Ecclesiastes chapter three verse sixteen. Furthermore, I have seen under the sun that in the place of justice, there is wickedness and the place of righteousness. There is wickedness. I said to myself, God will judge both the righteous and the wicked man. For a time for every matter and for every deed is there. I said to myself concerning the sons of men, God has surely tested them in order for them to see that they are but beasts. For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same. As one dies, so dies the other. Indeed, they all have the same breath, and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity. All go to the same place. All come from the dust. and all return to the dust. And who knows that the breath of man ascends upward and the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth? I have seen that nothing is better than that man should be happy in his activities, for that is his lot. For who will bring him to see what will occur after him? Amen. Someone once said, There are two things that are certainties in life, taxes and death. Those are the only two things that are certain in life, taxes and death. None of us here are guaranteed that we will see the sunset this evening or that we'll see the sunrise tomorrow. We can't be guaranteed that we will see our next birthday. We'll see another New Year's. We're not guaranteed those kind of things. But if you're living in this world, you are guaranteed that you will be taxed and you are guaranteed that you will die. There is no question about that, however. Considering taxes, you can cheat taxes, can't you? I mean, you don't have to. I mean, you can kind of hide it out and, you know, cheat on your tax returns or not pay them or or perhaps go to some part of the world where they don't have a government. They don't have taxes. I suppose there are places that do exist out there like that. So I suppose you could escape taxes. But though you might cheat or escape taxes, you certainly are not going to cheat or escape death. Death is a powerful force. that will eventually overtake each and every one of us. You can't run from it. You can't hide from death. When the time comes, there is no escape from death. In fact, have you ever heard Ralph Stanley's chilling song, O Death? In that song, Dr. Stanley asks to death, won't you spare me over to another year? And then he pleads, O death, please consider my age. Please don't take me at this stage. My wealth is all at your command if you will move your icy hand. But in the song, death answers and says, oh, the young, the rich and poor hunger like me, you know, no wealth, no ruin, no silver, no gold, nothing satisfies me but your soul. You can't bribe death. You can't cheat it. It's icy fingers will eventually get you and there's nothing that you can do about that. Death is a hard fact. But the age old question is. Where do people go when they die. The book of Ecclesiastes is twenty five hundred or more years old. And this is the very question the preacher is wrestling with in these last few verses of our text this morning. Where do people go when they die? What happens after death fills him with frustration as it does all people. Now, however, as we hear what the preacher has to say about death and about man's lot under the sun, we'll find that our hearts and our faith is once again driven to Jesus Christ. The preacher will help us to prize and delight in Christ once again for all that he has done and spoken to us. Now, remember, in this chapter, the preacher has been reflecting on what life is like under this world or under the sun in this world. And remember, as we look at the poem, he reflects on the fact that that life appears to have all these random events. That flip flop from being favorable to unfavorable to us. Then he goes on to say is, though all looks as if these things are randomly done. Really, God is in control of all this. He is the sovereign God who stands behind everything that that is happening in this world. Indeed, he has decreed and ordained whatsoever comes to pass. From the small things to the major events that happen in the world. God is in control. Now, beloved, that doctrine should give us some comfort, gives us hope as we go through the various things of this world, because we understand if we do understand this teaching. We can see then that everything does have purpose. There's not an impersonal fate, an impersonal kismet And the personal thing that's guiding life. No, it's all part of God's eternal purpose, his very wise plan, and that should give us great comfort and hope. And again, I think we need to hear this because God has an end, he has a purpose in all things that happen to us. We don't know what that purpose necessarily is right now. But we can be assured that because it is from God's wise counsel, He has revealed that it will be for our ultimate good. So whatever trial, whatever difficulty, whatever sorrow that may be troubling you today, you can rest assured that this ultimately will be for your good. God appoints all things. He makes them right in the appointed time. And thus He accomplishes His plan. His plan, in fact, stands forever so that no one can add to it. No one can