Ecclesiastes 3
McGeeCHAPTER 3In this chapter we see that Solomon adopts a certain philosophy of life known as fatalism. This was common among pagans; Buddhism is a fatalistic system; Platonism is fatalism. In our day certain cults give the impression of having a glorious faith in God, but actually the “faith” is fatalism. The philosophy of fatalism is very popular in modern America. It is my custom to conclude my Bible conferences on Thursday evenings and fly back home on Fridays. On Friday afternoons I board a plane in some distant city and find myself with almost 100 percent male passengers. Who are they? Well, they are married men for the most part who are salesmen or representatives of certain companies. Their families live here in Southern California, and every Friday they get on a plane to come home.
Most of them are tired. Their faces show the effect of a week’s work. Many of them who are carrying attache cases will open them up and begin to work out a final report to hand in at the office if they get back in time. Or they will probably put it in the mail when they get home so it will be there for the president of the company to see on Monday. They take their drinks, and after they have their cocktails, they begin to laugh. I can sense that it is the liquor that is laughing.
Every now and then, if I sit by one of them and there is an exchange of viewpoints, I find out that they have a fatalistic viewpoint of life. On one occasion I came home on a plane that passed through some very rough weather. The man next to me looked unconcerned. I said to him, “You didn’t seem to be frightened when we went through that bad weather.” His response was, “No, there’s no use being frightened. What is going to be will be. You can’t change it. If it’s time for your number to come upthere’s nothing you can do about it.” There he sat, gritting his teeth with a philosophy of life that is very popular. It is called many things, but basically it is fatalism. A great many folk are facing life with that viewpoint.
Ecclesiastes 3:1
FATALISMNow we find Solomon seeking satisfaction in fatalism. This is Solomon’s viewpoint as he expresses it. In our day we hear the expression, “Take life as it comes.” There is “a time to get, and a time to lose.” You played the stock market, and you lost your money. Well, that’s the way it was to be. You were a traveling man away from home, and a certain woman was easy to get, and you invited her up to your room. Your philosophy was that there is “a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.” Taking life as it comes is a philosophy of fatalism.
Ecclesiastes 3:9
What’s the use? Why fight it? If you can’t fight them, join them. That is the kind of cliche that is bandied about among men today. This is the way men operate, especially godless men in the business world. Money is made on this kind of basis. I think that you will find that men who live like this are not filled with joy. They are difficult to live with. I imagine their wives have real problems. They have a cocktail in the evening, and then they become sociable for several hours. After that it is better to stay out of their way.
Ecclesiastes 3:10
Solomon has looked around"I see people in trouble everywhere; so if I’ve escaped a little of it, I just consider myself luckythat’s all."
Ecclesiastes 3:11
God has allowed men to “set the world in their heart” so they will see that the world does not satisfytheir hearts are still empty. Many men start out with the philosophy that they are going to get all they can out of life. They say, “Life is like an orange, and I’m going to squeeze it for all it’s worth.” Solomon did that, but it didn’t satisfy him at all.
Ecclesiastes 3:12
There is another group in this crowd: the do-gooders. A man on a plane said to me, “Well, I think a man ought to do good as much as he can. That’s what I try to do.” Let me tell you that he wasn’t doing much good, but that was his philosophy of life.
Ecclesiastes 3:13
This fellow said, “I see nothing wrong in drinking.” And from his point of view, there wasn’t anything wrong. This is the fatalism of modern man.
Ecclesiastes 3:14
They talk about God’s will as primary, but with this viewpoint a man will say, “If it’s not God’s will for me to be saved, I won’t be saved.” You see, fatalism leaves no place for the mercy and grace of God. Fatalism says that God does not hear and answer prayer. My friend, it is God’s grace and mercy and love that make life exciting and bring joy into life and give peace to the human heart. We come to another philosophy at this point, which we call egotism or egoism. It is excessive love of self; an individual’s self-interest is the summum bonum of life.
Ecclesiastes 3:16
EGOTISMHe is saying that all men are wicked. You can’t trust anybody. This is a cynical, although I must confess a rather accurate, viewpoint of the human race. I was speaking at a conference at which the director said, “Now we want to treat all of you folk who are here as Christian ladies and gentlemen.” That was the last thing he should have done, because they didn’t act like ladies and gentlemen, I assure you. A friend of mine says that when some men do business, they trust the other individual until he proves himself untrustworthy. He says that he has learned to treat people as crooks until they prove that they are not. Now that is a cynical attitude. Unfortunately, it is reasonably accurate, and I must say that my friend is a successful businessman. He faces the reality as God has said it: “…All have sinned …” (Rom_3:23). Solomon goes on in this vein of thought
Ecclesiastes 3:17
That’s not very encouraging!
Ecclesiastes 3:19
You recognize, I am sure, that there are several cults which build on this statement. However, we must remember that this is the viewpoint of man under the sun, living for self-interest. Living for self, enjoying life for self, is the reason men get involved in some projects which are good. For example, many men get interested in athletics and give themselves to it. Others give themselves to art, others to literature, others to music, and many different things. These things are not wrong, but they are selfish; they gratify man’s selfish desires. This viewpoint does not accept the optimist’s conclusion. You see, evolution says that man was a beast but that he now has become a man. Egoism or egotism or self-interest says that man is a beast, which causes the individual to despise others. This philosophy produced the caste system in India and the class system in other parts of the world. It leads to vanity and the feeling of being better than the other man. It has a pessimistic viewpoint of death: man dies as an animal dies.
I heard a man say, “Man dies just like a dog dies. When you’re dead, you’re deadand that’s all there is to it.” Since he expects to die like an animal dies, he is going to live for himself in this life and get all he can out of it. This type of teaching is in the contemporary schoolroom. Evolution is a form of it, although it says man was a beast, and this says man is a beast. It is only a difference of time periods. Both agree that you are going to die like an animal, that you have no soul nor spirit; so you might as well live like an animal. It is interesting to observe animal behavior with this in mind. I watched a family of little kittens the other day. Believe me, they had no regard for each other. They played together all right, but when food was given to them, they didn’t mind pushing one little fellow out. The owner of the cats had to personally feed that little kittenhis brothers and sisters would have been perfectly willing to let him starve to death. Don’t they have any compassion? No. Their egoism is their philosophy of life. You see little birds in a nest acting the same way. Each little fellow is taking care of himself. That is the viewpoint of the animal world. The reason man is beginning to react like an animal is because he is being taught in our schools that he is an animal.
Ecclesiastes 3:21
Solomon recognizes that man is different from the beast, for the spirit of man goes upward while the spirit of the beast goes downwardbecause he is only an animal.
Ecclesiastes 3:22
In other words, this life is all we are going to get. Again, this is a modern teachingcall it whatever you wishthat the only thing worthwhile is to identify oneself with his environment and live like an animal lives. By the way, this is the ancient version of the “hippie” philosophy which came out of our schools a few years ago.