Ecclesiastes 9:1-6

Service recording Sunday 12th July looking at Ecclesiastes.

Watch the service — 12 July 2026

▶ Jump to the sermon (Ecclesiastes 9:1-6) — 0:43:56

Chapters

0:00:00 — Start of recording
0:00:24 — Introduction & call to worship
0:01:20 — Song: 10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)
0:06:17 — Prayer
0:06:49 — Song: Let Your Kingdom Come
0:09:40 — Song: Yet Not I But Through Christ In Me
0:15:31 — Children’s talk
0:18:24 — Children’s song
0:20:47 — Prayer
0:21:38 — Song: Just Let Me Say How Much I Love You
0:24:37 — Song: Behold Our God
0:28:29 — Offering & prayer
0:29:49 — Notices
0:30:57 — New Testament Reading: John 10:27-30
0:31:44 — Joining of new members
0:34:30 — Prayer
0:38:23 — Song: Thy Word
0:40:56 — Old Testament Reading: Ecclesiastes 9:1-6
0:42:54 — Prayer
0:43:56 — Sermon
1:01:26 — Closing prayer
1:02:49 — Song: Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah
1:05:03 — Benediction
1:05:23 — Benediction song: May the Peace of God

Common Experiences of the Living

This is somewhat an application of that. But before we do, let’s just remember what we learned already, what it is to be in the hand of God, so that a righteous man does know that he’s secure in the hand of God, even though he shares a common experience with everyone.

Whether you’re a believer or an unbeliever, there are certain common experiences that you’re never going to escape in this life. There will be difficulties. There will be hard times, whether you’re righteous, whether you’re wicked, good or bad, clean or unclean, whether you sacrifice or don’t sacrifice, whether you go to church or don’t go to church, whether you swear and keep your word or whether you don’t swear and keep your word. There are certain things in life that are common to us all.

You notice that some people are away, and probably they have the cold or the flu, and it doesn’t make any difference that they are believers. They’re still going to get the cold and the flu. And so that’s just one simple example, is it not? Stuff happens in life. We live in a fallen world, and common to all of us these things are.

The Living Still Have Hope

There is a difference, though, between the living and the dead, and it is that the living still have hope. While we’re alive, while we still have life, while we still have breath, there is still opportunity for us to repent of our sins, and still an opportunity to believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by doing so be saved.

It’s not so for those that are dead, for it is appointed that man shall die once, and after that, according to the Scriptures in Hebrews 9:27, after that comes judgment. There’s no second chances. Don’t believe any church that teaches you anything about some purgatory that exists whereby you might be conditioned to be a better citizen of a paradise or a heaven to come. That is not scriptural. It is drawn from unscriptural sources, and today all we have is that it is appointed that a man or a woman shall die once, and after that comes judgment.

So it’s not so with the dead. There’s no time to change after you’re dead. There’s no time to repent and believe and be saved after you’re dead. The condition that you are in when you die of this life is the condition that you will experience for the rest of eternity.

Held and Assured in God’s Hands

But as believers, to come back onto the good news side, as believers, in God’s hands we are protected, secure, held, valued, and assured of our salvation. And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who has not the Son of God, of course, has not life. But these things, the Apostle John says, these things I have written that you may know that you have eternal life.

A Wise Man Is Cheerful, Not Morose

And so we come now to verses 7 and 9, which, as I say, is really just an extension of the idea of being in the hand of God. And what is our experience there? Well, it says there that a wise man, or indicates that a wise man, is one who is thankful to God for good, and cheerful. Cheerful, not morose. That’s a word we don’t use very much, but dour, morose. Cheerful, not morose.

Already in Ecclesiastes, if we go right back to Ecclesiastes chapter 3 and verse 4, you know, that’s the section; there’s a little poem there that Solomon, or the Qoheleth, writes down for us. There is a time for this and there is a time for that. Verse 4 says this, it says:

"There is a time to weep" (Ecclesiastes 3:4)

And we’ve talked much about that. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted," says the Lord Jesus Christ on the Sermon on the Mount. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." He’s assuming there that we don’t have, and we’re not what we want to be, but blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Now that’s one side. There is a time to weep, but there is also, according to verse 4 of chapter 3, there is also

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