Ecclesiastes Speaks Today, Part Two (Archived)

ecclesiastes and we'll go to chapter 12 that way we can feel it so we finished the book having never started it that is quite a remarkable achievement that I'm sure you would agree remember also your creator in the days of your youth before the evil days come the years draw near of which you will say I have no pleasure in them before the Sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain in the day when the keepers of the house tremble and the strong men are bent and the grinders cease because they're few and those who look through the windows are dimmed and the doors on the street are shut when the sound of the grinding is low and one rises up at the sound of a bird and all the daughters of song are brought low they are afraid also of what is high and terrors on the way the almond tree blossoms the grasshopper drags itself along and desire fails because man is going to his eternal home and the mourners go about the streets before the silver cord is snapped or the golden ball is broken or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain or the wheel broken at the cistern and the dust returns to the earth as it was and the spirit returns to God who gave it vanity of vanities says the preacher all is vanity besides being wise the preacher also taught the people knowledge weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care the preacher sought to find words of delight and uprightly he wrote words of truth the words of the wise are like gods and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings are given by one Shepherd my son beware of anything beyond these of making many books there's no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh the end of the matter all has been heard here God and keep his Commandments for this is the Hall of man for God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing whether good or evil amen just a brief prayer and an old Anglican prayer father what we know not teach us what we have not give us what we are not make us for Jesus sake amen what we said on Monday that dealing with Ecclesiastes provides us with an opportunity to bridge some of the clear gaps between the world of the Bible and our contemporary world and I want to essentially pick up from there and ease into this twelfth chapter by saying a number of things first of all just in terms of speaking and preaching all the time but particularly I think when we have in mind the conversion of unbelievers please God it is good for me and I'm sure for you too to remember that there are various categories of people who are listening to us as we preach the person who's helped me most with this is William Perkins he lived a long time ago in the 16th century and he said that preaching should be shaped to seven categories of listeners I just point them out to you number one non-christians who know nothing about the gospel and don't care two non-christians who know nothing about the gospel but our teacher three those who know what the gospel is but have never been humbled to see their need of a savior for those who have been humbled some in the early stages of seeing their need others who see that they need salvation not merely improvement and are convinced that only Christ can save them five genuine believers who need to be taught six backsliders who are in that condition either as a result of failing to be taught or as a result of failure to live consistently in the light of what they have been taught seven a mixed congregation of believers and non-believers I think it's Tim Keller who says if you preach imagining that the three neighbors who live closest to you in your street are actually listening to you it will probably constrain you and restrain you in ways that will prove to be helpful so I mentioned that just because I think when we are in our pulpits I know it for it's true for me sometimes if you if you have a certain constituency there you may deliver material in such a way that is very absorbable by the mainstream and yet the the very way in which that takes place is isolating people not that not the truth of the Bible is isolating people but our but our approach okay that's that's that's why our reading as we said in the Q&A thing this morning is so very very important and our reading beyond the confines of theology as well so that our understanding depending on our bent art and and literature and so on or science if if you have that kind of background it's all very very important not reading to find sermon illustrations but reading in order to become a more rounded person in our coming to the text and that involves reading newspapers as well I think and if you have a good filing system then you will be able to retrieve material if you don't then I feel very sorry for you so for example I can go to my retrieval system and tell you that on the 13th of August last year Henry Allen who is a journalist a Pulitzer Prize winner wrote an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal which began with this sentence for the first time in my 72 years I have no idea what's going on I doubt that anyone does is our democracy turning into a power vacuum what will fill it will organized religion die I got talking to a girl from an Episcopalian youth group in Missouri Episcopalian ISM is great she said you don't have to believe anything like most people I used to think the world would go on the way it was going on with better medicine and the arrival of an occasional iPad or an