May 31, 2026-Morning Service

This video is about May 31, 2026-Morning Service, Staying the course in the midst of injustice!, Ecclesiastes 8:10-17

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

If you have your Bibles, if you're turning with me to the book of Exodus, Exodus, I can't even read Ecclesiastes chapter 8. We're going to look at verses 10 to 17. So returning there, I want to mention something to you real quick. Do you remember back in the day, and maybe it was just me and not y'all, but do you remember back in the day you'd be in school and one kid would do something wrong and the whole class got punished? Okay. I don't know about you, but that would drive me insane. I would get upset about that. Now, when I became a teacher, all of a sudden there were many times where I would do the exact same thing my teacher did. Other times I would try to catch it and just punish that one kid. But it didn't take long to realize that life is not fair. Now, I've known that you know that hopefully you know life is not fair. But if I had a dollar for every time I told one of my students in high school that life's not fair, I could take us all out to lunch somewhere on nice today. Okay, probably McDonald's or something. But so many times have I tried to tell the students, yes, I know I get paid to teach you Spanish, but my goal besides telling you about Jesus is to let you know that life's not fair. You're gonna have to learn to deal with it in the right way and not let it pull you down. Thinking about that reminds me of a character in the Bible whose name is Peter. You remember Peter in the Bible? He's the one that Jesus said, Hey, who do people say I am? Then who do you say I am? And he said, You're you're the Messiah, right? Peter knew his stuff. Peter was also the one that when Jesus was getting arrested, wasn't Peter the one that took the sword and cut off the slave's ear? He was going to protect Jesus at all costs. Of course, then you know the story Jesus picks the ear up and puts it back on the on the on the fella and he's fine, right? But Peter is the one who denied Jesus three times, but yet seemed to love him so much. But you the unique thing about Peter is that he's not God, but God is. Because God is. Do you remember what God did with Peter? At the end of the book of John, chapter 21, 18, 19, somewhere up in there, Jesus spoke to Peter. You see, what happened was uh the disciples were out there fishing. Peter was on the boat, and some of the other disciples were with him. They hadn't caught anything all night. Then all of a sudden, somebody standing on the shore asks if they've caught anything. When they did that, they're like, No, we're not catching anything. But the person on the shore says, Well, why don't you throw your net on the other side? Which makes no sense because they've been fishing and nothing's there, nothing's there. I mean, it's just how it is. But they throw their net on the other side and can't even hardly pick it up, pull it in because there's 153 big fish. But see, at that time, John, the one who Jesus loved, or who loved Jesus, the one that had a close bond with him, says to Peter, That's the Lord. Well, Peter, what he does, he puts that little cloth back on him and he jumps in the water and swims up to be with Jesus. When he does, Jesus has got a little campfire there with some fish on it. And the two of them are talking while they're waiting on the fish to come in, the big boat and everything to come in. And what happens is, Jesus says, Do you love me, Peter? He says, Yeah. Jesus says, Feed my sheep. He asks him again, Peter, do you love me? Peter's kind of confused, says, Yeah, I love you. And same thing, the Lord says, Well, feed my sheep. He does it three times. And then here's what I'm getting to on the third time, as the disciples are coming up. You know what Jesus says? He says, Peter, when you were younger, you could handle yourself, get dressed, you guide your own way. But when you get older, somebody's gonna kind of guide you and move your hands and get you where you need to be. And we know because it says in the scripture that that was referring to how Peter was gonna die. Peter died on a cross. According to church history, he chose to die upside down because he was not worthy to die like his Savior died. Why do I mention that? About life not being fair? Well, in that same story, if you were to look at verse 21 and 22, look what it says there. Peter was at this point, the disciples had come up and they're sitting under having a fish fry there enjoying it, right? And then all of a sudden, Peter's thinking about what Jesus had just said about how he was going to die. And then he starts to worry about things outside of his control. What does he do? He says, when it says, when Peter saw him, talking about John, John, the one who was the beloved disciple, John who was the one that was exiled on the island of Patmos, the one who wrote the book of Revelation, that John, okay? It says, when he said uh when he saw him, he says to Jesus, Hey Lord, what about this man? Imagine that sitting around the campfire, you're eating, and you know that you're gonna die, probably gonna end up being crucified. And you say, Hey, what about the one that