Alright everybody, well welcome to Sunday School. Good to see all of you again today. Last week I announced that Colin would be taking us through Proverbs this week. I thought he did a really great job taking us through the Psalms and I really appreciate just the passion and diligence that he has really whenever he handles anything that addresses the topic of worship. And sickness has taken the Lundstrom household as well as you might be able to hear as it took mine, but I'm a few days ahead of the process from where Colin is. And so because of that, we're going to actually jump ahead a little bit in our order and turn to the book of Ecclesiastes. And then Lord willing, we'll return to the book of Proverbs next week with Colin teaching us. So go ahead and take your Bibles and turn to the book of Ecclesiastes and we'll begin our time. Let me begin with a word of prayer. Father, we do come before you this morning. I pray, Father, that this time is edifying as we consider this really delightful book found in the Old Testament. And I pray that you would help us, Father, to just think about our life and just the various twists and turns that we all face and maybe even at times the strange in bitter providences, Lord, that we encounter and where we don't have answers. And I pray that you would minister to us this morning through this book and help us, Father, to be a people who are full of joy and full of faith. And we thank you. We pray for those who are ill, particularly Colin, who should be teaching this morning but is at home recovering. Pray that you bring healing to him. and for many, many other sort who are battling illness. Um, heal them. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Hello. All right, so as we turn to the book of Ecclesiastes, we really should expect to find there what we're gonna find in all of the wisdom literature, which is, what do y'all think? Wisdom, right? Yeah, kind of an obvious question. And there's a definition of wisdom that's really stuck with me for a very long time. I think I read it in a book probably like 12 years ago, but I always remember it. And this isn't exact, but it goes along the lines of this. Wisdom is living life along, living your life as ordered along the grain of creation. So think about a wood grain, think about a slab of wood and you can look and you can see the wood grain running through that wood. And it's not a completely straight line, but it has a general trajectory, right? And so when we think about wisdom, I think about wisdom as living your life according to the grain of creation. It has much more to do with you conforming your life to what's there as opposed to you trying to conform the grain to what you think is best. And I think that's a helpful way to think about wisdom. It's about ordering your life according to realities that are ever-present. Our textbook put it like this, I thought this was helpful too. Israel's sages, so those who wrote wisdom literature, they sought to help students to develop skills in living according to Yahweh's order. So there it is again, right? And such skills had to be based on an accurate understanding of the way things are. Okay, so the way things are really does matter, including realities that believers are sometimes reluctant to acknowledge. Okay, so are there realities that we face in life that we're sometimes reluctant to acknowledge? What do y'all think? Do y'all have any examples that y'all wanna share, thinking about? some reality that you think of in life that you don't want to acknowledge. Okay, so there's a physical barrier or limitation that you might have that you want to be serving in some way but you can't, and then sometimes that's hard for people to come to terms with, yeah. Sometimes, I mean the Proverbs especially are full of this kind of thing where you see the wicked prospering and then the righteous not, okay. You might think in a meritocracy that those who work hard and are best skilled will be the ones who get the promotion, but sometimes you look around and you see people who got the promotion, and you see that they're less skilled, less hardworking, and yet they got it anyways, and you did not. So there's these realities that we're faced with, and sometimes, even as believers, we struggle with seeing these things, and it creates these tensions in our life. And really, I think that as you'll see, the book of Ecclesiastes is really helpful in us navigating some of these really big questions. So the author of Ecclesiastes, let's call him the preacher, okay? I think some translations say teacher. I just put preacher through this manuscript. He really wrestles with some of life's biggest questions in light of what God has made clear to us and what he has not. Okay, so he's wrestling with some of life's biggest questions in light of what God has made clear to us and what he has not. Now, from our experiences, we are often left wondering, okay, if life's twists and turns are maybe ambiguous or random, maybe hapless. Life, as we all know, is filled with anomalies and tensions that really make it difficult sometimes to see order and meaning. And what happens