A couple of years ago I took my son to see the Pixar animated movie Up about the last adventure of a 78-year-old balloon salesman named Carl Fredricksen. I thought I was going to see a fun story. I wasn’t prepared for one poignant, four-minute scene.

The scene is wordless. The vignette starts with a brief glimpse of Carl and Ellie’s wedding day, and then moves to their first home and first jobs. The couple race up a grassy hill together, then look up at the sky and imagine pictures forming in the clouds. Then the clouds are all shaped like babies, and then Carl and Ellie are painting a nursery together. It’s an idyllic look at young love and marriage.

But this isn’t an idyllic life. The scene shifts to Carl and Ellie in a hospital room with pre-natal diagrams on the walls. A doctor is talking and gesturing. Ellie is weeping into her hands. Next, Carl comforts his wife by reminding her of an old dream they shared when they were children—traveling to a place called Paradise Falls together. Rejuvenated, Ellie creates a dream jar labeled “Paradise Falls,” and into the jar goes all of the young couple’s spare money.

Again, however, life happens. First their car pops a tire. Then Carl visits the hospital. Then a tree falls and damages the roof of their home. Each of these inconveniences necessitates the dream jar be smashed and the money spent. Soon, Carl and Ellie have gray in their hair. And in a flash they become elderly.

Near the end of the vignette, Carl remembers their dream of visiting Paradise Falls, and he purchases two tickets from a travel agency. But Ellie collapses on her way back up the grassy hill from their youth. We see her in a hospital bed, with Carl holding her hand and kissing her forehead. Then we see Carl sitting alone at the front of a church. He holds a solitary balloon in his hand. The vignette closes as Carl carries the balloon into his house, which has turned cold and gray. The balloon is a lone spot of color against the gloom, and then everything fades to black. In four minutes you see a lifetime come and go.

It’s a wonderful triumph of filmmaking. But more importantly, the series of clips and scenes is a portrayal of the human story. Our lives are fun, deep, tragic, and tender. But they are also brief—”a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14). The scene ends, and you’re left thinking about the brevity of your life. It’s brief, filled with both tenderness and tragedy. How do we live in a world that’s short and filled with so much beauty, but also so much that’s tragic and out of our control?

That’s exactly what the book of Ecclesiastes is about. We’re at the midpoint of the book. Let me give you the abridged version of what the Teacher has examined so far. He’s examined life to try to find meaning. He’s looked at all the ways that we try to find meaning and fulfillment in life – pleasure, work, riches, and even social justice – and he’s found that none of them provide the meaning we’re looking for. He calls it all vanity. Everything, the writer says, is fleeting, elusive, and very temporary.

That’s been the message of the book so far. We’re now in the second half of the book. The second half of Ecclesiastes is about the conclusions that the Teacher is drawing. Given that we can’t find meaning in pleasure, work, or riches, how then should we live?

HOW DO WE LIVE WHEN WE’RE NOT IN CONTROL, AND WHEN WE DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR US?

The problem is put in stark terms in 6:10-12:

Whatever has come to be has already been named, and it is known what man is, and that he is not able to dispute with one stronger than he. The more words, the more vanity, and what is the advantage to man? For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow? For who can tell man what will be after him UNDER THE SUN? (Ecclesiastes 6:10-12)

Here’s what the Teacher is saying. The future, he says, is largely determined by God. God is sovereign; his will prevails. Whatever happens has already been determined by God in the past. We are so weak that we are not able to contend with God about his will. God is the powerful Creator; he is in control; we are mere creatures who cannot dispute with the sovereign Lord of the universe. We don’t know what’s coming. We don’t even know what’s good for us. The things that we think are good for us are often bad; the things we think are bad often end up being good for us. What’s more, we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Will tomorrow be a good day? Or will tomorrow be a day of adversity? We don’t know. Will we be happy? Or will we be mourning? We don’t know. The future is hidden, and we’re not in control. How then do we live?

He’s been saying that God is in control of our lives, and not us. We can’t argue with God’s purposes, and we don’t even know what’s good for us. So how do we live when we’re not in control, and adversity may be coming our way? In chapter 7, the Teacher gives us the answer. He gives us three examples of things that could come our way that might be bad, and then argues that they’re actually good. The main point he’s making in this passage is this: God is in control, so look for what’s best even in what looks bad. There are two things that we normally think are bad, and that could come our way, but the Teacher says they can actually be good. These two things are death, and rebuke,  Nobody would choose to experience these two things, but the Teacher says that they are actually better than if we avoid them.

First, death. Read verses 1-4 of chapter 7:

A good name is better than precious ointment,
and the day of death than the day of birth.
It is better to go to the house of mourning
than to go to the house of feasting,
for this is the end of all mankind,
and the living will lay it to heart.
Sorrow is better than laughter,
for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

Here, the Teacher says, thinking about our death is better than living in denial. This is surprising at first. We can understand the first part of verse 1: “A good name is better than precious ointment.” Nobody would debate that. You know the value of a good name. You can buy ointment; you can’t buy a good name. But then he says that in the same way, the day of death is better than the day of birth. How does that make sense? One would think that there’s more joy at a birth than there is at a death. He goes on to say in verse 2 that it’s better to go to a house of mourning than to a house of feasting. Is it really better to go to a funeral home than to a wedding reception? Few would say so. Then the Teacher gives us the reason why this is so: “for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.”

