What Can Wisdom Do for You?

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, you can take out your copy of God’s Word. Turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 9. As long as I don’t have a heart attack, time and chance don’t happen to me in the next 30 or so minutes, then we might actually finish this very chapter today. Leaving us only three left, which means we’ve covered nine chapters in like three years, So we ought to be able to cover the next three chapters in at least another two or three years, no doubt. One of the ways that I connect with Solomon is that he typically employs the yeah but argument. For example, in chapter 9 verses 1 through 6, we studied that a couple weeks ago, he said we’re all going to die.

But then in chapter 9 verses 7 through 10, the very next paragraph he says, yeah, but we can still enjoy eating and dressing up and relationships and hard work. Yeah, there’s unpleasant news that we’re all going to die, but there’s really positive news as well because there are real opportunities under the sun for gladness. Of course, he doesn’t stop there because, yeah, there are joys in the process, Ecclesiastes 9, 7 through 10, yeah, but we can’t do anything ourselves to guarantee that joy, verses 11 and 12. Yeah, there is some good news, but there’s also bad news.

The only thing Solomon seems to have his mind made up about is that when he sees something either negative or positive, he’s going to then quickly say the opposite. It’s kind of like the person who can’t leave the light switch alone. If it’s up, they got to move it down. If it’s down, they got to move it into the other position. And the yo-yo continues in today’s passage as the preacher spins from the negative. Just catch this. Are you ready? He spins from the negative to the positive, to the negative, to the positive, the negative to the positive to the negative, or in other words, six yeah buts in this passage.

Now that is as up and down as you could possibly be, but it goes back and forth. It’s one of the reasons, like I said, that I like Solomon. I tend to say the opposite. If you tell me it’s a particular color, I’ll probably suggest it’s another one. If you tell me that it’s up. I’m likely to say, no it’s not. You can tell me good news, I’ll remind you of the bad news, you can tell me bad news, I’ll remind you of the good news. So I’m totally tracking with this preacher, and hopefully we’ll all be able to do that as we study through these paragraphs. Now these two paragraphs, chapter 9, verses 13 through 16, and then verses 17 through 18 are all about wisdom. And wisdom obviously is a subject that Solomon knew a little something about. In fact, he was really divinely qualified to write about wisdom. And verses 13 through 16 tell us a story about the power of wisdom. And then verses 17 and 18 are two proverbial sayings about the power of wisdom. But both of these little snippets show what wisdom can do for you. Wisdom is way better than UPS. And that’s

what can Brown do for you. Wisdom is way more powerful than UPS. What can wisdom do for you? So verses 13 through 16 tell us a great wisdom story. A great wisdom story. verse 13. I have also seen this example of wisdom under the sun and it seemed 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. But there was found in it a poor wise man and he by his wisdom delivered the city yet no 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.”

What we have then in verses 13 through 16 is this example story told by Solomon to demonstrate the great power that wisdom has and the even greater absurdity that wisdom is disregarded. Wisdom has amazing power even to deliver a city against all odds, but yet after the deliverance, wisdom is disregarded. In verse 13, he kind of gives us the preface to his story. As is typical in Ecclesiastes, Solomon prefaces the account, the story, by reminding his readers where he learned this lesson. Look at verse 13 again. I have also seen this example of wisdom under the sun, and it seemed great to me. Now it’s a clue that he says, I have seen this example.

The fact that he says that is a clue for us that what follows is a true story and not a parable or some other fictional account. Because he gives so few details about the story, it’s virtually impossible to identify the historical characters or the actual location, even though in all the commentaries that I read, a bunch of them list off half a dozen historical possibilities. But the fact that he says, I have seen this, means that it was a true story. This is not something that he made up just to make a point. This is an actual story that he saw. But even though we don’t know all the details, we do know that this story describes a reality under the sun.

that this is something that is not atypical to find in our experience. And even more than knowing that it took place under the sun, we know that this story made quite an impression on Solomon. Look at the end of verse 13 when he says, and it seemed great to me. The adjective great describes something that was significant, that was worthy of attention, something that stood out. And I was just trying to imagine what it would actually take to impress Solomon. Out of all the things he had accomplished, for all the wisdom that he had, can you imagine what it would actually take to stand out to him, to impress him, to make an impression on him?

