Finding the Way of God

Who is like the wise and who knows the interpretation of a thing?

As we look at the text, that's parallelism. That's just good Hebrew parallelism. Being able to interpret and being wise are the same thing. And we see how important this is, right? Every time an event takes place in our nation, there's 20 people who want to give it a narrative. That's interpretation. And it's very important that we understand how to take an event and give it the right interpretation. It's wisdom that knows how to properly understand what's happening, why it's happening. He's asking a question, who is the wise? Who knows the interpretation of a thing? Wait, he gives an answer.

A man's wisdom makes his face shine, and the hardness of his face is changed.

Now wait, we gotta look back. Wisdom is hard to find. Folly is way too easy. It's very easy to get hardened in our folly. It's very difficult to find the wisdom he speaks of. Because God has made us upright, but we've all gone into our own schemes and our own ways. I don't think he's asking here who is the wise person. I believe he's offering here what we would call a carrot, an invitation. Do you want to be wise? Do you want to know how to make the right interpretation of a thing? Do you want to have an understanding that would make your face shine? that would make you bright and clear. And notice there the contrast, the hardness is taken away and the shining is a welcoming source of wisdom for others. Interesting as we thought about what he's getting at here, it reminded me of 2 Corinthians 3. Remember Moses, after he asked to see the glory of God, he was told no, but God's presence goes past him and God declares to him, I am the Lord. My steadfast love endures forever. There's a way in which the glory of God, even though it's a partial glory, Moses could not see the face of God, the true, absolute vision of who he is, but he could see the hind parts, and that alone was so glorious. Moses' face shined as he came to the Mount, and he had to put a veil over it. Why? Well, Paul tells us it's because the people's hearts were so hardened, they couldn't look at the glory. I don't assume what's happening here in Ecclesiastes is a direct reference to here, but I wanna say how helpful that is because if you want the face that shines, if you want to know how to find the source, the truth, the wisdom that would take away the hardness of your heart, that would help your face be light to others, It's the word of the Lord. It's looking to see God in his grace, in his glory. The purpose of this poem is to make you desire to be wise, desire to have understanding, desire to have the face that shines, that expresses the glory and goodness and truth of God. There's only one source for that. It's taking up the word of God and receiving it. Today, expression is everything. We desire to express who we are. We want to make sure we express our individualism, whatever our desires are. We want to make sure we're expressing them. Well, Christian, our purpose in this world is to be image bearers that reflect the glory of God. that have hearts that then are revealed by our face and our words and our actions of God's goodness and His glory. I believe the poem is an invitation to come and be that kind of shining light. We have an abrupt turn here from our preacher in chapter eight, verse two. I say, He turns quickly while we're still in the section of who can tell us, how can we know what is good, and we're gonna end with a similar theme, so we're all here in the connection, but here it turns to a whole other set of problems. Abrupt change, I say, and he gives a command.

Keep the king's command.

All right, this is a turn, but we're still under how do we know wisdom? And he's now applying the difficulty, the truth of a new set, and that we're under the rule of someone. Here, it's a king. Keep, hold fast, obey, do what the king commands you. Well, why? Because of God's oath to him. There's a way in which God establishes the king who is over men and women and people. There's an order there. It's important to remember, if you go back to chapter one, who this preacher is. He's the king. Pretty helpful. The king is telling us to obey the word of the king. Okay, I don't think that's purely just self-serving here. I believe he's seeing the order of things. He's seeing the truth of God's order. And we really enter into what's the Lex-Rex dilemma. Lex being law, Rex being king. Is the king his own law, or is there a law over the king? If there is no God, there's just a king who has absolute power. He'll never answer to anyone. But our preacher, king, he doesn't have this view. The rationale Continues, as we see clarity here, verse three,

be not harsh to go from his presence, do not take your stand in evil cause, for he does whatever he pleases.

