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Overcoming Futility

by Lawrence Kelley

 

Around 3,500 years ago King Solomon set out to grasp the meaning of life. Through a series of experiments

He began this quest by limiting the scope of inquiry to only those things that were available to his senses & reason, excluding the realm of the supernatural. Explained by the phrase, "under the sun" 29 X's = "secular world." Solomon's quest has relevance to our contemporary quest for meaning in a secular society.

  1. Diligently seeking meaning:
    1. He sought it in pleasure (2:1).
      1. His resources for pleasure seeking were far ranging.
        1. 700 wives & 300 concubines (I Kings 11:3).
        2. 1k women at his disposal - enough to make rock star envy.
      2. If it felt good, Solomon did it. But, he found this was vanity or a vapor or meaningless (v.1). Also 29X


    2. He also pursued laughter (v. 2).
      1. the pressures of state and the nagging of the wives, then a trip down to the comedy club is just the thing.
      2. Or not (v. 2) This also was a dead end.
      3. You can only watch so many sitcoms.
      4. At some point: the laughter stops, the comedians run out of jokes, the band packs up, the party girls go home and there you sit in stone cold silence.
        1. "humor is despair refusing to take itself seriously."
        2. "I'm not into sobering realities"
        3. You can laugh at the fact that life is filled with suffering and then you die. but when the laughter is over, you still have to deal with the suffering & death.
        4. Its enough to drive you to drinking.


    3. Perhaps wine would do the trick (v.3).
      1. It didn't take long for Men to figure out how to get grapes & grains produce a buzz.
      2. If that doesn't work certain types of mushrooms can take you places you never imagined.
      3. Getting stoned makes perfect sense if this world is all there is.
        1. Paul said, if Christ did not rise from the dead, then the most sensible thing to do is eat and drink and have as good a time as a highly evolved primate can have.
        2. But alas, even this leaves the drunk as empty as last night's keg.
        3. Anna Nicole Smith partied for 39 years and all the drugs, alcohol, plastic surgeries etc. were futile attempts to mask the pain.
        4. No meaning or joy in hedonism.


    4. Like any self respecting middle aged man, Solomon threw himself into his work (vv. 4-7).
      1. Surely there is meaning in great accomplishments.
        1. Solomon achieved great agricultural and engineering feats.
        2. His father David was a warrior, but Solomon was a builder and brought Israel to its golden age
        3. Some of what he accomplished can still be seen today. Of course it is all a great Ozymandian ruin.
      2. We should understand that Solomon's hedonism wasn't that of a frat boy living on Cracker Jacks and cheap beer; his was a refined, high brow sort of affair (v. 8).
        1. He gathered the finest of things. Silver, gold, precious treasures from far away places (v. 8).
          1. rich beyond all reckoning.
          2. only led him to ask, "what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but has no soul?"
        2. He also had servants and singers to keep his court entertained.
      3. Most importantly, throughout the whole of his experiment his wisdom remained with him (v. 9). His wisdom consistently told him one thing - this is meaningless (vv. 11-17).


  2. Pessimistic ? but how can you argue with the reason& experience of Solomon?
    1. The same conclusion has been reached by scores of others.
      1. Back in the 70's the classic rock band Kansas recorded a song that echoes the outlook of this chapter, "All we are is dust in the wind." The music is beautiful but the lyrics are depressing: "All we do crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see...nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky; it slips away, and all your money won't another minute buy."
    2. Man has a hunger for things this world cannot satisfy.
      1. Trying to fill that hunger w/ twinkes doesn't work.
      2. If man has a hunger which nothing under the sun can satisfy, must be made for something & someone beyond the sun.
      3. Unlike the song by Kansas, Solomon wakes up from the enchantment and wizardry of secular reasoning.
      4. He realizes that in the judgment and the life to come everything is brought into its proper perspective (12:6-7;13-14).
    3. In the end life has profound meaning, but its meaning cannot be discovered apart from God & eternity.
      1. The secular worldview collapses into nihilism
      2. But when God is reckoned in our thinking,
        1. We have hope for ultimate meaning in world to come &,
        2. the ability to enjoy this life (2:24).

The God who brings everything into Judgment, has made a way for us to bear up under the scrutiny of His holy eye. Through Jesus Christ.


L.K. -0- 2-11-07



OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:----Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

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This page was last modified on March 7, 2007

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