Listening to the Right Voice

God has given me what I have. I'm using it. I'm working for it. I'm diligent. I'm improving it.

See, grasping and greed and envy and rivalry and competition, all described here in this text. And it struck me that they have this in common. None of these scenes have anybody in them where they're able to say, I have enough. I have enough power. I have enough success.

I have enough leisure. They will always count up not what they have. But what they want. and yet do not have. Wanting more than what God has already entrusted to you?

is a common perspective in people who lack faith. We live in a world with many incorrect perspectives, motivations, and opinions.

So As people who seek to honor God, How can we discern who to listen to and who to ignore? Welcome to Wisdom for the Heart. Today, Stephen Davy begins a series from the book of Ecclesiastes. It's a book full of God's wisdom from the pen of Solomon, the wisest man to ever live. In it, he describes some worldly motivations and provides the believer with the key to recognizing the right voice.

Today's message is called Listening to the Right Voice. I was given a newspaper clipping this past week by somebody in our church. About an exercise program. I'm not sure why they gave it to me. I'm sure they meant well.

So I thought I'd I'd give it to you. Uh it was pretty amazing actually. That was good advice. Here it is. Begin by standing.

On a comfortable surface where you have plenty of room at each side. With a five-pound potato bag in each hand, extend your arms straight out from your sides and hold them there as long as you can. Try to reach a full minute. Then relax for a few minutes and repeat the process three more times each day. After two weeks, move up to a 10-pound potential.

Rotate a bag in each hand, repeat the exercise. After you feel confident, several weeks later, move up to a 25-pound. potato bag, repeat the process, and When you feel confident at this level, Begin putting a potato in each bag. I can do that. How about you?

Huh? Let's do that. I couldn't help but think about the fact that we We're surrounded by people with advice, aren't we? About everything.

Sometimes they're laughing and sometimes they're They're very serious. In a world of consulting, much of it good. Primarily, much of it is how to get ahead in life. And while you're at it, how to get the most out of life. And there's an awful lot of advice about that.

The more successful a person appears to be the more infallible their their advice. Seems to be.

So, whether they're a successful athlete or entrepreneur or whatever it might be.

Well, surely they they they must be right. One article caught my eye recently and I put it in my file. Pulled it out this week. A network channel put together from this one individual whose name will remain nameless. An older man is Very wealthy.

They culled together pieces of wisdom. They called it from his writings from his interviews. His best pieces of advice, they claimed, and I could just see people gobbling it up and writing it down. Among those best pieces of advice were these: Associate, he said. with high-grade people.

I'm not sure if we qualify, but Make sure you're around high-grade people. I mean You got to dump a few friends along the way. They're not making the income you want to make. He would say, be around people who have what you want. associate with high grade people.

Another piece of advice was rather well worn, invest in yourself. That just simply means make sure you're at the center of your world and you're more important than anything else. He gave advice on marriage, and frankly, people should have started. laughing or looking elsewhere. He said this, marry the right person.

It's hard to interpret what he meant by that until you look at his life, where he evidently didn't marry the right person, because after a couple of decades, he. Left her, moved in with his girlfriend, and for the next 28 years lived with her, and then finally decided she was the right one and married. Her. Frankly, For people like him, and our world is filled with him, to give advice on marriage or friendship or the meaning of life. Is like following the advice of someone who is telling you how to get stronger by holding empty.

Potato bags. One of the most critical things in life is to follow the right. Advice. To listen. to the right voice.

And for today, I'm not talking about mine. Talking about gods. His word. His truth. Actually one of the richest men To ever live on the planet is reaching the end of his life.

Recognizes he spent decades following the wrong voice and living the wrong life, and he attempts to settle the score and set things right in many ways by writing a personal journal. He wants his son Raybone to read it, and we've been studying it ever since. Turn back there with me, would you? It's called the Book of Ecclesiastes, if you're new to our study. And we arrive at a place in this journal where Old Testament scholars consider it the middle part.

of his journal. Chapters 4. Through The end of chapter 10 are considered the middle section. In this book, and you're going to notice as we study it together, it sounds a lot like the book of Proverbs. It has short paragraphs, seemingly disconnected thoughts.

