During the last Sunday’s leaders’ meeting, we had time to share the grace that God gave us throughout this year. Personally, as I looked back this year and I wrote letters with my Christmas cards and sent them here and there. Among the contents of the letter is this sentence: ‘This year alone, I was able to laugh in the grace of God. Although there were times when I was sad, I cried and my heart was in pain, eventually God made me happy and made me to laugh. And this is God’s great love and grace.’ Even this year, I am able to give thanks to God and to praise him for giving me grace and helping me in time of need (Heb. 4:16). In fact, our God is the God who makes everything beautiful in his time.

 

We have been meditating over couple of weeks during the Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting, “God who makes beautiful in time” based on Ecclesiastes 3: 1-14. We meditate two things: (1) God makes everything beautiful by fulfilling all the purposes, (2) God makes everything beautiful by setting eternity in our hearts. Today, I would like to humbly receive the grace of God in meditating on how and when God makes beautiful under the title of “God who makes beautiful in time” based on Ecclesiastes 3: 14-22.

 

 

Look at Ecclesiastes 3:16 – “And I saw something else under the sun: In the place of judgment--wickedness was there, in the place of justice--wickedness was there.” The Teacher King Solomon witnessed something in this world. It is in the world’s courts the judges do not judge fairly by distinguishing the righteous and the unrighteous (Park Yun-sun). How many injustices are being done in King Solomon's day and now in the world court? Aren’t we looking at injustice, unrighteousness and falsehood in these world courts rather than justice, righteousness and truth? Although the judges suppose to judge justicely, they are bribed and judge injusticely. And the criminals who have a lot of money are able to buy very expensive lawyers and able to make not guilty to those criminals who are guilty of murder. Isn’t this the world that we are living in? As a result, we the believers are suffering. Look at Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah. That was what he went through. Lot, a righteous man, was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men of Sodom and Gomorrah when he was living among them day after day. He was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard (2 Pet. 2:7-8). But King Solomon said that even these injustices, especially when unrighteous judgments are being made, God still make everything beautiful by fulfilling his sovereign purposes (Eccle. 3:14-22). How does God make beautiful? The Bible teaches us in two things:

 

(1) The Bible says that when the judgment of unrighteousness of this world is done, God makes all things beautiful because God judges the righteous and the wicked in the life to come.

 

Look at Ecclesiastes 3:17 – “I thought in my heart, "God will bring to judgment both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time for every activity, a time for every deed.” What King Solomon believed in his heart was that God surely would judge. And the judgment is not that God will intervene in this Age to judge justly, but God will judge all people in the Coming Age. So this is what he said in Ecclesiastes 12:14 – “For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” In the end, God will judge all our acts, including every hidden thing that we have done in the Coming Age, whether they are good or evil. But what is the problem? The problem is many people are living in this world without being conscious of God's judgment. Even we Christians who believe in our Jesus are lacking in consciousness of God's judgment. Of course, the judgment of the unbeliever and the believer is different. The judgment of the unbeliever, not recorded in the book of God's life, will receive the final judgment just before being cast into the lake of fire (a place of eternal punishment, commonly called hell), but our believers will be rewarded for what we do) (Internet). Thus, King Solomon gave this instruction to young men: “Be happy, young man, while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you to judgment” (Eccle. 11:9). He was warning young people not to follow their heart and whatever their eyes see. How did he warn them? King Solomon warned them that God will judge after death. In that final judgment we have to be responsible for all our actions.

 

How should we live since we are responsible for all our actions and know that there will be the final judgment? Like King Solomon, we should think in our hearts: “God will bring to judgment both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time for every activity, a time for every deed” (3:17). There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven (v. 1). Certainly, there is a time of judgement (v. 17). Even at the time of judgement, we should believe that God will make everything beautiful by fulfilling his sovereign will. We should look at injustices done in the world courts in God’s perspective. In other words, we must believe that God will judge everyone with justice. Although we are unjustly afflicted by unrighteousness in this world, we must be patient in hope of God’s righteous judgment. And we must fear God (v. 14). As we fear God, we should obey God’s commands. We must obey God’s Word, expecting God’s reward for all our actions. We must live righteous life as we fear God.

 

(2) God makes everything beautiful by making us humble when the judgement of unrighteousness of this world is being done.

 

Look at Ecclesiastes 3:18 – “I also thought, "As for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals.” King Solomon says that although our believers may suffer because of unrighteous trials (v. 16) in this world, God tests our believers through the unrighteous trials of the wicked in this world. Here, God tests us means God makes us humble through trials (Park Yun-sun). Why does God humble us through trials? What is the purpose? This is what Dr. Park Yun-sun said regarding the purpose of our trials: ‘So, the purpose of trials is to make people realize that they are like beasts in the mortal deaths when they are oppressed and that they should not live in the flesh-centered life. Eventually, the purpose of trials is to make us humble and not to live in the flesh-centered life. This is what King Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 3:19-20: “Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath ; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.” What he is saying here is that it is vain to live in the center of the flesh because all man and beast die.

 

Sometimes when we see a murderer who has committed a terrible murder through TV or Internet news, we say, ‘He is a man less than an animal.’ Few weeks ago, when I saw in the news that a man raped and murdered a woman who was pregnant with a twin I thought that how cruel a person could be. I guess around 60 years old man saw him raping her and tried to stop him but couldn’t so he called 911. But eventually she died with her twin children. The murderer seemed like a beast and not a human being. But do you know that Psalmist Asaph in Psalms 73:22 referred to himself as “a brute beast” before the Lord? Did Asaph murder someone cruelly? No. Then why did he say that he is a beast? Didn’t he sin against God being jealous of the prosperity of the wicked? Is envying the prosperity of the wicked the act of beast? Here, the lesson we should have in connection with today's Ecclesiastes 3: 19-20 is that the flesh-centered life is like a beast. And, referring to such a life, King Solomon says it is a vain life. In Ecclesiastes 3:11, where we have already meditated, we have learned that God has given us a desire for eternity. Therefore, we must seek eternal work. We should never pursue the work of the flesh and live a life like a beast. We must listen to the message King Solomon gives us: “So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?” (v. 22) What does it mean? It means that there is nothing better than being loyal to his own work, the Lord’s work and eternal work and enjoy doing them while we live in this earth. This is our lot. What is the reason? The reason is because when we die, we cannot return to this world again (v. 22) (Park Yun-sun). We should not live in vain by doing the work of flesh in this world. Since the future of the man’s spirit and the animal’s spirit are different (v. 21) how can we live like the beast doing the work of the flesh?

 

During the yesterday morning prayer meeting, I meditated on the Word of God based on 2 Thessalonians 3:3. As I was doing so, I received Apostle Paul’s exhortation that we must stand firm because before the Second Coming of Jesus, Satan will keep on tempting us, the believers, in order to make us fall. Those who are unlawful, those who do not love the truth and who believe in falsehood, are doing injustice in this world, disobeying the gospel. Although we the believers suffer unfairness due to the judgement of injustice in the court, we must believe that even in that time God will make everything beautiful. How does he do that? He does that by making us to believe that there is a just judgment of the Lord in the life to come and that he makes us humble through these trials. Also, God makes everything beautiful by making us to do the work of the Spirit, the work of the Lord and not the work of the flesh and making us to enjoy that lot in this earth. I hope and pray God who makes beautiful in this time will make our life more beautiful.