Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Ecclesiastes 7 - A Date with Death and Nostalgia

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

In this series, Jonny Ardavanis explore the main themes in the book of Ecclesiastes. Watch VideosVisit the Website Follow on InstagramFollow on Twitter

Hey guys, my name is Johnny Artavanis and this is Dial In. In this series, we're exploring the main themes of Ecclesiastes and in this episode, we'll look at Ecclesiastes chapter 7. Let's dial in. Okay, let's regroup. We are exploring life under the sun with our preacher King Solomon. He has everything you could ever want. All the power that wealth affords.

All the women he desires. But he is empty and grasping for meaning in a world of futility and frustration. His wisdom precedes him. It's known all over the world. But in Ecclesiastes, he is offering for us his wisdom free of charge. He bids you to pull up a seat and hear his reflections, observations, and instructions about life in God's world. For our purposes, Solomon sends you a text. He says, let's go on a drive.

You take shotgun. You might not know the right questions to ask because he's the wisest man in the world and you're just you, but he is going to process for us and we are going to absorb the wisdom he presents. We're going to skip over chapter six because it presents many of the same themes we have already covered, but one of the observations that we will note briefly is that Solomon once again is detailing for us the mirage and emptiness of wealth. Its pursuit might bring exhilaration, but Solomon says, once you have it all, you feel like you have nothing at all.

Solomon says, money cannot provide what it takes away. When the richest man in the world, John Rockefeller at the time was, how much money is enough money? He responded by saying, just a little bit more. Solomon always wants more. And because of that, he never has enough. Now, as we move on to chapter seven, it might seem that what we are about to look at is a series of fragmented Proverbs. But after closer consideration, we come to see that there is a unifying message here in the midst of all these statements. We will observe as we go. Well, first of all, we are going to see that Solomon

is once again considering his looming date with death. So he bridges his thoughts and observations on wealth in chapter six to say in chapter seven, verse one, a good name is better than a good ointment. We will stop there for a minute, but what does it mean that a good name is better than a good ointment? Okay. Think with me. Biblically speaking, names are not just titles in the Bible. They represent the character, identity, and reputation of the one that bears that name. That's why Proverbs 22, one says a good name is to be desired more than great wealth. Names are important. They are the culmination of your entire character. Now,

what's the deal with ointment? Now, oil or ointment or fragrance here in the Bible is very costly. It's not some sort of cheap ax body spray that junior hires douse themselves with at summer camp. This is precious. Remember, this is why Judas is mad when Mary Magdalene comes and anoints Jesus with a precious nard because it was worth a year's wages. So Solomon says a good name is greater than good ointment because at the end of the day, you can have wealth and all the external things that signify youth, sex, and power.

You can smell good, have white teeth, have a great body, but beauty is vain, it's fleeting. But do you know what lasts? Solomon asks a good reputation. It doesn't matter if you smell good. If when your name is brought up a stench enters the mind of those who hear it. Character is more precious than jewels. But now he is going to say something that's interesting, even challenging in verse 1b. He says, and the day of one's death is better than the day of one's birth.

I became a dad last year and I'm with you. How could this be? How could the day of death be better than the day of birth? The day of birth is so full of joy and happiness and the day of birth is so full of joy and happiness. And the day of death is so full of sorrow and tears. Maybe you're thinking he's thinking like the apostle Paul who says to die is gain, but no Solomon has already told us in chapter three, that the only thing he knows for sure that follows death is judgment. He's not anticipating a heavenly home here. So what does he mean?

One pastor explains that birth is all about potential, meaning that when I first held Lily Jean, my daughter in the hospital, I along with millions of fathers around the world begin to think, oh, what will life look like for my baby girl? I can't wait to take her to the zoo or to teach her how to shoot a basketball.

