Prologue

"I’m 32, I thought I’d have a better grasp on this by now but honestly I don’t have an answer… Is there no point to life? Just do stuff and keep doing it? Is it just one big competition? A big crap shoot? Man things just feel so valueless… You live and then you die. Does anyone else find life to be just one big mess? It’s chaotic and it’s full of hiccups… You just have to roll or be rolled over."¹https://www.reddit.com/r/depression/comments/14mickr/whats_the_point_to_life/

So wrote one user on Reddit a couple of years ago, and it was surprising—or perhaps not surprising—to see how many of the commenters on the thread responded with basic agreement. What is the point? There is no point.

It's like Richard Ashcroft of The Verve wrote back in 1997. "It's a bittersweet symphony, this life, try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, and then you die."

In 2019, freshly minted pop superstar Billie Eilish talked in an interview about being a role model for the idea that nothing really mattered. She explained teenagers telling her they didn't care about anything thanks to her. And she explained it this way: "It's that you don't have to fit into anything, because we all die, eventually. No one's going to remember you one day—it could be hundreds of years or it could be one year, it doesn't matter—but anything you do, and anything anyone does to you, won't matter one day."²https://music.apple.com/ca/album/when-we-all-fall-asleep-where-do-we-go/1450695723 

And it seems like not even major success could overwrite this bleak perspective. Later on that year she released the single "Everything I Wanted" where she sang:

i had a dream
i got everything i wanted
not what you'd think
and if i'm being honest
it might have been a nightmare
to anyone who might care

Haven't we heard this from so many people, time and time again? All the success in the world, all the money in the world, and it means nothing. It leaves them totally empty. How many rich and famous people, the pinnacles of success in the eyes of the world, have gone on to end their own lives?

And in fact, that's what Eilish's song goes on to describe—a very literal dream in which she ended her own life, and she got to see the aftermath in which nobody really cared, and her life hadn't made a difference, and it was horrifying to her.

But just wait a second—I thought, according to her, that life was pointless. We live and we die and then we get forgotten. It's easy to say, but when that experience actually starts to feel tangible, it also starts to feel awful. Deep down inside she seems to know what we all know—that the thought of just dying and being forgotten is the worst thing that could happen to us.

There's an ache inside of us, a craving for something that really matters. A longing that we might matter, or just to be a part of something that matters. Even though all that our eyes can see is live, die, repeat, there's something that knows there must be more and protests the idea that there isn't.

This is one of the reasons why we associate these thoughts of meaninglessness with sadness or depression. The idea that all of this is pointless is not a happy thought. We don't like it. We want more.

But where do we find that more? When we get what we want, we feel just as empty as everybody else. Everything is never enough.

Now maybe the things I've been talking about for the last few minutes are things you think about yourself. Maybe these are questions you've asked yourself, and you'd love some answers.

Or maybe you've never thought about these things for a minute in your life before.

Either way, I believe that you are going to be helped by the time we're going to spend in Ecclesiastes over the next several weeks.

Ecclesiastes is widely regarded to be one of the strangest and hard-to-understand books in the Bible. When you start to study it, you find out that there is a huge variety of ways of interpreting Ecclesiastes.

And a lot of that comes down to the basic way that Ecclesiastes just sounds so different from anything else in the Bible. I mean, did you hear those words that we just read together? This is pretty bleak stuff. It sounds less like Scripture and more like Billie Eilish singing "Everything I Wanted." Or The Verve singing "It's a bittersweet symphony." Or The Rolling Stones singing "I can't get no satisfaction." Or U2 singing "I still haven't found what I'm looking for."

And as people have read and tried to understand Ecclesiastes, there's two camps that a lot of people have tended to fall into. One camp says that Ecclesiastes is basically heretical. Whoever wrote it was bitter and jaded and we can't trust what they wrote. It's here in the Bible as a example of what not to believe, and the epilogue at the end of the book is designed to basically set the record straight.

