SPEAKER_01: Ecclesiastes in chapter three is our text for this evening.
SPEAKER_01: We were in the first half of this chapter this morning, and we will finish this chapter together this evening.
SPEAKER_01: I love evening church.
SPEAKER_01: Uh right around four o'clock, my wife and I always feel like evening church is man, it's a lot of in our case, there's a lot of shoes to put on to get there, there's a lot of coats to zip up to get there, and then once we get here, it's it's this is such a delightful time.
SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited to get into God's Word together and to fellowship uh together as a body this evening.
SPEAKER_01: So what I want to do is uh is I want to finish this chapter.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I I don't plan on this being a particularly preachy message, a little bit more of a Bible study, but then again, I am a youth pastor, and so there I'm I'm exercising a certain amount of self-restraint, not to pace up and down the aisles, as is my normal custom when I'm teaching teenagers.
SPEAKER_01: I do usually have kind of uh youth pastor roaring around, prowling around like a roaring lion, seeking a youth on his cell phone, is my normal MO.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm not gonna do that, but I might get a little excited because this really is an excellent text.
SPEAKER_01: I hope that it will provoke us to think deeply about the glory of our God, the power of our God, and what it means to rest in him.
SPEAKER_01: So, with that, why don't we look at the text together?
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna read verse 16 down to the end of the chapter in verse 22.
SPEAKER_01: So look down at your Bibles and let's read God's word together.
SPEAKER_01: Ecclesiastes chapter 3, verse 16.
SPEAKER_01: God's word reads.
SPEAKER_01: Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness.
SPEAKER_01: I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work.
SPEAKER_01: I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them, that they may see that they themselves are but beasts.
SPEAKER_01: For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same.
SPEAKER_01: As one dies, so dies the other.
SPEAKER_01: They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beast, for all is vanity, all go to one place, all are from the dust, and to dust all return.
SPEAKER_01: So who knows?
SPEAKER_01: That the spirit of man goes upward, and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth.
SPEAKER_01: So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot.
SPEAKER_01: Who can bring him to see what will be after him?
SPEAKER_01: This is God's word.
SPEAKER_01: I want to ask you a bit of a strange question to begin a to begin a sermon.
SPEAKER_01: I want to ask this question.
SPEAKER_01: What do you do when you hear a boring sermon?
SPEAKER_01: It's never happened to you, I'm sure, right?
SPEAKER_01: I think that you have to have something of a strategy, right?
SPEAKER_01: If you go to church every single Sunday in your Christian life, inevitably something's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01: It's not that the Word of God isn't piercing, dividing to the soul and spirit.
SPEAKER_01: It's not that the Word of God isn't living and active, but it's sometimes my soul is a little bit dull and dead.
SPEAKER_01: And when I find myself listening to a sermon that I'm just kind of like dull to, I have a strategy.
SPEAKER_01: My strategy is that I intentionally try to find something in the sermon provocative, something that seems wrong, something that makes me to think about God, something that makes me think about scripture, something that would confront something in my life, that would make me evaluate something in my life.
SPEAKER_01: I try to find something in the sermon that's provocative.
SPEAKER_01: And I find good warrant for this in uh the classic go to church text in Hebrews in chapter 10, that part of worshiping together on the Lord's Day is that we are to be provoked.
SPEAKER_01: In Hebrews in chapter 10, the author of the book of Hebrews says, let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
SPEAKER_01: We are not to neglect meeting together.
SPEAKER_01: We are to come together, and when we come together, we're be we are to prov to provoke one another to love and good works.
SPEAKER_01: That means in our fellowship and in our conversation and in our prayers together, we're to intentionally consider my brother and where he's going and what's going on in his life.
SPEAKER_01: How can I provoke him to love God, to love his neighbor, and to serve the Lord with more zeal and more gladness?
SPEAKER_01: We're to provoke one another to love and good works.
SPEAKER_01: That's part of what the preaching of the Word of God is to do.
SPEAKER_01: It's to provoke us to love and good works.
