Grace Evangelical Free Church // Wyoming, MN

Ecclesiastes 8:14-17 There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity. 15 And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.

16 When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth, how neither day nor night do one’s eyes see sleep, 17 then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out.

Last Sunday’s sermon was a bit heavy. Carefully considering the necessity and goodness of learning the fear of God is a weighty endeavor. In addition, we heard of the Preacher’s perspective on the fact that the world is often such that it’s not obvious that fearing God is the way to go. It is an easily observable vanity indeed that those who do not fear God regularly fare better than those who do.

In this morning’s passage, the Preacher picked up on that same basic notion by expanding on it (14), suggesting a (familiar) response to it (15), and then expanding on it again (16-17). The big idea of this sermon is that while God works in ways that don’t always make sense to us, they are always good and there is joy in the mystery. The main takeaway for us is to stop trying to find joy through understanding God’s purposes in our circumstances and start finding it through believing God’s promises for our circumstances.

Hopefully you all remember that the key word in Ecclesiastes is “Vanity.” Although there is some discussion on the precise meaning of how to bring the Hebrew word (hevel) into English, passages like this one indicate the primary sense of the word is “mysterious” or “confusing” or “unable to make sense of.”

In that regard, the main and recurring idea in Ecclesiastes is that the Preacher (the author of Ecclesiastes) made careful observations concerning the way the world works, but had a really hard time reconciling much of it with what he knew about God. Over and over, he saw apparent inconsistencies happening around him.

For instance, in the previous passage (8:10-13) the Preacher observed that contrary to reason, those who do not fear God often fare better than those who do fear God, that the wicked are often praised for their wickedness, and that the wicked often escape the punishment their wickedness deserves (at least at first).

In v.14 of our passage, the Preacher notes another aspect of life under the sun that just doesn’t seem to make sense. That is, he points out another familiar vanity—a double vanity actually.

14 There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity.

The short version of this observation is that often the lives of righteous people are determined by the choices of wicked people, while the lives of wicked people are determined by the choices of the righteous. In other words, righteous people often get what the wicked deserve and wicked people often get what the righteous deserve.

To say it in a slightly different way still, people who are characterized by living virtuously (who keep their word, who act justly, who serve others, who pay what they ought, who acknowledge God as God, etc.) often end up suffering for it.

You may have heard the recent story of a Christian monk who was jailed in Michigan for silently praying outside of an abortion facility.

Similarly, a woman in Oregon was denied the opportunity to adopt a child because she would not commit to using “correct” pronouns for a child, taking a child to LGBTQ events, and using cross-sex hormones if the child wished.

An Oregon social worker was required to remove books from his office that acknowledged God’s design in human beings as male or female. He was further threatened with losing his job if he did not comply.

Kansas City passed an ordinance that requires all counselors to provide same-sex material and relationship counseling, forcing Christian counselors to comply or violate their convictions and face sanctions.

A pastor and volunteer chaplain was fired from the Austin (Texas) Fire Department for a private blog post about males not participating in women’s sports.

Another pastor was silenced and arrested by local police for reading his Bible and sharing the gospel at a Seattle protest (against the Supreme Court’s ruling which overturned Roe v. Wade).

In each of these cases (all of which are current or within the past few years), by all reasonable accounts, the individuals were seeking to live righteously—in line with God’s nature, word, and will—but instead of being celebrated (treated as the righteous should be), they were punished in various ways and to varying degrees for it. They were treated like they were acting wickedly.

I’m sure that all of you have experienced some measure of persecution for doing what God commands—even if it’s as simple as awkward holidays around unbelieving family or functioning on the perimeter of the social circles of work or school.

Among us, the P family has sacrificed a great deal to serve a country that is making it harder and harder for them to be there. Content creators are forced to create things that dishonor God or lose out on work. Health care professionals are often put in positions of moral compromise or difficult conversations with bosses or HR. Those enlisted in the military regularly have to make the choice between going to really unhealthy churches or no church at all.

There are many more stories just like this and more still of the exact opposite taking place—of people acting wickedly, but being celebrating as if they were righteous.

Everyone knows it shouldn’t be that way (Romans 1). That’s the definition of injustice. It doesn’t make sense. But it’s the kind of vanity the Preacher observed over and over.

Far from a new phenomenon, it’s been going on since the first human offspring. Cain killed his brother, Able, because Able offered a better offering and Cain was jealous. Joseph, Daniel, the prophets, the Disciples, and (most egregiously) Jesus Himself were all treated as if they were wicked for acting in righteousness.

Again, how does this make sense? Why would God allow the world to work like this? From our perspective, it’s vanity of the highest order. But what are we to do with it? How do wise people respond to such vanity?

As we’ve seen more than once, the Preacher’s under the sun observations tend to lend themselves to under the sun applications. His commendation in v.15 is no exception.

Having concluded that the wicked often get treated as the righteous should and the righteous often get treated as the wicked should, the Preacher recognized the need to offer some sort of guidance on how his readers ought to respond. In other words, v.15 is the Preacher’s answer to the question, “In a world in which both the righteous and the wicked are mistreated, what’s the best way to be happy?”

In his own words, “And I commend joy…”. So far, so good. In a mysterious world, get joy. But where is that found or how do we do that in the midst of this kind of vanity? The Preacher continued, …“for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.”

Joy through the familiar “carpe diem” charge (2:24-25; 3:12-13; 5:18; 9:7). The Preacher’s observation-driven advice is that reasonable people will acknowledge the legitimacy of his observation—that the world is filled with people being mistreated. And in response, rather than store things up—things that are as likely to be destroyed, lost, or stolen as not—or wait—since you have no idea how many days God has given you—eat, drink, and enjoy the good stuff while you’ve got it and while you have life and health to enjoy them.

Who knows how long you or the things you’ve managed to acquire will be around to enjoy, so invite your friends over and have at it. There’s simply no more reliable way to find joy in this life. And this is how it will be for however long God grants you life on earth.

The Preacher was not thinking eschatologically or cynically. He was thinking realistically.

In that way, as is the case with everything the Preacher wrote, there’s truth in it. From a purely under the sun observational point, it’s hard to argue against his observation or conclusion. This is the way things work. This is how you can be most sure you will get some measure of pleasure. This is how many people live. And those who don’t often lose out on the chance to enjoy the stuff they get.

In the last two verses of our passage, the Preacher went from empirical to metaphysical.

In other words, he moved from what can be observed through the ordinary use of the senses and the ordinary application of reason to theological reflection.

In vs.16-17, the Preacher answered a second implied question: What is God doing in all of this? He began his answer by restating his methodology.

16 When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth, how neither day nor night do one’s eyes see sleep…

Before giving his answer concerning God’s reasoning behind the vanity he observed, the Preacher reiterated the fact that he gave everything he had, day and night, to observe the world as it truly is and make sense of what he saw. This was the Preacher’s life’s mission.

So what was his conclusion? What did he discover? How/why is God involved in the difficult things of our lives? Answer: More vanity still. More mystery. More confusion. Looks at v.17.

17 then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out.

Having observed certain “quirks” in the way things work (in v.14), and having answered the implied question of what can be done in light of them (in v.15), the Preacher gave his thoughts on God’s relationship to those things. His conclusion (my paraphrase): “Everything I’ve just written about would be one kind of vanity in a godless world, but it’s doubly, triply so in a world governed by a personal, good, and omnipotent God. The fact that there is God and things are like this makes far less sense to me than if there were no god.”

The Preacher was a realist and a theist. His theology was often confused and incomplete, which led to applications that were often confused and incomplete, but there’s no question that the Preacher believed that God was at work in all the vanity he observed.

Why things work the way they do cannot be found out, no matter how hard you try. It is impossible to discover through observation and reason alone what God is up to in all of this. No amount of human effort can reconcile any of the injustices, wickednesses, pains, sufferings, difficulties, or inefficiencies we so commonly experience in this life with the God of the Bible. And anyone who claims to have done so is a liar.

In this way, always be skeptical when someone tells you they know what God is doing in their (or your) circumstances. When it comes to discerning God’s specific work and motives in our specific circumstances, even hindsight is nowhere near 20/20.

And, at the same time, we all need to come to greater terms with the significance of the mystery of God’s providence on some level. It is important for all of us to consider what the whole Bible says about why things are as they are (disordered, broken, unjust, hard, painful, unpredictable, etc.) while under the providential reign of an all-good, all-wise, all-powerful, all-personal God.

I recently sat with someone who was struggling mightily in light of a too-close-to-home tragedy he’d experienced. He trusts in God but is also having a hard time reconciling God’s goodness and the death of a young teenage girl.

A number of the philosophy professors I’ve had over the years claimed that their atheism was tied directly to this “problem” of evil. Whatever else there is in the world that might point to the existence of a personal God, the tremendous suffering and misery of so many around the world, they reason, means we need to come up with a different explanation. The world as it is, they believe, is entirely incompatible with the Christian God.

Every thoughtful Christian who has endured any measure of severe suffering has felt the tension between what they believe about God’s kindness and what they are experiencing.

I cannot even begin to estimate the number of pages that have been written to explain God’s relationship to the evil/suffering in this world.

In the end, after a few thousand years of wrestling with this question, the two main positions that thoughtful theists hold are (1) some type of free will defense and (2) some type of higher good defense.

The gist of the free will answer is that for our relationship with God to be genuine, it must be freely chosen, but along with the ability to freely choose God necessarily comes the ability to freely reject Him (and choose evil).

And the gist of the higher good answer is that God uses the evil in the world to bring about a greater good than would be possible without it; such as the ability to reveal the entirety of His glory for the highest good of His people.

My point here is not to argue for either, though. I’m happy to point you to the best arguments for both sides if you want to read more about either of those (or some of the other theodicies that have been developed over the millennia), but that’s not where I intend to go right now.

Instead, I want to briefly share three (of the) familiar biblical stories (that I mentioned above) that are able to cut through quite a bit of the (theodicitical) noise: Joseph, Daniel, and Jesus. These stories won’t answer every question we might have, but they should give us confidence that God is working good in every trial, even if we cannot understand how in most cases. In other words, these stories help us trust in God’s many promises to be working for the good of His people in every hardship by giving us examples of how that can be.

Joseph had eleven brothers, but he was his father’s favorite. Because his father unwisely put his favoritism on display, and because Joseph interacted with his family in unwise ways, and because his brothers were sinfully jealous, they sold Joseph into Egyptian slavery (where he remained for 13 years). There he was mistreated, lied about, wrongly condemned to prison (for at least two years), and lied to while in prison.

While Joseph did act unwisely at times, he was a righteous man. In other words, his story was the exact kind observed by the Preacher where the righteous were treated like the wicked. This was the kind of vanity that the Preacher saw and grieved. And it was the kind of story that the Preacher claimed no one can figure out what God is up to in it. But it is also the kind of story in which God is kind enough to take us above the sun and reveal His purposes, to explain how He was working in the under the sun mystery.

Eventually, God gave Joseph the ability to interpret the king of Egypt’s dreams, God brought him into the Pharaoh’s confidence, and God made him the second most powerful man in Egypt. And all of that in order to save the world from a famine and bring Joseph’s family—God’s covenant people—into Egypt.

In other words, as Joesph himself said to his brothers when they appeared before him, “And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. 6 For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. 7 And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. 8 So it was not you who sent me here, but God” (Genesis 45:5-8).

And of all of this, Joseph ultimately concluded to his brothers, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20).

There is simply no way to grasp any of that through mere observation and reason—the tools of the Preacher (under God’s inspiration). Apart from divine (above the sun) revelation, during the time of Joseph’s suffering (the righteous for whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked), it just looked like God was indifferent to the injustice. And during the time of his blessing, we could only guess that it was at God’s hand and to what ends. Apart from God’s direct explanation, Joseph’s experiences would have fallen squarely in the Preacher’s category of vanity of vanities.

In the Book of Daniel, we find another example of this in the person of Daniel.

Jerusalem, Daniel’s home town, was besieged and conquered by the Babylonians under King Nebuchadnezzar. In the ensuing years, though Daniel remained faithful to God, he experienced all kinds of mistreatment for his faithfulness. He was tested in ways beyond what most of us can imagine. In addition, things often took unexpected, even miraculous turns for good.

Once again, had the Preacher observed Daniel’s life, he would most certainly have concluded, “Vanity of vanities.” There is no under the sun explanation for any of it. Observation and reason cannot make sense of Babylon’s victory, Daniel’s prosperity through fasting, Daniel’s ability to interpret the King’s dream, Daniel surviving the fiery furnace unharmed, or the mysterious fourth man in the furnace with them.

But God gets us above the sun and explains His relationship to it, including the evil Daniel experienced.

…the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into [King Nebuchadnezzar’s] hand” (Daniel 1:2)…

God gave Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs [allowing him to abstain from the King’s food and thrive on vegetables and water] (Daniel 1:9).

God gave them learning and skill in all literature and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams [which is how he was able to interpret the King’s dreams] (Daniel 1:17).

Then the mystery was revealed [by God] to Daniel in a vision of the night (Daniel 2:19).

There’s a good deal more to Daniel’s story, but in all of it, God revealed that all the victories and defeats, sins and righteousnesses were from His hand, as means of revealing His glory and of preserving His covenant people.

Finally, then, consider the clearest example of all: Jesus, the perfect Son of God, sinless in every way. Because of His perfect righteousness, He was doubted, mocked, betrayed, conspired against, denied, abused, beaten, crucified, and eventually killed. Although He taught only truth, felt only godly emotions, and did only good things, although He loved God with all His heart, mind, soul, and strength and His neighbor as Himself, He was constantly forced to endured every form of sin and mistreatment at the hands of the wicked.

There is no under the sun explanation for God’s relationship to any of that. Never in the history of the world has there been One who was more righteous or One “to whom it happens [more] according to the deeds of the wicked.” It cannot be explained by any measure of the Preacher’s under the sun wisdom how God is related to the evil endured by Jesus.

Had the Preacher been there he could not have made any sense of God’s involvement in a righteous way with that level of wickedness? There’s no way, right? The best earthly observations and reason of all time would inevitably fail to come up with a plausible explanation for the injustice perpetrated upon Jesus.

But above the sun, things look very different. God’s relationship to the evil experienced by Jesus was nothing other than the working out of the greatest good of all time.

Romans 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Romans 3:23-26 …all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

There will always be theological and philosophical questions we cannot answer concerning God’s relationship to evil in general and even more concerning His relationship to the specific evils we face each day. Theologians and philosophers will continue debate the finer points and apparent contradictions of the various arguments put forward. People will continue to believe they know more than they really do about what God is up to. But let us all learn from Joseph, Daniel, and Jesus (along with the many other places in the Bible in which God explicitly explains His work and purposes) that even though we are often unable to understand exactly how, God is at work in every single aspect of our lives, working perfectly for His highest glory and our greatest good.

While God works in ways that don’t always make sense to us, they are always good and there is joy in the mystery. Therefore, let us stop trying to find joy through understanding God’s specific purposes in our circumstances (good and bad) and start finding it through believing God’s promises for our circumstances.

In conclusion, and as we turn now to the Lord’s Table, let me remind you of something of particular importance. What the Preacher grasped by looking at things through an under the sun lens, the whole Bible allows us to see with much greater clarity.

In light of what he referred to as “vanity” (people not getting what they deserve and God’s ways being undecipherable), the Preacher concluded that the best a person could hope for in this life is joy through eating and drinking.

But what he called vanity, we know to be the wonderous mystery of God’s good providence. While the Preacher commended eating and drinking the best food in the pantry and the best wine in the cellar, I commend to you the body and blood of Christ. And while the Preacher offered a resulting joy that was partial and fleeting, I offer you now one that is full and everlasting.

The Preacher’s conclusion, eat, drink and be joyful again, was closer than he realized. It is ours, now, in Jesus and symbolized in the meal in which we are about to partake. So let’s do what the Preacher commended. Let’s come and behold this wonderous mystery. Let us eat, drink, and be joyful in Him.

Ecclesiastes 8:10-13 Then I saw the wicked buried. They used to go in and out of the holy place and were praised in the city where they had done such things. This also is vanity. 11 Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. 12 Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they fear before him. 13 But it will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow, because he does not fear before God.

If I asked you to name the most important distinctions there are among mankind, what would you say?

Growing up, I probably would have said something lame (athletic/nerdy, cool/uncool, or attractive/ugly) or more important, but more generic (religious/non-religious or good/bad).

So again, are there any key distinctions to make among people and if so, what are they?

The Preacher has one particular distinction in mind. The world is neatly divided, he observed, between those who fear God and those who don’t. That observation leads to some critical questions. What does he mean by “fear God”? What of those who don’t fear God? What of those who do fear God? And do you fear God?

Those are the types of questions at the heart of this passage and they form the outline for this sermon as well. In considering them, we’ll see that the big idea is that it will be (really and eternally) well with those who fear God and it will (really and eternally) not be well for those who don’t. The main burden that I have for us all is that the Spirit would be pleased to help us grasp this passage well enough to accurately assess our fear of God and all that it means. Worded a bit differently, my main prayer is that we would all grow in proper fear of God in order that we would turn more fully to Him for His mercy and grace.

Before I pray, I want to quickly mention that in many ways this is a sermon I wish I’d heard when I was a teenager. Teenagers, I hope you’re able to hear now what I didn’t/couldn’t when I was your age.

Once again, through his many and careful observations, the Preacher saw that the world was entirely divided between those who fear God and those who do not.

(In slinky like fashion) the idea of fearing God isn’t a new idea in Ecclesiastes. The Preacher addressed in chapter three.

3:14 I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him.

We saw the idea again in chapter five.

5:7 For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear.

And we saw it one more time in chapter seven.

7:18 It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them.

We see it a few times in today’s passage once again.

12 Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they fear before him. 13 But it will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow, because he does not fear before God.

God purposefully works in certain ways to make people fear Him, we must fear God if we’re to live well in this world, God-fearers come from every kind of people, and it goes well with those who fear God and not well with those who don’t. But again, what does it actually mean to fear God?

We typically think of fearing something as an aversion to that which could cause us significant harm—a bad guy or a car crash or a deadly disease or a hostile nation or a monster under the bed. We also think of fear in terms of not wanting to lose something we care about—like a pet or a loved one or our financial well-being or our lives.

Is fearing God like fearing a bad guy or the loss your family dog? Is it like watching a scarry movie? Is it the constant fear that He might backhand you (or worse) for doing something He doesn’t like?

The idea of fearing God has several different senses throughout the Bible and among different people in the Bible. The first question I’d like to address is more specific to the meaning the Preacher has in mind in our passage.

I think the best way to explain what it means to “fear God” (12b) or to “fear before Him” (12c, 13c) in the sense the Preacher means, is by considering a number of other passages from the Bible. To that end, I’d like to point out two sets of passages that reveal two different senses of the kind of fear of God mentioned in this passage.

Both sets of passages span the whole Bible. The first begins at the beginning of the beginning and ends and the end of the ending. As we make our way through a number of passages, they’ll help us to see God’s nature. In particular, they’ll help us grasp the idea that seeing God on any meaningful level is to stand in humble awe of His absolute power, majesty, and splendor. Given who God is, there’s simply no place for flippancy or casualness or aloofness in God’s presence. These verses, properly understood, will create or grow in each of us a holy fear, a reverential awe.

(See also Exodus 3:1-6; Exodus 14:19-22; Exodus 40:34-35; Psalm 8:1-4; Psalm 9:7-9; Psalm 19:1-3; Psalm 65:5-8; Psalm 86:8-10; Psalm 97:1-6; Psalm 145:14-20; Isaiah 40:12-14; Isaiah 65:17-25)

Genesis 1:1-26 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…3 And God said, “Let there be light,”… 6 “… Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters…”…“Let dry land appear.” …11 “Let the earth sprout vegetation” …14 “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens” … 20 “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens” … 24 “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds” …26 “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…”

And with a mere word, in each case, it was immediately so.

Who can do such a thing? Who can do such a thing with a mere word? Who can stand before such a God and not fear?

1 Chronicles 29:11-13 Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. 12 Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. 13 And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name.

Job 38:4-38 “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? … 5 Who determined its measurements… Or who stretched the line upon it? 6On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, 7when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

12“Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, 13that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it? …

17Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

19 “Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness, 20that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home? …

31 “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion? 32 Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season, or can you guide the Bear with its children? 33 Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth?

… 35 Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’?

