Yes. One.
Too quiet you're gonna need to there's a little black box on top of a shelf next the one that's further waiting.
Okay. How are It's a circle button on the front. Yeah.
No. Thank you. Alright. Today I'm gonna be speaking on Ecclesiastes 3, 9 through 15.
This is the passage that directly follows the famous sort of poem of a time for everything. A lot of people will be familiar with that passage.
But I think what's really interesting is what follows that, that poem. I'll read it right now.
The poem itself. Is for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted.
A time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up.
A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.
A time to cast a stones and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing.
A time to seek and a time to lose a time to keep and to time to cast away. A time to tear and a time to sew, a time to keep silence and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
And that's a really famous and sort of covered pretty regularly. A poem in the book of Ecclesiastes.
That's, you know, for everything there's a season for every matter under heaven is how that starts.
And I think that that provides a good backdrop for what we're gonna talk about today and, My title not in vain.
I chose that because And I'll get into this later, but I think there's a pretty significant misunderstanding about the way that vanity is used in the book of Ecclesiastes and it's a really interesting way to put the book in a different perspective.
So the text itself is a Ecclesiastes 3 9 to 15. It's sort of split up into 4 sections.
I'm gonna move this.
Hmm, crunchy. So the way that I would split this up is verse, if you turn in your Bibles, cause there's not numbers on here. That's a mistake on my part.
Versus 9 and 10 sort of start out presenting a question. What does men gain from his toil?
Then, verse 11, begins to answer that question and sort of turn the question around, verse 12 moves, verse 12 and 13 move into applications and then versus 14 and 15 look forward.
To just the praising God and the fear of God. And also there's a lot of connections to the to the gospel there.
So that's sort of what I'm gonna talk about and,
It says right here, what gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity in demand's heart yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
I perceive that there is nothing better for them for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live.
Also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil. This is God's gift to man.
I perceive that whatever God does endures forever. Nothing can be added to it nor anything taken away from it.
God has done it so that people fear before him. That which is already has been that which is to be already has been and God seeks what has been driven away.
The main speaker. Hmm. The, the main speaker in the book of a Ecclesiastes is often referred to as the preacher.
He is introduced by the author of the book at the beginning and then sort of let out from at the end, but throughout the whole book of Globe.
We're hearing from a character. And that's sort of an important. Understanding because in a literary sense he's an unreliable narrator.
He's a pessimist. He has this sort of
Dark outlook and he tends to be very depressed. I think that so that's just sort of a good way to keep in mind.
And the main point that I'm going to try to keep coming back to is this. God has given us lives to live for Him and spending them tied up in anything but that is a waste and truly what is meaningless because most things that are referred to in the book of Ecclesiastes as we're about to
see. Are not meaningless in the sense that we think of it. So Ecclesiastes is set right after Proverbs in the wisdom books and that's important to notice because Proverbs is full of if then statements.
Proverbs 22 6 says train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he is old, he will not depart from it.
It's do this, you'll receive this. 2813, whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.
Do this receive this? Proverbs, one, a false witness will not go unpunished and he who breathes out lies will not escape.
Do this receive this? Proverbs is full of justice. One thing happens, another thing happens in response.
In contrast, ecclesiastes is about injustice. Ecclesiastes says, yeah, you know, you can live a worthwhile life and that's great and all but we're all gonna die.
And time moves on, you know. Crops grow, crops die, everything stays the same.
There's nothing new under the sun. And so there's this contrast between Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, which is I think why they're right next to each other.
And then the final quote from Proverbs I'll have is, so you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous for the upright will inhabit the land and those with integrity will remain in it.
But the wicked will be cut off from the land and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.
So there's this definite. Justice in proverbs that's very clean cut and light and uplifting.
And also sometimes despairing because there's a standard that's set in Proverbs that's impossible for us to meet in our sinful state.
And I think Ecclesiastes takes that view. You know, we can't meet this.
So. Why bother? Or at least that's what it reads like.
In. In the book of Ecclesiastes, there's this word used over and over again, vanity, meaningless, depends on your translation.
And the Hebrew there is a word that's, and I'm going to butcher this, would it more directly translates to is vapor or smoke.
And that's why you hear the phrase in ecclesiastes repeated a striving after the wind.
