Ecclesiastes 3 (part 2)

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History Of Faith And Science (part 3)

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Life is repetitive, frustrating, monotonous.
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Sound like Bill Murray in the Groundhog Day? Only problem with that is it's worse than the
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Groundhog Day because life is frustrating, hard, monotonous, and then you die.
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Welcome to Bethlehem Bible Church. We all understand the frustration of life.
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What's the meaning of life? Can the meaning of life be found in life? Why are we on this planet?
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What happens when you die? And a lot of those questions, many answers are found in the book that we're going through on Sunday mornings here, verse by verse.
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It's the book of Ecclesiastes. Please take your Bibles. Found in the center of your Bibles, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, as we deal with vanity in this life and the way that we get out of this cycle of despair and frustration and futility, we'll see today is understanding and trusting in the sovereignty of God.
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You think about that word sovereign in English. It's got the word reign in it, that God reigns, that God does all his counsel.
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Isaiah chapter 46 says, my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure.
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Everything according to Ephesians chapter 1 is according to the counsel of God's will.
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And we need to have this truth embedded in our hearts and minds to make it through life without turning into those that would see no hope.
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Of course, we understand that as we're reading the book of Ecclesiastes, it's a different kind of literature. It's called wisdom literature.
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And we read it as Christians. Yes, it was written a long time ago, but we're on this side of the cross. And we understand that God, the son is alive, that he redeemed us from the curse of the law.
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It says in 1 Peter chapter 1, that you were redeemed from the empty or futile way of life handed down to you from your forefathers with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or spot.
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Lots of times people read Ecclesiastes and they come away depressed, even more frustration.
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They say, well, I'm already frustrated in life. Why would I ever read Ecclesiastes? One man said, set your shoulder joyously to the world's wheel.
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You may spare yourself some unhappiness if you slip the book of Ecclesiastes beneath your arm.
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In other words, there's hope and joy when we understand things through God's perspective in the book of Ecclesiastes.
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It all depends on what your perspective is. Now we've been working through Ecclesiastes 1 and 2, and today we're gonna be in chapter 3, looking mainly at verses 13, 14, and 15.
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You come to the book of Ecclesiastes and one writer said, it's like an octopus. Just when you think you have all the tentacles under control, just when you think you've understood the book, there's another tentacle waving up in the air.
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And I thought, that's kind of like Ecclesiastes. Lots of parallel things here in poems, in all kinds of figures of speech.
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But as you begin to read it, and I would trust congregation that you've been trying to read it throughout the week, it begins to make more and more sense because the world is senseless.
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Remember back in chapter 1, verse 2, he gives pretty much the thesis of the book. Vanity of vanities, says the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
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Five times in that one verse, life is vain. And it just depends on context.
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Vanity means puzzling. I can't figure out the world. It's a head -scratcher. It also can mean frustrating.
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Life is frustrating because nothing seems to work. Everything's broken. My lawnmower never fixes itself.
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And the last thing that Ecclesiastes could mean, vanity could mean in Ecclesiastes is fleeting. It just doesn't last.
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It's like smoke. Here today, gone tomorrow. And we live in this world of all three meanings of vanity.
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Life is puzzling, life is difficult, and life is fleeting. So is there any purpose?
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Is there any meaning? Why do I live? Why do people who are unbelievers like Ernest Hemingway just take their lives?
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Because they only see the world through that lens of vanity. Is there any hope?
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If you take a look at verse 3 of the same chapter, chapter 1, what does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?
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I mean, the fall, Adam's sin has affected everything. And now it's hard, sweat, toil, pain.
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And he begins in chapter 1, verses 4 and following to give this cycle of futility. Just nothing seems to last.
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Then he says, you know what? Maybe if I studied a lot and I had a lot of wisdom, that would work. That didn't work. Then remember, he dives into the world of hedonism with both feet in chapter 2.
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Come now, I'll test you with pleasure. Enjoy yourself. I mean, if I can't study this world to make things right,
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I might as well just give myself over to pleasure. Well, that doesn't work either. The best way to cure yourself from hedonism is to try it, as one man said.
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One philosopher Huxley said, oh, how desperately bored in spite of their grim determination to have a good time.
