Live and Die, We’re the Same


Sermon by Wiley Lowry on October 17, 2021 Ecclesiastes 8:1-9:18

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In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” What He was saying was, “Happy are those who are sad.” “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” What He’s talking about there is the upside-down, countercultural nature of God’s kingdom. That the person who is blessed is the one who recognizes the offensiveness and the sinfulness of man’s sin against God and of creation that has been subjected to futility and of man’s plight in this fallen world. And that person recognizes those things and grieves because of them. They are blessed because that kind of mourning is to be accompanied by a repentance for one’s own sin and accountability, a dependence upon God for mercy, and a seeking to help those who are burdened in such ways. They’re blessed, because for those who grieve and lament in the way that Jesus is teaching us, also find the promise that Jesus both promises and provides comfort in God’s kingdom.

Well as we come to Ecclesiastes 8 and 9 tonight, if you want to turn to page 557 in the pew Bibles, we turn to a theme again that we’ve seen a few times in the book of Ecclesiastes and yet we haven’t focused on it for very long. It’s a reality that is distressing to the writer of this book in his search for meaning and for wisdom and life under the sun. It’s the problem of oppression. And back in chapter 4 verse 1 we read, “I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun, and behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them. It’s vanity and a striving after wind.” In chapter 5 verse 8, he said, “If you see in a province the oppression of the poor and the violation of justice and righteousness, do not be amazed at the matter, for high official is watched over by a higher and there are yet higher ones over them.” So there’s this seemingly endless system of bureaucracy and oppression that he is dealing with. It’s enough to make you crazy. In fact that’s what he says in chapter 7 verse 7, “Surely oppression drives the wise into madness and a bribe corrupts the heart.” You see the pervasiveness of oppression contributes to the Preacher’s sense of frustration and grief that comes from living in this sinful and fallen world. It’s all a part of his cry of vanity. And he says it over and over again in this book.

That should tell us something. It should tell us that wisdom includes tears. And if we are going to navigate life under the sun with wisdom, then we’re going to have to contend with injustice and oppression. We’re going to have to contend with those things, and weep, and weep because of them. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” So those two words will be our outline for tonight – mourning and comfort – as we look to study these two chapters. So before we read, let’s ask God to bless the reading and preaching of His Word. Let’s pray.

Our Father, Your Word does come to us in such a countercultural and upside-down way from what we hear and see in the world around us. And so we need new eyes. We need a new heart. We need a new appreciation for what You have to say to us. We need to see Jesus and the kingdom which He establishes by His death and resurrection. And so we pray tonight that You would send us Your Spirit, that You would help us to see Jesus, that You would do as we have already prayed in our offertory – that You would, “Speak, Lord, for Your servants listen.” We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.

Ecclesiastes chapter 8:

“Who is like the wise? And who knows the interpretation of a thing? A man’s wisdom makes his face shine, and the hardness of his face is changed.

I say:  Keep the king’s command, because of God’s oath to him. Be not hasty to go from his presence. Do not take your stand in an evil cause, for he does whatever he pleases. For the word of the king is supreme, and who may say to him, ‘What are you doing?’ Whoever keeps a command will know no evil thing, and the wise heart will know the proper time and the just way. For there is a time and a way for everything, although man’s trouble lies heavy on him. For he does not know what is to be, for who can tell him how it will be? No man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death. There is no discharge from war, nor will wickedness deliver those who are given to it. All this I observed while applying my heart to all that is done under the sun, when man had power over man to his hurt.

Then I saw the wicked buried. They used to go in and out of the holy place and were praised in the city where they had done such things. This also is vanity. Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they fear before him. But it will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow, because he does not fear before God.

There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity. And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.

When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth, how neither day nor night do one’s eyes see sleep, then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out.

But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know; both are before him. It is the same for all, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner, and he who swears is as he who shuns an oath. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. But he who is joined with all the living has 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. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun.

Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.

Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head.

Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.

Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all. For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.

I have also seen this example of wisdom under the sun, and it seemed great to me. There was a little city with few men in it, and a great king came against it and besieged it, building great siegeworks against it. But there was found in it a poor, wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that poor man. But I say that wisdom is better than might, though the poor man’s wisdom is despised and his words are not heard.

The words of the wise heard in quiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.”

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God endures forever.

Mourning

Life’s not fair, and then you die. That’s a pretty good summary of what these chapters are saying tonight – that good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people, and yet the same event happens to everyone in the end. It’s death. We all die, no matter what our lives had been like. Life’s not fair, and then we die. And that may sound bleak, and it would be hard to live in a world like that unless we have wisdom. And that’s why the writer says in verse 1, “A man’s wisdom makes his face shine and the hardness of his face is changed.” In other words, without wisdom, a life in an unfair world is likely to crush us with grief and sorrow and bitterness, or maybe just plain indifference to all that is going on around us. There are plenty of reasons why someone would feel that way. In fact, these two chapters are catalogue of some of the injustices that the Preacher or Solomon has observed in the world around him.

And so just to go through these chapters, in verses 2 to 9 of chapter 8, he talks about the absolute power of a king over his subjects. Now not every king rules with injustice and oppression, but we’re all familiar with that phrase – that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Well in these verses, the Preacher is dealing with that struggle – that struggle between power on one hand and powerlessness on the other. He says in verse 3 that, “The king does whatever he pleases and he has power over man to his hurt.” Power over man to the other’s hurt – verse 9.  And the commoner, the subject of the king, has no say in the matter. It says in verse 5, “His trouble lies heavy on him.” Well it takes wisdom to know how to live under authority, especially this kind of authority. It takes wisdom to keep the king’s command and it takes wisdom to know the right time and the just way to object or to question the king’s authority. So there’s absolute power.

Then, he moves in verse 10, he turns his attention to the burial of the wicked. And he talks about how they seem to get away with all the wrongdoing that they had committed in their lifetimes. He says they used to take advantage of people during the week and then they would show up at worship like nothing had happened. This was just outright, obvious hypocrisy. And the worst part of all of it was that they were praised in the very city where they had committed all of their wickedness. That’s the kind of thing that really bothers the Preacher and makes him say that this is vanity, it’s madness. And the worst part about it is the legacy that these people leave. Do you know what their legacy is? It’s more trouble and heartache because since they got away with their crimes in their lifetimes, since justice is delayed, or it says in verse 11, “not executed speedily,” then other people are going to follow their lead. It says, “The heart of the children of men is fully set to do evil,” verse 11, and so it just becomes this ongoing cycle of injustice. And it’s just terrible because we want things to be fair.

We want things to make sense, and yet things don’t work out that way in this lifetime, do they? Chapter 8 verse 14, “There are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous.” We go down to chapter 9 verse 11, “The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.” That goes against what we’d like to think would happen. We’d like to think that following the law and getting a good education and working hard and keeping up a healthy lifestyle and raising your children the right way, well that will lead to success and happiness.

But things don’t always work out that way, do they? It can seem like it’s all going according to random chance. In fact, that’s the difference between the book of Ecclesiastes and the book of Proverbs. Both books are wisdom books and there’s a difference between the book of Proverbs’ wisdom and the wisdom of Ecclesiastes and Job. Proverbs is giving us wisdom for when life unfolds as we normally expect it to unfold. And the writer of Proverbs will say, Solomon will say to us in the proverbs he has collected that, “Yes, diligence usually leads to success, and righteousness normally leads to a good and long life.” But then comes Ecclesiastes and Job, and they’re giving us wisdom for when life falls apart, when life does not go as it is expected, when the unexpected happens. And sometimes the unexpected happens. There’s disease and accidents and violence and natural disasters. Chapter 9 verse 12 says, “Like a fish in a net or a bird in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time when it suddenly falls upon them.” Life, according to the writer of Ecclesiastes, seems senseless and unpredictable at times.

