Easter 2024

Ecclesiastes 6:12

February 18th 2024

The past few Sundays, we have been looking at Solomon’s words here in Ecclesiastes 6, to help us better understand the truth that God’s sovereign providence governs everything that comes into our life, or doesn't come into our life. At the very beginning of the Chapter, in v.1&2 he talks about a hypothetical man who has everything this life could ever offer him, but will never enjoy it, because he is selfish and greedy. We talked about how God “gave him up” to his sin. He said “if you want your sin so badly…here, have it. Then we looked at v.3-6 and the tremendous blessings that children and old age are in this world, how they are bone deep blessings that can affect generation after generation, but even these are “negated” if those who have them aren't satisfied with goodness. In fact, Solomon compares the person who has these blessings from God but isn't satisfied with goodness…to a stillborn child. And we looked at Romans 1 and 2nd Samuel 12 to learn that all miscarried children, and even all those murdered by abortion, are now enjoying the face to face presence of Jesus Christ. 

We continued then, to v.7-9 and talked about how the labor of our hands will only ever satisfy our mouths. Our bodies, our physical life. And if we do not labor for things of eternal significance, then we will be doomed to the wandering of desire, it tells us in v.9. Going from idea to idea, job to job, person to person, hobby to hobby, looking for anything that can satisfy the longing of a human soul.

And we already talked about last week’s Sermon, on v.10 & 11.

The common theme of this chapter has been the overwhelming truth that God is absolutely sovereign over every event in our life. The large and all consuming events, those that break into our day to day with bolts of lighting; as well as the small, little, day after day events that seemingly go unnoticed. God is sovereign over all of them. He is the one responsible, He is the one in charge, He is the final and complete authority over our entire life. We took a “sneak peak” into Chapter 7 verse 14, to learn that even the “days of adversity” that come our way …do so by the direct intention of God. Everything in our life is under his perfect authority. Your career, your job, your electric Bill, if your furnace is going to give out right when you need it most, if your Children will be clothed and fed is up to Him, and not up to you. If your roof is going to leak once the sky above opens its gates to the showers of every Spring… is fully and completely under the perfect authority of Jesus Christ. When the Sun goes dark next week, it will do so because Jesus Christ is King over it. How long Israel will be at war, how long our Government will be run by cowardly tyrants, and how long it will be before you take your last breath, are all guided by the direct and intention of Jesus Christ.

Your family, your health, every bone and every cell in your very body, is His…to do with as He pleases. Every Nation, every Government, every law. Every angel, every demon, every President and every Priest is under His authority. Every Court, every judge, every military, and every murder. Every pagan thirsty for the blood of the unborn…and every pervert propagating homosexuality…does so only so much as He allows them to…and He is allowing them to, to earn, fully and completely, every lick, of every flame, of their own eternal damnation.

In Matthew 28:18, right before the resurrected Jesus ascends to the right hand of His Father, He says these words: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” In Daniel 7:14 we read that Jesus Christ will be given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him, and that His dominion is an everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom is the one Which shall not be destroyed.” In Luke 10:22 Jesus says All things have been delivered to Him by His Father,” and In Ephesians 1:20 it says that after Christ was risen from the dead, He was seated at the right hand of His Father, the place of authority and action…and He is far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.”

Let me repeat that, to make this unquestionably clear: Jesus Christ has all authority. In heaven, on Earth, and even under the Earth, now, and forever. There is nothing, there is no one, outside of His perfect authority. Jesus sits upon the throne of this world, and nothing can cause His crown to crumble.

Christianity is the only true faith. All others are fake, fictitious, fairy tales. Mormonism isn't real. Judaism is a false religion. Islam is imaginary. All of them are demon worshipers whose teachings will lead their people to nowhere but hell, and are all pretenders to the throne of the cosmos.

Jesus Christ is the undying holy monarch of all reality. He is the King of the entire Earth, sovereign Lord over everything that lives and moves and breathes. Every nation that builds, only builds as high as He allows, and they will be broken into the pieces of a potter's vessel under His rod of iron unless they bend their knee and kiss the Son. Jesus Christ is King.

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There is a question in our verse this morning, two questions. “Who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he passes like a shadow?” and “Who can tell a man what will happen after him under the sun?”

These two questions have an obvious answer in everything that was just said. Jesus Christ knows what is good for man all the days of our vain life. Jesus Christ knows what will happen after we leave this world.

Genesis 1 teaches us that He created everything, and Colossians 1 teaches us that He maintains everything. Everything belongs to Him, and as Abraham Kuyper once said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” He is King over your clothing choices, over your hobbies and interests, over your job and over your career. He, and He alone knows what is good for us in this vain life…for everything, Solomon has been teaching us through all of Ecclesiastes so far…everything under the Sun is vanity.

Everything in this life that you find joy in, no matter the depth to which it sinks within your soul, or the love that explodes outward from you when you think of such things… everything in this world…is temporary. Fleeting. It goes away more quickly than we want it to. Nothing in this world is permanent.

