THE BETTER LIFE, LIVED UNDER THE SUN

“Taking a ‘Time Out’”
Ecclesiastes 2:24-26
Bob Bonner
December 13, 1998

Last Monday Night, while working on a project at home, I had the chance to watch a little of the Monday Night Football game between the Green Bay Packers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It was a close game that came down to the wire. Late in the fourth quarter, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were on defense and they were exhausted. Green Bay knew that the Tampa players were tired and tried to run what’s called a “hurry up offense” which forces the Tampa players to keep running and keeps them from catching their breath.

At the same time they were running Tampa’s players ragged, Green Bay was also marching down the field, getting closer to a scoring position that would prove to be their last scoring drive. You could see fear and desperation starting to come over the Tampa players as they worried they might not be able to stop Green Bay or hold on to their lead. As a result, many of the players did the ol’ delay the game as much as possible trick so as to run out the clock. They were taking their time getting up and getting back into position. In addition, the delay tactics gave them more opportunity to rest their weary bodies.

Suddenly Dan Dierdorf, one of the ABC TV game commentators says, “Uh oh, Moron alert,” at which point I stopped what I was doing and looked up to see what that was all about. A fan had left his seat and decided that on national TV he was going to run across the field. 

TV producers don’t usually like to show that kind of fan participation because they don’t want to encourage more fans to behave in any crazy manner by giving them any media attention and further delay the game. But this time, one of the announcers says something like, “Whoa! What a tackle! Did you guys see that?!” And proceeded to shift from analyzing the game to analyzing the tackle that was made on this wayward fan. 

Then, the producers of the game decided that since the announcers had made such a big deal of the situation, they would make an exception of the event and show the audience what happened. Sure enough, a security guard took a classic tackling position and when the fan tried to run past him the security guard nailed this guy, taking him down in a perfect open field tackle.

From the time that fan first ran on the field until the game resumed there was about a five minute lapse in the game. For the first two or three minutes of this interruption, since the producer didn’t want to show the antics of this misled fan, he chose instead to focus on the other players on the field. As the cameras panned the field, the announcers commented on the exhaustion and heavy breathing that was going on by the defensive team and how this interruption to the game would be to the advantage of the defense because now they could rest and the offense couldn’t run any more hurry-up plays. By the end of the foolishness, when play was resumed, the producers panned back on to the defensive players and they had all caught their breath and were ready to play. In the end, Green Bay lost.

I tell you all of that because needing to stop to catch one’s breath is true of all of us from time to time. Often there are times when we wish we could just call “Time out!” We need to take a break from whatever we are doing or from whatever circumstances have befallen us and get some fresh air or just get a new perspective on whatever it is that’s facing us. In sports, it sometimes comes at half-time where you have to re-figure your strategy for winning the game. In a court room setting, it sometimes happens after a long period of testimony in which there has been a rather emotional inquisition going on. At those times the judge usually says, “The Court will take a short recess of ....” and everybody leaves to take an emotional or physical break from the proceedings.

As we are reading through the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon has come to one of those six or seven very needed “Time outs” in the book. He has been hitting on some rather heavy subject matters for the past two chapters--matters that leave one feeling down, despairing, and hopeless. You can almost hear the average reader cry out, “Man, what’s the use! All of life is a drag. I hope somebody can bring me relief from this depressing situation, because I can’t go on looking at life this way.” 

If you have been with us for the past several weeks you realize by now that this book was written as a journal of Solomon’s life and his search for meaning apart from God. This search deliberately began without considering God’s role in life. It is a search for meaning without God being added to the equation. The classic phrases used throughout this book that describe this search and its conclusions are “under the sun” and “vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

 So far in chapter one, Solomon has described life on planet earth as circular.  If we look at history and nature things never seem to progress. Things just keep going round and round and don’t really get anywhere. As human life goes, there are no significant advances taking place as it concerns meeting the needs of the human soul.  We are still learning the same old lessons over and over. People are just as lonely, just as wicked, and just as selfish as they were 4,000 years ago. There is nothing really new under the sun. 

Then in the latter part of chapter one, Solomon tells us that he ventures out to find meaning and purpose in life through several different avenues. One was the avenue of a liberal arts education. That avenue led to a dead end in which life still came up empty and unfulfilling. It wasn’t that education doesn’t have a place and purpose. It does. His point is that getting an education won’t meet the needs of the human heart. Then he tried the avenue of scientific and philosophical research. That didn’t produce anything profitable as to meeting the needs of the human soul either.

