Please open your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 8 verse 16. Remain standing for the reading of God's word. We'll be reading through chapter 9 verse 18. When I applied my heart to know wisdom and to see the business that is done on earth, even though one sees no sleep day or night, then I saw all the work of God that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. For though a man labors to discover it, yet he will not find it. Moreover, though a wise man attempts to know it, he will not be able to find it. For I considered all this in my heart so that I could declare it all, that the righteous and the wise and their 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 is 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, and 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. I returned and saw unto the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill, but time and chance happen to them all. For man also does not know his time, like fish taken in a cruel net, like birds caught in a snare. So the sons of men are snared in an evil time when it falls suddenly upon them. This wisdom I have also seen under the sun, and it seemed great to me. There was a little city with a few men in it, and a great king came against it, besieged it, and built great snares around it. Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he, by his wisdom, delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that same poor man. Then I said, wisdom is better than strength. Nevertheless, the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard. Words of the wise spoken quietly should be heard rather than the shout of a ruler of fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good. You may be seated. The Book of Ecclesiastes is a book that contrasts for us false conceptions of what is good with the true reality of what is good. We are told at the end of the book that man's all, man's chief end, man's purpose, man's goal is to fear God and to keep his commandments. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. It's the beginning of wisdom. And the knowledge of God is everlasting life. And so, if one has the knowledge of God, you're connected to Christ. If you have faith in a living God, if you have faith in Christ, faith in Him as having died for your sins, that you've been raised again to show that His payment was accepted, If you have faith in Christ, then you have everlasting life. And now the question is, how should you live? And we're told the way of life, the wise way, is the way of doing what God commands. Not that we can perfectly keep His law. Not that you're saved by keeping His law. Not that you get God's favor by keeping His law. But that that's the life of wisdom. That the law of God is a lamp unto our feet that shows us the way we should go. And so what we find in the book of Ecclesiastes is the good life of knowing God and keeping his commandments is contrasted with all sorts of other goods. Honor, power, pleasure, money, reputation, seeking happiness in this life. These are all put forward and all of them are torn down. And last time we talked a bit, we focused on the beginning of this section and I talked to you about the meaning there and I won't go back through all of that now. But what follows on is this idea of, well, perhaps, perhaps what's really worth chasing is just having a long life. Perhaps what we should really focus on is just really living as long as we can. So longevity is put forward. And the irony of the whole of it is that every man will live forever in the sense of having consciousness forever. It's not like that's something that can be taken from you. The question is, after you die here, what dreams may come? What consciousness? are you going to go through? Are you going to the consciousness of God's just judgment for sin? Or will you go through a conscious experience of the joy of being in the favorable presence of God because Christ took the punishment for sin for you? And so that idea of that there is going to be an ongoing thinking and ongoing awareness. And furthermore, not merely that, not only will we, after we die and are separated from our bodies, will we have souls that live, but also there is a resurrection to come. That Christ will return in judgment, and when he comes, he will cause all of the dead to be raised. Their bodies will be reunited to their souls. And in that resurrection, there is a resurrection to hell, and there is a resurrection to enjoy the new heavens and the new earth with Christ forever in blessedness. And so this view of considering that all there really is is how long can you manage to keep breathing, when contrasted with the reality of the Christian resurrection, It is a pale thing. But Solomon lays out for us in sort of ironic terms the idea that the good life is to just keep on living. And the way he explains it, he sort of just peters out. The obviousness of how silly it is is just there in his laying it out. So let's continue to go, let's review a little bit, go to the top of page one. Chapter 8, verse 16. What we have here is this idea that the love of God and the hatred of God and the law of God are not known by observation. And the problem is, with observation, you see the same thing happening to different people. The same event occurs, and it touches on the lives of the righteous and the wicked. And so you go, there seems to be no difference. This is the basic problem. So let's read through here. Chapter 8, verse 16, when I applied my heart to know wisdom and to see the business that is done on earth, even though one sees no sleep day or night. So in other words, if you just study and think and meditate and contemplate hard, trying to think things through, even without sleep, day and night. And then I saw all the work of God