The Harshness of Life | Ecclesiastes 3:16-4:3

We are back in our study in Ecclesiastes.

It is the fifth of the series.

So if you have not heard the earlier ones,

be sure, check out our YouTube or sermon podcast page.

We're jumping right in.

Last time we covered perhaps the most famous passage

in Ecclesiastes, one of the most famous passages

in the whole entire Bible, a season or a time for everything.

And we concluded that our God does indeed

make everything beautiful in its time.

He alone seeks the most beautiful results,

even if for a time it appears to be chaos.

And while our limited perspective of the times

makes it seem like everything is in a ruined rhythm,

we should heed the wisdom of Solomon.

And we should consider that even though the times ebb and flow,

there is great purpose from a sovereign creator.

Now today, we're continuing the second section of the book.

And the outline is up on the screen

of what we've covered so far.

The second section is the proof that all is vanity.

And today, we're going to unpack the third argument of Solomon

in this section, the harshness of life.

Now injustice, that is a fire starter of a term.

What is justice?

What comes to your mind when you hear the term?

When someone mentions justice, do you

think of earthly or heavenly justice first?

Now so much could be said about justice in our day.

That term has been commandeered by political and social

activists to fit personal agendas.

But that's nothing new.

Consider this statement.

In our culture, we're often more concerned with seeing justice

than actually having it.

I would say that I think we're often more focused on here

and now justice to make the wrongs right.

And we want that immediately.

And we don't like to wait for judgment.

To the average person, justice or judgment deferred

is no justice at all.

And that's what we need to be careful of.

Here's a comparison I would make similar

to that Calvinistic soteriology that so many of us

love that needs to be tempered.

Just like our eschatological view of justice

needs to be tempered.

And here's what I mean.

With a Calvinistic view of salvation,

it's often weaponized by those who

don't like what God's word says about who chooses salvation.

Here's the view in Calvinism, right?

It's not Calvinism, it's biblical theology.

With that view of salvation, God chooses

who is saved and not man.

And it's a weakness that people misapply the theology

and get hyper focused on God's choosing.

We get so focused on God chooses, God chooses,

God chooses, so we say, what's my personal responsibility?

And we miss the other biblical imperatives

to bring the gospel to the lost.

So we need to temper that theology.

Yes, God chooses.

He holds the pen that writes the names in the Lamb's Book

of Life, not us.

But he has not made us to be robots.

He graciously invites us to be co-laborers in his mission

to bring glory to himself by redeeming his creatures.

So we don't neglect personal ministry

even while we affirm God's sovereignty and salvation.

We hold those things in tension.

Now similarly, when it comes to eschatological justice,

that's end times justice, ultimate justice,

we can affirm on the one hand that one day God

will execute perfect justice.

And suffering will finally have an end.

Wickedness will have an end.

But we can't become so focused on God's eternal judgment

that we miss our personal responsibilities here and now

to execute justice when we have the opportunity to do so.

In other words, our understanding

of God's ultimate judgment of the wicked

should not encourage us just to wait and do nothing.

We shouldn't say, well, God will deal with that.

Therefore, I don't have to worry.

Instead, we should be patient.

We should wait for God's perfect justice.

But we should also be active in our personal pursuit

of justice in the realms of life that God has given us,

in what he has given us.

And this is a great difficulty with our culture

today specifically.

You've heard the chant, no justice, no peace.

Threats that unless some personal understanding

of justice is pursued, then people

are going to riot and throw a grown up temper tantrum.

Do you not see it?

You can see the tension.

On the one hand, God himself is just, and he pursues justice.

But on the other hand, we are not

given perfect justice, this side of glory.

So we keep chasing it.

And every generation has their pursuit of justice

because every generation has their perpetrators

of injustice.

Some pursuits of justice are unique.

Some are based on cultural movements and the time

that they exist.

And some are based on reform from wicked leaders.

Think of some of the modern wicked leaders that we've had.

Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot.

Some of you, if you don't know those names, you need to learn.

Even Wikipedia can help you out.

In the ancient world, what were some of the wicked leaders?

Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Jeff will love this one.

Sargon II, Sennacherib, those are for you.

How about in Israel?

Rehoboam?

Manasseh?

What if I even told you Solomon himself at times

was a wicked ruler?

All kinds of leaders and even all of us

are actually perpetrators of injustice.

We don't like to think about that.

