Ecclesiastes 8:1-9 Who is like the wise?
And who knows the interpretation of a thing?
A man’s wisdom makes his face shine,
and the hardness of his face is changed.
2 I say: Keep the king’s command, because of God’s oath to him. 3 Be not hasty to go from his presence. Do not take your stand in an evil cause, for he does whatever he pleases. 4 For the word of the king is supreme, and who may say to him, “What are you doing?” 5 Whoever keeps a command will know no evil thing, and the wise heart will know the proper time and the just way. 6 For there is a time and a way for everything, although man’s trouble lies heavy on him. 7 For he does not know what is to be, for who can tell him how it will be? 8 No man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death. There is no discharge from war, nor will wickedness deliver those who are given to it. 9 All this I observed while applying my heart to all that is done under the sun, when man had power over man to his hurt.
INTRODUCTION
On the other side of our family vacation, it’s no small kindness of God that I’m able to truthfully say what I’ve been able to say every time: It was good to be gone and it’s good to be back.
I’m thankful for Pastor Colin’s sermon on Romans 8 and Mark’s sermon on 2 Samuel 1. We were back in time to discuss Mark’s in our DG last week. It was especially sweet to hear people interact with David’s refusal to take the throne by force, David’s esteem of the Lord’s anointed, and Mark’s applications. Well done, men.
In addition, we were encouraged to worship with Pastor Daniel and Molly in Michigan and at Daniel’s college church last Sunday. There are some really good churches out there and we praise God for that. It’s sweet to be able to sing familiar songs and hear God’s Word preached with brothers and sisters in Christ around the country. But it’s even sweeter to do so with you all today. This, not that, is God’s design for our primary spiritual nourishment. It was good to be gone and it’s good to be back.
With that, welcome back to Ecclesiastes. We’re in the back half of the book. Seven chapters down, five to go.
Chapter eight is a good reminder of the fact that Ecclesiastes is structured kind of like a slinky. The Preacher addresses many of the same basic topics, coming back around and around and around, moving slightly forward each time. It is in many ways the repetition that gives Ecclesiastes its power in that it helps us to see more clearly the things that really matter for life under the sun.
In the case of our passage for today, the Preacher returned to the most familiar theme of the book (wisdom) and a less familiar, but still critical one (leadership and authority). The big idea and applications of this sermon are that because under the sun wisdom has real benefits and rulers have real power, living well in this world means seeking wisdom and submitting wisely and humbly to God-given authority.
THE FACE OF THE WISE
Ecclesiastes 8:1 functions as a transition between the Preacher’s thoughts on the benefits and limitations of wisdom that marked the previous section (7:19-29) and his thoughts on the specific wisdom needed to live under the rule of a not-always-godly king.
In short, 8:1 is another poetic expression of the goodness of wisdom. In 1a the Preacher asks, “Who is like the wise?” The implied answer is, “No one.” The wise stand alone. But from that we’re right to wonder, “How so”? In what ways are the wise unique among mankind? The Preacher declares that the wise stand out in two particular ways.
The Wise Stand Out
- The first way the wise stand alone is in their knowledge of how to make sense of the things happening around them. We see this in the implied answer to a second question, “Who knows the interpretation of a thing” (1b)? And the unstated answer is: the wise. The wise know the interpretation of a thing. In many ways, that’s the definition of under the sun wisdom: The ability to understand how things work such that you’re able to live well in light of it.
We’re meant to think of the people in our lives who help us navigate its challenges. Think of those who have helped you handle tricky relational situations, significant conflict, and big decisions about school, career, marriage, aging parents, and the like. Think of those who consistently help you make sense of (interpret) your circumstances. They stand out, don’t they? Thank God for them. Thank them for God’s insight in them. Who is like them? - The second way the wise stand out is in the remarkable fact that their faces shine with understanding and clarity (1c). The faces of fools are either laughing ridiculously at nonsense (we saw that in 7:6) or hardened with confusion and frustration (we see that in 1d), but the faces of the wise are changed with the enlightenment wisdom brings.
