Ecclesiastes 7-8, What’s Better?, Dr. John B. Carpenter

Ecclesiastes chapter 7, beginning chapter 7 and 8, hear the word of the Lord. A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth.

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.

Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

It is better for a man to bear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools, for as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools.

This also is vanity. Surely oppression drives the wise into madness, and a bribe corrupts the heart.

Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools. Say not, why are the former days better than these?

For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun, for the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.

Consider the work of God. Who can make straight what he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider.

God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.

In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing.

Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself?

Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears

God shall come out from both of them. Wisdom gives strength to the wise man, more than ten rulers who are in a city.

Surely there is not a righteous man on the earth who does good and never sins. Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you.

Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others. All this I have tested by wisdom.

I said, I will be wise, but it was far from me. That which has been is far off, and deep, very deep.

Who can find it out? I turn my heart to know, and to search out, and to seek wisdom, and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly, and the foolishness that is madness.

And I find something more bitter than death, the woman whose hand is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters.

He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her. Behold, this is what

I found, says the preacher, while adding one thing to another, to find the scheme of things, which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found.

One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among them all I have not found. See this alone

I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.

Who is like the wise, and who knows the interpretation of a thing? Man's wisdom makes his face shine, and the hardness of his face is changed.

I say, keep the king's command, because of God's oath to him. Be not hasty to go from his presence.

Do not take your stand in an evil cause, for he does whatever he pleases. For the word of the king is supreme, and who may say to him, what are you doing?

Whoever keeps a command will know no evil thing, and the wise heart will know the proper time and the just way.

For there is a time and a way for everything, although man's trouble lies heavy on him. For he does not know what is to be, for who can tell him how it will be?

No man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death. There is no discharge from war, nor will wickedness deliver those who are given to it.

All this I observed while applying my heart to all that is done under the sun, when man had power over man to his hurt.

When I saw the wicked buried, they used to go in and out of the holy place, and were praised in the city where they had done such things.

This also is vanity, because the sentence against evil deed is not executed speedily.

The heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear

God, because they fear before him. But it will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow, because he does not fear before God.

There is vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous.

I said that this also is vanity, and I commend joy, for man has no greater thing under the sun but to eat and to drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.

When I applied my heart to know wisdom and to see the business that is done on earth, how neither day nor night do one's eyes see sleep, then

I saw all the work of God that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun.

How much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out.

Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out.

May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Well, it's important to know what is better.

Do you know what's better? One thing is better than another. Do you know what it is? Well, you think that's such a general question. It's a ridiculous question.

It's impossible to answer. Ask a better question. Well, football season is on us. Is the

NFL better than college football? Well, in what way? If you mean in quality of football, well, the

NFL is obviously better. It's always better. After all, NFL players are all college stars.

They're the best of the best. But if you mean as an experience, nothing beats a big -time college football game.

It makes most NFL games seem stale by comparison. What kind of music is better?

Rock? Country? Jazz? Classical? Well, it depends on the criteria, doesn't it? What we mean by better, if you mean skillfully performed, beautiful tunes, there are examples of excellent music in all those genres.

You might think rock is better for the energy, that If I Die Young is an amazing country song, that Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue is magnificent, that J .S.

Bach's Air on a G -String is... I already used magnificent, so I don't know what to use. Otherworldly.

Of course, in church, you might expect to hear, well, Christian music is the best. But as John Foreman of Switchfoot said,

Christian is not a genre. There is Christian content, but there's no such thing as a

Christian style of music. What country is better? What's your criteria?

Some magazines do studies and publish articles about the top five or ten or whatever countries and often come out at the top, like with Norway, Iceland, Sweden, and I think, no thanks.

You need to have weather as a criteria, like that it's not freezing half the year and the sun comes out more than a couple of hours in the winter.

Now, if weather were the main criteria, Ethiopia might be the best country to live in.

It's hardly ever too hot or too cold. There are no tornadoes that I know of or hurricanes or blizzards.

