And let me tell you, these are very difficult chapters. The language is difficult. And I have a handful of trusted commentaries that I usually read before preaching through various parts of the Bible. And I'm not going to agree with any of them on many of the things that I'm going to be presenting to you tonight. I don't think any of them that I checked really grasped what was being said. Now if you'll ask, why is it that some parts of the Bible are so difficult, it's not because the Holy Spirit is a poor communicator, and it's not because, in the case of this book, that Solomon is a poor communicator. The Bible is difficult because God intended for it to be difficult. Whenever you were in school and asked to write a term paper, the teacher expected you to write in as clear terms as you possibly could. That's not how the Bible is written. When the Holy Spirit inspired the Bible, a lot of times the approach was this, how can we communicate this so that the faithful and the studious and the diligent will understand it, but other people will not. So the Bible is being made deliberately difficult, but not so difficult that the faithful will be unable to grasp it. Ecclesiastes 8 begins this way. Who is the wise man? And who knoweth the interpretation of a thing? Who is it that properly interprets the word of God? A man's wisdom maketh his face to shine, and the boldness of his face shall be changed." What he means by that is that a wise man has happiness, he has confidence, he is secure. Those are the things that we want in life. We want to be happy, we want to have confidence, to feel security, and we want those things to be reflected in our countenance. If we have those things, then being poor is not going to be so bad. And if we don't have those things, being rich is not going to make things much better. But he says that the way that we achieve this happiness and confidence is by being wise. But what do we mean by being wise? Some people can be geniuses in certain ways and be imbeciles in other. In fact, I've met many of them, went to school with them. What does it mean to be wise? And in the next verse, he's going to elaborate. I counsel thee, to keep the king's commandment, and that in regard to the oath of God. Be not hasty to go out of his sight, stand not in an evil thing, for he doeth whatsoever pleaseth him. Where the word of a king is, there is power, and who may say unto him, what doest thou? Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil, and a wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment. Here is who is wise, someone who does what the king says, and does it whether it makes sense to them or not, and does it even when the reward for doing it may be deferred, or when the punishment for violating the king's word may be deferred. Now, of course, the ultimate king we're talking about here is God. And he's teaching us principles about God from what we know of earthly kings. A person is wise when they obey God. They're a fool when they don't. It does not matter how much education they've got. It doesn't matter if they made the top score in their accounting class or if they can solve Einstein's equations of relativity or not. The wise person is the one who obeys God and it's a fool who disobeys him. All right, now he continues. He tells us that to everything there is time and judgment. This is really a profound statement. He goes on to say, because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man is great upon him. To every purpose there is time and judgment. What he means by this is that to every purpose there's right and there's wrong. And being wise requires that you be able to know the difference between what's right and wrong. But being wise also means that you must know that the reward or blessing for doing what is right may be long deferred after you've done the right. There may be a gap of time between the doing of what is right and the blessing for doing what is right and the same is true for evil. That people can do evil and seem to feel or experience no consequences for it because there is a gap of time before judgment finally comes on them. Now Solomon said, on account of this, the misery of man is great. And he's telling you that this earth has a curse against it, that God is enforcing against it, and much of that curse on this planet is rooted in this very phenomenon right here. That's where it is deriving from, this particular curse. Now you think about it. What if it were true of our planet that evil were instantly met with retribution. We would be living in a very different world, would we not? Here's some old wicked character like Adolf Hitler. The first time he steps out of line, God knocks him on his face. If that had happened, then you wouldn't have had the terrible Holocaust and World War II and things like that. All right, what if good in our world received an instant reward? Just as soon as you've done it, you receive the blessing for doing it. Then I guarantee the wickedest people in the world would be looking for good things to do so that they could pocket the gains. So Solomon is telling us that in order to be wise, you have to know that's not how the world works. And you have to know that The reward for good oftentimes follows the act by a long period of time. You don't put corn in the ground and then immediately get ready to harvest. You know that there is a time, but that time, that interval of time is what? contributes to the curse of this planet. And he's also going to tell you later that it contributes to human madness. Humans go crazy because of this. They get so crazy that they even conclude there's no God. Because if there were a God, then good would be rewarded instantly, visibly, and evil would be instantly