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Few add trials to their to-do list. However, though no one advocates looking for hardships, when we run from our struggles, we may end up fleeing the very thing God uses to shape us into His image.
Last month, Solomon taught us that wealth is not always the best thing for us. This month, the Preacher reveals that struggles are not the worst thing for us.
Trials reveal that He is God and we are not. Trials perfect you. Trials bring you to the end of yourself and to the beginning of the Almighty.
We all agree, that’s when bad is better!
A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth. – Ecclesiastes 7:1
God says that He wants us to have a good name, meaning that He wants us to become men and women of mobility and righteousness.
It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart. Frustration is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart. – Ecclesiastes 7:2-3
Solomon says it’s better to go to a funeral because in a house of mourning you see the end of every man. The wise man is smart enough to take it to hear. The house of mourning will change you.
Every funeral is a reminder than one day you are going to die.
Hard Times Bring Wisdom
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure. It is better to heed the rebuke of a wise person than to listen to the song of fools. – Ecclesiastes 7:4-5
The mentality that the Christian life is all prosperity and no suffering is unwise if not downright stupid. It’s never wrong to pray for healing. It’s wrong to believe it’s always for the best.
What would you do if you knew you had only one more day to live? It will make you focus on what is important in the face of death.
Great men and women are shaped by pain.
Like the crackling of thorns under the pot, so is the laughter of fools. This too is meaningless. – Ecclesiastes 7:6
Have you ever burned thorns? While they’re burning, they crackle and pop like laughter.
Solomon says a fool’s laughter is like burning thorns. It sounds great and makes a lot of noise, but it’s also gone in a flash.
Extortion turns a wise person into a fool, and a bribe corrupts the heart. – Ecclesiastes 7:7
The Hebrew word for “mad” means “crazy,” not “angry.” Oppression makes you nuts. Oppression (or power) and longing for wealth (resorting to bribes) can corrupt and destroy.
Money can make people do crazy things.
The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools. – Ecclesiastes 7:8-9
Everyone is tempted to get made at God sometimes.
As a pastor, Tommy Nelson can give plenty of stories about people mad at God because He didn’t do right. They didn’t know He wasn’t concerned with their ointments but with their good names. So when the hard times came, they got mad and stuck out their lips at the Almighty. Solomon says they are fools.
Pastor Nelson relayed a story of his son playing baseball at the University of Kansas. At one point, his son went into a hitting slump and didn’t get a hit for four games. His average dropped from .379 to .301.
Pastor Nelson was praying and crying out to God for “better treatment” for his son. But then God reminded Nelson that He is more concerned with Nelson’s son’s life than with his press coverage.
Wisdom, like an inheritance, is a good thing and benefits those who see the sun. – Ecclesiastes 7:11
It’s one thing to have a good life handed down to you from your parents; it’s even better to have wisdom. That’s why God is letting you experience hard times—because He’s trying to make something out of you.
Wisdom is a shelter as money is a shelter, but the advantage of knowledge is this: Wisdom preserves those who have it. – Ecclesiastes 7:12
Solomon says that when God brings pain into our lives, He is often growing wisdom in us. And in the end, He is protecting us.
Wisdom has a price—you have to get beat up a little.
In Ecclesiastes 7:13, Solomon gives us a central point: Consider what God has done: Who can straighten what he has made crooked?
Solomon reminds us that there are some things we can’t change. We just have to trust that they are the work of God.
Don’t miss the blessing by trying to change what cannot be changed. Stop and reflect on the Word of God. Let God use the pain to change you.
Don’t go looking for pain. When God brings pain, he’s shaping you. Prosperity can be a blessing from God.
You can’t know the future. Solomon’s logic is that God doesn’t always do what’s pleasant for you; He always does what’s best.
Holiness and Humility
How Can I Live in a World Where I Don’t Have All The Answers?
Have you ever felt like God is having you do things that seem like a waste of time? Sometimes it may even feel like you are going in the wrong direction. But God has to teach you to trust Him, to rest in Him, and to know that His way is best. You need humility as you walk with God.
