Ecclesiastes 2024

We are going to turn now to hear god's word read to us and, Ellie Gant, 1 of our members is going to come and read. So we'll be in chapter 8 of Ecclesiastes. Page 676, if you've got a church bible, chapter 8 verse 9 through to 9 16. Thanks, Ellie.

All this I saw as I applied my mind to everything done under the sun. There is a time when a man lords it over others to his own hurt. Then 2, I saw the wicked buried. Those who used to come and go from the Holy Place and receive praise in the city where they did this. This too is meaningless.

When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, people's hearts are filled with schemes to do wrong. Although a wicked person who commits a hundred crimes may live a long time, I know that it will go better with those who fear god, who are reverent before him. Yet because the wicked do not fear god, it will not go well with them, and their days will not lengthen like a shadow. There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth, the righteous who get what the wicked deserve and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve. This too I say is meaningless.

So I commend the enjoyment of life because there is nothing better for a person under the sun, to then to eat and drink and be glad. Then Joy will accompany them in their toil, all the days of the life god has given them under the sun. When I applied my mind to no wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth, people getting no sleep day or night, then I saw all that god has done. No 1 can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no 1 can discover its meaning.

Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it. So I reflected on all this, and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in god's hands, but no 1 knows whether love or hate awaits them. All share a common destiny. The righteous in the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean, and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not. As it is with the good, so with the sinful.

As it is with those who take oaths, so with those who are afraid to take them. This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun. The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of people moreover are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live. And afterwards, they join the dead.

Anyone who is among the living has hope even a live dog is better off than a deadline. For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing. Have no further award and even their name is forgotten. Their love, their hate, and their jealousy have long since Spanish Never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun? Go eat your food with gladness and drink your wine with a joyful heart.

For god has already approved what you do. Always be clothed in white and always anoint your head with oil. Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that god has given you under the sun, all your meaningless days. But this is your lot in life and in your troublesome labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.

For in the realm of the dead where you are going, there is neither working nor planning, nor knowledge, nor wisdom. I have seen something else under the sun. The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant. Or favor to the learned, but time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no 1 knows when that hour will come.

As fish are caught in a cruel net, all birds are taken in a snare, so people are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them. I also saw under the sun, this example of wisdom that greatly impressed me. There was once a small city with only a few people in it, and a powerful king came against it, surrounded it and built huge siege works against it. Now there lived in that city, a man Paulbert Wise, and he saved the city by his wisdom, but nobody remembered that poor man. So I said wisdom is better than strength but the poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are no longer heeded.

Let's pray together. Father, we pray as we look at these amazing chapters that you would speak to every single 1 of us here in this room, and we ask it in Jesus' name. Our men. Well, here's, here's 1 book that I read last month. It's called it's called Shutter Island.

And, it's not known as a great spiritual, classic, but it is very exciting. It's a psychological thriller, and, it was turned into a film in 2010. And the story follows a detective called Teddy who has been sent to investigate some very strange goings on at this hospital for the criminally insane on Shutter Island. Now early on in the book, you discover that Teddy the main character before he served as a detective used to be in the military and he served in World War II, and he was actually involved in liberating a concentration camp called Dachau. He was 1 of the first soldiers through the gates to witness the humanitarian crimes that had taken place in that in that camp.

And there's a scene in the book or the film and you don't need to have seen it or read it to access this illustration at all. But there's a scene in the book where 1 of the doctors is analyzing Teddy, and here's what he says to him. They have this conversation. The doctor said to him, Do you believe in god, detective? Teddy laughed.

The doctor leaned forward. Oh, you're serious. Teddy said. The doctor waited. Have you ever seen a death camp doctor?

The doctor shook his head. No. Teddy hunched forward. You see a death camp someday doctor. And then you get back to me with your feelings about God.

Now if you were to turn that statement into a question. How would you how would you put it? It'd probably be something like this, wouldn't it? How could such injustice and evil possibly coexist with a good and powerful god. Julie, it is the case that the existence of 1, the def cam, rules out the possible existence of the other, namely god.

That's basically the argument, isn't it? And as you will know, that is the kind of question that many people still have. In fact, several years ago, as a church, we did a survey across Kingston called Kingston's biggest survey ever where we asked members of the public, if they could ask god 1 question, what would it be? And then we invited them to hear the answers. And top of the list, as it normally is with these sorts of surveys, was that question?