 We must think and speak in the same manner in which Scripture does, letting the very words of God breathed out onto the page, supplant our own words…and when we do that with the book of Ecclesiastes, it cause us to take on the tone of abject and brutal honesty. If we are to think like Solomon in Ecclesiastes, then we will be raw and real, regarding every situation in our life. We must do this, brothers and sisters, not simply because Scripture is the voice of God and the only place He speaks in our life, but because we have no other choice.

Look upon the world in which you live, and ask yourself if you can afford to not be honest.

Can you watch even a moment of news, and think that there is an opportunity to avoid the truth that is dancing before your waking eyes? Can you avoid being honest, in a Nation where 420 million people pay for a monthly porn subscription? How capable are you at avoiding truth in a world where man-made viruses are weaponized to steal a Presidential election away from the voting public? Can you avert your eyes from the modern day Auschwitz that is planned parenthood for long enough to admit that everything you can find in this world that happens to bring you a modicum of peace and happiness…is incredibly temporary? For those Christians that do ignore these sins of their culture, I would encourage you to repent and raise your voice against them.

Now is not the time to remain silent! Now is not the time to be quiet! Nearer now is the hour of your salvation than when you first believed! Stand up and be counted among the righteous, you sinner. Stand up and repent of your sins and be made righteous not by your standing or by your sitting, but by the shed blood and broken body of Jesus Christ! Stand up, and, with, gleaming eyes take in the reality of the world in which you live!

It is a world of vanity. Of temporary happiness. A world of indulgence after indulgence custom made to feed your sinful flesh all the desire you could ever desire. You live in a world where every physical need can be met by strangers who will never know you. Sex on command at the push of a button. If you want drugs, you can simply walk a few feet to one of the three smoke shops our own town of Clyde has, but don't try and find a grocery store. You can watch any form of entertainment, at any point in time, and the east of its availability should make you question the intent of those who provide it to you…but the shiny lights and action sequences do a great job in dulling your senses. We have more technology in our pocket here and now, than NASA did when they put a man on the moon, and what do we do with it? We watch 15 second clips of strangers engaging in nonsense, killing our attention span, and turning us into mindless consumeristic zombies, betting fattened for the day of slaughter.

If Solomon had written Ecclesiastes in 2024, it would have been nothing but the word “vanity” repeated for a thousand pages.

So what are we to do brothers and sisters? “Who knows what is good for man in life?” Where can we find meaning and purpose and an identity? We look nowhere this side of the Sun.

Find no meaning in things or people. Find no love in hobbies or careers. Find no purpose in your relationships or your family. But instead, let the firm and unmoving foundation you have in Jesus Christ be the headwaters from which everything else in your life finds its meaning and purpose. Your job is temporary and will never feed your soul. Your family, though it may pain you to hear it, is temporary and will never feed your soul. Your hobbies are nothing but kindling and ash, and your favorite memories of them are nothing but the smoke rising up from your vain attempts at enjoying them in and of themselves.

If you do not know who you are in Jesus Christ, then you will never find meaning in a job, a career, a hobby, or anything else all the days of your vain life.

If the Holy Spirit does not live within your very soul, then you will never feel love from your family.

Let me add a clarifier, and double down…If your sins are not forgiven, and your guilt before a Holy God remains…then nothing you do in your life will have any meaning or purpose.

Only Christians can find joy and meaning and purpose in the fleeting and temporary things of this world, because it is only Christians who have a permanent and unchanging identity.  

“Who knows what is good for you, all the days of your vain life?” Jesus Christ and Him alone. Do you want to find joy in the temporary? Then find peace in the permanency of the risen King, Jesus Christ. Who, though He was a man, He sinned not. Though He was tempted in every way that we are, He did not sin. And though He was innocent in every way, perfect in every way, God laid on Him the condemnation of us all, and it is by His wounds that we are healed. When you repent of your sins and believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you are not only given a permanent identity that nothing in all of reality can ever change or effect…but you are made holy in the eyes of the permanent and immovable King of the Universe. Not because you did enough good deeds. Not because your life down here was garbage and now you think “God owes you eternity” no. You are made holy in His eyes because God killed His Son in your place. It should have been you upon that Roman cross, hanging from Roman nails, but it wasn't. Jesus Christ drank dry the wrath of His Father that was reserved for us, and died with it. So that when He rose to life the third day, we too could one day rise when our time upon this Earth is over.

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This life oh you weary ones…is a shadow. Shakespeare got it right, when he said that life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. Out out brief candle! James 4:14 says that your life is nothing but a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. If you take everything about you, your entire identity, all of your strengths and weaknesses, all of your fears and joys, all of your memories and experiences…all of your love, though you may claim it is insurmountable…collect everything about yourself into one idea and you will see that you are nothing but a faint flickering flame, bouncing with all of its might against the void of eternal darkness. “Who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he passes like a shadow?” No one but Jesus Christ.

