Ecclesiastes 8-9 - Pondering the Paradoxes of Life
Tom Shrader explores the paradoxes of life from Ecclesiastes, examining why good people sometimes suffer while the wicked prosper, and why winners don't always win. He emphasizes that life's apparent unfairness stems from our limited human perspective, while God sovereignly orchestrates all events for His purposes and glory.
“We're so obsessed with the things that aren't the way we want them to be that we miss the things that are the way God's blessed that we don't deserve.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Reflections From the Top of the Heap (2002)
Recorded: November 07, 2002
Duration: 41 min
Themes: suffering, wisdom, fairness, prosperity, meaning, perspective, sovereignty, purpose, questioning gods fairness, experiencing injustice, seeking life purpose, struggling with doubt, middle aged adult, facing disappointment, mentor, searching for meaning
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 8:14, Ecclesiastes 9:1-3, Ecclesiastes 9:11, Ecclesiastes 9:13-16, Ecclesiastes 7:13, Genesis 6, Genesis 8:21, Jeremiah 17:9, 1 Corinthians 15, Galatians 6:9
Theological Themes: providence, divine sovereignty, theodicy, problem of evil, ecclesiastes, old testament wisdom, biblical worldview, gods purposes
Full Transcript
Today we start session seven. This is an eight-week series, so we'll finish next week. Eight weeks looking at a series titled "Reflections from the Top of the Heap." Our teacher is Solomon, and although we've touched on this in our introduction every week, there are always people with us for the first time or we miss a session or two and we need a reminder.
I want to make sure that we are on the same page as we move forward here. Solomon writes this book, and what the book is is the Book of Ecclesiastes. That word means literally "the one who searches out." What Solomon's done is lived all of life. He sits at the end of his life, looks back over this extraordinarily full life, and says, "Now, let me have a talk with you." If you and I are wise enough and smart enough, we're going to get some very direct, very straight conversation from Solomon. If we're wise enough, we'll listen.
What Solomon is saying is, "I can help you avoid in your life lots of aggravations, lots of problems, lots of mistakes, lots of sin really, if you'll just listen to me." In life, Solomon says essentially that things are meaningless. "Vanity," he uses.
Solomon's Method: Seven Weeks of Building His Case
I will just be really candid with you. This is the seventh week of, in my mind, saying the same thing. I feel like I've said the same thing six weeks in a row to you, and now seven. That's because that's the way Solomon writes this book. Solomon begins by talking about the fact that life is meaningless, and then writes about that chapter after chapter after chapter. He doesn't give us the solution to all of this until the end of the book, and that's what we look at next week.
In a sense, he gives us seven weeks of introduction, seven weeks of building his case and establishing in our mind that life is meaningless. He comes and says, "Listen, if you think you're going to find happiness in this life, I want to talk to you about that. Because whatever it is you think will make you happy, I've been there, I've done that, it won't."
You now know the list. He talks about sex, he talks about building, he talks about accumulation, he talks about knowledge. He says, "Listen, whatever you say, I can say to you, 'Been there, done that,' and it isn't going to do it. You're not going to get there." In a sense, he's saying all of life is a delusion, and that's what we looked at last week.
Understanding Paradox
Today we come at it with just a little bit of a different twist with really a very similar message. We talk about a paradox. Webster says this of a paradox: "A statement that seems to be contradictory to common sense, and yet it's perhaps true." It's something that looks to be untrue, but it is. It's not an oxymoron. It's a little bit different. Oxymoron, you know that deal—jumbo shrimp, Rapid City, South Dakota, that kind of stuff.
What we're talking about is a paradox. Solomon says life is filled with them. Let me give you the general theme, and then we'll look at four specific instances. Solomon says the general theme is this: Life is not fair.
My kids, I presume, are like yours. My girls, at a very early age, without any prompting from Susan or from me, were able to evaluate a situation that we wanted something from them, whatever the case might be. They would say, "That's not fair." They learned to chant that very early on. "That's not fair." They had two phrases, and I mean this—two phrases as a very young kid that they adapted quickly: "That's not fair" and "What about me?"
