This world and its people never change. Yes, the way things look may change, but everything is as it has always been—at its core. Solomon had this to say:
That which has been is what will be,
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new under the sun.Is there anything of which it may be said, “See, this is new”?
Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 NKJV
It has already been in ancient times before us.
Imagine a young man owning a nice, new Jeep. Over the years, there is wear and tear on the vehicle. Paint chips off, rust develops around the wheel wells, and the headlights get cloudy. Eventually the man sells the Jeep to another man. This new owner might decide to give it a new paint job, remove the rust, and clean up the headlights. Maybe he even paints it an entirely different color! Even though the thing looks very different now, it is still—at its core—a Jeep.
That is the essence of what Solomon is saying in this passage. “There is nothing new under the sun” means that time may pass and things might change their appearance, but humans are still human. Sin is still sin. We still have the same core problems in our world that existed 3000 years ago. We tend to say things like, “This world is going downhill”, “My, how times have changed”, or “There just seems to be so much more sin in the world today.” Solomon is telling us here that things really haven’t changed that much. Sure, folks 3000 years ago didn’t struggle with the exact problems we struggle with today, but they still had the root issues of sin.
For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.
1 John 2:16 NKJV
Every sin that has plagued any person who walked this earth since the beginning of time has fallen into one of those three categories. Desire to indulge oneself with drugs and alcohol—lust of the flesh. Pornography—lust of the eyes. Envy and greed—pride of life. All of those things and more have been problems since the dawn of time, and they continue to be problems to this day, though they may come in different forms.
In this series of posts, I will talk about some different aspects of life/problems in the world today that we tend to think are problems that have only been faced by us or our generation. Please join me in this study as we learn how we can find comfort in the fact that we aren’t the only ones who have to deal with any of the world’s issues.
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Please leave a comment below listing a problem that you have thought (or you have heard someone say) is something that we only have to deal with in modern times.
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