Well, it’s always good to be in a high-tech fellowship like this—strapped in my astronaut’s uniform here.
My name is Dana Condon. Some of you I don’t know, and many of you I do. I’m from Long Island, up in New York, so you might have a little trouble understanding my accent. I need a little more treble on this. Can you put more trouble on this?
I can see I’m in for trouble, that’s for sure.
I’m glad to be here with you. Brother Mac, as he called me and asked me about coming here and sharing on Sunday morning after the planning session yesterday, asked me if I would just give a little report about what’s going on in my life.
I don’t know what’s happened here. I’ve just gotten caught in a river that’s taken me all over the place, so I travel around a good bit. I just came back from California, you know, on my way here and there.
People often wonder how I’m doing. In fact, I’ve never had a better time in my life. The Lord just blesses me and gives me grace, and I enjoy visiting the saints here and there.
You know what? It was back in 1975 that I found out that home was where God’s people are who really love the Lord. So I travel from place to place, but actually, when I come here, I just feel like I’m home. Last week in San Diego, I just shared with home folks. It’s such a blessing, isn’t it? Oh, boy.
In 1971, I was a Baptist home missionary. I was busy working, building the kingdom all by myself, you know.
It was in 1971 that I left the Baptist ministry and left being a missionary and found Jesus as my home. What happened was, when I stopped ministering, I felt like I wasn’t very worthy anymore. I had no reason to exist.
I was seeking God, saying, “Well, Lord, what tremendous door are You going to open now?” Finally, after several weeks of stressful seeking, the Lord said to me, “You’re My son.” I realized that the Lord was satisfied with me just being in Christ.
That’s when I started singing songs and writing little choruses. Everything popped out at that time when I was down in the basement, living in my parents’ house with my wife and three children, driving the school bus in the daytime, and singing songs to Jesus at home—down in the basement, Him and me.
In 1973, I moved to Raleigh. In 1974, this guy named Stephen Kahn was coming to Raleigh and messing me up. Every time he came, he’d speak on the flesh, the cross, and the church.
After those three slaps on my cheek, I was then a minister in Raleigh in a church there. I kept saying, “You know, I just must be wrong.” I just felt like I was in the wrong place. But you know, when you know you’re in the wrong place but you don’t know where to go, you don’t know what to do.
But in God’s perfect time, I went over to Halford House with a team of men to evangelize there. They asked us to come over and do outreach—door to door, things like that.
I was there for the week in Halford House, and on Sunday morning I stood up with tears in my eyes. A realization came to my heart, and I said, “I found my home.”
Because in Halford House, it was the first expression of the church that I ever saw. I said, “The Lord’s here. I’m here. The people are here. This is home.”
Ever since then, I feel at home with God’s people who are striving to find the Lord’s presence in our midst. That’s why, no matter where I go, I feel at home. It’s not a great exertion to come somewhere in fellowship, because I’m at home.
I’m thankful that I’m at home with my wife too. She’s my best friend, and I love her. My two boys—one is out of college and trying to get into law school, and one is in the middle of college and trying to get out of college. Well, you know, whatever. They’re doing fine too.
Back home, I have precious brothers and sisters in Huntington that I meet with, and they’re home for me. That’s home base. I love to slide in there to Huntington, find out what’s going on, and they’ve been a shelter for me and a help for me.
The Lord has put two fellowships on my heart, if you want to know things to pray about. I feel like I have a special home in Philadelphia—a little fellowship of people down there struggling to find the Lord’s presence. I feel at home there, so my heart is always leaning that way.
Also, out in San Diego, I don’t know why. I go many places, but there are two little groups of people that I feel the Lord has me attached to, just praying for and being with them.
Now, when I go to places, one of the things that’s happening in my life by way of adjustment is this: several years ago, I felt like the Lord gave me a provisional understanding of what my calling was.
Actually, it was through Brother Ernie Hyle speaking to me in a time of prayer. He said, more or less, that my name was Barnabas, son of encouragement, and I should go and encourage the saints.
