And who knows whether that man will be wise or foolish? Yet he will take over all the labor at which I have worked skillfully under the sun. This too is futile. Sermons
I. IT IS NATURAL THAT MEN SHOULD ANTICIPATE THEIR POSTERITY WITH INTEREST AND SOLICITUDE. Family life is so natural to man that there is nothing strange in the anxiety which most men feel with regard to their children, and even their children's children. Men do not like the prospect of their posterity sinking in the social scale. Prosperous men find a pleasure and satisfaction in founding a family," in perpetuating their name, preserving their estates and possessions to their descendants, and in the prospect of being remembered with gratitude and pride by generations yet unborn. In the case of kings and nobles such sentiments and anticipations are especially powerful. II. IT IS A MATTER OF FACT THAT IN MANY INSTANCES MEN'S ANTICIPATIONS REGARDING POSTERITY ARE DISAPPOINTED. The wide and accurate observations of the author of Ecclesiastes convinced him that such is the case. 1. The rich man's descendants scatter the wealth which he has accumulated by means of labor and self-denial. It need not be proved, for the fact is patent to all, that it is the same in this respect in our own days as it was in the Hebrew state. In fact, we have an English proverb, "One generation makes money; the second keeps it; the third spends it." 2. The wise man's descendant proves to be a fool. Notwithstanding what has been maintained to be a law of "hereditary genius," the fact is unquestionable that there are many instances in which the learned, the accomplished, the intellectually great, are succeeded by those bearing their name, but by no means inheriting their ability. And the contrast is one painful to witness, and humiliating to those to whose disadvantage it is drawn. 3. The descendants of the great in many instances fall into obscurity and contempt. History affords us many examples of such descent; tells of the posterity of the noble, titled, and powerful working with their hands for daily bread, etc. III. THE PROSPECT OF AN UNFORTUNATE POSTERITY OFTEN DISTRESSES AND TROUBLES MEN, ESPECIALLY THE GREAT. The "wise man" knew what it was to brood over such a prospect as opened up to his foreseeing mind. He came to hate his labor, and to cause his heart to despair; all his days were sorrow, and his travail grief; his heart took not rest in the night; and life seemed only vanity to him. Why should I toil, and take heed, and care, and deny myself? is the question which many a man puts to himself in the sessions of silent thought. My children or my children's children may squander my fiches, alienate my estates, sully my reputation; my work may be undone, and my fond hopes may be mocked. What is human life but hollowness, vanity, wind? IV. THE TRUE CONSOLATION BENEATH THE PRESSURE OF SUCH FOREBODINGS. It is vain to attempt to comfort ourselves by denying facts or by cherishing unfounded and unreasonable hopes. What we have to do is to place all our confidence in a wise and gracious God, and to leave the future to his providential care; and at the same time to do our own duty, not concerning ourselves overmuch as to the conduct of others, of those who shall come after us. It is for us to "rest in the Lord," who has not promised to order and overrule all things for our glory or happiness, but who will surely order and overrule them for the advancement of his kingdom and the honor of his Name. - T.
Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me. Solomon's life was complete from the naturalistic standpoint. He sought pleasure with a zest we should condemn as licence nowadays, but which the spirit of those times was accustomed to count lawful, at least for kings. And more than that, he gave himself to great and imposing enterprises, diligently seeking the welfare of his people as well as his own personal and family aggrandizement. And yet work upon an unspiritual plane of ideas could not altogether satisfy him. He had an unhappy forecast of pending changes, for Rehoboam was not an ideal youth. He already seems to be hearing the cry, "The king is dead: long live the king!" And how sick at heart he feels as all the signs seem to show that the new king will be an iconoclast, a reactionary, a fool, or at least a man who does not think in the same groove as his predecessor! But this heartsick pessimism, like the same temper everywhere, was misjudging. That which was ignoble in his work perished, and deserved to perish. His heart-ache, as he thought of how much in the schemes he had tried to carry out would be altered by his successors, was relevant only to the lower ranges of his work. But the royal preacher was thinking not so much of his work as of himself. He wanted to invest his own dead hand with perpetual power; but that is not permitted to the best of the children of men. in this lament we can find traces of self-idolatry, and self-idolatry is allied with contempt of our fellows and disbelief of the living God.I. THIS TEMPER