Thus far, in our series on Ecclesiastes, we have identified the author of the book as Solomon, the message of the book as the meaninglessness of life under the sun, and the mood of the book as total despair. We have introduced and defined philosophic terms (secularism, humanism, deism, nihilism, and existentialism) that help us understand the writer’s viewpoint and the current worldview of our own culture. We have briefly outlined the structure of the author’s argument: from nature, from human endeavor, from human wisdom, from human pleasure, from human wealth and work, and from the certainty of death. In this article, we will examine the teacher’s argument from human wisdom.

As he posits his thesis of the meaninglessness of life, Solomon frames part of his argument in the form of questions. The first question is in 1:3.

The Seeker raises the right question. "Does life really make any sense? Does my life have any real purpose? Are there any enduring and lasting joys or is my life just like nature’s endless and meaningless cycles?" In verses 4-7, the writer describes those endless cycles in what we might call a treadmill existence.

The second question is in 1:10.

Here, the Seeker asks if there is any light at the end of the tunnel. Is there any legitimate ground on which to expect a change for the better in the future? His conclusion is that there is no real hope of change for the better in the future; rather, things will get worse. We already know the entire story; we are locked into a closed system. This is the certain conclusion to an honest application of the under the sun philosophy.

In his book, Ecclesiastes, An Introduction and Commentary, Michael Eaton provides an excellent outline of chapters one and two. It will be helpful to use this as a road map in our travels through Ecclesiastes.

In 1:12, the Teacher identifies and describes himself as a king over Israel in Jerusalem. As king of Israel, he belonged to the only nation that had received special, personal revelation from God that included the one true gospel. Unhappily, he ignored that revelation during the time-period described in Ecclesiastes. When the Seeker had become king of Israel, he had prayed to God for wisdom because he knew that was one of the greatest gifts that God could give (1 Kings 3:5-9). God heard and answered that prayer positively (1 Kings 3:10-12). Solomon was a man who knew from personal experience the snares of sin and devices of Satan. The proverbs that he wrote verify this. This man had tasted the love of God and recorded it in a poetic analogy in the Song of Solomon. However, he also was the man who forsook the beloved for the world, the flesh, and idols. He left the bread of heaven for the tasteless husks of this world.

Most important of all, the Seeker was a man loved and chosen by God before he was even born. This is why God rescued him from his journey into existential meaninglessness and brought him back to the joy of forgiveness and fellowship. With his father David, he could say from personal experience, "He restores my soul."

These facts, when considered soberly, warn us against playing with fire. If a person like the Seeker, who had known God as well as his other writings indicate, could be so careless and backslide so far, then what about us? If ever there was a legitimate warning and a beacon, it is the Seeker. His behavior teaches us to stay close to the Savior.

In verse 13, we have an indication of the intensity of the Seeker’s search. He gave his heart (the NIV reads, "I devoted myself") to finding truth and reality. His was not a weekend pursuit, but a complete preoccupation with one all-consuming goal. This is the story of a true believer who temporarily lost sight of God’s objective revelation (the Bible) and forgot him who is over the sun. The Seeker is not the only true believer who experienced this problem. The author of Psalm 73 traces identical steps away from and back to God.

Ecclesiastes 1:13 through 2:11 presents a perfect picture of you and me when we turn our eyes and hearts away from the truth. We do not have to fashion a golden calf in order to turn away from God and commit idolatry. Worship of false gods can take place at a very subtle level. The books we read, the television we watch, the art we view, and the music we hear affect us, both emotionally and spiritually. Artists are promoters of their view of truth and reality. They peddle religion, and not just entertainment. This is why many Christians feel uncomfortable in the presence of abstract art. The more meaningless a piece of abstract art is, the more successful the artist has been in his work. The abstract artist sees no rhyme or reason to life, but only chaos, confusion and despair. If ten people look at a piece of abstract art and each person interprets it differently, the artist has been successful. There is no single correct interpretation, because there is no fixed meaning. A biblical worldview is opposed to this philosophy and its proponents would respond to such an artist, "Your unbelieving heart has misrepresented both my Father and his world."

You, your children, and the rest of society, will feel an emotional response to an artist’s message, whether presented on canvas, music or dress style. If you, or your children, immerse your minds and emotions in the counterculture’s art forms, you may find yourselves overcome by the negative feelings produced by those stimuli. You cannot put pork into the top of a meat grinder and expect beef to come out the other end. Likewise, you cannot immerse your mind and heart in the Word of God and not experience something of a joy unspeakable.

