Alright, let's turn back to Ecclesiastes
chapter 9. I have studied this passage here
and read it and read it and read it some more. And sometimes,
you know, as I get into a passage of Scripture and as you read
through this, if you hadn't read it before and you heard Brother
Bill read it, you know, there seems to be some strange things,
some mind-boggling things these books of wisdom like Ecclesiastes. And sometimes I feel like I'd
just rather just all, let's all just go in the back here and
sit down around tables and read through this and let's just talk
about it. But you know the Bible says it pleased God to save his
people through the foolishness of preaching. And so I'm going
to preach to you tonight. I don't have any problems with
preaching to you. But sometimes as we go through these things
we You know, it takes some thought, doesn't it? It takes some time. And I've tried to keep this in
context. What I want to talk to you about
tonight is joy in living by grace and wisdom. Joy in living by
grace and wisdom. Because that's Solomon's theme
here. As I dealt with the first six verses in our last meeting,
talking about the subject of living dogs and dead lions. As he said, and I took that title
from verse 4, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. And
you can make the application there, the spiritual application
of living dogs being the sinners saved by the grace of God. And
you can equate it with several Biblical applications and illustrations
you can go back to a man named Caleb Who followed Joshua into
the promised land Caleb whose name means dog? Yelping dog Caleb
the faithful dog Joshua being a type of Christ and Caleb being
a type of the faithful ones that are following him and that's
a that's a dog who's been by nature a dead dog, but one who's
been made living, who's been given life by the grace of God
in Christ, spiritual life. And it's certainly better to
be a living dog in that way than it is to be a proud, self-righteous,
religious, sinful, fallen human being under the condemnation
of death, which that would be what the deadline represents
there. You could go back to Mephibosheth
in the book of 2 Samuel. who was from the house of Saul,
but David had made a covenant with Jonathan. And he said, he
asked one day, he said, is there any one left of the house of
Saul that I can show mercy and compassion to? And he sent his
servant down to fetch Mephibosheth. And you remember when Mephibosheth
heard about it, he said, well, what would the king want with
such a dead dog as I am? And that's what we are by nature,
dead dogs. God sent down and he fetched
that dead dog, God did through David, and fetched that dead
dog and brought him into the king's house and cleaned him
up and put the best robes on him and set him down at the king's
table where he feasted all the days of his life. And what a
great picture of salvation that is. And that's a picture of a
sinner rejoicing in Christ, rejoicing, having joy. in living by the
grace of God and the wisdom of God. For in Christ there is the
grace of God. And in Christ there is the wisdom
of God. And then we can talk about that
woman who came to Christ appealing, this Gentile woman who came to
Christ appealing for her sick daughter, saying, Heal my daughter. And Christ looked at her and
said, It's not meat to give the children's bread to dogs. And
the woman, instead of Instead of getting upset and saying,
who are you calling a dog? She said, truth, Lord. That's what I am. I'm a dog.
But even the dogs get the crumbs off the table. And we just have
the crumbs of salvation. You think about that, that's
a great illustration of how God saves a sinner. But we get more
than the crumbs, don't we? Because He who spared not His
own Son, how shall He not with Him freely give us all things?
blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. And that's what the scripture
tells us, how we have an abundant inheritance of grace that we
haven't even begun to see the depths of and the richness of,
but we're complete in Him. And so in that context, it's
certainly better to be a living dog than a dead lion. Somebody
said it's better to be a living Caleb than a dead Pharaoh. How
about that? Or a living Abel than a dead
Cain. And that's certainly true. But,
you know, our hope is in the future. Our hope is in Christ. This world is not our home. This
life is not the be all and the end all. It's not our goal. We
know, especially as we grow older, that we're headed for death.
And Solomon talks about that in the first verses of this passage. That we're all, that's the one
event that he mentions, that Bill read there. There's one
event that happens to all, and that is we're going to die. The
righteous, the justified, the sinners saved by the grace of
God, physical death is going to come to us. This body is dead
because of sin. Now, thank God that death is
not the end. Thank God that death is not the
end of us. That Christ, by His death on
the cross for us, delivered us from the plague and the condemnation
of death. He got the victory over the grave,
1 Corinthians 15 tells us that. But still, this body is dead
because of sin, but the Spirit is alive because of righteousness.
