Welcome to Turning Point. If you think wisdom is about possessing knowledge, you're half right. Wisdom is also about understanding that not all things can be known. Today, Dr. David Jeremiah reminds us to be grateful for what we can know and what we can't as God reveals His plan for our lives.
from searching for heaven on earth Here's David to introduce wisdom to be thankful for. And thank you for being with us today. We're studying the book of Ecclesiastes, the writings of Solomon, and today we're in the seventh chapter. And from the wisest man who ever lived, we're going to talk about wisdom from Solomon and his writings. And this is a real pithy lesson.
It deals with a lot of practical issues. And wisdom is a very important subject. You know, a lot of people think knowledge is everything, but you can have a lot of knowledge if you don't have any wisdom.
Someone once said wisdom is knowledge using its head. And I think that's true. In fact, my best definition of wisdom that I ever heard, and the one that I use in my own life, is this. Wisdom is doing the right thing without a precedent.
So often we make decisions on the basis of what's happened before, but wisdom means we can take what God has taught us and deal with things we've never dealt with before. And frankly, that's important in this day because we're living in unprecedented times.
So many things are happening that have never happened before. We do need the wisdom of God and so thankful for James chapter 1, where God tells us, if any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God. Today we're going to find out from Solomon how wisdom applies to a number of things. And I hope you'll be with us today and tomorrow as we talk about this important subject. And you can get some wisdom in print this month as well because our resource for the month is 31 Days to Happiness.
It's the contemporary commentary of Ecclesiastes. It is a beautiful book that's been produced here at Turning Point for you, 323 pages to take you through this book, every verse from the beginning to the end and how it applies. To our lives. Lots of homework to do if you get the study guides, and of course, I would recommend you do that. Get the book by giving a gift to Turning Point during this month of any size.
When you send your gift, simply say, Please send me 31 Days to Happiness, and go to our website and order the study guide. We'll have more to say about that later on this month, but right now, here's part one of wisdom to be thankful for. Once there was an old man who lived in a tiny village. Although poor, he was envied by all, for he owned a beautiful white horse. Even the king coveted his treasure.
A horse like that had never been seen before. Such was its splendor, its majesty, and its strength. People offered fabulous prices for the steed, but the old man always refused. He would say, this horse is not a horse to me. It's a person.
How could you sell a person? He's a friend, not a possession. How could you sell a friend? The man was poor and the temptation was great. But he never sold the horse.
One morning he found that the horse was not in the stable, and all the village came to see him. You old fool, they scoffed. We told you someone would steal your horse. We warned you that you would be robbed. You are so poor.
How could you ever hope to protect such a valuable animal? Would have been better to have sold him. You could have gotten whatever price you wanted. No amount would have been too high.
Now the horse is gone, and you've been cursed with misfortune. The old man responded, don't speak too quickly. Say only that the horse is not in the stable. That is all we know. The rest is judgment.
If I've been cursed or not, how can you know? How can you judge? The people contested, don't make us out to be fools. We may not be philosophers, but great philosophy is not needed. The simple fact is, your horse is gone, and it's a curse.
The old man spoke again. All I know is that the stable is empty and the horse is gone. The rest I don't know. Whether it be a curse or a blessing, I can't say. All we can see is a fragment.
Who can say what will come next?
Well, the people of the village laughed. They thought that the man was crazy. They had always thought he was a fool. If he wasn't, he would have sold the horse and lived off the money. But instead, he was a poor woodcutter, an old man still cutting firewood and dragging it out of the forest and selling it.
He lived hand to mouth in the misery of poverty.
Now he had proven that he was indeed a fool. After 15 days, the horse returned. He hadn't been stolen. He'd run away into the forest. Not only had he returned, he brought a dozen wild horses with him.
Once again, the village gathered around the woodcutter and spoke, Old man, you were right and we were wrong. What we thought was a curse was a blessing. Please forgive us. The man responded, Once again, you go too far. Say only that the horse is back.
State only that a dozen horses return with him, but don't judge. How can you know if this is a blessing or not? You see only a fragment. Unless you know the whole story, how can you judge? You read only one page of a book.
Can you judge the whole book? You read only one word of a phrase. Can you understand the phrase? Life is so vast, yet you judge all of life with one page or one word. All you have is a fragment.
Don't say this is a blessing, because no one knows. I am content with what I know. I am not perturbed by what I don't. Maybe the old man is right, they said one to another.
So they said little, but down deep, they knew he was wrong, they knew it was a blessing. 12 wild horses had returned with one horse. With a little bit of work, the animals could be broken and trained and sold for a lot of money. The old man had a son, an only son. The young man began to break the wild horses, and after a few days, he fell off one of the horses and broke both legs.
