Chuck Larsen

Ecclesiastes is truly an amazing book. Life as it is lived out under the sun is often the most meaningless, futile and frustrating parade of experiences one can imagine. Solomon has made it clear that death always wins, life always cheats, and that the best effort doesn’t always produce the greatest reward. Yet although life is filled with “vanity of vanities” he exhorts us to enjoy the many wonderful blessings that life affords us. In Ecclesiastes 8:15 Solomon says, “And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.”

David Jeremiah says, “Solomon gives us every reason under the sun to be gloomy. …Then, as always, he tells us to be joyful! Solomon’s message is not to candy-coat life, but to tell us that life doesn’t need candy-coating. Life is unfair and death is unstoppable, but we have what we have, and it happens to be this day before us—a gift from God, filled with pleasures, beauty, the satisfying enterprise of work, and the precious presence of God overseeing it all. Life is smelly, noisy, cruel, and uncaring. How much more glorious is the God who can be seen through the darkness, felt in the cold, and embraced in the valley of the shadow of death! He triumphs over the gloomiest observations you or Solomon could dish out. How shall we then live? Joyfully!”

Ryken says the same thing, “Yes, there is vanity under the sun. Yes, we see injustice that is hard to accept or understand. Yes, we have a lot of hard work to do. Nevertheless, there is joy for us in the ordinary things of life—eating, drinking, and sharing fellowship with the people of God.” God through Solomon is actually calling us to joy! God has given us the gift of life with all its problems and difficulties. Zeke, my 6 year old grandson got a new Lego toy for his birthday. He tore into it with such enthusiasm we all had to laugh. There is something truly satisfying about watching him embrace life and this small gift with such enthusiastic joy. I expect that God our Father is pleased when we take joy in the gifts He gives us as well. God wants us to enjoy life. That’s why He sent Jesus who says, “I have come so that you could enjoy life to the fullest.”

I don’t know how many times the bible says that life isn’t fair, but Solomon makes it perfectly clear in Ecclesiastes 8:14. He writes, “There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity.” John F. Kennedy once summed up his philosophy about life and about political office in one brilliant phrase: “Life isn’t fair, but the government should be.” Now if that is true, how much more is the expectation that God should be fair? We expect justice from government and are confused and disillusioned when we don’t get it. We expect perfect righteousness and justice from God and are outraged when we don’t get it.

Revenge movies are so popular because injustice doesn’t sit well with us. Life really should be fair but it isn’t. As C. S. Lewis points out in Mere Christianity, every human being appeals to a common law of fair play: “That’s my seat—I was there first,” or “Give me a bite of that orange; I gave you a bite of mine.” We’ve all shouted out, “No fair! No fair!” We all have this instinct for fairness. It’s just there and all people in every culture acknowledge its existence by the way they live with each other. Where does this sense of fairness come from? We are created in the image of God. There is in God a value structure which He shares with us. It includes an intuitive awareness of what’s right and what’s wrong. We all long for our perceived sense of justice to be satisfied but we must learn to live without it.

God allows injustice in this life because according to His perfect plan He will one day make everything right. David Jeremiah suggests, “The secret is to remember that this life is just a preparation for the real life that is to come. We are foolish if we think we will ever find heaven on earth.” We often pray what is known as the Lord’s Prayer. We ask, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The greatest injustice in the world took place on the cross of Calvary. The only absolutely innocent victim of the injustices of man made us a promise before He was crucified. He said, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also (John 14:1–3). He will make everything right.

Coming clean with God and others makes it well with our souls. But when we continue to hide our sins it is not well with us in this life and it won’t be well with us in the next life. In Ecclesiastes 8:13 Solomon continues his comments regarding the wicked. He says, “But it will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow, because he does not fear before God.” The lack of the fear of god gives rise to all kinds of evil. Evil in a person’s life will drive him away from God, East of Eden, to the proverbial land of Nod where everyone is an alien. Murderers will find no peace in this life. Solomon actually said as much in Proverbs 28:17; “If one is burdened with the blood of another, he will be a fugitive until death; let no man help him.” As it was with Cain, so it is with all murderers.

In her memoirs, Svetlana Alliluyeva describes the death of a cruel tyrant who murdered millions of people. It was her father, Joseph Stalin. If ever a man set his heart to do evil, it was that wicked man. Here is how his youngest daughter describes his final breath: At what seemed like the very last moment he suddenly opened his eyes and cast a glance over everyone in the room. It was a terrible glance, insane or perhaps angry, and full of fear of death and the unfamiliar faces of the doctors bent over him. The glance swept over everyone in a second. Then something incomprehensible and awesome happened, that to this day I can’t forget and don’t understand. He suddenly lifted his left hand as though bringing down a curse on us all. The gesture was incomprehensible and full of menace, and no one could say to whom or what it might be directed. The next moment, after a final effort, the spirit wrenched itself free of the flesh.

