Latest / Reformed Thinking / Before the Breath Is Gone: Holy Joy of a Fleeting Life (Ecclesiastes 9:1–10)

Transcript

Before the Breath Is Gone: Holy Joy of a Fleeting Life (Ecclesiastes 9:1–10) · Reformed Thinking

0:00
You know, usually when you think about getting a medical
0:03
diagnosis, there's this expectation of like, precision.
0:07
It is very mechanical. You break your arm.
0:09
The X-ray shows that jagged white line on the screen and the
0:13
doctors points out and says, there it is.
0:16
That is the problem. Right.
0:17
Yeah, it is totally binary. You have the answer right in
0:20
front of your eyes, broken or not broken.
0:23
Yeah, it is clean. It is visible.
0:24
And honestly, it is comforting. You know, we like things to be
0:27
visible. We like to be able to categorize
0:29
our lives. We want to know that our
0:31
circumstances have these clear, readable reasons behind them.
0:35
We basically want to look at our lives like an X-ray.
0:38
Oh, for sure. But then you step into the realm
0:42
of interpreting the will of God and dealing with human mortality
0:45
and suddenly that X-ray machine is just totally busted.
0:48
We are looking at a landscape that is incredibly murky.
0:51
You can't just hold up a scan of your life and say here's why
0:54
this tragedy happened, or here is why this sudden financial
0:57
blessing showed up. Right, Well, welcome to reformed
1:00
thinking. Today we are taking a deep dive
1:03
into an ancient text that forces us to look at that murky reality
1:07
head on. Our mission today is to look
1:09
into the striking wisdom of Ecclesiastes Chapter 9, verses
1:12
one through 10. The goal here is to figure out
1:15
how to live with holy, sober joy before God in a fleeting world.
1:20
We want to figure out how to avoid, you know, cynical despair
1:24
on one side and shallow frivolity on the other.
1:27
Yeah. And to do that, we are drawing
1:29
on some highly specific, robust, conservative theological
1:32
analysis of the text. Our primary sources today
1:35
include two extensive commentaries. 1 is called Before
1:38
the Breath is Gone, and the other is Savoring the vapor.
1:41
Sketchy titles they are. Yeah.
1:43
And these documents take a really rigorous look at the
1:45
original language, the historical context and the
1:47
theological implications of Ecclesiastes.
1:50
They tackle the heavy questions of Providence and mortality,
1:52
pulling no punches about what the text actually says.
1:55
So I want to ask you, the listener framing question to
1:58
keep in mind as we go through this material today.
2:01
How do you balance the hard reality of human mortality with
2:05
the daily joys of like food, family and work?
2:10
Think about your own life for a second.
2:11
How do you hold the absolute certainty of the grave in one
2:14
hand and a joyful cup of coffee or a laugh with your spouse in
2:19
the other? It is a massive tension.
2:21
It really is. And to grasp how this text
2:23
handles that tension, we have to start by looking at the man who
2:26
wrote it and the specific vocabulary he uses to describe
2:29
reality. Right, so the historical context
2:31
is key here. The author of Ecclesiastes is
2:33
Solomon. We are talking about the 10th
2:35
century BC King of the United Monarchy of Israel, right?
2:38
This is a man who possessed unrivaled wisdom and immense
2:41
wealth. But he is writing this book late
2:43
in life after his tragic fall into idolatry.
2:46
If you look at First Kings Chapter 11, it records how his
2:48
foreign wives led his heart astray.
2:51
He built high places for foreign gods.
2:53
Yeah, it is a sad trajectory. Very.
2:55
The sources we are looking at describe Ecclesiastes as the
2:58
inspired record of an old King's late in life repentance.
3:03
He is looking back at a life where he tried to find
3:05
satisfaction in absolutely everything.
3:08
Architecture, wealth, sensual pleasure, intellectual pursuits.
3:13
He had unlimited resources to test every avenue of human
3:17
happiness, and he found it all wanting.
3:19
Wait, I am struggling with this right out of the gate.