The answer to every one of these questions for everyone in heaven and on earth other than God is “No!” But the answer to every one of them is “Yes!” for God. Who can stand before such a God an not fear?

Psalm 24:1-2 The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, 2 for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.

Psalm 29:3-9 The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord, over many waters. 4 The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. 5The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars… 7 The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire. 8 The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness… 9 The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forests bare, and in his temple all cry, “Glory!”

Psalm 89:5-11 Let the heavens praise your wonders, O Lord, your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones! 6 For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord? Who among the heavenly beings is like the Lord, 7 a God greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones, and awesome above all who are around him? 8 O Lord God of hosts, who is mighty as you are, O Lord, with your faithfulness all around you? 9 You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them. 10 … you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm. 11The heavens are yours; the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in it, you have founded them.

Psalm 147:3-6 [The Lord] heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. 4 He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. 5 Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. 6 The Lord lifts up the humble; he casts the wicked to the ground.

Isaiah 6:1-5 … I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim… 3 And one called to another and said:

        “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Revelation 4:2-11 … behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne … 5 From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder… 6 … And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures… 8 And the four living creatures… day and night they never cease to say,

        “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”

9 And … 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,

    11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”

Collectively, for all who have eyes to see and ears to hear, these passages describe a God for whom we must stand in awe of His absolute power, majesty, and splendor. Who would ever think of approaching Him for fear of His unmatched glory and sovereign might.

The first and main sense in which the Preacher understood the fear of God is in this sense. It ought to be ever-present in every man, woman, child, and creature on earth as well as every created heavenly being, for this is always who God is.

Oh, Grace, that we might receive the gift grasping this from the Holy Spirit of God. The Preacher wrote largely to help his readers live in the world as it truly is and doing so begins with understanding God as He truly is and the kind of fear that necessarily comes with it.

At the same time, there’s another sense of fearing God which the Preacher seemed to feel, even without an entirely above the sun understanding. It is the kind that knows (which we all do according to Romans 1) that in light of who God is (which we just considered) and who we are, we are in trouble. It is the kind of fear that comes from knowing that God’s holiness and our sin are not compatible and that God’s fierce wrath will consume every ounce of our rebellion.

As you remember or re-read the verses below, you would do well to keep in mind that the true fulfillment of them all is in Jesus. They describe what He endured on the cross before He died. Taking all of that upon Himself is at the heart of what it took for Jesus to atone for our sins, to be just and justifier, to make the cross good news. Jesus’ relationship to those verses are what allows us to sing, “The wrath of God was satisfied – For every sin on Him was laid”.

Be amazed, Grace Church, at the cross. For at the cross the full measure of the wrath of God came together with the full measure of the love of God in order to display the full measure of the glory of God in Jesus. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

(See also Genesis 3:14-24; Genesis 19:24-28; Exodus 12:29-30; Leviticus 7:1-5; Leviticus 10:1-3; Isaiah 26:20-21; Isaiah 66:15-16; 1 Kings 18:30-39)

Genesis 2:15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Genesis 6:6-7:23 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land…for I am sorry that I have made them.”… 11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth… 7:11 [And God made]…all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights…19 And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered…21 And all flesh died that moved on the earth…all mankind… 23 [the LORD God] blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens …

Psalm 68:1-2 God shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered; and those who hate him shall flee before him! 2 As smoke is driven away, so you shall drive them away; as wax melts before fire, so the wicked shall perish before God!

Psalm 76:7-8 But you, you are to be feared! Who can stand before you when once your anger is roused? 8From the heavens you uttered judgment; the earth feared and was still,

Isaiah 2:12-19 For the Lord of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up—and it shall be brought low… 14 against all the lofty mountains, and against all the uplifted hills; 15 against every high tower, and against every fortified wall; … 17 And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. 18 And the idols shall utterly pass away. 19 And people shall enter the caves of the rocks and the holes of the ground, from before the terror of the Lord, and from the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the earth.

O, what a terrible day!

Isaiah 5:24-25 …they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. 25 Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people, and he stretched out his hand against them and struck them, and the mountains quaked; and their corpses were as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.

Isaiah 13:9-13 Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it. 10 For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light. 11 I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant, and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless… 13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at the wrath of the Lord of hosts in the day of his fierce anger.

Isaiah 63:3-6 “I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with me; I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath; their lifeblood spattered on my garments, and stained all my apparel. 4 For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption had come. 5 I looked, but there was no one to help; I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold; so my own arm brought me salvation, and my wrath upheld me. 6 I trampled down the peoples in my anger; I made them drunk in my wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.”

Sinners in the hands of an angry God!

Nahum 1:2-10 The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. 3 The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. 4 He rebukes the sea and makes it dry; he dries up all the rivers… 5 The mountains quake before him; the hills melt; the earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it. 6 Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him. … 8 with an overflowing flood he will make a complete end of the adversaries, and will pursue his enemies into darkness. 9 What do you plot against the Lord? He will make a complete end; trouble will not rise up a second time. 10For they are like entangled thorns, like drunkards as they drink; they are consumed like stubble fully dried.

Revelation 19:11-16 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. 12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. 13 He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. 14 And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. 15 From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.

Finally, Hebrews 10:31 offers a perfect summary, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Once again, these verses are a handful among the many which tell of God’s holy wrath against sin and sinners. Since we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), this wrath of God is against us all apart from God’s grace. To grasp this in even the most child-like way will cause a holy fear in everyone.

As I mentioned earlier, it doesn’t appear that the Preacher had a full grasp on this, but it is clear that he got it enough to have some measure of this kind of fear in mind. In 7:20 we read, “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.” And in 12:14 (the last words in the book), we will read, “For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.”

So, if fearing God for the Preacher means both standing in awe of His absolute power, majesty, and splendor and falling down in terror at His fierce and holy wrath, what of those who do not fear God? What is life and death like for those who have not learned the fear of the LORD? That’s the second (and main) question our passage for this morning addresses.

The main frame of reference I have for this question, as I mentioned in the introduction, concerns myself until I was nearly 20 years old. Once again, this sermon is what I wish someone had told me back then.

I had only the smallest measure of the fear of God in the first sense and none of the second sense. That’s because growing up, although I can’t recall a time in which I didn’t believe in God, I had no real idea who He was.

I had a kind of fear of God, but it was fairly weak and mailable. I feared God enough, for instance, that I would not go back on a promise I made in His name (the words, “I swear to God,” were legitimately binding for me—bad news once my friends found out), but not enough that there weren’t a dozen + ways around it. The same was true of lying, swearing, stealing, and a number of other aspects of my largely self-concocted sense of morality.

As far as I can recall, I had no real fear of hell because that was for really bad people. Although I knew I wasn’t perfect, I thought of myself as a pretty good person; certainly heaven-bound.

In other words, I had such a tiny understanding of who God really is that I had a correspondingly tiny fear of God. I don’t think any of the passages I read to you earlier ever occurred to me or had any hand in shaping my thinking. The result was that I lived life pretty confident in my standing before God and very free to act as I saw fit.

How does my experience as one without a proper fear of God relate to the Preacher’s description of those who do not fear God? Or, once again, what is life like for those who do not fear before Him?

As I mentioned in the beginning, the Preacher summarized the fate of those who do not fear God, saying, “it will not be well with the wicked…because he does not fear before God” (13). But again, what specifically does that mean? How will it not go well? In answer, the Preacher lists seven things (I’m going to go a bit out of order to make the Preacher’s perspective as clear as possible).

The first way the Preacher describes the God-fearless is “wicked.” We see that in v.10 and again in v.13.

It doesn’t always seem like those who do not fear God are wicked—I certainly didn’t think of myself in those terms—but one of the defining aspects of a lack of fear of God is a thoroughly distorted view of everything—God, ourselves, others, and the world around us.

LET THIS BE A SOBERING WORD to everyone here. Believing that you’re OK is not the same as being OK. Thinking that you are fine with God is not the same as being fine with God. Believing yourself to be a good person is not the same as being a good person.

The God we read about earlier (awesome in glory and fierce in wrath) is what we’re measured against, not the god we create with our own imaginations and certainly not the people in our lives. The two key above the sun principles here are that all things are measured against God and none of us measure up.

Wake up, sleeper. Hear the Word of God. We are all born into sin and rebellion against God. The verses we read of God’s wrath are for us. We are all wicked by nature.

Skipping ahead a bit, in order to make the first point even clearer, the second aspect of the Preacher’s perspective on the God-fearless that I want you to see is that the God-fearless always want to do evil. We see that in v.11.

11 … the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.

Again, as an unknowing member of the God-fearless, I certainly didn’t believe this about myself any more than I believed I was wicked. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao’s hearts were fully set to do evil. I didn’t have the purest thoughts, but “fully set to do evil” did not seem to me to describe me.

I’d wanted to do nice things sometimes. I had a heart to buy nice gifts for birthdays occasionally. I’d have some measure of compassion for less fortunate kids every so often. I didn’t want to bully kids all the time. I knew I wasn’t perfect, but there’s no way I was fully set to do evil in my mind.

But Grace, just as my understanding of God was way off, so too was my understanding of evil. Evil/sin is anything apart from a whole-heart longing to fully obey God for the glory of God. I never had that. I never wanted that. I didn’t even know that was what I should want. Which means my heart was fully set to do evil and I didn’t even know it. Teens of Grace, is that you? Hear the word of God and learn the fear of God.

The third thing to see about those who do not fear God is that they not only continually want to do evil, but they continually do evil.

12 Though a sinner does evil a hundred times…

This is only to say that those who do not fear God, not only want to do evil, but actually do evil; only evil. Just as every desire we have that is not directed by God for the glory of God is evil, so too is every action we take. And that’s every action when we don’t fear God.

The Preacher saw this as well as he looked around at the people on earth.

Backing up to v.10, the next of the Preacher’s observations concerns the response of others to the God-fearless. Given everything we’ve covered so far, the character and actions of those who do not fear God should be lamented and challenged, shouldn’t they? If the verses we just read of God are true, if the God-fearless are wicked (only wanting and doing evil), we would expect that they would be scorned and ostracized, right?

Part of the vanity of this life is that instead, they are, the Preacher saw, often praised.

10 Then I saw [the God-fearless]…go in and out of the holy place and were praised in the city where they had done such things.

Those who do not fear God often seem to live lives that are marked by the opposite of what we’d expect. The God-fearless did their wicked deeds, in God’s holy place on top, and were flattered for doing it!

Oh, how often that was the case in my life. I praised and was praised for doing the very things God hates, not the things He loves. I was judged and judged others to be cool by doing the kinds of wicked things that God judges as evil.

Grace, how often is this a part of your lives, praising artists, music, athletes, entertainers, movies, etc. that are opposed to God? How often do you look up to celebrities or successful businesspeople, praising them by seeking to imitate them even though they do not fear God? How often do you want to look like, sound like, and act like those who do not fear God?

The practical result is that the God-fearless grow in boldness in their God-fearlessness when they are praised for it. And that leads straight into the next point.

The fifth thing to see concerning the lives of the God-fearless is that many times their lives seem to go better than those who don’t fear God.

11 Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. 12 Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life…

The God-fearless are often delayed in receiving punishment for their rebellion. A lack of the fear of the Lord often produces a false sense of security. Those who do not fear the Lord eat drink and make merry with no idea the judgment it’s ever looming. Like Sodom and Gomorrah and those in the world in the days of Noah, the God-fearless go about living lives entirely ignorance of the fire and flood rushing towards them.

The Preacher saw over and over that in this life, cheaters often win for a time, liars often prosper, mean people often get ahead. People who are willing to do wrong things because they don’t fear God often beat out people who are not willing to do wrong things because they do fear God. It seems as if they will get away with it. It seems as if doing what God says makes life harder.

There’s more to be said than this (next point), but there’s not less. Anyone who takes an honest look at the world (like the Preacher) sees this all the time, everywhere.

How many among us today are in the exact same boat? Living lives apart from the fear of the LORD, doing well in various aspects of life, and growing in false confidence that God can be ignored, disobeyed, and mocked without consequence, only to have the wrath of God kindling hot against us?

The Preacher does not say that those who do not fear God will forever escape the sentence of their evil deeds. He says that they are often not sentenced immediately. Eventually they will be found out, either in this life or in the next. That leads to the next point.

The next-to-last point is a familiar one in Ecclesiastes.

10 Then I saw the wicked buried.

The God-fearless will die along with everyone else. The Preacher has repeated over and over and over the simple fact that we will all die. You may feel fine and live in a false sense of security, but ignorance will not stop what is certainly coming—death and judgment with it. Those who do not fear God, do not fear Him in no small measure because they live in ignorance or denial of this reality.

And that leads to the final observation concerning those who do not fear the LORD. It is the most familiar of all.

All of this, everything we’ve seen so far, the Preacher admits, is vanity (at the end of v.10).

10 … This also is vanity.

That things work like this in the world is mysterious. On the surface, it doesn’t make sense. It’s not easy to see why God allows things to be like this. Why not just punish evil in real time so that the wicked can quicky learn to fear God? Why allow the world to seem like God is not there and to be feared? Why let the wicked, evil-doers prosper and the God-fearing suffer? Why let the wicked be praised and God be mocked? The only answer the Preacher could come up with is “vanity.”

Those who do not fear God are wicked, evil-desiring, evil-doing, falsely-praised, punishment-delayed, but eventually buried and judged. All of that is impossible to comprehend for the Preacher and mysterious in some ways still. But what of those who do fear God? What of them?

Compared to those who do not fear God, the Preacher has relatively little to say of those who do. Those who don’t fear God get the better part of all four verses in this passage. Those who do barely get a third of a verse.

In that third-of-a-verse, though, we see that God-fearers have it every bit as good as the non-God-fearers have it bad. For the Preacher, the difference is simple, but powerful in its contrast.

While, as we saw, the sum total of those who do not fear God is that it does not go well for them, in contrast, the Preacher said, “12 …I know that it will be well with those who fear God…”.

While the Preacher, as we saw, expands a decent amount on what he meant by “it will not be well,” he doesn’t expand at all on what he meant by “it will be will.”

But what the Preacher didn’t do, the rest of God’s Word does in abundance. It’s not the primary purpose of this text to expand on this idea, so it’s not the primary purpose of this sermon to do so either. And yet, a simple word from a passage that also speaks to the awesome power and majesty of God will help us grasp what’s at stake.

Isaiah 65:17-25 “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. 18But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. 19I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. 20 No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed. 21 They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 22They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. 23 They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord, and their descendants with them. 24 Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear. 25 The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,” says the Lord.

Death as a door to eternal judgment awaits all who do not fear God. Death as a door to a new heavens and new earth is what awaits all who fear God. That leads to the final question and my conclusion.

The last and most critical question for us all is: What about you? Do you fear God?

Of that, let me press in a bit. What specifically would you point to in your life as evidence one way or the other? If an unbiased observer secretly watched you for a few days, what would he/she most likely conclude?

Teenagers especially, wake up. You cannot live your lives more concerned about fun and friends and fads than the fear of God. You cannot waste your lives with video games, social media, sexual immorality, sports and other hobbies, and escape the coming judgment of God.

Learn the fear of the Lord that you might turn to Him for the mercy and grace you need and He alone can offer. That is to say, it is not the fear of God by itself that saves. It is the fear of God that causes us to recognize our ruin and need for rescue. It is the fear of God that drives us to throw ourselves upon Him for mercy and grace.

And as we do, we will find everything we were seeking in everything but Christ – true forgiveness, true satisfaction, true acceptance, true freedom, true joy, true fellowship, true purpose, true identity, now and forever. And when that happens, the first kind of fear of God remains (standing in awe at His glory), but the second (falling down, trembling at His wrath) is gone forever.

Ecclesiastes 8:1-9 Who is like the wise?
        And who knows the interpretation of a thing?
A man’s wisdom makes his face shine,
        and the hardness of his face is changed.

2 I say: Keep the king’s command, because of God’s oath to him. 3 Be not hasty to go from his presence. Do not take your stand in an evil cause, for he does whatever he pleases. 4 For the word of the king is supreme, and who may say to him, “What are you doing?” 5 Whoever keeps a command will know no evil thing, and the wise heart will know the proper time and the just way. 6 For there is a time and a way for everything, although man’s trouble lies heavy on him. 7 For he does not know what is to be, for who can tell him how it will be? 8 No man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death. There is no discharge from war, nor will wickedness deliver those who are given to it. 9 All this I observed while applying my heart to all that is done under the sun, when man had power over man to his hurt.

On the other side of our family vacation, it’s no small kindness of God that I’m able to truthfully say what I’ve been able to say every time: It was good to be gone and it’s good to be back.

I’m thankful for Pastor Colin’s sermon on Romans 8 and Mark’s sermon on 2 Samuel 1. We were back in time to discuss Mark’s in our DG last week. It was especially sweet to hear people interact with David’s refusal to take the throne by force, David’s esteem of the Lord’s anointed, and Mark’s applications. Well done, men.

In addition, we were encouraged to worship with Pastor Daniel and Molly in Michigan and at Daniel’s college church last Sunday. There are some really good churches out there and we praise God for that. It’s sweet to be able to sing familiar songs and hear God’s Word preached with brothers and sisters in Christ around the country. But it’s even sweeter to do so with you all today. This, not that, is God’s design for our primary spiritual nourishment. It was good to be gone and it’s good to be back.

With that, welcome back to Ecclesiastes. We’re in the back half of the book. Seven chapters down, five to go.

Chapter eight is a good reminder of the fact that Ecclesiastes is structured kind of like a slinky. The Preacher addresses many of the same basic topics, coming back around and around and around, moving slightly forward each time. It is in many ways the repetition that gives Ecclesiastes its power in that it helps us to see more clearly the things that really matter for life under the sun.

In the case of our passage for today, the Preacher returned to the most familiar theme of the book (wisdom) and a less familiar, but still critical one (leadership and authority). The big idea and applications of this sermon are that because under the sun wisdom has real benefits and rulers have real power, living well in this world means seeking wisdom and submitting wisely and humbly to God-given authority.

Ecclesiastes 8:1 functions as a transition between the Preacher’s thoughts on the benefits and limitations of wisdom that marked the previous section (7:19-29) and his thoughts on the specific wisdom needed to live under the rule of a not-always-godly king.

In short, 8:1 is another poetic expression of the goodness of wisdom. In 1a the Preacher asks, “Who is like the wise?” The implied answer is, “No one.” The wise stand alone. But from that we’re right to wonder, “How so”? In what ways are the wise unique among mankind? The Preacher declares that the wise stand out in two particular ways.

Again, the Preacher was certainly not naïve to the limits of under the sun wisdom (he literally wrote the book on it), but that is not to say that kind of wisdom was without significant benefit.

Grace, once again, seek genuine wisdom in all its forms. Seek to understand the world as it truly is, that you might live in it as it truly is.

Rather than simply leave it at that, let me briefly offer six practical suggestions for gaining wisdom.

As you get wisdom, the Preacher observed, you will stand alone, you will grow to understand the things you experience, your face will be changed from false confidence or appropriate frustration to one that shines with understanding and clarity, and you will be able to live in this world increasingly as God designed and intends.

That leads to the next and main section of our passage for this morning. In it, the Preacher addresses the power of a king and its under the sun implications for his subjects. In short, the Preacher’s message is this: Living under authority, especially the authority of a less-than-godly sovereign king, requires significant wisdom.

There are certainly implications of this section for us today (more on that in a bit), but the initial context was something largely foreign to us. We have no real concept of an earthly sovereign. The only king that is familiar to most of us (The King of England), is primarily a figurehead. He as very little real power.

In the time of Ecclesiastes, however, things were different. A king’s word was the law of the land. One man truly ruled his people directly and completely.

Of course, living under this kind of authority/leadership was greatly affected by the righteousness and justice of the king. Aware of this, the Preacher shared a measure of wisdom largely aimed at living under an unjust, or at least fickle, king. So, how does he suggest his readers go about that?

The Preacher’s initial charge was to obey. If you are under a king, do what he says. Keep his commands. That’s the simple heart of the beginning of v.2.

2 I say: Keep the king’s command…

Again, the Preacher’s first straight-forward admonition was that wisdom calls for obedience to those in authority.

More than mere obedience, however, the Preacher’s wisdom calls for respectful obedience. We’re not merely to obey, but to do so with the respect toward the one in authority over us.

Wisdom looks for ways to demonstrate this in our interactions with the king. One such example is found in v.3.

