Ecclesiastes 1:14

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Our verse for today is Ecclesiastes one verse 14, which says,

I have seen all things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. (Ecclesiastes 1:14)

I read a story the other day about a man who had always dreamed of hiking through the Grand Canyon, so he saved up money. He got himself in shape. He bought that ticket to Arizona, and off he went. He began his hike. It was a three day hike, going from the top of the Grand Canyon, down into the bottom and up through the top. It was a challenging hike, but he was ready to do it.

Day one of the hike went well. Everything went exactly as he had planned. Then day two there was a challenge. You see, there had been a torrential rain storm that had washed out the trail that he had planned on taking, and suddenly he found himself lost. Very lost. He spent days out in the desert, and after time began to pass, he began to have hallucinations. Began to see mirages. He would see what looked to be rescuers coming to rescue him. See helicopters in the sky that were not there. He saw a table set with the most delicious food. But of course, none of it was there.

Thankfully, a few days later he was rescued and he was taken to the hospital and quickly released. He went home and his family had prepared a beautiful meal for him. It was almost like Thanksgiving time all over again. As he sat there and looked at the food, he thought to himself, man, I really wish I could go back to the desert and eat that food that I saw there.

That would be absurd. That food that he saw in the desert wasn’t real food. It wasn’t tangible. It couldn’t help him or give him life. But the food here on the table was exactly what he needed. It was life giving. It was real.

That seems like an odd example, but that’s kind of what this text here in Ecclesiastes is talking about. When it talks about things under the sun being meaningless. Meaningless is an interesting word. A lot of translations use the word smoke. Well, what does that mean? That everything is smoke? We stop and think about it, smoke looks like something that is there, something that is tangible, something you can reach out and grab. But when you try to grab it, it’s gone. It slips between your fingers. It’s not really there. And that’s how a lot of things in life are. They seem to be important, but when we try to cling to them, there’s really nothing to cling to. But so often we’re tempted to try to cling to those things, whether it be money or happiness or wealth. These things that seem important, these things that seem as if they can give us life and everything we need when we cling to them, they let us down. They slip between our fingers.

The author of Ecclesiastes knows that there is something better. There is something that we can cling to, something that like that real food is life giving and that is Christ. We cling to Christ and Him crucified, and that is real, and that’s tangible. And not only is it not smoke that slides through our fingers, but it’s a foundation. The Bible tells us a firm foundation on which we can stand and be built up. What a beautiful thing we have in Christ. So life isn’t meaningless, but life is temporary. It’s fleeting. And in Christ we have meaning and eternal life. Amen.

Ecclesiastes 12:7

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What are human beings? Now that maybe seems like a very strange question. After all, anybody asking that question should know, right? After all, don’t only human beings ask the question, what are human beings? We should be able to tell each other what we are from our own experience. Yet I think it’s a very important question for us to ask, because people have different opinions, different ideas on this topic of what a human being is.

There are the materialists, people that say that we’re basically just a big clump of cells with these electro chemical pulses that happen in our body that cause us to move, that causes us to think and cause us to have sensations and feelings and that sort of thing. But then what happens when you die? Well, such people would say that once you cease to live any longer, once those electro chemicals stop, well, then you’re dead. And that’s it. No more. There’s no more you. Right?

Then there’s kind of another train of thought that believes that there is both the material part of a human being, but also an immaterial part, sometimes referred to as a spirit or soul. And that’s really what the Bible tells us concerning human beings, that we are both body and soul. I think of one place in Scripture that we see this is recorded in Ecclesiastes chapter 12, verse seven, as it speaks concerning one who has died. As it talks about the body.

The dust goes back into the ground—just as it was before, and the spirit goes back to God who gave it. (Ecclesiastes 12:7)

The passage talks about that when a Christian dies, their body is buried in the ground. It returns to the dust. And we hear in Genesis chapter one that our bodies, human being, bodies, were made from dust, but the soul or the spirit returns to God who gave it. It says that there’s part of us that remains even beyond death. And isn’t that good news to hear? To know that there is a part of us that remains even after we die. You know, think about how tragic it is to think in those other terms of the materialistic way of thinking that when you’re dead, you’re dead, and that’s it. That means that you never again can see a loved one who has died. That’s it. They’re gone forever.

