Ecclesiastes 1:12 – 2:26

Sermon Notes

“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment.”
Woody Allen

“Whoever he was, Qoheleth was a realist about the many ways in which this world gives us a rough ride. But while temperamentally inclined to pessimism and cynicism, I think, he was kept from falling into either of those craters of despair by a strong theology of joy.”
J. I. Packer

What genre of literature is Ecclesiastes?

Wisdom literature:

5 wisdom books: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs

Poetry:

use of literary devices like simile, metaphor, imagery from nature, proverbs, parables, etc

Personal journal/memoir

in which Ecclesiastes presents the musings of a brilliant mind, the struggles of an honest soul, the questions of a curious heart.

The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.
Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

1. The Vexation of Earthly Wisdom

This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy.
James 3:15-17

For the Lord gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.
Proverbs 2:6

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Proverbs 9:10

“Wisdom is concerned with the correct ordering of life. Wise action is that which integrates people harmoniously into the order God has created. The rules of life that prescribe how human beings must integrate themselves into that order are the precepts of wisdom.”
J. A. Loader, Ecclesiastes

2. The Emptiness of Unbridled Indulgence

“Ecclesiastes is a satiric attack on an acquisitive, hedonistic, and materialistic society. It exposes the mad quest to find satisfaction in knowledge, wealth, pleasure, work, fame, and sex.”
Leland Ryken, Ecclesiastes

3. The Vacuity of Obsessive Productivity

“The biggest disease in North America is busyness.”
Thomas Merton

4. The Gifts of God for the People of God

“Jesus’s command to follow him is a command to align our loves and longings with his—to want what God wants, to desire what God desires, to hunger and thirst after God and crave a world where he is all in all—a vision encapsulated by the shorthand ‘the kingdom of God.’”
James K. A. Smith, You Are What You Love

“The function of Ecclesiastes is to bring us to the point where we begin to fear that such a comment (all is vanity) is the only honest one. So it is if everything is dying. We face the appalling inference that nothing has meaning, nothing matters under the sun. It is then that we can hear, as the good news which it is, that everything matters—‘for God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. This is how the book will end. On this rock we can be destroyed: but it is rock, not quicksand. There is a chance to build.”
Derek Kidner