Wisdom and Making Wise Choices: Ecclesiastes 7:15 - 8:1

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Bible Guys. I'm Chris, this is Jeff, and we together are guys who like the Bible. Big fans of the Bible. Yep, yep, I agree with that, big fan, big fang highly recommend it. Yes, yes, yes, And so we should call our show the Bible Guys. Yeah, you know what, it's a it's a it's a good name, okay, but but but we needed something else, just a little bit more, a little flair. Oh, we can say daily daily, the Daily Bible Guys. Okay, even even though it's not every day. It's not every day. By the way, I had, I had a lady good friend, knowing them for years, and she's now a greeter at Heritage, and so she stands by the doors and sometimes between the services where we preach at I'll walk out and I'll say hi to people and such. So she she catches me and she says, hey, can can the Bible guys do something on Saturday? And I said, I said why she goes? Well, she goes, I come here on Sundays. So she goes, I hear you guys on Sunday, she goes. Then I hear you Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, she goes. And I realized that Saturday is the only day I don't hear you. And I thought to myself, I can't believe you want more. It's six out of seven days, right And she by the way she's listening, she knows exactly who she is right now. And then I had you know on our staff. He's on our staff. And he says, we're sitting at one of the staff meetings and I said something about the Bible, guys, and he goes, I've never listened to the Bible guys. And I said, oh really, I said, you don't really listen, and he goes, dude, he goes, I serve all four services on Sunday and he goes, sometimes. I listen to you for four hours. He goes, that's enough for my week. Ye not everybody's a fan. I just thought to myself, I thought that is so funny. And then and then Ryan looks and goes, he just said, that your face, but. I'm not going to tell you who it is. It didn't say it to my face, right, right. It'd be rude for me to say it. Was though, right, Yeah, just give me his initials. It's Zachary. It doesn't matter because he won't be listening. Yeah, yeah, exactly. He doesn't know. He doesn't know everybody. When we call him in and fire m, I'll have no idea what just happened. Yeah, but everybody in the staff just walk by and be like, boom, just boot Zachary. Yeah, that's right, that's so funny. That's funny. Well, so, hey, I recommend it to I had somebody come and tell me the same thing. Hey, we need you to do something on Saturdays, and I said, listen on the Heritage Church dot com website, we have like six years worth of Sunday messages. How about you go back. And yeah, it just started at the beginning to start with and get a reminder. Are you doing everything you've ever heard of? Teach? No, go back to the beginning. Right, that'll be good because that messages for you. Give us a day off, lady. That's so funny. Hey, and thank you by the way for the compliment. It's wonderful. Very like we're going to do. A segment called and it's a very quick segment. Who's most likely? Who's most likely? I like these I'm trying to think of a new tune. Oh, you're trying to sing it like mail Bag. Yeah. No, I didn't try to sing it like Mailbags. I had a new tune, but it didn't work. Let's go on. No, it was sort of wild. Yeah, so we're going to just go ahead and try to decide quickly. There's only five questions. I'll do the first one. Here goes do it? Who's most likely to move to a different country on a whim? This guy? Yeah, of course, it's not even close. Me me, me, me, it is not even Listen. Hey, the fact that you went to Costa Rica for your sabbatical and. You're like, oh, I take my whole family cost Rica. We hung out, it was great. My wife is like, we've got a month, right. My wife says, I don't even want to go out of the country period ever. Yeah, because you know, I'm on the board of this organization in the Dominican Republic, and I can. I can go there and stay in a nice place for free. Sometimes if I tried and uh, and I said, hey, would you want to go, and she goes. I don't. I don't want to go there. I don't want to go out of the country. I think it's it's pretty and it's free. She's like, nah, yeah, I shouldn't want to. My wife likes to go. And on a regular basis, we're like, let's buy a place in Portugal, or let's. Buy a place in Panama. You know, yeah, because every once in a while you'll hear somebody I have a friend who got a condo in Florida. Yeah, And I was like, I don't think I want to condo one. Condos in Florida are fortune yeah by a condo and Panama for like one tenth of what it cost to buy, right, So exactly, I was like, hey, let's do that, and everyone's we never have and we probably never will. But we talked about a lot. Okay, who's most likely to become a mad scientist? I'm gonna say me, is it you you think so? Is it? Well? Well, it depends. I mean, the scientist part is the thing that throws me. But the insanity part totally makes sense. Yes, you're most likely to go and say, okay, let's just leave it at that. Yeah, Well, the more hectic, uh, you know. And I picture also the spontaneity of somebody who's like a mad scientist, like the lifestyle, you know. And and I think that fits me more than does you. I had. I had a friend who had a His dad was a scientist