on here, but I was reminded that I think Ian preached several of those, what was his last name again? Matic. I was going to say Malcolm, I knew that was wrong. I haven't heard from Ian in a long time. He's a pastor now somewhere, isn't he? In Australia. In Australia, that's what I thought. So you're getting a different perspective obviously. I think Ian did his doctoral work on Ecclesiastes, and this is certainly not doctoral work, but it is preaching work. Ecclesiastes chapter 1 verses 4 through 11. Give your attention now as this is a reading of God's holy word. One generation passes away and another generation comes, but the earth abides forever. The sun also rises and the sun goes down and hastens to the place where it arose. The wind goes toward the south, turns around to the north. The wind whirls about continually. and comes again on its circuit. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To the place from which the rivers come, there they return again. All things are full of labor. Man cannot express it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. That which has been is what will be. That which is done is what will be done. and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, see, this is new. It has already been in ancient times before us. There is no remembrance of the former things, nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come by those who will come after. Just that far in the reading of the word this evening. May that word dwell in our hearts richly. Once again, let's go before the throne of grace. Our Heavenly Father, we have come to worship You and You have ordained that through the foolishness of preaching would be the main means of drawing sinners to Yourself and building up the faith of the saints. And so we come, O Lord, as those who expect to hear Your Word, not to be entertained, but to be blessed by having that Word laid out before us. Lord, give spiritual power and insight to the one who preaches And to those who hear, for Jesus' sake, we pray in his name, amen. Well, Shakespeare almost single-handedly in one little section of Macbeth caught the sense of the preacher in this book. He wrote, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle, life's but a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale. told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Macbeth is Act 5, Scene 5. What's so important to you this year? Whatever it is that's so important to you this year, so important, won't really matter much next year. In fact, in thinking about that opening statement, I had to look up who won the Super Bowl this year, because I couldn't remember. It's the Baltimore Ravens, by the way. But I couldn't remember. And I thought, that was three months ago? So let me ask you, in 1933, who were the champions of the NFL? Chicago Bears. The WHL. because it was called the World Hockey League then. Somebody named the Massachusetts Rangers won in 1933. World Series, New York Giants. College, Michigan, Wolverines. And the Academy Award, anybody know that for that year? It's something called Grand Hotel. Unless you are a factoid savant, You have forgot all of those things, right? Those things don't matter anymore. They might have mattered in 1933 to Chicago fans or whatever. But today, the current fad will become the faded fad. What is the current fad of the day? I know you can think of many, but energy drinks are really big right now. Faded fad. Gumby. Some of your kids are going to say, what was he talking about? Who's Gumby? Smartphone? Atari. Right now, everybody's doing text speak. People are actually saying L-O-L. They're saying it now. How about the Rubik's Cube? When was the last time you played with one of those? So the reality is, brothers and sisters, Monday morning becomes Monday morning all over again, all too soon. And time passes, and the only thing that seems to change is I get older. And we know that and feel it. There are at least two very opposite ideas in reference to life. And these ideas make life, these two very opposite ideas, make life either virtuous or vile. They make life either blessed or miserable. And basically what we're talking about is the views of life that are natural versus spiritual. And what is Solomon, the preacher, saying here? He is saying what natural philosophy says and what worldly men feel life is all about. But Jesus Christ and the apostles say what every genuine disciple of Christ has experienced. that all things become new in Christ. That there's a big difference between the spiritual view of life and the natural view of life. And as we work through Ecclesiastes, it's important, it's very important to keep chapter 12 in your peripheral vision. To not forget it. To treat it as if it's on the sidelines. ready to get in the game, just like a very good basketball game. Probably my favorite sport to watch on television, because just when the clock is winding down, truth comes onto the court, makes the final shot, and wins the victory. We cannot forget Chapter 12 is coming. Just when you think the game is done, here comes faith, and the natural loses to the spiritual. Brothers and sisters, if you were only handed one book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes, and you only read the first few chapters, you might quit. You might say, this is really pessimistic. But the reality is, brothers, it's actually very realistic. The preacher tells it like you know it is. You felt this way. Or you will. You felt this way on many occasions, on many Monday mornings. You felt this way. We all have. Verses 4 through 11 begin with that generation goes and generation comes. It's a very poetic thing there. If you take