Everything is in vain?

Worship service (Campaign: Preacher; Unit 1: All is in vain), Peter Schütt, 2020-03-01, Evangelical Free Church Leichlingen, more...

Introduction

The title of the first unit is "All is in vain" and I hope we don't say that about our campaign afterwards.

I'm normally a fan of reading the Bible text first without any preliminary considerations and then thinking about it afterwards.

I have deviated from this in this book "Ecclesiastes" because the text can otherwise be very confusing.

I believe that the author "Solomon" only has the perspective "under the sun".

I would like to use an image for this. Imagine you are standing in front of a stage in a crowd at a folk festival and you are small and standing quite far back. You can only see people around you, but you can't see what's happening on stage. You might be able to guess, but in the end you know nothing.

If you are a good observer and very clever, then you may be able to judge the people around you well, perhaps understand why they are wearing exactly these clothes, what they smell like, what they have eaten, whether they smoke or not, and so on.

But you don't see the crucial thing that is happening behind the crowd on the stage. You don't see why you are actually there.

I believe that Solomon feels the same way here in this book. And he finds it pointless.

But you also know what happened when you were still children and you were standing in a crowd like that. Your father or mother lifted you up, maybe put you on their shoulders, and you could suddenly see everything.

And in the same way, our heavenly Father lifts us up so that we can see and recognise more. We can now see the stage beyond the crowd, we can see what matters.

That is why I have often chosen the expression "the open sky" as a contrast to "under the sun". We can see more than Solomon and we should be aware of this when reading.

I would be very interested to know whether anyone here disagrees with my view, i.e. does not see it in such a way that Solomon only has a view of a closed heaven. I would very much like to discuss this; different opinions are always interesting because you can learn a lot from them, even if it only leads you to reflect on your own view and think about it again.

A few words about the word "preacher". In Hebrew it is "Kohelet" and literally means "the one who gathers". On the one hand, this can mean that the author has collected wisdom or it can mean that the author gathers learners to himself.

Luther translated "Kohelet" as "Preacher", as do most Protestant Bibles. The "New Life" Bible used in the campaign booklet writes "teacher" and the standardised translation, which is often used by Catholics and Orthodox Christians, writes "Kohelet".

The translation "teacher" is perhaps not bad for us, because we want to learn something.

Everything is pointless

Let us now look at the first verses from Ecclesiastes:

2 "It is all useless and meaningless," says the teacher, "useless and meaningless indeed, it is all completely meaningless." 3 What does a person gain by toiling and labouring all his life? 4 Generations come and go, but the earth does not change through the ages. 5 The sun rises and sets, travelling its course in the sky, only to rise again in the same place. 6 The wind blows to the south, then turns to the north, it blows here and there, it turns and turns and goes nowhere. 7 The rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea does not fill up. The water returns again and again to the sources of the rivers to spring up anew. 8 All speech is laboured. Nothing can be fully expressed in words. The eye can never see enough and the ear can never hear enough. 9 What has been once comes again and again, and what has been done once is done again and again. There is nothing new under the sun. 10 Is there actually anything of which you could say: "There's never been anything like this before!"? No, everything has been done before in times long past. 11 We've just forgotten what happened back then. And in a few years' time, people will no longer remember what we are doing now.

These are the opening verses and they already sound pretty depressing. In older Bible translations, the beginning is translated as "All is vanity", which hardly anyone understands today.

In modern terms, you'd probably say: "It's all for nothing..."

Generations come and go, but the earth doesn't change. In this day and age, we are getting it a little more broken.

Sun, wind, rain is always the same, nothing changes. Well, things do seem to be changing due to climate change, but that's not what the preacher means here. The weather has no destination either. Man never reaches his goal because he can never grasp everything.

And what was, comes again and again, there is nothing new under the sun. And if we believe that there is something new, then we have simply forgotten that it has existed before.

No, that's not true. It's not all in vain.

An example from 1 Corinthians 3:11-15; NL

11 For no one can lay a foundation other than the one already laid - Jesus Christ. 12 Whoever builds on this foundation can use gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay or straw. 13 On the day of judgement, the work of each individual will have to prove itself in the fire. The fire will show the quality of the building. 14 If it withstands the fire, the one who built it will receive a reward. 15 But if his work is burnt up, he will suffer a painful loss. He himself will be saved, but only as one who barely escapes the fire.

When we walk with Jesus, our lives even have an impact on eternity. So it's not all pointless and meaningless and what you do for Jesus will also be worthwhile. Unfortunately, you often don't see the reward on earth, you probably feel like Solomon sometimes and really think in dark hours: everything is in vain.