What's the better state? Well, same thing. Don't say North Dakota. I don't want to have to plug up my car's engine to a heater to keep it from freezing overnight.

It all comes down to criteria. By what standard are you saying that something is better than another?

What kind of food is better? Is Chinese food better than Italian food, which is better than American food?

But what is better? Well, that depends on what you like. I think Chinese food has the best vegetables.

The Japanese are often very good with fish. Indians do flatbreads like paratha or naan very well.

And, of course, they invented curry. And I like a lot of Mexican food. Of course, many people now say, well, that's all a matter of personal taste.

So it's ridiculous to say which is better. There's no such thing as one being better or worse.

That it's just that you like one more or less. That if you think Chinese food is better, well, then it's better for you.

But it's not absolutely objectively better. That everything is relative. There's no good or bad.

There's only preferences. And that way of thinking, relativism, has a lot of people captivated in our day.

And, of course, there is such a thing as preferences that are taste. That it's not morally right.

You're not morally obligated to like Mexican food. And there's something really moral about you wrong with you if you like Greek food.

No, no, there is a realm of things that are taste. And some people think that same thinking applies to other, really, to all issues, to other issues, moral issues.

Like abortion. And if you don't like abortion, don't have one, they say. Or sexual behavior.

That now that every sexual preference is to be celebrated and encouraged, just like preferences for food.

I like Chinese food. You like Italian, that's great. Kind of the new worldly way of thinking.

We're taught that by the world and the media. Sometimes by teachers. Not to say or to think that any lifestyle is better or worse than another.

That to do that is bigoted. It really is ridiculous. It's saying that one kind of food is better or worse than another.

But there are even limits to preferences for food. You know, eating a traditional

Chinese or Mexican or Italian diet is objectively better than eating

Cheetos and Mountain Dew. That's your total diet. If someone said that their food preference was arsenic and hemlock, wouldn't you say that there are objectively?

Better foods than that? We might expect Ecclesiastes to sound like modern relativism.

That nothing is better than another. After all, we might expect it to say that, well, since it's vanity, vanity.

It's all like vapor. Everything you see is under the sun. It's chasing after the wind. Well, then it doesn't matter what you like or what you do.

Just enjoy yourself under the sun. But it doesn't say that. Well, there are life.

This life under the sun is vanity. It's chasing after the wind. Just a few days of your vain life.

There are some things that are better than others. And here in chapter seven and eight, we see seven things that are better.

First, recognizing mortality is better. It's better than not recognizing it.

It's better than spending your life running from it, partying, trying to drown out your awareness of death, of your coming death with maybe with alcohol or maybe with fitness.

The illusion that if you work out enough and you eat right, you take care of your body, that you can be forever young.

There was a salon in Danville right next to Target called Forever Young. It went out of business.

So will everyone who believes that they can be forever young. Eventually, they will be out of business.

It's better that we that we're aware that we will die. And that's not just something because everyone, if you say you're aware you're dying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone kind of knows that they've heard that. But to really see it and that we live our lives in the shadow of this monstrous mountain of death.

A good name, a good reputation is better than precious ointment, like the kind that soothes dry skin and leaves you with pleasant scent.

Being well regarded is better than that. And you have both, sure, but better have a good reputation. So too, shockingly, the day of death is better than the day of birth.

That sounds awful, especially in our culture, where we put death away in nursing homes, in hospices, where we think seeing people on the verge of death is frightening.

It's ugly. It's to be avoided. And it is ugly. A good movie is better than that, we think.

The movie theater gets a lot more visitors than the nursing home. But the day of death is better because it teaches us.

Days of birth can fool us. We can think of all the things that this newborn child can be under the sun.

Successful, rich, brilliant, an accomplished musician, a scholar, an athlete, a gentleman, a lady, a leader.

We forget that all of that under the sun is vapor. It's a mist, appears for a while, for a second or two, and then fades away.

