Music
Good afternoon everybody and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
Music
Amen. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you need a bulletin, you can lift up your hand nice and high. One of our ushers can come by and get you a bulletin. We're on verse 14 of Psalm 59.
For our memorization on the inside service and soul winning times, our church stats down below on the right, we have a list of our expecting ladies.
I encourage you to continue to pray for them for their pregnancies and their deliveries. Also upcoming events. So we had the dessert fellowship for the Oz family.
Brother Oz is actually going to be preaching at faithful word this week. So that's why he's not here this evening, but his family is still here. And so if you can just at least say bye and thank them for being here.
Also, I think he sent a message. If anybody wants to help them, I think they're planning on needing some help moving on Friday. So if you'd like to help them on that. Also, August 15th to the 17th is our mighty men's conference. There is a sign up sheet out there.
But if you didn't already sign up, really just need to contact me just so I have an idea. We had to turn in our numbers and stuff, but I'd still like to know. Also down below August 24th, we have a baby shower in honor of a couple ladies.
September 1st is going to be the ordination of Brother Salvador Alvarez for Pure Words Baptist Church. And that's going to be really exciting. If you can, please encourage them, pray for them.
And if you know Brother Salvador, maybe send him a message or anything like that. That would be a great blessing to him. And I'm excited to see what the Lord will do down in Houston.
It's definitely a huge area that needs a good church. And so we're definitely committed to being friends with Pure Words no matter what. And we'll always help them. But it'll be good for them to kind of separate and be on their own and allow them to do their own thing.
And so really looking forward to that. It's been a long time coming. And so please do pray for that. Also, September 8th, Dr. Phil Stringer is going to be coming and preaching for us. He's a great preacher.
Very knowledgeable in the King James Bible and several issues. And I would encourage you to participate in both services. He's going to be preaching both the morning and the evening service. And so if you can, try to make both of those services.
October 4th through the 6th is our Heritage of the Lord Conference. I'm hoping to have the spelling bee words prepared and ready by Sunday morning. And we'll put the link on our website like we usually do.
So if you want to download, it's going to be very similar to last year's list, just considering we've used a lot of words. And so there's no guarantee on what words will be picked, but at least for a study bank and everything like that.
Also, there is the baby shower details below. It's going to be from 12 to 2 on the 24th. If you'd like to get either of those ladies a gift, they're registered on Amazon.
And our baby showers are nursing's only preferred. On the back, if we skip to the bottom, the congratulations to the Spurgeon family on the birth of Flint Edward. He was born on the 2nd, 707, weighing 6 pounds, 11 ounces, 19 inches long. Congratulations to them.
And so I guess they're taking back all of those Calvin's names, you know what I mean? So there you go. No, I'm just kidding. Also, we have our prayer list. So if you'd be in prayer for the Naim's grandmother still, Miss Carlson's mother.
Also, we've been praying for Miss Tamara, which is one of the Miller's friend. We've been praying for brother Scott's nephew, Mark, for his heart. We've been praying for Miss Garcia's daughter, Crystal, who's also pregnant.
And also we've been praying for brother Foley, for his fiance. We've been praying for brother Carlos. He had a prayer request in here for Dr. Gomez and for his health. Also for his mother. We've been praying for the Spurgeon's. They unfortunately lost their grandfather recently.
Also praying for the Ellie's neighbors. And so we have several prayer requests in there. If you have any additional, you can always email them in. But we'll say a quick word of prayer for our prayer list now.
Thank you Heavenly Father so much for Steadfast Baptist Church. And thank you so much for all these ladies who are expecting. I pray that you just be with them during their pregnancies. Please help them with a smooth and timely delivery.
I pray that you could also bless our church family that's sick or needs healing or needs a miracle. I pray that you could just bless them with that. I pray that you'd also bless our friends and family that are also struggling with health issues, that you could perform a miracle in their lives.
I pray that you'd also help us to be a witness to those individuals that need to get saved, to hear the gospel. I pray that you would just soften their hearts, that you'd give us the right opportunities, you'd give us boldness to preach.
I pray that you'd also give favor unto our church members for needing that in their jobs and those who are needing it in their relationships. I pray that you would just continue to bless our church to be a bright and shining light for you. And it's in your son's name, Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
That's all I have as far as announcements. We'll go ahead and sing our third song. It's going to be Psalm 147. Psalm 147. So if you got your special handouts.
All right. That was Psalm chapter 147. Psalm 147. Everybody sing it out together on the first.
Praise ye the Lord, for it is good to sing praises unto our God.
For it is pleasant and praises complete, the Lord doth build up Jerusalem.
He gathered together the outcasts of Israel, he healed with the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds.
He dealt with the number of the stars, he called them all, he called them all by their names.
Great is our Lord, and of great power, to sing praises in his infinite love.
The Lord led them up the peak, he cast the wicked down to the ground.
Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving, sing praise upon the Lord, what you have done.
Who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepare it.
Pray for the earth, who make it grass, grass to grow up from the mountains.
He giveth to the beast his food, and to the old ravens which cry.
He delighteth on in the strength of the force he taketh, not pleasure in.
The legs of a man will Lord take him, pleasure in them.
Have fear in those that hope in his mercy.
Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem.
Praise thy God, O Zion.
Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem.
He hath strengthened the cause, the right makes he have rest.
Thy children within me keep making peace in my borders and filling me.
With the finest of the reason, this birth is demanded.
The fine earth is worth running very swiftly.
Scattered rhythm, so I know.
Souls who can stand before his call.
He shall live now, his word and will live then because of his good will.
And the waters flow to show him his word unto Jacob.
He shall live now, his word and will live then because of his good will.
And the waters flow to show him his word unto Jacob.
Please return in your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter number one.
That's the book of Ecclesiastes chapter number one.
And the waters flow to show him his word unto Jacob.
Ecclesiastes chapter number one, the Bible reads,
The words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem,
vanity of vanities, sayeth the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?
One generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever.
The sun also ariseth and the sun goeth down and hasteth to his place where he arose.
The wind goeth toward the south and turneth about unto the north.
The earth about continually and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.
All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full.
Unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.
All things are full of labor. Man cannot utter it.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be.
And that which is done is that which shall be done.
And there is no new thing under the sun.
Is there anything whereof it may be said?
See, this is new. It hath been already of old time, which was before us.
There is no remembrance of former things,
neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.
I, the preacher, was king over Israel and Jerusalem,
and I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom,
concerning all things that are done under heaven.
This sore travail hath God given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith.
I have seen all the works that are done under the sun,
and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
That which is crooked cannot be made straight,
and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo,
I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they
that have been before me in Jerusalem.
Yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge,
and I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly.