And we continue to see here, we don't wanna fight against the king, he has power to do what he pleases, don't stand against him. It's important as we think about this preacher king, And what he's getting at, we could first see this is applied to Israel, who has a unique covenant, and God had a unique relationship with the kings of Israel. So if this is Solomon, or someone taking the voice of Solomon, he understands that God has appointed him as king, and that king is supposed to take the law and write his own copy out, because he's supposed to enact God's own law that is given to him. He's not a law to himself. What's amazing as we look at how God sought to care for his people is even the wrong king, when the people asked for him, Saul, God gave him everything he needed to actually rule the people well. God gave Saul his law. God even gave Saul his spirit. But Saul abused his power and so God took it away. We're not Israel, we don't have this same relationship as a covenant nation in America, but we do need to recognize all nations everywhere are under God. All kings are only in power because of God. Every king will have to give an account to God. It's a very important dynamic. And there's something assumed that I think we probably don't think about enough. Man must be under rule because we're so unruly. We need to be ruled because we're so unruly. We could go back to the garden and see, even there, God gave us his good rule, and we threw it off. And ever since then, we've sought to throw off every possible rule, especially God's. We are an unruly people, and the reason we have kings is that they would have the sword that would actually keep us and our sin and our evil and our wickedness at bay. That's a hard reality for us. So as we think about not taking a stand against the king, we need to realize that the king is there for a protection. We keep his commands because he's under God. Well, verse four continues with some rationale.

For the word of the king is supreme, and who may say to him, what are you doing?

The whole idea here is that the king has absolute authority over people. This is hard for us to translate into our current government, but there's a way in which we understand there's an authority and a power. And the whole question is, who dare ask the king, what are you doing? We transition to verse five. We know something. Again, that's a key motif, that's a key theme, actually. This is what's driving this whole section.

Whoever keeps the command will know no evil, and the wise heart will know the proper time and the just way.

Well, this is positive. But verse five has to be read in light of verse two. He's saying whoever keeps the king's command will know no evil thing. It's helpful here, we see this as proverbial. The call here, there's no qualification, the call here is assumed that it's good for us to be good citizens. It's good for us to honor the king and to desire to seek his commandments. It's supposed to protect us from evil. That's the whole purpose of a king, is he carries a sword to protect us from evil. And what we would hope is that we obey his commands and we ourselves are protected from evil. Verse six,

for there's a time and a way for everything, although a man's trouble lies heavy on him.

It reminds us of chapter seven, or chapter three rather, where there's a time for all things. Verse seven goes back to what we cannot know.

For man does not know what is to be, for who can tell him how it will be?

Again, God has ordered these things. God is above the king, the king is above us, and we don't know what's gonna happen. We don't know, look there at verse eight, but who has the power to retain the spirit? Who has the power to the day of death? Is there gonna be a discharge from war? There'll be their wickedness. We do not know what will happen. We have no way of ordering our days. There's a helplessness here. The only thing he's told us is that we know we're under the king and God has appointed that king. We're called to be good citizens. Verse nine is a wrap up, a summary. All this I observed, again, this is under the sun, from what he has gained, from what he has researched, from what he understands, from all that I've observed,

while applying my heart to all that is done under the sun, when man had power over man to his hurt.

There's a reality. Every king is sinful. There's an authority structure, and he's recognizing here that the king is meant to be good for the people, the king is meant by God to be a help for the people, there's a way in which we should posture ourselves to be good citizens. But at last, he's recognizing there's a way in which man is appointed over man to his hurt. This is challenging for us. We've looked before about power. He even said there's no comfort, he weeped because there was no comfort for the oppressed because those who have power are abusing the people that are under them. Here there's an acknowledgement in verse nine that those who have power are oftentimes using it for hurt, not for gain. There's a common phrase,

absolute power corrupts absolutely.

That seems too often to prove true, if not always true. I believe there's a way in which we see here in our preacher's declaration, which is much more general about how we are under a king, we're under a rule. It's not that different from what Peter is going to exhort to the elect exiles in 1 Peter. It's challenging to hear in the New Testament something similar.

Honor the emperor.

Be good citizens. Don't be punished for doing evil if you're being punished. It's for what's good, for the glory of Christ. And oh, we have to remember when Peter's writing that, it's most likely Nero who is king, emperor. But there's a proper posture towards those in authority. Peter's writing to elect exiles, people who are not home, people who are suffering. And I believe the heart of that rich theology is we're not gonna be ready to suffer under abusive authorities if we're not first seeing that God is the one who has ultimate authority. God is the one who appoints every authority. God is the one who has perfect absolute authority and all those who might abuse us are under him. Every earthly ruler has an expiration date and will give an account. Every earthly authority is supposed to promote what is good and what is right. Church, we need to be on guard here with our attitude towards those with authority. We need to be on guard because how we see and posture ourselves towards those with authority really reflects more about our faith in Jesus than those authorities. It's supposed to exercise authority, and as we just ended the Easter season, remember Jesus' trial. The King of Kings goes before Pilate, the governor, and the governor is frustrated with him. Why aren't you answering me? Do you not know the authority that I have? The King of Kings answered, you would not have such authority if it were not given to you. There we see the one who has all power and is about to show us that he uses all his power in love to save us. He's making it clear, this pilot, he has this authority. It's been given to him by God for Jesus' own suffering for us. There's so many ways in which we need to think about these authority structures. and how important it is for us to posture ourselves and be ready to be good citizens. But the whole thing here is we do not know what's gonna come after. We don't know what the king might do. We don't know where our country's going next. We might not know what's happening. The dilemma is still we do not know, but we do know God is the one who has authority over the king. The king is supreme because God has ordained him. Now, we should ask, well, what about that harm? What about the putting over the hurt? What about when the wicked rule? Well, let's go to the next section because he kind of answers that indirectly. Our third point, wisdom amidst wickedness. First an invitation poem that you would want to have the wisdom that makes your face shine, and then what does it look like to have wisdom under this time where men rule over others to their hurt? And there's so much we don't know. Then it's again what he sees in verse 10, wisdom amidst wickedness. And we've seen this problem over and over again.

