Ecclesiastes 2:26 For God gives to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he gives travail… I. HE WHO IS GOOD BEFORE GOD IS GOOD. 1. A man may be good in his own esteem, and yet not be really so. The way in which we sometimes mistake ourselves is altogether pitiable. 2. A man may be good in the estimate of society, and yet not be really so. Dr. Bushnell relates how he was much struck by the remark of an elderly gentleman touching hero-worship: "From the moment of my leaving college to this present hour I have been gradually losing my respect for great names." 3. A man may be accepted as good by the Church, and yet not be really so. The diamond fields of South Africa produce large numbers of diamonds whose yellow colour lessens immensely the value of the gem, and rogues have hit on an ingenious method for the falsification of these jewels; they are put into some chemical solution, and for a while after the bath the yellow diamond appears perfectly white, deceiving the very elect. Character also is capable of falsification; we may appear to ourselves and to others brighter and costlier than we intrinsically are. 4. But they who are good before God are good. He who has the testimony that he pleases God needs no more. II. WHO IS THUS GOOD BEFORE GOD? Who is this man, this woman, this child? The goodness that is good before God is the goodness that God inspires, and that He maintains in our heart and life by His Holy Spirit. Whatever is truly good is made so by its motive, its principle, its aim; and he who is truly good acts from the purest motive, obeys the loftiest rule, aspires to the supremest end. Well then, the purest motive is the love of God; the loftiest rule is the will of God; the supremest end is the glory of God. In a word, the essence of goodness is godliness; and where there is no godliness there is no goodness in the deep scriptural signification of that word. But the goodness that comes from God, that lives through Him, that gives, acts, suffers, hopes for His name's sake — that is goodness indeed. (W. L. Watkinson.) Parallel Verses KJV: For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity and vexation of spirit. |
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