"Wisdom's Limit" Ecclesiastes 7 Sunday Evening Worship Service

In the summer of 2012, Erin Langworthy, having recently completed university, was in search of some adventure.

So she left her native Australia on a trip around Zambia, and upon joining a group of tourists, decided to go bungee jumping off a bridge over the Zimbabwe River at the Victoria Falls, a thrill of a lifetime.

Quite a spectacle.

Nearly 400 feet over the rushing river, she would plummet down with nothing but one single bungee rope holding her ankles and keeping her afloat above the river as the thundering falls loomed in the background.

She relates in a story in the Guardian newspaper that she was the 105th person to jump that day, the 105th person to have this bungee cord strapped around her ankles, and she would be placed in the jump position at the edge of the bridge.

And caught up in the moment, she spread her arms and fell forward.

And as she did, rushing through the air, her surroundings transforming into a blur around her, she felt the thrill that she wanted.

That is, until her body smashed into the waters below.

Because the rope, tied around her ankles, had snapped.

Fortunately for Aaron, the recent rains had caused the water to swell in the river to such an extent that she avoided the deadly rocks in the river below, and after a 40-minute struggle that nearly ended her life, she was rescued from the river.

How many hundreds or more had used that rope without any issue at all?

But when that rope was placed around Aaron's ankles, with the wear and tear it had already endured, the rope reached its limit.

Sometimes, in the nature of things, it's not just knowing how to use the rope that is wisdom, but wisdom is also knowing the limit of the rope.

In our series in Proverbs, we have been talking about wisdom and all of its manifest glories and values.

But the scripture also tells us that wisdom has a particular place in our lives.

It has a particular function, a specific role it is to play in our lives.

It has a limit.

And if we were to try to rely upon wisdom for all of its inherent value and worth, beyond the role for which God has designed wisdom, we would find that wisdom would snap and not be able to bear the weight we placed upon it.

Ecclesiastes chapter 7, our passage for this evening, is such a passage.

Ecclesiastes 7 · chapter mention

It teaches us the limit of wisdom.

The first half of this text extols the value of wisdom and teaches us in a kind of summary way the value that wisdom offers us for our lives.

But the second half of the text explains in some detail the limits that God has placed upon wisdom in the fallen world.

And if we are to be truly wise people, we have to not understand what wisdom is, where to find it, how to acquire it, but we also have to know the proper role that wisdom is to play in our life.

We need to know the limit of wisdom.

So this evening as we study Ecclesiastes chapter 7, and we're going to divide it pretty evenly right into halves.

Ecclesiastes 7 · chapter mention

The first twelve verses teach us the value of wisdom.

And the final 17 verses will teach us the limit of wisdom.

So let's begin by looking at the value of wisdom, beginning in verse 1.

If you look down at your Bibles of verse 1, Solomon begins his chapter by saying, a good name is better than precious ointment.

And this precious ointment is a qu it's an object that is of exceeding value.

Oil in the ancient world is something that would be acquired through time and patience and hard work and a little bit of luck.

And then to turn it into ointment would require mixing it and found fermenting it with some spices that would be acquired through trade, or again, much agricultural labor and time and effort.

It is an extraordinarily precious commodity.

That's just why.

And if you remember the story in John in chapter 12, when Mary cracks open a bottle of ointment to anoint the Lord Jesus before his death, that Judas is furious with her and says, This one bottle is worth more than a year's wages.

This is an extraordinarily valuable commodity.

And what Solomon says very simply is that a good name is of more value.

Of course, in the Bible, a name is speaking of kind of a summary way who you are.

The names of God are our kind of favorite study of Christians.

Who is but when we are studying the names of God, what we are studying is who is God internally and his character and his attributes.

The names of God stand for who is he?

So a person's name is a kind of shorthand way of saying who you are, your character, the kind of person that you become.

Another way of translating this perhaps would be saying developing genuine character is worth far more than anything else in this world.

And the way that you can develop a good name, the way that you can develop the right kind of character, live the right kind of life before God is through wisdom.

