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July 20, 2022 4:00 am
Why do bad things happen to good people often ask question and it's not unique to our current culture. The preacher in the book of Ecclesiastes was exasperated as he searched far and wide for the answer today will see his conclusions as Alistair Begg takes us to the book of Ecclesiastes unTruth for Life and I encourage you to take your Bible and turn again to Ecclesiastes chapter 8 and when you return there will pause and ask God to help us as we study the Bible that we acknowledge again that every word we hope to teach in every soul we long to reach is only by your grace, and so we look to the power of your Holy Spirit to enable us to think and to respond in a way that would welcome Christ to his rightful place within our lives. We seek your knowledge and his precious name. Amen.
Once again this morning as last time were going to deal not with the details of each of these chapters, but rather with the broad sweep off the professor's argument in coming to these two particular chapters. I was reminded of some words by Winston Churchill many years ago when he was referring to dialogue with the communist regime and he said this, trying to maintain a good relationship with the Communists is like wooing a crocodile, you do not know whether to tickle it on the chin or beats it over the head when it opens its mouth. You cannot tell whether it's trying to smile or preparing to eat you up and then he said when negotiating with them. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma struck me that that phrase is very descriptive of life itself, at least as it is given to us here in the chapters that we've been considering in Ecclesiastes over the Sunday mornings, our lives are very much like these Russian dolls and some of us have in our homes that if you look on the outside. You think that you've seen all that there is and you open it up and it opens only to discover another layer of life and then when you consider that for a moment or two and think you've unscrambled it. You open it again, only to discover that it reveals something else of yourself and then you open it again and find that once more. You are confronted by another layer and another guy mentioned and you open it again and eventually it seems you can just continue opening an opening an opening until you get down to the very core of things, but as we strive to make sense of our existence. Churchill's words seem very apropos life, a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
What I like to do this morning is give you for statements I'll tell you what they are, in a moment, but I like to begin at the seventh arson of chapter 9 go eat your food with gladness and drink your wine with a joyful heart for it is now that God favors what you do always be clothed in white and always anoint your head with oil first reading. It may appear that the preacher has determined that that would be good for us just to have the broad outline of things and so he provides them in the space of a few sentences, but if you read on it's clearly not so he says in verse nine. Enjoy life with your wife whom you love. That's good. And then he adds all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun, and then he adds again all your meaningless days for this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave where you're going. There's neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom is as though he gives it with one hand and immediately takes it away with the other starts off so nicely.
Why don't you and for meal.
Why do you make sure you put on your best clothes little perfume would be very happy and helpful and if you're in the company of your wife. Make sure that you enjoy yourself and indeed if you are involved in the endeavors of the time, do it with all your might know yourself wholeheartedly into it all is, I want you to know your life is frankly meaningless that your days still mean much, and I just in case you are tempted to run away with some kind of forlorn notion of the future. Remember that you are heading for the gray. It was remarkable, isn't what is he said what he saying is essentially what is said again and again and again in different ways at different times.
Namely, this enjoy any pleasures that you may have before you while you can because you never know what God if he exists, may do to you tomorrow is what he said. From this perspective, he said you might as well go ahead and enjoy everything that you possibly can because frankly you don't know what tomorrow is going to bring, and you don't know if this God exists. Just exactly what he might do. Now this launched itself into the consciousness of the 20th century America in that dead point society people understood it from philosophy before carpe diem Quan minimum grade Juniper stared up just the whole quote from which we get our T-shirt carpe diem sees the present day trusts tomorrow as little as possible, said Horace, the British boy put a little more sick singly when he said gather your rosebuds while you may old time is still applying.
You've got a chance to go out and get some lovely flowers get them now because time is passing though soon will and you may will sooner than the flowers. Towards the end of the 20th century at his most banal level. The same philosophical posture was presented to us in Wayne's world, a movie which I did not see but so enough, all of in various contexts to realize that it send out the great and dad telling observation that given life as it is the best advice they could give to one another is party on dude and that was it. So whether it is a Horace carpe diem. With that it is the poet's name. I just forgotten. It may be ranking and gather your rosebuds while you may or whether it is Wayne's world party on. That's all that's the writer has to say. From this perspective, here's life. He says were looking at it.
It confronts us. We ask ourselves the question, why do bad things happen to good people and we are forced at the end of the day when we put all of the pieces up on the table simply to say that from the perspective under the sun.