often, as I've already said, depends less maybe upon skill and ability than on other factors that are outside of our knowledge or power. So in his wrestling, it's interesting that he really does raise more questions than he provides answers for. And really in this way, the Book of Ecclesiastes I think is really a very deeply personal book. Now as I was reading it and thinking about how to prepare for this, I think it's actually helpful to compare the Book of Ecclesiastes with the Book of Job. Now if you'll recall, that in that book, it was the friends of Job, I think Jacob taught us a few weeks ago and did a terrific job handling that book for us. The friends of Job were unable to really live with what probably should have remained an unanswered question, which was why Job had fallen under so much suffering. Okay, they saw the suffering of Job and they struggled with the ambiguity. Like I said, why is this happening? They couldn't just live with the question. They had to provide an answer. And the answer they largely gave Job was that he must have sinned and God is punishing him. That was the answer that the friends largely gave. It makes me wonder if the preacher in our book of Ecclesiastes, If our preacher were the fifth of Job's friends sitting there with him, what kind of counsel would he have given? Okay, that'll be interesting to think about as we read through the book of Ecclesiastes and come to the end. Okay, I don't, and if you say, I think he would say, vanity of vanity, all is vanity. I think if that's your answer, probably you haven't studied the book of Ecclesiastes to know what the actual heart of the matter is, even though that's typically the verse that comes to mind for us when we think about this book. But what kind of things would, what kind of counsel would Job receive from the preacher if the preacher was there with Job during the time of his great trial? Just an interesting thing to think about. Now let's get a little context, and this is laid out, obviously these are really for notes, it's not a very helpful outline because it doesn't really say a whole lot, but it is there for you just to see the structure and to take notes. But just for some context, chapter 1, verse 1 and verse 12 tells us that the author was a son of David. a son of David. Okay, well, which son of David, right? Now, traditionally, it's been taken that Solomon was the author, is the preacher, okay? But it really could be a much later descendant. And there's some debate about that. If you're happy with the traditional understanding of it being Solomon, go for it, that's fine. I don't think it's a matter of orthodoxy one way or the other. I'll simply refer to him as the preacher throughout the time of our study. But with nothing really historically to place this book or this author, the book really does end up having kind of a timeless presence among us, which is also not so dissimilar to the book of Job. I've actually never made the connections between Ecclesiastes and Job until doing this study and just seeing there's a lot there. So maybe that's a new thing for you just to meditate on and think about. But it has a kind of timeless presence among us. So how do we establish some context for this book within redemptive history? Where does it fit? Okay, well here's a few thoughts for you to think about. First, we really can kind of think of this book as a kind of a how-to guide to life in a fallen world. Okay, the preacher explains realities that are really common to all mankind, this side of the fall, but also this side of glory. Okay, so this big swath of time from Genesis 3 to, you know, to the end when Christ returns again. The realities that the preacher wrestles with are common to everyone who falls within that frame. It's a time when divine providence, okay, seldom comes with an interpretation. I actually put that on the back there because I thought that was just something to think about, especially in light of some challenges that we're facing as a church and what you may be facing in your life. Providence seldom comes with an interpretation. And I know that can be frustrating at times, but I think that's really what the book of Ecclesiastes helps us to accept. We live in a time when divine providence, which is all of life, right, seldom comes with an interpretation. And in that sense, it sits atop the story of redemption, of redemptive history, and it's really applicable to all time. Second, we can think of this book as it was used as the first compilers who put together the Old Testament. We've made a whole lot about, you know, how we're structuring this class according to the Hebrew ordering of the Old Testament. And this is, of course, not necessarily an inspired, but it is a helpful tradition nonetheless. So in the initial ordering, the ordering that Jesus would have been familiar with, Ecclesiastes sits near the end of the Bible with the material that was written after the exile. Okay, so maybe that's helpful. So in that sense, Ecclesiastes may have been positioned really to answer, positioned to answer the meaninglessness of life in and after exile. It gets to the existential