Ecclesiastes Lesson 32

Summary of “Vanity” – 12:8-14

Last week we finished Solomon’s section and this week we finish the book itself, because in Ecclesiastes 12:8-14 we have the summary of the book by evidently a man who organized Solomon’s notes and put it into its final form in the canon. Who these people were we do not know, it may even have been Solomon himself, although from the wording it appears that it was someone else. From verses 8-14 we have, you might say an overview of the entire book as well as the lesson that we should draw from it.

In verse 8, if you hold the place and compare verse 8 to chapter 1, verse 2, you’ll see that the book starts and ends with the same statement. Some people think that Solomon has progressed throughout the book and has gone away from the concept of vanity; there hasn’t been any progress away from vanity. Do you see the way it starts out in verse 2, “Vanity of vanities, said koheleth,” “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Then you turn over to 12:8, “Vanity of vanities, said koheleth, all is vanity.” So he’s right back where he started. And there has been no progress, there has been no change in the theme, it is still vanity of which he speaks. Again the word vanity, for this is the last time we’ll see it in this developed form, the word “vanity” is picked up and used in the New Testament, so therefore this book, this entire 12 chapter book is an exegesis of the word “vanity” as it is used throughout the rest of the Bible. And when you see this word in the New Testament your mind should immediately revert back to Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes tells you what was on the mind of the men when they used the word “vanity.”

Now the word vanity looks like this in the Hebrew, habel, Eve named one of her sons Abel, for vanity, for she then realized that the full extent of the fall had manifested itself in her generation. And so when Solomon uses this word, as we saw before, there are two connotations to this word. One is that it is in a very unsubstantial nature. In other words, it’s like vapor and we could literally translate it by “vapor” if we wanted to, for that’s really what it means; vanity means it’s something tenuous, it has an appearance of form but the form really isn’t substantial, there’s nothing really hard there. It’s sort of like cotton candy, there’s just nothing there that’s solid. And then the second meaning that usually accompanies this word falls out logically from the first meaning and that is that it’s temporary, or passing. And this is why over in 1 John, John says “love not the world” and so on and so on and so on, “because the world passes away and the lust thereof.” In other words, he too sees that the world is vanity. So this theme is something you have to master and is the key to understanding a lot of the New Testament. It is particularly the key for understanding your generation and the increasing unbelief that is able to manipulate society.

We have summarized the teachings of this book of Ecclesiastes under seven points. I’ll review these for the last time as these summarize, basically, Solomon’s presentation. The first point is that all of men’s problems begin with negative volition. Solomon starts out avoiding relationship with his Creator; he’s hiding in the bushes, like Adam and Eve did. Man always has, that’s the sign of spiritual death. They can talk about God, they can use the word G-o-d but that word doesn’t mean a personal Creator with whom they have a personal relationship. So although they can talk about Him they refuse to enter into a personal relationship, with the result that certain things inevitably happen. It is this inevitable result that you have to become aware of, that man is not free to rebel and to dictate the results of his rebellion. Man is free to rebel from God, yes; man is free, but he is not free to dictate the results of his rebellion. He can flip the switch but he has no choice what happens after the flips the switch. And so this book tells us this is the inevitable result of negative volition toward God, regardless of who you are, when you live, what language you speak, what culture you live in, you have to wind up, logically, with Solomon.

The second point is that as negative volition is the starting point that determines everything on down the track; it’s a switch, once you pass that switch you’re on a track and you can stop the train on the track, but you can’t jump the track and go to another one. It’s true, you can go on down the siding for a ways, and you can stop, but you can’t [can’t understand word] back on the main line. And this is negative volition. The first major result which we list under the second point here is that there’s a resignation over ever finding ultimate truth. So he is minus absolute truth; he is minus a rack or a hook on which to hang his hat. There’s no place to ground himself, there’s no absolutes to build upon. Once you avoid God you’ve avoided the absolutes, you’ve avoided the truth, there’s nothing left but thinking sin to build your house on. That’s Solomon’s point.

