The Wise Man Who Does Not Grasp the Greatness of God

9All this I have seen, and applied my mind to every work that is done under the sun. There is a time in which one man has power over another to his hurt. 10So I saw the wicked buried. Indeed they came also from holiness. They went and were forgotten in the city where they did this. This also is vanity. 11Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. 12Though a sinner commits crimes a hundred times, and lives long, yet surely I know that it will be better with those who fear God, who are reverent before him. 13But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he lengthen days like a shadow; because he doesn’t fear God. 14There is a vanity which is done on the earth, that there are righteous men to whom it happens according to the work of the wicked. Again, there are wicked men to whom it happens according to the work of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity. 15Then I commended mirth, because a man has no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be joyful: for that will accompany him in his labor all the days of his life which God has given him under the sun. 16When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on the earth (for also there is that neither day nor night sees sleep with his eyes), 17then I saw all the work of God, that man can’t find out the work that is done under the sun, because however much a man labors to seek it out, yet he won’t find it. Yes even though a wise man thinks he can comprehend it, he won’t be able to find it.

There are times when we look at how unreasonable the world is and grow frustrated that the God of justice does not judge at once. It is because the idea that those who trust God and live good lives will prosper does not seem to hold on earth. The prophet Habakkuk grieved over such things and prayed, and David, too, watching the wicked persecute the good, cried out earnestly to God. But we feel this way only because our eyes are fixed on the world.

Solomon, who had once defied the will of God, wanted to tell those wounded by such things that in the end the wicked do not prosper and do not live long. Even if the wicked do well until the day they die, he declares flatly, the days they enjoyed will vanish like a shadow. He spoke this way because he had come to realize that the blessing God’s people receive is entirely different from the blessing the world longs for.

In verse 11 he goes on to say that the wicked, seeing that sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, grow bolder in their sin. If God judged the very moment a sin was committed, fear alone would make people strive not to sin. But because the wicked do not fear a God who leaves their sin unpunished, they sin without a second thought. We must understand that God is patient because he is always waiting for people to turn back of their own accord. Knowing nothing of this grace, the wicked go on sinning out of ignorance and greed, until at last they fail to receive eternal life and suffer the punishment of hell. A person may outlive others on earth, but in the end everyone comes to death. When the body grows old and can no longer work, and the days simply slip by, perhaps the transience of life and their own helplessness will leave them feeling that living itself is empty.

Scripture does not say that a person who has not received Christ has enjoyed the blessing of long life, even if they lived to a hundred. Why? Because this world is a place where death is appointed by law, and after death we go into an eternal world where time is no more. When people die, the body returns to the dust and the soul goes on to heaven or to hell, as God has ordained; that is an eternal, unchanging truth. When I share the gospel, what I hear most often is that Christianity is narrow-minded. People ask why they should be called sinners, and how anyone could believe they would go to hell just for not believing in Christ; to say that one must believe in Christ to go to heaven, they tell me, is narrow.

But this is the law of the God who created the world: no one can be saved without believing in Christ, however hard that may be to understand. Because the law God has set does not wait for human understanding, we can pass on the truth, but we cannot argue anyone out of their unbelief. In this world there are righteous people who suffer and wicked people who live at ease. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and a wicked man who lives long in his evildoing; seeing this, we realize that in the end it is not we who decide the course of our lives. The moment our breath stops, what truly matters is not what we leave behind in the world but which world we go to after death.

People want their descendants to remember their names. There is even a proverb: a tiger dies and leaves its skin, and a person dies and leaves a name. That is how much people want to leave some trace that they once lived. But what matters most is not leaving a name; it is entering heaven through faith in Christ. Eternal life and eternal punishment both belong to eternity, where time is no more, and so whether or not we believe in Christ while we are alive makes an immense difference.

Whether anyone believes this or not, it is the law God has set, and so the moment a person sheds the body, their soul will already be standing before heaven or hell. The true blessing of long life is this: to live on earth as one who has been raised to life, and after death to go on living the life of eternity in heaven. If we, who are to receive and enjoy so eternal a blessing, fail to give thanks and crave the world’s abundance instead, we will be unhappy. If we look at the world through faith, we will see that there is nothing new under the sun, and that all of us are strangers and pilgrims passing through. Only when you read Ecclesiastes with this faith can you understand what Solomon truly meant.

There was a time when Solomon cast aside God’s grace and used the absolute power of the throne to oppress people. But God did not punish him at once, and since God did not rebuke him, he enjoyed life and sinned all the more boldly. Had God rebuked him every time he sinned, he would not have sinned so easily. It is fear that makes people stop doing evil.

