The Bottom Side of the Rug
My homiletics professor in seminary taught us that the introduction is the most important part of a sermon because in the first two minutes you will either convince people they should listen to the rest of it or allow them to drift. I’m going to use as my introduction today the reading of the Scripture text itself because I believe this passage will convince you all by itself that you should listen to the sermon.
My text is Ecclesiastes 1:1-11. I am going to read from a paraphrase called The Message, written by pastor and biblical scholar, Eugene Peterson. I know some of you think paraphrases are less than the unadulterated Word of God, but frankly, I think this paraphrase is remarkably true to the author’s intent. You can either follow along in your Bible or just listen.
These are the words of the Quester, David’s son and king in Jerusalem. Smoke, nothing but smoke. [That’s what the Quester says.]
There’s nothing to anything—it’s all smoke.
What’s there to show for a lifetime of work,
a lifetime of working your fingers to the bone?
One generation goes its way, the next one arrives,
but nothing changes—it’s business as usual for old planet earth.
The sun comes up and the sun goes down,
then does it again, and again—the same old round.
The wind blows south, the wind blows north.
Around and around and around it blows,
blowing this way, then that—the whirling, erratic wind.
All the rivers flow into the sea,
but the sea never fills up.
The rivers keep flowing to the same old place,
and then start all over and do it again.
Everything’s boring, utterly boring—
no one can find any meaning in it.
Boring to the eye,
boring to the ear.
What was will be again,
what happened will happen again.
There’s nothing new on this earth.
Year after year it’s the same old thing.
Does someone call out, “Hey, this is new”? Don’t get excited—it’s the same old story.
Nobody remembers what happened yesterday.
And the things that will happen tomorrow?
Nobody’ll remember them either.
Don’t count on being remembered.
Am I right? Are you ready to listen to this sermon? The Book of Ecclesiastes, which will be the subject of our Sunday morning messages for the next several months, has been an enigma to Bible students for centuries. Few people go to it for devotional reading or personal encouragement. The first chapter of Derek Kidner’s commentary on Ecclesiastes is entitled, “What is this book doing in the Bible?” And even among those who have accepted its place in Sacred Scripture there have been vast differences of opinion as to how to interpret it.
I want to suggest to you that Ecclesiastes alone, of all the books in the Bible, looks at life from the bottom side of the rug. Let me explain what I mean. Think of human history as a great tapestry or perhaps a Turkish rug. On the top side it has a magnificent pattern, the colors are all beautifully blended, and the texture is smooth and even. On the bottom side, however, the design is barely discernible, if indeed it can be seen at all. The colors are mixed, rather than blended. The surface is rough and uneven. About all one can know for sure by looking at the bottom of the rug is that the other side must be much more beautiful!
The universe is like that rug. From God’s viewpoint I assume (and the assumption is confirmed numerous times in Scripture) it is a magnificent work of art. The events all fall in place; the Great Designer’s plan unfolds; even the wrath of men praises Him, as the Psalmist wrote. Yes, the universe is a fallen one, and that impacts everything, but we are assured (in passages like Romans 8) that even the earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, floods and other evidences of sin are blended into the rug by an omniscient God so that the final tapestry is an incomparable masterpiece.
But from the human viewpoint the evidence of design and purpose is disguised, if not altogether obscured–so much so that many intelligent people refuse to believe that either a design or a Designer even exists. Certainly the colors are confused and there is an unevenness that defies explanation.
Now I suggest to you that the Bible gives us a healthy balance between these two perspectives. From Genesis to Revelation we see the awful effects of the Fall upon the human race, but at the same time we are assured of the sovereignty of God. Both beauty and purpose are visible prophetically, and sometimes historically. But in the book of Ecclesiastes the bottom side is nearly the whole story, with only an occasional hint that a top side even exists.
The most important fact for us to grasp this morning is that the view from the bottom side is not wrong; it is not false; it is not heretical. It is true, as far as it goes; it is just not complete, not the whole of reality. And it provides a healthy balance to the emphasis of the rest of Scripture.
Since we are just beginning a new study this morning, I think it appropriate for us to glance at some preliminary questions relative to the book of Ecclesiastes as a whole.
