40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Ecclesiastes 6:1-7:14 (Episode 425)

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

There is even more evil under the sun. People toil for something to put in their mouths, and it never ends. There is more wisdom found at a funeral than at a feast. Happiness and joy are both good but not the same. And be careful with the good old days. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education  What's New from 1517: When You Meet Jesus | Gospel Encounters Conference Pre-order: Hitchhiking with Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament by Chad Bird 30 Minutes in the NT on Youtube Remembering Rod Rosenbladt Encouragement for Motherhood Edited by Katie Koplin More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Hello, this is Caleb Keith, Director of the 1517 Podcast Network, with a message of thanks to you, our podcast listeners. During the month of June, we hosted a fundraiser with a goal of $150,000. Not only did we hit that goal, we exceeded it by $14,000, raising $164,000 this June. We couldn't have done it without your help. And it is extremely encouraging to see and to hear that our podcasts are having the impact that we intend, delivering the comfort of the gospel of Christ for the forgiveness of sins to listeners every single day of the week. And we appreciate your support because that tells us that we are on mission,

that we are doing what we have set out to do, and that listeners are looking to support that and to help the podcast network keep those shows in development and actually keep expanding those shows onto new platforms. And so we greatly appreciate your support. Thank you for helping us out this June. Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament, is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. While you're over there, make sure you go over and check out the events page, because there's an event coming your

way. It's over in Flower Mound, Texas. It's September 6th and 7th, and Chad's going to be there, and I'm going to be there, and Eric Swartzen's going to be there, and Kelsey Kilbar is going to be there, and there's going to be some other people as well. You can check out the roster. It's a day and a half event. We're going to be talking about encounters with Jesus. We're going We're going to look at the stories about what happens to different kinds of people when they meet up with Jesus. Sometimes those encounters go awesome. Sometimes those encounters don't go awesome.

We're going to look at all of it. It's going to be a good time. Come hang out with us. You can get all the information over at the site. Get registered. We'd love to see you there. Chad, we are in Ecclesiastes 6, and there's no header on this. There's nothing like that.

It's just a continuation, just straight-up continuation. And what it's continuing, we got like a little bit of a positive end to chapter 5, but he's sort of going to go right back into like, hey, I have witnessed other evils, and I would like to tell you what some of those are. Yeah, that's the way the chapter begins. There is an evil, he might have said, there is another evil. Yeah, I've got a lot of evils, a lot of vanities, a lot of striving after the wind that I want to talk about, and this is next on the list. Here's the evil that he has seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on

mankind. Okay, what is this? A man to whom God gives wealth and possessions and honor so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires. Sounds very Solomonic, by the way. So this guy has everything, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity. It's a grievous evil. I think it's pretty beyond dispute, right? Everyone would agree to that. You get a guy who has, you name it, you know, possessions. Yeah, he's got them. Honor. Yep. Has that. Wealth. Yep. Lacks nothing and yet is unable to enjoy them. And we're not told why, whether that is an early death or whatever it might be, he can't enjoy them. But instead, a stranger comes along and enjoys them. Well, this too is hevel. That Hebrew word often

translated as vanity. And as if that's not clear enough, he goes on to specify that it's also a grievous evil. That is to say, when things like this happen under the sun, then what's the point of it all. It's meaningless. It's vanity. It doesn't matter what you have, what you can boast of, even if it's something good like honor, but you can't enjoy it. Well, then what's the purpose of it? Especially when instead of you enjoying it, it's passed on to a stranger and he is able to take everything that was yours and to enjoy it himself. That is a grievous evil. And then it continues verse three if a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years so that the days of his years are many but his soul is not satisfied with life's good things and he also has no burial

we might even say something like and on top of this he has no burial i say that a and he's sounds very joe black and he's what he's about to say here i say that a stillborn child is better off than he. For it comes, that is this stillborn child he's talking about, it comes in vanity and goes in darkness, and in darkness its name is covered. Moreover, it, again the child, it has not seen the sun or known anything, and yet it finds rest rather than he, that is this guy who lost everything. Even though he, the rich man who lost everything, shall live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoys no good, do not all go to the one place. You can't give much more Ecclesiastes than this. I mean, there are some parts of Ecclesiastes that you might see fitting into

