WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.520 Okay, we're going back this evening for a short time together. 00:00:05.520 --> 00:00:12.000 And I entitled this sermon, Spoiler Alert, The End, because that's exactly really what 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:13.000 I'm doing. 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:17.080 I'm spoiling the whole book by going to the end. 00:00:17.080 --> 00:00:21.960 And there is a reason for that, and it's important. 00:00:21.960 --> 00:00:24.320 It's kind of going to be a bit of a back-to-front series. 00:00:24.320 --> 00:00:28.800 We're not doing it like an ordinary series where we're splitting into chunks and chapters 00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:30.600 and working through it. 00:00:30.600 --> 00:00:35.280 We're really looking at themes, and we'll look at different themes throughout the book. 00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:43.439 But we're going to the end first, because really the conclusion that we read there from verse 00:00:43.439 --> 00:00:48.480 9 really is the key to the book. 00:00:48.480 --> 00:00:51.519 It's the key that helps us to understand the rest of the book. 00:00:51.519 --> 00:00:58.560 So when we understand the key, if we understand the end of the book, which is sometimes not 00:00:58.560 --> 00:01:04.920 the way you like to read books, but I think until we understand the end of it, it helps 00:01:04.920 --> 00:01:09.359 to make reading the rest of it easier. 00:01:09.359 --> 00:01:16.879 And I do believe that the book itself, Ecclesiastes, and it's definitely worth reading in one go. 00:01:16.879 --> 00:01:22.599 If you've got a spare hour, hour and a half, read the whole book. 00:01:22.599 --> 00:01:26.599 Read it in the simplest translation you can. 00:01:26.599 --> 00:01:32.759 And I think that will also help you see the book a bit more clearly. 00:01:32.759 --> 00:01:39.039 But I believe the book itself, the structure of the book, the way it's written, it reflects 00:01:39.039 --> 00:01:42.759 life actually, the book itself. 00:01:42.759 --> 00:01:44.599 It's confusing. 00:01:44.599 --> 00:01:47.599 It's hard to grasp. 00:01:47.599 --> 00:01:52.280 We're not sure where God fits into everything in our lives. 00:01:52.280 --> 00:01:54.879 And that's sometimes true in this book as well. 00:01:54.879 --> 00:01:59.759 We're not sure what it's all about sometimes, the book of Ecclesiastes. 00:01:59.759 --> 00:02:02.359 And that, I think we're meant to think that. 00:02:02.359 --> 00:02:06.679 I think it's meant to make us think of life itself. 00:02:06.679 --> 00:02:10.319 In that way, it's a very postmodern kind of book. 00:02:10.319 --> 00:02:15.560 But clearly it hints at the truth, and more than that. 00:02:15.560 --> 00:02:21.079 But it maybe hints more at what's in the rest of the Bible. 00:02:21.080 --> 00:02:27.120 It is all truth, but it hints at what maybe we need to unpack from the rest of the Bible 00:02:27.120 --> 00:02:30.480 to help us understand it more fully. 00:02:30.480 --> 00:02:33.720 But it's like life itself as well, isn't it? 00:02:33.720 --> 00:02:38.400 Because it's not until we reach the end of life in many ways that we have a much fuller 00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:43.520 understanding of what it's about, especially as Christians when we get to the end of life 00:02:43.520 --> 00:02:49.640 and meet with God, our maker, then we will begin to understand more clearly what our 00:02:49.639 --> 00:02:51.839 lives and what life is like. 00:02:51.839 --> 00:02:56.399 And that's reflective in the structure of this book also. 00:02:56.399 --> 00:03:00.119 So slightly, it's going to be slightly, we're going to do things slightly differently when 00:03:00.119 --> 00:03:01.959 we're looking at this book. 00:03:01.959 --> 00:03:05.519 And I'm going to do another different thing, and this is something you're not supposed 00:03:05.519 --> 00:03:06.519 to do. 00:03:06.519 --> 00:03:08.239 I'm really breaking all the rules today. 00:03:08.239 --> 00:03:11.159 I'm making up a new English word. 00:03:11.159 --> 00:03:16.119 I know you know I make up words, but I'm making up a new English word. 00:03:16.119 --> 00:03:18.959 And it's one that John mentioned last week actually. 