Preliminary questions (1)
Authorship of the book. The authorship of the various books of the Bible is not always a fruitful item for discussion. But the author of Ecclesiastes gives so many hints as to his identity that it must be viewed as an issue of some importance to him.
1:1: “Son of David, king in Jerusalem”
1:12: “I the Preacher have been King over Israel in Jerusalem.”
1:16: “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me.”
2:4-8 speaks of the author’s wealth, slaves and harem
2:9: “So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me.”
And there are more hints later.
The only individual who seems to fit this description is Solomon. Yet it is fascinating how many scholars scoff at the notion. Even some evangelical scholars suggest that the author is writing a fictional biography; that is, he is speaking through the mouth of Solomon, though he is not Solomon. I remain unpersuaded by these arguments and despite the fact that the author never gives us his name (instead he calls himself Qoheleth, the Teacher or the Preacher), I know of no good reason not to accept the strong church tradition that Solomon was the author.
The significance of this is that since Solomon was the wisest person who ever lived, and since he had the money and power to try anything and everything in life for fulfillment and satisfaction (which he did), it ill behooves us to ignore what he has to say regarding the meaning, or meaninglessness of life.
Approaches to the book. Some have assumed that Ecclesiastes is the philosophy of life of a man without God. In this view the author speaks in the first person, not because he is sharing his own philosophy, but as a communication technique. Not until the last chapter does he offer his own conclusion, namely that the only way to find meaning is through a personal relationship with God.
Others suggest that this is the philosophy of life of a backslidden believer. They see Solomon as confessing his own personal sinful experiences during the latter years of his reign when wealth and women turned him away from God. In the end, however, he repents and comes back to God.
I would take a different approach. I believe Solomon is sharing, not an unbeliever’s philosophy of life, nor even a backslidden believer’s perspective, but life as it really is for all of us. I think he would say that the enigmas and dilemmas of which he speaks face believer and unbeliever alike, spiritual or carnal. In other words, he is describing the very essence of the human condition. What, then, is the theme of the book?
Theme of the book (Sermon in a Sentence). Ecclesiastes records the struggles of a thinking man to square his faith with the facts of life. In spite of all the difficulties, all the unanswered questions, all the intellectual potholes, and all the apparent futility, he fights his way through to a reverent trust in God.
The best way to see this theme is to look at the introduction and conclusion. In the introduction to Ecclesiastes we find a gaunt and stark announcement: “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” Some of your translations read, “Meaningless! Meaningless! says the Teacher. Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” Or as Peterson expresses it, “It’s all smoke.” Throughout the book he develops this refrain as it applies to life and death, wealth and poverty, wisdom and foolishness.
Then in the conclusion he comes back to the same statement (12:8): “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.” Two verses later, however, we are told that the Preacher has sought to write words of truth, i.e., to tell it like it is. But his final conclusion doesn’t come until verse 13: “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.”
In other words, even if “vanity” or “meaninglessness” or “smoke” is an accurate description of things as they are, still the truly wise person will fear God and obey Him anyway. That is the Preacher’s final answer. And if that is his final answer, then no other statement in the book should be interpreted in a way which contradicts it. Of course, this is not just his final answer; he drops similar hints along the way.
It seems to me that the overall point here in the first chapter is that . . .
The key to life under the sun has been lost, producing a sense of futility and meaninglessness. (2)
The opening phrase about vanity or meaninglessness is easily misinterpreted. While it clearly implies that human life often seems empty, transitory and pointless, with many questions and few answers, that does not mean that life is not worth living. This is not a rallying cry for suicide or even nihilism. Rather it is the Preacher’s way of telling us that the key to life under the sun, a phrase used 25 times in the book, has been lost. In fact, it was lost very early–in the Fall, in the Garden of Eden, subjecting creation to futility, described so well in Romans 8:18-25.
I suspect we are both attracted and repelled by this Preacher. We are attracted because he seems more honest than most preachers we have known. All our lives we have been led (or allowed) to think and act as though Christianity is not only the remedy to man’s sins problem, which it is, and not only the way to Heaven, which it is, and the most fulfilling life possible for man on earth, which it is, but also that it is an instant solution to all of life’s enigmas, which it is not.