It's nearly impossible. to outline, if at all. He covers a tremendous amount of territory in a very brief period of of time. It's kind of like a survival guide. It's um In a manner of speaking, it's a manual to avoiding the pitfalls and And the dead ends how to navigate rough water in life.

And if the first part of his journal Could be referring to finding meaning under the sun. This middle part of his journal, I think, could be. Entitled Surviving Evil. Under the sun. And what he does, At the very outset, he begins to describe very graphically and very realistically the world around him, and you discover fairly quickly that the world over the last 3,000 years hasn't changed an ounce.

We're in chapter four. He pulls back the curtain on four different Scenes and describes them for us.

Now, if we had a program guide, That always sort of creates a way to outline it. The first scene could be entitled Heartless Oppression, and you could subtitle it in your playbill: something like Being on the Wrong Side of. of earthly power. The curtain opens. Verse one reads, notice there, of chapter four.

Again, I. saw all the oppressions that are done. Under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed. And they had no one to comfort them.

On the side of their oppressors, there was power. and there was no one to comfort. Them. The scene is A very emotional entry in Solomon's. A journal.

Twice he says there's no one to comfort them. In other words, there's no escape. No vindication. No improvement, no rescue. In sight.

He is essentially saying there is no earthly resource down here under the sun to give them comfort. We'll come back to that in a little bit. This is an intensely emotional entry. It isn't really meant for speed reading, although we're going to have to move through it fairly Very quickly, but he's looking around, he's spent a long time, he's an older man, and he categorically describes the world as full of oppression. He'll use this Hebrew root word for oppression three times, by the way.

in that one verse we've just read. Notice, look back there. He uses it first. To describe the actions around him, I saw all the oppressions. Yeah.

Those are the deeds. Then he uses it to describe the victims. And behold, look, the tears of the oppressed. They have no recourse other than tears of despair. Then the third time Solomon uses it to describe the culprits.

Notice, on the side of their oppressors. There was Power.

So you have oppressions. You have the oppressed. And you have the oppressors. And as I dug into my Hebrew help. In my study, this root word refers.

To those in Power who abuse Mm. Burden literally could be rendered to trample or to curse. Rush. Those who are weaker or Smaller Or indefensible, or poorer, or lower down there on the food chain. Poor them.

Now, Solomon, you'll notice, doesn't specify. Exactly. Individuals he's thinking of, and I think that's good because, frankly, you can stuff everything in there. Simply referring to, in this particular scene, those with more power than others and they misuse it. to crush Other people.

To hurt. Others. The oppressor Might be an abusive husband. Or parent. It can include everybody from a bully at school to a dictator in some country.

A sex Slaver. An abortionist. A gang leader, a pimp. An employer in a suit? The word For oppression can refer to depriving someone that has no legal recourse of land.

or personal rights. Or even food. It includes those who suffer under tyrannical rule for their faith. As Millions are suffering today around our world. For their testimony of following Christ.

You don't have to live for very long. Before you can add to that list that I created in my study in about three minutes. of what it means to oppress others. And you don't have to live very long. In the world, before you'll see your own illustrations with your own eyes of oppression acting out on the stage of human history.

You go all the way back to the beginning. Go back to Adam and Eve. And it all began with their sin. They're expelled from the garden in chapter 3 and 8, verses later. You have a record of the first murder.

Longer time involved, but it just took eight verses in the record of human history before you get to the first. Event where an older brother, stronger, more powerful, rises up in a rage of envy and kills his younger brother. For doing The right thing. Suppression. The corruption of the human heart seems to defy description.

Like the teenage boy a few days ago, I read about In our country who got into his pickup truck and he was driving He passed an elderly man walking down the street. with his cane. Mining is on business. This young man did. Did a U-turn sped up and literally ran over that man, crushing him to death.

When he was caught and later interviewed just a couple of days ago, he said, just as cavalier as you can imagine, that he just wanted to know what it would feel like to kill somebody. You follow the news. Our world is filled with oppression. With this kind of heavy, weighty discouraging scene you would think That following that description, Solomon would repeat what he said over in chapter three, where he would remind everybody that God is sovereign, and one day all of human history will culminate. In holy justice.