And when we get to the end of chapter 9, it picks up where chapter 8 began and there’s this sad story about a poor man. And in his wisdom, he delivered a city from attack of a king who did whatever he wanted to do. He delivered the city from the absolute power of a king. The poor man was the hero. He was the man of the moment, the man of the hour. But no one remembered the poor man, chapter 9:15 says. He was unappreciated. He was overlooked. And he was forgotten. Even the person who has wisdom and who stands up to the abusive power and who defends the cause of the weak and the vulnerable, even that person doesn’t seem to have any lasting significance. It’s all so frustrating. And can you sense, can you relate to why the Preacher grieves, why he is so upset about these different forms of injustice that he observes? It’s because he is not a distant or detached observer or onlooker. It’s not that he is unmoved by these things that he sees. No, he is bothered by them. He is distressed by it and he mourns over the injustice that is going on all around him all the time. He mourns because life under the sun, life in this fallen creation can be ugly and painful.

And that’s just as true today, isn’t it, as it was when the book of Ecclesiastes was written. That’s just one more reason why this book is so relevant today. It’s as relevant today as it was when it was written thousands of years ago because one of the dominant messages of our time, one of the dominant messages today is the call for justice. And we see it, we find it in Black Lives Matter and MeToo and being “woke.” We see it in the messages that appear on basketball jerseys and football helmets; words and phrases like “Equality” and “Stop Hate” and “End Racism.” And the book of Ecclesiastes says, “Yes, there is injustice and oppression in this world, and no, it is not right.” Period. There should not be racism and abortion and sexual abuse and human trafficking and economic fraud. Things should not be this way. These are the worst kinds of injustice in our world and those things should break our hearts. The cry for justice, this longing for shalom, for peace, it is good and it is right because God created this world to reveal something of His character, to reflect His goodness and His righteousness and His justice. Those are the things in which He delights, He says in Jeremiah chapter 9. And He made man and woman in His image. Everyone is created with dignity and value as image bearers of God. And so this desire for justice, it comes from and points back to a holy and a just God who created us to love Him with all of our hearts, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves. The cry for justice is an echo back to the goodness of God’s creation and back to the goodness of God Himself.

And so we should mourn. We should mourn whenever we see the abuse of power. We should grieve over prejudice and the mistreatment of others. In fact, we should look for those things in our own hearts and repent of those things with tears. We should weep over the burdens of our neighbors living in a broken and fallen creation, for the struggles of the poor and the uninsured, the orphan, the immigrant and the refugee, the unborn. We should be moved to help alleviate those problems whenever and however we can by getting involved in mentoring ministries or foster care or medical ministry or whatever it may be. Talk to Ed Hartman or Jo Lynn in the Outreach Department and look for ways in which ministries that we support are engaged in those very acts of mercy in the city around us. We should grieve for those things. We should repent of the fact that we do not mourn those things as much as we should, and we should look to help in ways, in whatever way that we can. “He has shown you, He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? But to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God” – Micah chapter 6 verse 8.

The book of Ecclesiastes, you see, it’s expressing the grief and the pain, it’s the vanity of injustice under the sun. It tells the story of oppression. But then as we are accustomed to it doing throughout the weeks that we have studied this book, it injects a dose of reality into the cry of injustice. It reminds us, this book reminds us that injustice and oppression aren’t going anywhere. He said at the very beginning, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” The same injustices and oppressions that were going on in the Preacher’s day are going on in our day as well. It’s been going on throughout all of history in a sinful and fallen world. I was reminded of that this week. I saw an article and I just read the headline and the subtitle and it said this. The headline is – “The Abortion Backup Plan that No One is Talking About.” And the subtitle said this – “Even in states with the strictest abortion laws, pregnant people can have a safe, inexpensive option to terminate their pregnancies, but few know about it.” And I stopped reading there. That was enough. That was disturbing enough to read just those words.

