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 records that all things in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, were created through him and for him. It is saying that everything in this world was created by Jesus Christ and created for Christ. The Bible says that not only everything in the world but even the people who use it as if it were their own belong to Jesus Christ. People put their own names on everything they own and live as they please, but the root of all of it is Christ. All of it has drawn its nourishment through that root, so in the end nothing in the world is mine. Even the wealth, the life, and the people you would stake your life to protect are not yours. Only when you acknowledge this can you understand the heart of Solomon, who wrote Ecclesiastes, and realize that as long as we live, we have been using what belongs to Christ on loan.

To make the heart of Solomon, who wrote Ecclesiastes, easier to understand, I would like us to meet the dishonest manager who appears in Luke 16. When the dishonest manager did not rightly discern his master’s will, he was rebuked, but when he fully discerned it, his life changed completely. That was because, once the manager clearly understood what his master wanted from him, he no longer had any need to live so hard-heartedly.

The Bible stresses again and again that a manager must have the wisdom to discern the master’s heart. What this story teaches is that a manager has only to work hard, with a heart that obeys the master, at the work the master has entrusted, and so carry out the mission. A manager who carries out the mission as the master wishes becomes a good manager, and one who acts on their own will becomes a dishonest manager. The master is not only generous at heart but also does the good work of saving lives by caring for the poor. So he wanted the managers who worked with him to have real compassion on the poor and to help them according to their situation and circumstances.

What the master wants is for the managers to help him by handing out grain to the poor. When he saw a manager who read his mind and did good, he rejoiced greatly and praised that manager for a good deed that saved lives. From the manager’s side, though, even if the master’s will was to care for the poor, it felt as if he were giving away his master’s goods as he pleased, so he was uneasy about it and also felt sorry toward his master. If we look at this with our own hearts today, it means we do not like to share, because what we have is already ours and sharing feels like watching it shrink. But the good manager knew that the poor could not climb out however hard they tried, so he gave out his master’s goods with a thankful heart.

So that the master’s good will might shine, the good manager was all the more faithful, and he honored and obeyed his master with a thankful heart, as though he himself were in his master’s debt. The master knew that the good manager was working with a thankful heart, so he entrusted much to him so that he could work even harder. The dishonest manager, on the other hand, failed to grasp the good will of a master of such character and acted hard-heartedly toward the poor who were suffering.

In a world shut up in darkness, there are more dishonest managers than good ones. Dishonest managers do torment the poor by evil means, but because they add all the more to their master’s wealth, a master who is not a good person would keep such dishonest managers close. The dishonest manager never did anything that would bring his master a loss. However much the poor pleaded, he showed them no compassion, did not forgive their debts, and calculated and calculated again, wringing out every coin. Yet working this way does not make that money his. That is because, when he acts against the will of his good master, the master will surely rebuke him as a dishonest manager, however faithfully he works himself to death.

The man who had shown people no compassion and treated them with cruelty all this time would be driven out by his master in a single moment. People resented him, for when people so hungry that they picked fruit behind the master’s back were caught, he took everything they had. He had been faithful in guarding his master’s property to the point of cruelty, and he simply could not understand why his master called him dishonest.

As the dishonest manager saw it, the good manager, who had handed out the master’s property to the poor as if it were his own, deserved more rebuke, yet the master always rebuked him alone, and he resented his master for it. He did not rightly grasp his master’s faith or his master’s view of life, one of compassion for the poor—that is, the purpose of his master’s life. That is why he could not understand why his master was rebuking him.

The master rebuked the dishonest manager, telling him that he had been able to decide and act so wickedly because he did not know the meaning of a whole life. Then he said he would give him one more chance, and told him to think carefully about what the master wanted and what it would mean to act for the master. However much he thought about it, the dishonest manager could not understand it: the master had been able to gather great wealth because he himself had worked so hard, and yet the master rebuked him for having no love. Such thinking came from not knowing how much wealth his master had, and he insisted he was right because he had forgotten that the work he was doing was, in the end, work done in his master’s place.

