Life Ain’t Always Fair
Ecclesiastes 7-9
August 23, 2015
Have you ever done something really nice for someone and it backfired? It doesn’t matter what the reason or what you did . . . maybe they showed no appreciation – there was no thank you, no acknowledgment that you did something good for someone.
I read about a man who was running on a trail and saw that a tree had fallen across the path. Most people were stepping or jumping over it. As he was approaching it he saw a woman pushing a stroller and knew she couldn’t get around it. So, he went over to move the tree out of the path. He picked up the tree, felt something go out in his back and felt a searing pain in his knee. Then he heard a noise. He noticed a swarm of bees coming after him. Bad back and all he started running and stopped after 5 minutes only to find the bees were still after him. In the end, he spent 3 days in the hospital because of an allergic reaction to the bee stings and had physical therapy for his back.
Have you ever been there? Something just didn’t go right with what you did. You tried to do good, but . . .
In his powerful book, The Road Less Traveled, the very first line, Scott pack wrote this, "Life is difficult." It’s not deep, but it’s true. The author, Solomon, saw that life is messed up and a tangled mess as well.
We’re in week 6 of look at Ecclesiastes and I believe Solomon would agree with Peck — life is difficult. I believe Solomon would agree with that. Even though he was the most affluent and well-educated man of his time, even though he was the most powerful man in his era, he also understood how painful, unfair, and topsy-turvy life can be.
In Ecclesiastes 7:15 he wrote ~
15 In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing.
16 Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself?
That’s a strange sounding passage. He’s not saying the righteous, the just, or good person perishes because they are righteous. And he’s not saying be wicked so that you can prolong your life. Instead, he’s reminding us that life is not always fair. He’s telling us sometimes the wicked person seems to win, while the righteous person, the good person comes out on the short stick and seems to lose.
That's not how it should be, but that's how it is sometimes, isn't it? The righteous die young and the wicked live a long time. It’s the old saying, ‘the good die young, while terrible dictators and abusive people seem to live to ripe old ages.
Yet, Solomon goes on to say — 16 Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself?
Now that sounds really strange. Don’t be overly righteous? Don’t be too wise? Solomon is really stating a proverb for us. He is not advocating moral laxity and using poor judgment. He is warning against the obsession of always needing to be right. Solomon is telling us to insist on this, ultimately is self-destructive. People who have to win every argument eventually alienate everyone around them.
We want life to be fair but it's not; we want to everything to work out but sometimes it doesn't; we want to live happily ever after but things go wrong because life is all tangled up. We want people to treat us fairly, we want them to treat our children fairly. We expect friends, teachers, coaches, other Christians to treat one another the right way. We expect people to talk to us and not ignore us. We expect people to be fair and impartial. I don’t think that is too much to ask for. Especially from other Christ followers.
Yet, the Bible tells us the reason it's tangled is because we live in a fallen world and we're all fallen creatures and that affects everything! It impacts our health, the other people around us, and sometimes our own attitudes.
At the end of chapter 7, Solomon wrote — 29 See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.
We're like that because we've all wandered from God.
Paul gives us a clear indication of who we are in Romans 3 ~
10 None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
On our own, we are not righteous. Only through Jesus can we become righteous in God’s sight. Again, on our own, we mess up. We take action on our own terms, without a thought about what it can do to others. We try to control and manage life but that plan that doesn't align itself with God’s plan. As a result, the world is a tangled up mess.
Life is mysterious
Not only is life a tangled mess — sometimes it just doesn’t make sense. And it’s mysterious. The unexpected happens or what is supposed to happen doesn't and none of it seems to make any sense. We can give example after example from our own lives.
Solomon said ~ in Ecclesiastes 9:11 —
11 Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.
Solomon isn’t talking about the kinds of mysteries we read about when we’re standing in line at the grocery store that say Elvis was seen working at a Pizza King in Alexandria or some woman in England gave birth to a 28lb child with the head of an alien.
He's referring to the strange things that happen that can't be explained because they appear to be out of natural order of cause and effect. The fastest runner doesn't always win. The greatest army doesn't always get the victory. Health and wealth don't always come to the smartest or the most gifted.