00:03:18.960 --> 00:03:23.560 So I'm borrowing a Hebrew word and making it an English word. 00:03:23.560 --> 00:03:27.800 John talked a lot about heavily, okay, not heaven, but heavily. 00:03:27.800 --> 00:03:35.879 And that's the word that recurs a lot in the book and is translated either vanity or meaningless 00:03:35.879 --> 00:03:39.319 in most of the translations. 00:03:39.319 --> 00:03:46.760 And John expressed its meaning as almost like vapor, something that can't be grasped, like 00:03:46.759 --> 00:03:49.239 the wind can't be grasped, can't be controlled. 00:03:49.239 --> 00:03:53.840 Things are seemingly meaningless or vanity because we can't control them or grasp them. 00:03:53.840 --> 00:03:56.159 Heav'l, that's what it is. 00:03:56.159 --> 00:04:01.280 Now we do that with a lot of other words, don't we, from other languages we adopt them 00:04:01.280 --> 00:04:02.280 or phrases. 00:04:02.280 --> 00:04:09.079 Selavie, that's life in French, or hasta la vista, you know, see you later. 00:04:09.079 --> 00:04:10.799 And so we're going to do that with Heav'l. 00:04:10.799 --> 00:04:15.199 I'm going to use that occasionally because it's just an easy word. 00:04:15.199 --> 00:04:22.279 It's an easy word to say and it helps to just remind us of what is being spoken of throughout 00:04:22.279 --> 00:04:23.279 this book. 00:04:23.279 --> 00:04:30.279 I think this best understanding is meaningless or vanity or Heav'l is something that can't 00:04:30.279 --> 00:04:35.599 really be grasped or controlled, can't make real sense of it. 00:04:35.599 --> 00:04:40.839 And that's what the teacher is saying throughout this book. 00:04:40.839 --> 00:04:47.399 They're so much, he can't make sense of, can't control. 00:04:47.399 --> 00:04:53.759 So the book itself, just recalling a little bit of what John was saying, the teacher is 00:04:53.759 --> 00:05:00.000 observing the injustice, a lot of the time the injustice of life. 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:04.919 Ecclesiastes is just a Latin for teacher. 00:05:04.919 --> 00:05:09.239 And so, co-haleth is what John used last week. 00:05:09.240 --> 00:05:16.120 I'm quite happy to, I know maybe modern scholars don't so much, but I'm quite happy to attribute 00:05:16.120 --> 00:05:24.160 Solomon, King Solomon to be the teacher in this book clearly. 00:05:24.160 --> 00:05:32.600 But he's talking about what seems to be observing the injustices of life, the fact that we can't 00:05:32.600 --> 00:05:36.519 control things that happen. 00:05:36.519 --> 00:05:41.319 You know, the wiser some people are, the more sorrow they seem to have. 00:05:41.319 --> 00:05:46.599 Pleasure, pursuit of pleasure never seems to satisfy, never seems to bring meaning to 00:05:46.599 --> 00:05:47.599 life. 00:05:47.599 --> 00:05:52.839 Fools and wise people seem to have their lives and their roles reversed so often. 00:05:52.839 --> 00:05:57.120 People work to possess and to gain and to have material things, then they die and go 00:05:57.120 --> 00:06:00.240 back to the womb naked and leave it all behind. 00:06:00.240 --> 00:06:03.199 Maybe to someone else who hasn't worked for it. 00:06:03.199 --> 00:06:08.199 He talks about the irrationality of evil and the many things that don't make sense, 00:06:08.199 --> 00:06:10.599 that time and chance happen to all. 00:06:10.599 --> 00:06:17.519 There's a routine that is relentless, but it doesn't seem to make a great deal of sense. 00:06:17.519 --> 00:06:23.039 He speaks a lot about foolishness, that the world seems to have ingrained foolishness 00:06:23.039 --> 00:06:26.560 and injustice. 00:06:26.560 --> 00:06:31.159 And throughout the book, and John and I discussed this after the sermon last week, that John 00:06:31.160 --> 00:06:36.760 felt quite heavy after preaching and studying the book. 00:06:36.760 --> 00:06:41.000 And there is a sense, it does give you that sense of heaviness, because there's a depressing 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:45.800 certainty of death that comes right through the book from beginning to end. 00:06:45.800 --> 00:06:46.800 Why bother? 00:06:46.800 --> 00:06:47.800 Why bother? 00:06:47.800 --> 00:06:53.240 Because whatever happens, whatever you achieve, whatever you're able to do, everything gets 00:06:53.240 --> 00:06:58.800 left behind and death is the great leveler. 