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In Ecclesiastes chapter number 8, the Bible reads in verse number 1, Who is as the wise man, and who knoweth the interpretation of a thing? A man's wisdom maketh his face to shine, and the boldness of his face shall be changed. Now when the Bible talks here about having wisdom and knowing the interpretation of a thing and we're thinking about obviously a spiritual wisdom, he says that knowing those things, having that wisdom will cause his face to shine and the boldness of his face shall be changed. Now a verse that popped into my mind with this, if you keep your finger there in Ecclesiastes, go back to Psalm 104 if you would, Psalm 104 verse 15. While you're turning there I'll read you a little bit of the context that says, He watereth the hills from his chambers, the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works. He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man that he may bring forth food out of the earth. Look at Psalm 104 verse 15, and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart. And obviously this is talking about physical things, the oil and the wine and the bread and so forth, but it says there that oil causes man's face to shine. And obviously this is talking about being anointed with an oil that would make your skin actually literally be shining. But if you look at Ecclesiastes chapter 8 verse 1 it says that a man's wisdom maketh his face to shine, and the boldness of his face shall be changed. So I take two things from this. First of all, boldness comes from knowing what you're talking about. I mean think about it, if you're not really solid on what you believe, you're not really solid on the gospel, you're not going to make a bold soul winner if you're, I mean I think, I guess it's by faith right, I mean I think so. You know part of boldness is knowing something and then knowing that you know it. And being solid and you're firm, then you can actually boldly preach because you're confident in the facts. You know you're confident in the doctrine that you're preaching from the word of God. And so I think just having wisdom and knowing the interpretation of a thing does bring boldness and gives you that bold countenance. And then another spiritual application I would take from this is that just as physically oil causes the face to shine, what does oil represent in the word of God? You know oil throughout scripture represents the Holy Spirit, being anointed with the Holy Spirit. And if we are filled with the Holy Ghost or anointed with the Spirit, then that's going to do what? It's going to create boldness. Because in Acts chapter 4 verse 31 it says, and when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake the word of God with boldness. So one of the evidences of being filled with the Holy Ghost is speaking the word of God with boldness. That's one of the things that the Holy Spirit will do for us, He'll give us boldness when we preach His word. And so that's two things that I would take from this are that number one, you've got to know what you're talking about in order to have boldness. And number two, you've got to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And boldness is so important when we're soul winning because of the fact that the apostle Paul stated, that's what he wanted people to pray for him, is that when he has utterance of the word of God, when he's giving the gospel and preaching the word of God, he said, I want to preach it boldly. I want to speak boldly as I ought to speak. And there are so many times in the four gospels and in the book of Acts where people are really blown away by the boldness of Jesus, the boldness of his apostles, and it gets people's attention when people speak boldly. And obviously, I'm not talking about being rude or obnoxious. Some people, they actually will confuse boldness with being obnoxious or rude. It's more just being confident, courageous, not fearing, not being shy or timid about what we know to be the truth. You know, when I go out soul winning, you know, I don't feel like I need to apologize for being there. You know, I'm on a mission. God has sent me to preach the most important message that there is. I belong on that doorstep. Now, obviously, if they are not interested, I can't get out of there fast enough because I'm trying to find somebody who is interested, and I'm not interested in casting my pearls before swine. I'm not interested in talking to people that have no interest. I'm out there looking for somebody that is. But at the same time, I don't feel like I'm such an inconvenience to people by coming to them and preach, oh, I'm so sorry, you know, for existing. It's like, well, no. You know, I'm here to preach the word of God. This is the most important message that anyone has ever delivered in the history of mankind, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I'm carrying that message. So I'm going to go there with confidence. I'm going to go there with boldness, right? The fullness of the Holy Spirit, knowing the gospel, knowing the truth. I know I have a mandate from God that has commanded me to go preach the gospel to every creature. And so these things cause us to have boldness and have confidence. And you know, when you are a coward or you're scared or you're timid, you know, sometimes people can kind of pick that up and it makes them not want to listen to you as much as when you have boldness. Now, obviously, when you're just starting out soul winning, there's going to be fear there. I mean, I remember, I would say for the first year, literally the entire