Presented to The Alberni Valley Men's Breakfast, 16 June 2019 by Captain Michael Ramsay
A few years ago we were in London England to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the founding of The Salvation Army. We enjoyed the Boundless conference and then stayed to tour England and Scotland a little bit afterwards. It was a good time. It didn't start out that way though.
When we arrived in the UK, our hotel reservations had evaporated: we had no place to stay. Our credit cards and bank cards didn't work: we couldn't access our money. We were calling my mom half way across the world to try to help us access our money and help us find a place to stay - but our phones didn't work properly either. We tracked down other Salvation Army Officers. It all worked out in the end but it was a stressful beginning.
One day, early in the Boundless conference, I had to leave early with my teenage daughter. She was old enough to stay alone but she wasn't confident enough to take the Metro on her own. She wasn't feeling well. I went to help her get to the hotel room. God knew how stressed I was as I was tempted to worry about everything that was happening.
It was at this time that God gave me a gift. I noticed that there were a lot of people on the metro wearing claret and blue. When I was still in elementary school, my cousin bought me a vlaret and blue West Ham United jersey. I had watched them win the FA Cup and, with my cousin;s encouragement, I became a fan. This was what the people were wearing - the uniform of my favourite EPL team.
I took my daughter to the apartment, got her settled and then I decided to follow all of the people in the West Ham kits. I got off the metro where they did and followed them to Upton Park. My credit card wasn't working but I had 10 pounds in my pocket and that is exactly what a ticket cost. That was exactly what the last ticket cost. I bought the last ticket left. It was a seat right on the centre line. It was the first day their new coach arrived at the stadium and West Ham won and kept a clean sheet as well.
That was when the trip turned around for me, God gave me this gift. He let me know that I could stop worrying about hotel rooms, credit cards, cell phones, where we would sleep, how wee would eat and other struggles. God was with us and He encouraged me with this gift.
Today, I encourage you not to worry about whatever your struggles are. God loves you and He knows what you need and He will provide.
Does a time come to mind when has the Lord offered you the comfort and encouragement that He offered me in London that day?
Presented to Alberni Valley
Ministries, 09 June 2019 by Captain Michael Ramsay
Nothing makes sense anymore. Do you ever get to the point
where you think that nothing makes sense anymore? Do you ever get to the point
where you don’t really know what the point of anything is anymore? Ecclesiastes
1:2:
“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is
meaningless.”
This sounds a little familiar doesn’t it? Do we ever wonder
why we invested all of this time and energy into things that seem entirely
irrelevant to today?
Let me show you something: this hat, do we recognize it?
This flag, do we recognize it? When I was a student I was able to go to the
USSR. Young people met from each country. We exchanged greetings and shared
cultural dances, etc. Canada’s cultural dance: I don’t know who made the
selection. My guess is that we were surprised by the concept of a Canadian
national dance because we chose the Hokey Pokey as our national dance.
Hopefully people in Russia don’t still think that is our dance. Shortly after
this the whole USSR dissolved and all of the efforts that were made to
establish peace and understanding between the Soviet East and the Capitalist
West, were meaningless, as were all of the domestic advances of the USSR for
the Soviet Union disappeared from the face of the earth. We in the West were
told that this collapse would usher in an era of peace but, of course, the
opposite was true and even today you just need to turn on the TV to see how
much positive affect student exchanges, perestroika and glasnost had on peace
and understanding. It seems it was…
“Meaningless!
Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is
meaningless.”
But there is much more to this meaninglessness of
Ecclesiastes than an old flag and a hat that I happen to have from a city that
no longer exists in a country that no longer exists.[1]
Verse 3: What do
people gain from all their labours
at which they toil
under the sun?