The First Paradox: Getting What You Don't Deserve
If we came back from a trip with a gift for one, before we could even unpack the other one, the other person would say, "What about me?" Well, Solomon says, "Listen, we look around at life," and I think Solomon is saying, "I'll even go ahead and acknowledge this. It doesn't seem to be fair. Doesn't seem to be right, but it is."
Four situations we'll look at them. Here's the first one: It seems like everybody should get what they deserve, but they don't. Here's what Solomon writes in chapter 8, verse 14: "There's something else meaningless that occurs on earth. Righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve. This too is meaningless."
It's as though Solomon says, "Listen, I want to see God send you this blessing because you're a righteous guy, and somehow it got mixed up in the mail and went to the wicked guy, and the justice that was supposed to go to the wicked guy got messed up, and it goes to the righteous." We look around, and we see things that we say are not fair.
God's Sovereignty in Both Good and Bad
By the way, and we made the point last week, let me make it again—even as we look at God, we need to keep this in mind. Solomon wrote this in Ecclesiastes chapter 7, verse 13: "Consider the work of God, for who is able to straighten what He has bent? In the day of prosperity be happy, but in the day of adversity consider: God has made one as well as the other."
What you have today in this world that is obsessed with spirituality is a world that is anti-God. They love spirituality. You know this. You've had those conversations with your friends. They'll talk about God as they understand Him to be, or God as, really, as they wish He was.
All of a sudden, they'll encounter something in their life. Let's take something dramatic and communal—9/11. They'll encounter 9/11, and then they'll walk away, and now PBS has to do a show on "Where was God? Where was God on 9/11?" Well, the same place He was on 9/10. He was on the throne.
Our Tendency to Judge God
All of a sudden, we look around, and we assume if there's something that we don't like, that there's something wrong with God. We'll even use the phrase, "If I was God, I wouldn't..." As though we're saying we're more moral, more righteous than He is. One of the ways this starts to surface itself is we begin to look around. We like to do it in a self-righteous way, where we say, "Here's..."
Poor so-and-so. They didn't get what they deserved. They deserve better than this. This isn't fair. But in reality, we're looking at this in our own life. We're quick to look at the hardship and say, we don't deserve this.
Rarely do we stop and look at the good things that God gives us that we don't deserve. We're so obsessed, and I'm sure I'll say this a couple of times, we're so obsessed with the things that aren't the way we want them to be that we miss the things that are the way God's blessed that we don't deserve.
Recognizing Undeserved Blessings
Talking about the good things for a second, because we rarely go down this line. Let me tell you about the single biggest business transaction I was ever involved in. Let me tell you how it came about. I was sitting at my desk one day, and my manager came out and said, "You need to call so-and-so. They're looking to rent space."
So I called them. They said, "We're looking for about 11,000 or 12,000 square feet, and we want it within walking distance of this building right here." At that point, there's only one place they could be. There was only one possible solution to the whole thing. So I called that guy, and I said, "I got somebody who's looking for about 12,000 square feet. Will you do that?" He said, "I'd love to do that." I said, "How much do you want for that?" He told me his price. So I went back, and I said, "They'll do it. They need this." And he said, "All right, let's do it."
He said, "Oh, by the way, we've thought about this because He's part of a corporation with headquarters in Chicago. We've thought about selling this building we're in and relocating. You ought to call them and see if they want to sell." So I call them, and they say, "We'd love to sell. We need to tell you something. We only deal exclusively with a broker. We won't shop it around. We'll just do it exclusive with you." I said, "Oh, man, really? They're going to have to operate under that sort of constraint?" And He said, "Yes."
