Ecclesiastes 9 & Enjoyment

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

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

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry in West Boylston. How are you all? Mike Abendroth here, No Compromise Radio, a ministry. You almost thought that you were going too fast in your 1 .5-speed podcast now, didn�t you?

Yes, you did now, didn�t you? What�s going on with you? I am condensing, if possible, Gospel Assurance Book into a little devotional. It�s a guide now, and it�s got some hard chapters, so I�m trying to make them all a couple pages and have a little devotional, so cross-pollination.

Some people have said to me, �It�s too hard. Started off fine, nosedived. I just said, �Welcome to the New Year�s resolutions that you have as well, right? Come on. And they all said, �Yay. All right, that�s enough.

All right. Okay, what else is happening? We are on American Gospel Television, not just five episodes on sanctification, not just five episodes on law gospel, but also five episodes now, dribbling and drabbing out, starting with the first one, Gospel Assurance.

I like that title. You can pull up, there�s another book called Gospel Assurance, but I think it�s called Gospel Assurance and Warnings, and the person that wrote that book, I�m sure is a fine Christian man, but our theologies are quite different when it comes to law gospel assurance, preaching, duplex gratia, the tincture, and the marital controversy.

But the book titles are kind of the same. I�m not too sure why his book is called Gospel Assurance and Warnings. I don�t really know what that is, maybe warning that you�re going to have too much assurance.

I doubt that, because that�s Rome, basically. Probably warnings so that if you�ve got false assurance, maybe that�s it. It�s about false assurance. You know, there�s a whole group of people that seem to be, and I think he falls into this category, that are trying to sniff out false professors, and that�s kind of their main deal.

Are there false professors? Yes, but that�s not my main ministry, trying to sneak them out, snuff them out, smoke them out. That�s what I was wanting to do. Well, Ecclesiastes, easy book, hard book. Well, it�s pretty hard.

Good book? Should we take it out of the canon? The best way I can think of Ecclesiastes, yes, under the sun, yes, striving after wind, yes, vanity of vanities, all is vanity, yes, that�s�oh, I think when I make a sound, it stops for a second, and then it does that.

Well, that�s weird. That�s weird. What�s going on with my Rodecaster Pro 2? It doesn�t seem to turn on very well, so I don�t know what I�m going to do about that, but we�re going to figure that out pretty fast.

I�m going to play with it after the show. Ecclesiastes is one of these books where, yes, in fact, it�s difficult, but once in a while, the sun comes out and shines, and you think, �Oh, warmth. Well, today on the show is one of those warmth days.

The sun is out, the sun is shining. We have vitamin D absorption through our epidermis, and today is one of those carpe diem passages. Carpe diem, seize the day. Actually, some commentators even call them that.

Here, hold on just a second, and we�re actually still recording. I just hit pause. You didn�t know that, and I wanted to see if it would work. Yes, it actually works. That�s amazing. Carpe diem, seize the day, enjoyment, sun�s out, and actually with commands.

Some commands in the Bible, you know what, don�t want to do them, hard to do, difficult to do. Hmm. These, though, maybe they�re hard to do if you�ve been married for a long time and you have some differences with your spouse, but these kind of exhortations, I like.

Five imperatives, �Go, eat, drink, enjoy, and do. That�s pretty nice. Verse 7, �Go, eat your bread with joy. Go, eat your bread with joy. �Drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.

Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life, which he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol to which you are going. What do you think of those? Wow. Now, those are some wonderful gifts from God.

Are those all the gifts from God? Well, the answer is, of course not, but this is a full life. This is a rich life. This is a wonderful above and beyond kind of extra blessings that we redeemed sinners would get, and we thank God for these gifts.

And so he says, �Go. The very beginning, verse 7, �Go. I mean, what would it be like if he just said, �Eat. Eat your food with joy. Well, but he says, �Go. Pastor Mike had never stopped and thought about that.

Well, welcome to No Compromised Radio Ministry. Even with all my coughing and grunting and podcast stuff, it's like, �Hey, what are we going to do here Well, I think what we're going to do is we're going to go.

It's like a little wake-up call. What's the context? The context is, verses 1 to 6, �Death is coming. Well, what are we going to do? Complain? What are we going to do, mope around? What are we going to do?

No, we're going to go. Hey, we're going to go. We're going to go out to dinner. We're going to have a nice dinner at home. That's what we're going to do. We are going to go. Wow. Brooding, sad, depressed, death is on its way.

He doesn't want us to do that. And by the way, he's not saying, �Travel the world. Nothing wrong with travel. He's not saying, �Sell your money and go live it up because death is coming. He's not saying that.

But he's saying, you know what? In just simple pleasures, you can have great joy. And really, everything you need is going to be right at home. It's almost like the younger brother in Luke 15, the parable of the lost sons.

