Text: Ecclesiastes 7:9-22
The operative phrase in our consumer society is Caveat Emptor, ‘let the buyer-beware’. The wary buyer may want to check out Consumer Reports – before making a major purchase. Wary is good. Informed and wary is better.
Good advice is valuable and this section of Ecclesiastes is just that. It’s like an advice column, but with a big difference…It was written under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Now there are two sides to wisdom. The person who has it may graciously choose to share it – which Solomon does in Ecclesiastes. But the question is…will we take that advice? Exposure to wisdom and acquiring it are two different things. Let’s consider some offerings of wisdom in our text…starting in 7:9 where Solomon says:
“Do not be eager in your heart to be angry, For anger resides in the bosom of fools”
Have you ever been eager to be angry – kind of daring anyone to get you riled up? It’s a good question because some go out of their way looking for trouble. They feel alive when angry – powerful and able to control others. But Solomon says: ‘don’t be eager to be angry’. Don’t relish it or live for the pay-off .
The bible has a lot to say about anger – but most of it is not good. Solomon says, that this kind of anger is the stuff of fools. Every loss of self control starts out as a failure.
In the book of Proverbs, Solomon adds: “He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city”. (Proverbs 16:32). “He who is slow to anger has great understanding, But he who is quick-tempered exalts folly”. (Proverbs 14:29). In other words, don’t go looking for a fight. Control what you can…beginning with yourself.
Have you ever said: “those were the good old days” Or…“what’s wrong with kids these days”? Then you are not alone, for Solomon wrote: ““Do not say, why is it that the former days were better than these? For it is not from wisdom that you ask about this”.
The good old days always seem better than these. All my troubles would just go away…if I could only turn back the clock! For at least the last 3000 years, people have been saying that. It seems a universal tendency, to forget all of the bad, the hardships and struggles and to remember only the good. Call it selective memory, creative recall or history revised.
But its not very helpful, leaning heavily toward dishonesty. Wishing for the ‘good old days’ does not help us live today. Better to learn from past without opting out of the present. There really is nothing new under the sun – including the old days which were not all good.
Now in verses 11 & 12 Solomon says:
“Wisdom along with an inheritance is good, and an advantage to those who see the sun. For wisdom is protection just as money is protection, But the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the lives of its possessors”
Ever wished for an inheritance – a leg-up in life? A financial head-start? There is to be sure…a kind of security in money – but it is easily lost. So what is it that protects that protection? Solomon says– ‘its wisdom. Wisdom guards an inheritance”
“A fool and his money are soon parted”. Well It appears to be true. Numbers vary, but one study in Florida showed that about 70% of lottery winners in that state had spent all of their winnings within 5 years . So Solomon said…it’s wisdom that protects you. Sometimes it protects you from yourself. And it preserves the lives of those who use it.
Along those same lines…in Proverbs – Solomon wrote: ““How blessed is the man who finds wisdom and the man who gains understanding. For her profit is better than the profit of silver, and her gain better than fine gold. Proverbs 3:13-14
If you had to choose between money and wisdom, choose wisdom. Wisdom adds value to money…and money adds prestige to wisdom. Together, they can be a good thing.
Now verses 13-14 are a bit perplexing. Solomon wrote: “Consider the work of God, For who is able to straighten what He has bent? In the day of prosperity be happy, But in the day of adversity consider– God has made the one as well as the other, so that man will not discover anything that will be after him.
Let’s think about this in light of Psalm 146:9 which says: “The LORD protects the strangers; He supports the fatherless and the widow, But He thwarts (he turns upside down) the way of the wicked”.
This is one very obvious way that God bends or makes things crooked. He is an active adversary of the wicked.
But there is also a way that God has bent this world – for everyone. And there is no person who can straighten it. When sin entered the world, God put a limit on human life. Death is here as a permanent penalty. Our physical world is now a dangerous place and life is a struggle. God bent the created order into the shape of futility…
So, to say that God has bent and we cannot straighten is an admission of how things really are. Our sinful ways are crooked, so God bent this world into our shape. And if there is going to be a solution, it will have to come from God.
Living in a bent world is our only option. It is life “under the sun”. Seeing it for what it is, is the place to start. Accepting the fact that we are powerless to change it – is wisdom. And learning to depend on God to unbend it…is faith in action.
The point is, that God is in control.
The apostle Paul assures Christians that: “… God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
The things that God has bent, he has bent to serve a higher purpose. He wants them to lead us back to him…to trust and to depend upon him. Thus Solomon says: accept life as it comes to us from the hand of God.
Now this bent life, consists of blessings and trials, prosperity and adversity. Job accepted this, when he said: “…Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?” (Job 2:10). We don’t question God when things are going well. We just think that the world is what it should be. But when things go badly, we have a problem – and one that often turns into a faith problem.
Solomon says that God grants both prosperity and adversity, and then he tells us why. God has done it so that man will not discover anything that will be after him. God may choose to reveal what is coming, but on our own, we cannot discover it.
Among the things that we do not know is what tomorrow will bring. God has so ordered our lives… that they are unpredictable. it is guaranteed, that we do not know what will happen tomorrow. But this we can know…
- that earth and all that is in it – is in the hands of God.