earthquake but that was when I knew what was going on I worry that reality itself is fading like the Cheshire Cat leaving behind only a smile that grows ever more alarming without the humor and in a similar vein jor vagal in his introduction to a book the light of the world written by Joseph Ratzinger that is Pope Benedict the sixteenth in his foreword to that book he says here we are and we are living in quotes a world that has lost its story a world in which the progress promised by the human isms of the past three centuries is now gravely threatened threatened by understandings of the human person that reduce our humanity to a conjurer ease of cosmic chemical accidents a humanity with no intentional origin no noble destiny and thus no path to take through history it's kind of gloomy isn't it and Stephen Hawking who is one of the great champions of essentially nihilism every so often gets downright honest and in his brief history of time he writes these words he's talking about some kind of understanding of the universe and of existence he says even if there is only one possible unified theory it's just a set of rules and equations what is it that breathes fire into the equation and makes a universe for these models to describe the usual scientific approach of constituting a mathematical model cannot answer the question of why there should be a universe for the model to describe and then he yes this why does the universe go to all the bother of existing it's a fair question now at the very base line of our culture this just pops out baby-boomers of whom I am one the oldest of us hit 65 at the beginning of last year and a commentator identifying what we're all really like said these individuals are living longer working longer and the researchers say nursing some disappointment at how their lives have turned out the self-aware or self-absorbed feel less self fulfilled and thus are wracked with self-pity but it's not only old fogies like me the younger ones too the successful ones the folks who have had a good background and a nice home and a good education are part of what the commentators referred to as the American paradox individuals who grew up being told that they could be anything they wanted to be but they don't know what they want to be there seems to be no cause for their unhappiness which makes them unhappy they are more connected to more people through the internet than could ever have been possible in all of history and yet they have never felt more alone they want to be accepted but they feel so dreadfully alienated they have never had so much and they have never had so little I say to you that into that world the book of ecclesiasticus really packs packs a punch they are he says here in the little editorial piece that will deal with first in 9:00 and 9:00 to 12:00 if you just cast your gaze to that he says that the words of the wise are like a sharply pointed stick that's what a goad is the words otherwise are like a sharply pointed stick in other words they have the capacity not only to prod and to unsettle but also like nails they're able to fix themselves in the mind of the listener and he tells us that the force of these words is on account of the source of these words because these are the words these collected sayings are given by one Shepherd and you will notice that in the ESV Shepherd is capitalized making the point that there's words the source of these words this is a statement actually on the doctrine of inspiration and the nature of Ecclesiastes in then in the scheme of inspiration that these words are the words of the Shepherd of Israel give ear to give ear to the Shepherd of Israel the Lord is my shepherd he's begun chapter one with the Creator in all of his majesty here is this creator who's who is from afar who is also the Shepherd who speaks personally and purposefully and these words verse 10 are delightful words they are truthful words they have been weighed they have been considered and they have been arranged with great care their unity and their clarity and their finality are such that he says in verse 12 a continual learning what I would actually ever arriving at a knowledge of the truth will render all your study eventually wearisome and fruitless these words of truth of the capacity to irritate or to annoy or a single Ferguson observes they have the capacity to make the listener say ouch and some of us our words are maybe a little too pointed and others others our words are like wet spaghetti noodles they are good ouch coming from the congregation would be at least an indication that that people are paying attention rather than we're just pouring these wet noodles over their heads it'd be very very difficult I think for people to forget the imperative to which he draws things to a conclusion fear God and do what he tells you fear God and do what he tells you that that that's striking that that'll that'll hang in there you'll be they'll be sitting on the plane and there'll be say to themselves what was that thing he said the other day that fear God and do what he tells you I wonder if I do fear God I certainly don't do what he tells me now that little editorial section there 9 through 12 I've isolated because I want to work through the rest of the passage in the balance of the time and to just follow along noticing first of all what we're told about the opportunity of youth youth here is a fairly broad category and so you could include yourself in it if you choose but what he's doing here is very