What Do People Live For?

1The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem: 2“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher; “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” 3What does man gain from all his labor in which he labors under the sun? 4One generation goes, and another generation comes; but the earth remains forever. 5The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hurries to its place where it rises. 6The wind goes toward the south, and turns around to the north. It turns around continually as it goes, and the wind returns again to its courses. 7All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, there they flow again. 8All things are full of weariness beyond uttering. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. 9That which has been is that which shall be; and that which has been done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. 10Is there a thing of which it may be said, “Behold, this is new?” It has been long ago, in the ages which were before us. 11There is no memory of the former; neither shall there be any memory of the latter that are to come, among those that shall come after.

The author of Ecclesiastes is Solomon, and it was written around 935 BC. Looking back over the years he had lived, the author thought that it was all vanity of vanities, even though he had lived far more comfortably and abundantly than other people. For when we look back in old age, all the times gone by, happy or unhappy, are like fallen petals. The beauty that bloomed fully and moved people is trampled underfoot once it falls to the ground. The petals, watching the people who tread on them, might think that the time they gave those people joy was in vain. Solomon too would have seen his own life that way. He saw that, while his own life was vain, some people served God, were content, and lived happily even in poverty and hardship. He came to realize that human life is not happy because one has much wealth, and that one is not satisfied just because one lives as a king.

I would like to look at what kind of life Solomon calls a blessed life. It is said that Ecclesiastes was read at the Feast of Tabernacles, one of Israel’s feasts. In Israel no rain fell until the fruit was harvested, yet remarkably, when the time came to sow the seed for grain, the rainy season set in. Through these changes in the weather, the people believed that God was protecting them and at work among them. So Ecclesiastes was read aloud to the people at the Feast of Tabernacles, a feast full of hope, when fruit was harvested and seed was sown. From this we can see that Ecclesiastes is not a pessimistic book but a message of hope.

Israel received this kind of love, yet the people did not keep their faith. Solomon, writing this at the far end of a life that had drifted away from God, could say that it was empty because he had lived a life without God. But if we listen to what Solomon says and live a life that serves God, we can live the life Solomon truly wants for us.

Solomon had enjoyed all the riches and glory of the world to the full, yet he was reproaching himself for having failed to serve God. Some people may think that Solomon said such things because he had never known hardship. They think that if he had lived without means, or as a slave, or pursued by enemies, he would not have said such things. But whether king, slave or commoner, anyone standing at the threshold of death would say that a life lived so fiercely out of effort, hope and hatred was all vanity.

What are you living so fiercely for right now? In the end, what Solomon wanted to say was this: he hoped people would realize that, whatever they own, life has no hope apart from God. He himself had lived a regrettable life that kept God at a distance, but he wished that those who still had days left to live would serve God well. Through his life Solomon came to know that it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, and that there is no new thing under the sun.

When one realizes that life is in the end a journey toward death, the wages of sin, then however one has lived, it is all a sojourner’s road. And however hard one labors, there is no gain in it, for not one thing can be taken along. To put it simply, think of a child’s toy blocks. However hard the child stacks the blocks, when night comes and it is time to sleep, the tall stack must in the end be knocked down and the blocks put back in the box. Then in the morning the child stacks the blocks again and knocks them down again, over and over. This is the life Solomon saw.

In this world, where people are born and die over and over, only the names change; people keep putting up the same buildings on the same spot and tearing them down, but the earth remains forever. Why, then, has God sent so many people into this world over so long a time, even though he knows that human beings cannot escape death because of sin? Seeing that they will one day return to dust, people shudder at an emptiness like a hollow space. We need to think about why God has kept sending such people to this earth. To find the answer, people have gone on asking to this day: What do people live for? They have even created a field of study that examines the fundamental principles of humanity and the world and the essence of life, and countless people have wrestled with it over thousands of years as though it were some great knowledge.

But the answer is surprisingly simple. If people come to know through the Bible who God is, their struggle can be resolved in an instant. For even if a human life, from birth to the end, is empty, the true reason why that life is necessary can be found in the Bible. So rather than studying what life is, it is wisdom to know God.

If people misunderstand the words of Ecclesiastes, there is a danger that they will be brainwashed by negative ideas, see the world only negatively, and fall into pessimism. But that comes from failing to understand Ecclesiastes rightly. Solomon does, of course, lament that life is vanity of vanities, but he writes that through that vain life we must find the right way. Solomon’s heart is that life in the flesh is necessary for reaching the kingdom of God; we have understood Ecclesiastes rightly only when we can see that. He is telling people not to live a vain life that has left God, as he did, but to walk with God and live a holy and blessed life. And he wanted them to know that although the flesh returns to dust, the faith a person holds while living leads on into eternal life.