But as the above Bible text shows, and this is just one of many, it is not in vain to walk with Jesus Christ.

The statement that people cannot fully grasp anything, can never see enough and can never hear enough is also not true. However, if you understand this statement to mean that you can always learn more and never be done with it, then I find that very positive here on earth. I think learning is a good thing.

However, I believe that this statement goes beyond mere knowledge. If you are always in search of peace and contentment and can't find it, then life can become very frustrating.

But that doesn't have to be the case. Let's look at 1 Corinthians 13:12; NL

Now we still see things imperfectly, as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will recognise everything with complete clarity. Everything I know now is incomplete, but then I will recognise everything as God already knows me.

Recognising with complete clarity, just as I am recognised, is predicted for us Christians.

These two New Testament passages that I have quoted (and there are many more) lead to a bit of a contradiction to Solomon's statement: "There is nothing new under the sun."

Maybe not back then, but then God came to earth in Jesus Christ and died for our sins and that was really something new. That had never happened before.

And we humans can also experience something new personally. In Ezekiel 36, 26; NL is prophesied for the people of Israel:

26 And I will give you a new heart and give you a new spirit. I will take the heart of stone out of your body and give you a heart of flesh.

And this new heart is also there for us humans today, if we keep to John 1, 12.13; NL:

12 But to all those who received him and believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. 13 They became so neither by descent nor by human endeavour or intention, but this new life comes from God.

And when we have this new life, we are lifted up and can see the stage above the crowd, if I may take up the image from the beginning once again.

However, this picture is of course only incomplete. There is also the enduring aspect that life has eternal consequences. We have already spoken about this at the beginning, that life is not in vain.

In the following sections, Solomon looks at the topics of wisdom, pleasure and work in a very fundamental way and I would like to do the same in the following. We will return to these topics again and again during the campaign and also go into them in more detail.

Wisdom is pointless

Let's move on to wisdom (Ecclesiastes 2:12-15; NL):

12 I, the Teacher, was once king in Israel and reigned in Jerusalem. 13 I endeavoured to investigate and explore things with the help of my mind. All my endeavours were directed towards wisdom, because with its help I wanted to find out what was happening in the world: It is tedious work, and God has imposed it on people to torment them. 14 I have observed people in their daily activities. It is all pointless and is like trying to catch the wind. 15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what does not exist cannot be counted

That is interesting. He's actually saying here that wisdom can't change anything. Does wisdom, good advice, clever sayings help?

Solomon goes one better in v.18:

18 For the greater the wisdom, the greater the discouragement, and the greater the realisation, the greater the disappointment.

Well, what good is all the wisdom, all the cleverness and all the understanding if you can't change anything with it? But can you really change nothing? Can't crooked things become straight after all?

We know that some crooked people who have decided in favour of Jesus have changed their lives and become "straight". Of course, this also happens to people who are not travelling with Jesus. And we should also be happy about every crooked person who no longer lives a crooked life, because it makes our environment and our lives safer and more beautiful.

But where are the limits of wisdom? Perhaps Romans 1:20-23; NL comes to mind:

20 Since the creation of the world, people have seen the earth and the heavens and everything that God has created and can clearly recognise him, the invisible God, in his eternal power and divine nature. Therefore, they have no excuse for not having known about God. 21 Although they knew about God, they did not want to worship him as God or thank him. Instead, they began to form nonsensical ideas about God, and their minds became darkened and confused. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools. 23 Instead of worshipping the glorious, eternal God, they worshipped idols representing corruptible human beings, or birds, animals and snakes.

Obviously, wise and intelligent people can also make fools of themselves, especially if they consider their wisdom to be absolute.

For me, this includes expressions like: "Nobody can tell me anything, I've already experienced so much."

I believe that wisdom is a good servant when you are aware of the limits of your wisdom, as it says in the verse mentioned in the booklet (Colossians 4:5: NL):

Be wise in your dealings with people from outside, and make use of the opportunities that God gives you!

Wisdom, used correctly, is helpful and makes life easier.

Pleasure is pointless

Solomon's next attempt to deal with the futility he feels sounds very modern (Ecclesiastes 2, 1.2; NL):

1 I said to myself: "Then I'll create a comfortable life for myself and enjoy the good things." But I realised that there was no point in that either. 2 "It's pointless to laugh," I said to myself. "What's the point of being happy?"