3 Be not hasty to go from his presence…

To be granted an audience into the king’s presence was a big deal. It was not to be taken lightly. The Book of Esther helps paint a remarkable picture of this. Esther knew that by asking for (rather than being summoned to) an audience with the king (even her own husband) meant putting her life at risk.

In the same way, leaving the king’s presence must be granted as well. Just as no one walked into the king’s presence uninvited, neither ought anyone walk out of it undismissed. The Preacher noted that if royal subjects want to keep their heads, they will show the kind of respect that waits to be allowed in and waits to be released.

The same basic idea is found at the end of v.4, “… who may say to him, “What are you doing?” In other words, the Preacher taught that wisdom calls for respect and respect (ordinarily) does not question the king’s kinging.

At the same time, the Preacher was not unaware of the fact that kings were/are not perfect in their character. And the Preacher, therefore, was not unaware of the fact that there are times in which kings must be disobeyed. Once again, I’ll say more on this later, but for now the third thing to see is that disobedience is a serious thing, likely with serious consequences, and, therefore, it is unwise to disobey for wicked purposes.

3 …Do not take your stand in an evil cause…

It’s one thing to be made to suffer for disobedience in a righteous matter, but it’s something entirely different to do so for an evil one. Wisdom knows and the Preacher charged that if you must disobey, you must make sure it’s for a worthy cause (which evil never is).

Obey the king, do so respectfully, and disobey (if you absolutely must) carefully. Those are serious matters. With good kings, this is clearly right (even if difficult at times), but with a bad king these things are quite a bit more complicated and challenging.

Helpfully, the Preacher grounds his charges in three specific ways. He not only asserts those things, but gives a bit of explanation for them as well. And if you’re anything like me, you know that it’s a lot easier to act wisely when we understand the wisdom.

In a great summary statement, the second half of v.5 and the first half of v.6 bring us back to the fact that it takes great wisdom to discern the right time and place for all of this.

5 … the wise heart will know the proper time and the just way. 6 For there is a time and a way for everything…

We need wisdom to know what kind of king we serve. We need wisdom to know when and how to obey and disobey. We need wisdom to know how to respect the king properly. We need wisdom to know how the king’s rule relates to God’s rule. And the Preacher provides significant wisdom for us in each of these things.

The simple message of the rest of the body of this passage (6b-8) is this: We are all limited in our wisdom and our life. Therefore, none of us can make perfect sense of things, control our lives, or stop our deaths.

6 … man’s trouble lies heavy on him. 7 For he does not know what is to be, for who can tell him how it will be? 8 No man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death. There is no discharge from war, nor will wickedness deliver those who are given to it.

It’s a hard pill to swallow to know for certain that you don’t know for certain what’s next, that no one on earth is wise enough to tell you, that you have very little control over when you’ll die, and that you have absolutely no control over the fact that you will die (whether in war or peace, whether in righteousness or wickedness).

There is a sobering humility in this knowledge and that humble sobriety ought to go with us into every encounter with the authorities God has placed over us.

Grace, now’s a good time to remind you that this is, for the most part, under the sun wisdom. The Preacher was inspired by God, but not primarily to share God’s full perspective on how God means His faithful followers to respond to godless leaders for His glory. The Preacher was simply offering practical tips on how to survive in a kingdom with a king who may or may not fear God. In that way, much of what the Preacher wrote is less about virtue and more about survival. It’s less about what’s ultimately best and more about what immediately works.

The Preacher was honest about all of that, which is largely the point of his concluding thoughts in v.9.

9 All this I observed while applying my heart to all that is done under the sun, when man had power over man to his hurt.

If you’ve been paying attention up to this point, and I’m sure you all have, it’s highly likely that you have at least two big, glaring questions: What does all of this mean for us in the way of obedience to the non-king authorities in our lives and is it ever appropriate to disobey them?

In order to help us build on and live out the wisdom of introduced in Ecclesiastes 8:1-9 and expanded on in the rest of God’s Word, I want to share a bit more of the Bible’s wisdom on legitimate authority and legitimate disobedience to it.

The heart of the Bible’s teaching (above the sun wisdom) on legitimate authority includes three principles.

Anyone who has ever pressed the principles we just considered up against real life, ought to be at least somewhat concerned. Anyone who has read the Bible’s description of man’s use of his God-given authority ought to be concerned (including our passage for this morning). Indeed, anyone who has lived under any authority for any time ought to be concerned.

Even in the clearest examples of delegated authority (where there is no question that someone has authority from God), God has delegated it to people with corrupted natures. In v.9, the Preacher observed that corrupted men, illegitimately using legitimate authority often do so to the hurt of others.

We’re right to wonder, then, if there are limits to the obedience we’re supposed to render to those we’re commanded by God to obey. Are there times when God expects us to disobey those with His delegated authority? Is it ever right, and if so, when, for citizens to disobey their governments, for members to disobey their pastors, for wives to disobey their husbands, and for kids to disobey their parents?

The short answer is “Yes.” But let me offer four critical biblical principles to keep in mind as we consider when and how.

Grace, in all of this, we see the goodness of God. He has always used good and bad leaders to grow His people in grace. With good rulers, we see shadows of God’s good rule that we might long for more of Him. And with bad rulers, God helps us to see that He alone is good and to recognize our dependence on Him.

In conclusion, I imagine all of that probably sounds true to the ear, a bit discouraging, and a bit overwhelming. If that’s all we had, that’d be pretty rough. But, as you know, Grace, that’s not all we have. God’s Word gives us a fuller wisdom still.

Everything we’ve covered is meant to create a longing for the One True King, Jesus Christ. He alone has all authority, is never wrong, is filled with love, never gives selfish, evil, or otherwise imperfect commands, and always has the best interest of His subjects in mind. He alone possesses perfect wisdom to know what is best, perfect goodness to want to carry it out, and perfect power to do so.

Even more significantly, Jesus, the One True King alone gave His life as a ransom for His people. He alone is sufficient to atone for our treason against Him and restore us to places of fellowship and peace in His kingdom.

May God grant every earthly leader a heart that longs to lead as one under King Jesus. May God grant us all the desire to come under our earthly leaders as we do Christ. And may all of this create in us a longing for the Kingdom to fully come and God’s will to be fully done on earth as it is in heaven.

2 Samuel 1:1-27 After the death of Saul, when David had returned from striking down the Amalekites, David remained two days in Ziklag. 2 And on the third day, behold, a man came from Saul’s camp, with his clothes torn and dirt on his head. And when he came to David, he fell to the ground and paid homage. 3 David said to him, “Where do you come from?” And he said to him, “I have escaped from the camp of Israel.” 4 And David said to him, “How did it go? Tell me.” And he answered, “The people fled from the battle, and also many of the people have fallen and are dead, and Saul and his son Jonathan are also dead.” 5 Then David said to the young man who told him, “How do you know that Saul and his son Jonathan are dead?” 6 And the young man who told him said, “By chance I happened to be on Mount Gilboa, and there was Saul leaning on his spear, and behold, the chariots and the horsemen were close upon him. 7 And when he looked behind him, he saw me, and called to me. And I answered, ‘Here I am.’ 8 And he said to me, ‘Who are you?’ I answered him, ‘I am an Amalekite.’ 9 And he said to me, ‘Stand beside me and kill me, for anguish has seized me, and yet my life still lingers.’ 10 So I stood beside him and killed him, because I was sure that he could not live after he had fallen. And I took the crown that was on his head and the armlet that was on his arm, and I have brought them here to my lord.”

11 Then David took hold of his clothes and tore them, and so did all the men who were with him. 12 And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son and for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword. 13 And David said to the young man who told him, “Where do you come from?” And he answered, “I am the son of a sojourner, an Amalekite.” 14 David said to him, “How is it you were not afraid to put out your hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed?” 15 Then David called one of the young men and said, “Go, execute him.” And he struck him down so that he died. 16 And David said to him, “Your blood be on your head, for your own mouth has testified against you, saying, ‘I have killed the Lord’s anointed.’”

17 And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and Jonathan his son, 18 and he said it should be taught to the people of Judah; behold, it is written in the Book of Jashar. He said:

19 “Your glory, O Israel, is slain on your high places!
How the mighty have fallen!
20 Tell it not in Gath,
publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon,
lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice,
lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exult.
21 “You mountains of Gilboa,
let there be no dew or rain upon you,
nor fields of offerings!
For there the shield of the mighty was defiled,
the shield of Saul, not anointed with oil.
22 “From the blood of the slain,
from the fat of the mighty,
the bow of Jonathan turned not back,
and the sword of Saul returned not empty.
23 “Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely!
In life and in death they were not divided;
they were swifter than eagles;
they were stronger than lions.
24 “You daughters of Israel, weep over Saul,
who clothed you luxuriously in scarlet,
who put ornaments of gold on your apparel.
25 “How the mighty have fallen
in the midst of the battle!
“Jonathan lies slain on your high places.
26 I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;
very pleasant have you been to me;
your love to me was extraordinary,
surpassing the love of women.
27 “How the mighty have fallen,
and the weapons of war perished!”

The big idea of this sermon is this, that David lived life with his eyes fixed squarely on the Lord’s kingdom and on the principles that God laid out for his people to live by. David’s heart was bent towards valuing his relationship with God above all else, because of this he walked humbly before the Lord. Content to allow God’s timing to work out for when he would indeed be king. He need not take the kingdom by force as the Lord had promised to give him the kingdom. He was honoring and forgiving of Saul, the Lord’s anointed, even when Saul was busy pursuing David with the purpose of murdering him.

Before we dig into 2 Samuel 1 I would like to take a quick look at some of the major events of 1 Samuel that have led us to our text for today. At the beginning of 1 Samuel the character Hannah is introduced to us and her desire to have a child. Her promise to the Lord that if she is given a child he would be dedicated to service to the Lord after he is weaned. We know the story, the Lord answers her prayer and she is given a son whom she names Samuel and she takes him to Eli the priest and he begins his life of service to the Lord. Eli and his sons are removed from leadership because of sin and Samuel becomes the leader of Israel.

In chapter 8 of 1 Samuel the people of Israel come to Samuel and they say to him, “Behold you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the other nations.” Samuel was grieved by this but the Lord said to him to obey the voice of the people for they have not rejected you but they have rejected me from being king over them. Samuel is directed by God to anoint Saul as king. Saul begins his kingship as a humble man and God gives him victory over the Ammonites. We know that Saul eventually disobeys the Lord when in 1 Samuel 15 he is commanded to go to the nation of Amalek and utterly destroy the nation of Amalek. All men, women, children, ox, sheep, donkey and camel were supposed to be devoted to destruction. He fails to do so, preserving the life of Agag the king and some of the animals. Samuel comes to him and tells him that because of his disobedience the Lord will tear the kingdom from him and give it to a neighbor of his who is better than he.

In 1 Samuel 16 we see the Lord direct Samuel to go to Bethlehem and visit Jesse and his sons and anoint the one that I direct you to. Samuel goes and the sons of Jesse are brought before him. Eliab the oldest, who Samuel thought for sure was the Lord’s anointed but the Lord says to him, “don’t look at the outward appearance, for the Lord looks at the heart”. Samuel is directed to anoint the youngest son, the youthful shepherd boy David as the next king of Israel.

In chapter 17 we see David defeat the giant Goliath of Gath, all Israel including Saul was too terrified of the giant but the Lord gave courage to the shepherd boy and he takes on the giant with only his staff, sling and five smooth stones. God gives victory to him as he trusts completely in the Lord.

Chapter 18 we see Saul take David and does not let him return to his father’s house. The friendship of Jonathan and David is referenced here that the soul of Jonathan was knit to David’s and he gives David his robe, his armor, even his sword, his bow and his belt, and Saul sends David out to do battle and he is successful wherever he goes and does. This begins the jealousy of Saul against David as the women sing that Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands and Saul tries to pin David to the wall two times with his spear but David evades him both times.

Chapter 19 and 20 we see Saul again conspired to kill David but he is warned by his friend Jonathan, the king’s own son and heir. They make a covenant together and between their offspring together. The humility and obedience of Jonathan of what he saw as God’s hand on David’s life and that he was to be the next king is quite amazing. In the world’s eyes Jonathan should’ve been the next king but he saw that was not to be the case and fully submitted himself to the will of the Lord.

Chapter 22 we see David who has been on the run makes it to the cave of Addullam and God brings his brother’s and his father’s house to him and everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt and everyone who was bitter in soul gathered to him and he became their commander, about 400 men. This number would eventually grow to 600.

In chapters 24 and 26 David is given two opportunities to take the kingdom by force and kill Saul. In 24 his men encourage him to kill Saul, he stealthily cuts off a corner of Saul’s robe as he sleeps and the scripture says his heart struck him because he did this to the Lord’s anointed. He says to his men, as they encourage him to kill Saul, “the Lord forbid that I put forth my hand against the Lord’s anointed”. In 26 there is an almost exact repeat of the first story ending again with David refusing to strike down the Lord’s anointed.

In chapter 27 David is feeling discouraged and feels that he will one day be killed by Saul so he flees to the Philistines and to Achish their king. Achish gives Ziklag to David to reside in and David lived there for a year and four months.

In chapter 29 the Philistines are preparing for battle against the Israelites and Achish calls for David and his men to come fight as well. However the commanders of the Philistines want no part of David being in their fighting forces as they were afraid that David would attack them instead during the battle. Thus David and his men were delivered from having to fight against their own countrymen.

In chapter 30 while David and his men were away the Amalekites made a raid against Ziklag and took captive all of David and his men’s families and possessions. David and his men return from Achish and find out what has happened. The men were bitter in soul and spoke of stoning David, but David strengthened himself in the Lord his God and he enquired of the Lord should we pursue after this band? Will we overtake them? The Lord responds to him to pursue for you shall surely overtake them and surely will rescue them. God gives them victory over the Amalekites and nothing and no one was missing whether great or small and they head back to Ziklag.

In chapter 31 the Israelites are routed by Philistia and Saul falls on his own sword and kills himself for fear he would be found and tortured by the Philistines. His three sons and many other men of Israel perished that day on Mount Gilboa. `

A main theme that permeates from Joshua, Judges and through the books of Samuel is to obey the Law of God. We see in Judges the punishment Israel endured when they disobeyed the Law of God, we see Eli and his sons removed because of disobedience, Saul and his heirs are removed from the kingly line because of disobedience. Now in 2 Samuel 1 we see the heart of the next king of Israel on display, a heart that is turned towards complete obedience to his heavenly Father.

Philippians 2:1-11 is probably my favorite passage in scripture, I think it so clearly and succinctly describes the character of Christ, his humility and willingness to obey the will of the Father no matter what was asked of him. I would suggest that the life of David, his kingship and his desire to fully obey his heavenly father pointed towards the life of that greater king who was to come, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 2 Samuel 1 I believe shows us clearly David’s heart, just as Philippians 2 shows us clearly the heart of Christ. Let’s dig into 2 Samuel 1 now.

The Amalekite comes to David with dirt on his head and his clothes torn. He’s painting the picture to David and his men of someone who is in genuine grief. Grief over the loss of the men of Israel, maybe grief over what I’m about to tell you that the king asked me to do to him. He had come about eighty miles to bring this news to David, what was going through his mind as he made his way to David? I wonder if he ever second guessed telling the lie and what the consequences might be. In verses 3 and 4 we see David conversing with him, asking him where have you come from? He responds that he’s come from the camp of Israel. David asks him how the battle went? Maybe apprehensively he asked these words as the signs of grief were worn by the young man David maybe was anticipating bad news. He responds to David telling him that the people have fled in battle and also many of the people have fallen in battle and are dead. Does he give a pause here before he then says, and Saul and his son Jonathan are also dead? David then asks him, how do you know this to be true, that Saul and Jonathan are dead? We don’t see in the text him really answer the question about how he knows Jonathan is dead but he moves readily into his prepared lie, his lie he has been sharpening during his eighty mile journey to see David. I, by chance, happened to be on Mount Gilboa and there was Saul leaning on his spear and the chariots and horsemen were closing in on him and he saw me and called out to me. I responded “here I am”. Saul asked who I was, I told him that I am an Amalekite, and he said to stand beside me and kill me for anguish has seized me, and yet my life still lingers. Verse 10, so I stood beside him and I killed him and I took the crown that was on his head and the armlet that was on his arm, and I have brought them here to my lord.

Dale Ralph Davis in his commentary on 2 Samuel has a great line about this. If you’re someone who just casually read 1 Samuel 31 and now reading this narrative of 2 Samuel 1, you may ask are there actually two accounts of what happened. Not really, we have the true account given by the narrator in 1 Samuel 31 and we have the Amalekite’s account in verses 3-10 and the solution is simple: the Amalekite lied. If you ever have a choice between the narrator and an Amalekite, always believe the narrator, have you ever met an Amalekite you can trust?

David’s response and his men’s response in verse 11 must have shocked the Amalekite, he most likely was thinking there would be cheering at the news. Saul is dead, David can now go claim the throne that was long ago promised to him, the 600 outcast men and their families can once again go and dwell in their homeland of Israel. Instead they immediately grieve, they tear their clothes and they mourn and they weep and they fast until evening. They mourned for King Saul, his son Jonathan, and they mourned for the people of Yahweh who had fallen by the sword. To me this is quite amazing. David mourns not only for Jonathan his great friend, but also for the people of Israel, some who’ve probably been a part of hunting him for these years, but most amazing is his utter grief as well over the loss of Saul the Lord’s anointed, the one who has on multiple occasions tried to murder David. It is also a marvel to me that his men follow him in grief. A few days before they had been ready to stone him but now they join him in grief over the death of, besides Jonathan, men who had been pursuing them and seeking their lives. There is a real contrast here between the godly leadership of David and the disobedient leadership of Saul. David’s adherence to seeking after the Lord and his obedience to God brought the Lord’s blessing and rescue of these men’s families and possessions from the Amalekite raiders. Saul’s disobedience to the Lord ultimately led to not only his death but also the death of his sons and the death of many of his men at the hands of the Philistines. David’s heart was one of forgiveness and love for Saul despite the things he had done.

Now the Amalekite is dealt with, in verse 13 David asks the young man where do you come from? He replies that he is the son of a sojourner, an Amalekite. Verse 14 David asks him, “how were you not afraid to put out your hand to harm the Lord’s anointed? Judgement is then doled out, David calls to one of his young men and says go and execute him. The young man strikes him down and he dies. In verse 16 David says “your blood be on your own head, for your own mouth has testified against you saying, I have killed the Lord’s anointed”. The Amalekite lived to get ahead in life, he was most likely hoping for a place of reward in the new kingdom under David. He assumed David lived by the same scruples as him, a desire for reward and the kingship no matter the cost. His assumption cost him his life as David lived by a different code, a strict adherence to not touch the head of the Lord’s anointed and to allow the Lord to bring about David’s kingship. He need not take the kingdom by force as he knew the Lord would do what he had promised according to His timing and not David’s.

17 And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and Jonathan his son, 18 and he said it should be taught to the people of Judah; behold, it is written in the Book of Jashar. He said:

19 “Your glory, O Israel, is slain on your high places!
How the mighty have fallen!
20 Tell it not in Gath,
publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon,
lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice,
lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exult.
21 “You mountains of Gilboa,
let there be no dew or rain upon you,
nor fields of offerings!
For there the shield of the mighty was defiled,
the shield of Saul, not anointed with oil.
22 “From the blood of the slain,
from the fat of the mighty,
the bow of Jonathan turned not back,
and the sword of Saul returned not empty.
23 “Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely!
In life and in death they were not divided;
they were swifter than eagles;
they were stronger than lions.
24 “You daughters of Israel, weep over Saul,
who clothed you luxuriously in scarlet,
who put ornaments of gold on your apparel.
25 “How the mighty have fallen
in the midst of the battle!
“Jonathan lies slain on your high places.
26 I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;
very pleasant have you been to me;
your love to me was extraordinary,
surpassing the love of women.
27 “How the mighty have fallen,
and the weapons of war perished!”

