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Well, just by way of reminder, if you dive into the book of Ecclesiastes during this series, the book of Ecclesiastes is a is a somewhat difficult book. And it’s understanding. It’s it’s categorized as wisdom literature. And one of the reasons that it falls under that category is because it’s written in Proverbs. And especially when you get to the chapter eight of a book of Ecclesiastes, the understanding of the book becomes even more difficult, because from chapter eight on, the book becomes diffused Proverbs, meaning you can’t really tell how they interlink between one another and necessarily the the strain of thought that Solomon is following as he communicates these proverbs to us. And so it makes it somewhat difficult. And when Solomon writes these, these proverbs, he tends to write them with a glass half empty type of idea. In the book of Ecclesiastes especially, he asks a lot of questions, poses a lot of ideas, but he doesn’t give a lot of answers. And the reason is, is because he wants to cause us to think in his own explanation in the book of Ecclesiastes, he wants us to think about the application to our lives personally. How does this book work for us? What does it mean that Solomon wrote in Proverbs? And how does it relate to us in wisdom? And as you go throughout this book, you’ll find a lot of challenging verses. Last week I’m going to bring this up because we’ve had a we had a few people last week ask me about us particular verse.
We’re going to use this as a, as kind of a general basis of how to, to interpret the book of Ecclesiastes. So you read this book and Ecclesiastes chapter seven, verse 26. It says, I find more bitter than death. The woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap, and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare. Verse 28. When I was still searching, but not finding, I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all. See, God reads that verse and says, I know her. Write her name. And I don’t. Don’t say her name. I know that lady and other ladies will read this verse and say, The Bible is chauvinistic and it hates women, right? So how do you deal with this verse? Coming out of the book of Ecclesiastes is a great book in application for just understanding Ecclesiastes in general. And we we come to the book of Ecclesiastes. It’s important to take other truth statements about specifically, we’ll say women in this instance into the passage of Scripture. So, so let’s say, and the rest of the Bible, what do we know that the Bible says about women? Well, the Bible, when it makes truth proclamations about women, does not hate women.
As a matter of fact, when God created Adam and Eve, it wasn’t until he created Eve, which was the very last part of creation, the woman came last that God said it was very good, right? You read Genesis chapter one and God says, it’s good, it’s good, it’s good. He makes the woman. He says, it’s very good. Right? So the Bible from the very beginning says to us that women are very good guys. You’re just good. That’s all you get, right? You’re hairy and you smell bad, right? So, so women are very good. And you’re reading to the New Testament in the book of Ephesians it says to men, love your wives so much so that you lay your life down for her the way that Christ has laid his life down for you. Jesus saw something valuable in you as human beings, so much so that he gave his life for you. And he asks men in marriage to do the same for their wives. You highly attribute value to them as human beings, more so than your own life. It tells us in first Peter chapter three to honor your wife and elevate her in verse seven and make her sort of. The ornamental value of the home is basically what it gets at in the illustration it gives when you walk into a home, that pretty decoration that you have within the home, that you put everything else in your living room around it to sort of honor the value of that decoration.
That’s the same that you view the wife in the home, you elevate her, you honor her. She is beautiful. God has given her to you as a gift. And so when you when you read other verses of the Bible and you look at this, it seems that these verses are just colliding with one another. And so you look at the book of Ecclesiastes, and it puts you in that place where you just challenged with the interpretation, what in the world is Solomon trying to say? Solomon hates women, right? Well, it’s important to remember, as you’re going through this book and you’re finding statements like this that are somewhat challenging is to always remember that Solomon’s writing a proverb. And what a proverb is, is not truth necessarily. So when God makes a law that is forever true. When God describes his attributes, it’s it’s true. When God gives you promises, it’s always true. When we get a proverb, it’s not necessarily always true, it’s just wisdom. So I think most women in here would say, today I want my husband to believe, verse 26, if he does anything apart from me, if she don’t kill him, I’m going to kill him, right? I mean, his eyes belong to me. So verse 26, I got no problem with that. But. But how how does this not delineate from from what God says about women? How Solomon.
