"Someday, I’d like to do an evangelistic
series on Old Testament Wisdom Literature." Never share one of your
pipe dreams out loud in front of our pastor. In March and April I did series on
Proverbs and Job, and now in October I have preached on Ecclesiastes and soon Song of
Solomon.
Ecclesiastes preaches the
“anti-Gospel,” focusing on the dark side of wisdom. It highlights the “bad
news” that makes the good news really Good News! After referring to “Goths” in
the first sermon, I decided to dress as close to Goth as I could for the
second message. Here was the result.
Of course the teenagers thought I
should have used black fingernail polish and eyeliner, and spiked my hair, but this was enough to make my point. Personally, this book and most Russian literature is just too depressing for me; I don’t particularly like it, but I need this wake-up call too. Russians can really relate
to the meaninglessness of life! I told the story of another pastor I know, who
received Christ in prison after finding a Bible and opening to, of all things,
Ecclesiastes! After this sermon, Maria Ivanovna came forward to receive Christ. God
can call hearts to Himself through every part of His Word!
When we take the hard yet realistic
view of the meaninglessness of human existence in a fallen world, we realize
that joy and enjoyment is only possible with
God (Eccl 2:25). So do you want to be able to find the joy in the midst of
our meaninglessness “with God”? Or would you prefer to wallow in your misery,
or somehow ignore, or deny life’s meaninglessness without God? Russians know that living a lie is never a better
option than facing the facts of our fallenness and finiteness (We’re all gonna die)! That’s the bad
news that leads us to the Good News! Jesus entered into the meaninglessness of
our existence, so that we could share His joy, and live life to its eternal
fullest!