kind of guy, yeah, and so he always was buying him, you know, the chemical sets, the chemistry sets, but his dad would supplement the chemistry sets with all kinds of other stuff you normally don't get in kids chemistry sets. So I found myself we were like seventh or eighth grade, and at that point, now his dad's trusting with some pretty significant things. We could blow stuff up, right, And I found myself becoming somewhat moniacal with trying to find ways to blow stuff up right in the backyard. I changed my answer immediately. I just was like, oh man, And I remember thinking this is not good for me, right, Like, if we'd had the Internet, I think we would have blown up his entire block right right. But so we my mom and dad had bought me a. Brand new You remember back in the day when you'd wear like your your athletic jackets and it'd have all your patches on it. Your starter for this or that or whatever. So I had one of those. So this must have been ninth grade because I was a starter in ninth grade and I had one of those brand new jackets. We were doing some stuff in the garage and this thing exploded on us and ate my coat. It was brand new, and we were like, I told you, I've told you before. We didn't have any money. You had a letterman jacket. And I had a letterman jacket on and it ate holes through my coat all over the place and it was bad. But yeah, I found myself being very attracted not to chemistry, yeah, but to. What chemistry can do. I changed my answer immediately. All right, Number three, who's most likely to keep a secret for years without anyone knowing? Neither of us? We can't keep secrets. Yeah, I was. I was going to say, I've only kept one major secret that somebody. Did not ask me to keep. Oh really, And I thought, you know what, I'm gon I'm gonna decide not to sure that was that. I'm not telling no. Okay, who's most likely to become a professional gamer? Oh? Gee, wiz me me, of course? Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, because you you're actually like high ranked something or the other. Yeah. Call of Duty Mobile, Yeah, yeah, I was for a little while. I was in the top half percentile in the world ranked. Yeah. I haven't played in quite a while, but when I when I play, I get really obsessive. And then I told you I won a video game tournament. Yeah, I was the only adult that won it. And so they wind up calling me because it was all throughout the country. I show up. My sons were at this this video game thing. They wanted me to play. So I sit down a play. I wind up winning, and I've never played this game before, but I wind up winning. And then a. Couple weeks later they called me and we're gonna fly me and my uh my guardian down to Dallas for the World Championships. And I was like, well, oh, instead of a guardian, can I bring my wife? And the lady goes, how old are you, Jeffrey because it was the Jeffrey on the thing, And I said, well, I'm forty. I can't remember like forty three. She's like what, And I said, are there not any other adults? And she said, well, you're gonna be old this one there. And I said, well, what's the average age, and she said most of them are like fifteen. So I didn't. I didn't go. But it's the World Championships. Yeah yeah, so yeah, that's hilarious. That's funny. That was inadvertent and I didn't do it, but they sent me a bunch of prizes, so it's cool. Who was most likely to buy something on impulse? It and regretted immediately. I don't know. I don't do this often. I don't have many regrets, right right. Right, You're like, well, I don't like it, but it's okay, Yeah, I don't know. I don't I don't buy a lot of things impulsively. And I can't remember a time, you know, because you know, for. Me, are you a researcher? Yes, I think I am. I'm not like I should be right, like you know, like I just for instance, I just upgraded. My TV was very very old, very old, like fifteen years old. It was on the brink a flash a little bit. So I just got like a new TV literally this week. And I probably could have spent hours looking at all the TVs, but I didn't. All I did was like I researched it for like an hour, okay, and I was like, oh, this one's good. Yeah. I when I have a big. Purchase coming, I research and research and research and research. Do you watch YouTube videos and read reviews and see that's what I should do, And that's that's what I do. So I rarely regret, you know a thing. I usually talk myself into spending a little bit more to get a better one. Yeah, right, when you do the research. But yeah, I don't really and I don't do very many impulse buys. But when I do an impulse buy, it's like the other day, my wife wanted to go to this or it's a discount store, and she was looking for a couple of things. Well, then as I came around the corner into the kitchen area, they had a bunch of glass. Bowls, you know, like with lids that snap on them. Yeah, I was like, oh, I need these, And I looked and they were really inexpensive. I just filled the cart with them because we're in the process of moving right now anyways, and we didn't have anything that match to nothing that really fit in the thing. And then I couldn't find several of the lids. So I was really happy about that. So I got home and I wound up spending like fifty bucks on like three hundred dollars worth of storage. You know. It spent