There’s a reality we live in. And the reality is that the world is really hard to explain.

There’s significant mystery involved in living in the world and trying to understand the world. We want mysteries solved and we’re unsettled a bit when they are not solved.

And in very many ways God is a mystery to us. His ways are often hidden from us. We can’t know everything about God in his ways. Mysteries can drive us away from God or they can drive us to God.

The book of Ecclesiastes really meets mysteries head on and that’s what we’re going to be doing today. Today we’ll begin to delve into this—into the mind and worldview of one of the most provocative and interesting writers in the Bible. He’s called the Preacher in our Bibles.

Some people think and ask the question—why is this book even in the Bible? The author is very pessimistic. He has a dim view of God and sometimes has dim view of the ways of God. At times he feels abandoned by God and is content to just stay there in that feeling. He, at some points, it seems, like he contradicts biblical truths.

So why is it in the Bible? This will become clear today and as we move along. The book is a heavy dose of reality. Apart from God, the world as we experience the world, is a dark, dangerous, and depressing place as we look at it from our perspective. And reckoning with this dark reality forces us into a dialogue about where we can find the light. Where is the good news? And in a world like thi,s Ecclesiastes will point us in that direction.

From an earthly perspective, life is an endless cycle that has no ultimate purpose. We’ll be challenged to honestly look at the way things actually are rather than concoct a safer fantasy world. The challenge will also be to look beyond the earthly perspective to find some good news. God entered this world to redeem people from the vanity of the world.

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