Turning Away from Sin

Ecclesiastes 2:10-16
Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.
I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure,
For my heart rejoiced in all my labor
And this was my reward from all my labor.
Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done
And on the labor in which I had toiled;
And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind.
There was no profit under the sun.
Then I turned myself to consider wisdom and madness and folly;
For what can the man do who succeeds the king?-
On what he has already done.
Then I saw that wisdom excels folly
As light excels darkness.
The wise man’s eyes are in his head,
But the fool walks in darkness.
Yet I myself perceived
That the same event happens to them all
So I said to my heart,
“As it happens to the fool,
It also happens to me,
And why was I then more wise?”
Then I sad in my heart,
“This also is vanity.”
For there is no more remembrance of the wise than of the fool forever,
Since all that now is will be forgotten in the days to come
And how does a wise man die?
As the fool!

Ecclesiastes chapter 2 is all about how Solomon turned from all his vanity back to God. ‘Vanity’ here doesn’t mean staring into a mirror, it means selfishness and jealousy. This first part is all about his turning. The second part is about things that he realized through his turning.

2:24
Nothing is better for a man than that he should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God.

Solomon turned from his sin of vanity (selfishness and jealousy) and had a revelation of what really is important and good in the sight of the One who matters. That's the idea of this chapter. When we turn from our sins, we have a better understanding of who God is.

In His Service,
Joyce