WEBVTT 00:00:01.229 --> 00:00:03.410 Welcome to part two with Dr. Adam Miller in the 00:00:03.410 --> 00:00:07.889 book of Psalms and Ecclesiastes. Let me offer 00:00:07.889 --> 00:00:10.369 you a little summary of what I see going on here 00:00:10.369 --> 00:00:14.810 in Proverbs, and then we'll turn left into Ecclesiastes. 00:00:15.230 --> 00:00:17.350 We don't want to make people wait too long for 00:00:17.350 --> 00:00:19.629 that. They've been on pins and needles, I suspect, 00:00:19.829 --> 00:00:24.829 right? They're just dying, yeah. We've seen, 00:00:24.829 --> 00:00:28.230 as I've emphasized, that according to Proverbs, 00:00:28.230 --> 00:00:30.629 happiness doesn't depend on getting something. 00:00:31.039 --> 00:00:34.060 It's a lure. It's a false path. But it depends 00:00:34.060 --> 00:00:36.539 instead on knowing something. It depends on wisdom. 00:00:36.700 --> 00:00:39.560 It depends on seeing the truth, on not falling 00:00:39.560 --> 00:00:42.899 from the self-deception that follows when we 00:00:42.899 --> 00:00:45.939 quite naturally but wrongly try to interpret 00:00:45.939 --> 00:00:48.920 reality in light of our desires, expecting reality 00:00:48.920 --> 00:00:53.140 to match up with and satisfy our desires. That's 00:00:53.140 --> 00:00:56.500 how a child thinks. But it's ignorant and it's 00:00:56.500 --> 00:01:00.659 unserious and it's not sober. And it's not. fearful, 00:01:00.799 --> 00:01:05.799 where faith is fear of the Lord, because faith 00:01:05.799 --> 00:01:09.019 requires us to steer into what we are afraid 00:01:09.019 --> 00:01:12.719 to see. It requires us to steer into what we 00:01:12.719 --> 00:01:16.079 don't want to see and then do what Jesus does, 00:01:16.219 --> 00:01:19.819 which is to sacrifice what we are afraid to sacrifice. 00:01:20.840 --> 00:01:24.680 It turns out that in some sense, the Lord is 00:01:24.680 --> 00:01:28.400 terrifying, because the Lord is on the side of 00:01:28.400 --> 00:01:32.049 reality. The Lord is on the side of sacrifice. 00:01:32.730 --> 00:01:40.329 But seeing what's real, accepting reality, then 00:01:40.329 --> 00:01:43.549 sacrificing what must be sacrificed is in fact 00:01:43.549 --> 00:01:47.290 the only place to find joy because of the way 00:01:47.290 --> 00:01:51.909 that it's the only way to express love. Fear 00:01:51.909 --> 00:01:54.769 of the Lord. You have to steer into that fear 00:01:54.769 --> 00:01:56.750 all the things that we're afraid to see and feel 00:01:56.750 --> 00:02:00.049 and recognize and sacrifice. That left turn will 00:02:00.049 --> 00:02:04.049 get you to where you actually wanted to go. Yeah, 00:02:04.049 --> 00:02:06.989 so it seems ironic that someone who loves being 00:02:06.989 --> 00:02:10.750 duped never really experiences love. Yeah, it's 00:02:10.750 --> 00:02:13.189 a way of avoiding what's actually at stake in 00:02:13.189 --> 00:02:16.969 love. To love being duped is to love the idea 00:02:16.969 --> 00:02:22.469 of being loved, but not to love loving, which 00:02:22.469 --> 00:02:24.490 is always the kind of trap we fall into as human 00:02:24.490 --> 00:02:27.250 beings. As you reminded us, Hank, that's what 00:02:27.250 --> 00:02:29.819 it means to think that love is a reward 00:02:29.819 --> 00:02:33.139 rather than a law. I think that it's something 00:02:33.139 --> 00:02:35.360 that you could get rather than something that 00:02:35.360 --> 00:02:39.539 you need to do and join and participate in. When 00:02:39.539 --> 00:02:43.259 I tried studying Jesus' parable of the sower 00:02:43.259 --> 00:02:45.879 years ago, and I thought, wow, there's so much 00:02:45.879 --> 00:02:49.419 you can learn from the four types of soil. And 00:02:49.419 --> 00:02:51.539 I saw this in Proverbs, and I thought, I wonder 00:02:51.539 --> 00:02:53.819 if this was in the Savior's mind. But look at 00:02:53.819 --> 00:02:58.069 Proverbs 24, starting in verse 30. I went by 00:02:58.069 --> 00:03:01.509 the field of the slothful and by the vineyard 00:03:01.509 --> 00:03:04.289 of the man void of understanding. A little couplet 00:03:04.289 --> 00:03:07.210 there. Lo, it was all grown over with thorns 00:03:07.210 --> 00:03:09.729 and nettles had covered the face thereof and 00:03:09.729 --> 00:03:13.169 the stone wall thereof was broken down. And then 00:03:13.169 --> 00:03:16.090 you get, then I saw and considered it well. I 00:03:16.090 --> 00:03:20.110 looked upon it and received instruction or maybe 00:03:20.110 --> 00:03:24.509 even reproof. Yeah. Because Jesus is like, are 00:03:24.509 --> 00:03:28.150 you overgrown in your soil? Are you rocky? Are 00:03:28.150 --> 00:03:32.370 you deep? I looked and I went, huh. So I thought 00:03:32.370 --> 00:03:34.669 that sounds like somebody learned from looking 00:03:34.669 --> 00:03:40.110 at a garden. And it was useful for maybe interpreting 00:03:40.110 --> 00:03:42.949 where the parable of the four types of soil came 00:03:42.949 --> 00:03:46.409 from. What you said earlier, Adam, is that look 00:03:46.409 --> 00:03:49.069 at these scriptures feeding into other places 00:03:49.069 --> 00:03:52.189 in the standard works here, Old Testament, New 00:03:52.189 --> 00:03:54.370 Testament, maybe. Do you guys see that in there? 00:03:54.430 --> 00:03:57.400 Maybe. Yeah, I like that. It's almost as if Jesus 00:03:57.400 --> 00:04:00.599 read that and said, I'll try that. Yeah, I can 00:04:00.599 --> 00:04:02.900 do that. I'm going to go look at a garden and 00:04:02.900 --> 00:04:05.379 see what I can learn. I received instruction 00:04:05.379 --> 00:04:08.460 by looking at this messed up garden. And I thought, 00:04:08.539 --> 00:04:12.319 huh. I think that's very much the case. Jesus's 00:04:12.319 --> 00:04:15.780 parables come in all different shapes and sizes, 00:04:15.939 --> 00:04:18.699 some of which are very short, like two liners 00:04:18.699 --> 00:04:21.699 as if they were proverbs themselves. Some of 00:04:21.699 --> 00:04:25.370 them are much longer, sprawling narratives. But 00:04:25.370 --> 00:04:28.250 the basic building blocks for all those parables 00:04:28.250 --> 00:04:32.449 are already here in the Old Testament. To be 00:04:32.449 --> 00:04:35.550 able to see and feel the way that Jesus is picking 00:04:35.550 --> 00:04:40.509 up and repurposing and transforming the tradition 00:04:40.509 --> 00:04:42.870 that he's inherited, the tradition of Scripture 00:04:42.870 --> 00:04:45.949 that he's inherited and has internalized, that 00:04:45.949 --> 00:04:48.149 adds a lot of depth and power to the parables 00:04:48.149 --> 00:04:51.149 when you can make those connections. Yeah. And 00:04:51.149 --> 00:04:53.829 when Jesus read the Scriptures, what was he reading? 00:04:54.269 --> 00:04:57.350 Reading this stuff, maybe. Yeah, it was his native 00:04:57.350 --> 00:04:59.930 language, essentially, right? When Jesus thought 00:04:59.930 --> 00:05:02.470 about God, these were his raw materials for thinking 00:05:02.470 --> 00:05:07.649 about God. All right, Ecclesiastes? Okay, I am 00:05:07.649 --> 00:05:11.990 ready. Ready or not. I'm ready to turn left to 00:05:11.990 --> 00:05:16.029 go right. All right, so Ecclesiastes, one of 00:05:16.029 --> 00:05:20.189 our four wisdom books, also interested in the 00:05:20.189 --> 00:05:23.720 nature of wisdom. In some ways, the book of Proverbs, 00:05:23.860 --> 00:05:28.379 going back all the way to the 10th century, is 00:05:28.379 --> 00:05:31.620 probably some of our oldest material, literarily 00:05:31.620 --> 00:05:35.220 speaking, in the Old Testament. Where Ecclesiastes 00:05:35.220 --> 00:05:39.720 almost certainly comes on the opposite end. It's 00:05:39.720 --> 00:05:42.800 probably composed as one of the latest of the 00:05:42.800 --> 00:05:45.639 books that makes it into our Bible. Third or 00:05:45.639 --> 00:05:49.139 fourth century is a common estimation. Third 00:05:49.139 --> 00:05:52.579 or fourth century before Jesus was born. So probably 00:05:52.579 --> 00:05:54.879 some of the latest material that had a chance 00:05:54.879 --> 00:05:59.540 to see and internalize and respond to a lot of 00:05:59.540 --> 00:06:01.959 the tradition that had already begun to accrete 00:06:01.959 --> 00:06:04.540 and gather. So I think it's especially helpful 00:06:04.540 --> 00:06:07.639 then to see Ecclesiastes, not as a kind of outlier, 00:06:07.660 --> 00:06:10.560 but as in active conversation with the rest of 00:06:10.560 --> 00:06:15.459 the biblical canon. It's ascribed to a Solomonic 00:06:15.459 --> 00:06:20.490 -like figure, but the speaker... goes only by 00:06:20.490 --> 00:06:24.930 the name of the preacher or the teacher or something 00:06:24.930 --> 00:06:28.269 like that, and is never explicitly identified 00:06:28.269 --> 00:06:32.209 as Solomon himself. There's certainly a Solomonic 00:06:32.209 --> 00:06:35.769 -type figure the preacher is meant to be. That'll 00:06:35.769 --> 00:06:38.930 figure into the story that the preacher tells 00:06:38.930 --> 00:06:42.810 us about his own experience. It's pretty short, 00:06:42.850 --> 00:06:45.310 just 12 chapters. Those chapters are themselves 00:06:45.310 --> 00:06:49.379 pretty brief. breaks it down into four basic 00:06:49.379 --> 00:06:53.959 