A man’s wisdom makes his face shine,
and the hardness of his face is changed.
You’ve seen it, haven’t you? Can you picture the face of a wise older man or woman who has seen it all? Almost nothing can rattle them because they’ve seen and walked through just about everything. They’ve learned through many failures and successes such that they’re able maintain perspective and calm through whatever comes, and it shows up on their face. They look different than they did in the same situation 40 years ago.
Again, the Preacher was certainly not naïve to the limits of under the sun wisdom (he literally wrote the book on it), but that is not to say that kind of wisdom was without significant benefit.
Grace, once again, seek genuine wisdom in all its forms. Seek to understand the world as it truly is, that you might live in it as it truly is.
Gaining Wisdom
Rather than simply leave it at that, let me briefly offer six practical suggestions for gaining wisdom.
- Pay attention when you’re around wisdom. Put down your phone, stop planning your afternoon, quit glancing at your watch, turn off the music, pause the game, stop the project, and tune all the way in when you have the chance to learn wisdom from the wise. It is a significant problem that we live in a highly distracted culture, in no small measure because distraction and wisdom-acquisition are usually mutually exclusive.
- Spend time around older people. As I mentioned above, wisdom is usually gained over decades, not days. It’s often easier and more natural to spend time around people our own age, but young people, if you want to be wise (and you should), you need to be intentional about watching and listening to people with gray hair. That’s one reason why our DGs are not age segregated and one reason you should go every week.
- Read good books. For maybe half of this room the emphasis is on the first word, “read”. If you want to be wise, you need to cultivate the discipline and appetite for reading. I say that primarily because God gave us a book. Reading a few pages a day over many years is like investing a few dollars a day over the same time—both pay back with compound interest. And for the other half of you the emphasis is on the second word, “good.” There’s no shortage of stuff to read out there, but most of it is not worth your time. You’ll never be able to read everything, of course, so it’s best to focus on the best—books and authors that have stood the test of time.
- Do hard and worthwhile things. As almost every wise person will tell you, wisdom is usually gained through hardship. It is by going after something important and persevering through the challenges it presents that the kind of wisdom the Preacher commends comes. If you spend your life pursuing comfort through leisure, wisdom will almost certainly remain far from you. But if you work hard at truly valuable pursuits (godly character, prayerfully reading through the Bible every year, evangelizing difficult people, serving the poor and needy, doing missions in unwanted places, studying important subjects, etc.), you will likely grow in hardship, but you will also certainly grow in wisdom as well.
- Assume responsibility. Related to the last one, doing hard and worthwhile things almost always means assuming responsibility for hard and worthwhile things. One of the reasons that our culture is nearly saturated with the folly of youth is that so many people are putting off assuming genuine responsibility well into their 20s and even 30s. The simplest and most foundational God-given version of this is getting married and having kids. Being truly responsible for someone else’s life is a fast track to wisdom.
- Prefer analogue. Finally, and this may be a bit of a personal soapbox, I commend the wisdom-building gift of analogue to you. There’s a digital version of much of the first five suggestions I gave you. You can pay attention or talk with older people through text or video calls. You can read good books on Kindle and do some hard, worthwhile things over the internet. You can, but wherever possible, I suggest that you don’t. Meet with people in person, do real life together, read printed books that you can write on, do hard things that involve your body and your mind. And, of course, you can only get married and have kids in analogue. God made us physical and spiritual and the fullest and best wisdom comes when both are fully engaged.
As you get wisdom, the Preacher observed, you will stand alone, you will grow to understand the things you experience, your face will be changed from false confidence or appropriate frustration to one that shines with understanding and clarity, and you will be able to live in this world increasingly as God designed and intends.