questions raised by a people who had lost their land, their temple, their nationhood, and as a result, their identity. And it'll be interesting to see how the author encourages them to live, move, and have their being in this reality. So what is the background? What's the message of the book? Let's start with theme. So like Job, Ecclesiastes first poses a problem and then it gives the solution. And the question sounds something like this. What is the meaning of life? Isn't it all fleeting, empty, pointless, and vain, since we are all just racing towards death anyways? So how's that for a pick you up on a Sunday morning? Okay, empty, pointless, vain, fleeting. We're all just running as fast as we can to our eventual end where we'll be consumed, as it were, by worms, or if you prefer, by a cremation vat, right? To quote chapter one, starting in verse two, vanity of vanities, this is Ecclesiastes one, verse two, vanity of vanities, says the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil which he toils under the sun? Skip down to verse 11, there is no remembrance of former things. nor will there be any remembrance of latter things yet to be among those who come after. So is everything meaningless? Is everything vanity? It's a serious question. I would just encourage believers in here, which I assume is most of you, to not rush past that question too quickly. There are people out there who really struggle with that question and they really live in reality where that is very much how they feel and what they think. And it takes a while for the author of Ecclesiastes to untangle that question. And sometimes it's helpful to be, again, to think about Job's friends, to sit with people as they wrestle with these things and to be patient and really take what they're saying and what they're asking, take it seriously. So a summary of the book's answer, this is there on the front of your handout. There is hope for those fearing and following God in pleasure and pain, in pleasure and pain despite life's enigmas. So there is hope for those fearing and following God in pleasure and pain despite life's enigmas. Indeed, it continues, all is meaningful, and this is kind of the answer, right? All is meaningful because it is all ordered by an eternal, sovereign, and purposeful God, even when his ways are hidden from us. Therefore, we should fear God and rejoice in what he has given us to do and to have. So Ecclesiastes, it really confronts our attempt to find meaning in creation apart from the creator. Okay, it confronts our attempt. This is where the message of Ecclesiastes is so helpful, especially today, but all time. Attempt to find meaning in creation apart from the creator. It comes to the sobering conclusion that without a sovereign creator God, all is vanity, right? But if the universe is indeed created and is governed by an eternal, sovereign, and purposeful God, then there is great meaning and value to all of life, right? Only if God ordains all things that come to pass and has the power to carry out his plans can anything temporal, like our lives, have lasting and meaningful significance. The God of Ecclesiastes is a sovereign God and so everything is significant because God does nothing without reason. And therefore, as we'll see, God is to be feared, and all things that he gives us are to be enjoyed. After all, he has good and meaningful reasons to give them to us and to take away. This includes our jobs, our homes, our families, and so forth. But it also includes troubles and afflictions. These two are meaningful and good, and we may not always understand how, but we are called to trust God and to believe that he is not making any mistakes. And I think that's, if there's a sub-theme or maybe a big idea, I really think the book of Ecclesiastes calls us to this idea, and it's so hard not to say this and just sound relatively trite, but a faith, like faith is the great thing, mechanism, if you wanna say that, that's able to take the tensions that we see in life of knowing that God is there and he exists and life at times feels ambiguous, random, aimless, hapless, that we can't always understand how that works. Usually we don't. And that's where faith can kind of come in and can ease that tension or maybe even completely help us to live in that tension. and enjoy it. So faith really is, I think, kind of one of the key ideas at the heart of the book, which might be helpful for you to think about. Now I began with the first words of the book, declaring that everything is meaningless, and I told you that the message of the book is that everything is meaningful under an eternal, sovereign, and purposeful God. So how did we get from point A to point B, right? Well, let's give you an overview of the book's structure and let me explain. So the book begins with the section that I was just reading with the striking introduction that all is vain. And incidentally, the skeptical honesty of the book is really both powerful and refreshing. And the reason is because this is really how I think everybody, believers and unbelievers alike, always how we sometimes feel. And praise God that he's constructed