Take your Bibles, please, and turn to Ecclesiastes. Chapter 7 will learn from Solomon tonight about four hard learned lessons. We are in Solomon's memoir, so to speak. If you're just joining us tonight, this little strange book called Ecclesiastes that means the gathering or the church could also mean the preacher. Because that's how Solomon refers to himself a number of times in this little book is the memoirs of his musings over life in his old age. It is organized around four speeches, or four discourses. A lot of people, a lot of commentators struggle with the outline of Ecclesiastes. But back in 1887, in an unsigned article from the Princeton Review, a Bible scholar wrote the following. He said there is a clear and consistent plan in the book of Ecclesiastes, which needs no changes or mutilations in order to exploit and discover its meaning. One, in fact, of the most strictly logical and methodical kind is developed here. Not only is the argument well conducted, conclusive and complete, but its various points are so admirably disposed, its divisions, so regularly and in different parts conforming to the structure, as to give evidence that the whole book was carefully considered and well digested long before it was put together in written form. So there is an order to this book that appears to be meandering through different musings on life. In fact, it organizes itself around a consistent refrain or theme that comes back again and again and again, and that is simply this, that it is not possible for men to discover happiness in life on their own. Happiness is the gift of God, and it comes primarily through accomplishing what God said before you as your work or ministry or toil in life. So the first discourse, which is the first two chapters, talks about the vanity of vanities, about the endless rhythms and the seeming meaninglessness of life, if all you do is see life from your worldly perspective. It tells us that it is vain and frustrating to seek for happiness in anything but God's plan and purpose for your life. The second discourse was just after 3, 4, and 5, talks about the mystery of God's timing and his timeliness. You'll notice in that famous section, it begins with the words for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. And it talks about how God has done good things in the world, even though sometimes there is evil mixed with his good plan. So it deals with the issue of the Odyssey, the justification of God, a good God, and a world that is full of evil things. It comes to the same conclusion as the first discourse. Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possession and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot in life and rejoice in his work, this is the gift of God, for he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with the joy of his heart. So again, after that second speech, Solomon concludes that the blessing in life comes from God's good gift, finding our place in the world and working in the calling that God has given us. Now we're in the middle, right smack dab in the middle of the third discourse. This is where the lessons learned in discourse number one that happiness is the gift of God, and the lesson in discourse number two, that only God can steer the timeliness and appropriateness of the events of life, fit together, and we begin to answer some of the problems we have in this world in discourse number three. Chris Decker talked a couple of weeks ago how in chapter six, wealth cannot satisfy the soul. And last Sunday Bruce Cresswell took us through the first part of chapter seven, where he talks about the better things of life, most of them quite surprising. He uses the word better, six times in for 14 verses, better as this than that, better to do this than that, better to have this than that. Where he's talking about the surprising riches of life, things that we usually overlook in favor of something else, and he comes now to the second half of this seventh chapter, and he talks about four hard learned lessons of life. Now I want you to remember his flow of thought. Happiness is not within man's power to gain by himself or by his own efforts, it is the gift of God. God is a scheme and a rhythm to all of life, and this scheme is both beautiful and good if a person is able to look beyond worldliness and discern the work of God. It is a reference for God that opens up the eyes of spiritual blindness. And applying these truths, he arrives at this chapter, this particular point in chapter 7, verse 15, where he begins to gain divine perspective on the apparent difficulties of life. The reason I go through all this is because not only has it been two weeks since I've been here, but it's easy in the middle of a book to forget where you've been and where you're going, and especially in a book so enigmatic and so mysterious as this one. But we enter into what scholars call the central portion of the whole book in this very section tonight. Walter Kaiser says that the preacher has shown that enjoyment is a gift from God and is preferable to accumulating ever so many possessions. And he has shown that the acquisition of those things along with all other events of life is regulated by a magnificent and beautiful, mysterious plan of God. This next portion of scripture in chapter 7 is the central portion of the whole