sections. You get the very famous prologue in 00:06:53.959 --> 00:06:57.420 chapter one. You get a kind of epilogue in chapter 00:06:57.420 --> 00:07:00.639 12. The remainder of chapter one through chapter 00:07:00.639 --> 00:07:04.639 six, you get the preacher's account of his search 00:07:04.639 --> 00:07:08.360 for meaning and satisfaction with negative results 00:07:08.360 --> 00:07:14.519 reported on either front. Then you get some practical 00:07:14.519 --> 00:07:18.470 advice. chapters 7 through 11 in light of what 00:07:18.470 --> 00:07:21.009 he thinks he's discovered about the nature of 00:07:21.009 --> 00:07:24.629 the world. So if I were to offer a kind of general 00:07:24.629 --> 00:07:28.370 description of what I think the preacher is offering 00:07:28.370 --> 00:07:34.470 to us in Ecclesiastes, is we might contrast Ecclesiastes 00:07:34.470 --> 00:07:37.029 here with something like the book of Lamentations, 00:07:37.029 --> 00:07:40.009 where what you get in the book of Lamentations 00:07:40.009 --> 00:07:43.829 is After the kingdom of Judah has been thrust 00:07:43.829 --> 00:07:47.629 into exile by the Babylonians and they've lost 00:07:47.629 --> 00:07:50.389 everything, you get in Lamentations a series 00:07:50.389 --> 00:07:55.350 of poems that just capture the utter despair 00:07:55.350 --> 00:08:00.649 experienced by these people having lost everything 00:08:00.649 --> 00:08:04.610 that they ever thought was worth keeping. Lamentations 00:08:04.610 --> 00:08:08.209 is heart -rending in that respect to read, to 00:08:08.209 --> 00:08:11.069 feel with them. the despair that comes with having 00:08:11.069 --> 00:08:15.129 lost everything. Ecclesiastes is also a cry of 00:08:15.129 --> 00:08:18.230 despair, but it's a cry of despair that comes 00:08:18.230 --> 00:08:21.750 not from having lost everything, but a cry of 00:08:21.750 --> 00:08:24.850 despair that follows from having won everything. 00:08:25.269 --> 00:08:28.610 It's a kind of cry of despair that follows the 00:08:28.610 --> 00:08:33.690 preacher having succeeded in every possible way, 00:08:33.809 --> 00:08:38.889 won every possible prize. gotten everything he 00:08:38.889 --> 00:08:43.970 ever thought he wanted and then still not finding 00:08:43.970 --> 00:08:46.830 what he was looking for it's a kind of cry of 00:08:46.830 --> 00:08:48.809 despair from the opposite end of the spectrum 00:08:48.809 --> 00:08:51.889 of human experience not from having lost everything 00:08:51.889 --> 00:08:55.090 but from having gotten everything and it still 00:08:55.090 --> 00:08:58.250 didn't work according to the preacher i remember 00:08:58.250 --> 00:09:01.389 one celebrity saying i wish everyone could be 00:09:01.389 --> 00:09:04.090 rich and famous to find out how meaningless it 00:09:04.090 --> 00:09:07.990 is yeah That's exactly the book of Ecclesiastes. 00:09:09.049 --> 00:09:11.429 You and I tend to suffer from the fact that, 00:09:11.490 --> 00:09:16.629 unsuccessful as we are, we are able to maintain 00:09:16.629 --> 00:09:19.690 the fantasy that if we had gotten what we wanted, 00:09:19.789 --> 00:09:22.529 we would be happy. But the preacher is here to 00:09:22.529 --> 00:09:24.730 report that even if you got everything you wanted, 00:09:24.870 --> 00:09:29.309 you would still be sad. Because that's no road 00:09:29.309 --> 00:09:32.049 to happiness. Happiness doesn't work like that. 00:09:32.090 --> 00:09:34.850 It comes through sacrifice. comes through love 00:09:34.850 --> 00:09:37.509 and selfless service. And you can't get there 00:09:37.509 --> 00:09:39.870 through wealth and success and power, no matter 00:09:39.870 --> 00:09:42.450 how much of it you have. In fact, you'll even 00:09:42.450 --> 00:09:44.690 be stripped of the one thing, the one consolation 00:09:44.690 --> 00:09:47.649 that we have from not having succeeded and being 00:09:47.649 --> 00:09:49.389 able to pretend that we would have been happy 00:09:49.389 --> 00:09:51.990 had we got it. They don't even have that, the 00:09:51.990 --> 00:09:54.470 people who are rich and famous. They can't even 00:09:54.470 --> 00:09:58.929 pretend. I've read some of the social research 00:09:58.929 --> 00:10:02.470 on money. And when you take someone out of poverty, 00:10:04.009 --> 00:10:06.629 That does have an impact when they can get medicine 00:10:06.629 --> 00:10:09.830 and they can have somewhere to live. But there 00:10:09.830 --> 00:10:12.029 does reach a point, and no one really wants to 00:10:12.029 --> 00:10:15.710 accept it, where more money does not equal any 00:10:15.710 --> 00:10:18.970 more happiness, any more satisfaction. And what 00:10:18.970 --> 00:10:21.929 you obtain, you have to maintain. And suddenly 00:10:21.929 --> 00:10:24.309 you've got a lot more. Hank, I've told you about 00:10:24.309 --> 00:10:28.039 this book I heard about. called Money for Nothing 00:10:28.039 --> 00:10:30.279 about people who won the lottery. It was like, 00:10:30.299 --> 00:10:32.700 this is the worst thing that has ever happened 00:10:32.700 --> 00:10:36.159 to me. Somebody said, I spend my days with lawyers 00:10:36.159 --> 00:10:39.059 and lawsuits because he made some bad investments. 00:10:39.200 --> 00:10:43.259 And I thought, wow, isn't that interesting? Fiddler 00:10:43.259 --> 00:10:46.019 on the Roof, when his future son-in-law said, 00:10:46.120 --> 00:10:48.139 riches are God's curse. And he said, may God 00:10:48.139 --> 00:10:51.080 smite me with it and may I never recover. I think 00:10:51.080 --> 00:10:56.070 I quoted some of those studies. I was speaking 00:10:56.070 --> 00:10:57.850 once and a woman raised her hand and said, those 00:10:57.850 --> 00:11:00.529 people just don't know where to shop. Exactly. 00:11:00.789 --> 00:11:08.450 If I had that, I would be happy. Ecclesiastes, 00:11:08.450 --> 00:11:11.909 I find it spiritually valuable because I think 00:11:11.909 --> 00:11:16.110 of it as a sort of exorcism. It performs an exorcism 00:11:16.110 --> 00:11:21.470 for us. I've often felt like all my life that 00:11:21.470 --> 00:11:24.649 I've been haunted. by the ghost of a special 00:11:24.649 --> 00:11:29.950 Adam who follows me everywhere and shadows me 00:11:29.950 --> 00:11:33.610 with the promise that if I could only work hard 00:11:33.610 --> 00:11:36.590 enough or be smart enough or be handsome enough 00:11:36.590 --> 00:11:41.409 or be spiritual enough or whatever, special Adam 00:11:41.409 --> 00:11:45.330 is perfect Adam who would get what he wanted 00:11:45.330 --> 00:11:49.830 and deserve getting it. If I could only be special 00:11:49.830 --> 00:11:54.779 Adam. then I would be happy. I'm sorry I'm laughing. 00:11:54.840 --> 00:11:57.919 It just sounds familiar. I think I have a special 00:11:57.919 --> 00:12:01.240 John. Have you met special John? He's a dupe, 00:12:01.259 --> 00:12:05.120 but I follow him sometimes, yeah. Exactly. The 00:12:05.120 --> 00:12:08.159 special Adam is what the dupe loves being duped 00:12:08.159 --> 00:12:10.899 by. The idea that there's some version of me 00:12:10.899 --> 00:12:13.720 out there that could or should get what they 00:12:13.720 --> 00:12:16.519 wanted and deserve getting it, that they would 00:12:16.519 --> 00:12:20.690 be happy as a result. It's a siren. It's a, come 00:12:20.690 --> 00:12:24.669 over here, you will be happy. Yeah, and that 00:12:24.669 --> 00:12:27.490 special Adam is not the thing that the gospel 00:12:27.490 --> 00:12:31.169 promises me to live up to. The special Adam is 00:12:31.169 --> 00:12:33.830 the thing that the gospel is trying to free me 00:12:33.830 --> 00:12:38.669 from. The whole idea that I should be special 00:12:38.669 --> 00:12:41.570 in that way, get what I wanted and be loved and 00:12:41.570 --> 00:12:43.509 be more important than other people or whatever. 00:12:44.129 --> 00:12:46.590 And Ecclesiastes performs a kind of exorcism 00:12:46.590 --> 00:12:50.279 performed here by the preacher. As he says, no, 00:12:50.379 --> 00:12:54.019 look, here's the ghost of special Adam. He's 00:12:54.019 --> 00:12:58.000 a sham and he's a lie. It can't work and it won't 00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:01.299 work. You can't get there that way. Here's why. 00:13:01.899 --> 00:13:03.820 I've always found him very powerful and very 00:13:03.820 --> 00:13:07.960 liberating, very salutary in that respect. I've 00:13:07.960 --> 00:13:10.480 always been grateful for Ecclesiastes. It just 00:13:10.480 --> 00:13:13.600 seems very liberating. To put special John to 00:13:13.600 --> 00:13:16.639 bed and to just go about the business of living 00:13:16.639 --> 00:13:20.049 your life and caring for other people. That's 00:13:20.049 --> 00:13:22.250 the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's the kind of 00:13:22.250 --> 00:13:25.970 freedom, joy that it promises. You have to cut 00:13:25.970 --> 00:13:30.129 that guy loose. You can't cling to that duping 00:13:30.129 --> 00:13:32.889 fantasy. You have to let him go. Those first 00:13:32.889 --> 00:13:36.750 11 verses of Ecclesiastes 2, I built this, I 00:13:36.750 --> 00:13:42.629 built this, and all was vanity. It was nothing. 