Sermon: Ecclesiastes (Part Eight)

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John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 08-Sep-12; 65 minutes

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We are going to begin this sermon by turning to Ecclesiastes 3:1.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven:

Ecclesiastes 3:17 I said in my heart, “God shall judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.”

Ecclesiastes 8:6 Because for every matter there is a time and judgment.

When God says something like that—three times in the same book—He is trying to draw our attention to something that is very important for us.

Ecclesiastes 3, in my own estimation, is one of the great chapters in all of the Bible, and much of its goodness for us lies in motivating us to always consider God’s sovereignty in all of the issues and circumstances of life. There is no doubt that life is difficult, and much of it is confusing, but the wise person will always take God and His purposes into consideration when he makes his decisions, his choices in his life.

There are reasons why conditions are as they are. Circumstances are caused. There is a proverb which states that “a curse causeless shall not come.” There is always something that triggers a curse.

In Isaiah 45:7, God joins Himself into this general theme I am talking about right now, that there are causes behind what is going on.

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things.’

What God is saying here is sometimes these circumstances in life are things that He directly causes to occur, and even when we consider God’s sovereignty, even though He may not have caused them directly, He is still somewhat to some degree responsible, because as the sovereign God, He can start or stop anything that He does not want to go forward. So even when either good things or bad things come upon us in our life, He is saying He has been involved. We always have to take this into consideration.

There are reasons why there is death, why there is poverty, why there is disease, and there are reasons why there is prosperity, good health, and eternal life. The major reason all of us kind of blunder through life is that God is not considered enough because God is either unknown completely, or is not sought sufficiently even by those who do know Him somewhat. Now perhaps above all of these is that He is not believed or trusted.

In Ecclesiastes, Solomon is working to motivate us to give our consideration to God in our life. Solomon admits that there are things he does not have the answers to in every circumstance, but not having a right answer at present is no good reason to stop looking for an answer. Why is it not a good reason? It is because God is sovereign over His creation, and God is active in His creation, and God is constantly revealing Himself to those truly seeking Him, and therefore, in God’s good time there is always hope.

We are going to go to the New Testament to draw on something. Turn to Luke 2. I want to begin by saying something about Abraham. How long did Abraham have to wait for the fulfillment of God’s promise to him that he would have a son? Twenty-five years he waited. Did he ever give up hope? There is no indication that he ever did. Was he ever unfaithful to God? There may have been times that he was unfaithful to some small degree, but you know, that because of his overall faithfulness to God, he repented of those times, and he never gave up.

We can come upon one here from our own lifetime, especially my lifetime, about Herbert Armstrong. Do you know that man was in at times abject poverty for 28 straight years? He did not give up, and he did not lose his faith in God during those times because he knew that God was faithful, and he just stuck by his guns.

I want you to look at something here that maybe puts both of those people into shame in terms of the time that they may have had waited.

Luke 2:25-33 And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. So he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law, he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said: “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.” And Joseph and His mother marveled at those things which were spoken of Him.

Maybe they had never seen Simeon in all of their life. Remember, they were from a different town altogether, but there they were, in Jerusalem.

Look at verse 36

Luke 2:36-37 Now there was one, Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity; and this woman was a widow of about eighty-four years, . . .

The implication in the Greek is that she was a widow from the time of seven years after she was married until she was 84. An awful lot of years went by—somewhere around 60 or so.

Luke 2:37-40 who did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And coming in that instant she gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem. So when they [Joseph and Mary] had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth. And the Child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him.

The implication in these two examples is that these people never stopped seeking God. For decades, and decades, and decades they were unanswered in their quest, and their quest was that they would live long enough to be able to see the Christ, and their quest, their prayers were answered apparently exactly the same day, one right after the other, and probably in both cases they had waited, in hope, for 65 years.

Those examples are there for us to learn about. They never lost sight of the sovereignty of God—that He is running everything, He never lies, and even though they had to wait, they waited in hope always because the Sovereign God is never late. There is always a time and a season for everything to be fulfilled. Now that same God is working in your life, and despite what is going on around us, we must do what is right, and God’s Word reveals what is right. God expects us to do that as our part of the agreement, the covenant we have made with Him.

