Please remain standing for a little bit longer. Open your Bibles to Ecclesiastes 1. Ecclesiastes 1, verse 1. 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 prophet has a man from all his labor in which he toils under the sun? 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 and 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 former things, nor will there be any remembrance of things which are to come." Things that are to come. by those who will come after. I, the preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I set my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven. This burdensome task God has given to the sons of man by which they may be exercised. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun. And indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind. What is crooked cannot be made straight. And what is lacking cannot be numbered. I communed with my heart, saying, Look, I have attained greatness and have gained more wisdom than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My heart has understood great wisdom and knowledge. And I set my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is grasping for the wind. For in much wisdom is much grief. And he who increases knowledge increases sorrow." You may be seated. When I was a small child, my parents read to me the story of Solomon. They read to me about him praying that God would give him wisdom and that the Lord was pleased with that prayer. I remember as a small boy recognizing that I too should pray for wisdom. And being encouraged to think about that. And having ringing through my head this idea that wisdom was the thing that the Lord was pleased Solomon would ask for. God told Solomon, you didn't ask to rule your enemies. You didn't ask for wealth. You didn't ask for power. But because you've asked for wisdom, that you might rule your people well. I will give you all of those things too. A greater King, the Lord Jesus Christ said, seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. And all these things will be added to you. What were the things there? I was talking about the idea of clothing, food, provision from God. All the things that are the blessings that God can give. Seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, that that is something that God gives other blessings with as well. That we seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. The Shorter Catechism asks, what is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. This question of the goal. The main purpose. The highest thing to be achieved. is the question that the book of Ecclesiastes is asking about. And it begins with the wrong answer. Solomon was a very good marketer. If you post something online and it's right and everybody agrees with you, nobody responds. If you put something up and everybody disagrees with you or you're wrong, then you get lots of responses. And so he starts with the wrong answer. This is 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 does that word mean? The word vanity means uselessness. Everything's useless. Everything's vain. Everything's meaningless. And there are some amazing word pictures in this book that help you to think about useless activities. My favorite one is grasping for the wind. Almost had it. That time. Maybe this time. Did you keep it there? I like to ask my children if we're reading this to go, hey, real quick, try to grab the wind for me. Did you get it this time? Did you keep it? Is there anything there in your hand? Was your hand more full than before you did that? Because it's a great picture for this idea of activity that gets you nothing. It does nothing for you. It's useless. And so, uselessness. I want to encourage you when you see vanity or something being vain, I want you to remember this idea that we're talking about useless activity. Now, if the goal is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever, remember in the Shorter Catechism, it also breaks it down for us. How do we know how to glorify God? Well, the Bible. The Bible tells us how to glorify God. Ok, we spend a lot of time on that in 2 Timothy. So then, well, what are the major things that are taught there? Well, the Shorter Catechism breaks it down into two major areas. The knowledge of God, what man is to believe concerning God, and the duty that God requires of man. And that answer does not just come from the Westminster Assembly. Go to the very end of Ecclesiastes. We start with the wrong answer, and the book ends with the right answer. This is one of my favorite texts, the whole book of Ecclesiastes, but also chapter 12, which I've taken you to many times. Chapter 12, verse 9. And moreover, the preacher was wise. He still taught the people knowledge. Yes, he pondered and sought out and set in order many Proverbs. The preacher sought to find acceptable words, and what was written was upright, words of truth. The words of the wise are like goads, and the words of scholars, and the literal wording there in the Hebrew is masters of assemblies. These are like the moderators that govern councils. The words of the wise are like goads. The words of the masters of assemblies are like well-driven nails given by one shepherd. And further, my son, be admonished by these." Be admonished by the words of the wise. Be admonished by the words of the masters of assemblies. And further, my son, be admonished by these. of making many books there is no end, and much study is wearisome to the flesh." Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. So here's this part that's the conclusion of the whole matter. This is the answer to the whole thing. Here's the goal in life. This is how do you glorify God? How do you fulfill the highest end? Well, in the way that the Scriptures tell you to. The knowledge of God. and the knowledge of the duties He gives and then applying it. Well, what does it say here? Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep His commandments. Remember, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. It's the beginning of wisdom. So the knowledge of God and the keeping of His commandments. That is the life that glorifies God and allows us to enjoy Him. For this is man's all. This is the chief end of man. This is man's all. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. Everything has everlasting consequence and will be as publicly known as is possible. The day of judgment has a revealing of all things that have occurred and been done by rational creatures. And a displaying of it. And God's rewarding of the righteous in Christ. rewarding of the righteous angels, punishing, reprobate men, and punishing, reprobate angels. These things are done on the Day of Judgment in a public way. Go back to the beginning of Ecclesiastes, and you see, the words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem, vanity of vanities, says the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. In Hebrew, what does repetition mean? Emphasis. When you have repetition and it's vanity of vanities, you go, wow, that's pretty vain. And then it goes, you know, let's repeat that. We're going to double the doubling. Vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities. Is that kind of like times four? I mean, how does the math work on this? Is it two times two? So we end up there, and then all is vanity. Is that like an exponent? Like we just now have this even larger thing by the power of vanity. So we have vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. The repetition here is meant to emphasize everything seems useless. And this is what happens from a certain perspective. So when you look at the book of Ecclesiastes, there are two major headers that you need to know that allow you to interpret the book properly throughout. There are labels that are used by Solomon to help you to organize the whole book as you read it. And I would encourage you in your Bible If you have a red pen or a highlighter to highlight or underline every time you see one of these two phrases, so you know this is being used to interpret a chunk of text. Here are the two phrases. Under the sun, which is used first time in verse three. And under heaven, which is used for the first time in verse 13. Under the sun explains a view of the universe that says the highest thing here is the sun. The most important thing, the biggest thing, the central thing is the material universe. And you know, there's either not a God or if there is a God, it doesn't matter. He doesn't govern things. He doesn't judge things. There are no everlasting consequences. If there is a God, He's not a God to be feared. That is the perspective of under the sun. It's this practical atheism, which so often, even those who profess to believe the Christian religion, live out a practical atheism. And the way they view the world and walk around interpreting their experience is to make everything meaningless. Let me give you an example of this. If you walk around and something bad happens and you go, of course. What's that mean? What's that? Whoa, whoa. Wait a second. Something bad happened and you go, of course. Of course? Of course as in bad stuff always happens to you? Curse is the way that you live in? Of course, is then you expect the God who rules heaven to give you bad things? When you ask Him for bread, He hands you stones. And when you ask Him for fish, He gives you snakes. Is that how you're interpreting life? Or you say, Murphy's Law, bad stuff's going to happen all the time. That's not what Murphy's Law is. Murphy's Law is supposed to be anything that can happen, given enough time, will happen. That's Murphy's Law. And we take that and kind of use it in a popular way, a joke about, you know, anything bad that can happen is going to happen to me. We interpret the world that way. God controls everything, and he works all things together for the good of those who are called according to his purpose. That is not, of course, that is not Murphy's Law, that is not everything's meaningless, and no matter what I try, it's all gonna end up the same way. To say that everything is meaningless is the wrong answer that we start with. Why does Solomon start with the wrong answer? First, I wanna take you, to think about who Solomon is for just a minute longer. There's a couple of interesting places where Solomon gets talked about. Go to 1 Kings chapter 4. In chapter 1 of 1 Kings, David intervenes to make sure that Solomon is proclaimed king when one of the other sons of David presumptuously tries to take kingship to himself. David gives instruction to Solomon. David dies. Solomon deals with the execution of certain rebels in the state. And we get to chapter three, and we have the famous story in First Kings chapter three of Solomon asking God for wisdom. And so. I'm going to read to you a little bit from there, from Solomon, from First Kings chapter three. Now Solomon made a treaty with Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and married Pharaoh's daughter. Then he brought her to the city of David until he had finished building his own house and the house of the Lord and the wall all around Jerusalem. Meanwhile, the people sacrificed at the high places because there was no house built for the name of the Lord until those days. And Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David, except that he sacrificed and burned incense at the high places. Now the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place. Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. At Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night. And God said, Ask, what shall I give you? That right there. God tells you to ask and I shall give you. And you think to yourself, wow, if God would just tell me to ask for something and He'd give it to me, that'd be great. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ does tell us that. We're told that the things that we ask for in His name will be given. And that we have not because we ask not. We are to ask for things according to His law. The things that He teaches us to ask for. And we have that. Sometimes we act like we don't, but we do. But Solomon was asked by God, ask, what shall I give you? And Solomon said, you've shown great mercy to your servant David, my father, because he walked before you in truth, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with you. You have continued this great kindness for him. And you have given him a son to sit on his throne as it is this day. Now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant king instead of my father David, but I am a little child." Boys, girls, sometimes when you're talking to your parents, talking to other people, do you feel like that? Do you feel like, what can I do? I'm just a little child. Little children, remember to follow this example of Solomon. this request. He asks God for wisdom. Little children, even while you're young. Boys, even while you're young, ask God for wisdom. Girls, even while you're young, ask God for wisdom. Look at what Solomon does here. I am a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in. and your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to be numbered or counted. Therefore, give to your servant an understanding heart to judge your people that I may discern between good and evil." What a beautiful thing it is to know your right hand from your left. What a beautiful thing it is to be able to discern good from evil. For who is able to judge this great people of yours? The speech pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing. Then God said to him, Because you have asked this thing and have not asked long life for yourself, nor asked riches for yourself, nor have asked for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern justice, behold, I have done according to your words. See, I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, nor shall any like you arise after you. And I have also given you what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among the kings all your days. So if you walk in My ways to keep My statutes and My commandments, as your father David walked, Then I will lengthen your days." Then Solomon awoke, and indeed it had been a dream. And he came to Jerusalem and stood before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, offered up burnt offerings, offered peace offerings, and made a feast for all his servants. The Lord used to give messages by dreams. There are various ways that he would speak to his prophets. And dreams was one of them. The Lord no longer gives new prophecies. He does not communicate by vision or dream or voice booming to you from the sky. He once did, but He has told us that He has given to us the wholeness of His message in the Scriptures. And we have the complete Scriptures. And so, we have the Scriptures now. And if you want a word from God, you go there. When Solomon awoke, he stopped doing unauthorized worship and went to do right worship. There's a story that follows. That's the famous story of the two women with the baby. Solomon offering to split the baby. It displays his wisdom. The beginning of chapter 4 talks about the system of administration of his government. And so we have wise administration of justice and wise logistical ordering for the rule of the land and its defense. And we move to the application of that wisdom to seeing what happens in chapter four, verse 20. So First Kings chapter four, verse 20, Judah. And Israel were as numerous as the sand by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking and rejoicing. We're told in Proverbs that it's a glory to a king to have many subjects. And the lack of people is a downfall of a king. Solomon here has this blessing. And it's kind of funny, you know, because he wrote that proverb too. And so we have Proverbs written by Solomon, a book of wisdom. We have here this explanation given to us in inspired history talking about the blessings that he had. Verse 21, So Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from the river to the land of the Philistines as far as the border of Egypt. The promise was to Abraham that from the River Euphrates to the River Nile, his descendants would rule, that all that space would be dominated by them. The kingship of David resulted in a hegemonic rule of that zone, received by Solomon as a great king, ruling from the river to the river. They brought tribute. He wasn't directly governing all of them, but he was governing all of them in the sense that they were all tributaries. They were all paying money to Solomon. They were the vassal. They were the tail. He was the head. They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life. Now Solomon's provisions for one day was 30 cores of fine flour, 60 cores of meal, 10 fatted oxen, 20 oxen from the pastures, and 100 sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fatted fowl. This is basically the kitchen budget for Solomon. So whoever he had managing the kitchen was like, this, if you could just prepare this for service so it could be eaten by the people in my household every day. The hundred sheep, you might need to hire some assistants to butcher them. Maybe the 20 oxen also. You probably need at least one butcher for those. Maybe another one for the 10 fatted oxen. And probably you might need to