The Myth of Human Goodness

Transcript

Good morning family. If you have your Bibles or iPhone app, whatever you use, you could please turn with me or scroll to Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse 16. I’ll read our text and then we’ll pray. We’ll jump in. Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness. And in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. I said in my heart with regard to the children of man, that God is testing them, that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same. As one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts,

for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth. So I saw there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him? Again, I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun, and behold, the tears of the oppressed. And they had no one to comfort them. On the side of their oppressors, there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought that the dead who are already dead, more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun. Family, this is the

word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let’s pray. Our Father and our God, your word is true. And though it is sometimes difficult to understand, trust, we know it’s true. And so we pray, O Lord and God, that you would send us the help of the Holy Spirit to not only understand your word, but to help us believe it as the truth and help us to live by it in a way that rightly corresponds with how you call us to live. So be our guide this morning. Open up our eyes and our hearts to the wisdom of your word, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen. Well, last week in our text, we looked at the futility of trying to control our destiny through the myth of time management. The reason it’s futile is because time and events are entirely beyond our ability to control, because they are divinely appointed by

The Reality of Wickedness

God for every single human under the sun. And it’s along this line of thinking that the Kohelet, or the preacher, now begins to make some observations concerning the wicked events that happen in our world under the sun that humans perpetuate. And of course, the implication here is, given the amount of wickedness in our world, that human goodness is also a myth. Because of the wickedness in our world, the Kohelet knows that most humans under the sun might be led to ask these most important worldview questions, like, is there a God who is powerfully in control of all things? If there is a God, then why does he allow such wickedness in our world to exist? And furthermore, if God is all-powerful, is God going to do something about it? Meaning, will there be consequences for the wicked actions that take place in this world? What’s interesting is that each one of these

worldview questions, in some way, is addressed in our text this morning, as we survey the myth of human goodness. So to help us navigate our passage, I’ve decided, again, to break our text into three sections that sort of revolve around the Kohelet’s observations. And so this morning, rather than proceed line by line, which we normally do, I’ve arranged the text’s order slightly differently in a way that I believe will be more helpful for us to understand. And I did that not because I think that the order is not right. I just think this is going to be more beneficial for us. So we’ll examine the reality of wickedness in chapter 3, verse 16, and chapter 4, verses 1 through 3. And we’ll look at the reason for wickedness in chapter 3, verses 18 through 22. And then finally, we’ll look at the response to wickedness in chapter 3, verse 17. Okay? So with that, let’s

begin with the reality of wickedness in verse 16. The Kohelet writes, Moreover, I saw under the sun. Just pause for a second. Before we dive too deep into the context, did you notice that the Kohelet is once again shifting our perspective? If you recall from last week, we were just beneath the heavens. So our gaze was lifted upward. But this morning, the Kohelet is bringing us back down under the sun to view the world from the vantage point of secular humanity. And with the opening word, moreover, well, this serves to connect his current thoughts on what he previously addressed, namely, humanity’s attempt to find meaning under the horizon. And the first of the preacher’s observations is that humanity is not inherently good. And we know this because our world is so incredibly wicked. He goes on to say in verse 16 that in the place of justice, even there

was wickedness. And in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. So here, in this first verse, we already find an answer to the worldview question, are humans inherently good? The Kohelet gives us the right answer because he has the right perspective. Humans are not inherently good. And to prove his point, he appeals to humanity’s perpetual and comprehensive injustice. Essentially, he’s saying so horrible and so pervasive is the wickedness in our world that even in the places where justice should rightly be upheld, like the courts, the place where there should be a right assessment of right and wrong, even there exists wickedness. And speaking of worldview questions, one of the ways we can answer the worldview question, does God exist, is to look at our inherent desire and longing for justice. Because this moral compass for justice reveals that there must be a just God who placed it there.