Here’s the reason: because we can’t afford to live in denial of death. Everything in us wants to believe that we’ll never die. It’s so easy to buy into this, and there are a lot of products at Shoppers Drug Mart that will help you perpetuate this belief. We can’t afford to live in denial about the fact that our life is short, and that we will die.

A family from our church visited a crypt (Capuchin Crypt) in Rome this past summer. The crypt displays the skeletal remains of over four thousand bodies of its friars buried in its order. At first they were scandalized by this. As they were leaving the crypt, they came across a sign that explained the display: “What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be.” All of a sudden it made sense. The display is a silent reminder that this is our future too.

Charles Spurgeon said this about death:

It is much nearer to us than we think. To those of you who have passed fifty, sixty, or 70 years of age, it must, of necessity, be very near. To others of us who are in the prime of life, it is not far off, for I suppose we are all conscious that time flies more swiftly with us, now, than it ever did. The years of our youth seem to have been twice as long as the years are, now, that we are men. It was but yesterday that the buds began to swell and burst—and now the leaves are beginning to fall and soon we shall be expecting to see old winter taking up his accustomed place. The years whirl along so fast that we cannot see the months which, as it were, make the spokes of the wheel! The whole thing travels so swiftly that the axle thereof grows hot with speed. We are flying, as on some mighty eagle’s wing, swiftly on towards eternity. Let us, then, talk about preparing to die. It is the greatest thing we have to do—and we have to do it soon—so let us talk and think something about it.

You’re not in control of your life, and you wouldn’t choose to encounter death. But it’s a good thing, because it keeps us from living in denial about our own future death, says the Teacher.

But there’s more. There’s a second thing that we’d rather avoid, but that can be very good for us.

Second, rebuke.

In verses 3 and 4, the Teacher has already told us that sorrow is a better teacher for us than laughter. Verses 5 and 6 continue this theme:

It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise
than to hear the song of fools.
For as the crackling of thorns under a pot,
so is the laughter of the fools;
this also is vanity.

The Teacher is drawing a contrast. On one hand you have boisterous laughter, the songs and the laughter of fools. You can picture the silly laughter of a group of friends who have had a bit too much to drink, or the locker room antics of a bunch of guys acting goofy. He compares this to the sound of crackling thorns under the pot – in Hebrew it’s a rhyme, sort of like saying that it sounds like “nettles crackling under kettles” (Phil Ryken). If you burn thorns, it will make a lot of noise, but it won’t last long, and it won’t give much heat. You can laugh and sing at a party, but it’s not likely that you’ll learn anything.

On the other hand, the Teacher says, is the rebuke of the wise. If you had to choose between door number one (laughter and singing) and door number two (the rebuke of the wise), which would you choose? The Teacher says that it’s far better to hear the rebuke of the wise. We need this. The rebuke of the wise can save our souls.

Adrian Rogers in his sermon on hell talked more about this issue of A KIND REBUKE:

It makes no difference if all the scholars, preachers, scientists, statesmen, politicians and liberal theologians put together say there is no Hell, it wouldn’t change one letter of what the Word of God says.

Often the minister who preaches on Hell is accused of being unloving. With a sneer the world loves to call him a “hell-fire and damnation preacher.” The late, great Dr. Robert G. Lee said,

I know some people call the preacher who stands squarely upon the teaching of Christ and His apostles narrow, harsh, and cruel. As to being narrow, I have no desire to any broader than was Jesus. As to being cruel, is it cruel to tell a man the truth? Is a man to be called cruel who declares the whole counsel of God and points out to men their danger? Is it cruel to arouse sleeping people to the fact that the house is on fire? Is it cruel to jerk a blind man away from the rattlesnake in the coil? Is it cruel to declare to people the deadliness of disease and tell them which medicine to take? I had rather be called cruel for being kind, than to be called kind for being cruel.

The cruelest thing we could do would be to fail to warn people about Hell and what the Bible has to say about it. To ridicule a preacher who warns of Hell is like ridiculing a doctor who warns of cancer. Hell is not a pleasant subject, but it is a reality.

Sometimes it can be a shocking reality. Each day we hear of someone who met a sudden, unexpected death. In a recent news event, one minute people were alive and well and the next split second they were in eternity, facing Almighty God. For many of us, death is not way out there in the future. The only thing between some people and a literal, burning Hell is a heartbeat. Thank God, between me and Hell is the cross of Jesus Christ.

Adrian Rogers  in his sermon FIVE MINUTES AFTER DEATH quotes Mark Twain as saying Twain would choose “heaven for climate and hell for company.”

Between May 1889 and August 1890 Mark Twain wrote the witticism in one of his notebooks. A footnote to Twain’s entry states “Clemens included this anecdote in a political speech of 1901.” So Twain did use the remark before an audience. The entry is close to another entry dated February 1, 1890 [MTN3]:

Dying man couldn’t make up his mind which place to go to—both have their advantages, “heaven for climate, hell for company!”

Even though Mark Twain made several jokes about Hell it is  a serious matter. Below is an outline of Adrian Rogers’ sermon.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Five Minutes After Death