Once again the villagers gathered around the old man and cast their judgments. You were right, they said. You proved you were right. The dozen horses were not a blessing, they were a curse. Your only son has broken his legs.
Now, in your old age, you have no one to help you.
Now you are poorer than ever. The old man spoke again. You people are obsessed with judging. Don't go so far. Say only that my son broke his legs.
Who knows if it's a blessing or a curse? No one knows. We only have a fragment. Life comes in fragments, you know. And so it happened that a few weeks later, the country engaged in war against a neighboring country.
All the young men of the village were required to join the army. Only the son of the old man was excluded because he was injured. Once again the people gathered around the old man, crying and screaming because their sons had been taken. There was little chance they would return. The enemy was strong, the war would be a losing struggle, and they would never see their sons again.
You were right, old man. They wept. God knows you were right. This proves it. Your son's accident was a blessing.
His legs may be broken, but at least he's with you. Our sons are gone forever. The old man spoke again. It is impossible to talk with you. You always draw conclusions.
No one knows if it's a blessing or a curse. No one is wise enough to know. Only God knows. The woodcutter had captured the essence of Solomon's word in Ecclesiastes 7.
Sometimes crying is better than laughing.
Sometimes funerals are better than weddings.
Sometimes a man's dying day is better than his birthday. Criticisms are more valuable than compliments. The long way around is better than the shortcut. And there is no such thing as the good old days. If life is really that upside down, then how can wisdom possibly help me?
Solomon's going to teach us that wisdom is not knowing What you cannot know. Wisdom is not trying to judge the book by the cover. Wisdom is understanding that you have only a fragment, only God has the entire manuscript. How blessed we are if we have the wisdom of the woodcutter and the wisdom of Solomon. Here in the last half of chapter 7, we discovered two gigantic reasons for gratitude.
If we have wisdom, we should be thankful for the perspective of wisdom and for its power in our lives. First of all, in verses 11 through 18, Solomon teaches us that we should thank God for the perspective of wisdom. Wisdom may not solve all of our problems. It may not make all of the tough things good. But wisdom gives us an understanding of what's going on.
It helps us to see things. in perspective. For instance, wisdom helps us to deal with prosperity. Verses 11 and 12 say, Wisdom is good with an inheritance and profitable to those who see the sun. For wisdom is a defense as money is a defense, but the excellence of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it.
It is better, said Solomon, to have wisdom than to have a good fortune or a good inheritance. Wisdom does not depreciate. Nor is it subject to inflation. And Solomon says that a person who has wisdom and wealth is doubly blessed. In fact, it becomes his defense twice over.
Wisdom gives life to those who have it. That is what Solomon said in Proverbs. That's what he says here, Proverbs 8:35. He says, For whoever finds me wisdom, finds life. and obtains favor from the Lord.
According to Solomon, Wisdom is like a shelter to those who have it, and it's a greater source of security than money could ever be. It is amazing how very few people there are who both have wealth and wisdom. Have you noticed? But a person who is wealthy without wisdom can end up being the most miserable creature on God's green earth. And I've met a few of them, have you?
They have wealth and they have no wisdom. Wealth has become for them a curse. instead of a blessing.
Solomon says that wisdom is something we should be grateful for because it gives perspective to us. And wisdom helps us to understand that prosperity is not the end-all of everything. That if you have prosperity and you don't have the wisdom to enjoy it, you're better off to be poor.
Next, he says that wisdom helps us to deal with providence. Notice verses 13 and 14. Consider the word of God. For who can make straight what he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity, be joyful.
But in the day of adversity, consider, surely God has appointed the one as well as the other, so that man can find out nothing that will come after him.
Solomon says, The truth of the matter is that affliction is the appointment of God, and it's the crooked thing we can't fix. We'd like to, wouldn't we? We'd like to straighten out all the crooked spaces. I actually wrote a book one time called The Bend in the Road. And you know, it's wonderful to know that God is with you in the bend and the road, but how many of you would do what I do?
If you could, you'd straighten out the bend and you'd never go there. You wouldn't want the crooked thing.
Solomon says that the crooked thing is adversity. And the truth of the matter is that affliction is disappointment of God, and the crooked thing that we think needs straightening is the present of affliction and adversity. Walter Kaiser, who is a wonderful scholar, has paraphrased these verses that we just read, like this, and I want to read his paraphrase. Listen carefully. Look with wonder, admire, and silently wait for the result of God's work.
The contrasts of life are deliberately allowed by God.
so that men should ultimately develop a simple trust and dependence in God. For prosperity and the goods from God's hand Be thankful and rejoice. but in adversity and the crookedness of life, think, Reflect on the goodness of God and the comprehensiveness of His plan for men. We all can. get all excited about the prosperity we've enjoyed.
