Ecclesiastes 9 & Death

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth and I�m just back from the Builders Summit with Tim Hurd. That was good. Up in the Pocono Mountains. Didn�t the Beach Boys sing something about the Poconos back in the Poconos?

I don�t know. Everybody had black hoodies on, Fetterman hoodies, so I don�t know what that meant. Recording on the new RODECaster Pro 2. Still don�t have all the stuff figured out. I mean, I can push buttons, right?

I know how to do that at least. That's enough. I know how to get rid of that button too. You can order the book Gospel Assurance, 31-day guide to Gospel Assurance online, Amazon. If you want to order 10 or more, email me and I�ll give you a discount.

What else? I�m also working on a little 31-day devotional, the same information, the same authors condensed so it�s easier to read because I know for some it�s been hard to read. First few chapters are easy, it starts getting harder and harder, kind of by intention, but if we�re going to surpass purpose-driven life, it�s got to be easier.

And probably by the time you hear this, at least the first episode will be up Gospel Assurance on American Gospel Television. Five episodes total, working with Brandon Kimber on that. I don�t know what else I�m going to do next.

I did five parts on sanctification, five parts on law gospel, five parts on Gospel Assurance. Maybe I do five parts of Calvinism, five souls. What else is five? Crazy. All right, today we�re going to talk about Ecclesiastes, the preacher.

I saw some Twitter that a person said, �What�s the hardest book that they�ve preached through and then asked other pastors what they thought the hardest book would be. And maybe it is Ecclesiastes.

Some of the guys were saying Job, Jeremiah, see, those would be hard as well. Somebody said Judges. I think that would be hard, but not as hard as Ecclesiastes. It's this wisdom literature and it just keeps repeating and repeating and repeating and repeating.

And then I think, I thought I said everything I needed to say about the fear of God and then now here it is again, or why wisdom does this, or we're all going to die and that kind of thing. Speaking of which, when I was listening to myself, and now I can even hear myself breathe on American Gospel Television, I thought, �Well, that is one of the long-lasting things of the near-death experience with COVID pneumonia, and that is my voice isn't as loud.

Maybe I'm just older. Who knows? I rode 1 ,500 plus miles on the bicycle this year, which isn't bad for almost being dead the year before, but compared to 5 ,000 in the past, I guess I am getting older.

Remember Fahrenheit 451, that Montague, I think was a main guy, and if they found a book in your house, Ray Bradbury writes, they'd burn your house down. And I think books burn at 451 degrees at the highest.

Somebody said that. And well, you had to memorize books then, right? So you memorize books and you get in the club because you want to hear people read books from their mind, memory. Well, Montague, I think that's the guy's name.

He memorized Ecclesiastes and Revelation, and I thought, �You know what? That's really actually perfect. The vanity of life under the sun, striving after wind, futility, futility, vanity, vanity, vexation, vexation.

Jesus is coming back. Some people ask, �What's your eschatology Everybody wants to know about my eschatology. I don't know why that is, kind of wanting to put me someplace. I can tell you how I think.

I can tell you how I process things. Maybe that'll be another show for another time, once the Patreon support goes up. I think we have nine people who give. If it goes up to 20, I'll tell you my exact theological positions.

And it can't be just everybody voting, you know, a dollar a month either. You can't do that. I can tell you that I'm not pre-trib. I can tell you that. How about that? I'm not just pre-trib. Our petrib, our petrib, our green bean tribs.

So, so much for that. Ecclesiastes. Now, when you go to Ecclesiastes, or Job, or Psalms, or Proverbs, or the Song of Songs, Song of Solomon, remember you're looking at wisdom literature. It's not didactic, epistolatory, doctrine laid out, kind of, you know, Westminster confession like.

It's wisdom literature. And there are wise people and there are foolish people. And you read it as such. I mean, one of the best ways I could think about it is that, you know, train up a way in a child.

Train up a child in the way he should go and he's older, he won't depart from it. It's not a promise, it's a proverb. And we have wisdom here and we have foolishness and Solomon wants his readers to be wise.

I want you to be wise. And of course, you can always ask God for wisdom. He generously gives it. Lord, give me wisdom as I teach this on this show. And we read this book as Christian people, right? That we're saved from the penalty of our transgressions, paid by Jesus in full.

We have Jesus' perfect law keeping, wisdom incarnate. We get all that perfectly credited to our perfect and perfectly credited for that matter. And therefore, when we come to this, we don't come saying we better do this perfectly or we're going to get kicked out.

We don't say do this and live. We say because Jesus lived and perfectly did this, we would like to do it in honor of God. We're motivated by God and his grace and we want out of gratitude to obey God.

That's what we want. We're talking about practice. Spurgeon, when I thought God was hard, I found it easy to sin. But when I found God so kind, so good, so overflowing with compassion, I smote upon my breast to think that I could ever have rebelled against one who loved me so and sought my good.

And of course, we see these laws and there's a bunch of laws in our section today in Ecclesiastes 9. And we know those laws don't animate. They don't give us power to obey. They don't propel us. They don't enliven.

