Remember Death

It is the same for all, since the same event happens.

Drop down, the same event happens to all. There's an importance here, it's universal. This one thing is gonna happen to everybody, and it's death. Everyone must die. There's a significance here that it's the righteous and the wicked, the good and the evil, the clean and the unclean, the one who sacrifices, the one who does not sacrifice. Everyone will die. This is an important matter for us all to consider. Death is a force, outside of us is the way he describes it. It's something that comes from outside, and it's coming crashing down. Notice there in verse three,

this is an evil, and all that is done of the Son, that the same event happens to all.

He calls it an evil, and we've seen this word before. It can be translated as a wrong, an unhappiness. Death is difficult to talk about because it's confusing and painful. We've grieved the loss of many loved ones among our church. We've grieved with members who have lost their loved ones. We realize other loved ones will pass. We reflect upon our own ultimate end. There's a significance here. Something we will all face, something we must have real conversations about is death. It's reasonable that it feels wrong, that it is described as an evil, that it's difficult. It's because death is not the way it's supposed to be. There's a conflict. It's the way it absolutely is. Everyone dies, but we have to recognize it's not the way it's supposed to be. The God of life created us to live. He formed us and breathed his own life into us with his own power. He designed us to live by knowing him and being known by him. His purpose is that we would live with him, for him, toward him, with one another. That's what we can say. It's wrong. It's unhappy. Death is not the way it's supposed to be. God gave man everything we ever could need and everything we should have wanted. The one thing man is told not to do is to eat of the one tree. The whole purpose of that tree, I think, is to make sure we don't ever pretend we're autonomous, we're fully dependent upon the God who has given us everything. And he declared very clearly, if you break this one command, rejecting everything good I've given you, you're gonna die. The original design is that we would live. It's wrong, it's evil, it's unhappy because it's what we brought into this creation. Notice also in verse three, it's not just the death that's coming from outside. He turns and looks inside.

Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil and madness in their hearts while they live. And after that, they go to the dead.

It's not just that death is waiting for us all. We have a fleeting life, but now there's a meaningless because we have a madness. Our hearts are full of self-deception. We will all die. There's one solution. A theologian of the past calls this God's great dilemma. As we think about the reality of death, we really have to weigh what God did originally. He created us all in His image. He created us all wonderful. He created us all with a capacity to glorify Him. He created us all good. He created us all beautiful. With His power, we were supposed to, we were designed to reflect His glory. And God then also gave us a word. If we sin, we will die. This is the dilemma. God can't break his word. He's true and faithful. He doesn't lie. He keeps his word. Because we sin, death must come. And the dilemma is, is the creation a failure then? Does this mean that the glorious good creation of our great and powerful God is a failure to bring him the glory he intended to bring? The quick question is, what has God to do? God spoke another word. I will come and I'll reverse this curse. We know from the New Testament even more clearly, I will send my son. He will become like you. He will die for you. He will take away the sting of death, the judgment that should come from our sin. He will come and take away the judgment. He will take your sin by putting it upon himself. Death is not the way it's supposed to be. That's why when we meditate on the cross, we rejoice. Death is defeated in the death of Christ. He is risen. All right, Easter wasn't too long ago, folks. God made us upright, and we all went after our many schemes. And God said, I will come. I will be the solution to the dilemma we've caused. And the beauty of that isn't just that he takes away the sting of death. It isn't that he takes away just the wrath. He actually brings us back to the beauty and the glory and the goodness he originally designed us to be. You go to Ephesians 5 and Christ is the bridegroom and he's beautifying the bride. He's renewing us back to be the image bearer we were meant to be, the one who brings God glory by transforming us. What an amazing God. He forgives us of our sin. He dies in our place. He rises to give us new life. He restores us to the wonderful high place we rejected. Sin is ugly. Death should lead to despair. Praise be to God in Christ Jesus who forgives us, renews us, and restores us. Death is coming to us all. Our next section, living is better. That's four to 10. Living is better, dot, dot, dot, barely. If you've been with us through Ecclesiastes, we can't get too excited. Verse four,

but he who is joined with the living has hope.

Wow, hope. All right, you're getting excited here. Maybe the preacher's gonna turn a little optimistic. You know, not to get your hopes up. There's a living hope. His reasoning, we gotta do kind of some cross-cultural, crossing a bridge here.

For a living dog is better than a dead lion.

