Life Under The Sun (part 2) - [Ecclesiastes]

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Committment To The Church (part 3)

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This is part two of our look at Ecclesiastes, which, as we said last week, was
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Solomon's diary at the end of his life. Solomon is the man that can say, been there and done that.
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Whatever you want to look at, whether it was wealth, whether it was fame, whether it was power, whatever it was, whether it was possessions, he had it.
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You know, he was by far the wisest man of his time, one of the wisest men that ever lived, and he was everything.
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He was the king. He was the king of Israel at the peak of its power. Israel is the predominant political body in the area at this time, at Solomon's time.
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And Solomon details all of the tribute that he received and all of the things that were sent to him year by year.
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And so he was at the peak. If there was ever anyone who was at the peak of his world, it's Solomon. And yet, he outlines and writes this book to outline the futility of life without God.
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Because by way of review, he has two themes that he presents in Ecclesiastes, that apart from God, nothing has any lasting meaning.
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Nothing has any lasting significance. It's all vapor, as he says. It's all Hebel. It's just a vapor that comes and immediately disappears, like your breath on a cold day.
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It's there for a split second and it's gone. Nothing lasting, it just goes. Or like the bubbles that come from a child that has one of those bubble things that you wave around.
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You know, those bubbles are just, boom, try to pick one up, it's gone. But the converse of that is that with God, with God, with a proper view and relationship to the creator of the universe, then everything takes on meaning.
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Everything becomes a gift from his hand, from the hand of a good, loving, heavenly father.
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And so he presents these two options. Your options are this in life, God or nothing.
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God or nothing. It's even stated, if you take the first of the
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Ten Commandments and shuffle the word order just a little bit, you come up with, I am the
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Lord thy God, beyond me there is nothing. It's me or nothing, God says.
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And the thing of it is, is that man does not want to choose either one of those options.
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We don't want to be ruled by a sovereign God. You know, you can't tell me what to do.
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Every kid that ever lived has said that at least once before we learn that, as a matter of fact, our father could tell us what to do or our mother.
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And sometimes we have to learn that vis -a -vis God as well, don't we? But we don't want to be ruled by a sovereign
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God. But we are not willing to accept the alternative, that there's nothing else out there. And so we run around in a frantic search for happiness, looking at all of these different things that we think are going to somehow put meaning in our life and give somehow a reason for us being here.
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And why are we living? And where are we going? Because mankind instinctively asks these questions.
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Why am I here? Where did I come from? And where am I going? And philosophers have been working with that and working on that, and theologians have been working on those same questions as long as there have been philosophers and theologians.
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And if you don't, if you divorce yourself from God, if you don't start with a creator
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God, then the answers always come up as a big zero.
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And yet the modern philosophies of our time, as expressed by evolution, are that we're the product of time and chance, and we came from nothing, and there's nothing after we die, but in the middle, try to have a meaningful life.
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And so away we go. But Solomon, whatever you're trying to look, where you're trying to look for your happiness, where you're trying to look for your meaning,
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I can guarantee you Solomon tried it first, and he had it to a much greater degree than you have.
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Whatever it is you're trying, whether it's education, whether it's wine, women, and song, whatever, whether it's possessions, stuff and things, he had more, he had everything, and he still comes to the conclusion that apart from God, it's all vapor, nothing means anything.
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And so he sets forth in the first few verses of Ecclesiastes that his basic thesis is that nothing has any intrinsic value.
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That's chapter 1, verse 3. Nothing ever changes, verses 4 and 5.
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Humanity is temporary, but nature is permanent. That's verses 6 and 7. Human desire is never satisfied.
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That's verse 8. No matter what you do, it's never enough. You always need more. And that nothing is new, and that's verses 10 and 11.
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He says things only appear to be new because we have no real long -term memory about what things used to be.
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We forgot that actually everything has always been here, and we're just circling around.
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And this idea, if any of you know anything about New Age philosophy, that's the core of New Age philosophy is that everything is circling around in this big, huge circle, and it's just repeating and repeating and repeating.
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And the only reason that we think things are new is because our memories are not very good, and we forget that a few hundred or a few thousand years ago or a few millennia ago, this all happened before.
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And so that's his thesis. And Solomon presents his proof. He is going to try to figure out what's it all about, just like the psalm.
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And he wants to know, is this all there is? Is this it? And so he's going to search out everything under the sun, life on earth, basically, life under the sun, all of man's activity, all of man's labor, all of the weary round of life that we're all faced with.
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And so he does. He tries wisdom. He gets the advanced degrees from the
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University of whatever at that time, and he was world -renowned for his wisdom, you'll remember.