Next, we moved into chapter two where he tried the hedonist highway. He looked for pleasure in his ambitious projects at work, he looked for pleasure in his social events that included excellent meals. Then he looked for pleasures in the realm of playboy parties. He tried to find pleasure in earning the respect and prestige that comes from success. All of these avenues turned into dead ends. Nothing led to fulfillment or meaning. None of them met the need of his crying heart.

Last week, as Solomon sank deeper into depression, he asked what the purpose of work was. In the end, he decided that without God work too was meaningless. Solomon concluded that whatever you work for, whatever product you seek to produce, in the end, you are going to have to turn it over to someone else because you can’t live forever. When you die that product in the end will be put in the hands of others who really don’t have a passion for it like you did, and that product will eventually be wasted and forgotten or outdated. Not only that but you too will be forgotten. 

By the time we get to Ecclesiastes 2:20, Solomon, as a result of the findings of his search for meaning was in “complete despair.” Here was the brightest, most wise man in the world who had exposed the complete bankruptcy of our pretended autonomy, a life lived as though there is no sovereign God. He was disillusioned about life and in mental anguish. He reminds me of a young man who years ago graduated ranking number one in his class from Dartmouth University. He was in that same generation of college students as President Clinton.  In some ways David Levy was in the same situation as King Solomon. He was one of the brightest first products of the mid-sixties rebellion against the establishment and religion. His professors had encouraged him and other students that there is no God and there are no such things as absolutes in the world. He was a smart young man. It didn’t take him long to figure out that if his professors were right about there being no God, and he had no way to prove that they were not, then life had left him with a serious dilemma and that dilemma was trying to figure out why he was here. 

In his valedictory address at his graduation, David Levy said this to his audience: “Take pity on me, those of you who can justify the air you breathe....  Send me letters and tell me why life is worth living. Rich parents, write and tell me how money makes your life worthwhile. Dartmouth alumni, tell me how the Dartmouth experience has given value to your life...  And if one of you out there has made life meaningful, write me a letter and tell me how you appreciate the absurdity of your life.” Today, David Levy’s numbers have increased. Just like the reader of Ecclesiastes at this point, David Levy and many of our peers today-- maybe even you– it’s not unusual to need a time out for soul rest; time out to re-evaluate your strategy for living the rest of your days on this earth.

It is at this point that Solomon decides to take a break in his journal writing to give the reader a time out.  Here, he makes an editorial comment, the first of six in this book. It’s as though Solomon has been reading over his own journal after he has returned from his wanderings away from the Lord and decides that now would be a good time to interject a lesson he has learned about life. He gives us a brief perspective of life from God’s point of view “above the sun.” This is the first time that Solomon makes a positive comment in this book about life and about the role that God wants to play in our lives.

Let’s begin our study by reading Ecclesiastes 2:24. Most of your Bibles read something like this. The KJV reads, “There is NOTHING BETTER for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God.” The NIV reads, “A man can do NOTHING BETTER than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God.”  The NASB reads, “There is NOTHING BETTER FOR A MAN than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good. This also I have seen, that it is from the hand of God.”

Notice the capitalized words in each of these translations. I have capitalized them because, unfortunately, this is a case in all of these translations where we have lost the true meaning of this verse as a result of a bad translation.  In the original manuscripts, those words “there is nothing better” are not even included in this verse. They are included in two other similar verses in 3:12 and 8:15, but not here. Many early scholars uniformly assumed that somehow these words were lost or should be included because they are there in these other verses. But there is no evidence that supports such an assumption.

Most of our modern scholars realize now that the verse makes complete sense when you translate the verse just as it is written and it even makes better sense in light of the verses that follow if you translate it without adding those words. The following is a better and more widely accepted attempt at translating this verse.  It should read, “There is nothing good in man that he should be able to eat, drink or get satisfaction from his work.” The words, “to get satisfaction” come from root words that literally mean to cause one’s soul to see value or worth in something. Solomon’s point being, as human beings, we have no inherent ability to extract true meaning from life.  

Contrary to the humanism and idealism being taught in our schools today, the capability to discover the meaning to life is not in us, and neither is the source of meaning found in us. Rather, if we really want to find purpose or lasting meaning to life, it must come from somewhere outside of us. Hence, Solomon adds at the end of this verse, “Even this, I realize, was from the hand of God.” In other words, even this conclusion or the ability to understand this truth comes as a gift from God. Apart from Him, Solomon would never have figured this truth out by himself.