punished. Back to verse six, because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man is great upon him. For he knoweth that which shall be, he knoweth not, pardon me, for he knoweth not that which shall be, for who can tell him when it shall be? Who can tell him when the reward for good will come for doing good, or the punishment for evil will come for doing evil. There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit, neither hath he power in the day of death, and there is no discharge in that war, neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it. Let me read that very difficult verse again. There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit, Neither hath he power in the day of death, and there is no discharge in that war. Neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it." Now one might say that in death we instantly experience good and the reward for good, of course we claim it's Jesus' good that's being rewarded, not our own, but in death man comes face to face with either the good or the bad no delay there but the problem is you don't know when death is going to come and so that time gap still is being enforced and you have no power over it because no man has power over the spirit to retain the spirit when God gets ready to take your spirit it's going to be gone and your body is going to die. That is dictated by God. Then he adds this. He said, neither hath he power in the day of his death. Now there are going to be a lot of good things happen when you die, if you're one of God's children, but some things are not going to change. Even after you're dead, your spirit is going to be in the hands of God. And he'll send it to hell or send it to heaven as it pleases him. So what Solomon is saying, you've got no power over it in this life, and you don't even have power over it in the next. God has power over it in either case. Then he says there's no discharge in this war, meaning that if you're at war with God, as many people are, then because of his domination over your spirit, you're in a war that's never going to end. You can't win it. It will never end. And then he adds, neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it. The wickedness of rebellion against God is not going to make your case better off. You are going to be worse off for rebelling against God. All this have I seen and applied my heart unto every work that is done under the sun. There is a time wherein one man ruleth over another to his own hurt. And so I saw the wicked buried who had come and gone from the place of the holy, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done. This also is vanity. All right now, to me he's still addressing what he said before about you not having control over your spirit or you do not have the control to retain it. Now you may say that's a bad thing that I have no control over my spirit. either in this life or in the next. And by the way, I hope everybody knows I'm not trying to suggest that you can't help what you think and can't help what you do. We're talking about no control over when it's separated from this body. No control over whether it's sent to heaven or hell after we die. If you think that's a bad thing, then Solomon said, bear in mind, there are men everywhere who do have control over other men. and they use it to their own hurt, you see. They control other men to their own destruction and hurt. You need to be happy that your spirit is in God's hands and not in your own. Because if it were, you'd probably mismanage it and do it much harm. So this is the idea in the next verse. Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. This is getting back to the time delay that he's been talking about earlier in this chapter. Men are driven to badness by it. Wicked men say, I don't see any immediate negative effect of me stealing, robbing, snorting cocaine, so I'm going to do it. He's driven to wickedness on account of it. Then you have people who are driven into agnosticism or atheism on account of it. Solomon says, this is madness. Verse 12, though a sinner do evil a hundred times and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it should be well with them that fear God and which fear before him. But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow because he feareth not before God." Let that question be settled. It's taught in the Word of God. Every Bible writer taught it. And I think our own instincts tell us that even if we do not see the immediate good of serving God, we've got to know that it will go well with those who obey Him and it will go ill for those who do not. Alright, so Solomon says let that be settled whether we can see it as happening or not. There is a vanity which is done upon the earth that there be just men unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked. Again there be wicked men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity, is part of our sin-cursed planet. Sin is unfair. That's why it's sinful. And so, as we commonly put it, good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good. That's part of the commandment of our planet, or part of the condemnation of our planet. Then I commended mirth. And by mirth here he means a state of happiness. Because a man hath no better thing under the sun than to eat and to drink and to be merry. For that shall abide with him of his labor the days of his life which God giveth him under the sun. What he's saying here is don't drive yourself nuts over the inequities that you see in the earth. That is far better to put faith in God and live your life happily, you see, than to become obsessed with things that you're not going to change. They're part of a curse that God has put on this earth. Now we'll finish the