first year of soul winning, I would knock the first door and hope that they're not home. You know, who's ever had that feeling? You knock the door and you're just hoping nobody answers, you know. That's how I would say I felt that way, like for the first year of soul winning. But usually after a few doors, I'd warm up, you know, that was like the first door and then I'd get kind of warmed up and start getting into it and the boldness comes with time. But also we got to pray for boldness and we got to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Pray for the power of the Holy Spirit. Read the word of God, sing to ourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and want to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, be filled with the Spirit so that we can speak the word of God boldly because the Bible says the boldness at the end of verse one there, the boldness of his face shall be changed and the face is the countenance. And so, you know, we want to be able to speak with authority. Jesus taught us one that had authority and not as the scribes. He had a bold countenance. And again, not talking about being abrasive, rude or unfriendly, you can be kind and loving but still confident. And they're on a mission with a purpose, not apologizing for being there or as if you're some kind of an inconvenience or a burden because honestly, you know, the gospel is the most important thing. It says in verse number two of chapter eight there, I counsel thee to keep the king's commandment and that in regard of the oath of God. Be not hasty to go out of his sight, stand not in an evil thing for he doeth whatsoever pleaseth him. Where the word of a king is, there is power and who may say unto him, what doest thou? Now, whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing and a wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment. So in verses two through five here, we have a description of a monarch who is an absolute monarch. Now, throughout history, there have been various types of kings and not every king is an absolute monarch. But today, the king of Norway is not really the same type of king that we would think of in the Middle Ages or something as far as how much power he has or the queen of England or something or the queen of the Netherlands. So there are different levels of power, but there's what's called an absolute monarch. Usually when we think of a king, that's kind of what we think of. A proper king is one who has, you know, a lot of power. He just kind of says off with his head and somebody's head gets chopped off, right? That's what we think of as an absolute monarch. One who rules somewhat as a dictator in that sense. And this is what's being described in these verses. This is the type of monarchy that we're talking about here. When King Solomon was the king of Israel, when King David was the king of Israel, these guys had a lot of power. And you see them making commands in the Bible and people do pretty much whatever they say. You know, it's rare that people are disputing with them because it's not like they have to go to parliament or, or the Congress or the Senate or where, I mean, you know, they're pretty much ruling. Okay. And so this is physically describing an absolute monarch saying at the end of verse three, he do with whatsoever please at them. He does whatever he wants. So don't be hasty to go out of his sight. Stand not an evil thing. Don't just storm out angry and disobey. You know, he says where the word of a king is there's power and who may say unto him what doest thou? So this is describing a king who can't really be questioned. Nobody can say to him what doest thou. He is an absolute monarch. Now obviously on earth, this doesn't really work very well because when we see absolute monarchs in the Bible, even godly men like David and Solomon, they end up becoming worse over time because human beings are not really capable of handling that kind of power. So David ends up abusing his power by doing what? Does he just commit adultery with Bathsheba secretly? Not really because if you look at what actually happens, he sends his servants to go get Bathsheba and bring her to him. So a few people at least knew about what was happening. And he's telling servants, oh hey, we've got to go get Uriah killed. He tells Joab at least, put him in the hardest part of the battle and then withdraw the truth. So yeah, he's doing it secretly in the sense that it's not public, but it's not completely secret. Some of his servants know what he's doing. I mean, hey, go bring this woman to me. And they're just like, yes sir. We see Solomon, obviously, when he's in power, he ends up writing this book, for example, that talks about all the struggles and mental things that he's going through, just trying to understand his situation. And he ends up marrying 700 wives and 300 concubines, which is obviously just abuse of power. That's not the purpose of having a king, just so that he can just indulge all that lust in such an incredible way. And so an absolute monarchy is not something that works well when sinners are involved. And this is why when God originally set up the government for the children of Israel, they had the system of the judges and it was not a monarchy. And then when they desired a king, God was angry with them for desiring a king. And he rebuked them. And in 1 Samuel, chapter 8, he explained to them all the reasons why they don't want to have a king and so forth. But they ended up having a king anyway. Now on the one hand, when it comes to human beings, this is not going to work that well because human beings