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The Queen of Sheba traveled all the way up to see him, and this was not, you know, hopping on the nearest plane. This was a major operation.
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And yet she comes to see Solomon simply because he is so wise. And so he's got wisdom, but what's his conclusion about it?
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That's verse 18 of chapter 1. For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow.
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You know, he says, I tried madness and folly. So obviously he got a degree in philosophy, you know.
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And he was known for his wisdom. And, of course, we all know that wisdom and education are not synonymous.
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The world is full of educated fools, many of whom teach at universities, but that's a different sermon.
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But then he goes on from that. He says, well, if wisdom won't do it, I'll try pleasure. And so he didn't deny himself anything that might bring pleasure.
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And so he finds out that pleasure feels good, but it uses you up. It's a very draining thing.
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It consumes you. It uses up your resources. How many people waste their substance on pleasure, thinking that somehow it's going to bring them happiness?
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And then Solomon tries wine, women, and song, and he finds out that this doesn't satisfy either. You know, he had the best vintages of all that you could get at that time and in whatever quantities he wanted, but he found out that this too does not bring any lasting benefit.
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It doesn't bring any intrinsic happiness. It's vapor, he says at the end. And he had all kinds of acquisitions.
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Whatever it was, he didn't deny himself anything. He says by way of summary after listing off all of these things, he says, whatever mine eyes desired, that's what
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I got. Because you talk about instant gratification, Solomon had it. Whatever Solomon wanted,
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Solomon got in huge quantities. So if it was possible for possessions and the acquisition of things to bring happiness, he certainly would have been happy.
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He would have made it if anybody ever did. And yet his conclusion is that too is vapor.
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And doesn't that parallel our own lives? Because we realize that, yes, there is a transient kick that comes when you acquire something new.
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You get a new car. You get a new whatever it is that you got. And, yes, this is really neat, and we like it, and it makes us feel good.
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The trouble is it's transient. Very quickly that feeling fades.
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And to get that feeling again, you got to have something that's bigger and better than whatever you had before.
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Because not only does this whole thing is cyclical, and it goes back to zero, and the zero point escalates.
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So that if it took, you know, if the first car you ever got, remember the first car you ever got, what a kick that was?
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I remember mine. It was a 1964 Dodge Dart, you know, with a four -speed, four -speed, you know, great car.
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But, you know, the next car had to be bigger and better to get that same rush.
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And so that's what Solomon finds out, is that, yes, there's temporary pleasure in these things.
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There's temporary pleasure in wine, women, and song. There's temporary pleasure in all of these things that he has acquired, but there's nothing lasting.
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There's nothing of intrinsic value. And to give you an example of what he means, we trade a lot.
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Actually, we trade by credit cards most of the time now, but the money that's in your pocket has no intrinsic value.
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It doesn't have value in and of itself. It only has value because of what it represents. It represents wealth, but this is really just a piece of paper with a little bit of printing on it, and, you know, what's it worth, a few cents?
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But if I hand you a gold bar, gold has intrinsic value.
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It is valuable in and of itself, and that's what Solomon is talking about, is that he's looked over all of life, and he says, nothing has any value in and of itself, no eternal value, no eternal benefit.
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But as he goes along, as he goes along, even though he keeps saying it's all vapor, nothing's permanent, it's all transient, he begins to introduce a different thought that maybe
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God is the key that's missing, and he starts saying things like a man should live his life as God has presented it to him.
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Whatever God presents to you, that is your portion. Enjoy what God has bestowed upon you, and don't go seeking for things that he hasn't bestowed upon you as ends in themselves.
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There's nothing inherently wrong with anything that Solomon has tried.
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There's nothing wrong with education. There's nothing wrong with possessions. There's nothing wrong with any of these things, but they are not goals in and of themselves.
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Happiness is not a goal. Happiness is the result of living the life that God has presented you with.
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And so he keeps going, and he says in chapter 2, towards the end, he begins to present his conclusion, and he's going to circle back to this.
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In typical Eastern fashion, he's writing and thinking in circular patterns, and he's going to loop back on several occasions to this same idea, and he says,
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There is nothing better for a man than he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor.
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This also I saw. It was from the hand of God. For who can eat, and who else can hasten hereto more than I?
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You know, I'm on the top of the heap. For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he giveth prevail, so that he can gather and heap up that he may give to him that is good before God.
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This also is vanity and vexation of spirit, what God gives to the sinner. And so these things,
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Solomon begins to say, like I just said, they're not ends in themselves. And so he goes through his proof in chapter 3.
