"NO PROGRESS"

 

A Sermon on Ecclesiastes 1:9-10, 3:14-15, & 6:10-11

 

September 29, 2002

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Rev. Stephen C. Magee

Exeter Presbyterian Church

 

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"NO PROGRESS"

Ecclesiastes 1:9-10, 3:14-15, & 6:10-11

 

Introduction:  The Success Cult - Progress Under the Sun

 

            There is a success cult that we can so easily fit into.  It seems so normal to us.  It has as its creed three illusions: Profit, Progress, and Legacy.  According to this false religion we are to order our lives with these priorities.  We are to chase profit, chase progress, and chase a legacy.  And we are weary running after these illusions.

            When I graduated from Business School in 1981, I went to work with a small, up-and-coming, cutting-edge business strategy consulting firm.  They had a new technique of strategy analysis that was better than the rest, and they promised to create wealth for stockholders if their technique was followed.  It was a good system, that was technically a cut above the competition.  I remember my first few days in June of 1981 working for this exciting firm.  I had a conversation with one of the associates who had started the year before.  He said to me that he was convinced that Boston Consulting Group - the industry leader in our field at the time - was using outdated strategy analysis techniques.  They were the firm of the seventies, but we would be the firm of the eighties.

            It does seem a little funny to me now in 2002 to hear my children talk about the eighties as if it was ancient history.  "Dad, that is so eighties."  Some of the men I worked with in 1981 are still with the firm - which weathered some storms - but seems to be doing very well.  The man who assured me that we were to be the firm of the eighties left the next year to open up a sandwich shop in Seattle.  I remember joking with him when we heard the news of his departure that he would be able to use the financial techniques that we had learned to determine whether the return on equity was higher for egg salad sandwiches or for roast beef, and to adjust the menu accordingly.  I don't know where he is today.  I received a notice last year about another man who had joined the firm at the same time I did.  He had passed away.  No one could have predicted that I would be hear speaking before you from the Scriptures. 

            Hear God's word to you this morning from the book of Ecclesiastes:

 

   TEXT:  Ecclesiastes 1:9-10, 3:14-15 and 6:10-11

 

1:1 Prologue

 

    1:2 Motto

 

        [1:3-3:8   Cycle 1   The Problem of Work and Wisdom]

...             1:9 That which has been is what will be,

                That which is done is what will be done,

                And there is nothing new under the sun.

                10 Is there anything of which it may be said,

                "See, this is new"?

                It has already been in ancient times before us....

 

        [3:9-6:6   Cycle 2   Work in Fear Before God Whose Work Endures]

...             3:14 I know that whatever God does,

                It shall be forever.

                Nothing can be added to it,

                And nothing taken from it.

                God does it, that men should fear before Him.

                15 That which is has already been,

                And what is to be has already been;

                And God requires an account of what is past....

 

        [6:7-12:7 Cycle 3   Wisdom in Humility Before God Whose Wisdom is Unfathomable]

...             6:10 Whatever one is, he has been named already,

                For it is known that he is man;

                And he cannot contend with Him who is mightier than he.

                11 Since there are many things that increase vanity,

                How is man the better?...

 

    12:8 Motto

 

12:9-14 Epilogue

 

Problem:  NO PROGRESS

 

            You may remember that this book is structured with three major cycles, each of which begin with a comment on the topics of PROFIT, PROGRESS, and LEGACY.  This week we consider together the three passages that leave us with this statement of the problem of the human condition.  There is no progress under the sun - that is in this world of common grace and common curse after the fall of humanity.

 

The Assumption of Societal Progress Questioned

 

            It is one of the unquestioned assumptions of our era that we make continual progress.  We are not entirely sure what we are progressing toward - but we are sure we are making progress.  We are sure that we are the source of many new things.  We are sure that our technologies and techniques are new, our ideas are new, and that we ourselves are new - the result of the unquestioned flow of the broad river of progress.

            Our technologies and techniques are new and better, we think.  We have new ways of accomplishing things in business, in government, in our personal lives, and in the church.  And we are sure that it is all for the good.  Don't you think that it is striking that with all of our progress that it now seems to take two incomes to live the good life rather than one - that with our time-saving devices that we are all so busy - that with all of our entertainment technology and investment that so many are so distressed and depressed?  Are things truly better?  Isn't it striking that every progress of technology comes with some cost - perhaps in what would have been thought to be a peripheral area - and coming in such a way that could not really have been anticipated?

            Yesterday I had a great conversation with a man in the printing and copying business.  He has no choice but to try to keep up with technological "progress."  But the pace of change is so swift, that he has not been able to pay for the latest equipment that he needed to buy, before something else comes out that he absolutely must have in order to stay competitive.  Is this really progress, or is it simply a vanity that we cannot figure out how to escape?  There have always been people trying to figure out how to do things better and cheaper, and there have always been people still dealing with scarcity, indebtedness, and misery of all varieties.

            Surely our ideas are new.  It is with our new ideas that we generated the new technology.  And the new idea of course was better than the old idea.  That was how it replaced the old idea, so that we could make progress in some way, ending up with a life that had just the same kind of struggles that people have dealt with for centuries.  It all makes sense, does it not?

