to Ecclesiastes as we continue having together work through those first eight chapters. We come down to chapter 9. Ecclesiastes 9. I'd like us tonight to look at verses 1 through 10. This is the word of the Lord. For I considered all this in my heart so that I could declare it all, that the righteous and the wise and the works are in the hand of God. People know neither love nor hatred by anything they see before them. All things come alike to all. One event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good, the clean, and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As is the good, so is the sinner. He who takes an oath is he who fears an oath. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that one thing happens to all. Truly, the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil. Madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that, They go to the dead. But for him who is joined to all the living, there's 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. Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished. Nevermore will they have a share in anything done under the sun. Go eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart. For God has already accepted your works. Let your garments always be white. Let your head lack no oil. Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life, which He has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity, for that is your portion in life, and in the labor which you perform under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might. For there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going. Thus far, God's holy word. Let's pray. Our Father, As we come to wisdom, may we see Jesus Christ, who is wisdom incarnate. Before the worlds began, this wisdom was with you and brought them into being. And so now may his influence rise in our hearts and over the whole world more and more as he gathers the nations to himself. Bless us tonight, Father. In Jesus' name, Amen. If you notice the title there, Dum Spiro Spira, While I Breathe, I Hope. That was the motto of Charles I, the King of England, whose breath was cut short by execution in 1649. But that motto, while I breathe, I hope, we could say positively, as long as one lives, as long as one has life and breath, one hopes. Although you might also look at this passage and think cynically, as someone else put it, you live in hope and die in despair. Is this what Kohelet believes? Is this what he believes? Is our passage, as one commentator put it, the most pessimistic passage? in this book, maybe the whole Bible? Or is it rather, with all of its under-the-despair perspective pointing us to live in hope? I would submit to you that it is. One thing is clear from this passage. The faith once for all delivered to the saints is not some super-spiritual, gnostic faith that despises the body, creation, this life. While there may be a proper place for the come-sweet-death sentiment of the martyrs and the afflicted, death is ultimately unnatural. The last enemy. Especially to those in the full bloom of life. There's been a whole strand of Christianity that perhaps misguidedly celebrates death. You have none of that here. You have none of that here. You have the horror of it, if you will. The reason that we don't despair in the face of death, though, is what awaits us all. The reason we don't despair is not because we have a bizarre death wish, but because of the hope that we have in Christ. As Paul argues in 1 Corinthians 15, Christ's resurrection and ours at the last day both secures our eternal life and imbues our life here with a quality of hope. A hope that guarantees our future and lets us live while we live. You see, the problem with the passage is you have to understand what's presuppositional here. If you don't have a hope, then where does it come from in the passage? It's hinted at. But if you don't have this hope, you can't live while you live. You'll, at best, just be despairing that you're going to die. and never really end up living. Well, what we see here is Solomon intent on and calling us to live while we live. And he says, in effect, while I breathe I hope, knowing that first of all, death is the great leveler. That's very clear in verses 1 to 6. Death is the great leveler. It comes to all. That's his point in those verses. And secondly, life should be lived in hope, verses 7 to 10. Death is the great leveler. The wicked and the righteous all experience it. But we should live in hope, verses 7 to 10. Death, we say, is the great leveler, visiting all the great and the small, the wicked and the righteous, exempting no one from its grim, icy grip. As we see in verses one to six, the Bible would have us to come to terms with this. In my earlier years, when I was a dispensationalist, we never came to terms with it. We just always said we hope Jesus comes. That's really not the direction we're pointed in. We should expect to die. Now, Jesus may come, but He hasn't come for these many years. We don't know when He's going to come, and we shouldn't have some kind of bizarre, immature way of never facing it because I think Jesus is going to come, so I'm never going to think about death. The Bible would not tell us to do that. Charles Haddon Spurgeon used to take his sons to cemeteries and say to sons, you see, this is the end of us all. Prepare to meet your maker. We don't know when this is going to happen. The Lord's coming is certain in no one's lifetime, but otherwise death is. It's foolish to not face that. It's foolish to not face that. Solomon does. What we saw last time, and