Custom Search
|
To receive notice of each days Bible Study,
please go to my Twitter and Facebook pages and sign up.
Facebook -
| Daily Bible Study | ||
 You can help people worldwide. Please make a small donation. Make a difference in someone elses life. |
Subscribe Daily Bible Study Mailing List 
Receive Daily Bible Studies directly into your email inbox. |
Express your comments, opinions, questions, etc. |
| Ecclesiastes 3:18-22 |
|
Lesson # Eccl. 3:18-22 Study Material - Eccl. 3:18-22 You must be in fellowship prior to your Bible study, so that the spiritual information you receive can become a source, of blessing to your soul and produce spiritual growth. Eccl. 3:18-22 18 I said to myself concerning the sons of men, 'God has surely tested them in order for them to see that they are but beasts.' 19 For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity. 20 All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust. 21 Who knows that the breath of man ascends upward and the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth? 22 And I have seen that nothing is better than that man should be happy in his activities, for that is his lot. For who will bring him to see what will occur after him? Man is mortal. For all of mans self proclaimed dignity, for all of mans self proclaimed righteousness, for all of mans self proclaimed greatness, then when you get through all of the hot air, there remains Gods very simple truths that test mans wisdom and demonstrate to mankind that man is no better off than the animals of this earth, when God is ignored in mans life. Remove God and there is nothing for man to hold on to. God is the glue that holds this universe together. Remove the glue and the universe does not exist. Therefore we cannot exist without God. We cannot continue without God. Pretending that God is nothing, or philosophically defining God out of ones life, or simply not caring for God, or adamantly refusing to recognize God, or angrily defying God in public, will have no bearing on the truth. We cannot deny that life begins and life ends. There are many hospitals where births take place everyday. There are many cemeteries testifying as to the end of life. The news is always covering oppression or heartache of some kind in this world. So just as the sun rises day after day proving that there is a repetition of some sort in life, so also God demonstrates to man, testing mans mental ability, to see the truth in life if not seen in the scriptures. Anyone can look at life and wonder if there is a higher being. The world all around us points to proof that there is certainly something greater in this universe. But people get mixed up and draw conclusions that are way off the wall. Even when the truth is right in their face. Animals die and that is the end of their life. The life of the animal is in the blood, Deu. 12. This is biological life. We as mankind have our biological component, and here Solomon compares mans biological life with that of the common animals. Dust to dust. For that is our origin, our biological origin. But man has yet another origin, which is human life, that life given to man at the moment of birth when 'neshamah', the spark of life is breathed into mans soul. Common animals, beasts if you will do not have a soul and therefore they have no soul life. When animal life ceases they go back to the soil from whence they came. Man, on the other hand, returns his body to the soil in similar fashion as the animals, but mans soul returns to God from whence it came, and mans spirit (believers only) return to God as well. The human spirit is joined with and is inseparable from the soul. Believers go up to heaven, while unbelievers souls go down to the compartment in Hades called Torments. And there they (unbelievers) await the second judgment at the Great White Throne. When God is left out of ones life, then life is vanity - empty. Everything in life is nothingness - ones abilities, ones wealth, status, culture, health, marriage, children, things of every imaginable type - all of these are nothing as far as the negative persons life is concerned. These only have meaning and purpose when God is included in ones life. And Solomon makes one final observation. After death, who will recall us back from the grave? Will we return from our own ability? No. Will family call us or retrieve us back? No. Will Satan, with all of his power and tremendous IQ, return us back from the grave? No. Nothing and no one in this universe has that ability or power to recall from the grave that which has been sent there in death. How many people from centuries past do you know of that have returned from the grave? None except for one - Jesus Christ. God is the only one who taken on death and has defeated its power and grip on mankind. Only through Jesus Christ do we receive this gift of deliverance from the jaws of death. God is the only one who can return us to life after death to allow us to see what will come after us. God is the only one who can reveal to us what is to befall us in the future. The only true source of happiness is that which comes from the study of Gods Word. With that capacity well under the belt and control of the positive believer, then all that occurs in life will be a source of blessing and happiness. We graciously accept the good, but we also accept the difficult. We persevere through the hard times, trusting in God that He has made arrangements for our relief from those hard times. Chapter three draws us a clear picture of life in the jungle. Live like animals and be treated like animals. Expect no more than that which happens to animals. They live, they die, they have nothing when it is all over. Who wants to end up with nothing in life? Man has an additional life, that which is in his soul (and hopefully his spirit). Man has a destiny which is a certainty. We cannot change our destiny. We are going to end up somewhere for certain. We can change the content of our destiny however, by believing in Christ first of all (and I presume that every reader of this Bible study has already done that. Probable years ago.). Such that our common destiny is going to be in heaven, but more than that, if we continue in our Bible study, then we enhance our destiny in heaven by achieving spiritual maturity in this life and therefore qualifying for 'greater' blessings as James spells out in his book in the New Testament, as Paul spells out in several passages, as Moses looked forward to and preferring those eternal blessings over the wealth of Egypt. None of which Moses nor any of us, can see, as we can see the enticements of this world right in front of our eyes. Yet we have faith and we believe that God is capable of doing that which He says He can and will do for us. 
Now is the time to post a prayer. End Of Lesson Study to show thyself approved (mature) unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing (studying/discerning), the Word of truth. |
|
Subscribe Daily Bible Study Mailing List 
Receive Daily Bible Studies directly into your inbox. |
|
|
|
|