We've heard the expression and maybe the Hoyt Axton song:
work your fingers to the bone and what do you get? Boney fingers. Or maybe
we've heard Tennessee Ernie Ford's version from an older song? You load 16 tons and what
do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. The city of Detroit went
bankrupt a couple of years ago. The Detroit Free press last year ran articles on
the effect of the city's bankruptcy on pensioners. Some people had to all of a
sudden find private health insurance of almost $1000 a month where it was
covered before.[2] In Canada
pensions that people are working for are not necessarily much more secure. Our
country has talked about raising the retirement age to 67 instead of 65 and
many people my age and younger have lamented that they may never be able to
retire. Hoyt Axton: You work your fingers to the bone what do you get? Boney
fingers. Tennessee Ernie Ford's: You load 16 tons and what do you get? Another day older
and deeper in debt. Ecclesiastes: What do you gain from all your labour and
toil under the sun?
The clips here are HOYT AXTON and JOHNNY CASH (not Tennessee Ernie Ford)
We've heard the idea that if we work longer and harder we
will earn enough to survive or even prosper. We have all heard of the
prosperity heresy… that God won't let good hard-working Christians starve; they
will all be rich: It is not true. Just like the parable Jesus tells about the
man who builds storehouses to invest for his retirement. Luke 12:20: “But God
said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you.
Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’Another music reference for us today. You
know the song by Harry F. Chapin, 'Cat's in the Cradle?'
And the cat's in the
cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and
the man in the moon
"When you coming
home, dad?" "I don't know when"
But we'll get
together then
You know we'll have a
good time then
It is a song about a dad who works so hard, presumably for
his family, that he has no time for his child because he is working so much.
His child grows up and then his dad retires and has time for his son but his
son is now too busy for him. Like father like son. The story of the song's
writer is equally as tragic. Harry Chapin realized that he was a workaholic who
desired to spend time with his family as the song says but Harry Chapin also
did not get the chance; he died suddenly at 38 years old before he could
retire, leaving behind his daughter who grew up to be a performer - just like
him.
Hoyt Axton: You work your fingers to the bone what do you
get? Boney fingers. Tennessee Ernie Ford's: You load 16 tons and what do you get? Another
day older and deeper in debt. Ecclesiastes: What do you gain from all your
labour and toil under the sun?
All of this work, all of this toil and nothing ever changes.
Ecclesiastes 1, some more, verses 4-7:
4 Generations come
and generations go,
but the earth remains
forever.
5 The sun rises and
the sun sets,
and hurries back to
where it rises.
6 The wind blows to
the south
and turns to the
north;
round and round it
goes,
ever returning on its
course.
7 All streams flow
into the sea,
yet the sea is never
full.
To the place the
streams come from,
there they return
again.
All our hard work and other efforts and nothing seems to
change. I can remember feeling duped by politicians more than once, voting for
a new person or party believing that when they get in everything will be better
only to have them elected and see everything just continues on the same trajectory
as always. I still vote in every election that I can and I take the time to
research the people, the parties and the issues but there is a reason why less
and less people - especially young people - are voting these days.
Meaningless!
Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is
meaningless.”
Hard work, politics, even big societal changes - we've heard
the expression, 'the more things change, the more they stay the same'?
Now Ecclesiastes really is a book that you have to read in
its entirety to grasp its full meaning but we just don't have time to do that
here today. Maybe you could do that at home though. I read it once or twice in
its entirety recently. I think it took about half an hour. The context is very
important because if we just continued to bring out quotes about everything
that is meaningless searching for meaning we may even find apparent
contradictions in this letter. Suffice it to say that a major theme is
Meaningless!
Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is
meaningless.”
But I do want to bring our attention to something that I
find very interesting and maybe even significant. Who wrote this book? In all
probability it was King Solomon or someone at his behest or pretending to be him.[3]
But, who is the teacher that is referred to by the author?
Meaningless!
Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is
meaningless.”
I had always just assumed that this teacher (or preacher
depending on your translation) was the author of the book or another person -
but I no longer think this to be the case necessarily. I looked at the Hebrew
for this text a little bit: Qohelet. This word that we translate as 'teacher'
is quite interesting. The Hebrew word Qohelet is in its feminine form. A small
number of scholars then can argue that the teacher of Ecclesiastes is a woman.