Now circling back to Ecclesiastes 3 again, we will begin with a brief reminder of what we touched on in the previous sermon on Ecclesiastes 3, which was about a month ago by this time. We will begin with another aspect of the topic that provided the foundation for the instruction in that previous sermon.

In that sermon Solomon was lamenting corruption in government. He especially focused on corruption in the justice system because it is the place in government where it is especially needed for the well-being of the entire nation. If righteousness is not part of the court system so that people cannot expect to be treated fairly, it will very severely damage both the attitude and conduct of the entire nation. A history of the American justice system of the past 40 years or so is a very vivid example of the affect of the weakening of the justice system.

It is recorded in our own recent history (by recent I mean the last couple hundred years), that Thomas Jefferson said that he believed that the Supreme Court justices have the easiest path to unbalance the governmental system that the Founders established by taking it upon themselves to render decisions that either alter the direct purpose or the intent of the Constitution. His worry became true. In these last 40 or 50 years it has happened.

Today we are going to move on to Ecclesiastes 4, especially in verses 1 through 3, but we are going to continue through the thought of the previous sermon, and then we will return to Ecclesiastes 3 for a brief period because we have not covered a thought Solomon had there that linked the end of chapter 3 with the beginning of chapter 4. So let us go, first of all, to Ecclesiastes 3, verses 16 and 17. This is where we left off the last time.

Ecclesiastes 3:16-17 Moreover I saw under the sun: In the place of judgment, wickedness was there; and in the place of righteousness, iniquity was there. I said in my heart, “God shall judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.”

I think we can see from this that Solomon could not take his eyes completely from God, that he was aware that God is sovereign over His creation, and that He was working within the creation, not merely watching what was going on.

Ecclesiastes 4:1-3 Then I returned and considered all the oppression that is done under the sun: And look! The tears of the oppressed, but they have no comforter—on the side of their oppressors there is power, but they have no comforter. Therefore I praised the dead who were already dead, more than the living who are still alive. Yet, better than both is he who has never existed, who has not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

When it said in verse 1 of Ecclesiastes 4—“Then I returned . . .”—he means that his mind reflected back to his observation that is given in Ecclesiastes 3:16-17, and he is again lamenting of the overwhelming number of injustices perpetrated by the powerful against the powerless. But this complaint here in chapter 4 is broader than the one concerning judges. The complaints in chapter 4 are against conduct that has long been very common in Israel, and God’s prophets mention it frequently. The most notable prophet regarding this subject is Amos.

Before we go on with Ecclesiastes, I want you to turn to Romans 2. Paul reflects upon something that is important to our understanding in our life. He has in mind the Jews.

Romans 2:5 But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, . . .

Here we reflect back again, just pick it up briefly in your mind, what he said in Ecclesiastes 3:17, that God was going to judge what was going on. He was confident of that. What Paul is doing here is confirming what Solomon said way back there, and what we need to keep in mind is that God is sovereign over His creation, and He is judging everybody. It is not just His church, it is everybody who is being judged by God. However, those in the church are being held to a much higher standard than those who are yet unconverted. But they are being judged.

Romans 2:6-13 . . . who “will render to each one according to his deeds”: eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God. For as many as have sinned without law [apart from the law] will also perish without law [apart from the law], and as many as have sinned in the law [with the knowledge of the law] will be judged by the law (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God.

Nobody escapes the judgment of God; however, the risk for those who are called is much, much higher and greater than those who have not been exposed the way we have.

Back now to the thought in Ecclesiastes 4. We left off here with the thought of turning to the book of Amos, which we will do, but before we go to Amos we are going to go first to the book of Ezekiel to pick up one verse to get a thought there.

Ezekiel 12:1-2 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying: “Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house [meaning people, nation, family], which has eyes to see but does not see, and ears to hear but does not hear; for they are a rebellious house.

He is talking about the unconverted of the nation of Israel. Let us not fall into the state he is describing here.

Now we are going to go to the book of Amos. Ezekiel lived after Amos. Amos prophesied somewhere around 760 or so BC. He did prophesy to the Israelitish people who lived in the area of Samaria. So when we get to Ezekiel, he is prophesying in the midst of a concentration camp. He is in a concentration camp in Babylon, and he is prophesying verbally to those people that went into captivity with him. Those were the Jews, and they began going into captivity somewhere about 597-596 BC.

