Princeton Presbyterian Church

Princeton Presbyterian Church (EPC) Sermon # 1576

March 5, 2023

Ecclesiastes 7.1-25    Click here for audio worship.

Dr. Ed Pettus (This is an extended outline, not a verbatim transcript.)

 

“He Who Pleases God”

 

A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth. ²It 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. ³Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. ⁴The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. ⁵It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools. ⁶For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools; this also is vanity.

⁷Surely oppression drives the wise into madness, and a bribe corrupts the heart. ⁸Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. ⁹Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools. ¹⁰Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. ¹¹Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun. ¹²For 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. ¹³Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked? ¹⁴In 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. ¹⁵In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing. ¹⁶Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? ¹⁷Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? ¹⁸It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them. ¹⁹Wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city. ²⁰Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. ²¹Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. ²²Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others. ²³All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me. ²⁴That which has been is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out? ²⁵I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness. ²⁶And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her. ²⁷Behold, this is what I found, says the Preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things—²⁸which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found. ²⁹See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.

 

• How Shall We Live?

 

At the initial reading of this chapter, it appears to be one thoughtful saying after another. But there are two main themes that arise out of Ecclesiastes 7, one in verses 1-6 and another in 7-25. These saying are bits and pieces that speak to the whole. We find a variety of observations that speak to our life and the larger message of Ecclesiastes – that life under the sun eludes our control, how then shall we live?

Life is hard, people get sick and die, there is injustice, sin is real, unlikely that we can change the climate...How then shall we live?

Clint Eastwood had a similar saying, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”

Our limitations are summed up in the awareness of having humbled wisdom. True wisdom will humble us. The more you know the more you realize how little you know. With the awareness that we know some things and not everything, how then shall we live? Ecclesiastes gives us two options.

 

 

• Option 1: A Sci-Fi World

 

Option 1 – Escape it all through numbing the pain, entertainment, drugs, alcohol, living in the past, video games, anything to distract us from the realities we see of vanity and chasing after wind. My own experience of this is science fiction. But we cannot live in the sci-fi world. Two main camps: Star Trek and Star Wars. I use sci-fi as one example. People can find anything to utilize for an escape from the world. Food, music, vacation, hobbies, sports, the point is to recognize when these things become detrimental to our practice of faith and life that seeks to glorify God.

Escaping the world is not the answer but it is an option many people take. It is taken because we have a difficult time when we see the troubles of this world, the injustice, the oppression, the crime, the evils, and we begin to realize we do not have control over these things. But it comes close to home when we realize we do not have control of our own world. Control is an illusion. Things of this world can completely disrupt our sense of control. We have either experienced or know others who have experienced how the death of a loved one completely changes our life. This is even more impactful when death comes far too early for our hopes and dreams. On a less serious scale, as we age, things change for us also showing us we do not have as much control as we want. Former priorities drop off the list of importance and other things we thought nothing of before are not just moved to the top of our list, but are newly added to our list. Things change. We resist change sometimes, but life shatters our sense of control.

Ecclesiastes 7 addresses these concerns, first in verses 1-6 which is an invitation to know that death will come.

Verse 1 is about a good name. What matters most is our reputation, character, what we are known for. This is at least something we can leave behind. It reveals a life well lived if we leave behind a good name. The second half of the verse expands the good name. The day of death is better than the day of birth. Birth is full of potential, high hopes, new life, forever changed. But at death we come to fully understand all that Christ has done for us, all is fulfilled and fulfillment is better than potential.

David Gibson has another take on it. When we are born there is not much said except that the baby looks more like her mom than her dad. Everything is at its beginning, everything about the baby is unknown. But at death, when that baby has lived a full life into her 80’s or 90’s, we have much more to say. She exemplified faith in Christ. She gave hospitality to others. It is what we do at funerals, recognizing all the beautiful characteristics of her life. This is why the day of death is better than the day of birth. It is not that death is better than birth, only that death enables us to focus on a life well lived. At death, everything comes sharper into focus. What is the question sometimes asked of those who have lived a long life? What would you have done differently? What regrets? Facing our limits brings life into greater focus. When we are young, especially in teens years, we give no thought to our limitations and how those limitations might better shape our decisions. More often we look back and wonder how in the world we survived our younger years!

The next verse, verse 2 is asking us to consider, in light of not going to live forever, how shall I live? What kind of person shall I be? What reputation or name will I leave behind? Name a grandparent and reflect on all that name brings to mind. Ethel...my maternal grandmother – loving, Christian, wife, cook.

Death, knowing that we do not live forever on this earth, death is a better teacher – mourning better than feasting. People are often surprised when I tell them I would rather preside over a funeral than a wedding. Not that I do not want to officiate weddings, but funerals offer much greater opportunities to discuss life, faith, end of life questions. We learn and grow from suffering loss. Death teaches us about life and death teaches us about the gift of life. Granted, some people will not even go to funerals. They may not be able to bear the questions that arise from death. Some people may attend a funeral but cannot wait to get away and back to ignoring death. But others contemplate that one day that will be me in the coffin or urn.