THE COMMAND OF KINGS
That leads to the next and main section of our passage for this morning. In it, the Preacher addresses the power of a king and its under the sun implications for his subjects. In short, the Preacher’s message is this: Living under authority, especially the authority of a less-than-godly sovereign king, requires significant wisdom.
There are certainly implications of this section for us today (more on that in a bit), but the initial context was something largely foreign to us. We have no real concept of an earthly sovereign. The only king that is familiar to most of us (The King of England), is primarily a figurehead. He as very little real power.
In the time of Ecclesiastes, however, things were different. A king’s word was the law of the land. One man truly ruled his people directly and completely.
Of course, living under this kind of authority/leadership was greatly affected by the righteousness and justice of the king. Aware of this, the Preacher shared a measure of wisdom largely aimed at living under an unjust, or at least fickle, king. So, how does he suggest his readers go about that?
Obey the King
The Preacher’s initial charge was to obey. If you are under a king, do what he says. Keep his commands. That’s the simple heart of the beginning of v.2.
2 I say: Keep the king’s command…
Again, the Preacher’s first straight-forward admonition was that wisdom calls for obedience to those in authority.
Respect the King
More than mere obedience, however, the Preacher’s wisdom calls for respectful obedience. We’re not merely to obey, but to do so with the respect toward the one in authority over us.
Wisdom looks for ways to demonstrate this in our interactions with the king. One such example is found in v.3.
3 Be not hasty to go from his presence…
To be granted an audience into the king’s presence was a big deal. It was not to be taken lightly. The Book of Esther helps paint a remarkable picture of this. Esther knew that by asking for (rather than being summoned to) an audience with the king (even her own husband) meant putting her life at risk.
In the same way, leaving the king’s presence must be granted as well. Just as no one walked into the king’s presence uninvited, neither ought anyone walk out of it undismissed. The Preacher noted that if royal subjects want to keep their heads, they will show the kind of respect that waits to be allowed in and waits to be released.
The same basic idea is found at the end of v.4, “… who may say to him, “What are you doing?” In other words, the Preacher taught that wisdom calls for respect and respect (ordinarily) does not question the king’s kinging.
Disobey the King Carefully
At the same time, the Preacher was not unaware of the fact that kings were/are not perfect in their character. And the Preacher, therefore, was not unaware of the fact that there are times in which kings must be disobeyed. Once again, I’ll say more on this later, but for now the third thing to see is that disobedience is a serious thing, likely with serious consequences, and, therefore, it is unwise to disobey for wicked purposes.
3 …Do not take your stand in an evil cause…
It’s one thing to be made to suffer for disobedience in a righteous matter, but it’s something entirely different to do so for an evil one. Wisdom knows and the Preacher charged that if you must disobey, you must make sure it’s for a worthy cause (which evil never is).
All of this for Three Main Reasons
Obey the king, do so respectfully, and disobey (if you absolutely must) carefully. Those are serious matters. With good kings, this is clearly right (even if difficult at times), but with a bad king these things are quite a bit more complicated and challenging.
Helpfully, the Preacher grounds his charges in three specific ways. He not only asserts those things, but gives a bit of explanation for them as well. And if you’re anything like me, you know that it’s a lot easier to act wisely when we understand the wisdom.
- First, we ought to obey respectfully and disobey carefully because kings and rulers are appointed by God. We see this explicitly in the case of Israel’s first kings (Saul, David, and Solomon), as well as with many after. And we see it explicitly in v.2.
2 I say: Keep the king’s command, because of God’s oath to him.
There is some level of discussion on the meaning of the phrase “because of God’s oath to him,” but the general consensus is that it means that kings are put in place by God.
Of this, Daniel 4:32 says, “the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.”
Similarly, Proverbs 21:1 says, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.“
The basic idea of the second half of Ecclesiastes 8:2 is that it is an echo of passages like that. We should obey respectfully and disobey carefully, therefore, because kings and kingdoms are from God. In that way, the first and main reason to obey is decidedly theological. - The second reason given by the Preacher is a bit more practical. Subjects should obey because their kings, by definition, can do whatever they want. That’s the idea behind the end of v.3 and the beginning of v.4.
