Saturday, November 12, 2005
Ecclesiastes Experience Part 1
This notion of an Ecclesiastes experience is taken from a friend of mine's idea for a book currently under development. It in no way reflects finished product of my friend, which will be far better.
These sermon notes taken from prep notes of the pastor, no video available.
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 1:2-3; 12:13-14
What's so depressing about Ecclesiastes? Of course, we get the to every thing a season, and the obvious meaningless, meaningless, all of life is meaningless. Obviously, some would consider the book of wisdom a downer, however, look at who it was written by: Solomon. Look at the ordeals in his life, with his children, building the temple, his wives, etc.
Solomon's own story gives us the context in which he, the wiseest man ever to roam the earth, experienced Ecclesiastes, and his experience reflect those we all must face in our mortality and immortality.
Two views emerge from Ecclesiastes. The first is a materialist point of view. Eat drink and be merry because tomorrow we are all going to die anyway. Solomon says there is nothing better than to toil and take pride in your work. However, even this leaves him cold. It is not meaningful. It is temporary. For all his wisdom, Solomon is still finite, he will die, he will leave behind work and empires to others who will do things and leave it to their offspring, and so on.
As a wise man gifted by God, Solomon struggled and thought about this. Surely there must be more. I believe in Ecclesiastes we are seeing Solomon walking through such a life crisis. Initially, he sees everything as meaningless because nothing lasts on earth. Empires are destroyed, buildings razed, people die, etc. What is the point? And, in some respects, he is right. We cannot take it with us, so to speak, the fancy things. However, there is something more.
As Solomon goes through his deductive and inductive reasoning with the touch of the Lord's wisdom, we see what he is going through. His moral struggles, his personal struggles with childrenand his wives. His duty to God and his sinfulness of false idolatry.
As Solomon begins to add things up, he comes to a greater conclusion. There is something more. There is the soul, htere is the Lord. The greatest we feel is when we are fearing the Lord and doing his work and following his commands. Solomon felt that during the good times, and he realizes a key conclusion that he comes to in the other verse we read today: Fear the Lord and keep his commandments, that is wht it is all about.
Well, let me say this. Solomon came to a good starting place. There is more than just vain meaningless things that disappear. There is more than the temporal feelings we have. There is eternity. There is God's will. And, we need to seek out God's will, to come to him and awe and respect and seek his will, to keep his commandments. However, that is not hte end of the Eccleiastes experiences we face. As we will see in part 2, acknowledging hte eternal is just the beginning of coming to the true peace of the kngdom. It is a good start, but it is not the end that Solomon thought it was. However, due to when and where he was in Biblical history, that was all he could come up with. There was no abiding Holy Spirit yet. However, that is where we need to be, at the point of acknowledging there is an Eternal God with an eternal purpose and plan that we need to respect and revere. However, unlike Solomon, we need to move further. Just awing and respecting God is ont enough, as the Israelites proved over time. Next, we will see what we shold do at those times in our lives when we weather the storm, realize God is there, but what do we do next during those Ecclesiastes moments.
These sermon notes taken from prep notes of the pastor, no video available.
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 1:2-3; 12:13-14
What's so depressing about Ecclesiastes? Of course, we get the to every thing a season, and the obvious meaningless, meaningless, all of life is meaningless. Obviously, some would consider the book of wisdom a downer, however, look at who it was written by: Solomon. Look at the ordeals in his life, with his children, building the temple, his wives, etc.
Solomon's own story gives us the context in which he, the wiseest man ever to roam the earth, experienced Ecclesiastes, and his experience reflect those we all must face in our mortality and immortality.
Two views emerge from Ecclesiastes. The first is a materialist point of view. Eat drink and be merry because tomorrow we are all going to die anyway. Solomon says there is nothing better than to toil and take pride in your work. However, even this leaves him cold. It is not meaningful. It is temporary. For all his wisdom, Solomon is still finite, he will die, he will leave behind work and empires to others who will do things and leave it to their offspring, and so on.
As a wise man gifted by God, Solomon struggled and thought about this. Surely there must be more. I believe in Ecclesiastes we are seeing Solomon walking through such a life crisis. Initially, he sees everything as meaningless because nothing lasts on earth. Empires are destroyed, buildings razed, people die, etc. What is the point? And, in some respects, he is right. We cannot take it with us, so to speak, the fancy things. However, there is something more.
As Solomon goes through his deductive and inductive reasoning with the touch of the Lord's wisdom, we see what he is going through. His moral struggles, his personal struggles with childrenand his wives. His duty to God and his sinfulness of false idolatry.
As Solomon begins to add things up, he comes to a greater conclusion. There is something more. There is the soul, htere is the Lord. The greatest we feel is when we are fearing the Lord and doing his work and following his commands. Solomon felt that during the good times, and he realizes a key conclusion that he comes to in the other verse we read today: Fear the Lord and keep his commandments, that is wht it is all about.
Well, let me say this. Solomon came to a good starting place. There is more than just vain meaningless things that disappear. There is more than the temporal feelings we have. There is eternity. There is God's will. And, we need to seek out God's will, to come to him and awe and respect and seek his will, to keep his commandments. However, that is not hte end of the Eccleiastes experiences we face. As we will see in part 2, acknowledging hte eternal is just the beginning of coming to the true peace of the kngdom. It is a good start, but it is not the end that Solomon thought it was. However, due to when and where he was in Biblical history, that was all he could come up with. There was no abiding Holy Spirit yet. However, that is where we need to be, at the point of acknowledging there is an Eternal God with an eternal purpose and plan that we need to respect and revere. However, unlike Solomon, we need to move further. Just awing and respecting God is ont enough, as the Israelites proved over time. Next, we will see what we shold do at those times in our lives when we weather the storm, realize God is there, but what do we do next during those Ecclesiastes moments.
# posted by Mark : 1:32 PM