argument. Here's Solomon apply the two conclusions of the first two sections of his work about the gifts of God and the plan of God to the alleged inequalities and difficulties that we see in all of life under God's divine providence. He told us, and he will tell us tonight, that a proper evaluation of man's outward fortunes helps to explain the apparent contradictions in life and a proper evaluation of man's inward character helps to explain some of the difficulties in life. This is what Solomon says beginning in verse 15. In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes and is righteous and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life and is evil doing. Be not overly righteous and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Be not overly wicked and need to be a fool. Why should you die before your time? 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. Wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city. Surely there was not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. Do not take the heart all the things that people say unless you hear your servant cursing you. Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others. All this I have tested by wisdom and said that I will be wise but it was far from me. That which has been is far off and deep, very deep, who can find it out. I turn my heart to know and search out and to seek wisdom and the schemes of things and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness. 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. Behold, this is what I found says the preacher while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things which my soul had sought out repeatedly. But I have not found. One man among a thousand I found but a woman among all these I have not found. See, this alone I found. The God made man upright but they have sought out many schemes. Now at first glance this appears to be a number of random thoughts jammed together in the middle section of this book but really there is a connection to these. After each one of these observations Solomon turns to wisdom. He says here is a mystery that has bothered me or something that I tried to study and couldn't figure out or some great disappointment in life. But in each one of these things he turns to wisdom in the fear of the Lord as giving him biblical balance. There are four observations that Solomon makes in this chapter and there are four difficult lessons that can only be learned in the school of hard knocks by experience. And I want to go through them tonight. Here is the first one. Observation number one Solomon says don't be too sanctimonious toward God. Don't be over religious. Don't be a spiritual fanatic we would say. Look again at verse 15. In my vain life I have seen everything. There was a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness. Now this guy should have lived a long time. He was righteous but he died early. And there is a wicked man who prolongs life and is evil doing and he should have died a young man but he lives long, long life. Doesn't make sense. So Solomon says be not overly righteous. Do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Be not overly wicked. You wicked need to be a fool. Why should you die before your time? 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. Wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city. Now some people misinterpret what Solomon is saying here and they say Solomon is teaching the golden mean. Don't be too spiritual. Don't be too sinful. Sin and moderation. But that is not what Solomon is teaching. All through the rest of the book he condemns sin and he advocates a fear of the Lord and a righteous life and holiness before the Lord. What Solomon is saying can only be understood if we understood the way the Hebrew verb is constructed. The Hebrews have a verb tense that we don't have. It's called the hithpal and it turns the action back on the speaker. So let me really paraphrase what he's saying. When he says do not consider yourself wise. He's really saying do not think of yourself as a wonderful wise or a terribly wicked person. See yourself as God does as a sinful person who can yet have a true relationship with God and a long and fruitful life in spite of your lack of righteousness. He's seeing himself from a balanced and biblical faith. What he's condemning here is a pathological devotion to religion or what we might call a fanaticism. Do not be overly righteous so that you become a religious legalist and do not become overly wicked so that you become lawless. Don't give yourself the fundamentalism or to licentiousness. Keep a certain balance. In other words, he's attacking the Pharisee that's in us all. Jesus condemned the Pharisees he said and he said beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them for then you will have no reward from your father who isn't heaven. Jesus warned about praying in public and multiplying your words and giving all so that everybody sees you as if somehow that by being super religious you could prolong your life and earn the favor of God. H.C. Lupold said that in Solomon's time there was an overstrained righteousness that had a generous dose of works righteousness that was creeping its way into religion and Solomon saw this perhaps in his own soul. Perhaps for all of his worldlyness and all of his sins and all of his apostasy Solomon was tempted to go to the other extreme and become super religious in order to earn God's favor because his sin had gotten him in trouble. And he says you know that doesn't work. If it did, then righteous men would always live a long life and wicked men would always die after a short time. But I have found in my vain life that the opposite is often true. What is confusing is verse 18. What does he mean by this and by that? 