hire some help to deal with all the grain. I don't know. I don't do these things. There's a lot being consumed there on a daily basis. Verse 24, for he had dominion over all the region on this side of the river, from Tifsa even to Gaza, namely over all the kings on the side of the river, and he had peace on every side all around him. The curse of strife was gone from him. There's the toil, no, there's wealth, there's prosperity. Strife, no, there's peace, peace by victory. And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, each man under his vine and his fig tree." Remember those being talked about as blessings? Each man under his own vine. His own tree. Not being a slave, but being a master of his own domain. These blessings of prosperity and liberty. From Dan, as far as Beersheba, all the days of Solomon. So, from river to river. From this city to that city. From this city in the north to that city in the south. There's all this east to west, north to south, river to river. We're doing very well. This whole zone has all of these benefits. That's the idea here. The people of God have all of this stuff, the fruits of the wise administration. They've been laid up by David. and now administered by Solomon. Solomon had 40,000 stalls of horses for his chariots and 12,000 horsemen. And these governors, each man in his month, provided food for King Solomon and for all who came to King Solomon's table. There was no lack in their supply. They also brought barley and straw to the proper place for the horses and steeds. Each man, according to his charge, And God gave Solomon wisdom, and exceedingly great understanding, and largeness of heart like the sand on the seashore. Thus Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the men of the east, and all the wisdom of Egypt. He was wiser than all men, than Ethan the Ezraite. And Haman, and Calchul, and Dardah, the sons of Mahel, And his fame was in all the surrounding nations. He spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005. Also, he spoke of trees, from the cedar tree of Lebanon even to the hyssop that springs out of the wall. He spoke also of animals, of birds, of creeping things, and of fish. And men of all nations from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom came to hear the wisdom of Solomon. He knew many things, and considered them carefully, and thought upon them, and pondered them in light of the glory of God. And God raised Him up so much, with such power, and such wealth, and such honor, and such reputation, that in His being raised up in this way, His rejoicing and gratitude became replaced with rather than looking to be under heaven, he began to consider things as though reality were just under the sun. You see, the two dividing portions for the whole book, for interpreting it rightly, to rightly divide the word of truth, to be able to rightly sort and organize the book of Ecclesiastes, you have to consider under the sun and under heaven. Please turn back to Ecclesiastes. When we talk about under the sun, we're talking about Looking at things in terms that there is not a God who governs. There is not a God who commands with His law. There is not a God who judges. And sometimes, even while affirming those things, we can live like that's not true. We are all a mixture of belief and unbelief. And we must war against that unbelief. But to live under heaven, is to live with the recognition that there is a God in heaven who rules all things. He controls every event. And he is a law that instructs us in the way that we should go. And everything will be brought into judgment. The contrast between those, no governance, no law, no judgment, All things are governed. The law is sufficient to tell us how we should live, and everything will be judged. Maximally meaningful life under heaven, and maximally meaningless life under the sun. And Solomon's point is basically, there are really only two options. You can try to make a lot of things into your goal, into your purpose, into your meaning, but they're all either living under the sun, or living under heaven. In other words, you might say, if you're not for Christ, you're against Him. If you're not living under heaven, you're living under the sun. Now, I'm not saying that living under heaven perfectly is how you are right with God. We do not require to have perfect obedience to be justified before God. If that were the case, we would all be damned. The law of God does require perfect obedience. And we're forgiven because Christ died and paid for our sins. But we need to recognize that when we live life, our goal needs to be to live under heaven with every thought, every word, and every deed. That's the goal. That's how we glorify God. We want to live in that manner. So now, as we come in, the words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. I hope that this preacher Solomon, the son of David, who is king in Jerusalem, who he is, is a little bit more front of mind. And when we think about him as a preacher, this is a preacher who had 3,000 proverbs memorized, and 1,005 songs memorized. You have all of these things stored up in his heart. He had a great heart. A large heart. To be large hearted is to know much. and to have much zeal. He was he cared. He was not blase. He was knowledgeable. He was not ignorant. And in addition to that he is one who chose much. He he wasn't indecisive. He's decisively getting things done. He appoints an effective government. He makes judgments in court. He has things he studies. He teaches other people. Kings come to him for counsel. All of these things show that he was a man who was not afraid to act, and he was not afraid to speak. Wise. Zealous. And effective. A terrifying man. A man who dominated the Near East. The center of the