Ecclesiastes Lesson 9

Is Man a Beast – 3:16-4:3

In Ecclesiastes 3:16 we’ll read the section which runs from 3:16 down to 4:3. “And, moreover, I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, iniquity was there. [17] I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked; for there is a time for every purpose and for every work. [18] I said in my heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, this estate exists that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. [19] For that which befalls the sons of men befalls beasts. Even one thing befalls them: as the one dies, so dies the other; yea, they have all one breath, so that a man has no pre-eminence above a beast; for all is vanity. [20] For all are going,” literally, “unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. [21] Who knows the spirit of man that goes upward, and the spirit of the beast that goes downward to the earth? [22] Wherefore, I perceive that there is no pleasure better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion. For who can bring him to see what shall be after him?”

4:1, “So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun; and, behold, the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power, but they had no comforter! [2] Wherefore, I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive. [3] Yea, better is he than both they, who has not yet been, who has not yet seen the evil work that is done under the sun.”

We come to another section as part of Solomon’s second report. Because we are moving into this second area of the second report we want to review where we’ve moved in this book. And that it might be clear to you the overall structure of that portion of the book that we’ve covered and where we’re headed. I think it’s doubly important in this book because as most of you have found out this book is not to be read in five minutes; this is not the kind of subject material for a speed reading course; this is a very deep book and was written to undercut the base of the person who would operate on some other framework than the Bible. In other words, the whole objective here is to show the fallaciousness of the non-Biblical position. And Solomon basically gives you a portrait in this book of spiritual death. This is why this book is so pessimistic and why it doesn’t really lift you as you read through it, except as you take to heart its truths and apply them to the New Testament and realize what we have in Christ in contrast.

We said there was a series of introductory things. Chapter 1:1, “all is vanity” etc. is the title, and verses 2-11 is the theme of the book, Solomon’s theme, everything’s going on. You can see that this is his theme, this is what he’s going to come back to again and again and again as he works through these reports. All of the material that we face basically substantiates this theme. This is a summary or the theme of the book so that you can see where he’s going, and then the rest of the book is to support why he’s going in that direction. He says, “One generation passes away, and another generation comes, but the earth abides forever. [4] The sun rises, and the sun goes down,” and it’s just monotony, there’s never any fulfillment for man. Man is looking for something beyond just this rat race and he says but this is all I see, this is basically all I see, “all is vanity.”

And this is what the word “vanity” means, for in the Hebrew the word “vanity” meant more like our word “vapor,” it meant something that was transitory, that had no enduring form or substance. It had substance, it was there, but only for a while, and because it didn’t have any enduring substance, it was there but only for a while. And because it didn’t have any enduring substance it didn’t last and just blew on and dissipated. And he says that’s what basically life is. He says life lived on my basis, when I’m really honest with myself, and drop all of the religious hypocrisy and all of the intellectual hypocrisy, this basically is all I have—vanity.

And then verses 12-18 is a summary of his methodology. This is a summary of how he arrived at the conclusions of verses 2-11; namely it was going to be by a comprehensive and exhaustive search program. Solomon had assets that you and I will never have; Solomon was one of the most richly endowed men who have ever lived; probably the most richly endowed man who has ever lived relative to his culture. “I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. [13] And I gave my heart to search out by wisdom,” in other words, it was going to be a skillful searching, this is going to be on a program, a program search, an exhaustive search. And he says, verse 14, “I have seen all the works that are done under the sun and, behold, the whole thing is vanity,” this is his conclusion.

And then he explains vanity in verse 15 and this gives you insight into a passage that we are going to discuss today. “That which is crooked cannot be made straight; and that which is lacking can’t be numbered.” And what he’s talking about there is not mathematics. What he’s talking about in verse 15 is not geometry and arithmetic; he’s talking in verse 15 about injustices in the world and he says “that which is crooked,” the word “crooked” always means bent from a standard, and it was used throughout the prophets of the Old Testament to refer to someone who violated the law of God. And he said this which is crooked, sin in other words, in society and in the individual, it can’t be straightened out, it just can’t be straightened out.

So therefore his conclusion in verse 18 as he quoted a proverb, “For in much wisdom is much grief; and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow.” Now this is a tip off to this book; it is going to be a comprehensive examination of life, and he is going to increase you knowledge of pleasure and he’s going to increase your knowledge of the frustrations, in case you have buried those or forgotten them in your own life. And he says as a result of this increased awareness you’re going to feel more and more miserable. That’s his point.

Now if this represents the time that we accept and the Lord Jesus Christ, picture here as a circle, God the Father puts us in union with Him, spoken of by the technical term in the New Testament, en Christo or “in Christ.” Now God the Father, at the moment of salvation, puts the person “in Christ,” this is your legal thing, the top circle. However underneath this we have a bottom circle and that’s the sphere of your experience moment by moment. Right now you live in the old creation, where Solomon lives; this is a new creation above the line, you live down here and you’re either at any given moment outside of this bottom circle or inside the bottom circle. If you are inside the bottom circle that means you’re operating in the filling of the Holy Spirit, walking by the Spirit, walking in the Light, or whatever the terminology you prefer. But this is when you are walking in fellowship with the Lord. However, if you’re outside of the circle, this refers to the fact that if you are a Christian you are out it spiritually and you have problems spiritually and you are out of the will of God and you’re miserable. Therefore this points out the fact that we have “in Christ” various assets that we must use. If we’re in the circle we experience the assets; if we are not in the circle they are not real to us.

Well, Solomon is outside of that circle and that’s the basis for his experience. He’s outside looking in. And he’s going to take a little tour, all through the toulies here, and report back to you what’s out there, so that you won’t be tempted sometime to say well I’m just going to live my life on my own, I’m just going to forget all this Christ business, forget it and move out on my own. And this basically is what you’re going to find. So the rest of this book is a series of reports. The first report is chapter 2; the second report is chapters 3 and 4; and it goes on sequentially this way.

