The View From 1776

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Our minister at the Long Ridge Congregational Church delivered a sermon today, Fathers’ Day, that was both a cold shower of reality and a realistic promise of human satisfaction as we toil here under the sun.

The message is that we should look to our Heavenly Father, not to the Great White Father in Washington, DC, to find true satisfaction.

Ecclesiastes, who many believe to have been King Solomon in his old age reflecting on the vagaries of human existence, presents initially a bleak picture of human life.  His opening statement is:

“Meaningless! Meaningless! says the Teacher.  Utterly meaningless!  Everything is meaningless.  What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun?  Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.  The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.... What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:2-9)

He contrasts this with seeking wisdom from all that is done under heaven.

“I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men!” (Ecclesiastes 1:12-13)

With apologies to our minister, I interpret this to mean that the atheistic materialism of our present-day society (under the sun) is meaningless in the larger scheme of things and will provide no lasting satisfaction.  The handiwork of liberal-socialist state-planners, like a sandcastle on the beach, will be washed away by the next tide. 

“I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards.  I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them.  I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees.  I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me.  I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as well—the delights of the heart of man.  I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.....Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 2: 4-11)

There is more to human existence than a full stomach, clothing, housing, and satisfaction of sensual urges.  Nothing that the political state does can fill the spiritual void that even a quintessential liberal materialist like Hillary Clinton bemoaned early in her husband’s first term as President.

Despite Al Gore’s pretensions to save the planet by forcing us to conform to the Kyoto Treaty, God controls the universe.  The sun will rise and set on God’s schedule.  Sun spot activity cycles will continue, as they have for the past several thousand years, to govern global cooling and global warming on roughly a 100-year cycle, no matter what humans do.

A second lesson from Ecclesiastes is that life is full of tribulations, that despite the promises of the atheistic and materialistic political state, the minds of intellectual planners are no match for the awesome power of God.  Not matter what we humans do, we will always be vulnerable to varying degrees of trouble, because that is the inherent and unchangeable nature of God’s creation, the world under the sun.

The presumption of liberal-socialists to perfect humanity and remove all its ills through regulations and the materialistic benefits of the welfare-state is like a gnat fluttering its wings in the expectation of redirecting the course of a hurricane.

“Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed— and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors— and they have no comforter.  And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive.  But better than both is he who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.  And I saw that all labor and all achievement spring from man’s envy of his neighbor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” (Ecclesiastes 4: 1-4)

What then are we to do?

“What does the worker gain from his toil?  I have seen the burden God has laid on men.  He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.  I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live.  That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God.  I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.” (Ecclesiastes 3: 9-14)

“Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.  For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” (Ecclesiastes 12: 13-14)

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