3:21
Let's look at this authorship debate because I know it is
3:23
heavily contested. Yeah, why does it matter if
3:26
Solomon wrote it? If the wisdom is good, who cares
3:28
if some anonymous writer in the 3rd century BC wrote it under a
3:32
pen name? That is a fair question, but our
3:34
sources have a very firm stance on this.
3:36
They aggressively reject liberal higher critical scholarship.
3:40
Those critics argue that there are Aramaicisms in the text,
3:44
essentially linguistic clues that they claim belong to a
3:46
later period, or Hellenistic philosophical influences that
3:49
could not have existed in Solomon's time.
3:51
OK, so they try to late date the book.
3:53
And why do our authors view that as such a massive problem?
3:56
Because in this conservative framework, that critical
3:59
approach is viewed as a direct assault on the perspicuity and
4:03
inerrancy of Scripture. Hold on.
4:04
Define those terms for the listener.
4:06
Oh, sure. So perspicuity means the clarity
4:08
of scripture. It means the Bible is clear and
4:11
understandable in its basic teachings.
4:13
Inerrancy means it is without error in all that it affirms.
4:17
The internal evidence of Ecclesiastes explicitly says it
4:21
is written by the preacher the son of David, King in Jerusalem.
4:24
Ah, I see. So if the text claims to be
4:27
written by a specific historical figure, and it actually was not,
4:31
then the text is being deceptive.
4:33
You got it. The sources argue there is only
4:35
one historical figure who fits that specific description and
4:38
live that specific life of massive wealth and subsequent
4:40
regret. If you deny Solomonic
4:43
authorship, you're essentially saying the book begins with a
4:45
fabrication. They maintain that undermining
4:48
the authorship undermines the integrity and authority of the
4:50
text itself. OK, so once we establish that
4:53
Solomon is the author, we have to understand the core concept
4:56
he uses to frame the whole book. The word is evil.
4:59
Traditionally in older translations it gets translated
5:02
as vanity. Like vanity of vanities, all is
5:05
vanity. Yeah, the classic King James
5:07
rendering. Right, but the sources point out
5:09
that Heba literally means vapor or mist.
5:13
It appears 38 times in the book and he couples it with the
5:16
phrase Under the Sun, which he uses 29 times.
5:20
That phrase under the sun defines the horizontal earthly
5:23
perspective of life in a cursed post Genesis 3 world.
5:28
It brackets his observations. He's looking at life strictly
5:31
from the viewpoint of someone standing on the Earth, dealing
5:34
with the reality of sin and death, completely detached from
5:37
Heaven's hidden throne room. Let me throw an analogy out
5:39
there to help picture this. Trying to hold on to earthly
5:42
security is like trying to grab a handful of morning fog.
5:46
When you walk outside on a chilly morning, you can see the
5:48
fog. It is real.
5:49
It is visible. It affects how you drive and how
5:51
you see the world. But the second you reach out and
5:54
close your fist around it, there is nothing in your hand.
5:57
It just slips through. Yeah, your fingers just close on
5:59
empty air. That is Hebel.
6:01
That is the vapor of life. But here is my question.
6:05
Why is realizing that life is a vapor actually the first step
6:09
toward true wisdom, rather than just leading a straight into
6:13
total nihilism? Because recognizing the vaporous
6:16
nature of life forces you to stop trusting in the fog.
6:20
To build on your analogy, if you know you cannot grasp the mist,
6:23
you stop trying to build a house on it.
6:25
You stop trying to use it as a solid footing.
6:27
It forces you to look upward to the only firm reality available,
6:31
which is God's sovereign hand. And that leads us right into the
6:34
agonizing tension of Chapter 9 verses one through 3.
6:37
Yeah, let's get into those verses.
6:39
The texture centers completely on God's absolute sovereignty.
6:42
The sources explicitly cite Chapter 3 of the Westminster
6:45
Confession of Faith at this point.