SPEAKER_01: And I think and I trust that this text that we're considering this morning will do that, because this is certainly a provocative text.
SPEAKER_01: It's a text that deals with the reality of evil in a world where the Bible says God is sovereign, and yet it is undeniable that there is genuine evil in this world.
SPEAKER_01: It prompts a significant problem.
SPEAKER_01: And what we're gonna do this evening is we're gonna look at this text and the advice, the counsel, the wisdom that this preacher, the preacher of Ecclesiastes, gives us to deal with this reality.
SPEAKER_01: And what he really does is he doesn't so much deal with the philosophical problem of theodicy.
SPEAKER_01: He's not trying to untangle the knot of how can a good God allow evil.
SPEAKER_01: What he's doing instead is he's embracing the reality that there is a God who is sovereign over this world.
SPEAKER_01: There is evil in this world.
SPEAKER_01: Now, how do you live in this world?
SPEAKER_01: What he's doing in this text is not solving a philosophical puzzle.
SPEAKER_01: He's giving us spiritual resources to live in a fallen world.
SPEAKER_01: Notice verse 16, just before we go any further and get into the rest of the text, just to see that that's what he's doing, is in verse 16, he says, Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness.
SPEAKER_01: So there's wickedness replete through this world.
SPEAKER_01: In particular in the places where there ought to be justice and goodness, there is wickedness.
SPEAKER_01: That's a reality.
SPEAKER_01: That's a reality in every culture and every time and every place.
SPEAKER_01: It's an inescapable reality in this world, there will be wickedness where there ought to be justice.
SPEAKER_01: And Solomon, the preacher of Ecclesiastes, says, I'm looking at it, I'm staring it in the face.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just a philosophical puzzle that I want to deal with in a classroom.
SPEAKER_01: I'm looking at it, I'm staring it in the face, I'm confronting it in my life.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what do I do about it?
SPEAKER_01: And the rest of this text is given to us to provide us with some resources to live in a fallen world where God is sovereign, but there really is wickedness.
SPEAKER_01: So, what I want to do is walk through the rest of this passage, and I think we will discover that there are in this passage three resources that the preacher of Ecclesiastes gives us to deal with the reality of evil in God's world.
SPEAKER_01: Three resources to deal with the reality of wickedness in God's world.
SPEAKER_01: The first is this.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the first reality, the first resource is that God is going to judge that evil.
SPEAKER_01: God is going to judge the world.
SPEAKER_01: You see, this is the first thing that the preacher turns to in verse 17.
SPEAKER_01: Having confronted the reality that there is wickedness in the world in verse 16, look what he does immediately in verse 17.
SPEAKER_01: I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work.
SPEAKER_01: That word time is the same word that's repeated over and over and over in the poem that we read this morning that runs from verse 2 to verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: There's a time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, time to pluck up, and there's a time for every matter under the sun, as Solomon says in verse 17.
SPEAKER_01: That is, that evil does not escape the sovereignty of God.
SPEAKER_01: The poem in verses 2 through 8 asserts the exhaustive sovereignty of God over his created world.
SPEAKER_01: And in verse 17, Solomon is being particular and singling out the reality of wickedness in this world, does not escape God's sovereignty.
SPEAKER_01: God is sovereign even over the wickedness that is in this world.
SPEAKER_01: God's not wringing his hands in heaven, wishing that he could do something about it, but just simply unable to do anything.
SPEAKER_01: Rather, God's sovereignty extends even over the reality of evil in the world.
SPEAKER_01: And in the face of that, as Solomon confronts it, what he turns his mind to is he remembers the reality that this sovereign God, who is in control of wickedness that's in the world, is one day going to judge it.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 17, I said in my heart, God will judge.
SPEAKER_01: God is going to bring an end to evil.
SPEAKER_01: He will judge every wickedness, and he will right every wrong.
SPEAKER_01: And that reality that there is coming a day when God is going to judge the world sustains the preacher as he confronts the reality of wickedness in the world.
SPEAKER_01: God's judgment is a good truth that sustains you when you confront wickedness, particularly wickedness that you cannot do anything about.