are sinful and they have a lust for power and it's just part of human nature. But this pictures, of course, Jesus Christ, who one day will be an absolute monarch, literally ruling and reigning on this earth during the millennium. But even now, God in heaven is an absolute monarch and he rules in heaven. So if you take a spiritual view of this, you would look at it as where the word of a king is, there is power. You'd say, hey, there's power in God's word, the word of the king of the universe, the king of kings and Lord of lords. You would say, be not hasty to go out of his sight, right? He does whatsoever pleases him. And all of these statements would be true of God and he's the supreme ruler and the supreme judge. But obviously, human beings on this earth, when they have this kind of power, they end up abusing it. Solomon here in the immediate context is telling people, hey, this is the situation. So he's just basically telling you how to not be the guy about whom it is said off with his head. He's just explaining to you, hey, don't just blow off your mouth to the king because he has all this power, you can't question him. And humanly speaking, it's not a great form of government in our sinful world, but when Jesus Christ comes, because he is going to be sinless and perfect, he is going to be a great ruler on this earth and he's going to rule all nations with a rod of iron. So he's not going to be like the queen of England. He's not going to have like this title that's just a figure, like he's just kind of a figurehead. I mean, he is going to be ruling with a rod of iron. And the Bible says that he will rule over the nations with a rod of iron and as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers, okay? I mean, he is going to shiver the timbers, amen? I mean, he is going to smash any opposition. And so when you see these verses about a king against whom there is no rising up and who may say unto him, what doest thou? And where the word of the king is there's power, this is picturing or pointing us to Jesus Christ. It's describing an earthly scenario that did exist in the nation of Israel because we see people like Solomon and David doing whatever they want. But those are imperfect people. Jesus is going to use that power perfectly. I mean, think about King Solomon just says, oh, bring me a sword. Let's just cut this baby in half, you know, and he wasn't really going to do it, but they're handing him the sword and okay, you know, it's just what he does, what pleases him. He was a sovereign ruler in that sense. He had absolute power. It says in verse number six, because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man is great upon him. And again, this is sort of the way that the book of Ecclesiastes flows from one subject to another because at the end of verse five, it says a wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment. So he knows when it's time to shut up, when you're in the presence of the king that has the power to kill you, you just shut up and, you know, walk away. And then he says, you know, the wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment because to every purpose there is time and judgment. So you see how it leads from one topic to another that are seemingly unrelated. Therefore the misery of man is great upon him. For he knoweth not that which shall be, for who can tell him when it shall be? There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit. And we'll get to that in a moment, but remember from chapter three, the famous verses that say to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven. And the first thing that is brought up of course is a time to be born and time to die. And so what the Bible is saying here in verse number eight or sorry, verses six and seven is that to every purpose there is time and judgment. Therefore the misery of man is great upon him for he knoweth not that which shall be, for who can tell him when it shall be? So what man knows is that there's a time to be born and a time to die, right? We know this and we also know that there's a time to mourn and a time to laugh. There is a time when things are going good in our lives and there's going to be a time when things are going badly in our lives and ultimately all of us are going to die. And so when he says in verse seven, he knoweth not that which shall be, we do know what is going to happen in the sense that, well, we know eventually we're going to die. But what we don't know is when. We know we're going to go through bad times. We know we're going to go through pain. We know we're going to go through loss. But what we don't know is the details. We don't know when. So he says in verse seven, he knoweth not that which shall be for who can tell him when it shall be, right? So even though we know in general the type of things we're going to face in life, we don't know the details and we don't know when. So it's sort of like this ticking time bomb that we just know death is coming eventually. We know we're eventually going to lose everything. And we don't know when. It could be today. It could be tomorrow. It could be 50 years from now. And this is something that greatly bothers Solomon and it has bothered him throughout the book of Ecclesiastes that he's going to die one day and he doesn't like that. And so it says in verse eight, to prove that that's what he's talking about, he says, there is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit. He's saying you cannot through an act of the will not die. If you're dying, it's like, don't die on me. It's like, okay, I won't. But no man has power over