When we come to verse 25, Solomon reaffirms this principle and goes one step further by adding an additional thought. He says, “Apart from Him, who can eat and who can have enjoyment?” That first word is not, as some translations have it, the word “without.” It is a stronger word than that. It is the word “apart from” or “except from.” It is a word that describes the source or origin from which something is derived. In other words, Solomon is emphatically pointing to God and saying, “Look, God is the source, He is the origin from which all meaning in life, all joy in life comes. If you aren’t plugged into Him, you will never find that electricity that energizes your life with meaning, excitement, joy or purpose.  Regardless of your circumstances, real life, not existence, but life begins with God. Or, to put it in the form of another principle, verse 25 is teaching us that, God is the source of enjoyment.

Is Solomon saying that we can’t have fun without God? No. However, he is saying that fun that has attached to it lasting meaning only can be had if God is involved.

In verse 26, Solomon goes one step further. He states, “For to the man who pleases Him, [in other words, the person who practices the presence of the Lord in his life, who walks daily with the Lord] He gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy; but to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and heaping up in order to give it to the one who pleases God. This is also vanity and a chasing after the wind.”

In verse 25, Solomon informs us that in God we find the only source and origin of all joy and meaning for life. Here he adds that God is also the willing giver of joy and meaning to life, and God is the one who governs who it is that will receive the gifts of meaning and joy in this life as the ultimate result of one’s investment of one’s life. 

This verse tells us that there is a basis on which God distributes to people his gift of purpose, meaning, and long lasting deep joy. The basis of this award of joy, purpose, and meaning is being one who “pleases God.”

In contrast to the saint who walks with God and pleases God is the sinner. The very nature of a sinner is to continually ignore God or live as though God doesn’t exist. He rejects God’s principles and direction. Although continually ignoring God would obviously affect the morality of the person, Solomon is not using this term in reference to a specific breaking of God’s moral law. He is using this word “sinner” to refer to that person’s world-view...the view that one doesn’t have to submit to or even recognize the existence of a sovereign God.

In this same contrast between a God pleaser and a sinner repeated later in 7:26 and 8:12-13, a sinner is viewed as one who does not fear God and thus he does evil. On the contrary, the one who pleases God is one who reveres God and has a personal relationship with God and walks with God.

So, what are the specific results of God governing this gift of a meaningful life as it concerns the sinner and the righteous person? First, Solomon tells us that God only gives joy and meaningful purpose to the righteous, or those who seek after Him.

Second, Solomon informs us that God assigns to those who refuse to acknowledge Him the “task” or “the work of gathering and heaping up.” That term “task” or “work” literally refers to a business or occupation. The verb tenses describe an unending job, one from which there is no relief, and when all is said and done the sinner finds no sense of satisfaction in his work. In the end, Solomon says that “This is also vanity and a chasing after the wind.” 

Also note why it is chasing after the wind for the sinner. One of the reasons is that the rich of this world discover that they can’t take their wealth with them, so they must turn it over to someone else. And, whether the rich of this world planned for it to happen or not, eventually God will give the sinners’ wealth to those who please Him, the very one that the sinner rejects. The sinner loses all that he worked so hard to get. And those who please God receive the fruits of the sinner’s labor.

Let me give you three examples of I am certain countless many when God has done this. First, I am thinking of a beautiful spot outside of Colorado Springs known as Glen Eyrie. General William Palmer, the founder of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, built a beautiful English-style stone castle for his British bride. Yet, she never lived in that home for more than a few weeks and he never enjoyed the property at all. As a result, it sat empty for years. It was sold several times and then ended up as a gift to the Navigators Ministry who use it as a Christian conference ground and their world headquarters for their training movement.

Another example is one that takes place here in Oregon. A wealthy Jewish businessman who had little interest in spiritual things built an estate called Menucha up north on a beautiful site, on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River. The home itself covers almost an acre of ground. This man had entertained presidents at his home. Now, it belongs to the Alliance Churches of Oregon.

A third example: Many of you here might remember last summer we had Becky’s cousin, Doug McClure come play for us. He is a concert cellist and he told us his story about coming to Christ and how he came to possess one of the oldest and rarest cellos in the world, an instrument worth more than $375,000. Doug is a musician and family man and is dirt poor. He could never have purchased such an instrument. He tried and God shut the door. However, God used an unsaved billionaire who doesn’t even care for cello music and didn’t even know Doug to buy the cello and turn it over to Doug. God used this sinner’s wealth to give to a believer something that the believer didn’t work for. As a result, Doug’s ministry of evangelism and encouragement has touched people literally all around the globe.