One problem for this is simply that masculine pronouns and language are used
consistently throughout. I think it is likely that the author was indeed male
(which matters not) but I think that when the text refers to the teacher that
the text is not referring to a specific person. I think the text is referring
to Wisdom herself. We know the name ‘Sophia’ is Latin for Wisdom. The Hebrew
word for ‘Wisdom’ in its feminine form is found here as in other Wisdom
literature, even in our Bible; in the book of Proverbs for example Wisdom is
personified as a woman.[4]
All of this I tell you simply because I found it interesting while I was doing
my research. It really doesn’t matter whether the teacher is Solomon himself, a
man or a woman or whether, consistent with other Wisdom literature, the teacher
is Wisdom herself but I found it interesting and I thought that you might as
well. If the teacher is Wisdom it doesn’t change the meaning of the text but I
think it does make it a little more clear that indeed this passage still speaks
to us today. However, in the end the whole discussion about who the teacher
really is…
Meaningless!
Meaningless!”
says Wisdom.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is
meaningless.”
This book does go through many things that one considers
meaningless: study, work, moral perfectionism/over-righteousness,
wickedness/foolishness, life, death, envy, fame, freedom, happiness,
hopelessness, talk, fellowship, and even wisdom itself.
When I was a teenager or even a young adult I read this book
as if it was written by a high school or university student. Looking for the
poignancy in apparent contradictions, my favourite verses at that time came
from Chapter 7:16-18:
Do not be
over-righteous,
neither be over-wise—
why destroy yourself?
Do not be
over-wicked,
and do not be a fool—
why die before your
time?
It is good to grasp
the one
and not let go of the
other.
Whoever fears God will follow each extreme (or avoid them
both).
The race is not to
the swift or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to
the wise
or wealth to the
brilliant or favour to the learned;
but time and chance
happen to them all.
This is important. You cannot be vaccinated against bad
times; you cannot be inoculated against life. Trying to do so, trying to solve
all of life's problems on our own won't work.It doesn't matter how rich or poor, smart or dumb, pretty or pretty ugly
you might be, time and circumstance happens to us all. What we can do is seek
to learn and have the joy of the Lord in all of our circumstances (Phil 4:4-8).
We cannot ever fully prevent the tragedies of life from happening. Life
happens. But when the tragedies do occur we can turn to the Lord who promises
He will never leave us nor forsake us (Dt 31:6, Heb 13:5). As the Teacher tells
us to conclude this book:
Now all has been
heard;
here is the
conclusion of the matter:
Fear (Respect) God
and keep his commandments,
for this is the duty
of all mankind.
And as we do that, as we seek the Lord and trust in Him,
everything will be okay - even when it isn't.
[1]Cf. Tewoldernedhin Habtu, Africa Bible Commentary, (Nairobi,
Kenya: Word Alive Publishers, 2010), 814, ‘What’s the Point? 1:1-2:6’ about the
still prevelantAfican perpective of a
transient people on a on a not as temporary earth.
[2] Cf. Susan
Tompor, 'Even 5 years later, retirees feel the effects of Detroit's bankruptcy'
(Detroit Free Press Published 6:00 a.m. ET July 18, 2018 | Updated 3:34 p.m. ET
July 18, 2018):
https://www.freep.com/story/money/personal-finance/susan-tompor/2018/07/18/detroit-bankruptcy-retirees-pension/759446002/
[3] Cf. also J.
Stafford Wright, The Expositor's Bible
Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Ecclesiastes/Introduction to
Ecclesiastes/Authorship of Ecclesiastes, Book Version: 4.0.2
[4] Cf. W.
Sibley Towner, The Book of Ecclesiastes,
(NIB V: Abingdon Press: Nashville, 1997) 268, 280. If the teacher/preacher here
is not ‘Wisdom’ then it puts the book of Ecclesiasts in an unique situation as
Wisdom, though a major theme would never make a cameo as one personified.
This last week I have been at Jackson’s
Point near Toronto with Salvation Army Officers from around this country. It
was great to see some old friends, get some great teaching and chat with the
Commissioner of The Salvation Army in Canada, Bible teachers Bill and Di Ury
and more. I was there for a ‘Holiness Institute’.
