Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Anybody recognize the phrase fools rush in? Have you heard that before? Do you know that's a song? I forget who first recorded the song. I know Elvis has covered it. It's also a movie from 1997 with Matthew Perry and Salma Hayek. I've never seen it. But you can go to Wikipedia, that bastion of all information that is true. You can see all about fools rush in. However, the phrase fools rush in originated from the English poet Alexander Pope. Anybody even heard the name Alexander Pope before? Okay, good. He wrote near the end of his an essay on criticism, fools rush in where angels tread. By the way, that essay, an essay on criticism by Alexander Pope, is also where we get the phrases, to err is human, to forgive divine.

He's the one who wrote that. He is also the one who wrote, in that very essay, a little learning is a dangerous thing. Pope's point in his poem, and I actually read, it's a long poem, it's available free on the internet, you can get to it by going to Wikipedia, searching for Alexander Pope, and then list some of his literary works, but you can actually go get an essay on criticism. I actually read more than half of it to try to find the the context of the original phrase, fools rush in where angels tread. I know context.

How valuable is that? Pretty valuable. But anyway, Pope's point in his poem is that bad writing is bad, but bad criticism of bad writing is even worse. Fools are quick, that's why fools rush in where angels tread. Fools are quick to find fault and pick apart and do more damage than they do good, it causes harm when fools rush in. In Ecclesiastes chapter 10 verses 8 through 11, the preacher Solomon addresses the very same problem, bad things happen when fools rush in. Even though you won't find the word fool or the word folly in verses 8 through 11, the previous section which we talked about last time we were together in Ecclesiastes, the previous section, chapter 10, verses 1 through 7, we talked about four facts about folly. It was all about fools and their folly. And then the following section, which we'll look at hopefully next Sunday morning, verses 12 through 15 at least, talks about the fool and his words. And so the section immediately before 8 through and the section right after 8-11 is all about the fool.

Things that describe the fool, the way the fool speaks in the next section following. And so the context leads me to believe that these proverbs in verses 8-11 also concern fools, and specifically fools at work. Verses 8-11 seem to have their own cohesiveness. They seem to go together as a unit. For example, in verse 8, you see the serpent and then verse 11 at the end. So bookending these four verses is discussion about a snake or about serpent, as well as the fact that the two middle verses connect the idea of splitting logs in verse 9 and then the axe or the iron getting dull in verse 10. So, whereas some commentators suggest these verses really have very little to do with each other and they think that the verses altogether in chapter 10 have little to do with each other.

I think that there is a specific connection, a clear connection, in chapter 10, number 1, about fools. And then I think specifically even in verses 8 through 11, it's talking about the fool at work and how the fool rushes in. Wisdom while you work. Maybe that's what the little guy should have sang instead of whistle while you work. Maybe they should have been singing something about wisdom while you work. And there's really two things that we're going to learn from the four verses today. First of all, take appropriate precaution. And then secondly, make appropriate preparations. Take appropriate precaution and make appropriate preparation.

And those are the two things I want you to learn from the passages. Those aren't necessarily the outline. So let me give you the first point in the outline. fools rush in without caution in verses 8 and 9. Read those with me. He who digs a pit will fall into it, and a serpent will bite him who breaks through a wall. He who quarries stones is hurt by them, and he who splits logs is endangered by them. Verses 8 and nine share four snapshots of the consequences of working without caution, without making and taking the appropriate precautions. You are bound to get hurt if you don't pay attention. I know this will have no immediate application for young people who are always making sure to think about what they're doing, especially before they do it and then while they're doing it.

I think junior high as in high schoolers are pretty much our society's models of taking precaution and preparing ahead of time thinking about and being careful in what they do.

So I realize that you may not have a lot to apply from today's passage, but if you could know that at least there are Bible verses for why you're already doing what you do, then you can share that with other people that you're trying to teach, okay? So, you're bound to get hurt if you don't pay attention, and there are, like I said, four snapshots. The first snapshot is digging a pit, the first part of verse 8. This is the first snapshot of the unmindful, that is the not paying attention fool. He who digs a pit will fall into it. Now most of the time, and if you have read through the book of Proverbs, in particular Proverbs chapter 26 verse 27, and then in Psalm 7, especially then in verse 15, this illustration of digging a pit and falling into it is actually a pretty common illustration in the Old Testament, and most of the time in the Old Testament it refers to retribution, and that is you get what you deserve. And so in many other Old Testament passages, wisdom recognizes that what goes

around comes around. That when you try and trap or hurt someone else, more than likely you are going to be trapped or hurt by that very same thing that you are trying to trap or hurt someone else with. Perhaps the perfect example of this is in Esther, and you remember where Haman builds this huge gallows to hang Mordecai.

And I was just rereading it last night and Haman builds this 50 qubit high. A qubit is 18 inches. So this is like some huge gallows to hang his enemy Mordecai. And he builds it near his house. Apparently Haman wanted everybody to know that this hanging was taking place, and he wanted everybody to know that it was associated with him. Like he was the one that should receive the praise for it. I'm guessing that based on how big he made it. Well, what's a foot and a half times 50? 70, thank you.

75 feet is a little bit unnecessary to hang somebody. I'm just saying. Even Goliath didn't need gallows that tall in order to accomplish the task. So this is a huge contraption that Haman builds 50 cubits tall, and he builds it near his house. And what ends up happening? Haman is hung in the very gallows that he had specially crafted for someone else. That perhaps is the ultimate example in scripture of this principle of retribution. And so the proverb is, he who digs a pit will fall into it himself. And that's certainly true, there is sweet irony in much providential punishment. But, in order for us to interpret retribution as what goes around comes around, as the point here in Ecclesiastes chapter 10 verse 8, we are forced to read into the verse ill intentions on the part of this pit-digger.

There's nothing in the context that suggests bad motives or ill will on the part of this particular pit digger. Whereas, as I mentioned before, in Proverbs 26, verse 27, where you find out about digging pits and falling into it, the context there involves wicked people and lying people. And then in Psalm 7, read all of Psalm 7, especially around verse 15, The context makes it obvious that it's talking about people who are trying to hurt or trap others, who then fall into the very trap they've created for somebody else. But here in Ecclesiastes chapter 10, there's nothing said about when the pit was dug, or anything about the purpose of the pit.

So I think it's hard to say that the point here is that you'll be hurt if you try to hurt others. And instead, I think the point very simply is, be careful when you're digging a pit. That's the point. Be careful. You could get hurt. Exercise some caution. The walls might fall in on you if it's a big enough pit, or specifically as the verse then suggests, if you're not paying attention, you might forget about the pit and accidentally fall into it yourself. I was trying to think about if that's ever happened to me. I'm not digging lots of pits. But I did remember there were a few times at least. So this would have been almost two summers ago now.

We were working on, Mr. Wenling in particular was the foreman. We were working on putting in a sprinkler system at my house and my yard. And for a while there, there were just ditches for the sprinkler system pipes all over the place. And there were a few times, I can't remember something specifically, specifically, but I do remember there were a few times it seems like where I had to go out in the dark and get something, like I had to go pick up the tools so I didn't have to leave them out overnight and it was dark and I would totally fall into the ditches that we had made. I didn't dig the ditches to trap anybody.

Like that, that was not the goal. There was good reason to dig those ditches and nevertheless, because I wasn't paying attention, I fell into them. That happens in all kinds of other things as well. proverb is a principle. I was trying to think of something else maybe that I had done recently where I had intended something good by what I had done and it came back to bite me. For example, a couple weeks ago, Mo has not been feeling that great in her pregnancy here at the beginning. She had went to bed early and I kind of shut the door a little bit so that it would keep the noise out, but that I could still hear because I was back in the room and I was doing some reading while she was sleeping. So I kind of shut the door a little bit. Then I went to bed and in the morning I got up. It was an early morning.

It was totally dark and I had gone into my little study. If you know the floor plan back at that end of the house, you may be able to picture this in your head. So I went into my study because I had to get my keys and some things like that. And I walked right out of my study and just bam right into the end of the door that I had left half open and half closed, trying to do something nice in helping keep the noise out. And yeah, I ran into it so hard right with my face. I bent my glasses. I had to go get them re-tweaked because that's how hard I hit the end of the door. I wasn't paying attention. Now it was pitch black.

I would like to think if the lights were on, I would have not walked right into the door. would have been paying attention enough, but nevertheless sometimes you can do things that have good intentions behind them that can still come back and hurt you if you're not paying attention and being cautious. Even when you're trying to do something good it may hurt you later if you don't use your head. So digging a pit, that's the first snapshot. Breaking a wall from the second part of Verse 8 is the second snapshot of the oblivious fool. It says this, a serpent will bite him who breaks through a wall. Now again, there are some who suggest that there are ill intentions on the part of this person who is breaking through the wall.

Namely, like this guy is trying to break into his neighbor's house. as a thief, as a robber to try to steal something, and so while breaking through the wall, he gets bit by this snake. But just like with the pit digger, we have to read bad motives into the verse in order to make that conclusion. And there's nothing in the context which says this is for bad motives or for thievery.

And I wondered, was this really like the typical pattern of thieves, was to try to break through the wall, like just to get their hand into the wall. What was that actually doing? I don't think they had doorknobs with locks, deadbolts like we do, so they were trying to break through the wall right by the door so they could reach in and then unlock the door. That wouldn't have been the common setup of walls and doors for them some 2,500, 3,000 years ago. I don't think that was at least based on everything that I know of Israel's history of thievery. So let's take the verse as it is. If you're breaking through a wall for whatever reason, good or bad, likely for some kind of demolishing purposes, good or bad though, be careful. Obviously remember that the walls in ancient Israel were not like ours today. They didn't have concrete blocks or bricks or a mortar that was fine enough and that dried tight enough that it would be surprising to us, not impossible if a snake or a serpent got into the middle of our walls. But it'd be much more difficult

today with our setup than it would have been for them where the walls were typically held together by small stones and pebbles, a looser kind of filler where a snake could easily make his nest. And the point is, if you know it's a possibility that when you're breaking up a wall you might find a snake, don't just stick your hand in there and let your fingers do the walking. Use a tool or wear some gloves or look around before just sticking your hand into the wall and rushing in when you know there's the potential of danger, of difficulty, fools just rush in instead of taking the proper precaution. So, digging a pit, breaking a wall, the third snapshot is corrying stones. At the beginning of verse 9, he who quarries stones is hurt by them. This is another common activity, just like digging pits, I suppose, is common for the various reasons, maybe whether that was a man-made cistern or whatever it is. Obviously, if you're doing remodeling, you might have to break down the walls. And so corrying stones is another common activity that they might have done. Unlike the first

two, though, nowhere did any commentator that I read suggest that corrying stones had a negative connotation, like that would have been used for some bad purpose. Like He who quarries stones is hurt by them because he's trying to cut stones to throw at other people. You are going to be hurt by throwing stones because they're rubber and your glue and whatever bounces off of them hits you. Nobody suggested that there are bad intentions going along with this one. So this is just a person who's cutting rocks. Who knows the reason? It doesn't say. Who knows whether they're trying to cut big rocks or small rocks? Who knows what kind of rocks?

Who knows how they're doing it? Because there is potential harm involved, the rock cutter should be careful. Don't stand right underneath the huge rock you're trying to cut away from the face of the rock wall. Don't stand right underneath that. I think that's a good thing. Don't stand right on top of it. And then try to do the walking down the rock as it rolls down the hill. Don't do that. Maybe they needed to learn to cut away from themselves as opposed to cut towards themselves. Your mom always teaches you that when you're using a knife. The point here is that even though you can't guarantee to avoid hurt, you can at least do some things to minimize the potential risk, minimize the danger, minimize the hurt.

Fools rush in. They don't even think about it. Solomon's saying pay attention. The fourth snapshot of the unconcerned fool is splitting logs. The last part of verse 9, he who splits logs is endangered by them. Likewise, there are no criminal suggestions for log cutters like there are with pit diggers and wall breakers. Just another simple daily task. Somebody's got to do it and it's possible to get hurt when you're doing it. Now in Deuteronomy chapter 19 verse 5, there is a law. God gives a law for what to do if two guys go out into the woods and they're chopping down trees and the head of the axe flies off the handle and lands in the other person's head and they die.

Gotta do something about those loose axe handles if there's an entire law for a nation about what to do if that happens. a nail on the top or soak it in water, a bucket of water before you go out and let the wood swell up and hold the axe head on because that's bad news. If you're swinging back and the head flies off into somebody else's head, there's a law about that because that's obviously an accident and therefore then it was not the same thing as murder. So there was a particular way to handle that. However, this verse doesn't say anything about another person. It seems unlikely to me, I was trying to imagine how this could happen, that you would be out in the woods cutting logs by yourself and the head would fall off the handle and land on your own head.

It's more feasible to imagine that happening to somebody else who's out in the woods with you than like you're swinging straight up and it flies straight up. Because even at that point you'd think you'd be watching out for the head coming down. I don't know, in fact I'm sure that that's not really what it's suggesting based on the fact that it's not the axe that he suggests could hurt you. It seems like he's saying he who splits logs is endangered by them, by the logs. Maybe you're chopping wood and you come down and a piece of, you know, a chip of wood shoots off of the log and just stabs you right in the leg in a major artery.

that happens or maybe you're like on a stack of logs and then they roll on top of you. It doesn't really say how it could happen except that you should be careful. Fools rush in. And in all four of these activities, I said it just a moment ago, but it applies for all four of these activities. You can't guarantee your safety. You can't guarantee that you're not going to get hurt and that you can avoid every accident, but the answer is not to then just stay home all day and sit on the couch and be like, well, I don't want to go cut down the logs because I might get hurt. Solomon hates laziness and inactivity and excuse makers as much as anything.

So that is not the point of these proverbs, to then just stay home and be fearful and chew your nails until there's nothing more to chew because whoa, you might get hurt if you go do something. That's not his point. The point is to keep your head up and pay attention to what you're doing. I think that probably has application for every day of your life. your head don't rush into things without any caution, you might get hurt. So, fools rush in without any caution, and then that leads to the second major point, fools rush in without preparation, verses 10 and 11. Here we just have two illustrations that point out wasted energy and potential danger of not making adequate preparations.

Both of these begin with if. Both require skill to get things ready, to get things done. Verse 10, so two illustrations, two pictures. Verse 10 is chopping trees. Verse 11 is charming snakes. So the first picture here, verse 10. This verse actually leads to one of my favorite time management stories of all time. I'll tell you about that. Verse 10, if the iron is blunt and one does not sharpen the edge, he must use more strength, but wisdom helps one to succeed. The Hebrew word is actually iron. I know that the NAS translates it as the head of the axe. is undoubtedly what it's referring to, but the word itself in Hebrew is just the word for iron.

Obviously, it means the part of a tool that you would use because obviously the activity is sharpening the edge. What would be the point of sharpening the edge if you weren't trying to cut something down? Seems like that is even connected with verse 9 in the chopping down trees. It is important to sharpen the edge if you want to chop trees successfully. Doug Wilson in his inimitable way likens it to a boy cutting down a tree with a baseball bat.

That's not gonna work, so sharpen the edge. I heard a story based on this verse one time in a time management class. It's actually, if you've heard of, the seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey, a very time management oriented thing, the seven habits of highly effective people. The seventh principle is actually called sharpen the saw and it's a whole illustration based off of I think this verse and he goes into this whole thing about how there was this young man, a recent graduate from high school in a small logging town and the goal of the aim of this young man he wanted to be a tree faller, he wanted to chop down the trees for this logging company, that was like his goal in life.

And so upon graduation from high school, he goes and applies. He knew he was a little bit too young, but he goes and applies and he speaks with the foreman and he basically persuades the foreman to just give him a shot, give him one opportunity. He says, I'll work harder than anybody else. I'll meet the quota that's required on a daily basis. Just give me a shot. And so the foreman eventually decides that that's something that's acceptable and so he gives the guy an assignment, sends them to a particular spot in the forest. The young man goes out with his axe and he is there early. He starts chopping down the trees.

The morning break comes, works right through it. Everybody else, all the older guys, they stop, they ask him coffee, whatever it is, they take their break. He keeps working right through that. Call for lunch time. He stops long enough to eat his sandwich. That's all he does. right back to work, takes the rest of his hour and gets back to chopping down trees, works right through the afternoon break. And by the end of the day, he's totally exhausted and he's however many trees behind everybody else. He goes and he talks with the foreman, he can't believe how under the quota he was. He's exhausted, he was working hard all day long, he can't figure out how it was that he came so short.

So he's talking with the foreman and the foreman's asking him some questions. The guy's explaining, I worked through the morning break, I worked through the afternoon break, I worked through the majority of my lunch. I still couldn't catch up with the rest of the guys by the end of the day. The foreman asked him the simple question, did you ever stop and sharpen your axe? The young man said, well, I didn't have the time. The foreman explains, well, it's no wonder because with your dull blade, you spent more energy and were less successful than if you would have taken an appropriate break and sharpened the edge of your axe.

Stephen Covey's sharpen the saw is that whole idea. He goes into how that applies personally. You have physical things and emotional things and mental things and spiritual things that you need to do as a person to make sure that your saw is sharp. I think about that sometimes. So you as a person, like your life, you are the saw. And you want to make sure that as you're trying to accomplish things in your life, manage your time, that you are as sharp as you could be. The point obviously though is that the more your blade is dulled, the more effort you waste. And sometimes it's necessary to work smart, not just hard.

Sometimes you just need to put more elbow grease and more sweat into what you're doing. Sometimes you need to stop and sharpen the blade. Solomon puts this into the wisdom category. He says wisdom helps one to succeed. A little preparation can actually save you a lot of time and potentially a lot of effort. That's true in many areas of life. Use your head, think ahead. Fools rush in. If you want to keep eating when you're 80, I recommend brushing your teeth now. You may not think it's going to be a big problem, but you should do some preparation. Now, you'll be glad that you did later. Not necessarily sharpen your teeth but at least keep them clean. Change the oil in your car before the light dings and certainly before the smoke comes out. Like is that a good time to change the oil in your car? Yeah, it might actually be a little bit too late.

Fools rush in, they're not thinking about it, they're not doing any preparation and it causes them harm. So sharpen the saw, sharpen the edge. The second picture of the importance of preparation is charming snakes. Verse 11, if the serpent bites before it's charmed, there is no advantage to the charmer. And you're like, awesome. It does actually make a good point though, I think snake Snake charming is a little bit different than all of the other activities. Most of the time snake charming would have been something done for entertainment, for a show, as opposed to like really necessary in life. Perhaps you were wandering through the desert and you came across a snake and you happened to have a snake charmer traveling with you and that worked out good.

Most of the time it seems like snake charming was something done like I say for entertainment for for a show Unlike the other activities which are more daily work. You can imagine people needing to do those kinds of things a little bit more Most snake charmers were putting on a show. It was a mysterious occupation But it was something that took great skill and Solomon points out that you can know someone with great skill to solve your issue, but at some point it's too late to get their counsel. Imagine that it's a Tuesday afternoon and I'm really excited to see this particular snake get charmed. I'm in such a hurry that I don't want to wait for the snake charmer to come, so I just go to the basket and take the lid off, take the snake out to take it to the snake charmer. Well, he's going to charm it. That's going to be too late. By the time you get to the person who has the skill to calm down the snake, because you just reach right in and try to grab it, to take it, to get the counsel, to take it to the person who had

the skill, but that's too late. And so even though someone has skill, someone could have doesn't something about it, before that skill is applied, before the wisdom is used, it ends up being too late. In this case, haste makes waste of you. Again, you don't get the appropriate counsel, get the person who has the skill to help in the particular situation. Some situations require counsel before it's too late. There is no advantage to the charmer. You could be best friends with the charmer. You could hang out all the time. It is of no advantage to you to know the charmer if you're dead because the snake already bit you.

Get counsel, get the wisdom, get the advice. Find the person with the skill to handle the situation ahead of time before it's too late. Sometimes it really is better to wait. You're like, nah, I've seen the farmer do that. I can figure that out. I'll just grab it. I've seen the Discovery Channel. I know. You just grab it right behind its head and hold it and it can't bite you. I can do that. I stayed at Holiday Inn Express last night. Obviously, I know how to do that. Or you can just totally think the snake hasn't bitten anybody in like three months. It probably isn't even going to bite me. There's no need to be concerned.

It'll be okay. So I'll just reach in, grab the snake, and take it to the charmer at that point. It's not going to bite me. You can hurry because you're unwilling to be patient and wait. You can just not believe that the bad things are going to happen. Solomon puts that in the category of being a fool. That's why the title for the message is, Fools Rush In. In both cases, verse 10 and in verse 11, in both cases some wisdom in preparation would have helped. In verse 10, it would have saved time, energy, and effort. Would have kept that from being wasted.

In verse 11, the issue actually seems to be life, not just advantage, it is of no advantage that you know a charmer or that you can get a charmer if you've already been bitten by the snake. That's not going to do you any good. And sometimes we would do very well to not only then be cautious and think about what we're doing, but to make some preparations for it as well. It seems like, especially with verse 11, there are times when we need to get counsel, we need to get somebody who knows more than we do about the situation to help us figure it out. Like parents, or small group leaders, or the people that God has put in our lives who we may doubt, but it probably is true that they know more than we do. And instead of getting into the mess, because we were careless and thoughtless and made no preparation at all before we made a decision or before we said something or before we went to a particular place, took on more than we could handle. It's better to wait, it's better to get counsel and listen to that counsel. So work carefully.

Verses 8 and 9, work smartly. Verses 10 and 11, keep your head up and think Take ahead, look ahead. Take appropriate precautions and make appropriate preparations that will save you time, that will save you energy, honestly, that may save your life on a physical level and on a spiritual level from just making really dumb, foolish choices that you pay for the rest of your life. rush in. We don't want to be fools. Father, thanks for this wisdom from Solomon. Please help us as young people to be quick to hear and slow to speak so that we might get wisdom. Help us to value wisdom and even as we covered this morning help us to take appropriate precautions, keep our heads up watching out for what's going on. Help us also then to take appropriate preparations so that we're ready with wisdom for what you bring into our lives. We pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon draws a very distinct line between wisdom and folly. And even though wise people and foolish people have the same end, that is, both of them die, wise people die and foolish people die, the advantage still goes to wisdom, so much so that at the end of chapter 9, when we were in Ecclesiastes last a few weeks ago, At the end of chapter 9, we studied the story of a poor man who saved a city with his wisdom. Though they were outnumbered, it was a huge mismatch. A poor but wise man saved an entire city. That was chapter 9, verses 13 through 16. And then we saw in verses 17 and 18 how wisdom is more powerful than weapons of war.

Wisdom has great power. fact wisdom is potent. And as we move into chapter 10, the preacher parcels out a plethora of proverbs, not pinatas, but he's got a plethora of proverbs for us. And the goal of these proverbs is to help make us wise. And he begins in verses 1 through 7, even though pretty much just verses 1 through 4 are the proverbs specifically, but he begins this first section with truth concerning fools or as the title of the message is facts about folly and we're going to look at four facts about folly. The goal of this is so that you would see how stupid it is to live foolishly and how much of an impact folly making poor choices, poor decisions without using your mind for you to see how ugly folly is and for you to want to avoid that and then oppositely pursue wisdom. So in helping us get wisdom, he's showing us the opposite of that in folly so that we'd want to avoid that. Four facts about folly. Number one, folly ruins a good reputation. Folly ruins a good reputation.

It only takes a little bit of foolishness to ruin what was otherwise a good, healthy, strong reputation and character. Look at verse 1. Dead flies make the perfumer's ointment give off a stench." What a fantastic picture that is. Or maybe aroma, we would say. But dead flies make the perfumers' ointment give off a stench. So, in a similar way, likewise, a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. Now there's no doubt that verse Verse 1 is connected with the last verse in chapter 9 where we saw, chapter 9 verse 18, wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good. And though it connects with the last verse in chapter 9, I think that for a couple reasons we should see it's reasonable for the guys who divided the Bible into chapters and verses.

It's reasonable for them to have started a new chapter here because the style changes from more prose to proverb in addition to that, in chapter 9 verse 18 it was one fool, one sinner and his impact on an entire group of people and now what we see in chapter 10 verse 1 is the problem of folly in the same person. So you got a group of people that we're talking about in chapter 9 verse 18 and how one bad apple can spoil the whole bushel. But in chapter 10 verse 1, what you've got is the same person who's got a great, a good reputation and just a little bit of folly comes in and ruins that. Like many proverbs, and you know you really should be reading proverbs on a regular basis. Proverbs are written to young people to help them grow in wisdom. That was one of the best choices, really really it was one of the best choices to follow the advice I got from people when I was in high school to read through Proverbs, read a chapter a day, 31 chapters in Proverbs, most months or a lot of months have the 31 days I've said it before but that was an

excellent exercise. I'm going back through the Proverbs on a daily basis now and a little bit taking shorter chunks but there's just so much excellent stuff in Proverbs. If you're familiar with Proverbs at all, you know that it's pretty typical for a proverb to start with a mundane or with an earthly picture that everybody can imagine or that you've seen before, that it's common to our experience. And it moves from that mundane picture illustration to the point, to the more abstract thing, and certainly that's the case here in chapter verse 1, the point is made in the second half but the picture is made in the first half.

Dead flies make the perfumers ointment give off a stench. Now that illustration is pretty simple even I think junior hires can understand it. If they're listening junior hires can understand it. Get into your mind you can visualize a perfumer, that really is a word by the way, a perfumer, somebody who produces or who markets perfume, smell good lotion and juice. Picture this perfumer who is blending a batch of his or her favorite fragrance when when a small insect falls into the mix. Now the formula is off and the dead bug turns the pleasant scent, which by the way is the point of perfume. Those of you who select the questionable fragrances, that's not the point to lather yourself up in questionable lotion. The idea of perfume is to cover what is already a bad smell with a pleasant smell, not to cover a neutral smell with a unpleasant smell. So what we have here is the pleasant scent is turned into a stench. Now try to market that because we need to make sure we Because we need to make sure we are understanding how bad this picture is.

So you're the perfumer, you're making some perfume, your favorite fragrance. A dead fly or some dead flies fall in. It really starts stinking the place up. But you decide you don't want to waste that batch. So you bottle it up and you sell it anyway. There you are on the street and here come these nice ladies and they're spraying it on their neck. You know, they're trying it out on their wrists. And basically what they're doing is they're spraying dead bug guts onto themselves and you know trying to smell it and see if that's just lovely. I think rightly we would say that's disgusting. There are plenty of other ways to get dead bug guts on you if you want it rather than to see that falling into perfume and then creating a stench.

And that is how disgusting folly is to a good reputation. That's how inappropriate foolishness is to wisdom and honor. It doesn't take much to make a man's reputation stink. That's the point that Solomon makes in the second half of verse 1. So a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. Now when I first read that, I tended to think that it related to chapter 9 verse 18, like I mentioned earlier, that it was a person, a fool, coming into a group of wise and honorable people and messing up the group. But I don't think that's the case.

I think like I said, this is one individual, it's the same person, who up to this point in their life has become known for their wisdom and honor. It's someone with character, someone with a good reputation, and all it takes is a little folly to blow the whole thing. It takes just one bad choice to ruin what was otherwise a good reputation. The idea of reputation is clearly intended here in chapter 10 verse 1. Look back at Ecclesiastes 7 verse 1, a good name is better than precious ointment. It's the idea that each one of us by how we live, what we say, how we say it, how we respond to people, the choices that we make. Each one of us by how we live, we are giving off an aroma. There is an aroma about you when you walk into a room. You are giving off some kind of smell, and I mean that metaphorically, figuratively, though some of you do give off a literal smell, but we all give off a smell, an aroma, a fragrance when we walk into a room, when we go home, when we come into 128. And a good reputation is likened to a pleasant fragrance. And in other words, a man's reputation

is an aroma and one small mistake can make the whole thing smell. Smell poorly. Perhaps there are a couple more things we can say about this. I mean, why is that the case that just one small bad, folly decision can ruin a person's entire reputation? Well, I think one thing is folly is worse when you expect wisdom. It would kind of be like going to the perfume counter, I suppose, getting the tester bottle and spraying it on your wrist and wafting the smell, what you expect at that point in time is that, you know, to have gotten to that point, somebody else had smelled it. And so it didn't smell like Junior High Boys' locker room by that point. It shouldn't have gotten to that level. You expect something different. But when you expect wisdom and honor and what you get folly, it stands out even more. It's a surprise. Vomit, for example, Vomit does not really stand out that much on 70s shag carpet. If you step in it, it's unpleasant, but it's not a big surprise.

On the other hand, Vomit would really stand out on a white tile floor. It doesn't soak in. It's just up there for everybody to see. All of its beautiful color and ray is there. So, it kind of depends on what you're expecting. How much ketchup does it take to ruin a white dress shirt? In fact, you get just a little bit of ketchup on that white dress shirt, and that's all people are going to see. Because what they expect is white, pristine, clean, it stands out. And so folly outweighs, it stands over, it makes a bigger impact than wisdom and honor because you expect something different. So again, I think part of the reason for this is because folly is worse when you expect or you've become accustomed to that person living with wisdom and honor. But a second thing is folly is pungent on its own.

you have lived wisely and nobly up to that point or not. Folly is pungent. Folly stands out all by itself. Like a fire burns, you just expect, when you have a fire that requires that it's burning. It's the nature of a fire to burn. So the nature of folly is to ruin. water makes things wet, folly soils a man's character, and I say that to make the point, do not think it's okay to be just a little stupid. Well, you know, generally I make good decisions. For the most part I try to think about what I'm doing before I do it or try to think about what I say before I say it. A little stupid decision isn't going to to be that big of a deal. You don't know that. A little folly, just a teeny amount, like a dead fly ruins a whole batch of perfume, so just one wrong word in response. One off-the-cuff remark. How much poison does it take to corrupt water? If you've got a bucket of water, how How much poison does it take to put in there before you're not going to want to drink any of it?

You don't have to make it a 50-50 deal. Ooh, well, as long as there's not more poison than water, I'll still drink it. Now, you know that a drop of poison has gone into a pool of water. You're still going to be unlikely to drink it, and that's the same kind of impact that that a little bit of folly can have on an otherwise good reputation. If you play with folly, your reputation is bound to get singed no matter how wise or noble you've lived up to this point. And a little dab of folly will do you in. It doesn't take much thought to figure out how to illustrate this. Hans and Franz illustrate it. And they talk about Jimmy the Greek Snyder.

Guys, most of you students won't remember this, but Jimmy the Greek Snyder was a football commentator on CBS for the NFL. And one time he was just talking about how black men have bigger thighs than white men. And of course Hans and Franz took that and they're like, that's not true. That little Webster guy from TV, he could live inside of one of my thighs, was their point. And Michael Jackson, he could live in the other one. And they'd take your head and stick it in between their thighs and squeeze your brain out like a tube of toothpaste all over the bathroom sink. And three out of four dentists won't recommend you for anything at that point.

But Hans and Franz made mention of that, because this football commentator, Jimmy the Greek That's Jimmy, the Greek, was his nickname. He got fired. He had been a football commentator, I don't know how long, 10, 15 years plus, I'm sure. One afternoon making comments simply saying black men have bigger thighs than white men got fired. His career was done. He didn't ever, as far as I know, find another station that would take him in so that he could commentate on football games anymore. One off-the-cuff silly remark. There's no reason to say it. It's not necessarily bigoted. Jimmy the Greek was not black himself, so it's not like he was criticizing black men for having bigger thighs.

He was, seems like praising them for having bigger thighs, even though Hans-Efranz disagreed. The point is that one small little remark ruined his reputation, cost him his career. It's so dangerous for you guys because you think that one dumb choice isn't going to change things. It's like a perpetual reset button. That's one of the things I guess I've observed about the video game culture is if you don't like how you're playing that game, you just hit the reset button and you start over again. You don't get to do that with life. That's part of the reason why the theme for this year is playing for keeps. Because what you do now impacts not just what happens later on today, but what happens next week and what happens 10, 15, 20, 30 years down the road.

Some of you, what you put on your Facebook, your MySpace, your folly that you demonstrate is maybe going to keep you from getting a job in the future. It's going to keep you from getting into college, potentially. One little thing will do that. Because most colleges ask you now to say if you have a blog or a Facebook or a MySpace, they want to see what your character is like. And some of you are just displaying that folly for everybody to see, let alone the fact that just a little bit can do you in. Folly ruins what was otherwise a good reputation. How serious are you about avoiding folly? Is that even on your radar screen?

Are you serious about avoiding senseless, foolish, brainless activity? You should be. Your reputation depends on it. Here's a second fact about folly. Folly originates from a central location. Folly originates from a central location, namely your heart. Your direction in life is determined by what is in your heart. Verse 2, a wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left. Every decision that you make sprouts from the inside, from the heart. Your heart is like a spring or a reservoir out of which your life flows. Sounds familiar. Sounds like something we've heard about recently. What comes out in your life, the direction that you go, starts in a central location.

It starts in your heart. Verse 2 is an antithetical proverb. That is, it makes the point twice by showing it from the two contrasting or two opposing perspectives. there are two directions your heart can lean. You lean. Each one of you lean already without anybody pushing you from the outside. Your heart leans in one of two directions, to the right or to the left. And though I think Solomon's primary point in verse two is to identify that the source or the origination of wisdom and folly comes from the heart. Still as As you look through scripture, right and left typically picture different things. For example, the right often symbolizes strength and prosperity and favor and honor, while going to the left generally pictured apathy and incompetence and loss and shame.

Sorry about that for you left-handers. Various groups and cultures of people have been concerned about left-handers. him my grandfather was convinced that something was wrong with my dad because he kept picking up everything with his left hand. At various points of time people have tried to correct left handers by every time they pick something up with their left hand, smack in their hand so that they'd start picking it up with their right. Because there is an idea, however it came about, that to the right there was prosperity and honor, and to the left there was incompetence, loss, and shame, and humiliation. I don't think that about right and left handers. My wife is left hander. I love her. I think she's awesome. But what I am saying is that right and left in Scripture generally picture these two different results and lifestyles, and what you get in your life is determined in your life is determined by what's in your heart.

