Scripture: Ecclesiastes 4:13-16
Date: November 5, 2006
Speaker: Sean Higgins
Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.
Well, please take out your copy of God’s word this morning and turn to Ecclesiastes chapter four where we continue to examine life underneath the sun. And this morning, specifically, we come to examine 15 minutes of fame. Fifteen minutes of fame. Anybody know where that statement comes from? Who is the one who made that statement? he didn’t make that exact statement. He made a similar statement that we’ve kind of shortened into that. Who’s the one who said that? Andy Warhol. How many of you even know his name? Andy Warhol was an American artist and in 1968 he made the following statement, quote, In the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes.”
That was his prediction. That was his statement in 1968. That in the future, everyone would be world famous for 15 minutes. And I’m not exactly sure that what he was referring to was the fact or the emphasis so much on that every person would be famous for 15 minutes, as much as what he was trying to emphasize is that popularity and celebrity and fame is very short-lived. It’s about 15 minutes long. That’s about how popular you are and about how long you can get the highest amount of fame and popularity that you could ever have. You might be able to hold on to that for about 15 minutes. The fleeting condition of celebrity that attaches to an object or to a person with media attention that passes so fast.
Just think about it in our own generations. The things that were popular for guys like Curtis and I were born in 74. We’re keeping it real in 74. I don’t even know the 80s. You know, that was big for us. Early 90s, more so, you know, that was the 80s and 90s is when we were junior high and high school. The kinds of things that were popular.
Millie Vanilli. Millie Vanilli was popular. What else was popular? Hair bands and hair band ballads. They had not just the hair and the electric guitars working, But then every one of them seemed to have some kind of love ballad that they put on their album at some point in time as well. What else might have been popular? Leg warmers. Yeah, the leg warmers. You guys remember those? Made popular by, it was Flash. That was the name of the fame. And Flash dancing. And those leg warmers, you know what was also really cool? I remember this distinctly. It was really cool to wear shorts like athletic shorts on top of your sweatpants.
That was the thing. It was the layered look before layered was cool. You know, it wasn’t layered like with the t-shirt and the long sleeve shirt underneath it. It was the sweatpants and the shorts over top. That was really cool. You were cool. You were popular if you had that right look going on. So any number of other things that are totally not interesting or popular at all today, there’s a whole new set of things. There’s a whole new set of people.
And while obviously 15 minutes might not be the exact amount of time that something has worldwide fame, it’s meant to remind us of the temporary, the transient nature of things that are popular. Our paragraph this morning is actually the story of one young man’s rise to be the king and the crowd that he gathered to follow him and then the fall of his popularity among the people. He had the crowd on his side and for a while but it didn’t last. And though we probably don’t have lots of experience seeing this with kings. We’ll study the story specifically about this young man who rises to the position of king, though we don’t necessarily have stories about people coming from nowhere to be king. We do have stories about politicians rising to power, and we do have stories about celebrities rising to great fame and being on television shows and singing songs and getting contracts.
We do have stories about athletes who come from dirt poor situations and then end up making it big. We have lots of things that we can relate this story to, though again specifically the discussion is about becoming a king. I think the vanity of popularity in political offices, the vanity of popularity in the entertainment industry, and can I suggest that even the vanity of popularity in the halls of high school applies. You know, I was cool at one point in my life. And it’s gone. And I wake up every day. No, it was not right. I was going to get some sob story about that. But you know what? The people who were popular when I was in high school, I hardly even remember them.
I remember the people that I was friends with, but not the cool people.
