A Living Dog Is Better Than a Dead Lion

1For all this I laid to my heart, even to explore all this: that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God; whether it is love or hatred, man doesn’t know it; all is before them. 2All things come alike to all. There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good, to the clean, to the unclean, to him who sacrifices, and to him who doesn’t sacrifice. As is the good, so is the sinner; he who takes an oath, as he who fears an oath. 3This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one event to all: yes also, the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead. 4For to him who is joined with all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion. 5For the living know that they will die, but the dead don’t know anything, neither do they have any more a reward; for their memory is forgotten. 6Also their love, their hatred, and their envy has perished long ago; neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun. 7Go your way—eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works. 8Let your garments be always white, and don’t let your head lack oil. 9Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your life of vanity, which he has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity: for that is your portion in life, and in your labor in which you labor under the sun. 10Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work, nor plan, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where you are going.

Colossians 1 tells us that all things in the heavens and on the earth, things visible and things invisible, were created through him and for him. That is to say, everything in this world was created by Jesus Christ and for Christ. Scripture teaches that not only all created things but even the people who use them as if they were their own belong to Jesus Christ. People put their names on everything they own and live as they please, but the root of it all is Christ. Everything has drawn its nourishment through that root, which means that in the end nothing at all is truly mine. Even the possessions, the very life, and the people you would stake everything to keep are not yours. Only when we admit this can we understand the heart of Solomon, who wrote Ecclesiastes, and see that all our lives we have been using, on loan, what belongs to Christ.

To understand more readily the heart of Solomon as he wrote Ecclesiastes, let us meet the unjust steward in Luke 16. The unjust steward was rebuked when he failed to discern his master’s will, but once he discerned it fully, his life changed completely. When he grasped exactly what his master wanted of him, there was no longer any need for him to live so harshly.

Scripture stresses again and again that a steward must have the wisdom to discern the master’s heart. What this story teaches us is that stewards need only do faithfully what has been entrusted to them, with a heart that obeys the master, and so fulfill their task. Those who fulfill their task as the master wishes are good stewards; those who act on their own will are unjust stewards. This master is not only generous but does good, giving to the poor and saving lives. So he wanted the stewards who worked with him to have genuine compassion on the poor and to help each of them according to their circumstances and needs.

What the master wants is for his stewards to help him by distributing grain to the poor. When he saw a steward who read his mind and did good, he was overjoyed and praised him for a good work that saved lives. From the steward’s side, however, even though the master’s will was to give to the poor, it felt as if he were handing out his master’s goods as he pleased; it made him uneasy, and he felt somewhat sorry toward his master. Seen with our hearts today, it is like saying that what is already ours would shrink if we shared it, and so we would rather not. But the good steward knew that the poor could not escape their poverty however hard they tried, and so he shared his master’s goods with a grateful heart.

So that his master’s good will might shine, the good steward served all the more faithfully, honoring and obeying him with a grateful heart, as though he himself were in his master’s debt. The master knew that the good steward worked with gratitude, so he entrusted him with much, that he might work harder still. The one who, on the contrary, failed to grasp the good will of a master of such character, and dealt harshly with the suffering poor, was the unjust steward.

In a world shut up in darkness, there are more unjust stewards than good ones. Unjust stewards torment the poor by wicked means, but because they add to their master’s wealth, a master who is not a good man would keep such stewards close. The unjust steward never did anything that would cost his master. However much the poor pleaded, he showed them no mercy and forgave them no debts; he reckoned and reckoned again, wringing every coin out of them. Working this way did not make the money his, because when he acted against the will of his good master, the master would surely call him an unjust steward, however faithfully he had toiled.

He who had shown people no mercy and had lorded it over them until then would be driven out by his master in a single moment. He had caught people so hungry that they picked fruit behind the master’s back and stripped them of everything they had, and so he had earned their resentment. He had guarded his master’s property faithfully, even to the point of cruelty, and he simply could not understand why his master called him unjust.

To the unjust steward’s mind, the good steward, who had given away the master’s property to the poor as if it were his own, deserved rebuke far more; yet the master rebuked only him, and he resented it. He had never truly grasped his master’s faith, or his master’s view of life — his compassion for the poor, in other words, the purpose of his life — and so he could not understand why his master was rebuking him.

The master rebuked the unjust steward, telling him that his wicked decisions and deeds came from not knowing what a whole life truly means. Then he said he would give him one more chance, and told him to think carefully about what his master wanted and what it would mean to act for his sake. However hard the unjust steward thought about it, he could not understand: it was through his own hard work that his master had amassed such wealth, and yet the master rebuked him for lacking love. He thought this way because he did not know how vast his master’s wealth was; and he insisted he was right because he had forgotten that all his work was, in the end, done on his master’s behalf.

