studies in ecclesiastes

Studies InEcclesiastes

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Frustration Chapter 6v1-12

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IntroductionIn 1979 upon returning home from service overseas we were greeted with the latest craze to grip the country - the Rubic cube. I guess that if one could calculate the number of man-hours spent on the puzzle they would at least be equivalent to those required to build a modern Jumbo jet aeroplane.

The puzzle guaranteed frustration! And the guarantee held good. It had people tearing their hair out. Frustration is one of the hardest things to come to terms with in life. It is to this area that the writer now turns his attention.

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Frustration And EnjoymentThe writer opens his subject by stating a problem experienced by many people. They discover that their material possessions cannot make them truly happy. Their wealth and honour do not bring enjoyment. Their frustration is exacerbated because other people who share these same benefits appear to them to be the happiest people in the world. The misery of the frustrated man is described by imagining the greatest conceivable blessings of that age. He may have a 100 children and live to a ripe old age but if he is robbed of the ability to enjoy these things he is worse off than a still born child! What a picture!

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Frustration And EnjoymentHow do we explain this frustration? God has withheld from them the capacity or the power to enjoy these gifts v2. Why? He does so because secular man attempts to separate the gift from the giver. He wants to enjoy God's gifts without having God tagging along. He wants happiness but not on God's terms. He wants happiness without holiness. The root meaning of holiness is to be separated to God but he wants to separate himself from God. A wise man once said, "seeking for enjoyment in the context of a godless life is like looking for a needle in a haystack that doesn't have any.“

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Frustration And EnjoymentThe lesson that secular man needs to learn is that God cannot give his happiness and peace apart from himself because it is not there. It is God himself who is the source of true happiness and God's presence in our lives that alone gives us power to enjoy his gifts. This is exactly what the hymn-writer had in mind who wrote;“heaven above is softer blue, earth beneath is sweeter green, something lives in every hue Christless eyes have never seen”.

If secular man could be persuaded to read this book honestly he would be obliged to conclude that his life was a frustrating paradox of ‘desire awakened and desire denied’.

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Frustration And AppetiteThe second area of frustration to be identified is associated with the human appetite cf v7 "all man's efforts are for his mouth".

What a descriptive picture! Can you see the man toiling under the heat of the Eastern midday sun and for what? For food! It brings no satisfaction to him for a number of reasons:

First his appetite is never satisfied! He seems to be doing no more than living his whole life in order to eat. And life is surely more than a big mouth.

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Frustration And AppetitePress the point and ask, what value is there in working all sorts of overtime to afford to go for regular gourmet meals costing £100-150 per person. I used to work beside someone who lived for his appetite. He and his wife would go off every week for gourmet meals to exotic restaurants and on a Monday morning he would tell us he had spent a vast amount of money. But he had to do all sorts of extra work in order to be able to afford it. Now he had the best indulged appetite in the office but no matter how well he looked after his appetite and pampered it on a Saturday night, it was still there on a Sunday morning crying out for more.

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Frustration And AppetiteFinally, the appetite of such a man is never satisfied because he is always looking for some new taste. He is never content with what is before him. And so in v9 the writer says, "better what the eye sees than the roving of the appetite."

We might say, “the grass is always greener on the other side of the field". And what is true with regard to appetite for food in particular is also true of appetites for other things in general. Being a slave to one’s appetite is a frustrating business, it is a chasing after the wind.

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Frustration And DestinyThe next area of frustration to be exposed centres upon man's awareness of his destiny. The frustration of fatalism is seen in v10, "what exists has already been named and what a man is has been known".

Many people believe in kismet or fate, they may say, "What's for you will not go past you". This is both an irresponsible and destructive approach to life. In what way? It locks you into a deterministic universe and erodes the value of choice. It also weakens man’s accountability for his own choices.