6:46
Yes, the confession states that God ordains whatsoever comes to
6:50
pass. The text of Ecclesiastes says
6:53
that the righteous, the wise, and their beads are strictly in
6:56
the hand of God. The Hebrew phrase the sources
6:59
highlight is biad, High Elohim. It is a stark anthropomorphism
7:03
denoting absolute divine control over every single human action
7:07
and outcome. But then Solomon drops this
7:09
massive, terrifying caveat. He says whether it is love or
7:13
hate, man does not know. Both are before him.
7:16
What does he mean by love or hate here?
7:18
In ancient Near Eastern covenantal language, love and
7:21
hate refer to covenantal favor or disfavor.
7:24
They refer to blessing and judgement.
7:26
The point Solomon is making is epistemological.
7:29
He is talking about what we can and cannot know with our limited
7:32
minds. You cannot read God's
7:34
disposition towards you based on your horizontal circumstances.
7:37
And this is where the sources take this ancient concept and
7:40
use it to completely dismantle some modern theological
7:42
movements. It is fascinating how they apply
7:44
this. They argue that this text
7:46
destroys the modern prosperity gospel.
7:48
Oh, absolutely. The prosperity gospel
7:50
essentially treats God as a cosmic bellhop who exists to
7:54
give you health and wealth if you just manifest enough faith
7:57
or give enough money. Our materials also state that
8:00
this text refutes Armenian theology, which they argue
8:03
assumes human goodness or free will can manipulate divine
8:06
outcomes. Now, to be clear to the
8:09
listener, we are just laying out the arguments found in the
8:12
source materials here. Right.
8:13
We are just reporting their theological framework, but the
8:16
logic they use is airtight within that framework.
8:19
If you cannot tell love or hate from circumstances, then
8:22
circumstances cannot be the measure of your faith.
8:24
You cannot assume that because you have money in the bank, God
8:26
is pleased with you. Conversely, you cannot assume
8:29
that because you just received a terrible medical diagnosis, God
8:32
is angry with you. Earthly events do not provide a
8:35
simple code by which man can infallibly determine God's
8:38
present disposition toward every individual.
8:40
Let me introduce another thought experiment for you, the
8:42
listener. Imagine trying to read an entire
8:45
intricate novel by only looking at the barcode on the back
8:49
cover. You see a few black and white
8:51
lines, some thick, some thin, and from those lines you try to
8:54
guess the entire plot, the character arcs, and the author's
8:57
underlying intent. That is what we do when we try
9:01
to interpret God's hidden Providence through a single
9:03
tragedy or a sudden financial windfall.
9:06
We look at one isolated line of the barcode and assume we
9:09
understand the whole book. Why is that interpretive
9:12
arrogance so dangerous? Because it inevitably leads to
9:15
one of two devastating extremes, pride or despair.
9:19
If you experience success, you become proud.
9:22
You assume your moral performance manipulated God into
9:25
blessing you. You think you cracked the code.
9:27
On the other hand, if you experience suffering, you fall
9:29
into absolute despair. You assume God has abandoned you
9:32
or that you are being uniquely punished.
9:34
Solomon is trying to crush that prideful legalism and
9:37
self-reliance. He wants to strip away the
9:38
illusion of control. The wise response is reverent
9:41
trust. Faith must bow or sight cannot
9:44
explain. OK, so if God's circumstantial
9:46
blessings are totally unpredictable and we cannot read
9:50
the barcode, does the text offer any guarantees at all?
9:53
Is there anything we can know for sure?
9:55
There is one absolute certainty that Providence guarantees for
9:59
every single human being under the sun.
10:02
The text moves relentlessly. It's the inescapable reality of
10:06
death. Right.
10:07
The statistics from the sources are jarring.
10:09
They cite the CDC reporting over 3.2 million deaths annually in
10:13
the US alone. The mortality rate remains 100%.
10:17
No one is getting out of here alive.
10:19
Solomon drives this point home using meritisms.
10:22
Let's explain what a meritism is for those who might not know.
10:25
It is a figure of speech where two contrasting parts are used
10:28
to represent the whole. For example, when we say we
10:30
searched high and low, we mean we searched everywhere.