Because the unjust steward saw only what was visible, he believed his master had grown rich thanks to his own thrift. From the master’s point of view, the steward’s work was a very small thing, but the unjust steward saw everything with himself at the center, and so he could not judge rightly. When his master rebuked him, he agonized for a long while over what he had done wrong. Then wisdom came to him: he realized that giving to the poor would not make what was his disappear, and that holding on to it would not make it his.

If the master wants the poor cared for, then the steward can care for them out of the master’s goods. Since this was what the master wanted anyway, there was no reason for him to work so harshly. He called the people together, apologized for the wrongs he had done, and began to share. Then, once the unjust steward’s conduct changed, something unexpected happened: as soon as he began to give to the poor, they thanked and honored his master even more than him, who had given. Their love went to the master — and to him as well, now that he had turned his heart. While he had worked hard only to make money, without regard for his master’s will, he earned no praise, only weariness; but when he understood his master’s will and shared, he was praised by his master and the people alike. The heart of this unjust steward, who regretted his past and turned from the road he had been on, is what Solomon has now come to understand.

He realized that all the glory, power, and life he had enjoyed belonged to God, entrusted to him only for a time, and that the life he had lived without sharing or giving, thinking it all his own, was sin. If he forgave the debts of the poor, it would be God’s goods with which he forgave them, so his own wealth would not be diminished. When we bring the gospel to souls headed for death and lead them to salvation, we are only passing on the grace of Jesus we have received; it is not we who forgive their sins.

This is because all we have done is proclaim the love and self-giving of Jesus Christ, who became the atoning sacrifice; we have not given away anything of our own. If someone will not share the wealth and grace received from God while the poor go hungry, they will be judged for withholding what belongs to their master. People say they have received nothing in this life, but everything you eat, drink, and enjoy right now has been entrusted to you by God. If you forget this and live only for yourself, you may incur your master’s wrath.

The world lives in exactly the opposite way from believers. In the world, a steward is praised for sparing the master’s property and rebuked for sharing it freely, because the world is filled with unbelief, pride, and possessiveness. Steeped in such a world, Solomon only then realized that God had poured blessing on him to overflowing. When he saw what an unjust steward he had been, he knew that the years he had lived for himself were sin.

Nothing is more foolish than clutching with both hands a life that is like a shadow and flaunting one’s power. When Solomon realized that the power and glory he had enjoyed were illusions, mere shadows, he was afraid to stand before God. Upright or sinful, all people are heading toward death, so we must repent every day and examine whether we are living before God as good stewards or as unjust ones. Let us never forget that only by putting our own righteousness to death each day and leaning on the righteousness of God can we meet God.

Ecclesiastes 9:9

9Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your life of vanity, which he has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity: for that is your portion in life, and in your labor in which you labor under the sun.

People today do not give thanks for the grace they have received from God, and they squander their time, passion, and lives chasing after more. Tell them it is all an illusion, and they will not listen, for they are too taken with their own plans, work, knowledge, and wisdom. Believers tell them they must walk the road God leads them on, but those whose eyes and hopes are set on the world will never listen. All that those who toil to death for the world can enjoy is to live joyfully with the wife they love, whom God has given them. Solomon indulged his pleasures with nearly a thousand women, but he came to see how great a sin that was. Happiness was to marry one woman, love his wife, and serve God; but he threw that grace away for human pleasure, riches, and splendor.

Unlike himself, who had cast aside God’s will, the upright people were living happily in God with the wives they loved and enjoying true delight; seeing this, Solomon speaks with a repentant heart of what true happiness is. In verse 2 he says that all things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked, to the clean and to the unclean, to him who sacrifices and to him who does not sacrifice.

It is hard to accept that the one who sacrifices to God and the one who does not are alike. Solomon had thought his life a success, something special, but looking back he saw that those years were in the end no different from any other life. A life without God is the same, rich or poor. Suppose, for example, that in a cave without light one person has piled large stones high, and another has piled small ones. Each thought their own heap was special, and so each considered themselves superior to the others. They could think that only because they were shut in the dark. Had even a single thin ray of light come in, they would have seen that, large heap or small, they were all equally trapped in the cave, and that the stones meant little.

In the same way, people living in darkness without the light of Christ think themselves different from others according to how much power and wealth they have. But inside the cave called the world, no one can be special. When we come out into the light of Christ, we will realize how shameful the things we said and did in the cave were, and how wicked it was to judge others. So the special people are those who have left the darkness and come into the light; and among them, poor or sick, rich or healthy, all are alike.