that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. So remember, the word under the sun is a catchphrase that means from the perspective of human philosophy, from the perspective that the highest thing is the sun, as opposed to being under heaven. Here's the contrast. There's two worldviews, ultimately. There's under the sun, every worldview except for Christianity, every false philosophy, every false religion, all the things, the vain thoughts of men and demons. That's under the sun thinking. And then there is under heaven, with the reign of God, that he controls all. that He judges all, that He is the lawgiver, that He is the one who gives purpose, that is under heaven. From any other worldview, you can't figure out what's going on. You look around and you will search in vain. You won't understand things. You will not understand reality. For though a man labors to discover it, yet he will not find it. Moreover, though a wise man attempts to know it, he will not be able to find it. Verse one. For I considered all this in my heart, so that I could declare it all, that the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hand of God. People know neither love nor hatred by anything they see before them." You don't know the love of God by viewing what happens around you. Otherwise, you might go, well, today was a bad day. God must hate me. Today was a good day. God must love me. He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. He loves me not. That is the type of philosophy that comes from observing what's going on in your life. But God does not change. His compassions change not. So He does not consume you. He is stable in His love for you. He does not change His mind. He doesn't learn new things. It's not like a series of first, second, and third dates where God is trying to figure out whether or not your problems are bad enough to make Him not want to marry you. No, God knows all things, and He made you, and He predestined all of your foibles. He sent Christ to pay for your sins. His attitude does not change. And we don't know right and wrong based upon the observations of things around us. We don't know God's love or his hatred based upon the observations around us. And we don't know his law based upon looking around. His word teaches us both. The argument for why we don't know his love or his hatred based upon what we observe is all things come alike to all. And so if you just look at this life, if you just look under the sun, you're not gonna be able to tell the difference. You will find that there is toil in every man's life since the fall. that there's fruitless labor and poverty, and famines strike whole regions and cause the righteous and the wicked to starve. Do we know which people God loves based upon who had food? Strife as a increased curse from the fall brings contentions and even wars. And righteous men fall in battle As do the wicked. Oftentimes, those who are faithful to uphold the truth have contentions. Fools might laugh or strive with them, but they have contentions. There may be strife in this life. So is it merely those who enjoy peace and prosperity in the outward that we know God must love him? Everything's rosy in the garden. That's not how we know. The Lord Jesus Christ had much strife, many enemies, men that sought to destroy Him, men that killed Him. Not that He couldn't have stopped them. If He had wanted to, He would have called legions of angels down. He chose not to. He came to die. But strife, just because a man has strife in his life and enemies, is not an indicator that God hates him. physical ailments, death, plagues, natural disasters. Those are not things that indicate in a surefire way that God hates a man. We find that there are many righteous who die. In fact, all the righteous die, except for Enoch. And so we find that there are very few who have not died physically in this life, and yet are loved by God. We find that there are many billions, and before history is done, who knows how many, who have been loved by God and yet died. The Lord Jesus Christ, most beloved man, died. It is not because God hated him. So we don't know God's love or his hatred based upon the events that occur in people's lives. Does this mean that God is not just? He doesn't bring consequences? He doesn't punish evil and reward good? Does he not differentiate? Does that not lead to life being meaningless? This is the basic problem that Solomon poses from the beginning of the book of Ecclesiastes is everything's meaningless. There's no differentiation of things. There's just cycles and repetition. There's no goal. But that is not what the scriptures teach. And Solomon's point is to show you that's not true. He puts forward the depressing reality of every false philosophy to show you that Christianity and Christianity alone has hope. Everything else leads to despair. But Christianity provides us with a sure confidence of the victory of God over all wickedness and the victory that we have over the grave in Christ. We don't have a pale, pathetic victory of longevity that we can just, maybe we can manage to eke out 120 years here. The last 40 of it being ailments wracking the body. That is not the victory that we have. We have a victory where we have glorified, perfect bodies that will not end. Go to page two. Solomon continues, one event happens to the righteous and the wicked. Justice requires the rewarding of the righteous and the punishing the wicked. If there's no differentiation between the wicked and the righteous, there's no meaning. Is that the God who made heaven and earth? A God that does not differentiate between the righteous and the wicked? If the same thing happens for the good, to the clean, and the unclean, and here the good and the clean fit together, right? Goodness and cleanness, the idea of cleanness points to holiness. Being good