Joy Under Judgment Text: Ecclesiastes 11:7-10
Introduction: The Can-Opener of Faith
The book of Ecclesiastes is a profound puzzle to the modern mind, and even to many modern Christians. It can appear, on a surface reading, to be a manual for a kind of sophisticated despair, a long sigh from a world-weary cynic. "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity." And yet, woven through this sober assessment of life "under the sun" is a radical, repeated, and robust command to rejoice. Eat your bread with joy, drink your wine with a merry heart, enjoy life with the wife of your youth. How do these two things hold together? How can we be called to joy in a world of smoke, of vapor, of hebel?
The answer is that the Preacher is not a nihilist who occasionally has a good day. He is a theologian of deep, battle-hardened joy. He understands that the world, considered on its own terms, is a closed loop of futility. But the Christian does not consider the world on its own terms. We have been given inside information. The blessings of this life are like cans of peaches. To the unbeliever, God gives the cans, but no can-opener. They have the stuff of life, but no ability to truly enjoy it. To His beloved, God gives both the cans and the can-opener. That can-opener is faith in the sovereign God who stands over and above the sun, orchestrating all this vanity for His own glorious purposes.
Only believers can truly enjoy the vanity. The unbeliever tries to find meaning in the smoke, and it chokes him. The believer receives the smoke as a gift from the hand of a good Father, knowing it is temporary, and that the one who gives it is eternal. This is the foundational precondition for all contentment. And as the Preacher concludes his argument, he turns his attention to the young, to those who are most tempted to believe the lie that the sun and the light will last forever. He gives them a glorious charter for youthful exuberance, but he bolts it firmly to the bedrock of reality: the final judgment of God.
The Text
The light is sweet, and it is good for the eyes to see the sun. Indeed, if a man should live many years, let him be glad in them all, and let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many. Everything that is to come will be vanity. Be glad, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be merry during the days of young manhood. And walk in the ways of your heart and in the sights of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things. So, remove vexation from your heart and put away evil from your flesh because childhood and the prime of life are vanity.
(Ecclesiastes 11:7-10 LSB)
Sweet Light and Sobering Shadows (v. 7-8)
The Preacher begins with a simple, profound affirmation of created goodness.
"The light is sweet, and it is good for the eyes to see the sun." (Ecclesiastes 11:7)
This is not the sentiment of a man mired in depression. This is a robust, creaturely celebration. God made light, and on the first day, He declared it good. The Preacher agrees. Life is a gift. Waking up in the morning, seeing the sun, feeling its warmth, this is a basic, fundamental good. The world is not an illusion to be escaped, as the Gnostics and Buddhists would have it. It is a created reality to be received with thanksgiving. This sweetness is a real sweetness. It is a taste of God's own goodness, a common grace scattered liberally across His world.
But this sweetness must be placed in its proper context. It is not an eternal sweetness, and pretending that it is leads to a particular kind of foolishness. And so, he continues:
"Indeed, if a man should live many years, let him be glad in them all, and let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many. Everything that is to come will be vanity." (Ecclesiastes 11:8)
Here is the balancing act of mature, biblical faith. The command is to be glad in all your years. Not just the good ones. Not just the prosperous ones. All of them. This is a call to a sustained, persevering joy that rides the waves of circumstance. But this is only possible if you hold a second thought in your head at the same time: "remember the days of darkness." This is not a morbid obsession with death. It is a sober realism. The fall is real. Winter is coming. Old age, weakness, and death are on the horizon for every one of us. The days of darkness will be many.
To remember the darkness is what enables you to truly appreciate the light. If you think the sun will shine forever, you will take it for granted. You will presume upon God's kindness. But if you know that night is coming, you will savor every ray of sunshine. This is the opposite of the world's "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die," which is a philosophy of frantic despair. This is "eat, drink, and be merry, for God is good, and He will be with you even when the darkness comes." The coming vanity, the hebel, is not a reason to despair, but a reason to rejoice in the present gifts, knowing they are fleeting and therefore precious.
The Great Charter for Youth (v. 9)
Now the Preacher turns his attention directly to the young man, who is brimming with life and potential.
