From here to eternity...where did that idea come from?

Solomon, the Jewish king, wrote, "He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end." (recorded in the Holy Scriptures, in Ecclesiastes 3.11) This notion of 'eternity' is recorded here in Qohelet, but is a translation of the Hebrew word "Ha-olam" which often is translated as 'the world.' 

Don't get bogged down, but have a quick glance at this information from Murphy. (Or you can even skip this next paragraph, but come back afterwards)

The commentator, Roland Murphy, said this of the word. 

"Qoheleth says that God has put (Ha-olam) ‏העלם‎, “duration,” into the human heart. Whether this action is seen as positive or negative, the result is the same: humans have not been helped because they cannot understand what God is about. The interpretation of ‏העלם has been a crux interpretum. LXX (ἀιῶνα) and Vulgate (mundum) understood it to mean “world.” This could be taken as a desire for knowledge of the world in a good sense, or as a kind of secularism or worldliness (1 John 2:16). However, olam עלם in the sense of world is not found in biblical Hebrew, and Qoheleth elsewhere (eg, 3:14) uses the word in a temporal sense. A traditional view understands the word to mean “eternity” (so the RSV and many commentators such as W. Zimmerli and H. Hertzberg; but NRSV, “a sense of past and future”). F. Delitzsch understood it to be the desiderium aeternitatis, or “the desire of eternity.” 

If you don't recognize F. Delitzsch, that's not a surprise, but if you were a student of XIX theology, especially among Jews or Lutherans in Germany, you would know the name very well. Franz Delitzsch, although baptised in his birth year of 1813, has some serious interest in and relations with the Jewish people. His godfather, Franz Julius Hirsch, was likely his own birth-father. Hirsch was a Jewish antiques dealer, although Delitzsch called Hirsch his 'benefactor.' Delitzsch went on to be a commentator along with C. Keil of the entire Older Testament, and actually translated the books of the Newer Testament into Hebrew as well. This, well before the modern State of Israel, and well before the modern use of Hebrew, but still his work is standard among Jewish people in studies in Israel.  Delitzsch went on to assist in mission work among the Jewish people, like what would later be called 'Jews for Jesus' back in the XIX. He was an amazing scholar and man of God.

So when he translated Ecclesiastes 3.11 to mean the desire of eternity, that really helps us in understanding what the wise old king meant. Solomon is saying that God has put the desire of eternity in our hearts, and as a result, we long for its satisfaction, not with temporal things like Solomon considered in the rest of that short Bible book (wine, women, song), but only with eternal things that only God offers.  All because of a longing, a deep desire for 'something more.'
This resonates with me. I grew up with Jewish scholastic considerations. Yet I also grew up in the 1950s and 1960s where hedonism had a culture and a definition: hippies. We lived 'for today' and 'we were sure to wear flowers in our hair when we went to San Francisco.' It was a time of self-love and selfishness. Our desire was for today and not for eternity.

Against that backdrop of dark human consumption settles the words of the king: "He has also set eternity in their heart." Because God has placed this longing in us, we will not rest until we find our rest in Him. All the fake rests we had in the 1960s pale in comparison to the reality of eternity with God.  Not a forever where we sit on clouds and pluck harps, but a forever of being with the Creator of all who as a master artist painted every sunset to which we say, "wow." He is the clever designer of all the mountains and rivers, the colors of every artist's palate and the best symphonies since Haydn. The personal God who wants each of us to know him and to learn of his love, that's the one who has set eternity in our hearts.

Does that resonate with you?

Yeshua said, "God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3.16). He cares about you. He cares about your cousin and the protestors. He cares about the poor in Africa and in Sydney's west. He wants us all to know him and to have life forever, life eternal, eternal life.

The way to receive that is to believe. After all, God has started this longing in you for all that. Why not ask him to resolve that now?

Sneaky, deception and magicians...is there hope?

Sleight of hand is a remarkable visual and sometimes audial trickery that most of us admire. We watch David Copperfield and generations ago watched Harry Houdini, and we are amazed and scratch our heads. “How did he do that?” when he saws a lady in half or makes an elephant disappear. Even those magician shows we watch, when they slow down the trick… most of the time I don’t see how they do it.

I watch the football here in Australia and am constantly amazed when I see what they call a ‘dummy’ play. This is where one player pretends to offload the ball one way or another and ends up with almost-Copperfield-like sleight of hand and moves the ball forward with rapid-fire trickery. We applaud that play and wonder why the defense doesn’t know what he will do. Of course, no one knows what he will do, and perhaps even the offensive player doesn't know what he will do, until he sees the defense react one way or the other.

This is true in many sports and many situations of life, but it doesn’t work when we are trying to work our way religiously in a real way toward the Living God.

God demonstrates no sleight of hand and practices no dummies. He is ever real and honest and forthright. And he calls us to real and honest and forthright living as well. I’m not sure that I’ve ever read the word sneaky as one of those adjectives that applies to the Living God. In fact, I’m sure it doesn’t.

So why is it that we pretend and sneak and live double lives in these days? What is it about the possibility of privacy that is so commendable and allowing in the 21st century? What lessons can we learn that prevent our going there?

The honesty and forthrightness demonstrated in the Scriptures is not only a high mark to admire, but one to which we should aspire. When the prophet Nathan caught King David with his pants down, David didn’t say one thing and practice another. He agreed with Nathan’s assessment and called himself a sinner in need of forgiveness (2 Samuel 12.13, Psalm 51) and let the chips fall where they may. He didn’t lie anymore but clearly said he was guilty and had sinned against the Lord. He had after all committed adultery and murder, and as a Jewish man those are two of the Big Ten that you shouldn’t be anywhere close to committing.

Others saw themselves as wrong, like Isaiah the prophet who when confronted by the holiness of the Lord, said “Woe is me, for I am ruined.” (Chapter 6) King Solomon said “There is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and never sins.” (Ecclesiastes 7.20) And Solomon should know, as he lived wildly and spent his money anywhere and everywhere he wanted, to no satisfactory conclusion.

When we sin, if God is a good God, He will send guilt our way to correct us and challenge us and amend our ways.

Guilt is a lousy master but a wonderful teacher to get us on the right path.

The constant refrain from the Scriptures is that people who are sinners, whose hands are dirty, should cleanse their hands and purify their hearts. (James 4.8, Job 17.9, Psalm 24.4)

What does God promise to those who do this cleansing, detox program? “The righteous will hold to his way” (Job 17.9), and “He shall receive a blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.” (Psalm 24.5) and James summarizes it best with, “He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, ‘God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’ Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.” (4.6-10)