Now each one of these reports is broken down into small sections. Chapter 2 was largely concerned with a series of experiments that Solomon tried. The experiments concern man as an individual and he said in verses 1-11, I’ve tried all of these pleasures, and as you skim through that list of verses 1-11 you can see the different things he tried. Verse 4 he had a construction program; verse 5 he had great real estate improvement; verse 6 pools of water; verse 7 he had servants and maidens. He had all of these great possession that we may say he had great holdings in the stock market, etc. the greatest of all men in his day. Verse 8, “I gathered silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure,” so he had all the riches that he wanted; he had his men singers and his women singers and he had his concubines, “the delights of the sons of men.” And so he had everything that a man in his position could wish. Everything! Absolutely everything from the material point of view. That’s his point here in verses 1-11.

Verses 10-11 I suggest and recommend to you that you never, never forget. The next time you experience materialism lust, the next time you have this little thought on the inside, oh if I only had _________ (blank) I would be happy, or if I only had a good time over here then I would be happy and all the rest of it. Just remember chapter 2:10-11, for this is his conclusion. After drowning himself in the riches of his time, verse 10, “And whatsoever mine eyes desired, I kept not from them. I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart was continually rejoicing in all my labor,” and then he stops and there’s a pause in the verse and then he winds up with this sarcastic conclusion at the end of it, he says “but that was my portion.” That was all I had. In other words, my joy lasted as long as the things lasted; if I had a party and sacked out at 2:00 a.m. after the party, that was the end of my happiness and I had a hangover the next morning. And there was nothing enduring, no enduring fulfillment. Every activity I tried the stuff just lasted as long as the activity, and so today I tried the beautiful girls routine and tomorrow I’d try music and the next day I’d try possessions, the next day I’d try construction, one activity after another to keep myself amused. And that’s his conclusion; it’s great, he says it’s like dope, it’s great when you’re on it but what happens when it gives out? That’s his point in verse 10. He says the only thing that you get out of riches is the immediate enjoyment of them. Now he’s not knocking riches per se, but this particular use of riches.

Then in verse 11, “Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on all the labor that I had labored to do; and, behold, all was vanity and preoccupation with wind [vexation of spirit],” that’s all. And you never want to forget that conclusion. Next time you’re tempted with some human viewpoint idea, some temptation that says to you that you’ve got to rub you fingers to the bone to get at the top of the ladder because if you don’t then you’re never going to have happiness, your happiness is in Christ and what He’s given you and not doing a lot of things. And yet this section in verses 1-11 will testify to you again and again, and never forget it, that the pleasures that you get out of these things are only going to last as long as the thing. In fact, it’s decreasing pleasure even then, it’s hedonism.

Then verses 12-17 he takes another tact; he says all right, the pleasure itself doesn’t give me happiness but suppose I turn it around and suppose I look at it this way. Suppose I look at the long-range maturity and self-development in my life; doesn’t this benefit me? So from verses 12-17 the theme is his self-development. He says all I have to do is self-develop myself, increase my personality and my persuasion, all guised here under the language of wisdom. And he says if I can increase all this then certainly that must make a difference in my life, certainly if I get my degrees and my college education, certainly if I get that promotion in business, certainly this self-improvement that adds to my character building, a character building program here, certainly this is going to benefit.

And then he says in verse 15, a very honest man, very honest, no hypocrisy with Solomon, he says, “Then I said in my hear, As it happens to the fool, so it happens even to me; and why was I then more wise?” What difference does it make? It doesn’t make any difference. “Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity.” Then in verse 17 his conclusion is, “Therefore I hated life,” I despised it; the word “hate” here means it just repulses me. It repulses me to live, to go on living, it’s obnoxious. So his self-development program comes crashing down on his ears because this doesn’t give him any lasting pleasure or fulfillment.

Then he comes in verses 18-23 and he tries another tactic. All right, we’ve tried pleasures, we’ve tried all these things, we’ve tried self-development, now I’ll tell you what I’m going to try; now I’m going to try to build my family heritage; now I’m going to rub my fingers to the bone to provide for my children what I myself did not enjoy, and even though I can’t have happiness I am going to make it so that my children can have happiness. Certainly this is the way of fulfillment; certainly I will get a feeling of fulfillment out of all of this. And yet he finds out that this doesn’t work either, for he says in verse 19, “Who knows whether he,” that’s his son, “will be a wise man or a fool?” And it turned out in history that Rehoboam was a fool. “…Yet shall he have rule over all my labor wherein I have labored, and wherein I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity.” So that’s shot down.

Therefore having looked at his own life, having looked at all the possible outs for personal fulfillment, he’s taken every one of the ideas you’ve had and he’s run the ball all the way down to the goal line. You never got to the goal line; Solomon did, and he’s taken every one of the thoughts you’ve had, and don’t say you haven’t because you’ve had every one of these. And he’s run the ball all the way and when he got down to the goal line there was no score because there wasn’t even a game being played.

So verses 24-26 is his overall conclusion from this second report. “There is no pleasure better for man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor. This I saw, that it was from the hand of God.” His conclusion here, you must understand this, how he uses words in this book. This is a rare book in the Bible in that the word “God” and the word “give” and these words that mean something rich to you are slightly twisted around in the way Solomon uses them. Therefore he’s using these words but he means something different by them. And here in verse 24 when he says it’s “from the hand of God” he simply means this is the design of reality; this is the way it, and since God’s “Creator,” (quote end quote), God did this for me. And so what he’s saying is that since I can’t get to the goal line, if I draw a bar graph and draw the bar all the way up to the top, that would be the fulfillment that he’s seeking; I can’t get that so I’m going to have to settle for something less, relative fulfillment, get what I can now. Now this is not going out and raising hell necessarily. It could involve that, that’s not necessary; that would be a crude form of fulfillment but nevertheless a legitimate one. Solomon’s point isn’t to be crude or not crude; his position is that you’ve just got to get what you can now and if you can get it nicely fine, if you can’t get it nicely fine. But that’s basically all that you’ve got and that’s what he says right here; he says just drink and eat and enjoy your labor; get what you can out of life right now and forget this business about ultimately fulfilling yourself.

But in the course of this second report Solomon has adopted a tactic, which has later been adopted by all the philosophy of the world and it’s evident in 2:13-14. I draw you back to this because he does the same thing in the passage before us today. He said, “I saw wisdom” and he quotes, verse 13 is a quoted proverb. This is what makes this so difficult to work through; I spent three days on two verses in this book preparing; it’s very difficult to read through this carefully and get it correct, but in verse 13 it’s a proverb, “Then I saw,” (quote) “‘wisdom excels folly, as far as light excels darkness’.” And you should really put that in quotes because he’s quoting a proverb there.