And then by the time 586 came along, the whole nation basically was taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar. So this message that Ezekiel was preaching went to the Jews verbally in the concentration camp that Ezekiel was in. They were hearing it because they were in this concentration camp too, but the whole book of Ezekiel is not preached, written, intended directly for the Jews, but for the Israelites. He is talking to the United States of America. He is talking to the French. He is talking to the English. He is talking to the Norwegians, etc., etc., etc., where the Israelitish people live.

We are now going to go to Amos, chapter 4. I am only touching here because I want to pick up on what Ecclesiastes 4 is talking about there being injustices within the culture of the Israelitish people.

Amos 4:1 Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria. . .

In the figurative language God is using, God is speaking to women. They are in Bashan. Bashan was the main state in which the Israelitish people lived. Notice what these women do.

Amos 4:1-3 . . . who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, “Bring wine, let us drink!” The Lord God has sworn by His holiness: “Behold, the days shall come upon you when He will take you away with fishhooks, and your posterity with fishhooks. You will go out through broken walls, each one straight ahead of her, and you will be cast into Harmon,” Says the Lord.

Highly figurative language, but He is talking about the abuses of the wealthy people in the nation of Israel (primarily women), how they were living their lives. They were really living “high off the hog” as we would say today, and at the same time were at least somewhat aware of what was going on within the culture all around them, but they did nothing to change it. Instead, they went on living “high off the hog,” as the saying goes while all these injustices were being done right around them.

They did nothing to relieve the injustice even though they had the power to be able to do a great deal through their husbands who were very wealthy and influential within the nation. Maybe all they had to do was to ask, or maybe all they had to do was to get out on the street and do something about relieving the problem of the oppressed within the nation; but they did nothing.

Amos 2:6 Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because they sell the righteous for silver, . . .

What does that begin to give you a picture of? We are talking about people who, like the ladies in chapter 4, were aware of what was going on, but they were participating in it right up to their necks.

Now whom are they picking on? They are picking on those whom the Bible terms “poor.” This word “poor” is better translated as “weak.” It does not mean they necessarily had no money at all. It means that they were weak in terms of those who were taking advantage of them. The people were using their positions of power to take advantage of those who were less powerful within the nation.

Amos 2:6-8 . . . and the poor for a pair of sandals. They pant after the dust of the earth which is on the head of the poor, and pervert the way of the humble. A man and his father go in to the same girl, to defile My holy name. They lie down by every altar on clothes taken in pledge, and drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their god.

This sin is that those powerful in terms of wealth and position within the community, especially in government, but also in business, and perhaps amongst neighbors, are taking advantage of those who are weak, even powerless in community life.

Brethren, what are we witnessing now as this campaign goes on, and especially since 2008 and this quantitative easing has taken place, and the financial condition of the United States is going down the tubes? What do you see rising up within the midst of our people out there, our fellow citizens who are not in positions of power? How about the Tea Partyers? What is their complaint? Their complaint is, “We are being taken advantage of. We have nobody who is really representing us anymore.” And so things are slipping by that should be taken care of.

How about the Occupy Movement? You may not agree with the way they are doing things, but on the one hand, you have to agree that there is some justification for what they are doing. They look and they see immense, huge figures that people are being paid for things they feel do not require all that much—millions of dollars in wages. So they see things are really unbalanced.

There are undoubtedly political things that are involved in this, and I am not saying everything they are doing is right. But there is some measure of justification in what they are doing because they see that things are really unbalanced and there is no way out, and so the only thing to do is rebel to try to combine strength in some way to get the attention. So their solution is not necessarily right or good, but there is some reason. There is some cause at the basis of what is going on.

Now, God Himself is angry. That is why He wrote it here. He is showing what Amos was preaching about, and what we see in the book of Ecclesiastes that Solomon was writing on. Solomon did this writing 200 years before Amos did; almost 300 years before Ezekiel did, and the same basic things are going on, and nothing is changing.

Part of the motivation for us being in the church of God is we see this ourselves, and our hope is in God and what He has promised that He is going to do. We know there is really nothing we can do about it. It is happening because the sovereign God is allowing it, but at least we can pray that God in His mercy will stop it when it needs to be stopped, and that He will solve it when it needs to be solved, and that somehow or another He will come to our aid and help us as we go through the effects of these things that are occurring.

