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Qoheleth says some things are not as certain as we might think:

So, friends, would you take your Bible today? We're going to look at Ecclesiastes 9:11 to 18 and see what Qoheleth has for us today. If you haven't heard this explanation before, the man who wrote this book, who most people think is Solomon, calls himself Qoheleth, the one who gathers people to give them wisdom. And so I've been using that name habitually for them. For him and then people coming out to me saying I've never met Qoheleth, who do you keep talking about here?

That's who it is. So the guy who wrote this book of Ecclesiastes?

Ecclesiastes 9:11, “I again saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, and the battle is not to the warriors, and neither is bread to the wise, nor wealth to the discerning, nor favor to men of ability for time and chance to overtake them.

12) Moreover, man does not know his time. Like fish caught in a treacherous net and birds trapped in a snare, so the sons of man are entrapped, ensnared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls on them.”

Quite a depressing start, doesn't get much better.

13) “Also I came to see wisdom under the sun and it impressed me.”

14) “There was a small city with few men in it, and a great king came to it,

surrounded it and constructed a large siege against it.”

15) “But there was found in it a poor wise man, and he delivered the city by his wisdom, yet no one remembered that poor man.”

16 “So I said wisdom is better than strength. But the wisdom of the poor man is despised, and his words are not heeded.”

17) “The words of the wise, heard in quietness, are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools.”

18 “Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one Sinner destroys much good.”

Father, guide us as we think together about this paragraph. We need your Spirit to teach us. We open our hearts toward You, Father. We want to be people who hear and obey. We want to be people who honor you and to become more like your son, and to that end we commit our time to you and we need your help in Jesus name, Amen.

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If I could just lose 20 lbs. If I could just get my kids out of college, if I could just pay off my car, if I could just get my garage cleaned up, if I could just get that promotion, if I could just fill in the blank, whatever. It's a surefire, you can't miss the way for life to be good for me. There's people talking to me and I don't have my hearing aids and I can't even hear them. So here's what the thought, friends, What if? There's no sure fire stuff in fact, Qoheleth is going to say today. There isn't a surefire thing. In fact, you're going to be foolish if you dive into all these surefire things. There is nothing that will absolutely make life work. A surefire scheme is a fool's game. And he goes into this passage to say to us, here's a lot of things that should work, and sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. And so he says, here's some things that are not as certain as you might think.

●    Giftedness is no guarantee of success. You can be crazy gifted. (V. 11)

Crazy good at stuff and not successful at all. Van Gogh, one of the most amazing painters who ever lived, lived his entire adult life on a stipend that his brother gave him every month. He painted all these unbelievable paintings.

He sold one painting in his life. Sold it to another painter for what is today $78.

That's Van Gogh's net personal income out of his ridiculous giftedness. But he only saw 78 bucks even though he was crazy gifted. I have a kid in my neighborhood who is very industrious. He probably made 78 bucks the last time it snowed. I know he made 12 off of us. He just didn't get anything for his gift. You can be crazy gifted and not necessarily succeed.

●    And…ineptitude is no guarantee of failure

In fact, the people who are crazy gifted who have failed are legends.. There are so many of them and here's why they fail. Number one, they fail because

of perfectionism and burnout. They can't be satisfied with any product. They're emotionally intense. Socially isolated.

They have imposter syndrome, meaning I can't be this good. I must be faking it. They have what's called asynchronous development. They are brilliant in math but can't drive a car, can't speak to a person, can't do something else. Asynchronous development under achievement due to boredom and lack of direction, low self esteem, crazy gifted but not necessarily successful.

●    Any person, gifted or not, can be ambushes by great trouble at any time (V, 12)

It doesn't guarantee I'll be a successful person. Any given race, Qoheleth said, could go to the fast person. But the slow person could also win. Any given battle could go to the warrior or the shoe salesman. Bread and favor don't necessarily go to the person who's gifted. People could be very gifted

and not really do very well. I went to a seminary with a man who was a world class marathon runner.

He gave a testimony in Chapel one day and he said I never lost a footrace that I entered between 7th grade and 12th grade. Either a spontaneous foot race where somebody said hey, I want to race you, or a sanctioned foot race. He said I never lost one between 7th grade and 12th grade and I believe myself to be the fastest man in the world. And then I went to Rice University on a marathon scholarship and I found out. I wasn't the fastest man in the world.

I just grew up in a slow town. Except we didn't go that year because we were mad at the Russians. You could be crazy gifted and still not win the race, Qoheleth says. “Be careful about that.” Here's the corollary. Ineptitude is no guarantee of failure. U.S. government.