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.

" That's the key word, remember, vanity, emptiness, fleeting. We have to remember it, the wicked being buried, that's an act of honoring. You honor the dad with a burial. And his concern here is that the wicked are being honored at their death. And that's absurd to him. That's frustrating to him because they went in and out of the holy places. They trampled the holy places of God. They were praised for doing evil things. This is vanity. What has this world come to? I think we're supposed to feel and experience the frustration here. The wicked should be punished, not honored. The wicked are praised. They should be disciplined. Verse 11 is quite a warning.

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

What a fantastic proverbial warning for us to consider. A society that promotes evil, that protects evil, that teaches evil, that punishes good, and does not ever say that's wrong. We're leading our children's hearts to be fully set on evil. You might feel like this society is gone. We can look and look out there and say, wow, what evils are being practiced among even our government and our communities. As I said a few weeks ago, we need to be very clear that what we look at now and might find so frustrating is what our previous generations taught us. That your desires, must be good. We can go back to generations where pornography was called art and divorce was considered something that you should be able to get without any reason. That any kind of sexual activity outside of marriage has to be celebrated and treated as normal. The problem is we typically only speak out whenever we find something personally gross. rather than saying, what does God's word say is gross? If our boundary markers are simply what we find is gross, well, you're your own God. It's not what you might find personally gross that you're gonna finally say, well, that's the line. No, it's taking whatever's being taught and realizing how effective it is to undermine all of what God has said is good. And we've been teaching our children that what our desires are must be obeyed and trusted and enjoyed. What a warning. To not punish evil teaches children evil's okay. To regularly practice what is evil, to promote it as regular or normal is to teach the children's heart over against what God says is good. Families, parents, what do your children see as normal? Is it wickedness? Or is it kindness? How do our children hear us talk about others in authority? What are we teaching the children? What are we promoting as good and right? What are we teaching them as wrong? Are our words full of gossip and slander or disrespect? Church, this is why church discipline is so important. We regularly want to correct so that the children see what we declare is wrong. And the children would see what is good and right. Not punishing evil, it doesn't promote what is good. I'm burdened here that we would be handing over the faith to the next generation, but that means we must correct what's wrong and promote what's good. And there's no way to correct what's wrong if we're not regularly patterning the right way of trusting Jesus, promoting his word and desiring to be obedient. Let me say here, I am so thankful for how many members, and I'm gonna highlight here the young adults who are coming along, my children and our children, and loving them and modeling for them what is good and right. What a verse to help our children's ministry, what a warning. Children, I'm burdened by something that is just so frustrating to me, and this is hard. You can ask your parents about it later. Without doubt, the church is gonna fail you. Because it's failed everybody who's ever been part of a church. We're sinners. Jesus Christ will not fail you. We're only a church because Christ has been faithful to never fail us. Do not ever let a discouragement, a frustration, a difficulty with a church, or the churches, or whatever the church is, keep you from knowing Jesus is faithful, and he never fails. Verse 12. 12 and 13 go together here.

Though a sinner does evil a hundred times or prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well for those who fear God because they fear before him. But it will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong the days like a shadow because he does not fear before God.

This is really helpful parallelism. We've got a positive and a negative. Who it will go well for and who it will not go well for. It's those who fear God Those who do not fear God. I wanna go back to chapter six, verse 12.

For who knows what is good for man while he lives a few days of this vain life which he passes like a shadow?