I go back to the guy here, and I said, "They want to sell." He said, "Well, let me tell you something. So-and-so has been wanting to buy this." I said, "You don't have a title company by any chance, do you? Because I got everything else." So now I call the guy that wants to buy, and He said, "Oh, yeah. Absolutely, we'd buy this. We'd love to have this. Is it available?" I said, "Yep." He said, "What is the price?" I told Him. He said, "That's what we'll pay."
I go back to the guy, and I said, "Well, this guy's going to buy it." He said, "Well, now we need to go somewhere. I'll tell you, I saw a piece of land up by Metro Center. It'd be great for us." So I go up there, and I come back, and I said, "Well, that's available. Here you go." You got the lease. You got the sale. You got the relocation.
What did I do? I didn't do anything. When that check came, I didn't go, "Oh, man. God is so unfair." I cashed that dog in a nanosecond, before they figured out I didn't do anything.
Our Selective Focus on Fairness
But isn't that interesting? Rarely, maybe at Thanksgiving, that obligatory day when you'll get around and say, "Everybody tell what they're thankful for," but the fact that you could motor in here today is a gift from God. Did you stop and thank Him for it? I'll guess not.
Now we get the flip side. Along comes these things—hardships, difficulties. Somehow we're wondering if God's fair to bring these things on us. Again, we try to go outside to create this straw man. "Oh, look at what the sniper did. That's not fair. Here's these people." But all the time, we're trying to hedge our bet for the things that are in our life.
When Adversity Reveals God's Faithfulness
I did something, and this might be an idea for you. Tuesday night, I have a friend who has two children. His daughter got married two years ago. His son's getting married tomorrow night. What He did on both occasions is bring in just family members and me. I kind of moderate it. He brings in just immediate family—a very close circle: mom, dad, brothers, sisters, that's it.
The whole idea is to say, "This week is going to get away from us. Let's take this moment to make certain that we tell every person in here how we feel." We go around the room. The bride's brother, who is now 17, at age 14 or 15 had a brain tumor—huge tumor lodged in the brain in an area where it was likely a good chance that when He came out, He would lose all His capacity to read, a lot of ability to think and to speak. God spared Him from much of that.
It was funny, because as they talked about each other, they always end up with Him. They said, "You know what? Your courage motivated me. Never once did I see you cry or say that's not fair." But you built upon that. I use this as we would 1,000 examples of adversity that God uses to make His point, to prove His faithfulness, to show that God uses weaker things to confound stronger things.
The Dave Dravecky Example
Dave Dravecky is my classic example. The point is, I don't think you even know if something's good or bad. I'm not speaking morally—if you're here and you're stealing, we know that's bad. We're not wrestling with that. I mean circumstantially, you don't even know what is good or bad.
Dave Dravecky prays, "God, give me a platform." I know this for a fact. He prayed this: "God, I want to represent Christ to as many people as possible." God says, "Fine, Dave. Here's what I need. I need your arm." We look around and say, "Oh, that's awful. Oh, that's terrible. Oh, He's got cancer. Oh, this has happened." I say it's an answer to prayer, because now He's sitting with Barbara Walters explaining to her how He finds strength in Christ.
I had this theory for years about Dave Dravecky. I've used this illustration. One day last year, I was invited up to a guy's house. He and I and Dave Dravecky sat down.
Pondering the Paradoxes of Life
I remember discussing this with a pediatric oncologist years ago. I said, this is a little intimidating for me. I've used this illustration for years. Let me run it by you. And he said, that's absolutely true. You don't even know. I go through my daughter Sarah's accident. In the middle of all that tragedy, I watched this little girl get down to 80 pounds and never once say, oh, God, that's not fair. And I watched people around say, why would God do that? And I'm trying to say, well, because He's a good God. This is what they said to me. Sarah survived. Isn't God good? And I said, wait a minute. God is good even if she dies. Do you think God's not good because you get cancer? God's not good because you have some illness? We thank Him for everything. But on the surface, making Solomon's point, it looks like the good guys aren't winning.