Case in point. If you needed proof, I know a woman who is mentally ill, a horrible mess, never graduated from high school, alienated everyone she knows, a complete mess, divorced her husband, and now receives about

$12 million every year from his trust fund. Crazy, inept, crazy, sad, messed up life and they're writing her a check every year for $12 million. The point is, don't trust in your own giftedness, trust God. Don't trust in someone else's

giftedness, Trust God. Always, always, always say I will use whatever resources God gives me, but I will not trust in that verse 12. Anyone who is gifted or not can be ambushed by trouble at any time.

How's that for a motivational poster? You can be ambushed at any time. You know, when you read the Bible, it says you'll live 70 years, or by strength 80 if God wills. And you're thinking, I want to get to 70. And then you get to 70 and you say, I'd like to get 80. And then you get to 80 and you say, OK, let's, let's go for 90. And then you get 90 and you say, no, I don't want 100.

I want heaven. I'm ready to move on with this. We live in a world where we can be trapped by a trap that someone else set. We can have a mugger run out of the alley and knock us down and take our wallet. We can also be trapped by a trap of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And if you saw the news yesterday, car accident in a tunnel on I-80 in western Wyoming. Fire explosion, two people killed, 5 injured. Tunnel full of black smoke. They shut it down. Probably still shut down. What did they do wrong?

They were just driving, they were just going home or going to grandma's or wherever they were headed, but they were ambushed by being at the wrong place. But we can also set a trap for ourselves. This is the most bitter one. We can also ambush ourselves. We make choices, we make decisions, we fail to

do something we know we should have, and we set a trap. I read an article this week that a friend had me and the article was called “Becoming Ignorant.”

The man who wrote it is Scott Cadman. I think he's a teacher down at Boise State. And he said becoming ignorant is different than being ignorant. We're born ignorant. We can't count. We can't write, we can't tie our shoes, we don't know our name. And then we slowly start to pick stuff up. But a person who's very smart, very mature, even very wise can become ignorant.

And he says here's the process that's involved. You firmly believe that something is morally right or morally wrong. Then you're tempted by something, but you don't dismiss the desire immediately. Then you toy with

it is in your imagination. Then you tolerate it in your imagination. Your thoughts about this thing, attacked by your temptation, began to undermine the firmness with which you believe it is wrong. You eventually consider the idea tolerable in other people.

You eventually move to the place where you would want to do it, even though you know it's wrong. Then you begin to make provision. To give in to the temptation, you begin to think that the behavior is not at all as inexcusable as you thought before. Then it probably would not hurt to do it just once. Then you prepare an excuse and a rationale for the sin before you do it. Then you decide for certain you will do it all. This provision takes some of the sting out of the sin the first time you actually get around to doing it. Become ignorant, set our tramp for ourselves. As if there weren't enough traps out there.

●    “Happenings happenings” or tides or time eventually get everyone (v.11)

Verse 11, Qoheleth says to us, happenings happen and tides happen and time happens and one of those three eventually gets everyone. One of those three things we like to think about, OK, listen, discipline, education, and responsibility. Network hard work. I can make life work. When the tough gets going, the tough get going. Winners are not whiners. Every poster you ever saw in a high school wrestling wall, they're all there. We can make this happen. But Qoheleth says probably not. How many of you know a company called Despair Incorporated?

OK, one of my favorites, two brothers who were unemployed for a long time, started making despair posters. They were modeled after motivational posters and one of their vision statements to crush other people's dreams. Because the motivation industry has been crossing dreams for decades, selling the easy lie of success that you can buy.

And my favorite 1 is a picture of a gorgeous mountain lake, huge mountains rising on either side, a dock going out in the lake, a man sitting on the dock, you're looking at his back and it says motivation. Let's be honest, you don't have what it takes to live the life you want. I think Qoheleth might have started this company. Despair incorporated.

Qoheleth may have founded it, and he simply says, hey, discipline is better than sloth, wisdom is better than foolishness, but all kinds of things can ambush you. There's no guarantee of success and happiness here, he says

in verse 11. Time and chance can get you. And God's working behind the scenes and stuff can happen that you can't anticipate and you can't stay away from. Verse 11 translated time and chance is a very accurate translation, but literally it means happenings happen.

Happenings happen in our world. They happen to other people, They happen

to us. You can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. A boy is walking past the other side of JC Penney. It falls off and crushes him. Two people died.

What was their sin walking downtown?

Jesus has a story about that. The 18 people killed by the tower of Siloam, were

they more evil than others? No, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Happenings just happened to us or to various people, so the point is not OK. Too bad for them. The point is, because I'm alive and because I walk downtown, sometimes it can happen to me. Stuff can happen to me. I am not immune to it. This is not stuff that always happens to other people. Somebody has to have it. Maybe I'm going to be the other person sometime. Maybe I will be like the other people.