When it says “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13), that's essentially correcting or counteracting almost a lot of the other stuff in the book.

But then other people read Ecclesiastes and say, no, this is a faithful follower of God who is just honestly reflecting on some important matters. He's looking at things from a specific angle, and we should listen to what he has to say, because it does fit in with the rest of the Bible and a biblical way of thinking about things.

By the way, that's where I land, and where I hope you land to. And you'll hopefully understand why over the course of these next weeks.

But even within this group of Bible readers who think that Ecclesiastes is a faithful book, there's a huge range of understandings as everybody tries to figure out how to make sense of this text.

I've been drawn to Ecclesiastes for a number of years. This book first gripped me a decade or so ago as I was reading through the Bible. In my seminary studies over the last several years I've made this book the focus of my research, spending as much time with it as possible.

And I've grown convinced that many readers of Ecclesiastes have missed the boat on fully understanding this book because they've made a fatal mistake. They have not read Ecclesiastes with an eye on the big story of the Bible and how it all fits together.

If you've been around Emmanuel for some time you've probably heard us talk about the "Biblical story" or the "story of the Bible." And what we don't mean by that is that the Bible is just a story and therefore is not true. No, just like your life story, the Bible is a true story.

But by a story, we mean that the Bible fits together as one consistent narrative. The Bible is one story. That story has a main character—His name is Jesus. And we are a part of that story today.

Many, many readers of Ecclesiastes loose sight of the biblical story when they get to this book. They assume that Ecclesiastes is basically disconnected from the rest of the story of God and His people that culminates in Jesus.

And that's a huge mistake. I believe that this book makes the most sense—and in fact, really only makes sense at all—when we read and understand it as a part of the Biblical story.

v. 1: Meet Qoheleth

But figuring out where Ecclesiastes fits into the biblical story might not be so straightforward. Because the question of where it fits in depends on when it was written, which depends on our understanding of who it was written by.

My guess is that if you are at all familiar with Ecclesiastes, you've generally thought that Solomon wrote this book. After all, just look at verse 1: “The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem” (Ecclesiastes 1:1).

Who else was the son of David who reigned in Jerusalem but Solomon? Verse 12 says “I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem” (Ecclesiastes 1:12). Solomon was literally the last person to be able to say he was king over all Israel in Jerusalem, because at the beginning of his son's reign the kingdom of Israel split away from Jerusalem's reign.

Further, whoever wrote this book was obviously a very wise and thoughtful person, which matches the description of Solomon as particularly gifted with wisdom (1 Kings 3-4).

Finally, chapter 2 describes the accomplishments of this king in ways that definitely map on to Solomon's wealth and influence.

Still, there are some reasons to not be so sure that the actual Solomon wrote this book.

First, there's the simple fact that the name "Solomon" is never used. Instead, he's referred to by this title that gets translated as "Preacher" or "Teacher" in English. The word in Hebrew is Qoheleth (קֹהֶ֫לֶת), a word that only shows up here in Ecclesiastes.

"Qoheleth" is hard to translate from the original Hebrew that Ecclesiastes was written in, but it probably has to do with someone who assembles people, or teaches an assembly, or who assembles material to teach to people. Solomon did those things, but it's still interesting that his name is never used.

Second, there's some ways that Qoheleth talks about himself that don't seem to match up with Solomon. We'll consider them as we get to them in the weeks ahead. Just one example is in chapter 4, where Qoheleth looks at the tears of the oppressed who had no one to comfort them against their powerful oppressors.

That sounds a lot more like someone standing on the sidelines of power than what a powerful king would say. Solomon in fact himself oppressed his own people, which lead them to revolt against his son after he died.

There's other things that are said, which we'll get to, which do sound more like they are coming from a later period in Israel's history, after the exile into Babylon. In fact many of the reflections of Ecclesiastes fit well with someone looking back on Israel's history after the exile and wondering if anything that happened had any meaning at all.