00:13:43.330 --> 00:13:48.029 No point. No profit under the sun, I mean. You 00:13:48.029 --> 00:13:50.070 might also think about Ecclesiastes as something 00:13:50.070 --> 00:13:53.029 like medicine. It's hard medicine that I might 00:13:53.029 --> 00:13:56.490 need to take in order to feel much better. To 00:13:56.490 --> 00:14:01.870 get it. Ecclesiastes is not food. You can't live 00:14:01.870 --> 00:14:07.269 on Ecclesiastes. But especially if you're a certain 00:14:07.269 --> 00:14:10.230 kind of person who is attached to the idea of 00:14:10.230 --> 00:14:13.750 your being someone special, which afflicts some 00:14:13.750 --> 00:14:16.509 of us more than others. then Ecclesiastes could 00:14:16.509 --> 00:14:19.049 be just the kind of medicine that you need in 00:14:19.049 --> 00:14:21.529 order to be well enough to eat the real food 00:14:21.529 --> 00:14:25.210 that the gospel offers. You might need Ecclesiastes, 00:14:25.350 --> 00:14:27.529 but you'll want to keep it in conversation with 00:14:27.529 --> 00:14:31.490 Jesus Christ and his teachings. I've often thought, 00:14:31.549 --> 00:14:33.830 for instance, that the book of Ecclesiastes is 00:14:33.830 --> 00:14:38.110 an essential pairing with the book of Romans. 00:14:38.710 --> 00:14:41.049 That if you want to understand what Paul means 00:14:41.049 --> 00:14:44.929 by grace and the grace of God, and how that results 00:14:44.929 --> 00:14:48.110 in our salvation by way of Jesus Christ. You 00:14:48.110 --> 00:14:51.289 read Romans against the backdrop of Ecclesiastes, 00:14:51.350 --> 00:14:54.870 and you see the absolute vanity of attempting 00:14:54.870 --> 00:14:58.509 to save yourself and be someone special. Then 00:14:58.509 --> 00:15:01.509 you pair that with the corresponding offer of 00:15:01.509 --> 00:15:04.110 joining Christ in the work of sacrificing all 00:15:04.110 --> 00:15:08.789 things to find love and grace. They're two sides 00:15:08.789 --> 00:15:12.529 of the same coin, Ecclesiastes and Romans. But 00:15:12.529 --> 00:15:14.470 you need both sides of the coin, or at least 00:15:14.470 --> 00:15:16.750 most of us need the Ecclesiastes side in addition 00:15:16.750 --> 00:15:20.309 to the Roman side. I've read your grace is not 00:15:20.309 --> 00:15:23.450 God's backup plan. That was a paraphrase of Romans, 00:15:23.610 --> 00:15:25.590 was it not? Yeah, I've got a couple of these 00:15:25.590 --> 00:15:29.269 little paraphrases. One is that paraphrase of 00:15:29.269 --> 00:15:32.129 Romans, grace is not God's backup plan. One is 00:15:32.129 --> 00:15:35.509 my paraphrase of Ecclesiastes, which is called 00:15:35.509 --> 00:15:38.509 nothing new under the sun. I have a third little 00:15:38.509 --> 00:15:40.750 paraphrase like that. It's a paraphrase of... 00:15:40.909 --> 00:15:44.049 The Song of Songs of the Song of Solomon. If 00:15:44.049 --> 00:15:47.009 people want kind of a way into the Song of Solomon, 00:15:47.149 --> 00:15:49.870 they might try that too. And those were written 00:15:49.870 --> 00:15:53.649 by Adam, not Special Adam, right? Well, Special 00:15:53.649 --> 00:15:55.830 Adam is always lurking. He'd like to get a little 00:15:55.830 --> 00:15:59.470 credit for doing these things. Brought to you 00:15:59.470 --> 00:16:03.049 by Special Adam. Special Adam. I didn't even 00:16:03.049 --> 00:16:05.429 actually write those books. They're just paraphrases. 00:16:06.850 --> 00:16:08.929 Let's take a look at chapter one, verse two, 00:16:09.070 --> 00:16:12.600 Ecclesiastes. There it is again. You just get 00:16:12.600 --> 00:16:14.879 the superscription in verse 1, the words of the 00:16:14.879 --> 00:16:18.419 preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. 00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:21.799 It hints at a kind of Solomon-like figure here 00:16:21.799 --> 00:16:24.440 without coming right out and claiming that it's 00:16:24.440 --> 00:16:28.259 Solomon himself. But the persona is Solomon-like, 00:16:28.299 --> 00:16:31.360 and the persona refers to himself here as the 00:16:31.360 --> 00:16:33.919 preacher. He's going to preach a sermon here 00:16:33.919 --> 00:16:36.700 to us, whether we want to hear it or not, about 00:16:36.700 --> 00:16:40.809 the nature of reality. And the nature of it, 00:16:40.830 --> 00:16:44.190 as the King James has it, is vanity of vanities, 00:16:44.309 --> 00:16:47.610 sayeth the preacher. Vanity of vanities. All 00:16:47.610 --> 00:16:52.490 is vanity. Or as the New English translation 00:16:52.490 --> 00:16:55.289 has it, futile, futile, laments the teacher. 00:16:55.370 --> 00:17:00.149 Absolutely futile. Everything is futile. Or as 00:17:00.149 --> 00:17:04.269 the NIV has it, meaningless, meaningless. Everything 00:17:04.269 --> 00:17:09.759 is meaningless. Absolutely meaningless. Alter 00:17:09.759 --> 00:17:15.200 has it, merest breath, all is mere breath. The 00:17:15.200 --> 00:17:18.299 word here in Hebrew that gets translated in this 00:17:18.299 --> 00:17:23.680 whole variety of ways is the word hevel, which 00:17:23.680 --> 00:17:27.500 the root meaning is something like breath, as 00:17:27.500 --> 00:17:31.819 Alter gives it here. It's a word used to describe 00:17:31.819 --> 00:17:41.039 a kind of insubstantial mist. It's a word that's used to describe 00:17:41.039 --> 00:17:45.119 not breath when you inhale, but breath when you exhale, the kind 00:17:45.119 --> 00:17:49.259 of waste carbon dioxide that comes out when you 00:17:49.259 --> 00:17:52.579 exhale. That's hevel. That's what we're talking 00:17:52.579 --> 00:17:55.640 about here. This is what life is, according to 00:17:55.640 --> 00:17:58.839 the preacher. Everything that's involved in the 00:17:58.839 --> 00:18:01.079 world as you and I know it is in some sense this 00:18:01.079 --> 00:18:05.119 insubstantial vapor that's a waste product of 00:18:05.119 --> 00:18:10.160 life that you expel when... You exhale your breath. 00:18:10.680 --> 00:18:14.059 You can't keep it. You can't hold it. It's never 00:18:14.059 --> 00:18:16.420 going to satisfy you. It's never going to be 00:18:16.420 --> 00:18:20.099 what you want. It will always slip through your 00:18:20.099 --> 00:18:24.279 fingers. That's the nature of life, the preacher 00:18:24.279 --> 00:18:30.059 says. Such a fun way to start. Can you imagine 00:18:30.059 --> 00:18:34.000 someone standing up on Fast Sunday and just bearing 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:37.099 their testimony? I know. That life is meaningless 00:18:37.099 --> 00:18:40.799 and futile and everything that we do is vain 00:18:40.799 --> 00:18:45.480 and mere breath. But in some ways that should 00:18:45.480 --> 00:18:48.279 be a really important part of our testimonies. 00:18:48.640 --> 00:18:52.460 It's hard or maybe even impossible to have real 00:18:52.460 --> 00:18:56.900 hope in Christ, as Paul puts it, unless we've 00:18:56.900 --> 00:18:59.480 first become hopeless about everything else. 00:18:59.940 --> 00:19:03.099 We have to put the whole of our heart and mind 00:19:03.099 --> 00:19:07.019 into our trust. that we place in God and stop 00:19:07.019 --> 00:19:10.000 reserving parts of it or some of it or even the 00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:13.460 bulk of it for things other than God, hoping 00:19:13.460 --> 00:19:15.660 that they might be able to make us happy with 00:19:15.660 --> 00:19:18.420 or without God's intervention, hoping that they 00:19:18.420 --> 00:19:22.720 might be able to rescue us and satisfy our desires. 00:19:23.200 --> 00:19:27.420 But at the end of the day, nothing can. The only 00:19:27.420 --> 00:19:30.140 possible route to happiness is to surrender those 00:19:30.140 --> 00:19:33.299 desires and love and serve the world as it is. 00:19:33.720 --> 00:19:36.279 the way that God does. So those are the opening 00:19:36.279 --> 00:19:40.880 lines. Memorable. All timers. That'll get your 00:19:40.880 --> 00:19:43.920 attention at least, right? Vanity's not a bad 00:19:43.920 --> 00:19:47.200 translation. You do get the sense, as John noted 00:19:47.200 --> 00:19:49.500 earlier, of vanity in the sense of a mirror, 00:19:49.640 --> 00:19:52.279 in the sense that the whole thing is just a hall 00:19:52.279 --> 00:19:55.440 of mirrors. It's just a game of reflections without 00:19:55.440 --> 00:19:58.140 any real substance in the sense of a mirror. 00:19:58.339 --> 00:20:02.119 But also vanity in the sense of things just being... 00:20:02.490 --> 00:20:05.390 futile like you did that in vain or you took 00:20:05.390 --> 00:20:09.829 god's name in vain that sense of vanity as well 00:20:09.829 --> 00:20:12.529 where you did it without real it didn't have 00:20:12.529 --> 00:20:16.369 any real meaning or substance or intention behind 00:20:16.369 --> 00:20:19.190 it all those things combining here and that one 00:20:19.190 --> 00:20:21.730 same little word which is the kind of key word 00:20:21.730 --> 00:20:26.910 at the heart of the whole of ecclesiastes here's 00:20:26.910 --> 00:20:31.750 what we get in verses 3 through 11 then in this 00:20:31.750 --> 00:20:35.289 opening section after the initial cry of despair. 00:20:36.890 --> 00:20:39.970 The preacher says, What benefit do people get 00:20:39.970 --> 00:20:42.630 from all the effort which they expend on earth? 