Sometimes, something that will be brought to our attention

today is that power has a corrupting nature.

Power in the hands of fallen man has a corrupting nature.

Some of you like those Batman movies

that came out a while ago, actually, believe it or not.

There's a character.

He's a politician at the time.

Through an accident, he'll see himself disfigured.

He'll become this anti-hero villain guy.

But he said this.

He said, you either die a hero or you

live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

There's a morbid truthfulness to that statement.

Part of that scene references Julius Caesar,

one who received power to protect others,

but ended up using it improperly.

And that's the point of the quote.

People are stuck in this cycle of not having justice,

pursuing it, and then being perpetrators of injustice.

And all of that is strikingly similar to Solomon's

observations that the world and the events of the world,

they cycle to and fro.

We talked about this last time.

The seasons keep changing, but they always keep coming.

The sun rises, and the sun sets, and the sun rises again.

People pursue greatness only to hand off their accomplishments

to others.

And even the one who pursues justice

may find themselves the villain, perpetrating that

which they profess to hate.

And so Solomon says, vanity of vanities.

All is vanity.

And while that may make this whole life seem

hopeless and pointless, let us remember,

this book was not written to discourage.

It was written as a wisdom book to wound us from behind,

to strike us when we're not ready,

when we're ill-prepared to handle the needed truth.

It's as much a reality check for the activist justice seeker

as it is for the overpatient eschatological sovereigntyist.

I made up that word.

Justice is and will be pursued by God.

All things one day will be made right.

Yet we're also to pursue the shadows of God's justice

here and now with the wisdom that God provides.

Now, as you consider such heavy themes,

a reasonable question that might be bubbling up in your heart

may be, well, so why does God tarry?

You might ask, why does he make us wait for perfect justice?

Why not fix everything right now?

Now, we'll address these questions and thoughts today,

but we need to look at the text so we

can begin working through the wisdom of God

through Solomon.

So open your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 3.

Ecclesiastes 3 · chapter mention

And please, stand for the reading of God's word.

As Jeff noted, we honor God's word

and we desire to learn from him.

We're picking up in verse 16, and you

can follow along as I read.

Furthermore, I've seen under the sun

that in the place of justice, there is wickedness.

And in the place of righteousness,

there is wickedness.

I said in my heart, God will judge both the righteous man

and the wicked man for a time for every matter

and for every work is there.

I said in my heart, concerning the sons of men,

God is testing them in order for them

to see that they are but beasts.

For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts

is the same fate for each of them.

As one dies, so the other, and they all have the same breath.

So there's no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity.

All go to the same place.

All came from the dust and all return to the dust.

Who knows that the breath of man ascends upward

and the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth?

I've seen that nothing is better than that man

should be glad in his works, for that is his portion.

For who will bring him to see what will occur after him?

Then I looked again at all the acts of oppression

which are being done under the sun.

And behold, I saw the tears of the oppressed

and that they had no one to comfort them.

And on the side of their oppressors was power,

but they had no one to comfort them.

So I lauded the dead who are already dead,

more than the living who are still living,

but better off than both of them

is the one who has never been,

who has never seen the evil work

that is done under the sun.

You can take a seat.

You can tell there's a lot to unpack here.

We're gonna walk through this passage,

and I pray at the end that you will be encouraged

that even through this harshness of life,

God is still good.

He is doing good even when we don't see his goodness.

Now you probably noticed as we were reading

that I've grouped the first three verses of chapter four

with the conclusion of chapter three.

There are times when the chapter or verse breaks,

they don't complete the unit of thought,

and I think this is one of those times.

As you look at the theme of this section,

some big ones jump out.

Injustice, oppression, righteousness,

judgment, death, the afterlife.

Thinking through how Solomon has progressed

through his arguments so far,

I wanna draw you back to that outline.

So you can look on the screen

if you need to be reminded here.

We're picking up today,

having heard about the nature of time.

Even though time seems like a tyrant,

God makes everything beautiful in its time.

And it's after this beautiful poetry

in verses one through eight,

and this very clear teaching

about God being sovereign over time,

that Solomon follows up in verse 16

with what about-ism?

What about injustice?

What about oppression?

Are those beautiful in their time?

What about us being no better off than the beast?

So chapter three opens by making the case

for trusting God and enjoying the simple pleasures,

because life is given and received,

not to be grasped and manipulated.

