Solomon closes the book of Ecclesiastes with these words. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.

Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

Each of us have been given only one life.

What will we do with it? Life. It's not a game. And in this journey through the book of Ecclesiastes, Scott Pauley will guide us to better understand the true meaning of life.

The Lord Jesus told a story one day about a man who sat down saying that he was going to build a

tower and he started the construction project, but he didn't count the cost.

And he didn't make sure that he had all the materials on hand,

and so the tower was never finished. Then he told a story about a group of people that went out

to war, but they didn't think of what that battle was going to cost them, and they were not

prepared. He was using it as an analogy to talk about paying the price, counting the cost, looking

ahead and realizing what it's going to take to finish something.

We come today to an Old Testament parallel to that principle found in Ecclesiastes

chapter 10.

It's a really interesting verse in Ecclesiastes 10 and verse 10,

where Solomon says, if the iron be blunt and he do not wet the edge,

then must he put to more strength, but wisdom is profitable to direct.

He's using, of course, the principle of a working man, a tradesman who has his axe,

who's cutting down some wood, and he doesn't pay any attention to how sharp his axe is.

And so because he's using a dull tool, he's having to work harder and

harder and harder with less productivity. That's the old adage of work smarter, not harder. I was thinking

as I read this verse about Abraham Lincoln's famous quote of, give me six hours to chop down a tree and I'll spend the first

force sharpening the axe. I wonder if that was rooted

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