Ecclesiastes 9

Jack Abeelen
Wisdom Wins Out In The End
Ecclesiastes 9:11-18
Recorded On:5/5/2013

Notes from this sermon:

As we continue our look at life under the sun with Solomon who had certainly grown up knowing God, but  had in his later years walked away from God, all the wisdom God had gave him, set it aside and sought to find life in the world apart from God. And once in awhile, he'll come back to great revelations.  He will certainly turn back to his relationship with the Lord in the end of the book.

But this morning, we want to address verses 11-18, as Solomon addresses the issue of wisdom. He does it in 3 sections:

He says in v 11-12 that life is unpredictable, that we can't know the future, but that world makes a huge mistake in presuming things about God that they don't know, much like they presume some of the things that they put their hopes in, not aware of the fact that they are headed for judgement which will come suddenly. They should rather turn to the Lord's wisdom.

He then illustrates that in verses 13, 14, and 15, that in the world, the wisdom of God is not readily accepted or embraced by many, even though it brings great life to those who will follow it.  And he will conclude by saying in v 16, 17, and 18 that the wisdom of God, the ways of God in our life  is the best we can do, that the way we are to live our life and to serve Him.

You know, life is certainly frustrating when it's out of your control, isn't it? And when you think of it, isn't most of it not in our control?

Ex: stuck in Israel once for a week.

The comfort that you and I have in facing life's unpredictability is that we know God is in charge of our life.  We don't always get explanations, but God doesn't let go.  He's made plenty of promises to finish the work that he's begun, that all things work together for good if  you love the Lord who are called according to his purpose. We need to somehow learn how to rest in Him, even when things make no sense, and there really is no explanation.  But even we as Christians need to be encouraged about that, don't we.  Because we so often make judgments only on what we see and then we make conclusions that aren't right at all.

Driving illustration.  I like to drive.  I don't like it when you drive.  There is something about driving that puts me in charge of everything.  I can decide how we are going to get there, how fast we will go.   I can handle all of that right here...with buttons. I don't like it when you drive because I lose control of all of those things. Then I sit in the back complaining....  It's all about control isn't it?   Cab drivers example.

In light of the fact that much of our life is out of our control and is certainly unpredictable, the only thing that you and I know that we can hang onto is that God's in control, isn't it.  But, do you ever feel like it's out of control even though God's got ahold of it?  Or you say to the Lord, look I've given you my life. What are you doing with it? Where are you? Why don't you move?  Come on!  I've asked, I've prayed, I've cried...and nothing seems to be happening.

Priest and meteorologist go to play golf in July---freak rainstorm, "You know, between the two of us we either should have seen this coming or we could have prayed it away."  But that didn't happen.

And, that's the rub isn't it? When it gets right down to it, no matter who you are and who you know, your life is uncertain. You hope things don't happen to you. "I hope it doesn't happen to me, what a poor break he got." But how can you know?  How can you change the course of the life God has put before you? There's no guarantee.

In fact, much of what we do in life is to somehow secure a guaranteed future. We will go the gym so that we are healthy, and we don't die prematurely because I want to be guaranteed a long life.  I will save up, and work hard, and invest so that I can have a secure retirement. I will spend lots of money sending my kids to the right college to be certain they can live a better life.  I will create the right environment in my home so that they will grow up knowing the right things.  And does all of that work always? It doesn't. Even if you put all of your ducks in a row, you can't guarantee the future with a sense of security and predictability.

But that's the way the world works.  They assume certain things. And not having the comfort of knowing God's in charge, they run with all kinds of dictums in their mind.  Everythings going to work out how its supposed to. It's all going to be all right.  You give, you get. You know, the karma's coming back.  Never have any peace.  Life is unpredictable.

But, even in it's unpredictability, it is a pretty good evidence of God's goodness because not knowing what comes next and knowing the Lord who does, I am forced as a believer to hang onto Him...really don't know anything else, can't run ahead of Him too far.  He know the future, I don't. So I trust in Him and I look to Him every day because every future day He knows.  If I was to be shown all the good that was coming my way, I think I would just be a degenerate. If I saw all the trials I was going to have to face, I might jump out a window.

