InPerspective

Harry Reeder: Ecclesiastes 8, the opening verses are a primer on how to be a counselor to a king who has full authority, who may have evil intentions, who can snuff out your life in a moment, who needs to hear the truth and how to impact them, and how to not compromise, and how do you get the truth without losing your life even though you're willing to lose your life.

Narrator: Putting life in biblical perspective with Dr. Harry L. Reeder. This is InPerspective, a radio and internet ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. First Peter chapter 2 tells us to fear God, honor the king. And this is a good summary of the theme we will explore today in Ecclesiastes chapter 8. It urges us to honor the king, fear God, and seek wisdom.

What does Ecclesiastes chapter 8 teach us about our biblical responsibilities as Christians before our governing authorities? Stay with us now as Dr. Reeder continues our series From Vanity to Vitality: Ecclesiastes in Biblical Perspective. Let's turn to Ecclesiastes 8 for today's teaching, part one of the message "Honor the King, Fear God, Seek Wisdom."

Harry Reeder: Turn with me in the book of Ecclesiastes. We find ourselves in the eighth chapter. I want you to turn there with me if you would, eighth chapter of Ecclesiastes. I want to mention a couple of things that this chapter brings to our mind and our focus as we work our way through it in these moments together. One of the things that I have proposed to you is that actually Solomon is truly the author of this particular book.

Now even evangelical scholars have a discussion about that, even conservatives, that some believe from a conservative position, a high view of Scripture, that in fact this is a book that is presented very much like a first-person sermon. I've done that a couple of times here where I've become John Calvin and remembering the 500th celebration of Martin Luther's nailing the 95 theses.

So it is a literary device of what we identify as a first-person sermon. Many of them believe that this was actually written to get people back to the Word of God by Ezra. Ezra wrote it as a first-person sermon representing Solomon to get you back to the basic biblical truths and the wisdom of God as God's people had recently been liberated from the Babylonian captivity and restored back to Israel and the initiation of rebuilding the second temple, what's known as the Zerubbabel temple, that was rebuilt over the ruins of the Solomonic temple, which had been destroyed in the Babylonian captivity, and therefore it's a sixth-century document.

I've listened to it and I think they've got some interesting arguments, but I've still come out on the side that this actually is not a sixth-century document but a tenth-century document. It's not Ezra presenting himself with Solomonic wisdom; it is actually Solomon himself. It fits in his trilogy of the Song of Songs, the Book of Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is in particular the documentation of Solomon by God's grace coming to his senses.

Here was a man who began with the gift of wisdom from God, and he would amass literally thousands of proverbs. He brings those proverbs to bear for us in a book of divinely ordained common sense called the Book of Proverbs. He gives this to us, and there are two themes running through it. The first theme is the theme of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. To have wisdom, which is a lifestyle that reflects life from a biblical, God-centered world and life view in decisions you make and how you live, that's wisdom.

You can't have wisdom without understanding, and you can't have understanding without knowledge. Thus that theme runs throughout the Book of Proverbs: knowledge, understanding, wisdom. Knowledge: here's the truth. Understanding: that's grabbing the perceptions and implications of the truth. And then as James says, which is the New Testament counterpart to the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, wisdom is shown by her fruits in our life.

The second theme you find in the Book of Proverbs is the foundation of wisdom, which is the fear of God. That is precisely what God says is the beginning of wisdom: that you see God in all of His majesty, all of His transcendence, all of His glory. This transcendent God, big God, has saved you and dwells within you.

The answer to the relationship that you are to have with God of trust and intimacy is not based upon getting a small god that fits in you, but to see the bigness of God who loves you and will never leave you nor forsake you. The fear of God, the majesty of God, the reverence of God is the beginning of wisdom. So what I believe is you've got Solomon in his wisdom, and then you have Solomon going brain dead.

He just actually went out into sin and began to live life under the sun instead of under the wisdom of God who made the sun. And so what he now presents to you is how God brought him back to his senses. The Book of Ecclesiastes is documenting the vanity of living life apart from the fear of God, the emptiness of it. Remember the keywords: vanity, emptiness, striving after the wind.

He's constantly giving that to us and how that leads to emptiness. And then the Book of Ecclesiastes finally gets to the solution in chapter 12, which is the fear of God. Now he gets us back to a God-centered world and life view that is so described in the Book of Proverbs. Of course, his third volume is the Song of Songs, which declares the glory of God in the love that He has for His people through the love of the one who has his wife and loves her dearly as the Song of Songs and the Song of Solomon depicts.

I want you to see that one of the things that shows me it actually is Solomon doing this, getting us back to wisdom in the Book of Proverbs through the fear of the Lord and knowledge and understanding and wisdom, is that he not only gets us to the fear of God at the end in chapter 12, but it keeps seeping in through all 12 chapters. In chapter 5, he just can't help himself.