really throughout the wisdom literature, The dilemma, and this is picked up, this thread is picked up here again a little bit. The dilemma of the wicked prospering. You know what I mean by that. The wicked prosper and the righteous see it and it disturbs. But here the thought is extended because what we see in verses 2 and 3 is prosper as they may, the wicked come to the grave. So they might prosper and have fame and wealth and power, but they come to the great along with the righteous. That's why we say death is the leveler. The great leveler. Verse 2 says, one event happens to the righteous and the wicked. And it describes all the variants of such. Right? That's what it does. To the good, the clean and the unclean. To him who sacrifices, who does not. The good, the sinner. The one who takes an oath. The one who doesn't. And it says at the end of verse 3 there, concludes that given all these variants, after that they, the wicked, the righteous, everyone, go to the dead. It should be noted, as despairing as this sounds, that verse 1 does affirm that the Lord has all things, particularly His people, as it puts it, the righteous and wise and their works in His hand. Notice that. Notice that it starts off with that. That the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hand of God. This is no impersonal fate we're talking about. This is no grim reaper who sallies forth, you know, to get you when it's your time. No. This is the God who loves us. who has given Jesus to die for us. This is not an arbitrary despot, but our covenant God who sovereignly controls all. And so. I don't really quite understand why some even respected commentators seem to miss some of these rather important things here. But it says that the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hand of God. And that can't mean anything but good. That means even though death comes yet still, there must be something beyond that. There must be something overruling. And the reason I say that is because if you read these verses in a certain way, it sounds like he doesn't believe in any sense in an afterlife. That's what it sounds like. It sounds like he's denying the afterlife. But we know from other places. In his book, he says, Ecclesiastes 3.11, we have eternity in our hearts. We're made for eternity. And he says in that same verse, God makes all things beautiful in its time. That's this book's version of all things work together for good, then we'll have God. We're called according to the purpose. He makes all things beautiful in its time. You say, well, I don't get it. You read these verses and it sounds so morbid. Because he's appreciating the reality of this death. He's not papering over it. He's letting the full weight of it hit. And so we say, if this all-sovereign, this all-wise sovereign does bring all to death, the righteous and wicked without distinction, It does at the same time introduce a kind of new. What's the use sent into the passage? What's the point of it all? The righteous, the wicked, they go to the grave. What's the point? You could say. If all alike, strong language here in verse 4, die, what makes them to differ? He says, a living dog is better than a dead lion. Now we have to recognize what this means in the ancient Near East and even in the Middle East today. We love our dogs. They're our pets. To a Middle Easterner, a dog is dirty. It's a scavenger. It's a horrible creature. It's a very Western, British and American particularly, trait to love your doggy. So a dog is pretty low. A lion is this noble creature, but they say the dog, it has life. Though it's an ignoble creature, it's better than this noble dead creature. Here's a profound truth. Our common humanity is seen in death. Our common humanity is seen in death. All suffer similar fates. No matter how wealthy, how powerful, how great we say, in death the greater, no greater truly than the lowly. You may have an elaborate funeral with important mourners, but it does the deceased no good. And the greatest dead is worse off than the lowliest alive. Now, you know, I understand the Christian ears because we so can romanticize death. This might sound strange. But I think we need to hear it. The living know at least they will die, verse 5 is getting at. The dead have no more life. Look at that. I mean, he gets very ironic then. Well, the living, they know they'll die. The dead don't even know that. They have no more reward. The memory of them is forgotten. You may have a great legacy and have, verse 6 as it says, you may have loved and hated and envied, but in death you never more have a share in anything done under the sun. I think that we need to appreciate the poignancy of that expression. The end of verse 6, very poignant. Never more will they have a share in anything done under the sun. And I just if I may, just a word of personal testimony in the mourning that I've experienced after the death of my mother, much of it in private, particularly when I'm in the car. I found this verse just recently as I was working on this to be a particular comfort. A particular comfort, because I have a sense of my mother, especially the suffering of the last year to two, you know, there was the relief of her going to be with the Lord. But there's the missing of her. And I will say out loud, I have to face this. There's a sense in which, it's still very unreal to me that she's dead. But I have to say, I'll never see her again here. And that's what this is saying. And this is comforting that God's Word says that, in a sense. Nevermore, nevermore will they have a share in anything done under the sun. And