The purpose of the book of Ecclesiastes is to show that life apart from God is meaningless. The author of the book (unknown for sure) takes every pleasure possible in life to examine them and then ends each with emptiness or vanity or meaningless. Apart from God is loss.
Apart from God all is loss
There is no meaning...all is dross
Only with God as King can we obtain
A place to stand to escape the stain
Of repeating that the world is vain
Vanity, in translated Hebrew, means Abel (huh...interesting!). Primarily though, it means air or breath or wind...the idea is that it leaves no real result behind and it is here and gone quickly. All works on earth can be applied to vanity.
Ecclesiastes 12:13 shows us where we will end up, but we must see and understand while reading this book that if you do not set your eyes always on God through this book you will end up in the pit of despair. It will be dark and without any meaning.
The world we live in is one that looks (and does not find) meaning. We find dark practices (drugs, for instance) to try and find that meaning somewhere. But we are seeking meaning in life apart from God and Scripture. We set up our own truth with no real foundation. People don't want to see truth or any standard from God or Scripture so that makes it more difficult.
What the author seeks to do is reduce man's truth and meaning to show its emptiness and worthlessness to then end and say, "This is dark, empty, and without meaning...BUT...with God we have truth, meaning, and a real purpose." Christians know God defines all meaning...He is our great north star: without Him...take away the God of the Bible and we are lost.
We cannot hope to find truth within ourselves. God is the one who gives meaning and truth. The author of this book knows how to work: by planting a nuclear bomb to blow a destructive man's world to pieces...to throw them to darkness...so that the light, truth, and meaning with God can shine through all the more. It is the approach where all you do is focus on all negative..all is vanity...all is empty...all is meaningless.
Wisdom, pleasure, work, advancement, riches, and many other things are meaningless. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, but also the beginning of meaning. Those subjects I mentioned will be spoken on in coming weeks...all from the book of Ecclesiastes.
Fearing God, finding meaning, and obeying God's law are the three points of this book. They are all inseparable and they all relate to one another. Fear God! Find meaning! Obey God! Ecclesiastes 12:13. I am the Way, Truth, and Life... Christ and His law are the only way with light, foundation and meaning.
The fear of God is more of how we as sinners might soil the name of God with our sin and shame. That is what the fear of God really should be.
We should pray that we do not become too comfortable with God...rather we remember how God is great and powerful...how awe-inspiring. If we fear God, we can have great assurance of finding solid meaning in life. One of those ways of fearing God is to pray to see how majestic He is and how lowly and simple we are.
Suicide is a life lived apart from God. If you find no purpose and meaning in life, then there really should be meaning to live or not. Suicide is supposed to be an action of power, when in reality, it is an act of despair and hopelessness. A life apart from God is hopeless and dark...despair and sorrow. Any life apart from God is no life and you might as well kill yourself. You are living a dead life as it is.
The other side to this, is the fact that Christians have great meaning and purpose along with a great foundation by which we live by. We have truth and a filling up within ourselves...we are not empty.
So either your life is one of despair, darkness, gloom, and ultimately a death life...or a life of light, joy, peace, truth, meaning, purpose, and salvation.
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