straightforward last Saturday I conducted a funeral in the morning and as I was driving there along 306 much further north I passed a high school and the folks in the high school had positioned a badly wrecked car in full view of everyone it was obviously there in fact it had a sign war all who passed and particularly I think the graduating seniors warning them about the folly of drinking and driving and essentially it is there to say don't let this happen to you don't let this happen to you and in a similar manner that's what the preacher has done he has described in the balance of these chapters the futility of life lived under the Sun the emptiness the sheer triviality of life without God and he has been saying to his readers don't go down these paths let me save you the expense let me save you the energy I have gone down these various roads and I have discovered them to be dead ends but now positively he says I've told you all of these places that it's a worthless adventure to embark on but now let me say this to you remember also your Creator now once again as we were reminded last night he's not saying remember that there is a God but he's actually calling for his readers to think in terms of God no longer from the perspective of self-sufficiency but now from the perspective of dependency from the perspective of discovery discovering that this God has made them for himself purposefully so that when Eric little understood it he was able to say I Jenny he made me for himself for China I know but he also made me fast and when I run I feel his pleasure that's what the writer is doing here you say I want you to come to an understanding of this so that you will remember the Creator it's interesting it doesn't say that you will just remember God or remember Yahweh but that you will remember your creator he created you see so Francis Alexander an Irish lady and we've given the Irish some bad press so I think I want to redress the balance just a little wonderful Irish lady the wife of a clergyman wrote hymns for young for young people to teach them Christian doctrine so in order to teach the Incarnation she wrote once in royal David City stood a lowly cattle shed and so on to teach the atonement she wrote there is a green hill far away outside a city wall to teach the doctrine of creation she rode All Things Bright and Beautiful all creatures great and small all things wise and wonderful the Lord God made them all he gave his eyes to see them and lips that we might tell how great is God Almighty who has done all things well All Things Bright and Beautiful our young people the ones that are in our churches the ones to whom we preach hopefully are bombarded consistently relentlessly with views of the world which dismantle deny create distrust in the doctrine of creation and I'll say this quickly and try and move on it surely is of some significance if we accept that I want to believe at least that Paul when he gets his chance at the Areopagus says I'm gonna use some Ecclesiastes in this and and and and where does he begin the God who made the world and everything in it so our young people have been nurtured perhaps singing those songs being taught in Sunday school and now they go out into the world and so we want to prepare them and we want to do well by them but listen brothers and listen carefully is it not more than a little alarm to find that when our University students are now most in need of our support and encouragement in relationship to the doctrine of creation that some of us are tempted now to engage in intramural discussions which would have made our forebears turn in their graves I'm not talking about different views on whether it is a day or 24 hours of stuff like that I'm talking about the very nature of it himself the nature of a true historical Adam and so on I I think that it's it's time for us to be respectful all this of the people who wear the white coats the scientists but but I think it's time also for a little bit of aw pink we need we need to honor them every so often and and is just it's just so good he says he's talking now about Genesis he says what follows in the remainder of Genesis 1 is to be regarded not as a poem still less as an allegory but as a literal historical statement of divine revelation we have little patience with those who labor to show that the teaching of this chapter is in harmony with modern science as well as ask whether the celestial chronometer is in keeping with a timepiece at Greenwich rather must be the part of scientists to bring their declarations into accord with the teaching of Genesis 1 if they are to receive the respect of the children of God the faith of the Christian rests not in the wisdom of man nor does it stand in any need of buttressing from scientific savants the faith of the Christian rests upon the impregnable rock of Holy Scripture and we need nothing more to often have Christian apologists deserted their proper ground and then he goes on to say hey if if science actually turns something up that's really good they will discover that it's in accord with the Bible and that what we need to do is be respectful and we be scientific and and and work according to those things but brothers either we're gonna allow the Bible to adjudicate on things or we're not remember your Creator God is God is not a construct before there was time before there was anything there was God he is the creator and the sustainer of everyone and everything and our students need to be able to get to grips