like fifty bucks and I was getting on going. I don't know if I needed those right now, So that might be a little bit of the regret, but it's way better than what we had and we needed to do something anyways, right, So yeah, in that moment, I don't know I needed to spend fifty bucks, but I was glad I. Did, to be honest with you, the TV that I just bought, I opted for the cheaper one. Oh wow. So and I bought a brand that I've never ever even heard of my entire life. Really, so it's like, so I'll let you say. You know, China spye On. You now what it is? Hey, I'll let you know in like a year, ask me whether I regret that purchase. But I did buy the cheaper. Well, talking about regrets, this entire book of Ecclesiastes is just Solomon airing out all of his regrets in life. You're so clever, Jef. You see that. When I grew up, I want to be as clever as you. Well, you'd have to grow up first, right, That's true. Okay, So Ecclesiastes, Chapter seven, verse fifteen. The thing that Solomon is most famous for is what chris wisdom? Wisdom, Yeah, even though he's like super billionaire rich, actually trillionaire rich probably. So even here now, you know, he's talked about the difficulties of how short life is and how wealth disappears, and you know, we waste our lives all these things. But now he's even challenging his own wisdom. And he says in verse fifteen, I've seen everything in this meaningless life, including the death of good young people and the long life of wicked people. So don't be too good or too wise. Man. He is miserable right now, isn't he right? Why destroy yourself? On the other hand, don't be too wicked either, Don't be a fool? Why die before your time? Pay attention to these instructions. For anyone who fears God will avoid both extremes. There's a conclusion. Yep, that's great. One wise person is stronger than ten leading citizens of a town. Not a single person on earth is always good and never since. Don't eavesdrop on others. You may hear your servant curse you, for you know, how often you yourself have cursed others. I've always tried my best to let wisdom guide my thoughts and actions. I said to myself, I am determined to be wise, But it didn't work. Wisdom is always distant and difficult to find. I searched everywhere, determined to find wisdom and to understand the reason for things. I was determined to prove to myself that wickedness is stupid and that foolishness is mad. I discovered that a seductive woman is a trap more bitter than death. Her passion is a snare, and her soft hands are chains. Those who are pleasing to God will escape her, but sinners will be caught in her snare. This is my conclusion, says the teacher. I discovered this after looking at the matter from every possible angle. Though I have searched repeatedly, I have not found what I was looking for. Only one out of a thousand men is virtuous, but not one woman. Wow Wow, But I did find this. God created people to be virtuous, but they have each turn to follow their own downward path. How wonderful to be wise to analyze and interpret things. Wisdom lights up a person's face softening its harshness. Well, I'm going to leave that to you, Chris. I'm gonna step out real quick. Yeah, for sure. Hey, have you ever seen somebody obviously you have take one verse out of context. Yes, And you know, you know how like we had a weight room. It was a yucky weight room at my college, Bible college, and they would always have like pictures of people benching, and then and then they put they take the verse I can do all things through Christ to strengthens me. It right, And by the way, I. Wonder it's a famous fighter that has that tattooed on him right now, And I'm like, really, yeah, I'm not sure that's what that passage means. And so tell everybody that versus mainly referring to what generosity right, yes, right, it's a generosity contentment conclusion. That's correct, right, and so and. So it's hilarious how people are like, I could do all things, So just put another plate. On this, bitch, I can do all things, baby, you know that's the way it is. Well, can you imagine somebody taking this one verse and putting it on. A poster by itself out of what was it? Only one out of the thousand men is virtuous, but not one woman. Ecclesiastes, Chapter seven, Verse number twenty seven or twenty eight. Hey, you know how sometimes people ask you to sign something, do you ever write a Bible verse next to it? Now? Yeah, sometimes I dare you to start writing that one grav just right. Ecclesiasts Chapter eight. By the way, side note, total side note. I saw a comedian who said that he wanted to sign a Bible verse, and and he guessed his Bible verse and he was like he put like psalms or something, and he's like, oh no, He's like, I don't really know any psalms. And he started to write it and he didn't know what to do, so he just made up a verse. And then he went home and he looked at it and it. Was like the worst possible verse ever. It was. It was just it was crazy. He goes, he goes, that person's gonna go home and look at that verse. It's just gonna be terrible. So talking about taking things out of out of context. In the Book of Acts, yeah, when Paul is getting ready to have his his Paula is on the ship and they wind up having a shipwreck. Yeah, there's a spot where when they pull out of the