Preachers have often been guilty of implying, if not teaching directly, that if one is a Christian and has the peace of God in his heart, he should have no unanswered questions, no feelings of despair, no feelings of insignificance and worthlessness in this vast and enigmatic universe. But when we’re honest with ourselves we know that we do have moments of despair and loneliness. There are ultimate questions we cannot answer, or if we pretend to have answers, we know in our heart of hearts that they do not really satisfy.
May I use an example? The issue of predestination and free will is one of these enigmatic areas. Every thinking Christian has struggled with this problem. All of us desire deeply to understand the mysteries involved. And every once in a while someone will happen along who writes, “I’ve got the answer. I’ve found the key!”
But if you read his book carefully you will soon come to realize that he hasn’t found the key; what he’s actually done is to change the lock. He’s either distorted what the Bible teaches about God’s sovereignty or he’s massaged man’s responsibility to the point that the biblical author wouldn’t recognize it. While changing the lock is easier than finding a lost key, it doesn’t really solve the problem. The fact is there is no key available to us that will satisfactorily unlock the enigma of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. The enigma is there because we are dealing with the intersection of two universes–God’s and ours, the transcendent and the immanent, the timeless and the time-bound.
The truth of the matter is that we must be willing to live with the dilemma, without denying either truth in the process, until such time we “become like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” I’m not suggesting to you that we shouldn’t wrestle with the problem, or that it is impossible to come to a point of peace with the issue. I am simply saying that it is impossible by the very nature of the problem to grasp it fully; if you did, you would be God.
Another problem Solomon wrestles with is that things happen to all of us which have no apparent redeeming value, leading us to ask, “What was that all about?” A couple of weeks ago Dan Curnutt and I were attending The Gospel Coalition Conference in Chicago. Wonderful preaching. Mind-boggling theology. Amazing musical worship for three days with Keith and Krystin Getty. After three full days we were riding high but anxious to get home because I was preaching on Sunday and Dan was teaching Perspectives. We took a train from the Loop to O’Hare, made our way through a really long line to go through that notorious machine that makes you glow when you step out, and got to our gate with an hour and a half to spare for a 6:30 direct flight to Wichita.
Then we were told over the loud speaker that the President of the United States was arriving to go on the Oprah show, which shut down O’Hare for an hour. By the time our flight was ready to load, storms were threatening Wichita. Eventually they cancelled our flight and told us we could get to Wichita the next afternoon by way of Dallas.
What was the point of that!?! Frankly, I’d like to ask God that. I know it doesn’t seem like a huge deal–having to spend an extra night in Chicago–but sometimes the huge deals are actually easier to handle. I could see significance in the delay if one of us had a gall bladder attack and had to be rushed to the emergency room at a Chicago Hospital, or if the flight had been canceled because of a terrorist threat. But when life gets interrupted by Oprah and by a potential thunderstorm that never actually developed, I have a hard time with that. So does Solomon. It’s part of what he means when he says, “It’s all vanity. It’s all meaningless. It’s all futile.”
Friends, if we will be really, really honest, there are more unanswered and unanswerable questions than there are answered ones. Maybe if we’d admit that from the start, there would be fewer unrealistic expectations and therefore fewer mental and emotional problems among Christians.
Now to demonstrate this troubling fact that the key to life is unavailable on this side of eternity, Solomon takes us on an excursion through many aspects of life. We have time this morning to look at only three of these.
Human history cannot provide the Key. (3,4) Verse 3 asks, “What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” It might be paraphrased, “You spend your life working, laboring, and what do you have to show for it? How is the world a better place because you were here?” Verse 4 adds, “A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.” Did the doughboys of WWI really make the world safe for democracy? Did the enormous American sacrifices (58,000 American servicemen) in the Viet Nam War accomplish anything of lasting value? Ten years after you retire from your company will anyone remember who you were or what you spent 40 years doing?
No, says the Preacher in verse 11: “There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.” The footnote in my Bible indicates that instead of “former things” and “later things” he may really be talking about former people and later people. I suspect that is the case. You go to any cemetery and most of the graves are unvisited because most of the individuals buried there are not remembered a few decades after they die. Human history cannot provide the key to life.