But then in verse 16, he pivots,

and he points out there's a harshness to this life as well.

And that continues through chapter four, verse three.

Even when good things, like justice,

are supposed to be here, they're not.

And that is vanity of vanities.

So looking at verse 16,

he says, I've seen under the sun

that in the place of justice, there is wickedness.

Now, the translation is interesting here.

So a court of law is actually in view, a place of justice.

This is a physical location.

It's under the sun.

It's somewhere you expect justice to be, a court of law.

But justice isn't there.

Now, think back, actually.

We're gonna have to draw our minds back away

from today's courts.

Don't get us started on that.

Maybe an Unshakable Series can talk about today's courts.

But let's think about the ancient Near East.

The courts were associated with the king.

The king would be responsible if there was no justice.

What a tragic circumstance when those who are innocent

are judged to be guilty

and the guilty judged innocent.

I'll let you ponder the implication of the gospel there.

Now, there is a clearer rendering of the poetry here.

It's a statement that is interesting.

He says, the place of justice, injustice was there.

The place of righteousness, wickedness is there.

He's saying the opposite thing that you expect is present.

Now, I think these also provide further evidence

of Solomon's repentance and his humility.

Do you remember how the queen of Sheba

came to see Solomon early on as his reign was established?

She said this, blessed be Yahweh your God

who delighted in you to set you on the throne of Israel

because Yahweh loved Israel forever and get this part,

therefore he made you king to do justice and righteousness.

Do you see what Solomon was appointed to do?

To do justice and righteousness.

That's why he was set as king.

But here in Ecclesiastes,

Solomon has been king over Israel for decades.

He's fallen from favor, he let his heart stray away

from the good God who set him as king,

who gave him wisdom and riches

beyond any before him or after him.

And he writes in Ecclesiastes, looking back on his life,

considering the wisdom that he abandoned in vain pursuits.

And he brings it back to his purpose as king.

He was supposed to ensure that justice

and righteousness were accomplished.

And yet what is his observation now?

You see the contrast on the screen.

He was supposed to do it, but it's not there.

Now to be fair, this is my observation

about Solomon's observation.

It's not the application of the passage,

but it's something I noticed

and I think is important for us.

So many modern scholars reject Solomonic authorship.

They reject Solomon being coheel it.

But I think there's a point here that we need to heed.

I mentioned that in the ancient Near East,

the courts were associated with the king.

And as many of you know, the kings in that day

were often viewed as deities or extensions of deities.

The king could do no wrong.

You remember how Pharaoh was viewed as a god

by the Egyptians?

Don't forget that our God put him in his place.

Now, do you also remember how Ahasuerus, king over Esther,

was tricked by wicked Haman to make a law

allowing for the slaughter of the Jews

throughout his empire?

And the only way to correct that law was not to delete it

because once the king writes it down,

he can't get rid of it.

They had to write a new law.

No king could be wrong to even make the claim

that the courts, the courts over which the king presides,

are deeply flawed, corrupt even,

would be to undermine the entire monarchy.

So if Solomon, the greatest king the world had seen,

penned this letter in his own name

and made such observations about the imperfection

of what people were indoctrinated to believe were perfect,

he would have undermined and cast into doubt

the whole system of monarchies and rulers

and it would have promoted anarchy and chaos.

So he wrote under a pseudonym.

He's still casting doubt on the imperfections

of a broken world, but he has more finesse.

Instead of coming at this issue with an uppercase,

he approaches with a jab and a body shot.

The way he writes in 316 gives the impression of shock.

Things shouldn't be this way.

What backwardsness is this?

In 317, he continues, he knows how to answer that question

before it escapes his lips because it's in his heart.

He knows that no one will escape judgment

and we read that in the call to worship today out of Psalm 10.

No one gets one over on God.

People may think that there's no one

to hold them accountable for their actions,

but they are sorely mistaken.

God will judge both the righteous

and the wicked man at the right time.

Using the same language as the earlier half of the chapter,

Solomon reminds the reader that there will be a time

for judgment, a time for fairness,

a time for proper retribution,

but that time is not now.

It is yet in the future.

God will.

So just like the times and the seasons,

injustice and wickedness will have an end.

They won't last forever.

They'll end temporally just as the seasons change

and there are ages of prosperity and ages of despondency,

but eternally, God will bring everything into judgment.

So we still ask our question, why does God delay?

Why does he yet tarry?

And I think verse 18 answers.

