Sermon Bible Commentary
Ecclesiastes 9:10
What, then, is the work which we are placed here to do? Our work is to prepare for eternity. This brief, busy, passing life is the time of our probation, our trial whether we will be God's or not, and consequently whether we are to dwell with Him or be separated from Him for ever. The great work we have to do is to serve God, which is, at the same time, to obtain the most real and stable enjoyment of which we are capable here and secure everlasting happiness hereafter. In one word, our great work is religion our duty to God and man.
I. Take the duty of prayer, without which the life of religion droops and dies. Every day we have this to do. Do we do it with our might? Let us remember how important the duty is, and that they who are going to the grave, where there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, cannot afford to waste one day it may be their last the privilege of seeking the pardon and the grace without which their soul must die.
II. And so, too, of reading and hearing God's word. What a listless, spiritless thing is the study of the Bible to many of us! We open it unwillingly, as a task, not a privilege; we would rather read other books. Let us read and hear the Scriptures as the voice of God speaking to us and teaching us His will and the way of our salvation. The Bible can never be a dull book to those who, whatever their hand findeth to do, do it with their might.
III. Consider the life within the contest that is going on in every Christian's breast with the remains of his corrupt nature. How have you been waging this contest? We must fight the good fight, or we cannot receive the crown. We must take up the daily cross of the inner man, or we cannot be Christ's disciples. And therefore let us do it with our might.
IV. Let us ask whether we have done good to others as we ought. How very few ever take any trouble, make any sacrifice, use any personal exertion, for the temporal or spiritual good of others! "Whatsoever our hand findeth to do, let us do it with our might."
J. Jackson, Penny Pulpit,No. 692.
What the text bids us carry into life is, in one word, animation. Do all things with animation. As the old poet sang, "Let not your own kingdoms drowse in leaden dulness."
I. We hear it said sometimes that even wrong things done with energy give more hope of a character than goodness pursued without interest. This is of course not true; we can do no harm, however slight, without corrupting ourselves more than by the feeblest goodness. But that the thought should ever be expressed, and occur to one, as it sometimes will, when we pity the wretchedness of life without passion, is a witness of the unbounded power of animation within us and in the sphere of our action.
II. If ever you see the spirit of the world incarnate in one man, that man will tell you enthusiasm is a mistake. He would sum up for you the experiences of his life by telling you to dismiss zeal. It isthe way to reach unscrupulous eminence for the individual, and it is the way to lay society in ashes. Not the evildoer himself does so much to destroy the relief, and the relative value, and the natural colouring of truth and of knowledge.
III. It you own the power of animation in other things, carry it energetically into the highest of all human acts: endeavour to be earnest and animated in your prayers to God. Let us try to be animated in prayer, and we shall be animated in life, and other lives will be the better for it. We cannot tell how, we cannot see the mystery, but we know that the life of God would flow down into us, and then from us, and would inspire and fill the life of man.
Archbishop Benson, Boy Life: Sundays in Wellington College,p. 103.
I. Consider in what the danger consists against which we are here put on our guard. It appears upon the calmest consideration that the business of this world, even that which is most important and most necessary, considered only in itself and as belonging to this world, is in fact of small consequence, perhaps one might say, of none at all. Why, then, it may be asked, do people trouble themselves so much as they do about this world's goods, of which they must be of necessity soon deprived? The answer must be, Because, however sure it may be that they must be so soon deprived of these things, yet they do not think it sure; the hour of death, always uncertain, may be distant: and because it maybe distant, we take for granted it must be. The best of us surely will confess that they have by no means done their duty "with all their might," but faintly, imperfectly, and indolently, as if they should have an opportunity for work, and device, and knowledge, and wisdom in the grave, whither they are going.
II. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.' Does not this plainly imply that we are expected to be very exact and particular about our behaviour hour after hour; in other words, that we are to be careful not merely to be doing right, but to be doing it with zeal, heartiness, and sincerity, and not as if we thought that God cared not how we served Him?
III. In the control and management of our tempers, especially under trying circumstances, the sacred word is addressed to us.
IV. Carelessness about religious truth is a sign of want of love for God. No person can be indifferent about such a subject without great danger. To this also the heavenly warning seems to be especially applicable. Think no labour or cost too great by which you may find out where the truth lies, and by what means you may be preserved in it steadfast to the end.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to the "Tracts for the Times,"vol. i, p. 53.
The text divides itself into three heads:
I. What we are to do. The Preacher says, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it." No one will be excused for remaining idle through life, for there are some things which our hand "findeth to do" in every stage of life. Unity of purpose and design is a great secret of success. Another, scarcely of less importance, is patience. If we are to imitate our Lord in His activity when once entered upon His ministry, we are bound no less to imitate Him in His repose, in that calm attitude which belongs to conscious strength, and to avoid that restless, bustling activity which seeks to do work which our hand does not find, which labours at the wrong time, and therefore without effect. There is no true greatness in man where this patience is wanting.
II. How we are to do it. The text says, "Do it with thy might." Whatever may be our powers, be they great or small, they are to be exerted to the full. All labour is useless wherein the hand alone works. Every work needs attention. It may call for the exercise of very few faculties of the mind, but these cannot be dispensed with.
