Open your Bibles, if you would, to Ecclesiastes chapter 1. I will read the first 11 verses, and then we will examine some of the thoughts revealed to us in verses 9, 10, and 11. The words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What prophet hath a man of all his labor, which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh. But the earth abideth forever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth around unto the north. It whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full. Under the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. All things are full of labor. Man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be. And that which is done, is that which shall be done. And there is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? It hath been already of old time which was before us. There is no remembrance of former things, neither shall there be any remembrance of those things that are to come with those that shall come after." This particular book, one of the wisdom literature, is written by King Solomon, son of David, He wrote one other book, the book of Proverbs. The book of Ecclesiastes he wrote later in life, and as you read through the book you will get that hint because he talks about his life and how he arrived at the conclusion that he states at the beginning of the chapter here. Vanity of vanities, everything is vanity. Well, it would help us to understand, first of all, what vanity means. I remember years ago hearing a preacher by the name of Paris Riedhip talk about this term vanity and he described it as soap bubbles. Soap bubbles, soap bubbles, all is soap bubbles. Well he's close because as you know soap bubbles don't last forever. They are here for a few minutes while you're scrubbing and then they're gone. Well literally the word vanity means breath or wind. And so it gives to us this picture that Soap Bubbles does kind of picture which is brevity. Kind of uselessness. Doesn't really contribute very much. It's here briefly and then gone. And so Solomon is talking about things in life and later on through the book he identifies specific things but here he's just kind of generally giving an overview. All is vanity. It comes and it goes. The sun rises, it sets and goes back and starts again. The wind starts at the north and goes to the south and turns around and comes back again. And so he's trying to give the picture of this concept of shortness, worthlessness, brevity of things. Now, I mentioned that there are three verses here that I want us to look at in particular, rather than the whole section, because those three verses kind of also give us a foretaste of what Solomon was trying to get across in his book. And in these verses 9, 10, and 11, as my, I call him my good friend, Matthew Henry, many centuries before me, but a great writer, He mentions that in this text Solomon was trying to present two alternatives that could prevent us from viewing life as vanity or of events and activities in our lives as becoming vanity. And the two things he points out are newness and memorableness. He points out and says, we tend to think because something is new, it's better. Or something is new, it's right. Something is new, that's what we've got to grab on to because it's new. And of course we see this, we are bombarded with advertising, new and improved. Everything in life is new and improved. Just give them a few months and it will be new and improved. And it's the enticement to us to participate in it because it's new. It's not the old detergent, it's the new detergent. It's blue now instead of green or whatever change they propose that it now has. And Solomon is saying that's often times how we view life. If it's new, let's grab it and let's go for it with all of our hearts. Because it's new. And especially if it is something that we could assume might have a value of memorableness to it. Something that we would remember makes us think that it would have greater value. The problem is, as Solomon points out in these verses, the only thing that we have learned from history is that we have not learned from history. history constantly repeats itself and someone has said and I frankly don't know who made the statement but if we don't look back and learn from history we are doomed to repeat it which of course we do we constantly repeat history so Solomon even though he points out that there are two possible ways to prevent life from becoming vanity Even in those things, they're vanity. Because there is nothing new under the sun. And that which we remember, we don't remember former things. And that which we remember now, future generations are not going to remember it. So nothing is going to be so memorable that it will not be forgotten or set aside. we have this deceitfulness about memory on the one hand we think that it is so spectacular that we glamorize it beyond its reality or we diminish it into nothingness and so it has no long-lasting impact or effect upon us and Solomon in voicing these things expressed his concerns for those who would read his message in his book because he points out the failure of people to learn from the past and he's presenting it as a warning to them listen to me I am the preacher I am the king listen to what I say there is nothing new and you're going to forget the present And future generations will also forget what you have done. There is no ultimate satisfaction to be found in something just because it inherently comes to us as new. And certainly we have dismissed the past and have not learned from history. As we look now at our present day, taking the advice and counsel of Solomon, and correlating it to our day, we have fallen into the same trap that Solomon tried to prevent. We try to say, oh this is brand new, this is something new, or we have forgotten the past. Just to point out a few things to confirm and emphasize that conclusion. We have not learned from scripture. We have not learned from the examples given to us in the scriptures of those who have sinned against God. We haven't learned from Solomon, who started out a godly man and ended up almost an apostasy. Only in the last couple of years of his life did he turn back to the Lord. And during that time in between he had hundreds of wives and he