God’s anger is not that this sin occurs only in Israel and not in other nations; rather, His anger is that it is inexcusable in Israel because we have the Word of God and we should know better than to allow these things. How many in these other nations truly have access to God’s Word the way Israel does? They do not.

The Israelites have a tremendous advantage over all the rest of the nations in the world because this Book is available to them. Maybe they will not be called, but they have the opportunity because they have access to it, and there is a possibility that God might also give them understanding, and they become converted.

So one of the things God wants His converted children to understand is that the same moral rules by which He judges Israel—His moral rules—operate as part of His judgment over every nation, not just Israel. His commandments, His ways are universal in application. I want to prove this to you so that you will have something that will help you understand the things that are going on.

Turn to Hebrews 4. We will just pick up the principle that is here.

Hebrews 4:13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

Now others who are not His converted children do not have to give account to the depth, to the extent that we do, because He reveals Himself to us. That burden has been placed on us and we have to endure to the end, trusting Him, seeking Him, learning the things that are His.

Let us go back to Romans 14, and we will include this judgment of us within this. This is written to a Christian group, to a Christian congregation. Most of the people in the congregation are converted people. They have God’s Spirit.

Romans 14:10 But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

We saw a similar terminology elsewhere in which that “all” is applied to everybody on earth, but in this narrow context it is applied primarily to the church.

Romans 14:11-13 For it is written: “As I live, says the LORD, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each of us shall give account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way.

I want us to go back to Amos 2 again.

Amos 2:7-8 They pant after the dust of the earth which is on the head of the poor, and pervert the way of the humble. A man and his father go in to the same girl, to defile My holy name. They lie down by every altar on clothes taken in pledge, and drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their god.

Drop down now to verse 12. This was said directly to the Israelites by Amos who was carrying this message from God.

Amos 2:12 “But you [Israelites] gave the Nazirites wine to drink, and commanded the prophets saying, ‘Do not prophesy!’

“Shut up, old man! We don’t want to hear that message that you are giving to us. It condemns us." They just did not want to hear it.

Now what about modern Israel—today the United States of America? Israel commanded the prophets not to speak. How could that possibly play out in the United States of America where we are over 2,700 years from the time that Amos was prophesying? Here we are, living in Israel today, and we are to pick up on this message. First of all, remember that the prophets were not sent to other nations, and so the Gentiles’ ignorance was understandable, and so what he is saying here in verse 12 is not so regarding Israel.

I want you to think of something, brethren. You have experienced these things in your own life—all of those court decisions made in the United States of America in the past 40 to 50 years against God, against the Bible, against Christian principles, and against Christian activity.

At this present time we have courts making rules regarding homosexuality and same-sex marriage. They are major issues, and God’s Word is very clearly against both, but the courts, and many organizations—at least one major political party—and many businesses are, for their own purposes, stridently against God and what God calls abomination. By means of those courts’ decisions, God and the Bible have been pretty much thrown out of official public process in the United States of America.

Yesterday I received an email that was discussing a court case that is in progress right now. A decision on this court case is scheduled to be given on September 28. That is the day before the Sabbath before the Feast of Tabernacles begins. We will be holding a service on the Sabbath, the 29^th of September in Nashville. The Feast begins on the 30^th of September. The decision on this case is supposed to be handed down on the 28^th of September.

Do you know what is at stake in this court case? If the United States government and their attorneys win the case, the government will have won the right to quash any doctrine of any church at any time simply by giving the word to their offices. It does not matter whether it will be the Catholic Church, the Jewish church, any of the multitude of Protestant churches, or the church of God. They can say, “Your doctrine, your personal belief, your ideas about God have to give way to what we, the government, have determined the United States citizens must do.”

The persecution from a government always starts on something that may seem very insignificant; that is, it seems very insignificant to you and me, but what is at the center of this argument that has been spun off the Obamacare legislation?

Do you think you are not living in biblical times? You, we, are there, and our "king" and his minions have decided they need the power to be able to do this in order that everybody is uniform in practice under Obamacare.