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He says, There's an underlying order to things, but not meaning. In chapter 4, he takes up the subject of fairness, and guess what he finds?
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Life isn't fair. Evil really exists. And in chapter 5,
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Solomon addresses religion, and he says, Religion isn't the answer either. Religious practice in and of itself does not satisfy.
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What is important is that we think correctly about God. That's what's important.
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And of course, as we've already mentioned, great wealth does not satisfy.
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In fact, it brings hardship. It brings hardship. It brings difficulties, and we are told that money does not bring happiness.
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It brings trouble, which it does. A little with contentment is great gain,
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Solomon says. But he comes back to his theme. He comes back to his theme at the end of chapter 5, verses 18 and 19.
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Behold that which I have seen. It is good and fitting for one to eat and to drink, that is, enjoy life, to enjoy the good of all his labor, that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which
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God hath given him, for it is his portion. Every man to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him the power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labor, for this is the gift of God.
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So Solomon is starting to say, you know, God is the key to things, and if God gives you a certain measure of wealth, enjoy that, use it wisely, because it's what he has bestowed upon you.
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But do not seek it as an end to itself, which brings us to chapter 6, which is where we start tonight, where he begins to continue his investigations and to draw conclusions.
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And from here to the end of the book, basically, he's going to come up with this.
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God's plan, first of all, God has a plan. God's plan is immutable. I mean, it's unchangeable.
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It's complete. It already has everything looped into it. God is not going to get surprised.
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Nothing is going to happen that comes outside of God's plans. Nothing is going to happen that's going to take
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God by surprise and make him form a committee of the seraphim and cherubim to deal with this new situation.
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God already has everything put together, and so his plan is inescapable. What God has planned is what is going to happen, and God's plan, guess what, is not equal.
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God is a sovereign ruler, and Solomon knew about what a sovereign ruler was.
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He was the closest thing to a sovereign ruler there was on earth at the time, which whatever the king said went.
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You can't argue with the king. That's the thing about being sovereign. The words have to don't apply to a sovereign king.
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He doesn't have to do anything. He does his own pleasure, and God says over and over and over about himself through the
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Bible is that it is my plans that go forward. I do my pleasure,
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God says, and Paul sort of sums it up.
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He says, who are you to question the workings of a sovereign
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God? That's his final answer in Romans chapter 9.
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Who are you? In fact, the best thing for you to do is to be quiet, and so he starts in.
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He starts in. In fact, as he goes through, it starts in the chapter 7.
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The first thing he comes up with is that a good name is better than precious ointment and the day of death than the day of one's birth.
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A good name is all we have. Now, earlier he said, well, he said your good name doesn't count for much because you're going to be forgotten shortly after you die, which is true enough, but here he's speaking a little bit differently, and good ointment is symbolic of all earthly profits and benefits, and he says your name, your reputation, is to be preferred to anything that the world might offer because your name represents who you really are.
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It represents your character. What kind of a person are you?
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Are you a person of integrity and honesty, or are you a liar and a cheat? You're one or the other.
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It's a sad commentary upon modern life that if you recall not too long ago, first of all, that lying and cheating are considered routine.
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In fact, it's considered foolish and stupid if you don't lie and cheat. They survey students in universities and in schools, high schools, and everything else, and basically when you say, you ask the question now, do you cheat on tests?
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You get this blank look like, of course. What kind of a question is that?
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And it's a sad commentary also. If you recall at one of the fairly recent presidential elections, the character was being mentioned as an issue, and the response that kept coming from the pundits who were commenting was that, well, character is not as important as can he get the job done, can he lead the country, overlooking the fact that leadership is all about character.
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Leadership is all about character, and yet we've sort of abandoned that as a criteria.
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It fascinated me. Well, to continue down this path for a moment, in Proverbs 22 .1,
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Solomon says the same thing, but he says that there that a good name is better than all riches, but it's the same thought.
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And even more important than what do men think of us is what does
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God think of you? What does God think of you? Because in the end, that's all that really matters.
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Again, the Bible says, do not criticize another man's servant. It's to his own master that he stands or falls.
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And so God is going to want to know when you stand before him, he is going to want to know, did you do what
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I sent you to do? It is required of a servant that he be found faithful.
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Not did you do some great work for me, but did you do what
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I sent you to do? Whatever that was, did you do it faithfully? If you recall the parable of the talents, to the one that he'd given two talents, he didn't expect five talents back in profit.
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He only expected two more talents. To the one that had one talent, he was supposed to give him one talent back, and he didn't.
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But this is what, you know, what does God think of you? We are all going to stand before God.
