What In The World? - [Ecclesiastes 7:5-29]

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2 verse 5 where the

Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. What sounds better to you? Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets upon his hour on stage and then is heard no more, the tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Or come unto me, all who labor and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Which one sounds better?

Twain, before he died, a myriad of men are born, they labor, sweat, and struggle, they squabble and scold and fight, they scramble for little mean advantages over each other.

Age creeps upon them, infirmities follow, loved ones are taken from them, and then the joy of life is turned to aching grief.

Or as John Flavel said, thinking he's overhearing the son talk to the father in eternity past,

O my father, such is my love and pity for sinners, that rather than they perish eternally,

I will be responsible for them as their surety. Father, bring in all their bills, that I may see what they owe you.

Lord, bring them all in, that there may be no after reckonings with them. At my hand, father, you shall require it.

I will rather choose to suffer your wrath than they should suffer it. Upon me, father, be upon all their debt.

Which one sounds better? Leonard Wolfe, who said, I clearly see that I've achieved nothing in life.

The world today in history of the human anthill during my past 57 years would be exactly the same as if I had played ping pong instead of writing books.

I have therefore to make the rather horrible confession that I must have in a long life ground through between 150 ,000 and 200 ,000 hours of perfectly useless work.

Or truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.

He does not come into judgment, but is passed from death to life. I mean, the choice is clear, is it not?

We either trust in life and find the meaning of life in life, which is going to be very frustrating to us.

Or we find the meaning of life in the giver of life. And that's really the book of Ecclesiastes.

If you'll take your Bible and turn to Ecclesiastes 7, we are marching through the book of Ecclesiastes.

Wisdom so that we can act wisely as Christian people. The world is fallen, yet there is a

Redeemer, Jesus, God's own Son, Lamb of God, Messiah.

And he saves, and he helps us to live. So when you think about commands like we're going to see in the book of Ecclesiastes, because the second half of Ecclesiastes has a lot of commands in it, five times more than the first six chapters, you're going to see these commands.

And here's how you should think about the law for you, the Christian. How do we look at imperatives and commands?

Well here's how you look at them. There's a need that we have for good news. And that need is we're sinners, and we're going to go to hell unless we're rescued.

That's the need for the gospel. It's not the gospel, it's not good news, you're a sinner. It's true, but it's not good news, it's the need of the gospel.

The way you receive the gospel is by faith and faith alone. Not baptism, not anything else.

You strictly with an instrument of faith that receives, it doesn't earn anything, you receive the good news.

But receiving the good news is in the gospel. There's fruit and evidence in your life, once you're a

Christian, and of course God has regenerated you and saved you, and you begin to show fruit and evidences of that life, that's good, it's fruit and evidence that you're a

Christian, but that's not the gospel, it's the evidence of the gospel. The gospel is in fact what you've heard about and sung about even today.

That it's all about the Lord Jesus, good news is about Jesus. And so you can talk about Jesus in eternity past, where Jesus in fact is the eternal

Son, and in that great counsel with the Father and the Spirit, He sent by the

Father's love, comes to rescue us, and He needs to live a perfect life under the law, because that's what

Adam was supposed to do and didn't. And He's also going to have to die on behalf of our sins, because we can't get to heaven with sin.

And then of course to confirm that, He's not only buried, He really died, and then He was raised, and then He ascended.

And so we have a need for the gospel, we're sinners, that's not the gospel. We have a way to get the gospel, faith alone, that's not the gospel.

The gospel is in fact Jesus and Jesus alone. Grace incarnate. And you understand, because most of you here are

Christian people, and you're saying to yourself, yes, He sought me and bought me with His redeeming love.

He's the Savior, He's the rescuer, He initiates. Now because He's done all that, what's our response?

Yeah, no big deal, see you next Sunday. I can't see the Patriots around later today, can

I? Because they're on tomorrow, right? How did I know that? When we realize how great our sins were, and the need of the gospel, then we realize how great our

Savior is. Our biggest problem in all the world was we're sinners, and we're on our way to hell, and God has intercepted and interrupted, and He, the

Father, has poured out the wrath, not on me, not on you, but on the Son. And then we think, well, now

I want to obey. The fruit and evidence of the gospel's work in my life is, I'd like to obey.

I'd like to walk by faith, I'd like to obey, I'd like to trust, I'd like to work hard,

I'd like to evangelize. Lord, whatever you tell me to do, I receive from your hand, not as a judge to an unbeliever who says, you better do this or else, but from a

Father who says, Son, I want your best. Daughter, I want your best. And it'll be for your good, and it'll also be for my glory.