harbor, the Bible says, so we let her drive, talking about. The boat, Oh yeah, yeah yeah. And then you go a little further in the passage and it says, and so we're driven, right, and it was talking about the wind was blown really hard. But the end phrases and so we're driven. And then the last phrase in that section says, and all hope that we should be saved was then taken away. And so I preached a message when I was in Bible college against women drivers. Their first mistake was they let women drive. We let her drive, and when you let her, she will right. And so we're driven. And then what happens, it's on you. Now you're free to make your choices, you're not free to choose the consequences. I'll hope that we should be saved was a takeaway. And I preached it on a bus and it was only girls and me and one other preacher. Boy. Oh my god. So we preached that message and I got booed off the bus. Oh sure, So anyways, we said all that to say, this does is Solomon saying that there are no virtuous women. There's a great note here in. The Life Application Study Bible that I'd like to highlight, it says, did Solomon think women were not capable of being virtuous, meaning wise and good? No, because in the Book of Proverbs he personified wisdom as a responsible woman. The point of Solomon's statement is not that women are unwise, but that hardly anyone man or woman is upright before God. In his search, Solomon found that goodness and wisdom were almost as scarce among men as among women, even though men were given a religious education program in his culture, and women were not right. So they were all educated. In the synagogues and at the temple, right the men were, but not the women. In in fact, the verses saying, I have found only one in the thousand people who's wise in God's eyes. No, I've found even fewer than that. That's really what he's saying there, right, But he when he's sane, because you remember, right now, he's not in his right mind. I mean, I'm not saying he's insane, he's just not. At his best. Right when he's at his best. In the Book of Proverbs, he always uses the feminine to represent wisdom. Right right, you seek her and don't give up and all those kinds of things. He always uses the feminine side of wisdom to refer to. Wisdom, and he writes Proverbs thirty one, which were going to cover in the future. Yeah, I think which talks of which, which, by the way, is known as the what virtuous woman? Right, So yeah, it's not like he doesn't believe. There isn't a woman that can't be virtuous. And that's why I think that this book really is the result of him realizing his family's going to lose his kingdom because he gave into the temptations of the women that wanted him to build temples to other gods. He fell victim to the other kings pagan practices of having multiple wives, something that God never condoned. God spoke against it. God do not do it. Against it, and Solomon did it, and others before him, others before him have done this. You know, hey, kings have done it traditionally. So this is what I'm going to do. And by the way, wasn't it I don't know the exact numbers, but it's hundreds. It's like seven hundred. Wives, seven wives, So it said seven hundred royal wives, princesses from other places, and three hundred concubines, only. Three, just a thousand, I thought it was. And then it was for them that he built the temples to Molek, you know, the detestable God, and to Chimash and to Astroath and all of them. He built those for these women. So at his best he celebrates we're going to read this Proverbs chapter thirty one coming up pretty soon. He celebrates virtuous women, and he's like, man, when you get a good wife, you've got all the wealth of the world. Right. He talks about that all the time. But in this moment he's not at his best. In the book of Ecclesiastes, So this is why I'm always telling people. You can't take what he says here as all true. You're just taking this is how he feels right now. Your feelings are not always true. This is one of the most important things to learn from the Book of Ecclesiastes, is that your feelings are not always true. And in this moment is when he's not at his best. What is attempted to to blame other people these women. If I hadn't had these women in my life, I would have still been walking with God. Right, that's what he's blaming there. So so just understand this is not God's statement against women. This is Solomon saying, man, I messed up, but I'm going to blame the women for it. So my brain always goes to, like, have you ever met or sorry, have you ever seen the movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with Steve Martin? I don't think so. Okay, So it's just a con man, that's what it is. And so think about so he warns. Also in Solomon in Proverbs talks about stay away from the seductive woman. Right, she's a trap, And obviously he's that's what he's referring to. Is he talks about that, and he says, the seductive woman is a trap more bitter than death. Her passion is a snare, her soft hands are chains. And so think about this. If let's just say you're a woman who has been blessed with good looks, which there are plenty. Isn't it funny here we are thousands of years later. What is the same back then as the same now? Right, So women who are blessed with good looks understand that they