Quest Failed

Ecclesiastes: The Quest for Meaning  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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Ecclesiastes 7:15–29 NASB95PARA
I have seen everything during my lifetime of futility; there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his wickedness. Do not be excessively righteous and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself? Do not be excessively wicked and do not be a fool. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you grasp one thing and also not let go of the other; for the one who fears God comes forth with both of them. Wisdom strengthens a wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city. Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins. Also, do not take seriously all words which are spoken, so that you will not hear your servant cursing you. For you also have realized that you likewise have many times cursed others. I tested all this with wisdom, and I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me. What has been is remote and exceedingly mysterious. Who can discover it? I directed my mind to know, to investigate and to seek wisdom and an explanation, and to know the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness. And I discovered more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are chains. One who is pleasing to God will escape from her, but the sinner will be captured by her. “Behold, I have discovered this,” says the Preacher, “adding one thing to another to find an explanation, which I am still seeking but have not found. I have found one man among a thousand, but I have not found a woman among all these. Behold, I have found only this, that God made men upright, but they have sought out many devices.”

Life is not “Fair” and you can’t make it “Longer”

After the last several chapters, our friend the Preacher has complained that life and all of it’s pursuits and desires is essentially empty of eternal utility. It is all hevel, frustratingly ungraspable. Now as he enters the last half of chapter 7, he calls his own life hevel, and claims to have seen it all.
That “I have seen” formula repeats throughout the book and tends to reveal each time a new layer of misery; or at least a new focus of his deliberations.
Here he arrives at the limits of human wisdom and of human righteousness - particularly from an earthbound perspective. But even here, God is going to break through.
He has seen righteous people die early. He has also seen wicked people just keep on going.
Ultimately, what he has seen is that there appears to be no correlation - despite what may be expected - between righteousness or sin, long life or early death. For The Teacher it seems only to add to his misery that this is so.
It seems like there ought to be some benefit from being righteous.
Ought there not to be some kind of retributive justice that kills wicked people early?
Even at the movies we expect the good guys to win and the bad guys to lose. Cowboys with white hats ride off into the sunset, while cowboys with black hats get shot; sometimes by their own companions.
Unfortunately even our own lives have seen the opposite. Life is not “Fair” meaning it doesn’t play by those rules. There is no retributive law in this world and it has been a source of endless frustration. Far too often, good people die early, and far too often - so it seems to me - the bad guys get away. Even our culture wonders, “Why should any wicked person make it to a natural death?”
The injustice of such a reality however is part of what makes us hunger for the justice of God. It is this sense of right and wrong that makes us look to God to provide true justice. The wicked man who seems to get away with “it” will face the justice of God in the next life; while the unfortunate righteous man will be comforted from all of his troubles.
There is a certain solace in the parable Jesus tells of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). The rich man refuses to help Lazarus who is starving and when they both die the rich man’s comforts are stripped away as he faces God’s wrath - while Lazarus is loved, embraced and accepted in Abraham’s bosom: blessed by God.
But that is a look towards eternal life, not towards life “under the sun” Thus for the moment it is not permitted us to examine life beyond these boundaries which seem to be inherently unfair.
He continues his argument in verses 16-17:
Contrary to other Biblical wisdom (Like the fifth commandment which appears to promise a long life for honoring your father and mother) it does not appear from his perspective that righteousness offers any benefit after all.
Since righteousness cannot be observed to add length to your life - there’s no use going overboard in your pursuit of it. Additionally, for that matter, being wise doesn’t seem to add to your lifespan either - in the teacher’s experience. Going to great lengths to become wise and righteous is wasted effort then.
It is a pretty shocking conclusion to read in the Bible. It’s one of those reasons that some people don’t care for Ecclesiastes - it makes them uncomfortable. In part because it doesn’t fit the rest of scripture, and that connected to a desire to guard the piety of Qoheleth - instead of letting his words mean what they mean.
Finally, at least for verse 16 he arrives at what I consider to be a more shocking conclusion. A thoroughly vested pursuit of righteousness or of wisdom will end up ruining yourself.
That just doesn’t seem to mesh with … any religion at all! Especially every religion outside of Christianity which has ultimately at it’s base claim that whatever version of self made righteousness or actualization by sheer effort is needed in order to attain whatever version of heaven is available.
Christianity stands unique as the one world religion in which no amount of personally attained righteousness will ever suffice - only the grace of God can provide what is needed.
While he urges restraint in the pursuit of righteousness and wisdom, he is not exactly calling for freedom in the range of wickedness and folly either. While verse 15 is clear enough that righteousness is no guarantee of a long life, and wicked people do, sometimes in fact, live long lives - verse 17 brings that to a halt with the question, “Why should you die before your time?”
In other words, while being a goody goody might not make you live longer - it’s not too hard to realize how wickedness or foolishness can make your life shorter. Excessive wickedness does indeed have the occasionally observable reality of shortening someone’s life. Folly does no less.
In the face of this observation he comes to the conclusion that it is a good idea to learn from it and embrace both wickedness and righteousness, both wisdom and folly - let each one temper the other - not by pursuing one or the other but simply by living. But curiously enough - in a rare moment The preacher also looks upwards to God.
His standard mode of operation is to let God take the blame but not be a part of the solution; but here at last his reflections drive him to the conclusion that only those who actually fear God will find the right balance of life.
Duane Garret summarizes the idea at the end of verse 18 well:
“While the ascetic looks upon every form of indulgence or mirth as sin (against religion) or folly (against wisdom) and the libertine looks upon any restraint as a threat to his pleasure-seeking, the Teacher counsels combining true religion—the fear of God—with true enjoyment of the good things of life.(Duane A. Garrett, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, vol. 14, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1993), 324.)
Life after all may not be fair. Life and death do not play by the rules we set for them. Religious zealots do not always have long lives, nor do wicked people necessarily die early. What does happen though is that people who fear God tend to live their lives in a balanced way - not with overtly self-righteousness but with a tempered life centered on God that steers away from wickedness while making the pursuit of God, rather than the pursuit of righteousness the goal.
It does lead to the question, are you in pursuit of a model of righteousness - or a measure of goodness? Or are you in pursuit of the person of God?
Thus it is that verse 19 brings a summary to his point by saying that one wise person is better off than a city with ten great rulers. This might be the ancient version of “the pen is mightier than the sword.” Essentially just as he seeks to place righteousness into the realm of the pursuit of God, he also appears to set wisdom in it’s place of improvement.
He is quite careful to make sure that we understand that he hates neither righteousness nor wisdom. For all of it’s lack of lengthening your life, it still has value.

