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| “…no one can contend with someone who is stronger.” |
| —Ecclesiastes 6:10b |
Have you been thinking along with King Solomon as you have read the last more than two dozen blog posts? In other words, have you tried to imagine what life would be like without God? That’s what Solomon is doing at the end of his life.
Solomon has acquired great wisdom, knowledge, and understanding because these critically important qualities have come to him as precious gifts from God. He is using these gifts to examine what it must be like for those who reject God and attempt to live their lives without God’s divine Presence.
Notice what this wise King writes, as recorded in Ecclesiastes 6:7-12:
Everyone’s toil is for their mouth, yet their appetite is never satisfied. What advantage have the wise over fools? What do the poor gain by knowing how to conduct themselves before others? Better what the eye sees than the roving of the appetite. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
Whatever exists has already been named, and what humanity is has been known; no one can contend with someone who is stronger. The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?
For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?
Here Solomon acknowledges that, from his vantage point, it is impossible for humans to deal with the impact of sin in their lives without the power of God to overcome the temptations that flow out of that sin. In his phrase, “no one can contend with someone who is stronger,” Solomon recognizes that it is impossible for humans to overcome the lure of temptations without God’s help.
As we begin a new day, it is appropriate for us to ask God to guard our hearts and minds from temptation and to empower us to stand firm against the relentless tug of sin on our lives. Only God can shield us from the draw that sin has on our lives.
Even in our state as sinners washed in the blood of the Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, we still bear within us the sin nature we inherited from Adam through our parents. That sin nature is always calling us back to a state where we will be enslaved by our already-forgiven sins. It takes courage and determination on our part to rest in the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit and, by His power, resist the temptation to sin.
Can humans live genuinely fulfilling lives without God? Of course they can’t. And, that is exactly King Solomon’s point. But, in his quest to disclose this reality, Solomon presses onward. And, so will we, as we follow the trail he lays out before us in this interesting and unique Book of Ecclesiastes.
