The Nature of Life Under the Sun

Transcript

GR 2134
The Nature of Life under the Sun
10/06/2019
Ecclesiastes 9:1-6
Gil Rugh

We are going to return to our study of Ecclesiastes today. We took a little break. I said to my first hour class, “Well, we took a break for a while,” and somebody chimed up and said, “Well, of course, you were gone all the time.” But we’re back to Ecclesiastes and we’re ready to start chapter 9. Now I find Ecclesiastes a very foundational and important book for living our lives in a wise way, having an understanding of the world in which we live, and the purposes of God as we live day by day. We’ve made some changes in the English translation so we’re going to put the chart up again just as a reminder. First, the one with hebel. We’ll leave that pronunciation just the way it looks, hebel, and note it means a puff of air, a breath, a vapor. The essential quality to which hebel refers is lack of permanence, rather than lack of worth or value; air-like, fleeting, transitory, elusive.

This word is normally translated (most of you are using the New American Standard Bible) as “vanity” so Ecclesiastes began in chapter 1 verse 2, “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” I think that’s a misleading translation. Vanity can mean something that is empty, worthless, meaningless, but the Hebrew word here is just hebel. So, we’re not changing the Bible. But when it came to translate this word the English translators thought of something that’s a puff of air, breath, a vapor. And this translation thought, “Well, vanity, something empty or meaningless,” but rather it’s something brief. And that’s the emphasis in Ecclesiastes. In this physical life the things that happen are brief and our life is brief. But our life is not worthless, and neither are the things that take place in our brief life, even though they are brief or transitory.

So, life is not meaningless, it’s not worthless. But it is brief, it is a vapor. We say things like here today, gone tomorrow. We recognize that, and as we get older, we look back and it’s like the psalmist said, we spend our life as a tale that is told. And here we are at the closing chapter, and how’d we get here kind-of-thing. Just keep that in mind as we go through. I don’t like it when we have to change the translation here because it can get confusing but remember that word vanity. That’s the normal way it’s translated, there’ll be other words that might be used. I think consistently it means something brief, something transitory, ephemeral, short lived.

And then another expression that we’ve changed. The chasing the wind is striving after wind. I think it’s better, the wind’s desire, the desire of the wind, the whim of the wind, as we’ve talked about it. Changing, unpredictable, unknowing, so that what we end up with is something that’s temporary and out of control. Our life is brief and it’s like the wind, it’s out of our control. We can’t control the wind, where it blows, when it blows, and the wind comes and goes, so it fits with that temporary. And so, the two things we’re talking about is on this earth, in this physical life. It’s characterized by brevity and it is out of our control. Now note, it’s not out of control because Ecclesiastes is clear that God is in control, but it is out of our control and in that context, we’re living in a fallen world. The world is under the judgment of God because of sin. It’s under the domination and influence of the devil, the whole world lies in the evil one, 1 John chapter 5 says.

Even we who have trusted Christ and experience the forgiveness of sins and brought into a relationship with the living God have to live our lives out day by day in this fallen world. And we haven’t experienced the final chapter of our redemption, which will be the glorification of the body. The final chapter that God has planned is the closing chapters of the book of Revelation when Christ returns and redeems the creation and the curse is lifted. That means we’re living in a world that is characterized by God’s judgment on sin, dominated by people who are controlled by sin and the devil, and the consequences of sin impact us. Our destiny is settled, to be absent from the body, we’ll be present with the Lord. But the trials and tribulations of life on this earth affect believer and unbeliever alike. That’s been what Ecclesiastes has been walking us through and we must understand this and have a grasp on it. Otherwise, we will miss what keeps coming up and it’s going to come up in our portion again today. God intends us with all the trials, the pain, the disappointments, the unfairness, etc., to experience joy, and appreciate life, and what it has for us day by day. And that means we realize we can’t undo yesterday, and we can’t control tomorrow, but I am responsible for my walk with God today.