Not a woman or a woman. Let me give you an illustration. Okay. This is this is a this is going to be embarrassing for me in the end. But when I was in college, I had a job for a day and and just out of high school, still playing sports in to college, lifting weights. You know, I thought you were real tough. And I got an invite to be a security guard at a arena. So when concerts came, I got to be the person that protected the singers, you know, from from the bad guys. And I thought, this is going to be cool, you know? And I went in and I interviewed for the job, I got the job, and I went and talked to the guys who had this job just to ask them how cool this job was. 19 years old. You might get to be rough with somebody. Take them down. I’m doing this right. And I heard all these great stories, never took into account that everyone was going nowhere in that group, but but I would I went in and and I thought, well, this this is going to be great. I can’t wait till my first concert and being able to to be a bodyguard for somebody and and so first concert came and man was I blessed. 98 degrees was coming to town and Nicholas Shea and the ball boys.
You know that song, right? Who let the dogs out? We’ve all. Oh yeah. So. So I get that wonderful concert. And as the as the concert starts my first job, they put me up on the stage to be that tough person. And I’m blocking the singer from the next line of people. And as the concert started, I started to notice this trend. These 12, 13 year old girls coming in with their mothers. All these older women and then these younger women, this big generation gap, and they come in and it just filled the arena. That’s all it was, was women coming to 98 degrees concert. And and the concert started. And I know as soon as 98 Boyz got off, 98 degrees came on, they started singing, and every mother abandoned their daughter and they ran to the stage. And it’s just me and women. And where I come from, you don’t hit ladies. And the story that I heard from all these guys, I get to be tough and take people down. And I’m seeing this flood of women just coming at me and I’m thinking, oh, Lord, you know? And all of a sudden they just hit me and I’m just fighting back. And then all of a sudden, this, this crowd, this wave of these ladies coming all around me, it just just becomes overwhelming. And I’m just doing everything to hold up. And I’m thinking, why is it so difficult to hold this crowd of ladies back? And all of a sudden I look up and Nicholas Shea is singing over my head, and a drop of sweat comes off of his chin, and it just drills me in the face.
I’m thinking, oh Lord, no. Anyway, I share that story. That was the last day I work that job. But I share that story because Solomon has a similar background to his perspective of women. He grew up in the castle. He lived life like a rock star, and his encounter with women was similar to that. I mean, you’ve seen the way that some ladies will behave when they get around certain people they idolize. And Solomon when he comes to this verse. He comes as a man who has a harem of 900 some concubines. People just throwing women at him like trash, devaluing their body, them just giving themselves over to him because he’s a rock star. And Solomon writes this. I don’t think Solomon hates women. But I think Solomon’s perspective on women is skewed. I think that what Solomon’s recognized through the women that he encounters is that women are coming to him, and they’re coming to him for all the wrong reasons. And so he makes this comment. It’s not a truth statement. It’s a proverb. And he says to us various warnings about the type of woman that he’s encountered in life. It’s a warning to us just to walk with our eyes open as we go into this world.
Be a person of wisdom. I don’t think the Bible hates women. I think it values women more than men. They’re very good. And we’re just good, right? And it’s important to remember as you read the book of Ecclesiastes. The book of Ecclesiastes is it’s Proverbs and it’s it’s about wisdom. And what Solomon desires for us in these pages is that we read literally, this is Solomon’s journal. He’s writing as he’s as he sought everything in this world and seeking pleasure and seeking fame and seeking fortune. And he gets to the end of of all of these roads and finds out that they’re all meaningless, they’re all vanity. Everything under the sun is just a vapor. He describes it. But life with God. That’s what’s important. And when we approach this book, we look at this book not not as emphatic truth statements continually, but their wise principles for life. How do I live life to the fullest? And Solomon declares this to us in wisdom literature, meaning if we retain this, if we understand this, if we learn to embrace this rather than live life foolishly, we live life with wisdom. And last week we looked at chapter seven. We talked about the three ingredients that God uses to build wisdom in us. And he starts chapter eight and he and he adds for us the last, the finishing touch to the recipe, the last missing ingredient we need in our lives in order to receive wisdom from the Lord.
