the text this evening is Ecclesiastes chapter 1 verses 2 to 11. and the title of our study is life outside the garden life outside the garden and what we mean by that in particular is the garden of Eden we remember from the opening chapters of Genesis that God created not only the heavens and the Earth and everything that they contain but he created a special Paradise in which he would enjoy a man would enjoy Fellowship together in that Garden called Eden it was a place of innocence of Purity it was a place of obedience enjoyment it was a place of significance and satisfaction but as we know that did not last very long sin entered the world and as it entered the world it brought a curse upon Adam our forefather and through him all of us have likewise been cursed and not only did it bring that curse which is epitomized in the reality of death but it also cast us outside of that special place of Perpetual satisfaction and significance we now live outside the garden and that is the big challenge that we face in life we have to come to terms with that reality many men refused to do that and they dedicate their lives to trying to run from that reality or circumvent it ignore it and they do so always to their own peril but it is a reality that we cannot deny every man dies and even before death there is this this gnawing Sensation that we will die and that life is not what it is supposed to be one writer by the name of Victor Frankel who was a a an Austrian psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust he wrote a book called The unheard cry for meaning Victor Frankl is considered to be the head of a certain branch of psychological study called logotherapy and what Frankel supposedly discovered was that the motivating feature of every man's life is the search for meaning and unless he gives himself to that search unless he finds something worth living for all kinds of psychological illnesses result even draws upon his experience in the the camps in the concentration camps and how it was a a quest for meaning that helped him get through that experience and in his studies Frankel has certainly observed a lot of true things that that Mark humankind and has stated those observations quite adeptly he says in one of his books called the unheard cry for meaning he says this at an American University 60 students who had attempted suicide were screened afterward and 85 percent said that the reason had been the reason for the attempted suicide had been that life seemed meaningless most important however 93 percent of these students suffering from the apparent meaningless of Life were actively engaged socially were performing well academically and we're on good terms with their family groups what we have here I would say is an unheard cry for meaning and it certainly is not limited to one university only consider the Staggering suicide rates among American college students second only to traffic accidents as the most frequent cause of death suicide attempts these are the attempts might even be 15 times more frequent he goes on to say this this happens in the midst of affluent societies and in the midst of welfare states for too long we have been dreaming a Dream from which we are now waking up the dream that if we just improve the socioeconomic situation of people everything will be okay people will become happy the truth is that as the struggle for survival has subsided the question has emerged survival for what ever more people today have the means to live but no meaning to live for end quote he goes on to say in a footnote that statistics from Harvard University one of the most prestigious universities of course in the world the statistics of graduates who have gone on to live out supposedly successful careers show shockingly that those successful graduates now have this deep sense of futility often if not always asking themselves what all that success is for and that certainly describes the culture in which we live today we live in the most comfortable Society we enjoy some of the greatest benefits and and and and Comforts and conveniences of all of human history and yet we see especially now as the culture unravels that there is no meaning no meaning to it all now Victor Frankel of course did not prescribe the right solution his solution was to look to human free will and to focus on man as the solution to man's sense of meaninglessness what a futile search that is we need to look somewhere else and the person that does that for us so well is Solomon and in the Book of Ecclesiastes we have provided for us half of what Frankel does in in showing us that this world its Comforts and the material wealth and physical Pleasures do not solve our problems but Solomon teaches what Frankel does not and that is that the answer is found in the Transcendent in something above us in our creator in the judge in Our Shepherd so it's to the Book of Ecclesiastes that we must turn specifically to deal with this issue of the the search for significance the search for significance in a life outside the garden and as we turn to Ecclesiastes we we do find that that there is a good solution to the sense of meaninglessness but before we get there we have to deal with the bad news and that bad news is very poignantly raised in the first 11 verses of Ecclesiastes chapter one turn there and I will read from verse 1 through 11. the words of the preacher the son of David King in Jerusalem vanity of vanity says the preacher vanity of vanities all is Vanity what advantage does man have in all his work which he does Under the Sun a generation goes and a generation comes but the Earth remains forever also the sun rises and the sun sets and hastening to its place it rises there again blowing toward the South and turning toward the north the wind continues swirling along and on its circular course the wind returns all the rivers flow into the sea at the sea is not full to the place where the rivers flow there they flow again all things are worrisome man is not able to tell it the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing that which has been is that which will be and that which has been done is that which will be done so there is nothing new Under the Sun is there anything of which one might say see this is this