Who knows what is good for man? All of a sudden, our preachers become positive. He knows that it will be well for those who fear God. The word good and well are the same word in Hebrew. Tov, we get the name Toby from this. Good and well, they relate to each other in our English language, an adjective and an adverb, same meaning, same idea. I believe it's important we connect this because we're longing for who knows what is good. He's finally telling us something that's good. He's finally telling us how it will be well for us. It's pretty simple, pretty straightforward. It will go well for those who fear God. Why? Because they fear Him. Is that circular? Yes. Is it right? Yes. It will not go well for those who do not fear God. Why? Because they don't fear God. The end of the matter of Ecclesiastes is fear God, keep his commandments because you will be judged by him. The beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord. There's an important way in which she's just drawing to us to a most basic thing we must know. A proper posture towards God is the only way we will ever know anything that's Your days may be shortened. You may be treated like the wicked for being righteous, but it will go well for you because God is ultimately the authority. Who receives what is good? Whose way is good? It's those who fear the Lord. Verse 14. gives us a significant bookend. Notice there is a vanity that takes place in the earth, and notice how it ends. I said this is also vanity. Key word, key idea, coming to an end here of this particular point. It's a vanity that takes place in the earth.

The righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and the wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous.

This is vanity, it's vanity, it's all vanity. There's a lack of equity, there's a lack of justice, there's a lack of being treated for what you deserve. The wicked are given blessings. The wicked are buried and praised. The righteous might be mocked, beaten, killed. The principle's still true, it will go well for those who fear God. Verse 15 continues. I like the preacher of Ecclesiastes. He seems to go as abrupt as I do.

And I command joy.

What? He commands joy. It is helpful to see fear and joy go together. There's a fear of the Lord that provides a joy. Reverence for God gives us joy, but can you command joy? Is it something you can do? Like if I were to say jump, you have the ability, most of us, to jump. Do you have the ability to just be joyful? Paul, he commands it over and over again in Philippians.

Rejoice! Again, I say rejoice.

Our first song had the double command, rejoice, rejoice. People of the risen King, rejoice. Can it be commanded, though? Be joyful. Did it work? It isn't quite that simple. Here we see the fear of the Lord is what makes it go well, and now he's gonna command joy, and the rationale is so important. If you've been with us in Ecclesiastes, this all sounds very familiar. He keeps coming back to the same basic truth.

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.

There's a way to recognize The fear of the Lord helps us see he's the one who gives us whatever we have. The fear of the Lord helps us see even the days are given to us by God. The fear of the Lord leads us to recognize, let us find joy in what he has given us. There's nothing better for man under the sun, according to the preacher right here at this moment, as he is reflecting on what he sees and knows, there's nothing better than to enjoy what God has given you. This is good. We come back to the principle of stewardship. That's, again, throughout the whole book of Ecclesiastes. But believer, don't settle for sorrow. We are going to have times of sorrow. We're going to have circumstances that are difficult. We're going to go through times of grief and pain and difficulty. And if we go through those and we take them to God and crying out, we're gonna find His joy. I think even more so I wanna challenge believers. Don't settle for apathy. Don't settle for apathy. Fear the Lord. Pursue knowing Him and His holiness and His goodness to build up a right reverence for Him who gives us joy. Christian, is your relationship with God comfortable? There's a way in which God promises so much and invites us in that there's a welcome, but I fear too often we try to make it comfortable by pretending we've tamed the lion. That there isn't a holy, great, awesome God who's inviting us into his presence. We pretend that we can just take it easy because the lion is tame. The lion, the root of Jesse, the son of David, the king of kings, he is no tame lion. He tells us do not fear and to come to him, and he only tells us do not fear because it's terrifying to come to the presence of God without his grace. I fear we too often lack a proper fear of the Lord that would make it go well with us in our worship. If you're not a believer, The beginning of wisdom is fear the Lord. There is a God. He created us. He is holy and good and perfect, and we have sinned against Him. We should have great fear. You should have great fear in facing Him. And the only way that fear is relieved is that you would believe and recognize and receive His own Son that He sent to die for your sin, to die to bring you near. by taking away your sin, by putting it on a son. So it's punished in Jesus Christ and you cannot believe in him and be forgiven and be brought near to the God who created you. Our last point, last section, verses 16 to 17. Wisdom out of reach. We have a concluding statement. He's applied his heart to know wisdom, verse 16, to see the business that is done on earth, how it's weary, it's toysome, it's trouble. We keep going back to this, and again, he said, who can know what is good? We got a little glimpse of what's good. We got to the fear of the Lord. Notice the threefold negativity of verse 17.

I saw the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done of the Son. 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.

