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The Pursuit of Power | Ecclesiastes 3:16-4:12 (9-24-2023 Mark Evans)
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The speaker is continuing a sermon series on the book of Ecclesiastes. They read a passage from Ecclesiastes 3:16-4:12, focusing on the problems of power gone wrong, specifically justice, oppression, and envy. They emphasize the importance of having faith in God's final judgment and how it humbles and gives endurance to Christians. The passage also discusses the test of mortality, highlighting the commonality of all humans returning to dust. The speaker concludes by encouraging listeners to find strength in covenant fellowship and to trust in God's ultimate power. Amen. Amen. Well, if you have your Bibles, do make your way to the book of Ecclesiastes as we continue our sermon series through this wonderful book. And our text for today will be Ecclesiastes 3.16, and we'll go through chapter 4 to the end of verse 12, 3.16 through 4.12. And so, to get us going, I'll simply read from 3.16 to the end of chapter 3. And these are the words of the Almighty, true and living God. Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. I said in my heart with regard to the children of man, that God is testing them, that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beast is the same. As one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beast, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to the dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him? The grass withers and the flower fades. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, indeed as we just read, we are simply from the dust, and to the dust we shall return. Here we are to humble ourselves before You. Your Word is truth. It endures forever. So we pray simply that by the Spirit, by the promise of Jesus Christ, by Your covenant kindness to us, that You would sanctify us by Your truth, and that like Solomon, this truth would cause us to rejoice that You indeed are our exceedingly great reward. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. Well, so far, if you've been with us on Solomon's tour of vanity, we've seen him expose how things like the pursuits of pleasure, of self-indulgence, and even of wealth are ultimately empty and unsatisfying. And you might be tempted at this point to guess, well, that must conclude our tour. Apparently this covers all the possible outlets of vanity under the sun. After all, what does man seek for if it's not pleasure? But it was the great Friedrich Nietzsche who once argued that man seeks not actually so much for pleasure, no, the main driving force that's even more basic than pleasure is man's quest for power. And he called this desire the will to power. And you can see why he would say that, right? A person might enter politics with sincerity, but before long the lust for power soon takes over. A man might acquire wealth righteously, but before long he sees how such wealth gives him power. Or surely, you've been in or you've known of relationships that started off well but became quickly strained under the weight of manipulative power. And so this is why we're rightly suspicious when too much power is concentrated in one place. As Lord Acton famously said, power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And it's these very corruptions of power that Solomon is going to have us consider this morning. What happens when power turns ugly? When it is not used for good and for godly purposes? When things like injustice, oppression, and envy start to rule the day? What then? And so we'll walk through this section and we'll look at three problems of power gone wrong. We'll look at the problem of justice, the problem of oppression, and thirdly, the problem of envy. And as always, Solomon is going to have us stare vanity square in the face, but he will not leave us in despair. Instead, he reveals how true power is actually found in the smallest of places, in the covenant community where two people are better than one. And that is very much the main point, that we are to walk in and show forth the strength of covenant fellowship as a people of God. But before that strength, let's look firstly at the problems, starting with the problem of justice. Verse 16, it rather quickly punches us in the gut. You see this sad irony that Solomon says, in the place of justice, even there was wickedness. So you have this painful irony in that the one place you would hope to find justice, instead you found wickedness. I think Solomon would say to us, just look around, is this not true experientially? We can look at our own court system today, even looking to the Supreme Court, the highest court in all the land. It's no accident that outside the Supreme Court is a statue of Lady Justice herself. And she's depicted there, blindfolded, holding scales, holding a sword, all to symbolize her impartiality, her just retributions. Surely here is a place of justice. But of course, as Christians, we bemoan this spectacle of this court of so-called justice, the very same court that legitimizes homosexual marriage, the very same court that legitimized the murdering of unborn children. It was just a couple weeks ago that California courts actually declared that if a parent fails to affirm their child's gender identity, then the court can step in and justly separate parent from child. And so Solomon puts that kind of corruption of power into perspective by saying, behold, the very places you thought to find justice prevail. Instead you found wickedness. You know this pain well. If you yourself have ever sought for justice personally, then instead you only found miscarriages and abuses. How often bad courts, bad laws, bad officials, bad people corrupt the power of justice. It's in those moments where we're quick