a piece of his word to draw us away from cynicism and back to Christ and back to faith. Now flip your handout over and you'll see how the book works its way out of cynicism. Note that with the introduction completed, okay, the book shifts from the third person talking about the preacher to the first person, the words of the preacher. We'll flip back to the third person in the last chapter for the epilogue. The next chapters, they go back and forth in really answering this basic objection. We begin with proof in chapter two that all is indeed vain. The teacher has tried everything, yet without meaning. And then at the end of chapter two, we see the book's thesis. All is meaningful if a sovereign God rules the universe. That thesis is defended, objected to, I'm sorry, it's, yeah, defended, objected to, defended, and then finally we reach the conclusion in the epilogue of chapter 12. What is the conclusion of the matter? Well, this is a great verse, chapter 12, verse 13. The end of the matter, he just tells you, don't have to figure it out, he tells you. The end of the matter, as has been heard, fear God, keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil. On page two of your handout, there's a blue table there that structures it a little differently. Now you'll notice in that first blue, it's kind of small, so pull out your readers if you need them. But you'll notice the prologue and epilogue there, the light blue bars across the top and bottom. And then it says Koholeth. Koholeth is the, I guess the Hebrew word that means teacher or preacher. And some people when they're writing about Ecclesiastes, they just call the author Koholeth. So that's what that is. But you'll notice you have, if you look at his argument, it's really in two parts. Refrain, an introductory poem, investigations, conclusions, concluding poem, refrain. And in this way it's structured, as we've talked about in the past, as a chiasm. Steps in, and then it steps out. So just a helpful thing to think about as you are thinking about the structure of the book and as you study this for yourself, to follow the argument. So let's go ahead and look at how this argument flows. Ecclesiastes is a critical book for you to understand the whole picture, because if you just pull verses out, it's really hard to know what to do with that or how to interpret it, because it's so contingent upon the argument that he's making. So let's try to get our minds around it. So chapter 1, verse 1, verses 2 through 23. So go ahead and turn there, and I'll make reference to some verses. So as I mentioned before, the opening two chapters are an exploration of what the meaning of life might be. And with that intro behind us, the preacher gives us a tour his pursuit of meaning apart from God. Okay, that's really the rest of chapter 1 and most of chapter 2. He looks for significance and wisdom and wine and laughter and riches and delicacies, his work, his projects, sex, power, fame, and full material gluttony. If he wanted it, he got it. Chapter 2 verse 10 says this, and whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure. My heart found no pleasure in all my toil, for my heart found no pleasure in all my toil. And this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all my hands, all that my hands had done, and the toil I had expended in doing it. And behold, all was vanity and a striving after the wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun." So there he is, whatever he wanted, he did it. No, I mean, no regard for, you know, just whatever his heart desired, he took it. And at the end of the day, it left him wrestling with this idea of vanity, of nihilism, of cynicism. That's what left him empty. His quest for meaning was no more successful than an attempt to grab at the wind. In the effect of such a bleak outlook, verse 17 tells us that the preacher hated life. No wonder. The worldly enjoyments that he had, they all eventually came to an end. Everything ends. Everything dies. It's really amazing that anyone ever manages a smile, right? Which brings us to verse 24 in chapter two. I'm gonna turn ahead or look ahead to chapter two, verses 24. Now remember that the flow of thought is really important. Nothing that man can do between birth and death has any lasting significance. Okay, that's what he says. Therefore, it has no value. But in verse 24 through 26 of chapter two, he's going to lay out the solution to this apparent vanity of everything under the sun. This is what it says. There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also I saw is from the hand of God. For apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him, God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after the wind. So we do see a shift in his outlook here, a change in outlook. We see words like better and enjoyment, and from the hand of God, knowledge, joy. It's a long way from what we saw before, vanity, striving after the wind. Well, what's changed? What's developed in his argument? Same facts, same life, but we see him introduce maybe a new perspective that now that this life is with God. It's a life that's lived, as