subtract from it. God's plan comes from his own wisdom, it is guarded by his own power, and therefore our response to all this should be to praise him and to wonder at his greatness and his grace to us as we would trust in him. Now, following that teaching that we saw, we also see that the preacher mused on the fact that God has put eternity into our hearts. And that's something of a frustrating thing for us, because now we are caught in two worlds, aren't we? We're caught in two worlds. Eternity is in our hearts. And this world, as it is under the curse, cannot fully satisfy us. And so the admonition that we find in this chapter again is that we are to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness in our lives. God has a plan to glorify His saints. Again, nothing then can change or interrupt that plan. And so, hang on to it! If God's plan is to glorify you, to bring you to His ultimate kingdom, His glorious kingdom, as glorious saints, not as slaves, but as glorious saints, you need to hang on and be patient, because your redemption draws nigh. And again, if you have this hope, And you understand that though you are in this world and not often that you are, but a pilgrim that is making your way back to your true home to enjoy Christ forever, then you're in a good position to really enjoy life. You're in a position to really enjoy your work and your recreation in this world. The preacher says that because we have eternity in our heart, We'll have a proper perspective on things if we glance towards eternity. So don't let the circumstances of this world, which can turn so quickly upon us, but don't let these things bog you down and upset you too much. Rather, look beyond this transient world to the eternal realm and rest in that promise that God has given to you. He has a plan and He will certainly take you to be with Him forever. That's what we have seen thus far in this chapter. Again, this teaching is important because life is really topsy-turvy, isn't it? We don't know what to expect under the sun. But again, it's because of this knowledge that God is in control that helps us from dropping into despair. And to show how this works, the preacher gives us an example from verses 16 and on. He tells us that when he looked at the court system of his day, he found it to be a failure. Look at verse 16. He says, I have seen under the sun that in the place of justice, there is wickedness in the place of righteousness. There's wickedness. Indeed, if we're injured and if we need justice performed, the court is the appropriate place and it has the appropriate time to execute judgment and uphold justice, doesn't it? We expect the courts of law to work because the point of having a court of law, after all, is to set things right. It's to find truth and to perform righteous judgment by acquitting the innocent and punishing the guilty. That's what we expect of the courts. And yet, when the preacher looked at the courts and the place of judgment, this place that that is reserved for righteous judgment, what did he find? The same thing that we often find in our court system of today, wickedness, perversion, corruption. The courts, unfortunately, don't always work. Justice is not always the place where it should be, and so, like the preacher, we might become greatly disappointed in it. Remember several years ago we had an incident where someone unrighteously took money from from the church. And we asked for the money back. They didn't do it. We went to see a lawyer. He said I can see very clearly that you have honored your contract. He hasn't honored his part of the contract. You deserve this money back. You can certainly sue him and sue for that money. Take it to court. He said however Though you might win, you also need to know that you might not win because the courts are not designed around the hard facts. That's a lawyer telling me basically that the court system doesn't always work, that the innocent always don't find acquittal. And you have seen examples of that perhaps in the news. But remember, he said that there is an appropriate time for everything under the sun. And though sometimes the innocent are not acquitted here, and sometimes the guilty, because they have a good lawyer and they can find a loophole or there's some kind of problem in their arrest or whatever, the guilty sometimes get off scot-free. Even though that may happen, and though human justice may be rare, the preacher here looks up and he sees again that God will set all things right. God will truly judge with equity, but He will do it in His time. I said to myself, God will judge both the righteous man and the wicked man. For every matter and for every good deed is there. I want you to see how his theology helped him get through the nitty-gritty of life. Again, it's knowing that God has set a time for everything, including judgment, He can go on to conclude that righteousness and judgment are in God's hands. And though the preacher doesn't see justice executed under the sun. One day it will happen. God will judge the righteous and the wicked, he says, because after all, when it's all said and done where the rubber meets the road, God is in control. And God's eyes