Music playing Do the facts of life, as presented here by the preacher man, do the facts of life bear out his thesis—namely, that life is meaningless.
Well, look at what he points out. First of all, he says in verse 3, here is a fact of life, it's marked by drudgery. What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun? It's frankly boring, he says.
It's just another day. Now, management understands this, work-study people understand this, and scientific journals are clear on it. Quoting from one, it says this, By and large people seldom enjoy their work, nor do they enjoy traveling to and from it. Most jobs are repetitive, require very little personal initiative, and for the most part, people are incapable of fulfilling anything like their full potential through them. People go to work that they do not enjoy and spend a considerable proportion of their working hours getting to work and then home. It thus looms large in a life that is not very pleasant at the outset. You say, yes, but if we could get up and beyond that, you know, then it would all be different.
No, I don't think so. 1969, we have a man on the moon, one small step for a man, one giant step for mankind. But by 1980, Dr. Louis Thomas, writing in the Harvard magazine, says, You can walk on the moon if you like, but there's nothing to do there except look at the earth.
And when you've seen one earth, totally meaningless. You're gonna punch in and punch out? Simply go through this, do your best to make sense of it, and then finally die? I met a man who sang the blues.
I asked him for some happy news. It's a fact of life. Secondly, verse 4, life is marked by transience. When I went through that graveyard, the numbers fell out the way they always do. They averaged out to around three score years in ten, just exactly as the Bible says. As for man, his life, on average, will last about seventy years. There were a couple of ninety-ones on eighty-four, there was a fourteen, a twenty, and so on.
I did the math in my head, which is always dangerous, as you know, but I'm pretty sure that it would come out right around three score years in ten. The frailty of our lives this morning is not in question. I walked on grass familiar to me in Scotland, and as I walked down beaten paths, not cart paths put in with concrete and black stuff, but just paths that had been eroded by many, many travelers, I was confronted by the fact that I walked these paths when I was three years old, and before me people walked it, and before them people walked it, and one of the pebbles on the seashore that I picked up and let pass through my hands.
These have been around for so long. Thirdly, life is repetitive. That's the significance of his description of the wind, and the sun, and the streams. He says, think about the sun.
It's in its same course every day. Never goes on vacation, never does anything different, just goes round and round. It hurries back to where it rises. The moon is up, and then it's down.
The wind, it blows off somebody's hat, it provides a refreshing breeze, it brings the leaves down so that we can rake them if we wish, it makes the aircraft bounce around, particularly under ten thousand feet, and it never seems to quit. But where does it come from, and where does it go? And the stream, all streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. It's like a bathtub with a plug out.
Why? Well, because of evaporation. A trillion tons a day evaporating and being recycled in order that the bathtub may be filled up, and yet the bathtub is never full. Now, Solomon says, you think about this. Think about the stream.
Tennyson did, remember? For men may come and men may go, but I go on forever. The Broke, by Sir Alfred Lord Tennyson. He says, the reason I'm reminding you of these physical things is that human experience mirrors them. It mirrors them.
It is repetitive. That's why advertising, knowing this, is constantly urging us, you've got to get out. You've got to move on. You've got to try this. You've got to wear these. You've got to drive that. Now, why would that have such an appeal?
Because of the peculiar nature of our lives. So Neil Young says, I think I'll pack it in, buy a pickup, take it out to LA, find a place to call my own, start a brand-new day. He gets to LA. What does he find? He's in LA.
He's the problem. Not Alabama. Sweet home. Also notice in verse 8, life—and it's a fact—is insatiable. It's insatiable. All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear. It's full of hearing. I've got to go to the mall, Dad. Why? I've got to get a new CD.
A what? Yeah, I've got to get a new CD. Do you realize that you have 890 CDs?
880 of them have never even been played in the last five years. Yeah, but it's the new one. It's the new one. It's when I hear this one. When I see this thing. So the Rolling Stones are in town, singing what? Singing their mantra.
Reinforcing what Solomon says. I can't get no satisfaction. And I've tried, and I've tried, and I've tried.
Why is that? If only I had been taller. If only I were prettier. If only I had got two more floors up in this building.
If only I had been recognized for what I'm really worth. And so on. If only my house were a little broader. If only the stairwell were a little wider. If only the gadgets were a little slicker.
It's baloney, isn't it? You bought a computer lately? Welcome to the world of obsolescence. You know when you take that thing out, they're watching you go. They don't take their eyes off you till that thing is safely in the boot of your car, and you're off at the street, and the space on the shelf that you evacuated is now filled with the new zippity-doo-da version, which apparently wasn't coming out until October of 2003.
Don't kid yourself. Down the left-hand side, these computers are obsolete. Down the right-hand side, these computers will be obsolete as soon as you buy it. We have gadgets now to work our gadgets.