And then he quotes another proverb in the first part of verse 14, the proverb begins, “The wise man’s eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness,” and that’s the end of the proverb. That whole part of verse 14 is a proverb that he’s quoting. This is when he was on his self-development kick and he says I know this, this is what everybody says, this is what a proverb says, that “wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness” and “the wise man’s eyes are in his head,” etc. I know all of the verses but, verse 14, in the middle that should not be an “and,” that’s an adversative, “But I myself perceived that one event happens to them all.” In other words what he is doing at this point is adopting the position of rationalism. And here’s where Solomon makes a radical break with every other Scriptural writer. Every other Scriptural writer adopts the principle of revelation in that God, who is sovereign, righteous, just, loving, etc. that God has spoken to man. That’s revelation and that’s what we have in the Bible; God has spoken to man and therefore since it’s God’s word that has been spoken, I submit to them, intellectually, emotionally, in all other ways. I submit to them on the basis of good evidence of course, but I submit to them and I let the Lord be lord of my mind.

It’s amazing that in all of the sermons I’ve ever heard as a young Christian on the lordship of Christ, I never once heard anything about the Lordship of Christ over your brain. Now isn’t that interesting. It’s as though fundamentalists never knew you had a brain and was supposed to use it, and it’s tragic because that’s the most crucial area for the Lordship of Christ, over your brain and how you think. And it doesn’t mean throwing your brains in the closet and locking the door; it means that you think in accordance with the patterns that have been established in the Word of God and Solomon at this point, in verse 14, breaks out of the pattern and he says I know this is the pattern and the culture of the Word of God but I myself have found such and such is true. And he sees a contradiction between what the Bible says and what his experience testifies. We explained that the meaning of that contradiction was that he first invested the word “wisdom” in those proverbs of verses 13-14 with the wrong content. He redefined the word “wisdom” there in verses 13-14 so he produced a contradiction. There is no contradiction if you understand what the correct meaning of the word “wisdom” is. But nevertheless, because he came to the Bible with his eyes blinded by his carnality he didn’t read it correctly and then he perceived there was a contradiction between what the Bible said and what his experience testified.

So here he deliberately chooses his own authority and that makes him a rationalist. And by a rationalist I mean one who sets up his own mind as the center, the criteria of truth and that you don’t submit to an authority outside of yourself. Your own mind is the one that decides what is right and what is wrong. Most Christians do this when they’re out of fellowship. Basically it’s you deciding what the will of God is for your life, regardless of the Word of God. In practice Christians are doing daily what they accuse the liberal theologians of doing in theory. In practice every time you are out of fellowship you are a rationalist; you are deciding what is right and what is wrong for your life and you are deciding which way you are going to move. You are doing all of the choices based on what you want, not upon what is true in the Word of God.

So Solomon in verses 13-14 has made a crucial break; he has become a rationalist and the result of his rationalism soon emerges in verse 20 when he says, “Therefore, I went about to cause my heart to despair” and the word “despair” means to give up hope of finding answers. So he has done what thirty centuries of philosophy have really done, starting out in 600 BC in Milesia on down to the 1800s when we had men like Hegel, Kant and these philosophers who began to really feel that man rationally had come to the end of the rope and we can’t get real answers any more, so they chucked it. And we enter into a despair, a philosophical despair that’s come down in our day. And that’s what Solomon perceived way back here, thirty centuries before he had the seed form of this whole concept in his mind. In verse 20 that’s why he says I make my heart to despair, I’m never going to find true fulfillment outside of myself by myself.

So this is important to realize that when you’re outside of Christ as an unbeliever, or whether as a Christian you’re carnal, you must go back to this discovery that Solomon made in verse 20, “I caused my heart to despair,” and you can try to gloss over your despair by getting involved in a good job, good paying job, raise a family and go through all the motions of life but deep down in your heart you’re in despair. And you’re never, never going to have fulfillment on the inside, as you should and as you have been designed by God, by covering up and failing to admit that really down there you are in despair. But Solomon admits it and he says I am, there’s no answer here.

Last time we began the second report which goes through chapters 3 and 4. This report, rather than chapter 2, chapter 2 dealt with the individual life; chapter 2 is broader, it stretches out beyond just Solomon and goes over to the idea of man’s position in the universe. And that’s the topic for chapters 3 and 4. Now he’s going to go outside of himself and look at the whole picture, and this report, report number two, has three basic sections. Verses 1-15, that the universe has an undiscoverable purpose. There’s a purpose there but I can’t find it out. This is why that famous thing that you’ve heard quoted again and again, “there’s a time to kill,” verse 3, “and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up,” that isn’t fatalism when it’s thought of in terms of Solomon’s point. The point Solomon is making isn’t that there’s a time for you to do this and there’s a time for you to do that, the point is that there’s a time when it is done; it’s just part of one great design, there’s a time for this and time for that; there’s “a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones,” there’s “a time to get and a time to lose,” in other words all this seems to be a universal time schedule for all events.

But then he makes a radical conclusion in verse 11, again something that separates and divides him off from the rest of the writers of Scripture. “He has made everything beautiful in its time” and the word “beautiful” here means well-arranged, it fits together, and that simply summarizes verses 2-8. “He’s made everything fitting together in one great masterful plan, also He has set eternity in their heart, and beyond that mo man can find out the work that God makes from the beginning to the end.” In other words, here’s the problem man has. Going back to man, here’s man’s soul, here’s the human spirit. The soul has volition, personal affections, mentality, bodily affections and over here you have the human spirit. And what Solomon is saying, we look in the human spirit, through conscience, and we find that man is God-conscious; man has a God-consciousness. This is what Paul says in Romans 1, man has an inner, an innate sense that God exists. He has a cry in his heart for an absolute standard of truth and right and wrong; it’s there, submerged oftentimes but it’s there, submerged oftentimes but it’s there.