3 …for he [the king] does whatever he pleases. [And again,] 4 For the word of the king is supreme…
I probably don’t need to do much explaining about the wisdom of being careful in your obedience when it comes to someone who can take your property, family, and even your life with a word.
Consider an example from Mark’s sermon last week. David heard of Saul and Jonathan’s death from an Amalekite who lied about killing Saul. Sad and shocked, David said, “’How is it you were not afraid to put out your hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed?’ 15 Then David called one of the young men and said, ‘Go, execute him.’ And he struck him down so that he died” (2 Samuel 1:14-15).
With three words (“Go, execute him”)—no judge, no jury, no witnesses, no checks and balances, no specific law, no trial of any kind—David ended the man’s life. David was not even king yet, but as the anointed one, his word was law among his men. He did whatever he pleased. His word was supreme. And it was folly to go against that unless it was for a cause worth being imprisoned or killed for. - The Preacher gives a third reason for his charge to obey as well: Good kings command good things and wherever that’s the case, obedience keeps us from evil. That’s the point of the beginning of v.5.
5 Whoever keeps a command will know no evil thing…
Of course, once again, the key assumption is that the command itself is good. But the big-picture principle is that God’s design is that good kings will give good commands for the good of their people. And wherever that’s the case, wise subjects obey knowing that doing so is good.
In a great summary statement, the second half of v.5 and the first half of v.6 bring us back to the fact that it takes great wisdom to discern the right time and place for all of this.
5 … the wise heart will know the proper time and the just way. 6 For there is a time and a way for everything…
We need wisdom to know what kind of king we serve. We need wisdom to know when and how to obey and disobey. We need wisdom to know how to respect the king properly. We need wisdom to know how the king’s rule relates to God’s rule. And the Preacher provides significant wisdom for us in each of these things.
All of this in Humility
The simple message of the rest of the body of this passage (6b-8) is this: We are all limited in our wisdom and our life. Therefore, none of us can make perfect sense of things, control our lives, or stop our deaths.
6 … man’s trouble lies heavy on him. 7 For he does not know what is to be, for who can tell him how it will be? 8 No man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death. There is no discharge from war, nor will wickedness deliver those who are given to it.
It’s a hard pill to swallow to know for certain that you don’t know for certain what’s next, that no one on earth is wise enough to tell you, that you have very little control over when you’ll die, and that you have absolutely no control over the fact that you will die (whether in war or peace, whether in righteousness or wickedness).
There is a sobering humility in this knowledge and that humble sobriety ought to go with us into every encounter with the authorities God has placed over us.
Grace, now’s a good time to remind you that this is, for the most part, under the sun wisdom. The Preacher was inspired by God, but not primarily to share God’s full perspective on how God means His faithful followers to respond to godless leaders for His glory. The Preacher was simply offering practical tips on how to survive in a kingdom with a king who may or may not fear God. In that way, much of what the Preacher wrote is less about virtue and more about survival. It’s less about what’s ultimately best and more about what immediately works.
The Preacher was honest about all of that, which is largely the point of his concluding thoughts in v.9.
9 All this I observed while applying my heart to all that is done under the sun, when man had power over man to his hurt.
WORD ON AUTHORITY AND DISOBEDIENCE IN THE BIBLE
If you’ve been paying attention up to this point, and I’m sure you all have, it’s highly likely that you have at least two big, glaring questions: What does all of this mean for us in the way of obedience to the non-king authorities in our lives and is it ever appropriate to disobey them?
In order to help us build on and live out the wisdom of introduced in Ecclesiastes 8:1-9 and expanded on in the rest of God’s Word, I want to share a bit more of the Bible’s wisdom on legitimate authority and legitimate disobedience to it.
