Expect the Unexpected

When life doesn’t play by the rules, most of us feel disoriented and a little angry. Ecclesiastes 9 names that ache with startling honesty: the fastest runner loses, the strongest army falls, the most skilled employee gets passed over. We take you into Solomon’s world to confront five jarring truths about outcomes, chance, and the limits of control—and then we show why choosing wisdom is still the most reliable way to live.

We unpack the story of a poor, wise man who saves a small city from a great king and is quickly forgotten. It’s a gut punch that exposes how often quiet, faithful wisdom gets ignored while loud leaders win the spotlight. Yet Solomon insists that a few words of wisdom are better than the shouting of fools. We explore what that means in homes, workplaces, churches, and public life, where volume and virality often masquerade as authority.

From there, we trace the source of true wisdom back to God himself. Christ is the wisdom of God, and Scripture forms the instincts we need for right decisions, right reasons, right timing, and right motives. This isn’t a promise of easy outcomes; it’s a call to steady faithfulness when time and chance derail our plans. If you’ve felt overlooked, outpaced, or blindsided, this conversation will ground you in what’s better than applause: a life aligned with God’s Word, lived with clean hands and a quiet conscience.

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Chapters

• 0:00 What Wisdom Really Is
• 0:52 Expect The Unexpected In Life
• 3:04 Five Surprises From Ecclesiastes 9
• 7:55 The Forgotten Wise Man Saves A City
• 11:00 Three Clarifications: Wisdom Is Better
• 15:30 Source Of Wisdom: God And Scripture
• 19:10 Encouragement To Walk Wisely

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:06

In other words, the written word of God imparts to the believer the ability to make the right decision at the right time for the right reason or motive. What that means then is you cannot live a wise life and be a distant companion of this book. If you do not have a relationship that is living and committed to the truth of this book, since wisdom comes from outside of us through this book, then you will not have wisdom.

SPEAKER_00: 0:52

What do you do when life doesn't follow the rules? When the fastest runner loses the race or the smartest person gets passed over for a promotion. In Ecclesiastes 9, Solomon reminds you that life under the sun is unpredictable, but not meaningless. In this episode of Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen Davy walks through Solomon's surprising observations and his call to choose wisdom anyway. You'll see why wisdom may not always win awards or recognition, but it's still the right way to live. Keep listening to see how when life throws you off course, God never does.

