Jottings

by J Miller | Category: General | Jun 1950

The word labour is found more often in the book of Eceles'iastes than in any other book in the Bible; indeed it may be regarded as the key word of that book.

Eccles'iastes may be viewed as giving an answer to the ques'tion contained in ehapter I - 8: "What profit bath man of all his labour wherein he laboureth under the sun?" The writer is Solomon and he writes under the name of " the

Preacher, the Son of David king in Jerusa'lem" (verse 1). In his book he takes' upon himself to answer his 'own question as to man's profit from his labour. He looks abroad on things of nature which do not come within man's control, to the coming and going of human generations the rising and setting of the sun, the wind in its circuits, the rivers and the sea', and he concludes' that "all things are fuli of weariness; man cannot utter it"

Then he turns to man and he says "It is a sore travail that Cod hath given to the sons of man to be exercised th'erewith. I have seen all the wor~ that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind" (chapter 1. 13, 14).

Who can doubt this? This sore travail is the result of the divine sentence on Adam and all his posterity in the day of his sin and fall:

"And uldo Adam He sai4, Because thou hast hearkened unto~the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree ofwhishl commanded thee sayzug, Thou shalt noteatof it : cursed is the ground forthy sake in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and th'isttes shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eatihe herb ofihefield; in the siceat of thy face shaft thou eat breaol, till thou return ant' the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shaft thou return" (Genes'is 3.17-19).

Here is the "sore travail" which Cod gave to the sons of men. Man has but a modicum of pleasure and a large measure of travail in his eartMy life, and were it not for the glorious life that lies' beyond time for all Cod's redeemed, it would be a debatable question whether it is better to be or not to be.

Solomon had all that a man mav have in this life. He gives a full list of the pleasures of which he tasted in chapter 2. He drank from every cup of human pleasure. Then he took stock of all, and he says, "All was vanity . . . . there was no profit under the sun."

Then he contrasted himself with the fooL Though wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness vet the wise and the foolish would end the same way: both would die, for bo'tli come under the sentence of Genesis 3. So the Preacher said that lie hated life.

He then tarns to what would happen to his labour, wherein he had laboured under the sun, wilen he died His concern was, What sort of man would inherit the fruit of his work? Would he be a wise man or a fool? Mter all the Preacher's skill, would his son scatter what his father gathered? We have only to turn to the tragedy of the uawisdom of Rehoboam, Solomon's son, to see how soon his father's labour was liquidated bv him. No greater tragedy ever befell the people of Israel than that which happened in the beginning of his reign. We are not oblivious of Solomon's own folly in the end of his reign, for it was not then as when he wrote the words of Ecciesiastes' 2.9: "My wisdom remained with me."

Alas, his wisdom went, and in old age his powers of resistance fled before the wily ways of his strange wives, and he was found in idolatry, but Rehoboam added his folly to all that had gone before, and the wreck of a united nation became complete; a wreck never to be salved until Christ unites the divided nation, as

shown in Ezekiel 37. J.M.

Solomon in Ecelesiastes views the labour of man under the sun, so far as anything of abiding profit to the labourer is concerned, as vanity and a striving after wind; but he strikes quite a different note in Proverbs 14.28, where he contrasts labour with talk. He says, "In all labour there is profit: but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury." Human labour, in which so many engage, which is viewed as under the sun, and which does not stand in relation to the life to come, is a vain, empty thing. But there is labour that is profitable. The Lord Jesus, when speaking of sowing and reaping, said, "He that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal; that he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. For herein is the saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye have not laboured:

others have laboured, and ye are entered into their labour" (Jolin 4.86-88).

The long line of faithful prophets stretching back to Moses, and beyond Moses to Abraham and Enoch, all laboured in the light of the coming of Christ. Peter said in the house of Cornelius concerning Christ, "To Him bear all the prophets witness, that through His name every one that believeth on Him shall receive remission of sins" (Acts 10.43). Those dear men, living sometimes in obscurity and in the midst of a perverse people, bore testimony to the One who was coming. They laboured in the work of sowing the good seed of God's word. It may have seemed to them that the harvest was long in coming, stili they laboured on in the spirit of the words of Paul, when he said, "In due se~'on we shall reap, if we faint not" (Galatians 6.9). Habakkuk caught the strain of those words in his prophecy, when, concerning the vision of the coming Christ (compare Habakkuk 2.8, 4 with Hebrews 10.87), he said, "Thongh it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not delay (or tarry)." The prophets laboured, then Christ came, and the apostles entered upon the labours of the prophets. Then the day will come when prophets and apostles shall rejoice together, for their work was truly one.

Who was the one who sowed the seed in the heart of the Samaritan woman?

She had heard from some one, for she bore a clear testimony, "I know that Messiah cometh (which is called Christ): when He is come, He will declare unto us all things" (John 4.25). Here is confidence of no mean order, confidence

not only in the coming of Christ, but also in the minlstry of Christ when He came. "He will declare unto us all things." To such a faith the Lord revealed Himself, as He ever does. Whoever it was that told Samaria's daughter about the Lord, they did a work which in the truest sense fuifilled Solomon's word:

"In all labour there is profit." God is seeking such labourers. Listen to the commending words of Paul

"Solute Tryphen:' and Tryphosa, who labour in the Lord. Salute Persis the beloved, which laboured much in the Lord" (Romans 16.12).

And what can we say of Paul himself than quote his own words as he compares his own work with that of the other apostles?

"I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace

of God which was with me" (1 Corinthians 15.10).

Paul feared the possibility of labouring in vain, in Philippians 2.16, when he exhortetl the Philippians to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling, and that in them God's work might be in evidence as they shone as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life. Those who build in God's house need ever to remember Solomon's words

"Ercept the Loan build the house,

They labour in vain that build it" (Psalm 127.1). J.M.

J Miller | Jun 1950
General