Ecclesiastes 9–10: Jesus, Your Clarity in a World Gone Mad

Introduction

How do you find the balance of a wise life in a world gone mad? That's the question that opens this sixth installment of the series on Ecclesiastes (six of eight), with a title that carries real weight for the Church today: the clarity of Christ for an inconsistent world.

The preacher starts with an image straight out of his kitchen. He uses a lot of buckwheat flour at home, because of allergies in the family. It's a flour with a very strong taste: if you don't balance it out with other ingredients (oat flour, for example), its flavor dominates everything. Well, foolishness has exactly that effect: if you let it, it takes over so much. That's why it matters, for you and for the Church, to let Jesus sweeten the flavors.

In this message, you'll walk through Ecclesiastes 9:11-12, 9:13-18, then 10:1-11. Three observations to steady you: life is uncertain, wisdom is better than strength, and foolishness has an impact that only Jesus can reverse. As Zack Eswine puts it, Jesus makes us wiser.

Message Outline

1. Life Is Uncertain (Ecclesiastes 9:11-12)

• "I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happens to them all. For man also doesn't know his time. As the fish that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, even so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly on them."
• Ecclesiastes isn't saying: life is uncertain, so don't even bother preparing, just ride the wave. Elsewhere it insists that you must work, work hard, take this life seriously. The trap is the moment your work becomes your hope. Because life is uncertain, it isn't always the best athlete who wins the race, nor the shrewdest who wins the most money, nor the best candidate who wins the election.
• The preacher gives the example of Apple. Steve Jobs didn't have all the technical skills; he'd met someone who did, Steve Wozniak. But Wozniak was hopeless at business. Neither one alone had what it took to build what you know today. Even their combined strength wasn't the smartest or best equipped. That's exactly Ecclesiastes' observation about life.
• Uncertainty is very much a current topic. Wednesday in Paris, it was 18 degrees in late February, unheard of. Saturday morning, we wake up to war in Ukraine. A friend lost someone close this week. Talking with her at the funeral, he noticed how fast everything moves: the day before, we're caught up in our little conflicts, judging people, judging ideas, and the next day, the person is gone.
• C.S. Lewis wrote: "Death is not natural. Of all men, we hope most of death, yet nothing will make us feel as though it were not the after all supremely unnatural. We know that we were not made for it; we know how it crept into our destiny as an intruder; and we know Who has defeated it." God created man to live with him, that's what you find at the end of Revelation. If we have any hope in death, it's the passage into eternal life. That's why, whatever the death, there's always this sense that it isn't normal. But Jesus has defeated death. He still reigns, he is the resurrection and the life: that gives you a wise perspective to keep going.

2. Wisdom Is Better Than Strength (Ecclesiastes 9:13-18)

• "I have also seen wisdom under the sun in this way, and it seemed great to me. There was a little city, and few men within it; and a great king came against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it. Now a poor wise man was found in it, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man. Then I said, Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard. The words of the wise spoken in quiet are heard more than the cry of him who rules among fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war; but one sinner destroys much good."
• This little story functions as an illustration, as is common in wisdom literature. What does it teach you? That wisdom is necessary, yet very poorly appreciated, especially given the random injustices of this world. We forget quickly. Why did this powerful king have to pick on this little city, if not to flex his power? It's unjust. A poor man's wisdom delivers the city, but because he is poor, he's despised.
• Wisdom leads you here into a peaceful life, especially when the world is heading into madness. There's nothing more foolish than a king who wants to assert himself and takes a just life just because he can. But recognize that in our world too, a poor wise man is quickly forgotten. That raises the question of your heroes: who are the people you let inspire your life? What model are you following, when you have someone greater than Solomon right in front of you?
• Proverbs 16:16 says it: wisdom is better than gold; it's preferable to silver. That aligns perfectly with Ecclesiastes: your hope is in God. And that wisdom begins with the fear of God, that's the beginning of wisdom. In our world, nobody preaches that you should fear anything: we're anti-phobia. But Solomon isn't telling you to be timid. Fearing God means knowing how to live in his presence. It's not "he's up there, far away from us." Of course he is transcendent, above everything, sovereign. But he is also immanent: through the Holy Spirit, he is in you.
• The fear of God is living in that awareness. When you're tempted to do wrong (temptation always moves toward your own desires), it's your awakened conscience receiving God's signal. The fear of God is what in you wants to reject evil and seeks the Spirit's help to say no to temptation, or to repent after you've fallen and taken stock of the foolishness you committed. That's wisdom. It's not foolishness that leads you that way.
• The preacher pictures this in the transfiguration of Jesus. He goes up the mountain with Peter, James, and John. He's a man like them: he talks, he sweats from the climb. Then, during prayer, everything changes. His clothes become dazzling, the light of his person shines around him. Elijah and Moses talk with him. It's so overwhelming that Peter wants to build three tents. The Father has to step in: "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him." Then things go back to how they were. But Peter, James, and John are changed forever, you can't go back after that. In this world, you endure vanity. But one day everything will be changed, you'll be in that dazzling light of Christ's presence, everything transformed by his beauty. That perspective steadies you in an uncertain world.