To see this, turn back to Deuteronomy 29:29 for the contrast. This is the orthodox view, “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” Notice in verse 29 there are some things that God does not reveal, there are some things, perhaps, He can’t reveal. But there are some things that He does reveal and those things become absolutes for us; those things become the foundation on which we build our lives. If you do not have words from God, because you’re playing some little game, like the modern theologians are, spinning around book after book with a lot of words about God and they don’t know God from a hole in the ground, if that’s the name of the game, you’re right with Solomon. But if you’re on the orthodox historical Judeo-Christian position, then verse 29 applies; you have an absolute and the absolute doesn’t come from man or his research, it comes from God’s revelation.

In Deuteronomy 30:11, “For this commandment which I command thee,” Moses says, “is not incomprehensible, neither is it far off. [12] It is not in heaven, that thou should say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto that we may hear it, and do it.” Moses is pointing out that God has made things clear; if you are not clear as to the Lord’s will, you do not understand the Word of God. Now obviously there are some things in the details of life that none of us are really clear on until we pray about it, etc. But I’m talking about the major doctrinal areas. God is not to blame, He has made it clear, and this verse in chapter 30 proves it.

Now turn back to Ecclesiastes 3:11; here we have one of Solomon’s many declarations that he is without an absolute, he is without something that gives form and a basis for life. He says “He has made,” God, “everything that fits in it’s own time; also He has set eternity in their heart,” men’s hearts, “so that no man can find out the work that God made from the beginning to the end.” In other words, without verbal revelation from God through the Bible, man is left in ignorance and darkness; he is minus absolute truth. He can speculate; by logic he can fit some pieces together but he has no foundation on which to build. That’s Solomon’s point.

If you go further in this book, over to 6:12 you see the same theme reappear. “For who knows what is good for a man in this life; all the days of his vain life which he spends as a shadow? For who can tell a man what shall be after him” and then he adds the crucial phrase, “under the sun.” Of course if you drop the phrase off, the answer is easy, God. But “under the sun,” underneath the ceiling of the natural world there’s no way, absolutely no way, to have an absolute, unless it comes from above the ceiling, above the sun, then you have something.

We find this truth also in 7:14, “In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: God also has set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him.” In other creation is so designed to deliberately frustrate you apart from a verbal revelation of God.

In 7:23 the same theme, “All this have I tested by wisdom; I said, I will be wise, but it was far from me. [24] That which is far off, and exceedingly deep, who can find it out?” Again, Solomon in a direct clash and contrast with Moses in [Deuteronomy] 29 and 30 where Moses is talking about revelation, Solomon is talking about natural reason; the reasonings of the natural man here wind up in exactly the opposite position from Moses, namely that it’s far off, I can’t understand. And he’s absolutely right, if man is trying to know something on the basis of his own autonomous reason this is where you have to wind up.

In 8:17 we see this theme again, “Then I beheld all the work of God that a man cannot find out, the work that is done under the sun, because, though a man labor to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea, further, though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it.”

We have the theme repeated again in 11:5, “As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, even so thou knowest not the works of God, who makes all.” So again we have this theme repeated and repeated and repeated; you can’t know absolute truth, there’s no way “under the sun” you can know it, because as we have seen again and again, if you draw a graph in space and time, your knowledge as a human being is limited to a box, a box that in turn represents history, a box that in space represents the area, say from one millimeter on up to thousands of miles that you can visually see; you can extend your range a little bit in all four directions, in this way by a microscope, in this way by a telescope, in this way by high speed photography, in this way you’re cut off and you can’t. But you can extend your knowledge a little bit but you still can’t infinitely extend it.