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Verse 11 of chapter 2, then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it and behold, all was vanity.
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And striving after win, there's nothing to be gained under the sun. I mean, think about all the work we've done.
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Reminds me of Leonard Wolfe. He was the husband of Virginia Wolfe. He said, I see clearly that I've achieved practically nothing in my life.
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The world today and the history of the human anthill during the past 57 years would be exactly the same as if I had been playing ping pong instead of sitting on committees and writing books.
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I have therefore to make the rather sad confession that I must have in a long life ground through 150 ,000 hours of perfectly useless.
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I just work and then what? I mean, if you think about you, if you're a
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Christian and I'm a Christian, what was your personal testimony like before you were saved? What was your life like?
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Full of joy and happiness? Oh, I'm sure there were some times. But overall, if you look at people's lives and their testimony, you see this inward feeling, this look to oneself and the world for pleasure, for meaning, and it just doesn't work.
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You can't find what you're looking for. So what do we do?
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What we saw last time, did we not? In chapter two, verse 24. Even though life is hard for the
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Christian, since we believe in the resurrected Jesus, since we have Jesus as prophet, priest, and king, since we know there's something beyond this life, since we know the
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Holy Spirit indwells us and we could have even joy in this life, look what he says in verse 24. There's nothing better for a person than he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.
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This also I saw is from the hand of God. For apart from him who can eat are who can have enjoyment.
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And with God, you can have enjoyment. We see that yes, with God, you can have joy and enjoyment.
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That was the first right response in the book of Ecclesiastes, enjoy everything from God's hand.
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Think about all that you've been given. You could say my taste buds are from the hand of God. My wife is from the hand of God.
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My friends are from the hand of God. My mind that can process things and my ears that can hear things is from the hand of God.
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Instead of saying the world is ripping me off, I see what the Lord has given me. Well, not only that, we wanna embrace
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God's sovereignty. So the two responses so far, we're keeping them with ease, enjoy God's gifts and embrace
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God's sovereignty. Embrace God's sovereignty if you want to have satisfaction in this life.
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And he started talking about sovereignty in chapter three, verses one and following. Remember, 30 times he uses the word time.
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There's a time for everything, time for everything. There's a time to be born, there's a time to die. And of course, we're looking through this book again, we can't forget this.
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If there's a Jewish rabbi here today who's not a Christian, I don't want him to agree with this sermon. Did you get that?
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Why would I not want that? Because he doesn't believe in a risen Savior, he doesn't trust in the Lord is gonna come back the second person in Trinity.
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We do, we believe that Jesus redeemed us from this kind of vanity. We believe that Jesus was born under the sun, obeyed under the sun, was tempted under the sun, healed under the sun, forgave under the sun, cast out demons under the sun, preached under the sun, died under the sun, was raised under the sun.
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There's a way to look at the book and it's through the lens of Christ Jesus, the risen Savior. I don't know much about telescopes and I've been to a few places where they have telescopes.
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What are they called again? Planetariums, is that what you said? Okay. And I do know a little bit.
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The small part of the eyeglass goes by your eye. Eyeglass. If you flip it around and you put the big lens on your eye, what do you see?
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Answer, your eyelashes. You see yourself. You've gotta have this thing flipped the right way so I can see through that lens, through that eyepiece rightly and that's what
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Ecclesiastes is wanting you to do. I mean, if this is it that all life gives us is it's hard life and we die, then it doesn't matter if you're a dog or a person, but if we are created in the image of God and we are and if we have eternal souls and we do and if every one of us is gonna die one day and stand before God and then it's either heaven or hell, which will happen, how do we live today's life?
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Does it matter that there's heaven? Does it matter that Jesus was raised? You say, yes, eternally, but what about right now in our lives?
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And so the writer wants you to know that God is sovereign. He does everything according to his good pleasure and we need to embrace that.
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By the way, dear congregation, as I talk about sovereignty a little bit today, to me, it was the second blessing.
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Lots of people think they become Christians and their second blessing, first blessing is forgiveness. Second blessing is they'll say,
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I had an experience, I spoke in tongues, I somehow felt the
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Spirit of God and they have the second blessing. I want you to know, this is the real second blessing. This is the blessing that you experience when you realize that God is sovereign, that God is trusted because he's in control of everything.
