14May23

The speaker discusses Ecclesiastes chapter 2 verses 18 through 26, focusing on the curse on labor. They explain that although work itself is not a curse, the fall of man has corrupted work, making it laborious and futile. They mention that the curse on labor means that everything we build or acquire will be left behind, and the next generation may not appreciate the work it took. They also highlight the struggles and anxieties that come with work, and how it can never bring true satisfaction or a relationship with God. However, they also mention that God still blesses those who please Him in their work. They conclude by emphasizing the need for a Redeemer who can reverse the effects of the fall and offer true redemption. So, Ecclesiastes chapter 2, verses 18 through 26 is our text for today. Thank you again to Sandy who has come by on Tuesday mornings and makes sure the bookmarks are all in the right spots for us. Thank you, Sandy, for doing that. Ecclesiastes chapter 2, verses 18 through 26. And this is God's word. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This, too, is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This, too, is meaningless and a great misfortune. What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days, his work is pain and grief. Even at night, his mind does not rest. This, too, is meaningless. A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This, too, I see, is from the hand of God. For without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and happiness. But to the sinner, he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This, too, is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please be seated. Man, there's a lot in this text. And it sounds rather confusing as Solomon jumps back and forth with these themes today, focusing on labor. Today's message entitled, The Curse on Labor, and here's how we're going to study this text. We're going to take kind of a broader view, but first we're going to look at the view in the garden. We always seem to go back to the garden, but the view in the garden. And then our text, verses 18 through 26, it's the thing that keeps Solomon up at night. And then we'll look at Jesus and Ecclesiastes. In these final verses of chapter 2, Solomon draws us again to the picture of the way things were to have been. It's a view back to the garden, back to the beginning. As we've considered previously life in the garden, we've discovered that God established with man and for man what we call creation mandates. Creation mandates. They appeared in the garden before the fall, and there are certain institutions that existed from the beginning, and they still exist in some form today. They're some of the founding principles through which God governs this world and the way he governs us. The creation mandates remain, therefore, as God's ongoing charge to humanity. The creation mandates. To display for us the blessing and the power and the authority of the Father. So, for example, God's commissioning man to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it is the primary creation mandates. And, of course, the biblical concept of marriage in which a man will leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife and the two become one flesh is the extension of that command. And so the institution of biblical marriage is also a creation mandate. This description of this creation mandate concerning work. The text says, The institution of work. Here man is instructed. And the sin of our first parents damaged and tainted and corrupted everything. Principles of marriage. Sabbath observance has also suffered since the fall. The Sabbath in worship on this day. And we find in Genesis chapter 3 that the institution of work has also been negatively impacted by the fall. This is how Genesis describes it. God's word to man. Genesis chapter 3 verses 17 through 19. Here we find all the ways in which work has been impacted and corrupted by the fall. Listen to what the text says. It says, For dust you are, and to dust you will return. This is the view in the garden. We notice in the text here that work is now corrupted by the fall. So because of the fall, there remains the curse on labor. Now please understand, we're not saying that labor itself is a curse. As we've already seen, God gave work to man so that man might glorify God and so that man might be engaged in the work of the expansion of the garden. So work itself is not a curse. But because of the fall, work becomes cursed. Notice that the Bible, in fact, no longer calls it work, but calls it toil. The curse of the fall and the creation mandates institution of work. Work is now labor because it's laborious. A person who works most of his or her adult life, and because of a lifetime of labor, often bears the scars of that labor. Poor eyesight, hearing impairment, carpal tunnel, an aching back, failing knees. And tragically, in too many cases, many cases, workers contract cancer or other diseases or ailments due to years of exposure to carcinogens or some dangerous work environments. Understand that none of this was supposed to happen. None of this would have happened. Due to man's labor in the garden, so has long had men faithfully kept the covenant that God placed before man in the garden, the covenant which we have come to know as the covenant of works. But because of the fall, work becomes toil. But let's think about work even a little bit more. Let's consider work even in a broader picture and think about the impacts of the fall on work. The institution of work and the value of work has not been completely obliterated. Work still remains, albeit in its broken form, and man can still accomplish things via work. We get to plant a garden again this year, put some tomatoes in the ground, and that's a little bit of work that we do, and we're going to enjoy that work. There's other things that we do every day, and we take to them, and we find that work is still something that works, that still works. There indeed does remain a semblance of beneficial and successful work in our world. For example, if I wish to assemble a new piece of furniture, now some of you that work in furniture companies around here know a whole lot more about this than I do. I have to really go to the basics for this. So I have to go down to IKEA, and I have to buy a kit with all the pieces that are pre-cut and they're pre-packaged. Then I bring the kit home, I spread the pieces out on the floor, and then I proceed to assemble the