Solomon says that sometimes, life is like that. Even more mysterious and disturbing is the fact that suffering can come so quickly — as if out of nowhere. In the next verse he wrote —
12 For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.
We see the same types of things that Solomon saw. We see hurricanes and tornados. We see sudden accidents. We know people who are healthy and suddenly get sick and die. We see the good suffering, the wicked prospering . . . and we wonder . . . how? Why? God, what are you up to?
Life is mysterious and it's all tangled up, and that's not easy for us to face up to or deal with and so we look for help. Our world is all too eager to show us how to manage the mystery and the tangles of life.
Contemporary solutions to the mysteries of life: fantasy and formulas
One way our world helps us deal with the mysteries and unfairness of life is to live our lives in a fantasy world. Woody Allen once said, "In real life people disappoint you. They are cruel, and life is cruel. I think there is no win in life. Reality is a very painful, tough thing that you have to cope with in some way. What we do is escape into fantasy and it does give us moments of relief." He’s right, we find our escape into fantasy, into an unreal world we think is safe, yet it’s filled with traps and illusions.
We grab onto alcohol and drugs. We escape into porn. Just read the story about the subway guy, Jared. We escape into gambling. Now you don’t have to go to Vegas or Atlantic City. You can even gamble on your fantasy football team. It’s all available 24/7.
I’ll admit I enjoy watching television. I watch before going to sleep. Yet, I’ll flip through all 5,000 channels or however many we have. And most of the time I end up watching a movie I’ve seen 300 times before. Because there’s really nothing on, at least nothing worth anything.
Fantasy is one strategy for dealing with the tangled and mysterious reality of life. For those of us who are part of the church crowd and don't want to admit that we cave into fantasy, we've adopted another one.
We try to manipulate reality with formulas. We have the privilege of living in the most scientifically advanced and technologically developed civilization the world has ever seen. Huge advances are being made every day and those have subtly taught us that we can circumvent the mysteries of life and manipulate it for our advantage. Hear me well: I am a big fan of science and technology.
Yet we try to force God into doing what we want Him to do, because we think we have all of the answers. We buy books and videos, some of which are helpful, most are just confusing. If Jesus had a formula for fixing life and making it work, He would have given it to us rather than suffering and dying on a Cross for our sins.
Oh, and by the way, that is the formula. Follow Christ! So when life doesn’t make sense, Jesus will and He will be there for you. He will be the One who can help you through the tangled and messed up unfairness of life.
In chapter 8, listen to these words —
10 Then I saw the wicked buried. They used to go in and out of the holy place and were praised in the city where they had done such things. This also is vanity.
11 Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.
12 Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they fear before Him.
We see the wicked being praised. Somehow it makes perfect sense to the world. They ignore or don’t see the wickedness and we struggle. Why have they not been punished? They’re living it up and we are struggling. It’s not fair! And we rail against God and against one another. If things don’t work out the way we want, we make a scene. But God says “WOE! STOP!
And Solomon reminds us it will be well with those who fear God. When you revere God. When you can admit you need God, when you can stop and admit your sinfulness, and turn yourself over to God and give God the control you desperately crave, then in the end . . . did you hear me? In the end . . . it will be well with you! It may not be perfect in this world, but we know there is a better place coming, but until we arrive there, can we look past the imperfections of one another? Can we look past the unfairness, the tangled up mess of a world we live in? Can we look past all of this and more . . .
. . . and look to the Lord of Hosts? Can we look to the God of the heavenly armies who died for us and is fighting for us. Can we look to Him.
Yup, life is not fair. Life is difficult. We will help someone and something bad will happen to us, and they won’t even say thank you!
Solomon is right; we don't know the future; we can't predict what will happen to us — or as he says — we don't know whether love or hate awaits us. But the more important truth, the bigger truth, the foundational truth is that we are in the hands of the sovereign God who loves us more than we can know.
As we walk thru life we're all going to face a lot of tangles and we're going to encounter some mysteries. That's reality. But we don't want to use formulas to manage that because they're not biblical. We don't want to follow fantasies because they lead to nowhere. Instead we must seek God's wisdom and put our total trust in Him because He is crazy in love with us and He wants the best for us.
