Introduction: Have you ever thought this……”Why do the wicked seem to prosper?” One of the wisest men on the earth, Solomon writes about this subject. He discusses an “Age old PROBLEM,” and then “A Brand New PROMISE.”

I know what you are thinking. Why is it that I take one step forward and two steps backward? Maybe you are thinking… “You know, I am  serving the God of the Bible but can never get Ahead”! There is a song that was written a number of years ago with the title “Farther Along.”

William Buel Stevens wrote that song. He was born in 1862 in the Lawnridge community of Scotland County Missouri, and became a CHRISTian and a minister of the gospel. Through some adverse circumstances that his dad and family experienced, including all of his children dying before him, he penned the words to this song.

Tempted and tried we’re oft made to wonder,

Why it should be thus all the day long;

While there are others living about us,

[Refrain]

Farther along we’ll know all about it,

Farther along we’ll understand why;

Cheer up, don’t worry, live in the sunshine,

We’ll understand it all by and by.

 

1. There is an “AGE – OLD PROBLEM”! (Eccl 8:10-12)

“And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done: this is also vanity. 11Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.”

When death has come and taken our loved ones,

It leaves our home so lonely and drear;

Then do we wonder why others prosper,

Farther along we’ll know all about it,

Farther along we’ll understand why;

Cheer up, don’t worry, live in the sunshine,

We’ll understand it all by and by.”

 

2. There is “A BRAND New PROMISE”! (Eccl 8:12-14)

“12Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him: 13But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he feareth not before God.”

Faithful till death said our loving Master,

A few more days to labor and wait;

Toils of the road will then seem as nothing,

Farther along we’ll know all about it,

Farther along we’ll understand why;

Cheer up, don’t worry, live in the sunshine,

We’ll understand it all by and by.

 

When we see Jesus coming in glory,

When He comes from His home in the sky;

Then we shall meet Him in that bright mansion,

We’ll understand it all by and by.

 

Farther along we’ll know all about it,

Farther along we’ll understand why;

Cheer up, don’t worry, live in the sunshine,

We’ll understand it all by and by.