You can't blame somebody else. When you're in class and a group of people are talking and messing around and doing things that are inappropriate and you join in, that's not because they made you do that. It's not because you didn't have any other choice. It's because that's how your heart was already leaning. You're already leaning towards making those kinds of decisions, yeah? Different circumstances, different kinds of people can put temptations in your path, that is true, but ultimately you go the way that your heart is already leaning. It is a false claim to wisdom when you keep going to the left even though everybody who cares about you is pleading with you to go to the right. You can't claim wisdom, you can't claim that your intentions were really good. No, because how you go where you are directed to what you choose, that comes out of your heart. Folly sprouts internally from a central location from the heart. Number three, the third fact about folly. Not only Does folly ruin a good reputation and originate from a central location?

Number three, folly broadcasts a clear signal. It may happen for a while, but ultimately it's going to be impossible to hide folly. Verse three, even when the fool walks on the road, he lacks sense. He says to everyone that he is a fool. The fool walking on the road is probably a literal picture, meaning the fool, is actually walking down a real road. Meaning what we have here is a fool who is out for a stroll, out for a nice little walk. All he's doing is walking down the road and what is observable about him is that he lacks sense. It doesn't actually take a lot to walk down the road. But somehow in his bumbling down the road, it becomes obvious to everybody that he lacks sense. It's interesting and some of your translations may even have it this way, but the phrase is actually lacks heart or his heart is lacking.

There's a problem with his heart. It's obvious by how he walks down the road that there's a problem on the inside. What is inside comes out. You can't hide it. You can disguise it for a while. You can try to cover it up, but ultimately it will be revealed for other people to see. He lacks sense, is probably better translated, his heart is lacking. There's an issue in that central location. By his bumbling behavior and his silly speech, whether that's implicitly from his example or explicitly by the words he actually uses, the fool broadcasts his folly in high definition. There is a clear signal. You can put it up, it's like a big screen HD TV plasma screen, blah blah blah, whatever. What is in your heart comes out and is obvious for everybody to see. And isn't it interesting that most fools hate that other Other people think that they're a fool.

They hate that. They can't stand that. They are offended when a peer or a parent or a teacher judges them. Well, you don't know me. Well, yes we do. We do know you because we hear what you've said and we watch what you do and we see you respond to other people and we know the decisions, the kind of decisions that you make. Yes, we do know you because even when you walk down the road, you are broadcasting the signal of what is in your heart. And that's either going to be wisdom or that's going to be folly. It's obvious either way. Folly speaks volumes. Look, if you don't want other people to think that you're a fool, stop acting like one. That's really, really simple.

You don't want other people to think that you act in foolishness and folly. Then act like a wise person. You can't act like a fool and then be surprised, oh how did it happen that other people think I'm a fool? Well because even how you walk down the road, it doesn't take much discernment or a lot of time to figure out because the signal is clear. It's in high definition what is in your heart. Folly broadcasts a clear signal. That leads us to the fourth fact about folly. Last one, folly infiltrates in high places. It would be really nice to think that folly was reserved for people that we don't have to interact with and certainly that people who are in positions of authority over us would not have folly.

But that's not the case. infiltrates itself in high places. Look at verse 4, If the anger of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your place, for calmness will lay great offenses to rest. Then read verses 5 through 7 as well. There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, as it were, an error proceeding from the ruler, folly, is set in many high places, and the rich sit in a low place. I have seen slaves on horses and princes walking on the ground like slaves." Now some people would say verse 4 has nothing to do with verses 1-3. They sometimes see connection between verse 4 and verses 5-7, but they kind of think these are isolated things.

I can't see any reason why they would be isolated from each other. Though verse 4 doesn't use the word folly explicitly, I think that we can make a connection here, namely that verse 4 is giving counsel on how to deal with a foolish authority. We just talked about how folly demonstrates itself. It broadcasts in a clear signal, and some of the people that we see folly in most clearly are those who have some position of authority, those who are in some ruling kind of office. More than likely, verse 4 and then verses five through seven are not referring to a king, but to some kind of official, some kind of superior, maybe a boss or a lower court judge, somebody who is in a position of authority, and it's connected then telling us how to deal with them in their foolishness and in their folly.

There's good reason, I think, to believe that verse four is connected with verses one through through three in this idea of folly, because where does anger come from? It obviously comes from the heart. But look back at chapter seven verse nine. In the wisdom literature, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes itself, as well as in the context of chapter ten, I think we should see that there is an explicit connection between anger and folly. Ecclesiastes 7 verse 9, Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the bosom of who? Fools. You know what kind of people get angry? Fools. I know. I'm one of them or am trying to be less of one of them.

Angry people are foolish people. Angry people are not using their mind. They're not recognizing some very basic truths like, I'll use myself as an example, if I were to get angry because somebody didn't do something that I wanted them to do, then It's foolish for me to act that way because I'm acting like I'm God. That's foolish. Because I'm not. I might wish I was, I might like to be. But that's foolish for me to think that. I'm not using my mind. I'm not God. They don't have to serve me. It's foolish because I'm forgetting about God's sovereignty, that He's in control of what's happening and not me. It's foolish because I'm not walking in the spirit and being full of his fruit, love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, meekness, long suffering.

So it is a fool who gets angry. And I think what we have here in verse 4, back in chapter 10, is the irate reaction of a ruler who's a fool. infiltrates even high positions by inverse four causing irate reactions. If the anger the ruler rises against you do not leave your place for calmness will lay great offenses to rest. You know it's possible that you could have done something genuinely to make the ruler angry. That's possible. But remaining calm when you've done something that deserves punishment doesn't necessarily guarantee to get you out of it. I mean, that's fine for you to remain calm. If you've blown it, you've messed up, and the authority is irritated about it, you should remain calm and take your punishment and endure that.

That's true, but I'm not sure that you can get out of the consequences just by remaining calm. is, if a ruler is, I think, foolishly angry with you, angry with you for no good reason, then perhaps it's possible for you to persuade them to stop being angry with you by your calm, your cool, your collected response. Don't add your foolishness, don't add a foolish response on your part to an irate leader or authority or boss. The idea here is don't walk off in a huff. Your boss comes in, blames you for something that you didn't do, and you're like, that's it. I'm out of here. You can't treat me like that. Not only have you lost your job now, you have lost reputation, you likely have lost any kind of recommendation.

So don't react foolishly on your part to a leader or superior or a boss, a ruler, a judge, whoever might be who is irately foolish or foolishly irate with you. The wrong thing to do is storm off. Don't leave your place. Be calm, be patient, be respectful, and perhaps that will persuade them to stop being so angry with you. But not only then in verse 4 does Folly infiltrate high positions by causing irate reactions, I think Folly also infiltrates high places by causing irrational decisions. And that's the point in verses 5 through 7. This is a story of error. This This is a mistake. This is an oversight where some person in a authoritative position puts into position somebody else who doesn't deserve to be there.

Now that never happens. The people who have authority always deserve that authority. Bosses are bosses because they have a tag on the back of their neck that says, Great Egg Qualified Boss. No, that's obviously not true. We have government leaders who don't deserve to be leading other people, teachers in various schools who don't know anything, they shouldn't teach. We have people who have been appointed to high places, wherever those high places of authority may be, who don't deserve to be there. And whether that folly comes out because of just negligence or forgetfulness or by accident, they don't deserve to be there and that is how folly can infiltrate even those who you don't expect it or would prefer that they not have it.

And so men with resources, men who are rich men, who are princes, are treated like they don't have any authority when they should have been, and fools and slaves get the job. Now that's a reality. It'd be nice to think that that's not how it went, but that's a reality. If you haven't experienced that yet, you will at some point in time in the future, but all that comes out of folly. The goal then is to avoid folly, because just a little bit of folly can ruin what up to this point may have been a great, a stellar reputation. It comes from the heart. If you want to not be someone whose life is characterized by foolishness and folly, you've got to go to the heart. That's the central location that it all comes out of, and it's going to be obvious. Whether you lean to the right or to the left, people are going to know that you are broadcasting for the world to see what is in your heart and ultimately you're going to see that even in high places. So how serious are you about avoiding folly? People used to care about their reputation.

They used to care what other people thought about them in a good way. Do you even care about what other people think about your reputation? If you don't care about your own name, if If you take the name Christian, you ought to at least care about what your life says about him and about his name. Do you even care about that? Are you aiming to avoid even a little bit of folly? How about this, does your heart lean to the right or to the left? Because it leans one way or the other. Which way does your heart lean and what does everybody else say? If we were to ask your parents which way your heart leans, what would they say?

by your responses, by your reactions. What about your friends? Just because you think your heart goes one way or the other, why do you say that? How do you know that? What would other people say? And then perhaps it would be good to think through what kind of problems can come when fools are in authority and how ought we to respond to fools in authority in a non-foolish way. We spent many weeks in chapter 8 talking about how to respond to authority, even unjust, hurtful authority, let alone just authority who doesn't know anything, doesn't know better, who are fools. There are problems that come with it. How should we, how do we deal with fools, even those who are in authority? Bottom line, There is a way to live that pleases God and that's those who fear Him and forsake folly.

That's the path of wisdom, that's the path of joy, that's the path of enjoying the process. The other path leads to shame and loss and humiliation. It ultimately leads to destruction. I pray that each one of you would avoid that path. Father, help us do that. you for this teaching on folly that we might avoid it. Help us now even in our small groups to discuss that, to help one another, to make sure our hearts are leaning in the right direction and that our walking demonstrates that we want to follow you more than anything else. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Well, you can take out your copy of God's Word. Turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 9. As long as I don't have a heart attack, time and chance don't happen to me in the next 30 or so minutes, then we might actually finish this very chapter today. Leaving us only three left, which means we've covered nine chapters in like three years, So we ought to be able to cover the next three chapters in at least another two or three years, no doubt. One of the ways that I connect with Solomon is that he typically employs the yeah but argument. For example, in chapter 9 verses 1 through 6, we studied that a couple weeks ago, he said we're all going to die.

But then in chapter 9 verses 7 through 10, the very next paragraph he says, yeah, but we can still enjoy eating and dressing up and relationships and hard work. Yeah, there's unpleasant news that we're all going to die, but there's really positive news as well because there are real opportunities under the sun for gladness. Of course, he doesn't stop there because, yeah, there are joys in the process, Ecclesiastes 9, 7 through 10, yeah, but we can't do anything ourselves to guarantee that joy, verses 11 and 12. Yeah, there is some good news, but there's also bad news.

The only thing Solomon seems to have his mind made up about is that when he sees something either negative or positive, he's going to then quickly say the opposite. It's kind of like the person who can't leave the light switch alone. If it's up, they got to move it down. If it's down, they got to move it into the other position. And the yo-yo continues in today's passage as the preacher spins from the negative. Just catch this. Are you ready? He spins from the negative to the positive, to the negative, to the positive, the negative to the positive to the negative, or in other words, six yeah buts in this passage.

Now that is as up and down as you could possibly be, but it goes back and forth. It's one of the reasons, like I said, that I like Solomon. I tend to say the opposite. If you tell me it's a particular color, I'll probably suggest it's another one. If you tell me that it's up. I'm likely to say, no it's not. You can tell me good news, I'll remind you of the bad news, you can tell me bad news, I'll remind you of the good news. So I'm totally tracking with this preacher, and hopefully we'll all be able to do that as we study through these paragraphs. Now these two paragraphs, chapter 9, verses 13 through 16, and then verses 17 through 18 are all about wisdom. And wisdom obviously is a subject that Solomon knew a little something about. In fact, he was really divinely qualified to write about wisdom. And verses 13 through 16 tell us a story about the power of wisdom. And then verses 17 and 18 are two proverbial sayings about the power of wisdom. But both of these little snippets show what wisdom can do for you. Wisdom is way better than UPS. And that's

what can Brown do for you. Wisdom is way more powerful than UPS. What can wisdom do for you? So verses 13 through 16 tell us a great wisdom story. A great wisdom story. verse 13. I have also seen this example of wisdom under the sun and it seemed great to me. There was a little city with few men in it and a great king came against it and besieged it building great siege works against it. But there was found in it a poor wise man and he by his wisdom delivered the city yet no No one remembered that poor man. But I say that wisdom is better than might, though the poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are not heard."

What we have then in verses 13 through 16 is this example story told by Solomon to demonstrate the great power that wisdom has and the even greater absurdity that wisdom is disregarded. Wisdom has amazing power even to deliver a city against all odds, but yet after the deliverance, wisdom is disregarded. In verse 13, he kind of gives us the preface to his story. As is typical in Ecclesiastes, Solomon prefaces the account, the story, by reminding his readers where he learned this lesson. Look at verse 13 again. I have also seen this example of wisdom under the sun, and it seemed great to me. Now it's a clue that he says, I have seen this example.

The fact that he says that is a clue for us that what follows is a true story and not a parable or some other fictional account. Because he gives so few details about the story, it's virtually impossible to identify the historical characters or the actual location, even though in all the commentaries that I read, a bunch of them list off half a dozen historical possibilities. But the fact that he says, I have seen this, means that it was a true story. This is not something that he made up just to make a point. This is an actual story that he saw. But even though we don't know all the details, we do know that this story describes a reality under the sun.

that this is something that is not atypical to find in our experience. And even more than knowing that it took place under the sun, we know that this story made quite an impression on Solomon. Look at the end of verse 13 when he says, and it seemed great to me. The adjective great describes something that was significant, that was worthy of attention, something that stood out. And I was just trying to imagine what it would actually take to impress Solomon. Out of all the things he had accomplished, for all the wisdom that he had, can you imagine what it would actually take to stand out to him, to impress him, to make an impression on him?

This was a significant story that he saw that he was familiar with, and I think more More than anything else, what stood out to him, what impressed him, or what made an impression on him about this story, is the absurd ending. And we'll see that in just a couple minutes. So that's the preface verse 13. Verse 14 gives us the adversary and the conflict. Like any good narrative, the author sets the stage.

He tells us where it's happening, gives us some background, some details, and then then pulls the curtain back to reveal the conflict and the bad guy. Every Lifetime movie has a bad guy, and it's typically a guy because guys are bad on Lifetime. But in any good story, you got the conflict and the bad guy, the adversary. Verse 14, there was a little city with few men in it, and a great king came against it and besieged it, building great siege works against it. What we have here is a huge mismatch. This is as lopsided a battle as you could possibly imagine since it was a little city with few men against a great king with considerable resources, enough resources to build great siege works.

Now the city is not identified, we're not told the name of the city or where it is specifically, but even though it's not identified, it is described as small. And I think probably we can figure out from the context that it was in a distant or remote location. And the reason that I say that is because for the king to come and try to attack this city, he's likely not to attack a city where there's another big city or other cities near it where somehow they could have called for help. And so I think this was a small and probably remote city limited then in manpower. It only had a few people in it. Limited in manpower and resources. Though it must not have been totally insignificant. There must have been something significant about this city, not totally insignificant, though it was small and remote, there must have been something about the city that the king wanted.

So it must have been big enough that the king desired it and so he came to make attack against it. And also, I think that this city must have been big enough to have some type of fortified wall around the city, and again, just ten people living out in the wilderness would they would not have built a wall around their two tents for the two families that were living in it so even though it was a small city with few men it must have been big enough for there to have been a fortified wall around and I say that because if there wasn't a wall there would be no reason for this description about building siege works or be sieging the city and I'll explain more about that here in just a second because when a city wouldn't surrender and couldn't be taken easily by walking down Main Street or by a frontal kind of assault, the city would be surrounded in order to prevent people in the town from escaping, as well as to prevent any new provisions or people or resources from being brought into the city.

Some of this kind of battle against the city where you would surround the city, You didn't necessarily have to assault it, you could just wait for attrition, which means you could wait for the people to get hungry enough for the food to run out that they would either die of hunger and starvation if you just waited long enough, or you could wait long enough so that they were weak enough for you to have a successful attack. In fact, the Hebrew word in verse 14 that's translated besieged, that's a word we just got to start using more, I think, because that's fun to say. Besieged, that's in the ESV and in the New American Standard, the word besieged, that Hebrew word has the idea of surrounding, of encompassing, and typically then with some kind of hostile intent behind it.

And often what you do is you'd surround the city and then you would build a siege tower. And the ESV translates it siege works. You would build a siege tower, that's the name for it, as high or higher than the walls that were protecting the city so that either you could go up into that tower and spy down into the city and see what they were doing or so that you could actually even fire down upon the guys, maybe who are at the top of the wall or who were defending that section of the wall, that would have been much more successful than trying to lean your ladder up against the wall itself when all they got to do is just pour hot stuff down on you or drop big boulders down over on you.

But if you build a tower a little bit further away, well then it was not as easy for them to defend against those siege works. What's significant though is that though this powerful king had soldiers and supplies to build great siege works, he didn't get any further than beseizing. Doesn't mean that he was successful in assaulting or attacking. Just means he surrounded the city and perhaps built this great tower or these siege works. But because of one wise man, this was the little city that could. I was thinking maybe after this whole event, probably the green sign out in front was, you know, Little City, population 400, the little city that could.

That was probably their town motto after this event. Well, that's the adversary in the conflict. This great king comes, besieges the city, and in verse 15 we see the hero and the climax of the story because also like any good lifetime movie there's a hero, someone who overcomes all the odds and wins the victory. So now we meet the good guy in verse 15. But there was found in it in that small little city a poor wise man and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Now our hero in this story comes out of nowhere. Out of nowhere he was a nobody and unknown. He had no political position. He had no social standing. Instead, he was poor.

And to say that he was found, you know, in this little city was found, a poor wise man, means that he was not previously known or well-known with any kind of standing whatsoever. But though he was poor in possessions, he obviously was rich in wisdom. Solomon does not tell us how the man got his wisdom or what the wise plan was or even I think the thing I really want to know is I don't really care about the tactic that he came up with that would be cool to know Solomon doesn't tell us any of that how the man came to get his wisdom doesn't tell us what the plan was the wise plan was Solomon especially doesn't tell us this what I really wish he could have explained is how the guy got anybody even to listen to him here's this poor unknown guy with no standing comes up with the plan. Well, I've had lots of plans.

And as far as I'm concerned, they've been really wise, masterful plans. But a lot of people don't listen. So that is as much as anything what I'd like to know is how he even got anybody to listen to him. But somehow, somehow by his wisdom he delivered the city. The entire city escaped destruction and slipped out of the hands of their enemies due to the power of wisdom. We are totally left guessing at how it happened, but our mouths are gaping. They are wide open. Our jaws are on the floor. That is ridiculous. That's crazy that one poor, unknown guy could have come up with a plan to save the entire city. Against all odds, the unbelievable happened.

And somehow the underdog defended himself against the favorite even when he didn't have a chance. But of course that goes back to chapter 9 verse 11 where the battle doesn't always go to the strong. Time and chance happened to all. In this case time and chance worked in the favor of the underdog. Now as much as you can, I don't know maybe we need to think about Marysville having a big wall around it. and the French coming with their catapults trying to break into Marysville to get to Walmart. If that's what you need to think about to help you, so be it. Now realize if the if the king wins, if the king breaks through and assault and defeats our city, we are likely to die. That's the consequence, the worst possible consequence. The best consequence when a king comes to take over your city, if he doesn't kill you, he's probably at least then going to make you into slaves.

He's going to take all of your stuff, you will have nothing left, but if you do get to live, you'll have to work for him, probably not under great conditions. That would have been the consequences of them being defeated by this king. So it's almost impossible for us in our security to even think about what that would be like, but try to imagine what kind of joy, what kind of exhilaration you would have as a townsperson when this great, like the fear that you had when you found out what was going on and the total relief and joy that you got when the the city was delivered. It would have been party time. It would have brought the city together probably like never before. You think about after 9-11, it didn't matter age, race, religion, those kinds of things did not matter for a while after 9-11 because as Americans we were attacked. And so as Americans we had this great unity of purpose. People started care less about little bickering for a while. This would have been a party for them to have

been delivered and no doubt the poor man himself would have ridden the wave of popularity to the top. And Solomon says, yeah, wisdom is powerful. Yeah, but who cares? As brutal, I could have done without this end to the story because at the end of verse 15, yet no one remembered that poor man. Some unidentified amount of time afterward, the town people went back to work, and they got back into their routines, and forgot all about the drama and the deliverance, and the poor man faded again into the background. When you're out of options, you'll give anything for wisdom. Trying to think of an illustration to describe that.

A person will pay 50 bucks for an umbrella in a thunderstorm, but sunshine makes you forget about what it was like when you were wet. You care less about the umbrella at that point. And so the market for wisdom seems to be very narrow. No one remembered that poor man. It isn't right that they forgot, but it is reality. Once you're at the top, even if you have done amazing things that have helped all kinds of people out. There's no place else to go but down and a hero is soon forgotten.

Verse 16 gives us Solomon's epilogue, the final comments on the story. And he changes back and forth twice just in this verse. Yeah, but wisdom is powerful. Yeah, but still nobody remembers. It does both things in verse 16. I say that wisdom is better than might, but though the poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are not heard. First part, wisdom is better than might. That's a proven point. That's what the story just told us and just demonstrated, but people forget. The last half of verse 16 basically repeats the last sentence of verse 15. The poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are not heard. This doesn't mean that they never listened. The story said that they had listened at one point. It means that they stopped listening. Whereas, at least for a little bit of time, they looked to the poor man for help. Now they looked down on the wise man. They despised the poor man. They didn't want anything to do with him anymore. After they got what they wanted, they didn't have any more need for him. I

really think that's probably even worse because now they had it and they were ignoring it. This disregard for wisdom, even after it delivered the city, I think is what makes such a great impression on Solomon. What do you mean? They just just forgot the guy. He delivered your lives. He protected the entire city. How in the world could you forget about him and let him fade back into the background? You owe him your very life. Oh, but now that you don't need him, you don't need his wisdom. You look down on him. In light of this story, what can wisdom do for you? That's the title of the message. That's the primary question in light of this story. What can wisdom do for you? And here's the answer. There's both a thing it can do and a thing it can't do. What wisdom can do for you is to help you overcome weakness and disadvantage and trouble. That is how powerful wisdom is. It can help you overcome weakness and disadvantage and trouble. That's the point of the story that wisdom has that ability. But, wisdom cannot guarantee that people will keep listening to you forever.

It has amazing power and it can be so quickly forgotten. It can help you, it can protect you, it can't help you win, but ultimately it can't guarantee your position. So if you don't have wisdom, you should get it. If you do have wisdom, you should use it. But even though wisdom has the power to deliver, it is not certain to keep you at the top of the ladder. It's kind of like your batting average. Batting average is great. I mean, if you have a good batting average, that means that you have been successful in the past every time you've been up to bat. But just because you got eight hits out of ten tries doesn't mean that this time you're not even going to strike out. You might not only not get a hit, you might look like an idiot. And so wisdom is great, it has significant power, but it doesn't actually mean that you're going to have a position of influence and people are going to listen to forever, you forever, or even care that you helped them in the past.

That's the story about wisdom. Then verses 17 and 18 give us two wisdom sayings. We saw a wisdom story, now we get two wisdom sayings. And verses 17 and 18 continue Solomon's explanation of what wisdom can do for you.

He's finished with his story and he's continuing his argument, but he's not really making a comment about the story even though there's some connection. Verse 17 verse 18, two wisdom sayings, the words of the wise, heard and quiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools. Verse 18, wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good. So two ideas here, one in each verse, number one, wisdom is louder than volume. Wisdom is louder than volume and I was trying, whether successfully or not, to have a little play on words there. Wisdom is louder than volume. The words of the wise, heard, and quiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools. Influence, making an impact, or that's just a way to say, watching wisdom at work doesn't require position. You can have great influence without having some position of authority, specifically he talks about rulers here, you don't have to be a ruler to be heard. The poor man obviously was an example of that. Influence is also not about

volume. Shouting above the crowd, in particular when it's a crowd of fools, shouting above a bunch of fools is no sure influence. In fact, wisdom rarely comes from loud mouths. But wisdom does make a lot of noise in the sense that it does make a pretty big difference when you have it. Influence comes when teachable people, not fools, shut their mouths at least long enough, that's the idea of the quiet, when teachable people shut their mouths at least long enough to listen and to hear the words of wisdom. So the words of the wise, heard, and quiet make an impact. They are better. They are worth hearing. They are valuable.

They make a difference. Wise man doesn't have to yell to be heard. Number two, wisdom is mightily vulnerable. And again, I intend to set those things up as they shouldn't really go together. But between the first and the second half of the verse, those are the points Solomon makes. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good. Again the story in verses 13-16 demonstrates it proves, it establishes that wisdom is better than weapons of war. The great king with all of his resources, with all of his soldiers, was not able to overcome one insignificant poor man's wisdom. Sometimes you can overcome your opponent by outsmarting him rather than by just collecting and gathering and using bigger guns.

Wisdom is more mighty. It is better. stronger than weaponry. Yeah, that's true, but one sinner destroys much good. This contrast is part of the reason I don't think the sayings in verse 17 and 18 are necessarily comments on the story in verses 13 through 16 because this is an entirely new character that's introduced. This was not a character that we saw in the story. Here we're greeted with the sinner. So what's the point? If it's not just to finish talking about the story. I think the point is that for as mighty as wisdom is, it's also really vulnerable. It is susceptible to being destroyed. Wisdom is very powerful. Yeah, one wise man can deliver an ill-equipped, unprepared city. That was the point of the story. Not only that, wisdom is more powerful than position and can create an environment of much good. That's the end of verse 18.

Much good has been done. But all it takes is one idiot to mess the whole thing up. One sinner, one fool, one selfish person. It actually takes too long to try to think of all of the different ways one person can mess it up for everybody. The number of times I've given an assignment to a class based on one fool, one loud mouth selfish fool in the class that has then caused the entire class to suffer consequences. That's happened a good amount of times. That's one of the immediate examples that comes to mind. All All it takes is just one. For as powerful as wisdom is, that one person can deliver an entire city, all it takes is one person basically then to destroy an entire city.

One wise person in the midst of a bunch of fools can have an impact, but one fool in the midst of a bunch of wise people likewise can have a great impact. You realize wisdom would work really well if it wasn't for sin. If we just didn't have sin to deal with, wisdom would probably always work. But sin comes in, ruins it all. So like we asked about the story, what can wisdom do for you? In light of these two sayings, that wisdom is louder than volume, that wisdom is mightily vulnerable, what can wisdom do for you? It can win you great influence and create much good. That is the power of wisdom. Yeah, but wisdom cannot guarantee that someone else won't mess up everything you worked for.

Both things are true. Wisdom will give you great influence, can help you establish an environment where all kinds of good stuff is taking place, but all it takes is just one sinner, one fool, one idiot to come in and just turn all the tables over. Well, what's the point then of these two paragraphs? Obviously, it tells us that wisdom is powerful, but I think Solomon's bottom line is that for as powerful as wisdom is, wisdom is not God. I think even for us as believers, as Christians, we hear about the value of the power of wisdom and so we aim to get wisdom, we pursue wisdom, and that's right. But then we start to depend on our wisdom, rather than to get wisdom and depend on God.

As we saw last week, bread and riches and favor don't always go to the wise. Just because you're wise doesn't mean you're going to win, and even if you do win, it doesn't mean they're going to remember you later. And just because you do win and they remember you later doesn't mean one other idiot isn't going to come in and just mess up everything you did. Wisdom is powerful, but wisdom is not God. The proper response to knowing these things is not to despise wisdom, it is to depend on God. The key to life under the sun in Ecclesiastes is what? Two words. Fear God. For all of the wisdom that Solomon had, that's what he brings it back down to.

He boils it down to every time. Wisdom is great. You're still going to die. Wisdom is powerful, but it's not invulnerable. Wisdom is great, but don't depend on your wisdom. Fear God. What's beautiful about that fact is the beginning of wisdom is what? Come on. The fear of the Lord. And so proper true wisdom reckons with the fact that we don't depend on wisdom, but instead we depend on and submit to God. We fear God. That in fact is the beginning of wisdom. All of the yeah buts that Solomon gives here are not intended to whack us around like a pinball, but they are intended to get us to land on the Lord. Get wisdom.

Wisdom is amazingly powerful, but don't depend on your wisdom. Depend on God. Land on Him. As you head off into small groups here in just a moment, hopefully you have some of your own questions that you want to raise and discuss here. Just a few suggestions that you may want to talk through. Is wisdom an advantage? Is there actually any advantage? Are there benefits to wisdom? Why or why not? If you're going to answer that question solemnly, you're going to have to say that there are and there aren't advantages. Talk through what those are. Here's a very applicable question and that is, are you pursuing wisdom? Are you yourself going, seeking, getting wisdom?

Why are you doing that? Or potentially in a lot of your cases, why are you not trying to get wisdom? And those of you who are, when are you doing that? Are you only going to get wisdom when the city's being attacked? When it's raining outside? When you're in trouble? When are you going to get the wisdom? And then how are you doing that? What's your source? Or sources to get wisdom? And then third, and I fear that this is probably the question that you may need to start with based on my most recent small group visit and discussion, do you even care that the city is being attacked? Like are you even opening your eyes enough to know that there's trouble?

Because there is trouble. And obviously then in that question I'm speaking figuratively about the city, but do you even recognize, do you even care that the city is being attacked and that you need a plan and that you need wisdom to protect the city? Some of you are not caring about wisdom at all. And right before you leave I want you to look over Proverbs 1. Proverbs 1, the last part is all about the call of lady wisdom, her call for people without wisdom to come and get it. However, look at verse 24, because I have called and you refuse to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity.

I will mock when terror strikes you, when terror strikes you like a storm, and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you, then they will call upon me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but will not find me, because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way and have their fill of their own devices." You ignore the fact that the city is in trouble long enough when you finally get to the point where you realize it may end up being too late. If you ignore it and disregard the calls of wisdom, we have a story about the power of wisdom, these two to sayings about how much influence and difference wisdom can make.

Do you even care that the city is being attacked? Father help us. Obviously, those who have no spiritual life don't care about the condition of the city. I ask that you would open their eyes and open their ears and cause them to get serious. For those of us who do recognize our need for wisdom, help us to get it, pursue it all the time from you, but never to depend on wisdom, but to depend on you. This is the kind of life approach that we want to have. Living in wisdom, living in the fear of you. Ultimately, whether we then succeed or not, we'll have joy because we have you. And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

I am ridiculously passionate about biblical respect and Christian women understanding it and applying it and then reaping the benefits in their lives. I've seen this in my own life and then in the lives of those around me and it really is unbelievable what can change in your life. It was about six years ago, I was six months pregnant with Maggie and I was visiting my parents down in California. And my mom had been telling me, oh, we're reading this book in our Bible study. It's so good. And I was like, oh, what's it about? And she said, respect. And I was like, OK. And she's like, it's really good. You have to read it.

And I was like, OK. So to me, respect was just kind of an old fashioned, vague term that basically meant submission. So I thought, well, why does she think I need to read that? I'm submitting. I don't know. All right, I'll read it. So she hands me this book when I get there. And I thought, well, that's a different cover. There's this woman and I can't, I still don't know what she's holding. It's like a fish or a piece of leather. I don't know what it is, but it's an interesting cover. And I thought, well, that's, okay, I'll read this, I guess. So I started reading it and everyone had gone to bed. I think it was about 10 o'clock when I started reading it.

And the first couple chapters, I was like, oh, this is good, this is good. And I'd known a little bit about the author and her husband before, so I was kind of acquainted with them anyway and I thought, this is good Wilson material. Then I get to the third chapter and I read this sentence and it literally stopped me dead in my tracks. She starts off first with, it says respect makes a difference. And then she has Ephesians 5.33, let the wife see that she respects her husband. And then this is the sentence. Sometimes I wonder where the church would be today if the men in it were respected as they ought to be by their wives.

I'm choking up. That, I was like, at first actually I was a little bit irritated. I was like, well, what does that mean? Where would they be? Well, they should be there anyway. I don't need to do something about that. They should be doing whatever they need to do. So then I was like, well, what does she mean? What does respect do? I don't know what it does. I thought I was doing it. I thought it was just submission. So I continued reading. I think I was up actually reading this book until about three in the morning. It's not all about respect, but I could not put it down and have probably read it at least a couple times a year since then, probably more like three or four times a year.

Almost everything I'm going to say is from her writings, either this book or some articles that she's written since then. But so I'm very thankful to her for all of her work and I hope that you will be also. This book is invaluable. I suggest that if I haven't already given it to you, because I know I've given it to a lot of people, if I haven't given it to you, you should get a copy yourself. It's great. And she's much better at saying this than I am. Oh, I'm sorry. The fruit of her hands. The fruit of her hands, Nancy Wilson.

It's actually, and if you read the book, the more you read it, you'll notice it's actually a little bit disjointed. It's kind of weird as a book. It's because it's a series of articles that she wrote for her husband has a publication. It's a like a quarterly journal, and she writes the women's section. So that's why it's a little bit disjointed sometimes. Anyway, I'm so excited that every single one of you is here tonight. God brought each of us here for his purposes, and I don't want anyone to feel like this does not apply to them. So for the For the married women, we kind of all fall into a couple general categories.

For the married women, the application's going to be pretty obvious because it's about, most of this is about respecting your husband, so I hope that you won't struggle too much to figure out what you can do. To the women who are widows, don't think that you're off the hook here. We have, you have Titus too resting on you in a very serious way, and those of us that are younger and don't know what we're doing and don't have the experience that you have had need that input in our lives. You also have a different perspective that somebody who has a live husband right next to them doing annoying things may not have.

You have a more thankful perspective. A little distance is good sometimes. It's hard when you're right with the person to recognize how much you have. Sometimes it's easy to take it for granted. And then for the single girls, I know there's actually not that many of you here, but I am the most excited for you because you guys have the biggest opportunity. I wish I had learned this before I got married. I wish that I had had a little bit of this under my belt because when you have to apply it with another sinner who's right there, who you're not related to, it's a little tricky. Your sin is just constantly pushed right into your face and your pride is, well, it gets crushed, which is good.

But I do think that it would be easier if you practiced with your dad and got really good at it in that circumstance before you get married. The other advantage that you have is you are not yet married to somebody that you shouldn't be married to. One article that Nancy Wilson wrote is excellent about choosing a husband. It's easy for women to fall in love and to get into an emotional fog and not be able to tell what they're looking at and, you know, oh, I love him, he's whatever, you know, and then you start asking questions about his character. Well, he's working on that, but you don't understand, I really love him.

