The Vision (12.30.16): The Highest Regardeth

Image:  Scene from North Garden, Virginia

Note:  Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Ecclesiastes 5:8.

If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they (Ecclesiastes 5:8).

If you look at Ecclesiastes 5:8 in the King James Version, you will notice that this verse is set off by a distinct paragraph mark (a pilcrow).  The learned translators set v. 8 apart as a distinct thought.  BTW, these pilcrow notations (paragraph markers) appear throughout the text of the KJV, beginning in Genesis, but then they inexplicably end at Acts 20:36!

So, Ecclesiastes 5:8 is meant to be taken as a distinct thought.  With it we find three thoughts:

First:  The Preacher declares that the ordinary conditions of a sin-sick world should not take anyone by surprise:

If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter:

Christians are realists regarding the state of the fallen world. Men are sinners and if left to their sinful ways they will commit sin. Why are we surprised when sin happens? Why are we surprised at the sin in our own hearts and lives?  “Marvel not at the matter.”

Second:  The Preacher notes that God has graciously provided authorities to restrain evil:

for he that is higher than the highest regardeth

When you first read this you might think Solomon is speaking about God.  No.  He is speaking about the rulers.  He writes this as a king, as one who had to make difficult decisions in ruling and administration.  The king is he is who is highest among the highest of men.  He has been set in his position to regard injustice and to restrain evil (cf. Romans 13:1-7).

Third:  Solomon prophesies that here is a God who is higher than the highest human authorities and he will one day execute justice and save his people:

            and there be higher than they.

Solomon acknowledges that there is one who is higher than he.  Consider what David the greatest king of Israel wrote:

Psalm 61:2 From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

Paul told earthly masters to remember that they had a Master in heaven (Ephesians 6:9).  Here Solomon says, “Kings, remember you have a King.”

The implication is that this King in the heavens regards this sin-sick world.  In some ways, we might see this verse as a prophetic prediction of the highest King’s plan to intervene and redeem this fallen world.  How would he do that?

I call three witnesses before the court to declare how the Highest has regarded this fallen world:  Paul, Luke, and John.

From Paul:

Galatians 4:4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

From Luke:

Luke 2:10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

From John:

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

If the highest among mere men, mere human kings, will regard the condition of their people and intervene and act on their behalf, to save them from death and destruction, will not the King of Kings look upon the state of man in sin and act to save them?

The good news is that he has done this in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (12.23.16): Calvin on Great Joy

Image:  CRBC outreach at Epworth Manor Apartments, Louisa, Virginia (12.21.16)

Note:  Devotion taken from John Calvin’s commentary on Luke 2:8-14.

Luke 2:10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

The angel opens his discourse by saying that he announces great joy; and next assigns the ground or matter of joy, that a Savior is born. These words show us first, that until men have peace with God, and are reconciled to him through the grace of Christ, all the joy that they experience is deceitful, and of short duration. Ungodly men frequently indulge in frantic and intoxicating mirth; but if there be none to make peace between them and God, the hidden stings of conscience must produce fearful torment. Besides, to whatever extent they may flatter themselves in luxurious indulgence; their own lusts are so many tormentors. The commencement of solid joy is, to perceive the fatherly love of God toward us, which alone gives tranquility to our minds.  And this “joy,” in which, Paul tells us, “the kingdom of God” consists is “in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17). By calling it great joy, he shows us, not only that we ought, above all things, to rejoice in the salvation brought us by Christ, but that this blessing is so great and boundless, as fully to compensate for all the pains, distresses, and anxieties of the present life. Let us learn to be so delighted with Christ alone, that the perception of his grace may overcome and at great length remove from us, all the distresses of the flesh.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (12.16.16): The Benefits of Christian Community

Video: Simon and Garfunkel singing "I am a rock."

Image:  CRBCers at Leaf Raking Day (12.3.16)

Note:  Devotion taken from the introduction to last Sunday's sermon on Ecclesiastes 4:9-16.

In 1623 the English poet John Donne wrote these well known words:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee (from Meditation # 17 in Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions).