SPEAKER_01: 1:51

Two years later she died. Experts would later calculate the voyage and retrace the voyage of that bottle. Having floated into the Strait of Dover and then into the North Sea, past the Netherlands, voyaging on past Scotland and Denmark in the North Sea, that sealed bottle would have been floated between the Shetland Islands and the coast of Norway and into the icy waters of the Barents Sea. After several years of floating along those desolate waters, it would have turned eastward in the current to the East Siberian Sea. From there it would have been pulled into the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska. After several more years, it would begin its southward journey, and the current finally reaching the waves of the Pacific Ocean, where it was carried along the west coast of the United States. That bottle finally came to rest on a stretch of sand on the coast of San Francisco Bay. It had traveled nearly 13,000 miles over a span of twelve years. A man by the name of Jack Verm was walking along that sandy stretch, lost in his thoughts about his life. His restaurant business had gone bankrupt. He was now at the age of fifty-five, nearly penniless. But then Jack spotted that bottle half buried in the sand. Still watertight. He noticed the note inside. The cork wouldn't come out, so he broke the bottle open and pulled out that handwritten note which read, To avoid all confusion, I leave my entire estate to the person who finds this bottle. The note was dated June 20th, 1937. Now it's nearly 1950. Signed by a woman who used to live in London, Jack had never heard of. Though heavily contested, and a series of court battles ensued, the note was finally and officially determined to be, in fact, the legitimate last will and testament of Daisy Alexander, the daughter of Isaac Singer, the heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune. Jack Verme was awarded her portion of that fortune, which in today's economy would have been worth$10.6 million. And it was his. Almost makes you want to go to the beach and look for whiskey bottles. The moral of that story, as I read it recently, could be you never know what's gonna float into your life. Or maybe life is full of surprises. Or perhaps we could put it this way: expect the unexpected in life. Now, Solomon evidently has that particular thought on his mind and heart. Life is filled with the unexpected. So what can you cling to as life unveils one surprise after another? And Solomon then rattles off a list of surprises here in Ecclesiastes chapter 9. Turn with me there today for some more inspired truth that may be hard to swallow, but it's the truth upon which you can securely plant your feet and your heart. We're now in Ecclesiastes 9, and we're at verse 11. Again, I saw that under the sun, remember, that means I've observed life down here under the sun, and this is the way it tends to play out in the human race. Here's what I've observed. 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. It's as if Solomon says, Let me show you five unexpected surprises that you don't see coming. Over the course of my lifetime, I've observed this. First, if you go back to the beginning of this text, the race is not always won by the fastest runner. That would be in principle form what he's writing. The race isn't always won by the fastest runner. Sometimes strange things happen. A shoe falls off. Or maybe a runner gets tripped up around the corner, and four runners behind the lead trip over him, and suddenly the guy in fifth place is winning the race. I read recently of several runners who were running to qualify for the Boston Marathon a few years ago, and they ended up being stopped by a train. All the trains were supposed to have been suspended for this particular period of time, but somehow this one train got through, and those runners could do nothing but stand there and wait. They lost 11 minutes in their qualifying heat. One of those runners might have been faster than everybody else, but was not qualified to run because of this surprising train. Sometimes the fastest runner doesn't win. Solomon adds in verse 11 the battle isn't always won by the strongest army. You read your history books, and you'll find one battle after another where the victory is won by a smaller, a less equipped military force. Like Little Israel a few decades ago. So much smaller than all of that combined force of those Muslim countries. Unexpected victory. Solomon says, here's another surprising event in life I've seen. Third, the necessities of life aren't guaranteed for the wisest person. He writes in verse 11, nor bread to the wise. What that means is the wisest person isn't guaranteed even basic food. Wise people can go hungry. Wise people can become even homeless to give in some unexpected occurrence or event in life. Number four, wealth isn't the automatic result for the careful investor. He writes here, nor riches to the intelligent, you could translate that, nor riches to the discerning. The idea. He wrote in an article that he was having dinner with a man in Cincinnati who was a renowned investment advisor. And Robinson said, you know, as we got closer to dessert, I did what you would probably do. I decided to get a little free advice. And I asked him, you've been at this job of investing for over 20 years. What's one of the most important things you've learned? And this man leaned in and lowered his voice and said, I've learned that some of the dumbest people in this city are the wealthiest and some of the smartest are the poorest. I have observed down here under the sun that shrewd investors sometimes lose everything. And somebody who doesn't know beans about investing wins the mother load. You can have your career all planned out. You can have your investments all buttoned down, and then what? An accident occurs. A virus strikes. An illness hits. And everything turns upside down. Solomon adds a fifth surprise he's seen take place under the sun. Here it is, the promotion isn't always awarded to the best employee. He writes again in verse 11, nor favor to those with knowledge. The word he uses for knowledge is a word that means know-how. We would call it skill set. The person who has the skill set for the job. The person who deserves the promotion. Well, that's, everybody knows, that's the guy with the job skills. That's the gal with the know-how. That's the person in the office you go to because you're stuck, you're stumped, you need an answer, you need a solution, and they're the ones that are able to provide it. Well, Solomon Right here, they're not necessarily the ones given the favor. They're not given the promotion. They're passed over. So why do these five events take place so unexpectedly? Why does the fastest runner not win? Why does the biggest army get defeated? Why does the wise person go hungry? Why does the careful investor lose his shirt? Why does the smartest employee get passed over? Why? He gives us the answer at the end of verse 11. Because time and chance happen to them all. That is, it comes out of nowhere. Notice, for man does not know his time, that is, his seasons of life. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time when it suddenly falls upon them. He's not talking about death. He's talking about the unexpected seasons of life. They occur because of time and chance. Now let's pause for a moment. There are only two times in the Old Testament where this word chance appears. The other time it appears is in 1 Kings chapter 5 and verse 4, where it can be translated events. Both times the word appears, it's a negative context. Old Testament language scholars believe it could best be translated accidents. So you might circle the word chance and write into the margin of your Bible the word accidents. In fact, language scholars believe that time and chance are to be combined so that you can render it or understand it as untimely accidents. Untimely events. And that's the way it is with trouble, isn't it? Trouble never warns you, I'm coming tomorrow afternoon at three o'clock. Never comes at a good time. When is trouble ever timely? Well, that came at just the perfect time. I needed that flat tire. No. It's always untimely. Because it's unexpected. And we're unprepared. Like, he's illustrating for us, like a fish. That fish is out there swimming around minding his own business. Suddenly, it's caught. That bird is flying around just singing a song, and then suddenly the net, the net appears. Unexpected, unwanted, unprepared. And now, with that, Solomon, the preacher, he calls himself, gives us a rather discouraging illustration. A case study to prove his point. Look at verse 13. I have also seen this example of wisdom under the sun. And it seemed impressive or great to me. There was a little city with few men in it, and a great king came against it and besieged it, building great siege works against it. So you've got this little city with only a few men in it. More than likely, he's referring to there were only a few men who could bear arms. Only a few of them could fight. And against this little city comes a great king. Here's the contrast. You pick up on the impossibility of this contrast, a little city against a great king. And he essentially comes out of nowhere and builds siegeworks. That word, siegeworks, represents the same Hebrew word Solomon uses earlier for the word net. See, now these people, like that bird, are gonna be caught unexpectedly in an untimely fashion, and they're unprepared in the net. Now verse 15. But there was found in it, this little city, a poor, wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. But no one remembered that poor man. But I say that wisdom is better than might, though the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard. Let me break this down. Solomon says, I've seen this poor commoner, this peasant, he's utilizing his wisdom to save this little city. And instead of marking that day with a parade, he's forgotten. No honor, he's shoved aside. And if Solomon's context is maintained here, somebody more popular and somebody more powerful probably walked away with all the credit. So this guy's forgotten. And that plays again into the theme we've seen, haven't we, brothers and sisters, under the sun that fame is fleeting and people are fickle. And this guy won the day. Where is he? And that's why we to this day talk about someone having 15 seconds of fame. Not 15 days, not fifteen years, fifteen seconds. This guy doesn't even get fifteen seconds. He goes unrewarded, and to top it all off, he's quickly forgotten. Now, you might look at a text like this, filled with unfortunate surprises, curious surprises, a discouraging case study, and come to the conclusion, Solomon is gonna tell us, forget wisdom. It isn't worth it. It doesn't pay off or pay up. It doesn't make your life easier. You don't feel the tape on your chest because you come in first. So why bother? But instead, what Solomon does is he anticipates that we would think that way after these illustrations and that case study. And so what he does now is he kind of slips into giving us three encouragements or clarifications regarding wisdom. And let me give the first one to you in principle form. Wisdom might not win the most applause, but it's still right. Look at verse 16. But I say that wisdom is better than might, though the poor man's wisdom is despised, or you could render that rejected. Now you might take your pencil or pen and circle that word better. It's gonna show up in each one of these three clarifications in this text. It's better. Wisdom is better. You could understand that word meaning in that context. It is right. This is the right way. This is the right thought pattern. This is the right path. This is the right choice. This is the right thing to do. So he's saying, in spite of everything that happens, I just want to remind you that wisdom is still right. It's still right. Even if you get passed over, it's right. Even if you don't win the race, it's right. I want to add this thought here. I didn't know quite where to put it, but there is the gospel in this case study. The Lord, the peasant, the commoner. He's poor, but he's wise. He's disregarded by the crowd, rejected, humbled unto death, even death on a cross. Why? To save man's soul. A little city that doesn't have a chance. And then what happens? He goes unrewarded. And to this day, forgotten. Except by the few who've been delivered. Today, like him, beloved, you might be rejected because of your biblical thinking and lifestyle and opinion. But it's far better to follow Christ to be rejected by earth and accepted one day in heaven. Wisdom might not win the most applause, but it's still right. Secondly, wisdom might not gain the largest audience, but it's still right. Notice verse 17. The words of the wise heard in quiet are better than the shouting of rulers of a ruler among fools. In other words, the loudest voice isn't always the wisest voice. In fact, sometimes the proof that it is not wise is that it has to be loud. Solomon is effectively describing a loud-mouthed leader. In fact, the loud-mouthed leader is encouraged here because he's surrounded by a world of fools. Notice, he writes, he is a ruler among fools. They're not helping him any. This loudmouth leader can show up in the home, where shouting replaces quiet wisdom. This can happen in any church where communication is replaced with loud arguing. This can happen in the governments of our world