I perceive that this also is vexation of spirit,
for in much wisdom is much grief,
and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, thank you for the King James Bible,
and thank you for Ecclesiastes chapter 1.
I just pray that you fill Pastor Shelley with your Holy Spirit
to preach unto us your word,
and I pray that we'd be able to have soft hearts
to actually apply this to our lives,
and I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen.
We're starting a new Bible study this evening in the book of Ecclesiastes,
and my Bible actually even says Ecclesiastes or the Preacher,
and so in some context this entire book is also kind of known as
or has another title of the Preacher.
Ecclesiastes is the idea of wisdom.
That's kind of what's being communicated by that word,
and both are appropriate titles for this particular book
and understanding the book of Ecclesiastes.
Now, the little bit difficult part of preaching through the book of Ecclesiastes
is it's really kind of one cohesive thought
from the first chapter to the end,
and the several chapters going through
are kind of leading us up to that really important point
of the book of Ecclesiastes,
and so some of the earlier chapters in the book of Ecclesiastes
are kind of almost I would say black pilling
or they're very negative
or they're even maybe a warped perspective
because the author is trying to go down the train of thought
that he had leading him to this ultimate conclusion,
and so in a sense all these chapters
are going to have the exact same conclusion.
They're all going to illustrate the main point of the book of Ecclesiastes,
and if you would just go to chapter 12 for a second,
and we'll just read it,
and again this is the conclusion to every single chapter,
so it's not necessarily limited to chapter 12
because it really is one cohesive narrative,
but it says in chapter number 12, verse number 13,
let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.
Fear God and keep His commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man,
and it says this,
for God shall bring every work and a judgment
with every secret thing,
whether it be good or whether it be evil.
So you always have to keep that in the back of your mind
when reading the book of Ecclesiastes
because some of the things that he says in this book
almost make it seem like there's just no point to life,
there's no meaning in life,
and that life is completely and utterly meaningless,
and that's how chapter 1 starts,
and it's not to say that there isn't truth in this.
It's just that we ultimately lead to that conclusion, though,
that actually there is meaning in life.
It's fearing God and keep His commandments,
but everything other than that is meaningless.
That's why the preacher starts out here in verse 1,
Now, something you have to understand
about what the Bible does
is it will speak in generalities,
or it'll speak in a particular context,
and so we have to keep that context in mind
when interpreting the Bible.
Is it true to say that literally everything is vanity?
Well, the answer would be no,
because when we get to the end of the book of Ecclesiastes,
we understand that fearing God
and keeping His commandments is important
and that God will judge our works,
but in the context of anything outside of that,
everything else is vanity,
and so that's what the preacher's really getting at
is that the things of this life,
the things of this world,
the carnal things that we have,
they are all vanity.
There's not a single thing that's not vanity
in that particular context.
I also like the idea that the son of David,
or the king, was a preacher.
This sounds like a, quote, theocracy.
Have you ever thought about that,
where the king is also the preacher of God's word?
And would it be God that every leader of every nation
would also be a Christian
and would also be a preacher of the word of God?
And in fact, the qualifications of a bishop
sound like great qualifications for a king,
or a leader too, don't they?
And so we have here Solomon, the wisest man to ever live.
He's also a preacher of the word of God.
He's the son of David.
He's the king in Jerusalem,
and he's come to the conclusion,
and he's trying to tell everybody else,
everything's vanity.
What does vanity mean?
Vanity means it has eternal meaninglessness.
It's meaningless from the scope of eternity.
Now, again, everything in this life
is not meaningless in some contexts.
Obviously, it's important for us to take care of our wives
and take care of our children and to feed ourselves,
and there's a lot of things in this life that we need to do,
and there's no way to just say
that it's just completely and utterly meaningless.
But in the scope of eternity, it is completely meaningless.
In the scope of looking at the things
beyond this life and this world,
all of that stuff is literally meaningless, okay?
So we have to make sure
that we're always interpreting these passages
in their proper context of what we're really describing.
Are we just saying that everything in this life is meaningless
because then at that point, it's like, what's the point of living?
No, it's saying in the scope of eternity,
when you look at what's going to be happening
in the millennial reign and the new heavens and the new earth,
everything now is ultimately meaningless.
Everything now is ultimately vanity in that particular context.
He says in verse 3,
What profit of the man of all his labor
which he taketh under the sun?
One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh,
but the earth abideth forever.
So he's asking this question,
and it's kind of a rhetorical question,
saying, what's the point, what's the benefit,
and all of the works that I do,
because eventually all of us are going to die
and just another generation is going to come.
And he's trying to say, what's the point?
The earth is going to still be here,
but we're just replaced by the next generation.
And what's kind of interesting is he's going to,
in the next few verses,
describe certain eternal cycles or eternal patterns
that we have in our solar system and our universe
to kind of illustrate the aspect of eternity, I believe.
Because notice he's saying, the earth abideth forever.
But the works that we're doing,
they are just going to pass away with our generation,
and then another generation is going to come.
He says in verse 5,
The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down,
and hasteth to his place where he arose.
The wind goeth toward the south,
and turneth about unto the north,
and whirleth about continually,
and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.
All the rivers run into the sea,
yet the sea is not full.
Unto the place from whence the rivers come thither,
they return again.
So what he's kind of describing
is he's kind of describing various phenomenon
that we have in our world
that have like a perpetual cycle.
They're like the energizer bunny.
They just keep going and going and going.
And that's the idea that he's describing.
The earth's abiding forever,
and we also describe certain phenomenon in our solar system.
Verse 5, notice it says,
The sun also ariseth, and then it goes down,
and then it hasteth to its place where it arose.
What's interesting about this verse is,
number one, no matter what you believe about the earth,
the shape of the earth, cosmology, any of these things,
no one interprets this passage as literal.
No one.
And this is what's so funny to me,
is because you'll have people that are like flat earthers,
and they'll say, well, we literally interpret the Bible.
But here's the thing, on a flat earth model,
they don't have the sun going up.
They don't have the sun going down.
They don't have the sun going around back to its own place.
They don't have this flat disc,
and they don't have a sun just going wooooo.
No, they have it going like this, don't they?
So it would be fair to say,
even though I can't stand flat earthers,
their ideology is worse than being mentally retarded.
I don't think, and I have great animosity toward them,
I think I'm being completely fair
in saying that they're not literally interpreting this passage,
that they don't describe it as going down,
or going up, or hastened to its place where it rose again.
They couldn't describe that.
What is being described?
What we observe as an earthbound perspective.
That's what we observe, right?
We that are staring at the east notice the sun going up.
And then if we were to look at the west,
we notice the sun going down.
