The incomprehensive works of God
[Ecclesiastes 8:14 – 9:1]
What are you realizing in your life these days? I am a little more aware than ever before that living in this world is 'life is short and that many things that we do during life are meaningless and vain.' In the midst of that, I meditate on Ecclesiastes every week during the Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting and the question that arose in my mind is, "Why does God let the wicked to prosper?" As we learned in the last week, the wicked are bold in sinning because God does not punish them quickly. Why doesn’t God punish them quickly? Do you know the answer to this question?
As we meditated on Ecclesiastes 8:9-13, we learned the conclusion that King Solomon looked through all the things under the sun with all his heart. The conclusion was that 'those who fear God will be well.' In other words, the conclusion of King Solomon is that those who do evil without fearing God will never do well (v. 13), but only those who fear God will do well (v. 12). In the midst of this, King Solomon saw every work of God and made this conclusion: “I concluded that man cannot discover the work which has been done under the sun Even though man should seek laboriously, he will not discover; and though the wise man should say, "I know," he cannot discover” (v. 17). King Solomon’s conclusion was that he could not understand the work of God. Based on this conclusion, I would like to think of two things under the heading of “The incomprehensible works of God”. I hope and pray that we receive God’s instructions humbly and be obedient to him so that we may be able to live in this world wisely.
The first thing I want to think about is, "What was God's works that King Solomon could not understand?"
First, the work of God, which King Solomon could not understand, is recorded in Ecclesiastes 8:14 – “There is futility which is done on the earth, that is, there are righteous men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked. On the other hand, there are evil men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I say that this too is futility.” King Solomon was unable to realize in this world that a righteous man was not doing well as an evil man, but that the evil man was doing well as the righteous man (Park Yun-sun). In other words, King Solomon confesses that he could not understand how it seemed like just God punished the righteous man as the evil man and that he rewarded the evil man as the righteous man (MacDonald). Do you understand? Do you know that God, who is righteous, punishes the righteous as the wicked and rewards the wicked as the righteous? I think this question is related to the suffering of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked. Last week, when I was reading the Bible, my gaze stopped in Jeremiah 12:1. The reason was that I thought only Asaph, who wrote Psalm 73, was troubled by the suffering of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked, but I found out that Prophet Jeremiah was also troubled by it. Look at Jeremiah 12:1 – “Righteous are You, O LORD, that I would plead my case with You; Indeed I would discuss matters of justice with You: Why has the way of the wicked prospered? Why are all those who deal in treachery at ease?” The prophet Jeremiah asked God about his righteousness, ‘Why is the wicked prosperous and ease?’ Isn’t this the question we often ask God? After all, the key to our question is about God's justice: 'Why does God of justice cause the wicked to be prosperous and the righteous to suffer?'
Second, the work of God, which King Solomon could not understand, is recorded in Ecclesiastes 9:1 – “For I have taken all this to my heart and explain it that righteous men, wise men, and their deeds are in the hand of God Man does not know whether it will be love or hatred; anything awaits him.” Another work of God that King of Solomon could not understand in this world is that whether what happens to the righteous or wise man is a sign of God's love or a sign of hatred (MacDonald). It is clear that all the things that the righteous and the wise do are in the hands of God. But what is unclear is that why God does not make the righteous prosper in the world physically (Park Yun-sun). And we cannot know whether it is the sign of God’s love or hatred. How can we predict God's plan? How can we know God’s great plan for granting suffering to the righteous? Many times we can only see the little glimpse of God’s plan only after all is done, but we can never fully realize God's grand will. No matter how much we try to understand God's will, we cannot fully understand why God doesn’t make the righteous prosper in this world. We believe in saying that God allows the righteous to suffer in this world because of God loves the righteous. But sometimes we wonder why God allow the righteous to suffer if he truly loves him. In such a way, not only do we doubt the love of God, but we also have the idea that God hates us. That’s what the Israelites thought at the time of Exodus. Look at Deuteronomy 1:27 – “and you grumbled in your tents and said, 'Because the LORD hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us.” At the time of the Exodus, the Israelites blamed God. The resentment was, in one word, "God hates us" (v.27). So they said that God brought them out of the land of Egypt to put them to the hand of the Amorites, to destroy them. This doesn’t make sense at all. If God hated them, why did God brought them out of Egypt? Obviously, God loves the Israelites and saved them. But the people of Israel thought that God hated them. Is the suffering that God allows us to go though is a sign of love or a sing of hate? King Solomon's conclusion is that we do not know the answer.