But perhaps something as permanent as nature itself may have the key. Again he finds the answer to be in the negative.
Physical nature cannot provide the key. (5-7) The reason nature cannot is that the earth’s own pattern is as restless and repetitive as our own. So many beginnings double back. So many journeys end where they began. The Preacher picks out three examples.
1. The sun is the most obvious. Verse 5 says, “The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.” Some biblical passages, like Psalm 19 and Romans 1, look at the testimonial value of the heavenly bodies as they declare the work of God’s hands, but Solomon sees something else. In the ceaseless repetitiveness of the sun’s path, millennium upon millennium, he is reminded of his own insignificance.
2. The wind is addressed in verse 6: “The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns.” The wind, says the author, is essentially circular and provides no key to its origin or its destination. Take the satellite pictures of the cloud patterns as they swirl out of Colorado, over western Kansas and up through Iowa. These maps enable us to “see” the jet stream and the winds it produces in a way Solomon never could. But they don’t really help explain it. It seems that the only thing constant about the wind is that it changes. The same is true with rivers.
3. The rivers. Verse 7: “All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.” Have you ever stood by a rushing mountain stream or a mighty river and wondered, “Where does all that water come from?” We know the fact that the water cycle involves evaporation, rain, snow, springs, and more of the same, but why? What keeps it all in equilibrium? The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus commented, “You can’t step in the same river twice.” He was expressing the constant change that is so much a part of nature and can give us such a sense of impermanence. We have put it similarly in our own folklore: “Old Man River, he just keeps rolling, he just keeps rolling along.”
But if human history and physical nature cannot provide the key to life, cannot human nature do the trick? This the Preacher examines next.
Human nature also is unable to provide the key. (8-12) Take the human senses, for example. He mentions speaking, seeing and hearing in verse 8. None of them provide the key to life, for they are all finite and limited. We can’t even trust them. We say one thing and communicate something else. We see, but we can’t always trust our eyes. We hear, but we don’t all hear the same thing.
But if the senses are inadequate, what about the human mind and its ability to create and to invent? This Solomon addresses in verse 9: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” Immediately we object, pointing out the great advances in knowledge, space, computers, and technology over the past few decades, but the Preacher responds to our objection in verse 10: “Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new’? It has been already in the ages before us.”
Is he right? Let’s take philosophy, for example. Isn’t there something new in philosophy? I feel confident to answer that since I taught philosophy on the college level for five years. And I would answer, “No, there’s nothing new.” You take any idea being espoused by today’s philosophers and you can find it in seed form, if not full grown, in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, or other ancient thinkers.
What about theology? No, again I challenge you to find anything worth staking your life on that isn’t found in Calvin’s Institutes or in the writings of St. Augustine more than a thousand years earlier. And frankly, if you can’t find a view in Calvin or Augustine, you’d better be cautious about it. I agree with the wag who said, “If it’s true, it’s not new, and if it’s new it’s probably not true.”
Time Magazine put Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins, on its cover two weeks ago and took five pages to discuss his “new” views on hell and judgment, but believe me, there’s nothing new here. The only thing new is that a pastor known as an evangelical is now espousing views previously advocated only by those considered liberal or heretical.
What about architecture and art? Haven’t we made great advances in the 20th century? Well, have we? Have you been to Athens or Rome or Luxor? How many of our modern buildings do you think will be standing 25 centuries from now? Or even 50 years from now? I remember when the St. Louis Cardinals demolished Sportsman’s Park, the place I went to see the Cardinals play when I was a little kid, in order to build the futuristic Busch Memorial Stadium in 1966. In less than 30 years the team was arguing that it needed to be torn down. Today a new one stands on the same site at a cost of $350 million. And when it comes to art, who would exchange the art in King Tut’s tomb, going on four millennia now, for a thousand Picassos? Not I, though I admit that reveals some of my prejudice about modern art.
What about morality? Forty years ago there was a buzz about the new morality. But it wasn’t new. It was as old as Sodom and Gomorrah, just pawned off on society as enlightenment instead of the degradation that it is. Today the enlightened are advocating gay marriage and abortion and euthanasia–all of which was practiced by the supposedly enlightened, but actually pagan Romans 2000 years ago.
