All right, so we do have uh just three very important verses to wrap up in chapter five before we get to six. So the uh eighteen, nineteen, twenty and chapter five go like this. Here's what I have seen to be good and fitting to eat, uh good and fitting, to eat, to drink, and enjoy oneself in all one's labors in which he toils under the sun during the few years of his life which God has given him, for this is his reward. Furthermore, as for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, he has also empowered him to eat from them and to receive his reward and rejoice in his labor, this is the gift of God. For he will not often consider the years of his life, because God keeps him occupied with the gladness of his heart. Those are uh those are some pretty cool verses right there. Um as as Solomon closes, or as he didn't close the chapter, but as we read the closing verses of this chapter, um he points out that it's very critical for you and for me to accept our station in life and enjoy the blessings that God gives to us wherever He has planted us. The thing that, as we read these verses, the thing that is good and fitting in these verses is to labor faithfully, enjoy the good things of life, and accept it all as a gracious gift from God. Interestingly, Solomon has given us this counsel before. They were very, very applicable. And I want to read them one more time, just as a reminder. The writer says this two things I ask of you, asking of the Lord. Deny them not to me before I die. Remove far from me falsehood and lying, give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, Who is the Lord, or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God. That is a man, that is a man that has said to himself, I'm gonna accept everything God has given me as his gracious gift, whether it's like this or whether it's like this. I will be satisfied with what God has given me. And in 18, 19, and 20, that's what Solomon is trying to tell us. There's three ways we can get wealth. We can work for it, we can receive it as a gift, or it can be stolen. Solomon saw the blessings of life as God's gift to those who work and who accept that work as the favor of God. Uh if if in the uh in the living Bible uh we read verse 19 like this it is to enjoy your work and to accept your lot in life. That is indeed a gift from God. So when we moan and groan about our circumstances, and you know, I I I wish I was in this position at work, I wish this was better, or whatever it is. Um, we need to remember that what we have is a gift from God, and when we start whining about it, um we're ingrates. Uh I I I remember years ago, this has got to be 20 years ago, Chuck Mistler was, I was listening to him pretty regularly at the time, and and um he he told this story about he bought his daughter a Christmas gift. I I forgot what it was. But whatever it was, she was very excited. She came down on Christmas Day and she's opening her gifts and she gets to the one. He's watching her open this gift, and he's watching with delight in his heart, and she opens the gift and looks at it and kind of pushes it to the side. And uh Chuck Mistler said that he never felt worse in his life than when his daughter didn't even acknowledge that it was free to her, a gift for her, and that it was given to her out of love. And uh I haven't forgotten that because it r it reminds me oftentimes that when we say to ourselves, I'm not happy in this lot in life, um, it very possibly could be that we are looking God's looking at what God has gifted us with out of his incredible love and mercy and grace and power for us, and we're saying to him, not quite what I wanted. You know, now there's I'm not that's not necessarily the only circumstance that we can uh derive from our lot in life, but we need to be careful. We need to be careful about how we're thinking about what's going on in our lives right now, because it is all it is all a gift from him. God wants us to view what we have, again, whether it's much or little, with the right perspective, our possessions, every one of them. From you know, our bodies to everything else that he's given them, they are all a gift from God. All 100%. Although they are not the source of our joy. Or are they? Are we joyful in the things that God has given us while simultaneously not thinking about the gift giver and being joyful in him? And that's very easy to fall into that trap, right? That's v because we've lost sight of the fact that everything we have is a gift from him. Once we lose that, then we think we've earned this. We think we deserve it. We it should be ours. Uh I worked hard for this, right? I mean, we saved and saved and saved, and we're doing this, and we're buying that, and all that stuff. Yeah. Me, myself, and I, or me and my wife together, or the family working together, because we've forgotten that every good and perfect gift comes from heaven above. We can be content with what we have only when we realize that with God we have everything that we need. Solomon adds another important thought. The ability to enjoy a life's blessing itself is a gift from God. And he's Solomon's going to talk about that a little bit more in the chapter we're going to spend most of our time on uh tonight. But remember this we thank God for our food. Most of us, if not all of us, at every meal will say, Lord, thank