And then we notice, 12 hours later approximately,
depending on which part of the year and which part of the earth you're on,
I get it, but the sun then comes back up in that same spot in the east,
relatively speaking, every single day like clockwork.
So from an earthbound perspective, the sun is going up.
From an earthbound perspective, the sun's going down.
From an earthbound perspective, the sun's coming back up
from wherever it originated.
And so it's describing, though, the rotation of the earth.
The earth is spinning,
and then from us as an earthbound perspective,
it's observing the sun doing these things relative to us.
It's not describing the sun literally going up and down.
The sun's not even moving in a context of relation to us.
Now, of course, if you believe a lot of modern science,
they'll say that we're all moving in the Milky Way galaxy and all this stuff,
and I'm not trying to get into that.
I'm just saying relative to us, the sun is not technically moving.
We are rotating, which makes perfect sense
because either one of two things is true.
If you're observing something going like this around you,
either one of two things is true.
Either you're spinning or it's moving.
Now, a couple things you have to notice,
that the sun's size is not changing.
It's the same size.
So that also means the distance from that object to us is not changing.
So either, A, we're spinning or the sun is going like this.
But then when you start to try and imagine how the sun could be possibly moving,
that quickly, around the Earth in that type of a shape,
it starts becoming impossible because now the sun's having to move
faster than the speed of light.
And you'd have to believe that every single star, moon,
and even the sun itself are in this perfect synchronized pattern
of just traveling at these incredible rates around an Earth that's not moving.
So none of those things really fit what we observe.
None of those things fit modern science, any of those observations we have.
But the Bible perfectly describes the phenomenon that we see today.
And the Bible perfectly matches science that we even have today
in many of these areas.
And if there was a discrepancy, well then of course the Bible's right
and modern science, it hasn't caught up to it quite yet.
But generally speaking, there's really not even any controversy
between modern cosmology and the Bible.
Really the only controversies that exist is when we talk about history,
not science when we talk about history.
That's when there's a lot of discrepancy specifically,
but when we just talk about what we're observing today,
what the Bible talks about, hey, it's a perfect match.
And again, most of the time the Bible's focusing on things
from an Earth-bound perspective.
That's what it's describing.
And it's describing this process in the context of what?
It being just kind of this pattern.
The Earth is just rotating, and it's like, when is that going to stop?
It's just going to keep spinning.
It just spins and spins and spins and spins,
kind of like a gyroscope or something,
where if it doesn't have any resistance,
well, it's just going to keep spinning.
And we even spin at the same rate, generally speaking.
And so it's just kind of describing what we would think of as maybe an eternal process.
We have other processes being described,
the wind going toward the south,
turning about on the north, it whirls about continually,
and the wind returning again according to its circuits.
It's describing what?
It's describing wind patterns.
And it's describing the wind cycle
and how it's basically in some particular cycle and pattern,
and it just keeps going.
It's just the wind, hey, it's just doing its thing,
same pattern, Earth doing its same pattern.
And then we get another pattern here.
All the rivers run in the sea,
yet the sea is not full under the place from whence the rivers come,
thither they return again.
This is talking about the water cycle.
Also describing a perpetual and eternal cycle.
It's not saying, like, oh, global warming is going to disrupt
and ruin all of this for us.
No.
Even if the sea was filling up,
notice it's saying, well, that water is going to get sucked up in clouds,
they're going to go rain on the rivers,
and it just keeps filling itself and replenishing itself.
And even the water cycle itself is so amazing
because it constantly provides fresh water,
you know, it's snowing on mountains,
and those mountains melt,
and then we get fresh spring water,
and then it goes down into the ocean where it's not drinkable,
and then it gets sucked into clouds,
and then it goes and it snows on the mountains again.
And it's just talking about how God basically created perpetual systems
so that mankind could abide on the Earth forever.
And he's saying, from his perspective,
you know, what's the point of anything I do
because all those things are eternal,
but we just pass away and another generation comes,
and they pass away and then another generation.
So it's like, we aren't in this perpetual cycle
like a lot of these things are.
He's kind of contrasting perpetual life cycles,
systems that exist with mankind, whereas mankind doesn't.
Mankind, they come and they go, they come and they go,
and he's saying, so it's kind of vain.
Plus, I would also say in some context,
he's talking about, like, whatever we do,
we're not going to stop any of those processes from happening either.
We're not going to stop the Earth from rotating,
we're not going to stop the water cycle,
we're not going to stop the wind from blowing.
You know, these things are going to continually happen.
Verse 8, all things are full of labor.
Man cannot utter it.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.
So he also just kind of says, everything, you know, has its job.
You know, the sun's doing its job, the Earth's doing its job.
Everything's, and then we as mankind,
we're constantly working, we're constantly doing stuff,
people are busy doing stuff.
There's always construction, isn't there?
Boy, if you live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area,
you'll start learning quickly.
There's just always construction.
It's just like, you keep thinking, like,
as soon as they get done with one section of road,
you're like, all right, finally,
I won't have to go through construction to drive to church or work or whatever,
but then they just start somewhere else.
Or sometimes it seems like they're just starting construction,
they never finish.
Like, I don't know.
But he's just saying, like, all things are full of labor.
He's like, man cannot utter it.
Meaning, you can't even describe all the work that's going on.
There's just so much stuff.
There's more to talk about than you could ever talk about.
And not only that, we as mankind, we're just never satisfied.
We're going to always keep working, we're always going to build,
we're always doing something,
and even your eyes, they're never satisfied with seeing.
After you've seen a great, like, once you see a great movie,
you're not like, all right, I'm done with movies the rest of my life.
Or you watch a TV show and you're just like, that was so satisfying,
I never need to watch anything ever again.
Never watching YouTube, I'm never watching movies,
I'm never watching anything ever again.
I just was so satisfied with that.
Or, I mean, you know, my wife is beautiful,
I'm never going to be satisfied looking at her one time.
I'm going to keep looking at her.
And I'm never going to be satisfied.
Right?
And it's like, sometimes you'll say, like, take a picture, it'll last longer.
But it's like, that just won't do, right?
We just want to keep looking at the things that we enjoy.
You know, you go and watch fireworks,
but then the next year, you want to watch fireworks again.
And you go and watch the sunset, but you want to watch the sunset again.
And it's just basically saying that our eyes aren't ever just satisfied with something,
we're constantly having an appetite for more.
We have an appetite for more.
Just like eating, we have an appetite for more.
It's not like, that was my last meal ever.
No, we still want to eat again and again and again.
Not only that, even the ear filled with hearing.
You know, you could argue it's like the wife is not satisfied with one pair of shoes or something.
You know, it's like, she's not satisfied with the shoes.
She always wants more, right?
She wants another person.
But you know, that's just human nature.
We're just not satisfied with the things that we have.