Jesus emphasizes the same thing on the Sermon on the Mount when He says, don’t worry about tomorrow, each day has enough trouble of its own. He told His disciples shortly before His crucifixion, “In the world you have tribulations, be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” As we move through Ecclesiastes just look at the closing verses of chapter 8 as we lead into chapter 9. Verse 16, Solomon says, “When I gave my heart to know wisdom and to see the task which has been done on the earth...” Let me just pause with you and note these expressions. Eleven times, from verse 14, down through chapter 9, verse 13, you will have the expression “on the earth, under the sun” because that’s crucial. Understanding what he’s talking about is our physical life on earth, how we live here. If you don’t keep that, we’ll get in trouble, so I want to note these.

In verse 14 just for the context, “There is futility...” That’s the same word hebel we were talking about, usually translated vanity in the New American Standard. Here it is translated futility. “There is brevity which is done on the earth…” Everything done on the earth is characterized by brevity, transitoriness. It is passing which is done on the earth. “…on the earth…” Keep in mind Solomon is aware and he brings that in that there is something else, there is life beyond this life on earth. We will be brought into judgment after life on this earth, but he’s focusing on how we walk on the earth. You have that expression in verse 14. Down in verse 15, “So I commended pleasure, for there is nothing good for a man under the sun.” “…under the sun…” the same meaning as on the earth. When you’re on the earth, you’re under the sun. So, it’s the same thing, our physical life. The same expression at the end of verse 15, “…under the sun.” Then in verse 16 down toward the end of that verse, “…on the earth…” You come down to verse 17, “…man cannot discover the work which has been done under the sun.” You come down into chapter 9 verse 3, “This is an evil in all that is done under the sun…” Down at the end of verse 6, “…all that is done under the sun.” Down in verse 9 toward the end of the verse, “…He has given to you under the sun…” The end of verse 9, “…you have labored under the sun.” Verse 11, “I again saw under the sun...” Down in verse 13, “…I came to see as wisdom under the sun…”

You see that repeated emphasis. Well, it is important because certain verses that we’re going to look at shortly are taken by some of the cults to believe in soul sleep, or annihilation, because of certain things that are said. But you have to remember that what Solomon is writing about is our physical life on this earth. And there are some break-ins where he reminds us of God’s sovereignty and our accountability, and the judgment we will stand before God to experience after our life. But he’s primarily concerned with instructing us to live wisely during the days of our physical life.

Come back again now to chapter 8, verse 16, where Solomon said, “When I gave my heart to know wisdom and to see the task which has been done on the earth…” Remember he started out I want to find some of what life is about, our toil, and our task, and our work in this physical life. What’s it all about? I want to know as much about it from the good side and the bad side. He wanted to know wisdom and remember he’s the wisest man who ever lived. And even if you never slept (so you could take 24 hours a day, seven days a week) verse 17, “…and I saw every work of God, I concluded that man cannot discover the work which has been done under the sun. Even though man should seek laboriously, he will not discover; and though the wise man should say, ‘I know,’ he cannot discover.” In other words, we are always dealing with limited knowledge. In the beginning of Ecclesiastes and chapter 3 Solomon said God has put eternity in our hearts. We realize there is always more to know, so remember we are always dealing with limited knowledge. Now God has full knowledge, He’s omniscient. He knows everything, but we are not God. So, in our handling of situations we want to keep in mind, “I’m dealing with limited knowledge.”

How often do we say when something happens, “I don’t see any purpose in that, I don’t understand why God would do that, I don’t see how any good could come out of that…” and those kinds of expressions. But part of what the problem is, I’m living with limited knowledge. We’ve looked at Job a number of times because he’s a man that had to go through that. All my children die in one accident when the roof caves in. What good can come out of that? I lose all my wealth and I used what I had for good purposes. And then I lose my health and I’m sitting here scraping my sores. I can’t sleep, I can’t sit down, I can’t get up, I can’t lay down, I don’t see any… But wait a minute, we live with limited knowledge, so we have to keep that in mind as we come into chapter nine.

