Life is for Living

By Maxwell R Watson

I believe that for many Christians, the book of Ecclesiastes is a forgotten book; yet therein lie some wonderful words of wisdom, which we are the poorer if we ignore them. This work grapples with the age old question "what an I to do with my life?" It is far too easy an answer to say I'll act however I wish, or I'll act like a real good person. Life has a habit of throwing us some wonderful experiences as well as some very hard situations. This book examines life from words of the wisest person who lived.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maxwell R Watson
• Release date: Jan 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310445705

Maxwell R Watson

I am now retired. I spent 20 years as a Pastor and then worked in International Humanitarian Aide work. In 2004 I survived a massive stroke and like to encourage people to not give up in their life circumstances.

Book preview

Life is for Living

or

A New Look at Eccelsiastes

by

Maxwell R Watson

Copyright Maxwell R Watson 2013

ISBN: 9781310445705

Published at Smashwords

[e-mail]

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

End Note

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my children, Emma, Tiffany, Jordanna and David, and to all adults in their 20’s, trying to find absolute truth in a scary fast-paced 21st Century world.

I add a dedication to my truly amazing wife Christine. I hope you understand the depth of my love for you.

Acknowledgements

I first acknowledge the loving patience of my wife Christine, who puts up with me, feeds me and makes me take breaks and loves me inspite of me.

I also wish to make mention of the people who have helped me along my own journey, at times they needed to rebuke me, but mostly they loved on me. Men like Bob Weeding, Frank Kimpton, Kevin Craik, Keith Farmer, Denis Nutt, Lionel Berthelsen and a host of others.

All Scripture quoted is from the New International Version, unless otherwise noted.

Introduction

This book came about from a sermon series I preached some years ago. I vividly remember it being the hardest series I ever preached as I was determined to do it and to be encouraging in the process. What I didn’t know when I started was that I would have to wrestle every week with the book of Ecclesiastes, as well as with my own preconceived ideas. I feel the message of this book is often overlooked in this modern era of ‘The Church’ and the only section of it that is mostly used or refered to is chapter 3. I believe this to be not simply a great shame, but a total missing out on the real message of the entire book has a great lesson for today's church.

Chapter 1 Is Life Worth Living?

Ecclesiastes 1:1-3

The words of the Preacher,[a] the son of David, king in Jerusalem.² Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,vanity of vanities! All is vanity.³ What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?

I’d like you to imagine being given a blank cheque for anything you want. You are told that anything you ask for is yours; whether it be material or otherwise. You desire great wealth and ask for it’s yours for the asking, or you long for a very long life. Which would you choose? Because,of the proliferation of such things as lotteries and art union tickets, you read these brochures and see a brand new gorgeous home with two cars parked outside, and you begin to imagine; what if?

We all occasionally dream of what life might be like if we came into big money or we win the big one, and of course you begin to imagine being able to give several million dollars to your church if you did. What would you ask for? What would do you think would really make you happy?

A man was once asked this question by God. Solomon was king of Israel after his father King David had died. King Solomon was probably all of 20 years old when he was asked this question.

1 Kings 3:5:

At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, Ask for whatever you want me to give you."

Now talk about a question! What would you ask for? What do you really think would make you happy?

Now, I’m sure if I was able to appear to you and ask you right now what you would ask for, we would all come up with wonderfully spiritual things we might say - an end to world hunger, or peace in our times, or the eradication of poverty, but in our heart of hearts, wouldn’t we be thinking it would be nice to have a better job, or no job, or a brand spanking new house with two cars, a spa bath and room for a pony?

I have to admit occasionally imagining coming into a large sum of money, and you know one thing I would do? I would secretly pay off the mortgages and debts of my extended family, and the next time they go to the bank to make a payment, they’re told, What are you doing here? You don’t owe us anything any more? Wouldn’t that would be so cool! Of course I would tithe on the money and the interest on the investments, but! Do You know what Solomon asked for?

1 Kings 3:6-9 tells us:

"You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day. ⁷ "Now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. ⁸ Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. ⁹ So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?"