some other wisdom literature, but when you get something like this, it definitely carries the whole tone of Ecclesiastes that we've seen. But it's not entirely unique, because we had seen statements like this, like the beginning of Job, and he curses the day of his birth and wishes that it had never taken place. And other places in the scriptures also, we use the image of a stillborn child, although not quite as blatant as it is here, where it's saying, yeah, you know, this guy who lived all these years and had all these kids, and yet he's not able to be satisfied with the good things in life and and has no burial when it says has no burial that was that evidently means uh that he doesn't receive a proper burial which not only just in our in our

culture but certainly the ancient cultures would have been considered one of the the worst things that could happen to a person where your body is just kind of left exposed to uh to decay out in in the open not to receive a proper burial was uh was just you know unthinkable in the ancient world yeah isn't the idea there that if you're a guy and uh and you have a hundred children so there's a lot of kids but you have no burial is that obviously your children all despise you you have a hundred kids and not one of them is going to show up to give you a proper burial so you know and not only them but like nobody else so it's a sort of double it'd be one thing if you were like born had no children you died and no one cared you're like well that would be a big

tragedy that's not a good that's not a good life what if you had a hundred children and none of them cared about you either like no one cared enough to show up and and make sure that you were put to rest properly you say yeah that a stillborn child is better off uh than that because probably that stillborn child's being buried properly and so even a stillborn child could have people that cared about it where as opposed to the illustration here is this guy has a hundred children and not so it's not only that he has no one that cares about him he has people that should care about him that don't yeah this is a perfect case of hyperbole hyperbole to to prove a point you know surely there's gonna be one of those hundred children but no there's not you know he he's

unable to be satisfied with the good things he has in life and even when he leaves this life no one around him none of his children none of his friends nobody else cares to give him a proper burial so outwardly it might have seemed as if god this guy had it made he didn't in fact if we're just making comparisons that stillborn child is much better off than he because at least he finds rest so anyway that's the first six verses uh starting out uh you know some optimistic positive of material here, Ecclesiastes. He's got more to come. Verse 7, all the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied. For what advantage has the wise man over the fool? And what does the poor man have who knows how to conduct himself before the living? Better is the

sight of the eyes and the wondering of the appetite. This also is vanity and is striving after the wind. So this section, these verses 7 through 9, are like a lot of Ecclesiastes. Sometimes it seems a bit disjointed. It's hard to kind of trace the thematic chain of reasoning that you have from one to the other. But, you know, this seemed to be a case where, and we'll see more of this in the next chapter too, where you have a contrast set up where one thing is better than the other. But in the end, even if you have something that's better than something else, in the end, you always come to the same conclusion in Ecclesiastes. This also is vanity and a striving after the wind. So you have a guy who's toiling. He's working for

basics, at least, for food. And yet his appetite is never satisfied. and what advantage has the wise man over the fool what does the poor man have who knows how to conduct himself before before the living so yeah maybe there's a you know maybe there are some things that are better about being wise or better about being a poor man who knows how to conduct himself but in the end even though these things are better on the scale in the end it's all still vanity and striving after the wind if this life is all there is yeah i mean uh this this reads to me like you uh if you're if you're just going to have the most pessimistic outlook ever uh you're going to say like well i mean especially you know at the time this was written obviously things are

a little different now uh as far as most people don't work hand to mouth anymore uh but of course back then a lot of people did like you're you're sort of a big part of your life a huge portion of your life is trying to make sure that you have food whether it's growing food or hunting food or whatever it is right and so like there's a lot of toil involved and especially if you have a family of being like can i keep these mouths fed uh and the bummer about that is that uh you might be like oh good i got food uh but the truth is that you're gonna be hungry again like so this is like a never-ending cycle, right? So you're like, my toil is for my mouth, and unfortunately it's not like this happens once, this happens continually until the day I die. Yeah, and that