God doesn't do that. He takes us today, and He raises the curtain, and He walks us through and then tomorrow, He shows us tomorrow. Not before.  We can't know the future.  But our guarantee and our rest is that we know Him who does. How important is that, that we know that.

"Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”  James 4:13-15

James 4--you who run around and say I will do this or that....And the Lord says what is your life, it is a vapor that appears for a moment and then is gone.  You ought to say....."If the Lord wills...we will do this or that"

In other words, for us, as saints, our hope is in the Lord, rather the plans we draw up for ourselves.

Solomon will talk about that.  How the world looks at the uncertainties of this life. How God's wisdom is not honored in this life, but in the long run, in the end, wisdom is the better thing.  It's better than strength, better than power. Youre gonna know God and have life eternal.

"Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all." -Ecclesiastes

1.athletics
2. military might
3. industry
4. economy
5. individual proficiency

The fastest runner will usually win the race, but not always....because of the element of time and chance that happens to us all.

Lance Armstrong

"The bread to the wise"....often the wisest get the $ but not always....Steve Jobs, Bill Gates...

Nothing is guaranteed. There's no assurances.  You can make presumptions.

Solomon mentions  a couple of mitigating factors...."Time and chance"  literally----"experience and misfortune" in Hebrew, will come into every life. Now here's the deal, for the believer, God allows them in your life to steer you in the direction that He wants you to go. You won't always understand it.  You will rarely agree with it.  You'll argue that this should have went in some other direction.

But God who loves us, much like a father with his children, will direct you through those experiences and you'll find yourself where God wants you to be. And so you rest, you embrace those things, you thank God that He's in charge and you don't need an explanation for everything.  You know Job asked for one and the Lord told him, "Hey look God doesn't give an explanation for any of His doings, would you understand it anyway?"  That's for us, our life as unpredictable as it were, is now, falls into a different category because God's in charge of my life. But the world.  Their whole life is predicated from God's point of view upon one thing, whatever it takes to get you to your knees, so that you'll surrender your life to me because I want all men to be saved.  So the world has only one explanation, all life is to drive them to their face. But once you've surrendered your life, now God begins to lead you and guide you through all those things you can't explain.  Why does one family lose a child? Why does one family make so much $ and another struggles to survive.

And the Lord says to you, I'm not going to explain it to you.  Just trust me, and I'll get you home.   He does all things well.  He's for us and not against us. He's on our side.  But the world doesn't know that, not at all.  We look with Solomon at life under the son, and we see a person who is talented, he's able, has resources, and he has skill that leaves us marveling...he's going places, he'll never fail, he can write his own ticket...yet he does. Why?  Well v 12 says "Under the sun doesn't know the times in which he live and the sons of men those who don't know God, worldly men, they become snared in a worldly perspective of life.  One that blinds them to the Lord and will bring them to a place where all their assumptions will fail.  And in a moment's time their judgement will come.  I think we all know someone who has ridden high upon the top of their game and then something unexpected happens. Oh God, what happened here? Why did You allow that?

Solomon uses these beautiful poetic illustrations to drive his point home. He highlights, v 12,  the surprise found by those who thought they had life by the tail and suddenly it turned on them. But there were presumptions under the sun.   Shouldn't happen to you and I. We just trust the Lord. Do all things make sense?  No, but He's a good God.  And he's working together all things for good.  Notice what he says here...a fish taken in a cruel net or a bird caught in a snare, those sudden changes in fortune, I was swimming just fine...

"For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them." Ecclesiastes 9:12

Then an unexpected turn of events came.  The wheels came off.  Things turned sour. I couldn't have forseen this.  How vital that you and I  know God.  What a tragedy for the world trying to make sense of life. I just know that whatever God allows He does for a good reason.  I've heard it said that I know two things in life, 1) There is a God.  2) I'm not him.

Proverbs 21, "There is no wisdom, or understanding, or counsel against the Lord.  The horse might be prepared for the day of battle, but deliverance comes from Him.  That's it. He ultimately is the one who sits on the throne. So you can plan all you like.  You can assume all you want.  You can hope it all goes according to plan, but God speaks last and God speaks loudest.  The good news is, we have a God who loves us.  And behind my life and yours, if you've given Jesus your life, sits the great Engineer.  The one who understands, as the Master Designer, everything we need.  And what happens, when you give your life to Jesus, your life goes from coincidence to providence.