You can be fooled by youth. We tell the youth, you have your whole life ahead of you. Forgetting that if they use that whole life to chase after the wind, chase after dollars or thrills or trophies, then it will be for nothing.

And when it comes to the day of death, when you're standing there at the bedside of a mother or father or friend or Mr.

Perry dying, we're not fooled by any of that anymore.

All the things that people chase after in their vain lives under the sun, the things that drive them, desire to be rich, desire to be famous, to be a

NFL athlete, an NBA superstar, whatever it is that drives them, that captures their attention for their whole lives, all of that is gone.

Only what is over the sun is left. It's better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting.

It's better to go to a funeral than to a party. It's better to go to a wake than to a wedding reception.

Parties are distractions, funerals are classrooms. And the lesson, this is what happens to everything under the sun, to you.

I last saw Mr. Perry last Thanksgiving day in the hospital. He wasn't doing well. His mouth was parched and he couldn't speak intelligibly.

He was obviously uncomfortable. After that, I planned to go see him on my way down to Raleigh on December 12th, going there to celebrate my own birthday.

But I got in a hurry, as usual, to leave and so skipped on it.

I didn't. The next day he died. It's better to go visit the dying than to celebrate your own birthday.

Now, sure, you can do both, but better to go to the dying. Go to funerals, at least to the visitation, shake the hands or hug the grieving, view the body, sit and look at the pictures of the deceased life, life under the sun, look at the family.

It's better to do that than to have a nice meal out and see a movie. Sure, you can do both, but it's better to go to the funeral.

Funerals are real life. Parties, nights out, movies, bowling, entertainment, whatever you like to fill your time.

That's all the fluff that we fill our spare time with. They're distractions from reality.

Funerals are reality. It's better to be aware of your coming death. Go to the house of mourning because in the second half of verse two, this is the end of all mankind and the living will, or at least should, lay it to heart.

If you go to the wake or the visitation or funeral, you learn that you're mortal and your end will come too and you'll start to live differently.

Like some plants grow best in the shade, wisdom grows in the shade of death and you'll learn that sorrow is better than laughter.

You can have both, but sorrow is better. We used to have music that was especially for funerals, requiems they're called.

Now our culture wants to constantly escape death, which is one reason we're so foolish.

Just recently, a whole society, a whole nation, almost the whole world, terrified of a virus, willing to shut down all of life to avoid a disease that didn't turn out to be particularly deadly for normal, healthy people.

Why was there such hysteria? Why was there such foolishness? You know, shutting down schools, masking in cars alone, closing out outdoor playgrounds, even beaches.

Why would all that happen? It's widespread. Why were so many people shaken by that disease?

Because we've been trying to avoid our mortality, to wish death away, to hide it and look away from it.

And so when it comes, we don't know what to do with it. We're terrified by it. We've gotten to where we prefer comedians to requiems.

And so we're shallow. We're deluded by life under the sun and so terrified at the thought of losing it that we're willing to live for the goal of not dying.

I mean, that's what we were faced with is that we can live to not die, which is absurd and thus makes us miserable.

But in one of the great ironies, but trues in the second half of verse three, by sadness of face, the heart is made glad.

There's one of the verses that proves the inspiration of Scripture, because no human being would be smart enough to think of that.

By sadness of face, the heart is made glad because it's true.

By going to the funeral, we're getting sadness of face, being shaken by the tears of the grieving, you have a sad face.

By visiting the dying and seeing how bad off they are, having a sad face.

All the vain things that charm you are stripped away and you see life.

And for a while, you have a sad face. And if you have a life that is over the sun, then you have joy because you're not distracted by the vapor anymore.

By sadness of face, the heart is made glad.

So if you're wise, if someone has died, maybe it doesn't have to be someone very close to you, but someone around you that died, the parent of a friend, the mother of someone you used to run with or work with, the father of a neighbor, you go to the funeral.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning. The wise of a heart that takes them to the wake, to the visitation, to go see the family, if only to say

I'm sorry for your loss and linger a little bit and go on in silence.

