Ecclesiastes 9
McGeeCHAPTER 9We have labeled the moralist as the do-gooder. This is where we see him in action. We have seen that this is the man who says, “I believe that if you pay your honest debts and live a good life, God will accept you.” He is like the average American who travels down the middle of the road on the freeway of life. He is Babbitt on Main Street in Big City, doing business under a neon sign but living in the sedate, secluded, and exclusive neighborhood in the suburbs. He is the one who feels that he is going to heaven on his own propulsion. “I am working out my own salvation, and I’m really a pretty good fellow after all.” He has a hard philosophy of life and very little real joy. Oh, he has his “happy hour” each evening when he has his cocktail, but he comes to some very doleful and pessimistic conclusions. We have seen that many of the teachings of the Book of Ecclesiastes are quite radical. They present the philosophy of man under the sun. They do not present the Christian viewpoint, nor do they represent God’s viewpoint. They tell us the inevitable conclusions that are reached by the man under the sun. I find it a doleful book, and I find this chapter especially so. This book of the Bible is like a black sheep in a flock of sheep.
One can take many passages out of this book which seem to contradict the other portions of Scripture. They express ideas that are contrary to some of the great teachings of Scripture, which explains why this book has been a favorite among atheists. Volney and Voltaire quoted from it frequently. It fosters a pessimistic philosophy of life like Schopenhauer had. Some of the modern cults predicate the main thesis of their systems on this book. How did this book get into the canon of Scripture? Well, it is obvious that one must go back to the purpose of the author. What is his thesis? What is he demonstrating? Is he trying to set forth Christian principles? We must always remember that Solomon is speaking of life apart from God. He has tried to make an experiment to see how to be happy without God. These are the conclusions that he has come to “under the sun.” This is the way the man of the world looks at life. So then it is no surprise that unbelievers would quote from this book. Let me give you an illustration to help you understand this book. Halfway between high tide and low tide is what they call the mean tide, which is sea level. There is a realm of life below sea level; there is a realm of life above sea level. Actually, they are like two different worlds. In the world below sea level there are certain chemical elements in a world that is aqueous. Above the sea level there are different combinations of chemical elements in a world that is gaseous.
Below sea level are the fish with fins. Above are the birds with wings. There are two ways of life. The mockingbird does not tell the tuna fish that he is all wrong because he doesn’t have feathers. The monkey and the barracuda could actually have a big debate on which direction is sea level. The monkey would say that sea level is down; the barracuda would argue that sea level is up. Now Ecclesiastes is “under the sun.” The Christian life is in the heavenly places where God is. Man under the sun will have a different view of life from the view of God who is above the sun. We are looking at two different worlds, two different ways of life. Life under the sun is a mundane existence apart from God. It views a future and an eternity without God. The Christian life is a contrast to this in every way because man has been saved by the grace of God and is a display of His grace. So there are two different spheres, and the laws and principles of one will not apply to the other. They are as far apart as that which is below sea level and that which is above sea level. Because this is true, it is a waste of time to tell the non-Christian, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God” (Col_3:1). That man is not even in Christ; he is not risen with Christ. Therefore he cannot seek those things which are above. He first needs to be born again, to become a new creature. You see, it is no use talking to a non-Christian as if he were a man in Christ, because he isn’t. It would be like trying to teach a mud turtle to fly. The mud turtle likes the mud; he is not even interested in flying. As we have seen, Ecclesiastes is the record of experiments that Solomon made with life. He tried everything “under the sun” to see if he could find satisfaction for his soul. Everything must be interpreted in that light. Solomon tried the pursuit of knowledge and came to the conclusion, “…of making many books there is no end” (Ecc_12:12). He tried pleasure and the outcome was, “I hated life.” He tried riches and came to the conclusion, “He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver” (Ecc_5:10). Then he tried religion and concluded that it will make one become a lunatic or a racketeer, a crank or a crook, a nut or a bum. Then he tried fame and a good name; he tried morality. All he could say was that it was all vanity and vexation of spirit. Thackery wrote a wonderful novel called Vanity Fair. It is the story of a girl named Becky, and it is set in the time of the wars of Napoleon. It tells of the littleness and of the sin in the lives of the characters as they lived their lives apart from God (Thackeray was a Christian). He concluded the book by saying, “The play is over. We put the puppets back in the box. All is vanity and vexation of spirit.” By the way, you could do the same thing with the entertainment and pleasure capitals of our country. They are places of fame and riches and also places that have a monopoly on sleeping pills and narcotics. Life is empty without God and without Christ. Augustine gave us that often-quoted expression, “Thou has made us for Thyself, and the heart of man is restless until it finds its rest in Thee” (Confessions, Bk. 1, Sec. 1). The human heart is so constructed that you could put the whole world in it and still it would not be filled. Quotations from Ecclesiastes have been used to support socialism. There is only one answer for statism or regimentation. Christ is the answer, the only answer. All other routes lead to emptiness and frustration. With Him there is life abundant.