Therefore no matter who you are, no matter what your field, no matter what instruments you use, no matter how brilliant you are, regardless of the education you’ve got, you cannot find or locate an absolute. It’s impossible; it’s philosophically and intellectually impossible for you to come to an absolute. Only if God reveals this, only if we have a tap on omniscience, which is infinite knowledge, if this is true then you can find an absolute; apart from this you can’t. That’s the second great teaching of this book. The first one, all teaching start with negative volition; the second one is that there’s minus absolute truth; man is without it.

The third, which logically follows, just as night follows day, the third point is that man is left with only logic and experience. That’s all. Minus revelation, minus words from God, and therefore he’s left only with logic and experience on which to build a philosophy of life, and you gamble every day, those who do not follow the words of God, you have to gamble every day that somehow desperately you’re right, even though the chances are you’re wrong. And even though if you live your life on the basis of relative truth in the end it turns out that it was a false base, you’ve lost your whole life. And that’s what Solomon is painting this gruesome picture for you to see, that man is left with only logic and experience and nothing else. And the basis of logic and experience, Ecclesiastes 2:3, where he tried to find out that which was a good principle for his life he couldn’t find, because he said: “I sought in my heart to lead my flesh with wine, yet my heart was in control, to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of man,” and the conclusion of his experiment was that he couldn’t find any, because in verse 10 of the same chapter, after engaging all these pleasures of life, all he found was the fact that his joy lasted only as long as the particular activity and after that there was nothing left; nothing! So that’s the third teaching that Solomon has, man is left naked with only his logic and his experience but no absolute words from God.

The fourth teaching is that nothing in historical or personal experience proves there are such things as moral absolutes. Nothing in historical or personal experience proves there are such things as moral absolutes. This is a theme that occurs again and again. Turn back to 1:15, “That which is crooked cannot be made straight; and that which is wanting” or lacking “cannot be numbered. And there he says that you can’t straighten out the tangle and mess of good and evil; it’s embedded in history and you can’t remove it, and if you are to look at history only from the eyes of the natural man, apart from the framework of divine revelation, on the basis of history alone, Solomon says you cannot come to the conclusion that there are such a thing as moral absolutes that operate. You can come to the conclusion maybe that there are moral ideals, but they aren’t very real because they don’t work out in history. The good guys don’t always win.

2:15, “Then I said in my heart, As it happens to the idiot, so it happens even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity,” what does it matter, good guys don’t win.

3:16, “And, moreover, I saw under the sun the place of judgment, there was wickedness there;” and it refers to government, he refers to the courts, he refers to the place where if there’s any spot on earth where there should be judgment and justice, there is wickedness there, “and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.” Even in the court system there is nothing, no evidence of an operating moral absolute.

6:2, “A man to whom God has given riches, wealth, and honor, so that he lacks nothing for his soul of all that he desires, yet God gives him not the power to eat thereof, but a stranger eats it; this is vanity, and it is an evil disease,” no moral operating absolutes.

7:13, “Consider the work of God; for who can make that straight, which He has made crooked?” Again, there’s no working moral absolutes, justice is not dispensed in history.

9:11, “I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happens to them all.” In other words, there is no piece of evidence that you can cite in your personal life or that you can cite in history as a proof for moral absolutes. You can only cite the fact that men have held ideals but you can’t prove that these ideals actually operate in the network of history. And this is why we are left to divine revelation which assures us that after history is concluded then we have justice in the balances; then we’re going to have justice, that’s judgment. But if you don’t have revelation about a future judgment, you don’t have any basis for moral absolutes. Morals to you are probably something like herd behavior. And if Hitler wants to annihilate six million Jews, that’s fine because after all, that helped Germany, that helped the society of the time, so therefore why not; you have no basis to condemn him and he is absolutely right. He had the law changed on March 23, 1933 so that whatever Adolph Hitler did was automatically legal, Hitler never violated one law of Germany, not one. Everything Hitler did was absolutely legal. And you have no basis to say he’s wrong, unless the Bible is there and gives you a moral absolute. But if the Bible isn’t there, and if you don’t believe in verbal revelation, don’t condemn Adolph Hitler because you have no right to do so.