Solomon, the author, was not only the king who built the temple and dedicated it to God; he was a very special person who received heavenly wisdom as a gift. With the wisdom God gave him, Solomon wrote the Song of Songs, Proverbs and Psalms, so that they would be a guide for God’s people as they live by faith. He is the king who, when two mothers each claimed one baby as her own, gave the wise and famous judgment that returned the baby to the arms of its real mother. He was also a great king who devoted himself to peace with other nations and let his people enjoy a glory no other nation could match.

Solomon confessed that his wisdom and riches came from God and gave all the glory to God, and God, pleased with him, gave him riches and honor in abundance. Yet Solomon, who had received such great grace, fell into the sin of taking in the idols of every nation in order to keep his worldly riches and power. We must always be on guard, because even a people who serve God can fall to Satan’s temptation in a single moment.

Just as people easily leave God when Satan plants in them a greed for wealth above God, Solomon too abandoned God to hold on to his land, his wealth and his power. Look at the choice he made. Then you see what Jesus said: you can’t serve both God and Mammon. Solomon was led astray by many women, worshiped the gods they brought with them, and corrupted the people of Israel with a mixed religion. As his life without God’s glory went on, Solomon came to realize that his life was like an empty bowl. For however much of the world’s wealth and power he owned, it held none of the peace and rest of soul that can be enjoyed only in God’s grace and glory.

A person who does not live by God’s word is like an animal that lives by instinct. If people throw away God’s will and live as they please, then even a king who rules a nation is like a mindless animal. However wise a baby may be, its thinking has limits. In the same way, however much knowledge people who have left God may have, their thinking has limits, so they can never make wise judgments and decisions.

All people return to dust, and this is the law God has set. People take medicine and create a good environment in order to live long, but they only live a little healthier while they live; when God calls them, they must leave all their labor behind and go. When God created human beings, he gave them a heart that longs for God. But people were so busy living by their greed that they spent their whole lives pursuing vain things and did not listen to what a good conscience was telling them. That is why they left God. Because of the sin Adam committed, the moment people put off the tent of the flesh, they remain in one of two places, heaven or hell. So even if life is vanity of vanities, we must receive Christ while we live. That is why life matters so much.

Solomon knew clearly that there is a life after death, and he hoped that no one would become, like him, a person who had been given many chances and still left God. Blaming his own foolishness for failing to understand the heart of God, who had always given him chances, he wrote Ecclesiastes with an earnest desire that the people would live lives that lift God up. Life means leaving behind what one owns: those with much wealth and power leave much behind, and those with little leave little. Even if money is put in the grave after someone has breathed their last, and the food they loved in life is set out for them, that too is vanity of vanities. Only while we wear the flesh can we have greed and own things. We cannot live in this world forever. So only if we throw off greed while we live and have a faith that is content can we enjoy peace both in this world and after death.

Solomon had at times served God closely and at times lived as he pleased. When he looked at the world through the failures and successes he had piled up over many years, and in true faith, he came to know that there is no new thing under the sun. The word Solomon used for “vanity” is “hebed” in Hebrew, and it means an emptiness that cannot be grasped, like wind or vapor, or being hollow inside. Can you feel Solomon’s heart as he looks at life this way? The emptiness felt by Solomon, who had enjoyed riches and glory that no one else ever enjoyed, was the emptiness of a soul that had left God. His would have been tears of regret at realizing too late that nothing can fill the emptiness of the soul.

Even in this generation, there is no telling how many people are sacrificing themselves to gain power and honor. People with seemingly limitless power take their own lives, fall into pleasure and are corrupted, and, unable to bear the turmoil inside, depend on drugs. Watching the businesses or the power they had spent their whole lives building collapse, I have wondered how empty and how unfair it must have felt to them.

The world is like the tower of Babel: however high you build, there is no satisfaction. That is because the tower of Babel was meant to climb all the way up to where God is, so from the start it was built out of human sin and could never be finished. Solomon had come into wealth by God’s grace, yet he fell for Satan’s wiles and wasted his life. He realized this too late, so the years behind him felt empty, and he was afraid of God, who had been watching him all along. He would soon have to meet God, so his regret would have been great.

Ecclesiastes 1:5-7

5The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hurries to its place where it rises. 6The wind goes toward the south, and turns around to the north. It turns around continually as it goes, and the wind returns again to its courses. 7All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, there they flow again.

Solomon is saying that no matter how many ages pass, all the creatures of this world go on obeying, just as God created them. People seem to invent and discover new things, but there is nothing new, because when God created the world he had already made even those things.

You will have learned about the geologic ages. In the course of studying geological conditions, scholars can learn a great deal about people who lived in ancient times that we knew nothing about. As archaeologists study the layers of the earth, they find fossils that appear only in particular layers, and from those fossils they can learn about the life, environment and climate of that age. The people who lived in that age lived just the same life as we do now. There were heroes, and there were the poor and the greedy; and the people who were greedy as though they would live for thousands of years could not overcome death, and all returned to dust.