Both MTV and Mozart express their feelings about reality with the same vehement intensity as does the Teacher in Ecclesiastes. They all express what they think about God, his creation, and themselves. Different ideas about God produce radically different feelings and lifestyles. Respective feelings and attitudes must follow various theologies. Actions do not exist in a void; they spring from beliefs. Ideas have consequences. Your ideas about God precede and lead to your lifestyle. I cannot emphasize too strongly that human beings, living as apostates from God’s revealed truth, ultimately must become cynical and frustrated about life and reality. God fixed it that way. Do not be surprised when it happens and be fully prepared for it to get worse! People often ask, "How can Mr. X feel the way he does with all he has?" I usually reply, "How can he NOT feel that way, given his belief and lifestyle?"

The Seeker, in chapter one and verse thirteen, speaks of life as a "sore trial’ or "heavy burden."

The "sore trial" or "heavy burden" of this verse is the enforced journey through life with no compass or map that leads to one blind alley after another. It is the treadmill existence described in chapter one. The Seeker echoes Allen Ginsburg’s Theorem, "You can’t win, you can’t break even, and you can’t even quit the race." At this point, the Seeker is not expressing repentance for his folly. He is merely being honest as he expresses pain and despair in his failure to find truth and meaning in life.

Notice the two sections of verse 13. The first sentence introduces three facets of the search for meaning. (1) Approach: The search is intense. The Seeker informs us that he "devoted himself" in his search. (2) Method: The search is careful. He did not discard his brains and follow his emotions. He did not seek in a hit or miss fashion, but rather, he used wisdom. (3) Scope: The search is thorough. The Seeker did not take a "random sampling" but explored "all things" done under the sun. The second sentence comprises part two of the verse. After Solomon considers all the things he has explored, he heaves a deep sigh of despair. The more thorough the search that results in the acquisition of more true wisdom, the deeper will be that sigh of despair. In verses 17 and 18, the Seeker develops the idea that here he only mentions; namely, that wisdom, true wisdom, is a plague and not a cure for the problem that he faces. This is an amazing, but correct, conclusion.

In verse 14, the Seeker reviews his position. He reminds himself of what he has seen and how he has evaluated all of the things that he has done. His conclusion is still the same, "all of them are meaningless."

Here, the Seeker adds a new descriptive phrase. He compares the meaninglessness of life to chasing after the wind. The KJV translates verse 14 this way:

I find the NIV "chasing after the wind" far more descriptive than "vexation of spirit." The word "chasing" in the phrase means, "to tend a flock, to graze, to feed upon." All the things done under the sun are meaningless and are like feeding upon wind. Trying to find meaning and permanent satisfaction out of anything under the sun is like trying to eat the wind to satisfy your hunger. Imagine a starving man trying to pick up and swallow a spoonful of wind. That is exactly what a person, made in the image of God, does when he tries to find meaning and purpose in life, in an empty and fleeting world.

Imagine a table full of food: a steaming T-bone steak, a baked potato with butter and sour cream, green salad, and apple pie with ice cream. Beside it is an empty table. Now imagine a starving man who has been hypnotized and told that the first table was empty, and the second table had a full-course steak dinner. The man puts on a napkin that does not exist and smiles as he eats an imaginary feast. When he is finished, he may even burp. He gladly pays a waiter $50.00 and walks away, rubbing his stomach. When he is brought out of the state of hypnosis, he has stomach cramps from his intense hunger. He asks, "How can I possibly be so hungry after all I ate?"

That is precisely what the lost man does every day of his life! He chases the wind and keeps gulping down imaginary food that cannot satisfy his soul. The ultimate and eternal vexation of spirit will be the moment in eternity when he realizes that while he was "chasing the wind," he was wasting and rejecting every moment and every good gift given by God. He spurned the real steak for imaginary meat. He will see one opportunity after another forever lost, and all for a mouthful of wind!

Grey-headed secularists are hard to counsel. They have seen all that the eye can see, and they have concluded that it all is meaningless. Grey-headed saints do not need counsel; they are more than qualified to give it. They have tasted and seen that the Lord is good.

Verse 15 reminds us that all ideas have consequences. Basic presuppositions have certain results that are not always desirable, but are inescapable. Verse 15 is one of the sure conclusions that secular humanism cannot escape.

As we mentioned earlier, under the sun offers no hope of real change from anything or anyone. There is no new birth, no answer to prayer, no grace to either forgive or change. There are no answers to life’s real problems apart from special revelation.