And I think that that is where the misconception comes of everything is in vain. Everything is vanity.
It's not that there is no meaning to all these things that are heaven. Their smoke, their vapor.
There's a meaning there. It's there we can see it, but we can't grasp it.
We in the state we are in, we're chasing after this vapor. And we reach out and we try to take it and it's just not there because we can't achieve it, we can't understand it in the state that we're in at the moment.
And in the context, I'm just gonna lead into the passage going through Ecclesiastes one and 2.
And there are sort of 4 things that he calls vanity. In this passage these 2 chapters.
The first is wisdom. And he's talking in it's ecclesiastes 1 12 through 18 is the sort of the section that if you want to read over that.
I'm gonna turn there one through 18 1 1 12 through 18 he says I've been king over Jerusalem I've had all these things I have understood everything I've seen everything he says what is crooked cannot be made straight and what is lacking cannot be counted.
I have acquired great wisdom surpassing all those all who were over Jerusalem before me and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge and I applied my heart to no wisdom and to know madness and folly.
I perceive that this also is but a striving after wind. It's not meaningless. It's not vanity in the way that we think of it.
It's just impossible. We can't understand everything. A pursuit of full understanding and perfect knowledge is impossible to complete.
We can't do it.
Then he talks about pleasure and I think that an important distinction here as he talks a lot it's the beginning of chapter 2, and an important distinction here as he talks a lot. It's the beginning of chapter 2 verses one through 11.
The vanity of self-indulgence is the sort of subtitle that the ESV editors have decided to put in there.
But I think that that's not quite a comprehensive understanding of what he's talking about with self-indulgence because yeah he talks about this lavish lifestyle and wealth he also talks about work.
Close to the end of the passage. Gonna find it exactly. He says, and whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.
I kept my heart from no pleasure for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.
The reward for anything that we do chasing pleasure on earth is the pleasure itself. There is nothing beyond that.
He's saying that in a sense, this is meaningless. It's vanity. We can't get true.
Joy and pleasure and a full experience of life from just chasing earthly things, self-indulgence.
Moving on to, versus 2, 12 through 17, just moving through these vanities that he's using to build up to the text.
He says, why did I pursue wisdom in the first place? He is thinking about living wisely.
And I think that here is really the parallel to Proverbs. He's saying, if I've got all this wisdom, all right, I'm gonna apply it.
I'm going to live by all that wisdom and what he finds is if I live by all these wisdoms that I find in the book of Proverbs which is previous but just in general living wisely living according to all these rules, I die at the end of it and people forget me.
And I pass on whatever it is that I achieve to somebody else and they squander it. And if I live foolishly and I waste my time and I do stupid things and I don't pay attention, I die at the end of it and I pass on whatever I made.
To somebody and they squander it. So what's the point? You can't grasp the meaning.
Of what's going on in life just through wisdom. And you can't grasp it through following a set of rules.
You can't grasp it for any of these things. And finally at the end of chapter 2 he turns to toil.
And he says, look at all this work I've done. I have all this wisdom. I've done all these things.
And then again, My toil results in a thing in this world and I will die and I'll pass it on to someone and they will squander it.
He says. At the very end, oh dear, that's a different audio.
He says, what has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun for all his days are full of sorrow and his work is a vexation even in the night his heart does not rest.
This also is vanity. We're looking for meaning. And we can't find it.
And, I'll actually, I'll go back one moment. And Ecclesiastes, I believe 1 18.
There's a line that I find myself. Not 1 18. 1 13. I find myself quoting this a lot is and I applied my heart to seek out and search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven.
It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. All of these vanities that I've just talked about following that verse.
Those are man's unhappy business. And it certainly seems that everything in our lives are as striving after the wind.
And I guess I kind of gave spoilers to the answer to the question of, you know, if everything is.
Vanity, what's the point? When I read the passage to the beginning, so let's dig into that.
The passage we're in today is a brief respite from the pessimism of the book.
You look at all of the vanity, I believe the ESV actually in the outline since I was looking at that.
A week or 2 ago. It lists it as a catalog of vanities or a list of vanities and it's this deluge of everything's pointless.
And you get to verse 3, 9. And he sort of starts to change his tone at several intervals throughout Ecclesiastes, the preacher will take a step back from his complaints and focus on what's not in vain or why he's talking about this or what the purpose is in all this?
