“Surprising
Discoveries of Old Age”
Part 3:
Adversity: The Gift of God
A
Sermon on Ecclesiastes 7:13-14
January
12, 2003
by Rev. Stephen C.
Magee
Sermon: “Surprising Discoveries of Old Age”
Part 1 - The House of Mourning (7:1-6)
Part 2 - The End of a Thing (7:7-12)
Part
3 - Adversity: The Gift of God (7:13-14)
Part 4 - Not Overly Righteous,
Not Overly Wicked (7:15-18)
Ecclesiastes 7:13-14
13 Consider the work of God;
For who can make straight what He has made crooked?
14 In the day of prosperity be joyful,
But in the day of adversity consider:
Surely God has appointed the one as well as the
other,
So that man can find out nothing that will come after
him.
Introduction: Giving in to Jesus Christ, the Savior of
Sinners
In introducing this message to our
Sunday School children, I had occasion to sing with
them the beautiful hymn "How Deep the Father's Love for Us." Listen to these words:
How
deep the Father's love for us,
how vast
beyond all measure,
that He
should give His only Son
to make a
wretch His treasure.
How
great the pain of searing loss:
the
Father turns his face away
as wounds
which mar the Chosen One,
bring
many sons to glory.
Behold
the man upon the cross,
my sin
upon His shoulders;
ashamed,
I hear my mocking voice
call out
among the scoffers.
It
was my sin that held him there
until it
was accomplished;
His
dying breath has brought me life:
I
know that it is finished.
I
will not boast in anything,
no gifts,
no pow'r, no wisdom;
but I
will boast in Jesus Christ,
His death and resurrection.
Why
should I gain from His reward?
I cannot
give an answer,
but this
I know with all my heart:
His
wounds have paid my ransom.
(Stuart
Townsend)
This is a song of God's love. It is a song of the cross of Christ, which
the Apostle Paul preached. It is a song
that tells us good news that must be embraced.
We surely need to give in to Jesus Christ, the Savior of sinners.
Today #3: Adversity Comes from Our Good
God
The message that Jesus is the only
Savior of sinners is perhaps not a surprise to you. But who is this Jesus Christ, this Son of
God, this Messiah, this Second Person of the
Godhead? How is He, together with the
Father and the Holy Spirit, intersecting with your life this morning and every
day? Do we really know everything there
is to know about Him, or are there important discoveries about God that may
surprise us?
We have been looking together over
the last two weeks at some surprising things that Solomon has recorded for us
in the book of Ecclesiastes. Two weeks
ago we saw that the house of mourning is better than the house of
feasting. Last week we considered that
there is an end of a thing which is far better than the beginning. This morning God has instruction for us that
can change our lives, if we are able to receive it. Here it is: Adversity - trouble - trial - difficulty
- comes from our good God.
I remember a sermon I heard many
years ago where a pastor was telling us about a woman who came to see him who
was distraught about the death of her bunny.
Some of you can perhaps relate to such a sentiment. Others, like me, will find it more difficult
to empathize. The woman said to him,
"Where was God when my bunny died?"
His answer to her was more sensitive than I suppose I could have
mustered up on the occasion. He said,
"He was right where he was when His son died on the cross." The same God who sent His Son to willingly
pay the ransom for chosen sinners is the God who is in charge of days of
adversity, big and small.
"Consider" Your Dependence Upon
God
Solomon instructs us here to
consider our dependence upon God. No one
but He can make straight what He has made crooked. There is much "crookedness" in this
cursed world that we live in day by day.
Some of it we can call environmental, and some of it has to do with the
human condition.
On the environmental side of the
problem, perhaps you have heard that some forecasters are saying that we are
entering what they expect to be the coldest two weeks in
The saying has stuck with me, and so
I am always looking for occasions to try it out. The other day the a young man was pumping gas
into my car out on Portsmouth Avenue, and he casually remarked on the unusual
amount of snow that we have had. I was
ready. I said to him, "Well, that's
why we live here." He laughed and
responded. "Oh
absolutely! Three feet of snow
and wind chill of twenty below. That's
why we live here."