It is not a big step at all to go from the issues that they are talking about right now to deciding that we want all Americans to keep Sunday—for the government’s purpose—so that everybody is doing the same thing. This email actually did not use the Sabbath, but it is very clear from the person who was writing the email, who was a lawyer, that this is what is going to spin off. No doctrine will be safe.

See what God means when He says, “You told the prophets not to speak.” They are telling Amos, “Don’t speak.” Amos has been dead for 2,700 years, but the Word of God lives on.

Now this is the kind of thing that has God very upset, and He is going to act. He will give them time, but in the meanwhile we have to live through these times that they are creating. If you understand what I am talking about here, we are that close to a significant step in the rise of the Beast, where they are going to determine who can buy, who can sell, who can eat, who is going to starve to death. All they have to do is make these issues religious in nature, spiritual in nature by their judgments, and we are going to get caught. So on the one side will be God and His standard, and on the other side will be the government.

Richard told me something this morning that I have already read that is right. You may have heard Barak Obama say, “The government is what we are all a part of.” That, brethren, is not our government. Everybody is not part of it. People of faith are not part of it, and there is far more than the church of God who understand that Jesus forbid our participation in the government. It is a government of this world, and He made Himself completely subject, by faith, to what God wanted rather than what the government of this world wanted, and they put Him to death.

We are living in exciting times. I do not know how close this will be. I just want you to see the drift of the way things are going, and here it is, right in the book of Amos, spun off from what Solomon had already said 200 years before something that was really disgusting him—the rich, the powerful, the famous taking advantage of the weak. You are living through it.

God shows very clearly that He is aware, and that many, many injustices exist in His own nation of Israel, and some of it is perpetrated by our welfare system, which incidentally is not a good system at all. I will not go into any detail at this time, but God does generally show that welfare is the responsibility of each family, not the government. It is the responsibility of each family. God calls upon each family to take care of their own. I want you to turn with me so you see just a little bit more of this so you have something to work with. Turn to I Timothy 5. We will not go into the whole context there.

I Timothy 5:4 But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show piety at home and to repay their parents; for this is good and acceptable before God.

Children have to take care of their parents. It is a natural order of things that God put into the system He has instituted.

I Timothy 4:8 But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

That is pretty plain.

People have found the way to break the democracy, the democratic system in the United States of America, and that is to make, to force the government to support them. That sets up all kinds of evil. It is not God’s intention that welfare be primarily a government responsibility. That does not mean the government cannot step in if the occasion truly demands it, but they get out of it just as quickly as they possibly can once the initial shock of what possibly might happen ends, and then get out of it. God never intended that it grow wealthy or grow into a huge burden as it has in our time, but for us as individual citizens there is nothing we can do to change the situation, but nonetheless, we have to bear up under its dominating presence through taxation.

Now Paul confirmed that God indeed does call the weak of the world, and circumstances within our community life definitely put the Christian at a disadvantage in such a way that we must trust God, and that can turn to our spiritual growth.

I want us to return to the brief paragraph in chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes once again. We did not go into that either in the last sermon or in this sermon yet.

Ecclesiastes 3:18-22 I said in my heart, “Concerning the condition of the sons of men, God tests them [He is talking about everybody, not just the people in the church. He is talking about those who are not part of the church.], that they may see that they themselves are like animals.” For what happens to the sons of men also happens to animals; one thing befalls them: as one dies, so dies the other. Surely, they all have one breath; man has no advantage over animals, for all is vanity. All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust. Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, which goes down to the earth? So I perceived that nothing is better than that a man should rejoice in his own works, for that is his heritage. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?

There is a definite reason why we can see that God, through Solomon, inserted this little section between the end of chapter 3 and the beginning of chapter 4 where we are dealing with the disturbing mistreatment of one another. Verse 18 introduces a reason, a purpose, for why God allows this very bad judgment that mankind produces to go on seemingly unchecked. Men have made the judgment to take advantage of the weak in society, and the only answer that Solomon can come up with is in one way not a very satisfying answer, because, "Well, God is permitting it, and God is going to judge it." But here he gives a reason that I think you will understand.

What I am going to tell you, as I am sure it is not God’s only purpose, but it is a good one, because God’s permission for this to occur in our nation is given in order to ultimately puncture man’s pride and to do it for his good. Not God’s good. Man’s good.

