40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Ecclesiastes 3:14-4:6 (Episode 423)

Episode Date: July 4, 2024

Wickedness is found in places where there should be righteousness and justice. Is man really no different than the beasts of the field? Is it really better to have never been born? And how does the resurrection change everything? Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: When You Meet Jesus | Gospel Encounters Conference Pre-order: Hitchhiking with Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament by Chad Bird 30 Minutes in the NT on Youtube Remembering Rod Rosenbladt Encouragement for Motherhood Edited by Katie Koplin More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast to check it out. All the other podcasts are living over there. while you're over there make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing all the academies the articles the other podcasts everything that's going on over there and if you like everything that's going on over there and you're wondering how come it's all free well you just go over to the donate page and help keep it so don't wonder why it's free help keep it free

you know that's that's what we're after here and so uh you can go become a supporter by hitting that donate tab in the right hand corner become a regular contributor or one-time giver whatever you want to do, and we appreciate those of you who do that. We are in Ecclesiastes chapter three. We're at the tail end of it. Last episode, we got to, you know, we got to go over a very famous passage in Ecclesiastes. A time to be born, a time to die. There's all these times for everything. You know, Chad, just so happens on AMC, which is, of course, American movie classics, we were at the house uh doing nothing so it was just on and they had the 80s marathon going on so of course guys like chad and i are gonna probably stop there and see what's going on on the 80s marathon

my daughter my daughter not as interested in that but uh but jess and i were we're watching it what was on though footloose oh yeah okay footloose and uh you know if you know the premise of footloose There's a guy, he wants to be able to have a high school dance, and this town, they don't allow dancing. They don't allow anything. And there's a real hard fundamentalist pastor that's kind of running the morality of this town, and he is opposed.

And he has to go in front of basically the city council, which, of course, this pastor is on the city council, and try to convince him that this no dancing thing is, not only is it too strict, but it's unbiblical. And what does he use? Ecclesiastes 3. Yeah, absolutely. There is a time to dance, and he says that that time is now. Now. And here's the thing, is that I know...here's how I know that that pastor is...well, of

course, I mean, he's wrong about all kinds of things, because, I mean, that's a ridiculous thing but also doesn't know the bible as well as he as he thinks he does because in that moment he is owned i mean this is the thing that gets him he has no comeback for this now the fact that you outlawed dancing in the first place obviously you don't there's a lot they put it this way if i was writing that movie i would have went straight to david dancing naked bringing the arc and that's what i was thinking and i would have been like at least we're not asking for that you know but you know he uses ecclesiastes and i just thought it was funny as i was like hey we just talked about this and talked about how people take this particular you know section of verses

and make something out of it like listen man the ecclesiastes three is not about celebration let put it that way. Celebrating life. Yeah, we would call that footloose hermeneutics. Yes, that's very loose hermeneutic there. Yeah, a little loose on their interpretation, but a great tie-in

with the best decade ever, the 80s, of course. There you go, yeah. So they were using that... He just kept reading Ecclesiastes. Yeah. Speaking of which, I feel like with this section coming up, we were joking before we started recording

that uh you know the we learned that we're just as just as well off as the beast in this section coming up it's like we should give people the trigger warning before we get into these so if you're having a dear listener if you're having a really really bad day maybe listen to this tomorrow the next day ecclesiastes is gonna like that uh okay so we're yeah we're at uh 316 uh not John 3.16, but Ecclesiastes 3.16. And it begins this way. Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness. And in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. By the way, I should add, some people use this verse as an argument against Solomonic authorship, because they're saying this is not something that Solomon would

say. I mean, apart from that whole argument, I don't think this is really a great text for trying to disprove Solomonic authorship, because it's not as if there didn't exist some sort of wickedness in justice in Solomon's day. I mean, the possibility was rampant then, just as it is in any day and age, for injustice to be in the place of justice. But anyway, this is one of the arguments that are made by people that's a strange argument there was there was injustice in the days of his father i mean david was yeah doing some unjust things like what are you talking about yeah right yeah yeah not to mention as we discussed in those opening chapters of first kings all of the the bloodshed the cleaning up uh operations that solomon did when david died yeah take out

