enjoy ourselves if we are to be brought into judgment after all?
My friends, before I answer that question, let me ask one. Do you look on God as a taskmaster, requiring of you, as the Egyptians did of the Jews, to make bricks all day without straw, and noting down secretly every moment that you take your eyes off your work, that He may punish you for it years hence when you have forgotten it—extreme to mark what is done amiss?
Or do you look on God as a Father who rejoices in the happiness of His children?—Who sets them no work to do but what is good for them, and requires them to do nothing without giving them first the power and the means to do it?—A Father who knows our necessities before we ask for help and a Saviour who is able and willing to give us help? If you think of God in that former way as a stern taskmaster, I can tell you nothing about Him. I know Him not; I find Him neither in the Bible, in the world, nor in my own conscience and reason. He is not the God of the Bible, the God of the Gospel whom I am commanded to preach to you.
But if you think of God as a Father, as your Father in heaven, who chastens you in His love that you may partake of His holiness, and of His Son Jesus Christ as your Saviour, your Lord, who loves you, and desires your salvation, body and soul—of Him I can speak; for He is the True and only God, revealed by His Son Jesus Christ our Lord; and in His light I can tell you to rejoice and take comfort, ever though He brings you into judgment; for being your Father in heaven, He can mean nothing but your good, and He would not bring you into judgment if that too was not good for you.
Now, you must remember that the judgment of which Solomon speaks here is a judgment in this life. The whole Book of Ecclesiastes, from which the text is taken, is about this life. Solomon says so specially, and carefully. He is giving here advice to his son; and his doctrine all through is, that a man’s happiness or misery in this life, his good or bad fortune in this life, depend almost entirely on his own conduct; and, above all, on his conduct in youth. As a man sows he shall reap, is his doctrine.
Therefore, he says, in this very chapter, Do what if right, just because it is right. It is sure to pay you in the long run, somehow, somewhere, somewhen. Cast thy bread on the waters—that is, do a generous thing whenever you have an opportunity—and thou shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight, for thou knowest not what evil shall be on the earth. Every action of yours will bear fruit. Every thing you do, and every word you say, will God bring into judgment, sooner or later. It will rise up against you, years afterwards, to punish you, or it will rise up for you, years afterwards, to reward you. It must be so, says Solomon; that is the necessary, eternal, moral law of God’s world. As you do, so will you be rewarded. If the clouds be full of rain, they must empty themselves on the earth. Where the tree falls, there it will lie. As we say in England, as you make your bed, so you will lie on it. That does not (as people are too apt to think) speak of what is to happen to us after we die. It speaks expressly and only of what will happen before we die. It is the same as our English proverb.
Therefore, he says, do not look too far forward. Do not be double-minded, doing things with a mean and
interested after-thought, plotting, planning, asking, will this right thing pay me or not? He that observeth the wind, and is too curious and anxious about the weather, will not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. No; just do the right thing which lies nearest you, and trust to God to prosper it. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand; for thou knowest not which shall prosper, this or that, or whether they shall both be alike good. Thou knowest not, he says, the works of God, who maketh all. All thou knowest is, that the one only chance of success in life is to fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
Whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
He does not say only that God will bring your evil deeds into judgment. But that He will bring your good ones also, and your happiness and good fortune in this life will be, on the whole, made up of the sum-total of the good and harm you have done, of the wisdom or the folly which you have thought and carried out. It is so. You know it is so. When you look round on other men, you see that on the whole men prosper very much as they deserve. There are exceptions, I know. Solomon knew that well. Such strange and frightful exceptions, that one must believe that those who have been so much wronged in this life will be righted in the life to come. Children suffer for the sins of their parents. Innocent people suffer with the guilty. But these are the exceptions, not the rule. And these exceptions are much more rare than we choose to confess. When a man complains to you that