with it and we need to be able to help them and I don't think the answer is in providing them a series of proof texts but enabling them to think biblically about everything so that if they do study art or whatever it might be being able to see that when Koga and the post-impressionist painter writes on one of his manuscripts which is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts he writes out of his Roman Catholic background where he was catechized but a catechism that is left and bereft and now he is exploring life in an entirely different way and the only canvas apparently in which he wrote he wrote three questions do then all new kasam new while all new was he writing where do we come from what are we where are we going well the writer says you start this is where we start the God who made the world and everything in it drop your pretense at self-sufficiency commit yourself to God don't let the excitement of being young cause you to neglect God honor him while you have your whole life in front of you don't fall for the line that the serious stuff can wait beware of allowing the best years of your life to pass while you're waiting for them to begin the evil days are coming evil days are coming if you can't help them to encourage them then scare the Young Rascals scare them with the prospect of the evil days what are these evil days I didn't hand IV's helpful that before the days of trouble come in other words he's saying there's gonna come a time and I'm going to describe it for you he says I have a little poem for you when the springtime of life has passed and you're going to be swallowed up by the chill of a gloomy winter that will happen it will happen ever so quickly so it is a wonderful thing to hear the gospel when we're young it is a wonderful thing to make it clear to our youngsters to labor hard over these things so that they are able to begin to process and to absorb the instruction of scripture David Patterson who was a free church minister in Scotland was a fund of unbelievable stories and I use the adjective somewhat purposefully and he this was one of his great stories it's I don't know whether it's true or not but it's so good I want to tell it to you so you can use it again all right the scene is London it's the mall and a significant funeral procession is taking place in the crowd as they watch this procession heading towards Westminster Abbey a gentleman stands and next to him a a bomb very poorly dressed he removes his hat and as the the cortege passes the gentleman hears him saying I you were right Davey you were right and he said it again the stranger turned to me I said what's why do you say that well said the this is the funeral procession of David Livingstone well the man said yeah we all know that that's why we're standing here the man says yes but what you do not know is that David Livingstone and I were both born in Blantyre outside of Glasgow we both went to the same Sunday school and on a particular Sunday the Sunday school teacher called for us to bend our knees to the lordship of Jesus and Davey did and I didn't that's why I say today you were right Davey you were right remember your Creator children can trust Christ will not praying for young people to be interested in religion to be churched to be praying for them to be converted and the writer says that's what it means to remember to give up a sense of self sufficiency and self adequacy and the fact that I can find the answers down all these streets to say no they're dead-end streets here in the opportunity of youth secondly and more quickly recognizing what he then points out concerning the frailty of life and in this we have some of these delightful words that he's referred to in verse 10 in these words of delight these truthful words and what he's saying is that the time to reckon with these prospects that he's about to describe it's why you can still remember is while you still have the opportunity to do something about it so that you might minimize a sense of a sense of regret and what he describes and some of you will have preached from this I'm sure is simply the fading of physical and mental powers the passing of old friends the conclusion of routine customs and trips and long-held ambitions if you have been living your life hoping to break 80 on the Golf Course you've now reached the point where there's more chance of you breaking your leg on the golf course then I'll break an 80 it's it's over it's over we don't need to hear about when you were a great triple jumper you can hardly get in and out of your car it's obvious to everyone how did this happen so quickly easy he's using these amazing powers of language to make the point and those who have helped us best in contemporary songwriting at least in the 20th century have been masters with words none better of course I think than Paul Simon so for example old friends old friends they sit on their park bench like Buchan and a newspaper blowing through the grass falls on the round toes of the high shoes of the old friends old friends winter companions the old man lost in their overcoats waiting for the Sun the sounds of the city sifting through trees settle like dust on the shoulders of the old friends can you imagine as years from today sharing a park bench quietly how terribly strange to be 70 old friends memory brushes the same years silently sharing the same fears old friends now you see the Bible never addresses these things in order to to be morbid but in order to be honest in