It is given to allow the damage of this bad judgment to become so plain and clear as time goes on. It is going to become clearer and clearer and clearer, that whoever is elected does not have the answers, and that this circumstance in which the weak of the land are being taken advantage of, is going to grow worse and worse and worse, and more and more people are going to be taken advantage of by those who do have the power to take advantage.

That permission is given to allow the damage of this bad judgment to become so plain and clear that they eventually cannot miss reaching a right conclusion. These people who are perpetrating this, these people who think they have the conclusion, these people who think they have the right answers are going to be brought to humble themselves and realize that they did not have the right answers. They will be converted when their time comes instead of doggedly hanging on to wrong opinions about themselves and the developments within our culture.

The key phrase here is at the end of verse 18 where Solomon says, “They might see that they themselves are like animals.” They are going to eventually see that the way they treated one another was worse than the way animals treat one another, because they consciously made the decisions to do this. Animals operate by instinct. They cannot help themselves, and so how much worse is it when a man who is capable of knowing good—may even know good—but he nonetheless goes forward and does the bad, the wrong, the evil thing by taking advantage of his fellowman and bringing that person down, down, down. They are going to be led to see that they were no better than a beast.

Now pride makes men think that they know so much, and that all this technology tends to support that opinion, but a proverb says, “There is a way that seems right, but the end thereof is the way of death.” Man’s scientific knowledge is limited to his five senses—seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, and tasting. But scientific proof gleaned through them is severely limited to the realm of the physical tools that we have. The spiritual realm requires revelation and faith, both of which are gifts of God.

Over the past 400 years—and I have used that figure on purpose, because that is how long the United States has been in developing since 1607, and in a way even beyond that.

In 1620 the Pilgrims showed up, and then less than ten years later the Puritans showed up, and these two groups of people had overall a very positive, moral effect on the United States of America, and we lost it. I will give some of that in my next commentary how easily we lost it. It took quite a number of years, but it was already going on by the time the Founding Fathers of this nation were forming the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the government of the United States of America. They had wonderful ideas, but the process that was going to destroy this nation was already at work.

Turn with me to Proverbs 29. It is a very familiar scripture, but it is a very important principle that is given in this scripture.

Proverbs 19:18 Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but happy is he who keeps the law.

Where there is no revelation from the sovereign God, mankind’s ego, his pride regarding what he is and what he can do is not held in check. That is what it means when it says “they cast off restraint.” Thus man believes that if he can do something, he should do it.

Interestingly, God commented in the situation at the Tower of Babel: “Now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.” And so men—especially those who reach positions of prominence and leadership—have a very strong tendency to think that they have the answers gained through academia and scientific experimentation, but their knowledge does not include revelation from God, and thus they have no faith in God and His Word, and they have no reverential respect for Him, and they do not love Him, and they do not consult Him and His Word, which is beyond the five senses. Thus, men create all manner of collateral damage as they move about trying to meet the challenges of life.

And so Solomon puts forth this simple statement that we see between verse 18 and the end of the chapter, that none of the unconverted who rely on their scientific knowledge can dogmatically answer with absolute proof from the world of science. Science will never tell you whether the spirit of an animal goes up or down. Science will never tell you whether the spirit of a man will go up or down.

What must people who rely on science decide? They have to guess, and yet any converted person who believes in the Word of God—no matter how simple his mind might be, no matter what the height of his intelligence or his academic achievement might be—he can tell you the answer, because it has been revealed.

Just a simple illustration, but when people in government are limited to that, things begin to go awry badly, and that, brethren, is what happened. Solomon foresaw it, and so he left us with this simple illustration, and no matter how great an unconverted person who believes in science, especially if he believes it exclusively, can give you a correct answer without guessing; and yet there it is, right in the Book. That limits our government’s ability to rule correctly. But as Solomon said, faith is a good answer. Eventually they are going to be humbled, and they are going to realize they acted like animals, and they are going to repent. That is what it says there. It is so plain and clear.

I think, that based on the time I see on my watch that I have reached the end of my appointed time here, and so we will stop, and God willing, after the Feast of Tabernacles we will get back to the book of Ecclesiastes. Brethren, there is really a wealth of wonderful information in this book that we have not paid very much attention to, so we are going to begin to see it in practical circumstances. It is really rich. Study it.

JWR/smp/drm