Transcription of 20ID4034

Ecclesiastes 3:12-22 "'s Conflicted Views" June 7, 2020

All right. Let's open our to Chapter 3 verse 12 this morning, as we continue our kind of trip through Solomon's journal.

Solomon, 's son, was a godly young boy. In fact, when he was old enough to take over for his dad, his first and only request from the Lord was to rule as well as his dad had; and at least early on, that was exactly what he did. God was very pleased that he hadn't asked for money or long life or power; that he just asked for wisdom, and so the Lord gave him all that. In fact, he became the wisest man that ever lived, to this day. No one after him, no one before him was wiser, and he used that wisdom to serve the Lord. It went well. The nation did well. It was at its zenith, and for many years he seemed to be just on the path of serving God. And then he began to marry a lot of very strange heathen women, much of them through political alliances. It was a common practice of the day. Shouldn't have been for him. But in his later years, these wives turned his heart away from the God that he knew and had grown up with.

And so Solomon spent several years of his life wealthy, powerful, able to chase down life under the world to see if there was a life apart from God to be found in the world. We don't know how many years he spent doing that, but we know what he found. It's written in this book. This is his journal. These are the notes that he took, the conclusions that he made, the decisions that he came to. His resolution is found in the last two verses of Chapter 12, verse 13 and 14, right at the end of the book. So I think God wrote this down so He could save you some time; some travel time down dead-end roads, because what you find here is exactly what the world is looking for, and Solomon describes it in great detail.

It was almost 51 years ago, July 20th, I think, 1969, when Apollo 11 took off. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin ended up on the moon. Michael Collins was the fellow that you might remember stayed in the command module, the Columbia. And 1

then they put Armstrong and Aldrin in the lunar module, the Eagle; right? And they headed for the moon. I think on that day about 8 o'clock in the evening they landed in the Sea of Tranquility. Six hours later, almost 3:00 in the morning, they stepped out of the hatch and onto the moon. And you remember the famous line that he delivered, "This is one small step for man, and one giant leap for mankind." When they, the two of them, came back from the moon, they spoke for hours about the overwhelming spectacular view that the moon offered of the earth, looking back. And you've probably seen those pictures of the earth from moon's perspective. It left quite an impression on them both. But Buzz Aldrin especially, it changed the way that he perceived life. He came back to the earth; he saw all of the difficulty. In fact, the earth didn't look so good from the earth point of view; the corruption, the injustices. The distance view was awesome, the near view is not so good at all. And Aldrin would suffer a nervous breakdown from the disillusionment that he brought back with him. After making the moon his goal for life, and finally arriving there, everything he saw when he came back was unfulfilling to him, and he describes in detail the decades of depression that followed. His view had changed from up there to down here. And two and a half hours of being on the moon, they left I think 21 hours after they landed, left him with a decade of depression. It was almost like he was looking to fill space left by space. He struggled.

In that same kind of vein, Solomon is a spiritual astronaut of sorts. He has been looking for life on the horizontal plane. He calls it under Heaven or under the sun is his catchphrase. He makes his determinations and all of his conclusions based solely on what he sees looking this way without looking up, without including God. And so his near view is not very pretty at all. And until he goes up where the Lord is to look down upon life with God's perspective, he also is very depressed, very discouraged. And much of this book reads that way. It's kind of like, oh, my goodness. But at the same time, that's how life is apart from God.

Every once in a while, like this morning, Solomon stands up, breathes through his nose, looks around and goes, God's good. He goes back to his early years, to what he knew, to what he had relationship with God for years. So he surfaces, and then unfortunately he slips right back down to where he, you know, kind of stumbles and strives and all. But for a time, it excited him.

