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. 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 and trust in God. 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 Davey begins a series from the book of Ecclesiastes.

It's a book full of God's wisdom from the pen of Solomon. 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. One of the most critical things in life is to follow the right advice, to listen to the right voice.

In fact, one of the richest men to ever live on the planet is reaching the end of his life. He recognizes that he spent decades following the wrong voice and living the wrong life. He attempts to settle the score and set things right in many ways by writing a personal journal. He wants his son Rehoboam to read it and we've been studying it ever since.

Turn back there with me. It's called the book of Ecclesiastes if you're new to our study. 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. You're going to notice as we study it together that 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 time. It's kind of like a survival guide. In a manner of speaking, it's a manual to avoiding the pitfalls and the dead ends, how to navigate rough water in life. If the first part of his journal could be referring to finding meaning under the sun, this middle part of his journal could be entitled, Surviving Evil Under the Sun. What he does at the very outset is he begins to describe very graphically and very realistically the world around him.

You discover fairly quickly that the world over the last 3,000 years hasn't changed an ounce. We're in chapter 4. He pulls back the curtain on four different scenes and describes them for us. If we had a program guide that would create a way to outline it, the first scene could be entitled, Heartless Oppression. You could subtitle it in your playbill, something like, Being on the Wrong Side of Earthly Power.

The curtain opens. Verse 1 reads, notice there, chapter 4, again, I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. 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 journal. Twice he says, there is 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 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, 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. As I dug into my Hebrew help in my study, this root word refers to those in power who abuse, burden literally could be rendered to trample or to crush 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. He's 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. 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, you go back to Adam and Eve, and it all began with their sin. They're expelled from the garden in chapter three, and eight 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. It's oppression.

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, minding his own business.

This young man 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. He comes up with this particular conclusion. Look at verse 2. I thought the dead who were already dead were more fortunate than the living who were still alive. 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.

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 than have to suffer through this kind of world which is heartless and destructive and corrupting and dangerous and selfish and painful.

It would 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 comfort me. The ultimate source of comfort isn't down here under the sun but from the creator of the sun 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 scene is heavy. It describes a world of heartless oppression where people are on the wrong side of earthly power. Now the second scene 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 wind. Now Solomon is 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. 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 filled, one author wrote, with Joneses who are trying to keep up with other Joneses. My apologies if your last name is Jones. 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 five. 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 did he get arrogance from? 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 gonna resign from that and I'm gonna fold my hands and I'm gonna 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 gonna clock in and they're gonna clock out and in between clocking in and clocking out, they're gonna work really hard at avoiding what? Oh, you do work around a few days, don't you?

You're gonna avoid work. They're lethargic. Nothing about their work inspires them or fires up their imagination. They're killing time. Solomon says no, they're actually wasting their life. That isn't the solution either.

If they're a believer, doubly worse, they're hurting their testimony and their reputation. They're expecting others to pull their weight and do the chores and sign up for the tough assignments and they essentially expect to be served. We're just gonna fold our hands. You serve me. I'm not gonna serve you.

They're not going to over compete 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 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 the scene of rivalry and how we can get caught up in the rat race and 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 gonna sort of resign and let those crazy people race and run and work and we're just gonna 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 gonna 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 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 this scene would be imitating Ebenezer Scrooge. His nose is in the ledger, his only friends are money and work, he doesn't need anybody, he doesn't want anybody, and frankly everybody's leaving him alone anyway. 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, 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's no satisfaction in my riches?

Why is it that today I'm just like I was last year and the year before, I still want more? I want more. Now tucked in the middle of these scenes is this proverb. Notice it, go to verse 6. Better is a handful of quietness than 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 and idle. 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 working hand, but it's the picture of balance and that hand is filled with what? Not things, not successes, not achievements, not possessions.

It's quietness. That's a word in the Hebrew language that is synonymous with contentment. That's what it means.

Solomon is describing balanced, wise contentment that says I have one hand and I have one hand full and 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. 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.

No. They will always count up not what they have, but what they want and yet do not have. In Solomon right here, did you notice how the proverb begins with the word better? Here's something better.

Circle that word. This is superior. This is worth pursuing. This is a voice to listen to. This is inspired advice to follow. 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. The family physician was away. There was a country doctor somebody told them about in town and it was recommended to see her in passing. Turns out he wasn't a doctor.

He was pretending. He prescribed 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 and 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 again. 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 and she turned to poetry to express her confidence and contentment.

It wasn't long before Fanny Crosby wrote her first poem. It came back to my mind. It's convicting.

It's confrontive 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 godly contentment.

And 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 today.

Perhaps there are some worldly perspectives that you've adopted. 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 lesson one in a series called Surviving Evil Under the Sun.

It comes from Ecclesiastes. Our Bible teacher, Steven Davey, will be continuing this series over the next several broadcasts. Between now and the next time, please take advantage of the resources we have available for you at wisdomonline.org. You can listen to the entire archive of Steven's Bible teaching ministry. You can also download the manuscripts for each message. Thanks again for joining us. Be with us next time for more wisdom for the heart.