Ecclesiastes 8-9

Ecclesiastes 8-9 Ecclesiastes 8-9: Key verse – “This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead.” 9:3 In Ecclesiastes 8-9 the Teacher wrestles with what we may call the riddle of life. He continues to discover that apart from God, our lives are very much like Russian nesting dolls; Just when we think we’ve seen all there is, we open it again to be confronted with another layer. We’re all searching for meaning, trying to make sense of our existence—and the more we consider our days as they ebb and flow, the more questions about them we discover. These two chapters underscore four truths for navigating life’s enigmas. Life Is Unfair: The first truth is that life is as unfair as it is unmanageable. The Teacher has already observed the injustice of the righteous perishing and the wicked prospering (7:13). This concept resurfaces in 8:14 where he notes how the wicked often receive the righteous person’s dues and vice versa. The innocent fall prey to violence. The greedy cheat and end up living lives of ease and luxury. Life is unfair and the examples are endless—which is exactly the point. What examples do you have of life being unfair? People Are Unreliable: Second, just as life is unfair, so people often prove unreliable. For most of us, our lives are all about people—yet as we move through our days, we discover that relationships, no matter how affirming or affectionate, cannot unscramble for us the vastness of the human dilemma. The Teacher tells a parable to this effect in 9:13-15. He describes a small city besieged by a powerful king—but in this city was a poor, wise man who “saved the city by his wisdom”. And what did this deliverer get in return for his heroism? “Nobody remembered that poor man.” (v.15). The parable conveys a sobering truth: We can’t afford to count on anything as fleeting as public gratitude or acclaim to make sense of our lives. Have you seen examples of people being unreliable? The Future Is Unpredictable: Along the road of life’s enigmas, the Teacher also asserts that the future is unpredictable: Man does not know “the future, who can tell someone else what is to come?” (8:7) No one knows what lies ahead. The Teacher repeats similar observations in 9:3 and 9:11, wanting us to see that from our perspective “under the sun”, there is neither rhyme nor reason to history’s events. In a worldview that denies the existence of a personal creator God, we can find no ultimately satisfying answer to the questions “Why did this happen?” and “Why have I experienced this?” Do you have an example of life being unpredictable for you? Many in our day, in their contemporary sophistication, choose to turn their backs on God. They believe in time, chance, Mother Nature, or perhaps even a “god” of their own imagination, but not in the Almighty God. We live at a time when God is naturalized and nature is deified, when God is dethroned (in heart and mind) and nature is enthroned. Under this perspective and a whole host of other worldviews, individuals deny the one who has made them for the express purpose of knowing Him, instead taking their chances on an unpredictable future. How have you seen God pushed out in our world? Death Is Unavoidable Finally, though life is unfair, people are unreliable, and the future is unpredictable, one thing is certain: Death is unavoidable. This reality looms large over Ecclesiastes 9:1-10. Without God, this life is the best there is. But for those of us with true knowledge of God in our worldview, we may make the best of our days (v.7-10) with the confidence that there is more to come. We can eat, drink, and enjoy relationships, and we can do so with joy, having come to terms with the fact that we will one day die to be raised again to new life. Avoiding the fact of death altogether does not change its unavoidable nature (v.5). It is sobering—but it can also be tremendously freeing. Summary: Life is unfair, people are unreliable, the future is unpredictable, and death is unavoidable. Is that it? Not quite, according to the insight in 9:3, “The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead.” We have developed a deep-seated flaw, rendering us unable to think clearly about God and our relation to Him. The cause for our frustration amid the riddle of life is our neglecting to consider the weight of our sin. We don’t operate in a moral vacuum. Scripture teaches rather that we’ve all gone astray our hearts are crooked, and sin pervades how we think and feel about everything. From birth, sin enfolds our minds, causing us to think wrongly. Yet the Bible shines into our darkness and grants, by God’s grace, illumination. God reveals that we were made for Him and will remain forever dissatisfied until we know Him. We can know Him personally in Hi Son, who, on the cross, experienced death so that we might experience life. Life is not meaningless! We have hope!