Because the dishonest manager saw only what was visible, he thought his master had become rich thanks to his own thrift. From the master’s point of view, the manager’s work was a very small thing, but because the dishonest manager viewed everything with himself at the center, he could not see that. When his master rebuked him, he agonized for a long time over what had gone wrong. Then wisdom came to him: he realized that giving to the poor does not make what is his disappear, and that saving does not make anything his.

If the master wants the poor cared for, then the manager can care for them with the master’s goods. It is what the master wants anyway, so there is no reason for the manager to work so hard-heartedly. He called people together, apologized for his wrongs all that time, and began to give. Then, when the dishonest manager’s conduct changed, something strange happened. When he began to be generous to the poor, they thanked the manager’s master more than the manager who had given to them, and they honored the master. Along with the master, they gave their love even to the manager who had turned his heart. When he had only worked hard to make money, with no regard for his master’s will, he was not praised and only wore himself out; but when he understood his master’s will and gave, he was praised instead by his master and by the people. This heart of the dishonest manager, who regretted the past and turned from the way he had been going, is what Solomon has now come to understand.

Solomon realized that all the glory, power, and life he had enjoyed until then belonged to God, entrusted to him by God for a while, and yet he had thought they were his own and had neither shared nor given. He realized that this life was sin. Even when he forgives the poor their debts, in the end he forgives them with what is God’s, so his wealth does not shrink either. When we now preach the gospel to souls who would fall into death and lead them to salvation, we are only sharing the grace of Jesus you have received; it is not you who forgive their sins.

For we have only proclaimed the love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who became the atoning sacrifice; we have not given away anything of our own. If someone does not share the wealth and grace they have received from God even while the poor go hungry, they will be judged for not sharing what belongs to the master. People say they have received nothing in their life in this world, but everything you now eat, drink, and enjoy has been entrusted to you by God. Anyone who forgets this and lives only for themselves may incur the master’s wrath.

The world lives in exactly the opposite way from believers. In the world a manager is praised only for sparing the master’s property and rebuked for giving it away freely. That is because the world is filled with unbelief, pride, and the desire to possess. Solomon, steeped in such a world, only then came to know that God had blessed him beyond overflowing. When he realized what a dishonest manager he had been all this time, he came to know that the years he had spent living for himself were sin.

Nothing is as foolish as clutching a shadow-like life in both hands and flaunting one’s power. When Solomon realized that the power and glory he had enjoyed were illusions, like a shadow, he was afraid to stand before God. Whether people live good lives or commit sin, all of them are heading toward death. That is why we must repent every day and look back to see whether we are living before God as good managers or as dishonest ones. I hope you will not forget that only when we put our own righteousness to death each day and live relying on God’s righteousness 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 now fail to be thankful for the grace they have received from God, and they waste their time, passion, and lives on getting more. Even when they are told that all of it is an illusion, they do not listen, because their own plans and work and knowledge and wisdom are so outstanding. Believers tell them that they must go the way God leads, but people who look to the world and put their hopes in it never listen. All that someone who has worked themselves to death for the world can enjoy is to live joyfully with the wife whom they love, the one God has appointed. Solomon took his pleasure with nearly a thousand women, but he came to realize how great a sin that was. A happy life is to marry one woman, love her as one’s wife, and serve God, yet Solomon threw that grace away for human pleasure, wealth, and splendor.

Solomon had cast aside God’s will, but he saw that good, ordinary people were living happily in God with the wives they loved and enjoying true delight. That is why, with a repentant heart, he tells us what true happiness is. Verse 2 says that 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 doesn’t sacrifice.

It is hard to accept the words that the one who sacrifices to God and the one who does not fare alike. Solomon had thought his life was a successful life, a special life, but looking back, he realized that those years were in the end no different from any other life. Without God, a life with much wealth and a life with little are alike. For example, in a cave with no light, one person has piled large stones high, and another has piled small stones. Each of them thought the heap they had piled was special, so each thought they were better than others. That was a thought they could have only because they were shut up in darkness. If even one small ray of light had come in, they would have known that the stones meant little, since, large heap or small, they were all alike shut up in the cave.