It's an uncomfortable truth for us, but he says this.

God is testing them in order for them to see

that they are but beasts.

I don't think many of us like that answer.

Think about it.

In our most painful and vulnerable moments,

we weep and we wail, we mourn at our sufferings,

we scream and we cry out to the Almighty

expecting to make sense of this chaos.

And when we look at his word and we try to make sense

of all of this, when everything's backwards

and it's not as it ought to be,

we're struck with laser precision by God's wisdom.

God is testing us in order for us to see

that we are but beasts.

There are several ways to transform our lives.

There are several ways to translate this verse.

I appreciate the CSB for utilizing the phrase

children of Adam.

It's a direct transliteration.

There's nothing wrong with the other versions

using children of man.

I just appreciate the call back to the garden,

the fall of man into sin.

And I think that's in view here.

Remember the issue of Adam and Eve being kicked

out of the garden.

We talked about this last time.

It was their attempt at equality with God.

The serpent knew this.

You remember what he said.

For God knows that in the day you eat of it,

your eyes will be opened and you will be like God.

He tempts them with wanting to be like God,

but they already were.

They alone were created in his image.

They alone had privilege over the entire animal kingdom

and they abandoned blessing for burden.

They wanted to be like God, but in improper ways.

And so how does God respond?

In Genesis three verses 22 through 23,

you see it on the screen,

but I'm gonna highlight just one part.

God said, behold, the man has become like one of us.

And that was not a compliment.

It was an accusation.

They attempted equality with God

and that's the essence of a sinful heart.

We want to be God's, do we not?

We want authority.

We want everything to happen our way.

Who doesn't?

We want to rule and reign.

We want to get whatever we want

and not one human escapes that innermost desire.

Have you ever met a toddler?

It is in us from the youngest of ages

to get what we want.

Get what we want, only by God's grace

can we even conceive that we are but beasts.

We are creatures, not the creator.

Bearing witness to the brokenness of this world,

enduring the suffering of those who pursue wickedness,

that is our lot because we brought condemnation

to this world.

We did.

Do you believe Romans five, verses 17 and 18?

I'll put it on the screen.

Specifically, you can look at verse 18.

As through one transgression,

there resulted condemnation to all men.

But the good news, even so, through one act of righteousness,

there resulted justification of life to all men.

In that first man, and we sang about it this morning,

death and destruction came.

In the best man came life and justification and salvation.

If we believe this basic tenet of the gospel,

that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,

that sin is inherited, it is bred into us

from the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden,

and that in spite of our sin, God has made a way

for redemption, in spite of our sin,

God has made a way for us to be forgiven.

If we believe all of this,

we also need to believe Ecclesiastes 3, 18.

We're but beasts.

Our enduring of suffering is due to our ushering in

of a broken world.

We brought the broken world in.

The transgression of the one

was the transgression of us all.

Was it not?

Yet, even as we are similar to beasts,

we are also special and distinct

because we all try to usurp God's authority.

So without God's particular grace,

we are but beasts, like the ones that Adam

was supposed to name and looked after in the garden.

So enduring this harshness of life

exposes us for what we are, counterfeit gods.

We act like we're in control.

We act like we make our lives to be this or that.

We act like we're in the driver's seat of our destiny,

and our American dream mentality doesn't help us

in this modern age.

Like we could manifest our destiny, can we?

We're no gods.

We are beasts.

Ecclesiastes 3, 19 makes it clear

that death is our equalizer.

Death is what draws our comparison to the beasts

of the earth that we were intended to care for.

Now surely we're not the same as beasts,

but in comparison to the Almighty,

we're not the same as beasts.

We are the same.

We have a lot more in common with fellow creatures

than with the Creator.

Everything under the sun that breathes

will one day cease to breathe.

That is how we are similar.

And while that word for breath

is sometimes translated as spirit,

your Bible may say spirit,

Ecclesiastes translates as wind.

Animals and humans don't have the same spirit.

It's important to note that.

We can compassionately care for pets and sweet animals.

Maybe this is an episode for Unshakable

down the line as well for another time.

But in Ecclesiastes,

throughout the first three chapters of the book,

there's multiple usage of that word, ruchach.

If you wanna speak in Hebrew,

you gotta get your phlegm going.

And it's rendered as wind.

Prior to this verse, it's wind.

Not one time in Ecclesiastes is it spirit.

Not here.

