What Really Matters?

 What really matters?  Man has a peculiar kind of longing, a yearning for spending life in a way that matters.  Purpose and meaning are bound up in the way we are made.  The image of God, stamped onto every living soul, demands permanence.  But in this world of transient things, what is permanent?

Solomon is on record with a full investigation into the world and its affairs.  The Book of Ecclesiastes is a search for a purpose strong enough to engage a man's soul.  God has put eternity into man's heart.  No temporal affair matters, ultimately and finally.  All of life, under the sun, is transient, ephemeral, like the wind.  Nothing has the permanence of eternity.  All that we think, say, and do will pass away.  No inheritance lasts.  It is enough to bring us to despair at our toil (Ecclesiastes 2:20) if that were the end of the story.

Solomon has an answer and he has been waiting to tell us.  He has been careful to arrange his book to give us a full, lasting glimpse into man's transient world.  He has taken great care to communicate- choosing words of delight (Ecc. 12:9), specific images that will stick with us.  The words, the proverbs, the mood and the genre were all a product of Solomon's care.  He weighed out and studied and arranged his proverbs to communicate truth.

Solomon describes his writing in two images (Ecc. 12:11):  His words are goads.  A goad was a long stick used for guiding oxen when plowing.  We will feel the sting as he directs us to the one thing that matters.  His words are also firmly fixed nails:  Solid, dependable words we can build our lives on.  These goads and nails are not just the work of Solomon.  His wisdom is sourced in the wisdom of the Shepherd.  God Himself has overseen the work.

We have been reading the words of a master.  Ecclesiastes has all been assembled for the sole purpose of guiding us to true purpose, true permanence.  Qoheleth has wrestled out of our hands all the vanities I might have sold my soul for.  Without his warning, I could have lost everything.  I could have wasted my life.

The sage is now the evangelist.  His wisdom has brought us empty-handed to the edge of eternity.  What matters, what lasts, is God Himself.  Only God matters.  Our relationship with Him lasts.  Solomon's comprehensive survey of all that matters boils down to one command:  Fear God.  Fearing Him, obeying His commands is our duty and our delight.  We come to God because a relationship with the Creator is eternal.  It is the purpose for which we are created in His image.  The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.  Every deed will be brought into judgment.

Some writers have described the last paragraphs of Ecclesiastes as postscript, an addendum added by another author from another time or another place.  This section is not an addition.  It is the whole point.