TRUTH C.S. Lewis: God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.     T.S. Eliot: We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first … [Read More...] Ecclesiastes 12:9-14

REMEMBER John Owen: Satan's greatest success is in making people think they have plenty of time before they die to consider their eternal welfare.   Ecclesiastes 11:1 - 12:8 Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, or even to eight, for you know … [Read More...] Ecclesiastes 11:1-12:8

STENCH J.C. Ryle: I cannot forget that the world is just now fixing its attention on material things to a most extravagant extent. We live in an age of progress—an age of steam-engines and machinery, of locomotion and invention. We live in an age when the multitude are increasingly absorbed in earthly things—in railways, and … [Read More...] Ecclesiastes 10:1-20

SHEOL C.S. Lewis: You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you … [Read More...] Ecclesiastes 9:1-18

WHATEVER J. Campbell Morgan: Here, then, is the permanent value of the book. It reveals the fact that if a man put God out of count in the actuality of his conduct, no matter how accurate his intellectual convictions may be, these thing inevitably follow. His outlook on the universe is oblique; he comes to … [Read More...] Ecclesiastes 8:1-17

WISDOM J.I. Packer: Not until we have become humble and teachable, standing in awe of God's holiness and sovereignty, acknowledging our own littleness, distrusting our own thoughts, and willing to have our minds turned upside down, can divine wisdom become ours. Ecclesiastes 7:15-29 In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous … [Read More...] Ecclesiastes 7:15-29

FOLLY R.A. Torrey: Men will give you many reasons why they are skeptics, many reasons why they are infidels and agnostics and atheists, but in the great majority of cases the real reason is this — men hope by the denial of the existence of God to hide themselves from the discomfort of God's acknowledged … [Read More...] Ecclesiastes 6:10-7:14

UNSATISFIED J.C. Ryle: Money, in truth, is one of the most unsatisfying of possessions. It takes away some cares, no doubt; but it brings with it quite as many cares as it takes away. There is trouble in the getting of it. There is the anxiety in the keeping it. There are the temptations in … [Read More...] Ecclesiastes 5:1-6:9

WICKEDNESS C.S. Lewis: I have gained something I might not have gained from a flawless, ethical exposition. The shadows have indicated (at least to my heart) something more about the light. Nor would I (now) willingly spare from my Bible something in itself so anti-religious as the nihilism of Ecclesiastes. We there get a clear, … [Read More...] Ecclesiastes 3:16-4:16

TIME Derek Kidner: We are like the desperately near-sighted, inching our way along a great tapestry or fresco in the attempt to take it in. We see enough to recognize something of its quality, but the grand design escapes us, for we can never stand back to view it as the Creator does, whole and … [Read More...] Ecclesiastes 3:1-15