the repetitive nature of it, and the fact that you never get enough, right? That again kind of is a parabolic, you might say, of the entirety of Ecclesiastes. I mean, we saw that in the opening chapter, right? These things come and these things go, and yet there's never an end to it. There's never any fulfillment. There's never any satisfaction. So, you know, you might have enough today, but guess what? Tomorrow you're going to want more and you might have enough tomorrow, but the next day you're going to want more as well. And in the end, you're unsatisfied because none of these things are going to be able to satisfy you completely. And the same thing could be said really for wisdom or for even a poor man who you know has some knowledge in in his head

well that's fine you know but in the end none of that is going to be what truly brings a person to fulfillment and satisfaction and being at a place in life where they actually have actually understand who god has made them to be and what this life is all about Yeah. It's funny that this is a pretty simple analogy, but have you ever eaten, like maybe you go somewhere to eat and like you eat like a massive meal and like you're super full and you think to yourself, like, I might never eat again. I'm so full right now. Like, I can't even imagine being hungry again. But then like 12 hours later, you're like, where are we going to go eat? oh yeah yeah i've i've had that happen many times but very recently in fact a huge dinner and you know stuffed and i can almost always eat dessert but you know so full i don't even want ice cream or whatever and then i get up the next morning and it's eight or nine o'clock and my stomach is growling like what is wrong with me you think i could fast the whole next

day and never be hungry yeah not even 12 hours has passed and all of a sudden yep yep appetite's not satisfied always always wanting more well such is such as human life and you know you could expand that of course to any number of things you you know something you really wanted something pleasurable uh that you really wanted to experience and maybe not even an illicit pleasure but you know whatever it is and you get that thing and it's great but then afterward it's like there's still an emptiness there yeah there's that there's still that that hole within us that never is going to be filled up even halfway because we're created for uh created for greater things yeah and even if it is uh if you have the the illusion of of satisfaction it's or fulfillment

it's extremely fleeting right like it's all temporary but like food yeah it's like yeah you might have you might be like oh i'm full now good like now i can live the rest of my life with this food that i've eaten and no it all goes away yeah i mean you see this all the time especially with people striving for certain maybe it's a degree maybe it's a job maybe it's uh you know a gold medal whatever it is they're they're really pushing themselves toward and they finally get there they finally attained what what they had dreamed of having and you hear them talk afterward and it's like it didn't really give them what they thought that it would because I mean we do we easily delude ourselves into imagining that once I reach this particular

goal that I've really been striving for then I'll be happy the rest of my life I will find contentment in that thing which I wanted above all else and that thing you wanted above all else turns out to be fine for the moment but the next day or the next month or the next year all of a sudden you realize that you know it really could not give me what I what I truly wanted and so people either learn their lesson and start looking above the sun or as happens sometimes too they look for the next thing that they're going to really work hard to attain and think that's going to be what it is and it just it never is appetite is never satisfied okay so um just have it looks like a couple of verses three verses to go in this chapter pretty short chapter it's only only 12

verses so he goes on to verse 10 whatever has come to be has already been named and it is known what man is and that he is not able to dispute with one stronger than he i assume that is referring to God, they're one stronger than he. The more words, the more vanity. And what is the advantage to man? For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow? For who can tell man what will be after him under the sun? This is, again, very consistent with what we saw in chapter one with regard to things coming and then things passing away or to the lack of knowledge a man has of what is going to be coming down the road whatever has come to be has already been named and it is known what man is and he's not able to

dispute with one stronger than he which like i said i believe that's referring to god um that sound right to you dan yeah yeah i don't know who else this would be referring to now when he says in verse 12, who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow. I think this is setting us up for what we're going to see in chapter seven. He says, who knows what is good for man? And the typical Hebrew word for good is used there, tov. And tov is going to be used repeatedly in chapter seven. And most of your verses will have better it's used as a comparison but it's the same word tov so he sets up the question here who knows what is tov what is good for man while he's here in this vain life which

he passes like a like a shadow so he kind of sets up the question and makes it seem as if well nobody knows but he's going to give us in the next chapter at least a few ideas of at least comparatively speaking, what is good in the sense of what is better than something else. But he kind of just leaves us hanging here in this verse. Who knows, in this vain life, what is going to be good for us. I think this whole section leading into chapter 7 is kind of humorous, because on one hand in verse 11, he says, the more words, the more vanity.

