The Story:If Rehoboam won’t trust God, then he’s on his own. As Solomon has explained, undoubtedly with Rehoboam’s agreement, nothing in this life works out quite like you think. Life isn’t fair, at least as we think about fair, and it isn’t predictable. No one can know what a day might bring. All our hopes and dreams can be dashed in a moment. There is a place for everything in the divine economy, and God is sovereign over all. The believer rests in this and knows contentment, joy, and hope. The unbeliever? He is the servant of chance, and all he can do is hope for the best. But there are no guarantees for those who put their lives in the hand of chance. None of the things we think ought to be a certain way necessarily work out that way. Apart from God, what hope can anyone have?

The Structure:Chance is the de facto god of our secular age. It is the engine of evolutionary theory and the play maker for every person’s life. This, at least, is what our secular gurusproclaim. It’s not, however, how they live. Chance is, by definition, unknowable, unpredictable, and uncontrollable. I know of no unbelievers who live as though something unknowable, unpredictable, and uncontrollable were waiting for them just beyond the door. Instead, they live as if the world is knowable and orderly, and with a place for everything – just as the believer in God professes, and as the Scriptures – like Ecclesiastes – teach.

What about the people you know? Do they live as though chance or God were ultimate? Have you every thought about asking them about this?

Each week’s studies in our Scriptorium column are available in a free PDF form, suitable for personal or group use. For this week’s study, “This Way to Happiness: Ecclesiastes 9,” simply click here.

T. M. Moore

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.