What sad irony. In his hopes of finding joy in the security of owning what he has carefully stored up for himself, the sinner will be forever cut off from not only the product of all of his efforts but also the true joy that only comes from God.

I’m reminded of what Socrates once said. He said, “Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.” As we read these verses again, we see that Solomon has given us a richer perspective on the mundane things of life like eating and drinking. He says, “There is nothing good in man that he should be able to eat, drink, or get satisfaction from his work. Even this, I realize, was from the hand of God.  Apart from Him, who can eat and who can have enjoyment? For to the man who pleases Him, He gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy.” In the New Testament, the apostle Paul encourages us to make this the goal of our lives. He wrote, “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Make God your partner in everything you do, living in a way that brings Him honor and not shame. Do that, and you will be sure to find incredible inner satisfaction with life, regardless of your circumstances.

If we are wise and we put God in the center of our lives, submitting to His leadership of our lives, then He will bring meaning into our lives and joy, a joy that others can’t help but notice. 

I remember two Christmas’ ago, our family went down south to spend it with my Dad and Mom. We had a joyous time together, specifically the Christmas dinner. Besides prayer and laughter about different subjects, Jesus was brought up in our conversation. As a result, there was something uniquely special that took place during that celebration that was hard to put your finger on at the time, even though we were eating with several who have not committed their lives to Jesus Christ.

 The next Thanksgiving, Dad and Mom came here to spend the holiday with us. Again, we had a grand time but something different was happening around the table. As always, we pray and Jesus was part of our discussion. I don’t remember my Dad’s exact words, but later he inferred that when he has dinner with our family, something special is there. There is joy or a real sense of meaning or something significant happening. It was only later that I could put what I think Dad was sensing into words. Even though not a believer at that time, Dad was sharing in and enjoying a meaningful life that only comes when God is there. In other words, even non-Christians can get “slimed” with the joy of Christ when they are around other believers. In the case of our Christmas dinners, A Christmas dinner without Jesus is a dinner without true joy or meaning. It lacks something that is enduringly soulish. Without Jesus being welcomed to your Christmas dinner you may leave the table physically full but your heart will be empty.

Solomon comes to this “time out” passage so that we might stop, take a breath, and examine our own lives. Is Jesus the key to your life? Is he the primary figure and purpose for your living? If he is not, then, Solomon wants you to realize that you are cut off from any possibility of experiencing true joy and meaning in life. Your life will reflect Solomon’s life as he lived in abandonment from God. You will be without deep-rooted joy, regardless of your circumstances; a condition that if it is allowed to continue, will end in ultimate despair. Because only in Jesus is there life.

There are several significant conclusions we can glean from this short passage that will enable us to live a more fulfilled life, if we first believe them and then act upon them.

First, when it comes to the most mundane functions of life, such as eating, drinking or even drawing a paycheck we humans do not have the ability within us to extract enduring enjoyment from life. Only God can give us that ability.

Therefore, a good recommendation to follow would be that en route to living your life--working, eating, drinking--include God, the source, the giver and the governor of joy.  Practice remembering that God is omnipresent, He is with you everywhere you go and He wants you to partner with Him. When you do, regardless of what difficult or easy path you tread, He will be there to bring meaning to it.

Third, if we really understand verse 25, then we can’t help but begin to live as though we believe that all good things must be received and understood as coming from the hand of God before they can be used properly and joyfully. They are His gifts to us. Apart from Him, there is no lasting enjoyment. Therefore, let’s increase our practice of giving Him thanks for all that we possess.

Finally, verse 26, makes it obvious that it takes far more than just the possession of things to really enjoy them. Verse 26 tells us that it takes godly character, it takes one who lives as God’s person to use “things” wisely and to enjoy them fully.

As we stop and reflect on this “time out,” this editorial moment by Solomon, we see that it presents the antithesis and the solution to secular pessimism. Solomon says on the one hand, through the first two chapters, you have one kind of life: life that is a vicious circle of pointlessness, of temporary pleasures, of ultimately fruitless work, and of inevitable death. Or on the other hand, there is the life that can be taken from the hand of God and lived in submission to Him that brings meaning and enduring enjoyment. Yours is to choose!

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