world. This would mean that Solomon's domain, the places that he dominated, would have been enormous. It would have been similar to the Persian Empire. And this is the man who's in a position to say, you know, I can do whatever I want whenever I want. And, you know, the place I've come to is It kind of just doesn't matter. That's how he starts the book. And if that's how it seems to Solomon, the preacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem, then what hope does a farmer or a mayor or a marginally well-to-do lawyer or anybody have if Solomon, who has everything, just goes, you know, it's all kind of meaningless. Do you see how powerfully depressing that would be if that's just sort of the conclusion? This guy is super wise and has access to everything he could possibly want and he just thinks it's meaningless. This is the conclusion that we'll come to whenever we make anything other than God and His glory the chief end. We make anything else into the thing to be pursued. And so this is the effect. And so I need you to understand, not only is this a matter of truth, not only is it true that God's Word gives to us a sufficient understanding of God and what He commands, Not only is it true that the Bible reveals the purpose of things and tells us the nature of reality, and not only is it true that the Bible tells us what's good and how to get it, but also you need to understand that apart from that, apart from pursuing the knowledge of God and pursuing His law to apply it, all that is left to you is meaninglessness and despair. And despair is the direction that things go when we are not seeking the knowledge of God. Are not growing in the knowledge of Him. Are not seeking to apply what He commands. When we make other things into the distractions that keep us from the knowledge of God, the result is despair. Depression. Sadness. To be overwhelmed by pain and sorrow. And so let's consider why is this? What is it that causes this? He asks the question in v. 3, what profit has a man from all his labor in which he toils under the sun? If you're just working for things from a perspective of not taking into account the last judgment by God. And the question is, what profit is it? And that's going to be the thing that's considered over and over again. This book is a meandering consideration of the question, what value is it? What profit is it? What's the meaning of life? What's the goal? How do I get anywhere other than depression land? I keep driving for a bit, and I keep ending back up in depression land. But I'm not trying to get there. That's not where I want to go. Where I would like to go is to be joyful and rejoicing. So how do I go there? And it keeps taking a drive, and the road just keeps circling back to depression land. That's what this is. It's a meandering effort to considerate. It's said of Augustine's writings that digression is the method. When you read Augustine, he comes up with sort of this like, you know, have you ever considered how you actually would know what's true or whatever? And he goes, that's a really interesting question. You know, and he takes you on a side journey for a while. And after a while, he kind of comes back and he goes, and this thing that relates to the original question. And you all of a sudden you go, oh, wait, that's actually way more clear. That's really helpful. You set me up. And he takes you back and he goes to the next point and kind of digresses the other direction. The book of Ecclesiastes is like that. The question of what's the use of it all? And he starts to give the answer. And then he goes, yeah, but that's hard. And he comes up with another answer that comes in that's an imposter. And he gets distracted for a while. The imposters keep distracting him. And he follows them for a ways. And at a certain point he says, Yeah, this was a bad idea. Here I am back in depression land. Followed the wrong road. And he comes back to his senses and realizes he needs to pursue the knowledge of God and of His law. And so that's the thing here with Ecclesiastes. And you might go, really? That seems a little bit unrealistic. I don't know, that sounds like life to me. That sounds like this constant pulling to be distracted from what really matters. That the world pulls on us. The flesh and demonic doctrines and influences. How they pull us away to distract us from pursuing what is really profitable. So verse 3, what profit has a man from all his labor in which he toils under the sun? And he's going to give us a bunch of different answers. Well, what about pleasure? Or what about reputation? Or what about power? These are things he's going to bring up. And he's going to look at the profit of these things from an under the sun perspective. So verse 4 gives you the reason why under the sun is really problematic. Because you die. One generation passes away, and another generation comes. But the earth abides forever. There's this cycle. It's like people start off, they get going, and then they die. But here's other people starting off, getting going, and then they die. And so it just begins this sense of like, oh, is this just a meaningless cycle of repetition? And so much of the world says this, right? The world says, you know, Death is just part of the cycle of life. That's paganism. That is under the sun. Death is not part of life. Death is the end of life. Death is something that came from curse. Death is a result that comes from the fall. Sin brought death into the world. And death is a problem that must be conquered, has been conquered. Christ conquered death. And we have a resurrection because He was raised. And so we know that this doesn't just end here when we die. There is meaning because life doesn't just end. If life just ends, this is just a short, bad