SPEAKER_01: There are evils in the world that you will inevitably be powerless to change, but you can look ahead to the reality that God will deal with that wickedness.
SPEAKER_01: God will judge every deed.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I just want to note a couple things here.
SPEAKER_01: We could say much about the reality of God's judgment.
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I have, for one reason or another, the text that I've preached the last several times I've been in this pulpit have been about judgment, so I've talked quite a bit about it, but there's an element in this text that I want to focus on, in verse 17.
SPEAKER_01: Notice what the intentional language that the preacher uses.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 17, he says, I said in my heart.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just that he dealt with some philosophical problem and said, Oh yes, God is going to judge wickedness.
SPEAKER_01: I have solved the dilemma.
SPEAKER_01: Rather, he is speaking to himself.
SPEAKER_01: He spoke to his heart.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 42 style, where the psalmist in Psalm 42 is feeling downcast and says, Why are you downcast, O my soul?
SPEAKER_01: Hope in God, for I shall again praise him.
SPEAKER_01: In Psalm 42, there's this process by which the psalmist is feeling downtrodden and miserable and spiritually depressed, and he takes hold of himself in the middle of the psalm and says, Remember who your God is and put your hope in him, for you will again praise him.
SPEAKER_01: The same exercise is being performed before our eyes in verse 17.
SPEAKER_01: As the preacher confronts the reality of wickedness in the world, he's not just trying to solve a dilemma.
SPEAKER_01: He's trying to actually live in the fallen world.
SPEAKER_01: What he does is grabs hold of his heart and says, Remember, soul, God sees this and God will judge this.
SPEAKER_01: That's the kind of attitude we have to have.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just a truth in order to solve an intellectual dilemma, it's a powerful spiritual tool to enable you to live in a fallen world.
SPEAKER_01: You know, Martin Lloyd-Jones, the English preacher of the 20th century, said that most of our problems in life come from the fact that we spend too much of our lives listening to ourselves instead of talking to ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: When you confront any number of dilemmas in your life, in particular this dilemma of the reality of wickedness in the world, there are all kinds of thoughts, emotions, and knee-jerk reactions that arise in your soul, in your mind, and your heart.
SPEAKER_01: And if you spend all your time listening to that, I mean you are going to be overwhelmed at a minimum.
SPEAKER_01: But if you grab hold of yourself as the preacher is modeling here and say in your heart, I know that my sovereign God sees this, my sovereign God will not sweep this under a rug, my sovereign God will bring this to justice, that's going to free you and empower you to live a life of righteousness and trust in the living God.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, Paul says in Romans chapter 12 that it is the reality of God's future judgment that enables you, that frees you to love your enemy.
SPEAKER_01: If you mean if you if you don't have this reality that God is going to judge evil, there is no way to live in this world.
SPEAKER_01: But if you have the reality that God is going to judge evil, it frees you to live in the world, trusting in God's sovereign judgment.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to take a minute, maybe, if we can go into this a little bit further, to look at another text since we've been speaking of the Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: Why don't you flip over in Psalm 73?
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 73, you can turn in your Bibles there, because we'll spend a moment looking at Psalm 73, which is really an extended look at how to grab hold of the reality of future judgment and use it as a resource to live in the fallen world.
SPEAKER_01: I mentioned that Paul says that the reality of God's future judgment is a resource for loving enemies, knowing that God is going to judge them, I don't have to.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, I can give a cold glass of water to my enemy.
SPEAKER_01: Well, in Psalm 73, the psalmist applies this truth to another spiritual problem, the problem of envying the wicked.
SPEAKER_01: There are unlimited numbers of examples of people deliberately violating God's moral law and profiting from it in this world.
SPEAKER_01: How are you supposed to deal with that?
SPEAKER_01: Well, Psalm 73 gives us the reality that if you remember God's future judgment, that's the way that you deal with envying the wicked.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 73, just read a few verses.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 73, verse 1 says, Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart, but as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped, because I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
SPEAKER_01: So he tells you what his problem is.