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God has a plan and therefore, Arthur Pinck said, from every pulpit in the land, it needs to be thundered forth that God is sovereign and still reigns.
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Now in the Bible, there's different words for God. There's Lord, all caps, it's his personal name,
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Yahweh. There's Lord with just the first letter L, Lord means he's Adonai, he's in charge.
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There's also the G -O -D word in the Bible, in the English Bible, God, and that's where we get our word from Elohim, that's the
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Hebrew word. And Elohim means this, God is sovereign, God is creator, God's in charge,
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God is powerful. In a section of Ecclesiastes that wants you to teach that God is sovereign, powerful, and authoritative, what word do you think he would use?
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Lord, all caps, Lord with one cap, or Elohim? Well, the answer is he's using
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Elohim to teach us that God is sovereign and transcendent over creation.
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Everything is right in its time. And of course, we look forward to Revelation 21, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.
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He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, and eat more.
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Did you know everything is under God's sovereign hand? Do you see it in verses one through eight of chapter three?
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For everything, verse one, there's a season, a time for every matter under the sun. With poetry, the writer is trying to get you to understand that God has every time in my life and in your life under his sovereign hand.
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Every normal event in life, every regular event, everything is covered. I mean, what's the option?
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God's up there with what people call celestial dice, right? And you grab the dice and you go to the table and you,
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I almost called it a certain kind of table, but you throw it at the table, you throw those dice, and you're like, oh,
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I hope that works. What if God isn't sovereign?
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What if he is? Just how sovereign is he? Now, last time we looked at a few of these verses in verses one through, sorry, last time we looked at verses one to eight to talk about sovereignty.
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Let me just take a little deviation here, but read verses 10 and 11 first.
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I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time.
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That's how comprehensively God's sovereignty is, how comprehensive God's sovereignty is.
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Also, he has put eternity into man's heart. We're longing, both men and women and children, longing for eternal truths, yet so that he cannot find out what
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God has done from the beginning to the end. Unless God tells us, we're not going to understand.
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God has implanted time in us and we want to yearn for the future. Nothing happens by chance.
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Nothing happens by fate. Nothing happens haphazardly. God is sovereign. Let's take a quick survey of sovereignty.
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Yes, he teaches it in poetry. Let me just give you five realms of God's sovereignty that I think will help you be comforted.
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I mean, I can't think of anything more comforting in all of life than sovereignty. First realm of God's sovereignty, not found in this text, but out of the doctrine of God's sovereignty is that God is sovereign over all creation.
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Keep your finger in Ecclesiastes and go to Psalm 135. I want you to know that God himself has decided by his own good pleasure to make the earth the way it is.
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From waterfalls to arid deserts, polar caps, dense jungles, planet earth is the handiwork of God almighty.
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There could have been two thirds land instead of two thirds water. There could have been a thousand Mount Everest. There could have been no
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Mount Everest. This is all the decree of the king. God is sovereign over creation. Of course, we're pumped all the time that evolution is king and evolution does everything.
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The Bible teaches something differently. God is sovereign. Look at Psalm 135. Whatever the
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Lord Yahweh pleases, what? He does because he's sovereign and he has power in heaven and in earth.
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And that means in everywhere in between, in heaven and in earth. It's a figure of speech to show us how comprehensive his sovereignty is in the seas and in all the deeps.
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He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth who makes lightnings for the rain, who brings forth the wind from his treasuries.
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That's Psalm 135. God is sovereign. Go back to Psalm 119 since we're in the
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Psalms. And I want you to be reminded that the Bible in Ecclesiastes and elsewhere teaches that God is sovereign.
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And I want you dear congregation to walk by faith and not by sight. The world doesn't look like it's being controlled by God, but it is.
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My life doesn't seem like it's in control, but God is in control. Psalm 119, verse 90 and 91.
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A couple of verses that if you just sit and ponder, you think, wow, how sovereign God is.
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How great God is. Your faithfulness continues throughout all generations. You establish the earth and it stands.
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They stand this day according to your ordinances for all things are your servants.
