Wisdom Regarding the Past (Ecclesiastes 7:10)

We all know that there are different ways of looking at the past. There is legitimate historical investigation, but that is not what Solomon is refuting here. Some people ignore the past completely and other people ignore everything else. Then there are those who live in the present in certain areas of life and in the past in other areas of life, with the result that no one really knows where they are.

Of course, it is foolish to ignore the past because all our lessons about experience come from there. Perhaps it is worthwhile taking a few moments for each of us to ask ourselves what we think of the past and see if our ideas change as we think about this verse from the wise man Solomon.

Right away we should realise that it is very surprising that any would be saying this in Israel in his day – because it was under the reign of Solomon that Israel reached its greatest heights. During his reign, the magnificent temple of God was built and the borders of the country reached the extents that had been promised to Abraham about his descendants. There was peace and prosperity and influence. All was not well in every area of life, we know, but in the main this was the golden era of Israel’s history.

It is not surprising that Solomon instructed such critics that their comments were not expressions of wisdom. Did they really want to go back to the days when the worship of God was haphazard as far as its official arrangements were concerned, with the ark of the covenant being abandoned in different locations on separate occasions? Did they really want to go back to the days when the tribes of Israel were loosely organised?

On the other hand, perhaps such critics foresaw what the outcome of Solomon’s wrong policies and practices would be. The context does suggest that the reason for the complaint was discontentment with the present. Maybe they realised that his multiple weddings, toleration of paganism and enforced slavery of his people would have drastic repercussions. It would be easy to understand why they would want to return to the past. Yet if that was their solution, it too was not a wise suggestion, even for the obvious reason that the past has gone forever and cannot be recovered.

Strangely, even Solomon’s good achievements became a source of discouragement later on. In the days of the restoration from Babylon, when the returned exiles were rebuilding the temple which had been destroyed, there were those who discouraged them because it did not look as good as Solomon’s temple, at least what they could remember about it. The Lord sent his prophet to rebuke them and say that something greater would happen in the new temple, and that was that the Messiah would come to it. Those discouragers were being told not to think that the former days were better.

But all that is a long time ago. What about ourselves? One of the common complaints that we may make about others is that they have a selective memory. Of course, that may be true in some cases, although I would suggest that what marks virtually everyone is that they have a defective memory. There are many reasons for this and I want to mention four of them and think briefly about each of them before moving to consider what we should be doing with the past?

Reasons for looking back

First, we usually only remember the pleasant things of the past and the name for that outlook is nostalgia. This outlook can range from national descriptions to personal recollections. Nostalgia is often the focus of older people as they recall the times and the occasions in which they participated. But nostalgia, although it is very pleasant, is often very inaccurate. And it is not very different from the idealism with which others may regard the past. We can be nostalgic and idealistic about the church of the past, and if that is all we do with the past it is better not knowing about it.

A second reason is that as time goes on we realise that what we knew was actually not the full big picture, that there was a far bigger set of circumstances taking place, and the combination of them only highlights our limitations. As things get more complicated we long for a simpler world and we imagine that it existed in the past. Of course, it did not exist as we are tempted to imagine it. Life in the past was full of complications and some things today that are very easy were very difficult back then. There were many situations in the past that were a lot worse than they are today as far as living conditions and health are concerned and the improvements have been connected to developments in technology and other ways. We should express our gratitude for them rather than complain.

A third reason for making this kind of statement is connected to a sense of dissatisfaction with ourselves, especially with regard to spiritual activities. We hear lots of stories of individuals who prayed for hours every day, who managed to read all the spiritual classics, who knew vast portions of the Bible by heart, who somehow managed to get everything in balance. I am not denying that there were individuals who lived in that way at certain times in their lives. We can read about them, although what is usually notable about them is that they also were aware of spiritual deficiencies. But did every Christian live that way fifty years ago or one hundred years ago or two hundred years ago?

A fourth reason for making this kind of statement comes from selective reading about our spiritual history. I love to read about spiritual revivals that happened in different places throughout the world when God appeared in great gospel power and multitudes became Christians, with tens of thousands being converted in short periods of time. We can spend our days thinking about those great congregations and dream as if we were there. But the reason why a revival came was not because the church was healthy. Instead a revival came because the church was in spiritual decline. Revival was God’s gift to a dying church. No doubt, he burdened many of his people to pray for revival, but what would they have been saying before the revival came? They would perhaps have been saying that they wished they lived in a previous period in which revival was known, and they would have been saying that when a revival was round the corner.

