Saved from the Grave

DEVOTION

ECCLESIASTES

SAVED FROM THE GRAVE

Eccl 9:1-10

9:1 So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God's hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him. 2 All share a common destiny — the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not. As it is with the good man, so with the sinner; as it is with those who take oaths, so with those who are afraid to take them. 3 This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead. 4 Anyone who is among the living has hope-even a live dog is better off than a dead lion! 5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten. 6 Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun. 7 Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do. 8 Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. 9 Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun— all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

NIV

What a sad commentary on life. We cannot forget Solomon is approaching the matter of life from the view of a human who does not know God, even though he uses the terms righteous and wicked. Sometimes it appears the righteous refer to us, the believers in Christ and sometimes just to people who live rightly as opposed to those who live in a wicked, or evil way, doing wrong to others. But then it could be us and them and it is a fact that death waits for both of us. However, they difference is whether love or hate awaits us in death. So He does seem to be speaking about those who love God and those who do not. Those who love the Lord will receive the love of God in death, while the rest will receive his wrath. Yet that may not be exactly what Solomon is saying as he makes it clean the both the righteous and wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who do sacrifices and those who don’t and as it is with a good man and so with a sinner, the same destiny awaits us both. We will join the dead. He says the hearts of men are full of evil. Does that include us? It would seem so and we know that is true. How can we say we have no evil in our heart? Is our heart pure one hundred percent of the time? Do we not sin? If we sin, it is because of evil in our heart, and who is sinless? That sounds just wrong, to think we harbor evil in our heart. How can we if Christ is in our heart? Well he really isn’t in there, he is in heaven at the right hand of the Father. The Spirit dwells within us, so how then can he be there and evil also? That is the mystery. But how can we say we have never had envy, or jealously or greed? How can we say we have not lusted after something, desired something so much we just had to have it.?  How can we say we never have been angry, or did not want to forgive someone? Can we say we have never gossiped? Can we say we have never offended someone, or entered into idle talk, or jokes or made comments we shouldn’t? No, we sin, so evil does reside in our hearts. Thank God Jesus took our sin upon him and paid the price for any evil in our heart. Otherwise we would be in real trouble. We would just be dead and forgotten, gone to never more live. If we do not have Jesus, we have nothing. Without Christ, life is just life and we should just go about eating and drinking, dancing, whooping it up, for tomorrow we die and nothing else happens. Without Jesus there is nothing. So then we live it up, do it all with all our might and enjoy every moment we have breath for one in the grave we can do nothing. What a sad way to live, it is meaningless. But we are in Christ, we have many promises of God. We have the promise that the grave cannot hold us. Because Jesus was resurrected from the dead, the grave, so will we who believe. Oh death, where is thy sting? Up from the grave he arose, and so shall we, Hallelujah, praise the Lord! Did Solomon know about the resurrection? Perhaps not, even being the wisest man to live. The question is whether Solomon knew of the afterlife, which is the term they would have used in their days. Just as the Egyptians Pharaohs prepared for the afterlife, it appears the Israelites did not speak of resurrection but an afterlife. However, we have Jesus and we have a resurrection and we will live on for eternity in the presence of God. Let us not be weighted down with the burden of life, with the depression that it seems Solomon paints the picture of. Let us rejoice because we are in Christ! Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised for he has done it, he has saved us from the fate of the grave.