The Limit of Wisdom

0:00Good morning.

0:01Good morning, every brother.

0:03Yeah. Appreciate you. Turn with me in your Bibles to Ecclesiastes. We're going to be covering all of chapter 8 this morning, so you've got to stand up, not now, in just a second, for just a little bit longer than usual. That's 1 through 17, the whole chapter. It's only about four or five weeks left in Ecclesiastes. We'll complete our journey through yet another book of the Bible. It's exciting. I don't know about all of y'all, but I've been blessed tremendously and convicted even of many things through our time in Ecclesiastes. I pray that the Lord continues to use our efforts through this book to sanctify us. One quick thing before we jump in, a little uh housekeeping, I guess maybe you would say. I've started sharing our sermons uh each week, the audio version on uh on the Facebook. Uh I have plans uh to start sharing more things related to what we're doing and articles and various things on that uh forum. Uh love, love or hate uh the book, as uh as we call it. Uh the reality is that that is the public square of the 21st century. Uh if we want to meet people where they are with the good news and with the truth of the gospel, that's where we find them uh now, at least in some respects. Uh we have, I think, as a church, for a little while now been uh silent in listening uh to the Lord, uh crystallizing and unifying around our doctrines, our beliefs, uh, gathering steam, I think, and encourage uh for where the Lord wants to take us and lead us. Uh I think uh the time has come for us to go to the harvest. Um I don't want to sit around with our fingers crossed hoping that God brings us uh a soul that needs a home. There are souls who need homes out there now. Um I do not wish to just hide this great light that we've been given under a basket. And one way that we can do that is to proclaim his message in the public square, right? Not as a street preacher anymore necessarily, but in that uh public square. And one way I think that all of us can do that and be a part of that and help that is um is to share uh those messages on in that public square, if if that is uh something that you do. Uh there is enough darkness out there. Specifically, there's enough darkness in that uh social world. I think we can all agree about that. So let's let's shine some light there as best we can uh and see what the Lord reveals, and may He be gracious uh to us in that effort. So let's read our text. Um that's all I'll say about that. Um yeah, stand up. Stand up, stretch your legs just a minute while we read this. Uh starting in verse uh one of chapter eight. Who is like the wise, and who knows the interpretation of a thing? A man's wisdom makes his face shine, and the uh and the hardness of his face is changed. I say, keep the king's commands because of God's oath to him. Be not hasty to go from his presence. Do not take your stand in an evil cause, for he does whatever he pleases. For the word of the king is supreme, and who may say to him, What are you doing? Whoever keeps a command will know no evil thing, and the wise heart will know the proper time and the just way. For there is a time and a way for everything, although man's trouble lies heavy on him, for he does not know what is to be, for who can tell him how it will be? No man has the power to retain the spirit or power over the day of death. There is no discharge from war, nor will wickedness deliver those who are given to it. All this I observe while applying my heart to all that is done under the sun, when a man had power over man to his hurt. Then us all the wicked buried, they used to go in and out of the holy place, and we and were praised in the city where they had done such things, this is also vanity, because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily. The heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they fear before him. But it will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow, because uh he does not fear before God. This is also vanity there is also vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I said that this is also vanity, and I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in all his toils through his days, through through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun. When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth, how neither day nor night does one's eyes sleep, then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out, even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. I thank you again for your word, Lord. I pray and ask now that you would speak for Christ's sakes, and is his in his name that I pray. Amen. There is going to be uh a little bit of um redundancy because some of these topics that we're gonna talk about today uh we have uh at least hit on a little bit, so I hope that the redundancy and the remembrance of some of these topics will be good for us uh this morning. Um and I trust that the Lord will bless it. Uh do you remember those uh vacuum, those little toy vacuum cleaners that we had as a kid or toy lawn mowers? Um I I think they're still around. Most have these little color balls inside of them, this little plastic dome, and when you push it forward, they like pop inside of this, make a bunch of racket. Uh there's a video that circulates, uh, seems to circulate uh around every Christmas, although I didn't rem I don't remember seeing it this past year. Um and it's this