The Unfairness of Life
In fact, that's the second point. It looks like good people should succeed over bad, but they really don't. Looks like the good people ought to succeed over the bad guys, but it doesn't always work out that way. You see people that work really hard and everything goes along. They work two jobs, and yet they're just barely eking it out. You see the other guy who was sitting there one day and said, you know, here's a pet rock. Why don't we put a face on this and put a little birth certificate with it, and let's see what we'll do with the $14 billion we make off this rock. It isn't fair.
Here's what Solomon writes. So I reflected. It's Ecclesiastes 9:1. I reflected on all this. He's saying, I just didn't take a casual approach to this. I took a hard look at this. And I concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God's hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him. We all share a common destiny. The righteous and the wicked, the good, the bad, the clean, the unclean, those who offer sacrifices. The religious is what he's talking about, and those who don't. This is evil in everything that happens under the sun. The same destiny overtakes us. The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil, and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterwards, they join death.
We're trying to figure out good, bad. The good guy's getting a bad shake. And Solomon says, listen, we're all in the same boat. You're missing it. You're trying to say that guy's good because he gives to United Way and goes to church, and this guy's bad because he doesn't. And Solomon says, no, we all share a common destiny.
The Condition of Man's Heart
What he's talking about here in terms of life is the condition of man. Did you hear what he said? The hearts of men are full of evil. That's not a new thought scripturally. It goes back as far as Genesis chapter 6. The Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of the heart are continually evil. Genesis 8:21, the imaginations of man's heart is full of evil from his youth. Jeremiah 17:9, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately corrupt.
This is an absolutely crucial point as you go to live in this world, as you take the Christian worldview from here to the world. It's an absolutely crucial point because we have diametrically opposed views. The world says that man is basically good, that man is like an onion, that as you peel away the layers, you get toward the inside, and inside you see a good person. I remember working with a guy who was an absolute jerk at every level. I could not think of a standard of evaluation by which he comes off as a good guy. And I remember talking to a co-worker one day, and they said, you know what? Deep down inside, he's really a good guy. And I'm saying, how far deep do you think you need to go? I don't know where we could go to find him a good guy. It's the whole illusion.
Systems That Account for Man's Nature
You've got whole educational systems, political systems, economic systems. You know what's great about capitalism? This is not a new thought to me. But you know what's great about capitalism? It's the only economic system in the world that anticipates the evilness of man. It assumes you will do what's best for you. It assumes you're a selfish, little, greedy person. That's what capitalism is. That's why it works. All this other stuff is saying, oh no, we're all good people. Let's try to figure it out and parse it up and make it all equal. And by that, they don't mean equal, they mean identical.
Let's stick to the scripture. The scripture says no one is good. No, not one. No one is righteous. That's the condition of man. Even to begin to say, well, this guy's a good guy and this guy's not, is to usurp God's judgment of man. God says there is none righteous, no, not one.
Our Common Destiny
And what Solomon says is, you take the righteous, you take the wicked, they all come into the world. Unless God intervenes, they're all heading for the same destiny. Let's get old fashioned here. There's a heaven and there's a hell. You come into this world, and unless God changes your heart, unless you understand who Jesus Christ is, unless you embrace Him as Lord and Savior, you'll spend eternity in a place called hell. We've talked about it. You know it, don't you?
That myth out there that we all pray to the same God. We don't. That we all worship the same God. We don't. If I go to Fashion Square this afternoon, which I can't because I'm getting a haircut. But if I did, and I ask 100 people, what do you got to do to go to heaven, the majority of them would say, be good. And then you would say, well, what does that mean? How good? Who's good? And God says no one is good, no, not one.
What Solomon is saying, and he's not going to give us the conclusion here, but I'll give it to you, is Solomon is saying is, we all came into the world the same way, but we're all headed out to one of two destinations. When this world is over, we'll spend eternity in either heaven with Christ or hell. That's it. There's no middle ground. There's no spiritual Switzerland. There's nowhere where you can hide. There's no place where you can proclaim neutrality.