We can get used to environmental
adversity, imagine ourselves to be rugged New Englanders, and glory a little
bit in the rawness of the elements. Sure
the ocean is cold up here. At least we
don't have to swim in bath water like they do in the warmer climates. That's why we live here. We laugh a little bit to ourselves and keep
on going.
But let me say this about the cold
weather they may be a special feature of our next two weeks. There is not a thing that you can do
about. No amount of running around
spraying aerosol cans is going to create an ozone hole big enough to bring
about the global warming that you may or may not desire over the next few
days. God brings us the cold, and only
He can take it away.
Not all of the "crookedness"
that we observe in this world is environmental.
Most of the profound difficulties that we encounter have something to do
with human beings, and with their existence as
individuals or as members of some society.
Individuals and societies face adversity. The Bible is clear that we are to think of
ourselves as completely dependent upon God in these matters. Only He can straighten what he has made
crooked.
Do you think that being deaf would
be an adversity for an individual? Of
course it would be. Listen to what God
says about it in Exodus 4:
Exodus 4:11 ...Who has made man's
mouth? Or who makes the mute, the
deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the LORD?
This
should not come as a great surprise to us, since trials and difficulties are
just a subset of the larger class of things and events that we might call
"all things." The Scriptures
assure us that God is working all things according to His own will, so
naturally we should realize our dependence upon Him in times of strife or
danger. As He says through Isaiah:
Isaiah 45:7
I form the light and create darkness,
I make peace and create calamity;
I, the LORD, do all these things.
or
through Amos:
Amos 3:6
If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people
be afraid?
If there is calamity in a city, will not the LORD have
done it?
Much of the "crookedness"
that we experience in this life is more than physical difficulty or societal
calamity. We face a barrage of moral and
spiritual assaults from the depravity of our own souls and the animosity or
carelessness of others. We are creatures
of habit, and unfortunately, after the fall of Adam, we are creatures of bad
habits.
It is a somewhat perplexing feature
of our days that we are over-optimistic about our own ability to straighten out
the problems of cursed and crooked humanity.
Consider the field of eugenics, "the science of improving the human
race by a careful selection of parents in order to develop healthier, more intelligent
and better children." This is not a new idea. Plato mused about it in The Republic when he suggested that for a utopian society, we would
need to have more of the best men getting together with more of the best women,
and fewer of the worst men getting together with fewer of the worst women. He also suggested that it would be important
to only rear the offspring of the first group if the human flock was to be
perfected.
While the ancients may have
considered such a thing in theory, it took twentieth century man to actually
try and put it into practice. In the last hundred or so years, many have
thought that this kind of societal clean-up was actually within our reach
because of improvements in technology.
Some have shown their optimistic view of man's ability to fix man
through plans of government programs, through education reform, and more
recently through biotechnology.
While we do enjoy moments of victory
in addressing disease and poverty, we must recognize that we are still
completely dependent upon God for these successes, for surely they come for
Him. Consider the truth: We are all completely dependent upon
God. Who can straighten what He has made
crooked?
"Consider" The Day of Affliction Comes from the Same
Almighty Hand as the Day of Prosperity
There are days of prosperity, and
they are especially given by God to you that you might be joyful in them. But be sober too. For there are days of affliction, and they
are especially given by God for you to consider your dependence upon Him. God has a purpose in all of this, but before
we consider that purpose, which is contained in the last clause of our text, we
need to take a moment thinking about something called
"providence."
The Doctrine of Divine
As we have already noted, God works
out all things for His purposes, as Paul wrote to the church in
Ephesians 1:11-12 11 In Him also we have obtained an
inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of
His will, 12 that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the
praise of His glory.
This biblical teaching of God's
sovereign will and power is called "providence."