living room. I don't know if you've seen this. There's a living room on Christmas morning. The mom is on the floor, surrounded by the Christmas decorations and all this, and she has some directions in her hand. She's like she's reading uh something, probably trying to put something together or figure something out. She's in in thought. And one of her kids, armed with this new lawnmower that he has that he's been given for Christmas, uh, keeps slamming into her leg with this lawnmower. She frustratingly pushes him aside a couple times, and um maybe after the third time, he hits her with the lawnmower again. And mind you, the lawnmower which she bought for him for Christmas, for her dad. She throws down the directions that she's holding. She grabs this lawnmower by both hands and she chucks it across the room. And I always laugh at this because I know how real that situation is for me, right? But if we stop and think about it, we see how much this mom uh and this situation lacks wisdom. Very much lacks wisdom. Not only in the procurement of that obnoxious toy in the first place, but also in uh response to her son, right? Just being a boy and doing what you're supposed to do with a toy like that. How often do we fail to use wisdom in our doing of a thing, right? Of anything. And our response to a thing in which we've done, we fail to use wisdom. We get pulled over for speeding. And we respond in frustration and irritation. Have we done that? We procrastinate on a project or an assignment, and then we make everyone's life around us miserable until we finish the thing. I'm sure we've never done anything like that, anybody, right? Never. Coming off last week, where we discussed the danger and temptation of being too wise, uh, the teacher focuses us back this morning again on wisdom. We'll look at the value of wisdom, right? That's one thing we're gonna look at this morning, the value of wisdom, uh, and the dangers of neglecting wisdom, and we're gonna look at the limits of wisdom, right? Value, the dangers of neglecting it, and the limits of wisdom. The first main point that the teacher makes about wisdom is essentially that wisdom aids us in keeping from evil. Wisdom aids us in our keeping from evil and to know what is right and just in this unjust world that we live. Uh think of the story of Joseph. You don't have to turn there, you know the story. In Genesis 41, Pharaoh has a dream, and he's struggling with the interpretation of this dream, what this means what this dream means, and he calls together all the magicians, if you remember the story. All the worldly wise men, to talk again about what we're going through in Pilgrim's Progress, to interpret this dream for him. None are able to make sense of it correctly. So the chief cupbearer says, there's this young Hebrew. Maybe he can figure this dream out for you. And that's obviously a paraphrase. Uh there's a little more to it than that, but but Joseph, sorry, Pharaoh brings Joseph to him and says, Can you interpret this dream? And Joseph's reply is an interesting one. He says, It's not in me to interpret this dream. But certainly God can, if he wishes. Again, that's a paraphrase. He, of course, interprets a dream. He receives, uh, and after he does, he interprets it very wisely because it's God that is interpreting that dream. And Pharaoh replies to him this way: He says, Since God has shown you all this, there is none so discerning and wise as you are. Because God has shown him all of that. And it's perhaps that story that the teacher in Ecclesiastes has on his mind when he says, Who is like the wise and who knows the interpretation of a thing? Who is like the wise and who knows the interpretation of a thing? Wisdom, then, or the value of, is the proper interpretation of the revelation of God. Worldly advice was no help for Pharaoh. He needed the wisdom that only God can provide. He needed biblical counsel. In that sense, we all find ourselves at times being both in the position of Joseph and the position of Pharaoh, namely the one giving an interpretation or interpreting God's word for somebody, and the one submitting to or listening to that interpretation. What this means is that there is biblical support for each of us to be both the giver and the receiver of biblical interpretation or biblical counsel, wise biblical counsel. I've heard it said that every Christian should consider themselves, and at least in some way, both a counselor and a counselee at times, right? Not giving worldly advice or applying the wisdom of man, but rather receiving the revelation of God as he has given it to us in his word and providing biblical solutions and insights to all of our problems and issues and things that we are facing. That's the value of wisdom, right? This is the value of wisdom. It alone directs us in difficulties. Biblical wisdom alone guides our steps. It alone keeps us from evil. It allows us to know the proper time and the just way, as the text says. And that can only come, and I don't know how to overstate that enough, that can only come from the revelation of God. Which for us, it isn't a dream or a vision. It's the black and white, maybe some red text right in front of you. And those who fail according to fail to live according to that wisdom that is given to us in his word will inevitably end up chucking lawnmower toys across the room. Or much worse. It is here in our text. The gospel does call us to a holy and to an obedient life. And