This was a significant story that he saw that he was familiar with, and I think more More than anything else, what stood out to him, what impressed him, or what made an impression on him about this story, is the absurd ending. And we’ll see that in just a couple minutes. So that’s the preface verse 13. Verse 14 gives us the adversary and the conflict. Like any good narrative, the author sets the stage.

He tells us where it’s happening, gives us some background, some details, and then then pulls the curtain back to reveal the conflict and the bad guy. Every Lifetime movie has a bad guy, and it’s typically a guy because guys are bad on Lifetime. But in any good story, you got the conflict and the bad guy, the adversary. Verse 14, 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. What we have here is a huge mismatch. This is as lopsided a battle as you could possibly imagine since it was a little city with few men against a great king with considerable resources, enough resources to build great siege works.

Now the city is not identified, we’re not told the name of the city or where it is specifically, but even though it’s not identified, it is described as small. And I think probably we can figure out from the context that it was in a distant or remote location. And the reason that I say that is because for the king to come and try to attack this city, he’s likely not to attack a city where there’s another big city or other cities near it where somehow they could have called for help. And so I think this was a small and probably remote city limited then in manpower. It only had a few people in it. Limited in manpower and resources. Though it must not have been totally insignificant. There must have been something significant about this city, not totally insignificant, though it was small and remote, there must have been something about the city that the king wanted.

So it must have been big enough that the king desired it and so he came to make attack against it. And also, I think that this city must have been big enough to have some type of fortified wall around the city, and again, just ten people living out in the wilderness would they would not have built a wall around their two tents for the two families that were living in it so even though it was a small city with few men it must have been big enough for there to have been a fortified wall around and I say that because if there wasn’t a wall there would be no reason for this description about building siege works or be sieging the city and I’ll explain more about that here in just a second because when a city wouldn’t surrender and couldn’t be taken easily by walking down Main Street or by a frontal kind of assault, the city would be surrounded in order to prevent people in the town from escaping, as well as to prevent any new provisions or people or resources from being brought into the city.

Some of this kind of battle against the city where you would surround the city, You didn’t necessarily have to assault it, you could just wait for attrition, which means you could wait for the people to get hungry enough for the food to run out that they would either die of hunger and starvation if you just waited long enough, or you could wait long enough so that they were weak enough for you to have a successful attack. In fact, the Hebrew word in verse 14 that’s translated besieged, that’s a word we just got to start using more, I think, because that’s fun to say. Besieged, that’s in the ESV and in the New American Standard, the word besieged, that Hebrew word has the idea of surrounding, of encompassing, and typically then with some kind of hostile intent behind it.

And often what you do is you’d surround the city and then you would build a siege tower. And the ESV translates it siege works. You would build a siege tower, that’s the name for it, as high or higher than the walls that were protecting the city so that either you could go up into that tower and spy down into the city and see what they were doing or so that you could actually even fire down upon the guys, maybe who are at the top of the wall or who were defending that section of the wall, that would have been much more successful than trying to lean your ladder up against the wall itself when all they got to do is just pour hot stuff down on you or drop big boulders down over on you.

But if you build a tower a little bit further away, well then it was not as easy for them to defend against those siege works. What’s significant though is that though this powerful king had soldiers and supplies to build great siege works, he didn’t get any further than beseizing. Doesn’t mean that he was successful in assaulting or attacking. Just means he surrounded the city and perhaps built this great tower or these siege works. But because of one wise man, this was the little city that could. I was thinking maybe after this whole event, probably the green sign out in front was, you know, Little City, population 400, the little city that could.

That was probably their town motto after this event. Well, that’s the adversary in the conflict. This great king comes, besieges the city, and in verse 15 we see the hero and the climax of the story because also like any good lifetime movie there’s a hero, someone who overcomes all the odds and wins the victory. So now we meet the good guy in verse 15. But there was found in it in that small little city a poor wise man and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Now our hero in this story comes out of nowhere. Out of nowhere he was a nobody and unknown. He had no political position. He had no social standing. Instead, he was poor.

And to say that he was found, you know, in this little city was found, a poor wise man, means that he was not previously known or well-known with any kind of standing whatsoever. But though he was poor in possessions, he obviously was rich in wisdom. Solomon does not tell us how the man got his wisdom or what the wise plan was or even I think the thing I really want to know is I don’t really care about the tactic that he came up with that would be cool to know Solomon doesn’t tell us any of that how the man came to get his wisdom doesn’t tell us what the plan was the wise plan was Solomon especially doesn’t tell us this what I really wish he could have explained is how the guy got anybody even to listen to him here’s this poor unknown guy with no standing comes up with the plan. Well, I’ve had lots of plans.