you love, your favorite, if you will? What about him? What does Jesus say? Jesus says to him, If it is my will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow me. You talk about a wake-up call, almost like a slap in the face. Is it like saying, mind your own business? God is God, Peter's not. God is God, we are not. As we look at Ecclesiastes today, there's a couple things I want us to keep in mind. I've already said some of these, right? God is God and we're not. Can we focus on what we can control and do what God tells us to do? Peter had already heard what he was supposed to do. He'd been told what to do to go feed the sheep. But he was trying to focus on something he couldn't control, how somebody else was going to die. He wanted to know. Maybe he was nosy. Another thing is, can we let God be God? If he's working things out in this world for his glory, his pleasure, who are we to try to control him, to jump in there and mess things up? Now, we want to obviously pray, pray that people get healed, pray that people come to know Jesus, etc., etc. Pray the world gets better. But can we acknowledge that Jesus is God? Let him do his thing? Peter had to do that. John ended up not being crucified. According to church history, he died on the island of Patmos. I think the only disciple that didn't lose his life in a violent way. Another one, life is not fair, we've always mentioned that. And then finally, we cannot fully comprehend God. If we could, we could figure him out completely, 100%, I imagine we would step in the sin of wanting to be God, wanting to control God, wanting to tell God what to do. God's ways, the scripture says, are not our ways, they're higher than our ways. All right? So keep those things in mind as we walk through the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 8. We'll pick up in verse 10 and following. And as we start that, think about this first little section, verse 10 and 11. There's frustration when people are encouraged, forgot the D, sorry, to do evil because they don't see evil being punished. Doesn't it make you mad when you see evil being done? I think I've said this from the pulpit before. I wish that I could sit in the town of Roseville. I hope there's no cops listening, but it is what it is. I'd love to have a gun sitting in Roseville on my porch, paintball gun. And when somebody's speeding going down the road, pop them with that paintball gun. With the idea that a sheriff's department would be looking for spots on cars with paintball shots on them. And know that I popped him because they were speeding. That'd be an awesome job. I think it'd be so much fun. But there's frustration. But you know what? There's some people that say, oh, well, they're doing it. I can do it too. And that's more than just speeding, right? That covers all kinds of sin, other kinds of issues. The problem is we can get frustrated because of that, thinking, how is it that, why is that fair that they get by with this stuff and we don't? Maybe it's happened to you. Don't answer this, but have you ever gotten a speeding ticket? And when you got a speeding ticket, is it possible that somebody was either in front of you or behind you and they were going faster than you? You just happen to be the one that the police could catch or the one that got caught? Right? Just doesn't seem fair. It's frustrating. Oh, but then again, what if we focus on what we can control, do what God tells us to do, and leave the correction, the justice to Him. All right. Now, when I say that, I want to be careful. We want to be careful not to negate our responsibility. Obviously, our responsibility to be a good citizen, to vote, to put people in the office, to do things that are glorified to God, we're supposed to do that. Okay? That's an obvious, that's a given. But just keep in mind this idea that we can get frustrated when people do evil and they seem to be encouraged to do more, and more people jump on board of doing evil instead of good because there seems to be no punishment for that. Does that make sense? So with that being said, look at Ecclesiastes chapter 8. Let's look at verse 10. Uh, Solomon's talking here, the wise teacher, and he says this. He says, Then I saw the wicked buried. They used to go in and out of the holy place, they were praised in the city where they had done such things. This is also vanity. So let me put this into perspective. We're the community, let's call ourselves the community of Orangeburg, okay? And then here comes the wicked person. I'll be the wicked person. I come in. I come in and out of the holy city. Now, the holy city there would have been Jerusalem, okay? This is Orangeburg, it's not exactly holy, but get the concept in your mind, okay? I come in and out. I'm a good citizen. I do what I'm supposed to do. I obey the laws, I serve the community, I'm on the town council, I give to the poor, I give to projects. People are going to take note of that. But I'm also the people that he sees are wicked. They look good on the outside, they do these right, nice things, but yet they're wicked. And then what happens? Well, they're being praised in the city because of what they've done. But there's something that's a problem. And the problem is, it seems