Ecclesiastes chapter 1 says that there is nothing new under the sun. History merely repeats itself. This is an interesting concept to think about. There is nothing new under the sun. That means that all the hurts and pains that we go through in this world are not new. That means that there is no new sin, there are no new ideas, nothing that man can do is new. There may be new ways of doing things, but the concepts themselves are not new.
We should not be shocked when the world acts as if they are lost because they are. They will do things that show they are lost. Sometimes you hear people say things are way worse than they used to be. If you read the Bible then you know that is not true. Sins can be recycled over and over and over again. Look at Sodom and Gomorrah; they were so bad that God destroyed them. Their sin was so great that God decided they should no longer exist. This is just one example of how things are not necessarily worse today. People are sinful, and so they will act sinful now just as they always have.
Ecclesiastes 1:10 says that “Sometimes people say, ‘Here is something new!’ But actually it is old; nothing is ever truly new. We don’t remember what happened in the past, and in future generations, no one will remember what we are doing now.” Oh how our memories are so short! We think we’ve been alive for a long time and know a lot about what has happened, but our time on earth is but a mist. Since we know that nothing is new under the sun, then we know the consequences for actions, and that should serve as a warning to us now. Just as sin is not new, God’s wisdom is also not new. The Bible has stood the test of time. We can learn from the past, what happened when people went against God, and even the lessons that godly men and women learned when they tried to do things their own way.