Sunday, July 19, 2020

Ecclesiastes 4- Welcome to our World!


 

Dr. Jim Packer was one of the most famous and influential evangelicals of our time. He died last Friday, July 17,2020  at  the age of 93.  
For Jim Packer, Ecclesiastes was the book that cured him of youthful cynicism. The book, he said, “has taught me that it is folly to suppose that you can plan life and master it, and you will get hurt if you try. You must acknowledge the sovereignty of God and leave the wisdom to him. It tells me now what it told me 40 years ago, namely, that we wear out, physically we come apart. You get old, and getting old means the loss of faculties and powers you had when you were younger. And that is the way God prepares us to leave this world for a better world to which he’s taking us. The message of Ecclesiastes 12 is, “Get right with God as early in life as you can; ‘remember the Creator in your days of youth’ [v. 1]. Don’t leave it until sometime in the future when you’re not likely to be able to handle it well at all.” [1]  
When asked what his  final  message to the  world would be, he said,  Glorify Christ every way”.

We now come to the 4th Chapter of this remarkable, unique and sobering book of the Bible. The commentator Michael Eaton observes that “between 4:1 and 10:20, Ecclesiastes  resembles the book of Proverbs, with short  epigrams dealing with various aspects of life.”[2]  So, what we see here is a host of different topics pertaining to life under the sun as it is    observed by Solomon. 

In this chapter, Solomon considers   four   vanities under the sun. Each of them needs to be redeemed by the Lord Jesus. 
Each one is relevant to our times.

1.     4: 1-3: People  oppressed with no one to comfort them
2.     4: 4 -6: People working to keep up with their neighbours,  but they are  unhappy. 
3.     4:7-12: People who are incredibly lonely.
4.     4:13-16: People who rise from poverty to political power, forgetting   where they have come from, and worse still, who no longer know how to take advice, and who leave their high offices with no appreciation from those they ruled.

1.         PEOPLE OPPRESSED WITH NO ONE TO COMFORT THEM   (4:1-3)

Look at the text again. The word ‘oppress’ occurs three times. Then look at words such as ‘tears’ and ‘no comfort’. Solomon describes the hopeless condition of the oppressed. Although Solomon does not seem to have suffered from oppression himself, he would have seen it when he looked around in his pursuit to discover what life has to offer. 

He would have known of the oppressions that David, his father had experienced under  king Saul (1 Samuel 18ff), and also later under  his brother, Absalom who tried to take the throne from his father  David (2 Samuel 15)

Sadly, it seems as if Solomon himself became an oppressor of his people later in his life (1 Ki. 12:4), when his many foreign wives led him astray.  His  son, Rehoboam  increased the oppression of his own  people of Israel  (1 Ki. 12:11). This led to Israel becoming  a divided kingdom during the  reign of  Rehoboam (1 Kings  12:16ff).

All this has a very modern tone to it.  Think about all the current oppressions of people under the sun. There is virtually no nation where people groups are not oppressed. 
We think of the history of our own nation. Apartheid oppressed black people. 
We think of the language of the minority Kurdish people (18%) which is not recognized in Turkey. 
In Syria, the Alawites, a religious Muslim  minority group (18 %)  was  historically oppressed by other Muslims, but now  under the leadership of Bashar al Assad this minority group is in turn  oppressing  other faith  groups.  Elsewhere  in Africa we have heard of the  Tutsi minorities   of Rwanda & Burundi   who oppressed the Hutu  majority, and this is still at the heart  of much unhappiness in  that region. Tribalism still oppresses many people in Africa. In the 19th Century many tribes in Africa sold each other, out of envy, into slavery. 
Germans oppressed and killed many Jewish Germans in the 20th Century.  
China and North Korea have some of the worst human rights records in the modern world.  
Christians are oppressed in all Muslim countries.  
Many children on our continent are pressed into being child soldiers. 
Young girls in countless civil wars are oppressed by sexual abuse. 
This is what happens daily under our sun. 
This is the world we live in. 
This was Solomon’s world.

From this oppressive  vantage point Solomon   can come to only one conclusion: It is better   not to be born!  Have you ever had the thought, “I wished I had not been born?” 
Job and Jeremiah had  wished this at one time (Job 3:1ff; Jer.20:14-18). This is what happens when the world we live in,  is momentarily  handed over   to the madness of  Satan,  and his evil  demon possessed   people  who  for a time are not restrained by God  from doing  their evil.  When evil reigns freely it indeed appears better not to live at all.[3] Such life appears to be meaningless- vanity under the sun.   
Right now, this is a world that desperately needs to be redeemed. 
Thank God that it will be finally redeemed when Christ comes again. 
In the meantime thank God then for every society where law and order, freedom and peace, righteousness and justice, liberty of conscience and freedom of worship do exist!    And pray to God, when it doesn’t exist. 

