“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”
We live, work, and die, and we cannot reap the rewards. The next generation may do so for a time, but they, too, will die, and the next after them. Death separates every man from his work and keeps it within the physical universe while his soul goes elsewhere. Yet God has also destined the universe for destruction; it shall be shaken one last time and make way for a new heavens and a new earth as fire consumes it.
We work to do good, to impact the world and our families, but in reality we do no work. Mathematically, work is force applied over a distance, and the universe shall come to the same place it began. Because the universe shall revert to nothing in a show of light just as God created it from nothing in a show of light, it yields no lasting work despite all the forces we apply to it. Man cannot change anything in the end. The one productive task we can accomplish is to obey God so that His glory increases through the universe—for outside of it His glory is unchangingly perfect.
“I perceived that there is nothing better for [men] than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.”
Pleasure and joy often are direct results of doing good. One has but to examine himself after serving his community to know this is true; it is why parents enjoy rewarding their children more than receiving gifts themselves. Thus, the words of Jesus Christ prove true still, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Indeed, without the Word of God it would be impossible to know what it is to do good. However, knowing the instructions of the Lord does not ensure that we will do them, because though we know them, “we all, like sheep, have gone astray; each of us has turned to our own way.” Men's hearts are corrupt and desperately sick, and it is not always a pleasure to them to do good.
Prophet Micah says, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Despite that knowledge, we regularly do injustice, love strife, and walk arrogantly and forsake God out of our own pleasures. And no one is innocent; as King Solomon observed, “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.”
Everyone is an idolater in one form or another: whether we chase after wealth, or women (or men), or power—or whether we lie, or steal, or envy—we idolize above all of it ourselves and our own desire. We may successfully pursue those idols their entire lives, but we will not change what comes after us. Whether we toil for good or evil, the Creator rules over all; why, then, should not we train ourselves to find pleasure in serving the King of kings, that we and as many others as possible might support the kingdom that cannot be shaken?
There is One who does not come to nothing, and service to Him will yield rewards. Though those rewards may not be within the earth, all rewards herein will soon go to others then suffer destruction, so what does it matter?
“I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.”
We will all die, and our material lives will be worthless. What persists will be the spiritual consequences of our toil. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil,” writes Apostle Paul. Therefore, we must walk humbly with our God, knowing that outside of Him we can do nothing. We cannot even earn our own salvation but merely become an instrument of Him who earned it for us by living a perfect life and taking our sin upon Himself to crucify it and conquer death that we may live, if we would but believe.
There is “a time to be born, and a time to die;” between those two, all is vanity, but if you pursue the everlasting kingdom, you might change someone's eternity in the midst of it.
Very good. What I was looking for came in the last two paragraphs. I am convinced it has been the prayers of the generations preceding me that have kept my feet from straying too long on paths leading to destruction. Their prayers were not in vain and have not returned void, as I also pray blessings and good fruit for our children and our children’s children.