In many cases, we always want more.
And even the pursuit of money itself, no one's ever satisfied there.
Even the richest person that is on the planet,
they're not like, okay, I'm done acquiring wealth.
No, they want to keep acquiring more wealth.
It's like, anybody that's pursuing money, you will never reach the end of the rainbow.
You'll never get to the pot of gold because as soon as you say like,
I'm trying to get a hundred thousand dollars.
Well, as soon as you get it, then you're like, okay, now I want to get a million dollars.
And then you get a million and you're like, now I want to get 10 million.
Now I want to get a hundred million.
Now I want to get a billion.
Now I want to get a trillion.
And there'll just be no end of the pursuit of acquiring more wealth.
And, you know, to some degree, that's just life.
But we have to just understand that human nature is not satisfied.
It's not like I listen to this song and I never want to listen to music again.
Now, in fact, many people want to listen to the same song over and over, just like repeat,
just repeat, repeat, repeat.
I mean, especially if you've ever had that experience where you really like a song,
sometimes you just listen to it just all day,
or you listen to it a lot and you just kind of are enthralled with that,
but eventually it loses its luster and then you want a new song.
And then you want a new song.
And mankind hasn't stopped making things to look at and for things to listen to.
We just constantly want more, more, new, new, and we're just full of labor.
You can't even utter all of it.
Verse 9, the thing that hath been, it is that which shall be,
and that which is done is that which shall be done,
and there is no new thing under the sun.
Well, this is a really famous verse, I believe, in this particular chapter,
but I want to make sure that we kind of balance what this is saying
because I don't want to run with verse 9 too far,
but I also don't want to ignore it.
And what I've noticed is some people have kind of fallen into this unique trap
where they almost take this verse too literal,
where they say like there's no such thing as like there's no new thing under the sun,
where they almost think like in times past,
every technology that we have, they had in the past.
And I'm not even joking.
There was like a new documentary that came out.
It's called like Old World Order.
Has anybody heard of this?
Okay, praise God.
But, you know, there was like this weird documentary that came out
and it's basically talking about how in fact even in the past
they had like even greater technologies than we did
and everybody had like electricity and they were flying planes
and there's all that like just all this stuff like hundreds of years ago,
they were doing everything that we're doing today from a technological perspective.
And, you know, I just don't agree with that.
I don't think that's what the Bible is saying at all, okay.
I don't believe it's trying to say like there's no such thing as technology or new inventions.
That's going to always happen until the time of Christ.
We're going to continually have innovation and new things technologically speaking.
But what I believe it's trying to describe is how there's no new life situations.
There's no such thing as new life situations.
All life situations have happened in the past and they're going to happen today.
So we have similar, even albeit maybe technology alters it a little bit,
but similar life situations.
What are similar life situations?
Death, birth, those things are the exact same.
You know, being born of a mom and a dad and that's the only way that it works, okay.
One man, one woman, that's how someone got created.
Additionally, other life situations that have just permeated all of humanity,
things like marriage and divorce.
These are not unique situations to our culture.
They're not unique to our continent.
They're not unique to our time.
There's always been marriages and there's always been divorces.
And there's also been things like false religion.
There's always been false religion.
There's always been sports.
There's always been anti-Christ.
There's always been fame.
There's always been abortion.
There's always been, in fact, you know what's interesting is how we kind of have this battle
where we're thinking like modern Bible versions versus the King James Bible.
And we're thinking like the NIV versus the King James
and we think it is like a modern fight or something like that.
But really textual criticism in that fight goes all the way back to the early part of the church
where you have even, from a Catholic perspective, you have Saint Jerome
and you have him contrasted with weirdo, you know, false prophets.
I believe in Saint Augustine was one of these individuals who are championing the eclectic text.
The Septuagint and other translations.
Then you have Jerome and them wanting to use the Hebrew and the Greek
whereas you have other individuals just wanting to use Septuagint.
And so it's like the fight over which text is the Bible goes way back.
It's not a new fight.
And I guarantee the Septuagint fight started a long time before even Christ probably
where individuals are like, no, we've got to use the Alexandrian text
and we've got to use the Greek Septuagint over the Hebrew
and we even have the Dead Sea Scrolls.
I mean there's always been corruptions of the Bible.
The Apostle Paul describes how there's many which corrupt the Word of God.
We see that there's a constant fight between the men of God in the Bible and false prophets
and they're constantly speaking for God.
That's your Pentecostals today.
I mean you can pretty much just see Pentecostals all through the Old Testament
because they're constantly getting up and having words and flailing
and doing all these weird examples and pushing with horns
and doing all kinds of crazy stuff, slapping people and whatever.
I mean the one prophet walks up and just slaps Jeremiah.
They slap Isaiah.
I mean they hurt the prophets.
They bang them.
They get mad at them.
It's not like there's these new life situations.
There's pretty much always been a fight between Catholics and non-Catholics.
So I think that some people don't realize that the life situations that we have today have always existed
and that the Bible gives advice for all life situations
and it's a timeless advice.
It's a timeless classic that God's Word permeates culture and permeates time.
But that does not mean that if we go back to the time of Christ,
they were on laptops and had cell phones and were flying planes.
That's a crazy, bizarre view of the world.
And so I don't think we should go that far.
I would say that there's probably more technology than we give people in the past credit for,
but I would never take it to that extreme.
So again, there's probably a little bit of legitimacy.
I think they've discovered things in South America,
maybe the Mayans or the Aztecs, certain groups like that,
had some technologies that are surprising.
Things like brain surgery, glasses, all kinds of different things.
Refrigeration processes are actually not modern in a lot of contexts.
I actually did a lot of research on, there used to be this thing called the ice business.
And so it was actually a pretty big thing where people were going from cold climates
and just bringing large chunks of ice with them.
And they would take them to places in the summer like in Cuba, Miami.
I mean they're going to places that are super hot.
And then they would have these things called ice houses where they would store the ice
and then local businesses, local restaurants or whatever would come and buy chunks of ice daily
and they could have it and they're importing it constantly.
And the ice business was a big business until refrigeration.
And of course even at early stages of refrigeration,
it wasn't like everybody had a refrigerator but they had these big plants
where they were making the ice in these hot parts of the world.
They were basically creating it through big processes of large ice and then selling it.
And then eventually they started getting more portable smaller refrigerator machines
that individuals are buying.
And now we have the technology that we have today.
But rich people have been drinking drinks with ice all the time
and especially in cold parts of the world
and even a lot of places in the world that are pretty hot,
it's still like they're near mountains
and the mountains are still cold even during the summer cycles and stuff like that.
So you still have people going up there, getting ice,
bringing it down for the rich, for people that could afford it
and it was a luxury.