SPEAKER_01: And Psalm 73 is going to be a delineation of how he dealt with this problem.
SPEAKER_01: In verses 4 through 8, he describes the problem.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 4, they have no pangs until death.
SPEAKER_01: Their bodies are fat and sleek.
SPEAKER_01: Fat is a good thing in the ancient world.
SPEAKER_01: It means that you're you're wealthy, you're prosperous, things are going well for you.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 5, they're not in trouble as others are.
SPEAKER_01: They're not stricken like the rest of mankind.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, pride is their necklace.
SPEAKER_01: Violence covers them as a garment.
SPEAKER_01: Their eyes swell out through fatness, their hearts overflow with follies, they scoff and speak with malice loftily, they threaten oppression, they are violating God's law and they're getting away with it.
SPEAKER_01: Not only that, they're profiting, they're wealthier, their lives are better than mine.
SPEAKER_01: Their lives are, he would say, by any objective measure, their life is better than mine.
SPEAKER_01: And so staring at the wicked in the reality that instead of exercising righteousness, they're exercising wickedness, and they're profiting from it, he says in verse 12, here they are, always at ease, increasing in their riches, so all in vain I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.
SPEAKER_01: Why am I bothering trying to follow Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: Why am I bothering trying to uphold the moral standards of the scriptures?
SPEAKER_01: Why am I bothering trying to love my neighbor when their lives are obviously better than mine?
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 73 is a text that in my ministry to teenagers I go to over and over and over and over and over.
SPEAKER_01: Particularly, I think, because our teenagers live online, and there are so many ungodly people who are flaunting their best life now online, that this is the perpetual reality that our teenagers live in.
SPEAKER_01: But it's not just a teenager thing, is it?
SPEAKER_01: This is an ongoing human reality that we live in.
SPEAKER_01: That we look around and we see people who seem to be profiting from their wickedness.
SPEAKER_01: Why am I bothering?
SPEAKER_01: Why am I serving the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: What am I getting from this?
SPEAKER_01: What gain do I have from all this toil trying to serve the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: This is where you need the reality of God's judgment, not just as a passive doctrine that you acquiesce to because it's in the Bible a thousand times.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I guess I have to believe it even though it's not particularly tasteful to me.
SPEAKER_01: Rather, you have to recognize that the reality of God's judgment is a spiritual resource for you to live a dynamic, fruitful, satisfying Christian life right now.
SPEAKER_01: This is the reality that is going to sustain the psalmist when he casts his eyes around the world and sees the wicked prospering.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the same resource that can benefit you when you experience the same crux in life.
SPEAKER_01: So cast your eyes down to verse 16.
SPEAKER_01: The psalmist says, When I thought how to understand this, seemed to me a wearisome task until I went into the sanctuary of God.
SPEAKER_01: Then I discerned their end.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, he went into the sanctuary, and there he was provoked to love and good works, wasn't he?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: Truly you set them in slippery places, you make them fall to ruin, how they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors, like a dream when one awakes.
SPEAKER_01: Oh Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
SPEAKER_01: That's the reality.
SPEAKER_01: When he came into the house of God, when he heard the scriptures, when he heard the singing, he remembered reality that there is coming a judgment, and all of the temporary, fleeting pleasures that the wicked are enjoying, and I don't have access to are going to pop like bubbles, and eternity is going to commence.
SPEAKER_01: All of this world will give way, and the next world will come.
SPEAKER_01: And the only thing that is going to determine your lot in that world is what you do in this world.
SPEAKER_01: That reality that God is going to judge the world is an absolute necessary truth that you have to take hold of yourself from time to time and speak it to your heart.
SPEAKER_01: God is going to judge the righteous and the wicked.
SPEAKER_01: God is going to judge the world.
SPEAKER_01: And when you do, you'll conclude like the psalmist does.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 21.
SPEAKER_01: When my soul was embittered, I was pricked in heart.
SPEAKER_01: I was acting brutish and ignorant.
SPEAKER_01: I was acting like a beast towards you.