And as far as I’m concerned, they’ve been really wise, masterful plans. But a lot of people don’t listen. So that is as much as anything what I’d like to know is how he even got anybody to listen to him. But somehow, somehow by his wisdom he delivered the city. The entire city escaped destruction and slipped out of the hands of their enemies due to the power of wisdom. We are totally left guessing at how it happened, but our mouths are gaping. They are wide open. Our jaws are on the floor. That is ridiculous. That’s crazy that one poor, unknown guy could have come up with a plan to save the entire city. Against all odds, the unbelievable happened.

And somehow the underdog defended himself against the favorite even when he didn’t have a chance. But of course that goes back to chapter 9 verse 11 where the battle doesn’t always go to the strong. Time and chance happened to all. In this case time and chance worked in the favor of the underdog. Now as much as you can, I don’t know maybe we need to think about Marysville having a big wall around it. and the French coming with their catapults trying to break into Marysville to get to Walmart. If that’s what you need to think about to help you, so be it. Now realize if the if the king wins, if the king breaks through and assault and defeats our city, we are likely to die. That’s the consequence, the worst possible consequence. The best consequence when a king comes to take over your city, if he doesn’t kill you, he’s probably at least then going to make you into slaves.

He’s going to take all of your stuff, you will have nothing left, but if you do get to live, you’ll have to work for him, probably not under great conditions. That would have been the consequences of them being defeated by this king. So it’s almost impossible for us in our security to even think about what that would be like, but try to imagine what kind of joy, what kind of exhilaration you would have as a townsperson when this great, like the fear that you had when you found out what was going on and the total relief and joy that you got when the the city was delivered. It would have been party time. It would have brought the city together probably like never before. You think about after 9-11, it didn’t matter age, race, religion, those kinds of things did not matter for a while after 9-11 because as Americans we were attacked. And so as Americans we had this great unity of purpose. People started care less about little bickering for a while. This would have been a party for them to have

been delivered and no doubt the poor man himself would have ridden the wave of popularity to the top. And Solomon says, yeah, wisdom is powerful. Yeah, but who cares? As brutal, I could have done without this end to the story because at the end of verse 15, yet no one remembered that poor man. Some unidentified amount of time afterward, the town people went back to work, and they got back into their routines, and forgot all about the drama and the deliverance, and the poor man faded again into the background. When you’re out of options, you’ll give anything for wisdom. Trying to think of an illustration to describe that.

A person will pay 50 bucks for an umbrella in a thunderstorm, but sunshine makes you forget about what it was like when you were wet. You care less about the umbrella at that point. And so the market for wisdom seems to be very narrow. No one remembered that poor man. It isn’t right that they forgot, but it is reality. Once you’re at the top, even if you have done amazing things that have helped all kinds of people out. There’s no place else to go but down and a hero is soon forgotten.

Verse 16 gives us Solomon’s epilogue, the final comments on the story. And he changes back and forth twice just in this verse. Yeah, but wisdom is powerful. Yeah, but still nobody remembers. It does both things in verse 16. I say that wisdom is better than might, but though the poor man’s wisdom is despised and his words are not heard. First part, wisdom is better than might. That’s a proven point. That’s what the story just told us and just demonstrated, but people forget. The last half of verse 16 basically repeats the last sentence of verse 15. The poor man’s wisdom is despised and his words are not heard. This doesn’t mean that they never listened. The story said that they had listened at one point. It means that they stopped listening. Whereas, at least for a little bit of time, they looked to the poor man for help. Now they looked down on the wise man. They despised the poor man. They didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. After they got what they wanted, they didn’t have any more need for him. I

really think that’s probably even worse because now they had it and they were ignoring it. This disregard for wisdom, even after it delivered the city, I think is what makes such a great impression on Solomon. What do you mean? They just just forgot the guy. He delivered your lives. He protected the entire city. How in the world could you forget about him and let him fade back into the background? You owe him your very life. Oh, but now that you don’t need him, you don’t need his wisdom. You look down on him. In light of this story, what can wisdom do for you? That’s the title of the message. That’s the primary question in light of this story. What can wisdom do for you? And here’s the answer. There’s both a thing it can do and a thing it can’t do. What wisdom can do for you is to help you overcome weakness and disadvantage and trouble. That is how powerful wisdom is. It can help you overcome weakness and disadvantage and trouble. That’s the point of the story that wisdom has that ability. But, wisdom cannot guarantee that people will keep listening to you forever.