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. This and that does not refer to righteousness and wickedness. He's not saying engage in righteousness and don't forget to sin a little bit because that will make you balanced. That's not what he's saying. This has to do with the gift of God and that has to do with the plan of God. These first two great lessons that he's learned. This refers to the fear of the Lord that produces true and humble wisdom, a fear of God that leads to true religion. And that refers to the joy that God has given us in work and the ability to joy life. He's pointing to two great graces that theologians remind us of today. The saving grace that removes guilt from us makes us righteous and Christ and bless us spiritually and common grace that enables us to enjoy the gifts of God. He's saying love God with all of your being and enjoy God in all of your life. He's pointing to a winsome, balanced, moderate way of living. Evangelicals don't like the word moderate. We only like the word conservative. We don't like the word balance. Seems to be a cop out to compromise. But balance is a biblical concept. In fact, the man who is moderate is a wise man, not a fool. And what Solomon is commending us to here is biblical balance, which I define this way. Moderate people with sincere faith, common sense and a measure of grace. Moderate people are people who have a sincere faith who possess common sense and a measure of grace. I found this to be true, that evangelical Christians take their religion, their politics, their marriages far too seriously. They are less concerned about their witness, their holiness and their godliness, and they seem to lack a sense of humor. That's true about us, where this intense, overbent, imbalanced, conservativeism that we have, and that perhaps folks may be the simple reason why with so many Americans, we are so unpopular. Maybe it's because we appear extreme, geeky, immoderate. It's hard for us to accept that. But then again, if people have no sense of humor, they can't accept what I'm saying.
But it's the only way to interpret Solomon properly is to interpret it this way, that balance in our souls and lives would serve us all very well. Solomon is saying, no one possesses balance. Sinners have to work at balance and growing in wisdom, and the only thing that you grant us to balance, he says, is the fear of the Lord that leads to wisdom. Wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers are in a city. Better than having ten men elected to office who do exactly what we want, impose our religious convictions, construct our moral paradigms, implement our political agenda, it's better to be wise. To have this moderate, common-sensical, gracious, and balanced look at yourself and how you relate to God and others in your religion. Don't be sanctimonious when it comes to God, Solomon says, it will not fool God and it will alienate other men and it will only delude your own soul. That's the first harder and lessen. I have found that the younger a person is, the more immature in life and in faith a person is, the more immoderate and extreme they are, but the more a person becomes seasoned in life and possesses experience and wisdom, the more moderate and balanced they become. He tends to say, oh, he's losing his fire, he's lost his passion, he's no longer committed, he's lost his edge, I don't think that's true. I think he's becoming a moderate person who has sincere faith, common sense, and a measure of grace. He doesn't take himself or the world or even his religion too seriously. How many times have you heard, folks, just as an illustration, why this is the most important election in the history of America? Really? Is it more important than the first guy we elected to be president? Who four times had to turn down the offer to become crowned the king of America? Is this election more important than 1860? When the nation was about to go to war and we needed one man to hold us together, is this election more important than the one at the height of the Great Depression, when Delano Roosevelt and Mr. Hoover ran against each other? Are things in worship than they were? In 1980, when Mr. Reagan took the office for Mr. Cardick, and you remember what those days were like? This is the most important election in American history, only to people of imbalance. And I can see the way you're looking at me, that you have no sense of humor. Proof, case closed, let's bow for the benediction. Lesson number one, seriously, lighten up a little bit, God is in control. Don't be too holy and too wicked, be balanced. Hey man, there's a balanced man over there. There's one in the group, he's usually the guy who's feeling guilty about something, but he's a balanced man. Lesson number two, kind of ties into this morning, don't be too sensitive about criticism. Now this would apply