00:20:43.049 --> 00:20:45.690 A generation comes and a generation goes, but 00:20:45.690 --> 00:20:47.710 the earth remains the same through the ages. 00:20:47.990 --> 00:20:51.490 The sun rises and the sun sets. It hurries away 00:20:51.490 --> 00:20:54.730 to the place from which it rises again. The wind 00:20:54.730 --> 00:20:57.009 goes to the south and circles around to the north. 00:20:57.289 --> 00:21:00.009 Round and round the wind goes, and on its rounds 00:21:00.009 --> 00:21:03.019 it returns. All the streams flow into the sea, 00:21:03.119 --> 00:21:05.799 but the sea is never full. And to the place where 00:21:05.799 --> 00:21:08.099 the streams flow, there they will flow again. 00:21:08.660 --> 00:21:12.240 All this monotony is tiresome. No one can bear 00:21:12.240 --> 00:21:16.799 to describe it. The eye is never satisfied with 00:21:16.799 --> 00:21:19.700 seeing, nor is the ear ever content with hearing. 00:21:20.039 --> 00:21:23.579 What exists now is what will be. What has been 00:21:23.579 --> 00:21:26.759 done is what will be done. There is nothing truly 00:21:26.759 --> 00:21:29.529 new on the earth. Is there anything about which 00:21:29.529 --> 00:21:32.329 someone can say, look at this, it's new. It's 00:21:32.329 --> 00:21:35.390 already been done long ago before our time. No 00:21:35.390 --> 00:21:38.210 one remembers the former events, nor will anyone 00:21:38.210 --> 00:21:40.910 remember the events that are yet to happen. They 00:21:40.910 --> 00:21:43.509 will not be remembered by the future generations. 00:21:44.369 --> 00:21:49.309 That in cosmological terms is the initial argument 00:21:49.309 --> 00:21:52.589 where the preacher says, look just at how the 00:21:52.589 --> 00:21:55.740 world in general works. The sun just goes round 00:21:55.740 --> 00:21:58.680 and round and it never gets anywhere. The wind 00:21:58.680 --> 00:22:01.200 just blows in circles and then it leaves and 00:22:01.200 --> 00:22:03.400 then it comes back again and nothing ever changes. 00:22:03.880 --> 00:22:06.640 The river is endlessly empty into the sea, but 00:22:06.640 --> 00:22:08.799 the sea never gets any more full than it was 00:22:08.799 --> 00:22:13.220 before that water went in. That's just how life 00:22:13.220 --> 00:22:15.880 is in general, he says. Nothing new is going 00:22:15.880 --> 00:22:18.579 to happen here. Whatever it is you do is not 00:22:18.579 --> 00:22:20.960 going to make any difference with respect to 00:22:20.960 --> 00:22:25.009 the overall structure of the world. It may feel 00:22:25.009 --> 00:22:27.369 sometimes like you did something new, but that's 00:22:27.369 --> 00:22:30.269 because we have such bad memories that we don't 00:22:30.269 --> 00:22:33.109 remember what anybody did before, which is really 00:22:33.109 --> 00:22:35.049 fine because nobody's going to remember what 00:22:35.049 --> 00:22:39.829 you did anyway. You're right. This preacher. Not normal 00:22:39.829 --> 00:22:46.150 for the Bible. But it is good medicine for special 00:22:46.150 --> 00:22:50.589 Adam. You can see how it's meant to perform a 00:22:50.589 --> 00:22:54.069 kind of exorcism here. If something good happens, 00:22:54.269 --> 00:22:58.410 as Jesus will say, it's because God did it, not 00:22:58.410 --> 00:23:01.029 because I did it. If there's something worth 00:23:01.029 --> 00:23:03.430 remembering here, it's remembering how God delivered 00:23:03.430 --> 00:23:06.470 us, not that I did something to deserve being 00:23:06.470 --> 00:23:09.210 delivered because I'm different or special or 00:23:09.210 --> 00:23:11.769 better than other people. That's not how it works. 00:23:11.829 --> 00:23:13.890 That's not what memory's for. That's not how 00:23:13.890 --> 00:23:18.509 satisfaction or joy or happiness is found. It's 00:23:18.509 --> 00:23:20.779 great because it's so different. You guys are 00:23:20.779 --> 00:23:27.339 a closet iconoclast. Let me give you one other 00:23:27.339 --> 00:23:32.000 verse here from chapter 1. Then we'll look at 00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:34.700 what I think is his most wrenching and personal 00:23:34.700 --> 00:23:37.579 set of confessions in chapter 2. Then we'll do 00:23:37.579 --> 00:23:41.240 chapter 3. In chapter 1, well, it's going to 00:23:41.240 --> 00:23:45.359 be 14 and 15. The preacher says, I reflected 00:23:45.359 --> 00:23:47.920 on everything that is accomplished by man on 00:23:47.920 --> 00:23:51.319 earth, and I concluded, Everything he has accomplished 00:23:51.319 --> 00:23:55.880 is futile. It's all like chasing the wind, or 00:23:55.880 --> 00:23:58.779 as Alter has it, it's all like herding the wind. 00:23:59.420 --> 00:24:02.920 What is bent cannot be made straight, and what 00:24:02.920 --> 00:24:07.059 is missing cannot be supplied. It's all like 00:24:07.059 --> 00:24:10.140 herding the wind, as if the whole of life were 00:24:10.140 --> 00:24:13.119 like herding cats, but the cats weren't even 00:24:13.119 --> 00:24:17.420 cats, they were just wind. You don't even get 00:24:17.420 --> 00:24:20.640 the cats in the end of it, right? It's all just 00:24:20.640 --> 00:24:23.079 everywhere all the time. It's constantly slipping 00:24:23.079 --> 00:24:24.859 through your fingers and never goes where you 00:24:24.859 --> 00:24:27.400 want it. If you think that your happiness depends 00:24:27.400 --> 00:24:29.460 on getting it to go where you want it to go, 00:24:29.559 --> 00:24:33.099 good luck, the preacher says. It's not going 00:24:33.099 --> 00:24:36.779 to happen. Then we get in chapter two, almost 00:24:36.779 --> 00:24:39.519 what we could describe in philosophical terms 00:24:39.519 --> 00:24:43.920 as a kind of reductio ad absurdum. Are you familiar 00:24:43.920 --> 00:24:47.529 with this term? A reductio ad absurdum is the 00:24:47.529 --> 00:24:51.970 argument in which you prove that something cannot 00:24:51.970 --> 00:24:55.829 be the case by showing how absurd it would be 00:24:55.829 --> 00:25:00.029 were it to be the case. You prove the contrary 00:25:00.029 --> 00:25:04.750 by the absurdity of the proposed example. So 00:25:04.750 --> 00:25:06.529 he's going to give us an example of that here. 00:25:06.569 --> 00:25:08.789 Now, he's going to offer us a little case study 00:25:08.789 --> 00:25:13.269 that will put all of our fantasies to rest. by 00:25:13.269 --> 00:25:15.769 showing us what would happen even if all of our 00:25:15.769 --> 00:25:19.130 fantasies came true. You think you're sad because 00:25:19.130 --> 00:25:21.269 you're not getting what you wanted, but let's 00:25:21.269 --> 00:25:23.609 say you did get what you wanted, the preacher 00:25:23.609 --> 00:25:26.869 proposes. What would happen then? Then he runs 00:25:26.869 --> 00:25:29.069 us through what happened to him when he did get 00:25:29.069 --> 00:25:33.450 everything he wanted. That's chapter two. I'm 00:25:33.450 --> 00:25:35.450 just going to give this to you more or less straight 00:25:35.450 --> 00:25:38.630 here. I think it's worth the investment. Verse 00:25:38.630 --> 00:25:42.720 one, chapter two. I thought to myself, Come now, 00:25:42.859 --> 00:25:46.099 I will try self-indulgent pleasure to see if 00:25:46.099 --> 00:25:50.460 it's worthwhile. And he did, but I found that 00:25:50.460 --> 00:25:55.019 it is also futile. I said of partying, it's folly, 00:25:55.059 --> 00:25:58.140 and of self-indulgent pleasure, it accomplishes 00:25:58.140 --> 00:26:01.319 nothing. I thought deeply about the effects of 00:26:01.319 --> 00:26:04.559 indulging myself with wine, all the while my 00:26:04.559 --> 00:26:07.450 mind was guiding me with wisdom. and the effects 00:26:07.450 --> 00:26:09.750 of behaving foolishly so that I might discover 00:26:09.750 --> 00:26:12.230 what is profitable for people to do during the 00:26:12.230 --> 00:26:15.410 days of their lives. I increased my possessions. 00:26:15.730 --> 00:26:18.849 I built houses for myself. I planted vineyards 00:26:18.849 --> 00:26:22.089 for myself. I designed royal gardens and parks 00:26:22.089 --> 00:26:24.849 for myself. I planted all kinds of fruit trees 00:26:24.849 --> 00:26:28.009 in them. I constructed pools of water for myself 00:26:28.009 --> 00:26:31.470 to irrigate my grove of flourishing trees. I 00:26:31.470 --> 00:26:34.269 purchased male and female slaves. I owned slaves 00:26:34.269 --> 00:26:37.309 who were born in my own house. I possessed more 00:26:37.309 --> 00:26:39.990 livestock, both herds and flocks, than any of 00:26:39.990 --> 00:26:43.170 my predecessors in Jerusalem. I also amassed 00:26:43.170 --> 00:26:45.750 silver and gold for myself, as well as valuable 00:26:45.750 --> 00:26:48.089 treasures taken from kingdoms and provinces. 00:26:48.369 --> 00:26:51.529 I acquired male singers and female singers for 00:26:51.529 --> 00:26:55.069 myself. What gives a man sensual delight? A harem 00:26:55.069 --> 00:26:59.170 of beautiful concubines? So I was far wealthier 00:26:59.170 --> 00:27:02.210 than all my predecessors in Jerusalem. Yet I 00:27:02.210 --> 00:27:05.710 maintained my objectivity. I did not restrain 00:27:05.710 --> 00:27:08.089 myself, he says, from getting whatever I wanted. 