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What Matters?

Ecclesiastes 7-12

As I get older I am learning to let go of political concerns.  Don’t get me wrong, as a citizen of the good old US of A I have an obligation to participate in the process of electing our representatives and to hold those politicians accountable for their behavior.  Still, God is not defined by political parties; He is not a Democrat or a Republican.  He is ruler of all.  I have a far greater interest in my obligations as a citizen of Heaven.  If I have to choose a party I choose the party of God.  I choose to be active in His platform of saving all who will answer the call.

With all of that said, a verse from today’s reading made me laugh as I considered how some might wish to use it for political purposes.

Ecclesiastes 10:2

“A wise man’s heart inclines him to the right,
but a fool’s heart to the left.”

Now don’t go telling people that I said God was on the “Right” or any such foolishness.  If you use this verse in a political context you are on your own my friend.

Moving on; we come to the end of Ecclesiastes today and you can very easily take the wrong message from this book if you miss the whole point which is made in the last two verses.

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

“The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.  For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.”

There is nothing new “under the sun”.  Every scheme and plot of man comes to nothing, for all of us end in the same way.  None of us knows the day our life on earth will end.  That very day we will stand before God, and in that moment we will realize that all of our life has been a vanity – worthless.  Life is about our relationship with God.  That is all it is about.  What have you been spending your days on?  When you stand before God will there be anything in your past that you can point to that will hold value in His eyes?

Obedience holds value in His eyes.  Telling a lost and dying world about His grace and salvation holds value in His eyes.  Nothing else matters.  Get it?

Have a blessed day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

Are You Pursuing A Worthless Life?

Ecclesiastes 1-6

First off, Happy Father’s Day all you dads out there!  Thanks for all you do.  Your families and our nation need you to faithfully do your job, every day without fail.  It requires strength, patience, and perseverance and if we’re lucky we get a thank you once a year.  Whether they say it or not, your kids need you to do the hard things for them.  One day they will truly appreciate all you’ve done for them.  Don’t ever give up!

Now, on to Ecclesiastes.  What is vanity?  One definition I found states this “Lack of usefulness, worth, or effect; worthlessness.”  A definition for the word Vain yields this definition “Producing no result; useless”.  We begin the book of Ecclesiastes today and the words vain and vanity appear in an astounding number.  We see this right out of the shoot.

Ecclesiastes 1:2-3

“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?”

This book was written by Solomon and he sure sounds like one depressed fellow.  He has come to a stage in his life where he has discovered that everything under the sun is worthless.  The phrase “under the sun” means “worldly”; it means “without God”.  Solomon’s wisdom has finally discovered that without God everything is meaningless and worthless.  What does man gain by all his effort in his own behalf?  Our world today is consumed with a quest for meaning.  Young people today do horrible things to themselves because they see no meaning in life.  Many come to this place that Solomon discovered where everything is meaningless.

Understand, however, that everything is only meaningless “under the sun” – “without God”.  We can work for riches and possessions but even if we become billionaires before our life is through so what?  Can you take it with you?  There is only one thing worth striving for in this life and that something is not “under the sun”.  That something is a relationship with God.  Life is meaningless without God.  Meaning in life comes from relationship with Him.  It is truly that simple.

Brothers, I don’t know what you want out of this life but whatever you want beyond a right relationship with God is worthless, meaningless, and a waste of time.  Get your priorities straight.  Seek Him first and all other things will be added unto you.

Have a blessed day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

The Great Work Out

Isaiah 24-28

I mentioned yesterday that chapters 13-24 of Isaiah were about judgment.  Chapters 13-23 concern judgment of nations surrounding Israel.  All of these prophecies have since come true.  Chapter 24 speaks of judgment that has not yet taken place.  This is the end of days when all of mankind will be judged.  This is no surprise right?  We all know that there is a day of reckoning, right?  You don’t think you can go around elevating yourself above God and expect that you will blithely walk into His kingdom when it is all over do you?

I think the reason God gave us the prophecies of judgment on those nations surrounding Israel is so we can understand that final judgment will come to pass.  Eleven prophecies in a row concerning judgment have each come to pass in their turn.  Do you think number twelve will be a dud?  They say there are no atheists in foxholes and I would like to suggest that, if you haven’t done so already, you jump into the only foxhole deep enough to save you from the explosion soon to come.  That foxhole is Jesus Christ!