so I'm I'm feeling that and I read it in the Bible and and it's like, yes, that's why I'm that's the part that does grieve, though she's with the Lord. The word of God is wonderful because it's so rich. and expresses the fullness of the reality. Talk about a reality show. This is reality. This is reality. This is reality. This poignant expression is full of pathos and utter honesty. When you're dead, your current existence, this is really what it's saying. Your existence as we know it here, body and soul is gone. You're not body and soul anymore. For the time. You're dead as a doornail. As it was said of Marley. Dead as a doornail. Jacob Marley was dead. You know how Christmas carol starts. You no longer have a body with which to rejoice here. Remember this. in terms of the blessed dead. In the intermediate state, they remain in humiliation. Our loved ones who have gone to be with the Lord are not exalted. They're with Christ. But they're in the intermediate state. They're in humiliation. Even as Jesus in the tomb was in humiliation and He did not enter His exaltation until resurrection. And so that's even appropriate that there's that kind of mourning. And that's why, I mean, I know all the evangelical often pieties that are said that run afoul of scripture, I think, even like, well, that's not their body or that's not them. Well, yes, it is them in a sense. What are you talking about? I said that. OK, so you said something wrong. Deal with it. We've all said wrong things. Sometimes people come up to you and say, are you saying such and such is wrong? And you know what they mean. Because I said this. Well, what do you do? I mean, you know, I said wrong things too. The notion of, that's not Aunt Sissy. Well, we understand that her soul has left her body. But, well it is Aunt Sissy too. It is her. Because we're meant to live forever in a body. And we will. And we're going to be raised. And we're going to have bodies again with ourselves. That's glory. That's when glory really begins. You know, so it's not that glory is beginning now. Or if you do the stuff that you're supposed to do in the intermediate state, you become an angel, you know. Ding, ding, ding. Teacher says. But I mean, I say that, but people get influenced by that. They're confused. Where are the blessed dead? They're with Christ. Do they have bodies? No. Not during this period of time. Not until the resurrection. And so, there's a groaning. There's an incompleteness. Incompleteness. We will not be fully reintegrated. until resurrection. And we, the living, the friends and loved ones, ache and mourn to be bereft of the company of our dearly departed. I mean, if it's true that never more do they have a share in anything done under the sun, it's not wrong then that there is this keen ache when someone is gone. Is this negative, hopeless, godless? I mean, Gregory Thalmaturge, an ancient church father, thought that Solomon is just giving voice to unbelief here. The voice of unbelief. Now, I think it reflects the real tragedy of death. When death comes, life here is done. And the constant reality of that looming before us. I mean, if that's all you know! Of course, most ungodly people or a lot of ungodly people do whatever they can to anesthetize themselves to not think about that. But ungodly people know that you're going to die. They do know that. I mean, they know that. And some people talk a lot about how it affects life here. I mean, one particular filmmaker's whole career has been how death impacts our life here and really pretty much wrecks it. Woody Allen. He talks about that a lot. And he's been asking in interviews, Mr. Allen, what concerns you? And he says, the fact that we're all going to die and it makes our life utterly meaningless now. And he's acknowledged he's very afraid to die and he should be. He's right on that. He should be afraid to die. Outside of Christ. Verse 6, cannot be and should not seek to be escaped. Nevermore will they have a share in anything done under the sun. You say, but what about the new heavens and the new earth? That's not under the sun. That doesn't describe that world. That describes this age, this world. Well, in the face of all this, what sounds, from one perspective, pretty pessimistic, perhaps, in verses 1 to 6. He goes on, Solomon 7 to 10, and says, while we have life, while we breathe, we ought to live it joyfully, fully. There's only one way to live life that way, the way we're commanded to, and that's in hope. You get that? In hope. Well, where is the hope explicitly set forth here? It isn't. But it has to be implicit. It's a little bit there when it says we know that everything's in the hand of God. It's also there when it says things, and we'll say that a little bit more about that, God has accepted your works. Why? Why has God... God has accepted my works. My works are the best works are tainted with sin. How can a holy God accept them? Well, you say, well, justification and sanctification. That's right. That has to be behind this. It's the only way a holy God accepts our works. So there's a lot going on here. But just, you know this in your own experience. You know in your own experience the place of hope. Even if you want to put it as simply as, you know, anticipation or something like that. Joy, looking forward to something. Dreading things to come spoils present enjoyments. Often, doesn't it? Maybe you can't enjoy a movie with friends because you have a dentist appointment in the morning. You're watching it and every time you get into it, you think, I've got to go to the dentist. Or maybe even you're distracted in the