to say, what exactly is God doing up there while all this injustice is going on down here? Like the psalmist, we cry out, how long, O Lord? But Solomon will not leave us in despair. Indeed, such distortions of power can be and shall be reconciled by the all-powerful God. And you see that truth that is man's refuge in verse 17. God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. If you remember from last week, there's a time for everything. And here you have the time of all times, this final judgment seat of God. But notice this is no empty platitude for Solomon. See there at the beginning of the verse, he speaks this truth in his heart. I think all of us would likely assent to the final judgment. But the question is, is that truth stored up in your heart? All of us would confess with our mouths, yes, vengeance belongs to the Lord. But is that truth treasured up in your heart? Indeed, you're right to lament and to work to reform the present abuses of justice. But Ecclesiastes would say, such a struggle should always be layered over. The bedrock confidence in God's final judgment, that God will reconcile all things. And before His tribunal, there will not be a single shred of wickedness. And friends, nowhere is that confidence displayed more perfectly than the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. For His entire trial was a miscarriage of justice, every accusation against Him false, every testimony envious and a sham. And while wholly innocent, He is delivered over by the hands of lawless men, the just for the unjust. But as 1 Peter says, that through it all, the Lord Jesus entrusted Himself to God who judges justly. And we are to follow in His train. The truth of final judgment is of great use for the Christian life. Firstly, it immediately humbles us to rejoice that our Savior truly did satisfy divine justice to the utmost when He hung upon the cross for our sins. But even more so, it gives us endurance in our persecutions. It further gives us a powerful peace that every single abuse of power, every single wrong, every act of wickedness will be gathered up and appear before the judgment seat of the Almighty God and be reconciled perfectly. And so Solomon does not provide any kind of present solution, any kind of quick fix to this problem. No, instead, he hangs all of it upon the future final judgment. And that actually brings about a most interesting test, as verse 18 says. Now, occasionally I remember from school, kids, you may have had this experience of being handed a test paper and you read the test question. Maybe you even reread the test question and you kind of have that daunting thought in your mind, I have no idea what this test is asking of me. And that may be your reaction at first glance to verse 18 because it says this, God is testing us to show us that we are but beasts. That is the test. We are a beast. And that's a confusing test. Firstly, because if Christian teaching on man is clear about anything, it's clear that we are not beasts. What separates you and I from the animals is that we are made in God's image, God's likeness. Has Solomon fallen under some kind of evolutionary spell for the moment? Well, no, he clarifies the nature of this test in verses 19 and 20 in that we do share something gravely in common with the creatures, and that is that we are all from the dust and we are all returning to the dust, that from man to monkey, from human to hummingbird, God formed all of us from the ground. And so verse 20 says we're all going back to the same place, namely the place of death, decay and dust. Take the most dignified and respected and righteous man you can possibly find, and then take the lowliest, creepy crawly of insects and add death and a dash of time, and they both amount to nothing more than dirt. Our God sees to it that we see with our very own eyes that we are nothing more than dust. It's just as God declared in Eden, you are dust, and to the dust you shall return. It says 1 Corinthians says of Adam, he is the man of dust. How's that for an identity crisis, to be known as the man of dust? And as Adam represented us, as goes the man of dust, so it goes for you and me. And so verse 21 comes the crux of this mortality test. He poses this question, who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth. In other words, look at all the cadavers you want to, attend all the funerals you wish, do as many morbid experiments as possible, research the greatest thinkers and the greatest of books, and nothing on earth will reveal to you the answer of what lies beyond your grave. That is man's crucible. Can man live trusting God that there's life beyond the grave? As Job wondered, if man dies, shall he rise again? And if not, where then is all this justice that you speak of? One of my commentaries on Ecclesiastes is entitled, Living Life Backwards, Living Life Backwards. And that's very much the nature of this test. Can you live life backwards? Can you live now in the light of an eternity that you cannot see? That is quite a test. That calls for faith in the things to come. That calls for man to put all of his confidence, all of his trust, all of his hope in that which he cannot see. And so verse 22 gives us this final exam question. Who can bring man to see what comes after him? Implied answer, no one. And if Solomon can rejoice, how much more you and I, as new covenant Christians who know what Solomon only longed to know, this good news of the last Adam who has shown man and the only one who can show man what is to come. For Jesus Christ is the triumphant exception to the dust. Because Jesus Christ was not abandoned to the grave, that his body saw no corruption, no decay, that death could not hold him down, and that he is the first fruits of the resurrection and Christian. It is that victory, his victory, that he