And yet, in the halls of junior high and high schools across the nation tomorrow will come an entire group an army of students to school trying to do what they can to gain popularity among other people. And so whether it’s big picture in life or whether it’s tomorrow at school, what we’ll see is that even if you get it, it’ll last for about 15 minutes. In chapter 4 so far we have seen Solomon complaining about a number of things. He has complained first about oppression in verses 1 through 3, those with power, take advantage of those who don’t have power. The strong take advantage of the weak, that is a source of frustration, that is something that is vanity and emptiness under the sun. In verses 4 through 6 we saw Solomon complain about envy as the motivator for all work. Everyone works just so that they can have more than somebody else. That’s a great reason to work. And that that’s exactly what he says in verses 4 through 6. Then last week we talked about the third complaint in the chapter which is loneliness in verses 7 through
that we would learn, and that we would get, and that we would prioritize things in our life according to their true value, not according to the value that the crowd might place on it for again a momentary period of time. This paragraph is surprisingly difficult. The biggest problem with this paragraph is actually figuring out what verse is talking about who. I’ve read this paragraph probably somewhere over a hundred times this week and it was somewhere after midnight last night that I finally thought, aha, I think this is this person and this is this person. I think that there are only two characters in the story along with the crowd but two primary characters. Some commentators that I read actually suggest that there are three, some suggest there are four, and even when there’s two they don’t agree on which verse is referring to which character. So this paragraph is particularly difficult figuring out who the characters are, how many they are, who’s doing what at what point hopefully by the time we’re done today you’ll know what this story
was about. Verse 13 starts with a comparison. Better was a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice. Now there’s a connection between this paragraph already and the paragraph that just came before it on relationships and companionship and friendship. There in verses 7 through 12 we saw a person that was so absorbed in building his riches that he didn’t have time to share with anyone else. In this paragraph we see a person who is so absorbed building not his riches but his kingdom that he didn’t have time to listen to anybody else. And so where the first guy was isolated because of his work. This guy is isolated because of his pride and his power. The king had isolated himself not from companions necessarily, but from counselors. This is not a good thing.
The contrast could not be more complete in the comparison between these two particular characters, between the youth and the king. These two characters are at the opposite ends of status in society. One is poor and one is the king. Even what we’ve talked about so far in Ecclesiastes of Solomon’s kingship, is that a word? I don’t know, we’re making it one. Solomon’s position as king, he had everything. And even though none were like him, still being a king was certainly opposite of being poor. Being a poor king was not the connection that you would typically find together. They were at the opposite ends of status and society. They’re at the opposite ends in terms of their age. One is a youth and one is old and their opposites in terms of their knowledge. One is wise and the other foolish. And that last comparison, that last contrast, is the one that is determinative for the rest of the paragraph. This last distinction between their status of knowledge, one being wise and one being foolish, is really the entire point.
The issue, and the most significant thing though, is that the one who has the wisdom and the one who is foolish is not what we expect to go along with the other characteristics we just saw. Because Because typically you would find the poor and foolish youth. And then you would find the old and wise king. But our expectations are reversed. Instead of being young and poor and foolish, this youth, who was poor at least, actually has wisdom, and the king is the one who is foolish. Not what we’d expect in the Old Testament and throughout the ancient Near East, you would have expected that the old king would have been the one with the wisdom.
The king’s foolishness is explained in the last part of verse 13. His problem is that he no longer knew how to take advice. That’s how the ESV translates it. actually a lot of interesting ways that translators translate this passage. The New American Standard says that the problem with the king was that he no longer knows how to receive instruction. The new King James Version says who will be admonished no more. He won’t take warning. In fact that’s what the NIV has. No longer knows how to take warning. So instruction or advice or counsel or warning and that’s the Hebrew word advice or instruction refers to guidance, to recommendations or counsel or input that you would get from other people.
Typically other people that you would expect would be knowledgeable about whatever they were giving advice or counsel upon. This is counsel, direction, hints, input, pointers, and this king had gotten to a point where nobody was able to enlighten him or give him warning or suggestions any longer. This king no longer knew how to take advice, which implies that he used to. To say he no longer knew meant that apparently at one point he did know. And he used to listen to other people and he used to receive their counsel but not anymore.
more. The implication is that he outgrew or at least he thought he had outgrown the need for input from others. Let me pause right here and see I don’t remember anything from fifth grade. That was Mr. Sarr’s question for the break. I do remember something from seventh grade and that was in my seventh grade reading teacher’s room. He had some signs kind of like Mr. Pierce has various signs around the room that you will never forget. So my teacher had some signs I’ll never forget and it was the first time I had ever seen this phrase or this truth. He had a sign in his room that said hire a teenager while they still know everything. And of course that’s a very sarcastic statement and And it’s not actually meant to teach us that teenagers actually do know everything.
