Ecclesiastes 7A
Notes
Transcript
this morning we are looking at some good but kind of crazy wisdom here. I mean, we really have to think about this stuff. The only way we will ever know the things of God is by reading and studying the Word of God.
We are about to look at Wisdom. Here is something about wisdom and knowledge…Knowledge can be memorized. Wisdom must think things through.
What er are going to go over this morning is going to take some thinking through because out of the gate this stuff sounds CRAZY!
So…before we begin, let me remind you of something. The things of God tells us doesn’t always make since in this world. The world can’t understand the things of God…it sounds foolish to them.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
And let me tell you something…Ecclesiastes 7 sounds like a bunch of foolishness unless you are able to spiritually discern it.
Look at the rest of this text in 1 Co.
The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Its time to take hold of the mind of Christ so we can spiritually discern Ecclesiastes 7.
One more little appetizer from God’s Word before we dive in:
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
PRAYER:
R.B. JONES
A name...
A good name is better than precious ointment,
and the day of death than the day of birth.
This is what I am talking about right here.
We get that a “good name is better than precious ointment”. That our character matters. Who we are on the inside matters more than how we smell. We don’t have to spend a lot of time on that.
But....
“the day of death” is better that the day of birth!? DO WHAT? Who would say that? Walk up to someone and see if they agree with you on that one. This is crazy talk right?
Lets think about this wisdom. How in the world is the day of death better than the day of birth? Because when you walk into that funeral home, thats when you stop and think about what life is really all about.
It is better to go to the house of mourning
than to go to the house of feasting,
for this is the end of all mankind,
and the living will lay it to heart.
What? “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting”?
Why? Why is it better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting? Because when you go to the funeral home death hits you right in the face. The fact that you are going to die one day hits you right in the mouth.
You know what is crazy about the funeral home? The presence of death makes you think about life!
The “house of feasting”, THE PARTY, never makes you think about life and the things that really matter.
If you want to live life then you need to know, and fully accept death. That way you can live your life no matter how good or bad you think it might be.
When you come to grips with your own death, “the living will lay it to heart”.
OH IT GETS BETTER…remember, renew your mind....Christians do not think the way the world thinks. This doesnt make sense to the unregenerate…it sounds foolishness to them. Like Jesus says, “he who has ears let him hear”.
Sorrow is better than laughter,
for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.
For one, DEATH sometimes changes a person for the better doesn’t it? Sometimes. But sometimes it changes them just for a moment but then it wears off. I’ve seen it.
(OCS, teaching). --- But sometimes it really does change a person.
what doesn’t really change a person to look at the realities of life is a bunch of joking around and never taking anything seriously...
But here is another way “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad” ----
“sorrow is better than laughter”
John Chrysostom (349-407) Bishop of Constantinople, he was also a priest in Antioch. He was nicknamed the “Golden Mouth”
he said imagine going to your friends house for a dinner party, a banquet. You don’t have the nicest house but your friends house is AMAZING! This is your friends house…but what happens really? You go home from that banquet, you go home with your wife, with your husband, and you are no longer content with your house. You begin to be jealous of your friend. You begin to envy your friend who invited you to his house for a banquet! So really, you’re worse off that you went.
But with the house of mourning you gain spiritual wisdom. There, at the house of mourning we could care less about the places of laughter. There, at the place of mourning we look at our friend and say “we are nothing, and our wickedness is inexpressible!” What can be more full of wisdom than these words, when we both acknowledge the insignificance of our nature and accuse our own wickedness and account present things as nothing.
Chrysostom says, “He who enters the house of mourning indeed weeps for the departed, even though he is an enemy. Do you not see how much better that house is than the other? For there, though he is a friend, he envies; but here, though he is an enemy, he weeps”.
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
MIRTH: joy, gladness; joyful banquets, pleasures; hold a feast, amusement expressed in laughter
How is it that the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning? Because it is there that we learn about what life really is....like a vapor, here today and gone tomorrow. The wise live with the reality that death is coming and then what!
The foolish person doesnt want to talk about death
they don’t want to think about death.
they want to act like it isn’t coming, suppress that fact and go to the house of pleasures, go to the house of gladness to take their mind off of the realities of life.
It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise
than to hear the song of fools.