It seems like everywhere I go, somehow—at least eight out of ten times—the saints get encouraged. Every once in a while they kick me out, but most of the time somehow they get encouraged by my singing and playing, and sometimes by the Word of God I share with them.
But a new thing is happening in my life now, and I can’t quite explain it because it’s a bit mysterious. I don’t really know how counseling fits into this whole thing of body ministry, but I will say this: I find an encouragement now in fellowship.
When I went out to San Diego, for example, they must have had me speak six times in the eight days I was there. But it wasn’t just speaking that was most encouraging. I sang, of course—you know, the top forty hits.
But it was just eating dinner, couple by couple, and talking to people and sharing and being shared with. I think that was the most encouraging thing. I don’t know quite what to do with that, but it seems that God puts me in places at the right time.
I went up to Los Angeles for a Bible study one night, and there was a precious, young, gifted Christian couple who were about to separate. They were having problems, but I just happened to be there at the right time. I said, “Hold it now,” and I fellowshipped with them.
By God’s grace, they’re going to fight it out. We need to pray for them. But you know what I’m saying: just being at the right place at the right time and sharing fellowship. Maybe in the long run, that’s the greatest ministry a person can have—the fellowship of what you have of Christ in the body of Christ.
Now, I’m also involved in a big thing. Big thing.
I think the big thing has to do with this, and I’ll make you aware of it, at least from my perspective. I really believe that today God is doing something very important among Chinese brothers and sisters coming to the United States.
I believe God’s will is for them to be transitioned into the American church and to deposit that which Christ has shown them from their experiences overseas. I’m glad to be one of those people standing there—going out to Chinese groups and speaking, going to American groups, and praying that the Lord can somehow bring them through this transition.
They should not remain separate as a Chinese group, but find their way into a deposit that makes us richer. I’m thankful for my brothers Stephen and Joseph Wu, because more than anything else, these two brothers stand in a place that says, “We’re not going to be a Chinese church, and we’re not going to be an American church. We’re just going to be the church.”
Because of that position, they have stood at times in an unpopular place. But I believe the Lord is moving people to see that this is the way the Lord has for us in this day of recovery.
What good is it to have churches divided even on the basis of nationality or language? It is a very practical and real problem.
I thank the Lord for the South Jersey fellowship, where Joseph Wu fellowships with many brothers and sisters—American, Caucasian, Oriental—and they are trying to find God’s way together: translation, interpretation, patience, cultural differences, all of that. They are fighting to stand with the Lord Jesus on a common church ground.
I tell you what, I love that, and I think that is God’s will. So that’s what I’m part of—something big.
Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m not Chinese. I love the food. But I love my Chinese brothers and sisters; I just love them. I think they’re like me. You know, they’re sneaky. You know what I mean? They’re humble, and they’re proud of it. There are a lot of things there—I don’t know.
But anyway, I do love them. I hope that you realize there is a demographic phenomenon going on here in the United States and Canada as thousands of Chinese are pouring in here.
There’s a happening happening right now. Don’t just look over at East Germany and see what’s happening. There are things happening right here, and they should be reflected in the church. May it be so. That would be rich indeed.
Well, that’s my update. I don’t know what else to say, but why don’t we pray?
Lord, if we are to be Barnabas, sons of encouragement, it can only come because You are the great Encourager. We are only sons of the real Encourager.
It is unto You today we come, Lord Jesus, thanking You for Your precious Word and the way You open it up to us. As we share the gospel of encouragement this morning, we pray that Your Holy Spirit will write things on our hearts that are unforgettable regarding the Son.
We commit this time into Your hands, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
I’m going to share something with you this morning that I suppose is pretty simple, pretty controversial. I’d like for us to read two portions of Scripture to get the background: first, 1 Kings 11.
We’re dealing with the life of Solomon, and we’re going to look at the book of Ecclesiastes and primarily pull one thing out of it for our examination.
You can see I’ve gotten more mature now. I have to wear reading glasses. I feel much older about this whole thing now.
Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women;
from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the children of Israel, “Ye shall not go in unto them, neither shall they come in unto you; for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clave unto these in love.