Back in Ecclesiastes Solomon yammered on about a philosophy very much in vogue these days; party hard for tomorrow we die.  What Solomon missed, and what those who follow that philosophy today have missed, is that you don’t have to die at all; not in the way that matters, in an eternal sense.  Isaiah tells us that in today’s reading.

Isaiah 25:8-9

“He will swallow up death forever;

and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,

and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,

for the Lord has spoken.

It will be said on that day,

“Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.

This is the Lord; we have waited for him;

let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

You see chapter 24 tells us of the judgment to come; chapter 25 tells us of the kingdom and salvation to come.  I wish we all could get the idea that death is a physical thing out of our heads.  Physical death, for the person dying, is meaningless; where you are headed after you have shuffled off the mortal coil is everything.  Spiritual death is separation from God for all of eternity.  If we are lucky, or unlucky depending on your perspective, we have 80 to 90 years of physical life in this corrupt world.  Compared to eternity, however, that is a blink of an eye.  As I get older I look back and ask myself, where has the time gone?  As I get closer and closer to the end, my life begins to look more and more like the blink of an eye.

Now granted, as far as I know my death is not imminent so it is perhaps easy for me to say this but I am not afraid of dying.  I realize that if I become aware of pending death I may in fact show fear but I’m having a hard time envisioning that.  My only concern about dying is the hole I might leave in the lives of my wife and daughter.  They depend on me and I’d hate to leave them in the lurch so to speak, but that is the only concern I have about dying.  Do I look forward to a painful death?  No.  Don’t ask me to choose the method.  If it were up to me it would be suddenly and peacefully.  I don’t like pain any more than the next guy and I hate the idea of drowning.  I was a bit asthmatic as a kid and struggled to catch my breath at times.  I would hate the anxiety of drowning.  But dying?  Bring it on.

I have accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.  I am an adopted son of the King.  This is not my home.  I am a stranger in a strange land and dying is simply going home to be with my Father.  If it were up to me I’d be there now.  Death, where is thy sting?  Jesus has swallowed up death forever!

Now, if Jesus came to save me and I have accepted Him and been saved, why am I still here?  What more is there to be gained by staying in this corrupt world?  Ah, there’s the rub, there is something to be gained by staying in this world post salvation.  When we accept Christ we are but new born babes, having been born again as it were.  We have much to learn and God desires to mold us and grow us into the men He created us to be.  The acceptance of Christ is the beginning.  The way God grows us is through the trials and tribulations we face between that moment of salvation and our moment of homecoming.  He also grows us when we are doing His business.

I am convinced that far too many Christians remain stuck in spiritual infancy because they have avoided undertaking the exertion and the inevitable tumbles that accompany learning to walk in faith.  In what kind of shape would a person who was carried from birth find themselves?  They would be weak, flabby, worthless bags of fat!  They would be unable to do anything for themselves requiring others to feed them and change them.  Can you imagine being a 45 year old man needing to be fed and changed?  I am using the phrase “walk in faith” as another way to say “put feet on your faith”.  It is by doing that we grow.  It is by being about our Fathers business that we mature and maturing in our relationship with God is the entire reason we are still in this corrupt world.

Brothers, rejoice and be glad in His salvation but start exercising your faith. Put feet on your faith.  Start growing into the men He created you to be by being about His business.

Isaiah 26:3-4

“You keep him in perfect peace

whose mind is stayed on you,

because he trusts in you.

Trust in the Lord forever,

for the Lord God is an everlasting rock. “

I wanted to leave you with those two verses from today’s reading.  Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace and He offers you perfect peace.  In fact, if you have accepted Him as your Lord and Savior then you already have received this gift.  Far too many of us, however, have neglected to open it.  How do we open His gift of perfect peace?  That peace is found by keeping our minds on Him and we do that because we trust in Him.  Do you trust in Him?  Do you work to keep your mind on Him?  Do you have His perfect peace?  If not, it may be time to take the next step in your maturity as a Christian.  It may be time to get up on your feet and go about your Father’s business.

Have a great workout today guys!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

P.S.  Some of you may have noticed a couple of literary references in my comments above.  If so, and you are curious, they are from Bill Shakespeare’s Hamlet Act III Scene I.  The lines I refer to are from Hamlet’s famous soliloquy and are most readily recalled by it’s opening line “To Be, or not to be…”  It is said this scene deals with thoughts of suicide.  If you would like to read this famous soliloquy you may do so here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_be,_or_not_to_be

Sex, Love, and Marriage

Ecclesiastes 11 – Song of Solomon 4

Well guys, we’ve arrived at the Song of Solomon.  I thought Ecclesiastes was challenging but the Song of Solomon has given me fits.  There are a lot of theories about why this book is in the Bible and what it means.  There are a lot of scholars who see this book as some kind of allegory for God and Israel, or for Christ and the believer or church.  Some think it is some kind of play with two or three actors.  I’m going to share with you some of what “The Bible Knowledge Commentary” has to say about the Song of Solomon.

Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., & Dallas Theological Seminary. (1983-). The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

“The Song of Songs (called the Song of Solomon in some Bible versions, e.g., kjv, nasb) is perhaps the most difficult and mysterious book in the entire Bible. A cursory glance at the Song’s history of interpretation reveals a diversity of opinion unequaled in the study of any other biblical work. The Song has been interpreted as: (a) an allegory, (b) an extended type, (c) a drama involving either two or three main characters, (d) a collection of Syrian wedding songs (a view held by E. Renan, J. Wetzstein, Umberto Cassuto, and others) in which the groom played the role of a king and the bride played the role of a queen, (e) a collection of pagan fertility cult liturgies (held by Theophile Meek), and (f) an anthology of disconnected songs extolling human love (held by Robert Gordis).

Viewed as an allegory, the details of the book are intended to convey hidden spiritual meanings, with little or no importance attached to the normal meanings of words. Jewish tradition (the Mishnah, the Talmud, and the Targum) viewed the book as an allegorical picture of the love of God for Israel. Church leaders, including Hyppolytus, Origen, Jerome, Athanasius, Augustine, and Bernard of Clairvaux, have viewed the book as an allegory of Christ’s love for His bride, the church. Origen, for example, wrote that the beloved’s reference to her being dark (Song 1:5-6) means the church is ugly with sin, but that her loveliness (1:5) refers to spiritual beauty after conversion. Others said the cooing of the doves (2:12) speaks of the preaching of the apostles, and some have suggested that 5:1 refers to the Lord’s Supper. These examples show that the allegorical approach is subjective with no way to verify that any of the interpretations are correct. The Song of Songs nowhere gives an interpreter the suggestion that it should be understood as an allegory.”

I think that last sentence is important.  “The Song of Songs nowhere gives an interpreter the suggestion that it should be understood as an allegory.”  The Bible is full of allegory but I think it tends to be fairly clear when allegory is being used.  Perhaps I am wrong about that but I find it hard to believe that an entire book of the Bible is some kind of allegory with no way for us to know for sure.  While I believe the Bible can be understood on many different levels, we should never ignore the most obvious and basic meaning of the text.  The Song of Solomon is about the beauty of marital love.

Any boy of 12 or 13, and maybe even younger these days, can tell you about sex.  Far too many grown men have no understanding of true, God-ordained, marital love.  Every living creature has sex.  If you believe the humanist, we are no better than animals.  I could not disagree more.  The union of man and wife is a spiritual matter; we are to become one flesh.  Marriage is of such a spiritual make-up that it is itself used in the Bible as an allegory for Christ and the church.  When we look at the opposite sex as simply a receptacle for our sexual desires, we are no better than animals; but that is not what God intended.  He did not create women to be your receptacle.  He created women to be a partner to man; one man, one woman to become one flesh.

Why are we to become one flesh?  Brothers, it is my contention that we are not complete without a wife.  I realize I’m going out on a limb with that statement and I stand ready to hear opposing views but here is why I believe that.  When God formed man out of the dust, in His own image, and breathed life into him (something He did not do with the other creatures He created, by the way) man was one complete being.  Let me repeat myself; this complete being was made in the image of God.  Realizing that it was not good for man to be alone, He brought various animals forward to be man’s companion.  None were suitable.

At this point God put this original man to sleep and divided him.  Woman was taken out of man.  The image of God was split.  A man is not complete, in terms of the image of God, without a woman.  When we view women as objects, we are not only demeaning them, we are demeaning ourselves.  We are also rejecting the sumptuous banquet that is marital love for the scrapes under the table that are animal sex.  Let me continue the commentary from “The Bible Knowledge Commentary”.

Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., & Dallas Theological Seminary. (1983-). The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

“The purpose of the book is to extol human love and marriage. Though at first this seems strange, on reflection it is not surprising for God to have included in the biblical canon a book endorsing the beauty and purity of marital love. God created man and woman (Gen. 1:27; 2:20-23) and established and sanctioned marriage (Gen. 2:24). Since the world views sex so sordidly and perverts and exploits it so persistently and since so many marriages are crumbling because of lack of love, commitment, and devotion, it is advantageous to have a book in the Bible that gives God’s endorsement of marital love as wholesome and pure.”