Solomon says this is what God has put in your heart, a desire to be grounded on absolute principles. And he describes this whole thing as “He has put eternity in your heart,” inside your heart there’s an eternal void that can only be fulfilled through God Himself. God has deliberately made you that way so you’ll come back to Him and so you’ll believe on His Son and receive Him. God has built you that way and you can run all your life, you can run year after year away from God and try to suppress it but you still deep down have something, an inner vacuum that can only be fulfilled by God. And this is what he’s saying.

But then he says there’s a tension, I have a desire to know God, I have a desire for these absolutes, I have a desire to really get there to the Planner of the overall plan, I have a desire for Him and yet at the end of the verse, “but no man can find out the work that God” does. That’s what he says, it’s impossible for me to know. So I have a desire that can’t be fulfilled, I have a desire that says you need God, you need God, you need God, you need the absolute, and yet from my mentality all I get is relative truth; that’s all, and I’m in tension. And this is basically the tension of our own generation, that men still cry out for an absolute standard and desire this thing but they have no place in which to stand. One of the great Christian men of our time has written a book called A Place to Stand and that’s what he means. Our generation doesn’t have a place to stand and it will never have a place to stand until it comes back to the Biblical framework of God’s Word. And you won’t have a place to stand individually until you straighten out with the Lord if you’re out of fellowship. So this is what Solomon’s point is in verse 11, a radical thing, that we can’t find out God’s work by ourselves; we can from the Word of God, but since Solomon has already excluded the Word of God from his system he doesn’t have the answer. He has a desire that cries out for answers, answers, answers, answers, but he’s already chucked the Bible and so no answers and he experiences this tension.

So now we come to the second section of the report and this extends from 3:16 to 4:3. The first part is that the universe has an undiscoverable purpose, I know there’s a purpose out there, of course I would have questioned him on this point, how do you know the universe has a purpose; that’s kind of a curve ball to throw at this point. But nevertheless he thinks the universe has a purpose, but I can’t find it out. It’s like many of you have reflected upon your life and you say to yourself, listen, I know that I’m living for something greater than just this, is this all there is to my life. When you think that thought you’re thinking exactly like what Solomon was thinking in verse 11; that’s the feeling, that there’s an eternal dimension in your life that you cry out for and you can’t… I remember the feeling. As an unbeliever in high school and the first year in college I had the same feeling, where is my life going. If I live on this earth 40-50 years and I die what’s the deal, is this all there is to life, just living from day to day, existing might be a better word; cram some food in in the morning, cram some food in in the evening and breathe in the meantime. Now is that life? No, you say that’s not life; well what is it then? That’s what Solomon is saying and every person’s asking this question. The unbeliever is asking this question.

Now in 3:16-4:3 he’s asking another question. Now he comes to the problem, not only does the universe have an undiscoverable purpose about it, but now I discover that the universe has an inexperienced justice, so I have an unknowable purpose and an inexperienced justice. In other words, I have a sense of right and wrong but I never see this thing fulfilled, there’s always injustice, somebody is always getting faked out, always getting tromped on. Why is this? Why does this go on. And that’s the second problem in the second report.

So he starts in verse 16, here’s his observation. “And, moreover, I looked under the sun,” see that phrase coming up again; it’s occurred again and again and again, “under the sun.” You see it in 4:1, “under the sun;” 4:3, “under the sun,” and you see it all through this book, “under the sun” because this is the framework in which Solomon is operating, not the framework you should be operating from. If you are a believer do you know what your framework is? You operate as unto the Son, S-o-n, and you operate in that framework by adhering to the Word of God. But Solomon isn’t doing that and he’s operating simply in a naturalistic way. “I looked under the sun and I saw the place of judgment.” Now the place of judgment refers to the authorities of civil government, the place where right and wrong should be corrected. I looked at that place “and there I saw wickedness, and I looked at the place of righteousness,” same place, synonym, “and there I saw wickedness.” The word “wickedness” is repeated; remember that because it’s going to come up again.

In verse 16 there’s a method that Solomon is using. When he wants to be really pessimistic, this is one of the most pessimistic sections in the whole book; he gives up at the end of this report. And to underscore his pessimism he repeats bad words and so he starts out in verse 16, “I looked at the place where there should be righteousness, and there was wickedness; I looked at the place where there should be judgment, and there was wickedness.” By repeating the word “wickedness” it is his method of emphasizing in the Hebrew the tremendous wickedness that he sees, the frustrating nature of it. I looked there, at least there there should be right and wrong. It’s like looking to Washington DC, it’s like looking to the local councils of government and you look there for somebody to stand up for right and wrong and you don’t see anybody. You people standing up for votes and no votes. But not whether there are absolute standards of right and wrong any more. So you look there, certainly there there should be somebody that stands up and there isn’t, and you’re disappointed.

Solomon says the same thing, and liberals have used this to say well it’s obvious then Solomon couldn’t have written the book because he was the place of judgment. But that’s to misunderstand the book. Solomon wrote this book as a series of memoirs about principles of government and elsewhere and he was a realist and he realized even in his own administration there wasn’t perfect justice. Marcus Aurelius did the same thing and he was obviously Emperor or Rome and yet he complained of exactly the same thing Solomon complained of in verse 16. So even the men who are in high places get frustrated at it. This is something that normal citizens don’t realize. It’s easy for you to sit down in the voting booth and say why doesn’t so and so straighten out the problem and so and so gets up there, and a lot of men have tried to get up there and straighten out the problem and they find their hands are tied when they’re up there. And the reason is that the Bible’s picture of society is true and that is that evil in society is not just economic and is not just government organization. Evil comes from spiritual forces and those spiritual forces can only be dealt with spiritually. And you can have all the brilliant men in government you want to and you’re never going to have justice unless the spiritual forces are dealt with.

This is why the Lord Jesus Christ says, in the book of Revelation, I am going to come into history, Second Advent of Christ, and I am going to set up my government called the millennial kingdom. Now why is it that it requires Jesus Christ literally physically coming back to this earth to set up a dictatorship; it’s not going to be a democracy. Why is that necessary? Because the Lord Jesus Christ must remove the spiritual powers of darkness before there can be peace on earth. You see how we get ourselves in a bind every time. Reject the Bible, reject the Bible’s testimony, then you turn around and try to solve the problem of injustice and you can’t solve it and you get frustrated and wonder why can’t I solve it. Because you’ve just destroyed the data; the Bible gave you additional material on which you can base a solution; you chuck the data and then wonder why you can’t solve the problem. It’s like in mathematics, you have three unknowns, and you only have two equations; you chuck the third equation, now you can’t solve the whole system and you wonder, why can’t I solve the equation? Because you dropped one of them, that’s why. And that’s the same thing the Bible says to you; why is it that man can’t solve the problems of injustice? Because he just dropped half the load, that’s why; God gave him the answer and he chucked it, now he turns around and tries to solve it on his own basis, can’t solve it and blames God for it. That’s real smart… real smart!