And so death is God's judgment against sin, and it's a continual
reminder of our sinfulness. Who shall deliver me from this
body of death, the body of this death? It's a continual reminder
of who we are and what we are and of this. I love to quote
that verse out of Lamentations chapter 3, it is of the Lord's
mercies that we are not consumed. Malachi 3, 6, I am the Lord,
I change not, therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. If
it weren't for the grace of God in Christ, if it weren't for
God's mercy in Christ, we'd be consumed. And so we live in light
of that. He talks about it here in verse
5, the living know that they shall die. That's more than just
the knowledge that we're going to die, but we know about death.
We know why death has come. We know why we must die. And
we know the only remedy for eternal death, and that's Christ and
Him crucified and risen again. But the dead know not anything.
Now, those who die without Christ, they may think of some type of
afterlife, but they really don't know the score. They don't know
the issues. They don't know the wisdom of God. They don't know
the grace of God. And they may have a joy at times
here on this earth, but it's a short-lived joy. But what Solomon
begins to do in verse 7 is he shows how that our joy, our eternal
spiritual joy, which we have in Christ at all times, even
when we don't feel it now. Now, this joy that we have in
Christ, you know, Paul wrote about it in Philippians. They
call that the epistle of joy, and that's okay. You know, rejoice
always. Again, I say rejoice. And what
he's talking about there, even when we're down and out, even
when we're under the sore trial and the pain and the affliction
of this life, we can still, even at that time, rejoice in Christ.
Certainly we can have confidence in him. And so we have that spiritual
and that eternal joy in Christ by the grace of God. But we also
have this life to deal with. And this life that we have, believe
it or not, no matter what you're going through tonight or what
you'll go through tomorrow, it's a gift from God. It's a gift
from God. And we're to live it in joy.
Now, that doesn't mean every second, every minute, every day
is going to be a joyous occasion for us. That doesn't mean that
at all. But it does mean that we're to live this life in the
light of God's grace and God's wisdom. Now, it's common. He
says in verse 7, look here, go thy way. How are we to react
to all this stuff about the issues of death and life? He says, go
thy way. That means keep on going. That
means go about your daily life. Eat thy bread, have your supper. You don't have to feel guilty
about that, you know. They used to tell us when we
were children, you know, clean your plate. There's children
somewhere in India or Africa somewhere starving. China, you
know. Well, there's children here starving,
you know, in this country too. And that's the sad thing. Now,
don't get me wrong. I mean, we ought to feed the
hungry when we can. Now, it's not the responsibility
of the church to take on the problems of the world. That's
not what we're here for. We're here to spread the gospel
of God's grace in Christ. But he says, go thy way and eat
thy bread with joy. You can take pleasure. You can
take joy out of the things that you have in this life. And he
says, drink thy wine with a merry heart. All things in moderation,
all things as a gift from God, all things. It is not sinful
for a believer to enjoy the good things that God has given us
in this life. That's what Solomon is saying,
and that's a theme that runs through Ecclesiastes. Now, he's talking about the fulfillment
that we have as a gift from God in this physical life. And he
says, enjoy it to its fullest, but know that its fullest can
only be realized in the glory and grace of God. He says, for
God now accepteth thy works. We're accepted of God. And it's
not by our works that we are accepted. But God does accept
us and our works in Christ. We don't have to go through this
life like the mule or the horse being clubbed over the head by
the law in order to get us to do what we need to do. We have
the grace of God, the joy of Christ within our hearts by the
Holy Spirit that motivates us, motivates us in obedience and
worship by God's grace. Not to make ourselves righteous.
Christ is our righteousness. Not to earn from God the forgiveness
of our sins. It's by the blood of Christ that
we're forgiven. Not in order to attain or maintain
salvation. That's by the power and grace
of God in Christ. But as a living picture as a
living example and illustration of the grace and power of God
of just simply saying, thank you, Lord. That's what he's talking
about. He says in verse 8, let thy garments
be always white. Those are garments of festivity. That's what he's talking about.