The existing state of affairs is fixed and unchangeable. Crooked things are twisted beyond repair, because under the sun, there is no power greater than man’s own will, and that is what caused the problem in the first place. The heart of man is deceitful and cannot cure its self, let alone effect a cure for others. A leper can infect a healthy man, but he cannot cure either himself or another leper. The sinner cannot restore anything, but he is too proud to seek God and his grace for help. The secularist will watch his world crumble and know in his heart that there is not an ounce of hope of real change and still refuse to admit he is merely a poor creature, totally dependent on a sovereign God.

My mother lived next to a doctor who tested drug treatment programs for the government. She told us she had never tested a program that had over a three or four percent success record. She somehow became involved in testing Teen Challenge, a Christian group. The cure rate was so high that she deliberately padded the figures as low as she could. If anyone slipped one time in the three-year testing period, she did not count that as a success. She then made this amazing admission, "Next week I go to Washington and give my report. When I give the statistics that prove a cure rate of over sixty percent, ten different government agencies will whip out their checkbooks and ask ‘To whom should we write the check?’ They will ask, ‘How did they do it?’ The moment I mention the Bible, every single person will close his checkbook and walk away." Secular humanists are so opposed to the Bible and the grace of God that they would rather have a person stay on drugs than have him cured by faith in Christ! The ACLU, and those who share their secular humanistic philosophy, would cite separation of church and state and sue any government agency that used religion to cure people on drugs, no matter how successful the program was. The gospel of God’s sovereign grace has no place in the secular humanists’ ideology; they must deny it as an option for effective cure, even if the result is that addicts stay on drugs.

By that which is wanting, the Seeker means the things that are the real essentials for a full, meaningful, and contented life. The fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace and all those other good conditions for which the human heart yearns—cannot be produced by the philosophy of secular humanism or any other philosophy based on human wisdom. Only the Holy Spirit can produce those blessed things through the gospel.

This fact is true physically. Our Lord taught in Matthew 6:27 that no one, by worry or self-effort, is able to add a single hour to his life, change his height or the color of his eyes, or alter many physical deformities. Man cannot change his basic temperament, and surely, he cannot change his wicked heart! By sheer willpower, he may suppress some of the worst sins, but usually not for any great length of time.

This fact is true intellectually. There is a limit to every person’s basic IQ and nothing can change it. A child with Down’s syndrome cannot, by an act of free will, a magic pill or an operation, turn into an Einstein.

This fact is true socially. Man’s wisdom cannot identify the real problems in life, let alone find the correct answers. Rule by reason, conscience, and truth very quickly turns into rule by guns and terror when the God of the Bible is ignored. Evolution claims we have climbed our way up from our animal ancestors in the jungle, but when we look around, it appears that animal instinct and the lust of the flesh still rules in our modern jungle. "Might makes right" is not only the rule of the jungle; it is the rule among nations.

God’s providential rule of the universe may include painful incidents that we cannot avoid, and some things that cannot in any way be changed or shared. If we could see beyond today, it would probably destroy us! We would think only of the bad things. The awful realization that I could do absolutely nothing to effect lasting change would be an intolerable reality.

Imagine that you were a genius who truly understood history. You grasp the truth of humanity’s sinfulness. You clearly see what is inevitable, and yet you can do absolutely nothing to change or stop it. What would you do without Romans 8:28 as a pillow on which to lay your head? You would share the vexation of spirit the Seeker experienced. One of the most amazing anomalies recorded in Ecclesiastes is that the more true wisdom the Seeker gained, the keener he felt his frustration and hopelessness. Wisdom is not the answer; but is actually part of the problem. The best and the brightest in every field of endeavor, whether science, history, art, poetry, dress, psychology, travel, friends, etc., will testify that it is impossible to find reality, meaning, purpose or enduring satisfaction in anything under the sun.

In verse 16, the Seeker reflects on his acquisition of wisdom.

He evaluates his progress. He has indeed seen and experienced whatever his heart desired. He has exceeded everyone before him in his wisdom and knowledge. In verse 17, he tells us that he stopped and carefully analyzed all he had learned. Exactly what did he learn from all his wisdom and knowledge, including his experiences with madness and folly? He again comes to the same conclusion; it was a "chasing after the wind;" it was all meaningless.

In verse 18, we find a very surprising statement.

This is the conclusion to the discussion that began in 1:13. If the Seeker were writing in our day, he could have decided to try the intellectual route. "I need to go to college and get a few degrees. The university is the place where true knowledge is gained." That is a popular, but very misguided notion today. An individual spends a few years to research, explore, synthesize, analyze, deduce and induce and graduates with an A+. When he is finished, he looks at the diploma and realizes how stupid he still is! A freshman in college knows everything. By the time he is a senior, he has far more questions than answers.