3. The Impact of Foolishness (Ecclesiastes 10:1-4)

• "Dead flies cause the oil of the perfumer to produce an evil odor; so does a little folly outweigh wisdom and honor. A wise man's heart is at his right hand, but a fool's heart at his left. Yes also when the fool walks by the way, his understanding fails him, and he says to everybody that he is a fool. If the spirit of the ruler rises up against you, don't leave your place; for gentleness lays great offenses to rest."
• The impact of foolishness is enormous. It takes only the smallest amount to affect so much. One of the preacher's favorite examples: September 2001, in his country. It took just a small handful of people to change everything in the world. Security at airports, passports, the cost of travel, and how many deaths? Facing this kind of chaos, this uncertainty, Ecclesiastes identifies three main reactions: simplicity, folly, wisdom. Simplicity is knowing the risks but hoping nothing bad will happen, naivety. Folly is refusing to listen to instruction and stubbornly pleasing yourself. Wisdom comes from Christ.
• In the Church, don't we sometimes act foolishly too? When we react on emotion without thinking, when we serve our own interests instead of serving one another, those are dead flies in the perfume. It spoils our witness.
• The preacher loves Luke 9:51-56 for this very reason. Jesus passes through a Samaritan village; the Samaritans want nothing to do with him, so Jesus moves on. Fortunately for him, he has two disciples who saw the whole thing clearly, James and John: "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from the sky, and destroy them?" Where does that idea come from? They're thinking of Elijah, who called down fire. But did Jesus ever call fire down from the sky? Were the situations really the same? Did Elijah "call" the fire, or did God give him something specific to do for one particular moment in history? What Jesus says matters for you: "You don't know of what kind of spirit you are. For the Son of Man didn't come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." The spirit of foolishness is pleasing yourself, protecting your ego. The preacher recognizes himself all too well in James and John.

4. Foolishness Also Overturns the Social Order (Ecclesiastes 10:5-7)

• "There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, the sort of error which proceeds from the ruler: Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in a low place. I have seen servants on horses, and princes walking like servants on the earth."
• It's always sad: an authority that bows to foolishness never inspires confidence, especially for the people of wisdom. Because you know that ultimately it's just "a chasing after wind" (vanity in its purest form), it unsettles you.
• The preacher shares a quote from Michael Eaton that struck him: "Life must be taken day by day from the hands of God. There is no security anywhere else, not even in wisdom. Each day we must receive from God what we need." The temptation is always to put your confidence in your training, in the economy, in a thousand other things. But your security comes from him.
• This becomes very relevant in the scene of Jesus before Pilate. Pilate asks: "What is truth?" Yet he had the Truth in person standing right in front of him. He is our story. He is the one who gives you a perspective of eternity, something more than durable, something solid.
• As for wars, your hope is better illuminated by Isaiah 2: "It shall happen in the latter days, that the mountain of Yahweh's house shall be established on the top of the mountains... All nations shall flow to it... For out of Zion the law shall go forth, and Yahweh's word from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations, and will decide concerning many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." In this world, there will be wars. Your hope isn't in this world.

