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.
When believers see how unreasonable the world is, there are times when they feel frustrated that the God of justice does not judge at once. They feel this way because the principle that those who believe in God faithfully and live good lives will do well does not hold in the world. The prophet Habakkuk prayed because he was grieved by such a situation, and David too cried out earnestly to God when he saw the wicked persecuting the good. But these feelings come from having one’s focus set on the world.
Solomon, who had once defied God’s will, wanted to tell those who had been hurt by such situations that in the end it shall not be well with the wicked, and they shall not live long. He states flatly that even if the wicked do well until the day they die, the days they enjoyed will vanish like a shadow. He had come to realize that the blessing God’s people receive is entirely different from the blessing the people of the world want, and that is why he spoke this way.
Then in verse 11 he says that the wicked, seeing that sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, grew all the bolder in sinning. If God judged people the very moment they sinned, they would try not to sin, if only out of fear. But the wicked do not fear a God who does not judge them even when they sin, so they sin without a care. We must know that God is being patient because he is always waiting for people to turn back of their own accord. The wicked, who do not know this grace, go on sinning in their ignorance and greed, and in the end they do not receive eternal life but receive the punishment of hell. Even if a person lives longer in this world than others, everyone in the end meets the end called death. When their body has grown old and they can no longer be active and only let the time pass, perhaps the fleetingness and helplessness of life will make them feel that living is empty.
Even if someone who has not received Christ lives to be a hundred, the Bible does not say that they enjoyed the blessing of long life. For this world is a place where death is appointed by law, and after death people go into an eternal world where there is no time. It is an eternal, unchanging truth that when people die, the body returns to the dust and the soul is divided between heaven and hell, as God has ordained. What I hear most often when I share the gospel is that Christianity is narrow-minded. People ask why they are sinners, and how they can believe that they will go to hell just because they did not believe in Christ, and they say it is narrow-minded to say that one must believe in Christ to go to heaven.
But this is the law set by God, who created the world, so even if it makes no sense to someone, they cannot be saved without believing in Christ. The law God has set does not ask for human understanding, so we can pass on the truth to a person but cannot argue them out of their unbelief. In this world there are righteous people who suffer and wicked people who enjoy peace. Some righteous people perish in their righteousness, and some wicked people live long in their evildoing. Look at that, and you see that in the end a person’s life is not something people decide. At the moment the breath stops, what really matters to that person is not what they leave behind in the world but which world they go to after death.
People want their descendants to remember their names. There is even a saying that a tiger dies and leaves its skin, and a person dies and leaves a name, so much do people want to leave some trace that they lived in the world. But what matters most for a person is not leaving a name but entering heaven through faith in Christ. Eternal life and eternal punishment are both an eternity without time, so there is a vast difference between believing in Christ and not believing while in the world of the living.
Whether a person believes this or not, it is the law God has set, so the moment they put off the body, their soul will already be standing before heaven or hell. The true blessing of long life is for a believer to live in this world as one who has been raised, and after death to go on living eternal life in heaven; that is the blessing of long life. If those who are to receive and enjoy such eternal blessing fail to give thanks and crave the abundance of the world, they will become unhappy. Look at the world with faith, and you will see that there is nothing new under the sun and that all are travelers passing through the world. Now you must read Ecclesiastes with this faith; only then can you understand what Solomon truly meant.
There was a time when Solomon turned his back on God’s grace and oppressed people with a king’s absolute power. But God did not punish him right away, and because God did not rebuke him, Solomon enjoyed life and sinned all the more boldly. If God had rebuked him every time he sinned, he would not have sinned so easily. For people can stop doing evil when they are afraid.
Let me tell you from my own experience. There were years when, though my circumstances were hard, I strove with everything I had to live by the Word. The longer the hardship went on, the harder it became to keep my heart at ease, or to understand and embrace everything with love and endure in faith. Whenever I failed to give thanks or began to complain, without fail my children came home hurt, or problems arose that were hard to bear. Although this kept happening, at first I did not really understand; then I happened to realize that whenever I did not manage my emotions well, something would happen. And when I was struggling with my husband, who did not fear God, God told me to try enduring to the end for the sake of my husband’s salvation.