The fifth point, the fifth thing that is taught in this book is that nothing in experience suggests man can do anything worthwhile, ultimately worthwhile. The fourth one was there’s no moral operating absolutes; the fifth one is that you can’t find anything that’s really ultimately worthwhile to do with your life. We saw this in several places, we’ve already seen chapter 2, but if you go to chapter 2 verse 14, at the end of chapter 2 you see something else about Solomon’s trials. In verse 14b-16 he says, “I myself perceived also that one event happens to both the wise man and the fool, [15] And then I said in my heart, As it happens to the fool, so it happens even to me; and why was I then more wise?” It doesn’t pay, there’s no ultimate purpose for living that you can find on the basis of natural reason. There is nothing that you can find to which to hang your hat; you cannot find a purpose for life that’s ultimately significant unless you have a verbally inspired Bible.

The sixth teaching of this book is that the only thing left is immediate pleasure. The only thing that the man, the natural man can logically do, the only thing he’s left with is immediate pleasure. Now this doesn’t mean to go out and party, etc. he’s saying that there is such a thing as a sane way of attaining immediate pleasure in this life. And he says you should do this, Ecclesiastes 2:24, “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 labor.”

In 3:12, “I know there is no good in them; but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life.

5:18, “Behold, that which I have seen; it is good and fitting for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor that he takes under the sun all the days of his life, which God gives him; for it is his portion.”

9:7, “Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy,” and remember this section when we went over it, we spent some time going from verses 7-10, we said this was one of the most emotional passages in this entire book, where it’s as though Solomon just takes it and flings it; he takes the whole book, his pen and his pencil and his parchment and just throws it against the wall, and he comes up with this, “Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepts thy works. [8] Let thy garments be always white,” and we gave you the significance of that, go around as though you have no guilt because white garments mean that you are justified by a standard of justice, but “let thy garments be always white, and let thy head lack no ointment,” go ahead as though you are accepted, ignore your guilt. [9] “Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which He has given thee.” In other words, immediate pleasure. Now don’t think this is far fetched, this is the conclusion our generation is coming to, and nobody seems to be able to understand it. It’s clearly plain, clearly plain, all you have to do is understand Ecclesiastes and you can understand our generation. Why are they doing what they are doing? Because they are taking Ecclesiastes to the logical conclusion, and they’re justified if verbal inspiration is not true. If they are justified, if all the liberal theologians are right, then this generation is acting in perfect accordance with it; just as night follows day they have taken up the logical conclusion and you have no right to condemn them unless you condemn then on the basis of the Word of God, then there’s a difference.

So that is the sixth teaching, that the only goal left for man is the goal of immediate pleasure. And finally the seventh thing taught in this book that is deeply evident today, in 3:19 Solomon comes to the conclusion on the basis of natural reason that you can’t really be sure there’s a significant difference between man and animal. “For that which befalls the sons of men befalls beasts. Even one thing befalls them: as the one dies, so dies the other; yea, they have all one beast, so that a man has no pre-eminence above a beast; for all is vanity. [20] All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. [21] Who knows the spirit of man, that it is the one that goes up, and who knows the spirit of beast that it is the one that goes downward,” literally translating the Hebrew. In other words, how can you be sure there’s something really different. How can you be sure that you should be treating your dog differently than you treat another person? How can you be sure? How can you be sure that it’s wrong to go out on the street and shoot someone and get blamed for murder and yet you can go hunting and kill animals and you’re not blamed for murder. Why is there a difference? Is there really a basis for that difference or it just sheer condition and sheer custom. Is that all or is there a difference between man and a dog. Maybe there isn’t, Solomon doubts it here in verse 21, that there is a significant difference.

Again, this is the logical conclusion to which you must come apart from God’s Word.

