Is There Life Earlier than Loss of life?

In one of the vital perplexing books of the Bible, Ecclesiastes, we’re launched to “the Preacher,” a king in Jerusalem—maybe King Solomon—who got down to uncover what was worthwhile within the quick house of his life.

Regardless of being known as “the Preacher,” his perspective is certainly one of secular man, trying round on the issues that may be noticed “beneath the solar” (Eccl. 1:3, 9, 14). The conclusion he involves repeatedly is that every thing is “self-importance” or “a striving after the wind” (Eccl. 1:14). There’s a futility to life, he says, that takes the air out of each endeavor.

Within the first two chapters, the Preacher considers three paths that some suppose result in life—the identical paths that many people stroll immediately in our seek for that means.

Is There Life in Worldly Knowledge?

I utilized my coronary heart to hunt and to go looking out by knowledge all that’s accomplished beneath heaven. It’s an sad enterprise that God has given to the kids of man to be busy with. (Eccl. 1:13)

Is there life earlier than loss of life? The Preacher begins by in search of life in the way in which of knowledge. He supposed, as many do immediately, {that a} adequate training might equip him to dwell nicely.

However he realized that extra data creates extra issues: “In a lot knowledge is far vexation, and he who will increase data will increase sorrow” (Eccl. 1:18). In any case, he provides, the clever particular person and the idiot will each be useless in the future, so what’s the purpose? “I stated in my coronary heart, ‘What occurs to the idiot will occur to me additionally. Why then have I been so very clever?’” (Eccl. 2:15).

The knowledge of the world, it seems, doesn’t remedy all our issues. Why is it {that a} society that put males on the moon can’t cease wars on the bottom? Why is it you’ll find vibrant medical doctors standing outdoors of the hospital nursing a cigarette? The explanation is so simple as it’s difficult: Training can inform us, it might probably enhance us, it might probably do nice and worthwhile issues for us, however it might probably’t change our human nature.

Is There Life in Pleasure?

No matter my eyes desired I didn’t hold from them. I stored my coronary heart from no pleasure, for my coronary heart discovered pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. (Eccl. 2:10)

Is there life earlier than loss of life? The Preacher additionally sought it on the trail of hedonism. He seemingly arrange pleasure as his high precedence. He ignored the judging gaze of God and of different individuals and made probably the most of alternatives for wine, girls, and tune. He even discovered pleasure in his “toil,” dwelling out the adage that should you love what you do, you’ll by no means work a day in your life.

But, as Robert Burns has noticed,

  Pleasures are like poppies unfold,
You seize the stream’r, its bloom is shed;
Or just like the snow falls within the river,
A second white—then melts ceaselessly.

Or, within the phrases of a distinct form of poet: “I can’t get no satisfaction.” Pleasures are instantly enticing, holding out each prospect of pleasure. However, the Preacher realized, greedy for pleasure is like greedy the wind. It’s immediate bloom, immediate fade; it’s like snow that instantly melts away because it falls on a rolling river.

Is There Life in Materialism?

I made nice works. I constructed homes and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in all of them sorts of fruit bushes. … I additionally gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. (Eccl. 2:4–5, 8)

Is there life earlier than loss of life? The Preacher additionally searched for it on the trail of materialism, gathering up each trapping of wealth out there to him.

Most of us are consumed by the considered what we have now and don’t have. Our work follows us dwelling within the night, and our portfolio—or lack of 1—retains us up at evening. We might discover ourselves haunted by the sense that we haven’t actually “made it,” that we’re not as professionally or financially profitable as we hoped to be, that we’re not as safe as we really feel we must be.

The Preacher had all of it, however “all” was not as fulfilling as he had imagined: “I thought of all that my arms had accomplished and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was self-importance” (Eccl. 2:11). He regarded round him and got here to the belief that—within the phrases of the Frank Capra movie of the identical title—“you possibly can’t take it with you” (Eccl. 2:20–21). All he had gained was a supply of stress with out offering happiness: “What has a person from all of the toil and striving of coronary heart with which he toils beneath the solar? For all his days are filled with sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even within the evening his coronary heart doesn’t relaxation” (Eccl. 2:22–23).

Is There Extra Than What’s “Beneath the Solar”?

I hated life, as a result of what is finished beneath the solar was grievous to me, for all is self-importance and a striving after wind. (Eccl. 2:17)

In response to all these items, the Preacher flirts with a sort cynicism: There’s no level. There’s no objective. If there’s a God, He doesn’t care. All of life’s guarantees are empty.

Cynicism could also be a response to disappointment, however in the end, it’s a type of ethical rebel. The denial of God’s existence or goodness leads us to ignore proper and improper. “The idiot says in his coronary heart, ‘There is no such thing as a God’”—and justified by this perception, “they’re corrupt, they do abominable deeds” (Ps. 14:1). As Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov places it, if God is useless, then all issues are permissible. There is no such thing as a life in this sort of cynicism! It’s an embrace of loss of life.

What the Preacher wanted to appreciate—and ultimately discovered—is that the reply to life shouldn’t be “beneath the solar” in any respect. He wanted to cease trying down and lookup! “Bear in mind additionally your Creator within the days of your youth,” he says as he brings his ebook to an in depth (Eccl. 12:1). “Concern God and hold his commandments, for that is the entire obligation of man. For God will convey each deed into judgment, with each secret factor, whether or not good or evil” (Eccl. 12:13–14).

That expectation of judgment is probably not encouraging as we consider all of the methods we’ve sought that means—or the methods we’ve rejected it. However the story of the Bible is that human beings have turned their backs on God although He gave them every thing to take pleasure in and all they wanted to dwell rightly. The primary man and lady, Adam and Eve, disobeyed God’s command and ate from the tree He had forbidden, they usually set out on a path the place life can’t be discovered.

What the Preacher wanted to appreciate—and ultimately discovered—is that the reply to life shouldn’t be “beneath the solar” in any respect.

All of us stroll that path. “All we like sheep have gone astray,” declares the prophet; “we have now turned—each one—to his personal approach” (Isa. 53:6). We are saying, “I’ll be my very own god. I’ll run my very own life. I’ll do my very own factor.” However in the end, other than God, we’ll discover ourselves in the future saying with the Preacher, “All is self-importance.”

What can we do? We will discover life in Jesus Christ! As a result of although we have now strayed from God into sin, “The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6).

Jesus is the everlasting Son of God, who turned a person to take us from our empty existence and restore us to God’s everlasting objective. By dying on the cross, Jesus took the punishment for our evil deeds and invited us into the household of God. What He presents shouldn’t be a faith however a relationship of belief and forgiveness. He doesn’t ask anybody to earn their acceptance with God; He presents it to us as a present.

To grasp the life that’s really life calls for at the very least this: that we perceive that Christ died in our place, taking the punishment of our sin. Within the consciousness of such immense love, we are able to lay down the arms of our rebel, surrender our dead-end paths, and say, “Lord Jesus Christ, forgive my sin. Fill my life. Make me all that You need for me to be.” And it’s in that transaction that we transfer from the realm of merely current into the realm of really dwelling.

This text was tailored from the sermon “True Dwelling” by Alistair Begg.