Providence by definition is the overruling hand of God in human affairs as God acts supernaturally in very natural ways to accomplish His purposes in my life.

I've learned now that God is in charge. I don't understand it, don't ask me "why God?"  When you say to me now, why God, I just turn off. Invariably, I don't have that answer, I couldn't explain it to you if I tried. I don't know why I had the third set of helpings of ice cream the other night.  I shouldn't have, I don't get it, but I did it.  So you know, don't ask me "why God"  I can't stop eating ice cream, so I'm a long way from "Why did God?"

Sometimes when you look back over life though, you can see how God's hand moves. You know, the way God brings you together with others, the job you got that you shouldn't have got but you were in the right place at the right time talking to the right person.  Man, God, you're awesome. You didn't see it going in, but you oftentimes see it looking back. And you'll find that a lot in the scriptures, how the Lord puts together such wonderful things.

If you look at life from Solomon's view under the sun you say "unpredictable," but if you look at life with God in view, you can say "providential."  On the one hand it's precarious, but on the other hand, it's purposeful.  God's ways are behind the scenes, but He moves all the scenes which He is behind. So, on a horizontal level, everything's very unpredictable. But, we have a loving God who plans things out, who goes before us for our benefit.  So we're much better off, aren't we?  That wisdom that God gives us to know that, wow what a delivering thing. To be able to rest.

The sons of men under the sun, it indeed looks like it's just time and chance, but that's not true for us.  Then he gives an example of this in one regard, v 13, little city, besieged, poor man saves it:

"I have also seen this example of wisdom under the sun, and it seemed great to me. There was a little city with few men in it, and a great king came against it and besieged it, building great siegeworks against it. But there was found in it a poor, wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that poor man. But I say that wisdom is better than might, though the poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are not heard. The words of the wise heard in quiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good."  Ecclesiastes 9:13-18

The wisdom is not oftentimes appreciated in a world view.
They demote that kind of wisdom.

Little city in Israel who had a wall around it, one day it was under siege, the city despaired, but then comes an unknown, very poor, wise man.  He rises to diplomacy.  Finds an answer from the Lord and delivers the town, but the irony is that when it is done, they don't remember him or value his efforts.

People are not moved by your word through God because they've already decided how life should be.  So they devalue you.

The world is most impressed by power.  They like the great king.  They like the overwhelming strength he shows and the ability to snare weak cities.  The world honors might, wisdom, not so much.  The world values sports stars, movie stars, people who become extremely wealthy as the world flocks over them. Mick Jagger, $600 tickets--lasted 50 years, not much compared to eternity.

So, we honor them folks.  We don't usually celebrate the doctor who saves lives.  Or the extremely gifted teacher who makes their commitment to your children day in and day out for years on end.  Or the good parent or great grandparent.  Or if you will, the blocker on the line that makes the quarterback look good.  Why?  Because the world's into glory man.  And success, and fame, and power.  Songwriter always less than honored than the singer.  The actor always honored more than the screenwriter. We do it in the church. We honor the pastor, the worship leader, the Christian artist, the author.  More than the Sunday School teacher, janitor, administrator

You've all heard of D.L. Moody,  but if it were not for the boldness of Edward Kimbel  who one day walked into the Holton shoe store in Chicago. You see, God honors things differently, the world doesn't honor the wisdom of God. But anonymous doesn't mean unnecessary.  You may not be honored for walking with God, but He'll honor you.

The most important man in this city was the poor unknown and forgotten deliverer of the town. The world didn't honor him. God used him, God will use you. You shouldn't stop reaching out to your friends and family, or those that you love around you, or at work because you feel unappreciated or unknown and your sacrifice kind of go unapplauded. Quiet heroes do always the work of God because the world doesn't recognize that as valuable.  The world finds value in the wrong place, doesn't mean you should stop. Give me a teacher over a quarterback. Give me a faithful saint in prayer over a popular evangelist who can draw thousands together.