It’s a play, a sarcastic play on the idea that most teenagers act like they know everything. And so they become inaccessible to counsel. They become untouchable from warning. They make themselves so. They turn off their ears. They want nothing to do with listening to their parents, their teachers, their counselors, their shepherds. They want nothing to do with that anymore. They believe that they know everything they need to or they know enough that they don’t need to listen to anybody else. And this king, very similarly, used to be accessible to instruction of others, but now he was old and hardened in his folly.
In his self-confidence, he concluded he didn’t need to listen to anybody else. But you know what? That is never the right thing. Ever. To get yourself or isolate yourself away from the counsel of other people. Solomon actually has written numerous other things about the need for us to listen to counselors. You’ll need to turn there, but you can write down these verses. Proverbs 11 verse 14, Solomon says, where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors, there is safety. In receiving multiple inputs and advice and guidance, there is safety. In Proverbs chapter 15 verse 22, he says, without counsel, plans fail, but with many advisors they succeed.
thing in Proverbs chapter 24 verse 6, for by wise guidance you can wage your war and in abundance of counselors there is victory. And that certainly has application for anything, any of us in anything that we do, we find those people who know something about what we’re trying to do and we get their input, their advice, their direction, their counsel, their warning. In particular though, most of those verses that I read from Proverbs seem to apply specifically to somebody in a leadership position to a king. For example, in Proverbs 11, 14, where there is no guidance, a people falls. That assumes that this person who is not getting the guidance is responsible for another group. Again, most specifically, I think that would be referring to the king. His nation, his country, his people will fall if he himself isolates himself away from that Council. Again, chapter 24 verse 6, by wise guidance you can wage your war. Who are the people who are waging war? Not just any Joe on the street. It’s somebody bare minimum
who at least had some kind of high level of leadership position over multiple other people. And so ironically, it is the people who are in charge of or who are put in a position of leadership over others who need counsel from others the most. I think that’s really interesting because what tends to happen to those people who have a position of leadership or authority over others, they think because they’re in that position they don’t need anybody else’s input. They’re in the position because they’re the ones who give it, not who get it. Solomon says exactly the opposite. You want to be wise. You want to lead well. In particular to kings, you want to be a king. Well, you need to get that input from other people. Proverbs 26, 12, though not necessarily about getting counsel, gives us some pretty helpful insight. Proverbs Verse 26, 12, do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes?
There is more hope for a fool than for him. That’s exactly what had happened to this king, this old king in the story. He become wise in his own eyes. No longer needed to listen to anybody else. How you doing on this level of teachability, seniors? Now that you’re at the top. graders, whoever you are, how you doing on receiving that counsel or do you think you’ve gone past that, you’re beyond that. Because of his powerful but proud inflexibility, the king actually lost everything that he had attained. And that’s what happens when you become proud, is then you fall. And when you stop listening to the instruction and the help and the advice of others, that’s when you lose what you got. He ended up losing his kingdom apparently because he stopped listening to counsel. The story is really not about this old and foolish king. We study him, we learn about him to see the opposite, And that relates to them point number two, which is in verse 14, where we see Solomon’s explanation.
Specifically, this explanation, I think, is about the youth. Solomon writes, For he went from prison to the throne, though in his own kingdom he had been born poor. Now, there are people who question who this verse is about. Is it the old king or is it the youth? There certainly are some who suggest it is the old king. They understand verse 14 as a description of the old and foolish king, primarily because the old and foolish king is the last one who was mentioned in verse 13. So, it seems like the subject was the old and foolish king at the end of verse 13.