00:06:58.800 --> 00:06:59.920 It strikes at any time. 00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:07.439 No respecter of age or wealth, and all our pursuits, all our achievements, it seems to 00:07:07.439 --> 00:07:14.040 cast a great shadow over the book and over life itself. 00:07:14.040 --> 00:07:21.759 And when you read that, and you read some of the struggles that the teacher has, it 00:07:21.759 --> 00:07:26.480 reflects, you know, I guess it reflects your own life and my own life. 00:07:26.480 --> 00:07:36.480 You know, because we see, I see my life and I see, you know, what I do, what I experience, 00:07:36.480 --> 00:07:38.319 what I go through is very important. 00:07:38.319 --> 00:07:46.000 And I feel the significance of my life because I, from a human point of view, and you'll 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:51.040 be the same, you're the center of your own existence, and I'm the center of mine. 00:07:51.040 --> 00:07:55.280 And we live with this sort of importance of everything that's going around us from our 00:07:55.279 --> 00:07:57.679 perspective. 00:07:57.679 --> 00:08:03.399 But we live in a world of another seven billion people, and we die, and before a couple of 00:08:03.399 --> 00:08:06.959 generations are gone, no one will remember us. 00:08:06.959 --> 00:08:13.599 There's that paradox of importance and life and being alive and everything revolving around 00:08:13.599 --> 00:08:19.759 us, and yet, insignificance of the world which we live in and the death that will come to 00:08:19.759 --> 00:08:22.279 us all and being forgotten. 00:08:22.279 --> 00:08:29.199 And so Solomon is saying, is that the case? 00:08:29.199 --> 00:08:31.159 Does death ruin everything? 00:08:31.159 --> 00:08:33.199 Is that the end of everything? 00:08:33.199 --> 00:08:35.039 Is our lives insignificant? 00:08:35.039 --> 00:08:42.480 However important they seem to us, well, I think the answer lies in the key to the book, 00:08:42.480 --> 00:08:46.879 The Last Few Verses, The Last Four Verses. 00:08:46.879 --> 00:08:55.200 But that in itself, and I'm giving layer upon layer of enigma in many ways, the conclusion 00:08:55.200 --> 00:09:04.000 itself highlights really the problem of this world and what Solomon is saying. 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:09.320 The conclusion is the end of the matter always been heard, fear God, and keep His commandments 00:09:09.320 --> 00:09:14.320 for this is the whole duty of humanity. 00:09:14.320 --> 00:09:16.080 We can't do it. 00:09:16.080 --> 00:09:24.600 The end of the matter, the conclusion is something we can't do unless we deal with the problem 00:09:24.600 --> 00:09:28.680 of sin, of evil, and of our mortality. 00:09:28.680 --> 00:09:35.440 And really all these issues are at the core of the book, so that even the key, the conclusion 00:09:35.440 --> 00:09:43.280 isn't the answer ultimately, or there's a way, there's another step to take before we're 00:09:43.279 --> 00:09:47.360 able to fear God and keep His commandments. 00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:57.399 You see, sin is at the core of the vanity, the meaninglessness, the heaval, the inability 00:09:57.399 --> 00:10:03.600 to grasp all that's happening in life, because what sin has done is driven God out of the 00:10:03.600 --> 00:10:11.559 picture and it's introduced despair and separation and selfishness into the human story. 00:10:11.559 --> 00:10:20.159 So all that the teacher speaks about in the Ecclesiastes highlights what sin has brought 00:10:20.159 --> 00:10:26.879 into the world and into our own experience, the irrationality, hatred, arbitrariness of 00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:36.199 life and the mess of trying to live without Him, because we make lousy gods and the book 00:10:36.200 --> 00:10:42.800 of Ecclesiastes highlights that, highlights the fact that we make really lousy gods ourselves 00:10:42.800 --> 00:10:47.879 when we have rejected the author of life who alone can give meaning. 00:10:47.879 --> 00:10:50.240 He's the one that gives meaning. 