It Shall Be Well and It Shall Not Be Well

Minister:
Date: PM
Text: Ecclesiastes 8:11-14
Psalters: 112, 355, 99, 201
  1. The people involved.
    1. First, there are the “sons of men” (11), a “sinner” (12), and the “wicked” (13).
      1. The “sons of men” are contrasted to the children of God.
      2. They are sinners who do evil an hundred times, with the idea that they run in their sins, committing them over and over.
      3. The “wicked” are literally the unrighteous.
      4. They ‘fear not before God” (13), i.e., have no awe for Him, do not tremble before Him, even say that there is no God.
    2. Second, there are the “just” (14) who “fear God” and “fear before Him” (12).
      1. A genuine fear of God is the fruit of the Spirit’s work giving one rightly to know God, His presence, and my obligations to Him
      2. God’s work of justifying makes one just/righteous in God’s sight by faith alone without works.
  2. It appears as if God in unjust in what He does to the just and to the wicked, which makes it appear to be vanity.
    1. The wicked sinners seem to enjoy prosperity and ease, with an abundance of this life (Ps. 73:7,8,12).
    2. And it appears to the just that they receive from God what the wicked deserve and vice versa.
    3. This apparent injustice makes the faithful either cry out in anger or be tempted to join them when they sin.
  3. But we know (because the Bible tells us so) that “it shall be well with them that fear God” and “not be well with the wicked.”
    1. Consider everyone’s destiny. We must not be short-sighted as the wicked are who think that no punishment is coming.
    2. “It shall not be well for the wicked” (13).
    3. But the reward of the God-fearing is that is shall be “well” with them (12).
    4. We learn that God’s apparent injustice is His punishing judgment allowing them to sin even more and more grossly and openly