Solomon gives us another correction for when we go through hard times. To recap, his previous corrections were (1) prosperity isn’t always good and (2) adversity isn’t always bad. His third correction for us to trust God even when things don’t add up. We are not omniscient.
In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these: the righteous perishing in their righteousness, and the wicked living long in their wickedness. Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise—why destroy yourself? – Ecclesiastes 7:15-16
I want happiness, but God wants greatness. In fact, God will take my happiness to make me great.
Obviously, the Bible teaches us to seek righteousness and holiness. Philippians 3:13 says, “One thing I (Paul) do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead…”
The Bible calls us to be fervent in our pursuit of wisdom and righteousness—to seek them and not to yield.
Solomon is talking in context about an observer becoming so bent on being holy and informed that he forgets the grace of the all-knowing God. He’s talking about pharisaical wisdom and pharisaical righteousness. He is saying that we shouldn’t think we are smart enough and wise enough to understand what God is doing.
Isaiah 40:13-14 says:
Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord,
Or as His counselor has informed Him?
With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding?
And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge,
And informed Him of the way of understanding?
We can only know what God reveals to us about Himself.
Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool—why die before your time? – Ecclesiastes 7:17
Don’t think you are smart enough to understand God, but also don’t just chuck it all and be a fool. If you make stupid choices, you’ll end up suffering the consequences.
It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes. – Ecclesiastes 7:18
John Newton, the former slave trader and author of “Amazing Grace,” said, “When I get to heaven, I will be amazed at three things. I will be amazed at those I thought would be there who are not there, those I did not think would be there who are there, and the fact that I am there at all.” We should realize we don’t have the last word on knowledge.
Wisdom makes one wise person more powerful than ten rulers in a city. Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins. – Ecclesiastes 7:19-20
No matter how many degrees you have, if you don’t soak in the Bible, you’re stumbling through a minefield. If all you know is the wisdom of the Bible and you don’t have a degree, you’ll still have a joyful, happy life.
Wisdom is better than ten rulers. You can surround yourself with the greatest men, but if you know and fear God, you’re ahead of the pack.
Dealing with the Sin of Others and Ourselves
Do not pay attention to every word people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you—for you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed others. – Ecclesiastes 7:21-22
We have to go beyond just saying we are sinners to really believing at our core that we are completely dependent on God’s grace. Solomon brings this point home through his personal experience.
All this I tested by wisdom and I said, “I am determined to be wise”—but this was beyond me. Whatever exists is far off and most profound—who can discover it? So I turned my mind to understand, to investigate and to search out wisdom and the scheme of things and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the madness of folly. I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare. – Ecclesiastes 7:23-26
To figure out life, I don’t need to know what God’s doing. What I need to do is avoid evil and do right and please God.
God will do His job in directing the universe; we can be sure of that. The question is, Will you do your job? Your job is to be honest, holy, loving, and righteous to die well.
In verses 27 and 28, Solomon explains another discovery. Even though we seek righteousness, we need to remember that no matter how good we get, we are sinful.
“Look,” says the Teacher, “this is what I have discovered: Adding one thing to another to discover the scheme of things—while I was still searching but not finding—I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all. This only have I found: God created mankind upright, but they have gone in search of many schemes.” – Ecclesiastes 7:27-29
How do we live in light of these truths? Apply wisdom where you are. Seek God to know Him. Trust Him. Grow in Him; but remember that you are a sinner, you live among sinners, and you have no wisdom in yourself.
When hard times hit, consider these three truths:
- Wealth and success are highly over-rated;
- Hardship is highly under-rated; and
- We cannot critique God.
We are shaped by pain.
In Luke 18:11-12, the Pharisee said, “God, I thank Thee that I am not like other people; swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax gatherer. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.” The Pharisee didn’t say one lie in his prayer. Everything he said was true about himself and about the other man. But there’s something about that prayer that stinks. He forgot who he was before God. That’s grace gone sour.
C.S. Lewis says that God always gives us struggles in life. He makes sure that we always are facing things we can’t quite figure out. And the reason He does it is so we will remember that this world is not our home.
But God will always let you know that this world is just an inn. We are just passing through.