Hardwired with Jeff Wickwire

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Hardwired with Jeff Wickwire. Here's what's coming
up in today's edition.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
So I really do believe I've seen this in life,
just myself, in my own observations, the unexpected rise to
the top, and those I fully thought would unforeseen things
stop them and they're taken down and never achieve what
you thought of success comes from God. Well does that mean,
Pastor Jeff, I shouldn't even try. Sure, you should try,

(00:28):
But all the while, I have a humble heart before
God and say, Oh, God, bless my way, bless my day,
give me a clear path.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
God's purposes behind blessing some people and leaving others wanting
don't always make sense. You will almost always be left
wondering why someone wasn't blessed enough, or even why they
were blessed too much. But Pastor Jeff wants you to
understand that God reigns blessings on the evil and the
righteous alike, because in the end those blessings will bring

(01:01):
glory to his name. He will reward those who serve
him the greatest. But you may have to wait longer
to receive your abortion. Well, let's join Pastor Jeff in
the book of Ecclesiastes chapter nine, as he continues his
message the Mighty Man, this.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Is Solomon apart from faith, and we will see him
later on in the book Confess. Otherwise, this is when
he's blue. This is when he's down. This is when
he's giving a perspective that is not this way vertical. Now,
we who know scripture and love the Lord know that
this grim assessment is absent any faith in the promises

(01:37):
of God. You know, the Bible shouts from cover to
cover of an eternal hereafter, or the righteous are going
to enter into his reward and the wicked will enter
a devil's hell. Now, I can't wrap my mind around
either of those. Eternity. My mind short circuits when I
try to think of anything eternal, never ending bliss, never

(02:03):
ending hell. My thought is what will I do forever? Well,
God's going to have us at work. God didn't have
all kinds of projects for the redeemed, But the thought
of everlasting hell. I can't wrap my mind around it.
But here's the deal. I receive it. I accept it
as true because the Bible says it is, and my

(02:23):
Savior said it was so, and he came from there
to hear from heaven to hear, and knows better than
anyone else what's really out there. And Jesus said, there's
a heaven and there is a hell. Look what Jesus
said in Matthew twenty five, for those of us who
know him, His Lord said to him, well done, good

(02:44):
and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little.
I will shall set you over much. Enter the joy
of your Lord. That's eternity, and that's eternal reward. Okay,
Then Jesus said, and I quote this every funeral I
preside over. Jesus said, don't let your hearts be troubled.

(03:04):
Trust in God, and trust also in me. He said,
there is more than enough room in my father's home.
If this were not so, would I have told you
that I'm going to prepare a place for you. In
other worries, he saying, I'm not a liar. He said,
when everything is ready, I will come and get you
so that well that you will always be with me

(03:24):
where I am. That's a promise of eternity. With the
name above every name, the savior of the world, a
Messiah Christ Jesus. So there's the promise. So on those
two passages alone. You've got eternal reward and etern a
tea with him. So it's not that when you die

(03:44):
it all stops when you die. The journey has just begun.
Now here's the warning of Hell Revelations twenty, verse eleven
to fifteen. And I saw a great white throne and
the one sitting on it Christ. The earth and sky
fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide.

(04:06):
No one wanted to face him. I saw the dead,
both great and small, standing before God's throne, and the
books were open, including the Book of Life, and the
dead were judged according to what they had done. Now
they're having to answer for their sins, because those sins
were not washed away by the only thing that can

(04:28):
wash them away, and that's the blood. So now they're
having to answer for every work they did, every sin
they committed, and He's looking for their name. In this
book verse thirteen. The sea gave up it's dead, All
those who had died in the ocean, All those who

(04:49):
had died in the sea and were down at the bottom.
Their bodies are resurrected and brought before Christ. Death and
the grave gave up their dead. Those who had died,
and their souls have gone into a sort of essentially
a waiting room, a spiritual waiting room hades and when

(05:11):
the time for the judgment comes, Haites spews up the
souls of those who have died without Christ that are
in it. And they were all judged according to their deeds.
To me, these are the most somber passages in the Bible,
these right here, because this is it, This is the
end for those who rejected John three point sixteen. They

(05:37):
were all judged according to their deeds. And what happened
then death and the grave were thrown into the lake
of fire. This lake of fire is the second death.
You died once when you died, but then you're going
to die again when you go there. It's a type
of death. And anyone whose name was not found recording
the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire.
Tell me of a more sober passage, There's not one,

(06:00):
not one that I know of. That's it. Those that
weren't found in the Book of Life were throwing the
lake of fire. There is nobody and no thing in
the lake of fire right now. It's utterly empty. The
burning lake of fire is empty. It awaits the Great
White Throne judgment. See, Jeff, you really believe that. Well,

(06:20):
of course I believe that. And this is the red
part of the Bible. You know, this is book of revelations.
Jesus is revealing this. John is seeing this. He's being
told these things by Jesus. It's so somber we can't
wrap our minds around it. But you better know it's true.