You're not for me, you're against me. That is black and white, and that is simple. And those aren't my words, that's what Jesus said. On the way to truth and life, no one comes to the Father, but through me. Solomon is saying, you better grab this. You better understand this. You better be able to get your arms around this idea.
Winners Should Win, But They Don't
Here's the third one. This is a great point. Winners should win, and losers should lose in life, but they don't. I had about 20 minutes this morning, and I had a breakfast meeting, and I went from that. I had a long, arduous phone call, went through that. I had about 15, 20 minutes before I came down there. So I thought I'd go by borders. I just love to go by borders, and I went in. I'm looking at magazines, and there's a couple of things, and then I saw the Daily Racing Forum.
Now in my old days, before I knew Jesus as Lord and Savior, and when I had more disposable income, I enjoyed the racetrack. We would handicap races. What Solomon is saying here is, we ought to be able to handicap life. We ought to be able to look at somebody and say they're a winner. But you can't, sometimes, but most of the time not.
And where you really get this, to me, the best illustration is about a 20-year class reunion, high school class reunion, where you go back, and you just can't wait, and you got your little pictures out, and you're looking at them, and you're thinking, oh, I want to see him. He was the quarterback, and he dated the homecoming queen, and there they are.
Now they come in, and she's easier to walk over than around at this point. She's put on a few pounds. She's a big little gal now. And life hasn't been good to her, and her best days are behind her. And he let himself go a little bit, and he's drooping. Plastic or paper, that's what he says when he's at work, okay?
And then you've got the little guy, the little guy that everybody just stuffed his head in the toilet, and put him in the locker, and made fun of him, and now they're saying, where would you like me to park that car, Mr. Gates? And you're saying, that isn't fair! See, you can't do that.
The Race Is Not to the Swift
Here's how Solomon says it. I've seen something else under the sun. This is so, I wish I could, well, obviously he's writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but what a beautiful way to say this. The race is not to the swift. The battle to the strong. Or does food come to the wise, wealth to the brilliant, or favor to the learned?
He says, you know, the fastest horse doesn't always win, and I laugh every time I hear that, because I sat with that racing form in the old days, and I said, there is no way. Whatever a lock is, this is a lock. There is no way this horse could lose. You could put another 100 pounds on this horse, and he's gonna win this race, which may be true, but you couldn't put $100 on him and have him win. That's what I discovered. Because the fastest horse doesn't always win.
The strongest guy doesn't always win. There's a whole bunch of people who you look at and you go, I'm way smarter than they are, and I'm schlepping it out here, and they got millions of dollars. It's one of the things I discovered about being around rich people. They're not always the brightest of a lot, but I'll tell you what they are. They usually have a lot of common sense, and they have a lot of courage. And they're willing to risk. And they're not afraid to fail.
Solomon says, listen, this doesn't make sense here. So let me read it to you again, and then he gives us an answer. He said, the race is not to the swift, the battle to the strong, the food come to the wise, the wealth to the brilliant, favor to the learned, but time and chance happens to all of them. In other words, there's forces at play here.
Time as Your Ally
He uses the idea of just time as it passes, and we tend to think, let me check time here, we got 15 minutes. We tend to think of time in a negative sense. We talk about the ravages of time. Here's what I've learned. In most instances, time is your ally.
The first Thursday of every month is not only haircut day, but it's the day I meet with two guys who are brothers. We've had breakfast the first Thursday of the month, essentially now for years. They came to me years ago and said, you know, our dad isn't a Christian. We need some wisdom. Will you be our father? My dad, will you be my dad? And I said, I'm not giving you any money. If that's what you're after, I'm not giving you any money. They said, no, we don't need money. Just want wisdom.
And we've tracked through a lot of things over these years. But today he made a comment. One of the boys made a comment. They were talking about something, and he said, you know, that's just not a hill to die on. And I said to him, would you have said that 10 years ago? And they said, no. And it launched us into this discussion.
They're 38, 39. It launched us into this discussion about how beautiful time is if you'll just listen. Everything just falls into place.