And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart.
One wife can do that, don’t you think, brothers? That’s our main problem, isn’t it? Hey, wait a minute—I just heard all the wives saying that about their husbands. I wonder which way is right. He had a thousand of them working on his heart.
For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.
For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
And Solomon did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord, as did David his father.
Then did Solomon build a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, in the mount that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the children of Ammon.
That is the one they sacrificed babies to down there in the Valley of Hinnom, from which we get the name Gehenna for hell.
Thus also did he for all his foreign wives, who burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods.
And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared unto him twice, and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he kept not that which the Lord commanded.
Then we turn to the book of Ecclesiastes. I would just like to read this part of Ecclesiastes 3 for our consideration.
There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every event under heaven:
A time to give birth, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time for war, and a time for peace.
What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboreth?
I have seen the travail which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith.
He hath made everything beautiful in its time. Also He hath set eternity in their heart, yet so that man cannot find out the work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end.
Now, brothers and sisters, I’m sure all of you have read the book of Ecclesiastes at some time, and many of you several times. It is one of the most difficult books to fully understand.
If you’re one of those folks who likes neat packages, Ecclesiastes is not your book. Go to the book of Ruth—see the whole thing with a happy ending. Go to the book of Job; it all works out happily ever after. Go to the book of Revelation: we win.
But the book of Ecclesiastes doesn’t fit very comfortably. Something is struggling throughout this book. It’s not a neat package.
I want to share what the Lord has shown me about these sayings within this book. They seem to be scraps without connection. There are chapters filled with wisdom, like Proverbs, another one of Solomon’s writings.
In chapter 7, he turns on the switch and out comes a lot of wisdom. By chapter 9, he is crabbing against futility and vanity. “It’s all baloney.” There are disconnected scraps of things here and there. If you try to put this together in some neat little thing, parts squirt out. It just doesn’t come together very easily.
I believe Solomon wrote it. That just cuts through a whole lot of scholarship questions. He says, “I was a son of David and king over Israel.” That settles it for me. It’s Solomon, whose name was Shlomo. His actual Hebrew name comes from shalom. It means peace.
The brother started out in peace, but here is a brother struggling. Here is somebody filled with all kinds of vision, yet partial vision; wisdom, yet not full wisdom. There is something wrong here.
I couldn’t quite get the key until the Lord began showing me—and actually cracked the door open through my old friend G. Campbell Morgan—that this book of Ecclesiastes was indeed written in Solomon’s latter days, the days described in 1 Kings 11.
There are various interpretations here, but I’ll just share with you how it comes home to me. Solomon is struggling. He is sharing things. He still has wisdom, but he is unfocused. He is musing. Things are wrong.
By the mercy of God, God has preserved Solomon’s testimony as basically good. Isn’t the Lord merciful? We all have these ups and downs, and Solomon here is on a serious downturn. At least, 1 Kings 11 is nothing to be proud of.
But the Lord’s testimony regarding Solomon is that he was a son of His. His testimony to the world is wisdom. Whenever you hear the name Solomon, people think wisdom.
In his day, as he lived, he was revered by the world as the wisest man. Even the Queen of Sheba came to receive wisdom. Outsiders and unbelievers recognized his wisdom. There are people who do not believe the Bible who still read Proverbs and try to live by them.
But the Father’s own testimony regarding Solomon—the thing to which the Lord Himself refers most frequently—is that he was a builder of the house of God. If there was any legacy appreciated in the heart of the Father, it was that he built the temple, and the glory of God came down.
He was a builder. He built a beautiful temple, and he is known as Solomon the temple builder. Everything is compared in terms of building to Solomon’s temple. The Father’s testimony regarding purpose was that he built the house of God.
His testimony to the bride is that he is a lover. The Song of Solomon bears that out. When you read this song, you see an impassioned lover who, just as God comes after us, takes us unworthy as we are, loves us, brings us into a fuller dimension, and brings out all our potential by His love.