to a person who's got a sense of humor. Verse 20, surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. Do not take to heart all things that people say. Lest you hear your servant cursing you, your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others. All this I have tested by wisdom, and I said, I will be wise, but it was far from me. That which has been as far off and deep, very deep, who can find it out. Now Solomon's second lesson here, flows out of the first lesson, don't be so thin-skinned when people criticize a slander you. He says, nobody's perfect, surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. Well of course there isn't. And since people are sinful, they're going to gossip, they're going to slander, they're going to tell tales. So don't take to heart all the things that people say about you because you said things about other people, which indicates that people are just like you. He says it's both foolish and unrealistic to think that people will always think well of you and always speak kindly about you. And it is ridiculous to let the unkind and unguarded words of other sinners ruin our lives when we did the same things without intending to ruin somebody else's life. So, lighten up. We all like to think of ourselves as people of integrity. Romans chapter 3 says that every man is a liar and only God is true. Everyone gossips. We pass on tidbits that are negative, though true, but are intended to ruin the reputation of other people. Sometimes we even slander. We pass on tidbits that are not true. They're concocted lies designed to ruin the reputation of others. And every one of us speaks wrongly out of anger or fear or jealousy or strife or competition or dislike or prejudice or resentment or fear. It's part of life. Why? Because a heart is not right. Jeremiah says that the heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all other things. Who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the heart and I test the mind to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds. This is why Jesus said that the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. You see, the problem is not the lips. That's what Solomon is saying. Don't worry about what people say. That's not the problem. The problem is the thing he calls very deep that no one can understand. It's the human heart. And when you realize your own human heart and the human heart of other people then you realize that cursing and slander and gossip and filthy speech as well as worship and praise and words of affection can come out of the same heart through the same lips. That's what James says. With our tongue we bless God and curse men made in his image. We do the same. Out of the same heart. We all do this and therefore Solomon says, let's not take it very seriously when we hear people in an unguarded moment say things about us that shouldn't be said because we have done the same thing if you take it too seriously it will ruin your life. Everybody wants to be well thought of. Even more so people want to be well spoken of. Solomon is realistically saying in this world that's not going to happen. The main thing you need to struggle with is not what other people say but the very deep mystery of your own human heart. Here's his third lesson. First one was don't be too sanctimonious toward God. The second don't be too sensitive about criticism from other people. Here's the third one. Boy this applies to America. Don't rely too much on love. Verse 25. I turn my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and to scheme of things and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness. 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 you but the sinner is taken by her. Behold this is what I found says the preacher while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things which my soul has sought repeatedly but I have not found. One man among the thousand I found but a woman among all these I have not found. Solomon turns to another mystery perhaps the greatest mystery of humanity women. And he says be careful not to rely too much on the love of a woman. Now listen to me. Solomon is not a misogynist. He's not a woman hater. In fact Solomon's problem was like his dad's he liked women too much. After all he was married to a thousand of them. 700 wives who were princesses and 300 concubines. King Solomon loved many foreign women. Along with the daughters of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edamite, City andite and Hittite women. From the nation's consciousness which the Lord has said to the people of Israel you shall not enter into marriage with them. Neither shall you be with them for surely they will turn your heart away after their gods. Solomon clung to all these in love. He had 700 wives who were princesses and 300 concubines and his wives turned away his heart from the Lord. So Solomon says by the way he likes women you remember in chapter 2 verse 8 he called them the light of the sons of men. He says I turned my heart to no one to search about what went wrong with my marriages. Solomon is not making a generalized statement. He's making an observation out of his own experience. That's what he says here. He's not saying this is true for everybody. This has been true of me he says. And it may be true of you. That's what he's implying. Let