order to be realistic Victorian society had sex as a taboo sex is mainstream in contemporary society and death is at a blur here is one of the hot buttons of the church how do you address the hot button of the fact that that one out of one dies how do you how do you address the fact that that Ernest Hemingway was true to his worldview when he writes life is a dirty trick a short journey from nothingness to nothingness by turning to the Bible and saying you know the Bible has a whole bunch of stuff in there but this kind of thing and so the preacher with poetic skill pictures for as the body of an aging man some of us might want to sucker swamis in just for a moment he describes it as a house in decline a great house in decline Kidner says don't fiddle around with the details just take it as the big picture but it's so much fun fiddling around with the details especially especially if you're talking to young people and I think legitimately there's a way here to engage young people as you go through with the humor that is represented in this so for example here you have a group of young people they think you're an ancient an ancient clown to start with they can't believe that you know anything about anything at all and then you're going to tell them there's going to be come a day there will come a day for you I might not be around to see it when the keepers of your house tremble when your hands become shaky your hands and your arms become shaky when you find yourself saying your wife do you have any Advil I don't know what these bumps are on my fingers what is it that does this as I guess it's some form of arthritis I thought the other day I looked at my hand I thought I wish I'd taken a photograph of my father's and I think this is my father's hand how did I get my father's hand his hand was the hand that shook when it held the Bible how why would my hand shake when I hold the Bible oh yeah your hand will shake when the strong man stoop when people see you walking along the road they say he's not standing up the way he used to stand up well you can't because you no longer have the capacity to do so you're grinders for all of those of you or love the dentist or what is this is a description of inadequate occlusion you're gonna end up with a day with some similar I made a little Puri for you honey yes I've made it nice and soft for you I know mind you I don't want you to choke for goodness sake because if you choke I mean you're so decrepit I won't be able to get you to the hospital right I can't carry you and and there you are the the ones looking through the windows have you seen my glasses where did I put my glasses I and the doors to the street pardon what was that you said the ears are no longer what they were doing the songs of the day beginning I take that to be the grinding I think it must be the grinding was one of the elements of a town or a village starting to move into the day you're not hearing that anymore and yet you're up with a lark because you can't sleep but you can't actually hear the sound of the Lark so it's kind of funny that you're up with them and so Kidner says with with all the age these cheerful evidences of a living world about as grow remote and faint and one no longer feels fully part of it verse five he builds the picture you'll find that now you're afraid of what is high this isn't it this is so is so apropos isn't it I mean I really have to think I'd have to just think a little bit if I want to jump from here down to there they say you're a crazy person no I'm an honest person I would I would have jumped from up there when I was a teenager I might not jump down there now how did this happen are you afraid of being jostled at a football match you never use the thing about that before we'll have to get out early I'm frightened of the crush and somebody says you know I saw old beg the other day he's looking more like a grasshopper every time I see him I'm not a grasshopper because grasshoppers go like blue right they're just like new grasshopper but no this is a grasshopper that drags itself along this is a grasshopper on his last legs and there you have it there he goes what a wonderful picture isn't it encouraging here's your future let's staring you in the face I want to send you out with a great encouragement you you go home and tell your wife that you just drag yourself in that's the you go home and tell your wife you're very keen to see her and hopefully desire has not failed and actually it reads the Cape when the kaepa berry fails caper berry was a stimulant regarded in some arenas as an aphrodisiac did you ever imagine there would come a day when you thought of a bed as a place to sleep you get married and then you're married and married and married and you're like man I gotta get some sleep think it out golf tournaments advertising and golf tournaments are pitched to about my my age I'm convinced of it and what advertise is most financial stuff about how you're gonna run out of money and you won't be able to care for your grandchildren so you're complete you're sitting there sweating bullets because you don't have enough money and and you're trying to watch the golf and then at the same time they're advertising routinely for cialis and viagra that's what they do that's what they did it's all in the book of ecclesiastes it's all in the Bible that's exactly what it says the opportunity of youth the frailty of life thirdly the reality of death the reality of death verse six verse seven these things are