Now, of course, we can certainly see our garment of salvation,
which is the imputed righteousness of Christ. We stand before God
in a perfect white garment. That's not a literal coat that
we're wearing. That's the merits of Christ's
obedience unto death that's been charged to our account. And that's
a good picture, an illustration of that. But you know, that's
a garment of rejoicing. How can we rejoice before a holy
God? Because we stand complete before
Him in Christ. We stand washed in his blood
and clothed in his righteousness. And therefore, he says, let thy
garments be always white. In other words, even in this
life, we can wear the garments of festivity. We can wear the
garments of celebration. We can celebrate life. That's
what he's talking about. Now, I know that's a religious
cliché. But for the believer, it's a reality. And I want to
show you the opposite of that in just a moment. He says in
verse 8, "...and let thy head like no ointment." Now, that
ointment is usually a picture in the Scripture of the work
of the Spirit, who gives us the knowledge of grace and wisdom
in Christ, who gives us the joy, the joy of the Holy Ghost, peace
and joy in believing by the Holy Ghost, the Scripture says. God
has already accepted us. How do I know that? The Holy
Spirit has taught me that from the Word of God. God accepts
me in Christ, in the Beloved. I stand before God complete because
the Spirit has anointed my head with oil. He's brought me to
Christ and he's left me with Christ to rest there. Now, all
these things are gifts from God. Look at verse 9. He says, live
joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life
of thy vanity. Now, don't get me wrong here,
Solomon's saying. This life is temporary. This
life is not our goal. This world is not our home, you
see. Life on this earth without God,
without Christ, without grace, is nothing but vanity, emptiness. But when we see these things
as a gift from God, just like you men who have your wives,
and you wives who have your husband, you enjoy each other. There's
nothing sinful about that. The marriage bed is undefiled,
the Scripture says. The husband and the wife, there
to be a living picture of Christ and His church. Christ who is
the head, and the wife who is the helpmate, the picture is
the church. And he says, live joyfully with
the wife of thy youth, whom thou lovest all the days of the life
of thy vanity, which he, now listen, verse 9, which he hath
given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity. This
life ultimately is vanity, but God has graced us and given us
these gifts for our enjoyment. He says, for that is thy portion
in this life. And when he says thy portion,
it has the sense of saying there's somebody who's portioned this
out. And that's God. He's given us these great gifts,
our fellowship, our friendship, all of these things. Sometimes
we're not very good stewards of those things. Sometimes we
mess up, abuse ourselves, abuse each other. And that's sinful. But if we enjoy them in the right
way, he says, and in thy labor which thou takest unto the sun,
verse 10, look here, he says, whatsoever thy hand findeth to
do, do it with thy might. In other words, be the best you
can be. If God gives you, if he gives you the gift of employment,
be the best employee that you can be or be the best employer.
Whatever gift he's given you, in whatever way, work as unto
the Lord. and be the best you can be. Do
it with thy might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge,
nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest." Those things will
be gone someday. That's what he's saying. So while
you have them, while you draw the breath here in this life,
do it for the glory of God and for the good of His people. These
are the issues. Now you see, it's common in religion,
false religion that is, to think that any enjoyment in this life
is a sin. That in order to be a real Christian,
you have to withdraw. You have to kind of become a
hermit or a monk. Monasticism. And certainly, you
can't taste it, touch it, or handle it. You can't do that.
Turn to Colossians chapter 2. I want to show you this. I want
to show you what the Bible calls that. You know, when people talk
about worldliness. Worldliness. Now, what is worldliness?
acting like the world. Well, you would certainly think
of the most immoral perversions of people that you can think
of, and that is worldliness, that is acting like the world.
But here's something that God reveals to us by His Spirit that
we don't think of by nature until He enters into our lives and
shows us reality. And listen to what He says here
in Colossians chapter 2, in verse 16. Now, he'd just been talking
about how we who are saved by grace are complete in Christ. Our completeness is in Christ,
not in ourselves. Because we're still not what
we want to be and what we shall be in ourselves. That's why John
said in 1 John 3.1 or 3.2, it does not yet appear what we shall
be. In other words, I don't know what I'm really going to look
like or be like when I'm in glory, and you don't either. But I know
it's going to be perfect. I know it's going to be complete
in myself. I know I'm going to be like Christ.
