"The Test of Wisdom"

Intro: Who do we tend to trust more when it comes to a certain subject. There are a lot of people that know a lot of things about a subject. I think of those classic caricatures of the professor or very smart bookish person who finally goes out into the field in which they are studying (I.E. INDIANA JONES) and then when they get down in to the nitty gritty of it, the experienced archeologist is the one that knows much better. He or she experienced it, and that holds value more than just learning from a book. The Preacher here is going to begin a series of teachings, and he bases these things off of his experience. What does he learn in all his testing? First, he tests wisdom, and from this text we will learn that...

CTS: Gaining wisdom, apart from God, is an impossible task full of frustration and sorrow.

Verse 1: IT DOESN’T MATTER WHO YOU ARE

The Preacher introduces himself in a biographical manner. This does a couple of things for us. First, it tells us that the Preacher is no stranger to the things he is about to tell us. He is going to go through a series of tests. He introduces his biographical experience and this one will foundational to the rest, for wisdom is incredibly important in Scripture. Whole books are gathered into Wisdom literature. Proverbs gives such a positive (and rightly so) view of wisdom. So, let’s put that wisdom to the test, but let’s use a certain type of wisdom. Wisdom gained inside a certain parameter. Wisdom under the sun.

The first truth we see, is that no matter who you are, you will see the futility of wisdom under the sun. Even the smartest men, men like Solomon, being one of the wisest men to have ever lived, will experience this tugging and overwhelming truth about wisdom. Every ruler. Every king. Every president. Every scientist. Every professor. The wisest among us, will find that the task of wisdom and making everything make sense will lead to more sorrow.

So the Preacher, a king, one very much like Solomon, gives us the results. Here is what he found.

In the search for wisdom, to make sense of this life...

I. Experience Won’t Satisfy You (13-15)

A. The Experiment of Experience

Seeking and searching throughout life, applying wisdom to every situation, all that is done under the son. This is the experiment. Trying to use wisdom to make sense of the world. Wisdom is basis of experiments that we will see throughout the book. This should bring to mind the wisdom literature of Proverbs. READ Prov 1:1-7, Prov 2:6-15. So what is the difference here? It should cause us to think. But the key to this is to understand that what the Preacher is doing and warning us against is using wisdom, not as a means to know God and fear Him, but rather, to try to make sense of the world, apart from Him.

B. The Unfortunate Reality

And here is the unfortunate reality. It is unhappy business given by God to be busy with. This should cause us to think about Gen 1 and 2. What was it that God gave to Adam and Eve to be busy with? To have dominion over the earth and to be fruitful and multiply. But as we know, something happened in chapter 3 that made everything broke, crooked, and fallen. God was removed from the picture. Adam and Eve decided that God was holding back from them, they didn’t need him, and wanted to become their own gods. That sent them and the world spiraling. Now the command of God toward humanity to steward the earth, apart from him, is an evil endeavor, an unhappy business that we are busy with.

Our reality is that which is broken. The experience of the Preacher to seek to make sense of the world with wisdom leads him to experience it as unhappy business, an evil endeavor. We live in that world. How do I make sense of someone who gets cancer and not me. How do I make sense of the tornados that ripped through Bertie and not us in Chowan. I often hear things like “God protected me.” Sure, maybe he did, but why you and not them? If I understand Scripture, why do i deserve to be spared and not them? I’m not good enough. What if some of those people were believers? Why weren’t they spared? Why did they get cancer? And when we try to explain this with “wisdom under the sun” it becomes an unhappy business.

C. Poetic Results - Nothing Changes

Verses 14 gives us the results. He saw everything, experienced everything done under the sun. He applied wisdom to it. The results? All is vanity and striving after the wind. Striving has the idea of shepherding. A modern English comparative might be “herding a bunch of cats.” Illustration: Watching my girls play soccer when they are in pre-school. It’s like watching a bunch of girls kick a ball without much purpose.

The poetic results of this is that this is striving after the wind, and the Preacher uses a proverb to drive the point home. Everything under the sun is crooked and broken. It is lacking and “counting your chickens before they hatch.” And this cannot be changed. It would be like trying to straighten a crumpled up car bumper with my bare hands.

Life under the sun, trying to make sense of it is trying to make the crooked straight and lacking. And we are reminded that we have a desperate need for someone to intervene. Broken and lacking, this is the results of the world we live in. What are we to do?

Transition: Before we answer that question, The Preacher will use another experiment regarding wisdom. Will this bring the answers he desires?

II. Knowledge Won’t Deliver You (16-18)

A. The Experiment of Knowledge

The second place that the Preacher applies this wisdom, from the seat of who he is, is to acquiring wisdom. The focus in the paragraph before was towards applying wisdom to all under the sun, through experience would the Preacher be able to figure out meaning.

The Preacher then gives an autobiographical fact of himself that tells us something. It should remind us that even the most wisest of kings, like Solomon, who sought wisdom and applied his life to gaining this knowledge. Life committed toward this end.