The second thing that happens is what he calls tides. You know, the ocean tide. It shifts. You can be too far out swimming and the titles start taking you out and the tide gets you. But there's other tides in the world. There's political tides. How many people have been imprisoned or killed because they were on the wrong side of politics? There's military tides. How many people have been imprisoned or killed because some force swept through their country and took them out?

There's tides of changing opinion, tides of changing culture. There's tides of demon possessing people with power. There's all kinds of tides that can change. And so to the point. You know, too bad for those people.

Qoheleth The point is, it can happen to us. Tides can get us and therefore trust God. Therefore trust God because there are lots of tides in our world, and the last one, he says, is time. If you survive all the happenings that happen.

And if you survive the tides that blow through, well, time is the last one, and it's going to get us. It's one for one.

Time is going to get all of us. I told you a few weeks ago about the billionaires spending 2 million a year, taking 100 supplements a day, trying to live forever. It's a fool's game. It's a fool's game. The point is not too bad for him. The point is, I'm alive and I'm aging. And I'm going where everybody goes, unless Jesus comes back very soon. It's either the happenings that are happening, or it's the tide, or eventually it's the tide. What do I do? I love God, I live well until I'm swallowed up.

Don't fear those who can kill your body, fear those who can. Fear him who can kill your body and cast your soul into hell. Just trust God, Scottish David Gibson said. On the one hand, my death is certain. On the other hand, the timing of my death is uncertain. So what should a meaningful life look like? Just life between now and then looks like a life well lived. If one day you're dead. Live Today.

Qoheleth saw that some levels of wisdom are impressive

If you don't know when you'll be dead, live now while you can. Now he changes gears in verse 13 and he says to us, listen, I've seen some impressive levels of wisdom in the world. I want to reread verses 13 to 15 also.

“This I came to see as wisdom under the sun, and it impressed me. Here's a man dispensing wisdom and he saw some wisdom that was impressive to him. Here's what he saw. (14) There was a small city with a few men in it, and a great king came to it, surrounded it, and constructed it.”

Works against it. “(15) But there was found in it a poor wise man, and he delivered the city by his wisdom. Yet no one remembered the poor man. This is some wisdom that impresses me. He said this person in this city had a master stroke of brilliance and he saved the city. Now Qoheleth goes out of his way to say these people have no hope. They're a small city. They have a few men.”

A great king came. He built a huge siege, works around it. It's just a matter of time until they're overrun. They have no hope. The deck is stacked. Against

them. Qoheleth says they don't have hope. The city fathers are despairing. They don't know what to do. Everybody's wringing their hands. And then they found this poor wise man and he figured out something and he saved them.

What did he do? Well, Qoheleth doesn't tell us. Maybe he, maybe he did something militarily brilliant and sneaky. Maybe he poisoned the food supply

of the other members of the army. Maybe he did something diplomatic. He just walked out bold faced, unarmed, and because of his wisdom and his words, he was able to just work a sweetheart deal with the king. What did he do? We don't know what he did, but whatever he did, he took care of it. Either military trickery or diplomacy, he took care of it. And this impressed Qoheleth. And here's the further news. This poor wise man did not live happily ever after.

People didn't say, whoa, thank you and justice, put a bunch of riches on him and say, hey, you're the new mayor. Didn't happen. In fact, Qoheleth says to us in verse 15, never count on something as fleeting as public gratitude.

Never counted something as fleeting as church gratitude, family gratitude, neighbor gratitude.

It could be very fleeting. They soon forgot that he went on with his wisdom and on with his poverty. He was a forgotten man. Every place in the world, gratitude tends to have a short shelf life. People tend to be grateful for what you've done for them, but it doesn't take long before they're saying, what have you done for me lately?

I interviewed a quarterback named Jim Zorin. Most of you don't know him. He's a long retired Seattle Seahawks, way lower quarterback. And I was saying to him, you know, it felt like an admirable life that he has to be a professional football player and do what he wants to do and make lots of money and etcetera. And he said to me, Dave, I love what I do, but there are three young, hungry quarterbacks right behind me. Who want my job? They're probably praying I will get injured. And there's one coach who, even though last year I won the Super Bowl and the MVP, he says, what have you done for me today? I know you carried it last year, but what have you done for me today?

He said. I could be benched for the third game of a season any year. Because the shelf life of gratitude is very short and these people forgot this man. Verse 16. Wisdom is better than strength. Wisdom won the day. It's very, very good to be wise instead of being foolish. Last week I loaded a hutch in my boys pickup by myself. There's no way I could lift it. It's very bulky. But when you get old, you get cagey. You figure out stuff. And I just eased it up to the pickup and I tilted it back and I put the front lip on the pickup bed and I picked it up and I loaded it and it wasn't that hard. Now I could never lift it. No way. Way too heavy, way too bulky. You can be cagey, you can be.

You can be wise, and wisdom is better than brute force. If I tried to lift it I would just get a hernia. You should be wise, you should be cagey, but you can't make life work with only that.