My sermon today is entitled ‘Holiness
Odyssey for the Holy Christian life is certainly an interesting one. Some of us
who have been Christians for a while have noticed a few patterns as people come
to know the Lord. Some new Christians can become very rigid at first: they
don't seem to do anything wrong: they don’t smoke, don't drink, don't swear,
don’t do this, don’t do that… but then sometimes this can lead to criticising
others who they don't think are living the way they think Christians should
live; they may even force their opinions on others about, for example,
abortions or gay marriage or divorce and remarriage, or smoking and drinking
or, when I was a kid, heavy metal and even rock 'n roll music. They can develop
quite rigid opinions with which they don't hesitate to bless others, with
fervour and without compassion. Eventually as these Christians usually run into
trouble with this. They then leave a congregation or two, or distribute
metaphorical torches to run their clergy screaming from the pulpit… and then
sometimes these Christians will even go to Bible College or Seminary
themselves.
And this can be quite troublesome for
someone who has been trapped by legalism. When a young legalistic mind that has
internalized self- or other-imposed rules on oneself and everyone else, runs up
against someone they respect in authority over them with a very different
opinion, it can cause a few challenges. I have actually heard of more than one
person who has walked away from the faith of their youth when they went to
Bible school. The child grows up in the church and holds onto all the rules and
traditions of their denomination or their parents as if they were gospel and
then when they find out that they are not, the child is disillusioned and
confused and if the professors aren’t discerning of what is happening, their
students walk out of their classroom and possibly even out of their own
salvation.
I have seen the tragedy of people leaving
the unlawful confinement of a strict rule-based religion and instead of
experiencing the freedom of Christ, they choose to ignore the Spirit’s signs
pointing to salvation and go their own hedonistic way only to be immediately
run over and killed by self-indulgent sin.
This passage is sort of addressing this
problem of what about the rules and our relationship to them. Paul spoke about
hedonist that gets run over by sin in Romans 1:18-32 and the rigid Law bound
person in Chapter 2. Paul is now talking
about how each of us reacts when we do know that there are things we should or
should not do but we feel this strange compulsion to do them anyway. Paul knows
that sometimes even when we do understand that there are some things that are
not beneficial for us we still do them. Has anyone ever been there? Paul says,
Romans 7:15-24:
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do,
but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the
law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin
living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in
my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry
it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to
do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no
longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this
law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in
my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me,
waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of
sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from
this body that is subject to death?
Romans 7:18b-19: “For I have the desire to
do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to
do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” Any of us ever been
there?
This is an old problem. People smarter than
us and people older than others have wrestled with this one for a long time.
Horace said, ‘I pursue the things that have done me harm; I shun the things
that will do me good’ (Epistles
1.8.11). Plato said, ‘one may acknowledge evil things to be evil, and
nevertheless do them’ (Protagoras).
Ovid said ‘I see and approve the better course, but I follow the worse one’ (Metamorphoses 7.20ff). The Apostle Paul
said, “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For
I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep
on doing.”
I don't know if anyone has ever read
Homer - he wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Iliad is
about the Greek and Trojan War and the Odyssey is about the warrior
Odysseus' journey home. During his journey home, the main character Odysseus is
warned about the Sirens. In Greek mythology, Sirens are creatures with the head
of a woman and the body of a bird. (Sometimes they are portrayed as mermaids.)
They live on islands and with their irresistible song lure mariners to their
destruction as they crash on the rocks near their island. The mariners know
they shouldn't steer their ships to their death but once they hear the Siren's
songs they seemingly can't help themselves.
This reminds me of the dilemma before us
today - and particularly of struggles with addiction. In our time with The
Salvation Army, relating to addiction, we have had many friends, some as young
as elementary school age who have been tempted by this Siren song to a slow (or
quick) slide into destruction due to getting hooked on various substances and
many of my friends from my time at Stoney Mountain Penitentiary wound up there,
in part, because they succumbed to addictions’ Siren song; for them addictions'
Siren song ended in the song of sirens coming to take them away.
The Siren's song is not only calling us to
addiction, it can call us to any sin - in the full range from licentiousness to
legalism - to which we are susceptible. Romans 7:18b-19, “For I have the desire
to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want
to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” So what can we
do? What can we do when we are trapped by licentiousness, legalism, struggles,
temptation… sin?