There's really nothing for us to give a credible answer to ending the question itself is ultimately futile. Eventually our son will set our time will come to an end. Our day will be over and nothing will be left. The orchestra will play the crowd will disperse some never to return to another performance. It's all over now. Nothing left to say.
Just our dreams, and the orchestra fading know the reason that this is so striking is because although it was written thousands of years ago.
It has such a contemporary ring and some of his this morning if were very honest, although we may not want to acknowledge any to anyone around us have been thinking along these lines, and the thing we found most intriguing is this, that, given that some of us have already concluded that there is no place for a personal God who made us and before whom we will stand but a visual concluded that still find ourselves asking the why question and we know that the why question shouldn't exist because if our existence is tying placemats or plus chance then it possesses no inherent meaning in terms of our understanding on therefore whether a person is run over by a car picked up by a car. Sartre said it simply authenticates it existence, but it doesn't give meaning in any way to the larger scheme of things, and yet here we are realizing life as it ebbs and flows, and still asking ourselves the why question now I can tell you why you ask the why question even though you may deny your need to evolve or choose to stand back from a relationship with God. Paul tells us that God is Roth is revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of man, here's the phrase, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them, so God he says has created man has stamped man in his image, has given a sense of moral right and wrong has given him a sense of darkness has placed within him in eternity's perspective man turns his back on all of that and you cannot escape the why question why do I feel as I feel. Why is this is daunting as it is, why do I not have an explanation, and so on. Now in addressing this in chapters 8 and nine. The writer essentially says four things he actually says more than that for is all that we can handle in the time that is allowable to us. The first is life is unmanageable or if you like life is unfair. Life is as unfair as it is unmanageable. If your Bible is open in chapter 8, he was still a part of chapter 7 before you in the 15th verse of chapter 7 says in this meaningless life of mine. I've seen both of these are righteous men perishing in his righteousness, and the wicked man, living long in his wickedness is and what we saw that last time.
Yes we did. As I'm reminding you of it because I want to show it to you again.
It reoccurs within a very short space of time. The 14th verse of chapter 8. There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth, righteous men who get what the wicked deserve and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve. I imagine the schoolteacher he gets his eighth grade class tasted great question of 24 students says no not everyone on the left-hand side of the room gets an automatic a and everyone on the right-hand side of the room is an automatic yet this it will him and we haven't even we haven't even begun. The question no, well, that's not fair. Wells is the teacher. Why is it not fair where does the sense of fairness come from what is fear me. Why would you ever think that you deserve anything other than you think you're worthy of any on what basis and the teacher by that means begins to introduce his students moral philosophy and the very fact that they have a sense within them of the injustice of the air and the awareness of getting on a without any effort speaks again to this vast why question and the nature of man as a moral being and when you look at life from this perspective, you have to see it isn't.
It is fair. Lovely girls are raped on their way home from school, that's not fair. People cheat like crazy and live in big houses. That's not fair. People do their taxes and walk with rectitude and apparently keep taking it in the throat. That's not fair is what you say life he says is as unfair as it is unmanageable. Verses 17 and 18. At the end of chapter 8. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out man can discover its meaning even of a wise man claims he knows he cannot really comprehend its now you don't have to be a genius. You just need to think about your life and think about all that you've read in the newspaper this past week so the writer says I life is as unfair as it is unmanageable. Secondly, people are as unreliable as life is unfair, which of course a real burden because our lives are all about the are needed people, our relationships with people the importance of people the importance of friendship. And yet, what do we discover we discover that people can never unscramble for us the vastness of the human dilemma back in chapter 7 again will just start there. Don't pay attention to every word. People say is interesting is not your mother told you. Make sure you listen to everything the teacher says yes of course but don't pay attention to every word. People say why you may hear your servant cursing you dog around the office asking what everybody saying on the water cooler because you may actually find out. And when you find out is to make you feel very good and if you doubt that, just remember in your heart.
Many times you've cursed others. So when you find the people with the talking behind their hands. Don't be too quick to say excuse me, what was that I didn't quite catch that because when you find out what it was, you will discover, and you wish you hadn't asked because people are unreliable. That's the implications of verses 26 and following up chapter 7. They built in propensity for infidelity and here in that kind of relationship. It proves the emptiness and sadness of it all, but I think one little phrase in chapter 9 gets to the heart of it better than any in chapter 9 and verse 13 he has this little parable about a small city with only a few people in it and a big powerful king came against it and besieged it and there was in the city. A poor man. He says he was poor but he was wise, he saved the city by his wisdom, so you say to yourself I bet he got a big statue did Nate grabs a big plaque in the entry way to the city know that what he says one simple sentence, but nobody remembered that government he saved the city. Remember Mr. Mr. Hussein, the city, remember that I didn't have the job was no.