are upon all men, he sees all things. You cannot escape his righteous judgment. Again, perhaps the courts of law in this world might fail. We may not find justice here, but here the promises that we can take comfort that God is in command of justice and he will execute it. Those who have been acquitted when they should not have been acquitted, they will find justice by God. So you need to be patient for that. and in hope, trusting God. But the question that now crosses our mind here, perhaps, is just how does the preacher know that God will judge both the righteous and the wicked? And he gives us that answer really in verses 18 and following, although he tells us in a roundabout way. First, he refers to humanity's situation, and he declares here that God is really testing humanity to show them that they are but beasts. They're like animals. Now, just how is man like these? You see what the preacher declares, he said, whatever differences there are between man and beast in life, there is no difference between them in death. Just as as animals die and return to death or to dust, so every man, despite his his wisdom, every man will decay just like an animal. Mankind, with all his pomp and glory, have the same ultimate fate as the beasts of burden and death. We all die alike, both man and beast. And thus we become dust. We become fertilizer for the next generation to come. And as we share the same breath, and as we die alike, Preacher says that humans really then have no advantage over the animals in death. Now, the evolutionists would say that we are like the beasts, because we all came from the same primeval source. In fact, we ourselves are really nothing but evolved beasts. So the preacher's statement here isn't much of a shock. There's nothing unusual about it. It's not very sad to hear what the preacher says, because we are the same as beasts in so many ways. But I want you to understand that the preacher here is not advocating any kind of form of evolution here. He believes in what the Bible says about our origin. And because he believes what the Bible says about our origin, he is declaring here something more than just... well, he's mourning more than just the cold fact of death, which claims both beast and man. His grief and his mourning here And his concern here is the fact that man and beast die alike. That's his emphasis. This is something of a great tragedy. He says this is vanity. That God has given man and beast, but one fate that he makes them the same in death is not the way it should be. This is part of the curse. It's wacky, he says. I hope you understand something of the tragedy that he's presenting here to us in the creation account. Genesis, chapter one and two, man and beast were created differently. And they were created for different purposes, you go back to Genesis, chapter one, verse twenty four, God says, or God spoke. And the various animals were formed, listen to Genesis, chapter one, verses twenty four, twenty five, then God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind. And it was so. God made the beast of the earth after their kind and the cattle after their kind and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. And God saw that it was good. Did you hear how they were created? God said. Let the earth bring forth living creatures, and it was so. They were formed from the dust of the ground. But Genesis tells us that their life was created as God, but spoke a word, let their life, let life be and life was. But then in chapter two of Genesis and verse seven, we read this. Then the Lord God formed a man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostril the breath of life. And man became a living being. Did you hear the difference? God specially formed man's body out of the ground and breathed the breath of life into it. And that's when man became a living being. Genesis 1, verse 26, that God created man in His own image and likeness. And we see how He did that. How is it that we have God's image and likeness? God breathed into us the breath of life and we became a living soul. See, man is a special creature made in God's own image and likeness. No beast can boast of that. Only man can. So in this creation, man is made different than the animals. And he has a greater dignity than all the animals, because he's made in God's image, you see. So we would expect that man, being made in God's image, shouldn't be like the animal at all. And yet, here we read that men and beasts die in the same way. Animals and men made in the image of God are on the same footing in death. We're exactly alike in this regard. There's a sense of inappropriateness about this. Again, this is not the way it should be. God's image should not die like the beast. This is vanity. Let's go on and ask further, why? Does man and be shared the same death? It's interesting to how the preacher answers that verse 18. God has surely tested them in order to show them that they are but beasts. God is testing mankind. He's teaching them a lesson by this. And what is the lesson that God is teaching us? Why does God test us? Well, again, Since humans are made in God's image, we know that they are higher and they are of greater