Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. The school was founded in 1927 by the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. His intent was to make a school where Christ would be the center of everything so he established daily chapel services. Today, that tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from the University Chapel platform. Today on The Daily Platform, we'll hear from Dr. Billy Goecher, Senior Pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Williston, Vermont.
BJU President Steve Pettit will introduce him. This morning we are honored to have preaching in chapel here. A friend of mine that actually goes back for many, many years, he has pastored in Michigan, in Florida, and currently is pastoring in Vermont, Dr. Billy Goecher. Pastor Goecher began his ministry, actually God began to work in his life. He went to a secular school in Texas, graduated with a degree in business. He worked for what was known as EDS, Electronic Data Systems, and he began to attend a church up in Michigan where God began to work in his life and called him into the ministry. He graduated with his Master of Divinity degree from Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary. He actually was a part of a church revitalization process in Michigan and then ended up in Florida pastoring, and I was privileged to preach in both of those churches, and now he's presently pastoring in Vermont. And the Lord has greatly used him.
He finished his doctorate degree here from Bob Jones University, and is a wonderful man. He's a pastor, he's Mr. Benson's, one of his close friends, and we're honored to have him here this morning in chapel, so please listen and listen to what God has to say to you this morning through Pastor Goecher. I'd like to invite you to open up your Bibles to the book of Ecclesiastes. The book of Ecclesiastes, we're going to be at the end of chapter 6 and the very first part of chapter 7. The book of Ecclesiastes is often misunderstood, I'm just going to put kind of a summary statement up because we're going to dive into the context of chapter 6, which is a very pivot point in the book of Ecclesiastes, and then introduce and really answer as a fundamental question in chapter 7 that I hope will be a help to you in your thinking, and ultimately in your love for the Lord. But just stating it this way, if I could, life is a frustrating puzzlement.
So when you deal with that word, vanity, vanity, throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, I'd like for you to think of it this way. Life is hard for us to understand. It's frustratingly puzzling. So he's not saying it's empty or meaningless, he's saying life has frustration and puzzlement in it because we try to figure it out and struggle.
Why? Because we're finite and we're fallen, and we live in a world that's been devastated by the fall so things don't work the way they should or they don't work the way we think they will work. But this frustrating puzzlement called life is still a gift from God that can be wisely enjoyed by those who know the Lord. And so as we really grow in our relationship with Christ, we can learn how to enjoy life. In fact, Solomon says several times throughout this book that there's nothing better than to learn to enjoy life as a gift from God. But what so often happens is we take the gifts God's given and we substitute them for God who gave them, and then we turn life upside down, and life actually begins to lose its purpose, its focus, its meaning, and we can chase very empty things. And so we're going to look here in Ecclesiastes and I'm going to start in chapter 6.
Again, it's kind of a pivot point, a transition I'd like to suggest to you. You can think of the book of Ecclesiastes in this way. It's like a thesis paper. I'm sure a few of you have gotten writing assignments. So you've got some papers due before semester's over.
Some of you have been going thinking you knew what you were going to write about, and the more research you do, you're maybe even more confused. Well, if you would understand the book of Ecclesiastes this way is the thesis of Solomon. And so Solomon is a man who is given wisdom from God. The wisest man to walk this earth other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
He had divine wisdom. And so he used that wisdom to explore the questions of life and really the issues of what is life worth living for. And in answering the question of what's life worth living for, he's really also answering the other question. If it's worth living for, is it really worth dying for?
If it's not worth dying for, it's probably not worth living for. And so he's focusing in on what so many answers have been given. And so in chapter 6 he points back and then he turns forward. So in verse 10 and 11, he points back to kind of summarize what he's taught so far in his thesis. And one of the other things I just mentioned about this thesis is we always think we can do maybe a little more research than Solomon did and maybe we can come up with different answers. The reality is that Solomon's research is complete. It is divinely inspired research.
You can't get a more complete research. And so we need to hear from Solomon and hear the wisdom that Solomon has to share. And Solomon says what has ever been, that which hath been has been named already. And he begins with this declaration that there's really nothing new. There's no new purposes that people are going to suggest. I mean there's not that there's not new technology. It's not that you don't get a new iPhone or whatever.