As verse 4 says, one generation goes, and another generation comes, but the earth remains forever. However many ages pass, the earth stays where it is, while one generation goes and another comes, over and over. When human sin grows great, God judges without fail. He covered the world, rotten with sin, with the flood, and saved only the family of Noah, a righteous man who obeyed the Word, by bringing them into the ark. Noah and his family would have been afraid of God, who had destroyed the world in a single moment.

If so, Noah and his sons should have kept away from sin and lived good lives. But human beings, whose original sin had not been dealt with, were not good at the root. When the waters that had covered the world receded, sin began to come back to life. Noah did something shameful, getting drunk and sleeping naked, and then came the event in which he cursed his son Ham, who had mocked his father for it. This is the true, evil face of human beings.

Just as the earth stays where it is, the sin of people in the flesh did not disappear but remained with them. So anyone who does not receive Jesus Christ, who atoned for sin, still has that sin, and for that reason cannot enter heaven.

Matthew 24:35

35Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

The world seems as though it will last forever, but it will pass away at the time God has set, while the Word remains forever. So this verse means that we must live by the Word. When people do not cling to a world and a life that will one day vanish, but obey the eternal word of God, their lives continue as holy lives even after death. But people live only for themselves, and even if they learn after death that their choice was wrong, there is no chance then to turn back, so it is already too late for regret. Even a famous person who left their name in the world, even someone who saved their nation from crisis, even a tycoon who owned vast lands — once they put off the flesh, they no longer have anything to do with the life that was so precious to them.

After death, the basis of judgment is not whether a person owned much or little but whether they received Christ in their life. Even a famous person is not remembered by the next generation once they leave the world. Even someone who adorned themselves with every kind of jewel sees those jewels become someone else’s when they return to dust. As the years go by, it is only natural for a young and healthy body to grow old. People who once ruled the world become dust as meaninglessly as a lifeless thing. Only those who see this and know how empty and fleeting life is can live a life without regret. People are moved when they see the glow of the setting sun, feel happy when they see autumn leaves turned red, and feel overwhelmed when they see the surging sea; these too are feelings that earlier generations felt.

Everything you have seen, heard and touched, and every event, is only a repetition of what earlier generations have already been through. The next generation will go through the same things, so there is nothing new in the world. Rather than clinging to a life that will vanish like mist, you must live every moment by a holy and honest faith and prepare for what comes after death. You must receive Christ, the owner of life, in order to throw off sin, for if you live by the cravings of the flesh, you cannot receive eternal life.

Solomon enjoyed pleasure with more than a thousand women, and he had the power to make alliances with the nations to take ever wider territory. But though he had everything he could want, he felt that something was missing from his life, and unable to bear that emptiness, he thought himself unhappy. Like a hollow puffed roll, big on the outside but empty inside, Solomon’s life looked fine on the surface but was completely empty within. As you look at this life of Solomon’s, you must know that without God’s grace, a life is as useless as a burst balloon. A life that is only an outward show, like a balloon, will be all the emptier, because whether it is full of air or burst, it is a life that looks only at the ground.

Time flies as fast as an arrow. Time that has passed cannot be turned back, like an arrow that has left the bowstring and can never return. So we must live well from now on. Just as an arrow that has already missed the target cannot be shot again, a life that has missed the target does not easily get a chance to repent. For example, when an enemy shoots arrows in great numbers, soldiers set up their shields and catch the arrows whole. Then, if they shoot those arrows back at the enemy, they will win a great victory in battle.

In the same way, when we are spiritually full, we think we can resist Satan with ease, with faith, devotion and loyalty. But Satan, a spiritual being, knows that our fullness will quickly cool, so he waits, and then strikes back with the very faith, devotion and loyalty we threw, and mocks us. He mocks us, asking whether this is the faith we showed him, whether it amounts to no more than this, and whether the resolve we made to be faithful to death comes to so little. So know that the words you spoke and the things you did today will not come back, like an arrow that has missed its target, and hold on to your faith even to death.

This very hour in which you are worshiping now cannot be turned back either. Look at your faith, and you will see whether you have worshiped God with all your heart in this hour, or have fallen to Satan’s temptation and spent the time on things that have nothing to do with God. Life is as swift as an arrow, but if you have lived a life of preaching the gospel, doing your best to save lives, on the last day the Lord will throw open the gates of heaven and commend you for having done well.

We must live well now for the moment when God, seated on the throne, opens the gates of heaven and takes us into his arms. For that eternal kingdom is the very reason we live. The Bible says that by reason of strength our years are eighty, and we who live in modern times live a hundred years at most. We must not keep God at a distance for the sake of such a life; we must live today by faith, so as to live with God, the owner of eternal time. I hope that you will put behind you Solomon’s confession, which stresses that life is vanity of vanities, and fill your life with the worship of God, so that on top of that vanity you pile joy, hope and happiness to the full.