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Can you imagine the moon and the stars and the suns and the galaxies are called God's servants?
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I like dogs, I like to train dogs, and you know what you say to dogs. Sit, stay, come, you're dead.
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You know, you don't really kill them, but you shoot them and they fall over dead. It's like my servant.
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Can you imagine who says that to the stars? Who says that to the Milky Way? Who says to them, do as you're told, stay in your lane?
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And with fascinating obedience, the galaxies respond to the precise commands of God.
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And this is true for the weather. I stand condemned regarding this in terms of at least convicted.
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The weather doesn't just happen. And when I say I don't like the weather today, it's too windy, it's too cloudy, it's too hot.
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It's last night too cold. Woke up so cold in the night. I can't believe it's so cold here in New England.
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What is it, summer? Reminds me of Mark Twain, right? The slogan he said about San Francisco.
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Coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. I almost forgot that well -known phrase.
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Recalling. The weather just doesn't happen. We say it's raining outside.
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Listen to what God says. No shrub or the field was yet in the earth, no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the
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Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth. God sends rain.
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He's in charge of rain. He's in charge of weather. He's in charge of stormy winds, Psalm 107.
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One writer said, it's certain that not one drop of rain falls without God's sure command.
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I complain about God's sovereignty over the weather. I don't wanna do that. There's a book by Rabbi Kushner called
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When Bad Things Happen to Good People. And he said, we should not regard fires, earthquakes and tornadoes as acts of God, because that's using
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God's name in vain. Is it? Is it wrong to acknowledge that God is sovereign over sun, moon, rain, hail, sleet, snow, clouds, wind, storms, thunder, lightning, earthquakes, fire, ice, floods, famines, tsunamis, forests, seas, and let's not forget tornadoes.
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God's sovereign over all that. That's what the Bible is teaching. And it's meant to teach you that you can trust your
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Father because He's in control. Not only that, there's another realm of God's sovereignty.
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It's over all history. Did you know God is sovereign not just over creation, but over all history? God the
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King rules everywhere, every place, every speck of dust to the election of world leaders.
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Listen to what Daniel said. Let the name of God be blessed forever and ever, for wisdom and power belongs to Him.
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It is He who changes the times and the epics. He removes kings, He establishes kings.
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God is sovereign over everything. How could we trust Him if He wasn't sovereign?
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You say, well, yeah, that's big creation. That's big, all of history. What about the minutiae of my life?
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Is God sovereign over that? Well, good question. That's number three. The third realm is God is sovereign over specific details of your life.
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The Bible gives lots of examples of these details. Here's one. We won't even have to turn to it.
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Each man said to his mate, his shipmate, come, let us cast lots so that we may learn on whose account this calamity has struck us.
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So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.
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How lucky. I mean, one out of 10, you think? The lot is cast into the lab, but it's every decision is from the
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Lord. Odds in Las Vegas or Foxwoods are 100 % certainties in the plan of God.
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No random events, no coincidences. They're destined to occur. B .B.
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Warfield said, in the infinite wisdom of the Lord of all the earth, each event falls with exact precision into its proper place.
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Can you imagine the most minute, insignificant, minuscule, microscopic event?
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It's God's sovereign over that. I think you know the person that said this about God's sovereignty.
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Are not two sparrows sold for a cent, and yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father, for the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
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That's the Lord Jesus teaching us about the sovereignty of God. He's sovereign over everything.
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How many hairs I have, He's sovereign over. I'm refraining. I know what you're thinking.
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Yeah, but what about tragedies? What about calamities? Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass unless the
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Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both good and ill go forth? Lamentations 3.
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Isaiah 45, the one forming light and creating darkness, causing well -being and creating calamity.
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I am the Lord who does all these things. Yes, God, I know you do well -being. I know you do prosperous things.
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I know you do things that are good and right and upright, but you create calamity. You're sovereign over calamity.
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The answer is yes, He is. Did you know God is so sovereign, He's sovereign over every act committed by man?
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That's the fourth realm. Every act committed by man. I'd like you to take your Bibles and turn to Acts 4.
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God is sovereign over every act, either good acts by bad people like Cyrus in Isaiah 44, or by bad people doing bad things like against Joseph, his brothers.
