“Besides being wise, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care. The Preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth.
The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.”
Ecclesiastes 12: 9-14
Wise words from a wise man, all preceded by the famous phrase, “Vanity of vanities…all is vanity.”
Solomon was a man of great wisdom and wealth. A flawed man, nonetheless, when you look at his life. Granted that wisdom and wealth by God, he ultimately squandered it foolishly, dying a rich man, and yet spiritually depleted.
He obviously didn’t take his own advice, and certainly wasn’t one to hold strictly to God’s word. And yet we can separate the wisdom from the man. We can look especially to the collection of proverbs he gave to the Bible book of that name. And of course, the book from which the passage above is taken – Ecclesiastes. Solomon made the sacrifices necessary to experience as many of the world’s pleasures that a man can take, and yet he comes up with this – “all is vanity.”
Life is wasted on the pursuits of fools.
And so the profound answer, after all is considered and cast off: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”
I’m reminded of a verse I heard in church just this morning (John 15:19) – “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” The world has captured so many of us. It loves us because we love it. We love every piece of pleasure Solomon tried and ultimately rejected as vanity. And it all shows: the world loves that which is its own. And yet…so many of us know the bad taste it leaves. We look back on a lifetime and feel the void left once those empty pursuits fade.
I’ve got some great memories, but they’re long since passed. When I’m gone, there’ll be few who remember them for me; and when they’re gone, even I will be a completely forgotten man.
But of one thing I’m sure – “God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil,” and I won’t stand a chance…but for this one thing. God’s free gift to me and anyone who would receive it: eternal life in Christ Jesus. This earth will pass away in vanity, and so will the broken-down vessel who writes these words; but that is not the end.
Not at all.