June 14, 2026-Morning Service

Wisdom and Politics, Ecclesiastes 9:11-18

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

If you turn with me to Ecclesiastes chapter nine, wants to walk through verses eleven to the end of the chapter, and maybe a bit into the next chapter, depending on how time allows. But I want acknowledge up front, you've already read the title, and you're probably thinking, what in the world do these two words have in common? Wisdom and politics. Right now would be the point where if we were not in a church setting, if we were in a social setting, in a club or something, uh in a social club setting, we would start making jokes about wisdom versus politics. Well, I'm not exactly going to do that because we don't have time and this is not the place to do it. But looking at it from a biblical perspective, Solomon, the great king, the great teacher, the one who writes Ecclesiastes, is going to make a few comments concerning wisdom and politics. Okay? Now, when I read this little title I'll put up there, and you know I'm not the best at putting up titles, the first thing that comes to my mind is the word oxymoron. Could we agree that that might be a good oxymoron, wisdom and politics? Don't matter which side the camp you're on, if you believe in this group or that group or anything in between, sometimes it just doesn't seem to add up. When you think about an oxymoron, for those of you that want to understand a little bit deeper that, oxymoron, the idea there is like a figure of speech. When you take two uh different deliberately take two different pairs of words and put them together, they're two contradictory or opposing words. Kind of like the word jumbo shrimp. Well, we know what jumbo shrimp is. We enjoy that. Maybe you'll get some for lunch. It's a nice size little shrimp. But we know shrimp is always something small and jumbo something big. So that's an oxymoron, okay? Another one would be a deafening silence. You ever heard of deafening silence? Yeah. Contrasting sound, an open secret. There's another one. Uh something that's bittersweet. And then the last one, a wise fool. And to that we add the title of uh wisdom and politics. We're gonna talk about that as we walk through that. The first little part that we see here in uh uh Ecclesiastes chapter 9, verse 11 and 12. We're transitioning from last week when we're looking at the fact that uh life is vain because no matter what happens, we're all gonna face a time when we take our last breath. We're transitioning from that into looking at wisdom versus folly when it comes to politics. So let's take a look at verse 11. It says, King Solomon talking here again, he says, Again, I saw her the sun, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all. Now, please understand, he's giving us a point of view, a value of what he's experienced from a fallible human perspective. He's not denying nor negating what he's already taught about the fact that God is sovereign and God is in control. He's just wanting you to know that if you take the first one, you think the race is going to be for the swiftest person, the quickest person always win the race? Not really. We say the first person who crosses a finish line. Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare? You'd think it'd be obvious who's going to win, but sometimes that's not the case. Uh, the idea of the battle to the strong, how many incidences do we see in the Old Testament when there's a battle and the Lord's um army does the fighting? When it little Gideon fighting the Mennonites, didn't he have a big army and they knocked it down to about 300? It's not always about the strongest. The bread to the wise. We know people who are smart who are wise with wisdom, that things can come upon them. We call it maybe bad luck or chance, and all of a sudden they're poor. What about the riches to the intelligent? Well, you think somebody who's intelligent would know how to accumulate money. But even in that intelligence, if they don't do it like they're supposed to, or if life just happens, then they could lose that. But what happens? Time, death in this case, for time, and chance happened to them all. So it's just a transition from the that first side, moving into the next side, verse 12, as we get ready to look at this next part. It says in verse 12, it says, For man does not know his time, referring to when he's going to take his last breath. It says, like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of men are snared at an evil time when it suddenly falls upon them. So this is a point where I put up a picture and you have different opinions on what this is or what it looks like or what it does. But this would be like a trap where you would trap an animal. Okay? Now, when they're talking about a snare and a trap, when those verses there, fish get taken up in an evil net. They don't know when they're gonna get caught. They're just looking for their next meal, right? And next thing you know, they're taken up in the net. Now, why are they taken up in the net? Because somebody's hungry and somebody needs to make a dollar. So they're gonna catch that bad boy and they're gonna eat it. Okay? Uh same thing with the birds. Why are they caught up in a snare? Well, very likely somebody wants to catch that bird to eat it or sell it to somebody else for a pet. So when we think about this, the sad, the negative part says we're all gonna come to time, we're gonna fall into that snare. But can I put a little twist to it for a second? Can you give me five minutes to tell you a story? To put a twist on this? David, I lived eight years in the town of Roseville, South Carolina. Up until recent Debbie. Time we've lived there in the last eight years, the first five years that we were there, our next door neighbor was a man by the name of Vance Boone. You probably know