Ecclesiastes

Order of Service

• Hymn — Great Is Thy Faithfulness (#32)
• Call to Worship — Lamentations 3:22-24
• Hymn — Great Is Thy Faithfulness (#32)
• Prayer of Invocation
• Responsive Psalm Reading — Psalm 25
• Hymn — Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing (#457)
• Pastoral Prayer
• Scripture Reading — Ecclesiastes 8
• Sermon
• Hymn — When I Survey the Wondrous Cross (#252)
• Benediction

---

Sermon Title: Simple Wisdom in a Complex World

Scripture: Ecclesiastes 8

I. Wisdom Is Simple Obedience

A. The command to submit to governing authorities (Ecclesiastes 8:2-9)

1. The king's authority is ordained by God, regardless of whether the king is righteous
2. The fifth commandment encompasses honor for all governing authorities, not only parents
3. Jeremiah's counsel to Israel in Babylon: seek the welfare of the place God has put you; honor the king over you

B. The seasonal and temporal nature of earthly rulers (Ecclesiastes 8:8-9)

1. Kings and governments hold power over men, but have no power over death
2. All earthly authority is only for a season — kings come and go, presidents come and go
3. Viewing tyrannical authority as permanent breeds impatience, which leads to taking vengeance into one's own hands and becoming like the very tyrant one opposes

C. The burial of the wicked is a reminder that evil seasons end (Ecclesiastes 8:10)

1. When punishment is not swift, the heart of man is emboldened to do evil (Ecclesiastes 8:11)
2. Those who fear God will ultimately be at peace; the wicked will be judged (Ecclesiastes 8:12-13)
3. Summary principle: fear God, honor the king (1 Peter 2:17)

II. Wisdom Is Simple Joy

A. Solomon commends eating, drinking, and rejoicing as the best good under the sun (Ecclesiastes 8:15)

1. Fretting over things outside our finite, temporal capacities hardens the countenance (Ecclesiastes 8:1)
2. Wisdom shines on the face; anxiety and bitterness over uncontrollable things darkens it
3. The answer to the vanity of unresolvable complexity is to receive and enjoy the simple gifts God gives daily

B. The tyranny of clock-time as an obstacle to simple joy

1. Neil Postman's observation: the invention of the clock may have done more to dampen true religion than the Enlightenment
2. Ancient agricultural societies lived seasonally, according to the natural rhythms of sun and moon established in Genesis 1
3. The mechanical clock programs anxiety — always counting down — whereas seasonal living invites contentment with what is presently before us
4. The remedy is not asceticism (throwing away clocks and phones) but awareness of the subtle mastery time-machinery can hold over us, so that God and his gifts remain our true master

III. Wisdom Is Simple Faith

A. The key phrase in Ecclesiastes 8:17 is "the work of God" — man cannot find it out because it belongs to God

1. Man cannot mine the depths of God's ways and works in time and space
2. Ever since the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, man has claimed sovereignty over the world's direction and future
3. Cornelius Van Til's insistence that "God is a person" — a personal God who takes personal interest and is sovereignly and personally engaged in all of history

B. The common objection to God's goodness ("Why does evil exist if God is good?") is actually answered by Solomon's argument, not undermined by it

1. The objection assumes: if I were God I would eliminate evil immediately; since evil persists, a good God does not exist
2. Solomon inverts this: the very complexity and inscrutability of evil and good working together proves it is the work of a sovereign, holy God — not the work of man
3. The objection strips God of his holiness (otherness), reducing him to a being who must conform to our finite, temporal understanding of goodness
4. Open theism (Clark Pinnock) attempted to salvage God's goodness by denying his foreknowledge — but this merely strips God of his holy otherness entirely

C. The cross is the ultimate answer to the complexity of evil and goodness under the sun

1. At the cross, the greatest display of human wickedness and the greatest display of God's holy goodness occur in one event
2. Peter's rebuke of Jesus' prediction of the cross illustrates the tendency to set the mind on the things of man rather than the things of God (Matthew 16:22-23)
3. "Far be it, Lord" — the natural human reaction to suffering and evil — is the voice of the things of man, not the things of God
4. The word of the cross is folly to man but holy wisdom and goodness for those who are being saved
5. Faith is resting in, longing for, and aspiring to God's holy, infinite, eternal understanding of goodness — not our finite, limited, temporal understanding
6. The goal of the Book of Ecclesiastes: live a simple life in a complex world — simple obedience, simple joy, simple faith — resting in God's goodness until Christ returns and that goodness shines like the sun