We see David instruct in verse 18 that it should be taught to the people of Judah. That it would be a reminder to them about what Philistia did to them. That they would carry this reminder with them into battle as they marched that it would motivate them. He knew that there would be future battles with Philistia and he desired this to be a rallying cry for the men going to battle, to remember what Philistia had done to their fellow countrymen. He curses Mount Gilboa for the death that occurred on top of it, the shields of the men of Israel that littered the slopes of it. He sings of the prowess of Jonathan and Saul in battle, comparing them to eagles and lions. He assigns the daughters of Israel to mourn over Saul, for he clothed you in scarlet and put ornaments of gold on your apparel. Signs of prosperity that through the reign of Saul came to the daughters of Israel. The mourning over his best friend Jonathan he assigns to himself. He speaks of distress over the loss of his brother Jonathan, the brotherly love and affection he shared with Jonathan surpassed any other love he had experienced.

You read these words and you can quite clearly see the love David had for Jonathan and Saul. He did not hold bitterness in his heart towards Saul over the evil that Saul had tried to perpetrate upon him. His was a heart that had forgiven and was submitted and thankful for the ruler God had placed over Israel.

Application for us.

Romans 8:31–39 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Good morning, Grace Church!

Life has a way of pressing us down with suffering, guilt, fear, and spiritual discouragement. As God’s people, we long for encouragement, hope, and reminders about who God is and what He has done. We can look back through the Scriptures and see time and time again where the people of God doubted Him, forgot His faithfulness, and that He has made promises He will fulfill. Since we need this, it is why Paul ends Romans 8 with one of the most triumphant declarations in all of Scripture. Paul proclaims that being a follower of Christ shapes the way we look at and navigate the good and difficult chapters of our story in light of the Greatest Story.

Let’s be clear, Paul isn’t writing as a man untouched by suffering. He was clear in 2 Corinthians 11:23-30. He went through intense suffering—beatings, prison, shipwrecks, hunger, danger, and constant pressure for the churches. Instead of boasting in his strength, he chose to boast in his weakness, because it showed how much he needed God. In fact, he says in 2 Corinthians 12:10, “When I am weak, then I am strong,” because God’s power shines most clearly through our weakness. In the midst of all the hardship in his life, he says: “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

The Main Point is for the follower of Jesus to have full assurance in the variety of circumstances they will face that God is for them in the knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We can walk through any trial with joyful endurance knowing that God is for us, Christ is with us, and nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus. The main takeaway is to stand firm in the securing and never-changing love of God to be faithful today.

Rooted in the gospel, Paul explains how this good news impacts our life. It makes me think – Do you remember when you heard and believed the gospel for the first time? I remember hearing it multiple times, but not believing right away. The LORD had some work to do in my heart and it took time. This isn’t the case for all believers, but helpful to think through when the gospel became life-giving news.

Paul is rooted in the gospel, which is God made you to know Him and live with Him forever. But all of us have turned away from Him—we’ve sinned, against God, and that separates us from Him. But God, being rich in mercy and because of His great love, God sent His Son, Jesus, to rescue us. Jesus lived a perfect life, died on the cross to take the punishment for our sin, your sin, and rose from the dead so we could be forgiven and be made a new creation. When you trust in Jesus—not in your own goodness—God forgives you, gives you eternal life, and adopts you into His family. Nothing—not fear, failure, suffering, or even death—can separate you from His love when you place your trust, your faith, your life in the hands of God through Christ. So turn to Jesus. Believe in Him and live.

These promises this morning are for those ‘in Christ’ and that can be you today.

It is key, friends, to remind ourselves of this good news and apply to our hearts, minds, and life. Let’s walk through this text.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

When Paul says, “What then shall we say to these things?” The question is, “What things?” We could say he is looking back at chapters 1-7, a deep explanation of the sinfulness of man, the salvation of God, and the hope of the Christian. But I, along with many others, believe it is more immediate. Paul is simply looking back a couple of sentences into the sovereignty of God in our salvation from verses 28-30, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

So, Paul say, “What shall we say to this?” not “Shall we say something to this?” The revelation of God requires a response. Paul does with implications to the hope of God’s sovereign love and mercy for sinners. These verses mock every circumstance that tries to convince us we’re abandoned. The cross has already proved the deepest truth: God is for us.

Who is ‘us’? Well, those who are trusting in Christ by faith. Romans 1 – “To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints” …. To all those at Grace Church who are loved by God and called to be saints….

There are three truths in these verses that I want us to see regarding the salvation that God has provided in Christ.

An Exhaustive Salvation (v. 31): God is not partially for you. His plan is all-encompassing. Even when people betray you, or life breaks down, His hand is over every detail. In addition to this, God’s salvation is complete. You don’t need to bring anything in addition to God’s work. In addition, God has done this in full measure of love towards you. Ephesians 1 – “In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace…” So, the over-arching truth of your life is that God has done all to save you and is working in all things for the greatest good which is the salvation of your soul and glorification of you when He returns. This is Romans 8:28 – works all things for the good…

An Effective Salvation (v. 32a): He gave His Son—the costliest gift. He won’t now refuse your daily needs. Our mortal minds will never fathom the sacrifice which the Father made to bring about the redemption of His chosen ones. For the Son, it meant the rejection of the nation Israel, the physical agony of the cross, and the ultimate pain, the separation from His Father which was the penalty He paid for our sins. For the Father, it meant giving up His Son, allowing sinful men to nail Him to a cross, and having to pour out His wrath on His beloved One. The Son willingly endured the agony of the cross in order to do the will of His Father and to bring glory to Him. The Father willingly gave up His Son so that by means of His sacrifice the Son might be glorified (see John 17:1-5; Philippians 2:5-11). Imagine the heart of the Father as He heard the plea of His Son in the Garden of Gethsemane. Amazing love, how can it be, that Thou, My God, should die for me?

An Engulfing Salvation (v. 32b): “All things” includes grace for anxiety, strength in weakness, peace in pain, and power over sin. You have all you need to be a faithful child of the King. Paul means to start with the greater and move to the lesser. Here’s what I mean – if God crushed His only Son for your salvation, for you have been purchased, not with gold or silver, but with the precious blood of the Lamb, He will give you lesser things. Jesus said that our Heavenly Father would provide for our food, clothing, and shelter. Each day you have all that you need as provided from your Father in heaven who loves you. If you didn’t have it, you didn’t need it. Beyond earthly needs, ‘all things’ are things like: His forgiveness (Ephesians 1:7), eternal life (John 3:16), peace (John 14:27), and comfort through the Spirit (John 14:16).

2 Peter 1:2-3 – “May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. 3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence…”

No matter where you are in your journey of faith, if you are in Christ…hear these four words of joy and hope: GOD IS FOR YOU.

“Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”

I think of the vision that the Prophet Zecheriah saw. Zechariah sees Joshua the high priest standing before God, but he’s wearing filthy clothes, and Satan is accusing him. God rebukes Satan, removes Joshua’s filthy clothes, and gives him clean garments—showing that He has taken away his sin. Then God promises that a servant called the Branch is coming, who will remove sin in a single day.

In Romans 8, Paul pictures the divine courtroom. The enemy accuses you, in fact, has evidence of your breaking of God’s Law, the depth of your sin against God. Your own heart joins in, you know your guilt. But Paul shouts, “Who can bring a charge?” Because the Judge has already slammed the gavel: Justified by faith. Paul wrote earlier in Romans 3:21-26: “21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

There are gospel realities that we must know, apply, and remind ourselves of. Again, Paul does this throughout his letters to the churches. He has proclaimed the gospel, ensured it is being taught as he leaves and then encourages the believer to rightly apply it to their lives.

The verdict has already been given (v. 33) meaning you don’t need to fear judgment day. Your judgment already happened at the cross. Romans 8:1 – there is therefore no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

Our Defender is the evidence (v. 34) because Jesus isn’t just arguing your case before the Father, He is your case. He died for you. He rose for you. He intercedes for you.

The Accuser is silenced. Satan is called “the accuser”—but in this courtroom, his power is null and void. In addition, your ‘old self,’ the flesh, that seeks to accuse is crucified with Christ. For you no longer live, but Christ in you.

I’ve come to love this quote: “When the devil tells us we are sinners and therefore damned, we may answer, “Because you say I am a sinner, I will be righteous and saved.” Then the devil will say, “No, you will be damned.” And I will reply, “No, for I fly to Christ, who has given himself for my sins. Satan, you will not prevail against me when you try to terrify me by telling me how great my sins are and try to reduce me to heaviness and despair. On the contrary, when you say I am a sinner, you give me armor and weapons against yourself, so that I can cut your throat with your own sword and tread you under my feet, for Christ died for sinners. My sin is on his shoulders, not mine. So when you say I am a sinner, you do not terrify me but comfort me immeasurably.’” That is the power of Christ in the gospel.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Paul now shifts our eyes to the realities of this life – the suffering, hardship, and brokenness. He names real suffering—things Christians were enduring then and still endure now. But instead of being destroyed, we conquer through Christ.

We should notice how Paul walks through these verses, it’s methodical.

First, He says what could happen (v. 35). Paul doesn’t ignore the hard things—he names them boldly. We have real storms in this life. Paul knows this and doesn’t shy away, neither should we. We also don’t allow the ‘things’ to have control over our hope, stability in faith, nor our view of God. We need to be honest about what ‘could’ happen, so that we can say with the Apostle that we are not surprised when the fiery trials come upon us.

In speaking about presenting evil notions to children, C.S. Lewis said, “Since it is so likely that they [children] will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker. Nor do most of us find that violence and bloodshed, in a story, produce any haunting dread in the minds of children. As far as that goes, I side impenitently with the human race against the modern reformer. Let there be wicked kings and beheadings, battles and dungeons, giants and dragons, and let villains be soundly killed at the end of the book. Nothing will persuade me that this causes an ordinary child any kind or degree of fear beyond what it wants, and needs, to feel. For, of course, it wants to be a little frightened.”

I think this applies to us, for we are child-like at times…

Next, Paul states what does happen (v. 36). We are counted like sheep to be slaughtered. This isn’t prosperity preaching—Paul says faith often brings more hardship, not less. If you hear that becoming a Christian will make you life easier, that’s not the gospel. We experience trials like anyone – but now have the worldview to discern and navigate it. Secondly, followers of Jesus will suffer since His name is attached to us. And it’s doing a particular something – 2 Cor 4, Romans 5, Phil 3:10, 2 Tim 2:3, 1 Peter 4:13 to name a few passages. These tell us that suffering produces endurance, character, and hope. This hope does not put us to shame but calls us to share in Christ’s sufferings, becoming like Him in His death. In this, though we are outwardly wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day, and our light and momentary afflictions are preparing for us an eternal glory. So endure hardship like good soldiers of Christ because when we suffer for Christ, we are actually sharing in His glory. In all of this, God is not punishing His children—He is refining them. Suffering is not the absence of God’s love; it is often the tool of His deepest work done in love.

Finally, Paul states what will happen (v. 37). For somehow – yet we know how, in it all, we are more than conquerors. Not just survivors—super-conquerors. Overcomers.

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Paul finishes with a confident expression of assurance. There is nothing—no created thing—that can undo what God has done in Christ. He will hold you fast.

Our assurance rests in who God is, not what we have done.

Paul reminds us of the nature of God, who God is (v. 38b–39a). This means no force—natural or supernatural—can outrun God’s promises. God is faithful, His love abounds, He pours out grace, He is the author of faith. He rescues. All of this through Jesus and for the glory of His name.

Paul is also reflecting on the quality of Christ’s Love (v. 39b). It is personal, eternal, and stronger than death because Christ overcame death (vs 34).

These truths of old are a present help in times of trouble. They not only give us hope in the future, but we can bank on those promises today. Since God will be faithful to bring you into glory someday….you can trust Him to be faithful today.

Let me close.

The Gospel reminds us of the abounding love and mercy of God today. God loves you today, not a future version of yourself, but the person that you have become today by His grace. This is a hard reality for me at times – God loves the ‘today’ me. I battle with the thought that what God is really looking at is the finished sanctifying work in me, where I’m not messing up. I think that my Heavenly Father is really looking forward to, and valuing, when I’ve arrived at perfection. The struggle has us asking: why doesn’t God instantly change us? He’s certainly got the power to do so. Why doesn’t he just immediately free us from our failings, bad habits and sinful attitudes and behaviors? Why doesn’t the Almighty also instantly transform us so we never fall short again? Because [God] values the process, not just the finished products. Though He does not delight in our sin, the Lord values the process of our growth and the work involved in sanctifying us because He loves us. When we do fall, we may think that He is surprised and frustrated, as if the holy, omniscient God were naive or ignorant about the ways sin has so deeply affected us or the ways He himself has created us with good limitations. Inwardly, we assume that because we are now in Christ, our thoughts, words, and actions should be instantly free from ever lapsing into sin and failure again. Therefore, we assume that God is temperamental and the Christian life seems heavy and burdensome rather than hopeful and promising. We endure rather than enjoy, we survive instead of thrive. But as we grow in our understanding and knowledge of God and His gospel, He who abounds with compassion and grace, we might more freely grow in our Christian lives without being crushed by our weaknesses and limits, and enjoy the process with peace and joy found in Christ.

Grace Church, suffering can’t stop God’s love, it isn’t a sign of a lack of it, but is a means at which God refines your faith and conforms you into Christ. Sin didn’t stop God’s love, but God met it with overwhelming grace and mercy to save you for Himself. Satan or your flesh have no power in your identify in Christ. Satan is the cosmic loser and has no power over God’s children. Your flesh has been crucified and Christ lives in you. Trials can’t rob you of joy. In fact, experiencing trials make the mountains more glorious and eternity sweeter. Death can’t defeat you. Christ defeated it and therefore it has not sting – gateway to glory. All of these truths are rooted by the gospel – the good news of Jesus Christ who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The gospel says, “God is for you.” The gospel says, “Christ died for you.” The gospel says, “You are more than a conqueror.” The gospel says nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord who lived, died, rose, and now reigns.

Ecclesiastes 7:19-29 Wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city.

20 Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

21 Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. 22 Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others.

23 All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me. 24 That which has been is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out?

25 I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness. 26 And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her. 27 Behold, this is what I found, says the Preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things— 28 which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found. 29 See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.

Throughout Ecclesiastes the Preacher consistently described his pursuit of wisdom. He really wanted to know how to live in this world in the best possible way and he understood wisdom to be the means to that end. Sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, page after page we find the Preacher in various states of progress and regress in his wisdom quest. Our passage for this morning is no different. In it, we’ll find some of wisdom’s benefits, limitations, and conclusions.

The big idea of this passage is that under the sun wisdom has both significant benefits and limitations. Its primary benefit is just what the Preacher sought: Valuable guidance for living well. And its primary limitations are that it’s very elusive and never sufficient. The main takeaway, then, is to earnestly seek the right kind of wisdom, in the right place, and to the right end.

One of the questions that has ever-surrounded Ecclesiastes concerns the author: Who wrote it?

You may remember something I’ve already addressed concerning the authorship of Ecclesiastes. I mentioned the probability that there is more than one “author”. That is, it is likely that Ecclesiastes is a collection of the sayings of Solomon, compiled by a “frame narrator”. If that’s the case, it is the “frame narrator” who wrote 1:1-11 and 12:9-14 (notice the third person voice in both)—the very beginning and end.

I mention all of this here because of 7:27. It is the only other place in Ecclesiastes that the “frame narrator” explicitly “frames” the voice of Solomon.

More than a fun, trivia fact, it helps us see an important piece of the nature of the inspiration of the Bible.

When I first became a Christian, I had no real idea of what the Bible was. I knew it was important and that God was somehow involved in its authorship, but nothing was clear in my mind. At best, I understood the Bible to be God’s Word in a very, very flat sense. That is, I recall not having any understanding at all of the chronology, history, genres, cultures, human authorship, etc.

In other words, back then, I would have had no idea what to do with a book like Ecclesiastes in general (poetic, anonymous, in the voice of someone who probably didn’t actually write it, written from an almost exclusively “under the sun” perspective, etc.) or 7:27 in particular (someone other than [what I understood as] the divinely inspired author making comments in the midst of the divine inspiration).

But what would have tripped me up and made me nervous then, is a source of great encouragement and joy today.

What I now know, and what is a great source of encouragement now, is that God inspired different men, in different ways, at different times, to write in different styles and languages, to address different things and, cumulatively, to tell one grand story of His glory in the creation, fall, redemption, and restoration of His people.

In that way, I truly love the idea that God chose to inspire an anonymous narrator, to frame up the words of an anonymous author, who spoke in the voice of King Solomon. Ecclesiastes 7:27 is another reminder that God is not bound by human limitations and that His glory is most often seen most clearly when He works in ways that are beyond human limitations; in ways that defy human wisdom; in ways that are only sweet sounding to those who have spiritual ears.

With that, let’s consider the benefits of wisdom from a few non-proverb proverbs (found in vs.19-21).

The first benefit of wisdom named in our passage is that it is supremely valuable. Before we consider that from v.19, I’d like to point you to a different passage in a different wisdom book. In my estimation, one of the most helpful places to go to see the value of wisdom is Job 28. (We’ll come back to Job 28 a few more times as well.)

15 It [wisdom] cannot be bought for gold, and silver cannot be weighed as its price. 16 It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, in precious onyx or sapphire. 17 Gold and glass cannot equal it, nor can it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold. 18 No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal; the price of wisdom is above pearls. 19 The topaz of Ethiopia cannot equal it, nor can it be valued in pure gold.

Wisdom is so valuable that it cannot be bought with the finest, purest gold, precious onyx or sapphire, glass, jewels, coral, crystal, pearls, or topaz. Its value exceeds them all.

In v.19 of our passage for this morning, the Preacher’s comparison is a bit more modest, but he affirms the unparalleled value of wisdom in his own way. He says that it is so valuable that one man with wisdom is stronger than ten of the most powerful men without it.

19 Wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city.

The simple picture the Preacher is trying to paint is that of a town that is governed by a group of capable men. In any city, that’s a significant asset. But the Preacher says that one man with the right kind of wisdom is a better, stronger ruler than ten who don’t have it. Wisdom is so valuable that it provides a ten-fold return on investment.

Kids especially, this is a good place to pause and ask whether this is how you view wisdom. Do you want to have wisdom more than you want to have fun? Do you want to be wise more than you want to be entertained? Do you want to gain wisdom more than you want to gain money or toys or candy or technology or popularity (more on that in v.21) or success in extracurricular activities?

If your answer to any of those questions (and all others like it) is “no,” then your value system is out of calibration, you are thinking foolishly, and you are destined to live a disordered and frustrated life. Wisdom’s first benefit is that it is more valuable than all of those things and we ought to ask God to help us see that and get wisdom.

The next benefit of wisdom is found in the next verse (v.20).

20 Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

This is one of the more concise statements in the Bible on the fallen nature of all mankind. The Preacher echoes this sentiment in vs.27-28 and it is right up there with Genesis 6:5 and Mark 10:18 and Romans 3:23 and 5:12.

Genesis 6:5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Mark 10:18 Jesus said …, “… No one is good except God alone.

Romans 3:23 …all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…

Romans 5:12 …sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned…

Wisdom recognizes sin as sin. More particularly, wisdom is able to see that everyone is sinful. Not everyone is as bad as everyone else and no one is as bad as they could be, but there is no person born of Adam who is truly good either.

I promise not to get too far into the weeds on this one, but it’s worth noting here that one of the greatest causes of the current, prevalent, and dominant animosity in our culture is rooted in two competing understandings of man’s basic nature.

A good many people in our society believe mankind to be essentially good. And the rest (even if for non-biblical reasons) believe we are essentially corrupted in nature. Like I said, I’m not going to attempt to really unpack this right now, but I am going to invite you to consider the implications of each perspective for the purpose of government, the source of suffering in the word, the kinds of laws we need, the best economic system, the best education, personal responsibility, the solution to our problems, and any other big question in life.

It is my contention that the more you’re able to trace those two conflicting understandings of human nature through each of those issues, the more you’ll be able to understand why things are the way they are.

But the Preacher saw then, what we must come to terms with now: Only one of those views is rooted in wisdom. Only one is true. The other is from folly. The other is false. And the critically serious implications of getting that wrong is one more reason why wisdom is so valuable. Wisdom recognizes sin as sin and all mankind as sinners.

The good news of Christianity is that one day there was a righteous man on earth who did only good and never sinned. His name is Jesus and He came to take away the sins of the world. As we’ll come back to, trusting in this requires a different kind of wisdom, a kind the Preacher lacked, and a kind which God alone can give.

The third benefit of wisdom is that it teaches us to carefully measure words—others and ours—in order to keep us from having and causing wounded hearts. Look at v.21 to see what I mean.

21 Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you.