Now, in our verses this morning from verse 12 through 2

verse 22, Solomon shares both his skeptical view, which is kind of much of the book, but then he also stands up to take a spiritual view at the same picture. It almost sounds like two different men, if you read it kind of quickly and don't stop to consider them. Like he's schizophrenic. He says one thing and then he says another. But he's not at all like that at all. It's not two different people; it's the reality of having to live your life in a spiritual framework while living in a world that's completely gone crazy. You know, walk out of the church -- this is a pretty easy place to hang out; right? We're hanging around with Christians who love the Lord and want to worship God and believe the , but you walk out in the world and it's an entirely different picture, and yet you have to maintain and hang on to what you know about God and what God has said. So to maintain a spiritual outlook in a skeptical world is not very easy anyway for any of us, but when you've given up and run out there like Solomon has, it becomes almost impossible.

So when we read these verses, in many ways you kind of can hear the wrestling match in Solomon's mind. He flips back and forth almost in the same breath. In verses 12 and 13, where we'll pick up in a little bit, he continues with what he ended with last week, which was there's a time for everything under Heaven, but it is only useful and purposeful and enjoyable when God is involved. God makes everything beautiful, and He's the one who puts eternity in our hearts. So everything can be factored in with, hey, this isn't the end of the line.

So he continues that in verse 13 and 14. He uses the words "I know." I know this to be so. These are things that he had learned and studied and understood, but then he flips back to his theories. He said in verse 16, well, "I saw," and in verse 17 twice he says "I said in my heart." In verse 19 he said "what happens," and in verse 20 "who knows." And in verse 21, "I perceived." I guess this is the way it turns out. It's skepticism that takes hold. And it's almost like you find in the same person two views simultaneously, but that's not so odd. Sometimes that happens to us. We know better, but then something happens in our life and we question everything we know. It undermines our faith. It shakes our foundation for a little while, and we have to go back to what we know.

One of the things in counseling over the years that I've used so often with people when they come out and ask why God would allow this or why is this happening, I usually answer with 3

this, "Tell me what you know about God that you are sure of." Because when you're in doubt, fall back on what you know; right? Fall back on what you know. When Asaph wrote, you know, that his feet almost slipped when he considered the prosperity of the wicked, he said almost, but then he considered what he knew about God: That God was good, God was faithful, God's word could be trusted, God would finish what he started. And you can make a list of what you know, so that it can offset sometimes what you don't know. Just have to, by faith, believe. You know, verse 11 of this chapter says, we can't know everything from the beginning to the end, but we can know God and know that He's in charge of that.

So Solomon's kind of in that same bounce between the Bible says and I see. The Bible says I know that, and then I see these things, and I don't how to bring them together. So he's confronted with a challenge to be sure that his spiritual position and understanding maintain his walk.

So we've divided these verses up into two sections. One, Mr. Skeptical on Mount Skeptical we'll call it, where he climbs down to the mountain, if you will, and he sees everything very cynically; and then there's Mount Spiritual, where he goes up and he looks at that same life, but he looks at it from God's point of view, keeps God involved. It's the viewpoint that we should have, but sometimes we are pulled by cynicism or pessimism or experience, and we develop this dreadfully short-term view that doesn't help us at all. And that is certainly Solomon's issue.

Norman Vincent Peale, a guy I would never agree with much, used an illustration though that I liked years ago and that I remembered very well from an Easter message, and he talked about a rare Spanish coin that was minted in the 15th century. On the back of the coin it was imprinted this narrow strait between Europe and Africa near Gibraltar. It's called the Pillar of Hercules. So they had that on the coin, and on the bottom were three Latin words, "ne plus ultra." It literally means nothing more beyond. As far as the Spanish were concerned at the time, that's all the world had to offer. This was -- fall off the cliff here. This is as far as you go, and that's all that they knew. When Columbus and others bravely proved that the new world lay beyond, the Spanish, rather than admitting problems, just reminted the coin and took the letters n-e off, nothing beyond, and just left "plus ultra," which just means more beyond. They changed their perception. 4

So Solomon, you know, he has to battle with the skepticism where he just says this is all there is to life, and then at the same time come to the conclusion that we all do, that there's a lot more to life than this. God has great promises.