So here in Ecclesiastes 7, we're going to see commands on how to be wise.

But I want you to realize, if you're wise, you're not more justified.

If you're wise, God doesn't love you more. If you're foolish, and you're still a

Christian, you act foolishly at times, you're still not any less of a child, but you say, because of what

God has done for me, I'd like to respond with gratitude and obey. And when he says, here's a law,

I want to do that law. If he says, be honest, I want to be honest.

If he says, don't commit adultery, I want to not commit adultery. If he says, go evangelize, I want to do that.

Out of gratitude, out of fruit and evidence. Does that make sense? Because what I don't want you to do is what happens in evangelicalism.

People are saying, you're justified by faith alone. Sanctification process is you become more holy and righteous on earth and obey.

What religions tend to do is to blur these two. And sanctification and justification are blurred and they're commingled.

And here's what happens when that happens to you. You begin to think your standing before God is based on how holy you are.

You begin to think, you know what, my standing before God is not Jesus' perfect life and death, burial, resurrection.

My standing is, do I pray enough? Do I read enough? Have I evangelized enough? Am I wise enough?

Do I obey Ecclesiastes enough? And of course we want to obey. Of course we do.

Out of gratitude to God. But your standing, dear Christian, is not based on your holy living. It's not based on your obedience.

It's not based on anything you do because God is holy and he's perfect. And if you want to stand before God, you better be perfect.

Right? So when you think about laws, and I'm going to give you five laws today, five ways to be wise, you think,

I received them from a father who's given me his best, Romans 8, 32. He didn't spare his son.

And now he wants to have me be wise and guide me as I live my Christian life on earth on my way to glory.

Does that make sense? That's how you look at the law. And here we come to the book of Ecclesiastes.

Wise living as fruit and evidence as gratitude unto the holy

God, our Savior. Well, when you come to chapter 6, verse 10, in some of the notes of the original

Jewish people who gave us vowels in some of these words and all these words, this is the turning point in chapter 6, verse 10.

And just to give a little review, we're going to look at chapter 6, verse 10 and work our way through chapter 7. And here's the outline.

I could ask a question. How do wise people act? How do wise believers act? How should you act in this world that's full of vanity, futility, vexation, sin?

How do I act? Five wise ways to live in this fallen world. For you, dear

Christian, how do I kind of navigate through the world? I don't want to be a fool. Who wants to be a fool? I pity the poor fool.

Just seeing if you're awake. Once I walked past Mr. T, I think I've told you the story, and I had two thoughts.

One, he's pretty short. Number two, I think I can take him. But I just kept walking.

Five wise ways. We looked at two last time. We'll have a quick review, and then we'll try to get through three more. How do

I live a wise life in light of a great Savior who loved me ere

I knew Him? And all my love is to Him. That's exactly right. What we saw last week in verses 10, 11, and 12 found in chapter 6, the first wise way is to trust a sovereign

God. You must trust a sovereign God. Remember when you see the word man four times in this section, you should be thinking of the

Hebrew word Adam. Because he's talking really about Adam here early on, especially. Whatever has come to be has already been named.

You're sovereign when you name things. And it's known what Adam is. We know what Adam is. And that he,

Adam, is not able to dispute with one stronger than he. And we know who that is as well. While Adam names things, while Adam's sovereign over naming the animals, he's not the creator.

There's somebody stronger than Adam. The more words, the more vanity. And what is the advantage to man?

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

For who can tell man, or Adam, what will be after him under the sun?

In other words, God's sovereign. You try to snoop and find out what the future will bring, you cannot find it out.

For the future snoopers who read the newspaper or articles, you can't find it out because you're not sovereign.

I'm not sovereign. The world says, yes, we're in control. God says, no, he's sovereign.

And that's a theme, of course, in the book of Ecclesiastes, that God is in the heavens and he does whatever he wants.

You cannot say God is sovereign, but God is sovereign and he can't be frustrated by anyone's plans.

Additionally, we saw the second way to live a wise life, in light of your redemption in Christ, is learn from death, verses 1 -4.

Learn from death. Foolish people want to ignore death. Wise people, while it's hard, while it's sad, they need to think through death.

Verse 1, a good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth.

When you're a baby, there's a lot of potential, but your reputation will be sealed when you die.