- and that the only response pleasing to Him is for us to trust him.
A mature faith does not waver. It is not on again, off again. It doesn’t question the goodness of God. It takes each day in stride – without wishing for the good old days. It lives each day to the full. It lives in the present and is fully present to God. A mature faith celebrates each day as a gift from God.
Now if you are following along in the text, we are at verses 15-18, and in this passage Solomon offers a riddle.
He says: “I have seen everything during my lifetime of futility; there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his wickedness. Do not be excessively righteous and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself? Do not be excessively wicked and do not be a fool. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you grasp one thing and also not let go of the other; for the one who fears God comes forth with both of them.
Before we get to the really hard part, we will begin with Solomon’s observation. He observes that in this life, the good and the wise don’t always prosper. At the same time, the wicked don’t always come to ruin. And on the face of it, that is just not fair.
Our God-given sense of right and wrong demands the kind of justice that the world does not deliver. Not only is life sometimes cut short but this also happens to the righteous. So why be righteous?
Solomon knew the rule and he also knew that there were exceptions. The rule was that: “The fear of the LORD prolongs life, But the years of the wicked will be shortened. The hope of the righteous is gladness, But the expectation of the wicked perishes (Prov.10:27-28)
Assuredly, the evil man will not go unpunished, But the descendants of the righteous will be delivered. (Proverbs 11:21)
The rule is…that ‘you reap what you sow’. But the rule is not watertight or time-limited. There are exceptions, but we ought not give up on the rule because of the exceptions. Instead we must learn to trust God with the final outcome.
And then the hard part. What did Solomon mean by cautioning against being excessively righteous or overly wise? Is that even possible? I thought that a person could never be too righteous or too wise. How can righteousness or wisdom hurt you?
Let me suggest to you that it cannot. No person can ever be too righteous. God approves of righteousness and condemns wickedness. But God also knows that there is no man or woman on earth who always does good and never indulges in sin. Solomon says just that in verse 20, and we know it to be true.
There is a harmful kind of righteousness…the false kind. Jesus condemned self-righteousness, for it is based on how good I think that I am. And it leads to boasting. Self righteousness is dangerous because it keeps me – from the real me. It stirs up pride and blinds my eyes. And it keeps God from using me as his spokesperson.
This was the problem that the prophet Malachi addressed: Your words have been arrogant against Me,” says the LORD. “Yet you say, `What have we spoken against You?’ “You have said, `It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept His charge, and that we have walked in mourning before the LORD of hosts? So now we call the arrogant blessed; not only are the doers of wickedness built up but they also test God and escape.’ ” 3:13-15
When I am comfortable with my own righteousness, it leads to pride. Pride grows up into arrogance which challenges the ways of God.
When things don’t go as I wish, I say to God I’ve done my part…so pay up. Self-righteousness leads me believe, that God owes me. And when God does not ‘pay up’, the righteous are beaten. They are beaten down while the wicked test God and get away with it.
It is easy to see why Solomon says “do not be excessively righteousness or overly wise”.
When we think that we are good enough – we are just that much further away from real goodness. And when we think that we have all the answers, we stop listening, even when God is the one speaking. But there is an antidote: a heartfelt confession, that of ourselves, we are neither pure nor holy. We are not righteous – as God is, nor does wisdom begin or end with us.
That realization does not mean that we give up on righteousness or give in to sin. But we start -by admitting sin, before reaching for righteousness. I think that this is what Solomon means when he says that we must not let go of one, to take hold of the other.
The apostle Paul put it this way: “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. (Romans 12:3)
God does not encourage wickedness. He delays judgment for the wicked and rewards the righteous. But he delays because he does not want any person to perish, but for all to come to eternal life. God is patient and he calls on us to be patient too. But we can be certain that – one day he will judge us all.
Verses 19-22 make it clear that Solomon has not given up on wisdom. He writes that: “Wisdom strengthens a wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city. Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins”.
And then he demonstrates how wisdom chooses to react: “Also, do not take seriously all words which are spoken, so that you will not hear your servant cursing you. For you also have realized that you likewise have many times cursed others.
Wisdom is better than power. It is better than 10 rulers without it – protected by a walled city, for wisdom teaches us not to take ourselves too seriously.
So what about the disparaging word? What about all that stuff going on behind your back?
Solomon asks: haven’t we all done it? And when we did, were we serious…or just blowing off steam? It is true that we need to control our tongues. But even when someone does not, we can control how we react. No one can make us feel any way at all.
Reporters love to ask: “how did this make you feel?”
But the question is wrongheaded. No one chooses your reaction…or forces a feeling. How you react and how you choose to feel…is up to you. We get to decide how much control over our lives we let others have
Summing up: this passage in Ecclesiastes urges us – to be wise. It sets out to rescue us from self-righteousness and to replace it the real righteousness of God’s own Son.
Jesus was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. He died for our sins and rose from the grave, promising eternal life. And he rules today from heaven. His power is holding this world together and He will one day remove the world to make way for something better. The question is – will you, at that time, be removed to be with Him?
Coldwater ON