Why would god allow suffering? And I don't know about you, but when I consider the question in that form, so divorced from any of its context, just why would god allow suffering? It's not that difficult to get some answers together to the question. But when I encounter the question in a conversation about a concentration camp or about a lost child, or about a workplace injustice, it very often makes me pause and think and sometimes even totally forget the answer to that question. How how would I really answer this person in this case?

And maybe you've had that experience, you know, you've thought about these tough questions before, but then you encounter it in a new context or the injustice happens to you personally and you start to wonder all over again How do I actually square this situation with my trust in god, with my faith in god? And you know, that's where I think this collection of books, song of songs, proverbs, Joe, Ecclesiastes are so, so helpful for us because when you read these books, you see that they are much less concerned with global politics and with what the canaanites are doing at the moment, and they are much more concerned with helping god's people in every age to navigate those difficult questions and to make sense of life. And that means they do not ignore these difficult questions. In fact, they ask them for us. They ask the question, and not in the abstract.

You know, the Bible doesn't say why does God allow suffering in survey form? It does the harder thing, which is to put you inside the mess and the confusion and the horror of life and then it forces you to consider the question from within. And so you can see How helpful that is? Because then when the Bible does lead us towards an answer, it is always more precious than a textbook answer precisely because it was forged in the fires of real life. And so those are the things that I want us to see together today in Ecclesiastes 8 and 9.

The plan is to go into these chapters and to get a firsthand view of injustice and evil, and then to see what help emerges from within. And the purpose of all of that is that you and I might know real help as we try to make sense of these questions, not at the philosopher's desk. But in real life when our own times are tough. If you're new this morning, we've been working our way through this book Ecclesiastes, and we're thinking about this teacher, probably Solomon, and we're reading his journal. That's what this book is like.

It's like journal entries. Of a man who's asking the question. If life is just this, just under the sun. If there is no god or if there has been no revelation from god, then what is the point of our lives? What are we to do?

How do we make sense of anything? And up until this point, his conclusion has largely been meaningless. And now he's going to take us into perhaps the most difficult problem of all. And it's this. Here's the first point.

The problem of pain. The problem of pain, life is unfair. Life is unfair. A few years ago, I was, invited to sit with a Jewish friend, as he celebrated pouring with his community. And if you don't know Purim is a yearly festival where Jewish people remember the time where god saved his people from Hammond, that wicked Hammond through the courage and the bravery of people like Mordecai and Esther.

And in the festival, the whole book of Esther is read aloud and every time they come to the name Hayman, The people in the room will either boo or hiss or they will get 1 of those old football rattles you know, not like a baby rattle and loud rattle and they will whip it round as fast as they can in order to drown out his name. Every time it's red, they want to drown it out. And the purpose of that is not just for fun and it's not merely theatrical. But rather they actually want to renew the curse upon that wicked name every time that it's heard. Because they see that to be a right thing to do when someone has a wicked name and has done wicked deeds, not to honor it or to celebrate it, but to pronounce a curse upon it and to try to blot it out.

That is the that's the right thing. That makes sense for a wicked name. But look at what happens under the sun. Chapter 8 verse 9. All this I saw as I applied my mind to everything done under the sun.

There is a time when a man lords it over others to his own hurt. Then too, I saw the wicked buried. This is a wicked man buried. Those who used to come and go from the Holy Place and receive praise. In the city where they did this, this too is meaningless.

So do you see? Here we are. Standing by the side of a grave, which is not abstract. Remember we're there. We're standing at the grave site.

And we're listening together to a eulogy, dearly beloved, gathered here today. As many of you know, he lies a religious man. Never a day went by without him visiting the most holy place. How many people dearly beloved praised the name of this man in our city for all his religious service to our temple. Let us remember his deeds today.

And yet when you strip that falsehood away, who was he really verse 10? He was a wicked man. He was a wicked man who is not getting the Hammond treatment, now it's quite the opposite, isn't it? He is being treated in death How the righteous sought to be treated. If you were to go and buy a paper tomorrow morning, you would see a sparkling obituary for him in the back.

If you give it a bit more time, you'll find a blue plaque at the place where he was born. It's not right. Is it? Perhaps you've even been to a funeral yourself. And you've known that the person being remembered, perhaps was a wicked person.