Now, I was going to take it in order because we always take the verses in order, but I'm going to change that this morning because I want to look at Mount Skeptical first and end this morning with Mount Spiritual, because I don't want to end saying, "Well, life's a bummer and then you die. God bless you guys. Have a good week. See you next week." That's a horrible way to end, so we are going to reverse it, okay? We'll start at verse 16, we'll come back to verses 12, 13, 14, 15, and 17 in a minute. But let's start at the view from Mount Skeptical, and I'll gave you three things that he says about this position.

Verse 16, "Moreover I saw under the sun: In the place of judgment, wickedness was there; and in the place of righteousness, iniquity was found there." First point, from the view just under the sun, Solomon says life, very unfair. Solomon saw almost a substitution taking place of sorts. In a place where he hoped to find one thing, unfortunately he found another. And life under the sun to him was hopeless because it was unfair. Where there should be equality, in iniquity it is found; where there should be justice, unrighteousness was found. In other words, he just couldn't find any justice.

The word "mishpat," judgment in Hebrew, is the word for judicial system or the court system; a place where fairness and truth ought to be determined. Instead he found "rishah." "Rishah" is a word that means something that is turned to the wrong direction, or injustice or perversion of right. Just from a worldly view, apart from letting God be the God of your heart and of your life, Solomon, looking at the world, saw bribery and unfaithfulness and unfairness and corruption and favoritism. In the way that laws were carried out, and in the very place that he should have been finding where truth is established, he found injustice had taken over. And so it reinforced his skepticism, there from Mount Skeptical. Life is unfair. There's no right and wrong. People get away with murder. They get away with it all the time. It should be a place where things are resolved, but they are not.

How often have you as just a citizen looked at things in the world and go, that guy got away with murder, or should have 5

been caught? He should have been punished. And you just get all worked up. Lawsuits that make an innocent person pay through the nose, while the corrupt count their money. Why is it that a faithful wife, divorced by her unfaithful husband, now has to fight for help because she stayed at home as a good mom and taking care of the kids, and now she has no financial resources to fight in the process? Meanwhile, the cheating husband goes his merry way with money in his pockets and has things he wants. You go, that's not right. Of course that's not right, but that's all you see if God is not involved. Of course that's all you see. Evil is rewarded with good, good is punished. No good deed goes unpunished. We won't help a stranger in distress these days because we're afraid we'll get sued. It's a weird world we live in.

So from Mount Skeptical it is easy to conclude life's not fair, which should be proof enough to you that God doesn't exist. You know, one of the things that unbelievers oftentimes argue with Christians about is the whole matter of evil. If God is all powerful, He'll destroy evil. If God is good, He would destroy it, but because He hasn't, either God doesn't exist or He's powerless or He doesn't care, and that's the conclusion they draw from Mount Skeptical, from that place of just looking out into the world. And notice what we read there, "I saw under the sun." You see, this is where Solomon is looking. Shortsighted for sure. If God is all powerful, He could destroy evil. If He's all good, He would destroy it. Because He hadn't, He must not be good at all. There must be no God.

Second of all, verse 18 -- we'll skip verse 17. We'll come back to that in a minute -- he said in his heart, "'Concerning the conditions of the son of men, God tests them, that they might see that they themselves are like animals.' And what happens to the sons of men is also what happens to animals; one thing befalls them; one dies, the other one dies. Surely, they have one breath; man has no advantage over the animals, it's just emptiness or vanity. They all go to one place: They go back to the dust. They come from there and they return there."