Ecclesiastes 9:1
He is not worried about the future. Eternity is a realm he doesn’t even think about because he knows nothing about it.
Ecclesiastes 9:2
It looks to him as if it doesn’t make any difference which direction you go. They all come out the same way anyhow. Remember, this is not God’s answer. This is the way it looks to man under the sun as he observes the lives of people around him.
Ecclesiastes 9:3
Why should anyone work at all? Life is just a big lottery, and you are the victim of your circumstances. The fellow who was lucky enough to get his share of it, ought to share it with you. The philosophies of our day are not saying anything new. Karl Marx didn’t say anything newSolomon was way ahead of him.
Ecclesiastes 9:4
If you follow along this basic premise, it is eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die. Then, whether you are a fool or a wise man doesn’t make much difference. It’s still better to be alive than dead, even if you are a fool while you are alive"for a living dog is better than a dead lion."
Ecclesiastes 9:6
I told you that this is a doleful chapter. It looks as if life is futile, purposeless and without meaning. If death is the end of everything, then man is just like an animal. The evolutionist says that man once was an animal, and this man under the sun says man is like an animal now. The end result of both is the same. Man dies like an animal. How different it is for us who know that we have come from the creative hand of God and that we are going back to God.
Ecclesiastes 9:7
The do-gooder who thinks that death is the end of it all finds his joy in the “happy hour.” “Drink thy wine with a merry heart.” This is about the most monotonous life in the world.
Ecclesiastes 9:8
He dresses up and keeps up a good front.
Ecclesiastes 9:9
Enjoy your marriage, he advises. There are many non-Christian couples who are enjoying their lives togetherI have met several of them. Oh, they have their problems and their dark days, but their attitude is, “Let’s make the best of it.” Now here is another verse on which the theory of soul sleep is based.
Ecclesiastes 9:10
It is certainly true that the body in the grave can no longer hold a hammer in its hand. The brain is no longer able to study or perform any mental chores. Solomon is speaking only of the body. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” He is talking about the hand, not the soul. It is the hand that will be put into the grave. If you are a child of God, you will go into the presence of the Lord. If you are not a child of God, you will go to the place of the dead until you are raised to be judged at the Great White Throne. This life does not end it all. This book does not teach soul sleep. Now he will deal with social injustice and the minority groups.
Ecclesiastes 9:11
The observation of the man under the sun leads him to believe that life is a matter of time and chance. It is nothing but a big lottery. If you happen to be born black, you will have your problems. If you are born white, you will have your problems. If you are born yellow, you will have your problems. It’s all chance, and there is nothing you can do about it. That is the thought here.
Ecclesiastes 9:12
If time and chance are the regulators of life, then you are just as helpless as the fish caught in a net. This is an awful viewpoint, the worst kind of fatalism. This is the philosophy of the men I mentioned who fly home at the end of the week, coming back to Southern California from Dallas, Kansas City, Chicago, and Seattle. They sit in the airplane and grit their teeth in the midst of the turbulence of a storm and say, “If the plane is going to go down, it will go down. If my number comes up, there is nothing I can do about it.” A man is just like a fish caught in a net. For the do-gooder, there is no other explanation. He is forced to come to this fatalistic philosophy. Now Solomon gives a little parable:
Ecclesiastes 9:14
Come a little closer, Mr. Marxist, and listen to this parable. Do you want to lift up the burden of the downtrodden? Do you want to defend a minority group and the cause of the underdog? Is that the thing you’re interested in? Well, may I say to you, there will arise a dictator. “A great king” will come against a people that let down their defenses and spend all their time with social problems which unsaved men cannot solve. (They’ve had probably six thousand years or longer, and they have not yet solved the problems of life. How much longer do you think God ought to give man to work these out?) “A great king” will take over such a city when socialistic methods are adopted.
