8 All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the
eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. 9 The thing
that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which
shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. 10 Is there any thing
whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time,
which was before us. 11 There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall
there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come
after.
Not only does Solomon see vanity in the continual day in
and day out of life, but he sees vanity in his work. Ultimately, his work
doesn’t satisfy him. As one generation comes and goes, the new generation
really isn’t doing anything that the past generation hasn’t already done.
There is no remembrance of former things. The great feats
of history, the great battles of 100 years ago are forgotten today. How many
Americans can tell you about World War I or give you a decent explanation of
who the major players in the war were, and why the United States was engaged?
That war shaped the United States and Great Britain culturally, spiritually,
and economically so much the effects and ripples of that war are still felt
today, and yet it is largely forgotten. Even the technological pioneers of the
past are largely forgotten. Solomon considers that there won’t be any
remembrance of what he does in a hundred years.
If all there was in this life, is what we do and live for
in the “here and now” then yes, I would agree. What’s the point? As we have
ended the first section, I want to point out that Solomon is correct. There
isn’t any lasting, soul satisfying joy in the work that we do that can carry us
to eternal happiness. We can give ourselves pep talks that our lives and our
work will have meaning. But if we are honest with ourselves, we must see the
vanity of our labor under the sun.
There must be something more. There must be more to life
than the daily grind. We are just repeating what previous generations have done
before and sometimes, we are not doing it as well. We might have technological
advances, but this just means that we are doing the same things with different
technologies. We laugh and are amused to see old movies with the telephone
operators moving cables on the switch boards back and forth, and think how far
advance we have become, that we don't’ use that old technology anymore. Then we
call the call center for tech support on our phone and talk to one of the agents
for assistance. Yes, the technology is more advanced, but I wonder how many
more employees it takes now to make a phone call, than it did 100 years ago?
This ends the introduction to the book. There are
answered to these questions and they will be answered by the end of the sermon.
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