movie, and then it ends and there's no credits. However, if instead, it does not end, then it is meaningful, not meaningless. One generation passes away and another generation comes, but the earth abides forever. So now we have another cycle. There's the cycle of what looks like, from an under-the-sun perspective, birth, life, death, redo. You know any philosophies that are like that? Any philosophy that teaches reincarnation is teaching that. Birth, life, death, redo. Makes it meaningless. The sun also rises and the sun goes down and hastens to the place where it arose. This cycle, the sun, over and over again. The cycle of life, the cycle of the sun, The wind goes toward the south and turns around to the north. The wind whirls about continually and comes again on its circuit. We have life as a cycle. We have the sun as a cycle. We have the wind as a cycle. And here we come, another one, verse 7. 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. The water cycle is a cycle here. Life. The sun. The wind. Water. We have all of this. And you know what's interesting? Is this, the earth that he deals with. He says that there's life that's on the earth, but the earth abides. You have all of these things with sort of some of the pagan elements with this idea of earth and sun and wind and water. The basic elementals that are used in all sorts of pagan philosophies. Laid out here as being cyclical. And so he is dealing with these philosophies that exist. People talk about and they pretend like Thales in Greece several centuries later is the beginning of philosophy. I don't know. Kind of seems like Solomon is dealing with philosophical issues substantially before that time. These cycles that make everything meaningless, that never end. And you know what he does with the water? He draws out something interesting. He says, All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full. This is something he's going to harp on over and over again when he examines other false views of the good. You know, I could give pleasure, but I was never satisfied. I could eat, but it was never sufficient. I could pursue sexual gratification, but it was never enough. I could listen to nice songs, but my ears were never full. None of these things ever sufficiently satisfied. And so there's this problem that these other things never finish the cycle. It's never full. It's just a treadmill. It's got to keep going and going and going. All things are full of labor. Man cannot express it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing or the ear filled with hearing. So now, man's activity becomes this treadmill of work, get, use, be dissatisfied, keep working, get, use, be dissatisfied. That cycle. This is life under the sun. This is life without God as the central thing. This is life without the knowledge of God being the thing that you are seeking after and then seeking to apply to make the world show more and more the reality of the rule of the God of heaven. Verse 9 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. Beloved, all things are new in Christ. We are made new in Christ. We are the new man. There is a new heavens and a new earth. The Psalms are made new. We have a new commandment that was the old commandment. And it's been made new to love. These things are made new. How is that? It's because there's progress. In a cycle, there's no progress. You're doing the same thing over and over and over again, and the cycle never ends. It just restarts. In linear history, there is progress. In linear history, you go from beginning to a goal. The Bible presents a linear history where there's advancement. That every day is progress towards the goal that God has given. God made man, and He said, fill the earth. Subdue it. The goal was to fill the earth with knowers of God, and to fill those knowers with the knowledge of God. And that goal will be accomplished. All the nations, we've been commanded to baptize them. and to disciple them. And that goal will be accomplished. This is a progressive run. This is a path. We are on the way to victory. This is not a cycle. So these two views, anything that makes life meaningless, versus what's necessary for meaningful existence. Solomon shows us lots of preconditions for meaning. Things that are necessary for you to have a meaningful life. A meaningful life is to have a life that's full of meaning. It is to live a life where meaning is filling your mind. The meaning of things. The differentiation of things. The goals of things. Purpose. Goal. Fulfillment. 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. That's a lie. Every day is new and every day makes progress toward the goal. And the mercies of God are new every morning. Is there anything of which it may be said, see this is new? We just talked about a few of them. It has already been in ancient times before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come by those who will come after. And that would be true if it were not for God's providential rule to preserve his scriptures and the progress of his church. God gave His Scriptures. He gave His Word. And He preserved it. And you know what's crazy? We have a record of the earth from the first day when God, even before the sun was made, differentiated light from darkness. And it gives us an infallible record up to the end of Acts. And there are still events that are recorded in other books written after Acts. And prophecy that tells us about things that would soon come. That have now passed. And there were also prophecies in the book of Revelation. About what would be accomplished by the church. And about Christ coming to judge. And so we are given an outline of history. Who will remember? God remembers. And God gives it to be preserved in His holy book, what