chapter and maybe go back over some of these things. When I applied my heart to know wisdom and to see the business that is done upon the earth, Bearing in mind that business in the Bible means activities in general, not just accounting and finance and things like that. When he looked at the activities of the earth, parenthesis, for there is that neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes. And what he's just simply saying there, he had spent sleepless nights thinking through the things he's relating to you now. Then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun, because though a man labor to seek it out, yet he shall not find it. Yea, further, though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it. Now remember, he started the chapter talking about Happiness, confidence, security comes from being wise. But that leads to the question, what does it mean to be wise? And he's telling you at the end of the chapter, it does not mean you understand everything that's happening in the world. It does not mean that you can make sense of everything that's happening in the world, because the plan of God is too complex for any human to comprehend, even if he's Solomon. That's what he's saying here. And so if you're going to anguish over this and be unhappy because you can't understand the plan of God, then you're doomed to despair. A wise man is one who does these two things, both of which are named in this chapter. One, he obeys God whether he understands it or not. And two, he strives to be happy in faith before God that is a wise man and be sure Solomon knew what the consequences were of not following these things because he had transgressed these things and even though Solomon had all kinds of natural reasons to be a happy man he was not and so he's writing this book late in life to steer you from the mistakes that he made. All right, now we'll get a few verses in chapter nine. For all this I considered in my heart, even do declare all this, that the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hand of God. No man knoweth either love or hatred, by all that is before him. The righteous, the wise, all this, their work is in the hand of God. Now, here's what he means. The reward for them being wise, the reward or blessing for them being righteous, you see, it's not in their hand. And it may not be out on the table where it can be seen. It's reserved in God's hand. He told you in the preceding chapter, it is surely there. I know it is so. But it could be now in the hand of God, reserved for you for a future time. His hand of God. No man knoweth love or hatred by all that is before him. That is, Looking at the naturalistic things of this life, a man can't tell whether God loves him or hates him. Because there's good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. You attribute good things that have happened to you to the hand of God and you are right about that because the devil would have destroyed you if it had not been for the hand of God. He hates you in particular. But the fact of the matter is, God's people, they go through troubles just like other people. They have car wrecks, they have cancers, you see. They die. Solomon said, by looking at these things, you can't tell whether God loves them or hates them. All right, now that's not to say you can't tell, but you can't tell by these particular things. All things come alike to all. There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked, to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean, to him that sacrifices and to him that sacrifices not. As is the good, so is the sinner, and he that sweareth that is, sweareth falsely, carelessly, as he that feareth an oath." We see good things and bad things happening to people on both sides in this world. This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun. Yes, it is a reflection of the curse upon this earth. is largely the reason why the earth is so cursed. That there is one event unto all. That is, the same kind of things can happen to both good and bad. Yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil and madness is in their heart while they live and after that they go to the dead. So this aspect of life, that is the timing anomalies of life, contributes towards the wickedness of some men and the madness, that is the insanity of others. And he's saying to God's people, you've got to be smarter than this. You've got to know that there is deeper meaning. Now these men, they become maddened by this. They go into wickedness and rebellion against God because they are not immediately rewarded for doing what God says and they're not immediately punished for disobeying what God says. So they go into wickedness and then they die. For to him that 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 shall die, but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten." So, he says a living dog is better than a dead lion. Well, how's he better off? Well, at least he knows he's gonna die. Where the other doesn't know anything. The dead knows nothing. And when I have read commentaries on this, they don't see he's being facetious. He's being cynical here. Okay, so there's an advantage in being alive. How am I better off being alive? Because you know you're gonna die. If you're alive, I mean that's supposed to be cynical, comical. Remember that Solomon's theme is all is vanity and vexation of spirit. And he's unrelenting in that. To the living there is hope. Hope in what? Hope in illusions, you see. He's trying to tell you that in natural things we have futility and vanity. The only place where we profit is in obeying the Lord. Also, that is when they die, their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished. Neither