In the 1960s the pop duo Simon and Garfunkel riffed on Donne’s line in their song “I am a rock” in which the lyrics read in part:

I’ve built walls, a fortress, steep and mighty, that none may penetrate.  I have no need of friendship.  Friendship causes pain.  It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain.  I am a rock.  I am an island.

Later, the song adds:

            I touch no one and no one touches me

And it ends:

            And a rock feels no pain.  And an island never cries.

That song certainly captures the loneliness and isolation that can sometimes plague even the most friendly and sociable of men.

Loneliness was probably a sensation or experience with which the Preacher, the author of Ecclesiastes, was familiar.  And yet guided by the Holy Spirit of God he was led to record one of the most poignant Scriptural statements describing the benefits of Christian community, coming in its various forms:

Ecclesiastes 4:9 Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. 10 For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. 11 Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? 12 And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

In his respected commentary on Ecclesiastes Charles Bridges rightly observes that this passage has to do with “the deep responsibility of our social obligations” (Ecclesiastes, p. 92).

Indeed, no Christian is an island. We need the benefits of Christian community.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (12.9.16): But they had no comforter

Image:  Fall leaves, December 2016, North Garden, Virginia

Note:  Devotion taken from sermon notes from last Sunday's message on Ecclesiastes 4:1-8.

Ecclesiastes 4:1 So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. 2 Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive. 3 Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

Solomon begins by noting he returned to consider the “oppressions [injustices] that are done under the sun” (v. 1a).

And he mentions seeing the tears of the oppressed (v. 1b).  Solomon was moved with outrage at the sight of injustices that appear in the world.  This might have been the rich exploiting the poor, the strong afflicting the weak, the intelligent scorning and belittling the less intelligent.  We’d like the world to be like a fairy tale where the good always prevail, the right is always vindicated, the truth always triumphs.  But we know this does not always happen.  Matthew Henry here observes:  “The world is a place of weepers.”

If there is a just God in the heavens why is this allowed to happen?  Why do the tears continue to flow?

Note how Solomon adds to the intensity of our sympathy but saying “and they had no comforter.”  Parents know how piercing God has made the cry of infant children and how this cry will compel them to wake from a solid sleep to attend to the wailing child’s needs.  But Solomon says that in this world there are sometimes those who cry out, but it appears they have no loving Father who arises to comfort them.  Why is this so?

He continues: “and on the side of their oppressors there was power.”  He points not just to the tears of the oppressed but to the massive power granted to the oppressors.  And he repeats the sad refrain:  “but they had no comforter.”  There is an imbalance.  The oppressors have the power and the oppressed have no one to comfort them.

This verse reminds us that when you become a believer you automatically become a defender of the weak, the exploited, the oppressed, the used and abused.  As Proverbs 31:8 exhorts, “Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction.”

Solomon was in such a state of despair here, however, that he concluded the oppressed would have been better off if they were already dead. At least then they would be out of their misery.  The dead are better off than the living (v. 2).

In v. 3 he goes a step forward (or backward in the morality of his thinking).  Better than both the living and the dead would be the person who had never even been conceived and born, the person who had never existed!  This recalls Job’s despair: “Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived” (Job 3:3).

This is the sentiment of every despondent person who has ever muttered, I wish I had never been born.  It is the unbelief of the couple who pledges never to bring a child into such a world as this.  It denies the purpose and value of every life and it denies the sovereignty of God even over the injustices and inequities that he allows to take place for his own hidden purposes.

The man who is apart from Christ may very well often feel this way. Who cares for me?  Who would comfort me?  Who will take up my cause?

There is comfort, however, for the man of faith.  I thought of the opening blessing in 2 Corinthians which describes the God of the Bible as “the God of all comfort” who comforts us in our tribulation (1:3-4).

The God of the Bible is indeed a God of comfort.  The greatest sign of this was the sending of his own dear Son (John 3:16; Hebrews 4:15).  During his earthly ministry he demonstrated unfailing care and compassion for his flock:

Matthew 9:36 But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.

This culminated in the ultimate act of compassion when he laid down his life for his friends on the cross.  And even now he has not left us without comfort.  He has given us the Holy Spirit (John 14:16; 15:26).

We are not alone.  The God of all comfort is with us and for us through Christ and by the Holy Spirit.  We have a comforter.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle 

The Vision (12.2.16): That men should fear before him

Image:  Fall scene, North Garden, Virginia, December 2016

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Ecclesiastes 3:12-22.