00:10:50.240 --> 00:10:57.400 And in a sense, I think what the teacher is saying is we can paper over that for so long. 00:10:57.400 --> 00:11:05.680 We can live lives and seek significance and take on board lots of important tasks in life, 00:11:05.679 --> 00:11:11.479 but if we silence that spiritual reality of being separated from God, if we deny it or 00:11:11.479 --> 00:11:17.839 if we're deceived by it, we will never find life in its fullness. 00:11:17.839 --> 00:11:23.000 We will always be separated from God and the consequences of that. 00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:34.439 So the first step of recognizing we are out of control is to recognize that it's happened 00:11:34.440 --> 00:11:38.280 because we have left God out of the picture. 00:11:38.280 --> 00:11:45.480 And therefore, injustice, poverty, illness, loss, betrayal, life over which we have no 00:11:45.480 --> 00:11:52.440 control, the experiences that hit us that we can't model and control and manufacture 00:11:52.440 --> 00:12:03.880 and change, it's all a spiritual consequence of humanity turning its back on God. 00:12:03.879 --> 00:12:07.759 And then we die. 00:12:07.759 --> 00:12:15.240 So it does deal with big issues and it deals with, in a sense, the mess, the judgment, 00:12:15.240 --> 00:12:20.679 the reality of separation from God. 00:12:20.679 --> 00:12:29.720 But what it clearly does, not in its fullness, but it clearly points to his answer. 00:12:29.720 --> 00:12:36.120 It gives us these great summary keywords that the end of the matter has been heard, fear 00:12:36.120 --> 00:12:38.480 God and his commandments. 00:12:38.480 --> 00:12:46.800 But I believe there's an important hint towards recognizing how we do that when we recognize 00:12:46.800 --> 00:12:50.600 what he says in verse 11. 00:12:50.600 --> 00:12:57.000 And he attributes the wisdom he gets from God. 00:12:57.000 --> 00:13:02.759 The words of the wise are like goads, they are like nails, firmly fixed are the collected 00:13:02.759 --> 00:13:03.759 sayings. 00:13:03.759 --> 00:13:07.679 They are given by one shepherd. 00:13:07.679 --> 00:13:10.840 My son beware of anything beyond these. 00:13:10.840 --> 00:13:13.759 They are given by one shepherd. 00:13:13.759 --> 00:13:24.799 And the direction of what is being taught there is that the one shepherd is not Solomon, 00:13:24.799 --> 00:13:30.959 is not the teacher, is not Koh-Haleth, the one shepherd in a capital, is God. 00:13:30.959 --> 00:13:32.679 God is the shepherd. 00:13:32.679 --> 00:13:35.559 He is the teacher here. 00:13:35.559 --> 00:13:42.279 And he wants us to feel the despair of the book. 00:13:42.279 --> 00:13:50.240 He wants us to connect with that sense of vanity or not grasping or not being able to 00:13:50.240 --> 00:13:56.960 control everything, because if he wants us to grasp that in order to drive us towards 00:13:56.960 --> 00:14:02.919 him, because he is the key to truth, he is the understanding to life and to the defeat 00:14:02.919 --> 00:14:05.799 of death and to wisdom. 00:14:05.799 --> 00:14:11.360 And that's a very strong Old Testament picture, God being the shepherd. 00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:13.519 And it's a great picture. 00:14:13.519 --> 00:14:24.360 And of course, with taking the Bible as God's word, as one contained book, we are able to 00:14:24.360 --> 00:14:30.399 recognize Jesus taking that image himself. 00:14:30.399 --> 00:14:37.039 The image of the shepherd, the Old Testament shepherd of, even David the Shepard King pointing 00:14:37.039 --> 00:14:45.519 forward to the coming of the Messiah who himself claimed in John 10, 10, I am the good shepherd. 00:14:45.519 --> 00:14:55.599 So that what we have pointing towards Jesus here is the ultimate direction by which we 00:14:55.599 --> 00:14:58.279 can fear God and keep His commands. 00:14:58.279 --> 00:15:04.639 It will only be through understanding and knowing the divine work of God in the person 00:15:04.639 --> 00:15:06.480 of Jesus Christ the Messiah. 00:15:06.480 --> 00:15:07.560 He's the answer. 00:15:07.560 --> 00:15:09.200 He is God revealed. 00:15:09.200 --> 00:15:13.720 He is who Ecclesiastes and all the Old Testament points towards. 