the Latin says, quorum deo, in the presence of God. Let's read verse 24 again. There's nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also I saw is from the hand of God. So notice that he says that the best thing that a man can do is to eat and drink and to enjoy his work. And while I thought that he just said that everything, all this was vanity, right? Why does he now recommend work? How can he say that there can be and ought to be satisfaction and joy in all of life? That's really what to eat and to drink means. It's a metaphor that really just means everything one does. For eating and drinking are really the basis of all activities, right? So we should live our life and be happy and actually enjoy labor of your hands. Can that really be all he's saying, right? But what's the catch? I think the catch is there in the rest of the verse. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God. So the preacher has seen many things in chapters one and two, but there is one thing, but there is one other thing that he's also seen. That eating and drinking, that is to say all of life, comes from the hand of God. And that changes everything. That awareness, that perspective changes everything. Think about, and just maybe a word of application. Think about your work. How many of you approach your work as though you have to do it just to keep the bills paid? I mean, if you say that, that's vanity, right? I think that the Lord wants much more for us on how we approach our work. Okay, he wants us to carry out our duties no matter how menial and maybe at times frustrating and boring or whatever they may feel. He wants us to sense his pleasure in them because he's called us to do them and he wants us to live and do these things, our work, washing dishes, taking care of kids, going to the office. He wants us to do it in his presence, because these things are from him. And that perspective changes everything and converts what would be vanity into something that's meaningful, maybe even has eternal significance in a very real way. Okay? Any questions or thoughts about that? How does this view change the way you work, or does it? Think about the verse in the New Testament, you know, whatever you do, do your work heartily as to the Lord and not unto men. Okay, to do your work unto men, guess what that's doing? That's doing your work like the preacher was doing it as a natural man without reference to God. That's vain, that's vanity. To do your work only for men is to do it in a way that results in vanity ultimately. But to do it unto the Lord, okay, that changes everything. Thoughts? Yeah, yeah. You might please him today, but you're not gonna please him tomorrow, you know? That's right, that's exactly right. Yeah, good stuff to think about. I mean, there's so much here. That's why, hopefully this is just gonna whet your appetite to go see the book of Ecclesiastes, because it has huge implications for how, I mean, you may be washing the dish the same exact way, okay? Think about the preacher before, he kind of had this realization washing a dish, and after, Probably that dish is gonna be the same amount of clean, right? And yet, for him, everything is now different. Even though the dish is still clean, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's not so much about the work as it is about the worker, right? All right, let's press on. In verse 25, we're asked a rhetorical question that backs up this claim. For apart from him, that's what John was saying, for apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment? Now, everyone eats, everyone washes the dish. And some people don't wash the dish, let's be honest, I rarely wash the dish. Now, and many people find enjoyment without God, right? There are people who seem to be having a good old time. Just read Psalm 73 if you want proof of that. But it's only the fleeting vain enjoyment of the first verses of chapter two. It's like a passing, it's like a passing vapor. It will soon be gone. No wait, no significance, okay? That's what's there. All that unless it's with, as John was saying, with God, okay? Now verse 26 makes sense. Those without this wisdom and knowledge and joy are left in the dark. So the knowledge of God, and I was thinking about, I was doing some reading about just kind of the world we live in, And this idea of the eminent frame was introduced to me. So the word eminent, that means near. So think about the eminent frame. Pretty much you think about modernity and post-modernity, the eminent frame is really that which we can see, that which we can measure, that which we can understand by just observing it. And then the transcendent frame would be like the spiritual realm, something that's over there. Well, we live in a day where all that there is for most people is the eminent frame. all that there is is what they can see, what they can measure with a ruler, what they can test through scientific experimentation, that that's where most people in our day, and really for the last probably 250, 300 years have lived, is within this imminent frame where all there is is that which can be seen and measured. Okay, that's