10:33
Solomon says the same event happens to the righteous and the
10:36
wicked, to the clean and the unclean, to the one who
10:38
sacrifices and the one who does not sacrifice.
10:41
He is exhausting every category of humanity.
10:44
The same event in Hebrew is McCrea CAD.
10:47
It happens to everyone. This proves that earthly
10:50
retribution is not mechanical. A good life does not buy you an
10:53
exemption from the grave. This is a bitter pill for the
10:56
legalist to swallow. You can eat perfectly, exercise
11:00
daily, and read your Bible every morning and the grave is still
11:03
waiting for you. The sources go into the original
11:05
language here to describe how humanity reacts to this
11:08
terrifying reality. They break down the Hebrew word
11:10
holot, which translates to madness, and the word raw, which
11:14
means evil. The authors argue that fallen
11:16
humanity walks in a state of spiritual stupor.
11:18
People build empires, harbor petty rivalries and obsess over
11:22
their social status as if they will never see the grave.
11:25
The authors also point out that death is not a natural friend.
11:28
Our culture often tries to sanitize death.
11:30
We use euphemisms. We treat it as just a natural
11:32
biological transition, a part of the circle of life.
11:35
But the sources, leaning heavily on conservative theology, state
11:39
that death is an intruder. It is the wages of sin.
11:42
It isn't evil under the sun because it displays the
11:44
catastrophic disorder introduced by the fall of man in Genesis
11:47
Three. It was not supposed to be this
11:49
way. I want to talk about that word
11:51
madness for a second. Why is the everyday denial of
11:54
death considered literal spiritual insanity?
11:58
Think about it this way. If you were on a massive ship
12:01
and you knew absolutely 100% that it was going to sink to the
12:05
bottom of the ocean in two hours, and instead of getting
12:07
into a lifeboat or preparing yourself, you started arguing
12:10
with another passenger about who gets to sit in the best deck
12:13
chair. People would call you insane.
12:16
Oh, without a deck? That is the whole lot Solomon is
12:18
talking about. We know the grave is coming.
12:20
We see the water rising, yet we spend our fleeting vapor of a
12:24
life arguing over deck chairs. Yes, and to build on your ship
12:28
analogy, not only are we arguing over the deck chairs, we are
12:31
actively trying to paint them and put our names on them,
12:34
pretending the ship will float forever.
12:36
We press the knowledge of our impending death.
12:38
We act as if we are immortal. Solomon is trying to forcibly
12:42
hold our faces to the cold reality of the grave so that we
12:45
wake up from this spiritual insanity.
12:47
If the grave is an absolute certainty and time is our only
12:51
currency, then wallowing in despair is just as foolish as
12:55
pretending death does not exist. So what does the author actually
12:58
tell us to do with this ticking clock?
13:01
Solomon introduces A jarring, unconventional proverb to show
13:04
why drawing breath today is such an immense privilege.
13:07
He says a living dog is better than a dead lion.
13:10
To feel the shock value of this, we need to understand the
13:13
cultural context of the ancient Near East.
13:16
The sources reference the Amarna letters.
13:18
Oh, the ancient clay tablet. Yeah, exactly.
13:20
Well, I shouldn't say it right. Yes, they were correspondence
13:23
between the Egyptian administration and its
13:24
representatives in Canaan and Amuru.
13:27
In these letters, vassal kings would deprecate themselves
13:29
before the pharaoh by calling themselves dead dogs.
13:33
In that culture, dogs were not beloved pets sleeping at the
13:36
foot of the bed. They were wild, feral, disease
13:38
ridden scavengers that roam the streets at night.
13:41
To be called a dog was the ultimate insult.
13:44
And lions, on the other hand, were the absolute pinnacle of
13:47
regal mite. There were symbols of royal
13:50
majesty. Kings haunted lions to prove
13:53
their strength. Yet Solomon reverses the status
13:55
entirely. He flips the hierarchy on its
13:57
head. Why?