This is why justice is coded into the human heart by God. Just as God has placed eternity in our hearts to point us to him, he’s also instilled in us a sense of justice in our hearts to point us to him. This is why even as early as childhood, we understand injustice. I mean, just think about when a child has their favorite toy taken away from them from another child. The child intuitively knows something unfair just happened. Children know intuitively that it’s not right when someone takes something from them that belongs to them. Family, the very reason children tattletale is because of their innate desire for justice and punishment. And it doesn’t stop at childhood. Our sense of justice becomes even more pronounced the older we get, when the injustice moves beyond something as insignificant as toys being taken from us to the more bigger and

life-altering injustices. So, imagine being accused of a crime you didn’t commit. That would feel unjust. Well, now imagine that crime is murder. You obviously didn’t do it, but you just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, perhaps wearing the wrong skin color. Because you’re innocent, you have nothing to hide and you think to yourself, surely the evidence will prove my case. After all, we live in a just society. Now, you don’t have the resources to hire the kind of attorney that could build a bulletproof defense for your case. But again, you didn’t commit the crime. So, you have a strong trust in the legal system. Surely your public defender will make a clear case that you’re innocent of the crime. But as it turns out, the public defender doesn’t make a compelling case for your innocence. And as a result, the jury, for whatever reason, finds you guilty of a

crime you never committed. And so, there you sit in a prison cell for the rest of your life for something you never did. Can you imagine that? Imagine every single day waking up in a jail cell, confronted with the reality of this gross miscarriage of justice and how that would grind your soul, cause for you to begin to doubt the goodness in humanity. It’s one thing to watch something like this unfold in a documentary for your entertainment. It’s an entirely different thing to experience it every single day of your life. Family, did you know that this happens all the time? According to the Innocence Project, DNA technology has played a vital role in exposing some of these injustices and setting free innocent people from prison. And as of January 2020, the Innocence Project has documented over 375 DNA exonerations here in the United States. What’s crazy is that 21 of these exonerations had previously faced the

death penalty. They were gonna die for a crime they never committed. Now, just think about this for a second. These are only with the cases they can confirm through DNA testing in the United States. How many more folks are still behind bars serving sentences for crimes they never committed? Family, this is a gross miscarriage of justice and it happens in the courts of justice. And this is exactly what the COHELLA is getting at. That even in places of justice, wickedness rings out. And for whatever reason, most of the injustice in our world tends to fall upon the poor, the marginalized, the minority, the uneducated, the voiceless, and perhaps the greatest injustice is perpetuated against the unborn. I mean, rarely do these kinds of injustices happen to people who are wealthy, who can afford good attorneys to help them with their cases. Rarely does it happen with influential people who are part of the more sophisticated class

of society. As wretched as this is, the scales of justice lean heavy on one side of humanity. Family, though injustice is becoming more obvious because of media and technology and organizations like the Innocence Project, I wonder if we ever recognize our own propensity towards injustice. Now, you might not be the type of person that intentionally inflicts wicked acts of injustice on other people, but do you even think about those who suffer at the hands of injustice? Or do you conveniently turn a blind eye to it? Are you apathetic or indifferent to justice? Here’s maybe a more pressing question. Is your sense of justice selectively aroused? Meaning, do you only get upset with injustice when it impacts you personally or people who look and act like you? I mean, I know we all desire justice when we’ve been wronged. It’s in our blood. It’s in our DNA. But if we’re honest, most of us are

quick to let injustice fall in our favor if we can somehow avoid the consequences of justice. You see, injustice at its core is the evil convenience that seeks to punish others for their evildoings while doing everything we possibly can to avoid the justice for our evildoings. And this is one of the biggest problems with humanity. We all, to some degree, have a double standard for justice. None of us are perfect in our assessments, and this very reality proves that humanity is not inherently good. Because we make bad decisions, and those bad decisions can perpetuate injustice. And family, the wickedness doesn’t just stop with injustice. It’s also expressed through oppression. In fact, the Qohelet tells us in chapter 4, verse 1 through 3, Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun, and behold the tears of the oppressed. And they had no one to comfort them. On the side of the

oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun. So here the Qohelet begins to widen the scope of wickedness. The Qohelet not only observes the presence of oppression in our world, but he also begins to outline the deep pain that comes from oppression. He says it’s so wicked and so painful for those being oppressed that it would be better for them to have never been born. And so here it seems that the Qohelet is placing a greater degree of pain on oppression than he does on injustice. Which begs the question, do you know the difference between these two? Because we often view those as interchangeable. Shailen, a friend of mine,