indications to us of the fact that one day the silver cord will be snapped there's an old hymn that that actually picks that picture up isn't there some day the silver cord will break and and and I know more as now shall sing that's what he's saying here a golden lamb maybe on a silver chain that immediately becomes obsolete with a loss of one link or the picture the earth and we're picture shattered at the fountain or the wheel that is now broken at the cistern the wheel lies there as a silent testimony to what once was and a chilling reminder chilling indication of the fact that there will be a last time for every journey we will lay down our pens for the last time one day and the implications of the fall of man will once again be made clear by there there are seven and the dust returns to the earth as it was wasn't that the verdict of God on Adam and Eve you are dust and to dust you shall return now there's work to be done in this if we're going to be teaching in a series and I commend that to you we'll have the opportunity to affirm what the Bible has to say about death America is very very concerned not to deal with death most funerals here do not follow the thing through to its logical conclusion the people are covered up and hidden away or or dealt with and and the Christian Church has an opportunity not again to be morbid in these things but to say we are the people who have an answer to this question we we know the one who has conquered death and has made a way for you to conquer death we are able to tell you about this great Shepherd who laid down his life for the Sheep who declared that he was the resurrection and the life and that whoever believed in him who even though he died he would live and whosoever lives and dies will live on this week as I was thinking of these things I I went to Alec Matias Luke to the rock I was looking for something else and I found three little statements that he makes concerning death and they're important for this reason increasingly it seems to me you can take and see if this is accurate it seems to me that people's perspective is that death means extinction right that's that's essentially what they say that's how they live well it's over and it's done and we're finished the Bible says no that can't possibly be the case because God has said eternity in the hearts of man and when you read the Bible it becomes obvious that death does not terminate human existence the dead experienced a change of place hence David and is concerned over the loss of his boy and finally his statement he will not come to me but I will go to him that child is not extinct that child lives so the dead experience a change of place the dead experience an altered state their state will be altered but the the separation of spirit from body as in Ecclesiastes 12:7 here is a reality and also the individual person continues you see why it is that the the agenda of so many contemporary worldviews are to disengage our friends and neighbors at the front end and the doctrine of creation and then also to provide them with all kinds of stories about how life will finally end and we when we teach the Bible effectively have a chance to enter into this christopher hitchens i've quoted and i must say that he was my favorite atheist i i wet when he finally died i know people said horrible things about him but and the thing about him while there's so many things about him but let me just give you a little flavor a little flavor of hitches he's writing in in a chapter on something of myself in his in his biography he doesn't say much about himself but he allows himself about 15 pages and he's talking about the the joy of children and the becoming of a father and so on and he says many writers especially male ones have told us that it is the decease of the father which opens the prospect of one's own end and affords an unobstructed view of the unde ugh but a waiting grave that says you're next unfilial as this may seem that was not at all so in my own case it was only when I watched my boy Alexander being born that I knew at once that my own funeral director had very suddenly but quite unmistakeably stepped on to the stage and he then references a conversation that he'd had with one of his friends some years previously when his friend had reminded him of a poem by Rosetti and this man had said to him do you know this and said no I don't he said then well let me quote it to you and I wager you will never forget it you will remember said his friends the lines I will now speak delightful truthful you will always remember them and then he recited the following what man has bent or his son sleep to brood how that face shall watch his when cold it lies or thought as his own mother kissed his eyes of what her kiss was when his father would this is Hitchin we don't have to go grappling around to try and find clever things just read but you say it looks as though we've just come all the way back to the beginning look at verse eight this is where we started and now this is where we end vanity or emptiness or meaningless it's all vanity well no we're actually not and that's why what he says at nine ten eleven and twelve is important then finally and with this we close verses thirteen and fourteen the context is no longer under the Sun the context is now in the presence of the Creator the God who made the Sun the Moon the stars and so on here he says is the end of the matter and that's the final point this certainty of judgment the opportunity of youth the