Legitimate Authority
The heart of the Bible’s teaching (above the sun wisdom) on legitimate authority includes three principles.
- Only God has original and supreme authority. We do not live under an earthly king, but we most certainly live under a heavenly King.
Psalm 47:6-7 Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises! 7 For God is the King of all the earth…!
1 Chronicles 29:11 Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.
Revelation 19:16 tells us that God is the “King of kings and Lord of lords.”
God alone is our Creator King, and Righteous Judge. He alone is truly sovereign. His Word alone is binding for every man, woman, and child, every angel and demon, every rock and tree, every galaxy and atom. God made all that has been made and all that has been made (whether we know it or like it or honor it or not) is completely subject to God’s rule. Creation has always been and always will be held eternally accountable for our response to God. God alone has original and supreme authority. - All legitimate authority among men is derivative and limited. To be legitimate, all earthly authority must come from a specific delegation from God for some specific aspect of life.
Governments (Romans 13:1-7), pastors (Hebrews 13:17), husbands (Ephesians 5:22-24), and parents (Ephesians 6:1-3) are the primary offices of God-delegated authority and each for a particular purpose–governments for promoting good and punishing evil. Pastors for shepherding their members. Husbands for imaging Jesus and His gospel to his wife and family. And parents in order to teach their kids about God and His world.
God has all authority, and with it, He has assigned a measure of authority, for particular purposes to government leaders, pastors, husbands, and parents. Wherever God has specifically granted authority it is real. But that leads to the third and final principle concerning legitimate authority. - Where there is legitimate authority among men, acting legitimately within their authority, to obey men is to obey God and to disobey men is to disobey God. That means, Americans, members, wives, parents, and kids, obeying all the way, right away, and with a happy heart. And it also means that it is no small thing to fail to do so.
Romans 13:2 is perhaps the clearest example of this, “…whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”
Grace, we need to be honest about the fact that this is largely foreign to us. Our culture is such that we have very little concept of genuine authority. Certain forms of egalitarianism and individualism are cancers that have infected us all.
I don’t think it’s controversial at all to say that many (most?) kids don’t really think of disobeying their parents as disobeying God. Somewhat controversially though is the fact that many (most?) parents don’t think of their failure to require obedience from their kids as a failure to obey God themselves.
Parents, your kids’ obedience to you is like their baby teeth, it is a critical place holder for something much more important. You have the responsibility to teach them in their obedience to you, about their obedience to God. If you refuse to hold the line, you are indirectly teaching them that God is indifferent to their submission to Him and that is a treacherous thing.
As Mark talked about last week, one of the best ways we can teach our kids about obedience starts before we issue a single command. It starts with our own obedience to the authorities over us; with our obedience to our husbands, pastors, and government. Our kids often don’t think of obedience/disobedience to us as obedience/disobedience to God because we don’t often think of our own obedience/disobedience to our authorities as obedience/disobedience to God.
Grace, it’s really easy to get this wrong and really hard to get it right. It takes a good deal of wisdom and humility to navigate authority and submission well in this fallen world. At the same time, being difficult is not an excuse for disobedience. Thanks be to God that we have the Holy Spirit in us to help guide and strengthen us for all that God requires of us.
Legitimate Disobedience
Anyone who has ever pressed the principles we just considered up against real life, ought to be at least somewhat concerned. Anyone who has read the Bible’s description of man’s use of his God-given authority ought to be concerned (including our passage for this morning). Indeed, anyone who has lived under any authority for any time ought to be concerned.
Even in the clearest examples of delegated authority (where there is no question that someone has authority from God), God has delegated it to people with corrupted natures. In v.9, the Preacher observed that corrupted men, illegitimately using legitimate authority often do so to the hurt of others.
We’re right to wonder, then, if there are limits to the obedience we’re supposed to render to those we’re commanded by God to obey. Are there times when God expects us to disobey those with His delegated authority? Is it ever right, and if so, when, for citizens to disobey their governments, for members to disobey their pastors, for wives to disobey their husbands, and for kids to disobey their parents?
