-Caveat Lector-
Diligent Seekers of truth might appreciate this item.......keeping in
mind that which is crooked cannot be made straight - remember Clinton
always and never make same mistakes twice....
MNASON - Dligent Seeker of the truth.....for we all know under term of
Clintons and GORE that the scum, also rises at times.....our country has
sunk to bottom of bilge before - and at his least, George Bush, is a
gentleman C.......who should not look back upon the sodomites and former
tenants of the White House.
There is nothing new under the sun - and as the Great Satan Clinton
fades into the sunset, let us hope we never see the likes of him again,
at least 50 years or so......
For that which is crooked cannot be made straight - or can it.
Saba
THE SEARCH FOR MEANING
by Ray C. Stedman
Ecclesiastes is one of the favorite books of the Bible for skeptics,
scoffers, atheists and certain of the cultists. The reason for that is
that there are certain passages in this book which seem to deny that
there is life after death, that it is all over when this life ends.
Atheists love to contend that the book of Ecclesiastes seems to confirm
that view. That is why they frequently quote from it. Hedonists love
this book too because it apparently endorses a rather Epicurean
lifestyle. Those who pursue pleasure as the chief aim of life -- and
there are a great many of them in this country today, as the United
States is probably more hedonistic than any nation that has ever existed
-- love the book because again and again throughout it we are exhorted
to an "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we must die" philosophy.
Then there are passages in this book which are the favorite texts of
those who declare that even if we survive beyond this life we enter a
period of quietness, a time when we have no knowledge or desires. This
teaching falls in line with those cultists who teach "soul sleep," i.e.,
that when the body dies the soul goes to sleep within the body.
But all of these groups fail to note what we must note right from the
beginning, that this book is an examination of secular wisdom and
knowledge. The book clearly states at the outset that it is limiting
itself to that which is apparent to the natural mind. One of the key
phrases of the book is the continual repetition of the words, "under the
sun." What does a man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the
sun?" Verse 3 asks. We find that phrase used again in Verse 9. That
is the limitation put upon this book.
Ecclesiastes is a collection of what man is able to discern under the
sun, i.e., in the visible world. The book does not take into
consideration revelation that comes from beyond man's powers of
observation and reason. It is an inspired, an accurate book. It
guarantees that what it reports is what people actually believe. but it
is an examination of those beliefs. The book is not merely a collection
of ancient philosophy, for what it talks about is very much up-to-date
and extremely relevant. Here is what you will hear propounded in soap
operas, in political speeches, in the radical or conservative movements
of our day. Here is what you will hear in the halls of academia, or on
the streets of any city. In this book the philosophies by which people
attempt to live life are brought into consideration and examined. That
is why Ecclesiastes is so practical and up-to-date.
The first three verses introduce the theme of the book:
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 man gain by all the toil
at which he tolls under the sun? {Eccl 1:1-3 RSV}
First, we learn that the writer is, "the Preacher, the son of David,
king in Jerusalem." We immediately recognize that that could refer to no
one but King Solomon. "The son of David" could refer to any descendant
of David who sat on the throne after him, but this particularly relates
to Solomon, as several things in the book will confirm.
Many of the critical commentators of our day question that view, and
very few of them accept it. They try to date the book after the
Babylonian exile, some 500 years after Solomon lived. That is the
habitual stance of critics of the Old Testament. But their views have
been proved wrong again and again, based, as they think they are, upon
an examination of the culture of the day. I think, however, that we
shall have no problem accepting the fact that it is indeed Solomon who
shares with us in this book the wisdom that God taught him throughout
his life.
The translators, unfortunately, here refer to Solomon as "the Preacher."
I am sorry they used that term. I know the book sounds a little preachy
at the beginning. On reading that second verse it would be so easy to
affect a "stained-glass" voice. In a modern audience this, of course,
would turn everybody off. The word for Preacher is the Hebrew word
Qoheleth, which really means, "the one who gathers, assembles, or
collects things." This is an apt title for the author of this book who
has examined and then collected together the philosophies by which men
live. But I think a more accurate English word to translate this would
be "the Searcher." Here is a searching mind which has looked over all of
life and seen what is behind the actions of people. That is the word
which I am going to use wherever the word, "the Preacher," occurs. It is
not really a preacher or proclaimer but a searcher that is in view.