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Sinner and saint alike, we're going to stand before God. At different times, granted, and the consequences will be different, but we'll still stand, and we're going to have to give an account.
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How did you use this life that I bestowed upon you? You know,
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I gave you a certain set of circumstances and all the rest of it, and what did you do with that life that I gave you?
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And we're going to have to answer that question. The second thing he comes up with also in Chapter 7, he says, or Chapter 7, 1 and 2, he said, the day of one's death is better than the day of one's birth.
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It's better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men.
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Now, what's he saying there? He said it's a good place to face death because we're all going there.
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We're all going to go there. I can say with 100 % certainty that unless Jesus Christ comes back, everyone in this room is going to die, all of us.
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We're going to die because death is the great leveler. Everyone dies.
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Old people die. Middle -aged people die. Young people die. Infants die. And so the rich and poor die.
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The wise and the foolish die. And God has numbered our days. And our times are in his hands.
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And frankly, we don't really have to be concerned about it. But what we have to do is be ready.
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And the one thing we do know is that after we die, we're going to stand before God, like I just said. And Hebrews 9 .27 says you're going to die once.
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You're going to die once. There's no reincarnation here. You're not going to come back as a beetle or something in the next life.
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You know, you go around once, like the slogan says. But in this case, it's true.
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And when we do stand before God, whatever wealth and fame we may have amassed on earth is going to count for nothing.
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And it's possible, and think about this, that maybe what you did for Jesus, quote, unquote, is going to count for nothing too.
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Because Jesus warns that unless we are rightly related to him, then all of this going out and doing for Jesus is going to count for nothing.
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Go look at Matthew 7 .22. He said, people are going to stand in front of me saying,
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Lord, Lord, we did great and marvelous things in your name. And he's going to say, I don't know you.
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Depart. There's going to be some shocked people standing there.
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He also says, and this is kind of fascinating. He says, live in the present.
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Don't live in the past. Live in the present. Don't spend all your time looking about the good old days.
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He says, in verse 10, say not thou, what is the cause that the former days were better than these?
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For thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this. Because it is the nature of mankind is that we look back through very rosy glasses to a time in the past that never really existed.
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And we paint this romanticized picture of what the good old days were like.
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I find it both shocking and very interesting, too, is that when the old Soviet Union collapsed and the lives of the average
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Russian citizen went from merely awful to truly abominable, some of the old folks began to pine about the good old days when
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Uncle Joe Stalin was around. And for those of you who are not up on your history for that era, let me put it this way.
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Stalin made Adolf Hitler and everything he did look like a Sunday picnic. But here are these people.
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Oh, things were better when Stalin was here. And we lived in fear of our lives. And somebody would pound on our door at 2 o 'clock in the morning and haul us off.
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We'd never be seen again. But that's what people do. That's what people do.
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And there used to be a comedian who would ask the question, and he said, the good old days, the good old days.
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Everybody talks about the good old days. When were they? I was alive. When were they? You know, because we paint this thing.
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And Solomon is saying, don't live in the past. Live now. Live now. Right now is when we're to be serving
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God. And by extension, we can also say, don't live in the future either.
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Don't constantly be living in the future. Yes, you should plan. And yes, we should set something aside so that we don't wind up at the end of our days destitute.
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But there's a danger here where we're constantly putting off, putting off, putting off, and we forget to live now.
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I've told the story before, and you've probably heard it, but I'll tell it again. When I was at the last unit
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Christmas party I went to before I went on retired status in the Army, I was talking to the commanding general, and he said, well, what are you going to be doing in the future?
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And I said, well, General, I'm going to retire in April. And he said, oh. I said, well, do you have all your paperwork in?
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I said, yes, sir, it's all done. He said, well, good. He said, you take care of that. He said, you know,
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I'm going to retire myself in about another year and a half. He said, my wife and I have put off a whole lot during our lives, but we're going to really start enjoying ourselves.
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In less than two months, the general was dead of a brain aneurysm, completely unexpected.
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But life is a vapor. Solomon's right. You know, in that case, your physical life, you know, live it now, he says.
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Serve God now. In fact, in Chapter 12, he's going to open the thought that, you know, you're going to get old.
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And he describes getting old. And when you're old, you simply are limited in what you can do.
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And so serve God now while you're young. He says, remember now, your creator, in the days of your youth, when you have your strength and when you can do these things and you can be out about God's business.
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Because the days are coming when you're not going to be able to do that. So live now, live in the present.
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And then he goes on in verse 14, verses 13 to 14.
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He says, consider the work of God, for who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked? In the day of prosperity, be joyful.
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But in the day of adversity, consider God hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him.