We are limited. Wisdom is not knowing everything or having all the answers. Wisdom is living wisely, recognizing God is sovereign, living wisely according to His word, but knowing I live with limited knowledge and then it doesn’t frustrate me. I can’t control tomorrow, I can’t guarantee the outcome. We have to be careful as Christians. When I want to lead someone to Christ, I can’t tell them, if you trust Christ, it will make a major difference in your life. It will, and you can be sure your life will get better. What do you mean by that? Will you restore my marriage? Will my health be restored? Will I get a better job? No, that’s not what it means. So I want to be careful, we bring people along, you don’t know. Paul was respected, well-to-do, a Pharisee and humanly speaking his life went to pot when he trusted Christ. I want to be careful saying that, but humanly speaking he lost it all and he says he lost it all in Philippians 3. Then he gives his testimony and says I just count it as dung anyway. I put it on the rubbish heap. And so we want to be careful to have a realistic view of life, not a discouraging view, that’s important.

All right, let’s pick up with chapter 9 verse 1. “For I have taken all this to my heart and explain it…” or sometimes translated, examine it. And here’s what I see, “that righteous men, wise men, and their deeds are in the hand of God.” So, that sovereign recognition. Before we go any further, “righteous men, wise men,” you’re talking about the same people. Righteous and wise don’t mean the same thing, but a righteous man is a wise man, a wise man is a righteous man. We’ve been back in Proverbs where Proverbs tells us the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the LORD. You can read Proverbs 9, 9 and 10. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the LORD. You’ve come to recognize He’s the sovereign God, you’ve bowed before Him, you’ve trusted Him and the provision he makes for you and your salvation. Now you have been credited with righteousness by Him and now you have wisdom. You’re to grow in that wisdom, to see life as God created it, as it is as a result of the fall (sin), and as God directs you through the days of your life. They are in the hand of God, the lives of righteous men.

Now God’s in control of the unrighteous, but they don’t have the confidence we do. We often quote Romans 8:28, all things work together for good for those who are called of God, those that belong to Him, His children. Not saying that for the unbeliever. That doesn’t mean by all things, work together for good. Paul’s going to spend times of his life in prison, he’s going to be beaten, he’s going to be shipwrecked, he’s ultimately going to be executed. That’s not the good life as the world identifies it. We have to have a proper understanding of this. If the church did, there wouldn’t be much room for the health and wealth preachers, except they have an attraction of course, for the unbeliever who also wants to be religious. But their deeds are in the hand of God, the righteous and the wise.

But note this at the end of verse 1, “Man does not know…” Now note that, follow, “…their deeds (their works) are in the hand of God.” He’s in control, He’s directing your life, He brings into it what He determines, He puts the situation he wants His children in. Deeds are in the hand of God, under His control. “Man does not know...” So, you see the difference, things are not under our control, but they are under God’s control. We claim to believe the sovereignty of God and it’s easy for me, as a pastor, to teach you about the sovereignty of God. Or when I’m dealing with someone talking to them, well, God is sovereign. This is when the pressure is, when it hits my life. Oh, it’s not what I counted on, that’s not the outcome I was looking for! “Man does not know whether it will be love or hatred; anything awaits him.” So, you see these things are not under our control. That’s why I reminded you the whim of the wind, and there’ll be other expressions. But that idea, we’re not in control, God is.

Back up to chapter 3, of Ecclesiastes. Chapter 2 ended with the last statement of verse 26, “This too is vanity…” There’s our word hebel. This too is brevity and not striving after the wind, but the whim of the wind. This is something we cannot control, this is something out of our control, it’s brief but it’s out of our control. Look at verse 1 of chapter 3. “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven (the sun).” Things aren’t out of control, they’re not under our control. God is in control. A time to give birth, a time to die; a time to plant, a time to uproot; a time to kill, a time to heal, and he goes down with these opposites. But you note, they are all under God’s appointed time, as we’ve seen when we looked at this. Look at verse 11. “He has made everything appropriate (or as the margin says, beautiful) in its time.” To us it’s unexpected.