So verse 16 is Solomon’s frustrating observation. Now in verse 17 he comes to a first reflection; there are two reflections that we’re going to study today. The first is found in verse 17; the second is found in verses 18-21. These are not conclusions; these are what he is coming to to describe what’s going on. In other words, he’s saying look, I see what I see in verse 16, now how can I explain it. He’s going to conclude later but we’re just looking at explanations at the moment.

Verse 17, this is his first reflection, “I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked; for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.” Now here you have to watch carefully from the original language and why the proverbial literature really cannot be understood unless you’re a pastor or somebody that teaches you knows the original languages. You have to know original languages in certain portions of the Word; do not construe this as an excuse not to study the Bible. There are gobs and gobs of aids for you to study the Bible so don’t fold your hands and say I don’t know the original languages so I’m not studying. That’s an invalid conclusion; there are thousands of aids available to you.

Therefore in verse 17 you have to go back to the original language. “God will judge the righteous and the wicked,” that’s a statement and you say oh, great, that sounds good. But then he kills the statement by his next point and that’s how Solomon does this, again and again he comes out with something good and suddenly you rise up and say Solomon, you’ve got it man and then he blows it in the next verse. This is what he does. “I said in my heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked,” that’s required, basically every person’s felt this way if they haven’t admitted it intellectually, that if you look out in the world and you see people like Adolph Hitler running around and you ask yourself, listen, is that man ever judged. Nuremburg never caught up with Adolph Hitler, therefore did Hitler get away with it? Something inside you says no, that can’t be gotten away with, somewhere there’s got to be judgment. And that’s what Solomon is saying, God’s going to judge that sometime.

But then he adds, “for” and this is his reason for saying it, “for there is a time” and he’s referring back to verses 2-8, “there’s a time to love and a time to hate,” and “there’s a time to judge for every purpose and for every work—[dash] there;” after the word there should be a dash; —there. The word “there” in the Hebrew is at the end of the sentence which stresses sarcasm and it’s not “there” in italics in your King James. That word “there” is all right but it’s the second there; those of you who have King James will read the first part of that thing, after the colon, and it says “for there is a time there,” now that’s a true statement but it misses the force of the original language. That second “there” after the word “time” should be taken out and moved to the end of the sentence, and when you move it down to the end of the sentence then you feel the force of what he said: “for there is a time for every purpose and for every good work there.” And by “there” what does he mean? With God, that’s what he means. In other words he says God has his own program and I guess He’ll take care of it sometime… I guess He’ll take care of it sometime. Do you see the point? In other words he’s not to excited about the fact that God’s going to judge; God’ll take care of it some time, big deal. And that’s the attitude in which he says it in verse 17. And God obviously is withholding judgment in history.

Verses 18-21, his second reflection. “I said in my heart concerning the estate” or the status quo “of the sons of men, that” now to make sense out of this thing, those of you who study English realize this is not a complete sentence, no subject. So you’ve got to have a subject, the subject has to be supplied. “this is,” you have to supply that before the word “that God,” so it now reads, “I said in my heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, this exists,” or “this estate exists that,” purpose, “that God might manifest them and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.” Now the word “might manifest” is a word that means make clear what is already there.

Turn to Ezekiel 20:38, here’s the usage of this Hebrew word “barar,” and in Ezekiel 20:38 God is speaking to Ezekiel, the prophet, and he says, “I will purge out from among you the rebels and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel. Thus ye shall know that I am the LORD.” The word “purge out” is barar, and it means to make manifest. In other words, here’s the group, the nation Israel, as they come back at the Second Advent, and God is talking to Ezekiel and He says look, everybody in the nation is not going to get into the land, there are going to be believers and there are going to be unbelievers; and I’m going to manifest the unbelievers. How am I going to manifest them? I’m going to separate, that’s what I’m going to do, I’m not going to change them, I’m going to manifest or bring to public attention who they are; I’m going to purge the rebels, barar.

Now that’s the word, going back to Ecclesiastes, that Solomon has picked to describe what God is doing here. He’s saying look, I look out at the status quo of men; I see that they don’t experience immediate justice, it seems to be delayed all the time. God might take care of it up there, but I want it now. I don’t want to wait for it thousands of years from now, what’s the deal, how come He’s not doing it now; that’s his question. So therefore this is his reflection on it and he says, this status quo of men, that is suffering injustice, man suffering injustice exists “that God might manifest them,” and the word “manifest,” “barar” means to show it as it is. We have the expression “tell it as it is.” Well, God’s showing it as it is, that’s the word barar, “that He might show them what they really are,” and then he qualifies this by the next part of the sentence, “that they might see that they themselves are beasts.” The word “beasts” is the word in the Hebrew for mammals. And what he’s simply saying is that men as a result of suffering injustice and watching themselves not only suffer injustice but commit injustices on other people, watching this whole thing, big chaotic game going on, man’s going to look at that and they’re going to really realize, boy, this is a three-ring circus and we’re all animals on it. And that’s God’s purpose he says, just to show that men are animals.

You can see how despairing this man is at this point. He looks out and God is just doing this to show, to let us see that we are men themselves,” the word “themselves” is in the Hebrew and repeated because it draws emphasis to the fact that men’s own nature is but that of animals. Now that’s not true Biblically. But what Solomon is saying, God is just seemingly allowing this thing to go on so we’re going to draw the conclusion that we’re just animals. A lot of people don’t like to draw the conclusion but I’m going to show you in a few moments this is the only conclusion you can draw if the Bible is not true.