Paul talks about the Law being good ropes
to tie us up as Odysseus to the mast of his ship but not so good that we no
longer have that struggle, that compulsion within us, so that we may even in
our tied up state find some way steer our life out of the ocean of holiness and
salvation and crashing our lives on the rocks on sin. So what can we do? What
can we do?
What can we do when desire to the destruction
of sin is pulling harder and harder upon us, like a giant magnet moving ever so
slowly towards us? Sometimes we grab hold of rules or laws tightly and even
make more for ourselves. Sometimes we try really hard, so hard to avoid an
addiction or a sin that that all we think about is that sin. Whether we are
trying to stop lying, lusting, or smoking crack cocaine; the more we think
about ways to avoid it, the more we wind up pondering ways to imbibe it. Soon
our every thought is consumed with that sin that we are trying to flee. It is
everywhere! It is even in our very flesh…and then it has us.
Horace said, ‘I pursue the things that have
done me harm; I shun the things that will do me good’ (Epistles 1.8.11). Plato said, ‘one may acknowledge evil things to
be evil, and nevertheless do them’ (Protagoras).
Ovid said ‘I see and approve the better course, but I follow the worse one’ (Metamorphoses 7.20ff). The Apostle Paul
said, “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For
I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep
on doing.”
This brings us to the Christians' secret
weapon for holiness and seeing sin defeated even as it is in our flesh. Now I
am not saying that if you are a Christian you will never have given into sin.
God knows I have sinned. I know many Good Christians who have fallen prey to
sin but here is the path to freedom, should we choose to take it. Paul says,
Romans 7:24-8:5
7:24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body
that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, [He] delivers me through Jesus
Christ our Lord!…8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are
in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives
life has set you free from the law of sin and death...5 Those who live
according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but
those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the
Spirit desires.
The one who can
deliver us from all of this is Christ Jesus. The Spirit of God Himself will
transform us. Instead of wrestling with our sins, we can know that Jesus has
defeated sin and death between the cross and the empty tomb. We can seek first
the Kingdom of Heaven and then God will add to us everything else we need.
We've all heard
the analogy about how one spots a counterfeit bill. It is not by studying fake
money, it is by studying the real thing. Likewise we do not avoid sin by
focussing on sin, rather we avoid sin by focussing on God. They say that as a
husband and wife are a long time in a good marriage they become more like each
other and maybe even finish each others sentences. Likewise as we spend more
time with God, we find that we know what He is saying and He can finish our
sentences.
I truly believe
with everything in me that there in nothing that you or I or anyone else can do
to defeat sin, only Jesus has done that. But we can experience a life holy, free
of sin. God is Holy. As we spend more and more time with Jesus, we will
naturally sin less and less for we will become be more and more like Him. As we
pray and read our Bible, as we sing our songs, as we come to Church, as we
serve God by serving others in Jesus' Name, as we tell others about the Gospel
of Salvation we will be transformed into the very likeness of God Himself!
Focus on God and His Holiness and that will be reflected in our life! And this,
I think, is a good encouragement for everyone of us today! What can we do to
defeat sin? Nothing, Jesus has already done that! What can we do to experience
our life free from indulgence in sin and instead living out the joy of
Salvation with our Lord and Saviour? Spend time with the Lord. Seek ye first
the Kingdom of God and holiness and everything else will be added unto us!
Let us pray.
This prayer for us from 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, ‘May God himself, the God of
peace, sanctify you (us) through and through. May your (our) whole spirit, soul
and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who
calls you is faithful and he will do it.’
[1] F.F. Bruce, The Letter of Paul to the Romans. Tyndale NTC (Leicester, UK: IV Press, 1985),146.
[2] Cf. NT Wright, Romans for Everyone Part 1: Chapters 1-8 (Louisville, US: WKJ, 2004),122-123. He uses a great analogy relating to a neighbour installing a good alarm system in one's house to explain how the Law is indeed good.
[3] F.F. Bruce, The Letter of Paul to the Romans. Tyndale NTC (Leicester, UK: IV Press, 1985),146.
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