God will make everything right. He doesn't. He's focusing on down here, you notice, under the sun. And he comes up with this particular conclusion. Look at verse 2.

So I thought the dead who were already dead more fortunate than the living who were still alive. But better than both is He who has not yet been born, that is, and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun, you come to the conclusion. This is the perspective of somebody stuck down here under the sun without any. Comfort and belonging to the God of all comfort. Even though there aren't answers, there is the answer, it is him.

But here under the sun, you get stuck down here, and like Solomon, you come to the observation: it's better to be dead than alive. Tragically, 130 people in our country today, on average, are going to come to that same conclusion and end their lives. And one of the tragedies of our civilized world. Our Western world is this increasing rate of suicide.

Solomon isn't recommending suicide. He's actually saying it would be better to have never been born at all. Then have to suffer Through this kind of world, which is heartless and destructive and corrupting and dangerous and selfish and painful. It'd be better to have never Been born. Twice he writes there without.

Comfort. He uses, by the way, the same Hebrew word his dad used over in Psalm 23. which hints at where we find our only real and true and lasting comfort. Where David writes in Psalm 23, of the good shepherd, his rod and staff, they what? Comfort.

Mm-hmm. The ultimate source of comfort isn't down here under the sun. But from the creator Of the Son, like the believer I read about recently. A young lady living in a Muslim-majority world where she's now been disowned by her family. Her life.

is at risk. She's been disowned. She's put out. She writes, My life. is in constant danger but instead of despairing I am finding Comfort.

in God's word and God's Presence. David, the psalmist, writes what Solomon no doubt sang growing up. He prays in poetry. Such as in Psalm 119, they draw near, he's praying to God, they draw near who persecute me with evil purpose, but you are near, O Lord, all my ways are before you. In other words, you're seeing this.

You know this. I rise. before dawn and cry for help. My hope is in your word. The opening seam is heavy.

describes a world of heartless oppression. where people are on the wrong side of earthly power.

Now, the second scene that Solomon describes is equally widespread. In fact, it might be a little closer to home. We'll call it Envious rivalry, and you could subtitle it Keeping Up with the Joneses. Notice verse 4. Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work, you could translate that, all success in work.

all achievement in work. comes from a man's Envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and chasing after When the solemnly speaking in general terms, Yet at the same time, he's saying things we might not really care to hear about, but he's essentially saying that one of the driving motivations out there in the rat race of this world is nothing less than competition. It's the fuel. It is the competing to succeed.

Oh, and by the way, how do you determine success? It's determined by owning. more than the other guy. It's by selling more, having more, possessing more, accomplishing more than your competitors, which is why you call them, we call them our competitors. Our world?

is often simply divided into two classes. They're either your clients Or they're your competitors. A professor at the Harvard Business School. I tucked this away in my file.

Some time ago He writes about this disturbing trend he calls, quote, Comparison. Obsession. He writes: A former student of mine who graduated 10 years ago and had a terrific job at a Fortune 500 company.

now sufferers with comparison obsession. At least it seemed like a terrific job until she received her alumni newsletter. And read that a fellow alumnus who was in the MBA program with her. Has just been named vice president. at their company.

And from that moment on, she can barely hold a conversation without bemoaning. Her lack of promotion. The professor goes on to write, business executives, I'm finding Wall Street analysts, lawyers, doctors. Every profession out there seems to be equally obsessed with comparing their own achievements against those of others in their same profession. He concludes: people are increasingly trapped by their comparison.

Obsession. Solomon calls it something a lot less sophisticated. He calls it sin. Envy. Rivalry.

Covetousness. The envying of success. Rather than the enjoyment of our own, that sinful desire that means we don't just want to get ahead, we want to get ahead of the other guy. It isn't enough to have enough. It's only enough if I have more than the other guy.

We live in a world sealed, one author wrote. with Joneses who are trying to keep up with other Joneses. My apologies if your last name is Jones, okay? This is not about you. Entirely.

Any last name works.