it is new already it has existed for ages which were before us there is no remembrance of earlier things and also of the later things which will occur there will be for them no remembrance among those who will come later still now as we look at this text and study this important introduction to Solomon's testimony we will gather our thoughts here around three segments of this introduction and the first of these is this in verse 2 we will see the transience of human endeavor asserted the transience of human endeavor asserted Solomon says this in verse 2 this very well-known statement vanity of vanity says the preacher vanity of vanities all is Vanity he begins his book after identifying himself in verse 1 with an immediate and a shocking declaration now what is important to note here is that verse 2 is is crucial for our understanding of the rest of the book it's going to be something that is mentioned both here at the beginning and then at the end in chapter 12 verse 8 this very same phrase will be repeated verbatim and crucial to this phrase is the word vanity which is the Hebrew term habel it's found in this sentence this her original Hebrew sentence it's found five times in a span of eight words so it means we we have to understand what this Hebrew term means in fact in the Book of Ecclesiastes as a whole we're going to see Hebel what is translated as vanity we're going to see it 38 times it's only found 35 times outside of the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament and how one defines how one understands Hebel how we trans or what we translate as as vanity how one understands this key term largely determines how you handle the rest of the book now in our English translations we have the term vanity that's how our translators have have translated most English translations follow that and it actually comes as a result of the influence of that that translator Jerome who lived in the fourth and fifth centuries who produced the Latin Vulgate that standard translation that spread through the Medieval Era until the Reformation he translated it with the Latin term he translated habel with the Latin term vanitas which means in the Latin worthless or futile in fact there's a whole genre of painting that developed in the 17th century especially popular in northern Europe in the Netherlands called vanitas painting and vanitas painting is is that kind of painting that you'll notice because it will often if not always include skulls and and beside the skull will be these different aspects of human enjoyment such as music and reading and it'll often be some kind of a food item there or some kind of a flower and it's implied that that flower or that food item is going to go bad it's decaying already it it was a way of calling Society to repentance and and to the recognition that that for which man so often strives is decaying and worthless but is this exactly what Solomon intended did he want us to look at life and see it as worthless what helps us to go back to the original Hebrew term the original Hebrew term refers to a a breath a puff of air a vapor in fact we can picture this as breathing out on a cold morning and you see your breath that is the basic idea of the Hebrew term Adel it's a breath in fact in several places in our Bibles it's translated that way so in job 7 16 he says he says to his comrades he says I waste away I I will not live forever leave me alone for my days are but a mere breath Psalm 39 verse 5 behold you have made my days as hand breadths and my lifetime as nothing in your sight surely every man at his best is a mere breath a bell same word Psalm 144 verse 4 man is a mere breath his days are like a passing shadow in other words in that understanding of Hebel the idea is brevity a transitoriness now the term can also be translated in in more of that Latin way of signifying some kind of moral statement and it's and can be translated as vain or futile even absurd for example this is how the people of Israel are assessed in Second Kings 17 15 they rejected his statutes and his Covenant which he made with their fathers and his warnings with which he warned them and they followed Hebel they followed vanity emptiness absurdity and and then you have the verb form and they became empty futile absurd and went after the Nations which surrounded them concerning which the Lord had commanded them not to do like them we see the same in Jeremiah 10 in fact the term Hebel is there even more con more specifically translated as Idol in 10 verse 8 but they are all together stupid and foolish in their discipline of delusion their Hebel their Idol is wood and so he goes on in verse 15 to say they are Hebel they are worthless a work of mockery so certainly the term habel can have that moral connotation that negative futility meaninglessness absurdity but again is that what Solomon is intending here if we boil it all down and the possibilities for understanding this word we really come to two possibilities and we're going to see how this really impacts our understanding of the Book of Ecclesiastes either we can translate it consistent with the original Hebrew idea which is very concrete a concrete metaphor Vapor habel vapor so life is a vapor Vapor of vapors you could say and the the impact of that would be that Solomon is asserting that not that life is meaningless and absurd but that Solomon is asserting that life is fleeting it's short it's transitory the other way which is somewhat of the way that our translations will imply is to translate it as vanity and and in that sense it's more of an abstract metaphor and it has this idea that life is meaningless life has no meaning it is absurd it is just filled with absurdities what does Solomon mean I will make the argument that what Solomon is asserting in this very important language is not that life has no meaning to it not that life is completely futile not that life is absurd but that life is brief life is transitory this is communicated for example in just three verses prior to this verse very end of the Book of Proverbs where it is stated in 31 verse 30 charm is deceitful and beauty is hadel beauty is fleeting and that's speaking of the woman there in Proverbs 31 the excellent woman listen the the writer is saying you men who