Hevel!

Ecclesiastes 1:2 “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”

The words of the “teacher” in Ecclesiastes are reminders of life. In any given age the reality of all that has meaning in life and all that is vanity or ‘Hevel’ in Hebrew, is but smoke and vapor.

When we first read the book, it’s easy to be discouraged by the summary of the teacher. Everything is vanity(Hevel), everything is temporary and fleeting. It’s here today and gone in but a moment. Life can be an enigma or a paradox, like smoke and vapor, you try to grasp it but it passes through the fingers and disappears as quickly as it came.

How easy it is for people to focus on gaining more in life, striving to reach the top, only to find the promises of satisfaction were a false hope, a grasping of vapor. Pleasure comes in an instant and the senses feel the fulfillment of desire, but as quickly as it came, it was gone.

The teacher may have been Solomon or another son of David who came along much later, regardless of who the teacher was, he held nothing back from what he desired.

How often do people search for anything in life to fulfill them apart from God?

Health, wealth, food, comfort, relationships, even status…the list goes on and on for all the ways we try to please the senses, to fulfill a longing that only God can fulfill.

Ecclesiastes 1:3-4 “What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.”

How many generations have come and gone? From one age to the next, people have sought after the same things. Sure, the cultures and demographics have changed, technology has increased as well as knowledge, but these things haven’t changed the heart of man. People still have the same desires and if they place their focus on values that can’t be sustained, life can be so discouraging. Some achieve much, and like Solomon, fulfill all their worldly desires. But in ages gone by, they all reach the same conclusion…..Hevel! Like a vapor or smoke, striving to grasp meaning from fleshly indulgences is a practice in futility.

Ecclesiastes 1:5 “The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens^c to the place where it rises.”

Time Goes On

What is time but a spinning earth watching the sun come into view and then go out of view. It spins at a constant rate and so we measure time by the spinning, each day comes and goes, the sun comes into view, and disappears on the horizon. People try to make life last longer and thereby adding more revolutions of the spin. Sounds ridiculous but the massive health craze in western culture has people working out, swallowing vitamins, and spending copious amounts of money on preserving their lives so they can see the sun one more day. Hevel!

From age to age, not one person has been able to preserve their life. All who are born will die.

Ecclesiastes 1:7 “All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.”

Lives are either lived for the Lord and the hope of life to come, or people live for today, thinking that life has no greater purpose. The water falls, the streams run, and empty into the ocean…much like life, people run their race and yet all their streams end up in an ocean of either regret or great joy.

Where is your stream running? To which path has your life taken and where is it going?

These are the questions we must ask ourselves today… if we are to be wise.

If you could sit upon a mountain and watch the world through each successive generation, you would see the hustle and bustle of life. Planting crops, hunting for food, building houses, and temples, and cathedrals, and then watching them collapse and start again. Great temples turn into massive high rises, small fishing boats into giant ships, wars, famines, kings, the rise and fall of civilizations has been ongoing from one generation to the next. What have you learned by watching them?

Hevel! All is Hevel…a smoke, a vapor, and then it’s gone. What remains? A legacy? Within a hundred years we are all forgotten. Can you name your great grandparents? What about your great, great, grandparents? If we can’t even remember the names of our families from only a couple generations back, why would we think anything we do will be remembered?

Ecclesiastes 1:11 “There is no remembrance of former things,
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be
among those who come after.”

The reality of Death

Death is the great equalizer in life. Rich or poor, wise or foolish, everyone succumbs to the ravages of time. People strive to extend their lives and for what? To live a couple more years, to see a little more hardship and pain? Have you ever met anyone who is older than 90 years of age that isn’t dealing with the reality of a body that is breaking down? Eyes dim, joints ache, systems fail, and the reality of the end becomes clearer.

The Teacher speaks much on death.

Ecclesiastes 12:1-2 “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain”

Why such a morbid outlook on life? Why not see the world for the joy that fills it and stop focusing on the doom and gloom?

Much like the ant and the grasshopper, where one prepares for the future and the other only lives for the day, true wisdom is found in those who recognize God’s Word and what is valuable in life.

Words of truth are only words until applied in life.

We can do our Bible studies, go to our jobs, go on vacations, raise our families, and yet if our focus is on ourselves, we miss the greater picture. The Lord has a plan for mankind, it is a searching for those who will follow Him and dwell with Him forever. The call goes forth, but we have a moral responsibility to respond.

Will we ever look up and seek the Lord’s will and not our own? Can we see the Lord’s hand in the small joys of life, the supply He provides, the ways that He protects and guides?

The Spirit of the Lord is over all of Creation. He has always been here, He has always called out to whomever would listen and respond in humility. Will you be one of them?

Ecclesiastes 12:11 “The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. “

All good wisdom comes from above. Nothing originating with men is new. People have wrestled with these ideas since mankind’s inception, and they will continue to do so until the Lord makes everything new.

What will be your legacy? Will it be one of faithfulness and love? For those who walk in the ways of the Lord, they find the teachers conclusions as wise….

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.”

Fear God….recognize it is the Lord who made Heaven and Earth and He is sovereign over His creation. There are no other god’s apart from Him. Recognizing God’s power and glory is to honor Him. Keeping His commandments is to walk with Him, and show love. In doing so, you demonstrate your position as a son or daughter of the King of kings.

Jesus is Lord of all. He died that you might have life. He rose from the grave and conquered death so that your life might go on with Him.

There is no life apart from Jesus. Only the wise know this….they grasp for the hand of Jesus and not just another vapor.