the spirit to retain the spirit. When your body fails, you die. Your heart stops beating, you die. You can't just be like, come on, heart, let's go, let's do this. Start up again. It's over at that point. Neither hath he power in the day of death. And there is no discharge in that war. Neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it. When he says there's no discharge in that war, he's saying you can't get out of this. There's no way out of this. A discharge would be like, let's say you're in the military and sometimes you could get like a, I think there's something called a hardship discharge. Is there something like that or yeah, you know, you're going through some kind of a situation or a hardship or whatever you could get. I knew somebody who got discharged because of their dad's health problems or something. But here's the thing, this war that we're involved in here on this earth, and it truly is a war. We are soldiers in the Lord's army. We're in a battle and even people out there, whether they know it or not, they're part of it. We're all part of this battle between good and evil. And there is no discharge in this war. There's no way out. Death is the only way out basically. I never said that the series was going to be pleasant, but all I said was I'm going to preach through the book of Ecclesiastes. And so I didn't write the Bible here. There's no discharge in this war. The only way out of this military is death. There's no honorable discharge, dishonorable discharge. You get out by dying. And that's what he's saying. And he's saying, you don't have the power over the spirit to retain the spirit. You don't have power in the day of death. There is no discharge in this war. And then he says in verse 8, neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it. And again, this last statement is leading us into the next thing on his mind, into the next subject. So it says in verse 9, all this have I seen and applied my heart unto every work that is done under the sun. There is a time wherein one man ruleth over another to his hurt. And so I saw the wicked buried who had come and gone from the place of the holy and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done. This is also vanity. So he's talking about wicked people, wicked rulers. They rule over other people. They get all this power, but it doesn't help them. It doesn't benefit them. They're ruling over others to their own hurt. And the wicked are buried. And it says that these people who had come and gone from the place of the holy, these wicked people, they're forgotten in the city where they had so done. This is also vanity. You know, all of their works are forgotten. They die and whatever they accomplished becomes meaningless at that point. He says in verse 11, because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil, though a sinner do evil a hundred times and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him. So let me try to kind of unpack some of this and explain this. Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Punishments are a deterrent to bad behavior. I don't care what anybody says out there. I don't care what your psychology teacher might've taught you or, uh, you know, what a Dr. Spock says in his book or whatever the libtard, uh, uh, agenda is, or they could point to a study that they've done that we found a study that showed that, uh, spankings did it work. Well, you know, I did a study, I did a study that showed that it does work. It's called study to show thyself approved unto God. It's called studying the word of God. Here's a study right here and it's been peer reviewed by every Baptist who's ever lived. Okay. So there's my peer reviewed study about spankings being effective. Thou shalt beat him with the rod shall deliver his soul from hell. Okay. That's what I studied. And this should be common sense that punishments are deterrents for bad behavior. You know, the people out there, and this is a left wing talking point that says, oh, the death penalty doesn't work. It's not a deterrent. Well, let me explain to you why the death penalty doesn't work and why it's not a deterrent because over the last century, the average time between a person being sentenced to death in the United States of America and being, and being executed is 22 years. So the, and by the way, speedy trial almost never happens. Speedy trial is supposed to be less than six months, almost never happens. So you're typically going to be tried for at least a year and then you get sentenced and then it's on average 22 years. Now what does the Bible say in verse 11? Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore, and we see the rest of the verse there, but let me tell you what he's getting at here. He's saying, therefore, it doesn't work. Okay. He says, because it's not executed speedily, therefore, the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil in spite of the fact that there's been a sentence handed down and a punishment given is because it takes so long for that punishment to be carried out. You know, in the olden days, you got sentenced to death, you're dead a few days later or the next day, the next day or something, I mean, it would happen more quickly. Well, they got to be able to appeal. Twenty-two years? I mean, can anyone really defend that? I mean, that's absurd. Twenty-two years, it makes no sense. It's like, why even do the death penalty at that point? It doesn't even make sense. Now punishments deter bad behavior. Think about this. If you remember when you were in school as a kid, because human nature is best on display amongst