Maybe you've had a good financial year. Maybe things are looking up for you. But you know What Solomon teaches us is that we ought to thank God that we have learned from the troubles we've had, too. Job, one time when he was going through the loss of everything that he experienced, you remember he lost everything all in one short period of time? His family, all of his funds, his health, everything.
The only thing that was left was his wife. Yeah. And I often thought that God leaving his wife was the biggest curse he ever got because she was a real pain. And she was chiding him one day about all of the suffering he was going through and telling him. What a terrible thing it was that God had treated him this way.
And Job turned to his wife. I can almost see this conversation in my mind's eye. Job chapter 2, verse 10. Job turned to his wife and he said to her, You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?
In all this Job did not sin with his lips. What a wise man he was. We all rejoice when everything's good and we're so thankful. But can you learn from God how to be thankful that in the midst of the storm, God's there? I'll tell you the truth.
God is never closer to you. And he is when you're going through adversity. and you almost feel sorry for people who have never been in that place. to see and to sense. the wonderful provision.
of God. Warren Weersby. One of my good friends has a sharp pen and He wrote, God balances our lives by giving us enough blessings to keep us happy. and enough burdens to keep us humble.
Okay. If all we had were blessing in our hands, he said, we'd fall right over.
So the Lord balances the blessing in our hands with burdens on our backs. That helps us keep steady. And as we yield to him, sometimes we can even turn the burdens into blessings.
Now did you get a visual picture of that? What would happen to you if God just gave you all blessings? You'd all be bent over, you wouldn't be able to walk. But God gives you blessings, and then He gives you burdens, and now you can kind of stand up. You can be straight.
So be thankful for the wisdom God gives you. to understand His providence in your life. And then Solomon adds: if I might paraphrase, don't even think about it. You will never figure God out anyway, so don't even try to think about it. Don't worry about it.
He knows the future, you don't.
So just. Let God be God and you be you. Wisdom to deal with prosperity, wisdom to deal with providence. And then he adds his third thought in verses 15 through 18: wisdom to deal with the puzzles of life.
Now you know life is full of puzzles. Did you know that? Every day there's a puzzle. Things you can't figure out. There are a lot of puzzles in life.
One of the puzzles he talks about in verse 15 is the puzzle of reversed rewards. Notice, I have seen everything, he said in my days of vanity. There is a just man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs life in his wickedness. We've dealt with this one before in this series, so I won't stay here long. But why do the wicked prosper and why do the righteous suffer?
Solomon says. He wants us to know that we are only seeing the outside of this puzzle, that we must get beneath the surface of this in order to understand what God is up to. And the fact is, we never are able to do all of that in this life. Listen to what King Solomon says in the 11th chapter of this book we are studying, in verse 5. He said.
As you do not know what is the way of the wind. or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child.
So you do not know the works of God who makes everything. You don't. You can't figure it out. Does that bother you? You know, it first bothered me, but now it doesn't bother me anymore.
It makes me just so excited that I have a God who's so awesome that in my infinite wisdom, which is pretty finite. I can't comprehend him. Why? His ways are higher than my ways, his thoughts than my thoughts. He's the inscrutable God of history.
That's why I worship him. If I could fully understand him, he would be no more of a God than I am. He's the God of history. The God of providence, the God I worship, the God I give gratitude for, all that He does, even though I don't always understand it. We know the adversity comes to good people.
We know that God is loving, we know that God cares about his children, and at the same time, we know that God is powerful, he can do anything he wants. How God's love and His power are blended together to create His will, we do not know, and we cannot know.
Solomon says we need to accept it. Remember, do not let what you can understand keep you from enjoying what you have from God. Remember the woodcutter. You only see a fragment. Remember what he said?
You people are obsessed with judging. Don't go so far. Who knows if it's a blessing or a curse? No one knows. We only have a fragment.
Life comes in fragments, says the woodcutter.
Well, that's the puzzle of reversed rewards. And now we come to the puzzle of righteous rhetoric. And this is really one of the most difficult passages in the book of Ecclesiastes, and it's the most misinterpreted passage in the entire book. Listen to what Solomon says in verses 16 and 18, and you won't have to ask me why it's misinterpreted after you read it with me. Do not be overly righteous, do not be overly wise.
Why should you destroy yourself? Do not be overly wicked, nor be foolish. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you grasp this and also not remove your hand from the other, for he who fears God will escape them all.
Now many liberal scholars say, oh, here's the proof text. What you need is Moderate holiness. Let's all applaud mediocrity. Don't be very good. It don't be very bad, just be medium.
Yeah. Have you ever talked to anybody like that?
Sometimes you talk to somebody about their walk with the Lord. You say, Do you know God? And what do they say?