But even today it's not like people that are walking around
in the African tribes necessarily have ice.
So ice is still even a luxury today in the world we live in.
It's just we as Americans live like kings and we're very wealthy
from a context of the world and that perspective.
But wealthy people of times past had a lot of similar luxuries that we have today.
But does that mean that the people in the past had refrigerators
and were plugging them in with electricity?
No. Does that mean that they were flying planes and all this other stuff?
Probably not. I don't believe that at all.
They may have had some technologies that we've lost and forgotten
and we didn't realize how more advanced they really were
because they weren't a bunch of ooga boogas
but they weren't necessarily having the same technologies.
And so I think we will continue to see, however long the Lord tarries,
a continual increase in technology.
We're going to keep having more and more advancements.
Who knows how far that's going to get?
Honestly, I would just be honest.
I think that AI is more advanced than I would have given it credit for 10 years ago.
It's doing things that are pretty impressive
and who knows how far they're going to be able to take that
and which ways they're going to even implement those things.
But we could see our world changing very rapidly.
It could be 10, 20 years from now.
A lot of the things that we do are doing them very differently.
But the life situations are all going to still be the same.
We're still going to have marriages.
We're still going to have divorces.
We're still going to have Antichrists.
We're still going to have false religion.
We're still going to have sports.
We're still going to have people that want to be famous.
We're still going to have abortion.
We're still going to have the critical text versus the received text.
We're still going to have Catholics versus non-Catholics.
I mean, those things aren't going away.
This isn't some new thing, albeit maybe the technology
or the way we communicate
or the way we experience life is slightly different,
but the life situations are going to be the same.
And so that's what this verse is really emphasizing
is that we can't look at some situation
and think like, well, this must be a really brand-new situation.
Because think about it this way.
If there's all these brand-new situations constantly happening,
well, then how is the Bible going to be the answer to them?
It can't necessarily be.
You'd have to constantly update the Bible or get new information.
The Bible being a timeless classic, it's always the answer.
And you're never going to come into a life situation
where the Bible does not address your situation
and does not give you the guidance and the answer
to how to deal with that particular situation.
Now, again, does the Bible describe every nuance? No.
And sometimes people, they go off the beaten path
really, really far,
and then they are looking very narrowly at their situation
and thinking like the Bible doesn't have an answer.
But it does have an answer.
It's just you've driven so far off the course,
and you're looking at it so narrowly
that you think that there's not an answer.
Like someone coming up to me and saying,
now, what do I do when this female Sunday skill teacher
is disobeying the pastor?
It's like, I don't know, you went off the course so long ago.
You know, it's like, how do I answer that?
Or guys will literally come up and they're just like,
well, so I divorced my first wife,
and then I married this other chick,
and then we had this kid,
and then I left her,
and now I'm with this other lady,
and then we have a kid.
And it's like, what do I do?
And you're like, okay, well, you're just so far off of the course
that like, yeah, it might seem a little weird
to try and figure out like what you do,
but there is an answer.
You just may not like it.
And they'll be like, well, who do I live with or something?
And it's just like they try to get these weird,
nuanced situations.
But look, the Bible did address all that.
Let's just figure it out.
Or they say, what do we do about men and women's sports?
Hmm, the Bible's silent on that issue.
No, it's real clear.
It's real clear.
And if we did what the Bible said,
we wouldn't even have to get to that question.
That would have never been a question.
Okay?
It's like, what's, you know, they're like,
what's the punishment for a repeat child offender?
And you're like, visit the first time
what we should have done to that person, right?
We should have hung a millstone around their neck
and tossed them in the depths of the sea.
It's not like, well, what do we do?
You know, people are constantly wondering like,
what do we do about this problem?
But they're usually so far removed
from what the right solution is that they get confused.
But the Bible's really clear.
You know, should I vote for a woman governor?
It's like, no.
It's like, why are we going so far off of the beaten track?
Because the Bible clearly will tell you
that women leaders are a curse.
You know, I wonder when Christians will finally wake up
and realize God's cursing America.
Think about how many women leaders we have already.
I mean, we have women governors and women mayors
and women city council members.
And women police officers and women CEOs
and women in virtually every capacity
you can imagine already.
Women vice presidents.
Could even be at the top soon.
Who knows?
You know, I saw somebody putting out a perspective today
that I was actually, was like, I don't like this person.
But I agreed with what they had to say.
And they just said, you know, the Democrats right now,
Kamala Harris and her white man waltz or whatever,
they're not pandering to the middle.
They're not pandering to moderates.
They're not like, they're not becoming less radical.
Because in an election, typically what happens
is politicians towards the end of the race
have to kind of moderate their positions.
So the conservatives become a little bit less conservative
and the liberals become a little less liberal
because they're all trying to get those people in the middle
that they feel like haven't quite made their decision up.
Because it's kind of close
and they feel like they need those extra votes
to ensure victory.
So they kind of pander to those particular audiences.
And we've seen this with Donald Trump.
Donald Trump very recently in the last six months
has become a lot less conservative
and you can tell he's pandered a lot more to the middle
and to moderates and all these individuals.
But what you've seen on the left side
is they've only gotten more extreme.
I mean Kamala Harris is the most leftist,
extreme candidate you can imagine.
She's already said that she wants to take away
ARs from society.
She's already said that she wants to, you know,
be as radical, pro-abortion, and pass legislation
and make that a pro-abortion thing.
You know, pro-abortion, legal for the whole country.
Her candidate, the Waltz guy,
is super pro-choice, super pro-LGBT.
They want to eliminate the Supreme Court's power.
They want to do all kinds of crazy leftist,
radicalist stuff.
And you think like, why would you do that
so near to an election?
Because you're going to lose people.
People are going to think that you're too extreme.
And this is the point this person was making
and I thought it was a good point.
He said, they already know the election's in the bag.
That's why they're not pandering.
The communists, the Marxists,
already know that elections are fake and rigged,
so they're not pandering to the middle
they're going extreme left
because they already know they're going to win.
And look, I'm just saying that to say that it's true
that they're not pandering to the middle.
So whether or not it is true
that they're going to rig it and win,
they are definitely acting like that.
And so, you know, I always say that just to say this,
it's very realistic that Kamala Harris
will be the next president of the United States.
And I'm just kind of wondering like at what point
will you realize, hey, we're being cursed of God.
God's cursing us.
And let me explain this.
It's not a new thing under the sun.
Women kings or women queens,
however you want to word this,
women is the most powerful person in a nation or a country.
This isn't the first time.
It's happened plenty of times.
It even happened in the Bible.
How about Athaliah?
Athaliah kills the seed royal purposefully.
She missed one.
That was her mistake.
But she kills the seed royal
and basically declares herself queen
and she's at the top of the food chain.