"Be glad, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be merry during the days of young manhood. And walk in the ways of your heart and in the sights of your eyes." (Ecclesiastes 11:9a)
This is a stunning command. It is a divine permission slip for joy, for exuberance, for adventure. This is not, as some sour-faced pietists might imagine, irony or sarcasm. This is a sincere exhortation. God made you young. He gave you energy, ambition, and desires. He wants you to rejoice in that. He wants your heart to be merry. He commands you to walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. This means you are to engage the world with gusto. Follow your ambitions. Build things. Marry a girl. Start a family. Explore the world. Use the strength and vision God has given you.
This is a direct refutation of any faith that would have you retreat from the world into a monastery, or that sees the physical world and its desires as inherently evil. Your heart and your eyes are not, in themselves, wicked guides. God gave them to you to navigate His world. But, and this is the most important "but" in the chapter, this freedom is not autonomy. It is a delegated, accountable freedom. And so comes the anchor.
"Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things." (Ecclesiastes 11:9b)
This is not a wet blanket thrown on the party. This is the very thing that makes the party meaningful. Without the final judgment, all your youthful energy is just so much spitting in the wind. It signifies nothing. But the fact that God will call you to account for "all these things," for every ambition pursued, every word spoken, every sight seen, is what infuses your life with staggering significance. The judgment is what separates Christian hedonism from pagan hedonism.
The pagan says, "Let us party, for there is no accounting." The Christian says, "Let us rejoice in the good gifts of God, because there is an accounting." This knowledge should not stifle your joy; it should direct it. It channels your energies away from sin, which will be judged and found wanting, and toward righteous, creative, dominion-oriented work and play, which will be judged and rewarded. This is the guardrail that keeps the celebration on the road. You are free to drive the car as fast as you like, but you must stay between the lines. The judgment of God provides the lines.
Vanity and Vexation (v. 10)
The final verse of our text draws the practical conclusion from this principle of joy under judgment.
"So, remove vexation from your heart and put away evil from your flesh because childhood and the prime of life are vanity." (Ecclesiastes 11:10)
Because your life will be judged, you must be intentional about how you live it. "Remove vexation from your heart." This refers to the internal turmoil, the anxieties, resentments, and worries that choke out joy. This is a command to repent of a sour spirit. And "put away evil from your flesh." This refers to the external acts of sin, the carousing, the sexual immorality, the laziness, the things that the world mistakes for youthful freedom but which are in fact slavery.
Why should you do this? "Because childhood and the prime of life are vanity." They are hebel. A vapor. A mist on the mountain that is here one moment and gone the next. Your youth is not an infinite resource. It is a fleeting, precious gift. Therefore, do not waste it on the dead-end pursuits of vexation and evil. You don't have time for that nonsense. You have a brief window in which to live for the glory of God, to build for His kingdom, and to store up treasures that will last beyond the grave.
The vanity of youth is the very reason you must seize it. Because it is fleeting, you must fill it with things that are not. You are to fill your short, vaporous life with deeds that will echo in eternity. The knowledge of the coming judgment and the brevity of life are the two great motivators for a life of productive, exuberant, and holy joy.
Conclusion: Live Forward into the Judgment
So what is the message for us? It is that we are to live our lives forward, into the judgment, not shrinking back from it. For the unbeliever, the judgment is a terror, the final confirmation of his rebellion and ruin. But for the Christian, who is in Christ, the judgment has already fallen upon our substitute at the cross. We are acquitted. The final judgment for us, the bema seat, is not about damnation but about evaluation and reward.
Therefore, we are liberated to live with a kind of holy recklessness. We can truly rejoice. We can walk in the ways of our hearts because God has given us new hearts. We can walk in the sight of our eyes because God has opened our eyes to see His truth and beauty. We are free to receive every sweet gift of light, every good meal, every friendship, every day of strength, as a direct gift from our Father's hand.
Live your life full tilt. Do not waste your youth on cynicism or your old age on regret. Remember the darkness, that you might love the light. And remember the judgment, that you might fill the light with glory. Because everything is going to be brought before the throne of God, everything matters. Nothing is wasted. The vanity of this life is the black velvet on which the diamond of eternal glory is displayed. And God, in His kindness, has given you the can-opener.