But it was not until I dug around in the meaning of the word Ecclesiastes itself that I saw something. The Hebrew word is Qoheleth, which means assembly—perhaps a spokesman for the assembly.
In the Greek Septuagint, it is called Ecclesiastes, and you see in that word ecclesia, the Greek word we translate as church, which also means assembly.
As I was reading this and puzzling over it—you have to wrestle with Ecclesiastes; you have to turn it up sideways and start from the back and go to the front, and from the front to the back—the Lord said, “This is his testimony as a brother in the house of God, as one in the assembly.”
Even though to the world he strikes you as wisdom, and he is the house builder and the lover, when you see him inside, he is just another man. He is struggling with compromise. His heart is struggling. His heart is turned from the Lord.
This is, in the end, how we know one another in the house of God. Thank God for Solomon, and yet the Lord is not so idealistic as to leave us with a perfect picture of Solomon, as if he did no wrong. No, no, no. We know him in this way as well.
There is a gospel in the book of Ecclesiastes because, in the end, God does not leave a person in this compromised state. That is what I would like to talk about.
When you read Ecclesiastes, here is a man who is jaded. Here is a man who is cynical. I do not want to say totally cynical, but he goes through moods, and you can read and see these moods.
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
Thank God nobody in the church ever says that. But this man in the assembly is saying, “Vanity, vanity. It’s all empty, futile, worthless.” What is going on?
I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven: it is a sore travail that God hath 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 a striving after wind.
What a conclusion regarding life itself and its value. Or consider his pursuit of wisdom:
I communed with mine own heart, saying, “Lo, I have gotten me great wisdom above all that were before me in Jerusalem.” Yea, my heart hath had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.
And I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also was a striving after wind.
For in much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
That is his estimate of the gift of wisdom he received. In Ecclesiastes 2, regarding his pursuit of pleasure, he says:
I said in my heart, “Come now, I will prove thee with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure.” And, behold, this also was vanity.
And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them; I withheld not my heart from any joy.
Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do; and, behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was no profit under the sun.
So much for pleasure. Are you getting the good news yet?
Then he says, “Let’s try business. Maybe we will find satisfaction there.”
I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards;
I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces;
I provided me men-singers and women-singers, and the delights of the sons of men, concubines very many.
Yet all of this proved to be vanity.
Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun was grievous unto me: for all is vanity and a striving after wind.
In Ecclesiastes 4, he pursues justice:
Then I returned and saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold, the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power, but they had no comforter.
Wherefore I praised the dead that have long since died more than the living that are yet alive.
Even regarding religion, he was still a religious man and a God-fearing man, but something had changed.
Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God; for to draw nigh to hear is better than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they know not that they do evil.
Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.
Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, “It was an error.” Wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thy hands?
And then, in Ecclesiastes 7:
All this have I seen in my days of vanity: there is a righteous man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his evil-doing.
Be not righteous overmuch; neither make thyself overwise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself?
Be not overmuch wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time?
It is good that thou shouldest take hold of this; yea, also from that withdraw not thy hand: for he that feareth God shall come forth from them all.
It is almost as if he is saying, “Let’s hold on to the world and to Jesus too.”
Now, in all honesty, he shares a lot of real wisdom. But if a man asks for wisdom, you might say, “Turn to the book of Proverbs and see the wisdom of God.” If somebody asks for wisdom, would you advise that they read the book of Ecclesiastes? Would you endorse all these things that he says?
These are the musings, the confessions, the statements of a man who has been around things a long time. As I understand it, there is something wrong with Solomon.
The first thing you notice when you read Ecclesiastes in a linguistic sense is this: whereas Proverbs is filled with the name “the Lord”—“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” and, “Trust in the Lord with all thy heart”—the book of Ecclesiastes does not use the covenant name in the same way. It is “God,” Elohim.
When he says, “Fear God,” he has a detached fear of some force out there. A relationship has broken down. We read in 1 Kings 11 that his heart turned away from the Lord.