And we have other individuals throughout history,
whether it be other empires,
other kingdoms where a queen was kind of the one ruling
and was the head and was the,
in theory at least, the main leader.
And you know what we've noticed?
That never in history did any of those women leaders
go out on conquest and conquer all over the nations.
They were never great military leaders.
They never brought prosperity into their nation.
They never had a better economic idea.
They never were loved by all of their people.
And in many situations,
they would just slaughter large sections of their population.
A lot of times these women were killed
through their own constituents,
through their own leadership
because they were just so evil and so wicked.
Many of them got their heads chopped off.
I mean, we could just go down the list
and talk about all the previous women leaders
in times past, but it was always a train wreck,
always horrible.
I mean, if women leaders were so great and so wonderful,
wouldn't you think there'd just be one nation out there
where we just got this great woman leader
and this nation's thriving
and their citizens are doing great?
No, because it's backwards.
It's backwards to have a woman driving the bus.
It's backwards to have a woman leading the charge.
You know, they should tell the women
to get in the back of the bus
regardless of their skin color.
White women get in the back of the bus.
We're not going to have women driving the bus
if we're going to be a godly nation.
And it's a shame and it's an embarrassment
to our nation to have women leaders,
to have a woman vice president is an embarrassment,
let alone if it's a, you know, president.
I thought it might have been, you know,
people were hinting it could have been Big Mike
and we still wouldn't have had a woman president yet,
but with Kamala, it is, you know?
And in some ways, it might be better
that people just realize how bad America really is
rather than keep having false hope
and Israel first candidate Donald Trump.
So, you know, but even if,
it doesn't matter which candidate's elected.
Hey, we've had, there's been wicked leaders in the past.
There'll be wicked leaders in the future.
There'll be horrible things happen in the future,
good things happen in the future,
but no matter what situation we see,
even though it may seem, quote, unprecedented,
it's already happened.
Life situations, there have always been
these kind of life situations.
I mean, people think, like,
we have such a horrible leadership
and such a horrible government,
but in many ways, it hasn't even started yet
and it's not even that bad.
I mean, how about Nero?
Nero is going, Nero will be dragging all of us
out of our houses and putting us in a coliseum
to fight barehanded against lions.
That doesn't sound very fun.
And it's not just the men.
It's the whole family.
That's pretty, that's a pretty rough government, okay?
There's other times in history
where the Catholic Church is burning families at the stake
for memorizing Psalm 23
and teaching their families Psalm 23.
And that was amongst white people in Europe.
I know that you think that all white people
are just somehow magically awesome
and they're the savior of mankind.
Like, if we could just only be white people,
then we would be great.
But I'm pretty sure that America exists
because white people fled other white people.
Correct me.
I mean, did the English settlers
that were fleeing the persecution in Europe
were they fleeing brown people
or were they fleeing white people?
I'm pretty sure they were fleeing
the white people of the Catholic Church.
They were fleeing the white people
of the Anglican Church.
They were fleeing religious persecution.
It doesn't matter if they're white.
That doesn't make them great.
You know what makes someone great?
The King James Bible.
The Word of God.
Salvation by faith.
Jesus Christ.
That's what makes someone great.
You know, and it's just crazy to me
how people think like, well, you know,
we're in a unique situation.
Where, you know, multiculturalism or something.
Look, there was a mixed multitude
that went out of Egypt.
Oops, you forgot about that scenario, didn't you?
Hey, Samaria was a multicultural nation.
Now it was a train wreck,
and most of the time it is.
But it's not a new thing under the sun.
There's always been all these situations
or always will be these situations.
And so what is important is that
we always are looking to the Bible for our answer.
That's the point.
The point is this.
Nothing is unique.
The Bible has your answer.
What are we gonna do in this situation?
Bible.
What are we gonna do about Kamala's president?
Bible.
What are we gonna do about Trump as president?
Bible.
What are we gonna do if they eliminate presidents
and just make a king?
Bible.
What happens if the Antichrist comes in?
The Bible.
Like, the Bible is our answer.
Well, what happens with this situation in marriage
or what happens when my family does this?
The Bible has the answer to every single situation,
every single scenario you could ever dream of,
ever think of.
We just check with the Bible.
Now, he says here in verse number 11,
there is no remembrance of former things.
Neither shall there be any remembrance of things
that are to come with those that shall come after.
That's also another important verse.
I want you to get your hymnal out for a second
because I thought this was interesting.
Let's go to a verse we sang this evening.
Go to 49.
Meet me there.
And this is an important point in this chapter,
but he says there is no remembrance of former things.
Neither shall there be any remembrance of things
that are to come with those that shall come after.
Saying, like, somehow our current lives
and experiences and all this stuff
are gonna somehow fade to the point
where we don't even remember them anymore.
Now, look at 49.
Look at verse 2.
Here our fondest hopes are vain.
Isn't that crazy?
He's just saying, like, the fondest hopes,
the fondest things that we had,
they're all meaningless,
and, you know, when we get there,
we're not gonna remember them anymore.
It's all gonna just fade in obscurity.
Look what it says a little bit further down.
It says, by the river sparkling bright
in the city of delight,
where our faith is lost in sight.
Here's another thing that's crazy.
At some point, there won't be faith
because we'll just see it.
Faith ends when it happens.
You know, we won't have to have faith in our salvation.
We'll have been saved.
It'll have happened.
So our faith fades with sight.
We won't wonder what Jesus Christ looks like.
We won't have to have faith in Jesus.
We will see Jesus.
We will be with Jesus.
And so it's just saying a lot of things
that our lives are like now
are just gonna be completely different.
They're gonna completely fade,
and we won't even notice them anymore.
I want to go to another thing.
Go to Psalm 147.
Keep your finger here.
Go to Psalm 147,
another thing that we sang this evening.
But, hey, anything that happens in this life,
it's just vain.
Why?
Because eventually it will be forgotten.
That's the point.
The point is it's all vain.
Everything's vain because it won't matter.
Go to Psalm 147.
We were singing this this evening.
I want to show you verse number 10.
The Bible says,
God is not pleased with the Olympics.
Now, first of all,
he's got to be close to just pouring
fire and brimstone down on him
because of all the faggots that are there.
But even if you put that aside,
even if you didn't have the great display
of blasphemy and wickedness
and sodomy and reprobateness
going on at the Olympics,
even if it was all on the up and up,
God still doesn't take pleasure,
notice this, in the legs of a man.
God is not up there in heaven
cheering for the athletes
and the pole vaulters and the gymnasts
and all these different people
and just getting really excited about
who's gonna win the gold medal.
God doesn't care about that.
God's not taking pleasure
in the Olympic achievements of mankind.