Sunday sermon because you have a speech or debate or a tournament coming up. And you think about this. You're doing something. You're involved in something. And it makes you, robs you of present joy. On the other hand, looking forward to something lightens present burdens. Perhaps you have tickets tomorrow night for some unspecified baseball team in the Chicago area. So just some. Choose this day which you prefer. You think, oh, as long as you're having to do this tedious work, I'm going to that game tomorrow. I'm looking forward to that. I mean, you know that on just a common level. Or to hear the Gabant House Orchestra perform Mahler. Death, from a purely under-the-sun perspective, is the ultimate dispiriting, dreaded, looming threat. I mean, if you say, well, yeah, thanks for reminding me. I mean, talk about spoiling everything. I mean, what's the spoiler for today's pleasure? You're going to die. I mean, you'll just have this pleasure for a bit. Maybe a long bit, but still, you're going to die. I mean, and if you think that the first part of the passage is just hopeless and there's nothing beyond that, then I don't know where this hope comes from. Because clearly there's hope here. Necessary to eating bread with joy, verse 7, and drinking wine with a merry heart. I mean, if the greatest reality is you're going to die and that's it. How can you eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart with any honesty? I suppose you can do it, you can just do it as a lie. But this is not encouraging us to that. With honesty, how can you do it? We don't see the answer under the sun. See, we don't find an answer to that under the sun. We find that in the sun, S-O-N, in the Word, this Word is necessary to tell us of the hope. that is ours, that God loves us, that he's justified and adopted us, and he receives us and sanctifies us, which does speak to that last part of verse 7, God has accepted your works. That's how come. You see, this is there. We say, then, there's no hope under the sun, but there is hope in the sun, S-O-N. It is only in Him, the Righteous One, that God has accepted your works. Under the sun there's no hope, there's no acceptance. You die and that's it. If all we have is an under the sun perspective, you die and that's it. But you see, even the natural man, because eternity is in his heart, He knows. When people tell you, well, I believe that we die and we go into the grave and that's the end. They really don't believe that. The Bible says they don't believe that. They may be saying that. They may be saying that up here. But in their heart of hearts, God has placed eternity. So that means you don't believe that. And of course, things bring that out. I mean, like buildings falling down. And people go to church? Why? Because God has placed eternity in their hearts. Solomon didn't know what to do about the specific shape of being... He didn't know what we do about the specific shape of being accepted in the beloved. But he did know, as we say, that death wasn't it. Eternity in our hearts. He did know that God makes all things beautiful in its time. And we know that's because of Christ. All things are fulfilled in Christ and the resurrection life. Trusting in Christ enables us to live here and now the resurrection life, to enjoy our lives to the fullest. But because we know that life here is not ultimate, that's why we can enjoy it. Because we know life here is not ultimate. How can we have this hope? And notice the way it's put here. Eat your bread with joy. Drink your wine with a merry heart. What heartbreak is ours when we must get our joy from food and raiment. If we must get our joy from searching for the perfect meal or perfect pair of shoes, how disappointed we're often going to be. No, we're to be content to bring joy and a merry heart to these things. This is so important. This is the distinguishing mark of the Christian. The Christian does not, as does the world, seek to receive its contentment from things, but the Christian brings contentment to things. That's what's being said here. This doesn't say, seek your joy from your bread because that's all you've got and that's all you're going to get. It says, eat your bread with joy. The joy doesn't come from your eating of the bread. You have the joy. You have the joy of the Lord. That's presuppositional. That's foundational. That must be there. And that's the reason that the eating of the bread can be done in that way. Because if you look to the bread, you're going to be disappointed. And so the question is, for young and old, for young and old, do we show ourselves to be idolaters, looking to things to provide our joy, or do we show ourselves to be grateful children, receiving with joy God's good gifts? You see, if we recognize that we deserve hell, if we recognize that we deserve our food to choke us and our drink to drown us, and God not only gives us bread and wine and makes good use of it in nourishing us, but He gives us in the Holy Supper of our Lord that which nourishes us spiritually. He gives us all of this. Then we can sit down at a meal that's less than perfect and enjoy the vittles. and not say, get this out of here and bring me a really good meal. Because I can't enjoy anything but the best or what I happen to want right now. No reason we can enjoy bread is because we're not looking to the bread for the joy. We have joy. So we're thankful. We're truly thankful. That's why we sit down at our tables and we say, thank you for this. Not thank you for this. because this is the source of my happiness. But you're the source of my happiness and you love