And so as wonderful as ointment might be, and precious ointment, and wonderful perfume might be, you want to have a good reputation, in light of who

God is. Not to get into heaven, but God has saved me, and I'd like to have a good reputation when

I die, of a godly man, of a godly lady. I had a friend, and I saw him one time, hadn't seen him for a long time, and I gave him a hug, and I said to him, you smell great.

And he said, thank you. I said, what kind of cologne are you wearing? And he said, Armani.

And I said, you smell good. I got to get some of that. Three years later, left his wife.

You can smell like Armani, you're going to have a bad name. So while you have a potential, when you're a baby, for all kinds of things, we want to live, walk by faith, in the

Son of God who loved us, so that our reputation, by the grace of God, is going to be good.

It's important to have a good name. And by the way, remember last week, when we talked a little bit about this, the day of death, than the day of birth?

Besides sealing the reputation, for us as Christians, it is going to be better the day of our death, right?

Glory, heaven, eternal life. Thomas Boston said, in the day of his birth, he was born to die, but in the day of his death, he dies to live.

Oh, the fellowship, and the worship, and heavenly glories. That will be a better day than our birth.

When by sight, we can say, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

The day of death is better than the day of birth. It goes on to say, in verse 2, it's better to go to the house of mourning. That probably wasn't a funeral house, although it could be.

It probably wasn't a mortuary. It was somebody's house, where there would be the dead body, and you would go there to express your condolences.

And it's better to go there, lots of betters and ecclesiastes, than to the house of feasting. And so the writer is simply saying this,

Solomon knew that it was wise, and especially inspired by the Spirit of God, to think about death.

You go to a party, you go to a frat party, you go to a Christmas party, you go to a graduation party, you don't really think,

I'm going to die one day. But when you go to a funeral, you think, you should think, well one day, I'll be there.

And of course, we've seen in the last two years, have we not, the complete fear, not necessarily of COVID, but the fear of death.

That's what we've seen the last two years. It's not a fear of COVID, it's the fear of death. And no matter where you are on the scale of liberal, or conservative, or wherever, jabs can't save you, boosters can't save you, ivermectin can't save you, hydroxychloroquine can't save you, masks can't save you, triple masks can't save you, you are going to die.

Now that doesn't mean we can't do medical things to help us along the way, that's true, but sin causes death, and now

Solomon says, just, you have to deal with it, you have to think through. Did you know it wasn't that long ago, when adjacent to every church, was the cemetery.

We miss that. Not because it's fun, because it's wise. Not because it makes you feel good, but it's not foolish.

And you would walk into every church service, and you'd walk past that cemetery, and you'd think, my first two wives are there, who died in childbirth, my children are there, you know,

Thomas Boston, this great preacher that I've referred to many times, he's one of the marrow men, the marrow of modern divinity men,

Thomas Boston, six of his children die, one little boy died, his name was Ebenezer, God has been faithful, what, thus far.

Then they, she was pregnant with another baby, and they thought, you know what, let's name him Ebenezer too, because we'd like to have a son named

Ebenezer, but maybe if we name him Ebenezer, he might die too. And they said, we're going to trust the Lord anyway, and they named the boy

Ebenezer, and they bury Ebenezer in the church cemetery. There's a lot of sorrow, but when you walk to church, you're not thinking, oh, it's about consumerism, oh, the music is what

I want, oh, here's what I think, and this is what should happen, no, no, you think to yourself, when

I walk in a church service, when the cemetery is right there, I want to hear about life, eternal life,

I want to hear about the hope of heaven, where my mom, who's buried right out there, is absent from the body, but present with the

Lord. Sin is so terrible, it causes death, that's why we need to appoint the ones that listen to the remedy, and even those that don't listen.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. I mean, if the wages of sin is death,

Jesus has to die, to bear the sins of many, Hebrews chapter 9.

It's better to go to the house of mourning than the house of feasting, verse 2b, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living or the wise will lay it to heart.

Of course it's good to go to a wedding, of course it's good to go to a party and a feast, but you learn more elsewhere, and if you're 40, 50, 60 years old, time is going fast, and it's good for us to think, alright, as I walk into Times Square in New York City, it's bright, it's hot,

I should be thinking, you know what, this truth is bright and hot, and you have my attention. Verse 3, sorrow is better than laughter in this context, for by sadness of face, the heart is made glad, the heart's made better, we learn.

The heart of the wise, verse 4, lastly to review, is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

I don't know if you know this or not, but we've probably talked more about death, more last week and this week than most people talk about their entire lives, or at least they don't want to talk about it.