What an incredible thing to ask for! Wisdom! The passage goes on to tell us (verses 10-14)

¹⁰The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. ¹¹So God said to him, Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, ¹²I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. ¹³Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for—both wealth and honor—so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. ¹⁴And if you walk in obedience to me and keep my decrees and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.

He’s got it made! Wisdom, riches, as well as honour! Wouldn’t you like to be this twenty-year-old king?

Jump forward with me now…. We’re nearing the end of Solomon’s life and like most people he asks himself What sort of life have I had? Wouldn’t you expect it to have been a full life and an enjoyable life? After all he was fabulously wealthy. Wouldn’t you like to read what Solomon had to say about life? You know, if I was a publisher at the beginning of Solomon’s reign, I would sign him up right away to write his memoirs cause I think it sounds like there would be best seller in a life under that kind of promised blessing from God.

However, there is such a book. The author's name is never given, which still leads to people questioning whether or not he wrote it, but the descriptions he gives of himself indicate that the writer could have been none other than King Solomon. Solomon was the author of the book called Ecclesiastes. It appears this book was written towards the end of Solomon’s life, reflecting on his life’s experiences and the lessons he had learned.

You see; Solomon did it all. He began his reign as a humble servant of God, but as he grew older, his heart turned away from the Lord. He dabbled in multiple marriages and false gods. He journeyed down the pathways of possessions, pleasures, power, and prestige. Here was a man who had tried it all! Here was a man who had gone for it and done everything in many ways, he was the quintessential man who had arrived. There were no more ladders left to climb.

If you haven’t already done so please open your Bibles to Ecclesiastes and read it.

Ecclesiastes has a great message for us today. Solomon’s world hasn’t changed that much…

They had injustice against the poor; we have injustice against the poor. We have crooked politics; they too had corupt politics. They had incompetent leaders; we have a veritable plethora of incompetent leaders in both politics and the church. Back then, guilty people were allowed to commit more crime; nothing has changed. They had materialism; we have materialism; Back then, some people longed for the good old days, – today; I still hear some people wishing for the good old days What’s more; we haven’t changed very much. Solomon was on a quest to live a fulfilled life, to somehow find satisfaction in life: He experimented with life and tried many things people try today. He tried pleasure – people are still trying pleasure as the reason to live. He tried wealth – we dream about wealth. He tried education – we think education will help us arrive. Only to discover the numbers of Diplomas a person earns does not add up to any wealth, where it really counts. We desire social prestige; so did Solomon.

Many of us think, If only… about a great many things in life: If only I could live a life of pleasure! If only I could get that next degree! If only I could find a spouse. If only my career was going better. If only I lived in a better town or surburb!

Solomon tried all these things and he was the ideal person to write this book, because he possessed all the wealth, wisdom, and opportunities to carry out these experiments.

By the way, the word Ecclesiastes means assembler or a person who calls an assembly. The idea is a person calls an assembly and presents a topic, and discusses it from many viewpoints, and then makes an attempt to come to a practical conclusion. Read Ecclesiastes 1:1-3

Just in case we miss the hypothesis of this book, he puts it again near the end of his book, Ecclesiastes 12:8

Meaningless! Meaningless! says the Teacher. Everything is meaningless!

There are two phrases in this book that sum-up the author’s thoughts and feelings on life:

Phrase No 1: meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!

Some translations use the word vanity, others useless. Meaningless; vanity; useless – quite a description of life! Interestingly in the Hebrew language, if a word is repeated even once, it is for added emphasis, here the word is repeated five times in the same verse. It means everything is really, really, really, absolutely and completely, totally useless and without meaning. The word in Hebrew literally means empty; unsatisfactory; futile It is similar to vapour, which disappears quickly, leaves nothing behind, and does not satisfy. What a conclusion for Solomon to make!

The word meaningless is repeated over 30 times in Ecclesiastes.

What Solomon is saying is that when he considers his wealth, his works, and his wisdom – everything – he comes to this conclusion: (Ecclesiastes 2:11)

"Yet