"HUMAN LABOUR HAS NO PROFIT IN ITSELF"

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 131:3
Hymn 61:5,6
Psalm 90:5,8
Psalm 115:6,7,8
Hymn 65:1,2,3

Beloved Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ!

In a prayer service for Labour and Harvest, we look forward to what the new year, the new decade, the new century, the new millennium will bring. As we do that, we can’t help but recall how things were a year ago, a decade ago, a century ago, a millennium ago. Any view into the past, be it recent or distant, confronts us starkly with the exciting fact that there’s been a lot of change, and a lot of progress. A thousand years ago so many of our ancestors lived in crude conditions in smoke filled hovels, and the only way for the average person to get around was on foot. A hundred years ago, housing had improved and the first automobile had been invented, but the common people still lived in what we call primitive circumstances. And today? We’ve got houses of comfort, all of us without exception. We’ve got transport that eats up the distances, telephones and computers that shrink the world altogether, and we’re all assured that medical technology is available to help us maintain good health. Yes, things have changed enormously over the decades and years, and we’re thankful for it.

Those changes in turn prompt an optimism with regards to the future. Given the ability man has shown himself to have, we’re confident we’re living in exciting times; in the new year, the new decade, century, millennium, things are bound to get better still! Yes, we live in exciting times.

Enter the Preacher with Ecclesiastes 1. "What profit," he sighs, "has a man from all his labour In which he toils under the sun?" It’s a rhetorical question, a question not needing an answer because the answer is so obvious. "What profit?" There’s none, says the Preacher, for "all is vanity", all a disappearing vapour….

In truth, congregation, we’re not inclined to agree with the Preacher. He’s too pessimistic for our taste. We experience it: the changes and progress human labour has produced over the years give the lie to the Preacher’s conviction!

What we experience, beloved, and how we experience things is all touched by the fall into sin. Our experiences, then, never give us legitimate reason to criticise or disbelieve what God says in His Word. The Holy Spirit has inspired the Preacher in our chapter to tell his readers that man’s labour under the sun produces no ultimate profit. Instead of disagreeing with this passage of God’s Word, we do well to listen humbly in an effort to understand what the Spirit says to the churches here, and why He says it.

As we set out to pray for God’s blessing on our labours this year, I preach to you the Word of God about our total dependence on His grace in Jesus Christ. I use the following theme:

1. Why human labour has no profit
2. What we must do with this message

Why human labour has no profit

"What profit has a man from all his labour in which he toils under the sun?" I said already: that’s not a question demanding an answer, but a question with the answer built in; the Preacher is convinced that man has no profit from his labours. Why I say it? Consider vs 2. "Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." The Hebrew term translated as ‘vanity’ means literally ‘vapour’, ‘breath’. You can’t catch vapour; in fact, vapour disappears, it’s gone without a trace. Says the Preacher: that’s what everything is; "all is vanity." We understand: if all is vanity, if all disappears without a trace, then all is meaningless too, completely meaningless, purposeless, senseless. Why, then, toil and labour and sweat? What does it profit? Hard yakka, too, says the Preacher, is meaningless, vanity, a vapour…. All your sweat profits you nothing….

It’s so discouraging. Why does he say it? The Preacher, brothers and sisters, is not looking at life simply with the eyes of daily experience. He knows well that toil and sweat will eventually clear a block of its trees and stones so that you can grow a crop and feed the children. He knows well that toil and sweat will earn a pay-cheque so that you have the wherewithal to shelter and cloth yourself and those dependent on you. Yet he’s emphatic that labour is vanity. Why? Because, congregation, the Preacher works with the Bible he has!

The Preacher has read Gen 3, that passages about the curse God voiced after man’s fall into sin. Said God to Adam:

"Cursed is the ground for your sake;
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread
Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken;
For dust you are,
And to dust you shall return" (Gen 3:17ff).

Note it: Adam could toil in the ground all the days of his life, but the result –said God- would be "thorns and thistles". And after a lifetime of battling with the thorns and thistles of life, Adam would return to the ground from which he was taken…. Profit? No. Why not? Because God has placed His curse on the ground. And why did God place His curse on the ground? Because of our fall into sin. That, congregation, is why man has no profit from all his labour in which he toils under the sun. Our sins prevent God’s blessing, and attract God’s curse. That’s what the Preacher learned from his Bible, and that’s why he cannot be optimistic about his future.