right so like the more the more words you got the more the more vanity you're speaking and you know who can really know what's good for me and you could just end it there where it's like no like don't even don't try to figure it out but instead he's going to say a lot with more words comes more vanity no one can really know what's good but let me tell you and then he speaks a bunch of words in a very poetic way. And I don't think it's like this sort of hypocrisy thing. I think it's more like

with many words being spoken comes much vanity. But on the other hand, it's all we've got. So get ready. I'm about to take it or leave it, but I'm about to try to break this down for you. Just know, though,

I understand that a lot of words include a lot of vanity. I'm about to sin boldly I'm about to take my advice and break it yes yeah I mean there does it's almost kind of a well self-deprecating humor is probably not

the accurate description but it's kind of like that you know it's like yeah I know that it's not right to say this but I'm going to say it anyway or I know that it's vain to do what I'm about to do but I'm going to do it anyway because it's all I got like you say if we're living life under the sun

and we've cut ourselves off from from divine wisdom then uh well let's let's make the best of it and let's see what at least is better if a is better than b or b is better than than c so that's where he's gonna it's where he's gonna start out here in in chapter seven and these first few verses are mainly about uh death and life kind of mortality themes that are that are coming up here uh day of birth and day of death and house of mourning and house of feasting and sadness and and laughter he's going to make a lot of contrast here and i mean it's on the one hand he's he's giving the the best shot that he has uh given his chosen perspective under the sun and yet at the same time there are there's there's some truths that are certainly embedded with these

verses as well so i'll start out reading oh i don't know maybe the first uh four or five verses chapter seven a good name is better than precious ointment and the day of death than the day of birth it is better to go to the house of mourning that's m-o-u mourning than to the house than to go to the house of feasting. For this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. Let me take in two more verses. It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools. for this is my favorite verses in ecclesiastes whereas the crackling of thorns under a pot

so is the laughter of the fools this also is vanity i've always thought that's just like a perfect description just you hear the crackling of uh i think of i grew up uh out in the country we had a lot of tumbleweeds and uh they'd get piled up against a fence and my dad would i would get out there and we'd, we'd pile them up and we'd burn them, uh, just to get rid of them. And the, the, the crackling perfectly described what would, what would take place when they burn these, these tumbleweeds. And so I, when I hear about the, you know, the, the crackling of thorns under a pot, I, I, I hear that the crackling of these tumbleweeds burning and the cackling laughter of, of fools. Uh, so it's a, it's great image, uh, for capturing that. So it starts out

here with, um, this first contrast about life and death, uh, that the day of death is better than the day of birth. And it's better to go to a place where people are grieving and mourning than to a place where people are having a good time and, and feasting. And I think the end of verse two kind of sums up his main point in these opening verses that this, that is to say, death itself and everything accompanying that, that is the end of all mankind. That's of course where we're all heading. And by devoting yourself to thinking about the day of your death and to being with those who grieve and those who mourn, he says, the living will lay it to heart. This this idea of course of remembering death and keeping in mind our mortality which we see of

course taught in various ways throughout throughout the scriptures so i think this is i mean this is him using the wisdom that he has you know who knows what is good for man he said at the end of chapter six who knows what is good for man while there's a few days of his vain life and this is the beginning of his answer well uh this might be good you know that you do this instead of that because we all know that we're heading for the grave. So let's stand around the grave and ponder the fact that we will be there and what we can learn about life from remembering the end of our life. Yeah, on one hand, you're like, this is not true.

