As in the Father's Hands

Scripture Reading

Ecclesiastes 8:10–9:10 NKJV

Then I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of holiness, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done. This also is vanity. Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times, and his days are prolonged, yet I surely know that it will be well with those who fear God, who fear before Him. But it will not be well with the wicked; nor will he prolong his days, which are as a shadow, because he does not fear before God. There is a vanity which occurs on earth, that there are just men to whom it happens according to the work of the wicked; again, there are wicked men to whom it happens according to the work of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity. So I commended enjoyment, because a man has nothing better under the sun than to eat, drink, and be merry; for this will remain with him in his labor all the days of his life which God gives him under the sun. When I applied my heart to know wisdom and to see the business that is done on earth, even though one sees no sleep day or night, then I saw all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. For though a man labors to discover it, yet he will not find it; moreover, though a wise man attempts to know it, he will not be able to find it. For I considered all this in my heart, so that I could declare it all: that the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hand of God. People know neither love nor hatred by anything they see before them. All things come alike to all: One event happens to the righteous and the wicked; To the good, the clean, and the unclean; To him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As is the good, so is the sinner; He who takes an oath as he who fears an oath. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun: that one thing happens to all. Truly the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil; madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. But for him who is joined to all the living there is hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they will die; But the dead know nothing, And they have no more reward, For the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished; Nevermore will they have a share In anything done under the sun. Go, eat your bread with joy, And drink your wine with a merry heart; For God has already accepted your works. Let your garments always be white, And let your head lack no oil. Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life which He has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity; for that is your portion in life, and in the labor which you perform under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.

“It’s in God’s Hands,” we say when we aren’t sure what’s going to happen, and it’s out of our control. The surgery was a success, but the doctors tell you that we’ll find out once you recover - Well, it’s in God’s Hands. A Student takes a final exam he was worried about, and turns it in - it’s in God’s Hands, now. Two parents sit down at the table, and try to work out how to pay the finances for the umpteenth time. Well, it’s in God’s Hands.

What does that really mean, though? A Good God has our everlasting and eternal good in mind, but that doesn’t mean a life of ease. Sometimes, God blesses us with peace and comfort, sometimes even when we didn’t deserve it. Other times, we endure trials through no fault of our own. Very often, we can’t figure out why God would do either. Yet, we can and must continue to believe that a Good God has ordained all of it. To stop doing that means to stop believing in a good God. But if God isn’t good there’s no point in trying yourself - and when you stop trying, you will spiral into self-destructive evil. Also, it makes no sense. God is himself the standard of good, so if he isn’t good, where are you getting that idea of good from? God is necessarily good, it is the only thing that makes sense, and it is the only thing that will prevent you from destroying yourself in existential despair. Thus, we rest in the good hand of our God.

I. Trust When You Can’t See Why

What starts Solomon on this train of thought is an observation. A Wicked man gets everything he shouldn’t get, and dies successfully. first, he has an honorable burial. An honorable burial was extremely important in the ancient world, and not getting one was the sign of a great judgment of God (Eccl 6:3). Second, they would come and go in the temple as they pleased, despite having hearts far from God. Thus, they were accepted in society, yet their very existence was an affront to God’s holiness. Even worse, they were praised in the city where they had done their evil deeds! Since this person has died, that’s simply how his story ends - not only is he not punished, but he is rewarded and respected.

Ecclesiastes 6:3 NKJV

If a man begets a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with goodness, or indeed he has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better than he—

That’s why he again observes in v.14 that sometimes the wicked get what the righteous deserve. The righteous person is the one who ought to have the honorable burial; Only the righteous have the right to come and go from the temple as they choose (Ps 24:3-5); The Righteous person is the one who should be praised for his deeds. The reverse is also true. Sometimes the righteous get what the wicked deserve. Now the most obvious example of a righteous person getting what the wicked deserve? Why Jesus, of course. The only truly perfect man to have ever lived, and yet he died as a criminal, condemned along with two other criminals who actually did deserve their judgment. That is the most colossal miscarriage of justice in history. But this isn’t the only time that an innocent man got punished for something he didn’t do, condemned as though he were a very wicked man.

Psalm 24:3–5 NKJV

Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive blessing from the Lord, And righteousness from the God of his salvation.

Part of the reason for this confusing state of affairs is that God does not quickly carry out judgment against sin. We can see this on a smaller scale within a nation, when laws stop being enforced. When people think they can get away with evil, crime multiplies as we see in some parts of our own nation today. It’s human nature to think that way. God himself, however, is longsuffering and merciful. He has always delayed punishing evil. Romans 2:4; 9:22. Indeed this is something that we can and do celebrate about God Psalm 103:8-10. Aren’t you glad God doesn’t demand of you all your sins deserve immediately? Think about it. Since everyone is a sinner 7:20, if God wasn’t merciful, we would all be dead. In fact, we would have never existed in the first place, since Adam and Eve would never have made it out of the Garden.