He realized that really what mattered was what he had at home. That's kind of what he had. So you think, �Oh, so just go. Is God against pleasure? I sure hope not. He's created taste buds and ordained marriage.

He has given us ears to hear music and noses to smell wonderful foods, taste buds to taste bread and wine in this passage. And you can enjoy. You can remember Jesus is confirming that it's wonderful when it comes to a marriage at Canaan, at Galilee, and making the wine there.

Remember the water he turned into wine? Now, I quoted last time a comic strip. You know, they have frames. And I'm going to do that again on this show today because I was reading a commentary and it had a couple of these things.

So I'm going to use them. I didn't make these up. I didn't find them, except I found them in a commentary. Calvin and Hobbes. You know, the boy and his tiger. They're up against a tree, sitting down, leaning back on it.

First frame. Calvin, I don't understand this business about death. If we're going to die, second frame, what's the point of living? Third frame. They've just got consternation on their faces, looking straight at you.

And then Hobbes says in the fourth frame, well, there's seafood. And I'm drinking now today. I haven't said much about what I drink here in the show. It's awful, actually. It's a bang drink. And I want the fizzy ones.

So I went to the dollar store where they're $1 .25. And they've got the weirdo flavors. Now, actually, I like weirdo flavor bangs, but this just tastes like sweet tea. This is Georgia peach faker bang.

I don't like it. It's Chinese. And what's the text say about this kind of behavior? Do you know what? This is really cool. It says what? In verse 7, for God has already approved what you do. Wow. There are a lot of things in the Bible that tell us what God's not approving of.

Great disapproval. Every kind of sin and unholiness and ungodliness and unrighteousness, injustice, lust, sexual sin, lying, coveting. There's a lot of things God disapproves of. Why? Because he's holy.

He's holy, holy, holy, holy, holy. But God has approved this. And of course, remember, since God has approved you in Christ Jesus, dear Christian, he's approved what you do, right? He accepts your works.

He accepts what you do because he accepts you. Now, you might be disciplined for doing wrong things, but this is going back to this whole issue of fathers on earth sometimes are portrayed by pastors as more merciful and kind than the heavenly father because no dad on earth is going to kick out his child for disobeying.

You know, five years old, oh, he's going to discipline. Well, these days he might. He might applaud or it might be like Nemo, you know, as a dad that had to say he was sorry at the end of the movie, even though it was Nemo who went up to the boat.

I never could figure that out. Well, I can figure it out, but that was the problem. God has approved what you do, right? And it's a nice little flashback. You may surely eat of every tree of the garden.

That's approval. And here is more approval. And one person called these not guilty pleasures, but godly pleasures. Huh? Isn't that nice? Go. Go. Remember earlier in chapter eight, I commend joy. God approves of these things.

Oh, there are other things in life to do. We have to work and we need to be godly and evangelize and Lord's day worship and all these other things. That's true. But in the midst of all the death talk, enjoy yourself.

These things with God at the center are fine. And here we are not monastic, ascetic monks. Now whether you drink alcohol or you don't, I could care less. You do whatever you want. I do care if you drink, that if you get drunk, that's wrong.

I do care if you don't drink, that you impose what you think on everybody that drinks. That's wrong. That's also sinful, right? It's Romans 14 and 15. You answer to God, you don't answer to each other.

This is not a realm of you're extra godly if you don't. This is not a matter of any of that at all. You want to command in the Bible to drink wine? There it is. Do you really think he's telling you if you don't drink wine, it's sin?

I wouldn't go that far. I'd say, do you know what? In the midst of death, instead of sitting around brooding, just have some joy in your life and enjoy simple pleasures. And if you don't want to drink wine, you can drink some nasty peach tea, bang, cheers.

But on the flip side, if you'd like to have a glass of wine with your wife and say to God, be the glory, it's a guilty pleasure or a godly pleasure. I think it's a godly pleasure. Everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, including wine.

First Timothy chapter four, verse four, drink your wine with joyful hearts. Eat your bread with joyful hearts, fellowship, staples, luxuries, necessities, eat and drink with a happy heart. One of the reasons we can do that is because we know what we drink doesn't determine our standing before God, right?

Isn't that what Romans 14 and 15 is saying in first Corinthians chapter eight, nine and 10, you can eat and drink anything you want because you're standing before God has nothing to do with whether you eat or whether you drink.

Did you know that? I just got a ring notification that somebody's at the door, but not at this house, somebody else's house. Who's there? Who's at my door? Remember, you're accepted because of Christ's work.

That's it. You're accepted because of Christ's work. That's good to know. That's good to be reminded of. And therefore, since you're accepted, then you can eat and drink and whatever. It doesn't make you more holy or less holy.

Lent's a scam. Giving up things for Lent's a scam. It's more than a scam, but for today, it's a bang $1 .25 scam. Why do they call the thing, the hair on your forehead cut straight across, why do they call that bangs?