assembled unto himself horses in gold, all of which God said kings should not do. Solomon did every one of them. And we have not learned from Solomon. nor have we learned from any of the other wonderful godly men that we can point on in scripture like Paul. How many of us follow the example of Paul? How many of us follow the example of Peter? How many of us follow the example of Nathanael? Sir, we would see Jesus. How many of us learn from the example of Samson? Well, I could enumerate a long list of examples from scripture from whom we have not learned. We repeat and repeat and repeat their same failures. How about history? We can go beyond biblical examples and point to historical examples of godly men I mentioned Matthew Henry, one of my favorite commentators. We could name many godly men throughout church history whom God has used mightily and how many of us have learned from them and followed their example of godliness? Sadly, we haven't. Lastly, We haven't learned from our own mistakes. We repeat them, and repeat them, and repeat them, and repeat them, and repeat them. Don't we? I'm not alone in this. You repeat them too. The psalmist said. Exactly what he was talking about. Now when we come to the church, we find exactly the same pattern. The church has not learned from the church in scripture, has not learned from the church in history. It repeats the same failures and mistakes and stumbling blocks that they faced. Problem is, we have failed to heed the warning and example given to us by Solomon not only in these verses but throughout his writings in the book of Ecclesiastes. We still have this notion that if it's a new idea for the church it must be good. Let's do it. Let's grab it. Let's spend all the money. Let's get the downloads off of the satellites. Let's have our convocations. It's new. It's exciting. It's wonderful. We haven't learned from history. There's nothing new. There's nothing new under the sun. We repeat history over and over again to our detriment. And I would suggest three different areas in the church. Presently popular. Presently emphasized and lauded as the new answer. And I find it interesting because Each one is a new one built on the prior new one. I hope I said that so you understand what I'm saying. First one in the line had to be the Seeker Friendly Movement. People really do want to know God. All you've got to do is make it attractive to them. And if you just appeal to them and give them the things that they want and are looking for and would appeal to their psyches and to their emotions and to their lives, they'll come and they'll flock in and man, we'll just work them right into the kingdom. Well, that had its day. There are still people that are following the Seeker Friendly Movement. There are Seeker Friendly Churches in your communities. I know. I know of them. They are emphasizing Something totally contrary to scripture, by the way, which I won't take the time to get into at the moment. The next thing is postmodernism. Postmodernism is we are after modernism. Postmodernism. With all of its emphasis upon different types of thinking and the way in which we come to know the truth, if at all we can ever know the truth. And that followed upon seeker-friendly or closely aligned with it. and then came along the emergent church movement in our city in Grand Rapids where we live there is one of the largest emergent churches in all of the country and all of the world and its pastor is a world-renowned traveling speaker he travels all over the world with hundreds and thousands of people coming to hear him and buying his books and his His videos and various other materials that he produces and co-produces. It's a very real turmoil taking place within the church. And all of them come upon us with the concept, it's new. This is the new way to fulfill the Great Commission. This is the new way to preach the gospel. This is the new way to reach the lost. Every one of them. It's the new thing. I contend to you, it isn't new. It's a repetition of what is old and failed. I will give you some examples to jog your thinking and to help you see that that which is called new isn't really new. but a reworking of that which occurred many years ago and the problems associated with it. I won't go into all detail of the problems associated with it, but enough to hopefully help you get a grasp as to the fact that it is not new, but a repetition of that which failed. Each of these three movements that I mentioned to you, the Emergent Church Movement, Postmodernism, and the Seeker-Friendly Concept, emphasize that changes in the culture mandate changes in church structure and church operation and church function in order to reach the culture. We can't do it the way they said it in the Bible anymore. We can't do it that way. That is a totally different culture. It may have been fine for 50 AD, but it will not work in our current culture time. So we must have whole new mandates and whole new emphases, whole new ways to try and present the gospel and reach the lost. There's two fundamental errors that I want to point out to you in that statement. The first error is this. That concept, all dressed up in modern styling, and 21st century jargon they envision themselves cutting-edge theologians but actually they emulate shallow and impotent movements of the past. Would you like me to read it again? The conclusion that we must adapt to culture and must change to culture and must completely change the modus operandi of the church comes to us all dressed up in modern styling and 21st century jargon envisioning themselves cutting-edge theologians but actually they emulate shallow and impotent movements of the past I would like to give you some examples to show you What is new is not new. It's been around a long time. And I will give some well-known examples to you. Hopefully the Spirit of God will open your eyes and impress upon you the truth of the statement that I want you to see. The first example I will give to you is Charles Spurgeon. Most of us know Charles Spurgeon, well, have some knowledge of him, have heard of him in some fashion. well-known preacher in London during the 1800s. God mightily used him. His sermons in print now number more total pages than any other theologian who has