says all oppression is injustice, but not all injustice is oppression. And I think he’s right. There is a difference between the two, though they are similar. Injustice is typically at an individual level, where we individually become sinned against. Whereas oppression is at a community level. So oppression is not just a singular act against a singular person, but a sustained campaign that seeks to marginalize, exploit, and subjugate specific groups of people through a heavy hand that keeps on pressing down on them every single day. So injustice is a gross sickness, but oppression is a cancer. And from the Qohelet’s perspective, there doesn’t seem to be a cure for either of these under the sun. Now, in our culture, the word oppression is such an overused and completely misunderstood word. And because of that, half the population believes there’s no real oppression in our society. And the other half of our population

believes that everything is oppression in our society. So they say things like, words and ideas are harmful and oppressive. While it’s true that words and ideas have consequences, it’s a bit of a reach to say that words and ideas are oppressive. So as a culture, we have completely convoluted the concept of oppression. And this, I think, ultimately serves as a disadvantage to those who are actually oppressed. Because if everything is oppression, then nothing is oppression. But no matter how our culture views or understands oppression, family, the Bible gives us a framework for it. It’s called sin. And when sin gets organized and pushed into systems, what inevitably emerges is oppression. And we’ve seen these symptoms of oppression, these systems play out over and over again in our world. From genocide to slavery, from terrorism to sex trafficking, from abortion to addiction and everything in between. Which just means it’s

comprehensive and pervasive. Or it’s wide and it’s deep. And that’s important to understand because many people think that oppression is simply the consequence of a few bad people who have power and who are in control of systems. And so naturally, they think the solution to oppression can be dealt with on a human level by simply exercising the good in humanity. So if they just rally around enough good people to somehow overthrow or dismantle all the evil systems in our world that are controlled by these few bad people, then this will eventually eradicate all the oppression in our world. And family, this becomes the new utopian dream, which many people seek to find a sense of meaning through this human goodness or social justice. But the Kohelet rightly understands that the problem of oppression can’t be solved through human goodness or through social justice or even by changing the power dynamics. And that’s because humans are

not inherently good and don’t possess the kind of power necessary to overcome all the social justice issues of our world. And the moment humans dismantle one system of oppression, it just rears its ugly head in some other new system. Or if the power dynamics shift, then the formerly oppressed will simply become the new oppressors. Because the root of oppression is not in the systems themselves, but in the sin that resides in the human heart. So it is sin, not the systems, that have oppressed humanity. And as a result, humanity has become slaves to sin’s oppressive control. This is what we read about in Romans 6. You just read that chapter, it’ll tell you all of that. See, the issue isn’t just systemic, it’s spiritual. And until we address the spiritual root of the problem, we’ll continue to see these symptoms manifest in various forms of oppression. And just

The Reason for Wickedness

to be clear, the sin of injustice and oppression, these are not new concepts in our modern and sophisticated world. It’s been this way since the beginning. Josh alluded to this. In fact, you see the sin of injustice play out most vividly with Adam and Eve’s children. I don’t mean all of us. I mean their literal first children, Cain and Abel. We’ve talked about this before, but essentially, here’s the narrative. Abel, who sought to please God with his sincere worship, his worship is accepted by God. But Cain, his brother, whose worship was not sincere, God does not accept his worship. And this makes Cain furious. And so in his rage-filled anger, Cain unjustly kills his brother Abel in a field and just leaves him there. Abel didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, he did everything right. He was righteous in the sight of God with his worship. He didn’t deserve to die, yet he

suffers an unjust death when he did nothing to deserve it. So Abel dies and his life is wiped out, but Cain, well, Cain continues to live on. Where is the justice here? You see, family, the issue of injustice has been around since the beginning of time, or at least since sin began to oppress the human race. And here’s what’s fascinating. Do you know what Abel’s name is translated to in Hebrew? Hevel. Abel’s name is literally translated Hevel. In other words, what happened to Hevel with this gross injustice was itself Hevel. Abel’s life was like smoke, here one minute and gone the next. It’s meaningless, meaning we can’t make sense of it. We can’t grasp why the righteous one dies and the wicked one continues to live. I imagine that Kohelet was thinking about Abel when he penned his poetry about the Hevel of life. You see, family, the injustice and oppression