you for this food and bless it for me. But let's not forget that we should also be thanking him for our taste buds, uh, the fact that our bodies can derive nutrition from this, that we do find these flavors uh wonderful in our mouths, and and that our digestive systems are working correctly if they are. And all of that goes into eating a spoonful of Cheerios, right? But we don't think of it that way that often. And we should. Verse 20 may mean that the person who rejoices in God's daily blessings will simply not have any regrets. It's hard to be have any regrets when you're filled with thankfulness, right? Gee, I I wish this would have happened to me, or I wish I would have done that. When you are thanking the Lord for what he's done for you, uh salvation and blessings and gifts, thanking him for all that stuff, it's tough to find regrets. Now, if you're living your life or change to live your life, to be one filled with thankfulness for everything that he's given you, both big and small, then if you had regrets, they're gonna start to fade into the background, and you're just gonna wind up being a thankful, praising individual to the God that's given you everything that he has. The Christian Standard Bible states verse 20 like this: quote, for he does not often consider the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with the joy of his heart. Wouldn't that be a great way to live? Can we be so joyful over what the Lord has given us through his voluntary blessings of all kinds that we won't be considering our past or future, you know, in any real negative way? It's possible. We have to work at it because it's against our nature, but we can do it. And the time to start storing up happy memories is now. The Amplified Bible reads this way in Psalm 90, 12. So teach us to number our days. Why? That we may cultivate and bring to you a heart of wisdom. This is us going back to God, saying, Lord, give us the wisdom to remember that you have given us everything, including the days of our lives. It may also mean that the believer who gratefully accepts God's gifts today will not will not fret and worry about the things that can so easily beset us. Doesn't mean that we don't go through life without anxieties, without cares. Of course we do, right? We're we're we're in these sinful bodies, and these bodies can break down, and and you know, we have to wrestle with that. And it's a wrestle, especially when we don't know the outcome. But when we can but during those times, if we can go back to God and just be be a thankful individual for what he has given us and and and uh what he how he might take us out of the situation that we're in, that um we'll wind up being much more free to release the the um anxieties that we have. Um it's an established fact that the people who have the most birthdays live the longest, right? Not nothing profound right there. But if they keep complaining about getting old, they're not gonna have very much to enjoy. People who are thankful to God will not dwell over much upon the passing years they will take each day as it comes and use it to serve the Lord. If we focus more on the gifts than on the giver, we're guilty of idolatry. If we accept his gifts but complain not about them, we are guilty of ingratitude. If we hoard his gifts and will not share them with others, we are guilty of indulgence. But if we yield to his will and use what he gives us for his glory, then we can enjoy life and be satisfied. Would you take one and pass that, Chris? That was from Warren Wearsby in his B series commentary. And um as as these make their way around the room, I've printed this out for you guys because I think this is something that all of us would, it would be good for us to read this, certainly on a weekly basis, right? So think about this again. If we focus more on the gifts than on the giver, we are guilty of idolatry. If we accept his gifts but complain about them, we're guilty of ingratitude. If we hoard his gifts and will not share them with others, we are guilty of indulgence. But if we yield to his will and use what he gives us for his glory, then we can enjoy life and be satisfied. There is a lot in those four sentences, and I think it's it's uh worthy of us to continue to um remind ourselves of that. Um that that ends that ends chapter five. And um we now move to chapter six, which you've which you've just listened to. I said at the beginning of the study or at the beginning of the evening tonight that chapter six is kind of a grim chapter. Solomon lists a series of disappointments that leaves him deeply dissatisfied, followed by several questions that quite honestly are very much impossible for any one of us to answer, except for God himself. Um if I just read the first two verses again, there is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind. What is that evil under the sun? It's a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires. Sounds good, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity. That means meaningless. This is a fleeting moment, this is a vapor, this is vanity, it is a grievous evil. If we think about it, many, many people think about life this way. They have a long list of disappointments which leave them with serious questions about God. They could be simple issues, they could be profound issues, you know. Why