Now, with that, Solomon just suddenly reverses the scene. And he starts talking about what we'll call arrogant laziness. It's the opposite. We could subtitle it Resigning from the Rat Race. Look at verse 5.

The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh. I know that sounds gross, but what he means is he is self-destructing. He's cannibalizing himself. He's the victim of his own arrogance.

So where'd he get arrogance from? We keep in mind that A fool in the Bible has nothing to do with SAT scores. A fool in the Bible is someone wrapped up in themselves, absorbed with themselves.

So here is somebody. Here's what's happening. Here's somebody who thinks they're better than all those people out there in that rat race. Yeah, look at them all scramble. Look at them all fight.

Not me. I'm going to resign from that and I'm going to fold my hands and I'm going to do as little as I possibly can do. You know what I'm talking about? You might work with a few of them. Doesn't mean they're unemployed.

They're going to clock in. And they're going to clock out, and in between clocking in and clocking out, they're going to work really hard at avoiding what? Oh, you do work a rather few of those, don't you? You're going to avoid. Work.

They're lethargic. Nothing about their work inspires them or fires up their. Imagination, they're killing time.

Solomon says now they're actually wasting their life. That isn't the solution either. If they're a believer, doubly worse, they're hurting your testimony. and their reputation, they're expecting others to pull their weight and and do the chores and and sign up for the tough assignments and They essentially expect to be served. We're just going to fold our hands.

You serve me. I'm not going to serve you. They're not going to overcompete.

So they end up underperforming. Neither one is a biblical work ethic. to pursue.

So Solomon is describing a scene. of oppression and what it means to be the victim of Earthly temporary power. Yeah. And how the comfort must come from God, who is sovereign, who has placed us where He has placed us for His purposes, and those answers might come later. He describes a scene of rivalry and how we can get caught up in the rat race.

Before you know it, we're really just trying to pass somebody else, and we're not sure why. He describes arrogant laziness. Where We're just going to sort of resign and let those crazy people race and and run and work and and we're just going to be served. Before I get to Solomon's response, let me take you to one more scene. Skip down to verse 7.

He says this again, I saw vanity under the sun. One person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his. toil, he's describing someone with blind ambition. He's describing a man who doesn't have an heir. Doesn't have a family.

Doesn't have an extended family. By the way, and the implication here. is that he doesn't want one. They're going to get in the way. of his materialism.

And his money. Notice further: his eyes are never satisfied with riches.

so that he never asks, he never does come around to asking the obvious question. For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure? This also is vanity and an unhappy business. What he's describing here is a miser. That's why it came to my mind that the subtitle of the scene would be imitating Ebenezer.

Scrooge is his nose is in the ledger. His only friends are money. And worked. He doesn't need anybody. He doesn't want anybody.

And frankly, everybody's leaving him along anyway. And Solomon informs us that this person never does look up As it were. Open his eyes. Get past his bank account, or his possessions, or his toys, or his trophies, or whatever it might be. And say, you know Why am I doing this?

Why am I only working and living for myself? Why am I not helping anybody else? Why does everything belong to me? And why is it that there is no satisfaction in my riches? Why is it that that today I'm just like I was last year and the year before, I still want More.

I want more. He's pegged us, hasn't he? We find ourselves somewhere in These four scenes. Perhaps one. More than another?

They describe the possibilities and the temptations of listening. to the wrong voice. Following the wrong advice. People with power say, hey, up here, this is the best. VIP.

Yeah. This is where it is. And if that's what they're living for, they are there as miserable as when they began climbing the hill. Others work hard. But the hidden motive is this drive to be better.

to be applauded. To be more successful, to get an edge past.

Somebody else. Others decide to get by. I'm going to fold my hands. I'm living for the weekend. Don't expect much of a contribution.

On Monday through Friday and On Sunday too. Others never take a breath. They never stopped churning. They never stopped counting their coins. or they're toys.

And they don't seem to look up and notice. That everybody has just sort of slipped away. And love them alone in their little self-absorbed Lives.

Now, tucked in the middle of these scenes. Is this proverb. Notice it. Go to verse 6. Better is a handful of quietness.