SPEAKER_01: I was acting as though there was nothing else beyond this world, just like an animal.
SPEAKER_01: Nevertheless, I am continually with you.
SPEAKER_01: I know that is true.
SPEAKER_01: You hold my right hand, you guide me with your counsel, and afterwards you will receive me to glory.
SPEAKER_01: There'll be a judgment for the righteous.
SPEAKER_01: Whom have I in heaven but you, and there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
SPEAKER_01: My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
SPEAKER_01: For behold, those who are far from you, they will perish.
SPEAKER_01: You will put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
SPEAKER_01: But for me it is good to be near God.
SPEAKER_01: I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.
SPEAKER_01: What is the crux that solves his dilemma?
SPEAKER_01: What is what is the key that solves his dilemma?
SPEAKER_01: What's the resource that takes him from acting like a beast towards God to saying there's nothing better in the universe than to be near to God and to walk in his ways?
SPEAKER_01: The resource is the reality that there is a judgment, that eternity is real, preaching this reality to his heart, coming into the congregation and remembering that the scripture declares that there is a judgment, there is eternity, and this life matters.
SPEAKER_01: Now you can flip back to Ecclesiastes and chapter and chapter three.
SPEAKER_01: I'm really I'm trying to drive home this point because I think it's often overlooked in our thinking about judgment, particularly in a culture in which judgment is like, I mean, is there a j is there a doctrine that they will get you in more trouble than eternal judgment?
SPEAKER_01: And so easily, how easily we fall into the trap of acknowledging it, but not delighting in it.
SPEAKER_01: But the scriptures are to be delighted in.
SPEAKER_01: They are resources by which to know God and to live the most vibrant, powerful, fruitful, abundant life that Jesus Christ died to give you.
SPEAKER_01: We have to not just acquiesce to God's judgment, we have to love it.
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what the preacher is modeling for us in verse 17.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to go back there, and before we move on, I want to make just one more note.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 17.
SPEAKER_01: The preacher says, I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there's a time for every matter and every work.
SPEAKER_01: And we talked about the reality that God is going to judge the wicked, but he also says that God is going to judge the righteous.
SPEAKER_01: And we looked at that just momentarily in Psalm 73 that you're going to lead me into glory.
SPEAKER_01: The reality that God is going to judge is not just for the wicked, that God will bring a termination to their evil and God will bring them to justice, but it's also for those who serve the Lord Jesus, who sacrificed for him.
SPEAKER_01: There will be a vindication in this judgment.
SPEAKER_01: There will be a judgment for the righteous, a judgment of rewards, a judgment in which this God will say, Well done, my faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master, and everything you sacrifice for him in this world will be as though you never sacrificed at all.
SPEAKER_01: It will just be an infinitely beneficial investment in eternity.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's helpful since we're speaking of the subject, just to read a few verses for you from Revelation and chapter 21.
SPEAKER_01: Because Revelation chapter 20 terminates on the great throne judgment.
SPEAKER_01: And the conclusion of that great judgment is these words in Revelation 21.
SPEAKER_01: Then I saw a new heavens and a new earth, for the first earth and the first earth, first heaven and the first earth had passed away.
SPEAKER_01: The sea was no more, and I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband, and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.
SPEAKER_01: He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be as their God.
SPEAKER_01: He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.
SPEAKER_01: Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.
SPEAKER_01: The joy that we'll step into when we step into eternity will be fullness forever, more than we could ever hope, think, or imagine.
SPEAKER_01: That judgment ought to be not just a doctrine that we put on the shelf and we say, Well, I can't take get rid of it because it's in the Bible, but I don't really like it.
SPEAKER_01: There it is.
SPEAKER_01: No, it ought to be front and center on your desk.
SPEAKER_01: This is going to sustain you in a fallen world, is this reality that God is going to judge the righteous and the wicked, and everything you do for Jesus Christ will be vindicated in eternity.
SPEAKER_01: Now, that's the first truth that the preacher gives us to sustain us in a world where God is sovereign but wicked wickedness is real.