And we know that all things work together for good to
those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
It is this special providence that
is directed toward His beloved elect. It
cannot be said of all the world generally that all
things work together for good to everyone.
This special providence of all things working together for good is only
to "those who love God, to those who are the called" according to His
special purpose.
There is one other point that we
should note concerning the management of all providence, and it is quite
important. God the Son - the Lord Jesus
Christ - is the
almighty God of providence. According to Hebrews 1:3, the One who "by Himself purged our
sins" and then "sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on
high," is also the One who upholds "all things by the word of His
power." This is exactly what
Christ himself announces in one of His resurrection appearances to His
disciples:
Matthew 28:18-20 18 And Jesus came and spoke to them,
saying, "All authority has been given to Me in
heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am
with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen.
Jesus Christ has been given all
authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18). He is using that authority as the God of all
providence (Hebrews 1:3), and He is using all special providence, including the
day of affliction, for your good (Romans 8:28).
CONSIDER:
Jesus Orders
the Day of Affliction for Your Good.
This is an absolutely revolutionary
consideration concerning the work of Jesus Christ. The day of difficulty does not come to you as
some accident, or as some unavoidable mess-up when Jesus had His holy back
turned. He has given you the day of
affliction, and He orders this for your good.
What is the Purpose?
Now we are ready to complete our
consideration of our text from Ecclesiastes.
The last clause in our passage answers a very important question. "What is the Lord's purpose in the day
of affliction?" We know from Romans
8:28 that God orders that day for your good.
But what does Solomon say here? "Surely God has appointed the one
as well as the other, so that man can find out nothing that will come after
him."
Solomon says that the same hand of
God that brings abundance also gives us adversity, so that we cannot find out
anything after us.
There are some future things that
God wants us to know. He wants us to
know that when Christ returns there will be a resurrection of the dead. He wants us to know that there is a judgment
day coming. He wants us to know that our
only way of sure safety on that day is to be found in Him. He wants us to know that He is perfecting and
will perfect His people, and that they no longer will have the stain of sin in
heaven. These are things that we should
know - and that we must know for our spiritual comfort as we serve Him
today. But there are many things that He
does not want us to know.
We confess with the hymn writer
these words: "He leadeth me." But this is very different from saying that I
know precisely where He leadeth me. His purpose is much more that we draw near to
Him than that we know completely what He is doing with the details of our
lives.
Think about this with me for a
moment. What if we knew everything about
all of the steps that are ahead of us in our lives, and even all the steps that
will come after us? We would be tempted
to think that our knowledge meant power.
Since we would know the future with such certainty, we would see
ourselves as in control. We would tend
to insist on our independence from God.
Think of this startling fact: Jesus
gives us the gift of the day of adversity so that we would recognize our
dependence upon Him, and so that we would be better disciplined children of
God. If you are able to accept this
teaching - that the day of adversity is a gift from the Lord Jesus Christ -
then you will be able to thank Him for that day, perhaps even while you are
walking through the trial He has graciously given you.
So then, we must not be stubborn on
this point, and imagine the Lord Jesus Christ as something less than He is.
Psalm 32:8-11
8 I will instruct you and teach
you in the way you should go;
I will guide you with My eye.
9 Do not be like the horse or like
the mule,
Which have no understanding,
Which must be
harnessed with bit and bridle,
Else they will not come near
you.
10 Many sorrows shall be to the
wicked;
But he who trusts in the LORD,
mercy shall surround him.
11 Be glad in the LORD and rejoice,
you righteous;
And shout for joy, all you
upright in heart!
Conclusion:
Giving in to Jesus Christ, the Lord of
The human problem is massive. Man cannot solve the problem of man - not
through eugenics - not through biotechnology - not through government - not
through education. But Christ has solved
our deepest problem through the shedding of His blood. If you will trust Him as the Savior of your
soul, you must trust Him as the Lord of all providence - even the day of
adversity. Amen.