When you've got the answer to something and you want people to have the answer, you may have a well-laid out plan. This impacts me sermon after sermon. I know where I want to take you by the end of the sermon, but I'm so excited about where we're going at the end of the sermon, every once in a while I just have to say, "Hold it, stop, I just want to tell you about it right now."

And that's what he does in chapter 5, chapter 7, and again in chapter 8. He just can't help... wait a minute, I've got to tell you about the fear of God. Just talking about this emptiness is so overwhelming, and God's doing such a work in my life that this fear of God as the beginning of wisdom and by the grace of God just keeps seeping in and it's going to do it again in chapter 8.

Let me give you another reason. Periodically I like to in these chapters show you... I mentioned to you back when I argued for Solomonic authorship and tenth-century date, I gave you a number of the arguments I just gave you along with some others, but in each chapter there are reasons why I came to that conviction, and this is another one.

I'm about to read something for you that I think had an impact in a life of a young man and his three companions four centuries after this was written. Their names were Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. What was their position? Their position: they first were enslaved. There were three trips that the Babylonians made into Israel to capture the people of Israel to bring them into bondage and slavery and to ultimately destroy the city of Jerusalem and the Solomonic temple.

They did so in 605, in 597, and 586. The first trip that they made in 605, they captured the elite, the rising, the up-and-coming leadership of Israel. That included Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They took them off and they began to put them into their schools and they began to challenge them with the wisdom of paganism.

Daniel and Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego entered into the fray and they were distinctly different in their knowledge, in their insight, in their wisdom, and in their appearance. They soon became counselors. If you want to know how Daniel and Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego... if you want to know the primer that they studied on how to counsel pagan kings who can snuff out your life in a moment, and how to impact them and how to not compromise, but how to have a way that is winsome with a pagan king, if you want to know the primer that I think they studied, we're about to read it now.

Ecclesiastes 8, the opening verses are a primer on how to be a counselor to a king who has full authority, who may have evil intentions, who needs to hear the truth and how to impact them, and how to not compromise, and how do you get the truth without losing your life even though you're willing to lose your life. The objective is not to lose your life for Christ's sake. The objective is to lose your life for Christ's sake personally to Him, but you don't go out seeking to be martyred.

You don't seek that. You seek to make an impact for Christ, but you're willing to be martyred if it costs you your life for Christ because you've already died to yourself and given yourself to Christ. Here Daniel, Shadrach, and Meshach and Abednego, if you go and look at their ministry particularly in the opening six chapters, even more particularly in the first two chapters, I think you'll see them living out what is being described here as to how to be a counselor to a pagan king and have influence and impact.

So look with me that way from this, and that's why one of the reasons I believe this is a tenth century. I believe Daniel was very familiar with this before he went into captivity. Look with me in Ecclesiastes chapter 8. It starts with a proverb: "Who is like the wise? And who knows the interpretation of a thing?"

It starts off with this proverbial statement: "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." It starts off seemingly with the cynicism of vanity of life under the sun. Who can know what's going on? Who can have the wisdom to interpret what is happening by the hand of a sovereign God in life?

It seems to be a rhetorical question that demands the answer: nobody. Nobody. But then the proverb turns and you get the sense: wait, there are somebodies who have knowledge, understanding, and wisdom to see what God is doing. Not those who live their life under the sun, but those who have been given by God's grace the gift to be able to see what God is doing.

You want to know who they are? Not only do they have wisdom and understanding and knowledge, but it's written all over their face. It's written all over their face. Folks, you've seen that, haven't you? My goodness, I have sat down to share the gospel with people, and I can almost every time sense what progress we're making or what regress we're making just by looking at someone's face.

Our face betrays us. What he's saying is there are some people that you know God by His grace is gifting them with wisdom to understand what's going on. It's written all over their face. Look at what he says: "And man's wisdom makes his face shine." God gives some men wisdom and you know it because it shows up on their face, and the hardness of his face is changed. God's grace changes even the face.

If you're somebody like me that God has sovereignly decided to put a lot of furrows and wrinkles and everything on my face, I am very glad to know that God has the ability to transform that face. Not only can He do something in my heart and my mind, but it can even show up to some degree in the face. The face begins to reveal.

The eyes begin to reveal it. The eyes begin to reveal what's happening in the soul, and you see it. Now this isn't an infallible statement, but it is one that is verifiable. You can see it in the lives of people. I remember, I'll never forget this young man that I shared the gospel with after I became a Christian.

He was one of my best friends. He was in my wedding, and I couldn't wait to tell him that I had become a Christian. Well, I wish you could have seen his face when I was telling him, and I knew I was not making headway. Three years later, I still stayed in touch with him, but three years later I got a phone call from him.

He said, "Ike," that was my nickname back then, "Ike, are you coming to Charlotte for Christmas?" I was living in Chattanooga. I said, "Yes, Dave, I'm coming." He said, "I want to take you out and have lunch." Now if there's anybody cheaper than me, it was Dave, so I knew something was going on here if he wanted to take me out to lunch.