are looking for the excellent wife understand this charm is deceitful and understand beauty is fleeting this idea of the fleetiness of life is also found a little bit later in Ecclesiastes 9 verse 9 where it's actually translated this way where Solomon says enjoy life with the woman you love all the days of your habel you're fleeting life which he has given you under the sun Ecclesiastes 11 verse 10 so remove grief and anger from your heart and put away the pain from your body because childhood and the prime of Life are fleeting in other words the emphasis here is on brevity and so what happens now is is that we understand that what Psalm is communicating here is not that life is absurd but that life is exceedingly short and that's the lesson to draw and it fits in with the larger context here especially in the immediate context where Solomon uses so many Earthly metaphors particularly the idea of Life Under the Sun and you can almost picture that because it is under the sun on a cold day that will see our breath Solomon is saying life is like that that it is short Under the Sun moreover understanding this term that we translate as vanity as brevity or fleetingness also helps us to to to understand the rest of the contents of the book particularly those texts that we are going to get to where Solomon calls upon us to seize the day they're called the Carpe Diem texts and in the Book of Ecclesiastes now those who take the Book of Ecclesiastes as just life is futile and absurd they don't know what to do with the Carpe Diem texts they don't know what to do with those texts such as such as Ecclesiastes 2 verse 24 says there's nothing better than for a man to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good this also I have seen that it is from the hand of God for who can eat and who can have enjoyment without him how can you reconcile that if life is just absurd but you can reconcile those those Carpe Diem texts with the reality instead that life is brief so it adds this this connection that we can make in the book later on and and I think this is actually a very uh the very point that James brings up in James chapter 4 where he communicates the same thing he says this in verses 13 and 14 come now you who say today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow that's the problem not that life is meaningless and absurd but you do not know how long it will be you are just a vapor James says that appears for a little while and then vanishes away and here in our text in the most intense and and and and captivating language as possible Solomon asserts that life is but a vapor he says this twice vanity of vanities vanity of vanities he's saying that life is utterly transitory he's saying life men life is the merest of breaths and then at the end of verse 2 he says all is Vanity or we could understand that as him emphasizing that life is exhaustively transitory that everything is a breath all is Vanity and again what's so important for us to understand as we as we study this book and and apply it to our lives is to recognize this very important lesson life is brief it's transient it's short and that changes everything with how we live one writer put it this way deeply impressed with the brevity of man's life and with the conviction that no human effort can protract man's existence here coalet the preacher denounces in the most intense language possible all undo exertions to satisfy the cravings of the Soul life is brief men we need to comprehend that that leads us to the next portion and that's in verses three to eight of chapter one not only do we see in verse 2 the transience of humid Endeavor asserted now he's going to illustrate it we see the transience of human endeavor Illustrated verses three to eight serve as the illustration man he begins with these words he says what advantage does man have in all his work which he does Under the Sun a generation goes and a generation comes now what Solomon does here in verse 3 is to take the same knowledge that he has asserted in verse 2 but in verse 3 he expresses it not as an assertion but as a rhetorical question what advantage does man have in all his work which he does Under the Sun when he asks here about Advantage he's referring to net gain he's referring to profit that which is acquired over a period of time and then he refers that this Prophet is to be measured according to the produce or the productivity of man's work he says all his work what advantage does man have in all of his work and that phrase all of his work ties us back to the end of verse two where Solomon said all is Vanity Paul or Solomon now describes it here that all in all his vanity is all of man's Endeavors is Pursuits in life and then he says that the period in which man can be assessed and Prophets can be determined is by looking at what he does Under the Sun that is a reference to man's Earthly existence life here in this world from the point of birth to the point of death what he's getting at here very subtly is this reality that you and I do not enjoy endless Pursuits and opportunities there is coming a time of Reckoning when the accounts will be called in and put on the scales death is that point in time and death is coming and again this brings us back to that reality that Solomon is drawing from that we get from Genesis chapter 3 that life outside the garden it means that there is no endless Pursuits and endless opportunities there is One Life to Live and it will be brought to an end by Death for you are dust the end of verse 19 of Genesis 3 says and to dust you will return as one commentator said death confiscates everything we have ever gained in this world everything that we've gained in this world that is part of this world is confiscated by death and Solomon's answer to this rhetorical question his implied answer is you can't take it with you you will take nothing from this world in other words the prophet is zero now he goes to illustrate this by comparing it with several things notice how he begins verse 4 he says a generation goes and a generation comes he's referring here to to man with all his plottings as one writer says man with all his proddings cannot protract his short continuance generation after generation drops off the tree of life it does