(06:42):
You better know it's true. If you really believe that's true,
then you will share Jesus with your loved ones. Okay.
Jesus encouraged us to live in a way that prepares
us for eternity. He said, don't start it for yourself
treasure on earth. He's not saying to be financially irresponsible.
He's not saying don't have a four oh one. Okay.
He's just saying, don't put all of your eggs in

(07:04):
the basket of material stuff where moths eat them and
rush destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal.
But Jesus said, story yourselves treasures in heaven where moth
and russ cannot destroy and thieves cannot break in and
steal it. There is a treasure that can't be stolen,
and it is the treasure that you store up in

(07:24):
heaven in your walk with God. You can't take anything
with you, but you can send it ahead of you. Now. Next,
the preacher again encourages his readers to enjoy the blessings
God is given. This is what he returns to you
over and over again, Verses seven through ten. Here's what
he says. Go eat your food with gladness, drink your
wine with a joyful heart. For God has already approved

(07:44):
what you do. Always be clothed in white. In other words,
live a clean life, always annoying your head with oil.
Walk with God. When I think of head annoying with oil,
I think of the annoying of the spirit of walking
with God. Live a clean life and walk with God.
Be an anointed person. Verse nine. Enjoy life with your wife.

(08:07):
A happy wife means a happy life. Enjoy life with
your wife, whom you love. All the days of this
meaningless life that God has given you under the sun,
all of your sorry, meaningless days. I threw that in
for this is your lot in life, and in your
toilsome labor under the sun. Enjoy what God has given you.

(08:28):
Verse ten. Whatever your hand finds to do. Do with
all your might, for in the realm of the dead,
where you are going, there is neither working, nor planning,
nor knowledge nor wisdom, none of that is there. In short,
enjoy what God has given you and have a good work.
Ethic work good, Be a good worker. I personally believe

(08:50):
that good work brings a kind of pride that is good.
We should all be proud of the job we do.
We should all work hard, and we should do our
work as under the Lord and not as undo men.
For we serve the Lord Christ. Jesus has redeemed our labor,
so we don't labor in vain as long as we
give him our labor and labor as unto him. Okay,

(09:12):
labor has been redeemed.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
Thanks for listening to Hardwired. We're exploring the wisdom of Solomon.
Solomon entertains thoughts related to the futility of life. Something
that stands out is that without God you're left in
a place of emptiness and potentially despair. Instead of that,
let's navigate the complexities of life with wisdom and peace.

(09:35):
Each sermon is complimented by a devotional designed to help
you as you relate to the things written in this book.
If you're seeking a deeper understanding about miss series, text
the word edge to eight one seven four eight four
four seven sixty seven. Join us as we explore the
edges of life's mysteries and find guidance for today's world.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
So have a good work ethic, enjoy what God's given
to you. And I hear this in there. Don't simply
be alive, but live. Let me put it in another way.
Don't die till you're dead. There's a lot of people
walking around. They're dead. How's it going, Oh, it's going
all right? Brother, what's the matter? And man, they'll just
pour out a million different problems to you. And you see,

(10:21):
they never laugh, they never joke, they ever have fun,
they never go have fellowship. They're dead before they have died.
And if you're a Christian acting that way and you
go to a restaurant after being in church here, don't
tell them you were here. Get out there, go to
a restaurant and say, hellelujah, I'm just so happy to

(10:42):
be alive. Jesus is good. I'm from Turning Point Church,
all right, Because that's the greatest testimony there is. Your
face is God's greatest billboard. Okay, and it's a neon sign.
If you're always walking around looking sour and dour and
down and blue and serious and somber, who wants that?

(11:07):
People say, if that's what God did to you, excuse
me if I pass that on by. But if you've
got a smile on your face and there's joy in
your life, there's no greater magnet to Jesus than that.
So have the joy of the Lord. That's your strength.
Don't die till you're dead. Now Verses eleven and twelve,

(11:30):
he said, I've seen something else under the sun. The
race is not to the swift, or the battle to
the strong. Nor does food come to the wise, or
wealth to the brilliant, or favor to the learned. But
time and chance happen to them all. Now, this one
we need to look at. This is going to help you.
You see. He has that word chance. Time and chance

(11:53):
happen to them all. Now, if you're not careful, you'll
think he's talking about fate. But listen to me. There
is no fate. There's no such thing as fate that's
made up. That's an invention of men. Because God is
providential over his universe. Chance here means unforeseen unexpected events.