00:15:13.720 --> 00:15:19.600 The futility in this book, the lack of control, the grasping of the wind is, it only makes 00:15:19.600 --> 00:15:25.200 sense when we find sense and we find hope and we find direction in Jesus Christ who came 00:15:25.200 --> 00:15:30.000 to seek and to save the lost, who lay the great shepherd of the sheep, who lays down 00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:38.240 his life for them, who loves them, who loves us, who died for us in order to restore meaning 00:15:38.240 --> 00:15:43.679 and wisdom and hope and pleasure and work. 00:15:43.679 --> 00:15:48.919 All the themes that come in this book giving them great purpose and great perspective and 00:15:48.919 --> 00:15:51.600 great significance. 00:15:51.600 --> 00:16:01.759 Nothing, nothing, even the most senseless evil of the crucifixion which is, which if 00:16:01.759 --> 00:16:07.920 the teacher had seen the crucifixion, he would have written of its calamity. 00:16:07.920 --> 00:16:15.120 He would have written of the innocent one nailed as a young man to a tree unjustly. 00:16:15.120 --> 00:16:21.720 But even that most senseless evil comes under God's sovereign purpose and plan that of Jesus, 00:16:21.720 --> 00:16:25.159 the great shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. 00:16:25.159 --> 00:16:33.759 And in experiencing death, he also brings about its destruction for all who trust in him through 00:16:33.759 --> 00:16:39.759 his resurrection and his victory over its curse. 00:16:39.759 --> 00:16:46.399 So the image points towards Christ and I think there's a very interesting link here 00:16:46.399 --> 00:16:56.519 in this book to us because in pointing to Jesus, it gently reminds us why we fail. 00:16:56.519 --> 00:16:59.480 Now let me try and explain this. 00:16:59.480 --> 00:17:05.799 And if you go back to Ecclesiastes chapter 1 and verse 14, we have these words. 00:17:05.799 --> 00:17:12.919 I have seen everything that is done under the sun and behold, all is vanity, a striving 00:17:12.919 --> 00:17:15.000 after the wind. 00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:17.799 Now that's a great picture of the Hevel that he's speaking about. 00:17:17.799 --> 00:17:21.319 It's a chasing after the wind. 00:17:21.319 --> 00:17:25.279 And that phrase is used eight other times in the book of Ecclesiastes. 00:17:25.279 --> 00:17:29.960 It's an important theme, it's an important motif throughout the book in highlighting 00:17:29.960 --> 00:17:30.960 the sense of despair. 00:17:30.960 --> 00:17:33.279 It's a chasing after the wind. 00:17:33.279 --> 00:17:43.119 It's trying to put the wind in a sheep pen, trying to control it and grasp it and have 00:17:43.119 --> 00:17:45.480 power over it. 00:17:45.480 --> 00:17:52.359 Now that phrase can be translated, and I think it's a justifiable translation, shepherding 00:17:52.359 --> 00:17:55.799 the wind. 00:17:55.799 --> 00:17:59.480 And I think there's a play on the words and a play on the concept and a play on the idea 00:17:59.480 --> 00:18:03.160 here throughout that runs through the whole book. 00:18:03.160 --> 00:18:06.000 It's the whole idea of that Hevel again. 00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:12.240 It's trying to grasp what can't be grasped, understanding what can't be understood in 00:18:12.240 --> 00:18:15.480 order to have control, in order to be in control of it. 00:18:15.480 --> 00:18:16.800 We just can't do it. 00:18:16.800 --> 00:18:18.400 We can't shepherd the wind. 00:18:18.400 --> 00:18:23.120 We can't control what is uncontrollable. 00:18:23.120 --> 00:18:30.600 And really the point of life under the sun as the teacher explains it is that trying 00:18:30.599 --> 00:18:37.519 to find purpose and meaning and answers to life without God is like shepherding the wind. 00:18:37.519 --> 00:18:39.079 It's like chasing after the wind. 00:18:39.079 --> 00:18:41.119 It's like trying to control the wind. 00:18:41.119 --> 00:18:44.519 It's not our job to do that. 00:18:44.519 --> 00:18:53.559 It is His work to be the one shepherd. 00:18:53.559 --> 00:18:58.319 And the disciples on the boat when they were afraid of dying. 00:18:58.319 --> 00:19:01.119 Jesus spoke in the midst of the storm. 00:19:01.119 --> 00:19:06.559 They were amazed that even the wind and the sea obey Him. 00:19:06.559 --> 00:19:12.799 So there's that sense in which even that physical miracle of God controlling the wind points 00:19:12.799 --> 00:19:20.240 us to His creative genius and His sovereign place to be the one shepherd. 