We don’t know whether love or hate is what awaits us tomorrow, good things or bad things. We don’t control it, but I don’t have to fear, because of what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, don’t worry about tomorrow, each day has enough trouble of its own. I handle today. It doesn’t mean I can’t make plans for tomorrow, we all have to. But as we looked at in James, don’t say with self-confidence, this is what I’m going to do tomorrow. It’s always conditioned by the Lord willing, this is what I will do tomorrow. That’s the point, “He has made everything appropriate…” and then there is that expression I referred to, “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 to the end.”

We can grow in our knowledge of God, but we don’t exhaust the knowledge. That’s what he said in the verses we looked at in the end of chapter 8. Some of these themes permeate because the ability to live wisely in this difficult world takes the wisdom of God and recognizes the reality of it. So much of the frustration and confusion that comes to believers comes from not being grounded in the Scripture, and letting those Scriptures permeate our life and thinking. And thus, we have failed to appreciate the good times as we go through the bad times.

Come back to chapter 9. We don’t know what comes tomorrow. Look at the end of verse 1. “Man does not know…” But he’s already made clear it’s in the hands of God. God knows, He’s bringing it about. “Man does not know whether it will be love or hatred; anything awaits him.” I don’t have control. The best I can do is face today and conduct myself today wisely. Any plans I have tomorrow, they’ll be affected by a variety of things, some minor, some major. Part of the frustration that comes, verse 2, is for us as believers, “It is the same for all. There is one fate for the righteous and for the wicked…” Now you read that verse, and if you don’t take careful consideration of the context of Ecclesiastes, a person can say, see there’s one fate for all. One fate for the righteous, one fate for the wicked.

If you’re going to say the bible doesn’t have contradictions, you’re trying to tell me that there’s a different fate for the wicked than there is for the righteous. The bible says it’s the same for all. There’s one fate for the righteous and the wicked. And that word fate isn’t in the sense of fatalism, the philosophy of the world, but the activities that confront us. The culmination of life is the same, and that’s where he’s going to go. Look at verse 3 before we look at what’s in between. “This is an evil in all that is done under the sun…” I mark my bible and I have these kinds of expressions underlined. I use different colors so that I’m reminded of them when I come back to it. “…under the sun, that there is one fate for all men.” At the end of verse 3, “…they go to the dead.” Well, we’re talking about life limited to this horizontal perspective. We’ve had dear members of our church family that have experienced physical death, godly, righteous people who were such a blessing. They died just like the most wretched, godless person on the earth. They experienced death, and in between now, and the end of my life, I’m going to experience a lot of the same things the unbeliever experiences, because this is a world under judgment.

The consequences of sin spread throughout the world and impact every single human being. Yeah, but we’ve trusted Christ. Yes, remember Solomon’s writing for the nation Israel? He’s the king of the nation Israel, the elect nation chosen as the nation to belong to God. That didn’t mean every believer in the nation, every individual in the nation was a believer. But they understand the context of what he’s talking about here. This is the framework for God’s people. We’ve emphasized this again and again through Ecclesiastes. And he’s going to note that the ultimate end for all of us is death. You can see our redemption is not yet finished.

It’s completed in Christ. The provision is made for everything from beginning to end, but I’ve not yet entered in to all that God has prepared for those who love Him. I haven’t received the glorified body. My body is still subject to sickness, to pain. Believers go to the doctor probably as often as unbelievers do. Believers die at all ages, some very young, some very old. It’s life, so we experience all the things on this physical earth indiscriminately that the unbeliever does. You know what he says, “There is one fate for the righteous and for the wicked…” “It is the same for all.” In verse 2, “…for the good, for the clean and for the unclean; for the man who offers a sacrifice and for the one who does not sacrifice. As the good man is, so is the sinner; as the swearer is, so is the one who is afraid to swear.” To take an oath. “This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one fate for all men.” The end of verse 3, “Afterwards (after life) they go to the dead.” And so, what he’s saying is through life, no matter how good you are, or how evil you are, you still will experience the same basic trials of life. It’s the reality and you note, nowhere in here are we told that we should fix it, because it can’t be fixed by our action.