13:59
Because the living have an epistemological advantage, the
14:01
text says. The living know that they will
14:03
die. Even the lowest, most despised
14:06
living creature, the scavenger dog, is in a vastly superior
14:10
position to the most powerful dead creature, the majestic
14:13
lion. The living still have time.
14:15
They have the opportunity to repent, to act, to change
14:17
course. The text also says the dead know
14:20
nothing. Now.
14:22
This phrase has caused a massive amount of theological debate.
14:24
Our sources address this very firmly.
14:26
They clarify that this statement is spoken phenomenologically
14:29
from under the sun point of view.
14:30
Let's unpack that word phenomenologically.
14:33
It means describing things as they appear to the human eye,
14:37
rather than making a comprehensive scientific or
14:39
theological declaration. For instance, we say the sun
14:42
goes down. We know the earth is rotating,
14:45
but from our earthly perspective the sun appears to sink below
14:48
the horizon. Solomon is looking at the dead
14:50
from an earthly horizontal perspective.
14:53
Our sources explicitly reject the doctrine known as soul
14:56
sleep. They point out that groups like
14:58
7th Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses use this specific
15:01
verse. The dead know nothing to teach
15:04
that conscious existence completely ceases after death,
15:07
and the soul is just asleep until the resurrection.
15:09
The authors of our sources categorically deny that
15:12
interpretation. They argue from the Hebrew text
15:14
itself. They look at the words of bad
15:17
meaning perish and helic meaning portion.
15:20
The text says their love, their hate, and their envy have
15:23
already perished. It means these earthly
15:25
affections have ceased functioning in the world of the
15:27
living. Furthermore, they have no more
15:30
portion, no more hillock left in this physical world.
15:33
The grammar shows they are not annihilated into non existence.
15:36
They are simply removed from the theater of earthly operations.
15:40
They can no longer interact with what happens under the sun.
15:42
I want to draw a connection for you, the listener.
15:45
Think of a billionaire who just passed away 10 minutes ago
15:48
versus a destitute person living on the street who is drawing
15:51
breath right now. From an earthly perspective, the
15:55
billionaire had all the majesty of the lion.
15:57
The destitute person might be viewed by a harsh society as the
16:00
lowly dog, but the destitute person still holds the most
16:04
valuable currency in the universe.
16:06
Time. The billionaire's earthly
16:08
portion is gone forever. His massive bank account, his
16:11
properties, his status, none of it means anything to him now.
16:15
He cannot change his eternal trajectory.
16:17
But the living person still has the capacity to turn to God, to
16:21
experience a sunset, to speak a kind word, to repent.
16:25
And that realization should really wake us up and, you know,
16:27
stop us from wasting time on petty grievances.
16:30
It brings an intense urgency to our lives.
16:32
Since time is our most valuable remaining asset and the dead
16:35
cannot use it. We must ask what God actually
16:37
commands us to do with this remaining time.
16:39
And the answer Solomon gives is incredibly surprising.
16:42
Given all the talk of graves and madness.
16:45
You would expect a call to absolute somber mourning.
16:48
But instead we see a call to what the sources term holy
16:51
worldliness. The text shifts to rapid fire
16:54
imperatives. Go eat your bread with joy and
16:56
drink your wine with a merry heart.
16:58
The Hebrew commands are sharp and direct.
17:00
Lick meaning go, equal meaning eat, shita meaning drink.
17:04
He says to wear white garments and let not oil be lacking on
17:07
your head. The sources point out that these
17:08
physical commands are grounded in a massive theological
17:11
indicative, the text says. For God has already approved
17:14
what you do. The Hebrew word there is ratza.
17:17
Yes, Ratza means to be pleased with or to accept favorably.
17:21
The authors connect this directly to the doctrine of
17:24
justification by faith. Because a believer is secure
17:27
before God, because they're standing as settled in the
17:29
heavenly courtroom, they are liberated from the performance
17:32
treadmill. Think about the psychological
17:35
weight of trying to earn God's favor.