shares with his people, that just as Adam plunged you and I into death and decay and dust, Jesus Christ lifts us up into eternal life. And so it's just as we read from 1 Corinthians, that as surely as we have borne the image of the man of dust, so too will we bear the image of the man of heaven. As goes the man of heaven, so goes all his people. But Solomon is not done. He turns us to yet still another problem. Now the problem of oppression. As verse 1 of chapter 4 says, consider the oppressions done under the sun. The Old Testament is full of oppression, the rich oppressing the poor, the powerful oppressing the marginalized, the strong oppressing the weak. At this point in Israel's history, she well knows what it means to be oppressed. Most obviously you need only think of Pharaoh, right, from the book of Exodus, who oppressed Israel with the heaviest of hands, a history that's actually going to soon repeat itself when Israel is exiled. The prophet Jeremiah put it this way, the people of Israel are oppressed by those who took them captive and refused to let them go. It keeps repeating itself. And so Solomon laments this in verse 1, he says, behold their tears, there is no one to comfort them. And this painful vanity is not just the reality of oppression, but that there is no comfort, no relief, no respite for the oppressed. And you see exactly why, because verse 1 speaks to the vain imbalance. It continues on and he says, on the side of their oppressors, there was power. It's quite simple. If Pharaoh has all the power on his side and you have no power on your side, then you will be oppressed without end and without comfort. That is the way that oppression operates under the sun. And so how then are we to think about oppression? That's actually a very critical question that the greatest of thinkers have stumbled over. You may well know the name Karl Marx, father of communism, who very famously taught that history, all of history, is a history of class struggle, and that there are two and only two types of people, the oppressed and there's the oppressors. One wonders, did he take a page out of the book of Ecclesiastes? But Marx's proposed solution to this oppression was simply that of power, that a great revolution could usher in peace. And that's in no way unique to Marx, because a sinful man is always quick to trust in his own power as a solution to man's plight, that salvation belongs to man. And so just a word to our younger members. You ought to be keenly aware that that deceptive message is alive and well today. You see it in media. You see it in politics. You especially see it in schools. You see its offshoots in things like critical race theory, awoke-ism, the push for equity, but even just the general victim mentality that is so prevalent in our day. And even on a more personal level, it's not true that just as we can fall into the trap of pursuing pleasure, and we so easily fall into the trap of oppression or of manipulation, for how many relationships, whether it be husband and a wife, parent to a child, friend to a friend, are governed by a kind of subtle oppression, a manipulation of power in order to get one's way. We then become extremely skilled in the art of manipulation, and once we realize the power is on our side, we start to learn how to use our words, how to use shame, how to use guilt, how to use control, how to use emotions, all in subversive ways to get what we want. We see it even in simple parenting. Rather than disciplining and correcting a child's sin, we might be more inclined to say, your behavior made me feel a certain way. When you did that, I felt this. And if elevated high enough, it's not too long before our feelings become the authority to be obeyed, rather than the truth of God's Word. And so, once again, all Solomon can do is draw our attention to these vain pursuits of power. In verses 2 and 3, he laments that oppression can even rise to a level that you're better off having never even lived. You might remember those words of Job, if only I had died at birth, if only I had been a stillborn. And so, once again, as New Covenant believers, we are pointed forward to the greater Solomon, the one who lives forever as our great sympathetic High Priest, the one who bears with us in all of our afflictions, in all of our oppressions, who promises to never leave us, to never forsake us. And, friends, if you have ever shed a tear of oppression, you need only hear that promise from Revelation 21, the God of all comfort says, I will wipe away every tear and death shall be no more. And so, we've seen the problem of justice, the problem of oppression, but the third problem now is that of envy. Verse 4 says this, he says, I observe that all toil in one's work comes from a man's envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and striving after the wind. So now Solomon draws our attention to the proverbial keeping up with the Joneses and how the engine of envy is a powerful motivator. Envy can get a lot of work done. Now in one sense, we ought to be reminded, there is a good and holy kind of jealousy. A man, for instance, ought to be jealous of his wife, a mother jealous of her children. All of this imitates our great God who is jealous with a holy jealousy over His namesake and over His people. It's also good to be competitive, of course. There are gains to be gained through competition. Every athlete knows this. That an athlete experiences gains that he or she could have only experienced by way of competition. It's true of athletes, true of thinkers, true of companies, true of free markets. When we compete, all boats rise. Iron is sharpening iron. Yet a line, of course, is quickly crossed as competition turns into coveting. It moves from saying, ìMay the best man win,î and it slides over to, ìMay my neighbor lose.