All right, so here, in the preacher's world, dogs are still animals, not people. If you have adopted a dog into your family, that's you, that's fine. But you gotta understand, like the preacher here, dogs are just bigger rodents. They're not loved, they're despised, and they're gross, and there's just nothing good about a dog. He's not gonna put a dog in his Christmas card. But a lion, the majestic, powerful lion, The living dog, just say it like that. The living dog is better than a dead lion. We gotta get that contrast. The whole point is living is better than dead, even though the hierarchy of being lion to dog is so significant. Verse five, why? The living have hope. To live is better than to die. Why? Verse 5, because the living know they're gonna die. Again, good, hard, raw look. The living are aware they're gonna die, but the dead know nothing. They have no more reward. The memory of them is forgotten. We see here that the living still have a hope because they can still make a choice to live. Verse 6, As Pat mentioned, the eternal life, resurrection, is more vague in the Old Testament than the New Testament, but it's very, very vague here in Ecclesiastes. Death is coming. It's an end. Notice here, in verse seven, he turns to prescription and, oh, is he a command? It's not a command, it's a command. This time, it's what it is. Verse seven, there's three commands. Go, eat, drink. We've seen this before. Over and over again, we've gotten this as a nothing better. and to enjoy the fruit of the labor, to enjoy the food that you've labored for, to drink with a merry heart. For God has already proved what you do. There's a sense here that this is pleasing to God. It's acceptable. Verse eight points to a desire to do this with purity. The garments are white. There's no oil lacking under here. There's an abundance of blessing. And then notice verse nine. We've had a diagnosis. Death is coming to us all. You have some hope right now. You're not yet dead. Here are the commandments. Go, eat, and drink. Now, two things to enjoy.

Enjoy the life with the wife whom you love.

Enjoy the one God has joined together with you in the covenant. Now, he has to remind us of how fleeting this is.

All the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion of life, and your toil at which you toil under the sun.

The point here is that you enjoy the life. You enjoy the days of your life. They're precious. They're fleeting, but they're precious. And you especially seek to do so with the wife whom you love, the spouse that you've been joined together with. It means you participate in life together. You have a friendship where you desire the good for another. Verse 10,

whatever your hand finds to do, Do it with your might.

We have verses like this in the New Testament. Whatever you're gonna do, do it for the glory of God. There's a way in which we have to remember work is good. Work is commanded in Genesis 2. We didn't mess anything up until Genesis 3. Work is meant to be good. It's meant to be something we commit ourselves to. We shouldn't seek to avoid it. But notice here his rationale, whatever your hand finds to do, whatever work you have, do it with all your might. Why?

There's no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom and shale to which you're going.

Work today because you can't work when you die. Now as I wrestled with that, I think our preacher would have a difficult time with our culture in that our whole system is designed that you would live so that you might work and to the point where you would get to not work anymore in retirement. And he would ask, why are you living to die? Work is something good that you can do now. There's no such thing as retirement in Scripture. There is such thing as changing stages of life as you grow from a child to a young adult to a mature adult to an OG, an older generation, which you can meet with them afterwards at lunch. But our retired folks are about to retire. Please keep working. We, the younger generation, need your labor with us. Praise God, you've labored to have more free time. Use that free time to keep working in the kingdom. Use that free time to keep working to build up the next generation. Life is short. Work with all your might. I want us to see here these commands. God has approved what you do. God has given you your days. God has given you work. Enjoy the life of your spouse. Enjoy your days. Give yourself over to work. Don't half-heartedly go through life. It's too short. You're gonna die. A key word we've kept coming back to in Ecclesiastes is stewardship. Taking what God has given us. and using it for his glory and seeking to enjoy it according to his way. Our work is meant to be a stewardship. God gives us good work to do. We're meant to enjoy it. So students, the work you have before you is whatever's left in the syllabus to finish the semester well. Don't coast because you got a few more weeks left. No, keep working with all your might. Okay, you've already got the grades you want. Okay, work for the glory of God. Not the teacher, not a grade. Work for the glory of God. Employees, you're not just getting a paycheck. You're not just providing a service to society. Work is a way for you to worship. See, your job is a good gift that you can use to glorify Him with in the way you approach it. If you're self-employed or you're a boss, recognize you are going to one day give an account and a job review by God himself for how you stewarded what he's given to you. Husbands, wives, those engaged to be married, there's a way to enjoy your spouse that's appropriate, that would bring you joy, but God has designed you to enjoy your spouse as a stewardship. There's a way we can misappropriate God's gifts, in that we love them just for the sake of themselves. We love them not as a way of recognizing we're loving God and worshiping him as a stewarding, but seeking to love your spouse as an in itself. And that ends up being something suffocating. for your spouse. Something unsatisfying for you because God did not design you to be completed by another person. He designed you to only find rest in Him. We will only find the true, full delight in our spouse when we're seeking to do it according to God's ways for His glory. Let me say that another way. If you have a difficult time delighting in your spouse, it probably isn't his or her fault. You should probably find out what it is that you are not doing in God's plan or according to God's will. God says,

seek ye first the kingdom of God and all else will be given to you.