17:37
If you are always wondering if God is angry with you, you
17:39
cannot even enjoy a meal. You eat anxiously, but Rutsa
17:42
says you were accepted. You can genuinely enjoy the food
17:45
because the pressure to earn your salvation is gone.
17:48
Here is where the sources present a very rigid dual
17:51
rejection. They set up two devastating
17:53
errors that humanity falls into regarding the physical world.
17:56
On one side you have idolatry, that is worshipping the gifts
17:59
themselves. You take money, food, sex or
18:02
status and you elevate them to the position of a God.
18:04
You look to them for ultimate satisfaction.
18:07
On the other side, you have unbiblical asceticism.
18:09
The sources take specific aim at Roman Catholic monasticism here,
18:13
arguing that it falsely treats the physical world as inherently
18:16
evil or corrupt. They see this ascetic impulse as
18:19
a denial of creation's goodness. They even quote the famous hymn
18:22
writer Isaac Watts to show how this sentiment sneaks into
18:25
Protestantism. Watts wrote How vain are all
18:28
things here Below each pleasure has its poison to.
18:30
The sources argue that this sentiment, while
18:33
well-intentioned and trying to keep us focused on heaven,
18:35
borders on insulting God's physical creation.
18:37
Asceticism is a false holiness. Let me give you an analogy to
18:40
separate these ideas. There is a massive difference
18:43
between admiring a beautiful painting and bowing down to
18:46
worship it. If a master artist paints A
18:49
breathtaking landscape and gives it to you as a gift, you honor
18:53
the artist by hanging it in your home, looking at it, and
18:55
enjoying its beauty. If you throw the painting in the
18:58
trash because you think enjoying its beauty is sinful, you insult
19:01
the artist. That is asceticism.
19:03
But if you start praying to the painting, obsessing over it, and
19:06
offering and sacrifices, you have fallen into idolatry.
19:10
The question is, how do we keep our enjoyment of good steak or
19:13
glass of wine from sliding into that idolatry?
19:17
The key mechanism is gratitude. Enjoying God's gifts does not
19:20
compete with our worship of God. Rather, enjoying the gifts as
19:24
gifts actually fuels our worship of the giver.
19:26
When you receive food, drink, and clothing with Thanksgiving,
19:29
recognizing they are a temporary portion from a sovereign hand,
19:32
it purifies the joy. You wear white garments and oil,
19:35
which in the ancient hot climate of the Middle East symbolize
19:38
celebration, refreshment and gladness, unlike the rough
19:40
sackcloth of mourning, because you recognize God's immense
19:43
generosity toward you. This joyful, robust theology
19:47
extends way beyond the dinner table.
19:49
It moves directly into our households, in our workplaces.
19:52
The commands continue into verses 9 and 10.
19:55
Verse 9 says to enjoy life with the wife whom you love during
19:59
your vapor life. The Hebrew phrase used there is
20:02
Chai heblecha, literally translated as your vain or
20:05
fleeting life, and verse 10 commands you to work with all
20:08
your might using the word coach because there is no work or
20:11
wisdom in she'll the grave. We need to report impartially on
20:14
how the sources handle verse 9 because they apply this marriage
20:17
command strictly through a complementarian lens.
20:20
Our authors take a very front stance here, entering into
20:22
modern cultural debates. They state that the text acts as
20:25
a repudiation of modern egalitarianism and what they
20:28
term toxic feminism. Right.
20:30
And again, we are just conveying their perspective.
20:32
They argue for a creation ordinance of sacrificial love
20:35
and submission, leaning heavily on a traditional interpretation
20:39
of gender roles from Genesis. In their view, marriage is an
20:42
elixir in a death row cell under the sun.
20:45
It is a fleeting, temporary gift meant to provide comfort and
20:49
partnership in a cursed world. Their application is incredibly
20:52
practical. You should not waste this brief
20:55
vapor of time on bitterness, score keeping, or restless
20:58
comparison. The grave is coming too fast to
21:01
spend your marriage fighting over trivialities and.
21:04
Regarding labor in verse 10, the sources are equally unflinching.