The Wisdom That Comes with Time
Have you ever noticed when you go to an ASU game, that you've got guys with maroon and gold on their face? But generally, they're not in their 50s. I've been with guys in their early 20s, and they're out of there, and they're mad at the game, and punching the TV. But I find even the most rabid fans, it just passes away with time. You're going to something, you go, this is a football game. Doesn't really matter a whole lot. All of a sudden, time, I will tell you, I'll be 53, OK?
So I'm older than a lot of you, and not a pup to some of you. Getting older, it's a little physically harder. I got a little hard time with just getting the body going. But I'll tell you what, I don't mean it. I wouldn't trade it. I wouldn't trade it at all.
Because I come to a fork in the road, and now I go, you know what, I think I'd been down that. I think I'd get screwed at the end of that road over there. I think I've seen this deal before. I think I'll go this way. I may have a bad ending, but I know that. He says
There's time, and then he says chance. Now, he's not an advocate of chance. We don't believe that there's just this randomness out there. Chance is defined as nothing. And Jonathan Edwards, the greatest mind that America's ever produced, defines nothing as what a rock dreams about when it sleeps. So we don't believe in chance. We don't believe in nothing.
If you're sitting here today, and you go, "Well, time and chance, everything's out of control," no, no, no, no, no. We are not fatalists. We are not fatalists. We do not believe that everything is out of control. We believe everything is beyond our control. But there is a God who has the very hairs on our head numbered, meaning He is an intimate God who knows us intimately.
Bette Midler had that song that she sang—our God is a distant God. He watches us in the distance. He couldn't be further from the truth. He's intimately involved. He has a plan that He's executing. And what Solomon is trying to say here is you can't begin, humanly, to figure all this stuff out.
God's Sovereignty in Unexpected Outcomes
I don't know what it was now, 15, 20 years ago. Three highly touted quarterbacks became available for the NFL draft all at the same time. Jim Kelly was one of them. He wasn't the first quarterback picked. Dan Marino was another one out of that class. And he fell really far, if I remember. The number one quarterback picked was Todd Blackledge. The first two were Hall of Famers, and he's doing color commentary somewhere.
Solomon is saying, you can't figure this thing out. You're looking around, and you need to understand that there is some sovereignty at work here. God's placed you where you are for a reason. And here's what I'd suggest: Rather than trying to figure out how to get out of it, why don't you take a second to figure out why He's got you there?
If you're in the middle of hardship, and I'm not minimizing hardship, nor am I saying be apathetic—que sera, sera—I'm just saying if you're in the middle of some junk right now, God put you there for a reason. Wouldn't it be tragic to go through all this pain, all this anguish, all this hardship, and come out the other side and never learn the lesson? Because if you're His kid, He's going to put you right back in there until you get the lesson. Because He loves you, and that's what you do with somebody you love.
The Parable of the Forgotten Wise Man
Solomon is saying, "Look it, I've looked around, and it doesn't always shake out," is his last point. And this is a sub-point—we'll move quickly. People should honor those who serve others, but they don't. He says, even as we look around at people, we've got a convoluted view. Let me read you the illustration he uses. It's probably a parable, probably not a true story.
Solomon writes this in Ecclesiastes 9:13: "I also saw under the sun an example of wisdom that greatly impressed me. There was once a small city with only a few people in it, and a powerful king came against it, surrounded it, built a huge siege work against it. Now there lived in that city a man, poor but wise, and he saved the city by his wisdom." So here's the context. Here's this city. It's vulnerable, probably easy to overtake. This army comes against it, and this wise man comes up with a scheme. We have no idea what it is. And he saves the city.
Solomon says, "But nobody remembered the poor man." The word "remember" there doesn't just mean recall the event. It carries the idea of reward or honor. And he says this: "Wisdom's better than strength. But the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words aren't healed."