It's like, hey, what's better, to go to a funeral or a feast? And you're like, I'll go to the feast. Thank you very much. But I think what Solomon's saying here is that if you spend your life choosing, always choosing the feast over the funeral, you learn more about yourself at the funeral than you do at the feast. And so you can try to avoid this all you want, but that would be what a fool would do. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, there's anyone who has experienced that closeness to death, you know, whether someone, family member or close friend or whoever it might be. And you've, you know, you've been to the graveside, you've been to the house of mourning, you ponder the death of your loved one. I don't think there's anything better for coming to grips with the brevity of life and focusing on what's really essential than that. You can read all the books you want about death and the brevity of life and all that, but until you've experienced that, there's very few things that really work on you the way that that does. yeah and when he says it's like sorrow is better than laughter again you're like is that true i mean i don't that's not how i want it at all but then he says for my sadness the face of the heart is made glad and the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning what like i think you can sort of read that as what depends on what you think is important and not that laughter of course is bad

but if you think wisdom is worth having so the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning is i think you could read that as the heart is made wise in the house of mourning yeah right like so like uh a wise person would not avoid the house of mourning uh because this is where this is where you would gain some of that wisdom yeah absolutely you know and i yeah laughter is good i mean it's great to it's great it's great to laugh even in the midst of uh of grieving it's at least it's a temporary relief but i think maybe what he's getting at here too is that laughter can be almost a narcotic at times you know for for people it's a way you you laugh your life away yeah you know you especially if you view it in kind of this

broad sense of i just want to be entertained you know i just that's the way that i get through life I just want to be entertained. I just want to, I just want to laugh my way along. Well, I mean, laughter and entertainment is fine to go in course in moderation. Uh, but it's pretty hard to kind of, you know, focus upon the, the true essentials of life. If that's where you're, if that's your go-to to get you, get you through life, because there's great wisdom to be found in sorrow i mean jesus himself in the beatitudes blessed are those who mourn yeah for they uh for they should be comforted so there's there's some beatitude like truth that's embedded in in these verses even in those verses blessed are those who mourn it's it would be like better

translated oh the blessedness of those who mourn which is better translated like oh the happiness or the joy of those who mourn, and so these things aren't disconnected, that joy is more pure for the person who is familiar with mourning. And Solomon says this when he says, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. In other words, if you've never mourned, sure, you might laugh,

but you don't value laughter or understand joy the way that you would. This is like you don't understand light without dark, you know, this kind of thing. And so, of course, is it better to have your whole life be completely free of mourning and suffering and grief and just full of laughter? Well, I don't think you would actually appreciate that laughter or really know what that laughter meant if you didn't have those other things. Yeah, yeah, that is very true. Yeah, I wasn't even going to bring this up, but so the day we're recording is the two-year anniversary of Luke's death. so uh this has been and when i saw that we were covering chapter seven this morning i was i thought

well how how fitting is that and i was as i was reflecting on these verses i was i was thinking you know i don't you can experience happiness without without having you know any kind of great suffering but i don't think you can really know what joy is unless you've experienced that because that you know that's you learn joy this is kind of this sounds very uh counterintuitive but you learn joy only in suffering because then, you know, you, you're not happy when you're suffering, but you certainly can be joyful. Um, you know, you can, the sun of joy can be shining even when dark clouds are beneath it. It's, it's there, still there. And you learn, uh, joy by learning that, yeah, I don't know, even the myths of suffering and loss and death and all of the

terrible things that that accompany that that well the source of your joy is still there god is still there and uh you learn to find that joy even in the midst of the suffering because you know that ultimately the suffering is temporary thanks be to god but the joy is is everlasting so as hard as it is to go through mourning and everything else that accompanies uh the loss of someone, it does teach you true joy, because it anchors you in that which is not ephemeral like laughter, but it anchors you in that which is eternal, which is, of course, God, who is the source of joy. I was asked once about what the difference between happiness and joy is, which I think is actually a pretty tough question, because certainly the Bible speaks about those things