21:08
The command to work with might or coach is framed as a direct
21:11
strike against laziness. They specifically call out a
21:13
socialist mindset, asserting that the text demands rigorous
21:16
individual effort and personal responsibility.
21:20
And whether you agree with that political framing or not, their
21:22
theological point is that whether you are a ditch digger,
21:25
a stay at home parent, or a corporate executive, your labor
21:28
is viewed as a divine appointment.
21:30
You must pursue it vigorously before the grave closes the door
21:33
on all earthly opportunities. The logic driving this intense
21:36
work ethic is rooted in the finality of death we discussed
21:39
earlier. The text explicitly says there
21:41
is no work, device, knowledge or wisdom and she'll the deadline
21:45
is absolute. Therefore passivity is a sin.
21:48
You cannot wait around for ideal conditions.
21:50
You have to put your hands to the plow right now.
21:52
But let me ask a parted question on behalf of you, the listener.
21:56
If all our earthly work ends at the grave and we leave it all
21:59
behind, isn't working hard just building sand castles at low
22:03
tide? You can build the most
22:04
magnificent sandcastle on the beach with intricate moats and
22:08
towering Spires, but the tide is absolutely going to come in and
22:11
wash it completely flat. Why bother building it with all
22:14
your might? Why sweat and toil if the ocean
22:16
of death is just going to erase it?
22:18
That is the natural cynical question, but the sources answer
22:22
this by leaning into the Christian theology of work as an
22:24
act of worship. They argue that while the
22:27
physical results of our labor might not survive the grave, the
22:30
spreadsheets will be deleted, the buildings will crumble, the
22:33
sandcastle will wash away. The act of faithful labor itself
22:36
glorifies God. You are not building the
22:39
sandcastle because you think the sandcastle is eternal.
22:42
You are building it because the King commanded you to build it,
22:45
and your obedience brings him glory.
22:47
The product may be temporary, but the act of faithful
22:50
obedience echoes into eternity. That is a vital distinction.
22:54
It shifts our view of Monday morning entirely.
22:57
This realization that our earthly labor and our marriages
23:00
are temporary points us toward the only permanent solution for
23:03
our mortality. All of this Old Testament wisdom
23:06
is building towards something greater.
23:08
The deep dive shifts here to the New Testament looking for
23:11
Christological fulfillment. The authors assert that Jesus is
23:14
the true wise man, vastly greater than Solomon.
23:17
Where Solomon failed, falling into idolatry and despair,
23:20
Christ perfectly trusted the Father's hidden Providence.
23:23
Let's connect this back to Ecclesiastes 9.1 where we talked
23:26
about the inscrutable Providence of God, where you cannot tell
23:29
love from hate by looking at the barcode of circumstances.
23:32
The sources connect this directly to the cross of
23:34
Calvary. It is the ultimate example of
23:36
deceptive circumstances. If you judge by earthly sight
23:40
alone, Jesus, hanging on the Roman cross, appeared cursed.
23:43
He appeared abandoned, defeated, and hated by God.
23:46
It looks like the absolute triumph of evil.
23:49
Yet at that exact moment of darkest, most agonizing
23:52
Providence, God's saving love was displayed most gloriously.
23:57
The sources cite Romans 5.8. God shows his love for us and
24:00
that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
24:02
So when you face a tragedy that makes you question God's love,
24:05
when the X-ray is terrifying or the bank account hits 0, you
24:09
shouldn't look at your circumstances to gauge God's
24:10
affection. You must look at the cross.
24:13
The cross completely forbids simplistic readings of
24:15
suffering. Furthermore, the sources point
24:17
out that Christ physically entered Sheol.
24:20
He went into the realm of the dead Solomon dreaded, and he
24:22
broke its grip from the inside out.
24:25
First Corinthians 15.55 declares Oh death, where is your victory?
24:29
Oh death, where is your sting? The Lion of Judah conquered the
24:33
grave. Because of this, the living hope
24:35
of Ecclesiastes has turned into a fuller bodily resurrection
24:38
hope. Our sources also apply this
24:40
victory to specific church practices in eschatology.