They have no power in and of themselves. It's a strict law. Yes, for us as believers, it norms, it guides, but it's still a law. It doesn't motivate us. So we're going to need the triune God for motivation and the Father sending the Son and then the Son with the Father.

We have the Spirit proceeding from them. We have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. And therefore, we have to make sure when we come to Ecclesiastes, we think about it rightly. Why is my computer somehow not working?

The Sovereignty of God Over Life, Death, and Human Fate

In Ecclesiastes 9, it's got some bad news, then it's got some good news, then it's got similar bad news. Bad news similar to the first section. And it's kind of like a sandwich. You could say there's a theological center.

You could say it's kind of chiastic. You could say it is like a sandwich. I don't know what that sounds like. Man, I sound like I'm sick. Now, I also have this little cough button. You didn't hear me.

I just, I hit the cough button. And I have other buttons too, but we won't use those all the time. I don't know why that I push it. It should just keep going. There. Yeah, push it again. It stops. Good.

What about the new music intro? There. Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name's Mike Cabendroth. See, it just keeps going every time you hit it. It doesn't want to do what it's supposed to do.

Ecclesiastes, the theological center is the good news. So I guess that's kind of fun, right? You think, oh, what if the theological center, the meat in the sandwich, was the bad news? I guess we'd have to accept it, right?

We are truthful people desiring to be truthful, and we want to be taught the truth. And if it's true, then it's true, right? It's, we only don't want to, we don't only tell people, oh, yeah, I only want to hear the truth that I like.

All right. Here's what's going to happen. Ecclesiastes 9, bad bread, layer one sandwich. Death is inevitable. But we're going to trust God. Trust God, even though death is inevitable. I have no idea why I can't talk today.

Zero. If I had any sense, I'd just start this whole show over. But 10 minutes and 21 seconds is not kind of what we want, right? This is going to get so bad, I could just tell what's going on. But this is the new theme music for No Compromise Radio.

All right. What does verse one say? But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it's love or hate, man does not know, both are before him.

And Solomon, whoever is writing it, whoever wrote it, is talking about sovereignty of God. And in this section, we're going to see that whether you're in terms of society, good or bad, whether you're religious or irreligious, whether you are whatever.

I can't even read. Well, you get what you pay for now, don't you? No Compromise Radio Ministry. Wherever you lay in the realm of good, bad, religious, irreligious, male, female, wicked, evil, good, upright, pure, unholy, your fate, your eternal destiny, and your temporal destiny, they're in the hand of God.

And when you see the hand of God or the arm of God, of course, you don't think God has a hand or an arm, unless you're thinking about the God-man, Jesus, right? But what you should be thinking is metaphor, power, sovereign power.

Old Testament, especially, God creates, God judges, God saves, God protects with his powerful, mighty right hand or arm. Or as we say in New England, arm. I get out of my arm chair. Remember Hebrews 1 talking about Jesus?

You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands. See? Hand, arm, they will perish, but you remain, and they will all wear out like a garment. Like a robe, you will roll them up.

Like a garment, they will be changed, but you are the same, and your ears, more anthropomorphic things at your ears will have no end. You know what I was doing? I was thinking about something else. I think we just got kicked off of KAGV 1110 AM, and I think we also got kicked off of KFDR.

Okay, intro. I thought of something, that's what I did in the middle of all this, and that's why it was such a crazy thing. We think to ourselves, hand of God. That's where my hope lies, the arm of God.

You can think Peter, 1 Peter 5. Therefore, humble yourselves unto the mighty, what? Hand of God, that he might exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him, for he cares for you. People are saying, well, look at the world, it's chaotic, God doesn't exist, and the writer says, look at the world, it's chaotic, and God is sovereign.

You might not know all the details. You certainly don't know all the details, but you do know God is sovereign, and you are under the hand of God, along with everything else. Proverbs 21, 1, the king's heart is said to be in the hand of the Lord, who turns it whatever way he wishes.

The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord. God's control, God's good control, Romans 8, for those who are trusting in the Lord and Savior. I look at the world, and I don't know, really, who's going to do well, who's going to do poorly, who's going to have adversity, who's going to have blessing, who's going to have calamity at any particular time.

I do know that everyone is in God's hand. God is sovereign. God determines. God has counsel. God has purpose. God has decree, and therefore, he's got the whole world in his hands. Did you know that? He's got the little bitty baby in his hands.

He's got the fish in the sea in his hands. He's got the birds of the air in his hands. He's got the wind and the rain in his hands. He's got the sun and the moon in his hands. No wonder there's so many lyrics to this.

He's got the wind and the rain in his hands. He's got the whole world in his hands. He's got you and me, brother, in his hands. He's got every Christian podcaster. And there's a lot of them. I've been having people call me, and I've been guest on their show.

And I, well, I do want to do it, but I don't really want to do it. I've got other things to do. But when I was a new podcaster and wanted to guest on, I was happy when they said yes. So it's mercy dating.