that dude, take out this dude, take out the other guy. So yeah, I mean, if you're going to argue against Solomonic authorship, I wouldn't suggest that verse. It's not very convincing. But anyway, that's the way it is. Isn't all this being said here, is that like, so maybe you look at a place that you think is supposed to be full of justice, and what do you find? Wickedness. And you look at a place that, well, there should be righteousness here, and there's wickedness. This is just, of course true this is the case in all times i say it's always true it's never not true yeah like i found we basically said i found wickedness everywhere and you're like yeah that's that's true from genesis 3 on yes yeah yeah it doesn't it doesn't matter i mean even in the best of times

whatever you want to you know say that is it doesn't really matter there's always going to be injustice, because you always have people, you know, lying in court, you have judges who are willing to be bribed, you have people who are just out for their own interest. In other words, you have sinners in the place of justice and righteousness, so of course you're going to have injustice. That's the way it is under the sun. And it's not as though it's specific of what it is, it's just wickedness, and you're like, yeah, well, you're going to find that everywhere you look. I I mean, wickedness is pretty general, right? Yeah.

I mean, like, hey... Yeah, he's just giving one single instance of something which is universal. Yeah, like, it wasn't like I went to the court system and found it was corrupt. He doesn't even get that specific. He just says, I looked over here where there was supposed to be justice, wickedness. Went over here, looked where there was supposed to be righteousness, wickedness. You're like, you could still do that today, no problem. Yeah.

Example after example. So, verse 17, upon seeing this, he says to himself, or he said in his heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time, there's our word again, a time, you know, for mourning and dancing and everything else. There is a time for every matter and for every work. Okay, so he sees this, and he says, okay, God's going to judge. There's a time for that, but he's not done yet. He kind of continues the same idea, the same thought in the verses that follow this. I'm just go ahead and, and we're almost at the end of the chapter. I'm just go ahead and read 18 through 22, the last four verses of this chapter. I said my heart with regard to

the children of man, that God is testing them, that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beast is the same. As one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, or you could translate that also as a spirit. This is our word ruach, which is wind, breath. Small s spirit, large s spirit. Anyway, that's what it is. That's what's being used here. They all have the same breath. And man has no advantage over the beast, because all is hevel, all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust and to dust all return who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes downward into the earth so i saw that there is nothing better than that a man should

rejoice in his work for that is his lot who can bring him to see what will be after him this is gospel of the lord yeah not really this is the uh this is the depressing verdict of the wisdom teacher who has just disclosed to us the perspective of those who are looking at things from under the sun and with with no other perspective than that i mean it is a on the one hand yes it it it's true i'm not saying it's wholly true uh but it is true of course we are like the beast in that they live a while and they die. We live a while and we die. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. That's where we go. And he says, all are from the dust and to dust they go. So if this is the case, then what should you do? Well, nothing better than you

should just enjoy your work, rejoice in the labor of your hands. That's your purpose in life. That's a lot. You're not gonna be able to tell what comes after you, so you just as well enjoy the life that you can see and that you experience. And if that is depressing, if that sounds depressing, well, that would be very accurate. That is exactly the way it is. This is what happens when your theological prison has no roof. You know, you're just trapped in there. You can't see outside of your own confines, which are limited by this earthly perspective. I think he just puts forward an impossibility, which is that, first of all, you have this sort of accusation lobbed at God that, like, all right, here's what's happening. God is making things

difficult. He's putting forward these tests, and the whole point of these tests is to show that you're no different than any other animal like you're all the same you're all gonna die okay well that's depressing if that's the case that that's a bummer and since that is his conclusion he says like here's what we'll do um i'm just gonna rejoice in my work this is my lot and uh since i can't i don't know what's gonna happen after i die i can just i'll just rejoice in the moment. I'll just enjoy what I'm doing right now. This is what I mean by he puts forward an impossibility, which is, okay, in your work and in the toil that you've been given to do, that you're just going to enjoy that and rejoice in that, and you're going to find

contentment in that. This is like an impossible thing to do if this is all there is. All of this becomes, every day is a day closer to the end, which will increase your worry, or your vexation, or your frustration, or whatever it is. It seems that what Solomon does, because a lot of, I mean, like we said numerous times, a lot of people will be looking at this book, and they're saying, like, okay, this is the perspective of life without God, which of course is true, you can kind of narrow it even more than that and say, this is the perspective of life without resurrection, because... I like that even better.

