WWUTT 1664 The More Wisdom, the More Sorrow (Ecclesiastes 1:12-18)

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Most of the ancient philosophers believed that happiness was the meaning of life and knowledge increases happiness.

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But there was a philosopher that came long before them who determined that the opposite is true when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, teaching through a New Testament book on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, an

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Old Testament book on Thursday, and a Q &A on Friday. With our Old Testament study today, here's

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 1.

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Looking to finish up the chapter today. God willing, I'll begin reading in verse 12 and we'll go through verse 18 out of the

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Legacy Standard Bible. This is the word of the Lord. I, the preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem, and I gave my heart to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven.

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It is a grievous endeavor which God has given to the sons of men with which to occupy themselves.

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I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind.

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What is bent cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted.

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I spoke within my heart, saying, Behold, I have magnified and increased wisdom more than all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has seen an abundance of wisdom and knowledge.

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And I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and simple -minded folly.

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I came to know that this also is striving after wind, because in much wisdom there is much vexation, and whoever increases knowledge increases pain.

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This is an incredibly profound section here of Ecclesiastes and really comes right at the question that has been asked by the philosophers for centuries.

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What on earth am I here for? What is my meaning and my purpose in life? And this is

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Solomon asking that question long before any of the other philosophers came along to ask that, at least as far as what we consider in the practice or the study of philosophy, which really didn't come about until after the time of Solomon.

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Solomon precedes them by so many years. And so here in verse 12, we start with Solomon saying,

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I, the preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. Now, first of all, him addressing himself as preacher is why this book is called

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Ecclesiastes. We talked about that in our introduction to the book a couple of weeks ago. It's that Greek word, ecclesia, that means a calling out or an assembly of people.

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It's the word we use for church. So when the Old Testament was translated into Greek, what we call the

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Septuagint, the title of this book became Ecclesiastes. You have the preacher addressing the congregation.

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So I, the preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. That's significant.

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It's not just the author here identifying exactly who he is and where he reigns, but that he reigns over the most significant city in the world.

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This is the very place where God dwells. It's where God has chosen to put his name.

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He has called out Israel from every other nation on earth. This people has become his people, and it's where God has put his name, dwelling there in the temple on Mount Moriah, just next to the palace where Solomon lives.

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So if there's any king anywhere who should understand the meaning of life, it's going to be the king that dwells closest to God, right?

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That's the significance of Solomon saying here that I, the preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.

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That's a huge statement to make, a very significant statement to make. Verse 13, and I gave my heart to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven.

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So Solomon not just considering what's happened in Israel and in Jerusalem, but he's considering everything that has been done under heaven.

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He's doing it from Jerusalem, but he's considering all that has happened in the earth.

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And he says, it is a grievous endeavor, which God has given to the sons of men with which to occupy themselves, occupying ourselves with this question, what is the meaning of life?

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And again, we've seen this from the philosophers throughout the ages. At some point in your life, you have probably found yourself asking, what on earth am

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I here for? That's even a subtitle that Rick Warren put on his book,

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The Purpose Driven Life. More recent copies of The Purpose Driven Life, that title itself,

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The Purpose Driven Life is in smaller print. The larger print says, what on earth am I here for?

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That's what the publishers are attempting to entice people with, claiming to answer that question.

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But again, there's no gospel in the book to give a sufficient enough answer to that question.

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Even many scientists will claim that they have the answer to the question, what is the meaning of life or what is the purpose to my existence?

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But science is not a philosophy, so they really have to borrow from the philosophers in order to answer that.

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It's so fascinating here that Solomon makes this statement here in verse 13, it is a grievous endeavor which

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God has given to the sons of men with which to occupy themselves. To try to answer this question, what's the meaning of life?

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Verse 14, I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun and behold, all is vanity, striving after wind.

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Now as I said in the introduction a couple of weeks ago, there are some things here in Ecclesiastes which

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Solomon does say are worthwhile, but it's only those things that are done to the glory of God.

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The conclusion of the book, Ecclesiastes 12, 13, this is the whole duty of man to fear

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God and keep his commandments. Anything else is vanity and striving after wind.

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Verses 15 and 16 Solomon says, what is bent cannot be straightened and what is lacking cannot be counted.

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Because what he is trying to find meaning in is a world that has been cursed, a world that has fallen because of sin.

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It's bent, it's bent low. Like that statement, it's bent is like a man whose shoulders are hunched over, his back is hunched down.

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He can't straighten himself up. This is the burden upon each and every person. Once again, the grievous endeavor which

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God has given to the sons of men with which to occupy themselves, they're bent low, they can't straighten themselves.

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What is bent cannot be straightened and what is lacking cannot be counted. How do you count nothing?