This is assuring in this crazy world, not mercy dating, but that God is sovereign. He's got you. I've got you. Right? You're scared. I've got you. I've got you. Said that to my children before, maybe up on a ropes course or something like that.

I've got you. Everything's okay. I'm in the hand of God and Christian. God's hand is a hand of love. And, uh, the son of man's hands were crucified up on that cross, uh, to demonstrate that very thing.

And so you're going to be okay. Jesus loves you and has died for you. And he's going to care for you. Hebrews 13, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we can confidently say the Lord is my helper.

I will not fear for what can man do to me. That's good. That's, that's good to know. That that's, that's important. And when you look at the world, you better think to yourself, I can't understand the world by sight or at least by sight alone.

I need, I need to hear something. I need to read something. Uh, I watched Jesus go up, said one of the disciples. And what does that mean? The angel in Acts one was there to tell them exactly what it was.

You need revelation to understand experience. That's what I'm trying to say. Have you ever said that you need revelation to understand experience? Death is certain, uh, short of the second coming of the Lord.

Um, but we're going to trust him because he's sovereign. Who said this in this world? Nothing is certain except death and taxes. Who said that death and taxes? Well, I did a little research because that's what we like to do on no compromise radio.

Uh, we do what we look up these things and then tell you some think it was Benjamin Franklin. Others think it was Mark Twain. Did you know Christopher Bullock, an English actor said in the cobbler of Preston in a play in 1716, it is impossible to be sure of anything but death and taxes.

Later playwright Edward Ward in 1724 said something close. Benjamin Franklin said, of course, much later, our new constitution is now established and has an appearance that promises permanency, but in this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.

Will Rogers quipped, the difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get any worse every time Congress meets. You have to admit that's good. You have to admit that's good. Bruce Dickinson, apart from death and taxes, the one thing that's certain in this life is that I'll never be a fashion icon.

And by the way, I don't think Bezos pays taxes. According to one source that I was looking at, he didn't pay anything in taxes. Billionaires, they don't seem to pay taxes. They've got loopholes for this, but no loopholes for death.

Larry Ellison spent millions of dollars trying to figure out how do you cheat death? He said, death makes me angry. And here in verses two and three in Ecclesiastes nine, the same event that is the event of death is for everybody.

And you can see the way it works out. The righteous, the wicked, the good, the evil, the clean, the unclean, to him who sacrifices to him who doesn't sacrifice as the good one, as the sinner, one who swears he who shuns an oath.

So no matter what happens, it's the same for all. That's the evil under the sun. Verse three, the same event happens to all. Same for all. Same event. Same event. As the hearts of children of man were full of evil and the madness is in their hearts while they live.

Death Is Certain for Everyone Under the Sun

And after that, they go to the dead. Wow. Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. We love that new podcast. Of course, you can go back to Adam and Eve and see what death does and how awful it is. For those of you that have been at deathbeds, it's really awful.

I think of Jesus, though, and he said to Martha, I'm the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

Do you believe this? Don't you love Martha's response? She said to him, yes, Lord. This is our response as Christians as well. I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God, who is coming into the world.

There's no escape. I mean, short of the Lord's return, no escape. And so we want to be very careful about reality and just thinking, yes, we're going to have to live like we're dying. What's that? We're living like we're dying.

What was that country song? I think that was right. He gives a little slogan then in verse four, but he who is joined with all the living has hope for a living dog is better than a dead lion. So there's hope for as long as you're alive.

Lions were big deals back then on the positive side. And dogs aren't like our dogs. Dog was bad. And so what would you rather be, a wonderful dead lion or a scurvy old alive dog? That's the idea. When you're alive, you have hope.

Now, most people don't know what cartoons are anymore that had little frames that you would read on, especially on Sundays. The funnies were actually in color compared to just a few. There were many compared to black and white.

They were in color. And there's a Peanuts cartoon with Snoopy and Charlie Brown, and it was called Theology and the Dog. And Snoopy's where he always is near his doghouse and he's typing and he hands Charlie Brown what he's been working on, on the typewriter.

As it says in the ninth chapter of Ecclesiastes, a living dog is better than a dead lion. Charlie Brown, what's that mean? Snoopy replied, I don't know, but I agree with it. It's funny. The noblest dead, the ignoblest living, well, while you're alive, you have hope.

And that's true. Even if you're not a Christian listening today, as long as you're alive, there is hope, right? It's not too late to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. It will be too late one day, but it's not too late today.

Today, if you hear my voice, right? Today is the day of salvation. And for us as Christians, we think to ourselves, yes, death, as some people say, it'll be our best day. It's going to hurt while it happens.

We're not going to want to be there. Woody Allen, I don't mind dying. I just don't want to be there when it happens, but then after death, then that's true living. Well, my name is Mike Abenroth, this is No Compromise Radio Ministry.

Sorry for my voice. I don't know what's going on, but it is what it is. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. You can write me Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com and you can pick up Gospel Assurance on Amazon.

If you want sexual fidelity or other books, since we're not using PayPal, you're going to have to email me directly.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abenroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.