Do you know they have drive -through casket showings? You don't have to go to the funeral home, you can have a drive -through open casket viewing.

One of the promoters of that said, quote, once you push the button, the register box will open up, at that time you may sign your name in the register book, and when you proceed forward, the curtains will draw back and you pay respects to the loved one for three minutes in the privacy of your vehicle.

And you know what I say to that? Fools. Fools. One person actually said it,

I thought at least they say it and they're honest. Why do you do drive -through funerals? I mean they might say, well people who are sick can attend, or are elderly or disabled, but they finally got to it.

Some people are afraid of going to funerals. They may feel more comfortable when viewing a dead body through two panes of glass.

And perhaps some mourners want to avoid the religious aspects of a funeral wake or viewing.

They want to see the body for the last time, but they don't want to feel forced to participate in religious rituals while doing so.

Like you're going to die and there's only one savior. How many people remember that movie?

I actually never saw it. 1980, the movie Fame. I'm going to live.

You pagans know it. I'm going to live forever. I'm going to learn how to fly high.

I feel it coming again. People will see me and cry. I'm going to make it to heaven. Light up the sky like a flame.

Fame, I'm going to live forever. Baby, you remember my name. And I just think that's where we would all be if it wasn't for the grace of God in our life that now we see things rightly.

Death shouldn't end with us thinking that's the end. It should drive us to the one who's conquered death, who's the resurrection and the life.

Heidelberg Catechism, what's your only comfort in life and in death that I with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but I belong to my faithful savior,

Jesus Christ, who with his precious blood has satisfied for all my sins. Redeem me from the power of the devil and so preserves me that without the will of my father in heaven, not a hair can fall from my head.

Everything must work together for my salvation. I like fight songs.

I think Michigan probably has the greatest fight song. Nebraska's is pretty bad, but Michigan's is pretty good, but there's a better fight song.

Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, but the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, right?

We have victory in Jesus, our savior forever. Sounds like a good hymn.

Somebody should put some music to that. Third, how do you live wisely as a Christian?

Trust a sovereign God, learn from death. Number three now found in verses five through twelve, respond well, respond well.

Here's what I mean by respond well. Solomon is moving into a bunch of kind of pithy

Proverbs. It's kind of like, oh, how would I outline Proverbs nine? How would

I outline Proverbs ten when it's not really as cohesive as we might think? Verses one through four, that was simple.

That was about death. I mean, simple to outline. So now we're just going to kind of move through and he's throwing out things,

Proverbs, so that you might live rightly in light of life, in light of death, to think in a way that would honor

God as fruit and evidence of salvation in your life. Respond well.

You see here, he says, respond well by listening, by listening. Verse five and six, it is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.

For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools.

The this also is vanity. And it's pretty simple.

It's easy to read. It's better to be rebuked by wise people than to go around and be unrebuked and be left in your way.

I think if even Peter getting rebuked by the Lord Jesus, we read this morning, get thee behind me, Satan, or Paul rebuking

Peter, it doesn't feel good, but it's better. Wisdom receives rebuke. It listens. And he uses a really neat kind of analogy here.

The crackling of thorns under a pot, he's using some language here that it probably is best translated if you want to get the sense of the rhyming and the

Hebrew wordplay. It's like nettles crackling under kettles. Nettles crackling under kettles.

It's good to listen to wise rebuke. What's the opposite that people don't want to be rebuked?

What do they listen to? To hear the song of fools, silly songs.

Don't rebuke me. Don't confront me in love. Don't try to come along and help me.

I just want to hear silly songs. So I just typed in Google. No, I typed in DuckDuckGo, silly songs.

There's a lot of silly songs. Oh daddy dear, you know you're still number one, but girls they want to have fun.

Don't stop me now. I'm having such a good time. I'm having a ball. Don't stop me now. You know it's fun to stay at the

YMCA. I mean did I just say that? That's as idiotic as you get.

But you're like that's what I want because it tickles my ears. And I don't want to be boxed.

I've been boxing before and gotten hit in the ears and it hurts. So I just want to, you know, come on.

Hey, I just met you and this is crazy, but here's my number. That's what this is.

What's better? Which one feels better? Hey Andrew Smith, I really like what you're doing.

I see the Lord's work in your life. I like this, that or the other, but as a father and a son, may I just help you? Would you just please stop doing this and start doing that?

That's theoretical. It's hypothetical. Or, ice, ice, baby.

I hope nobody cuts and pastes this sermon and puts it out there. He's off the deep end.