He's really nice and handsome or whatever. Falling in love is not something that we usually have difficulty with, but respecting a man is different. And your path will be so much easier if you marry a man who is easy for you to respect. And that's different for different women because some of respect is personal. It's a different person is respected in a different way. So I urge you to be careful. I could do three hours just on that topic. So we're gonna move on from that. But you probably have the most benefits of anybody in the room. And then for everybody, this respect is something that Christians need, all Christians, men and women, need to be applying in their lives.

It's not just for wives to their husbands, but we're to treat all authority that we encounter with respect. So that's really good. And then we're all discipling. And some of us have kids, and this is huge. There are no children too young to learn about respect. Maggie has been hearing about it since we've been talking to her. So she definitely doesn't understand all of the finer elements at five years old. but she does know that we talk to data in a very special way that we don't talk to everyone else. She talks to her friends in one way, she talks to her dad in a different way. She understands that different things that he does with her are a privilege, and she views them that way and is very thankful for them.

It's not the same as just playing with a friend when he gets down on the floor and is wrestling with her. That is a privilege that she needs to show gratitude and thankfulness for because he is someone for her to look up to. So you guys can be teaching your girl side in particular. Another thing that I did wanna mention is that this is going to be a jet tour through biblical respect.

Sean and my dad were helping me prepare this and they told me to do an information dump, just put everything down on paper or in the computer that I could possibly think of that I would wanna say and then we would go from there. And I was like, okay. So I went and I did all that and I ended up with 241 talking points. Talking points, not 241 things to say, just like things that would get me to get going on a topic. And when they saw that they were like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, this is way too much. You have to cut out like 80% of this. And I was like, OK. So I edited out tons. I think I would probably work out to maybe 13, 14, 15 hours of material.

And Debbie did say that I could talk as long as I wanted, but I don't think I'm going to be able to go that long. So a deep understanding of respect covers so many aspects of Christian living, theology, and culture that I won't even be able to mention. So I just hope that tonight sparks your interest and then you go and ask questions and study and pursue this on your own because there's, I'm assuming it's endless because I'm nowhere near done studying it. So we really are just gonna be kind of skimming over the surface. So if you feel like I'm going too fast, I'm sorry, just hold on, there's a lot to get through.

Okay, well first, the key part because where my misunderstanding started was I had the wrong definition of respect and the definition is key. If you don't lay the right foundation of the definition and then you start building a house of application, it's gonna get all crazy. The higher up you get, the crazier it's gonna get, especially when you get to issues that are really tricky where you're dealing with respecting a husband who's in sin. If your definition is not right at the beginning, you will have no idea what to do when you get to those parts. And the wrong definitions are everywhere. Okay, so I looked around for a dictionary definition also.

And the one that I thought was good was to feel or show honor or esteem for, consider or treat with deference or courtesy to show consideration for. Some synonyms and related words are admire, esteem, regard, think highly of, look up to, deference, honor, hold in high regard, and revere. This is really for me, when I started reading all of those kinds of words, I thought, I definitely don't know what respect is. I'm not doing this right at all. I was submitting in the sense that, it's embarrassing to talk about how bad I was at it, but I thought, I'm gonna talk it out with him, I'm gonna say everything that I think about what we should do and then when he tells me what to do, I'll say, okay, and then I'll do it.

But I am going to let him know, this is, well I think this, and da da da da da. I grew up in a house definitely being encouraged to talk and participate and Shawn does the same, but I definitely was overstepping my bounds. I'm sure that I still do sometimes presume much too much on my husband's grace instead of looking at him as the biblical head that he is. So when I started hearing these words, I mean like, revere, that's a serious word. That's not just, hey, you're okay with me. That's a very weighty kind of word. So okay, then usually the next question is, but I thought respect was a feeling. Isn't it a feeling?

What do you mean? Is it an action or is it a feeling? And after lots of study on this, especially preparing for this, because I was asked a few questions before I did this, I would say that it's both. In Ephesians 5.33, and you can turn there, this is kind of the basis of what we're doing, it's very short, but it gives a direction to the husband. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. If we're told to see that we do something, I think that it's questionable that that's just a feeling. That would be unusual to be told just to stir up a feeling in yourself without any sort of action.

I don't even know how you would do that. So it seems to be a feeling and an action. So this, depending on what your husband is like, you'll have either one or both a different combination of these things. If you are married to a disreputable man, he must still be respected even though you won't have those feelings, more than likely. If he is just a foolish man who doesn't love God, isn't pursuing the right things, makes mistakes all the time and is only concerned about himself, that is something that's not going to just create feelings of respect in you. But you are still called to respect him. It doesn't say, let the wife see to it that she respects her husband if he's respectable.

It says that she needs to respect him. So in this case, I like Nancy Wilson's husband, Doug Wilson, says, it's saluting the uniform. You need to salute the uniform. You need to realize that even though the person inside the uniform may not be qualified for the job, may be doing a horrible job filling that slot, might not be qualified in any way, he's still wearing the uniform. And in this case, it's different than the military. Actually, I guess the military would be the same. But for us, we know that God put that personal man in that uniform for you. So that's what you have to recognize and then take action on.

So even if you don't feel like you respect him, you still have to do that. That's difficult, but there are also some other situations that are even more difficult than just a husband who is foolish, so we'll address those at the end. However, if you have, like me, a respectable husband, one whose person matches this calling, You will probably have a lot of respectful feelings, and that is the case for me now. It's not just enough, though, to have the feelings and just sit around there thinking, oh, wow, my husband's really cool. Look at him. Wow, everyone says he's cool, too. And look, he does all this so well, and he really is pursuing God.

But you actually need to act on it and show him that respect that you're feeling. And then there's a third category, and I think that a lot of us fall into this. This is for sure where I was. Many times, if you're not feeling respect in your heart, it's not actually that there's something wrong with your husband, it's that there's something wrong with your heart. And this was the part that was so convicting to me as I started studying this. Many times we are discontent, grumbling, and unthankful, and that taints how we see our husbands. It's how we, we know this, it taints how we see all of our circumstances. When you are not thankful, you get to see lots of things to be unthankful for, you know. So, but when we have thankful hearts, you start noticing, oh wait, this isn't actually that bad. Another quote from Nancy Wilson is, be zealous to be the kind of wife who is more concerned with pleasing God than with being pleased by her husband.

As you repent and change your behavior and perspective, many, many times you'll be very surprised to see that there's a godly, respectable man that's been standing there the entire time. Nothing in him actually changed. It was how you were looking at him. So that definitely happened for me. I mean, do you guys see my husband? I saw a lot of flaws before I started respecting. It was almost exclusively what I saw. Well, he could do that better. Or why does he do it this way? Or what about this? And instead of seeing what an amazing man he is that God has turned him into and to see what God's called him to do and how excellently he does those things.

So that was quite a wake up call for me. I was like, oh, look at that. You are great. So some common misperceptions is that it is only a feeling. And what's funny is you said that your dictionary is really old and fat. The newer and the more American the dictionary was that I looked in, it became all a feeling. The one on my computer was, it's, you know, a Mac computer, it's all cool looking. It's dictionary, it's horrible. It had it listed only as a feeling. And all the words were weak. They weren't strong words like revere. It was just, you know, basically feeling of admiration. So it was kind of interesting to see that that's probably more and more what we think respect is.

Another common misperception, and I see this a lot in the church, is that respect is a weak, passive activity. As we've talked about, respect is a strong, humble, proactive recognition of God's established order. It's not just being a doormat and being like, okay honey, and being foolish like that. But it's recognizing that your husband or your elders or your boss at your job or your father are put there by God as your authority. That is not weak. And it is not impotent either. There is, as we're going to see later, there are a lot of results from true biblical respect. Okay, so next I want to talk about why it's important.

The first reason is obvious. There's a biblical mandate in Ephesians 5.33 and 1 Peter 3.2. I think another reason sometimes that it's easy to kind of gloss over this is my mom was pointing this out.

is almost always listed in a passage after submission. And so I think that we tend to just kind of lump it in together with that. Well, I'm being obedient, so you know, that's all I really need to do. Because here in 1 Peter starting in verse 1, chapter 3, says likewise wives be subject to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct. This verse already is hinting at the importance and strength that respect has. It's not passive and weak. It definitely accomplishes a lot. Another reason that respect is important is the impact that you will have on your household and your children. Proverbs 14.1 says, the wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down. Now if you've been to our physical home, the main area is exposed studs, electrical cords, and we have our sub flooring out. So sometimes I think, oh no, did I tear my own house down? But obviously that's not what it's talking

about. It's talking about tearing down your spiritual home and a lack of respect is definitely a key part of that. You are tearing your husband down. You're tearing your head down. It doesn't make any sense as you learn more and more about this. It's the stupidest thing we could do, but it's so much what our sin wants us to do. Also, just for your children, so much more is caught than is taught. If you're telling your kids about respect, but then you're not showing it, they're not learning respect. They're learning hypocrisy and disrespect. Instead of just, if you were just disrespectful and didn't tell them about respect, then they would just be learning disrespect. But by teaching and then living opposed to that, they're also learning to be hypocritical, which is very weighty on me. Whenever I see that in me and I then and look, and there's little Maggie.

They're big eyes looking at me and I'm like, oh no. So that is definitely something that's important about it. Another thing with your kids is that you really can make or break your husband's role as father with his children. You set so much of how they view him. If it's a normal household, I did not grow up like this. I grew up in a house where my dad worked out of the house for most of the time. So I did see him physically there a lot. But most of the time, the kids see you the most. They're interacting with you. They only see their dad maybe at the beginning and the end of the day. You have a really big section in the middle to kind of shade and color how they see him.

This is one that for me is very significant because fortunately we don't have this in our church, but so many pastors' families, the children grow up rejecting what their father has been preaching that whole time. And I don't want that to happen in my home. And I think that it happens so much because the wife lets her discontent be known and she complains, it may even sound spiritual, oh, well we just have to suffer because your dad, those people at the church really need him and oh, so he's not here with us again tonight, we're just gonna have dinner alone. And there's that defeated, sad tone, but he's very godly, that kind of thing, that's so destructive to your poor children and to your husband, you're ripping him down in front of them and they're left with such a sad picture of their dad.

And if they're not getting to spend that enormous amount of time with him, they won't know differently. They will trust what you're saying. We have that opportunity to build up their father to them. And that's something that, um, it's so exciting to me when I see how excited my kids are to see Sean when he comes home and they have never, um, showed any resentment yet. I understand that she's very young, but, um, towards the church, they're excited about that. They're excited that they share their dad with the people of Grace Bible Church and specifically with the students in 128 and they love that. Maggie was actually confused and then disappointed that I was coming to speak to the women's ministry because she thought I was going to go talk to the girls in 128.

And she was like, well, who's going to talk to them today? And I was trying to explain to her, they're having small group and it's okay. And she was like, okay. But she really does have a heart for the ministry that her dad has. She's excited to be a part of that. And I hope that God can help me continue establishing that flavor in our home. And I do like that word too, flavor or aroma of your home. You established so much of that. Is it discontent? Are you bitter? Are you sad? Are you down? Are you just, everything's awful. Are you thankful for the things that you have and for your husband in particular? That should be a pervasive feeling in your home.

Okay. Then this last one, if we thought these other ones were serious. This, I don't think I've even really started to take this in, but whether we like it or not, whether you're aware of it or not, and whether you mean it or not, you are reflecting the church's relationship to Christ and how you treat your husband. That is such a huge concept. It's just kind of like floating above me right now. It still has not even really sunk in.

But you are preaching every time you're talking about your husband, talking to him, doing something for him, all of those things. We're a picture of that. In Ephesians 5 and verses 23 and 24, it says, and this is pretty clear, it's kind of hard to get out of this, For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. What does your respect and submission say about the church and in Christ. That's amazing. We also, there's not time to get into all of this, but there's other aspects of theology that we reflect in our relationship to our husband as well.

And I wish I had an hour to talk to you about the differences between the way Muslim women respond and interact to their husbands, and the way that Christian women are called to interact with their husbands, and what a picture that is of the false god that they serve and the true god that we serve. But there's not time, but there's one that you could It's actually, I had never even thought about that, that we are reflecting, that we worship the one true, triune God, not a monotheistic, demanding, hard God, but we are reflecting a God who is relating with himself. He's always been there relating with himself. And so we get to be a picture of that.

And that's a pretty serious responsibility. That's not just, you know, oh hey, I'll try to talk nicer to him next time. Okay, so then I wanted to talk about some of the hindrances. I got a note from one of you this week that was so encouraging, and one of the things that it had was why such a seemingly simple task can be so difficult to actually apply. And that is funny because, you know, when we were singing Trust in Obey, this is the song I was thinking about when I was studying, because that really is what we're called to do. We are called to Trust in Obey in a lot of ways.

just that simple. Respect and submit and it will be okay. God will take care of you. But it doesn't seem that easy and as soon, you know, you may get all pumped up because this is what happens. I read this book and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do better and you're all excited about it and I'm gonna reflect the church in Christ. Okay, let's go. And then as soon as your pride is stepped on a little bit it's like, I don't want to do this. This is hard. And that really is the first and main hindrance, I just have sin in capital letters with an exclamation point. And I was asking Sean what verse he thought I should use for that one.

He was like, I don't really think you need a verse. Our church does pretty good teaching on sin, just sin. That's bad and you need to keep working on fighting sin. And I was like, okay. So, you know, that's definitely the main reason that we have problems with it. Another one way that sin does show itself is that we do come to respect with false presuppositions that we have gained from lots of different places, including the cultural influences. And this is another one along with the Muslim thing that is fascinating. I had to cut a ton of information out of this when I was studying. But I think that you really, as you study it, you'll be surprised at how much Christian material is influenced by secular thinking and then how much that's even trickled into how we approach things and the way that we think about things.

If you are not quite as young and foolish as me, modernity may have influenced your view of authority and you have a false view of authority. If you are young like me, probably post-modernism has affected it more and just an outright rejection of authority. Well, who needs that? You can't tell me what to do. And then also, and this is my favorite topic right now that I'm studying, we here in the United States have our very own special breed of egalitarianism that is awful and it's so pervasive. I cannot believe the more that I study about it, and the more that I look in my own heart and my own ways of thinking, it's like everywhere.

And that is, it's just basically, we want everything to be fair. Because egalitarian, especially if you do look in a newer dictionary, man, it sounds great. We want that. It's all about being nice to everyone, and everyone should be treated well. And in some ways, it's good. You know, people having equal rights here, in one sense, that's a very good thing in our country. We do want to recognize that people have equal value before God, but it's so quickly and here in the United States It's that all it is is just everyone is exactly the same. We all have the same abilities We all have the same potential. We all have the same role. We all can do whatever we want It's it's being preached to your children in Sesame Street. It's everywhere that you go. There is egalitarianism and it's something that is Such a strong influence in our thinking we have to fight that all the time So that one, that's really interesting if you read about that.

Another one is just some unrecognized differences between boys and girls. This one, there's an excellent book by her husband called Future Men, and that actually really again helped me further apply respect because I realized, oh, boys and girls really are different, like a lot different. Girls come with a strong need and a big empty tank that needs to be filled with love all the time. When girls are running on low, they tend to get a little whiny, a little clingy, and show a little weakness. You know, oh, love me, love me. I noticed this tonight with my daughter. She was clearly running on empty, I think, because I've been studying.

I haven't been pouring in enough. And she just started crying about nothing. And it was like hanging on to me. And I was like, okay. Okay, so you have to fill her up, tell her you love her, give her a bunch of hugs, and she's ready to go. And that's what's normal for us, for most of us. There are definitely exceptions to this, but this is the general pattern for boys and girls. Boys running on empty, their tank is not made for love. It's not the same tank. It's made for respect. When they're running on empty, they generally don't get clingy and whiny. They become little bragging, chest out, look at me, I'm so cool.

and they show off and they're jumping off of stuff and they're hitting people and they're, you know, displaying their strength because no one else is recognizing it. Once I finally understood that, I was like, oh, because I felt like I had been pouring into Sean a lot. I was like, I am filling his tank. He is just not noticing. I keep telling him, I love you so much. I keep trying to hug him. I am holding his hand. And he is just acting like I don't do anything.

Once I realized, oh, that's because this is doing nothing. It's not even sort of going into the tank. It's like talking a different language to him. Once I started saying things like, thank you for going to work every day. Thank you for sweeping out the garage. Thank you so much for being a faithful husband. Thank you for reading your Bible. I really appreciate that. I love how you do this. I really look up to you because of this, this, and this. Suddenly it was like his tank was full. I was like, okay, this is making sense. He's a boy and I'm a girl. And again, a lot of that is that cultural influence. Boy and girl differences don't mean anything.

We're told all the time that they're the same and equal. And the only reason that there's a difference between a little boy and a little girl is we give them a truck and a doll. That's the difference. And all of you that have a boy and a girl know that that's ridiculous. That's not true. They come out like that. But our husbands need respect and we are in the God appointed position to give it to them. That is such a privilege that we get to participate that way. And it's such a strong role. Again, it's not weakness. It's not an unimportant activity, you know, that we're sacrificing something that really matters to sit here and try to fill up his tank.

That is a vital thing that needs to happen. And I did want to say that this, the bragging idea does go for men as well. If you notice that your husband is, you know, kind of telling you more about what he did and oh, yeah, well then I did this and, you know, and I said this to this guy and then I went out and I did all of these things and it was really hard. And, you know, you're like, okay. A lot of times that means that the tank is empty and you need to pour on the respect, give him more. And most times that does a lot. They just need a little bit of that filling up, just like we do. When we start, because I mean, I am so obvious.

I can't contain anything inside of me. I'm like, somebody help me, I'm wandering around. Someone needs to love me, I'm empty. I have holes in my tank, it's all pouring out. And that's another thing too, when your husband is under a lot of stress, that is like holes in his tank. If he has a whole bunch of other stuff going on or there are a lot of people criticizing him, just look at your job now as filling up a colander. Like, you need to keep pouring in and that is your job. You don't want him to go somewhere else to get that respect that he wants so badly. So that is your job and your privilege to do that. So this section, I tried for a really long time to organize this.

This is the how-to section. What do I do? I could not organize this. So it's just kind of going to be a rapid fire assortment of things to do or think about. And there's no particular order. So if I get going too fast or you don't understand what I'm saying, you can ask me later and maybe I can help you out. Okay, one of the first ones is to avoid thinking, I would respect my husband if he only. Or you don't understand what my husband's like. I would do that if I was married to your husband. But you don't understand what my situation is. This misses the definition of respect that we just went over. It's not based on his respectability.

This part always gets me when I think this. When I was writing it down, it was even worse. Do you want to be loved only when you're lovely? God has called your husband to love you. What if he only loved you when you were lovely? That would be awful. I can't tell you how many times, I mean, I think especially when I was pregnant with Calvin, I was sick for so long. I think that I wore these same pajamas for months on end. they would get washed and I would just put them right back on. I would shower and then lay down on the bathroom floor and then crawl to the bed and I looked horrific. I was constantly ill. I do not want Sean to stop loving me during that time. I'm not lovely and I was emotional and pretty much just a disaster. There's a lot of crying and a lot of sickness and that was that time in my life.

But he was faithful to love me through that time and he didn't say, well yeah I would give you a if you would make your hair stop looking so gross, or if you, you know, get some real pants on instead of those flannel ones or whatever. What about when you're just cranky, or you're in any other kind of sin? We don't want our husbands to stop loving us then. We should not be holding respect out as a reward for doing what we have decided they need to do. Even if you think that your husband is wrong, you think he doesn't care, you think he isn't spiritual enough, you think he's too passive, you think he doesn't understand, you think he isn't saved, You think he's harsh, impatient, unkind.

You think he acts like a child. You think he doesn't have common sense. It doesn't matter. You are called to respect him. The encouraging part on this point is love bestows loveliness and respect bestows respectability. If when we are faithfully loved as Christian women by Christian husbands, we should be getting progressively more lovely because that Christian love is not just a feeling or a bunch of flowers. It's a sanctifying work. Love comes in and does something to us. Christ's love has changed us. Our husband's love does the same thing to us. We should be coming more and more lovely. He should be helping us refine areas that are sinful in our lives, all of those things.

When you respect, it's a little bit different. It's not of the exact same processes with a girl. But just as when you love your daughter, I watch with Maggie, when her little tank is empty I start filling it up, she is suddenly more secure. She doesn't need to be clinging onto my leg, asking me where I'm going, when are you coming back? She's okay, okay, you can leave. I'll see you in two hours. I kept telling her, I'm gonna come back in two hours, and she's like crying. But as our tanks are filled up with love, we become more secure and less needy. As your husband's tank is filled up with respect, it's a little bit different.

It's more like a little bit of weight sits down on him, and men respond to that. They stand up stronger. Ooh, I have to carry this weight. I have to be the man. I'm gonna be strong. And she thinks that I'm really godly. Well, I better make sure I'm really godly. And she thinks I'm a great provider. Am I really providing? And then it encourages them to go out and do more. It's definitely not the same. That would not have that impact on me. I think I would pretty much be like, oh my gosh, they're expecting so much. I can't do this. But I'm not a man. So on that one, I really like, my husband loves spy kind of movies.

And then we watched this cowboy thing. He was like, that's cool. It's like this, I'm like, how is this cool? It's a cowboy all alone. He has no friends, he's totally alone. And he's got these other guys that are working for him and they don't really like him, but they think he's a good cowboy. And I suddenly put it together because the spies are always alone too. And Spiderman is his favorite superhero. And I'm like, why do you like all these alone, sad people? And I finally realized it's because they're respected. They're so good at what they do. It doesn't matter to them that people don't like them. It's that the people recognize Spider-Man is saving the city.

This cowboy is such a good cowboy. And these spies, we can't save our country without them. So that is such a different view of life than we have. We need to remember that when we're trying to communicate to them, that they're not thinking the same as we are, and their needs are not the same as ours. Spider-Man is not my favorite superhero. I think he's very depressing. OK, another thing that you can do is to meet your own responsibilities. Take care of your own calling. If you are busy with your own stuff to do, your own things that God has called you to take care of, you're going to have a lot less time to be critical of what you think he's failing in.

On this one, this really did happen to me. I keep thinking that I must have made it up, but I know that it happened. I was talking with a girl, and she said to me, I'm having such a bad day. I went to my mom's and when I got there, I didn't have any of the right clothes for the kids. It's so frustrating and now we can't go back, she had this whole big day she was gonna do and she only had like one diaper and no bathing suits. They were supposed to go swimming and then nothing to put them in after that. And I was like, oh, that is annoying. And I'm thinking, how did that even happen? And so then I think I said, well, why don't you have all that stuff?

And she said, my husband packed the diaper bag wrong. And I lit, it's like time froze. And I was like, what? And so then it was quiet for a while and I said, I said, you know, I'm really having a hard time feeling sympathy for you right now because for me, everyone does have a different husband and there are husbands that enjoy packing diaper bags, I'm sure. I know that there are husbands that love being the ones that wash all the kids at night. So, okay. But minus, I don't have this husband.

So I said, I'm just having a hard time even relating to what you're saying because I would stop the sentence my husband packed the diaper bag and I would be wondering what in the world did I do wrong today that my husband is packing the diaper bag and that's not to say that if your husband is that kind of guy, man enjoy it, like live it up and be really thankful. But for me I don't have that husband and I'm thrilled that I don't because for me that's great. I do want to pack the diaper bag. If he started packing it I would be like stop please don't do that. But for me me, diapering in particular has really turned into kind of like the figurehead of my responsibilities.

It represents what I am called to do. I know that it's really weird, but it's true. I cloth diapered Calvin, and I am so thankful for the theology that it brought into my physical life. It's real. It's not something I just throw in the trash. It's time I'm spending with my child, it's my calling to help clean him and take care of him and raise him and then teach him to use the bathroom like a normal person. And for me, it's, I don't know, it's just very significant. So the diaper bag is part of that. I want to take my calling seriously and recognize that those little mundane tasks are not actually mundane. They are huge and just as important as preaching.

I am called to diaper my child just as Shawn is called to preach the word. And oh, I forgot about this first. I can't believe I didn't put this in here. In Titus 2, isn't it in Titus 2? Yes, 2, thank you. Okay, so it's talking about, and so train the young women, I'm a young woman, to love their husbands and children. And I love that when you look at this word for love, it's much more, it's not like love, like a feeling, or even love, like a commitment, It's love like to be into, to enjoy, like to be all about that. So to be into their husbands and children, to be self controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

That is crazy. How can we ever think that what we're doing is not important so that the word of God may not be reviled? We are preaching in our diapering or in whatever it is that you're doing at home, cooking, dishes, all of those things, respecting our husbands, we are preaching. That is very, that's amazing.

Okay, now I'm all distracted. So anyway, let's just remember to not, if you are busy preaching the word through your conduct at home, you're really not gonna even have time to be like, well then he didn't do this and he's dumb. Okay, see I thought that that was my favorite part. I think this is my favorite part. Okay, you should make your respect personal. We're not submitting to just a vague, I think in our country especially, it's hard to remember this. Like when we think of the government, it's like this blah bureaucracy with no personality and it's forms and regulations and endless nothingness. Everything's just gray and the same.

We are not submitting to that. We're submitting to a personal head. God did not put you in a relationship just with a husband A, you know, that's exactly the same as her husband and her husband and her husband. He puts you with a very personal person. So much of your application of respect is dependent on your husband's makeup, his personality, his preferences, his calling, and even his health. Under the same point, you should learn about what he does and who he is. For me, this has been a great opportunity to learn about what my husband does. I've always known that it took a lot of work, but I don't think that I understood the pressure that he would communicate to me sometimes on Saturday night.

He would say, I have to have something to say tomorrow. I need to finish this so that I know what I'm gonna say tomorrow. And I was like, okay, I know that, but you've been doing this all week. But now that I've done, I mean, I'm working on one message for months and I was starting to freak out. I have to have something to say and it's only me. I'm the only one talking. So I have a deeper understanding and some ideas then of maybe what I could do to ease Saturday night a little bit for him instead of just being like, okay, sorry, and then just leaving him alone. But maybe there's a way that I can help him with that.

What communicates respect to him? This is again different for different men. Living in my house with my dad and my husband and my son and my son is, honestly it's a lot like living with Martin Luther, down with my mom, and John Calvin, down at my end. Shawn is very precise and he's much more formal. He likes things to be structured and orderly and calm. He likes things calm and taken care of. My dad is like, ooh, this is too calm, let's make it crazy. You know, and stirring it up and being very passionate. The way that my mom respects my dad is completely different than how I respect Sean. And my dad is actually a little bit offended if you try to respect him in a more formalized, structured way, traditional.

He's like, what's that? So you need to know what your husband is like. What are your husband's interests and preferences? This one's kind of fun. You may need to learn about sports, hunting, theology, history, fishing, computers. My mom gave me this one, chess. But my dad does play chess, So maybe that's true. Investing, cars, the list goes on and on. I don't know what your particular husbands are into, but for me, it's pretty simple. It's Apple Computer, Starbucks Coffee, and God.

So that, I can handle that. I can keep track of those three areas. Now, I hate coffee, but I know a lot about it. Here's a funny one, this one. I have a friend who, she does actually struggle with this. She struggles with respecting her husband because one of the ways that he loves her is he adorns her. He gives her ridiculous gifts of clothing and jewelry and just wants her to be, he wants to just dress her up as beautiful as she is and show her that all the time. She's embarrassed by it. I think that if she was not married, she would be dressed in jeans and a t-shirt all the time. She'd be very plain and not be drawing any attention to herself.

She has had to learn to submit by wearing fancier showier clothes than she would want to wear on her own because that's how her husband shows her love. And he is made happy and feels respected when she wears those things. I do think that that's one of the weirdest things, but I know it's really been a struggle for her. For me, the best thing that happened for me with the personal aspect of respect is I read a book called, just hang on, Marriage to a Difficult Man. Now, he gave it to me actually as a joke. He got it at the Shepherd's conference, and he was like, hey, I brought this home for you. I thought you'd need it.

And I was like, oh, that's funny. And it's about Jonathan and Sarah Edwards. So I open it up, and the first page explains that in their time, difficult meant genius. And I was like, that's why you gave this to me. You think you're a genius. And he said, no way does it say that. And I was like, it does. He's like, oh. So anyway, I just, I was, I read it because I just thought it would be interesting, but it ended up being, I didn't know that my husband was that actually much like Jonathan Edwards and it helped me understand him so much and seeing Sarah Edwards' example was, it's invaluable to me. She was, she was amazing.

For me, one of them, I grew up in a house where the husband, okay, the wife collects up all the trash in the house and then she puts the bag near the door and then the husband takes the bag out to the trash cans and then the trash cans to the street on the day they need to go out there. So this of course is what I did. I would collect up the trash around the house, put it at the front door, such a nice location for my husband who comes in from work tripping over the bag of trash so that he can take it out. Of course I had lots of time to do this on my own but that's not what I do. So anyway, even once I learned about respect, that was still a legitimate struggle for me in my heart.

I was like, I don't understand why he can't take out the trash. I was doing it at this point, but I was kind of irritated that I was doing it because doesn't he know that the husband takes out the trash? Everyone knows that. It's so stupid, but that's really what I thought. Reading that book, Jonathan Edwards didn't do anything. He studied God's word and rode his horse and walked around and spent time with his family. That is all he did. He didn't do anything. Husbands during that time, all of the other husbands were doing tons of physical labor on their property and in their homes. They were responsible for a lot of things.

He really did not do any of that. There is no record of her complaining about that or even mentioning that it's weird or asking him to do any of it. She just picked all of it up and did it. She recognized, she didn't know that she was married to Jonathan Edwards. But she knew that she was married to a man was called by God and all of us are married to men who are called by God if they are believers. That they, I wish that we did have more of that Puritan understanding of vocational calling. My husband does not do something more important than your husband. All of our husbands are called by God to do exactly what they are doing, unless they're inside.

So she understood that that's, he had a calling and he was a unique, different person than the other men in the neighborhood and she just didn't worry about it. She just took the trash out. So suddenly I thought I should probably just take the trash out. So um and the interesting part is I didn't know that that is the thing that that would end up triggering the thing about the diapers. I actually God put me with Shawn for a reason. I like that. Where some women might feel overwhelmed by needing to be responsible for car upkeep or taking the trash out or whatever, you know, doing all of those things. I love that. I actually do thrive on it. When Sean changed one of Calvin's diapers for the first time, I think Calvin was like 15 months old or something, and I really did not like that he did it. I didn't like that that situation came up where he had to do it, and it's because I really enjoy it. I'm really taking pleasure in that role of helping my husband and not giving him more work to do. And it's not

the same for everybody's husbands. I do know that there are lots of husbands who they enjoy that and so you should let them do that. So anyway, that's a great book. Your husband might not be like that, but you can look for other books that describe husbands that are like yours or watch wives who have husbands that are like yours to see how they're respecting them. Another point is that we need to make sure that we're verbally communicating our respect. This is tough because women like to talk and we don't always think about what we're saying or how we're saying it. We need to examine how we talk to our husbands and how we talk about them. This really is vital. Don't run him down to his face or behind his back. You don't need to share his faults. We all know that you are married to a sinner. We've probably even seen him sin. So we don't need you to tell us about it. Another one, this one, I think with the more kids that you get, this is probably more difficult. I don't know if you all have seen that show, John and Kate

plus eight, the lady that has the twin girls that are like six and then the six two-year-olds. It's crazy. And I don't even know if she's a believer, so I'm not criticizing her necessarily. But she has all of these kids, and she's constantly policing them and directing them and moving them from one place to another and dressing them and wiping off their faces and telling them what to do. And her husband walks in the door, and it's like, and you, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, go do this and this and this and this and this. And why didn't you take care of this, and you need to go do this. And you can see him like, oh, okay, here we are.

But we should not talk to our husbands like they're one of the kids or like they're one of your friends or they're just somebody that's in the way or needs to go take care of their responsibilities so that you can take care of yours. We again need to remember that he is in a special, God-ordained position and we need to talk to him like he is in that position.

Okay, now that, obviously I'm not saying that you need to talk to him, oh, you know, like all formal, like we're in England or something. Again, a lot of that depends on your husband. My dad does not like being talked to like that, but my husband does like being talked to a little bit more formally and not flippantly.

Another thing you can do, I've done this one a lot, especially when I am struggling with respect, you can write him a respect letter. This has been a great exercise for me because it really makes me sit down and think about it. It's easy to write a love letter. Oh, I love you, you're amazing, blah, blah, blah. But to actually sit down and think of all of the things that you appreciate about him and that you're grateful for is a great exercise, and he will really appreciate it. I know that Sean has really liked those notes that I've written him. On the same line, thank him for a lot of things. Don't take the little things or standard things for granted.

One of the things that I like that Nancy Wilson says is, have you thanked him for coming home every night? Have you thanked him for going to his job every day? This is something that not all women have, and we need to not take those things for granted and be thankful for that work that he does.

This one, I didn't know what to name, so my mom named it for me, the fullness of respect. Are you showing regard for your husband in all areas or just where it's convenient? And again, this is so specific to your individual husbands, but cleanliness of your home, of your kids, yourself. Does he wish that everything was cleaner? Does he wish that you weren't stressing out about how clean it was and that you let it get a little bit messy And so you were a little bit more fun to be around. Does he like how you dress? Does he like how you dress your kids? Have you ever asked him that?

Find out. Maybe he does have a preference. He might not. Sometimes these things he could use just like whatever at school. But he may have a priority and you should probably know. Have you talked to him about your priorities? Does he think that you're using your time wisely? Even your free time. What about the way that you take care of the chores that you have? What about the way that you talk? How about extended family relations? Does he like how you are handling, calling his mom or your mom or whatever, aunts and uncles and cousins and all of that.

Are you considering him and how you handle your money? Again, this is like the cleanliness thing. Are you spending too much of his money and being unwise that way? Does he wish that you were a little bit tighter? Or does he wish that you would loosen up and have a little bit of fun instead of spending four hours saving 30 cents on this kind of yogurt. And going to 47 thrift stores, and look, I bought this for $2 instead of just kind of loosening up and going with the flow. My husband likes a little bit. I'm like, Sean, look, I saved us 15 cents, it took me four hours. And he's like, okay, I don't want you to do that.