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Remember, they meant it for evil and God meant it for good. The worst sin in all the world could only be done because God is sovereign over it and ordained it.
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The worst sin ever committed by mankind has to be the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, the innocent man,
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Christ Jesus. No one deserved execution less than the Messiah. Yet observe these words of Scripture carefully.
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Acts 4 .23, when they had been released, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priest and the elders had said to them.
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And when they heard this, they lifted up their voices to God with one accord and said, O Lord, it is
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You who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, who by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of our father
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David, Your servant said, why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples devise a futile thing?
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The kings of the earth took their stand. The rulers were gathered together against the
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Lord and against His Christ. For truly in this city, there were gathered together against Your holy servant, whom
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You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the
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Gentiles and the peoples of Israel. Mark this, it's in your Bibles, to do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur.
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Is God sovereign over everything? Yes. Is God sovereign over sin? Yes. Is God sovereign over the crucifixion of the
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Lord Jesus? The answer is yes. God reigns. God rules.
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The alternative is frightening. You say, yeah, but are people, are their destinies underneath God's sovereign hand?
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Yes, that's the last realm before we get back to Ecclesiastes. Men and women are born rebels against God and deserve eternal judgment.
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Yet somehow in today's evangelical culture, we think somehow that grace is dependent on work, our merit, our being good.
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God owns heaven and He determines who goes there. It's His heaven, He decides. Listen to some of these verses about the sovereignty of God on who goes to heaven and who doesn't.
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By the way, these are kind of stomach punch verses to some because yes, most everyone in Christianity would say,
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He's sovereign over creation. He's sovereign over tornadoes. He's sovereign over weather. He's sovereign over the day
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I was born. He's sovereign over the color of my skin. He's sovereign over who my parents are. He's sovereign over world events.
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He's sovereign over Jonah. He's sovereign over Jesus' crucifixion. But don't ever tell me He's sovereign on who goes to heaven or not because that's based on man's free will, his good pleasure.
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Everybody's given a fighting chance. What does the Bible teach?
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It doesn't matter what we think, what I say doesn't matter. What does the Bible teach? Is God sovereign over everything except heaven?
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Is God sovereign over everything except a person's vaunted free will? Just listen to some of these verses.
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Romans 9, So it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but it depends on God who has mercy.
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John 1, But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God's will.
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Salvation is a sovereign choice of God. None of us deserve it, yet God still chooses.
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You say, but I believed. Of course you believed. But you're not implying your belief was the cause of your salvation, are you?
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No, no, it's the result of your salvation. The cause of your salvation, I read in Ephesians chapter 2 today.
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It's because of God's great love with which He loved us. We do believe, but that doesn't cause
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God to do anything. That's the result of God's work. Believing is the result or consequence of salvation.
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Listen to Acts 13 .48, When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the
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Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life, what? Believed.
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It's because of God's great love. If you get to heaven, dear Christian, why will you be in heaven? Because of your faith?
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Well, did your faith live a perfect life? Did your faith die on the cross? Did your faith raise from the dead? Did your faith ascend to heaven?
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No, no. Faith we're trusting in with knowledge, assent and real trust. This is what God has done.
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It's a response to what God has done. We're saved because of His great love.
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Through faith, not because of faith. You say, well, I think God looks down the annals of time and foresees who would believe.
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Well, that's wrong on so many levels. Like man is depraved, the inability of a fallen sinner. But it particularly ignores the fact that God Himself is the
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One who grants the faith. It would be like saying God cannot foresee the faith that He would one day grant.
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No, no, no. 2 Thessalonians. We should always give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved by the
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Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the
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Spirit and faith in the truth. I want you to know, dear Christian, if you've got a loved one who you want to go to heaven and you've tried, you've begged, you've evangelized, you've put
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Bible verses in their sandwich before they go to work. I heard about a guy that had
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Bible verses in his sandwich from his wife. I guess we need roughage.
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I don't know. Yes, we desire people to be saved because God desires people to be saved.
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We want that same thing. But since God is sovereign, we know He's always going to get
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His man. He's always going to get His woman. God is sovereign over salvation. What if God, although willing to demonstrate
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His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?