Perhaps was not a good person, and yet all these pleasantries are being read about them, and you know You know it's not real. Life isn't fair under the sun. But then look at 9 verse 13. How is the name of the righteous remembered? I saw also under the sun this example of wisdom that greatly impressed me.

There was once a small city with only a few people in it and a powerful king came against it surrounded it and built a huge siege works against it. Now they lived in that city, a poor man, but wise. And he saved the city by his wisdom, but nobody remembered that poor man. So I said wisdom is better than strength, but the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are no longer hated. Where's his obituary?

Where's the blue plaque to commemorate his bravery? He was never made. Why? Because he was poor. And it was only a little town.

And he wasn't that impressive. I know how they praised him for a day for his courage. But the people were fickle and they forgot him and somebody else got the credit. And somehow they even began to despise the name of the very 1 who had saved them in life. No big funeral here.

Just an unmarked grave. No, no need to god. Here's the summary. 8 verse 14. The righteous get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve.

This 2 I say is meaningless. Do you see how the Bible does it? It doesn't do a survey. It actually puts you into a city where a religious criminal is getting a state funeral and a poor man who saved the city against all the odds is being despised and then it asks you from that position. When the righteous get what the wicked deserve and the wicked get what the righteous deserve, who can make who can make sense of this.

Life is unfair. Secondly, the problem of pain outcomes are unpredictable. If life is unfair, he also wants us to see the outcomes are unpredictable. 9 verse 11. I have seen something else under the sun.

The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned. But time and chance happen to them all. So here we are, and we've moved away from the funeral. And we're now in the Olympic stadium. We're in the stadium.

Can you put yourself there? It's Paris. It's the Olympics. Gathered with thousands of others to watch the swift and the strong competing. In 1 corner of the swift, in another corner and the strong, and they're competing in the stadium.

And the medals are about to be given out. And here's the thing with sport. There's no hiding is there. There's no hiding on the track. Only the best and the most deserving are gonna win and so anywhere on Earth is a place of justice, it's in the sporting stadium.

But who's that we see? About to get the gold medal. Not the athlete who trained hard for years. With integrity and honesty, but the 1 who took the drugs managed to pass the test and won the day. Many, many times in life.

Things do actually work out as they should. The strongest will win the battle. And the best candidate for the job will be given the position, and the healthy person will live the longest. But isn't it the case that just as often, it seems to be the exact opposite of that, doesn't it? My great grandfather who who I never met, used to smoke roll up cigarettes.

And, apparently, he would stuff so much tobacco into his roll up cigarettes that the riesler paper would only just meet on the other side. And my father remembers great strands of tobacco falling and hanging out the end of his own cigarettes. And when he lit them with a match, they would just go up like a flare. He smoked like that all of his life, and he died of old age with no health concerns at 93 years old. Whereas there are other people who have never touched a cigarette in their life, and they will be cut down with lung cancer at a much, much earlier age.

Who can make sense? Who can predict these outcomes? A dishonest worker who gets the promotion, who can make sense of it. The healthy person who looks after themselves for decades and gets the disease. Who can make sense of it?

Under the sun, these outcomes cannot be predicted. That's what he's saying. It's just time and chance happened to us all, isn't it? It's just time and chance, time and chance, time and chance happen to us all. So when the Olympics come round, Have a bet on the swiftest.

Place a bet on the strongest, but remember, in the end, it's just time and chance. Time and chance happen to us all. You see the problem of pain? Life is unfair and outcomes are so unpredictable that he's not done yet. Thirdly, the problem of pain death is unavoidable.

Outcomes are unpredictable. Death is unavoidable. And now we're gonna go from the stadium to the temple. And then we're gonna ask the question. We've been to the grave site.

No help there. We've been to the stadium. No help there. We're gonna go to the temple now, and we're gonna ask might religion at least be able to help us make sense of these questions? Religion under the sun, remember?

Mike religion help us to make sense of these questions. Well, let's have a look. Chapter 9 verse 2. All share a common destiny. The righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad.

The clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not. As it is with the good, so it is with the sinful. As it is with those who take oaths, so with those who are afraid to take them. This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun. It is the same destiny, which overtakes all.

So can you picture yourself on a summer's day like today outside the temple? And there are 2 groups of people that you're observing. The first group are very devout, and they're on their way into the temple. They've sworn their oaths. Their sacrifices are prepared.