What's the meaning? Because as we've said, Hevel is that word that's meaningless.
Hevel means vapor. Vapor is impossible to grasp. It doesn't mean it's not there.
It doesn't mean there isn't meaning. Just means that we can't grasp it.
So it These passages are important because they provide a sense of direction in another wise despairing book.
So the question, why do we toil? Verse 9, versus 9 is starting with why.
Why, if toil and wisdom and pleasure and foolishness are all? Are all chasing after the wind, why do we carry on?
And by extension, why can we not grasp the wind we are instructed in the proverbs to strive after. Right?
All of these wisdoms, all of these do this, you will receive that that we're given.
We're told strive after that and it's in the Word of God. We're supposed to live that out.
But as we look for it and we strive after it, we can't find it. Why can't we grasp these things?
And that's the big question. And the preacher asks a kind of a rhetorical question.
What gain has the worker from his toil? Anyone who's been reading ecclesiastes from chapter one up to this point is going to say nothing.
But I think that That's the preacher is almost setting up a question for you to expect the answer nothing and then he's going to subvert your expectations.
Here I think it's just an important semantic note. The worker and his toil, he's not just talking about literal toil, clearly this is the worker is anyone and the toil is.
All of these things be they wisdom, toil, foolishness. Any of those things that he said are vain.
Anyone living in this world is a subject of this question.
And, he changes his tone. He says, It's not an unhappy business. It's just business.
There's that removal from 1 13 of an unhappy business that God has given to the children of men.
He has seen it. And he's claiming to have seen it. He's not saying what has the worker to gain from the toil.
I've seen. The business right he's not saying that he's saying what gain has the worker from his toil Well, I've seen it.
And he's leading into verse 11. And I say that here's where. Reason we can't grasp that smoke comes out because we are eternal beings.
We have souls that will exist in eternity. We will never die whether we die forever or we live forever.
We are eternal. God has created us that way. God isn't eternal. Well, he is eternal, but he's not just eternal.
God is infinite. So, verse 11 begins to describe that business from verse 10. He answers the question of why, quite simply, by living life and toiling, God will provide us with a more beautiful understanding than we could achieve on the merit of our own wisdom and life is much better for the living when we trust in him for understanding.
That's Greek, so I'm gonna say this in English. please, I've split this up into 2 different sections.
Ecclesiastes 3 11 a he has made everything beautiful in its time this is a reference back to the poem at the beginning of the chapter.
A time for all everything, right? And he's saying, God has made everything beautiful in its time.
You've just read that, you know, Hold on, there's a time for everything. A time for work.
A time for play. A time to keep to keep and to cast away, to tear and to sow, right?
There's a time for everything. And God is saying. If not God, the preacher is saying.
Hey, look, if we're gonna chase all this wisdom. We're chasing it down outside of it.
We need to let God determine that time because God has set that time. God has made everything beautiful. In its time.
If something is in its time. That's the time for that's a lot of time.
And then he moves on, he says he has put eternity into man's heart. We are beings with eternal souls, eternal spirits.
We will last for ever. And thus we were created with eternal curiosity. This curiosity is what drives that relentless pursuit of knowledge and power and self-indulgence that we've seen up to this point in the book.
And that that eternal curiosity is something that a human being can never satisfy. Because while we are eternal, we're limited.
And he cannot find out. Moving on what God has done from the beginning to the end. And some view this as a curse.
Right, he's already said, I spent all my days trying to figure out everything under the sun, everything that God has done, all the work that God has done and I could not.
I learned that this too is vanity. Now we're created eternally curious and incapable of satisfying sounds like a curse.
But if we are to live forever with God in heaven as believers, we will exist for eternity.
To not have aternal curiosity. If we're to exist for all of time would be a curse.
Because who wants to get bored in heaven? We are eternal beings. And there's an important difference between eternal and infinite because God is not just eternal.
God is infinite. The illustration I came up with when I was sitting on the couch trying to figure out how to explain the thought that it just popped into my head was it would be like touring the whole world but you're stuck on one latitude.
You can go around in one line. And there is so much more world. There's way more world.
You're stuck on one finite line. You're traveling one dimensionally through a three-dimensional space.