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Our next question, if the ramifications of the first one weren't serious enough, brings our thoughts even deeper. “Who can tell a man what will happen after him under the Sun?” What will come after you in this World, brothers and sisters? What will you leave behind? Will you leave behind nothing but memories of good and bad? Will you leave behind the worthless rags of life lessons grounded in human knowledge and human wisdom? Who knows what your life will result in? Are you making choices, here and now, thinking that the result will be…perfect? Do you say to yourself: “I am doing this, because it is going to result in a perfect outcome.” ? If that is not your thought, or if you have to begrudgingly admit your choices will never result in a perfect outcome…then I will ask you why you are making those choices to begin with? If your choice won't lead to something golden, something godly, then why are you making it?

I hope you see something here. I hope you see the hopeless situation that phrasing my question this way has painted for you.

We don't make choices because we think the result will be perfect.

We make choices because we have wrestled over Scripture, submitted our hearts and our thoughts to God, consulted with other blood-bought saints who would have been sharing the flames of hell alongside us if Christ didn't act…and then we leave the results up to God.

Do not make choices in your life because of a hoped-for result.

Just live your life as best as you can, and leave the results up to God.

Stay away from sin as best as you can, repenting of it every single time it shows up. Every, single, time. Take intentional steps to keep your sin away from you. If you struggle with alcohol, don't keep it in your house. If you struggle with pornography, put your phone into the microwaves until it smokes. Do everything you can to put distance between you and your ability to sin. You should have to go out of your way to sin.

Live your life as best as you can, and leave the results up to God.

Pay your bills, feed your family, and leave the results up to God. Evangelize the lost, warning them of the hellfire that awaits if they don't turn to Christ, and then leave the results up to God. Raise your voice against abortion, interceding on behalf of the voiceless. Stand up for truth and honor and dignity, opposing sexual immorality every time the providence of God allows a rainbow to present itself before you. Do not let your culture die a thousand deaths while you sit back waiting for the right time or the right thought or the right thing, thinking that the results of your actions are fully and completely dependent upon you! 

Yes, be wise. Yes, be loving. And then go out into God’s World, being God’s hands and feet, letting him use you as He sees fit to unfold His will in His World.

“Who can tell a man what will happen after him under the Sun?” Only Jesus Christ. Do you want to know what the end result of your life will be? Then you have to know Jesus Christ.

In the 139th Psalm, verse 16, King David writes these words, speaking to God: “Your eyes have seen my formless substance; And in Your book were written All the days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them.”

All of your days, oh sinners, have already been accounted for. The very moment of your death is a moment not hidden from God! When the peeling trumpet of your final heart beat rings loud in your chest, and the last vigor of your life escapes between your dry lips…it will be a moment written down since before you existed. Before you were born, the day of your death was etched into the ivory pages of the book of life, and it is a moment that can never be changed. And when that day comes, be it 2 or 3 decades into the future, or be it 2 or 3 hours from now…what will you leave this world?

When your family gathers at your graveside to lament at your passing, and the Undertaker begins to cover you with the same dirt from which you were made…what will your loved ones say of you? Shovel after shovel your casket will disappear from their eyes, until finally your cold body will lay beneath them, fully ignorant of their tears. A meal for worms your corpse will be, and the ground will take you back just as easily as your mother gave you forth…and what will you have to show for the time you spent in between them? In between the cradle and the grave, where hours and days fade into sunless skies, what will your life amount to? When the stars you beheld as a child now flee from you as an adult, and all the wonder and love that you once held becomes gray and forgotten. When the strength of your back is failing, and the sight of your eyes grows dim, when music no longer sounds the same and the laughter that once filled your halls is nothing but a memory of a memory…what will your life be?

Are you going to make something of your life or is your life going to make something of you? Will it make you a laughing stock? A regret? A byword that passes through the lips of strangers that walk by your grave?

What will happen after you under the Sun?

Now! Brothers and Sisters! Now is the time to cast aside regret and fear!  To hold all of your sin and shame out in front of you, all of your guilt and every charge levied against you, and cause it to shrivel and shake at the sight of the incandescent glory of Jesus Christ radiating from your very heart! Now is the time to take up arms against your sin! To spend your days chasing after God and glory! To stand side by side with the Saints of the most high God as they sing songs of praise and adoration to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ! 

We need not worry about the future that crouches like a roaring lion, seeking whom it may devour, for the only future that awaits us is one that is allowed by God and will be used by Him for our good.

As we prepare to leave this building, to join our families in celebration of the resurrection of the King, I must remind you. The things of this world are vain, no matter how important you may think your family or your job may be…they are both utterly temporary and fully incapable of feeding your soul. You will never find love in your family, if you haven't yet found the love of God. And the love of God can be found only by repenting of your sins and believing in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

To close, I would like to read for us the word of the 39th Psalm.