We’ll say more about that in a moment, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Naturally, there’s disappointment. Someone you love, one of your children is seriously sick. Of course, we pray for one another because we recognize God is sovereign, but God hasn’t promised that He’ll keep us from all the trials. He says that we will experience the same trials. Job was the most righteous man on the earth, and we always go to Job. He’s part of what we call the wisdom literature, like Ecclesiastes. Why? It’s a reminder that the most righteous man on the earth suffered to a very great degree, and sometimes it seems like some of the most wicked are on cruise control. They seem to have good health, they live to advanced ages, and we say Lord, if it was me, I’d freeze their mouth shut as they spoke those words and then I’d cause them to fall over, clunk. But that’s not what God is doing.

There will come a time when His judgment is poured out in more open ways. Even now you see the judgment as we’ve talked about in Romans 1, but basically believer and unbeliever. You go to the hospital and you’ll bump into believers who are there as patients, and unbelievers. You go to a clinic for a blood transfusion, you meet believers and unbelievers. You go to the cancer clinic, you’ll meet believers and unbelievers. That’s life! That’s what he is talking about, no matter what the contrast in verse 2. He says you’re not guaranteed deliverance for this even as God’s child, for the good man, and the evil man. The good man, the sinner. We are the same. Verse 3, “This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one fate for all men.”

Now note, this is an important verse. “Furthermore, the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives.” This is what’s going on in the world. I sometimes say sin makes you stupid. Now I have to add another phrase, sin makes you crazy, insane. That’s what he says, “…insanity is in their hearts…” This is an important verse. I may talk about some of this tonight as part of our discussion time. I am greatly concerned with what is happening in the evangelical world. This is that broad word of those who profess to be bible-believing Christians. There is like a freight train coming with its emphasis on social justice and racial justice and the church needing to get involved in helping cure the social and racial divisions and ills that characterize our society, and its Christians denying the basic foundational principles of the gospel.

It’s gotten to the point that it is becoming a tide. And I can’t believe the men that are latching onto it. Saying that the gospel is not just the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. It is social and racial justice on equal levels, and you haven’t presented the gospel when you’ve just presented the death and resurrection of Christ. The problem is not the social conditions. The problems are not the racial conditions. The problem is their hearts are full of evil. You can’t fix it by cleaning up the neighborhood, by trying to bring some equality between the races or the sexes or anything else. People are crazy, they’re insane, they’re mad! We’ll look in a moment. This word translated insanity, is translated several times in Ecclesiastes as madness. You ever look at the world and say it’s going crazy?

You know Marilyn and I used to travel to the East Coast when my parents were living there. Marilyn had an aunt that I knew well, because I knew her all the time from when Marilyn and I dated. She was in a retirement home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Amish country back there. We’d stop and visit her and toward the end of our visits, she was in her eighties, her mind was going. When she was younger she was single, never married. She had worked in a bank, was a teller there, and did bank work and the bank got robbed. Well, you know as her mind lost touch with present reality it went back to those days. So, the last time we were there and were sitting in the lobby of that retirement home, she was talking about the bank robbery that happened. I think it was yesterday, she said. And then she wanted me to walk over, and said, right here at the teller, a guy did this and this, and then the police came and walked me over here to show it. Of course, it did me no good to tell it didn’t happen, and so I’m just going along. Oh yeah, that was terrible! I imagine when that policeman and they came here, and when the robber was here, everybody would be here, and I’m walking through going just along with her. When we finally left and were on our way home Marilyn said, I was beginning to worry about you. (laughter) And you know, now it’s come to that.