not stay there so what Solomon does now is compare man's brevity with four elements of creation it's actually fascinating when we look at this Solomon is going to compare Our Lives we who were created to have dominion over this world we who are created in the image of God just a a little lower than the angels are going to be compared with these impersonal elements of creation to see what the curse has done to us the first one is the earth he says a generation goes and a generation comes but the Earth remains forever now he's not making some kind of metaphysical statement about the eternality of this planet he's saying this in relation to the brevity of man man's life is so short you might as well say that this Earth lasts forever that's the comparison man's transience is is contrasted here with the permanence of his own Abode this is our home and yet our home by far outlives us and outlasts us that over which we were to have dominion is now that which remains well we who are to be Lords over it are the ones who pass away secondly he compares the brevity of life to the son he says in verse 5 also the sun rises and the sun sets and hastening to its place it rises there again here a man's transitoriness is is contrasted with the repetitiveness and the predictability of the Sun the Sun the same one under which he lives for that very short period of time you see here's the difference man lives and dies and he never comes back for a repeat you might think the son does that when it goes down you don't see it anymore but you know what eight hours later 12 hours later up it pops again and it has been doing that for thousands of years and it is predictable 23 hours 56 minutes four seconds again and again and again but man he lives his life and it's done a third comparison here he makes With the Wind verse six blowing toward the south then turning toward the north the wind continues swirling along and on its circular courses the wind returns here man's transience is is contrasted with the wind's unimpeded continuity Nothing Stops the wind the winds will always prevail man does not and notice he says it turns from the south to the north he's stated in the previous section or implied in the previous verse that the sun rises knees sets in the west now he's talking about South and North he's covering all parts of the globe here and with respect to the wind he's describing it as swirling around and it always will prevail it will never be stopped but man will the water verse 7. all the rivers flow into the sea yet the sea is not full to the place where the rivers flow they flow again that that sea that impersonal water has a longer life than you do and Solomon says we have to understand that here man's transitoriness is is contrasted with the hydrological cycle and we can say this man never steps in the same river twice even though that same river keeps coming back and back again why is that because man is the one who changes and who passes away now in light of all this Solomon says in verse 8 as he draws this particular section this comparison to a close he says this all things are wearysome man is not able to tell it the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor is the ear filled with hearing and here's the point of that as we compare Our Lives to the enduring nature of of creation we are brought to terms with this reality that we're never able to get to the end we can think we'll live our lives thinking that we'll outlive these things we weary ourselves with that and in the end we lose we lose these things are wearysome we're not able to encapsulate all of the world's permanence and the implications of that in our own words our seeing of these things never bring us to the point where we think we have dominion over them and are satisfied by that it never happens whatever grip we think we had we lose he refers here to the telling and the seeing and the hearing and that over and over and over again we may speak of these things but it never brings final satisfaction as one writer said the pleasure of these senses is so blunted by the same objects constantly presented that they are prickled with further desire of new objects of delight we just cannot get enough of it nor can we ever see to the end it doesn't satisfy the sun will go down and come up to shine another day we however return to the Dust and again we must come to terms with this we who are made a little lower than the angels are really a vapor compared to these things I mean think of it there are tortoises that live longer than we do sharks live longer than we do called the immortal jellyfish I didn't know this I looked it up the immortal jellyfish that in its life cycle if something happens to it it reverts back to an early stage and just grows right over again there's really no way to to put an age on it that's a jellyfish but that's not us we are not the jellyfish yet so many men think they are that if something happens to me tomorrow I'll regenerate somehow I'll be able to figure it out and they live their lives under that myth thinking they still have years and as they do they pile up mistake after mistake to the point where when they get to their Death Beds sooner than they think their lives are filled with regret Solomon himself seems to assume that there will be some kind of uh of of reaction Solomon wait a minute this can't be true and so in the next portion the very last verses 9 through 11 he defends his assertion we can call this the transience of human endeavor defended verses 9 to 11. it begins this way that which has been is that which will be and that which has been done is that which will be done so there is nothing new Under the Sun Solomon essentially answers here three objections the first objection is this doesn't each generation though bring some kind of significant existential progress to humanity maybe we can put our hope in that and Solomon says this in verse 9 that which has been is that which will be and that which has been done is that which will be done so there is nothing new Under the Sun his point here is this history repeats itself the same fundamental experiences that marked our ancestors Mark us there is no ultimate kind of progress that is brought to man outside the garden he is in this position under