When Life Isn't Fair - Ecclesiastes 3:16-17

Jesus will not have missed any sin or any secrets because he is munitions.

He is all-knowing Jesus will not need to bring witnesses in that courtroom setting because he is my present he was there when every deed was committed. He will not need any assistance in carrying out his eternal verdict of perfect justice because he is omnipotent he is all-powerful and those who take shortcuts always seem to get. Have you ever thought that living life by God's standards leaves you falling behind those who are willing to compromise in Ecclesiastes.

King Solomon made the same observation. He lamented that evil people seem to win but he also understood an important reality. God will be the final judge of all deeds done on earth and there were only two possible outcomes guilty or pardoned.

Those who get ahead now through evil means will pay the penalty in the Stevens lesson today is called when life isn't fair when you were growing up they didn't take you very long to learn a few lessons about life, you probably learned one of those life lessons around the same time you started kindergarten you learned it on the playground life isn't perfectly fair. The bigger kids didn't share the swing set or pass the ball when you're wide open bothered he didn't did me write about older brothers or sisters to enjoy teaching you that life lesson that life is unfair. Every chance they got. Maybe your parents and how much either. Maybe they didn't play fair Rodney Dangerfield that great theologian used to say when I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them. The trouble is, life doesn't become fair when you outgrow the playground.

We all discover sooner or later that we belong to a very unjust race human race cheater. It worked ends up getting the promotion good people don't automatically win innocent people sometimes get the blame. Guilty people don't always get caught in the truth is that bothers doesn't Romans chapter 2 tells us why the apostle Paul informs us that we have the law of God written stamped on our hearts and our consciences, which means that wherever you go in the world you discover this inborn sense of right and wrong. One author put it this way are longing for justice is hardwired into us and how we think and feel.

When God created desire for justice. That is until were the ones pulled over for speeding and then we want mercy and not justice but the truth remains we all have this intuitive desire that the wrong things in the world and in the life that they be made right just why when you hear some news reported justice served something in your heart and mind says that's great. That's the way it ought to be the way it should be taught. I felt as I read a recent news report of a cold case that finally got solved in the early 1960s young girl went missing from her hometown streets of Illinois.

Tragically, her body was found.

A few days later.

Family was overcome with shock and grief.

Of course, with a deep desire for justice. Detectives would end up listing just over 100 potential suspects.

None of them panned out. One of them was a 17-year-old young man in the neighborhood but since his mother provided a rock solid alibi. He had been with her on the evening in question. He was never interviewed but 55 years later, on her deathbed's mother confessed that she had lied. It had troubled her for 55 years. The cold case was reopened. This young man, now in his early 70s you never outgrow a DNA for fingerprint all the forensic evidence matched him. He was sentenced to life for the rest of his life in prison. And there's something in the office that applauds he did not get away with it.

That's right, good seems to be bothering Solomon as he contemplates before his open Journal, the spirit of God is influencing him to write is that there are far too many people in the world who seem to be getting away with murder and every other crime against man and God. No matter how big or or small you take your copy of that private Journal. We called the book of Ecclesiastes. If your new our study. Let's go back to chapter 3 where he left office.

Solomon describes first the problem were in chapter 3 we left off.

Now will pick it back up at verse 16.

Just let's start with the first line, Solomon writes. Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice. Even there was wickedness. Now you'll notice right away that he's observing how life is notice under the sun. That's his favorite expression again for life without any acknowledgment of God is going to make similar observations about life under the sun is life on planet Earth without God, where mankind is keeping the score, and by the way, they don't keep a fair score and I want you to notice right away that Solomon is not writing about something he's hearing under the sun.

This is something he's reading in the Jerusalem news and Observer. He says let me tell you about what I am actually seeing you notice that I'm an eyewitness to this stuff you can't believe what I've seen. Now he doesn't tell us what specific instances are in mind he's seeing and speaks in general of gross injustice under the sun, and I want to point out here that what was alarming to Solomon, is the fact that he's an eyewitness to wickedness, but it isn't out of the back alley note Solomon's trouble over isn't the fact that there is wickedness in his hometown, but that there is wickedness. Notice in the place of justice and that emphasis even there in the place of justice even where there is wickedness in the place of justice is a reference to the court of law.

It's the last place you would ever want to see injustice. You don't want that. You don't expect to see injustice in the place of justice. This is in general terms, a reference to some judge perhaps being on a criminals payroll were a law you're misrepresenting, knowingly misrepresenting the facts, or a witness lying under oath, a member of the jury's been tampered with, or maybe even bought off an innocent person was framed guilty person who goes free, and Solomon is essentially saying I'm seeing this happen and that it isn't fair. It isn't right that supposed to be how it works in the place of justice. There are few things in life more upsetting under the sun than when the halls of justice become corridor of corruption.