It is said that the last great revival in Britain occurred roundabout 1859. What else was happening then? Several important people died and several children were born who later became famous. There was a huge storm that year, the most ferocious of the century, with 133 ships lost round the coastlines of Britain. The Sporting Life, a paper connected to horse racing and gambling, began publication. Charles Darwin published his Origin of the Species that year and its influence was soon felt, and still is. Can we say that everything in 1859 was good and can we use it for saying that it was a better year than now?

The problem with all of that is that we are in danger of confining God to the past. We can so exalt the past and what he did then in such a way that suggests he has become absent in the present. And if we use the past in that way we are getting close to having an outlook of unbelief. As we think about our attitudes to the past, ask ourselves if we believe he is at work in a similar way today. Do we believe God is working today in the big and the small around the world?

Assessing the present

The question with which Solomon is concerned requires us to assess the present. Obviously when someone thinks the present is inferior to the past, he has made an assessment of the present. So what can we say about the present?

Sin is rampant and some sins are tolerated today that would have appalled previous generations. But is that a reason for saying the past was better overall? From what I have read about previous generations, sins were rampant then as well. This is always the spiritual environment in which God’s people and others have to live.

Like the people of the past, we live in the period when Jesus is highly exalted and over which he reigns with as much authority as he did in the past. We have this information revealed to us and we have to respond to it one way or another. But what we cannot say is that we live in a period in which Jesus does not reign. We look out on the world and say, ‘Jesus is Lord.’

Like people of the past, we live in the period in which the Holy Spirit has been poured out from heaven on the world – this has been the case since the Day of Pentecost. Of course, there have been times when his outpouring has been more focussed on particular places. We rejoice when such take place, but we should not deduce that he is not at work in smaller ways in other places. We cannot say that we live in a period when the Holy Spirit has stopped working. We look out on the world and say, ‘The Holy Spirit is here.’

Like people of the past, we live in the period in which the Father is working out his eternal purpose. He has as much control today as he had over all previous periods. The working out of providence is still his activity and there is not a space in which he is not promoting, arranging, preventing, over-ruling, reversing, distinguishing, and managing what is going on. We look out on the world and say, ‘The heavenly Father is here.’

So like people from the past, we live in a place where sin is rampant and in which the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is at work to build the kingdom of God. Therefore we cannot say that the past was better.

Benefitting from the past

Even if we take the point of view that Solomon is referring to good periods in the past, those who participated in them throw, as it were, a challenge to us in the present. The challenge is, ‘You know what we did in our times. What you are doing in your times?’ So I want to make four suggestions about living like them in our time.

We benefit from thinking about those who have gone before us when we are satisfied with Jesus in the way that they were. They heard the same gospel as we do. We have looked at some periods in a very brief way, but what was used to bring spiritual blessings to anyone was the way they enjoyed the gospel. There is no reason why we should enjoy it less than they did. We are not to say that they had a better gospel to enjoy because we have the same gospel. The gospel brings pardon, and peace, and prospects to us as it did to them.

We benefit from those who have gone before us when we spread the gospel with the same kind of confidence and compassion that they had. They believed that the gospel could change the hearts of their contemporaries whom they observed walking on the broad road to destruction. God has the same infinite power today as he showed back then (indeed he is displaying it in the lives of far more people today than he did back then). He brought and is bringing blessing to people through the gospel passed on from the pulpit and from the pew. When we have this double heart attitude of confidence and compassion we see a different world.

We benefit from those who have gone before us when we speak to God with the same sense of anticipation as they did. What is prayer? It is speaking to God reverently, persistently and lovingly about his own instructions and promises. That is what people who lived in previous periods did. They drew near to him worshipfully, sometimes simply, at other times struggling, to express the thoughts of their hearts. They did it individually, they did it with others, and they did it frequently (they found the time).

We benefit from those who have gone before us when we share fellowship with the sense of desire and delight that they did. Sharing together about the gospel and its blessing is a real mark of grace. In the past it was common for believers to get together as they did in Malachi’s day. It was a time of spiritual difficulty, but those who feared the Lord gathered together often, and their doing so pleased him. That was how they responded to the situations of the past. They would say to us to do the same, that instead of merely concluding that the past was better we would imitate their response, and if we do so we will also become a model for the future.

The point of this verse, of course, is that our eyes should be on the future, looking ahead to see what our great God can do in our situations and circumstances. Expectancy should mark the people of God.