Let's just forget the 15 cents and enjoy life. And I'm like, okay. What about your friends, the women that you spend time with? Are they women that he would want you to be spending time with? Are they encouraging you to respect more? Are you encouraging them to respect more? What about your hobbies? How much you talk? Man, that one is killer for me. I love talking to Sean. I like talking to quite a few people, but I like talking to Sean. I want his input on everything. But I know that it drives him nuts. He'll be sitting next to me trying to read something. And I'll do good for a little bit. And then I'm like, oh, and then I was reading in the Old Testament about this.

And then, do you know about that? Did you read that in Seminary? What does that mean? Why did he do that? He stops and he answers me. And I really have to work on that, because for Sean, he is such an intense, single-track mind kind of person. For him to stop reading, listen to what I'm saying, answer me, and then transition back into reading, this is not an easy task. This is actually really difficult. It's like taking the entire train off of the tracks, putting it on a different set, and then putting it right back on this set. So I really have to work at that. But my dad, on the other hand, is always like, hey, come talk to me, to my mom, you know, and she's more quiet, and he wants her to chit-chat and just sit with them and whatever.

So, you know, think about him and those kind of things. What about the discipline of the kids? Are you following what you know he would like? Or is it more your style that's going on when he's not there? Remember that he is the head of the household, and he gives account for how you are training the children. That is weighty. Another one for me. I mean, this is so convicting to study this stuff. Timeliness. Does he wish that you were on time? Does he hate that you're 20 minutes early everywhere? Does he wish you would just relax a little bit? For me, having two children, for a long time, I was like 35 minutes late, everywhere I went.

I've got it now down to like four minutes late, but I know Sean would like it if I was five minutes early, and so I need to keep working on that to get the crew where we need to be on time. Because he is communicated respect that way. Traditions in your family, have you asked him if he likes the holiday traditions you have, whatever other ones you do. Exercise. Sean really prefers if I exercise each day, not because he wants a skinny wife, but because he wants a wife that is not stressed out. and I am a high energy ball of tension. But when I go for a little jog, 20 minute jog every day, I'm a lot easier to be around.

So he really prefers that. What about what time you go to bed? What time you get up? All of these things. It's endless. You could go through every part of your life. Another thing that you can do in the how tos is look to examples. We have amazing examples, obviously, in the Bible. One of my favorites is Noah's wife. There's no account of what she does, But can you imagine if your husband came home and said, God just talked to me. He's going to destroy the entire earth. And he wants me to build this massive boat. And it's going to start raining. And we don't really know what that is. But it's going to start raining.

And we need to build this boat. And then we're going to get all these animals in the boat. I would be like, OK. That is crazy. And apparently, she went along with it. I'm sure at some point she probably thought, well, this is weird. I wonder why we're doing this. But she didn't fight him on it. She went ahead and did that. And that's a good benefit that she did because she would have died otherwise. So it's a good thing she did that. Abigail, who we're gonna talk about a little bit at the end, is an amazing example. Sarah. Ruth shows so much respect right from the beginning and Mary's a respectable man, good choice.

And then Mary shows us a lot too about how God leads through the husband. She doesn't question when Joseph comes to her and says, "'God just talked to me last night "'and he says that this is what we need to do.'" She says, okay. And she goes along with what he says. God directs the family through the husband. So anyway, as you're reading, put yourself in their shoes and try to emulate their trust in the Lord. Remember that it's not their trust in their husband. It's their trust in the Lord. And that's always the thing that carries us through. It's not that your husband is trustworthy. It's that God is trustworthy.

And then the historical examples, like I said for me, Edwards, I always do think to be Katie Luther would have been exciting. Luther stuck his foot in his mouth so many times. And he was a reformer. The reformers were not well-liked people in their community. Like they were going against all the established authority that was around them. This is not like a time where they had, you know, CNN and they could see what was going on in all the other countries. This, they're in a very small world right here. And your husband decides, no, right here. These people are wrong. We're doing the wrong thing. And then he goes and nails up this thing on the door and everyone hates you.

And that, that's like, he, that's, that those are difficult situations to respect and what a blessing that they did. And that is some of what allows those men to do what God wants them to do because they know that they have that support at home. And then right around us, there are so many women in our church who understand respect in a very deep way. I was talking with someone today about how I have watched them so closely. I've never seen a crack. Most women, even the women who are doing really well, I've seen cracks, obviously, because it's difficult and we're sinful. But there's one person I've never even seen a hint.

It took me probably three years of studying to respect even realize she was respecting. I just thought, oh, they just get along that well. Then as I was thinking about it, I was like, no, you know what? I bet she's actually really respecting that well. That is impressive. So just look around you and watch what they're doing, and don't assume that it's easy because it looks effortless. Ask questions too. Ask the women around you, how are you doing that? How did you learn to do this? whatever, those kind of things. There's another one that's kind of a lighthearted example. Sometimes it's easy to thank for someone like me.

Well, of course, she respects her husband. He's just amazing. But we also have some women in our church that are not married to men who love God. And that is a completely different situation. I can't even imagine, because I get so much strength and encouragement from Sean's example. But there's a woman in our church who, her husband told her one summer, you can't water the garden anymore. It's too much money, our water bill's too high and I don't want you to. She loved her garden and was like, okay. She submitted to this, to me it seems like an unreasonable request, I don't know, I wasn't there. We don't understand his responsibility of paying all those bills.

We don't know what he was thinking, what burdens were on him. But she submitted to it, she went without saying, well that's crazy, this is insane. I don't get to water my air, I put all this work into it. But she went back and thought about it, and she realized she could, in her washing machine, get the rinse water out. Now since that I've talked to her, I didn't know that she didn't know you can just take the hose out of the back of the washing machine and have it drain into a bucket. She was actually taking a bucket, putting it into the washing machine, pulling the water out, putting it into a bigger bucket, and then, so she asked her husband if that would be okay to take that water and then water her garden with it, and he gave her permission to do that, and so she went about watering her garden in a back-breaking way until then he, watching that quiet obedience, saw that and then said, you know what, you can water your garden.

That is, I mean, it's such a tiny little thing, but that does have an impact on him. He sees that without a word, she is quietly respecting him and she knows that that is not, he knows that that's not because he is an amazing person. He knows that that's because she loves God and that has an impact on him And hopefully God will use those things to save him.

Anyway, that kind of leads into when it's a hard situation to submit. Now on this part, I'm not talking about women who are married to abusive, violent, you know, just wicked men like that. I'm talking about women who are married to normal men. And it's going to be hard always. Let's talk about Abraham. Do we think Abraham is a godly man? Yes. He's clearly godly. who's being directed by God out loud. However, Abraham put his wife in a very awkward position in Genesis 12.

I can't even, I mean, there is no record of what she says to him. It's hard for me to believe that she didn't go, are you serious? Like, you want me to do what? But we do know that she obeyed him. They were going into Egypt, and Sarah must have been amazingly beautiful because this is such a beauty that he knows that they're going to get stopped, and this massive flood of people that's going to Egypt, they're gonna get stopped because she's that pretty, and the king is going to want to, that Pharaoh's gonna want to take her as his own wife. And so Abraham tells her, okay, well look, you're my half-sister anyway, we'll just say you're my sister, we're not gonna mention that you're my wife, that way they're not gonna wanna kill me.

I'll be safe that way. And I know what my feeling would be, oh, nice that you're concerned about your safety, what about me, I gotta go live with Pharaoh, I don't wanna do that, you know? Like, I don't wanna be married to him, and that doesn't seem good. You know, I can't imagine that any of us have ever been put in a situation anything like this with this kind of risk because of our husband's folly. I can't, I, maybe this kind of thing is happening to you? I don't think so though. The worst part is, okay, so Sarah gets through this okay. Let's go to Genesis 20. Abraham now is going into a different country. And he decides they're really going to like my wife too.

we'll just do that thing we just did that God totally called him out for. Okay, so she submits again to this crazy, dangerous, completely selfish plan that Abraham has to, you know, well you just go with a bimalak, it'll be fine, that way I'll stay alive. You know, he's showing no faith in God. This is obviously he's sinning. So she obeyed both times. I think that on this one she probably had a case, a biblical case, a godly case, to say, no I don't want to do this, this is lying. This doesn't seem wise. We just did this. God just told us this was a bad idea. I don't think we should do this. She still obeyed and that's because she did not trust Abraham. She trusted God. She knew that God had given her Abraham as her husband and that he would take care of her. This kind of trust, I don't have this, this kind of faith at all. And in 1st Peter 3 verses 5 and 6, she She is held up as our example.

For this is how the holy women who hoped in God, you sudorn themselves by submitting to their husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him Lord. And you are her children if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. I love this verse. This verse, as women, we need to read verse 6 a thousand times a day. If you do good and do not fear anything, that is frightening. It doesn't say not to be afraid that the wind is blowing in the trees, but to, You won't fear things that are frightening. It is frightening for your husband to abandon you to a foreign king to be part of his harem. That's frightening. I don't want that to happen to me.

I can't even imagine. And she obeyed because she trusted God, not Abraham or herself. On this point, this is also a little bit disorganized, but when it's hard, if your husband is sinning or just is doing something that you don't fully understand, you're not on board with, you don't totally get where he's going, don't feel the need to answer for him to other people or to excuse his behavior. That's not your place. He is the head. He is the one taking the responsibility. He's been given that responsibility by God. Let that responsibility fall on him, whether it's just that you need to get on board and get up to speed or he's in sin.

He answers for that. You do not answer for your husband's sin. It's not your job to explain it away to the people at the church or another example would be if your husband has gotten you into financial trouble and there's bill collectors calling. Don't be the one to talk to bill collectors. Don't try to explain to them what you're going to do. It's his responsibility to get you out of that. Let him talk to the bill collectors. If another woman at church comes up to you and is like, well, why are you guys doing with that? Why did you buy that house? driving that truck for, or you know put in a zillion other options there. Don't gossip about your husband and don't excuse your husband. That's not your job.

And also don't even try to be embarrassed. I mean it's not your, there's nothing to be embarrassed about if your husband has been foolish or you just don't understand. You serve a mighty God and he will not abandon you to something silly like that. On that note too, be careful what you say to other women about their husband's behavior. Remember that they don't answer for him, they're not responsible for him, and they may be struggling to respect and it's not going to help them if you're like, what the heck is he doing? We need to remember to leave a little courtesy there, a little space, and not ask them to answer for that.

And again, the same thing with the respect for the man. He does thrive under that pressure of responsibility, and so don't feel that you need to take it from him. It's better if he has it on his shoulders. OK, so that's kind of what you could do. Then, what about the results of respect? And this is the part that I'm so excited about, because I think that this gets kind of washed over in a lot of the talks about submission. It sounds just like a lot of work and it's bad and you just have to submit and God will take care of you You get to go to heaven It's it's not just that if we are faithfully pursuing biblical respect and I don't mean faithfully consistently or You know correctly. I mean faithfully full of faith in God if you're pursuing biblical respect full of faith in God the blessings are Abounding, and that's totally the stress and obeys on.

That for the favor he shows and the joy he bestows are for them who will trust and obey. And that really is what this is. You're trusting God and you're obeying by respecting. He blesses you. You're not alone. And the things that I can't believe is that it's not just you get to go to heaven. I have seen so much blessing in my life and so much just personal happiness that I don't even need because of increased respect. of times you'll see your husband does change. Your husband is like, oh, I'm being respected, and they do step it up a little bit. You probably will receive more love from your husband as you give him more respect.

I thought that this wasn't going to work. This is the part that, you know, I'm like math brain. I'm like, no, no, no, no. If I put respect into him, then that's what he's going to think that I want, and he's just going to respect me back. No, it doesn't work like that. It's not a math formula. It's God. So as I respected him, he became much more gentle and tender and loving towards me. And I was like, wow, I didn't even need this. You know, the same basic biblical principles of obedience apply here. It's just like we tell our kids, if you stay in the circle of protection, if you obey what I say, you have blessings.

If you leave this circle, I can't protect you, and the blessings don't happen out here. I don't know what's going to happen if you leave the circle of protection. So it's the same for us. You are in a protected area by respecting and submitting to your husband.

So anyway, you probably will be surprised by some of the changes, even in your marriage. Some of it will be your perspective. And I love Nancy Wilson says this. I think this is so funny. I'm not trying to make this too simplistic, saying that if you respect your husband, all your troubles will go away. But frankly, most of them will. This happened to me. I thought that it was going to be a really long, complicated process. I would have to change all of these different things, and it would be really long. I would say probably within three or four days of me really working on this, a lot of things changed. I saw a different husband who I think had been there the entire time and then he began changing.

And then I changed more. And both of us were a lot happier. And it just keeps getting better and better and better. So I think that that's funny. Now that's not to lessen serious troubles that some women have. But anyway, a lot of it is just that you change from seeing his sin to seeing your and then you know to trust God and repent from that sin and work on those things. Anyway, and then again, the changes that you see in your husband. This is again her quote, sometimes I wonder where the church would be today if the men in it were respected as they ought to be by their wives. That really is powerful and it really is true. It's the, well, it's not a magic formula, respect a man and then it'll turn into a godly, amazing whatever.

or, you know, just like parenting, faithful Christian parenting does not always produce faithful Christian children, but generally that is how God works. God generally does that. And so if we faithfully respect our husbands, generally God will cause them to be more and more respectable. And he does amazing things through men who are respected. And then that also always makes me think of Proverbs 31 in verses 10 through 12. An excellent wife who can find, She is far more precious than Jules, the heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not harm all the days of her life."

I do not do, Shawn, nothing but good and not harm. But that is what I want. And I know that when your husband can trust you because he knows that you're doing him good, he is freed up to do the things that God is calling him to do. Some wrong responses that do not bring blessing is A legalistic self-powered approach to respect and this is something that I fall into in every area of my life Is this kind of legalism where I can sanctify myself look I'm gonna work harder faster longer This is deadly this brings death to you. It's awful You you will feel so bitter and angry and discontent and alone and discouraged God does not call us to do this on our own It is an overwhelming impossible task without him and that's not what he's calling us to So he's calling us to rely on him and his strength and to simply trust and obey instead of trying to do it on our own power.

OK, so I'm pretty much done here. The last thing, though, that I know that we need to address are some special cases. I don't know all of you, and I don't know your particular situations. Some of you may be in particularly difficult situations with a blatantly disobedient or unbelieving husband. And I am going to be reading most of this because I don't want to mess this up. I put a lot of time into this and had Shawn check it because these are very sensitive areas. So I just want to be careful.

We don't have time to fully address these problems at all, but I do want us to take a quick look at the biblical example we have in Abigail. I don't know how I missed Abigail the few times that I had read the story before, but this is a powerful story and it's in 1 Samuel 25. We don't even have time to read this whole thing, But I would encourage you, especially if you're in one of those situations or you know a woman that is in one, to read this. Because this is an amazing story if you put yourself in Abigail's position. If you just read it, it's kinda like, okay. But if you pretend that you're Abigail, this is serious business.

This is like, a lot of stuff is going on here. She is described as being a wise, believing woman and she's married to an outright fool. He's described as worthless, which I was like, whoa, that's harsh. The men who work for him know that he's worthless. She knows this. Everyone knows this. This is his complete reputation. He's a moron. Abigail was put in a position where one of the workers of her husband came to her and said, King David is coming through, and he wants to be taken care of. I don't remember if he needed food or something like that. And the servants had gone to enable her husband and said, David's coming through.

He needs some help. Oh, no, no. He wasn't King David, though, at this point. was he, solace looking. Anyway, he's coming through, he needs help, and he says, no way, I'm not helping him, I don't have time for this, I don't want to do that. And he was a jerk about it all. So he wasn't just like, you know, saying, no, you know, we're really stressed right now, we don't have enough time, we really have to take care of these other responsibilities. He was like, no, go away, I'm not gonna help you. So one of the servants comes to Abigail and tells her what's happened, and tells her that King David is now not happy at all, and is coming to destroy their entire household. This is very bad. This is like a bad result of your husband being This is not even like the IRS is coming to repossess your car.

This is, you're coming, he's coming, he's going to kill you. So Abigail went against her husband behind his back and without delay. This is not normally the kind of behavior that we want to have as Christian women is completely disregarding our husband, calling completely against what they've said and not even telling them about it.

However, Abigail knew that her husband was a worthless, foolish man who disregarded God in every area of his life. So this is a very unique case, like the kind that we're talking about right now. This is a case where submission to God negated the call to submitting to her husband, because also David, as a representative of the king, is a legitimate authority also. And for him to say, you need to put up my men and take care of us, is a legitimate thing. There's no reason to disobey that as a Christian. Okay, so, but this is my favorite part, because one of the the questions I was asked as I was preparing, and it threw me off at first, was when you need to address when Christian women should disrespect their husbands. And I thought, hmm, I don't know. So I started studying and I decided, never. We should sometimes disobe our husbands. This is again in a very unique case where a husband is blatantly telling you to disobe God. If that is happening, you do need to disobe your husband. But I

I don't think there's any scriptural precedent for us to disrespect our husbands in any circumstance. Because if you look at verses 36 to 37, when I first read this, I didn't understand why they were even in there. And Abigail came to Navel. Okay, Abigail has now gone to David. She went behind Navel's back and said, My husband is stupid. I am so sorry. Please accept my apologies. Let me. And she brought all this food and all this stuff. And she gave it to David and was like, Please forgive Navel for being this foolish. Take this and don't destroy my house. Please. He could have killed her right there. She was definitely putting herself at risk, but she was doing what she knew she needed to do to protect everyone else at home.

And David responded kindly and said, yes, I won't kill your family. Great. Thank you for all this stuff. Bye. So now she goes home, and I'm thinking, gosh, what would you do in this situation? Abigail came to Navel, and behold, he was holding a feast in his house like the feast of a king. And Navel's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk. Which I was like, why did they tell us that? That's so funny. So she told him nothing at all until the morning light. In the morning when the wine had gone out of navel, his wife told him these things and his heart died within him and he became as a stone. So I read this a few times and I was like, okay, but why does she wait?

I don't get it. Because I'm thinking, I'm not around any drunk people, but I would think his heart is very merry. This is a good time to tell him some bad news, you know? Maybe we'll remember. I'm just gonna tell him, oh, fun party. Hey, by the way, David was gonna come kill us, but I stopped him. I gave him some food. It's all cool. This seems like a good time to me to tell him to avoid problems. But she waits until he's sober. And as I thought about it, I think that it's because she is respecting him. She is recognizing his authority and his responsibility. She knows he's totally stupid and does all of the wrong things, but he's still going to answer for God, answer to God, so he needs to know what has happened.

So she waits for him to be sober. That's amazing. So she tells him, and then I love what God does here.

takes care of her. The entire weight of Navel's sin falls directly on him. I don't know if it's because he really did suddenly realize, oh man, I'm stupid. But his heart became as a stone. And about 10 days later, the Lord struck Navel and he died. Wow. That's like a pretty serious result of being stupid. And for Abigail, I'm sure she thought, I don't know exactly what he was like, but he is harsh. He's described as harsh. I would think that she would wonder if she would be beaten for telling him that and disobeying him like that. But she was not afraid and she did what was right because she feared God. And it's interesting also how God takes care of Abigail. Now obviously we don't wish that wicked husbands die. We wish that they would come to know the Lord, but in this case he did die and God gives Abigail a new husband who does love God. Now David obviously makes a bunch of mistakes too, but this is a household that's protected by God because he is serving God. What a change for her to go from being married to that guy to then

being a part of his house. Abigail's story should be a great encouragement to all of us, but particularly to those who are in difficult situations. There are a couple of things to remember when you are in one of those situations. First, these circumstances require much wisdom. Generally, you should go past your husband to the appropriate authority, governmental or elders, in the following types of situations. Uncontrolled anger, abdication of his responsibility to provide for the family, and on that one I don't just mean he's not making enough money so that you can have all the cool toys that you want or the nice clothes that you think that you need, but that he's actually not providing for your basic family needs of shelter and food.

Tax evasion, physical abuse, sexual unfaithfulness, violence.

This is not an exhaustive list, but it gives you an idea of the seriousness we're talking about. These are not just minor, everyday sins, but they're stiff-necked, unrepentant, blatant sins. If you're not sure what to do, there's one thing that you shouldn't do. Do not gossip about your husband to your friends, even under a spiritual guise. This is always an unacceptable plan of attack when you're in one of these situations. You don't want to make it worse by going and gossiping. Something that you can do is to seek the counsel of your elders. If this is a delicate situation that you're embarrassed It may be appropriate to ask your wow leader or someone like that to come along with you so that you're not quite as uncomfortable Another thing that's important is to remember that there is comfort and hope in first Peter 3 verses 1 and 2 We are given the hope of being the tool that God uses to bring our husbands to repentance Through our respectful and pure conduct without a word respect is not weak This goes back to making sure that we understand what respect really is having the proper definition

For this is a gracious thing when mindful of God one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it when you sin and are beaten for it you endure but if when you do good and suffer for it you endure this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps. We're told in this verse that people submitting to unjust masters, which would be a wife in a situation like this, we are not forgotten by God and he will not leave you. That should be all the encouragement that you need in a situation like that. I just want to end by reading the Nancy Wilson quote one more time that we've already read. Where would the church be today if the men in it were properly respected? Not only this, but I also I also wonder where would we be as Christian women if we were properly respecting? I can only imagine the increase in contentment, joy, and fruitfulness in our lives.

For this is a gracious thing when mindful of God one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it when you sin and are beaten for it you endure but if when you do good and suffer for it you endure this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps. We're told in this verse that people submitting to unjust masters, which would be a wife in a situation like this, we are not forgotten by God and he will not leave you. That should be all the encouragement that you need in a situation like that. I just want to end by reading the Nancy Wilson quote one more time that we've already read. Where would the church be today if the men in it were properly respected? Not only this, but I also I also wonder where would we be as Christian women if we were properly respecting?

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Well, you can take out your copy of God's Word and turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 9. And while you're doing that, wake up! Seriously. It's a new year. More than that, we get to study God's Word together. And if you were here a couple of Sundays ago, you remember we looked at that paragraph, Ecclesiastes chapter 9 verses 7 through 10, the most positive, exciting paragraph in the book of Ecclesiastes so far, where we considered Solomon's call to all God-fearers to eat with joy, and to dress with joy, and to be married with joy, and to work hard with joy. We are called, we are commanded in that paragraph, to pursue a life of joy in the process as we relate properly to God.

And you can, at least I can, smell the aroma that comes from that kind of lifestyle of the wise and righteous. This is the kind of approach to life where you are digging in and dressing up and maximizing marriage and working hard. That is the kind of life approach that we are to have. And undoubtedly, you know at least one person who lives life to the full, who grabs the bull by the horns and decides it's going to ride at least for as many seconds as possible. You probably know at least somebody like that. But for those of us who are God-fearers, That's how we all should be living. That should be our lifestyle for those who fear God.

What's interesting though, I think instead of being content, Ecclesiastes 9, 7 through 10, enjoying the food that you have, the drink that you have, the clothes that you have, make them white, put them on, instead of being content and enjoying the process, what do we typically do? Instead of being content and enjoying the process, We typically try to control the process and then to pursue results. We're typically not satisfied with the experience. We want the accomplishments. And so instead of being satisfied with what we have and finding fulfillment where we are, we're tempted to think that joy comes from accomplishments and from treats and from luxuries rather than the practice, the path, the journey itself.

We'll talk about having joy in food when it's good food. And we'll talk about having joy in our clothes when they're expensive and nice. We'll talk about enjoying life with our wife as long as it's the right wife. And we'll talk about enjoying our toil and labor as long as we're successful and we make a profit. It's the kind of job that we want and we mistake. This is key to what Solomon is about ready to tell us in this paragraph. We mistake our responsibility to enjoy the process for thinking we're responsible for the results of the process. And we start looking to the end to the accomplishments to the results for our joy rather than enjoying the journey to get there.

The problem is those are two very different things. And the primary problem with believing that joy comes from the results is that the results are never reliable. If you try to do anything, you know that you cannot always guarantee and accurately predict the results of what you pursue. This is Bible 101. This is certainly Ecclesiastes' basic theme and message. We cannot control the process of life under the sun to guarantee the end that we want. It doesn't matter how many talents you have, how smart you are, how strong you are, you cannot control what happens in life to guarantee what you want. That's not your responsibility.

Your responsibility is to enjoy the pursuit whether you end up getting the thing you're pursuing or not. I think Solomon knew that we would slip into this kind of self-sufficient self-effort to secure the joy that he commanded in Ecclesiastes 9, 7 through 10. He says, eat your bread with joy, drink your wine with a merry heart, always be wearing Let not oil be lacking on your head. Be getting ready for the party. That's the kind of lifestyle. Maximize life with your wife. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might. Take a hold of every opportunity. And he knows that we will easily slip from recognizing that joy is good and that joy in the process is possible to thinking that it's about the results.

It's about the end. The problem is that if there is one thing we can expect under the sun, it is the unexpected. You can't guarantee pretty much anything. Success often does not go to the smartest or the strongest. That could be really frustrating. That success does not go to the smartest or the strongest. That's only a threat to your joy if your joy depends on the result. It's not a threat to your joy if joy is something that you get in the process. If you're concerned about the results, you're in trouble because you should expect the unexpected. And in Ecclesiastes 9, 11 through 12, the paragraph we're going to look at this morning, we're going to see two things that are unexpected.

Unexpected results, an unexpected death, or at least an unexpected time of death. Look at verse 11. Again, I saw 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." And in verse 11, we see unexpected results. And this so challenges us as Americans, because I think especially in our culture, we're a group of people who believe that not only is it up to us to be all that we can be, but that we can be all that we can be, and that we will be all that we can be If we just work harder, if we just put the right things into place, that's not really something we can expect, but yet we believe that it is talented people who succeed.

We assume that people with better brains get better grades. We expect the big kid is always going to beat up the little kid. But if we wake up and actually open our eyes and look around, that's not actually how it goes, is it? The first part of verse 11, again, I saw under the sun. This is the same playing field that Solomon has been observing and surveying since the beginning of the book. He is concerned with life on earth. He is concerned with life under the sun. It is another truth. This is reality. This is something that the preacher Solomon himself saw and experienced for himself. I saw this under the sun. And then he lists five pursuits and five favorites.

And what I mean by favorites is people that you would bet on, people that you would expect to win or to triumph in these five different pursuits. People that you would expect, they're the favorites. But in each of these cases, the result is not what we expect. The first pursuit or arena is that of competition. He says the race is not to the swift. The adjective swift describes someone who is light and therefore speedy, somebody who is light on their feet. As a person who does some running, I can tell you that the difference between running at 185 and 255 is actually pretty substantial. When I ran my first marathon in 2001, I probably weighed somewhere around 235 pounds.

And Mo actually added up, she is the math kind of person, so she added up what it would be like if I was just at 200, how many steps of having an extra 35 pounds over the course of 26.2 miles, how many less pounds I would actually carry over the course of a marathon. And it was like some ridiculous number in the millions of pounds I would carry less over the course of a marathon per step if I just lost some weight. They call the runners who are over 200 pounds and who run marathons. They put them in a special class, and it's called the Buffalo class. I kid you not. The people who win the marathons are the people you could, it looks like you could just blow really hard at them and they would fall over.

So when you're light on your feet, instead of gravity yelling your name and just basically reaching its fist up to pull you down on the ground and make each step along the race a difficult thing. The swift person is the light person, therefore the fast, the quick, the speedy kind of person. But what's significant is that the quickest person doesn't always cross the finish line first, do they? All kinds of things can happen. The fact of the matter is you could be the fastest person out there. You could have won every race you've ever run before. That doesn't mean you're guaranteed to win this race. The race doesn't always go to the swift.

And the second pursuit is the arena or the pursuit of war, nor battle to the strong. As Sal Solomon describes it, the strong is the mighty or valiant warrior. It's the man who's got power and skill in fighting. But again, victory in the fight is not always guaranteed to the big guy. Just ask Goliath. In fact, you can't ask Goliath anymore. Why? Because his head is chopped off. Because he lost to a little scrawny burly guy. Or a little scrawny guy beat the big burly guy. The battle doesn't always go to the strong. The third pursuit relates to daily provisions. Solomon says, nor bread to the wise. Bread is a word that represents the necessities of life.

It represents primarily then food that you need to continue your physical existence. And by extension, then bread kind of represents security in life. You have bread, then you have food. If you have food, then your life is probably going to continue. But being wise doesn't always mean you're going to be well fed. Wisdom does not always translate into food on the table. There are a lot of wise, very hungry people. Just because you're wise doesn't mean that you'll win the bread. The fourth pursuit concerns money or possessions. as nor riches to the intelligent, you may be brilliant. Some of you are totally brilliant.

You may be insightful. You may be ridiculously discerning. You may know more than your co-workers. You may know more than your boss. That actually doesn't guarantee that you're going to be wealthy. It doesn't even guarantee it's going to keep you out of the poor house. Just having intelligence It doesn't automatically mean you're going to get rich. The fifth pursuit, the final pursuit, concerns acceptance. And then I think influence. Solomon says, nor favor to those with knowledge. Favor is a word that speaks of getting esteem from someone else, having a reputation among people and therefore opportunity to make an impact on them.

When you receive the favor from someone, they're pleased with you. And typically then they'll listen to you. But being learned does not mean that people listen. Having info is not the same thing as having influence. The first two situations we see demonstrated that physical superiority does not guarantee success. And in the final three pursuits, mental acumen or mental ability doesn't guarantee anything either. Neither better brain nor brawn are sure successes. After almost every game I lost, because I played sports when I was growing up, almost after every game I lost, my dad would say something like, it's better to be lucky than good.

And I'm going to talk about lucky in just a moment. But he always said that, it's better to be lucky than good. And it doesn't take too much observation of life around us to see that a lot of people have succeeded who, looking at them, you're like, how could that possibly be? They can't tie their shoes, let alone how could they run a successful company or win the race and not trip over their shoelaces. And yet, some of the most capable, smart, strong people that we know, we look and we see them and they're basically wiping the potato chip grease on their shirt because they don't have anything to do and they don't have anything.

Now, it is important before we move on to the final part of verse 11, it's important for you to think about this accurately because Solomon does not say. You can look at the verse again, verse 11. Solomon does not say that the swift always lose. He doesn't say that the strong always suffered defeat. He doesn't say that the smart always fail. What he is saying is that even if you are strong, or fast, or smart, You should not expect, based on that, to always come in first. But if you get joy running the race, this is the beautiful thing, if it's all about, I've got to win the race in order to have joy, if it's about the result, then we're going to work at being faster so we can guarantee ourselves to win the race.

Problem, the fastest person doesn't always win the race. But if you enjoy running the race, enjoy the running of it, then winning is just icing on the cake. You can have joy twice instead of maybe not at all. The problem with all of these pursuits is found in the last part of verse 11. Solomon reveals the reason that we should expect the unexpected. He says, but time and chance happen to them all. Now this is a major problem, no matter how you look at it. If that is really true, if you're a pagan person, an unbelieving person, if that's true, that really bites. Time and chance happened all. Sorry. No guarantee. It's a problem for somebody who's not a believer, but it's probably an even bigger problem for the believer, Is this really saying that God is not in control of something?

Time and chance happen to all. Things outside of our control. And is He also saying things outside of God's control? Happen to everybody? That's a significant problem. It's a problem either way. But I don't think that Solomon is throwing his hands in the air exasperated by random, haphazard, impersonal forces that both keep men from doing what they want and keep God from doing what He wants. I don't think that's what Solomon is saying. Remember the playing field we're talking about. Solomon's observation is looking at what? Life under the sun. He's looking at life from our perspective, From the human, from man's perspective, is where his observation comes from.

And from our perspective, we can't explain why bad things happen to good people. It doesn't seem like that's what they deserve. That doesn't seem right. It seems like time and chance happen to good people who should have gotten something else. From the human perspective, it makes no sense that David could have defeated Goliath. From the human perspective, all you can do is look at that and go, wow, that was a lucky shot. I mean, that's as good as you can get under the sun. Can't explain how that happened. That's totally crazy. Based on what we see, it all depends on time and chance, the bounce of the ball, the luck of the draw.

But the key is that's what it seems like from our perspective. It's interesting the word chance does not have the same philosophical God-denying bent that we typically would hear people using the word chance, what they would be referring to. When people today talk about luck and talk about destiny and fate and chance, they're talking about it in a way that replaces God. They talk about it like chance is uppercase C. And Chance has his own throne somewhere, just willy-nilly throwing out different things for people. Ah, let this person win. Ah, let this stone go here. I don't like that wise person, so pfft, fawn you.

But the word Chance in Hebrew does not actually have any kind of God-denying attitude about I'm not sure about it at all. The Hebrew word pega refers to an event that was just not arranged. It was referred to some occasion that was accidental, that was not planned. But the question is not planned by who? Well, not planned by you. All kinds of things happen in life that you didn't plan. Probably, if your life is anything like mine, You make lots of plans, and they don't happen. Let alone not having a plan and something else happens. Accidents happen all around us from our perspective. The point is, the event is not planned by us.

As far as we're concerned, anything can happen. But that is not the same thing as saying that events are outside of God's control. that the stone in David's sling wasn't in God's control on its way to Goliath's head. Solomon, in fact, already explained in Ecclesiastes that everything happens under the sun, under God's control. That God is the one who makes it happen. Look back at Ecclesiastes chapter 3, verse 14. After this whole poem about times and seasons, he explains who is in control of those times and seasons. Ecclesiastes 3, 14, He has made everything beautiful in its time. If you looked over at chapter 8, verse 17, he says, Then I saw all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun.

Solomon then is not denying in any way, shape, or form that God is in control, or that God doesn't know, or that God hasn't arranged for the fast person to lose, and the strong person to lose, and the wise people to go hungry. He's not saying that God doesn't know that, or has arranged that. He's saying we don't know that from our perspective. Not only has he said that already in Ecclesiastes, Look at Proverbs 16. This is in an extended section of Proverbs that Solomon himself wrote, starting in Chapter 10. Look at three verses in Proverbs 16. Starting in verse 1, The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.

