“I also tried to find meaning by building huge homes for myself and by planting beautiful vineyards. I made gardens and parks, filling them with all kinds of fruit trees. I built reservoirs to collect the water to irrigate my many flourishing groves. I bought slaves, both men and women, and others were born into my household. I also owned large herds and flocks, more than any of the kings who had lived in Jerusalem before me. I collected great sums of silver and gold, the treasure of many kings and provinces. I hired wonderful singers, both men and women, and had many beautiful concubines. I had everything a man could desire! So I became greater than all who had lived in Jerusalem before me, and my wisdom never failed me. Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors. But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless—like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.”
Ecclesiastes 2:4-11 NLT
Context is king, as they say…and we need to say it or else we will read this passage, take a deep breath of the poison gas of despair, and conclude that there’s no value in labor. And, of course, that there’s no value at all. Is that what the Preacher is selling? Does he say with poetic resignation:
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” ~ William Shakespeare
“Slept, awoke, slept, awoke, miserable life.” ~ Franz Kafka
The trick to understanding the world, our life under the sun, and every detail therein lies in applying the principles of Scripture to literally everything. A man trying to live a corner of his life “on his own,” so to speak, is a man of two minds. His one mind is set on the Spirit and in that he is God’s man. But in the next instant, let’s say he’s thinking about economics or sports or politics or whatever, he thinks with the old Adamic nature. The mind that’s set on the flesh is hostile to God (Romans 8:6) because it refuses to submit to Him. There’s not a single line in Scripture that suggests or teaches that any man is neutral toward God. When Jesus says that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6), He isn’t saying that merely in one category – that is, religion. He means that, of course, for all things.
This is the logical consequence of God’s creative dominion. How does it make any sense for the Creator to not have control over any part of His creation? You see, the mind that’s set on the Spirit (Romans 8:9) has rejected, in repentance and faith, the crazy lie that man is autonomous. The mind of the Christian, the renewed mind, is free from the curse of the “great exchange” of the truth for a lie (Romans 1:23) and now resides in peace with God (Romans 5:1). The task before us in our lives is progressive sanctification in which our thoughts conform, like an athlete’s body under training, more and more to the principles of God’s holy word.
The mind of the flesh is the mind of death (Romans 8:7; Proverbs 8:36) because it insists that there are areas of life over which God is not sovereign. And it is these areas – very often money and sex – that we try and play god over…at least in our own lives.
So, you see, this question before us today – labor and wealth and sex – that Solomon pours into our cup and asks us to drink, is bitter only to the old nature. The new man in Christ thinks, “but of course” and yet we struggle. We find that we worry about tomorrow. We find that our finances and future stress us out. This is a serious battleground and that’s exactly why the Holy Spirit gives us precisely this light in which our way is illuminated! It’s to keep us from the great pitfall of having the cares of this world choke us to death (Matthew 13:22). And this means that if you’re troubled by how much riches, wealth, money, your future, and all that stress you out, that that’s a good thing. It’s the troubled heart that knows it needs Jesus.
“For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”
Romans 7:14-25 ESV
The mind that’s set on the flesh won’t be unsettled by a desire for security in things. Rest assured that your hatred of the fact that you sometimes seek security in things and circumstances is the sure sign that the Holy Spirit lives in you because God’s Spirit and idolatry can’t coexist.
It’s like this that we read the Preacher’s words. We know that our works and our achievements are powerless to save, redeem, reform, and justify us. In that light we can hate them and see their futility. But in the new life of the Spirit, the new mind that more and more reckons the facts of reality as His facts rather than chaotic circumstances we must control, we see all things as His things. We see our vocational struggles, our education, our future plans, our frustrations and failures, as well as our triumphs and victories, as lessons from Him. We see life as renewed in Christ and all as worship – as Corem Deo (to live one’s life totally and comprehensively before God).
The Preacher isn’t saying anything unbiblical at all. He isn’t contradicting the great lessons of Proverbs and the value of Godly work. The Lord tests hearts (Proverbs 17:3) and one’s labor is a primary means in which He often brings us to greater knowledge of the truth – the truth of ourselves and the world around us. It’s interesting that Koheleth would lay this right out there like this, isn’t it? We remind the reader that the Holy Spirit doesn’t need an editor, so there’s obviously a very good reason why He’d go all in on Ecclesiastes 2. In short, it tests us to define for ourselves, once and for all, what the purpose of our labor truly is.
You see, this isn’t as simple as it seems. The Scripture is very pointed on this subject for the simple reason that we all very often keep one toe or foot on the other side of the line. We come to Christ but don’t think of His Lordship all the way through. We get it up to a point. He’s the Savior, but we haven’t considered completely – really chewed down to the bone – the fact of His Lordship.
This means that those of us who don’t achieve everything in our field that the Preacher does in his – and that’s basically all of us – when we don’t truly consider the truth in play here, often feel like we’re second string Christians. The Preacher isn’t telling us this to boast. How is that Biblical? No. Heavens, no! We’re being told this so that we focus on our work, whatever it may be, no matter how meager it may seem, so that we know the true and whole story. There are no second or third string Christians for whom Christ died! But that’s exactly what we end up thinking when we think in secular categories in the old Adamic mind.
The Preacher is proving to us both that great talent and success can’t save us, nor provide meaning outside of God, and that, as a corollary, all labor unto the Lord is valuable. Do you see it? If Solomon’s wealth can’t save him, that means that money, talent, and success are not the stuff of life. Oh, that we would see the world through Scripture trained eyes! Does God take more joy in Mike Trout than he does a boy who strikes out in Little League? Does He hear first the prayer of an Elon Musk before taking the call from the suburban homeschool mom? Do we really know this? You are not unimportant because you aren’t super talented, rich, famous, or important. Those are worldly things to which the Preacher responds, “smoke and vanity.”
Listen to the Preacher’s words anew:
“I came to hate all my hard work here on earth, for I must leave to others everything I have earned. And who can tell whether my successors will be wise or foolish? Yet they will control everything I have gained by my skill and hard work under the sun. How meaningless! So I gave up in despair, questioning the value of all my hard work in this world. Some people work wisely with knowledge and skill, then must leave the fruit of their efforts to someone who hasn’t worked for it. This, too, is meaningless, a great tragedy. So what do people get in this life for all their hard work and anxiety? Their days of labor are filled with pain and grief; even at night their minds cannot rest. It is all meaningless.” Ecclesiastes 2:18-23 NLT
And then consider the words of our Lord:
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:19-21 ESV
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Matthew 6:24-34 ESV
What would have happened had Ahab read these words and truly taken them to heart while he lay on his bed whining about the vineyard? What’s most important to us is and should increasingly be Christ and His righteousness, not the sand-castle kingdoms of this world.
The Preacher is telling us this critical truth: put your trust in God, not the things God created because that’s an attempt to invert reality. It’s a suicidal attempt to play god and we’re not made for that. We’re made for Him! So, if you’re weary from all that struggle, and if your heart hurts, and the regrets are piling up, failures and fears haunt your sleep, go to Him.
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 ESV
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