This is indeed a search, and, if you are concerned about what he
discovered, he tells us. You do not have to read the last chapter to
find out the results of his search because he puts it right here in
Verse 2: "Vanity of vanities" -- that is what he found. Vanity here
does not mean pride of face. Some of you ladies -- maybe even some of
you men -- spent too much time in front of the mirror this morning. Not
only did you finish what you needed to do to make yourself presentable,
but you admired it a little. We call that vanity, pride of face, but
that is not what this Searcher is talking about. The word here, in the
original, means, "emptiness, futility, meaninglessness, blah-ness." That
is what he is talking about. His view of what he found out in his search
through life is put in those terms. Emptiness, a feeling of futility --
that is what life brings.
Nothing in itself, the Searcher claims, will satisfy. No thing, no
pleasure, no relationship, nothing he found had enduring value in life.
That is why my sub-title for this study is, "The Things That Won't
Work." Everybody is trying to make them work; everybody has seized on
one or another of these philosophies, these views of life, and tries to
make it satisfy him. But according to this Searcher, who has gone
through it all, nothing will work. When he says, "Vanity of vanities,
emptiness of emptiness," that is the Hebrew way of declaring the
superlative. There is nothing more empty, this man concludes, than life.
In Verse 3 we have the question which he continually used in his
search: "What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the
sun?" What is the profit of it to him? This is an interesting Hebrew
word, meaning, "that which is left over." After he has sucked dry all
the immediate delight, joy or pleasure out of something, what is left
over, what endures, what will remain to continually feed the hunger of
his life for satisfaction? That is the right question. It is the
question we all are asking. Is there anything that will really minister
continually to my need -- that summum bonum, that highest good, which,
if I find it, I do not need to look any further? Is there a key to
continual pleasure, delight and joy in life?
The Searcher raises a very pertinent question right at the beginning.
This is the search which this book will take upon. Verses 4-11, where
he amplifies this a little, are a brief introduction to exactly what he
means, Verses 4-7 describe the sense of futility which nature gives us
as we live in this natural world; and Verses 8-11 describe the sense
of futility that every person individually feels as he faces life.
Verses 4-7:
A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains for ever.
The sun rises and the sun goes down,
and hastens to the place where it rises.
The wind blows to the south,
and goes round to the north;
round and round goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.
All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again. {Eccl 1:4-7 RSV}
-- the endless cycles of life. The Searcher's theme is stated in
Verse 4: Humanity is transient, but nature is permanent. A generation
goes and a generation comes -- the human race passes on from this life,
comes into life, lives its term and goes on -- but the earth remains
forever.
He has three proofs of this, the first of which is the circle of the
sun. The sun rises in the east, runs across the heavens, apparently, and
sets in the west; then it scurries around the dark side of the earth
while we are sleeping, and there it is in the east again in the morning.
That has been going on as long as time has been counted, as far back as
we can read in human history. It is endless; it repeats itself again and
again.
Then he speaks of the circuit of the winds, south to north. This is
unusual, because we have no evidence that men understood scientifically
the fact that the wind, the clouds and the great jet streams of earth
run in circles. This is evident to us in our day because we can see from
a satellite picture in any news broadcast the great circles of the
winds. How they knew this back then I do not know. But Solomon knew it,
though the scientific world of that day did not seem to understand it.
His third proof is the circuit of the evaporative cycle. Thirteen elders
and pastors from this church have just returned from a backpack trip to
the Sierras. There the mountain peaks were milking moisture from the
clouds which passed over all you dry people down here. We had torrents
of rain, hail, and even snow falling upon us while we were huddling in
our little plastic tents, enjoying this backpack experience. Where does
all the water which endlessly drops out of the sky come from? The
answer, of course, is that it comes from the ocean. Out here to the west
an invisible evaporative process is at work by which the water that runs
into the sea never raises the level of the sea because there is an
invisible raising of that water back up into the clouds. These clouds
then move east by the circuit of the winds and drop their moisture
again, and this goes on forever.
