–George G. Gilman  (The Quiet Gun)

       “Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy?  Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance.”

                         –Isaiah 55:2 (NKJV)
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I have used the words from my pastor as a youth, G.R. Kelly, many times–“Live is living.”  I wrote yesterday the words from Ken Gangel, “Have a blast while you last.”  In other words, live happily wherever you are.  There is no joy without Christ, and happiness if fleeting.  So to truly have a “blast” one must know the redemptive power of Jesus Christ.  Only when you become intimate friends with God can you really live this life as it is meant to be lived.   Remember, to God you “are special objects of His gifts and His acceptance.” (Walter C. Kaiser).  When we realize this then we can truly be joyful.

          8 — Let your garments always be white, and let your head lack no oil.
          9 — Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life which He has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity; for that is your portion in life, and in the labor which you perform under the sun.
        10 — Whatever you hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device of knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going. (NKJV)

       Go back and reread the first seven verses of Ecclesiastes 9.  Then read the above verses.  Perspective is important when reading them, for the person without the Holy Spirit could and most likely will be downhearted, but the Christian can smile and say “let it be.”  Tim Hansen has written a little poem about life that I would like to share.

               Don’t be bashful,
                    Bite in,
               Pick it up with your fingers and
                    let the juice that may
                        run down your chin.

               Life is ready and ripe
                    NOW
                        whenever you are.

               You don’t need a knife or fork
               or spoon or napkin or tablecloth

               For there is no core
                    or stem
                    or rind
                    or pit
                    or seed
                    or skin
                          to throw away.

Live life in Christ!  Throw away worldly philosophies and have a life that is free of guilt, contagiously happy, and committed to God.  A life that is thoroughly involved in the kingdom.  A work that is not a curse.  Ray Steadman said, “Believe what God has given you already, and then, on that basis, live your life to the full.  Fill it with all that is of value, reason, and worth.”  How do you currently see your life?  Maybe the words of Jim Elliot should be etched in your mind, “Wherever you are, be all there.  Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.”
       How do you live life?  The optimist goes along thinking nothing is wrong therefore does not check anything.  They live a life that lacks reality.  The pessimist trudges through life in grim existence, there is little joy.  Then there are those who are suspicious, maybe even suspicious as to why you are smiling in this journey of life.  They think everyone is out to get you and live in the realm of conspiracy theories.  Finally, there is the life of the fatalist–no hope.  The Christian is to be living a life of victory and of hope and of faith.  “There is to be calmness, a peace, a consciousness about us that no matter what happens, it is never going to be too bad or too difficult, because we have with us a God who will enable us to handle it.  Do we view life that way?” (Ray Steadman)
       “Let your garments always be white,” live in the righteousness of the Lord–be pure in mind and in spirit.  “Let your head lack no oil”–let the oil of the precious Holy Spirit flow through you and especially over your head.  Let it clean the mind.  Charles Swindoll says that we “need an objective view of this rat race!”  We are to live realistically (read James 4:13-17).  Don’t dream your life away.  Have joy, don’t be a victim of pessimism.  “Face life as it is, not as you think it is or as you wish it were.  To the best of your ability, with God’s help, enjoy it.”  (Charles Swindoll)

                    –Max Brand  (Harrigan)

       “But for him who is joined to all the living there is hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.  For the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.”

