Ecclesiastes 9:1-12 - Living Hope

Introduction & Review

<<PRAY>> <<mention last week not being online>> <<Submarine>>

ILLUST: I read an article recently titled, “Five main theories on achieving immortality as scientists say we could live 1000 years.”

But this is nothing new. The very rich have been dumping fortunes into this kind of thing forever.

They think that we can stop aging, or reverse aging.

The saddest and funniest one is what they call “technological immortality.” They say that they’ll be able to completely copy your personality and memories into a computer, a simulation. Like the movie Tron.

If I turn you into ones and zeroes, is it still you?

Ray Kurzweil, the inventor of the electric piano, is in his 70s now. And I remember an article maybe fifteen years ago where he claimed that if you took the right vitamins, you could outrun death till scientists figured out how to stop it. He’s down from 250 pills to just 100 pills a day, trying to outrun death. That’s foolish, and it’s bad enough.

But worse, even if any of these worked, it would be hellish. To have eternal or near-eternal life in this broken world and without God.

This is hope, but it’s an empty one. As Solomon said in chapter 6, double the number - if you lived a thousand years twice over, but didn’t have the joy of the LORD, it would just extend the tragedy.

From 1:1-11 “If wisdom is seeing God’s world the way God does, what do you do when it seems like the whole world is broken and it doesn’t make any sense at all.” A realistic eye - “What am I supposed to do, God, when you tell me this, but the whole world seems to be doing this other thing instead?”

“There’s wisdom, and then there’s wisdom in a broken world.”

Solomon dives like a submarine, resurfaces, catches breath, dives again

As we’ve often seen in our Ecclesiastes series, when we plumb the depths of Solomon’s vision, we’re left wondering if that’s all there is. Even at his most encouraging, he’s saying things like ecc 9:9-10

Ecclesiastes 9:9–10 ESV

9 Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.

And it leaves you wondering, “Is there more to this, or is that it?”

And Solomon would say, “Of course there’s more to it. But even though I know that God makes everything beautiful in its time, I don’t know how or why, and death is the shadow I can’t shake.” This time, Solomon’s deep dive into sorrow is followed by the most urgent call to joy that we’ve seen yet in the book.

Q. Is there hope in the face of death?

ORG: 3 points, then broader context w/ NT

Here’s our first point:

I. You can’t outrun death (vv1-6)

<<READ vv1-6>>

He tells us that everyone’s deeds are in the hand of God - nobody has jumped a fence or spotted a secret tunnel outside His knowledge, care, wisdom, mercy, and judgment.

And then he says that everyone’s under the curse of sin & death, even the so-called “good” and “righteous.”

In chapter 2, he told us that wisdom can’t save you. Here in v2, we see that religious rituals can’t save you.

Solomon doesn’t mince words when it comes to death. He calls it evil in v3. It’s an enemy. But he's realistic about people, too. Just as we saw in chapter 7 - there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins - and last week in chapter 8 - the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.

Verse 3 - “the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.”

Cheery?

Maybe you struggle with these words. You want to say, “That’s not fair. People are basically good.” But that’s part of the madness in our hearts. Our standard for comparison is the guy three houses down who only very rarely lies to his wife, and on very rare occasions even says the words, “I’m sorry” out loud to his kids.

But Solomon’s indictment isn’t based on a sliding scale, it’s based on God’s infinitely good character. And when he looks with an eye of wisdom, he sees that even the righteous and the good among us are neither righteous nor good in an absolute sense. And all the protests we raise against God’s standard dissolve into nothing like a mist when we stop to consider that they don’t change anything. And after the fog clears, the image of God within each human heart recognizes the truth: It’s the same event for all, because all are under the same curse,

Jeremiah 17:9 ESV

9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

And

Ecclesiastes 1:3 ESV

3 What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?

Under the sun, every reward and gain is wiped out, left behind, and the dead are forgotten.

But look at verse 4. There is hope. For the living. But we will come back to that.