“Men are but animals” and then he explains himself in verse 19, here’s why he says men are animals, “For that which befalls the sons of men befalls beasts.” What does he mean by that? Well, then he adds, “Even one thing befalls them; as the one dies, so dies the other; yea, they have all one breath,” now “one breath” is “one spirit,” one kind of thing. And he says look, if you’d be honest with yourself and you look, can you really see any difference in the way men live? Sure, men wear clothes and make things, etc. but basically in their living pattern there’s no real difference between men and animals. They both die, so what really is the difference he’s saying. End of verse 19, “so that a man has no pre-eminence above a beast; for all is vanity.” And as he looks on this three-ring circus that he’s describing in verse 16 this is what he thinks. Look at that, just look at the way men behave; they behave like animals, they behave exactly like animals. And no only do they behave like animals but the same events happen to them both.

Verse 20, here he quotes Genesis 3:19 but he quotes it out of context. “All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.” That was originally given as a tremendous explanation for suffering in the world. Genesis 3:19 is the story of the Garden of Eden; it’s not just a story, it is a narration of what literally happened in history. And at one point in time Adam and Eve were standing there and at the next point in time God said “cursed is the creation.” So here we have God cursing creation, and why is creation cursed and why is there suffering in the world? Not because that’s the way God designed it; when it left God’s hand God said in Genesis 1:31, Behold, look at the things that I have made, they are good, even very good. And when the creation left the Creator’s hand it was not in the status you find it today and man turns around and says it’s God’s fault. It’s not God’s fault at all, God gave humanity the right of choice and he respected, He’s a gentleman and He isn’t going to twist our arm. He said if you want to choose this way fine, live in hell for a while, and if you want to get with it, then fine, but I’m not going to run your life like a robot, I’m going to let you choose your own thing and you can do what you want to, and so man did what he wants to and this is one of the things man did. And Genesis 3:19 therefore was to show originally why suffering existed. It existed because of the curse of God upon an act of free will. That’s why.

All right, but Solomon doesn’t do it that way; Solomon wants to blame God and he says well God has done this to “that men can see that they’re but beasts.” Verse 20, “All go to one place” and the word “go” there is a Hebrew participle and it means they are right now in the action of going; right now he says, before my eyes, the participle in the Hebrew is the motion picture tense, right now I see them going, going, going, going, going, my friends are dying. Solomon was an old man when he wrote this book and a lot of his men that he had grew up with had died; some of his generals, some of his administrators, and the older he got there would be one funeral after another funeral and finally all his friends had dropped dead and been buried, and he says I see them going right and left, the men that I’ve loved, the men that I’ve worked with and they’ve died off one after another. They are all going, “all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.”

Then in verse 21 he comes to one of the most pessimistic statements we’ve noticed to date. “Who knows the spirit of man that goes upward,” and the word “going upward” is a Hebrew participle. Now a Hebrew participle describes continuous action except when it has an article. So what we have here is an article, for those of you who have had sex education in place of English, an article is a, the, & and. Article plus participle, now here in verse 21, “who knows the spirit of man that it is the one going upward” is the way it should be translated. It’s a very difficult verse. “Who knows the spirit of man that it is the one that goes up, and the spirit of the beast, it is the one that goes down to the earth?”

In other words he’s questioning the difference between men and animals; that’s exactly what he’s questioning in verse 19, and it’s what he’s questioning here in verse 21. What’s the difference; absolutely no difference. Now this comes in a conflict with the rest of Proverbs. You see, he’s coming in conflict here deliberately because of his carnality. Turn to Proverbs 15:24 and you’ll see where in the orthodox literature of the day this was not true. Proverbs 15:24, using the same set of Hebrew words that were used in Ecclesiastes. “The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath,” and this word “above” here means a spiritual dimension to man’s life. And throughout the rest of the Bible the man is called someone made in the image of God. When God made animals He called them nephesh, nephesh is living. By the way, plant life is not technical living to the Hebrew mentality. They know it’s living but the word “life” in the Old Testament has a technical connotation, different from our word life, so I hesitate to use the word. Nephesh is the word the Hebrews used for animal and human life as distinct from plant life. So if the biologist creates life in the test tube it’s not life in the Bible sense of the word.

Nephesh, the soul, soul life, the union of the material and the immaterial, this is what animal is, this is what man is, but then, when God said look, animals are nephesh, then he said but I create man “in My own image.” In other words, man has been created differently, qualitatively differently from animals. And the reason for this is that God wanted man to know words that He would speak to man in history; God created man in His own image so that we might receive the Word of God. God created man in His own image that we might worship Him; we’re not just animals. And when man falls I history and we say that so and so is a sinner or we say that “all have sinned” we don’t say that man totally lost the image of God, for James says fallen man has still the image of God, I believe it’s James 3. So every member of the human race has the image of God.

Now let’s apply this to our own time. One of the great doctrines abroad today is the doctrine of evolution. The problem with evolution, not only its scientific problems of which I’m mostly aware, but the problem in morals is this, and you’ve got to see this because the unbeliever loves to say this: he loves to say evolution is true but you might as well live as though it’s not true, because if evolution is true basically there isn’t any difference between man and animal; there isn’t any real difference. But then they turn around, having said that, and say oh, but live like a man, don’t live like animals; you’re just animals but don’t live like animals. Now that’s the paradox of our time. This is why this business of teaching evolution in the public schools is reaping the fruits it has. Obviously it’s not directly doing it but it’s indirectly it’s saturating our culture.

You know the television program that was on this week; it was just a lot of bilge; in the first place it wasn’t even good anthropological scholarship. In the second place they tried to take the man’s sin nature and his aggressiveness and attribute it to the genetic inheritance we’ve got from our monkey background so because you left your bananas up in the tree and hopped down for a walk this is why you’re aggressive. I find this rather amusing because for years orthodox theologians have said original sin is inheritance; oh no, it can’t be inherited, and yet exactly in our own time they’re turning and saying exactly the same thing. But the point is that they have to conclude and explain why man acts like he does, and they’re coming to exactly the conclusion that Solomon is saying… exactly the same thing that Solomon said in verse 19 that TV program said to you. Exactly the same thing, man’s aggressiveness and his injustice and his behavior pattern is directly due to his beast background. And that’s what Solomon’s saying right here, and he further more adds and who knows whether it’s right that man should be this way or not, in verse 21. What is the difference.