Solomon wrote elsewhere, Proverbs 12, whoever loves discipline loves knowledge and he who hates reproof is stupid.

Proverbs 17, a rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows and a fool.

I could use the silly songs. You can listen to a hundred pop 40, top 40 songs, pop songs.

It's not going to do anything to you. I'm not saying it's wrong to listen to music. That's not what I'm saying, but it's better to hear the rebuke than it is to listen to that.

That's for certain. I am saying that. How do I respond as a

Christian? Well, I listen. He's got some more responses here. Can you see it in verse seven and eight? You ought to be patient.

So listen to rebuke and you ought to be patient. Surely oppression drives the wise into madness and a bribe corrupts the heart.

Better is the end of a thing than its beginning. And the patient in spirit, I don't have to get a quick fix and bribe my way out of this.

The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Here's what he's saying.

You have a temptation. There's the easy way out or there's a way through that you have to be patient to get through.

Could be with money. It could be with anything else. Instead of the easy way out, we look longterm and we trust,

Oh, God works everything together for good. I don't have to manipulate this situation.

In addition, there's more aspects of responding. Well, verse nine, watch your anger, check your anger.

Don't be angry. Do not be quick in your spirit to become angry. Verse nine, for anger lodges in the hearts of fools.

I mean, this world is so awful. This world is so wrecked. Our government is so completely out of control.

What's going on with finances? What's going on with my 401k, 4033, 403b?

I am angry, but I'm righteously angry. And he just saying, yeah, the world's fallen.

You can be angry at sin, but a lot of this other stuff, you know what? The world has fallen.

The world is corrupt. The world's crooked. The world's affected by the fall. The world is groaning to the day of its redemption.

Romans eight. And so we not just respond with, I'm just mad. I'm angry and I'm not going to take it anymore.

Remember Jesus with his disciples, the days drew near for him to be taken up.

He set his face to Jerusalem. That is Jesus. And he sent messengers ahead of him who went and entered a village of the

Samaritans to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive Jesus because his face was set towards Jerusalem.

And when his disciples, James and John saw it, they said, what'd they say? Let's have a prayer revival for them.

They need some prayer, dear Lord Jesus. Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?

And Jesus turned and rebuked them and they went on to another village. It could be the world.

It could be, I am angry when things don't go my way. I'm angry when things don't happen the way

I want. I'm angry when my spouse, my children, my this, my job. And it kind of leads into the next one of responding well too, doesn't it?

Verse 10. We ought not to be complaining. Goes for me and it goes for you.

You shouldn't complain. Wise people don't complain. Verse 10 say not.

This is what we're not supposed to say. Don't say this. Why were the former days better than these?

The good old days. I grew up when gas was 25 cents.

One day we ran out of gas and didn't have anything to, you know what we were doing? We were bumper skiing. And so you get the snow kids don't listen.

And you hold onto the bumper and you have your Converse on, your old Converse that you don't use anymore. And you just fly, you know, skiing behind that car down the street.

Ran out of gas. What do we have? We scoured the floors of that 67 Nova. We found a quarter and we got one gallon of gas from more bumper skiing.

By the way, bumper skiers are fools. They're not wise. See, if I was in Florida, I wouldn't have to say that because you can't do it there.

Hey, the good old days when there were morals, when things weren't so crazy, what they taught in schools.

I'm looking for those good old days, kind of like back in Rome 2000 years ago. What's he say?

For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. I read one guy, he said, quit airbrushing the past.

You can remember good things in the past. That's certainly true. Wonderful things that the mercies of God in the past.

But to always say this is no good. And I long to be in the past. That's not realizing God's here today in the present and God's sovereign.

Now, one writer said, if you think you're living in a world where things are getting worse all the time, then cheer up.

At least you'll be dead before they get really bad. Why were those days better?

Ever ask yourself the question, why were those days better? God was in more control back then.

We don't want to forget about God. What's that old phrase? Wherever you are, be all there.

We're not escapists, we're realists. We're living in the fallen world. It's hard, yes, but we're going to walk by faith and not by sight.

We're not going to airbrush the past and idolize it. God's sovereign. He's got some more responses here in verses 11 and 12.

Maybe we could just say, actually use wisdom, take advantage of wisdom. You, Christian, use money to your advantage.

So use wisdom to your advantage. Verse 11 and 12. Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who seek the

Son. For the protection of the wisdom is like the protection of money. He's actually saying something good about money here for one of the first times.