So we move right into verse 14 and it seems like it’s more work to skip over the king To go back to the youth to the one with wisdom That’s why they suggest it perhaps is the king. I went round and round on this one myself I had to change my notes at least three times Like I had written out what I thought was an explanation of verse 14 referring to who it describes I had to change it. This was the third and final change, and this is what I’m sticking with, and I think it actually fits with the paragraph the best. But verse 14 is not then an explanation, I don’t believe, of why the king’s inflexibility was so inconsistent. If we see verse 14 as applying to the king, then what it’s saying is, it’s stupid that the king stopped listening to other advice.
he should have remembered where he came from. He should have remembered that he himself had been born poor in his own kingdom, he was in prison, and no way could he have gotten to the position of being a king by himself. So if he needed other people to help him along his own path, then he certainly should be listening to other people now. That would be how verse 14 fits if it’s referring to the king, but I think that rather it’s an explanation of why the youth’s rise to power was so amazing.
This is the ultimate rags to riches story. Now I think it’s the youth referring to the young, poor, wise man. Let me give you some reasons. One, because he’s the first one mentioned in the paragraph. And so while you do have to skip back over the king to get to him, he’s the first one mentioned in the paragraph, and as we’re trying to determine the point of any paragraph, the first place we look is where? I heard one person say it. At least all of you who are sophomores, juniors, and seniors who have taken my Bible class ought to know. The very first place you look to find the point of a paragraph is the first sentence. And because this is the very first thing mentioned in the first sentence, I think this is the point of the paragraph. That’s one reason I’d give for saying that verse 14 is described in the youth. But second, the youth is described as poor in verse 13 and then in verse 14. Specifically, though it’s a different Hebrew word, the idea of being poor is repeated. So again, it seems to
connect the same character described the same way in verses 13 and 14. Third verse 15 refers to the youth again. It’s youth translated youth in the ESV. It’s translated as the second lad in the NAS. I think that’s to compare it to the first who was the king. So that means that the only character who could be mentioned in all three verses is the youth. So he’s the first mentioned in verse 13. He’s described as poor twice from verse 13 and then verse 14 and then verse 15 talks about the youth again. So I think the entire paragraph is meant to describe this youth’s rise to power, his ascendancy to greatness and to taking over the kingdom. The youth rose from humble origins to take the throne.
This is exactly the kind of story that we love. This is what we plop down our money at the movie theater to see is some rags to riches coming out of nowhere story. If it would have been about women it would have been a lifetime movie because that’s what it’s always about. It’s about how pathetic and miserable and awful the woman’s life is and then about how she overcomes. It’s what every, every, and how bad men are as well. That’s what every Lifetime movie is about. If it was about girls, it’d be on Lifetime otherwise. This is the kind of thing they write movies about. This is what stories are made of. These are not only entertaining to us, they motivate us.
Everything was against this guy.
Everything was against him. He had been poor, been born poor in the very kingdom over which he now ruled. It’s not like he started out with riches. It’s not like he started out with other great resources to draw from. More than likely, when you’re born poor, that means that your parents are what? Poor. It’s not like your parents got a bunch of money and then somehow you get born poor. When you’re born poor, that means you’re born into a poor family. So even if his parents were around, they don’t seem to be providing very much help for him. So he’s got no money. He’s got no strong heritage. It gets worse. He had come out of prison. And the passage doesn’t tell us why he was in prison, if that was related to being poor, if that was for some other reason, maybe an unfair reason, doesn’t tell us how he got out of prison either. It just tells us that his situation was bleak. This guy had nothing. Everything was against him and he rises to power. So his rise to fame and fortune to power and popularity is amazing. And really the only clue we get as to how he did that was his wisdom. This kid, however old he was,
the word youth or young man as it’s translated in various translations, could be anywhere from maybe 15 to 30, 35, anywhere in there. If you remember the myth of adolescence messages, we talked about some of the different vocabulary for young men. He was a young man, a youth, And he had great wisdom. That’s the only characteristic we see about him that is significant and that helps us see how he got to his position. This was a gifted guy. Apparently had abilities, was able to win the acceptance not only of the crowd but even the position of the king. And it seems like as well one of the ways that he shows his wisdom was by getting input and counsel from other people.
the contrast between the wisdom and the foolishness of the youth and the king. The youth had wisdom, the king didn’t, the king didn’t have wisdom anymore. He was foolish because he didn’t listen to anybody. So again, I think it’s safe to assume that this youth not only had wisdom, but part of that included that he was listening to others. And his wisdom earned him not only prominence, that is popularity, wisdom actually earned him the position of being king. He pushed his way to power and popularity. That’s the explanation, but then Solomon gives us his observation on this.