Now turn back to chapter 12, having expounded once again what the word “vanity” means, let’s go on and finish the book. Verse 9, “And, moreover, because the Preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yea, he gave good heed, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs.” First of all, you can erase the word “Preacher,” it doesn’t mean preacher; koheleth is the Hebrew word, and it comes from the Hebrew stem, khl, and this is the stem to assemble, it means the assembler, it means that he would assemble a group of people and talk to them; he was part of the wisdom schools of the ancient Israelites and he would gather this group of men around him and they’d teach wisdom and philosophy of life. And Solomon says he is a teacher; a better word, I think, would be teacher than preacher. I can’t stand the word “preacher.”

“Moreover, because the Preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge,” in other words, he goes ahead, “wise” means that he’s skilled, not necessarily wise, there are many kinds of wisdom, the word “wise” simply means skill, because he was skilled in bringing the big philosophical up to a pithy statement in a proverb, that’s what it means to be wise in this sense, in this context, you are able to take a fantastic idea and crystallize it in two short sentences. Because Solomon had this ability, he went on teaching the people knowledge.

Notice it doesn’t he say he taught them “knowledge and understanding.” See, in the Proverbs you always have this word pair, knowledge and understanding, but in this book you never have the word pair, you only have one word, one-half of the word pair is there, knowledge but no understanding. It’s very significant that this vocabulary is that way in this book.

And then it says he did three things, we’ll have to readjust some of these because while the King James was originally right, it doesn’t communicate today. “…yea, he gave good heed,” the word here means to test or evaluate and what it means is that he took the proverb, some of which he made and some of which he borrowed from other people, and we have seen cases where he tested these proverbs to find out whether they taught the truth.

Turn back to chapter 2 I’ll show you a place where he did this, he took a proverb of his time that everybody was glibly repeating and he refuted it on the basis of his own experience. In verses 13-14 he quoted a proverb that was current in his day. “And I saw that wisdom excels folly as far as light excels darkness. [14] The wise man’s eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness,” in other words, there is supposed to be a value and a reward for being wise. And then he tacks on his little comment, “But I myself perceive that one event happens to them all.” And that’s where he tested the proverb. So that’s what this man is saying here in 12:9, he’s saying “he still taught the people knowledge,” he tested the proverb, “he sought out,” now this means he questioned them, he questioned to see whether they taught what he thought they taught. So it’s a logical test here and an empirical test if you want to get in detail. And then the third one, he “set in order many proverbs,” it means he made them straight, it’s the verb to straighten out, he made them clear to the people. He laid it on the line as to where you would go logically if you started under the sun.

Verse 10, “The Preacher sought to find out acceptable words; and that which was written was upright, even words of truth.” Now “sought to find,” he “sought to find acceptable words” means that Solomon was careful in his vocabulary, there are no wasted words in this book.. He was very careful of his vocabulary. Application to Christians: this is why we make such light of the theories of inspiration that say, oh just the ideas are inspired not the words. Verbal inspiration says the words of the Bible are inspired. How can you have ideas inspired without words. You show me how you can think without words. You show me a person without words and I’ll show you a person without brains. You can’t think without words, that’s the point. And Solomon says when I want to communicate I have to marry the ideas to the right words. This is why Paul, in 1 Cor. 2, even went so far as to say the Holy Spirit selects my vocabulary. That’s found in 1 Cor. 2:11 and following.