And the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.

It's pretty simple. I use money to help me. I use money to protect me.

I use money for housing. I use money for other things. And so if I'm going to use money to help me, then

I can use wisdom to help me. If I can use money to help me get through temporal things in life, then I'll use wisdom to help me with spiritual things.

Well, let's move on to the fifth, excuse me, the fourth way to live in a fallen world wisely. Trust a sovereign

God. Learn from death. Respond rightly. Number four, the fourth way to live in a world that's corrupt.

Consider God is working. Consider God is working. Kind of hinted at that in our last little section.

Let's make it very plain. Consider God is working. Haven't talked a lot about God in this section so far.

Maybe you can go through and look at verses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

And I don't think you're going to see the word God there if I'm looking properly. But now we're talking about God again,

Elohim, the great powerful God. And we're to consider that he's working. That's what a wise person does.

The fool says God's just office thrown in a DS verse 13 and 14 both have that keyword in there.

Consider not just kind of think about, but really sit down and think about. Consider the work of God.

Who can make straight what he has made crooked in the day of prosperity? Be joyful.

We've seen that in Ecclesiastes 2, Ecclesiastes 5. We'll see it in chapter 9. Enjoying the gifts of God under this difficult setting.

And in the day of adversity, consider, think God has made the one as well as the other so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.

Now, if you go back to chapter 1 verse 15, something similar has been asked, but God's not in the picture there of chapter 1 verse 15.

What is crooked cannot be made straight and what is lacking cannot be counted. But now in chapter 7 verse 13,

God is in the picture. And it's a thing to do wrongly is to look at the world without God in the picture and look at the world with God in the picture.

So here's an imperative. Sit and think, contemplate, meditate, muse on God is sovereign.

And God is sovereign over prosperity. He's sovereign over recession.

He's sovereign over everything. What does he say in verse 14?

Isn't that fascinating? And in the day of adversity, run. Is that what he says?

In the day of adversity, run. Bomb shelters. Now, what's he say?

When things are hard and there's a day of adversity, what? You better be thinking. I better be thinking about the

God who is sovereign. I have to just kind of let this settle in as death needs to do its work in my life.

And thinking about it, I need to let this settle in as well. It's so free and I can just submit and yield to God's good pleasure.

You say, how fatalistic is that? No, no, it's talking about the sovereignty of God. Do you really believe

God works everything together for good? If so, live like it.

Think about it so you can live like it. That's what he's saying. He's saying, children of the living

God, here's what I want you to do. I've redeemed you. I've saved you. And here's how you need to respond.

A trusting, a trembling trust. Otherwise, the options are despair, hopelessness, futility.

I mean, just think if God's not real, then what? Consider the work of God so you consider what he does.

And then it says, consider in the day of adversity, God has made the one as well as the other so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.

There is a point that we've seen earlier in Job and in this passage as well. I just don't know the answers.

God, you know the answers and I'm going to have to trust you. You're doing work. Jesus is the embodiment of wisdom.

You're working everything together. I can't see it, but I trust in your sovereign hand. We are supposed to, as Bethlehem Bible Church, accept prosperity and adversity from the

God who holds our future. And then now, fifthly, number five, fifth, wise people see the universality of sin.

Trust a sovereign God, learn from death, respond rightly, consider God as working and see how universal sin is.

I can't figure out what God's doing, but I know the problem.

That's his point here. I can't figure out God's making crooked things, straight things, adversity, all these other things.

I don't know. I don't understand it, but I know what caused it. And it's not

God who is unholy. It's not God who's sinned. We have sinned.

Adam sinned. And this rest of the section, this whole section, verses five through 29, just talks about how bad sin is.

He says sin is so bad it affects the world, verses 15 through 18. In my vain life,

I've seen everything. There's a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there's a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evil doing.

Hey, this is kind of good. I don't have to be too righteous. I might die. Is that what he's saying?

You know what he's saying? He's saying, do you ever notice that sometimes unbelievers live longer than believers?

You ever notice that only the good die young? It's fascinating. There's a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness.

There's a wicked man who prolongs his life in evil doing. What causes that sin?

Verse 16, so don't be overly righteous and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself?

Well, that's a relief now with all this Bible preaching. I just have to be a little righteous. I think I could do that.

I don't think he's talking about that. I think he's talking about self -righteousness. I think he's talking about pharisaical righteousness.

I think he's talking about legalistic over -righteousness. We have arrived. We know everything. We do everything, and we're going to do it the way we want.

