The Case Against Self-Sufficiency (Part 2 of 2)

Use of fence you want to talk about. Think about it it's not a topic you bring up at social gatherings and was at the funeral. Even there, it's unnerving today on Truth for Life. Though working to find out why you don't know how to live until you've learned how to die. Alastair Bragg is continuing our study of the book of Ecclesiastes were in chapters 8 and nine. When addressing this in chapters 8 and nine the writer essentially says four things he actually says more than that for is all that we can handle in the time that is allowable to us. The first is life is unmanageable. Secondly, people are as unreliable as life is unfair, which of course a real burden because our lives are all about the thirdly the future is unpredictable in the first century BC.

A man by the name of Lucretius described life as a fortuitous concourse of atoms.

But what he saying was simply this, throw the dice of chance long enough and frequently enough the primeval's lying will spit out a Milton and give us this wonderful padded eyes lost and regained throw the dice again longer and more frequently and eventually may spit out for is a Shakespeare and all this wonderful material that can give to his insight into life and it spits out Hitler we have the Holocaust and it spits out Timothy McVeigh and we have Oklahoma City presented my friends. You are sensible people, who are you will you think there's through with me, contemporary sophisticated men and women choose in their sophistication to deny the notion of the existence of a personal Creator God who has made them for the express purpose of knowing him, and before whom they will one day stand and give account of their lives. Beginning the 21st century reveals no no I have no no no no such notion what and what are the fill the vacuum with just go in the bookstores, as understood in their I sent home much multi cultural religious claptrap there is in this place, but there is every imaginable notion that is right there so sophisticated man turns his back on God and he believes in time. He believes in chance he believes in mother nature and we live in a time where God is naturalized in nature is deified.

So God is completely dethroned and nature is then frowned. When is the last time you ever saw a Christian minister on the show from New York City or ABC or NBC or any of that major net and he said and just when we come back after the break regarding a reference on so long and he's going to be telling us about how we can prepare for eternity and as a sidebar. They put up on the screen. It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this comes judgment, or because you haven't seen it and you're not about to see it. But when the music fades and they come back on site. I want to have sitting there. They have some strange looking lady or a funny looking man who, with piercing eyes who is an astrologer is going to answer the riddles for contemporary American society about their future. One thing we don't want to do is allow anybody to come in here with with any kind of divine word of authority. Suppose the real that would get prepare us for an eventuality that we all know is true there not a person who doesn't know they're going to die. So you would think.

Would you that if anybody had an answer for death that he would just be constantly in demand, tell us how to die coming to Lazard and you're ready to Nono in order to buy will have Mr. so-and-so and he will come and tell us about how to understand our future.

The future is unpredictable and finally, if life is unmanageable and unfair, and if people are unreliable. If the future is unpredictable than his skinny get any worse well and from one send yes death is unavoidable, but in chapter 9. The opening 10 verses. I'll leave it for you. Anyone is among the living. Verse four has hope even alive dog is better off than a dead lion.

All in fits right in as a kind of thing people say to me all the time. They don't say that they have and I haven't heard that when Melissa seems up well. Hey, I'm on | 9 will and matter are now hundred years K Serra's overall what ever who know who cares's futility.

Actually it's stupidity.

It's really quite incredible. The explanation I'm going to give you in just a moment, but it is phenomenal when you think about it. From one perspective that here you can have these human beings walking inexorably towards their death and be prepared to simply blow it off to say well you know doesn't really matter. There's no concern here. Despite the fiber when their insurance guy comes around and sends the big kindly, portly Norse who takes all that blood and squeeze it all into the think all their signed up for that.

Of course they are. Yes give me as much.

As you can for that is lease premium. As you can and make it last as long as you can. Why is I'm going to punch outs you will let me talk about punching out one-on-one talk about Punjab not really just doing it. Everybody has those things but not no not all are you crazy you don't know how to live until you learn how to die. You understand how to get checkmate when you doing shoving all these palms around on the chessboard waiving this is, I met a family one find it please you to take the king it would take a king, sometimes in the first five moons of the game you don't take the king checkmate finishes is all know we've always played. You could take the king. I don't care what you've always played. You can take the K is not the gay people going through their life just the exact same welders push the pond here for support bonds or king forgot pond to you know Bishop on the left three over and so on, all that jazz scene – makes nonsense of all of life's distinctions without God.

This is all that is. Therefore all we can do is make the best of it is what he saying you might as well eat your food with gladness, drinking wine with a joyful heart hang out with a wife clothed in white put the perfume on, because frankly you want to die like this you should let it you should embrace this you say this is the most sensible helpful thing I've heard in the longest time because all of the rest of it suggests to me all know will be fine would be fine. No, no, just don't think about it and it won't be finger warm and you will be warm, bogus think life and you will be alive think not true.