like he's saying here that everything that they're doing, it's all in vanity because the guy dies. Now it's not just like the guy dies, but look what it says. I saw the wicked buried. The concept here is that even though the person was seemingly such a wicked person, he did all these things to be nice, and he was praised in the city as he came and went, he very likely got an elaborate funeral. Okay. I'm not talking about a pine box on horse and buggy. Okay. I'm talking about one of those elaborate caskets. Okay, it's got pictures on the inside and metal things on the sides with lots of extra cushion with limousine and a hearse or a couple limousines. Okay. So you're telling me the person who looks like he's good on the outside, he does all these things, he helps the city, does all this, he gets this fancy funeral. How is that fair when he was really wicked? That's not fair. Why should I try to be a good person and do all this and realize this guy's wicked and he gets no punishment, according to what Solomon observes? Solomon says, you know what, that's that's all in vain. It's it's all just like a passing breath. It's just like, what's the point? Verse 10 it says, Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of children of men is fully set to do evil. You would expect when somebody does something evil, there'd be quick punishment for it. Sometimes there is, sometimes there's not. A lot of times you don't see that punishment. The idea of the wicked person in verse 10 would be that that punishment was never seen. They even had a nice funeral. That's certainly not fair. And the problem there is, even though it's not speedily executed, children of men, people who don't follow after Jesus, follow after God, not children of God, their heart is set to follow in those footsteps. Why not be somebody in the community that can be well respected, that can be loved, that can have money to just give out and do whatever they were doing here in the book of Ecclesiastes, and then live a wicked life and still have a nice funeral? Do we know some people who are very nice and are true genuine, genuine people, but yet because of different circumstances have a very small funeral or maybe no funeral at all? That doesn't quite seem fair, does it? You already get the punishment now for sin and get the praise now for sin. But look what it says. Because the sentence of an evil deed is not executed speedily. So do we complain to God and say, God, can't you bring out your justice? Have you done that this week? Has there's been something happened in the news? Like, okay, God, where are you at? It's time to step up. They did this and this, whether it be a politician or somebody that's been in and out of jail or somebody that's done something wrong to you. Well, I'd have to remind yourselves as I remind myself, I'm not God. God is God. I need to do my part when it comes to, like I said earlier, voting and you know, like speeding. I maybe put up have work to get work to the government to put up signs saying no speeding or giving you speed limit in Roseville or something. Do my part, but I have to realize I'm not the one that God's given all authority to to be the judge. He is. It looks like from what we've read that the wicked will prosper. And that certainly doesn't sound right because the idea is you live for the Lord and you live a good life, you're gonna have blessings. And if you don't live for the Lord, you're gonna be cursed. We see that in Genesis, right? In Exodus. If you do this, blessings will come upon you for the children of Israel. If you don't do this, curses will come upon you. Look what it says in 2 Peter there, verse 9, uh, chapter 3 of that. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, slowness, but it's patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. The reason I put that verse on there, I don't want to take it out of context, but what if during the time Ecclesiastes was being written and Solomon was making these observations, what if, even though there was a lot of wickedness taking place, what if God was extending that person's life to give them an opportunity to repent and turn to him? We looked at a couple weeks ago the idea that scripture, there's some verses that talk about if you uh live a good life, you'll have a long, prosperous life, if you live a wicked life, you'll have a short life. And the idea looked at that was sometimes it doesn't, that's that's a that's a that's a like a proverb, sometimes it happens, sometimes it does. That's not all the case. It's not always true like that. But could it be that today, those who we wish evil upon and don't know why God's not bringing justice, could it be that we need to say thank you, Lord, for extending their life? The better word may be for like we've already sung, that you've given them a little bit of grace so they can come to know you and repent of their sins before it's too late. You see, we know of scripture God says he's going to punish sin. Wages of sin is death that's coming. For those who place their faith in Jesus Christ, when the time is up, we take our last breath and we're in the presence of the Lord, time of judgment, and the Lord will say, Why should I let you into my heaven? All you've got