Title: God Needs Help / Ecclesiastes 9:11-12
Content God must help / Ecclesiastes 9:11-12
Key Verse: “For a man does not know his season, just as fish are caught in the net of calamity, and birds are caught in a snare, so too, when the day of calamity suddenly comes, so do human beings.
Word: If you read the Old Testament, there is a man named Jacob. This Jacob is a very weak person. In particular, he was a man who worked very hard to receive God's blessing. However, despite his efforts, he was forced to run away from his older brother. Eventually, he fell asleep on a stone pillow (Genesis 28:1-12). Jacob's life was a series of difficult and painful events. He also suffered in the house of his maternal uncle Laban. At the Jabbok River, he used all his wisdom, but in the end, he wrestled with an angel and broke his hip bone.
When Jacob ran away from his brother, he made a vow to God. “If God will be with me and watch over me on this road I am going, and give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I can return to my father’s house in peace, then the LORD will be my God, and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house. Of all that you give me, I will surely give to God a tenth” (Genesis 28:20-22).
However, Jacob, who forgot to make a vow to God, suffered difficulties in the city of Shechem and was in great danger (Genesis 34). As Jacob went up to Bethel, he abandoned foreign gods, purged himself, and changed his clothes (Genesis 35:1~3). At this time, in a great crisis, God made the villages on the four sides to fear greatly, and no one pursued Jacob's company (Gen. 35:5).
Jacob suffered only trials when he tried to live with his own strength, will, and effort. However, when he abandoned his will and arranged the world to fulfill his vow to God whom he met while sleeping on a stone pillow long ago, God helped and protected Jacob and his companions.
We believe that everything will go according to our plan and we live our lives neglecting prayer and worship. So our plan is bound to fail. However, if you organize things in the world and go to God, even if it seems like despair, God helps you in a strange way.
In today's text, Ecclesiastes 9:11, we learn that it is not because of our efforts that we receive grace. You don't come first as a fast racer. Being strong doesn't mean winning the war. Being wise doesn't mean getting plants. Even though Jacob used all his methods, he confessed that the act of not relying on God was ultimately futile (Genesis 47:9). True faith is to abandon my experiences, my wisdom, my circumstances, and my conditions before God and rely on God alone.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, give me faith that does not compromise with the world, so that I may live a victorious life by relying only on God, not on my own will and my way. I pray in Jesus name. Amen.
Lord's Prayer