ever written. Massive volumes of his sermons pretty well known throughout the world. Later in his life in 1887 to 1892 when he died Spurgeon fought what was called the downgrade of the church. The downgrade of the church consisted of the following problems. Textual criticism of the scriptures, the truthfulness and inerrancy of the scriptures, and seeker-friendly movements. That was the downgrade. and he fought against it in his preaching and in his publications. He had a publication called The Sword in the Trowel which he wrote, a newspaper type publication and occasionally he would have other men contribute to the magazine but most of it contained his writings and his sermons. But through those means and methods Spurgeon fought with all of his lifeblood in him to defeat the downgrade of the church. And there are those who say that he fought it so hard and it took such a toll upon him it ultimately took his life. He died at 58, which even in that era was somewhat young. Do the problems sound familiar? Nothing new under the sun. same problems we face today. In fact, if you would like one of the best messages and refutations I have ever read anywhere on the Seeker-Friendly Movement, you can go to my website and read his message called, Feeding Sheep or Amusing Goats. It's short, probably two pages long, but it absolutely nails the Seeker-Friendly Movement present in his day. For a second example, I bring before you J. Gresham Macon. He was the founder of Westminster Theological Seminary, one of our prominent and profound seminaries and training institutions in our day. In the 1900s, he faced the same challenges that Spurgeon did in his day. They became increasingly popular and accepted in the professing church, and J. Gresham Macon was moved by the fallacies presented by the liberal emphasis in the church. He wrote a book against it called Christianity and Liberalism in which he used scripture to refute the issues of the day. I highly recommend to you this book for your reading for he takes the scriptures and refutes the issues present in his day and which have become increasingly popular even in our day today. A third example I would give to you is me. I first faced these issues presented by the emergent church, the postmodern approach to the movement in the Church of Jesus Christ and the seeker-friendly movements in the 1960s as a student at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. I took a course called The Bible as Literature, in which the professor regularly denied the inspiration of scripture and its inerrancy. It was merely nothing but a collection of stories and anecdotes, she said. The biblical narrative regarding Christ and the gospel were not true and could not be believed. The supernaturalness of the Lord Jesus and his miracles and his teachings were merely exaggerations of stories. A second course I took at Wayne State was called the Psychology of Communication. in which the text and the teacher used Paul's message at Mars Hill as an example for us to follow on how to adapt to crowd attitudes in your public speaking. They did not present it as a new paradigm for the church. It was merely a common approach to public speaking whereby you could adapt to your audience and use some of their understandings, some of their knowledge, some of their experiences to help merge with what you are then going to present in your message. Present day take that message far beyond Paul's emphasis. Another example from my experiences during that same time period dealt with a relationship I developed with my wife's father. During those years at Wayne State University I began to date and ultimately marry my wife Diane. Her father was a pastor of the church across the street from where I lived. As he pastored the church that he founded a few years prior to my beginning to attend his church, he regularly had special emphases in his church that can be described as nothing more than the seeker-friendly approach of our day. Once a year he had what he called Roundup Sunday. in which he would have a glamorous extravagant weekend of events where he would bring in ponies and horses for the children to ride. All those who came could get a free ride on the ponies and the horses. And they decorated the church in a western theme and made a big emphasis in an attempt to attract those in the community to come and see the new church. During the year he had additional big activities and events all designed to draw in people around the community to come and visit the church and he was successful they came by the hundreds and that day to have 900 come to a brand new church was exceedingly unusual and yet he did in addition he had musical programs drive-in churches and all different kinds of emphasis designed to bring in outsiders to the church. One of the great features that I greatly remember during those years was every Saturday for lunch he would take me to the restaurant and we would have lunch together. During those times we would talk about the church, not just the church that he pastored but the church in general, the body of Christ and what was going on in the church and leadership events of the church. I'll never forget the one Saturday when he came to our luncheon and said, I've made a big decision. I said, what's the decision? I've decided to cancel all of the big events that I've done over the years and I'm not going to do them anymore. And I said, why? He explained to me that he had done an analysis of the people presently attending the church And he could not name one family, one person presently attending the church that came as a consequence of all of his extravagant events over the years. He completely changed his approach. He even canceled Sunday school, which in our day is somewhat of a sacred cow. And he designed the service to go from 10 o'clock on Sunday mornings to 1130, in which he would have some music, congregational singing, and preaching. The interesting thing was the church grew. He not only used seeker-friendly methods but he ceased using them long before the seeker-friendly church even became a movement. These are just some examples that I could give to you as to how the present emphasis in the church is nothing more than a shallow impotent compromise repetition of the past. Solomon