00:27:08.210 --> 00:27:10.890 I didn't deny myself anything that would bring 00:27:10.890 --> 00:27:13.990 me pleasure. So all my accomplishments gave me 00:27:13.990 --> 00:27:17.390 joy. This was my reward for all my effort. Yet 00:27:17.390 --> 00:27:19.730 when I reflected on everything I had accomplished 00:27:19.730 --> 00:27:22.089 and on all the effort that I had expended to 00:27:22.089 --> 00:27:25.549 accomplish it, I concluded, all these achievements 00:27:25.549 --> 00:27:28.849 and possessions are ultimately profitless, like 00:27:28.849 --> 00:27:32.309 chasing the wind. There is nothing gained from 00:27:32.309 --> 00:27:38.259 them on the earth. Well, clearly he just didn't 00:27:38.259 --> 00:27:45.339 try hard enough. The 10-verse long litany of 00:27:45.339 --> 00:27:49.859 all of the pleasures and toys and satisfactions 00:27:49.859 --> 00:27:52.779 and successes that you could possibly earn or 00:27:52.779 --> 00:27:55.720 achieve or acquire or amass as a human being, 00:27:55.819 --> 00:27:58.039 he lays it all out for us and he says, look, 00:27:58.079 --> 00:28:02.119 I had it all. It doesn't work. It's as futile 00:28:02.119 --> 00:28:04.339 and vain as any of the rest of it, and it all 00:28:04.339 --> 00:28:07.200 slips through your fingers just as surely as 00:28:07.200 --> 00:28:11.940 just a small portion of it would. And if there's 00:28:11.940 --> 00:28:14.599 any happiness to be found, you're not going to 00:28:14.599 --> 00:28:17.880 find it here. Of course, we don't believe him. 00:28:17.960 --> 00:28:20.519 Yeah, I was going to say, well, then let me try 00:28:20.519 --> 00:28:22.700 this experiment. Give me all the money in the 00:28:22.700 --> 00:28:25.559 world. We would all be happy to rerun the experiment 00:28:25.559 --> 00:28:30.750 back and see for ourselves. But his testimony 00:28:30.750 --> 00:28:34.190 is, no, it's all vain. It's all futile. It's 00:28:34.190 --> 00:28:38.329 all meaningless. What's the old saying? The tragedy 00:28:38.329 --> 00:28:40.849 isn't that you failed. The tragedy is that you 00:28:40.849 --> 00:28:46.369 succeeded at something that doesn't matter. Yeah, 00:28:46.490 --> 00:28:49.549 that's a lot of our lives. Number one, we don't 00:28:49.549 --> 00:28:52.329 succeed. Most of us just fail most of the time 00:28:52.329 --> 00:28:55.829 in large respect. But even when we do succeed, 00:28:55.930 --> 00:28:58.250 the things that we tend to succeed at don't. 00:28:58.519 --> 00:29:01.119 actually matter at the end of the day and didn't 00:29:01.119 --> 00:29:03.839 deserve what we invested in them. You climbed 00:29:03.839 --> 00:29:07.759 the ladder of success only to find it was leaning 00:29:07.759 --> 00:29:11.599 against the wrong wall. Yeah, that's the message 00:29:11.599 --> 00:29:14.099 here. Wrong wall. Doesn't matter how good you 00:29:14.099 --> 00:29:16.160 are or how fast you climb or how much you get. 00:29:16.660 --> 00:29:21.579 It's the wrong wall. On that happy note. What 00:29:21.579 --> 00:29:24.279 did C. S. Lewis say? That it's not even getting 00:29:24.279 --> 00:29:27.140 stuff that we love, it's having more of it than 00:29:27.140 --> 00:29:30.069 other people. The more stuff you have, the more 00:29:30.069 --> 00:29:32.309 obviously true that becomes to you. Really, all 00:29:32.309 --> 00:29:34.670 you care about is the fact that you have something 00:29:34.670 --> 00:29:37.869 that other people don't. Not the fact that you 00:29:37.869 --> 00:29:40.690 have it. It's a real indictment. But this is 00:29:40.690 --> 00:29:46.329 meant to be good news. If you pair it with what 00:29:46.329 --> 00:29:49.450 Jesus Christ has to say as an alternative, the 00:29:49.450 --> 00:29:51.490 preacher does not lay out the alternative here, 00:29:51.569 --> 00:29:55.190 which is why we tend to find him so hard to bear 00:29:55.190 --> 00:29:58.279 and so distasteful. He doesn't say, look, there's 00:29:58.279 --> 00:29:59.880 a whole separate thing you can do. It's called 00:29:59.880 --> 00:30:02.599 the gospel of Jesus Christ, in which instead 00:30:02.599 --> 00:30:05.420 of losing everything inevitably, you sacrifice 00:30:05.420 --> 00:30:11.019 everything on purpose, willingly. That's the 00:30:11.019 --> 00:30:12.799 gospel of Jesus Christ, but he doesn't lay that 00:30:12.799 --> 00:30:14.819 out. All he points out is the fact that you're 00:30:14.819 --> 00:30:17.220 going to lose it all inevitably, which is the 00:30:17.220 --> 00:30:21.559 gospel of Jesus Christ, in part. But you have 00:30:21.559 --> 00:30:25.039 to pair that kind of world with them. a certain 00:30:25.039 --> 00:30:27.279 sort of religion that Jesus is advocating in 00:30:27.279 --> 00:30:30.559 response. But you can't get there without realizing 00:30:30.559 --> 00:30:33.660 that the preacher is also right. Then you need 00:30:33.660 --> 00:30:35.039 that medicine. You have to take that medicine 00:30:35.039 --> 00:30:37.839 first. You have to be hopeless about everything 00:30:37.839 --> 00:30:40.640 but Jesus in order to put all of your hope in 00:30:40.640 --> 00:30:44.420 Jesus. Adam, as we move into Ecclesiastes chapter 00:30:44.420 --> 00:30:49.819 3, I figured out sometime in high school, maybe 00:30:49.819 --> 00:30:52.759 it was in college, that if I didn't have time 00:30:52.759 --> 00:30:55.220 to read my scriptures, at least I could turn 00:30:55.220 --> 00:30:59.799 on the song by the Byrds, right? Turn, turn, 00:30:59.920 --> 00:31:02.359 turn. And I thought, that whole song is scripture. 00:31:02.579 --> 00:31:06.000 I read some scripture today as I listened to 00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:09.700 Ecclesiastes chapter three. It actually got me 00:31:09.700 --> 00:31:12.099 interested when I first heard that song. I was 00:31:12.099 --> 00:31:15.079 interested in, what is this? I found out it was 00:31:15.079 --> 00:31:17.680 in the Bible. Did you know that as a teenager, 00:31:17.839 --> 00:31:20.660 that the Byrds song Turn, Turn, Turn was from 00:31:20.660 --> 00:31:22.700 Ecclesiastes? When I figured that out, I figured 00:31:22.700 --> 00:31:24.779 it would be scripture study. It took me a second. 00:31:25.980 --> 00:31:27.759 You were way ahead of the curve as a teenager. 00:31:28.259 --> 00:31:30.200 Yeah, I was like, oh, I'm going to go find out 00:31:30.200 --> 00:31:32.539 where this came from. And that was without the 00:31:32.539 --> 00:31:35.099 internet. You had to do actual research? I had 00:31:35.099 --> 00:31:36.839 to do some work, yeah. Because I just thought 00:31:36.839 --> 00:31:39.900 the lyrics were so odd to this song. Found out 00:31:39.900 --> 00:31:43.420 it was scripture. There are two poems embedded 00:31:43.420 --> 00:31:47.599 here in Ecclesiastes. One we get here at the 00:31:47.599 --> 00:31:51.400 beginning of chapter three, which is then becomes 00:31:51.400 --> 00:31:54.200 the lyrics for that famous song by the Byrds. 00:31:54.480 --> 00:31:56.339 And then the other we'll come to in a minute 00:31:56.339 --> 00:31:59.480 here we get in the final chapter of Ecclesiastes. 00:32:00.279 --> 00:32:03.940 But yeah, those famous lines from the opening 00:32:03.940 --> 00:32:06.319 verses of chapter three, to everything there 00:32:06.319 --> 00:32:09.400 is a season, a time to every purpose under heaven. 00:32:09.839 --> 00:32:12.740 A time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, 00:32:12.940 --> 00:32:14.900 and a time to pluck up that which is planted. 00:32:15.140 --> 00:32:18.000 A time to kill, a time to heal, a time to break 00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:20.839 down, a time to build up. A time to weep, and 00:32:20.839 --> 00:32:22.960 a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time 00:32:22.960 --> 00:32:26.440 to dance. A time to cast away stones, and a time 00:32:26.440 --> 00:32:29.059 to gather stones together. A time to embrace, 00:32:29.359 --> 00:32:32.180 and a time to refrain from embracing. A time 00:32:32.180 --> 00:32:35.059 to get, and a time to lose. A time to keep, and 00:32:35.059 --> 00:32:38.240 a time to cast away. A time to rend, and a time 00:32:38.240 --> 00:32:41.230 to sow. A time to keep silence and a time to 00:32:41.230 --> 00:32:44.910 speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time 00:32:44.910 --> 00:32:47.690 of war and a time of peace. That's the song. 00:32:48.130 --> 00:32:51.430 Especially out of context, it seems like the 00:32:51.430 --> 00:32:54.529 preacher's going a little soft on us here as 00:32:54.529 --> 00:32:57.970 he reminisces nostalgically about how everything 00:32:57.970 --> 00:33:01.430 has a time and a season and it all has its place 00:33:01.430 --> 00:33:05.130 and it all has its moment in the sun. But that's 00:33:05.130 --> 00:33:08.150 not actually what he's after here at all. I was 00:33:08.150 --> 00:33:11.210 going to say there's something coming. Yeah, 00:33:11.329 --> 00:33:15.549 his point in running us through all these continual 00:33:15.549 --> 00:33:18.029 transformations of one thing into its opposite, 00:33:18.089 --> 00:33:21.509 love into hate, getting into losing, keeping 00:33:21.509 --> 00:33:24.869 into casting away, being born into dying. His 00:33:24.869 --> 00:33:27.109 point in running us through that whole circular 00:33:27.109 --> 00:33:31.809 litany is to draw the conclusion that he does 00:33:31.809 --> 00:33:35.470 in verse nine, what profit then hath he that 00:33:35.470 --> 00:33:40.059 worketh? in that wherein he laboreth. Because 00:33:40.059 --> 00:33:42.599 everything, as he outlined in the opening verses, 00:33:42.839 --> 00:33:45.400 everything comes back to the place where it started. 