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Now, what's he saying there? He's saying, see God's hand in the events of your life. It brings stability.
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It's a great stabilizer to realize that whatever is going on in your life, there is a plan and God understands what it is.
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And this leads to true contentment. And it does not mean that you're going to be ecstatically happy all the days of your life.
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You're not. Because, you know, we're warned that we're going to have trouble in our life.
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Peter writes warning the saints, you know, that trouble's coming and trouble's here.
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And yet, on a continuum, you're always going to be somewhere along this line of extreme happiness at this end to just a quiet assurance at this end.
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But you're going to be somewhere in that. If you see God at the root of everything, that he has got it under control, whatever it is.
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Regardless of the pressures that you're being put under, that he knows what's up because things are not what they seem.
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No matter, look at what happened to Job. Regardless of what's ever happened in our lives, you know, none of us ever had to face what
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Job's faced. In less than 24 hours, he lost everything. He went from extreme wealth to total poverty.
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He went from having a large family to having nobody except his wife. And all he was left with was his wife, the trash heap that he was sitting on top of, and three rather dubious friends who show up and, you know, for the first week they don't say anything, and that's the best part of the whole visit right there, you know.
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And so nobody that's involved in this story knows what's going on except God.
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Nobody knows. Certainly not Job, certainly not his three friends, not even
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Satan knows what is going on. Only God knows. But God's in control of the whole thing start to finish.
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And so Job had some lessons to learn, that's true, and he did. Throughout this whole experience, his knowledge of God increases.
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In fact, at the end of the whole thing, he said, I have seen God and now
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I'm going to be quiet. I'm going to withdraw all of my objections because I have seen the
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Lord and I understand now at least better than I did what he's been doing.
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But all through this thing, his basic idea was, though he slay me, yet will
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I trust him. Whatever God is doing, I will trust him to do the right thing.
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And so Solomon says the same thing, you know, use God as a stabilizer.
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He said the same thing in Proverbs, the same basic idea. And William Arnaud commented on the thought from Proverbs 3, that if the bold will see
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God in his afflictions, he will not despise. And if the timid will see God in his afflictions, he will not faint.
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So whether your personality is you're a bold person or you're a timid person, see
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God in the affairs of your life always. See it in his perspective that he knows what's going on.
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And if you are of the type of a person who has a bold approach to life, well, then you need to see
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God in your affairs because you're not going to ask questions like, God, why are you doing this to me? I don't deserve it.
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And if you're a timid type of person and you also see God in your affairs, then you'll be less inclined to say, oh, my, it's a disaster and everything's the roof's going to fall in.
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So Solomon moves on. Solomon moves on. Verse 15, chapter 7.
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All things I have seen in the days of my vanity, there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there's a wicked man that prolongeth his life in wickedness.
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In verse 16, be not righteous over much or too much, neither make thyself over wise.
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Why shouldst thou destroy thyself? And so what's that mean? Well, a couple of things.
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First of all, life isn't fair. He's saying life isn't fair. And fortunately for us, it isn't.
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Because if we got what we deserved, we would all be dead, wouldn't we?
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You see, you hear this thought a great deal from people when you start talking to them about spiritual things, is that they say, well, if there was a good
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God, if He's really good, then why is there so much evil in the world? And, of course, there are answers to that.
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One of the answers is that if it wasn't for God restraining hand, you have no idea how bad it would be.
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And the other thing is that we are rebels against God. We rebel against Him.
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And we are born with, we are born fallen. We are born as sinners.
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And, you know, God would be completely within His rights and just to simply wipe us out right then.
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He deals with us in mercy. We call it common grace. He makes it rain on the just and the unjust, or He makes it rain on the sinner and the saint at the same time.
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And He holds the universe together. The Bible says that God actively holds the universe together.
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Every split second of every day, He is actively holding the universe together for our benefit and for the benefit of everyone else.
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And so while life isn't fair, none of us, we don't get what we deserve, and all sins are not immediately dealt with.
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God does not settle His accounts every hour or every day, but He does keep accurate books. I can guarantee you that.
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And all too often, we are just like little children. We are so afraid that one of our brothers and sisters is going to get away with something, right?
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And so we have to rush off and tell Mommy or Daddy about it. But you know what?
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Nothing escapes God's attention. Nothing. We don't have to worry about it.
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God knows all about it. And He knows all about it. He has all the facts.
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And He will set everything right in due time, in His time. And so we don't have to worry about it.
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And we don't have to keep our own books. That's one of the messages in Corinthians, is that the characteristics of love, one of the things that love does not do is keep a list.
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We don't need to keep a list. God keeps a list. And He will deal with it in due time.