From the outset, it’s important to recognize something the Preacher didn’t say. He didn’t advise his readers not to take anything people say to heart. We are not indifferent the perspective people have of us. Wisdom recognizes that other people are often a critical component of seeing ourselves accurately. Wise people offer themselves up to wise people for review. (“It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.”)

What he does say, though, is not to take to heart everything (“all the things”) others say about us. In particular, we’re not to take to heart the things we hear from them that we were not meant to hear.

The Preacher’s wording is a bit tricky to follow, but his main, two-fold point is pretty straight forward. First, from the second half of the verse, we learn the basic principle that wisdom is careful about listing in when others are talking about us.

One of the commentators I read this week reminded me of a scene from C.S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The Dawn Treader, a Narnian ship, made land on the Island of the Voices and things were clearly off right from the beginning. It turns out that the island was inhabited by a group of *people* who had magically made themselves invisible and needed help becoming visible again.

Lucy agreed to try to find a reverse spell of some sort in the book of magic found in a house on the island. As she was looking through it, “she came to a spell which would let you know what your friends thought about you.” Folly got the better of her and she said the words on the page. The result was that she immediately saw two of her school friends speaking together on a train.

“Shall I see anything of you this term?” said Anne, “or are you still going to be all taken up with Lucy Pevensie.” “Don’t know what you mean by taken up,” said Marjorie. “Oh yes, you do,” said Anne. “You were crazy about her last term.” “No, I wasn’t,” said Marjorie. “I’ve got more sense than that. Not a bad little kid in her way. But I was getting pretty tired of her before the end of term.”

Predictability, Lucy was hurt, angered, and wished she hadn’t heard her friends cursing her.

That’s the first bit of wisdom the Preacher: No one is meant to know everything that others think about them. For all kinds of reasons that’s not healthy. Grace, be careful with your ears; with what you allow yourself to hear.

The second aspect of the Preacher’s point is that if you do hear someone say something about you (especially something that you weren’t meant to hear), don’t take it too seriously. We shouldn’t, but as the Preacher observed, fallen people talk about fallen people. And we tend to do so in particularly flippant ways when they’re not around that we’d never do in their presence. We mean what we say, but not totally, and the “not totally” part is often lost in the unguarded way we say it to others.

The Preacher’s proof of this is a mirror. He invites us to consider ourselves, “22 Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others.” In other words, if you hear someone say something about you that hurts, before you let it sink in too deeply, remember the last time you did the same thing. You shouldn’t have said what you said, but you didn’t mean it the way it probably would have been taken (and neither does the person who spoke of you).

As true as all that is, let me give you a few more above the sun reasons why you ought not take to heart all the things that people say about you.

The bigger application for all of us—even though the Preacher doesn’t mention it—is not to talk trash in the first place. Never say something about someone in their absence that you wouldn’t say in their presence. And never say something in their presence that is corrupting or non-grace giving. A verse to this effect that I’ve been spending a good deal of time on lately is Ephesians 4:29.

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Cursing others (in this sense) is to belittle them, to account them as small and insignificant. And that is corrupting talk. May there be none of that among us.

We’ve seen from Ecclesiastes 7:19 and Job 28 that wisdom is virtually invaluable. At the same time, however, the Preacher has been clear on the fact that wisdom also has limits. In our passage he lists another: Wisdom is elusive. As we saw earlier, its value is through the roof, but so too is the difficulty in getting it. The Preacher tried and tried and tried, but in many ways he came up short.

23 All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me. 24 That which has been is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out?

In the next verse, the Preacher continued on with that theme, “25 I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things.”

In other words, the Preacher was still on the same quest in chapter 7 as he was in the very beginning, “I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven” (1:13).

And the main point is that wisdom has never been right there to be easily grasped by anyone who wants it. The Preacher’s heart had to turn (away from seeking pleasure to seeking wisdom). He had to search for wisdom (because it wasn’t easily found). He had to seek it out (because it is elusive in this broken world).

But what does such a turning, searching, and seeking look like? How hard is it? For an answer to that, we’ll return to Job 28. The passage begins with a description of the treacherous mining practices of the ancient world. Consider what it took to extract silver, gold, and precious stones from the earth.

Job 28:1-28 “Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold that they refine. 2 Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted from the ore. 3 Man puts an end to darkness and searches out to the farthest limit the ore in gloom and deep darkness. 4 He opens shafts in a valley away from where anyone lives; they are forgotten by travelers; they hang in the air, far away from mankind; they swing to and fro. 5 As for the earth, out of it comes bread, but underneath it is turned up as by fire. 6 Its stones are the place of sapphires, and it has dust of gold.

7 “That path no bird of prey knows, and the falcon’s eye has not seen it. 8 The proud beasts have not trodden it; the lion has not passed over it.

9 “Man puts his hand to the flinty rock and overturns mountains by the roots. 10 He cuts out channels in the rocks, and his eye sees every precious thing. 11 He dams up the streams so that they do not trickle, and the thing that is hidden he brings out to light.

We’re meant to be surprised by this description—how hard it was to get silver and gold and the fact that men were willing to go to those lengths to get it, to satisfy their desire for wealth. And then, as Job continues, we’re meant to be even more surprised to find that there is something immeasurably more valuable and elusive than that.

12 “But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? 13 Man does not know its worth, and it is not found in the land of the living. 14 The deep says, ‘It is not in me,’ and the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’ … 20 “From where, then, does wisdom come? And where is the place of understanding? 21 It is hidden from the eyes of all living and concealed from the birds of the air. 22 Abaddon and Death say, ‘We have heard a rumor of it with our ears.’

As valuable and hard to come by as is silver, gold, and stones, wisdom is tenfold, a hundredfold both. The Preacher was able to observe both of those things and he wrote this passage, in part, to help his readers—to help us—learn his hard-won lesson: Folly is everywhere, but under the sun wisdom is exceedingly hard to come by. It’s worth seeking despite its high price, and as we gain it, we’re better able to navigate life in this vain world, but it is harder to come by than we realize.

At the same time, however, and more importantly, under the sun wisdom has a far more significant limitation than its elusivity. As we’ve already seen in Ecclesiastes, its greatest limitation is its inability to lead us to the solution to our greatest need. I’ll come back to that in a bit as we turn our attention to the Preacher’s final thoughts.

We’ve considered wisdom’s benefits (its value for under the sun living, its recognition of sin as sin, and its warning to carefully measure words). We’ve also considered its limits (primarily its elusivity and insufficiency). And now, finally, we’ll consider its conclusions.

Once again, of wisdom, the Preacher said, “25 I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness.”

We’re right to wonder what he found after all the turning, searching, and seeking.

The Preacher came to three conclusions, each indicated by the same word: “found”. He found enticing women, the rarity of anyone walking in wisdom and virtue, and man’s responsibility for man’s corruption.

First, enticing women, “26 And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her.”

By applying the beneficial and elusive wisdom he did discover, the Preacher’s first conclusion is particularly surprising/fascinating. He concluded that life under the sun contains something even worse tasting (more bitter) than death: women who are like traps. Women who capture and bind unexpecting men.

We’re not sure exactly what the Preacher had in mind, but as one speaking in the voice of Solomon, it’s hard not to have passages like Proverbs 5 ringing in our ears, “the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, 4 but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. 5 Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol …8 Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house …”

That which is more bitter than death, most likely, is the seductress. It is the temptress whose heart is snares, nets, and fetters. The Preacher’s wisdom led him to conclude that she is ever-present under the sun and able to capture (snares and nets) and constrain (fetters) the sinner. She takes him at her will and to his surprise.

On the other hand, the Preacher’s wisdom also led him to conclude that “he who pleases God escapes her”. Does that mean that God graciously grants escape to those with whom He is pleased or does it mean that it is those who escape her that please God? Most certainly, the answer is: Both!

Wisdom calls you, ladies, to flee from being a seductress. Don’t set traps in anything you do. Whatever benefit you may get from it is fake. It’s as much as a trap for you as the one you’re laying for others.

And wisdom calls to us, men: flee from the seductress. Don’t go near her. Avoid her every hiding place. You know where she’s found, take the long way around to avoid her. She will destroy you. She promises the sweetness of honey but she can only give the bitterness of wormwood. She promises happiness, but she will cut you to pieces.

If you’re currently in her snare, confess, repent. There is forgiveness and healing in Jesus and help in this church.

All mankind is sinful and wisdom is elusive. The Preacher’s second wisdom conclusion, therefore, should be no surprise: Wisdom and virtue among mankind is exceedingly rare.

27 Behold, this is what I found, says the Preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things— 28 which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found.

The Preacher looked around and saw the temptress capturing foolish sinners everywhere. So, where were those who pleased the Lord in their wisdom and virtue? They were, in his lifetime of observation, nowhere to be found. Among two thousand men and women carefully watched by the Preacher, he only fund one person among them who was genuinely wise and virtuous.

Oh, Grace Church, may we humble ourselves before the Lord. May we recognize the ease with which we can encounter folly and wickedness and the gift it is every time we find wisdom and righteousness.

Third and finally, in his wisdom the Preacher concluded that mankind is responsible for mankind’s corruption.

29 See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.

Echoing Genesis 1-3, the Preacher saw that while God made man good, man almost immediately sought out corruption. Any good in us is from the Lord, even as our sin is our doing.

God’s conclusion in Job 28:28 sums this up well, “…Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.”

At the end of the day, when all we have in the way of wisdom is what our senses and reason can find, this (Job 28:28) is about the best we can do. Creation is sufficient to conclude that God is real and the image of God in us is sufficient to convict us of our sin against Him. Fear God and stop rebelling against Him.

True as that is, once again, the Preacher’s wisdom leaves us with a clear diagnosis of the problem without any real solution. Under the sun wisdom is worth having as a means of living well on earth. But in spite of millennia of mankind’s best efforts, it has never been sufficient to devise a means of rescuing us from our sin.

We need the Word of God to know a fuller measure of wisdom. For that, and in conclusion, we’ll turn one more time to Job 28.

23 “God understands the way to it, and he knows its place. 24 For he looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens. 25 When he gave to the wind its weight and apportioned the waters by measure, 26 when he made a decree for the rain and a way for the lightning of the thunder, 27 then he saw it and declared it; he established it, and searched it out.

The fact that wisdom is as valuable and as this elusive as we’ve seen, coupled with the fact that under the sun wisdom is enough to reveal our condemnation but not our salvation, helps us to see how praise-worthy it is that God has all wisdom! He has perfect wisdom of our fallen condition as well as the means of our rescue!

Jesus is the wisdom of God and the salvation of mankind. He is both for all who have been graciously brought to understand that we cannot discover, earn, reason out, work at, or otherwise acquire either on our own. Jesus is above the sun wisdom and eternal salvation for those who recognize their sin and God alone as sufficient to save.

The big idea of this passage is that under the sun wisdom has both significant benefits and limitations. But the big idea of the rest of God’s Word is that above the sun wisdom is what we truly need. The main takeaway, then, is to earnestly seek the right kind of wisdom (above the sun), in the right place (in Jesus Christ, the wisdom and word of God), and to the right end (the glory of God and the salvation of our souls). May it be so today, Grace.

Ecclesiastes 7:13-18 Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked? 14 In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.

15 In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing. 16 Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? 17 Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? 18 It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them.

I know you’ve heard me say this before about other parts of Ecclesiastes, but I’m really, really thankful for this passage. It is so clear on something that that is often so fuzzy in our minds and so necessary for our lives.

The book as a whole is unflinchingly honest about matters of everyday life (which the Preacher, the author of Ecclesiastes calls “life under the sun”). Taken at face value, there are times in which the honesty might leave us feeling discouraged or even depressed. Other times, it’s definitely more encouraging. In every case, though, it’s a gift from God in that it cuts right through the lies that we hear so often from people who either don’t really know how things are or are purposely trying to deceive us about them.

Our passage for today is one of the most important lie-cutters in the entire book. We tend to believe that God is involved in the straight and prosperous aspects of our lives, but not in the crooked and adverse times. Likewise, we tend to think that living as God intends somehow necessitates a longer or “better” life under the sun than someone who is wicked. This passage explicitly corrects those mistaken lines of thinking. It also tells us what’s at stake if we continue to believe them and gives us (most of) the antidote for them.

The big idea of this passage and sermon is that God is sovereign over every aspect of our lives in such a way that we cannot predict how things will turn out or know precisely what God is doing in them. He is God of the crooked as well as the straight and the prosperous as well as the adverse. And each of those things are tools for His revelation of His glory, His judgment of His enemies, and His blessing of His people. The main takeaways are cultivating humility, the fear of God, and trust in God.

Have you ever wondered about God’s involvement in the harder things in your life? Losing your job? The unfaithfulness of a spouse? Bearing the brunt of someone else’s sin? Losing a loved one? Parenting a wayward child? The perennial loss of your favorite sports team in the most heart-breaking fashion possible? Financial troubles? Enduring a prolonged health struggle yourself or with someone you love?

When times are good, it’s easy to picture God as blessing you, but where is He when things are hard? Is He present and sad along with you? Is He absent and sad for you? Is He able to stop it, but chooses not to? Is He unable to stop it, but wishes He could? Is He off somewhere else entirely and is unaware of your situation? Or, is He somehow involved in the hard thing itself?

In the opening two verses of this next section, the Preacher commands his readers to consider something specific concerning God’s involvement in the events of our lives.

13 Consider the work of God…

“Consider the work of God,” is more than a suggestion. It is a command. And it is more than a simple charge to look around and make a few notes concerning God’s handiwork. It is a command to think carefully about how God is involved in your life. It is a command, as the next part of the verse makes clear, to consider the fact that God is actively and inexorably working in every everything you experience. The Preacher comes at that idea from two directions (one in v.13 and another in v.14), but his point is fundamentally the same in both.

The Preacher introduces the first aspect of God’s work—the work he commands us to consider—with a question.

13 Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?

When something is crooked, it is out of alignment. It has lost its original shape. This can refer to preferential crookedness (unmet desires or expectations), structural crookedness (missing a finger or a corrupted judicial system), and moral crookedness (lying or stealing). The Preacher has preferential and structural crookedness in mind here, but there are many biblical examples of God’s hand in all three.

To state it even more clearly: one of the key assumptions embedded in the Preacher’s question is that there are times in which God makes things crooked. That probably sounds a little funny. It should. We need to be careful here. To be crystal clear, God never does evil (Job 34:12) and God does not tempt people to evil (James 1:13). At the same time, as this verse makes unmistakable, there are times in which God does make things crooked.

When it comes to matters of preferential crookedness, it is clear that God called Moses to be His spokesman even though Moses really didn’t want to (Exodus 4:10-14). Likewise, even though Judas preferred that Mary’s expensive ointment be sold and the money given to the poor (really because he wanted the money for himself), it was God’s plan to use Mary’s lavish gesture to anoint Jesus for burial (John 12:1-8). While Moses and Judas would have called their circumstances crooked, it’s clear that both were brought about by the hand of God.

What preferences in your life are not being met in a frustrating way (which seem crooked to you)? Do you wish you were younger, smarter, stronger, or better looking? Would you prefer a different job? Or, maybe you’re OK with your job, but are frustrated by the pay or hours or expectations or misuse of your skills or the fact that you’re not yet able to retire? Was it your plan to already be married or have kids or have more kids or more obedient kids or have your kids out of the house by now?

And how do you process all of that preferential crookedness in relation to God?

When it comes to structural crookedness, we saw in John that there was a man born blind, so that Jesus would be glorified in his healing (John 9:3), and we saw Lazarus become sick and die, his sisters were overcome with grief, so that Jesus could raise him from the dead (John 11:6). Similarly, God used the bent systems of justice among the Romans and Jews to bring about the salvation of the world.

Are you dealing with a health or other issue in your body that just isn’t right? Is your home or work system bent in a frustrating way? Have you ever experienced injustice with your siblings, parents, friends, spouse, or within the judicial system? Can you feel the weight of the crookedness of the world around you?

Again, how do you understand God’s hand in those things, in relation to the structural crookedness that’s all around you?

The Preacher’s point is that the exact relationship between our unmet preferences, the failings of our bodies and culture, and God’s specific plan for those things in our lives is not usually very clear. But what is clear throughout the Bible in general, and in Ecc. 7:13 in particular, is that their crookedness is under the sovereign hand of God.

The main idea here is that God is working in the crooked things in our life as much as the straight things.

All by itself, we might not know what to do with that. The Preacher doesn’t say anything about God’s motives behind His involvement in crooked things. The gods of the nations were believed to be involved in everyday things, crooked and straight, but they were fickle gods. Their motives ranged from happiness to anger, from blessing to curse, and from intentional to flippant. Is that what the Preacher had in mind? He doesn’t say.

But where the Preacher is silent, the rest of God’s Word is loud and clear. God is working in all things, at all times, for the glory of His name and the good of His people (Romans 8:28-29).

There is genuine rest in this knowledge if we will receive it in faith. It frees us from making idols of our preferences, being crushed by our brokenness, and being trapped in bitterness over the sins of others.

The question, then, once again, is: Who can make straight what he has made crooked? If God makes something crooked—like our health or relationships—how do we get it straightened? How do we undo the difficulties we face at God’s hand. Or, rather, who can undo those difficulties?

There are two biblical answers to the Preacher’s question. The first, and the one the Preacher has in mind, is: No one! No one can undo that which God has determined to be. God alone is God. He has no equals. He does whatever He chooses (Psalm 115:3) and no one can stay His hand.

Isaiah 14 says, “24 The Lord of hosts has sworn: “As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.” And, “27 For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?”

There is simply no question that no one can straighten that which God means to be crooked. That’s the Preacher’s main and emphatic point.

Grace, learn now, therefore, what the Preacher observed everywhere he looked: God does what He wants and any attempt to go against that is vanity of vanities. Things are as God means them to be and no one, not even all the children of Adam and all the hosts of heaven combined, can make anything the tiniest bit straighter or crookeder against God’s will. He is God and you are not, the Preacher saw.

The sooner we settle on that, the better off we will be.

But there’s another answer to the question as well. It’s not the point of this passage, so I’ll only briefly mention it. Faithful men and women of God can (and must) make straight that which God has made crooked. Of course, we can only do so according to the will of God, once God has determined that it ought to be made straight again, but God’s commands are everywhere for His people to straighten crooked things. In that way, much of what it means to follow Jesus, much of what it means to be a Christian, is seeking, in faith, to make crooked things straight.

That is why we take people to the doctor, bring food to the homeless, and adopt orphans. It’s also why we pray, share the gospel with unbelievers, walk with brothers and sisters in Christ through sin struggles, and practice the spiritual disciplines ourselves—because God has determined to use those things to make crooked things straight.

Let us consider, therefore, Grace Church, the fact that things are crooked because God sovereignly uses their crookedness for His glory and the good of His people. And they will remain, unchangeably crooked until God determines to make them straight again (often through the faithful obedience of His people).

The second way the Preacher invites us to consider the work of God in our lives is to consider God’s work on opposite days—days of prosperity and adversity.

14 In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other…

Again, it’s easy for most people to recognize the goodness of God when things are going well; when our days are prosperous and joyful; when they are as we would like them to be. That fits well with our conception of God. That fits well with God’s nature. It is right to acknowledge that He is a God who loves to bless.

It is also right, therefore, to praise God when you are living in obedience to God and things are going well. Be joyful. Be merry. Refuse to feel guilty, to anxiously wait for things to take a downward turn, and to resist God’s gift. God has made your days of prosperity.

At the same time, as with the previous point, while it’s counterintuitive to think of God being just as good and just as sovereign over our days of adversity, the Preacher states, unequivocally, “God made the one as well as the other.”

Crooked and straight, prosperous and adverse; all are from the same hand of God.

In this way, Grace, we are right to thank God for our times of hardship, crookedness, and adversity as much as for our times of blessing, prosperity, and joy. His work is no less glorious and good in one or the other. By God’s design, we need one as much as the other.

Really practically, while it is usually right to work in faith to straighten crooked things—in our lives and the lives of others—there’s a distinctly Christian way to do so.

I once had a very discouraged young man tell me that he was reluctant to take his doctor’s advice and go on medication for it because he was afraid of losing any of the recognition of his dependence on God that his perpetual discouragement brought. If medicine would return him to a false sense of self-sufficiency, he didn’t want it. He preferred to stay crooked and aware of his dependence than to get straightened out and oblivious to his need for God.

That’s what it means to take the Preacher’s observations and live them out in light of the gospel.

