"The Divine Aristocracy"
An examination of Ecclesiastes 9 & 10 and how it applies to the contemporary church..
Download or email this sermon Making the Most of This Life
Ecclesiastes 9:10:
"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going."
Again, make the most of this place. You won't be here that long, so get the most eternal value out of it that you can. It's a fallen world, but make the best of your life; don't waste it. Backsliders waste their youth and they waste their lives. In comparison with eternity, what is the 80-90 years you have on this earth? Nothing. Yet in comparison with the 80-90 years you have in this world, one year, five years, ten years – these are long stretches of that time; too much time to waste on straying away from the Lord. Backsliders are the biggest time-wasters there are; everything a backslider does is a sheer waste of time and of life because none of it is of eternal value, and they know better.
Continuing with verse 11:
"I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all."
Some Christians say they don't believe in luck. However, we see here that God does. There is certainly Providence – God can and does intervene on behalf of His people. Yet the fact of the matter is that due to the way of this world, the race is not always to the swift, nor is the victory always to the strong. (Ecc. 9:11)
The only thing a cow can do is chew grass, but boy, can that cow chew it well! You will find people often who are interested in the arts, who may be multilingual, well-educated, well-traveled, and yet they struggle financially because their interests are so diverse; they have no focus. On the other hand, there are people who are not very clever, yet they open something like a gas station, work 16-hour days and save their money, and soon have two of them. How do simple people do this? Look at immigrants who come to America from countries where there is no Judeo-Christian cultural influence and no economic opportunity, only social injustice. For example, take people from India, how they'll come to England or to America and how hard they will work to get their children an education. They very often wind up with money. I stay at a Ramada Inn in the United States at times that is owned by an immigrant from India, while the janitor's great-grandparents were born there. Why is that? Because the race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong; time and chance overtake them all. Now, there are practical principles in the book of Proverbs for success, yet it holds true that time and chance play a significant role in this world.
One of the most brilliant founding fathers of the United States was William Morris of Pennsylvania. He foresaw how the state and the city of Philadelphia would develop, and got into land speculation. Every single thing he predicted would happen, did happen. Yet his timing on his investments was wrong, and he went bankrupt. He was a great visionary, and possibly America's first urbanologist. He saw the way things were going to develop, but his timing was all wrong. Sometimes people who are not too clever wind up with money while people who are very clever wind up broke – “time and chance overtake them all.” That is all the more reason not to trust in this world. If you are wealthy, maintain the attitude that you are merely God's steward and that all your wealth is truly His to do with as He sees fit. God's philosophy is that if you are rich in material things, count yourself broke, for it belongs to Jesus rather than to you. But if you are poor, without material wealth, count yourself rich because you are a co-heir with Christ. Do not trust this world; there is no justice and no guarantee of anything, although that is not to say that God cannot and will not intervene on behalf of His people.
Continuing with Ecclesiastes 9:12:
"For man also does not know his time: like fish taken in a cruel net, like birds caught in a snare, so the sons of men are snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly upon them."
The most successful businessperson in a city, who has worked hard and accumulated much wealth, is suddenly diagnosed with a pre-terminal disease. This sort of thing happens every day – people get caught in a snare. Unsaved people live it up, carry on as they please, but then die suddenly, and that is it for them.
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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.