The foolish, well, they'll always be in the comedy clubs, at the parties, yucking it up somewhere.

Now, sure, you can do both, but it's better to go to the funeral. It's better to come face to face with mortality, to have a sad face for a while so as to get a glad heart.

And once you've been shaken out of the delusions of life under the sun by death, then the resurrection is more amazing and joyous.

You know what else is better? Believe it or not, correction is better. In verse 5, it's better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.

What kind of music is better? Well, sometimes none. Instead, being rebuked is better than music.

Hear the rebuke. Not like background noise that you don't pay any attention to. Take it to heart.

Listen to it. Now, if our culture doesn't understand the first better thing, seeing our mortality, it sure doesn't accept this better thing.

We now have generations of kids who have been raised thinking that they always need to be told how great they are, how they're really smart.

And now they're grown up to be adults and still think that. They always need to be told how great they are and how they're really so smart. All the kids are above average, don't you know?

And they're good. They don't need rebuke. They need to be constantly flattered, be puffed up.

And then they bring that mentality into the church where they don't want to hear any law. That is any of God's requirements that show that they've fallen short of them.

They certainly don't want to hear from Ecclesiastes that vanity, vanity, there's vapor, vapor, all is vapor under the sun because they think religion is about polishing life under the sun.

Religion is like having a pet poodle. You know, once you've had everything else taken care of, you can afford to get a nice purebred poodle and it looks good.

You know, you got the nice house, you got the car, you got the job. Everything's perfect. Now, here's my religion. It's my pet religion.

Doesn't it look nice? And that's the way being people think. And that pet religion isn't going to rebuke you no more than your poodle would.

But that's part of what we're here to do, believe it or not, is to rebuke you. You came to be rebuked.

2 Timothy 4, verse 2 tells the pastor to, quote, "...preach the word, reprove," which means correct, "...rebuke,"

means sharply correct, "...and exhort, gently, constructively, encouragingly, rebuke."

Correct. So we're here in part to get rebuked by God's Word. That's better than hearing what is positive and encouraging all the time because wise rebuke is better than entertainment.

Because in verse 6, the laughter of fools, the response that comedians get.

Sometimes comedians playing as pastors, as preachers, doing it for the laughs to make people feel better.

Never rebuking is like the crackling of thorns under the fire of a pot, under a pot.

It's vanity. It's the sound of something that means nothing. If you don't tolerate rebuke, you'll get oppression, right?

Oppressive governments don't like being rebuked. The oppressive can't stand to be corrected. And then when you have oppression, even the wise will be tempted into either one of two things.

Either go along with it, cooperate with it to their advantage. They see which way the wind is blowing. They'll get crushed if they rebuke.

And so they'll go along with it. Or the other thing is they'll try to be outside of it.

And they'll get carried away into conspiracy theories, thinking the government or other controlling powers are behind everything.

Paranoid. It's all set up. It's all fake, unable to tell reality from delusions or persecution.

And that's madness, he says. When you believe the fantasies in your imagination more than reality, you're near to insanity.

And oppression breeds corruption as bribery. In verse 7, oppressive governments almost always corrupt.

In verse 8, better is the end of a thing than a beginning. At the end, you can see what it really is.

The end of a job, the end of a relationship, the end of a life. There's no more fooling yourself that this could be something, this could be the one thing under the sun that's not vain, that makes an eternal difference, that brings joy and fulfillment.

If you listen to rebuke and you took correction, maybe you can make more out of something than just what's under the sun.

And you'll know at the end whether you did that. At the end, if you were patient in spirit and bore rebuke, you changed, you repented, that is better than being too proud to hear it.

So proud, I don't like what he says, I'm going away where some entertainer will soothe my ego.

You know what's better? Wisdom is better. It is good, in verse 11, because it makes you, among other things, not quick to become angry, in verse 9.