can use their good looks to get free stuff, right, that happens in the culture, like it's happening right now, right now, it's happening right People are getting free stuff to good looking women all the time. Okay, it's the way it is, and the girls will be extra flirty or whatever. It's just if God has blessed you with that, you know that men will just succumb to that kind of thing. Well, imagine this. Imagine if you're the greatest, the greatest prize in the land, you're Solomon, and if you're a woman, who's going to be able to get Solomon to give them riches or give them whatever they want to do. So what I'm saying is this, I'm saying, Oh, I'm trying to make this statement. This when Solomon's referring to the seedctive woman, that's a trap, and that's trying to get him to do whatever that he doesn't want to do. We're talking like these are probably the best of the best. This is the dirty rotten scoundrel movie. That's what this is. That's what this is. Yeah, somebody trying to they're using what they have that he happens to be weak. Four, they're using that to get what they want. Yes, and he's feeling like he's getting taken advantage of it. Yes, and if I hadn't been for these women, I wouldn't have made these mistakes. Yes, that's his temptation to blame people. He is the richest man, right, he's and and so yeah, it's gonna be the prettiest woman in the kingdom, That's what it's going to be. And so the con women, all all that kind of stuff. So when he writes that, what I'm saying is this you and I. You ever hear Bill Burr, the comedian, He always people, you know, they condemned Tiger Woods, you know, and they were like, oh Tiger did this, this and that and everything else. And Bill Bilberr had this comedy bit and he goes, do. You know what it's like to leave your car. And and and walk over to the building and have all these people throw themselves at you that kind of fame and publicity. He's like, do you have any idea that kind of pressure this guy's under. He's like, yeah, the guy made a mistake. And he was sort of just trying to separate the idea that obviously, you know, nobody, nothing can justify Teacher Wood's action. That's right. But what he's what he's trying to do is he's trying to say you are not like him. Right, like you are not Your temptations aren't his temptations. No, not at all. And that's and that's really short of trying to say. This is what he's saying. I think that's his summary here Verses twenty three, twenty four. Right, he says, I've always tried my best to let wisdom guide my thoughts and actions. And I said to myself, I'm determined to be wise. But it didn't work, right, And he said, wisdom is always distant and difficult to find. There's a difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it. Yeah, right, wisdom, the only wisdom that's useful is the wisdom you apply. That's correct. It's a great station and only very wise that's useful. It's very wise, that is a wise state. So the only wisdom that's useful is the wisdom that you apply. And so he had all the wisdom in the world, but he also chose to indulge. How many times do this book does he say? I decided to do everything I could. Do, he said, denied myself nothing. Nothing, He says in this book, right, I indulged in every pleasure. Well, so the fact that he was wise did not necessarily always translate the wise behavior. And so it's not about sometimes Chris and you and I we kind of talk about this sometimes sometimes it's not just about what's on the inside. He ruined his life with what's on the outside. Right, That's how he ruined his life. So I need the inside to be right, but I also have to make choices on the outside every single day. And so what he's saying is it didn't work. I thought just having a really wise brain was going to solve all my wildest problem, all my problems, but instead I indulged in all the wildest things and it wounded up ruining my life. Yeah, and then so that's his lack of application of wisdom is what ruined his life. And I think also it's one of the reasons why we can sort of gather or you know, deduct that some of these things he's had to learn through experience. Yes, Right, so. He gets the end of his life and he goes, Okay, now I understand there. So there's wisdom on the front end, and then there's there's also wisdom with bad life experience. That's right. And by the way, listening. To someone who's older and wiser than you who says, please, don't make the same mistakes that I've made. If you're young and you're listening to this podcast, please lean into that, because truly, you know, you and I both we've heard our parents and our mentors say certain things and then we decide to either ignore them or forget about them, or not pay attention to them, and then two decades later we go, oh, yeah, yeah, that was probably a lot more wise than I was thinking at the time. That's right. When I was twenty one. That's right. Well, I told you about my son when he told me I'm not as dumb as I used to be. Right, he's thirty, he'll be thirty just a couple of months. And yeah, he told me. You know, you as dumb as you used to be. As you grow up, you start realizing, wow, these these older people around your wife. So that's right, all right, Well, hey, that is our time for sure, and we will see you next time on the Bible guys. H m hm hm Hm