III. Consider the reason. Why are we to do it? "For there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest." Succeeding periods are the graves of the past. You use your time or you waste it; you come out of a trial stronger or feebler; habits of industry or indolence are strengthened according as you do the work your hand finds to do or neglect it.
G. Butler, Sermons in Cheltenham College Chapel,p. 103.
(with Colossians 3:23)
Today I would speak of our daily business; and I have chosen two texts because in them we see, compared and contrasted, the teachings on this subject, first, of the philosophy which, for the moment at any rate, is confined to this life, and, next, of the Gospel of Him who holds the keys of this world and of the next. How infinite is the contrast between the cheerful and hopeful spirit of the second text and the earnest sadness of the book of Ecclesiastes.
I. The business of life is not regarded as that which our hand simply "finds to do" by chance or by choice. It is that in which we "serve the Lord" that which He has set us to do, and for which He will give us the reward. St. Paul elsewhere speaks of men as being "fellow-workers with God" in carrying out the eternal law of that dispensation which He has been pleased to ordain in relation to His creatures. All of us, whether we know it or not, in some sense whether we will or not, "serve the Lord."
II. When we speak of the Lord here, we evidently mean the Lord Jesus Christ, not merely God, but God made man, Himself at once the Lord of lords and the chief of servants. The Lord whom we serve is not One who says simply, "Believe in Me and obey Me," but One who says, "Follow Me." There is a peculiar instructiveness and beauty in the very fact that for many years of His earthly life, in humble preparation for His higher ministry, our Lord Himself was pleased to have an occupation or business, and help, we must suppose, to win the bread of the carpenter's home in Nazareth.
III. Christianity neither forbids nor discourages business. But what it must do is to give to it greater purity, greater energy, greater peace, greater harmony with the growth in us of a true humanity.
Bishop Barry, Sermons at Westminster Abbey,p. 35.
I. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do." The warning is not addressed to utter idlers, to that "sluggard" who is so often the object of the wise king's almost contemptuous admonition. It assumes that men have found something to do, some real interest. It urges them to carry out this in good earnest, to throw themselves into it, to put their heart into it.
II. The temptation for us all, young or old, is not to throw our heart into our work, not to do it "with our might." (1) There is the temptation to think that it does not after all very much matter; that, do what we will, all will be much the same as it has hitherto continued. Solomon felt these benumbing influences with a force which a smaller nature could not have felt, and yet he could deliberately urge as the result of his experience, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." (2) We think that we are not well fitted for that work which our hand has been compelled to find to do. All that God requires is that we should do our best. He does not need our works; but He does need let us reverently say it that we should do our best in every work with which our hands are busied. (3) If we ask ourselves why it is that we are in general so little in earnest in our work, conscience at once replies that it is because we allow some trifle to distract our thoughts.
III. Think what would be the case if we did with our might whatever our hand found to do. The might of the weakest is so marvellously strong. It is the sustained, hearty effort which leads to great results.
IV. The maxim of Solomon is based upon a melancholy motive. The Christian has a happier motive for exertion; but from one motive or another, exertion, sustained and hearty, must be forthcoming. (1) With thy might, because the time is short, because the night cometh, when no man can work. (2) With thy might, because the Lord Jesus is looking on, and smiling approval on, every earnest, humble effort. (3) With thy might, because the harvest is infinite, and the labourers are miserably few. (4) With thy might, because the Lord of the harvest condescends to expect much even from thee.
H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons,p. 398.
The substance of these texts is the duty of earnest and hearty working, the duty of doing with all our might and with all our heart whatever work God lays to our hand. It has to do with:
I. School-work. There is no way of being a scholar but by working for it. It is harder for some than for others, but in every case it is work. In the case of young people it is peculiarly the work which "their hand findeth to do" the work which God gives them, as His work as well as theirs. Regarding this school-work, the command is, "Do it with thy might."
II. Home-work. This runs alongside of the other. The home-work is an important part of the training for after-life. Here, too, the right-hearted will recognise the duty, "Do it heartily, as unto the Lord."
III. Business-work. When school-days are over, we are in the habit of speaking of "beginning to work." Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well; and however humble the work is, it is each one's duty to do it as well as it can be done. It is often when people are busy at their work that the Lord comes to them in the way of blessing.
IV. Soul-work. This is rather a work to be wrought for us than by us. But then we must be in earnest about it. Here again the Lord says, "Do it with thy might."
V. Christian work. What is required of us is just that we should do what we can. The question whether that be little or much need not concern us.
J. H. Wilson, The Gospel and its Fruits,p. 289.
References: Ecclesiastes 9:10. Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times"vol. i., p. 62, and vol. v., p. 1; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. v., No. 259, and vol. xix., No. 1119; Ibid., Morning by Morning,p. 331; J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. vii., p. 1; H. Thompson, Concionalia: Outlines of Sermons for Parochial Use,2nd series, p. 192; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xi., p. 5, and vol. xxiii., p. 4; J. Kelly, Ibid.,vol. xviii., p. 6; J. B. Heard, Ibid.,vol. xix., p. 120; Canon Barry, Ibid.,vol. xx., p. 216.