 

Verse 5, Better to have a friend who will point out your faults than to try to escape them by escaping into American Idol. Wisdom comes from realizing our end. You won’t find much wisdom in pop music. The entertainment industry lives in complete denial of death, and from the presentation we have here in Ecclesiastes, they also do not entertain the wisdom that comes through realizing that we will not live forever. Those who will not face the questions of death will seek every avenue to escape death. Chasing after wind, plastic surgeries, multiple marriages, pretending to be other characters...not to pick on actors and not all are that way, but we know the general story line that we see on Entertainment Tonight. I even know of some great Christian actors! But much of what we see is a striving to escape, to escape the thought of death and to escape the reality of vanity and chasing after wind.

 

 

• Option 2: Wisdom of God

 

The second option is found in the wisdom of God. We know how important it is to seek God’s wisdom. We have many questions about life and death, about good and evil, about the things that are difficult to understand. Sometimes we come to realize that we do not have sufficient answers for others and also for ourselves. There are limits to what we can understand and comprehend. So we seek to learn to live in God’s Word, but also important is to live humbly in that wisdom knowing that we cannot know everything. We cannot answer all the questions of this life. We are not in control of everything in our lives, nor in the world. Sometimes that is quite frustrating. I often fall back on the promise of walking by faith and not by sight.

2 Corinthians 5.6-9, ⁶So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, ⁷for we walk by faith, not by sight. ⁸Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. ⁹So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.

 

This message from Paul reminds us that we cannot see everything. We cannot know everything. And I believe that also frees us to not have to have all the answers. It is an arrogant and worldly mindset that thinks we can know everything. So called experts are often wrong. Science does not know everything and seems to be constantly changing on what it thinks it knows. True wisdom is knowing that we do not know it all. True wisdom is humble and fully pursues God’s wisdom in all things. That is why we claim that the Bible is fully reliable in all matters on which it speaks.

 

Let’s look at a couple of verses where the wise can become corrupt. One is from verse 7, ⁷Surely oppression drives the wise into madness, and a bribe corrupts the heart. Bribery can corrupt the heart. The love of money can be a great danger to wisdom. What might protect us from such a temptation? Death! Knowing that you cannot take it with you. This is the wisdom of Ecclesiastes, knowing that we will not live forever on this earth protects the heart from the love of money.

 

Verse 10 is very interesting because I think we all have this nostalgic view of the past. ¹⁰Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. We think of days gone by as the good ole days. We think, “I’m glad I do not have to raise children in this time.” Ecclesiastes might respond with, “at least you won’t be around much longer!” The Bible reminds us constantly that the past was not as great as we might remember. Ever since Adam and Eve disobeyed God, all generations have had terrible situations to face. Israel in exile, Israel forgetting God, Paul wrote letters to churches who were facing the same kind of debauchery we see today. That is how we know what we see today is wrong, because the Bible addressed it in former days -from Genesis to Revelation! There is great good today because Jesus Christ lives! If we pose our questions or observations about the good ole days as if they were so much better, perhaps we are forgetting that God is still with us, God is still on the throne, and that God has reconciled us through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5.17-21). It is always a good time to raise children and live in our time, because God still reigns.

These two are also ways of escaping rather than living in the present. The love of money is a way to escape by burying our lives in possessions and large bank accounts as if those are the means to ultimate security. Or we seek to live in the past as if those days were so much better. This too is a way to escape the present troubles and not live in faith for the future promised by God.

 

The wisdom of God is the best option of these two. We want to avoid escaping into a false world of riches or science fiction or other means of escapism. Wisdom faces the reality of our world and our lives, not with all the answers, but with faith and love and grace and a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. It is a life that seeks to please God and bring glory to His name.

 

 

• He Who Pleases God

 

I take this last point in the outline from verse 26, “He who pleases God”. This is a good news message from Ecclesiastes. He who pleases God escapes the tempter of verses 26 and 25,

 

²⁵I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness. ²⁶And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her.

 

The woman, I believe, is a metaphor for the foolishness of verse 25. Remember that wisdom is metaphorically a female in Proverbs. Proverbs 1.20, Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice. I think the same is true here, except this time it is the opposite in that the foolishness, the snares and nets of worldly madness, these are the temptations we seek to escape. We want to escape from the escapism! We desire to avoid the foolishness of the world in order to please God.

He who pleases God and seeks to please God will do those things that the Bible requires of us that are pleasing to God. Loving God and neighbor, walking humbly with Him, seeking justice, abiding in His Commandments, and let me repeat the passage from 2 Corinthians 5.6-9,

⁶So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, ⁷for we walk by faith, not by sight. ⁸Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. ⁹So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.

Our aim is to please God. This is a great message from Ecclesiastes because Ecclesiastes is teaching us that all the vanity and chasing after wind that is the way of the world will one day be gone and the only matters that truly matter are found in the kingdom of God, in His Word, in His wisdom, in life with Jesus. Paul give us a good end to this sermon and what I think is a good summary for Ecclesiastes 7.

 

Ephesians 5.6-10, ⁶Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. ⁷Therefore do not become partners with them; ⁸for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light ⁹(for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), ¹⁰and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.

 

Amen.

 

*This sermon series reflects the work of David Gibson in his book Living Life Backward.