So this is really just another way of saying that wisdom is of extraordinary value, more valuable than anything else in the created world.

And what Solomon does in these twelve verses, verses one through twelve, is he lays out three particular ways that wisdom is valuable for acquiring a good name.

That is the right kind of character, becoming the kind of person that God would have you to be.

And we'll just lay them out and walk through them in something of a rapid fashion.

We could say, firstly, that wisdom enables you to take seriously the gravity of life.

Wisdom enables you to take life seriously.

Your life is a weighty thing.

Don't worry.

It's just the lights resetting.

We're not taking off.

We'll be okay.

It is very exciting, though, every time that happens.

Wisdom enables one to take life seriously.

You notice this in verse one, where after having said that a good name is better than precious ointment, he goes on to say, and the day of death is better than the day of birth.

And verse two, it's better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.

You see why it is better to go to the house of mourning than the house of feasting, is because in so doing, the wise person is enabled to see what is really lasting and valuable and true and good.

Those are the things that I'm going to live for.

The reality of mortality enables the wise to take his life very seriously.

My life is going to come to an end.

My life is a fleeting thing.

My life affects people around me.

My life has weight and significance.

A wise person takes his life seriously and considers what are the things in life that are true and good, valuable and lasting.

Those are the things that I will live for.

You notice in verse three 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 heart, is in the house of mirth.

A wise person, because he sees life as of exceeding value, refuses to waste his time on what is fleeting.

Now it's not that joy is inappropriate or that laughter is always out of place, but that the wise person is seeking after the solid joys, the lasting joys.

You notice that in verse 6, the particular kinds of joys that Solomon is criticizing in verse 6, as a crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of fools.

This also is vanity.

There are some joys in life that are genuinely enjoyable, but they're kind of like the little twigs that you can gather for a fire.

It gets the fire started really quick, but then it's gone as soon as it gets here.

We have a fire pit in our backyard, and there are lots of trees around.

And the trees, I think, are incessantly shedding.

It doesn't even matter what time of year it is, you can always go outside and just find twigs wherever you want.

And my four-year-old is very, very good at going out and acquiring lots of twigs, putting them in the fire pit.

Now we're ready to have a fire.

But the kind of fire that he is able to get going, don't worry, I help him.

He's not solo effort, is the kind of fire that is here for just a moment and then it's gone.

Because these kinds of twigs that my four-year-old is able to gather just aren't lasting.

They're not solid.

They're just like crackling thorns under a pot.

They're here and then they're gone.

But there's another kind of joy.

We'll see even next week, next Sunday evening when we look into chapter 8, there is another kind of joy that is commended in the scriptures, a kind of solid lasting joy.

These are the large logs.

These are the big timbers that take time and effort and skill and endurance in order to grow and to cut down.

And you have to invest yourself in order to obtain these kinds of logs to develop this long-lasting warm burning fire, this satisfying kind of joy.

There is a kind of joy that Solomon does commend, but it's the solid joy.

And it's the joy that you can only have if you take your life seriously and you recognize that there are things that are fleeting, that are kind of foamy and frothy.

And you're not seeking those things only.

You're seeking what is true and good and valuable and lasting, and you want to live for that.

That's wisdom.

So verse 7 surely oppression drives the wise into madness, and a bribe corrupts the heart.

What Solomon is saying here is that the wise person is willing to avoid the cheap paths of fool's joy in order to obtain the hard-earned joys of wisdom.

He wants a good name.

He wants internal character, he wants the joys that come from a deep, hard-earned, satisfying relationship with God and his people.

So, number one, wisdom is valuable because it enables a wise man to take his life seriously.

Number two, wisdom makes one teachable.

We've been kind of dancing around this in verses one through five that wisdom makes one teachable.

You notice in verse one he says the day of death is better than the day of birth, and it's better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting.

Well, why is that?

Well, because this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.

That is, the reason that it's better to go to the house of sorrow than the house of mirth is because there is a lesson to be learned in the funeral parlor that you cannot get in the party.

That is, death is a good teacher, and the wise receive its lesson.