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Everything is in the hands of a sovereign God. And the other thing that Solomon brings up in verse 15 is that long life doesn't necessarily indicate righteousness.
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God numbers the days of saints and sinners alike. And if a sinner, for example, someone who is not rightly related to Jesus Christ, rightly related to God, if he lives a long life, how long is that?
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Eighty years? Ninety? Maybe even a hundred?
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I mean, we're really impressed when somebody gets to be a hundred. But what's a hundred years compared to eternity?
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It's nothing. It's a vapor. It's nothing. And so the sinner lives every one of his days standing on a very slippery slope.
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You might recall that the actual text to the famous sinners in the hands of an angry
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God's sermon, that was the text, their feet shall slide in due time, that Jonathan Edwards preached from.
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So what Solomon is saying here is don't be envious of the seeming prosperity of an unbeliever.
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In fact, if you want to look at it this way, any good that they have in their life, you know, let them have it because that's all it's going to be.
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That's all it's going to be. There's nothing for them in eternity except torment and punishment.
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Only the believer has any real stability to his life. He also goes on in verses 16 and 17, avoid self -indulgence and avoid and don't be self -righteous.
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People are selfish. You know, if you doubt that, just watch children at play.
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Nobody has to teach a child to hoard the toys, does he? You know, nobody has to teach the child to grab the toy that the other child wants just because he wants it.
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Somehow, for some reason, that sort of seems to be wired in, and we call that part of their fallenness, you know, or as Jonathan Edwards called it, you know, little vipers is what the children were.
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But grown -up children are no less selfish than that. And self -indulgence is an expression of selfishness.
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You know, everything is going to be about me. I'm going to grab everything
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I can get, you know, and even the stuff that I don't need I'm going to grab it anyway if for no other reason than to keep somebody else from getting it and all of those kinds of attitudes.
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The opposite of self -indulgence is generosity, and that was one of the marks of the early church is that those that did have, you know, disposed of their disposable property, took the money and distributed it as necessary to help their fellow saints.
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And that was one of the characteristics that marked the early church was a generosity, and that should be our hallmark as well.
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And then as far as being self -righteous, you know, nobody wants to be around a self -righteous person, nobody.
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The self -righteous person who is constantly, you know, criticizing, rebuking, all of those things,
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Solomon says, don't be like that because for one thing, rebuking is not a ministry as we pointed out before.
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And it's true, we are not to abandon discernment, you know, the verse, judge not that you be not judged gets misapplied a great deal of the time.
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But we are supposed to have discernment, but we are warned against being improperly judgmental or opinionated or wise in our own conceit.
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Solomon says, don't be like that. Take care of your own faults first, and then perhaps you will have the wisdom to speak to some of our fellow
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Christians. And so we move on, we move on in chapter 7.
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He says, verse 21, and take no heed into all the words that are spoken, lest thou hear thy servant curse thee.
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We don't have to respond to everything that comes our way. Learn to just let stuff go, particularly when it applies to us, when personal insults, just let them go.
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We don't have to right every wrong we see. We don't have to immediately answer everything, every challenge that's given to us.
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As Christians, we are to resist evil, certainly, whenever it's in our power to do so.
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But ultimately, setting those things right falls in God's hands. And this is the total exact opposite of what the world says.
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The world says what? Stand up for your rights. Don't let anybody take advantage of you.
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You know, whatever it is, you stick up for yourself right there, you know.
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But for Jesus' thoughts on the matter, you can go to Matthew chapter 5 and go through the
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Sermon on the Mount, where he's talking about how we should deal with one another.
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And so be prepared to let personal insults just roll off your back because I can guarantee you if you go through life looking for things to be upset about, you will find them in great quantity.
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You'll find them. And if you say, okay,
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I'm going to move on to a different plot, a different job, different place to live, whatever, all those things you'll find came with you.
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And so Solomon says, let it go. Let it go. You don't have to respond to everything that comes your way.
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And then, of course, verse 29, Lo, this only have
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I found, that God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many devices. The fault lies within us.
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The fault lies within us. As that great philosopher Pogo said, you know, we have met the enemy and he is us.
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Some of you are snickering because you remember who Pogo is. But anyway, we have met the enemy and he is us.
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Man's basic problem is that he's fallen. And the reason that so many of our solutions to man's problems don't work is because they do not address what the real problem is.
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They at best address a symptom or two of what we seem to think is the problem.
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You know, we think poverty is the problem or the lack of good housing is the problem or we don't have universal health care, that's the problem or whatever it is.
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And yet the problem, as Solomon puts it so well, is us. It's the heart of man.