If God has determined to glorify His name and sanctify His people through trial, oughtn’t we count the trial as joyful as the times of prosperity (James 1:2)?

The verse ends in a way that probably isn’t entirely clear. The Preacher says that the reason God makes days of prosperity and adversity is “So that man may not find out anything that will be after him.” But what does that mean?

As we saw in chapters 3(:22) and 6(:12), and as we’ll see again in chapter 10(:14), “that will be after him” is a common phrase for the Preacher. His point in using it is that because of the way God works in the world—using straight and crooked alike in unpredictable ways to accomplish His purposes—we cannot know with certainty what we’re going to experience later today, much less at some point in the future, much less after we’re dead.

God works in mysterious ways, in part, so that we will depend on Him and not ourselves or our wisdom.

Nearly every time I think I know what God’s up to, and can predict what’s next, He does something very different. I thought I was going to be a lawyer in Michigan, I’m a pastor in Minnesota. I thought I’d have one or maybe two kids, I have five. I thought I’d start in college ministry, I was a youth pastor (the one thing I didn’t want to do). I thought I’d be the pastor of discipleship at Grace for my whole time here, that only lasted five years and I’m coming up on fifteen as the preaching pastor. I thought it’d take weeks or months to raise the money we needed to buy and renovate the church, it took 48 hours. I thought I’d have a life-time of ministry alongside about a dozen people who are no longer here. I thought the Lions would win the Superbowl in my lifetime…

This is almost always the case for everyone by God’s design. God is at work in every aspect of our lives, it is always good, but His work takes different and usually unpredictable shapes. And part of the point of God’s working like this, the Preacher saw, was to keep us dependent on God.

Consider the whole spectrum of the works of God, Grace. As you do, consider what they reveal about your understanding of and need for God. That leads to the next, related section.

In language consistent with the rest of Ecclesiastes, the Precher declared…

15 In my vain life I have seen everything… Everything?! I love this. Who talks like that? The Preacher sure understood himself to have an exceptionally privilidged frame of reference.

The Preacher continues by recounting one of the “everythings” that he saw. He saw righteous people die young and wicked people live long.

15 … There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing.

I have an uncle who made a similar observation years ago. He was in the middle of complaining about his doctor giving him a hard time about all his smoking and drinking and he blurted out, “I know a guy who never drank a day in his life and exercised constantly—he ran marathons—who dropped dead of a heart attack at 50.”

The Preacher’s point is largely the same as in the previous section, things in this life are often contrary to what we expect. Sometimes righteous men die early and the wickedness of wicked men prolong their lives. Both, the Preacher observed, were equally “made by God.”

Rather than offer any explanation for why God works like that, the Preacher moved straight to how we ought to live in light of that. We get the sense that he’s mainly given up attempting to understand why God does what He does and has turned his attention to a more attainable goal: figuring out what to do in light of the fact that He does.

From there, then, the Preacher concludes by explaining how and how not to respond to God’s unpredictable, mysterious ways. He tells us how to live in such a way that will destroy us in light of the providence of God and how to live in a way that makes sense in light of it.

In light of having seen everything, of having seen that God makes straight and crooked things, prosperous and adverse things, in light of the fact that the righteous die young and the wicked die old at God’s hand, the Preacher noted four ways to make a wreck of our lives. He said…

16 Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? 17 Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time?

Those who are overly righteous, wise, wicked, and foolish destroy themselves and die early. There are two ways of interpreting these warnings, and scholars are fairly neatly divided between the two.

The first way takes this in a purely practical and highly skeptical way. The basic idea is that the Preacher is unconcerned with acting in ways that please God and is only concerned with how to live most comfortably in this vain world.

In that way, people who are particularly righteous tend to have a harder time because they are always swimming against the current. Which of the godly prophets wasn’t killed for their godly prophecy (Acts 7). No one likes someone who is really holy because it makes them feel guilty, so don’t try to be too righteous.

Likewise, most of the world prefers small doses of wisdom and large doses of folly. If you are too wise, therefore, you’re just going to be annoying. So, if you want to live in the world as it is, which isn’t as it seems like it should be by God’s design, get enough wisdom to be just a bit in front of others, but not too much.

The same thing holds true on the other side of the equation as well, under this first reading. No one likes a goody two-shoes or a smarty pants, so it’s good to have at least a little wickedness and folly in you. At the same time, though, no one wants to be around someone who is thoroughly wicked and foolish. Total wickedness is scary, total folly is annoying. So, even though the wicked and the foolish sometimes live longer than the rest in the world as God has made it, don’t be overly wicked or foolish because who cares if you live longer if you do so entirely despised by everyone around you.

That’s one possible reading of this passage. It’d certainly be consistent with some of the other things the Preacher wrote. And on a purely under the sun level, it’s certainly true.

But, as I said, there’s a second possible reading of the Preacher’s thoughts here—it’s the one I find more likely.

In the other reading, the basic idea is that because of who God is and how He works, living well in this world means not thinking of yourself as more righteous or wise than you really are. It means not relying on your own righteousness or wisdom. It means not being “overly righteous” and “too wise” in the sense of self-righteous and wise in your own eyes. It means recognizing that your best efforts still fall short of a God who is holy, holy, holy and your best wisdom is still folly compared to a God who knows all things.

Continuing with that notion, the Preacher’s admonition to not be “overly wicked” or foolish is not a prescription for a little wickedness or foolishness, it’s a warning against giving into wickedness or folly. The Preacher knows that everyone sins. He even knows (as we just read) that sometimes the wicked outlive the righteous. But both of those things are significantly different than giving entirely into sin, which is functionally asking to “die before your time.”

Once again, I think the best reading of this passage is probably a simple warning, flowing out of a lifetime of watching people suffer the consequences of not taking sin seriously; which is certainly just as much of a problem today as it was in the Preacher’s day

How many times have I heard people flippantly comment, “I don’t want there to be a god who allows the kind of evil and suffering that are in this world”? Or ask, “Why would I want to go to heaven when all my friends are in hell?” Or conclude of the Bible’s claims, “I can’t believe anyone actually believes this.”?

Maybe even more egregious are Christians playing around with little bits of sin or fearlessly making peace with lots of sin. Almost no one says it out loud, but who among us hasn’t thought or functionally lived out the idea that it’s not that big of deal to watch a little sexual immorality or coarsely joke around once in a while or make light of the Lord’s Day by preferring your kids’ sports/other extracurricular activity or hunting or party prepping or simply sleeping? Likewise, everyone I’ve ever pastored through a more egregious sin has created a story to justify it in their own minds.

(Years ago, I heard this illustration from another pastor. I know I’ve shared it before, but I’ve still never come across a better one.) There was a shampoo company who filmed a commercial featuring a woman and a lion, both of whom had their hair washed by the shampoo. The key scene in the commercial was the woman sitting on the back of the lion with her hair mingling with the similarly colored and vibrant lion’s mane. As you might have guessed, although things went well initially, the lion eventually attacked the woman. Everyone involved made the mistake of believing they could truly domesticate one of the fiercest animal predators on earth. That’s what we constantly do with sin, the Preacher concluded. We may be able to play around with it for a time, but it will eventually turn on us with devastating consequences. The lion’s nature is to hunt, kill and eat. Sin’s nature is to corrupt and destroy.

Those who fail to take sin seriously will destroy themselves and the Preacher wondered why anyone would want to do that.

That leads to one more question and our final verse for this morning. The question is: Given who God is (holy, holy, holy) and how God works in the world (in mysterious and unpredictable ways), how do we avoid the trap of not taking sin seriously enough? Or, how do we take sin seriously? The Preacher’s answer is in v.18.

18 It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them.

The Preacher concluded that the ability to heed his wisdom comes from learning to fear God.

For every non-Christian, the continual fear of the Lord is the only right response to reality. The idea of the just wrath of the almighty God burning white hot against you, wrath so fierce, stored up for sin so foul, that eternity is needed to inflict it, wrath continually a mere second away, being held at bay by nothing other than the undeserved patience of God, the idea of that wrath ought to do one of two things.

It ought to either completely paralyze you in fear or it ought to cause you to throw yourself upon God for mercy. Nothing else makes sense. Any other response can only flow from ignorance or irrationality.

If that’s you, if your hope is not in God, if you do not know what it means to receive God’s mercy, the Preacher of Ecclesiastes and I invite you to learn the fear of the Lord, to cry out to God to teach you to learn to fear Him. And as you do, I invite you to turn in that fear to Jesus, who alone is sufficient to absorb God’s wrath on your behalf. That’s what He did on the cross for all who will hope in Him alone.

And if you are a Christian, a brief word on the nature and necessity of Christian fear of God from a pastor wiser than I.

“Philippians 2:12–13 [says]: ‘Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you.’ This is really interesting. You should fear and tremble because God is working to keep you. And I think it means the sheer awesome presence of God in our lives working for us, not against us, should produce trembling. That is amazing. So, the New Testament treats the fear of God as a motive for not turning away from him. We should fear in the sense that we seek refuge from God away from God’s terrible wrath. God’s grace in Christ is the refuge from God’s wrath outside Christ. There is terror outside of Christ, and there is a different kind of trembling inside of Christ.” The kind that motivates us to turn away from sin.

In conclusion, things only look mysterious, unpredictable, and crooked for us. For God, it is all clear, purposeful, and straight. Under God’s sovereign reign, all things are moving with perfect efficiency, in the best way possible, toward the restoration of all things. Jesus’ death, resurrection, and reign made that certain.

Therefore, let us live by faith in the promises of God, come what may, in the certain knowledge that it is from the hand of God for glory and good. And let us, therefore, in the power of the Spirit and the company of God’s people, cultivate humility, the fear of God, and trust in God, in order that we might walk at all times and in all ways according to the way things are, by God’s design, for God’s glory, and for the good of all.

Ecclesiastes 7:10-12 Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.

11 Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun.

12 For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.

Our final set of proverbs (for a while) gives us three significant sets of questions to consider.

If you could have been alive at any point in history, when would you choose and why? Or, when do you think was the best time to have lived?

When you are afraid, where do you go? Or, what provides you with the most (sense of) protection in life?

If there’s one thing you wish your parents would leave you with, what would it be? Or, if you could leave one thing behind for your kids—anything you want—what would you choose?

The Preacher’s proverbs in vs.10-12 point us to much of what our answers should be to those questions. Therefore, part of what it means to love God with all our minds includes considering them carefully.

To that end, we’ll carefully consider the wisdom of rejecting the myth of the glory days, of making use of the limited protection money and wisdom provide (out of order), and of getting above the sun and telling your kids what you see.

The big ideas of this passage are, once again, that God made the world to function in a certain way and, therefore, as we learn that way and conform to it, things tend to go better for us. Even as when we are ignorant of God’s ways or out of conformity with them, things tend to go worse. And the main takeaway is to order our lives according to God’s design and wisdom for His glory and our good.

Wisdom concerning the best days, the best protection, and the best inheritance. Let’s start at the beginning.

Again, if you could have been alive at any point in history, when would you choose and why?

We’ve all heard it. Most of us have said it. “When I was a kid, the music was better…the boys were tougher…the girls were girlier…politicians weren’t as divisive…schools actually taught us things…the fish and deer were bigger and more plentiful…kids respected their elders and people of authority…we weren’t drowning in debt…not everything caused cancer…people feared God more…etc. I wish we could go back to the good ‘ole days. Those days were better. Those were the glory days.”

In spite of the fact that as we age, we almost universally buy into the idea that the olden days were the glory days, it is a lie. It is a foolish notion. The Preacher tells us as much in v.10.

10 Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.

But if it’s not true that the former days were better than these, why do we all move toward thinking that way?

For the most part, it often seems to simply be a matter of having a bad or selective memory. I tend to long for the time when our kids were little, but I do so mainly because I forget about the near constant questions and neediness and discipline and sleeplessness and non-silence of those times. My memory has filtered out the challenges and overemphasized the good parts.

In a similar way, it can seem like the former days were better simply because some things in our lives and culture were better and we tend to focus on those. We remember the simpler, humbler, and more godly aspects of it, while forgetting the different complexities, hardships, and sins. Wisdom recognizes this and refuses to be discouraged in the present due to a longing for a selective/misremembered past.

But if it is not from wisdom that we think of the past as the glory days, how does wisdom call us to think about it?

In the Preacher’s language, it means recognizing that “there is nothing new under the sun” (1:9). And in that way, the former days aren’t the glory days any more than any other days since everything that is, already was, and will be again (1:10). Everything under the sun, the Preacher observed, is cyclical.

That’s why Ecclesiastes is as relevant today as it was when it was written, 3000 years ago. We experience the same basic, under the sun joys as they did then. Good friends, fruitful work, simple pleasures like eating, drinking, and merry-making, loving marriage and plenty of obedient kids.

In the same way, the same things that were hard and confusing and frustrating then, are today as well. Their struggles are our struggles. Grief, loss, money problems, death, injustice, sin, confusion about what God’s doing in our circumstances, elusive satisfaction, etc.

In other words, it is not from wisdom that we say the former days were better than our days because they weren’t in any meaningful, under the sun way.

From a more above the sun perspective, the former days aren’t the glory days because as long as man’s sin and God’s common grace are a part of our world, there will be some bad and some good, some harder and some easier. The only thing that really changes is the proportion of each in any given culture at any given time.

Under God’s providential reign, this is how it will be until the day of the Lord. It is not until Jesus returns and makes all things right that this cycle will totally end and we’ll really experience the glory days.

Living in light of this wisdom means, therefore, not pining for the days of old, but working to make Christ known in greater measure today. It means not wishing our culture was more godly (as in the past), but obeying and teaching the world all that Christ has commanded today. It means not being in a perpetual, discouraging quest to find greener grass, but working to make the grass greener wherever God has you and entrusting the results to Him. It means believing with all you have that the situation you are in is God’s greatest good for you (better than any other time in history) if you love Him.

And living in light of this wisdom means cultivating a true hunger for the full measure of our salvation so we will long for the real glory days. Fill your mind with the truths of heaven revealed to us in God’s Word (Heaven by Randy Alcorn or the chapter on the new heavens and earth in Grudem’s Systematic Theology). Ask God to help you long for all things new, rather than old things reshuffled; for the true glory days, not a fuller glimpse of their shadow.

When you are afraid, where do you go? Or, what provides you with the most protection in life?

Because I’m going to spend the bulk of my time on v.11, I’m going to address v.12 first. The two are connected in a more direct way than the other proverbs of this section. In v.11, the Preacher asserts that a good inheritance includes both money and wisdom. In v.12, he asserts one of the below the sun reasons wisdom and money are best paired together (and, therefore, make the best in heritance); namely, because the combination of the two provides a kind of protection that is greater than either can provide by itself.

With that, look with me at v.12.

12 For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.

In general, from an under the sun perspective, those with money tend to have more protection than those who do not. For instance, a big part of the Preacher’s perspective on life is that the poor are the most vulnerable to oppression since they lack the money needed to defend themselves.

Similarly, money is usually useful for providing protection in the form of walls, doors and locks, guards, and nicer neighborhoods to keep away those who would rob us.

And money can protect and preserve our lives in that it is necessary for insurance, doctors, hospitals, and medicines when we are hurt or sick.

And once again, those things are as true today as they were in the Preacher’s day. There is certainly a way in which money can provide protection and preservation for those who have it.

Likewise, with wisdom, we know to eat healthier, exercise, live within our means, save carefully, choose good friends, work and study hard, avoid fads, fear God, seek wise counsel, and think about and do things that matter—again, all things that help protect and preserve our lives by preventing many would-otherwise-be problems or better deal with them when they come.

Wisdom and money are alike in their ability to provide protection and preservation in a certain sense. All of this is fairly easy to see from an under the sun perspective.

At the same time, however, wisdom and money are also alike in their limited ability to protect and preserve; that is, they are limited in the adequacy of their ability to protect and preserve.

The Preacher made many observations concerning the fact that neither money nor wisdom are able to reliably protect or preserve us in even the most basic aspects of life. As we saw, at times they can and do to some degree, but never to the point that we can truly depend on them.

For instance, money and wisdom can be and often are lost in this life and so it’s foolish to set your hopes entirely on them. More than once, the Preacher observed people working hard all their lives, depriving themselves of pleasure for the sake of leaving an inheritance to their kids, only to have their kids act like fools or the inheritance end up in a stranger’s hands instead.

More significantly, an even more grievous observation of the Preacher, is the fact that the rich and wise always meet the same fate as the poor and foolish (death). No matter how much money and wisdom a person has, death comes for all. It’s inevitable.

And ultimately, money and wisdom are inadequate protections in the most significant way of all. Neither are able to protect a person from the most universal and greatest threat of all—the wages of sin. All of us are born into the sin of Adam and, consequently, all of us choose to sin like Adam. We are all, therefore, under the same condemnation as Adam—death.

No amount of money can hold back the wrath of God and no amount of wisdom is able to devise a way to get around it. In that way, all who hope in either their brain or their bank account to protect or preserve them will be terribly and eternally disappointed.

Living in light of this wisdom means working in such a way as to provide well for yourself and your family. We need to avoid adopting the wisdom of the world when it comes to defining what it means to provide well, and we need to avoid the trap of trusting in the money itself, but it has always been the case in the world God made that there is a kind of good protection and preservation that comes from having money set aside.

Even more significantly, living in light of this wisdom means ordering your life according to wisdom. Wisdom comes ultimately from God, for He alone is truly wise, but God often brings wisdom through certain, predictable means: age/experience, close relationships with wise people, and through reading the writings of wise people (especially those inspired with the wisdom of God—the Bible).

Practically, this means praying for wisdom (James 1:5), listening to your parents, sitting under the preached word each week, being in a DG with older, more experienced saints, learning to ask good questions of the right people and listening well to their answers, buying or borrowing good books (I’m still working on a list), and reading the Bible every day.

Most significantly of all, living in light of this wisdom means fixing your eyes on Jesus, the One and Only certain place of protection and preservation. He is our shield and we have no other. He uses means (like wisdom and money) at times, but Jesus alone can protect us from and preserve us through everything that would do us harm. His promises and power alone never fail.

And that leads to the final piece of wisdom that we’ll consider this morning.

If there’s one thing you wish your parents would leave you with, what would it be? Or, if you could leave one thing behind for your kids—anything you want—what would you choose?

In v.11, we get a simple, under the sun perspective on the combination of money and wisdom passed on.

11 Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun.

The wisdom of this proverb is twofold. First, when wisdom is added to the money, there’s greater protection and preservation still. It’s one thing to have money to throw at a problem. It’s something altogether better to have the wisdom needed to avoid the problem in the first place or navigate it best when it comes.

And second, the Preacher means us to take everything from the previous section (v.12) and think not only of its significance for our own lives, or even for our own families during our lives (while we “see the sun”), but as something to pass on to our kids as an inheritance as well.

The simple and straightforward wisdom of this verse, then, is that we ought to do our best to provide enough wisdom and money for the protection and preservation of our families now and when we can no longer see the sun. It is good to think towards the future.

Dads, on Father’s Day especially, this is a good reminder. Living in light of this wisdom means being an example of all of this to your kids. It means showing them how to pursue wisdom, take initiative, be productive, save responsibly, and generously look to the needs of others so they can continue doing so even after you are gone. That is the kind of under the sun inheritance they need most. That is the wisdom that the Preacher calls for and that is an important part of the kind of fatherhood that ought to be honored and deserves to be celebrated.

The Preacher says that wisdom, combined with resources, left as an inheritance, is an advantage to everyone who sees the sun.

At the same time, Dads, Grace Church, all of that by itself, at best, delays the inevitable. If that’s all we give our kids, it may be that they hold onto and even add to it for a while. It might even make its way down to their kids, kids, kids (your great, great grandkids).

But if that’s all they have, if that’s all we leave them with (under the sun wisdom and money), they will probably lose everything you leave them with before long and, far worse still, die in their sins. That’s the case with all the wisdom the Preacher has given us. By itself, everything the Preacher has said is a mist, a vapor, a puff of smoke. It’s armor for a moth heading toward a flame—useful to a point, but impotent against the real threat.

On top of that, none of the under the sun wisdom of the Preacher can find its fullest under the sun benefit apart from its place in the above the sun story. The Preacher helps us to understand and live consistently with the world as it is (under the sun), but fullness of life only comes when we see all of that from above the sun—from God’s perspective, as He’s revealed it to us in the whole counsel of His Word. In other words, there’s a greater wisdom in the Preacher’s wisdom for those who have a fuller understanding of what it means to see the sun.

