Happy Friday everybody, and thanks again for joining me for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. It's me, pastor Rod. There is no pastor pj, at least not right now. I do anticipate that he will be back but he's currently vacationing in Southern California. I'm sure he is on a beach somewhere with his shirt off, maybe swimming in the ocean, doing all sorts of fun things with his family. So if you do think about him, please pray for him. He would appreciate it, and we would like him back healthy and ready to go. Well, without further ado, we're going to jump in back into the book of Ecclesiastes. You might remember this book has the primary theme of everything is vanity, and we said that the terminology for vanity, even though technically it means something that's like a mist or a vapor, it refers to three Fs. The first one is fleeting things that don't last long. The second one is the other F futile. It is something that doesn't. Seem to have a reason or a purpose. And thirdly, the last f is that it is full of mystery, full of mystery. And this is the most common usage in this book. This is the point for which Solomon writes, there's so many things that he studied and learned, but he found that most of the things that he learned about were actually un understandable. There's, there's a certain kind of understanding that we can bring to the table. There's lots of learning that man can do, but at the end of the day. We're gonna find that we reach the end of our abilities, the end of our understanding, and at the end of that rope we have to say, this is what God is doing. God is operating at levels that we could never fully comprehend. I guess it's not too unlike ai, even though AI is obviously different. This is a manmade thing, but there's still a truth that we don't understand fully how it works. Now, it is programmed. There's lots of ones and zeros going in there, but those who design the system don't fully understand how the system does what it does so well. And this is what's so terrifying for us because we don't know then how to control it. We don't know how to put stop gaps in place to ensure that it doesn't hinder or harm us as opposed to help us. Well, God has designed the world in such a way that there's complexity, there's layers of meaning and understanding that really he alone has full access to. We can have some understanding, but he has ultimate understanding. In chapter one verses one through 11, we read the prologue. He, he identifies the problem as all is vanity. That is everything is subject to futility, everything is fleeting and everything is full of mystery. He's trying to help us understand that this is the problem that everybody has to face. He proves this in the second part of the book, which is verses 12 from chapter one all the way through chapter six, and you read this yesterday. Today we're looking at chapters seven through 12, and here he's gonna give more prescriptive information about how to live within the framework of a fallen world, within the world of vanity. He, he's gonna help us think carefully about how to operate such that we don't, not that we eliminate the experiences of vanity, but that we're able to work alongside it. That is to recognize our limits. And to live well within them. And so we begin in Ecclesiastes chapter seven. Now remember, the book itself is about the preacher. This preacher is likely Solomon. So we're gonna use the terminology Solomon, and hopefully you'll understand what I mean by that. So starting in chapter seven, he starts with a list of contrasts that are meant to help us see what wisdom looks like in an age of vanity. And so he says, one of the most famous sections in here in chapter seven. It's also one of the passages that I read almost without fail. At every funeral or memorial, I go to Ecclesiastes chapter seven, verse two. He says this, it's better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting four. This is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. This is the point. He's saying It's better to go to a funeral where you're mourning over the death of somebody versus going to a party. Now, if someone were to give you the option, Hey, there's two options this afternoon, you can go to this party at my friend's house, or you can go to this funeral. Solomon would say that it is wisdom to to choose to go and mourn. He says, the reason why is the effect that it has on us. This is the end of all mankind. This is what you're going to experience and I'm gonna experience at some point, and therefore the whys will lay it to heart. We'll let it affect us, we'll let it motivate us to live differently. This is one reason why I love reflecting on what Jonathan Edwards wrote when he was just a teenager, talks about in his resolutions, thinking about his death often, and letting that remind him that at some point in his life, he's gonna cease to exist physically, and he's gonna have to face God for the life that he lived. This is not meant to say there's a judgment of condemnation, but this is a judgment of commendation that we're looking forward to, and therefore, how we live matters every day. Matters. And there is no day where you're able to say, well, no big deal. I'm just gonna get another day tomorrow. We never know. And so the wise here in Ecclesiastes chapter seven says, we will take it to heart. We'll go to the house of mourning. We'll go and grieve the loss of somebody, and in order to wisely consider what it means for us. Verse four, he says something similar. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of Mirth, the house of joy, the house of gladness. The the fool wants to placate his conscience and to live with superficial joy. Because he doesn't wanna face the reality of his impending demise. And so he says here, the heart of the wise, they're in the house of mourning. The heart of the wise is thinking about their impending demise. So have you thought about this lately? Have you considered the fact that today could be your last day? Have you weighed the fact and the possibility that God may call your number today? And if so, are you ready? Are you ready to face God? And this is a heavy thought. I'll grant that and certainly we don't wanna. Fixate on this thought only, but we do wanna let it sober us. This is one of those few things that God gives us to say, let's be sober minded about how we live, and this is what's repeated in the New Testament. We're to live as unto the Lord. We want every day to be lived as though it were a last. Speaking of the days, he says here in verse 10, something interesting that I thought I wanted to point out to your attention. He says, say not. Don't say this. Why were the former days better than these? He says, for it is not from wisdom that you asked this, and this is one of those phrases that we tend to ask quite a bit, man, remember how good it used to be when we fill in the blank with whatever it is that we think was really good. Sometimes we have this nostalgia that captures our imagination and maybe rewrites history. Maybe some things were better back then and, and maybe there were a few things that you could say, wow, that was objectively better than what I had at this point in time. But I think that misses the point of the fact that what you have today is God's gift. We always have something better than we deserve, and I think that's his point. Don't look back on the past and say, man, I had it so good back then. And again, I'm not to, not to deny the fact that there probably were blessings there, but don't look at the past and miss what's right in front of you. Enjoying the present. The good old days are happening right now, and for the Christian, the best old days are in the future. It's still yet to come, and so be thankful for the present. Don't long for the past. Be grateful for what you have now. Okay, verse 13. Verse 13 says, consider the work of God who can make straight what he has made crooked. And this speaks to God's inscrutable nature. God is above us and beyond us in ways that we could never fully comprehend. To say that God knows more than us is not saying nearly enough. Now, if you tried to explain the internet to an ant, I would guess that you wouldn't get very far. They have no frame of reference for that. They don't even have comprehension the way that we do. If we're to say God explains to us certain things, the distance between us and God is way further than the distance between us and an aunt. Hopefully you understand the comparison for you to talk to an ant makes more sense than for God to talk to us because the distance between us is so much greater from God to us than from us to an ant. And so this particular proverb here talks about the way that God is inscrutable. There's things about God that will never fully comprehend, and this is what makes heaven so interesting. We will forever learn and grow in our understanding of God. It's not to say that we're gonna learn new things, per se, that is we're gonna learn about some new facet of his being. But that what we learn in scripture is kind of the bones of our understanding of him. We'll experience more and more of God as we grow closer and closer to him. Why? Well, because he's infinite. God has no end. He has no beginning. You and I are not infinite. We are. We are immortal, but we are not eternal. God alone possesses internality. He alone is self existent and never has a beginning, nor has an end. You and I are immortal in that we do have a beginning, but we do not have an end. We cannot die. We are immortal. We don't ultimately die in the sense of ceasing to exist. You die physically. You can die spiritually in that you are judged by God, but you never cease to exist. And so chapter seven prescriptions about how to live with wisdom in a world of vanity. Chapter eight continues the theme. In fact, we're gonna just focus on this all throughout the next several chapters. So lemme just highlight a couple pieces here for you about how to live in the, in the age of vanity, in an age where things are fleeting, futile, and full of mystery. In chapter eight, verse 15, he says this, and I commend joy for a man has nothing better under the sun, but to eat and drink and be joyful for this will go with him in, in his to in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun. Do you hear this? How good this is? I commend joy. This is what Paul says in Philippians chapter four. Rejoice in the Lord. Always. Again, I say, Paul says, rejoice. He says it twice. It was so nice, your job then as a Christian, even under the old covenant, under the Old Testament, they were thinking along these lines, be joyful. I commend joy for man, has nothing better under the sun, but to eat and drink and be joyful to savor and appreciate the gift of God. When's the last time that you enjoyed? Truly enjoyed. Something that you tasted, you know, whether it was a piece of cheesecake that was delectable and rich and creamy, or whether it was a good steak or something that I don't know, a, a good stuffed potato or something like that. When's the last time that you truly savored it and thanked God for it? Hopefully it wasn't too long ago, but the challenge for most of us is that we experienced so many good things that we often just forget about them. It's like the pilot. A pilot will often fly into the air 30,000 feet and they'll see the Aurora Borealis. They'll see the beauty and the wonders of creation, and at some point, and this is sad, they stop seeing, they see the same things and they become so accustomed to them that they no longer appreciate them. This can happen to us. We can see the glory and the beauty and the majesty of God in his word, and yet we can almost yawn. We can find ourselves being disinterested, disinclined, and this is what Solomon warns against. He's saying your job is to take joy in what God has given