that sin is behind oppression. And sin is behind jealousy and envy and strife. Sin is behind foolishness and rash behavior. Sin is behind vain worship. Sin is behind the search for satisfaction in idols. Idols like pleasure. Idols like drugs, alcohol. Idols like work, money, entertainment, sex, music, relationships. is behind all of the problems in Ecclesiastes. And in Genesis 3, we learn how we got into this mess. It all goes back to Adam and Eve. They’re the ones to blame. It’s their fault.

Adam and Eve opened the door for sin and gave sin run of the house. You give sin an inch and it takes over under the sun. It is a dominating, powerful influence. Genesis chapter 3 is the first time someone pursued satisfaction outside of God. It was in disobeying God, in searching for satisfaction in something temporary, in something on earth, that was the very first time. And the first couple could not have been in a better situation to enjoy the process because there was no problem with the process. And yet they still look outside of God for their satisfaction. And that was the fall. That was the fall of man that plunged us into sin.

and sin blinds all humanity so that we will not look beyond the sun for our satisfaction. Look at Jeremiah chapter 2. This is where I really wanted you to go just for a moment. Jeremiah chapter 2. Searching for satisfaction in something other than God is what is cause for shock and awe in the universe. Remember that? Look at Jeremiah chapter 2 verse 5. Thus says the Lord, what wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me and went after worthlessness and became worthless? They went after empty, meaningless, vain things. Which is all that this life has to offer apart from God. Keep reading, look at verse 6, They did not say, Where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness in the land of desert and pits, in the land of drought and deep darkness, in the land that none passes through where no man dwells.

And I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things, but when you came in you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination. The priests did not say, Where is the Lord? Those who handled the law did not know me. the shepherds transgressed against me the prophets prophesied by Baal and went after things that do not profit. You know what they failed to do? They failed to fear God and keep his commandments and in doing so they searched for joy, for meaning, for satisfaction in other stuff, in worthless stuff. And so in verse 11 has a nation changed its gods even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.

Be appalled, O heavens, at this. Be shocked. Be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. And Israel’s idolatry was no different than Gentile idolatry in looking for life under the Son in something other than God. And it goes back to the very first sin with Adam and Eve doing the same thing. All of the misery, all of it, all of the misery and endless searching that ends in emptiness, it all goes back to the fall. Solomon is not telling us anything It’s just an organized description and study of the results of the fall, but it goes back to the fall.

And that leads us to the third event or the third thing that got us into this mess. Creation starts with that, the fall, and then the curse. God’s curse on man’s sin. Though the story of the curse isn’t repeated in Ecclesiastes, it is God’s curse on creation and on men that explains the very tangible results of sin under the sun. Now you can look at Genesis chapter 3. After the fall, after Adam’s disobedience in particular, they’re walking in the garden and God confronts them on their sin and then curses the serpent, curses the woman, and And then in particular, look at his curse to the man, Genesis chapter 3 verse 17.

And to Adam he said, Because ye have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ye shall not eat of it. Curse it is the ground because of you. In pain ye shall eat of it all the days of your life. Solomon had wrote that rather than Moses he might have added in all the days of your vain life.

In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life, thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken for you are dust and to dust you shall return. And right there is the explanation for all of the hard parts about Ecclesiastes and then you die. The curse is why life is hard, why the business that God has given to men under the sun is difficult. The curse is the cause for gathering and collecting with sweat and never being done. The curse is the cause for pain. more than anything else you realize that sin and the curse is why we have death.

