Under The Sun # 3

Under The Sun # 3

Every man wants to be satisfied. I do. So do you. Everyone is reaching out for happiness and peace and rest. There are men before me who have tried many things in pursuit of happiness. You have climbed high and you have probed deep, and some of you have not found what you have sought. All who are here are on the verge of eternity. The past is simply a memory, the future an uncertainty. No matter how old you are; no matter if your hair is gray; no matter what your bank account may be; some of you must say, "I have not found happiness. I am a failure. My life has been a failure. All is vanity and vexation of spirit."

Why don't you be a man? Why don't you show a man's courage, and take up the cross of the Son of God? Why don't you rise to what you might be? We were all meant for better things. You were never meant for the slop and the swill barrels of the devil. Why do you let the devil control you? Why do you let him make you a pawn on the board on which he plays his game?

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread? Is there any bread in rum? Ask the poor fellows who have been spending their earnings for drink during all these years. Ask their wives and their children. No bread for them. Ask the salon-keeper. There is bread in it for him, but none for those who drink what he sells.

But to go back to Solomon's doleful cry of "All is vanity!" What does it mean? Was Solomon a dyspeptic, as most millionaires are? Have you ever noticed that it takes more religion to make a dyspeptic smile than it does to make a healthy man shout? Was there something wrong with Solomon's liver, or what was the matter? Was the trouble all with Solomon, or is all creation out of joint? Is there no good to be found in any of the things with which he employed his time? Is going to school no better than wasting time in idleness? Does a keen appreciation of the beautiful carry with it a curse and not a blessing? Is there no benefit in architecture, music or sculpture? Is there nothing but evil in wealth, wisdom and high station in life? Was Solomon really starving while apparently feeding on the finest of the wheat? He said so many things that appear to contradict all he said about vanity and vexation of spirit and so what does it mean?

But wait a moment. Here is something that seems to throw light on the matter. When Solomon says, "All is vanity," he also says, "under the sun," and that shows the standpoint from which he drew his conclusions. What we see as we go through life always depends upon where we stand to look. Many a man who tries to talk as if he were standing on a mountain, shows by what he says that he is up to his eyes in the mud.

When a man tells you that the whiskey business is a good thing for the country, you know that he is looking at things through the eyes of a brewer or a saloon-keeper, and not through the eyes of a father who has a son that has become a drunkard.

When a man tells you that he doesn't believe in foreign missions, you know that he doesn't know any more about what pure and undefiled religion is than a jack rabbit knows about running for president. From what he says you know the viewpoint from which he has come to his conclusion. To know a man's viewpoint is to know why he sees the thing he claims to see, and now we know why Solomon said, "All is vanity and vexation of spirit!" It was because he was looking at things from the viewpoint of "under the sun." As if a man could tell what a rainbow was like  while standing on his head in a dark cellar.

In the little book of Ecclesiastes, from which the text is taken, the expression "under the sun" occurs thirty-one times, as if Solomon wanted everyone to understand that what he said therein was said from the standpoint of low ground. The great king was looking at things from a low, sensual, materialistic plane, and from that viewpoint every word he said was true. Take away God, take away the Bible, take away inspiration and revelation, take away all hope of a better life in the world to come, destroy all thought of resurrection, and put in its place nothing but hopeless and endless night, and you have nothing left that is worth living for. The life of the greatest and wisest man is than no better than that of a fool. The best fruits of the world would then turn to ashes on the lips, and it were better to die than to live.

Blot out everything except what we can know through our senses, and keep from us all light from a source higher than the sun, and the very best this life can give is worse than nothing at all. Destroy in every man the divine spark that tells him there is a God, and that there is a beyond, and every grave would hold a suicide. Let all hope die, and despair would reign.

We have only begun to know a little about the soul when we discover that nothing under the sun can satisfy it. It was this great truth Solomon began to realize after he found nothing but disappointment in the very best the world could give him. Under the sun nothing lasts; nothing endures; nothing satisfies. No sooner do we begin to think we have a thing safe forever than it is gone. We love but to lose. Whatever we have is ours but for one brief moment, and the anguish of our loss is a wound that never heals. No happiness is possible without the hope of certainty, and the thing we feel we must have mocks us as it flies. No fountain under the sun can hold enough to satisfy an immortal spirit, and that very fact proves us to be spirits in prison while we are here. 

All the gold mines in in the world have not given up treasures enough to satisfy the man who has a greed for gain. The man with a hunger for honor and distinction has never been able to get enough of it, and the same can be said of everything else for which men strive and struggle and destroy each other and themselves.

~Billy Sunday~

(continued with # 4)