furthermore, when the wisdom and revelation of God is rightly applied to the Christian, there is inevitably and always a measured change in our behavior. Going back to my analogy once more, this is the last time I'll use it. I'm not saying that as Christians there is this firm expectation that we never lose our temper, or that we never lose our direction, nor that that's the basis for our acceptance, because it is most certainly not. But the value of wisdom is that when it is applied to us properly and consistently, and when we submit ourselves to that revelation, we won't chuck that lawnmower quite as much. Right? Not quite as much. And again, I think the text supports that. It says in the second half of verse 1, a man's wisdom makes his face shine, and the hardness of his face is changed. Whoever keeps a command will know, let's see, whoever commits a command will know no evil thing, and the wise heart will know the proper time in the just way. The wise heart will know the proper time in the just way. The other way we can consider the value of wisdom in light of the text, uh, I think is the way that Jesus uses his understanding of wisdom. He said to his disciples, this is Matthew 10, verse 16, see, I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. We should be careful not to take that analogy too far, but we can certainly uh say that the intent of this is to inform us that as sheep in the midst of wolves, we should be shrewd people. Shrewd people. And that's maybe used as a negative word in some some respects, but here it's not. We should be shrewd people. The enemy is crafty and deceptive. Wisdom from God will make us astute people. That's the better word. Astute. That is to accurately assess situations. Make good decisions in light of those accurate assessments. This is being astute.

16:59Right?

16:59It'll be shrewd. This is it's almost like this supernatural power of judgment and perception. I guess spidey sense, but not in a weird, like charismatic kind of a way. That makes good sense, right? The more we are aware of and in sync with the wisdom of God and the wisdom that's given to us in his word, the more astute we are to the subtleties that are not of him. What he's often said, um, the more that you know that perfectly straight line, that is the truth of God, the more likely you are to immediately notice a line that is a little bit bent. And many times in my life I've met people, and I've even experienced this myself, who've sat under certain teachings, believed certain things, or even lived in a certain way, and when you finally receive the wisdom of God, the response is always the same. How did I completely miss this for so long? Because you didn't know what you were looking for. You didn't know what you were looking for, so don't beat yourself up about it now, but um but now that you know, don't let it catch you again. Continue to grow in wisdom so that you grow in your shrewdness in these matters. So those are the values of wisdom, uh, at least from this text. First is that it reveals to us how we are to live, right? Wisdom reveals to us how we are to live and keeps us from falling into sin and evil. You could say that it counsels us by uncovering our wrongs and guiding us back to the clear paths of righteousness. And secondly, wisdom makes us discerning, right? Makes us as discerning, makes us shrewd as serpents. Which sounds terrible, but it's a very good thing. Shrewd as serpents. So despite all the upside of the wisdom of God, which there is numerous, more than I can even talk about in this limited time. The wisdom of God has limits. The wisdom of God has limits. This is um I didn't write it down in my in my text, but I'll read I'll read the I don't read the uh the verses. I don't know exactly where this starts. For there is a time and a way for everything, although man's trouble lies heavy on him, for he does not know what is to be, for who can tell him how it will be? No man has power to retain the spirit or the power over the day of death. There is no discharge from war, nor will wickedness deliver those who are given to it. And we talked about this at length, so I don't want to uh again be too redundant, but but there uh there's a limit of wisdom, or perhaps the limit of wisdom is that we can't see the future, we can't change it. This is the limit of wisdom. We can't see the future, and we can't change it. In that example of Joseph, he was given the ability to peer into the future through Pharaoh's dream. And by doing so, he was able to warn and deliver them from this impending famine. His wisdom from God was his deliverance. The problem is that we don't see everything in the Bible as a foreshadowing of and a leading to Christ. Even stories like that. We search the scriptures because we think that in them there is eternal life. But Christ says all these things which you find there testify about me. You won't come to me that you may have eternal life. We're troubled that the revelation of God no longer gives us that glimpse into the future. Our trouble lies heavy on us, the text says. Like, oh God, won't you just show me what to do? Like Joseph before, why don't you just give me a dream, perhaps? Right? We look for signs, we flip through the pages, hoping that something jumps out at us. He did it before with Joseph. Many others. Won't he do it again for me? He won't. He won't because you're looking back, hoping to find an answer in the shadow when the light