Question: Please give the meaning of Ecclesiastes 11:2.
Answer: Ecclesiastes is wisdom under the sun. Chapter 11:1-6 evidently looks at and exhorts us to use opportunities without regard to opposing elements. “Cast thy bread upon the waters,” “Give a portion” and “Sow thy seed” as opportunity affords, leaving the results with God, are expressions of this exhortation.
This suggests for us service to the Lord, sharing with others what we enjoy; giving a portion to all we can reach; sowing the seed evening and morning, as we find opportunity. May our walk and ways, as well as our words, be “holding forth the word of life” (2 Thess. 2:17).
Question: How would you explain “Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched”?
Answer: Mark 9:44, 46, 48 refers to the end of the wicked. Their worm tells them of sins committed, of warnings despised, of neglected opportunities of being saved. The memory of them is like the gnawing of a worm that never dies. The fire is the place of torment into which the lost ones are cast (Rev. 21:8). Both are fearful realities for all eternity.
Question: What does the bunch of hyssop dipped in the blood that is in the basin, show us? (Ex. 12:22).
Answer: The hyssop pictures man’s littleness, as the cedar pictures his greatness (1 Kings 4:33). From the greatest to the least, man by nature has nothing acceptable to God. All that he is, is ended in the death of Christ; this is seen in the sacrifices, (Lev. 14:4, 6, 49, 51, 52; Num. 19:6, 18).
In dipping the hyssop in the blood and sprinkling the doorpost, it is as if the Israelite said: I am only a worthless sinner; Christ is everything. His blood is my shelter from the judgment of God which my sins deserve.