I mean death is just regurgitated over every page in Ecclesiastes. Death, death you’re gonna die and you don’t know when but you’re gonna die. And it all goes back to a consequence of sin, we go back to the dust. Difficult toil until we die is God’s curse on everything under the Sun. God did that. Now I think it is safe to assume that Solomon and his readers probably saw the connection. I definitely think Solomon saw the connection between what he wrote in Ecclesiastes about the vanity of life under the Sun. Solomon had in his mind the context of creation and the fall and the curse. They would not have questioned how we we got into this mess. There isn’t anything new under the Sun. Vanity did not come out of left field. Ecclesiastes is just an organized case study, an organized argument presenting all the results of what comes out of the fall and the curse. It is a years later explanation of what happens when men are wrongly related to their Creator, and when they fail to find their satisfaction in Him, when they fail to properly fear Him and keep His commandments,

it leads to this utter mess, all of which is described in Ecclesiastes. As a footnote, it sure does seem like that book of Genesis has some good stuff in it. Maybe we should study that sometime. We’ll have to think about that. That’s what got us into the mess. What gets us out of the mess? What gets us out of Ecclesiastes? Or is there a remedy to the vanity? Please say there is. Please say there’s something hopeful. Is there light at the end of Ecclesiastes and hope for life under the sun? Yes, there is. I have talked about that already. Ecclesiastes itself clears some space for the answer that much of the rest of the Bible fills in.

What Ecclesiastes hints at, a lot of things, especially in the New Testament, scream and proclaim for us. We just need to pay attention to it. And similar to how we got into the mess, I just want to highlight three things or three events that help us get out of the mess. And these are things that Solomon’s readers would not have known, but that we can know that are just as much God revealed and that are very helpful things I’m thankful for. Things that we can know that give us greater wisdom than Solomon if we just listen and pay attention. What gets us out of Ecclesiastes? Number one, the resurrection. The resurrection gets us out of the vanity and the curse and sting of death.

As we celebrated together at Easter, Jesus is the solution to every problem in Ecclesiastes one way or another. In Christ alone, our hope is found. He’s the answer. His perfect life unto the Son enabled him to be the worthy Lamb slaughtered for all of us who have failed to fear God and keep His commandments. And we deserve judgment for that and Jesus perfectly obeyed God and then was sacrificed in our place. His death then becomes our death for those who believe and his resurrection to new life guarantees that we ourselves will be resurrected to new life as well. The resurrection of Christ killed death. It defeated death. It conquered what Ecclesiastes presents as our greatest and most uncertain, at least in its timing enemy.

death simply does not have the sting anymore for those who are in Christ. It is not the enemy, even though we don’t know when it’s going to be. If you really get the resurrection, there’s at least got to be part of you that’s ready to say that death is not excruciating. Death is exciting. Now, the process of death may be excruciating, but the fact of death is not something that is fearful. It is something that should cause us to be worshipful because we get to go to where there’s no more vanity. The resurrection of Jesus guarantees our resurrection to eternal life because God did that too. The resurrection keeps us from dying in our sins without any forgiveness.

It keeps us from being pitied. It makes suffering unjustly worthwhile. It keeps enjoying the process from being condemnable. Rather than just eating and drinking as a replacement for God, we can eat and drink from God. And in 1 Corinthians 15, we can do that because of the resurrection. It takes the sting out of death. It makes work, at least work, that is in the Lord and for the Lord, not in vain.

The resurrection is the ground for our salvation from sin. And sin is what leads to vanity. the resurrection just obliterates all of that. Secondly, Pentecost. What gets us out of Ecclesiastes? The resurrection and Pentecost. Pentecost is what happens, what’s described early in the book of Acts, when the Holy Spirit comes and indwells every believer. Individually lives inside of every believer, every disciple of Christ. When Jesus, when the Son of God ascended, and He promised this to His disciples, when He ascended, He sent His Spirit to His disciples, to the apostles, at Pentecost, and now everyone who believes gets to the Holy Spirit.

In fact, the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our eternal inheritance. That’s Ephesians 1, verse 13. There is nothing that promising or assurance giving in Ecclesiastes. There is nothing that secure or guaranteed. It says we can enjoy the process and we can get to eternity fearing God and keeping His commandments but it kind of leaves us there. Kind of leaves us with some uncertainty. The indwelling Holy Spirit is a secure deposit of God Himself in you that gets you and keeps you for eternal joy. Now that gets you out of Ecclesiastes. The Holy Spirit secures us. But not only that, there is another huge advantage that Solomon and his readers could have only imagined by having God’s Spirit indwelling them like is described in the New Testament because the indwelling Holy Spirit works in us now in a supernatural way producing fruit that corresponds to some of our absolute greatest needs under the sun.