In fact, from the Bible he learned too what it’s like to live "under the sun". That phrase occurs in the Bible only in the book of Ecclesiastes, but the concept appears elsewhere. In the days of Noah, for example, God declared that He would "bring floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life" (Gen 6:17). Note those phrases ‘the earth’ and ‘under heaven’. That’s where man lives, and that becomes the realm of God’s judgment. God told the people of Israel after the Exodus that He would "blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven" (Ex 17:14) and that He would "destroy … from under heaven" the names of the kings of the Canaanites (Dt 7:24). Indeed, the Israelites themselves would be destroyed "from under heaven" if they would insist on breaking the covenant (Dt 9:14). The point is that "under heaven" or "under the sun" (that is, "on earth") is the place of God’s oversight and judgment; it’s "under heaven", it’s "on earth", it’s "under the sun" that man tastes the righteous wrath of God on our sins. In the words of the apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans: "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness" (Rom 1:18). This is a reality the Preacher has learned from his Bible, and so he knows it to be true – regardless of what experience may teach a man.

It makes for an interesting thought, brothers and sisters. Our world has seen so very much change and progress, especially in the last few decades, as a result of hard human toil. In fact, it’s very Australian to speak with deep appreciation of the early migrants to our shores, and the hard work they did to establish this country – and so develop opportunity for us to live in the comforts we have today. I share the popular admiration for these early settlers and their struggles, but I must set beside that sense of admiration also the Word of my God: man’s toils "under the sun" are burdened by the curse of God, and are therefore inherently futile, meaningless, vapour. True, my eyes, my experience tells me that the labours of the early settlers produced great profit – and I benefit from it today. But what I experience is not the measure of reality; God tells us how things really are, and He says that a man profits nothing from all his toil under the sun. He says it, He cannot lie, and so I believe it …, and confess it with the Preacher of years ago; all man’s labour and toil ultimately profits nothing….

Indeed, the Preacher can find confirmation of his faith in nature around him. "One generation passes away, and another generation comes; but the earth abides forever," he observes in vs 4. That earth: that’s the places where sinners live, where God’s curse is tasted. The very fact that generations go –death- spells out that man’s toil comes to nothing; after years and years of toil, a generation returns to the dust from which man was taken, and –as reward for endless toil- the next generation will go the same way as long as this earth lasts. For this earth is the realm where man tastes God’s curse….

The sun comes up in the morning and goes down at the evening; no labour of man can change that pattern despite countless centuries (vs 5). The wind may blow from north to south, and this afternoon come back again from south to north, and all man’s labour over the centuries can’t change that (vs 6). The river runs into the sea, runs on and on and never stops, and the sea is never full; and that pattern doesn’t change either no matter what a man does (vs 7). That’s life; despite all the changes man can develop, there’s no more essential progress than the sun makes; despite all the changes in the position of the sun in the course of a day, there’s something so very monotonous in the sun’s behaviour for tomorrow the sun will do exactly the same. Despite all the changes in the direction and speed of the wind, there’s no essential progress for tomorrow the wind will blow the same again. You can look for days and years at a bubbling stream, but nothing really changes…. "All things are full of labour" (vs 8), there’s so much activity in the sun, the wind, the river, so much hustle and bustle in what man does too, but it all boils down to a lot of … nothing. All the toil and effort and exertion is but a vapour; now you see it, and now it’s gone….

In all the progress there’s been over the years of human history, is there really something of which one can say, "This is new?" We’d say: computers, aeroplanes, nuclear power, that’s new. Is it really? Sure, previous generations hadn’t invented these yet and so didn’t enjoy the resulting luxuries or face the resulting problems either. The wind blows, one day faster than the previous, and once in a while to cyclone force too. Is a cyclone something essentially new? Not really. It’s more of the same wind as yesterday, be it in intense form. A river can get so full that it overflows. Is that something essentially new? Not really either. It’s more of same flow one saw yesterday, be it in larger quantity. But the earth remains under the curse of God because of our fall into sin, and we can’t get away from that. In truth, in the final analysis, there is nothing new under the sun, and that’s why "all is vanity" and the labours of man ultimately profit nothing.

Here is a soberness, congregation, that contrasts quite starkly with the optimism of our day. We pray for God’s blessing on the labour of our hands. But we are bound to confess straightaway that our labour will not make the world a better place for us and our children. The changes we bring about through the labours of our hands contain ultimately the same monotony as the changes in the sun’s location from morning to evening; it’s ultimately just more of the same, with no essential progress. For we remain "on earth", we remain "under the sun", and this is the place where God the righteous Judge is in sovereign control. And He avenges man’s sins.