has happened. That the man who wrote, nobody's going to remember any of this stuff. We are remembering him right now. 3,000 years later. We are remembering Solomon saying, there's no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come by those who will come after. That's a lie. And here's the great remembrance. All of the details of these things will be remembered on the Day of Judgment. So this is a lie that Solomon starts out with and he presents the lie. And the comment thread goes wild. people just start going, what? When people read this, it's sort of like, how does this work? How can this be the case? As a Christian, life's not meaningless. I became a Christian because I was trying to get out of my meaningless life into a meaningful life. What are you talking about? And people try to go, well, he's talking generally that this is the case, and this is kind of the way things are, but you just got to enjoy the things that God gives you or whatever. And I've heard all sorts of awful sermons from evangelical preachers just saying, yeah, this is basically true. Just apply this in your daily life. You'll feel better. That is not the case. The point is not that everything is meaningless and you need to just believe that. The point is, this is a false perspective. And if you find yourself thinking this way and feeling this way, there's something wrong. You need to repent. Find the lie and replace it. And he lists out a bunch of lies. to help you to start searching your own heart. Am I believing any of this garbage? Am I believing that life's just a cycle and there's nothing new and no progress? Am I believing that my individual life is just a cycle where I just make the same mistakes over and over again and can't make any progress? Well, pray, repent, ask the Lord to help you, study the law and look for a way to get out of that. God's not going to have it be repeating. He's going to make the discipline get worse. Don't worry. He doesn't just let you repeat. He goes, oh, you didn't learn the lesson. Let's turn up the pain meter by sevenfold each time you redo the level. The beatings will continue until morale improves. That's what God does there. It's not a cycle. It's a teaching method so you can move on and level up and do new things. Verse 12, I, the preacher, was king over Israel and Jerusalem. So he's reminding us, look, I'm in this position where I've got access to all sorts of stuff. And I set my heart to seek and search out wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven. So here he is. He's saying I had a time period where I, as the king. Set my heart to search out my wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven. And you know what we read about that time period in the chunk of 1 Kings we were reading. That was the case. Solomon's life early on, when he is dealing with things, he's dealing with a lot of things in a manner that's pleasing to God. Putting off all kinds of sin. Pursuing and applying all sorts of truth. And he writes the book of Proverbs. And he writes the Song of Solomon. When he was a monogamous, faithful husband. And then, he falls into horrific sin. Horrific wickedness. Where he multiplies wives, and multiplies horses, and multiplies gold, and commits all sorts of idolatry and spiritual whoredom. And when he's old, he looks back on it all. And those reflections, divinely inspired, preserved by the singular care and providence of God are here in the book of Ecclesiastes. I the preacher was king over Israel and Jerusalem and I set my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven. This burdensome task God has given to the sons of man by which they may be exercised. That's the exercise. That's the work that we're supposed to do. We're supposed to seek out in everything and search out by wisdom concerning all that's done under the government of God. And this is a burdensome task. It is such a huge task that it will require Not just a person. Not just a family. It requires the race of man, across generations, to do this work. This is the work that the church is called to. And now, to make this whole display more amazing, God has his church, the city of God, and he has the city of man. So that there is a battle raging while this work occurs. So that we don't just have to build, we don't just carry shovel, but we also have to fight. And so we must carry the sword. So sword and trowel, into the world we go. And our duty is to seek out by wisdom considering all that's done under heaven. And that's a burdensome task. But God has given it to the sons of man, and that's how we're to be exercised. That's what we do with ourselves. That's what you fill your time with. What is it you say you do here? Well, I'm supposed to seek out by wisdom all that God is doing. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun. He's seen all the stuff that gets done from this worldly perspective, this rejection of God perspective. And indeed, that perspective, all is vanity and all is grasping for the wind. Remember that thing? Use that with your kids. Hey, grasp the wind for me. Did you get it this time? No. Still nothing. Still no usefulness to that. Alright. It's a good picture for them. But this right here, verse 15, laying out the burden of an under the sun perspective. When you don't think God governs everything by his providence, has given a law to show us the way that we should go, and will bring everything into judgment, you know what happens? You look at the world and you say, what's crooked cannot be made straight. And what's lacking cannot be numbered. The infinite God, who is all wise, knows exactly what's lacking, and He's bringing it into being in mature form. He is bringing that about. And the things that are crooked, the fall and the curse and sin, He