A coffin is a better preacher than a crib.

So you could just, in a very, very practical way, apply this to your life and ask yourself: the last time that you were at a funeral, where was your heart?

It is the fool that is at the funeral and is trying very hard to be distracted, looking at his phone, thinking about the next thing.

When can I get away from this?

When is this over?

It's just another thing in my schedule, it's just another thing in my calendar, and I don't like it, and it's uncomfortable, and I'd like to be out of here as soon as possible.

So all the distractions that I can put in my eyes so that I don't have to think about this, the better.

That's the foolish way of living your life.

A wise person takes his life seriously and receives the lessons that life has for you, including the lessons that death would teach us.

A wise person isn't looking at his phone in the middle of the funeral.

A wise person's looking at his life and considering what is it that is true and good and valuable and lasting.

I want to live for that because this is the end of all mankind.

That's where my life is going.

My life has weight and significance, so I want to live for the things that have weight and significance.

If you look down at the rest of the text, notice that in verse five, it is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.

That is, a person who is wise takes his life seriously, and is teachable and receives the rebukes, which will include sometimes the lesson of death or the other lessons that life will teach us will show us you're not living for the right things.

You're not investing your time where the Lord would have you invest your time.

You're not investing in the relationships that God would have you invest in.

And a wise person will receive the rebuke rather than turning aside and continuing to live in the way that is right in his own eyes.

So wisdom is valuable because wisdom helps us to take life seriously.

Wisdom makes us teachable, and thirdly, wisdom enables us to look to the end.

We've seen this thread running right through the first five verses, verse two.

It's better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting because this is the end of all mankind.

But that thread of looking to the end, and wisdom consists in considering the end of things, considering the end of individual matters in your life, as well as considering the end of your entire life.

That runs through the rest of the text.

If you look at verse eight, better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

This verse is the kind of Old Testament version of Galatians 6 9.

Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up.

The attitude that is being commended here, this atom of wisdom, attitude of wisdom, is to look to the end of things and to continue laboring for the things that are true and good and valuable and lasting.

That theme continues through the rest of this text.

If you look at verse 10, say not why were the former days better than these, for it's not from wisdom that you ask this.

Now, I don't know how much time you spend with teenagers, but I spend quite a bit of time with teenagers.

And I have noticed that as soon as a teenager gets hold of this verse, oh, he's not gonna let it go.

Because this is the verse that he will use to look at every older person who wistfully look remembers the good old days, and in the hand of a teenager, this verse is like a backhand slap.

Don't look backwards.

So, what is Solomon actually doing?

And I assure you, he is not enabling teenagers to slap their elders.

That's not his intention.

If you look at the text, it says, say not, why were the former days better than these?

So, what we are not supposed to do is we are not supposed to say, Oh, a previous time was better.

This can manifest itself in all kinds of ways, but one of the easy applications of this text is that it wouldn't be very helpful for you if wisdom consists in considering the end, to spend your time thinking about how much better things used to be.

It doesn't help you.

Even if it's true.

You know, the way that some people will interpret this text, you may have heard this before, they will look at this text and read, say not, why were the former days better than these, and they will interpret that as, oh well, the former days weren't better than this.

All days are equal.

All days are equally bad.

Now, certainly there is a tendency in every human heart to remember their past with rose-colored glasses.

Whenever we are nostalgic, we're remembering the good elements of those former days and not the bad elements, and that's a blind spot that every human being has.

But actually, Solomon doesn't go to cultural relativism as the reason that we shouldn't look to the past fondly.

Because actually, there can be times that were better than the present.

But even if that's true, even if you find yourself in a moment which everything is falling down around you, and you can remember a time in your life that was better than this.

There may well have been a time that really was better than the trial you are going through right now.

The reason that Solomon says you shouldn't look backwards isn't because that's not true.

Look at what he says in the text.

He says, because it's not wise.

And in the context of this passage, wisdom is not spending your time looking backwards but looking forwards.

What he's saying is you have just a few fleeting moments in this life that is flying by.