00:19:20.240 --> 00:19:24.000 No one else has that right to be the one shepherd. 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:26.159 None of us can take God's place. 00:19:26.160 --> 00:19:32.160 None of us can control our lives divinely. 00:19:32.160 --> 00:19:35.120 None of us can deal with death on our own. 00:19:35.120 --> 00:19:41.040 None of us can overcome the evil and the confusion and the irrationality and the brutality and 00:19:41.040 --> 00:19:47.759 the illness and the things that happen in life that Ecclesiastes speaks about. 00:19:47.759 --> 00:19:57.799 Our job, our life begins and never ends when we worship. 00:19:57.799 --> 00:20:02.599 When we recognize that through Jesus Christ, through putting our trust in the great shepherd 00:20:02.599 --> 00:20:11.240 of the sheep, we can fear the Lord, honor the Lord, worship the Lord, adore the Lord 00:20:11.240 --> 00:20:14.319 and keep His commandments. 00:20:14.319 --> 00:20:19.759 We're empowered to do that by the life He gives us as believers. 00:20:19.759 --> 00:20:27.399 That's what the fear of the Lord really just means, the ability to worship Him and make 00:20:27.399 --> 00:20:29.279 Him our Lord. 00:20:29.279 --> 00:20:40.079 It's that step, that new birth, that new way of living where we confess our own inability. 00:20:40.079 --> 00:20:45.119 We give up the control of our own destiny and of our own lives at that level and there 00:20:45.119 --> 00:20:51.839 need to be autonomous beings going our own way, to be little gods, to be in control, 00:20:51.839 --> 00:21:01.679 to take our accusations against Him, deal with them and understanding His rightful place, 00:21:01.679 --> 00:21:08.159 His generous grace, His fatherly open arms, His being the mother hen that we looked at 00:21:08.159 --> 00:21:09.960 this morning. 00:21:09.960 --> 00:21:11.519 He is the Creator. 00:21:11.519 --> 00:21:13.319 He is the infinite and eternal one. 00:21:13.319 --> 00:21:15.360 We patently are not. 00:21:15.360 --> 00:21:19.759 And Ecclesiastes brings that out again and again. 00:21:19.759 --> 00:21:25.759 And so the key to the book is understanding, God is the one shepherd, ultimately revealed 00:21:25.759 --> 00:21:31.240 in Jesus Christ, He says, I am the great shepherd of the sheep. 00:21:31.240 --> 00:21:37.480 And as we come to Him to deal with the sin that causes all the vanity and the meaninglessness 00:21:37.480 --> 00:21:48.640 and the out of controlled nature of life, then we can enjoy life because that is the 00:21:48.640 --> 00:21:52.160 whole duty of why we were created. 00:21:52.160 --> 00:21:58.960 So worship is the fear of the Lord and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. 00:21:58.960 --> 00:22:05.200 We see that, and I will speak about that again in a minute. 00:22:05.200 --> 00:22:09.880 Now as we live our lives in Christ, and I'm taking Christ right into this passage, right 00:22:09.880 --> 00:22:18.519 into this book, it helps us to understand God who holds the mysteries. 00:22:18.519 --> 00:22:25.039 So when we come to this with Christ focused or Christ perspective eyes, we see that He 00:22:25.039 --> 00:22:29.840 knows and understands that we cry out. 00:22:29.839 --> 00:22:35.399 He's verbalizing them in this book as He does in many of the Psalms. 00:22:35.399 --> 00:22:42.839 And we can rest in the reality that we don't need to know everything. 00:22:42.839 --> 00:22:45.480 And we don't need to have all the answers. 00:22:45.480 --> 00:22:51.199 I love verse 12 of this book, my son beware of anything beyond these of making many books 00:22:51.199 --> 00:22:55.639 that is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh. 00:22:55.639 --> 00:22:59.519 Students, divinity students, PhD students, think of that just for a moment. 00:22:59.519 --> 00:23:05.400 There's great weariness in looking to find all the answers in books. 00:23:05.400 --> 00:23:07.119 It can be a great weariness. 00:23:07.119 --> 00:23:11.599 We understand God who holds the mysteries. 00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:20.240 And we don't seek to control our destiny simply by trying to unpack what is not known and 00:23:20.240 --> 00:23:21.400 revealed. 