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And unless you address that, then your efforts are going to be doomed to failure.
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But the good news about all of this is that, yes, man has fallen. That's the bad news.
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But the good news is is that there is a remedy for that. God, in his sovereignty and in his grace and in his mercy, has, instead of abandoning us, has addressed that because we are broken.
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But what is broken can be repaired. Man is neither inherently good, the way most philosophy today says, but neither is he inherently evil.
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Man has fallen is what he is. But God says,
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I am going to send my son. I'm going to send my son and he is going to die in the place of sinners.
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Because man has sinned and sin cannot be winked at. Sin must be paid.
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There's a penalty for sin and blood has to be shed to atone for sin.
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But I'm going to send my son, God says, and he is going to die in the place of sinners.
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And then by believing and repenting, which is what the Bible says we are to do, by believing in Jesus Christ, his substitutionary work, he died in our place.
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And so it can be fixed. Our relationship to God can be repaired.
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And we can be placed into a right relationship to him. So that we can now approach him.
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We can now approach him as a father. Not as a judge. We can approach him as our father.
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And, you know, the children can always get in to see daddy, can't they? And he works in our lives.
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He works in our lives to, he says, yes, you're not what I want you to be. But I'm going to start working on you.
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And we call this the process of sanctification. And I'm going to mold you and file off rough edges and do whatever it takes.
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And I'm going to bring things into your life that are going to make you into the man or woman that I want you to be.
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Now, going on down to verses 29 and then on down into verse 1 of chapter 8.
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Who is the wise man and who knoweth the interpretation of a thing? A man's wisdom maketh his face to shine, and the boldness of his face shall be changed.
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The results of seeking righteousness in the right place, what does that do?
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It gives Christians a unique ability to discern and a visible joy.
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Christians have the at least potential to figure out what's going on where no one else does.
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And in our particular case, we are privileged to live in the church age. And not just in the church age, but in the church age where we have the complete canon of Scripture completely assembled.
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In fact, it's an embarrassment of riches now. We have so many different versions and translations and what have you that we can deal with.
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We have the whole thing. Everything God wants us to know for holy living, for godly living, we have at our fingertips.
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And so with study and with time, Christians can become truly wise.
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Now, not every Christian out there has availed themselves of that potential, but it's there.
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God has provided us. We have the Holy Spirit to instruct us. We have his word that we can read for ourselves.
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And so we have the potential to become truly wise in the biblical sense. We can really know what's going on.
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We can really have stability. We can really have stability. We can also have the capacity to truly enjoy what
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God has bestowed upon us. We can truly enjoy what
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God has bestowed upon us because the capacity to enjoy things is also a gift from God.
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The capacity to enjoy what he has bestowed upon you is a gift from God as well. And so it's there.
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So now moving along, though, as Solomon is talking, you know, whenever we think about we're going to do a sermon on the necessity to obey those in authority, where do we always go?
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We always go to Romans chapter 13, right? Or maybe over to Peter. But here's Solomon.
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Here's Solomon in the Old Testament, and what's he saying? I counsel thee to keep the king's commandment, and that in regard to the oath of God.
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Be not hasty to go out of his sight. Stand not in an evil thing, for he doeth whatsoever pleaseth him.
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Where the word of the king is, there is power. And who may say unto him,
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What doest thou? Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing, and a wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment.
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Obey authority as Christians is what
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Solomon is saying. And God's commands are timeless.
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And we are bound to obey those in authority that God has placed in authority over us, whether that is the civil government, governmental authorities, the church authorities in the church setting, whatever it is, your boss at work.
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And Solomon is saying, you know, obey those that are in authority and be loyal to them.
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Be loyal to them. Be not hasty to go out of his sight. Be loyal to the one in authority.
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And that applies to all authority, but I would say in particular that applies to the pastor in a church setting.
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Be loyal to the pastor. He has been placed there by God to lead this congregation.
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And our little congregation, frankly, has an embarrassment of riches.
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You know, for a church the size of ours, for the godly men that have been placed here, it is remarkable, truly remarkable.
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But then he goes on, this whole passage from here to verse number nine, and we won't go verse by verse through it, but he's saying even bad authority is better than no authority.
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Anarchy is the worst of all possible situations. And he works into it.
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First of all, he says stay away from rebels, some personal advice here. Stay away from rebels. Why?
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Because they're rebellious and they're never satisfied. To certain people, to certain types of personalities, rebellion is an end in itself.
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One of the things I learned working in my days working for Radio Free Europe is that one of the characteristics of dissidents is that they're always dissident.
