Ecclesiastes 7: Wisdom That Sees Clearly in Hardship

Introduction

Westminster Chapel in London continues its series on the book of Ecclesiastes. Keegan, a member of the team of elders who lead the church, picks up after a first message on pleasure. The image of the series is the soap bubble: beautiful, useful things that always end up bursting against the "concrete" of realities that never change.

The word that keeps coming back in Ecclesiastes, translated "vanity" or "futility," actually describes a vapor, a mist that fades away. This morning, the bubble is called wisdom. It is precious and it helps us live, but it is not a guarantee.

Starting from Ecclesiastes 2:12-17 and then chapter 7, Keegan gives a definition of wisdom, shows what it brings, then draws two big lessons from "Mr. Preacher": welcome adversity, and beware of adversity. He closes on the mystery of life and the call to keep sowing anyway.

Outline of the Message

1. Wisdom, a Bubble That Comes From God

• The author of Ecclesiastes is called the preacher, or "Mr. Preacher," as Michael Eaton writes in his commentary. He is most likely King Solomon, reflecting on the biggest questions of life.
• In chapter 2, he wonders what he will be able to pass on to the king who comes after him: "I turned myself to consider wisdom, madness, and folly."
• We live in a world saturated with information: about 130 million books counted by Google in 2010, perhaps 160 million today, 110 million podcasts, 2 million new LinkedIn posts every day. Ecclesiastes said it already: of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.
• So wisdom is not information, nor an IQ, nor even emotional intelligence. "And I don't think it's AI."
• His definition: "Wisdom is the gift of a divine perspective and practical know-how that carries you through the complexities of life in the way of Christ."
• Being wise does not mean having an answer for everything. "If I do my job well this morning, I should leave you with more questions than answers."

2. Where to Find Wisdom

• Wisdom can be found, but often in unexpected places. First of all in this strange book. You should not read it "as if for the second time," but rather as if for the fiftieth.
• These are the reflections of one of the wisest men who ever lived, Jesus aside, and they are "given from one shepherd" (Ecclesiastes 12:11), a clear reference to God, to Jesus who said: "I am the good shepherd."
• Wisdom is also found in poverty, weakness, and suffering. Keegan comes back to this later.
• Finally, it is found in community: "Where there is no counsel, plans fail; but in a multitude of counselors they are established."
• "Wisdom is not found by putting on your headphones and sitting down to meditate." It is worked out with the people around you. We have the Bible, and we have one another.

3. Wisdom Puts Eyes in Your Head

• Keegan brings a volunteer onto the stage, blindfolds him, spins him around, and asks him to cross the platform. He does better than expected, but he doesn't make it to the other side.
• That is what wisdom does: it takes off the blindfold. "Wisdom excels folly, as far as light excels darkness. The wise man's eyes are in his head, and the fool walks in darkness" (Ecclesiastes 2:13-14).
• It gives the perspective to know how to react when things change and which direction to take. Later, the preacher will say that it is as good as an inheritance and that it preserves life.
• But the bubble hits the concrete of death: "As it happens to the fool, so will it happen even to me." The wise man dies just like the fool, and neither is remembered.
• This is not the conclusion of the book, it is its introduction. Knowing that we will die and give an account of our works is one more reason to live wisely.

4. Welcome Adversity

• Ecclesiastes 6:12 asks who knows what is good for a man during the days of his vain life. Chapter 7 gives a partial answer. "There are no quick fixes, tricks, or shortcuts here." This is a man who has walked through the raw realities of life.
• Take death to heart. "It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, because that is the end of all men. The living should take this to heart" (7:2). Students at the London Business School say that the most striking exercise of their MBA was writing their own obituary and reading it to a classmate. You don't need to pay tens of thousands of pounds to do it.
• This is why funerals are useful. Keegan recalls a dear friend, with whom he had planted a church in South Africa and who was leading a church in Amsterdam, taken by cancer and leaving behind his wife and four children. At his funeral, people spoke of his humility and of the people he had helped come to Christ. "Will that be said of me?"
• One day, you will meet your Creator. What will you say to him? You will be able to cry out, "Jesus, save me," and he will. Keegan quotes Spurgeon: death is the end of dying, and for the believer it is the end of the fight, "rest and victory."
• Let grief shape you. "By the sadness of the face the heart is made good" (7:3). Hardship exposes what is superficial in us: false hopes, an ambition fed by envy, security placed in money or in ourselves.
• A couple who had been faithful to the church for decades recently said goodbye to the community. The wife had a prayer ministry for pregnant women: she would try to pray non-stop during the birth, then for the child until their first birthday. They had lost their son. She said: "Losing my son didn't break me, it built me."
• Jesus, the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief: the cross broke him in a certain way, and yet God raised him. If you are going through a hard time, don't run away and don't distract yourself. "Sit with your sadness." Bring it to God, pray, seek advice from those around you.
• Accept rebuke. "It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools. For as the crackling of thorns under the pot, so is the laughter of the fools" (7:5-6). Keegan, who grew up in Africa, knows these thorn-bush fires: beautiful flames that crackle, but embers that vanish. Useless for cooking.
• At work, we get feedback on our performance, rarely on our character: the gap between your "Sunday self" and your "Monday self," the tone you use with your wife and children, the way you treat a junior colleague, the grudge against a friend who hurt you, a heart hardened toward God.
• Who has the right to speak to you like that? With godly people who know you and love you, dare to ask: "How do you think I'm doing?"