00:23:21.400 --> 00:23:26.240 We understand more of God and can only understand God through Christ the great shepherd, but 00:23:26.240 --> 00:23:33.440 also understanding ourselves, understanding that there is mystery, that we are asked to 00:23:33.440 --> 00:23:42.559 trust, that we are not God, that He does love us, that the core of sin is seeking self-control, 00:23:42.559 --> 00:23:51.519 that is control without God, to be in control by ourselves without God. 00:23:51.519 --> 00:23:56.720 As we understand our place before God and Christ, it gives significance, and we'll see 00:23:56.720 --> 00:24:03.759 that in Ecclesiastes, significance and joy to the simplest acts of life, eating and drinking 00:24:03.759 --> 00:24:12.240 and working and laughing and enjoying what God has made us, to enjoy as created people, 00:24:12.240 --> 00:24:17.920 not creators at that foundational level. 00:24:17.920 --> 00:24:22.759 It reminds us that we will stand before Him in judgment. 00:24:22.759 --> 00:24:27.920 Every secret thing, good or evil, will be taken into judgment. 00:24:27.920 --> 00:24:35.000 That helps us understand ourselves and God and understands that nothing therefore, nothing 00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:40.200 is ultimately meaningless or random, because all will be held to account. 00:24:40.200 --> 00:24:43.720 Every single part of life is significant. 00:24:43.720 --> 00:24:48.000 It helps us when we see that to understand the key. 00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:50.279 Again, I've mentioned this is wisdom, not intelligence. 00:24:50.279 --> 00:24:55.079 There are so many smart people around the world, and it's great, what a gift from God. 00:24:55.079 --> 00:25:02.319 But we do seem to be in a world that's increasingly surrounded by experts on everything, those 00:25:02.319 --> 00:25:07.079 who find the answers and have the answers to every conceivable problem in the world. 00:25:07.079 --> 00:25:12.360 Now, I'm not decrying intelligence for a moment or the pursuit of knowledge, but we look for 00:25:12.359 --> 00:25:19.959 that intelligence and that knowledge to submit, to subordinate to the great divine and penetrable, 00:25:19.959 --> 00:25:22.959 infinite intelligence of God. 00:25:22.959 --> 00:25:28.159 Then it becomes truly useful. 00:25:28.159 --> 00:25:34.959 And that wisdom's key, as I said, the fear of the Lord, the companion book to Ecclesiastes 00:25:34.959 --> 00:25:36.799 is Proverbs. 00:25:36.799 --> 00:25:39.759 And of course, Proverbs in chapter 9. 00:25:39.759 --> 00:25:44.480 We can look this up, and it's so much the theme of the book of Proverbs, Proverbs chapter 00:25:44.480 --> 00:25:45.720 9 and verse 10. 00:25:45.720 --> 00:25:53.400 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. 00:25:53.400 --> 00:25:59.240 So we find that the deepest wisdom that will help us to understand the world we live in 00:25:59.240 --> 00:26:05.960 is relational before it is intellectual. 00:26:05.960 --> 00:26:14.960 It's worshiping and knowing God that enables us to understand who we are in this world. 00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:19.039 And to understand His commands, which we're asked to keep, is to understand that they 00:26:19.039 --> 00:26:22.799 are commands of love, the outworking of love. 00:26:22.799 --> 00:26:26.559 We need a new heart to love God and to love one another. 00:26:26.559 --> 00:26:31.880 It's much more than black and white moralism. 00:26:31.880 --> 00:26:38.800 To worship and the fear of the Lord in keeping His commandments is a life practice, a life 00:26:38.800 --> 00:26:51.920 reality, a life transforming existence that so much in Ecclesiastes signposts pointing 00:26:51.920 --> 00:26:59.560 us towards recognizing the… there's many things that are upside down, recognizing 00:26:59.559 --> 00:27:04.359 we don't and won't find the answers to everything, and the pulpit will never have the answers 00:27:04.359 --> 00:27:07.639 and preaching, and not even the Bible is the answers to everything because not everything 00:27:07.639 --> 00:27:11.639 God reveals and much is secret. 