B. The Declaration of Wisdom

But not only does he declare that he would, but he also declares it factually. He did become the wisest of all. All before him were not as wise as he was. He learned it. He experienced it. Everything that could give him wisdom, he sought and experienced himself. He even applied it to head knowledge, but to experiential knowledge. Madness and folly in the Hebrew has insinuations of madness and folly of REVELRY. In other words, the Preacher went everywhere under the sun to. He exhausted every corner he could.

Here’s what we gather from this. We can search and search for meaning, in everything. Maybe it’s in getting more degrees. Better jobs. More knowledge. Kids. Family. Maybe if I just experience this, I’ll get it all figured out. And sometimes we may even convince ourselves that if I was just like someone else, if I was a bit smarter, or had this ability, then life would go better for me. But here’s the thing. We have the Preacher, who had everything in his disposal. He had every book. He was considered wisest of all kinds, very much like Solomon. And what is the result of it?

C. Poetic Results - Frustration and Sorrow

Just like above, this wisdom, setting out hearts after it, this wisdom with no mention of God, it merely striving after the wind. Herding cats. Impossible to do. And poetically, the Preacher says that this desire for knowledge to save, to deliver him to the meaning of life ends like this:

Vexation and sorrow- frustration and pain. The more wisdom he gained, the more he saw brokenness. Committing ourselves to understanding the world without God will be an exercise of great pain, for everything is broken. And the farther we delve in the brokenness, the darker it gets without God in the midst. It shows me how broken it is, and without God, no hope. This isn’t an excuse to bury our heads in the sand, but rather, a cautionary tale of wisdom of the world unchecked will lead us to vexation and frustration, for we will never find a solution. Sorrow will abound.

This leaves us frustrated with an impossible task, and it should. It fails the test. This then should drive us, not toward earthly wisdom, but Wisdom personified Himself...

III. Jesus is Our Wisdom (1 Cor 1:20-25)

So what is the solution? Again, we must continually remember that the Preacher has a purpose. He’s teaching God’s people to remind them of the futility of life without God. Many were living this way. Many were obviously basing their lives on their own wisdom and were trying to figure it out. The Preacher is a cautionary tale that no matter who you are, what you have experienced, and how much knowledge you have, wisdom of all things under the sun is striving after the wind. This should then drive us to that careful end of “Fear God and keep His commandments.” It should remind us of the wisdom of Proverbs, that grounds wisdom not in our own experience or our own knowledge, but in God and fearing Him.

The starting point for the Preacher was himself. The starting point of true wisdom is God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. That fear is rooted in a relationship. That is made possible by Wisdom personified.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1:20-25 answers these questions of wisdom. What is the value of wisdom of the world. How does it operate in God’s plan. He then turns the question around toward discerning truth and true meaning. It isn’t found in wise, the scribe, the debater. No, God makes the wisdom of the world seem foolish. The Preacher saw the foolishness of the world because he experienced it and sought it. He declared it was vanity and striving after the wind. That is what God is doing here in Ecclesiastes.

You can’t know God through wisdom of the world. Instead, you know him by what seems foolish to the world. A Jewish carpenter, who was God in the flesh, dies a gruesome death to deliver us from our sin. It seems foolish. God humiliating himself to save us. Naked, beaten, and scorned, Jesus saves us from our sins by putting our sins on himself. That doesn’t seem very wise, to sacrifice yourself for people who hate you. That’s foolish. But it is this message that we are saved, we are given meaning. Christ crucified. And this Jesus, is the power of God and the wisdom of God. This “foolishness” is wiser than man. This “weakness” is stronger than man.

And that carries on to us as the church. Yes, the world thinks we are a bunch of ill-informed, Bible thumping, ignorant people. Thats ok. We don’t have to prove ourselves. We are accepted by God through Christ. You don’t have to be the smartest person to gain God’s wisdom or knowledge or acceptance. It’s simple faith. This is why the child, the farmer, the businessman, the professor, the IT tech, the carpenter, the stay-at home mom or dad, the high school student can become accepted and be the wisest people in the world. No, not because they know more than anyone else. No, because they know the wisdom of God, Jesus Christ. And that wisdom is available to all who would realize their brokenness, realize they can’t straighten themselves out, and count what is lacking. When they realize that only Jesus, the wisdom of God, can straighten things out perfectly, remove my sin, and give me what I lack: LIFE. This is made possible by the humble and contrite spirit of the believer who trusts not in themselves or the world around them, and trusts in Christ for their salvation, for meaning, for life, through repentance and faith.

Conclusion: So, the test of wisdom was failure for the Preacher. And here he points us to this fact and reminds us of its folly. That then drives us to God, and God tells us where true wisdom is found. In Jesus Christ himself, the wisdom of God. Wisdom from above the sun who come below the sun to straighten what was broken, give what was lacking.