has already come. You won't find the answer in a shadow. The light has already come. Christ is the revelation that He has delivered us from a famine. Christ comes and says, Don't worry about what you're going to eat or drink. Look at the birds, they're provided for. Aren't they? Aren't you more valuable than they? But despite that, we still seek wisdom about the things in which we are never meant to know. We can't change the future. We really don't even have control of the present, at least not very much, anyway. We can't retain the wind, our text says. We can't retain the spirit. This is the wind, this is the idea of the wind. We can't control the wind. Nor do we have any control over the day of death, the text says. Further, it says, once the battle has begun, which it has, you can't just leave the fight. Nor will wickedness deliver the wicked. So life is a battle that we cannot escape from. We cannot control it. We can't change the outcome of it. And no amount of wickedness or compromise, though it might ease the pain for a while, will deliver us from judgment. That sounds like a pretty huge limitation of wisdom, right? I suppose if you consider those inabilities limitations, then yeah, it is. We would call it freedom. Or a very light burden. And that is so beautifully shown in Pilgrim's Progress, and it's wild how all of our things keep talking to us in similar ways, but Christian, right? This idea of Christian in the book is carrying this heavy burden. That's filled with questions, concerns. What must I do to be saved? He thinks. That's a heavy burden. How will I get there? Who will come with me? Will I even make it to the end? These are all heavy burdens that we bear. And the burden in the book weighs him down so much that in this slaughter of despond, these doubts and fears and discouragements continue to make it more difficult for him to escape, and that burden continues to weigh him down. And those questions still remain. How does one rid themselves of these burdensome things? Is it worldly wisdom? Here are the words of this tale, Pilgrim's Progress. Quote, Now I saw in my dream that the highway up which Christian was to go was fenced on either side with a wall that is called salvation. Up this way, therefore, did burdened Christian run, but not without great difficulty because of the load on his back. He thus ran till he came to a place ascending, and upon that place stood a cross, and a little below in the bottom a tomb. So I saw in my dream that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, fell from off his back, and tumbled, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the tomb, where it fell in, and I saw it no more. Christian, like all of us, was surprised that the answer to his burden was as simple as beholding the cross of Christ. The very thing that we think is a limitation to wisdom is in fact our salvation. It's God's sovereignty overcoming our inability, God's provision meeting our greatest need. If we are carrying heavy burdens and feel that answers are limited, that is exactly where God wants you to be. Won't you allow Him to release your burden by beholding the cross of Christ? Won't you commit yourself to the God who cares for the sparrow and the flower and will most certainly care for you? Won't you echo the disposition and the words of Christian right after this burden fell off of him? It says, Then Christian was glad and lightsome. I like that word. And he said with a merry heart, He hath given me rest by his sorrow and life by his death. Providentially, our text echoes this as well this morning. This is in verse 15 of chapter 8. And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go well with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun. Of course, joy doesn't answer all the questions, right? Doesn't fix all of our problems. But beholding the cross, trusting Christ, embracing that joy that He inevitably gives us following that surrender, this frees us to just let God be God. It allows us to surrender to the work that He has prepared for us. And this is a work that always exceeds our own abilities and always surpasses our expectations. So is there a limit to wisdom? Absolutely, there is. And I cannot thank him enough that there is. So let me close with a final word of assurance. This is from Psalms 121, and actually, this is the entirety of Psalms 121, and I'll read this as we close. I lift my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. Amen. Let's pray. We thank you, Lord, so very much for your provision in our life, for your keeping of us, Lord. And as we confess with our mouths this morning, Lord, we we thank you that you are interceding for us every day, continually, Lord. That you are walking with us, praying for us, Lord. What do we say to that? How unworthy are we of that? But we thank you. Help us to be grateful today for all that you have done for us, Lord. May we behold the cross, and by that alone, Lord, may you release the burdens from our back. We thank you, Lord, for your cross and for the salvation offered through it, Lord. And we now, as we go into this time of supper, may we confess our sins to you, Lord. And may in this moment, Lord, through this tangible piece of bread and cup of juice, Lord, may we behold your cross, the work that you've done for us, Lord. Free us from all of our sins and sorrows and burdens now, Lord. We thank you and trust you. Ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.