This week, I spoke with a gentlemen who was frustrated at life. He feels like he's wasted so much time pursuing riches, a partying life, and women. Reflecting on it, he feels like a failure.
Didn't King David and Saul and Solomon have a bunch of wives and wealth?
I reminded him that King David was broken about his sin.
Saul ended up taking his own life.
and Solomon? He wrote Ecclesiastes. In order to help us understand this last part of John 6, a quick glimpse of Ecclesiastes gives great insight.
From what we know, evidence strongly suggests that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes. It is later on in his life as he reflects back on his reign.
Ecc 1:14, "I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind."
Ecc 2:11, "Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun."
This phrase, "under the sun," shows up more than 20 times in the whole book. Solomon has seen and done everything that earth has to offer. His conclusion? "Vanity." Meaningless! The word "vanity" shows up more than 30 times in Ecclesiastes.
A quick read of the book arrives at this grim conclusion: Life under the sun is utterly meaningless.
The trick then is to get over the sun!
Ecc 8:17, "then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out."
Ecclesiastes 12:13, "Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."
Solomon, in all his wisdom, warns this audience that the sole purpose of man is to keep God's commandments. Then, and only then, do we find true meaning and joy to life.
Let's join up with the apostles in John 6:61-69
The crowd followed Jesus because He gave them loaves of bread and fish.
He says He has something better to offer: the Bread of Life. They ask what that is.
He replies that they are to eat of Him if they want to live.
This is a difficult teaching and many take great offense. We come upon a very difficult and painful verse: "After this many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with him."
Jesus' reaction is shocking. Instead of watering down His message, or begging for them to come back.... He lets them go.
He turns to His Twelve and ask, "Do you want to go away as well?"
Okay. This next line is crucial. Peter replies, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God" (vs 67-69).
Peter got it. There is nothing for us under the sun. Even the Wise Solomon says that there is a secret of God that no man knows. In connection with John 6, the secrets of life isn't in bread. Eat bread and you will still die under the sun. Jesus is offering Himself.
What's AMAZING about Jesus is that now, everything that is "over the sun" has now came HERE!! to Earth!! What was once unreachable "over the sun" is now "under the sun!"
Peter's understanding of this is clear: "Lord, to whom shall we go?" No one else-- nothing else-- under the sun can give them what Jesus offers. "You have the words of eternal life."
Life is meaningless under the sun, but life is meaningful under the Son.
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