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We might not like it. It's not one of those things that really maybe moves us emotionally, but it's true that God is sovereign and if you have children, you entrust them to the sovereign care of God who regularly and often saves sinners because that's what
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He does. He's a God who saves sinners. What's my point? My point is this. Ecclesiastes uses language of poetry to teach sovereignty and it's everywhere in the
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Bible. And if we want to have comfort in life, we need to believe in God's sovereignty. Okay, let's go back to Ecclesiastes.
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That was just a little deviation with a kind of a doctrinal emphasis on sovereignty of God.
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And I want you to know that God is sovereign over every neutron, electron, every soul, every will.
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God is sovereign over everything and Ecclesiastes recognizes that. They just do it with poetry. So now we come back to Ecclesiastes 3 .12.
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How do Christians, how do believers, how do we make it through this fallen world without just saying, you know what, it's just so frustrating.
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Who cares? Why bother? Well, we know God gives us good gifts and we know
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God's sovereign. So what's the response to God's sovereignty? You'll see that it's not this.
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That's not my God, that's your God. I will not worship that God. No, no, what's the response to sovereignty?
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Here's the response. I perceive that there's nothing better for them, Ecclesiastes 3 .12, than for them to be what?
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God's sovereign over every person on this earth. He's sovereign over me. He's sovereign over creation. So what do you do? To be joyful and to do good as long as they live.
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And that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all His toil. This is God's gift to mankind. Say uncle theologically to everything that you think about God's sovereignty and enjoy life and eat and drink.
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Remember Paul in 1 Corinthians 15? If there's no resurrection, if the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die.
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There's nothing beyond the grave. But for us, there is something beyond the grave. Jesus said to Martha when
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Mary was there, Lazarus was dead, He, Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life.
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Whoever believes in me will never perish. Do you believe this? And if you believe it, you can have life full of joy and simple pleasures.
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I don't need to know everything that God's doing sovereignly because it would probably blow my mind anyway. The steam would just come shooting out of my ears.
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Who creates the world and doesn't control it? Who creates something and can't control it? I'll give you the answer.
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Dr. Frankenstein. Is that who the Lord is? Good and holy and upright and kind?
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Sovereign? You say, but it doesn't seem that way. It doesn't feel that way. I know, that's why we need to be informed by Scripture.
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That's why we have to be people of the Bible because it doesn't matter what we feel or think. What has
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God revealed? And God has revealed that He is always sovereign over everything. Well, I don't have to do any good work then.
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No, what's the text say? We want to do good. We want to respond. We want to love our neighbor. We want to enjoy life.
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Jesus said, I'm the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. We not only get to enjoy food and drink and fun and pleasure, but we get to know spiritual refreshment as well.
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That lyric in the song, I still haven't found what I'm looking for. I would never find what I was looking for, but somebody was looking for me and they found me and now
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I know I can rest in who the Lord is. I can rest in God's controlling hand.
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I can just enjoy the present with an eye toward the future in the Lord Jesus' response. Doesn't this kind of sound like God is saying, by trusting in the
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Lord Jesus, even though it's a fallen world, there's a little flicker, a taste of Eden in the garden with the fruits and the vegetables and everything that was in the paradise before it was lost.
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There's a way to experience a little bit of Edenic pleasure because of the Lord Jesus and His goodness in creation.
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I think so. But you say, you know, isn't there anything else? If God is so sovereign, so transcendent, yes, enjoy, but shouldn't we go, hmm,
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I don't know if you have ever seen a tornado or not. I grew up in Nebraska and I think we had tornadoes here in the convention center, right?
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Years ago, 30, 40, 50 years ago, whatever, but there are tornadoes and they are awesome.
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And what we would do is we hear the sirens in the backyard every month, they would go off as a test, but if they didn't go off that Saturday morning for the test, it meant get in your basement in Omaha, Nebraska.
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So we would get in the basement. Dad would tell us which corner to go into because tornadoes always come the same way.
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So you get in a certain corner so the debris doesn't fall on you. But if dad wasn't home, we figured out how to get up on the roof.