Well, I'm not as bad as a lot of people I know, and I'm surely not as good as some people I know. I guess I'm just sort of medium. They use this as their text. I'll tell you what. Medium won't get you into heaven.
You won't. Medium will send you straight to hell. You can be medium and get there just as fast as if you're wicked. Because It's not Saying Just be partially good, don't be totally bad. What Solomon is saying here is in the Hebrew language, it's reflexive, and he's saying.
Whatever you do, don't go around bragging about how good you are. And don't go around bragging about how humble you are. Don't be filled with righteousness that's self-centered. Don't be wise in your own eyes. As he mentions in the book of Proverbs, don't be going around telling everybody how good you are.
And on the other hand, don't be going around bragging about how bad you are. That's not where it's coming from. The fact is, this verse is not cautioning against being too righteous. It's warning us against righteous rhetoric that's not backed up by righteous living.
Solomon has made it clear in verse 20 that there aren't any righteous people.
So he can't be talking here about true righteousness. He's speaking out against the self-righteousness of the hypocrite and the false wisdom of the proud. And in both cases, these sins lead to destruction. The way to avoid the ditch of self-righteousness and false humility is to stay in the middle. And the middle of the road is verse 18: It is good for you that you grasp this, and also not remove your hand from the other, for he who fears God will escape them all.
Have you ever been around a self-righteous person? Oh my, our churches are full of them. I mean, you can see it dripping off of them when they walk up to you. They even have a little church voice, have you noticed? Oh, you know, God spare us from those folks.
I read a story about a pastor who had a guy in his church who was having an affair with his wife, and he. No. Got caught. He was humbled and confessed it. got everything right, got right home and He went off and went a couple Bible classes, and he came back spouting all kinds of self-righteous rhetoric.
But The pastor wasn't doing this right, and the pastor wasn't doing this right. The pastor grabbed hold of his arms, looked him right in the face, and he said, I liked you better when you were an adulterer. At least you were humble. You understand that lesson? He's saying don't get caught up in self-righteousness.
And don't be walking around bad-mouthing yourself all the time. What you need to do is walk in the fear of God. That's what Solomon is saying. Stay off. Each of the side roads and stay on the center road, fear God, and walk with Him.
And He says, You better grab a hold of that one, grasp that one with your hands. Thank God for the perspective of wisdom, verses 11 through 18. And now let's finish up this chapter and thank God for the power of wisdom. He's going to talk to us here about how wisdom, while it doesn't solve everything, And it doesn't. Give you the answers to all the questions you wish you had answers to.
Wisdom, first of all, gives you perspective, as we've learned. Helps you understand providence. It helps you understand prosperity. Helps you figure out some of the puzzles, or at least understand what they're all about. But now Solomon's going to teach us that wisdom also has a power resident in it.
He says in verses 19 and 20: Wisdom strengthens the wise, more than 10 rulers of the city. There's not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin, wisdom to deal with the problems we encounter. The wise person fears the Lord so much. that he has power. He is Fearing the Lord so much he doesn't fear any man at all.
You know, that's the kind of a power you need. I fear God so much, I don't fear man at all. He walks with the Lord. He's confident that he's going to be alright. He faces the sinfulness of man and the problem of his own sin.
He finds his answers in his God because that is where his fear and reverence is centered. He is strengthened by his wisdom, and he becomes more powerful than ten rulers of the city. He faces problems with confidence because he knows his God. What is it, the Old Testament? It says, They that know their God shall do exploits.
When you know God, you can be strong. Not worry about what else people are saying.
Well, that's part one of this. Wisdom discussion with Solomon as our teacher. We'll get back to that tomorrow for part two. In the meantime, let me remind you that during this month, our resource for the month, as I mentioned earlier, is the 323-page book, 31 Days to Happiness: Searching for Heaven on Earth. This soft-cover book will take you through the book of Ecclesiastes and help you understand what Solomon is saying.
With all kinds of stories, illustrations, and quotes. I hope you get this book. It's our way of saying thank you for your gift to Turning Point during this month. And we count on your gifts, obviously. That's how this whole thing keeps going week after week because of so many people who support what we do every day.
Be sure and Ask for your copy of book 31 Days to Happiness when you send your gift this month. Hey, I'm David Jeremiah. Thanks for listening. I'll see you tomorrow right here at this good station. For more information on Dr.
Jeremiah's series Searching for Heaven on Earth. Please visit our website where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected: our monthly Turning Points magazine and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org/slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org/slash radio or call us at 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's book, 31 Days to Happiness.
It's filled with Solomon's wisdom and it's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International and New King James Versions, complete with notes and articles from Dr. Jeremiah's decades of study. Get all the details when you visit our website, davidjeremiah.org/slash radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah.
Join us tomorrow as we continue searching for heaven on earth on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.