You're a line going through a sphere. You can't see everything. If God is infinite, which He is, And we are not infinite, which we are not.
Then yeah, we can't understand everything. And it is kind of depressing if we try.
And that's where those he's answering the question of, well, okay, so why do we toil?
He's saying, well, it's definitely not. To understand everything because we can't.
Will exist for eternity but we won't ever run out of anything to learn. God cannot be fully understood.
But the truest moments of his revelation to us come when he chooses them. We can only understand God when he condescends.
If God is this infinite being and we are these small, measly human beings, the only time we can understand him is if he takes a step down, comes down to our level.
I chose a couple of, examples of this. In judges 6. Gideon is struggling with faith in the Lord.
He's saying, I don't know man, I don't know if you're gonna send help and if we're gonna beat them.
Could you make this sheep fleece wet? And God sort of goes, oh my gosh.
Sure, because God's infinite and Gideon's not. Gideon's kind of a coward.
And so God condescends. God does that. He wets the wool. He lets Gideon have that peace of mind because
God, God's so much more than us. We need him to do that. You know, we laugh at Gideon because he's, you know, a coward and that's sort of the point of his story is that he's a coward but God still uses him.
We are all that same person. I think about. First King's 18, which is the story where Elijah is sort of roped into this competition with the prophets of Baal and they've got this big altar and they're dancing around it and cutting themselves and beating themselves trying to get lightning to
strike their altar and light a fire. And Elijah walks up to his altar and he prays and God not only destroys the altar but he wipes out all of the water that's in this trench around it and he does this.
Over the top display of power. And that's God lowering himself to those priests level. Because God doesn't need to prove himself to us.
God has no need of us. But he chooses to lower himself. Enough to communicate with us, to have a relationship.
And there's sort of that positive end of things with. Gideon where he's giving Gideon assurance and there's that more heavy-handed instance of the profits of Baal who are trying to prove that their God is the superior God and God says no.
Stop. And he uses a very
Crude form of communication. It's just an explosion. But it gets his point across because again, he's infinite.
We can't understand him. And of course, the prime example of God's condescension to have relationship and communication with man is Christ's coming.
And and his death and his life and that ministry where God himself comes down. And. The fact that an infinite god.
Comes into the form and the existence of a limited being.
Is just another example of how
God knows the right time for us to understand something.
And you know, there's all the, the evidence that we hear about how in human history, Christ came at the perfect time.
This is that same verse from Ecclesiastes 3. I need to get back on topic.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. God is
Condescending in the perfect moment and in a perfect way for us to understand and to learn. If we think about like the chariot thrown in Ezekiel, my dad told me this.
Must be like a year or 2 ago. That the Jewish rabbis never let a student study the chariot throne alone.
You always had to have and more experienced and more well versed rabbi with you when you were studying that beginning.
That prophecy that vision in Ezekiel because it's one of the closest moments we have to God's infinite nature being.
Explained and we can't understand it. The reason that rabbi was there wasn't so that he could explain it.
The guy, it wasn't to correct mistakes. It was to say, hey, stop trying to understand it.
There's such a thing as mystery.
God is infinite. We cannot understand him. And that's what's important is we can't get God.
If we could, he wouldn't be a very good god.
And so we are not infinite, but we are loved by an infinite God. If we try to understand all the things that he has done, we will lead ourselves into despair.
But if we let him lead us. Allow him to teach us. We will have a great understanding and a more full life.
And this all sounds great, but it raises an obvious question. If the best way to get understanding is for God to extend it to us and we know that we can't earn it.
Right? If doing all the work, we can't do that for understanding. That is the best way to live life really to just sort of.
Sit there and let life happen and maybe God will come along and give us some understanding. Clearly that's not the answer.
We already knew that know that a pursuit of wisdom is not the way to live life. Or at least not the way to dedicate your life to it on your own merit.
So sitting back and waiting for wisdom to arrive is just kind of a lazier version of pursuing wisdom as your whole life.
It's not a solution, it's just depressing. So what do we do? If he's advocating against this life of pursuit.
And we have all this time in our lives freed up from that impossible pursuit, right? If we've been pursuing all these things chasing after a wind chasing after vapor chasing after the things listed as vanities as heavy as smoke.