I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him (Ecclesiastes 3:14).

In v. 14 there are three independent statements made about God’s providential works:

First, his work is permanent: “I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever.”  Would God have made such an intricate and special creature as man merely for a limited temporal existence?  No. we were made for time and for eternity.

Second, his work is perfect:  “nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it.”  Mere men cannot second guess God’s work. We are in no position to critique his works or presume to improve upon what he had done.  His work is perfect.

Third, his work is purposeful:  “and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.” God made and provided for the world, so that men, his image bearers, made a little lower than the angels, should fear him.

His goal or end in giving us all the experiences of our lives is that we might fear him.  Fear here means to give reverence or awe. Notice, his end is not that we love him or thank him, though we do love and thank him (and it is right to do so!), but that we fear him, that we hold him in reverential awe. This recalls a repeated refrain in the wisdom literature, perhaps best epitomized in Proverbs 9:10: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.”

The term “God-fearing” has become one that seems out of fashion, and it has even become one of ridicule and derision, but it continues to convey a key Biblical concept. 

Are you a God-fearing man?  The wise man is one who does not think first of pleasing himself or any other man but of pleasing God. He fears God!  God provides for us so that we might fear him.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (11.25.16): God's Perfect Timing

Video: Pete Seeger and Judy Collins sing "Turn, Turn, Turn."

Note:  Devotion taken from last Sunday morning's sermon on Ecclesiastes 3:1-11.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven (Ecclesiastes 3:1).

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 is one of the best known passage in the entire book.

Many children of the sixties know the words not from reading their Bibles but from The Byrds song, “Turn, Turn, Turn” which drew its lyrics nearly verbatim from Solomon:  “To everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”  It hit Number One on the Billboard charts in November 1965.  The song was actually written in the 1950s by folk singer Peter Seeger.

I often tell my college students, that every religion has a view of time.  The Jews and Christians, based on the special revelation of Scripture,  saw time as linear.  It has a beginning and a purposeful ending.  The pagans, on the other hand, without that guidance, saw time as cyclical, the same things repeated over and over without purpose.  This is how the idea of reincarnation developed.  With the pagan view of time came a sense of futility and lack of control over time, so that man was seen as the victim of time as a capricious master.  Men saw themselves as subject to the great wheel of fortune.  Round and round she goes, where she stops nobody knows.  One man’s house gets hit by lightening and burns to the ground while his neighbor’s house stands intact.  One child is stillborn, another is born and lives to 100. It’s all a matter of chance, or fate, or karma.

Solomon in our passage puts forward his own views of time from the perspective of godly wisdom and he teaches that time is not a master but it is a servant.  Time is on God’s leash.  He controls it and he uses it to fulfill his purposes for the world and for every person and creature within it.

God is sovereign over time.  As Isaiah prophesied, the Lord declares “the end from the beginning,” saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (Isaiah 46:10).  Every day ordained for man was written in God’s book before one of them ever came to be (see Psalm 139:16 NKJV).  Proverbs 16:9 teaches: “A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.”  And Jesus himself taught that not even a sparrow can fall to the ground unless it be God’s will (see Matt 10:29-31).

Christians, therefore, do not believe in luck or fortune. Those are pagan terms.  There are no accidents or mistakes.  We believe in providence.  God provides for all his creation, and especially for the redeemed, what gives him the most glory and does them the most good.  The opening paragraph of chapter five “Of Divine Providence” in the 1689 Baptist confession:

God the good Creator of all things, in His infinite power and wisdom does uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, to the end for the which they were created, according unto His infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of His own will; to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness, and mercy.

That is what is being affirmed in Ecclesiastes 3.  Solomon not only declares that man’s life is meaningful but also that man is not the victim of time as a series of random and purposeless events.  John Currid observes:  “the Preacher argues against those who believe that time is a tyrant that is totally out of control” relentlessly pushing us toward our deaths while we are but “helpless pawns in a cosmic game!” (p. 49).  No, Solomon says, for every time there is a purpose under heaven!