They're ready to worship the lord. Their whole life has been tuned to a religious life. And then there's another group, the market traders outside. They don't give us stuff about religion or what goes on in that temple. They're only there to make as much profit as they can by exploiting the worshipers.

That's that's their job. 2 groups of people, and Solomon says, guess what? In a hundred years, both of those groups will be dead and gone. And so in the end, what difference did it actually make? You choose the religious life, and you will die.

You choose to ignore religion and you will die. You choose to spend this life preparing for the next life and you will die. You choose to live now as if this was your only life and you will die. Will religion help you under the sun? It might do, but remember time and chance happen to us also, it might not.

Will evil help you under the sun? It might do, but remember time and chance happen to us all, so it might not. Under the sun, the outcomes are unpredictable, but death is unavoidable. The same destiny overtakes us all. The religious who've given their lives for a a god and a temple, they will die.

The irreligious who didn't care about it. 1 jot, they will die. And the same destiny overtakes us all. And so again, if life is unfair, and if outcomes are unpredictable, And if death is unavoidable, then what is the answer? You see, this is not a survey.

He's trying to put you there at the grave site in the stadium, at the temple. He's showing you what a muck and mess it all is. And then he's saying, ask the question with me from there. And so what are the answers? Are there any?

Well, of course, there are none. And here's the fourth point. The problem of pain, answers are unobtainable. See that with me in chapter 8 verse 16, and just try to hear the desperation in his voice. When I applied my mind to no wisdom, and to observe the labor that is done on earth.

People getting no sleep day or night, Then I saw all that god has done. No 1 can comprehend what goes on under the sun despite all of their efforts to search it out, and goodness. Haven't there been many of those? No 1 can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim that they know, they cannot really comprehend it.

The answers are unobtainable. Who can make sense of this world? He's saying, who For all of their qualifications and hard work and insights, is there anyone who can really comprehend these painful mysteries of life? You see, why is it that at 8 AM in the morning, 10000 pupils go off to school in this capital. And by 5 o'clock that night, 9999 of them are home safely with their parents, but just 1 doesn't come home that day because he's been brutally cut down in a savage knife attack, and that 1 happens to be a baptized believer of the lord Jesus Christ.

Who for all of our searching, who can make sense who can comprehend that, who can make sense of that, who can explain why? Or why is it that in this country, my children are very, very unlikely to be kidnapped because I am a pastor. But in some parts of the world, as we were just hearing in our prayers, There are families very like mine where that eventuality is far more likely. What is that? Is that just the lottery of life?

I was just born here. I drew a lucky ticket I can raise a family here and they got the short straw. Who can who can make sense of that? Who can who can comprehend that? Do you see how it goes?

Why does god allow suffering? Is 1 kind of question Have you ever been to a death camp doctor? Is another kind of question. And that is the sort of questions that we find in these chapters. They don't come to us from the theologians desk.

They come to us from the soil of Dachau, the concentration camp. And that means that if there is an answer, if there is any perspective, if there is any above the sun thinking which is gonna help us here, it is surely going to be a very precious gem indeed precisely because it was found in the darkest mind of all. Do you see? When we ask the question in this form, any help that we get is gonna be so precious because it's for real life. And so lastly, here's the 1 thing that we know.

Life is unfair. And outcomes are unpredictable, and death is unavoidable. And answers are unobtainable. But 1 thing we know. I don't know if you noticed going through these chapters, but the teacher here is constantly talking about what he sees.

Look with me at chapter 8 verse 9. All this I saw as I applied my mind to everything done under the sun. There is a time when a man lords it over others to his own hurts verse 10, then to I saw. The wicked buried chapter 8 verse 17, then I saw all that god has done. No 1 can comprehend what goes on under the sun.

Chapter 9 verse 11, I have seen something else under the sun. The race is not to the swift. All the way throughout the chapters, he wants you to know what the eyes of his flesh are seeing. Here's what I see. Here's what I've seen, here's what I see.

But do you notice the shift in language when you come to chapter 8 verse 12? Although a wicked person who commits a hundred crimes may live a long time, I know. That it will go better with those who fear god, who are reverent before him. Here's what I see, and now I want to tell you about what I know. See brothers and sisters, how can we make sense of life when things are so unfair?