I don't know. What's that? Side burns. I don't know why they call them burns, but I get the side part, but bangs? Remember when your sister cut their own bangs for the first time when mom said not to?

This is like every kid has to do it. He says, let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Yeah. Here I think we're looking at wonderful social occasions with weddings in mind and reunions and things like that.

Life was hard back in those days too, and you didn't have much going on. When there was a big shindig, you made it up really nice and you make things special. That's probably what's going on here. Even though it's a regular meal, you make it special.

You can put a candle on if you want. You can put on some jazz music if you want, some Glenn Miller, some Frank Sinatra. You can lower the lice a little bit and have a glass of wine and have some macaroni and cheese.

I don't know why I'm thinking about macaroni and cheese, except when I was in Pennsylvania, I preached for Matt Tarr at Matt, where are you at? It's like High Point Baptist or something. You drive up in this hill up in Joe Biden country, not Secaucus, not Sheboygan, but in Scranton, near Scranton.

He'd drive up to the top of this hill, preach there for Matt, and then he had some great barbecue catered in. I had some brisket with some really spicy barbecue sauce on it. I didn't have any bread or cornbread, even though I wanted some.

I was trying to mind my cabs. Then there was two huge things of smoking hot macaroni and cheese from whatever this place is named. It was a good place. It had kind of the encrusted cheese on the top, kind of a little brownish, where it maybe bubbled a little bit and boiled over a little bit, and then it just cooked a little bit for nice crispies on the top.

You know what I'm talking about? Now, normally I wouldn't have macaroni because it'd be cheap, but if you go to a really nice restaurant, good macaroni, lobster mac, wouldn't that be good? Kind of nice comfort food when it's really cold out.

By the way, this weekend there's supposed to be two to five feet of snow in the Buffalo area. I think that's pretty close to Matt Tarr's church. Run. I wonder if you'd have to have a snow day for that.

You think you'd have to still go into school? Macaroni and cheese. Enjoy your macaroni and cheese with your wife, with a candle, Frank Sinatra, lights down low and some wine that you can open up without a cork.

You can get cans of wine now, you can get boxes of wine, you can get all kinds of things. True or false? The Bible says, rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say rejoice. That's true. That's Philippians 4 .4.

Just God, thank you for all these things. Thank you, oh my father, for giving us your son. There is a redeemer, Jesus, God's own son. And you gave us the wonderful things, including food, wine, wonderful little times and a wife.

Verse nine, enjoy life with a wife whom you love. Solomon knew in Proverbs 18, Proverbs 19, marriage is God ordained and a wife is a gift from the Lord. Hard day at work, difficult times in the world, you have a woman at home that is committed to you and that loves you and that you love her and you are committed to her.

David Gibson said something in his commentary on Ecclesiastes that will make you stop and think, the life you have today comes from God's hand as a gift. You have it for a short while and one day God will call time and take it back.

Enjoy life with your wife today because tomorrow she might be gone or you might be. So in the midst of trials, difficulties, sin, misery, there's some special little gifts that the Lord gives us. And you say, I've heard that in Ecclesiastes.

I know, but you just need to be reminded. And so do I with the woman you love. Enjoy your wife, he says. Enjoy your life. Enjoy your wife. Enjoy wine. Enjoy woman, if you're a man, the woman. Enjoy, can you imagine, love, joy, enjoyment?

Philip Reichen said, if you're having trouble staying in love, ask God for the grace to love again the way you used to, or maybe the way you never have, but know you should. Here the preacher says what the Bible says to husbands again and again, and frankly what most husbands need to hear all the time, love your wives.

By the way, husbands, you won't have to do it forever. If she's hard to love, well, be a man, buckle up, and realize you won't have to love her forever because you only have to love her on this earth.

She won't be your wife in heaven. So love her now. You can do anything knowing that it's not going to last forever, can't you? And whatever your hand finds to do, do with all your might, including eat and drink and joy and all those things.

There's no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom and shield to which you're going. I'm not talking about hell. Shield can mean lots of different things. It just means death. Yes, yes. There's a heaven we know.

There's eternal life. There's presence with God. There's Revelation 4. There's Revelation 5. Absent from the body, present with the Lord, to live as Christ, to die as King. From the human standpoint, though, there's nothing else that you can do on this earth, right?

So while you're on this earth, then do what you need to do. Like Jesus said in John 9, we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. As long as I'm in the world, I am the light of the world.

So when it comes to work, we need to work. Death's going to be swallowed up forever one day, and we'll be rejoicing. And we're going to realize in Isaiah 25, he will swallow up death forever and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth.

For the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, behold, this is our God. We have waited for him that he might save us. This is the Lord. We have waited for him. Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.".

Boy, what a day that will be. Well, my name is Mike Gabendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. Glad you tuned in. You can write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com. Hopefully we'll have some guests on as I figure out this new podcast thing.

God bless you.

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

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