And your life has weight and significance.

You have a soul that will live forever, and you don't do yourself any good spending the few precious moments that you have wistfully remembering the past when God made you to live in the present.

I think maybe another way of thinking about this is remember the story of Esther, wherein Mordecai and Esther get news that Haman has a plot to destroy all of the Jews.

And Esther is the one person among the Jewish people who is positioned to go and petition the king.

But she knows that it comes at a great danger, and it could cost her her life, and so she expresses a little bit of hesitation to her cousin Mordecai when he suggests that she should go to the king.

And do you remember Mordecai's response?

He says to her, If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise from the Jews from another place.

But you and your father's house will perish, and who knows whether you have not come to this kingdom for such a time as this.

If you waste your time looking backwards and not looking into the present, what are the opportunities that God has given me in the present to live for his glory and to seek his kingdom in the present?

You know, God's going to get glory from somewhere else.

But who knows?

In fact, we do know.

God caused you to be born, God caused you to be alive, God caused you to speak the language, have the gifts that you have, have the families that you have, with all of the problems that are in your life.

He raised you up for such a time as this, and he's going to get glory.

So why not why not be the instrument through which he does that?

Don't look backwards.

A wise person recognizes that your life is of infinite value.

And you're teachable and you're willing to receive the rebukes of life, and that looks like looking towards the end and asking the question, what are the things that I can do for the Lord Jesus right now?

What are the things that are true and good and valuable and lasting, and live for those things now?

So Solomon sums up wisdom in verse 11 and 12, if you notice those verses in the text.

Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage for those who see the sun.

For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.

So we see that wisdom is of exceeding value.

It is what enables you to live for what matters, to live a life that is valuable for the kingdom of God.

But what Solomon is going to do in the rest of this text is he is going to teach us wisdom enables us to walk on the path that leads into the kingdom of God.

It enables us to live lives for that which is true and good and valuable and lasting.

But wisdom has a limit.

And the wise person not only knows where wisdom is and how to obtain it, but also knows the limit of wisdom.

And that's what we see in the rest of this text.

Notice in verse 13 Consider the work of God.

Who can make straight what he has made crooked?

In the day of prosperity, be joyful, and then in the day of adversity consider.

God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.

So wisdom is of this exceeding value to enable you to live your life in a wise way.

But, verse 13, there are things outside of you that you cannot change.

Wisdom recognizes that no matter how much you acquire and apply wisdom to your life, there are limits to what wisdom can do.

There are things in the world that applying wisdom in your life cannot change.

There are things that are crooked, and they are not able to be straightened out by you and your pursuit of wisdom.

Wisdom recognizes its own limits.

So in these few verses that follow, verses 13 all the way down to the end of the chapter, verse 29, I think that Solomon points out three ways in which wisdom is limited in its application.

Wisdom has its limits, and a wise person recognizes where those limits are.

Number one, you could say that wisdom has some external limits.

Wisdom does not enable you to control your life.

Internally, wisdom will enable you to develop a name, acquire the right kind of character that pleases God.

But externally, wisdom does not enable you to control your life.

There are things, verse 13, that are crooked that God has made that way and you can't straighten out.

And in verse 14, no matter how wise you are, there's going to be good days and bad days.

In the day of prosperity, be joyful, but in the day of can of adversity, consider God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.

That is, God is the one who's ultimately in control of your life.

And there are all kinds of external things that you cannot control, even if you genuinely are living in God's wisdom.

And when that happens, when you recognize that you cannot control all manner of things around you, even through the application of wisdom, that is supposed to enable.

Enable you to recognize God is in control.

God is the one who made this.

God is the one who did this.

So that man can find out his own limits.

That's wisdom.

A wise person recognizes his own limits and recognizes I'm not in control of my life.

My life is in the sovereign hand of God.

And he graciously gives me wisdom in order to acquire an aim, to acquire the kind of character he wants me to acquire, but he doesn't give me wisdom to control my life.

God controls my life, and I am firmly in his hand.

Notice in verse 15, in my vain life I've seen everything there is.

