But on this last part of Ecclesiastes chapter three, we find the surety of judgment under the sun. The surety of judgment under the sun. Verse 16, and moreover, I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there. I said in my heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time For there is a time, for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work. Judgment is coming. Judgment is coming and cannot be escaped. And that's essential for us to know. But how do we know it? How do we know it? I hope, boys and girls, you know judgment is coming because you were told judgment is coming. because you were taught there is a God who is righteous. We read his law, the 10 commandments together, and I hope we remember that those who do not keep the law will die, will die, and not just death temporally when our souls and our bodies are separated, but death eternally in hell. We may know that because the scriptures say that. We'll see that further. but that was, as we've seen from Ecclesiastes, life above the sun. That seeing things made beautiful in and through the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, that blessed plan that God has and has been carrying out since before the world was made. Indeed, verse 13, no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. But rather, he says in verse 14, I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it, and God doeth it, that men should fear before him, that they should put their faith, their trust, and their hope, and their all in him. Notice how clearly, clearly, people know there is a God. and the judgment is coming. All this, you don't need the revelation of the scriptures for. All this, you don't need the glorious special plan of God in salvation in Jesus Christ and the glorifying of his grace, his mercy, and his justice and his wrath as Romans 9 unfolds before us. All you need is to reflect on nature and the revelation of God given in nature, to know there is a God and that judgment is coming. We see that not only here from Ecclesiastes chapter three, but we see it in Romans chapter one. In Romans chapter one, where knowledge of God and the reality of judgment is made evident from creation, not from the special revelation recorded in God's word. In Romans chapter one beginning at verse 18. Romans chapter one beginning at verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth and unrighteousness. Because that which may be known of God is manifest or revealed in them. This knowledge that God is there. and this knowledge that God will judge because they are wicked and He is eternal and He is all-powerful. He has put this knowledge in them for God has showed it unto them. Boys and girls, we know there is a God. We know that judgment will come. To use the language of Ecclesiastes, God has put eternity in their hearts. We know there's a God, we know there's a plan, we know we're accountable to him. But we don't wanna be, we don't understand, and we'll do things our way, not his way. Notice how it continues. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead. And here's the conclusion of the fact that they have this truth in them because God has showed it unto them. They know his eternal power and his Godhead, his deity. The fact he does not change and he is all authority What's the conclusion? So that they are without excuse. God has shown himself there. God has shown himself to be the one who will call them into account. So they are guilty. Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations. And their foolish heart was darkened. They became useless. empty in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like unto a corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Quite clearly from creation, according to Romans 1 and Ecclesiastes chapter 3, we know there is a God and we must answer to him. Judgment is coming. Judgment is coming because we know God. Maybe you didn't realize that this morning. Maybe you thought, well, I don't know God. I don't believe in God, I'm an atheist. Or maybe you're agnostic. Well, I don't know if there is a God. You do know there's a God. You do know there's a God. God has shown it to you in everything he's made. and He has put eternity or the world in your heart. And if you're simply honest, especially if you're of a philosophical event, you cannot make sense of this world or life apart from God. You can't. You want to look at existentialism and Jean-Paul Sartre? You want to go to Nietzsche? That's fine. You cannot make sense of this life and this world. And the whole history of philosophy is a testimony that you can't. And how foolish would it be to think you're so very wise, to think you're so very wise in realizing, well, we really can't know anything. All you have done in the history of philosophy is done an exercise of confirming, like we saw earlier in the chapters of Ecclesiastes as he did test after test after test, that you can't find any lasting purpose, meaning, and value in life. We know that. We feel that. And that is why we plug our hearts with all kinds of addictions, all kinds of sins, all kinds of idolatries to fill the place of God. And it's not just alcohol, it's not just sex, it can be self-righteousness, it can be gnosticism and special knowledge, it can be anything. It's amazing the idols we will make because we don't want to face God and the judgment that comes with it. And this judgment is sure and inescapable. This judgment is sure and inescapable. Maybe you know when we read the opening verses, how there's a time for everything. Maybe you thought of that song from the 60s. Maybe you thought of some of the praise and worship choruses. But notice how the Holy Spirit applies this. Not only is it, shall we say, despairing, what profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboreth, because the time keeps circling on, But notice the theme continues. God has made all things beautiful in his time, and with the realization of that plan, though we don't know what it is apart from scripture, judgment is coming and is sure. Verse 17, I said in my heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work. There is a time there for every purpose and every word. Boy, what a blessing it would be if everyone who heard that song on the oldie stations on the radios, who hummed it to themselves that there is a time for everything stopped and thought. There is a time for judgment. There is a time when I must face this God and I must answer to Him for what I have thought. for what I have done and for what I have not done. It's powerful reality. It's guaranteed. When you think about the fact there is a God, when you think about the fact that that God is all-powerful and that that God does not change and we are sinful, The only answer is to honestly admit, yeah, if there is a God, I'm going to be facing judgment, is to hold the truth in