Restraining Wisdom: Trusting God When You Want Action

Ecclesiastes 8 ESV

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. I say: Keep the king’s command, because of God’s oath to him. Be not hasty to go from his presence. Do not take your stand in an evil cause, for he does whatever he pleases. For the word of the king is supreme, and who may say to him, “What are you doing?” Whoever keeps a command will know no evil thing, and the wise heart will know the proper time and the just way. For there is a time and a way for everything, although man’s trouble lies heavy on him. For he does not know what is to be, for who can tell him how it will be? 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. 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. 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. Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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, 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.

Introduction

I tend to be an impulsive person to many people, and I can understand why. It seems like I do something out of the blue—as if an idea hits me and I act as if I have no impulse control; I want to take action and get the thing done immediately. Now, that might be true, say if I want a snack. But it is much less true when it comes to more important matters. To me, when right and wrong are on the line—when justice or injustice are at stake—then I feel the compulsion to act immediately.

However, as I read Ecclesiastes 8, there is a call to restrain ourselves in these moments—even when we believe that we’re in the right. You may have heard the saying that “fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” meaning that there is wisdom in restraint, especially in relation to those in authority, and definitely in relation to he who has supreme authority.

Solomon informs his readers that there is a proper way to act—specifically in matters relating to those in authority, but we can apply it to all of life as well, and hopefully, I’ll prove it to you as we go along in the text this morning.

So as we open up Ecclesiastes 8, I want us to see four impacts that wisdom has on our daily lives. The first impact is upon our presence (v. 1). The second is upon our passions (vv. 2-9). The third impact is position (vv. 10-13). Finally, wisdom impacts our perspective (vv. 14-17).

Wisdom Impacts Our Presence

Wisdom Impacts Our Passions

Wisdom Impacts Our Position

Wisdom Impacts Our Perspective

Wisdom Impacts Our Presence

The first way that wisdom impacts our daily lives is by our presence.

Look at how Solomon talks about the face of a the wise. Perhaps a better word would be countenance because that’s really what he is getting at:

Ecclesiastes 8:1 ESV

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.

A wise person has a face that shines and is soften. That’s probably not how most of us would describe the countenance of wisdom. We’d probably describe with words like “resolute, stern, dour, or rigid.” Solomon says “Nope; a wise face is a soft, shining face.” The wise person’s demeanor—his whole presence is one that gives light and puts those around him at ease rather than on edge.

And the reason is actually in the question: “who knows the interpretation of a thing?” This is a question standing in for a statement. Solomon is stating that the wise understand the situation they’re in. They can look at the moment and can knows how to handle it.

One of my favorite scenes in any movie comes from Searching for Bobby Fischer. Near the end of the movie, the young chess prodigy Josh is playing against his toughest challenger. He’s laying his head on his hands staring at the board, uncertain of how to move. His coach, Bruce Pandolfini, is watching him in the next room on closed-circuit television. Pandolfini, speaking to no one in particular says, “Look deep, Josh. It's there. It's twelve moves away, but it's there. You've got him.” Josh keeps looking. The camera focuses in on a pawn, then Pandolfini says, “He’s got it.” No one knows it but Josh and his coach, but there’s something different about that boy’s face. Josh puts out his hand to offer a drawer. When his opponent refuses, Josh proceeds to win in twelve moves, just as Pandolfini declared.

You see, when God grants us wisdom—and we’re not simply relying on the wisdom of man—there is a peace and confidence that cannot help but come across the face. There’s a restraint that comes forth. Like Moses when he met with God, he would come out of the tabernacle with confidence written on his shining face. Even if he didn’t know exactly what God was going to do in the end, he trusted in his very providence and steadfast love and so there was no need to fret, no need to be anxious, no need to get flustered. Instead, that kind of wisdom and confidence exuded forth and gave him the potential to influence those in his presence.

And the same would go for us. While everyone else around us is scared, wanting to run or angry, wanting to fight, the calm, enlightened presence of God’s wisdom radiates from our very faces.

And this is the type of presence—a soft face with the confidence in God’s providence—is what is needed especially when we have the opportunity to influence those in authority over us. The wise—those who can keep their head and their confidence in God’s work—are those who have the opportunity to influence those in authority—whether kings or CEOs, principals or supervisors. Our very presence can reassure those around us. One needs only think of men and women of Scripture who exuded wisdom: Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Deborah, Ruth, Daniel, Esther. Each of these men and women were able to speak hard truths and yet gain the confidence of those who were around them. They were able to see the problems around them and know how to handle them. Their presence was changed by the wisdom given by God.

Wisdom Impacts Our Passions

Wisdom does not only impact our presence, but it also impacts our passions. We see this in verses 2-9. For sake of time, we won’t read every verse, but let’s read four of them.

Ecclesiastes 8:2–5 ESV

I say: Keep the king’s command, because of God’s oath to him. Be not hasty to go from his presence. Do not take your stand in an evil cause, for he does whatever he pleases. For the word of the king is supreme, and who may say to him, “What are you doing?” Whoever keeps a command will know no evil thing, and the wise heart will know the proper time and the just way.

Now verse 2 is a difficult text to understand in its original language. Just by looking at it, it seems to say that one is to keep the king’s commands no matter what they may be—even if they go against God’s will and law. There does not seem to be any qualifications for it at all. And to put matters worse, Solomon’s reasoning is due to God’s oath to him.

It’s the second part of that verse that causes the most difficulty. What does it mean by God’s oath to him. In Hebrew it essentially says, “the oath of God.” Without getting into the weeds, these words could be understood in a multitude of ways, but I think that both the New English Translation and the Christian Standard Bible help us to understand it better:

Ecclesiastes 8:2 CSB

Keep the king’s command because of your oath made before God.

This wording seems then to lend itself to some type of servitude to the king, and by the way the rest of these verses read, it would seem to be a high-ranking soldier—perhaps a military advisor. At once he is both respected for his advice, but also expected to carry out the orders of the king—even if he may personally disagree with them. Why? Because he swore an oath to be loyal to him before God. Now, certainly our loyalty to God outweighs that loyalty to the king, but for matters that do not go directly against God’s law, we are to live up to such loyalty. We do so because we live under people of authority by God’s own design and will.

Still though, if you have ever been asked for advice, and the person asking decides not to take your advice, you know how frustrating that can be. And the more they ignore your counsel, the more you want to throw your hands up and walk away. One temptation, then, is to ask, “Why ask me for my advice if you’re going to ignore me no matter what I say?” But Solomon warns against such thinking.

He calls on us to fight the temptation and keep our countenance calm—our faces shining. That’s how wisdom impacts us: wisdom restrains our passions that often get the better of us. Hence, Solomon instructs his readers not to be hasty in going from the king’s presence—the idea of leaving in a panic or frustration. If they leave the presence of the king, they have no influence over him.

At the same time, there’s another temptation we must fight: standing there and arguing with him. That’s what Solomon means when he wrote “don’t stand in an evil cause.” As one commentator put it: don’t waste your time on a lost cause. What the king says goes. It is neither the time nor the place for arguing. And if we persist in doing so, we will find that the king may put us in our place for an unspeakable amount of time.

My dad would often advise that when you’re trying to open a door and someone is holding it shut, don’t keep pushing on the door. Go around, find out who is keeping it shut and why, and if you’ll deal with that, you’ll often find the very one who kept the door closed is the one who will open it.

If we keep pushing, the door will remain closed and frustrations will only escalate. You see, the one who stays, the one who exudes wisdom with a shining face, the one who keeps his command will generally avoid the wrath of the king upon himself. That’s what Solomon means when he says he will know no evil thing.

So he avoids the temptations of storming out on the king or arguing with the king. Instead, “the wise heart will know the proper time and the just way.” That’s exactly the emphasis of verse 1 that explains why a wise person has such a presence. He knows the proper time and just way. That’s how he maintains the confidence of those in authority.

The truth of the matter is that we have authority over us, and we can be a great influence over them if we will allow God’s wisdom to impact our passions.

I can’t help but think of Daniel here. When he finds out that all of Nebuchadnezzar’s advisors will be killed because they can’t tell him what his dream was or what it means, Daniel doesn’t lose his composure. Instead, he asks the king to give him a time to come and reveal the dream and its meaning. Then he spends time with his friends in prayer seeking the wisdom of God.

Remember last week that many want to act wise and righteous, and then blather on without any understanding of whether or not its the proper time and place or the right way to do it. They hear the king say something they don’t like and, in a huff, they walk out or say, “what are you doing?” And it’s understandable; it seems the moral weight of the world rests on him, and yet the wise understand that there is a right time and way for every matter. They trust God in the frustrations and restrain their actions and words because they have no idea what the future holds, but know that God has it all planned out.

Brothers and sisters, can we trust God in our frustrations with our bosses, our supervisors who want us to work in the most inefficient way ever? Can we trust God in the frustrations with our children when they spill cereal all over the floor or ask “why” for the hundredth time that day? Can we trust God in our frustrations with that fellow employee that wants to talk and waste our time all day long? Can we trust God with our frustrations with one another, when we don’t understand what each other is going through? So that we don’t allow our passions to get the better of us? I wish I could say that I’ve always done that without fail, but all of us know that’s not true. But I can say that I wish I had.

Solomon makes the point: if anything, God can take the king out if he so chooses. He is the one with the power of death in his hands. No one, not even a wicked king, can escape from death. Solomon has seen this with his own eyes; it is the king with the power to hurt others who ends up hurting himself, paying the high price for his actions. And because God retains control, we don’t have to be, and that leaves us time to focus on restraining our passions.

Wisdom Impacts our Position

But it isn’t only that wisdom impacts our presence and passions, it also impacts our position because wisdom keeps us living in awe before our God.

Ecclesiastes 8:10–13 ESV

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. Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. 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. 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.

I don’t want to spend a whole lot of time on this because I think Solomon is pretty clear here, but I do want us to fully comprehend how deeply impactful wisdom is to our position.

Life can get frustrating when we see those who do evil prosper—those who can afford the best attorneys that get themselves out of trouble based on a technicality in the law, those who can avoid taxes because their accountants know all the loopholes, those who live like the devil, yet are treated like an angel. We see these men and women and see how we struggle, or others struggle around them, and once again, we are tempted to throw our hands up and say, “what’s the use in doing what’s right?”

That’s the same feeling the Psalmist felt in Psalm 73.

Hear his words in Psalm 73:11–13 “And they say, “How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?” Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches. All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.”

He laments how well-to-do the wicked are until he entered the sanctuary. It is there that he realized that life isn’t always as they seem. That’s the same idea that Solomon portrays in these verses. Sure they seem to prosper and prolong their days due to their evil, but that’s their position before mortal man, but before Almighty God, they’re in a perilous position.

Those of us, living in wisdom, do not go after evil. Wisdom restrains us from doing so; it reminds us that our position before God means more than our position before man. That’s what makes the stories of David and Goliath or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego versus Nebuchadnezzar so impactful. We see those who did not fear what man would think or would do to them. They only cared what God thought. They weren’t concerned about standing before men; they cared only about bowing before God forever.

Wisdom reminds us that our position on this earth is temporal—it’s passing. Wisdom teaches us that our position before God means infintely more than our position before man. Yet the only way to have a right position is to be united to Wisdom himself—Jesus, the incarnate Word and Wisdom of God.

Romans 4:24–5:1 ESV

but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

As we’ve been learning in Sunday School, we have been justified—vindicated by faith—and so have peace with God, standing in a right position because of and through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Wisdom Impacts Our Perspective

So we’ve see how wisdom impacts our presence, our passions, and our position. We come now and see how it impacts our perspective. Wisdom helps us to see life differently than the unbeliever.

Ecclesiastes 8:14–17 ESV

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. 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. 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, 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.

Those of us who live in wisdom will understand that bad things happen to “good people” and good things happen to “bad people.” We live in a fallen world and we must expect to live in it until Christ usher’s in his new kingdom. All of us get to eat, drink, and enjoy our lives here in this world, but for the believer, we know that there is more than all the most scrumptious food and sweetest drinks can offer. These are but tastes of a better world. The unbeliever doesn’t understand that.

God is at work. The problem is that those who live under the sun—as if God has no place in it—never see what he is up to. They can spend all their time seeking and working towards an answer, but they will never find it. They’ve left God out of the equation and thus cannot comprehend his plan in the slightest. They’re trying to make sense of God’s world without God in the world.

This was what Solomon ultimately saw: he lived as if he was one of them. And what he observed was that they would and could search day and night, never closing their eyes to sleep, and still they would end up with no answers.

From our perspective though, we can sleep soundly. Wisdom tells us that God is good. It tells us that there is more to this life than work, food, drink, and entertainment. There’s more sovereignty than the king’s. Justice will be done. God’s way will be victorious.

Church family, we live in a world that has a perspective about life separated from God, and we cannot help but be consumed with it; it’s in so much of what we watch, hear, and read. Rarely do people speak the actual words, but the message is there—this is all there is; there is no hope in the world.

Wisdom restrains and resists these secular worldviews. It refuses to let them take root for long, and helps keep our perspective focused on the facts that God is at work in this world, he is in control, and his promises are true.

Conclusion

As we close out Ecclesiastes 8, we’ve seen the impact of wisdom in our lives: our presence, passions, position, and perspective. I would venture to say that most, if not all of us, at one point or another have wanted to throw up our hands and be done with it all. It’s too frustrating, too annoying, too unjust, too aggravating, too hopeless. Let me encourage you as Solomon would: don’t give into the temptation. Those are lies of a world under the sun.

Stop and consider life lived above the sun. Wisdom tell us to trust in God’s providential hand. Trust in his sovereign rule. When we do, our presence changes from a hardened, panicky, and frustrated face to a soft, shining one. Our passions become restrained. Our position is no longer questioned, but understood to be secured in Christ before God. Our perspective sees what an unbelieving world cannot: a new heaven and earth awaits all who are in Christ Jesus.

Don’t walk away from God’s wisdom. Keep walking in it, and watch as it transforms us into the men, women, and children God has called us to be.