Chuck Larsen

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 speaks to us of life in general. There is a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, a time to die, a time to laugh, a time to cry, etc. As the Soap Opera puts it, “These are the times of our lives.” Bill Medley sang about having the time of our lives in Dirty Dancing. Miley Cyrus named her hit album in 2009 “The Time of Our Lives.” The chorus of Miley’s song goes like this, “Let’s have the time of our lives! Like there’s no one else around. Just throw your hands up high. Even when they try to take us down, let’s have the time of our lives till the lights burn out. Let’s laugh until we cry. Life is only what you make it now. Let’s have the time of our lives!” Miley has made it fairly clear to the younger generation that we should abandon the old moral value structure of those who would want to “hold us down.” We should let go and take all the pleasure we can no matter where it can be found just as if “there’s no one else around.”

Miley promotes a system as old as Genesis 3. It looks good, it feels good, and it tastes good; therefore, it must be good. Hedonism is the oldest rationale for sin. In the Epic tale of Gilgamesh, from before the days of Abraham from Ur, we read, “Fill your belly. Day and night make merry. Let days be full of joy. Dance and make music day and night […] These things alone are the concern of men.” The first problem with this philosophy is that it doesn’t work. Solomon tried Miley’s life philosophy. Even as wealthy and famous as she has become, Solomon had more! No one had what he had; all of it was like “trying to catch the wind.” All of it is “vanity of vanities.” It will not bring true happiness in life. Solomon’s conclusion about eating, drinking, and joy in our work had a condition. True happiness, meaning, and joy can only be found when we acknowledge that there is always someone else around.

The Gilgamesh Epic is wrong also; these things are not only the “concerns of men.” It is a concern of God as well. It doesn’t always look like it, but there are a lot of things under the sun that aren’t exactly as they seem. The wisdom literature from the Far East asks the question, “if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make any sound?” A Poem written a hundred years ago from a preacher (Ronald Knox) answers that question from Solomon’s perspective. There was a young man who said, “God Must think it exceedingly odd if he finds that this tree continues to be when there’s no one about in the Quad.” The Reply: Dear Sir, your astonishment’s odd: I am always about in the Quad. And that’s why the tree will continue to be, since observed by yours faithfully, GOD.” According to the wisest man to have ever lived, it’s only when God has His rightful place in our lives that true happiness and joy can be experienced in this life. Jesus wants us to have “the time of our lives.” In John 10:10, he tells us that He came that we might have “life in its fullest.”

Many years ago, Kathy and I read Don Richardson’s “Peace Child.” It’s about the Sawi Tribe in Dutch New Guinea. In 1950, these people were cannibalistic headhunters who were almost perpetually at war with neighboring tribes. But they had a sacred ritual whenever peace was to be made. The chief’s own son would be offered to the other tribe as a “Peace child.” Richardson used this ritual to explain how God sent His own son to earth to guarantee peace between man and God. Richardson began to wonder if every tribe had some cultural connection with the Gospel. He traveled far and wide, seeking out remote places and peoples and studying their cultures. Without exception, he found some story, practice, or something to connect with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

According to Phil Ryken, “He discovered that many people groups—both ancient and modern—have partial knowledge of religious truth. Whether these beliefs come from what God has revealed in creation or remnants of a faith passed down since Biblical times, they bear witness to God and the gift of his atoning grace. Richardson tells the story of the Inca king who rejected the sun god Inti in favor of an older and greater deity—the life-giving and merciful Viracocha, who dwells in uncreated light. He gives examples of tribes like the Karen people of Burma, who had legends of a lost book that one day the Supreme God Y’wa would send to set them free from oppression. He even describes tribal rituals that make atonement for sin. For example, one day every year, the Dyaks of Borneo put their sins on a little boat and sail it down the river—a “scapegoat,” so to speak.”

Don Richardson argues that all of his research and discoveries worldwide illustrate the truth of Ecclesiastes 3:11. The first part of Ecclesiastes chapter 3 deals with the times of our lives. There is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to love and a time to hate, a time to laugh and a time to cry, etc. After Solomon lays out the opposite events in our lives “under the sun” in Ecclesiastes 3:11 he moves from time to eternity and says, “God has put eternity in man’s heart.” We are all born with an intuitive grasp that there must be something beyond this life under the sun. We are born with longings that nothing on earth will satisfy. Therefore, as C. S. Lewis has so aptly suggested, we were made for another world. David Jeremiah’s commentary on Ecclesiastes is entitled “Searching for Heaven on Earth.” Solomon’s search was frustrated, a vanity of vanities or an attempt to catch the wind. Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you, and I will return to take you to be with me.” (See John 14:1-3)