God said I must be patient, because only when I made my husband depend on me would he listen to what I said and be able to receive Christ. After hearing that word, I think I tried very hard. But there are always quarrels between husband and wife. One day, while washing the dishes, I was trying to persuade my husband because we disagreed about a matter of faith. We simply thought differently, and I think I got angry. I knew I had to hold back, but while I was failing to control my feelings, the china bowl in my hand gave a sharp ping and split exactly in half, as if someone had cut it with a knife; half stayed in my hand and half fell onto the sink.
I don’t really know whether the bowl had been cracked from the start, or whether God cut it as a way of rebuking me. But there was nothing wrong with it when I ladled soup into it, so I don’t think it was a cracked bowl. To my mind, because I clearly heard that ping, I took it as God warning me, and I think I was very afraid. From then on I did not show my feelings in any situation. I think the training of not showing my feelings was harder than any other training.
It is never easy to set aside my own thinking and endure until God himself works. But matters of faith are not settled by arguing, so I think enduring is right. It means setting aside my own thinking and waiting for God to work. I try to make the other person understand by my own effort, but as I endured I came to see how futile that too is. For it did not take me long to realize that God can work only when I am quietly enduring. As time went by, I learned that the word telling me to endure was not for the other person; it was love meant to make me grow. If you too found that every time you did wrong your children got hurt or trouble came to your home, you would never dare to sin. That is why Solomon says that, because God is not one who disciplines at once, people sin and still do not fear.
Solomon too abandoned God’s will, tormented the righteous and lived in pursuit of pleasure, yet because he lived long and enjoyed abundance, he did not fear God. But he came to know, too late, that the long life of the wicked who do not fear God is not a blessing, and that abundance is not true blessing. For long life in this world is a hundred years, but life in heaven is eternal, so living long in the world is not the blessing. Because he knew that the world is, in the end, a gateway that must be passed through to reach the kingdom of God, he says that we must live according to the Word.
For if we do not believe this, then when we see the wicked living in plenty, we fall into the folly of clinging to the world rather than to 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 absurd things in life in this world is when the righteous seem to receive the punishment the wicked deserve, and the wicked seem to receive the reward the righteous deserve and live well. As though the rewarding of good and punishing of evil that people instinctively love did not exist in the world, we often see the wicked living in abundance and good people suffering. There are people who strive honestly to live upright lives and work through sleepless nights, yet sadly cannot escape poverty. On the other hand, there are people who are cruelly wicked and false, who do not know how to share and who exploit the poor, and yet they live well.
The world is a place where there is far more injustice and unfairness than one would expect. Only when believers recognize that such things can well happen in this world, set their hope on heaven and believe in Christ can they resist the temptations of the evil spirit. The moment believers put off the body and see the eternal world, they will come to know that their life in the world, which they thought unfair, was the gateway to receiving eternal life. And as they watch those who did not pass through the gateway of heaven being judged, they will see clearly why life in the world, vanity of vanities, was necessary.
The abundant life of those who sin and still do not fear God may look good for now, but in the end they must stand before God’s judgment seat, and the time they lived without faith will become the grounds for their judgment. Only after Solomon had wasted the time in which he could have borne much fruit in spirit and body did he realize that the years he had spent exalting himself were a great sin against God. It is a mercy if a person can repent at the end as Solomon did, but if they leave the world without repentance, the judgment they will receive after death is a torment beyond human imagining.
If it is a settled fact that those who have not received Christ will be judged, then having lived a good life in the world does not change the afterlife that has been settled. For when the Bible speaks of sinners, it does not mean criminals but people who do not fear God. If God has laid down as law that only those whose sins are forgiven by the blood of Christ can go to heaven, then people must receive Christ. For that is salvation, and the way to receive eternal life.
When a hero dies, the world wails and expresses deep regret. But as time passes, the hero is gradually forgotten. As time goes on, heroes and famous people alike are forgotten and history is made, so we must turn our attention to why people are born into the world, the purpose of life, and the afterlife we will face after death.
I hope you will not become heroes who do not fear God. If you know why you are living in the world, then rather than meeting a vain life and death for the sake of being recognized by people and leaving a name, you should live a meaningful life of believing in Christ, even if you are persecuted. The world will more and more persecute those who believe in Christ and change every system so that people follow the Antichrist, so if you do not rely on the Word, you may be tempted by the evil spirit without even knowing it. Wealth and power can look good because they are visible, but a life without Christ will surely come one day to a moment of regret.