Yes, because resurrection solves all of the dilemmas that he puts...it obliterates all the things that he argues, right? Because if you have the resurrection...I actually would argue that, no, no, no, the only way for you to enjoy fully and rejoice in the, you know, the work you've been given to do here is to know that there is a life to come. This is how you enjoy it, because you know that you're going to live forever, and so what you've been given to do in this life, of course, is it's not that it's of no consequence, it's of eternal consequence, actually. It matters a whole lot, right? But it's not, it's just a blip on the timeline of eternity. And even when he says

that God has put eternity into the hearts of men, like, what is he, what are you actually longing for? You're longing for an eternal life, to live. Yeah, yeah. When you were talking, I was thinking of Romans 8, I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to with the glory that is to be revealed to us and that perspective transforms our understanding of the difficulties in this life yeah you know yeah it's all the difficulties which are explained uh ad nauseum in ecclesiastes he just goes on and on about the sufferings the uh you know just how bad things are whether it's sickness or death or injustice or you name it Well, when you have the resurrection in view, then all of a sudden, all those things, as

you just said, it's a blip when you look at the perspective of eternity. And I can't remember which saint said this, but something like, from the perspective of eternity, our worst sufferings in this life are going to be compared to a bad night in a cheap hotel room. It does. And I think the older you get, even in this life, you have a bit of that perspective because you look back and you're like, yeah, that was a terrible year, but you see it now in a bigger perspective. And it has a way of transforming your pains from the past as you begin to see

that they're only part of your story, even in this life. Well, just step back and look at things from the perspective of the resurrection and eternity. And I'm not discounting the fact that you can have awful, terrible, no good years, I have, you have, we all have, but in the light of eternity, they're transformed. The pain and all of that isn't removed, but it's seen in a bigger resurrection perspective. I like the way you put that, life without resurrection. Yeah, because if it's simply life without God, what God? And does this God do something about the fact that you, just like all the beasts, also died? Does he

do anything about that? Does he have a solution to that? It's not just simply like, well, this is what happens if you're... if you don't have a deity. No, this is what happens when you don't have a deity who rose from the dead. Yeah.

That is also promised that his resurrection is the first route to your resurrection. Yeah, I mean, even if you're kind of... what's the phrase? moralistic therapeutic deist. Yeah. I mean, even if you're that, that is not going to help you at all.

No. Because that deity, if he's even worthy of the name, is not going to love you and die for you and rise again for you. I mean, it's going to make everything and kind of set stuff up

and then step back and then let you inhabit this world which is full of pain and suffering and injustice. Well, that's because... That kind of God won't do you any good. That's because God existing

isn't good news. No, no, like we talked about, I think we talked about this when we recorded Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the earth the handiwork, and the heavens the handiwork of his hands, or however that goes, but okay, that's true. Yeah, I mean, you can look at the heaven, you'd be like, man, must be a glorious creator that made all these things, but that really doesn't do you any good. No, no. Unless you know God in Christ. Yeah, because I don't know if he's for me. I don't know if he's against me. I don't know if he loves me. I don't know if he hates me. I don't know if he has any solution to any of the things that plague me. I don't know

if he's responsible for those things, if he's opposed to those things. I have known none of this. They're just being a sovereign creator. It's not good news. It's just information. The good news is that, oh, no, no, that this God became flesh, and He lived and He died for you, and He rose again, and He's promised to raise you up from the dead and cause you to live forever. Now that's good news. Now I know what kind of God I'm dealing with. Right, right.

Yeah, because you can look at something beautiful in creation, look at the intricacies of a rose, for instance, and say, how beautiful, you know, what a creator we have. And you can turn around and look at, you know, forest fires, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and look at things from that perspective. And you think, what a horrible, hard-hearted God made this world, right? So it's a, at best, it's a mixed message when you look at God only from the perspective of creation. Yeah. Certainly not good news.

No. Yeah. Okay. So anything else that you want to talk about those verses? I don't think so. All right. The only thing I'll add is that, as we have pointed out multiple times, look at these verses in perspective of the entire message of Ecclesiastes, because I have had people take messages like this and say, see, the Old Testament teaches there is no afterlife, or that once you're dead, that's it. well even even that argument based upon these verses is at best tenuous uh but you got to look

at things from the perspective of the whole purpose of this book instead of just kind of cherry-picking these verses and claiming oh this is what the old testament teaches well you could do the same thing with job's three friends take a verse from their lips and say this is what the bible teaches no that that's just what eliphaz believes well yeah and even this you just say you know in ecclesiastes it makes it very clear that us and cattle are the same and they're like uh no yeah no no uh i mean it it does say that that is a statement that solomon's making uh and also he is wrong uh and if you read the if you read the whole book like you'll know that he's about he was making all kinds of wrong statements sort of intentionally yeah yeah so

everything in perspective for sure or context okay uh so chapter four Ecclesiastes uh making making headway here so again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun and behold the tears of the oppressed and they had no one to comfort them on the side of their oppressors, there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun. Then I saw that, well Let me stop there. That's the first three verses.