is straightening that out. He has provided for our guilt by the death of Christ. And He's providing for a resolution of the power of sin by sanctifying, by converting and renewing, taking old men and making them new. He's causing the world to be filled with the dead and replacing the dead with the living by taking the old man and making him new. He's taking the cities that are built by unbelievers and turning them into the cities that are owned by believers. He causes the dead men to pile up silver-like mountains that the righteous might inherit. These are the things that God does. Causing the crooked things to be useful for the straight things. And causing the crooked to be made straight. Taking that which is lacking and making it so that He knows exactly what needs to fill in. And then He fills it in beautifully as a display of art. We talk about how the creation itself, the creatures that are here are displays of God's glory, and they are. And the ordering of it to be subdued by man And to be used by man to have godly culture in it and godly persons in it is the display of the city of God. It is the way in which man will show the glory of God manifest in the earth. That's the way that the knowledge of God fills the earth as the waters cover the sea. Garden city everywhere. What's lacking, God knows. And He's bringing about the filling of the earth with garden city. I communed with my heart, saying, Look, I have attained greatness and have gained more wisdom than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My heart has understood great wisdom and knowledge, and I set my heart to no wisdom and to no madness and folly. I perceived that this also is grasping for the wind." And this was the mistake. You know what happens sometimes? You get wisdom, and you start making progress, and you do things, and it's joyful. And then all of a sudden, you run into wickedness. Boom. And it's like you were just running, and all of a sudden, you run right into a bar. And you just get flattened out on the ground. You go, what was that? Because it hurts. You're just running at full steam and smack. All of a sudden, you're on your back. And you think, that was awful. Maybe I shouldn't run so fast. Maybe I shouldn't try so hard. Maybe I'll make progress still and I'll do it slower. And maybe I'll just do it on my hands and knees because that way none of the bars that are that high will hit me. And you start to crawl. You make less progress. And you go, this is painful and uncomfortable. This is all miserable. This is all grasping for the wind. It doesn't really make any progress. People come and they go. Friends betray you. What is it all really about? And you start to say that the things that are difficult in life aren't worth being done. And you go, getting wisdom is rough. It just brings grief. When I know things, I have to argue with people about these things. I just make enemies. If I just didn't know things, I wouldn't have to argue with people about it. I wouldn't make any enemies over doctrine. And there wouldn't be anything that I think is a duty that I have to do that would then cause me to potentially have to lose friends over it. Wisdom brings grief. Ignorance is bliss. And he who increases in knowledge increases sorrow. You become more and more aware of all the troubles, all the problems, all the people that aren't doing what's right, all the ways in which you're failing, and you just go, man, I've got a long list of things I'm not doing right. And so these things just start to go, you know, maybe I should just say in my heart, come now. I will test you with mirth. Maybe that will distract me. So we'll pick up next time on the testing with mirth. Comments questions objections from the voting members and those with speaking rights. Right. Just to repeat your comment for the recording, you're saying if we just interpret natural patterns without using scripture as the interpreter, we're going to come up with the wrong conclusions, like Solomon's perspective that everything's a cycle, right? Yeah. Yeah, so apart from Christ, there's no progress. And therefore, there's nothing new. And so that should be something that causes us to soberly reflect any progress you think that can be accomplished with Christlessness. That's a delusion. That's no progress, which is one of the things we're talking about the political world. Christless Christianity is not able to make progress. Christless Christianity apes and takes and destroys and twists Christian values. So Christless Christianity can make no progress. Christless anything cannot make any progress. It is only by acknowledging the reign of the God-man that we can have progress. Okay, let's pray. Father, we thank You that not all things are vain. But instead, we thank You Under heaven, all things are meaningful. Father, we praise You that though there is grief in this life and sorrow in this life, that when You give wisdom and knowledge, You guarantee that joy and rejoicing will dominate. And You guarantee that we will see the beauties of Your glory. And You have given to us everlasting life. So, Father, we ask that we would count things that are difficult as joy, that we would not mourn like pagans, but when we lose things, that we would instead acknowledge that it comes from Your hand, and then count it joy when we suffer. for righteousness, or when we suffer knowing it comes from Your hand as testing or as discipline. Father, we pray that You would build us up in the knowledge of You. We ask that You would cause us to have much wisdom and knowledge and understanding. And that You would cause the rain from heaven with Your Son at Your right hand to be made more and more manifest and visible in the earth. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.