Sure, we can influence our mentality in the way we conceive of circumstances but we do not change the reality of life. We may change our perception of its reality, but we do not change it well is that it is he just going to leave us there.

Death is unavoidable. Life is unmanageable. People are unreliable. The future is unpredictable and I stay and I'm sure glad to drop by well no I just have a word to get you out of your potential doldrums. He's about to turn a corner here into 10, 11 and 12. He's already given an indication of it at the end of chapter 7. This only have I found that God made man up right a man of God's going in search of many schemes, it sounds a little bit like Isaiah 53 all we like sheep have gone astray with turned everyone to his own way were all off from the main track. God is made man up right a minute going in search of many schemes. Verse three of chapter 9. This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun, the same destiny overtakes all now both notices little insight here the hearts of men moreover are full of evil and it is madness in their hearts while they live and afterwards they join the dead. So what have you been thinking about lately. Well I was this thing about how the hearts of men are full of evil and the really mad while they live, and then afterwards they die what he saying is this that we have developed deep seated flaws and therefore we cannot think clearly about God or about our relationship with God. Anselm of Canterbury and 11th-century road very famous Bouguereau Curtis formal why God became man. Why did God become man he eroded in the dialogue form with a student whose name was Bozo and interesting name. I'm sure your degrees are rather slow character in the book and at one point in asking the question about the meaning of life. Anselm says to this character, you have not yet consider the greatness and the might of said and the reason why some of us are in the predicament in which we find ourselves this morning unable to unscramble the riddle of life's is aware of the fact that we are an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a riddle is because we have never ever considered the weight and the significance of sin. We have never fashioned on the fact that our minds do not operate in a spiritual and moral vacuum you this morning Sir Mme. boy, girl, you do not operate from a position of neutrality you not in some neutral zone whereby you then decide either to enter into this way of conceiving of things or of that we have conceiving of things, know the Bible says is that we have gone astray, that our hearts are flawed. That sin pervades how we think and how we feel about everything and that is why we can never understand why the world is the way it is. Why is it the men and women can look at the exact same thing as a I never guy can believe you even saying that where did you get out front while it's in the Bible. I never answered nonsense in all of my life. Why would somebody say that kind of thing that is bizarre and ridiculous and you say to yourself what it seems so obvious to me why are they reacting in that way the reacting in that way because of the weight, the seriousness of sin, which in holds our minds from birth we think wrongly and that's what happens when the Bible is taught the Bible comes and shines into that darkness and gives to us by God's grace. A moment where we all of a sudden go.

That makes sense. That makes sense now. The only reason you'll ever say that is because God in his grace brings his word shines it into your darkened mind and cracks open a little bit of a window and all of a sudden you say, this is amazing for 40 years of my life I have thought this way living this way ignored God in this way, and here in the strangest of circumstances. I find of the window of my mind is now open to this true of the reason that we're in the position in which we find ourselves is because we have suppressed the truth of God. We have read press truth that we know there are no genuine atheists, every atheist knows that there is a God, every atheist knows that there is eternity. Everybody who professes that does so by choice and goes against themselves. Huxley said I had a reason for not wanting to believe in God because to disbelieve in God wants for me the basis for sexual and political freedom. I don't want to have to give account to anybody so I will disbelieve him out of existence. You can do it. That's why here you are this morning. Some of you are frustrated. The reason you're frustrated because you never be fully satisfied with anything that the world has to offer. There is a Thanksgiving celebration they can answer the deep longings of our we were made for his pleasure, not for our own pleasure, therefore, will remain forever dissatisfied until we find the ultimate pleasure in knowing that we were created by God for God and for his glory. Are you prepared to admit to that frustration.

Today I forgot to face up to the frustration you prepared even to admit the frustration that we can talk about whether you prepared to acknowledge the source of the frustration you prepared to admit to the frustration we admit also that your fugitive to your own destiny, your fugitive to your own destiny. You know what you were supposed to be God made you for himself and your living for yourself.

God made you for a grand purpose. You just simply whittling away your dates God made you to experience all of his fullness in all his blessing and all of the wonder of his love, and you don't understand, and furthermore, you're angry about, and you're determined to disbelieve in this God but still you read those funny books.

Still, we'll talk about Jesus as if he was some Galactic superstar and believe all kinds of things, can I ask you to understand why did you feel homesick at home to understand why it is you feel the way you feel when you look at your children and you feel the time passes through your fingers when you see your aging parents and not only do you see all that is and then we see that all that is in yourself that is in them and you know that you're moving inexorably towards that end. Why is that why don't we just feel like hey can't wait going to die soon. Can't wait my turn heads made next meaning Xilinx not let me go next. Are you running from it.

