"The Divine Aristocracy"
An examination of Ecclesiastes 9 & 10 and how it applies to the contemporary church..
Download or email this sermon Two Aspects
There are two aspects to this: First, we often forget that “the meek shall inherit the earth”. (Mt. 5:5) There will be a literal millennial reign of Jesus. When that time comes, God's aristocracy will rule and reign with Christ on this planet. Then there is the second aspect, which is eternity.
One way to understand this is as follows: there are certain things in life and in Scripture that teach us now about the Millennium. For example, antediluvian man lived to be hundreds of years old, and that teaches how it will be again in the Millennium. Other experiences such as the love you feel for a beautiful newborn baby, or the thrill of looking on an unblemished landscape where pollution has not disturbed the natural environment – the best things in this life can give us a dim view of what the Millennium will be like; it will be what would have happened on this planet if Adam and Eve had not sinned. In turn, the Millennium will be used by God to teach us what heaven will be like. When Jesus reigns in Jerusalem, He will personally teach us the things of the Father. The meek will inherit the earth: God's aristocracy will take over this planet. The Jehovah's Witnesses completely corrupt this, but it is nonetheless a biblical truth.
Then there is eternity, to which the only treasures we may bring are knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. The world can and does have data; however, there is a big difference between data and knowledge. There are people who have degrees in theology from the finest universities, who know all about the Bible; yet they have no idea what the Bible is about. They have data, but no knowledge. To gain knowledge one needs understanding. One may have data, but to know what the data means requires understanding, and gaining understanding, in turn, requires wisdom. The world has its folly, which it calls wisdom, but it totally lacks true wisdom.
God's aristocracy has something better than gold, silver, and jewels. The world will always measure wealth by the things that perish, while God measures wealth by eternal, imperishable things. However, just as the world measures wealth by material riches, so also do worldly churches. The standard of a worldly church is the same as that used by the world.
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Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.