SPEAKER_01: The first resource is that God is going to judge evil.
SPEAKER_01: But there's a second resource, so let's move through the rest of the text.
SPEAKER_01: The second resource is this.
SPEAKER_01: Let me skip that for the sake of time.
SPEAKER_01: Is that God is going to judge evil, and in the meantime, God doesn't bring that judgment now because God wants to give time for repentance.
SPEAKER_01: Sounds like a New Testament doctrine, and it certainly is, but it's in Ecclesiastes chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to look at verse 18 through 21 together.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 18 says, I said in my heart, with regard to the children of man, why doesn't God do that judging now?
SPEAKER_01: It's because he's testing them that they may see that they are but beasts.
SPEAKER_01: Solomon is saying God doesn't bring the judgment now because he's giving people time to respond, time to wake up to the reality that if you live in this world as though God didn't exist, even if you say with your mouth that God exists, but live as though he didn't, you are living like a beast.
SPEAKER_01: You're living, verse 19, as though what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beast is the same.
SPEAKER_01: As one dies, so dies the other.
SPEAKER_01: They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beast, for all is vanity.
SPEAKER_01: All go to one place, all are from dust, and to dust all return.
SPEAKER_01: If this world is all there is, then there's no advantage to being a human over being a chihuahua.
SPEAKER_01: There's no difference.
SPEAKER_01: Because we all just go back into the dust.
SPEAKER_01: From dust we came to dust we'll go.
SPEAKER_01: Accidental collocations of atoms, no significance, no difference.
SPEAKER_01: We're just accidental formulations standing here for a moment between eons of dead time on either end of us.
SPEAKER_01: We came from nowhere and we're going nowhere.
SPEAKER_01: Now, before we go any further, I think that raises just one more observation for us.
SPEAKER_01: When you confront the reality of evil in the world, there are a number of ways that you can respond.
SPEAKER_01: We've just seen that one of the ways that we ought to respond biblically is we remember God's judgment.
SPEAKER_01: But a natural human impulse is that we want to ignore God.
SPEAKER_01: How could a good God allow this evil?
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that Solomon is showing us in this text is that if you ignore God, if you say, if there really were a God, this evil couldn't exist.
SPEAKER_01: That won't do you any good.
SPEAKER_01: That won't help you.
SPEAKER_01: That won't solve the dilemma of this reality.
SPEAKER_01: It only makes it worse.
SPEAKER_01: Because if there is no God, then there's no point to this evil.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, if there is no God, then there's no reason to expect anything different than suffering, injustice, and evil.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, you can't even say that there's evil in the first place if there's no God.
SPEAKER_01: You can't say that murder or killing is objectively wrong.
SPEAKER_01: If this world is all there is, what is more natural than violence?
SPEAKER_01: The mechanism by which we came to be, if there's no God, was violence, the strong eating the weak.
SPEAKER_01: In that world, if anything, killing is perhaps morally justifiable as it advances your genome.
SPEAKER_01: If there is no God, you don't solve the problem, you only make it worse because now you're just hopelessly adrift in a meaningless universe.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, you're hopelessly adrift in a cruel universe with no rhyme or reason for any of the suffering or pain you are experiencing.
SPEAKER_01: Getting rid of God won't solve the problem, it only makes it worse.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, what the scripture says is God wants to give us powerful resources to deal with the reality of suffering and evil, but ignoring God will not help the problem.
SPEAKER_01: So we end in this little section in verse 21.
SPEAKER_01: Notice what he says here.
SPEAKER_01: Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of beast goes down into the earth?
SPEAKER_01: Now, I don't think he's a he's I know that he is not resigning himself to agnosticism.
SPEAKER_01: Who knows whether the spirit of man goes up or goes down?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, nobody knows.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, oh, that they would know.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, the New American Standard translates it this way: Who knows that the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes downward?
SPEAKER_01: Who knows that there's a difference?
SPEAKER_01: Who realizes?
SPEAKER_01: It's like this wish.
SPEAKER_01: I wish that people would realize that there is a difference between human beings and animals.