and being devoted to the glory of God. Having your life be for the purpose of the honor and glory of God is holiness. For those who are good and holy, is there no difference between them and the unclean, the profane? If they are treated the same, there's no differentiation, there's no meaning. Your choices don't matter. This is Solomon's point. Solomon and Paul are both really good at overkill. They make the same point over and over and over again in multiple ways. And we're gonna see that here. Next point. Okay, we have to the righteous and the wicked. How about to the good and the clean versus the unclean? Okay, how about to him who sacrifices versus him who doesn't sacrifice? Oh, what about to the good versus the sinner? Oh no, no difference there either. What about him who takes an oath versus he who fears an oath? No difference there either. So what you have here is all the things that you might use to differentiate and sort the race of man and to try to say what might God use to differentiate them, that He might bring different results. Surely the man who swears to uphold the Christian religion will receive a different result than him who is unwilling because he's afraid to make a profession or to swear to follow God. Or perhaps, surely he who takes an oath and does it vainly will receive punishments in this life, whereas he who is careful to avoid taking false oaths, to avoid taking the Lord's name in vain, surely there must be a difference between them. And you can see that same thing in terms of the other two lines that come before it. These three, where it says the sacrificing versus the not sacrificing, the good versus the sinner, the one who takes the oath versus he who fears to take an oath. What we have here is sort of the one who takes the sacraments. He's been baptized. He takes the Lord's Supper. He's the one who sacrifices. In the Old Testament, there were the sacrifices. They pointed forward to Christ. The spilling of the blood of the animal pointing to the spilling of the blood of the perfect lamb who was slain before the foundations of the earth. And then we have the idea here of the good versus the sinner. The point there, if every man is a sinner, what's the point here? The idea of the good versus the sinner is he who has a credible profession, who's in good standing in the church versus he who has been disciplined and removed. He's in bad standing. Unrepentant sin. And then there's he who takes the oath versus he who fears an oath. And this may be the having joined it all. Or it may be somebody who under a situation where there's a court case, he's willing to tell the truth or is afraid of lying under oath. These are all ways of talking about a man who's living with visible righteousness being contrasted with the man who will not live in visible righteousness. He won't have a credible profession of faith. But God brings suffering on His church, on the visible church, on those who say they believe and who then do works that are evidence for their profession being true. And so if we see the righteous in this life suffer, does that mean there's no differentiation? There's no difference between the righteous and the sinner. God is not just. He doesn't punish the wicked. He doesn't reward the righteous. This is the contrast that's being laid before us. If there is not a judgment after this life, then we'd be stuck with meaninglessness. So there must be. For there to be meaning in life, there must be a judgment to come. Where all things are set right. where the wicked are punished and the righteous rewarded. This is the difficulty that's being laid before us. This is the strain that Solomon is dealing with. And remember, he's a king. He's a king of a great region. Not only does he have Israel and its 12 tribes, but it is the largest Israel would be. the most land settled by it. And in addition to that, they had subjected underfoot every nation around them from the Euphrates to the Nile. They exacted tribute. So there were payments of money coming from every place that we think of as that zone between Egypt and modern Iraq. All that space was dominated by Solomon. And he had kings and queens coming before him, asking him for counsel. So how many times did he hear about the righteous receiving punishments? How many times did he hear about the wicked getting away with wickedness? Nobody before Solomon had seen anything like the level of injustice in the earth that he had seen, the amount of reports of wickedness and injustice that had come before him, the horrors of wicked people getting away with wicked things that he would be aware of. In our generation, we have some extent to which we might understand it because we have the news, which is so filled with bad things, so filled with criminality, so filled with the wicked getting away with things. And so we watch art that's filled with that. Most art that's thoughtful in our day is nihilistic. Here's a bad guy, he gets away with badness. Here's a good guy, he doesn't get anything good. Our art is filled with this idea of meaningless life. So we have seen more of these types of things than we might expect other generations to have seen. So we might understand, to some extent, the struggle of Solomon here, having seen so much where the righteous and the wicked are not differentiated. So this is what he's wrestling through. And the answer he provides, this life is not all there is. This life is not where it ends. There is a life to come, there is a resurrection to come, there is a judgment. And so that judgment is where God will show and make all things clear. And until then, We have to interpret what looks like chaos to us through the order-giving lens of Scripture. That order-giving lens of Scripture allows us to interpret reality. It allows us to make proper differentiations and to know, even