Just think about this. Think about the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Some examples not limited to this. The Holy Spirit enables you to love whether you get love or hate back. You don’t know which you’re going to get back. The Holy Spirit is God’s power in you to help you to love no matter what happens. The Holy Spirit also gives joy, joy even in the day of adversity. You think the Holy Spirit is more capable than adversity? I hope so. The Holy Spirit gives peace even when wickedness is rampant in the place where we should see righteousness. You can still have peace. You can be patient when unrighteousness goes unpunished.

When it seems like they got away with it, you can still be patient and wait for God to take care of it in His timing. You can have kindness towards your oppressors or towards authority figures who hurt. You can have goodness. You can do right things even when no one else around you is obeying. You can have faithfulness to fulfill your vows and your commitments. You can have gentleness. How about this gentleness even towards fools? All of Ecclesiastes 10 about fools. You can have a gentleness, thanks to the Holy Spirit, in dealing with fools and self-control while basking in your youth. You have God Himself, if you are a believer, you have God Himself in you, enabling you not just to endure the process, but to enjoy it and to enjoy it with increasing holiness.

It is the Holy Spirit producing in you greater Christlikeness, pointing you to eternity, helping you understand His word. The Holy Spirit is the effective, infinite, enabling one. Solomon and his readers could have only imagined that. And that leads to the third thing, which is final redemption. Because as good as the resurrection is, and as good as Pentecost and the coming in dwelling Holy Spirit is, final redemption is even better. In fact, final redemption is just the culmination of the first two things. And this is some fantastic news, because you realize that all of the vanity under the sun is at best temporary.

It’s miserable, but it is not forever. It will eventually be overcome fully and finally for believers and even for creation. Look at Romans chapter 8. The Apostle Paul described this especially as it relates to creation, especially as it relates to the curse which we started with in Genesis chapter 3. He says, Romans chapter 8 verse 18, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. You need to remember that verse? Yeah, when it’s hard and then you die, it’s a good one to remember. 4, verse 19, the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God, for the creation was subjected to futility.

The Greek word that is translated futility, at least in the ESV, is the same Greek word that translates habel in Ecclesiastes.

was made subject to vanity, to futility, to emptiness, to meaninglessness. God did that. We saw God’s curse on the ground. It was subjected to futility not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope, that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning, you bet it’s groaning, it’s miserable in the pains of childbirth until now. We could ask every mama about the pains of childbirth. The vanity under the sun right now is like one really big long labor. Put that in your book. Groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now, verse 23, and not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we are saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees, but if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” I couldn’t

fit more with what Solomon has described in Ecclesiastes, we just have more hope than he talks about. We got to wait, but we have hope. If we saw the hope, it wouldn’t be hope. That’s not the same thing as seeing it, but we wait and we can wait with patience because we have the Spirit inside of us helping. And things are going to start changing here someday soon. Soon might be after we’re all dead, but still in light of eternity that’s soon. It’s time to turn to Revelation. Start with Revelation 11. Things will begin to change under the Sun at the end of the Tribulation as Christ’s kingdom comes. This is what we pray for. Thy kingdom come. Revelation chapter 11, starting verse 15. Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet and And there were loud voices in heaven saying, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.

The current world system of vanity is short-lived. It’s strong now, but it doesn’t get it forever. The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever. and the 24 elders who sat on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, we give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was. For you have taken your great power and begun to reign. The nations raged, but your wrath came and the time for the dead to be judged and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and the saints and those who, He got a little Ecclesiastes 12, 13, 14 in mind.