The Preacher’s confession forms a dismal picture. One wonders why the Preacher does not commit suicide…. If all is meaningless, and there’s no profit to man’s labours, why live? And why work? The answer, brothers and sisters, is that the Preacher’s faith includes more than a confession of human sinfulness and divine curse. That brings us to our second point: what should we do with this message?

What we must do with this message

"Under the sun" is the place where God’s curse on our sin is felt, and that makes all things "under the sun" to be vanity, meaningless, a vapour. But the Bible tells us that there is more to God’s creation than only that one place "under the sun". God in the beginning created not just the earth but also the heavens. And with the word ‘heavens’ we are not to think of the sun; the sun’s task, says Gen 1, is to "give light on the earth" (vs 17); the sun is geared to this earth. Rather, with the word ‘heavens’ we are to think of God’s throne, God’s dwelling. In that world above the sun no man can toil, for man’s place is on the earth (Ps 115:16).

But in the heavens above God can toil. And He does! Job knew that, and that’s why he said in his anguish and rejection: "I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth" (Job 19:25). Here’s a confession that the Redeemer in heaven would come from heaven to earth, and His labours on earth would not be futile, a passing breath! It’s the same conviction shared by the psalmists and the prophets: help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth (Ps 124). On this earth is only curse, and therefore only vanity…, unless God Himself is pleased in mercy to come to this earth with His blessing. Here is only vanity, and the toil of our hands unprofitable, and so all our sweat and tears will not fundamentally improve our lot nor impress the God of heaven so that He revokes His curse and grants His blessing. This earth and the people who live on it have no answer to the frustrations and mysteries of life, but He who made the world and all that’s in it, He who dwells above the sun, certainly has the answers! And His answer is that He at the right time sent from heaven to earth the Redeemer for whom Job longed, His eternal Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

This Son of God entered our vale of tears, tasted the bitterness of this life, experienced the frustrations of toil and sweat and tears, laboured under the curse of God. And then –in order that He might take away the curse of God from the people of God on this earth- He set His face to go to the cross of Calvary. On the day of His crucifixion, something very new happened under the sun; the sun, though high in the sky, was darkened so that for three long hours no one could speak of being "under the sun". Then "the wrath of God … revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" was concentrated on that one man Jesus Christ. He took on Himself the curse that lay on the earth, took on Himself the curse of God that made futile and meaningless all human toil throughout the generations. And when He had satisfied the wrath of God, He cried out with His voice of authority that all was Finished; His work of toil and sweat to pay for the sins of man was complete and not in vain.

That is why, dear congregation of the Lord, the apostle Paul could state so emphatically to the Romans that "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us" (Rom 8:18). For the curse of God is removed, is satisfied! Certainly, the full redemption is not here yet, for the creation still tastes this futility, and still "groans and labours with birth pangs together until now" (vs 22) as creation awaits the return of the Lord from heaven. And even "we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body" (vs 23). But today’s groaning is no longer an expression of the hopelessness people taste in life, is no longer a groaning under the heavy hand of God’s displeasure. For the curse of God is removed from the people of God, and therefore the vanity that characterised this broken life is gone also. As the apostle says in vs 28: "we know that all things work together for good to those who love God." "All things", says Paul, and that includes the labours of our hands! In Christ that labour of our hands is futile no longer; in Christ the labour of our hands –including progress in technology!- has a place, forms another building block, in the construction of God’s church and the coming of His kingdom. And No, this is not our doing; it is God who makes our labours to be profitable in His kingdom, profitable for our salvation.

In the face of such a gospel, brothers and sisters, we can pray boldly, confidently, for God’s blessing on the labours of our hands this year, this century. Those labours of themselves have no profit, because we labour under the weight of God’s curse. But Christ on the cross has taken the curse away, and so our labours in the factory and our labours in the kitchen and our labours in school –though so broken by sin- are used by God to make His kingdom come, are used by God to further our salvation. I don’t have to understand in detail how God uses my welding and my plumbing and my vacuuming, but I believe that the curse is lifted from my labours and I believe that God works all things for good to those who love Him, and so I dare to pray, to pray confidently for His blessing on whatever labour God gives me to do.

And I’m confident: for Christ’s sake He will bless. True, my labours might not produce the results I’d like. But now I know that that doesn’t matter. The curse is gone, and the blessing is guaranteed.

I believe it. And that’s why, by God’s grace, I may also experience that labour is futile no longer. Amen.