out your italicized words in your version, that's exactly what you have it saying. Generation goes and generation comes. But the earth abides forever. And in the very opening verses of this chapter, the bitter worldview of the preacher must always be offset with the joyous faith of believers. If we look at both sides now, you will get lessons for life, and you will see things as they really are, And even as we see things as they really are, we may look for things as they can be. And that's what the preacher is really trying to get across to us. And in these verses tonight, he looks at the circle of life and the desire of life and the memory of life. The circle of life is really in verses four through seven, one of my all-time favorite musicians. I sat in the front row of two of his concerts back in the late 70s. Harry Chapin has a song called All My Life's a Circle, and it has a sense of this passage. No straight lines make up my life, and all my roads have bends. There's no clear-cut beginnings, and so far, no hope it ends. All my life's a circle, but I can't tell you why. Seasons spinning round again and the years keep passing by. The circle of life is, think about how many ways it's come across in poetry, songs, plays, movies. Brothers and sisters, you are on that revolving cycle at some point. You're on that cycle right now. In fact, it is very clear to see the illustration of vanity of vanities. This is what Charles Bridges called a weary go-round. Constant movement with constant sameness, which produces Ennui. Have you ever used that word? French word? Ennui. It's a word that means weariness, and boredom, meaninglessness, and repetition, annoyance, loathsome, vexing. And the French use that word. In fact, the French, almost as a people, have a very pessimistic view of all of life. The cycle is illustrated. Coffins and cradles are scattered amongst the footsteps of time that marches on. The history of humanity is before us. What happens? We see that people come and people go. Verse 4. Babies become toddlers. Toddlers become teens. Teens become twenty-something. Life goes on. Fathers are going out of the world just as children are coming after. And mothers are aging, and young ones are maturing. And none of them stay the same. And if you don't see somebody for a while, and then you see them a year or two later, you're like, wow. Look at the change that's happened. And yet he says, but the earth lasts forever. That is compared to life. That's what he's talking about. Compared to life in this world, earth stays and people go. People come and go, but the planet is still here. People come and go, but this planet will still be here long after you're gone. And if people were as permanent as mountains, he basically is saying there might be some value to all of this. But humans are born, and grow, and fade, and pass away. Now the Earth changes, but it still remains Earth. is very present even though people are very transient. And our lives seem to crawl at that tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow petty pace. And life doesn't seem to go as fast as we want it to when we're in school, and it seems to go very, very fast when we're on summer vacation, right? and time just seems to get away from us and yet the world is here. And before we know it, loved ones that we've known for years and years will be gone and there will be brand new babies being born into the world on the same day, at the same time virtually. The house remains, but the tenants keep changing. Do you know, brothers and sisters, that someone someday will own your house? Just like unless you had it built, somebody owned it before you. And one day that's going to happen again. People come and people go. Verse 5, the sun comes up and advances on noon and presses on toward evening and sundown turns to night. Sleep and repeat. And that's life. And Monday becomes Wednesday and Wednesday becomes Saturday and we're back at Sunday. Virtually every week. In fact, the sun rises in such a way that you can set your calendar by it. You can stick a post out there in the yard on this day and watch where the sun comes up over it. And next year at the same day, it'll come up in the same spot. They've proven this over and over again, long before there were computers or any kind of technology. They knew. They could do that. You can plan your lunch by the sun. In fact, one of the things I was really struck by by the Ugandans was how dead on accurate they knew when the sun was straight overhead. And I finally asked Daniel Wadimba, if you remember him. I said, how is it that you know that so well? He said, Mark, look at the shadows. Of course. They get used to where the shadow is at noon. And they can tell by the buildings around them and their houses. The sun has passed. There's a moment when there's no shadow. There's a moment before, the shadow's over here. And then the shadow's on the other side. And they knew that. And they knew it was lunchtime. One sunrise can be stunning. And the next sunrise can be unseen. But it's still there. It still came up. And the course of the sun runs constant without going anywhere. The sun makes no progress. It just repeats the cycle. Of course, we know now it's the earth that's turning, not the sun. But in our view and from our perspective, when you stand on the earth, it certainly looks like the sun's moving. It doesn't look like we're moving. It doesn't feel like we're moving. But we all know that that's the case. Verse 6, the breeze blows in patterns, patterns so predictable that weathermen can virtually tell you within the next few hours, the next cycle of days, exactly what's going to happen, almost with certain outcomes. Yes, the