Why Is Life So Unfair?

Thank you, Jean, for introducing the message today. I mean that. That was a great song to introduce the subject and the theme of Solomon's words today in Ecclesiastes chapter 4. It was 43 years ago this past summer that God called me to preach. I will never forget the occasion. There's two weeks at summer camp between my junior and senior years of high school. And I will never forget how God dealt with my heart and even some specific prayers I prayed to him to throw out some fleeces and confirm whether or not God was really telling me what I thought he was telling me. Got home from those two weeks to find out that my parents had been praying those whole two weeks that God would do exactly what he did. I will never forget that, never forget it. I have been blessed to be in ministry for 39 years and it has been a passion of my heart to fulfill the calling that God put on my life. It was a definite calling. I know God called me to preach and teach his word and that has always been my passion. I willingly embrace and love other aspects of pastoral ministry. I love shepherding people and I'm so grateful for my fellow pastors who assist me so capable and that ministry here at the chapel. I embrace and love the oversight of the church and all of its ministries and the staff and deacons and other leaders and just the overall oversight and management of things and planning and direction and strategic planning and that kind of thing. I embrace that but my passion is preaching and teaching. That's what God called me to do. And if I could hand off all the rest of it I would and just focus on the preaching and teaching of the Bible. But there's something that always haunts me and Jean it is not a bad thing to still be nervous. I've been in pulpits thousands of times over those 39 years and I still get nervous every time. And someone told me one time, John I hope you never get over that because that's a sign that you take seriously what you're doing and I hope I never will get over that. I hope you never do too Jean. But something haunts me about preaching. I think the most miserable existence for a preacher would be to not be real and to not preach where people are and it constantly is in the focus of my mind that God's word is relevant. It is so real. And just to be able to utter a path phrases and pious platitudes and a nice little three point surminette with a poem at the end and pronounce the benediction and go home that to me I'd rather die than do that. And so part of what fuels my passion is the passion to be real with God's word. I got a long way to go being real in a lot of different areas of my life than this one too. But that's what fuels my passion to preach is to preach where life really is lived to be able to take the eternal truths of God's word and apply them in ways that people know how the word of God affects them today and what it means in my daily life. And that's really my passion. That's why I think I appreciate so much the book of Ecclesiastes. I've never been a person to have a life verse or a favorite book of the Bible. People ask me questions like that and I stumble every time. I try to give an answer and I finally come to the conclusion just not one of those people. You know, whatever God's dealing with me about right now, that's my favorite verse and that's my favorite book. And right now Ecclesiastes is at the top of the list. It's my favorite book. Now the next one I get to, that'll be my favorite. But right now this is my favorite because God's speaking to me on real life issues from this book. I love what Solomon does. Solomon deals with the reality of life. He tells it like it is. We have seen in chapter three in the past few weeks that Solomon is dealing with the fact that God has a plan for all of life and all of that plan is perfect. And he makes everything beautiful in its time as a part of that plan. And it might be very easy for us to say, Solomon, you're not living on the same planet. I'm living on. Come on, get real. Are you really talking about life as it really is because I don't see everything being beautiful in its time. I don't see everything working out right, not in my life anyway. So what are you talking about? Solomon, where are you anyway? You got your head in the clouds or in the sand or worse? What's going on with you? For that reason, after Solomon lays down the principle that God does have a perfect plan that incorporates everything that happens in our lives. And after he lays down the fact that God works all things together, makes everything beautiful in its time, in his time, on the heels of that, he clicks off eight hard realities of life, eight hard things that we deal with. And what he's showing us is that I know what life is really all about. I'm not a pie in the sky, somewhere dreamer kind of writer. I know what real life is like, Solomon says. And I know that there are hard realities in life that seem to deny what I just said, that seem to challenge the concept of God's perfect plan in life. I understand that. So he deals with eight of those. Some of them he gives answers to. Some of them he explains how to reconcile them, others he doesn't. And for those he doesn't, we might still be left with the question, well what? Okay, it's hard. And that's all you're going to tell me. What Solomon is saying, we have to understand his purpose here. He's saying I don't want you to ever doubt the fact that God does have a perfect plan. And that everything is beautiful in its time, no matter what you go