I mean to close our time in the Preacher’s proverbs and admonish all the men on Father’s Day, by reminding you of the larger, above the sun story in which all of this finds its place; in which you, your kids, and all reality finds its place.

The larger story has four main movements, beginning with the creation of the world.

(I was particularly helped in initially coming to understand this story through a book by Trevin Wax called Counterfeit Gospels. I quote the book briefly in each of the four movements.)

God alone—Father, Son, and Spirit—has not been made. In the beginning, God made all that has been made—the heavens and the earth and all that is in them. And He did so, in love, for the glory of His name and the good of all His creation.

“The world was made for human flourishing, there we could live in joy in the presence of our Maker, worshiping God by loving Him and one another forever. Looking past all the galaxies and planets, looking through space and time, over and above the exotic creatures that filled the earth, God set His affection on us—His human image-bearers—whom He created to share in the joy of His love forever” (31).

This means that everything has been designed by God, defined by God, and belongs to God. Wisdom, therefore, is simply a matter of discovering how to live according to who God is and the way He made things (including ourselves). All wisdom begins and ends with God.

And that means everything the Preacher wrote concerning wisdom only finds its fullness in God. He gave proverbial wisdom concerning God’s sovereignty, the use of words, the length of days, the value of things, the need to think about important stuff, rebuke, flattery, laughter, oppression, anger, glory, inheritance, wisdom, and money. Once again, though, to really understand any of it, and to really live in light of any of it, always and inevitably sees it tied to the fact that God created everything, in love, for His glory and our good.

If all of that is true, and it is, why is life so difficult and mysterious (vanity)? Why is wisdom so hard to find and harder still to live out? And why does it seem like wisdom rarely holds?

The short answer, and the second movement in the larger story of the world, is the Fall of mankind. Although everything God created was “very good,” and although wisdom was free for all to find and follow…

“Adam and Eve rejected God’s rule over them. We refer to their rebellious choice as “the fall,” and because they represented all of humanity, their action affects us too…The fallout from our sin is devastating. First and foremost, we are guilty before God and alienated from Him. The perfect fellowship that Adam and Eve had with God in the garden of Eden has been broken. We are estranged from our Father. We have—through our attitudes and actions—declared ourselves to be God’s enemies. This rebellion results in physical and spiritual death” (33-34).

Worse still, not only did Adam and Eve fall, and with them, all of their descendants, their choice brought confusion, corruption, and death to all creation as well. That’s what the Preacher constantly (although seemingly without really understanding it) ran into. That’s why wisdom was so hard to find and inconsistent in its efficacy. That’s why the Preacher continually felt frustrated and futile in his pursuit of meaning, significance, and satisfaction in his life. That’s why so much of Ecclesiastes has the tone that it does—because the Preacher was exceptionally observant and honest about his observations of the fallen nature of the world he lived in.

That’s why we experience so much confusion, inefficiency, difficulty, suffering, and death. That’s why no matter how faithfully we apply the Preacher’s wisdom (or try to come up with our own), we just can’t quite do it and it never quite works when we do.

Again, the Preacher so astutely observed the way things are, but seemingly without really understanding why they were that way. Even more absent his calculus, however, was an understanding of the next two movements of the Story.

The Preacher was largely right about how things were and what it meant to live in light of them, but we don’t find much in his writing about what God was doing about it. Thankfully, we have what the Preacher didn’t—the full revelation of God’s Wisdom. And from that we learn that…

“The loving Creator who rightly shows Himself to be wrathful toward our sin is determined to turn evil and suffering we have caused into good that will be to His ultimate glory. So the next movement shows God implementing a master plan for redeeming His world and rescuing fallen sinners. In the Person of Jesus Christ, God Himself comes to renew the world and restore His people. The grand narrative of Scripture climaxes with the death and resurrection of Jesus” (37).

In other words, we learn that although sin’s deadly, corrupting tentacles have spread throughout creation, God determined from the beginning to redeem that which has been lost through His only Son, Jesus Christ. What’s more, we gain access to that, not according to the wisdom of this world (which suggest we need to pay for our sins first or earn our redemption), but according to the plan of God (to redeem mankind by grace alone through faith alone in the sacrificial death and victorious resurrection of Christ alone).

There will come a time, then, that the Preacher’s wisdom (wisdom given to a fallen people living in a fallen world) will no longer hold, since God has redeemed and is redeeming it.

Even now there is a greater wisdom, an above the sun wisdom, a wisdom that unlocks much of the vanity (the mystery) the Preacher encountered. It seems foolish to those who are not looking to Jesus, but to those of us who are being redeemed, it is the power and glory of God.

The poor, mourning, meek, hungry, persecuted, and the reviled are blessed (Matthew 5:3-11)

The first are last and the last are first (Matthew 20:16).

The greatest are servants (Matthew 23:11).

Suffering is joyful gain (James 1:2).

We die to live (Galatians 2:20).

Death is gain (Philippians 1:21).

The Preacher observed a fallen world and under God’s inspiration, offered much wisdom to a fallen people concerning what that meant and how to live in light of it. But God’s redeeming grace in Jesus changes much and fills out all of it.

Finally, the fourth movement of the grand story we’re all in is already here and not yet completed at the same time. As gracious and glorious as God’s redemption in Jesus is…

“The story doesn’t end with redemption. God has promised to renew the whole world, and the Bible gives us a peak into this glorious future… The restoration of the world has already begun, but has not yet fully taken place. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, the life of heaven has invaded earth. The kingdom of God has begun to advance…The restoration of all things will take place in two ways. Christ will return to judge sin and evil, and He will usher in righteousness and peace. God will purge this world of evil once and for all” (38-39).

The Preachers wisdom assumed God’s creation, was primarily informed by the fall, was largely missing the idea of redemption, and was almost entirely ignorant of the promised restoration of God.

True wisdom, then, looks at all the Preacher concluded in light of the fact that in Jesus everything vain, crooked, and unjust in the world will be made clear, straight, and right. All that is broken will be fixed. All that is frustrated will find relief. All the good that is lacking will become abundant. All our sorrow will be turned into laughing and all our suffering into dancing.

The Preacher’s proverbs (along with all of Ecclesiastes) is a gift in that it accurately describes how best to live in a fallen, mysterious world. But it’s even more of a gift when seen in its proper place in the larger story of God. Living in light of this wisdom, then, Grace Church, means taking the Preacher’s words and shining the light of the promises of God in Christ upon them for fullness of meaning and blessing.

Living in light of this wisdom means focusing your best efforts on growing in your own understanding of the greatest story and to living out of it so that you can leave both to your kids as their greatest inheritance. It means getting above the sun and telling your kids about what you see.

God is sovereign (6:10), more words are worse (11), we are ignorant and our days are short (12), God establishes the value of things (7:1), mourning is better than feasting (2), sorrow is better than laughter (3), wise people think about things that matter (4), wise rebukes are better than foolish flattery (5), the laughter of a fool is empty (6), oppression and bribery are the tools of fools (7), pursue perseverance and patience (8), be slow to anger (9), reject the myth of the glory days (10), use wisdom and money as shields (12), and get above the sun and tell your kids what you see (11).

Fifteen pieces of divinely-inspired, (mostly)below the sun wisdom for living in this world as it truly is. All of which find their fulfillment only when seen in their proper place in God’s great story of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.

Having been redeemed by Jesus, in the Sprit’s power, let us order our lives, therefore, according to God’s design and wisdom for His glory and our good.

Ecclesiastes 7:8-9 Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.
9 Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools.

All last week and all this week until Thursday afternoon, I thought this sermon would be the final installment of the Preacher’s proverbs. As I began working through the remaining proverbs, however, I realized that the first two needed more attention than usual. Even then, I still thought I might be able to get through all five until I looked a bit closer at v.11. That too, I’d like to spend a good deal of time on. And then again on Saturday afternoon, I realized I’d need to cut it again—down from five proverbs to three to two. For those reasons, welcome to the second-to-last sermon on the proverbs of Ecclesiastes (until chapter 10 where we get another batch).

As has been the case in each of the previous passages, there is some level of connection between the proverbs, but no logical flow. They’re not really meant to build on each other. They are, for the most part, a simple collection of stand-alone nuggets of wisdom.

As I mentioned last week, what we have here is something like the Preacher’s divinely-inspired answer to the question: What are your top pieces of advice for someone trying to understand and live in the world as it is? For anyone who desires those things, it’s easy to see what a gift this is from God.

Specifically, we’ll consider the wisdom of pursuing perseverance and patience (rather than instant gratification and pride), and being slow to anger and quick to let it go (by being humble and cultivating good anger)

The big ideas of this passage are, once again, that God made the world to function in a certain way and, therefore, as we learn that way and conform to it, things tend to go better for us. Even as when we are ignorant of God’s ways or out of conformity with them, things tend to go worse. And the main takeaway is to order our lives according to God’s design for His glory and our good.

Grace Church, I know you want to live in light of the wisdom of God. You probably wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. We have it here. Let us, therefore, consider it carefully and seek it diligently as we dive right in to our first proverb of the day. It is found in v.8.

If there are two things that define our culture, it’s probably the expectation (idol?) of instant gratification and pride. We want what we want right now, to the point that we might not even order something if we have to wait for two-day shipping.

Likewise, the prideful belief that we know how and when things should be is virtually universal. How much collective frustration is there among us whenever things don’t turn out the way we want or take longer to do so than we’d set our hearts on?

The first of the proverbs that we’ll consider this morning tells us that wisdom calls for something different. Instead of instant gratification and pride, the Preacher observed that wisdom calls for the pursuit of perseverance and patience.

In the way of perseverance, look with me at the first half of v.8.

8 Better is the end of a thing than its beginning…

Have you ever gotten really excited about something and invested a good deal of time and money getting ready for it, only to have it fizzle out quickly once the real work began?

Getting ready for a new diet or exercise routine (buying all the right foods, videos, clothes, or equipment or signing up for the membership, race, or session), only to revert to your old habits in a few days/weeks.

Signing up for a new class (paying the dues, buying the books/supplies, getting the t-shirt), only to have to drop out a couple of weeks in because it was too much for your schedule.

Getting everything set up for a new Bible reading or memorization plan (purchasing a new Bible, journal, highlighters, finding a new reading plan that fits better, etc.), only to fade out before Abraham.

Working really hard on building a fort (working out the design, gathering the materials, carving out the time to construct it, etc.), only to be bored in it once it was finished.

Settling on a new budget (buying a book or watching a video, creating the right categories and settling on the amounts in each, getting an app or setting up a spreadsheet), only to go on spending however you want after a long day or two of “self-control”?

You get the idea.

There are many among us who have begun dozens of things and finished few. There are many among us who have wanted instant gratification in areas that gratification almost always requires long-term perseverance to get.

In the beginning of a thing, there’s excitement at the newness of it and the preparation that goes into it. We often like the idea of gaining or growing in an area of our lives more than the discipline and self-control it takes to accomplish it.

We tend to like the beginning of a thing. But the Preacher observed that “the end of a thing is better than its beginning.” That is, actual weight loss/muscle building/improved health, learning new things/skills, increased energy, sanctification, fellowship with God, financial stability, etc., are better than plans, purchases, and preparation for them. We need to plan, purchase, and prepare. Those things are good, even necessary, as means to the end. As you know, we must have a beginning for there to be an end. But all-too-often the beginning is also the end. And that is not good.

The end is better in that it is the true purpose of the beginning, the Preacher admonished.

The second half of this first proverb presses even further into our folly. Not only is it a common (foolish) struggle to start things we don’t finish, but it is also common (foolish) to pridefully talk about the things we’ve begun that we never end up finishing and to pridefully get frustrated when they don’t happen as quickly as we think they should.

Again, the Preacher speaks to those tendencies at the end of v.8, “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.”

Have you ever done either of those things? Have you made sure to talk a good deal about whatever new thing you’ve just begun or gotten angry that it didn’t happen on your timeline? Our delight in starting a new thing is often only surpassed by telling people about the new thing we started. And our anger at not getting to the end is often only surpassed by getting there slower than we’d set our hearts upon.

Social media seems to have made both of these exponentially more tempting than even the Preacher could have imagined.

There is a way, of course, in which it’s good to tell others of our plans and goals. It’s good to do so when our aim is to share our excitement in humility. Likewise, it’s good to do so when we’re genuinely asking for wisdom, prayer, and help.

And there is a way in which creating a clear schedule and timeline is good. It’s good when it’s a part of declaring the importance of the thing and exercising discipline to accomplish it. And when things get in the way, it’s good to lament the good of others and the glory of God delayed.

It’s not good to tell others, however, when we’re only sharing and asking for those things as a type of boasting. It’s not good to do so when we’re primarily sharing in an attempt to impress others with our new venture. In other words, it is not good to talk about the beginning of a thing when our motivation for doing so is pride.

Likewise, it is not good to be upset at our busted timeline at the expense of loving our neighbor as ourselves. And it is not good when it is a functional expression of our rejection of the perfect timing or sovereign rule of God. In other words, it is not good to be frustrated about the delay of the end when the cause is pride.

The Preacher contrasts this kind of prideful spirit with one of patience.

Chirping at the beginning of a thing and frustration at the “delay” of a thing tends to come out of those who are proud in spirit. But it is those who are patient in spirit who tend to talk less and see things through to the end. The Preacher saw that getting to the end of a thing takes perseverance and patience. It takes hard work through challenges and the ability to endure over time.

Putting this wisdom into practice means at least three things.

First, it means making sure the thing we mean to begin is a good thing. The end of a thing is only better than the beginning of a thing, when the thing is something worth beginning in the first place.

In order to really live out the wisdom of v.8, therefore, we need to begin the things God has called us to begin, in the order that He’s called us to begin them. Beginning a sinful thing or a good but secondary thing is not wise. Wisdom is doing first things (as God defines them) first.

In this way, Ecclesiastes 7:8 is a charge for all of us to consider the things we’re doing and not doing right now, in light of the priorities God has given us in His Word.

Second, putting this wisdom into practice means counting the cost before beginning the best thing. Jesus spoke to this in Luke 14. As more and more people contemplated following Him, Jesus charged them to first count the cost of doing so. Jesus said,

Luke 14:28-32 …which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.

This world is such that wise people make sure they are giving themselves to the best things, and they make sure they can finish what they start—with God’s help. To say it another way, wise people know the God-assigned value of things, they are good at calculating what it takes to acquire or accomplish those things, and they pursue the perseverance needed to see them through to the end, even when things get hard.

And third, putting this wisdom into practice means being patient in pursuing and claiming success. Things worth doing are worth doing because God said they are, not because they might lead to the approval/praise of others. And things worth doing often take time and are always, ultimately, on God’s time. Therefore, the Preacher’s wisdom means that we ought to talk less about what we might accomplish and focus more on patiently, perseveringly, and dependently in doing it.

Of this wisdom, we would do well to consider how long and through how much (usually self-inflicted) hardship the Israelites waited for the Christ to come and deliver them. Century after century passed after God’s initial (Genesis 3) promise. Century after century passed in slavery and oppression. And yet, their charge was clear and God’s timing was perfect.

So it is for the Church today as we perseveringly (in faithful obedience to God’s commission) and patiently (humbly entrusting our work to the grace and timing of God) await the return of Christ. He who began a good work in us will see it through to completion!

“Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.”

In the next proverb, we find one of the more important pieces of wisdom out there.

9 Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools.

What makes you angry? How quickly do you tend to get angry? How often do you find yourself angry? How long do you typically stay angry? How do you treat others in your anger? Once angered, do you/how do you eventually let go of it? To varying degrees, this proverb provides wisdom for each of these questions.

Grace, for the glory of God and the good of mankind, don’t be quickly angered or perpetually angry. Hot tempers and lodged anger are the fool’s recipe for mass destruction. Oh, how many people, marriages, families, friendships, business partnerships, and churches have been laid to waste by misguided and unrelenting anger?! Few things are more corrosive than those things. If that’s you, turn to Jesus right now for forgiveness of your sins and to the Holy Spirit of God to help you turn from it.

Hopefully, those aren’t revolutionary claims for most of you. And hopefully, most of you have managed, with God’s help, to steer clear of that kind of anger (in yourself and in others). And yet, I know you well enough to know that everyone of us have experienced some measure of the destructive power of anger. And because of that, I know that we all need to take a closer look at the wisdom of v.9.

Doing so begins, I believe, with noticing something that I hope you all already noticed: The proverb doesn’t say that the wise are never angry. I’ll say more on this in a bit, but Grace, wise, godly people must be angry at times. Wisdom recognizes that in this world, as it really is, there is good anger.

If we are to repent of bad anger, and help others to do so as well, we must have a firm grasp of the key ingredients of good anger. They are: (1) Accurate and sufficient knowledge of a situation (there is no good anger that is rooted in lies or partial truth), (2) A truly biblical understanding of God’s assessment of the situation (there is no good anger that flows out of idolatry), and (3) A genuine desire to be a part of the God-prescribed solution (there is no good anger that is an end in itself or moves toward evil).

Absent those ingredients, our anger is never good.

Another key piece of wisdom regarding avoiding quick-working and long-lasting anger is in recognizing the simple fact that we rarely possess any of those ingredients in significant quantity, much less all of them together.

We are finite creatures. Therefore, whenever you find anger welling up inside of you, remember that you never have perfectly accurate or sufficient knowledge of a situation. You don’t even have that in regard to our own participation, much less someone else’s. We’re prone to think we have a grasp on things we don’t and that leads to the kind of anger the Preacher warns against.

In addition, we are fallen creatures. Our motives are rarely what we think they are. More often than not, we get angry simply because someone has inconvenienced us or because they’ve kept us from getting something we want. When you begin to feel angry, then, remember that rarely is our anger directed at the genuine good of others, and even less often does it have much, if anything, to do with God’s perspective or glory.

And we are fickle creatures. Consequently, regarding the third ingredient, rather than wanting to be a part of a godward, gospel-driven solution, we typically, simply want the perceived injustice to stop so our own situations will improve. All-too-often when we’re angry, the only solution we’re concerned with is getting whatever it was that we wanted in the first place.

The point, once again, is that grasping the wisdom of this proverb means humbly settling on the facts that not many of us are aware of the ingredients of good anger, and all of us tend to lack them in sufficient quantities.

And for these reasons, the Preacher’s wisdom calls us to be slow to anger and quick to clear it out. Those who are quick to anger or perpetually angry are playing with fire. It is foolish to tolerate a hot temper or lodged anger in ourselves. They are almost always thoroughly misguided and powerfully corrosive.

So what do we do with all of this? What does it look like to live out this wisdom?

Like the Preacher, the Apostle Paul warns his readers against sinful anger. Unlike the Preacher, though, Paul commands us to “be angry” (Ephesians 4:26). So, how do we cultivate good anger? Three things.

First, wisdom calls us to spend time meditating on our weakness and lack. Cultivating good anger begins with rooting out bad anger. And rooting out bad anger means meditating on our weakness and lack. As we just saw…

All of this requires us to prayerfully and humbly ask good questions of all our budding anger. To that end, helpfully, David Powlison gives us eight good questions whenever we find anger in ourselves (Good and Angry, 152-162):

Wherever our answers to these questions are fundamentally selfish and/or man-centered, we must not allow the seed of anger in us to germinate and bear fruit. Only the fool gives full vent to his unchecked anger (Proverbs 29:11).

Grace, especially if you’re prone to anger, do these things before any shows up in you. And at the first sign of anger, take it captive and make it conform to Christ or kill it quickly by the power of the Spirit.

9 Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools.

Second, wise people will apply this wisdom by carefully considering the anger of God. God is an angry God. But God is also a good God. God always has perfect knowledge of every situation. He always perfectly assesses every situation in perfect righteousness. And God’s anger is always redemptive in some measure. In other words, God always has all three ingredients for good anger and always makes perfect use of them. And, therefore, God’s anger is always good.

Regarding the fact of God’s anger, consider Psalm 7:11 which says, “God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation [anger] every day.”

Similarly, the Bible speaks of God’s wrath being kindled (which is just another way of saying that something makes Him angry) well over 100 times. God’s anger is not an occasional thing.

The question, therefore, is not whether God gets angry. The questions are what makes God angry and what He does with it.

The shortest answer to the question of what makes God angry is: sin and rebellion.

In Exodus 32 it is the idolatrous forging of the golden calf that caused God’s anger to “burn hot”.