I've seen everything.

There's a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there's a wicked man who prolongs his life in evildoing.

Be not overly righteous, do not make yourself too wise.

Why should you destroy yourself?

Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool.

Why should you die before your time?

So you see what Solomon is considering in these verses in verse 15, because I cannot control my life through wisdom, what should I do?

Well, on the one hand, he says, verse 16, don't be overly righteous.

And here what he's saying is, he's not saying, Don't be too concerned with being righteous.

One of the ways that you can tell that that's an improper way of understanding what he's saying is, the whole book is concerned with righteousness.

And he's going to say just after this in verse 19, wisdom gives strength to the wise men.

He's going to say positively that wisdom is good.

What he's saying in this text is there's a kind of righteousness, a kind of so-called wisdom that one can pursue that isn't really wisdom and isn't really really righteousness at all.

The kind of wisdom, the kind of so-called righteousness that supposes that if I do the right thing, I can control my life.

That kind of pursuit of righteousness, Solomon says, is a fool's errand.

It's like chasing the wind.

Because righteousness is not given to you to enable you to control your life.

Wisdom is not offered to you to enable you to control your life.

You cannot control your life.

You are firmly in the hand of God.

But neither, verse 17, should you give up and say, well, since I can't control my life, I'll just be a fool.

No, why die before your time?

God gave you wisdom so that you can acquire a name, so that you can live the kind of life that God desires you to live.

So where does that leave you?

If on the one hand, no amount of pursuit of righteousness or acquisition of wisdom will enable you to control your life.

And on the other hand, you're not free to just pursue folly and just say, oh, well, I'll just do whatever makes me happy in a kind of frothy, foamy, fleeting kind of way.

Where does that leave you?

It leaves you with verse 18.

It's good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them.

Where this consideration of the limits of wisdom leads us is this wisdom is God's gracious gift to us to enable us to acquire a name, to acquire the character that makes our life meaningful and lasting.

It is not given to us to control our life.

Our lives are firmly in God's hand.

So at the end of the day, the defining reality of your life is that you recognize your life is in God's hand and you fear Him.

The fear of God is what is going to ultimately define if you are a wise person in the true and fundamental sense.

You recognize wisdom has limits.

God has no limits.

And I fear him.

That's true wisdom.

So externally, wisdom does not let you control your life.

But there's a second way that wisdom has a limit in these texts.

In this text, it's in verse 20 and following, and that is, we could say internally, wisdom in this life is always imperfect.

You notice in verse 20, look at verse 20 in your text.

Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

That's a straightforward sentence, isn't it?

The nature of the pursuit of wisdom in this world is that our pursuit of wisdom is real, is genuine, is true.

You really can't acquire wisdom, but your acquisition of wisdom is always imperfect.

Your understanding of wisdom is always limited.

Your pursuit of wisdom is always stuttering, isn't it?

Two steps forward, one step back.

You cannot acquire perfect wisdom in this life.

And there's a number of then implications of that basic reality.

You'll notice one of them is a kind of relational implication in verse 21.

So do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you.

Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others.

It's interesting that upon recognizing that you cannot acquire perfect wisdom, you're just not capable of that.

That where Solomon goes is, so take it easy on other people.

When you hear other people being faulted, being unwise, being foolish, don't be too harsh on them because you know that you have so frequently been a fool as well, haven't you?

Just a couple weeks ago that Jesse preached from the Proverbs on how to deal with sin and foolishness in other people, and Proverbs 10, 12 really stood out to me.

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

Wisdom seeks to put away offenses from one's own life, seeks to put away stains and remove the flies from the ointment of one's own life.

But wisdom recognizes that no matter how much I try to do that, it's always imperfect, and that enables me upon seeing imperfections in others to cover their offenses, to cover their sins.

Wisdom covers others' sins because it recognizes wisdom in this life is always imperfect.

And Solomon goes further in verse 23.

Notice verse 23.

All this I have tested by wisdom.

I said, I'll be wise, but it was far from me.

That which has been is far off and deep, very deep.