First, we’re going to skip ahead to verses 11-18, which you might call Preacher Solomon’s application section. This is our second point:

You can’t outrun death

II. Because death cheats (vv11-18)

Here’s verses 11-12. <<READ vv11-12>>

Because: Time and chance happen to them all. Without God, these “chance” events seem to be random. But for Solomon, they are absolutely not random; they are in the hand of God. But they aren’t in our hands.

ILLUST: I know a man who took his high school football team to state in his senior year, went into college with NFL prospects, and had a career-ending injury before his first college game. He was the strong and the swift. And like that <snap> it was gone.

Good luck always ends badly

Verse 1 told us, “Whether it is love or hate, man does not know, both are before him.” And look at verse 12 <<READ v12>>

And this is true both in matters of life and death, and in matters of blowing your knee out, or losing a client, or a job.

Here are verses 13-16: <<READ 13-16>>

Against all expectation, the strong and swift king loses the battle. And against all expectation, the wise man’s wisdom is hated. Man does not know whether it will be love or hate; both are before him.

This doesn’t make God’s gifts meaningless. <<READ vv16-18>>

But it does remind us that these gifts cannot give us hope in the face of our mortality. They can’t solve the problems of vanity, toil, and death.

And that brings us back to verses 7-10, and our 3rd point:

You can’t outrun death, because death cheats

III. So chase joy in God’s gifts now (vv7-10)

<<READ vv7-10>>

From the deepest dive he’s taken yet, he surfaces with a new urgency that comes out in terse imperatives. Go. Eat. Drink. Enjoy.

This is the kind of enjoyment he said in chapters 2 and 5 could only come as a gift from God to those who fear Him.

God has already approved the enjoyment of His good gifts by His people, so stop waiting to enjoy what God has given you.

Remember what we saw in

Ecclesiastes 7:3 ESV

3 Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.

Without the fear of God, laughter is a dissonant distraction from the reality of mortality, it’s an anesthetic folly. But with God, rejoicing becomes urgent in light of our mortality.

In verses 9-10, he says, “Enjoy life with the wife you love.” He’s pointing back again to Eden, to God’s design for marriage. Two become one, not just two living together or two resigned to one another.

Eve was made as a helper suitable for Adam, not an inferior to own or exploit, or a mere partner in the bedroom and the business. Adam says of Eve, “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” And Solomon says, “Enjoy life with her.”

And v10 says <<READ v10>>

Sheol is the Hebrew word for the grave.

And this is where the urgency of rejoicing becomes clear.

Take a step with me back to verse 4. <<READ vv4-6>>

If you know the Bible, you know that upon death, your spirit will return to God, but your body will return to the dust of the earth from which Adam was made. Solomon knows this, as we find out in chapter 12, too. And even in the Resurrection, in the New Heavens and New Earth, in glorified imperishable bodies like Christ’s own body, the past will be past.

And this brings us back once again to the urgency of rejoicing now.

The grave will swallow up your body one day, so use it now to do what it was meant for. After you die, your body will never again sit down with your husband or wife for a quiet cup of coffee, or a relaxing dinner after a long day.

There are a finite number of dinners to eat with your parents, and then a finite number of dinners with your spouse, or your children, if God gives them to you. And you can’t go back in time to redo them, they’re a hebel, a vapor, ungraspable.

All the days of this vain life are meant for rejoicing in these gifts from God.

This is a perspective we often forget.

Some of you remember the very day you became too old to register for the Draft. Because something was gone forever. I remember the day my grandfather retired from his medical practice, because he couldn’t hear his stethoscope anymore. It was gone forever, like a breath.

Those are things for now. So, he says, rejoice in them.

APPLICATION:

So how should we hear this message today?

First of all, consider the gifts that God has given you to enjoy now. I’m very aware of the fact that my job as a pastor is for this life only - in heaven and in the Resurrection, that toil will be done. And what has God set in your hand to do now?

In the New Jerusalem, there will be a river flowing with the water of life. There will be trees bearing fruit. And perhaps we will still lovingly toil, but without sorrow, but there will be no need to organize to fight for water rights. Doctors, nurses, teachers, mechanics, counselors, I expect that you will not take up your tools again in the Resurrection, either.