is because I've placed my faith and I believed in you. Because see, God knows everything you did, all the sin you did before you got saved, and all the sin after, but he knows your heart. And Jesus is gonna step in and say, I died for those sins. He's one of my children. Jesus will say, Well done, thy good and faithful servant. Enter to eternal rest. That's gonna be the reward. You know, you don't always get the reward immediately for being good. You're a kid in school, you try to do extra good, and maybe one kid got caught out for being good, probably the one who was normally bad, but you're good all the time and you don't get rewarded. I remember those days. I don't think I'm holding a grudge, but it just came to my mind. But what about on the other end of that? Those who do evil. The Lord's not slow in bringing about his promises. He allows people an opportunity to come to know truth. Sometimes you know when that truth comes and they accept that? When they finally get themselves caught and they're in jail and a chaplain comes to them and they come to know Christ? How cool is that? What if we'd have wished them dead immediately, they wouldn't have had a chance to know Christ? I'm not God, you're not God. Sometimes it's hard to understand what God's doing, but we have to trust him. Verse 12 Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God because they fear before him. Yeah, he's saying sinners are going to do things that are evil, and that's that's part of life. But I do know that for people who follow God, who fear God, things are gonna be well with them. But again, you have to take that in the same perspective. Does that mean immediately? Maybe, maybe not. But what's better to have an immediate everything going well with God? Or spending all eternity with things going well with God, with you worshiping before his throne, coming in and out of heaven. I want that instant gratification. But the Lord says it's not about me, it's about him and what he is doing. Verse 13, but it will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow, because he does not fear God. A shadow is short, it kind of comes and goes based off where the sun is. There will come a time, not here on this earth, for all eternity, when those who do not follow after Christ will spend eternity in hell. People who intentionally were evil, people who played a game trying to be good, like what they mentioned in the first couple of verses, going in and out of the holy city, doing all these things, good things being praised by the people. People playing a game with God. See, God knows when we're playing games. Those people, the it won't be well with them. Maybe it'll be well for the few short years they have on this earth, fifty to a hundred, hundred and two maybe, but eternity of it not being well, it's a long time. It's a real long time. We have to remember God is a just God. He's gonna bring about his punishment and his due time. He's the one that says, Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. His timing is different from ours, and he will punish sin. Period. It's coming. Verse 14. MUVA changes the subject just a little bit. It says, There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. This also is vanity. In other words, people try to live good lives and do good things, and they're really seeking after the Lord, and bad things happen to them. And on the opposite of that, the people just mean as a snake, and it seems like as meaner they are, the better the Lord blesses them in one way or another. Okay? It's almost like a vanity, it's like a vapor, meaningless. All right, verse 15, and I command commend joy, for a man has nothing better to do under the sun but to eat, drink, and be joyful. For this will go with him and his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun. So this brings us to a choice. As we continue to live our lives, are we going to be upset and mad and angry over the wicked who don't ever seem to get caught or punished? Whether it be our neighbors, our government leaders, or anybody in between, maybe family members, I don't know. What is a saw uh what does uh Solomon recommend? Live life to its fullest, enjoy it. Remember your relationship with Jesus and maintain that. Specifically, the way he says is eat and drink and be joyful. Now, want to be careful when we say that. That doesn't mean all you do is sit around all week and have steaks and have lots of friends over and have all the wine and liquor and get what is it, three sheets in the wind or nine sheets in the wind. All y'all telling me three. Y'all are y'all confessing something? Yeah. But you know what I'm saying? It's not saying we need to drink like that and get drunk. The idea is that we can enjoy life. We get the difference, right? Do we spend time mad because we don't get our way, because things don't seem to go how we want, or things don't seem to be fair? We spend time on that, we meditate on that, that eats away at us. And as it eats away at us, it takes away from our time that we can spend with the Lord. If we're not careful, we can lose our joy. We can say, Well, God, that's not fair. Okay? But he says, You need to have joy. Okay? A joy that comes only through Christ. Verse 16. It says, When