2.PEOPLE  TRYING TO KEEP UP WITH THEIR NEIGHBOURS,  BUT  STILL UNHAPPY (4:4 -6)

Here Solomon makes three observations:

a. “I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man's envy of his neighbour “(4:4).   Here is a man who works for long hours, just to get money in order to keep up with his neighbours. Solomon clearly sees the motive behind it. It is envy and jealousy and covetousness that drive so much of what we do under the sun. This too is a common habit in our own day.  Jesus forbids such anxiety and teaches us to be content with what we have. (Matthew 6:25-34). Paul teaches contentment  in Philippians 4:2-20.

b. From there we move on to the opposite way of thinking: “The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh” (4:5).  Here is the man who does nothing. “He eats his own flesh“, probably refers to the fact that he is rotting away in his person. His hands are folded. He is idle. For   folding of hands – see Proverbs 6:10; 24:33 – this depicts a lazy man. The Bible  teaches us to keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness.. if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat (2 Thess.3:6-12)

c. “Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind” (4:6).  Here is a man who has both hands full, but what does he ultimately have?  He has only two full hands, and the real things in life – his joy in the Lord, and his joy in the relationships that God has given him under the sun-  these are missing!  
They have escaped him.  
His wife has left him. 
His children hardly know him. 
What has happened?  
He is climbing the corporate ladder so that he can feel good about himself. So, his ambition becomes  a necessity, and  necessity becomes a god. This god drains him, until he falls exhausted at his feet. Then he may perhaps ask himself, “What was this all about? 

So, “better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.”   One  could write a book  about the people who have pierced themselves with grief  on account of their relentless  pursuit  of material gain, moved by subtle  (and not so subtle)  envy  and jealousy.  Listen to Solomon! The ‘two hands full mentality’, is a striving after the wind. This thought will be repeated again in 5:10
“He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income…”
Paul says that “godliness with contentment is great gain” (1Tim 6:6). 
Jesus says,   “A man’s life doesn’t exist in the abundance of his possessions”   (Lk. 12:15). 
Don’t try to keep up with everybody else. It is useless. It is a striving after the wind.

3. PEOPLE WITH POWER AND INFLUENCE, BUT WHO ARE VERY  LONELY (4:7-12)

You can have all the wealth of the world and yet have no true friend. Look at 4:7,8 – another   picture of vanity under the sun.   
Here is a man who is so busy working that he doesn’t have time to have friends. He is so busy that he never asks, “for whom am I actually doing this?”  
The world has many such lonely people.  
I read the story of John Paul Getty, one of the 20th century’s  first billionaires, who  during the most active years in his business life,  lived alone in a 72-room mansion outside London.  
Over a 25-year period, he had married and divorced five women.  “I hate to be a failure,” he said.  “I would gladly give all my millions for just one, lasting marital success.”  
He admitted to being a lonely man.  He said that people liked him primarily for his money.  According to one of his wives, he spent so much time building a business,  that he had no time to build a relationship with his family. He had everything, and yet he had nothing. He had two hands full of possessions, and no   handful of quietness.  He was married to money. [4] 
Solomon says that a man without a friend is lonely. Therefore “two are better than one”, but “three are even better than two” (4:12)  -  “a threefold cord is not quickly broken”.

Solomon isn’t talking  here about the benefits  of  marriage, although the marriage partnership is given by God  to be  a real source of strength and completion.  The logic  here is  that two (and better three)  keep each other encouraged  when  they are weak, and  when they are vulnerable and when they are attacked. So, don’t allow yourself to be robbed of the strength and privilege of real  friendships for the sake of chasing the material wind. 
Thank God especially for your   best friends, and your marriage partner, and never cease to thank God for the church, where more than two or three are gathered together. 
Learn to draw upon the rich relationships in the church!  There is incredible strength in unity! There is very little strength in in money and possessions. Jesus encourages us to build our wealth not by trusting in money but by  laying up treasures in heaven (Matt. 6:19-24). 
May I remind you that money does not go to heaven. 
People do. 
Invest in people.

4.  PEOPLE RISING ‘FROM RAGS TO RICHES’, FROM ‘POVERTY TO POLITICAL POWER’, AND FORGETTING   WHERE THEY HAVE COME FROM, AND WORSE STILL, WHO  NO LONGER KNOW HOW TO TAKE ADVICE, AND WHO  LEAVE  THEIR HIGH OFFICES  WITH NO  APPRECIATION FROM THOSE THEY HAVE RULED (4:13-16).

This last thought is complex in its composition.  
Solomon tells the short story of a poor young man, who though he was once in prison, eventually became king, by replacing an old king who no longer knew how to take advice. Many years later he encounters that same problem when those that enthroned him (in favour of that old foolish king) now would be glad to get rid of him. 
Political leadership is a lonely place. When there are many voices shouting, the real temptation is to withdraw and not to listen to anyone at all, and that can be equally damaging. 
Proverbs teaches us about the importance of having advisers - godly advisers!    The simple moral of the story – no president or king should do more than two terms in office! How relevant to our own age. 
When will political rulers ever learn that   the longer  they  rule  a nation, the more they are tempted  to  become a  liability and not a blessing  to the nation,  and that people  do get tired of them?  
When will we learn the wisdom of Scripture that teaches us that human nature is fallen, and therefore unable to  set up  a righteous kingdom? This too must wait for the return of Christ.

Conclusion

We have had enough application in the course of this exposition. The great lesson  before us is that  the things in life that we so often cherish and pursue are,in the end, a chasing after the wind. Once again  Solomon’s sermon provides us with ”reality therapy“ – a true insight into our world,  and this  drives us back  to  listening carefully  once more to the wisdom of  the law, the prophets, the apostles – all who find their fulfilment in Jesus. 
Of Him, God the Father has said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom  I am well pleased: listen to Him!”  (Matthew 17:5)



[2] Michael A. Eaton:  Ecclesiastes,  Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, p. 104
[3] See also the statement of Jesus  in Matthew 24:15-21

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