did God allow my sister to die so young? Why did God allow me to lose this job? Why did God allow my wife to divorce me? Why did God, and you bring up these things that have happened in your life, and you start saying to yourself, um, I can't answer those questions. Maybe there's some partial answers to some of those, but I certainly can't answer them completely. Only God has those answers. But for the person that doesn't know God, that doesn't trust God, that doesn't believe in God's promises, they blame him for all of the problems. Uh Solomon's first disappointment is related to people's possessions. Satisfaction he saw is not guaranteed, just like we have read. Solomon depicts this guy, we don't know who he is, but by the world standards, he's got all anybody wants. He's got honor, he's got wealth, he's got possessions, right? He's the he's the he's the guy that's got it all. He's worth a fortune. He has things that most people only dream about. He's the one that, you know, has got the house that the helicopter flies over, and there's 15 bathrooms, right? And there's 30 bedrooms, and there's four pools, and all that kind of stuff. That's this guy that Solomon is depicting. And he seems that he might be famous or at least be in a position that everyone or most hold him in higher honor, right? So he's not somebody nobody knows anything about. He's well known and he's revered. So in some way, he's he's uh again, he's well known and and uh most people look up to him. That man that Solomon describes is a man that the majority of the world wishes were them. Poll your neighbors and ask them, would you want to be this guy? Try to find one that would say no. Now there may be one here and there, but for the most part, this is what the world is after. Fame and fortune. Fame and fortune. Yet for some reason that we don't see in these verses, this guy, this honorable rich man, was unable to enjoy what he had. Again, this is a man by the world's standards, has got everything. He should be the happiest guy on the planet earth from the world's standards. He should be filled with enjoyment by the world's standards, and he's got none of that. Unlike the man that we just talked about in 5, 18, 19, and 20, who is looking at his life and and uh he's so bound up with thankfulness to God that he isn't even worried about what the days of his life are going to be. This guy isn't that guy, right? Um this man has it all, and yet he winds up with nothing. He loses everything in the end. He never has a chance to fully enjoy what he has. We don't know how he loses it. Solomon doesn't tell us. There's obviously a thousand different ways in which he could have lost his wealth and his possessions and his honor, but everything's gone. Here today, gone tomorrow. And when it left, it went to someone else entirely. Went strangely, went to somebody that the man didn't even know. Talk about a kick in the teeth. Solomon calls this a grievous evil. It happens, if not all the time, it happens with regularity. One person loses everything he's worked or she's worked so hard to gain, and then someone else comes along to enjoy it. Listen to what David wrote in Psalm 39.6. We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing. We heap up wealth, not knowing who will spend it. You might this is just the beginning of a chapter in this book, if not in the Bible, that starts to take us down a path of darkness and sadness. So just in these two verses, if there's any good that comes out of these verses, we can we can focus on the man who worked hard, had everything, and lost it, and say, yikes, I hope that doesn't happen to me. But if we want to grab something good out of this unfortunate situation, it might be that the recognition that it might be the recogn recognition that your possessions or my possessions really can never bring us lasting joy. We might have temporary happiness, we will never have lasting joy. And you know, if we start to rest in these things for our joy, we're gonna get sidetracked quickly because once again, we're gonna forget who the giver of the gifts are, and we're gonna focus on finding joy in the size of our bank account, or the size of our paycheck, or the size of our home, or you know, you fill in the blanks in your own personal life. Those become the things that we strive after and that bring us joy. Are there times of happiness? You know, when if you paid off your mortgage, that's a time to rejoice, right? But how did you pay off the mortgage? The Lord gave you the funds. Okay, you worked hard. Who gave you the body? Who gave you the mind to be able to do your job? Who brought you to the place of your employment? Or who gave you the ability, the innate ability to become your own boss, to start your own business and do your own thing? Who gave you all that stuff? You didn't get that. You didn't get your brain. God gave you the brain you've got. He, you may have exercised your brain, you may have exercised your muscles and done all that stuff, and that stuff is good, but the lot you have in life, you need to give thanks to the Lord, whether great or little or anywhere in between. And incidentally, the gifts that God gives us and the ability to enjoy those gifts don't necessarily go hand in hand. They may very well be totally independent of one another. He can give you a great gift and