He's just saying that the things that people believe will bring them satisfaction in life, the things they pursue, they get passionate about. Those things really haven't changed. They've been here. They've been around. People have chased them. They've put their heart's desire after it. They've got a desire from God. In fact, he says earlier in the book of Ecclesiastes that God has put it on our hearts that we want to understand.
Eternity's been put on our hearts. We want to understand how life works. At times we think we've figured it out. We think if we do A and B we're going to get C. We do A, we do B and we get D. And they're like, well why did that happen? Or we think, and in pastoral ministry I've dealt with this, we think if we do our devotions in the morning, we go to church, we say prayer at lunch, you know, we kind of get the checklist Christianity. If we get those check boxes then life should be good for me. And then you find a period of struggle or sorrow or difficulty or heartache or, and it's like well why did that happen?
I thought I was doing everything right. We want to figure out how to make life work fundamentally to our advantage. And so that, that's something that we wrestle with.
Solomon is interacting with that. And because of the nature of the world we live in, because it's fallen, things don't always work the way. So if somebody, hard work, you tend to get ahead, proverbial truth. But it's not always true. The best don't always win. The most talented don't always get advanced.
You might be the best in your field but you might be looked over. Life in a fallen world doesn't work like a formula. It never will. And then the other side of it is because we are still, we're fallen ourselves, still sinners, we struggle with having the right passions, the right desires. We will live for things that are not worth living for. We will believe lies. We're more easily deceived than we ever have understood.
And Satan's a really good liar. And so all of these things come colliding and come colliding into the passions by which we live, the direction of our life. And we're going to look at really, ultimately, what is the real prize? Solomon says in verse 11 then, he's going to say, seeing there are many things that increase vanity, or the idea here is more confusion. And what he's just talking about here is there's many things people are going to suggest to you.
There's many ideas about what's worth living for. And so all of that creates a level of confusion. There's a lot of voices speaking. The culture speaks.
Your friends speak. There's all kinds of people speaking into your life about what has value and what has purpose. And in verse 12, we turn to the two questions that he then frames as we move forward. And he comes to these two questions and he wants us to understand the answer, which is not a hard answer, obviously. He says, who knows what is good for man in life?
Or then the second question, who can tell man what shall come after him? And so what Solomon is wanting us to understand is we all have a desire to answer, what is the purpose and meaning of life? What am I living for?
What is my direction? And I want to figure out how to make life work to my advantage. And then he asks this question, but do you really know what's good? Or who knows what's good for you? And who knows what's going to happen next? And the answer is, well, I don't.
Not really. I can only know by God's revelation. And so the answer to the question is simple. We need to listen to God. We need to hear it from God. We need God's revelation.
In fact, he would say earlier in that same text, he says, you know, whatever's been named, verse 10, that has been known, neither may he contend with him that's mightier than he. Well, what is he talking about? He's saying, look, there's not a new purpose really being offered to you. There's a lot of things that the world's going to offer and say, live for this. You'll find fulfillment here. You'll find happiness here.
This is going to be the secret. And he's saying, but we will tend to believe the wrong things because of sin's impact in our life. And then we want to argue with God about how life's supposed to work. And he's simply going, but this is God's world. You live in God's world. And to live in God's world in your own way is just going to mean life inherently isn't going to work for you. Because you can't contend with he who is mightier than you.
And so you pick a bad fight. And so as you enter into this reality of what is life about, we have to wrestle with the question. We have to answer it. And ultimately we need to hear from God.
And that's his point. We need God's revelation so that we might actually live with the right purpose, the right passion, or if I can put it this way, we have to keep our eye on the right prize and we have to have that which is worth pursuing. All of us are pursuing something. We tend to have a lot of what I would call proximate goals.
I mean, they're near to us. So some of you, your goal was to get out of high school, get to college. And so you've accomplished that.
Congratulations. Now you've got to move to a new goal. Your new goal is you've got to figure out what degree you're going to follow.
I've talked to a number of students today and some ask them, you know, what are you majoring in? I'm not sure yet. Or I've changed. Or I may change again.
We're not sure. And so then the next goal may be to kind of lock in there. Then, well, I've got to get to graduation.
Then maybe it's on to getting married and a career. And we start setting a lot of intermediate goals. And I'm not against intermediate goals. What I am against is making your life about your intermediate goal.