children. When you were at school as a kid, if there were rules, but there were no punishments associated with those rules, did the kids follow those rules? No, there had to be a punishment. If there's no punishment, nobody's going to follow those rules. And when they tell you, well, this is the rule, well, what's the punishment? Oh, well, there isn't one, it's like, that's human nature. That's what people are going to do, okay? I mean, think about it, what if there was never a punishment for speeding? We'd be going over a hundred down the freeway every time we go to Tucson. I know I would, I'm just being honest. Why do I go the speed limit when I drive from here to Tucson is because I don't want to get punished. Okay, I mean, think about it. How would people drive if there was no punishment? How would people act in school if the rules had no punishments? They'd be, I mean, look, you don't think if there were no punishments at school, the student would walk in with a cigarette in his mouth and blow it in the teacher's face on day one of the school year. Am I right? That's what would happen in school if there were no punishment. Punishments are deterrents for bad behavior. Why do we chasten our children? Why do we discipline them? Because we're teaching them to do right because we're trying to deter that bad behavior. You know, if they reach out to touch the hot stove and we slap their hand and tell them no, they are not going to keep reaching for that stove because when they reach their stove, they get their hand slapped and they realize, hey, I'm not supposed to be doing that. You know, don't tell me that punishments don't work. And listen to me, I know you might think, you know, why is Pastor Anderson preaching such a basic truth? But you have to understand, there are literally thousands and thousands, maybe even tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people out there that not only do they not believe in spanking your children, but they do this thing called attachment parenting where they literally sometimes will say, don't even ever tell your child that they're wrong. Am I right? Juja, you've showed me this. No punishment. Not just, we're not saying no corporal punishment. I'm saying there's a huge community, big Facebook groups. How many people are in these Facebook groups? Thousands on the order of thousands of people in these Facebook groups, attachment parenting, and they say, not only should you not physically discipline your kids, you shouldn't even punish them. You shouldn't even tell them that they're wrong, just only positive reinforcement. And I mean, it's crazy. These kids are going to grow up and be psychopaths. There's no doubt about that. Okay. That you have to have punishments in place. The Bible says, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. And the Bible says that he doeth it for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness. Because if we get disciplined by God, we live a better life. That's why he does it. Why do we discipline our kids? Because we want them to be good. If it didn't work, what would be the point of just, you know, oh, you know, it just makes me feel better. It just makes me feel better just to slap them after they do wrong. It just makes me feel better. No it doesn't. Nobody likes spanking their kids. Nobody enjoys that. Okay. Spanking your kids is something that you don't like to do. It's something that you have to do because you have to teach them right and wrong. And there has to be some punishment. And people say, well, you know, you got to use some other punishment besides spanking. You know, you got to use the timeouts and the grounding and all this stuff. You know, the problem with those kind of punishments is the fact that, you know, they're not executed speedily. You know, the thing about a spanking is it's executed, you just, you get it done, it's over and then, and then you can move on with your life instead of just like, well, you're grounded for the next month. Now it's like you have this punishment hanging over your head for the next month. The nice thing about spanking is that you get it done and you can move on and five minutes later you can be smiling and happy and everybody's, you know, loving each other and, right? As opposed to just like, you're still grounded. It's like, oh man, I'm still grounded, you know. So you know, punishments work, but they have to happen in a timely manner to work. Okay. So because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil and you know, our, our, our criminal justice system is all wrong today. You know, we lock people up in a cage for years and years and years and years to punish them for what they did. You know, it'd be a lot better if we could just punish them and get it over with. You know, and, and what's funny is that if you suggested and said, hey, how about caning people as a punishment, right? I mean, how about instead of sending someone to jail, how about they get flogged? How about they get caned? You know, people would say, they'd say that's a cruel and unusual punishment. You're cruel. You're mean, but I guarantee you that everybody in jail would love to get caned if it means getting out of jail. I mean, if you were given the choice right now, be caned right now, and I'm talking about a serious caning. I'm talking about being caned and, and to where, I mean, you're bruised and bleeding. Okay. Or go to prison for one year. I'd take the caning in a heartbeat. Who would take the caning in a heartbeat? All day long. You don't want to give a year of your life. And you know what? It'd probably be even more