him as a former sheriff in the county. The reason I mention his name is because in in Roseville, we're kind of known for having been built over top of an anthill. And over the years since then, we've had lots of visitors to come move in, like squirrels and armadillas. I think back in the day, the the town council took care of the squirrel issue for the most part. But since we've been there, we've had a lot of armadillas come in. And I would talk to Vance about how do you catch an armadillo? We need to do something about this. And he really didn't have a lot of advice. He talked about a lot of things, but never we didn't know how to do this. So I just went out and bought an armadilla trap, did some research on Google. And you know what? Over a course of a week, I caught three of those bad boys. Now I was proud of that fact. And I went and I told Vance, hey, Vance, you won't believe this. I caught three. And one of the best compliments he ever gave me was he was proud of me because he'd never supposedly never been able to catch one because they're kind of hard to catch. But I have to confess to you, you know why I caught it, right? I caught it because I was ready to get it off my property and relocate it. Okay. Now, when I say relocate, what I mean take it somewhere far from my house. There might be another word for relocating, um, like end of life, but I don't know. You figure that out. So one of the ones that I caught, I thought it's time to relocate that bad boy. So I took it way under past the river, or actually by the river, down, it's something like three miles down from our house. I thought, I'm gonna let him out here and he will be relocated. Okay. Now, how he gets relocated is not my business. I just relocate him. So I did that. I opened that gate up to relocate him, and guess what? That turkey could swim. You know what I'm saying? He swam. He swam all the way across the river and got on the other side and took off. He said, Now, Pastor Billy, why do you why do you say that? Normally, when you trap something like that, the purpose is death. And that's exactly what King Solomon is talking about. Is that that happens to us all. Sometimes it catches us off guard. But the reason I mentioned the story about Vance and this little relocation, that little armadilla got away that day by chance because he could swim whatever word you want to put in the blank reminds me of Jesus. And even though we know that a day's coming, we're going to take our last breath, if we placed our faith in God, though that trap of death comes upon us, we'll take that last breath here, but that next breath would be face to face with him in eternity. And I pray that we'll be about that. I'm not trying to make the sermon all sappy about death, even though that's what they're talking about. I'm trying to remind us that the hope and promise we have in Jesus Christ and the words that he gave us in the New Testament saying that he is who he says he is, and that he came to earth with a purpose to take on my sin and your sin, to restore that relationship with God. If we would just confess our sins and believe in our heart that he is Lord, we would have eternal life. That's good news. So the trap's coming to us all, but some of us, I pray all of us in this room, the trap we're going to get out of it, because Jesus is going to say, He's mine, I paid for his sin. Well done, thy good and faithful servant. Come on in. Ecclesiastes 9 13 says, I have also seen this example of wisdom under the sun, and it seems great to me. So here's another example he sees, and now we kind of turn that transition from looking at death, looking toward wisdom versus folly, or wisdom versus the idea of politics. It says here, he gives a little story. He says here, there was a little city with a few men in it, and a great king came against it, besieged it, and built great siege works against it. Okay. Now, Psalm is telling a story of which he would fully understand being a king himself. And having seen how God works with other kings and nations, he wants to give a story to illustrate a point. And let's take a look at what he's saying here. In the story in verse 15, it says, But there was found in it a poor, wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city, yet no man remembered that poor man. Reminding us of how great wisdom is and how God can use that wisdom for his glory, that it's better and stronger than man's strength. But at the same time, after a while that's going to pass, and people may not remember that. Verse 16, he goes on to say, But I say that wisdom is better than might, though a poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard. You got somebody come in and to take over a nation or a city. Kings get in there talking, they don't know what to do, they're going back and forth. One little man's wise wisdom saves them. But he doesn't necessarily get the credit. He eventually dies, and his words are forgotten. Look at verse 17. The words of the wise heard and quiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools. Little proverb there. Look at that again. The words of the wise heard and quiet are better than the shouting of ruler among fools. This is the part where you can take these little jokes and say, okay, now let's talk about our politicians. Are they wise or are they foolish? And the problem with that is, even though we could talk about it all day long, is that I don't know about you, but sometimes I fall in this habit of wanting to believe any and everything I see on any kind of informational network, social media or TV. But right now, as we're going through these elections, and I do encourage you to vote, that's a right we've been given by our nation to vote. I encourage you to go out and vote your beliefs, vote based off God's word. But understand, in the midst of all this going on, not everything