God values the labor of those who walk in wisdom even though they're not appreciated.  And Solomon's lesson is pretty stark.Wisdom, God's wisdom, the kind that brings deliverance to many, may very well by set aside by the opinions and the applause and the majority kind of leaning of the world who seeks honor, and might, and power and money and success and popularity.

But God blesses his people who seek Him, who preach the gospel. You know, every soul is much like this little city, Satan's outside wanting to destroy it, but Jesus is the poor wise man, if you will, whose word will bring life to all who hear Him. It's just many in the world don't think that's where life should be found, but it's only where life is found. So we have no control over our future, but we know the one who does.  And yet in the world we're going to be despised in many ways and the wisdom of God set aside because that's not the standard by which the world judges good or successful.

Finally, Solomon says this, wisdom is better than strength, nevertheless the poor man's wisdom will be despised and his words not heard.  Why?  Because he's poor for one thing.  Words of the wise spoken quietly should be heard rather than the shout of a ruler of fools.  Wisdom is better than the weapons of war even though one sinner can destroy much good.

There's great power in sin but there's even greater power in God's wisdom.  His word can overcome, can't it. So having told us that much life is unpredictable, nor is it in control and that the world won't reward true heroes because they are obscured by the temporary worship of idols. You know, you might look at the world and say then, well, why bother walking with God. Why bother sharing my faith, it doesn't seem to do any good.  Well Solomon here in the last few verses says not so fast.

The wisdom of God is better (and he says it twice) than strength, better than weapons of war, God's wisdom in your life--that's the key. God in His ways, His word in your heart, that you with His eyes view life from His perspective.  The wise are those who are skillful at living in the world by applying God's wisdom to all they know.  It's better.

Oh yeah, sin can ruin a lot of things. Solomon is the first to admit sin has destructive power.  But he's not giving an inch on the fact that God's wisdom brings life. It's better.  It's better each and every time.  Can you lose in the process? Sure. Can you be stuck with I don't know what God is doing?  Sure. But I trust that He's for my good.  And His ways bring life.  And even if they're devalued by the world in which you try to share them, that doesn't make them any less true. It just means that over the long time, over the long period, wisdom in the long run is far better. 

We can't control our future.  We can't control the consequences of sinful men's evil pursuits. And we can't control the fact that God's word in our lives may oftentimes go unheard by people, but that doesn't make them any less powerful.  Solomon writing the book of Proverbs used this word for wisdom used 125 times. He wrote there in Proverbs 26---If you find a man who is wise in his own eyes, there is more hope for a fool than for him.  But in that same book, chapter 3, he wrote, "trust with the Lord in all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He'll direct your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes.  Fear the Lord. Depart from evil. It will be health to your navel (flesh) and marrow (strength) to your bones." It's all about trusting the Lord for us, isn't it.  Because in the world Solomon saw that things don't always equate and anticipations aren't always fulfilled, expectations fall short and presumptions don't work.  Wisdom submits itself to God and realizes He's in control.  The fear of the Lord, the beginning of wisdom, Solomon wrote that too.

Does that describe you? There are many folks in the world who live by the way they feel.  They make things up to try to deal with the unpredictability of life, to try to explain away the things they can't explain.  There are others who follow the loud voices of the world telling them what's right and what's wrong.  But there are others who live by the word of God and He's our God and He's our comfort and His still small voice still has all the answer for those who are struggling to know.

Wisdom is better--the word is "superior to" all that the world has to offer because God can overrule the swift, and take out the strong, and set aside the wise, and disqualify the rich, and not use the skilled of this world, but He will not turn from those who love Him.  The world might not appreciate His wisdom in your life, but just like that poor wise man who was ignored, it is the better way to live because to give Jesus out to the world brings life.

Paul said this to the Corinthians, "Since the wisdom of God was foolishness to the world, it pleased God through that foolishness to preach salvation through Jesus Christ.  The foolishness of Christ, even that's wiser than men and the weakness of God, it's even that's stronger than men.

Solomon has it right, the world lives on presumption.  We all face the same difficulties in life.  We can't explain all that happens to us at every turn. But I can rest knowing that whatever happens God's in charge.
And He's on my side.  And He's for me and not against me.  And He, His desire is to give me a hope. All I have to do is live in His wisdom.