effective because, you know, they go into prison and they, they get in there and they get around a bunch of other rotten people and it doesn't necessarily fix them. It doesn't necessarily reform them to just lock them up. And then they, they probably just get mad and bitter and hang out with other criminals and, and they talk about how they're going to do it better next time and not get caught or something. But that's the world's wisdom. Man's wisdom says, hey, lock people in a cage for five, that's cruel and unusual punishment. To lock someone in a cage, you know, man must have freedom. The human spirit cannot be locked in a cage for 10 years, 20 years without being damaged. Okay. And so that's, what's cruel and unusual punishment is lock someone in a cage for, for, for decades or years or this huge amount of time, you know, the only purpose for, for any kind of a jail should just be like a holding tank, you know, while you're waiting for the trial. And then, you know, it should be some kind of a punishment. Either they should pay a fine or be flogged or if they did something along on the order of like first degree murder or, or a kidnapping or rape or something, then they should be put to death at that point. Okay. But, and I'm not making this up, you know, if you stay the mosaic law, that's what God prescribes in the mosaic law. You know, you don't see any prison, you don't see, you know, thou shalt send them to prison for five years. You see, he's going to be beaten with stripes. That's in the Bible. You see, he'll pay them fourfold, pay them twofold, pay as the judges shall determine. You'll see that in the Bible and you'll see putting people to death in the Bible. Okay. That's biblical. Man's wisdom says, no, no, no, lock them in a cage. And then man says, oh, uh, with your children, uh, you know, lock them in a cage too. Lock them in their room, go to your room, time out, groundation. You know, that's not what the Bible tells us to do. Okay. So we should trust in the Lord and not lean upon our own understanding. You know, he's right. We're wrong all the time. And that's why, you know, you see the, our justice system is, is messed up in this country. I think most people would agree with that. We have the highest prison population of any civilized country in this world is a greater percentage of Americans in prison than any other civilized country in this world. So what, you know, what's going on here, what are we doing? We're doing something wrong. And people that it's a revolving door down there, you know, of people, they get out, they go back in, they get out, they go back in. You know, obviously, you know, they have to do something to punish them, but, but it'd be great to do the caning. I remember in the 80s or the 90s seeing it on the news where they said, hey, in South America, people who do graffiti, young people who do graffiti are getting caned publicly. And you know, we all, everybody at church and everybody in my family, we were all like, yes, this is biblical. This is good. We were all cheering for it. The news is like, can you believe this? We're like, yeah, I can. Looks great. You know, it, I mean, it can't be any less effective than what they're doing right now. Why not? Why not try God's way for a change, but, but why would people be so freaked out about that? Wouldn't they? I mean, if it was on the news, like some dude being caned or something, it'd be like, oh, we're barbaric. But that makes no sense because literally everyone would rather do that than to be locked up. So what in the world? Who decides this is barbaric? Just some, some talking head on the news just makes that decision for everyone. Oh, can you believe it's so barbaric? You know what? Sometimes barbaric is right. You know where the word barbarian originally comes from? You know where the word barbarian originally comes from? The ancient Greeks called everyone who did not speak Greek a barbarian because the language sounded them like, bar, bar, bar, bar, bar. That's how they just sort of like, sort of like we would just, if we don't know anything about a language, we'd, if we wanted to like impersonate Chinese or something, I'm sure this is not a politically correct, but you know, we just do some kind of a ching chong chow chow. You know, everything would just start with a ch, right? You know, you just kind of impersonate that, you know, or let me just get into all kinds of, let's impersonate lots of languages, you know, you know, if I were to impersonate Navajo, I do like a lot of, all those like glottal stops. It's like, if you don't know anything about it, you just kind of like make it sound like something what it sounds like to you. Or like we, if we were thinking about like these African click languages, you know, we just kind of start clicking or whatever, right? So that's what the Greeks were doing. That's where they came up with the word barbarian. So anybody who's not a Greek is a barbarian, okay? So the father of modern history, for example, Herodotus, which is, you know, he wrote in the fifth century BC, he's talking about the fact that, yeah, you know, the barbarians, the barbarians, they actually think it's wrong for a man to be nude publicly. Isn't that wild? That's what it says. Herodotus book one says, says like, you know, for them, even a man being seen publicly nude is, is shameful because for the Greeks, only women had to be clothed. You know, it was okay for men to be nude in front of, uh, out in public, you know, women, women always wore modest clothing, you know, but the dudes are out there doing, uh, you know, the word gymnastics, gymnasium, it