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They're never satisfied with something. You know, if they can't find something to be upset about, they'll go out and find something to be upset about that.
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So stay away from people like that. They lead you into trouble, says
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Solomon. He also goes on in verse six to say every situation has a correct solution, but only
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God knows what it is. And so, therefore, follow him one step at a time in your personal life.
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That's all we're promised is guidance one step at a time. The lamp unto our feet that the
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Bible speaks about casts a small circle of light right around your feet so that you can see the next step.
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You're not going to see the big picture, which is good. That's God's mercy because if you saw the big picture, you'd be scared to death.
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And so he says, just follow me one step at a time. I'll show you the next step and just take that and I'll go with it because everybody, even the king, lives in uncertainty.
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It's verse seven. And so he keeps on going down and we'll take up the rest of this at a later time.
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But a couple of more things just by way of finishing. Solomon is constantly talking about life and living and giving advice about how to go through your life, how to go through our lives.
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And. Some of the things he says, first of all, avoid. Avoid human wisdom.
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All of Chapter 10 deals with this, but avoid human wisdom because human wisdom is almost inevitably wrong.
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The majority opinion is almost inevitably wrong. Seek God's face in everything you do.
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Always look to him first. If Ecclesiastes teaches us anything, it teaches us that human wisdom at the end is worthless.
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Only God's thought is of intrinsic value. Remember, we started out.
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Solomon's entire thesis is that nothing has intrinsic value. Well, now he's come around to thinking that no,
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God's thought is of intrinsic value. Human viewpoint is intrinsically worthless.
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But God's thought is of intrinsic value. It is a value in and of itself.
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And so we are to seek true wisdom. We are to recognize it. We are to use it because God has given us his word and it is able to make us wise.
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Psalm 139, 130. The entrance of thy word giveth light. It giveth understanding unto the simple.
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Even the simple can become wise by the proper application of God's word.
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And so God has given us what we need. Everything he wants us to know, he has given us in his word.
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And so also skills matter. God has given everyone here some skills.
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I don't know what they are. Your skills are different from mine. But every believer has skills that God has given them.
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Find what they are. Hone them. Use them. God, all
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Christians are not gifted alike, but all Christians are gifted. And use the gifts that God has given you.
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And so let's go to the conclusion again to wrap up. Once again,
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Solomon's conclusion. And we'll be back and visit this again. But his conclusion is fear
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God and keep his commandments. Fear God and keep his commandments at the end of the day. True faith results in action.
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And so despite what Solomon has said about death, death is not really the great equalizer.
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God's judgment is. But to summarize, he says again, see, everything is a gift from God.
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Do not seek pleasure as a goal in itself. Pleasure is a gift from God.
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Do not seek satisfaction as a goal in itself. Satisfaction is not found in life.
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Satisfaction is a gift from the giver of life. And this, of course, goes directly opposite to modern philosophy.
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We are supposed to be out there seeking security, seeking satisfaction.
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How many commercials have you seen where it said we're going to achieve financial security? And whatever that is, overlooking the fact that unless you're going to, you know, take your gold and bury it in the backyard or something like that, you know, we have investments, some of us anyway, how quick can the stock market implode?
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You know, you could be a millionaire one day and a pauper the next, as happened in 1929 to a great many people.
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And so true security comes from God. And so embrace the total sovereignty of God.
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The universe is not random. The universe is not random. The chaos theory is ultimately wrong.
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Everything from Genesis to Revelation and everything in our individual lives is the result of God's sovereign decree.
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And so we should employ an eternal perspective about that, employ an eternal perspective.
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Everything is proceeding according to God's sovereign plan. We are to exist in the light of him as the creator and as the judge.
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We are created in his image. And as Solomon has gone through everything, you know, he's gone through everything, he comes to the conclusion.
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Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. You know, fear God, keep his commandments.
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For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.
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And so see everything as a gift of God. See everything as a gift of God and embrace his sovereignty and employ the eternal perspective and exist in the light of him.
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Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you that, indeed, we do not have to founder our way through life as best we can, searching vainly for meaning for life, but that it is to be had and it is to be had in the person of Jesus Christ and in what has been done for us in grace and in mercy that you have reached down and drawn us to yourself.
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And, Lord, that by following you and by seeing everything with a proper perspective as a gift from your hand, that truly our lives do take on meaning and a genuine meaning that is real and not transitory.
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May each one of us this week, Father, constantly seek your face and constantly lay our fears and our needs and our wants at your feet, knowing that as our good and gracious and loving
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Heavenly Father that you will lead us in the paths that you want us to go. I pray your blessing upon each one here tonight as we go our ways.