Here’s an important thing that we just keep in mind. Excuse me in Ecclesiastes chapter eight and verse one, the Bible says this who is like the wise, who knows the explanation of things? A person’s wisdom brightens their face and changes its hard appearance. What it’s literally saying to us is wisdom is the wrinkle free cream of the old days. It’s literally saying, you look at what he’s saying. A wisdom brightens the face and changes. His hard appearance is saying, when you look at life and you go in life without God, you’re going in life without wisdom. And so when you look at circumstances you don’t understand, you look like this, I get it, I don’t get it, you know? But when when you get to Ecclesiastes and you learn what wisdom is, the Lord just brightens your face. It’s modern day Botox happening right here, and you don’t have to pay for it, right? Ecclesiastes. Wisdom eliminates wrinkles. Wisdom becomes important. It helps us to perceive life the way that God desires. And Solomon, as he writes this in chapter eight and verse one, saying to us the importance of wisdom. He then begins to communicate throughout the rest of the chapter. If you want wisdom. This is how it happens. Humility. You’re going to see. The theme of chapter eight is all about humility.
Humility is important because wisdom isn’t a mind problem. It is a will problem. You don’t have to be smart to be wise. We said this last week, you just have to know where to start. You don’t have to know the answer to everything. You just need to know the source from which wisdom comes. Wisdom isn’t a mind problem. It’s a problem of the will. And when you come to the Lord with an attitude of humility, it comes with a spirit that makes you teachable. That God may ingrain for you his wisdom. Wisdom isn’t about IQ, it’s about truth. And James says this when we carry the idea of humility to Scripture, he says in James chapter four and verse six, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. So the opposite thought of humility is pride. The Bible carries this idea. Humility is thinking outside of yourself. It’s not really not even thinking about yourself. It’s elevating someone else’s authority above you. But pride is self-centeredness, trusting in you and your own capabilities to meet particular needs and to become the source and the all end to every answer in life. And James is saying that attitude, that unteachable spirit, that that alienation from God, that you elevate yourself to the position that he desires and deserves in your life. God opposes that position. But the the humble position is the the place where God can get you, that God can teach you, that God can raise you up.
The Bible tells us that that in due time, humble yourself under the mighty hand of of God, and in due time he will lift you up. God desires to elevate you, but he doesn’t desire to elevate you in your pride. He desires desires to elevate you in his own power and authority. And this idea that God carries in this verse here, when it tells us that God opposes the proud, it’s literally a military term. It’s saying that God lines up his army of defense towards this attitude. If you want to feel distant from God, if you want to feel alienated from him, like you don’t have a relationship with him, the way to do that is to directly oppose him and the pride of yourself. But God desires a humble attitude. Humility is not about beating yourself up as if you’re worthless. It’s about laying yourself down that God may lift you up. It’s about the Lord having his way within you. Humility carries the idea of submitting to another authority. In our instance, a greater authority. The Bible gives all kinds of verses to us on just the variation between this battle within ourselves, that we gather our own pride and trust in ourselves, or we just lay ourselves down and trust in the Lord. If we’re to just skim through some of these Psalm 69, it says, when the humble see it, they will be glad.
You who seek God, let your hearts revive. So a humble attitude in the Lord is a revived heart. Romans 12 three for by grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. This comes on the tail end of the verses that Paul begs the believers to lay yourself down as a living sacrifice. Second Corinthians three five. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God. Proverbs tells us, pride goes before destruction, but the psalmist tells us the Lord lifts up the humble. Wonderful book I read as a young man when I got to started following Lord, it’s called the Master Plan of Evangelism. It doesn’t really have much to do with evangelism, but I think this book is so popular it sold millions of copies around the world. But the theme of this book is that every disciple and the Lord, what God desires, is for you just to pursue after him, to emulate him in life. But every disciple who desires to to model the Lord in his life, it starts with with one desire is to lay yourself down and just listen. Without the ability to just want to listen to the Lord. The Lord has no opportunity to ingrain and teach within you what he desires for you to know.