then not, and then have you not be able to enjoy that gift. It might be a physical thing, it might be a mental thing. There's a lot of things that uh can can get in the way. Think of a man, I wrote this down, think of a man or woman who works hard all their lives, gains much money, much satisfaction, honor. They come down with a disease for which there is no cure, and they can't enjoy a single penny of what they had spent their whole lives on. This is why, as we spoke a bit about last time, that serving money will not only draw you and me away from God, it can never guarantee you or me that we will ever find any real long lasting enjoyment from it. Only when we honor God and serve God, who is the giver of every good and perfect gift in our lives, can we find joy in the deposit of what He's given us or in the withdraw of what He's given us. We, you know, without a proper attitude, we will praise God when the barn is full, but we'll wring our hands when the silo is emptying with no idea about how to fill it up again. That's the world. That shouldn't be us. That's how the world reacts, right? We're going to see in a few verses that we cannot have contentment without us knowing and praising God for all that He has done and will do in our lives. 1 Timothy 6.6 in the New Living Translation says this yet true godliness, we all, I hope we all yearn for godliness, right? Acting out our lives, our lives being representative of who our Savior is and who our Father is and who our Creator is and our sustainer is. Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. There's great wealth. You know, and how are we? We really got to meditate on this stuff, right? Because most of us would need a change in our attitude. It's like I'm very comfortable now because my 401k is doing well. P.S. That's a lie. Okay. Right right now, I gotta I gotta get my resume uh up to date. Not quite, but it's on that, it's on the way. But you know, my you know, your 401k is great, your savings account is great, everything is hunky dory, and therefore, I am so happy. I am so happy, right? Is there anything wrong with being happy that your hard work has gotten you where it has? Of course not. But if you leave God out of the picture, then you're you you are serving money instead of the Lord God Most High. It's just what we're doing. It's what we're doing. Great wealth comes only when we love God and are completely content with whatever He has decided to give to us or take from us. Is that an easy thing? Absolutely not. There's nobody in this room that would raise their hand and say, Lord, I've got so much, take some from me. Right? We might we might he his spirit might uh lean on us, guide us to say, you know what? You do have more than you need. I'm speaking about financially right now, and so I want you to step up for this need that's trying to advance my kingdom. And that gets back to this, right? If we hoard his gifts and will not share them with others, we're guilty of indulgence. Um we have to work on this day in and day out, day in and day out. We we all need a certain amount of money to live. We we know that's how the world turns, right? Um we we all uh have a desire and by God's grace have a roof over our head and heat in the winter and cooling in the summer, and we have vehicle a vehicle or vehicles to get to jobs. We have jobs. The list goes on and on and on. It's one of those things, again, that if we ever started to thank God for all he's given us, we'd never get out of our home. We just stay on our knees all day long and be like, give me another glass of water. I'm parched from thanking God for what he's given me. But that's not how we lead our lives day in and day out. It's uh another day at work, and you know, I really don't like my job, and you know, I wish it paid more, I wish I could work fewer hours, I wish I had a different job, or, you know, I wish my home was different, you know. We've all said it probably at one or more times in our lives. What's that doing? That's honestly that's saying, God, I am not happy with what you've given me. I'm not. This stinks, God, what I've got. This stinks. Why is this the way that it is? Don't you love me? Now, I don't think there's many of us that would ever say that directly to him, but think about what we're doing when we say the things we say about our lives and what he's given us. You know, there are some in this Bible study that have seen highs and lows financially, and they they can they can speak to this whole issue if we're talking about finances much better than I can. But I want us to read what's uh I want to read what's a fairly familiar passage of scripture out of Job, but as I read it, think about what's going on in the life of Job. In the ESV version, this section of the book of Job has a non-inspired heading, and it's called Satan takes Job's property and children. Stop. Satan takes your property and children. Where are you with that thought? I mean, you don't have to say anything out loud. Where are you with that thought? Satan takes your property and children. Is it like Biden takes our stuff? No, this is this is death, this is death. This is death to your kids and loss of everything or virtually everything that you owned. Put yourself in Job's position. Bible says he's a righteous guy. Here's the passage. Now there was a day when his Job's sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their older brother's house. Good time. And there came a messenger to Job and said, Quote, the oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them. So far, Job's like, okay, that's a normal day. Kids are having a good time, animals are working, right? But verse 15 in Job 1 says this, and the Sabaeans fell upon them and took them, and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you. Now, while he was yet speaking, there came another and said, The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you that. And then while that guy is telling Job these things, another one comes and said, The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you. Everything is disappearing from Job. Yet while that guy was speaking, talk about waves of bad news. There came another and said, and I can't imagine Job's heart right now. Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their older brother's house. We knew that from the first verse. And behold, a great wind came across the wilderness, struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead. And I alone have escaped to tell you. That's bad news. Now, who gave Job all the things that he had? The Lord. Gave him all to him. Gave him the ox, gave him the camels, gave him the servants, gave him the buildings, gave him the kids. Here's what Job says. He arose. Again, I cannot imagine the anguish, uh, how distraught, how his mind. I I I just I I can't imagine it. But the Bible says Job arose, he tore his robe and shaved his head. Those were both signs of, you know, trying to, you know, uh under recognizing the situation and yielding to it, and fell on the ground and worshipped. And he said, and here's where he understands that everything that he had was a gift from God. And as such, does the giver of the gifts have the right to take them back? He does. He does. They're his. He gives them for a season, perhaps, that we will be able to use them for the purposes that he gives them to us for. But here's what Job says. And Job said, Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. I came into this life with nothing. And that's exactly how I'm gonna leave. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Now we know Job doesn't know what's going on in heaven. He doesn't know the battle, the the uh Satan's strategy, right, on trying to get Job to sin against God because, you know, Satan says to God, well, of course this guy's a great guy. Look, you've given him everything. Who wouldn't worship you, right? The barn's full. Satan says to God, the barn's full. You made the barn full for Job. God, you did all that. You want to know something? Let me tell you what kind of weak Christian this guy is. Take that stuff away and watch how he worships you. So God gives Satan the right to do that. Can't harm him on this round, can't harm him on this round, but you can do anything else you want. And Satan hammers Job. And Job's response, he gets on his face and he worships God. Now. I'm trying to think, as this thought enters my mind right now, I don't think I've ever done that. I should have. I should have. But I don't think I've ever done that. I don't think, certainly I've never been subjected to what Job, what God allowed to happen to Job. But as we look at circumstances in our life that flip our lives upside down. Never expected it. It's like mind-boggling, uh, knock me over with a feather, whatever, whatever that circumstance might be. How praiseworthy would it be if we got supine flat on our faces and worshipped God? Saying it's easy, but it's right. Because it's his right and his right alone to give and to take away. Um when Job says naked, I came into the world and naked I leave, not only was he talking about the fact that, you know, when you go to the grave, there's no hearse behind you, you know, with the stuff going in the grave with you, but he's talking about everything that God had given him. So I came into the world with nothing. I'm gonna leave the world with nothing, but God has determined to even take that away before he's taken my life. God gives, God get takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. That's a guy. That's a guy, and that does not come naturally. Bible doesn't tell us this, but I suspect Job spent I don't know how much time focusing on God, worshiping God, recognizing who's the giver of all the gifts, and preparing himself for a day that he hoped would never come, but if it does, that he would have the right response. And our problem way too often is we never prepare for the day. So that when it comes, it's like a baseball bat in the side of our head. We just never expected it to come, and we don't know how to respond back to God with what's taken place in our lives. So, one takeaway is all of us need to prepare ourselves through earnest prayer over a long period of time, recognizing that God can take our finances away, he can do whatever he wants to do, he is always good. He is a good, good father. He can only do things that are righteous and good. He cannot do evil. He cannot do evil. If he, in his infinite wisdom, and oh, by the way, his love for you allows his perfect good will to take some things away from you, whether it's permanently or for a season, we need to prepare ourselves for that time so that we can continue to worship