how most people are trained to think now. Okay, now that wasn't true in the preacher's day, but it is now, but it makes a very strong point for, Ecclesiastes now makes a very strong point for our day. Most people basically live their life without him, because they can't see him, they can't prove his existence, right? Their days are subject to that vanity of working, gathering, and storing up wealth for really someone else to inherit once they die. And that is a vain life, attempting to live life apart from the creator. But thank God, To some, he gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy. So to them, everything has meaning since it comes from the hand and the purposefulness of God. As we know, all that is is not just within the eminent frame. There is God, he does exist. He is something other than creation. Think about all the talk we've done about the creator-creature distinction. There is a transcendent frame. And for people to live the kind of life that the preacher's wanting, we have to recognize that. And we have to recognize that there is one there to whom all these things come and to whom we owe our allegiance and our faithfulness. So this common idea really does become common, a common refrain in the book. Look at chapter three, verses 12 through 14. It says this, I perceive that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live. Also that everyone should eat, drink, and take pleasure in all his toil. This is God's gift to man. I perceive that whatever God does endures forever. Nothing can be added to it nor anything taken from it. God has done it so that people fear before him. So this is the meaning of life. We read essentially the same thing in chapters 5, 18 through 20, 8, 15, chapters 9, verses 7 through 10. It's repeated in a few different places. I hope that you can just see that this really is a gospel on-ramp for our culture today. Have you ever thought about Ecclesiastes as material for maybe a good investigative Bible study, a way to present the gospel to somebody? It really might be a fantastic resource. People are up to their eyeballs in this kind of nihilism, this kind of cynicism. In all their attempts to escape the meaninglessness of life, okay, what are they doing? They're thrusting themselves into their jobs, okay, their sexual exploits, their material hedonism, politics, okay, really at a breakneck pace. Think of the hunger that social media has aroused for people to have this meaningful community, and yet it's really unable to fulfill it. Okay, in the end, they all still only come up with vanity. So refreshing about the gospel is that it is an answer to this futility. And so share the message of Ecclesiastes with your coworkers, with your friends, your family, acquaintances. And really, I think we're at a time societally where people are, they're kind of waking up to recognizing that there's something there that they need to hear. So we'll pray that the Lord would use the truths that are found in Ecclesiastes to even bring revival to our day. We do have a message of hope in a hopeless world. So I wish we had more time to go deeper into the book. I just have a few things just to, hopefully that helps you understand the argument that he's making. But you can use the outline in the back of your handout to see kind of where it goes from here. Having explained God's perfect timing for all things, The preacher goes on to cite humanity's main objection to God's goodness and sovereignty, starting in verse 16 of chapter 3. So this will be the last kind of section in your notes there, the remainder of the book. And that main objection is the problem of evil. And really the answer is given in three parts. The first seven verses of chapter five give us the same answer to the problem of evil that God essentially gave Job, which to paraphrase, not to be too, I don't know, pretty much God told Job just to shut up, right, if you remember. He said, who are you, created one, to challenge the creator? That's essentially what God told Job. God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore, let your words be few. Man. It's a zinger. The second part to the answer, and this is in chapter seven, verse 14, is really a clear-headed assessment of prosperity in this world. Is lack of material things really a sign of God's curse? Perhaps part of the problem of evil is a misunderstanding of what is really good. A lot of people see that some people have and others do not have and they think that there's some social thing going on there that's favoring some, and I'm not saying that's true or not, I'm just saying the way that sometimes we measure good and evil might also need to be reformed according to what God has revealed, right? Perhaps part of the problem of evil is a misunderstanding of what is really good. The third answer in chapter seven, why do good people suffer? Okay, this is a common question that comes up. You'll hear it all the time. I think that James Dobson wrote a book about this with this title. I've never read it. Probably don't intend to, but it is a very common question. And you know, this is one of those unpopular answers, but there's really no good people. 