(12:20):
So let's just fix that verse a time and unforeseen
events happen to us all. And we've all seen this
in life, in ourselves and with others. A person may
experience many successes only to have an unforeseen event. Suddenly
there is a tragedy, or suddenly there is a setback

(12:45):
out of nowhere, and when that happens, you are stopped,
or others that you've watched have been stopped in their tracks.
Time and unforeseen events happens to us all. So Solomon
is again recognizing the providence of God in ordering all circumstances.

(13:08):
And here's what he's telling us, that success ultimately comes
from his hand no matter the level of your gift. Inness,
Because I've seen hugely gifted, talented, powerful people who could,
it looked to me, take the world by the tail,

(13:28):
but unforeseen events came along and nipped it in the
bud and slowed them down or hindered them. And then
I've seen people who if you had asked me are
they going to rise to the top, I would say, oh,
you know, I don't know. And I've seen these people
inexplicably rise into positions of power and influence and success.

(13:50):
Nobody could have guessed. And so you have to say,
God and his providence are in charge of success. So
you know what this does. It brings us to our
knees and we say, Oh God, time is short, life
is short. By your grace and mercy, I'm asking you

(14:11):
and humility, give me success because it comes from you.
It comes from you. And Lord, don't let an unforeseen
circumstance take me out before I have done the will
of God. Didn't Jesus say in the Lord's prayer, lead

(14:33):
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. In
the Greek it's from the evil one, deliver us from
the evil one. So I really do believe I've seen
this in life, just myself, in my own observations. The
unexpected rise to the top, and those I fully thought
would unforeseen things stop them and they're taken down and

(14:55):
never achieve what you thought they would. Success comes from God.
Well does that mean, pastor Jeff, I shouldn't even try.
Sure you should try. But all the while I have
a humble heart before God and say, Oh God, bless
my way, bless my day, give me a clear path.
Verse twelve. Moreover, nobody knows when their hour will come.

(15:17):
As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds
are taken in a snare. So people are trapped by
evil times that fall, how unexpectedly upon them. That's chance,
the unforeseen events. You got somebody cooking along in life,
and all of a sudden there is an evil time.
Think of the Jews as Hitler came into power. Think

(15:41):
of them. They're in Germany. They were brilliant, they were professors,
they were scientists, they were successful, they had money, And
all of a sudden, this darkness came upon Germany in
the form of this man, This bitter, hateful sy caught
it man, and somehow he was able to convince an

(16:04):
entire nation, a civilized nation, an educated nation, to follow
him into the mouth of madness. And what did they do?
They woke up one day like a bird caught in
a trap. Here comes the officers, the ss to their houses.

(16:25):
Come on, get on the train. We're taking you to
a better place, because this and that the other is
gonna happen to this neighborhood. So we're here to help
you and move you to a better place. And they
loaded onto the train one group after another after another,
to the tune of millions. They're taken off to these
concentration camps and put into the gas chambers. And it
was just ghastly. It's just inconceivable. And yet this verse
it's so true, and they're just an example. People are

(16:47):
trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them. You
don't know when your day is gonna come. So what
is the message? Always be ready to meet your God.
Always be ready. You think an unexpected event couldn't happen
in this country, You think that, oh, I guarantee you
it could. Here's what we're saying. We're all subject to

(17:11):
the hand of God's providence all of us. Unforeseen events
and circumstances may find us tomorrow and an altogether different
set of circumstances. We must learn to trust God's heart
when we don't understand God's hand. As a pastor, I'm
telling you I deal with people all the time who
just cooking along in life, and one day their whole

(17:32):
life is changed. Their whole life is changed. Now, I
know this is somber and serious, but this is the
kind of thing I believe God wanted to communicate to
us through Ecclesiastes. That is, listen, none of us have
a guarantee of tomorrow. What did James say, go to now,

(17:52):
you who say today or tomorrow, we're going to go
into such and such a city and buy and sell
and get gain when you know not what tomorrow brings.
For what you ought to say is if the Lord wills,
we shall live and do this or that. And he's

(18:13):
talking to believers, So can we just say, Lord, if
you will? You know if you ever watched how Lindsay.
I watch how Lindsey. I like his little show there
on TBM, his prophecy show, and he always ends it
with I'll see a next time. If the Lord wills.
I like that, I'll see you next time. If the
Lord wills, I know what he's thinking, we might all

(18:36):
be raptured by the next time. Who knows what will
happen by the next time. So he says, so I
can start saying to you on Wednesday night, see you
this weekend? Lord, will we And that'd be a very
biblical thing to say. Okay, now, next Solomon points out
that wisdom is superior to folly. We're coming to the
close of the chapter. This wisdom I've also seen under

(18:59):
the sun seemed great to me. There was a little
city with few men in it, and a great king
came against it, besieged it, and built great snares around it.
Verse fifteen. Now there was found in that city one
poor wise man, and he, by his wisdom, delivered the