Not only is life unfair, but his second postulation, if you will, or the second thing that he wants to make certain that you understand is that life ends here. His second look at this is, look, we live, we die. That's it. In fact, man is nothing more than a highly-developed animal. Solomon makes the comparison looking at life in the world. You should know 6

that the world looks a lot to people that way as well. We both breathe, we both die, we both rot in the dirt; we're animals. It is that viewpoint, by the way, from an evolution standpoint, that life evolved from a single cell, that has taken people down the wrong road for years. The fossil records would bear up that life did not come from a single cell. In fact, there are no transitional life forms. Paleontologists will tell you that every higher life form, the complex invertebrates, the mammals, the birds, the primates, at least in the evolutionary calendar, they all showed up at the same time. Hard to argue with science, unless you want to jump off a cliff.

I heard the argument one time -- it was funny, but I enjoyed it, but -- where a guy said, "If evolution was true, then why do moms still only have two hands?" I thought, that's very cute. You know, because they're so busy all the time. I guess I liked it better than you all do. I thought it was good.

You know, this whole view of God in this manner, we're just like the animals, we're not different, is where Hinduism was born. It teaches that humans and animals operate on the same plane and on most levels, and sometimes the animal's exalted above the human. You know, they all have souls. The plant has a soul. Every microorganism has a soul without exception. Sometimes they're deified by man. Human beings only have the edge, they will tell you, because they've been around for a long time and have lived many lives and have worked their way up to human, but if they mess up, they could start at the bottom again if they don't do things right. It is this same view that most animal rights groups argue about animal rights with us, using this argument, we're just like animals.

Now, look, I should say to you that the Bible teaches very clearly, you hurt animals, God will hurt you. I mean, He's all about the creation that He has given. He defends animal welfare, and there's plenty of scriptures for that, but there's no scriptures to tell me that animals and humans are the same. In fact, God made man in His image, not the animals. That's quite a stretch.

But if you live on Mount Skeptical, life under the sun, you're liable to come to this conclusion like Solomon did. Life is unfair. Life just ends here.

And then finally, verse 21, life's unexplainable. He says 7

this: "Who knows the Spirit of the sons of men, who goes upward, the spirit of the animal, who goes down to the earth? So I perceived that nothing is better than a man should just enjoy his works, that's his heritage. But who can bring him to see what will happen after him?" This third position from life under the sun from Mount Skeptical is, look, I don't know what comes next. You really could write on verse 21 the words, who knows who goes where. Who knows? That's his perception. You don't know. You can't know.

By the way, again, atheists, in their arguments with those of us who would believe the Bible, would say to us, "You see? Even the Bible says you can't know." To which I would reply, "It's not exactly what the Bible teaches." So when you read things in the Bible that are contrary to what you know the Bible teaches, know this: The Bible is inspired, which means it records faithfully and inerrantly the statements that were made. They are not misrepresented. Everything in them is absolutely correctly reported. However, not everything that is said in the Bible is true. The false prophets, with their false statements, are a lie, but they're properly recorded. The words of the devil, who's a liar, are properly recorded, but he lies. So unbelieving kings, so the Pharaoh. You can go down the list of scriptures. They said it, they declare it, but that doesn't mean it's true. The Bible develops truth by a multiplicity of scriptures. That's why you don't pull one verse out and try to make a case for yourself.

Solomon believed this from a worldly standpoint. This is what he saw out there when he set God aside. He's having a conflict within. He grew up knowing the truth. He's now questioning what that looks like. He's looking at the world trying to get answers. He's hoping there's meaning to life there. He's formulating his outlook, and he comes to the conclusion, hey, who knows them? If God's not involved, then who knows?

By the way, this is the viewpoint most often espoused by agnostics. The word agnostic -- the word "gnosis" in Greek means knowledge. Whenever you put an "A" in front of a Greek word, it just means to negate it, no knowledge. So to say you're an agnostic literally means to say to somebody, I don't know anything. It's exactly what the word means. Perfect label. I don't know anything.