you read is true. People will say things about other people, not being very wise, but being very foolish, seeking for their own gain. So I pray that we'll be cautious when we're looking at Facebook or we're listening to TV. It doesn't matter which side of the political spectrum you're on, both sides are just as simple when it comes to putting out false information. I wish I could tell you how to know for sure it's true or false, but I don't pay enough attention to it to be able to tell you the difference in that. And nowadays, with this thing called artificial intelligence or AI, it's even harder to know what's true or not. But just be cautious of that. The words of a wise hurt and quiet are better than the shouting of a fool among his people. Verse 18, wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good. Now look how he ends this. He kind of ends it, but he doesn't, because in verse 10, really, you get the end of this. This is an explanation of a proverb. Listen to the proverb. The proverb is chapter 10, verse 1. It says, Dead flies make the perfumer's ointment give off a stench, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. So going back to verse 18, wisdom is better than weapons of the war, something that you want to count on. God given wisdom. Having that wisdom is better than all the strength. Wasn't that true with David and Goliath? David, his wisdom was fear of the Lord. That's where our wisdom should be. That's where it starts on. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. David didn't have, couldn't hardly use, much less carry, all the weaponry that they had at that time, no matter how great it was. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good. Think about that. One person, one little bit of sin can mess up a whole lot of good things that take place. That happens in school, that happens in the workplace, that happens in the church, that happens everywhere. So look at the last part of that. A dead fly makes a perfumer's ointment give off a stench, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. Now, I don't know about you. My days that we're in clone or needing to do that are over with. Okay. I've got my wife, we're happy. I don't need to impress anybody else. But I remember back in the day, way back in the day, a little clone called Stetson. And there's one I think called Polo, too, if we go far enough back. Well, you had that, you somebody. Remember that? But the catch with that is we had it in a glass bottle, some kind of bottle that you sprayed it or did something with it, you know. But in biblical times it was a little bit different. You might have a bigger vat with ointment and stuff like that. So you get a dead fly to come in there, a couple of them. They get in there, they mess that cologne, that perfume, that ointment, they mess it all up. It didn't happen with us today because you can't get a fly on the bottle, but it just didn't work. But in those days that could happen. And it says, just like the dead flies make that ointment give off a stench, as ruin is no good, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. So what do we need to remember as we close here? What it says in 1 Corinthians 5.6, and is also repeated in Galatians 5.9. Paul's talking in church in Corinth, he says, Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven or leaven leavens the whole lump? And when he's talking to the Galatians, he says, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. One little sin, as innocent as it may seem, thinking you didn't hurt anybody and nobody knows about it, can mess up everything. I pray that we would take that to heart when we're on Facebook. I mean, want to click share or something that may or may not be true. Let's not be a part of the problem, let's be a part of the solution. Solution might be in just not sharing, just praying about it or ignoring it and going on. In closing, would you choose wisdom over strength? Could it be true that choose the wisdom of fearing the Lord, allowing him to fight our battles, to give us dignity as we get closer to the day we take our last breath? And number two, would we be willing to truly repent of sin that is capable of destroying not only our life, but that of others? Does that make sense? God's at work, no doubt at New Hope. I'm excited about what he's doing. Uh, but as we move, continue to move forward, let's move forward following after the Lord and his strength. Okay? Not my church, not your church. This is his church. We're just part of the body. Christ is ahead. Let's continue to seek to follow him and walk before him humbly and watch what he's going to do through through godly wisdom that only he can give. But to do that, we need to make sure that we walked humbly and holy. So we need to ask forgiveness of our sins on a daily basis and don't allow sin to mess up not only our lives, the lives of our coworkers, our friends, our families, but the church as well. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you, Father, for your word. Thank you, Father, for Solomon, a great teacher who has great wisdom that is applicable in our lives today. Father, in the midst of all that's going on in the world, help us not to be distracted by entertainment, by news, social media, et cetera, that would want to spread things that are not true. But help us, Father, to be in your word that is only holy, pure, and perfect truth. Studying that truth, Father, continue to remind us that you're God, that you're in control, and to understand that true wisdom comes from you. Father, forgive us where we sin and help us to truly repent and walk in holiness before you. Pray now that as we have this time of invitation, that you'll speak to our hearts, uh guide us, give us wisdom for today and the days to come. We love you. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.