That's a good stopping point. So in the Hebrew here, you have he turned and he saw, which is just an idiomatic way of saying he looked again. So I turned and I saw. I looked again. I turned around and I looked again, and here's what I saw. I saw a bunch of oppressions that are done, and I saw the tears of the oppressed.

And I'm reading for the ESV here. I think that a couple of the other, the NIV and the New Revised Standard Version do this a little bit better uh they have dashes in there which set apart this there was no one to comfort them you can easily get the impression when you're reading this translation that also there was no one to comfort the oppressors but that's that's not it's not talking about there's no one to comfort the oppressors it's just simply repeating there's no one to comfort them it's repeating that twice in order to accent the fact that uh even in the midst of this oppression where the oppressors had all the power and they were powerless, they had nobody to comfort them.

So he sees the tears of the oppressed. They're crying, they're suffering, they have no power, they're weak, they have nobody to come to their aid. And of course, this is not only undesirable, but it's a depressing thought. He sees this. And his conclusion to this might be a bit shocking, unless by now you've kind of gotten to know the perspective that he is coming from. He's kind of got like a three-tier level of, you know, good, better, best here. And the best is people who have not even been born. Do you know what's wild about this? Okay.

A little bit. Okay, so you're talking about Solomon. Solomon does not have it bad. Okay. Solomon is not... There's an understatement of the year. I mean, he had a pretty good life. He's not, like...

This dude does not have it difficult in life. He's not quite living paycheck to paycheck. This dude writes like he's... Scraping the bottom of the barrel. This right here sounds like he's Job on the trash heap, scraping his boils with pottery. This is what it sounds like. He's like...

Instead, he's like a thousand wives in a gold palace, dressed in fine silk, eating sumptuous food, and it's all meaningless. And it does make it tough, but it's instructive, because Job can be suffering like crazy and be like, okay, I'm coming to the conclusion that it's better to be dead than go through this, which you can understand in his situation. Job, yeah. And in this situation, you also understand that actually all this stuff won't help you come to a better conclusion, because what Solomon does here sort of undercuts the thing he just said, which is like, okay, I figured it out. There's nothing, so what you need to do is enjoy the moment. You've got to just enjoy the work that's been given to you, like rejoice in it. And then immediately he's like, but also, you know, the best thing is just to never exist.

well okay dude like obviously apart from uh someone who would comfort the oppressed uh and somebody who uh actually says no those who are dead um actually are not are not dead uh someone who has defeated death apart from that like you need a comforter and a defeater of death then even if you've got everything that solomon's got your conclusion is gonna be like man i wish i was never born which is wild it is it's pretty wild but you know i mean we see this all the time people in positions of power or you know they're famous beyond fame or they're you know they're whatever from the outsider's perspective you think man if only i could be as lucky as that dude or that that gal and then you know you find out somehow that uh they're depressed

I saw this just the other day there was a thing about this article about Robin Williams and I was thinking about that man, you're talking about a guy who was obviously incredibly successful made tons of money, had tons of fame

didn't seem like he really cared about that stuff that much which made him really likable but he was beloved people loved him he was able to bring tremendous amounts of joy into people's lives. He's a hilarious person, and he hangs himself.

Yeah. And you could add to him a long list of people like that. Yeah. I mean, the allurements that so attract us in this world, that especially these days, I think maybe I shouldn't say especially, but it seems like especially these days, we're privy to all of these things. It's not, you know, a rumor we've heard about how good people have it who are rich and powerful.

I mean, we see that. It's very visible to us. We can easily fall into that trap of thinking, yeah, man, they must be so happy because they have all this stuff. And then you hear, nah, it doesn't make any difference. Impoverishment of the soul. They're eating things which will not satisfy. They're drinking things which will never slake their thirst. I mean, it just underscores over and over

that we were not created to be filled by those things. It's ultimately not going to satisfy. Yeah, Solomon's a great example of that. What did he lack? Well, he himself says nothing. Plenty of women, plenty of wine, plenty of possessions, plenty of power, plenty of everything. And his conclusion?