Well, the Bible would give you great information, great 8

insight. I don't know about God. I don't know about what happens after death. I don't know who goes where, you know. And that's the big struggle. And yet everything in life God designs so that you can know, that you can be certain. Everything He has made -- the stars, the earth, the oceans, your body, the wonder of creation -- is designed to speak of His existence. This doesn't just happen.

But if you have life in view under the sun, then you find Mount Skeptical, and then you find life is grossly unfair. It's all you know. Life is unfair. I'm going to get what I can get when I can get it, because life's unfair. I'm going to get mine. It believes that this is the end of life. Just eat, drink, and be merry; tomorrow you could be dead. And when it comes to life after this life, who knows? No hope for life, no life after life, if it exists at all, and I don't know. And there's Solomon, with all of his wisdom, setting God aside, and here's how he lives. And that's exactly the world around you. That's the way they live. They're unsure of everything. They're pretty sure things aren't right. Pretty sure God doesn't exist.

But in the midst of all of that analysis Solomon climbs up the mountain that he once stood upon, Mount Spiritual. He says in verse 12 "I know." This is not I guess or I perceived or I think or I said in my heart. This is "I know," strong word, "nothing is better for them than to rejoice, and to do good in their lives, and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all of his labor -- for it is a gift from God." Now, like I said, we ended last week in verse 11 by saying with all of the monotony of life, it makes sense and finds purpose when God is involved. Then He makes everything beautiful. Everything beautiful. The planting time, the weeping time, the dancing time, the gathering time; all beautiful when God Himself is involved. And he ended that by saying, "We don't know what God is doing from one day to the next, but we know that eternity has been set in our hearts, so we see beyond this life to the next." Well, that's the thought he continues in verse 12 and in verse 13, and he makes this claim, one of three things that he says, life is to be enjoyed. Life is to be enjoyed.

Now, I don't know if you have that view of life that God wants you to enjoy life, but that's biblically correct. God doesn't want you to struggle like that. Oh, life's not easy, but he wants you to enjoy the work that He does in your life. If you see life under the sun, very limited in what you can see, and it's going to be very depressing, but if you can get 9

up on Mount Spiritual and see things through God's eyes, that there's eternity, that He makes everything beautiful, then you can find yourself with purpose and value and eternal consequence.

God would like you to enjoy your life. Life is to be enjoyed. It is a gift from God. I don't know how many Christians live this way. And when you do, people usually think you're flippant and you don't care about things. "Oh, you're just not serious." "No, I'm enjoying life." "Oh, yeah, you're not taking it serious. Do you watch the news?" "No, no. I'm just going to enjoy life. Watching news doesn't help me to enjoy life almost at all." We thank the Lord for all the experiences we go through rather than complaining every step of the way. God is good, isn't He? Christian perspective.

Look, we've been going through the weirdest time in the world in my lifetime, I'm sure yours as well. And people forever calling, "What do you think God's doing? What do you think is going on?" I don't know, but I know God's good. I know He hasn't lost control. I know He's got something for me to learn, and something for us to have. "Well, we couldn't go to church." I get it. I get it. Check in with the -- with the boss, man. Turn your eyes to heaven. Quit complaining. Enjoy. "How could I enjoy it? I have to stay home and stuff." I don't know. I don't know. Just enjoy the fact God's in charge. Is it easy? No. It's horrible. Did I like it? Very little of it. I like going out to eat. I like going to the beach, go surfing. I like a lot of stuff that all of a sudden, they -- we couldn't -- I like a lot of stuff. I still had a job. All of our pastors and our staff still were able to go to work. So thankful. Thank you, God. I'm just enjoying -- I didn't say life was easy, but I want to enjoy what God is doing. I don't understand what He's doing more often than not, but I praise the Lord for Him being in charge.

And if you have that kind of view of life, even the worst of times is colored by that view. You lose someone that you love, they die, and then you read in Thessalonians, "But we don't grieve like those who have no hope." The whole context of your life changes.