And outcomes are so unpredictable, and death is so unavoidable. How can we begin to answer those questions? Well, here is the fundamental difference between us and the world. We walk by faith. And not by sight.

And that means that the only way to make sense of the problem of pain is to consider what you no, and what you have been told and what you have been promised by god in the word of god. Namely that 1 day god will judge the world with justice by the man that he has appointed. Jesus Christ risen from the dead. And according to the end of Ecclesiastes, On that day, it'll be Jesus Christ, who brings every deed into judgment. Including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.

Do you see? This, this is what Solomon is pointing us to in the middle of this messy section. Here's what he is pointing us to. In chapter 8 verse 12, he's told us what he sees. Here's what he knows.

Although a wicked person who commits a hundred crimes may live a long time. And who can make sense of that under the sun? Here's what I know. I know I know that it will go better with those who fear god and who are reverent before him yet because the wicked do not fear god I know it'll not go well with them. Brothers and sisters, there are no easy answers to these questions.

And of course, in our world, the atheist may mock this idea of living by faith in an unseen savior who is coming to put it all right. But in response, we must ask, well, where does the atheist position leave us? If this isn't true, where does the atheist position leave us? It leaves us precisely nowhere. Because not only does atheism not remove the problem of pain.

If we were all atheists, it would still exist. Right? Not only does it not remove the problem of pain, but it gives us exactly nothing to say to the detective in Shutter Island. Because there is no hope, and there is no judgment, and there is no justice coming, and there will be never a writing of any wrong but it's just time and chance and good luck or bad luck. So eat your food and drink your wine and tomorrow you die.

That's where atheism leaves us. We're on the soil standing in Dachau. And all we can do is shrug our shoulders and be silent because we have nothing to say. But here's what we know. That 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ crucified for sinners rose from the dead.

And that means that he's coming again and he's gonna judge the world with justice. And that means that somehow I don't know how he's gonna do it exactly. But somehow, he is going to put right every single wrong. It means that the names of the righteous forgotten in this life will be vindicated in the next. And it means that the names of the wicked celebrated in this life will be blotted out in the next, and it means that death, which was so unavoidable in this life, will die forever in the next.

And it means that Christ will quiet your heart with the answers that you wish you'd had in this life. But we'll get in the next. That is what it means to fear god. It means trusting that even though it's hard to make sense of things now, that 1 day brothers and sisters, your god is going to put write every single wrong overturn every single injustice, lift up that which was downtrodden and tread down on that which was wrongly celebrated. He will see to it.

That justice is done. And you can trust him. You can trust him. It was the Scottish pastor Robert Murray Mc Chang, who died very early on in his life. Before time, life is unfair.

He died very early on, Here's what he said about these issues in a sermon on 1 Peter. When the wicked world gets the upper hand, when there is persecution, When men will not listen, when the young care not to hear of Christ. When some go back and walk no more with Christ, what gives joy? A look at an unseen but coming, savior. He is behind the door.

We cannot see through the door. If we could, we would see Jesus there. This gives joy. His kingdom shall come. We shall soon have our heart and crown, and shame shall cover them that now talk so proudly.

Oh, it is unspeakable joy. Have you ever been to a death camp doctor. The problem of pain is real, and it's all around us. And simple answers are not easy to come by, but this is what we can say with absolute certainty on the authority of the word of god, it will go well with those who fear the lord. And so shall we pray that he would give us the grace to do that?

Father, when we look at this world with the eyes of the flesh, we see the problem of pain all around us. We don't just consider the question as it comes to us in a survey, but we see real people all over the world, real loved ones in our own families, and even in our own lives. The injustice the unpredictability. We see the inevitability of death looming closer every day. And we say with this teacher no 1 can comprehend these things.

And yet, lord, when we look with the eyes of faith, We see Jesus Christ risen from the dead. We cannot see through the door at the moment. But if we could, We would see Jesus there. And we know that he is coming again to right every wrong to give us the answers we couldn't find in this life to take away the shadow of death forever. And father how we look forward to that day when we will see our savior, the only hope in this painful world.

And father, we pray for those particularly in the congregation who are experiencing something of what we've spoken about this morning. And we pray Holy Spirit that you would apply these words and that the comfort of them would make a real difference to people. Who were going through difficulties and help us all or to keep our eyes on that day and to trust that you are coming to put this world right. It will go well with those who fear the lord. Thank you for this in Jesus' name.