piece of furniture according to the instructions. And the instructions always come in several languages, and then there's pictures, and I get to follow those pictures. Now, of course, knowing me and knowing the way I build one of these IKEA kits of furniture, I will probably throw in a few choice words of my own in my attempt to do this process, and inevitably I will finish assembling the piece of furniture, and there'll be a few mysterious pieces left over that probably belong in the project somewhere. I don't know if any of you have had that same experience. I don't think you have. I think I'm probably the only one who's ever done that. But by some miracle, perhaps, I generally seem to end up with some piece of furniture, a bookcase or a coffee table that generally functions somewhat like the diagram that was provided in the directions. I think maybe some of you know what I'm talking about. Of course, all work isn't so easy, right? A person might open a new business, providing a new and innovative and much-needed product to consumers. And while doing that, they provide jobs that will bless families and indeed bless a community. But if you open a business, you know that there's foreign subsidized competition and there's confiscatory overtaxation and there's unnecessary governmental overregulation and there's the variances of supply and demand and there's the conditions of the local and the global economy, which all come into play. Some employees, some people work very hard, and they start a business, and they create a successful business. But others also work very hard, and they create a business that lasts for a time, but then suddenly the business collapses, and it leaves the business owner and the employees and their families with bankruptcy and broken dreams. Let's broaden the category even further. For there are indeed other kinds of work which prove extremely difficult, if not almost impossible. For example, a couple works hard to build a family, but life offers no guarantees. A family will often face health struggles, financial struggles, marital struggles, life struggles, end-of-life struggles. So when it comes to building a family and maintaining a family, the work is hard, and as you know, it never quite measures out to what we've wanted or hoped for or dreamed of. When it comes to working on a family, we're going to take any success we get. It's hard work. And then when we think about labor, when we think about work, in which no measure of work will ever prove successful. One thing we can never accomplish, no matter how hard we try, and this is in regard to our relationship with God. We cannot accomplish a relationship with God. We cannot merit salvation. We cannot secure redemption. We cannot earn God's love. In fact, the Bible reminds us that we're all working against God. This is what Apostle Paul says in Romans. He writes, The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so, and those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. Here the King James Version puts it more bluntly. The carnal mind is at enmity with God. We can't build salvation. We can't make it happen if we wanted to. When the Jerusalem citizen re-asked Peter on the day of Pentecost, What must we do to be saved? Just tell us what we can do. Can we do something to be saved? And Peter's answer was, No, there's nothing you can do. You believe in Jesus because you're going to believe in what he has done for you. You can't do anything about it. You can't do it. You can only respond. So back in the day, in the garden, a covenant of works assured man of a relationship with God predicated upon man's work. Don't eat the fruit of the tree. We do that and everything is going to be fine. But as we are painfully and brutally aware, man failed in that task. And ever since that day, man's work is and remains cursed. And this has been so since the day of man's banishment from the garden. So, when we come to Ecclesiastes, we fast forward to 900 B.C. and we find that Solomon is here coming to grips with that truth. He thought work was going to be the answer to everything. But now he's writing and he's telling us that work is toil, that work is meaningless, that work is vanity, that there's nothing new under the sun. Here in Ecclesiastes, Solomon tells us all that he's considered work from every angle. He's tried it all, he's considered it all. In our text for today, we'll see that Solomon has viewed his labor from four different angles. But with each view, he's come to the same conclusion. Did you notice that when we were reading into the text? When we read the text today, there's four little sections. And it's Solomon viewing something about work. And in each time, he comes to the same conclusion. At the end of verse 19, what did he say? This too is meaningless. At the end of verse 21, this too is meaningless. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. At the end of verse 23, this too is meaningless. At the end of verse 26, this too is meaningless. A chasing after the wind. Solomon finds himself deeper and deeper in the pit of despair because work has been damaged and corrupted by the fall. So everything we do, everything we set our hands to, everything we set our minds to, everything we set our hearts to, we want to do it, but we're running into the same problem as this. It's all subject to the curse on labor. The curse on labor. And everything, therefore, according to Solomon, is meaningless. Meaningless. So, we examine our text for today. Ecclesiastes chapter 2, verses 18 through 26. And as we said, Solomon gives us here four little pictures. They're images that each offer a piece of a difficult puzzle. And it's a difficult puzzle, not because the pieces don't go together. It's difficult, rather, because we don't want them to go together. Because they go together too well. So when we see the assembled puzzle, it's a picture that's not pleasing to the eye. It's the truth, but it's not pleasing to the eye. It's too painful to bear. But it is true. Notice verses 18 and 19. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. One of the fundamental truths with which we all come face to face at the end of our lives is this. You can't take it with you. Everything gets left behind. Nothing we've built has any eternal quality, and nothing we've built lasts forever. Nothing in my hand I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling. Now we read verses 20 and 21. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. Here is another fundamental truth. The person who ends up possessing everything you've built or acquired will have no appreciation for the work that it took to gather it or to assemble it. One person does all the hard work, and the next person receives and reaches the gain. Talk about the unfairness of it all. Now we come to verses 22 and 23. What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief. Even at night his mind does not rest. Solomon can't shut off his brain. Have you ever had that situation? Can you shut your brain off? Solomon can't shut his brain off. You know, one of the worst nights for me, admittedly, is Saturday nights. The sermon is running through my head. I can't shut my brain off. Now it's written down in front of me, but I still can't shut my brain off. Hopefully you can. I have a difficult time doing that. Solomon can't do it. Here he confesses of lying awake at night. He's processing the injustice of this situation, this plight. Did he finish today's work sufficiently? What work awaits him tomorrow? What matters will he face that are outside of his control? Even though we're commanded to rest from our labors, the mind that raises at night proves to be no rest for the weary. Finally, we conclude the chapter with verses 24 through 26. These last verses do give us a little bit of respite, indicating for us that God is not altogether absent, but he rather has left something redeeming for man in the midst of his work. Notice the text. It says, A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This, too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him who can eat or find anything and find enjoyments. To the man who pleases God, God gives wisdom, knowledge, happiness. We can yet, as we have seen, find some measure of satisfaction in our work. We can establish a new business. We can reach a sales goal. We can successfully conclude an assigned task. We can produce a beautiful piece of artwork. We can deliver a challenging, coherent, biblically orthodox sermon. This satisfaction is a gift from God, and the one who trusts in God is the one in whom God is pleased to bless. But notice the last phrase of verse 26. But to the sinner, he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This is the way God operates. This is the way God functions, is what Solomon is saying. And we know that this is true. Recall the story in Exodus of the day that the Israelites left Egypt when they were released to go off to the promised land. They escaped slavery. They escaped captivity. They're released from Pharaoh. And the Bible tells us that as the Israelites were leaving the Egyptians, they also plundered the Egyptians. Here we find that God is indeed pleased to allow this transfer. For the unbeliever, the amassing of wealth and possessions is in the end, though, meaningless to chasing after the wind. It's vanity. And this proves to be the thing that keeps Solomon up at night as he's mulling it all through his head and processing all the information. Now, I will give you a little bit of a window into next week. We get to chapter 3, which for Ecclesiastes is everybody's favorite text. And so the stuff that we've gone through in these first two chapters lays the groundwork for our understanding of chapter 3. So we'll get to that next week. And we'll enjoy our time together. And we'll see about the sovereign hand of God working in the world. But all of this is foundational for it. This all gives us the background for which then Solomon gives us the great and glorious news of the beginning of verses of chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes. But for today, let's consider then Jesus here in the text. Yes, my friends, this world and all of creation is corrupted, broken, damaged, tainted, debilitated, impaired, and cursed by the fall. Everywhere we set our eyes and on everything we fix our minds and on everything that grabs hold of our hearts in this world was created by God and sustained by God and resigns under the sovereignty of God. So God is controlling all of it and He's bringing it to His conclusion. And yet in and upon everything through this creation, throughout this creation, we see and sense and remain heartbroken due to the impact and the weight of sin, the sin of our first parents and our sin too. This is not just Adam and Eve's fault. This is our fault too, Romans 5.12. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men because all sinned. So it's Adam and Eve are on the hook here, but we're on the hook too. Because of the sin of our first parents, we all have inherited a curse and the impact of that curse reaches all of creation. And as the truth is this, as Solomon has discovered, there is nothing that we can do to fix it. No matter how hard we might try, we can't make this happen. We can't fix this. And yet, there is a promise. All is not hopeless. Despite what Solomon is telling us here in the text, all is not hopeless. And we see this in other parts of the Old Testament and we've seen this before. For example, in Job, in the middle of the despair and the failure of Job and his friends to comprehend any of the things going on in Job's life, listen to what Job said. In the middle of his despair, Job says this, Job chapter 19, I know that my Redeemer lives and in the end He will stand upon the earth and yet in my flesh I will see God. I will see Him with my own eyes, how my heart yearns for Him. I know that my Redeemer lives. In the midst of the despair and the failure all around him and the failure of this world and the failure of Job and his friends to contemplate and figure out what was going on, Job can yet say, I know that my Redeemer lives. And this is a promise that's been fulfilled. To reverse the effects of the fall, God has sent us a Redeemer. Listen to what the Apostle Paul writes. This is Romans chapter 3. He says, this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference for all who sin and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Through the Lord Jesus Christ, those who place their faith and trust in Christ receive the blessed gift of redemption. Paul will say in chapter 8, Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. So our work is corrupted by the fall, but we have a Redeemer whose work is not corrupted. We have a Redeemer whose perfect life and whose sacrificial death and whose glorious resurrection could not be corrupted by the fall. Right? Jesus did the work that you and I could never do. He completed it perfectly, fully, completely. As Job declares, so must we declare as