I applied my heart to know wisdom and to see the business that's done on the earth, how neither day nor night do one's eyes see sleep, verse 17, then I saw the work of God. That man cannot find out the work that's under the sun. However much he may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know it, he cannot find it out. Do we understand all there is to know about God? No. Even on some of these passages, when I've preached before and I give illustrations, I'll say a lot of times commentators, those religious people, they're really struggling between what's the right answer. They can't figure it out. It's going to be harder for us to figure it out. And I don't know about you, but I've acquired a list of questions that I'd like to ask God because I just don't understand things. But if we understood everything about God, wouldn't we be tempted to try to control Him? And that would be sin. We have to remember that God is God and we are not. Can we focus on the things that we can control and be faithful to do what God's called us to do? Oh, you see, Peter at the beginning, he was, he had gotten the message from the Lord. The Lord said, Go feed him a sheep. He told him three times. He finally got it. Matter of fact, probably after the second time he's starting to wonder, is he not believing me or something? But then all of a sudden he turns to everybody else, worrying about everybody else. So how is this other person going to do? What's that? Jesus said, No, no, no, you know, whatever happens to him, that's my business. You're going to do what I told you to do. God is God, and we're not. So just some things to think about for application this morning. What was the last thing God told you to do? Don't answer that out loud, just process that. Seriously. What was the last thing that God told you to do? Maybe it was just come to church this morning. I don't know. I'm one who believes that God continually speaks to his people. And if he tells us to do something, we got to do it. Sometimes it's a quick thing like maybe, hey, get up and go to church this morning. Or sometimes it's like a continual thing, like, hey, I want you to be a member of New Hope and join in with what God's doing there. There comes a time in my life I wonder, okay, Lord, what am I supposed to be doing? And when I've asked that, especially living on the mission field, when I asked that, I always get the response back: do the last thing God told you to do and keep doing it until He tells you something different to do. So that's why I asked the question, what's the last thing God told you to do? Because if we don't do what God tells us to do, it's likely we're focused on what everybody else is doing, and the injustice is going to play and taking place in the world and we're complaining about it. The next question, will you continue doing it, the it being what God told you to do, until God tells you to do something else? God's spoken, he's called you to be a part of our church or called you to be a part of the community, whatever that may look like. Are we doing what God's told us to do? Will we continue to be faithful to do that until he tells us to do something else? And then lastly, to think about will you be content and live with joy all the days of your life? Will you be content and live with joy all the days of your life? Now understand, we're gonna walk out of this room and different things are gonna happen. Okay? If the Lord so chooses, some of us may not make it back next week. Some of us could get bad news of medical stuff. Alright? Some of us could have a bad financial decision and lose lots of money. Life is gonna happen. God is still God. But can we commit to seeking after him, being content with where he's placed us? Sometimes these bad things happen to good people so that we can learn to rely on him and trust him and follow after him. I pray that we would choose to live a life of contentment in Christ and live the rest of the days he's given us with his true joy. Don't let anybody steal your joy because they're doing stuff but not supposed to, or because God's not moving fast enough to punish them like you think they should. We're not God, but we're created to worship him, to love him, and enjoy him forever. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you, Father, for your word. Uh Father, thank you for the the wisdom that Solomon had. Uh not only just the wisdom, just the fact that he listened to you, was obedient to you, and gave a recording of the words of Ecclesiastes and other books based off what you had him do. Father, now I pray that you'll speak to our hearts during this time of invitation. Lord, that you'll help us to listen to you. And not only listen, Father, but be obedient to what you tell us to do. Lord, we know you're always at work and you're always speaking to us, so help us just to be faithful. And Father, when days come when we don't feel content or we don't feel joy, remind us that we are your children. And there's nothing better than to be one of your children. Father, during this time of invitation, speak to our hearts, guide us, and help us to make decisions that will bring you glory. We love you. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior. Amen.