The writer is suggesting that there is something wrong in this. It is
backwards, somehow. Man ought to be permanent and nature ought to be
transient, he suggests. There is something within all of us that says
this. We feel violated that we learn all these great lessons from life,
but just as we have begun to learn how to handle life it is over, and
the next generation has to start from scratch again.
The Scripture confirms that something is wrong. The Bible tells us that
man was created to be the crown of creation. He is the one who is in
dominion over all things. Man ought to last endlessly and nature ought
to be changing, but it is the other way around. Man feels the protest of
this in his spirit. We have all felt this. We all protest, inwardly, at
least, the injustice of losing the wisdom of a Churchill, the beauty of
a Princess Grace, or the charm of a John Kennedy. Something is wrong
that all of this is suddenly taken away from us, while the meaningless
cycle of nature goes on and on endlessly. Yes, the human spirit feels
that strongly. That very pertinent question is going to be developed in
the theme of this book.
But furthermore, the Searcher says, the present experience of every
individual confirms this sense of futility. Verse 8:
All things are full of weariness; [Actually, "full of weariness" is one
Hebrew word which ought to be translated "restless."]
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.
What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done;
and there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
"See, this is new"?
It has been already,
in the ages before us.
There is no remembrance of former things,
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to happen
among those who come after. {Eccl 1:8-11 RSV}
His thesis here is: "All things are restless." He has observed that
there is an inherent restlessness in everything. In fact, it is so
widespread nobody can possibly describe all the restlessness of life.
He has two proofs of this. First, human desire is never satisfied: "The
eye is not satisfied with seeing." My wife's mother is 95 years old. She
is just a shell of a person now, but her mind is still sharp and clear.
The other day we had her in our home and somebody mentioned a far-off
place. Immediately she said, "Oh, I wish I could see that." Despite her
years, the eye is not tired of seeing; it longs yet to see other places,
other realms, other customs. The eye is never satisfied.
Nor is the ear ever satisfied with hearing. We are always alert to some
new idea or something new that has happened. That is why news programs
are always popular. Television, radio and newspapers all cater to this
hunger of the ear to hear something. Some juicy gossip about a Hollywood
star will sell thousands of magazines and newspapers. That is why we
tune in on soap operas. We just cannot tire of hearing something new.
Some new way of making a profit, for instance, always makes its appeal.
The Searcher's argument is that the ear never tires because human desire
is never satisfied; it is a consequence of the restlessness that is
built into life.
But second, he says, even though we long to see or hear something new,
nothing new ever really shows up. Life is a rehash of what has been
before; it is the old played over and over again. That is his argument.
This too is a result of the restlessness that is built into life.
Although something looks new to us, actually, "there is nothing new
under the sun." Somebody immediately objects and says, "Wait a minute!
They didn't have radio, television, space travel or any such thing until
just a few decades ago. Why even you, Ray Stedman, ought to be able to
remember way back to the days before they had any of those things!"
When Don Broesamle and I were in Hong Kong recently, spending a couple
days of rest after a rather exhausting travel and speaking schedule, we
stayed at the wonderful old British Peninsula Hotel on the Kowloon side
of Hong Kong. Right across the street from us was a newly built
planetarium, and Don and I went to see there The Search For Other
Civilizations. It is always exciting to me to sit in those domed rooms.
The lights go down, the stars begin to appear above like the brightest
stars on a summer's night, and you suddenly feel the sense of eternity,
you sense the greatness and the magnificence of the universe.