What does God take pleasure in?
Well, he tells us very specifically.
Verse 11,
The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him,
in those that hope in his mercy.
You know what?
God is pleased with the people
that humbled themselves on a Wednesday night
to go to church.
God is looking down from heaven
and he's pleased with all the people
in church tonight singing praises unto his name,
but he's not pleased with all the people
competing for some vain trophy,
for some vain accolade.
God is pleased with all the people
that went out preaching the gospel this evening
and with all the people that trusted
in Jesus Christ this evening
and got saved this evening.
That's what God is pleased with,
but he's not pleased with the vain
achievements of mankind,
with the things that mankind did,
and all the things that have happened
will be forgotten.
Who won the Olympics 20 years from now,
20 years ago?
Who did anything?
Where was it?
I mean, like, nobody even knows
the people that are competing right now,
frankly speaking.
I mean, most of us,
if we turned on any of it
or watched any event
or saw a clip or something,
we probably have no idea who it even is.
And then even if you did,
the chances of you even remembering
what that person accomplished
five minutes from now,
five years from now,
50 years from now,
it's just almost obsolete.
And in many cases,
they want to forget it
because the 1936 Olympics
were in Berlin
with Adolf Hitler.
I'm sure they like to memory hole that,
memory hole everything that happened there
because they can't talk about Hitler
or say anything positive or whatever
and be really negative.
So I'm sure they're going to memory hole
dump all kinds of stuff.
But the reality is
everything's going to be forgotten
in that case.
It's all vain.
We should live for things that are eternal.
Our lives should not just be a life
where every decision we're making,
every action we do
is just vain.
I want to go to a couple other places.
Kofi went to
1 Corinthians, chapter number seven.
The former things are going to be forgotten.
And this goes to kind of an extreme
when you think about it.
Look at 1 Corinthians, chapter number seven.
And look at verse 29.
And they that use this world
is not abusing it for the fashion
of this world passeth away.
There's no way to even understand this.
Like to think like
you're never even going to realize
you're married or remember that
or to remember, you know,
the life situations that we had.
I mean, he's saying
somebody that had a life of misery,
someone that was weeping constantly
with all this pain and turmoil.
Imagine someone that has been diagnosed
with a horrible cancer
or perhaps they had a deformity
or they had some kind of
just painful disease
that they had to deal with for a decade.
See, they don't even remember that.
And the people that had just great pleasure
and had great success
and maybe they won awesome trophies.
They won the World Series.
They won the Super Bowl.
They got a gold medal.
They won't even remember.
It'll be like nothing even happened.
And he's saying the fashion of this world passed away.
You could have been a nerd your whole life.
You could have been super cool.
You could have been Mr. Popular.
And it won't even matter.
Go if you would to 1 John.
The former things are going to be passed away.
The only things that are going to go into eternity
are those that are the spiritual works
that we do for Christ.
Everything else is going to be gone.
It won't matter if you were rich,
poor,
tall,
handsome,
ugly,
married,
not married,
cool,
had fun,
didn't have fun,
none of it.
The Bible says in 1 John 2, verse 15,
Love not the world,
neither the things that are in the world.
If any man love the world,
the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes
and the pride of life is not of the Father,
but is of the world.
And the world passeth away,
and the lust thereof,
but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.
Notice the world's passing away
and in the context is talking about
the things that we're experiencing on the earth.
The world as we see it and as we know it.
And he's saying the lust thereof.
All of our desire for all the things,
all the clothes and all the fashion
and all the houses and all the cars
and all the whatever.
It's like it won't even,
we won't even know.
It won't even matter.
It was completely meaningless.
That's why it's saying love not the world.
Love not the world.
Go back if you would to Ecclesiastes.
This is the main emphasis of Chapter 1.
It's helping us try to get this perspective of,
hey, all of this life really is eternally meaningless.
All of it's going to pass away.
All of it's going to be forgotten.
None of that really, really matters.
The things that matter are to fear God
and to keep His commandments.
That's what's being emphasized in this book.
He says in verse 12,
I the preacher was king over Israel and Jerusalem
and I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom
concerning all things that are done under heaven.
This sore travail hath God given to the sons of men
or sons of man to be exercised therewith.
I have seen all the works that are done under the sun
and behold all this vanity and vexation of spirit.
That which is crooked cannot be made straight
and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
I commune with my own heart saying,
lo, I am come to great estate
and have gotten more wisdom than all they
that have been before me in Jerusalem.
Yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge
and I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly.
I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit
for in much wisdom is much grief
and He that increases knowledge increases sorrow.
A few thoughts over this.
He was king over Israel.
Notice this, He is king over Israel and Jerusalem.
That is a significant thing because King Solomon
is one of three kings that are over Israel
in this portion of this area generally speaking.
Because in the future you are going to have this divide
and the kings of Israel are going to be in the north
and the kings of Judah are going to be in the south.
You kind of have Saul, you have David
and you have Solomon as the three kings that were over all of Israel
and after them there is no more.
And I am sure that there is probably some kind of a spiritual significance to this
when you kind of think about it.
Like Saul, they probably all picture Christ
in various modes and in various ways.
Because Saul is humbled and lowly and comes
and then he ultimately dies.
David kind of illustrates maybe the aspect
of the conquering and the victory of Jesus
and then Solomon kind of illustrates the glory of Christ.
There are aspects of that that could possibly be true.
But it is just interesting that you kind of have three kings over Israel.
He was in Jerusalem. That is significant.
Verse 13, He says that He gave His heart to seek
and to search out by wisdom concerning all things.
He tried to study everything.
And He said this sort of veil had God given to all of us.
Meaning that we all basically start knowing nothing.
And then it is kind of on all of us to learn.
On all of us to learn language and to learn how the world works.
Learn all the same facts of life.
Two plus two equals four.
And we learn, hey, the earth is a sphere
and the earth is spinning
and the earth is going around the sun.
These are things that we are all learning.
And we are learning that what goes up must come down.
And we are learning that Jews hate Jesus Christ and are wicked.
And we are all on this path of just knowledge and wisdom.
And we are all supposed to be constantly learning and growing
and getting the same information.
And He is saying this sort of veil, this laborious task
of having to learn everything and figure everything out
is what God has done for all of us.
That none of us just start and we just already are programmed
like the matrix of all the information or something.
No, we all have to study and we have to learn
and we have to grow.
And He said, hey, I saw everything.
I've seen all the works that are done in the sun.
And He's like, it's still meaningless.
I was thinking, maybe there's something worthwhile.
Nope, I figured it all out and I realized it's all just junk.
And He says, that which is crooked cannot be made straight.
Tell that to all these fag-loving idiots, okay?
But really, this is what He's trying to say.