î You can only think of the second sin of Eden, as Cain slayed his brother Abel out of envy of his offering. In the suburban paradise of North Texas, it makes for fertile soil for our envious hearts. A simple stroll with an evil eye, and it's not long before having questions of prideful comparisons. Who has the bigger house? The better cars? The bigger paycheck? Who has the better family life? The better spouse? The better children? And soon comes the thought, ìI deserve those things.î Or worse still, ìMy neighbor does not deserve those things.î Even so much of our gossip, our slander, is fueled by this envy. And this vanity, of course, even occurs at the macro level. You see it in our politics of envy, policies that seek to take what someone has earned and then redistribute it to someone who has not earned it, all under the clever disguise of equality, even with the grand claim that such equality is going to put an end, finally, once and for all, to all envy. And, of course, this ignores the most basic truth, that envy is not an economic problem. Envy is a moral problem. As Jesus said, ìIt is out of the heart of man that comes envy.î And Solomonís point is that such envy is a powerful engine. It can have man put in those long and late hours at the office, churning so fast he never stops to ask himself, ìWhy am I toiling so much?î A small voice might even whisper to him, ìFriend, itís your envy that is cracking the whip.î But heís too busy to listen to this voice. As it was, verse 7 says, ìThere is no end to all his toil. His eyes are never satisfied with riches.î The great John Rockefeller, who is proportionally the wealthiest man of all time, made all of his money in oil. It was once asked, ìMr. Rockefeller, how much money would be enough? When is enough enough, Mr. Rockefeller?î And his answer was very telling when he said, ìJust one more dollar.î Just one more dollar. His eye was never satisfied. And so the New Testament cautions are so clear, right, that the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil, that by the love of money a man pierces himself. If you want to impale yourself and drive a stake through your soul, then just cultivate a love of money. That said, we ought not to confuse Solomon to be saying, ìWell, therefore, just slack off a little bit.î Laziness can cure envy. Now you see verse 5 addresses the other side of the ditch, this little proverb that says, ìThe fool folds his hand and eats his own flesh.î Itís this graphic imagery of being so lazy, all you have for supper is your own flesh. And so Scripture says, ìPut off envy, put off laziness, put off coveting, and instead discover the great gain there is in contentment.î There is immense power in contentment. And I use the word ìpowerî because contentment is unshakable, itís immovable, it does not rise and fall with the stock market, it does not rise and fall with a paycheck, it does not rise and fall based off of what my neighbor is doing, or what he has, or the ebb and flow of my circumstances. You can hear just how powerful contentment is from that testimony of the Apostle Paul. I have learned in whatever state I am in to be content. And friends, letís just be reminded, those are the words of a man who one day would have the respect and applause of fellow man, and the very next day could be slandered and even stoned to death by his fellow man. You see, itís power, whether the highest of highs or whether the lowest of lows, contentment rests in Godís fatherly care over my life. But the key is, Paul was not born content, didnít come out of the womb content, no, he learned this secret art. And again, thatís a question for you this morning. Perhaps youíre not content with your situation, your salary, your marriage, your life under the sun, always asking, ìWhen will these things change? When will these things improve?î And Scripture would say, ìNo, you first change. You put on a contented heart, and the good news is, it can be learned and acquired. Therein is the full meaning of that often quoted verse, ìI can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.î That having Jesus Christ and by the power of His Spirit, I can put off discontent and make true gains in contentment. But of course, it starts by believing that the smart money is not to be found in changing circumstances. No, the real profit is found in contentment. This is precisely what Solomon says in verse 6. You see it there. He says, ìBetter is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and striving after the wind.î As Proverbs says, ìBetter a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble with it.î Well, weíve covered now major distortions of power under the sun, right? What happens when power goes sideways in oppression, in envy, in injustice? And you may have noticed that everything that we have looked at so far falls under the sin of not loving my neighbor. And they tend towards isolation, right? The man may have lots of money but few friends. Envy often yields loneliness. Oppression yields isolation. And so in this final section, you have the refreshing antidote of what it looks like to walk in Godís law and to love one another. You get to see the beauty of the covenant community, the power of when two are gathered together in Christís name. You see that truth in verse 9, very simply, ìThat two are better than one.î From the very beginning, the one thing not good in Godís creation was for man to not be alone. As Proverbs says, ìHe who isolates himself seeks his own desire.î And so Scripture rebukes us the moment we start to see ourselves as an island, right? The New Testament picture is that we are the family of God, united to one another in a covenant unity. And so Ecclesiastes goes on and it lists three benefits from walking in fellowship. We just saw three problems and now come these three great blessings of fellowship, that of profitability, encouragement and protection. So firstly, profitability. You see it in verse 9, ìThat two have a good reward for their toil.