5. Avoidable Mistakes : and a Wisdom That Comes From Elsewhere (Ecclesiastes 10:8-11)

• "He who digs a pit may fall into it; and whoever breaks through a wall may be bitten by a snake. Whoever quarries stones may be injured by them. Whoever splits wood may be endangered by it. If the ax is blunt, and one doesn't sharpen the edge, then he must use more strength; but skill brings success. If the snake bites before it is charmed, then is there no profit for the charmer's tongue."
• There are avoidable mistakes in life. Wisdom teaches you to avoid these things and this foolishness that, all around you, throws everything off balance. This wisdom is the wisdom of the One greater than Solomon: Jesus, and the perspective he gives you on life brings you the balance you need. You are wiser with Jesus, because he has given you his Spirit, the Spirit who teaches you all truth.
• Have you ever felt the weight of foolishness, especially when you were the one who caused it? It's heavy. But Jesus forgives. Confess your sins: he is faithful and just, he will forgive you, he welcomes you. Look at what he endured to forgive you. Jesus knows the tomorrow you don't know. He comes into your time of need as the great physician who heals your soul. Because you are shaken by your uncertainties, he comes as Prince of Peace, Counselor, Redeemer. He is the Word this world needs.

Key Takeaways

• Life is uncertain (neither the swiftest wins the race, nor the smartest wins the riches), but Ecclesiastes isn't telling you to give up: it's telling you not to put your hope in your own work.
• Wisdom is better than strength. A poor wise man can save a city, even if no one remembers him: the real question is who you let inspire your life, the powerful of this world, or someone greater than Solomon?
• Fearing God isn't being timid: it's living aware that he is present, transcendent and immanent, and letting his Spirit keep you from temptation or bring you back after a fall.
• "A little folly outweighs wisdom and honor": a few dead flies are enough to spoil an entire bottle of perfume. In the Church as in the world, there are three possible reactions (naivety, folly, wisdom), and only the third comes from Christ.
• The transfiguration gives you a foretaste: one day, everything will be changed in the dazzling light of Christ. That perspective steadies you when life under the sun grows shaky, you are wiser with Jesus.

Personal Application

1. In what area of your life does uncertainty push you to put your hope in your own work or your own performance rather than in God?
2. Who are you letting inspire your life these days, the powerful of this world, or people who point you back to the wisdom of the One greater than Solomon?
3. The fear of God is living in his presence: when this past week did you sense the Spirit waking you up to a temptation, and how did you respond?
4. Is there a "dead fly" in your witness (an emotional reaction, a self-interested motive), spoiling the fragrance around you that needs to be confessed?
5. Facing a world gone mad, where are you actually placing your security today: in your finances, your training, the people around you… or in God's hands, day by day?

Verses Cited

• Ecclesiastes 9:11-12 (WEB)
• Ecclesiastes 9:13-18 (WEB)
• Ecclesiastes 10:1-11 (WEB)
• Proverbs 16:16 (WEB)
• Luke 9:51-56 (WEB)
• Isaiah 2:1-4 (WEB)
• Luke 9:28-36 · Transfiguration (WEB)

FAQ

What does Ecclesiastes say about the uncertainty of life?

Ecclesiastes observes that it isn't always the swiftest who wins the race, nor the smartest who wins the riches (9:11-12). The preacher clarifies: this isn't a call to prepare for nothing, it's a call not to put your hope in your own work. Life is uncertain, but Jesus, who defeated death, gives you a wise perspective to keep going.

What does "the fear of God" mean?

The preacher insists: it isn't fear, it isn't theophobia. Fearing God means knowing how to live in his presence, recognizing that he is transcendent, sovereign, yet also immanent through the Holy Spirit who lives in you. That awareness is what, in the moment of temptation, leads you to reject evil, or brings you back to repentance after a fall. It's the beginning of wisdom.

How does Jesus make me wiser in a world gone mad?

The preacher echoes Zack Eswine: "Jesus makes us wiser." He has given you his Spirit, the one who teaches you all truth. He gives you a perspective of eternity, more solid than your training or your finances. And when you yourself have fallen into foolishness, he forgives: confess your sins, he is faithful and just, he comes as Prince of Peace, Counselor, Redeemer, like the great physician who heals your soul.