                    –Ecclesiastes 9:4-5 (NKJV)
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I want us to contemplate Ecclesiastes 9:1-10 this morning.  Take time to read it once, then again more slowly looking at each verse, but also keep in mind the context of the whole.  Right out of the chute comes the concept that all will die.  The rider on the black horse is grinning, swinging his scythe reading to reap whomever he can.  It will happen.  People while living face evil and madness, but then death comes.  People who wreck mayhem and wickedness on others succumb to death.  There is no escape from it.  In all of this keep in mind that God is sovereign.
       I’ve heard several say recently that it is not where you’re going but how you lived your life in the here and now.  There is a smattering of truth there, but it does matter where you are going–there is a heaven for those bought by the blood of Jesus Christ, and there is a hell for those who refuse His redemption.  Yes it is important to live a good life, but more important that you know Jesus as your Savior.
       The materialist will say–he who dies with the most toys wins.  The Epicurean/hedonist–let’s party-hardy.  The humanist may say–“I thank whatever gods there may be for my unconquerable soul.”  And then there is the fatalist–what’s the use; what will be, will be.  Ha, there is something they have forgotten–the hand of God.  No one, the Christian, the pagan, the apostate, the heathen, the scoffer, the mocker can escape the fact that “God is there and He is not silent.” (Francis Schaeffer)
       Listen, if we take life seriously, and we should, then we cannot treat death flippantly.  Death is an appointment and it is one to which you will be punctual.  Some people may say RIP, but those who do so probably do not know the Lord and it is only wishful thinking.  Some say the person is just asleep, others may say the individual is resting.  Others may be blunt and say that he is on his way back to becoming a clod.  

               “Oh why do people waste their breath
               Inventing dainty names for death?”
                       –John Betjeman

       There is a brevity to life, especially in regards to eternity.  Now is the day of salvation; now is the time to find the Lord.  Now is the time to be born again so that when death arrives at your doorstep, people can say with the words of Paul, he is only sleeping.  For we know that to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8).   Live righteously and in the love of His light and death has no fear.  Remember that one day there is to be a grand and glorious homecoming.  Solomon reminds us that while we are alive there is hope.  Find meaning for life–now or as Ken Gangel has said, “Have a blast while you last.”  What are you living for?  What are you dying for?  Those are pertinent questions that need an answer.  Look at life, then look at it in the light of eternity–do you have hope?  “A hope that can be destroyed by death is a false hope; and must be abandoned.” (Warren Wiersbe)  Look to Jesus, the sure foundation, the Giver of true hope.

                    –Lou Bradshaw  (and Cain Smiled)

       “O you simple ones, understand prudence, and you fools, be of an understanding heart.”

                    –Proverbs 8:5 (NKJV)
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I have been perusing my notes from a class I have taught in the past on the Minor Prophets.  If you haven’t read them much, I would suggest you take the time and read through them.  Look at the conditions of Judah and Israel and compare them with today.  Most recently I have been reading the Book of Amos.  This is a book that should make you stand up and take notice.  Upon rereading it, I kept thinking, “when is enough…enough”?
       One of the most familiar verses from Amos is, “‘Behold, the days are coming,’ declares the Lord God, ‘When I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread, or a thirst for water, but rather for hearing the words of the LORD.'” (Amos 8:11, NASB)  If people do not want God He will turn away from them and let them go their own way.  Similar to those in Judges when everyone did what was right in their own eyes. (Judges 21:25).  Relative truth–postmodern truth–truth is what an individual wants to make it.  When it is apparent that people do not want God; He will give them what they want and will quit protecting and speaking to them.  Woe to that nation!  Woe to that person!
       We read in Amos of the false prophets and the wayward high priest.  It was this high priest, Amaziah who told Amos to leave and go somewhere else.  This kind of irked Amos, and I can imagine him pointing a bony finger at Amaziah and pronouncing the prophecy against him and his family.  Amos proclaimed, that the wife of Amaziah would become a harlot, his sons and daughters would fall by the sword, and that Amaziah would die in a foreign land (Amos 7:10-17)
       But I want to draw your attention to the first part of chapter 8.  Israel has not, will not repent.  They know the way.  The prophets, such as Amos, have proclaimed the truth to them, but to no avail–there is no repentance.  When Jonah preached to Nineveh, the capital of that dreaded nation of Assyria, the people repented and God spared them.  However, years later they did not hearken to the words of the prophet Nahum and were destroyed.  When is enough–enough?  Throughout history, God has allowed kingdoms to rise and to fall, and now He is telling Amos to proclaim to the people of Israel their fall.
       Amos prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam II (793-753 B.C.)  In verse 2 of chapter 8, Amos lowers the boom.  God has called time and time again for Israel to repent, but now He says, “The end has come for My people Israel.  I will spare them no longer.”  That should sober us.  The U.S. should hearken to these words; every individual should listen to these words–there is a time when God says “enough is enough.”  It was within a generation of Amos that destruction, death, and terror came.  Assyria invaded in 722 B.C. carrying the people away into captivity.  Read in Amos some of their treacherous methods; putting fishhooks through eyelids to lead them away.  It wouldn’t take much tugging to get one’s attention.  Assyria ruled through fear and terror and Israel felt the brunt of it.  Think of it, 722 B.C. and Israel ceased to be.  Judah lasted another hundred years and were conquered by Babylon in 606 B.C.  No longer a nation, no longer identifiable.  They wanted to do things their way instead of God’s and they lost their identify.  For close to three millennium there was no nation called Israel.  In the time of Jesus there were Jews, but no identifiable country.  Even then the “pure” Jews hated those of Samaria for their were dogs–mongrels–having been transported by Assyria and intermarrying with other groups.
       This shameful story of Israel should be a warning to all believers.  Israel, God’s chosen people, now have been taken away.  Yes, God has a remnant, go on and read chapter 9.  But take heed and as Gary G. Cohen has written, “Let every reader be sure that he is standing secure upon the ground of God’s blessing, rather than upon the land of sin and rebellion, wherein only sorrow and grief abide.  As in the case of Israel, there is fullness of blessing only when Jehovah is in truth your God.”  Yes, there is a time when God says “enough is enough.”

