"I said in my heart, 'Concerning the condition of the sons of men, God tests them, that they may see that they are animals.' For what happens to the sons of men also happens to animals; one thing befalls them: as one dies, so dies the other. Surely, they all have one breath; man has no advantage over animals, for all is vanity. All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust. Who knows if the spirit of the sons of men goes upward, and the spirit of the animal goes down to the earth?" (Ecclesiastes 3:18-20).
This is the counsel of despair, the musings of a man who, for the sake of argument, is assuming the outlook of secular man. (He has deliberately limited his understanding to what human reason, experience and observation alone can learn).
If we have no word from "upstairs," all that remains is to eat, drink and be merry and bewail our bitter fate: to die like a dog. Why then must we go on when every beat of our heart, like a muffled drum, is marching us straight to oblivion?
Ah, but here's a piece of good news: Jesus said, "This is the will of my Father, that everyonewho looks on the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:40).
The secularist asks, "Who knows if we go up to God, or down into the ground like other animals?" (3:20)—a question for which we have Jesus’ conclusive answer: He will raise us up!
But how will our friends and neighbors hear unless we tell them? “How will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear unless someone tells them?” (Romans 10:14).
David Roper
4.17.21
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