Your life actually isn't about that goal. Those goals are within a greater purpose. And if they're not, then you just go from one thing to the next thing to the next thing. And you expect when you reach that goal that somehow that's going to bring a level of contentment and satisfaction.
But those things weren't meant to bring that. Your relationship with God is the place you're supposed to find that. And when you start pushing into, well, when I get married, then that's going to be it. Or we have kids. Or when I have this career. Or we have this certain possession.
Those are what's going to do it for me. You start believing a lie. And we start putting into the gifts God given a wrong sense of value. We will not learn from what has been created how to live in the world that was created. We need to learn from the Creator how to live in His world in such a way that we're actually spending our life well.
Ultimately, we have one life to spend. I was a finance accounting major before the Lord called me into ministry. And so I thought I was going to pursue a career in banking.
I was going to do that because I was going to make a lot of money. I ended up, God put me in a computer industry doing financial applications. And then I saw where that career path was going. At the same time got locked into a local church. I was hearing the Word of God taught. I got saved as a junior in college. So I was just a new believer out in the financial world and trying to make money and then started in a really good Bible teaching church and began to be confronted with my priorities. You know, when God began to first burden me about ministry, my first thought was, well, if God knew what He was doing, I would have, you know, I would have went to Bob Jones.
I would have went somewhere, you know, I would have grown up in a Christian home. I finally had to come to the place where I said, you know what, God does know what He's doing, always. And it's God's life. And if God wants me in ministry, then He's going to make that pathway and He's going to provide and He's going to open the doors. And it really came down to an issue, do I trust?
Do I trust God's goodness in His sovereign direction? So let's look at this prize worth pursuing. We'll spend the rest of our time here. I'd like to read the text. I'm actually going to read all the text and we're going to step in and walk beginning kind of backwards to forward.
And there's a purpose in that. But let me read to you, and if you can follow on your Bibles, I'm going to read chapter 7, 1 to 4 and then 13 and 14. A good name is better than precious ointment. The day of death better than one's birth. It is better to go the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men.
The living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of the fools is in the house of myrrh.
Consider the work of God, for who can make straight what He has made crooked? In the day of prosperity, be joyful. In the day of adversity, consider. Surely God has appointed one as well as the other, so that man cannot find, so man cannot find out nothing that will come after him. So we begin by looking at verse 14, and we'll tie that together with verse 1, and we're talking about a prize worth pursuing. And generally speaking, we value what makes us look good or feel good.
And so Solomon kind of confronts that idea in verse 14, right? He's saying that there's a day of prosperity, there's a day when things really went well. It's one of those at the end of the day, we all pass judgment, good day, bad day. We pass judgment throughout the day. Yeah, that was a good lunch, bad lunch. Good class, bad class. Good sermon, bad sermon. All these things we pass continually passing moral evaluations.
But generally speaking, those evaluations are pretty trite. Why was it good? Well, because I liked it. Why did I like it?
I don't know. It made me feel good, made me look good. And we'll zone in there to what we call good. But he says in the day of prosperity, in the day when things are seemingly going well, rejoice. That's a good gift from God. But in the day of adversity, stop.
Now, some of you have friends, and I'm sure it's none of you and nobody elbow anybody else, but I'm sure you have a few friends that are a little known maybe as complainers. Like, they're the eeors of life. I mean, they're the glass half empty all the time. There's always a problem. There's something to be deeply concerned about. They worry.
They get really anxious. And so, maybe that's you. In the days of adversity, when the difficulties and the pressures come, that's bad day. How was your day today?
It was awful. Well, why? Well, because it was hard. And Solomon says, stop. Before you pass judgment on your day, and it was a hard day or it was an easy day, stop and consider something, namely what? Who made the day? Who rules the day?
And what is his character? See, what we have to understand is what we speak to ourself about the circumstances we're facing really is a reflection of what we actually believe about God. It's a reflection of what we think about God's character and His sovereignty and His goodness and what God's doing in the world. And we want sometimes, I think we just want God to become our divine pacifier. We want to make life comfortable. We want to make it easy.
But God's not going to make life in a fallen world easy nor comfortable. Your imagery that you're looking at throughout this semester is running a race. And that race isn't just a short little sprint. It's not a comfortable race. It's one that's a marathon. It's an endurance race.