though I'm suffering for this thing, This thing that I'm doing out of obedience to God, I know the suffering I'm going through is something I'll be rewarded for. How can I be certain of that? Because God commands it. In the face of opposition, I will do it. You can have certainty based upon His command that even if suffering follows, it's not because of the hatred of God. It's the hatred of the world. God will bless it. Only that kind of certainty allows us to go through life, a life that looks like it does not differentiate between the righteous and the wicked, and to know that there is and will be maximal differentiation. Go to page three. There 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. So this idea that the same thing happens to all, and because of the madness of false belief, what happens is we misinterpret reality. We see the same event happening to all. We assume that that means that life is meaningless. And then there's this idea that there's not going to be a judgment. There's madness in the hearts of men while they live, and after that, they go to the dead. This is the false belief that it's just all going to end, that we're just going to go dark, that it's just going to be an end to the story, and we won't perceive or feel or think anything else. That's the lie. And it's a madness. Verse four, but for him who is joined to all the living, there's hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. Beloved, is it true that it's better to live without strength or honor or holiness than to be dead? All the men that you read about and love, because they died for the truth of Jesus Christ, did not believe it was better to be a living dog than a dead lion. The righteous are as bold as the lion. They will profess Christ in the face of opposition. When you hear about the story of the Archbishop Cranmer and you hear that he, in order to avoid death, renounced the Protestant religion, do you think better a living dog than a dead lion. Do you rejoice at the sagacity of having denounced the Protestant religion in order to preserve life at that time? Or instead, does your heart sing when you hear that when he was put at the stake, he repented and said, With this hand, I offended by writing the recantation of the Protestant religion, and now let it first burn in the fire. When he acts like a lion at his death, is that what makes your heart sing? Or do you think, ah, yes, the pragmatism of staying alive, there is something to rejoice in? All of us here rejoice at his courage to cause himself pain before he died in repentance. The men who were lions for Christ unto death are the men that we rejoice in. The men who risked their lives for the sake of the true religion. When you hear the story of those who would not bow before the golden statue of Nebuchadnezzar, you glory in the fact that they were willing to die to not worship a man. This is a view that Solomon's putting forward, and this is meant to actually be revolting. This is not meant to be an assertion of better a living dog than a dead lion. To the Jew, the dog is a symbol of uncleanness at this time. Gentiles were called dogs. What he's saying is, Better to live denying the God of the Bible than to die being courageous in the faith. Remember, he's the guy who also wrote the earlier proverb, that the righteous are bold as a lion. Solomon wrote that one. He is aware of it. And so that being the case, what he's doing is he's putting forward this idea, and this is supposed to disgust you. This is supposed to be revolting to you. And so the effect is supposed to be that you go, no, that can't be all there is. It can't be that life is a dog. Living as long as I can manage to scrape out an existence on the earth is the good life. That can't be. For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing. Think about the argument here. I mean, it's hilarious. It's meant to be hilarious. You read it and you go, this is Ecclesiastes. I have to be serious. And so you read through this and you say, ah. But think about this. Here's the argument. You know why you shouldn't die? Because while you live, you can keep being afraid of dying. That's the argument here. That's what the grammatical construction is. The grammatical construction is this. It's better to be a living dog than a dead lion because the living know that they will die future tense. That's it. That's what we have. We can continue living and in continuing living, we can wait to die. That's what longevity is. If your life is about trying to live as long as you can, you'll be obsessed with death as long as you live. and they have no more reward. The dead know nothing, they have no more reward, and the memory of them is forgotten. We need to contrast pursuing long life with having spiritual life. If you want long life, truly long life, real life, you want spiritual life. Jesus Christ came that you might live and that you might have life abundantly. Spiritual life is an everlasting life that cannot be taken from you. The knowledge of God is a thing that cannot be lost. The knowledge of God gives joy in this life, makes your suffering lighter, makes your joys higher, causes you to have greater stability, and causes so that when you enter the next life, you will not regret where you are. Go to page four. Also, their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished. Nevermore will they have a share in anything done under the sun. We know that scripture teaches us that we continue to think after our bodies die. We know that there is a difference of destinations, the bosom of Abraham or the depths of hell. We know that our loves will not end. When you go to paradise and into the presence of Christ, your love for God will continue forever and it will grow. Your hatred for wickedness will be higher than it has ever been before. Those in hell will hate God and they will envy the good things that the elect have. This idea that there will be no portion in anything done under the sun. Are we not heirs in Christ? Are we not adopted? Are we not sons who inherit? Do we not have a share in all things through Christ? Solomon is putting this forward. This is his false view, and he's showing us the conclusions of this view. He's showing us that if all there is is living as long as you can in this life, that is a horrific life. And here's the best you can manage out of it. And sometimes people will read the next part as though it's his actual advice to the Christian. 