You can totally sit there all day long and think about what you're going to say to this person when you have this meeting. You can prepare, you can arrange, you can set it up, you can outline it, write it out. Your tongue, like don't you have control over your tongue? It's pretty close right there even to your brain. Out of all the parts of your body, the tongue is close to the brain. You could think that the brain could have some control over this one. But God is the one who's in control of your tongue. Look down at verse 9. The heart of a man plans his way. But the Lord establishes his steps. That couldn't be any clearer that what we have is I make a plan.

I start to pursue something, but ultimately God is the one who turns me in the direction and heads me in the way that He wants. Look down then at verse 33. Not only in animate life with people who have brains and wills and thinking ability. Proverbs 16.33, The lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. The best parallel for us would be dice. You throw the dice. The numbers that come up are the numbers God has ordained to come up. Now, I realize you're going to be thinking about that. It's going to blow your mind. Especially blow your mind when you realize No spoon. All of that to say, God is in control of all the things.

But we don't know what it is that He is doing from our perspective, especially from a perspective that is not considering God. Time and chance happen to all. Everything, though, is caused by something. The Bible teaches that it is caused by someone. And to say that something happens by chance is simply a way for us to say we don't know what the cause was. And this kind of summarizes verse 11. The point is that providence, God's providence, God's control of all things, trumps your ability and your ingenuity any time He wants. You can play your, I've got a good brain card, and you can play your, I've been running 80 miles a day for the last 10 years of my life card.

But God can, anytime He wants, say, great, look at what I've got. And somebody else wins, or someone else gets the job. Humanability, human ingenuity, Human physical strength, human mental strength is just not a match for God and His providence and His sovereignty. While providence regularly corresponds to the swift, the strong and the smart, that is oftentimes the fast person wins. Oftentimes the strong person, the big kid, beats up the little kid and gets the lunch money. Oftentimes it is the smart people who get the job. Well, Providence often goes with that. Providence is not bound to go with that. And if you are expecting results based on your abilities, you are missing a key thing, and that is you're not in control even of the results.

You could line up all of your pieces in the perfect positions on the game board, and God can at any moment just come in and overturn the board. He doesn't need to come in and skillfully move his pieces around. He'd just throw your pieces into another room. That's his prerogative. That's why we need to be depending on him. No event is arbitrary. That is based on random, not reason. No event is capricious. That is sudden or unaccountable. No event is whimsical. That is frivolous or insignificant. Everything happens for a reason. It's just that we don't always, in fact, we probably most of the time don't know the reason.

But just because we don't know doesn't mean that God is not in control. For those who don't think about life under God, it seems like luck has more to do with the final score than anything else. My encouragement to you is If you think that lucky people win, that those who win races and win wars are just the lucky people, don't bet on it. It's God who controls, who wins, and who's victorious. That's unexpected results, v. 11. Unexpected death is the point of v. 12. Things don't always go to plan. Everything can change in a moment, especially if you die. If you want to talk about a real life-changing moment, death is probably at the top of life-changing moments.

If it seems like life is random, death is even less predictable. Verse 12, 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. Just like it was a problem under the sun Time and chance happened to all. Verse 11, So now it's a problem that man does not know his time. It's possible that the description, his time, it's possible that that refers to any kind of negative or bad event. We know that there are times and seasons. It's possible that he's saying, man does not know his time.

Like he doesn't know when he's going to win or when he's going to lose. When something good is going to happen when something bad is going to happen. But I think that based on the verse itself, it's best to see His time as referring to death. Part of the reason I think that is because the chapter has had a lot to say about death, not just bad things. Starting in chapter 9, verses 1-6, we saw that death is certain for everybody, no matter who you are, the righteous and the wicked. Death is coming. Death is certain. It's just that you don't know when your death is coming. That's the problem. And I think based on the context of the chapter so far, His time refers to death.

I think it's also significant that each time the word time is used in verse 12, it's singular. You kind of think if good things are bad things, good events or bad events were what he was thinking about, he would have said times. Man does not know his times, plural. Because ideally, if you live a couple days, you have more than one time. That happens to all of us. I think based on the fact that it's singular, he is thinking about death. The same event happens to everyone. Death is certain. The problem is no one knows when. And two pictures in the middle part of v. 12 demonstrate that. Two illustrations demonstrate the sudden, unexpected timing of death.

First, he says like fish that are caught in an evil net. There you are, going about your business, trying to find Nemo. Everything is going along swimmingly. And all of a sudden, you're hauled up out of the water, thrown onto the deck with a bunch of other smelly fishes, and inevitably going to be dinner on somebody else's plate later on that night. Like that. The net catches you. You weren't suspecting it. And suddenly, there you are, now you're dinner. The second picture is similar, like birds that are trapped in a snare. Typically with a snare, you have some kind of bait. And so something catches the bird's eye and the bird goes to the snare.

The bait catches the eye and then the snare catches the bird. They weren't thinking about being trapped. They certainly weren't preparing for it. And then it was too late. And those two pictures show us how fast and how unexpected death is for men. Obviously, there are people who are sick for extended periods of time where doctors tell them, years in advance, you're going to die. Look, I can tell you right now, you're going to die. So if that makes me a prophet, Awesome. You're going to die. It's not a question of you're going to die. The thing that's unexpected and unanticipated that you can't finally and ultimately prepare for is when that happens.

And that's the point that Solomon makes at the end of verse 12. The point of the application of the pictures is so the children of man are snared at an evil time when it suddenly falls upon them. This is the universal condition describing the children of man. If you are a son or daughter of parents of human beings, this is the case for you. The whole verse emphasizes then the abrupt and unanticipated end of life. Eternity is never, never more than one heartbeat away. We don't think about it that way because we're attracted by the bait of life under the sun. But the fact is, every heartbeat, any heartbeat, could be your last one.

We have no influence on our entrance into this world, and we have no ultimate influence on when we cross the finish line. God is the one who's in control. And men who don't fear God can only be frustrated by unexpected results and unforeseen death. But we've already seen that in Ecclesiastes. So why repeat the point here? We already got the point that man is not in control, and especially for those people who don't fear God, that's just frustrating. So why tell it to us again right here in verses 11 and 12? I think he's reminding God-fearers of this truth. It has application for those who don't fear God, but it has application, I think, primarily to those people who are trying to enjoy the process like Solomon commanded in verses 7-10, who need reminding that joy isn't necessarily about winning.

Joy isn't necessarily in results or in riches. Maybe you'll have some of those things. Maybe you'll have all of those things. Maybe you won't. It doesn't have to impact your joy. Maybe you think you should win. You should profit. But you don't. Maybe you shouldn't actually win. You're in the Buffalo category in the marathon. Maybe you shouldn't win, and you do. You can't always expect what the results are going to be. The point is to fear God and enjoy the process. It's about the process. It's about lifestyle, not life, accomplishments and achievements. In case you wonder, the pessimistic preacher of Ecclesiastes isn't the only one who makes this point.

You don't need to turn there, but the prophet Jeremiah says this Jeremiah 9, verses 23 and 24. "...Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom." "...Let not the mighty man boast in his might." "...Let not the rich man boast in his riches." Are you kidding me? That's like three out of the five pursuits he's mentioned. You've got the wise man, you've got the mighty man, you've got the rich man. "...But let him who boasts in this that He understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord."

The Lord delights in us when we depend on Him, not on us. Psalm 147 verses 10 and 11 make a similar point. The Psalm writer says, God's delight is not in the strength of the horse, for His pleasure in the legs of a man, but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His steadfast love. Your attitude in life is the key to joy. Not your accomplishments and not your achievements. God wants you to depend on Him through the process whatever happens. If you succeed and you win, awesome. If you don't, awesome. If you enjoyed trying to win, trying to get there, to those who read this paragraph in Ecclesiastes 9.11-12, with faith, even though we might not have a chance under the sun, we do have a prayer.

And we have opportunity to depend on God. Now, on this first Sunday of the new calendar year, I can't help but think about how verses 11 and 12, especially as they come after verses 7 through 10, relate to making New Year's resolutions. And though not everyone agrees, I think, and I have said over the last couple years, I think that the New Year provides a great opportunity to examine if there are any major obstacles you need to remove or any major lifestyle attitude adjustments you need to make in order for you to better enjoy the process. I'm not as interested in making resolutions per se for the results, unless the result I'm looking for is better joy in the process and an increase in Christlikeness.

If you are eating your bread with dissatisfaction and dressing down and wasting your wife and loafing around, If you are wasting your opportunities under the sun, then you need to make some resolutions to get busy and reshape your whole MO, your whole modus operandi, your whole way of going about it. Now, the question is, in light of verses 11 and 12, and the reality that the race doesn't always go to the swift, maybe we wonder, well, if the race doesn't always go to the swift, Why should I try to get faster? Or if bread doesn't always go to the whys, then why stay up late and finish my assignment? And if we might die in 15 minutes anyway, is all of this wearisome effort really worth it?

The answer is yes. It is worth it. It is worth it if you do it for the right reasons and you're pursuing the right things. It is proper to work hard at whatever your hand finds to do. Because God commands that. God commands it. Ergo is good to do and make happen and give effort to. God requires it for us to work hard at whatever we're trying to do. We ought to look for and take advantage of every opportunity that we can. So resolve to do something new or something old better. Yes! To obey verse 10, you've got to do that. If you have a wife, you are obligated. God says, enjoy her. That's a requirement. If you're blowing that, if you have a wife and you're blowing that, then you need to make some changes to get on the right path.

But resolve to improve your joyfulness in the process, not just waiting for joy until you achieve the goal. The goal needs to be joyfulness on the road, not just waiting to have joy at the destination. Why? Because the destination you might not ever get to, but you can at least get on the road and get going. You might not succeed, but at least you can die happy trying. The fact is, if you don't enjoy running, you are not going to stay on the treadmill than a couple weeks no matter how much weight you want to lose. It's just not going to happen. Achieving your goal is good, yes, but what about the thrill of the chase?

Too many miss the joys along the journey because they can only think about the destination, but as I said, the problem is you might never get there. So can I give you just three? I promise there are quick three credos or principles as you think about making resolutions, having both verses 7 through 10 and verses 11 and 12 in your mind at the same time. That we're responsible to pursue joy but expect the unexpected. How can we keep both of those in our minds as we try to make progress? First of all, seek out opportunities, but submit to God. Work hard. Find another opportunity, but then submit no matter what happens.

Verse 10 is a divine command to do that. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might. Redeem the time because the days are evil. Whatever you do, work hardily as for the Lord. Commit your work to the Lord. But don't forget that no matter how detailed your plans are, the Lord is the one who directs your steps. And if you get upset about that, you have crossed the line from serving God to trying to direct God. God doesn't need your help. He doesn't need any directing from you. But He does tell you, find new opportunities and work with all your might, and I'll take care of it. I remember when I was in high school, one of our staff leaders gave me this illustration.

I just have not forgotten it since then. You can't steer a semi-truck if it's sitting still. So get the semi moving and then watch where God turns you. Seek out opportunities, but submit to God. A second principle. Work as hard and as smart as you can, but rely on God. Students, it is a sin for you to be slothful. Your lack of energy and enthusiasm for your work is wrong. God requires more from us than that. One of the Proverbs says, Whatever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys. Don't run aimlessly or half-heartedly. Instead, be diligent. It's the plans of the diligent that typically lead to abundance.

So work harder than anyone else. And wisdom, as we've seen in Ecclesiastes, does have value. It has relative value over folly in that both wise people and foolish people die, But it still has value. So work as hard and as smart as you can, but don't forget that if you do work harder than anybody else, it was God's grace in you who enabled you to work. As soon as you go from realizing I've got to work hard to I'm going to depend on my hard work, you have again crossed the line into a position where you're now out of position to receive joy. Because if it depends on you, you depend on you. You ain't got enough to keep your joy secure and to give you more.

Work hard, work smart, but rely on God. Third, play to win every time, but enjoy the process. Solomon, and for that matter, the Bible, is not anti-competition. There is nothing wrong with winning. There may be something wrong with the big kid beating up the little kid. It depends on what the fight is about. He is not telling the mighty valiant warriors just to lay down their swords. Because it really doesn't matter. I'm in control. He's not saying that victory is bad or that winning is bad. Obtaining the race is always the goal. Obtaining food is important. Triumphing in battle is better than the opposite. Making profit can be good.

Earning influence has great benefit. He isn't saying those things are bad. He's saying don't depend on the result for your joy. Pursue the result. Go for it. Mat Foley, go for it! But don't depend on that for your joy. Pick up your pace to obtain the prize. Don't you know that runners run in a race to get the prize? So run to get the prize. Yes! But don't depend on the getting of the prize for your happiness. The breeze on your face as you run around the track is just as much, if not a better part of the gift, than the trophy at the end. To experience and to participate in the process as we fear and depend on God, that's where the joy comes from, regardless of then what happens, what the outcome is.

We don't have the power to control the present. We don't have the wisdom to predict the future, but we can fear God, work hard, and enjoy the process. And if you do that, you'll not only have joy on this earthly road, but you will also secure for yourself eternal joy. And you'll get both. That's fine if you don't make resolutions. It's not fine if it's just so you can sit on your couch and watch TV and play video games. That's not fine. You not only are obligated to pursue Christ more than that, you are obligated to enjoy life from God more than that. Obligated. Your responsibility. So get up and get going and work hard, but as is the theme of Ecclesiastes, enjoy the work.

Enjoy the race. Enjoy the treadmill. Enjoy the portions you're eating if you're trying to lose weight. That's all great. that you've got to embrace now from God, not just then. You might not get to then. Father, we need Your help to do this. Of course, You've given us Your Word and the instruction that Solomon, the wise King, has recorded for us. And we value the truth He's given. But we need Your Spirit to help us not only understand it, but to put it into practice. I pray that You would cause us to be a people who are not lazy, not lazy workers, not lazy Christians, that You would cause us to be a people for as many trials and tough things come into our lives that we would still have a joy that was bigger, and that You would keep us always focused and dependent on Your strength and Your wisdom more than our own.

Not only because yours is secure and ours is not, but ultimately because that's what gives you glory and not us. How great it is that we can have the greatest joys when you get the greatest glory. It's like that's how you've arranged it. Keep us focused on you this new year. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Well, you can take your copy of God's Word this morning and turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 9. And if you were here last week, you potentially walked away a little bit discouraged. And I think that Ecclesiastes chapter 9 verses 1 through 6, which we looked at last week, is probably the ocean floor of despair in the entire book of Ecclesiastes. It is the The most pessimistic, the most negative paragraph in the entire book, if you can believe that. He is suffocating us underneath the dismality of life is hard and everybody's going to die. There's nothing more negative and pessimistic and miserable than being faced with the fact that life is brutal and then death is killer.

If the very best reason to be alive is because at least when you're alive you know you're going to die, that does not make for a very wonderful life. But if Ecclesiastes 9, 1-6 is the ocean floor of despair, today's paragraph is the Everest of delight. I felt like last Sunday morning I didn't just preach Ecclesiastes 9, 1-6, I owned it. I mean, I was right there. I didn't have any trouble identifying with the despair that was found in Ecclesiastes. I think that a light breeze would have blown me over, like that's how kind of fragile I felt. I think that a feather would have just crushed the already heavy feeling, the burden of vanity.

And that's where I was personally. But I want to own this paragraph as well. I want to not just tell you about this paragraph. I want to own it. I want to be the joy that's found in verses 7 through 10. And if your stomach can't handle going from the lowest of valleys immediately to dangling your toes over the peak of some high mountain, then you're going to have to blame Solomon because he's the one who goes himself from the lowest to the highest from absolute despair to unbelievable delight. The fact is there is remedy for the misery that we talked about last week. And it is not just that there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

There is light in the tunnel. It may be a teeny light. It may be a small light, but all you need is a really small light if the tunnel is dark. And there is a light in the midst of the tunnel.

We may be afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed, bent, but not what? Broken. You may be pushed all the way back. You might be as low as you can go and bent over, but you don't have to be broken. And what you really need to do is act now before it's too late. It's the title of the message. And I'll tell you what, I need this. I need Ecclesiastes 9, 7-10, and I'll tell you, I need it because I see Ecclesiastes changing me. I knew when we started to study the book of Ecclesiastes that I needed to learn how to enjoy the process. I didn't realize how badly I needed to learn that. It is as hard for me to stay melancholy as it is hard for me to stay under the covers in bed for another five minutes. You have a lot of work to do to convince me that there is joy with my feet on the cold floor and in the dark of the morning. You have a lot of work to do to convince me to get out of bed and even though I don't think I've made the transition perfectly just yet, Solomon

keeps persuading me to get up and get dressed and get some coffee and get going and get working and get tired and go to bed and get up in the morning and do it all over again. And that's good and to enjoy it all through, or at least to attempt to enjoy that process. And if you want that, then you've got to follow Solomon's commands here in Ecclesiastes 9, 7-10. Maybe we could think about it like Solomon says, instead of Simon says. This is Solomon says, and Solomon is going to give us four pieces of advice. Ecclesiastes chapter 9 verses 7 through 10 is going to sound somewhat familiar to things that we've already covered.

In fact, this paragraph is the fifth buoy in Ecclesiastes that Solomon points us to. Chapter 2 verses 24 through 26 was the very first ETP, enjoy the process paragraph. We looked at that point again in chapter 3 verses 13 and 14, chapter 5 verses 18 through 20 in chapter 8 verse 15. And while this paragraph bears a lot of similarities to the first four buoys that we looked at, this paragraph builds further, gives us even greater specificity as Solomon has been plunging our heads underneath the rushing river vanity. This buoy is something we can hold onto and keep our heads above water, and we need And what's significant, most significant I think about this paragraph is that whereas in the first four times he's talked about enjoying the process, he has commended joy and now he commands it.

In the first four he was giving it as advice. He was saying, this is what I have seen to be best. And now he says, this isn't just my advice, this is your responsibility to pursue this kind of joy. then there are going to be four parts to the game plan when we're playing for keeps. Ecclesiastes is playing for keeps eternally. That starts now. Four parts of the game plan to get joy while we're playing for keeps. Let's read the paragraph and then I'll give you those four things. Ecclesiastes chapter 9 verse 7. Go eat your bread in joy and 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 that 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 your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol to which you are going. parts to the game plan for joy while we're playing for keeps. Number one, dig in. Verse seven, dig in. Now it may look like verse seven has three commands and it actually does have three commands, but I think they're best understood under one umbrella and I'll try to tell you why I think that is. So verse seven says, go eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart for God has already approved what you do. Now obviously, Eat your bread and drink your wine.

Eating and drinking go together naturally. That's something that you typically do at the same time. And what is so amazing is that eating and drinking represent the most earthly, temporal, monotonous, never-ending, mundane type of activity you can do. If you are going to keep living, you have to eat and drink. That gets wearisome, especially for those people who have to always be preparing the food. As soon as you get done washing the dishes, you've got to start over again, preparing the next meal. That is the most not lasting, earthly kind of activity that you can be a part of. And yet, we've already learned that Solomon told us there is nothing better than to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all our toil.

I think his point is that we don't need special things to have enjoyment in life. Enjoyment is typically found in the simple things. And the implication is that whatever you have to eat or drink, it's your bread, your wine, it's what you have on hand. It's not hoping for something else, it's just what you have. Eat that with joy, have a merry heart. If we have food, let's be content with that and enjoy that. But there's even more to it in verse 7. There are some clarifications that Solomon gives starting with the very first word, which is actually a command. New American Standard and ESV, go! Eat your bread, drink your wine, but it starts with go.

And this is a typical Hebrew construction. In fact, you'll notice this as you read through your Old Testament next year in 2008, as you're making those plans already. You will come across places where you get multiple commands at the beginning like, Get up, Go. You don't necessarily need to say both of those because going implies getting up. Arise, Go. Same kind of deal here is, Go eat your bread. It's assuming that people aren't bringing it to you that you're probably going to have to get up and go make your dinner or fix yourself whatever lunch you're having. Point is, don't just roll into breakfast and slouch in your chair, but I mean, go get those Cheerios.

Get up, go enjoy it, dig in. Whatever you've got, go enjoy that. And it isn't just eat and drink, it's eat with joy and drink with the merry heart. And so whether you're having some ramen noodles or Daniel's broiler, whether you are having a gourmet mom cooked meal or you're having some instant microwave mac and cheese, whatever it is, eat and drink with joy. Dig in. if Emoryl was here, he'd say, bam! You know, put some spice on there. Enjoy it. Now, wait a second. Maybe you're thinking to yourself already, I mean, are we really supposed to enjoy food that much? Isn't that just going to turn us into gluttons? Well, what happens if we replace God with food?

Is that possible? Well, obviously that's possible. Oprah will tell you about that every third show, about how people love their food and they have comfort food and so they turn to food to make them happy instead of God. She's not making that conclusion, I'm helping her out the rest of the way. That's the after show discussion. What if we start to love food more than God?

In fact, shouldn't we feel just a little bit guilty for enjoying something that is so insignificant. I mean, other than the fact that we get to keep living because we eat, I mean eating is potentially not an eternally necessary or significant thing. Maybe we should feel a little guilty about digging in. Well, Solomon tells us why we can and should enjoy the food that he has given us because God has already approved what you do. Now this is more than God has already given divine authorization for your Jenny Craig plan or whatever it is. This is not just saying that God has written in the clouds what diet it is that you should be on. That's not what he's talking about. And obviously some people, typically unbelieving guys who write about the Bible, which I never understood why they waste their time doing that, but unbelieving kind of people who talk about this use this this statement that God has already approved what you do to kind of be a blanket to cover all of your sin. So go sin, do whatever you want, and God approves that. That's clearly

not the point. The point is not that God is excited and approves when we sin. As far back as Ecclesiastes 9 verse 1, who is Solomon's consideration here? It's the righteous and the wise. The assumption here is in verse 7 that we're still talking about people who are trying to live according to what God's standard is and trying to do and make decisions according to the principles and the wisdom that God provides. And so this assumes that the person is a God-ferer. That's who he's been thinking about already in chapter 9. This is a person whom God is pleased with. We know that the people God is pleased with other people who fear Him.

And so He is saying that if you fear God, if you're pursuing righteousness, you're pursuing wisdom, then relax and enjoy your dinner. Do you realize what Solomon is saying here? It is God's will for you to enjoy your meals. Stuff you've got to do all the time. Multiple times a day. He has already approved your enjoyment. So stop freaking out. God has given us the need to eat. God has created in us appetites. God has created food. And he means that to be enjoyed. Not instead of him, but from him. It's God's will that we dig in and enjoy the process. So verse 7, first part of the game plan for joy while we're playing for God.

keeps is to dig in. Number two. Verse 8, dress up. Again, there are a couple of commands here in verse 8, but I think that they're partners, not competitors. Verse 8, let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Now, the phrase, let your garments be always white, it's amazing how many different suggestions people came up with for what this could possibly, what could possibly be significant about it. Most commonly, the people suggested that you should wear white garments as an issue of comfort because in Israel and Palestine, with the sun beating down in the summertime, if you wear white clothes, then that would reflect the sun and keep you cooler. And the implication is also not only would you be cooler and more comfortable, but you'd be more cleanly because they'd be clean clothes, white clothes, clean clothes.

And so, you know, having a fresh apparel to put on. So more of a comfort and cleanliness issue. And then also a lot of commentators talk about this second thing, let not oil be lacking on your head. Also for hygienic considerations because they didn't have naturally oily heads. And being out in the sun potentially would dry out your hair and you didn't have 8,000 types of shampoo and conditioner to choose from. And in fact, you probably weren't taking a shower a whole lot anyway. So oil was something that was regularly used to keep your skin from getting dry. And basically, it's the first version of dandruff shampoo.

Your head's not going to get dry. Your scalp's not going to get all flaky. and so, hey, that's great. So you're comfortable and you're clean. And while those things may or may not have something to do with why Solomon mentions here, I don't think that fresh clothes and a dandruff-free scalp are the point. Solomon is not urging us to be hygienic, though that's not necessarily a bad thing. When you put on white garments and pull oil on your head, That meant that the time of mourning and grieving and sorrow and repentance was done. White garments and oil that anointed your head was the opposite of what do you think?

Well, what's a typical dress for mourning and sorrow and grieving in the Old Testament? Sackcloth and ashes. Tattered, apparently then dirty clothing. And so white garments and oil on your head was a sign of rejoicing. It was a sign of celebration. It's what you put on when you were going to a party. When King David and Bathsheba's child died in 2 Samuel 12, verse 20, when he got the news that his child had died, says, David arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his clothes, And he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. When he was done grieving, mourning, praying, fasting, he put on fresh clothes, anointed his head.

In 2 Samuel 14.2, there was a lady who was mourning or who was supposed to look like she was mourning. And so she was supposed to put on mourning garments. That's what it says. Mourning garments. there was stuff that you wore to show your mood, your attitude, that you were grieving.

And her head was not to be anointed with oil. You can look at Proverbs 27.9 or Isaiah 61.3 where oil and gladness go together. And even by the time you get to the New Testament, Jesus tells those people who are fasting to do what? To anoint themselves. That was to pull oil on their head so that they looked like they were alive. So that they weren't making it obvious that they were so gloomy and depressed. He says, oil up that head and look alive. That's rather mundane. Are we really ready to say that fresh clothes and smell good lotion is something that can make your miserable life more enjoyable? The answer that is yes. I'm not making that up. That's what Solomon here himself is encouraging us to do. Just like we can enjoy feeding the body, so we can enjoy clothing the body. Everyone has to get dressed and deal with dry skin. We might as well celebrate while we're doing it. And look, he says, let your garments be always white and let not oil be lacking. I was kind of thinking, you know, when you get sick and you kind of lounge around all day

long and you finally make yourself get out of bed sometime late in the afternoon, what That feels good at that point. I mean, taking a shower and putting on some clean clothes. Some fresh clothes. And I think Solomon is just saying, yeah, clothes cannot replace God, but they're a way to enjoy what he's given us. Dig in and dress up. Number three, from verse 9, maximize marriage.

9, enjoy life with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life that he has given you unto the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil that which you toil unto the sun. Now I'll admit that it is tough for some people, like myself, it is tough for some people to deal with despair and big bills and car wrecks and cranky people all by ourselves, let alone adding somebody else's despair onto our own. For some of us, I guess it's easier to be depressed by ourselves than it is to be depressed with a partner. For some people, the bearing the burden makes it half as heavy. And the joys make it twice as big of joys. There's some poem about that somewhere. But in chapter Pastor 4, Solomon already told us that two are better than one.

And here in chapter 9 verse 9, he says that a wife is a gift from God for your joy. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love. I mean, that's almost too simple. Enjoy life with your wife. Enjoy life, avoid the strife with your wife. It does not mean there's nothing in there that says enjoying life with your wife that you're not going to have conflict or disagreements? It doesn't say that there's never going to be the worse as well as the better. It doesn't say that there's not going to be sickness and strife, but it means that you can still enjoy life with your wife as vain and as short as your piddly little pathetic life is.

You can enjoy it with somebody else.

Salma wrote something very similar in Proverbs chapter 5 verses 18 and 19. He said, Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely dear, a graceful doe. Let her breast fill you at all times with delight. Be intoxicated always with her love. Be drunk. Be intoxicated with the friendship and the relationship you have with your spouse. And there's a reason for that, because your wife, and obviously has application for wives and husbands as well, but your wife is God's gift to you. If you don't have the wife yet, then this part is not for you. You should be waiting until you get to that point, but a wife, a spouse, is God's gift. Marriage is not a perpetual honeymoon, but it still can be very much enjoyed. Because I want you to see that married life is not every night is dating night. Okay, because look at verse 9 again. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life that he has given you unto the sun because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil unto the sun. That's repetitive

point out that it's not we're getting out of work, or we're getting out of toil, or you can just sit around and drink hot chocolate out of the same cup with two straws and stare longingly into each other's face and you don't have any work to do. Verse 10 is also going to talk about work as well. So he's not saying that you have joy with your wife because you get to watch movies all all the time. He's saying you can enjoy your responsibilities with someone else. Life is fragile. That's part of the point of reminding us that it's a vain life. It's fragile and it's short. So have some fun. Stop fighting. Have some fun. Because you're going to die or she's gonna die and that's it.

For us even now we know if Jesus comes back they don't give or are taken in marriage in heaven. This is it. So enjoy it while you've got it in your vain, meaningless, empty life. At least you can partner with somebody else in the middle of that. That is for our joy. If John Piper was here I think he might say, don't waste your wife. Okay, number four. Dig in, dress up, maximize marriage, and then number four from verse ten is get busy. Solomon moves the fence out another foot to corral even more joy. He started with the stomach, he moved to the exterior, then to relationship, and now to work. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge your wisdom and shield to which you are going. This final command relates to toil and as I have said over and over and over again. And some of you still, this is beyond you, your ears are not able to hear this. Enjoying the process is not about getting out of work.

Joy does not come from being idle or being lazy. I think of some of you guys in particular who waste your days unless someone else is telling you where to go and what to do. You basically do as minimal as possible and you are frustrated. And the reason is because God has not made us to be or to work that little. are to get up and get going and get busy. Do the work. You will get out of work one day when you die. Until that point in time there are opportunities and responsibilities. Whatever your hand finds you do, do it with your might. The idea of whatever your hand finds is the idea of looking for opportunities. Look for open doors to go through. Look for responsibilities to shoulder. Look for employment opportunities and work that you can do. And then do it. Work hard.

Give it all you've got. I mean the idea again is working to your full capacity with as much strength and wisdom and energy and thought as you can put into it, use it all. Because when you die, you're not going to have those opportunities anymore.

Isn't that so amazing? That instead of the vanity of life under the sun being a reason not to work, instead of how pointless and futile and repetitious life is, instead of that being a reason not to work, Solomon says that is a reason to get to work and to work hard. Act now. Before it's too late. Because when you die, that's it. And that's his point in saying there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom and shield at which you are going. And again, this has led totally liberal commentators to say, oh, Solomon doesn't believe in the afterlife and there is no heaven or hell, you just are annihilated and your soul sleeps forever. But again, we don't have to go elsewhere in the Bible prove it. We can prove it from Ecclesiastes itself. When Solomon says in Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse 11 that God has put eternity into man's heart. We know as well from Ecclesiastes chapter 11 verse 9 when he says, enjoy what you're doing, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. Sheol then is just a way to describe the

the place of the dead, the grave. We're all going to die. It's another way to say that. And so when you die, the opportunities of this life are no longer, so get busy, get to work. The point is you get one shot at this life. One. That's it. And knowing that will will either cause you horrible despair or very intense joy and eagerness to have a blast while you last. You know what's so interesting? Out of these four things, these four things that we can't get out of, this is reality. Eating and getting dressed and being married and working. That's reality. You know what? Some of those most popular reality television shows are about these four things. I mean you got Top Chef, you got Project Runway and What Not to Wear for your dressing stuff. For marriage you can either go from the single side to the bachelor trying to find a partner or you got Wife Swap which tries to make you realize why you should like your own wife so much. And then for the work one you totally We've got the apprentice.

We've got reality television is so close. Eating, what you put into your body, clothing, what you put on your body, marriage, who you live your life with in your house, and working what you do the rest of the time. I mean, the world knows that that's reality, And yet, it also can't get to joy in those things because it can't see them rightly. It can't see them with God. The fact is God made cooks and tailors and 80's ballad bands who write love songs. And He made entrepreneurs and He made people who want to be in the Guinness Book of World Records for doing whatever they can to the best of their ability. God made those people.

And so have a happy meal, put on your party dress, hold your wife's hand, and just grab the bull by the horns and go for it. That's the secret, is to realize that that is what life is about from God. That's not what life is about instead of God. That is what life is about from God. God made taste and texture and color and smells and sensations and emotions and relationship and unfinished projects. Not just to be endured, but to be enjoyed. Three of the things we've talked about this morning were there before the fall. was before the fall, and marriage was before the fall, and working was before the fall. Getting dressed is the only one that came after the fall.

So at least three out of those four things God envisions as part of a perfect paradise. Eating, relationship, toil, labor, working. Sin makes all of them up, ruins all of them. Yes, but as we get them from God, we can have great joy. Now, since it's only two days before Christmas, I cannot help but think about how Jesus relates to Ecclesiastes 9, seven through 10. I understand that Solomon was not thinking about Jesus when he wrote Ecclesiastes 9, seven through 10. I get that. When he wrote his book, he wasn't thinking about Jesus, but we have more of the book. So if you'd allow me just for a little bit to think about what's in the rest of the book, do you realize that Christmas is a story of God embracing vanity under the sun?

Now you've heard the Christmas story a billion times. A billion, million, thousand, trillion, whatever, zillion. You've heard the Christmas story. Yeah, we get that. But can we just think about some of the elements about the Christmas story in terms of Ecclesiastes, in terms of the vanity of life under the sun? Because what we have in the Christmas story is God identifying with and embracing hard, meaningless, by itself, empty by itself stuff. Jesus is a manual. And that means what? God with us. And I know the pastors that he talked about it in first service, you know when he said, God became a man. You're God, and then you take on flesh.

That's not easy or majestic. You're God and you become a man. That's not the way I'd rather go. And not only did he become a man, He lived among men. That's even worse. I could handle it being a man if I didn't have to live among men. But other people are a large part of the reason why it's so empty and meaningless and vain. He became a man. He lived among men. He partook of the same things and was made like us in every respect. I was thinking about the Gospel of John Chapter 1 where John is the one who talks about You know, the Word was God, the Word was with God, the Word became flesh, and just a few verses later he says, I'm not worthy to untie the strap of his sandal.

And we're like, oh yeah, that's true because Jesus is really more special. What about the fact that God was wearing sandals? God in sandals. Now that's vanity, especially if they had the little strap between the toes. This extra vanity. The creator of the universe comes in a manger as a helpless baby. I love the song by For Him, What a Strange Way to Save the World. There would have been no Bethlehem if Jesus would come as He deserved. If God had come as He deserved, I mean, there would have been parades and parties and worldwide press coverage, and He would not have come as a baby that needed to grow up and have His diaper changed and be potty trained and innumerable other things that being a man put Him under that He would not have experienced as God.