Now, it doesn't mean you won't ever be angry because some things deserve anger. But wisdom shows that you better be sure.

Wisdom tells you before you get angry, be sure you know what's happening here.

Don't be rash and react without understanding what's going on. Did that person really insult me or did I misunderstand?

Martin Luther said, The heart of fools is in their mouth, but the mouth of the wise is in their heart.

The heart in one's mouth means to speak without thinking, as angry people usually do. The mouth in one's heart means to speak carefully.

So here in verse 9, anger lodges, means it lives in, it resides in the bosom of fools.

It lives there in their heart. And so it comes out quickly. Wisdom is better because it keeps you from foolish nostalgia.

Say not, why were the former days better than these? Wise people don't say that.

Because they know that in the former days, there were a lot of problems too. I remember in 2002, a college kid saying something like,

Things are so dangerous now. The world is such bad condition now. It's so horrible. And I thought, what are you talking about?

You know, when I was in college, we thought we were going to fight World War III, and it was going to be nuclear. The generation before me went to Vietnam.

Generation before that went to fight the Nazis or the Japanese. I see some people in social media posting these beautiful pictures of the idealistic 1950s saying, everyone's dressed so nicely around a picnic and the women look like women and the men look like men and their suits and ties and nice dresses and all that.

I think so perfect. Some caption saying, this is what we've lost. Pure nostalgia.

Now, sure, there were some good things about that that we've lost. But if you were made to sit in the back of the bus or go to bad schools or barred from voting, you probably wouldn't think that was such a golden age.

If you're wise, you take that into account. Wisdom is better than not having it because it gives people, it says who see the sun, that is who are alive.

So people who need to balance budgets and pay mortgages or rents and get by, it gives you practical advantages.

In verse 11, wisdom gives you protection. Now, this church didn't have a lot of money, still doesn't have a lot of money.

But a few years ago, we wisely put what excess we had into an emergency fund. That's why we don't have to worry if it starts raining again right now, that it will start pouring into the building.

We put some aside. We can afford to have a new roof. We're now protected because of wisdom. Wisdom gives you advantages that preserve your life.

In verse 12, you wisely don't smoke since it's a waste of money and it often causes cancer.

You wisely have good relationships. So you aren't totally alone, lonely, and you don't commit suicide.

You wisely consider the work of God. In verse 13, that's why you're here.

That's why we come to church, to consider the work of God. You wisely know that you are not

God. So you cannot make yourself what God has not made you.

You can't make yourself a woman if you're a man or vice versa. And so you don't take hormones that aren't meant for you or get mutilated.

You know that you can't make straight what or who God has made crooked.

And so you don't frustrate or exhaust yourself trying to do that. You know what else is better?

Believing in God's sovereignty is better. Believe it or not, there's Calvinism in Ecclesiastes.

Believing in God's sovereignty is better than thinking everything depends on your will or effort. If you believe in God's sovereignty, that is, he is in control of all things.

Sovereign, he's the king. He resides like a king and he orders all things. If you believe that, then you'll have such an awe of God that you won't be fooled by the other things under the sun, like by mammon.

And you won't think that you can control God with your religion or your morality. When you succeed and you get rich,

I hope you all do, you can be joyful because God being sovereign, he gave it to you.

Notice that it says that he gave it. It comes from him. Like he's the sovereign, he's the king, he gives it.

So enjoy it, but consider that the day of adversity is coming and God gives that too.

It says that God makes both. So don't buy the prosperity gospel lie that God is only about giving you these principles that if you follow them and you give the guy teaching it a hefty sum of money and that'll make you wealthy and healthy.

Realize he gives you success and he gives adversity.

In verse 14, God has made the one as well as the other.

He's the sovereign. When your net worth exceeds a million dollars, and I hope that's true very soon for all of you, you go out to eat at an expensive place, enjoy your meal and realize that God gave you your money and he will give you some hardships too.

That these things under the sun, including that expensive meal, are vaporous.