I don't remember why. Remember somebody say the city. I don't remember who saved the city. Don't count on anything as fleeting as public gratitude to float your boat. Don't count on anything as fleeting as public gratitude or a claim to make sense of your life and float you don't live with the illusion that everybody thinks you're great that you will be remembered and so on. And somehow or another on the basis of bad to help you go to sleep help you wake up. They won't remember us. They just won't remember us people are as unreliable as life is unfair.
Thirdly, the future is unpredictable is he. Can this get any worse wisely and can and it will.
The future is unpredictable. Verse seven of chapter 8 no man knows the future. Who can tell them what is to come.
Chapter 9 and verse one.
I reflected on all this and I concluded that of the righteous and the wise, and what they do it in God's hands, but no man knows with her love or hate awaits Chapter 11 obscene something else under the sun.
People run discover that the race is not to the swift on the battle to the strong notice food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant are favorites of the learned, but time and chance happen to them. I don't know how the game ended between Notre Dame and at USC. I care but I don't know who one good and her mother was an interesting little. Then the game was nor where it went. Interception and interception interception is when one went intercepted back intercepted back intercepted and then finally knockdown thing in the strangest strangest of touchdowns in just the just sitting in the tape, I can you believe this thought this would happen just like this.
Once the bombs are this way then a bunch of this week, then it bounces this week and it doesn't matter whether these are 285 pound gorilla or whatever it was, the porcelain got to the ball first on the knockdown.
He bubbled all over the place and the boy than on the ground. He finally came and got there. Why was that why was that it is and from this perspective, that's life. Why are you in this office just happened why you finishing this college course.
I don't highest and I decided what you plan on doing tomorrow, are you sure tomorrow.
No, in the best I can do is go with Annie. You know the sun will come up tomorrow.
Apparently beyond that I don't know how is he saying he sin is neither rhyme or reason to the events of history, there is neither rhyme or reason to the events of history. From this perspective. Viewed from under the sun, and there's no rhyme or reason to the events of the individual.
Why did this happen. Why have I experienced this. Why don't I make such a hash of that, why didn't I turn right on that point.
Why did she leave me that why did this, of course, this is a perennial question is not new, but it's very apropos is some of you may actually have been asking these questions in a strange way during these particular dates and the unpredictability of the future can press in upon our minds.
Indeed it does press and upon our minds in the first century BC man by the name of Lucretius described life is a fortuitous concourse of atoms. But what he saying was simply this, throw the dice of chance long enough and frequently enough the primeval's lying will spit out a Milton and give us this wonderful paradise lost and regained throw the dice again longer and more frequently and eventually may spit out for is a Shakespeare and all this wonderful material that can give to his insight into life and it spits out Hitler we have the Holocaust and it spits out Timothy McVeigh and we have Oklahoma City presented my friends. You are sensible people are you will you think this through with me, contemporary sophisticated men and women choose in their sophistication to deny the notion of the existence of a personal Creator God who has made them for the express purpose of knowing him, and before whom they will one day stand and give account of their lives. Beginning of the 21st century reveals no no I have no no no no such notion what and what do they fill the vacuum with just go in the bookstores, as understood in their icing loop home March multi cultural religious claptrap there is in this place, there is every imaginable notion that is right there so sophisticated man turns his back on God and he believes in time. He believes in chance he believes in mother nature and we live in a time where God is naturalized in nature is deified. So God is completely dethroned and nature is then from so here are some things we know are true. Life is unfair. People are unreliable in the future is unpredictable. That is, three of the four conclusions from the teacher. In Ecclesiastes, not a very uplifting start. Is it but hang in there you'll want to return tomorrow is Alistair Begg concludes this message titled the case against self-sufficiency your listing to Truth for Life every day here on Truth for Life.
We study the Bible together. However, more and more we can sense that believing in the Bible is increasingly countercultural.
So how do we as Christians navigate all of this.
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You can tap the image you see on your mobile app or visit us online at truthforlife.org/donate. I'm Bob Lapine, if today's message left you feeling a bit unhinged. Be sure to join us tomorrow for a whole gold conclusion will learn why you don't know how to live until you've learned how to die.
The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by truth with a Learning is for Living