So if it's not Solomon, then who is Qoheleth? Clearly he wants us to think about Solomon, and at least at times imagine him as Solomon. Was he lying? Is this deception?

I don't think so. In the ancient world, authors would do this kind of thing. They would write fictional autobiographies of famous people, taking on their persona, writing from inside their head, to make a point.

Today, we call that historical fiction. We don't think the authors are lying because it's supposed to be fiction that draws on real history.

Maybe closer to Ecclesiastes was a drama put on by the pastor at my aunt's church. He came out one Sunday dressed in robes and did a monologue drama from the perspective of Abraham. Nobody thought he was the real Abraham, but from this fictional perspective he was able to communicate some important truths.

So, going back to Martin Luther at least, people have said that Solomon himself did not write Ecclesiastes, but someone later writing from a fictionalized Solomonic perspective. And many good, solid Christians have come to this conclusion simply because of the way the book itself is written.

On the other hand, there's a good number of scholars who still think that this does go back to Solomon—either that he wrote this, or delivered it as a speech that was written down by an editor.

And honestly, I'm undecided. Here's what is important though, in terms of thinking of the connections to the Biblical story. Whether coming from Solomon himself, or a later author, Ecclesiastes wants us to think about Solomon.

It wants us to think about this great king who ruled over Israel's golden era, when the kingdom was at it's greatest and richest and most powerful.

And whether Solomon himself realized it, or the later author makes us think about, all of Solomon's great achievements brought no lasting benefit to Israel. In fact, Solomon was the beginning of the end. His sin and idol-worship kicked off the slippery slope that led all the way to the fall of Jerusalem four-to-five hundred years later.

Under Solomon's reign, Israel was blessed beyond belief. And look where it got them. And if that's as far as Solomon could get them, then what hope was there for them to ever get any further? Those are the questions we should be asking as we get into this book, thinking about it's place in the big story of the Bible.

vv. 2-3: The Big Idea

So, we've talked about who Qoheleth is or who he might be as we've looked at verse 1. Next, if we look at verses 2-3, we'll find what's basically the thesis statement for the whole book. What is this book about? What is its main message?

“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” (Ecclesiastes 1:2).

There are several words used here in these two verses that come up repeatedly throughout this book, so we want to consider them.

Vanity

First is "vanity." See that word be used five times just in verse 2? Vanity. Qoheleth will go on to use this word at least 33 more times.

The Hebrew word translated "vanity" here is the word hevel, and it literally means "breath." But what's interesting is of all of the dozens of times that this word is used in the Hebrew Bible, only three times is it ever used to speak of real breath.

Most of the time, it's used as a word picture for something that is the opposite of solid and permanent. The idols of the nations are often referred to using this word because they were unreal and had no substance compared to the one true God.

Think about your breath on a cold morning. You can see it, but you can't grab on to it or hold it or depend on it for anything. It's worthless and weightless—just like the gods of the nations.

Your breath is also so, so temporary. How long does that misty puff of vapour hang in the air before it's just gone? When it's -30°, maybe for a bit. But in the temperatures Israel sees in its coldest months, it's not there for long. A puff of vapour that you can't grab on to, and which is is gone in a moment.

And that's like us. Psalm 39:5: "Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!” Psalm 144:4: “Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.”

And not just us, but everything, according to Qoheleth, is breath. Vapour. Mist. Impossible to grab on to, and gone as soon as it gets here.

And if everything is so short-lived, then everything is without ultimate meaning. That's why this word is translated as "vanity." That doesn't mean "vanity" like "bathroom sink cabinet," or "vanity" like "someone who can't stop staring into the mirror above the bathroom sink."

It means "vanity" like "it's all done in vain." It's all pointless. It's all a waste of time. It's all going nowhere. It's all meaningless.

Everything is as meaningless and temporary as a puff of breath.

Toil and Gain

And because everything is temporary and meaningless, then is there any real point to anything that is done here on earth? Qoheleth asks that question in verse 3: “What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” (Ecclesiastes 1:3).