So here we have again the fact that Solomon, as the author, the human author of this book, sat down and took very great care as far a literary sense is concerned, in writing. This means again that from the human viewpoint if you were there with a camera, with a motion picture camera as Solomon began to write, you wouldn’t see some glowing on the wall, inspiration does not mean that the men… God had to write it, sometimes He did, but it doesn’t mean he had to, the point is oftentimes inspired Scripture can be generated through simple literary means, like Luke tells you in the first chapter of his Gospel, verses 1-4, he just sat down with a bunch of reports and wrote up the Gospel of Luke. It wasn’t any mystical thing where God spoke to him out of the clear blue, and ye the result is the same as though God had. The end result is as good as though God had dictated it. Now we don’t hold to a dictation theory, some professors of religion on the college campus who do not know the Word fundamentalism and what it stands for, and have never studied the Bible themselves, but they’re evidently qualified to somehow go on and lecture all semester on it, these people always misrepresent the fundamentalist position by saying you fundamentalists believe in the dictation theory. Bologna, you show me one fundamentalist that believes in the dictation theory. Not one, not has ever believed in the dictation theory, that is a lie and a figment of his imagination. What we are saying is the end result is as though God had dictated every word but we’re not saying God dictated every word. These men used normal literary means and you have a glimpse here of the process in verse 10. Solomon sat down and he thought, and he probably reworked his notes just like you’d write any other book, the mechanism was the same, the result was not. The result was that it was the inspired word as we’re going to see very shortly in this passage.

12:10, “…that which was written uprightly,” “uprightly” is an adverb, not a predicate nominative here, “that which was written uprightly,” “uprightly” means sincerely. Solomon is true to his basic starting point. He is not hedging, he is giving you the straight dope, he’s letting you know how he feels and he doesn’t hold back or pull punches, he’s clear, candid and open. That’s what it means. They are “words of truth” or “words of reliability,” the word truth comes from ’emeth, and it means that they are reliable.” What do we mean reliable, haven’t we just said this is human viewpoint, human viewpoint, human viewpoint, human viewpoint, human viewpoint is unreliable. What Solomon means here is that if you start “under the sun” these words are reliable; if you want to live your life apart from the Word of God, these words are absolutely reliable because this is absolutely where you’re going to wind up. This is exactly where you’re going to wind up, apart from the Word of God.

Verse 11, “The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened,” now we’re going to have to watch things here because this gives you the way… the King James is a good translation, there is only one problem is that this particular expression is idiomatic, so we’ve got to trace it out and see what it looks like. In verse 11, “The words of the wise,” that’s the subject of the sentence, let’s take it apart, “words of the wise,” there’s your subject; “are as goads,” here’s your comparison, “as goads,” goads is the word which was used for sharp sticks that the ancient cattlemen would use to prod cattle with, and he’s making the analogy that these pithy statements in proverbial literature are deliberately sharpened to prod people into thinking, to prod them into thinking through their position. “The words of the wise are as goads, as nails fastened,” now you have to separate it, this is parallelism, and the first sentence, subject first, then your comparison; the second part, comparison, then subject, “as nails fastened,” and this means there is something solid here, “as fastened nails” literally, and now you get your subject. You go from subject, predicate, predicate, subject. What’s the subject here? The subject is “the masters of assemblies.” “…as fastened nails are the masters of assemblies.” Now who were “the masters of assemblies.” This word, this whole expression is an idiom meaning a collection, “assemblies” is a collection and it means this is a chief collection of literature. This is a key collection, a key literary collection of proverbs. So “The words of the wise are goads, the chief literary productions are as fastened nails.”

Now, at the end of verse 11, is one of these sneaky little things that we’ve glimpsed every once in a while in this book. Remember the last time in 12:1, that word “Creator” we found to our amazement was a plural. And it spoke of the Trinity back here in the Old Testament. Now we come to another one of these little amazing statements. At the end of verse 11 he says that these “are given by one shepherd.” This is the man who is writing this postscript to this book and this is a testimony that this book is inspired. This is why this book, although it’s considered heretical in many ways, was admitted to the canon of Holy Spirit because of this verse. These “are given by one shepherd,” who’s the shepherd? Look up the word “shepherd” in a concordance and see how it’s used in the Old Testament? It always refers to Jehovah. So therefore what it’s saying is that God has inspired all of this literature, “The words of the wise,” and these “chief collections of literature,” all come from one shepherd.