In the same way, people in the darkness without the light of Christ think they are different from others according to how much or how little power and wealth they have. But in the cave called the world, no one can be special. When they come out into the light of Christ, they will realize how shameful the words and deeds of the cave were, and how evil it was to judge others. So it is those who have left the darkness and come out into the light who are special, and whether they are poor or sick, rich or healthy, they are alike.

God gave Solomon the position of king, heavenly wisdom, and worldly power. He gave them with a charge: that Solomon would reveal to the world how great God is and lead many people to God. But Solomon ended up using that light for himself. Under the authority God had given him, he made God’s people bow, and he used his great wealth for his own pleasure. This is the foolish sin of putting out God’s lamp with one’s own hand.

Solomon had lived hidden in the darkness, and when he stood at the end of his life, he realized that all the years he had lived had been a preparation for going into hell. Whoever it may be, as soon as they turn their back on the world and cross the bridge of death, they meet the owner of life. Only then did Solomon realize that they must answer for the time they lived without God and be judged. When he realized that the years he had spent giving orders with a king’s power had meant nothing, like a dead lion, he was afraid and ashamed. He also came to know that God’s people, who had suffered because of him all that time, were blessed people who, like a living dog, had hope and opportunity and could turn back every day.

Solomon realized, too late, that though they had lived hard lives in the lowest places of the world, their faith in God had been a greater power than a king’s authority. Compared with him, who like a dead lion had no chance left, they were people who had lived precious lives, like a living dog, repenting and turning back every day and receiving God’s grace. Small though they were, they were the people of heaven, alive and loved by their master—better than he, who was like a dead and stinking lion. When he realized that he had persecuted such precious souls all that time, he was afraid. Because hell or heaven after death is decided while one still has 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, in the end, time that cannot bring anyone into heaven. That is why it is vanity, and knowledge and wisdom without God are likewise vanity of vanities. Having much is of no use unless it is used according to God’s will. I want to tell you that you must learn to be content. If you have a heart that knows how to be content because of God, you can be thankful for all the time and all the circumstances you are given. That is how your life can be happy.

Human beings who ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil are sinful at the root, whether their conduct is good or evil. A person made in black does not turn into the white God wants, and go to heaven, by living a morally good life. Unless all the black is cast off and the person is molded again in white, they cannot be held in God’s arms. That is why human effort is in vain. To become white, one must pass through the precious blood of Christ, because only through his blood can sin be washed away.

If Solomon had crossed the bridge of death while he was away 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 suffered in eternal punishment. But when, by God’s grace, he cast off both his royal power and his human righteousness and became a child who feared God, he was wholly at peace, even though his servants no longer feared him in his powerlessness. How great must his joy have been for him to describe himself as a living dog? When Solomon had turned from the way he had been going, he realized that God had not abandoned him but had protected him. The repentance he offered was tears and prayer that sincerely asked for forgiveness. The world can never know the joy believers feel deep in the truth, because only those who have met God can know that joy.

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

Anyone who has seen and touched the love of God can take up the cross with all their life, with a full faith, to repay the debt of love. Believers are people who can praise Christ even in the very moment they carry the cross and suffer. In the world the apostle Paul lived like a despised dog for preaching the gospel, but he looked toward heaven, where the crown of righteousness was stored up for him, and so he could offer praise even with death before him.

You too must see this glory Paul is seeing. Only then will the people of the world not frighten you and their power not make you envious, and you can rejoice solely because of the crown of righteousness that Christ gives. Only those who have felt the wonder of salvation that Solomon felt and the fullness that Paul felt can live with Christ forever, and join in the praise sung by the one hundred forty-four thousand saints, 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 the place where our God, the Almighty, reigns. You who enter heaven, where people live forever receiving God’s love, are blessed. Solomon, who now saw the beautiful kingdom of God before the bridge of death, would not have set his heart on anything in the world. Solomon, who looked at the world and at heaven at once with death between them, would have felt repentance and joy at the same time. You too must be born again by faith, right now, in this hour, to enjoy the glory of Christ fully. May you not become foolish people who, like Solomon, receive so much and still sin, but may you live like the good manager who fully understood his master’s will and obeyed it.