"Toil" is a word we're going to see a lot in Ecclesiastes—20 or so times. In the ancient world, people had to work hard to get ahead. Many of you have worked hard in your life. Qoheleth wonders what we've actually gained from all of our work under the sun.

This idea of "gain" comes up 10 or so more times in the book. What do we gain from our work? What's the advantage? And his answer, as we'll see, is "nothing." We don't actually gain anything, because anything we get under the sun is just breath that blows away.

Under the Sun

This phrase at the end of verse 3 is important. "Under the sun." This phrase gets used over 20 times in Ecclesiastes. It speaks to this physical world of humanity that we live in—the world that we can see, the public space that we share together, the land of the living.

We work and we work, but all we get out under the sun is breath—temporary and meaningless.

vv. 4-11: Proofs of Pointlessness

And what Qoheleth does now, starting in verse 4, is give us a series of rapid-fire proofs or exhibits of this pointless temporary meaninglessness.

First, verse 4 says that “A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever” (Ecclesiastes 1:4). Generations of people come and go but don't have any lasting impact on the planet they live on.

The earth was here before they were born, and it's here after they're gone, as if they were never even here. And if they had never been here the earth wouldn't really notice or care.

Second, verse 5, “The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises” (Ecclesiastes 1:5). The sun keeps going round and round. It never actually gets anywhere. It's just in one big cycle, back to where it started. There's no progress in the way things work.

Third, verse 6: “The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns” (Ecclesiastes 1:6). Like the sun, the wind goes around and around but it never goes anywhere it hasn't already been. It's just one big cycle on and endless repeat.

There's some interesting trivia connected to this. Because all of the air on planet earth just keeps blowing around and around, right now you most likely have air molecules in your lungs that have been the lungs of every person in history up to a certain point—including Solomon himself, and Julius Caesar, and George Washington.

While that's cool to think about, it just illustrates Qoheleth's point: the wind just goes around and around, recycling the same air around the world. It never gets anywhere it hasn't already been.

Fourth, verse 7: “All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again” (Ecclesiastes 1:7). This is talking about the water cycle. The author here had the wise insight that all streams eventually wind up flowing into the ocean.

But it's never enough. The ocean never says "I've had enough," and the streams stop flowing. It's an endless cycle where the ocean never gets ahead no matter how much water flows into it. Around and around it goes.

It's the same with us in verse 8. Just like the ocean never has enough, neither do our eyes and ears. While we may sometimes have temporary overload, we want more and more without ever getting ahead.

And just think—he wrote this before the Internet. Which just proves the point that all things are full of weariness, more than a person could ever say. You get tired just thinking of it all.

And in all of this endless cycle, there's nothing ever truly new. Verse 9: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

Qoheleth could see the cycles playing themselves out in history. The same old stuff just kept getting recycled again and again.

Out of curiosity, as I was preparing this I looked up newspaper headlines from 1925. Do you know what was going on in the world in 1925? The same kinds of things that are going on in 2025. Political turmoil. Corporate deals. Sports events. Wars and rumours of wars. People being people.

Still, you might say, aren't there some new things under the sun? What about technology?

Sure, there's new technology. But what do people do with the new technology? We do the same kinds of things that people have always done. Cars do what horses did, just faster. The internet lets us do the kinds of things we always did, just way more conveniently and faster—giving us more opportunities to sin in the same ways people have always sinned.

Think about AI. That's the new thing that everybody is all excited about. But AI is literally proof that there is nothing new under the sun. Because Chat-GPT doesn't make anything new. All it's doing is copying stuff that already exists. That's literally how it works.

So Qoheleth was right. Look at verse 10: “Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us’” (Ecclesiastes 1:10).

And if something seems new, that's because, verse 11, "There is no remembrance of former things." We forget what's already happened. And the stuff we're doing today? It will be forgotten just the same. “Nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after” (Ecclesiastes 1:11).