unrighteousness, as Romans chapter 1 says, and come up with your own inventions and false religions. But even then, the echo that is there, the reality you cannot deny, which you may not understand and grasp intellectually, but you do in the very core of your life, in the vanity of it apart from God in Christ. Judgment is sure. And this corresponds perfectly to how the Lord is making all things beautiful in Jesus Christ. Because that judgment is a part of that beauty as well. Please turn with me to Acts chapter 17. To Acts chapter 17. Like we saw last week, we saw how indeed God making all things beautiful in his plan was about bringing in all things under the Lord Jesus Christ. And in confirmation of that, and in the reality of judgment, Acts 17 gives us a beautiful harmony of that beauty, of that timing, and the surety of judgment. Acts chapter 17. Let's begin at verse 22, and read along as far as verse 31 for context. where again we see this beautiful plan of God in Christ tied together with the truth we know from nature and the surety of judgment because of the beauty of that plan. Verse 22 of Acts 17. Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and said, ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious, too religious. They wanted to have all the bases covered. For as I passed by and held your devotions, I found an altar with an inspiration to the unknown God, whom therefore ye ignorantly worship. Him declare I unto you." And he's not saying that statue of the unknown God represents the true God. He is basically insulting them. He says, you guys have no idea what you're doing. You've turned everything into a God. And in case you missed one, you made the one you missed. Well, let me tell you about what you're really missing and who you're really missing. That is the God of the scriptures. That is our Lord Jesus Christ. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is the Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands. Neither is worship with men's hands as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things, and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitations, this all part of God's plan. And why does he determine the bounds and the habitations of men and the races and the countries they're in and the languages that they speak? Why has he done all this? That they should seek the Lord. Just like Ecclesiastes 3.14, that they should fear before him. That they should seek the Lord, if happily they might feel after him and find him, though he be not far from every one of them. For in him we live and move and have our being, as certain also of your own poets have said. For we are also his offspring." Notice how that fits beautifully with the tragedy and the vanity of what Ecclesiastes says. There is a God who's making all things beautiful in his time, but we, because of sin by nature, don't know it. We can't figure it out from creation. We stumble around in the dark trying to hide our rebellion and find substitutes. But he's right there. Everything becoming ready in the right time of the Lord for the great revealing. In him we move and have our being, as certain also of your own poets have said, for we also are his offspring. For as much then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think the Godhead is likened to gold or silver or stone, graven by art and man's devices. And the times of this ignorance God winked at. But now cometh, now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. Why? Time has come. Because he hath appointed a day, a time, in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men that in that he hath raised him from the dead. Now what was their response? They mocked it. I hope by the grace of God this morning you embrace it. That you see the vanity of this life apart from Christ Jesus. You see the vanity of this life under the sun. But you find hope in the Lord Jesus Christ according to the scriptures above the sun. Where we have salvation in him and being safe from that judgment. A vindication not of ourselves but of him. and our standing with God simply being a reward of His grace, of His work, and the crowning of His own graces in us as we begin to live a life of obedience. But if you will reject the Lord Jesus Christ, if you will live this life under the sun, holding the truth and unrighteousness not being able to reconcile your understanding of all things, but at the same time not being able to deny the reality of justice and bigger concepts and purposes, what will happen? You will face judgment. Scripture tells us that you will face judgment, an eternal judgment in hell. But even according to natural thinking of life under the sun, you're gonna be left with the conclusion, you're a beast. You're a beast. And what value are you other than a beast? But more than that, which is very striking as the text continues. He said, I said in my heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked for there is a time for every purpose and for every work. Judgment is coming and there is a judgment for the righteous and the wicked. And then in verse 18, I said in my heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. see the purpose of God reveling, the revealing rather of Jesus Christ and making all things beautiful, men being exercised in travail, not being able to find out the truth as they hold it in unrighteousness, but to seek it in God. But now that they would see they are beasts, that they need God to make sense of this world and this life, to get past the vanity. Otherwise they are like beasts. Notice how the text continues. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts. Every one thing befalleth them. As one dieth, so dieth the other. Yea, they have all one breath. So that a man hath no preeminence above a beast. For all is vanity. For all is vanity. We live in a strange day and age. We live in a day and age where evolution seems to rule, although thankfully there seem to be cracks and chinks in its armor. But what do we end up telling our children? What ends up being the basis for our values? People are no different than beasts. And thus you have the absurdity of so much of our culture and so much of our thinking. The life of a bird is equal to the life of a person. the life of plants and animals are equal to the lives of people? And people will kill other human beings? Or at least that's the proposed plan. Gotta depopulate so we can save the whales. It's amazing how the thinking and reasonings of men under the sun have finally reached the same self-evident conclusion of Solomon. You all die, you're all the same. But something about that doesn't sit well even with a natural man, does it? Even apart from grace, does it? We're better than chickens. We can say we have the same rights as creatures that don't have faces and odd phrases like that, but we'll still fight for ourselves. It's