SPEAKER_01: God made us different.
SPEAKER_01: One goes back to the dust, but one is meant to live forever.
SPEAKER_01: He's wishing that people would recognize this.
SPEAKER_01: And the reason that God doesn't bring the judgment now is that he's testing people, oh, that they would recognize that there is a difference, there is an eternity, there is a God that made them, there is a judgment, and there is a savior.
SPEAKER_01: This is what Peter says in 2 Peter 3, verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: Don't overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day.
SPEAKER_01: That's why he's delaying this judgment.
SPEAKER_01: He's not being slow, as some count slowness, but patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
SPEAKER_01: That's why he hasn't brought the judgment now.
SPEAKER_01: The scripture asserts that God is exhaustively sovereign over all things, including evil.
SPEAKER_01: And when you're confronting the reality of evil in the world, you have to talk to yourself.
SPEAKER_01: You have to preach to yourself the certainty of God's judgment.
SPEAKER_01: God will judge this.
SPEAKER_01: And God will judge me.
SPEAKER_01: And why doesn't he do it now?
SPEAKER_01: Why didn't he do it 20 years ago?
SPEAKER_01: Why didn't he do it a hundred years ago?
SPEAKER_01: Because he's not wishing that any would perish, but that all would reach repentance.
SPEAKER_01: He's giving opportunity for the gospel to go forward for the fullness of all his people to come to faith.
SPEAKER_01: Often I hear Christians say, and often I say, Oh, that Jesus would come back.
SPEAKER_01: Maranatha, it is a biblical concept.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, Peter himself in this book says that we should speed, that we should hasten, that we should long for the day that Jesus would return.
SPEAKER_01: And when you have that attitude, his judgment seems slow.
SPEAKER_01: Why doesn't it come now?
SPEAKER_01: But aren't you glad it hasn't come yet?
SPEAKER_01: When you reflect on the people who have come to saving faith in Jesus Christ in the last X many years, five years, ten years, five days.
SPEAKER_01: Aren't you glad that God in his wisdom has appointed the perfect day when he will bring this judgment and not a moment sooner?
SPEAKER_01: So the fullness of his people.
SPEAKER_01: Aren't you glad he didn't bring it before you came to know the Son?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know when the judgment is coming.
SPEAKER_01: I want it to come soon, but it's going to come exactly when God wants it.
SPEAKER_01: And in the meantime, I have a designated allotment of time to serve the Lord and to get the gospel out.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we're here.
SPEAKER_01: How zealous ought we to be that before that certain judgment comes, that we would let as many people know as we can that it's coming and there is one Savior.
SPEAKER_01: Well, finally, there is this reality that God will judge evil.
SPEAKER_01: There is the reality that in the meantime God is giving time for repentance, and finally, in the meantime, we have a mission to get the gospel out, and we have this blessing that Solomon concludes.
SPEAKER_01: I find it fascinating that Solomon doesn't conclude with, now get to work.
SPEAKER_01: But he actually concludes with, get to work and enjoy it.
SPEAKER_01: Enjoy your work.
SPEAKER_01: In the meantime, God gives you enjoyment in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 22.
SPEAKER_01: So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot.
SPEAKER_01: Who can bring him to see what will be after him?
SPEAKER_01: Rejoice in your lot.
SPEAKER_01: What's a lot?
SPEAKER_01: A lot is you cast a lot, it's what you receive, it's what you get, it's your portion in life.
SPEAKER_01: And you don't get to choose it, it's just what you get.
SPEAKER_01: It's where you're born, it's who your family is, it's how tall you are, it's how many resources and opportunities you have available to you.
SPEAKER_01: It's the intelligence that you were born with, it's the natural abilities that you've received.
SPEAKER_01: And the point is that all of this you have received.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't earn it, you didn't do anything to gain it, you received it.
SPEAKER_01: It's part of who God wanted you to be.
SPEAKER_01: It's your lot, it's what God gave to you, it's your inheritance in this world.
SPEAKER_01: It's a stewardship.