differently, but it's not clear what the difference is, because we kind of use them interchangeably or they feel uh they feel the same but i think i don't know this is the best explanation uh but my response was well happiness is of course not bad uh happiness is good but happiness is certainly a feeling and it is certainly fleeting yeah whereas joy you discover is something deeper and is durable and uh and that's the difference isn't the durability of the thing right uh joy is like it's something that's way down uh and it doesn't it doesn't go away it's not it's it's it's not as in a lot of ways it's not as flashy it doesn't it doesn't it's not bursting forward with laughter

and it's not that, but it's more steady and more durable, and it's why it's the thing that you ultimately need, and it's why, you know, you'll have texts say, like, the joy of the Lord is our strength. Well, that's not like some kind of giggly thing, it's like this deep, durable dependency on God that is far more unshakable than just, hey, we're having a good time, aren't we? yeah yeah yeah yeah that that is totally true it's it has this objective quality to it you know it's it's it's a it's a work of the spirit you know what's fruit of the spirit love joy yeah peace patience kindness goodness these things uh so it's it's a work of the spirit and therefore it it's a god-given objective reality that is different than just kind of

happiness you know which you know it's it's an emotion it comes and it comes and it it goes and and thank god for those times when you do have happiness i mean there's that's that's great there's nothing wrong with happiness but yeah it's not that objective gift from the spirit that that joy is that's something uh much more adorable i once thought that uh the difference between happiness and joy is sort of like the difference between liking someone and loving them oh yeah that's a good way to put it yeah which is uh there's nothing wrong with liking people like a lot of people but it's not the same as loving somebody because actually and you know this you can when you love somebody you don't always like them oh yeah absolutely but you but

you love them in other words uh and joy doesn't mean that you're just you having joy does not mean that you are necessarily happy yeah i mean you could you could love your own children and not like them sometimes right certainly you can love your spouse and have times where you don't like them very much yeah yeah yeah the love abides the love is objective the love is durable uh but the liking yeah it ebbs and flows and so and it's always like with joy and happiness and of course it's always great when you can have both you know like when you love someone and uh you're getting along and you're like man i really like you too and that's great uh but i know that liking will come and go uh but that but love is the thing that's important that it stays right and that's

that's kind of how joy is too and uh if you can have joy and happiness great uh that's that's great but the happiness will will go and it'll come back and it'll go and it'll come back but the joy stays yeah yeah amen all right uh let's see we yeah we got a few more minutes let's uh let's take seven and following and see what we can come up with here he goes on after talking about the laughter of fools being like the crackling of thorns under a pot and that being vanity he says verse seven surely oppression drives the wise into madness that uh that hebrew for oppression could also be translated as extortion i think maybe there are some translations to put it that way so oppression or extortion drives the wise into into madness and a bribe

corrupts the heart better is the end of a thing than its beginning the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit be not quick in your spirit to become angry for anger lodges in the heart of fools say not why were the former days better than these oh nostalgia here right why Don't say, don't say, why were the former days better than these? For it is not from wisdom that you ask this, or to phrase it differently, more negatively, it is from foolishness that you ask, why were former days better than these? Wisdom is good with an inheritance, or that can also be translated, wisdom is as good as an inheritance.

The Hebrew preposition there is capable of being translated either way. so wisdom is good with an inheritance or wisdom is as good as an inheritance and advantage to those who see the sun for the shade or the protection of wisdom is like the shade or the protection of money. And the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it. Consider the work of God who can make straight what he has made crooked. And let me finish this out with uh verse 14 it kind of concludes this section in the day of prosperity be joyful and the day of adversity consider god has made one as well as the other so that man may not find out anything that will be after him so this section is a little bit more challenging to to at least

for me to discern any kind of good kind of thematic uh connection between all of these various verses he is certainly continuing with this idea of something being better than something else that he to which he posed the question at the beginning of the last chapter so an end of something is better than its beginning and to be patient is better than to be proud it's and then he talks about anger he says it's it's better uh he doesn't say this explicitly but implicitly it's it's better not to be quick to be angry because that kind of anger though that's what happens in the heart of of fools and then he goes on to talk about wisdom being good uh but it's even better if it has an inheritance along along with it because both of these can be kind of a shade or