you. Eat, drink, and be joyful. These are common everyday things that you do. He's saying, take joy in the mundane. Are you disciplining your kids today? Take joy in that. Are you driving to work again on the same road that you always take? Take joy in that. Are you spending time with the family? Maybe watching the same reruns you always watch, take joy in the mundane things of life because these are gifts of God. This is what God has given you to do. Don't begrudge that In Ecclesiastes chapter nine, verse seven, he says this, go eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a me Hartford. Donna's already approved what you do. This is an interesting verse because what this tells us is that God desires. He wants us to delight in the life that he's given us. He doesn't want us to walk around morose and sad. Now, if we thought about it, we could say, there's a lot of reasons for us to walk around that way, couldn't we? We could say the world is broken. There's sorrow around every corner. There's wars. There's things that are taking place that grieve us. People are lost and dying. There's a lot of reasons to be sad and, and certainly we don't deny those things. We're not trying to superficially plaster a smile on her face and pretend everything's fine, but what we are doing. Is taking delight and joy in the life that God has granted us. God has already approved what you do. God desires that you be happy. God desires that you be joyful. God desires that you more than anybody have a contented heart because you more than anybody, if you're a Christian, have something to rejoice over. Verse 10 in chapter nine, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. He says, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in SHEEO to which you're going. Now, this reflects a first century understanding of the grave. In, in Solomon's mindset, the afterlife provided nothing. Now as far as they knew someone died, they're in the sheeo, they're in the grave, they're in Abraham's bosom. Whatever they were doing down there, they weren't doing what they're doing here in this life. And I guess to that extent, it is true. We do understand when we die, at least, if we were to die today, we go to the intermediate state. You don't possess your physical body, obviously that's still here, but you don't lose yourself. You're still you. You have some kind of temporary vessel. Paul talks about this in Second Corinthians, chapter five. He talks about it in the way of saying that we're unclothed, we're longing to be clothed again, to have our flesh. But until then, we're in some kind of intermediate state. Whether we have a loner body or whether we're spiritually visible somehow, I don't know. But he's saying here, Solomon, whatever your hand finds to do, do it. If God has given you something to do in this life, a job to fulfill a dish, to wash a nose, to clean up, if you're a mom or dad, whatever your hand finds to do, do it well. Find joy in the things that God has given you to do. Do not begrudge it. Don't hate it. Don't despise it. Don't complain about it. At some point you will want to do the things that you perhaps begrudged to do today. I always think about this meme that I saw a long time ago. Someone wrote it on their Facebook page and it got repeated throughout the years that it's something like this. At one point you picked up your son or your daughter for the last time and you didn't know it. Isn't that crazy? Doesn't that just make you think, oh wow, I didn't think about that. At some point you pick up your son or daughter for the last time. And then you never pick them up again. Now, granted, the shape of your love changes. It's not like it goes away, it matures, it grows, it manifests something other, but you never pick 'em up again. And for some people, especially people like myself who are a little more sentimental, you kind of get a little misty at about that say, oh, I wish I would've known. I wish I would've appreciated every single one of those hugs, and every time I picked them up and all those things I, I saw this also. Someone said something similar about spending time outside with your friends. They said, like, they said this at some point. Everybody went outside to play for the last time and then you stopped. People move away or things change. You get a girlfriend or you whatever. Things change all the time. And I think that's part of Solomon's point is to appreciate the fact that things do change. And what you have now is a gift and you should take it as such. Don't begrudge it. And chapter 10 I, I wanna point point out one verse here, chapter 10 verse 10. If the iron is blunt, one does not sharpen the edge. He must use more strength, but wisdom helps one to succeed I. Don't work harder, work smarter as you often hear, hear, and this is what that verse says. Moving down to the end of chapter 10, you'll see verse 20 says, even in your thoughts, do not curse the king nor in your bedroom curse the rich. Four. A bird of the air will carry your voice, or some winged creature will tell the matter. You might have heard that old phrase, A little bird told me. I'm pretty confident that idea comes from this verse here. A little bird told me such and such. And we also see this multiple times twice actually in the Old Testament. This is one of those times. And the other time is when a king is asking, which one of you guys is telling on me who is, who among you guys is betraying us to the Israelites and telling them what we're doing? In any case, what God is saying here through Solomon is that your words are gonna have a way of carrying themselves to the party that you're talking about. And this happens, this happens all the time, and we still tend tend not to learn these things. And, but you ought to, you ought to guard the, the doors of your mouth such that you're not loose lipped, you're not saying things about people, you're not saying, in this case, the king. You're