The Foundation of True Wisdom
Solomon starts all this idea by talking about wisdom. He said, "Here's what you need. Don't get sidetracked with the fastest guy, the best looking gal, the best deal, the richest person. What you need to honor are those who have wisdom." What's wisdom? Solomon tells us, wisdom begins with a fear of God. In other words, I got to understand who God is.
I get a call one night, 9:30, which you may not sound late, but I go to bed at 8:30. And this guy called, and he said, "Tom, it's 9:30. I know you go to bed at 8:30. I hope I didn't—I don't want to disturb you, but I got a question I got to ask you. You can call me and answer me tomorrow." And I said, "Well, I actually went to bed at 8:45, but that's irrelevant." He said, "Here's my question. You don't have to answer it tonight. You can answer it in the morning. Should a Christian, or can a Christian get depressed?"
And I said, "Well, I don't need to call you back in the morning. Obviously, yes. Can a Christian get depressed? Sure, absolutely. Can the events of life become so overpowering that they do depress me? Sure they do." And we use that word "depress" in 1,000 different ways, but what he means is discouraged, to the point of resignation. And he said, "Well, that's helpful."
The Difference Between Can and Should
And I said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm awake. We're not done here. It's not, can a Christian get depressed? Here's my question back to you: Should a Christian get depressed? Not can it—I know it can happen. Should it happen?" And the answer to that, by the way, is no.
Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, it's the resurrection chapter. He talks about the resurrection. He talks about the gospel. He talks about the foundations of the Christian faith. He says in there, and it's beautifully stated, "If Christ didn't rise from the dead, then we are wasting our time here." He says, "Thanks be to God. He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."
The same idea is carried by the Apostle Paul in Galatians 6:9: "Let us not grow weary of doing well. Don't get tired of this. Don't get to the point of resignation."
Bringing It All Together
Let me see if I can tie all of this together. Solomon is saying that as you look at life, you've got some things that don't seem right. It seems like everybody should get what they deserve, but it seems like we've got wicked people
who are prospering and good people who aren't. That doesn't seem right. And then he says we've got good people who should succeed and we've got bad people who don't. That doesn't seem right. And he says we've got people who are winners, but they don't seem to win, and losers. That doesn't seem right. What's wrong with this picture? What we might say in the vernacular of our day?
Well, here's what's wrong. We're looking at the world as man looks at it. "My ways are not your ways," says the Lord. We look at things and we try to say this seems fair and this seems right, but our view is jaundiced.
The Need for Time and Perspective
I was watching something on C-SPAN, something on book notes, and they were talking about history, and they were talking about how you can write a history now, but you need at least 50 years away from the event to really begin to grapple with it. And then it may take another 100 or 150 years to really begin to sort it out. And what they're saying is you need time and you need perspective.
You and I need time and perspective, and the only place you're going to get perspective is right here. You aren't going to get it from Bill O'Reilly. You aren't going to get it from Rush. You aren't going to get it from the newspaper, obviously.
Where are you going to get perspective? In a world that's all confused. In a world that really can't figure it out. In a world that says, "Well, this was wrong a few years ago, but we think it's OK now, and we're not really sure then." In a world that says, "I don't even know, where do I find truth? Where do I find moral accuracy?"
Finding True North
Well, here you go. You're lost. You need a compass. You've got to find true north. Right here. You're not going to find it anywhere else. Go read Giuliani. He ain't going to give you true north. Go read Jimmy Carter. He ain't going to give you true north. Here's true north.
I'm not going to give you true north apart from this. I hope you understand that. I hope that when you come, I hope we present this in a way that has some level of understanding to it. I would say enjoy. Enjoy only in the sense that it opens you up to be able to hear the truth, but my view is basically irrelevant. What I think really doesn't matter.
By the same token, when you come to me, I don't really care what you think. This is all that matters. And it takes work. It takes diligence. You have to be a student of the Word. You have to learn how to handle it. But you know what? You can do it.
The Embarrassment of Spiritual Immaturity
It amazes me how some of you can run these complex organizations, and you come to this Word, and all of a sudden you're going, "Well, it's too heavy for me. I don't really get it." Have you studied it? No. It just blows me away.