Let me tell you from my own experience. There were years when my circumstances were hard, and yet I strove with all I had to live by the word. The longer the suffering went on, the harder it was to keep a quiet heart, to understand and embrace everything in love, and to endure in faith. Whenever I failed to give thanks or let a complaint rise up, invariably my children would come home hurt, or some trouble would arise that was almost too much to bear. This happened again and again, and at first I did not grasp it; then, quite by chance, it dawned on me that whenever I failed to govern my emotions, something would happen. And when I was struggling with a husband who did not fear God, God told me to persevere to the end for the sake of his salvation.

He told me that I had to bring my husband to rely on me, for only then would he listen to what I said and be able to receive Christ; and so I had to be patient. After hearing that, I believe I tried very hard. But every married couple has its quarrels. One day, while washing the dishes, I was trying to persuade my husband because we disagreed over a matter of faith. We simply thought differently, and I suppose I grew angry. I knew I should hold back, but while I was failing to master my temper, the porcelain bowl in my hand rang out with a sharp ping and split cleanly in two, as if someone had cut it with a knife: one half stayed in my hand, and the other dropped onto the sink.

I do not know whether the bowl had been cracked from the start or whether God split it as a way of rebuking me. But when I had served soup in it there was nothing wrong with it, so I do not think it was a cracked bowl. Because I clearly heard that ping, I think I took it as God’s warning, and I was deeply afraid. From then on I did not show my feelings, whatever happened. Learning not to show my emotions was, I think, harder than any other discipline.

To lay aside my own thinking and endure until God himself acts is never easy. But matters of faith are not settled by arguing, so I believe enduring is the right course. It means setting aside my own ideas and waiting for God to work. I did try to make him understand on my own, but as I endured, I came to see how futile that, too, was. For it did not take me long to realize that God can work only when I wait quietly and patiently. In time I understood that the command to be patient was not for the other person; it was love meant to make me grow. If your children got hurt or trouble struck your home every time you did wrong, you could never bring yourself to sin. That is why Solomon says that because God does not discipline at once, people sin and are not afraid.

Solomon, too, abandoned God’s will, oppressed the righteous, and lived for pleasure; yet because he lived long and prospered, he did not fear God. Only late did he learn that long life for the wicked who do not fear God is no blessing, and that abundance is not true blessing. Long life in this world means a hundred years, but life in heaven is eternal, and so a long life on earth is not in itself a blessing. And because he knew that the world is a gateway everyone must pass through on the way to the Kingdom of God, he says that we must live by the word.

This matters because, if we cannot believe these truths, the sight of the wicked living in plenty will lead us into the folly of clinging to the world instead of heaven.

Ecclesiastes 8:14

14There is a vanity which is done on the earth, that there are righteous men to whom it happens according to the work of the wicked. Again, there are wicked men to whom it happens according to the work of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity.

Among the most baffling things in life is this: the righteous seem to receive the punishment the wicked deserve, while the wicked seem to receive the reward due to the righteous and live well. People instinctively love to see good rewarded and evil punished, yet we often see the wicked living in plenty and the good suffering, as though there were no such thing. There are people who work honestly, without deceit, losing sleep over their labor, and yet, sadly, they cannot escape poverty. Others, by contrast, are cruelly wicked and false, know nothing of sharing, and exploit the poor, and still they do well.

This world holds far more injustice and unfairness than we would expect. Only when we recognize that such things may well happen here, set our hope on heaven, and believe in Christ can we resist the temptations of evil spirits. The moment we shed this body and see the eternal world, we will understand that the life we thought so unfair was the gateway to eternal life. And as we watch those who did not pass through heaven’s gate being judged, we will see clearly why this life in the world, vanity of vanities, was needed.

The rich life of those who sin without fearing God may look good for now, but in the end they must stand before God’s judgment seat, so the years they lived without faith will become the grounds of their judgment. Solomon squandered years in which he could have borne much fruit in spirit and body, and only then did he realize that the time he spent exalting himself was a great sin against God. It is fortunate if, like Solomon, one can repent at the end; but whoever leaves this world without repentance will face a judgment after death whose torment is beyond human imagining.

If judgment is the settled fate of those who have not received Christ, then living a good life on earth does not change the afterlife that awaits them. When the Bible calls people sinners, after all, it means not criminals but those who do not fear God. If God has made it a law that only those whose sins are forgiven through the blood of Christ may enter heaven, then people must receive Christ. For that is what salvation is: the way to receive eternal life.

When a hero dies, the world weeps and grieves the loss. But as time passes, the hero is gradually forgotten. In the same way, heroes and famous people alike fade from memory as history is made, and so we need to turn our minds to why we were born into this world, what our life is for, and the life after death that awaits us.