That's one way to interpret this passage.
That's just a specific application.
Ultimately what He's saying, things that are broken cannot be fixed.
And I think that sometimes it would be helpful
if Christians would realize that America is broken
and it can't be fixed.
I think that they're trying to fix something that can't be fixed.
And if they would just recognize that it can't be fixed,
then maybe they'd have the right mentality
and they could do some spiritual things
or look to a new task that would be better.
And so, also it says that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
What is something that's wanting?
It's lacking.
He's basically saying, there's things out there that are broken
and can just never be fixed.
And that happens.
There's relationships that get broken and they can't get fixed.
You know, some people, they get divorced and remarried
and well, that's broken.
That's not going to ever be right again.
That's not ever going to be fixed again.
There's things that people do that cause permanent damage.
You get a tattoo.
You commit adultery.
I mean, you use certain things, permanent damage.
And then He's also saying there's things out there that need something.
There's somebody that needs food or someone that needs clothing.
Or hey, there's a bridge that needs to be fixed.
Or as we revisit the earlier part of the sermon, construction.
Right?
There's just always going to be construction.
And He's just saying the things that need work, just endless.
You can't even count how many things need to be done.
There's more work to ever be done and there's things that can't even be fixed.
He said He communed with His own heart.
He's got great estate.
He's got all the wisdom.
He's got great experience.
In fact, He studied everything, not even just smart things, dumb things.
What are dumb things?
I mean, this is Him.
He figured, He like studied evolution.
Right?
He studied the leftist ideology.
He studied CRT, critical race theory.
He studied Marxism.
He studied communism.
He studied Judaism, Hinduism, atheism, Mormonism.
He understood madness and folly.
He studied all of it.
And He's just like, I perceive that in this also is vexation of spirit.
He's like studying these dumb things and things that are foolish and crazy.
There's no benefit.
And He says this, for in much wisdom is much grief.
And He then increases knowledge and reaches sorrow.
I think this is a verse that I feel like lately I've thought about and kind of understood.
Because you would think like, how does being smart make you sad?
Or how does gaining wisdom somehow make you have grief?
But this is why I believe this is true.
The more you have wisdom and the more you understand how things work and what's going on in the world,
the more you understand how broken everything is.
The more you understand how corrupt our world is.
The more you understand how many people are being treated poorly.
The more you understand how much people are sinning against God
and how much sin is really happening in this world.
And at the end of the day, you realize how meaningless this life is.
How much vanity there is in the world.
And by getting all of this understanding and wisdom,
it can bring a lot of grief and a lot of sorrow.
Have you understood what has happened in history?
All the different horrible revolutions and all the different gulags and holodomor
and the Bolshevik revolution.
I mean, it just brings grief and sorrow.
When you think about what's happening with our nation and our government
and how many horrible things are happening.
How many people in Europe are being massacred by the migrant issues that they're having.
I mean, there's some serious issues.
People right now are going to jail and being faced with all kinds of criminal penalties
for just posting an anti-Semitic meme.
I don't even know what they would do to me.
They would blow a gasket if they saw what I was doing.
These are people with anonymous accounts just putting mild stuff.
I don't have mild stuff.
People are being arrested. People are being tortured.
People are being just brutally and savagely hurt all over this world.
And it's like the more you understand what's really going on, the more you realize.
And then when you realize how many people are going to hell.
But, you know, all of that sadness and all that grief can then motivate us to say,
you know what, there is something that matters still.
Fearing God and keeping his commandments.
And I think it's also important to realize, hey, there's so many problems, I can't fix all of them.
There's more problems that could never be fixed.
The things that are wanting, they're innumerable.
And I can't have everything.
My eye will never be satisfied. My ear will never be satisfied.
So, you know what, I should just stop pursuing all these things that really don't have value
and pursue the things that do have value.
Because we all have limited time, limited resources, limited energy, limited ability.
Therefore, it's important to make sure that we're just making good decisions.
Because we'll never accomplish everything we want to.
We'll never have everything that we want to.
And at the end of the day, it's important that you make good decisions.
Not that you accomplish everything you could possibly think because it's not going to happen.
So, you know, when you wake up tomorrow, you read your Bible, you pray, you love your wife,
you love your children, you go to church, you preach the gospel.
And then you say, you know what, I'm going to do it again.
And then I'm just going to do it again. And I'm going to do it again.
I keep making decisions that this book says, hey, there's no new thing under the sun.
Pretty soon we'll be gone and another generation will come.
And it's important to realize the vanity of this life
and stop getting trapped into all these distractions.
You know, I preached this weekend about sewing.
You know, make sure you're just sewing in the right areas.
Sew in yourself a little bit every day.
Sew in your relationships a little bit every day.
Make sure you're sewing in your work and your business.
Make sure you're sewing in the things of God.
In reading the Bible, going out soul winning.
You know, I may never be the star athlete that I'd like to be.
I may never be, you know, accomplish a lot of the work tasks that I want to.
But this one thing I do know is I'm a good soul winner.
And I guarantee a lot of people in this room, while you may not be an elite person
in a lot of areas in life, you're probably an elite soul winner.
You're probably at the top of the food chain.
And you know what, that's the thing that matters anyways.
Oh, I didn't win a gold medal.
Yeah, but you got a little bit of gold when you went out there
and got that person saved.
And that gold's in heaven.
And all the gold that they won, it's vanity.
The Olympic gold is a vanity.
The Bitcoin is vanity now, okay, let alone later.
No one will remember.
You know, why don't you get us some bucks in heaven, all right?
Let's go in prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for this chapter
and for giving us a perspective that we can be sober
and take life seriously and redeem the time.
Help us to understand that while everything's ultimately vanity,
He still gave us a lot of commandments and we need to follow them
and that there's still a meaning for our lives.
But I pray that we'd have an eternal focus,
that we wouldn't allow the things of this world to distract us from the things that really matter.
And I pray that you could help use our church
to be a bright and shining light in such a dark world.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
All right, in closing, let's go to song number 109.
Song number 109, Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us.
Song number 109.
Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us.
Much we need Thy tender care.
In Thy pleasant pastures lead us.
For Thy use Thy goals we bear.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, Thou hast bought us Thine, we are.
We are Thy who Thou befriend us, Be the guardian of our way.
Keep Thy far from sin defend us, Seek us when we go astray.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, Hear O hear us when we pray.
Thou hast promised to receive us, More and sinful though we be.
Thou hast mercy to relieve us, Grace to cleanse and power to free.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, Early let us turn to Thee.
Early let us sing Thy favor, Early let us do Thy will.
Blessed Lord and only Savior, With Thy love our words are still.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, Thou hast bought us Thine, we are.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, Thou hast loved us, loved us still.