Now the man is saying look, all the human viewpoint proverbs of Solomon and all the divine viewpoint proverbs assembled by Solomon, here’s the book of Proverbs and here’s the book of Ecclesiastes, human viewpoint, divine viewpoint, both come from one shepherd. BOTH! Why? Because there’s a principle in God’s Word that only recently I have been able to notice in clarity and that is that God’s Word pictures both light and darkness. God’s Word does not accept the usual evangelical approach today, well, we’ll just stick to the positives and avoid the negatives. God’s Word always deals with both sides of the question; it deals with light and it deals with darkness; it expounds heaven and it expounds hell; it expounds divine viewpoint and it shows you the framework of human viewpoint. In Romans 1 you see how in the gospel that Paul speaks of he is expounding and revealing the processes of darkness, so that God gives both light and darkness, so that we do not have to be ignorant as to the ways of the devil and the ways of the world in the cultural forms that it takes.

God wants us to know the enemy. What would you think of a military commander who was involved in a situation who never did any reconnaissance work on the enemy. Can you imagine a man sending off troops in the battle without a shred of an understanding about who’s over there; maybe they have tanks and so he sends infantry against tanks. Or he does something else. No, that never is done, the enemy in a fight is always reconnoited, it is always spied upon, and always evaluated. Now you are in a battle, I am in a battle, we are in a spiritual battle and it is foolish for you to think that you can exist in the Christian life knowing only the positive. It is foolish to think that you can exist not knowing and completely unaware of the tactics of the enemy in your generation. The generations shift and in each generation Satan takes a particular tactic. It’s up to us to find out the tactic he’s using against us today and fight it. You’ve got to know it; it doesn’t mean you major on the negative, but it means that you are aware of the negative. And this is where fundamentalism today, because its reacted against the early 20’s when fundamentalism has a bad negative image, we’ve gone all the way, the pendulum has swung all the way over to the positive; now we don’t bother with the negative, with the result we can’t communicate because we don’t know what the issues are. You’ve got to know the negatives as well as the positives, and that’s what he’s saying here, these proverbs, both the human viewpoint ones and the divine viewpoint ones come from one shepherd.

Verse 12, “And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh,” and of course, all the students say amen. Well, what this is talking about is very closely allied to the frustration in the academic circles but for reasons that you don’t think of. It is frustrating to study today in the academic world; it’s not because the study itself is hard. What is frustrating to you is the way and the framework in which the subject material is presented. For example, if you want to teach people to hate history just send them to high school. That’s all you have to do, is have someone teaching in history that tells them [can’t hear words] you’re going to remember that in 1812 something happened, in 1865 something happened, in 1914 something happened, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you’ll remember this and the next time we’ll have a quiz and that’ll be it. So if you’re smart you’ll just quickly memorize the thing five minutes before the exam, fill it out on the exam and forget it. And the result is that young people are systematically being taught to hate history. They’re being systematically taught to hate literature, to hate these things that they shouldn’t hate because God says in Philippians 4 to think on those things which are good and enjoy them.

Now this goes back to the divine viewpoint framework. Let’s look at it. God at the center and we have Bible doctrine around it. This should be a picture of the mentality of the mature believer; this should be your goal; if you are not a mature Christian this should be your goal. God at the center, Bible doctrine around here, then you take science, history, philosophy, art, literature, music, you take your fellowship socially, with believers, loved ones, friends and society; then you take job, sex, possessions, health and these things, all the details of life. And these details should be exciting to you, and if they’re not, do you know what, you go into what we call compartmentalization, that’s what fundamentalists do. They live their little Christian life in a compartment and all the studies out there don’t mean anything, all the stuff, it’s of the world, don’t bother with it. And of course if you do that, do you know what’s going to happen? Isolation occurs and you fail to communicate the gospel to your generation.