through, that's still true. It is still true that God has a perfect plan. And he makes everything beautiful in his time. I'm aware of reality. I'm aware of the hard things that does not negate God's perfect plan. If we don't see that, when we hit those hardships in life, we will become disillusioned with life and bitter at God. So many people end up that way. And Solomon is seeking the sparris of that. By helping us to understand that those hard realities, they are hard and they are real. But they do not change the fact that God has a perfect plan where he makes all things beautiful in his time. Last time we saw a couple of those hard realities in justice and the fact of the leveling, playing ground of death that we will all face. Today Solomon shows us two more hard realities of life that cause us sometimes to ask, why is life so unfair? Why is life so unfair? Well Solomon is going to bring his face to face with those hard realities. One of them he will answer, one of them he won't. But we know that there are answers in the Bible. The first of those hard realities today is the reality of oppression. Oppression, he describes it in verses 1 through 3. Let's look first of all at Solomon's description of oppression in verse 1 of chapter 4. He says, again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun. Let me define the word for you. Oppression basically is any abuse of power or authority. Any abuse of power or authority that tramples that burdens that crushes people under that authority or that power. One in power has the ability, the position, the opportunity to get what he or she wants at the expense of other people and they ruthlessly do it. It is an abuse of power or authority that burdens others down. Tramples others underfoot, crushes them. It is power-hungry officials oppressing others for private advantage in game. That's what it is. And notice Solomon's gripping description of it. Middle of verse 1, I saw the tears of the oppressed and they have no comforter. Power was on the side of their oppressors and they have no comforter. What a description. He sees the tears, the cry, the heart cry of those who are being oppressed and there's no one to show them compassion. There's no one to encourage them. There's no one to comfort them. Why? Because they're in a position where they're being squashed by those with power over them and they have no recourse, no way to address what's being done to them. The oppressors have all the power. Now the way that looked in Israelite society, the object of oppression and this is dealt with continually in the prophets, read especially Isaiah and Amos, Amos particularly. People book is about this, how the poor, the widows, the orphans, those who were at a disadvantaged place in society and really could not fend for themselves were often squashed by those who were in power. By those who had the power to take advantage of them, take whatever little they had or get what they wanted at their expense. That's the way it happened, quite often in Israel. One of the best examples of this in the Old Testament is the story of Ahab and Naboth. King Ahab, wicked ruler over King Israel, has married Jezebel, the daughter of the Phoenician king, a political alliance but one which also brought the Phoenician God Bale into Israel's religious life and led them into idolatry. Ahab is a very powerful ruler, he is an oppressor of the poor. Naboth is a poor landowner who has a vineyard that he has inherited from his ancestors. Naboth's vineyard is not very big but it butts up against one of Ahab's palaces and so Ahab wants it. So he approaches Naboth and he says, give me your vineyard, I want to make a garden out of it. And if I could paraphrase with the historical and cultural background just a little bit, Naboth basically says, Ahab, you know the inheritance laws that Moses gave us. I can't give you that property, that property is in my family. I must keep that property in my family's name. Moses taught us that in the law. He has goes home, solid, self-pity, depressed. The Bible presents a palating session that he has. Lying on his bed, refusing to eat like a little child. Jezebel comes in and asks him what's wrong, he explains to her, is encountered with Naboth and Naboth's refusal to give him that vineyard. Jezebel's response goes something like this. Listen, you're the king. What are you doing palating like this? You're the king. You can have whatever you want. I'll take care of it for you. So she writes letters to the ruling elders of Naboth's town and says, you call a council. You bring some witnesses to falsely accuse Naboth of blasphemy against God and against the king and take him out and stone him to death. Well, what can those elders do? Are they going to resist the queen and the king? No, because they've got power, you see. And they have the power to do whatever they want to with Naboth. And so the elders and civil leaders of that town are basically pawns used by the power and authority of the king and queen of Israel. They call the council. They bring false witnesses. They bought this falsely accused, falsely judged, and falsely executed. And A-hab with a great sense of pleasure and accomplishment takes the vineyard. By the way, that was a straw that broke the camel's back as far as God was concerned with A-hab. They have immediately, God immediately sent Elijah to A-hab to confront him and say like the dogs licked up Naboth's blood, they will lick up your blood too. God will judge you for what you've just done. But that's the way oppression