Pride sort of turns off your ears from anything that God desires to direct in your life. And humility opens up those ears to say to God, Lord, have your own way. And within us as human beings, there is the battle for humility. And so when Solomon dives into this chapter, he he talks about in a very broad way. Remember, these are diffused proverbs connected together. He talks about in a very broad way, three ways that God brings about humility in our lives. The first thing that he starts with is in verse two. And he says to us, the way that God desires to teach us humility, or the sauce that God uses to bring about humility in our lives is authority. He says in verse two, obey the king’s command. I say, because you took an oath before God. Do not be in a hurry to leave the king’s presence. Do not stand up for a bad cause. For he will do whatever he pleases. Since the king’s word is supreme, who can say to him, what are you doing? Whoever obeys his command will come to him to no harm, and the wise heart will know the proper time and procedure. For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter, though a person may be weighed down by misery. What the Bible is teaching here is the importance of authority. God picks, actually selects authority.
The Bible even tells us in Romans chapter 13, let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment upon themselves. The idea is this. We all live under authority. We may not like the authority, but we all live under authority. Whether it be a president, whether it be a boss, whether it be the police, whether it be functioning in your own home. We all live under authority, and the intentions of authority are to teach and and to correct and to protect. And we even think about the Godhead. The Godhead operates in authority and under authority as well. Jesus came to the earth. It tells us in Philippians two chapter three, or excuse me, chapter two and verse three and five, he humbled himself under God, under the father. And the Bible tells us, as he humbled himself unto the father, the father elevated Jesus. Jesus, both living in authority and under authority. Solomon’s point to us in this passage of Scripture is that God’s desire for us, in order to learn how to submit ourselves to his authority, is learn how to live under authority. God has even created government for that. Romans chapter 13 is a reminder to us rather than be people of complaining, complaining spirit towards your government, become people of a praying spirit towards your government.
Complaining doesn’t help. But God’s Spirit will. Learn to be under authority. God has given us authority that we may humble ourselves under it and learn what it means to humble ourselves under God. Living under authority becomes important for us as people too. Not only are you learning about authority by looking at the earthly authorities that you have, that you learn to submit under God’s authority, but you’re also teaching the importance of authority to your children. You think as a parent, God’s given you the responsibility of being an authority figure for your children? But if you display within your home a lack of respect towards the authority that God has placed over you, what are you emulating for the kids that God has given to you to care for? And not only does authority make it important for you to learn how to be an authority under God, and learn humility and submission to him and trust towards him in that submission. But you’re also emulating for your children what it means to live in authority under God. As you respect those authority figures that God has placed over you. It’s important. And Solomon says, for us, if you want wisdom, the way to wisdom begins with humility. If you want to learn where humility starts, start practicing in the places that God has already placed authority over you.
And yes, God has placed that authority over you. Secondly says this. We learn humility. Humility through a lack of control. Since no one knows the future, who can tell someone else what is to come, as no one has power over the wind to contain it, so no one has power over the time of their death, as no one is discharged in time of war, so wickedness will not release those who practice it. All this I saw as I applied my mind to everything done under the sun. There is a time when a man lords it over others to his own hurt. Then too, I saw the wicked buried those who used to come and go from the holy place. And receive praise in the city where they did this. This too is meaningless. Solomon’s looking at a situation. He’s going to go on and tell us that God will judge as ruler one day. But Solomon’s looking at a situation and it’s just not making sense. There’s a lack of control. Solomon goes on in this proverb, and he promises to the individuals that even though it may look like God isn’t in control, God is in control. When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, people’s hearts are filled with schemes to do wrong. Although a wicked person who commits 100 crimes may live a long time, I know that it will go better with those who fear God, who are reverent before him, because the wicked will do.
Do not fear God. It will not go well with them, and their days will not lengthen like a shadow. A lack of control in your circumstance. Leads to a place of humility. God, I don’t understand this moment. God, I don’t have power to intervene to correct this moment. But Lord, you do. And God. This judgment seems delayed and what I think this person deserves. Lord, I know that you’re holding all people accountable. This book of Ecclesiastes becomes a warning to those who live life without humility. It’s saying to those who live life without humility before the Lord, allowing God to have control. Even though you may not have a judgment in this moment, your judgment is coming. It’s better to fear the Lord. And respect his authority to those who have a humility to the Lord and are wondering at the lack of control that you have. God has complete control. Trust in him. But in that moment, in that lack of control, it tells us in this passage of Scripture that what God is driving us to is an attitude of humility in the place where we recognize that we need to have a reverence for the Lord. And in that we gain wisdom. The last is this. Solomon says. The final thing that drives us to the Lord in humility and therefore we gain wisdom from.