comes, it comes from the Greek word, which means naked. That's what it means. The Greek word for naked in the Bible is gimnos, gymnastic, gimnasium. That's where it comes from. So, so here's the thing. You know, you have the, the, the Spartans at Thermopylae in their underwear with long hair and their fag buddy, okay, they did it. It's true. Read a history book. The Spartans are out there in their underwear, long flowing hair, combing their hair with their fag buddy. And then you have the Persians who are the what? The barbarians, the barbarians. And they're wearing pants down to their ankles. Okay. And they thought that the Greeks looked like a bunch of sodomites, okay. And they, you know, they underestimated their fighting ability because, you know, just cause they're a bunch of queer baits. It doesn't mean that they, you know, it doesn't mean that they haven't been training to fight their whole life and, and they're just this death cult that doesn't even care if they die and they just, you know, whatever folks, ancient Greek culture is messed up. Big time messed up. Super weird. Okay. So, you know, being a barbarian is not that bad is my point. Oh, that's barbaric. It's like, well, yeah. Amen. Amen for barbarism because, you know, I mean it's, and here's my point and I understand that nowadays the word barbaric means something different because words change in their meaning over time. Here's my point though. Barbarism is in the eye of the beholder. Am I right? Barbarism is subjective. It's based on someone's opinion. You know, one person looks at what you do, oh, that's barbaric, but I look at the modern criminal justice system in America. I look at the prison system and I say that's barbaric. You know, I decide what's barbaric. Why do you get to decide? No, actually, neither of us decide. God decides. So, you know, I'm going to go with the word of God. People can call it barbaric or primitive or, oh man, you know, you're Canaan people. What is this, the bronze age? What is this, the age of feces? You know what I mean? Because look at America today. Look at this month that we've been celebrating for the last stupid month. Feces month. It's what it is, my friend. June is national feces month. We all get around and celebrate a hot steaming pile of feces. That's what we've been doing for the last 30 days, folks. Hello, is anybody home? Rainbow colored feces. And so you know what? So who's barbaric now? I'd rather be barbaric than queer. All right, let's get back to Ecclesiastes. We got to get through this. It's the last day of the pride month, right? Got to get that off my chest. Thank God it's over. And then now tomorrow on July 1st, we can post all the memes where like, you know, companies after pride month, it's like, see you fag boy or whatever, where they're like casting off the queerness now, all the companies. Go back to being straight for another 11 months. It's so true. These companies, they don't love queers. Nobody loves queers unless they're a complete idiot. Nobody's just like, oh, it's so great. I mean, look, I was watching a YouTube video today. I pushed the wrong button and it started showing me like YouTube's like pride month. And I was just like, ah! It was some YouTube promote. I was like, ah, make it stop! That's what every normal person, it was like, it was just like, yeah, that's how everybody feels. You know why these companies are promoting it. You know why they changed their logo? Because the love of money is the root of all evil. They're just doing it because it's trendy, it's popular, it's cool, it's part of their business plan. They don't care about these bunch of queers. At least I hope they don't. All right, beloved, let's look at the next verse here today in verse 12. Though a sinner do evil a hundred times and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him, but it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days which are as a shadow because he feareth not before God. So again, this is explaining to us that even though we look at this world and we see the wicked people prospering, we see good people suffering, we see righteousness being called barbaric, and then we see perversion and godlessness being seen as civilized and culture, and there's nothing new under the sun. It was the same way, you know, thousands of years ago with the ancient Greeks. And so we see that even though we see a lot of unfair things in this world, we have to know that in the end, it's not going to be well with the wicked and that it's going to be well with the righteous that fear God. And it says that these wicked people, even if they prolong their days, even if they live to be 80, 90, 100, their days are still like a shadow. It's still a vapor in perspective of eternity. Our life is a vapor even if we live to be 100 years old. He says, there's a vanity which is done upon the earth that there be just men unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked. Right? So there's good people where bad things happen to them. Again, there be wicked men to whom it happened to the corner of the work of the righteous. I said that this is vanity. So he's saying, look, you know, it's easy to look at things and see good people being punished and bad people being rewarded. And then to get this attitude in verse 15 saying like, well, there's nothing better than to eat, drink, and be married because it doesn't matter if I'm good or bad because bad things are happening to good people, good things are happening to bad people. Then who cares? Who cares whether we're good or bad, let's just eat, drink, and be married because