In most cases, it's used to emphasize the vanity,

the vapor, the soap bubbles that we all chase in this life.

And here's the thing.

Given the nature of comprehension

given to mankind over beasts,

I don't think beasts need to be reminded like we do.

I've seen some incredibly intelligent creatures.

Apes that paint and practice sign language.

I don't know how they do that.

Dolphins that remember and strategize.

Octopus and squirrels that overcome

some of the most complex challenges.

Thank you to Mark Rober in YouTube for showing us that.

But never have I seen other creatures build a tower

to reach to the heavens to declare their own glory.

I've never seen other creatures build and craft idols

and statues for worship.

And I've never seen beasts crown kings

and create laws for good and evil.

These are just some of our distinctions.

We have such great capacities over our fellow beasts.

And yet, we have no advantage over them.

At least not for that materialistic mind.

We'll come back to this in a minute.

Just remember that vanity is for the person

who has no hope, no God, and no savior.

For the unbeliever, there's no advantage over the beast.

Listen to that.

For the unbeliever, there is no advantage over the beast.

All will die.

All is vanity for the unbeliever.

But the beasts don't need to be reminded

of their beastly station.

We do.

We need to be reminded.

And so verse 20 reminds us.

All go to the same place.

All came from the dust and all return to the dust.

This is another reminder of Genesis 3.

We read it when we were considering the sons of Adam,

how great our sin is when we try to be God when we're not.

There's a couple of verses that harken back here

that are on the screen.

You can read them.

We were taken from the dust.

In creation, Yahweh God formed man of the dust of the ground.

It's interesting that to be a living creature,

man received God's breath.

Another translation there of the word breath.

But when we die, our breath goes somewhere else.

From the dust we came and back to the dust we will go.

But death wasn't the goal.

Death is what came due to sin.

In Genesis 2, everything was good.

Man had received the breath of life

and death was not present.

It is our sin and our disobedience, our love for ourselves,

our desire to be like God and distort the goodness

of creation that brings about our exile

from God's perfect presence.

That's why he says, until you return to the ground,

because from it you were taken, for you are dust.

And to dust you shall return.

One scholar put it this way.

He said, Ecclesiastes 3.20 confronts us

with the reality of the fall and the irony

that we die like cattle because we fancied ourselves as gods.

Now for a time, we go back to dust, everyone.

But in God's brilliant and gracious plan,

as we read in Romans 5 earlier,

as we heard in the call to worship in Psalm 10,

the forever King will one day make things good again.

He will.

That brokenness will be fixed.

It will be restored.

Creation will be renewed.

The breath of life will finally and fully be given,

not taken away, to be enjoyed from everlasting

to everlasting.

Even though we don't deserve it,

even though we are actually the wicked,

he'll be gracious and give us his righteousness.

He'll give us his mercy and kindness.

And a response will give him the praise due his great name.

Ecclesiastes 3.21 poses a question

that makes it seem like Solomon is unaware

of the distinctness between man and beast.

However, the nature of him describing upward and downward

denotes that he has some idea.

Now I think Solomon is causing

that materialistically minded person,

that person who focuses on here and now

to question what they know.

He's almost asking the reader,

do you know what comes next?

He says, I do.

I know that God brings everything into judgment.

I know my frame.

I know my failures.

Do you?

Have you considered what is to come?

I mentioned earlier that some translations

refer to breath as spirit,

and they're the similar sense.

I just prefer the word breath

because it's more on point with the drawback to creation

and what God provided.

But what comes after we die?

Do we know what comes after we die?

Do we ascend to the heavens and do beasts to sheol?

Now Psalm 49 provides clarity to this question.

I'll put a portion on the screen in a moment.

You can study it later.

It's a great Psalm.

Don't give Jeff a hard time for not covering it.

He's done a ton already,

and he's giving us breadth and depth throughout the Psalms.

And he's still probably gonna finish the Psalms

before I finish Ecclesiastes.

So be gracious with him.

Now as you look at Psalm 49,

I'll show you on the screen here.

I'm sorry, it's very small.

If you wanna look it up in your Bible, go for it.

But I wanted you to see a few key things.

You'll note at the top in your Bibles,

it says a Psalm from the sons of Korah.

Now there's a wild history of this priestly line.

At this time in Psalm 49,

they're the choir and orchestral masters in David's court,

King David's court.