00:33:45.779 --> 00:33:48.779 Nothing changed, and nothing mattered, and it 00:33:48.779 --> 00:33:54.640 didn't make any difference. It's such a happy, 00:33:54.680 --> 00:33:58.140 cheery song, the Byrds song, especially when 00:33:58.140 --> 00:34:01.180 you hear the music in the back of your head as 00:34:01.180 --> 00:34:03.430 you run through the lyrics. But that's not what 00:34:03.430 --> 00:34:08.070 the preacher had in mind with those verses. He 00:34:08.070 --> 00:34:09.809 wouldn't love the song. He'd be like, wait, wait, 00:34:09.829 --> 00:34:12.889 wait, tell the end. Yeah, I don't think verse 00:34:12.889 --> 00:34:16.530 9 is in the song, is it? Yeah, it's not. Everything 00:34:16.530 --> 00:34:19.210 just goes back to the way it was. I love it. 00:34:19.969 --> 00:34:22.570 Those stones that you threw, they all gathered 00:34:22.570 --> 00:34:26.269 together again at some point. And maybe the newspaper, 00:34:26.570 --> 00:34:29.750 the Times and Seasons in church history was drawn 00:34:29.750 --> 00:34:33.400 from this phrase at the beginning. Oh, that's 00:34:33.400 --> 00:34:37.239 a good question. Yeah, times and seasons. Yeah, 00:34:37.260 --> 00:34:39.340 I don't know. I don't know where that phrase 00:34:39.340 --> 00:34:42.500 came from for the newspaper. The end of chapter 00:34:42.500 --> 00:34:48.820 3, verses 18 to 22, the preacher goes out of 00:34:48.820 --> 00:34:52.780 his way here to point out something that is obviously 00:34:52.780 --> 00:34:56.480 true, like so many of these things, that we really 00:34:56.480 --> 00:34:59.559 tend not to like to hear, but is perhaps quite 00:34:59.559 --> 00:35:03.550 important to hear. He says in verse 18, I also 00:35:03.550 --> 00:35:06.630 thought to myself, it's for the sake of people 00:35:06.630 --> 00:35:10.989 so God can clearly show them that they are like 00:35:10.989 --> 00:35:14.349 animals. For the fate of humans and the fate 00:35:14.349 --> 00:35:18.230 of animals are the same. As one dies, so dies 00:35:18.230 --> 00:35:22.030 the other. Both have the same breath. There is 00:35:22.030 --> 00:35:24.989 no advantage for humans over animals, for both 00:35:24.989 --> 00:35:28.250 are fleeting. Both go to the same place. Both 00:35:28.250 --> 00:35:31.389 come from the dust and to dust. both return. 00:35:31.849 --> 00:35:34.889 Who really knows if the human spirit ascends 00:35:34.889 --> 00:35:37.550 upward and the animal's spirit descends into 00:35:37.550 --> 00:35:40.590 the earth? So I perceive there's nothing better 00:35:40.590 --> 00:35:42.929 than for people to enjoy their work, because 00:35:42.929 --> 00:35:45.869 that's their reward for who can show them what 00:35:45.869 --> 00:35:50.789 the future holds. This too, I think, a harsh 00:35:50.789 --> 00:35:55.429 but perhaps helpful medicine to reckon with the 00:35:55.429 --> 00:36:01.019 fact that in some weird, strange way, What it 00:36:01.019 --> 00:36:06.079 means to be a son or daughter of God, at least 00:36:06.079 --> 00:36:11.440 in part, means being a mammal. That what I am 00:36:11.440 --> 00:36:16.440 is an animal. I'm a kind of animal. It's true 00:36:16.440 --> 00:36:20.039 that I have a divine nature, but this divine 00:36:20.039 --> 00:36:24.880 nature is of a piece. Somehow, with the fact 00:36:24.880 --> 00:36:30.789 that I, like an animal, am made of dust, am born 00:36:30.789 --> 00:36:35.530 and will die, get hungry, get thirsty, have instincts, 00:36:35.849 --> 00:36:40.969 suffer all manner of biological processes and 00:36:40.969 --> 00:36:44.070 indignities and hormonal pushes and pulls that 00:36:44.070 --> 00:36:47.650 I didn't ask for and can't control. Part of what 00:36:47.650 --> 00:36:50.409 it would mean to reconcile with the reality of 00:36:50.409 --> 00:36:53.650 what I am as a human being, instead of just being 00:36:53.650 --> 00:36:56.190 duped by the fantasy of what I think I ought 00:36:56.190 --> 00:37:00.670 to be, instead, would be to reckon. with the 00:37:00.670 --> 00:37:06.090 truth of how my being an animal is not incompatible 00:37:06.090 --> 00:37:09.210 with my being a son of god that i have to understand 00:37:09.210 --> 00:37:11.449 the truth and reality of both of those things 00:37:11.449 --> 00:37:14.030 in order to understand the truth and reality 00:37:14.030 --> 00:37:16.690 of either of them that's something i think we're 00:37:16.690 --> 00:37:19.590 often quite reluctant to do because we're so 00:37:19.590 --> 00:37:22.269 attached to our fantasies of a special adam who 00:37:22.269 --> 00:37:25.909 would not be an animal and suffer all the indignities 00:37:25.909 --> 00:37:29.320 that go along with being an animal When the realities 00:37:29.320 --> 00:37:33.179 get rid of it or be ashamed about it. It seems 00:37:33.179 --> 00:37:37.420 that in a way, the preacher is describing the 00:37:37.420 --> 00:37:41.559 fall of Adam, that we now experience this world 00:37:41.559 --> 00:37:45.900 and it's very fleeting. And President Benson, 00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:49.039 he said, just as man does not really desire food 00:37:49.039 --> 00:37:51.980 until he is hungry, so he does not desire the 00:37:51.980 --> 00:37:54.599 salvation of Christ until he knows why he needs 00:37:54.599 --> 00:37:58.239 Christ. Maybe Ecclesiastes is. doing that for 00:37:58.239 --> 00:38:00.699 me, helping me understand why I need Christ. 00:38:00.820 --> 00:38:02.920 No one adequately and properly knows why they 00:38:02.920 --> 00:38:04.960 need Christ until they understand and accept 00:38:04.960 --> 00:38:08.199 the doctrine of the fall and its effect upon 00:38:08.199 --> 00:38:12.119 all mankind. Maybe that's part of what Ecclesiastes 00:38:12.119 --> 00:38:17.380 does, is it shows me what the fall really is, 00:38:17.400 --> 00:38:20.860 what reality really is. What is vanity and what 00:38:20.860 --> 00:38:24.190 is lasting and eternal and permanent? What is 00:38:24.190 --> 00:38:27.050 lasting? If all this is vanity, well, what isn't 00:38:27.050 --> 00:38:30.909 vanity then? Yeah, Adam said he doesn't give 00:38:30.909 --> 00:38:34.130 us the alternative. Yeah, he doesn't sketch that 00:38:34.130 --> 00:38:37.030 out for us here. But it's easy, of course, as 00:38:37.030 --> 00:38:41.150 fallen people who suffer from our own ignorance 00:38:41.150 --> 00:38:45.269 and our own love of our own ignorance, it's easy 00:38:45.269 --> 00:38:49.130 to fall in love with a false idea of what salvation 00:38:49.130 --> 00:38:52.190 would look like. It's easy to fall in love with 00:38:52.190 --> 00:38:54.690 a false idea of what salvation itself would involve. 00:38:55.289 --> 00:38:58.869 It's easy to think that, well, if the problem 00:38:58.869 --> 00:39:01.769 here is that I suffer from my unsatisfied desires, 00:39:02.170 --> 00:39:06.030 then the solution must be that God will satisfy 00:39:06.030 --> 00:39:09.429 my desires. That's why we talk about mansions, 00:39:09.449 --> 00:39:12.989 right? And streets paved with gold. Exactly. 00:39:12.989 --> 00:39:16.150 When it turns out, as Jesus describes it, the 00:39:16.150 --> 00:39:19.309 only adequate response to our losing everything. 00:39:19.949 --> 00:39:22.269 is to just go ahead and sacrifice everything. 00:39:22.909 --> 00:39:26.130 That's tough medicine piled on top of tough truth. 00:39:26.489 --> 00:39:31.090 But it turns out it works and is salvific and 00:39:31.090 --> 00:39:33.530 is redemptive and is profoundly liberating and 00:39:33.530 --> 00:39:36.590 deeply joyful and avoids all the problems that 00:39:36.590 --> 00:39:39.389 come from trying to solve things in a backwards 00:39:39.389 --> 00:39:42.789 way that defies the truth about God and that 00:39:42.789 --> 00:39:45.610 defies the truth about the world. Adam, that 00:39:45.610 --> 00:39:48.210 actually brings me to my second question I had. 00:39:49.099 --> 00:39:54.880 Quite a ways back. Foreshadowed. Yes, yes. When 00:39:54.880 --> 00:39:57.940 you started to tell us about, you know, Ecclesiastes 00:39:57.940 --> 00:40:03.159 and how fleeting and vain and meaningless, what 00:40:03.159 --> 00:40:05.179 we're chasing, what, you know, what we think 00:40:05.179 --> 00:40:09.599 will make us happy. And then you said the antidote 00:40:09.599 --> 00:40:11.900 or the answer is the gospel of Jesus Christ. 