tomorrow we die. But of course, he's eventually going to explain that obviously there's a higher power that God is going to bring all works into judgment and eventually the righteous are going to be rewarded and the wicked are going to be punished. But humanly speaking, if there were no God and you saw that and you're just thinking about life under the sun, then you'd think, yeah, let's just eat, drink, and be married because, you know, whether I'm good or bad, the same things are happening to everybody. But we know that there's more to it than that because even if an ungodly person is wicked and gets away with it their whole life, are they really getting away with it if they're not saved? No, because then they go to hell for all eternity and that's worse than anything that could happen in this earth. And you say, well, what if a saved person does a bunch of wickedness and gets away with it in this life? They're not going to hell. Yeah, but that never happens. That literally never happens because the Bible says, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourges every son whom he receiveth. And the Bible says, if you be without chastisement, where of all are partakers, then are you bastards and not sons? So if a person who claims to be saved goes through their whole life living wickedly and never gets punished and everything's going great for them, take it to the bank that person's not saved. Take it to the bank. You could see a person who claims the name of Christ, but they're just living a life of wickedness and nothing bad ever happens to them. Everything they touch turns to gold. Just mark it down, that person's headed for hell. They're not even saved, okay? Because every truly saved Christian, when they live a life of wickedness, they end up getting punished. They end up getting judged. They end up getting chastised. Because here's the thing, we are not going to be punished in the world to come. Not going to happen. God has promised never even to mention our sins to us. Their sins and iniquity is why I remember no more. As far as the east is from the west, so far has God separated us from our sins. So if God's going to chastise us, it can only be in one place, right here on this earth, in this lifetime. That's the only place it can happen. Because it's not like we're going to get to heaven and be like, all right, time to go to purgatory, buddy. There is no purgatory. Purgatory's not in the Bible. And so therefore, you've got to be punished in this life, okay? So Christians get their punishment in this life. Young people often get punished in this life and go to hell. But often they don't get punished in this life and go to hell. Let me ask you this. After that person's been in hell for 5,000 years, how relevant do you think it is whether they did or didn't get punished while they were on this earth? Wouldn't you say at some point it has zero relevance? Maybe the first five minutes in hell is like, well, at least I had a good time, you know. Five days later, five years later, 500 years later. You know what? I think it's going to stop mattering at some point whether you liked it on earth or didn't like it when you're in hell for all eternity. And so the point is that whether the wicked get away with things or not, it doesn't really matter because they're going to hell when they die, okay? Or if it's a saved person who is doing wickedness, mark it down. There's going to be a punishment for that on this earth. And it will come to meet them and, you know, maybe it's not going to be right away but it's going to happen at some point. And so we're seeing Solomon here in this chapter, you know, he doesn't like the fact that we're going to die. He doesn't like the fact that there are a lot of things that aren't fair in this world. But what he's, the conclusion that he's ultimately bringing us to though is that God's up in heaven, God's going to make everything just. He's going to pay everybody their due. Now thankfully those of us who are saved, our sins are washed away so we're not going to get what's coming to us, amen? Thank God because if we got what was coming to us, we'd be doomed. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquity, O Lord, who can stand? But there's forgiveness with thee, thou mayest be feared. And so thank God for his grace and his mercy because, you know, we would all be doomed. But those of us that are Christians, you know, we better mind our P's and Q's while we're on this earth though or God will chasten us and chastise us. So we better fear the Lord and rejoice with trembling. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this chapter, Lord, and for this book of Ecclesiastes. I pray that some wisdom would be gleaned from this chapter, Lord, and we live in a messed up world. We live in a world where, you know, millions of people are locked in a cage for their crimes and then people get sentenced to death and it comes 22 years later because they don't care what the Bible says. And the media doesn't care what the Bible says and these businesses and companies in the month of June, they don't care what the Bible says. But Lord, we care what the Bible says and that's why we're here tonight, Lord, and thank you for teaching us something from Ecclesiastes 8 tonight, Lord, because we do care about these things. And I thank you for everyone who stops everything in the middle of a busy week, middle of the work week, school night, work night, whatever, and comes down to your house to learn about your word because they care what it says. Lord, we thank you and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.