The world’s gone crazy! And then it’s like we ought to become crazy with the world. It’s like your kids when they are doing something make believe, and you go along and make believe with them. Now the world wants us to live there. It’s crazy, it’s insane, and I use that word biblically. Insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives. That’s why trying to deal with it just on all the rational arguments, you’re dealing with crazy people, and that’s not because we were any different. Remember Paul told Titus to remind the believers that they were just like them. I’ve got a bunch of crazy people out here, but we got changed and what changes us? Only God can change a heart. Remember Jeremiah 17:9 and 10, the heart is deceitful and is desperately wicked above all things; who can know it? It’s a rhetorical question. No human being! But the next statement is “I, the LORD, search the heart…” And the point is, I am the only One. “I, the LORD, search the heart…” try the motives and so on.

That’s what we’re dealing with. I’m concerned that if we are not anchored in the Word of God with clarity, soon we just move along. Well, you want to help people, don’t you? Want to do good to people? Wouldn’t it be good if our neighborhoods were cleaned up? When our family got saved, we were living in government housing. My best friend lived across the field in the middle class housing, and I went into his house one day. I never forgot it. He was my best friend and his mother was always nice to me, but she said to me, “Did you notice I put a shade at my window at the sink? And she said to me, “Do you know why I put that shade there? So I don’t have to look at Malmedy Village when I do my dishes.”

Well, that’s where I lived in Malmedy Village. It was named after a village in France connected with World War II. She says, “I can’t even look at that dump!” But that’s where we got saved. Did they have to come and clean up and help us move to the middle class neighborhood, and then once they got us in middle class neighborhood then we’d be savable? This is the kind of thing that churches are doing with their social action. We’ll do this, and then they’ll know, and it’ll sort of change their thinking. You can’t change their thinking. They’re crazy people. They’re out of their minds. There’s no rational to sin. That’s the way we were. It’s the gospel, which is the power of God for salvation. It makes no sense. Look at the world around us you, and see the country begins to come unglued.

I read an article in the news this week of a medical doctor. I forget whether he was in Canada or England, one of those places. He worked in the government in the medical hospital, and he was released, because he believed in gender differences and he wouldn’t acknowledge that the man he was dealing with was really a woman. He says, “Well, I think science and the bible make clear there’s a difference in the gender. Here I am with a 6 foot, 60 years old man with a beard, and I’m supposed to pretend he’s a lady!” It’s crazy, but if you won’t become part of the asylum, you can’t be there, so he’s removed.

It’s a crazy world we live in and the solution—now don’t run out and tell every unbeliever you meet that you’re crazy, but remember, you know his condition. He doesn’t, and you can’t fix it. Only God can. All He’s done with you is provide the solution, the gospel. And what is happening to the churches? They’ve changed what the gospel is. It’s social action. It’s racial justice. Until the church gets out and shows that it can change society, they won’t be open to our message. That’s the trick of the devil. All of that comes out of Ecclesiastes 9:3. You’ve got that fixed in your mind, “…the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives…” Until they die. The only thing that can rescue them is the truth that God has given us.

Come back to Genesis. We don’t have to finish all this because I’m coming back next week. Genesis chapter 6, verse 5 and this is leading up to the flood. God is going to pour out His judgment in flooding the world and destroying life, except saving Noah and his family. Look at verse 5 of Genesis 6, “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Every intent of his thoughts continually evil. Our problem is we don’t really believe what God says about how desperately sinful we are. Sometimes believers begin to think, I realize they’re not righteous, but they’re not that bad. By God’s grace, everybody doesn’t manifest their sin, but l look at our country. I see how quickly people are ready to promote and encourage what is clearly sinful, evil rebellion against God because it becomes acceptable now. It’s open and you see what’s in the heart.