Now this is why evolution has a tremendous affect today and why it is modern educators haven’t woken up to the fact that it’s them that’s causing the tumult; they blame it on somebody else or social conditions. Nonsense; it’s not social conditions, we’ve had bad social conditions in this country since 1776 and before that. It’s not social conditions that are causing the problem; we’ve had them before. The problem is these intellectual ideas that are thrown all over the place. And so they tell their students you’re monkeys, you’re nothing but people that have come from the monkeys, etc. and then the kids act like monkeys and they wonder why. What do you have to do to get through to these people. You can’t spend hour after hour telling people that they’re descended from the apes, and by the way Darwin did say that man descended from the apes, don’t let some biology teacher oh, Darwin never said that man came from the monkeys; oh yes he did, and I’ve got chapter and verse in my office. Darwin did say man evolved from the apes.

Now you can’t keep on saying this day after day after day after day and not cause something to happen. Ideas always have consequences, always! And you throw that thought around and feed enough peoples brains with this thing and sooner or later they’re going to say well why can’t we act like monkeys; the animals copulate all over the place, why can’t people. Now why can’t they? And you don’t have any answer unless you go to the Bible. You see, there’s absolutely no answer against this. What happens to morals? They’re shot. Do you know if I were not a Christian and absolutely intellectually convinced, and spiritually convinced that this Bible was the Word of God and that creation happened just as it is in Genesis, if I hadn’t taken the hours and hours and hours it took me to go back through and study some of the scientific problems of the Bible, if I hadn’t come to the conclusion that this Bible is the Word of God, do you know what? I would be one of the student radicals too, and I’d smash and smash and smash, why shouldn’t I. You say well that’s not right, you shouldn’t smash my property. Oh, who gives you your property rights? Evolution teaches one moral and that is survival of the fittest and that’s the only moral it teaches. And so therefore if evolution is true then that’s the way I would live if I were intellectually honest to the position. If I did not believe that the Bible were true I would respect no one’s morals, I would respect no ones rights except my own because it’s survival of the fittest and I intend to survive, and if I have to knock off a few people to survive, fine, as long as I don’t get knocked off. That sounds cruel and you say well isn’t that bad; no, it’s absolutely consistent. If evolution is true then that’s all you’ve got. And don’t try to hang on to this oh well I still like the Christian ideas of right and wrong. I don’t, what are you going to do about it. See, what are you going to do about it; you haven’t got any base to come back to me on any more. If evolution is true then this is the way you should live and if God is there and we come back to what the Bible says, that God has character, He has sovereignty, He has righteousness, He is justice and He is love, then there is where I have my morals, and they’re not there because the crowd has legislated them all, I respect them whether the legislature recognizes them or not.

Example: You can take some of the divorce laws in this nation, they are absolutely unscriptural; as pastor I refuse to recognize them, absolutely refuse to recognize them. People can get divorced for all sorts of things, it doesn’t make the divorce legal. Some people are not divorced and can be divorced on Biblical grounds. There are Biblical grounds for divorce but you take the legislation of our time and you can live with anybody and live with ten different people and that’s fine. Now, that’s the establishment law; I don’t follow the establishment law, I follow the Word of God. And I don’t care what the establishment law says; the Word of God says, period, and that’s what I follow. And that’s what you should follow if you’re a Christian. You don’t hang onto things just because the government tells you or because your local little Christian fellowship group tells you, or because your parents tell you, you hang onto these things because they are true and they come from God’s character. That’s why you hang on to them and for no other reason.

The great danger you face as Christians, particularly the older generation toward the children is that we convey the idea that we’re going to be moral even if the Bible is not true. Now how man times have you heard that: it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you live. That is satanic; it does matter what you believe and if the Bible is not true then you have no morals. And you shouldn’t give kids that impression, that you’re going to hand onto the morals and ethics even if the Bible someday is proven false. If the Bible is proven false tomorrow then chuck everything. That’s what you should do; that’s the logical thing you should do, just chuck it. And that’s what I mean by the fact that in Christianity everything hangs on the Word of God; everything hangs on the Word of God!

Let’s look at his conclusion in verse 22; here is his first conclusion, next week we’ll deal with the second conclusion. His first conclusion is this: “Wherefore, I perceive that there is no better pleasure, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion. For who shall bring him to say what shall be after him?” His point is that as I look at life and as I look at these things, here is my birth and here’s my death, (I’m not putting the spiritual birth in this diagram), here’s his physical birth and here’s his physical death and as he looks down through the road from one end to the other he says injustice, injustice, injustice, verse 16 is his observation again, over and over and over again he never sees justice. So in verse 17 maybe God some time will get around to doing it, correcting the problem. Maybe some day He’ll correct the problem, but I can’t be sure of it and verse 22 is his expression of his uncertainty. He says “who can bring him” man, “to look on,” the word “see” really means to gaze at with the purpose of studying, “who can bring man to see what shall be after him?” In other words, I’m concerned with my life right here and now, not what’s going to happen out over here he says, because I look at my life as “under the sun.”

In conclusion, how can we counter his conclusion from the Word of God? We counter exactly the way he’s moving in the opposite direction. He says that he’s not sure what’s going to happen over here; we are sure of what’s going to happen. How are we sure it’s going to happen? I’ll show you; turn to 2 Peter 1. I hope as we go through this some of you that have never thought about this will see why it is today we’re facing what we are facing in our society. And why it is that some of the student rebels are saying what they are saying. Do you see they are absolutely right? The people that are the wrong ones that are the people who insist upon adhering to the standards of Christianity while they’ve torn the guts out of the Bible. Who is it over the last 30 years that has been shredding the Bible? Your college faculties, your college administration. It wasn’t too many years ago when on a prominent eastern university Christians couldn’t even worship and gather together in prayer on the campus without signing their life away. That’s ridiculous. You go to Berkeley, supposedly the place of free speech, and a group of Christian athletes can’t even get up and tell people about the gospel. Now who’s ran that through? The administration. So the administrations have been busy tearing apart the base, shredding the Christian faith and then they say, oh, I wonder what’s happened, all of a sudden we’re got these student radicals. It’s very easy to see what happened, all the radicals are doing is just taking things to the logical conclusion.