David, who is Solomon's father,

the sons of Korah instructed the people

through song during David's reign.

Solomon would have had a front row seat

while he was growing up to all of these songs.

And I'll say that many of you may not realize the blessing

of sitting under the musical leading of Grant

here at Oak Hill.

Even as we're about to hear about Solomon

quoting the songs he heard decades before

he penned Ecclesiastes,

think how blessed we are by the leading of Grant

when he ushers us toward Christ through song.

Not just Grant, but we're thankful for everyone

who serves on the worship and praise team,

helping us to worship well through song.

It's important these truths get cemented into our hearts.

Now as you look at the screen,

Psalm 49 is up there, just some selected verses.

But really take note of verses 10 through 15.

In verse 10, the sons of Korah are instructing the people

that both the wise and the foolish die.

And that's something Solomon's already started.

Ecclesiastes 2, 14, and 15.

There are actually quite a few parallels here

with the first few chapters of Ecclesiastes.

In my estimation, this is yet another reason

to identify Solomon as the author of Ecclesiastes.

And what an encouragement that would be to us.

That the same man who sat at the feet of those choir masters

in his father David's court as a young man

has finally come to his senses

and remembered the wisdom that had been on display

for him since he was a child.

Verse 11 points out the absurdity of humans thinking

that the little kingdoms we build will last forever.

But then verse 12, we see that man is not esteemed,

is not honored in his death because he's like a what?

An animal, a beast.

And then in verse 13 and following,

we get more clarity for where we are here in Ecclesiastes.

The one who is like an animal,

is the foolish one, they're like the beast.

Because they trust in themselves, their wealth,

their possessions, their land, and trusting wrongly,

who do they get shepherded by?

Death.

They get shepherded by death.

But God, for those who are upright,

redemption is possible, but it's costly.

And that's why I put the first two chapters

on the screen, you see there's a question,

who can ransom his brother?

It's at great cost.

Now those who are upright, that word upright

means those who practice two things,

justice and righteousness.

The same two things that Solomon was supposed to practice

as the king and the same two things

that are not present in his kingdom.

For such a person to be ransomed as an upright person,

and as you see in verses seven and eight,

God has to work mightily.

None are upright by themselves, we know that.

But according to verse 15, God can redeem

and receive such a person.

If you were to continue reading this passage,

you'd see it closes with this line in verse 20.

Man in his honor, but who does not understand,

and who does not know,

man in his honor, but who does not understand,

is like the animals that perish.

The whole point here is that riches and wealth and legacy,

they're not what endures.

Death comes and the one who's not trusting in God,

but trusting in self will be woefully disappointed

at what comes after death.

For that person, all is vanity.

So we do know who ascends upward and who downward,

but do you?

That's what Solomon's asking.

It's meant to jolt you awake,

to make sure that you're not sleeping on life,

to make sure that you don't just waddle through this life,

making mediocre decisions that don't mean anything.

He's saying, wake up.

Do you know that you only gather for a time?

Do you know where you are going in the end?

He offers a salve for the materialistically-minded person

in verse 22, for the person pondering that question,

who doesn't know what's gonna happen,

who wonders where they'll go after they die.

Solomon gives a temporary solution.

He says, be glad in your works.

That's your lot.

Be glad in your works.

Be glad in your works, if you have no eternal hope,

if you have no everlasting rest to look forward to,

then enjoy the rat race while you're here,

because what comes next will offer no respite.

For such a person, you should live your best life now.

Yolo, Carpe Diem, why?

Because death is coming.

And so you see that the person who does not know

God is king must live that way.

Now, the final question of this chapter

should bid a person to pause.

He asks, who knows what will occur after death?

What do you know?

How do you know?

In Solomon's day, there was less surety,

but we do know one who has come back from death into life.

Now, according to Psalm 49,

even Old Testament saints had an understanding

of eternal life for those who are ransomed by God.

They appealed to this teaching whenever earthly suffering

proved to be too overwhelming.

But here's the problem, like us,

it took suffering to be sobered.

Suffering sobers us to the reality that we are creatures.

We are beasts.

We are beasts and God is creator.

God is king.

And our great struggle is humans.

Every generation, your parents, your grandparents,

your kids, your grandkids, your extended relatives,

every generation forgets God and doesn't live rightly.

We all live as if we're gonna be here forever.

We make decisions that seem so important

to us here and now.