Now don’t think, well, the flood took care of that because… Turn over to chapter 8. Now the flood is over, the water subsides, Noah and his immediate family are the only human beings on the face of the earth that have survived. You think well, that took care of sin because Noah was a righteous man and I take it the family with him on the Ark would have been righteous also and that’s why God spared them. We took care of sin, we can start over. No. Look at verse 21 of Genesis 8, “The LORD smelled the soothing aroma…” Noah makes a sacrifice. “…and the Lord said to Himself, ‘I will never again curse the ground on account of man, (note this) for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth...” Wait a minute, that’s what you said earlier.

You know why Noah and his family came across on the Ark? You know what they’re going to have? Children. Everyone here is a descendant of Noah, and Adam through Noah. But you know what he brought? The sin nature of Adam with him, so that every one of those children that are born would be evil from the beginning as the Psalmist would write, in sin my mother conceived me. Not that conception is sin, but sin is passed on at conception. That’s one of the evidences for life beginning at conception for us who are biblically based. It begins at conception. Why, what’s passed on? Our connection to Adam. It’s a living connection and it is a sinful connection. Every intent evil from youth. Nothing is changed. This is not new, and I mentioned Jeremiah 17 verse 9, the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.

Come back to Ecclesiastes. This word is insanity. Come back to chapter 1 verse 17, “…I set my mind to know wisdom and to know madness…” There’s our word translated insanity, the same point. “…and folly…” But I realized this is “the whim of the wind.” In other words, I want to understand everything from all sides as a wise man. I want to know everything, the good and the bad. But you can’t plumb the depths of the wickedness of the human heart. It’s out of our control. We see manifestations of sin, but it’s only the grace of God that restrains the full out breaking in the coming seven-year tribulation. We’ll see something of the depths of that depravity, when God allows its fuller manifestation, and when you put the almost unrestrained wickedness of man, allowing full expression with the judgment of God against that wickedness of man. The world becomes all but unlivable; people dying not by the hundreds, not by the thousands, not by the millions, but by the billions as we’ve seen in the Book of Revelation.

We see what’s going on in our country, you sit there, and you think, what’s going on? It’s irrational! You can turn on one channel and this is truth. You can turn on another channel and this is truth. And they are totally opposite, and nobody seems to care. What matters is, I win. Well, you don’t expect crazy people to act normal. It’s irrational! I mean let’s face it, why would somebody who thinks straight as we would, talk about it, and choose to go to hell when the living God has provided a Savior? It makes no sense. You don’t have to go to hell, you don’t even have to work to earn the right to go to heaven. God says, I paid it all. Here’s a gift, take it. Nope, I’ll do it my way. What? Are you crazy? Yes. What can you say? That’s why all of us who have experienced God’s grace in salvation are testimonies of His grace. Ephesians says that we will be testimonies of God’s grace throughout eternity because we were all crazy, hell bent sinners. How every thought of our minds was evil continually. Any veneer of good was just that.

This is the world we live in. We as Christians need to grasp that, or we’ll begin to follow. And the pattern becomes, it sweeps church after church away. It just goes, and soon country after country. What happens where the gospel was once held and proclaimed and taught? It sort of just washed away. We lose our foundation in God’s truth and God’s people become neutralized. They don’t deny the truth, they just assume the truth.

Come back to Ecclesiastes 9, and we will wrap this up by just summarizing verses four to six. “For whoever is joined with all the living, there is hope; surely a live dog is better than a dead lion.” In other words, he’s not telling us that life is meaningless. There is value to life even if you’re a dog and dogs weren’t their nice household pets. They were like the dogs in Malmedy Village. “Get out of here!” And it was worse then, because they were the scavenger dogs, and he compares that to a lion, the majestic symbol of kings and so on. A live dog is better than a dead lion, a dead lion is not good for anything. At least a live dog can do something. That’s his point. “For the living know they will die; but the dead do not know anything…”