But that isn't all that's bothering Solomon notice for 16 again.

Moreover, I saw under the summit in the place of justice, even in their wickedness notice and in the place of righteousness, the place of righteousness even there even there was wickedness for Solomon. The place that would represent justice was in their fully developed court of law and the place it would represent righteousness would have been the temple, so the court of law and the house of God.

Solomon rights are filled with evil people who are reversing the core values of each of those institutions. Men and women who are supposed to be representing God and righteousness are representatives of evil men and women who represent the law, are given to corruption, and of course the law is brought into disrepute. It is diminished. It is disregarded and the worship of the one true God. In this case falls into disrepair. This would greatly harm the reputation of God that principle. By the way is transferable into this dispensation into any church in any generation in this dispensation. It surfaces in the qualifications of men who will serve as deacons and elders, among other qualities there to be self-controlled. Paul writes respectable not quarrelsome, not lovers of money, and a dozen other qualifications that service in first Timothy and Titus. Why well for one thing, because the world the church is attempting to reach can smell corruption quicker than the church and they'll make the most of it in diluting or disregarding the gospel in the God. We represent wickedness among church leaders diminishes and distorts the character of God. They supposedly represent.

So the church which should be telling the world to repent. It's a tragic reversal when the world starts telling the church to repent people representing God, even beyond the church in nonprofit organizations are held to a higher standard and they should be in the world is quick to show any hypocrisy.

I remember reading the news a few years ago that a Christian organization promised to build entire communities in a hurricane devastated area and they raised half $1 billion, only to be found later will only built less than a dozen houses that discredits the gospel to a watching world who assumes and often with glee that Christians are just as greedy, just as we kid just as corrupt as they are to lawbreakers, data lights and finding corruption in the lives of those who represent the law, though they wouldn't admit they there's an enjoyment in the revelation of corruption because it makes them only feel better. In those cases the confidence of people at large. Injustice is diminished, they become fearful rather than secure that just recently that just a few months ago. The serial criminals would been nicknamed the Golden State killer was discovered in the late 1970s he burglarized 100 homes. He molested 50 women killed 13 people in this horrific crime spree that lasted a decade now 40 years later DNA samples. In this case had been innocently sent in by extended family members to a genealogy type organization because they wanted to find out about their family tree will guess who was hiding in the family tree. There DNA alerted a criminal database system tied into the justice system and alerted authorities with a mat short close back evidently your extended family carries the same signature they were able to trace the DNA all the way back to this man. Been hiding away to everyone's dismay, the 70-year-old man served for years as a policeman. Solomon is essentially recording what he knows will bother us the most. The problem is he enters it in his journal is that the place of worship, which ought to represent the holiness of God makes room for wickedness in the halls of justice and those who represent both the law become corridors of corruption that's as bad as it can get.

But if you eat if you look a little closer. If there is the implication of a deeper issue with Solomon and it's this that everybody in life seems to be getting away with that they're getting off Scott free.

There are DNA samples 3000 years ago people are literally getting away with murder and corruption and bribery and religious hypocrisy and immorality and wickedness and crimes untold.

Everything is is messed up that day came across in my study and excavation and translation of a document that had been written 700 years before the birth of Christ and the individual is unknown, but the scratchings read.

I have searched the world for order justice everything is upside down. The divine assembly of the gods are powerless to restore order. Life is unfair. Injustice seems to be on the throne and righteousness and truth seems to have been beaten and run out of town. Even the gods can't seem to straighten things out. Solomon would invite us to continue reading in his journal. He has delivered to us. The problem of value delivers to us, nothing less than a prophecy, verse 17, I said in my parts I had a conversation. I reminded myself God will judge the righteous and the wicked. That is, he will determine what is right and what is wrong for there is a time for every matter and for every work.

Simply put, God's appointed time to set things right. It doesn't look like much is happening in an unjust and wicked world. Solomon says one day the universe will shout the news essentially that says here comes the judge who is he, we know it.

Solomon didn't know the apostle Paul preached to the Athenian leaders are there in Athens and he ended his sermon in acts 17 by the clearing list. God has promised today when his son will judge the world.

Jesus himself said in an earlier sermon in John five in verse 22 that the father is given him the right. That is the privilege to judge everything so the judgment of all of the deeds of the unredeemed describe for us in Revelation chapter 19 of that great white throne that is that great throne of purity.