The show began by showing the great statues on Easter Island, in the
Pacific Ocean, raising the question, "Where did these great statues come
from?" These statues are huge, 20 feet or more in height, made of great
stones that weigh hundreds of tons. Who erected them? Where did they
come from, and how did they get there? Nobody has ever been able to
answer those questions. Then the show took us into areas of South
America where huge geometric patterns have been worked out over acres of
ground. These designs have obviously been made by man, or some
intelligent creature, yet they cannot even be seen unless they are
viewed from the sky. This raises the question, "Why would any people
draw figures on the ground so huge that they cannot be seen unless they
are viewed from the air?" Many have surmised that past civilizations did
have ways of rising above the earth. Perhaps visitors from space used
these patterns. Other mysteries, such as Stonehenge in England, are
propounded and compounded as one explores the earth. It struck me that
that planetarium show was a confirmation of what the Searcher of
Ecclesiastes declares, "What has been is what will be, and what has been
done is what will be done." Other ages will repeat it. "There is nothing
new under the sun."
Why then do things appear new? His answer is in Verse 11: Man's memory
is faulty; we have forgotten things that once were. The planetarium show
confirmed that. One excerpt showed the Mayans of Central America, the
actual blood descendants of a race of intellectual giants who once lived
in the area, who erected temples filled with mysteries that the present
generation of Mayan Indians has long forgotten. They cannot explain
them; they do not understand them. They have lost the knowledge of the
past. This is what this writer declares. Our memories are so short that
we lose what we know -- and, he suggests, it may happen again. All these
technological marvels that we are so proud of may one day disappear in a
great nuclear holocaust. Viewing our television sets or some such
things, future generations may well ask, "What in the world is this
jungle of wires for? What did they do with this thing?" That is the
problem. "There is nothing new under the sun."
So the question is raised, "Is this all life is about?" Is it merely an
empty pursuit of that which never satisfies? Can no breakthrough be made
whereby something can be found that will continually meet the hunger of
man's heart, to give an unending sense of delight, satisfaction and joy?
That is the search.
Before the Searcher takes us into the details of this search -- which
begins in Chapter 2 -- he gives us a word as to his qualifications, in
Verses 12-18. These fall into two divisions, his position, and his
diligence. Verses 12-14:
I the Searcher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I applied my
mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven;
it is an unhappy business that God has given to the sons of men to be
busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun; and
behold, all is emptiness and a striving after wind.
What is crooked cannot be made straight,
and what is lacking cannot be numbered. {Eccl 1:12-15 RSV}
This man's position gave him unusual opportunity. He was a king, the
highest authority in the land; no one would challenge what he did. And
he was a king in a time of peace. For 40 years during the reign of
Solomon no armies battered at the walls of Jerusalem, as they had been
doing all through history and are threatening to do today. His father
had amassed great wealth of which Solomon was the heir, and he himself
had increased this wealth. For 40 years of the nation's life there was
no demand for expenditure for munitions. It was a time of peace and
great wealth. Furthermore, during this time the Gentile nations were
sending delegates to Jerusalem. The Queen of Sheba came all the way from
the ends of the earth, she said, to see and hear the wisdom of this man.
Solomon had great opportunity.
Furthermore, he was able to investigate widely. "I applied my mind to
seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven," he
says. He could get into everything. But, with all candor, he has to
state, "It is an unhappy business that God has given to the sons of men
to be busy with." That translation misses something of what he meant. In
the Hebrew it is not "the sons of men," rather, it is "the sons of man."
The word is Adam, "the sons of Adam." So the reference is not to the
conglomerate of humanity, it is to the nature of man.
I think he is making reference here to the fall of man. He is
recognizing the fact that it is difficult for men to discover answers.
There is something wrong inside of man. It is a tricky business for a
man, who senses an overwhelming curiosity to discover the secrets of
life around him, yet he finds himself baffled all the time by an
inadequate understanding. Man cannot put it all together.