It has amazing power and it can be so quickly forgotten. It can help you, it can protect you, it can’t help you win, but ultimately it can’t guarantee your position. So if you don’t have wisdom, you should get it. If you do have wisdom, you should use it. But even though wisdom has the power to deliver, it is not certain to keep you at the top of the ladder. It’s kind of like your batting average. Batting average is great. I mean, if you have a good batting average, that means that you have been successful in the past every time you’ve been up to bat. But just because you got eight hits out of ten tries doesn’t mean that this time you’re not even going to strike out. You might not only not get a hit, you might look like an idiot. And so wisdom is great, it has significant power, but it doesn’t actually mean that you’re going to have a position of influence and people are going to listen to forever, you forever, or even care that you helped them in the past.

That’s the story about wisdom. Then verses 17 and 18 give us two wisdom sayings. We saw a wisdom story, now we get two wisdom sayings. And verses 17 and 18 continue Solomon’s explanation of what wisdom can do for you.

He’s finished with his story and he’s continuing his argument, but he’s not really making a comment about the story even though there’s some connection. Verse 17 verse 18, two wisdom sayings, the words of the wise, heard and quiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools. Verse 18, wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good. So two ideas here, one in each verse, number one, wisdom is louder than volume. Wisdom is louder than volume and I was trying, whether successfully or not, to have a little play on words there. Wisdom is louder than volume. The words of the wise, heard, and quiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools. Influence, making an impact, or that’s just a way to say, watching wisdom at work doesn’t require position. You can have great influence without having some position of authority, specifically he talks about rulers here, you don’t have to be a ruler to be heard. The poor man obviously was an example of that. Influence is also not about

volume. Shouting above the crowd, in particular when it’s a crowd of fools, shouting above a bunch of fools is no sure influence. In fact, wisdom rarely comes from loud mouths. But wisdom does make a lot of noise in the sense that it does make a pretty big difference when you have it. Influence comes when teachable people, not fools, shut their mouths at least long enough, that’s the idea of the quiet, when teachable people shut their mouths at least long enough to listen and to hear the words of wisdom. So the words of the wise, heard, and quiet make an impact. They are better. They are worth hearing. They are valuable.

They make a difference. Wise man doesn’t have to yell to be heard. Number two, wisdom is mightily vulnerable. And again, I intend to set those things up as they shouldn’t really go together. But between the first and the second half of the verse, those are the points Solomon makes. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good. Again the story in verses 13-16 demonstrates it proves, it establishes that wisdom is better than weapons of war. The great king with all of his resources, with all of his soldiers, was not able to overcome one insignificant poor man’s wisdom. Sometimes you can overcome your opponent by outsmarting him rather than by just collecting and gathering and using bigger guns.

Wisdom is more mighty. It is better. stronger than weaponry. Yeah, that’s true, but one sinner destroys much good. This contrast is part of the reason I don’t think the sayings in verse 17 and 18 are necessarily comments on the story in verses 13 through 16 because this is an entirely new character that’s introduced. This was not a character that we saw in the story. Here we’re greeted with the sinner. So what’s the point? If it’s not just to finish talking about the story. I think the point is that for as mighty as wisdom is, it’s also really vulnerable. It is susceptible to being destroyed. Wisdom is very powerful. Yeah, one wise man can deliver an ill-equipped, unprepared city. That was the point of the story. Not only that, wisdom is more powerful than position and can create an environment of much good. That’s the end of verse 18.

Much good has been done. But all it takes is one idiot to mess the whole thing up. One sinner, one fool, one selfish person. It actually takes too long to try to think of all of the different ways one person can mess it up for everybody. The number of times I’ve given an assignment to a class based on one fool, one loud mouth selfish fool in the class that has then caused the entire class to suffer consequences. That’s happened a good amount of times. That’s one of the immediate examples that comes to mind. All All it takes is just one. For as powerful as wisdom is, that one person can deliver an entire city, all it takes is one person basically then to destroy an entire city.