often worked in Israel's life. You see it described here, the tears of the oppressed. They have no one to confront them. Power is on the side of the oppressors. When we think of oppression today, we might think of a Muslim government, oppressing Jews or Christians, taking everything they have, burning their churches, driving them out of their homes, arresting them under dubious charges, putting them to death. We might think of the mafia gaining control of an organization and extorting money, and what can those do who are being oppressed? That's maybe what we think of when we think of oppression. But wait a second, let's move a little closer to home. What about a workplace where the wages are kept purposely low, the expectations for hours purposely high, and the workers have no recourse to address that oppression? What about the poor, not all of whom are poor by their own making, who are sometimes pushed down by those in authority? Don't get the same legal rights as those in authority. Just ask my daughter about what goes on in Chicago sometimes. We may not see it as much here. But you deal with people in a major city you see it all the time. What about a husband who abuses his leadership position and authority over his wife, treats her cruelly, speaks to her cruelly, keeps every action under his thumb, every word, dominates her with a ruthless brutality? What about a parent who crushes a child under his or her authority, who will not even let them speak? We'll not listen to anything they say, cuts them off before they have a chance to even say anything, because I'm the ruler of this household, domineering authority that certainly is emotional abuse and may translate into physical abuse. What about those kinds of oppression? Those under those kinds of oppression sometimes weep and cry themselves to sleep too and have no one to go to. No comfort. Why? Because the power is in the hands of the oppressor. You see oppression may do injury to a person, it may do injury to their property, it may do injury to their reputation. When they're unable to defend themselves, oppression. It is an awful, awful reality of life sometimes. And it leads Solomon to this conclusion, notices conclusion in verses two and three. And I declared that the dead who had already died are happier than the living, who are still alive, but better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun. Well, that sounds awful, negative, cynical, pessimistic, doesn't it? And I remind you once again to place it in its proper context. This is not an overall view of life that Solomon advocates or even says is his personal philosophy of life. Solomon is saying that when people are under this kind of oppression, there are things that are worse than death. And this kind of oppression where you have no recourse, no one that will listen to you and you are being squashed under this kind of oppression. He says it's better to die than to go through that and even better yet that you'd never been born to even see that, even witness that. That's just his reality, his estimate of life for those who are under this kind of oppression. Now, let's take what he says here about the hard reality of life, which he's addressing to those who do not know the Lord and do not know the full answers yet. He's just admitting this is one of those hard realities. He doesn't give us the answers to it, but put it in the fuller picture of the entire Bible and we know that the Bible does tell us there is a comforter, isn't there? And that comforter is the Holy Spirit. Even if no one else will ever listen to you, even if you feel like you have no recourse for the oppression you are under, for the difficult hard realities that you face in life, there is a comforter. There is a savior, an advocate, a defense lawyer. The whom you can go who will hear your every cry. The Bible describes him as keeping in a bottle of remembrance the tears that you cry, the book of Psalms. There is a comforter. There is one to whom you can go. There is one to whom you can plead your case. And we know that the ultimate power is not in the hands of the oppressors, but in the hands of God. And we know from the eternal perspective, even Solomon has already addressed this and will again that justice will be done someday. God will see to it. He will take care of that. So if you're under oppression, that is the place to go. If you are one who oppresses others, you need to see it as a sin in the sight of God, a stench in his nostrils that turns his stomach and that he will judge someday. Where kind of oppression it is, verbal, actual oppression in the workplace or in the home, whatever it may be. God knows. God will take care of that. The hard reality of oppression does not overthrow the beautiful plan of God for all of life. Solomon moves on though to a second kind of hard reality. In addition to the reality of oppression, he deals with the reality of competition. That's the word I'm going to use to describe what we will see. And I want to make sure you understand what I mean by the word competition. I'm not referring to that healthy competition that is the cornerstone of a free enterprise system that makes for a strong economy and a great nation. I'm not talking about that. That's legitimate. That's proper. I believe that's even biblical. That kind of competition. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about, and Solomon is talking about a personal spirit of competition, that sense of clawing and pushing your way to the top, the savage selfishness that will do whatever it takes to get where you want to be. That's what he's talking about. Now what Solomon does in verses 4 through 6 is he describes three kinds of people, three different kinds of people who approach life and their work very differently. The first person is described in verse 4. I'm going to call him the successaholic. And I think you will see that Solomon's description lends itself well to that term, the successaholic. Let's unpack what he says here in verse 4. And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person's envy of another, this to his meaning list of chasing after the wind. Now, again, this is not a general observation about all of life that everybody who works hard must be a cheater. No, he's going to say there's another kind of person in verse 5, and there's a third kind of person in verse 6. So obviously he's talking about the kind of person that he's addressing describing in verse 4, the successaholic, and he describes his work as being all toil and all achievement. In the original language, these are two words that go together. It's a particular construction in the Hebrew language that means the two words describe. The second word describes the first word, and it could be translated this way. It could be translated all skillful work, all competent work, all labor which leads to achievement, or it could be described as successful. So he's talking about someone whose labor ends up in success. He's talking about someone that kind of person, but that kind of person who has achieved outward signs of success through his toil, through his labor, he describes the motivation of that person. And the motivation of that person, in this case, the person he's describing is this kind of successful work has sprung from one person's envy of another. Again, the word envy is a very interesting word. It can be translated several ways and is in the Old Testament. Sometimes it can be translated zeal. It also means jealous rivalry. And because of the context of work, that's the kind of meaning it has here. The NIV translation is a little bit vague. The real idea of the word in this kind of a work context is a strong sense of rivalry. I like to call it, and I think the best word for it is a competitive spirit. A competitive spirit that is jealous and envious of what everybody else has or the success they have reached. And thus, that becomes my motivation. That becomes the spring for what I do. And if I succeed, if I achieve through my labor, a certain degree of success, it is fueled and motivated by that competitive spirit. It is that law of the jungle that will climb and crawl and claw its way to the top regardless of what it takes to do that. I would want to stress today that Solomon is not just talking about corporate executives, all street bankers. He's challenging all of us to look at the motivation of our heart for what we do. Why do we do what we do? He is probing our motivations for all of our hard work. What is the motivation for what you do and what I do? Is the motivation really a love for my family and a desire to provide for them? Is that really my motivation? Is my motivation really to serve others and to help others? That's the biblical view of work. All meaningful work. All meaningful employment is designed to provide for a need that someone has. That's the way God intended it to be. The biblical concept of work. Is that really my motivation, though? Is it really even the highest of motivations to glorify God? Because the Bible teaches whatever I do, whether it's even eating, drinking, or whatever I do, I'm to do all for the glory of God. So is what I do, regardless of what it is, really seen as a service to God, to bring glory to Him, to show Him in whatever I'm doing? Is that really my motivation or is the motivation for what I do? Motivation for what you do is it to keep up with or get ahead of your neighbor. That's the motivation Solomon's addressing here. For people who become successful in work, he's saying it is possible that your motivation may well be just to keep up or maybe get a little bit ahead. Because many of us live by the suspicion or even the realization that someone else is getting a little bit more. Someone else has gotten something newer. Someone else has gotten something better. And their lifestyle is beginning to progress beyond mine. And so I've got to keep up. Maybe even get a little ahead of them if I can. So you really see, I hope you do how invasive that thinking is in our whole culture and in our whole concept of employment and work to provide for a certain level of lifestyle, to be able to keep up with someone else. God was so good to me yesterday. I got done everything I needed to get done before seven o'clock in the WVU game. So I was able to watch that glorious victory yesterday last night. That was great. Praise the Lord. I think you can praise the Lord for those things. Do all for the glory of God, even West Virginia football, right? But anyway, I was watching the game. It couldn't help but notice. They had a commercial on there. Played several times and it began to peak my interest. It was a commercial about a cell phone, the newest, hottest, best cell phone. And I would tell you what kind of it is, but I know you'll all want to feed your sleep to the service or buy this thing. But the thing that I noticed about this commercial is one of the commercials they showed two people touched their cell phones, just tapped them and it communicates information to the other cell phone. It can pass along kind