REDUNDANCY = superfluous repetition; an act of needless repetition.

As we began our look into this book of Ecclesiastes, we noted some things about it. On the surface it seems to be a very negative and depressing book. The writer, Solomon, holds a view of life that says, “All is vanity.” He claims there is no value in wealth (although God had made him wealthy), wisdom (God had given him wisdom), and all our works. Then, we considered the vantage point from which Solomon is looking at life. It is “under the sun.” This is a purely humanistic point of view which discounts God, Jesus, the Bible, Heaven, etc. And this sounds so much like the attitude from which so many view life today. We are also aware that God, through the Holy Spirit, led Solomon to write this book. One might wonder why when its contents are so seemingly negative and even depressing. It is seen as a warning, especially to God’s people, to hold a proper view of life, to know that there is something and Someone “over the sun,” and He rules that which is “under the sun.” In order to show that this is the attitude of many today (especially many young people) let me tell you about a contest at a college for the students to give their best definitions of life. Here are some of those definitions: One college student wrote, "Life is a joke that isn't even funny" ; another wrote, "Life is a jail sentence we get for the crime of being born"; another said, "Life is a disease for which the only cure is death." Author Erma Bombeck once said, "If life is a bowl of cherries, why do I always get the pits?" Shakespeare wrote: “Out, Out, brief candle, Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury.” Ecclesiastes is essentially Solomon’s memoir – an autobiographical account of what he learned from his futile attempt to live without God. G. Campbell Morgan wrote, “This man (Solomon) had been living through all these experiences ‘under the sun’ concerned with nothing above the sun . . . It is only as a man takes account of that which is over the sun as well as that which is under the sun that things under the sun are seen in their true light.” Ecclesiastes reads like today’s newspaper. Solomon writes about: 1) Injustice to the poor in chapter 4 (1-3) ; 2) Crooked politics in chapter 5 (vs. 8) ; Materialism in chapter 5 (vs. 10) ; Guilty people being allowed to commit more crime in chapter 8 (vs. 11) ; And incompetent leaders in chapter 10 (vv. 6-7). Forbes Magazine devoted its seventy-fifth anniversary issue to a single topic: “Why we feel so bad when we have it so good.” Noting that Americans live better than any other people on the planet, they asked, “Why then are we so depressed?” Solomon determines that the vanity of living life “under the sun” can easily be seen in what some call nature. So we see that:

I. SOLOMON SAW THE REDUNDANCY OF LIFE – VV. 4-8. (LIFE IS UNORIGINAL AND REPETITIVE.)

II. SOLOMON SENSED THE REDUNDANCY OF LIFE – VS. 8. (LIFE IS UNSATISFYING AND WE ARE UNSATISFIED.)

III. SOLOMON STATED THE REDUNDANCY OF LIFE – VV. 9-11. (LIFE OFFERS NOTHING NEW)