God in light of those times. This is why not only having more money can never guarantee us that we will ever find real enjoyment. Without God in all situations, uh without Him, we're gonna still find ourselves to be discontented. It won't be enough. Whatever we have will not be enough. And you say, Well, I've I've I've got this in my storehouse and I'm happy with that, right? I'm not asking God for more. It's enough. What happens when the silo starts hunting? I don't have enough, right? I mean, in the in the market. I don't know if I'm gonna live long enough to see the market rebound, right? So in the market, uh thousands and thousands of dollars that we had three months ago have evaporated. They're gone. Who's who's in control of the stock market? Is that Joe Biden and the economist and the guys at Fidelity and Schwab and all these guys that do this and that? Those guys, they're not in control of the stock market. Our Lord is. He determines what goes up and by how much, what goes down and by how much, and for how long in both cases. God Almighty. Who allows a bull market? God Almighty. He gives and he takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And that's just, you know, I'm just talking about what's happening to us right now in the moment. It's, you know, it's as things go, it's not a big, big deal, but but I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to make my point that if if in our lives, uh gee, I I I worked so hard, I spent 50 years putting money into that 401k. 50 years, Lord! I didn't take home what I wanted to take home because I put this away. And I the silo was, at least from my perspective, full, happy, pleased. You know, I'm A-OK, and now the silo is empty. You know, what's my right response? Worshiping the Lord who should be ever blessed in my mind and heart. Versus uh, so the fear of the Lord, I've got this note. The fear of the Lord, as we know, is the beginning of knowledge that comes out of Proverbs, but he must also be the source of our satisfaction, Him, not the gifts that he gives us. So everything we have, everything we get, we get a check from our boss or whatever it is. What do we think? I worked hard, I deserve it. How should we think? Thank you, Lord Jesus, that I work in this place, making this money, that I can spend this money, my body's in good shape, my home's in good shape, you know, my cars are in good shape, and it's all from you. Now that's what we should be doing, and that's the easier part of the equation. The harder part is but Lord, should you take this away? May the desire remain in my heart to praise and worship you, for you are a good, good God whose son died for me to give me eternal life, and you love me with an everlasting love. Your loving arms are wrapped around me. I think it's in Deuteronomy we read that, and you have promised you'll never leave me and never forget about me. So I'm gonna praise your name in the midst of what might turn out to be a dire circumstance, or before that circumstance ever arrives. Start thinking that way. Lord, look at the look at the dinner table. It's full, right? There's a 15-pound ham on there, and there's 10 pounds of potatoes and carrots and Brussels sprouts, you can have mine, and broccoli and cauliflower and pies and coffee and milk and water and all that stuff, right? Oh Lord, thank you so much for all this food. Look at the table, what a blessing it is. And Lord, if this table becomes bare because of your will in my life, may I praise your name. We don't go that far day in and day out. We stop short of that day in and day out. So if that would ever happen in our lives, we are caught by surprise and we don't know what to do. Verses 3 through 6. If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, uh incidentally, that is a in Jewish uh culture of the time, you know, that's a major blessing, right? Man's got a hundred, I mean, you know, it's obviously man's not going to have a hundred children. Solomon might, with the wives and the concubines he had. But, you know, under normal circumstances, what he's saying here is, this guy is, this guy's highly blessed, right? He's if a if a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life's good things, and he also has no burial, that would be an incredible embarrassment in that Jewish culture. I say that a stillborn child is better off than he is. For it comes in vanity and goes in darkness, and in darkness its name is covered. Moreover, it has not seen the sun. He's talking about for it, this is the stillborn child, right? For the stillborn child comes in vanity, it's a vapor, and goes in darkness, and in darkness its name is covered. It's never seen the light of day. It was born dead. Moreover, the stillborn child has not seen the sun or known anything, yet that stillborn child finds rest rather than the one who is not satisfied with life's goods, good things. Six, even though he should have a thousand years twice over, yet enjoy no good, do not all go to one place. This is, in the last few minutes we have, this is really something here. Solomon compares, in this case, you know, one thing to another. He compares a man whose life is full of blessing to a child who never sees the light of day. But given the emptiness and the futility, that is the vanity of life in this fallen world, Solomon cynically and sadly concludes