729, God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. Kind of relating to that second point about maybe we need to have a more nuanced definition of what it means to be good, right, before we ask some of these questions. Then we end with a lengthy section in chapter eight and following with really these words of application. Obey the king, you might write these down. Obey the king, work hard, enjoy your spouse, seek wisdom, remember your creator in the days of your youth. I'll read them again. Obey the king. work hard, enjoy your spouse, seek wisdom, remember your creator in the days of your youth. Now I know that maybe not all of those apply to everybody in the exact same way, but I think you understand the point. And I think there's something actually very liberating about the simplicity of that. Too many people have themselves jumbled up in all kinds of knots trying to figure themselves out. And I've been guilty of that myself. And I know that as a young man, I would have benefited from advice really as direct and clear as that. So as you use the book, the amorphism, missing the forest for the trees, really does come to mind and is really applicable. To understand any specific passage, you really need to keep the overall flow of thought in mind. And once you can put the whole thing together, this book really is a marvelous treasure. So make use of the book of Ecclesiastes. Use it when you're feeling cynical. as an honest path back to faith. Know that faith alone is really the only mechanism that we have to resolve the tensions of life as explained to us by the book of Ecclesiastes. Faith in our God who is sovereign and who is in no way arbitrary. Faith in a God who knows all things even when we do not. Use it in evangelism to honor the meaninglessness of your, I'm sorry, yeah, honor the feelings of meaninglessness that your non-Christians are grappling with and honor that and recognize that what you're wrestling with is a real thing, like you're really asking real questions, but point them to the actual answers. Turn them to the gospel. and use it to highlight the treasure of the gospel in your own heart. Now, obviously, the book of Ecclesiastes never explains the gospel, but it definitely points to it. It tells us that God is sovereign and He can be trusted. And what is the greatest evidence of this trustworthiness and what seems to be Nihilist nihilism and ambiguity and meaninglessness. It's a sovereign God who uses the greatest tragedy in history. His son's death on the cross for our eternal benefit and his eternal glory. Ecclesiastes says that all are wicked and yet meaning comes to those who please God who walk according to his word. So how can the wicked please God? Well, it's through faith in Jesus Christ's sacrificial work on our behalf, and praise God for this little gem of a book. Any questions or comments as we close? Hopefully that was helpful to think about the book of Ecclesiastes. Yeah, I think what you're picking up on, and I agree with you, I think maybe just a way to package that maybe a little bit simply is just to recognize that that the things that we do and the things that we trust in have impact and have influence, might not be the right word, but influence on everything else in our life. So I think that's kind of what you're saying is you have all these other circumstances that we have to navigate getting it. getting paid more for your job and all these things, that those things are connected in some sense to the fear that we place in the Lord and they inform and they can even, it's not just this isolated thing. Yeah, and I think, you know, there's a lot of discussion about anxiety in our day-to-day, and I think that this is actually, again, Ecclesiastes is maybe, we could have taught this lesson with that as the focus, with so much anxiety and so much depression and so much of all these things, and some of those things are medically, you know, there's something going on there chemically. But so much of the fear, the stress, the anxiety that people fear, I think is that they're living in this tension that we've described, that they get the sense that all that they're doing doesn't really matter. And I think a lot of people are coming to the conclusion that it really doesn't. And that's that nihilism, that's that depression, that's that suicidal ideation that can come in for people who've just gotten to the point to where they're like, what's the point, right? And that's really the direction that that's going. And that's why it's so prevalent in our day is that people have been so saturated in this imminent frame that all there is is that which can be seen and measured. And we've completely divorced ourself from the transcendent. And that's making people sick. And I think that's where we are. We could talk so much more. We're like over time. I want to leave you with this. Let's close with the final words of the preacher. The end of the matter, all has been heard. Fear God, keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed unto judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil. Thank you all for coming.