At the end of the matter, all has been heard. Fear God. Keep His commandments. Got that in mind. The time is coming for rewarding your servants, the prophets and the saints, and those who fear your name, whether great or small, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth. God’s wrath and judgment is totally guaranteed on all who disobey Him and on all who fail to properly regard Him as He is due, but for everyone who does fear Him, whether they are insignificant or significant in light of the world’s standards, whether great or small, those who fear will be rewarded. And then there’s coming a new heaven and a new earth.

at Revelation 21. It’s just temporary and passing away. There’s a new heaven and a new earth coming. Revelation 21, starting in verse 1, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and good riddance, seriously, good riddance to the vanity cursed old earth. And the sea was no more and I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying behold the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. There’s going to be a restoration of the relationship and the intimacy like it once was and for all of the separation that there is now between us and God that’s not going to last and look at what God is going to do.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former vain things have passed away. Gone and it’s brand new. Verse 5, he who was seated on the throne said, Behold I am making all things new. Also he said write this down for these words are trustworthy and true. Get this. He said to me, it is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, to the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, the murderers, the sexually immoral sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur which is the second death.

Judgment and reward is the promise of God and Ecclesiastes gets us ready for that. In the new heaven and the new earth there will be no more distance, no more separation between us and God and He will remove every hint of vanity and any hurt and death. gone. Even to the point where we’re no longer living under the sun or dependent on the sun or basking in the sun as something God allows us to do, look at Revelation 21, 22. I saw no temple in the city for its temple is the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb.

And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it for the glory of God gives it light and its lamp is the lamb. By its light will the nations walk and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it and its gates will never be shut and there will be no night there. There’s no more searching for life under the Sun because there will be no more Sun. We’ll be basking in the light of the glory and the lamp of the lamb. And at that point vanity of vanity is all His vanity will be replaced with something like, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. And we will sing, Great and marvelous are your deeds. We sang it this morning.

We’re going to be singing that one for a long time. Look at Revelation 15, verse 3, Great and amazing, great and marvelous are your deeds, O Lord God Almighty, just and true are all your ways, O King of the nations, who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name. For you alone are holy, worthy, all nations will come and worship before you, Lord. Your righteous acts have been revealed.” Now that’s good news. If you kind of hoped that even for as long as I spent in Ecclesiastes, if you kind I had hoped that it was the ravings of an old cranky man and that that’s not what life is really like. Bad news for you. The other 65 books from beginning to end demonstrate that life is hard and then you die.

And that’s a result of sin and there is only one answer to it. If Ecclesiastes has not prepared you to talk about the gospel with other people, I don’t know what could. If you can’t take Ecclesiastes as a common starting ground in a conversation with somebody, somebody who’s a total pagan, total unbeliever, and who’s complaining about something miserable that they’re going through or that they saw somebody else go through, you can tell me like, yeah, you’re right. And that results from sin. It’s actually really old that it’s been that bad. But you know what? Not only is that what’s real, you’ve got an accurate picture of what life is like.

There’s an answer and a hope if you will put your faith in Christ. We have more than Solomon did. Our news is fuller, better, louder. We ought to proclaim it. Those who do not fear God, who do not put their faith in Christ, only participate in the first three things we talked about. They participate in creation. They participate in the fall. They participate in the curse. But unless they fear God and turn to Christ, they do not experience the benefits of His resurrection or the power of the Holy Spirit, nor do they have hope in waiting for final redemption. For them what comes is eternal destruction. God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, and every death that happens verifies how serious God is about dealing with sin and the consequences it brings.

For those of us who are believers, we say like the Apostle John did in Revelation 22, verses 20 and 21. And when we’re really thinking, when we got our heads on straight, this is what we really talk about. We don’t necessarily talk about that next cool, fun thing we’re going to get to do as much as we can enjoy the process. What we really say is come Lord Jesus and get us out of this mess. The grace of Lord Jesus be with all. Amen. Father, help us to look to the answers that you provide. Thank you for all that we have learned in Ecclesiastes and even as it has for the most part left a bitter taste in our mouth. satisfy us with the living water, satisfy us with Christ, give us that hope of eternal joy in you for those who still only experience the vanity and hurts and pains for whom death is something not only uncertain in its timing but scary because they’re not prepared.

Take your gospel, your good news, your Son’s work on the cross and His resurrection. By your Spirit, grant them new life and let Him be that eternal security and grant us hope and patience in the meantime until either we die, you take us to be with you, or until you come back and get us. We so eagerly long for that. We pray all this in the name of the One who makes it possible. Your Son. Amen.