of like a drop box or a cloud kind of pass along from one phone to the other just to a tap, a picture, a document, whatever. And the people in the commercial who are watching this happen and realize this is the hottest, coolest, newest cell phone are all looking at themselves. All these up and coming risers are looking at themselves and saying, oh no, when will our phone do that? When will we be able to do that with our company and our cell phone? It's like the world is coming to an end because I can't do this with my cell phone. Stock markets will crash, governments will go into crisis, the world will come to an end. I've got to get that cell phone. I mean that was obviously, that's a little bit of an overstatement, but that's exactly the feeling the company was trying to give you. You don't have the newest, you don't have the best, you don't have the one that can do all that cool stuff. You've got to get it so you can keep up with these other people that are doing this. That is so invasive in our culture and it entraps most of us in that way of thinking. By the way, it doesn't just have to be in terms of possession. It doesn't have to be in terms of possessions. You can have the same competitive spirit when it comes to desiring recognition or praise or attention or the limelight. Whatever it takes to pull that away from someone else, you'll do. That's the success of Hollick and Solomon describes him as one who's motivated with this competitive spirit to keep up or to get ahead of the other person. And so the law of the jungle is the driving force. Competition while not bad in and of itself takes a very nasty turn with this kind of person. And it becomes a climbing and over people and a crawling to scratching to get my way or to get where I want to go in life. The goal is superiority. I will not be second. I'm going to get the attention that I want. I'm going to be first. I'm going to make it to the top. I'm going to have this or that or the other and the desire to do that when it gets a hold of your heart will turn you into a savage. And this savage selfishness, this competitive spirit will drive you in life. So many people in our culture live by that. Is it fulfilling? Is it satisfying? Does it give you true meaning in life? Can you get to the top of the ladder? Do you feel warm feeling of success and fulfillment? Look at the end of the verse. This too is meaningless by chasing after the wind. That expression has already, we've seen already a couple of times in Ecclesiastes. We'll see it again before we're done. It's the great expression, the best expression for futility. This kind of lifestyle, this success, a hydraulic kind of lifestyle driven by addicted to success and having more and getting up to the level of the next person. That kind of lifestyle is like chasing the wind. Can you imagine anything more futile than that? Running after trying to catch the wind, you can't get it. You can't get it in your grasp. You have nothing at the end of that kind of effort. And that's exactly what Solomon uses to describe that kind of lifestyle. When you do get to the top of the ladder, when you do get the attention you want it, you look at your hand and it's empty. You've chased the wind and haven't been able to get it. That's the success, a hydraulic. The Solomon then moves to the total other end of the spectrum. He swings all the way to the other side with the next description in verse 5. This is the guy that the Bible calls in verse 5, the sluggard. Now that doesn't use the word there, but you'll see that it's describing the sluggard or the lazy person. This is the kind of person who says, man, I don't want to be like that, success, a hydraulic. I don't want to be in the rat race of life. And he swings all the way to the other end of the spectrum and says, I'm just going to fold my hands and do nothing. I'm not going to do anything. Why work so hard in a dog eat dog world and end up like that guy? So no ambition to achieve anything, no effort to do any successful work, just kind of drift through life. Now notice how Solomon describes this person. Interesting expression he uses, fools fold their hands and ruin themselves. Interesting word picture, isn't it? Does it mean that you know just folding your hands? Maybe he's praying. No, that's not it. Well maybe he's just relaxing a little bit and is recliner. No, that's not it. This was an expression that was used several times by Solomon by the way. And in the culture of that day, it was an expression that was used to describe a lazy person. By the way, Solomon does use it a couple of other times at least in the book of Proverbs. If you'll hold your place here and turn back to chapter six, I don't have this one on the screen for you because you still do need to learn how to turn in your Bible to other places. And Proverbs is pretty easy for me. Cleans the ass. These just go back a few pages. And chapter six in Proverbs, verse six. Where Solomon says, go to the ant, you sluggard, consider its ways and be wise. It has no commander, no overseer or ruler. There was no one telling it that it has to do this. But verse eight, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. There's hard work, work actually in advance, planning, preparing to be ready for the hard times. That's vision, foresight, hard work toward a goal. That's a good thing he says. He says you sluggard, you need to go to the ant and learn. And here's what you need to learn, verse nine. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber. Here it is. A little folding of the hands to rest. And poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man. That's a certain way to ruining yourself. Solomon says, little folding of the hands. He describes it again in a cultural way that would be very familiar. Might even elicit a few smiles from his listeners and his readers in chapter 24 of Proverbs. Chapter 24, verse 30. When he says, I went past the field of a sluggard. There's that word again. Pass the vineyard of someone who has no sense. That's the fool. He calls this person a fool in Ecclesiastes. Here's what he's filled, looked like. Verse 31, Thorns had come up everywhere. The ground was covered with weeds. The stone wall was in ruins. In other words, you go by this guy's field and he hasn't kept up with it. He hasn't kept the weeds out. He hasn't repaired his wall when it's beginning to crumble or break down. He just hasn't kept up with things. Verse 32, I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw. Here's the lesson, verse 33, a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest. And poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcely like an armman. A sense familiar, doesn't it? That expression is used over and over again and was a common one in Solomon's day of the description of the lazy person. This is a person who just folds his hands. There's no constructive work. Applies himself really to nothing in life. Sleep, slumber, folding of the hands. And he's lazy. There's no ambition at all. And so the result of that person in verse 5 is fools, fold their hands and ruin themselves. I actually wish the, the, you know, I've had translated it very literally. The Hebrew literally says and eat their own flesh. They eat their own flesh. Obviously, it is a word picture, a metaphor for they destroy themselves. But it's kind of, it's kind of an interesting word picture. It's kind of like a bear in hibernation. You know, he's not doing anything. So he's just using up his own stored body fat and pretty soon that runs out and he's starting to use other parts of his body. He never gets up in the spring and eats. It'll all be gone for long. That's the idea here. He eats his own flesh. In other words, he consumes himself. He ruins himself. It's a good way to apply it that the NIV does. Laziness? No, that's not the way to go either. The success of Hale. Uh-uh. The slugger. Nah. There's got to be a balance between those two ends of the spectrum. And that's the balance that Solomon describes in verse 6. This is the first thing I'm going to call the satisfied. And I think you'll see the word fits as we look at the verse. He says, better, one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind. Ah, here's the better way. The better approach to life and to work. Not the success of Hale, like who is motivated by greed, who is motivated by the continual striving to keep up with and get beyond what everybody else has. Not that person. But also not the slugger, who says, I don't like that kind of ambition, so I'm just going to have none. No. Now, there's a balance here. The proper approach to life and work is one who says one handful with tranquility or peace or satisfaction. That's better than the grasping, clawing, two handfuls. I'm going to get everything I can get, man. And I'm going to get it with both hands going as fast as they can go. Better, better, have one handful. See what that says? That says there is some good ambition. There is hard work, enough at least to provide for your needs. But the other hand is left free to tend to other parts of your life, like your relationship with God, your relationship with your family. Service to others. The other hand is left free to do that. Left open is not clutching anything. You've got one handful. Yeah, there's modest possessions. There is godly ambition to do what is best, to work hard, but that is balanced with a recognition that there must also be some limits, balance the toil with rest and time to refresh and rejuvenate quiet spirit, time to be with family. A few years ago I read something in daily bread and I looked it back up this week, had a little trouble finding it, but I remembered this story. It's a great story. I love what it says. The writer quoted Philip Parham, who tells the story of a rich industrialist who was disturbed one day as he walked out to the dock to his yacht. He was disturbed to find a fisherman, just kind of idly sitting by his boat, enjoying the water and watching the sunset. And the rich industrialist said to him, why aren't you out there fishing? And the fisherman smiled and said, well, I've caught enough fish for today. Well, that kind of irritated the industrialist. And so his response was, why don't you catch more fish than you need? The fisherman said, well, what would I do with them? The rich industrialist by now was getting quite impatient and irritated and he said, well, you could earn more money. Of course, you could buy a better boat. You could go deeper, catch more fish. You could get better nets. You could catch more fish. And then you could make more money. And before long, you'd have a whole fleet of boats and you'd be rich like me. And the rich or the fisherman looked back at him and said, well, then what would I do, and the rich industrialist thought for a moment and said, well, then you could just relax and enjoy life. The fisherman smiled and said, what do you think I'm doing now? I like that story because to me, it illustrates the person who has one hand full, but leaves the other hand with some balance to