And realize in verse 15 that there are righteous people who did everything right. They went to church, they got baptized, they read the

Bible, they genuinely loved God. They prayed, they lived a godly life and they got cancer and died in their 40s.

And then there's wicked people who live long, apparently happy, successful lives.

Hugh Hefner was an immoral pornographer who lived a life of debauchery and encouraged others to be immoral.

He's basically a leader in immorality. He lived to 91, was fantastically wealthy, honored by having a street named after him in Chicago and had his daughter continue the family business.

Loyal, loyal children. He prolonged his life in his evildoing.

And so if you're here, I don't think this is true of anyone here, but if you're here thinking that this, this religion, this church attendance, this giving, this

Christian stuff that I'm doing is the ticket to God's blessings and prosperity.

In other words, I give God this, he'll give me more back. That's what you're thinking? You can control God through this?

Think again. God is sovereign, meaning he's the king, he's the controller. He will not be controlled. So he won't be controlled by our confessions, our good confession, call it into being like some of these people teach, our incantations, our morality or our religion.

So as odd as it may sound in the Bible, in verse 16, be not overly righteous. I think he means don't think you could control

God by being religious, that if you pray and attend church enough, you give enough that you can make him bless you.

That you can make him make you wealthy. And so, because you believe that, you work hard at your religion.

You work hard for what you think that you can make God do for you. Maybe you're even reformed and you think if you learn doctrine well enough, so you get wise enough about theology, why so wise that you have

God figured out, that you can then use God to your advantage. Kind of like some cultures, you learn the

Tao, you master the universe. You might destroy yourself by your religion and your study.

Of course, don't be wicked either or fool. God probably won't let you live like Hugh Hefner, old and successful.

Instead, you might die young. Consider that. Consider because of God's sovereignty that he's designed the world so that wisdom gives strength.

And God's design wisdom is more empowering than 10 mighty rulers, like mighty men of valor, that kind of thing in verse 19.

Consider that since in verse 20, there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

That means that your acceptance with God relies on his grace, not on your performance.

So he's sovereign. Since you're a sinner, he's sovereign over salvation too.

Consider that you've often said critical, sometimes unfair, maybe nasty, hope not, but maybe nasty things about others.

So don't be too surprised in verses 21 and 22 if others unfairly criticize you behind your back. It's better to trust

God's sovereignty since there's nothing you can do about it. And so don't even try to find out what they're saying about you.

Know that God's ways are so far beyond our ways in verse 23. If you tried to figure them out, if you tried to attain that much wisdom to figure out all of God's ways, it'll be out of reach.

It'll be beyond you. In verse 24, that which has been far off and deep, very deep, who can find it out?

Better to trust God's sovereignty. You know what's better?

Sometimes, believe it or not, death is better. That's what you learn if you turn your heart to know wisdom, to know how the universe works, to know how wicked it is to be foolish and how foolish it is to live just for what's under the sun.

You learn that there's some things more bitter than death. This world lives as if the worst thing that could happen is death, but it's not so.

In verse 26, a bad relationship is more bitter than death. He who pleases God escapes from it. Again, God's in control of that, escaping from those bad relationships.

Some single people think that anything is better than being alone, than loneliness. They're wrong.

If you're foolish, you're taken in by the allure of a toxic relationship.

But if you look around, you'll find that it's the rare person, he says, one in a thousand, who's not taken in.

Of course, God can rescue people by redeeming the relationship. This alone you'll find in verse 29.

God made man upright and creation man is upright, righteous, but they have sought out many schemes even ecclesiastes, maybe especially ecclesiastes, teaches total depravity.

You know what's better? Order is better. Order is better than disorder, than chaos, than anarchy.

The wise understand that things are better. Some things are better. And so they aren't cynical or hard in that first verse of chapter eight.

The cynical scoff at what's better. Claiming it's just as bad, whatever the better thing is.