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What, am I just gonna sit in there? Is it coming, is it coming? No, no, I wanna get up there to see this thing, this funnel. And I was thinking about tornadoes the other day because,
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I mean, we use the word awesome so much, but if you see a tornado coming and it's destruction, it's awesome.
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And you're like, there's a healthy respect. There's an awe. You're not revering it, but you're just like, ah.
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So would it be a surprise to you if you understood that God is so sovereign over everything that not only should you enjoy life, but you should stand back and go, that's a
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God who I should revere. That's a God who's sovereign. That's a
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God who I should, let's see what the text says. Actually, it says fear. I perceive, verse 14, that whatever
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God does endures forever. Nothing can be added to it nor anything taken from it.
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God has done it. Why? Not just for our enjoyment. So that people fear before him.
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That which is already has been, that which is to be already has been, and God seeks what has been driven away.
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God is to be feared. He's so sovereign. Now think about this in our world. I would say most people don't take
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God seriously in our world. Oh, they might say the big guy in the sky or, you know,
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Eastern Christmas. Remember we call those CEO Christians. You know, CEO Christians. Christmas and Easter only, those
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Christians. But I'm glad they're here, aren't they? People act like God doesn't live.
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People act like God's not real. It's the fool who says in his heart there's what?
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No God. Here's what Solomon is saying. There is a God. He's powerful, he's transcendent, he controls everything.
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He's given us a sense of his transcendence and his greatness because we have eternity set in our hearts.
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Nothing can be thwarted in his plan. And if that's true, then the fear of the Lord is the beginning of what?
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Wisdom. Now you say, well, fear, Lord. Look up the word fear. Look up the word Lord. That's a bad way to do
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Bible study, by the way. And it's particularly bad here. What is the fear of the Lord when we see it in Ecclesiastes over and over and over?
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When we see it in the Psalms over and over and over? What does it mean to fear the Lord? Been a dog owner for very long.
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You realize that some dogs, I recognize a dog that's been kicked too much by the owner and they're just cringing down, waiting for the next kick.
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Is that what it means to fear God? Is there a time to fear
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God? I mean, after all, Isaiah stood before God and he said, he understood that God was holy, holy, holy.
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And Isaiah said, woe is me. Peter saw Jesus' miraculous power catching fish and he falls down at Jesus' feet.
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And he says, depart from me, for I am a what? Sinful man. Jesus said, do not fear those who killed the body, but cannot kill the soul.
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Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. What is fear?
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So let me give you two easy definitions for fear. There's a fear that unbelievers should have of God.
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And there's a fear that believers should have of God. And theologians call this servile fear.
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The servant's fear. And a filial fear, which is the fear of a family member or a son.
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Two different kinds of fears. The first fear is for unbelievers.
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And if you're here as an unbeliever today, God is creator, judge, and sovereign. And you ought to be thinking about, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of living
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God, because it is. You ought to be thinking about the worst kind of torture chambers, and tormentors, and jailers, and executioners found in the castles of England, times a million for the day that you stand before God without an advocate, the
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Lord Jesus. The Bible says that unbelievers think this way,
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Romans three, there is no fear of God before their eyes. I don't care if there's a
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God, I'll act the way I want. I mean, it's like Pharaoh. Dear unbeliever, if you're here today, you don't want to be like Pharaoh, do you?
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Here was Pharaoh to Moses. Who's the Lord that I should obey Him and let Israel go? I do not know the
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Lord, I will not let Israel go. I don't care who your God is. They should be afraid, real fear, real trembling.
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But what about believers? Should we be cringing all the time the fear of the Lord? I'm frightened,
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I'm biting my fingernails because God is after me. It's not the same kind of fear because our relationship is different.
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God is sovereign, God is transcendent, God is over us. But our relationship is different. True or false, perfect love casts out all.
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How can I do a true or false and a fill in the blank at the same time? I just did it. Perfect love casts out all what?
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Fear, so how can a Christian who understands the perfect love of Christ for sinners like me and for you have fear?
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It's the right kind of fear. It's not the cringing, servile fear of an unbeliever before a God knowing that he'll have to stand before Him.
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But God is so powerful, God is so great. God is so wonderful that I should have an attitude of reverent awe.