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, and let your head lack no oil. What he's saying here is eat, drink, and be merry, because maybe maximally 120 years after this, you're gonna die. That's the idea that's being put forward. And so what he's doing is he's showing that you're stuck going back to pleasure-seeking. Do you remember earlier on in the book that he dealt with pleasure-seeking already, and he showed how that was not a satisfactory life? It was insufficient. It cannot bear the weight of human existence. It does not provide sufficient rational justification for you to think, my life has meaning if I can just eat enough and drink enough and get enough pleasures. All the ladies provide sufficient rational justification for me to be happy. No, it doesn't. It doesn't. Go eat, drink, go eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart for God has already accepted your works. There's sometimes this way in which people treat, whether it's, Even if you say, I believe that I'm just in Christ. I believe I'm righteous in Christ. I believe because Christ died for me, that therefore I'm saved. You go, wonderful, amen, hallelujah, praise the Lord. And then they'd say, and because of that, I'm going to sin when I feel like it, because God's going to forgive me. It's his job. And that's horrific. It makes it so that once you're saved, there's no differentiation between righteous living and unrighteous living. But that's not the case. And I have for you a number of texts for you to look at after this on the bottom here, the footnotes, to go look at this. But let me give you a summary of what the Westminster Confession says on that very subject. Point 29, B1. This is from the Westminster Confession, chapter 16. It says, yet notwithstanding the persons of believers being accepted through Christ, right? We are accepted in Christ. We're righteous in Christ. Their good works also are accepted in Him. So our good works are made acceptable by Christ's mediation. You can't offer any good works that are good enough for God to look upon it and be pleased of yourself. They are counted as acceptable in Christ. Christ's mediation for you makes it so that your good works done in faith according to the law of God are acceptable to God. The things that are imperfect about it are viewed as forgiven in Christ. And that which is done in faith by the power of the Holy Spirit, according to his law, they are made acceptable in Christ. Not as though they were in this life wholly unblameable and unreprovable in God's sight, but that he, looking upon them in his Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections." Beloved, isn't that not glorious? That you, with all of your imperfections, with all of your failings, with the weakness of faith, with your stumbling and your falling and your tripping, that your good works done in faith are acceptable in Christ, and that God will reward them. He will bless you. and give you things, not because you earned it, but because Christ earned it. And He predestined and planned for you good works to walk in, that the Holy Spirit brings to fruition in you. 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, and let your head lack no oil." If we just continue with the flow of thought of Solomon, he's saying, you know, when you die, everything ends. There's no continued consciousness. There's nothing going on anymore. And so as a result, eat, drink, be merry, and be real good. If you could just try to be good, that would be good. And may you not run out of oil, which means be strong. Let me ask you a question. If there's no difference in terms of the consequences of actions, does that help to motivate action or does it demotivate action? If you told an employee, you know, you can work hard, that'd be good. You could also not work hard, not even show up. I mean, honestly, if you don't show up, kind of the same. Just kind of do what you feel like. I will pay you the same forever, no matter which one you do. Do you think that people's behavior is going to tend towards, let's give it our all, let's try real hard, we're going to go and be the best employees we can possibly be, and we're going to be strong and zealous about it? Or do you think there would be some people who show up the first day, less the second, less the third, less the fourth, and maybe by day five, that's the last time you see several of them. The result is that there's a change there. Now, we are not counted as righteous by our good works. I am not telling you that you earn salvation as some sort of wage. That is not the case. Christ earned it for you in your place, in your stead. But there's a difference of what happens to people even when you're righteous in Christ. There are those who live in such a way empowered by the Holy Spirit that they receive more on the day of judgment. Do you remember the parable of the talents? The idea that one man buries a talent in the ground, another man has It's not talent, sorry, it's a different amount of metal. I can't remember what the metal is, what the amount is. One is five, one is ten. The five and the ten, they double it. And as a result, when the master comes to judge them, he gives them cities to govern. Five or ten cities. And there's a reduction in what the one who buried it is governing. There is a difference in your condition at the day of judgment, not in terms of whether you go to heaven or hell, but in terms of the amount of dominion that is granted to you for your government in that next life based upon what you do. You cannot lose by sinning. But you can, by honoring the Lord in good works that are fruit of the Spirit, made acceptable in Christ, receive things. So this affects motivation, and what Solomon is doing is he's telling us, he's showing us the absurdity of telling people to go live in this way that is just Enjoy everything and live with good works and go have strength when you tell them there's no difference between different ends. Page 5, verse 9. Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life. That vain life there is not meant to be something that's endearing. The word vain is supposed to remind you that this worldview, living under the sun, leads to meaningless life. Okay, if there's no difference between the righteous and the wicked, if it is the case that everybody just goes to soul sleep and there's just black after you die, then live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your meaningless life, which he has given you under the sun. Under the sun is another marker to say, hey, he's talking about a false philosophy. He's talking about another perspective than Christianity. All your days of vanity, Has he emphasized with enough context clues for you that he's talking about a false view under the sun? Vain, vanity, under the sun. He's like, just, hey, make sure you understand here. I'm not talking about the true position. I'm presenting you with a false view. For that is your portion in life and in the labor which you perform under the sun. In other words, without Christianity to have a differentiation between the righteous and the wicked, what you end up with is eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow you die. So you end up with. Meaning requires lasting consequence. Verse 10, 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're going. This is a mockery again. I mean, this is kind of like when you read Stoic philosophers, and they are like, you know, this life, this life, who knows what's gonna happen. Everything's gonna probably be miserable for you. So what you need to do is you need to prepare yourself for there being nothing good, really, that you're gonna get. And you should just go out there and do your duty. That's the summation. of ethics in Stoicism. And people don't read Stoics because they're amazing metaphysics or epistemology. You read them because they tell you to do stuff. The reason people like to read Stoic philosophers is because they tell them do X, Y, and Z. It's the ethics in Stoic philosophers. People read Marcus Aurelius because they want to be told what to do. They're like, you know what I'd like? I'd like advice from a guy who was persecuting Christians. I'm just going to, let's go to him. Let's figure out what we're going to do, how to live. And the ideas of the Stoics that people are reading again now come down to, you should try hard, but you know, life's probably gonna be terrible and it's gonna end and that's about it. So try hard. All right, I'll talk to you later. That worldview that then says, okay, when you die, There's no work, there's no plans, there's no knowledge, there's no wisdom in the grave where you're going. Beloved, that does not motivate to action. That motivates to despair. That motivates to escapism. That motivates to trying to disengage. And it leads to eat, drink, and be merry to drown out the suffering of that thinking. Eat, drink, and be merry and try real hard doesn't really work. We play hard and we work hard is kind of a way of just saying, don't judge me for playing hard. That's the reality here. Christianity shows us a way to work hard and to do it joyfully with meaning. And no other philosophy can provide that. If you think that long life is the goal, you're going to live a life where you're trying to avoid dying. So, verse 11, I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill. But time and chance happen to them all. You're either going to be ruled by the God of the Bible or you're going to be ruled by time and chance. And then you just say, I wasn't lucky. It wasn't my time. Oh well. The God of the Bible is not time and chance. His predestination of all things is the opposite of chance. As opposed to a happenstance occurring of things by some rolling of the dice of fate. God intentionally plans all things and works every detail of all of creation and all of history together as a tapestry of the display of His glory. It is a beautiful construction that makes all things have maximal meaning, and it makes it so that there's no end to the meaning. And in fact, when you die, what happens is you have a joyful increasing of the perception of meaning forever. You will have moment after moment of increased enlightenment. You will have moment after moment of seeing this thing that haunted me in my life. I see the way that God used it for His glory and for my good. This thing that's haunted me since my childhood, that I've been ashamed of. I see how God used it for His glory and for my good. These horrors of history, they have place and meaning. The God of the Bible, rather than facing us down with time and chance, gives us meaning and an order to all things. Verse 12, for man does not know his time, like fish taken in a cruel net, like birds caught in a snare. So the sons of men are snared in an evil time when it falls suddenly upon them. Life is like a trap without God, but under heaven, There is a meaning to all of these things, and as opposed to being victims of circumstance, instead we are those who can find hope in the living God. Verse 13. This wisdom I have also seen under the sun, and it seemed great to me. There is a little city with a few men in it, and a great king came against it, besieged it, and built great stairs around it. Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that same poor man." You might go, how does this connect to the previous text? This is a continuation of the discussion of longevity as the good. And if longevity is the good, if living a long time is a good thing, then wouldn't it be even better if lots of people lived a long time? I mean, at least if lots of people lived longer than they would otherwise have lived. One thing that kills indiscriminately is sieges. Starvation in a siege kills the young first and the weak. The young and the old die. Those who are left, they're much diminished, and those that they would protect are gone. And so a siege is a thing that ends lives. And here we have, isn't it better for you to live longer than shorter. And in fact, isn't it better for lots of people to live longer rather than shorter if longevity is the good? And so this man who by his wisdom was able to save men's lives, wisdom allows you to interpret the times and wisdom allows you to make decisions that can actually elongate life. And so even if you want longer life, do you know what matters more than that? Is wisdom. The knowledge of God gives you everlasting life. And wisdom in knowing the law of God and the way to behave skillfully causes you to have the power to do things to save lives. So wisdom is a strength that allows for the saving of life. And here we have this man saving people in the city. And if people really thought that saving life and living longer was the good life, How would you treat somebody who saves lives? Like a hero who's accomplished the greatest good. But in this story, in this news, this report that Solomon had heard from some time in history or some place in his vast domains, he hears this story about a poor man who with his wisdom saved a small city against a great empire. And what happened to the poor man? He was forgotten. The saving of lives, with his wisdom was not remembered. And so he shows we ought to value wisdom more than we do. Not only because it is something that is the good and can save life, but also when you look around, wisdom is not valued. People forget wisdom. The wisdom of the poor is despised. And so he ends this discussion of longevity as being something to be torn down, long life, being put up against wisdom. And he says, wisdom is better than strength. Nevertheless, the poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are not heard. Words of the wise spoken quietly should be heard rather than the shout of a ruler of fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good. Wisdom is viewed as better than strength and vitality and long life and riches and reputation and all things that you might compare with it. It's the principal thing, get wisdom. But as we consider it, we also should consider the way we live our lives. And should we live a life that encourages us to just live forever as living dogs? Or should we live lives that encourage the honoring of wisdom and the hearing of wisdom? And so he tells us to be aware, even when the poor man or the man who is not known speaks wisdom, be aware and honor it, encourage it. As opposed to this idea of dealing with people who are simply in high station or simply wealthy, we should look for wisdom. We should associate with the lowly and care about those who are wise, even if they don't have station or power or honor or resources. Why? Because wisdom is better than weapons of war. It's better than power. It's better than all of these things. On the other side, the sinner destroys. If you wonder how do we differentiate between the righteous and the wicked, well, God will do so at judgment. And in our lives, the consequences of those actions are dramatic here and now. If you live in accordance with God's law, it generates fruit and glory and joy and blessing, but the sinner destroys much. And so what's being told to us here is the idea that you cannot differentiate between righteousness and wickedness and that God ultimately doesn't is absurd. He's showing even in this life actually, there are things that help to show the difference. The righteous build gardens in deserts and make them lush. The wicked take gardens and turn them into deserts. The consequences are visible in time, but not until the damage has already been done. And so we have to know the way to make gardens. We have to know the way to see life and blooming and beauty. The sinner destroys much good. The wisdom is better than weapons of war, and it can save cities from being destroyed by great kings. Comments, questions, objections from the voting members and those with speaking rights? Mr. Nye. Thank you very much for your teaching. I just want to make a comment. You're actually right with the talents. That's Matthew chapter 25. And the minus, that's Luke chapter 19. Thank you. Minus is the other one. Thank you. Very good. All right, let's pray. Father, we ask that you would bless the preaching of your word, that you would increase our knowledge, that you would cause us to be wise. We pray that you would help us to see the difference between righteousness and wickedness, and that you would cause us even now, at the eyes of faith, to see the difference, and to look forward to the reward that we have in Christ, and to look forward to the blessings and the things that are given by good works done through Christ to be made acceptable in him. Father, we ask that you would cause us to be filled by the knowledge that Solomon, inspired by the Holy Spirit, has passed along to us to see how we can tear down all false philosophy. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.