Who can find it out?

Because wisdom is never perfect, Solomon doesn't put any hope in obtaining perfect wisdom in this life.

It's beyond you.

There are mysteries and there are difficulties and there are perplexities to life that you will never grasp.

That doesn't mean that you stop trying.

You keep going as deep in the ocean as you can, but you never get so puffed up that you think you have gotten to the bottom of it.

And as soon as you think you are there, well, what does the scripture say?

Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

You know, examples of this are all over the scripture.

I just want to remind us of a couple of them this evening.

Daniel in chapter 4, Nebuchadnezzar is said to be striding about his palace, looking out upon the grand architecture and this miracle of the ancient world, and says, Is this not great Babylon which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?

And while the words were still in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken, the kingdom has departed from you.

Or in Acts in chapter twelve, a familiar story of Herod, who on an appointed day put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to the people, and the people were shouting, The voice of a God and not of a man.

And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last.

So Proverbs chapter 26 summarizes Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes?

Proverbs 26 · chapter mention

There is more hope for a fool than for him.

There are wisdom, excuse me, there are limits to wisdom.

Externally, you cannot control your life through wisdom.

And internally, you are so faulted and corrupted by sin, every part of you, relationally, mentally, intellectually, every part of you is corrupted by sin.

The moment that you begin to think that you are beyond rebuke, that you are above the correction of others, that you are beyond learning, well, you are in the most dangerous place that a person can be.

Let him who thinks he stand take heed lest he fall.

The nature of wisdom is that wisdom is always humble and teachable, open to rebuke, ready to receive correction and instruction, eager to be brought further along the path of wisdom, not just intellectually, but morally, spiritually, relationally, because the wise person recognizes that wisdom in this life is always imperfect, and that includes me, which leads us to the third way that wisdom is limited.

Externally we can't control our life.

Internally, our pursuit of wisdom is always imperfect.

And lest you think that you have escaped this conundrum, Solomon ends with this basic reality.

You are not the exception.

That's the point he wants to make in verse 25, down to the end of the section.

Look at verse 25.

Solomon says, I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom in the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness.

And what he does, saying in verse 25, I've been searching and seeking to understand the nature of wisdom and folly.

And what he does in verse 26 to 29 is he relates three kind of generic statements about the nature of wisdom.

And he says in verse 25 that he was testing to see if these generic statements about wisdom are true.

And what he finds is that some of them are true and some of them aren't.

The first generic statement about wisdom is in verse 26.

He says, I find something more bitter than death.

And the ESV has punctuated this text, I think, very helpfully.

I find something more bitter than death, colon.

And what follows the colon is a generic statement about wisdom.

And he's saying, I have found, I found something, I found that this statement about wisdom is true.

So what is the statement?

The woman whose heart is snares and nets and whose hands are fetters, he who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her.

What we have here is a generic statement about the nature of wisdom.

He's using the general, the kind of generic way of characterizing folly as a woman, in the same way that Proverbs will often characterize wisdom as a woman, sometimes it characterizes folly as a woman.

And so here in this text we have a generalized kind of characterization, personification of folly as a woman, a woman whose hands are fetters, whose heart is a snare and a net.

And the nature of folly is this, Solomon says.

Wisdom is good for this.

Wisdom is good to help you to escape folly.

If you pursue wisdom and please God, you can escape folly and all of the destruction that comes with it.

But a fool is taken in by folly and is destroyed by it.

So the first generalized statement about the nature of wisdom is that wisdom actually is helpful.

It will enable you to escape folly and find life.

But in verse 27 and 28, he goes on to a second statement about wisdom.

Verse 27 is a kind of interlude, just reaffirming that he's been searching and seeking and studying to find out the nature of wisdom.

Look at verse 27.

Behold, this is what I found, says the preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things which my soul has sought repeatedly.

And then he says, But I have not found, and I wish that the ESV had put a colon there, but I have not found colon.

And if I were if you have a pencil, I would suggest that after I have not found, put a colon, and then the rest of verse 28 put in quotation marks.