Furthermore, he was able to investigate even the opposites of things. "I
have seen everything," he says. Yet there were certain limitations
inherent in that. That is what he quotes in a proverb, "What is crooked
cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be numbered." It is
difficult for man to discover the answers to life, because when he sees
something wrong there is yet somehow an inbuilt difficulty that prevents
him from correcting it. Have you ever felt, as I have, that when things
go wrong in your family, although you long to put them right somehow you
cannot get hold of it, you cannot make it right? "That which is crooked
cannot be made straight." One of the great frustrations of life is that
no matter how hard you try there are some things you cannot set
straight. Also, no matter how much you may discover, there is
information you would long to have that you cannot find. "That which is
lacking cannot be numbered." That was this man's problem.
Then he speaks of his diligence, Verse 16:
I said to myself, "I acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over
Jerusalem before me; and my mind has had great experience of wisdom and
knowledge." And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and
folly. I perceived that this also is but a chasing after wind.
For in much wisdom is much vexation,
and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. {Eccl 1:16-18
RSV}
For you students who have just gone back to school, that is a great
verse to memorize. "He who increases knowledge increases sorrow." That
is true, sad, but true. It is no argument for not increasing knowledge,
though, because the alternative is even worse; ignorance is foolishness.
Isn't it remarkable that the Man who for all ages has been the
personification of wisdom is also the one who is called "a man of
sorrows, and acquainted with grief"? {Isa 53:3}. Yet this Searcher kept
on, despite the increasing frustration that the more he knew the more he
knew he did not know. At the close of his life, Isaac Newton said, "I
have been paddling in the shallows of a great ocean of knowledge." He
too felt the frustration of not being able to encompass more.
This gives us a clue as to when this book was written. It must have been
in the latter years of the reign of Solomon, after he had had ample
opportunity to investigate all the areas of life and had done so.
Following that period, which the book of First Kings describes, he fell
into spiritual decline, led away by the idolatry of the wives he had
married from foreign nations. This enlightened son of David, with all
his knowledge of the law of Moses and all the insight of the word of
God, actually ended up bowing down to lifeless idols in the heathen
temples which he built for his wives in Jerusalem. But there was,
apparently, a time of recovery.
One of the Targums of the Jews has an interesting word here:
When King Solomon was sitting upon the throne of his kingdom, his heart
became greatly elated with riches, and he transgressed the commandment
of the Word of God; and he gathered many houses, and chariots, and
riders, and he amassed much gold and silver, and he married wives from
foreign nations. Whereupon the anger of the Lord was kindled against
him, and he sent to him Ashmodai, the king of the demons, and he drove
him from the throne of his kingdom, and took away the ring from his
hand, in order that he should roam and wander about in the world, to
reprove it; and he went about the provincial towns and cities in the
land of Israel, weeping and lamenting, and saying, "I am Coheleth, whose
name was formerly called Solomon, who was King over Israel in
Jerusalem."
There is no reference to this period in Scripture, so this may not be
trustworthy. But it may be true. There is suggestion in Scripture that
there came a time when King Solomon saw the folly of what he was doing,
and repented. This book is his considered proclamation from a chastened
mind of what he had learned from life. This is not an angry young man
speaking. These are the words of a man who has been through it all and
is sharing with us what he found in his search.
Did he find an answer? Did he find that key to life that makes
everything yield up its treasure of joy? The answer to that is, Yes, he
did, and he tells us the answer in this book. But his answer is not what
he has started out with here. What he found "under the sun" was
emptiness, but he went on to find something more than that. That is what
this book declares.
Prayer:
Thank you, Lord, for this wise, wise word. Thank you that the answers to
life are not found in the wisdom of man. No human institution can give
us the key to living. It must come from your loving hand, often through
much pain and sorrow as we work our way to these great answers of life.
Guide us now, guard us and help us to wait and learn and be attentive,
remembering that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. We
pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Title: The Search for Meaning
By: Ray C. Stedman
Series: Things that Don't Work: Ecclesiastes
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 1:1-18
Message No: 1
Catalog No: 3806
Date: September 19, 1982
PBC Homepage | Discovery Publishing | Ray Stedman Library
Copyright (C) 1995 Discovery Publishing, a ministry of Peninsula Bible
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