Like Billie Eilish said, one year or 100 years after you die, most of the things you've done won't be remembered by most people. That's just a fact.

The True and Better Qoheleth

And with that, this first section of Ecclesiastes concludes. Verse 1-11 is like a prologue or introduction to the whole book. We were introduced to our author or speaker, we heard his big idea, and we saw some examples or exhibits of that big idea.

And what we really need to keep doing is get in to the rest of the book and see where all of this goes and how these ideas get unpacked bit by bit.

But we can't do this all in one week. We have to end now. And a part of me would just love to leave us here, with these bleak statements ringing in our ears, and say "come back next week to find out more!"

But I can't just do that. So what I'm going to do—what I get to do—is give away the punchline a little bit by telling you where this is all headed.

I believe that one of Qoheleth's main jobs, and the reason this book is in the Bible, is to make us hungry for the true and better Qoheleth—the greater son of David, who came to us from over the sun, who is building his assembly, and who teaches us true wisdom from above.

Jesus is the one who, by His life and death and resurrection, has broken the cycle of meaninglessness that Qoheleth describes.

Were is not for Jesus, Ecclesiastes would be all that we'd have and all that we'd ever have. But because the Son of David is Lord of his church from His heavenly throne, we're not stuck here. We have so much more.

And in the coming weeks we get to see, from all kinds of angles, how Jesus gives us more, so much more, than Ecclesiastes leaves us with.

And that's actually why Ecclesiastes is so important. It's the black cloth that makes the diamond shine all the brighter. We can see so much better how great Christ is, and how great HIs grace to us is, against this bleak backdrop that so clearly shows us all that we'd ever be without Him.

So, as we conclude here, I want to say a quick word to two possible groups of people here today. First, to those of you who don't know Jesus, who have not yet trusted in Christ as your Saviour and your Lord and your greatest treasure, do you know that Ecclesiastes is all you've got right now?

Everything we read and talked about this morning—this is your life, and it's your only life. You live, doing the same kinds of things that people have always done. You'll die like everybody else before you has. And then, before you'd like to think, most people will never know that you ever lived and breathed.

And that's it.

Are you okay with that? Or do you feel the ache in your soul for more? The cracks in the walls where eternity shines in and you know that you were made for so much more?

Friends, you need Jesus. There is nobody else who can set you free from the spin cycle of vanity you're stuck in. There is nobody else who can be to you a truly satisfying treasure and give to you an eternal life that doesn't end when you take your final breath.

So please, I encourage you to keep coming and keep learning Christ with us. Don't even wait for next week—talk to someone here today about how Christ can be your hope. Grab a copy of the "two ways to live" pamphlet in the foyer and read it over thoughtfully. Don't miss the chance to find real life.

Second group of people to speak to are those of you who do know Christ. He's your saviour. For some of you, you haven't known Jesus for long and it still feels fresh and wonderful.

Some of you may have known him longer, so long in fact that you've forgotten where you came from. Or you've forgotten what you were spared from.

You grew up in a Christian home and believed in Jesus from such a young age and you've maybe never quite taken the time to reflect on who you would be, and what you've be stuck with, if it wasn't for Jesus and His grace in your life.

Brothers and sisters, we need to hear that without Jesus, Ecclesiastes is all you'd have. Try to make ends meet, be a slave to money, and then die. And that's it.

And if that's true, than Jesus is not and cannot be just a nice little extra on to our otherwise comfortable life. I fear that's how many Christians think. They have the same good little life as everybody else, and Jesus is a nice bonus package.

Friends, without Jesus, there is no such thing as a good little life. There is only vapour. There is only toil without gain. There is only temporary, misty meaninglessness.

Which means that Jesus isn't an extra—He's our everything.

Be reminded of that this morning as we come to the table and remember the body and blood of Jesus. This is not just “a thing.” Without this, we’d have nothing, which means that this is our everything.