" Dude, come on. We were on a roll. We knew the fear of the Lord would make it go well with us. What happened? This is kind of an awkward ending here. A climactic ending that you cannot know, you cannot know, and if somebody pretends to know, well, they didn't find it. They don't know either. Disappointed? You might, should be. But again, here, it's so important to see what we're doing in this text, what the text is seeking to do, that you should desire to be wise and see how far off and difficult that wisdom is. See how impossible it is for us to get our own wisdom and our own strength. He's told us the most basic truths, fearing God is where true wisdom is found. We can't have absolute pessimism here that we can't know anything, though. Because that would make us agnostics. Agnostics say we can't know anything for certain, and that leads to the apathy. And let's be clear, agnostics are just atheists without courage. If there's a God, he makes himself known. That is my assumed principle. We can discuss that, disagree about it later. But if there's a God who made us, he makes himself known because if there's a God, he designed us to worship him. He designed us to follow his order, and if there's a God, he's making himself known. So we have this dilemma, we can't find it, we have a difficult time, he says no one can find it, so he claims to find it, they can't find it. Fearing God is the way to get there. There's some significant steps, all from Ecclesiastes. We recognize there is a God, I'm not him. God is in heaven, we're on earth. God made me, he made me from the dust and he made me upright. I have fought after many schemes, I am not righteous even though God made me upright. As a man, I should fear God. As a sinner, I must fear God. One of the interesting things about Ecclesiastes is Our preacher only refers to God as Elohim, which is a word other religions and nations would have used for God. He doesn't call him Yahweh, the covenant name. The name that God gives to Moses as a name of I am your God, I will be with you and I will redeem you and I'll bring you out of the slavery. The reality is there's a way in which we should all recognize there is a God who created us. There's a God we've sinned against. There's a God that has spoken so that we might know his salvation. I believe the warning here is be careful what you think you can discover on your own. Be careful what you expect me to discover on my own. If someone were to come and say, oh, I found it all. I've got the secret of life. I discovered it. Don't follow them. That's how cults start. No, we come to Jesus who says,

I am the way, the truth, the life.

What's amazing about God's wisdom is it's not something we go and find in our own strength. It's come down from heaven. It's come down to meet us. It's come down to, he has come down to be received. And there's such an important difference over against every other major religious or philosophical leader. Muhammad claims to have found and received revelation, wisdom from an angel. Joseph Smith, same thing. He found scrolls from an angel. Buddha found wisdom in his meditation and seeking nothingness. All of them found in something else. Descartes found his sense of existing. Kant found his own categories. Derrida found man's will to power. They all thought they found some ultimate truth. They're all wrong. Jesus didn't come and say I found anything. Jesus came and said, I've come to find you. I've come as the light to shine in your darkness. I've come as the wisdom and power of God to correct your foolishness and to overcome your weakness and what you cannot do. He's not another prophet. He's not another wise sage. He's almighty God who has broken into our darkness and foolishness. In a day, he doesn't say, come find my wisdom. He says, receive it. I will give it to you. No, wisdom comes and breaks in. As we come to His Word, men didn't find these things out. God gave it to them. This is God's Word as a gift to us to receive. As we think about our posture here in seeking wisdom and the fear of the Lord, in John 6, Jesus is going through some very difficult sayings, and the disciples are fleeing some of them, and he turns to the 12, are you gonna depart as well? And Peter says something really right.

Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed. and have come to know you are the Holy One of God.

Christian, is that your posture towards Jesus? He alone has the words of your own life? He alone is able to give you wisdom? He didn't discover it, he brings it. Do we keep looking for something else to compliment Jesus with in our own life? Where else are we going trying to find something that Jesus hasn't told us? Do we have a proper fear, reverence for him in what he says? Christian, unbeliever and believer, we are so dependent upon God. Who knows what is good? Who can tell us what is right? We can't find it on our own. That's what's been driving these last two chapters. That's why we all the more praise the God who came to us. The Word of God become flesh. The wisdom and power of God to heal us, to save us, to instruct us. There's a moment of despair. I can't find it, it's too far, I'm too confused. And then there's Jesus himself who speaks. He says, come to me. I will heal you, save you, and give you the wisdom you need. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you for these hard words that help us see we are unruly, and even more important, unable to to find what we need on our own. We turn inward for more lies and foolishness. We look to others for some kind of foolish wisdom. Lord, help us to look up to you. Help us to come with a posture of reverence that desires wisdom, recognizing we can't get it on our own and how gracious you are to give it to us. Help us trust your generosity to give the wisdom and life and truth we need. Jesus, let me pray, amen.