24:43
They advocate very strongly for believers baptism by immersion.
24:46
They argue this practice is a visible physical testimony of
24:49
dying to this cursed world, going under the water as if into
24:51
the grave, and being raised to new life.
24:54
And they read the entire text through a dispensationalist
24:57
lens. This is a theological framework
24:59
that anticipates a pre tribulational rapture and a
25:03
literal physical millennial Kingdom on earth.
25:06
From their perspective, the earthly joys we experience now,
25:09
eating a good meal, drinking wine, enjoying marriage, working
25:13
hard, are not just coping mechanisms for the vapor.
25:16
They are actual faint shadows of the glorified physical joys to
25:20
come in that future Kingdom. The physical world is not
25:23
abandoned to rot. It is eventually redeemed and
25:26
perfected. So how does the reality of the
25:28
resurrection specifically change our daily relationship with the
25:32
vapor of life? Well, it removes the panic.
25:34
If death has been conquered, you do not have to clutch at the
25:37
vapor. You do not have to squeeze every
25:39
drop of pleasure out of today in a frenzy of anxiety, fearing
25:42
that the short life is all there is.
25:44
You can enjoy the fog, knowing that the solid ground of
25:46
eternity is waiting beneath your feet.
25:48
It frees you to obey God without the paralyzing fear of the
25:51
grave. As we prepare to wrap up this
25:53
deep dive on Reformed thinking, let's summarize how this ancient
25:56
wisdom restructures our daily priorities.
25:59
We have covered a massive amount of ground today.
26:02
We started with the reality that God's Providence is sovereign,
26:05
but it is entirely hidden from our horizontal view.
26:08
We cannot read the barcode of our circumstances to determine
26:11
His favor. We recognize that death is a
26:13
universal certainty. It is the great equalizer that
26:16
comes for the despised dog and the majestic lion alike.
26:20
Earthly status offers no protection.
26:22
Therefore, because time is short and God is sovereign, we must
26:25
vigorously pursue joy, we must faithfully engage in our
26:29
marriages without bitterness, and we must labor earnestly, not
26:32
as idols that we worship, but as temporary gifts from a sovereign
26:35
God, all of it anchored by the victory of Christ over the
26:38
grave. The sources leave us with a
26:40
final exportation. They challenge the reader to
26:42
reject pragmatic, seeker sensitive models of religion.
26:46
They argue vehemently against a cheap therapeutic deism that
26:49
just wants to maximize fleshly comfort and ignores the whole
26:52
holy wrath of God against him. Instead, they call for a robust
26:56
doxological life, doxological meaning a life characterized by
26:59
worship and praise. We are to put death to shame by
27:02
wringing every drop of God glorifying pleasure out of this
27:05
brief vapor, knowing our justification is totally secure
27:08
in Christ. I want to leave you, the
27:10
listener, with a final arresting thought to consider on your own.
27:14
The text makes it clear that the living know they will die.
27:17
In a very real sense, that makes every funeral a sermon.
27:21
Every empty chair at the dinner table, every fading appetite,
27:24
every Gray hair is preaching to us that our breath is borrowed.
27:29
So think about this. If your life ended today, what
27:32
specific sermon would your passing preach to your family
27:35
and friends about how you viewed the gifts of God?
27:38
Would they look back and see someone who worship the gifts,
27:40
constantly stressed and anxious about losing them?
27:43
Would they see someone who cynically despised them, trapped
27:46
in a set of gloom, refusing to enjoy the sunshine?
27:49
Or would they see someone who received those fleeting,
27:51
vaporous gifts with intense, grateful joy, trusting the
27:54
hidden hand of a sovereign God? Remember, the X-ray machine
27:58
might be broken when it comes to understanding why things happen
28:00
in this life, but the reality of the vapor is absolutely clear.
28:04
Spend your breath wisely. Thank you for joining us for
28:07
this deep dive on Reformed thinking.