me and you're the giver of every good and perfect gift and you've given me these gifts. So I'm making an argument here that the ecclesiastic, the preacher can't say eat your bread with joy if you only have an under the sun perspective. If he really thinks death is it and that's all she wrote and you go to the grave. There's no joy here. There's no merry heart. He doesn't say, drink a lot of wine and you'll get a merry heart. I mean, some people have misread this. He says, drink your wine with a merry heart. Bring it to it. Don't look to it for the merry heart. Neither material things nor relationships are ultimate. We must not look to our wife for joy, but as verse 9 says, live joyfully with her. You see that? It doesn't say, Because you have a miserable rotten existence. Maybe you'll get some joy out of what you eat. Maybe you'll get some joy out of what you wear. Maybe you'll get some joy out of your wife, but probably not. No! It says live joyfully! With the food you have. With the clothes you have. With the family you have. With the wife that you have. Do you get this? The only way that we can, as verse 10 says, employ all our gifts and fruitfully labor. Verse 10 goes on to talk about that. So food and drink and clothing and relationships. And now your gifts. The gifts God has given you. The work of your hands. The only way we can employ all our gifts and fruitfully labor is to do so not with an under the sun despairing perspective. Not as we sit in our office cubicles and go, you die and that's it. So carpe diem, pass the beer. That's not what it's saying. You die and that's it, and that depresses me. So eat, drink and be merry, and that kind of way. You see, there is a right eat, drink and be merry, and there's a wrong. And to let me look to these things to give me my joy is wrong. But take these things with a hopeful, joyful heart. Because we have true hope while we breathe. We have hope. We have hope because of Jesus and who He is and what He's done. And thus we can truly live. We're not waiting to live. We can live. We're not waiting for the perfect meal or the perfect whatever. We can enjoy all sorts of less than perfect things and then be thankful that there might actually be people who enjoy us and love us who are Less than perfect. Shocking, isn't it? But true. Enjoy God's good gifts. Joyfully receive food, drink, clothing. Verse 8, it's a beautiful little verse there. Garments be white, head not lack with oil. Why? Well, again, in that culture, a near equatorial culture with a hot sun, white garments. Those are the good, cool kind. And in that climate of dryness, face with oil. So it could be contextualized. Get yourself a nice winter coat in Chicago. Get yourself a nice winter coat. I'm not raising the issue of fur. I have no problem with it, but we won't get into that. Enjoy each other, husband and wife. Verse 9. Verse 10. Enjoy beautiful works of art, sports, skills, a fruitful use of gifts. Verse 10. As you go through the week, live while you have life. This is a great verse. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might. I bet your boss wouldn't even object if you put that verse up. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might. Live while you have life. Give it your all. Not depressed because it will all end soon and that's it forever. But because we know that our labor in the Lord is not in vain. The Lord establishes the work of our hands. We'll receive the rewards of such here and hereafter. Even hereafter, where permanency will reside. that which God chooses here will be fitted for blessing there. We read about wood, hay, and stubble of our lives being burned up, but we read about even that which we do passing through the fire. What am I saying? That things on this earth will be transformed in some sense in the new earth. I think certain things certainly will. It's not that there's nothing of any permanency here. God has to bring it about. God has to glorify. But even the work of our hands, God establishes them. And there's gold and silver and precious stones. So, you know, again, Christians can get a kind of, this passing world, we can get a, you see, when we say it means nothing, yes, the world in opposition to Christ, the world in opposition to the church, yes, that's right, but then people pass over and that means that my job and my life and all of it's not worth a bucket of warm spit, as John Nance Garner said about the vice presidency. That's not what the Bible says. That's not what the Bible says. It doesn't say in talking about and against the devil, the flesh and the world. It doesn't mean that this world is utterly useless and worthless, that what we as Christians do here in this world is useless and worthless. No. And he says here, whatever your hand finds to do, do it. with your mind. We must know the Son in order to invest all of our life under the Son with meaning, knowing God's acceptance, even His roving in white and His anointing of us, taking that spiritually, so that we can live in hope here, knowing what awaits us there. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father, help us to understand more the texture of this, of the reality of death, and of what lies beyond that last enemy for us all. And so Lord, as we look forward to the resurrected life, past that of the grave, help us to hear, live in hope, and to bring such hope to all the good gifts you give us. Not looking to the gifts, for our joy, but receiving our joy from you and communion with you and being able properly to enjoy and use your good gifts. Bless us in these things we pray, O Father. Amen.