And yet one day, our life is gonna prove to be

nothing more than just the grains of sand

and the sands of time.

That's it.

But we don't lose hope

because those in Christ have great hope.

We're gonna close with that in a moment,

but we need to finish the thought

that Solomon gives us here to jolt us awake.

And he continues in chapter four, verse one.

He looks at these acts of oppression

and in looking at oppression, at injustice,

Solomon says there is no comfort under the sun,

no comfort for the one who's being oppressed

and no comfort for the oppressor,

even if the oppressor has power for a time.

This is why reform never truly lasts.

Have you ever wondered why don't things get better?

This is why.

The reformer wields more and more power

trying to fix what is broken,

but as they get more power, what happens?

They become a tyrant.

And the cycle continues.

They become the very thing that they hated.

Do we not see that in our political systems?

Do we not see that across the countries of this world

in this age, much less in ages past?

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Do you find it interesting

that Solomon puts the oppressor and the oppressed

in the same camp, both devoid of comfort

and yet desiring it?

Under the sun, without a savior, no one is comforted,

whether they're being sinned against

or sinning against others.

The reality is that everyone needs a comforter,

but Solomon knew who brings comfort.

His dad penned Psalm 23 and Psalm 86.

David boldly professed, not just at the end of his life,

in the early years of his life,

that amidst the valley of death, God alone brings comfort.

David knew that in times of trouble, God was his comfort.

Do you think that David passed that on to his son as well?

Do you think Solomon was blind to who brings comfort?

Do you think that he was asking the question

as if he didn't know the answer?

Solomon knows who brings comfort.

He's asking us, the reader, to pay attention.

It's like he's saying, do you see that those afflicted

and those doing the afflicting both have a need?

Even if the oppressor appears to be in power for a time,

he is in no better position.

And so it's like Solomon is saying this to the reader,

where does your comfort come from?

Is your comfort in your situation?

Is your comfort in your power?

If so, you have no comfort at all.

But if your comfort is in the living God,

if your comfort is in the living God, as David's was,

you have true and lasting comfort,

comfort that rescues, comfort that redeems,

comfort that ransoms your soul.

We read about it, we sang about it.

But if you don't have this comfort,

then the next two verses are meant to rock you

as you think about this life.

Verses two and three of chapter four,

they're the saddest part of this whole entire book.

They're in response to verse one.

We already read this.

Have you ever wished that you had never been born?

Have you ever wanted your life to end

so that all your troubles would be over?

Have you ever responded to severe trouble

like Jeremiah or Elijah,

despairing life itself?

One commentator restated this point.

He said, if the question is to be or not to be,

then maybe it's better not to be.

But that outlook is for the materialistic mind,

for the person who lives according to the flesh,

for the person who doesn't look beyond present sufferings,

for the person who doesn't live with Christ

as their king, for that person, all is vanity.

And Solomon is not encouraging the reader

to focus their thinking this way.

He is lamenting the wickedness of this world,

and he is acknowledging that there is a particular pain

for those who endure the evil work under the sun.

He's not saying that there's no point in life,

and he's not advocating for God to take his life.

You remember that when Elijah and Jonah had wished death,

they were both rebuked by God for such an attitude.

This acknowledgement from Solomon

is more like the lament from Jeremiah 20,

or chapter 20, verse 18.

He said, why did I ever come forth from the womb

to look on such trouble and sorrow?

He laments.

In Job 3, Job says, let the day perish on which I was born.

He laments because of the hardship of this life.

And you see that similar tone of lament

here with Solomon in chapter 4.

This response from Solomon when he lauds,

or we don't use that word,

when he commends the dead as more fortunate than the living,

it's a lament over the harshness of life,

because where justice is supposed to be, there is none.

Humans are but beasts.

Death comes to every breathing creature.

The oppressed have no comfort,

and those oppressing have no comfort.

Living this life is hard.

And those who have not yet experienced it,

those who've been released from it through death

are better off than those who are still stuck in it.

So we strive after wind.

We chase what we think will bring us lasting satisfaction

and happiness, only to find that the wind

we should have been chasing is the breath of the living God,

the one who gives, the one who creates,

the one who redeems from his very words.

So this lament of Solomon should jar us awake.

If you've been living with that YOLO, Carpe Diem attitude,

and you've been forgetting that your life is not your own,

that you've been bought for a price,

then stop, stop in your tracks and take stock of your life.

This life is not the best that there is.