me to paraphrase what Solomon is saying. If you think other things in life are hard to figure out, wait until you muse upon a woman especially if you marry her. She can make you like more bitter than death. In fact sometimes you'd like to die to escape that marriage. Her heart is a snare that traps the man who loves her and her feminine fingers bring pleasure as well as pain. If God blesses a man he gets a good wife. If not he's in for a troubled life. Solomon writes a lot about this painful subject. It is better to live in the corner of the house top than in the house shared with the quarrelsome wife, Proverbs 21-9. It is better to live in a desert land than with a quarrelsome and fretful woman, Proverbs 21-19. It is better to live in the corner of the house top than in a house shared with the quarrelsome wife, Proverbs 25-24. A fully son is a ruin to his father and a wife's quarreling is a continual dripping of rain, Proverbs 19-13. A continual dripping of a rainy day and a quarrelsome wife or like one in the same, Proverbs 27-15. You say, this is man hate women? No. He also writes this beautiful proverb that I put on our wedding invitation. He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains grace from God. It is Solomon who will write about the beauty of loving one wife turned over to chapter 9-9. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun because that is your portion in life and your toil at which you toil under the sun. Along with your work, enjoy the woman, the wife singular that he has given you to be your partner in life. What Solomon is saying here is really a critique of his own life. He said, I have known a thousand men and found one friend out of them. I have also known a thousand women and not found one who loved me. Well, go figure. You see, Solomon is saying, look, I have known a thousand women, 700 wives and 300 concubines. And I love many of them, but they were all a great disappointment to me because not one of them in a thousand loved me back. Instead, they became a snare, a trap, a burden to me, and they led my heart away from God. I have been deeply disappointed in love and in marriage. Perhaps this is why he wrote the song of Solomon. To celebrate that maybe somewhere in his life, there was a little girl he loved and vice versa, who somehow lost her love for him because she wasn't enough for him and he had to have another wife and then another wife and then a concubine here and a concubine there. Solomon is really not saying anything about women. He's saying something about himself. Behold, this is what I found, adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things which my soul had sought out repeatedly, but I have not found. He discovered that the more people he loved, the less he was able to love any of them. The true love can only be given one person at a time, one life at a time. Since he violated all the precepts of God, one wife, not a pagan wife but a fellow believer, sexual fidelity and devotion to this one woman. Her partnership in life, rather than an object of pleasure or pride, he never followed any of these principles he was deeply disappointed. He recognizes this in the rest of his writings. He who finds a wife finds a good thing and attains favor from the Lord, enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun. Let your fountain be blessed, rejoice in the wife of your youth as a loving deer and a graceful doe let her breast satisfy you at all times, always be intoxicated with her love. Why should you be intoxicated my son with the forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? For man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his past, the iniquities of the wicked and snare him, he is held fast in the courts of his sin, he dies for lack of discipline because of his great folly he has led astray. One is recognizing in the writing of Proverbs to his son, Reho Bohm, that his many wives and his plurality of concubines ruined his family life, and that is what he is warning us about. I detended too much on the love of a woman and ended up disappointed, and the woman that I should have loved, that one woman I was never faithful to. He says in addition to that, by the way, he said, men on a whole lot better. I have known a thousand men and found one of them, one out of a thousand, to be a true friend. A man who didn't love me for my power, or my wealth, or my parties, or my political influence, I have known a thousand men and found one of all the thousand women I have known, I have not had one be a friend to me. Solomon is confirming what Paul wrote, husbands, love your wives as Christ, love the church, and give yourself up for them. So do not, he says, be too dependent upon the love of a woman, you might be disappointed. Finally, he says, don't be naive about humanity, verse 29. See? This alone I found, out of all these musings, this is the one thing he discovers, that God made men upright that they have sought out many schemes. Solomon poetically sets forth the biblical doctrine of the depravity of man. So I've looked at all these women I've been married to. So I've looked at all the men who are my friends. I've listened to the people who cursed me, thought about the people that I cursed. Went to the temple and saw one sanctimonious person after another, including myself. I came to