SCRIPTURE: Ecclesiastes 9
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
This, too, I carefully explored: Even though the actions of godly and wise people are in God’s hands, no one knows whether God will show them favour. The same destiny ultimately awaits everyone, whether righteous or wicked, good or bad, ceremonially clean or unclean, religious or irreligious. Good people receive the same treatment as sinners, and people who make promises to God are treated like people who don’t. [Ecclesiastes 9:1-2]
Everyone is going to die… everyone!
To quote Benjamin Franklin, ‘In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.’
This is the reality of life in this sinful world, not the world as God created it to be but the world as we have ruined it to be – the wages of sin is death! [Romans 6:23]
The Teacher does not seem to have much hope for resurrection here; the idea of resurrection was not clearly understood by old testament believers, there are only vague references to the possibility of life after death.
Death, along with injustice, violence, greed, poverty, was all a part of the meaningless of life in this world.
Yes, the wages of sin is death, but that is not the end of the story.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. [Romans 6:23]

Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this?” [John 11:25-26]
Even after dying, says Jesus, there is hope.
We do not get stuck on death, for we see something – Someone – beyond death.
Death is real, death is hard, death is a curse, but it is not the last word.
God did not create us to die; and after we messed up His world and turned it into a death trap, He chose not to leave us in death without hope.
From the beginning after sin entered the world, God has been promising hope for the triumph of life over death.
Though old testament believers did not understand exactly how, they still had confidence.
“But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last. And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God! I will see him for myself. Yes, I will see him with my own eyes. I am overwhelmed at the thought! [Job 19:25-27]
The Teacher is showing what this life has to offer, without God in it.
It is, and will always be, depressing without God.
The best that people can come up with is “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die!”
But this is not the philosophy of those who know Jesus, who believe in Him.
Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die!Do you believe this?

PRAYER:
Lord, I want to believe this, but sometimes tragedy and death seems more real than life after death. Like Job, I cling to the fact that my Redeemer lives, and that somehow, someday I will see Him with my own eyes, alive and not dead!