Yeah, it's better never to have been. The thing about Solomon is he's not even a fool. Like, I mean, he even gets to the point where he's like, well, you might think, of course, me having collected and acquired all this wisdom, right, that would obviously help you. Because, you know, if you were wise, you would think you'd find the solution. You'd find the answer. You would be able to find a way to have life be meaningful. But the opposite actually is true, where he's like, actually, the more I know, the worse it gets. Yeah.

The deeper the knowledge, the deeper the perception of the emptiness of the world. Yeah. Yeah, so sure, everybody by now is up dancing and enjoying themselves. This is not the time to dance, apparently. This is the time to mourn. I'm going to ask Solomon, when you get right about this part, excuse me, when is the time to dance? I'm starting to think that there isn't one. You've got to wait until the end of the book, I think.

Okay, so verse 4. We're actually going to get some proverbs in here in this chapter. Then I saw verse 4. Then I saw that all toil and all skill and work come from, well, what would they come from? He says they come from a man's envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and striving after the wind. I don't even know how this could possibly be true. Like, what are you talking about?

Solomon's gone, like, full pessimist. It's just like, you know what? Even when people are good at things, and the only reason they got good at it is to be because they're envious of their neighbor or something. You're like, man, I mean, listen, I think people are super wicked, but I'm not sure that that's universally true. At best, we're talking about mixed motivations for doing things, right?

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. it seems like you like you might uh okay everything you do is tainted by sin to be sure but say you got really into woodworking because you like things made out of wood and so you make a little shop in your garage and you're out there way too much and your wife's annoyed with you but you're trying to get really good at woodworking and then i don't know if you're just like a wise man can come in there and it'd be like you know what this is secretly about it's secretly about your neighbor and how envious you are of him you're like what is it though my neighbor couldn't carve a tube before from a block of wood what are you talking about i'm not envious of my neighbor i i don't

know it's uh but then this is this is a this is a wild thing once you this is the thing it's like and also like once you go down this road a sort of despair yeah you you just like you it becomes impossible for you to see good things in anything right where you're just like well this is vanity and i know i actually know people like this like well i've seen people sort of fall down the well of despair and uh and then and just becoming like extremely melancholy all the time this kind of stuff and you ever been around somebody who has a unique ability to take like maybe everyone's having a good time and like they will just just probably a wet blanket yeah just big time down around the whole thing oh oh yeah yeah i mean someone's probably having a lot of parties he

seems like he's a lot of fun to be around yeah yeah i have known people like that uh that is their unique gift if you want to call it that uh you can put them in the uh the midst of the most a lively party, and ten minutes later, they will have brought everybody down. It's just a Solomonic power that they have. So, yeah, that also is

vanity and striving after win. Well, yeah, if that is a person's motivation, it certainly will be. It's just so all-inclusive. I saw that all toil, all skill in work comes from a man's envy of his neighbors. You're like, wow.

He does have a comprehensive approach i mean he's not doing anything piecemeal for him it's like all or all or nothing all is vanity right and then he uh he goes on to have a couple of proverbial statements verses five and six he says the fool holds his hands and eats his own flesh and then he says better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and striving after wind so this first one is a bit uh strange sounding to us because when we think about folding our hands maybe we think about i don't know first image comes to my mind is prayer right yeah all right kids uh bow your heads fold your hands close your eyes we're gonna we're gonna pray

by the way folding your hands is a yeah now that there's certain things that we just say that i don't ever that you don't ever think about and like yeah if someone said what's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the phrase fold your hands it'd be prayer but then you're also like what a weird thing to say like fold like fold you're not folding them that's weird that's yeah that's i mean i know i know what you mean but how did that become a thing is this where it came from because because yeah well you fold blankets right or you fold towels or whatever If you were just learning English like that, you'd be like,