I know there's not going to be sin, there's not going to be
tears, no sorrow. I don't know what I can even
imagine something like that. How about you? I mean, that's
a dream to me, and even my dreams are full of sin. So we can't
even think about things like that. That's why we run this
race looking into Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,
and all those things. But right now, and you preach
this, as He is, so are we in this world. You see, right now
I can tell you that I'm perfect in Christ. I'm righteous in Christ,
before God now, who looks upon the heart. I'm holy in Christ,
as righteous and as holy as I'll ever be in Him. Now, not in myself. In myself, Paul described it
in Philippians chapter 3, how I'm striving towards the mark
of the high calling. So, I'm perfect in Christ, but
in myself, I'm still a sinner, saved by the grace of God. Now,
what is it? What is it that makes a sinner
righteous? What is it that makes a person
holy? Well, you've got to wear your
hair a certain way, you've got to wear certain clothes. Be like
that preacher down south when he wouldn't let the women wear
anything but long dresses and long-sleeved dresses. And you
know it gets hot down south. And there was one woman who asked
him, she said, she said, is it all right if I roll up my sleeves
when I wash the dishes so I won't get my sleeves wet? And the preacher
told her, he said, up with the sleeves, down into hell. You believe that story? Is that
a preacher's tale? They actually told that down south. I don't
know. I mean, you think about it. Think about it. I had a lady
ask me one time, she said, I was convinced that if I wore pants
to church, I'd go to hell. And I said, now all that time
you claimed to believe salvation by grace, didn't you? She said,
yeah, I did. Now think about that. But see,
this is what goes through people's minds. This is what appeals to
us by nature and what we know by nature. And religion, false
religion, feeds upon that stuff and feeds it. But that's not
grace, that's not wisdom, and it's certainly not joy. former
fashion. So listen to what he says. He
says, we're complete in Christ. We died with Christ. We were
buried with Him. We arose again. We're justified
before God by Him. And the handwriting of ordinances
in the law, Christ blotted them out. They were nailed to the
cross. And so he says, look at verse 16 now of Colossians 2.
Now listen. He says, let no man therefore judge you in meat. or in drink, or in respect of
an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days." Don't
you let them judge you in their religious practices. Whether you're saved, lost, righteous,
unrighteous, wise, foolish, that's not the right judgment. He says,
verse 17, those things were a shadow of things to come. But the body,
now what's the body there? That's the Church, is of Christ. Am I truly a child of God? A member of His church? Christ
is my hope. Not whether I eat certain meats
or don't eat certain meats, drink certain drinks or don't drink
certain drinks, or keep certain days or don't keep certain days.
That has nothing to do with it. Those things were pictures of
Christ to come. And so, look here. He says in
verse 18, let no man beguile you. Now, that literally means
judge against you. of your reward in a voluntary
humility. Now that voluntary humility is
a self-imposed humility. Submission to the ordinances
of men has nothing to do with the spiritual humility that the
Holy Spirit brings us to when we are convicted of sin and submitted
to Christ. Now you can get a self-imposed
humility. They're preachers who preach
legalism, who get people to be humble with a self-imposed humility. But it's not of the Spirit of
God. And I'll tell you how you can find out. And it's very simple. If it's of the Holy Spirit, if
the humility, the conviction is of the Holy Spirit, you'll
end up one place, in one person, for relief, for salvation, for
peace, for comfort, for holiness, for righteousness. And that's
Christ and Him alone. You won't end up keeping a holy
day in order to soothe your conscience. You won't end up in abstinence,
taste not, touch not, handle not, to get to soothe your conscience.
You'll end up in one place, Christ and His blood and righteousness
alone. And so he says, let no man beguile you or judge against
you in your reward in a self-imposed humility and worshiping of angels. Now, that worshiping of angels
there, it could be In some ways, the worshipping of angelic beings,
that is sort of common, but some commentators say that's just
talking about angels there being messengers. And one commentator
says this, and I think this is included, it's following preachers,
not following Christ. You follow preachers. Paul said,
you follow me as I point you to Christ. You follow Christ. And he says, intruding into those
things which he hath not seen, he's not been vainly puffed up
in his fleshly mind, and not holding the head. Now, what that
means is literally, not holding up Christ, who is our head. That's
what I want to do tonight. If you have any joy in eternity,
if you have any joy in this life, I want it to be in Christ, whom
I'm holding up before you. He must increase, I must decrease. And I believe Solomon has that
in mind. You have to understand here, as Solomon goes through
these thoughts that the Holy Spirit is inspiring him to write
in Ecclesiastes, he's writing this as a believer who has a
hope that's in Christ, the same hope that you and I have. And
so he says, "...not holding the head from which all the body,
by joints and bands having nourishment, ministered and knit together,
increaseth with the increase of God." There's the growth of
the body. by holding up Christ, the head. And that's what keeps
the body together. And the moment that preachers
or people don't hold up Christ, the head, the body starts to
fall apart. Not the true church now. You
understand what I'm saying? That's when there comes divisions
and problems and all that. So he says in verse 20, now look
at this in Colossians 2, he says, Wherefore, if you be dead with
Christ, that's our union with Christ, in his death, he died
for the sins of his sheep. When he died, we died. When he
was buried, we were buried. When he arose again, we arose
again. And we're dead with him from the rudiments or elements
of the world. Why is no living in the world?