The short answer is “Yes.” But let me offer four critical biblical principles to keep in mind as we consider when and how.
- Disobedience to legitimate earthly authority is only legitimate when it’s required to obey God’s commands. We must only disobey when obedience to man would require disobedience to God. It can never be merely about our preferences.
We find a clear example of getting this right in Acts 5. When Isreal’s legitimate leaders gave illegitimate commands to the Disciples, Peter rightly responded, “We must obey God rather than men” (v.29).
We ought to obey legitimate authority, giving legitimate commands, as long as obedience to them does not require us to disobey God. The authorities over us will be held accountable by God for the commands they give, even as we will be held accountable for our obedience to them. - Disobedience to legitimate authority must always be a fearful and grievous thing. Where we must disobey man in order to obey God, godliness calls us to do so with fear and grief, not pride and haughtiness. We are not to be scoffers or rebels.
We find a clear example of getting this wrong in Miriam and Aaron. They flippantly spoke against Moses, the LORD’s appointed. In response, God rebuked them harshly, asking, “Why …were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” 9 And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them…”.
Grace, it is no small thing to disobey our God-given earthly authorities. If we must disobey our governors, pastors, husbands, or parents in order to obey God, it ought always to be done humbly and respectfully, with grief and trepidation, never with pride and scoffing. - Disobedience ought only to be in the specific area and for the specific time that obedience to man equals disobedience to God. A legitimate ruler giving an illegitimate command can only be legitimately disobeyed in that one area and for the time the command holds. Illegitimate use of power in one area is not justification for disobedience in other areas.
We find a clear example of this near the end of the book of Acts. The legitimate religious leaders of the Apostle Paul’s day illegitimately detained and struck Paul for preaching Christ. In response, “Paul said to him, ‘God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck’” (Acts 23:3).
But (and here’s the key) when he was made aware that the man he said this to was the high priest, Paul was convicted and said, “I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest, for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people’” (Acts 23:5).
Because of the illegitimate command of the high priest to remain silent concerning Jesus, Paul needed to disobey that command, but he did not see it as grounds to disobey in any other area. - Our heart’s posture in our legitimate disobedience ought to be a longing for the authority over us to repent and an eagerness for them to come back under submission. While there are times in which we must disobey men in order to obey God, and while it is right to want our leader to stop giving godless commands, our primary concern and prayer must be for them to turn to God for His mercy and grace.
Even where we’re prompted to pray imprecatory prayers against someone using their God-given authority to commit atrocities, our first prayers are always, “Grant them the grace of repentance.” Godliness in legitimate disobedience always remembers, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”
Grace, in all of this, we see the goodness of God. He has always used good and bad leaders to grow His people in grace. With good rulers, we see shadows of God’s good rule that we might long for more of Him. And with bad rulers, God helps us to see that He alone is good and to recognize our dependence on Him.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I imagine all of that probably sounds true to the ear, a bit discouraging, and a bit overwhelming. If that’s all we had, that’d be pretty rough. But, as you know, Grace, that’s not all we have. God’s Word gives us a fuller wisdom still.
Everything we’ve covered is meant to create a longing for the One True King, Jesus Christ. He alone has all authority, is never wrong, is filled with love, never gives selfish, evil, or otherwise imperfect commands, and always has the best interest of His subjects in mind. He alone possesses perfect wisdom to know what is best, perfect goodness to want to carry it out, and perfect power to do so.
Even more significantly, Jesus, the One True King alone gave His life as a ransom for His people. He alone is sufficient to atone for our treason against Him and restore us to places of fellowship and peace in His kingdom.
May God grant every earthly leader a heart that longs to lead as one under King Jesus. May God grant us all the desire to come under our earthly leaders as we do Christ. And may all of this create in us a longing for the Kingdom to fully come and God’s will to be fully done on earth as it is in heaven.