2 Peter 1:16, this is how we can be sure that justices will be corrected. Peter is going to die and this is his last words to the church. And he tells them and he reiterates what he’s told them, and then in verse 16 he says, “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables,” these aren’t just myths that we made up, “when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty, [17] for He received from God the Father honor and glory when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. [18] And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when were with Him in the holy mount.”

What’s Peter talking about? He’s saying how do I know Christ is going to come again; I’ll tell you how I know, because one day when I was walking with the Lord Jesus He said you’re going to not die before you see Me coming in My power and glory, and within a week, within six or seven days Peter, James and John were up on the mount, called the Mount of Transfiguration, and the Lord Jesus Christ transformed Himself before them and they stood by, they watched, the Lord Jesus actually transformed His body into the shimmering body of the resurrection and there spoke with the Lord Jesus Moses and Elijah, and they carried on a conversation; this wasn’t a hallucination, three men actually saw this happen. And he said that’s exactly the way the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come again; the Lord Jesus Christ gave them empirical evidence as to what would happen in the future. He said Peter, I know that you’re not going to live to see My second coming but I want to show you what it’s going to be like, I’m going to give you a preview of coming attractions. So on the Mount of Transfiguration the Lord did just that. And then you remember “foot in mouth” Peter, oh Lord, let’s have a building program and built a monument to You, to Elijah, and to Moses. And the Lord told him, be quiet. In fact, God the Father spoke to him, they were up on the mount and Peter and John were discussing a building program, and so God the Father spoke to them and in the Greek it says would you shut up, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear Him.” And that’s basically the force of the Greek, it’s an imperative and it’s more or less in the continuous tense which means just be quiet for a minute so I can speak. Its really down right humorous when you read it, just shut up Peter, just zip it up for a while because I want to give you a testimony and the testimony is that “this is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And so what does Peter say in verse 18, “we heard these things,” this wasn’t an hallucination, this was empirical evidence of what God was going to do in the future.

So verse 19, his conclusion, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy,” and the word “sure” is in the perfect tense, it’s a perfective form, not actually a verb, which means something that has been made sure or something that has been confirmed to us. So it’s not just an empty promise that God says oh someday I’m going to take care of the problem. But rather Christ has done all He can to give empirical evidence that this problem will be solved and that I’m going to come to you Peter, so therefore he says, this “word of prophecy” that we have,” that’s the Old Testament at this time, this word of prophecy that we have has now been confirmed. It has been confirmed by a real miraculous appearance. “Whereunto,” he warns us and he warns you, “Whereunto you do well that you take heed as unto a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the day star arises in your hearts.” The word “in your hearts” should go with the verb “take heed.” You should take heed in your hearts as unto a light that shines in a dark place, etc. referring to the Second Coming of Christ.

Verses 20-21, “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture originated from one’s own ideas [interpretation].” That’s what that verse says in verse 20, it means that these men didn’t sit down and dream about a second coming; they weren’t led to it by some philosophical evidence. They were told it by God verbally revealing Himself to them. And verse 21 he explains, “the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were borne along by the Holy Spirit.”

Our conclusion, turn to the last book in the Bible and I want to show you what it’s going to be like, for here is the audio visual presentation that God gave the Apostle John. This is the way it’s going to be and I want you to see this because Jesus doesn’t appear like this sweet little fellow you find in the Sunday School literature holding a lamb in His arms. He was a very gentle person and He was a gentleman but there comes a time in history when He judges, and it’s not going to be very pleasant to be around because Jesus Christ is love but Jesus Christ also has absolute righteous standards and those righteous standards are not forever going to be violated. So therefore in Revelation 19:11 the Apostle John sees heaven opened, “And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He does judge and make war.” See, there’s the gentle Jesus. [12] “His eyes were a flame of fire, and upon His head are many crowns, and He had a name written that no man knew but He Himself. [13] And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and His name was called The Word of God. [14] And the armies which were in heaven, followed Him upon white horses, clothed in white linen, white and clean. [15] And out of his mouth goes forth a sharp sword, that with it He would smite the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; He treads the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God,” from which the Battle Hymn of the Republic was composed from this section of Scripture. [16] “And He has on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. [17] And I saw an angel standing in the sun and he cried with a lout voice, saying to all the fouls,” the word here is the vultures, the scavengers that eat dead flesh, “and I said to all the fouls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the Great God, [18] That you might eat the flesh of the kings, the flesh of the captains, the flesh of the mighty men, the flesh of horses and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. [19] And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him that sat on the horse and against His army. [20] And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that worked miracles before him,” two members of the great ecumenical religious movement in the Tribulation, “by which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast and them that worshiped his image; these both were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. [21] And the remnants were slain with the sword of Him that sat upon the throne,” etc.

Then he goes on and describes the tremendous judgment, the Great White Throne judgment and you see this in verses 10 and following of chapter 20. “And the devil, that deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and forever.” There’s no annihilation, it’s one of the horrifying messages of Scripture, that you can commit suicide but you never end your existence; you go on forever and ever and ever. Suicide is never an out, it only introduces you to another phase but it doesn’t end your life.

Verse 11, “And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heavens fled away, and there was found no place for them. [12] And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before the God, and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the book,” notice here sins are not mentioned at the Great White Throne judgment. Do you know why? Who bore your sins? Jesus Christ bore your sins on the cross, sins aren’t what separates you from God now, what separates you from God is your rejection and your replacing a human good system, you want to earn by your own meritorious works your status before God, and God says in verse 12-13, those works don’t measure up. So what you have here in verses 12-13 is a removal of the counterfeit righteousness that men try to clothe themselves with.

Then verse 14, “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. [15] And whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire.” That, Peter says, is not a myth, that’s not a cunningly devised fable, that’s a true fact. And if the newspapers are still around when that happens it’ll be reported in the headlines. That’s what’s going to happen. And he says the dividing [can’t understand word] that divides the sheep from the goats is not their works of merit, not your religious works, but whether you have received God’s grace on your behalf because historic Christianity has never said men can be saved by works. Works don’t count in the end; what counts is whether you will receive and trust in what God has provided for you in Jesus Christ. In a moment of time you can personally trust in Him. That means you have to know certain things and having known those things you investigate them and see they’re true, and when you see they’re true you believe. That’s how you become a Christian. With our heads bowed.