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle 

The Vision (11.18.16): Spiritual Depression

Image:  David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981)

Note:  Devotion taken from conclusion of last Sunday's sermon on Ecclesiastes 2:12-26.

Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labour which I took under the sun (Ecclesiastes 2:20).

There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God (Ecclesiastes 2:24).

This week I went back and read the opening chapters to the classic devotional work by David Martyn Lloyd-Jones titled Spiritual Depression:  Its Causes and Cures (Eerdmans, 1965).  Lloyd-Jones was the longtime pastor at Westminster Chapel in downtown London.  He had been a medical doctor before he was called into the ministry, so he understood both the physical and spiritual aspects of what he called “spiritual depression.”

In the book he cites five causes of spiritual depression:

1.  Temperament.

He notes:  “There is a type of person who is particularly prone to spiritual depression” (pp. 16-17).  He suggests these persons are often introverts who are prone to unhealthy introspection rather than healthy self-examination.

2.  Physical condition.

Among these he lists “tiredness, overstrain, illness, any form of illness” (p. 19).

He adds:  “The greatest and the best Christians when they are physically weak are more prone to an attack of spiritual depression than at any other time….” (p. 19).

3.  Reaction.

Lloyd-Jones warns that we are often prone to spiritual depression as a reaction “after great blessing” or “after some unusual and exceptional experience” (p. 19).

4.  The devil.

Spiritual depression comes as the result of spiritual attack.  This is “the one and only cause” (p. 19).

5.  Unbelief.

He calls this “the ultimate cause” for without it “even the devil could do nothing” (p. 20).

Lloyd-Jones’ offers this remedy for spiritual depression:  “We must take ourselves in hand” (p. 20).  “We must talk to ourselves rather than letting ‘ourselves’ talk to us” (p. 20)!  “The main art in spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself” (21).

Lest we think Lloyd-Jones was some kind of self-help guru, he also clearly says that the true foundation for overcoming spiritual depression is grasping the doctrine of justification by grace through faith.

He describes counseling with persons who have said to him, “I am not good enough,” noting that this sounds modest, but it is “a lie of the devil and a denial of the faith.”  Of course you’re not good enough!  No one is good enough!  “The essence of Christian salvation is to say that He is good enough and that I am in Him!” (p. 34).

Nevertheless, Lloyd-Jones also concludes that going through spiritual depression, including feeling miserable and wretched, is necessary for the Christian.  He says, “You must be made miserable before you can know true Christian joy” (p. 28).  He calls the experience of this misery or despair “the essential preliminary to joy” (p. 28).

It is said that when John Calvin was dying, while in a moment of intense suffering, he said:  “Thou bruisest me, O Lord, but it amply sufficeth me, that it is thy hand” (as in Bridges, Ecclesiastes, p. 41).

I don’t know why Solomon fell into this slough of despond.  His life line out of his despair seems to have come when he sat down to do something as mundane as eating a meal and it struck him, “This also I saw that it was from the hand of God” (Ecclesiastes 2:24b).

He came to understand:  Yes, my labor is and would be meaningless apart from Christ.  But my life is made meaningful because of Christ.

At the close of each message in the Ecclesiastes sermon series, I have been trying to find some fitting parallel to the New Testament. The one that came to mind to place alongside this passage were these words from Jesus recorded in Matthew:

Matthew 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (11.11.16): That which is crooked cannot be made straight

Note:  Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Ecclesiastes 1:12--2:11.

Ecclesiastes 1:15 That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. 16 I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. 17 And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. 18 For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

In v. 15 we have a remarkable inspired assessment of man in his unregenerate state.  This is the unsparingly realistic, Biblical view of man:  “That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.”  It states two corresponding truths.

First, there is something in unregenerate man that is warped, and it cannot be straightened out through his own efforts or the efforts of others.  The Puritan Thomas Boston wrote a book titled “The Crook in the Lot” reflecting on the afflictions endured by sinful men.  Another writer said, “Nothing but the cross of Christ makes other crosses straight” (as in Bridges, Ecclesiastes, p. 22).

This crookedness in humanity is a reality that the person with a secular, progressive spirit so often chooses to ignore.  He denies the reality of man’s original sin and thinks unregenerate men are inherently good.  He just needs a better environment, better nurture, and all will naturally improve.  He does not acknowledge that there is something crooked in man that cannot be straightened.