5. Beware of Adversity

• Pressure can drive you mad. "Surely oppression makes the wise man foolish; and a bribe destroys the understanding" (7:7). Keegan takes the example of Robert Mugabe, celebrated as a hero when he led Zimbabwe to independence in 1980. For ten years he preached racial reconciliation, the country reached one of the best literacy rates in Africa and became the continent's "breadbasket." Then the pressure rose, and cronyism, the concentration of power, and violent land seizures followed.
• It happens in our marriages too: good intentions at the start, then financial pressure, unresolved conflicts, and in the end adultery or divorce. Walk with others during those times. There are also situations you need to leave because they are too heavy. "Integrity doesn't depend entirely on you. Come into the community. Come to God."
• Be patient. "Better is the end of a thing than its beginning. The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit" (7:8). The wisdom of the world believes it is entitled to a solution. How many times, at the end of a trial, do we hear: "Now I see what God was doing." In the middle, pride says: "This isn't the life I should be living." Humility says: "God, I know I'm in the middle."
• Don't be quick to get angry, "for anger rests in the bosom of fools" (7:9). Suffering pushes us toward bitterness. Wisdom lets itself be softened. Before communion, Keegan invites everyone to examine whether anger or bitterness has taken root, and to ask God for help to forgive.
• Don't live in the rearview mirror. "Don't say, 'Why were the former days better than these?'" (7:10). Before marriage, before kids, before London, before the smartphone. Psychologists speak of "rosy retrospection." Nostalgia keeps you from seeing God's purpose now: "He has placed you here, at Westminster Chapel, this morning." We don't know when the light will go out. Live now.

6. Accept the Mystery and Look to the Cross

• "Consider the work of God, for who can make that straight, which he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider; yes, God has made the one side by side with the other" (7:13-14).
• There is a measure of mystery in this life, questions that remain unanswered. Wisdom accepts that: "I don't understand, but I know that God has made this world crooked." Creation was subjected to vanity (Romans 8:20). The bubbles are not the only reality: there is the concrete underneath.
• What was the most crooked day in history? The day humanity put the Son of God to death, when Jesus bore the sin of the world without being recognized. The greatest day of adversity.
• And yet it is the day when God's wisdom was most at work: he was winning an eternal salvation for us. You won't always understand what God is doing in your life, but you can look at the cross and say: "I trust you." All things work together for good for those who love God, so that they become like Christ (Romans 8:28-29).

7. Sow in Spite of the Mystery

• The conclusions of Ecclesiastes are not at the beginning of the book. They come in chapters 11 and 12, with the imperatives. Hence the encouragement to read and reread the whole book.
• "He who observes the wind will not sow. He who regards the clouds will not reap" (11:4). You don't know the work of God who makes everything.
• "In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening don't withhold your hand: for you don't know which will prosper" (11:6), "or whether they both will be alike good," in God's kindness.
• To illustrate, Keegan throws chocolates into the congregation: he doesn't know where they will land, but he sows. The mystery of life must not stop you from sowing. The life to be lived is a life of faith, of trust in God's goodness.

Key Takeaways

• Wisdom is a gift from God: a divine perspective and practical know-how for walking through life in the way of Christ. It is sought in Scripture, in hardship, and in community.
• Wisdom is a helpful guide, not a guarantee: the wise man dies just like the fool. That is one more reason to live wisely.
• Welcoming adversity means taking death to heart, letting grief shape the heart, and accepting the rebuke that forms character.
• Being wary of adversity means knowing that pressure can make a person foolish, and choosing patience, gentleness, and the present over pride, anger, and nostalgia.
• The most crooked day in history, the cross, is the day when God's wisdom was most at work. So you can sow in faith without understanding everything.

Personal Application

1. If you had to write today what will be said about you at your funeral, what would make you glad, and what would trouble you?
2. What recent hardship have you tried to run from or forget, instead of staying with your sadness before God?
3. Who in your life has the right to speak to you about your character? When did you last ask them: "How do you think I'm doing?"
4. What pressure, financial, marital, or professional, is wearing you down, and who could you talk to about it this week?
5. In what area are you looking in the rearview mirror, to the point of no longer seeing what God is doing now?

Verses Quoted

• Ecclesiastes 2:12-17
• Ecclesiastes 6:12 to 7:14
• Ecclesiastes 11:4-6
• Ecclesiastes 1:16
• Ecclesiastes 12:11-12
• Proverbs 15:22
• John 10:11
• Isaiah 53:3
• Romans 8:20
• Romans 8:28-29

Frequently Asked Questions

What is wisdom according to this sermon on Ecclesiastes?

For Keegan, wisdom is not information, nor an IQ, nor emotional intelligence. He defines it as "the gift of a divine perspective and practical know-how that carries you through the complexities of life in the way of Christ." It comes from God and it leads toward godliness, without answering every question.

Why does Ecclesiastes say it is better to go to the house of mourning?

Ecclesiastes 7:2 says that death is the end of all men and that the living should take it to heart. The point is not to prefer death to life, but to face reality while we are alive: how I live, what people will remember of me, what I will say to God when I meet him.

What does "who can make that straight, which he has made crooked?" mean in Ecclesiastes 7:13?

There is a measure of mystery in life and there are questions without answers. Wisdom accepts this mystery and walks humbly with God. Keegan points out that the most "crooked" day in history, the cross, is also the day when God's wisdom was most at work to offer us salvation.