value than the animals. In fact, going back again to Genesis chapters one and two, God tells us that God created man to rule over the animals and the animals were to serve man. Psalm 8, you have made man a little lower than God. You have crowned him with glory and majesty. You made him to rule over the works of your hands. You have put all things under His feet, all sheep and oxen, also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, the fish of the sea, whatever passes through the paths of the sea. Man was made a little over the angels, a little over than God, but he was made in order to rule. This created order, however, is flipped on its head in many ways because of the fall. First off, because of the fall, God put hostility between us and the beast. Instead of submitting to man, now creation resists man. But secondly, God has made us higher that we should not die like them, and yet we do die like them. I remember many, many years ago. I had an old boss. Who was commenting on the death of his mother, and I asked him, well, you don't really seem to be mourning. And he said, well, you know, I've just come to the conclusion that death is just a natural part of life. It's just part of the great circle of life. But what the preacher wants us to understand is that death is not natural for man. It's part of the curse. Man was not created so that he would die. And being made like the beast, Having the same dusty fate as them reveals that death is God's judgment upon man against sin. As we die like the beast do, death itself reveals to us the nature of sin. That sin is rather bestial. That is, it makes us to be like the beast. And so we deserve the same death as the beast. And so death is part of God's justice for sinners. However, this one fate by which God tests man doesn't exhaust God's judgment for the creature. Again, he doesn't deal here with the fact that though we die like the beast, we're still higher than the animals. In other words, since we are made in God's image, though our bodies may die and go to the dust, our souls will continue on. We have eternity on our hearts. Though we die like beasts, death is not the end of things. Instinctively, each individual person who's ever been born knows that there's something more than this life. There's something more. There is a force that drives us to ask the same rhetorical question of verse 21. Who knows that the death of man ascends upward, the breath of the beast ascends downward to the earth? This question, who knows? has a very skeptical tone to it, doesn't it? Here we see the preacher has fallen into almost a hopeless resignation by saying, who knows? The preacher is confessing the limitations of our wisdom and knowledge. He's admitting that we are ignorant. That's a good thing to admit that we're ignorant. You see, while man thinks he's so smart and wise, after all, he's split the atom. He has sent men to the moon. He is able to communicate with people across the world. Just yesterday, my wife was talking to a friend of hers in Scotland, 6,000 miles away, talking to her just like she was in the next room. Man has grasped amazing facts of physics. He has understood great things. He is able to delve deep into life. Understanding the laws of thermodynamics and the principles of gravity, even going so far as to understand something of man's and creation's DNA. He seems so smart, so wise. But when it comes to the big questions of life, like after death, then what? Man has no answer. All his science, all his learning, all his knowledge, He can't answer what comes after death. He can't figure it out. Human wisdom can't figure it out. General revelation is simply limited. We can't know this by our own learning. And this is why the preacher asked in the last part of verse 22, for who will bring him to see what will occur after him? Again, he's asking this question. Who will bring man to know what happens after death? God has not granted man to know this. Now, man certainly speculates, he dreams up all kinds of idyllic places. But man really doesn't know exactly what lies beyond death in the grave. But the one thing that we do know and the one thing that we do sense deep down inside, no matter how hard we may try to suppress it, is that beyond death is judgment. And that judgment scares us as Hebrews 10, verse 31 declares, it is a terrifying thing to fall to the hands of the living God. And so again, although man does not know for sure what will happen to him after death, nevertheless, because of this eternity in his heart, he senses that we're really not like the animals after all. They go downward to the earth, and then there's nothing more of them. Because we're made in God's image, we have a higher destiny, even after death. So again, the grave is not the end for man, and that makes death scary. Intuitively, again, sense that after death is a judgment. Death is a sign of God's judgment and after judgment or after death comes even more judgment. We feel by intuition, listen to what Hebrews nine verse twenty seven plainly declares it is appointed for man once to die. And after that judgment. This brings us back to the preacher being frustrated by seeing injustice on the