In the midst of pluralism and polytheism—whatever his old-age foolishness was—he lost the sense of relationship to the Lord, and everything went out of focus. The man who told us that without a vision the people cast off restraint had lost vision himself.
Is it possible for such a person, who said these things himself and lived in the wisdom he had spoken, to lose that vision—to become unfocused, to have moments of wisdom scattered with moments of despair, to speak of this world with futility, and to see things only as they are under the sun?
It should be, and is, of course, a warning to us if we see this thing aright.
They who stand should take heed lest they fall. We who have seen need to be careful lest our seeing becomes jaded.
Now, the strange thing about all this—the thing that bothers me, perhaps—is that though he has lost his focus, though his heart has turned from the Lord and he has lost his vision, his gift continues to function.
The Lord does not recall the gift of wisdom. A gift is an enabling that God gives to somebody. It is some deep mystery within them where God uses their innate abilities along with divine touch and gives them some kind of gift that is operational and enabled, whether they are in relationship to God or not.
If you are in relationship to the Lord, then Solomon’s wisdom comes through the Lord Himself, and there is a wisdom that is redemptive and with which we can live.
But if we turn our relationship from the Lord, that wisdom still functions, but we have to find our wisdom from various sources—like our own brains, our own mental powers, and even evil forces, if need be. The wisdom will continue to churn.
The wisdom of God can turn into man-made wisdom channeled through the same person. Then the wisdom comes out bruised—tainted wisdom.
These things he says are true, especially if you are only going to look at things under the sun. But after all, brothers and sisters, do we only look at things as they are under the sun? Is that supposed to be our focus?
Wisdom has a funny way, when not used in relationship to the Lord, of becoming something torturous. A wise man is a grievous man, he says. A wise man is a tortured man, because if you really know what is going on, there is not a hope in the world of being optimistic about anything.
It is all vanity and futility. There is nothing that gives you anything more than momentary pleasure. So he says, “Well, go ahead and live it out that way then, because that’s the best you’re going to buy.”
But there is a gospel. I read it in Ecclesiastes 3.
He hath made everything beautiful in its time. Also He hath set eternity in their heart, yet so that man cannot find out the work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end.
When a man becomes cynical and jaded, and he has looked around at this world and seen what it has to offer—when he sees that everything under the sun, even religion under the sun, is in the end futility—man could just become an animal again.
If it were not for this good news, that God has set eternity in our hearts, there is something that haunts us anyway. We know there is something more.
Poor Solomon. He did not have it clear, but he knew there was something more. Eternity is set in my heart, but I cannot figure it out. Man is not able to figure out what has gone on from the beginning even to the end. Man tries to be omniscient, but in the end, he fails.
Yet God gives Solomon clues. He gives every man—believer and unbeliever—clues, and these clues are basically this: in His time, He synchronizes eternity with time and makes something beautiful.
Solomon, in all his cynicism, sees a child born, and suddenly the eternity set in his heart syncs with time and he sees something beautiful.
In the midst of all this futility and vanity, he looks at nature and occasionally, at its right moment—with fall hues or whatever—eternity syncs with time, and he sees all things beautiful.
This is good news, brothers and sisters. No matter how far away we get from the Lord, still, in His time, He pulls things in such a way as to witness that He is the Lord of time.
Solomon, with all his power, kingly wealth, and wisdom, could not manipulate time. But in God’s time, things were beautiful.
Every time Solomon, under the sun, said, “No, I’m going to do something about this,” and went in there trying to get wisdom, it did not work. But God’s wisdom is beautiful in its time. You see what I’m saying?
He saw in some way in this passage that God is the Lord over circumstance. We may have chemical engineers, industrial engineers, and mechanical engineers here this morning, but we are dealing with the circumstantial Engineer. God has degrees in this.
He gets us into a circumstantial corner where finally we look up and see Him make all things beautiful. It is an amazing thing to see that God is in control of time.
He has set eternity in our hearts. If we did not have that eternity set in our hearts—that remnant of conscience and intuitive sense of the image of God somewhere, smeared but deep inside—then we would be no better than animals.