Ah, but science is the exception! Everything is new in science. Yes, on the surface it appears that way, but to a large extent the changes in science have been technical rather than fundamental. We have advanced in practical application of science but not much in theory. All you need to do is to pick up the works of Leonardo Da Vince to see that most of the great inventions of the 20th century were actually conceived centuries earlier. More importantly, as Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset observed, while “Science has given us greater life expectancy, it has not given us more to expect from life.” Science is not the key.
What do we say to all this? The more things change, the more they remain the same. If history teaches us anything, it is that history teaches us nothing. Rudyard Kipling expressed it this way:
The craft that we call modern;
The crimes that we call new;
John Bunyan had them typed and filed
In 1682.
Everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike, experiences the futility of life. All of us would like to have the key that unlocks and solves all the dilemmas and riddles. But it has been lost in the Fall. J. I. Packer, in one of the most brilliant chapters in his brilliant book, Knowing God, says the mistake many Christians make is to assume that if they get close enough to God He will loan them the key that will unlock the mysteries. It isn’t going to happen!
If you stand at the end of a platform at York Station (the magnificent railway yard halfway between London and Edinburgh), you can watch a constant succession of engine and train movements which, if you are a railway enthusiast, will greatly fascinate you. But you will only be able to form a very rough and general idea of the overall plan in terms of which all these movements are being determined.
If, however, you are privileged enough to be taken by one of the higher-ups into the magnificent electrical signal-box that lies athwart platforms 7 and 8, you will see on the longest wall a diagram of the entire track layout for five miles on either side of the station, with little glowworm lights moving or stationary on the different tracks to show the signalmen at a glance exactly where every engine and train is. At once you will be able to look at the whole situation through the eyes of those who control it: you will see from the diagram why it was that this train had to be signaled to a halt, and that one diverted from its normal running line, and that one parked temporarily in a siding. The why and the wherefore of all these movements becomes plain once you can see the overall position.
Now, the mistake that is commonly made is to suppose that this is an illustration of what God does when he bestows wisdom on mature believers: to suppose, in other words, that the gift of wisdom consists in a deepened insight into the providential meaning and purpose of events going on around us, an ability to see why God has done what he has done in a particular case, and what he is going to do next. People feel that if they were really walking close to God, so that he could impart wisdom to them freely, then they would, so to speak, find themselves in the signal-box; they would discern the real purpose of everything that happened to them, and it would be clear to them every moment how God was making all things work together for good.
Friends, God does not admit his children into the Signal Box–at least not in this life. And those who claim they are there by always saying, “God told me this and God told me that,” are just blowing smoke.
Well, if there is no meaning under the sun, our only hope must be above it. If a man like Solomon had everything, and investigated everything visible, and still found no meaning, then what we need must be invisible. In fact, I believe Solomon is trying to expose the futility of human life under the sun so as to create a hunger for something better. Remember the Preacher’s ultimate conclusion: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” We will not be given the key to life this side of eternity, but we have good reason to trust the Locksmith, and as we work our way through this book, the author is going to give us plenty of reason to fear God and to enjoy Him, too. But as long as we’re tethered to this earth, we will struggle with the futility and meaninglessness of things under the sun.
If you are a skeptic regarding the claims of Christianity, I’m not going to tell you today that I have all the answers, because I don’t. But I do know how you can become personally acquainted with the locksmith. God loves you and He wants to adopt you into His family. But you cannot come on your own terms–you must come on His. God’s Son, Jesus, said, “No man comes unto the Father except through Me.” He died on the Cross to pay for our sin and to bridge the chasm between a holy God and sinful man. And He offers the free gift of eternal life to anyone who will receive Him.
Prayer. Father we would like to have all the answers to the enigmas of life. We would like to see the blueprint of this universe and to know the details of Your plan for the future. But in Your wisdom you have not chosen to reveal these things to us. As your Word states, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever.” You have revealed to us all we need to know. Especially have you made clear the plan of salvation. Help us to trust you with the rest.