Solomon knows that they have judgments coming were told that it is actually the son of God will do the judge did did Solomon know about this coming day. He knew he probably heard a verse often delivered and expounded upon from Moses to the question is answered or asked and in the rhetorical answer is yes, shall not the judge of all the earth do what is right answered yes. Later on, Moses will announce God will not allow the guilty to go unpunished. Solomon knew the truth that mankind has an appointment with their creator God, did he believe it well. It might surprise you to read. If you go over to the very last verse of his journal to go over to chapter 12 a look at the very last statement he writes.

He writes this in Ecclesiastes 12 in verse 14, for God will bring every deed in the judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil. That's how convinced he was of Solomon knew that one day all the unredeemed will be resurrected to stand at the appointed day of divine justice for the hosts of heaven will essentially announce without thunderous announcement literally authorize rise and there will be a resurrection of all the unredeemed for that throne, and the judge to the utter dismay of millions if not billions, that judge will be none other than Jesus Christ. The resplendent glorious son of God and with the son of God takes his seat behind that bench, the ruling of that pure and holy court will unveil Solomon rights even the secret, even those that never did get caught as they hid in the family tree. Even every secret in your heart and mind. There will be no partiality there will be no favoritism to think of the horror of standing there, where there will be absolute and perfect justice. Jesus will not have missed any sin or any secret because he is munitions. He is all-knowing Jesus will not need to bring witnesses in that courtroom setting because he is like present. He was there when every deed was committed. He will not need any assistance in carrying out his eternal verdict of perfect justice because he is to protect he is all-powerful. Solomon is essentially prophesying to us that no one's going to get away with anything. What hope do any of us have. According to the gospel account is its fleshed out for us. There are two options in light of God's coming justice according to the Bible, you will either stand before God in your sin and be judged as guilty and sent to hell as a just verdict for sin against a holy God or at some point while you still live and breathe. You will laugh Jesus Christ to pardon you to save you from the just penalty of your sin to have come to some point in your life or you understand the gospel and you ask him for that free gift which you could never pay for anyway. You then will avoid that great white throne and be granted instead entrance into heaven. Those are the only two options guilty, or pardon the Bible says is appointed on the man once to die, and after that the judgment where you have a personal appointment with God. Hebrews 927 and when we stand before God. Having either rejected his gospel of conscience, his gospel of creation, or for those who herded the gospel of Christ. There will only be these two options there will be no time to make an appeal to his mercy. That appeal must be made to his mercy now while you're still breathing.

If you have not already. Let me invite you today while you still have life and breath and opportunity. It meant your guilt and your sin and lay claim on that promise if you confess your sin, he is faithful and just to forgive your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

Trust him alone and ask claim that promise of salvation, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Solomon describes the problem many delivers this prophecy. The problem is everybody seems to be getting away with everything. Prophecy is nobody is getting away with anything, everyone will have their appointment with God and for the unbeliever.

There will be no appeal for the believer. They will have an advocate, someone who will say that one my blood covered their sins they delete claim to the promise on their Savior, that ones that for now Solomon writes in his journal looks like people are getting away with sin according to the Bible and God's plan for human history. It simply a matter of time just a matter of time before God makes everything right. Harvey illustrated this point when he told about a man named Gary Tyndall who was charged with robbery while standing in the California courtroom of Judge Rodriguez Tyndall asked permission to go to the bathroom. The judge said yes. I don't know give him a big wooden hall pass for whatever he was escorted upstairs to the bathroom on the second floor bathroom door was guarded. While he was inside he had determined to escape climbed up some exterior plumbing pipes open the panel in the ceiling climbed up on top of those panels began making his way. He crawled some 30 feet and then the ceiling panels broke under his weight dropped to the floor right in the middle of that courtroom for the bench judge Rodriguez. It was only a short crawl before he was in front of the judge according to the Bible, the only legal maneuver you have in light of the coming judge is to settle out of court settle out of court accept the offer, Jesus Christ will pardon you. He will represent you as your advocate when you take him as Lord and Savior settle out of court and avoid the horror of this prophecy, and facing the wrath of God is an pardon sinner instead. Enjoy the grace of God forever. That's the only way to truly live as God demands. I'm glad you joined us here on wisdom for the heart. This is the Bible teaching ministry of Stephen Davey Stevens working his way through a series from Ecclesiastes entitled finding meaning under the sun. We taken one of the lessons in this series and turned it into a booklet it's entitled tied to the treadmill of life, and it provides help for those times when life seems mundane and unimportant. It would be a great resource for you or a great gift to share with a friend or family member it's available for a donation of any amount to our ministry so call us today at 86 648 Bible and please join us at the same time tomorrow right here on wisdom for the heart