protection for a person. I think all of this is kind of leading into the last couple of verses. So this is better than that. That's better than this. If you can have both, it's even better. But then he gets in verse 13 to this. He says, now, here's what I want you to do. I want you to consider the work of God. So as you kind of lift your eyes from all of these comparisons we've been making, and you look at God, come on who can make straight what he has made crooked so you you can't really change the way

that god has made things this by the way crooked is not like god is crooked it's simply using the image of if god has made something this way you can't change it to another way if he's made something crooked well there's no way you're going to be able to straighten that so in the end well if you're joyful if you're prosperous be joyful but if you're having adversity consider to this. God made one as well as the other, and as a result of that, we're kind of left the same place we've been all through Ecclesiastes. If we're living life under the sun, well, we are severely limited in our understanding and our ability to figure life out. The best we can do is figure out what is better than something else.

Yeah, this section has the verse I quote most often from Ecclesiastes. It's not the most famous verse. There's lots of famous verses, but it's the one that I certainly have used the most. Yes. I've probably said this many times on the podcast, I've probably quoted this, because I see this happen. I see people ignore verse 10 from Solomon constantly, and I want to make sure that as I grow older that I try not to do this. And you know what this is, Chad. I I mean, it's the things were so much better back in the good old days. And go on Facebook or wherever, social media, and you'll find no shortage of this right now.

People will talk about, man, it's worse than it's ever been, or this isn't the way I remember it. And I just want you to know that it is not from wisdom that anyone is saying that. And that might sound harsh, but that is the case. This idea that things were—because when people say that, oh, the days of my youth, or like, oh, things were so much better when I was younger or whatever, what they mean, especially when Christians do it, what they mean is like, things were more righteous, things were more moral, things were more correct, right? and the truth is uh no they weren't and that's why he says that's not from wisdom that you say this it's just from nostalgia it's just because you were more comfortable with the predominant sins of your day than you are of the sins of the next generation or whatever it is but it is a

foolish thing to think that somehow you're living in like the most uh uniquely terrible time it's ever been it's just not true and so take Solomon's advice and don't do that yeah yeah we all have very uh edited memories of the past you sound you sound like a fool when you say it you sound like you've never read history you said you just you know it sounds foolish when you say it and so but I do understand the temptation to say it because first of all you're always selective and you're remembering the past like you remember the good things and so of course it seems very good um so there's that part and and yeah that that makes it sound foolish like when you make it when you paint the the past uh with the brightest of colors somebody who didn't live

in that be like wait a minute i read a book are you sure it was that's not what i read it sounds way worse than that and you have this sort of thing too at the beginning of this section which i think is uh pretty good too where you know he has like surely oppression drives the wise into madness and a bribe corrupts the heart if you do obtain wisdom that one of the temptations of the wise is to then use that wisdom in ways to gain things for themselves um and so this is the the temptation that you know and we see this there's a lot of smart people that figure out how to get much for themselves um but this system yeah yeah but this becomes what like this this drive this will drive you into madness right where you will you will use your wisdom

for self-gain uh and then be uh that this is a bribe corrupts the heart you will become corrupt yourself and so like the danger of being very wise is that maybe you're a little wiser than other people and then you take advantage of that wisdom and become an oppressor yeah and i think uh uh we're at the stop there yes we're at our 40 minutes 40 minutes is up so we'll pick up with 7.15 next episode. All right, I'll see you then. Hi, this is Chad Bird. Have you ever felt lost? I don't mean you've dismissed a term, but I mean deeply lost in the challenges of life. My new book, Hitchhiking with Prophets, invites you to catch a ride back to our real home with Jesus. Join me as we sit shotgun with legendary storytellers of old like Abraham,

Moses, David, and Isaiah. As each companion tells their story, you'll find that they're all pointing us to be on the lookout for the promised seed, the Messiah. Order your copy today and join me in discovering that despite life's twists and turns, we are never truly lost, but always being led home to Jesus.