well, I know that my Redeemer lives, and His name is Jesus. And this is not all. For beyond the redemption that comes to the children of God, there is also a reversal and a removal of the curse that afflicts all of creation. When Jesus dies on the cross, He not only dies for you and for me and each one of us and for our sins and pays the price, but Jesus then reverses the effects of the fall on all things. Listen to what Paul will write in Romans chapter 8 and verse 19. Paul writes, The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. So all those men and women who place their faith in Christ, boys and girls who believe in Jesus. And the creation waits in eager expectation for the proclamation of those who believe in Jesus. We're told in verse 20 of that text that the creation was subjected to frustration. Can you imagine that it feels the weight of the curse, longs for aromany. The rest of creation is saying, what's going to happen? How will this be resolved? Creation is waiting in frustration and eager expectation. But then we see the declaration of the Word of God, verse 21, where Paul writes, The creation itself, the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. How marvelous. How wonderful. You and I and all of creation finds this glorious hope in Christ and His redemption of all of creation. Jesus says what? I make all things new. Hear the words written down by the Apostle John concerning the fulfillment of the promise of Christ's redemption of all things when he writes this. John writes, Revelation 21, He, speaking of Jesus, He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away. He who is seated on the throne said, I am making everything new. There will be a redemption of all of creation at the return of Christ. And then that's not all. For we are already seeing and receiving the effects of Christ's redemption and His reversal, the effects of the fall over creation. We're already seeing it now. We consider previously the creation mandates and their corruption during the fall, due to the fall, but notice how they're already redeemed in Christ. Scripture tells us of the redemption of the Sabbath. This is in Hebrews chapter 4. There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. That rest is still available for all those who believe. Christ has given us a Sabbath rest. Scripture also tells us of the redemption of marriage. Ephesians chapter 5. We read of the text that says always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Husband and wives submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Down to verse 33, each husband must love his wife and each wife must respect her husband. And we find this fulfillment of the creation mandate concerning marriage in verse 31. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother, be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. Jesus has brought us, has brought us a redemption. Of Sabbath and redemption of marriage. Not perfect. No marriage is perfect. And yes, not every church is perfect. And our worship isn't perfect, but yet Christ has already brought us a glimpse and a glimmer of what awaits for us in glory. Even now we see a benefit of the redemptive work of Christ over these creation mandates affected by the fall of both Sabbath and marriage. So how about work? Do we see anything in the redemption of labor? Yes, we do. 1 Corinthians 15. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. 2 Corinthians chapter 9. And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. Colossians chapter 1. Paul starts his letter this way. We pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and you may please Him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you might have great endurance and patience and joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. Yes, there's already a benefit. Work is being redeemed. And even now, you and I as believers in Christ see the benefit. And that's only the beginning of what's available for us in glory. So how do we know? How do we know that our labor is not in vain? That was the promise. But how do we know? How do we know that we will abound in every good work? How do we know that we will bear fruit in every good work? Listen to this, my friends. For this is the guarantee of God's word. This is the promise of God's word declared to us. And the writer of Hebrews tells us this. He says we would know this because we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. We're receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. So we labor to share the gospel for the kingdom which cannot be shaken. And we work to serve those in need on behalf of the kingdom which cannot be shaken. We labor for the master from the dawn till setting sun. And because we labor on behalf of the kingdom which cannot be shaken, we know, therefore, that our labor is not in vain. This is the reversal and the removal of the curse that afflicts creation, and this remains a part of the redemption that comes to all of the children of God. Let's bow our heads and pray, shall we? Solomon, Father, paints for us a difficult picture. We're thankful that we know what Solomon didn't know. He knew of the promise, but he didn't get to see the fulfillment. He visioned it from afar. He looked at it from a ways off. But we get to see it up close because we have seen Jesus who has come to us and fulfilled the words of Solomon's declaration and his confusion and his understanding and demonstrated for us the fullness of the promise of God available for all who believe, for all who place their faith and trust in the promise of God's redemption and all of us now who look back on the cross and place our faith and trust in Christ who is that redemption. And for this, Father, we praise you and we thank you and we give you glory. So we thank you, Father, that you are a work in our midst. And we thank you that you are even now bringing redemption to things that were disrupted and corrupted by the fall. And we thank you that you are bringing all things to pass so there will be a day and time when there will be no more corruption and there will be no more disruption for the things will work according to your word because your Son has promised that he is making all things new. And we thank you, Father, that the work done for us on the cross was the perfect work sufficient for our sin and by that work we are indeed redeemed and made new. For this, Father, we praise you and we give you glory. For it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.