The Flaw In Perfectionism

Starting in verse 20 we see the flaw in perfectionism.
In light of his struggle with both wisdom and righteousness he begins to point out a further problem with it, namely the unattainability of perfectionism - also known as the universality of sin.
In Verse 20 he begins to sound like Romans 3, nobody is righteous.
In effect this helps to dampen his definition of righteousness that he has been complaining about from perfection to just doing good.
That is consistent with a Biblical definition of righteousness. One of my favorite expressions coming from Proverbs 24:16 “For a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again, But the wicked stumble in time of calamity.”
Verses 21 and 22 come together to give us an easy example.
He suggests that you have a little internal filter that allows you to ignore some of the things that are said to you, because you yourself have ended up speaking badly of others. Sometimes you meant it, other times you did not.
People - every one you know - are flawed people.
There’s a hint here of Jesus’ admonition not to get focused on the speck in your brother’s eye when you have a log in yours. People are flawed, broken, and sinful. So are we.
You almost expect the teacher to end his lesson here with: “Have a little grace”.
He doesn’t of course; but I cannot help but believe that he is pointing in that direction. Be gracious to others - even when they are not gracious to you.

We Will Never Be Wise Enough

And then look at verse 23 and following.
From righteousness and the ultimate fallenness of all mankind our restless teacher turns to wisdom and finds that he’ll never be wise enough.
I tried - I have tested all of this with wisdom, he says. But the problem is that however much our wisdom, however many letters we accumulate after our names, however much we study, however-much we learn, however-much we master - there is always more.
The eye is never full of seeing, the ear is never full of hearing; and we’ll never learn it all.

Not in History

Peer into the remoteness of the past and you realize that you might learn a little but you’ll never understand it all. The past is history, the future a mystery.
Every day, archaeologists are digging and finding, but they’ll never unearth perfect understanding. There is always more to learn and never time to learn it all.
I noticed that in the last year or so as I gazed around at my book collection and realized that, especially in light of the speed with which new books are coming out that I want to read; I will never live long enough to read all of the books I want to read.
As a certifiable book-a-holic that makes me exceedingly sad.
Qoheleth wishes for wisdom but finds it exceedingly mysterious even as Job did (see Job 28:12-28).
Job 28:21–23 NASB95PARA
“Thus it is hidden from the eyes of all living And concealed from the birds of the sky. “Abaddon and Death say, ‘With our ears we have heard a report of it.’ “God understands its way, And He knows its place.
Job at least comes to the conclusion that the fear of the Lord is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding (Job 28:28).

Not in human learning

Even as Job seems to have plumbed the depths of the earth in a quest for wisdom (Job 28); it seems that Qoheleth sought for it among mankind and discovered to his dismay that he couldn’t find it.
It is possible, in light of the fact that he said he had directed his mind to seek out wisdom that he is aware of “lady wisdom” from Proverbs and draws out here the full expression of her antithesis. Like the woman “folly” who also appears in Proverbs he says she is a trap.
Also very reminiscent of Proverbs he concludes that someone who pleases God will escape that trap. In proverbs her trap is overtly sexual, and we can easily imagine that Qoheleth who has already searched out that path has determined that it is a difficult trap to escape.

Not in people

Qoheleth’s Quest method rises to the surface in verse 27 as he tells us that he searched by adding one thing to the next until he could come to his conclusion. In the end his conclusion is not very flattering.
Throughout this section he has been seeking both wisdom and righteousness. It can’t be found, we’re not righteous and no one else is. Moreover people are not so wise either.
I searched for it, he says, and yet I have not found it - in fact I’m still looking! There is no wisdom anywhere!
Out of a sample size of a thousand women and a thousand men he may have found one man in the mix (no doubt himself!) who had wisdom. Taking a look at the last verse or two and you soon realize that he’s a bit of a chauvinist - but we’re not here because he’s always right. We’re here to watch him seek his way through this world under the sun in an endlessly unsatisfying quest for
All in all there is nobody righteous. There is nobody virtuous. There is nobody wise. And if there is nobody wise, than there is nobody that really fears God if we follow his reasoning to it’s end.
What Qoheleth seems to have discovered is the problem of the utter depravity of mankind. A depravity that he not only sees in others; but which he has already revealed lies within himself as well.
Qoheleth may be a chauvinist - but he is an honest one.
There is no one righteous, neither male nor female, no - not one.
Here’s the final conclusion then by our friend the preacher in Verse 29: People may have been made virtuous by God; but every single one of them finds creative ways to do evil.
It sounds very much like the apostle Paul’s condemnation in Romans 1:28-32.
Romans 1:28–32 (NASB95PARA)
And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.
The conclusion of the matter for our preacher is that everybody is rotten to the core. But that is not where the Bible leaves us.
The Bible goes on to lead us from universal condemnation - to a universal offer of salvation to everyone who comes to Christ.
John 6:37 NASB95PARA
All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.
Jesus declares that he will embrace anyone - everyone who comes to Him.
As we realize that gift the book of Ecclesiastes forces us to recon with our own lack of righteousness, our own lack of wisdom, our own choosing of wickedness and to recognize at minimum that while this world does not seem to work according to the way we think it should, it does at least point us in all of it’s brokenness to the only one who can fix what is otherwise irretrievably broken.
Even our pessimistic preacher drives us to seek Jesus.
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