that we experience in this life is because of sin. And this means that sin is not just a series of bad choices or a few moral failings. It means that sin is an oppressive force that seeks to enslave us, thereby causing us to enslave others with the same oppressive power it has over us. And it’s a vicious cycle. And what’s implicit in the Kohelet’s observation is that human goodness won’t work in our attempts to completely eradicate the wickedness of our world. This is why he says, on the side of their oppressors, there was power and there was no one to comfort them. The people with all the power who could bring about or seemingly bring about change in the world are often the kinds of people who use their power to oppress others. The Kohelet longed for someone to right all of the wrongs and to console the victims of injustice, but no one was found.

No one could do anything about it. And all that was left in the wake of this oppression was an ocean of tears. And this sobering reality is what the Kohelet wants us to sit in as we examine life under the sun. Because when we sit in the tension, it confronts us with perhaps one of the greatest questions concerning the wickedness of our world. Why does this kind of wickedness even exist? This is not only a worldview question, it’s also the question that most people ask when confronted with the realities of an unjust world. If God exists and is all powerful, then why doesn’t he use his power to rid the world of injustice and wickedness? And the answer, though painful, is simple, because of God’s grace towards humans. I know that doesn’t sound like grace to let wickedness abound in our world. But listen, here’s the truth. If God were to remove all the wickedness

in our world and deal with all the injustice and oppression, he would have to remove all people from this world. Because all people, in varying degrees, perpetuate and participate in the wickedness of our world. He allows it because he is a God who is perfect and good, and we are not. In fact, the Kohelet makes this point clear by equating humans with beasts. We start to see his logic in verse 18 through 21 with the reason for wickedness. I said in my heart, with regard to the children of man, that God is testing them, that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. Let’s pause here for a second. This, I know, can be a bit complicated to understand. So, let me just try to make sense of what the Kohelet means by equating humans to beasts. Especially because from our vantage

point, the scriptures have told us that man is made in the image of God, and that he’s made us just a little lower than angels. And that’s absolutely true. But the statement here isn’t meant to equate quality or dignity, but rather it’s a statement concerning our creaturely role in the universe. In other words, it’s meant to show us that God is God, who is infinite and good, and we are creatures that are finite and sinful. So, though we have more dignity than animals, both mankind and animals are the same in one very specific way. Our mortality. We see that in verses 19 through 20. For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same. As one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to

one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. So, it’s in regards to the inescapable death that humans have no advantage over animals. He’s equating our mortality. In this sense, both humans and animals are heavil. Our lives are fleeting. We’re here one moment, and we’re gone the next, just like Abel. So, what the Qohelet is saying is that God allows the wickedness in our world to expose these realities. This is what he means when he says that God might test humans. It means to expose. In other words, God allows injustice to reveal who we are in relation to the God of the universe so that we might see ourselves for who we really are. So, it’s not a statement about our biology, but about our position and our condition. Humans, like animals, all die at some point, and for humans, this is

part of sin’s curse. What was it that the serpent said to deceive Eve in the garden? Do you remember what he said to Eve? Genesis 3, 1 through 5, the serpent says,

did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. Before the fall, there was no death. But the serpent, crafty as he is, he says to the woman, you will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

— Genesis 3

(ESV)

So, Adam and Eve, in their attempt to be

like God, defied God’s good instructions, and in so doing, sealed humanity’s fate, which is physical death. This is why God allows wickedness in our world, to remind us that we are not God, and that we are not good. And because of that, our destiny is no different than that of the animals. We will return to dust. This was, in fact, the judgment pronounced on Adam by God for his rebellious actions. Genesis 319, by the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. At the end of the day, we face the same fate as all creatures. Our bodies will eventually break down, decompose, and return to the earth. And when we observe the bones of other humans and animals that die in this world, we’re reminded that

our time on this planet, as it currently is, is heavile. It’s fleeting. And from a purely humanistic or secular perspective, we don’t know what happens after we die. Ecclesiastes 321 and 22 says, who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward, spirit of the beast goes down into the earth. So I saw that there is nothing better than that man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him? So verse 21 shouldn’t really be framed so much as a question, but more as a statement. It should really be read more like this, under the Sun, who has knowledge? Or who has observed what happens to a man when he dies? Is this life all there is? Does he go to the ground or does he go upward? And what happens to a beast when he dies? Who can