In 2 Chronicles 24 it is abandoning God for false gods that kindled God’s anger.

In Ezra 7 it was the lack of full obedience to God that stirred God’s anger. And in Ezra 8 it was the taking of foreign wives among His people.

In Neimiah, it was Israel’s profaning the Sabbath.

Psalm 78 describes all kinds of things that stirred God’s good anger—forgetting God’s marvelous works, faithlessness, cowardice in battle, failure to keep covenant with God, testing God, grumbling, mistrusting God, flattery and deceit, rebellion, provocation, treachery, and the construction of high places.

In Jeremiah 7, God’s good anger came from the failure of His people to execute justice, the oppression of the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, the shedding of innocent blood, the going after other gods, theft, murder, adultery, and swearing falsely.

In Ezekiel 16 and all of Hosea, God was angered at the spiritual whoring of His covenant people.

In John 3, God’s anger was tied to the wrath incurred by Adam and passed down to all his descendants.

In Romans 1, it was due to the suppression of truth and the failure to honor God as God.

Colossians 3 tells of God being angry because of all forms of worldliness: “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (3:5).

And in Revelation 14, God’s fierce anger was tied to sexual immorality and the worship of the beast.

Because God is a perfect, righteous judge, and holy judge, whenever He sees wickedness it rightly makes Him angry. And because God is perfect in every way, He always thinks, feels, and acts perfectly in His anger.

What does He do with His anger? He hates wickedness in just the right amount such that He crushes the unrepentant, He offers redemption to the humble, and He fights for the cause of the weak.

If you want to avoid wrong anger, consider God’s right anger. And at the heart of His right anger are the twin facts that God is only angered by true wickedness and He is never passive in His anger.

Finally, third, wisdom calls us to learn to act in righteousness in our good anger. Living in light of this wisdom means that when we’ve rightly filtered out sinful anger and are left with genuinely righteous anger, we must act on it. Once again, good anger always acts for good.

We must get angry about the abuse and neglect of the orphan/widow and then plead their cause and invite them into our homes.

We must get angry at the misuse of power, whether state sanctioned or the bully on the playground, and stand up to the oppressor.

We must get angry when people blaspheme the LORD God Almighty, and then evangelize them, warning them of the consequences of continuing in their blasphemy and calling them to repentance and the grace of God in Jesus.

We must get angry when our governmental leaders legally endorse sin and punish righteousness, and we must talk to our representatives and we must disobey every law that violates God’s law.

We must get angry when our kids dishonor their mothers, and then remind them of God’s commands and promises, pray with them, point them to Jesus, and discipline them appropriately.

We must get angry when our brothers and sisters in Christ forsake the Word of God as their authority and pursue man-made religion, and then pray for them, humbly confront them, and sacrificially walk alongside of them in repentance should the Lord grant it.

We must get angry when we get wrongly angry, and then apologize to all we’ve hurt by it and put it to death by the power of the Spirit.

Bad, sinful and stored-up anger have no place in the life of a Christian. But neither do angerlessness or inaction at right anger. Good anger is always meant to drive us to do something about the sin that caused it. Good anger is always rightly released. It is never to get lodged in us. God always moves toward doing good in the face of things that rightly stir anger and so must we.

9 Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools.

Begin the best things and see them through to the end in patient perseverance. Repent of bad anger—quick and lodged—by being humble and cultivating and acting on good anger. That’s the wisdom the Preacher hands down to us. It is truly wise wisdom that we all ought to long to increasingly employ.

At the same time, once again, none of us have or will as we ought. Even our best efforts will have some measure of folly and sin mixed in with them. And that is yet another reminder that our only hope is Jesus Christ. We will either look to Him, who alone can forgive and restore us, and know the full measure of God’s blessing or we will die in our sin to know the full measure of the anger of God. Wisdom alone cannot save. Christ alone can.

Ecclesiastes 7:3-8 Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.

4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

5 It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.

6 For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools; this also is vanity.

7 Surely oppression drives the wise into madness, and a bribe corrupts the heart.

Welcome back to the Preacher’s proverbs. This morning we’ll look at another batch of divinely-inspired wise sayings about how the world ordinarily works. The first two are largely restatements of previous proverbs, so I’ll focus mainly on the new aspects within them. But there are also several new ideas that we’ll examine more closely as well.

The aim in all of this is, once again, to help us live lives more in line with the world as it actually is—that is, as God designed it. For, living inconsistently with reality is always frustrating and costly, and potentially deadly. Even as living consistently with it is glorifying to God and good for mankind.

Let me say that another way. We all have needs that we feel and want to know how to have them met. That is why many churches primarily preach topical sermons—to address those felt-needs. It’s good to want to know what God has to say about all aspects of our lives. And it’s good to for the church to want to address them. The biblical proverbs are one of the primary ways God’s Word does so for us. The proverbs (which we’re given an entire book of) address issues of ordinary life—issues we feel, will feel, and should feel—in order that we might live reasonable, enlightened, faithful, fruitful, God-honoring lives.

The big ideas of this passage are, once again, that God made the world to function in a certain way and, therefore, as we learn that way and conform to it, things tend to go better for us. Even as when we are ignorant of God’s ways or out of conformity with them, things tend to go worse. And the main takeaway is to order our lives according to God’s design and wisdom for His glory and our good.

What is the wisest thing anyone has ever said to you? What is one piece of wisdom you have now that you wish you’d gotten sooner? If you could leave one piece of wisdom behind to your kids, what would it be?

In some ways, the Preacher’s proverbs are the Preacher’s answers to these questions (really, that’s what all of Ecclesiastes is). Having had a God-given, privileged frame of reference from which to observe the world, the Preacher passed on his conclusions. His conclusions included lots of confusion, but also a good deal of wisdom.

Let’s pick up where we left off last week…with 7:3.

In the proverb of v.3, we find the first of two familiar themes.

3 Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.

Sorrow is better than laughter. The Preacher asserted something similar in 7:1 (“The day of death is better than the day of birth”) and 7:2 (“It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting”). The big idea in all three verses is that there is more to learn from hardship than levity.

Properly understood, “the day of birth,” “the house of feasting,” and “laughter” are good things. The Preacher’s point isn’t that those things are bad and “the day of death,” “the house of mourning,” and “sorrow” are good. His point is that the second trio are “better”.

They are better on the whole, once again, because after reconciliation with God, our greatest need is to be made holy—to have our character conformed to God’s design. And God has determined to use death, mourning, and sorrow as primary means of accomplishing this for His people. (How’s that for flipping ordinary logic on its head?)

To live in the world as it really is, to live in the world as God has made it, is to desire godly character above physical comfort. It is also, therefore, to desire God’s means of bringing about our character above the means of comfort. In that way, sorrow is better than laughter.

While that much is mostly familiar, the Preacher adds a bit more wisdom as well. Wisdom not only recognizes that sorrow is often a more significant means of sanctification than laughter, but also that sorrow is an essential component of genuine gladness as well.

One who has known and is honest about the hardships of life under the sun has a better sense of the world as it truly is and that is better. That person will be more sober-minded and sober-faced. But at the same time, it is precisely that which opens the door for fuller happiness as well.

What does that mean? It means that it is usually those who have known the most sorrow who are able to experience the greatest gladness. It is only on the other side of profound sadness that profound gladness comes (and especially for those whose hope is in God).

Who has the most somber face, but is also the most genuinely happy? The one who has been cured of cancer or the one who has always been healthy? The one who has found work after a prolonged season of unemployment or the one who has never had trouble finding a job (Grapes of Wrath; Cinderella Man)? The one whose adult child came to faith in Jesus after decades of rebellion or the one who never knew a time of disbelief?

There can be and often is genuine joy in both sides of the equation, but there is almost always more for the one whose gladness came on the other side of seeing God’s faithfulness through significant sadness.

Truly, “by sadness of face the heart is made glad.”

Living in light of this wisdom means hearing the constant refrain of passages like James 1:2-4 in your ears.

James 1:2-4 “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

When times of sadness come, we don’t pretend they aren’t sad. We don’t even imagine that they shouldn’t be sad. As long as we live in a broken world, there are times when sadness is right. But living in light of this wisdom means being sad in the knowledge that it is the path to greater joy for all whose hope is in God. And that keeps our right sadness from turning into wrong despair.

Also, living in light of this wisdom means “rejoicing with those who rejoice” and also “weeping with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). Rightly applying this proverbial wisdom means caring not only about our own laughter and sorrow, but also about that of others. Grace, let us learn to listen well, to care deeply, and to seek to bless more than to be blessed by others.

The proverb of v.4 is the other familiar one. It is a near copy of 7:2 (“It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting”).

4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

The primary difference between v.2 and v.4 is that v.2 talks about actually going to the house of mourning/feasting (going to a funeral or party), while v.4 talks about the heart going there.

The point of this proverb (v.4) is that wisdom leads people to consider/to think about those who are grieving loss while folly leads people to consider those who are partying.

One of the best spiritual assessment questions I’ve ever heard is this: Where does your mind go when it doesn’t have to go anywhere? In other words, what do you daydream about when your mind is free to wander? The answer to that question often tells a good deal about what you really love.

The fool is continually longing for the next party, the next fun gathering, the next chance to be distracted with the pleasures of this world. The fool thinks of little beyond shallow entertainment.

On the other hand, the wise are those who consider things that matter, things that will last, things that are God-honoring and character-forming. The wise set their minds, “on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2). And that includes regularly considering how we ought to live in light of the fact that we all live relatively short lives before we die and spend eternity somewhere.

Living in light of this wisdom means being clear on what God’s Word calls us to value, asking God to help us delight in that, and disciplining our minds to go there. In other words, wisdom calls us to consider things God tells us are valuable and not simply let our minds wander to the desires of our flesh. Contemplating death is a significant means to that end.

When our hearts go to the death of an unbeliever, we are rightly sobered. Hell is real and far more terrible than anything we can imagine. Being reminded of this and considering the horrors of this motivates us to right living.

And when our hearts go to the death of a genuine believer, we are rightly sobered in a different way. Heaven is real and even more glorious than hell is awful. Being reminded of this and considering the joys of this motivates us to right living as well.

As we saw last week, there is, perhaps, no better example of applying this than the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards. With the wisdom of this passage in mind, he resolved to consider carefully all of his life in light of the certainty of the next.

7. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.

9. Resolved, to think much on all occasions of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.

10. Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell.

17. Resolved, that I will live so as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.

19. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if I expected it would not be above an hour, before I should hear the last trump.

55. Resolved, to endeavor to my utmost to act as I can think I should do, if I had already seen the happiness of heaven, and hell torments.

We can only live like that when we regularly steer our hearts, with the Spirit’s help, to the house of mourning, to the contemplation of the inevitability of the death of everyone we meet, including ourselves.

Once again, it is only when we settle on the fact that we will die that we are truly free to fully live for the glory of God and the good of the world.

A third proverb is found in v.5.

5 It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.

We love to have people around us telling us how good we are. It feels really good to have others sing our praises. Is there anything better than someone who is impressed by us telling us about it?

God calls us to be encouragers, but that’s not what this passage is talking about. Hearing “the song of fools” refers to flattery, which God despises. The books of Psalms and Proverbs have a good deal to say about this.

Psalm 5:9 There is no truth in their mouth; their inmost self is destruction; their throat is an open grave; they flatter with their tongue.

Psalm 12:2 Everyone utters lies to his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.

Proverbs 7:21 With her many persuasions she entices him, and with her flattering lips she seduces him.

Proverbs 26:28 A lying tongue hates its victims, and a flattering mouth works ruin.

Proverbs 29:5 A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet.

It might feel good to hear the song of fools in the short run, but it is ruinous in the long run, for it causes us to measure ourselves against one another instead of against the true standard: God’s perfect holiness.

On the other hand, being corrected is hard. Most of us are prideful people (which is why we’re drawn to the song of fools). We don’t want to be told that we are wrong. All too often, we’d rather bicker about something we know we’re wrong about than humbly admit it and lose face. It usually stings a good deal to be called out on sin, but it is a great gift from the Lord. It is often the straightest path to repentance and godliness for the wayward.

The alternative is that we keep walking in sin until we can reap a fuller measure of its consequences.

One time, when I was younger and foolisher, I was driving way too fast. Unknowingly, I was heading right toward a sharp turn. My future sister-in-law yelled at me to slow down just in time. It was embarrassing, but it might have saved our lives.

The rebuke of the wise is like a divine warning sign of imminent danger ahead. It is a little sting now in order to avoid a much greater one later.

Truly, “It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.”

Or, as Proverbs 27:6 says it, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.”

Living in light of this wisdom means surrounding yourself with wise people. There’s no way to be blessed by the rebuke of the wise if you’re surrounded by singing fools.

Wisdom always comes from God and typically comes with age. This is why two key aims of our DGs are to focus them on God’s Word and keep them from being age segregated. We want to provide a regular opportunity for everyone to be around wise, godly people; in part, in order to provide a place for us all to be rightly rebuked.

Older folks of Grace, we need you in and spread around the DGs in order to share your wisdom and rebuke folly.

Younger folks of Grace, we need you in the DGs to teach you to despise the song of fools and to get rebuked.

Living in light of this wisdom means making it really, really, really easy for wise people to approach you with correction. This means listening carefully whenever you are being corrected. Don’t form your reply while they are talking. Don’t focus on telling your side of the story. Don’t be defensive. Listen for understanding. Assume there’s something true in the correction and focus on it. Make sure that anyone who comes to you with a wise rebuke leaves feeling built (not beat) up. Make sure they are even more likely to do so the next time.

But, even more than all of that, it means soliciting feedback from wise people. It means not waiting for them to come to you, but you going to them. There should be people in your life of whom you regularly ask questions like:

What is one area of godliness you think I would do well to focus on in the next month?

What would you say is my greatest area of spiritual weakness?

Which aspects of my character have you observed in me that clearly need maturing?

What is one way that I could become a better husband/wife, father/mother, brother/sister, son/daughter, pastor/member, friend?

What is the one thing you pray most for me?

In addition to the Bible, what one book should I read this month?

The fourth proverb we’ll consider today is found in v.6. The wisdom there is that the laughter of a fool is empty.

6 For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools; this also is vanity.

We’ve already seen in Ecclesiastes (3:4) that there is a time to laugh. And yet, as vs.3 and 6 point out, not all laughter is good. Some is, but some isn’t. How can we tell the difference?

First of all, it’s worth noting that laughter in the Bible is almost always an act of scoffing or derision. Laughing is what God does to His enemies when they believe they can stand against Him. It’s what sinful men do in mockery of others. And it’s what fools do at empty and immoral things. That doesn’t mean laughter is bad, but it does mean that good laughter is hard and bad laughter is easy.

It’s right when God laughs at prideful men. It’s wrong when prideful men laugh at others or when foolish men laugh at course jokes or silliness.

Indeed, the laughter of fools is like the “crackling thorns under a pot,” the Preacher wrote. The idea is that using thorns to cook is noisy and short-lived. They crackle and burn out quickly. The laughter of fools is like that. Fools laugh constantly since they lack sober mindedness and their laughter is always in spurts since it lacks substance.

Bad laughter is filled with emptiness and immorality.

So, when is it right for us to laugh? The only positive instance I found in the Bible of men laughing is in Jesus’ teaching of the beatitudes (Luke 6:21). Jesus said, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.” The idea is that for many who follow Jesus, there will be hardship and suffering as a result of persecution. But for all who remain faithful, there will soon be gladness and joy and laughter at the unleashing of God’s mercy.

Good laughter is the overflow of a heart gladdened by God’s providential expressions of grace.

Good laughter is the natural response to experiencing God’s excessive kindness.

Good laughter is filled with substance and righteousness.

Living in light of this wisdom means being careful in what you laugh at. It means not laughing at the expense of others. It means not laughing thoughtlessly. It means not going along with the crowd when they laugh at a something sinful or immoral.

And living in light of this wisdom also means intentionally looking for God’s excessive grace and kindness, so that our hearts can be made full of gladness, so that out of it can flow deep, God-honoring laughter.

The antidote to foolish or wicked laughter isn’t no laughter; it’s righteous laughter. And in that way, righteous laughter is a key weapon of spiritual warfare. When our hope and satisfaction are in God, we will be people of laughter even when faced with the attacks of the enemy foolishly believing they can defy the Lord God Almighty.

The fifth and final of the Preacher’s proverbs that we’ll consider this morning is found in v.7.

7 Surely oppression drives the wise into madness, and a bribe corrupts the heart.

We’ve already seen from the Preacher that if you are wise, you hate oppression (chapters 4 and 5). It is not enough to avoid it and it is certainly not enough to merely ignore it. The wise must actively oppose the oppression of the vulnerable. Wisdom understands the afront that oppression is to God’s nature and commands and so the wise despise and fight against it.

But what happens when it is the wise who are oppressed (literally, blackmailed)? The Preacher concludes that it “surely” drives them “into madness.” There are likely two senses in which this is true in the Preacher’s mind.

First, being oppressed drives the wise into madness in that it can, over time, consume their wisdom. Oppression is so corrosive that it often, eventually, turns the person of wisdom into a person with a reckless mind, with blind rage. In short, it can cause a wise man to act like a fool.

And second, being oppressed drives the wise into madness in the sense that it makes no sense. Oppression only ever hurts everyone involved with it—oppressed and oppressor alike. No one benefits. That much is clear to anyone with wisdom and so it’s maddening. Why would you do such a thing?!

In this single verse (v.7), the Preacher made two sure observations. The first we just considered (“oppression drives the wise into madness”). The second is similar, “a bribe corrupts the heart.”

The Preacher isn’t clear on whether he’s referring to the giving or the taking of a bribe. In the end, it probably doesn’t matter since both are corrupting and largely for the same reason.

To give or take a bribe is to reject two aspects of God’s nature—truth and justice (as bribes are a form of a lie and injustice). And, assuming it works (whether giving or receiving), that only leads to further rejection of God and to further corruption. In that way, giving and receiving bribes are both the product of an already corrupted heart and the means to cultivating one.

When we combine these two sureties, we see that the upshot of v.7 verse is that oppression and bribery are the tools of fools. And fools using their tools is maddening to the wise and corrupting to the fool.

Living in light of this wisdom means fighting against oppression wherever we find it. See my sermons from April 6th, Death Is Better than Oppression, and May 4th, Systemic Oppression and Hollow Wealth, for help on this one.

Living in light of this wisdom means having nothing to do with bribes. I imagine that there’s a tendency for most of us to think that this doesn’t really apply to the. I bet that most of you don’t imagine yourself as having anything to do with bribes.

But kids, if you do something you know is wrong in front of your brother or sister and say something like, “Don’t tell mom and you can use my game system,” that is offering a bribe.

Husbands/wives, when you won’t do something good for your spouse unless they do something good for you in return, that’s the same as demanding a bribe.

In other words, bribes aren’t only between shady politicians or businessmen and women. Don’t use the tools of fools or you will face the fate of fools—corrupt hearts.

Finally, living in light of this wisdom means recognizing our dependence on God. Wisdom alone isn’t enough to keep a person faithful. The Bible paints two consistent pictures of wisdom in mankind. It is better than folly and we are prone to confuse it with folly. We find description of one fool after another rejecting wisdom to their demise in the Bible. And we find example after example of the wisdom of this world being confused with the wisdom of God.

We ought to look for those things in God’s Word and when we find them, we ought to turn to God in prayerful dependence that He might keep us from being wise in our own eyes and unexpectedly driving straight through a sharp turn.

Grace, I imagine that some of the wisdom of these few verses scratches an itch. Thank God for that. I also imagine that some of it wasn’t even on your radar before today. Thank God for that too. God gives us what we need, not always what we want or know to ask for. And that is because all wisdom is God’s, and we are simply a people in desperate need of it.

Above all, we are in desperate need of Jesus, who defied all worldly wisdom in His birth, life, death, and resurrection. There was nothing about Jesus that seemed wise to those who believed themselves to be wise. And yet He was and is the full manifestation of all above the sun wisdom.

He is the very Wisdom of God in the flesh, the perfect example of living in light of it, and the means by which we can know God and be reconciled to Him.

None of us fully grasp or live out even the wisdom of these five, short verses. That’s why Jesus came: To bring us the wisdom of God, to show us what it looks like, and to save us from the wages of falling short of it.

Look to Jesus, therefore, to know what true wisdom is and how to live in this world in light of it…and as the one and only way to be forgiven for failing to do so as God requires.