So many men today are saying, “Let’s just be animals.” But we are something more. Eternity has been set in our hearts. It haunts us, and I am sure it haunted Solomon.
The outcome was that Solomon could never let go of that haunting of eternity. So he said, “What is the conclusion then of this whole matter? Fear God and serve Him. That has got to be the end.”
“I see that there is some purpose in all this, but to tell you the truth, brothers and sisters, just between us and the assembly, I cannot make it all out. But I know every once in a while God evidences Himself. He brings eternity in touch with time, and I see beautiful things.”
He was hanging on, and I suppose he went to be with the Lord hanging on. I do not know if his heart was ever recovered.
We need to leave Solomon like that, because we do not know the end of the tale. We thank God for His mercy and the testimony Solomon had. We need to thank God that He has set eternity in our hearts as well.
There is something there—conscience—twisting in there. Do you think there is something more for your life, even though you want to be satisfied with just what is under the sun?
I thank the Lord for every time He has synchronized time and eternity. Here is the good news: we have a greater than Solomon here.
Solomon was left with this prophetic sense, but with a lack of clarity. Our testimony is Jesus—the One who linked eternity with time. Jesus makes all things beautiful. This Beautiful One Himself links it, and every time we see Jesus, it makes sense out of our existence.
We do not have to be like Solomon and say, “Well, I know there is a God, but I do not know quite how to relate to all this.”
Wasn’t it wonderful when you realized what sin was like? I was not a believer until I was twenty years old. Up to that time, I heard a lot about sin, but sin under the sun is, “So what? Everybody else is doing it.”
But then I saw Jesus as the Lamb of God, pure and undefiled. When I saw how He was damaged and how He was killed for sin, it moved sin up into eternity. I saw that sin was a capital “S”—consequential and important, and not something to be trifled with.
I thank God for that revelation. Before I was a Christian, the question that bothers everybody about suffering bothered me too: “If God is so good, then how come there is all this suffering?”
Somebody slipped me The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis. For the first time in my life, I read somebody who dared to say that suffering was not the result of something getting screwed up.
Suffering was a deliberate act of God through Jesus Christ. He came to die, and He came to suffer. Suffering was deliberate for my salvation.
I saw that there was purpose to suffering. I always thought there was no purpose to suffering. Suffering was just inadequacy—because we did not help people, because something was not fair, because God was not fair.
But when I saw suffering had purpose, it delivered it from just the realm of under the sun up into something deeper. There is holiness in suffering when it is done in the redemptive purpose of the Lord.
Then I often wondered before I was a Christian, “How could I ever contact God?” I feared God, but I did not understand the contact.
Again, I had to see Jesus. I remember the man preaching the gospel. You know what Baptists always preached the gospel from, right? Revelation 3:20.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him.
It has nothing to do with salvation, really, but you know what I mean—they always use that one. It happened to be one that really touched me, because that was Jesus talking.
I found out how to link time up with eternity. I did not have to climb up to God; He was already knocking on my door, wanting to come in. Suddenly, eternity came down to time.
Boy, I thank God when I got saved. It was a link. From that day on, just like you, things start to make sense. They do not always immediately make sense, but in His time He makes all things beautiful.
We have a greater than Solomon here. We have Someone who is not jaded at all—Someone who is wisdom, but heavenly wisdom; Someone with love, but unjaded love; Someone with truth to give us.
But the key is always this simple key for Christians: we have got to look to Jesus, or we can become jaded ourselves.
When we live in fellowship life with one another, even as husbands and wives, families, and church life, we will become cynical and jaded and feel it is futility and vanity—unless we see the Lord in the midst, working in our lives.
Sometimes we say, “Oh, that brother, he’ll never change. He’s always the same.” Under the sun, it appears that we are absolutely right. That brother will never change. He is the most stubborn brother the world has ever known, and he happens to be located in your fellowship.
We give up almost cynically, saying he can never change—never, ever change—until we look at Jesus and see this brother somehow looking at Jesus and being transformed from glory to glory as he beholds the Lord Jesus.