weather changes and all that, but some people have actually looked at this verse and said, wait a minute, winds don't normally blow north and south. and yet they forget to think the very next verse poetically puts it there. They whirl. Winds do crazy things and change their directions very often. By the way, this is not proof that the Bible is unscientific. Rather, it's proof that the Bible is poetic. He's trying to make a poetic point, not prove a scientific fact. And the reality is, He is simply drawing the circle of life in a different direction. The sun rises in the east and goes down in the west every day. And the winds go around the world the other way, and they have the same pattern as well. That's all he's saying. There seems to be this pattern. The point, brothers and sisters, is not wind science. The point is sameness. That's what he's talking about, sameness, the weary monotony, circling, circling, circling. Careful now, Aaron. That's NASCAR. They go nowhere for three hours. And so some of us look at that and see it pointless. Aaron doesn't see it pointless, but we see it pointless, some of us. Because there seems to be in our life a circle that never ends. And we can see it in all of these ways. Some people say free as the wind. Brothers and sisters, no, even the wind has a circuit that is very much sameness. And you can almost depend on them. Sometimes they're seasonal, sometimes they're cyclical in multi-annual ways, but they are very much cyclical, and they come back again. And then he mentions one more, water. Water takes its course over and over again. You know Niagara Falls never shuts off, never. There's never been a weekend when they came to the Niagara Falls and went, well, there's no water here. It's never happened. They've never had a drought serious enough to do that. But because of where Niagara Falls is and because of the topography of all of the lands that are around it, it's never going to shut off unless God stops all the water, all of it. You can stand at the mouth of any great river and watch as long as you like. And the bay that it empties into, the place that it empties into, never overflows. You can go to virtually any little stream that flows into some little pond. Pratt Pond. There's an entrance and an exit to Pratt Pond. And when we first got here a few years ago, out on the far side of it over there, I stood there and I was watching Pratt Pond empty. Well, it doesn't empty. I mean, they might put a little dam up and lower its level here and there for this time of year and that time of year, but it doesn't empty. It's always being filled and it's always being emptied. The ocean never leaves its limits. We're not talking about storms now. We're talking about normal patterns of things. The ocean stays where the ocean is. And fresh water flows into salty oceans and evaporates into clouds and rains fresh water on land which flows down dirt covered hills into streams and rivers and flows back into a salty ocean mix and repeat every single day Brothers and sisters, you understand the water cycle is not creating any new water. There's no new water on this planet. None. You can think that through if you want to. But that's the reality of this planet. It's all the same water that's been here since creation. And whatever it was that the canopy or the subterranean storehouses let go, it's all the same water. No new water comes to this world. Charles Bridges says, we are as far from rest, about these verses, we are as far from rest as the sun, the wind, and the rivers. That's his point. We are on a cycle that seems to keep going and we will find no rest unless we rest in a spiritual view of all of these things. We will find no rest unless you rest in Jesus Christ. Hebrews chapter 4 verse 3, We who have believed do enter that rest. Verse 9 of Hebrews 4, There remains a rest for the people of God. verse 11 of chapter 4. Let us be diligent to enter that rest. There is a rest, but it doesn't come in this world. And basically as you look at this, we ought to be saying to ourselves, don't despair because of the circle of life. It's been going on a long time. And you are part of that cycle. And somewhere in that circle is where you are. I heard Ms. Farrah say, at the back of the church as she was coming in that her mother is going to hit 104. Soon or already dead? In July if she survives. She'll be 104 years old. Brothers and sisters, is that not mind-boggling to you? It's mind-boggling to me who's just a little more than half that old. That's amazing. And yet there comes a day when she'll pass away. It's inevitable. She won't live to be 125. Now, if she does, you can say, OK, Pastor Mark was wrong. And I'll say, yeah, I was wrong. But it's very unlikely she sees 125, right? We know that, because there's that circle of life. But then he mentions also the desire of life in verses 8 and 9. All things are full of ennui, weariness, It touches every function of our human endeavors. And what does he put there? He basically says, even human curiosity is never satisfied. It's insatiable. It's always looking for the next big thing, the next discovery, the next amazing thing. And so the I, now a couple of commentaries and search sermon sources, thank you, sermon sources that I was looking at have whole sermons right here at this point on the eye. I didn't think that made sense. But the eye is an amazing thing, isn't it? I mean, if you study it, if you look at it, if you think it through, that little complex orb does amazing things. the wonders that it takes in, and yet the eye is always looking for more. It can see the most beautiful, amazing things, and it wants to see more of those. The ear, again, amazing