We have buttons that you press to make the noises of the remote control so that you can find it wherever it has been left around the house. Life is a huge appetite that can be never satisfied. Do you hear me? Life is a huge appetite that can never be satisfied. If you have been trying to unscramble your life by filling it with relationships, there isn't a relationship with a person on the face of the earth who can deal with the deep longings of your life. If you've been trying to satisfy it by intellectual pursuits, there's not a theorem that you can ponder that will ultimately satisfy your intellectual curiosity.
If you've been looking for it along the lines of an emotional trip, there is not a journey you can take that will answer the insatiable longing that is built into the very core of your being as a person. And the sooner that a man or a woman faces up to this, the sooner they can make sense of their lives. The sooner they can say, Aha! That makes sense! And in verses 9 and 10 is a fact of life, that what we have is the same old, same old.
That's the significance. What has been will be again. What has been done will be done again.
Just when we think we've had a new idea, we discover it in the ancient chronicles of the Greek or the Roman Empire. Just when the Wright brothers were fascinated with the flying, somebody said, You know, birds have been doing this for ages. I tried to get onto the M42 on the outskirts of Birmingham the other day, sitting as a passenger and crawling in the traffic. And the person explained to me that this would soon be done because they were putting a new perimeter road around Birmingham.
I said, That's wonderful. A ring road to ease the traffic. Have you ever found that one of those roads eased the traffic? It simply relocates the traffic jam. So eventually, you've got to have a ring road for your ring road. Eventually, your whole country will be one gigantic ring road, and everybody will be on it. You say, Well, that's called Los Angeles. Our improvements don't really improve things.
You build high-rise flats so that you can get a lot of people in a small space. But you destroy the sense of community in the space they've left behind. There are no surprises. There are no breakthroughs.
There are no interventions that really, ultimately, alter anything. Is this pessimism? No! This is life in the framework under the sun. Okay? From punch in to punch out. Think it through.
The nearer your destination, the more your slopes slide in a way. And life is marked also by insignificance. Verse 11, there's no remembrance of old men.
Even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow. Do you remember what's-his-name? What?
Who? What's-his-name? I mean, Mr. What's-his-the-thing-with-the-old? And so it goes. Are you talking about your uncle? Everybody believes they're going to be immortal.
Silly idea. So long, Frank Lloyd Wright! How come you left so soon? Architects may come, and architects may go, and never change their point of view. Or, in the words of Isaac Watts, Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its suns away.
They fly forgotten as a dream buzzes off at the opening of a new morning. Now, are you thoroughly depressed yet? Is this the whole story? Is there another perspective? Well, if you stay with the preacher man here, and he rules out God, then all you're left with is this.
Then all you can do is launch into acts of silliness. There's a reason for the drug-induced stupor of a young life. Because many times those young people, they went right down all these avenues. They said, This is insatiable. This is repetitive.
I don't want to be like my father. He leaves in the morning, he drives his car, he drives it home, he goes. Monday is the search and search. Tuesday is video night, you know. Wednesday is the lasagna. Friday is the search and search. I'm going insane.
I don't want to do this. But is there another alternative? You see, Solomon is asking an essential question. Is there life before death? Is there life before death?
Or is the limit of our senses so as simply to survive? Peter Berger, arguably one of the brightest sociologists of the twentieth century, commenting on this, says—and listen carefully, and I'm going to stop very soon—"I am impressed by the intrinsic inability of secularized world views to answer the deep questions of the human condition, questions of whence and whither and why. These seem to be ineradicable, and they are answered only in the most banal ways by the religions of secularism." And then he observes, perhaps finally, the reversibility of the process of secularization is probable because of the pervasive boredom of a world without gods. Smalji, he's not a believer, but he says the pervasive boredom of secularization may eventually run up against itself and usher us into the antidote to boredom, which is the discovery of gods.
Well, he proved absolutely correct. What he is writing, the book that he's writing in there, is called The Challenge of Modernity, and that has been replaced with Postmodernity, a world in which it is completely kosher to talk about angels and spiritual things and life and longings and hopes and dreams, and modernity has closed in on itself. So the people are out on the streets and say, well, maybe there's a little god somewhere that I could look into. Because I certainly haven't found the answer on these dead-end streets. Maybe I'll worship the god of education.
Oh, don't do that, because he's tried it, and with this I close. It's not about education, stupid. And yet education is the mantra, the answer for everything, isn't it? If only we were better educated, if only we understood more, if only we could advance in this and that. Every solid believer has to be for education and the best education that they can get, and for their children and their grandchildren.
Only a silly person would stand against it. There's a tremendous amount of education, and there's a dreadful lack of wisdom. And until we have the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, we can never really create a curriculum for sensible education.
And look at what he says in verse 14. I've seen all the things that are done under the sun, they're all meaningless, a chasing after the wind. For what is twisted can't be straightened. What is lacking can't be counted. It's like a Rubik's Cube with two blocks missing. No matter how many times you spin it, you can't get all the reds where they need to be—all the whites, all the yellows, all the greens, all the blues—because it is inherently flawed.