Surrounding his birth, his family had to move, and his family had to move because of the governmental injustice that was killing thousands of baby boys in the region. God becoming man in some sense made it worse and made the earth full of more vanity, at least at that point in time. His mother would have borne the stigma of suspicious neighbors who always wondered about how Jesus was born and who the father really was. If I can, just try to think about Jesus in light of the four things we talked about, the four parts of the game plan. You think about food. Think about what it was like for God to eat. Think about what it would be like for God to embrace the vanity of oatmeal for breakfast again.

Do you, I mean I kind of wonder, did Jesus ever say to his mom, look I made taste buds and we're not getting the full effect here of what I made these things to do. But yet he embraced oatmeal for breakfast again. What about, and this is kind of some imagination, but what about the vanity? Jesus experiencing the vanity of when his mom shrank his favorite sweater right before he was supposed to go to his buddy's bar mitzvah party. And yet, he is the one who came up with the idea of fabric shrinking. That was his idea. And yet, he put himself into that. I mean, obviously, he didn't get married, but what about the work one?

What about Jesus, whose father was a carpenter, obviously? What about Jesus making a chair? I mean, you want to talk about feeling like you're not being productive in your life, okay? What about Jesus making a chair? He could have told you the exact date and how it was going to break. And even more than that, He's making a chair when He made the tree that the wood came from to make the chair. And yet, God embraces and identifies with us in our vanity. You know, there are other things as well. I was trying to think of some different ways that he embraced vanity. Obviously his electricity couldn't go out, but maybe the candle went out and he had to go. His mom sends him next door to light the candle off of the next door neighbor's candle, but on his way back, the rain is coming down and he's got to go back and forth like seven or eight times just to get the candle with the light back over to His house.

And He is the one who made all of that to work. And yet He embraced it. And He did that all with joy. I mean, He prays for His disciples that they would have a fullness of joy like He had. He came that we would have life and have life abundant. And obviously, there are spiritual elements of that. But if Jesus wanted to save us and take us immediately to heaven, He could do that. He lets us stay here, not just for the sake of our endurance, but for the sake of our enjoyment. God could have made the world any way that He wanted to. Because all this stuff didn't exist. Food didn't exist. Digestion didn't exist. Clothing didn't exist.

All of this stuff was stuff that God had to create. Why did he create? Why did he do that? Well, the obvious answer is to show his glory. Do you not also think it was to share his joy? God is sharing his joy. He's wanting us to know and recognize and praise him for his creativity and his power and his wisdom, no doubt. But don't you also see he wants us to embrace his joy? God made fruit to enjoy. I don't know how, but you can enjoy fruit. God made fabric. God made it so you can hold hands with your wife. God made business opportunities and raw materials to make stuff out of. God is the one who made that. He arranged it.

His son identified with us in that, all so that we could have joy. And I tell you what, some of you, undoubtedly, you're looking for joy underneath your Christmas tree. You think that when you open that present, that thing is going to finally solve all your problems or whatever it is. And moments later, if your joy isn't from God, you'll be dissatisfied.

I just want to remind you again, it's not just about eating or dressing up or getting getting married or working hard, it's about receiving joy from God in the process of all those things. I'm pleading with you, if you don't think that joy under the sun is really possible, then you don't get a manual. And you need to get that, otherwise you will never really enjoy the process now under the sun, or certainly for eternity. Father, we We need your help. We need your spirit to do that because oftentimes we get stuck in verses one through six and we can't rise above the despair and the misery and the frustration and the vanity, but we need to. In fact, it's our responsibility to. Solomon commands us to dig in, realizing you've approved what we do, and to dress up, and to be festive and celebrate, and to maximize our marriages and our spouses and enjoy that relationship, and then to work hard and look for opportunities and make the most of what we can.

We need your help to see life this way. For those of us who are believers, we need your spirit to enable that joy in us, the fruit that He produces. Most of all, we're thankful for the gift of your Son and how He did become like us to show us that that joy is possible. It's not just empty, but it can be enjoyed in Him. We pray in His name. Amen.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

You can take your copy of God's Word and turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 9. And I am in the most providentially perfect mood to preach this passage this morning. This may be the most negative, pessimistic paragraph in the entire book of Ecclesiastes. And thankfully, it is, I think, as low as Solomon has gone so far, and I think this is as low as we'll go in the book. I think that even though he's got some more kind of pessimistic negative things to say left in the remaining chapters, I think that this is probably as low as he goes. There is only one positive thing in these six verses. The only positive thing is that it's better to be alive than to be dead, but the reason that he gives, this is masterful, the only reason that he gives why it's better to be alive than dead is because at least the living people know they're going to die. And that's as great, that's as happy as the message is for us this morning. Now it doesn't really sound, even just in what I've said so far, It probably doesn't sound like he's going to give us anything new.

He's not going to make a new argument. He's not going to really tell us something that we don't know or that he hasn't already communicated and revealed earlier in the first eight chapters. So why go through this again? Have we not gotten the point already that life is hard and then you die? The amount of times I've said, and then you die this week, I couldn't count them. I wish I got paid for saying, and then you die. Because I would make a lot of money, and I'd invest that in funeral homes because everybody's going to die. And then you die. Do we really have something to benefit? Can we really gain something from covering evil under the sun and vanity under the sun and the certainty of death yet another time?

And obviously the answer to that is yes. And the reason why I say that the answer to that is yes is because it's here. Solomon is repeating it again. Yes, he has told it to us multiple times already, but he has gone through the trouble of writing it again. Under the inspiration and control of the Holy Spirit, this is a message that he repeats for a purpose. It's not just that Solomon was so disorganized. I mean, consider who it is that is writing this. It's not just that Solomon is so disorganized. He's not such an imbecile that all they can do is just repeat himself over and over and over again. That's not why he repeats himself.

It's not that he is so ignorant that he learned one thing and so I'll just keep saying that. Lots of people who only have one message, that's because that's the only thing they know. That's not Solomon's issue. It's not that Solomon was so disconnected from God that he just wants to complain about how bad it is under the sun. He does actually know better and yet he writes this stuff again. There is a method, there is a reason, and I might even say there is a benefit for us in seeing such a bleak picture painted by King Solomon. Now before I suggest why I think There's some prophet in understanding this paragraph in Solomon's strategy here.

How bad is it really? It's bad. Look at Ecclesiastes chapter 9 verse 1. But all this I laid to heart examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. it is love or hate, man does not know both are before him. It is the same for all since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and to the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice, as is the good so is the sinner, and he who swears is as he who shuns an oath. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward for the memory of them is forgotten. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun. It's almost hard to believe that something written more than 3,000 years ago could capture the frustration and the disappointment and the discouragement and the heaviness and the weightiness of our modern situation. That's almost unfathomable to me that something so old could be so relevant and so applicable to our own time. In this paragraph we sense uncertainty about the future. Man does not know what's going to happen to him tomorrow.

He does not know whether he's going to experience love or hate. We'll talk about from whom and how that happens, but uncertainty. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. We feel man's disconnection and his helplessness. There is nothing in verses 1-6 that man is in control of. It's like he is at the utter mercy of forces that are just completely beyond him and outside of his ability to have any influence over or to control or manipulate or move in any direction that he wants at all. Totally helpless. We sense the dread of being bound to certain death. That's the title of the message. It happens to everyone.

You live and then you die. What goes up must come down. What goes up will also die. What comes down will also die. You sit in a chair and then you die. You stand up and walk out and then you die. You get a great job. you get married and then you die. You, whatever, and then you die is the end of it for everybody. And then you die. There is no way to escape that. That's brutal. No matter how you live, you are going to die. We feel the heaviness of seeing a world that is dominated, that is full of evil and stupidity, of madness. I mean, all these things are what we got in verses 1 through 6 so far. We sympathize with the hopelessness of knowing that we will die and that everything we've done will drift into oblivion.

You know this word? means to be totally forgotten and not remembered forever. Nobody cares. If they do care about what you've done today, they're not going to care tomorrow. And maybe they'll care tomorrow, but they're not going to care ten years from now. And when you're gone, what you've done will have meant nothing when you think about it under the sun. And so today, and I think among us for those who are thinking. We see people who are nervous, people who are discouraged, people who are depressed, people who feel like shrinking down into a little ball into the fetal position and just napping for the rest of their life because maybe if they can just sleep long enough when they wake up it'll be better. But you know what happens when you wake up? Then you die.

I mean that nap as long as you want and then you die. It kind of feels like someone has cut the legs out from underneath us and there we are you know trying to balance ourselves on our stump and then someone rips the rug out from underneath us. That is how that is how much positivity and encouragement and Joy, there is, under the sun. There isn't. And then you die. And somehow, we keep thinking that we can find and protect something here that's going to make us happy. We keep acting like something, you know, behind some door that's out there. We just haven't found the right door yet.

somehow we're going to find the right door and behind that door is going to be something that really satisfies us, that really makes us happy, that really provides joy. And somehow we're not only going to find it, but then we're going to be able to protect it and we're going to hold onto it and nobody's going to be able to steal it from us. Best kind of illustration, I was thinking about this yesterday, it's like we're running around and we're trying to suck in air of something that makes us happy. And then we hold onto that breath and we go home and the best place we can think of to store it is a balloon. And so we're running around our days, we're trying to suck up as many breaths of happiness as we can, and then we think like we'll go store it in a balloon.

And we keep trying to pump up our balloon and we think that's what we found that's going to provide some kind of meaning or satisfaction and joy in life. Puff up your joy balloon. Like that even works, like you can even keep that, I think Ecclesiastes chapter 9 verses 1 through 6 is Solomon's pointy stick right in your balloon. And some of you, I'm telling you, you need your balloon popped because you're trying to suck up this breath of happiness and store it in your balloon and then you just, ugh, play with your balloon, bang it on your head and you're rubbing it on your head, try to get some static cling or whatever and see how fun that is.

I mean, that's basically the seriousness with which you're taking your life. is like you're storing your happiness in a balloon and playing with the balloon is the best that you got. That's about how serious some of you, at least students, are taking it. And I guess maybe you just haven't had your balloon deflated enough already by pain or by being sick or by seeing somebody else who's in pain or somebody else who's close to you that keeps being sick. Maybe you haven't lost enough stuff yet. You haven't accumulated it and then had it taken away. You haven't tried something and then failed enough. That's why you keep thinking that you can be happy playing with your balloon.

And so you just keep merely skipping along, beating your little balloon into your head. And you need to get real. Seriously. is whether it has actually been your experience yet or not. This is, I'm about ready to pour out a very big secret. This is what you're actually going to find behind all of those doors. This is what you find. Life is hard and then you die. That is behind every door under the sun. That is behind every breath that you take trying to suck in happiness and joy. And the question is, how are you dealing with that? Are you dealing with that? How are you dealing with that? That's exactly the question that Solomon points us to in this paragraph. It happens to everyone. It happens to everyone that their life is tough and hard and then they die. No matter how they lived their life, death is the end for everybody. The structure of the paragraph we're going to consider this morning, verses 1 through 6, and our outline for this morning goes like this. Verse 1 is the consideration.

Solomon's examination is consideration. Verse 1, verses 2 and 3 is the certainty. This is the guarantee. This is the fact of of the matter. And then verses 4 through 6 are the contrast. So the consideration, the certainty and the contrast, the themes of the paragraph and the themes go along with each one of the points. The divine sovereignty over life in verse 1. A universal certainty about life and the tragic irony about life all under the sun. So verse 1, the consideration. After finishing an extended section on injustice, see he's coming into this paragraph about the guarantee of death. He's not coming into this cheerfully, having just eaten a bunch of bubblegum and cotton candy returning from the merry-go-round.

He's coming out of chapter 8, which was all about seeing injustice and how there are hurtful authorities, and about how you can't typically do anything about that, and you still have to submit to those authorities, and about how often times those authorities don't go unpunished and about the fact that you can't figure out what makes the world go around. You are limited in your perspective and in your wisdom. That's the foundation, that's what he just told us in chapter 8, how pitiful it really is as he moves into this consideration in verse 1. Look at verse 1 again. But all this I laid to heart. All All this is at least what he talked about in Chapter 8 that I just summarized for us.

All this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know both are before him. So he says all this I laid to heart, examining it all. This is a comprehensive examination. It's a comprehensive consideration that he makes. He uses the word all twice. All this I laid to heart, examining it all, and it was not only comprehensive, but it was a very personal consideration. He says I laid it to heart. This was not just his detached looking at it in everybody else's life with no application for himself. This was a thorough and involved effort on his part in consideration.

What he considered was how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Now it's curious to me that Solomon, who it is that he's focusing his consideration about, because you would have thought that he was going to say, I was considering how the righteous and then the opposite of the righteous are in the, their deeds are in the hands of God. Instead, it seems like he's talking about one group of people, the righteous and the wise.

two groups of people, that's the same group, just two ways to describe them. It's interesting to me that he doesn't include the righteous and the evil based on the fact that he says their deeds are in the hand of God. Obviously Solomon knows that everybody's deeds are in the hand of God. In saying that their deeds are in the hand of God, it means that God is in control. God is sovereign over their deeds. God is not just sovereign and in control over the deeds of the righteous and the wise. He is sovereign over the deeds of even the wicked. In fact, maybe you've heard this sermon that's called Sinners in the hands of an angry God. So Solomon certainly is not going to deny everything else he said in the book of Ecclesiastes has been that God is in control. That God controls everything, good or bad. God is the one who is behind it. And so it's interesting Solomon doesn't include the evil in this description, this consideration for that purpose.

And also because in verses 2 through 3 Solomon makes five contrasts. He shows five opposite groups. And all of those opposites are between good and evil, the righteous and the wicked, between those who are religious people and those who are not religious people. So it's not like he's unable to make that contrast or that he wasn't thinking about it. And so why is it that his consideration is concerning the wise and the righteous? Why does he not mention the evil that that's what he's considering? I'm going to suggest that the reason why he's narrowing his consideration to the wise and to the righteous is because we're really only surprised when bad things happen to good people.

You know what I'm saying? We're not really surprised when bad things happen to bad people. they deserve that. We're really not surprised when evil people die. We're like, oh yeah, that's what was coming to them. But when the righteous people die and when the wise people can't avoid suffering, that kind of causes us to take a moment and pause and be like, how does that work? That does not seem to fit. And so whether you are one of those righteous people, or you're not a righteous person but you're looking at righteous people, I think Solomon is making this consideration about wise and righteous people because that's what doesn't seem to go together. Sure, we get that irreligious people who don't fear God that bad things happen to them and that's what they deserve, that's what they get.

But when it happens to wise or to righteous people, that's kind of bothersome. The righteous man is who thinks about what's coming and the wise man tries to make sure he's prepared for it, but we see here that all that he does is in the hand of God. All his deeds, all his activities are in the hand of God. Like I said, I think this is true both for the evil and for the righteous person, but isn't it interesting that the righteous person, wise person is trying to figure out, trying to plan his ways so that he lives in a way that God is pleased. But Solomon also said the mind of a man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. So God is totally in control of a righteous man's life. And yet, and this This is the hiccup.

This is the snag. This is your walking by a fence and the rusty nail reaches out and just rips right into your arm. Here's the problem. The righteous and the wise person whose deeds are in the hand of God, they don't know whether it is love or hate. Man does not know both are before him. This is a really important part of the paragraph. sets the stage for everything he's about ready to say as well. He's telling us his consideration and yet it is probably as difficult to figure out what he's talking about as it is important to figure out what he's talking about. There's at least three different possibilities what this means here at the end.

Whether it is love or hate, man does not know both are before him. Different translations make suggestions, that's the ESV. One possibility is man does not know whether he himself is going to love or hate other people tomorrow. Our deeds are in the hand of God and we don't know whether we're going to remain faithful, basically, I think is the question tomorrow. We don't know that. That's one possibility. The man himself doesn't know if he's going to love or hate other people. Both options are there. Will we stick with it tomorrow? Another option would be, are other people going to love or hate us tomorrow? Both are before us. We don't know whether we're going to experience people being our friends, or whether we're going to experience people being our enemies tomorrow.

Our deeds are in the hand of God we don't know. Or the third possibility is we don't know whether we're going to have love or hate from God tomorrow. Even the righteous and the wise person, at least based on what it seems like. And you remember in chapter 8 that the righteous people suffer. I mean, just looking at that, how can you say God loves the one he's causing to suffer so much? If my deeds are in the hands of God and I'm not guaranteed to avoid suffering and pain and death, then how can I know that God loves or hates me?

I think the best interpretation is not that man wonders whether he is going to love or hate tomorrow, though we always have to trust God to keep directing our steps and keep enabling enabling us to love. But generally speaking, we have a good idea about how we're going to be tomorrow unless we just jump off the deep end and go crazy. I think that the best interpretation is we don't know whether other people are going to love or hate us tomorrow, and then based on that, we might wonder then if everybody else turns against us tomorrow, we don't know then if that's a display of God's love or if that's a display of God's hate or at least displeasure towards us. And so primarily I think it comes back to, no matter what, there is no built in, no sure thing that guarantees that the righteous people are going to have a good day tomorrow. Just an example, obviously Solomon was not thinking about this example, but who's the most righteous man ever? That would have been Jesus. And Did people love Jesus or hate Jesus?

Yes. They loved him and they hated him. Sometimes the same people at different times. But even the most righteous man ever was loved and adored by some and hated and ultimately killed by others. Being righteous and being wise did not guarantee that even God himself had great days and then And even he died in taking our place. Like I said last time, life is not a formula and you will not be able to figure it out. We are in God's hands and tomorrow is unpredictable from our vantage point. That's Solomon's consideration which leads him to something that he does know. We don't know whether we're going to be loved or hated tomorrow.

We do know something else that might happen tomorrow. If it doesn't happen tomorrow, it's inevitably going to happen some future tomorrow. The certainty in verses 2-3, whether he's loved or hated, he's going to die. Going to die happens to everyone. Look at verse 2, it is the same for all, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. is the good, so is the sinner, and he who swears is as he who shuns an oath. This is an evil in all that is done unto the Son, that the same event happens to all. Also the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. Three times, at least in the ESV, we We see same or same event three times.

It is bringing us back to the fact that this particular event happens to everyone. No one gets out of this. No one escapes this same event. It is the same for all. The same event happens, the same event happens. This is then an axiom. An axiom is a universal truth. This is true for all people regardless of their culture, regardless of their society. This is true for all times. Whether they lived in the Old Testament, whether they lived during the time of Jesus, or whether they lived after Jesus, or whether they lived now. This is a true. The same event happens to all, namely they are going to die. That is the one thing you can be sure about.

You know, we have the little American proverb or English proverb, the only things that are certain in life are death and taxes. I don't know, move to Switzerland or wherever they have at least low taxes, maybe you can get out of taxes, but you cannot get out of death. You can disregard it. You can try to deny it, but you cannot finally avoid it, no matter who you are, junior high girl. No matter who you are, high school guy. No matter who you are, staff person, there's a casket with your name on it somewhere or an urn if your family goes the cremated route.

My wife is interested in cremation for me. I thought that was kind of brutal. But buying But, you know, buying land to bury somebody can be expensive, so I want to be economical, I suppose. Good steward, that's right. Solomon divides everyone into groups, and he marks the end for each one of these groups as the same. Just look back at verses two or three again. You've got the righteous and the wicked. They die. You've got the good and the evil. Maybe it's only the good who die young, but both the good and the evil die. The clean and the unclean die. The sacrifices and the non-sacrificers die. The oath makers and non-oath makers die. And even though there are five of these opposite groups, there really are only two types of persons, and I mentioned this before, because really what you have, you have the God-fear in the moral, ethical, religious, obedient, and committed person.

Those are just another way to summarize the way Solomon describes them. In the moral, ethical, religious, obedient, and committed person, they still die. And the other person, you've got the immoral, unethical, irreligious, and uncommitted person, but both die. The same event happens to everyone. One person gets up early and goes to bed late serving God. They spend themselves for God's sake. They make tough choices. They stand up against the crowd. They pursue righteousness. And as much as they're able, try to make decisions out of wisdom. And they die. And on the other hand, you got a couple different ways to approach it on the other side.

You got the people who get up early and they go to bed late all trying to make money or make a name for themselves. And so they spend themselves too. They're busy and hard at work but for the wrong reasons and they die. Then you got other people over here who get up late and then watch movies and go to bed late and basically squander away all the time that they have. They don't care about anything but being lazy. another kind of selfishness and they die too. People who exercise and eat vegetables, they die. All of you staff who ordered salads at our Christmas party, your salads are not going to give you any extra days, you are going to die. I mean same thing happens for me. No matter how many revolutions of that belt on my treadmill go around, it's coming.

It could happen in the midst of one of those revolutions. That's possible. That's going to happen. You could be totally wasting your life playing video games, reading stupid banal magazines, and just doing the absolute minimum amount of work to get by. You're going to die. But it's the same event for everybody. And what's interesting is that it's actually worse than that. I mean, it has another level, I guess, lower than the casket even. And that is what's happening while we're around. At the end of verse 3, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil and madness is in their hearts while they live. So you're going to die and then before that happens, everybody's a jerk.

hurt you like they make bad decisions or they purposefully try to attack you. All kinds of bad things we can think about. This is depravity at its finest if we can even say that. Sin is universal here at the end of verse 3 because it's among the children of men. Unless you're the child of a donkey, you are a child of men and women. You're a human being. You have breath that supplies to you. Full of evil. It's universal, it's penetrating, and it's lifelong. I mean, unless some other factor comes in, which isn't in this paragraph, this is a lifelong issue. This is what you have to look forward the the rest of your life until you die.

That everywhere around you is evil and madness, stupidity, idiocy. Just people acting dumb. People acting like jerks and you got like smart jerks and dumb jerks, but that's what you got. And Solomon says this isn't evil that is done under the sun. It really is brutal that life is full of evil while you live. It is brutal that whether you live righteously or you live in wickedness, you're gonna die.

And when you look at it from an earthly perspective, it doesn't seem to fit, and so it's bothersome, it's upsetting, it's heavy. But it provides a contrast for us in verses four through six. There is a flicker of hope here under the sun.

And yet it's really not that great. In this paragraph, the hope is not really that great once you scratch at it just a little. Look at verse 4, He who is joined with all the living has hope. For a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, forever they have no more share in all that is done unto the Son." So obviously there you have the adversative idea, the but as the conjunction there at the beginning of verse 4, providing or introducing a contrast with the evil, the disappointment, the frustration of the fact that everyone dies. Zalma says, he who is joined with all the living has hope. This is the only positive in the paragraph. It's interesting that those with this hope are not apparently just the righteous. The way to have this hope is just to have breath. If you've got a pulse, you need to check, maybe some of you, if you have a pulse,

this hope is possible for you. You don't even have to be righteous at this point to have this kind of hope. Just be breathing. And a short proverb helps prove this contrast, a living dog is better than a dead lion. Now, you may have heard this before, but typically they didn't have doggy hotels and little chia pet manicured poodles and, you know, they didn't have dogs as pets for the most part in ancient Israel. Dogs were typically wild and they were scavengers and they were then despised. You just didn't bring a dog into your house. And on the other hand, the lion was seen more as the majestic or as a stately, as a mighty animal, as a esteemed kind of creature. And yet, for as despised as a dog may have been in their society and as esteemed as a lion could have been, still it's better to be despised in living than to be gone, to be dead. Pretty much as long as you're not dead, you're better. You can see a lot of you putting that on your Twitter this afternoon, hey at least I'm not dead. I could be dead. I'm not dead, not dead yet.

Now in verse 5 though, Solomon provides the primary reason why being alive is better. He said being alive is better. He's given us the proverb that demonstrates it, but now he gives us the reason why being alive is better. Because if you're living, you at least know you're going to die. And that's why I said, I just, that's, that is brutal. That that's the reason. It's not because you can wake up and smell the roses. It's not because you get to watch a sunset. It's not because you have brown paper packages tied up with strings. It's not because you get to go on your honeymoon. It's not because you can feel the warmth of a hug or open up Christmas presents or drink Starbucks or whatever it is.

hear he says the only reason it's better for you to be alive is because at least you know you're not going to be alive. At some point that is what's certain for you. The dead have it pretty bad. He says they know nothing and they have no more reward for the memory of them is forgotten. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished and forever they have no more share in all that is done unto the Son. Because once Once you're dead, that's it. And try to think about how to say that another way. It's over. You're done because it is appointed a demand. Once to die. And we know after that comes judgment.

No more friends. No more enemies. You got love, hate coming in. No more envy. No more wishing you had somebody else's stuff. I mean, that's kind of amazing that out of all the things he chooses to miss about being alive, two of them are negative. You're going to miss being alive, you're going to like loving, you're going to miss hating and envy. The implication is that for as pathetic and as miserable as life can be, it is an opportunity. That's what I want to really try to get us to think about just for a few more minutes. Because if you have breath, if you have a heartbeat, and if you have a brain, the third one is significant for what I'm about ready to say.

If you're still breathing, if you have a pulse, and if you have any cognitive capacity left, there is hope. Because thinking about your death, thinking about death and in particular your death may be the most profitable first step towards real hope you could take. Thinking about your death may be the most profitable first step you could take towards real joy and meaning and satisfaction in life. Because if thinking about your death causes you to think about God and causes you to realize, I need to be ready to meet God. That's of great benefit and profit to you. You know, most people squander, they just piddle away their life and spend their time pursuing a thousand different distractions. But God is very gracious in that he often arranges kind of attention grabbing, shoulder shaking, chin directing times to think about death and to think about him. He does often arrange very traumatic calamities to get our attention.

I was fortunate to have one of those Thursday evening as I was going about my normal business just trying to make a left turn. I make a lot of left turns, have made a lot of left turns in my life. Trying to make a left turn when a young lady hit my car and spun me around and while I'm fine, you may question if I'm fine up here, but I think that like I'm fine, I'm showing mobility and alacrity of thought. I'm showing all those things. While I'm physically fine, the Farfig-Newgen is not as fine. I tell you you up even since then and replaying that over in my mind, you realize we're, I mean we're really at a point where we're talking about seconds and inches that make the difference between me standing here right now and me being in a casket and you guys having my memorial service this afternoon.

Seconds and inches is the difference maker. And it's made driving the last couple days pretty difficult because I'm pretty consumed with thinking about seconds and inches. Seconds and inches make the difference between whether you live a long life or literally your life is done this afternoon. It's happening at some point in time and sometimes God uses calamities to get our attention. But you know what else God uses? God uses vanity to get our attention as well. God uses all of the frustrations and the emptiness and the disappointments and being tired and being overworked and unfairly treated to get your precious attention.

Just as He uses the law to convict our consciences about our immorality and need for a Savior, I think God uses our experience to point out the vanity to cause us to realize we need a Savior as well. We need a Savior from our sin and we need a Savior from the vanity that's all around us. It's all intended to get our attention back on Him. Isn't it amazing how sensitive and how vulnerable God has made us to like being tired? He didn't have to do that. He could have let us be tired and then made it so we didn't care about it. But we're like vulnerable to not enough sleep and to too much work. We are vulnerable. We are open books to pain and to discouragement and to emptiness and to our balloons being popped.

Like put all of our hope in that and then it just gets ripped out away from us and like that hurts. And God made it that way. He didn't have to make it so that it hurt. He did not have to make it so he could make it so that we hurt but not care. He didn't do that. And for as much as we can try to medicate ourselves to avoid the hurt, for as much as we can try to distract ourselves to forget about the hurt. Ultimately, God has made it in this way so that we'll see and know and experience the vanity so that we'll want Him more. And it's only when you want Him more that you're ready to die. Until you'd rather have Him more than life, you're not ready for the end of your life. The first step of happiness, really, is to reckon it true that there is an appointed time for you to die.

And if you take that first step to be serious about that and take that for real and deal with God beyond the sun, you may get ready.

And I'm hoping that your misery and the uncertainty of life and the certainty of His sovereignty over our lives and even over our death would help us to get ready. I said at the beginning I'm in the perfect mood to talk about such a pessimistic paragraph. And I'll tell you what, if you are not a little bit upset and a little bit down after listening to all of that, you're an idiot. Can I say that in love? Because pretty much if you are not disturbed by all that a little bit, then you are either ignorant and immature, you're just naive and you're not using your brain to consider everything that's around you. You are either naive and ignorant or you are distracted by a bunch of other stuff that you're trying to forget all the vanity with, or you're just an outright denial, which again is a foolish thing, the only way you cannot be too disturbed by what I've said is if you fear God. And so obviously that's going to be the case for some of you. But even for those of us who fear God doesn't mean that it's not disturbing at all. It just takes

the sting out of how disturbing it is, but it still hurts. We just know that ultimately It's not about getting out of here, it's about getting beyond the sun to eternity to God. That's the hope, not hope here. There's more in the next paragraph verses 7 through 10 that we'll talk about related to joy. But I hoped to pop as many balloons as possible this morning to get you thinking And so that you would be able to pray and not just sing, that you would pray, Draw me close to you. Never let me go. I mean, are you really ready to lay it all down? To leave it behind? To not hold on to anything? To not be sucking in to puff up your joy balloon unless that joy is in God.

Are you ready? Are you wanting God to draw you close to Him? That's the only way, really truly, that's the only way you've got hope. Otherwise you're going to die. And then it's not only going to have been miserable for you now, it's going to be even worse then. And Father, as negative as this is and as much as I have tried to avoid giving the remedy too quickly, so that we would sense the heaviness and so that you would even use that kind of weight pushing on our hearts to push us to you. There is a remedy. There is an answer. Ultimately that answer is found in Jesus, but it's just so easy I think, especially for some of these students to skip along and think it's okay and yet they're still trusting in something other than you. And I pray that you would take that away from them, that you'd cause them, not necessarily with a calamity and a traumatic, huge event in their life, but just as they think about, your spirit convicts them about the emptiness of the junk they're pursuing, so that instead they'd pursue you for their joy.

Bring us back next time where we see Solomon's command to pursue that joy. He tells us where it's found. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Well, you can take out your copy of God's Word this morning and turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 8, where the goal this morning is to finish another chapter, leaving us only four to go. And since my commitment, at the beginning of the school year at least, was to finish the book of Ecclesiastes by the end of the school year, I'm feeling pretty good. Though I think that means I've only done two chapters from September to December, and there's still four more to go. I think it can happen. We'll have to see. One of the things I think about our own culture, one of the things it seems like for most of us is that we feel like if we just could have all the information about something, we feel a lot better.

desire for control that each one of us has, I'm not sure it always is equal to wanting to be God. In fact, I don't think anybody would ever say, I think you guys are smarter, you're smarter than that, you won't ever say out loud, I want to be God because then you'll be looking for the lightning bolt coming down through your roof. You know that that's not a good approach, we're not supposed to take God's place. And yet, it still seems like when we run into a difficulty, when we face a trial, when we come across some upcoming event or some upcoming responsibility, we feel better if we can just get enough information about it. That's one of the reasons why WebMD has become such a popular website. Because instead of trusting doctors, you know, the people who have gone to school for maybe 10 plus years and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars learning about how to diagnose problems. We feel like if we just go to a website we can probably figure out more appropriately and more quickly and more accurately what's

wrong with us than somebody who's profession that is. Of course, we'll just get the information for ourselves and then we'll be able to help ourselves out better. And of course that happens with medical stuff, that happens with all kinds of future stuff. I think that even as we look back, if we could just know the reason why something happened, we feel like that would make it better. If we just knew why the person did it, or maybe even if we're thinking on a theological level, if we just knew why God chose to have that happen, then we'd be more at peace. Then we'd be more comfortable. Then we could go on. And yet I want you to consider this morning that there is a benefit in a certain kind of, and junior high guys, I need you to pay attention to this because this is a very specific statement, there is a benefit in a certain kind of ignorance. Now why I say I want the junior high guys to pay close attention to that is because I can just hear it years from now. Well I remember Pastor Sean when you were teaching that message from Ecclesiastes chapter 8 and

I'd be really impressed if you were instead of it was a selected scripture thing where you're talking about it and you said ignorance was good. Now there is a certain kind of ignorance that can be very beneficial for your heart now and for your eternity. Now, it's a certain kind, and we're going to talk about that from Ecclesiastes chapter 8. But most of us feel like our problem is not ignorance, or our problem is ignorance, and that's something that we've got to get over. We need more information. We need more wisdom. If we just had the knowledge, then that would make things better. And I want to suggest that that is not actually the way to great joy in your life or in your eternity. There is a certain kind of ignorance, or at least responding to that kind of ignorance that can lead to joy. And hopefully we'll see that as we go along this morning. So, you remember last time we were dealing with and considering some frustrations with injustice. And we've seen these various injustices already starting in chapter 8 verse 10. Let's

read the passage. I'll try to give a quick recap of what we looked at three Sundays ago in verses 10 through 15 and then we'll cover verses 16-17, hand you off into your small groups. Ecclesiastes chapter 8 verse 10. Then I saw the wicked buried. They used to go in and out of the holy place and were praised in the city where they had done such things. This also is vanity. Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God because they fear before him, but it will not be well with the wicked. Neither neither will he prolong his days like a shadow because he does not fear before God.

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. And I commend joy. For man has no good thing under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful. for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him unto the Son. When I applied my heart to know wisdom and to see the business that is done on earth how neither day nor night do one's eyes sleep, then I saw all the work of God.

That man cannot find out the work that is done unto the Son, however much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out. And we're talking about then three frustrations, three common frustrations under the sun that people have. And we've looked at the first two. The first frustration was that wicked people go unpunished. We looked at that in verses 10 through 13. In society and we know that this is the case. This is what Solomon tells us. This is what God reveals to us. And this is God's truth to us. This isn't just Solomon's observations, though it is that as well. This is what God is telling us about life on this planet and certainly we see it when we watch the news or when we read the newspapers or when we're looking at the internet or just when we live. Our own experience is that we see people who don't deserve to be praised. People who did bad, wrong, sinful, unjust kind of things.

And they often don't get punished for it. We saw that in verses 10 through 13, the example of this guy, probably some kind of political official or leader. This was not somebody just Joe Hebrew I said, who nobody knew. This was somebody who had some position of visibility in the culture, in the city. And this was the person who was always going in and out of the holy place. I think that's the temple. They were always there for worship. And though they lived the rest of the week, the rest of their lives was full of injustice and treating people poorly and treating people wrongly. And even then in verse 9 where man has power over man to his hurt.

