SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/27/2013
9:18 AM
My Worship Time Focus: In the
Marketplace
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Eccl. 4:4-8
Message of the
verses: We learned in yesterday’s SD
that Solomon is visiting four different places and while he is there he is
watching several people go through a variety of experiences. We will be looking at the second visitation
of Solomon as he visits the marketplace in this section: “4 I have seen that every labor and every
skill which is done is the result of rivalry between a man and his neighbor.
This too is vanity and striving after wind. 5
The fool folds his hands and consumes his own flesh. 6 One hand full of rest is better than two
fists full of labor and striving after wind.
7 Then I looked again at vanity under the sun. 8 There was a certain man without a dependent,
having neither a son nor a brother, yet there was no end to all his labor.
Indeed, his eyes were not satisfied with riches and he never asked, "And
for whom am I laboring and depriving myself of pleasure?" This too is
vanity and it is a grievous task.”
Solomon is moving from the “halls of justice” where he
was disappointed in what he saw and not moves to the places where men work and
surely he would find things better off, for after all Adam had work to do while
he was placed in the garden, and although he would not have known it the Lord
Jesus Christ worked in the carpenter shop of His father Joseph. Solomon will consider four different kinds of
men in this section.
The Industrious man (v-4): “I have seen that every labor and every skill
which is done is the result of rivalry between a man and his neighbor. This too
is vanity and striving after wind.” You
may be able to give another name for this for we commonly call this keeping up
with the “Jones.” Solomon would not be disappointed
with the quality of this man’s work, but he was disappointed for the reason
that he was working, he was competing with his neighbor. Dr. Wiersbe states “God did not put this ‘selfishness
factor’ into human labor; it’s the result of the sin in the human heart.” God even made one of the Ten Commandments in
place to go against this “’You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall
not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his
ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.’” (Exodus 20:17) I don’t think that there is anything wrong
with competition as long as one does his competing honestly and can handle
defeat if it comes. The Bible is full of
balance and so we have to keep our completive juices in balance.
The Idle Man (vv. 5-6):
“ 5 The fool folds his hands and consumes his own flesh. 6 One hand full
of rest is better than two fists full of labor and striving after wind.” 5 The fool sits back and takes it easy, His
sloth is slow suicide. 6 One handful of
peaceful repose Is better than two fistfuls of worried work—More spitting into
the wind (The Message).”
It seems that Solomon goes from one extreme to the other
as he now is looking at the lazy man, the man who has a hard time doing any
work at all. I remember when I was probably
around 16 or 17 years old and I had a job being a caddy and I would wake up in
the morning and think about walking down the long seventh fairway carrying
someone’s golf bag and would want to go back to sleep, but in the end I would
get up and go to work. Like said above
the Bible is full of balance and one can work to much or one can work too
little and not provide for his family and both of these can be wrong. It has to do with the heart and the motive of
doing the work.
We know that from the writings of the book of Proverbs
that Solomon had a lot of negative things to say about the lazy and the
slothful, calling them fools as he does in verse five or our text.
We have learned that the industrious man had been caught
up in the rat race and the lazy man was just lazy and both were wrong and so
next Solomon will see if there is a middle ground, and we will look at it in
the next SD.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: The Bible is a
book of balance, and the Bible was written by God using men to convey His
thoughts to us and so that must mean that God is a God of balance and wants me
to be in balance too.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to give me balance in my life.
Memory verse for the
week: Mark 14:38
38 Keep watching and praying that you may not come into
temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
Question: “Judas Iscariot” (Matthew
27:4)
Today’s Bible
Question: “Where did the Lord promise
Paul that he would testify as he had in Jerusalem?”
Answer in tomorrow’s SD.
4/27/2013 9:56 AM
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