earth. Again, we expect justice from those who are sworn to uphold it. But the system is flawed. Justice on earth is not always needed out. Do you know why justice is not always seen here on Earth? I believe it has something to do with what Peter writes off in his second epistle, chapter three. He says, knowing this worst of all, that in the last days, markers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, saying, where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the father fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation. Sinners are interested in their own loss. And they suppress the knowledge and the intuition they have of coming judgment, which should keep them from sinning. But because they suppress that, they go on living as though there is no judgment to come. They live free and bold in their sin. Rather than fearing death and fearing that judgment, they go on walking. Judgment is coming? Right! I've heard that for 2,000 years now. People have been saying that. Where's the promise of His coming? It's all a fairy tale to keep you under wrap. But the preacher knows that God is in control, even of judgment. And so the time of judgment will come, in spite of man's mockery. Peter goes on to say, for when they maintain this, it escapes their notice. That by the word of God, the heavens existed long ago, the earth was formed out of water and by water through which the world at that time was destroyed. It was destroyed before. Being flooded with water. But by his word, the present heavens and the earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of godly men or ungodly men. Remember, people mocked Noah to the very day he entered into the ark. And God shut the door of that ark and judgment came. And so there's a day appointed for judgment, and no one can add nor subtract from that day. And so the writer here says, don't grow weary in doing good. Don't lose hope. God has set a time. Everything will happen in His time, even judgment. So these two questions, who will know the Spirit will go up? Who can bring man to know what will happen? These vividly reflect the limits of our knowledge and our wisdom. They also move us in faith. Certainly by our wisdom, we don't know what will happen. We can't find out the answer to these questions on our own. So these questions drive us to someone who can answer the questions. Someone who has been to the grave and who has come out of it. Of course, that's Jesus Christ. And God, as the sovereign Creator, knows His plan. He knows when and how He'll bring about judgment. And knowing that God is in control of judgment and not us, she moves us to a reverent faith again, to dependence upon Him and what He reveals to us. Again, by general revelation, we don't know what will happen in death. God has not remained Silent, though, in special revelation. By his word, he has not left man without a testimony to these questions, he's spoken about things that are glorious, things that are very clear. Concerning his son, Jesus Christ. In Christ, God has revealed that he has prepared a time of judgment. The cross itself reveals that God hates sin, that God must judge sin. You know that Christ was judged for sin, right? But being united to Christ in his death, we who trust him have also gone through judgment with him. We will never again be judged for sin. Being united with him in his resurrection, we are justified in him. We're made righteous in him. And so we have the hope of eternal life. Isn't that good news? Being in Christ assures us that when we die, the spirit does go up. The skeptical question of the preacher here in verse 21, who knows that the breath of man ascends upward, is answered in Jesus Christ. We don't know exactly how it will be like, we don't know what will happen exactly, but we do know that it will go well for those who trust in Jesus Christ, for those who fall asleep in him will go to be with him forever. And while our bodies return to dust, one day, one day, the glorious hope is that they'll be raised from death, that our bodies and souls will be reunited to glorify God forever. Thus, Paul looks death square in the eyes and he says, Death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting? Take comfort in death, O Christian, because the Scriptures triumphantly declare that Christ will return like a thief in the night for his bride. Yes, he will come like a grave robber and he will steal us away from the grave on that great day when death itself will finally die. That is our hope as Christians. When Christ comes. We will be openly acknowledged before all creation as God's children, and we will live with him together in joy and peace and glory. And then we will fully know. How much we know. But the wicked. Those who are outside of Christ. Judgment. Revelation says he'll be thrown into the lake of fire forever. God's righteous judgment. And so while we still have breath. Let us put our faith in Christ. Let us praise him for his special revelation to us. That in his son, we have the forgiveness of sins. We have the hope of everlasting life. A blessed hope that death is a gateway to victory. for all those who trust in Him. He gives us the victory. Amen. Let us pray.