thing that it does, a healthy ear, but it's always tuned for more. You can listen Paganini once and you'll want to listen to him again. You can listen to Beethoven and want to hear him again because the ear is always looking for more. The stomach is always hungry for more. Isn't that amazing how on Thanksgiving day we say, I'm never eating again and three hours later, is there any pie left? Is there one more piece of that pie left? We're built that way. About every six hours, we've got to have something put into us. It's just the way we are. The heart is always longing for more. You can set your heart on anything. And when that thing sooner or later disappoints, even in the slightest, your heart will long for something else. It's always looking for that next thing. The mind is always thinking about more once it solves some big problem. It moves on to the next thing. How does this work? Why does that happen? And thank God for the men and women who have done those things in the history of the world and changed our world because of the insatiableness of the mind. But for all of that, we never find anything, it seems, on which to rest in this world. For all that our human faculties bring us, they don't bring us any closer to satisfaction. Life under the sun is interesting. Life under the sun is fascinating. But life under the sun doesn't seem to be fulfilling. It's not forever. It's not complete. And brothers and sisters, without the spiritual life-giving vision, the spiritual life-giving hearing, the spiritual life-giving heart of Christ, satisfaction will never come. And what the preacher is trying to get our attention on is that satisfaction is going to come from fixing our eye on the one object, Jesus Christ. Satisfaction is going to come from listening to the word of the one voice that really matters, Jesus Christ. The heart that seeks for that one joy, life in Jesus Christ. And the gut reaction that goes in one direction, the glory of God. When those things become reality, you'll see that a new creature has new existence. And all things are new in the Son of God. The light and life and immortality that people are looking for is found in the Son of God. Jesus says, come to Me and you will never hunger. Believe in Me and you will never thirst. And all anybody has to think about the Bible People say, well, you can't take the Bible literally. Jesus was wrong there, I've heard people say. Because lots of Christians have come to Him and they're still hungry and thirsty every six hours, we just said. Jesus was speaking in that spiritual way. The thing that you're longing for in the core of your being is found in Him. The satisfaction, the thirst for life and all that's going on is found in Him. It's not found in a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a wife, a car, a college, or anything. It's found in Him. What has been will be again. And there's nothing new under the sun. In fact, any new false doctrine is really old false doctrine. almost every time. It's repackaged and re-put in some new language, but you can go back and say, oh, this is so Sineasism all over again. This is Antinomianism. This is this. This is that. You can see it. Nothing new. The mind is trying to think up new ways of doing old things. And rather, what are we to do? Rather than recycling false doctrine, You are to be, 2 Peter 1 verse 12, Christians, established in the present truth. And Jeremiah 6.16, I love that passage, says, ask for the old paths and walk in them. That's how you make progress. Then he points in verses 10 and 11 to the memory of life. Is there anything which might be said that this is new, it's already been in ancient times, and there is no remembrance of former things by the next generation? Now, this is a general truth. It's not a universal truth. Because I imagine somewhere, someplace, I could ask the very same questions I asked at the beginning of this. Who was the NFL champion in 1933? And some guy would go, oh, that's the Chicago Bears. He would know. There are those people. Exceptions can be found, but the reality is that most of all of that memory fades. And yet there are those in every generation who will continue to proclaim the truth, which never gets old. Most people could not tell you who the ruler of Rome was at one given point or another. Most people don't know who the rulers of France were or the lineage of the kings of England. Now, there are a few people who may be history buffs or buffs of some particular country that may know those things. By the way, one of the most amazing stories I remember is Greg Singer, one of my theological professors, was transferring from one presbytery to another. And as a history professor, of church history. And some young bucket, some presbytery asked Dr. Greg Singer, can you name the popes? And Dr. Greg Singer said, well, let me see. And he began. He got about seven names in with the dates. And the guy said, OK, I think that's sufficient. And no, no. Dr. Singer, in his very southern way, said, no, sir. You asked for the names of the popes. If the presbytery does not mind, I'd like to recite them. and he did every pope. I sat in every one of his history classes. He used to sit there with four by six cards, a little stack of them, and he would lecture for three hours. And every now and then, he would flip one card. And after a couple of weeks, we said, Dr. Singer, all he had on the card were quotes from various people in history. He lectured without notes. For three years, I sat through six classes of his, and he never preached or spoke from notes. And every now and then, we would take our history book into class and see. He'd name some date, and we'd go, he got