Some people say thank you Lord for my job, that I'm able to 10

go to work and serve, while others hate every minute of every day that they're there. They wait for the weekend, they can't wait for the vacations. And these are Christians. There's just nothing but complaining.

You ever hang around with people that do nothing but complain? They're horrible people to hang around with. You go to a restaurant, they complain about the service, and the menu selection, and the food, and the guy serving it, and I didn't get the water in time. Dude, you're out to dinner and don't have to cook yourself. Just shut up for five minutes. It's amazing how people complain. I remember going to dinner with a guy earlier this year. We went to a place that literally the menu had 19 pages, and he could not find what he wanted. So he finally had to talk to this guy, "Here's what I want. I want these, but I don't want that. And then over here, on this page." And I thought, I'm never going to go out to dinner ever with this guy, ever. I wrote it in my notes, never with this guy, ever, again.

"I wish I hadn't married this person." You're blessed, man. So lucky to hear that anybody would marry you at all.

You can count your grievances or you can count your blessings. But God's desire from Mount Spiritual with a view towards God's plan is that you would enjoy your life. He's in charge. I don't know what God's doing. I have no clue.

I don't want to wear masks in church, do you? You hate it, don't you? I don't blame you. And maybe we'll be able to get rid of it here in a little while. So thank you, Lord, for letting us go back to church. "Oh, we can't -- I'm going to" -- I know, I know, I know. Quit complaining.

Solomon in the dark pops up in the light for a minute. Life is a gift, but only those who know God see that, and they see His gracious hand at work in all situations. And to add to the joy, your future is even more glorious. This is as bad as it gets for you. If you're an unbeliever, this is as good as it gets for you. But not for you and I. We have eternal life to look forward to as well. So life is to be enjoyed.

Secondly, verse 14, life is a test. "I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, nothing can be taken away from it. And God does it, so that man should fear before Him." Awesome. Whatever God does is permanent. It is complete, it is thorough. Whatever God's actions take up, they are forever. They don't need any 11

addendum. They don't need an update. I know your computer does; every program does. God doesn't. He doesn't go, "Oh, I need to get God 2.0." No, He got it all right on the first go-around.

In fact, much of our lives are designed by God for only one purpose, and you can read it at the end of verse 14: God does what he does to convince men to fear Him. In other words, your life is a test. God has only given you this life. After this, you're going to head for judgment, to figure out that He's to be worshipped. He doesn't change. And the good thing about the permanency of God is that when God says something, you can count on it. Tomorrow you'll still be able to count on it. I know we lose that confidence in the world because we deal with people that cannot be trusted. Even friends let you down. Guarantees have even smaller print than you can read. There's exclusion and exception clauses to everything. You can't trust anything. Everybody's as skeptical as it can be. And then you get to the Lord, you go, "Ah, now Him I can trust. Him I can depend upon." And it's designed to bring you to your knees; that you would acknowledge Him as the Lord; that you would love Him as He loves you; that He would provide life for you and the ways of life; that He is the way and the truth and the life; that He doesn't change. God cannot be changed. God cannot be influenced. He has it all designed to bring you, verse 14, to Himself. "God does it so that men should fear before Him." Not shake in fear, but stand in awe. And the view from Mount Spiritual is not only is your life a gift from God to be enjoyed, but it is a test of God in which you are brought to a place where you fear the Lord. That's His desire, to depend upon Him. This life is all you have to be saved. Life is a test, and there's going to be a quiz.

Verse 15, "That which is has already been, and what is to be has already been; and God requires an account of that which is past." Verse 17, skipping over the one we looked earlier, "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.'" Third point, life has a record, or life has been recorded, if you will. Look, we are all going to report to the Lord one day for the way that we've lived our life. One day in Heaven the Supreme Court of Heaven will convene. There's only one judge: Jesus Christ, and you're going to stand before God.