            But we are sure that we are new.  There has never been anyone else quite like us.  We are better than those who came before us, as is proved by the fact that we have come up with all these ideas, that have generated such marvelous technologies and techniques that have resulted in a better life for everyone, though we may feel poorer, and less satisfied.  Oh well.

 

Nothing New

 

            In the face of the unquestioned assumption of societal progress, the author of this book says that there is nothing new under the sun.  How could this be?

            We focus on the incidentals.  The incidentals have changed, but the human predicament is the same.  Furthermore we are quite confused between the incidentals and the essentials of life.  We think that the incidentals are the essentials, which would not be so bad for us, were it not for this additional fact:  We think the essentials are incidentals.  We are sure that everything is new and better around us because there is so many perishable possessions that are smaller, faster, and cheaper.  Yet these "new" things are incidentals, that are not really about the essence of life.  People in nursing homes know this, but we who are up and about are easily deceived by the illusion of great progress.  Meanwhile the essentials: our condition before an eternal God, our obedience to His revealed will, our love for Him, and our sacrificial love for one another, our investment in the kingdom through family health and church faithfulness - all these things we can so quickly view as incidentals - and we are just so happy to find a better toaster.  Although I must confess that this one particular eludes me.  I cannot find a reasonable toaster.

 

Can Man Contend with God?

 

            How could it be that we are in this condition?  We must see that we live in this world which still exists by common grace - sunlight - rain - food in season - marriage - children - homes, but that common grace is not the only common thing.  We also live, after the fall of Adam in a world of common curse, a world full of things that are fleeting, a world where the human predicament is unchanged - a world where we work to keep up with the pace of what seems to be change (and we must do this) and yet at the end of the day - in terms of what really matters we are no better off.  We are in the same human predicament.

            We are yet mortal.  We will not make gradual progress toward immortality.  We are under the common curse of God.  I mentioned nursing homes earlier.  I find them to be places of strange sanity.  Let me also mention funeral parlors.  They are places where we wake up from the thick mists of this world's illusive progress.  This week we buried the remains of a father of a member of this congregation.  Among others, I extended my condolences to a man who had been a friend of the deceased for over fifty years.  This is the ultimate moment that our earthly life is moving toward - our death - our own death and the death of others we love.

            It is in the nursing home and the funeral parlor, where humanity must come to grips with a very important question that we try to ignore in our pride and foolishness.  "Can a man contend with God."  Can we contend with the One who subjected this creation to futility and vanity?  This is the ultimate consideration and humility-producer.  But you need not wait until the sick bed reaches for you, before you consider the dilemma of the human predicament.

 

The Work of Seeking Wisdom - Increasing Vanity - How is Man Better?

 

            You can deal with it also in the schoolroom, the work place, and the study.  As you seek wisdom and growth in understanding of this created order, you must deal with the issues of complexity and unity.  The more that you seek knowledge you will see the complexity of the subject matter that you investigate.  Yet also you will yearn for some way to make sense of the whole, and to take the endless bits of complexity and to order and understand them in such a way that the whole is visible to you.  Yet your condition as a creature is limited.  You cannot see all, and the more that you seek to understand, your apprehension of the vanity of the endeavor grows, as the specifics and particulars of the fleeting world vanish and perish, and you yourself head toward the place of death.  How is man better, even through this quest for knowledge - which we yet must partake in.  Vanity of vanities.  All is vanity.

 

Solution:

 

1.  The Eternal Nature of God

 

            God has a purpose in all of this.  We find it in the central passage, and in the central phrase of that central passage:  "God does it that men should fear before Him."  There is a solution for us in the perfections of Almighty God.  He alone is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.  He knows the beginning from the end, and He knows what He is doing with you.  God is perfect and complete in His essence.

 

2.  The Solid Works of God

 

            In addition, His works are perfect and complete.  Everything that we do falls far short of completeness and perfection.  Think of the challenge that you face in simply keeping one business or household going.  You may be trying to fix just one person, or provide for one family, or keep one business alive and prosperous.  You are probably weighed down with the burden of just this.  But now imagine if your duties were doubled.  It would perhaps be beyond your ability to handle.  Yet consider the perfect work of our God who creates and provides for everything.  He has planned out all concerning all His creatures and all their actions.  And He is redeeming His children through the blood of His Son.  It is His plan that the environment within which that great redemption is worked is an environment of common grace and common curse.  Yes, God does all of this.

 

3.  The Fear of God

 

            "God does it" the text says.  Does what?  He sustains a world of no progress - a world of nothing new under the sun - a world where we can not make progress unto eternal life through our own efforts.  He does this for a purpose.  "That men should fear before Him."  By the futility of our efforts we are made to see the human condition for what it is on this point.  There is no progress.  And then, as we give up on our own abilities and efforts, we are then brought to the fear of the Lord.  We are brought to give up our pride and our foolishness, and to  take Him seriously as God

            I urge you this morning to commit yourself to Him and to find all the progress that your heart yearns for in His settled perfections.

 

Conclusion:  Christ Our Progress

 

            All of this success has been displayed for you perfectly in Christ.  He is our Progress.  I, once again, call you this morning to enter into the entire and eternal praise of God through Christ and His perfections, rather than through your own progress.  It is through Him, that your labor of work and wisdom in the Lord is not in vain.

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