î The labor of two is scalable. Itís productive. It returns a profit that Jesus sent out His disciples, not as singles but as pairs. This is how God made the world. Man cannot be fruitful and multiply alone. Itís true of marriage, itís true of family, itís true of work and it is most true of the Christian life. The more and more that we are in fellowship with one another, the more and more we multiply in godliness. Secondly, the benefit of encouragement. You see verse 10 says, ìIf they fall, the other can lift him up.î You see the danger of isolation. ìWoe to him who is alone, with no one to lift him up.î I originally read verse 10 as if one person falls. But notice itís actually theyíre both falling down. Is that not true of the Christian life? That there are times when you will be the stronger and there are times when you will be the weaker. There will be a time to pick up and there will be a time to be picked up. And so as Proverbs says, ìAnxiety in a manís heart may weigh him down, but a kind, encouraging word lifts him up.î And so just ask yourself, if someone fell into the proverbial ditch, who would they call for? Would they call for me? Do I stand ready with a word in season? Would my tongue be a rope of life to pull someone out of the ditch or would my tongue be a pitchfork to push them further and further down? The third benefit, companionship brings not just profit, not just encouragement, but you see also protection, as verse 11 says. ìIf two lie together, they keep warm.î How can one keep warm alone? I remember once unintentionally camping at roughly 12,000 feet elevation. And as this was not a planned trip, I had no sleeping bag. But what I did have with me was companions. And so rather than the nightly local news reporting, ìFoolish man freezes to death alone,î I was able to keep warm. We kept one another warm and we made it through the sub-freezing temperatures and able to get off the mountain the next day. And that is the powerful protection of friendship. And of course it applies physically, it applies practically, it applies spiritually. How often in this Christian life our hearts grow cold. We cannot kindle a fire for godliness. Our zeal for God has entirely flamed out. And one of Godís appointed means to warm up a fellow brother and sister is to have two be better than one. So again, it summons the simple question, ìWould I be that means?î Would God commission me to go comfort a fellow Christian and warm them up? The greater the fellowship, the greater the protection. It only compounds, as verse 12 says, ìThough a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. A threefold cord is not quickly broken.î We sometimes misapply the phrase, ìdivide and conquer.î Misapplication would be to say, ìYou go to this task and Iíll go to this task.î Parents might say, ìLetís split up. Dad takes one kid to soccer, mom takes the other kid to ballet. We are dividing and conquering these tasks.î But the original meaning of ìdivide and conquerî is that the opponent is the thing being divided. So instead of attacking three, just divide the three into a two and a one, then attack. Or better yet, divide the three into three singles and then attack them one by one. Why attack all three at once? And Christian, this is exactly what our enemy longs to do. Satan is nothing if not strategically shrewd. So he longs to provoke disunity in order to conquer us. For he longs to tear asunder a husband and a wife. He longs to have the hearts of the fathers turned away from the hearts of their children. He longs to sow seeds of disunity within the body and, of course, above all, he longs to divide Jesus Christ from the bride of Christ and then destroy her. Divide and conquer. And so what is ours to do but to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace? To be clear, we are not and will never be stronger than Satan, but greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world. Greater is he who is in us as the covenant people who walk in fellowship with one another. And so that simply means that you can be a strand and I can be a strand and we need only to intertwine ourselves and then, by the blessing of God, our strength just multiplied. Our strength more than doubled simply by the bond of fellowship. It's true power, true strength in the most unexpected and smallest of places. For when the people of God walk in covenant with one another, they walk under the banner of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose banner is love, that as our priest, he comforts us in all of our afflictions and all of our oppressions, that as our prophet, he makes the Word of God dwell richly in our lives, and as our King, he promises he will rule over us, he will defend us, he will deliver us from all of our enemies. For nothing, not even death itself, can separate us from this great love of Christ. For better are two than one. Let us pray. Our gracious God and heavenly Father, we do praise You for Your Word and for the truth of what it is to be the people of God, that here You are. You have taken us as individuals seemingly so far apart, and You have knit us together in love. And so we do pray, Father, we would walk it out, that we would live as becomes the people of God, that we would know what it is to love one another, to comfort one another, to encourage one another, to build one another up, to know that You would look upon our labors and that we have a reward for all of our toil. Indeed, though it may seem vain, it is not in Your economy, that by the blessing of God You fulfill Your words, be fruitful, and multiply. And so we pray we would do so under the headship and lordship of Jesus Christ, and amen.