Now, you remember verse 16 where we started, under the sun, back in the world, Solomon saw corruption where he should have 12

found righteousness; found unsoundness, found unfairness where that should have been defined. Everything was skewed there. But notice what God surrounds it with, verse 15, His judgment, and verse 17, the sureness of His judgment, because though the world is going to fail you, God won't, and one day there will be a judge. And in his frustration in verse 16, Solomon has to remind himself that judgment waits for every man; not the unfair kind of judgment he sees in the world, but the kind that God brings: Consistent, dependable judgment. This is why we can stand before a God who sees our every action as past. What has been has already been. God sees the future as if past. He knows all things. And both the righteous and the wicked are going to stand before God and give an account. And one day God will finalize judgment, and whether -- you know, the world doesn't know it, but God's going to balance the books; right? One day every case is going to be resolved and His judgment will be perfect.

So you that are living in the world and going, well, that's not fair, that's not right, and this is -- just wait. It's probably not going to be right and fair in the world. You're living amongst a bunch of corrupt, sinful people, but wait when the Lord comes. His word will be the last word. He'll fix everything. Everything will be resolved. There's a verse in Chapter 8 of this book, verse 11, that says, "Because a sentence isn't speedily carried out by the Lord against those that do evil, therefore their hearts are fully set in them to do that evil." Or if you will, God just waits so that by the time judgment comes, He'll have plenty of evidence. You really won't be able to argue. In fact, one day every iniquity will be made right.

When Paul was targeted by the Corinthian church for -- you know, he had written some pretty tough letters to them, but they got on his back and judged him and all, and said some pretty mean things about him, and Paul wrote in I Corinthians Chapter 4 to them, "Don't judge anything before the time, but when the Lord comes, He's going to bring to light the hidden things of darkness, he's going to reveal the counsel of men's hearts. And then everyone's going to have their own reward from God." In other words, the Lord's going to make right what we see as wrong. But that's the answer for the skeptic too. One day God will come and destroy all evil. Until then, life is a test. You better believe in Him. You better turn to Him. The animals will not have to answer, but man will, because he's been made in the image of God.

From Mount Spiritual, Solomon says God's desire is that you 13

enjoy your life; that you come to a place in the things that He takes you through where you fear the Lord, where you're broken. This life breaks you to surrender to Him. And realize that one day you're going to have to give an account to the Lord, Who knows all, he sees it as past, and whose judgment will be permanent forever.

Now, you can come to church this morning and walk out of here and climb right back up Mount Skeptical. Unfortunately, that's where some people live. "Life's just unfair. The world stinks. We live and die like dogs. We don't know what comes next. Best thing we can do is think happy thoughts and hope for the best." I forget who called it stinkin' thinkin', but I heard that somewhere. I think living on Mount Skeptical for some of us is more convenient. By that I mean there's plenty of evidence to believe in God. His word has stood the test of time. His power is seen in the lives of the saints, both come and gone and those that currently walk with Him. But if you believe it, you're then responsible for it. And so sometimes it's just better to go, I don't know, because if you don't know, you don't have to act accordingly.

I remember reading about a guy in Paris who had bought one of the earliest microscopes at a World's Fair, and it cost him a lot of money, but it seemed to be worth it because everyone wanted to come in his house and see it. And he would put things under it, and people were excited about it, until one day he made the mistake of putting his lunch under it, and then he saw movement. And pretty soon every piece of food that he put under there, he saw the microorganisms moving, and it freaked him out. And no one wanted -- I don't even want to look in there anymore. But he couldn't stop eating. He had to eat. So he smashed the microscope.

I think a lot of people live that way. They throw out their Bible and the God of the people and then throw out the evidence, because it's easier to just not consider Him than to have to be responsible to Him.

Remember that coin, "plus ultra," there's more beyond. This isn't it. And if you just live for this life, more like Solomon, I think you're just going to be discouraged and cynical and skeptical all your life. But you don't have to be there. God has good things for us. Amen? He doesn't find that out in Chapter 3. But stick with us. He will.

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