It's just as bad as everything else. America is just as bad as Nazi Germany. The church is just as bad as the world.

The cynicism, always putting down what's better. Cynicism is fake wisdom.

It's counterfeit wisdom. The wise know as a rule, keep the king's command.

That's better. Obey the law. Be a good citizen. Keep it because in chapter eight, verse two,

God made a promise to him, to the ruler. God institutes governments and gives them the power to punish evildoers.

So don't find yourself taking a stand against the government for an evil cause like slavery because he does whatever he pleases.

God has established governments to be supreme under the sun. We can say now in this country, sure, that the constitution is the ultimate authority, it's supreme, and that anything the government does contrary to the constitution is illegitimate.

That's true, but we don't get to be a government all to ourselves, free to say as we like, well, what are you doing?

In verse four, keep the law because order is better, better than anarchy. If there's a time for not keeping it, the wise in heart will know when that is.

Four, in verse six, there is a time and a way for everything, even revolution.

According to God's order, man has power over man. Man has, he says, man has power over man, but sometimes, often here under the sun, that power is for our own hurt.

And when those in power can't control themselves, when war doesn't end, when rulers think that doing something wicked, oppressing, killing the innocent in our culture, supporting the killing of the pre -born, that that's a way out, that's a way to get elected or whatever, they're using wickedness for their own benefit, for their own power.

But yet still, order is better than disorder. Here under the sun, governments often don't punish the wicked.

Often they don't. Hugh Hefner should have been punished, not rewarded. Punish the wicked, but they exalt them.

Even at their funerals, they're celebrated, they're eulogized. They used to go to church, used to be photographed coming out of church with a big

Bible under their arm, like here in verse 10, in and out of the holy place. They were religious, they're wicked people, but they were religious because it was good for their image.

They were praised in the city, like having a street named after him in Chicago or being elected. This also is vanity because in verse 11, when the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.

When evil isn't punished immediately, the foolish determine to do it.

And so they do evil a hundred times and then they aren't punished and they keep doing it and then more follow after them and so it spreads.

But still it will be better, in verse 12, for those who fear God because they obey him.

You fear God, you obey God and it will be worse for the wicked in many ways worse here under the sun.

Even if they make money and live a long life, often, usually, it's much worse for them here.

Certainly it's worse later. You know what's better? God's work is better.

Now sure, it doesn't always look like it. Remember God is sovereign. He's not a blessing and punishing machine, like a vending machine, right?

Put in the coins, you get out what you want. Some people think God is like that. You put in your obedience, you put in your religion, you get your blessing.

Or if you put in sin, you put in unrighteousness, wickedness, you get punishment back. God's predictable like that.

No. Ecclesiastes says no, he's not like that. Job says no, he's not like that. The whole Bible says no, he's not like that.

There are righteous people who seem to get what the wicked deserve. There are righteous people, good

Christian people, who get killed in car wrecks. Get cancer young, have heart attacks, miscarriages, house fires, get shot by criminals.

And there are the wicked, like we've already seen, who seem blessed, but still, in verse 15, have joy.

God made this world, enjoy it. You have no better blessing, he says, under the sun in this world than to eat and to drink and be joyful.

And joy will go with you. Enjoy your life under the sun. God made it after all.

And apply yourself to know wisdom in verse 16 so that you can see, when you're wise, you can then see the business of earth.

You can see all about chasing wind, all about what happens when you deprive yourself of sleep for a few more dollars, even trying to figure

God out, even the chasing of wisdom itself. There's a little ironic here, get wisdom to see the limits of wisdom.

Apply yourself to get the wisdom to know that you'll never have enough wisdom to understand everything, understand the world, to have it all figured out, even to know

God. Even if you claim to know in that last verse, you cannot find it out.

Get the wisdom to know the limits of wisdom. What's better?

Enjoying what God has given you. Standing before Him with the righteousness that He gives you as a gift through Jesus.

Not one that you can earn from Him because you can't earn any from Him. That's better.