Introduction
- Things that leave us feeling anxious and ashamed. These frustrations are cyclical.
- 6:11 What is the advantage to man? Provides the answer in chapter 7.
- Wisdom literature = frequently shift subjects (Funerals > Rebuke > Oppression > Nostalgia).
Read Ecclesiastes 7:1-12
- Road Rage: I was recently cut off on the freeway by a person entering behind me. In order to get ahead of him, I had to cut off someone else.
- Think about a recent experience of suffering. What was your attitude? What were your complaints? Think about your sense of despair and desperation.
- How many of you are trying to justify your response even now?
- Key Words: “Good/better” (11x); “wise/wisdom” (6x).
- What the Preacher describes as “good/better” are generally associated with suffering.
- God teaches us, often through suffering, how to enjoy Him and His gifts.
- Funerals Are Better Than Birthdays (1-4)
- Wisdom Is Better Than Foolishness (5-12)
Funerals Are Better Than Birthdays (1-4)
- 1 We should value our name/reputation over our smell. This is most evident at our funeral. A good name > the stench of our decaying body.
- 2 Excellent verse for funerals. No one looks forward to going to funerals, but they remind us of our mortality.
- Mourning > Feasting: Would you skip Thanksgiving for a funeral? You won’t appreciate a funeral more than a feast, but it’s better for your soul.
- Funerals help us reflect on what is truly important in life (character > possessions).
- Mourning teaches us about living. Facing death teaches us to treasure life.
- 3 How is sorrow better than laughter?
- It doesn’t feel better.
- Are we supposed to mope around with a perpetual frown like Eeyore?
- What’s wrong with happiness? The Preacher commends joy (2:24; 3:12, 22).
- We don’t have to be Debbie Downer, killing everyone else’s joy with negative comments.
- Outward appearance doesn’t always reveal our heart. Routinely suppressing your sadness will not bring lasting joy.
- 4 Funerals > Mirth (entertainment). Why would you be at a funeral unless you were invited? Don’t avoid the cemetery.
- People increasingly uncomfortable with death. Funerals = celebrating life, so we don’t have to think about death at all. We avoid the language of death by talking about a person’s “passing” or “departing”.
- Funerals should help us think rightly about life and death.
Psalm 90:12 Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.
- One of the most memorable funerals I attended was for my Jr. High youth pastor, Oscar Diego, who drowned at Millerton Lake. It was one of the greatest influences upon my love for ministry.
- God teaches us, often through death, how to enjoy Him and His gifts.
- Repentance involves mourning over our sin.
- The pain of death, when it is felt (not avoided), reminds us of the resurrection joy that awaits, because Jesus Christ was victorious over death.
- Now we can agree with Paul in Phil. 1:21-23.
The Preacher transitions from the superiority of mourning to…
Wisdom Is Better Than Foolishness (5-12)
- 5 Recently at sister’s wedding that involved dancing and acting silly. It was fun. I would not have preferred a rebuke no matter how wise…
- He’s not suggesting we never laugh or dance. There is a proper time for it (3:4).
- But refusing wise rebuke = neglecting mourning. Don’t replace rebuke with tickling each other’s ears! We’re terrified of causing offense. But, a rebuke grounded in truth, is loving.
- 6 A play on words “thorn” and “pot” (“hasirim that hair”). Ryken, “The laughter of fools is like nettles crackling under kettles.”
- A fools laughter is short-lived. Thorns crackle in the flame, but quickly turn into smoke.
- Mourning and rebuke are infrequent and deepen our joy. We must separate “joy in God” from “superficial laughter in life under the sun.”
- Joy is not the problem, but the shallow pursuit of joy divorced from reality. Always feasting and never mourning. Always laughing and never hearing rebuke. That’s living in denial. And that’s the escapist culture that we live in.
- 7 Bribes and oppression are rejected by the wise. They know the love of money brings corruption.
- 8 Patiently seeing projects through to the finish is much more rewarding than the flash-in-the-pan start.
- 9 Fools are quick to anger. Anger escapes the heart in fits and bursts, rash, typically unjustified.
- 10 Always dreaming about “the good ol’ days” is unwise. If v.8 warns against pessimism about the future, v.10 warns of the temptation of nostalgia for the past.
- 11 Good = Wisdom + inheritance. If we are wise we will manage our money well.
- 12 Wisdom is more important than money.
- God teaches us, often through foolishness (our own or others), how to enjoy Him and His gifts.
- Pursue wisdom (Prov. 4:5-7)!
- Joy is related to suffering: James 1:2-5, 12; 2 Cor. 7:4b; 8:2. Accepting the tension that suffering brings into one’s life is a sign of maturity.
It is a sign that we are being conformed into the image of Christ…
Conclusion
- In Jesus Christ we find “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3).
Jesus those who mourn will be comforted…those who weep now will laugh…and the persecuted will receive the kingdom of heaven.
Paul this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
- Finally, through the “foolishness” of the cross we see God’s power and wisdom in accomplishing redemption (1 Cor. 1:18f). The cross is where all of our threads end.
- At the cross we see the climax of mourning and foolishness which culminate in our salvation and everlasting joy!