that the child born dead actually gets the better end of the deal compared to a man in that situation in this life. You know, none of us lived through the Great Depression. My parents did, um, but or or the stock market crash of 1929. But here's what happened. This is just one example that I want to make. Black Monday was followed by Black Tuesday. That was October 29, 1929. Stock prices collapsed completely, and over 16 million shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. That was huge back then. Billions with the B, when a billion was a lot of money. Billions of dollars were lost. They were lost, wiping out thousands of investors and stock tickers. Remember, they had the old ticker tape, right? Uh they didn't have The computers the way we did today, they ran hours behind trying to figure out where the market was going to wind up because the machinery just simply couldn't handle the tremendous volume of trading. After October 29th, 1929, stock prices had nowhere to go but up. So there was a considerable recovery during succeeding weeks. Overall, however, prices continued to drop as the United States slumped into the Great Depression, and by 1932, stocks were worth only about 20% of their value in the summer of 1929. The stock market crash of 29 was not the sole cause for the Great Depression, but it did act to accelerate the global economic collapse, of which it was also a symptom. By 1933, four years later, nearly half of all America's banks had failed, and unemployment was approaching 15 million people, or 30% of the workforce. People who once had money were now broke, perhaps with no job, and the outlook was very grim for a long, long time. Perhaps many thought back then, it would have been better had I never been born. The uh SEC has put in mechanisms into the stock market that won't allow it to ever crash like that again. If the stock market falls, I think 10% in a single uh trading session, they close the market so that it won't fall anymore. It's a protective device. It kind of staves off the selling of the stocks for at least until at least the next morning, giving people time to think about, you know, do they really want to sell? Um and so there's that mechanism that's that's put in place that delays what might be the inevitable, although in some instances it may make the losses less. Think about this happening to you or to me, right? And maybe it's not the stock market, maybe, and and the banks can't fail the way they used to be able to fail either. But let's say they could. You got this nice big savings account, and you think it's safe. You got this nice 401k or this gigantic IRA or Keo or whatever it is, and you say, Yep, I'm all set. I can live 30 years and live just like I did when I was working. And then and then a month, it's gone. It's gone. We don't prepare ourselves for anything like that. You know, I remember one time uh um R. C. Sprohl said this one of the problems with us, the human race, is that we always think tomorrow is gonna be pretty much the same as it was today. It's how we go through life. Now, we may have a day that's a considerably bad day, and we think tomorrow's gonna be better. We might have had a day that was jubilant for one reason, and we think the next day is probably not gonna be quite that good. But overall, in the course of 50, 60, 70, 80 years, we say, well, today was just kind of a no-oh, what'd you do today? Ah, you know, same old, same old, and we go to bed thinking tomorrow we're gonna be doing the same old, same old. And Sprohl says what happens to unfortunately surprise us and catch us in a lurch, is that we're not guaranteed that tomorrow is gonna be like today. There's no guarantee. Solomon has already told us that there is a crook in the lot, right? And he is gonna that we can't change. And he is gonna tell us next Bible session, you know, in 2023, should we all be here, um, that that crook in the lot has been placed there by God and it cannot be straightened out by anybody. We don't prepare for that. We don't prepare for that. And the Bible, Ecclesiastes, Solomon is telling us right here, if we read in between the lines, prepare for this stuff. It can, it does happen. We think it's always gonna happen to the other guy. Oh, gee, poor Joe Schmoe down the street. You know, he he's the guy that uh had an accident and his wife was in the car with him, and now she's in the hospital and she's on a ventilator, and their brain is she's flatlined and they're wondering whether or not to pull the plug. Not gonna happen to me. Only happens to the guy down the street. No, not so. How will we respond if that should happen to us? It is things like this that Solomon is talking about when he's talking about this stuff. And perhaps we see again. Solomon is doing a lot of this explaining without God being in the picture as a savior, as one to run to, right? Um it's sad. It's sad. You know, the road to destruction is broad, it's wide. Most of the people on our street are not born-again Christians, whatever street you live on, right? It would be a rare thing if they were. Because narrow, right? Narrow is the is the uh is the gate to heaven. And and um um those people have no hope. They have no hope. We rejoice in hope. They have no hope. You know who their hope is? The government. That's who their hope is. So that when the government