amazing, even on the campaign trail, even on the campaign trail, the politicians that are the most hostile to religion and the most pro-abortion will still talk about America and the dignity of Americans and what kind of people we are. The schizophrenia, the irrationality is ever before us in the cycle of vanity. But for those of you Who would say, yes, of course, that's foolish. We know better. We know better. We raise our children better. Are you ready for judgment? Are you ready for judgment? Because you can, in your pride, belittle other sinners. and you can, in your pride, exalt yourself above the other people who are not as enlightened as you are, because you're really a thinker, because you take care of your family, because you have the right values, and because you're close to the earth. Where's Christ in that, my friend? Where is Christ in that? I'm not saying Christ can't be in that, but if Christ is not in that, where will you end up? Same place, dead. You might not be tossed on the compost heap like we do dead animals of the smaller sizes on our farms for fertilizers, but you're dropped in a box in the ground. And that's where life under the sun comes pretty hard. What was your life then anyway? and what was the purpose of it anyway if you end up in the same place that the coyote you just shot ended up? Well, even Solomon knows there's a difference between the lives of people and the lives of animals. Because though they would all die, what happens after death? All go to one place. All are of the dust and all turn to the dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward? Isn't that interesting? Spirit of man goeth upward. And the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth. So death happens to all. But the spirit of man goes upward. The spirit of the animal goes downward. What does that mean? Well, Ecclesiastes chapter 12 gives us perhaps the best explanation of this simply. Verse seven, reflecting on the conclusion of the whole matter. Note the parallels. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Death is not the end. It might be the end of your physical existence, but your spirit will go to be with God. It's amazing how many people, indeed every branch and history of humanity, ends up being, as some scientists have called it, homo religionis. We're the creatures that have religion. And all those religions say there must be more than what is before this physical matter. because the world and eternity is in their hearts. Because God does have a plan, and he is making all things beautiful, but they can't make sense of it. So they come to their own false religions and their own lies, and they know there's a time of judgment, but they're resistant. And though it seems futile and empty, they know, though I die the same way the animals do, there's gonna be more, and that is judgment. It's inescapable. There is a time for everything, Well, then what does Solomon conclude? As we've seen the introduction, as we've seen in chapter two, well, chapter one and chapter two, that cycle of tests he went through, testing everything to find purpose. What's his conclusion in chapter three? The cycle goes on and on and on. He says, wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own works, for this is his portion, for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him? That's not meant as something to be praiseworthy. That's not meant to be some philosophy of life like the Epicureans, where you might as well live your life to maximize your pleasure. The hedonists were the ones who wanted to glorify every pleasure immediately. Well, you try and do that, you die real fast. But the Epicureans were the ones that says you need to be disciplined. You need to be modulated. You need to maximize pleasure over the longest time. That's not what Solomon is recommending. He's pointing out all you have and it's not much. All you have is to eat, drink, and be merry and then we die. That doesn't do anything about eternity or the world in your heart. that doesn't tell you anything about judgment. It leaves you stuck, groping in the dark, without hope and without purpose. And it should, by the grace of God, direct you to the Lord Jesus Christ, who's revealed himself in his word. And notice how beautifully the conclusions the Lord gives us as Solomon examines life under the sun, beautifully parallels the last of the scriptures. As if you pardon the way of putting it, as Jesus himself said, the greater than Solomon has come. How are you going to face judgment? How are you gonna face judgment? It's sure, not only in scripture, but it's sure because of the nature of life under the sun. Is it gonna be drink and be merry and then die like the dogs and go to hell? Or will it be a life of purpose, a life of joy, a life of hope, a life of difference as you love and serve the Lord who bought you? as He suffered for your sins in your flesh so you could be as righteous as He is and delight in the care of His heavenly Father for His sake. And then death isn't meaningless, isn't empty, and a fearful facing of judgment. Then death is simply, as the Heidelberg Catechism beautifully puts it, your passageway to be with God and leave sin behind. and await the return of the Lord Jesus Christ and the resurrection of your body. That's the way to live. That's the only way you're going to make sense of anything. And if you're resisting that, I urge you to repent of it. Don't be left with nothing. Don't be left with the emptiness and vanity of life under the sun and your pseudo-pride and your pseudo-intelligence and your pseudo-accomplishments. but have Christ, have the Lord Jesus Christ and the salvation that comes when you by the grace of God bend your knees in faith and repentance to him. Amen, let us pray. Our Lord and our God, our great heavenly Father, we thank thee for the wisdom of Solomon and we thank thee for the accomplishment of he who is greater than Solomon. and with the richness of the revelation of who thou art, not only in thy word, but even through creation, as the Spirit would work, drive us to Jesus Christ. We pray, Heavenly Father, for that joy, for that love, that care, that stupendous motivation that comes with purpose as we hear the voice of Jesus calling us from life to death. and to service. Help us, Lord, to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, knowing that thou wilt add all the things that we need unto us. Now guide us through the rest of this Sabbath day. Let it be a day of rest. Let it be a day of joy. Remember the catechism instruction, the Sunday school instruction, the sermon discussion, the fellowship and food we hope to have at our fellowship lunch and our afternoon service. And we pray again, Lord, for those who could not be with us. Bless and strengthen them, help and keep them, encourage and guide them. And we ask it all in Jesus' name, amen.