What kind of music is better? What kind of food is better? Is Chinese food better than Italian food? What country is better? What’s your criteria? By what standard are you saying that something is better than another?
If someone said that their food preference was arsenic would you say that there are objectively better foods than that? There are some things that are better than others. To hear what is better listen:
Recognizing Mortality is Better (7:1-4)
Recognizing that you’re going to die is better than spending your life running from it. It’s better that we’re aware that we will die; that we know that we live our lives in the shadow of the monstrous mountain of death.
“The day of death [is better] than the day of birth”
because it teaches us what is vain. It’s better to go to a funeral than to a party. Go to funerals, at least the visitation
Correction is Better (7:5-8)
“Hear the rebuke.” Really listen to it; take it to heart and change. 2 Timothy 4:2 tells the pastor to “preach the Word. Reprove (correct), rebuke (sharply correct) and exhort (encourage.)”
Wisdom is Better (7:9-13)
“The heart of fools is in their mouth but the mouth of the wise is in their heart.” — Martin Luther
Wisdom keeps you from foolish nostalgia. “Say not, ‘Why were the former days better than these.’”
God’s Sovereignty is Better (7:14-24)
Believing in God’s sovereignty is better than thinking everything depends on your will or effort. When you succeed and get rich, you can be joyful because God, being sovereign, gave it to you.
Since, “there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins,” that your acceptance with God relies on His grace.
Death is Better (7:25-29)
If you turn your heart to know wisdom, you learn there’s some things more bitter than death. If you’re foolish, you’re taken in by the allure of a toxic relationship.
“God made man upright but they have sought out many schemes.”
Ecclesiastes teaches total depravity and God’s sovereignty, thus “Calvinism.”
Order is Better (8:1-13)
Order is better than disorder, than chaos. God institutes governments and gives them the power to punish evil-doers.
“Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil” (8:11.)
God’s Work is Better (8:14-17)
God is not a blessing and punishing machine, putting out predictable blessings or punishments depending on what you put in Him.
Apply yourself to get the wisdom to know that you’ll never have the wisdom to understand the world, to even know God.
It’s better to . . .
enjoy what God has given you, standing before Him with a righteousness He gives you as a gift through Jesus, not one you can earn from Him. It’s better just to trust Him.
Covenant Reformed Baptist Church is Caswell County’s/Danville’s Reformed Church