You have to stick to it, run up the hills, down the hills. I mean, it is difficult. And life in a fallen world is filled with adversity, but consider before you complain that God made both of those days, the day of adversity and the day of prosperity. And He makes this statement, a good name is better than precious ointment. And He's not saying that, you know, if I like that person's name and I don't like that person's perfume, that's a good thing. He's really, He's using a wordplay on two words that really sound similar in Hebrew, so it's a little lost to us. But He is saying that a good name is better, and precious ointment in this case really stands for all the things of life that we tend to value or the things we get as a result of a day of prosperity.
So you go back to your box and somebody sent you an anonymous check and it wasn't for your bill and you're like, yes, I can go buy. Okay, that's what precious ointment is. It is that things that we buy, we purchase that are important to us that we spend money on when we're in the midst of a time of prosperity.
So when we have more than we need, we're in a time of prosperity. And the things that we value then are called precious ointment to us. And so He makes this statement, listen, a good name is actually better than, it is better than precious ointment. And a good name, and so we really have to ask that question, what is it? Is it just a name that people like?
Is it a popular name? Well, no, I think we know that. I think of the story of the rich young ruler when he came to Jesus and asked him, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus really probed that issue by turning back and saying, well, why do you call me good?
And the point that Jesus was trying to get is, do you really understand that I'm God? There is one who is good and that is God. And so to have a good name is to really have a life well lived. It's a life that actually reflects the character of the one who's good. God is good, and so I need to live with this purpose in mind that I need a name, not Billy, but I need the name of my testimony of the life that God has done by grace, transforming my life to be a little bit more like Jesus Christ so that my name reflects Jesus Christ. That my life is a reflection of His goodness to a world that's lost in darkness. We're called to be light in the world. The light shines through vessels that actually are growing to be more like Christ. A good name is a life well lived.
A life well lived, a life well invested, it is a life that has been transformed by the grace of God that displays that life before the world. And so that's a good name and we need to live in order to obtain it and we obtain it in that pursuit of the right gold of Christ's likeness. I was teaching through the book of Revelation in Revelation chapter 14, I didn't put this in the slides, but there's this statement about the 144,000 describing them in Revelation 14 and it describes them this way, they follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.
And in their mouth is no guile. And when I read that statement it just struck me, this is the same statement made about Jesus going to a cross. And here's the 144,000 in a time of great tribulation in the world and their character is one like their Savior.
And so to live with a good name is to have a life that when somebody begins to describe you that it actually reflects Christ. We planted a, really revitalized a church in Waterford, Michigan. We were going door to door and passing out flyers, inviting people to the new church plant and still remember this, there's these two ladies that they were neighbors, they clearly weren't all that close, but we handed both of them a flyer. And so they started looking at the church flyer and one of them looked at the other and said, or one of them was talking to us and said, hey, I'm a Christian. And we said, oh, that's great. And the neighbor goes, you're a what?
And of course we quickly just let them have their own squabble, alright? But the point was this one lady is saying publicly, oh, I'm a Christian. Her neighbor's like who knows her life says you're a what? And I wonder when people start talking about you, when they talk about me, what do they say?
Is it a good name? Is it a life that rightly reflects Christ? And is it a life that is really revealing that you actually know Christ? And to drive this point home, he really uses a kind of a shocking statement. Now I don't know how many of you have been to funerals.
I assume a few. I've done, in fact, my very first funeral I ever did as a pastor was the funeral of my own grandmother. This year I did the funeral of my own father. And this text really does speak in and in fact I almost always start here at a funeral service. Because he says the day of death is better than the day of one's birth.
That's kind of shocking. Because I can be honest as a pastor, I, you know, I've got the call when somebody's passed away. I've been to the funeral home. I've been to the hospital. I've been to the home. I've been with people when they've passed away. Done many funerals. I've gone to the hospital for the birth of babies.
I kind of like the hospital visit, you know, going to the new baby. It's, you know, what do you say when you see the new baby? You just say, what a baby? Because every mother thinks their baby's beautiful.
So, what a baby. I said, you, you, you, you, but how is it possible and what does he mean by this? How is the day of death better?