Then what do we do? And the following 2 verses, 12 and 13, unpack how in the context of what we have learned, we ought to live our lives.
So we have to live our life unto him. The best life we can live, I've got that written up on the screen is one that is lived according to his words.
And to enjoy that life despite the seeming pointlessness of virtue. So, that's the fancy way of saying, hey, it seems like we can't achieve it, we can't get it, and we have to sort of accept that before we can.
Get closer. Sanctification is never completed in this life. And I think that that's a connection there of All this pursuit of wisdom and knowledge is kind of a pursuit of sanctification.
It's that, well, I can become more like God. I can understand more. God is omniscient.
I want to be omniscient because I want to be like God. Well, Wanting to be like God is I believe what created or right the fall
So the preacher sort of finally reaches his practical advice, something he gives precious little of in the 12 chapters he's allotted in the book of Ecclesiastes.
He starts off, I perceived that there is nothing better for them. This is harkening back to the claim I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with in verse 10.
We can thus understand what follows this phrase to be expanding on what followed that phrase. Conversationally it reads like one statement building on the last, which is something we missed because I've been going so slow.
So I'm going to reread it in that context thinking of I have seen the business and then he explains what the business is and then he says there I perceive that there is nothing better for them and then he expands on the business.
He says, I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.
He has made everything beautiful and its time. Also, he has put eternity into Manhattan.
Yeah, so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived there is nothing better for them.
Than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live. Also, that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil.
This is God's gift to man.
So what is that? Then to be joyful and to do good as long as they live. That's the second half of verse 12.
It's meant to build on that idea that everything is beautiful in its time, not our time, not the time that, you know, is convenient, but.
That things time, what God determines for it. So in the meantime, we're to live life joyfully and do good.
He says, look, we can't get that understanding on our own. God has to condescend for us to get that understanding.
So in the meantime, while he isn't in the active active moment of like giving us that and while we're not in that sort of flow state of study where all of a sudden something makes sense.
What are we supposed to do? Do we sit and despair that we don't get it because we're not gonna get most of it. No.
In the meantime, we live life joyfully. We, I think it says, yeah, do good.
What's do good? Good's complicated. Well, I quoted Proverbs at the beginning of the the message Proverbs 2 20 through 22 the beginning he says so you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous.
He's connecting to proverbs. He's connecting to living wisely. One of the things that he says we can't grasp.
He says, even though you can't achieve it on your own. You need to try. Because God will let lay out on the road ahead of you all of those wisdoms, all of those understandings.
All of that moment when you do grasp through that havel and you do understand that smoke. But if you're not moving down the road, you're never going to get there.
It's not on any of your own strength that you reach it. But if you sit still and you don't do anything, nothing comes to you.
He isn't quoting anything specific, so I'm not gonna try to say that I'm connecting this perfect moment from Ecclesiastes 3 to proverbs to I just chose a random proverb that said to do good because it served my purpose.
I'm a terrible writer. I'm not gonna lie to you about that. His statement is one of acceptance here.
Despite the apparent level of living in any manner, He admits that the best life is one lived doing good up until death.
And then verse 13 builds on this further. He says also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil, this is God's gift to men.
Everyone should eat and drink. We are to live life. I, it was later than it should have been last night when I made this connection.
When Christ returns, and he is standing in a house with some people and they're like are you really Christ though?
Cause like we saw him die. They have him eat. Because eating in the context that this is written in in that culture, eating is a sign that you're not some apparition, you're not some ghost.
Where to live life. We're to live a full life, a real life, a very, I keep wanting to say visceral, vivid life.
We're here. We're alive. We should live. And then he says, take pleasure in all his toil.
Again, the preacher doesn't contradict himself. He gives an answer seemingly not in keeping because he's already said you know toil why toil toils pointless all it is is something that you make and you pass on and then it gets squandered.
But. Maybe again taking a step back looking at that passage about toil it's vanity it's a striving after the wind.
It's a wind that eventually God will let us understand. We can't do it on our own, but eventually we will.
Or maybe we won't, it doesn't really matter. We're supposed to live our life.
With the understanding that we can't understand.
So he spent so much time leading up to this passage talking about how the pleasure taken in toil in work and in life as a whole is heaven.
