Ecclesiastes Part 12

Ecclesiastes 7:15-29
Limitations of Life
Teacher: Lloyd Shadrach

Ecclesiastes 7:15-29 CSB "In my futile life I have seen everything: someone righteous perishes in spite of his righteousness, and someone wicked lives long in spite of his evil.  Don't be excessively righteous, and don't be overly wise.  Why should you destroy yourself?  Don't be excessively wicked, and don't be foolish.  Why should you die before your time? It is good that you grasp the one nad do not let the other slip from your hand.  For the one who fears God will end up with both of them.  Wisdom makes the wise person stronger than ten rulers of a city.  There is certainly no one righteous on the earth who does good and never sins.  Don't pay attention to everything people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you, for in your heart you know that many times you yourself have cursed others. I have tested all this wisdom.  I resolved, 'I will be wise,' but it was beyond me.  What exists is beyond reach and very deep.  Who can discover it? I turned my thoughts to know, explore, and examine wisdom and an explanation for things, and to know that wickedness is stupidity and folly is madness.  And I find more bitter than death the woman who is a trap: her heart a net and her hands chains.  The one who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner will be captured by her.  'Look,' says the teacher, 'I have discovered this by adding one thing to another to find out the explanation, which my soul continually searches for but does not find: I found one person in a thousand, but none of those was a woman.  Only see this:  I have discovered that God made people upright, but they pursued many schemes.'"

v. 15 asserts that the righteous die young, and the wicked live long lives.  This is not a declaration of a complete truth.  Rather it is a generalization Solomon is noticing.  We can probably all thing of 'good' people who have died young.  Many come to my mind, even children, whose lives seemed to be good and kind, perished at a young age...However we can all think of men and women who do not deserve life, as though any of us really deserve life, yet live it freely and healthily.  None of us our rewarded or punished based on our works. 

Going back to verse 14: Ecclesiastes 7:14 "In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity, consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that no one can discover anything that will come after him."  Solomon wants us to face reality, God is behind all things...ALL includes good people dying, evil people living....and even what is on my heart right now, a sweet friend, on of the most Godly women I know, who just delivered a son with a congenital heart defect.  He awaits surgery and she stays beside Him, praising the Lord all the while.  God does not give us life, ease, etc. based on our works. Solomon's statement is also a warning that self righteousness is no guarantee of blessings in this life. 

Everything we do in this life is about our motive.  Wisdom is good, but should not be sought for profit.  Everything we do must be compatible with the fear of God.

In V 19-22 Solomon asserts that wisdom is powerful, and sin is universal.  This is paralleled in the New Testament when it says "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." - Romans 3

We all sin.  The more award of our sin we become, the least likely we are to seek revenge when we have been wronged.

In V26 Solomon personifies wisdom and foolishness as a woman.  Not too much can be read from this passage as you can see that Wisdom is a woman in Proverbs 1:20 and Foolishness is a woman in Proverbs 2:18-19 and 7:13

V27-29  Only a small fraction of people live in wisdom  Solomon only found a miniscule amount of people living well.  V29 tells us that God created humanity upright and righteous BUT...man and woman sought out many devices, the first being the tree in the Garden.

Solomon says he can't figure out the ways of God with man.  We can't always answer "Why did God____?"  Sometimes we can just know He did.

We must trust God in our misunderstanding. 

We CAN and should trust the actions of God because we know the character of God.