Ecclesiastes 5:1-20

Ecclesiastes 3:1

A profound gloom rests on the second act or section of this drama. It teaches us that we are helpless in the iron grip of laws which we had no voice in making; that we often lie at the mercy of men whose mercy is but a caprice; that in our origin and end, in body and spirit, in faculty and prospect, in our lives and pleasures, we are no better than the beasts that perish; that the avocations into which we plunge, amid which we seek to forget our sad estate, spring from our jealousy the one of the other, and tend to a lonely miserliness, without a use or a charm.

I. The Preacher's handling of this subject is very thorough and complete. According to him, men's excessive devotion to affairs springs from "a jealous rivalry the one with the other;" it tends to form in them a grasping, covetous temper which can never be satisfied, to produce a materialistic scepticism of all that is noble and spiritual in thought and action, to render their worship formal and insincere, and in general to incapacitate them for any quiet, happy enjoyment of their life. This is his diagnosis of their disease.

II. But what checks, what correctives, what remedies, would the Preacher have us apply to the diseased tendencies of the time? How shall men of business save themselves from that excessive devotion to its affairs which breeds so many portentous evils? (1) The very sense of the danger to which they are exposed a danger so insidious, so profound, so fatal should surely induce caution and a wary self-control. (2) The Preacher gives us at least three serviceable maxims. To all men of business conscious of their special dangers and anxious to avoid them he says, (a) Replace the competition which springs from your jealous rivalry with the co-operation which is born of sympathy and breeds goodwill. (b) Replace the formality of your worship with a reverent and steadfast sincerity. (c) Replace your grasping self-sufficiency with a constant holy trust in the fatherly providence of God.

S. Cox, The Quest of the Chief Good,p. 140.

References: Ecclesiastes 3:2. G. Dawson, Sermons on Daily Life and Duty,p. 277; J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College,vol. i., p. 57. Ecclesiastes 3:4. J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. iv., p. 334; W. Braden, Christian World Pulpit,vol. ix., p. 81; G. Rogers, Ibid.,vol. xxviii., p. 91.Ecclesiastes 3:6. S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches,p. 107. Ecclesiastes 3:7. A. A. Bonar, Contemporary Pulpit,vol. i., p. 123.Ecclesiastes 3:9. R. Buchanan, Ecclesiastes: its Meaning and Lessons,p. 107.