Man, one day, Lord willing, she'll get married and have babies of her own and make me a grandpa. Birth is all about potential. But death, on the other hand, is not about potential. It's about fulfillment. There are no more hopes, no more dreams, no more wishful thinking, only realization. It's all over. And while this might be a good consideration regarding birth equaling potential and death meaning fulfillment, I think Solomon is after something

else. He wants you to understand something. Dial in here, wherever you are, wherever you're listening in your car or in your room or in the gym. The day of death is better than the day of birth for one main reason. It's a better teacher. Death is an active evangelist that proclaims to you your own mortality. He's not saying that death is better

than life. It's not, but he is detailing for us that when we stare at a coffin and the absence of a life once lived, our own life comes into focus. I'll explain this more, but first let's go to verse two. He says, it is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting because that is the end of every man. Pause here. Now, feasting here represents the ultimate form of a party, a wedding. And weddings are by no means superficial. They are God honoring, but they don't quite bring life into focus the way that death does.

Death is better than birth. Mourning is better than feasting because coffins preach the strongest sermons. No one leaves a comedy and considers the brevity of life and the inevitability of their own death. But Solomon knows that every funeral you attend anticipates your own. Every memorial service shocks our system back into reality. They tell us about the way that life actually is, not the make-believe, let's pretend manner of life, but the way that life is. Solomon encourages you.

Walk past a graveyard. Look at the dates on the tombstones and find that some of them share the same birth year as you. 1992, a dash in the middle, and then a recent year. And he encourages you to be pricked by the reminder of your own looming destiny. And don't forsake wisdom as it shouts in the street. Solomon wants you to know death is not your enemy. In many ways, death can become your mentor, a friend, if you will. The preacher says funerals provide the best tuning forks for misdirected lives. Each coffin we look at in each cemetery we pass becomes a foreshadowing of our own destiny.

At the end of verse two, Solomon will say, and the living will take it to heart, meaning that wise people don't live delusionally. They don't live in denial of their death. They live with this mindset. Maybe in 30 years or perhaps in 30 minutes, I will go and meet my maker. And they asked themselves this question, what will the dash in between my birth year and my death year stand for? Have you ever considered what people will say at your own funeral? Did you live for others or did you live for yourself? Solomon says, one day people will gather around your casket. And this is why he says in verse four,

the mind of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the fool, the fool checks his watch at a funeral. He checks his phone. He can't wait to escape. He thinks it's boring. He's foolish because he's neglecting a life of thoughtfulness and depth. But Solomon says, death invites you to become a person of depth. In fact, David Gibson says, the living a good life is dependent upon you living in light of your death. Solomon says, I've been to a lot of great parties. I have my PhD in parties, but I've never walked away from any of them with the perspective that is provided for me from a good day at a funeral. It's better to have coffee in the graveyard than a red solo cup at a party. Death is the object of the wise man's reflections. He

allows it to rouse him to concern and to thought and to depth. The fool, on the other hand, is blind to his own destiny. He lives in denial of his destiny and therefore he compromises and misstewards life in the present. Now in verses seven through nine, Solomon talks about the corruption that is rampant in this world, this side of the grave. He said that this world is full of oppression and bribery and impatience and pride and anger. This is immensely contemporary if you think about it, because this is not divorced from what we see today. But I want to focus for a moment on what he says in verse 10. He says, do not say, why is it that the former days were better than these? For it is not from wisdom that you ask about this. Question for you.

Have you recently looked at the news on your phone or on the television and then had to look away? You shake your head and you mumble and say things like, why is the world so bad? Why can't it just go back to the way things used to be? Why, why, why? I can't imagine raising my kids in this environment. Solomon pulls up to a stop sign and says,

if you think like this, your mind is not aligned with wisdom. If you live in nostalgically in the past, maybe you think that the past was better than the present when the prevailing winds of contemporary thought were at the backs of Christians. But Solomon asked, why was it better? Was God more present then than he is now? Is he no longer in control? Is his purpose suppressed? Is he less sovereign now than he was then? Solomon says to ask the question and to live in the past is unwise because it neglects the reality of divine providence.

Nostalgia can often be a way for even Christians of eluding reality by not trusting God in the present or anticipating the future in faith. Additionally, Solomon wants you to know that memories are often romanticized. The past betrays us. It is never as good as your mind is telling you it was, and it's not where God has called you to live. You live in the present, Solomon says. Thank God for the past. Remember it, examine it, but don't say, why are things the way that they are? Why aren't things the way they used to be?