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Should I not? It shouldn't be flippant, it should be with reverence. It should be one, an attitude of honor, an attitude of,
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I don't wanna displease you, God. You're so sovereign and great. I'm not afraid of displeasing you and having you send me to hell.
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I'm just afraid of displeasing you because you've loved me and you've given your son for me. And I don't wanna do that because you're so good to me.
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I respect you, Father. I wanna love you, Father. Think about even with our earthly fathers.
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The same language is used in 1 Peter 1 where we think to ourselves, you know what? Yes, my father loves me, he tucks me into bed, but he's my father.
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I mean, my particular father, 6 '4", boxer, Korean War veteran, and I love my father, but I was afraid of my father.
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I wanted to revere him, I wanted to honor him. I wanted to respect him. Jerry Bridges said something that I am convicted by.
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And of course, when I get convicted, I convict you too. That's what I get to do. There was a time when committed
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Christians were known as God -fearing people. And it was a badge of honor.
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We say now, I'm born again Christian. I'm an evangelical Christian. I'm this kind of Christian.
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In the old days, we were known as God -fearing Christians. Not because we sin, we go to hell, and Jesus has paid for those, but because God is so great.
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We now have a little pocket God that He's close to us, and He walks with us, and He talks with us along life's narrow way.
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That's true, but that's secondary to there's a God in heaven, and He sits in the heavens, and He does whatever
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He pleases. And He says in Psalm 50, I believe, if I, God, were hungry,
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I wouldn't tell you. And to that kind of God, we think, tornadoes are impressive. But if I've got enough sense to get into the basement when a tornado's coming,
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I should have enough sense as a Christian to think, I need to revere this God. I need to honor this God. So it trickles into godliness.
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It trickles into holiness. It trickles into obedience. It trickles into attitudes of serving others and doing others, not to gain my standing, but because God is sovereign, because God is great, and we fear
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Him. Somebody called this kind of fear a warm respect.
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I don't think that goes far enough. Did you know, and we're gonna land this plane here in a second, did you know that Jesus on earth feared
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His Father? You say, well, I don't know about fearing God. I'm a Christian. I'm a child of God.
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Why would I ever fear God? I don't like that terminology. Did you know the Lord Jesus feared His Father?
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Here's from Isaiah 11. A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse. We're talking about incarnation language here.
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We're not talking about before Genesis one. From his roots, a branch will bear fruit. The spirit of the
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Lord will rest on him, Jesus, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and power, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the
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Lord, and he, the Messiah, will delight in the fear of the Lord.
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Jesus, truly human, born of a woman, born under the law, feared His Father. Bridges goes on to say,
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Jesus's heart was completely filled with reverence, awe, honor, adoration, and obedience.
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That's it. For the Christian, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I now have a standing before God. I'm not going to be damned for my actions, but I'd like to still fear
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God. And God, I want to revere you. I'd be willing to be in awe of you, honor you, adore you, and obey you.
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That is what the fear of the Lord is. If you can go to Niagara Falls, if you can go to the
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Grand Canyon of the Swiss Alps or any other place, and you think of God's creation as mouth dropping, how much more
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God himself, God's sovereign.
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So what do we do about it? We enjoy life and we fear him. And speaking of enjoying life, we're going to pray, sing a hymn, and enjoy a good gift that God has given, marriage.
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And we're going to enjoy that gift because God has ordained it and God has been pleased to do it.
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And we get to see that even though life is hard and difficult God is so good that he gives us companions and that with an eye to respect and awe and fear of God, we enjoy
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God's goods gifts. And that's one of the reasons why we're going to have the wedding today right after the service to celebrate the goodness of the
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Lord. God is sovereign. We enjoy him. We fear him. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for our time in your word.
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And I would pray for every person here. If they're not a believer, would you increase the fear of the
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Lord in their hearts so that they might run to the Lord and Savior Jesus? And for us as Christians, Father, maybe we are so close to you in terms of our thinking of our relationship as daughter and son that we're not in awe of you as much as we should be.
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Would you increase that as well? Thank you for the Lord Jesus who feared you in the right way.
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Not a cringing fear, but one of reverence and awe and may that be true for us as well by the power of the Holy Spirit.