It is smoke, it is vapor, but maybe that smoke isn't pointless. And the first answer is for us.
The last line in verse 13. This is God's gift to man.
Why would we chase after everything? And get upset about what we don't have. It sounds like I'm talking to a toddler.
Instead of being grateful for what we do have.
God has given us these things and it is the best thing for us to live our lives according to His Word and in His presence, looking and waiting for His Spirit to come upon our hearts and impart some small drop of wisdom.
At the beginning of the message I said that the preacher seems to claim that only permanent things, right?
Those sort of the things that are lasting into eternity. Right, so toil isn't one of them.
He actually doesn't list any because he can't find any. And he says that they're worthless, but that's not what he means.
It's true that a alone in this world. There is very little meaning in anything. And a pursuit of understanding leads only to despair.
But that is a life lived apart from God's infinite and I mean infinite generosity.
A life lived within his love, however, is very different. In the final 2 verses of this passage which serve in the context of the passage as a transition into the next section, the preacher makes some observations about God's work. The preacher makes some observations about God's work.
I'd like to consider some observations about God's work. I'd like to consider these in the context of God's greatest moment of the condescension we talked about in verse 11 when Christ came to live and die in this world as a man.
He says, I perceive that whatever God does endures forever. Nothing can be added to it. Nor taken away from it.
God has done it so that people fear before Him. The Solvitic work of Christ is done.
It is over. When the die in Christ calls out, it is finished. That is final. Over.
Nothing can be added to it. No extra sin that he forgot to cover and nothing taken away. No sinner can out sin God's mercy.
We are eternal, but we are not infinite. Got exists infinitely more than we do in our entire lives in one instant because he is outside of time.
He is forever in every direction. He is infinite. And his mercy is infinite.
That verse, it's saying nothing can be added. Nothing can be taken away. It's because it's final.
What God does is done.
And our sin does not stretch on for all of eternity. In fact, if we are saved, if we are believers, our sin stretches on right up until we die and then sanctification is complete.
And then there is no more sin. There is no sin in heaven and in what is beyond.
Having the new heaven, the new earth.
Verse 15. That which is already has been. That which is to be already has been and God seeks what has been driven away.
God has seen everything. That is, like I said, outside of time forever in every direction. He exists outside of time.
He sees what will be and what has been and even in the context of all our failures of all of our sins he forgives.
But he doesn't just forgive, he does more than that. It's not just the difference of, mercy and grace.
Mercy, yes, he forgives grace he extends something we don't deserve that's sort of the the bumper sticker phrase, you know, mercy is not getting something you deserve.
Grace is getting something you don't deserve. God seeks. That which has been driven away.
This one I actually was very tempted to leave that clause off the end of my message because as I was flipping through commentaries and such, most scholars Don't really know what to do with the line because if you look in the following passage, 3 16 and on, it talks about oppression and people being oppressed and
pushed down and held down and really God seeking what's been driven away is meant as a transition. It's meant to say, and now hey look, God seeks what's been driven away.
Let's talk about that now. But I think there is a reason that it's part of that sentence.
Because not only does God forgive us. When we ask for forgiveness. God actively pursues. Even those who don't want his forgiveness.
The sins that have been sinned already have happened. The sins which will be sinned already have happened.
Even still God pursues sinners. God pursues Suz you and I to the ends of the earth and beyond them.
God pursues the oppressed and he pursues those oppressed by sin in the same way. Yes, Ecclesiastes might be talking about nations fleeing and it also might be talking about people oppressed by any sort of mental issues they have.
People oppressed by their own sin. God pursues everyone who is oppressed because God is merciful.
God is gracious.
And so my exhortation to you sinner is this. If you have not accepted the forgiveness with which God relentlessly pursues you, do so.
He has done all of the work already and asks nothing of you. Start that life today. The only life truly worth living.
Because a life outside of his love is a life that is vanity. It is a striving after the wind.
It is chasing after a vapor we cannot grasp. And to you, believer. Center saved for given sinner seen as sinless in the eyes of God Live your life full of joy and good deeds.
Take pleasure in your toil and in all you do, do it for the Lord. Because this is the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with Life lived according to his word.
All your Bible plans probably have a Proverbs section. There's a reason for that.
Thank you.
We good?