the curse and he will not in and of himself be able ever to escape it the second objection he answers in verse 10 the second objection can be phrased this way don't new inventions mean that this transience will change and he says in verse 10 is there anything of which one might say see this it is new already it has existed for ages which were before us the the reality that he's pointing to is this yes we do enjoy certain kinds of Innovations and progress but really we're just rearranging the same basic building blocks Innovation will never change the reality for you that life is brief it's transient it can be taken from you at any time there is no guarantee the third objection is then answered in verse 11 you can phrase it this way doesn't man have a life of a a Beyond his death can he live on in the memories of his descendants verse 11 says there is no remembrance of earlier things and also of the later things which will occur there will be for them no remembrance among those who will come later still and here's the the point that we must understand every man is forgotten every man is forgotten you cannot expect to live on in the memories of your descendants and those around you you will be forgotten and I guarantee you today you've forgotten about your ancestors they do not have a Perpetual place in our memories we forget and we will be forgotten that's Solomon's emphasis here in these opening verses we have to begin with this bad news and in that sense that life is transient if we are to properly appreciate the instruction that's going to come later life is brief so how can we hear the preacher he is the one who has worked hard to put these words together to express truth he is the one through whom the Good Shepherd has spoken well in these verses we can feel the goads here right remember that in verse 11 of chapter 12 he said the words of wise men are like goads these are the goads right here so how are we pricked and provoked let me give you three responses here first of all prepare get ready to die death will come sooner than you think death will come sooner than you think and this is important because some some of you may think that you have the ideal job you've you've got that mortgage locked in at at 2.9 percent you're impervious to whatever inflation May Come you even have that guaranteed uh that that guaranteed pension that's there you've got that clean bill of health from your latest doctor's visit you think that everything is going to last like that indefinitely you need these words or you're young you think I've got the whole I've got all of life in front of me I can make some mistakes now and recover later on I've got lots of decades to do that so I'm going to go out there and I'm going to enjoy life a little bit and then later deal with the consequences but there'll be enough time and Solomon is saying life is short prepare to die in fact you you're not ready to live unless you have really understood that you are going to die sooner rather than later and that leads to our next Point here learn the right lessons the very fact that you are listening you're here means you're still alive and it's still called today so you have to glean the lessons that that you have knowing that your life could be ended at any moment but yet your heart continues to beat and you still have the vapor coming in and going out we must have the attitude of the psalmist in Psalm 90 verse 12 teach us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of wisdom we need to draw lessons from the brevity of life we need to meditate on these things we need to think about implications that come from the fact that we will die sooner rather than later and then thirdly live really do live you have a life to live and as Solomon is going to say at the conclusion of his book he says God will bring every life to judgment you have a stewardship with this life that you have however brief it is and you don't know the time when the judge will call you to give an account you have a life to live so live for that which lasts live for that which death will not repossess live for that which death does not destroy Jesus said in Matthew 6 do not store up for yourselves Treasures on Earth where moth and rust destroy where thieves break in and steal store up for yourselves Treasures in Heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys live that life so that when you stand before your creator your judge and your Redeemer there is a life waiting for you and it's not back there in the grave Oswald Sanders said the best way to live one's life is to spend it on that which will last your life won't live for that which does Jonathan Edwards captured this well in one of his resolutions resolution 17. and this is the main takeaway from Ecclesiastes one two through eleven he said this resolved that I will live so as I shall wish I have done when I come to die can you say about about your own life that if you were to die tomorrow you could look back on your Deathbed and not just see regret Solomon's words are painful but pain is a gift to awaken you to action and ultimately this text draws from us a yearning for the one who will make all things new the one who will give eternal life and of course as we sang this evening already that is found in Jesus Christ let's give him thanks for that life father we are grateful for these goads we are thankful for these words which speak truth to us brutally these words that hold up in front of our eyes a skull to remind us of the place to which our bodies will return to remind us that we don't just cycle through this life over and over to remind us that we don't have endless Pursuits and endless opportunities there is One Life to Live we thank you for that reminder give us the wisdom to prepare to die to learn the lessons that it has that death has for our lives now and then teach us through this text and our continued study of how to really live to Steward what you've given to us in the right way so that as we stand before you we would have been those who have have had that fearful reverence that faith in you that that changes everything and how we view this life and as we pray these things we're so thankful for Jesus Christ whose own death is life to us we pray this in his name amen foreign