00:40:12.119 --> 00:40:17.039 It makes me think of the Savior's calling. seeing 00:40:17.039 --> 00:40:19.460 it in a different way. So when the Savior, you 00:40:19.460 --> 00:40:22.400 gave the example of, he says to the man, will 00:40:22.400 --> 00:40:24.980 you sell all that you have, give to the poor 00:40:24.980 --> 00:40:29.000 and come follow me? By the end of Ecclesiastes, 00:40:29.099 --> 00:40:32.280 wouldn't the preacher say, sure, because all 00:40:32.280 --> 00:40:36.679 of that is meaningless anyway. Almost the Savior 00:40:36.679 --> 00:40:38.559 is saying, do you see those things for what they 00:40:38.559 --> 00:40:41.960 really are? Because if you do, this is not a 00:40:41.960 --> 00:40:44.079 difficult question. I'm actually offering you 00:40:44.079 --> 00:40:47.469 substance. I think that's exactly right. It's 00:40:47.469 --> 00:40:52.449 the kind of test to see if the young man can 00:40:52.449 --> 00:40:55.989 look beyond his desires to see the truth of the 00:40:55.989 --> 00:40:59.070 world and the truth of himself as part of it. 00:40:59.670 --> 00:41:03.690 And he can't, at least not yet. But who's going 00:41:03.690 --> 00:41:06.809 to pass that test? I'm doubtful. I don't think 00:41:06.809 --> 00:41:10.070 I am passing that test as we speak. It is being 00:41:10.070 --> 00:41:13.130 given to me. I'm not passing it, but that is 00:41:13.130 --> 00:41:15.750 the test, yeah. There does seem to be a wisdom 00:41:15.750 --> 00:41:19.590 at the end of life, which is kind of sad, but 00:41:19.590 --> 00:41:22.750 President Oaks, good, better, best. He talked 00:41:22.750 --> 00:41:26.190 about breadwinning. He said, many breadwinners 00:41:26.190 --> 00:41:28.250 worry that their occupations leave too little 00:41:28.250 --> 00:41:30.889 time for their families. There's no easy formula 00:41:30.889 --> 00:41:34.210 for this contest of priorities. However, I have 00:41:34.210 --> 00:41:36.409 never known a man who looked back on his life 00:41:36.409 --> 00:41:38.889 and said, I just didn't spend enough time with 00:41:38.889 --> 00:41:42.329 my job. It does seem at the end of life, there's 00:41:42.329 --> 00:41:45.849 at least a wisdom of, where I wished I would 00:41:45.849 --> 00:41:48.690 have spent my time. With all of your getting, 00:41:48.809 --> 00:41:52.050 get understanding. You may have to get other 00:41:52.050 --> 00:41:54.429 things along the way, but at least with that 00:41:54.429 --> 00:41:57.889 getting, still get understanding. You may have 00:41:57.889 --> 00:42:00.710 to go to work, but you can still perform even 00:42:00.710 --> 00:42:03.210 that professional work as an act of love and 00:42:03.210 --> 00:42:06.130 sacrifice and consecration, not as an act of 00:42:06.130 --> 00:42:08.869 acquisition in the hope of satisfying your desires. 00:42:09.190 --> 00:42:12.130 All of that's hopeless, even if you succeed. 00:42:12.710 --> 00:42:14.469 It'll be more hopeless than you thought it ever 00:42:14.469 --> 00:42:18.489 was. The despair of getting everything you ever 00:42:18.489 --> 00:42:22.449 wanted. I wrote that down. Yeah, please. That's 00:42:22.449 --> 00:42:25.409 Ecclesiastes. I'm thinking of Job again, who 00:42:25.409 --> 00:42:28.389 said, naked came I into this world and naked 00:42:28.389 --> 00:42:30.769 I'll go out. And then what do you have at that 00:42:30.769 --> 00:42:33.690 point? I like that there's been kind of more 00:42:33.690 --> 00:42:37.210 of an emphasis, at least I perceive it, on becoming, 00:42:37.309 --> 00:42:40.289 not just what we know, but what we have become. 00:42:42.480 --> 00:42:45.639 beats me up my what did you call it special john 00:42:45.639 --> 00:42:49.500 you're the ghost my special john beats me up 00:42:49.500 --> 00:42:52.239 my special john reads the first three verses 00:42:52.239 --> 00:42:56.900 of first corinthians 13 and says okay you've 00:42:56.900 --> 00:43:00.219 read more books you've served in more callings 00:43:00.219 --> 00:43:03.480 but are you more charitable and i'm not sure 00:43:03.480 --> 00:43:08.059 if i am so that idea of what have i become that's 00:43:08.059 --> 00:43:10.269 all you got when you leave Because all the rest 00:43:10.269 --> 00:43:14.090 Ecclesiastes is teaching me is vanity. So Job 00:43:14.090 --> 00:43:16.449 says, okay, now I leave now. What if I actually, 00:43:16.570 --> 00:43:19.969 where was my ladder leaning and all that stuff? 00:43:20.170 --> 00:43:23.010 That's a good place to be, but it's a little 00:43:23.010 --> 00:43:27.090 frightening to me. Yeah. If I could move mountains, 00:43:27.170 --> 00:43:29.449 what does Paul say? If you could move mountains 00:43:29.449 --> 00:43:32.889 and had all knowledge and faith that you could 00:43:32.889 --> 00:43:35.889 move mountains and you gave your body to be burned, 00:43:35.949 --> 00:43:38.340 but you didn't have charity. That's the one that 00:43:38.340 --> 00:43:41.079 pushes me against the wall. It's hevel. It's 00:43:41.079 --> 00:43:43.739 vanity. It's futility. It's meaningless. Yeah, 00:43:43.760 --> 00:43:46.820 1 Corinthians 13 is an excellent companion here 00:43:46.820 --> 00:43:49.460 for the book of Ecclesiastes. Paul is making 00:43:49.460 --> 00:43:51.679 the exact same point that the preacher is making, 00:43:51.760 --> 00:43:54.639 but in a deeper, fuller context. Adam, you said 00:43:54.639 --> 00:43:59.420 earlier that wisdom is loving your enemies. Can 00:43:59.420 --> 00:44:02.659 you talk about that a little more? How does Ecclesiastes 00:44:02.659 --> 00:44:06.750 get me there? with its compliment or with its 00:44:06.750 --> 00:44:11.050 answer, the gospel. John noted early on in our 00:44:11.050 --> 00:44:15.590 discussion today that as useful as the book of 00:44:15.590 --> 00:44:20.909 Proverbs can be, it also can be a trap because 00:44:20.909 --> 00:44:25.650 it can build into your way of thinking about 00:44:25.650 --> 00:44:30.889 the world, the expectation that if I do X, Y 00:44:30.889 --> 00:44:35.590 will for sure happen. mechanical quality to the 00:44:35.590 --> 00:44:38.670 world and perhaps even especially a mechanical 00:44:38.670 --> 00:44:42.389 quality of quid pro quo to the gospel such that 00:44:42.389 --> 00:44:45.949 if i obey x or y or z i will get the thing that 00:44:45.949 --> 00:44:50.070 i wanted a b or c money into the vending machine 00:44:50.070 --> 00:44:55.170 object of desire out of the vending machine exactly 00:44:55.170 --> 00:44:58.269 it's easy to fall into that trap when we're thinking 00:44:58.269 --> 00:45:00.309 not just about worldly things but thinking about 00:45:00.309 --> 00:45:03.340 religious things The expectation that there's 00:45:03.340 --> 00:45:08.219 a kind of symmetry between my actions and the 00:45:08.219 --> 00:45:11.440 possibility of satisfaction. The point of the 00:45:11.440 --> 00:45:15.179 book of Ecclesiastes is to disabuse you profoundly, 00:45:15.539 --> 00:45:17.900 deeply, repeatedly. 00:45:17.900 --> 00:45:18.900 It's the exorcism. 00:45:18.900 --> 00:45:21.440 Without mercy. To disabuse 00:45:21.440 --> 00:45:23.780 you of the idea that any such symmetry exists 00:45:23.780 --> 00:45:27.840 between how the world is and what you want the 00:45:27.840 --> 00:45:32.500 world to be, which can be. profoundly liberating 00:45:32.500 --> 00:45:35.260 and useful. It breaks that set of expectations 00:45:35.260 --> 00:45:40.219 that I could treat the laws or commandments of 00:45:40.219 --> 00:45:43.380 the world or of the gospel as a way of getting 00:45:43.380 --> 00:45:46.139 the reward that I wanted, to bring it back to 00:45:46.139 --> 00:45:49.099 that way of framing. I can't treat obeying the 00:45:49.099 --> 00:45:51.280 law of love as a way of getting the reward I 00:45:51.280 --> 00:45:53.139 wanted, even if the reward I thought I wanted 00:45:53.139 --> 00:45:57.039 was love, because God's law does not have that 00:45:57.039 --> 00:46:01.579 structure of quid pro quo. god's own law has 00:46:01.579 --> 00:46:05.019 the same asymmetrical structure that the preacher 00:46:05.019 --> 00:46:09.000 is showing us is at work in the world that asymmetrical 00:46:09.000 --> 00:46:11.480 structure is captured by jesus's commandment 00:46:11.480 --> 00:46:16.619 to love our enemy if you do good good may happen 00:46:16.619 --> 00:46:20.380 in response to your doing good but it might not 00:46:20.380 --> 00:46:24.440 even if it doesn't you are still commanded to 00:46:24.440 --> 00:46:27.579 do good and if someone hasn't done good to you 00:46:27.929 --> 00:46:30.869 If someone has actively done evil to you, you 00:46:30.869 --> 00:46:34.329 are still commanded to respond with good. You 00:46:34.329 --> 00:46:37.030 are still commanded to love in response to that. 00:46:37.190 --> 00:46:40.590 There's a kind of asymmetry at the heart of this 00:46:40.590 --> 00:46:44.250 kind of unconditional gesture of love and sacrifice 00:46:44.250 --> 00:46:48.449 and forgiveness and surrender that can easily 00:46:48.449 --> 00:46:52.090 be obscured by the fantasy of there being some 00:46:52.090 --> 00:46:55.570 kind of controllable, symmetrical balancing of 00:46:55.570 --> 00:46:58.380 the scales. When really what's called for here 00:46:58.380 --> 00:47:03.199 is sacrifice. Not just of some things, of everything. 