For as the crackling of thorns under a pot,
so is the laughter of the fools;
this also is vanity.
Well, this makes sense to the rest of the world doesn’t it? We live in a society today that no one can tell anyone that what they are doing, what they are saying, what they are believing is wrong! People today can’t handle it…they go nuts.
Rebuke: an act or expression of criticism
Criticism: 1 the expression of disapproval of someone or something based on perceived faults or mistakes: he received a lot of criticism | he ignored the criticisms of his friends.
2 the analysis and judgment of the merits and faults of a literary or artistic work: alternative methods of criticism supported by well-developed literary theories. • the scholarly investigation of literary or historical texts to determine their origin or intended form.
Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge,
but he who hates reproof is stupid.
Well that isn’t nice is it? That doesn’t sound politically correct.
Stupid: lacking or marked by lack of knowledge or intellectual acuity
Whoever loves discipline (training, exhortation, correction, education) loves knowledge)
It is better to hear a rebuke than to hear the song of fools. There isn’t much there, at the house of mirth, at the party that is just full of laughter…we aren’t learning much about life there.
Is it nice? Sure but it is so short lived. Its like crackling of thorns under a pot that burn up so fast. Its meaninglessness at the end of the day.
Surely oppression drives the wise into madness,
and a bribe corrupts the heart.
Better is the end of a thing than its beginning,
and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.
Even the wise can fall victim to the temptations of money and power.
Our friends warn us about the road we are on. They say, “be looking out for this”, “don’t let that distract you from who you are” and when we don’t listen we do exactly what we never thought we would do.
But when are a patient, taking the advice, the rebuke, the instruction of those around us we see that the end is better than the beginning. We see that having a “good name”, character, integrity is far better than what people may think of us, it is far better than our precious ointment that we put off to others.
Be not quick in your spirit to become angry,
for anger lodges in the heart of fools.
“anger lodges” — takes up residence, it becomes established. it awaits.....WHERE? in the heart of fools.
Just above it says that “THE PATIENT IN SPIRIT IS BETTER THAN THE PROUD IN SPIRIT” because the patient in spirit realizes that END OF A THING IS BETTER THAN THE BEGINNING.
the one who isn’t patient, who doesn’t understand that the end is better than the beginning, may become quick in their spirit to become angry. Fools are not patient. They explode with anger when things don’t go their way.
The vexation of a fool is known at once,
but the prudent ignores an insult.
Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
Remember that a fool lodges, holds on to, feeds, his anger until it explodes.
Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?”
For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.
Man have I been guilty of this! Aren’t we all struggling with that right now? Looking back at the “good ole days” where things weren’t this bad?
But here is the truth…oppression has always existed.
When we say “Why were the former days better than these”, when we say “man I wish we were back in the good ole days” we are being impatient. We aren’t patiently waiting to see what God is doing in the here and now. When we say these things we are being like the fool. We are telling the Sovereign God that we are displeased with whatever it is He is doing.
And if you think I am crazy for saying that just hold on a few more minutes and I’ll clear that though up for you.
So let me repeat it just so we are clear: If we don’t like the times we are in and we want to go back to the “good ole days” we are telling God that we don’t trust Him and we don’t like what HE is doing right now where we live. It’s foolish!
Wisdom is good with an inheritance,
an advantage to those who see the sun.
For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money,
and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.
If you had a choice to be in poverty or the choice to have money what would you choose? Money of course. People who have wisdom and money are “protected by both”. That is a huge advantage to people.
But not everybody has money, or an inheritance. But if you have wisdom you will be able to make it through the tough times when they come in your life.
Consider the work of God:
who can make straight what he has made crooked?
God is sovereign guys…and I mean it!
We have talked about:
death
mourning
sorrow
and we look at these things “under the sun” as horrible, crooked things. But how foolish is it to try and make straight what God has made crooked? Foolishness! Vanity!
In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.
God has made the day of prosperity…so be joyful in it. But He has also made the day of adversity....so be patient in it. And remember that “better is the end of a thing than its beginning”.
We have all heard this saying before but it is so true: “We don’t know what the future holds but we know who holds the future”. The question is do you trust God…do we truly trust him.
When adversity comes, when sorrow and mourning come look for the good in that day…gain some wisdom in that day, grow in your knowledge of God in that day and remember this:
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.