frailty of life the reality of death and the certainty of judgment and what he's pointing out is this the proper enjoyment of life is possible only within the moral boundaries established by God the final message of Ecclesiastes is not that nothing matters it is rather everything matters it all matters again Kidner it kills complacency to know that nothing goes unnoticed and unassessed not even the things that we disguise from ourselves but at the same time it transforms life if God cares as much as this nothing can be pointless so the very judgment that we are fearful of talking about is actually an essential element in pointing people to the one who bore that judgment they entered into all that emptiness in order that we might be set free now this end day I suggest to you presents a challenge to us as preachers because it sounds very Old Testament he doesn't it it doesn't sound like our usual close to the sermon and I'd like you to come forward or come around the back and get a copy of John's gospel here we are oh dear oh dear the end of the matter all has been heard here Gordon do what he tells you for this is the hole of man you thought that I misread that didn't you but no actually I checked with Gary later but but I don't believe that Duty is actually in the in the original there doesn't say the whole duty of man it says this is the whole of man that's better because the duty could immediately send us in the wrong direction and probably has it says I want you to fear God and to do what he says for this is a hole of man this is what it is about this is what it means to be a man this is what humanity is about this is the purpose of your existence and so on and don't stumble over this notion of judgment fear God oh dear I don't want to talk about that against people so upset it's so Old Testament is it well I wasn't there another one wasn't there somebody we've spoken about a lot this couple of days who said do not be afraid of those who can kill the body and after that do no more but I will show you whom you should fear fear Him who after the killing of the body has power to throw you into hell yes I tell you fear him twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved you see the fear of God puts all the other fears in their place the fear of God deals with it all is not a servile fear it's not as some terrorized existence it's a filial fear is the respectful love of a child for his father it is a heartfelt love for God because the individual has finally discovered who God is and what God has done jesus said if you love me you will keep my Commandments let me just give to you a quote from Sinclair because he does this so well and it helps me to finish quickly his little section on the fear of God at the end of the pundits folly is worth the investment and and and this helps me so much so there's no point of me trying to fill around rewriting and I make it sound like this like his mind which is a which I'm very good at that but it's I'm running out of time to fear God to trust God and to love God and to know God are really one in the same thing in fact the fear of God about which the pundit speaks arises from the discovery of God's love for us in our sin and weakness it is the sense of all that results from the discovery that he knows me through and through means to destroy all that is sinful in me and yet does so because he loves me with an intensely faithful love that says syncher stretches my mind and emotions to their limits this is how fear is seen in the Bible it is those who fear the Lord who say his love endures forever it is only those who confess their sinfulness who discover that with you there is forgiveness therefore you are to be feared so it does what we would expect it to do turns us to Christ in every instance as the one who is able to transform our work transform our leisure transform our lives our hopes our dreams our aspirations it explains the nature of real happiness because I haven't met a single person ever in my life who didn't say unless they were deranged who didn't say that of all the things that they would like in life they would they think they would like to be happy I like to be happy secular friends they want to be happy and Ecclesiastes is a wonderful way of helping them to discover that to discover that it is only in that which is unseen and eternal that our deepest needs can be met that we are not to be surprised when the joys of life have left our souls unsatisfied that CS Lewis was really good when he said aim at heaven and you get air thrown in aim at earth and you get neither thanks for your patience let's pray father what a lot of talk so many words and you have a wonderful way this is our confidence you have a wonderful way of matching phrases and concepts and ideas and truth to the to our listening ears and so we pray that the cumulative impact of all that has been said and done and sung and shared and thought about will remain with us as we go on from here and we pray Lord that you will make us increasingly able and adept preaching between two worlds now building barricades around on behind which we can just hide and sing songs to one another but bridges over which we are able to walk help us Lord to this end we pray for Jesus sake

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 25,044

Rating: 4.7914109 out of 5

Keywords: Ecclesiastes, Basics, Alistair Begg, Preaching, Fear of God, Christian Thinking

Id: ri-NLvLb1g8

Length: 50min 46sec (3046 seconds)

Published: Thu May 15 2014