And what he's doing here is he's evaluating another kind of standard statement about the nature of wisdom, and he's trying it and seeing, is this true?

But he says, I have not found it to be true.

So this generalized statement of wisdom that he's about to recount for us at the end of verse 28, he's saying, I have found it is not true.

So what is the general thing that most people in the ancient Near East would have said is true about wisdom?

Well, it's this.

The end of verse 28.

One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found.

That is, the generalized sentiment about wisdom in the ancient Near East is that there aren't many sages.

There aren't many truly wise people, but if you find a sage, if you are so lucky as to find a wise person, you better believe it's going to be a man and not a woman.

And you go, yikes, that doesn't seem true.

And Solomon says, It's not true.

I have not found this to be true.

But, verse 29, there is one other thing that I have found is true, verse 29.

See this alone I have found out.

That God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.

Or you could translate this, the word that's translated man in verse 29 is the generic Hebrew term for humanity.

God made humanity upright, but they have sought out many schemes.

That is, the playing field is level.

All human beings are corrupted by sin.

So the three limits of wisdom apply to everyone, including you.

You can't control your life through wisdom.

Wisdom in this life is always imperfect, and you are not the exception.

So what is wisdom?

Wisdom is a gracious gift from God.

It is more precious than gold, it is more valuable than choice jewels.

Wisdom is the greatest treasure that God has enabled human beings to find this side of eternity.

But wisdom has its limits.

Wisdom does not enable you to control your life.

And no matter how hard you pursue it, it'll always be imperfect, and don't think you're the exception.

So what are you to do?

Well, where we go, where we end up is, well, what is wisdom's goal?

The purpose of wisdom is to enable you to live a wise life that leads into the knowledge of God.

And the limits of wisdom are intended to achieve the same thing.

The limits of wisdom have the same goal in your life as wisdom itself.

The limit of wisdom that you cannot control your life through wisdom, that you can't obtain perfect wisdom, is meant to force you to this conclusion.

Since I can't control my life, I better place my life firmly in the control of God.

Verse 18 is where we end up.

Look at verse 18 again.

It's good for you to take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them.

Or as Solomon says in chapter 12, verse 13, the end of the matter all has been heard.

Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

What will define your life and what will define if you genuinely understand wisdom is this do you fear God?

In 2012, our friend Aaron was plummeting towards a river, 400 feet above it, when her rope snapped.

Because it had a limit.

A wise person recognizes that even wisdom has its limit.

You cannot, by the acquisition of wisdom, control your life, and you cannot, by the acquisition of wisdom, control outcomes.

You cannot determine anything.

But what you can do is you can recognize that though wisdom has a limit, and one day that rope will snap, and one day your life will end.

If you fear God, you will find that you are falling into at the end of your life the everlasting arms of God.

They're strong enough and kind enough to hold you, and God has proven this by giving himself in the person of his son to be crucified for you, resurrected for you, and to offer you everlasting life.

The nature of wisdom is that you would fear God by recognizing that even wisdom has its limits.

So a truly wise person will say, Lord, my life is in your hands and I trust in you.

Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you that you have revealed yourself in your word, you who are wisdom, Christ who is wisdom incarnate.

We thank you that wisdom was crucified for us and resurrected.

We thank you that wisdom stands in the presence of God, always interceding for his people.

We thank you that wisdom promises to come again to judge the living and the dead and to bring a world that will have no end.

We thank you that you've revealed yourself in your word and you call us into relationship with embodied wisdom, Jesus Christ.

Lord, we we want to know you and we want to belong to you.

We pray that you would receive us as we cast ourselves upon you in faith, recognizing that even our best efforts have imperfections and limitations.

So we ask that by your spirit you would guide us into wisdom, and as we recognize the limits of our pursuit, that we would be humble and teachable and that we would entrust ourselves to you.

Make us people that fear you and love you.

We desire these things, and we ask that you would achieve them by your spirit in the name of Christ.

And we ask this in his name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website at ibc.church.

If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, D.C., please go to TMS.edu.

Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, DC area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.

I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.