Wisdom doesn't always work. Verse 16. Real wisdom is often rejected because of its source. Qoheleth goes on to say they forgot and began to belittle the wise poor man. Sometimes we don't listen to wisdom because of the source. The basic principle is always consider the source when you hear stuff. It's a good principle, but sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes we dismiss wisdom because it was said by a poor person. Or by a young person, or by an old person, or by a new person.

Or by a person we're really familiar with. Or by somebody who moved away and came back. And we think there's still the person they were when they moved away 20 years ago.

And they have something very wise to say, but we dismiss it because

of who they are, not because we evaluated the merit of what they said.

And then he says in verse 17, better is wisdom and quietness than a ruler shouting among fools.

Verse 17, it's better wisdom spoken in a calm, measured voice in quietness than a crazy angry ruler standing up screaming. Most of you are too young to know this, but there is a ruler of the Soviet Union named Nikita Khrushchev. How many know that name? OK, a lot more than I thought.

1960 Nikita Khrushchev is at the UN and the ambassador from the Philippines is saying some stuff he didn't like. And the key to Khrushchev took his shoe off and started beating it on the podium in front of him, just like a crazy man shouting in Russian and beating on the podium. And and you know, for those of us who grew up in that era, we just look at that and say. That's out of control. That's  nuts. That's pure foolishness. I mean, I'm using the illustration about him here. What is it 60 years later? It's just the crazy shouting of a ruler.

But it often carries the date. Why? Because they're the ruler, and because they're loud. It's better to have quietness spoken than somebody just

screaming.

Verse 18, “Better is wisdom than weapons of war. It's better for me to be a wise person than to have a big stick. It's true. But sometimes it's the big stick that carries the day. Derek Kidner said wisdom is valuable but also vulnerable. We are left with a suspicion that in human politics the last word will regularly go to the loud voice of verse 17 or to the cold steel of verse 18. It seldom goes to truth and seldom goes to merit. Is the world we live in. So if we have not been depressing enough, let's end on this new low note.

In verse 18. “One Sinner can destroy so much good.” Good people can work hard for a long time and one center can burn it down. Your child builds a tower of blocks almost to the ceiling. They've got a chair, they're standing up.

They've got these gorgeous tower blocks. They come to their mother and say, hey, mom, take a picture of my tower, please. And just when mom gets her camera, she's ready to pop the picture. And his little brother comes in, knocks it down, runs and locks himself in the bathroom.

Wow, one Sinner destroying a great work of a tower. If you don't mind me calling your little brother a Sinner? Listen friends, you can build stuff up for decades and tear it down.

I personally know a man in ministry who was very famous, wrote a bunch of books, and had a wonderful ministry. And in 20 minutes he burned down 5 decades of integrity and accomplishment. Burned it down in 20 minutes. I know a man who built up a local church for 30 years. Blood, sweat and tears of his life into that church for 30 years. And in three months, he burned it down.

He burned down the church. He drove people out into who knows where. He burned down his own reputation. It is so hard to build a reputation and so easy to burn it. It is so hard to build trust and so easy to burn it.

Be careful, Qoheleth says. “You can work very hard, but you could burn it down.”

Here's what he's been doing today. He's been arguing against self-sufficiency. He's been saying to us it's good to be wise, it's good to be fast, it's good to be powerful. It's good to be all this stuff, but you dare not trust it. He spent this whole paragraph arguing against self-sufficiency because he said, listen, you could burn it down yourself or someone could trap you, or he could be at the wrong place at the wrong time or the tides could shift. The tides of politics, the tides of economics could shift. You know, the tide shifted. We don't go to a store and rent DVDs anymore. Stuff shifted. People lost stuff. People who had a lot lost a lot, and we could even ruin ourselves. Here’s his core idea.

Core idea. It's far better to be wise than foolish…but it is great foolishness to trust wisdom above God.

God is the trustworthy being. I am not. The race is not always to the swift. The battle is not always the powerful. The bread is not always to the capable. Stuff can happen. So here's here's the idea then. If the swift don't always win, and the capable don't always get the bread, and the warrior doesn't always win.

I need to remember. The victory is always to God. Stay close to him. Stay close to the shepherd. Self-sufficiency is a fool's game. Don't be depressed, don't be depressed. God always wins. Just understand that it's him and not us.

Let's pray, please.

Thank you so much, Father, for this good day and these good people. Thank you for this book. I pray that you would help us be people who are in greater ways lean on you. When greater ways strive for wisdom and who in greater ways trust it less. Thank you for your goodness to us by giving us the wisdom of this book, and thank you for the goodness of your Spirit to teach us. And thank you for preserving this book for 3000 years. And we're reading it today in a language we understand. It's your kindness. We pray in Christ's name, Amen.