Romans 2:4 NKJV

Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?

Romans 9:22 NKJV

What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,

Psalm 103:8–10 NKJV

The Lord is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, Nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities.

But this mercy has a heavy cost. Because God often extends mercy and doesn’t judge our sins to the degree they deserve, people begin to believe they are getting away with their sin, when in fact God is just delaying judgment to give them a chance to repent. The longer God waits to judge sin, the more evil people sin against his mercy and multiply evil. Thus, while God extends his hands in mercy, evil spreads like cancer. God is a just judge, so eventually he will put a stop to the evil, by judging sin. But in the meantime, a world governed by a merciful and longsuffering God necessarily means a world where some people abuse God’s mercy.

Solomon, however, doesn’t have enough information to explain how or when God will judge sin. He knows nothing of what happens after death, even though he does know that death is not the end. Therefore, all he can see is what happens in this life, and then it’s over. So his example of the wicked man who was honorably buried and praised, he can’t explain how God will fix it. But he doesn’t conclude that God must be false. Instead, he makes a statement of faith contrary to what he can see. He can explain it, but he knows that it must be true that the wicked person will somehow, someway get what’s coming to him. The opposite must also be true. Even though those who fear God sometimes die without recompense, yet it must be true that God will reward the righteous. It must be true because all moral though collapses unless that is true. If this world is truly amoral and random, without God someday setting the scales of justice right, then there truly is no standard of right and wrong. But if there are no standards, then there is no basis for criticizing one action as wrong or praising another as right. Yet as human beings we find it impossible to avoid making moral judgments. God has baked into our nature the recognition that some things are right and other things are wrong. You can deny that, but you can’t live without treating actions that way.

Now, we have the key that Solomon lacked. We know that our final reward isn’t in this lifetime Heb 9:27. Only when life is over will all deeds receive their just reward, and then everything will make sense. So of course the wicked will not prosper, and those who fear God will be rewarded. Heaven and Hell are both forever, and forever is a long time. There’s plenty of time in Eternity for everything to do marvelously right, or horribly wrong depending on which just of the scales of justice you find yourself.

Hebrews 9:27 NKJV

And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment,

But we still need Solomon’s implicit faith in God, because we still want to know about specific actions. Why did this person suffer and get punished when he didn’t deserve it. Why did this other wicked person seem to get everything and laugh at doing good? If you don’t learn to trust God when the answer goes beyond what you can see, you are doomed to be disappointed and frustrated.

II. God Works in Mysterious Ways

Solomon’s basic point is that we cannot comprehend the reason for all that God does on the earth. Therefore no one knows whether blessing or trials await them in the future. in 9:1 Solomon describes it as “love” or “hate” but he means the blessings or trials at God’s hand. He doesn’t mean that we randomly get loved or hated by God, but rather that we cannot predict when the next trial or next blessing will begin. Nor does he mean that life is simply random for no reason. All are in God’s hands, meaning that a personal and loving God directs it all. He doesn’t just do things randomly, he has a purpose - or more often, multiple purposes - for all he sends our way, the good and the bad.

Having said that, when he states that all God’s work is beyond comprehension, he doesn’t mean that everything God does is mysterious. Some of what God does makes perfect sense, because some of it is recorded in the Bible, and other things God does in our own lives specifically often are quite easy to understand, at least for some of the purposes. Just because you’ve figured out one reason God did something doesn’t mean you understand all of what he is doing. So Solomon’s point is instead that during this lifetime there will always be some things about what God does that remain mysterious. We will not be able to penetrate the veil of why God does everything he does.

It wouldn’t matter if you spent every moment day and night studying to figure out why God did that mysterious thing. You still wouldn’t figure it out. If an otherwise wise man claimed that he understood everything that God was doing, you can bet he is lying, for no one understands the reason for everything he sees God doing.

That doesn’t mean we’ll never understand. Someday we will see clearly, once this life is over and we stand before God. Then it will make sense, but in the meantime, you’ve got to stop pretending you understand the reason God does everything. You’ve got to remember that we’ve got enough information to trust God, but not enough to explain everything. We can see enough to prove that trusting God is reasonable, but not enough that we don’t need to trust. So if you tend to doubt God’s goodness when you can’t figure out why he did this or that to you, stop that. You’ll always have something you can’t explain, so get used to it. If you think about it you can come up with a thousand reasons to trust him, so do the reasonable thing and trust that God knows what he’s doing even when you don’t understand.

III. Only one life to live for Christ

Solomon observes that Death is the Great leveler. It doesn’t matter what you did in this life, everyone still dies. If you lived a life that pleases God, you still die. If you were wicked and lived a destructive life, you still die. If you carefully observe God’s worship standards, you still die. If you don’t care about worshipping God, you still die. If you carefully observe all oaths you take, you still die. If you dishonestly break your promises, you still die.

