Ecclesiastes 8:4-9

May 12th 2024

God has, in His perfect and divine wisdom, instituted “spheres of authority” in our World. Different areas of life, each with their own authority, and who we all fall under, in the different areas of our life under the Sun. Now, there is a lot that can be said here, in regards to this truth. How families are run, and the intricacies involved; how Churches are run, and the intricacies involved; and how Governments are run, and the intricacies involved, all fall under this “spheres of authority” Doctrine. Now, as with most things that come from this Pulpit, our message this morning is not “all encompassing”. You are going to hear some things that cause questions to sneak in the back door of your mind, and you will hear other things that cause questions to kick down the front door like an FBI agent. When those questions come up, and I don't answer them…good. Write them down, ask me later, read the areas of Scripture that speak of such things, and wrestle with the words long written down, until you tap out bloody and bruised and bow your knee to God.

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I, as the Pastor of your Church, am the final authority for what happens within these walls. I am not the authority for what happens in your home. If you wanted to eat chicken or pork tonight…I am not the one to tell you which way to go. If you wanted to move to this house or that town, or take this job or that job, or send your kids to a private Christian school, or one that hates God…I am not the authority in your home. I am also not the authority for what happens in a Government. If our civil authorities want to raise the speed limit, close banks on a certain holiday, or continually allow ritualistic child sacrifice…I am not the authority in the Government.

God has established different seats of authority for these three “realms” of life, as it were, that we all fall into. In fact, all of life falls into one of these three spheres. Home; Church; or Civil, and every activity, behavior, hobby, career, falls into one of these categories, and we have an obligation from heaven to obey the authority over those spheres.

In the home, the Father is the final authority. Not the Mother. Not the Father and the Mother working as a team. God tells wives, in Ephesians 5:22, to submit to their husbands, and in Exodus 20:12, He gives us the 5th Commandment, telling children to obey their parents. The home is a Patriarchal establishment, with the Father, the Husband, the man, being the final authority within it. What he says is law, and those within his house ought to obey him. Follow his leading and enact his advice. However, the father of a home, is not the authority in the Church, and he is not the authority in the Government. If the Church wants to start using Hymnals, and your dad who attends there disagrees with the Pastor, tough cookies. If the Government wants to enact laws that your dad disagrees with, too bad, he has no authority in the Government.

In the Civil Sphere, the God has established a Government as the final authority. And in this “sphere” we could slow down, shift into “coast” and take a long, long time in talking about what type of Government is the one that God has established. Did God have in mind, when He did, as Romans 13 teaches us, appointed Governmental authorities over us…a communist government? I can rightly say a heartily “no” to that, because inherent within communism is the ideal that you have to, by order of the authority, share your property with others, even if you don't want to. And any government that institutes breaking the 8th Commandment, not stealing, as part of their essence, is not a Biblical authority. What about a socialist government? Socialism is just cross-dressing communism. How about a Monarchy? A king, one person, on top, deciding everything that goes on in his kingdom? That seems right? Doesn't it? Reality is a monarchy after all. How about a Democracy? That's what we have here in America, and, America is the greatest Country to ever exist, right? 

I would say that a Monarchy is only Biblical so far as the king on that throne doesn't interfere in the other spheres of authority. But people, being as they are, will take every opportunity to live out the words of the serpent in Genesis 3, try to be like God, interfere in the other spheres of authority, and fall into tyranny.

That leaves us with Democracy. Or, as we have in America, a Constitutional Republic. Not a pure Democracy, which will always, without fail turn into mob rule. We have a system of Government, here in America, that was created with man’s sinful nature in mind. Our founding fathers knew what people were like. Power hungry, oppressive, lust and hunger driven, sinful, fallen, prone to wander people. And because they had this Biblical truth as their foundation, they knew that just one man on top of a Nation, could never provide the same freedom and liberty to its people, that God provides to His people. So what did they do? They formed a new Nation, with these words: “All men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.” America has a system of Government that declares aloud for the entire World to hear, that human rights come from God.

However…as soon as the Government here in America steps over the lines that divide the spheres of authority that God has established, they slip into tyranny.

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Solomon tells us, in our verses this morning, that “where the word of a king is, there is power” and, in a rhetorical question, he says “who may say to him, “what are you doing?”. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Solomon is reminding us of the sovereignty of rulers. The father is sovereign in his home, and no other father, no pastor, no mayor or president, can ever say to him “what are you doing?” and the same can be said of the heads of each sphere of authority. They rule. They are in charge. And he continues in verse 4, “he who keeps the ruler's command, will experience nothing harmful.” This same truth comes to us in Romans 13:3 when Paul writes: “Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.”

You see, brothers and sisters, our sinful bent against the objective and all encompassing authority of God, will always come out in this life, in 2 distinct ways. We will foment rebellion against Earthly authorities, and we will want to be the end all authority.

Since that day in the Garden, disobedience has become the air we breathe. This is why you don't have to teach a child to disobey. It comes naturally to them. We hear an instruction, and we say “Nope” you can't tell me what to do. Well…Solomon tells us this morning, the same thing Paul tells us in Romans 13:3, which is the same thing that every parent has told their child… every good parent has told their child; if you don't want to get in trouble, obey me. 

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Now…to answer a few of those questions that I’m sure have strategically breaching the doors of your mind. Some with flash bang grenades, others with perfect eye contact as if you cant see what their doing while you're looking at them.

We discussed last week, when to disobey. I even went over it again earlier. When the authority over you commands what God forbids, or forbids what God commands…you have the Biblical precedent to disobey it, and not be sinning. If your parent instructs you to sin, don't. If your Pastor teaches you unbiblical things, don’t believe him. If your Government forbids you from going to Church…go anyways. This is what the second half of verse 5 and verse 6 is saying to us this morning. “ a wise man’s heart discerns both time and judgement, because for every matter there is a time and judgement.” You need wisdom when it comes to when and how to disobey the authority.

• If your wife tells you to not go to Church or she's going to have an affair…

• If your government tells you to bake a cake for a homosexual couple, or they're going to financially ruin you…

• If your parent instructs you to sin, or they're going to beat your sibling…

We need wisdom about when and how to disobey. And if you want wisdom, James 3 taught us a few weeks ago…ask God for it. Devote yourself to God, more than you do your job, your spouse, your hobbies, your culture, and any and everything else in your life. Is God, and His Word, the headwaters in your life, from which all of your decisions and behaviors flow from? Or is He an afterthought that you staple onto your thinking as a way to justify yourself?

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This is hard, because of what verse 7 says. Our misery, Solomon says in verse 6, increases greatly, because, verse 7, we don't know what will happen.

• What will happen if I disobey? I think im in the right in my disobedience. I've wrestled over scripture, i've talked to my Pastor, i've talked to my Godly friends that I know will point me to God and call me to repentance, but I still don't know what will come from my disobedience.

• Will my parents disown me? Kick me out?

• Will my wife leave me?

• Will the FBI come knocking on my door if the local abortion clinic gets tired of me preaching in front of it?

What will happen next? (I hope you see the teachings from chapter 6 verse 12 coming through here, who knows what will happen next?) What will happen if I disobey? Will my family be able to be fed, if I disobey my boss? Will we be homeless? Will I die? Will someone I love…die?

Is the authority over me, using the fear of death, to force me into compliance?

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Solomon continues, in verse 8 to tell us that this fear of death that we have, is natural. Even the wise man, the man who has spent in days in pressing after God, even the wise man does not have the power to retain the spirit, no one has power in the day of death.”

We are all subject to the death and decay that was brought about by sin. And it is, from the moment of our conception until the moment of our death, a constant and unending war. We, day by day, fight back the grim reaper. His black hood, and silver sickle, grows closer and closer as we grow older and older. The bony fingers sticking forth from his baggy sleeves, point to us with unwavering dedication, longing for the day when a single touch of his hand will bring us down to the soil and clay of our grave. The headstone your family will shed their tears upon…sings to you. A siren song of sweet release floats backwards in time to your ears, even this morning, beckoning for you to crawl into your casket, be loosed from the stresses and cares of a fallen world, and sink deep beneath the dirt.

And you will answer the call of your casket, brothers and sisters.

Tomorrow is not promised and the life you have lived…until today, if it is your last day, will be all that you have done in this world.  All of your achievements, that you have worked your hardest on until today, will be all that your life amounted to. All of your relationships, all of your friends, all of your possessions, all of your hobbies, everything in your life behind you, if you don't see tomorrow, will be all that your life is. There is no one, no matter how wise they may be, that has power in the death of death.

Except one. Jesus Christ. Him who said of Himself, in John 10:17-18 “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. 18 No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.”

Jesus Christ and Him alone, has defeated death, and eternal life awaits all who repent of their sins and believe in Him. Not because of our belief, as if He grants eternity at His side because of our belief, for even the devil believes in God, but because the punishment that our sins deserved, the death that was owed to us, the Hell we earned was given to Christ on the Cross, and when He died with it, so did our death. So that now, if we die to ourselves, we will never see death.

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As we close, and as the only source of comfort for any and everyone stuck under the thumb of a tyrant; be it a tyrant in your home, your Church, or your Government… there will be justice. Either in this life, or the next, justice can not be stopped. Justice can not be stopped, because all justice flows from the very character and nature of a God who cannot be stopped. And as a warning to the tyrant, pray that your justice comes in this world, that the entrance to the next stays open. For if you live this life in defiance of God, if you are an unjust ruler, abusing your authority in your home, your Church, or your government, and justice doesn't come to you this side of eternity…then the justice which that come against you on the other side, will be an unending blaze of judgment continually burning forth from the throne of the God you hate. With flames of neon righteousness, His perfect justice will crush and punish you for your tyranny across eons of endless time. 

If you are ruling over another, as verse 9  tells us, it is to your own hurt, if your rule and reign stands in contrast to the words of Scripture. You are heaping hot coals of burning indignation atop your own head. With every unbiblical law and rule you enforce against those under you…you are stoking the fires of your own eternal condemnation, and a thousand oceans will never quench the fire. 

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And therein lies where all rule and law and authority finds its foundation. Yes I as the Pastor am the authority in this Church, yes the father is the authority in the home, and yes, the government is the authority in the civil sphere…but there is an authority above them. The Word of God. The Holy Bible. The, as 2nd Timothy 3:16 says, the theopneustos of God. The very breath of God has been inscripturated for us, and it is the final say in all of life. Hebrews 4:11 in speaking of the Scripture, says that it is “living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”

To any tyrant that may hear these words, be you a tyrant in your Home, your Church, or your Nation, repent of your sin and believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And the punishment that your tyranny has earned you, your tyranny against your family, against your Church or against your Nation, will be accounted to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and His righteousness will be given to you. Bow your knee, willingly, to the unchanging Word of God, enforce His rules and laws toward your family, your Church, or your Nation, and see the flourishing bounty that results from a Family that loves God, a Church that loves God, and a Nation that loves God.