And whereas, typically at this point in the movie, we’re celebrating, like, man, that’s amazing that’s what I want to do that’s what I want to be I want to be like that I want to you know I don’t have anything but I can be somebody and people some day they’re gonna look at me and maybe you don’t aspire to be the king but you aspire to have other people thinking that you’re great have some position of power or prestige or popularity. At this point in the movie where we got all the goosebumps, people were crying at how they’ve overcome these great obstacles and hurdles. And this is not the same observation and conclusion that Solomon makes on this rise to power. Verses 15 and 16, I saw all the living who move about under the sun along with that youth who was to stand in the King’s place There was no end of all the people all of whom he led and we finish off his rise to power He’s come from nowhere. He had no resources Now he is the king and if it’s not enough to say he’s the king it explains that
Everybody was following him Everybody loved this guy. There was no end to all the people whom he led. Countless people followed this youth, but despite the large following that he gained for himself, see, even in this story, not just the people who are reading about it years later, but the people who were learning about it even while he was alive started to root for him, you know, rooting for the underdog kind of thing.
And here he is. It gives us good, touchy feeling, warm buzz on the inside. That somebody like us could get to that position. Maybe we can too. And so everybody was following him in his rise to power, but the admiration of the crowd would not last. And then we see the fall of his popularity at the beginning of verse 16. Yet, those who come after him will not rejoice in him.” The point of the verse is that even though the wisdom of the young man brought him to the throne, and this just hurts, even though he had all of these great abilities and giftedness and wisdom that out of nowhere he rose to the position of king.
For all of that wisdom and gifts and abilities and talents, it didn’t make the people like him any longer than the first king. They definitely liked him for a while, but not forever. For all of his abilities and skill, he didn’t remain in the people’s favor. the end, people didn’t like him any better than they liked the old and foolish king. It’s just that the youth was the flavor of the day for a while. That was it. For all of his temporary popularity, he still went right on into obscurity and disfavor with the people. You know what this points out to us is that popularity at its best is very temporary. It doesn’t last.
What’s so amazing is that the first old and foolish king who had isolated himself away from other people is actually no worse than this guy who got the popularity of the crowd. Because while the first old and foolish king isolated and cut himself off from others, this new king, the crowd, cut him off. And so both end up isolated. The wise king and the foolish king neither ends up in a better situation. And as is typical then in the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon gives us his conclusion on the whole process. Surely this also is vanity and a striving after wind. Power and popularity, position and having a crowd following you and thinking that you’re great, that is so empty and meaningless.
It cannot provide you any true satisfaction whatsoever. of the characters in this story end up being more than just points on a timeline. Nobody remembers the old and foolish king. Nobody really remembers or cares about the youth who rose up in this amazing story. Nobody cares about either one of them anymore.
Two things stand out to me about this passage. I’m going to call these ones to grow on. Those were the Saturday morning commercials when I was a kid. And in between the cartoons, the Muppet Babies and the whatever else it was that we were watching, these little commercials came on that were ones to grow on. These are your ones to grow on, your takeaways for this morning. First of all, and though this is not the primary point of the paragraph, I think we do clearly get some teaching on it, that power or position, we’d say, often hardens a person and so they stop listening to advice and the counsel of other people.
Do you know why that is? And I say power often hardens rather than to say that power always hardens because there are leaders who get to positions who do then do that in a wise way, but it often hardens you know why? Because people are proud and we’ll take any opportunity that we can to act like it. And we’ll take every opportunity we can to tell other people about how much we know and about how they should be quiet and listen to our great wisdom spouting forth from our mouths. One of the great perils that comes with power and position is getting too big for your britches. You run the risk, as the king in this story actually did, you run the risk of losing everything if you shut your ears off to those people who are faithful and wise counselors in your life.
