Just Live (Ecclesiastes 11)

Solomon’s great book of repentance and of reflection (on a life lived in sin) draws near to a close with his great conclusion in chapter 12. Up until now Solomon has lamented that life is pointless, every day just like the day before, every year the same as the last, there is “nothing new under the sun” (1:9b).

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be
done. (1:9a)

There is also great evil on the earth, and even this seems pointless because justice seems far away and even those who work for justice on earth are evil doers (3:16). Happiness is impossible to attain, “all is vanity and a striving after wind” (1:14). Solomon has tried everything to find joy in his time under the sun, and:

the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing. (1:8)

He tries women (he had 700 wives!), he tries laughter (2:2), he tries wine (1:3), he tries building monuments and creating works of art (2:4-6), he tries entertainment (2:7), and he tries wealth and power (2:8-9).

And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. (2:10)

Most everybody lives with their own idea of “I’d be happing if…” Solomon conducts a great human experiment and tries everything we dream of, and his conclusion is bleak:

Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. (2:11)

So what is the point? Mark Driscoll says that Ecclesiastes asks the questions the rest of the bible answers, specifically Jesus Christ. Roughly 1,000 years after King Solomon (962 – 922 B.C.) writes this book Jesus is born in Israel. Everything about Christ satisfies Solomon’s frustrations and leads us to this chapter (11), in many ways an encouragement to keep on living and, in light of chapter 12, too look forward to God and His judgment. In this chapter we see hope. It’s almost as if right here the clouds part and we see the sun for the first time. (In fact, this is the first time in the whole book Solomon speaks positively about the sun: “Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun” – 11:7).

One of the big ways Christ satisfies Solomon’s frustrations (and ours) is that through Him God deals with evil. We’ve tried to deal with evil, but our own justice is perverted by our own evil and it is not enough. How can a dirty hand clean a dirty hand? We need a clean one. Jesus deals with evil in complete goodness and authority without evil in Him. he does this in two ways.

The first has already happened, and that was His crucifixion. The second hasn’t happened yet, and that will be when Jesus returns and destroys evil once and for all. But let’s focus on the first one and clarify what happened that day two thousand years ago.

On that day “for our sake he [God] made him [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Because here’s the problems with true justice, that is, if God took to task every evil ever committed and punished the guilty persons there would be nobody left. We’ve all sinned “and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). God, like the faithful husband married to a prostitute in the book of Hosea, has two divine qualities that must be satisfied. The first is justice – God hates sin! And would He be good if He didn’t? If He looked at a child molester and said, “You’ve done nothing wrong,” would that be justice? No, justice must be satisfied.

The second quality is love. “God is love” John writes in 1 John 4:8. God loves us, and He is faithful to us as we resist Him. Look again at Hosea: God is like our faithful husband and we are nothing but whores. God refuses to leave because He loves us, but how can He tolerate our unfaithfulness? If God abandoned us, or just simply destroyed us how would that satisfy His love?

So God had an ingenious plan developed since the second Adam and Eve walked away from Him (even before if He is all-knowing – He inevitably knew what they would do!). He makes a promise after the first sin that He would take care of all sin. He says to Satan, the serpent, the one who led Adam and Eve to sin (and is a good representation of sin):

“I will put enmity between you and the
woman,
and between your offspring and her
offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his head.” (Gen. 3:15)

The word “offspring” in Hebrew means “seed”. Paul writes in Galatians (Gal. 3:16) that the “seed” written of to Abraham (the same words spoken in Genesis 3:15) is not plural, but singular. Look at the next line here, “offspring” is not “they” but a “he”. This man will stomp on sin, but he will be wounded. Right away, God promises to deal with the sin problem by sending His Son. Jesus put it this way:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

That is probably the most well-known verse in all of Scripture, which is fitting because in one sentence Jesus explains what all of Scripture is about. In this verse we see:

1) Our condition. We are “perishing” and need saving.
2) God loves us. He sends His Son to die for us in our place, so that:
3) we will live with Him and have eternal life. “Eternal life” means more than living forever. Jesus defines it as:

“And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3)

Eternal life is living forever knowing Jesus (the Bible is pretty clear that all will live forever, past death, but the question is will you live with Jesus). Here we see life! Joy in living! Isn’t that what Solomon was after? Joy is now ours in Christ.

So on the cross God provided a substitute for us so that both His love and His judgment could be satisfied. Because of Jesus’ death, if we humble ourselves before God and ask for His forgiveness, we will be made new, our sins washed away.

That is the hope in the clouds of Ecclesiastes. In chapter 11 get pieces of this hope and some wonderful advice on how we should live now that we have been forgiven and made right with God, but while we still live in this broken, fallen world described by Solomon. Really, what should we do? Should we build a bomb shelter and wait for Jesus to return? Should we, as so many Christians do, completely cut ourselves off from culture and society, and fun? Not sinful fun, but fun. Didn’t God make us to enjoy things?

One of the best sermons I ever heard was a few months after becoming a Christian. It was sermon about grace – how, through the free gift of Jesus Christ, we are made right with God. The pastor ended by saying, “So now what do you do?” He waved his hand and said, “Just live.” Isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t God good? Can you see how we are given everything through Him? Not only forgiveness but life. We’re allowed to enjoy this world He has given us.

Cast your bread upon the waters,
for you will find it after many days.
Give a portion to seven, or even to eight,
for you know not what disaster may happen on earth. (11:1-2)

Just live! Solomon then writes to remind us, Caution!, remember our helplessness and God’s sovereignty:

If the clouds are full of rain,
they empty themselves on the earth,
and if a tree falls to the south or to the
north,
in the place where the tree falls, there
it will lie. (Ecc. 11:3)

What man can control nature? Do not worry about it. Our place is under God, not over Him. Your Father is in control. There are certainly many, many things of God we cannot understand:

As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. (11:5)

You’re not a in control: Let go of the illusion. Live by God’s grace and fear Him. And, once again, please live:

He who observes the wind will not sow,
and he who regards the clouds will
not reap. (11:4)

Don’t be idle: Your Father has given you purpose and strength and direction in Jesus Christ. Rejoice in this life (11:9), because you are headed to a different and better place. You are going to be with Jesus.

10/1/09