Learning, education, as an end in itself is like an addiction. It is easy to become a "professional student." Scripture speaks of those who are "ever learning, but never coming to the knowledge of the truth." People can love the pursuit of truth even while denying that there is such a thing. "True Truth," a phrase coined by Francis Schaeffer, is really the last thing they want. They are looking for intellectual reasons to reject the clear truth that God has revealed about himself. Romans, chapter one, makes this abundantly clear.

Malcolm Muggeridge was the favorite guru and idol of the intellectual radicals in England during the late twentieth century. Through the influence of C.S. Lewis, Muggeridge converted to Christianity. He said this about education:

It is essential to see that the Seeker does not disparage education. To the contrary, he encourages you to get all of it that you possibly can. What he is saying is that the meaning of life and eternity cannot be found in all of the classrooms, science labs, and libraries in the world. Reality and truth can only be found in a right relationship with God our Creator. If you enter college as a spiritual idiot, and God does not enlighten you, you will graduate as an educated spiritual idiot. The only difference will be that you are now a hundred times more conceited and arrogant in your spiritual ignorance!

If education, in and of itself, made life meaningful, then a university campus should be a place of peace and contentment. It is the exact opposite. During the turbulent sixties, the average college campus was the scene of constant unrest and uprisings. In our day of postmodernism, the university is the breeding ground of existentialism and apathy. The official attitude of the administration may be multi-cultural tolerance, but it too often results in intellectual pride and intolerance towards those who disagree. Many movements that have started on university campuses have resulted in rebellious attitudes and riots. How many new vices have begun among the educated? Drugs, alcohol, and unbridled sex are the hallmarks of the average college fraternity. Education, like everything else, is meaningless apart from God.

Remember, the Teacher is not saying, "Do not think." He is saying, "Do not think independently of God. Think God’s revealed thoughts after Him."

Verse 17 and 18 are a summary statement.

Is the saying, "Ignorance is bliss" true after all? We have all heard people say, "What you don’t know won’t hurt you," implying that the hurt comes in the knowledge of the truth. In 1:13, the Seeker asserted that wisdom is not good, but a plague; verses 17 and 18 are his support. In order to understand the point, we must follow the logic of the Seeker’s argument.

First, earthly things are all vanity—meaningless. This point has been established many times over.

Second, the more deeply we search for the truth, the more distinctly we see the utter vanity of all things. The closer we get to reality, the uglier it becomes. This is because of man’s sin and selfishness.

Third, in this way, wisdom utterly destroys illusions and makes things appear in their true light. In other words, wisdom destroys daydreams. Wisdom forces us to face and acknowledge reality.

Fourth, the possession of wisdom, therefore, can only highlight how futile and vain things really are, and this realization in turn can only cause pain and distress. The wiser, and more truly honest with reality a man is, the deeper his despair apart from hope in the grace of God. Man is indeed boxed in, but the box, or prison, is of his own making.

Fifth, if the world is nothing but vanity, and the Seeker has proven that it is, then the more you recognize how vain it all is, the worse off you really are. This is the statement in verse 18, "For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief."

It is vital to remember that the Seeker is talking about man’s wisdom apart from God. This is the viewpoint of the person who put all his hope in this world and what it has to offer. All of his vaunted wisdom is, in reality, a lie. The more such a person comes to terms with reality, the more he realizes the hopelessness of the situation.

Some years ago, my wife started to listen to Ted Koppel on Night Line. Then she subscribed to a few conservative magazines and papers, and she started listening to Rush Limbaugh. I watched my wife change from a quiet, unassuming woman to an outspoken militant conservative. My son phoned me one day and said, "Did you hear your wife on the radio today?" Then came Crossfire and next, the Capitol Gang. Sometimes, my wife would be listening to a liberal news program and come into my office saying, "John, they are lying through their teeth and they know it!" At times, I felt like going into the living room to see if she had smashed the television with a brick.

It really is frustrating watching people spin the truth into a lie and vice versa. It is hard to see how one-sided the liberal media is, and at the same time know there is not a single thing you can do about it. But dare we just give up and quit trying? Dare we allow wrong to stand unchallenged? Do we believe that the election of conservatives can fundamentally change our society? No! Do we really believe we will win the fight and turn this planet into another Garden of Eden? No! Are we therefore going to stop trying to defeat error? No, no, a thousand times no! Maybe God will send revival in spite of politicians. Regardless, we will work and pray for the truth, as we understand it, to be heard and believed. We have no illusions; it is impossible to win the struggle unless God himself bares his arm and speaks with power. Wisdom clearly reveals that we can expect things to get worse and worse, but by God’s grace, we want our Lord to say of us what he said of the woman in Mark 14:8, "she did what she could."