where yelling replaces leading. Solomon says here that a few quiet words of wisdom are still better, even if you get drowned out by the shouting of all the fools around you. It's still right. Remember, a fool is somebody who defies and denies the authority of God. That's who the fool is in the Word of God. And sometimes those people have the microphone. Sometimes those people have the large audience and the following. So Solomon is essentially saying here, wisdom might not have the largest, certainly not the loudest point of view, but it wisdom is still right. Thirdly, wisdom might not win the biggest argument, but it's still right. Notice verse 18, wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good. Yes, he goes on with realism to say one sinner can destroy so much good. One fool can tear down and destroy. In fact, Solomon points out the disheartening reality that one person can destroy so much that is good. Just look at Hitler. Look at the destruction that came because he was believed. Just look at Darwin and the destruction because he's been believed. They defy God, they aim their weapons at his truth. Solomon says, even though one rebellious sinner seems to destroy things faster than wise people can build them, don't veer from wisdom because it's still right. It might be the minority opinion, but it's right. It might get shouted down, but it's right. It's right. What exactly is wisdom? This wisdom which is better. Well, from passages of scripture, the Hebrew word for wisdom is described, personified, illustrated, as a way of life. Let me give you a concise definition here. Wisdom is the God-given ability to make the right decision for the right reason at the right time and with the right motive. Wisdom is action. It's acting, it's making, living the right decision for the right reason at the right time and with the right motive. And so understand this that apart from the Spirit of God, you can't do this. You can't live wisely. In fact, the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God. That is, he is the personification of divine wisdom, 1 Corinthians 1 24. So the person who rejects Jesus Christ loses out on wisdom. Yes, they can make a right decision, but it might be for a selfish reason. They can make a right decision, but with the wrong motive, or at the wrong time, or for the wrong reason. But the ability to make the right decision for the right reason, at the right time, having the right motive is an act of wisdom that comes from God. Because if you lack this wisdom, where do you go? You go and ask God, who dispenses it, James tells us in chapter 1, verse 5 if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask God, and God gives it. He is the source of wisdom. Now the unbelieving world, throughout the course of human history, has tried for centuries to come up with their own origin of wisdom apart from creator God. The Celtic religion, the Hindu religion, believe that it's from one of their many goddesses. The Greeks have a fascinating view. It's hard to even imagine it, but they believe it came from Zeus. They believe that Zeus swallowed whole his expectant wife out of jealousy and then delivered the child through an opening in his head. Such a wise idea. Since she was born from his head, she became the goddess of wisdom. She was named Athena. Athens, Greece, the seat of intellectual achievement, would be named after her, the city of wisdom. She was physically represented over the ancient centuries by an owl, which gave rise to the superstition that persists to this day that an owl is a wise bird. Well, the unbelieving world is right in that they understand that wisdom, this intangible ability to act in a certain way, is indeed beyond us. It's beyond human origin. And so you can believe it came from Zeus, you can believe it came from a goddess, or you can believe what the Bible says that it comes from Creator God, that he is the sum and substance of wisdom. He is in fact, Jude 25, the all wise God. He is Wisdom. God communicates his wisdom to us through his word. Paul reminded Timothy when he wrote, But you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you wisdom. 2 Timothy 3, 15 to 17. This is why you saturate your mind and your heart with the word of God. King David wrote, The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. In other words, the written word of God imparts to the believer the ability to make the right decision at the right time for the right reason or motive. So what that means then is you cannot live a wise life and be a distant companion of this book. So if the last time you've looked at this was last Sunday, you will not have wisdom. If you do not have a relationship that is living and committed to the truth of this book, since wisdom comes from outside of us through this book, then you will not have wisdom. That's not a threat. That's a reality. Wise people are not the smartest people on their SAT scores. Wise people are submissive people to the scriptures. Wisdom might not win the most applause. Solomon warns us, but it's still right. Chances are you're not going to find a bottle half buried in the sand carrying a note that changes your life. But you have been given an inspired note, signed, as it were, by God. So you walk through life with the author and finisher of your faith. And in the analogy I gave you earlier, he is that poor peasant who is disregarded and unwanted, but who died for you and for me. And because of his death on the cross, he didn't look like much then. But now he is ascended and seated at the right hand of the Father in glory. And so the encouragement then is: even though these realities exist, even though these five surprises continue to happen, even though trouble comes in an untimely fashion, and we need to learn to expect the unexpected, let's do it. Walking with him, leaning on him, trusting him, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_00: 33:23

You know, before this day is over, you're going to have an opportunity to put this message into practice as you wisely apply God's Word to the circumstances of your life. I trust that God will use this reminder from Ecclesiastes to encourage you to walk wisely. Thanks for tuning in today. This is Wisdom for the Heart. Stephen Davy is working through a series called Pursuing Wisdom Under the Sun. We'll continue through this section of Ecclesiastes next time. Between now and then, be sure and visit our website, wisdomonline.org, so that you can access all of these resources that we have to help you grow in your faith. That address once again is wisdomonline.org. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at info at wisdomonline.org. Thanks for listening and be with us next time for more wisdom for the heart.