What we have to realize is that injustice and oppression are here to stay. That under the sun, there will be no end to selfishness and hate and exploitation and violence. In fact, that’s one of the ways, one of the places where the call for justice and justice movements in our culture go off is that they are man-centered but they are also looking for a justice in this world only. “If in this world only we have hope, we are to be most pitied.” Under the sun there will be no true and lasting justice.

Comfort

How do we deal with that? What do we make of those things? Where can those who mourn find comfort? Well these chapters have something to say about that. These chapters have something to say about enduring injustice and oppression with wisdom and with finding joy even in the griefs of life and looking for hope in the justice of God ultimately. There’s comfort. And here are four reasons or sources of comfort that we find in these chapters. There’s God’s reign, God’s justice, God’s mercy, and God’s gifts.

God’s Reign

Number one is God’s reign. Verse 2 says, “Keep the king’s command because of God’s oath to him.” What that’s saying there is that whatever power the king has and however much he seems to do whatever he pleases and to inflict harm on other people, he can only go, the king can only go so far as God allows him to go. And Paul says in Romans 13:1, “There is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” God rules and overrules whatever the king says and does. And that goes for any form of power and authority in the world around us. One commentator made the point that there are a few businesses and their CEOs that wield incredible power. And he says that they are, “frighteningly free from serious political, democratic, or moral constraints.” And so we have businesses and brands and entertainment and media that have real power to influence morality and standards of living. And that’s not even thinking about supernatural powers of oppression and injustice; the supernatural powers of evil. And yet God’s Word is clear – it’s that God is supreme over all of those things.

God’s Justice

He is the ultimate authority, and one day He will make all wrongs right, which is the second thing we see in this passage – God’s justice. Verse 12 says, “Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God because they fear before Him.” There is an ultimate standard of justice and everyone will stand one day, either as those who fear God or as those who do not fear God. There’s only two ways; there’s only two options. And for those who fear God and are in Christ by faith, it will be well. Those who do not fear God and who reject His gift of salvation in Christ Jesus, it will not be well. And even though justice may be delayed, and it may not even come in this lifetime, it will come and wickedness will be punished, it will be judged. Either it will be punished at the cross where Jesus pays the penalty for our sin and evil in full, completely, and washes us clean and gives us His mercy and His blessing and resurrection life instead, or wickedness will be punished by the wrath of God which knows no end and knows no mercy. God’s justice will prevail and the place of safety is in His mercy.

God’s Mercy

So there’s God’s reign and God’s justice. There’s also God’s mercy. Chapter 9 verse 1, “The righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God.” And the writer is saying that everyone comes to the same end. In some ways it seems like what Solomon is saying to us is that one day the oppressor, the workers of injustice, they will be gone; they will die. And there’s another sense in which he is saying that even, no matter what they do, no matter what harm they can bring upon us, that death is the worst they can do. That’s the worst that can happen. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 10 verse 28 – “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” So another person can only carry out so much harm, but for those who are in Christ, our souls are safe in the hand of God. Our souls are safe in His mercy, in His hand, in life and in death.

And do you remember what David said when he made that unwise census at the end of 2 Samuel? And he took a census and because of it he faced the curse of God on the land. And through the prophet he was asked, “What punishment would he desire? What judgment on the land?” And he said these words. He said, “Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercy is great. But let me not fall into the hand of man.” And so there is a sense in which we can read these verses and say, “Let us fall into the hand of God because there is mercy with Him.” And then while we live, because of His mercy we can enjoy and look for His good gifts.

God’s Gifts

The last thing is God’s gifts. Even in suffering and injustice, there are good things to enjoy in this life. He says in chapter 8 verse 15, “I commend joy.” Chapter 9 verse 7, “Eat your bread with joy. Drink your wine with a merry heart. Let your garments be white. Let oil be on your head. Enjoy life with the wife.” All of these things, they are enjoyment. Yes, with the ugliness of this life there is also beauty. There’s beauty to enjoy.

