Emmanuel Baptist Church of Nipawin Sermons

Nothing is harder, or more beautiful, than loyal love.

This is Ecclesiastes' last word. Thankfully, it's not God's last word.

None of us are getting out of here alive. How can we face this reality with hope?

Good friendships are absolutely crucial among brothers and sisters in Christ. But how does a couple move beyond the "friend zone" with integrity and courage?

Even though Ecclesiastes recognizes that wisdom is temporary, it's still better than foolishness. So, we're encouraged to be wise and choose the better way over alternatives that seem easier.

So far, Ecclesiastes has treated everything as meaningless... So what about politics?

Relationships are unavoidable as we live under the sun. How do we do them well?

Passage: Ecclesiastes 7:13-18 | Message By: Chris Hutchison | Series: Bittersweet SymphonyAn old man turned ninety-eight

He won the lottery and died the next day…

A traffic jam when you're already late…

It's a death row pardon two minutes too late…

And isn't it ironic?

Don't you think? 1"Ironic" by Alanis Morissette, Glen Ballard

Those are some lines from Alanis Morissette's 1995 smash hit, "Ironic," a song that recounts all of the ways that life doesn't make sense. How the world doesn't work the way we want it to. How powerless we are in the face of circumstance and how often Murphy's Law tends to work against us.

I wasn't allowed to listen to Alanis Morissette in 1995, and for good reason. Don't take what I'm saying here an an endorsement. But it is interesting to me that, 30 years later, her song captures an aspect of life on planet earth that was almost totally missing from the Christian music that I was allowed to listen to in 1995.

A lot of CCM music from that era can be summed up like this: Life is hard, but it's okay because I'll quote a Bible verse and/or a Christian catchphrase, and you'll feel fine by the second chorus.

But life doesn't work like that. Three minutes and a cliche don't make everything better. Life is hard. Planet earth is a tough place to live. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. Things so often don't make sense.

And that's why I'm so grateful for the book of Ecclesiastes. Qoheleth, the preacher of Ecclesiastes, is relentlessly realistic about life under the sun. In our time today, we'll be looking at a whole bunch of passages in Ecclesiastes that talk about the way that life so often makes no sense and things so often don't work out the way we expect and how there's very little we can do about any of that.

And then we'll see how Ecclesiastes helps us to have a truly authentic faith in the midst of this messy and broken world.

1. A World That Doesn't Make Sense

Let's start with Qoheleth's reflections on a world that doesn't make sense. And we'll start with his reflections on injustice and oppression, picking up with a single verse in chapter 3.

Injustice & Oppression

Verse 16: “Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness” (Ecclesiastes 3:16).

As Qoheleth looks around, he sees a world that isn't working the way it's supposed to. And a key example of that is the way that wickedness had taken root in the place of place.

"The place of justice" or "the place of righteousness" is perhaps a reference to the courts, where cases were tried. In many Israelite towns this happened at the city gates where the elders of the place would decide on cases together.

Their job was to make sure that righteousness and justice was upheld. They were to speak up for the innocent and make sure that the vulnerable was protected. But instead of justice, Qoheleth sees wickedness. The judges were condemning the innocent and protecting the wicked. Perhaps taking bribes, favouring their buddies, protecting their own.

You've no doubt had the experience, or know someone who had the experience, of going to seek a decision from a court or a government official or someone with some power over you, and you're looking for righteousness or justice, and instead a decision is made that is just wrong. It's wicked. And there's nothing you can do about it.

Surely, this is one of the greatest examples we can think of for a world that is not working the way it's supposed to.

We see more examples of a similar experience down in chapter 4, starting in verse 1. “Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them” (Ecclesiastes 4:1).

Powerful people using their power to oppress the vulnerable is almost as old as humanity itself. God told Adam and Eve to have dominion over the earth, but so often we use our power to climb over other people get ahead at other's expense.