Is not our real problem at the heart of much of our Christian living is we think we're more righteous than we are, so we don't need the righteousness of Christ as much.

Did not John Bunyan say in the 1700s, my righteousness has been in heaven for 1700 years?

Verse 17, be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? I mean, verse 16, you're a religious self -righteous, and that's no good.

Here, the non -religious person, the unrighteous, that's no good. What's good? Verse 18, it is good that you should take hold of this.

Grab it with both hands, and from that withhold not your hand. Double emphasis for the one who, here it comes, isn't this his refrain in Ecclesiastes?

Fear God. The one who fears God shall come out from both of them. Self -righteousness leads to destruction.

Wickedness leads to destruction. What's the right way to walk? Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and I've said it most every sermon, and I'll say it again.

For the unbeliever, you ought to be afraid of God. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living

God. Well, should the believer be afraid of God? Not in a condemning sense, not as God as a judge sense, we're children.

But we should revere Him, we should be in awe of Him, so that we might honor Him, and obey

Him, and make Him look good, that's certainly true. Verses 19 and following, did you know sin is so universal it even affects wise people?

Even wise people are affected by sin. Wisdom gives strength, verse 19, to the wise man, more than ten rulers who are in a city.

Surely there's not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. By the way, that's a good verse to memorize when you're evangelizing.

I've met two people in my life who have come into my home, one in Massachusetts, one in California, and have said,

I've never sinned. I thought, you just sin by saying that. I don't sin!

I don't sin! No, everybody's a sinner. Short of the Lord Jesus Christ, there's a universality of sin.

There's not a righteous man. What's righteous mean? To do the right thing. Adam was supposed to do the right thing, he did the wrong thing.

To get to heaven, you need to do the right thing, and have your wrong things paid for, and Jesus comes to earth and does the right thing by doing righteous things, and then he dies for our unrighteousness.

Verse 21, oh, this is good advice. I mean, sin affects even us, the

Christians. Do not take it to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing.

Anybody ever talk about you behind your back? Have you ever talked to anybody behind their back? What's the worst you've ever been called?

Don't shout it out. Spurgeon would say, be happy. If they knew the real you, they'd say worse things about you.

I've been called Stalin. I've been called Hitler. My favorite all -time one is

I was called the Unabomber. But you know, sin has even affected me.

Look at the next verse, it's affected you too. Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others.

We ought not to make too big a deal about people talking about us because we've in fact talked about them and should not. That would be foolish.

This fallen, crooked world is filled with sinners, and even wise people are sinful. And doesn't this show you, aren't you thankful for the

Lord Jesus? I mean, if anything shows a litmus test of we're sinners, not our hands, but our tongue.

Our tongues are like a what? Fire. No wonder Jesus said,

I tell you on the day of judgment, people will give an account for every careless word they speak. That's why you better have

Jesus's righteousness, so you don't have to stand before God and give testimony for every one of your words.

1908, the Times newspaper had an article and said, please contribute. Here's the question, what's wrong with the world?

And the one man wrote, dear sirs, I am. Verse 23, in this

I have tested by wisdom, I said, I'll be wise, but it was far from me. That which is far off and deep, very deep, who can find it?

And then this last little section here about the universality of sin, and sin affects the foolish as well.

It affects the foolish as well. Yes, the wise, yes, the world, but also the fools.

Okay, now this is getting kind of dicey here. You're going to have to think about Solomon and Solomon's experiences when you read this, because otherwise you're going to think, hey, what's going on with Solomon?

Is he a misogynist or what is he? I turn my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom in the scheme of things, and in a wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness.

And 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.

Behold, this is what I found, says the preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things, which my soul has sought repeatedly that I have not found.

One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found. See this alone

I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.

So you see what he's doing at the beginning, not very controversial. He's saying avoid sexual sin.

You can think of Proverbs chapter 5 and 6 and 7, where you're to avoid sexual sin. You might be thinking, okay, when it comes to people to watch out for,

Solomon could have been thinking about Delilah or Jezebel, or probably somebody that he knew from his own personal experience that he had to learn the hard way that sexual sin is awful.

I can only think of two sins that we're told to flee from. Of course, we're to repent of every sin and to avoid it, but I can think of flee from idolatry and flee from sexual immorality because they're so enslaving.

Of course, here he's using the woman as a seductive trap, but it goes the other way around as well.

The shoes on the other foot, men do the same thing. And so when it comes to being wise, you have to think the world is corrupt and it should not surprise us that it is a sexually sleazy world full of sexual whoredom.