If your spouse is always unsatisfying, is it because you have wrong expectations? Is it because you're not doing your responsibility? Is it because you're trying to love them outside of the way God has designed it? We call this ordering our loves. This is what Augustine calls wisdom.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart,

and then every other love must fall underneath how we love God, why we love God, the way we love God, and then we will have wisdom and ordered life. That's an abstract, big picture ideal, I'm gonna try to land it down a little bit more practical. How do you delight in your spouse? How do you enjoy this life with your spouse? I'm gonna try to focus on two things here, two sacred spaces, two arenas to enjoy your spouse. The dining room and the bedroom. Both of these require attention and intention, affection and repetition. The dining room is where you set the tone of your home. where you speak with one another, you share your life with one another, you come around with one another and share a meal. You set the tone of what affection looks like for you and your spouse and your children and all the other guests you get to bring into your home. It was fantastic, another guest last night at our table who got to participate fully in our family because she was eating at our table with our family and she got to enjoy the serious conversations and the crazy kids that jump all over the place. It's meant to be an important, sacred time where you're committed to seeing each other face-to-face and talking with another. Well, the bedroom is very different. No one else allowed. It's private. It's intimate. Kids shouldn't be sleeping in the bedroom. Kids need their own room. You need to get a secure lock. Pets should not be in your bedroom. You can pretend the animal's part of your family, they still don't belong in the bedroom. The TV, get it out. Remove distraction. Cell phones, don't ever think about bringing them in. Don't be a doofus sitting there playing a silly game or watching a silly video next to your wife God has given you. Why waste that vanity of time? Why pursue something so worthless when you could be participating in the religious activity of enjoying the life God's given you and you love? Hebrews 13, we're given a command,

do not defile the marriage bed.

I fear too often it's defiled by neglect. Sex is a covenant uniting activity given to us by God. To renew our love, to express our love, to be loved. You're going to die. She's going to die. Based upon the commercials on TV, the equipment eventually might even start working. Seize the day. Enjoy the bedroom. Enjoy your marriage. Prioritize the bedroom with intent and repetition. If you're not married, stay at the dining table. The bedroom's off limits until you say I do and somebody declares you married. Stay at the dining table. This is where you get to learn how to express love and affection with self-control. That's God's good order. You should be pursuing your significant other, your, I don't know what you're calling it these days. I was told not to use the words boyfriend, girlfriend, but here we are. Whoever that special person is in your life, pursue them with intentionality and affection. Young men, make sure you're pursuing with an intention and affection. Young ladies, make sure you're welcoming the attention and affection. Life's too short to wonder why I'm not being pursued the way I should want to be pursued. Make sure your expectations are biblical, clear. There are too many lonely Christians in cold marriages. A half-hearted pursuit now is not going to be fixed with marriage. Make sure you're pursuing with intentionality. The third point, death is coming. We had a relieved that there was some hope for the living. We had some clear commands and expectations and instruction. Now we've got to come back again and make sure we understand death is coming.

Again, I saw under the sun, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.

If we go back to Ecclesiastes 3, there's a way in which the time's marching and we have no control. Here, the goal isn't to say the race is never won by the swift. We know that it oftentimes is. It's your ability doesn't ultimately make the final decision. Why? Because you have no idea what your time is. You could be like a fish that's taken up in a net. Bird caught in a snare. it comes upon you suddenly. Again, we're talking about death here. There's a helplessness in this life. We're supposed to feel that helplessness. We have no idea when death is coming. We have no idea when the tragedy might strike. So we should seek to live. There's no convenient time to die. We see him belaboring this point. Death is scary. Death is sudden. Death is not the way it's supposed to be. So think about this second challenge of death coming no matter what. I want to consider two challenges on how we should redeem the time from two different authors. First, J.C. Ryle in his book for young men, he warns young men not to think, well, I'm gonna pursue my fleshly desires today, and well, I'll change my ways when I grow up, but he says it's foolish. Today you are becoming who you will be and your desires are being trained today. Do not put off training your appetites for what God has ordained as good and right. Redeem the time by training yourself now to love God and all the things that he says is lovely. The other comes from Jeremiah Burroughs in his book, Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. And there's this meditation at the end that's always challenged me. He points out when Christ comes back, when we go to heaven, sin is no longer present. We long for that day because we hate how sin affects our worship and our ability to know God and enjoy Him and make Him known. But he points out, you know, that this short life is the only time you have to worship God by saying no to sin. These short days, these few years you have walking on this earth is the only window, the only opportunity you have to worship God by resisting sin, by denying yourself, by putting off sin and putting on Christ. When we get to heaven, we long for that day where sin is removed and we don't have to have that fight anymore, but this is the only window of time you have to worship God that way. Don't waste it. Death is coming. The last section. Wisdom is still better. Notice he sees something else, and it's an example of wisdom under the sun, and it seemed great to him. Verse 14,