Second, the things that unregenerate men lack spiritually speaking are as numerous as the sand on the seashore or the stars in the sky.  They cannot be numbered.  They cannot be accurately accounted, diagnosed, described, or comprehended.

 

Solomon even reflects on the internal communion he experienced in his own internal counsels (v. 16).  He knew he was in position of privilege.  He had come “to great estate.”  His wisdom and knowledge surpassed those who had come before him.

In particular he came to be a great student of anthropology, the condition of man (v. 17a).  He came especially to know man’s capacity to understand wisdom (living to glory God and to be a blessing to man) but also “madness and folly.”  The latter is another term frequently repeated in this book.  Man can live with the sanity of wisdom or the insanity of folly.

Peter Barnes observes, “We seem to have something in common with the angels and something in common with the cockroach.  So here we are, with eternity and madness in our hearts” (Both Sides Now, p. 3).

Solomon proceeds to offer the conclusion that even this spiritual insight gained was but “a vexation of spirit” (v. 17b).

He explains in a beautiful piece of Hebrew poetry in synonymous parallelism (v. 18):  Increase of wisdom results in increase of grief; increase of knowledge results in increase of sorrow.

Here is a spiritual truth:  An awakened conscience and the stirring of spiritual life in a man actually bring with it a special misery and grief that he did not have before.  Ignorance is, at least temporally, bliss.  Before a man is converted he does not understand God’s holiness.  He does not understand his crookedness, his sin.  He does not know of God’s wrath and the justice that awaits.  He is like a man walking around with terminal cancer but who never goes to the doctor, doesn’t know he has the illness, and thinks he is just fine, oblivious to the fact that suffering and death soon awaits him.

Knowledge brings misery.  But it also sends us to Christ for relief.  Charles Bridges in his commentary on this passage asks:  “Is not, then, the lowest condition in godliness far happier and far safer than the highest ground of earthly prosperity?” (p. 35).

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (11.4.16): The Eye Is Not Satisfied

Note:  Devotion taken from last Sunday morning's sermon on Ecclesiasties 1:4-11.

All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing (Ecclesiastes 1:8).

In this verse Solomon describe man’s insatiable (unsatisfied) sensory appetite for the things of the natural world.  It is expressed in two statements:  “the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.”

How immediately we can resonate with this in the digital age, where at the click of a mouse we can bring any site foul or fair before our eyes.  We can hear nearly any speech, listen to nearly any song, in nearly any genre, in nearly any language.  But what is becoming the distinguishing mark of this generation?  Boredom.  When the envelope has been pushed to the extreme the result is not satisfaction but dissatisfaction and the craving for more.  I once heard a man say that if he had a choice between food and hi-speed internet he’d take the internet.

We are acutely aware of this now, but it was just as true in Solomon’s day.  It was true when there was no television, when there was no video, and no audio recordings in any form.  It is just as true for the Amish who live without electricity as it is for the man who can’t live without his Facebook.  Man has an insatiable hunger for what he can experience through his senses.

It was in attacking this stronghold that John wrote:

1 John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

What a difficult battle it is!  When Bunyan wrote his allegory called The Holy War about the battle for the town of Mansoul as Emmanuel retakes it from the clutches of the wicked Diabolos, he describe how important was the defense of the five entrances into the place, including:  eye-gate, ear-gate, mouth-gate, nose-gate, and feel-gate.

Indeed, how weak and vulnerable is man in his unregenerate state before the onslaughts of Satan!  The description is bleak.  But where is the gospel in this?

I believe it is there in pointing us to our need for Christ.  To those whose eyes were never satisfied and whose ears were never filled, Jesus said:  “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).

There is nothing new under the sun.  Man’s need of Christ is the same in the twenty-first century as it was in the tenth century BC when Solomon lived and in the first century AD when Jesus himself walked the earth.  He is the only one who can satisfy.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (10.30.16): Vanity of Vanities

Image: Fall leaves, North Garden, Virginia, October 2016

Note:  Devotion taken from last Sunday morning's opening sermon in the Ecclesiastes series.

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity (Ecclesiastes 1:2).