If this is the best that it is, then it's pointless,

and we should wish for death over life.

That is the natural response for a person

focused on the wrong things.

But if you fear God, if you are loved by his son, Jesus,

then you love him in return,

and you have a new and living hope.

All is not lost.

As harsh as this life is, this momentary suffering

pales when compared to eternal glory.

Friends, these are heavy things.

We have to reconcile that oppression is going to occur,

but we can't be filled with fear,

nor can we try to act as if we're gods

and try to fix everything.

Instead, we need wisdom from above.

We need to pray for our leaders.

We need to act wisely before God.

We need to remember there are many who are just beasts,

who are gonna be shepherded to Sheol by death,

but that there are also those who are going to be ransomed,

those who deserved punishment,

who acted unjustly,

and yet receive grace because of God.

That's our privilege,

to walk in the newness of life that God has created for us.

A thousand years after Solomon,

Paul was writing to his disciple Timothy.

He gave instructions that you see on the screen

in 1 Timothy chapter two.

I find it incredibly practical,

but I also think of the irony,

because Paul references kingly authority,

which we've seen on display throughout Ecclesiastes.

Solomon as king needed these instructions.

King needed these kinds of prayers.

But look at what great an advocate we have in Christ.

Jesus is the one promise from the Old Testament,

even in Psalm 49, to ransom us from our sin.

God of very God, coming to this life under this son,

to redeem us as sons at the proper time.

In the fullness of time, he will come again.

He will repay everyone for what they have done.

Don't be fooled, God is not mocked.

So let us pray for mercy.

Let us ask God to help us pursue justice

and righteousness for his namesake,

that we would honor him for the life that he's given.

I wanted to close today with a quote

from one of the books that I've enjoyed.

I've quoted it before.

It's called, Recovering Eden,

the gospel according to Ecclesiastes by Zach S. Wine.

And he's writing about the connection of Jesus

with this sense of hopelessness that we feel

when all is not right.

When the difficulties that we face seem to overwhelm us.

He writes about the nature of the gospel,

and he says this,

we long for empathy, and it's often in short supply.

And the whole picture given in the Bible

is that God has entered life under the son

and in Jesus, taken it all.

So when you're sitting sad in your chair, in your living room,

the message for you is that Jesus knew the times.

He too cried as you cry.

He too has been abandoned,

the same way some of you have been abandoned.

He too has overcome the way many of you have overcome.

He too has sung with poetry

and the brokenness of betrayal like some of you.

He too has died as we all will.

But in him, the sting of death has died.

And to that, I say amen.

Indeed, through Christ, the sting of death has died.

I'm gonna leave you with a moment here

to consider these things.

And I would encourage you,

think about the harshness of life.

And think about our Savior

who takes on the harshest consequences

of a sin-soaked world,

ransoming lives at the greatest personal cost.

After you consider these for a moment,

I'll close us in prayer.

God, we need your help.

We need your help to think rightly about justice,

to think rightly about death,

about judgment, about oppression.

We need you to help convict us of our wrong thinking.

Especially when we don't understand

the nature of suffering under the sun.

God, we especially ask and need you to be our comfort.

May we not find comfort in our situations

or our perception of our personal power, influence,

in anything.

But may you be our comfort.

May our hope in Christ be our comfort.

And for any who doesn't have comfort this morning,

may they turn to you to find it.

God, we ask you to help us to be thankful

for the life that we have.

Help us to do justice.

Help us to do righteousness.

Help us to walk humbly with you.

We need your grace to better understand

the harshness of life under the sun.

But we also need your grace to help us enjoy

the work that you've given to us.

Still, may we remember that one day

you will bring everything into judgment.

But may we not fear that day.

May we worship you for ransoming believers

with the life of Christ.

The worthiest price paid for the leader of the world.

May we not be afraid of the world.

The most price paid for the least worthy of all.

May we see that to die in Christ

is to receive abundant life, finally and fully.

Help us be patient as we wait for your perfect timing.

That in the fullness of our time,

you would call us home to be with Jesus,

the perfect, just and righteous King.

So we ask you, help to lift our hearts towards you

as we continue to worship through song

in the same tradition that David and the sons of Korah

and Solomon himself worshiped.

May we continue to worship,

singing and proclaiming truth unto your great name,

because you alone are worthy of our praise.

We pray this in the name and the work of Jesus Christ.

Amen.