00:47:03.800 --> 00:47:05.880 Not just in the hope of getting what we'll want, 00:47:06.000 --> 00:47:09.000 but for the sake of loving everyone else. That's 00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:12.260 the gospel. Correct my thinking here, both of 00:47:12.260 --> 00:47:16.320 you. When the Lord says, give your life, give 00:47:16.320 --> 00:47:18.320 up your life and you'll find it. It's not even 00:47:18.320 --> 00:47:20.539 the same life that you think you want when you 00:47:20.539 --> 00:47:24.500 get it back. It's like give up your desires and 00:47:24.500 --> 00:47:26.519 you'll have them and you find out your desires 00:47:26.519 --> 00:47:30.380 have changed. The trade on offer is give up your 00:47:30.380 --> 00:47:35.280 desires and you can have mine instead. That's 00:47:35.280 --> 00:47:37.300 also the trade on offer with respect to our lives. 00:47:37.340 --> 00:47:39.980 Give up your life, Jesus says, not that you'll 00:47:39.980 --> 00:47:41.960 get your life back, but that if I give up my 00:47:41.960 --> 00:47:45.159 life, he says you can have mine. Then I take 00:47:45.159 --> 00:47:48.969 up his life. I take up his name. I live my life 00:47:48.969 --> 00:47:52.010 as if I were him. Then he takes care of whatever 00:47:52.010 --> 00:47:55.630 was me, quote unquote. He's not offering the 00:47:55.630 --> 00:47:59.889 opportunity for me to save my life. He's offering 00:47:59.889 --> 00:48:02.909 me the opportunity to live his life. That offer 00:48:02.909 --> 00:48:05.670 always stands and it's always available and it's 00:48:05.670 --> 00:48:09.889 unconditional. Join him at any moment. He's ready 00:48:09.889 --> 00:48:12.960 and able and willing. When I get to heaven, I 00:48:12.960 --> 00:48:14.880 think, oh, finally, I get all my desires fulfilled. 00:48:15.059 --> 00:48:18.000 He says, oh, no, that wasn't. 00:48:18.000 --> 00:48:20.000 Not so fast, my friend. 00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:20.760 That was not part 00:48:20.760 --> 00:48:23.780 of it. No, that's not what he was offering at 00:48:23.780 --> 00:48:28.119 all. What will you do in heaven? You'll spend 00:48:28.119 --> 00:48:31.780 eternity ministering to other people, which is 00:48:31.780 --> 00:48:34.519 what God does. You won. You were saved. You became 00:48:34.519 --> 00:48:36.920 just like God. Congratulations. It will forever 00:48:36.920 --> 00:48:40.190 and always never be about you. dislike it forever 00:48:40.190 --> 00:48:44.050 and always is never for God about God. You'll 00:48:44.050 --> 00:48:46.150 bring to pass the immortality, eternal life of 00:48:46.150 --> 00:48:50.630 others. Yeah. That will be your whole soul to 00:48:50.630 --> 00:48:55.130 work forever without a thought to yourself. Being 00:48:55.130 --> 00:49:00.090 a philosopher has to be so unsatisfying. Yes. 00:49:00.170 --> 00:49:02.690 Right. Yeah. But the thing is that I tried not 00:49:02.690 --> 00:49:05.130 being a philosopher and it's also unsatisfying. 00:49:05.469 --> 00:49:11.139 Yeah. You have to give up. You have to give up 00:49:11.139 --> 00:49:15.239 on the idea of satisfaction. Reductio absurdum, 00:49:15.239 --> 00:49:18.420 whatever that was. Yeah, exactly. Reductio ad 00:49:18.420 --> 00:49:24.500 absurdum. Would you like this closing poem from 00:49:24.500 --> 00:49:29.840 Ecclesiastes? This is originally the closing 00:49:29.840 --> 00:49:34.760 words here of the book, chapter 12, verses 1 00:49:34.760 --> 00:49:38.679 through 8. They go like this. Remember your creator 00:49:38.679 --> 00:49:42.500 in the days of your youth, before the days of 00:49:42.500 --> 00:49:45.599 trouble come, and the years approach when you 00:49:45.599 --> 00:49:49.320 will say, I find no pleasure in them. Before 00:49:49.320 --> 00:49:52.260 the sun and the light and the moon and the stars 00:49:52.260 --> 00:49:55.739 grow dark, and the clouds return after the rain, 00:49:55.900 --> 00:49:59.500 when the almond tree blossoms and the grasshopper 00:49:59.500 --> 00:50:03.380 drags itself along, and desire no longer is stirred. 00:50:04.119 --> 00:50:07.840 Then people go to their eternal home, and mourners 00:50:07.840 --> 00:50:12.159 go about the streets. Remember him, before the 00:50:12.159 --> 00:50:15.440 silver cord is severed, and the golden bowl is 00:50:15.440 --> 00:50:18.559 broken, before the pitcher is shattered at the 00:50:18.559 --> 00:50:22.059 spring, and the wheel broken at the well, and 00:50:22.059 --> 00:50:24.239 the dust returns to the ground it came from, 00:50:24.380 --> 00:50:29.139 and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Meaningless, 00:50:29.179 --> 00:50:32.900 meaningless, says the teacher. Everything is 00:50:32.900 --> 00:50:38.829 meaningless. I can hear the silence in the room 00:50:38.829 --> 00:50:42.489 after he gives this. And I can see someone being 00:50:42.489 --> 00:50:45.570 uncomfortable enough to stand up and say, and 00:50:45.570 --> 00:50:48.769 moreover, because the preacher was wise, right? 00:50:49.550 --> 00:50:52.530 The member of the bishopric adds a little grace 00:50:52.530 --> 00:50:56.769 note. A member of the bishopric gives his concluding 00:50:56.769 --> 00:50:59.190 thoughts. Oh, that's funny. Did you have anything, 00:50:59.369 --> 00:51:04.239 President? Yeah, just a minute. But there is 00:51:04.239 --> 00:51:08.820 something to be said for what Mormon calls sobriety, 00:51:08.820 --> 00:51:12.880 for a capacity for a certain sort of soberness, 00:51:13.019 --> 00:51:16.579 for being able to look all of this loss and suffering 00:51:16.579 --> 00:51:19.619 and death in the eye rather than avoid it and 00:51:19.619 --> 00:51:22.539 pretend it's not the case. Or there's something 00:51:22.539 --> 00:51:25.019 to be said for what in that same spirit we might 00:51:25.019 --> 00:51:29.019 call a kind of divine melancholy that doesn't 00:51:29.019 --> 00:51:32.449 succumb to hopelessness. because it retains hope 00:51:32.449 --> 00:51:36.929 in Christ, but still with clear eyes, sees the 00:51:36.929 --> 00:51:39.969 hopelessness in all the things that we normally 00:51:39.969 --> 00:51:42.849 place our hope in. That is an important divine 00:51:42.849 --> 00:51:46.730 attribute that I think God himself embodies, 00:51:46.730 --> 00:51:51.570 this capacity for divine melancholy that tinges 00:51:51.570 --> 00:51:54.969 and colors everything that he sees and understands 00:51:54.969 --> 00:51:59.250 about the world, because he has absorbed and 00:51:59.250 --> 00:52:02.429 experienced the whole, of all of the suffering 00:52:02.429 --> 00:52:05.389 and all of the universe from beginning to end 00:52:05.389 --> 00:52:08.889 without avoiding it or running from it or imagining 00:52:08.889 --> 00:52:13.409 that it wasn't the case, but took it on and changed 00:52:13.409 --> 00:52:16.469 it, transformed it, redeemed it by sacrificing 00:52:16.469 --> 00:52:19.630 in response to it. That kind of divine life is 00:52:19.630 --> 00:52:22.889 hard work, but it's also, at the end of the day, 00:52:22.929 --> 00:52:25.349 as the preacher says, the only kind of life that 00:52:25.349 --> 00:52:30.309 would be possible, that was worth living. Adam, 00:52:30.349 --> 00:52:33.429 Dr. Miller, thanks for your time today. My pleasure. 00:52:33.650 --> 00:52:36.630 Thank you. It's always, John, what'd you call 00:52:36.630 --> 00:52:39.530 it? Mind expanding, soul expanding. Yeah. Yeah. 00:52:39.530 --> 00:52:41.909 I want to talk again. Patience testing. It's been great. Yeah. 00:52:44.230 --> 00:52:46.610 No, I'm going to have a talk with special John, 00:52:46.750 --> 00:52:51.269 but yeah, this has been great. You got to go away for 00:52:51.269 --> 00:52:55.010 a while. With that, we want to thank Dr. Adam 00:52:55.010 --> 00:52:58.289 Miller for joining us today. It has been beautifully 00:52:58.289 --> 00:53:02.639 difficult. Good, harsh medicine. We want to thank 00:53:02.639 --> 00:53:04.980 our executive producer, Shannon Sorensen, our 00:53:04.980 --> 00:53:07.860 sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen. And every 00:53:07.860 --> 00:53:11.059 episode, we remember our founder, Steve Sorensen. 00:53:11.780 --> 00:53:14.900 We hope you'll join us next week. The timeout 00:53:14.900 --> 00:53:19.760 is over and we head back in to the Old Testament 00:53:19.760 --> 00:53:23.600 on followHIM. As a thank you to our wonderful listeners, 00:53:23.600 --> 00:53:28.200 we'd love to gift you the digital version of our book, 00:53:28.200 --> 00:53:32.900 Finding Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. It offers short, 00:53:32.900 --> 00:53:36.900 meaningful insights drawn from our past Old Testament episodes. 00:53:36.900 --> 00:53:40.500 Visit followhim.co, that's followhim.co, to download your free copy today, 00:53:40.500 --> 00:53:43.539 and you'll also find the link to purchase the print edition. 00:53:43.539 --> 00:53:46.800 Thank you for being part of our followHIM family. Of course, none of this could 00:53:46.800 --> 00:53:49.039 happen without our incredible production crew. 00:53:49.179 --> 00:53:53.400 David Perry, Lisa Spice, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts, 00:53:53.400 --> 00:53:57.500 Ariel Cuadra, Heather Barlow, Amelia Kabwika, 00:53:57.500 --> 00:54:02.059 Sydney Smith, and Annabelle Sorensen. 00:54:02.059 --> 00:54:06.059 Whatever questions or 00:54:02.059 --> 00:54:06.059 problems you have, the answer is always found 00:54:06.059 --> 00:54:10.320 in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Turn 00:54:10.320 --> 00:54:12.519 to Him. followHIM.