                         –Louis L’Amour  (The Man From the Broken Hills)

       “Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

                         –2 Timothy 4:8 (NKJV)
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The second portion of Psalm 92 is “Time for rest and reflection brings self-renewal.” (George O. Wood)  So often in life we are too busy going, going, going, that we don’t reflect enough upon where we’re going and the goodness of the Lord on the way.  Too often we get too busy with the going that we don’t focus enough on the Lord.  

          9 — For behold, Your enemies, O LORD, for behold, Your enemies shall perish; all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered.
        10 — But my horn You have exalted like a wild ox; I have been anointed with fresh oil.
        11 — My eye also has seen my desire on my enemies; my ears hear my desire on the wicked who rise up against me.
        12 — The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
        13 — Those who are planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God.
        14 — They shall still bear fruit in old age; they shall be fresh and flourishing,
        15 — To declare that the LORD is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.   (NKJV)

Yesterday we attended the 80th birthday of a friend.  Annie and I were talking with her and one of us mentioned that even though the body wastes away, the bones ache and grow weary the mind, especially regarding the things of the Lord and the Lord Himself stay invigorated.  The “horn” represents strength, and the “fresh oil” is the picture of joy in the midst of labor and work.  The oil is cleansing from the dirt and grime of the world.
       We live in the present, in the midst of this world of evil.  We look back at the past and what do we see?  Perhaps regret, perhaps lessons learned, but more and more I see the goodness of the Lord.  How He has kept me in the midst of troubles and concerns.  How His grace is sufficient.  How I might not have seen the blessings at the time, but looking back, I see them in abundance.  But wait!  Look forward, even in old age amidst the aches, pains, and sufferings the best is yet to come.  God wants us to be vital and praise Him through old age until the end of days.  Those who are aged can look and not only see, but know that we are rooted and grounded in the Lord.
       At church yesterday, we had a missionary who related that when he visits his home church he is always asked by his well-meaning friends, “When are you going to retire?”
His answer was, “When I am dead.”  For he understands that we do not stop in our endeavor to work for the Lord.  Oh, I might not “clog in the kitchen” anymore, but I still can do something for the Lord, if nothing else praise Him.  I mentioned what Annie’s uncle used to say.  He was a missionary to the Yaquis and also started Teen Challenge in Mexico.  When he was declared too old for the foreign mission field he told us that he didn’t retire, he just retreaded, and became a chaplain at a prison in Pennsylvania.  Aged, yes, but the work continues until Jesus comes.

               “O happy servant, he,
               In such employment found!
               He shall his Lord with rapture see,
               And be with honor crowned.”
                       –Philip Doddridge