Living in the past almost always overlooks the evils that were taking place back then as well. And this preacher king isn't fooled by the golden cloud surrounding the past. He has already declared that there is nothing new under the sun. C.S. Lewis begs us to consider that when we are pulled to the past, even just the sweet memories of our life, what is in fact pulling on our heartstrings is the future. It's heaven. It's your sense of home and belonging. This is a contemporary cry of what Solomon says in Ecclesiastes

three. We are built for home, for a place we cannot see yet. So when the flashing moments of nostalgia hits, Gibson says, it's like tiny pinpricks that we are made for another home. Wise people, Solomon says, allow the feeling of nostalgia to point them forward, not to drag them backwards. Evaluating present days is needed, but to long for former days is foolish. Michael Eaton says, one cannot face the difficulties of one age by pining for another. Now in verse 13 and 14, Solomon will say, consider the work of God for who is able to straighten what he has bent. In the days of prosperity, be happy. But in the days of adversity, consider God has made the one as well as the other so that man will not discover anything that will be after him.

Solomon sweeps all of the good, all of the bad, all of the death and sorrow, the future and the present and the past into a plan that God is orchestrating. The anomalies of life are not random. He says they are written by God. This is reminiscent of what Solomon has already said in chapter 1, verse 15. That which is crooked cannot be made straight. He says God is the one doing all things. And as we discussed in episode 3 of the series, God is the one conducting all things.

And Solomon is saying he is as much in control of 2022 as he was of 1984 or 1776. In verse 14, he says, in the days of prosperity, be joyful. And in the days of adversity, consider God has made the one as well as the other, meaning that God uses both prosperity and adversity to have their effect on our life. Both of them cause us to long for a better home. Prosperity leads us to joy, which causes us to thank God for his good gifts. But affliction draws our attention to the sovereignty of God and causes us to long for a time when pain will be no more. Both are subject to God's will and a part of his providence and the rhythm in the world that fluctuates between joy and pain, prosperity and adversity. It's not random,

Solomon says. It is the plan of God. When we consider the brokenness of the world, Solomon says, we consider its frustration. We examine the reason for it all. He then begins to conclude the chapter by asking the question, what's the problem with the world? There's so much oppression and adversity and toil and labor. What's the main problem? Verse 20. Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins. Solomon says the problem with the world is us. The reason there's death is us. Solomon turns to what has been revealed in Genesis one through three and says, everything that we see broken is because we ourselves are broken. Babylonian theodicy depicted that the gods were responsible for the wickedness of men.

All of the lies and all of the evil were endowed by the will of the gods. It was their fate then, the people, to be living in a world of wickedness. But Solomon says, no, no, no. All the lies, all of the evil, all of the moral messes. It's not our fate, but rather our fault. The problem with the world is us. This word indeed, when he says indeed, there is not a righteous man. It means surely without a shadow of a doubt, no exaggeration or hyperbole. This is the truth. There is not a righteous man on earth who never sins. This includes you, both sins of commission and omission. Commission meaning acts that we do in violation of what God has called us to do.

And omission meaning we don't do what he has called us to do. And he says, this reality of sin, this is the reason the world is the way it is. What's wrong with the world? Solomon says, us. And apart from the saving and preserving grace of God, it would be far worse. Maybe you've heard that sin makes you stupid. Scripture,

Solomon testifies to that reality in verse 25, when he says that the foolishness or talks about the foolishness and stupidity of sin. In verse 29, there's a conclusion. After adding up the sum total of his wisdom and observations, Solomon says, See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. As I've studied Ecclesiastes and taught through it in our fellowship group at church in Los Angeles, at the end of every episode or the end of every chapter, I feel that there's this tug towards the gospel to remedy the deep contemplation and sometimes sorrow we feel from Solomon. But amidst the contemplation, there is a silver thread here in verse 29 that if we pull it, we see that there is a glimmer of hope. Solomon says, God made man upright, meaning that man wasn't created sinful

nor even morally neutral. God made them upright, meaning that if uprightness and beauty and truth and meaning were the intention behind the world, then vanity cannot be its fate. If vanity was not the first word in God's world, then it certainly will not be the last. God made man upright. He made a world of beauty and truth. And one day he will restore all things. All of life is out of joint. Solomon asked the question,

can anyone come to set it right? Thank God he sent his son. We'll talk about this more, but stay dialed in.