We know only Jesus can link eternity and time and make something beautiful out of this unbeautiful brother.
But if we do not have our eyes on Jesus—our Lord—if we are only related to religion secondhand, to God instead of to the Lord Jesus, then our vision is not clear.
Any pursuit of ours will turn to dust and prove vanity. Oh, listen, brothers and sisters, do not get taken up with all these entrapments. You really think making a lot of money is going to make you happy? Isn’t that vanity of vanities? Honestly, we are smart enough to know that.
Sometimes, even secretly and subtly, we think, “Well, if I just have a big happy family, that’s going to be the fulfillment of my life.” It will not be.
Solomon even says at one point in Ecclesiastes, “I raised my kids and made a lot of money to give to my kids, and they turned out to be a bunch of jerks.” It is all futility. Rehoboam—what a bum.
If you think your whole life is going to be fulfilled by watching your children grow up, all you are going to do is start popping a lot of Tums and, eventually, maybe Valiums.
But if we look to the Lord, we will find purpose in all those things that happen in our families, even adverse things. God will make all things beautiful.
Again, that focus has to be on the Lord Jesus, or our wisdom becomes jaded, or whatever gift we have been given by God becomes jaded.
I have seen people gifted in music sing for the Lord in a jaded way. They have gotten to a place where they have been used from fellowship to fellowship: “Plug me in here. Play. Here I am. I’m a robot.”
They have gotten cynical about the whole thing: “I’ll take my money and go to the next place.” They have lost the love for the Lord, but they are still cranking it up. They can still sing a song, but where is their heart? You sense that something is wrong.
Or ministry that is jaded. It seems like most guys on the radio are jaded. I think they get on the radio because they are mad at people, and not satisfied with beating their congregations, they take it out on radio people. Sometimes they beat up everybody.
Sure, they are preaching up a storm, and they are preaching the gospel, but they are throwing in so much jade, so much getting down on everything.
None of us is immune from this thing. If we do not have our vision fully on the Lord Jesus, we will not find that flow of life and all things beautiful.
The basic prophecy I would deliver to all of us this morning is this: your life will go one of two ways. As the wedge of life passes through your life, it will either throw you to the side of cynicism and hopelessness, or it will push you toward the Lord Jesus and fill your heart with hope.
You cannot remain neutral as a Christian. Events in life will either embitter you or break you. As they break you, you will just love the Lord Jesus more.
Our choices are really simple. When you look through the Scriptures in the New Testament, they are filled with statements that say, “You have a basic choice.”
You can look at the events of your life and take on worldly wisdom’s explanation under the sun, and it will leave you dissatisfied. Or you can say, “I entrust my life into Your hands, Lord Jesus. Your will be done.”
The difference in the end is someone filled with peace, or somebody striving, wrecked, and burned out.
Hebrews 2 says that man was made a little lower than the angels and given dominion over the animals, the things in the sea, and the things under the earth. Yet it says we do not see that yet.
You know you have a purpose, brother. You have a purpose, sister. Some people are angry because they have been Christians for years and still have not found out what they are supposed to do.
Some people do not even know what job they are supposed to be in, and now they are forty years old: “I still don’t even know my job.” They certainly do not know what they are supposed to be in the body of Christ, and they are clamoring and upset about it.
“What is man, that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man?” I am supposed to rule and reign, be the head and not the tail, and I am being sloshed around by circumstances. What is going on? “I know where it is—it’s the crummy people in the fellowship. No, no, no, it’s my family. I’ve got to move. It’s geographic location,” or whatever.
But that is not really where the problem is.
The writer of Hebrews goes on, writing to precious saints going through a very difficult time of persecution. He asks, “Are you questioning the persecution? Are you wondering if there is any purpose in having your homes confiscated, in being thrown out for your faith, in trembling under persecution and tough times?”
He says, “If you look to your own life, you are not going to see much. Although we do not yet see man doing what he was destined to be, we see Jesus.”
He laid down His life for us and is now crowned with glory and honor. We see one Man who made it. You do not need to be cynical anymore.