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Frustration And DestinyLet me illustrate. God spoke to the child Samuel in the temple. In so doing God bypassed Eli, the backslidden priest. God told Samuel that he intended to judge Eli and his sons for bringing worship to disrepute. The following morning Eli persuaded Samuel to repeat all that God had told him and he discovered that judgement was coming. Then Eli replied, “Let him do what is good in his eyes".

This is not simply acceptance of God’s will. Woven into this response is a fatalism that prevented Eli from crying to God in repentance and asking him to stay his hand of judgment.

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Frustration And DestinyThis ‘whatever will be will be’, fatalism influences many people's religious thinking. To say, ‘If I'm meant to go to heaven I'll get there, if not there's nothing I can do about it’ is not biblical.

The Bible treats us as morally accountable and presents God a one who sets choices before us concerning our allegiance to him.

Remember how Joshua asked God’s people to make a choice, "Choose you this day whom you will serve, as for me and my house we will serve the lord”. Josh.24.15

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Frustration And DestinyThe fruit of fatalistic thinking is found in v10b "no man can contend, no man is stronger than he". Like most error it contains elements of truth. No one is stronger than God but that does not mean that we cannot cling to him for blessing. God encourages such activity. For years Jacob lived independently of God. He trusted in his wits. Then God brought him to an end of himself and to a place of brokenness. In that context Jacob clung to God and cried out, "I will not let you go unless you bless me“ Gen.32.26. God transformed Jacob the twister and made him a prince with God that night! Jacob didn’t succumb to fatalism and reason, ‘whatever will be will be’. Had he done so his life would have been marked by frustration. He learned instead to be an over-comer .

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Frustration And ValueThe final cause of secular man’s frustration relates to his value system cf.12 "who knows what is good for a man in life?" The man who has closed God out of his life has difficulty in measuring goodness for having abandoned God he has nothing absolute to measure goodness against. Built into the wall of the Glasgow City Chamber is a standard measurement. It measures a yard, [no one had dreamt of metrication then]. Its purpose was to provide traders and consumers with a reference point of accurate measurement. If you thought you had been cheated by a trader you measured your purchase against this recognised yardstick. Canny Glaswegians found this tremendously reassuring.

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Frustration And ValueCan we measure moral standards? Where can we can go to make sure that a certain course of behaviour is right. To God who is the measure of morality. His standard is absolute and clearly defined in scripture. But what happens if you close God out and pay no attention to him? Absolute standards are replaced by what is called ‘relative morality’. It tells us that if a thing feels good to do it. If cheating on your husband or wife feels good do it. If stealing from your employer seems good to you do it. If you feel O.K. about lying, do it. But what happens to a society that has no absolute standards as its reference point? We find moral disintegration, decay and a tendency towards anarchy because everyone does what seems good in his own eyes.

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Frustration And ValueWhat would happen if the Government scrapped the highway code and told drivers to behave as they liked? Some would drive on the left others the right. Some would crawl along the motorways others would race through built up areas. The result would be disaster and frustration. If man is to live a life that is not in the constant grip of frustration he needs a standard of reference outside of himself to measure his behaviour against. Who knows what is good for a man in life? God knows! God is safe. God is secure. God's measurements when we use them in our lives are not restrictive but gloriously liberating from all that is frustrating. Even death is not viewed as frustrating for God too is able to tell man [v12b] what will happen to him after death!

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ConclusionFor many people life is like a Rubic cube. A puzzle to which they can find no solution, a source of frustration. They have a sense of destiny yet feel destiny has passed them by! That intensifies their frustration. In Pilgrim's Progress we find a man with the muck rake who is raking around in the muck looking for an answer. The more he rakes the more frustrated he becomes. But he was looking in the wrong place for just behind and above him is an angel messenger offering him a crown of life that he didn't see. Are you looking for answers to life in the wrong place. The lines of a well known Christian chorus point us to Jesus, None but Christ can satisfy none other name for me,There's love and life and lasting joy Lord Jesus found in thee. Have you discovered fullness of life as it is found in Christ?

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