I don't think I heard that right. What? How do I do that? It's word on two levels. Number one, because we've been talking about it. Number two, there is nowhere in the Bible where people fold their hands when they pray. They stretch them out, they hold them up, but somewhere along the way,

we started, quote, folding our hands when we pray. But here, so it's used a couple times in Proverbs, Proverbs 6.10 and Proverbs 24.33. And it seems to be a Hebrew idiom that basically means you don't work. So as opposed to having your hands active, engaged in some kind of toil, you fold them together. So the fool basically doesn't work. He's, or we might say he's too lazy to work. And as a result, he eats his own flesh. And by that, it just means that he

basically his life goes to ruin he we might say he he wastes away something like that so it's i don't i struggle with how this kind of fits into this this whole passage this whole section of ecclesiastes unless maybe he's just contrasting you know some people who are workaholics and they're doing this because they envy their neighbors solomon says and then then he presents the opposite and there's some people who fold their hands they don't do anything and they sit there and they just waste away so he's like he's presenting opposite extremes here i suppose it's one way to put it and if he is then the the the second of these proverbs verse six is kind of a striking i guess a a balance between these two because he says better better is a handful of

quietness than two hands of toil and striving after after the wind so you know strive for contentment i suppose is what he's what he's trying to put forward here rather than always trying to have more or being the sluggard who folds his hands and and waste away i don't know that's that seems to be the only way i can kind of put this section together i don't know if you have any other it's tough it's tough to read ecclesiastes and have like a section like this where you feel like Solomon is trying to give you some advice because, like, my immediate response to this would be, like, based on what I've heard you say, though,

like, does it really matter? Does it really matter, Solomon, either way? You're telling me to be wise? Okay, that's fine, but I'm still going to die. I'm still going to die just like the beast and turn to the dust, and who knows what happens after that, right? Like, who cares if I waste away?

I mean, it's all the same, right? and so this I think that you see like this sort of Solomon struggle with who cares it doesn't matter everything ends up the same doesn't matter if you do this or you do that like the end is the same but you know it would be better

why though and so like this is and you see people do this all the time who don't believe in God or don't believe in the resurrection that will try to give you like sage advice but you're like how to have like a meaningful life you're like who cares

What difference does it make? And of course, there is no answer for that. No, the only answer is, well, I mean, you're only here for a while, you should just enjoy yourself, right? Well, that only works for a while. Yep. Like for me, if I try and adopt that perspective, it only works as long as I am consciously able to exclude from my mind my own mortality.

Well, this is Solomon's whole point, is he did try that. he tried all of that and had the resources to try it in an extravagant way, and he comes back and writes this stuff down, like, yeah, yeah, but also, it's vanity, like, all of it's vanity, and so, yeah, there's no way, the longevity of that is non-existent. Yeah, I mean, you can get drunk, you can lose yourself in lust, you can enjoy your well, whatever uh and yeah for a while i mean minutes hours days whatever you can you can get so wrapped up in that that you don't think about the fact that you will die but then that period will end it always ends and it comes mortality comes rushing back to confront you with the fact

that all is all this vanity so that's probably going to come rushing in the older you get too A hedonism is kind of a young man's game, but the older you get, not that there aren't aged hedonists, there are, but when their head hits the pillow at night, they have different thoughts than the 20-year-old hedonist, I promise you. Yeah, definitely so. I'm sitting here picturing 80-year-old hedonists. Yeah, they got different things going through their head at night than the guy that's 22. yeah yeah very very true well i don't i don't know that we have uh enough time to to get into into this next section he's he's got some more to say here um he's gonna he's gonna begin so he started out the chapter again i saw and in verse 7 he's going to continue this with again

i saw a vanity under the sun and then he's going to talk about he's going to talk about uh uh descendants people that we might we might take care of and then he's going to kind of wax proverbial uh once again but it's going to it's going to continue the same theme that we've been seeing for goodness how many chapters now four and a half chapters now where uh it doesn't really matter as we've been talking about when you have when you have this kind of perspective a no resurrection perspective just kind of a there is a god who exists and who does things and who gives certain things to men and that that is if that's your only perspective then in the end yeah there's only one conclusion you can come to all is all this vanity but everything changes with uh the

resurrection yeah everything every perspective in life changes and you know i uh man that we talked about as you get older as i get older that more and more dominates my thinking my prayers my perspective on life because uh that ultimately is what it's it's the only thing that really sheds light into into lives that can be so darkened in so many so many different ways so it's the only thing that gives actual meaning to like the things that you do here that would otherwise be uh sort of meaningless uh is the fact that uh kind of nothing's meaningless uh When you're dealing with the resurrection, all your interactions matter, all the people around you matter, and all the work that you do matters in a very different way than if

that's not true. So, well, all right. We are out of time, so we'll leave it there. We'll be back next week with another episode. I'll see you then, Chad. All right, see you then. Thanks. We'll see you next time.