And I think it's not terribly difficult to understand, but it's like this. I've done funerals for people who were clearly believers. They had a good name. I did my own mother-in-law's funeral. My son sang at that funeral, I saw Jesus in you.
And we could honestly say that of my mother-in-law. I've been to funerals of people who they professed faith where the best at the end of the day is you're like, I kind of hope so. I know they knew the gospel but their life didn't much reflect Christ.
Been to funerals where I'm really certain that that person was lost. See, at the end of life, when people gather at the day of your death, which he says in this text is coming much sooner than you anticipate, what you have been or haven't been is already determined. You now have lived your life and if you live life with a good name, then in the day of your death, that is better than the uncertainty that comes with birth.
Because you know what? One of the heartbreaks of every Christian educator is the fact that some of you will have received great Christian education, great principles, an understanding from God's word on how you ought to live, but some of you are going to waste that entirely. And at the end of your life, no one's going to say that was a good name, that was a good life. And one of Solomon's points when I talk about the prize worth living is that we tend to just look at what's coming next.
What's that next gold? Solomon says stop. You need to go over here. The day of your death is coming. People are going to be gathered there to mourn your death. What are they going to say about you then? And he's saying you need to come from this vantage point back to where you are and you need to start making decisions right now that you will be glad you made when you come to the day of your death.
That day is coming. And what's really going to matter is not what you've gained in this world, not the trinkets, not the treasure, not the precious ointments, all those things that are good gifts from God that we can rightly enjoy as we serve the Lord, but those are not going with you. What is going to matter is how you've served Christ. And have you been a follower of Jesus like the 144, one who is, one who follows Christ as He leads, one who has run the race well, who finishes well, who people will then gather and say that was a life well lived. One of the things you love about College Chapel is that there's all this potential, there's so much youth, so much energy, life's in front of you, there's all of these opportunities and there's all these difficulties and all of them are going to come. But are you going to be equipped as you're here in the Word of God to actually prepare yourself to face life's challenges and keep your eyes on the right prize? You have one opportunity, one opportunity to spend life well.
And I pray that we will spend it well. You know, Alan Benson and I have been good friends. We played the game of golf. Pastor Mike Harding I know has preached here several times and we played with him and we always called his rules, you know, hit to your happy Harding. So, you know, you play the game of golf and you just hit it until you like it. But that's not real golf. You know, real golf you get no mulligans.
Folks, you get no mulligans in life. You have one chance, one opportunity. And Solomon wants to turn the perspective. Instead of you always living from here in this moment, looking ahead to what's ahead, he wants you to pull down to the end and look back. And he wants you to now make decisions in the now that will actually glorify God and that you will be glad you made when you come to the end of your life.
It's a prize worth pursuing. A good name is better than precious ointment. Let's pray. Father, thank You for Your love for sinners like us. Thank You for this chapel opportunity and pray for just a simple explanation of a profound passage of Scripture.
I pray, Lord, You'll draw these students into it, that they will want to read more and want to hear from You. Lord, we need You. We pray with a psalmist, deal bountifully with Your servant. Lord, we need You. We need help.
We need You to open our eyes, help us to see the truth, help us to see all the ways we believe the lies of our culture around us and how it affects our daily decision and what we call good. Lord, we're called to be really reflectors that through the grace of God that You've extended, through Your grace extends in salvation that You actually are transforming our lives, that we might do the good works that You've ordained for us, that we might reflect You to a world lost in darkness, that ultimately might engage in the work You've given us to do to be disciples, followers of Jesus who actually take the Gospel to see others follow Christ. We'll spend our life well.
Lord, at the end of the day, as Lord, we recognize, and I pray that we'll recognize, really believe that those who die with the most toys don't win. Those who have spent their life well, reflecting Christ, growing in Christ's likeness, those who will invest in the lives of others with the Gospel will have eternal joy. Lord, thank You that joy comes from You. May we invest in the right price. May we pursue it with the genuine zeal through which You're glorified, in which Your honor, Your glory is made known to the world around us. And we'll thank You for it, for St. Christ, and we pray. Amen. You've been listening to a sermon from Dr. Billy Goecher, Senior Pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Williston, Vermont. Join us again tomorrow as we hear more sermons preached during chapel services at Bob Jones University on The Daily Platform.
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