OUTLINE

I.        The Superscription (1:1)

II.       The Courtship (1:2-3:5)

A.       Introduction: The expressions of longing, insecurity, and praise (1:2-11)

1.       The theme of longing (1:2-4)

2.       The theme of insecurity (1:5-8)

3.       The theme of praise (1:9-11)

B.       The growth of love and its intensity (1:12-3:5)

1.       Mutual praise (1:12-2:6)

2.       The refrain (2:7)

3.       A visit to the country (2:8-17)

4.       The beloved’s fear of losing her lover (3:1-4)

5.       The refrain (3:5)

III.      The Wedding (3:6-5:1)

A.       The wedding procession (3:6-11)

B.       The wedding night (4:1-5:1)

1.       The beauty of the beloved (4:1-7)

2.       The king’s request (4:8)

3.       The king’s praise of his bride’s love (4:9-11)

4.       The king’s praise of his bride’s purity (4:12-15)

5.       The consummation of the marriage (4:16-5:1)

IV.      The Maturation of the Marriage (5:2-8:4)

A.       Indifference and its resolution (5:2-6:13)

1.       The problem: The wife’s indifference and the husband’s absence (5:2-8)

2.       The attractiveness of the lover (5:9-16)

3.       The lover in his garden (6:1-3)

4.       The reconciliation: The lover’s praise of his beloved (6:4-13)

B.       Praise of the beloved and her love (7:1-10)

1.       The beloved’s charms (7:1-6)

2.       The lover’s desire (7:7-9)

3.       The refrain of mutual possession (7:10)

C.       An invitation from the beloved (7:11-13)

D.       The beloved’s desire for a greater intimacy (8:1-4)

V.       The Conclusion: The Nature and Power of Love (8:5-7)

A.       A picture of love (8:5)

B.       An explanation of love (8:6-7)

VI.      The Epilogue: How Love Began (8:8-14)

Brothers, as we consider this book let us consider our wives, our partners, our help-meets.  Let us put sex in its rightful place.  It is a glorious blessing from God when it is viewed and enjoyed as God intended.  It is sin when we do otherwise.  God has much to teach us.  I pray we will learn our lesson well!

May your thoughts today be on the blessing of your wife!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

Empty and Meaningless

Ecclesiastes 7-10

I keep thinking of Job as I read Solomon’s words in Ecclesiastes.  With all that happened to Job you can kind of understand his being down and even fatalistic at times.  Job’s children were destroyed, his house was destroyed, and all that he had was taken from him.  Solomon, however, had everything a man could want; I mean everything.  He was the wealthiest man in the world.  He was the most famous man in the world.  He had a harem of women to meet every sexual desire.  He was king of a nation favored by God.  His every wish was the command of all the people.  The best wine and food the land had to offer was set on his table.  With all of this you would think Solomon would be the happiest man on earth.

Now we all know that money can’t buy happiness but I don’t think we live as if we believe it.  That would be another case of having knowledge but not wisdom.  Solomon, the man who had everything, wrote a fatalistic book.  As I’ve already said, the lesson here is not what Solomon says, which is often wrong, but the fact that life is empty and meaningless without right relationship with God.  I’m sorry to keep harping on that but when are we going to get that through our self-centered brains?

Once again let me share with you the words of J. Vernon McGee:

McGee, J. V. (1997). Thru the Bible commentary (electronic ed.). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

Solomon…

“has made experiments in everything under the sun to see if any of it would bring satisfaction and enjoyment to him. He tried science, the study of the natural laws of the universe, which made some contribution but did not satisfy him. Then he went into the study of philosophy and psychology. They didn’t satisfy. He went the limit on pleasure and materialism. He tried fatalism, which is such a popular philosophy of life today. He tried egoism, living for self. Then he tried religion—no religion can satisfy, because only Christ can satisfy the heart. Wealth was another thing which Solomon tried. He was the wealthiest man in the world, but he found that wealth did not bring satisfaction in and of itself.

Now we will see him try the last experiment: morality. Today we would call him a “do-gooder.” I would say that this is the place to which the majority of the people in America are moving. (I think the majority would still be classified as do-gooders.) They are going down the middle of the road on the freeway of life. This group can be described as the Babbitts, doing business in the Big City, under a neon sign, living out in suburbia, in a sedate, secluded, exclusive neighborhood, and taking it easy. Their children go to the best schools. They move with the best crowds. They go to the best church, the richest church in the neighborhood, the one with the tallest steeple, the loudest chimes, and the most educated preacher, who knows everything that man can possibly know, except the Bible (of course, if he did know and preach the Bible, he would lose his job). This is the kind of do-good society Solomon now tries.