His promise that He made it is also the promise that He will bring many sons to glory. You and I will make it by the grace of God. You hang in there.
You do not know what your purpose is in God? Just be broken before the Lord. Do not be bitter. Brothers and sisters, I ask you in Jesus’ name: do not be bitter.
The root of bitterness can only result from a lack of taking the grace of God in your life. When that root of bitterness comes up, it has got to be exercised by three or four Christians pulling on your jaw like a dentist on a wisdom tooth.
Bitterness does not come out easily. Better to take grace in your time and find the life of the Lord flowing in you as He purposes for your life.
Of course, we have the ultimate “He makes all things beautiful” passage in the New Testament: Romans 8:28.
And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to His purpose.
He makes all things beautiful. What a wonderful Lord.
Solomon longed to see such a day. He longed to know the key of eternity and time. He felt like he was struggling against forces, and he knew that God was real. Yet it seemed like God called all the shots, and sometimes the fates dealt an evil blow.
It is hard to understand what goes on in this life under the sun. But you look to Jesus and see heavenly vision, and suddenly purpose and meaning become clear in your particular circumstance.
I am not just talking about big, highfalutin stuff like the Chinese transition I talked about. Let’s talk about something small, like your life and what is going on.
Are you bitter? Are you gracious?
Is that gift God has given you flowing in relationship to the life of God, or is it flowing out of the resources of your own being?
When you come upon circumstances that you cannot understand, cannot change, or cannot manipulate, place your life in the hands of the Almighty God, who makes all things beautiful in its time.
I think that is just about our only choice. Let us take it from the testimony of this assemblyman, this preacher, sharing his struggle.
Let us realize that we have the Lord Jesus to look unto—a greater than Solomon. As we look to Him, all things become clear.
Lord Jehovah, Lord Jesus Christ, You look down upon our hearts at this very moment, and You see the songs being sung therein.
You see those songs of anguish and grief, those songs of despair, those songs of doubt. O Lord, would You give us a vision of Yourself?
May the things we do not understand under the sun be clarified as we find ourselves under the Son.
We pray for all who are veterans like Solomon, who have been around a long time and know how to turn on and off their gift according to their own will—who have tried and tested and felt that they were only going around in circles.
O Lord, would You give us heavenly vision to propel us forward, to show us Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.
Though He knew everything inside His disciples, and knew the ultimate destiny of the church, even its need for recovery, He did not become bitter or cynical or lose hope. But in godly wisdom, He loved and gave all that He had on our behalf.
Help us look to Him, Lord, instead of to our circumstances.
Every time, Lord, we as Christians stray from the vision of our Lord and find ourselves in some place of compromise—fussing, compromised, confused—then, Lord, I pray that You will set again and allow us to hear that eternal clock ticking within our hearts.
Grant us intuitively to understand that there is greater purpose to this life than just what is transpiring here that we can see.
Give us that view of the eternal things that last forever, replacing those things which we see and which are passing away.
Lord, we pray in this age that we will not be those whose souls get sated because we only live under the sun—who burn out our love life through dissipation, who burn out our business vocation through overindulgence, who burn out our wisdom through abusive use, and find ourselves just sated and cynical.
Lord, only You can recover Your veterans and instill in us that vision of Yourself from which pours forth life, abundance, and understanding.
Finally, Lord, we thank You, blessed Lord Jesus, that You came down to time and synchronized time and eternity, so that we can now understand our life, our suffering, our wisdom, our vocation, our family, our life together, our ministry, and our worship.
We thank You that You have brought this testimony to us. So we respond to You: Lord, we thank You.
In His time, in His time,
He makes all things beautiful in His time.
Lord, please show me every day,
As You’re teaching me Your way,
That You do just what You say in Your time.
In Your time, in Your time,
You make all things beautiful in Your time.
Lord, my life to You I bring.
May all I have to sing
Be to You a lovely thing in Your time.
Through it all, through it all,
I’ve learned to trust in Jesus,
I’ve learned to trust in God.
Through it all, through it all,
I’ve learned to depend upon His Word.