Goodbye Cruel World

Goodbye Cruel World

“The only morality in a cruel world is chance. Unbiased, unprejudiced, fair.”--The Dark Knight”

If one had to ascribe a keyword to define all of Ecclesiastes, what would you choose? Meaningless would be a leading contender to be sure. Wisdom or folly could be close runner’s up. Maybe time or season, perhaps chance or even years. I’d like to nominate perspective. What seems to strike so many Christians as dispassionate about this book is how it stands in such stark contrast to so much else in Scripture. Most certainly from what is commonly heard from the pulpit. What is critical to glean from Solomon is that this book contains description. A lifetime of meticulous observation and wise discernment yielded the findings we have studied these past several weeks. We must understand that the book is full of merely what can be observed. Here at the end though, Solomon stresses just how limited that viewpoint is.

The start of chapter 11 examines the practical nature of our limitations. “Invest in seven ventures, yes, in eight; you do not know what disaster may come upon the land.” (Ecclesiastes 11:2) Solomon was teaching to diversify your portfolio before it was cool. “Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let your hands be not idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.” (Ecclesiastes 11:6) The nature of such chance was explored at length last week. Absent any design, there is only chance. And chance is, by definition, cruel. In the sense that it is, above all else, uncaring. And to the exacting eye of the wise, that is what the world will seem, uncaringly cruel. “There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless.” (Ecclesiastes 8:14) Chance or design? This elusive little question is the fulcrum of so many of our differences, belief or otherwise. What Solomon leaves us with is the importance of faith, not as a crutch but a springboard.

The choice alluded to above is the foundation for so much of what comprises who we are. Do you believe that all is merely chance or that there is design? Is there merely a cruel world or is there a loving God? And make no mistake, the world is cruel. But only because it was bequeathed to us, and that is how we have endeavored to fill it. But Solomon reminds us that what is on offer is so much more vast than even the world. So what are the options? What we should understand about ‘the world’ in this scenario (and all others) is that it’s merely the sum total of man’s accumulated behavior. It’s just us writ large. Our struggles, shortcomings, and sin in aggregate. All of the ills we lay at the feet of the world are in reality our own. (And who wants more of that?) It is spiteful, forgetful, unpredictable, uncaring, jealous, and violent. Whereas, God is forgiving, thoughtful, constant, sacrificial, loving, and peaceful. God stands in stark contrast to the world, His way eternally distinct. It has to be. It is by design. To follow God would necessitate running counter to our own natural inclinations, otherwise faith would merely be pre-programmed. Following God requires a rejection of the world, and by extension, ourselves.

This dichotomy raises an issue. Unspoken but present since the dawn of time. We must make a choice. “Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commands.” (Deuteronomy 8:2) Choice. “At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.” (Titus 3:3) Choice. Every morning when your eyes are blessed to open, you are given the same choice. On whom will you rely, in whom will your trust reside, for whom will your actions be dedicated, and what will your life reflect? Solomon wrote an entire book here to explain and examine all permutations of the selfish answer to those questions and found each and every one of them to be meaningless. Time and time again he described human endeavors this way. But he never once asked, ‘What’s the point?’ Knowing that we would, he made sure to answer our unvoiced question at the very end. The exclamation point of a very wise sentence. Solomon understood that “In the beginning God” and knew that He would be there at the end as well. All of life under the direction of a wise King. And since that is true, he made sure we also understood there would be something else awaiting us at the end. Accountability.

A loving Father is not the same as an inattentive one. The closing verse from Ecclesiastes stresses this point, “For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” (Ecclesiastes 12:14) Depending on how clean your conscience is, this is either a blessing or a curse. Endeavor to make it a blessing! But it can be difficult living in the world we find ourselves in. Whiling away our time in such a meaningless fashion. And since it is so, a considerable weight should be given to our perspective. It’s the easiest thing in the world to look around and see the cruelty. The smallness of our existence against the enormity of Creation would seemingly give us no other view. But if you should choose to open your eyes to the beauty of design hidden behind the facade, quite a bit more becomes clear. If God will call into judgment all of the ‘hidden things’ then that means He sees you! As large and uncaring as this world may be, the same God who sacrificed His Son on a cross for your sin is still invested in your life. Still desiring you to know Him more. It is wisdom to understand this.

Don’t let these words be missed. “So I said, ‘Wisdom is better than strength.’ But the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are no longer heeded.” (Ecclesiastes 9:16) Forgetting is a choice too. It is placing something low enough in priority as to be left in the detritus of memory, relinquished to the fog of time. Wisdom is too precious a thing to be left to such a fate. Unfortunately, it is not popular. So we often choose to ignore it. But forgetting wisdom does not devalue it, it devalues us. And left to our own devices, pursuing solely the interests of our own flesh, and wheeling away the only commodity of value we possess, time, can only be summed up as meaningless. But there is another way. “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments for this is the whole duty of man.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13)

When faced against the cruelty of this world, Solomon advises us to fear God and keep His commandments. The cynic would call that delusion. The skeptic would call it coping. The faithless would call it crazy. Solomon called it the “whole duty of man”. How different indeed the world would be if we followed the wisdom of Solomon instead of the hollow words of the cynic, the small mind of the skeptic, or the lost view of the faithless. Solomon is correct, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under Heaven.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1) This is a time for choosing. Do you know what you find when standing at a crossroads? How much patience you have, and that’s about it. One can learn nothing standing at an intersection, wisdom is found in the journey. Your life is marked with time, it can be divided into years, seasons, trials, or joys. You will find time for them all along the way. We all have a common destiny, what separates one from another is how we spend our time here, and much of that is predicated on what we think about why we’re here. Does time merely happen to us, or is it a gift? Solomon recognizes that it is a gift, one freely given, but we will be held to account. If one had to ascribe a keyword to define all of your life, what would you choose? In this we must move past observation and description. Go and live it.  

Jordan Williamson