STARVED - HOMELESS - DESPAIRING

STARVED - HOMELESS - DESPAIRING 

"This also is vanity and a striving after wind" Eccles. 2:26

These words occur at the close of a section of the debate, and are a refrain already often repeated. In the first movement, after stating in general terms his conclusion, the Debater elaborated his statement by describing vividly his consciousness of the grind of the material universe (1:4-11). Then he began to mass his evidence in support of his contention that ALL IS VANITY. He first gave his own experience in personal life. He tried KNOWLEDGE, giving himself up to, and a STUDY of “all that is done under heaven”. The result was that he "perceived that this also was a striving after wind" (1:12-18). He gave himself up to PLEASURE, to fun, and found "this also was vanity" (2:1-3). He devoted himself to the AMASSING OF WEALTH and this with conspicuous success, only to look on everything and to discover that "all was vanity and a striving after wind" (2:4-11). He then contemplated life in the light of these disappointments, and came to the material conclusion that "there is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink"; and yet he was forced to admit that "This also is vanity, and a striving after wind." This is indeed graphic literature. It shows us a man, richly endowed in himself, living in the midst of marvelous things, of KNOWLEDGE, of FUN, of WEALTH, of LIFE; giving himself to these things with all the powers of his being—and yet finding nothing in them. He is STARVED, HOMELESS, DESPAIRING. There is a side to life which he is not counting on, or considering. It is the side which is SPIRITUAL, the completion of the sphere OVER THE SUN, above the MATERIAL. Forgetting that, everything is vanity. This is as modern as the weariness of every human soul which seeks KNOWLEDGE, LAUGHTER, WEALTH, and LIFE—AND FORGETS GOD.