(19:21):
entire city. Yet not one person remembered that same poor man.
Now the focus here is not only on the ability
of one wise man to deliver a city by his wisdom.
Can I just say something here, If you put in
Oh help me Jesus. Okay, I'm going to say it.
If you put into the White House today a person

(19:47):
totally committed to Biblical principles, that person could play a
huge part in turning this Titanic around. Okay, a biblically
wise man. How often we run for the wise man

(20:10):
in times of trouble, but then once we're out of
our trouble, we forget the wise man. I think this
verse is just as much about how they forgot to
thank him as it is about the fact that a
wise man could deliver the whole city. You know, I
can't tell you the value of one wise man in
a church, one wise man in an organization, one wise
man who understands the Bible, understands God's ways, understands how

(20:36):
to make a wise decision. That one wise man can
save you years of tears. So he's saying, is it
this wise man delivered the whole city? And then nobody
ever even went to thank him? And don't we also
do this with the Lord Jesus himself, the ultimate wise man.
In times of trouble, we seek out as counsel for

(20:56):
our problems. Lord, I'm in jail. I don't know how
I got here. I'm so sorry Lord for the things
that I've done wrong. If you'll just get me out
of this hell hole, i'll serve you all the days
in my life. The next couple of days, a little
miracle here and there and over there happens, and suddenly
they're out. Are they in church that next week? Are
they reading their Bible in two weeks? Are they praying

(21:17):
a month later? No? Because God has nothing but a
flat tire. God to them, Oop, got a flat, fill
it up, fix it. Then I'm gone. The wise person says, Oh,
thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God for
getting me out of this. And I am going to
serve you all the days of my life. I meant
it when I said it. Now, Solomon continues with pondering wisdom.

(21:41):
Then I said, wisdom is better than strength. Nevertheless, the
poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are not heard.
You feel that way in America right now? Can I
go back to that Look at that bottom verse. The
poor man's wisdom is despised. You feel that way in
America right now, and his words are not heard. Word now,

(22:02):
look at verse seventeen. Words of the wise spoken quietly
should be heard rather than the shout of a ruler
of fools. So David walk with God now he ought
to hear that soft voice say oh, I'm going to
do it. That's the words of a wise man. But

(22:22):
you can have a great orator, a magnetic personality, scream
and shout tomfoolery and it'll get you nowhere. It's the
quiet words the wise, and it's funny the words the
wise people usually are quiet. They don't push themselves on you.
This is what you want to do. Follow him, live

(22:44):
for him, Listen to those words. He says. If you're
a wise person whose counsel has sawt whose company has
later rejected. Learn to trust God for your reward. And
if you and I want to live with lives of wisdom,
we should play. Is great capital and value on listening
to the words of the wise, though they are quiet.

(23:06):
Then to listen to the ignorant shouts of fools and
those abound. Okay. Then he closes with a great truth.
This is the last verse, wisdom. Let's read it together.
Wisdom is better than weapons of war. But one sinner
destroys much good. Now, one act of sin is like

(23:30):
a rock falling into a still glassy pond. The ripples
spread out and touch the entire pond. So one center
and his sin spreads out to affect many many others.
We don't live to ourselves, we don't die to ourselves.
We all are surrounded by people that when we sin,
the ripples spread out, and we we magnify the pain,

(23:53):
and we accelerate the pain, and we bring pain to
others when we sin. He's saying, one center destroys much good.
So it's a great responsibility we have to walk with God.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
One person acting in sin can undo a multitude of
good works in this world. That's why Pastor Jeff wants
us to live good lives that are pleasing to God,
to make ourselves available to be used by Him to
make the world a better place. While sin has irreversibly
tainted the world we live in, we have the ability
to choose righteousness over evil and to leave our small

(24:29):
mark on the world that can impact generations. To come.
To learn more about Hardwired, keep listening.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
Wouldn't it be great if everyone had access to hearing
these messages from Pastor Jeff. We're asking our faithful listeners
to be willing to donate to this ministry. Does this
type of impact interest you. If so, there are a
few really simple things you can do at pray dot com.
Do you see Pastor Jeff's profile. If so, you'll notice
a gift button that will take you to where you

(24:57):
need to go to donate something financially. You can also
just tap on your present icon, which will direct you
to the Hardwired giving page. As we close, here's what's
coming up on Hardwired.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Some people may think life is a cruel joke, that
God is an evil puppet master for allowing foolish people
to fail efforts to gain power, only to throw it
all away. But yet God is also elevated wise people
to positions of power, and it is important to recognize
the efforts of those who see everything wrong with the world, and,
with God's help, get out of bed every day to

(25:32):
try and make the world a better place.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
For God's children.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
There's more Pastor Jeff has to share from the Book
of Ecclesiastes, so be sure to join us again. If
you've missed any part of today's teaching, you can find
it online at hardwired dot org. We're so glad we
can be part of your day today, and we pray
you've been blessed by today's edition of Hardwired