You get the impression based on the connection here, the flow of thought. What you have here is somebody with power, somebody in a position of authority who is hurting other people underneath them and yet they were always going in and out of the temple and now that they're dead, people praise them in the city where they did all the evil. I mean that is infuriating.

I mean that should make us mad to see that here this person who did evil should have been punished for it, and at least if nobody had the courage while they were alive to stand up and tell them that they were doing what's wrong, at least now that they're dead and they don't have the power anymore, we should not praise them and give them glory, and yet it's like we're throwing parades in their honor. And we're naming streets in the city after them, and that is, that's true in American society, that's true in societies and cultures all over our world, that was true in Solomon's Day, and you know what, frustration is a fact of life and Solomon says, that is vanity. That is meaningless. That is frustrating that wicked people often go unpunished. The second frustration that we looked at comes in verses 14 and 15, and that is wicked people often prosper. Not only do wicked people do it and get away with with it. Nobody punishes them, nobody holds them to account, give account for themselves

and their actions. But sometimes they even prosper. They prosper, maybe it's financially, maybe they prosper so far as popularity goes. You realize that the people who are popular today are not the righteous people for the most part. The people who make a name for themselves are the people who do wicked evil things. Even just this past week, the kid, I think it was who went into the mall and started shooting, his suicide note talked about all he wanted to be was famous. So he killed people and then he killed himself. And now, to some extent or another, the media has made him famous for his 15 minutes or whatever it is, but his face, not the victims, but his face is now the one that people know.

It's his name that people are going to remember. And while he is not prospering, it's an example of the fact that people who do evil often are the ones with their names known, and they oftentimes prosper, and yet just the opposite is true, that sometimes the righteous people suffer and we know again from experience not just from revelation we know that that's the case.

I was telling the staff a few weeks ago after having watched Amazing Grace. How many of you have watched Amazing Grace the William Wilberforce story? Great movie if you haven't seen it I highly recommend that you watch it. I don't typically give movie reviews or recommendations but but I think that that was a good one. It was very encouraging to me. And of course, if you know anything about the story, you know that William Wilberforce was really the human instrument that God used to abolish the slave trade in Great Britain. And sure, God could have used somebody else, but who he used was William Wilberforce. And so clearly, I had just finished preaching this three weeks ago, and I watched Amazing Grace the next night. And if you You remember the scene in the movie where it was the first kind of victory that they had where the slave trading ships had to have a certain kind of flag.

So it wasn't the abolishing of the slave trade yet, but it was making them have a certain kind of flag. I don't even remember what all the details were. Basically, it was a major victory and it was going to at least start to slow down the slave trade as they were working to abolish it. And so major victory. There weren't enough people in parliament that day to vote to stop it and so it was successfully voted in, this new law. And so major victory and what's happening to him that night? Instead of being able to go out and celebrate and have a big party, his ulcerative colitis was acting up so bad that the scene is where he is, he's trying to get his wife who's pregnant to distract him from how much pain he's in. And here's this guy who is not just living a righteous life, he is fighting in the right way for the sake of righteousness.

He is fighting on behalf of most people he had never known so that they could be freed.

Fighting against injustice for the sake of justice and here he is suffering a significant amount of suffering. And you know what? It is the case. It's not necessarily true that every wicked person always prospers. It's not necessarily true that every righteous person always suffers. But it happens enough of the time that it seems out of place. The wicked people prosper and the righteous people suffer. And so we are frustrated by the fact that wicked people often go unpunished. We're frustrated by the fact that wicked people often prosper. There is however a response, and you remember we talked about it from verse 15, in the middle of seeing all of that, in the middle of seeing authorities, use their power to hurt people. In the middle of seeing those wicked people go unpunished and even praised after they're gone. In the midst of seeing wicked people prospering and righteous people suffering and enduring agony and pain, Solomon has the audacity to say, but you can still enjoy the process. Somehow knowing all of that information,

you can still enjoy the process. Look at verse 15, I command joy, for man has no good thing under the sun, but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun. This is untouchable. And we gave a quote from Senior Chris McCullough. Don't let others dictate the happiness of your heart. If you are more concerned with God than what other people are doing around you or even to you, you can have a kind of joy in the midst of great suffering, great personal pain, and great injustices and wrongs that you see around you or done to you, you can still have joy. And that requires a kind of mindset that is just not typical in our day. We are a culture, and I think we are a culture of Christians who are whiners. I don't know if it's just that we're that selfish, or if it really is that bad, or if we just think that people will appreciate us when Can we tell them how bad it is?

But for the most part, we are really good at being able to communicate our stories of complaining. I love, I've told you this before, I love the Greek word for grumbling. It's gagesmes. And it's the onomatopoetic idea of grr grr grr grr grr grr grr grr where you're just kind of frustrated and upset and that just comes out and boils over and your ugly complaining Spill's out on everybody else. Well that's obviously because we're not enjoying the process and I think that's because we're not fearing God. We're not trusting Him. We assume that because it's painful for us or because somebody else is being treated wrongly when they shouldn't be. We must assume that God is doing something wrong and that That then gives us right to complain about it when in fact we're not fearing and trusting him which would enable us to have joy, an untouchable kind of joy.

Not getting out of work but in the midst of work. Not getting out of injustice but going right through it. If you have a perspective that is eternal and spiritual and God-ward, you can have this kind of joy that is making for a very powerful life. So the two frustrations, number one, wicked people often go and punish. Number two, wicked people often prosper. The third frustration is found in verses 16 and 17 and that is wisdom is severely limited. And this comes back to what I said at the beginning of the message this morning that oftentimes Sometimes we feel like if we could just get more information, if we could just get the right amount of wisdom, that that would explain everything and then we could be joyful.

And I want you to know that knowing why everything happens is not what leads to your joy. It is not accumulating all the information on a situation. It is not having perfect wisdom about what God is doing or even about the motivations of others.

is not what enables you to have joy. In fact, let me promise you this. If you think that information accumulation, if you think that wisdom is the answer, you are setting yourself up. You are guaranteeing for yourself a life of misery. If you think that just getting the right amount of information is going to make you peaceful, if you think that having all wisdom is what is going to make you joyful, I guarantee you, you are going to have just the opposite. You're going to be absolutely miserable. And the reason for that is because you will never have all the information. And you will never be completely wise. And you know who made it that way? God. Do you realize God is the one who has set limitations on what we can cram into our brains, God is the one who has set that. Now again, please don't use that to your parents and tell them why you flunked your test. Well, Mom and Dad, God has set a limitation on my ability to get wisdom and that is apparently what he wanted. Now that's the limitation he put on me. It's like a constrictor for your brain.

God has set up limitations. God has put those in place to keep you from knowing all things and from having all wisdom. God has done that. And there is a benefit in that, potentially. We'll see that in just a moment. Under the sun, as the finish of chapter 8, verses 16 and 17 are providing a summary to all of the injustice that we've seen.

under the sun, you cannot figure out what God is doing, totally and completely. Joy is great. You just said that in verse 15. And joy is possible, but joy does not come from understanding everything God is doing it or why he's doing it. That is not where Joy comes from is information. Joy does not come from wisdom per se. Joy comes not from knowing God's plan, but from trusting God's character and his sovereignty. Joy does not come from knowing God's plan perfectly, but from trusting, fearing God, and knowing his character and his sovereignty. Verse 16, When I applied my heart to no wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth, how neither day nor night do one's eyes see sleep. Then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done unto the sun.

However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out, even though a wise man claims to know he's a liar. He cannot find it out. We want, and this is perhaps just human, I don't know, it's at least American. We're a very pragmatic kind of people. We want to identify the formula. If you do this, then this will happen. We're cause and effect related people. If you do this, this is going to happen for sure. If you don't do this, then this is going to happen. And we think that there's a cause and effect. We'd like to be able to know that formula for everything. And yet the fact is, that's not how it works. Because even though God says to be righteous and righteousness is what makes somebody truly blessed, righteous people still suffer.

Where's the problem in that formula? I mean, what's happened there? Isn't God in control? So then if He said to be righteous, and I'm trying to live righteously as He said, shouldn't I prosper? Isn't that how God made it up? Well, the equal sign doesn't always make it to the other side. What about wicked people? God says don't be wicked. And so we see wicked people who are doing exactly what God says is not supposed to happen, and yet they seem to prosper. How does that work? And if you think that life is a formula and you figure this, then this, equals this for sure you are guaranteed to be frustrated. His ways are not what? Our ways. And his thoughts are above and higher than our thoughts. And his timetable doesn't always fit on our calendar.

You can try to schedule it in. And that's when I would legitimately say good luck trying to put God's timetable onto your calendar and figuring out when he's supposed to do such and such a thing based on what you're doing. Solomon says, when I applied my heart to no wisdom, God gave him more wisdom than anybody else. He used the wisdom that God gave him to try to get more and more. The whole book of Ecclesiastes has been telling us he observed this, he saw this, he tried this, he did this, he experienced this. Solomon gave great effort here to trying to figure it out. And he saw the business that is done on earth how neither day nor night do one's eyes sleep. Life is hard. There's a lot of work to do. It never ends. You're going to get up early. You're going to go to bed late.

That's what God has given for men to do. And then you die. How God's justice works was not something he could figure out. I saw all the work of God that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. He acknowledges that God is in control. He acknowledges that God's control is absolute and unqualified. There is nothing that is outside of God's very purposeful and particular control. And yet, Solomon says, I couldn't figure it out. I knew that it was true, but I can't explain how it happens. And God made it to work this way for at least two reasons. Number one, God made it. God does his work so that life is unpredictable. That's the part we hate, isn't it? We hate that we can't, based on our formula, predict what's going to happen. Sometimes it works. Sometimes the pattern is pretty clear and we see. And then other times we do the thing 9 out of 10 it's just happened nine out of nine times, but on the tenth time it's just not guaranteed to happen because God is not forced to work that way and he's made it so that it's unpredictable. And the second reason God has made it that way,

he's made life to be unpredictable so that we will fear him. You know what your tendency would be is if you could predict everything you would not need God. God. You would then, and like I said, I don't think that we would then make ourself little buttons and say, I'm now God. It's not a karate thing where you get certain colors of belts. And then eventually you arrive to black belt Christianity where now you have identified all the patterns and you have all the information and so with your black belt of Christianity you now are able to control what's happening in your life.

That doesn't happen. It doesn't happen that men replace God. He made life unpredictable so that we would fear Him. Look back at Ecclesiastes chapter three. This is not new stuff. Of course, there's nothing new under the sun, but Solomon himself has already told us stuff that's very similar to what we're looking at in chapter 8 verses 16 and 17, look at chapter 3 verse 10. I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. Again, same kind of terminology. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also he has put eternity into man's heart yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

I perceive that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live, also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil. This is God's gift to man. I perceive that whatever God does endures forever, nothing can be added to it nor anything taken from it. God has done it so that people fear before Him." Look, God does not want you to figure out the formula so that you'll do this and do that and get this information and have this wisdom so that then you can have joy. He wants you to fear Him and to trust Him regardless of what happens. And that kind of joy can't be stolen, no one can rob it, no one can take it from you. And so whereas in chapter 8, obviously he's saying that the joy can come even in the midst of injustices. And when wicked people prosper, clearly, even as he already told us in chapter 3, there is a connection between that enjoying the process and not having all the information.

We look to so many things to give us satisfaction, to explain why stuff is happening or to be able to predict what's going to happen.

If that is your strategy for joy, I am promising you for as much as you feel like you fill up your information funnel, there is always going to be that hole at the bottom that God has opened up to make it so that the satisfaction you're trying to pour in with information and joy is going to leak out sometimes slowly and sometimes very quickly and your joy will be gone if it is not a joy in trusting and fearing God, not in getting the right amount of information or knowing what's going to happen, being able to predict and understand the future. Even though a wise man claims to know he cannot find it out. Now that's the wisest guy who ever lived on the face of the earth who just said that. He says, I've looked for it. I have tried to figure it out. And it is unpredictable. It's with God. It's not unpredictable to God, but to everybody else it is. He says, so a wise man may claim to know, but he cannot find it out. Let me just give you three conclusions on this paragraph. What do we learn here? These will just kind of summarize this whole

last part of chapter 8. Number one, judgment may not be immediate, but it is inevitable. This is a helpful principle to keep in mind. Judgment may not be immediate, but it is inevitable.

When we see the wicked people going unpunished, when we see the wicked people prospering now, it is crucial. And if you fear God, you'll be able to remember this. It is crucial to keep in your mind that just because nothing bad is happening to them now does not mean it is escaping God's notice and that they are going to go unpunished forever. It may may not be immediate, but it is inevitable. That is, it is a guarantee. And can I just point out as a parenthesis that that's actually a good thing. We don't always like it when it applies to other people, but you realize that if judgment was immediate, that that would mean your judgment and my judgment was immediate too. And so if there was no delay and no patience on God's part, we would have already been killed and punished and sent to eternity forever because of our own injustice. If you have never sinned against somebody else and done something wrong to them, well then you now have lied and therefore God will judge you for that. That's how powerful our sin is. We have not done things to other

people appropriately, whether that's responding to authority, for however bad it is wrong for the authority to be unjust, it's just as wrong for those under the authority to disobey their authority. So if you have ever disobeyed your authority, if you have ever had some position of power and treated other people underneath you inappropriately, let alone any other kind of sin, if God's judgment was immediate, we would all have already been suffering it. So it is actually beneficial that God is patient, but remember that even though it may not happen as soon as the injustice happens, God is not forgetting about it, avoiding it, not dealing with it. It is coming in the future. Number two, life isn't always fair but you can still enjoy the process. You know, often times when people come to me and they tell me that, you know, somebody in their small group is treating them in a totally unfair way. First of all, I'm typically glad to know so that we can try to make it right. I think that we need to work at making things right. That's good, but it all depends

on the person's attitude when they come to talk about it. Because if they come with absolutely no joy whatsoever, if they come to say somebody has treated them inappropriately, they need some help in dealing with that, and they are just totally miserable, they have absolutely no joy whatsoever at all, that concerns me. Because that demonstrates that issue number one is wrong. And issue number one is not the fact that somebody treated them inappropriately.

Issue number one is that they're not fearing God. Because if they were fearing God, there would at least be a measure of joy underneath the frustration on top. There would be a graciousness in dealing with the person who offended them. There would be an interest in working it out, not just seeing the other person punished. But many times people go to their small group leader, they go to their parents, or they come to me and they're complaining about various ways that they've been treated and it has nothing to do with actually making it right except for the other person getting what's coming to them and then the person who's making the complaint being vindicated and their name being shown as right.

And there's no joy in the process. The fact is, even though life isn't fair, and people are going to treat you in ways that are wrong, not just that you don't like, but people are going to treat you in ways that are wrong. That may happen later today, that may happen this week, that's going to happen in your life and you know what, it's going to happen over and over and over and over and over again, where people don't treat you in a right way. How are you going to respond to that? This is profound wisdom for you that if instead of depending on the situation to be right. You depended on God. You could still have joy. That changes really all of life and certainly your attitude. Life isn't always fair, but you can still enjoy the process.

The third thing to take away from this is work is hard. Wisdom is limited. God is God. Work is hard and wisdom is limited, but God is God. Just that statement by itself, work is hard, wisdom is limited, God is God. That is either ridiculously frustrating to you, or it is unbelievably peace-giving to you. If you are fearing God and submitting to God and trusting in his character that even though you don't have all the information, you can't predict everything that's going to happen. If you trust him, there's a kind of peace and a kind of joy that comes from that that just nobody can touch. If, however, you still think work is hard, wisdom is limited, and God is God, and he's then just out to frustrate everything that you're doing and trying to accomplish and organize for your own life, then you will be miserable. Absolutely no hope. A couple questions you might want to use to get you started in your small group time. Like, why is injustice so infuriating?

Why does that make us mad? And that shouldn't just be because it's bad. I mean, there's way more that you can talk about. Why is injustice so infuriating? Here's another question. If God can stop injustice, why doesn't he? I think we're going to agree, we would have to agree that God could stop injustice. So why doesn't he? And what does that tell us about God? What does that tell us about his character? What does that tell us about his plan? If he could stop it and he doesn't stop it, why? What is he trying to communicate?

What does he want from us to get from the fact that he doesn't stop injustice? How How about this? Should you try? And if the answer is yes, you should try, how can you stop injustice? Is it appropriate for us, when we see injustices, to try to do something about that? And if we're supposed to, how do we do that? What should our perspective be? How about this one? Can you hate injustice and enjoy the process at the same time? At At the exact same time, I'm going to give you the answer to that is yes, you can, and I know that you can because God does. Is that blowing your mind? It should. At the exact same time, God hates wickedness and injustice, and yet is the most happy being in the entire universe, the exact same time. Can you do that? How does that happen? And then what are the limits of wisdom? And is the limitation of wisdom something that is helpful to you or hurtful to you? And again, I'm suggesting based on what we've studied, that the limitation of wisdom can be the most helpful thing for you if that leads you to the right response.

Having all the information might be the greatest blessing that God ever gives to you if you respond to that lack of wisdom the right way. Father, we need your wisdom, we need your spirit to help us figure these things out. And we certainly then need your word and your spirit to enable us to enjoy the process because left to ourselves. We're trying to get the wisdom to control the situation to guarantee the right outcome so that then we'll be happy. Then we'll have joy and you are totally capable and often do. Throw the wrench into those plans to take away any trust in that kind of joy that we might have hoped in. And yet you offer a more long lasting, a more full, and a more secure joy than that. And that's what we want, to help us to dig for that and to work for that and to fear you to get that. We pray all this in the name of your Son. Amen.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Well, you can take out your copy of God's Word this morning and turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 8. Now, I remember very distinctly the first time I heard a story of injustice. I remember this very clearly, very distinctly. Undoubtedly, I had heard about stories like this before, But I remember the first time hearing the story of injustice when I was in junior high, I was in history class, and our teacher read for us a story about a guy who fell through somebody else's skylight and broke his leg and sued for a million dollars and won. And I thought that was kind of excessive. I thought that maybe was going a little bit overboard to give the person a million dollars for following through somebody else's skylight and breaking their leg.

But then the rest of the story was that the guy who fell through the skylight was trying to rob the house. So here's the robber up on the roof trying to figure out a way to get in. Falls through the skylight accidentally, breaks his leg. The robber breaks his leg in the house that he was going to rob, breaks his leg, sues for a million bucks, and won. I can picture the ugly color green on the walls of that room at my junior high. Absolutely over the top. Now, we hear stories like that at this point on an almost daily basis, it seems like. And to some extent, we are probably a little bit desensitized. You can't watch more than 10 minutes of the news at night or look through the paper without seeing all kinds of stories like this.

So to some extent we're probably desensitized a bit, but I remember that first time I heard such outrageous injustice and how not just being surprised, but I was mad. Because that's wrong. That is stupid, but that's wrong. Where do you find a judge and a jury like that who hears those kinds of facts that the guy is robbing the person's house and breaks his leg, falling through the sky roof and wins the case? Where do you find those kinds of people? And like I say, that did not just surprise me. That made me mad. That frustrates me. And that will frustrate you when something like that happens to you. And in this next section of Ecclesiastes, even though there are some repeated things that he's already kind of said, and nothing's going to be too surprising based on the fact of what we have learned from Solomon so far, the last half of chapter 8 is so necessary if you want to have any kind of joy at all.

In the midst of this stupid, stupid, stupid world we live in, if you want to have any kind of happiness that lasts for any length of time, any kind of real joy, then you have got to get the truth in your mind and more so you have got to get the trust in God that he points us to in this passage. Like I say, if you want to have any kind of joy in this vanity of vanities, all is vanity kind of world. We tend to think that joy is elusive. That is, that it's slippery. That is, you can only hold on to it if the situation is right. If all of the circumstances are working out for your benefit. I think we tend to believe that joy is only possible as long as there's justice.

When justice is done, then we can be happy. We can be pleased with that. Psalm is going to tell us that we can have joy even in the midst of injustice. Whether that's something we see in somebody else's life or that's something that we are experiencing in our own lives. Like I say, among the top joy-stealers in our world, injustice is probably near, if not at the top of the list. Solomon is going to identify three common or three typical joy-stealers that we see in our world. We think joy is out of the question when those who do wrong get away with it, when When those who do wrong seem to prosper, and when we can't figure out how God could let that happen.

When those who do wrong get away with it, when those who do wrong seem to prosper, and when we can't figure out what in the world God is doing, we can't come to grips with how His sovereignty is at work in those kinds of situations. Those are things that will frustrate us and make us mad. And so three frustrations that come from injustices under the sun. Ecclesiastes chapter 8, starting verse 10, Then I saw the wicked buried. They used to go in and out of the holy place and were praised in the city where they had done such things. And I would add in where they had done such wicked things. They're wicked people.

died and now they're being praised by the very people that saw their wickedness not too long ago. This also is vanity because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily. The heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God because they fear before for him, but it will not be well with the wicked eventually, ultimately. It will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow because he does not fear before God. This 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, and or but I commend joy." That's unbelievable to me that that verse can make its way into this passage. But I commend joy for man has no good thing under the sun but to eat and

drink and be joyful for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun. When I applied my heart to know wisdom and to see the business that is done on earth, how neither day nor night do one's eyes see sleep, then I saw all the work of God that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out, even though a wise man claims to know he cannot find it out. And what we see are three sections, three paragraphs in this final part, final half of chapter 8 that are pointing out to us three causes for frustration, three injustices that we see under the sun.

Number one is found in verses 10 to 13. Wicked people go unpunished. That is not right. Wicked people go unpunished.

society, in our world. This is not just during Solomon's Day. This is happening somewhere in the world right now. It will happen tomorrow. It will happen the rest of your life. In society, the wicked people are not always punished, at least not right away. They do not receive retribution. Retribution is the big word to describe penalty or punishment that is right and is equal to how bad what you did was. That's retribution. So everybody knows that what you did is wrong and the penalty or the punishment that you take is commensurate, is of equal proportion to how bad the thing you did was. Where is the retribution for the people who are doing all of the wrong things? We don't often see it. And verse 10 provides for us the outrage. Then I saw the wicked buried, they used to go in and out of the holy place and were praised in the city where they had done such things. This also is vanity. This is the outrage, the scandal. This is the unbelievable thing. Now verse 10 begins with then. And I'm pointing

that out because it's clearly connected with what we've already studied in the beginning, first half of chapter 8 related to authority. In fact, a lot of commentators think that this new section actually starts with verse 9. I think verse 9 kind of ends the previous section and then this moves us into a new section, but a lot of commentators actually think that the section starts in verse 9. And you remember that in verse 9 we talked about those who have power over man, men who have power over men to their hurt. We're We're talking about unjust authorities, those who have power and use it to their advantage and cause others pain and suffering and grief.

Then I saw the wicked buried is how Solomon moves in. So, I think he's starting a new section. He's got a shift in his subject just a little bit, but it's clearly connected to those who are in authority. He says, I saw the wicked buried. Now obviously he's referring to some funeral or some memorial service, but who are the wicked people that he has in mind? This is, I think, important. I'm going to hope to show you it's connected with those who are in authority. I think that Solomon is specifically referring to those people who had at least some measure of standing in society.

position where they were seen, some position where others were under them. I think that for three reasons. First of all, I think that he's referring to people who had some kind of standing because the entire chapter, the whole context of chapter 8 so far has been about authority, in particular those in positions of authority who could cause hurt to other people who would do wicked things with their power. Like I just said, that was verse 9, Then I saw the wicked barrier. I think that the context points us to consider that the wicked who are buried here are those likely who have some position or some standing in society. A second reason that I think Solomon is not just referring to the common man is because Solomon as king would not have been going to funerals of common men or of just common criminals. So while it's certainly possible that he could have gone to those, I don't think in his own experience in his schedule on his calendar, he was making sure he went to people's funerals that nobody knew about, let alone him as king. So his

own life context would have been one where he was more familiar with other people who were in positions of authority underneath him as the king. Third, the wicked people here are those who are visible, talked about people. It's not just Joe Hebrew who dies, I kind of like that name, it's not just Joe Hebrew who dies and then people are praising him in the city. We are getting the idea, the picture here is of somebody who has standing, likely somebody who has some authority who caused hurt to other people and everybody knew that they died and perhaps most of them went to the funeral and now they're being praised by the very same people who they were hurting. So again, I don't think Solomon is just saying in general that your common wicked person, your criminal, is somebody that people praise once they're dead, as much as he's specifically referring to those with authority and visibility in society, probably then somebody in some position of authority.

Now it's interesting to identify the one thing Solomon describes about their life. Look back at verse 10. Out of all the things he could have chosen to mention that these wicked people did while they were alive, he says they used to go in and out of the holy place. Now I think that the holy place is probably the temple. And you get the impression that this was not just a one-time event, a one-time deal. This was their regular practice. They went and worshiped on a regular basis. Now normally we would think that being faithful to go to the temple worship was the thing of a righteous man, but Solomon already said that this is the wicked person.

And what this wicked person did was always showed up for worship. is the extreme of religious hypocrisy. And we're talking about then hypocrites who saw it as convenient and profitable for them to go to the right place where the right people were so that they could be seen. These are like the politicians who set up the place to go so that they can see people of all different colors and all different ages and both genders, and they just look like they're totally in love and for everybody. And here what you have are these authorities, these leaders who made their way to the temple to show off that they were righteous, even though the exact opposite was true.

Now, even though everybody knew better, everyone knew they had done such things. That's the end of the verse. He's talking about the things of injustice, the things of wickedness, the things of hypocrisy. Everybody knew better now that they're dead, now that the wicked person is dead, they're being praised. I need to make a comment on this. I was actually, I wasn't gonna make any comment on it at all but once I looked at the new American standard and the new King James, I realize we need to talk about it just a little bit, because how many of you have a New King James or an NAS? S has nothing about praise, does it?

No. How many of you are looking at the ESV or the NIV? Yours says praise, right? Let me read the ESV for you again. They used to go in and out of the holy place and were praised in the city where they had done such things. Well, listen to the NAS, and it's close enough to the new King James that we can just go with the one. The New American Standard says, I have seen the wicked buried, and those who used to go in and out from the holy place, and they are soon forgotten in the city where they did thus and thus, where they did such. So in the ESV, the key idea is that they're praised, and in the New American Standard, the key idea is that they're forgotten.

Now, there's an explanation for why the two translations go totally different. And I think that there is some help as to figure out which one is better. Well, what's interesting is that the Hebrew words for praise and forget are only separated by one letter. And the letter actually looks very similar in Hebrew. The two letters look very similar in Hebrew. So some Hebrew manuscripts have the one letter that makes you want to translate it as forgotten. And then some manuscripts have the letter that makes it be for praise. However, while that's the case, that there are manuscripts that have both, that one letter difference, the context really suggests one instead of the other.

The conclusion at the end of verse 10 is what? This is vanity. This is wrong. This is not good. I don't think you would make that conclusion if you said the wicked people did what was wicked and they were hypocrites and treated people with injustice but we forgot all about them. We would probably think, yeah, that got what they deserved.

At least nobody is talking about them, nobody cares about them anymore. We forgot about them, we don't even like them. I don't think that that makes as much the point as saying that here these wicked people did wicked things, they die and now we're naming streets after them. We're making a national holiday on their behalf. We're building libraries, naming libraries after them. I mean that is what is outrageous is when you see on whatever level somebody who is totally unrighteous. I don't know if this has ever happened to you where you have gone to a funeral and you have listened to people get up and say such positive things, it has to have been about somebody other than you knew. It could not possibly be about the person that you knew who had passed away just saying such positive things. And here it goes beyond just saying nice things about them at the funeral. It's celebrating and praising them. The people are talking about how great they were when they were alive and yet it was the exact same people who were likely hurt by those authorities.

And so Solomon concludes there at the end of verse 10, it is vanity when the jerk is praised. I mean, no doubt that is vanity. What a pain! That not only did these wicked authorities get away with hurting others, It doesn't seem like they ever had to face the music or pay the penalty or be punished for the wrong that they were doing, for the wickedness that they did. They got away with it while they were living. And even once they died, nobody stood up and told the truth about how awful they really were. Even the opposite, they were praised. Where is the justice in that? There is no justice. That is outrageous. also is vanity. Now there's an outcome. So that's the outrage in verse 10. The outcome in verse 11 is very interesting. What follows from the fact that certain people in visible positions get away with their wickedness and unrighteousness, there is an outcome that everybody else who sees that the person with position didn't get in trouble, they decide, Oh, I can do that too.

Look at verse 11, because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. This is insult to injury. This is extra pain in the posterior to the already pain that you had from the fact that they didn't get punished. Now the outcome is that other people are going to be excited to do wickedness themselves. Now, it seems like the situation is a little bit different in verse 11, because at least here, it seems like there's the possibility that the person could get punished, even if that is delayed. But whether punishment is avoided totally or delayed somewhat, other people are encouraged to disobey when they don't see consequences for other people's disobedience.

I'm going to love talking about this for a few minutes here. Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily. Here we've got the wrong that is done. And apparently we have the wrong that is done and noticed. Nobody is questioning that it was an actual wrong that was done and it doesn't seem to be hidden. We have wrong done and acknowledged. We all see that what was just done was unrighteous, was unholy, was wicked, whatever it is. It was judged as wrong, but the punishment was not executed speedily. That is, the punishment was either withheld or obviously delayed. And that results in the heart of the children of man being fully set to do evil.

Now think about that. The children of man is a description of who? This is the universal truth. The children of man is every human who has ever lived. They are a child of man. This is the universal condition. The children of man, a general universal reference. It's not limited to a narrow group of people or to other really wicked people. That's so key. This is not just when somebody in your class does the wrong thing and doesn't get punished, that all of the other haters in your class are excited to do wrong. This is everybody, the children of man. Everybody sees and notices that somebody didn't receive consequences for the wrong that they did.

Now, that's total depravity. That's universally the case. And their heart, it brings it right back to the heart. The heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. The heart is looking for an opportunity. The heart will take any open door it thinks it can find to do what is wrong if it can get away with it without consequences. These are not people who are confused about the rules. These are not people who are ignorant of what the rules are. Oh, they might say, oh, how many times have you had this conversation with somebody? Oh, I didn't realize that was the rule. I just, I didn't know. There's a word for that.

The word is lie. There are other synonyms that can go along with it, but that's a short one. You have space for that on your notes. That is a lie. There's no confusion. We're not talking about ignorance of the rules. We're talking about deliberate disobedience to the rules you know because somebody else didn't get caught who did the exact same thing. It is like students who deliberately, and I'm choosing something small, it's like students who deliberately disobey the dress code because their friend didn't get confronted on it. It's not that they don't know what the rule is, what the standard is. It's that, well, the other person didn't get caught.

They didn't get confronted on it. So because the rule is not being enforced, they must not really be serious about that being a rule. This person didn't get caught. This person didn't get confronted on it. So, yeah, but what's the rule? Well, I mean, what does it say? That's exactly what happens. It's purposefully disobeying because no one else is getting in trouble. One commentator observed this. quote, it is amazing how we have the capacity to dismiss the consequences of our actions simply because they are not imminent. I mean, we act differently when we know that the punishment is in the pipeline and the pipeline is aimed right at our head. But when it seems like nobody cares, nobody is really doing anything about it, we are looking for those open doors.

We respond, and this is sad, this is a statement on our hearts, because we do respond to threats and pain. A lot, not everybody, but most people learn from being threatened and or then receiving pain. But when it seems like somebody else's threat is thin, Or when it seems like the penalty or the punishment is going to be postponed at best and maybe they'll postpone it long enough they'll even forget about it and we can avoid any kind of penalty at all, we're walking through that door. The outrage in verse 10, the outcome in verse 11 is that other people see that and they run to do wickedness because the heart is fully set to do that.

Verses 12 and 13 give us the outlook. Because thinking that you're going to get away with disobedience is very short-sighted. It's not just wrong, it's short-sighted. The fact is, and you can take this to the bank, you can get a safe deposit box, you can swallow the key, whatever it is you want to do, you think you're going to make it secure. This is the fact. This is how God made it to work, that no one will get away with anything. Though a sinner, verse 12, does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God because they fear before him, but it will not be well with the wicked.

Neither will he prolong his days like a shadow because he does not fear before God. You might do the wrong thing over and over and over again, and nobody confronts you and nobody stops you, and you may think you're getting away with it. You're not. Your parents may not know. Your teachers may not know. The government may not know. But God knows. If you think that all there is is life under the sun, You can hide a lot of stuff. And sure, you're going to look for those open doors to do whatever it is that you want. But there is more. And you know there is more because God has put eternity into your heart. It is built in, you know, with your conscience in your heart that there is a God and you know that He is a just God and that you are not getting away with anything.

You may suppress that truth, you may try to deny that truth, but it is nevertheless the truth. No one is going to get away with anything. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, it may seem like there's no end in sight to how bad they can be. Solomon breaks in with a word of faith here and he says, yeah, I know. I know this to be the case. It may not look like it. It may not be our regular experience, but this is what I know. That it will be well with those who fear God because they fear before Him. At some point in time, those people who fear God will be vindicated. They will be proven right.

It may not be on this planet, but that doesn't change that it is true. No matter how much it looks like, the wicked are getting away with it, and they may get Get away with it under the sun, and they may die, and they may get praised by other people who are still here." That's totally possible. They are not getting away with it before God. And do you realize that the more patience from God that they have received is how much greater their punishment will be from God. If they have received punishment that God didn't immediately come down and strike them when they did some great injustice or some wickedness, if they have received God's patience and even God's temporal blessings to let them prosper, to give them a great family or whatever it is, wicked sometimes look like they're prospering, the patience and common grace that they get will be used more against them.

It will make their punishment more severe, not less. Those who fear God and those who fear before Him are smart because they realize that God is the one with whom they have to do. And whether anybody else sees them or not, they know that God sees them. In the end, it will not be well with the wicked. I think that's an understatement. It will not be well with them in the end. The time for judgment is coming. In fact, neither will He prolong His days like a shadow. That's kind of a unique statement. But if you think about it, at the end of the day, when the day is almost done, the shadows get longer, right? And what he's saying is that as the wicked are nearing the end of their days, there's not anything they can do to make it even longer, namely so that they can avoid God's judgment.