We’ve got to break out and move out into these areas, and the thing that’s holding us up is that our young people have been torpedoed, our young people think oh no, history, who wants history. Do you know why? History is exciting when it’s viewed in the framework the Bible gives you. If history were taught in the framework of the Bible with dispensations, if the young people were taught to visualize the Abrahamic Covenant in operation, and see that every major historical battle that’s ever been fought over Israel always will fulfill Genesis 12, Genesis 15, etc. if they could see these principles that bring unity to history, if they could see God’s program for history, all of a sudden all these little details take on significance.

You study American history and you begin to study the concept of corporate blessing, and you begin to realize that God blesses a national entity because of the remnant of believers in it and their influence upon that national entity. You begin to realize then the significance of the Puritans; you begin to realize that these men who studied Bible doctrine set in motion wheels of history that are still turning, although they’re about to stop today. These men who developed the concept that we have in our society today of justice, the concept that were enscripturated in the United States Constitution came from Bible-believing believers, and they had a rule in the colonies that if you didn’t know Bible doctrine you couldn’t vote, and that was one of the best rules that’s ever been invented. The idea of giving every nitwit the right to vote is nonsense. I don’t believe in democracy in that sense; that’s mob action, that’s not democracy, that’s a totalitarian rule of a mob. And that goes along with what Rousseau said, “the voice of the people is the voice of God.” The voice of the people is the voice of Satan and you can also see that in the Gospels. Who was the majority at the crucifixion of Christ. Who hollered out “crucify Him, crucify Him.” Was it the minority or the majority? It was the majority and they were wrong, they were voicing Satan. So totalitarian democracy is just as anti-Christian as a totalitarian dictatorship.

What’s the right way to teach American history? The right way to teach American history is to go back to the Puritan era and have a firm understanding of the Puritans, know the relationship between the New Testament, Romans 13 in particular, in society, be able to understand how this influenced the writing of the Constitution, and be able to translate into action today those constitutional principles that have been violated. That’s the way to study American history, but it’s not being studied that way, with the result that the kids get facts, loose facts, just like a pot of marbles; did you ever try to hold 500 marbles in your hand? It’s frustrating and it’s no wonder history is frustrating. No wonder literature is frustrating. I just went down to review some of the textbooks, I was the only non-teacher there, and they’ve got book after book after book on English literature and you go through this stuff and it has little stupid questions like “put yourself in the position of these people, what did they think?” Bologna what they thought, what’s the truth, that’s the point, and you measure your literature by a standard of truth, you don’t measure it by what do you think the author thought? I don’t care what the author thought, I care whether he spreads truth or he spreads a lie. That’s the issue. And that’s the way English literature should be taught but it’s not being taught that way, with the result that the kids think there’s nothing there and I would agree with them, there isn’t anything there, it’s a pile of rubbish and the way it’s being taught it’s a waste of time. We haven’t broken out and moved into these areas. I’m not saying that these people in the school system deliberately do this, that’s not my accusation; they don’t know what they’re doing. I’m sure the sincere and many of the teachers are sincere, the school administrators that pick the books are sincere but they’re stupid as far as Bible doctrine is concerned.

This is what Solomon means, “much study is a weariness of the flesh.” Absolutely true, weariness of the flesh.

Verses 13-14, the conclusion, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. [14] For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” And here we have the man at the end assuring us that the only conclusion you can legitimately draw, after having carefully examined human viewpoint is divine viewpoint; that’s the way to live your life. “…the commandments,” see that plural noun in verse 13, there’s verbal revelation, the first time it’s been mentioned in this entire book. The first time; the first time verbal revelation has been mentioned in this book so far is in the conclusion. And the conclusion is if you want to live this life of vanity and pin your hopes to a falling star, and hope to build on a foundation on sand, go ahead, but if you’re smart you’ll hear the conclusion, and that is you “Fear God,” it means to trust and submit to Him, “and keep” or obey “His commandments.” With our heads bowed.