But the Bible tells us very differently. The Bible tells us that isn’t the end. The Bible tells us, furthermore, that those that die trusting in their Savior, Jesus Christ, their soul, doesn’t just go to be with God for a time. But on the last day, we’ll be reunited with the body. They will be a whole human being once again, both body and soul. To live with God in a perfect place called heaven. And we can see them there again, too, trusting in that same Savior, Jesus Christ and what he has done for us. We can know that we will not end up in hell forever because of our sins, but rather because of what Christ has done for us. We will live with him, both body and soul, with all other believers in Christ for all eternity.

So that’s some good news for us, especially as we consider what human beings are. Let us not just understand human beings are both body and soul, but more importantly, let us trust the Savior that gives us eternal life, both body and soul, forever in heaven. Amen.

Ecclesiastes 9:12, Psalm 124:7

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One of our Bible classes at Mount Olive. We’ve been reading through the Old Testament book, Ecclesiastes. If you’ve ever read or studied that particular book from the Old Testament, you know that it can be a little bit gloomy. Solomon is speaking in a very blunt and realistic way about life here under the sun. And one of the themes that he returns to again and again is the universality of death and the inevitability of death. In other words, everyone will die unless our Lord comes back on the last day before then. Nobody gets out of here alive. Death is inevitable.

That’s a frightening thought, of course, if we dwell on it, especially as we realize that sometimes death can come with cruelty. Can be unexpected. And so true to form Solomon here, in Ecclesiastes in the ninth chapter says

Certainly, no man knows his time [of death]. Like fish caught in a deadly net and like birds caught in a trap, people are trapped at an evil time which falls on them suddenly. (Ecclesiastes 9:12)

And so, of course, the caution for us is, that we be ready to face that inevitable death that comes to us all, knowing that sometimes it can come to us very suddenly and with cruelty. As Solomon speaks of that, a bird getting caught in a trap. One moment it’s flying, enjoying the world God has created, the next the bird is on the ground looking for something to eat. And then suddenly it’s caught in the trap. And the fouler now has that bird in its possession and its life is probably about to end.

We’re reminded that when Jesus calls us out of this world, it could be quite sudden and we need to be ready for that. If this is where the message of the Scripture ended, of course we would be very discouraged and frightened by it. Solomon’s father was King David. David, we know, wrote most of the Psalms, beautiful poems, often very comforting and uplifting. And here’s an example of what Solomon’s father said about this notion of birds getting caught in a trap. In Psalm 124.

We have escaped with our lives like a bird out of the fowlers’ snare. The snare has been broken, and we have escaped.(Psalm 124:7)

Well, who broke it? Here we can picture our Lord Jesus walking through that field on the floor of that forest and coming upon a trap and with a heavy stick, he hits the trap and it breaks. And the little bird is suddenly free. Free to return to its nest, free to fly. And that’s what we too, can look forward to, because our Lord Jesus, by his holy sinless life for us and by is innocent suffering and death on the cross has paid for all of our sins, and he has actually wrecked death itself, just as the snare of the fouler has been wrecked.

And when life ends for us, in the words of the famous American folk song. Someday I’ll fly away. Now, as we approach Lent, we’ll again celebrate this wonderful news that in Christ, our sins have been paid for and nothing can hold us back from entering into paradise when life ends. May God keep us in that faith always, amen.

What does the Bible say about resurrection?

One day at church, an elderly member of mine was picking up her grandson from catechism class and she asked me: “what does it mean when we talk about resurrection? I always imagined that heaven would be kind of like a dream and that we’d be like spirits or ghosts living with God forever.”

I decided to point her to the Bible to Ecclesiastes 12 verse 7 which says this:

The dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. –Ecclesiastes 12:7

I told her that the Bible is describing what death is like for the believer. That our body and soul separate our soul goes to be with God in heaven and our body is buried in the ground.

However, it doesn’t remain that way. In fact, the Scriptures tell us that on the last day Christ shall return and raise our bodies our same flesh up and reunite them with our souls and we shall live with God forever in heaven. I pointed her to Job chapter verses 25 and 26:

I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me! –Job 19:25-26

job is clearly testifying to the belief and the truth that on the last day Christ shall return in glory and raise our same bodies, though they have decomposed in the ground, yet he’s going to bring that body, those dust and ashes, back to life.

We need look no further than Christ’s resurrection to get a glimpse of our own. As the Apostle Paul tells us in Philippians chapter 3 verse 21:

(the Lord Jesus Christ) will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. –Philippeans 3:21

What a comfort enjoy to know that heaven is much more than a dream. Yes we shall live forever with God in heaven both body and soul with new and glorious bodies transformed to be like Christ’s own body. Oh how we look forward to that day when we shall see him face to face in life eternal. Amen.

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