know? Does he just decompose? You see, this is something that we cannot understand through human wisdom, from a secular perspective, because when we die no one comes back to say, oh this is what it’s like. This is something we can only know through divine revelation. Again, this is the kind of creature-creator distinction. We only know what happens to us after death because we have a creator who tells us what happens. So our personal opinions, our limited experience, or our personal truths, what we think will happen to us after we die, well, they don’t offer us any hope under the Sun. So from a human perspective, men and dogs die, and it looks like the same thing happens to both of them. They decompose and they return to the dust. And if that’s all there is in this life, then the best thing we can do is rejoice in whatever this world has to offer,

because this is the lot that we’ve been given in life until we decompose and return to dust. This is all there is, then it really doesn’t matter that wickedness is dominating our world because we won’t be around long enough to see how things are going to work out in the end. This is why the Qohelet says who can bring him to see what will be after him. Again, you have to understand this is from the secular humanist’s perspective. This is what it looks like when we view things in our world under the horizon. But from the divine perspective, by looking above the horizon, we know that this life is not all there is. So though men and women die, and it might look like we simply fade into nothingness, the reality is we all return to the God who gave us life. This also answers one of our worldview questions. What happens to humans after they die?

The Response to Wickedness

And will humans be held accountable for their actions in this life? According to the Qohelet, he tells us yes and yes. And it’s because of these yes answers to these worldview questions that we can live in a world riddled by wickedness. Because we know that perfect justice will eventually be served. The Qohelet tells us that there will be a response to wickedness. And we see that in verse 17. He says, I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. So here the Qohelet not only pushes our perspective upward momentarily, but he also echoes back to the principle we looked at last week. You remember the beginning of the poem? For everything there is a season, a time for every matter under heaven. Well, if there’s a season for every matter under heaven, then this would also

include a time to address the wickedness in our world. Both injustice and oppression. So what this means is that God isn’t merely, you know, displeased with the wickedness of our world. He’s not just angry about the injustice and oppression that happens in our world. Though he is, in his perfect justice, he must and he will pour out his wrath on all those who participate in wickedness. He will do it. This includes all those involved in gross miscarriages of justice and those who relentlessly oppress people. This should be a comfort to you. Have you experienced injustice in your own life? Have you suffered at the hands of abusers who have taken advantage of you? Exploited you? Done things they never should have done to you? Has your soul been crushed under the weight of oppression? Have you suffered severe injustice only to see your abuser seemingly get away with it? As a young man, I have been in a place of

bitterness and anger because my father, who inflicted so much abuse on me and my family, died before he could receive justice. And it wasn’t until I got older and by God’s grace, where I understood justice is coming. Every wrong that we have endured by the hands of wicked and oppressive individuals will be made right. There will be a time for perfect justice in God’s cosmic court. And listen, the death of abusers or oppressors or people who perpetuate injustice will not be the end. They will experience judgment because death is not the end for humanity. There will be a day when they will face God’s wrath for every wicked thing they’ve done. God places eternity in our hearts for this very reason, to make us conscious and aware of the justice and the judgment that is coming. This is why and how we can live in our world overwhelmed by wickedness,

because in the end, God will perfectly account for all the wrongs of this world, all the wrongs, family, that we could not rectify in our own power. To be clear, this in no way is meant to imply that we just kind of sit back and sit around and wait for God to bring about his perfect justice while the rest of the world suffers. No, family, don’t get it twisted. We are called by God to first rid ourselves of wickedness and then to seek justice and aid for the oppressed. Isaiah 1, 16 and 17 says, wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, remove the evil of your deeds before my eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. Family, how can we do these things? How can we, who are not inherently good, learn to do good and cease to do evil?