not saying things about those in power. The leaders that you, that you follow in, in the, in a way that you would be ashamed that they hear about. And so instead, Solomon says, instead of doing that, instead of letting your words get to the king and they're gonna hear about it and they're gonna respond to it, whatever that looks like. How about just don't say anything. Don't even curse them in your thoughts. You don't want that stuff to travel, therefore, don't say it. In fact, your mom told you this, didn't she? If you have nothing nice to say, don't say it at all. Okay? Chapter 11, verse one. Cast your bread upon the waters for you'll find it after many days. Give a portion to seven or even eight for you. No, not what disaster may happen on earth. I think this is talking about investing. I think this is talking about spreading your wealth in different places so as not to put all your eggs in one basket, so to speak. This is the wise Christian approach to how we invest and save and anticipate future potential disasters. It's wise of you to have a savings account that recognizes Murphy comes knocking at the door and you never know when. So prepare for Murphy Scripture calls you to be wise in putting different. Pockets are creating different spaces of savings and different investments so that God will potentially bless those things. This is called diversification. I think that's what scripture talking about here in verse eight. In chapter 11. It says, so if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in the all. But let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity. He says here in verse nine, rejoice a young man in your youth and let your hearts hear you in the days of your youth. Walk in the way of your heart, inside of your eyes, but know that for all these things, God will bring you into judgment. He's saying, enjoy your life. But don't forget, God is watching. Take, take delight in the life that God has given you but never forgets. God is also judging. This is a reality. Christians remember, God does judge. Now remember, the difference is we're not judged on the condemnation. Our judgment has been satisfied on Jesus Christ, but we are judged. God's gonna take our life and weigh it. He tells pastors in Hebrews chapter 13 that we will give an account for those who we led, how we led. And so we should take that seriously. You will give an account for the people that you lead that might include your kids or grandkids, or your students. Keep that in mind. Chapter 12 is the culmination of all of Solomon's thinking here. And again, I think he writes this later in life. After he is had a few years under his belt, and so he talks about aging and how aging is gonna change you and things are gonna be different for you physically. Your body will change and the things that you used to love doing, you may not be able to do. And so he says, really, here's the, the sum total of it. Chapter 12, verse 13, the end of the matter all has been heard. Here's the punchline. Fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed and a judgment with every secret, every secret thing, whether good or evil. At the end of the day, the way that we navigate a vain life, A life that is fleeting, futile, and full of mysteries, that we fear God, we trust his leadership, what he says we do. We don't rely on our own wisdom. I'll allow. Proverbs chapter three. We trust that his wisdom is sufficient to guide us through even every complexity. Wisdom is no guarantee that we won't suffer greatly. Neither is foolishness for that matter. Generally speaking, foolishness leads to destruction and difficulty in life, and generally speaking, wisdom leads to success and good things in life. But they're not hard and fast rules. That's the nature of wisdom. And in fact, this is the inscrutable nature of God. God is always governing his creation actively. And so when we look at things like wisdom or folly, we're not talking about mechanical means that govern the universe. We're talking about the way that God says this is the right way to live. Here are the principles by which you will generally succeed, but that never changes. The fact that God has the cards, God will make the decisions as to what happens in your life, and that's what Job learns In his book, I. We looked at it earlier this year, God has inscrutable wisdom. He sovereignly rules the universe. And so therefore, at the end of the day, we're not trusting wisdom. We're not trusting folly. We're trusting God. We fear him. We, we let him lead. And we recognize that everything that we do, even if it doesn't result in good outcomes, we're not doing it for the good outcome, at least in the short term. We're doing it because we trust God for the eternal outcome. And that's what the Book of Ecclesiastes is all about. Well guys, thank you so much for joining me. Please pray with me as we close our podcast today. Lord, we wanna be wise people. We wanna be the kind of people who can take Ecclesiastes for what it says and to apply the wisdom without losing sight of the fact that you are the God of wisdom. And that wisdom is shown to us most fully and most clearly in Christ. Help us to look to him and to see him as our wisdom, to see Him as our delight, as our joy. And to let him lead us and guide us. In Hebrews or in Matthew chapter 11, Jesus says, take my yoke upon me. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and lowly in heart. Help us to trust his leadership and to take his yoke upon ourselves gladly, no matter what the outcome is, and do that. And Lord, we trust you, we love you, and we pray that you'll help us to do this even better as the years go on. We ask all this in Jesus name. Amen. Alright, that's everything today. Thank you so much for joining me. Hopefully I'll see you back tomorrow as we make our way into First Kings yet again. I'll see you then. Bye-bye.

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