Ecclesiastes Chapter Seven cont... Our end is based on how we live today!

14 “In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him.”

In another translation the last part of this verse reads this way: (ASV) "...to the end that man should not find out anything that shall be after him." In other words that man should not be able to figure out the future. God does not want mankind to try and figure out his future in order to control his own destiny nor does He want them to place their joy on future circumstances. What is being said is that God is the one who controls everyone’s destiny; God controls prosperity and adversity and there are very few formulas that guarantee a good outcome. There is, however, a method whereby one can actually control their destiny. The best way to control ones own destiny is to walk in Gods commands, keep His statutes and judgments. This will produce Gods blessing and assure us a good end. What we are pointing out is that peace and joy (the real treasures of prosperity) are products of righteous living and not prosperity in itself; one who understands cause and effect knows that how one lives will effect their outcome in the end.

One truth to be made in this statement, and other places in the word of God, is that there is a book that has been written of our end since before the foundation of the world. Just as Christ said "I come in the volume of the book it is written of me..." (Psalm 40:7-8) He also said "...I delight to do thy will..." And so we conclude this, the assurance that our book ends well comes from how we live our lives day to day. Real prosperity, peace and joy come from delighting in Gods plan for our lives. Returning to Solomon for a moment we know thus far about him from this commentary that he was a very controlling person; he was not comfortable with things out of control and yet much in life was out of his control. It was out of control because he forsook the commandments of the Lord. He lost the ability to walk in the ways of the Lord and as such did not complete his mission on this earth and so his end was not blessed and he had very little (if any) eternal fruit. The question we want to ask ourselves is this…what shall be after us (fruits)? It will be dependent upon how we walked and how much of Gods plan is fulfilled in our lives.