I was thinking about it, I was thinking about it with this passage, I was thinking about some of the most memorable lessons of joy that I have found in my life, I’ve learned them from people who have endured real hardships and injustices and oppressions. I can think about a meal I enjoyed in the slums, in a family’s home in the slums, of Lima, Peru. It’s one of the best meals I have ever eaten, and sitting there with this family who was sharing their home and sharing their food and living with contentment and joy and generosity. There was a birthday party with a Mexican family in Memphis in an immigrant apartment complex. And I thought I knew what a piñata was until I went to that birthday party and it was a whole different experience and it was so much fun! It was joy in poverty and someone who has had to uproot their lives and run from poverty and injustice and crime in their home country to find a better life for their children.

I think about a funeral in a black church in West Jackson and the gospel organ playing the hymn and the congregation singing, “Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King!” in the face of poverty and a past of racism and even a present in racism and in the face of death. There is joy. “Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King!” I think of a Sudanese youth camp, church camp, from several years ago. This collection of believers; they’re refugees from Sudan. These are people on a field trip to the mall food court. They got in trouble with the security guard for riding the escalator over and over again. This was like a fair ride for them. And I remember working, helping one of them with their homework, and there was a project they were saying the different modes of transportation that they used to get to the United States. And so I asked, “How did you get from your home country to this other country in Africa?” I was thinking car, bus, train. No, “We walked.” That was their life. That was their experience. And yet gathering together in this worship service at this camp as they sing and dance with joy, singing praise to God, I didn’t understand any of the words they were singing because it was all in Arabic, but I could understand one word – “Alleluia.” It’s the same in almost every language. They were able to say, coming out of this experience of hardship and desperation, “Alleluia, Praise Jesus.” Because even in suffering and hardship and oppression and injustice there are God’s good gifts to enjoy in this life. And sometimes I think that with the intensity of suffering comes an intensity of joy. And when you realize how fragile life is, you realize all the more how to enjoy the simple things that God has given to us in this life.

The Gospel

So here are these four things in these chapters – God’s reign, God’s justice, God’s mercy, and God’s gifts. What is that? That’s the Gospel. That’s the Gospel. That Jesus, who has all glory and reign, humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death. He took God’s judgment in order to fulfill the just requirements of the Law so that He might give to us the mercy of God and the blessings of eternal life and with that salvation to truly enjoy the good gifts that God has given to us. And what is that greatest gift of all? It’s Jesus Himself. He gives us Himself. That is the gift of God. And so we can then look forward to even greater gifts in the presence of God for all eternity. First Peter chapter 3:18 says, “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but being made alive in the Spirit.” Didn’t we sing that in the last verse of, “Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder” that we sang before the sermon? “Let us wonder, grace and justice, join and point to mercy’s store. When through grace in Christ our trust is, justice smiles and asks no more. He who washed us with His blood, has secured our way to God.”

Life is unfair, and then we die, but because of the Gospel, because of the justice and mercy that meet at the cross in Christ Jesus, we are secure. We are secure in the justice and mercy of God forever. And so we can say and rejoice in what Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Let’s pray.

Our Father, we confess that we oftentimes shield ourselves from some of the ugliness and the pain of the world around us. We sequester ourselves in our comfortable lives, in our busyness, and fail to have eyes of compassion and to see the injustices and oppressions around us. We fail to see our own culpability in those things. And so we ask and plead for Your mercy on behalf of Jesus Christ, in the name of Jesus, that You would extend to us mercy, that You would show us any ways of wrongdoing within us, and turn us to receive Your free pardon and security and grace and joy. Help us to pursue that joy in whatever You call us to do and to seek to spread Your good news, the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the power of God for salvation, that we would take that and speak it and live it wherever we go. And we pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.

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