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It's that whole, you know, the mathematical equation, anything times zero is nothing. Five times zero is zero.

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Anything times zero is always going to be zero. Zero is zero. You can't add zero.

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You can't subtract from zero. It's just zero. What's lacking cannot be counted. I spoke within my heart, he says in verse 16, saying, behold,

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I have magnified and increased wisdom more than all who were over Jerusalem before me.

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Once again, where's the wisest person going to come from? It's going to come from the city where God dwells, that city where God has chosen to put his name.

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Everybody who has been in Jerusalem before me, the very city where Melchizedek was a king priest.

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If you'll remember back to Genesis, when Abraham came before Melchizedek or Melchizedek came out to meet

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Abraham, he was described as the priest of Salem.

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That was Jerusalem before it was Jerusalem. So even Melchizedek was from this great city.

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And everybody who has been in this city before me, I have more wisdom than they.

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My heart has seen an abundance of wisdom and knowledge. And I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and simple minded folly.

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So Solomon here is studying the great wisdom and the great foolishness, that which is the wisest and that which is the stupidest.

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And I came to know that this also is striving after when Solomon did not find meaning and purpose in life, in pursuing wisdom or stupidity.

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You've heard the old statement, ignorance is bliss. Well, Solomon didn't even find happiness in ignorance.

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If you go back to all of the ancient philosophers, and if you think of those places where ancient philosophy has originated from India, China, Greece, even the

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Middle East, something that they all have in common, they all believed that happiness was the meaning of life.

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And they argued in some form or another that our happiness was determined by our own thinking.

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Knowledge therefore leads to happiness. The more a person knows, the happier they will be.

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I hear people today say such a thing. You'll be happier if you have more knowledge.

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You look and see just how much knowledge we possess as a society, all the knowledge that is at your fingertips in your smartphone.

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And yet are people happier as a result of these things? The Indian teacher

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Buddha, famous for his four noble truths and eightfold path to happiness. That was that was actually his philosophy, the eightfold path to happiness.

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He said that we are the result of our own thoughts. Evil thoughts will lead to painful experiences and pure thoughts will lead to happiness.

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The Chinese philosopher Confucius said that man has the power to transform himself.

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A person cultivates their own humanity by learning from other people. The happiest people are the well -educated.

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The Greek thinker Plato believed that we must attain the highest form of knowledge.

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He called this the form of the good, from which all good and just things derive their usefulness and value.

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Aristotle, who was an understudy of Plato, he believed that happiness depends on ourselves, though people generally disagree on the meaning of happiness.

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That's a pretty subjective thing to say, you know, that happiness is dependent upon ourselves. Well, one person's definition of happiness is going to be different than another person's definition.

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Socrates was known for asking questions more than giving answers, as he believed this led to gaining more knowledge.

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If you ask questions, you gain more knowledge, thus increasing happiness. You've heard of the

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Socratic method of teaching, which is where a teacher will ask questions of the class and get the class to answer those questions.

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And it's kind of leading the education by questions. That's called the Socratic method, because that's what

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Socrates was after, asking questions and the answers increase knowledge. Aristippus, who was a pupil of Socrates, said personal pleasure is the supreme good.

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And he argued for instant gratification, since delaying one's pleasure is delayed happiness.

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Epicurus likewise believed pleasure was the only intrinsic value. But we should find happiness in simple things like the pleasure of philosophical conversation rather than food and drunkenness and sex.

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Zeno, the father of Stoicism, he believed that the meaning of life was freedom from suffering.

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This could be achieved by avoiding emotional struggles and developing clear judgment through logic, reflection and concentration.

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But again, it still comes back to the increase of knowledge is the increase of happiness.

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In all of their ponderings, like you look at these philosophers that I've named here, this goes back 500 years before Christ or something like that.

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In all of their ponderings, none of these ancient philosophers held a candle to King Solomon.

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Once again, Solomon is king in the greatest city on the earth, the city where God himself dwells.

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And Solomon is the predecessor to all other philosophy by several centuries, centuries before Buddha shows up or Confucius comes on the scene or anybody like that.

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There was Solomon and Solomon, even in his own days, was the envy of every other leader in the world.

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There were kings and queens and royal messengers that would come all the way to Jerusalem to behold

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Solomon's wealth and his wisdom. And when they came to Jerusalem and they met

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Solomon, they discovered that the stuff that was said about this guy's wisdom was underplayed.

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He's way smarter than anybody there has ever been in the world because the wisdom that Solomon had was not of himself.

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It was the very wisdom of God. And there would never be a wiser king in the world for a thousand years until Jesus came.

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And Jesus wisdom surpassed Solomon's because, of course, Jesus is where Solomon got his wisdom from.