cultivate other things in life. Solomon says it this way in his corresponding book of Proverbs. He says it in chapter 15, and this one is on the screen. Don't want to wear out your hands too much today. This one is on the screen, chapter 15. He says, better is a little with fear of the Lord. Okay? So you've got one hand full, but you've also left the other hand free to cultivate your relationship with God. There is little with the fear of the Lord, then great wealth grasping with both hands with turmoil, that competitive spirit, you see. Okay? It's another way of saying it. Look at the next contrast. Better a small serving of vegetables with love. Okay? You may not have quite as much, but you've left some time to develop a relationship with those you love your family. Okay? Better to have that than a fat and a calf with hatred. Before we go on, Barry, just pause on that one for a moment. This one's a little hard for me to swallow, pun intended here. It's like saying, better is a salad, rabbit food, than a juicy steak, but it's better to eat the salad if you've got love in your family than to have the richest table you could possibly have with all the fine food you could have, but you had to claw and scratch to get to that point, and you don't even love the person sitting next to you anymore. See what he's saying about the balance? Now let's move on to the third contrast in chapter 16, verse 8. Better a little with righteousness than much gain with injustice. Much better that you had not scratched and clawed your way to the top by hurting other people, and maybe had a little less but to have lived right justly. Then to have a lot that you cheated everybody to get there. Balance. I love what Chuck Swindall says at the end of these verses in his wonderful commentary of application. He says, these statements ought to be required reading at Harvard and Stanford Business Schools. Peter Drucker's 839 page volume entitled, Management, telling you how to be a success in business, ought to quote Solomon's word so every reader would have the benefit of hearing divine counsel alongside human advice. He says, I'd also like to see Ecclesiastes 4-1-8 printed just below the heading of every issue of the Wall Street Journal, right up there at the top so that businessmen and career women around the world upon picking up that newspaper would read Solomon's wisdom first. He said, if I had my way, I would see to it that every young executive, every entrepreneur, every professional man or woman climbing the corporate ladder of success, hoping to fulfill lifelong dreams would receive a postcard immediately following New Year's Day with this pass you the scripture written on it. He reminds us of the Surgeon General's warning on cigarette packages that says the Surgeon General has determined that cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health and he says, I wish a similar warning could appear at the bottom of every diploma of every person who graduates with a degree in business or finance and I might add any other degree for that matter. Having warning the God of Heaven has determined that success can be lethal. Now please understand it doesn't have to be lethal, success is fine. If the one hand you have full holds a lot, that's fine. No problem with that at all. Solomon's not saying that. He's asking you, did you leave the other hand free to cultivate the other important parts of your life? Did you have that balance in your life? That is so necessary to finding the meaning and fulfillment and joy in life that he's advocating in this book. Yes, there are hard realities in life and Solomon is making us aware of the fact that he knows that. He takes those into account when he's describing the fact that God has a beautiful plan and everything fits together in his timing. He knows that there are times when we look up at the heavens and say, why is life so unfair? Why does it have to be so hard? He knows that. But not only is he showing us, he knows that. He is also challenging us to look at our lives and I want to close with this this morning. Are you one of those under oppression, whatever kind of oppression it may be? Are you one of those who cries at yourself to sleep at night because of the oppressive atmosphere under which you live? There is one who hears those cries. There is a comforter, there is a savior. Cast your care upon him because he cares for you. Are you one of those who oppresses others in your home, in your workplace, wherever it may be, that competitive spirit? You want to oppress others? That is a sin against God that he will judge someday unless you judge it now and get right with him. Are you one who operates by that competitive spirit, that successaholic drive in life? Everything you do is motivated by the fact that someone else got this, someone else is advancing in this part of their life. I have got to keep up. Is that the way you live? You will chase after the wind the rest of your life. Maybe you are one who is just plain lazy and you don't do anything. Or so that is not the way to live either. You will ruin yourself that way. Have you learned, are you learning, discovering, seeking to implement in your life that proper balance? Yes, a good measure of ambition and desire to work hard and provide and please God with the way you work. Yes. But one hand, with tranquility, peace, satisfaction in life, cultivating your relationship with God and with others and leaving room in your life, margin in your life to do that. The challenge is there before us. Let's pray.