He’s Got the Last Word
Notes
Transcript
Have you ever read quotes of people’s last words? It’s fascinating. Some are funny.
Actress Joan Crawford yelled at her housekeeper who was praying as Crawford died. She said: Don’t you dare ask God to help me!”
When Wilson Mizner was on his deathbed, a priest said, “I’m sure you want to talk to me.” Mizner told the priest, “Why should I talk to you? I’ve just been talking to your boss.”
Some are sweet:
Football coach Vince Lombardi died of cancer in 1970. As he died, Lombardi turned to his wife Marie and said, “Happy anniversary. I love you.”
Blues singer Bessie Smith died saying, “I’m going, but I’m going in the name of the Lord.”
Bo Diddley died giving a thumbs-up as he listened to the song “Walk around Heaven.” His last word was “Wow.”
Some are profound:
Charles Gussman was a writer and TV announcer who wrote the pilot episode of Days of Our Lives, among other shows. As he became ill, he said he wanted his last words to be memorable. When his daughter reminded him of this, he gently removed his oxygen mask and whispered: “And now for a final word from our sponsor—.
When Sir Isaac Newton died, he was humble. He said, “I don’t know what I may seem to the world. But as to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
Leonardo da Vinci was also overly modest, saying, “I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.”
Some are just plain sad:
Richard Feynman The physicist, author, musician, professor, and traveler died in Los Angeles in 1988. His last words? “This dying is boring.”
Winston Churchill’s last words were, “I’m bored with it all.”
As he was dying, Alfred Hitchcock said, “One never knows the ending. One has to die to know exactly what happens after death, although Catholics have their hopes.”
Actor and comedian W.C. Fields died in 1946. His last words: “God damn the whole friggin’ world and everyone in it but you, Carlotta.” He was speaking to Carlotta Monti, his longtime mistress.
Frank Sinatra Ol’ Blue Eyes died after saying, “I’m losing.”
At the end of life, whatever life we have lived, we are staring into what some have considered the unknown. We have fought through life trying to make sense of everything, trying to accomplish our hopes and dreams and trying to stave off all the disasters that loom over us. And then that last mysterious door slowly opens and we are forced to face what we actually believe versus what is actually the truth.
We come face-to-face with God.
Solomon, as he is writing this book, is pleading his readers to turn from the emptiness of this world, all these things that do not satisfy, to the God who does satisfy.
He presents proof of why what the world offers does not satisfy, and then he offers proof of why what God offers is exactly what we are looking for. The proof lies in God’s proven character.
Whatever exists has already been named,
and what humanity is has been known;
no one can contend
with someone who is stronger.
The more the words,
the less the meaning,
and how does that profit anyone?
For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?
Simply, God is the God who is in control. He is the ruler over all.
Will you pray with me?
1. God Is in Control
1. God Is in Control
In this short passage, Solomon states his belief founded through experience and scripture that God is in control.
He points to God’s Foreordination
A. Foreordination
A. Foreordination
This a buzz word in theological circles, but most know the related word: predestination.
Solomon writes:
Whatever exists has already been named,
and what humanity is has been known;
no one can contend
with someone who is stronger.
Whatever exists has already been named.
We believe that God, as the creator and sustainer of this earth, is in control of history. Foreknowledge, in the simplest form, states that God has the ability and the wisdom to provide with infinite precision the things which form the ongoing of the universe he has created.
Paul refers to God’s foreordination in Ephesians:
In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.
While we do not normally use huge terms like foreordination, we do say things like God is in control, therefore we can have hope through the turmoils of this life.
Because he is in control, we can say things like:
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
We can approach elections, knowing that God is in control, that
“ ‘The decision is announced by messengers, the holy ones declare the verdict, so that the living may know that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of people.’
As Victor Hugo wrote:
“And when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.”
God has foreordination.
B. Foreknowledge
B. Foreknowledge
With being in control, God has foreknowledge.
Whatever exists has already been named,
and what humanity is has been known;
no one can contend
with someone who is stronger.
What humanity is has been known. God knows everything. This is related to the term “omniscience.” Omniscience means that God knows everything, past present and future. Which he does. Foreknowledge focuses in on the fact that God knows the future. Nothing takes him by surprise. Not even the crucifixion of Jesus.
This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.
I love what Solomon is doing in ecc 6 10.
The image is incredible. The word for humanity is Adam, from earth, the first man. The first man named all the creatures of the world. The first man was not content in his knowledge, so he ate from the tree of the knowledge of Good and evil, so that he could know. Man, fashioned from the ground, is no match for the God in heaven, who already named and who has always known.
C. Full Power
C. Full Power
This God is omnipotent. That’s the technical word, but it didn’t fit in with my “f” alliteration. He has full power.
Whatever exists has already been named,
and what humanity is has been known;
no one can contend
with someone who is stronger.
Man tried to contend with God. Adam said: I want to go my own way, create my own destiny. He was subsequently cursed, thrown out of the Garden and separated from a relationship with God by cherubim with flaming torches.
No one can contend with someone who is stronger.
There are some religious circles that try to downplay the power and authority of the one true God. Saying that he is weak, that he needs us in order to act, that he is somehow bound in how he acts in this world and against the enemy.
But, he is the most powerful being in existence.
Job after reflecting on God’s work in his life confessed:
“I know that you can do all things;
no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
Isaiah speaking the words of God says:
I make known the end from the beginning,
from ancient times, what is still to come.
I say, ‘My purpose will stand,
and I will do all that I please.’
