A Daily Devotional – Purposeful – The Eternal Word
Comment: Chapters One and Two of
Ecclesiastes are set in context of human life on the temporal scale of human
wisdom; that is without setting one’s mind on God, His Wisdom, His Love or His
Grace. All that mankind can do; which is very much indeed, is vanity
(meaningless or toilsome) because it is temporal. Ecclesiastes 1:11 puts life
under the sun in perspective with this thought. Without the knowledge of God
the men of old are forgotten (no history), even those who are yet to come are
seldom considered (no future).
Devotional: As
Solomon concludes his topic on the meaningless of (human) wisdom he reveals
these thoughts: “For with much (human) wisdom comes much (human) sorrow, the more
(human) understanding the more (human) grief. In this, I do not want us to forget that the wisdom, that of
the (teacher), Solomon under the guidance of God the Holy Spirit is not the
Wisdom of God, but of man (human).
When we know that all wisdom is not of God, we can see
the failure of man a bit more clearly. Verse 12 of chapter 1, says that God has
placed a heavy burden on mankind. Now why did God do that, is God cruel? God
forbid that we should think so! Life in the Garden of Eden was peaceful,
pleasant and full of the Glory of God. Satan saw an opportunity to destroy that
by causing the darkness of ‘SIN’ in the lives of Adam and Eve to penetrate that
which was eternal, pleasant and meaningful.
The action of Satan at this point stole the eternital 'meaningful' Wisdom of God from mankind and placed him and her in the temporal 'meaningless' wisdom of man; that which
is recorded for us in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, or as Genesis reveals to us Genesis
3:14-19. My recommendation to us this morning is that we ought to study again
the fall of man from the eternal realm of God into the temporal realm of man.
What does this temporal realm look like, the wisdom of
mankind is; Ecclesiastes 1:12-18; the ‘pleasures of mankind are ‘meaningless’
Ecclesiastes 2:1-11; the “knowledge of folly and entertainment” is meaningless;
and in pursuing these things it leads mankind to hate life because all of the toil
to attain the above is meaningless (got the picture?) as it will be left to another and who knows
what that person will do with of what has been done?
At best mankind can only eat and drink, in this there
is satisfaction, yet the teacher (God the Holy Spirit) will give wisdom to the
man or woman who please God, His wisdom, knowledge and happiness. But to the
sinner, the one who remains in the willful vanity of human life without
pleasing God by faith, (Hebrews 11:6) God gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to
turn it over to the one who please God. For the sinner – Life is meaningless!
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