Ecclesiastes 6:1-14
There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: 2 a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity; it is a grievous evil. 3 If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life’s good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. 4 For it comes in vanity and goes in darkness, and in darkness its name is covered.5 Moreover, it has not seen the sun or known anything, yet it finds rest rather than he. 6 Even though he should live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoy no good—do not all go to the one place? 7 All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied.[c] 8 For what advantage has the wise man over the fool? And what does the poor man have who knows how to conduct himself before the living? 9 Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the appetite: this also is vanity and a striving after wind. 10 Whatever has come to be has already been named, and it is known what man is, and that he is not able to dispute with one stronger than he. 11 The more words, the more vanity, and what is the advantage to man? 12 For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow? For who can tell man what will be after him under the sun?
When you listen to Beethoven you think that he must have listened to a lot of beautiful music so that he could make the music he did. Or that Milton must have read the best literature available to him prior to writing Paradise Lost that he might have the images and ideas ready to put to pen. But did you know that Beethoven wrote much of his music when he was deaf…and Milton never read his own work, because he was blind when he wrote it. Things are not always the way they seem.
How is it that the boy living in a mansion with his Xbox, video games and every toy imaginable is bored and sullen and the little poor boy across town is having a blast playing with a stick? We often make judgments that are shallow, and yet we make them as if we know, as if they, our judgments, are certainties, as if all that we see is all there is…and that is why we so often live as those under the sun.
Or we hear one side of a story and then think we know a given situation and so we judge others accordingly…we even tell others all that we know so that they too can be as right as we are. We easily forget that the Proverbs say it is a fool who hears one side of a story and thinks he now has knowledge.
Solomon is stressing to us that what we see is not all there is, and that our judgments when made by externals, made only by what we see, are often wrong and even more often, foolish. So, over the next couple of days we are going to see Solomon make this point in different ways, namely, that things are not always as they seem.
Just a few other examples of which you are aware:
Eve saw the tree that it was good for food and for wisdom…she saw one thing but it was not as it seemed, what seemed good ended up being disastrous.
In I Samuel 4, Israel thought that the presence of the Ark in battle against the Philistines would be their salvation; their hope simply in the physical presence of the golden box but their confidence in the external only, was also disastrous.
*Remember how even Samuel fell into this temptation thinking that David’s older brother Eliab, big and handsome must be the Lord’s anointed…again judgment by the seen.
In Jeremiah 7 the people think they are safe because they went to church and participated in worship…all the outward actions were in place, but God says He is about to destroy the people for they do not know Him.
In Hosea we remember that the Northern Kingdom thought they were just fine, economically things were great, their enemies were in a momentary retreat, they were expanding their territories and thought that Hosea was a nut-job for telling them they must repent. Obviously, God is pleased with us, look how good we have it, prosperity is everywhere! And this is what they thought even when spiritually they were rotting and only months away from the Lord’s judgment falling upon them.
We read about Jesus in Isaiah 53:2: “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” We would, all of us, probably be disappointed by the physical appearance of the Lord during his humiliation. And that was an obstacle for people. They wanted someone who was “kingly” in his appearance and the Lord was not. He did not look at all like the greatest man who ever lived and the King of Kings.
From what little information we have been given, it may have been the same for the Apostle Paul. If the description is accurate, he was a small man, balding, not impressive at all. Were the men of the Greco-Roman world to believe that this man, this unimpressive individual was the one appointed to bring the news of the salvation of the world, was the one appointed to convey to mankind the oracles of the living God? You know very well how one’s appearance can affect our impression of a person, especially before we know him or her well. That was true for Jesus and this continues to be for us as well.
Some time ago a couple came to the church I was ministering in, they were a very handsome couple, dressed very attractively. They had two small children who seemed to look like they stepped out of a magazine and were as cute and precocious as two little kids I have ever met. Both mom and dad had attractive personalities and jumped into the life of church with both feet. Interestingly after a couple of weeks I received a call from the minister of the church they moved away from. He wanted me to know that there were serious marriage problems and walked me through some history. To the credit of this couple they soon came and spoke to me about their problems, although I suspect their former pastor required this of them, and were quite transparent. Some time after the couple spoke with me, a newly married couple came to me telling me that they wanted to mirror their marriage after the couple I have just finished writing about. They had it all together, they were so handsome, their children so cute, and they went to church and seemed so happy. This young couple didn’t know and made judgments by what they saw as prosperous and successful Christian living. They were willing to listen to people and imitate people who were nothing what they claimed to be. Soon this ‘pretend’ couple would grow tired of listening to their pastor speak about holiness and dying to self and giving up life to gain life and sought the happy life in the arms of people they were not married to and their marriage ended in divorce. Things are not always the way they seem.
At the end of the last section, Solomon ascribes all good things to the Lord and rejoices that the Lord keeps us occupied with joy. Now once again there are inequalities. He notices those things that seem to be unfair, and we have to admit that there are many things under the sun that are rightly called, unfair…So, what are we to do with all these injustices, all of these unfair scenarios that seem to make up life under the sun?
Of course, some conclude that God must be at fault, that even God is to be judged as unfair. Christians cannot say that, so it has been decided by some that we must defend God and we do so by deciding that God is not sovereign.
We must weigh the evidence on correct scales, and those scales do not consist only or even primarily with what we see. We cannot see the truth correctly if we are only looking at this according to the externals, which we have to admit is our tendency.
And speaking of God’s sovereignty, what else can you conclude from the first two verses? God not only gives wealth and honor so that a man is lacking nothing, but God is the one responsible for whether or not the man is allowed to enjoy his wealth or not!
You cannot escape the implications of the text. God gives to some all kinds of prosperity, all kinds of things, but often He does not give to them the ability or whereabouts to see those things correctly. In other words, man has all kinds of things, but they are not granted the ability to enjoy it. They have, but all they can do is want more. They have but what they have owns them.
Why is it that the most prosperous people in our country seem to be the most disturbed and unhappy people? The story is told of Howard Hughes sitting in his mansion reading something that told the story of a famous painting. Being Howard Hughes, he decided he had to have the painting and put one of his minions on the job of securing it for him. They looked for months and couldn’t find it. And finally, the servant came and said, we have located it…it is in your warehouse, Mr. Hughes, you purchased it a long time ago.
Such is the folly of man.
Prayer: Father, I often make wrong judgments and lack discernment because I am bound by what I see and lack the spiritual sight to see correctly. Father, forgive me. In being bound to this world in this manner it is easy to lose perspective, hope, and joy. In these days of confusion and fear I pray that I would be able to see past what is seen and begin to discern Your hand and purposes in and through it all and then to give praise and honor to you with voice and life, through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Psalm 119X Before Thee Let My Cry Come Near