Moreover, people are sinners and live that way. During their lifetimes people are often trapped by the madness of the insignificant, worried about many rather insignificant things when viewed from the perspective of death. If people choose to live in light of the brevity of life, and do so remembering that God sees all, then they’ll live a much more meaningful life; but most do not. But regardless of how you lived your life, it still ends, and with the end of life comes the end of all possible reward. You can only accomplish something of value for eternity in this life, once life is over, that’s all you get.

Because you can only do something for Christ in this lifetime, that makes life so much better. Even a live dog is better than a dead lion. Dogs, in ancient Israel weren’t the cute pets we normally think of, but the diseased and dangerous flee-bitten curs that fed off of dead things. Lions, on the other hand were thought of as majestic creatures. But a live dog can do things; a dead lion only rots. If its true for dogs, how much more for people? When Solomon states that they dead know nothing, he isn’t speculating about what the dead comprehend internally, but what that knowledge can accomplish. When Solomon states that the dead never have a part in anything that happens under the sun, he isn’t denying the resurrection, which wasn’t revealed very clearly yet, but rather he is stating that once you’re dead, your part in this life and this world is over. The resurrection happens only once Jesus returns, and then life “under the sun” that is, the world as it presently exists, is finished. So the only opportunity you’ll ever get to do something that matters in this world is when you’re alive. that’s why Paul said Phil 1:22-24

Philippians 1:22–24 NKJV

But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you.

So, live your life knowing this - life is short, too short to waste. Once it’s over, your opportunity to do anything meaningful is over until the Second Coming. Remember that of all the things you can busy yourself with, living a life that pleases the Lord is what counts. I don’t just mean the things that are overtly ministry - teaching Sunday School, serving others in some capacity in this church, etc. I also mean doing all that you do as part of living a life that pleases God. Because that’s what will matter.

IV. Seize the Chance to Gain Spiritual Reward

Here’s another “seize the day” section. A Christian is not a sourpuss who can’t enjoy life’s little pleasures. Rather, only a Christian can properly enjoy all that God gives. God doesn’t send us only trials, he also sends many little blessings. So enjoying life is about practicing the art of noticing God’s blessings and rejoicing in them. It’s about working hard and enjoying the results that come from hard work.

When Solomon says there’s “nothing better” for a person to enjoy life’s little pleasures, he gives as the reason that this joy will accompany the toil as long as they live “under the sun.” He isn’t and can’t think about living for eternity, since God hasn’t revealed what people are to do for eternity yet. Rather, this is thinking about how God want’s you to enjoy life’s little things, purely as they are about this-world. And the only earthly value life’s earthly pleasures can give you is in the joy they bring you at the moment. This joy makes life easier, and practicing gratitude for life’s little blessings is exactly what God wants you to do with them. So be glad for good food and comfortable clothes, and warm homes. To be clothed with white and be anointed with oil is about caring for yourself in what was normal ways. It’s just wearing clean clothes and good hygiene. Enjoy life with your spouse - if you have one. God gave us good food and allow us to wear clean clothes and build a family for our enjoyment.

Life’s little pleasures came before the fall of man. Now that we live in a fallen world, we are living in a war-time economy. 2 Tim 2:3-4; 4:7 The Church is a war-time institution, our object is to win people for the Lord against the Enemy the Devil. That brings serious and important tasks that God didn’t originally command people to do, but tasks that now have to be done. To fight victoriously by living a life that pleases God brings spiritual rewards - war-time medals of bravery that will go with you forever. But life’s little pleasures weren’t given to us during a time of spiritual war, but in the peacetime before the fall of man. God made all these little pleasures simply so man could enjoy them. We don’t live in that peacetime world anymore, but those little pleasures still exist, and it’s God’s desire that you should enjoy them when they come. God already approves when you are grateful for them, just as a parent enjoys seeing his children smile.

2 Timothy 2:3–4 NKJV

You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.

2 Timothy 4:7 NKJV

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Now since our only opportunity to impact this fallen world is your present life, God has endowed you with a particular lot in life. If you have a job, that’s what God has given you to do. You have family, and friends. God gave you those friends and family. A better world is coming when we can enjoy life’s simple pleasures without the pain of spiritual war, but until then we must live the lives God has given us to the fullest. Because when life is over, your opportunity for reward is over as well. When v.10 says that there is no work, planning, knowledge, or wisdom, he isn’t speculating on what the dead know or do. He’s telling you that the dead have no interaction with the world of the living, so they cannot have any impact on our fallen world. We know from the New Testament that the believing dead are much happier than we all are down here, but while they are happy, they can’t do anything until Jesus returns. All of them are grateful for whatever God allowed them to accomplish while they are alive, and would tell you to be busy about the Work of the Lord, for the night of death is coming when no one can work.