Sermon Tone Analysis

Life’s not fair, but God is Good

>>>>FAIR LIFE OR FAITHFUL GOD?

Ecclesiastes 8:8–17

There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.

9 All this have I seen, and applied my heart unto every work that is done under the sun: there is a time wherein one man ruleth over another to his own hurt.

What is Solomon saying here?

The Message: 8 “No one can control the wind or lock it in a box.

No one has any say-so regarding the day of death.

No one can stop a battle in its tracks.

No one who does evil can be saved by evil.”

“9  Solomon continued to say, “All this I observed as I tried my best to understand all that’s going on in this world.

As long as men and women have the power to hurt each other, this is the way it is.

>>>>Solomon’s discoveries, experiences, and conclusion about life is - life is not fair!

Would you agree?

It is obvious as an observer of life that some people seem to sail through life untroubled—yet for others, one problem or tragedy seems to follow another.

These are the facts of life, life ‘under the sun’.

Life under the sun is not fair.

>>>>This is one reason Solomon’s conclusion about life was: VANITY of VANITIES, ALL IS VANITY!

>>>>The Apostle Paul said it this way in his first letter to the Corinthians:

If all we have is life under the sun - a life of 60, 70, 80, or 90 years of living - even in Christ - if this life is all there is, if there is not a resurrection, if Jesus did not resurrect from the dead, then we are of all men most miserable.

But thankfully Christ did rise again and in Christ we have the hope of resurrection and a new body.

So even when life is not fair, we are assured that God is faithful.

>>>>Solomon goes on to say Ecclesiastes 8:10 …

10 And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done: this is also vanity.

Solomon had witnessed wicked men given a “solemn burial” and these wicked men were given flowery eulogies in the very place where they had done their wicked deeds.

How can this be fair?

So Solomon continues to struggle with the matter of injustice in this world.

He is asking, why does the wicked seem to even prosper in death?

Yet the reality is: Death is the great equalizer between the wicked and the righteous (2:14–16).

If that is the case, Solomon observed and struggles - why then were the wicked honored with a proper burial (cf.

Job 21:32–33).

He had witnessed the wicked go in and out of the holy place, that is, the synagogue; and now they are honored with a funeral procession that begins at the synagogue.

To top it off, these men who were wicked in life, are praised in the city where they did their wicked deeds.

Solomon says: “This also is vanity.”

From a life under the S-U-N perspective, this doesn’t make sense; it is absurd.

It almost seems that it pays to be wicked.

The wicked can attend the synagogue during their lifetime and at the end of their life be honored with a splendid funeral and the praise of the people.

But let us not forget - that this is as good as it gets for the wicked.

One might ask, “Why should the wicked get a dignified burial?”

Well, God had decreed that all men should have a dignified and honorable burial.

Even criminals and enemies were afforded this right

 It may appear the wicked are getting an advantage in life and even in death, but let us remember that things are not always as they appear to be.

Verses 11 and 12 remind us there is a certain unpredictability about life.

Surely we can relate to the problem of injustice in North America.

Many crimes are never prosecuted.

Other crimes are prosecuted but smart lawyers can get their clients off the hook over technicalities.

Other sentences are delayed time after time, again often on a technicality.

This delay in punishing crime, Solomon contends, encourages people to do more evil.

In fact, in verse 12 he states that “sinners do evil a hundred times and prolong their lives.”

Solomon here faces the same problem he related in chapter 7:15, “There are righteous people who perish in their righteousness, and there are wicked people who prolong their life in their evil-doing.”

How can God allow wicked people to prolong their life in evil-doing?

It just doesn’t make sense.

Human wisdom cannot comprehend this inconsistency.

“Yet,” Solomon continues in verse 12, “I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they stand in fear before him, but it will not be well with the wicked, neither will they prolong their days like a shadow, because they do not stand in fear before God.”

At this point Solomon falls back on the teaching of traditional wisdom.

He wrote in:

(cf.

Prov 3:2; 9:10–11).

Living a life that honors God leads to a long life in many situations.

And in a perfect world, it will be well with the righteous and it will not be well with the wicked.

IN A PERFECT WORLD? - yet it is quite obvious that we do not live in a perfect world.

The wicked, says verse 13, will not “prolong their days like a shadow;” WHY? …because he (the wicked) does not fear the Lord.

So here is Solomon’s conclusion: the wicked will eventually be judged and the righteous will be rewarded (vv.

12–13), so it is better to fear the Lord and live a godly life.

The evil man may live longer than the godly man.

He may appear to get away with sin after sin, but the day of judgment will come and the wicked man will not escape.

Listen to Jesus in...

The day of vindication is coming.

>>>>No matter how long or full the wicked man’s life may seem to be, it is only prolonged like a shadow and has no substance (v.

13).

In fact, the shadows get longer as the sun is setting.

Solomon may be suggesting that the long life of the wicked man is but a prelude to eternal darkness.

What good is a long life if it is only a shadow going into the blackness of darkness forever (Jude 13)?

How should the wise person respond to the inequities and injustices in this world?

Certainly we should do all we can to encourage the passing of good laws and the enforcement of them by capable people, but even this will not completely solve the problem.

Until Jesus Christ sets up His righteous kingdom, there will always be injustices in our world.

It is one of the “vanities” of life, and we must accept it without becoming pessimistic or cynical.

Solomon forces us to face the real world.

In an ideal world, as verse 13 put it, “It will not be well with the wicked, neither will they prolong their days.”

Yet in the real world, according to verse 14, “There are righteous people who are treated according to the conduct of the wicked,” that is, they will not prolong their days, they die young.

“And there are wicked people who are treated according to the conduct of the righteous,” that is, they live to a ripe, old age.

Faced with and wrestling with this perplexity, Solomon in verse 15 repeats his earlier advice:

Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from Ecclesiastes: 216.

In spite of the injustice they see in this world, in spite of the troubling questions they cannot answer, wise people will seek to enjoy themselves in the life God gives them.

Remember, this admonition is not the foolish “eat, drink, and be merry” philosophy of the unbelieving hedonist.

Rather, it is the positive “faith outlook” of God’s children who accept life as God’s special gift and know that He gives us “all things richly to enjoy” (1 Tim.

6:17).

Instead of complaining about what we don’t have, we give thanks for what we do have and enjoy it.

The person who has to know everything, or who thinks he knows everything, is destined for disappointment in this world.

Through many difficult days and sleepless nights, Solomon applied himself diligently to the mysteries of life.

>>>>He came to the conclusion that “man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun” (v.

17; see 3:11; 7:14, 24, 27–28).

Perhaps we (humankind) can solve a puzzle here and there, but no man or woman can comprehend the totality of things or explain all that God is doing.

>>>>In the multivolume Story of Civiliation, historian Will Durant surveyed human history and came to the conclusion that “our knowledge is a receding mirage in an expanding desert of ignorance.”

Of course, this fact must not be used as an excuse for ignorance.

“The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; YES! but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut.

29:29).

God doesn’t expect us to know the unknowable, but He does expect us to learn all that we can and obey what He teaches us.

In fact, the more we obey, the more He will teach us

A confession of ignorance or lack of knowledge is the first step toward true knowledge.

The person who wants to learn God’s truth must possess honesty and humility and have the willingness to say “I do not know,” but I want to know.”

>>>>Harvard philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said, “Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge.”

Look back at verse 15.