The second thing that I want to think about is, “What must we do when we cannot understand the works of God?”
When we can not understand what God is doing in this world, we must look at God only (8:16-17), knowing that the difficulty lies in the hand of God, rather than trying to solve what we can not understand (Park, Yun-sun). How many difficulties do we face in this world as we live? How many difficult problems are there in our life? Can we understand them? Do we understand why these problems come to our life? Do we really know God's will? King Wisdom Solomon not only tried to understand the causes of life's difficulties but also tried to solve those difficult problems. But his conclusions tell us that we should look at God only because we believe that the difficulties are in the hands of God rather than trying to solve ourselves. Although there are so many things happening in this world that we can not understand, there is truth that we must confidently believe. It is the fact that all the difficulties we face in our lives are in God's hands. Not only that, but we must believe that our future, which we can not know, is under God's hand. Although no one knows what we will happen in the future, we must believe that God knows all our future as well. And what we must believe is that through the difficulties in our lives, God fulfills his sovereign will. And we must believe that God will supervise our future according to His will. When we believe in the Lord's control, we will be able to overcome by faith even though there is suffering and adversity before us.
What should we do when we can not understand what God is doing in this world? We must be contented and pleased with a portion we receive (Park, Yun-sun). Look at Ecclesiastes 8:15 – “So I commended pleasure, for there is nothing good for a man under the sun except to eat and to drink and to be merry, and this will stand by him in his toils throughout the days of his life which God has given him under the sun.” When we see countless difficulty problems that we can not understand and solve while we are living on this earth, we must believe that all things are in the hands of the Lord and enjoy day by day what God has given us as our shares. Of course, in Ecclesiastes 8:15, King Solomon is not telling us that the eating, drinking and rejoicing we receive is to live in the enjoyment of physical pleasures. We know this because he has already sought for the test of physical pleasure, but his conclusion is vanity. Here King Solomon is saying that although we can not understand what God is doing as we live in this world, we should believe that everything is in the hands of God and that we should enjoy the blessings we receive from God each day. We should listen to Ecclesiastes 2:24 – “There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good This also I have seen that it is from the hand of God.” We must realize the blessings God has given us. Each day we must count the blessings we receive from God in order to live and enjoy the blessings we receive from the Lord. We already receive every spiritual blessing from God in Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:3). We should enjoy them in the Lord. Instead of spending time and energy in solving the difficult problems we face in this unfair world, we should leave them to God and in the meantime, we should enjoy our shares that God gave us.
As I was coming to church today, I heard a bit of an interesting story from the AM 1230 radio. The interesting story was about a lotus flower that was planted around 700 years ago finally bloomed in Gyeongnam providence in South Korea for 700. I don’t know how people could tell the flower was planted 700 years ago, but what I agree with Mr. Park who was speaking about the flower story was that even though our human life’s span is around seventy or eighty the life span of the lotus flower is very long and it is surprising. And when I thought about God’s sovereignty, God who not only rules over us but also rules over all the flowers as well, I was amazed by God’s providence in the lotus flower’s blooming as well. Can we understand everything what God does in this world? If we can not even understand how the seeds of the lotus bloom after 700 years, how can we understand all the work of God who rules and manages all things in this universe? Why does it seem like God is rewarding the wicked and punish the righteous? Can we really understand what God is doing? Do we know why God has not made the righteous prosper in our world? Can we tell if that is a sign of love or a sign of hatred? So what can we do? We must believe that all the difficulties are in the hands of God rather than trying to solve what we can not. As we do so, we must be satisfied and pleased with the blessings that God has given us in our daily life. I hope and pray that we can become the such wise people.