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Solomon was the wisest king until King Jesus. But in Solomon's day, everybody wanted to behold the wisdom of Solomon.

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Everybody wanted to know Solomon's wisdom. That's why you have all the Proverbs of Solomon written down and this book of Ecclesiastes, no other book in the world more published than the

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Bible. Even to this day, there is no philosophers thought more circulated than Solomon's.

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And what was Solomon's conclusion about the meaning of life being happiness or that pursuing knowledge would lead to more happiness and therefore life would be more fulfilling?

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What was Solomon's thought about that? This was hundreds of years before all the other philosophers were pondering this.

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And Solomon says this, Ecclesiastes 1 .18, because in much wisdom, there is much vexation and whoever increases knowledge increases pain.

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Ouch. That destroys hundreds of years, if not thousands of years of philosophical thought that there is not meaning and purpose in happiness and therefore knowledge increasing happiness because the more one grows in knowledge, the more sorrowful he becomes.

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Quite the opposite of happiness. All things are full of weariness,

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Solomon said. A man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear filled with hearing.

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What has been is what will be. What has been done is what will be done. And there is nothing new under the sun.

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Is there a thing of which it can be said? See, this is new. It's already been done in the ages that were before us.

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So nothing that the ancient philosophers thought up was anything Solomon had not already considered.

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And he already answered this question hundreds of years before the philosophers started saying, hey, happiness, happiness must be the meaning of life.

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And the more one knows, the happier they will be. No, Solomon already said it hundreds of years before.

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Whoever increases knowledge. Increases sorrow. Because just think about it.

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How can one's happiness be increased? By pondering the meaning and purpose of a world that has been cursed.

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That is fallen because of the effects of sin. If you're trying to increase your happiness in a fallen and sinful world, you're only going to end up empty because you'll find that the end of this world does not result in happiness.

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It results in destruction and madness and chaos. There are some people in the world today who will never know pleasure or happiness or even have access or opportunity to increase their knowledge and therefore the happiness or the joy that they experience in life.

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They seem to be born into a position of poverty and suffering their entire lives along.

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There are people that are doomed to suffer in such a way. How would you be able to say to such a person, you know, if you just read a book, you would be a little bit happier.

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What an unloving and unsympathetic thing to say. Incidentally, I've read some pretty miserable books.

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So, you know, what book are you supposed to be reading? Exactly. That's going to make you happier.

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Should you just walk into a cancer ward at a hospital and say to the people, yeah, you're dying. Things are looking pretty grim.

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You probably know, you know, about the approximate day you will perish. But if you would just increase your knowledge a little bit, at least you'd be happier about it.

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What a hopeless encouragement, which is not encouraging at all. It's just hopelessness.

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The only hope, the only meaning and purpose that we have in anything is in Christ.

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We do not find meaning and purpose in a sinful, fallen world. We do find meaning and purpose in the holy, righteous

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God who gave us life, who redeems us from all lawlessness and purifies us to make for himself a people who are zealous for his good works.

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It's in Jesus Christ, the giver of life, the sustainer of life, the one who redeems our lives.

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It is in Christ that we find meaning and purpose in life. So much meaning and so much purpose that even if it is a person's lot to suffer the rest of their lives, they find meaning and purpose in this suffering because they are able to agree with the apostle

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Paul in the book of Romans. The present sufferings cannot even compare with the glory that awaits us in Christ Jesus.

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Peter says, and James as well, it is given to you to suffer for a little while.

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But then glory awaits us in Christ so that even the suffering that we endure for this time, there's even a reason for this.

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You go back to our study in second Corinthians that we're doing at the same time with Ecclesiastes. It was in second

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Corinthians chapter one, verse nine, where the apostle Paul said, these things happen to us to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.

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God whom Paul describes as the father of mercies and the

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God of all comfort, meaning and purpose are found in worshiping him.

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When you get to the end of Ecclesiastes, this is chapter 12, verses 13 and 14. The end of the matter, all that had been heard, fear

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God and keep his commandments because this is the end of the matter for all mankind.

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For God will bring every work to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.

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Heavenly father, we thank you for a meaning and purpose that had been given to us in Christ Jesus.

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We would perish in our own sorrow and despair if not for the giving of your son to die on the cross for our sins and to rise again from the dead so that all who believe in him will not perish with this fallen world that is coming into judgment.

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But we have everlasting life fellowship with God even now and the promise of an eternal imperishable kingdom in the life that is to come where there will be no more sorrow, no more dying.

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Every tear will be wiped away for you are making all things new in Christ Jesus.

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It is in his name that we pray. Amen. This has been When We Understand the

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Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com

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and let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's word when we understand the text.