I think preaching this message to teenagers, to the youths, is good because you’re at this point in your life where you’re getting more and more responsibility and you are learning more and more and you’re just physically capable of doing things that maybe you weren’t before and you get this idea that you don’t need anybody anymore. I think about seniors. Any upperclassmen, but seniors fall into this. When I was a senior in high school, you could tell me very little that I was interested in listening to. I was the proverbial hot snot on a gold bladder. And all the other Cole Boogers on paper plates could do whatever they wanted to do, because I was where it was at.
And I think that you’ll find as you go out there, you try to grab the world by its tail and pull it down and wrap it around and stick it in your pocket, that you actually are not going to amount to Jack’s squat. Because you actually don’t know everything that there is to know. I don’t know everything that there is to know. And don’t let your popularity or your position or your power go to your head so that you turn your ears off. You need that input from other people. Secondly, the second one to grow on is that popularity always passes. This is the always. Power doesn’t necessarily harden everybody, but I guarantee you that your popularity will pass.
That your great esteem and the crowds who are thinking you’re great will not always think that you’re great. Why is this? Because people are fickle. Fickle means always changing. constant variety, it’s constant movement, constant change, and they are fickle, they flip around from one thing to another like a little bug going around to different flowers. And so you may be the flower of the moment, but it’s only going to be a moment until the bug goes to some other flower. I think this has significance for us in two ways. One, It means that you ought not to follow the latest fad. And it means you ought to not try to be the latest fad.
Because it’s always going to shift and change. There’s no way to hold onto it, no way to keep it. You know, your options are to live your life following, we sang the song, I want to live my life following you, or you can choose to live your life always following the fad. You can always be changing in your life what you’re pursuing, what you’re passionate about, or you can stick to the one, to Christ. You can pursue the eternal Christ, or you can pursue temporary popularity, one that that is always shifting and changing, one that always is a rock and stays the same. In one of the commentaries that I read, this is, I thought this was brilliant.
This is by a guy named Doug Wilson. The currently unpopular are always replaced by those who are not yet unpopular. And Doug Wilson is the guy who said that. This one endless cycle of replacing the now unpopular with people who will be unpopular at some point. So yes, in between, there, you know, it’s like the top of the ferris wheel. Somebody’s always at the top of the ferris wheel for a moment while somebody else is getting off at the bottom. And you got people on their way up to the top, and you got people on their way back down to the bottom. always somebody up at the top, but they don’t stay there for very long.
And you know who’s going to replace them? The people who will get up there and then be unpopular themselves someday. The currently unpopular are always replaced by those who are just not yet unpopular. And that’s what we’re trying to pursue. That’s what we want to be. We maybe just want to get to our stage of unpopularity faster. I’ve never heard anybody say that. I just wanna pursue the position and the popularity so that I can just be done with that sooner and have people not think I’m great anymore.
Then I will have arrived. No, everybody has this belief that they get to the top and then they get to stay there. That’s just not the case. They get to the top, they stop listening to others, they become untouchable and inaccessible from council and in that process they lose what they had attained and it’s all meaningless and empty and striving after wind. Our televisions are literally filled with hour after hour of shows describing this process. We have entire series of shows built on this idea of who’s going to be famous this 15 minutes. And then the season is done and they have to start again with a new person and a new 15 minutes. It’s more than just the television that we’re watching. It’s the hallways at the schools that you’re attending. Students who think life would just be better and more satisfying if they were just more popular.
Even if you get to that point, it doesn’t satisfy and it’s definitely not going to last. You may ride the favor wave that is of being in other people’s favor. You may ride that wave for a while, but ultimately that wave is going to crash. And it’s emptiness and vanity and striving after wind. What’s the opposite? Well, it’s to look to Christ away from the world. It is to set your hopes and your desires and your affection on His praise and recognizing His position rather than for you to try to get all that you can under the Son and have people think that you’re great. It’s about living your life so that people realize Christ is great.
And that is where true genuine satisfaction and joy is found looking beyond the Son. And Father, help us to do that. Help us to be consumed with a vision and an understanding and a love for Christ that causes this discussion on popularity literally to just fade away. Help us to truly grasp the real priorities. Help us see the temporary nature of everything that is here that is just passing away, including position, power, popularity. Help us to live for way more than any of those things. To live for your son in his name we pray. Amen.