And my dear friend this morning, you're a sensible person. Think this out. Have you been able to put the Rubik's Cube of your life together in such a way that you've been able to answer the whence and the whither and the why? And if your worldview is unable to answer the whence, the whither, and the why, don't you think you ought to consider a different view of the world?
One that would answer the questions that are in your mind when you awaken in the middle of the night, and when you drive in your car, and when you think about things? Are you so proud as to hold on to these dead-end streets and four-lorn avenues? It's crooked, it's futile, and it's burdensome. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! This is ultimately the burden of man's rebellion against God.
The fact that man has said in his heart, I don't believe in God, and even if there is a God, I don't want anything to do with him. I want to go my own way. I want to chart my own course. And so Solomon says to himself, well, you know, I'm a pretty educated person. I'm actually the brightest that ever sat on this throne over Jerusalem.
I've experienced wisdom, so I'm going to apply myself to it. And not only that, he says, while I'm doing wisdom, I will also check out madness and folly. You know that there are certain schools of psychiatry that regard both madness and foolishness as genuinely acceptable, alternative views of the universe. And as soon as you go there, and of course, nobody knows who the crazy person is. In Britain, there is a political party called the Raving Monster Loony Party that comes out of the general elections.
Their slogan is, vote for insanity. You know it makes sense. Okay, you're sensible people, I'm finished. Solomon says, okay, that's enough for chapter 1. I'm just going to go home. I'm just going to play my stereo. I'm just going to have a nice cold drink.
I'm just going to sit back in my recliner, and I'm going to play the Moody Blues before I fall asleep. Why do we never get an answer when we're knocking at the door with a thousand different questions about peace and love and war? And then he hums to himself, I'm looking for someone to change my life. I'm looking for a miracle in my life.
Are you? Incidentally, attending services will never fill this void. Religious exercises, as helpful as they may be, an interest in the well-being of others, the participation in the routine bits and bobs of whatever is regarded as conformable and acceptable religious practice, can never answer the deep, insatiable longing of the human heart. That God-shaped void, as Pascal referred to it, may be addressed only by God himself. And there is only one who straddles the course of human history. And to those who are asking the question, Is there life before death? he says, I am the way and the truth and the life. You'll never get to know God except through me. I have come, he says, that you might have life and that you might have it in all of its fullness.
Well, here we are. It's time to punch out. I punch in and punch out the same as you. I think I may punch out for good if I had not come to understand that in the Lord Jesus Christ is the answer to all the deepest heartaches, longings, and aberrations of the human condition. And right where you are today in your heart of hearts, without a person to your right or your left even knowing, you call out to God, say, O God, O Lord Jesus Christ, I have been trying to find it in something or in someone other than you. You, O Christ, are all I want. More than all in you I find.
And you will discover that suddenly the Rubik's Cube doesn't work perfectly every time, but at least the blues can all be got together on one side. Without Jesus, our lives are marked by monotony, endless longings, and insignificance. But in Christ, we have fullness of life both before and after death. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg.
Alistair will be back in just a moment to close with prayer. In our study of the book of Ecclesiastes, we're learning about the brevity of life. It certainly seems as though time flies, particularly as we get older. If you are familiar with this experience, you will want to request the book we're offering. It's called Living Life Backward. The author draws from the book of Ecclesiastes to expand on what it looks like to live life in light of eternity. What should our priorities be? How do we embrace our human limitations? And how can we live each day contented and joyful?
When you read Living Life Backward, you'll learn how to live wisely, generously, and faithfully without being drawn off course by earthly distractions. Request your copy when you give a donation to support the teaching you hear on Truth for Life. You can tap the image on your mobile app or visit us at truthforlife.org slash donate. You can also call us if you'd like.
Our number is 888-588-7884. And if you'd like to share today's message with a friend, it's easy to do and it's free. You can simply click on the word share above today's program image on our website at truthforlife.org. Or if you're on the mobile app, just click the three dots below the program image.
You'll see the share option there. Now here is Alistair to close today with prayer. Father, thank you for the opportunity of being together. Thank you for the Bible. Thank you for the clarity with which it examines us and speaks. We pray this morning that it may search us out.
And those of us who are meandering up and down some of these cul-de-sacs, thinking that maybe on a different avenue there's the answer only to cut through by a side street and find that we're still confronted by the insatiable, unresolved, repetitive nature of our human existence. Thank you for confronting us with the possibility that to stop and go in the glove box and pull out the maker's instructions in the Bible might not be a bad idea, and to discover that it introduces us not to a scheme of thought, not to a religious profile, but ultimately to a person, namely the Lord Jesus Christ. So we want you to watch over us as we part from one another, to protect us in our comings and goings, to bring us again safely into the company of one another. And may the grace of the Lord Jesus and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit rest upon and remain with each one today and forevermore. Amen.
I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for joining us today. Why are we always longing for the next best thing, for the latest model, the bigger, better, faster, you name it? And why is satisfaction so fleeting once we get it? Join us tomorrow for a message titled, The Search for Satisfaction. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
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