REPRESENTS THE MOOD OF ONE WHO IS DOING MUCH OF HIS WORK UNDER THE UNWHOLESOME STIMULUS OF PRIDE AND AMBITION. Why should even Solomon flatter himself that all his works were so perfect that they were beyond the need of modification and readjustment? There were wise men before him, and wise men were destined to come after him, and he had contemporaries who, if not equalling him in the range of his knowledge, had at least kept them. selves from plunging into the same abysses of folly and self-indulgence; and yet the great king was under the impression that he was probably the last of the sages, and that the distinguished race would vanish at his own funeral. We know now how groundless his assumption was; for in every age the world has had in it men whose gifts, acquisitions, and practical sagacity have far outmatched those of this much-bepraised king, who was sybarite as well as sage, and who, through untempered success, over-deep draughts of intoxicating flattery, and polygamistic animalism, was spoiled into an ignoble old age. The man who looks upon life from Solomon's standpoint has obviously set his heart upon achieving what will be an enduring monument of his own reputation, and, like the Pyramids, which defend nothing, shelter nothing, protect nothing, teach nothing, will immortalize, in an indestructible edifice of colossal barrenness, the faded empire of a royal mummy. The vain man wants to do something that will be sacred from the hands of the would-be reformer, or it will be no true tribute to his infallibility. Why should posterity, out of mere respect for us, refrain from trying to improve upon our work? Men are sent into the world in ever fresh tides of young hope and vitality to help the common good of the race, and not to be our minions and. satellites. Others may succeed in cultivating finer blooms to put into our gardens, trees of nobler stature to adorn our parks, herbs of more medicinal virtue to plant in our fields: in substituting rarer and more translucent stones for the crude add unwrought material with which we reared temples and palaces. II. THIS UTTERANCE IMPLIED AN UNGRACIOUS DISDAIN OF THE MEN WHO WERE SHORTLY TO STEP INTO POWER. Of all men in the world Solomon ought not to have been hard upon the fools. He had not uniformly set the wisest example in his own person, and the luxurious harems he had acclimatized upon Jewish soil were not likely to be schools of the sublimest philosophy and breeding-places of the most stalwart virtue. And in a lukewarm and unspiritual state of society an evil prophecy of this sort always tends to fulfil itself. Not to trust those who are around us, and who expect to take up our work, is just the way to corrupt and demoralize them. The effect is the same as that produced by the suspicious head of a household who keeps every cheap trifle under lock and key. The mistrust of posterity is, perhaps, a meaner and a more wicked thing than the mistrust of our contemporaries, for posterity cannot speak for itself and lift up its voice in protest against this unjust and wholesale condemnation. We do our utmost to imperil our own work, when we assume that no one will be fit to carry it on after the sceptre has fallen from our lifeless grasp. III. THIS TEMPER OF SOUL IMPLIES A GLOOMY VIEW OF THE FUTURE OF THE HUMAN RACE. The wise man lacked faith in humanity and its unknown possibilities, lacked that faith which it was the specific intention of the promise made to his forefathers to produce. To his own complacent estimate it seemed that the race had touched the high-water mark of intelligence and character in himself, and that now the inevitable decline must begin. How lure, riot in faith to Samuel, and Elijah, and Elisha, who nurtured schools for the future prophets, and who, in spite of the stern work they had to do, turned an undespairing outlook upon the future. Jesus and His apostles expected unbroken files of sowers and reapers to co-operate with each other and to carry on the victorious work of the kingdom to the end of time. The Church could not fail, although the gates of hell might send forth red-hot torrents of rage and opposition; and the lineage of godly and discerning workers would never be cut off root and branch, like the house of Eli. If we think, and speak, and act as though future workers would spring up and worthily carry on our modest beginnings, unborn and ungrown generations will respond to our confidence, and we shall not lack men to stand before the Lord in our room for ever. The man is both an atheist and a hater of his kind who asserts that the world is moving backward into the abyss of barbarism and folly. IV. THIS TEMPER INDICATES A DEEP AND OMINOUS LACK OF RELIGIOUS FAITH. He who speaks in any such strain has for the time being lost faith in the providential sovereignty of God. There is a touch of Manichaeism in this heartsick pessimism. It sees a mere Puck installed over the universe and clothed with infinite attributes, satisfying his soul with mischief, and encouraging the fools who make havoc