To live a good life, a person needs God’s help and the effort to keep their faith in Christ. But people are choosing the world, where they can sin freely and enjoy pleasure, over a good heart that goes against their nature. Solomon too lived a life of freedom, and only after he had grown old did he find that he had poured away the grace of God. Blaming himself for not living by the truth, he wrote Ecclesiastes with a regretful heart.
Solomon regretted having lived a life away from God. When he was chasing the world he did not know it, but as he came to fear God he learned that everything he had said and done back then was sin. The time he had let slip away in sin seemed such a waste that deep regret remained. Yet he gave deep thanks to God, who had shown him the grace to repent, even this late. He had come to realize that the pain of repentance is not hardship but the love of God that leads to heaven.
Solomon had driven God from the king’s throne and reigned as king himself, yet he was so grateful for the grace that set such a sinner among the ranks of the righteous. It is truly a mercy to turn back at the end as Solomon did, but there are still many people who have not received this 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, who was among Jesus’ twelve disciples, was one of those with good faith, respected and praised by others. At first he followed Jesus sincerely, but because he would not change his own thinking, he ended up falling into hell. Judas Iscariot received the special blessing of becoming a disciple of Jesus, but he knew the Word only in his head and his heart was not changed, so he became the devil’s tool. His words and actions did not change; he always sat in judgment on the Word, and even after seeing the miracles and signs Jesus did, he followed the devil’s will. Perhaps, because he was proud and thought his own judgment was always right, he may have gotten in the way of Jesus’ ministry.
Then the devil, seeing Judas Iscariot obeying his words, entered him at the last moment and committed the even greater sin of betraying Jesus. Judas, who was in charge of the money, rebuked the woman who offered the perfume not because he truly cared about the poor, but because he had the evil intention of selling the perfume and embezzling some of the money.
Satan gradually drew Judas Iscariot away from Jesus, and used Judas Iscariot, who obeyed Satan, to nail Jesus to the cross. John 13:2 says that the devil had already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Jesus, and Luke 22:3 says that Satan entered into Judas, who was also called Iscariot, who was counted with the twelve. If we cannot discern spiritually, we become Satan’s tools without knowing it; like Solomon, we may live our whole lives for ourselves, or like Judas Iscariot, commit the terrible sin of betraying Jesus. We must 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 you are still breathing. When God calls you to come, there will be no more chance to turn back. While God is being patient, as he was with Solomon, I hope you will not give your heart to a world that is like a shadow, but become children who fear God.
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 building his palace. Of course people extolled him as the king who built the temple and praised him as the king who ruled a strong nation. But Solomon himself had to lose sleep to make the nation grow stronger, and he was always anxious to keep his throne from those who had their eyes on it. Solomon, who waged war to conquer other lands, married a thousand wives and owned enormous wealth as king, was so lonely, afraid and empty that he could not sleep at night.
Those in power must strive a step ahead of others to achieve outstanding things, so they always carry a lonely and fearful heart. Without aggressive leadership it is hard to hold on to power, so they cannot trust the people around them, and you see them endure alone until they collapse. However hard Solomon tried, he could not know what would be, so he lived every day diligently to prepare for what the future would need; but when time had passed, he realized that it had all been vanity. Only after the temple and the palace were built did he see how weary the people were. He lived in a splendid palace and enjoyed wealth, power and pleasure, but inside him he heard the sound of something collapsing. Seeing himself drying up spiritually even with a king’s power, Solomon realized that only God can fill a human being, and only God can give happiness through true joy and a deeply moved heart.
Solomon was a man of outstanding wisdom. Even with the wisdom God gave him, he felt the emptiness of life. Look at that, and you see that wisdom does not automatically bring joy. God’s wisdom gives the discernment to see the world rightly and judge it. So, with the wisdom God gives, you must be able to make right judgments and decisions about where this world is heading. Then, rather than regret it too late as Solomon did, you can live always giving thanks in all things, as people who fear God.
I hope you will not trust in yourself as Solomon did, but rely on God. Then you can see how ignorant and weak human beings are, and so you will come to understand God’s great love more deeply.