said there is nothing new under the sun and when it comes to these new movements in the church presently attractive, presently highly accepted and acclaimed are nothing more than a repetition of the past. When I began to develop Master Ministries International in the 1990s I began to examine the church movements of the day and I noticed that there was a movement somewhat new at that time called the seeker-friendly methods. I began to analyze them and read materials distributed by pastors and churches currently using that approach in their church at that time. As I read them I was profoundly impressed with a number of things. First of all, I was impressed with the fact that they were using nothing more than the approaches that I used with my sales meetings with my salesmen in business at that time. They used nothing but psychology and excitement to try and encourage people to do the work of God. I also noticed that really there was nothing new. It was merely put in new packaging. It was shallow, impotent, and a compromise of the truth. truly Solomon spoke the truth when he said there is nothing new under the sun and what we are doing now someone will do in the future because they have refused to learn from the past there is a second problem that these new modern emphases on the church have presented to the church and that is this they attempt to support their foundation with scripture and to show that scriptures provide the underlying basis for their present emphases and actions. One of those scriptures that they use is found in 1 Corinthians chapter 9 verses 15 to 23. I will read just a few of the scriptures to give us the setting of this message from Paul to his friends at Corinth. Because it is one of the main verses that the present emphases in the church try to use as the foundation of their emphasis. Describing it as new. Yes, on the one hand, and yet on the other they try and substantiate its foundation in scripture. Just a new approach to what scripture uses as a foundation. Let me read for you 1 Corinthians chapter 9 verses 15 to 23. Here's what we see. But I have used none of these things, neither have I written these things, that it should be so done unto me. For it were better for me to die, than that any man should make my glorying void. For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of. For necessity is laid upon me, yea, woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward. But if against my will a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me, what is my reward then? Verily, that when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel. For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews. To them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law. To them that are without law, as without law, being not without law to God, but unto the law to Christ. But I might gain them that are without law. to the weak became I as weak that I might gain the weak." Now here's the phrase on which the modern movements in the church build their foundation. I am made all things to all men that I might by all means save some. And they take that phrase from Paul's message to his friends at Corinth as the foundation for their attempts to design new methods to attempt to reach the lost. It is merely nothing more than a misinterpretation of Paul's statements. It is a misapplication of his emphasis in the context. It is merely an attempt to find some scriptural evidence whereby culture can become the driving force behind the methods of the church rather than the scriptures. It leads to nothing more than faith and a fallacy. The reality is, in our circumstances in our day, as well as in Paul's day, we must come to an understanding of the sinful condition of mankind. Man is a sinner lost without Christ, condemned to eternal judgment. That hasn't changed since the Garden of Eden. And new approaches don't attack that same problem that first appeared in the Garden of Eden. The underlying problem of mankind is a moral problem of the heart, not cultural adaptation. In essence, what the emergent church, the postmodern methods, and seeker-friendly movements ultimately do as they reject the scriptures and its authority. They neglect the Word of God. They hide the truths of God. They doubt and distort the scriptures and the emphases of the Word of God as to how the church is to function and to reach the lost. To correct this problem, we must come to an understanding of the needs of our culture and how to relate biblically to them. and the needs of our culture are the same needs present throughout history. The sinful nature of man. Secondly, we must understand Paul's statements regarding his freedoms in Christ. The passage that I read is only part of a larger context that begins actually back in 1 Corinthians chapter 8 in which Paul begins to describe an answer that the church at Corinth had sent to him. Third, We must gain insight from the scriptures that lead us in the proper direction to understand indifference and things that are indifferent that we can use as means to help us spread the gospel and the word of God. My friends, the church of Jesus Christ today desperately needs revival. And these attempts by many within the professing church of Jesus Christ of our day do not reach the source of the problem with the Church of Jesus Christ. We need a mighty visitation of the Holy Spirit to come and move us, to convict us of our sin, to drive us to our knees, to realize that without Christ we have nothing. And that is my prayer for you, my friend, that the Spirit of God will move upon your heart and your mind help you to see your need of Christ and if you have trusted in Christ to point out to you your need to continue to trust Him and to come to His word for direction not only in your daily life but for the direction of the Church of Jesus Christ. In future studies we will examine in more detail this passage from Paul to help us understand how we are to operate and function as the Church of Jesus Christ in our day in order to reach them with the gospel. I pray that the Spirit of God will use these truths to strengthen you, to revive you, to bring you to saving faith in Christ, and to revive your heart and your soul and your spirit. To the honor and glory of His name.