Ecclesiastes 1:2 offers an inspired, albeit bleak, assessment of human life.  Five times in this verse, we see the use of the word “vanity.”  It is a favorite word in this book as a whole, appearing again and again, nearly 40 times.

The Hebrew word for “vanity” is hebel.  It is also used for wind or breath.  So, it means something that it light, of little substance, and of brief duration (see Currid, Ecclesiastes:  A Quest for Meaning? pp. 15-16).  The OT name “Abel” comes from this word, and Abel lived a brief life, cut short by his own brother.

He uses it here in a superlative sense, as also in the Holy of Holies (the holiest place), or the Song of Songs (the best of songs).  But here, vanity of vanities, or most meaningless of the meaningless, most fleeting of the fleeting, emptiest of the empty.  When he says, “all is vanity” he is saying that life is meaningless, life is purposeless.

It recalls that great line from Shakespeare’s MacBeth:

Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

The Australian Pastor Peter Barnes in his little book on Ecclesiastes, captures the natural despair that many feel when he writes:

We are constantly being exhorted to make a difference, but the reality is that the world hardly seems much different because we have heeded the alarm clock, eaten breakfast, said good-bye to the family, boarded the train [got in the car], put in our eight hours’ work, returned home, all in order to flop down in front of the television set.  There is activity and apparent change, but no sense of getting anywhere.  The world at large remains much the same (Both Sides Now, pp. 9-10).

Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!

This book is going to tell us about what life is like apart from Christ.  It is going to tell us about sin, sinful longings, and sinful attitudes with the precision of a Puritan divine. “Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions” (Ecclesiastes 7:29).  But it is also going to point us toward a Redeemer.  He is the “one man among a thousand” (Ecclesiastes 7:28) who gives meaning and purpose to our lives.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (10.21.16): Healthy Growth in Christ

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5).

In last Sunday morning’s sermon on the Christ Hymn (Philippians 2:5-11), I noted that this passage has both a doctrinal bent (teaching who Jesus is as Christ and Lord, v. 11) and an ethical bent (encouraging believers to have the mind of Christ, v. 5). Indeed, it is never enough just to know about Jesus.  That knowledge must produce the fruit of a changed life.

In his classic work Human Nature In Its Fourfold State, Thomas Boston wrote (pp. 301-302):

….there is a peculiar beauty in the true Christian growth, distinguishing it from false growth:  it is universal, regular, proportional.  It is “growing up into him in all things, which is the head” (Eph 4.15).  The growing Christian grows proportionably in all parts of the new man.  Under the kindly influence of the Sun of Righteousness, believers ‘grow up as calves in the stall’ (Mal 4.2).  You would think it a monstrous growth in these creatures if you saw their heads grow, and not their bodies; or it you saw one leg grow, and another not; if all parts do not grow proportionably.  Aye, but such is the growth of many in religion.  They grow like rickety children, who have a big head but a slender body; they get more knowledge into their heads, but not more holiness into their hearts and lives.  They grow very hot outwardly, but very cold inwardly, like men in fit of the ague [fever].  They are more taken up about the externals of religion than formerly, yet as great strangers to the power of godliness as ever….

The branches ingrafted in Christ, growing aright, grow in all the several ways of growth at once.  They grow inward, growing into Christ (Eph 4.15), uniting more closely with Him; and cleaving more firmly to Him, as the Head of influences, which is the spring of all other true Christian growth.

They grow outward in good works, in their life and conversation…..

They grow upward in heavenly-mindedness, and contempt of the world; for their conversation is in heaven (Phil 3.20).

And finally, they grow downward in humility and self-loathing.  The branches of the largest growth in Christ, are, in their own eyes, ‘less than the least of all the saints’ (Eph 3.8); ‘the chief of sinners’ (1 Tim 1.15); ‘more brutish than any man’ (Prov 30.2).  They see that they can do nothing, no, not so much as ‘think any thing, as of themselves’ (2 Cor 3.5):  that they deserve nothing, being ‘not worthy of the least of all the mercies showed unto them’ (Gen 32.10); and that they are nothing (2 Cor 12.11).

May we indeed, experience growth in Christ that is “universal, regular, proportional.”

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle