Ecclesiastes 9.13-10.20 Living Wisely in a Chaotic Political World

Living Wisely in a Chaotic Political World

January 14, 2018

In an amoral world where right and wrong vary from person to person or group to group, then is it any wonder our nation is engulfed in public confusion, division, and increasing hostility? As Solomon says in , “folly is set in great dignity, foolishness is exalted.” This is a dangerous place for a culture as we see in our contemporary situation.

I. The Cost of Foolishness – ,

A. It only takes a small amount of folly to destroy something precious

1. Dead flies can make a sweet perfume a stench –

2. A small snake can kill a large man –

B. Foolishness brings confusion

1. The words of the fool swallow up wisdom –

2. The fool multiplies words so that no one can arrive at a reasonable conclusion –

C. The fool says in his heart, there is no God –

1. The fool thinks he creates reality by his words –

2. Many of our politicians think if they can control the narrative, then their words become reality

3. The result is vileness is exalted in a nation –

II. Woe to the Nation –

A. Foolish government officials

1. Who think the most important part of governing is going to dinner parties –

2. Instead of diligently caring for the upkeep of the nation’s resources, i.e. buildings, roads, power plants, etc.

B. Government corruption leads to chaos

1. Woe to the nation when its politicians believe they can stay in power by giving out public funds to convince the public they are “compassionate.”

2. Such rulers allow corruption to remain in power

III. The Blessing of Wisdom –

A. The poor wise man delivers a city

1. Wisdom is better than strength –

2. For examples, Christian Fuehrer started a prayer meeting in Leipzig at St. Nicholas Church in 1985 to pray for the East German government “open to all”

3. It grew to thousands of people and the prayer meeting spread to Berlin and Dresden

4. In November 1989, after four years the crowds carried candles and walked the streets in prayer. They travelled to Berlin and on November 9, 1989, they started tearing down the Berlin Wall. You can read this story in The Collapse. The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall, Mary Elise Sarotte, Banner Books, 2014.

B. The power of the word is greater than the sword –

1. The Life of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, His Conversion to Christ in the Gulag, by Boris Kornfeld.

2. He wrote on politics as a moral activity. “Politics matter but morality matters more . . .

political activity must be moral service whereas political activity is motivated by the pursuit of social interests lacks any Christian content whatsoever.”

3. Repentance is essential to politics “to create a good and just society we must become a good people.”

4. Mikhail Gorbachev from 1985-1991 was General Secretary of the Communist party of the USSR.

5. Gorbachev called for a new Soviet man – moral, valuable for his own sake and in so doing attempted to clean up corruption in the USSR. This led to his downfall.

6. Solzhenitsyn went back to Russian on May 27, 1994 and could have had a high position in the government but took a two-month train ride for Kolyma the center of the hated Gulag and continued to influence Russian policy after the downfall of the USSR. – The Soul and Barbed Wire. An Introduction to Solzhenitsyn, Ericson and Klimoff, ISI Books, 2008