the conclusion that God made Adam, Adam, it says in the Hebrew upright, but they have sought out many devices. Devious, perverted, wicked schemes toward evil. This is a very important observation, folks, because the evil in the world does not come from God, Solomon says, God made men upright. God made no mistake. The evil comes from the fact that we have sought out many devices. Now listen to me. Here is the basic difference between a liberal and a conservative, whether it's politically or theologically. A liberal thinks that men are basically good, and therefore the only thing man needs is more education, more investment of programs and schools and by the government, more psychology and more sociology and more human engineering, because they're evolving into a better person. If we just get constraints like religion and home and walls out of the way, then man's basic good nature will emerge and we will live in a paradise. Solomon has the opposite view. On this night he's a conservative. No men are basically bad. They're basically sinful. And they need to constrain some family and church and government and responsibility around them because they're not evolving into a better life. They're degrading further and further into their fallen nature, and less God interjects the religion with this thing called grace. How we see people and their basic nature will determine our worldview, our religious convictions, and how we relate to one another in marriage, in friendship, and in the communities in which we dwell. Wisdom tells us in this fundamental issue that the conservative is correct. People are sinful and God's restraints, God's laws, God's guidelines and institutions. Most importantly, God's wisdom is what is needed to protect and preserve society. See alone this I found that God made men upright but they have sought out many devices, many schemes. Solomon says in all of this musing, foolishness and sin are a part of life and they infect everything we do from religion, to our conversations, to our relationships with men and women, to our marriages and friendship. Foolishness and sin are such a part of humanity that only by submitting to God in the fear of the Lord and gaining wisdom can we make sense out of life. We don't judge a person by their religious behavior. We ask the person, do you fear the Lord? We don't listen to what people say about us or other people. We know the person either fears the Lord or they don't and that's what we listen to. We don't marry a girl because she's pretty, she's sexy, she's fun to be with. We ask, does she fear the Lord? We don't pick a guy to be a husband because he's cute or friend because he's cool. We ask, does he fear the Lord? Because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. Get wisdom, get insight, do not forsake and do not forget the words of my mouth. Do not forsake and she will keep you. Love her and she will guard you. The beginning of wisdom is this, get wisdom and whatever you get, get insight. Prize her highly and she will exalt you. She will honor you if you embrace her. She will place on your head a graceful garland. She will bestow on you a beautiful crown. She will preserve your the fear of the Lord. Who fears the Lord? Moderate people with a sincere faith, they're not sanctimonious. With common sense, they don't take too seriously what people say about them. They know better. And with the measure of grace that they apply to their marriages and their friendships. Those are wise people, beautifully, biblically, balanced wisdom that God gives to those who fear Him. These are hard-learned lessons. Sometimes the only way to learn them is from experience. But a wise man learns from experience. And he learns not to take life too seriously and take only one thing seriously. The fear of the Lord. And once we do that, Solomon says, in some mysterious way, I can't quite describe yet things have a way of working out. Solomon's not your standard evangelical. He's a different man. Perhaps a man from another age that speaks to our time and place with a word of wisdom. Amen? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this Solomon, this brother in the Lord, whose life was in many ways exciting and in many ways a broken disappointment because of his own folly that we praise you that by the Holy Spirit and through the work of Jesus Christ long before he was incarnate, you worked in Solomon's life to make him a man of wisdom, to give him grace and a sense of humor and a common sense so that he understood himself and other people, was able to love people and show them grace and mercy because of his own folly. To judge the only thing he could judge, which was his own human heart, to extend to others a compassion and a bit of forgiveness for the folly of their own heart that spilled into his life. Here is a man who did not take himself or the world too seriously but feared you and pursued the wonderful and priceless treasure of wisdom of which he passes on to us. Give us this wisdom, this moderation, this balance, make us people who are moderate and sincere in our faith. Fill us with common sense and with a measure of grace and give us a happy life with the wife or the husband of our youth, with our friends and in this community of grace that we find in the church for Jesus' sake because we ask these things in his name, amen.