Then two hands full of toil. and a striving after wind.

Solomon is describing someone, and if you want to write one word in your notes, or maybe in the margin of your Bible, right here at this text. It's the word balance. Wise balance. His hands, he describes, aren't folded in idol. He isn't trying to stuff more into two hands that are already Stuffed full.

But he hadn't given up on work either. He's got one work. Working hand. But it's the picture of balance. And that hand is filled with what?

Not things, not successes, not achievements, not. Not possessions. It's Quiet, I guess. That's a word in the Hebrew language that is synonymous with. Contentment.

Contempt, right? That's what it means.

Solomon is describing balanced, wise contentment that says, I have one hand. And I have one handful. God has given me what I have. I'm using it. I'm working for it.

I'm diligent. I'm improving it. I'm doing my due diligence with it. But I understand it's from God, and it is ultimately for God, and one hand is. Enough.

It's enough. You see, grasping and greed and envy and rivalry and competition, all described here in this text, and it struck me. And this is somewhat of an artificial outline, but it struck me that they have this in common. None of these scenes have anybody in them where they're able to say, I have enough. I have enough power.

I have enough success. I have enough leisure. They will always count up not what they have. But what they want and yet do not have. And Solomon, right here, did you notice how the proverb begins with the word better?

better. Here's something. better. Here's something, circle that word. This is superior.

This is... Worth pursuing. This is a voice to listen to. This is inspired advice. To follow.

And by the way, if you listen to this voice, which is the advice of God's Spirit, it will invite you to trust what God has put in your hand just enough.

Now, use it. Work at it. Enjoy it. Ultimately Give him glory for it. I can't think of a more powerful testimony, frankly.

of contentment in recent generations than about a hundred years ago from an eight-year-old girl. who had every reason to spend her life complaining for what had been taken away from her. When she was six weeks old, she caught a cold. Family physician. was a way There was a country doctor somebody told them about in town and was recommended to see her in passing.

Turns out he wasn't a doctor. He was pretending He prescribes some hot poultices to be applied to her eyelids, which had become swollen with a rash. The infection cleared up. Eventually. But the treatment scarred her eyes and it wasn't long before her parents realized that she had lost her sight.

The country doctor had long since disappeared. It was never seen again. When she was five years old, Friends and neighbors collected enough money to send her to a specialist. to see if anything could be done. Even though she was five years old at the time, she would later write, she never forgot hearing that doctor eventually say to her.

You poor child. You will probably never see.

Okay. That wasn't her attitude. She would give her life to the Lord when she was old enough to understand the gospel and committed her life to Christ. She turned to poetry. To express her confidence and contentment.

And it wasn't long before. Fanny Crosby wrote her first Poem. It came back to my mind It's convicting. It's confront of For those of us in a world engulfed with status and power and prestige and rivalry and competition. and arrogance.

She seemed to understand this proverb of wise. Balance, even at a very young age, that God had put something in her hand and she would use it, she would work at it. She would glorify him with it.

So her first poem, written when she was only eight years of age, sort of underscores this. This godly contentment With this I close. She writes, How many blessings I enjoy that other people don't.

So weep. Or sigh because I'm blind. I cannot. And I won't. Oh, what a happy child I am.

Although I cannot see I am resolved. that in this world contented. I will be. That's the perspective that you and I need to have if we want to honor God with our lives. We need to be content with whatever God has for us.

I hope this time in God's Word has helped you to day. Perhaps there are some worldly perspectives that you've adopted.

Well, take the time for some self-evaluation. and allow the wisdom from God's Word to shape and form your perspective today. Thanks for joining us here on Wisdom for the Heart. This was message one in a series called Surviving Evil Under the Sun. It comes from Ecclesiastes.

Your Bible teacher Stephen Davey will be continuing this series over the next several broadcasts. Between now and the next message, please take advantage of the resources we have available for you at wisdomonline.org. You can listen to the entire archive of Stephen's Bible teaching ministry. You can also download the manuscripts for the messages. You'll find all of that at wisdomonline.org.

Thanks again for joining us. Please be with us again next time for more wisdom for the heart.