… My friend, seeking satisfaction in life by just trying to be a do-gooder is living like a vegetable, not a man! Yet this is the lifestyle of the majority in modern America. They will go to the burlesque show on Saturday night and to church on Sunday morning! What hypocrisy! We have seen our youth rebelling against this type of living. There are two thousand of them over on the island of Hawaii. I had the privilege of ministering to some of them, and quite a few turned to Christ. They have tried everything else. But why didn’t they find Christ in their homes in which their parents were church members? They saw that there was something radically missing in their homes and in their churches. They have seen the hypocrisy, the emptiness of the life of the moralist, the do-gooder.

I believe it is easier to reach a godless atheist than a hypocritical churchgoer. The godless atheist may respond when he hears the gospel for the first time, but the hypocritical churchgoer has heard the gospel again and again and has become hardened to it. That is the real tragedy.”

Brothers, do we live as we believe or do we live like the world, like Solomon, pursuing elusive joy in empty and meaningless worldly pleasures?  Let’s get our priorities right.  Let’s focus first on our relationship with Christ, the joy will follow!

Have a purposeful day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

The Secret Of A Joyful Life

Ecclesiastes 3-6

I don’t know about you, but as I read Solomon’s words I envision an extremely depressed man.  He is spouting a morose, fatalistic view point.  I want to give a warning here that you need to be careful in what you take away from what he says.  Solomon has wandered away from God.  He has married foreign women and they have pulled him away from right relationship with God with their foreign gods.  In the mean time, he has been hailed across the known world for his wisdom in ruling his people.  He has wealth beyond belief.  He has a palace full of wives and concubines.  He has wealth, power, and fame; everything the secular world has to offer and you can hear in his words the emptiness of his life.  Considering all with which God has blessed him, why is he so down?

He is down because life has no meaning without a right relationship with God.  Notice that Solomon acknowledges God’s existence, sovereignty, and even the need to show Him proper respect but none of this means that he is in right relationship with God.  In one of my posts on Proverbs I wrote about the difference between knowledge and wisdom.  Knowledge is the possession of information.  Wisdom is the right use of that information.  For example, if I know that to be healthy I need to exercise and eat right then I have knowledge.  If I actually exercise and eat right I have wisdom.  In what “Solomon the Wise” writes in Ecclesiastes we discover that he is lacking in both knowledge and wisdom.

I found the following set of verses particularly instructive.

Ecclesiastes 5:18-20

“Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God.  For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.”

In verse 20 Solomon says “…because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart”.  Now I have had joy in my heart and I have got to tell you that there is no joy like that which comes from being in right relationship with God.  It is an incredible thing!  Joy just radiates from you.  Everything just seems to be coming up roses and others notice the joy in you; they are drawn to it.  This joy is indeed a gift from God as is everything you are, have, and see.  Solomon is correct that God can fill your heart with this kind of joy but he is incorrect to suggest that it comes from taking pleasure in worldly things.

Appropriate pleasure in worldly things only comes when one is in right relationship with God.  The over arching message Solomon communicates in Ecclesiastes is that the best the world has to offer is emptiness and yet he says you should take pleasure in that emptiness.  How can you take pleasure in something you know does not bring pleasure?  You can’t.  The pleasure in life comes from God. It is in right relationship with God that one can truly enjoy His creation and all that He has provided.

Solomon is experiencing the same disease that permeates our world today.  People have no sense of purpose.  Their existence seems empty and meaningless.  They try to fill the hole in their lives with eating, drinking, the pursuit of wealth and sex, and any number of meaningless pursuits.  You cannot fill a God sized hole with meaningless stuff.  Enjoying your life, having a sense of contentment and purpose, are a by-product of right relationship with God.  The problem is the world tries to get the by-product rather than the “main-product”.  Solomon’s solution to the emptiness of life is no solution at all.

You want to be happy?  Praise God, trust and obey Him, read your Bible every day, pray every day, make the focus of your life right relationship with Him and as Christ told us, “all these things will be added to you”.

Matthew 6:33

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

The secret of a joyful life is no secret, it has been known since God first breathed life into Adam.  The secret to a joyful life is a right relationship with God.

Have a joyful day brothers!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!