have they anymore a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun. And that's something that unbelievers need to bear in mind. You're protesting against God, protesting against the Bible. Well, tell me, what's your opinion going to mean when you're in the bottom of a six-foot hole? What's it going to mean then? Now he says, Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thine wine with a merry heart, for God now accepteth thy works. All this is being facetious. Let thy garments be always white, and let thy head lack no ointment. Live joyfully with the wife with whom thou lovest, or whom thou lovest, all the days of thy life, thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity, for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labor, which thou takest under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might for there is no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest all that is stated cynically you know you better do it now and do it with gusto because when you get in the grave it's all over with you see this is cynicism And it's looking at life naturalistically and it is carrying that look to its logical conclusions. And you know I have seen people who did not believe in the immortality of the soul. They thought that when you died, conscious existence ceased. Maybe they believed in a resurrection and they thought there would be no conscious existence until the resurrection. So this is called soul sleep doctrine. And they would go to a verse like this to prove their position. They don't understand Solomon's being cynical here. All right, now. Whatever you do, do with all your might, live it up, do it with gusto, because soon you're going to be in a grave and it's all going to be over with. That's a very dismal way to look at life. But then he says, I returned. When he says I returned in this book, he's saying I reconsidered. the thought that I previously entertained, I reconsidered. I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill, but time and chance happeneth to them all. For man also knoweth not his time, as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, so are the sons of men, snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them. All right, now, he's thinking this way, I just told people, Work as hard as you can. Play as hard as you can. Try to do as much as you possibly can because soon you're going to be in a grave and that'll be the end of it. But then he said, this thought occurred to me. The battle doesn't always go to the strongest. The race does not always go to the swiftest. If these people did what I told them to do, there's no guarantee it would lead to anything. You say, I've just given bad counsel. It's not always the wise that's rewarded. It's not always the diligent that's rewarded. So he's just reasoning into a predicament, a stalemate, a hopelessness. And then he adds this, and we'll stop here. This wisdom have I seen also under the sun, and it seemed great unto me." Now that's quite a statement, isn't it? He's presented you with a lot of wisdom in this book, and he's going to present more, but he said there seems to be something very profound in what I'm about to say. There was a little city, and a few men within it, and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it. Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered to the city, yet no man remembered that same poor man. Then said I, wisdom is better than strength, Nevertheless, the poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are not heard." Alright, here's a city. This city is the elect of God. Here's a great king besieging it, Satan. Inside that city there's a poor wise man, Jesus Christ. And through his wisdom, he delivered that city But Solomon said, here is a great tragedy that people didn't listen to the poor wise man the way they did. All right now, the poor wise man gave us wonderful teachings that address many of the problems with which Solomon was grappling. Solomon was struggling with the idea that good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. and that you can't know whether God loves a man or hates a man by what you witness here in this life. And these were a great source of trouble to him. But along comes Jesus Christ and he explains all this. That you're God's children. You don't belong in this world. That's the reason the world is hostile to you. That's the reason it's hostile to me. You've been chosen out of the world, so you're in a place that doesn't like you. Don't expect much from this world. Bad things will happen to you, alright? So said Jesus Christ. But Jesus also taught that if you believe on Him, and if you believe His Word, and you love these things, then you know that God loves you. Now you don't know that God loves you because you got a Cadillac in the driveway and you don't know that He dislikes you because you didn't catch any fish on your last fishing trip. But here's one thing you know. If you believe on Jesus and you love Jesus and you love God's Word and you believe in it, God loves you because that is the working of God in your heart, and that's something in which you can rejoice. The poor wise man is going to settle and resolve many of the things that Solomon was struggling with, but of course Solomon didn't have the privilege of knowing the poor wise man. Jesus said that many kings and righteous men have desired to know the things that you know, to see the things that you have seen, and they didn't see them. Solomon was one of those men. All right, now, if you've seen them, you should be stepping forward to be united with the Church of Jesus Christ. For the John, lead us in a verse, and for Salome, Stand on number 290. 2-9-0. Jesus is in all things well. 2-9-0.