Ecclesiastes

If you have read my reviews of the books of the Bible in order up to this point, you will discover that Solomon wrote precriptions for life to live by as a young king.  Unfortunately for himself, Solomon did not exactly practice what he preached.  Therefore, he at the end of his life had to write one final book to set the record straight.  Now critics who doubt Solomon's sincerity in writing this book may refer to Solomon in Ecclesiastes as the Jimmy Swaggert of the Bible.  However, being at the end of his life- I have no doubt that Solomon was sincere.  Of course part of that is because of my belief in the inspiration of all scripture.  I am shocked that some people who believe in the perfect inspiration of all scripture reject the concept that Solomon was sincere in his plea for repentance before God.  There are several pharses that occur throughout the book of Ecclesiastes.  Solomon repetitively says that everything is meaningless, a worthless vanity under the sun.  As humans especially in the age of scientific advancement and the strong scientific belief in the principle of uniformitarianism which states that the world is purely natural and all that occurs within it is a result of natural phenomena, we have two groups of a people.  Those living under the sun, and those living under the Son.  If we as humans live under the sun, we are going to give in to our desires and our trait of sin which we have all inherited and we are going to make everything a bigger mess. If we live under the Son, our full being is going to be found within the presence of Jesus Christ and we rae going to do all that we can to follow after his will accordingly.  Solomon writes that everything is meaningless in the sense that everything you do apart from the presence of God manifesting itself through you through the power of his Holy Spirit is basically meaningless.  It is a vanity of vanities which leads you to give in to your natural sinful desires.  Basically, this book can be in relation to Thomas Aquinas called "The Argument for the Existence of God in the Old Testament."  In his closing chapter, Solomon encourages the people to remember the Creator in the days of their youth.  He closes the book in a proposition to the people encouraging them to fear God and keep his commandments.  In this treatise basically he is telling them that if there is no god, then he loses nothing by believing that there is, but if there is a God, then the people who do not believe in him lose everything while those who believe in him gain everything.  Solomon speaks from the heart of those who have created their own hell which they have been to and back and he assures the people that they do not want to know what it is like therefore encouraging them to keep the decrees of the Lord and to follow him living their lives under the Son not one but all the days of their lives.