Now be careful. That’s another verse that some of the cults will bring up and say see the dead don’t know anything, so how can you say that the spirit is alive after they die? He says the dead don’t know anything. Well, what are we talking about? A physically dead person. They can do an autopsy on a dead body, but they don’t have to bring somebody in to apply the anesthesia, some kind of anesthetic. No, why? There’s no pain! Go ahead and cut that arm off, go ahead and cut the chest open, take the heart out. Well, that’ll hurt! It will if you’re alive, but it doesn’t make a bit of difference when you die. That’s the point. At physical death everything you’re going to do physically in this life ends with your death. That’s going to be his point. Don’t waste life! That’s where he’s going, down through verse 10, which we can’t get to today. Verse 5, “For the living know they will die, but the dead do not know anything, nor have they any longer a reward, for their memory is forgotten.”

Not only what they do is forgotten, but they get forgotten. It’s true and we’ve talked about it. How many people I know as ancestry searches have become popular and that’s fine, and history has a place. Basically, I don’t have any idea who my great, great, great grandfather was. I don’t know of anybody else who does know either, and you could get down closer than that. I’m probably the only survivor in my family that knew my grandfather. My brothers were young when he died. My sister was a long time from being born and my dad was an only child, so who remembers them? Who knows? Their memory is forgotten. That’s the point.

Verse 6, “Indeed their love, their hate…” You note where at the end of verse 1 of chapter 9, “Man does not know whether it will be love or hatred...” You get down to verse 6 and we pick that up, “Indeed their love, their hate and their zeal have already perished…” So, don’t get too taken up about whether people love you or hate you, and then we don’t want to let that eat away at us. Why did they treat me like that, why did they do that? You know it’s all transitory. It’ll all be gone and forgotten. Think back 25 years and somebody who did something mean to you. Well, I don’t know 25 years ago, what they did to me, some of those things fade even in time and with death it’s all gone and over. You worried about it for nothing. You missed some of the joy you could have had, because you let that eat at you. That’s where he’s going in verses seven to nine. But the point is at the end of verse six, “…and they will no longer have a share in all that is done under the sun.”

You know my parent’s die, I miss them for a while, but life goes on. You have to go on, and you do go on. And one of your children dies. It’s devastating! I don’t know if I can go on! But you do go on. That’s life, it’s the reality of life. It’s not depressing. That’s life on this earth under the sun. We’ll pick up with verses 7 to 9, that God expects us to experience joy in this. He’s talking about the wise, the righteous from verse one.

The ascetic life becomes popular as Christians drift from the world, and I see Christians quoting the monks and them as an example of the ascetic life. Solomon didn’t believe in it and neither did Paul. Paul said it is false teaching and so he tells us to recognize this is God’s plan for us and in it all, God has not taken away all the joy. So, experience the pleasant things, the joy. The worse the day is, stop and think, you’re still here, you’re able to think. You’re able to enjoy the visit of someone even if you can’t get out. You’re able to talk to the Lord and enjoy some of the good things He’s given. For the unbeliever their life is a crazy life, a confused life, and they have no future. They will someday give an account to God. Solomon will close on that note at the last chapter. Without Christ, without the provision that God has made, you have nothing. You live a foolish, empty life, and it really has no meaning. Oh, you create your own meaning, you create your own truth these days. It’s insanity, it’s madness. Come to reality. You come to Christ.

Let’s pray together: Thank You, Lord, for the riches of Your word. Lord, thank You for the grace that rescued us from our hopeless, lost condition. And Lord we would not want to forget. We want to be mindful of the greatness of our salvation, of the complete lostness of every individual apart from the salvation that you have provided. That is the only rescue. They can’t think clearly, they are consumed and controlled by their sin. It is irrational, it is crazy, it makes no sense. But Lord the gospel is the power of salvation. How amazing You are that You can bring us to reality. You bring us to our senses. You bring us to life in Christ, and Lord we want to live this life wisely each day as we walk with You. Bless this day. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.
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