I hope none of you will become a hero who does not fear God. If you know what you are living for, then rather than living and dying in vain for the sake of people’s approval and a name to leave behind, you must live a life of meaning, believing in Christ, even if it brings persecution. The world will more and more persecute those who believe in Christ and will reshape every system to make people follow the Antichrist; so unless you rely on the word, you may be led astray by evil spirits without even knowing it. Wealth and power can look attractive because they are visible, but a life without Christ will surely end in regret one day.

To live uprightly, a person needs God’s help and the effort to keep their faith in Christ. But people choose a world where they can sin freely and indulge in pleasure over a good heart that goes against their nature. Solomon, too, lived as he pleased, and only after he grew old did he find that he had squandered the grace of God; reproaching himself for failing to live by the truth, he wrote Ecclesiastes with a heart full of remorse.

Solomon grieved that he had lived apart from God. While he was chasing after the world he did not see it, but once he came to fear God he realized that everything he had said and done in those days was sin, and the years he had let slip away in sin seemed such a waste that the sense of loss weighed heavily on him. Yet he gave deep thanks to God, who had shown him the grace to repent, even this late. What moved him to thanks was the realization that the pain of repentance is not suffering but the love of God leading him to heaven.

He had driven God from the throne and reigned as king himself, yet God set a sinner like him among the ranks of the righteous, and he was overwhelmed with gratitude for that grace. It is wonderful indeed when someone turns back at the end, as Solomon did, but many people have still not received such a blessing.

John 6:70-71

70Jesus answered them, “Didn’t I choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” 71Now he spoke of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, for it was he who would betray him, being one of the twelve.

Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus’ twelve disciples, was counted among those whose faith was strong, and he had the respect and praise of others. At first he followed Jesus sincerely, but when he would not change his own thinking, he ended in hell. Judas received the special blessing of becoming a disciple of Jesus, but he knew the word only in his head; his heart was never changed, and so he became the devil’s tool. His words and actions did not change; he was forever sitting in judgment on the word, and even after seeing the miracles and signs Jesus performed, he followed the will of the devil. Perhaps, being proud, he thought his own judgment was always right, and so he hindered the ministry of Jesus.

Then the devil, seeing how Judas obeyed his voice, entered him at the last moment, and Judas committed the even greater sin of selling Jesus. When he, who kept the money, rebuked the woman who offered the ointment, he complained not out of real concern for the poor but because he had the wicked intent of selling it and embezzling part of the money.

Satan drew Judas gradually away from Jesus, and then used him, now obedient to Satan, to have Jesus nailed to the cross. John 13:2 says that the devil had already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, and Luke 22:3 says that Satan entered into Judas, who was called Iscariot, one of the twelve. Without spiritual discernment, we can become Satan’s tool without knowing it — living for ourselves all our lives, like Solomon, or committing a monstrous sin, like Judas, who betrayed Jesus. We need to understand that this is not something only certain people do; anyone can become Satan’s tool.

The only chance to turn back to God is now, while we still have breath. When God calls us to come, there is no more chance to turn. God is still patient, as he was with Solomon. While he waits, may you keep your heart from a world that is like a shadow and live as his children, who fear him.

Ecclesiastes 8:16

16When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on the earth (for also there is that neither day nor night sees sleep with his eyes),

Solomon spent many years building the temple and his palace. People, of course, praised him as the king who built the temple and the king who ruled a strong nation. But Solomon himself had to lose sleep to make the nation stronger, and he was constantly anxious to guard his throne from those who coveted it. He waged war to conquer other lands, married a thousand wives, and owned enormous wealth as king — and yet he was so lonely, so afraid, and so disheartened that his nights were restless.

Those in power must go a step further than others to achieve outstanding things, so they always live with loneliness and fear. Because it is hard to hold on to power without aggressive leadership, they cannot trust those around them, and we can see such people endure alone until they collapse. However hard Solomon tried, he could not know what was to come, so he labored every day to prepare for the future; but as time passed he came to see that all of it was vanity. Only after the temple and the palace were finished did he notice how weary his people were. He lived in a splendid palace and enjoyed wealth, power, and pleasure, but inside him he could hear something crumbling. Watching himself wither spiritually even with a king’s power in his hands, he realized that only God can fill a human being, and only God can give happiness, through true joy and a heart deeply moved.

Solomon was a man of extraordinary wisdom. If even with the wisdom God gave him he felt the futility of life, then wisdom does not automatically bring joy. God’s wisdom gives us the discernment to see and judge the world rightly. So we who belong to God must be able, with the wisdom he gives, to judge and decide rightly how this world is moving. Then, unlike Solomon, we need not be left with regret too late, but can live as people who fear God, giving thanks in all things.

I hope you will not trust in yourself, as Solomon did, but rely on God. Then you will see how ignorant and frail human beings are, and you will come to grasp the greatness of God’s love more deeply.