that right, too. He'd name some other date, and we'd go, he got that right, too. He was amazing, but he was exceptional, very exceptional. Most of the time, actually, people do not remember things. somebody named Lauren said, there is more of oblivion in human beings than remembrance. Time erases multitudes of events and facts and names and places. It does that for us. One of the reasons we are to preach the word faithfully, regularly, competently in all generations is because one generation after the next, unless they're taught it, sit under it, preach it, will forget it. And so you catechize and you study and you hide the Word in your heart. Because brothers and sisters, old sins are the same sins in new packages. And all the vices of mankind are still around. Even with all the new technology, it's still the same sins. just at a faster pace in HD. What is the preacher trying to get us to? All my life is a circle. And the sameness of life is sometimes one of the most comforting things about life. You can count on the sunrise tomorrow, unless the Lord comes. You can count on it. In fact, there's a little chart that you can go to. It'll tell you exactly what time it's coming up tomorrow. And they know exactly when it's going to come up the next day. And exactly how many minutes or seconds it lengthens every day. They know that. That's why they can tell you. And that's familiar. And that's comfortable, isn't it? If it becomes 9 o'clock tomorrow morning and it's pitch dark like midnight, you'll know we're in trouble. Right? You say, well, that's not right. But it's comfortable. Brothers and sisters, even though we looked at this and you might say, well, what a downer of a way to end the day. There's no reason to be sad. Did you know there's a new disorder out there they call SAD? Seasonal Affective Disorder. We all have that, don't we? When there's too much snow on the ground. Give me another season. Because we like the cycle. We want the cycle. Man's hopeless inquiry is not the answer. Looking for something new. Time, brothers and sisters, is not an issue for an eternal God. It is for you and I. There's only so much time we can sit. Only so much time we can devote to this or to that or to the other thing. And time is pressing. You have some place to be tomorrow morning. And you're already thinking, when can I get out of there? I leave at whatever time. And then I get to go home. We're already thinking in those terms. Do you know that nothing in this life changes heaven? Whatever happens to you doesn't change where you're going as a Christian. And the promise of God is better than anything this life can give you. Anything! And yet we're making plans, aren't we? For new apartments. We're starting new jobs. For mom's birthday in a few months. We have plans! And yet things happen and those plans change. And we can be sad and depressed or we can realize there are two ways to look at life. Is life a curse or is life a blessing? Can we be joyous or miserable? And it ultimately comes down to this. Will you look at this life in a natural way or in a spiritual way? God or no God? And that's really what he's getting at. It is not so important that you know who the champions of the past were. In fact, brothers and sisters, it's not so much do you know God, but does God know you? The Bible is the remembrance of former things. God has decided that we would remember former things and pass them down to generation after generation. And God has protected and preserved and proclaims His Word generation after generation. Charles Bridges calls Him the Divine Keeper. When everything seems to be going, He's the Divine Keeper. 3, verse 6, I am the Lord, I do not change. Hebrews 13, verse 8, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. There is something you can count on. You can't count on tomorrow morning. You don't know what it's going to be, what's going to happen. Isn't that exactly what we were all thinking on 9-10? Tomorrow is just 9-11? And everything changed that morning for weeks and weeks, years and years. And who knows what's coming tomorrow. Your life under the sun, brothers and sisters, is under His care. Psalm 139, verse 1-6. Remember that passage? He has searched you. He knows you. And He understands you. And He hears every word. He knows your past and your future is in His hands. Such knowledge, the psalmist says there, is too wonderful for me. I cannot grasp it. Life in this fallen world is often very frustrating. But God has intervened in this world by sending His Son, Jesus Christ. And truth comes in at the very last moment as the clock shot is going off. And this is our victory. Even our faith. And that's what the preacher is trying to get us there. What do you believe? What do you see about all these things? Do you look at them from this side or that side? Do you see them with spiritual eyes or only natural eyes? Set your eyes on things above. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you that the heavens do declare your glory. and that day unto day utters speech that we can hear and see and rejoice in. Lord, you have made all things good in your time. We pray as we go through this book that we will not just see that negative thing, but see them realistically and help them, O Lord, to point us to Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life. O Lord, whatever's coming our way this week from Monday to Saturday, we know, O Lord, that you have plans for our good and not for evil and plans for your glory. And somehow they all come together. And we thank you, O God, that you are working in our lives. Help us to know we're in good hands and to trust you with tomorrow. We ask it for Jesus' sake. Amen.