It all begins by looking beyond the horizon to the God who is inherently good, the same God who sent his son to rescue people like you and me from our evil wickedness. He willingly bore the perfect justice of God, which we rightly deserve for all of our sins against him and humanity. You see, the root of the wickedness in our world lies within the wickedness of our own hearts. We were oppressed by sin and required someone to intervene, not to just sit back and do nothing, but to set us free from the oppression of our sin. And because the penalty for our sin is death and we were powerless to change this, we needed a powerful and perfect God to die in our place. And this is precisely what Jesus has accomplished for us. He didn’t remain passive, allowing us to remain in our oppression. Instead, he endured oppression to grant us liberation through

his life, death, and resurrection. Family, this is why God delays his justice, so that we may acknowledge our sinfulness, our oppression by sin, and our need for a savior, so that we might recognize that we need to embrace him through faith, that we might receive new hearts, have the wickedness of our hearts cleansed, and ignite our desire not just to see justice and see mercy, but to act with justice and mercy. Family, we deserve God’s wrath for our sins. We deserve justice, but the cross of Jesus Christ is where we saw justice and mercy meet, so we uniquely understand what it means to hold in tandem justice and mercy. Jesus satisfies God’s justice to extend mercy to us. The way we help our world to address injustice and oppression is not by destroying systems, but by pointing people to the one who destroyed sin by destroying his own body. And this is one of the greatest

privileges we have as a church, people who were once bent against God, but who’ve given new life, and a new heart, and a new sense of justice. He calls us to enter into the brokenness of our world, where people are marginalized and oppressed by sin, to offer them hope, justice, and mercy in Jesus Christ. Again, the words of the Kohelet and of Jesus are completely compatible. They both show us the myth of human goodness. The Kohelet tells us that we are not God, and we are not good, and Jesus tells us the same thing. In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10, verses 17 through 18, we read, as Jesus was walking, a man ran up to him, fell on his knees before him, and asked, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Presumption here of this man was that somehow, through his inherent goodness,

he could inherit eternal life. But Jesus responds and says, Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You see, in this interaction, Jesus redirects this man’s understanding not only of goodness, but who God is. He exposes him to the truth that human goodness is a myth and that only God is good. This doesn’t negate the capacity for people to perform good deeds or do good things. In fact, we should do those things as Christians. What Jesus emphasizes is that human goodness alone is insufficient for salvation, and it’s insufficient for repairing this broken and messed up world. The very existence of wickedness underscores our inadequacy to address its root cause, which is the oppression of sin in our lives. We need the Son who sits above the sun to come down and deal with the wickedness in our world by dealing with sin.

And this is what he has done. Friends, this is what we must tell the world, and this is why wickedness remains in this world, so that people will recognize their inherent badness and feel their need for a good God to powerfully save them. R.C. Sproul says this, Since God is both omnipotent and good, we must conclude that in his omnipotence and goodness there must be a place for the existence of evil. If he allowed evil to enter this universe, it could only be by his sovereign decision. Since his sovereign decisions always follow the perfection of his being, we must conclude that his decision to allow evil to exist is a good decision. R.C. Sproul is right. The Kohelet is telling us in this text that God’s good decision to allow evil to exist is ultimately to point us above the horizon to the only one who can deal with the evil in our world,

Called to Justice and Mercy

to the God above the sun. Family, we are called by God to be justice seekers. When we see injustice in this world, we call it out. When we see oppression, we should not only be moved with compassion and tears, but we should seek every opportunity to remove the oppression and intervene. These are true realities for every single Christian who’s been given a new heart by Jesus. But it is also true that we also must be mercy seekers. We must push the radical mercy of Jesus into this dying world so that they might come to understand the kindness and goodness and mercy of Jesus Christ. Social justice for us looks like doing justice, but doing mercy and walking humbly before our God, knowing who he is and who we are. This is what we’re called to do as Christians as we live life underneath the sun.

Amen? Let us pray. Our Father and our God, we do thank you that in our goodness, you invaded this, in our horrible attempts to be good, you invaded this world and you brought goodness to us through Jesus Christ. We pray, O Lord and God, that you would help us to see our world with compassion and mercy. We pray, God, that you would help us to not be selective in how we see injustice in this world and oppression. That you would cause for us to intervene in the same way you intervened into our world. We pray, O Lord and God, that you would help us to take the beauty of your gospel and push it into this broken world. Because we know the more you save people, the more you change crooked hearts to beat for you, the more justice and mercy we will see in this world.

Help us to be active in our world, we pray. In Christ’s name, amen.