The failure of wisdom in 1:12-18 does not downplay true wisdom nor does it discourage the search for it. Rather, it rubs the secularist’s nose in his own philosophy. It says, "So you were too intelligent to follow God’s wisdom and went on your own. How did you make out? How well are you sleeping at night? How do feel as you face a new day, fully understanding the utter hopelessness of reality?"

The problem is not with the concept of wisdom, but rather with the origin of wisdom. Whose wisdom will we follow? James presents the other side of the coin on the subject of wisdom.

What a difference the revelation of God’s truth makes in every area of life!

We may compare Ecclesiastes to a wise old man who instructs youth about life. He lays it all out clearly, honestly, logically, and realistically. His listeners know that the old man understands his subject matter and that he is speaking the truth. However, each one also believes, "I am different." Without exception, they all "know better." They are convinced that they will escape the problems and errors of which the old man speaks. In order to be consistent with their belief about their personal freedom, they must trust themselves alone. The wise old man will someday hear every one of the youths lament, "meaningless, meaningless, it was all meaningless." He will say, in pity, not contempt, "See, I told you so."

The disasters written there reflect the kind of consequences that await every person who rejects God’s wisdom and goes on his own. Every person who plays God and makes his own rules will have to endure the experience of Proverbs 1:26. This portion of Scripture contains a horrible indictment of the self-will that defies God’s wisdom. However, it will never be true of the person who puts his faith and hope in Jesus Christ. That person will never be ashamed or disappointed.

As we consider the failure of under the sun wisdom, we must remember chapter two and verses 24-25, or we, too, will succumb to the Seeker’s despair.

On the surface, the first sentence sounds like more of the same pessimism. Is this merely the "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die" philosophy of the Hedonist? No, it is not. When we read the next sentence, we see God very much considered. Eliminate the phrase "without him" in verse 25, and the MTV crowd is dead right! It really is an either/or situation. Either the under the sun philosophy is correct, and this life with its empirical experiences is all there is to our existence, or the over the sun approach is true and is the only ideology that will lead to ultimate satisfaction. Hollywood and Playboy respond appropriately IF the under the sun experience is all there is in life. It is a tragedy, but we must admit that the modern secularist is often more honest in facing the logical conclusions to his philosophy than many professing Christians are in facing the clear implications of their faith. Every Sunday, in many evangelical churches, those who call themselves God’s people duplicate the essence of the following dialogue between Elijah and the people of Israel.

The preacher preaches the Word, the people nod in agreement or say amen, and life goes on without a single change. The great problem is not that people do not know, but that people do not care. A university student took a survey on campus attitudes. He asked this question: "Which do you think is the bigger problem on campus today, ignorance or apathy?" The first student polled responded, "I don’t know and I don’t care." He could have said, "Apathy rules, but who cares." It is one thing for the secularist who openly denies there is truth to be apathetic, but a child of God who openly professes faith in the grace of a sovereign God should not carry a similar attitude. Elijah’s ultimatum, "If the Lord is God, then follow him" is ignored by the secularists, because there is no God in their system. Their actions are consistent with their beliefs. However, too many of God’s people openly say, "Yes, the Lord is indeed God," but they do not follow him. If pressed with their inconsistency, they "answer not a word."

Seeing and consciously acknowledging that all things are of God is the only way to have comfort now and hope for the future. We will see in Ecclesiastes 3 that there is genuine hope for believers because all things are under the control of a sovereign God. God’s children are not immune from the pain that results from living in a fallen and cursed world, but they can have confidence in the loving God who orders all the events of their lives to bring about their good and his glory. Without that trust, the vicissitudes of life may well lead to an attitude of despair or a retreat into apathy.

Do you feel the unbearable burden of reality? Is your personal situation ugly and painful? Are you ready to adopt the Seeker’s philosophy of meaninglessness? Then listen carefully to the words of a much greater teacher than Solomon.

Are you ready to say, "I cannot make it! I give up! Enough is enough. I quit! It is not worth the effort"? If you are a child of God, let me assure you that not only are you going to make it, you are going to make it with flying colors. You are going to be "more than a conqueror" because the mighty grace of God is more than sufficient to keep you. You can, and by sovereign grace and power, you most assuredly will be enabled to "do all things through Christ who strengthens you."

To be continued.