This mystery. There’s something else meaningless that occurs on Earth. The righteous who get what the wicked deserve and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless. So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and to drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of life. Life God has given them under the sun. And so Solomon is saying this you can take pride, you can trust in yourself. You can carry all the worry and concern in the world for your situation, or you can just let it go. You can let it go and know whatever God is going to do is far better than anything you could do yourself. And in the mystery of not being able to figure out the moment, let it drive you to the Lord. Let the Lord have control. You take the burden off of yourself and you enjoy the day that God has given you. So let go of your past. Some of us get so angry at things that have been done to us. That we become the burden bearer for the wrath that we think needs to be poured out on that individual. Put ourselves in their shoes. And we want grace, right? I. I’m sorry. I would never do that. I don’t know, it was out of my nature.
God. Okay. God, give me grace. What Solomon is saying in this passage of Scripture is just walk with humility. Let God handle it. Whatever you think that you might be good at doing in your own pride, God is far greater. Whatever judgment you think needs passed on, whatever individual who may have wronged you, God’s judgment is far worse. Whatever grace you think you might need from things that you’ve done in your past, God’s grace is far better. Let go and in humility, just come to him. God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may lift you up in due time. Pride closes yourself off from the opportunities of learning with the Lord. But humility is strength. It is strength. Laying yourself down, realizing that you can trust in someone far greater than yourself. It’s not a mind problem. It’s a will problem. Wisdom has never been a mind problem. It’s always been a will problem. Let me close with this thought. Jesus knows and was completely aware in Scripture what he’s called you to. Is to give yourself over to him. To lay yourself down, that he may lift you up. And the struggle that we have within ourselves in pride. We want to control our destiny. We want to do the things that please us, that Solomon says ends in emptiness. Sometimes it’s a lack of uncertainty and faith.
God can. Can you really do what you promised? Will you, will you really? If I lay myself down, Lord, will you really satisfy my life if I give all that I am to all that you are? Jesus. These promises that I’m reading in Scripture, are they just going to be about the people in the Bible? But will it be my life as well? I love what Jesus does. Knowing that he calls us to a life of humility, to trust in him. We’ve seen this in recent weeks in John chapter 14. Jesus, and this passage of Scripture calls His Holy Spirit the Comforter. Says this. I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. But the comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things. The idea is this. The comfortable. Don’t need a comforter. When you depend upon yourself. You’re seeking in life just to make you comfortable. What makes me comfortable? I’m just going to live with that. And. And I just want to be happy. And so I’m going to live life for my own purposes, fulfilling my own desires apart from God. I just want to be comfortable. And Jesus is looking at these disciples who’ve given their lives to him, and he’s saying, okay, the the comfortable, don’t need a comforter, but what I’m talking to are the people who are trusting in me, who are laying themselves down in humility, wondering if I can provide for the need, the comfort, the comfortable, don’t need a comforter, but the ones who give themselves to me.
You need to know you’re going to be comforted. And so he gives this promise. The comforter will come. The weight of wisdom in the Book of Ecclesiastes. It starts with humility. It’s a humble attitude before the Lord. Just as God. Not my will, but yours. God, not my way, but yours. God, the life that I’ve walked apart from you, Lord. Teach me your wisdom. That in knowing it, Lord, I may know how to follow you in both the easy times and the difficult times. God help me to lay myself down before you. God, make me not live in my pride. But God, help me to walk in humility, that when you direct my life, Lord, I can hear your call. And I know the way to go. Because God, when I get to these situations in life, I’m straining so hard, my face is so wrinkled, it’s getting ugly and I just need to let go and to give you control and to see your wisdom and to know how you will intervene in this moment. Because, God, I am close to you and I’ve laid myself down. The way to wisdom. His humility. Maybe I could say it even better. The way to God’s heart. This humility. God opposes the proud. But he gives grace to the humble.