God gave Solomon the office of king, wisdom from heaven, and power in the world. He gave them with a charge: to show the world how great God is and to lead many people to him. But Solomon used that light for himself. Under the authority God had given him he subdued God’s own people, and he spent great wealth on his own pleasure. This is the foolish sin of putting out God’s lamp with one’s own hand.

He lived hidden in the dark, and when he stood at the end of his life, he realized that all the time he had lived had been a preparation for entering hell. Anyone who leaves the world behind and crosses the bridge of death will meet the Lord of life. Only then did Solomon grasp that he would be held to account and judged for the time he had lived without God. When he saw that the years he had spent giving orders as king were as meaningless as a dead lion, he was afraid and ashamed. He also came to see that God’s people, who had suffered because of him, were like a living dog: blessed people who had hope and opportunity, able to turn back every day.

Though they had lived hard lives in the lowest places of the world, he learned late that their faith in God had been a greater power than a king’s authority. Set beside him, a dead lion with no chances left, they had lived precious lives, like a living dog that repents and turns back every day and receives the grace of God. Small as they were, they were heaven’s people, alive and loved by their master, while he was like a dead lion that stank. When he realized he had persecuted such precious souls all that time, he was afraid. Because heaven and hell after death are both decided while we still have breath, Solomon repented of the sins he had committed until then.

People make plans and work in order to live well, but time spent striving without God is time that cannot bring them into heaven, so it is vanity; and knowledge and wisdom without God are vanity of vanities too. However much we have, it is of no use if we do not use it as God wills. I want to tell you that you need to learn contentment. If, because of God, you have a heart that knows how to be content, you can give thanks for every moment and every circumstance you are given, and so your life can be a happy one.

Having eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, human beings are sinful at the root, whether their conduct is good or bad. A person made black does not become the white God desires, and so enter heaven, just by living a morally upright life. Unless all the black is cast off and they are molded anew in white, they cannot be held in God’s embrace, and so human effort is in vain. To become white, we must pass through the blood of Christ, because only through the blood can sin be washed away.

Had Solomon crossed the bridge of death while he was far from God, in the dark cave, the world would have mourned the king’s death; but he, being dead, would have known nothing of whether people wept or missed him, and would have been suffering eternal punishment. But by God’s grace he laid down both a king’s authority and human righteousness and became a child who fears God, and even though his servants no longer feared him in his weakness, he was wholly at peace. How great must his joy have been, for him to call himself a living dog? After turning from the road he had been on, he realized that God had not abandoned him but had protected him. His repentance was the tears and the prayer of one who truly sought forgiveness. The world can never know the joy God’s people feel deep within the truth, for only those who have met God can know it.

When have you felt such joy? Like Solomon, we must give thanks for the grace of Christ, who rescued us from eternal death, where there is no work, nor plan, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, but only torment at Satan’s hands. Those who know that Christ, who alone has life, who dwells in unapproachable light, and who holds almighty power, rescued a sinner like me will not lose heart, will not despair, and will not be unhappy.

Whoever has seen and touched the love of God can take up the cross with all their life and with full faith, to repay the debt of love. The saints are those who can praise Christ even in the very moment they bear the cross and suffer. The apostle Paul lived on earth like a despised dog for preaching the gospel, but because he looked toward heaven, where the crown of righteousness was stored up for him, he could offer praise even with death before him.

You too must see this glory that Paul saw. Only then will you not fear the people of the world or envy their power, and only then can you rejoice because of the crown of righteousness Christ gives. Only those who have felt the wonder of salvation that Solomon felt and the fullness Paul knew can live forever with Christ, and join the 144,000 saints in their song, giving glory to God.

Revelation 19:1-2

1After these things I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, “Hallelujah! Salvation, power, and glory belong to our God: 2for true and righteous are his judgments. For he has judged the great prostitute, who corrupted the earth with her sexual immorality, and he has avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.”

Heaven is where our God, the Almighty, reigns. You who are entering heaven, to live forever in the love of God, are blessed. Now that he had seen the beautiful Kingdom of God before the bridge of death, Solomon would no longer have set his heart on anything in this world. Looking upon the world and upon heaven at once, with death between them, he must have felt repentance and joy together. You too must be born again by faith, now, in this very hour, to enjoy the glory of Christ to the full. I hope you will not be like Solomon, a fool who received so much and still sinned, but will live like the good steward, who fully understood his master’s will and obeyed it.