He said, "I want to take you out to lunch. You want to meet me?" I said, "Yeah, sure." So we set up the time and I went to meet him, and when I went in and sat down at the Sandwich Factory, which is where he took me that day, as soon as I sat down and looked at his face, I knew something had happened.

Sure enough, he had become a Christian, and the wisdom that began to pour out of this guy was unbelievable. His insights and where he had gone in just the short eight months that he'd been a Christian was astounding. It was just pouring out, but it was written all over his face.

I remember telling him... he said, "I just want to tell you I've become a Christian," and he said, "I didn't think it was complete until I told you." I said, "Dave, you don't need to tell me for it to be complete. All you need to do is trust Jesus." He said, "Yeah, I know that. But I knew if there's anybody that needed to be encouraged, it was you, because I remember what I said to you the last time you talked to me about this." I said, "Well, Dave, you didn't need to say a word. It was all over your face when I walked in the door."

You can see when God's grace is giving someone eyes to see and ears to hear. So now we need to go a little bit faster than that, but having said this, this is then what he says: "I say, I say..." Now here is the preacher again. This is Solomon telling you, "I say, keep the king's command because of God's oath to him."

Who is he talking to? Let's go back. Who is he saying? Someone who is expected to have wisdom: a counselor. No one can have wisdom who lives under the sun unless God's grace gives it to them. And when God's grace gives them insights, it shows up on their face. And what do they become? Good counselors. In fact, some will become counselors to kings.

How do you approach it if God has given you wisdom and insight and you are put in a position of being a counselor to someone who is in authority over you? How do you approach it? Well, here's the first thing he says. The first thing you do is this: you keep the king's commands because of God's oath to him.

Paul is calling on this language in Romans, isn't he? Paul says obey those in authority over you, for no one is in authority apart from the sovereign hand of God. That doesn't mean everybody in authority is a believer. It just means nobody gets to a position of governmental authority without a sovereign God for His purposes ordaining it.

Now there are multiple things that He may be doing through it, but they're there by His sovereign oath, God's sovereign command. Therefore, as I trust the Lord, I am called to obey those who are in authority over me. Pastor, if that means to obey God is to obey those in authority over me, well, what about a pagan king?

Well, you obey him, you obey him unless the one with delegated authority is causing you to transgress the one's authority who delegated the authority to him. And of course, the prime example for us in the Bible is John and Peter when they are commanded by those in authority in Jerusalem, "We forbid you to preach the name of Jesus anymore."

Well, they go out and they preach the name of Jesus, and they say, "Didn't we forbid you?" And they said, "Yes, you did, but you must now make a judgment. Should we obey God or you? Because your command is in direct conflict with God's command, which is go and preach the gospel to all the nations."

So when your command causes me to transgress God's revealed command, now I must obey God because your authority, which I respect and I will bow to, has a boundary. That boundary is your authority is delegated, and you cannot with your delegated authority command me to transgress the authority of the one who delegated authority to you.

But we don't enter into it with our qualifications. We enter into it with a manifested heart of obedience to those in authority. Are it parents? The Bible doesn't say honor your Christian fathers and mothers. It says honor and obey your father and mother. The Bible tells us to honor those in authority over us.

So he says, "Counselors, here's how you start out. Whoever is in authority, the king that is over you, God has appointed him. He's there by the oath of God. Now what do you do? You start out with an obedient lifestyle. Are there limitations? Yes, but you don't begin announcing the limitations. You begin with a heart of obedience to those in authority over you."

And then he says, "Now let me tell you something else about being a counselor. Be not hasty to go from his presence." Now he's giving you a primer on how to be a counselor to those in authority over you if God has given you wisdom. Those in authority enter into obedience, obey the king.

And then this: don't be hasty to leave. Folks, I wish I could tell you there's some extraordinary insight here I can peel back for you. He's just saying, "Show manners. Show manners." Now back in those days when this is written, kings, you didn't just walk in to see them and you didn't just leave them.

The protocol in that day where absolute authority was in the hands of a king, you don't go in to see them... remember Esther's dilemma? You don't go in to see them until they invite you, and you don't leave until they disinvite you. You be careful about how you leave their presence. Well, do you see what's happening here? You're building a respectful relationship with those in authority over you if you're a godly counselor.

Narrator: A man's wisdom makes his face shine, and the hardness of his face is changed. The instruction of Ecclesiastes urges us to honor the king, fear God, and seek wisdom. You were listening to InPerspective, featuring the teaching of Dr. Harry L. Reeder.

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And once again, if you would like to receive our gift offer, the series Seven Essentials for the Christian Family, call 1-800-488-1888. How should God's people relate to our civil magistrates? Join us again next time as Dr. Reeder shares insights about this important issue from the events of Daniel's life and the ministry. That's next time as we turn back to the Scriptures to put life in biblical perspective.