Are you subject to ordinances? Touch not, taste not, handle
not. You see, that's the opposite
of what Solomon is saying over here. He says, eat your bread
with joy. Drink your wine with a merry
heart. Live joyfully with the wife of thy youth, whom you've
loved all the days of your life. Don't get involved in this religiosity,
this taste not, touch not, handle not, thinking that your righteousness
is wrapped up in what you don't do. Your righteousness is wrapped
up in one person and one alone, and that's Christ. And he says
in verse 22 of Colossians 2, which are all to perish with
the using. What vanity that is. Oh, they can go through this
life denying themselves, as they say, the pleasures of this world.
And I'm not talking about sinful pleasures here now. You know
better than that. I'm not talking about throw caution to the wind
and go out and live like the devil. That's not what I'm talking
about. I'm talking about the use of all things in moderation
to the glory of God, to the praise of the glory of His grace. And
don't be afraid if some Pharisee looks at you and calls you a
sinner. Don't be afraid of that now.
I've heard people use that verse that said avoid all the very
appearance of evil. That verse doesn't say avoid
the appearance of what everybody calls evil. Just because they
call it evil doesn't mean it is. You avoid the appearance
of anything that God calls evil. That's what he's saying. And
he says, after the commandments and doctrines of men, which things
have indeed a show of wisdom, verse 23. You see, we want a
joy in the grace and wisdom of God in Christ. We don't want
to just have a show of wisdom, an outward show of religion in
will worship. There's that self-imposed worship
again, and humility and neglecting the body, not in any honor to
the satisfying of the flesh. In other words, there's no value,
you know, when people Here's what he's saying here. People
think that when they get involved in this taste-not, touch-not,
handle-not, legalistic religion, they think they're denying the
flesh. They're not indulging the flesh.
Do you know the reality of it? Is they're actually feeding the
flesh. They're actually indulging the
flesh when they do that. And that's what he means there
when he says, not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh.
They're actually feeding the flesh and they don't know it.
Don't you thank God that He's delivered us from that deception. And that takes a work of the
Holy Spirit. That's what Paul said in Philippians 3 when he
was talking about if any man could boast in the flesh, I more. And then he begins to list the
works of the flesh, and every one of them is religious. Now,
I know that there are people who need to be delivered from
the immoral practices of this world. The drunks and the drug
addicts and all of that, the sexual addicts. Yes, sir. If
that's your problem, you need to repent of it. Listen, we all
have a sin problem. Don't get me wrong. But these
things that men by nature don't see. Go back to Ecclesiastes
9. Listen to it. Live joyfully,
he said. Enjoy this life as much as you can. Not overindulging
yourself, not being selfish, not being a bad steward of the
grace of God and the gifts of God, but in a way that glorifies
and honors Him. Look at verse 11 here. He says
in verse 11, he says, I returned and saw under the sun that the
race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither
yet bread to the wines. nor yet riches to men of understanding,
nor yet favor to men of skill, but time and chance happeneth
to them all. He says, for man also knoweth
not his time. You don't know when you're going
to die. I mean, doctors can tell you you've got six months to
live. You got a year. They don't really know. They
might have a good guess. But no man, for man also knows
not his time as the fishes that are taken in an evil net and
as the birds that are caught in the snare. So are the sons
of men snared in an evil time when it falls suddenly upon them. You might ask this question here.
How is wisdom better under the sun? How is wisdom? When you
think about it, how does it do us any good under the sun now?
We understand how it does us in salvation. Christ is our wisdom.
But how does that help us here on earth? How is it that when we look around
and we see that sometimes the best team just doesn't win? And
some of you Kentucky fans will really enter into that one, don't
you? It's not always the best team that wins, right? That's
what Solomon is saying. The race is not always to the
swift. I mean, you can be faster than anybody else, but you won't
win all the races sometimes. These things don't come out the
way we expect them to come out. Sometimes it comes out the opposite.