From the east I summon a bird of prey;
from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose.
What I have said, that I will bring about;
what I have planned, that I will do.
God is in control. No one or no thing else is. And one day, everyone will bow before him and confess that he is God, the one and the only.
2. Two Responses
2. Two Responses
However, we are not in that day yet. We are still here on earth, living our life and contemplating the decision that God allows us to make: how are we going to respond to him as God.
There are two responses. Only two. There is no middle ground, no fence-sitting. Just two responses.
A. Faithlessness
A. Faithlessness
There is the response of faithlessness. If you will humor me, I am going to split that into three categories or reactions.
a. Fatalism
a. Fatalism
There is the reaction of fatalism.
For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?
That last line. Who can tell what will happen? Well, Pastor, you said that God knows.
But, if he is ultimately in charge and I have nothing to do with it. Maybe I should just be like Margaret Sanger, whose last words were: A Party! Let’s have a party!
Or as the pagan Corinthians would say:
If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus with no more than human hopes, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised,
“Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die.”
So, we go through life, feeling that we are a divine punching bag, and trying everything we can to make this miserable life easier to stomach, because we can’t do anything to actually change anything. We turn to drugs, alcohol, and pornography for relief, because we don’t think that we can find any relief anywhere else.
There is the reaction of fatalism.
b. Fighting
b. Fighting
There is the reaction of fighting.
The more the words,
the less the meaning,
and how does that profit anyone?
Which is nice and poetic.
A better translation would be:
The more one argues with words, the less he accomplishes.
How does that benefit him?
This is continuing from the one who is contending with God. When life hits us, we could shake our fist at God and say: “Why?”
As Eliphaz tells Job:
Distress and anguish fill him with terror;
troubles overwhelm him, like a king poised to attack,
because he shakes his fist at God
and vaunts himself against the Almighty,
defiantly charging against him
with a thick, strong shield.
Have you ever interacted with someone who was angry at God? They knew that God was in charge and they blamed him for everything that happened in their life. They won’t step foot in a church building because of what God did to them.
Perhaps the person isn’t just fighting against a relationship with God, but they are actively fighting God’s plan for their life, trying their best to change it within their power. Looking for all sort of ways to improve their life, their thinking, their destiny. Trying out different religions, exercises, mental acrobatics. Doing everything they can, without the one true God’s help, to change the destiny which they figure he has set for them.
Who can contend against one who is more powerful? What use is the arguing?
The reaction of fighting.
c. Flailing
c. Flailing
There is the reaction of flailing.
For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?
This person says: I don’t know the answer to those questions? Who does know what is good? Because I cannot accept the existence of a Good God who is all-powerful and is in control.
Therefore, I must create my own destiny. And they flail around trying to find sturdy ground to stand on.
But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.
The ultimate statement of doubt is refusing to believe in the existence of a good God who is all-powerful and is in control. Without the foundation of that truth, every tries to find their own basis for morality, for what is good in their life.
And the sad statement in the book of Judges applies to them:
In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.
Unfortunately, nothing good happens to those who flail. Just like someone in the middle of the ocean flails around without something to hold onto, not able to swim, flailing doesn’t stop the eventual drowning.
Each of these reactions: fatalism, fighting, and flailing are built upon the statement that I cannot trust God. I will not trust him!
But, there is another response.
B. Faith
B. Faith
There is the response of faith.
Solomon in Ecclesiastes is speaking of the fool who is seeking satisfaction in all the areas that do not provide it. But, there is always the opposite, the wise one who turns to God.
a. Focused
a. Focused
The one of faith lives a life that is focused.
Solomon writes:
For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?
God knows what is good for a person. So the one of faith, acknowledging that God is in control is focused on living the good which God has set out.
This is not the person who asks: How close can I get to the edge of the cliff? How close can I get to sinning without sinning. This is the person who says: What I can I do to be more Christ-like? I want to show him!
They wake up with the prayer on their lips: God, make me useable and show me the good works which you have prepared for me today. And they live their day with that focus.
Now, we have to be honest, no one is completely focused. We are merely human, and thankfully, God gives us grace.
But, the one of faith has a goal of being focused on their following of the God who is in control.
b. Fullness
b. Fullness
The one of faith lives a life of fullness.
For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?
Most of humanity experience a life that feels too short, full of meaninglessness.
I think about Jacob when he spoke to Pharaoh:
And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers.”
Contrastingly, it is written of Abraham:
Abraham lived a hundred and seventy-five years. Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people.
Abraham’s life was marked by his faith. Jacob’s life was marked by deceit, by faithlessness.
Abraham died with fulness. Jacob passed with a feeling of emptiness.
Jesus said it this way:
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
Faith in the God who is in control brings fulness to life that is empty.
c. Future
c. Future
The one of faith lives with confidence towards the future.
For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?
Have you memorized this verse yet?
God is the one who knows what will happen on this earth after we die. He is the one who is in control. The father to the fatherless and the defender of widows.
But, more than that, he is the resurrection and the life. Being in control, he has proven that he has power by raising Jesus from the dead and he has promised to raise everyone again. Those who have placed faith in him, he will raise them to eternal life on a perfected earth. Those who have not, he will raise them to an eternal death in the lake of fire, reserved for Satan and his followers.
Since we have confidence in the God who is in control, we know that he will do what is promised, and we can live through the turmoils in this life, with focus and fullness, pointing to the life that we are guaranteed to live eternally in the light of our savior.
God is in control. How are you responding to that fact?