Or to have you say to me, "I'm just a baby Christian." And I'll say, "How long you been a Christian?" "Seven years." I can't imagine you going in the office today, and the boss said, "I want to talk to you about something." You go, "You know what? I really haven't been here that long. Kind of new to the company." "How long you been here?" "Seven years." You get a sabbatical.
Can you imagine going in today and saying, "I really don't know much about this job or the company or what I do. I've only been here seven years"? It's embarrassing, isn't it? It's because you spend more time with training manuals and newspapers and TV shows and sports games and shopping and golf and everything else than you do in this thing. That's embarrassing. This is written so a child can comprehend the truth.
Missing God's Blessings While Focusing on Unfairness
Here's what Paul's saying. Paul's saying, in this life, you've got a whole bunch of things that don't make sense. And he said, you may even be sitting there today licking your wounds saying, "This isn't fair." And he's saying, you know what? You're spending so much time with the stuff that doesn't seem fair to you that you're missing the blessing God has given you.
If you're here today and you're hurting, maybe it's an economic hurt. Maybe it's your pride that's been damaged. Maybe it's relations that are broken. Maybe it's physical. Maybe you've got some sickness. Maybe it's a cancer. Or maybe it's something that's attacking your nerve system. Maybe you're beginning to lose control of the physical functions of your body.
Trials as Gifts from God
Do you understand? Now, this is going to really sound odd to you. But do you understand that's a gift from God? He says, "Count it all joy when you encounter various trials."
You're going to get around the table at Thanksgiving in a couple weeks. You're going to say, "God, thank you for this and thank you for this house and thank you for this food. Thank you for Mom who prepared it. Thank you for Dad who paid for it. Amen." I guess that's not politically correct, is it? "Thank you for Dad who prepared it and Mom who paid for it." Whatever. You sort all that stuff out.
My point is, are you mature enough to say, "God, thank you for the cancer"? Because it's going to allow me to teach lessons in life that I have no other platform otherwise. If all God does is give, give, give you a blessing, and I mean good things that you want, you aren't going to grow, my friend.
A Personal Relationship with Christ
All of this starts with a personal relationship with Christ. Do you know Him? Are you a Christian? I'm not asking you if you go to church. Whole boatload of people in hell who have gone to church. And they've walked the aisles of Billy Graham crusades and they've checked boxes and prayed prayers.
I'm saying, do you know Christ in an intimate way? Have you acknowledged your sin? Have you embraced Him and Him alone for your salvation? Trusting Him and nothing else. That's what a Christian is. Then heaven is your destination. But He's also changed the way you live here.
And now you begin to look at the world different. And you say, you know what? I don't need to figure out why this guy got this and this guy got that. That's not my job, man. And that's not going to distract me from the big picture. I'm not going to spend my life worrying about the things I don't have or trying to judge other
People are judged by how they handle their stuff. Are we clear that God is not going to judge you by how Bill Gates handles his money? He's going to judge you by how you've lived your life. That's the issue.
Finding Perspective in the Paradoxes
How do you get perspective in this? Here He is, seven weeks. Vanity, vanity, meaningless, meaningless. And yet He gives us little hints that here and there we can find meaning. And we can. Where do you find meaning? Where do you find purpose? Where do you find direction? Session eight of this series that we'll look at next week.
Let's pray. Father, help us see this truth and let it change our lives. God, I thank You for these men and women who spend time to be here and it blows me away each and every week. They've got other things to do and they are very busy with important things. But God, they're here. And I pray that Your Spirit might use these words or this moment or this time to touch their hearts.
Maybe they're not Christians. To open their eyes, to ask them to talk to the person who invited them. Or maybe they're going through adversity that this will give them perspective. God, I don't know, but I know You do. And I'm comfortable in that.
Father, thank You for Your Son, Jesus. We pray to You in His name. Amen. Have a great week.