They may live to 90, but as they get closer to that appointed time, there is nothing they can do to escape that it is going to end, and they will be judged by God. They cannot lengthen their days like a shadow. This outlook requires on our part, this outlook requires faith, it requires trust, it requires patience. And I agree that if you don't believe that a coming judgment is in the pipeline, if you don't believe that God is paying attention to what's happening, you will be miserable.

But it is coming. That's the first frustration under the sun when wicked people go unpunished. The second frustration, the second injustice under the sun that Solomon mentions is in verses 14 and 15 and that's when or the fact that wicked the wicked often prosper not only do wicked people go unpunished wicked people often prosper in life at least in life under the Sun people don't always get what they deserve do they some criminals break their leg and get a million dollars that is not what they deserve. Sometimes the wicked don't just go unpunished, but they prosper and the righteous people suffer. Psalm gives us the frustration in verse 14. 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. Clearly verse 14 is about expressing frustration because he begins and ends with the statement of vanity. It is frustrating. It seems purposeless and meaningless. This is one of those age old universal truths that typically don't bother us like they should until it happens to us or to somebody that we know or to somebody that we love. There are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked. That blows our minds, right? Because if God is righteous, and His word tells us to be righteous, then shouldn't those people who live righteously receive the rewards of righteousness?

I mean, that's how it should go. That's what lines up in our minds. God is righteous. God says, be righteous. So why do people who are fearing God and being righteous suffer? Why does it seem like they're the ones who have it hard, whose houses burn down, who lose their jobs, whose kids die young or they get cancer or whatever it is, why do righteous people suffer? And then the other side, there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. They're the ones who get the job. They get the promotion. They live long lives. They buy big boats. They have stuff and prosper and are popular and all that kind of stuff.

It's not necessarily that the wicked always prosper and the righteous are never rewarded, but it doesn't seem like there's a rhyme or reason to why that happens. And you know what? That feels wrong. And that's frustrating. We sense that that is wrong. We're not talking about wicked people getting more punishment than what their punishment deserves. We just want them to answer for what they did and be penalized or be punished in proportion to what their deed was. We don't need them to be super punished. We just want them to answer for what they did. It's not that we necessarily want the righteous people to... Every righteous person gets to be president.

I mean, that's not what we want either. We just want them to enjoy the rewards, the blessings of their righteous life. It doesn't seem to fit. God's holy word that contains God's perfect standard that comes from God's righteous character. How can that fit that wicked seem to prosper? And Solomon says, this also is vanity.

Now my question for you is how do you respond to that truth? Cause that is true. Not only does Solomon say it, he doesn't qualify it. We see it in our own lives. What do you do at that point? In light of everything we've talked about in chapter eight so far, especially from verses 10 through 14. How do you respond when hurtful authority go unpunished and then get honor? That's wrong. What do you do at that point? What do you do when wicked people prosper and righteous people suffer? I mean, because it seems like there is no guaranteed solution to those problems. Even if you are not Eeyore, you still want to die.

Because that's brutal. That is unfair. That is not right. That makes us frustrated. That makes us mad. To get out of it, it seems like, just kill me. Just take me to heaven, because I believe that will be better. Even if you're not Eeyore and you want to die, it still has to make you depressed. A lot of people, they don't kill themselves, they just whine to other people about how bad it is. Other people have different personalities, they don't commit suicide, they don't whine about it, but they just fight like nobody's business to try to make it right. And they recycle, and they fight against it. But somehow, somehow, as pessimistic and irritable as Solomon is, he has the audacity to write verse 15. This is the recommendation. Frustration in verse 14, the recommendation, verse 15, And I commend joy, For man has no good thing unto the sun, but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun. The phrase, I commend joy. It means I praise. I lift up. I exalt. I am

telling you that this is where it's at. Joy. I commend joy. Solomon endorses and advocates and recommends joy. Are you kidding me? Did you read what you just wrote? Joy? In that. This stupid, stupid, stupid world. Joy. Are you serious? Is he really saying that someone can be happy and have a life of joy under the sun? And of course the answer is yes. written in this verse. We've talked about it in chapter 2, verses 24 through 26. We looked at it in chapter 3, verses 12 and 13. We looked at it in chapter 5, verses 18 through 20. And this is when he again grabs us by the scruff of the neck and pulls us back up out of the water to get a breath again from how awful it seems like and how the The world drowns us with discouragement and disappointment under the Son.

He says we can have joy. Man has no good thing under the Son but to eat and drink and be joyful. That really could not be more simple. This is not a complicated thing, no good thing under the Son, at least that is guaranteed. There is one thing. This is it. The secret of life. Really the secret of life is Jesus, but we're not in the New Testament yet. The secret of life is to enjoy the process. It is to fear God and trust God in such a way that you are just thankful He gave you another day to work. Not another day to go on vacation. This is again, not getting out of the process. He clearly connects it to our hard work and our toil and our labor.

This is the process that we are in. This is the life that he has given us. That is where we can have joy. Even when your authority doesn't listen. When the authority treats you unfairly, when the authority gets away with his or her wickedness, when the wicked prosper and the righteous are hurt, you can be joyful. No one can steal that kind of joy. No boss, no spouse, no president, no government, no wicked person. If you fear God, look to eternity and enjoy the process. This will go with you in your toil through the days of your life that God has given you under the sun." Like I said, the answer is not getting out of the process.

The right path to joy is not avoiding difficult people or hard work or hurtful authority. That does not guarantee you joy. But you can be thankful for the days He's given you and the food and the drink He provides. Senior Chris McAuliffe put it this way, don't let the actions of others dictate the happiness of your heart. That's Solomonic. If you fear God, if you look beyond the sun to eternity, if you trust Him, and if He gives it to you, you can have joy in the midst of this ridiculous, stupid, unfair, not right, mean, hurtful, bad people world where it seems like they get away with it and it seems like they prosper, even when they're doing it to you, you can still have joy.

you're fearing God. We'll have to talk about the rest of the passage next time, but let's pray, Father. This kind of joy is sadly elusive to us. We are more miserable when people treat us poorly. Our joy is typically connected to our circumstances. It is typically connected to being treated rightly and being treated justly and even when we see other people being treated righteously and we just hate it when wicked people get away with it, especially then when they're hypocrites and they don't get punished and they prosper, we hate that. It drives us crazy and yet somehow, Somehow, you tell us we can still have joy in that process.

It's because we're not looking to life under the sun to give us satisfaction. It's because we're looking to you. We know that you are our greatest good. That it is more important to be rightly related to you, the just, eternal judge. And to know that you will take care of it in the end. You're paying attention, you know, and for us to stop playing God and thinking that we need to fix all of the wrongs, that we need to fight for ourselves all the time or even for other people. Not that there isn't a time and a place to stand up for what is righteous and just. The point is that ultimately, even when that doesn't work or doesn't work immediately, You are still sovereign.

You are God. And we want you more. Give us that kind of perspective for our joy. Cause us to be thankful for the food and the drink you give us even this week. The work that you have for us to do and the people that you have in our lives. Most of all, we give thanks for your son, Jesus. The guarantee of eternal life and joy that He provides. We pray in His name, amen.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

The subject of submission to authority is so significant for all of us. And we've been reminded of our obligation to follow authority and our opportunities to influence authority the last couple weeks from Ecclesiastes chapter 8. And even though Solomon has some more insight to share with us about authority in the last half of Chapter 8 in Ecclesiastes, I am compelled to stop and park for at least one more week that is today on some of the same issues that he has been addressing. Ecclesiastes no doubt has given us some solid, and I think most of you are finding some challenging truth as it relates to authority. But authority is not just an Ecclesiastes issue.

Authority is a Bible issue. And there is all kind of talk from pretty much the beginning to the end of the Bible that is related to and gives us instruction about authority. And though Solomon's readers probably did not have most of the Old Testament, they probably had some of the Old Testament at that point, they had access to that. There was still probably a lot of the Old Testament they didn't have access to and obviously Solomon's original readers would have had nothing from the New Testament. So they wouldn't have known some of the things that we at least have the opportunity to know. And what I want to do is take a step back from the narrow context of Ecclesiastes and consider the issue of authority from the broader biblical context.

So far I have endeavored as much as possible and typically this is my goal. I'm not always doing it as much as maybe I'm hoping to do. But typically I try to let the guy who's writing the thing we're studying make his own case. That's why I don't necessarily take us to a lot of other passages, a lot of other cross references. I really try and have tried so far to let Solomon make his own point in Ecclesiastes without running to a bunch of other places. But we do, that is you and I, we do obviously have more of God's revelation. And I wanna take us this morning and add some New Testament Christian understanding to our understanding of following and influencing the man.

This is bigger than just adding a footnote onto our study of Ecclesiastes chapter eight. You know, sometimes preachers talk about that. In fact, even pastors here this morning said, like let me just add a footnote. Footnote is small enough to go at the bottom of the page. This is bigger than a footnote. We're given this, its own whole chapter at the end, but it's not necessarily in the book of our Ecclesiastes study, but it's an appendix that helps us that kind of adds on to our understanding of authority. So this is an appendix, not an appendix or whichever side it's on. It's an appendix like at the back of a book.

another resource on authority. Now there are, like I said, a lot of Old Testament and New Testament passages that deal with the subject of authority, but I know of no clearer or more comprehensive passage in all of the Bible that reveals for us the why to submit to authority and the how to submit to authority and the benefits of submitting to authority than what we're gonna look at this morning in 1 Peter chapter two verse 13 through chapter three verse six. Obviously that's a big section, we're gonna have to look at it kind of from an overview perspective. But I was thinking about it this morning, if my heart were a cup of hot water and this passage were a tea bag, this passage has been steeping in my heart since the spring of 1995.

In other words, it has been in there for a long time. And typically what happens, you know, you stick that tea bag in the boiling cup of water, and then the water starts to cool down, even though the tea starts making its way through and impacting the rest of the cup of water. I tell you, I think that instead of the water cooling down in my heart, it has only heated up more. And what I mean to say by that is, so much of my own heart has been impacted by this passage, And I am, I'm compelled to share it with you as it relates to our discussion on authority. Because what Peter tells us here about submission and about where that's to take place and about how that happens, this is a masterful case for humble submission.

And I want you to get this. It's a masterful presentation of our need to submit even when the authority is wrong, even when the authority is wrong, we are called and commanded to submit and to honor and respect those who are in authority over us. Now, let me try to set the stage just quickly of Peter's letter and show where this section on submission comes in. Pretty much after he greeted his readers in chapter one, verses one and two, Peter starts celebrating the salvation that God has given us, really from chapter 1 verse 3 all the way through chapter 2 verse 10. Almost all of chapter 1 and a good portion of chapter 2 is all about the great salvation.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has caused us to be born again. God has caused us to be born again. He has created an inheritance for us that He's reserved for us in heaven and He's preserving us to make sure we get to that inheritance so that we can enjoy that. What an amazing thing. He talks about how He sent His Son as a lamb, like a pure spotless lamb led to the slaughter on our behalf.

The Father not only caused us to be born again, what enabled that was Him sending His son to take our place, to pay our penalty on the cross. And then God went out of his way to communicate that to us, to send preachers with the gospel, with the word that is what God uses to give us that new birth. That's the end of chapter one. And then as you move into the beginning of chapter two, that same word that gave us new life is now growing our spiritual life. That's why we're supposed to long for the pure milk of the word so that by we may grow in respect to salvation. And then we see in the next paragraph after After that, that God is building us, He is making us into His own precious possession, a special people.

And Peter celebrates this salvation that God has worked in us and steps directly from celebrating salvation to exhorting our submission. Let that soak in for just a second. He moves directly from this great, large-scale celebration and worship of what God has done in us in salvation and moves directly like two links in a chain side by side. He goes from salvation to our need to submit. And that means that submission is a Christian thing. It is not a super spiritual thing. It is not only for the mature. It is for any and everyone who is saved. That blows my mind. Being a Christian involves a certain kind of conduct.

And the first kind of conduct or behavior that Peter addresses and identifies and says needs to be part of the Christian life is humble, respectful, honorable submission to authority. Like I said, this is more than just submission to authority. This is submission to authority that makes it difficult, that makes it tough, that are hard to submit to. This is the kind of submission that Peter is exhorting us to. It's reminiscent and it's part of the reason why I'm adding this as an appendix onto our study in Ecclesiastes because it was in Ecclesiastes 8 verse 9 when Solomon says, all this I observed when man had power over man to his hurt.

Authorities sometimes hurt intentionally or unintentionally those who are submitting and following. And Peter tells us that we are responsible to submit in all of those kinds of situations. And specifically, as we get an overview of these three paragraphs this morning, I want you to see three hard places to submit. Three hard places to submit. First of all, look at chapter 2 verses 13 through 17. The first hard place to submit is number one, ungodly government. Not just government, ungodly government. Command is clear and comprehensive in these verses, specifically look at verses 13 and 14. Be subject. Submit. For the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme or to governors as those sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.

You've got the emperor, or the NASB translates the word king, and the governors. Those are the authorities in this paragraph. They are the government officials. These are the guys who make the laws and enforce the laws. For the most part, you've got the king or the emperor who is making, determining what's supposed to happen. And you've got these government officials, these governors who are his representatives sent to enforce those laws that the King of the Emperor has determined. Governmental authority is the primary point, obviously since the Emperor and the governors are mentioned at the beginning of the paragraph and even down in the last verse of the paragraph, verse 17, you see Emperor is mentioned at the very end.

So you got Emperor at the beginning, Emperor at the end. This is all about, or primarily about at least, governmental authority. And the paragraph starts with this command, be subject, submit yourselves. Now that's not hard to figure out. I've said this before. The whole modern day question of what does it mean to submit is not legitimate. People don't really wonder what the definition of submission is. They ask the question, well, what does it really mean to submit? Because they know what it means and they don't want to. To submit very simply means to do what they say. It's to obey, it's to follow. Those are all synonyms describing the same thing and that is the command, be subject or submit yourselves to every human institution.

And that's a general thing that he moves more specifically into. But the word institution is what refers to all of those systems and structures of authority that we see around us pretty much everywhere we look. Now, okay, we're smart enough, peoples. We figured that we had to obey our government. I mean, we can track with that. That kind of makes sense. We have leaders, they have authority, and they have people with guns beside them who enforce that authority. So, like, we get that. We have to submit to those people with guns, or swords, or bazookas, or whatever it is that they have. But the real rub in this paragraph comes when we consider the types of authority Peter is thinking about when he makes his command.

Who is the emperor that Peter is thinking about and what are the types of governors that are in his mind when he says submit? These are the Romans. These are the most ruthless, unsympathetic, heartless, immoral, ungodly government you can imagine. Bill Clinton had and has nothing on the immorality of most of the Roman government. And it is to those authorities that Peter says, submit yourselves. Be subject to. I mean, it's hard to compare when Mr. Bowers gets his teaching degree. Maybe he can explain to us and he can compare and contrast all of the various pagan governments that have ever existed and which one was actually the most Christ-hating, church-hating group.

Lots of governments have been like that, but I certainly think that the Roman government of the first century probably is in the top five of the most ungodly governments that have ever existed.

With the most power and control and ability to hurt people and then to focus that power to hurt Christians, the Romans have to be near if not at the top of the list. And it is to that kind of ungodly government that Peter says, submit. We are to follow authority not only when the authority is good, but what's the opposite of that? When the authority is bad. We are to follow our government authority not just when they're sympathetic to the church, but when they use their power to persecute the church. Guys, we are to submit to our government, not just when they make laws to protect Christians, but when they make laws to kill Christians. That is when we're supposed to submit, not just when it's easy. That proves zip when you submit to the government that is protecting you and thinks like you do. We are to submit from top to bottom. Christians submit even when government authorities are ungodly.

That's the point of this paragraph, verses 13 through 17. There's a second hard place to submit found in the next paragraph, verses 18 through 25. Not only do we submit to ungodly government, we are to submit to unjust masters. The authority in this next paragraph, 18 through 25, is found in the workplace. That's what connects most for us. Obviously, the specific context is between slaves and masters. For the most part, in our American culture at least, we don't really have masters and slaves and servants, but we do have employers and employees, there are probably other parts of the world that do still have masters and servants like that.

But for the most part, I think we can apply this to the workplace. Look at verse 18, servants, subject to your masters with all respect not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. Now there is more than just a topical connection between this paragraph and the one preceding. There is a grammatical connection. And this is impossible to see in any English translation I've ever looked at including the message. The message doesn't help us out here either. No English translation does this right. It drives me crazy. I understand why they translate it the way that they do, and I'm going to get to explaining why that is, but I think I understand why they do it because it would be hard to follow perhaps if they translated it the way that Peter, oh right, through the Holy Spirit originally wrote it.

So apparently God figured that we could follow it. I don't know why our English translators assume that we can't. Like I say, there is more than just a topical connection. There is a grammatical connection. A woodenly literal translation of verse 18 would be something like servants being submissive. Or perhaps we would say servants submitting. And if your ear is good and you've been paying attention to your grammar stuff in English, you know that the verb being submissive or servants submitting is not an imperative. It is not a command, it is a participle. It is a secondary verb that has to find a big brother to go with.

Secondary verbs are lonely, weak, they need help. So, they've got to look back to a primary verb to give them a purpose in life. You've always got to have a primary verb to go with a secondary verb. This is not a primary verb in verse 18. It is a participle and as such it grammatically looks back to the command in verse 18 to be subject to every human institution. And what that means is this whole paragraph, 18 through 25, is just one specific way that it's one specific particular example that shows how we're submissive to every human institution. Verses 13 and 17 kind of expanded on it and talks about government.

Here we talk about the workplace. Be subject to the Lord's sake for every human institution, to every human institution, includes submitting to your boss. Again, notice what kind of boss or master Peter expects us to submit to. And this is the brutal part, I guess, because we're to be being submissive. We're to be submitting not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust. That last phrase makes even the most capable lawyer blush at their inability to figure out the escape clause for why we can get out of submitting. Well, you don't understand, they don't treat me right. This phrase includes your little defense and the judge says, no, this is clear who you're to submit to.

This is the small print, so to speak. The word unjust is the Greek word scholiois. And the word when referring to physical objects, like for example the road, meant that the road was bent, that it was crooked, that it was not straight. And when applied to persons, it always referred to some moral defect that they as well were crooked, that they were twisted, that they were dishonest. These are the kind of bosses and masters that Peter calls us to submit to. Just the ones who do what's right and treat you like you want. The good and gentle who hold your hand when they ask you to do something tough. But even to those who are unjust, who treat you unkindly.

These masters were crooked, they were corrupt, they were dishonest, they were unfair, they didn't do what was right or treat those who were under them properly. Whether that was an issue of pay, whether that was the working conditions, whether whether that was unreal expectations, whether that was false accusations, whatever, we are exhorted by Peter to be subject with all respect, with the right attitude, not only to those authorities that we like, but to those who treat us unfairly. Look at Peter's explanation, verses 19 and 24. This is a gracious thing. That's an okay translation, but in Greek it really just says, this is grace.

It doesn't say this is a gracious thing. It says, this is grace. This is grace when mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it, you endure, This is grace in the sight of God. The issue at hand, obviously, is enduring sorrows while suffering unjustly under authority. Amazingly, Peter has the audacity to call that grace. Twice, he says, at the beginning of verse 19 and at the end of verse 20, this is grace. This is favor from God. Not just when you submit, not just when you suffer, but when you submit and suffer having done good and you don't quote unquote deserve to suffer.

That is grace. That's what he says. There is zero credit in taking punishment that you deserve well. You disobey, you get a spanking. Most of you aren't getting spankings anymore. And you don't complain about the fact that you got a spanking. Um, good, good job not complaining and being bitter that you got a spanking that you deserved. But there's really very little credit in that. There's also minimal credit in doing what is right when the authority treats you right. I mean, that's good, but guys, anybody can do that. It does not take supernatural strength to do what is right when you're treated like you want to be treated.

I think I might attach the interjection, big whoop. Ooh, superpower strength to do what is right when those who are over you treat you right. Way to go. Awesome. Peter says that is not what it's about. I mean, that's good. Sure. I mean, do what is right when they're treating you right. And for that matter, do what is right when you deserve the punishment. But Peter's point, his emphasis, is that if you are mindful of God and do good and still get beat, the NAS takes the chicken way out on this one. It says harshly treated. The verb has more the idea of being struck with the fist. And that's why the translation of being beaten is better.

Look, the masters have their own thing to deal with. They're going to give answer for that, and that's part of the point. But even if you are beaten, when you have done good, you don't need to call a lawyer. Talk to the union representative. What credit is there? There is none. But if you are mindful of God doing good and submit even while suffering unjustly, that is grace. Maybe you're like, no one in their right mind would do that. I mean, I don't know anybody who acts like that. There is no way that God could endorse that. I mean, that just seems to be letting the masters, the bosses, the people in authority, that just lets them get away with it.

That's not just. I mean, nobody would do that. No way God could be pleased with that. Or, look at the example in the very next verse. For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return when he suffered. He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly." Nobody would do that. God could never be pleased with that. That's wrong. Jesus did that. And God was pleased with what Jesus did. Jesus submitted while suffering unjustly without sin.

And that is an example. That is the path that he has made for us to follow without attitude, without threats. Instead, he trusted his father and knew that his father was paying attention and would make it right at the right time. We hate it when unreasonable and unjust people get their way. I mean, our blood boils when that happens to us or even when we see that happening to other people. And I tell you, most Christians justify their anger and bitterness and critical spirit and even slander by saying, well, you don't understand how I was treated. Maybe I don't. Jesus does. Jesus gets it. He not only just knows about it, he went through it.

You want to talk about a case where there was injustice. You want to talk about who was really the authority, and yet he submitted. And though he had done nothing wrong at any point in time ever, totally sinless, they crucified him. This was not just a beating. This was not just slander. This was putting him to death. I mean, you can't get any more extreme than that. There is no greater injustice that has ever happened anywhere, any time in the universe than when the Son of God was crucified, and He is our example in that. Well, but you don't understand how bad I've been treated, how much that authority let me down, how much they hurt me.

We're the people who are saying, yes, I was unjustly treated, but I'm going to return blessing instead of cursing, because that's what my Savior and my example did. Well, that's the second hard place to submit. The third hard place to submit is the next paragraph, chapter three, verses one through six. We've seen ungodly government, unjust masters, third, unbelieving husbands. We're taking a quick look at government authority and workplace authority. Now we come to the institution of marriage and the authority structure in the home. I would suppose that some of you can't believe that there could possibly be a comparison between the emperor, the master, and the husband.

And to some extent, I agree, I am not looking to be called the emperor at my house by my wife. I'm not looking for her to, when I come in, bow down and call me master. That's not what I'm looking for. And so there may be some differences, but there are a lot of similarities. And I'm promising you that there are similarities, not just because the issue of subjection and submission has talked about, but look at the very first word of chapter 3 verse 1. Likewise, in a similar manner, based on what we've just been talking about, this also is included in the discussion. And even more than that word likewise, you want to know what?

This command, translated as a command in chapter 3 verse 1, is another participle. It's not the main verb. It requires us to look back to chapter 2 verse 13 and the imperative that command be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution. That includes the government, that includes masters and employers, that includes husbands.

Likewise wives, be subject or wives subjecting yourselves to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Also similar between this and the first two cases is that this submission comes in a hard place. Like ungodly government and unjust masters, here are unbelieving husbands. You have to, if you trace the phrase, disobedient to the word through the Old and the New Testament, there is no way to describe that as being just a disobedient Christian. Those are always unbelievers. For the most part, Christians are known by their obedience to Christ. So when you characterize a person as being disobedient to the word, that is always in every place a description of an unbeliever. Not only that do I say that's why that's the unbelieving husband and not just a husband who's messing up or disobedient for a certain period of time. Not only do I say it because of the phrase itself and how it's

used in the Bible, but also because we don't ever say that we have won someone to obedience. We don't say that we win a Christian back to doing what they're supposed to do, but we do talk about winning an unbeliever to Christ. And that's the goal here for the wives submission is that she can win her husband. That is saying by your submission you have an evangelistic impact that could save your husband without you saying a word if you are submissive in the right way. Now that's powerful. That is when we talk about maximizing your influence, submission is apparently persuasive without explaining it, being submissive makes your point. Certainly that's the case for the wife. Now Peter goes even further and provides an example of this unbelievably difficult submission with Sarah and her submission to Abraham. I know Mrs. Bohm a few Wednesday nights ago talked about this whole passage. And even though I think Abraham was a believer in God, he certainly wasn't acting like it when they entered Egypt and he told his

wife Sarah to represent herself as his sister and not his wife. Now you want to talk about a stupid decision that was wrong. Maybe Sarah herself didn't have to lie outright about it. Maybe she just kept her mouth shut. But Abraham had to open his mouth and lie outright. He was wrong. He was foolish. He was not living by faith. And what did Sarah do? She She did what he said. Whoa. And Peter not only sees that, he goes on to say that all of the holy women since who submit to their husbands like that are called daughters of Sarah. I mean, they are in her line. What an amazing description. He was stupid, he was wrong, no faith, and yet she's still submitted.

Now, I'm sure we could come up with some more difficult cases of submission, but I think these three are pretty hard. Ungodly government, unjust masters, unbelieving husbands, and I think that these three paragraphs together form an argument from the greater to the lesser, because if you can submit more than that, if you are commanded to submit in these hard places, Shouldn't it be easier and quicker to submit in situations and places where the authority in your life is godly and treating you righteously and who's a believer? I mean, for that matter, shouldn't it be easier, even if they're an unbeliever, to submit to somebody who's at least honest and who's at least, you know, somewhat moral and not crooked?

And none of you, none of you in here in this room right now have to put up with this kind of treatment from that kind of government or those kind of bosses, the ones I know about, none of you wives are putting up with that kind of husband. In this room, at least that's the case. You remember when Jesus says we're supposed to love our enemies? We're not practicing that very well either. Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. Shouldn't that mean it should be easier to honor our loved ones who are in authority and to submit to those who protect us? And the answer to that is yes. So I mean, how is it possible?

How in the world can we treat and follow our authority like this? How can we honor those who treat us dishonorably? How can we be respectful and not resentful when authorities treat us unfairly. How can we submit while suffering unjustly without sinning? I got five principles, but I gotta get this hot boiling tea out, spill it on you. Some of which to wake you up. Some of you are like, ooh, that burns. And I agree, this is tough. That's why I said hard places. Well, some of you need to be woken up that this is the kind of life that Christ calls us to and set us an example to follow. We are playing for keeps in this one.

So five indispensable pursuits for submission, namely all of the five things I'm gonna mention finish this sentence. You will not submit in hard places without. You will not submit in hard places without these five things. Number one, looking to eternity. If you love the world, you will not follow Jesus. If you think that this life is what it's all about, then you had better get busy fighting for your rights and arguing against your authorities when they're telling you to do something that you don't want to do. Because if this is all you got, you better start maximizing your time. So you had better fight, and you had better argue, and you had better rebel so that you can do what you want if you love you and if you love this life.

This is the best that it gets if you're stuck with an earthbound perspective. But for Christians, this is not our home. We are just passing through. All the way back in chapter 2 verse 11, we are seen as sojourners and exiles. And that is why, like Jesus, we can entrust ourselves to Him who judges justly. Chapter 2 verse 23. We can look to the one who is beyond time and beyond the Son, and even though he might not right the wrongs against us today, he's going to take care of it. You've got to look to eternity if you're going to submit in hard places. Peter makes a similar point in chapter 4, verse 19 of 1 Peter.

He says, Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will, steep in that for a second, rotisserate that it's the will of God for you to suffer sometimes, entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good. If your perspective is stuck on earth, your suffering is miserable. I agree, vanity vanities all is vanity, and then you die. That's brutal. That's tough if this is all you've got. I understand the desire for vindication. I mean, what is it when you want to be vindicated? You want to be proven right, and typically that means you want the other person to be proven wrong. I totally get that. I prefer on the sliding scale, being right.

And I like it when a lot of people know that I'm right. And all of the other idiots proven wrong. I like that. That's good for me. You know what? So does the rest of the pagan world like that. I prove absolutely zero about my valuing of Jesus if I value me being right. If I'm more interested in showing myself right than Jesus, a worthy Savior and example, I demonstrate by my lack of submission, by my lack of perspective, that I am more valuable to me than Jesus is valuable to me. That puts you in the same category as every other non-believer on the planet. If we're going to submit in hard places, we've got to look past the immediate difficulty and look to eternity.

Secondly, you will not submit in hard places without being mindful of God. It comes right from verse 19. It is not a value to endure suffering for your own sake. We're not talking about some stoic, just grin and bear it kind of submission that shows off how strong you are. God is not valued or praised by you submitting to show off how great you are. Ooh, I'm the martyr. They're treating me so awful and look how I'm not complaining except for right now. We are to be God-focused, God-centered. Verse 13, we submit for the Lord's sake. Verse 16, living as servants of God. This is a gracious thing. When mindful of God, one endures suffering unjustly.

Verse 19, with the kind of character which is in God's sight, very precious. Chapter 3, verse 4. I mean, Christ is the ultimate example of this. You know, the point is less what Christ did not do. He did not sin when suffering unjustly and submitting. That's less the point as much, the point is what he did do, which is entrust himself to the one who judges justly. He was mindful of his father when it was difficult.

And there is no need to watch out for yourself when the just judge is watching out for you. When the guardian of your soul, The shepherd of your soul is like on the watch. Let him do it. If you wanna submit in hard places, you must be mindful of God. Number three, you will not submit in hard places without remembering your calling. You know, we were predestined to be like Christ, right? Romans 8, 28, 29. We're predestined to be conformed to his image. And God says, the Father says that He perfected His Son in suffering. I don't even know how that's possible to perfect perfection in suffering. But Hebrews chapter 5 verse 8 says exactly that.

And do not expect that if the Son of God, if Christ was perfected and learned obedience by suffering, that God doesn't have that in the plan for you. You're going to be made perfect and be made like Christ without going through some similar things that Christ went to? That is why Peter says, to this, to this life of submission and suffering unjustly in that submission, to this you were called. And Christ has left you an example for you to follow in His steps. That means it is our calling, our purpose to be misunderstood like Christ, to be criticized and reviled like Christ, to be ignored like Christ and to be hurt for doing what is right like Jesus.

That is what God is doing in us. And you realize that when you remove yourself, when you resist unfair, unjust, unbelieving authority, you are also removing yourself from God's sanctifying work to make you like his son. You are basically saying, I want to go to heaven another way. I want to be made like Christ my own way. Our calling is to follow Christ in his steps. We fight and argue against authority, unfair or fair for that matter. Most of us in this room are fighting against fair authorities because we have lost sight of the path that Jesus walked and we have traded His map for an easier, more popular route. The problem is both routes don't lead to the same place. To submit in hard places you've got to remember your calling. Number four, you will not submit in hard places without wanting more of God's grace. That comes back to the beginning of verse 19 and the last part of verse 20, This is grace. This is a gracious thing.

This finds favor with God. This is what pleases Him. This is the life the Father is pleased with in His children. If you don't want more of His grace, more of His favor, more of His pleasure on your life, by all means, argue and make what you can of this life. But if you want more grace, follow His will. Submit in hard places by hungering for more of God's grace. And then last, number five, not submit in hard places without, number five, desiring to win unbelievers. We are to live in such a way that unbelievers, that Gentiles, that non-Christians see our good works and glorify God in the day of visitation. That's chapter 2, verse 12.

Even we saw unbelieving husbands can be won without a word, can be brought to Christ without a word by the submission of their wives. Submission is influence. Submission is persuasive. And when you act like everybody else who wants their rights and to be seen and known as right and to make sure that all of the injustices of the world are punished, especially those ones that impact you, If that is your priority, you will show no light to an unbelieving world. You'll be just like them. You will have no influence. You will have lost your influence. You will have lost a platform for Jesus, for the gospel. If you say, my priorities are earthbound just like yours, I'm being treated right and fair.

I tell you what, your classmates see you submitting to a teacher who, again, in most of your cases, is not out to get you, but they see you submitting, or maybe you didn't deserve it, you have the right attitude because you're mindful of God. I mean, that can't help but send out an aroma of your life that you value Jesus more than you. Couple things as we end. Who or what are you hoping to win by arguing yourself out of submission?

What is it that you are hoping, what point are you trying to make? Who are you trying to win or what are you trying to gain by arguing yourself, debating yourself, rationalizing yourself out of your need to submit at home, at work, to government, wherever it might be. Even more than that, Do you realize that not submitting, I'm about ready, I just can't hold on to this hot cup of tea anymore. I'm about ready to hit a little bump. Do you realize that not submitting is a work of Satan?

You remember Jesus and Peter's conversation when Jesus tells Peter that he's about ready to go and die, and Peter says, no, not for you. Was that for the sake of justice that Peter said that? Yes! He knew who He was talking to. He knew He was talking to God. He had already confessed Him as the Christ. Peter knew who He was talking to. He knew that who He was talking to was without sin. And therefore, it was totally wrong for Jesus to be killed. And He says, no, you won't. And what does Jesus say back? back. Get behind me, Satan. If Jesus does not submit while suffering unjustly, continuing on without sin, we have no salvation. You think that God doesn't want to grow that kind of life in us as well to make us like Jesus? Not submitting is more like Satan than it has anything to do with our salvation.

In Ecclesiastes, we saw that we learned to follow and influence our authority by fearing God. And in 1 Peter, this section we learned to follow and influence our authority by following Jesus. And they're really the same thing, fearing God and following Jesus. He is more than just our example of submitting while suffering unjustly without sinning. He is our enabler. He's at work in us. His word, His spirit, and of course, His Father's plan. is to do that. If you want to do the will of God, if you want to fulfill your calling, if you want to be Christ-like, if you want to experience more of God's favor and grace, if you want to do what is considered noble in heaven, if you want to win unbelievers to Christ and cause God's name to be glorified on the day of visitation, respect and submit to, follow and influence your authority just like Jesus did.

And Father, this is so beyond us naturally. It is not built into us except for the salvation that you have wrought in our hearts and the sanctification that you are working out in our lives. And so we need your help. But we trust that after we have suffered a little while, that you, the God of all grace, who has called us to your eternal glory in Christ, will yourself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish us, and so to you be the Dominion forever and ever. Amen.