Ephesians 5, here's wisdom, be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love.

What does love do? It gives, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

God's love gives, but Ephesians 5, but sexual immorality it takes and all impurity or covetousness it takes must not even be named among you as is proper among saints.

At Bethlehem Bible Church, let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.

And so Solomon says the world's full of sin, be careful, avoid sexual sin because she's on the prowl.

But then he says something here. What is this in verse 28? One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these

I haven't found. I mean it's not very good odds, one out of a thousand, what's that percentage?

I know what zero out of a thousand is, but one out of a thousand, what is he trying to do?

Go back to verse 20, just in case you're wondering, surely there's not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

Men sin, women sin. Equal opportunity sinners. But I think what's happened is,

I think Solomon is talking about personal things here. In Solomon's mind and his experiences, has he found any men who are wise?

How many? I think he found one, I think

Nathan was wise, do you think so? Out of the thousand wives and concubines,

I've asked you guys before, what's the other word for concubine? It's concubine.

Okay, listen, 1st Kings 11, Now Solomon loved many foreign women.

And the Lord had said, You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn your heart away after their gods.

Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives who were his princesses and 300 concubines, and his wives turned away his heart.

He's not saying women are sinful and men aren't, he's saying in my experience, sin affects everybody, and I have a thousand of these ladies, and they're all sinful and corrupt, and they've corrupted me.

And I can think of at least one wise person, Nathan. I mean Solomon said wonderful things about ladies in Song of Solomon elsewhere in Proverbs 12 and 14 and 18.

God's wisdom is personified as a beautiful woman. What's he after? He's after total depravity, the universality of sin.

It affects everybody. You didn't think we're going to get through chapter 7 today, did you?

So here's what Solomon's doing. You've got two choices. The meaning of life is found in life, but it's not going to work out well for you.

Or the meaning of life is found in the giver of life, and that giver of life has given me physical life.

I have a body, I've been born, and he's given me spiritual life. Same with all you Christians.

And now that we're Christian people, how do we walk around? We're just kind of robots and just walking around whatever the world says we do?

No, no. This is in stark contrast to everything that the world says. I mean if I said it the opposite, here's what the world would say.

There's no God. If He is a God, He's a deist. Avoid death. If people step on your toes, you teach them who not to mess with.

And people aren't really sinful, they've got like dysfunctions, and they've got illnesses, and they've got gender dysphoria, and they just don't know about all these things.

No, no. The problem with all of it is sin. And we know the solution for all this is the Savior. And so in light of God's creating you, and then recreating you in Christ Jesus, how do we walk in this world?

We walk in a manner that says, you know what, what I do isn't going to affect my standing with you God, because I'm your son,

I'm your daughter. I wouldn't kick out my four children if they disobeyed when they were little, but I might give them a spanking.

I would never kick them out. But since you're so good to me God, and since you've so loved me, I want to honor you,

I want to obey you, and I want to say, yes, I'm going to trust in you even though I can't see your hand.

I'm going to learn from death and realize I'll be in that tomb one day. I'm going to try to respond well with,

I don't want to be angry, I don't want to be complaining, I want the fruit of the spirit of love, joy, and peace. I want to say to myself,

I should just probably watch the sovereignty of God, and read books about the sovereignty of God, and Pink's book, and Sproul's book,

Sovereignty of God. And then I ought to know, you know what, there's only one reason Jesus came, and he came in love, and he had to solve the problem of sin, the universality of sin.

Aren't you glad we have these words that hopefully convict, and then you get the balm of forgiveness, and restoration unto

God as a father after we repent. Right? Let's pray.

Thank you, Father, for your word. Thank you that the Lord Jesus is the door of the sheep, and that you, by sovereign grace, have had us enter through the door, and we have been saved, and we are going in and out, and as Jesus said, finding pasture.

We're thankful to be rescued from the thief who came only to kill, and to steal, and destroy, and your son, the

Lord Jesus, came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly.

I pray for Bethlehem Bible Church. Would you help us to walk wisely? Would you help us to be salt and light?

Would you help us to respond in a way that would be honoring to you? Father, thank you for so loving us.

Thank you for giving us your word, and may the word do its work in the hearts of the preacher, and the congregation, and we'll trust you'll do that very thing, because the word of God works powerfully in those who believe.

In Jesus' name, amen. No Compromise Radio, with Pastor Mike Abendroth, is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church, firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015, and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org, or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.