SPEAKER_01: You don't control it, you received it.
SPEAKER_01: A little bit like Christmas presents.
SPEAKER_01: The natural proclivity of every child and most adults is when you open your present, it's great, it's nice.
SPEAKER_01: And then you compare it to the other presents, and suddenly it's not so nice.
SPEAKER_01: And that's how our lots are.
SPEAKER_01: It is easy to look around and say, I want that one, and Solomon is telling you, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: Rejoice in your lot.
SPEAKER_01: God gave you exactly the opportunities, God gave you exactly the family, God gave you exactly the resources he wants you to have to get to work for him.
SPEAKER_01: This world is short, eternity is a long time.
SPEAKER_01: God has put all the resources at your disposal he wants you to have to serve him, to store up treasures in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Get to work serving him and do it with joy.
SPEAKER_01: Serve the Lord with gladness.
SPEAKER_01: This is, as studying the book of Ecclesiastes, the main thing that has stood out to me is that Ecclesiastes is the carpe diem book of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: It's the seize the day book of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: It is that eternity is long, this life is short, seize hold of it, enjoy every gift, and use everything at your disposal to serve God.
SPEAKER_01: There is a godly carpe diem.
SPEAKER_01: It is recognizing that judgment is coming.
SPEAKER_01: God is giving time for repentance, there is work for you to do, there are resources at your disposal, seize them and do whatever you do with all your might and do it with joy and do it with gladness, because God has blessed your work.
SPEAKER_01: God loves when you serve him.
SPEAKER_01: God loved you and delighted in you and set his affections on you and gave his son for you and brought you into his family and equipped you with resources to serve him.
SPEAKER_01: Now get to work and serve him with gladness.
SPEAKER_01: Encourage people.
SPEAKER_01: Raise your family, share the gospel, serve the church, sing with loudness, get to work serving the Lord and do it with joy because God approves your service.
SPEAKER_01: This is part and parcel of a godly life, is seizing hold of everything that God has given you, enjoying it, and maximizing it.
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, that doesn't mean that life is not just a big joke to say that we're supposed to maximize our enjoyment in life.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've just been saying that there's work for us to do.
SPEAKER_01: But life isn't 100% work all the time either.
SPEAKER_01: There's a time to laugh and there's a time to cry, and there's a time to go on vacation, there's a time to buckle down and work harder than you've ever worked before.
SPEAKER_01: There's a time to buy a new toy, and there's a time to sacrificially give to others.
SPEAKER_01: There is there are resources at your disposal, and this book is given to help you wisely know how to use those to serve the Lord, and in all you do, you're to do it with gladness, knowing that the Lord is going to bless what you do when you do it for Him.
SPEAKER_01: The reality of God's judgment should not be, cannot be put away on a shelf merely as something to resort to for your dying day.
SPEAKER_01: The reality of God's judgment should subfuse all of your Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: It should fill you with confidence to know that you can endure living in a world that is fallen and replete with evil, and it should give you joy, knowing that it lends gravity to everything you do for God.
SPEAKER_01: Everything you do for him will receive a reward in eternity.
SPEAKER_01: So serve the Lord with gladness, knowing that everything you do for him matters.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray to him together.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, thank you for this encouragement from your word that you have appointed our days, and you have appointed us a task.
SPEAKER_01: You saved us by your grace, and Paul says, You saved us two good works that you prepared beforehand, that we would walk in them.
SPEAKER_01: So, Lord, this week even, stir our hearts to serve you with gladness, to walk in your ways, to do your will, to rejoice in you, and to encourage others to rejoice in you.
SPEAKER_01: We pray this in the name of your Son.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now, for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining Emmanuel Bible Church today through this resource.
SPEAKER_00: It's my prayer that if you live in the DC area, I'll be able to meet you on some Sunday at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church, you can go to IBC.church, or for information on the Master Seminary and their Washington, DC location, go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource helps you seek God through Jesus Christ, serve the Lord with joy, and share him with boldness.
SPEAKER_00: May the Lord bless you.