He says this, time and chance happeneth to them all. Do you
ever think you'd see the word chance in the Bible? Chance. Well, it doesn't mean
what most people think it means, but let me say this. You know,
we'll oftentimes, and under the sun here as we look around, you
know, we'll talk about accidents. Well, we know in God's time and
purpose, there are no accidents. There's no such thing as luck
or chance to God. But it seems to us that way,
doesn't it? You know, circumstances, we look around. In fact, there
are times it seems like chaos, doesn't it? Random. Everything random. So what can
be the advantage of wisdom? Well, he tells us, is it possible
to know in this world of vanity what's really good and what's
really right? Is it possible to know under
the sun what the future holds for us? Well, Solomon has already
answered that question. But always go to the last two
verses of the book of Ecclesiastes. And that brings us to that conclusion
in chapter 12, verse 13, when he says, let us hear the conclusion
of the whole matter. Fear God. Trust God. Worship
God. Praise God. Rest in Christ. And keep His commandments. For
this is the whole duty of man. No matter what happens. No matter
if the best team loses today. No matter if they win tomorrow,
no matter if the strong, if they seem to lose the battle today,
no matter, listen to me, no matter if what we view as right and
just seems to lose out in our court systems today, here's the
conclusion. Fear God and keep his commandments. That's living with joy in the
wisdom and in the grace of God. Now, he concludes this chapter
with something that's really interesting. I want you to see
it. This is the way we'll close the message. He gives us an illustration. It's a little story here. And
it shows us how wisdom is always better than foolishness and vanity. And listen to what he says in
verse 13. He says, "...this wisdom have I seen also under the sun,
and it seemed great unto me." This is great now, he says. I
want you to hear it. He says, "...there was a little
city, and few men within it. And there came a great king,"
you might say a dead lion, "...and besieged and built great
bulwarks against this little city with fear being in it. Verse
15, now there was found in it a poor wise man, you might say
a living dog, a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered
the city. Now he didn't really go into
detail here about how all that happened, but Solomon says this,
he said, I've seen it and it's great. This poor, wise man, essentially
came up against this great king, and he says, by his wisdom, this
poor, wise man delivered the city, yet no man remembered that
same poor man. He wasn't set down. You know,
think about in history. Who do you remember? Alexander
the Great. Well, ultimately, he was defeated,
and he died in abject sorrow. Think about Napoleon. You remember
Napoleon, but you don't remember the little guys out here whom
God, by wisdom, used to defeat him. But we'll talk about these
great kings, these conquerors, you say. But here this poor wise
man, it says, no man remembered that same poor man. Verse 16,
he says, then said I, wisdom is better than strength. Nevertheless,
the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard.
Man by nature always still aspires to be great and powerful and
rich rather than wise, especially in the things of the Lord. Verse
17, the words of the wise men are heard in quiet more than
the cry of him that ruleth among fools. Wisdom is better than
weapons of war, but one sinner destroyeth much good. What's
he saying here? Well, he's essentially saying
this, what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1.25, the wisdom or the foolishness
of God is wiser than men. And the weakness of God is stronger
than men. Two things about this fellow,
this poor wise man in this city, he outmaneuvers this great king
some way. Don't know how, but it's by wisdom.
And secondly, he was never honored in the least for his wisdom.
But is there no advantage for wisdom? The man himself got no
advantage for himself, but for the whole city it was saved.
We must not think of the advantage of wisdom only as it applies
to ourselves. You understand that? It doesn't
matter if you remember me or not. But if God uses one message
that I preach to save one sinner from his sins and bring that
sinner to Christ, Let's remember that. It's the grace and wisdom
of God. Do you know this is a great illustration
of Christ himself and our salvation by him? This one who in himself,
as God is great and powerful and all-wise, made himself of
no reputation, became a man of sorrows, a poor wise man, wisdom
incarnate himself. But he became poor. for our sake,
that we might be saved, that we might be made strong. He became
poor that we might be made rich. And that wisdom of God in the
salvation of his people through the cross of Christ That city
with few men in it, he said, few there be that find it. It
was saved by the poor wise man, the Lord Jesus Christ, the God
man, by his wisdom, who is wisdom himself. God is enabled to be
just and justifier. And really, when we think about
it, we're here tonight to remember him, but the world doesn't. The
world doesn't think, oh, they named the name of Jesus. But
we know by God's revelation, it's not the Jesus of the book
here. It's not the Jesus of the Bible.
It's one who's defeated and one who's trying and one who can,
if you'll let him, but not the God of this book. That's an illustration
of how God saved us right there. Great King, oh, a dragon revelation
came against this city. But our Lord said, upon this
rock I'll build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail
against it. And how in the world did he accomplish
that? By what seemed to be his defeat
as he went to the cross and died for our sins. But here's the
wisdom of God. What seemed to be his defeat
was his victory and our victory. And therefore, wisdom is certainly
better than power than the strength of men, and the riches of men,
and the works of men. And so, with that in mind, we
have every right and every mandate from a holy God to rejoice in
Christ always, no matter what we're going through in this life,
and to enjoy the things that God has given us on this earth
to His glory and our good.