One wise person in the midst of a bunch of fools can have an impact, but one fool in the midst of a bunch of wise people likewise can have a great impact. You realize wisdom would work really well if it wasn’t for sin. If we just didn’t have sin to deal with, wisdom would probably always work. But sin comes in, ruins it all. So like we asked about the story, what can wisdom do for you? In light of these two sayings, that wisdom is louder than volume, that wisdom is mightily vulnerable, what can wisdom do for you? It can win you great influence and create much good. That is the power of wisdom. Yeah, but wisdom cannot guarantee that someone else won’t mess up everything you worked for.

Both things are true. Wisdom will give you great influence, can help you establish an environment where all kinds of good stuff is taking place, but all it takes is just one sinner, one fool, one idiot to come in and just turn all the tables over. Well, what’s the point then of these two paragraphs? Obviously, it tells us that wisdom is powerful, but I think Solomon’s bottom line is that for as powerful as wisdom is, wisdom is not God. I think even for us as believers, as Christians, we hear about the value of the power of wisdom and so we aim to get wisdom, we pursue wisdom, and that’s right. But then we start to depend on our wisdom, rather than to get wisdom and depend on God.

As we saw last week, bread and riches and favor don’t always go to the wise. Just because you’re wise doesn’t mean you’re going to win, and even if you do win, it doesn’t mean they’re going to remember you later. And just because you do win and they remember you later doesn’t mean one other idiot isn’t going to come in and just mess up everything you did. Wisdom is powerful, but wisdom is not God. The proper response to knowing these things is not to despise wisdom, it is to depend on God. The key to life under the sun in Ecclesiastes is what? Two words. Fear God. For all of the wisdom that Solomon had, that’s what he brings it back down to.

He boils it down to every time. Wisdom is great. You’re still going to die. Wisdom is powerful, but it’s not invulnerable. Wisdom is great, but don’t depend on your wisdom. Fear God. What’s beautiful about that fact is the beginning of wisdom is what? Come on. The fear of the Lord. And so proper true wisdom reckons with the fact that we don’t depend on wisdom, but instead we depend on and submit to God. We fear God. That in fact is the beginning of wisdom. All of the yeah buts that Solomon gives here are not intended to whack us around like a pinball, but they are intended to get us to land on the Lord. Get wisdom.

Wisdom is amazingly powerful, but don’t depend on your wisdom. Depend on God. Land on Him. As you head off into small groups here in just a moment, hopefully you have some of your own questions that you want to raise and discuss here. Just a few suggestions that you may want to talk through. Is wisdom an advantage? Is there actually any advantage? Are there benefits to wisdom? Why or why not? If you’re going to answer that question solemnly, you’re going to have to say that there are and there aren’t advantages. Talk through what those are. Here’s a very applicable question and that is, are you pursuing wisdom? Are you yourself going, seeking, getting wisdom?

Why are you doing that? Or potentially in a lot of your cases, why are you not trying to get wisdom? And those of you who are, when are you doing that? Are you only going to get wisdom when the city’s being attacked? When it’s raining outside? When you’re in trouble? When are you going to get the wisdom? And then how are you doing that? What’s your source? Or sources to get wisdom? And then third, and I fear that this is probably the question that you may need to start with based on my most recent small group visit and discussion, do you even care that the city is being attacked? Like are you even opening your eyes enough to know that there’s trouble?

Because there is trouble. And obviously then in that question I’m speaking figuratively about the city, but do you even recognize, do you even care that the city is being attacked and that you need a plan and that you need wisdom to protect the city? Some of you are not caring about wisdom at all. And right before you leave I want you to look over Proverbs 1. Proverbs 1, the last part is all about the call of lady wisdom, her call for people without wisdom to come and get it. However, look at verse 24, because I have called and you refuse to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity.

I will mock when terror strikes you, when terror strikes you like a storm, and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you, then they will call upon me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but will not find me, because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way and have their fill of their own devices.” You ignore the fact that the city is in trouble long enough when you finally get to the point where you realize it may end up being too late. If you ignore it and disregard the calls of wisdom, we have a story about the power of wisdom, these two to sayings about how much influence and difference wisdom can make.

Do you even care that the city is being attacked? Father help us. Obviously, those who have no spiritual life don’t care about the condition of the city. I ask that you would open their eyes and open their ears and cause them to get serious. For those of us who do recognize our need for wisdom, help us to get it, pursue it all the time from you, but never to depend on wisdom, but to depend on you. This is the kind of life approach that we want to have. Living in wisdom, living in the fear of you. Ultimately, whether we then succeed or not, we’ll have joy because we have you. And we pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.