with the achievements of the wise. All such vapourings show that there is a heathen or an infidel half in our personalities, sadly needing to be exorcised so that we may become sane, and useful, and happy men. Faith in God is one with the gift of prophecy; and if this royal preacher had always stirred up the gift which was in him, he would have felt how all that was best in his work would be preserved through apparent decline and reaction, till at last one wiser and greater than Solomon had appeared, to gather up into His plans all the true and unselfish work of the past, and to fulfil the fair and holy dreams of the world's ardent youth. V. THIS UNHAPPY, CORROSIVE TEMPER MAY EAT INTO OUR HEARTS, NOT SO MUCH BECAUSE WE REPUDIATE THE DOCTRINE OF GOD'S PROVIDENTIAL SOVEREIGNTY, BUT BECAUSE WE ARE NOT LIVING AND WORKING IN HIGH HARMONY WITH HIS COUNSELS. In catering so lavishly for his own lusts and luxuries, this king was doing his own will and work, rather than God's, and it may have been the appointed penalty of his ornate selfishness that fools should make havoc of his accomplished dreams just as soon as he had passed away. He speaks of parks, pleasure gardens, fountains, artificial lakes, palace orchestras, fortune making, personal enrichment, material aggression. It is true there was a point at which he became patriotic, and sought his people's prosperity; but that seems to have been his second thought rather than his first. And this policy of self-aggrandize-ment was identified with foreign marriages and heathen coalitions, which had such a demoralizing effect upon his own successors and the nation at large, and which prepared the way for the schisms and tragic apostasies of the coming times. .If we cherish no higher views of life, we cannot fairly count upon the good offices of Divine Providence in protecting our enterprise from the pranks of fools. What right has that man to look for the enduring blessing of God who chooses his tasks in selfishness and pride? Let our work be holy, unselfish, spiritual, and God will accept it as a sacrifice for Himself, and preserve it in the unknown future from violation; for the sons of light, seen by the seer of Patmos, who compass the divine altar in heaven, hover in their strong ministries about every altar upon earth where lies the accepted oblation of unselfish toil. (Thomas G. Selby.) People Argob, SolomonPlaces JerusalemTopics Acting, Control, Effort, Fool, Foolish, Fruit, Knoweth, Labor, Labored, Labour, Laboured, Master, Meaningless, Myself, Poured, Power, Purpose, Rule, Shewed, Showed, Shown, Skill, Toiled, Vanity, Wherein, Whether, Wisdom, Wise, Wisely, YetOutline 1. the vanity of human courses is the work of pleasure12. Though the wise be better than the fool, yet both have one event 18. The vanity of human labor, in leaving it they know not to whom 24. Nothing better than joy in our labor but that is God's gift Dictionary of Bible Themes Ecclesiastes 2:19 5831 depression Library Of Spiritual AridityOf Spiritual Aridity Though God hath no other desire than to impart Himself to the loving soul that seeks Him, yet He frequently conceals Himself that the soul may be roused from sloth, and impelled to seek Him with fidelity and love. But with what abundant goodness doth He recompense the faithfulness of His beloved? And how sweetly are these apparent withdrawings of Himself succeeded by the consoling caresses of love? At these seasons we are apt to believe, either that it proves our fidelity, and … Madame Guyon—A Short and Easy Method of Prayer A Prayer for Cleansing of the Heart and for Heavenly Wisdom Chronology of the Life of Ephraim. Introduction to the "Theological" Orations. But Now I Will Proceed with what I have Begun... Whether the Church Observes a Suitable Rite in Baptizing? A Discourse of the House and Forest of Lebanon The Eternity of Heaven's Happiness. The Outbreak of the Arian Controversy. The Attitude of Eusebius. Paul's Missionary Labors. James the Brother of the Lord. "And These Things Write we unto You, that Your Joy May be Full. " The Life, as Amplified by Mediaeval Biographers. "For to be Carnally Minded is Death; but to be Spiritually Minded is Life and Peace. " Lii. Concerning Hypocrisy, Worldly Anxiety, Watchfulness, and his Approaching Passion. Messiah's Easy Yoke There is a Blessedness in Reversion The Hindrances to Mourning Exhortations to those who are Called Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners Or, a Brief Relation of the Exceeding Mercy of God in Christ, to his Poor Servant, John Bunyan Christ's Prophetic Office The Comforts Belonging to Mourners Ecclesiastes Links Ecclesiastes 2:19 NIVEcclesiastes 2:19 NLT Ecclesiastes 2:19 ESV Ecclesiastes 2:19 NASB Ecclesiastes 2:19 KJV Ecclesiastes 2:19 Bible Apps Ecclesiastes 2:19 Parallel Ecclesiastes 2:19 Biblia Paralela Ecclesiastes 2:19 Chinese Bible Ecclesiastes 2:19 French Bible Ecclesiastes 2:19 German Bible Ecclesiastes 2:19 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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