says, you need to do this to be a good citizen or a good patriot, they run to do that. They are worshiping the creation rather than the creator. One commentator said this about this passage we're reading. Better to miscarry at birth than to miscarry throughout life. The stillborn child never has to endure pain or see suffering or struggle with the guilt of conscious sin. Best of all, the child is the first to die and therefore the first to find its eternal rest. That's life under the sun, right? Without God in the picture. Next time we meet, which will be the last time we meet, we are gonna be looking at this topic. The fact that no matter how long we live, some of us are given more years than others, we are, unless the Lord returns, we're all gonna die. We're all gonna die. But if in the end we all die anyway, this is Solomon's kind of Solomon's thinking here, then what's the advantage of going on living, especially when life does not happen to be especially enjoyable. Now, if that seems a bit abstract as we go into this next time we meet, let's look at it, maybe we can look at it just a little more closely in one minute. And we can't. Time's up. But um when we when we do come back, guys, in two weeks, and we do look at these next few verses from verse three, um, hopefully we'll get to the end. I want us, if you read these verses at home again and go through them and look at your own life and think about your own life. We have to put God somewhere in the equation in our lives. He's gotta be somewhere. We must put our faith somewhere in the equation of our lives. And we must put our hope somewhere in this thing we call life. All right? And so if you do spend time going through Ecclesiastes chapter six, or or maybe you're just gonna ponder or meditate on life, which ain't easy. Life's not easy, it's just not, right? The roadblocks go up, sin abounds, the world is a fallen place, um, and the things going around our lives right now in this country are disastrous. They're disastrous to us mentally and spiritually, and can be disastrous to us physically as well. But in our lives, this is you talking to you and me talking to me. Where's God in this? Where's our faith in this, and where's our hope in this? Because the propensity for us is to do this, put the circumstance ahead of everything, including God. Is the circumstance going to be in the foreground of our mind? You bet that's where it's gonna be. But when we try to figure this thing out or work it out of our own independence, right, wondering what we can do to change what's going on right now, which is a reasonable course of action. Where's God? Where's our faith? And where's our hope? Because we don't know the outcome, but He does. Heavenly Father, we just um we love you, and we thank you, Lord God, for loving us. As we look at this book, Father in the Old Testament, most of it revolves around uh life that seem that's a vapor, that seems meaningless, that's filled with contrasts, that's filled with evil. And we look at it and we scratch our heads. But when we do, may we look up and say, This isn't for us. This is for the one that looks under the sun. This is for the one that says, I've got to find meaning in life from this world. I've got to find hope in the things of this world. My faith is in the things of this world, because God is not a part of their lives. And so they struggle, they fall, they will fail, and left unchecked, left without faith, they will find that as miserable and as evil and as hard as this world was, it will be their heaven because hell will be awaiting. But we, O Lord God, by your incredible grace, have chosen all of us before the foundation of the world to be your sons and daughters. You gave us the faith to believe in and to love your Son and to believe in the work he did and to repent of our sins. All from your Holy Spirit, Lord God, did you do those things for us? Not because we were good, not because we were special, none, there was no human reason, Lord God, but because you are the good loving potter. And you chose us to mold us into being more like your son and to give us eternal life. And so we are grateful to you, Lord, ever grateful, eternally grateful. May we live our lives with you in the foreground, no matter what comes across our path, Lord God. Not that we won't be hammered by it, not that we might not be knocked over by a feather when we hear bad news, Lord God, but when we get up, Lord God, may we remember who's in control, who's in charge, and who loves us, who loves us more than anyone on this planet could ever love us, and that's you. And may we find peace and comfort and solace that will help us go through the things that this life throws at us, Lord God. Father, we do thank you for loving us. We do thank you for your incredible faithfulness. I am always in awe that you do never leave me and never forsake me. Your faithfulness to me and to your children, Lord, is something that is just mind-boggling to me. You know, I think of Gomer in the book of Hosea. Boy, that chick kept spitting in Hosea's face over and over and over again, and God kept saying, go after her. Go get her. Go get her. I gave her to you. She's yours. And we're the Gomers. And you, Lord God, keep coming after us. You lead the 99 every time for the one when we're the one. And we praise you and thank you for that.