there was a little city with few men in it, and a great king came against it and besieged it, building great siege works against it.

So we have a setting, there's a small little city, and whatever reason, this doesn't seem to account for any, within the Old Testament story, I don't know if it's just a parable or a historically happened, we're gonna gain something from it regardless. A king comes against a small little city with great siege works. A new character is introduced, verse 15.

But there was found in that city a poor, wise man. And he, by his wisdom, delivered the city.

And if we stop, don't keep reading. If this story were true, If there was a poor wise man who saved an entire city from a great king who was gonna conquer the whole city or enslave it or kill everybody, if his wisdom actually saved the day, we'd name a day after him. We'd have a parade, right?

Yet, no one remembered that poor man.

That's the conclusion. That's the story. That's the example of wisdom. We have to remember that being forgotten is a word associated with death, right? We have righteous and wisdom, wickedness and foolishness, death, being forgotten. Well, we had it just a few sentences ago. Verse five, the memory of them is forgotten. That's death. Here, he's pointing out that this wise man, It's better to be wise and to be helpful with your wisdom than to be remembered. He was wise and he used his wisdom, not for his own personal gain, but for the benefit of the city. It's better to be forgotten, dead, than foolish and remember for the wrong reasons. As I wrestled with this, I recalled my ninth grade shop class, the glory days. Our instructor was Walter Cooley. He had a big beard, so we called him Wooly Cooley. I was not a good kid. This was a rough year for me in Riverside High School in Greer, South Carolina. I was always in trouble. I remember one day, Mr. Cooley was addressing the students, and he said,

you know, it's a shame because teacher's attention is always on the excelling students. They're the ones that get my attention. And then I got to pay attention to all the troublemakers,

and he just looks at me. And it was like his beard just pointed. It terrifies me that I would be remembered for the foolishness. It would be better to be wise and forgotten. It's better to be wise and rewarded in heaven by God than forgotten on this earth. Verse 16 to 17 give us some proverbial sayings, and 18.

But I say that wisdom is better than might, though the poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are not heard.

Clearly a summary statement here. Wisdom is better than the strength. He overcame the king. The poor man's wisdom, it was despised, he was forgotten, but he's rewarded. Verse 17,

the words of the wise heard and quiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.

This reminds me, us, hopefully, of how foolishness is so easy to find, and how wisdom is a rare jewel to pursue and know and hold fast to. As we include, Death is inevitable, we all die. But we do not have to fear the sting of death, the judgment of God. Jesus has died to defeat death and take away that sting. Death is coming. How will you live in light of it? Will you receive the instruction of our preacher in the end of the matter? Fear the Lord, keep his commandments, knowing that there is a judgment for how we live in this short, vain life. In light of Jesus and his resurrection and his promised return, do we long for heaven? Are we seeking to be stewards of all God has given us? Are we seeking to put off sin while we long for heaven, when sin will be fully removed? Enjoy the fruit of your labor God gives you, knowing that one day you will be invited to sit at the table of the King, the marriage supper of the Lamb. and rejoice with Him forever. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you have created us good. You created us with a glory. to reflect you, the glorious God, in the way we speak and behave and treat each other, the way we worship you. But even though we denied you and we worshiped everything else under the sun, you sent your Son to forgive us, restore us, renew us, give us hope. Not just hope that we're not dead yet, but hope that we will have eternal life. Father, I pray we would know how to walk in wisdom, redeeming these days, longing for the eternal day. Pray that we would have wisdom in knowing how to live this life you've given to us and that Christ has purchased with his own blood. Because you've loved us. Because your love endures and your love keeps us. Help us to hope and a hope that transforms us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.