So whether your toil in this life is full of joy or sorrow, look for those moments when you can rejoice in your toil. Even if all you can manage this week is rejoicing in the daily bread it buys.

Second, if God has given you a family, cherish them now. When you get home from work, remind yourself that you will never get this evening back again. And man does not know his time.

If you struggle to enjoy life with your family, and you know that they struggle with the same, call upon the LORD for help, and reach out for help from your brothers and sisters in Christ (pastors, counseling ministry).

You could rejoice now.

APPLICATION: Fellowship & Welcome Lunch - eat with joy & drink with merry hearts

But I want to end by looking at verse 4 one more time, and then turning to the New Testament. And this is our fourth point,

You can’t outrun death, and death cheats, so chase joy in God’s gifts now:

IV. And put your hope in the One who has defeated death

<<READ v4>>

The lion is a picture of strength and nobility in the Old Testament. A symbol of kingship. But to the Israelite, dogs are associated with refuse, filth, and death. The living know that they will die, he says, so even a mangy cur eating garbage is better than a dead lion. And why?

Hope.

Hope that God will answer the problem of death.

None of the dead lions could conquer death.

Even Solomon and all the Old Testament kings ended up as dead lions.

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, called himself a god. But he eventually found that his strength and might were hevel. Temporary.

Divine pretensions were everywhere in the ancient world. Every Pharaoh called himself a god. But none lives today.

Belshazzar in Daniel 5 thinks he’s bigger than God, but the grave got him.

We see kings claiming to be gods in Psalm 82, but their divinity is a sham. And in Ezekiel 28, we see both the prince and king of Tyre mocked for their claims of divinity.

Ezekiel 28:9 ESV

9 Will you still say, ‘I am a god,’ in the presence of those who kill you, though you are but a man, and no god, in the hands of those who slay you?

In Isaiah 14, the king of Babylon claims to be a god, and the LORD gives Isaiah this message for him:

Isaiah 14:9–10 ESV

9 Sheol beneath is stirred up to meet you when you come; it rouses the shades to greet you, all who were leaders of the earth; it raises from their thrones all who were kings of the nations. 10 All of them will answer and say to you: ‘You too have become as weak as we! You have become like us!’

And in mockery

Isaiah 14:12 ESV

12 “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!

And every one of them ended up in the grave, in Sheol.

Our pop culture consciousness is full of dead lions, too.

John Lennon, JFK, Princess Diana, Jimi Hendrix, Tupac, Steve Jobs.

And they have no more share in all that is done under the sun.

But, Solomon says, he who is joined with all the living has hope.

There is another lion. We see him prophesied in Gen 49, when Jacob blessed his son Judah, he said, “Judah is a lion’s cub,” and prophesied that his lineage would rule over all peoples.

And when the apostle John was given the vision of heaven in Revelation 5, he was told, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered.”

And John looks and sees the Lion. But look how he describes the Lion of the Tribe of Judah:

Revelation 5:6 ESV

6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

And all the host of heaven

Revelation 5:9–10 ESV

9 And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, 10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

The Lion who is the Lamb is Jesus Christ, the King of kings. He told John,

“Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” (Rev 1.17-18)

Everyone, dog or lion, faces the problem of death. And the only answer that gives real hope is to be joined with the Living One.

As Jesus says in

John 11:25–26 ESV

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

And Paul says in

Romans 6:5–11 ESV

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

See, everyone is in the hand of God, as verse 1 said. But there are two ways to be in His hand. Speaking of those who reject the Gospel, the writer of Hebrews says,

Hebrews 10:30–31 ESV

30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

But there is hope for those who are in the hand of God and joined to the living one, the Lion who died and yet lives; the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus says,

John 10:27–30 ESV

27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”

You are in the hand of God, no matter what.

And none of us can claim that we have enough wisdom, goodness, religion, vitamins, or technology to save us from His judgment. Even a thousand year lifespan will just prove that all the more.

But He calls to you today to abandon all your divine pretensions, all your claims of personal righteousness, and instead to join yourself to Jesus Christ, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Repent and believe, and you will have reason to rejoice in this life and for eternity.