Whether it's the bullied child on the school ground or the foreign worker trapped in a bad working environment, whether it's the wife trapped with an abusive husband or a church member being pushed around by a spiritual leader they've been taught to be loyal to at all costs, whether it's the ethnic minority fleeing from genocide or the young girl being sold into slavery to pay off her parent's debts, this world is as full of ugly and awful oppression as it was in Qoheleth's day. The tears of the oppressed pour down, and it doesn't look like anybody can help them.

And rather than trying to do something about any of this, Qoheleth rather bleakly reflects in verses 2-2 that “the dead who are already dead" are "more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 4:2-3).

This is one of those passages that makes us wonder whether Qoheleth, the "preacher" of Ecclesiastes, is the real, real, historical Solomon. In the first couple of chapters of this book, Qoheleth sounded like Solomon, but as we saw, that could have been some historical fiction.

A passage like this confirms that suggestion. As king, it was Solomon's job to make sure that justice and righteousness were upheld. It was his job to root out the bad judges and make sure that the elders of the cities were upholding justice.

But in these verses, and several others like it, Qoheleth sounds not like a king, but like one of us: looking around at a world that is not working the way it should, a world in which the wicked and the powerful make things very hard for the righteous and the weak, and there's very little he can do about it.

Uncontrollable Circumstances

But let's move on, because oppression and injustice are not the only ways that Qoheleth sees the world not working the way we expect. He also looks more broadly at circumstances, which is to say, the things that happen. And he sees that the circumstances of this life so often don't turn out the way we expect them to.

Look at 7:14: “In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him” (Ecclesiastes 7:14).

Here's the idea here. When you're in a time of prosperity, don't expect it to last forever. When you're in a time of trouble, don't expect that to last forever. God has made both of them, and it's up to him when we experience either.

We can't predict what's coming. "Man may not find out anything that will be after him." There's no way for us to control or predict the events that shape our lives. All we can do is enjoy and consider.

Moving on, in verse 15 Qoheleth tells us that in his vain life he's seen everything. And as an example, he tells us, “There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing” (Ecclesiastes 7:15).

Life just doesn't make sense sometimes. No doubt you've seen what Qoheleth sees here. Wicked people getting along just fine, while the righteous struggle and suffer and die young.

He makes the same statement in chapter 8: “There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 8:14).

God had made promises to Israel that if they obeyed him, they would be blessed with long and happy lives. But we have enough examples—think of Jonathan, David's friend—of righteous people who die young through no fault of their own. The things promised to the nation were not always true of every singly individual.

Which means that life is unpredictable, and we don't know which way things are going to turn out. Our circumstances owe more to God's decisions than our behaviour.

We see a similar point made in chapter 9, starting in verse 11: “Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all. For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them” (Ecclesiastes 9:11–12).

Bad things happen to everybody at unexpected times. So it's not necessarily the fastest person that wins the race, nor the the strongest person that wins the battle, nor the smartest person who gets rich. So often, success comes down to things far outside of our control.

This is something that many successful people have recognized. When asked the secret to their success, they'll admit that they're not the wisest or the smartest, but that they had some lucky breaks.

Qoheleth sees the same thing and recognizes how little our behaviour actually influences the outcome of events. Circumstances are outside of our control and we're a lot more like fish or birds, cluelessly waiting for the net to close in on us, than we might think.

Human Limitations

Our powerlessness to change our circumstances connects to a bigger theme in Ecclesiastes about our limitations in general. One of the reasons the world does not work the way we want, one of the reasons life surprises us, is that most of the time we are simply unable to do or get what we want, and there's nothing we can do about it. We are so limited.

This theme of human limitations takes up much of chapter 6, with all kinds of examples. Look at the fist few verses: “There is an evil that I have seen under t

In the Lord, all of our work has eternal value and purpose. As we labour, we are planting seeds that will burst to life in the New Creation.

Treasures in heaven are not less real than treasures on earth. It's the opposite. Eternal treasure is infinitely more real and lasting and substantial than any vapoury treasure we can touch in this life.