00:27:11.639 --> 00:27:19.039 But it signposts us to finding wisdom and finding life and finding meaning and hope 00:27:19.039 --> 00:27:22.799 and celebration even in the simplest of human acts. 00:27:22.799 --> 00:27:26.919 There's a really interesting phrase that Tim Keller uses when he talks about our prayer 00:27:26.920 --> 00:27:33.560 life, and he says, God will only give you what you would have asked for if you knew everything 00:27:33.560 --> 00:27:34.560 He knows. 00:27:34.560 --> 00:27:39.519 That's a very profound statement. 00:27:39.519 --> 00:27:46.519 And it reflects the wisdom of Ecclesiastes, that even our prayer lives recognize that 00:27:46.519 --> 00:27:56.039 sometimes we don't know what to ask for, and sometimes if we knew everything God knows, 00:27:56.039 --> 00:27:59.319 in our prayers would be very, very different. 00:27:59.319 --> 00:28:01.519 So it's a book that does challenges. 00:28:01.519 --> 00:28:09.359 It's a book that requires effort and work, and we struggle to find it easy, and that's 00:28:09.359 --> 00:28:10.359 okay. 00:28:10.359 --> 00:28:11.359 That's okay. 00:28:11.359 --> 00:28:12.359 It's that kind of book. 00:28:12.359 --> 00:28:18.879 But take that key and recognize that God is interspersed throughout the book in many 00:28:18.879 --> 00:28:23.000 different ways, and the wisdom of knowing God is interspersed. 00:28:23.000 --> 00:28:30.200 The key to all of the book as it reflects the messiness and the confusion and the inability 00:28:30.200 --> 00:28:37.440 of us to control life as we would want is in the fear of the Lord being the beginning 00:28:37.440 --> 00:28:43.000 and keeping His commandments through the one shepherd, Jesus Christ. 00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:50.640 So questions and the confusion and the difficulties, and your life not turning out the way you 00:28:50.640 --> 00:28:56.400 wanted it to turn out, being disappointed with God, being disappointed with yourself, 00:28:56.400 --> 00:28:58.080 disappointed with others. 00:28:58.080 --> 00:29:00.720 Take these things. 00:29:00.720 --> 00:29:05.360 Take them to the living God, and remember that in Him He's going to shepherd us towards 00:29:05.360 --> 00:29:12.240 a completely new existence to which we're heading in Christ, the new heavens and the 00:29:12.240 --> 00:29:20.240 new earth, wherein dwells righteousness, where there will be no grasping, the wind, 00:29:20.240 --> 00:29:28.519 no vanity, no vapors, no inabilities that will frustrate or confuse or destroy us or cause 00:29:28.519 --> 00:29:34.240 us to cry, because in Christ we will know life in all its fullness. 00:29:34.240 --> 00:29:41.759 I think that begins to unpack the teaching of Ecclesiastes. 00:29:41.759 --> 00:29:43.960 Let's pray. 00:29:43.960 --> 00:29:47.880 Father God, help us to understand you. 00:29:47.880 --> 00:29:53.880 Help us for making you very simple sometimes and very black and white and very easy to 00:29:53.880 --> 00:29:59.080 control and very easy to ignore. 00:29:59.080 --> 00:30:00.880 Help us to worship you. 00:30:00.880 --> 00:30:02.960 You are worthy of our worship. 00:30:02.960 --> 00:30:08.880 You are worth us falling down in our knees because you're infinite and you're eternal. 00:30:08.880 --> 00:30:10.200 And we simply are not. 00:30:10.200 --> 00:30:16.600 Our lives are a vapor that are passing, swifter than a weaver's shuttle. 00:30:16.599 --> 00:30:22.839 As we hit beyond the half century, we sense that and feel that more and more, and we ask 00:30:22.839 --> 00:30:23.839 many questions. 00:30:23.839 --> 00:30:27.679 But we find answers in Jesus. 00:30:27.679 --> 00:30:34.879 And we pray that the young and the congregation would find that at a young age, the deep wisdom 00:30:34.879 --> 00:30:40.439 of age before they're old, as they trust in Jesus. 00:30:40.440 --> 00:30:50.000 And that the middle-aged among us would not get so caught up in life that we forget the 00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:55.360 frustrations or just learn to live with them without committing them to God and reminding 00:30:55.360 --> 00:30:58.160 ourselves that our times are in His hands. 00:30:58.160 --> 00:31:07.360 And may those who are in the evening of their days rejoice that the best is yet to come. 00:31:07.360 --> 00:31:09.680 So help us, we pray, in Jesus' name. 00:31:09.680 --> 00:31:10.680 Amen.