So the first sentence "Then I'll create a comfortable life for myself and enjoy the good things." sounds like a current advert or work-life balance. And that's not wrong.

But he is not satisfied with it and he really tried everything and also had the means to do so (vv. 10.11):

10 If something caught my eye that I wanted, I took it. I did not deny myself a single pleasure. And I rejoiced in all the trouble I had gone to, which was, as it were, a secondary reward for my efforts. 11 But when I examined everything I had acquired with my hands and compared it to the effort I had put into it, I realised that it was all pointless. It was as useless as trying to catch the wind. There is no lasting gain in this world.

What do we expect from pleasure? Relaxation? A pastime? In some Christian circles, pleasure used to be frowned upon. Christians didn't go to the cinema, they didn't go dancing or do anything else that was fun.

In this context, fundamental questions arose as to whether a Christian is allowed to have fun at all.

I would like to quote the verse that also appears in the booklet (1 Timothy 6:17; NL):

Tell all those who are rich in this present world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which will soon disappear. Instead, they should put their trust in the living God, who gives us everything we need in abundance so that we can enjoy and rejoice in it.

This verse clearly shows that joy and pleasure are not wrong and that the question "Is a Christian allowed to have fun?" must of course be answered with "Yes".

It's all about categorising pleasure correctly. If you put your trust in God, then we will also get things to enjoy, of course. But if you put your trust in Jesus, then other things also become important, then pleasure is no longer the way to contentment, as Solomon tried it out, but a nice accessory of a kind God.

I don't know what happened to Solomon in the course of his life, but we don't find a verse in Ecclesiastes where Solomon expresses that he trusts God. The word "faith" doesn't appear either, which is often synonymous with trust in the Bible.

So Solomon seeks eternal answers in pleasure, but that's just like catching the wind. It slips through your fingers, it's useless.

Work is pointless

Let's move on to the last point, which is work.

There is this old mourning saying:

Only work was your life,
you never thought of yourself,
only striving for your own
was your duty.

Creepy, isn't it?

The evangelist Wilhelm Busch once commented on this mourning saying that it is more a mourning saying for a horse than for a person. However, it may be necessary to explain to younger people that in the past, horses were not usually pampered pets for which their owners (in my experience mostly women) went into debt, but were working animals that were harnessed to carts all day long, had to pull the plough in the field and actually just worked. For these horses, work was certainly the meaning of life, but they also had no choice.

17 Then I was completely disgusted with life, for it is all so pointless, as if one were trying to catch the wind. 18 I hated the efforts I had made to achieve something - after all, I must leave everything to my successor! 19 And who knows whether he will be wise or foolish? And yet everything I have acquired through wisdom and hard work will belong to him. This is so pointless! 20 I almost despaired when I thought of all the effort and labour I had put in here on earth. 21 For it is like this: a person labours, devotes wisdom, insight and all his skill to achieving something, but then he has to leave everything he has achieved to someone who has done nothing for it. That is completely pointless and unfair.

Here it is again, the non-staying. What do you toil for if nothing comes of it in the end?

There wasn't much for the horses either, they went to the knacker when they were finished.

If you want to achieve fulfilment through work, you naturally reach your limits. A certain amount of fulfilment is of course normal. When you've done something, it gives you a certain satisfaction. When I've put something together in my workshop, I naturally run to my wife and boast: "Look what I've made."

But that does not give real fulfilment. Work can only be a servant, as described by Paul in Acts 20:35; NL:

35 I have always been an example to you of how you can help the poor through hard work. Remember the words of the Lord Jesus: 'There is more happiness in giving than in receiving'."

Work gives you the means to help others. It gives you the means to survive and, of course, a bit of pleasure.

And especially if the reward of the work contributes directly or indirectly to the kingdom of God, it was not pointless and in vain.

Summary

I'll come to the end:

To understand the perspective in Ecclesiastes "Under the Sun", I used the image of the child in the crowd in front of a stage. If you are standing inside, you can only see a small perimeter and don't know what is happening outside. But if you are lifted up by the Father, then you can see beyond it, you can see the stage, you can see what is decisive, you can see the eternal.
Under the sun, everything is in vain because nothing really changes and everything just repeats itself. There is nothing new.

And then Solomon also perceives wisdom and prudence under the sun as pointless.
same way, pleasure cannot be the purpose and goal of life, but is an accessory for people who put their trust in Jesus. And God also gives
same applies to work. It is important for earthly survival and it gives you the means to do good for other people and the kingdom of God. And that has eternal value, but not the work itself. And as already mentioned: there is also a little bit of pleasure in the process