Aren't you you got your you have the blankets over your head. You are scared to death. You might die. Still in your sophistication. Turn your back on God ignored Christ repost his word close the door of your car and drive off in the emptiness Augustine put it well. You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you. There's nowhere else we can go. There's no other fountain from which we can drink when Jesus said to the woman of the well. He said you know you come here every day for water. I'll give you water you drink the water that I give you will never be thirsty again. She said oh I love that I'm sick of coming here not know Jesus as I'm not talking about physical water.

You can put in a pot. I'm talking about spiritual water which you drink, it will be like a well you and will overflow from were she tried satisfaction. She had five husbands in the live-in lover. She was looking for love in all the wrong places.

And here in the room from the lips of a Galilean carpenter sheet to cheers about a drink that she can take that will change your life forever. Why could Jesus offer her the cup of life because he was about to taste the cup of death he was going to the cross in order to die is the substitute for that woman in order to bear her guilt. In order to take her shame in order to all of the burden of God's wrath and judgment upon her life and because of her trust and acceptance in this Christ she experiences life in Christ experiences.

There is nothing is wonderful in all the world that is nothing or strange in all the world to refer to as the wisdom of God. When you love to write a Shakespeare play when you love to be able to write to die to sleep no more and by asleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to his consummation devoutly to be wished to know how you can write that we can write out of your Shakespeare.

We are not Shakespeare, but imagine that the genius of Shakespeare could come and live in you and then you could write that to sleep perchance to dream I there's the rub.

You see this is going well to like to paint. Imagine painting like Turner one of those great English landscapes when you love to do that you can do that Miller cannot but in the genius of Turner to come and live in you, you get pain like Turner when you left another fullness in the forgiveness and the purpose and the reality and the joy that is found in the life of the Lord Jesus. You can live a life like that and you cannot but if the life of the Lord Jesus can come and live in my life that I can live a life or to turn it all around. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation the old is gone and the new has come. Here is Christ, here is me by nature I'm outside of Christ to live in Christ is not something that you catching the wind is not something that is done as a result of religious professional coming along this little guy here comes longingly to thinking and thinking and he says okay Joe Holmes: the come to come. You are now in Christ or whatever it is okay or I know baptize you therefore you are in Christ or, say, three of these and run around the block five times and you're in Christ. None of that. Nobody can do that for you by the Lord Jesus comes in and is pursuing love and in his wonderful, amazing grace, he comes in he gathers hands to himself. He says, believe in me. Trust in me, and live in me and I will live in you and then you see your Thanksgiving totally changes, then the verses with which we began verse seven of chapter 8 makes sense and go I'll go ahead and have a lovely meal.

Go ahead and put on your birth go.

I am love your wife. Go ahead and call your kids go ahead and welcome your neighbors do all that because now that I've understood their overarching purpose for my existence.

I can make sense of my days, but until I've understood the overarching purpose of my existence. My days are ultimately meaningless. My life is flat, sterile promontory and eventually they will say advises the set of others before us over Susan Cemetery where that never happens and never happens in heaven as God never ever ever forgets the name of his children and he writes them down in a book and he seals them for all of eternity so I can walk through the whole of America.

Nobody knows I'm go to party and no one knows I'm go to a new school and nobody knows and nobody cares. I can take a new job I can fly on a plane I can do all those things and no one knows me. What a difference it is to know that Christ, he knows my name he knows my anxious thoughts and he loves me with an everlasting love. Listen, my dear friends, this is good news. Embrace it and live in the light of it, and if you do embrace it.

We please tell some people about in this week got our father come now and write your word in our hearts, and may grace and mercy and peace from the father the son and the Holy Spirit, be our abiding portion now and forevermore. If our life is without God. All we can do is make the most of this life until we die, but with God in our lives. Life has meaning and we have a greater hope, and that's good news were listing to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life.

Alister ended today's message by challenging all of us to share the good news with others. If you'd like to do that, but you're not comfortable talking to others about the gospel or you don't know how to start a gospel conversation this with the learn more page on our website you'll find a couple brief videos that are perfect to download and share with friends, or you can watch them yourself to get some tips for how to talk to others you can watch her share both of these videos as often as you'd like you're completely free online the Truth for Life.org/learn more.

Sharing God's word is challenging but you don't have to look far to observe that our society is becoming less and less tolerant of biblical beliefs affect Christian views about things like human sexuality or gender are increasingly considered infringements on someone else's personal freedom holding firm door faith can sometimes make us out to be the bad guy. So how do we navigate this changing tide. We want to recommend to you a book called being the bad guys that explores what it looks like to live for Jesus in a world that says we should request your copy of the book being the bad guys when you give a donation Truth for Life.org/donate about the pain and unguarded moment of foolishness can completely destroy someone's reputation or marriage for so much more will learn how to resist folly, embrace wisdom tomorrow. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life for the Learning is for Living