Ryken says, “What happened after that? This is the ultimate question. What happens after we die? The Preacher believed there would be a final righting of all wrongs. True, he was troubled by the common injustices of life in a fallen world. But he was also convinced that God would make things right in the end.” I am too! but I still believe God wants us to make things right now in this life as well. Fearing God in the present brings peace of mind today and confidence upon entering eternity. Not fearing God in this life leaves us alienated from God and others in this life and fear and trepidation upon entering eternity. “Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they fear before him. But it will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow, because he does not fear before God” (Ecclesiastes 8:12–13).

Ecclesiastes 8:12 picks up on the idea of the previous verse. Ecclesiastes 8:11 says, “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.” It’s not only true that people get away with much sin and corruption in this world; some even appear to be applauded for it. Even the American legal system often fails its citizens. Wiersbe writes, “According to famous trial lawyer F. Lee Bailey, ‘In America, an acquittal doesn’t mean you’re innocent; it means you beat the rap.’ His definition is a bit cynical, but poet Robert Frost defined a jury as ‘twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.’” But you and I know that Solomon is right when he says in verse 12, “Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they fear before him.” The man who gets away with it lives his life under the cloud of their sin.

Solomon says that he knows it is well with those who fear God. This is another clear expression of Solomon’s faith in a just God. Most people read this verse as Solomon’s expression of confidence that God will ultimately punish the wicked and vindicate the righteous in the next life. Of course that’s true but don’t we also see a sense of punishment of the wicked and vindication of the righteous in the here and now. The wicked must live with a guilty conscience. I like the way max Lucado describes the person with a guilty conscience. He writes, the guilty are “Dashing down alleys of deceit. Hiding behind buildings of work to be done or deadlines to be met. Though we try to act normal, anyone who looks closely at us can see we are on the lam: Eyes darting and hands fidgeting, we chatter nervously committed to the cover-up, we scheme and squirm, changing the topic and changing direction. We don’t want anyone to know the truth, especially God.”

But God does know and we know too. Most of us are not hiding capital offences from God or the law. But if you are like me there are things that still haunt my sleep. I snapped at the nurse when she was late bringing my pain medication. I said some unkind things to my wife after a car accident. Surely you can think of something also. Even relatively little things are impossible to escape. John teaches us that God “is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.” Isn’t it time we come clean with God? Isn’t it time to turn ourselves in? The author of Hebrews encourages us, “…let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean…” James tells us that when we turn ourselves in to others we find healing (James 5:16). I apologized to the nurse before leaving the hospital the next day. She forgave me with gracious words and an understanding smile. I came home with a painful arm but a clear conscience. It is well with my soul.

As Solomon studies the affairs of life under the sun, he makes some rather astute observations. One of those observations deals with why evil is so prevalent in the world. Ecclesiastes 8:11 says, “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.” When we were in our child raising years we read a book on child discipline that focused a lot of attention on how to “correct” bad behavior in children. According to the author, whatever punishment you might choose you must first be certain that it is connected to the transgression. If there is no connection, there is no training taking place. The best way to assure that the lesson is learned by the child is to endeavor to apply the correction as swiftly as possible after the infraction. The more time that elapses after the bad behavior the less likely the lesson will be learned. This is true because of the depravity of man.

The failure of quick justice on evil serves to promote evil. It not only promotes it in the people who get away with it, but also with others who watch it happen. The situation that Solomon is addressing, unfortunately, suggests that (as the Handbook for Ecclesiastes puts it), “the evil person was not only unpunished, he was actually honored by the community.” You might have read the story last year of Nineteen-year-old Colton Harris-Moore. The on line story says, “He was arrested in the Bahamas after a two-year run from the police. The ‘Barefoot Bandit’ is accused of a string of robberies, including the theft of up to five airplanes. Along the way, he picked up 83,000 fans on his Facebook fan page and spawned a fan club. Harris-Moore’s mother defends his actions, and has reportedly sold the rights to his story to 20th Century Fox.”

God has entrusted the enforcement of law into the hands of human government. According to both the Old Testament and the New Testament this included penalties up to and including capital punishment. According to the Bible (and Chuck Colson) swift justice “…is important not only because the authority of the Law is at stake, but also to discourage others from following the evil person’s example in the belief that they will escape punishment also.” Phil Ryken gives an example from the world of sports. He writes, “…one of the reasons why famous athletes like Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez kept using steroids, even though such drugs had been banned from professional baseball, is because steroid users were not being punished. If there are never any consequences, then why not go ahead and sin?” According to Solomon this is another vanity of vanities! Lack of respect for the law is lack of respect for God. Those who respect God and human law can live life with a clear conscience. Surely applauded criminals cannot sing with the righteous, “it is well with my soul.”