Ecclesiastes 9:15
Who was that man who came and brought deliverance? His name was Wisdom, and Wisdom is another name for Christ. He came to this earth in poverty. Jesus could actually say, “…The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Mat_8:20). He was a poor man.
Ecclesiastes 9:16
Eventually the voice of the Lord Jesus will prevail. When He comes, His voice will be like the shout of the archangel and like the sound of a trumpet. There is a babble of voices in this world today, but there is coming a time when His voice will prevail in this world.
Ecclesiastes 9:18
Here is his conclusion of all he has said in this chapter. “Wisdom is better than weapons of war.” And Christ is better than atomic energy. “Wisdom is better than weapons of war.” Years ago I crossed the ocean in the H.M.S. Queen Mary, and I shall never forget the morning when we came into Southampton. I got up early to watch it. It was a tremendous feat to bring that great ship into port. The pilot had brought her across the trackless ocean. How had he done it? He had done it by the principles that were set down by a little-known Greek philosopher years ago working in geometry. That’s the way it was done. “Wisdom is better than weapons of war.” “But one sinner destroyeth much good.” There is a tremendous influence exerted by the life of one individual. And the influence is more potent when it is in the wrong direction. History will bear this out. Adam sinned and his sin has affected the entire race of mankind. Achan sinned, and because of him an entire nation went down in defeat. They had to deal with the sin of Achan before they could achieve a victory. Rehoboam’s sin split the kingdom of Israel. The sin of Ananias and Sapphira brought the first defect into the early church, and from that day on the church has not been as potent as it was in the beginning. You and I have an influence, either for good or for bad. No matter who you are, you occupy a place of influence. “For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself” (Rom_14:7). Every person is a preacher. No one can keep himself from being a preacher. I made that same statement to a man, an alcoholic, who lived with his mother in a house down the street from the church. His mother was brokenhearted over her boy, and she asked me to talk to him about Christ. One day I got him into my study. He had been drinking, but he was not what you would call drunk. I told him he was breaking his mother’s heart, and I told him how low down and good for nothing his life was. He was not moved; he just sat there and took it. Then I asked him, “Do you know that you are a preacher?” At that he stood up and drew back his fisthe was going to hit me. “You can’t call me a preacher!” He would allow me to call him any kind of name but not a preacher! My friend, all of us are preachers. You are preaching to those around you by the life that you live. I personally believe that the do-gooder, the man who boasts of his moral life apart from God is the greatest detriment. He actually stands in the way; he blocks the way to God because his message is, “Live like I do. I live without God. I just do good.” There is nothing quite as deadening as that. You are a preacher, whoever you are. It may be in a very small circle, but you are affecting someone. You are a preacher in your own home. This reminds me of a father who kept a jug of whiskey hidden in the corn crib. It was his habit to go out there every morning and get himself a drink. On a snowy morning he went out to the barn as was his habit, but this time he heard someone behind him.
He turned around and found that it was his little son following him, stepping in the footsteps in the snow where his father had walked. The father asked, “What are you doing, son?” The boy answered, “I’m following in your footsteps.” He sent the boy back into the house, and then he went out to the corn crib and smashed that jug of whiskey. He realized that he didn’t want his boy to be following in his footsteps. Someone in your home is following in your footsteps. Where are you leading him? You may be influencing a wide circle of human society. You may have influence in your neighborhood and in your community. You have influence in your Sunday School. Somebody is looking at you and watching to see whether or not you mean business with God. Does your going to church mean anything more to you than going to a drive-in to pick up a hamburger? Does your life suggest that there is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun? You have influence. You remember that Peter preached a mighty sermon on the Day of Pentecost. Andrew just sat on the sidelines and could say, “That is my brother. I brought him to Christ.” That was Andrew’s influence. You, today, are pointing men to heaven or to hell. Now, if you want to go to hell, that’s your business, but you have no right to lead a little boy there. You have no right to lead your family and those who surround you there. Even if you want to go, it’s awful to lead others. Influence"One sinner destroyeth much good." Think about it.